Choosing Not To Do What We Ought To Do

[Augustine3]

God gives us the freedom to choose what we ought to. What if we choose not to do it e.g. God calls a married couple to have 5 children but they choose to have only 2?

What are the consequences?

 

[pwlj_christ87]

This is a topic for me where you can compare God’s will as being something where you have a choice and something where God performs his will,

for example, when you pray for something, that when it is granted, you really have no real choice in what to do other than have that prayer occur to you, so when you pray for a wife or husband , god grants it, sort of like placing a gift for you on a altar,

the other theory i have is that, when you know that you have to do God’s will, you will feel it so strongly, so immensely, that it is so obvious that you have to do it, and this is probably the more correct theory aabout this because so many times i feel like i have to do something and gods strength helps you to do what is right, the contrary to me would be blasphemy of the holy spirit because when you dont do god’s will, when you reject the spirit of repentance, grace, conversion, intellect, witt and knowledge, then you are blaspheming,

Scripture says that it is those that do God’s will who will enter the kingdom, and i think that its known through the holy spirit more than anything because the holy spirit is a helper,

i would say that it takes deep prayer and being totally committed to making the right choices, you cannot be hot nor cold , for he will spit you out, christianity takes full commitment this is what ive learned over the past day or two myself

 

[pianistclare]

God gives us the freedom to choose what we ought to. What if we choose not to do it e.g. God calls a married couple to have 5 children but they choose to have only 2?

What are the consequences?

So…how would they know God “called” them to have 5 kids when they only have 2?
Seems like if they were meant to have 5 kids, they’d have 5 kids.

 

[Augustine3]

So…how would they know God “called” them to have 5 kids when they only have 2?
Seems like if they were meant to have 5 kids, they’d have 5 kids.

Sorry. I’ll rephrase:

A couple have 2 kids. They feel they can have another one, they feel their family is incomplete with just 2, however they stop at 2 due to selfish reasons. God would have given them the same feeling if they had the 3rd and 4th kid until they reached number 5.

Make sense?

 

[Tomdstone]

Sorry. I’ll rephrase:

A couple have 2 kids. They feel they can have another one, they feel their family is incomplete with just 2, however they stop at 2 due to selfish reasons. God would have given them the same feeling if they had the 3rd and 4th kid until they reached number 5.

Make sense?

Some couples would have difficulty supporting the college education of their children if they had 5 children. When tested, many courts have held the parents financially liable for the college education of their children.

 

[Iron_Donkey]

God gives us the freedom to choose what we ought to. What if we choose not to do it e.g. God calls a married couple to have 5 children but they choose to have only 2?

What are the consequences?

Varies wildly, I assume. Could be either major or minor alterations in history, some degree of guilt of sin on the parents (depending on the parents knowledge, circumstances, and methods by which they stopped having children - if they were not using sinful methods to avoid having children, they would have to know that they were meant to have more in order for there to be sin), and the general lesser fulfillment that comes from not following God’s will.

(Also note that by itself, “feeling like they could have more kids” does not necessarily demonstrate conclusively that they were called to have more kids.)

So…how would they know God “called” them to have 5 kids when they only have 2?
Seems like if they were meant to have 5 kids, they’d have 5 kids.

They may or may not correctly discern that God called them to have 5 kids, but it is certainly possible to ignore what God desires. If God calls them to have 5 kids, then they would be able to have 5 kids, but they would not necessarily have to do so. God does allow us to ignore His will for us.

 

[mikekle]

Some couples would have difficulty supporting the college education of their children if they had 5 children. When tested, many courts have held the parents financially liable for the college education of their children.

I may be wrong, but I thought we were not supposed to base decisions on whether to have more kids or not, on monetary/ worldly concerns? God instructs us to trust him for all we need, if he blesses a couple with a baby, Im assuming he will make sure they have the means to properly raise the child.

 

[mommy_k]

If you live to accept God’s will and adhere to church teaching your life will be better in this life and/or the next.

The reverse is also true.

God does not reveal everything such as a number of children -just that you follow church teaching regarding this. To go against God is saying that you are smarter than God.

When unsure of God’s will, pray to the Holy Spirit

 

[DeniseNY]

Sorry. I’ll rephrase:

A couple have 2 kids. They feel they can have another one, they feel their family is incomplete with just 2, however they stop at 2 due to selfish reasons. God would have given them the same feeling if they had the 3rd and 4th kid until they reached number 5.

Make sense?

What do you see as “selfish reasons”?

 

[Augustine3]

I may be wrong, but I thought we were not supposed to base decisions on whether to have more kids or not, on monetary/ worldly concerns? God instructs us to trust him for all we need, if he blesses a couple with a baby, Im assuming he will make sure they have the means to properly raise the child.

What about children living in poverty and starvation in developing countries, what do we make of that?

 

[Augustine3]

What do you see as “selfish reasons”?

Couples who limit the number of children because that would like travel around the world frequently, build greater wealth than necessary etc.

I’m happy to be corrected…

 

[ichabode]

God gives us the freedom to choose what we ought to. What if we choose not to do it e.g. God calls a married couple to have 5 children but they choose to have only 2?

What are the consequences?

