Does God know the one?

[PaulinVA]

Well, God has foreknowledge, He knows what will happen before it happens. So He also knows whether we will have followed His will or not. While we’re not bound, God knows what we will have chosen. So He can reconcile the plans with the knowledge that e.g. someone will not actually live past 8, which God knew before that person was conceived (or in fact really before world existed).

But like you I have some reservations about the “micromanagement” at case here. However, I question myself whether this presumption against micromanagement doesn’t in fact come down to my refusing to grasp that God just simply does care enough to deal with every single human person singularly and not in blocks. As an analogy, a mortal king or president can’t form a relationship with every single subject or citizen, while for God that’s not a problem and He has a more intimate relationship with any of us than our own parents and indeed knows each of us better than we know ourselves, cares more about us than we do about ourselves. I really fear that the “God doesn’t arrange things like that” argument can contain traces of “God doesn’t care enough”, the latter being an obvious untruth (trace of mortal limitationst that we could be projecting on God). Notwithstanding our freedom that means we can actually act against those plans (and then only in so far as God will allow it to happen).

Thank you for your well-reasoned response.

I do not subscribe to the idea that God is moving us around on a chessboard and is planning ten moves in advance. I really believe in free will. The sticking point is free will to do - what? To do God’s specific will for me personally or to do God’s will for me in general as a human?

I know God cares enough to love me and all, but does he have a plan for EACH of us, and not just the “major players”? For some of us, that would be a plan that is constantly evolving, as we continue to make the wrong decision due to stubbornness or being bad at discernment.

 

[LaMusicaSenior]

On the other hand, I wonder if this is an overly romanticised expectation. Your future husband is a sinner, and there will be aspects of his personality, life experiences, and past that are not ideal. His past may not fit your expectations of being prepared by God.

Also, at some point (I don’t mean to imply now) you will be some guy’s girlfriend. One doesn’t go from single to married in one step. You should not expect that the first guy you call boyfriend will be the one you marry. At some stage you will have to begin courting/dating and discerning whether each guy is the right one. The first may be…but probably wont be.

I know my future spouse won’t be a perfect. (Well, unless I become a religious sister…)

But if my vocation is marriage, then I hope to be complete in God before I began a relationship. That way I won’t have to search for completeness in a human. Because a guy who will be there to always pick me up when I’m down, console me when I’m afraid and rejoice with me always doesn’t exsist, becuase we are human and we make mistakes.

So I have to find that relationship in God so I won’t be looking for complete dependency on some poor guy who will be a dissapointinment to me no matter what he does!

And, your right, I will be a girlfriend at some point in my life if I am called to marriage. But I don’t want to be someone’s girlfriend before I am able to make the commitment of being eligible for a discernment of marriage.

 

[chevalier]

Ok, I do concede that She is very, very special, and so is St. Joseph

True but Our Lady is more, as in a difference in category perhaps, as she’s ahead of any saint.

What about Tobia and Sarah, then?

They were special. We are not anonymous faces in the crowd either, but it’s debatable whether we should consider ourselves to be as special as those two were.

Thank you for your well-reasoned response.

I do not subscribe to the idea that God is moving us around on a chessboard and is planning ten moves in advance. I really believe in free will. The sticking point is free will to do - what? To do God’s specific will for me personally or to do God’s will for me in general as a human?

I believe in free will too but giving us free will doesn’t necessarily mean leaving the judgement of what’s right or wrong to us. But I too have a certain problem with reading so far into God’s supposed specific will for an individual person. Then again, God does care enough to care for every single detail in our lives, for all the respect He has for our freedom. He does care if we have something to eat, a job, whatever our relationship is with our relatives, coworkers, all those things. And every hair on our heads is counted. So it’s kinda hard to imagine a void when it comes to the progression of jobs, places to live, choice of spouse etc. Basically, I don’t know to what extent God practices limited government, so to say. And I mean it in terms of His will, not coercion to comply with it.

I know God cares enough to love me and all, but does he have a plan for EACH of us, and not just the “major players”?

