Jesus saves

[goout]

…
My fundamental problem is I cannot see how a good God would create a being who would be miserable in hell for all eternity.
So I am concerned with the nature of God, free will, grace, justification, sin, salvation, etc.
…

God is love. His love is radical and total.

Love can only exist in freedom, and so it risks everything, including rejection.
It is simple, but difficult to accept and live.

 

[Bookcat]

Thanks for all the replies.
I am very grateful that so many have gone to such lengths to participate.
I think all my problems are linked and it is difficult to isolate them.
I thought I could start at the beginning and resolve problems one by one. It has not really worked out.
My fundamental problem is I cannot see how a good God would create a being who would be miserable in hell for all eternity.
So I am concerned with the nature of God, free will, grace, justification, sin, salvation, etc.

Fundamentally the only answer for me is to accept I do not understand the ways of God, and to hope that all may be well, and that God’s love and mercy will prevail for all.

Also this year Luther is being celebrated and Catholics should try to understand him, so I am trying to read Barclay’s Paul and the Gift, and presently I am struggling with Augustine.

(Not sure Barclay (Protestant) is what you need here for this.)

Good created human persons for the good and from love - they are meant for happiness, for joy, for the fullness of love. Did not create them for misery and hell. They have their freedom so as to love. But they abused their freedom and there was the fall. God though desires their salvation and joy - and so came Jesus Christ and his love and obedience and suffering and death on the cross - and then the resurrection. Man can know the even greater reality of new creation, of true life in Christ, heaven and resurrection and new heavens and new earth. True life indeed in Christ.

Nor is salvation closed off from those who through not fault of theirs do not know Christ and his Church - by Christ and in ways known to God it remains possible for them to know too that life. The Church’s task in part though is to bring the gospel …the good news to all so all can know Jesus Christ and that true life and all that comes with knowing Jesus and being a Christian in his Church.

Yes there is the “problem of evil” …

(Perhaps the DVD by Jimmy Akin will be of help (have not seen it but is of course quite good) shop.catholic.com/the-problem-of-evil.html

Read too St. Pope John Paul II’s two chapters on the subject in “Crossing the Threshold of Hope”.)

And moreover their is the* joy of the Gospel.*

 

[fhansen]

Thanks for all the replies.
I am very grateful that so many have gone to such lengths to participate.
I think all my problems are linked and it is difficult to isolate them.
I thought I could start at the beginning and resolve problems one by one. It has not really worked out.
My fundamental problem is I cannot see how a good God would create a being who would be miserable in hell for all eternity.
So I am concerned with the nature of God, free will, grace, justification, sin, salvation, etc.

Fundamentally the only answer for me is to accept I do not understand the ways of God, and to hope that all may be well, and that God’s love and mercy will prevail for all.

Also this year Luther is being celebrated and Catholics should try to understand him, so I am trying to read Barclay’s Paul and the Gift, and presently I am struggling with Augustine.

I don’t know if you’ve read her but she’s actually quoted in the catechism. Julian of Norwich, a 13th or 14th century British visionary living during the Black Plague was so consumed with a burden for all those dying around her that she pleaded with God to give her understanding regarding their ultimate fates. While not answering her question directly He did answer her, during a “shewing”, in a way that gave her complete peace on the matter. He said, simply, “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well”. She didn’t know how He would accomplish this only that it was absolutely true.

We can also rest assured that, in the end, everyone will somehow be absolutely satisfied that our God did the right thing, even if we lack complete understanding on it now.

 

[AveOTheotokos]

We are justified, saved, by faith, not by works. But is this faith our faith in Jesus or the faith of Jesus, the faith, trust, he had? If our faith saves us, we save ourselves; if the faith of Jesus saves us he is our savior; he accepted the will of the father and underwent his passion and death for our sanctification, he saves us.

Sorry for going on about this issue, but I am concerned I think the issue is important.

We aren’t saved by “the faith of Jesus, the faith, the trust, he had” because Jesus did not have faith, nor did he believe in God… Jesus had knowledge.

As Catholics, we believe that we are saved by grace alone, NOT by faith alone.

Aren’t We Saved By Faith Alone?

