Does God will each person?

[sealabeag]

So I think the answer to this question probably lies in the difficult-for-the-human-mind-to-grasp realities of God’s permissive vs active will (I think those are the terms) and the answer may thus be beyond our grasp, but here it is anyway:

We often hear as Catholics and Christians that God wills/willed each one of us, individually. That he desired our existence, and thus we exist. That we are special, because of this fact. However I have always wondered at this a little. Here is an example to illustrate my issue: A man becomes a priest. He then has a crisis of faith, leaves the priesthood and marries, bearing children. (There are many other examples I could use: the children of rape, etc. but I’m using this as it is one that affects me most). So, God did not want him to leave the priesthood, or lose his faith (lets not get into an argument about that for the sake of my question), therefore how could God will that he bear children, and therefore how could the children he bore be willed, desired, by God? It seems to me that had he complied with Gods will, those children would never have existed. So how can I then say to his children, “God willed you, he desired your existence and had you in mind from the beginning”?
It seems to me that any child could just as easily have not existed have existed, given a tiny change in circumstances.

Again, there are many other examples that this touches on, IVF being one. How can I tell a child created by IVF that God willed them, when the very practice of IVF is evil?

Thoughts? Thanks.

 

[MNathaniel]

Keep in mind that God is outside of time and sees all times at ones. While His preferential will would have been for a priest to keep his vow of celibacy (or for a man to not rape a woman, or for a couple not to use IVF), He can see (from outside of time, and ‘from the beginning’ of the world) that the priest will break his vow and the man will rape a woman, and a specific couple will use IVF. He sees their sin and, though He didn’t will the evil they chose, allows their evil (to avoid voiding their free will), and wills to bring something good from even evil circumstances: in certain cases, this includes the great goodness of a new child for Him to love and to spend eternity with Him.

God is bountiful with His blessings, and He wills each blessing He gives – including those blessings which as part of their circumstance, occur only through His mercy following a sin He didn’t will.

God writes straight with crooked lines.

 

[Allegra]

I don’t think this is a difficult concept at all. God doesn’t will people to sin, but He often makes good things come from sin that’s already been committed. For example, I don’t will my son to break my china dish, but I can use the broken pieces to make a new flower pot.

 

[sealabeag]

Yes I totally understand God turning evil into good, however that’s not quite my question. How do I say to the child conceived by IVF, not that “God turned something evil into good, and here you are!”, but that “God willed you, individually and specifically”? Not that I have to say that, its just common language in Christianity.

 

[JGD]

…How do I say to the child conceived by IVF, not that “God turned something evil into good, and here you are!”, but that “God willed you, individually and specifically”? …

God willed to set up the natural laws for our physical world - even tho He knew humans would find an immoral way to make use of them. He did not will to abort the physical laws He established and introduce totally different processes, every time humans found a way to misuse them.

In regards to a child conceived by IVF, the conception process which results from the union of 2 physical parts - one from father and one from the mother is awesome and beautiful. And the child conceived is even a greater good! God is not going to change that beautiful process.

What isn’t beautiful is the misuse of it by some humans, but neither is God going to strike them dead so they can’t carry it out! Whenever God allows conception - regardless of how it comes about - it’s because of the child who will be conceived; it’s because He wants that person to exist; because He knows for the particular soul He will infuse into that fertilized ovum, that circumstance will result in the best possible eternal result for that person.

If the child knows he was conceived by IVF and it is causing him emotional problems, try to help him/her understand that trials in this life are the means God allows because they are the particular means through which that person can gain greater eternal merit.

I know that is very general, but without knowing the person or the particular circumstances it’s difficult to give more specific suggestions on how to convey the purpose and use of trials in life.

 

[Vico]

…

Catechism of the Catholic Church

God created man a rational being, conferring on him the dignity of a person who can initiate and control his own actions. "God willed that man should be ‘left in the hand of his own counsel,’ so that he might of his own accord seek his Creator and freely attain his full and blessed perfection by cleaving to him."26

Man is rational and therefore like God; he is created with free will and is master over his acts.27

26 Gaudium et spes 17; Sir 15:14.
27 St. Irenaeus, Adv. haeres. 4,4,3G 7/1,983.

1743 “God willed that man should be left in the hand of his own counsel (cf. Sir 15:14), so that he might of his own accord seek his creator and freely attain his full and blessed perfection by cleaving to him” ( Gaudium et spes 17 § 1).

 

[Dan_Defender]

A man becomes a priest. He then has a crisis of faith, leaves the priesthood and marries, bearing children.

Didn’t Luther do exactly that? It says something about his human will not God’s will.

 

[annad347]

“God willed you, individually and specifically”?

Why do you make is sound like its a bad thing to tell a child that God wanted you to be born so much, He willed you to be here?

Yes, God can turn an evil thing into something good and loving (like the rape… ), but God can, kind of manipulate or force His will on us in certain situations, usually for something better to happen in our lives or the benefit of others.

 

[sealabeag]

Thanks for all the replies however I don’t feel my question has been answered specifically. Maybe it doesn’t have a good answer, which is okay, but I’m open to more thoughts.

 

[Dovekin]

God creates a rational soul for each and every person. While the biological processes can be said to create a person, God is intimately involved in the creation of every human being.

God gives each a soul, the essence of what makes them an individual. If it happens during IVF, God is still involved. Otherwise the individual would not have anything that makes them alive. The creation of any living human is something God actively chooses to do. It is not a matter of this was done improperly, or sin led to this, but always it is a creative act of a loving and generous God that creates a human.

 

[JGD]

How do I say to a child conceived by IVF that …“God willed you, individually and specifically”

You explain to a child the two things which must occur before a human being comes into existence:

1. first a physical sperm must unite with a physical ovum - the necessary physical action for there to be a human body,
2. then God must infuse a spiritual soul into that body in order for it to become alive. (To have physical life - for cells to begin multiplying and the body growing in the womb, etc.)

Without a deliberate act of soul infusion by God, no living embryo/person would come into being. If God did not desire a particular person to exist in that particular joining of sperm and ovum, He just wouldn’t infuse a soul into the tissue. A soul is required to make the two physical parts into a single living being. (Gen. 2:7) It is God alone who is capable of creating the soul, and it is He who decides/wills whether or not to create it and decides which tissue to place it in.

Also, see CCC 362-368 - “Body and Soul But Truly One”

 

[Usagi]

Looks to me like your answer is in a combination of two things that have been said (though one was emphasized further after your last post). If you still don’t believe your question has been answered, please clarify what remains unanswered (or what fails to satisfy about the answers provided).

1. Every human soul is individually created by God. So even if God only permissively willed the circumstances of an individual’s conception, He very much directly willed the existence of that individual as a future citizen of Heaven.
2. As for the question of IVF, rape, and so forth, remember that God is omniscient and doesn’t live sequentially through time acting in response to events as we do. So He wasn’t “compelled” to make me or you because of what our parents did, and might not have willed us before that. He willed every soul that would ever exist in His initial creative act, each to come into being at its proper time. So even if the circumstances of your conception were evil, God still intended you from the beginning and brought the good of you out of that evil.