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Ioana
Guest
Fair enough. I’ve wrestled it through and I think I have a frame to satisfy myself but it wouldn’t be useful for a non-believer. Cheers.
Could the world have been radically different and would it have been better?
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Latin
Guest
God bless every readers of the CAF.
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THE WONDERFUL RECREATED NEW WORLD IS ON THE WAY.
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Rev.21:4-5; He will wipe every tear from their eyes.
There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”
He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!”
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God created the Universe and He cares far more for the Universe then some of us think.
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At this point in time we are on the road to the Most Perfect Universe, and at this point we are experiencing the “hard stuff,” because without we would experience the “hard stuff,” we couldn’t treasure the “good stuff.”
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That end all creatures (includes all of us) manifest the glory of God, and in particular that we all glorify Him, recognizing in nature the work of His hand, we all serving Him in obedience and love, and thereby attaining to the full development of our nature and our eternal happiness in God.
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God has given us free will to love and He also given us the gift of our ability to love.
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But wisely God didn’t give us free will that we choose our salvation.
Wisely God reserved to Himself to choose our salvation as His IRREVOCABLE GIFT, in this way as He is responsible for our salvation, our salvation is safe in His capable hands.
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God bless every readers of the CAF.
Latin
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THE WONDERFUL RECREATED NEW WORLD IS ON THE WAY.
.
Rev.21:4-5; He will wipe every tear from their eyes.
There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”
He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!”
.
God created the Universe and He cares far more for the Universe then some of us think.
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At this point in time we are on the road to the Most Perfect Universe, and at this point we are experiencing the “hard stuff,” because without we would experience the “hard stuff,” we couldn’t treasure the “good stuff.”
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That end all creatures (includes all of us) manifest the glory of God, and in particular that we all glorify Him, recognizing in nature the work of His hand, we all serving Him in obedience and love, and thereby attaining to the full development of our nature and our eternal happiness in God.
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God has given us free will to love and He also given us the gift of our ability to love.
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But wisely God didn’t give us free will that we choose our salvation.
Wisely God reserved to Himself to choose our salvation as His IRREVOCABLE GIFT, in this way as He is responsible for our salvation, our salvation is safe in His capable hands.
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God bless every readers of the CAF.
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Gorgias
Guest
I agree; any explanation of why God made the universe the way He did that starts out “God’s plan for us includes…”, well… it just wouldn’t work for an unbeliever. On the other hand, if the unbeliever is framing up the conversation in such a way that it admits to God as creator… wouldn’t such an explanation be fair game?
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Latin
Guest
God bless every readers of the CAF.
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RECREATION OF THE NON-BELIEVERS
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Ezekiel 36:24-27;
24 “‘For I will take you out of the nations; I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land.
25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols.
26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.
27 And I will put my Spirit in you and cause you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.
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Of the same Lord again it is said, It is God who works in you, even to will! (Phil. 2:13)
It is certain that it is we that act when we act; but it is He who makes us act, by applying efficacious powers to our will, who has said, I will make you to walk in my statutes, and to observe my judgments, and to do them. (Ez. 36:27) …
It is He who causes us to act, to whom the human suppliant says, Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth. (St. Augustine, On Grace & Free Will, #32)
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Aquinas said, “God changes the will without forcing it.
But he can change the will from the fact that He himself operates in the will as He does in nature,” De Veritatis 22:9.
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CCCS 1996-1998; This call to eternal life is supernatural, coming TOTALLY from God’s decision and surpassing ALL power of human intellect and will.
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CCC 2022; “The divine initiative in the work of grace PRECEDES, PREPARES, and ELICITS the free response of man. …”
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Our job is to sow the seeds, but until God recreates a non-believer, these seeds are dormant.
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God bless every readers of the CAF.
Latin
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RECREATION OF THE NON-BELIEVERS
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Ezekiel 36:24-27;
24 “‘For I will take you out of the nations; I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land.
25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols.
26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.
27 And I will put my Spirit in you and cause you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.
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Of the same Lord again it is said, It is God who works in you, even to will! (Phil. 2:13)
It is certain that it is we that act when we act; but it is He who makes us act, by applying efficacious powers to our will, who has said, I will make you to walk in my statutes, and to observe my judgments, and to do them. (Ez. 36:27) …
It is He who causes us to act, to whom the human suppliant says, Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth. (St. Augustine, On Grace & Free Will, #32)
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Aquinas said, “God changes the will without forcing it.
