God's Mercy and God's justice

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opusAquinas said:
You don’t know the Catholic doctrine I am referring to. May be google God’s consequential will or something.
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Even though you most likely are not the originator of the “two wills of God”, do you have any idea if the one/s who did originate this ever answered the questions that I asked?

I repeat, the questions are:

Does God know that God has two wills?

Is God divided against God?

Or is both of God’s wills compatible with each other?

If God has two wills, does it mean that both of God’s wills, will be done?

And a few more that came to mind:

Or does it mean that only one will of God will be done?

If so, how can that be?

Since Jesus taught us to pray, “…Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done…”, are you saying that Jesus didn’t know about the “two wills” thing?
 
DanAl said:
Nothing extrinsic to God necessitates his will to act in a given manner.
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Ok then how many damned souls God decreed we do not know because we do not know the decree of efficient graces.
 
Tom_Baum said:
Even though you most likely are not the originator of the “two wills of God”, do you have any idea if the one/s who did originate this ever answered the questions that I asked?

I repeat, the questions are:

Does God know that God has two wills?

Is God divided against God?

Or is both of God’s wills compatible with each other?

If God has two wills, does it mean that both of God’s wills, will be done?

And a few more that came to mind:

Or does it mean that only one will of God will be done?

If so, how can that be?

Since Jesus taught us to pray, “…Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done…”, are you saying that Jesus didn’t know about the “two wills” thing?
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I wrote consequential will but I should have wrote permissive will.

Here I googled it for you: osv.com/OSVNewsweekly/ByIssue/Article/TabId/735/ArtMID/13636/ArticleID/2585/Discerning-Gods-positive-and-permissive-will.aspx
 
opusAquinas said:
Actually it is called “efficacious grace.”

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irresistible_grace
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*“Irresistible Grace (or efficacious grace) is a doctrine in Christian theology particularly associated with Calvinism” * - Calvinism is where I believe you have gone wrong.

The Calvinistic model, where some are created destined for hell and others created destined for heaven I believe is completely wrong and also rejected by the Catholic Church.

I believe the following Catholic Answers Tract may help - Predestined for Freedom By: Tim Staples

Jesus to St. Faustina -

"There are souls who despise My graces as well as all the proofs of My love. They do not wish to hear My call, but proceed into the abyss of hell. The loss of these souls plunges Me into deadly sorrow. God though I am, I cannot help such a soul because it scorns Me; having a free will, it can spurn Me or love Me. You, who are the dispenser of My mercy, tell all the world about My goodness, and thus you will comfort My Heart." (Diary, 580)

I hope this has helped

Note: If you reply, may I ask that you please try and use as little theological jargon as possible, thank you.

God Bless you

Thank you for reading
Josh
 
If I kill someone, God can raise them to eternal life, so there does not appear to be any sins we commit on Earth, that God cannot put right.

When we pray the Lords prayer, we seem to be telling God, rather than asking him to forgive us in the way we forgive others. If I can’t forgive someone, then I seem to be telling God not to forgive me also.

When Jesus spent his time on Earth, he would have lived by the greatest commandments, he could do nothing greater. But how did Jesus love all his neighbours as he loved himself? Those who condemned him to death and nailed him to the cross, we know he prayed on the cross forgive them Father.

How does God apply justice; mercy to those responsible for his death after he has prayed forgive them Father? I have to include myself amongst those responsible, Jesus died for my sins too.

Just some thoughts, but I truthfully believe none of us are able to judge in the way that Jesus will judge, so everything seems to be speculation.
 
opusAquinas said:
Ok then how many damned souls God decreed we do not know because we do not know the decree of efficient graces.
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What?

But if I read your question properly… no, we do not know how many failed to receive efficient grace in the popular Thomistic/high middle ages model of predestination.
 
opusAquinas said:
I wrote consequential will but I should have wrote permissive will.

Here I googled it for you: osv.com/OSVNewsweekly/ByIssue/Article/TabId/735/ArtMID/13636/ArticleID/2585/Discerning-Gods-positive-and-permissive-will.aspx
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Thanks for googling it and all that but could you just answer the questions?

Even if your answers are some or all, “I don’t know”.

I guess you could say that I was asking if you had an opinion, not if you had someone else’s opinion to pass on.

Even if you are passing someone else’s opinion on, what is your take on their opinion, if you have one, that is?
 
tonyrey said:
I recently pointed out that we are predestined to have free will and determine our own destiny.
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No matter what “words” one may use to skirt around the issue, if God is truly Omniscient than God “knows” even before God creates anyone just “where” that “anyone” will end up, according to what some think the endgame of God’s Plan is, correct or not?

Could be that God’s “predestination” is that God looks past what many think God incapable of looking past and God’s Plan is just slightly different than some think possible.

Not everyone but so many seem to think that God is a loser, I disagree.
 
Tom_Baum said:
Thanks for googling it and all that but could you just answer the questions?

Even if your answers are some or all, “I don’t know”.

I guess you could say that I was asking if you had an opinion, not if you had someone else’s opinion to pass on.

Even if you are passing someone else’s opinion on, what is your take on their opinion, if you have one, that is?
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This is the opinion of theologians. An opinion I agree with. God has a nordained will and permissive will- what God ordains and what God permits respecting free will.
 
josh987654321 said:
*“Irresistible Grace (or efficacious grace) is a doctrine in Christian theology particularly associated with Calvinism” * - Calvinism is where I believe you have gone wrong.

The Calvinistic model, where some are created destined for hell and others created destined for heaven I believe is completely wrong and also rejected by the Catholic Church.

