Is Double Predestination compatible with a belief in purgatory

[Latin]

Latin:

No elect can reject Initial Justification for many reasons, one is it is an instant event and solely God’s work, furthermore every elect irrevocable saved at their Initial Justification ( DE FIDE ).

Where did you get this from? The Church does not teach this, because the Church does not teach one can know with infallible certainty that they are among the elect.

I think the proper way to state this would be that the elect predestined by God were the ones that He foreknew would not reject His call.

God Bless

The flaw in your post is, that you post what you think.

I SHOW YOU MT THE CHURCH TEACHINGS ON THE SUBJECT.

THE THEORY OF PREDESTINATION prævisa merita.

THIS THEORY, CHAMPIONED BY all Thomists and a few Molinists (as Bellarmine, Francisco Suárez, Francis de Lugo):

Asserts that God, by an absolute decree and without regard to any future supernatural merits, predestined from all eternity certain men to the glory of heaven, and then, in consequence of this decree, decided to give them all the graces necessary for its accomplishment. End quote.

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MT, the predestined doesn’t have to know that they are predestined.

The be predestined and to know to be predestined, is two different subject, we should never mix the two together because can cause great confusion.

You MT can be predestined without you know it.
You are maybe predestined/ elect without you know it.
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God bless

 

[MT1926]

The grace of God’s Justification CCCS 1990-1991; Justification is God’s free gift which detaches man from enslavement to sin and reconciles him to God.

Amen

Justification is also our acceptance of God’s righteousness. In this gift, faith, hope, charity, and OBEDIENCE TO GOD’S WILL are given to us.

Amen

The Grace of God’s Call CCCS 1996-1998

Justification comes from grace (God’s free and undeserved help) and is given to us to respond to his call.

This call to eternal life is supernatural, coming TOTALLY from God’s decision and surpassing ALL power of human intellect and will. End quote.

Amen to Grace

I hope MT now you believe it, it is God’s choice and we FREELY SAY YES to it because in His gift includes faith, hope, charity, and OBEDIENCE TO GOD’S WILL.

I never said I don’t believe it. I’m just saying I have a different definition of what FREELY means.

All I’m saying is we can FREELY choose to be OBEDIENT to God’s Will or we can FREELY choose to be DISOBEDIENT to God’s Will.

How do you define FREELY? Because maybe I am misunderstanding but it sure seems like you are saying we aren’t able to FREELY choose to be DISOBEDIENT?

We are not puppets because God enlightens our mind end we freely choose the good.

Totally, agree. However, we can resist God’s enlightening also.

That is all I am saying. Do you believe we are able to resist this enlightening?

God Bless

 

[MT1926]

Asserts that God, by an absolute decree and without regard to any future supernatural merits, predestined from all eternity certain men to the glory of heaven, and then, in consequence of this decree, decided to give them all the graces necessary for its accomplishment. End quote.

I never objected to this, not sure why you keep accusing me of not accepting this?

MT, the predestined doesn’t have to know that they are predestined.

Totally agree. Not sure why you think this is an argument against me saying the Church does not teach one can know with infallible certainty that they are among the elect?

The be predestined and to know to be predestined, is two different subject, we should never mix the two together because can cause great confusion.

Sorry I disagree.

I think it is very important that we be aware that the Church does not teach one can know with infallible certainty that they are among the elect. If not the discussion of predestination can lead one to the Sin of Presumption believing they are already saved thus leading them off the narrow path and away from their strengths to persevere to the end.

God Bless

 

[Latin]

How do you define FREELY?

