Another vicious, inaccurate, and contradictory New York Times attack on Pope Benedict

catholicculture.org ^ | July 2, 2010 | Phil Lawler

[kosta50]

If you don't choose to do the works God prepared for you to do, Christ will not do them for you.

Alex, don't you understand anything? :) This is how it works: you are born again and you accept Christ. Christ pays for your "bills" you owe God, and you get a VIP limmo ride to heaven—guaranteed. You are done. You don't have to do anythging. And guess who gets to carry your luggage? :)

[small voice in the wilderness]

Oh, please don’t ever be disheartened over me. I’m quite assured!

[Alamo-Girl]

I never said I am an atheist and I never denied that God exists. This is something everyone is imputing to me, by mind reading and making it their business instead of dealing with issues.

To the contrary, xzins at 702 said "That seems to be an admission that you believe in neither since one of the two is pink unicorns." And following that observation he asks why you are drawn to these debates.

In your reply at 709 you did not refute xzins' premise for his question but instead you simply said that you are interested in "Church and Bible history."

You could have corrected the premise.

My objection and first observation was that your reply was not responsive to xzins' question and so I rephrased it as follows: "Or to put it another way, why would an atheist be interested in someone he denies exists?"

Neither xzins nor I directly accused you of being an atheist. But we are both interested why you would be drawn to these debates when you so frequently equate belief in God to belief in pink unicorns.

[Alamo-Girl]

I'll post an update to the prayer thread and ping everyone probably tomorrow. She had an alarming drop in blood pressure but they were able to get it back up. She's in the "two steps forward, one step back" phase but she's holding her own.

Thank you for asking, dear brother in Christ, and thank you for your prayers!

[kosta50]

"God from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass;[1] yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin..."

God ordained everything (including the sin I suppose), yet he is not the author of sin? This is one of those "curious" things about Calvinism. :)

He appointed the moon for seasons: the sun knoweth his going down

Now that's what I call real science! :)

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so much for sharing your insights, dear brother in Christ!

I have more to say on your point but will consolidate my reply with one to Dr. Eckleburg's post later on this thread.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so much for those beautiful Scriptures, dear brother in Christ!

I have often wondered if Cyrus could have refused to let Israel go out of exile.

I aver that Cyrus could not have thwarted the will of God. Indeed, I aver that no one and no thing can thwart the will of God.

Or to put it another way, if Cyrus had free will to say "no thanks" then God would have seen His will done nonetheless. I could envision Him disappearing the naysaying Cyrus and replacing him with an obedient Cyrus made of a stone.

And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to [our] father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. - Matthew 3:9

Or God could have changed his heart like He did Pharaoh.

But the LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart, so that he would not let the children of Israel go. - Exodus 10:20

To God be the glory, not man, never man.

[Alamo-Girl]

I thought that what AG was saying was that since we all observe and experience creation we all can know THAT God is and so none is with excuse for not knowing. However, only those who have appropriated God's grace (the mechanics are not relevant here) are able to HEAR Him (knowing Him on a personal level). So, some are able to hear the whistle and some are not, but all can see the whistle. Different detection tools detect different things. God gives some detection tools to all for some things and other tools are only appropriated from God by some for other things.

Precisely so!

Thank you so very much for sharing your insights, dear brother in Christ!

[Alamo-Girl]

LOLOL!

[kosta50]

In your reply at 709 you did not refute xzins' premise

Because there is nothing to refute; I don't know what God is. This is not an active denial of God.

My belief or disbelief is neither a confirmation nor refutation of God's existence, and neither is yours, nor anyone else's for that matter.

My objection and first observation was that your reply was not responsive to xzins' question and so I rephrased it as follows: "Or to put it another way, why would an atheist be interested in someone he denies exists?"

Why don't you ask a declared atheist?

Neither xzins nor I directly accused you of being an atheist

Certainly, xzins did not—he only stated that it seems that I don't believe either in God or pink unicorns on Jupiter, but you jumped to the conclusion that I deny that God exists by asking me "why would an atheist be interested in someone he denies exists." I never said I am an atheist and I never said that God doesn't exist, so why would you ask me unless you presumed otherwise?

[Quix]

Great.

Thanks. I’ll wait for the ping.

[Alamo-Girl]

Not necessarily. What she wrote is a leap of faith, an a priori, axiomatic, convenient, starting point, and not something we can know for sure.

