Is God a kind, loving God or a mean, vengeful God?

[Peter_Plato]

This would mean that satan has power. What are the limits of satan’s power, do you know the limits? If you do not know the limits, then satan has essentially unlimited power. An unknown is an infinite unknown.

Could you explain how your knowledge (or lack thereof) could possibly enable another being to have “essentially unlimited power?”

Clearly the connection between your knowing the limits and the actual limits of another being have no essential or causal connection.

“An unknown is an infinite unknown?”

http://forums.catholic-questions.org/picture.php?albumid=2053&pictureid=15055

Oh, please.

Even if we say “satan has power, but God has more power”, then we are talking about two powers in the universe. Is that what you are saying?

You have some power, as well, so apparently we are talking about three powers in the universe. That entails what, exactly?

 

[987mk]

Proof for this, please!

Prove the Bible was inspired by God.

How are you not seeing that your Bible is exactly the same as Quran?

You can’t prove the Bible is the word of God, just as you can’t prove the Quran is the word of God.

 

[PRmerger]

Prove the Bible was inspired by God.

How are you not seeing that your Bible is exactly the same as Quran?

You can’t prove the Bible is the word of God, just as you can’t prove the Quran is the word of God.

I trust in the authority of the Catholic Church, which proclaims that the Bible is the Word of God.

Just like you can’t prove that Vaduz is the capital of Liechtenstein, without trusting in some other entity…

To wit: Google, or Mrs. Caltigaroni, your 5th grade geography teacher, or your atlas…

 

[Peter_Plato]

How are you not seeing that your Bible is exactly the same as Quran?

EXACTLY the same? Ahh, nope. :nope:

 

[tonyrey]

Prove the Bible was inspired by God.

How are you not seeing that your Bible is exactly the same as Quran?

You can’t prove the Bible is the word of God, just as you can’t prove the Quran is the word of God.

It is hardly a coincidence that the principles of liberty, equality and fraternity are based on the teaching of Christ that we all have a loving Father.

How else do you explain them? Or do you reject them?

 

[jmaher2day]

Excellent question …I sayeth some truth He spoke in His Word. If a man goeth into town and see evil/deception (one can see it from inside his/her own dwelling beforeth outside) then knoweth that “it’s” own Spirit is “either” not “RIGHT” or is in antoher land below “Purgatory”…due to a sinful man/woman…“They themselves will not know this” and will come to understading "((Least they commit either of 2 unforgivable sins, that God will/shall not FORGIVE)) For is has been written! (in FAITH to the TEST/PURIFICATION) and shall be saved by His Blood! Another words, If I may…If a man “readeth” the Word of Him and it is preceived to him “death” then there is sin in him, and if another man readeth the same Word, and he understandeth, because he has EARS to HEAR, then the same Word is food for he that has a better heart. Why? Because, he has no evil, but pure/less evil… in his heart!

So, it is written…Double edge sword!

Peace…

 

[OneSheep]

Could you explain how your knowledge (or lack thereof) could possibly enable another being to have “essentially unlimited power?”

Clearly the connection between your knowing the limits and the actual limits of another being have no essential or causal connection.

“An unknown is an infinite unknown?”

Hey Peter!

So, I start with the question. “What is the limit to satan’s power?” Answer that, and I can explain. Note: I am not pointing toward any “wrong” thinking here, I am only attempting to illuminate a psychological phenomenon.

The causal connection is not actual, it is perception of the actual. After all, any cosmology is a matter of perception, is it not?

http://forums.catholic-questions.org/picture.php?albumid=2053&pictureid=15055

Oh, please.

You have some power, as well, so apparently we are talking about three powers in the universe. That entails what, exactly?

The only power I have comes from God.

Oh, I do love the forehead slapper!

Thanks for the clarifications, or at least for giving me the impetus to clarify.

Have a great Sunday, Peter!

 

[PRmerger]

Hey Peter!

So, I start with the question. “What is the limit to satan’s power?”

The answer is: that which comes with being a creature and not the Creator. As such, we can reason that it is limited. Not infinite.

 

[Randy_Carson]

Oh, Randy, I know you want to drop this, but I must make some final comments. Sorry!