The Divine Providence shows us our free will.
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CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA Divine Providence.
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His wisdom He so orders all events within the universe that the end for which it was created may be realized.
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That end is that all creatures should manifest the glory of God, and in particular that man should glorify Him, recognizing in nature the work of His hand, serving Him in obedience and love, and thereby attaining to the full development of his nature and to eternal happiness in God.
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The universe is a system of real beings created by God and directed by Him to this supreme end, the concurrence of God being necessary for all natural operations, whether of things animate or inanimate, and still more so for operations of the supernatural order.
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God preserves the universe in being; He acts in and with every creature in each and all its activities.
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Thus things happen contingently as well as of necessity (I, Q. xxii, a. 4), for [God] has given to different things different ways of acting, and His concurrence is given accordingly (I, Q. xxii, a. 4).
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Yet all things, whether due to [necessary] causes or to the free choice of man, are foreseen by [God] and preordained in accordance with His all-embracing purpose.
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Hence Providence is at once universal, immediate, efficacious, yet all alike postulate Divine concurrence and receive their powers of operation from Him; efficacious, in that all things minister to [God’s] final purpose, a purpose which cannot be frustrated (Contra Gent., III, xciv);
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In spite of sin, which is due to the willful perversion of human liberty, acting with the concurrence, but contrary to the purpose and intention of God and in spite of evil which is the consequence of sin, He directs all, even evil and sin itself, to the final end for which the universe was created.
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Sin is not ordained by the will of God, though it happens with His permission.
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Evil He converts into good (Genesis 1:20; cf. Psalm 90:10); and suffering He uses as an instrument whereby to train men up as a father trains up his children (Deuteronomy 8:1-6; Psalm 65:2-10;
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Nor would God permit evil at all, unless He could draw good out of evil (St. Augustine, “Enchir.”, xi in “P.L.”, LX, 236; “Serm.”
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Evil, therefore, ministers to God’s design (St. Gregory the Great, op. cit., VI, xxxii in “P.L.”,

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Probably we can define free will as follows:

We are free to do everything God permits us to do, He is cooperating with us in our act by providing us the operating powers to act and our act preordained from all eternity.
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God bless

 

[Latin]

That is all I am saying. Do you believe we are able to resist this enlightening?

God Bless

The following publications contains the answer of your question.

THE MYSTERY OF PREDESTINATION by John Salza,

GRACE,PREDESTINATION, AND THE SALVIFIC WILL OF GOD by William G. Most,

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There are many different theories in the above publications concerning different graces and the way of salvation.

I try to present you MT the most widely accepted theories by Catholic theologians.
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The shortest answer to your above question is, we can resist all kinds of enlightenments and all kinds of graces, apart from extraordinary graces.

Of course this is not as simple as it sounds, but not very complicated either.
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According to John Salza:

Hence, a sufficient grace has an operating effect only (enlightens the mind and empowering the will to act). – No cooperating effect/ no application, for this reason we ALWAYS REJECT sufficient graces.

whereas an efficacious grace has both an operating and cooperating effect (applying the will to act).
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Sufficient grace remains an interior impulse, whereas an efficacious grace produces an exterior act.

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Again, the mystery is that with sufficient grace, man is truly able to cooperate with the grace to perform the salutary act, but freely chooses not to, and God permits him to resist.

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With efficacious grace, man is able to resist the grace but does not, because the grace causes him to freely choose the good.

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In both cases, man is completely free, but in the former, the resistance (which is an evil) comes from man, while in the latter, the cooperation (which is good) comes from God.

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This means that when God wills a person to perform a salutary act (e.g., prayer, good works), He grants him the means (an efficacious grace) that infallibly produces the end (the act willed by God).

If God wills to permit a person to resist His grace, He grants him a sufficient, and not an efficacious, grace.

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John Salza, Page 113: However, the Church teaches that God infused Adam with sufficient grace to resist temptation and to perform his duties with charity.

St. Thomas says that “neither in the state of perfect nature, nor in the state of corrupt nature can man fulfill the commandments of the law without grace.

God, however, willed to permit Adam to reject His grace and to sin. End quote.

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According to Fr. Most: (THE MYSTERY OF PREDESTINATION by John Salza, page 121.)

Fr. Most identifies the metaphysical issue as follows:

Sufficient grace gives man the potency to do good, but efficacious grace is required to move him from potency to act.

Therefore, sufficient grace is insufficient to move him to act.

This is what Fr. Most calls the “vicious circle.”
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I believe Fr. Most explanation. - We need efficacious grace to act. I believe all the other explanations and teachings of John Salza.

Whose explanation do you believe MT about sufficient graces?
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God bless.

 

[MT1926]

Probably we can define free will as follows:

We are free to do everything God permits us to do

So is it possible for God to permit us to freely cooperate with His Grace or freely reject His Grace?