Under the rules of engagement for some "for sure" means that he must observe it with his physical senses or reason it out within the limits of his own mind.

But those rules of engagement are absurd on the face.

The theory of relativity is not invalidated by a gnat's inability to comprehend it. Massless particles cannot be said not to exist because they cannot be directly observed.

Indeed, the methods whereby the physical creation is studied involves many things which are themselves not physical: logic, math, physical laws, etc.

According to Einstein, the one who cannot sense the mysterious is dead or blind.

The most beautiful and deepest experience a man can have is the sense of the mysterious. It is the underlying principle of religion as well as all serious endeavour in art and science. He who never had this experience seems to me, if not dead, then at least blind. To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is a something that our mind cannot grasp and whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly and as a feeble reflection, this is religiousness. In this sense I am religious. To me it suffices to wonder at these secrets and to attempt humbly to grasp with my mind a mere image of the lofty structure of all that there is. - Albert Einstein, “My Credo,” presented to the German League of Human Rights, Berlin, autumn 1932, in Einstein: A Life in Science, Michael White and John Gribbin, ed., London: Simon & Schuster, 1993, page 262.

More to the point of this sidebar, that God IS is so obvious that man is without excuse for ignoring Him.

The following passage points to the obvious fact that there was a beginning, a first cause:

For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, [even] his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: - Romans 1:20

God's Name is Alpha and Omega.

[Alamo-Girl]

This little hobby of yours — to raise every possible doubt about the existence of God — also delegitimates the Declaration of Independence, and thus the Constitution of the United States — indeed the entire idea of human liberty and the system of American justice under equal laws designed to protect it from infringement by overweening, power-hungry government. "Kill" God and you get Leviathan....

Well and truly said, dearest sister in Christ!

Communist countries are good evidence of what happens when God is officially outlawed by the state.

[Alamo-Girl]

What's the objective of the free will in your discernment, Alamo-Gril?

Spiritual maturity.

[D-fendr]

"What's the objective of the free will in your discernment, Alamo-Gril?"

Spiritual maturity.

I've been thinking about that question and like your answer. It's a good question too.

My answer was going along the lines of "Learning." Or "learning to..."

You're making me think that the question is similar to "what is the objective of this life?"

Catechisms have the answer to this of course, and maybe the "free will" aspect adds "learning to..." to their answer.

Free will - making choices that have consequences means that life matters, our choices matter. This life, therefore, has meaning. Choices and consequences develop us, teach us something - hopefully.

Then I remember the aphorism: "Experience is the thing you get right after you really needed it."

[Alamo-Girl]

God's predestination is based on the foreknowledge of our freely willed acts.

In my view, we mortals have a persistent tendency to see things on an arrow of time, i.e. past>present>future.

That is probably because as mortals we are merely observers "in" space/time, traveling along a short worldline from our physical birth to our physical death.

That is our observer problem as mortals.

But of a truth, God has no such limitation.

And there may be more than one dimension of time. What we consider as a line could be a plane or volume.

The moment may be far more than we could guess.

To God be the glory, not man, never man.

[Alamo-Girl]

Oh well, the Scriptures seemed appropriate to me.

Thank you for your reply, dear brother in Christ!

[D-fendr]

And, of course, all Texans know the "Alamo Gril" is a restaurant in San Antonio...

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so very much for sharing your insights and testimony, dear sister in Christ!

In my view, the difference between our spiritual discernment on the matter of predestination v. free will reduces to whether the mind, soul or spirit can cause anything to happen.

I say yes and you say no.

In the following passage, Jesus exhorts us to use our minds, souls or spirits to cause things to happen: pray, believe that ye receive, forgive.

Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive [them], and ye shall have [them]. And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses. But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses. – Mark 11:24-26

And again, seek

But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. - Matthew 6:33

And again, ask, seek, knock

Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. - Matt 7:7-8

Truly man cannot thwart the will of God. Nothing can.

But I do perceive in the words of God both predestination in prophecy - and free will in commandments. So to me, it is a balance between the two - we have some freedom of movement but we can in no way thwart the will of God.

To God be the glory, not man, never man.

[presently no screen name]

If the Protestants begin to realize that we are not saved by faith alone, but by faith embodied in good works done out of our onw free will,

Ephesians 2:8-9
For it is by GRACE you have been saved, through FAITH and this NOT from yourselves, it is the GIFT of God— NOT BY WORKS, so that no one can boast.