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Tomdstone
Guest
Pretty long winded. The fact is that God responds to the prayers of the Mass, so He is not unMoved.
If God can be 'uncreated & unchanging', why not the universe too?"
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John_Martin
Guest
The agent of movement (the mover) is always more powerful than what is moved.
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ynotzap
Guest
In a humanistic way of thinking, a simple and uncomplicated way, at first sight, but not a metaphysical way of thinking, which is thinking on an ontological level which goes beyond the average layman’s depth of thinking. This way is the third level of abstraction that is real, but one that apparently you do not acknowledge or understand.
One could not pray if one didn’t receive the grace to pray, and the grace is issued from God to cause us to pray. We are the one’s responding to His impulses to pray, and not He to us. He is always influencing us to pray, and why? To bring us closer to Him. He answers our prayers before we even pray, because He knows by His Omniscience that we will ask. He loved us first, which causes us to love Him, and He leads us by prayer. God does not move metaphysically, but is the source of all motion, prayer is spiritual motion towards God, a lifting our minds and heart to Him, and He is the one who is causing it. He just seeks our co-operation with Him, because like Him we have freedom of will and He will not take that from us Even if you do not understand it’s OK, just keep the faith in Jesus Christ, that’s what really counts It involves the Mystery of Predestination, God knows who will respond to His saving grace, (not meaning to complicate the issue any further, as I know it might)
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thinkandmull
Guest
I don’t think that is necessarily true. Suppose a conscious alien existed, and he combined substance 1 from his left hemisphere with substance 2 from his right into a Frankenstein and the result was something greater than the sum of its parts?
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Tomdstone
Guest
Correct. That is why God is not unMoved.
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Nixbits
Guest
What exactly do you mean by ‘He answer our prayers’? By communicating with us? By intervening in the world to fulfil our requests? By ordering the world according to His plan irrespective of our wishes? It’s not clear to me what you mean by this.
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kdbueno
Guest
The universe preserves us from error
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ynotzap
Guest
God’s main concern for each person is his salvation, and it should be the person’s main concern, and everything in his life, because of God’s providence should lead him to that end. What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul? ;When a person prays he is mindful of God, as he should be, he is responding to grace. The object of prayer is to grant our desires, and in appealing to God for the answers, we discover the truth that God is our greatest need, not those other things that we ask for. We learn by trust, that His providence takes care of us. He knows what we need before we ask for it, but sometimes we do not ask correctly, or rightly, and at times we say, He hasn’t answered my prayers. God always answers sincere prayer, maybe not in the way we expect, but He answers in a way that fosters His plan for us, and that is union with Him, which by design is the ultimate purpose in our lives.
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ynotzap
Guest
God answers our prayers (He caused us by grace to pray, and He knows that we will pray) But you draw the wrong conclusion, God did not move(Ontologically), but He moved us to prayer since He is the source of all motion. Maybe an analogy might give you some idea of what I mean: A man holding a cue stick hitting a cue ball which in turn hits a billiard ball and so on. The man acts as an anchor for the cue stick, he acts as a foundation that doesn’t move himself, but uses his arms to move the cue stick, not an accurate description of God as the Unmoved Mover, but as I said, an analogy. If you can not accept this, then we agree to disagree.
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Nixbits
Guest
How is this detectably different to God not answering our prayers?
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ynotzap
Guest
could you clarify your statement. God answers prayer, but if what we ask for is not in accordance with His will for us then He will not grant it. For example, one may ask for wealth, and God knows that wealth will lead that person to perdition, should He grant that person his request? Out of love He won’t. But God in turn, by His grace,may show the person that wealth is not the answer to his real needs. God knows that he will ask for wealth, the person has already turned and acknowledged God as the source of his imagined need, so that is a plus, spiritually, but now he needs wisdom to understand that wealth won’t solve his real needs. God is always leading us to the truth, even by our lack of wisdom, and knowledge, He can use our deficiencies to accomplish His will for us, that’s what God does. He leads us by His Providence. By refusing to answer prayer immedialtely may be an encouragement to pray more, and that is an advancement in faith, and trust, which is according to God’s will. This ultimately results in the person’s well-being which is what the person was seeking in the first place by asking for wealth. I don’t know if this helps to answer your question.
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Bahman
Guest
Do you agree that God is spiritual? If yes, how He could be located.
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Bahman
Guest
That is not correct. A Spiritual being by definition cannot be present everywhere.
