Isn't abortion part of God's plan?

[FromTheAshes777]

Well from the quote it seems like no one does go to hell. All men are saved apparently. That is why I don’t believe in hell and am more inclined to believe in reincarnation until you finally get it right. But that is for a different thread.

Well, reincarnation and the very existance of Hell are different topics for debate. I was approaching the subject that you had orthodox stances on these subjects. Belief in a literal Hell is a basic tenant of Christian faith, reincarnation has never been taught within historical Christianity either, if you do not hold to these things then the debate is probably not going to bring much understanding at least in this context. My apologies for misunderstanding. Thanks.

 

[LindaSK]

We have free will, right? But also, God has a divine hand in the actions of everyone (in my opinion at least). Also, isn’t child birth always a gift from God? So, when a child is conceived, God knows that the child is going to be aborted…right? So in God’s plan, are these aborted children meant to live? If they were meant to live, wouldn’t God guide the mother so that she did not get an abortion? IF a mother gets an abortion, doesn’t it suggest that they were not supposed to be born?

I am not saying that abortions aren’t morally wrong. I am just saying that they must be part of God’s plan.

We have free will - RIGHT! If you accept this, the rest of your argument is shaky, at best. Because we have free will, we can choose** not** to do God’s will. If we were only puppets in God’s hands, there would be no need for the Ten Commandments, no need for His mercy, no need for His forgiveness, no need for Christ to come to die for our sins, because, if God meant for the child to be aborted, meant for 9/11 to happen, etc., there would be, essentially, no sin, no wrongdoing, because we could justify everything by saying that since it happened, it was God’s plan. The mother, the terrorists, criminals, etc. would be perfectly validated in saying that these actions were their ‘choices’ because God wanted them to make these choices. Is that the kind of world you think God wants for us? No accountability, no personal responsibility. Did God tell Adam and Eve, “That’s OK!” after they chose to do what they wanted rather than do what God required?

In the ‘Our Father,’ we say, " Thy Will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen." We petition to do God’s will here on earth. God doesn’t guarantee it. We petition Him to forgive our trespasses, because He knows we will not always choose to do His will, and, yet, He is merciful, and asks us to be merciful to those who wrong us. We petition not to be tempted to do evil because we are weak, and make wrong choices. If everything we did were in accord with His plan for us, since God is good, there would be no evil. What we perceive now to be evil would merely be God’s design.

I cannot accept such a premise. Scripture does not support it. Sacred Tradition does not support it. The Church does not support it. That is good enough for me.

“…wouldn’t God guide the mother so that she did not get an abortion?” Did she seek His guidance? “Seek and ye shall find.” If she did seek and find His guidance, she still had the free will to choose to do God’s will - or not. Do you presume to believe that people never say “No” to God? In the beginning, there were Adam and Eve.

 

[crazzeto]

We have free will, right? But also, God has a divine hand in the actions of everyone (in my opinion at least). Also, isn’t child birth always a gift from God? So, when a child is conceived, God knows that the child is going to be aborted…right? So in God’s plan, are these aborted children meant to live? If they were meant to live, wouldn’t God guide the mother so that she did not get an abortion? IF a mother gets an abortion, doesn’t it suggest that they were not supposed to be born?

I am not saying that abortions aren’t morally wrong. I am just saying that they must be part of God’s plan.

God will do nothing to interfere with our free will, no matter how badly we decide to sin. Read Jeremias for instance…

 

[puzzleannie]

Yes, I would say it is all part of God’s plan. You don’t believe that? That when someone dies, that it was their time to go? Are you saying that God has nothing to do with how or when any of us die?

please read up on “free will” in the library on the CA homepage as your understanding is defective. do you really think because God has foreknowledge of how we die–and actually he does not have foreknowledge he has present knowledge because is is not bound by earthly time but is in eternity–that he intends for a drunk driver or slasher to kill us?

 

[fix]

We have free will, right? But also, God has a divine hand in the actions of everyone (in my opinion at least). Also, isn’t child birth always a gift from God? So, when a child is conceived, God knows that the child is going to be aborted…right? So in God’s plan, are these aborted children meant to live? If they were meant to live, wouldn’t God guide the mother so that she did not get an abortion? IF a mother gets an abortion, doesn’t it suggest that they were not supposed to be born?

I am not saying that abortions aren’t morally wrong. I am just saying that they must be part of God’s plan.

