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bedan_elite
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thanks and peace brother
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Tom_Baum
Guest
God Is God, the Church is not God, the Church is an instrument of God.
I most definitely believe that Mary had to say YES of her own free will for God to be Incarnated, that is not what I meant by God does not need our permission for God’s Will to be done, God can not force God on us but like it or not, God has Ways that you could not dream of God having Ways for God’s Will to be done.
You underestimate God in coming across as knowing it all, I “know” very little but I do know a little and I trust that God knows what God is doing and that when Jesus said, “With man it is impossible but with God ALL things are possible” that Jesus was trying to tell us something, do you know what?
By the way, Jesus said lots of things and some of them seem contradictory, are they contradictory or are they complimentary?
As I have said, God Is a Being of Love and everything about God’s Plan flows from that “fact”, including hell and how hell figures in God’s Plan.
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Amandil
Guest
But the Church is united to God and invested with God’s authority.
“Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven…”(Matt 16 & 18).
“As the Father has sent Me…(with all authority in heaven and on earth)…so I send you.”(John 20:21)
There is no dichotomy between Christ and the Church. The Church IS the Body of Christ. We are One Flesh with Christ our Redeemer.
Those who openly reject Christ are not One Flesh with Him and those who refuse Him unto death, either by sin of commission or omission, will have in fact chosen hell over heaven.
Those who openly reject the dogmas, doctrines, and dictates of the Church are openly denying Christ by the fact that they are denying the authority of the Church. They are violating their Baptismal vows.
Even the Creed we recite at every Mass we proclaim, “I believe in the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.” That means that you are proclaiming to believe all the the Church has revealed, including the fact of hell and the the teaching that while the Church, with God, desires the salvation of all men that not all men will be saved.
That does not negate the fact that 'many" simply will refuse to be “wooed” by God.
That’s bull. I, with God, am simply a realist.
Secondly, this has nothing to do with your personal attack agianst me being a “know-it-all”, which is absurd.
This is a teaching of Jesus, Himself.
The only reason why you persist in disagreeing with me, despite the mountain of evidence against your opinion, is because you simply don’t find the doctrine of hell agreeable to your sensibilities. You apparently think that doctrine should conform **to you and your ideas **instead of you and your ideas conforming to revealed doctrine.
Apparently not because the same God confirmed the existence of hell and the fact that “many” men and women will wind up there.
“All things are possible” does not mean that God does contradictory things or proclaims nonsense.
The Muslims insist that God is so absolutely transcendent that Allah can even lie to his creatures and they would have to follow him regardless.
Are you saying that since “all things are possible with God” that God can lie to us? That the source of all Reailty can deny Himself?
If “all things are possible with God” in the false sense you’re interpreting it as, can God make a rock that is too heavy for Him to lift or move?
Can God make a person walk through a wall and at the same time not walk through that same wall?
The answer to all of those questions is “no, He won’t”. Why? Because they’re nonsensical.
Hell follows from the fact of God’s love.
God, in His love, made free creatures.
In making them free He accepted the fact that “many” will abuse that freedom and reject Him.
Thus hell exists.
Thus, in all these cases, you’re still sadly mistaken.
I would politely suggest that you go back and learn the faith and ground yourself in it more solidly than depend upon your own misunderstandings, desires, and opinons.
Because you’re not serving God but yourself. And instead of evangelizing according to the truth all you’re doing is spreading confusion.
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Tom_Baum
Guest
Amandil
You wrote, “I would politely suggest that you go back and learn the faith and ground yourself in it more solidly than depend upon your own misunderstandings, desires, and opinons. Because you’re not serving God but yourself. And instead of evangelizing according to the truth all you’re doing is spreading confusion.”
Thank you for your suggestion but I am going to continue in my attempt to do what God chose me to do rather than attempt to do what you want me to do.
You wrote, “I would politely suggest that you go back and learn the faith and ground yourself in it more solidly than depend upon your own misunderstandings, desires, and opinons. Because you’re not serving God but yourself. And instead of evangelizing according to the truth all you’re doing is spreading confusion.”
Thank you for your suggestion but I am going to continue in my attempt to do what God chose me to do rather than attempt to do what you want me to do.