So, if one holds the stated objective, by some Muslims, of wiping Israel off the map, against those Muslim people, then we are called to forgive them.

Sure. But that does NOT mean that we are required to allow them to carry out their intentions. Surely you know the Catholic Church allows individuals and nations to defend themselves.

I can help you forgive, Randy, it is not easy, but it can be done.

You can? Silly me, I’ve been praying about this when I should have been talking to you.

And God doesn’t support the Muslim people? Where did you hear that, Randy? Or did you mean God only supports Muslim people in a secondary way?

I think that God loves all people. I do not believe He supports false religions. So, He will use what good there is in Islam to lead people to Himself. However, without Jesus and the graces of the Catholic sacraments, the road to salvation is much more difficult and reaching the correct destination far less certain.

This would mean that satan has power.

Of course Satan has power.

What are the limits of satan’s power, do you know the limits? If you do not know the limits, then satan has essentially unlimited power. An unknown is an infinite unknown. Even if we say “satan has power, but God has more power”, then we are talking about two powers in the universe. Is that what you are saying?

Of course not, because your logic is seriously flawed. Limits can exist without my knowing what they are. Here is a simple example:

“How fast will this car go?”

“I don’t know.”

“Wow. If you do not the limits, the power must be unlimited.”

Are there two powers in the universe? Yes. But not two divine powers and not two unlimited powers. Satan is a finite creature who is VERY powerful compared with humans, but He is but a breath before God who saw him fall like lightning from heaven. Perhaps a review of some basic theology on this subject would help you at this point.

Any institution, religion, or ideology that leads people to love and forgive one another, Randy, is leading people to Christ. Do you remember, “whoever is not against me is for me”? Yes, we could certainly say that some Muslim people are against Christianity, Judaism, etc. This is not the view of the common follower of Islam. To lead a person in the ways of Love is leading them toward Christ. I am not saying that Islam is better, I am saying that all religions have love at their center in some way, because humans have love at their center.

Wishful thinking.

Feel free to drop it, and use my statements as food-for-thought, for what its worth.

Yes, I will drop it, and no, I will not be using any of this as food for thought because there is no nutritional value.

God Bless your day, Randy. I know you mean well and that you believe that what you are saying is right, and I understand and accept that.

Great! Then why don’t YOU move along to badger someone else. In charity, of course.

 

[Randy_Carson]

Prove the Bible was inspired by God.

You can’t prove the Bible is the word of God,

Actually, we can. Don’t skim.

Proving Inspiration
catholic.com/tracts/proving-inspiration

The Catholic method of proving the Bible to be inspired is this: The Bible is initially approached as any other ancient work. It is not, at first, presumed to be inspired. From textual criticism we are able to conclude that we have a text the accuracy of which is more certain than the accuracy of any other ancient work.

Next we take a look at what the Bible, considered merely as a history, tells us, focusing particularly on the New Testament, and more specifically the Gospels. We examine the account contained therein of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.

Using what is in the Gospels themselves and what we find in extra-biblical writings from the early centuries, together with what we know of human nature (and what we can otherwise, from natural reason alone, know of divine nature), we conclude that either Jesus was just what he claimed to be—God—or he was crazy. (The one thing we know he could not have been was merely a good man who was not God, since no merely good man would make the claims he made.)

We are able to eliminate the possibility of his being a madman not just from what he said but from what his followers did after his death. Many critics of the Gospel accounts of the resurrection claim that Christ did not truly rise, that his followers took his body from the tomb and then proclaimed him risen from the dead. According to these critics, the resurrection was nothing more than a hoax. Devising a hoax to glorify a friend and mentor is one thing, but you do not find people dying for a hoax, at least not one from which they derive no benefit. Certainly if Christ had not risen, his disciples would not have died horrible deaths affirming the reality and truth of the resurrection. The result of this line of reasoning is that we must conclude that Jesus indeed rose from the dead. Consequently, his claims concerning himself—including his claim to be God—have credibility. He meant what he said and did what he said he would do.