 

[MT1926]

Whose explanation do you believe MT about sufficient graces?

Well you have given me no reason to accept yours.

I mean no disrespect but are you capable of having a conversation? I ask you questions to try and understand your line of thinking and you ignore my questions and hit me with more quotes.

Being treated like a punching bag for your pleasure of beating me over the head with citations from various sources gets tiring after a while.

I’m just trying to help you out here Latin. You post a bunch of references with no links to where you got them from. Why would I accept anything you have to say? I have no way of knowing what you are pulling out of context and what is a complete quote.

Even you yourself state here…

I try to present you MT the most widely accepted theories by Catholic theologians.

The context of this statement is the word theories. You might consider peoples theories to be automatically Church teachings, but they are not, they are just their personal opinions.

If you would like to have a conversation about a particular topic I am willing. But this is the third thread that you beat me over the head with these copy and pasted citations and its getting tiresome. I don’t see us agreeing on this topic because in my opinion you are taking Church teachings about an inch further than she intended you to take them.

God Bless

 

[Latin]

Latin:

Probably we can define free will as follows:

We are free to do everything God permits us to do

So is it possible for God to permit us to freely cooperate with His Grace or freely reject His Grace?

In my opinion, Fr. Most and John Salza both among the best of the bests Catholic theologians.

This is their answer to your question, not my answer but I perfectly believe their answer as follows:

A sufficient grace has an operating effect only (empowering the will to act). – No cooperating effect/ no application to the will to act, so we always freely reject sufficient graces.
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Efficacious grace has both an operating and cooperating effect (applying the will to act). – So, we always freely cooperate with efficacious graces.
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Sufficient grace remains an interior impulse, whereas an efficacious grace produces an exterior act.
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This means that when God wills a person to perform a salutary act (e.g., prayer, good works), He grants him the means (an efficacious grace) that infallibly produces the end (the act willed by God).
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If God wills to permit a person to resist His grace, He grants him a sufficient, and not an efficacious, grace.

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This is above the answer of Fr. Most and John Salza to your question and I believe the large majority of Catholic theologians also agree with. – I certainly agree with their answer, it is plain and simple.
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If you reread again my above posts 45 and 46 gives you the explanations of the above answer in fine details.
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The question is: Do you agree MT with their answer?
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God bless

 

[MT1926]

Do you agree MT with their answer?

I agree with what said here now that I found it and read it in context. The point I am making is you don’t speak for yourself so I have no idea how you are interpreting what this says. How can I say I agree with you when you don’t write, IN YOUR OWN WORDS, what this means to you?

For instance I looked this up…

This means …He grants him the means … that infallibly produces the end…

I have no problem with this because I read this in context of what John starts this chapter saying…

With sufficient grace, God gives man the power to perform the salutary act; with efficacious grace, God actually causes man to freely perform the act (although God doesn’t coerce man: man remains free).

That is the only point I am trying to make, MAN REMAINS FREE. How do we remain free? Beats the heck out of me, it’s a mystery, the Church even says we can’t fully understand the fine details of this. The only thing I do know is, if you try to define that mystery in human terms you are most likely going to make the same mistake as Calvin claiming it’s all God and we have no will, which is also claiming God is the one who chooses who goes to Hell. or the Arminians who believe is fully depends on man’s will.

If you keep reading that chapter this is the way I understand it…

Rather, efficacious grace elicits the freedom of the will, so that man freely chooses the good and does not want to resist…In other words, this grace perfects the will so that it chooses the good God created it to desire and possess.

Dr. David Andres gives an analogy that kind of makes sense to me…

There are two gifted artists in a room full of canvases and every color of paint known to man. They can freely choose to paint what ever their hearts desire like, landscapes, sunsets, bridges, stars, etc.

The first painter, from your post this would be the guy with sufficient grace(the desire to paint)), is lying on a couch all stung out on heroin. This guy was given the desire to paint but given his choice of picking up a paint brush and painting or picking up the needle full or heroin (sin) he will always freely choose the heroin.