But he can change the will from the fact that He himself operates in the will as He does in nature,” De Veritatis 22:9.
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CCCS 1996-1998; This call to eternal life is supernatural, coming TOTALLY from God’s decision and surpassing ALL power of human intellect and will.
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CCC 2022; “The divine initiative in the work of grace PRECEDES, PREPARES, and ELICITS the free response of man. …”
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Our job is to sow the seeds, but until God recreates a non-believer, these seeds are dormant.
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God bless every readers of the CAF.
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Pat_Albertson
Guest
I think if A = B and B = C then A = C is kind of a hard place to start. If I was going to start on different worlds physics-wise, then I would probably start with different elementary particles or something.
On a forum like CAF, I would have expected somebody to have already mentioned Adam, Eve, and The Fall. A better world might have had them not be fallen.
Perhaps there are other worlds out there that never fell, or maybe almost all of them never fell, in which case that might answer the Fermi paradox: we don’t see aliens because God doesn’t want fallen creatures interfering with their perfect worlds.
Maybe, eventually, we will be allowed to communicate with them after much penance and enlightenment. Now is not the time though.
On a forum like CAF, I would have expected somebody to have already mentioned Adam, Eve, and The Fall. A better world might have had them not be fallen.
Perhaps there are other worlds out there that never fell, or maybe almost all of them never fell, in which case that might answer the Fermi paradox: we don’t see aliens because God doesn’t want fallen creatures interfering with their perfect worlds.
Maybe, eventually, we will be allowed to communicate with them after much penance and enlightenment. Now is not the time though.
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walsh1
Guest
Would you not rather someone loved you for you rather than being programed to love you.What would be the point of God creating robots to love him.If God had of created robots we would never have known Jesus.Entering freely into a loving relastionship with Christ is the greatest thing in the wolrd.If love is not freely given then it is not real.
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IWantGod
Guest
It depends on what you mean. God doesn’t decide what is metaphysically possible but rather God is the being by which a thing is possible or impossible; his very nature is what defines truth or false. It’s not something God made up but rather it is what God is. A thing is impossible only if it contradicts God’s nature. God cannot cease to exist as that would contradict what God is for example. God cannot force you to love him as that would contradict the very nature of what love is. God could give you a natural unbreakable desire for him but that would not be a moral acceptance of love and would be more like an instinct rather than a rational accent to moral truth, and love is not just a feeling it is also moral. God obviously intends us to be more than just an animal.
Asking God to just make us holy from the instant of our conception is like asking why we have to take moral responsibility for our actions and face consequences? All that qeustion really entails is that one would prefer not to take responsibility. It has no relevance to the qeustion of whether or not its good because it’s purely pragmatic to the fact of consequences… And i think if people are honest they would perceive their freedom as a good thing especially when it works in their favor.
Freedom is good, and we ought to use that freedom for good, but we can choose not to if we want. We are not slaves. As soon as you become a robot morality becomes irrelevant, that’s why we don’t judge animals or beings that lack comprehension of the good.
Why make us aware of right and wrong if he does not intend to make us responsible for it?.
Asking God to just make us holy from the instant of our conception is like asking why we have to take moral responsibility for our actions and face consequences? All that qeustion really entails is that one would prefer not to take responsibility. It has no relevance to the qeustion of whether or not its good because it’s purely pragmatic to the fact of consequences… And i think if people are honest they would perceive their freedom as a good thing especially when it works in their favor.
Freedom is good, and we ought to use that freedom for good, but we can choose not to if we want. We are not slaves. As soon as you become a robot morality becomes irrelevant, that’s why we don’t judge animals or beings that lack comprehension of the good.
Why make us aware of right and wrong if he does not intend to make us responsible for it?.
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Latin
Guest
God bless you IWantGod and God bless every readers of the CAF.
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As God’s children/elect we have very much moral responsibility for our actions even our salvation is Eternally Protected by God’s special grace The Gift of Final Perseverance. – DE FIDE Dogma. + Infallible teachings of the Trent.
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One way or another, God makes us Holy and Saints, we have free will to choose to be Holy and Saints in the right way or in the hard way.
