Double Predestination and Col. Kurtz

[Indifferently]

Do you actually believe God is in sovereign control of the whole universe?

 

[Isaiah45_9]

Have you read about the Catholic doctrine of Reprobation?

*§ 13. The Mystery of Reprobation

1. Concept and Reality of Reprobation

By Reprobation is understood the eternal Resolve of God’s Will to exclude certain rational creatures from eternal bliss. While God, by His grace, positively co-operates in the supernatural merits, which lead to beatification, He merely permits sin, which leads to eternal damnation.

Regarding the content of the resolve of Reprobation, a distinction is made between positive and negative Reprobation, according as the Divine resolve of Reprobation has for its object condemnation to the eternal punishment of hell, or exclusion from the Beatific Vision. Having regard to the reason for Reprobation, a distinction is made between conditioned and unconditioned (absolute) Reprobation, in so far as the Divine resolve of Reprobation is dependent on, or independent of the prevision of future demerits.

God, by an Eternal Resolve of His Will, predestines certain men, on account of their foreseen sins, to eternal rejection. (De fide.)

The reality of Reprobation is not formally defined, but it is the general teaching of the Church. The Synod of Valence (855) teaches: fatemur praedestinationem impiorum ad mortem (D 322). It is declared in Mt. 25:41: “Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels,” and by Rom. 9:22: “Vessels of wrath, fitted for destruction.”

1. Positive Reprobation

a) Heretical Predestinationism in its various forms (the Southern Gallic priest Lucidus in the 5th century; the monk Gottschalk in the 9th century, according to reports of his opponents, which, however, find no confirmation in his recently re-discovered writings; Wycliffe, Huss, and especially Calvin), teaches a positive predetermination to sin, and an unconditional Predestination to the eternal punishment of hell, that is, without consideration of future demerits. This was rejected as false doctrine by the Particular Synods of Orange (D 200), Quiercy and Valence (D 316. 322) and by the Council of Trent (D 827). Unconditioned positive Reprobation leads to a denial of the universality of the Divine Desire for salvation, and of the Redemption, and contradicts the Justice and Holiness of God as well as the freedom of man.

b) According to the teaching of the Church, there is a conditioned positive reprobation, that is, it occurs with consideration of foreseen future demerits (post et propter praevisa demerita).

The conditional nature of Positive Reprobation is demanded by the generality of the Divine Resolve of salvation. This excludes God’s desiring in advance the damnation of certain men (cf. 1 Tim. 2:4; Ez. 33:11; 2 Peter 3:9).

St. Augustine teaches: “God is good, God is just. He can save a person without good works, because He is good; but He cannot condemn anyone without evil works, because He is just” (Contra Jul. III 18, 35).

1. Negative Reprobation

In the question of Reprobation, the Thomist view favours not an absolute, but only a negative Reprobation. This is conceived by most Thomists as non-election to eternal bliss (non-electio), together with the Divine resolve to permit some rational creatures to fall into sin, and thus by their own guilt to lose eternal salvation. In contrast to the absolute Positive Reprobation of the Predestinarians, Thomists insist on the universality of the Divine Resolve of Salvation and Redemption, the allocation of sufficient graces to the reprobate, and the freedom of man’s will. However, it is difficult to find an intrinsic concordance between unconditioned non-election and the universality of the Divine Resolve of salvation. In practice, the unconditioned negative Reprobation of the Thomists involves the same result as the unconditioned positive Reprobation of the heretical Predestinarians, since outside Heaven and Hell there is no third final state.

1. Properties of Reprobation

Like the Resolve of Predestination the Divine Resolve of Reprobation is immutable, but, without special revelation, its incidence is unknown to men.*

Source: Ott, L. (1957). Fundamentals of Catholic dogma (pp. 244–245).

More food for thought if you haven’t.

 

[Tom_Baum]

Do you actually believe God is in sovereign control of the whole universe?

Why not?

I’m talking about a Being Who made the entire universe out of absolutely nothing.

This “nothing” that I am speaking of is no atoms, no electrons, no protons, no neutrons, no sub-atomic particles, the “nothing” that is beyond our ability to conceive of.

