Posted on 08/27/2010 11:45:13 AM PDT by Hank Kerchief
The Jews have a better way of saying it — paradox!
: )
That's it! Much better. But it's from the greek, of course. :)
In the West, I think "mystery" is used instead, but that doesn't quite capture what we're talking about. Paradox does.
thanks..
“...unless God did a mighty act this lady was lost”
I believe that God was doing a mighty act all along.
“I know she was unsaved”......
We can’t know whether anyone is saved or unsaved—from one minute to the next. That knowledge is not given to us. And praise God for that—or our behavior would be even worse than it already is.
Every Reformer that I have read will readily insist that man has a will (even Calvin). That will is held in bondage and, once free, it is capable of doing the works of God. But it is only when man's will is free can it be guided by the Holy Spirit to do the things of God. This is the technically accruate description of what happens. But there is no free will by which man can do things pleasing to God. It is impossible.
AMEN, Harleyd!
Our eyes are so glued to our own achievements that it is difficult to pry ourselves away from the concept that we are free and unfettered and capable of our own righteousness.
Free will was always denied by the apostles and the early church and various church fathers. With the influence of Gnosticism in the third and fourth centuries, men slowly discarded the idea that God sustains all things, and men's minds filled themselves up with their own desires rather than God's determinism.
The reformers, as you say, returned the church to the sound doctrine of predestination -- something Rome has always denied because if God controls this life, then obviously Rome and its magisterium cannot.
It's probably not too late to get into an RCIA class.
Christ's anguish was expressed here in order to fulfill the prophecy of Isaiah. As Calvin explains in his commentary on Matthew 27:46...
"46. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried. Though in the cry which Christ uttered a power more than human was manifested, yet it was unquestionably drawn from him by intensity of sorrow. And certainly this was his chief conflict, and harder than all the other tortures, that in his anguish he was so far from being soothed by the assistance or favor of his Father, that he felt himself to be in some measure estranged from him. For not only did he offer his body as the price of our reconciliation with God, but. in his soul also he endured the punishments due to us; and thus he became, as Isaiah speaks, a man of sorrows, (53:3.) Those interpreters are widely mistaken who, laying aside this part of redemption, attended solely to the outward punishment of the flesh; for in order that Christ might satisfy for us, it was necessary that he should be placed as a guilty person at the judgment-seat of God. Now nothing is more dreadful than to feel that God, whose wrath is worse than all deaths, is the Judge. When this temptation was presented to Christ, as if, having God opposed to him, he were already devoted to destruction, he was seized with horror, which would have been sufficient to swallow up a hundred times all the men in the world; but by the amazing power of the Spirit he achieved the victory. Nor is it by hypocrisy, or by assuming a character, that he complains of having been forsaken by the Father. Some allege that he employed this language in compliance with the opinion of the people, but this is an absurd mode of evading the difficulty; for the inward sadness of his soul was so powerful and violent, that it forced him to break out into a cry. Nor did the redemption which he accomplished consist solely in what was exhibited to the eye, (as I stated a little ago,) but having undertaken to be our surety, he resolved actually to undergo in our room the judgment of God.
And thus Chesterton was wrong. God did not forsake God. His error in reading Scripture, however, is just another example of Rome’s attraction to the maudlin.
Thank God for small favors.
Uh-uh-uh. Mind-reading again, Mark.
See post 6629 for the answer...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2578704/posts?page=6629#6629
Mother Teresa said she doubted the existence of God and had doubted the existence of God for decades before her death.
She was a hard-working, unhappy, frightened and confused woman whose faith did not sustain her.
I have no “problems with the Incarnation,” Mark. It’s not that difficult a concept to grasp if faith has been received. God choose a simple Jewish girl to carry to term the Christ child. After she had completed her task, her part in Scripture is diminished considerably to the point where Jesus corrects a woman who is looking for his mother when He tells her that believers are His real family.
I do have problems with elevating this simple Jewish girl to Queen of the Universe” and “wife of the Holy Spirit” and “co-Redeemer” and “Dispensatrix of all graces” and “Mediator between God and men”...
All men will have to answer for the idolatry that remains in their hearts. And some will have a lot of explaining to do.
Rather only faith sustained her.
Chillingly accurate.
I wonder what Catholics think Christ suffered on the cross or why He did it..
They think He's a fairly good example of suffering so they inflict as much pain as possible on themselves and others in order to become as good and as suffering as Him.
Okay.
We all know this about you. You have said the same thing in many different ways, many different times for many years. Your problems with Mary do not bother me. As far as I am concerned, any "simple Jewish girl" that God chose to be the Mother of His only begotten Son IS the Queen of the Universe. When you belittle her, you belittle God AND Christ.
Is that what you truly believe?
Good night, Judith.
It is Christianity.
Try it.
Therefore her faith did not sustain her. For decades.
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