God has an ordaining will and a permitting will.

 

[choy]

I asked some of another faith regarding abortion, since they thought they were the only Christians (this was not a Catholic either), and they did not believe in abortion. However, she could not tell me where in the Bible it says that abortion is wrong, and she seems to say that it did not say in the Bible about abortion. However, the Bible says “thou shalt not kill” “Thou shall not commit murder”. We seem to have forgotten the 10 Commandments that God gave Moses.
I tried to write a report on Abortion. During my research for this paper, there was a lot of contradiction regarding the subject. My instructor also noted this on my draft that I had handed in. I changed my paper to another subject. However, my position on abortion is how can “Whoever” say abortion is wrong a sin. And on the other hand so it is OK to abort a baby if the mother’s life is in danger or if it is because of incest or rape. They seem to say abortion is OK then. Is that not still taking a life? Is that not still aborting of that fetus? So why is abortion OK in one respect and not in another. This seem like man not God.

abortion is allowed if the life of the mother is endangered by the fetus. i’m not a doctor to cite specific examples, but if you think about it if the mother dies, the fetus either outright dies or is born prematurely and has a lower chance to survive

as for incest and rape, i would say no. its not the baby’s fault, so why would the innocent party be the one to die?

 

[crazzeto]

abortion is allowed if the life of the mother is endangered by the fetus. i’m not a doctor to cite specific examples, but if you think about it if the mother dies, the fetus either outright dies or is born prematurely and has a lower chance to survive

as for incest and rape, i would say no. its not the baby’s fault, so why would the innocent party be the one to die?

Where in the world did you get this information?

 

[choy]

To be honest, I think that 9/11 and the holocaust must have been part of God’s plan. If not, then God has no plan and things don’t happen for any reason at all (other than our free will).

In my opinion, either God has a plan for everyone and he ensures that this plan is carried out or he does not interfere with anyone’s life at all and completely stays out of it. I don’t see how it could be some sort of in between ground where God either intervenes in some peoples lives but not others, or where he doesn’t know what people are going to do in the future.

Let me just ask this question then: God knows what we are going to choose to do, right? So, if God knows that a woman will get an abortion, why does he give her the gift of a child in the first place, unless of course it is part of some greater plan.

The fact of the matter is that God allows horrible things to happen all the time. Either there is some sort of greater plan behind them (even the holocaust and 9/11) or he doesn’t intervene in human’s lives at all, ever.

i can’t claim to know what exactly is in God’s mind, but from my understanding i don’t believe that God will plan for someone to die a violent death and for someone to die and go to hell

actually, i’m 100% sure it will never be in God’s plan for someone to go to hell because thats the whole reason why He sent us His only Son, so that we might not perish but have eternal life

 

[Sailor_Kenshin]

If God micro-manages everything, then free will has no place in the universe.

 

[choy]

Where in the world did you get this information?

so the Church teaches that not to abort in medical complications and just let the mother and baby die?

 

[crazzeto]

so the Church teaches that not to abort in medical complications and just let the mother and baby die?

This is what the Church teaches with regard to sin,

1753 A good intention (for example, that of helping one’s neighbor) does not make behavior that is intrinsically disordered, such as lying and calumny, good or just. The end does not justify the means. Thus the condemnation of an innocent person cannot be justified as a legitimate means of saving the nation. On the other hand, an added bad intention (such as vainglory) makes an act evil that, in and of itself, can be good (such as almsgiving).

 

[CatofAlexandria]

Choy might be thinking of the principle of double effect. Medical complications will justify a morally neutral medical procedure meant to save the mother’s life when both the mother and childs’ lives are at risk and the death of the child is a foreseeable consequence of the morally neutral medical procedure.

Of course directly killing a child in order to safe the mother’s life is never permissible. This is because the Catholic Church teaches that every person is an end in herself (to borrow language from Kant), and that people cannot be used as mere means to an end. Killing the child to save the mother would be using the child as a means to an end. This sort of utilitarian calculus cannot be tolerated.

Let’s use a more vivid example of what killing the child to save the mother is REALLY like (if we accept the premise that an unborn child is a person-and we should!). You walk into a hospital with 5 healthy organs and there are currently 5 different people, all with different organs failing. Is it OK for the doctors to kill you in order to save those five other people? What if you’re sick and you’re not dead yet but you will die in a week (when it’s too late for those other people). Our intuition tells us – no! People are more than that! They are not mere means to an end.

