Eternal life from and with a God who isn’t necessarily good? Great. Think Calvinists have a lot to learn about Him.Calvinist theology is all about respect God’s authority and sovereignty. It’s not important that God be good, all that matters is that he has control over your mind and actions and it’s best to just go with that because you can’t resist anyway. And isn’t wonderful that as a Calvinist He’s choosing to give you eternal paradise? Yay God!
Well, the same rationale obviously applies to Adam and Eve. They were only able to resist God’s will because it was God’s will that they should resist his will.What about our first parents, Adam and Eve? Obviously they resisted God’s will. And there it all began and continues to this day.
I see. You believe that it is possible for Satan to resist God’s will. And apparently Satan’s will is more powerful than God’s will because, according to the view of traditional Christianity (including Catholicism), the majority of human beings will perish.Yes but in my opinion, Satan is the monkey wrench in your system of logic. After all, you just cherry picked these three statements to make your argument. I’m sure I could come up with a different one.
Well, that makes my point. The teachings of the Church are not very straightfoward and clear. There’s a lot of ambiguity there.I said the bible can be difficult to understand. The Church’s teachings are much clearer-that’s the purpose of a catechism, for one. Hell-and heaven or the afterlife in general for that matter-aren’t topics that God’s chosen to reveal a great about.
So when He told them not to eat of the fruit did He* want *them to eat of the fruit? It was never God’s will that any part of His creation should resist His will; that would mean He’d be the author of sin/evil-not to mention that He’d be quite conflicted BTW. He willed that our wills should be free, free enough to resist and oppose even His very own will! Because He values that freedom immensely,our freedom to choose right over wrong, good over evil, life over death, love over lovelessness, heaven over hell, God over no God. He allows, but never causes, evil, for His purposes, ultimately to bring an even greater good out of it as He patiently draws, without force, His creation into alignment with His perfect will…Well, the same rationale obviously applies to Adam and Eve. They were only able to resist God’s will because it was God’s will that they should resist his will.
Why do you believe that the Catholic position portrays God in a better light?And the biggest problem with the Calvinist position is that, with it, there’s absolutely no guarantee or reason to think that salvation is better that being lost, that heaven would be any better than hell, that God should be any better than satan.
There’s simply not a great deal that God’s revealed about it-or that we could even comprehend at this time.Well, that makes my point. The teachings of the Church are not very straightfoward and clear. There’s a lot of ambiguity there.
Because the choice is ours. Grace is always resistible in Catholic theology. A God who would predestine any of His beings to eternal torment from before creation wouldn’t be worth the time it took to spit on him.Why do you believe that the Catholic position portrays God in a better light?
Two Points:So when He told them not to eat of the fruit did He* want *them to eat of the fruit? It was never God’s will that any part of His creation should resist His will; that would mean He’d be the author of sin/evil-not to mention that He’d be quite conflicted BTW.
This is simply saying in another guise that “God wills that we will resist his will.”He willed that our wills should be free, free enough to resist and oppose even His very own will! Because He values that freedom immensely,our freedom to choose right over wrong, good over evil, life over death, love over lovelessness, heaven over hell, God over no God.
No comment.Meanwhile the Church isn’t going to engage in fantasy.
Like I said, never build an entire theology around a verse or two out of 30000+ verses. The Church teaches otherwise. And the Church can discern the meaning of scripture from the greater perspective of the faith she’s received.Two Points:
“I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.” Isaiah 45:7
- The Bible teaches that God did create evil.
God never changes. Man, and his concept of God, does change, however, and is reflected in the changing accounts of Gods will in the OT. The NT set the record straight, when the time was ripe for us to receive it.
- God, as portrayed in the Bible. does appear to undergoing internal struggles. Anyone who would argue otherwise clearly has never read the Old Testament. Either that, or they are in denial.
Nope. God wills that we’re free to resist His will. Two different concepts: between willing evil and willing freedom.This is simply saying in another guise that “God wills that we will resist his will.”
It is this kind of rationale that prompted me to start my thread: “Why does anyone knowingly and willingly reject God?”Because the choice is ours. Grace is always resistible in Catholic theology.