We are redeemed by the Blood of Christ, we trust in him alone for our salvation, and we are “working out our salvation in fear and trembling” (Phil. 2:12) knowing that it is God’s gift of grace that is working in us.

Faith and belief are for things that we have not yet seen or do not yet know for certain:

Did Jesus Believe In God?

Did You Know That Jesus Had No Faith?

St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae. Part III, Question 7, Article 3

Why Mary Is Out Mother In Faith

Why Abraham Is Our Father In Faith

 

[goout]

We aren’t saved by “the faith of Jesus, the faith, the trust, he had” because Jesus did not have faith, nor did he believe in God… Jesus had knowledge.

The definition of faith I like is “God’s grace working in me to which I respond”.
In that sense of faith, Jesus not only had a lot of it, he embodies faith in his Trinitarian relational knowledge. Faith perfected in Trinitarian love. Loving/responding/loving/responding
I like Romano Guardini’s take on virtues, that all virtues have God as their source and are perfectly embodied by Christ.

The definition of faith used in the one link is more akin to the grasping of mysterious concepts. Which in that case, this kind of faith is not necessary for Christ who* is *the mystery.

 

[NoelFitz]

**Bookcat et al **

Again thanks.

I regret I do not have time to reply to all contributors here in detail. Sorry.

I was trying to find out Catholic authors on grace. I have also tried to find out names of modern Catholic Biblical scholars, without much success. There seems little Catholic interest at present in the Bible, Patristics and theology, especially in Ireland. But CAF is the best site I know for Catholics to discuss in a supportive manner their faith, and grow in the love and understanding of God in a deep way.

So Bookcat, may I focus on your reply. I always find your replies encouraging, sound and courteous. I appreciate them.

• If not Barclay whom should I read?

• God made us for happiness, and everything made by God is good. I cannot see how a perfect, loving, almighty God could get it so wrong that so many of his creatures might end up in misery and torture permanently. God’s track record is not great. One third of the angels rejected him, humankind also rejected him through our first parents, as they did his own self/son.

• You mention the salvation of non-Christians - ‘ Nor is salvation closed off from those who through no fault of theirs do not know Christ and his Church’. In the old days people believed extra ecclesia nulla salus. I think everyone is baptized, most by Baptism of Desire. So I see no problem here.

• I am not a great fan of JP II, my hero is B XVI. I am reminded of the words in his first encyclical Deus Caritas est:

“God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him” (1 Jn 4:16). These words from the First Letter of John express with remarkable clarity the heart of the Christian faith: the Christian image of God and the resulting image of mankind and its destiny. In the same verse, Saint John also offers a kind of summary of the Christian life: “We have come to know and to believe in the love God has for us”.
We have come to believe in God’s love: in these words the Christian can express the fundamental decision of his life. Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction. Saint John’s Gospel describes that event in these words: “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should … have eternal life” (3:16).

NAB John 1:11 He came to what was his own, but his own people did not accept him. (Jn. 1:11 NAB)

NAB 1 Corinthians 9:21 To those outside the law I became like one outside the law-- though I am not outside God’s law but within the law of Christ-- to win over those outside the law. (1 Cor. 9:21 NAB)

 

[AveOTheotokos]

The definition of faith I like is “God’s grace working in me to which I respond”.
In that sense of faith, Jesus not only had a lot of it, he embodies faith in his Trinitarian relational knowledge. Faith perfected in Trinitarian love. Loving/responding/loving/responding
I like Romano Guardini’s take on virtues, that all virtues have God as their source and are perfectly embodied by Christ.

The definition of faith used in the one link is more akin to the grasping of mysterious concepts. Which in that case, this kind of faith is not necessary for Christ who* is *the mystery.

To clarify, the faith spoken of in my post and the articles I posted is that which is defined in the Catechism, as well as Hebrews 11:1:

1814 Faith is the theological virtue by which we believe in God and believe all that he has said and revealed to us, and that Holy Church proposes for our belief, because he is truth itself. By faith "man freely commits his entire self to God."78 For this reason the believer seeks to know and do God’s will. “The righteous shall live by faith.” Living faith "work through charity."79

1815 The gift of faith remains in one who has not sinned against it.80 But “faith apart from works is dead”:81 when it is deprived of hope and love, faith does not fully unite the believer to Christ and does not make him a living member of his Body.

