M
mathematician
Guest
The only problem with Molinism is that it is wrong.
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C
CHESTERTONRULES
Guest
Coming from a non Catholic, that sounds a bit funny to me!
What is your problem with Molinism?
M
mathematician
Guest
The problem with Molinism is that, like its Protestant counterpart, it tries to dodge the issue. If it is said that God predestines person A on the basis of foreseen merit, that immediately begs the question of who created person A with that psychological make up, and those dispositions, who could be foreseen to act is such and such a way in that situation? If the answer is God, as it must be, then had he wanted to God could have used his omnipotent power to create that person otherwise, thereby bringing him to savation or reprobation. He didn’t create him otherwise, and so he would have intended that person to achieve salvation (or not).
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2nd_Adam
Guest
Excellent post. BTW… when you have time, please share your perspective over here:
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=378179
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CHESTERTONRULES
Guest
Molinists, Catholics, and most protestants believe that God created man with free will.
We also read in scripture that God is just and merciful.
We both believe in God’s sovereign authority, I believe.
So, how could a sovereign God grant man free will while simultaneously being just and merciful?
The Molinist equations explains how this is possible.
God knows by nature how we would have acted in an infinite number of circumstances. He knows who would have chosen his will and who would have rejected it.
Since this middle knowledge is part of God’s nature, it is contained within God even before the universe was created.
This middle knowledge was instrumental in God’s design of the universe. Based on his mercy and justice, he provided the grace necessary for the salvation of the elect who are guided by free will to seek and follow Jesus.
The outcome is just, not arbitrary.
Salvation is merciful, not arbitrary and vindictive.
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Contarini
Guest
Influence is indeed hard to prove. But chronological order matters.
That’s too strong.
There are more differences than that. Predestination doesn’t work in a vacuum. It relates to a lot of other doctrines. For instance, Aquinas doesn’t have Calvin’s (or Luther’s) doctrine of the bondage of the will. (Yes, he’s closer to them than a lot of people think given the difference in how they use the word “good”–but Aquinas’ broader concept of the “good” is itself a significant difference, and so on.)
But back to perseverance: you still have not shown me where Luther (or anyone before Zwingli unless you count the Cathars and similar heretics) taught that only the elect are ever regenerate. The long article to which you linked does not (admittedly I skimmed it briefly) seem to address the question of perseverance at all, so I’m at a loss to know why you cited it. You seem to think that establishing Luther’s agreement with Calvin on *other *related points proves that they must have agreed on perseverance.
You are actually demonstrating my point: for the Reformed, the doctrine of the perseverance of all the regenerate seems to flow naturally from the doctrine of predestination, and this is one of the major differences between them and other Augustinians. You assume this connection so thoroughly that you don’t seem to have actually noticed that that’s what I am denying (so you keep thinking that I’m denying that Luther taught double predestination or something like that). I’m not sure how to communicate with you when you keep mis-identifying the point on which we differ!
Edwin
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Contarini
Guest
But that is not in fact a claim made by all Molinists. Molinism is not, at its core, a doctrine about the basis of predestination but a doctrine about how predestination interacts with free will. You can be a Molinist and believe in either position on the relationship between predestination and foreseen merits. Molinism is not the Catholic counterpart to Arminianism. They are addressing somewhat different questions. To say otherwise is to distort history and to import into Catholicism a Protestant dichotomy.
This implies that a person’s response in particular circumstances is always going to be the same given their dispositions. As I understand Molinism, they would deny this latter implication and see this denial as central to the affirmation of free will. That’s why you need middle knowledge in the first place. If compatibilism were true and a person with a certain psychological makeup always acted in the same way when confronted with the same circumstances, then you wouldn’t need to posit something so odd and paradoxical as middle knowledge. God would know what all creatures would do in all circumstances simply from knowing their natures and dispositions. The whole point of Molinism is that, if you believe in libertarian free will, this can’t be true. Two identical people might act differently in identical circumstances *because they have free will. *Middle knowledge claims that God knows what they would do *anyway. *Hence the philosophical difficulties with it, such as the “grounding objection.”
Furthermore, your way of putting it implies that God doesn’t control the situation. Here you impute to Molinists a weaker view of divine sovereignty than they hold. From my perspective, the objection to Molinism is that in Molinism God manipulates human behavior by choosing to put people in certain situations (for instance, allowing one person to die instantly in a car crash and allowing another time to repent–or to apostasize, for that matter). And in spite of the Molinist affirmation of libertarian free will, it seems to me that Molinism still has a latent determinism–that in some sense this particular person’s free choices are tied to particular circumstances, so that by altering the circumstances God can control what the person chooses.