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Amandil
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Martin Luther claimed to be doing what God “chose him to do” as well.
I don’t believe that God “chose” you to spread confusion and say things contrary to revealed truths or the Deposit of the Faith.
Secondly how do you know that this encounter you’re having with me is not God in His providential way telling you to stop saying what you’re saying?
Do you claim to have some special privilege with God because of some vision or locutions? If so did you follow St. Teresa of Avila’s advice to share it with a confessor or spiritual director?
Teresa was always adamant about that and insisted that any spiritual communication which is contrary to public revelation must be rejected. The Holy Spirit would never contradict revealed religion or the Church.
Did you “test” this spirit to make sure that it is truthful? The Bible is clear in that it says that even Satan “disguises himself as an angel of light.”
So I reassert my above suggestion, and add to it the suggestion that you see a priest or spiritual director regarding what you think “God”(if it was God) said to you.
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Tom_Baum
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The only thing that the Holy Spirit revealed to me when I, personally, met the Holy Spirit is that the Catholic Eucharist Is Jesus.
I am not asking you or anyone else to believe anything that I say, I am just attempting to do what God asked and chose me to do.
I happen to believe Jesus when He said that He would send the Holy Spirit.
Seems to me that sometimes it might take a few decades for a Sacrament to kick in, so to speak.
Jesus said, “I Am the Way, the Truth and the Life, no one comes to the Father except thru Me” and it is for this reason that I “believe”, not know, that it was thru Jesus that I met Dad.
As far as, “Secondly how do you know that this encounter you’re having with me is not God in His providential way telling you to stop saying what you’re saying?”
I guess for pretty much the same reason that I don’t think that Jesus should have stopped doing His “Job” when the “religious” of His day wanted Him to shut up.
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MacQ
Guest
Do you guys even know what you’re arguing about anymore?
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Amandil
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I do, but sadly there are some who apparently think that they have a direct pipeline to God over and above the Magisterium and that whatever is “revealed” to them is more important than the truth of the Faith.Do you guys even know what you’re arguing about anymore?
I’m done. It’s become rather apparent that Tom refuses to listen to reason.
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MacQ
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When people can’t resolve something, it might be because they’re arguing about something that has no resolution (can’t be proven).
Just out of curiosity…in a few words…what did he say that is out of line with the magisterium?.
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Amandil
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That God will save all men. Universal salvation has been explicitly rejected by the Church.
Even Jesus, several times in fact, insisted that “many” will not be saved.
That’s obviously not a failure of God, for God desires all men to be saved.
So then it must be entirely the fault of men, namely those who refuse salvation.
He seems to think that God either providentially forces salvation by something akin to irresistible grace as taught by Calvin, or he thinks that God somehow orchestrates circumstances to the degree that all will choose Christ.
The first is utter opposed to Church teaching. The second is nice to hope for, but unrealistic. Hod is omniscient, He knows all our choices as well as the circumstances surrounding them.
Which means that He also knows those who will refuse His salvation no matter what circumstances He ordained.
The bottom line is that He still radically respects our free will.
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MacQ
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That He does (respect our free will).
That’s not to say He doesn’t WANT everyone saved.
Nor is it to say that He doesn’t have a plan for those who refuse.
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Amandil
Guest
Scripture is explicit in that. God desires all men to be saved and come to knowledge of the truth.
But the dilemma immediately pops up between God’s will and human free will.
If God’s will is absolute(as some assert), then that desire for all men to be saved must necessarily negate human free will.
Or, God’s will is absolute in a different sense in that God allows human free choices into His determination and unfolding of His providence. He thus allows the thwarting of His Will or desire for “all men to be saved” in order that His children will freely choose to submit to Him.
It also must preclude the fact that in the thwarting of this desire is the acceptance by God of the choices if those of His children who will never choose Him.
Of course the ability for God to permit this thwarting of His Will necessarily presupposes His attributes of power and divine Will rather than contradicts it.
Well, for Tom, he utterly rejects any possibility that anyone will refuse God. He apparently doesn’t understand the real pervasiveness of sin.
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MacQ
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Well, while God permits the thwarting of his desire for us by allowing us free will…it’s also true that we do not know the entirety of His plan of salvation, and therefore possible that in the end (whenever that is), no one will reject Him.