This “nothing” also has no laws of science, no time.

If one is going to believe in God why should one believe in a “little, dinky god”?

 

[Isaiah45_9]

Do you actually believe God is in sovereign control of the whole universe?

“Nothing, therefore, happens but by the will of the Omnipotent, He either permitting it to be done, or Himself doing it.”

Augustine “The Enchiridion” Chapter 95

Summa Theologica, First Part, Question 19: The will of God

Do you mean sovereign control as in cause?

 

[Darryl_B]

If God were truly Omniscient then God would know just when God would use God’s Omnipotence in history before it became time for God to use it.

If God did not know just when God would “intervene in history” before God actually does the intervention than God would not be Omniscient.

You are saying that God has no more grasp of what will be than we do, only that God know all that could be which we do not know but not all that will be.

No I am saying God exists outside time. He is not bound to time. He does not become a slave to time. He can look at all time at once. He can see any point in time as its happened but without it having happened for us. He can then change history and change time.

I am not binding God to any "speicific timeline, I am just stating what Omniscience means and as far as I know just what the Catholic Church’s definition of Omniscience is too.

Omniscience is self-defining. I am saying that God is Omnipotent hand in hand with omniscience, they cannot be divided. Seeing outside and Acting inside time.

Are you saying that legal abortion caught God unaware that it would happen?

No, it was a question that could not have a derivative question. God permitted man for whatever reasons known only to Him to enact illegal abortion. But that is not the history that God would prefer compared to His perfect vision of history for all souls. But God being omniscient is able to see the history of those souls as it happened without that human intervention and evaluate those souls according to his Divine Omnipotence.

History, to me, is the story of man and creation.

God entered history and creation, as a Creature by becoming a Man.

If God does not know what will be history before it is history than by the definition of Omniscience, God is NOT Omniscient.

I believe that is an incorrect assumption. God is outside time. He is not living history as we are. Again you are binding God to history to fulfill a specific timeline. God is not within time. He changes history seeing the end as happened, not from the beginning as will happen.

 

[Tom_Baum]

I believe that is an incorrect assumption. God is outside time. He is not living history as we are. Again you are binding God to history to fulfill a specific timeline. God is not within time. He changes history seeing the end as happened, not from the beginning as will happen.

I totally disagree with you saying it is “an incorrect assumption” by agreeing with part of what you wrote later in the post which is, “He changes history seeing the end as happened, not from the beginning as will happen”.

If God sees the end than God knows just what will happen, not might happen, during all of time whether it be a direct intervention by God or not.

God does not “change” history since ultimately there will only be one history, God participates in history be “interventions” and by God’s Incarnation".

As far as, “God is outside time. He is not living history as we are.”.

If one believes in the “Incarnation”, than they believe that God very much did live in a part of history in the Person of Jesus, so for a short while, some say approximately 33 years, God did live “history as we are”, longer than some and shorter than others.

Concerning “Again you are binding God to history”, I am not “binding God to history”, it was God’s decision to become part of history.

I believe that God made the decision to become part of history before creation itself.

 

[Ubenedictus]

If predestination is just one way of saying God is omniscient, then what is the purpose of Romans 9? If that was the definition of “predestination” Paul was working with in Romans 8, then why would he anticipate what he did in Romans 9 - what he rhetorically confronts in Rom. 9 is clearly what Calvinists today face, namely the charge that God is arbitrary in election.

Ephesians 1 also makes it clear that God’s predestination is not merely his omniscience. The Arminian view that God predestines only because he foreknows who will obey and who will not is simply not the doctrine Paul is articulating.

i believe the “arminian” view to a large extent is exactly what paul trys to teach. I can only remember seeing the word “predestines” twice in pauls letter and both time it follows the phase “those whom he foreknew”.

Predestination is a much about divine prescience (omniscience) as it is divine will.

He predestines because he foreknew.

Peace

 

[Per_Crucem]

Concerning “Again you are binding God to history”, I am not “binding God to history”, it was God’s decision to become part of history.

I believe that God made the decision to become part of history before creation itself.

History is not an entity separate from God Himself. In order for history to exist, God must create it.

