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thinkandmull
Guest
God gets his knowledge of our acts from our chosen acts
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thinkandmull
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But God does not have a **relationship **with us in the sense that **it **is something compared to His necessity. Even though His knowledge of us is known from eternity, that is accidental to the fact that He has knowledge of us, but we are like the wind to Him: something in our perspective, but compared with Him an absence of everything
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oldcelt
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So, he knows from all eternity that we are going to pray for this or that and what his answers will be? In that case, the script is most definitely written from the very beginning, since God can see any point in time from his eternal now…the very definition of omniscience.
John
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oldcelt
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Free will and predestination are an obvious contradiction in terms. You cannot be free in any sense if you are predestined.
John
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Aloysium
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There is no beginning for God.
Creation, beginning to end, all time and all places, is brought into being ultimately as one holy act.
God transcends, over-arches, encompasses all time as He is in each and every moment, One.
All individual moments, With their past, present and future, are as fresh, as new, as now, as is this moment where we decide who we are.
The script is written with ourselves as agents, free to choose how we play our part.
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Vico
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It is not a contradiction. St. Thomas Aquinas explains that:
Summa Theologica Q23 Predestination , Article 4. Whether the predestined are chosen by God? **Objection 2. **Further, election is of things that exist. But predestination from all eternity is also of things which do not exist. Therefore, some are predestined without election.
Reply to Objection 2. When the will of the person choosing is incited to make a choice by the good already pre-existing in the object chosen, the choice must needs be of those things which already exist, as happens in our choice. In God it is otherwise; as was said above (Question 20, Article 2). Thus, as Augustine says (De Verb. Ap. Serm. 11): “Those are chosen by God, who do not exist; yet He does not err in His choice.”
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oldcelt
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There are those time factors again. So, if Aquinas is correct, God makes decisions before some people are in existence…others he elects during their existence.
John
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oldcelt
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Please read posts 166-167. Timelessness may exist in one sense, but the Christian God apparently interacts with time on a regular basis. One other point…wasn’t the Holy Spirit (God) sent to guide the Church and its people until the end? That means that one person of the Triune God is present among us at all times…does it not?
John
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Vico
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God knows about what decisions humans choose from eternity which is timeless. *That is not a time factor. * Humans exercise their free will in time. Since God is omniscient there is no need for a decision to be made in time by God.
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Vico
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Note this wording in the Catechism of the Catholic ChurchMary’s predestination
488 “God sent forth his Son”, but to prepare a body for him, [125] he wanted the free co-operation of a creature. For this, from all eternity God chose for the mother of his Son a daughter of Israel, a young Jewish woman of Nazareth in Galilee, “a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary”: [126]
488 “God sent forth his Son”, but to prepare a body for him, [125] he wanted the free co-operation of a creature. For this, from all eternity God chose for the mother of his Son a daughter of Israel, a young Jewish woman of Nazareth in Galilee, “a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary”: [126]
The Father of mercies willed that the Incarnation should be preceded by assent on the part of the predestined mother, so that just as a woman had a share in the coming of death, so also should a woman contribute to the coming of life. [127]
125 Gal 4:4; Heb 10:5.
126 Lk 1:26-27.
127 Lumen Gentium 56; cf. Lumen Gentium 61.
125 Gal 4:4; Heb 10:5.
126 Lk 1:26-27.
127 Lumen Gentium 56; cf. Lumen Gentium 61.
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oldcelt
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oldcelt
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You do realize that none of those act as fact, don’t you? It would be like someone finding a partial copy of “Gone With the Wind” and declaring Rhett Butler to be some sort of authority.
I’d like to hear your response to post 168.
John
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Vico
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I don’t understand the sentence: “none of those act as fact” you need to use more words.
You want a comment on:
Apparently is a key concept. Eternity is not on the same order as time. Man lives perceiving the passage of time. Eternal God is not subject to time, but his effects are perceived in time by humans.
There is not one person of the Triune God present among us at all times because the persons of the Trinity are not independent. The entire Trinity is present in the Father and in the Son and in the Holy Spirit. Maybe you have not heard of the mutual indwelling (Perichoresis) of the Trinity? Each person shares in the life of the other two. But we have the sanctifying grace (inherence in the soul) through the sacraments and the actual graces even before sanctifying grace.
Actual grace is a gratuitous effect of God by which the soul of man is impelled by God toward something which ought to be known or willed or done. But that by which the soul is thus moved is not a permanent quality, but something transient, that is, a certain motion of the soul quite distinct both from the uncreated action of God whence it proceeds and from our action thus produced.
ewtn.com/library/Theology/grace3.htm
From: Grace: Commentary on the Summa Theologica of St. Thomas, Chapter Three Rev. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P. Q110
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oldcelt
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Did, or did not Jesus say (paraphrasing) that he would leave behind a teacher to guide the Church and its people until the end? As I was taught. 50 some years ago, that was the Holy Spirit. Your reference to Perichoresis is irrelevant since it means that all three can exist individually while maintaining unity in purpose. Therefore, the Christian God can be present in time, and timelessness.
John
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Vico
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John 14:1616 And I will ask the Father, and he shall give you another Paraclete, that he may abide with you for ever.
Matthew 28[16 (http://biblehub.com/matthew/28-16.htm)And the eleven disciples went into Galilee, unto the mountain where Jesus had appointed them. [17 (http://biblehub.com/matthew/28-17.htm)And seeing them they adored: but some doubted. [18 (http://biblehub.com/matthew/28-18.htm)And Jesus coming, spoke to them, saying: All power is given to me in heaven and in earth. [19 (http://biblehub.com/matthew/28-19.htm)Going therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. [20 (http://biblehub.com/matthew/28-20.htm)Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world.
These are Catholic dogmas of faith which are related to this topic:
- God is Eternal
- God is everywhere present in created space.
- The relations in God are really identical with the Divine Nature.
- The Three Divine Persons are in one another.
- All the ad extra activities of God are common to the three Persons.
- There is a supernatural influence of God in the faculties of the soul which coincides in time with man’s free act of will.
It is through our willful co-operation that the efficacy of grace occurs, and this is experienced by us in time.
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oldcelt
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Which returns me to my main theme…since the Christian God knows from all eternity the destiny of each of his created beings (causation), then they were created with their end decided. There can be no free will under such a system…only fulfillment of a preordained script.
John
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Vico
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This is not so because it assumes linear time (Theory-A) for God. God is of a different order and is not limited to what creatures experience. Theory-B of time is in keeping with the traditional Catholic teaching.
Predestination does not prevent free-will.
As St. Thomas Aquinas addressed in Summa Theologica on Predestination (Q23), it is a part of providence which may allow for failures (Q 22 A 2). So predestination has to do with those destined to eternal glory, but reprobation pertains to those who will fall short of this goal through their own rejection of grace.
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thinkandmull
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Rev. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange believed that God wasn’t concerned with saving everybody, but with more often using punishment as a end in itself. Olddelt needs to understand that most Catholics no longer believe this
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thinkandmull
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Where has the Church defined that “The relations in God are really identical with the Divine Nature”?
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thinkandmull
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God seeing time in once instant is not a problem for me. It seems clear. Are you having a problem with God seeing the instant and THEN adding to it with prophecies? Ye that is really tricky. I don’t know
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