 

[DihydrogenOxide]

-almost stunned- Why would murder ever be willed by God?

 

[LilyM]

Not at all.

If I choose to have a child I know, with a moral certainty, that that child, at least once iin its life, will at least think if not utter those dreaded words ‘I hate you!’ - and I will indeed be the object of that child’s hatred.

None of which, of course, means in the slightest that I WANT to be hated by that child, nor that it is actually part of my plan for that child to be hated by him or her at any stage, nor that I’m not going to do what I can (within reason) to avoid having that child hate me.

If my child DOES ever say those words, I am NOT going to sit back and think ‘oh well, I knew it was going to happen, it was part of my plan all along, it doesn’t bother me, tra la la …’ Of course I’m going to be upset.

Put it this way - even death itself is not part of God’s plan for us. St Paul tells us that sin AND death - even natural death - entered the world through Adam’s disobedience to God’s plan, not in fulfillment of it.

God intended man to live forever, hence the early generations (Adam and the early patriarchs) living such an extraordinarily long time compared to modern man. See, even with the full weight of the consequences of original sin upon him, the fact of God originally designing Adam’s body to last forever is still somewhat ingrained within it, meaning although it did NOT last forever it DID (as did those of several generations of his descendants) last a very long time.

Like I said, death itself was NOT part of God’s plan. And the mechanics of our deaths - the how and why, the method and timing, are even less a part of God’s plan than the mere fact of death itself.

 

[contreraz22]

In my opinion, either God has a plan for everyone and he ensures that this plan is carried out or he does not interfere with anyone’s life at all and completely stays out of it. I don’t see how it could be some sort of in between ground where God either intervenes in some peoples lives but not others, or where he doesn’t know what people are going to do in the future.

 

[hellopeople]

-almost stunned- Why would murder ever be willed by God?

Jesus was murdered wasn’t he? Was this not willed by God?

 

[contreraz22]

In my opinion, either God has a plan for everyone and he ensures that this plan is carried out or he does not interfere with anyone’s life at all and completely stays out of it. I don’t see how it could be some sort of in between ground where God either intervenes in some peoples lives but not others, or where he doesn’t know what people are going to do in the future.

Let me just ask this question then: God knows what we are going to choose to do, right? So, if God knows that a woman will get an abortion, why does he give her the gift of a child in the first place, unless of course it is part of some greater plan.

The fact of the matter is that God allows horrible things to happen all the time. Either there is some sort of greater plan behind them (even the holocaust and 9/11) or he doesn’t intervene in human’s lives at all, ever.

God has a plan for all of us. But when we choose to go against his plan, his plan has to alter because of our mistakes. He is part of our life and will always try to point us in the right direction but in the end YOU are the one who makes that desicion. He doesn’t. If you choose the wrong one there will be a punishment. Killing someone would be a wrong decision, that was never Gods plan to begin with, you were the one that altered it. God has a new plan for you and its up to you to fulfil it.

But abortion is in fact murder and that was NOT Gods plan. The plan God had for that baby is now changed because of ones decision to abort it. It has a new plan, but this time no one will be able to harm it.

 

[LindaSK]

Jesus was murdered wasn’t he? Was this not willed by God?

Absolutely. The name ‘Jesus’ means ‘God saves.’ His birth, as well as His death, were foreshadowed throughout the Old Testament. But, He is the one and only Savior. Can you cite any scripture to support the idea that it is God’s will for us to be killing His children by the tens of millions?

 

[Eris_Discordia]

-almost stunned- Why would murder ever be willed by God?

I am not going to get into the abortion debate, but murder has been willed by God. The killing of the firstborns in Egypt and the Flood are two that come to mind. I’m not saying what the OP has stated is right or wrong, but what you are saying is incorrect. The God of the OT is still the same as the God of the NT.

 

[LilyM]

Jesus was murdered wasn’t he? Was this not willed by God?

No. At most Jesus’ DEATH may have been willed, it was necessary to atone for our sins. NOT His murder.

As with all murderous death, the circumstances of it were not part of God’s plan. The where when and how of His death - the betrayal, torture and crucifixion - no. That was an act of man, an exercise of his free-will to sin through murder.

That’s why we don’t hail Judas, Pilate and the soldiers who crucified Him as the greatest servants of God after Jesus Himself. They didn’t HAVE to do the evil that they did in order for Jesus to die or to save us.