That’s precisely the problem. I don’t think any of us is predestined to stay in the low leagues and be unimportant, given how we just can’t be unimportant to Our Father. I’m afraid we may be casting a projection of our own mental processing limitations on God. While we can’t even trace friends on Facebook reliably, God can and does remember every single little thing that concerns every single one of us.

For some of us, that would be a plan that is constantly evolving, as we continue to make the wrong decision due to stubbornness or being bad at discernment.

I tend to be afraid of the element of subjectivity and risk of error in “discernment”. Not in the least because of the old-fashionedness of the word itself and you know how the magic of old Latin words works. I’m always mortified about the whole thing reading God’s will as it it could be done like that. But maybe my weakness of faith is showing here.

So I have to find that relationship in God so I won’t be looking for complete dependency on some poor guy who will be a dissapointinment to me no matter what he does!

Power of positive thinking.

 

[PaulinVA]

And every hair on our heads is counted. So it’s kinda hard to imagine a void when it comes to the progression of jobs, places to live, choice of spouse etc. Basically, I don’t know to what extent God practices limited government, so to say. And I mean it in terms of His will, not coercion to comply with it.

Well, in terms of jobs and such, I think in many cases one job is as good as another. I think He can work with many decisions just as easily as others. I don’t know. I think we come to points in our life, knowingly or not, that can chart the course of the rest of our lives. We ask God for discernment and hopefully He tells us if one choice is better than another. Is that because one choice is part of his plan, or is just the better choice?

 

[underacloud]

I know my future spouse won’t be a perfect. (Well, unless I become a religious sister…)

But if my vocation is marriage, then I hope to be complete in God before I began a relationship. That way I won’t have to search for completeness in a human. Because a guy who will be there to always pick me up when I’m down, console me when I’m afraid and rejoice with me always doesn’t exsist, becuase we are human and we make mistakes.

So I have to find that relationship in God so I won’t be looking for complete dependency on some poor guy who will be a dissapointinment to me no matter what he does!

Perhaps you are destined for a religious life?

I don’t think any of us attain completeness in this life, although some religious mystics arguably go as close as one can (St John of the Cross, St Theresa, etc). But the sentiment that you express here seems more inclined towards a religious vocation than marriage.

And, your right, I will be a girlfriend at some point in my life if I am called to marriage. But I don’t want to be someone’s girlfriend before I am able to make the commitment of being eligible for a discernment of marriage.

A very sensible approach!

 

[LaMusicaSenior]

Perhaps you are destined for a religious life?

I don’t think any of us attain completeness in this life, although some religious mystics arguably go as close as one can (St John of the Cross, St Theresa, etc). But the sentiment that you express here seems more inclined towards a religious vocation than marriage.

I don’t know yet - recently I have been feeling more called to marriage. But Christ should still be the top priority, married or celibate.

 

[chevalier]

Well, in terms of jobs and such, I think in many cases one job is as good as another. I think He can work with many decisions just as easily as others. I don’t know. I think we come to points in our life, knowingly or not, that can chart the course of the rest of our lives. We ask God for discernment and hopefully He tells us if one choice is better than another. Is that because one choice is part of his plan, or is just the better choice?

He can work with everything we do and doesn’t give up on us ever, but from this it follows that He cares infinitely rather than that He cares nothing about what we choose, doesn’t it?

Obviously, as long as there is such a thing as a better choice or the best one, then God knows it. Question is how that relates to His will. He can’t not will what’s the best for us, although as I said, the best opportunity, best bargain etc. marriage isn’t always the one that’ll lead us to the greatest sanctity. In terms of that, I suppose a “bad” marriage may sometimes be the best route, unlike what it would seem. (Which is not to say that a human should look for purgatory when looking for a spouse.)

 

[R_C]

They were special. We are not anonymous faces in the crowd either, but it’s debatable whether we should consider ourselves to be as special as those two were.

I disagree and now I will be very bold:

I think that God sees and treats each of us individually as if we were His only son.