I believe the following Catholic Answers Tract may help - Predestined for Freedom By: Tim Staples

Jesus to St. Faustina -

"There are souls who despise My graces as well as all the proofs of My love. They do not wish to hear My call, but proceed into the abyss of hell. The loss of these souls plunges Me into deadly sorrow. God though I am, I cannot help such a soul because it scorns Me; having a free will, it can spurn Me or love Me. You, who are the dispenser of My mercy, tell all the world about My goodness, and thus you will comfort My Heart." (Diary, 580)

I hope this has helped

Note: If you reply, may I ask that you please try and use as little theological jargon as possible, thank you.

God Bless you

Thank you for reading
Josh
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Calvanism says God sends people to hell. Catholics say people send themselves to hell.

Free will and how grace influences our decisions.

This is the Catholic TULIP according to James Akin.
ewtn.com/library/ANSWERS/TULIP.htm
 
opusAquinas said:
This is the opinion of theologians. An opinion I agree with. God has a nordained will and permissive will- what God ordains and what God permits respecting free will.
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This doesn’t really answer the OP, does it?

“Why does God not give all efficient grace?”

“Is it because God’s justice must be satisfied?”

"If so, how many people must go to hell for God’s justice to be satisfied?
If it is not quantity is it quality? "
 
opusAquinas said:
Calvanism says God sends people to hell. Catholics say people send themselves to hell.
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Wait, if people “send themselves to hell,” what is the point of the OP? after all, you asked why God doesn’t use his efficacious will to save all.

Now you give an answer of dubious import. what are you trying to accomplish in this thread?
 
DanAl said:
Wait, if people “send themselves to hell,” what is the point of the OP? after all, you asked why God doesn’t use his efficacious will to save all.

Now you give an answer of dubious import. what are you trying to accomplish in this thread?
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You don’t understand - I was answering the question of the person responding to the OP.

He asked about God’s will. He asked about Calvanism. Or he did not seem to know.
 
DanAl said:
This doesn’t really answer the OP, does it?

“Why does God not give all efficient grace?”

“Is it because God’s justice must be satisfied?”

"If so, how many people must go to hell for God’s justice to be satisfied?
If it is not quantity is it quality? "
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These question still remain. I was answering subquestions it seems implied in the responses by others to the OP.

I still don’t know the answers to the OP questions! 🤷
 
opusAquinas said:
These question still remain. I was answering subquestions it seems implied in the responses by others to the OP.

I still don’t know the answers to the OP questions! 🤷
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No one can condemn themselves because they lack grace. They condemn themselves because they reject the grace provided to resist and overcome evil.
 
davidv said:
No one can condemn themselves because they lack grace. They condemn themselves because they reject the grace provided to resist and overcome evil.
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Yes.

If Judas is the son of perdition in the literal sense-
So you would say Judas rejected graces.
And Peter did not.

But the Father gave to the Son. And the Son said He did not lose those the Father gave the Son.

You could say Jesus might have forgiven Judas from the Cross but I suspect He would let us know this, why would it be hidden from us.
 
opusAquinas said:
God does not give efficacious grace to all men. He gives efficacious grace to the elect and sufficient grace to nonelect.
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That is the opinion of Domingo Bañez, O.P., but not the official teaching of the Church. Although it is permitted to hold Bañez’ position, it is also permitted not to hold it. I have reasons to believe that his opinion is deeply flawed: frankly, it is based on a misunderstanding of how grace works in the soul.

In a nutshell, Bañez thinks that God’s actual graces induce our will to produce concrete actions—like repentence, or acts of faith, and so on. The problem with this view is that, by inducing us to act, God would effectively take away our freedom.

In reality, actual graces enable the will to produce those acts. Actual grace produces principles of actions—also called “dispositions”—not the actions themselves. Whether we put those dispositions into practice is entirely up to us. Hence, there is no need to distinguish between efficacious and sufficient grace. The grace has already produced its effect; namely, the disposition to act.
 
lmelahn said:
That is the opinion of Domingo Bañez, O.P., but not the official teaching of the Church. Although it is permitted to hold Bañez’ position, it is also permitted not to hold it. I have reasons to believe that his opinion is deeply flawed: frankly, it is based on a misunderstanding of how grace works in the soul.

In a nutshell, Bañez thinks that God’s actual graces induce our will to produce concrete actions—like repentence, or acts of faith, and so on. The problem with this view is that, by inducing us to act, God would effectively take away our freedom.

In reality, actual graces enable the will to produce those acts. Actual grace produces principles of actions—also called “dispositions”—not the actions themselves. Whether we put those dispositions into practice is entirely up to us. Hence, there is no need to distinguish between efficacious and sufficient grace. The grace has already produced its effect; namely, the disposition to act.
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👍 Grace is** always** both efficacious and sufficient for our needs:

1127 Celebrated worthily in faith, the sacraments confer the grace that they signify.48 They are efficacious because in them Christ himself is at work: it is he who baptizes, he who acts in his sacraments in order to communicate the grace that each sacrament signifies. The Father always hears the prayer of his Son’s Church which, in the epiclesis of each sacrament, expresses her faith in the power of the Spirit. As fire transforms into itself everything it touches, so the Holy Spirit transforms into the divine life whatever is subjected to his power.

1128 This is the meaning of the Church’s affirmation49 that the sacraments act ex opere operato (literally: “by the very fact of the action’s being performed”), i.e., by virtue of the saving work of Christ, accomplished once for all. It follows that "the sacrament is not wrought by the righteousness of either the celebrant or the recipient, but by the power of God."50 From the moment that a sacrament is celebrated in accordance with the intention of the Church, the power of Christ and his Spirit acts in and through it, independently of the personal holiness of the minister. Nevertheless, the fruits of the sacraments also depend on the disposition of the one who receives them.

We can’t expect grace to be **efficacious **if we don’t use it. It’s like waiting for a door to open without bothering to push it.
 
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