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MrSnaith
Guest
Actually, Jesus makes it rather clear that not everyone will go to Heaven.
Just from a common sense standpoint, if Christ’s salvific action will, in the end, result in the salvation of all, then His entire teaching ministry would have been a moot point. He would have done just as well to walk into the Sanhedrin, declare, “I AM,” and allow Himself to be put to death. Rather, he spent three years teaching, healing, instituting sacraments, establishing a Kingdom. Why? Because these would all be necessary components in the action of salvation. If believing in Him, accepting His word, being obedient to His commands, working out our salvation weren’t necessary, then why spend that time showing us, getting it all established? Our active participation is necessary, and it must be a free participation, and that necessarily implies the possibility of rejection.
You can’t force love. You can’t manipulate someone into love. All you can do is say, “here I am. Here’s who I am. I love you.” If the other says, “I don’t love you. I don’t want to love you.” That’s it.
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MacQ
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Oh I quite agree with all that.
I think the issue here is…well it started out to be…when exactly the judgement is made. Some say at the moment of your physical death on earth. Others say that we don’t know… God defines that, as He alone defines what happens after we “die”, and that it is possible that Hell could be empty after all is said and done.
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Amandil
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Precisely.
It goes back to a question that I had asked earlier: What are you asking God to do? To wipe out their past sins and, at all costs, to give them a fresh start, smoothing every difficulty and offering every miraculous help? He already has done that on Calvary.
To forgive them? They will(choose) not to be forgiven.
To leave them alone(with their own absolute self-will)?
That’s exactly what He does.
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MrSnaith
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The Catholic teaching is that there is a private (personal) judgement at the moment of your death, and there is a public, final judgement at the end of time. That the final judgement is called “final” doesn’t imply that it’s possible for those in Hell to have their enternal state altered. Rather, it means that there will be no further judgements after it, and that those remaining in purgatory are released from it, and receive their eternal reward.
Those who say it is possible that Hell could be empty after all is said and done are incorrect. Jesus tells us that not everyone will go to Heaven. Scriptural visions of the end times inform us that the “sheep” will be separated from the “goats,” not that the goats will be transformed into sheep. The goats will be cast out. Jesus tells us that at the time of judgement, there will be some to whom He says, “depart from me, for I never knew you.” Whether that happens at death or the end of time, it happens.
The Catholic position is that, when our souls are separated from our bodies, the spiritual state in which we die will become fixed, and remain our eternal state. Just as the angels were given a choice, and when their choice was made, it became fixed, and therefore no angel may “fall” now, nor any demon find salvation, so too, after death, will those who were out of favor with God be unable to alter their eternal state of disfavor, and those who are in favor at death will remain in favor. Their choice is fixed. It is the changing, material nature of our bodies that allows the change in choice, the possibility for salvation. It is the unchanging, spiritual nature of our souls that disallows a change in choice. When our souls depart from our bodies in death, their fixity takes primacy, and our choices become unalterable. That primacy of spirit doesn’t lose its place when our bodies are rejoined to our souls in the resurrection, as it is our true nature for our spirits to have primal dominion over our bodies. Thus, even after the resurrection, our choices will remain fixed. Thus, the judgement at death will remain the same at the final judgement.
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MacQ
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Then count me among those incorrect, along with John Paul II, Robert Barron, and a number of estimable theologians.
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MrSnaith
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I’d like to see the JPII quote in which he says that. I find it highly unlikely that he said any such thing, particularly since we know for certain that Hell will contain, at the very least, demons, when all is said and done.
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Amandil
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The only way they can imply that is because, simply put, they follow a rather somewhat complex philosophy which basically boils down to that those who wind up in hell are either annihilated completely, that they are consumed or absorbed by Satan, or because of their attachment and/or utter identity with sin that they have utterly lost any and all self-identity and are no longer persons any more but “remains”(that is a word I have seen some of them use).
Since they are no longer “persons” in the sense that the blessed are, they really can’t be counted as such, therefore hell is not “populated”
It’s more of a philosophical opinion based on semantics, namely, how do you define what a “person” is in the next life.
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