And just as God predestined Christ the Bridegroom to have a wonderful Bride, the Church, so He predestines each of us in a similar way, though our vocations are very mysterious indeed.

(And this thread is a perfect example of why St. Ignatius of Loyola suggested to avoid discussing predestination too much )

 

[chevalier]

I disagree and now I will be very bold:

I think that God sees and treats each of us individually as if we were His only son.

And just as God predestined Christ the Bridegroom to have a wonderful Bride, the Church, so He predestines each of us in a similar way, though our vocations are very mysterious indeed.

(And this thread is a perfect example of why St. Ignatius of Loyola suggested to avoid discussing predestination too much )

Speaking of St. Ignatius, he did require that before we disagree, we should try to save the statement, so I guess I should need to ask you how you understand the “His only son” part that you underlined.

However, in advance of your reply, I’ll still say that God’s only son is Jesus Christ and our own condition of being God’s children is sometimes referred to as an adoptive condition (in certain Holy Mass rubrics). Plus, we can say “Our Father”, while we can’t really say, “My Father”. That is for Jesus Christ to say. We need this community to refer to ourselves collectively as God’s children (our beloved Panzerpope wrote about this in Jesus of Nasareth). I wouldn’t presume you to be working around this fact, so how do you reconcile that kind of strong statement with the above?

 

[NSFrame]

I don’t know if any of us can know the answer to that question. On one hand, God can bring about anything He wishes. On the other hand, He gives us free will. I would tend to lean towards the view that God does not “select” our spouses for us but rather that marriage is something we engage in via our own free will. However, I don’t know this for a fact. I don’t think anyone does. I don’t think we as humans are able to discern what is an act of God versus a human act.

 

[chevalier]

I don’t know if any of us can know the answer to that question. On one hand, God can bring about anything He wishes. On the other hand, He gives us free will. I would tend to lean towards the view that God does not “select” our spouses for us but rather that marriage is something we engage in via our own free will. However, I don’t know this for a fact. I don’t think anyone does. I don’t think we as humans are able to discern what is an act of God versus a human act.

Could be both, I guess. At any rate, by definition you can’t contract a marriage without it being a human act. You need to be consenting with the requisite freedom and understanding (which is not as high a threshold as many people think but it’s there). It must be your act, otherwise it’s invalid.

 

[R_C]

Speaking of St. Ignatius, he did require that before we disagree, we should try to save the statement, so I guess I should need to ask you how you understand the “His only son” part that you underlined.

However, in advance of your reply, I’ll still say that God’s only son is Jesus Christ and our own condition of being God’s children is sometimes referred to as an adoptive condition (in certain Holy Mass rubrics). Plus, we can say “Our Father”, while we can’t really say, “My Father”. That is for Jesus Christ to say. We need this community to refer to ourselves collectively as God’s children (our beloved Panzerpope wrote about this in Jesus of Nasareth). I wouldn’t presume you to be working around this fact, so how do you reconcile that kind of strong statement with the above?

Thank you for asking. I actually do not fully agree with your objection, and I hope I’ll be able to reconcile it with my words (but please keep into consideration the entire underlined sentence, including the as if we were).

I believe that each of us, individually, can always call God my father. Because we are, indeed, God’s children by adoption, given that Christ truly is God’s only son (filium eius unicum), however, we are not adopted like humans adopt one another…we are adopted in the only son, for we are incorporated into the Church, which is the very body of Jesus Christ (Rm 12:4, 1 Cor 12:12-26, Eph 1:22-23, Col 1:17-20)

Therefore there we can find the ground for God the Father looking at each of us through Christ, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, as if each of us were His only son.

This is something that we find in an even stronger argument brought forth by basically all of the Church Fathers (as far as I have seen), which can be summarized in the words of St. Augustine of Hippo:

God loves each of us as if there were only one of us …] he himself that justifies also deifies, for by justifying he makes sons of God. …] If then we have been made sons of god, we have also been made gods.

