If God already knows the future does that mean it is meaningless for us to be good people?

[meltzerboy2]

Yet, one must admit, that for all these visions, the world is hardly better off today than it was in ancient times. (Some might say it is, but there is room for debate.) My question stands: why do we need constant reminders by means of tangible miracles; is not faith strong enough?

You speak of Judaism as if it were a dead religion. It is not. There is a resurgence of Orthodox Judaism among young people and even secular Jews take pride in their heritage and religion. The so-called Old Covenant (what Jews prefer to call the Eternal Covenant) survives and thrives to this very day.

 

[Gab123]

for all these visions, the world is hardly better off today than it was in ancient times.

As for the world in ancient times, it was the Catholic Church that built Western civilization. From hospitals to universities to modern invention, music and and western art, western countries founded on JudeoChristian principles are a stark contrast against countries that were not, and these principles forged the freedoms many take for granted that we have today. There’s a reason why you and the whole world wakes up to a calendar that reads the year AD 2018. As for miracles and visions throughout the ages, it is simply God interacting with His people for the sake of the salvation of souls both a Christian and non-Christian.

why do we need constant reminders by means of tangible miracles; is not faith strong enough?

Faith is a gift from God; as for supernatural events, these are simply one of the hallmarks of a divine institution…

You speak of Judaism as if it were a dead religion. It is not. There is a resurgence of Orthodox Judaism among young people and even secular Jews take pride in their heritage and religion. The so-called Old Covenant (what Jews prefer to call the Eternal Covenant) survives and thrives to this very day.

I think pride in Jewish heritage is very strong and it is the glue that in a sense unites Judaism along with Jewish traditions. As far as a religious institution/ Cahal, I see no resemblance between what exists today and what was 2000 years ago. But Catholicism and Judaism are inseparable being that salvation comes to us from the Jews, and the fact of Christ being Jewish. Interestingly, the Church already knows how the story of salvation history will unfold, and one of the signs of the last days before the Last Judgment and Second Coming of Christ is the massive conversion of the Jews to Catholicism. In his book Salvation is from the Jews Roy Schoeman traces the role of Judaism and God’s plan for the salvation of mankind, from Abraham through the Second Coming, as revealed by the Catholic faith. He himself was a practicing Jew who also had a vision! Here is his remarkable story:

Roy Schoeman

 

[Latin]

Latin:
Regardless, I feel you are attempting to oversimplify a very nuanced Church teaching and I fear you may be boardering on Predestinarianism either from the viewpoint of Calvinism or Jansenism.

Predestinarianism | Catholic Answers

God wills no one to be in hell. And we are all “invited” because we God gives the gift of faith to all, however, not everyone accepts it.

Those who choose to get out of line (by sin) risk hell, unless they get back in line. But it comes a harder path for them because they are now “further back in the line.”

God Bless

God bless you Phil19034 and God bless every readers of the CAF.
.
The Catholic Church teaching on salvation is very simple, only people makes it really complicated because luck of knowledge and misunderstanding.
.

We neither can choose hell, nor we can choose heaven.

Adam chosen hell for the entire human race.

We have been born spiritually dead, slaves of sin and condemned to hell.

So, we cannot choose hell because we have been born already condemned and we are already on the way to hell.

As the result of the “fall,” Adam has chosen us to go hell, so we cannot choose what we already have which is hell.
.
.
Until the POINT God decides to give us His undeserved gift of salvation as follows we are on the road to hell.

At the POINT we receive God’s gift of salvation, His call to heaven as follows, we are IRREVOCABLY SAVED (DE FIDE Dogma), and we are on the way to heaven.
.
.
CCCS 1996-1998; This call to eternal life is supernatural, coming TOTALLY from God’s decision and surpassing ALL power of human intellect and will.
.
John 15:16; You did not chose Me, but I chose you.
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CCC 2022; “The divine initiative in the work of grace PRECEDES, PREPARES, and ELICITS the free response of man. …”
.
Our cooperation with the grace of God is produced (not just enabled) by God’s operation.