The second painter, from your example this would be the guy with efficacious grace, picks up a brush and starts going to town on canvas after canvas. God doesn’t force him to paint or dictate what he must paint, but God gave him the desire to paint and kept him free from the heroin so he could freely choose to paint(the good).

So no I am not disagreeing with what you post. As I already pointed out in an earlier post, even after I asked you to stop, all you do is site sentences from sources, with no explanation of what this says to you.

Let’s have a conversation instead.

What’s your opinion and only your opinion on my example? (I don’t care what John has to say on the subject, now that I found it I can read it myself).

Also, what’s you thoughts on what John writes that I posted above on the will remains free?

God Bless

 

[adgloriam]

I was wrong once …it was a Tuesday, I think.

I like your sense of humor

 

[Latin]

What’s your opinion and only your opinion on my example?

Also, what’s you thoughts on what John writes that I posted above on the will remains free?

Yes it is reasonable request that I use my own words.

Of course sometimes for the sake of others, I need to use some excerpts.

In my opinion: Your understanding is correct, I understand everything in your post the same way as you have written.

I believe Dr. David Andre’s analogy is absolutely correct.

I also believe John’s above teaching on the will remains free.

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Now I tell you MT in the way I understand sufficient and efficacious graces.

Sufficient grace has an operating effect only enlightens the mind and empowering the will to act, (no cooperating effect and no application for the will to act). – For this reason we ALWAYS REJECT sufficient graces.
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Efficacious grace has both an operating and cooperating effect (enlightens the mind and applying the will to act). – For this reason we NEVER REJECT efficacious graces.
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Sufficient grace remains an interior impulse, whereas an efficacious grace produces an exterior act.
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This means that when God wills a person to perform a salutary act (e.g., prayer, good works), He grants him the means (an efficacious grace) that infallibly produces the end (the act willed by God).

If God wills to permit a person to resist His grace, He grants him a sufficient, and not an efficacious, grace.

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For the sake of others I have to quote from my above post 45 as follows:

THE MYSTERY OF PREDESTINATION by John Salza, page Page 113:

Quote: However, the Church teaches that God infused Adam with sufficient grace to resist temptation and to perform his duties with charity.

God, however, willed to permit Adam to reject His grace and to sin. End quote.

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Now MT please consider the above words are my words, I believe every word as it is written, it means what it says, includes the above quote.

I also believe the above (Adam & Eve) quote from John concerning sufficient grace with the same principle equally referring to us as well.
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When God wills to permit us to reject His grace and to sin, He gives us sufficient grace and not efficacious grace and we always commit the act of sin.
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I also believe, if God would give us only efficacious graces, would be no sin in the world.
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The question is: Why then God sometimes (just about every day) gives us sufficient graces to resist sin?
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The answer is: Because God converts our sins into good. – For the explanation please see my above post 46.
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When God wills not to permit us to sin, He gives us efficacious graces and we do not sin.
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As we see above, with sufficient and efficacious graces God perfectly controls the entire human race.
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In heaven God will gives us only efficacious graces and will be no sin committed.
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If you MT reread my post 45 you will see we are not puppets because even our free will choices (which choices permitted by God) preordained by God from all eternity.
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God bless.

 

[adgloriam]

hermeneutics and exegesis in a user friendly way.

I’ll take a second to note: “Action Theory”.

On one side: “Structuralism”, on the other “Rational Action Theory”.

Summa I.II-1.3.

Reply to Objection 3. Such like actions are not properly human actions; since they do not proceed from deliberation of the reason, which is the proper principle of human actions.

Well, Scholastics and Thomism seem to forget most decisions and actions aren’t fully deliberated or fully understood. And so a better part of hermeneutics tradition is fundamentally flawed. The tradition of hermeneutics itself is full of nonsense (the unrepentant nazi Heidegger being a good example).

It’s a tough issue that can hardly be resolved. I remember reading Garrigou-Lagrange, OP, on double predestination and thinking I would never be able to understand it. Again, no one should be expected to understand double predestination, such a crown jewel of theology is for professionals.

