How do you answer this question?

[ynotzap]

Yeah–I think you’re presenting the case for God’s antecedent will and Michael was responding as if you were presenting the case for God’s consequent will.

Thanks for the additional clarification:thumbsup:

 

[Michael19682]

Thanks for the additional clarification:thumbsup:

You haven’t yet answered the question. When is a potency exhausted by an action, or series of actions, for that matter? How do you know that a child who knocks over a mannequin has exhausted his potential for mischief?
Draw the dividing line between the celebrated antecedent will and the presumed consequent will?

 

[Michael19682]

You have misunderstood my statement about God moving the will to sin. God moves the will under any circumstance, He is the power of the will and all motion. He does not will us to sin, that is our choice, but He sees our choices through. If He didn’t move the will, we couldn’t make the choice to sin, or to virtue. I speak of God as the source of all motion when the will moves one way or another, it is by God’s power. So there is no real conflict if understood correctly. I tried to be explicit, but apparently not explicit enough.

Catholic doctrine holds does it not that the devil may not possess a soul, since Christ by taking human form expelled him from humanity?
Following that line of truth, if and when we commit the error of sin, we ourselves are not Satan, but grievously under his influence.
If we have no potential to be Satan, how can we commit his acts of evil in our soul?
Action originating in a soul without similar potential.
How does your theory explain such a regrettable answer to pure action, which you claimed does not exist.

 

[ynotzap]

You haven’t yet answered the question. When is a potency exhausted by an action, or series of actions, for that matter? How do you know that a child who knocks over a mannequin has exhausted his potential for mischief?
Draw the dividing line between the celebrated antecedent will and the presumed consequent will?

Man will never be pure act, his nature contains potency and act, potency is part of his nature even in heaven, that is the way he was created. His potency will never be exhausted but sustained by God. God is the only one that can fulfill his potentials and the fulfilling of his potentials is an eternal action , so his potentials are being fulfilled eternally, it is an ongoing fulfilling consistent with man’s nature… Once evil is eradicated in his life, it will no longer be available to be the object of choice, and his will will remain free to enjoy the Good. this takes place in Heaven. While on earth, evil is available, and so is the potential for that choice. The dividing line between the antecedent will of God and the consequent will of God is that God is the ultimate mover of man’s will, as the source of all motion, and grants man the freedom to use man’s will to move against Him Man is not the source of movement in choices, but he is granted the movement to move against God’s will. In this regard man is made to IMAGE AND LIKENESS of God whose will is always free to move as He wills But there is a major difference, God could never contradict Himself, were as man in moving against God with the freedom God granted him, contradicts himself, to move against God he is contradicting his own nature which is a rational one. The major difference is that God is the Creator, and man is the created, owing his love and obedience and worship to his God.

 

[ynotzap]

Catholic doctrine holds does it not that the devil may not possess a soul, since Christ by taking human form expelled him from humanity?

God creates the soul of man directly, and sustains it, it is spiritual endowed with intelligence and free will. Satan can not enter a soul, but he can influence it through it’s powers, and man can give Satan influence over his will, and be deceived in his intelligence. eg. Judas betrayed Christ, scripture states that when he did Satan entered in affecting the soul. The soul without the influence of grace had no hope, and no hope led to despair

Michael19682:

Following that line of truth, if and when we commit the error of sin, we ourselves are not Satan, but grievously under his influence.

True

Michael19682:

If we have no potential to be Satan, how can we commit his acts of evil in our soul?
Action originating in a soul without similar potential.
How does your theory explain such a regrettable answer to pure action, which you claimed does not exist.

We do not commit Satan’s acts of evil, he commits them himself by his own choice, which is determined by his knowledge and will. He is not ignorant, has full knowledge of his acts, his knowledge is infused by God,and his will is immutable once he makes his choice (I explained this already in another post regarding Church teaching) We have potential to be LIKE Satan in our acts, but we are responsible for our own acts and choices as individual human beings. Our acts of evil are determined by our knowledge which is not infused, and our will which is not unchangeable (immutable). eg. To make a sin mortal (such as the sin Satan committed) we have to have full knowledge (which is questionable) not so with Satan. We have to give full consent of the will to the evil act, and the act has to be a serious matter (eg. against one of the Commandment) Our potentials in our nature are not the same potentials in Satan’s nature. He is pure spirit, we are spirit and matter. Satan has a superior nature then ours, in the ascending order of beings, Satan (who is an angel) is above humans and below God He can influence us through our senses, will, and mind. He has power over nature as God grants it, he can transform himself into an “angel of light”, he can possess our body, assume human appearance. We do not have the same potentials, his are greater and separate from ours. Pure Act exists only in God who is the Source of All Motion.