It’s always interesting to see how people deal with verses that contradict their theological presuppositions. Romans 9 says that God creates some people for destruction like a potter molds clay? Just ignore that. God explicitly says in Isaiah that he creates evil? Doesn’t matter, it’s just one verse. Seems to me that it’s very disrespectful of sacred scripture.Like I said, never build an entire theology around a verse or two out of 30000+ verses. The Church teaches otherwise. And the Church can discern the meaning of scripture from the greater perspective of the faith she’s received.
God never changes. Man, and his concept of God, does change, however, and is reflected in the changing accounts of Gods will in the OT. The NT set the record straight, when the time was ripe for us to receive it.
Nope. God wills that we’re free to resist His will. Two different concepts: between willing evil and willing freedom.
So they can circumvent Him and play God themselves. What could be better than being God? And what can mess up the world better than creation playing God? We’re designed to covet goodness, whatever we may perceive that to be. But the greatest good-and source of sheer happiness for man-is to be willingly subjugated to and in communion with God. Adam’s disobedience was a rejection of that good, a rejection of God, in favor of his own agenda. We’re here to learn why/how Adam was wrong, why God’s will should be done after all-so we can* choose.*It is this kind of rationale that prompted me to start my thread: “Why does anyone knowingly and willingly reject God?”
Sure and we’d have to throw out all the other verses that admonish us to ***choose ***good over evil, life over death, to choose to remain in Christ, invest our talents, live in the Spirit, keep oil in our lamps, feed the hungry, obey the commandments, clothe the naked, keep the faith, be good soil, persevere, strive, be holy, be perfect, work out our salvation, etc, etc, generally with the loss of the kingdom at stake. Throw out free will and you throw out the bulk of the bible along with the Christian faith.It’s always interesting to see how people deal with verses that contradict their theological presuppositions. Romans 9 says that God creates some people for destruction like a potter molds clay? Just ignore that. God explicitly says in Isaiah that he creates evil? Doesn’t matter, it’s just one verse. Seems to me that it’s very disrespectful of sacred scripture.
Counterpoint, you could tattoo these verses all over their bodies, they will never read them or acknowledge what they say.
I don’t believe that everything in the Bible is absolutely literally true or divinely inspired. The Old Testament is mostly a history book explaining why the Jewish people had such bad luck much of the time. I do think that the Gospels are full of truth. As for Paul, he was developing a theology and forming the Christian Church and as much as I love Paul’s writings, sometimes they are contradictory and hard to follow. Some of the writings attributed to Paul aren’t even by Paul. We can get a lot of truth out of the Bible, but not all of it makes perfect sense or even agrees with other things in the Bible. It was written by many people through many different ages. So taking things out of context like Counterpoint did is really quite silly.It’s always interesting to see how people deal with verses that contradict their theological presuppositions. Romans 9 says that God creates some people for destruction like a potter molds clay? Just ignore that. God explicitly says in Isaiah that he creates evil? Doesn’t matter, it’s just one verse. Seems to me that it’s very disrespectful of sacred scripture.
Counterpoint, you could tattoo these verses all over their bodies, they will never read them or acknowledge what they say.
Amen. Good stuff. We cannot comprehend our God. We can only accept his grace and mercy. In the meantime, we are truly responsible for our own actions, and whether we shall be saved or perish is up to him.The world does not consider it possible to be saved in hell. But if we are saved by God reconciling us with Him and in His infinite mercy He reconciles even those in hell for ever and ever and ever…then He accomplishes both sides of the question, saving all and some going to hell forever and ever and ever, just reconciled in the end by God’s infinite mercy and grace. The only important question then is whether we will cooperate with His mercy “in an acceptable time” or we will persevere in obstinacy until we die outside His good graces and sentence ourselves to eternity in hell, where God will reconcile us with himself in the end by giving us truly infinite graces and then our freewill chooses hell in true freedom.
If your God cannot create free will that freely chooses such when given truly infinite graces, maybe your God is not truly infinite in His power. We can not understand how this freewill works. It is just how it must be for us to see God as He is, infinite and still have freewill. We can not see the infinite without an infinite amount of help and we must still have freewill or then God’s thought is transient and not one, single, infinite, always in the present tense thought, Word.
I guess we agree. The OT does not furnish us with a very reliable depiction of God.God never changes. Man, and his concept of God, does change, however, and is reflected in the changing accounts of Gods will in the OT. The NT set the record straight, when the time was ripe for us to receive it.