Yet the ability to respond is also His gift.
.
.
Please Phil19034 listen what I say as follows, because this is the key to understand salvation:

1. If God gives everyone His gift of salvation/predestination to heaven (NO ONE rejects His call to heaven IN ALL CHRISTIAN HISTORY and this is an IRREVOCABLE GIFT, DE FIDE Dogma), then everyone saved, WHICH IS GOD’S SALVIFIC WILL.
2. If God decides, gives only the above gift to a few people ( BY THE “FALL,” WE ARE ON THE WAY TO HELL and WE CANNOT SAVE OURSELVES), then apart from a few people, God throws the entire human race into the pains of hell forever. – NOT BY PEOPLE’S CHOICE, but by God’s choice.
3. As you see above Phil19034, our salvation is 100 % God’s choice and 0 % our choice, plain and simple, no complication.
   .

No Catholic can reject the above three statements, unless first rejecting the DE FIDE Dogma of the Catholic Church, Predestination of the elect.
.

God bless you Phil19034 and God bless every readers of the CAF.

Latin

 

[Autumn-Smoke]

“Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord.” --Hebrews 12:14.
Our place in heaven will be determined by the kind of life we choose to live here on this earth. It is up to us.

"But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.” --1st Peter 1:15-16

So we have good reason to lead lives of righteousness before the Lord.

 

[Latin]

Thank you for your reply. There are several subtle nuances in your argument. My question is not meant to be offensive, only seeking clarification: is what you state the acceptable view of the Catholic Church or is it more in line with heretical movements or perhaps Jesuit thinking?

God bless you Meltzerboy2 and God bless every readers of the CAF.

It is acceptable view and official Catholic teaching.

Having been said that, it is debate going on among theologians about the Catholic teachings on the decree the Divine "reprobation."

Decree the Divine "reprobation,” practically means, negatively predestined to hell.
.
.
CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA Predestination of the elect.
.
Decree the Divine "reprobation.”

Quote: Merely implies the absolute will not to grant the bliss of heaven, though not positively predestined to hell, yet they are absolutely predestined not to go to heaven (cf. above, I, B).
.

The Calvinistic reprobation is POSITIVE REPROBATION.

Calvinistic reprobation means the absolute will to condemn to hell. End quote.
.

Continue

 

[Latin]

Continuation
.

THE MAJORITY OF CATHOLIC THEOLOGIANS STRONGLY CONTESTING THAT APART FROM the chosen ones who are absolutely predestined to heaven, the rest of the human race absolutely predestined not to go to heaven.
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CONTINUATION OF THE CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA Predestination of the elect.
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Quote: Whatever view one may take regarding the reprobation, it cannot be harmonized with the dogmatically certain universality and sincerity of God’s salvific will.
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For the absolute predestination of the blessed is at the same time the absolute will of God “not to elect” a priori the rest of mankind (Suarez), or which comes to the same, “to exclude them from heaven” (Gonet), in other words, not to save them.
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How can that will to save be called serious and sincere which has decreed from all eternity the metaphysical impossibility of salvation?
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He who has been reprobated negatively, may exhaust all his efforts to attain salvation: it avail’s him nothing.
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Moreover, in order to realize infallibly his decree, God is compelled to frustrate the eternal welfare of all excluded a priori from heaven, and to take care that they die in their sins.
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Is this the language in which Holy Writ speaks to us?
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No; there we meet an anxious, loving father, who wills not “that any should perish, but that all should return to penance” (2 Peter 3:9).
.
Lessius rightly says that it would be indifferent to him whether he was numbered among those reprobated positively or negatively; for, in either case, his eternal damnation would be certain.
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The reason for this is that in the present economy exclusion from heaven means for adults practically the same thing as damnation.
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A middle state, a merely natural happiness, does not exist. End quote.

Predestination | Catholic Answers Encyclopedia

.

I believe God saves everyone, for the reason, God’s will is to save everyone, the other reason is; we neither can choose hell nor can we choose heaven.
.