 

[Michael19682]

Man will never be pure act, his nature contains potency and act, potency is part of his nature even in heaven, that is the way he was created. His potency will never be exhausted but sustained by God. God is the only one that can fulfill his potentials and the fulfilling of his potentials is an eternal action , so his potentials are being fulfilled eternally, it is an ongoing fulfilling consistent with man’s nature… Once evil is eradicated in his life, it will no longer be available to be the object of choice, and his will will remain free to enjoy the Good. this takes place in Heaven. While on earth, evil is available, and so is the potential for that choice. The dividing line between the antecedent will of God and the consequent will of God is that God is the ultimate mover of man’s will, as the source of all motion, and grants man the freedom to use man’s will to move against Him Man is not the source of movement in choices, but he is granted the movement to move against God’s will. In this regard man is made to IMAGE AND LIKENESS of God whose will is always free to move as He wills But there is a major difference, God could never contradict Himself, were as man in moving against God with the freedom God granted him, contradicts himself, to move against God he is contradicting his own nature which is a rational one. The major difference is that God is the Creator, and man is the created, owing his love and obedience and worship to his God.

It has to be simple.
Jesus says, that apart from him none of us can do anything. Doing is acting.
Thus, without him, our only potential is to find him, to seek him. Seeking is doing, is it not? Why doesn’t he acknowledge seeking as doing? Is it because he is always with us and because when apart from him our potential is only such as to seek him? There, I think, one may readily acknowledge potency and act as equivalent. But since Jesus specifies act as void without him, our derived meaning looks measurably less robust and consideration now and in the end will be paid in great-er shares to potency (please understand me correctly).

 

[ynotzap]

It has to be simple.
Jesus says, that apart from him none of us can do anything. Doing is acting.
Thus, without him, our only potential is to find him, to seek him. Seeking is doing, is it not? Why doesn’t he acknowledge seeking as doing? Is it because he is always with us and because when apart from him our potential is only such as to seek him? There, I think, one may readily acknowledge potency and act as equivalent. But since Jesus specifies act as void without him, our derived meaning looks measurably less robust and consideration now and in the end will be paid in great-er shares to potency (please understand me correctly).

I am trying very hard to understand you correctly. It is true we are designed to seek God. Our minds seek the Truth, and our will desires the Good, St. Thomas Aquinas states that both are found in God. Nothing else can give man lasting happiness. It is true apart from God we can’t even sin. Without Him we don’t have potentials or acts, without Him we can’t even seek Him.
It is true, seeking is doing, He does acknowledge seeking as doing “Seek and you shall find…” God is always with us, but we are not always with God. He loved us even while we were in sin. Is a person still with God when he sins? Not by choice, even though God is still with Him. As long as he lives he has the potential to be with God by choice or not

It is also true that even though man was designed to seek God, not all seek Him for Himself. Mankind turns to God’s creation and makes creation their god. Material wealth, prestige, power, luxury and sensual pleasure, and even other people can become and do become false gods. Looking for God in all the wrong places. Is God with a person in Hell? Who is sustaining the person’s existence if not God, but can we say the person is with God, not in will, because man has the potential for that choice.

 

[Michael19682]

I am trying very hard to understand you correctly. It is true we are designed to seek God. Our minds seek the Truth, and our will desires the Good

 

[ynotzap]

ynotzap;13942170:

I didn’t mean to adjure you to understand me too seriously, rather, one should understand as best as possible God’s message to him in the dilemma of potency and act. I learned philosophy from a few basic writings of Plato when I was a boy. I believe in the spirit of open inquiry of the truth and in questioning everything that claims to be “settled” or “treated” in codes and statutes. I also believe I love the Lord’s approach and means of drawing us into his mystery. Self justification is an aggravating illness. Plato through Socrates poked fun at it, in my opinion. He made the egoists a kind of joke. Jesus probably would have probably thought such treatment unmerciful, or not charitable. Yet thinking about some of the egos we encounter, it seems they would be unaware of the ridicule?