That is not correct either since sustaining creation needs temporal acts.
There is no inside and outside of God. Do you believe that God has a body so we can distinguish inside from outside?
God cannot sustain universe eternally since the act of sustaining is temporal. God only create universe by eternal act. Universe can however evolve on its own based on laws of nature.
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Tomdstone
Guest
The Catholic creed said at Mass says that God came down from heaven. God is spiritual, but still, He came down from heaven. This is another example of why God is not unMoved. If He were unMoved, He would not be able to come down from Heaven.
If God were unMoved, He would not be able to effect the miracle of Transubstantiation as a response to the prayers of the Mass.
God responds to our prayers. God creates the universe. God comes down from heaven. God walks in a garden on earth. God responds to the sin of Adam and Eve. All this indicates that God is not unMoved.
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ynotzap
Guest
I think that you are “unmoved”
God never left Heaven, Heaven is where God is, and union with God is Heaven. Jesus manifests His physical presence, through an act of Faith, Jesus is both God and man. The body and blood of Jesus are physical, He is present in body, soul and divinity because His humanity is united with His divinity, it is the Mystery of the Incarnation, the Word became flesh. IN this act of Faith, God doesn’t come down, but lifts us up to a divine level, not an earthly one. “We see as through a curtain, but then we will see face to face…”
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Tomdstone
Guest
Apparently you do not believe the Creed which is said at every Mass:
“…God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,…
For us men and for our salvation
He came down from heaven,”
All Catholic priests, bishops, cardinals, Pope, declare this when celebrating Mass.
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ynotzap
Guest
Heaven proper is the Beatific Vision of God, God is the the source of the Vision, Paradise is a place where the Saints inhabit. God does not have to come down, because He is pure Spirit. Paradise, the place or state of happiness with God involves the humanity of Christ which is united to to His divinity. Jesus entered time, assumed human nature, so we can apply human actions to Jesus because of His human nature, He was flesh and blood. In that sense God came down, because Jesus is human, occupies space, has blood and flesh, but He is God in His divine nature, the two natures can not be separated.
In His divinity, He is Pure Spirit, Omnipresent, Omniscient, Omnipotent In His divine nature, not in His human nature. He never was separated from the Father who is in Heaven. You never make this distinction So it is true that Jesus, a human with a divine personality entered our physical world, but as Pure Spirit in His divinity He never left His Father, or the Holy Spirit So the Church is right in her prayer because Jesus is divine, with human nature. He is always united in spirit with the Father. What you are saying is that Jesus, God, separated from the Father and came down to earth. Jesus never ceased to be God, Pure Spirit, sustaining creation, while He was walking the earth. I explained the best I could, and I can not make you understand. I am not contradicting the Nicene Creed which you quoted. In your mind, I am. The Church has to say, that The Son of God came down from Heaven to assume human nature God is Pure Spirit does not occupy space or time, He creates them.
He entered time that He created, how else would you say it in human terms? Jesus, God, one with the Father and the Holy Spirit never separated with His Father or the Holy Spirit, we have our existence in God. Human terms don’t always capture the complete truth, or describe the complete truth, but what they describe can be the truth in so far as they go. The Trinity is a Divine Mystery of the Church.
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Tomdstone
Guest
No. you apparently have the order incorrect. Here is what the creed states:
For us men and for our salvation
he came down from heaven,
and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary,
and became man.
So Jesus was not man before he was incarnate of the Virgin Mary. God, not being man, first came down from heaven, then He was incarnate and became man.
In any case, there was movement. So once again it shows that God is not unmoved.
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Nixbits
Guest
This doesn’t really answer my question, which was: How can it be demonstrated that God answers all prayers (as was originally asserted)? The scenario you have put forward would be indistinguishable, from the point of view of the person praying, to God not answering prayers. So it seems to me that the assertion that God answers all prayers is not demonstrable and is just a matter of faith.
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John_Martin
Guest
It may be you are unfamiliar with the word “and” which does not denote temporal sequence, but connection of clauses, in this case equality of clauses, where each clause is a clarification of the one before, but each clause is not a sequence of happenings.
Thus, “He came down from heaven” means that “by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary”, and this means he “became man”
Instantaneously all three clauses (meaning one thing, one event) were true in Mary’s womb. The person of the Son of God was now on earth, the one appearing as the Son of Man came down as Daniel saw.
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