 

[Vico]

…
EVERY our good free-will decisions comes from God, our unaided free-will decisions useful only to choose acts of sins.
…

Denzinger 817, from the Council of Trent, SESSION VI (Jan. 13, 1547) Decree On Justification

Can. 7. If anyone shall say that all works that are done before justification, in whatever manner they have been done, are truly sins or deserving of the hatred of God, or that the more earnestly anyone strives to dispose himself for grace, so much the more grievously does he sin: let him be anathema [cf. n. 798].

Denzinger 1027 ST. PIUS V 1566-1572 Errors of Michael du Bay (BAII) * [Condemned in the Bull “Ex omnibus afflictionibus,” Oct. 1, 1567]

[Condemned statement] 27. Free will, without the help of God’s grace, has only power for sin.

http://patristica.net/denzinger/#n800

 

[MT1926]

In my opinion: Your understanding is correct, I understand everything in your post the same way as you have written.

I believe Dr. David Andre’s analogy is absolutely correct.

I also believe John’s above teaching on the will remains free.

Great, it looks like we are on the same page. I think I’ll stop while I’m ahead.

God Bless

 

[Latin]

COUNCIL OF ORANGE (A. D. 529)

CANON 22. Concerning those things that belong to man.
No man has anything of his own but untruth and sin. … End quote.

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The Council of Sens (1140) condemned the idea that free will is sufficient in itself for any good. Donez., 373.

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To do any supernatural work or to make any supernatural decision (say yes to God’s call to heaven), FIRST we need Initial Justification which puts us into the state of grace.

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Until we are in the state of grace, we cannot make supernatural act or to make supernatural decision.

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Strictly speaking only a person in the STATE OF GRACE can merit, as defined by the Church (Denzinger 1576, 1582).

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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.

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CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA Divine Providence proclaims:

Life everlasting promised to us, (Romans 5:21); but unaided we can do nothing to gain it (Rom.7:18-24).

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ST. AUGUSTINE ON GRACE AND PREDESTINATION

De gratia Christi 25, 26:

For not only has God given us our ability and helps it, but He even works [brings about] willing and acting in us; not that we do not will or that we do not act, but that without His help we neither will anything good nor do it."
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De gratia et libero arbitrio 16, 32:

It is certain that we will when we will; but He brings it about that we will good. . . . It is certain that we act when we act, but He brings it about that we act, PROVIDING MOST EFFECTIVE POWERS TO THE WILL.
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God bless

 

[Vico]

…

There is a difference between being able to obtain merit and being able to do good. For merit the grace is needed. But the Church taught dogmatically against the idea of absolute depravity (Trent). Good can be done without grace.

Note also in the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, First Part of the Second Part, Question 109 The necessity of grace, Article 5. Whether man can merit everlasting life without grace?

And thus without grace man cannot merit everlasting life; yet he can perform works conducing to a good which is natural to man, as “to toil in the fields, to drink, to eat, or to have friends,” and the like, as Augustine says in his third Reply to the Pelagians [*Hypognosticon iii, among the spurious works of St. Augustine].

https://dhspriory.org/thomas/summa/FS/FS109.html#FSQ109A5THEP1

 

[Latin]

Vico, please read carefully the following canons.

The Canons of the Council of Orange (529 AD)
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CANON 4. If anyone maintains that God awaits our will to be cleansed from sin, but does not confess that even our will to be cleansed comes to us through the infusion and working of the Holy Spirit, he resists the Holy Spirit himself who says through Solomon, "The will is prepared by the Lord" (Prov. 8:35, LXX), and the salutary word of the Apostle, "For God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure" (Phil. 2:13).
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CANON 6. If anyone says that God has mercy upon us when, apart from his grace, we believe, will, desire, strive, labor, pray, watch, study, seek, ask, or knock, but does not confess that it is by the infusion and inspiration of the Holy Spirit within us that we have the faith, the will, or the strength to do all these things as we ought; or if anyone makes the assistance of grace depend on the humility or obedience of man and does not agree that it is a gift of grace itself that we are obedient and humble, he contradicts the Apostle who says, "What have you that you did not receive?" (1 Cor. 4:7), and, "But by the grace of God I am what I am" (1 Cor. 15:10).
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CANON 20. That a man can do no good without God. God does much that is good in a man that the man does not do; but a man does nothing good for which God is not responsible, so as to let him do it.
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CANON 22. Concerning those things that belong to man. No man has anything of his own but untruth and sin. But if a man has any truth or righteousness, it from that fountain for which we must thirst in this desert, so that we may be refreshed from it as by drops of water and not faint on the way.
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CANON 23. Concerning the will of God and of man. Men do their own will and not the will of God when they do what displeases him; but when they follow their own will and comply with the will of God, however willingly they do so, yet it is his will by which what they will is both prepared and instructed.
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The Church against the idea of absolute depravity, but the Church teaches "The will is prepared by the Lord" to perform any salutary act/ good work.
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Not even the greatest saints able to do any salutary act/ good work without grace!