God bless you Meltzerboy2 and God bless every readers of the CAF.

Latin

 

[goout]

God bless you Phil19034 and God bless every readers of the CAF.
.
The Catholic Church teaching on salvation is very simple, only people makes it really complicated because luck of knowledge and misunderstanding.
.

We neither can choose hell, nor we can choose heaven.

Adam chosen hell for the entire human race.

We have been born spiritually dead, slaves of sin and condemned to hell.

So, we cannot choose hell because we have been born already condemned and we are already on the way to hell.

God bless you Phil19034 and God bless every readers of the CAF.

Latin

Sorry to be so blunt, but this is not the Catholic Church’s teaching on salvation/predestination.
NOT.

 

[phil19034]

Please stop copy / pasting your answer because it’s confusing that way.

I know what the Catholic encyclopedia says and I know what St Augustine & St Thomas Aquinas taught.

This subject is simple, but extremely nuanced. There are a lot of heresy surrounding this, which is why we like to say reprobation.

God predestines no one for hell, but He also only predestines a few for Heaven.

We don’t deserve Heaven based on our own merits. Only because of God’s Grace, mercy & love for us are the elect permitted to enter heaven.

The reason we don’t typically go around quoting the Catholic Encyclopedia regarding predestination is because it was hard for most people to understand then and is still difficult today.

Therefore, there is new language used to help people understand this better without falling into Predestinationism, Calvinism or Jainism.

The Heresy of Predestinationism is also known as double Predestination or Supralapsarians incorrectly says that before the fall of man, God predestined Adam’s fall and predestined some to heaven and the rest to hell without unconsidering their merits. Calvin believed this and sometimes St Augustine seems to be supporting this position.

Then, there are two additional theories that are both supported by the Catholic Church… a Catholic may believe either:

Single Predestination- as supported by St Thomas Aquinas - teaches that after the fall, God predestines some for Heaven but does NOT actively predestine the rest to hell.

Finally, there is Conditional Predestination (Molinism) - God looks into the future and predestined each man according to his response to God.

Molinism is what the Saints Robert Bellarmine and Francisco Suárez believed & what the majority of Catholic Theologians today believe in

God Bless

 

[Latin]

We don’t deserve Heaven based on our own merits. Only because of God’s Grace, mercy & love for us are the elect permitted to enter heaven.

God Bless

God bless you Phil19034 and God bless every readers of the CAF.

Please tell us:
What do you believe Phil, how we are saved and those who are condemned (if anyone) for what reason they are end up in hell?
.
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But the explanation must be in harmony with the principles of the following DE FIDE Dogma and the following Catholic teachings:
.
CCCS 1996-1998; This call to eternal life is supernatural, coming TOTALLY from God’s decision and surpassing ALL power of human intellect and will.

John 15:16; You did not chose Me, but I chose you.
.
The beneficent purpose of an all-seeing Providence, is wholly gratuitous, entirely unmerited (Romans 3:24; 9:11-2).
.
.

The Catholic Church affirms predestination as a DE FIDE Dogma (the highest level of binding theological certainty).

CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA

THE CATHOLIC DOGMA. – The predestination of the elect.
.
Consequently, the whole future membership of heaven, down to its minutest details, has

been IRREVOCABLY FIXED FROM ALL ETERNITY. Nor could it be otherwise. For if it

were possible that a predestined individual should after all be CAST INTO HELL or that

one not predestined should in the end REACH HEAVEN, then God would have been

MISTAKEN in his foreknowledge of future events; He would NO LONGER be omniscient.
.
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(2) The second quality of predestination, the DEFINITENESS of the number of the elect,

follows NATURALLY from the first. For if the eternal counsel of God regarding the

predestined is UNCHANGEABLE, then the number of the predestined must likewise be

UNCHANGEABLE and DEFINITE, subject NEITHER to ADDITIONS nor to

CANCELLATIONS. Anything indefinite in the number would eo ipso imply a lack of

certitude in God’s knowledge and would DESTROY His omniscience.
.