Further, Christ said he would found a Church. Both the Bible (still taken as merely a historical book, not yet as an inspired one) and other ancient works attest to the fact that Christ established a Church with the rudiments of what we see in the Catholic Church today—papacy, hierarchy, priesthood, sacraments, and teaching authority.

We have thus taken the material and purely historically concluded that Jesus founded the Catholic Church. Because of his Resurrection we have reason to take seriously his claims concerning the Church, including its authority to teach in his name.

This Catholic Church tells us the Bible is inspired, and we can take the Church’s word for it precisely because the Church is infallible. Only after having been told by a properly constituted authority—that is, one established by God to assure us of the truth concerning matters of faith—that the Bible is inspired can we reasonably begin to use it as an inspired book.

A Spiral Argument

Note that this is not a circular argument. We are not basing the inspiration of the Bible on the Church’s infallibility and the Church’s infallibility on the word of an inspired Bible. That indeed would be a circular argument! What we have is really a spiral argument. On the first level we argue to the reliability of the Bible insofar as it is history. From that we conclude that an infallible Church was founded. And then we take the word of that infallible Church that the Bible is inspired. This is not a circular argument because the final conclusion (the Bible is inspired) is not simply a restatement of its initial finding (the Bible is historically reliable), and its initial finding (the Bible is historically reliable) is in no way based on the final conclusion (the Bible is inspired). What we have demonstrated is that without the existence of the Church, we could never know whether the Bible is inspired.

The advantages of the Catholic approach are two: First, the inspiration is really proved, not just “felt.” Second, the main fact behind the proof—the reality of an infallible, teaching Church—leads one naturally to an answer to the problem that troubled the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8:30-31): How is one to know which interpretations are correct? The same Church that authenticates the Bible, that attests to its inspiration, is the authority established by Christ to interpret his word.

 

[Randy_Carson]

So, I start with the question. “What is the limit to satan’s power?” Answer that, and I can explain.

Now, this is a topic which I will discuss.

But first, you are a Catholic, right? Roman Catholic? You recognize Francis as the head of the Church? Just want to know who I’m talking to. Thanks.

Second, the answer to your question is this: The limits to Satan’s power are whatever his creator, God, established them to be. No more and no less.

I cannot tell what those limits are any more than I can tell you where the boundaries of the universe are located or where to find the pearly gates of Heaven.

However, that does not mean that God does not know these things. Satan is a creature and his power, while formidable, is not unlimited.

 

[OneSheep]

TIA

What an appropriate question for today’s liturgy of the word!

We start with the first reading, from Exodus which includes:

My wrath will flare up, and I will kill you with the sword;
then your own wives will be widows, and your children orphans.

Then, we have the second reading where Paul makes reference to deliverance from the “coming wrath”.

Finally, there is the Gospel, from Matthew:

one of them,
a scholar of the law tested him by asking,
“Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?”
He said to him,
"You shall love the Lord, your God,
with all your heart,
with all your soul,
and with all your mind.
This is the greatest and the first commandment.

Do you see how the illumination of God through the ages can mirror our own spiritual lives? Fr. Richard Rohr makes much reference to the “second half of life”. Indeed, are we not in the “second half” of the history of humanity?

If we come from the starting point that spirituality stems from awareness, then what is the first “voice within” that we hear as children? Okay, I am talking about a voice from depth, not the voice like “I want that toy” or “I’m hungry”. I’m talking about the voice of the conscience, the one that says “this is right, this is wrong, bad acts are to be punished (feeling of guilt), good acts are to be rewarded (feeling of righteousness) I love you when you behave rightly, I loathe you when you behave wrongly.” The conscience is a God-given mechanism, but is the conscience God? Is it the same as God?

Jesus shows us. He shows us Love. He forgives us, even the unrepentant, from the cross! He recognizes our ignorance and blindness, and forgives anyway. His love is unconditional, it has no bound. This is the voice beneath the conscience, the voice that we can hear through awareness, through forgiving everyone, through making the commitment to love God unconditionally, with all of our heart, all of our soul, all of our mind. Such is the commitment we can make to God, to love Him regardless of what he tosses in our direction in life, be it sickness, harm, loss, shame, whatever comes in our direction. When we make such a commitment to anyone (for me it was my commitment to my wonderful wife) then we can know what it means to be loved by God.