Plato treated the concepts of change in the natural world as explained by Aristotle as a “likely story”. St.Thomas Aquinas, the best known of the medieval interpreters of Aristotle claims that Aristotle has demonstrated the necessity of change in accord with the nature of physical objects So I can understand the likelihood of our different views on change. The selection from Plato’s “Timaeus” places explicit limitations on knowledge of the physical world, calling such knowledge no more than a “likely story” seen by some as an anticipation of contemporary scientific attitude. When empirical science remains grounded in the physical, and does not acknowledge the metaphysical, it will never transcend, and remain in the physical. This is the importance of the science of Ontology, in Scholastic Metaphysics. The knowledge of the spiritual remains void. It is through the understanding of the nature of knowledge that we come to the existence of a spiritual soul, confirming what we believe as Christians. We must make an account for our the position, not that everyone we accept our position. St.Thomas synthesized reason with Faith, to show Faith is reasonable.

The knowledge of act and potency(change) is a substantiated truth found in the material universe, and in the spiritual. It is known through human experience. It deepens ones knowledge of God, and of our own nature and of our selves. It leads to a deeper appreciation of what we have, in science, and even in our Faith One does not have to know these truths regarding Faith, but it does expand our spiritual understanding of what we have in our Faith. St,Paul emphasizes this fact when he claimed that you can know about God through His creation.

 

[Michael19682]

The knowledge of act and potency(change) …It deepens ones knowledge of God, and of our own nature and of our selves. It leads to a deeper appreciation of what we have, in science, and even in our Faith One does not have to know these truths regarding Faith, but it does expand our spiritual understanding of what we have in our Faith. St,Paul emphasizes this fact when he claimed that you can know about God through His creation.

Personally, it led to dry polemics for me – even if it did demand a difficult to sustain attention. But your experience with that knowledge I cannot controvert.
Back to Plato. So the idea of an objective material world which we can study and know is only important because of what people do with it. It awes some of us and reaffirms our trust in God – inside our noggin there is a good enough tool to solve problems. For others it represents a worry. What if the universe is rigged to cease at the moment we tinker with it the wrong way. Or when we become too confident in our ability to control, for too long, we get global warming and the environmental crisis.

 

[ynotzap]

Personally, it led to dry polemics for me – even if it did demand a difficult to sustain attention. But your experience with that knowledge I cannot controvert.
Back to Plato. So the idea of an objective material world which we can study and know is only important because of what people do with it. It awes some of us and reaffirms our trust in God – inside our noggin there is a good enough tool to solve problems. For others it represents a worry. What if the universe is rigged to cease at the moment we tinker with it the wrong way. Or when we become too confident in our ability to control, for too long, we get global warming and the environmental crisis.

I have found that if the acquisition of knowledge makes one humble, one is responding as God would approve, and is truly wise, as humility is the foundation of virtue. On the contrary if acquisition of knowledge leads one to a false estimation of oneself, and arrogance, it leads to personal failure and chaos. To rise above our human weakness, as you stated, we must trust God, and His divine providence. I was watching Nova, a science program featuring the woman scientist who designed the Hobel Space Telescope. After successfully seeing deep into space and discovering galaxies as numerous as sands on the seashore she stated that the experiment was important ,and leads us to the question “How did the Universe, or us come to exist” I had to smile and think ,we Christians knew by intelligence, and faith a long time ago the answer to that question, one that the empirical sciences have yet to answer.

 

[Michael19682]

I have found that if the acquisition of knowledge makes one humble, one is responding as God would approve, and is truly wise, as humility is the foundation of virtue. On the contrary if acquisition of knowledge leads one to a false estimation of oneself, and arrogance, it leads to personal failure and chaos. To rise above our human weakness, as you stated, we must trust God, and His divine providence. I was watching Nova, a science program featuring the woman scientist who designed the Hobel Space Telescope. After successfully seeing deep into space and discovering galaxies as numerous as sands on the seashore she stated that the experiment was important ,and leads us to the question “How did the Universe, or us come to exist” I had to smile and think ,we Christians knew by intelligence, and faith a long time ago the answer to that question, one that the empirical sciences have yet to answer.