This is not a strange or unheard-of statement: it is sacred tradition which we even find in the Catechism (CCC 460):

The Word became flesh to make us “partakers of the divine nature”: “For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God.” “For the Son of God became man so that we might become God.”

So you are right: only Jesus Christ can say Abba’, my father, and that is why each of us can individually say it: because

I am alive; yet it is no longer I, but Christ living in me.

Not just that, though: we can go even further and have the blessed hope (in the words of St. John of the Cross):

and when they were thus one,
he would lift her to the Father
where God’s very joy
would be her joy.

For as the Father and the Son
and he who proceeds from them
live in one another,
so it would be with the bride;
for, taken wholly into God,
she will live the life of God.

 

[chevalier]

Thank you for the well-thought reply, R_C. It’s true I might have undervalued the part about “as if we were”. I would not argue against a metaphor but I guess I was reading more into it.

As for adoption, you bring up an interesting point about it not being the same as with human adoption. At the same time, we’re not begotten, we’re created. Unlike Christ, who is “begotten not created”. I would see the difference as substantial.

As for being able, in Christ, to call God Our Father, I think if that happens, we’re not actually using the “My Father” reference in our own name but only in reference to Christ (as through Him).

But I guess your point was about God loving us infinitely, where our vast numbers do not in any way divide the love and result in a smaller portion for each of us? No argument if so. After all, God’s love with regard to every single one of us is infinite.

 

[R_C]

But I guess your point was about God loving us infinitely, where our vast numbers do not in any way divide the love and result in a smaller portion for each of us?

Yes! :yup: God’s whole, infinite love is the same for each of us, and you phrased it in a wonderfully Augustinian way!

…] my conjecture …] was untrue. For in this way a greater part of the earth would contain a greater part of thee; a smaller part, a smaller fraction of thee. …] And this would make the portions of thyself present in the several portions of the world in fragments, great to the great, small to the small. But thou art not such a one. …] is it not rather that thou art wholly present everywhere, yet in such a way that nothing contains thee wholly? …] For thou, O Most High, and most near, most secret, yet most present, who dost not have limbs, some of which are larger and some smaller, but who art wholly everywhere.

And I do agree in the most significant difference, that we, unlike the Son, are creature. This is our call for humbleness: it is in Christ alone that we are elevated to children of God and to “partakers of the divine nature”…if left alone and separate from Christ, only these words should resound in man’s ears: “dust you are, and to dust you shall return!”

This is, I think, the one and only reason for which the greater we become in Christ, the more humble we become in ourselves…because we have no reason for pride or vanity whatsoever, given that all holiness and good deeds are done “through Him, with Him, and in Him in the unity of the Holy Spirit” (which is what you were thinking and I agree ).

In context, please let me share with you a quote that I just read this morning from the “Treatise on the True Devotion” by St. Louis Marie Grignon de Montfort, which lead me to a greater understanding of the abyss that separates God from His creatures and about the greatness of Christ, the Son whose infinite greatness bridges that gap (though I do remove some words to make a more general statement here):

I avow, with all the Church, that …] a mere creature that has come from the hands of the Most High, is, in comparison with His Infinite Majesty, less than an atom; or rather she is nothing at all, because He only is “He who is,” and thus by consequence that grand Lord, always independent and sufficient to Himself, never had, and has not now, any absolute need of [a creature] for the accomplishment of His will and for the manifestation of His glory.

 

[Breezy16]

I just came out that I’m gay. I ain’t gonna get married to no woman.

 

[EasterJoy]

I just came out that I’m gay. I ain’t gonna get married to no woman.

Not to be unkind, but if you’re a Catholic man, a woman is the only future spouse you’re going to have for an option, according what marriage is. (As with anything under the aegis of Catholic Answers, we run on the presumption that “what is true” and “what the Church teaches is true” are the same thing, so let’s not debate that.)

I mean to say that the challenge of how a faithful Catholic ought to handle a deep-seated homosexual orientation is very real, the question of where the work of Providence fits into that is very real, but the question is also very off-topic for this particular thread. This thread is about providential care of future spouses prior to their meeting.