God bless you Phil19034 and God bless every readers of the CAF.

Latin

 

[Wesrock]

Latin, you’re veering into double predestination again and leaving out the Church’s teaching on man’s ownership of his own consent (or rejection) of God’s grace.

A person cannot choose God without God enabling him to be able to do so, but man’s agency and ownership of his choice is not bypassed.

 

[Latin]

Latin, you’re veering into double predestination again and leaving out the Church’s teaching on man’s ownership of his own consent (or rejection) of God’s grace.

A person cannot choose God without God enabling him to be able to do so, but man’s agency and ownership of his choice is not bypassed.

God bless you Wesrock and God bless every readers of the CAF.

Thank you for your post.
.

The sequence of events of our salvation.
.
COUNCIL OF TRENT Session 6 Chapter 8
… We are therefore said to be justified freely, because that none of those things which PRECEDE justification-whether faith or works-merit the grace itself of justification.
.
CCC 2022; “The divine initiative in the work of grace PRECEDES, PREPARES, and ELICITS the free response of man. …”
.
Our cooperation with the grace of God is produced (not just enabled) by God’s operation.

Yet the ability to respond is also His gift.
.

AFTER our Justification as God’s children/elect we are all happily say YES to God’s call to Eternal Life.
.

God bless you Wesrock and God bless every readers of the CAF.

Latin

 

[Wesrock]

My concern with many of Latin’s posts are that they misrepresent the Church’s teachings by essentially excluding to comment on man’s agency in cooperating with God’s graces and the true merit due to man for that cooperation. He also speaks as if those who go to Hell do not merit hell by their own works and through their own agency but as if God sends people to Hell arbitrarily as if they did not merit Hell.

To quote some of the canons from the Council of Trent, Session VI:

CANON IV.-If any one saith, that man’s free will moved and excited by God, by assenting to God exciting and calling, nowise co-operates towards disposing and preparing itself for obtaining the grace of Justification; that it cannot refuse its consent, if it would, but that, as something inanimate, it does nothing whatever and is merely passive; let him be anathema.

CANON V.-If any one saith, that, since Adam’s sin, the free will of man is lost and extinguished; or, that it is a thing with only a name, yea a name without a reality, a figment, in fine, introduced into the Church by Satan; let him be anathema.

CANON VI.-If any one saith, that it is not in man’s power to make his ways evil, but that the works that are evil God worketh as well as those that are good, not permissively only, but properly, and of Himself, in such wise that the treason of Judas is no less His own proper work than the vocation of Paul; let him be anathema.

CANON XV.-If any one saith, that a man, who is born again and justified, is bound of faith to believe that he is assuredly in the number of the predestinate; let him be anathema.

CANON XVII.-If any one saith, that the grace of Justification is only attained to by those who are predestined unto life; but that all others who are called, are called indeed, but receive not grace, as being, by the divine power, predestined unto evil; let him be anathema.

CANON XX.-If any one saith, that the man who is justified and how perfect soever, is not bound to observe the commandments of God and of the Church, but only to believe; as if indeed the Gospel were a bare and absolute promise of eternal life, without the condition of observing the commandments ; let him be anathema.

CANON XXVI.-If any one saith, that the just ought not, for their good works done in God, to expect and hope for an eternal recompense from God, through His mercy and the merit of Jesus Christ, if so be that they persevere to the end in well doing and in keeping the divine commandments; let him be anathema.

CANON XXXII.-If any one saith, that the good works of one that is justified are in such manner the gifts of God, as that they are not also the good merits of him that is justified; or, that the said justified, by the good works which he performs through the grace of God and the merit of Jesus Christ, whose living member he is, does not truly merit increase of grace, eternal life, and the attainment of that eternal life,-if so be, however, that he depart in grace,-and also an increase of glory; let him be anathema.