 

[Tom_Baum]

History is not an entity separate from God Himself. In order for history to exist, God must create it.

Just as creation is “an entity separate from God” it follows that history is “an entity separate from God”, your words, since I do not look at history as being “an entity”.

However, God did become “part of creation” in the Incarnation and God did become “part of history” also in the Incarnation.

God created creation, history is what flows from the unfolding of creation.

God’s Omniscience is God “knowing” just what will unfold, it is NOT God knowing all of the possibilities but not which one will ultimately become history, it is God KNOWING which one will become history.

God letting history unfold but yet still knowing how it will unfold is what God’s Omniscience and free will is.

God creating history would be God being a puppet master and there being no free will.

I would say that for those that do not believe in the Incarnation that if they know what it means would agree that that meaning is that God became part of creation at a very specific time and place in history.

 

[Indifferently]

If you don’t believe in double predestination then you have to believe that Christ died in vain, because he died for people who will end up in hell, and died with the possibility that everyone could end up in hell. Christ thus saved nobody.

If you believe in double predestination, you believe that the loving Christ went to the cross to save every single one of the people whom the Lord God deigned of his great mercy to call to himself, and his death paid the whole price for their sins, and his work of salvation will be and is being applied to them by the Holy Spirit, not one being lost.

It seems to me that opponents of double predestination wish to make Christ impotent for the prideful reason that they wish to retain some of the glory due to God alone in salvation.

 

[Tom_Baum]

If you don’t believe in double predestination then you have to believe that Christ died in vain, because he died for people who will end up in hell, and died with the possibility that everyone could end up in hell. Christ thus saved nobody.

If you believe in double predestination, you believe that the loving Christ went to the cross to save every single one of the people whom the Lord God deigned of his great mercy to call to himself, and his death paid the whole price for their sins, and his work of salvation will be and is being applied to them by the Holy Spirit, not one being lost.

It seems to me that opponents of double predestination wish to make Christ impotent for the prideful reason that they wish to retain some of the glory due to God alone in salvation.

From what you have written here, it seems that I did NOT know what “double predestination” meant.

I believe that God KNOWS who will and who will not “repent” this side of breath, so that is why God came up with a PLAN even before creation, that will, ultimately, have everyone with God in God’s Kingdom.

I am not saying that some will not go to hell but what I am saying is that Jesus WENT TO HELL by what He did in the Incarnation and in so doing “won” the “keys” to the “netherworld”.

That is why when Jesus said, “Simon thou art Peter and upon this rock, I will build MY CHURCH and the ‘gates of the netherworld shall NOT prevail against IT’”, Jesus was telling us the “mission” of HIS CHURCH.

 

[Darryl_B]

I totally disagree with you saying it is “an incorrect assumption” by agreeing with part of what you wrote later in the post which is, “He changes history seeing the end as happened, not from the beginning as will happen”.

If God sees the end than God knows just what will happen, not might happen, during all of time whether it be a direct intervention by God or not.

God does not “change” history since ultimately there will only be one history, God participates in history be “interventions” and by God’s Incarnation".

As far as, “God is outside time. He is not living history as we are.”.

If one believes in the “Incarnation”, than they believe that God very much did live in a part of history in the Person of Jesus, so for a short while, some say approximately 33 years, God did live “history as we are”, longer than some and shorter than others.

Concerning “Again you are binding God to history”, I am not “binding God to history”, it was God’s decision to become part of history.

I believe that God made the decision to become part of history before creation itself.

Tom, my friend, I have explained the same thing many times, but your responses imply you don’t fully understand what I am saying when I read that you think something I say implies something it doesn’t, or that it excludes something when it doesn’t (eg the Incarnation). I have been searching for other ways to explain, but I have struggled in that pursuit. All I can say is God is transcendent, but God is also immanent. Imagine you are looking at all history on your screen left to right. The left is the beginning, the right is the end. You are outside that and see it all (transcendent), but you can take any point in history you want and change it (immanent), so that the picture is no longer the same.

 

[Darryl_B]

If you don’t believe in double predestination then you have to believe that Christ died in vain, because he died for people who will end up in hell, and died with the possibility that everyone could end up in hell. Christ thus saved nobody.