Edwin
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TristanCross
Guest
St. Augustine: “Temporal punishments are suffered by some in this life only, by some after death, by some both here and hereafter, but all of them before that last and strictest judgment. But not all who suffer temporal punishments after death will come to eternal punishments, which are to follow after that judgment” (The City of God 21:13 [A.D. 419]).
“That there should be some fire even after this life is not incredible, and it can be inquired into and either be discovered or left hidden whether some of the faithful may be saved, some more slowly and some more quickly in the greater or lesser degree in which they loved the good things that perish, through a certain purgatorial fire” (Handbook on Faith, Hope, and Charity 18:69 [A.D. 421]).
Augustine: “We read in the books of the Maccabees [2 Macc. 12:43] that sacrifice was offered for the dead. But even if it were found nowhere in the Old Testament writings, the authority of the Catholic Church which is clear on this point is of no small weight, where in the prayers of the priest poured forth to the Lord God at his altar the commendation of the dead has its place” (The Care to be Had for the Dead 1:3 [A.D. 421]).
Yeah…sounds sooooo reformed
“That there should be some fire even after this life is not incredible, and it can be inquired into and either be discovered or left hidden whether some of the faithful may be saved, some more slowly and some more quickly in the greater or lesser degree in which they loved the good things that perish, through a certain purgatorial fire” (Handbook on Faith, Hope, and Charity 18:69 [A.D. 421]).
Augustine: “We read in the books of the Maccabees [2 Macc. 12:43] that sacrifice was offered for the dead. But even if it were found nowhere in the Old Testament writings, the authority of the Catholic Church which is clear on this point is of no small weight, where in the prayers of the priest poured forth to the Lord God at his altar the commendation of the dead has its place” (The Care to be Had for the Dead 1:3 [A.D. 421]).
Yeah…sounds sooooo reformed
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2nd_Adam
Guest
Please go back to the OP in regards to Augustine. We are discussing certain beliefs of Augustine that appear Reformed.St. Augustine: “Temporal punishments are suffered by some in this life only, by some after death, by some both here and hereafter, but all of them before that last and strictest judgment. But not all who suffer temporal punishments after death will come to eternal punishments, which are to follow after that judgment” (The City of God 21:13 [A.D. 419]).
“That there should be some fire even after this life is not incredible, and it can be inquired into and either be discovered or left hidden whether some of the faithful may be saved, some more slowly and some more quickly in the greater or lesser degree in which they loved the good things that perish, through a certain purgatorial fire” (Handbook on Faith, Hope, and Charity 18:69 [A.D. 421]).
Augustine: “We read in the books of the Maccabees [2 Macc. 12:43] that sacrifice was offered for the dead. But even if it were found nowhere in the Old Testament writings, the authority of the Catholic Church which is clear on this point is of no small weight, where in the prayers of the priest poured forth to the Lord God at his altar the commendation of the dead has its place” (The Care to be Had for the Dead 1:3 [A.D. 421]).
Yeah…sounds sooooo reformed
M
mathematician
Guest
It does follow from the doctrine of predestination:
God predestines X to eternal life.
X doesn’t persevere
X doesn’t obtain eternal life
Oops, God didn’t achieve his objective. Perhaps he should be sent back to the college the gods go to, then he might be able to do better next time.
Maybe you are confusing predestination to grace with predestination to eternal life. Nobody, so far as I know, gets hot under the collar about the former.
M
mathematician
Guest
A quick post script
Matthew 22.14
For many are called (predestination to grace) but few are chosen. (predestination to glory)
Matthew 22.14
For many are called (predestination to grace) but few are chosen. (predestination to glory)
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Contarini
Guest
The Reformed do. The Reformed do not believe that anyone receives regenerating grace who is not predestined to eternal life. I am not confusing the two. I am accurately describing the Reformed position which explicitly identifies the two. My point is precisely that the Augustinian Catholic tradition (with which Luther agreed on this point) distinguishes the two. And that leads to a rejection of the Reformed doctrine that all the *regenerate *persevere.
I am not sure how you have managed to misunderstand what I have said thus far. I have explicitly said over and over that I’m talking about the doctrine that all the *regenerate *persevere. Obviously those predestined to eternal life persevere. That’s what it means to be predestined to eternal life.