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God bless

 

[Vico]

…

Yes, that is true for salutatory works. The post I made is about is an additional dogma about good works which are not salutary. For example you see it listed in Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, by Ludwig Ott, p. 235 as:

Actual Grace is not necessary for the performance of a morally good action. (Sent. certa.)

Fallen man can perform good works without help of Divine grace, by his natural powers alone. Therefore not all works which clre achieved without actual grace are sins. Pope Pius V condemned the following proposition of Baius: Liberum arbitrium, sine gratiae Dei adiutorio, non nisi ad peccandum valet. (Free will, without the help of God’s grace acts only in order to sin.) D 1027; cf 1037, 1389.
The necessity of actual co-operating grace for all morally good works cannot be proved from Scripture, or from the older Tradition. Opponents wrongly invoked St. Augustine. When the latter repeatedly declares that without the grace of God no work free from sin is possible, it must be observed that he calls everything sin, which does not bear on man’s supernatural final end using the word sin therefore in a special sense. In this sense, also, can. 22 of the Second Council of Orange must be understood: Nemo habet de suo nisi mendaciun et peccatum (Nobody has anything of his own save untruth and sin) (D 195 = Augustinus, In loan. tr. 5, I).

Denzinger, Sources of Catholic Dogma

[Pope Pius V, Condemned statements, 1567 A.D. in Bull Ex omnibus afflictionibus]
1025 25. All works of infidels are sins, and the virtues of philosophers are vices.
1027 27. Free will, without the help of God’s grace, has only power for sin.
1035 35. Every action which a sinner, or a slave of sin performs is a sin.
1040 40. In all his actions a sinner serves his ruling passion.

[Pope Clement XI, Condemned statements, 1713 A.D. in Bull Unigenitus Dei Filius]
1037 37. He agrees with Pelagius, who acknowledges anything as a natural good, that is, whatever he thinks has arisen from the forces of nature alone.
1389 39. The will, which grace does not anticipate, has no light except for straying, no eagerness except to put itself in danger, no strength except to wound itself, and is capable of all evil and incapable of all good.
1399 49. As there is no sin without love of ourselves, so there is no good work without love of God.

 

[Latin]

salutary

[ˈsaljʊt(ə)ri]

ADJECTIVE

(especially with reference to something unwelcome or unpleasant) producing good effects; beneficial.

“it failed to draw salutary lessons from Britain’s loss of its colonies”

synonyms: beneficial · good · good for one · advantageous · profitable · productive · helpful · useful · of use · of service · valuable · worthwhile · practical · relevant · timely

archaic

health-giving.

"the salutary Atlantic air"

synonyms: healthy · health-giving · healthful · salubrious · beneficial · good for one’s health · wholesome

https://www.bing.com/search?q=salut...8cc504aaba4b861b457cac2e3&cc=AU&setlang=en-GB

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God bless

 

[Vico]

…

The Church uses the word salutary for that which is meritorious. All that is good is not salutary.

There are actually four related dogmas the Ludwig Ott lists in that section of Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, at page 233 and following. There is a distinction between morally good action and salutary.

§ 9. Human Nature’s Capacity to Act without Grace, and the Limits of This Capacity
a) Even in the fallen state, man can, by his natural intellectual power, know religious and moral truths. (De fide.)
b) For the performance of a morally good action Sanctifying Grace is not required. (De fide.)
c) The Grace of Faith is not necessary for the performance of a morally good action. (Sent. certa.)
d) Actual Grace is not necessary for the performance of a morally good action. (Sent. certa.)