If you believe in double predestination, you believe that the loving Christ went to the cross to save every single one of the people whom the Lord God deigned of his great mercy to call to himself, and his death paid the whole price for their sins, and his work of salvation will be and is being applied to them by the Holy Spirit, not one being lost.

It seems to me that opponents of double predestination wish to make Christ impotent for the prideful reason that they wish to retain some of the glory due to God alone in salvation.

This is very very very bad logic. Your IF’s and THEN’s have no relationship to each other. And it becomes more apparent that the logic is bad when you finally choose emotion to proclaim your case. Christ becomes impotent. Huh? How exactly? And opponents are prideful. Huh? How exactly? Stealing God’s glory. Huh? How exactly?

That is the type of appeal I would expect from politicians, not theologians.

 

[Tom_Baum]

Tom, my friend, I have explained the same thing many times, but your responses imply you don’t fully understand what I am saying when I read that you think something I say implies something it doesn’t, or that it excludes something when it doesn’t (eg the Incarnation). I have been searching for other ways to explain, but I have struggled in that pursuit. All I can say is God is transcendent, but God is also immanent. Imagine you are looking at all history on your screen left to right. The left is the beginning, the right is the end. You are outside that and see it all (transcendent), but you can take any point in history you want and change it (immanent), so that the picture is no longer the same.

According to you, to take a “for instance”, God could look at November 22, 1963 and decide that John F. Kennedy will not die on that date.

I think that this would make it so that “the picture is no longer the same”.

However, I disagree with you because either God knew everything about creation, even before creation itself or God is not Omniscient.

It is a very simple concept even tho it is beyond our comprehension of “how” God can possibly know everything about everything including everybody and yet the “everybodies” having free will and not being merely “puppets on a string”.

 

[powerofk]

Honestly, it is the proponents of double predestination who nullify Christ’s sacrifice. Christ’s sacrifice was once for all humanity - and trancended time and space. This means that those who died in expectant faith of a redeemer before Christ’s death also participated in His death and resurrection. God’s Will is that all will go to Heaven. Period. We, as humans, are God’s greatest creation. We were created to glorify God. Why would God specifically create people that He willed to be in Hell? This would completely contradict the absolute being of God - that He is Love itself. God even loves Satan! God gave the angels free will - and intelligence far surpassing our own. Yet the intelligence of the angels is so much that the angels will never change their minds. Satan will never repent of his rejection of God’s plan. And the sinner who remains in mortal sin after death will never repent of such sin. Why? Because, up through the point of death, he was obstinate. People in Hell are unchangably obstinate - their wills have become permanently hardened from their own obstinancy. In fact, it could be that those in Hell could go to Heaven if they repented, but by the time one ends up in Hell, one’s will has become so obstinate that such repentance has become impossible, and it is in fact, more desirous for those in Hell to stay in Hell than to repent and accept God’s plan. Souls in Hell want nothing to do with God. At the point of their deaths, they were unrepentant and obstinately so. In fact, the souls in Hell are proud of their sins. This contrasts to Purgatory, where the sinners are quite repentant, and doing what they need to do to wash themselves clean in Christ’s Blood (which is said to burn like fire).

God’s omniscience is quite misunderstood. His omniscience is related to His overriding Will. God gives His most intelligent creatures (angels and humans) the opportunity to accept or reject His Will. He does this for His own glory. He could use His omnipotence to restrict the free will of His creation, but He does not. Why? Because if He did this, His creation could not truly love Him. And in order for God to be most fully glorified, His creation must be able to love Him completely. The problem with this is that His creation could also choose to reject Him completely. As such, God intervenes in all of our lives to try to bring us to Him.

At the moment of the creation of a soul, God knows the trials that that soul will go through, and whether that soul will accept Him - and what will be necessary for Him to do for a soul to accept Him. He gives free will at the instant of conception - though as soon as He gives the free will, He knows what will be done with such free will. However, since He loves us all, He does not desire any of us to reject Him. God’s “heart” is broken by each and every person who rejects Him. So, even with people that He knows will ultimately reject Him, He gives them many chances to accept Him. God allows us to choose - even if He already knows which answer we will choose.