I have heard of the Hubble Space Telescope but never until now have I gazed into the Hobel.
What you say is interesting.
What I wanted to ask was what you feel of esteem and happiness. If you take esteem in your argument, your paper, your proof and essay – is this necessarily arrogance and false estimation of yourself? Can’t we be happy and satisfied with our answers and with ourselves for finding them, yet not presume others should now not be entitled to make the same mistakes we once did? Do we have the right to criticize even the insane in their insanity?
Shouldn’t it be possible to rethink one’s pride and simply call it self esteem?
He says as matter of principle “You are worth more than many birds,” to remove their fear of abandonment,
Yet the science of the Canaanite woman is great, and declared a faith so great that it dispels the demon threatening to abandon her daughter.

 

[ynotzap]

I have heard of the Hubble Space Telescope but never until now have I gazed into the Hobel.
What you say is interesting.
What I wanted to ask was what you feel of esteem and happiness. If you take esteem in your argument, your paper, your proof and essay – is this necessarily arrogance and false estimation of yourself? Can’t we be happy and satisfied with our answers and with ourselves for finding them, yet not presume others should now not be entitled to make the same mistakes we once did? Do we have the right to criticize even the insane in their insanity?
Shouldn’t it be possible to rethink one’s pride and simply call it self esteem?
He says as matter of principle “You are worth more than many birds,” to remove their fear of abandonment,
Yet the science of the Canaanite woman is great, and declared a faith so great that it dispels the demon threatening to abandon her daughter.

Esteem from my fellowmen means very little to me, as I see them as I see myself, very weak,dependent, fallible, limited, I experience my creatureliness I am reminded of the Holy Spirit’s inspiration “Know thyself” As for happiness, I have been blessed with a certain amount of happiness, knowing there is no lasting happiness on earth, but knowing that I have been blessed by God in so many ways, especially in my relationship with Him, I do have a certain stable peace, and security, and try to have a clear conscience in my relationship with my fellowman, that I do what God would expect of me. I try to serve God’s truth in sharing what I know to advance His kingdom, and love for Him To please Him is my ultimate agenda above all else, knowing also in doing so I am loving my neighbor as I should. Knowledge can be a pitfall, I must avoid empty pride, and acknowledge the capabilities, and knowledge of my fellowmen who have the same desire to know the truth as I do. After all, did I get knowledge on solely my own efforts, did I not have teachers? I am also experienced in knowing that I have a mortal enemy who keeps trying to spoil my relationship with my Savior but am confident that He will not allow that to happen because of His love for me, not my love for Him.

 

[Michael19682]

Esteem from my fellowmen means very little to me, as I see them as I see myself, very weak,dependent, fallible, limited, I experience my creatureliness I am reminded of the Holy Spirit’s inspiration “Know thyself” As for happiness, I have been blessed with a certain amount of happiness, knowing there is no lasting happiness on earth, but knowing that I have been blessed by God in so many ways, especially in my relationship with Him, I do have a certain stable peace, and security, and try to have a clear conscience in my relationship with my fellowman, that I do what God would expect of me. I try to serve God’s truth in sharing what I know to advance His kingdom, and love for Him To please Him is my ultimate agenda above all else, knowing also in doing so I am loving my neighbor as I should. Knowledge can be a pitfall, I must avoid empty pride, and acknowledge the capabilities, and knowledge of my fellowmen who have the same desire to know the truth as I do. After all, did I get knowledge on solely my own efforts, did I not have teachers? I am also experienced in knowing that I have a mortal enemy who keeps trying to spoil my relationship with my Savior but am confident that He will not allow that to happen because of His love for me, not my love for Him.

Good. You articulate “the following” if I’m not mistaken, that whether we see God as the prime mover of the universe is dependent on whether we know him as the prime mover of our lives?
So I will direct this question at the OP, “If we begin to see the universe moved by sin or some entity contrary to God, including an unknowable science, does it mean we have begun to lose our faith?”