Again … hello Bodonoho –
Here are a couple ideas I picked up from your (and others’) postings.
You wrote “…since none of us have read in the Bible.” Bodonoho, it’s essential that you know that the Catholic Church finds the essentials of God’s Revelation in TWO sources, the Bible AND Tradition. The Church considers these two inseparable and complementary. The Bible alone is not exhaustive of God’s Revelation.
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Your use of the phrase “absolute certainty” brings smiles (as well as tears) to my eyes. Bear with this little story and Rene Decartes. MANY years ago when I was 17-18 (before Lincoln’s inaugural), I picked Descarte’s MEDITATIONS off the shelf and was intrigued and completely captured for quite a few years. (My faith was never in question.) I hungered desperately for rational, intellectual, certainty. And Descartes gave me my simple and clear – and FALSE – foundation. In my own words > “Either one is absolutely certain, metaphysically certain, intuitively certain … OR … one is NOT certain. Either black or white – no shades.” I loved it! And so I asked of God to help me find ONE SINGLE THING of which I could experience absolute certainty, just one single spot to plant one single foot so I could walk firmly in the rational order.
And I searched and searched for many years. (My faith was not a problem. God had given me that gift and it stood firm.)
What I looked for … was it possible? One time long ago I wept bitter tears because if I couldn’t know clearly and with absolute certainty WHAT BEING IS !!! then it was impossible to know what a chair or street or a human being or even cigarette smoke was !!!
Forgive this long story. Honestly it does lead to important ideas about any assurance we can have of our salvation in Heaven.
I worked for my master’s degree in Philosophy and was allowed to choose for my dissertation topic THE KINDS OF CERTITUDO. Much work I did in Aquinas and Aristotle. And then I special gift from God came, the French philosopher Jacques Maritain and his major work The Degrees of Knowledge (French Distinguer pour unir), not first trans by B Wall, but second trans by Phelan. At this point I must move ahead quickly.
It wasn’t magic – although it did seem to be. Maritain’s presentation of how this very limited yet absolute certainty was already mine from childhood and stared me in the face constantly so excited me I cried out loud in joy! “2-SCIO 1-ALIQUID ESSE” … that’s it!
With absolutely certainty SOMETHING IS! Dirt … grass … tree … bird … cigarette smoke … it made no difference what! SOMETHING IS !!! and this I experience. Only after, only subsequently, only reflectively as a second mental movement do I realize that I know, that I know that some being, a being is, exists. To me this was the one single absolutely and metaphysicaly certain thing that I knew. In the rational order finally I had been “saved.”
Now back to your matters, Bodonoho, in your postings.
Certitudo is the fixity that is in all beings simply because they are, they exist. But this fixity is of varying measures in different creatures. Consider objects in a room > Here is my computer. With my little finger I’d have difficulty moving it but with my hands I certainly could push and move it. There’s the dining room table. Rather solid. A little child could not move it. But I can. And there’s the nearby refrigerator. Only with great exertion could I shove it and move it. And then there’s the wall. With all my power I cannot move the wall. And yet – with a sledge hammer I could move it.
The point > The different degrees of certainty in our knowing different things depend on the certitudo that is in the varying beings known. As Aristotle would say, “We ought not ask of a biologist the same certainty we ask of a mathematician. The mark of an educated man is to ask of different beings the kinds of certainty those beings have in them.”
Regarding any assurance of our attaining Heaven, the Catholic Church teaches that we cannot have absolute certainty apart from a private revelation … as the apostles were given by Christ, telling them to “rejoice because your names are written in Heaven.” However, there are other measures of certainty, not absolute, that we can have based upon our living a spiritual life, a life that shows our participating in prayer, the sacraments, acts of love toward our neighbor, etc. We’re supposed to trust God, right? We do not believe what we SEE. We believe what we do not see. And so we trust in God, with these lesser signs of living a spiritual life, that God’s Love will see us to Heaven … if we continue aiming at living a truly spiritual life. THIS kind of assurance we can and should have.
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Bodonoho, in another area you wrote, “I’m not sure if I’m in a state of Grace or a state of mortal sin.” God does not want you to be in doubt about this. Here is my strong suggestion > Ask yourself, am I clearly conscious of holding onto a sin so great that it would damn me forever? I think you’ll answer yourself, no, I’m not. Then, Bodonoho, trusting in Jesus’ Love for you, throw away your doubt and send it to hell where it belongs … and continue to love God.
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Well, I didn’t mean for my posting to get this long. I truly hope, with prayer, that this will be of some benefit to you, Bodonoho, and to others who might read it.
Pray for me. JohnJFarren
)) Follow God, pray the Rosary, and trust in the never ending power and glory of Our Lord. God Bless I will pray for you. If you have any questions please message me!