In the “Our Father” we pray thy kingdom come thy will be done. A kingdom has a hierarchy and with God there is a hierarchy of truth or governance as it relates to us. That is as human beings, Adam with all of his preternatural gifts was not like Angels. Adam could not see in depth all the consequences of his sin. That is why we have a chance to be redeemed.

God has a divine will that we strive to manifest in our life like when Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane prayed not my will but Thy will. As imperfect creatures it is true that we fall short of the glory and will and of God, and we should always be ready to repent and align ourselves to the divine will when it is made manifest to us. We know we are always doing the will of God when we are not sinning.

God choose to create a moral universe and by doing so He gave us freewill. That is primary and freewill does not mean we should sin, but because of concupiscence sometimes we do actually sin and that would not be God’s divine will, but God’s permissive will. He permits us to be free, for if He did not then we would be no different than any beast or the grass we step upon as we walk.

If we had two children because we committed a moral sin like abortion then we would lose sanctifying grace and if we died unrepentant then our eternal abode would be hell. If like the God thief on the cross, St. Dimas, we repented then we would be accepted ultimately in Heaven if we died in a state of sanctifying grace.

If we had two children, and sincerely thought that it was all we could bare for a myriad of good reasons, and we were devout in our prayers and sincere of heart, yet God would have given us the grace to have more, it would not be a grave sin, and as tim 2:4 states God will everyone to heaven you would be lifted up on the day of judgement and enter into eternal rest.

God does desire us to be fruitful and multiply, but He also a priori called us to be Spiritual Fathers above natural fathers; thus, communicating God’s life to others.

 

[mikekle]

What about children living in poverty and starvation in developing countries, what do we make of that?

Good question, in many bible verses God claims he will provide all that we need, yet 1000s go starving every day, 1000s go without water, etc…?? I bet this does not bode well for their faith!

 

[Lormar]

Why is this any of our business?

 

[Iron_Donkey]

I may be wrong, but I thought we were not supposed to base decisions on whether to have more kids or not, on monetary/ worldly concerns? God instructs us to trust him for all we need, if he blesses a couple with a baby, Im assuming he will make sure they have the means to properly raise the child.

“If, then, there are serious motives to space out births, which derive from the physical or psychological conditions of husband and wife, or from external conditions, the Church teaches that it is then licit to take into account the natural rhythms immanent in the generative functions… [Pope Paul VI, Humanae Vitae 16]”

“For just reasons, spouses may wish to space the births of their children. It is their duty to make certain that their desire is not motivated by selfishness but is in conformity with the generosity appropriate to responsible parenthood. Moreover, they should conform their behavior to the objective criteria of morality. [Catechism of the Catholic Church 2368]”

Having no money or food and no way to get any is a justifiable external condition to not have more children at the moment. Trusting God does not mean refusing to use the intellect He gave us. It is of course Church teaching that one cannot use immoral methods to control whether or not one has children at a particular time.

Good question, in many bible verses God claims he will provide all that we need, yet 1000s go starving every day, 1000s go without water, etc…?? I bet this does not bode well for their faith!

And in many other bible verses, the Children of God are murdered horribly, or suffer all kinds of afflictions. Reading the bible as a guarantee of material prosperity is indeed a good way to hurt one’s faith, but it is also a really, really bad way to read the bible.

 

[AttendeDomine]

God gives us the freedom to choose what we ought to. What if we choose not to do it e.g. God calls a married couple to have 5 children but they choose to have only 2?

What are the consequences?

That depends on their level of culpability, which is directly related to their knowledge of God’s will coupled with their desire to fulfill it.

Most of us strive to do God’s will very imperfectly, and very few of us will have fulfilled His will as well as ought to have.

More’s the pity, since that amounts to having that much less enjoyment of the Beatific Vision should we, by God’s grace, persevere.

 

[Vic_Taltrees_UK]

DO IT THE WAY WE DID IT IN THE BAD OLD 1970S AND EARLY 1980S.

Have single people to dinner.

If you want to be “open to life” then have single people to dinner. Or, single-parent famiies.

The way couples have a go at other couples for using NFP (or whatever) is appalling.

All this invasion of the internal forum smacks of Buchmanism.

Go for a walk with single people. Or, single-parent families.

How else are you going to teach your children to be sociable?

Nuke the nuclear in the sense of not open to guests. Go extended.

The couples that welcomed me have had no children, one child, or eight. There was always room for me.

One holiday a couple with five children under 16 had five singles along too (handpicked, two of them steady elderly types). We jointly paid for two large beach bungalows and one old man dipped into his savings for an extra old car that was going to last us the fortnight, a VW fastback semi-automatic!

We went through a phase of going for monthly walks.

Nurturing others should be the immutable. That some of those others are your own is a probable.

Next time someone gets at you I want to see you type the counteraccusation: “you Buchmanist”!

 

[Vic_Taltrees_UK]

Also when couple A went out for charismatic night (fictional example) their children went round to couple B, and when couple B were at Legion of Mary it was vice versa. Maybe six or ten families knew each other fairly well altogether. Most dioceses and parishes seem to have outlawed these sort of arrangements from what I hear.

The R-word:

r e l a t e

is the dirtiest word in the Catholic vocabulary.