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Our salvation is God’s free gift and protected, we cannot lose it, but our glory and position in heaven is a different matter, it is up to us.
Depends on the way we cooperate with the grace of God from our Baptism until we die.
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If we choose to do lot of sins (please keep in mind we can do only sins which God permits and provides us the operating power to do it and preordained) then we have chosen the “hard road” to heaven and we suffer the consequences for our sins, on the way to heaven now and in heaven, which may be less glory and lower position in heaven, etc.
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If we choose a holy life, this choice pays great dividends for us now and later in heaven.
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CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA Divine Providence.
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Yet all things, whether due to necessary causes or to the free choice of man, are foreseen by God and preordained in accordance with His all-embracing purpose.
Thus things happen contingently as well as of necessity (I, Q. xxii, a. 4), for God has given to different things different ways of acting, and His concurrence is given accordingly (I, Q. xxii, a. 4).
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(Concurrence = Agreement or union in action: COOPERATION) – In the brackets added.
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In spite of sin, which is due to the willful perversion of human liberty, acting with the concurrence, but contrary to the purpose and intention of God and in spite of evil which is the consequence of sin, He directs all, even evil and sin itself, to the final end for which the universe was created.
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Sin is not ordained by the will of God, though it happens with His permission.
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Evil He converts into good (Genesis 1:20; cf. Psalm 90:10); and suffering He uses as an instrument whereby to train men up as a father traineth up his children (Deuteronomy 8:1-6; Psalm 65:2-10;
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Nor would God permit evil at all, unless He could draw good out of evil (St. Augustine, “Enchir.”, xi in “P.L.”, LX, 236; “Serm.”
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Evil, therefore, ministers to God’s design (St. Gregory the Great, op. cit., VI, xxxii in “P.L.”,
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12510a.htm
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God bless you IWantGod and God bless every readers of the CAF.
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Latin
Guest
God bless you Monicad and God bless every readers of the CAF.Ioana:
God is perfect, so the only thing He can’t do is contradict Himself. He is perfect truth, perfect reason, perfect love, perfection.
So: God cannot make a “round square”, God cannot tell a “truthful lie” they are contradictions and He is perfect reason and truth. Blessings
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I perfectly agree with your post Monicad, God cannot contradict Himself, this is one of the reasons (there are many other reasons as well) God CANNOT let anyone go to hell for the sin someone is commit.
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In my opinion:
If God would throw even one person to hell for the sin which someone is commit, that would be the mother of contradiction, because all sins are permitted by God for the reason to convert into a greater good, furthermore, God cooperates with the sinner by providing the power of operation to commit the sin.
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Anyone agree with my above statement?
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OF COURSE WE SHOULD NEVER COMMIT EVEN ONE ACT OF SIN
If we choose to do lot of sins (please keep in mind we can do only sins which God permits and provides us the operating power to do it and preordained) then we have chosen the “hard road” to heaven and we suffer the consequences for our sins, on the way to heaven now and in heaven, which may be less glory and lower position in heaven, etc.
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According to the CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA Divine Providence:
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He directs all, even evil and sin itself, to the final end for which the universe was created.
Evil He converts into good (Genesis 1:20; cf. Psalm 90:10); and suffering He uses as an instrument whereby to train men up as a father traineth up his children (Deuteronomy 8:1-6; Psalm 65:2-10;
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Nor would God permit evil at all, unless He could draw good out of evil (St. Augustine, “Enchir.”, xi in “P.L.”, LX, 236; “Serm.”
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Evil, therefore, ministers to God’s design (St. Gregory the Great, op. cit., VI, xxxii in “P.L.”,
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12510a.htm
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As I said above: We should never commit even one act of sin.
If we choose a holy life, this choice pays great dividends for us now and later in heaven.
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God bless you Monicad and God bless every readers of the CAF.
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HarryStotle
Guest
Actually, you aren’t “conceiving” a better world, you are merely imagining that it might be possible. The problem is that to have any kind of assurance that the possibility has any real warrant you would need to work out the details.
When a child is literally “conceived” as a zygote the information in the form of DNA is present and complete such that a child will develop from that DNA embodied in the cell, all things being equal.