The seeing of God as loving us in this way, through our own commitment to love, is a deliverance. It is a deliverance from the perception, that God is wrathful and vengeful, formulated by our conscience.

Feel free to disagree, anyone. I am not saying that this is the only way of looking at the whole picture. I am saying this is how one sheep makes sense of it all.

God Bless your day, Floyd, and thank you for presenting this simple, but thought-provoking question.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Actually, we can. Don’t skim.

And you owe me a new keyboard

 

[Peter_Plato]

The only power I have comes from God.

Aquinas’ point about God as Pure Act (Actus Purus) is that all power and being (the actuality of anything arisingfrom potential) comes from God. Ergo, any being or power, that Satan or any other creature has, comes as a result of the creative activity of God. Evil is a perversion of power which God may allow to continue for a time but only where a proportionately greater good will be brought about. God has no obligation to preserve the agency (power) of an irredeemably evil being.

Short answer: what you stated above vis a vis yourself applies, likewise, to Satan.

The only power to effect anything that Satan has comes from God, but any evil consequences effected by Satan will not merely be undone but re-created far beyond their initial qualities. Again, however, God has no obligation - nor the power - to correct an incorrigibly evil free will that chooses evil for its own sake, because autonomous and responsible agency means just that. God cannot do the logically impossible - he cannot make a free agent who is not free - though he may provide sufficient opportunity and reasonable means for the agent to make fundamental choices for the good, rather than evil. He cannot, however, just “make” an evil free agent good without the free agent choosing to be.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Do you see how the illumination of God through the ages can mirror our own spiritual lives? Fr. Richard Rohr makes…

Not sure this man is the most reliable source for spiritual guidance.

But it certainly does provide Randy Carson (RE: Post #171) some insight regarding where you likely stand vis a vis orthodoxy.

 

[Peter_Plato]

The causal connection is not actual, it is perception of the actual. After all, any cosmology is a matter of perception, is it not?

Whaaat?

Sorry, non comprendere gobbledygook.

Why would anyone knowing perceptions are ONLY matters of perception, and nothing more, claim them to be a cosmology and not merely perceptions?

You’ve lost me and, to be honest, I prefer to remain in my lost state than to knowingly subscribe to the above.

 

[truetofaith]

I’ve come to the conclusion that OneSheep loves to write long - winded novels & use all his philosophical debating words. Randy can’t ignore him and 987mk just likes to be contrary to everything, so I’m just going to observe and eventually leave Catholic Answers Forum! :banghead:

 

[Randy_Carson]

And you owe me a new keyboard

I look forward to your analysis of the article.

 

[Randy_Carson]

I’ve come to the conclusion that OneSheep loves to write long - winded novels & use all his philosophical debating words. Randy can’t ignore him and 987mk just likes to be contrary to everything, so I’m just going to observe and eventually leave Catholic Answers Forum! :banghead:

There are other forums. This one is particularly problematic from a Catholic point of view.

 

[OneSheep]

Whaaat?

Sorry, non comprendere gobbledygook.

Why would anyone knowing perceptions are ONLY matters of perception, and nothing more, claim them to be a cosmology and not merely perceptions?

You’ve lost me and, to be honest, I prefer to remain in my lost state than to knowingly subscribe to the above.

Peter,

Yes, that is the difference, perhaps. Capisco gobbledygook, at least a little. And it would be a bit silly to subscribe to something that makes no sense.

Allow me to clarify.
A person, in their experience of the world (causal), can come to the conclusion that all power comes from a good intent, all power comes from an evil intent, or a mixture of the two. The person sees their outlook as reality, not perception.

However, when something happens in the person’s life (causal) that changes this very basic conclusion, then it is realized that the conclusion was a matter of perception. So, the person is left wondering, “is my new conclusion a matter of reality, or a matter of perception?” Love is the guide to the answer, but in the last analysis, one has to respect that all individual perceptions represent their reality.

Is that better… or worse?

Have a great day, Peter, and thanks for “calling me on it”. You don’t have to subscribe if you don’t want to, even if it makes sense.