 

[Wesrock]

And from the Catechism:

1993 Justification establishes cooperation between God’s grace and man’s freedom. On man’s part it is expressed by the assent of faith to the Word of God, which invites him to conversion, and in the cooperation of charity with the prompting of the Holy Spirit who precedes and preserves his assent:

2001 The preparation of man for the reception of grace is already a work of grace. This latter is needed to arouse and sustain our collaboration in justification through faith, and in sanctification through charity. God brings to completion in us what he has begun, "since he who completes his work by cooperating with our will began by working so that we might will it:"50

2002 God’s free initiative demands man’s free response, for God has created man in his image by conferring on him, along with freedom, the power to know him and love him. the soul only enters freely into the communion of love. God immediately touches and directly moves the heart of man. He has placed in man a longing for truth and goodness that only he can satisfy. the promises of “eternal life” respond, beyond all hope, to this desire:

2006 The term “merit” refers in general to the recompense owed by a community or a society for the action of one of its members, experienced either as beneficial or harmful, deserving reward or punishment. Merit is relative to the virtue of justice, in conformity with the principle of equality which governs it.

2008 The merit of man before God in the Christian life arises from the fact that God has freely chosen to associate man with the work of his grace. the fatherly action of God is first on his own initiative, and then follows man’s free acting through his collaboration, so that the merit of good works is to be attributed in the first place to the grace of God, then to the faithful. Man’s merit, moreover, itself is due to God, for his good actions proceed in Christ, from the predispositions and assistance given by the Holy Spirit.

2009 Filial adoption, in making us partakers by grace in the divine nature, can bestow true merit on us as a result of God’s gratuitous justice. This is our right by grace, the full right of love, making us “co-heirs” with Christ and worthy of obtaining "the promised inheritance of eternal life."60 The merits of our good works are gifts of the divine goodness.61 "Grace has gone before us; now we are given what is due… Our merits are God’s gifts."62

2010 Since the initiative belongs to God in the order of grace, no one can merit the initial grace of forgiveness and justification, at the beginning of conversion. Moved by the Holy Spirit and by charity, we can then merit for ourselves and for others the graces needed for our sanctification, for the increase of grace and charity, and for the attainment of eternal life. Even temporal goods like health and friendship can be merited in accordance with God’s wisdom. These graces and goods are the object of Christian prayer. Prayer attends to the grace we need for meritorious actions.

 

[Wesrock]

Thank you. I had basically drafted up the other post prior to reading this one.’

AFTER our Justification as God’s children/elect we are all happily say YES to God’s call to Eternal Life.

Remember also that those who are justified and actually receive God’s graces can lose their justification. That is de fide.

God does know the number. He knows who will go to Heaven and who will go to Hell. We are unable to choose Heaven unless God gives us the graces to do so. He also offers graces to people who do not choose Heaven. But we go to Hell due to choices made under our own agency. Anyone who does end up in Hell deserves to be there because of his own demerit. I understand God’s role in this, but we can’t speak as if man has no culpability.

 

[phil19034]

@Latin

1. Please stop copy & pasting. Simply talk yourselves because you confusing the Church’s teaching.
2. I am NOT saying that the Church doesn’t teach predestination. We do. What I’m saying is you are falling in and out of Double Predestination which is a heresy.

The two approved, theological theories of predestination taught by the Catholic church are:

• Single Predestination - which was taught by St. Thomas Aquinus
• Conditional Predestination (also called Molinism) - supported by Sts Robert Bellarmine and Francisco Suárez

Again:

Single Predestination- teaches that after the fall, God predestines some for Heaven but does NOT actively predestine the rest to hell. In other words, not being predestined for Heaven means that we wind up in hell, but it’s NOT God’s active will for us.

Conditional Predestination (Molinism) - teaches that God looks into the future and predestined each man according to his response to God. Again, this is what most modern Catholic Theologians (orthodox ones) believe.

BOTH Single Predestination & Conditional Predestination line up correctly with Catholic doctrine & dogma. However, Double Predestination (supported by Calvin and Jansenist heretics) is heresy.