So to conceive of a “better world” you would need to provide the ‘working plan’ in conceptual or schematized form such that every detail of how your ‘better world’ would work with all your bases are covered, 'i’s dotted and 't’s crossed. Absent that, you haven’t “conceived” nor evidently conceptualized anything.
I would strongly suggest that in order to have any self-awareness – I.e., an enduring sense of a self who is the loci of consciousness – free will is a necessary, maybe even sufficient, condition. Within any causally sequenced reality the only way an enduring awareness of one’s “self” in that reality could be sustained would be if that self could originate novel causal sequences.
That potential – the capacity, otherwise known as ‘free will,’ – to initiate novel causal events would be necessary, I would submit, in order to signal or indicate awareness to oneself of one’s unique existence in the world of reality. Absent free will originating real events in the world, there would be nothing to distinguish your ‘self’ apart from the infinite set of causal chains ongoing in the world. There would be no awareness of being aware and any sense of ‘self’ would simply evaporate like the mist on a Spring day.
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FollowChrist34
Guest
I’ll answer the thread title since I didn’t read the whole OP. 
I do think there is a good question here, i.e., why is life as it is and not some other way. Why is salvation achieved only by some, by death, suffering, for starters, but the questions could go on and on and on. If the human mind can imagine a better world, what does that say for the one we are in beyond our control. It is a little ‘Twilight Zone.’ Not sure we have an answer for this. But one consolation is that the world as it is structured and limited and comprised of what it is comprised of clearly IS objective reality. When I was a kid I remember being perplexed that each morning I woke the same person, same bedroom, same house, school, same street. There are definitely limits to one’s existence in terms of the possible. You can’t change reality, live in dreams. Acknowledging these limits for me is acknowledging an objective reality. This can be the tree in the back yard, what you ate for dinner, the book you are reading, the people you know, the blue sky, the wind, the rain. Everything is exactly as it is for a reason. Outside of you. I don’t particularly care if I know the reason or not. But the order gives me great comfort against a ‘void’ argument. Furthermore, by experience, faith and reason, I impute to objective reality meaning, intent, value, and purpose: ‘good’. Providence. In short, I conclude things (as they are) matter, personally to me and universally to all, to everything. I think this makes life quite precious really. Possibly even better than what I could imagine or improve. I don’t think being Christian means dismissing this life for the next so much as living this one with an eye to the next, embracing it and answering for how you did it. It matters, a lot. Every second.
I do think there is a good question here, i.e., why is life as it is and not some other way. Why is salvation achieved only by some, by death, suffering, for starters, but the questions could go on and on and on. If the human mind can imagine a better world, what does that say for the one we are in beyond our control. It is a little ‘Twilight Zone.’ Not sure we have an answer for this. But one consolation is that the world as it is structured and limited and comprised of what it is comprised of clearly IS objective reality. When I was a kid I remember being perplexed that each morning I woke the same person, same bedroom, same house, school, same street. There are definitely limits to one’s existence in terms of the possible. You can’t change reality, live in dreams. Acknowledging these limits for me is acknowledging an objective reality. This can be the tree in the back yard, what you ate for dinner, the book you are reading, the people you know, the blue sky, the wind, the rain. Everything is exactly as it is for a reason. Outside of you. I don’t particularly care if I know the reason or not. But the order gives me great comfort against a ‘void’ argument. Furthermore, by experience, faith and reason, I impute to objective reality meaning, intent, value, and purpose: ‘good’. Providence. In short, I conclude things (as they are) matter, personally to me and universally to all, to everything. I think this makes life quite precious really. Possibly even better than what I could imagine or improve. I don’t think being Christian means dismissing this life for the next so much as living this one with an eye to the next, embracing it and answering for how you did it. It matters, a lot. Every second.
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Trickypixie
Guest
God is never absurd. There is logic and rationality to every part of this creation. Could he have made an absurd creation? Yes but it would be a complete waste of time and therefore illogical. God is logical and rational. We do not create the laws of nature. We discover them and in doing so discover a piece of gods genius. He chose this way because it is the perfect way and God doesn’t choose to do imperfect things. Free Will dictates that we could have created a better world and still can create a better world but we choose not to. the existence of love by its very essence requires the freedom to not love. Just as people are made of carbon, love is made of freedom. I made the same choice that God made when I chose to have children. I knew it could go wrong but I thought it was worth the risk.
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