Edwin
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spoiltvictorian
Guest
Small parts of Augustine, taken as representative of his entire writing, sound more Reformed than Catholic. There’s nothing surprising about that since Reformed churches commit their errors by taking smaller truths and leaving the greater truths behind. Look at how much St. Augustine wrote about Jesus Christ, for example. And yet in the last 5-7 Reformed sermons I have heard, I heard the words “faith,” “chosen,” “elect,” and “examine yourself” more than “Christ,” “Cross,” and “Grace.”
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2nd_Adam
Guest
Christianity centers around the person and work of Christ to the glory of God alone. Christ and Him crucified is a glorious truth that we can easily forget as the centrality of Christianity. However, faith, chosen, elect and examine yourself should be understood through the gospel of God. They are all components relating to our salvation which was merited by Christ alone. Consider Ephesians 1 and 2.
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mathematician
Guest
Maybe I share the perspective of this Catholic theologian:
“St Augustines’s phrase, ‘The predestination of the saint’s,’ reminds us that predestination to grace alone, which does not in fact bring us to eternal life, is not in the true sense predestination, since this latter includes the gift of final perseverence.”
Having mentioned predestination to grace once, in the preface to his book, for the next 380 pages he just uses the word predestination without distinction. For all practical purposes he uses the word to mean what any Reformed means by it. So if you had said to him that not all the predestined persevere, he would probably have wondered what you were talking about.
I am not particularly Reformed by the way, or particularly Thomist for that matter. I am just one of those muddle headed Protestants.
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Bengoshi
Guest
Amen to that! In fact, it is what Dr. Wayne Grudem also pointed out in his book Systematic Theology.
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Contarini
Guest
That is exactly what I think. And that is why I did not see the need to voice the distinction explicitly. I was assuming throughout that “predestination” means predestination to eternal life.
And that’s why I would never say and have never said such a thing. What I said is that not all the *regenerate *persevere. The Reformed position is that only those predestined to eternal life receive regenerating grace, and thus all of them persevere. The Augustinian position (shared by Luther) is that a person may receive regeneration (through faith and baptism) but then fall away. Such a person is “predestined to grace” but not predestined to eternal life–or using the simpler terminology I have been using, such a person is not among the elect.
Edwin
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spoiltvictorian
Guest
Yes, I did not mean to say those ideas have no place in Christianity. As I said, the Reformed error is to take those ideas, particularly predestination, and make them the central message of the Gospel. I was noting that the same error appears when Reformed Christians see predestination in St. Augustine and not what else Augustine wrote about Christ and His Church, and preaching predestination without preaching the rest of the Gospel including Christ, the Cross, the Church, sacraments/ordinances and so on.
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Hesychios
Guest
I don’t know how wide-ranging the official view is, but Predestination is certainly taught (thanks more to the fifth century convert Saint Augustine than probably any other man).
I think you are correct, but no one seems to be making any scientific surveys to confirm this.
One thing is certain, Pelagianism did not disappear with the fall of Pelagius, it sublimated. Augustine won the “battle” but lost the “war”.
A case in point… many lay Catholics have no idea that their church does approve of Predestination. Why they do not learn this in catechism class is beyond me
He is, but is that necessarily a good thing? He is definitely a seminal figure in both Latin Catholicism and Reformed theology. Is that what we want, a blend of these two lines of thought?
What is usually overlooked is that Saint Augustine was not the only game in town in his own lifetime, setting aside the Celt Pelagius he had other interlocutors, including Saint John Cassian.
Saint John Cassian is credited with (among other things) introducing monasticism to Gaul, and he may have been the author of the “Rule of the Master” which Saint Benedict of Nursia used as a basis for his own rule. So he was a fundamental building block of western Christianity as well, but barely recognized in his own house.
He is on the calendar of the church at Marseille, France, because he was canonized by the diocese (his home when he died) when (in the west) canonizations were still done by the local church. But the universal calendar controlled by Rome does not include him AFAIK (a side effect of opposing Augustine?). He is venerated as a Saint by all Orthodox, and commonly read.
What I am proposing is that Protestantism and Latin Catholicism go outside the box and find something they can share from the east as a basis for reconciliation.
M
mathematician
Guest
They would need to sort out the quarrel between themselves first, and that alone would need divine intervention.
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