Which one do I believe: I’m not 100% sure, but I think I agree with Conditional Predestination the most because my understanding of Divine Mercy.

I recommend you get the book Predestination: The Meaning of Predestination in Scripture and the Church by Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange O.P.

God Bless

 

[Latin]

@Latin

1. Please stop copy & pasting. Simply talk yourselves because you confusing the Church’s teaching.
2. I am NOT saying that the Church doesn’t teach predestination. We do. What I’m saying is you are falling in and out of Double Predestination which is a heresy.

The two approved, theological theories of predestination taught by the Catholic church are:

• Single Predestination - which was taught by St. Thomas Aquinus
• Conditional Predestination (also called Molinism) - supported by Sts Robert Bellarmine and Francisco Suárez

Again:

Single Predestination- teaches that after the fall, God predestines some for Heaven but does NOT actively predestine the rest to hell. In other words, not being predestined for Heaven means that we wind up in hell, but it’s NOT God’s active will for us.

Conditional Predestination (Molinism) - teaches that God looks into the future and predestined each man according to his response to God. Again, this is what most modern Catholic Theologians (orthodox ones) believe.

BOTH Single Predestination & Conditional Predestination line up correctly with Catholic doctrine & dogma. However, Double Predestination (supported by Calvin and Jansenist heretics) is heresy.

Which one do I believe: I’m not 100% sure, but I think I agree with Conditional Predestination the most because my understanding of Divine Mercy.

I recommend you get the book Predestination: The Meaning of Predestination in Scripture and the Church by Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange O.P.

God Bless

God bless you Phil19034.

Phil do you believe THE CATHOLIC DOGMA. – The predestination of the elect described in my post 134?

Do you believe Phil, the names and the numbers of the predestined to heaven from all eternity cannot change?

God bless.

 

[phil19034]

God bless you Phil19034.

Phil do you believe THE CATHOLIC DOGMA. – The predestination of the elect described in my post 134?

Do you believe Phil, the names and the numbers of the predestined to heaven from all eternity cannot change?

God bless.

@Latin.

Your post 134 is confusing.

Do I believe in the Catholic Dogma of predestination? Yes. Do I believe the names & number of the predestined to Heaven cannot change? Yes

Look, I clearly understand it. I’m a member of the New Saint Thomas Institute and have been studying this as part of the Theology certificate.

However, the way the you are copy & pasting incomplete quotes from the Catholic Encyclopedia and perhaps other places is very confusing.

Whether you agree or not, the Catholic teaching of Predestination is a level of theology more advanced than what most Catholics have. People come to Catholic Answers & to the Forums to learn via baby steps. If they want the Catholic Encyclopedia answer, they can go to that (which is at catholic.com).

But when people are asking here, they are looking for laymen answers and pastoral answers from clergy.

I have no issue with the Catholic Encyclopedia, however, there is a very good reason why it’s not used on a very day basis: most people have a hard time understanding it because it has very long articles for each topic. Honestly, St. Thomas’s Summa is far easier to read that the Encyclopedia.

BTW - here is what the Summa has to say about predestination.

• http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1023.htm
• http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1024.htm

God bless.

 

[phil19034]

I don’t know that I buy that God creates evil so good can come from it.

God does NOT create evil. However, were were given the free will choice to choose between good & evil because we were given the free will to love, trust & obey God or to turn away from God - which is the root of all sin & evil.

God bless

 

[OsculeturMeOsculo]

From a philosophical view evil is a perversion or it lacks something from what goodness has.

 

[QwertyGirl]

God does NOT create evil. However, were were given the free will choice to choose between good & evil because we were given the free will to love, trust & obey God or to turn away from God - which is the root of all sin & evil.

God bless

For me, it is more complex than that. God creates us, giving us free will, knowing that human beings will commit evil. That means He knowingly creates a situation where evil will occur. For me, that is the same thing as Him contributing to evil. Because I don’t believe God creates true evil, this is why I believe maybe our souls and minds are not capable of understanding how God looks at evil, Himself.