Hebrews 11:1

1 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

 

[goout]

To clarify, the faith spoken of in my post and the articles I posted is that which is defined in the Catechism, as well as Hebrews 11:1:

Yes

1814 Faith is the theological virtue by which we believe in God and believe all that he has said and revealed to us, and that Holy Church proposes for our belief, because he is truth itself. **By faith “man freely commits his entire self to God.”**78 For this reason the believer seeks to know and do God’s will. “The righteous shall live by faith.” Living faith "work through charity."79

The full substance of faith is not to understand and accept concepts. It’s not that kind of “knowledge”. The CCC passages gives a definition and a lived embodiment of faith, as in the bolded.
That is the deepest knowing, a personal knowledge founded in personal love.
Christ embodies that.

 

[AveOTheotokos]

Yes

The full substance of faith is not to understand and accept concepts. It’s not that kind of “knowledge”. The CCC passages gives a definition and a lived embodiment of faith, as in the bolded.
That is the deepest knowing, a personal knowledge founded in personal love.
Christ embodies that.

Yes, but note that the Catechism is not referring to He, but to we:

4 Faith is the theological virtue by which we believe in God and believe all that he has said and revealed to us, and that Holy Church proposes for our belief, because he is truth itself. By faith "man freely commits his entire self to God."78 For this reason the believer seeks to know and do God’s will. “The righteous shall live by faith.” Living faith "work through charity."79

It is the faithful and believers who are being referred to. Jesus did not need to seek to know God’s will, nor did he need to believe what limited information was revealed to us, because “he is truth itself”.

As for Jesus possessing faith, this excerpt from the Summa addresses this topic:

Article 3. Whether in Christ there was faith?

Objection 1. It would seem that there was faith in Christ. For faith is a nobler virtue than the moral virtues, e.g. temperance and liberality. Now these were in Christ, as stated above (Article 2). Much more, therefore, was there faith in Him.

Objection 2. Further, Christ did not teach virtues which He had not Himself, according to Acts 1:1: “Jesus began to do and to teach.” But of Christ it is said (Hebrews 12:2) that He is “the author and finisher of our faith.” Therefore there was faith in Him before all others.

Objection 3. Further, everything imperfect is excluded from the blessed. But in the blessed there is faith; for on Romans 1:17, “the justice of God is revealed therein from faith to faith,” a gloss says: “From the faith of words and hope to the faith of things and sight.” Therefore it would seem that in Christ also there was faith, since it implies nothing imperfect.

On the contrary, It is written (Hebrews 11:1): “Faith is the evidence of things that appear not.” But there was nothing that did not appear to Christ, according to what Peter said to Him (John 21:17): “Thou knowest all things.” Therefore there was no faith in Christ.

I answer that, As was said above (II-II:1:4), the object of faith is a Divine thing not seen. Now the habit of virtue, as every other habit, takes its species from the object. Hence, if we deny that the Divine thing was not seen, we exclude the very essence of faith. Now from the first moment of His conception Christ saw God’s Essence fully, as will be made clear (III:34:1. Hence there could be no faith in Him.

Reply to Objection 1. Faith is a nobler virtue than the moral virtues, seeing that it has to do with nobler matter; nevertheless, it implies a certain defect with regard to that matter; and this defect was not in Christ. And hence there could be no faith in Him, although the moral virtues were in Him, since in their nature they imply no defect with regard to their matter.

Reply to Objection 2. The merit of faith consists in this–that man through obedience assents to what things he does not see, according to Romans 1:5: “For obedience to the faith in all nations for His name.” Now Christ had most perfect obedience to God, according to Philippians 2:8: “Becoming obedient unto death.” And hence He taught nothing pertaining to merit which He did not fulfil more perfectly Himself.

Reply to Objection 3. As a gloss says in the same place, faith is that “whereby such things as are not seen are believed.” But faith in things seen is improperly so called, and only after a certain similitude with regard to the certainty and firmness of the assent.

 

[goout]

Yes, but note that the Catechism is not referring to He, but to we:

It is the faithful and believers who are being referred to. Jesus did not need to seek to know God’s will, nor did he need to believe what limited information was revealed to us, because “he is truth itself”.

As for Jesus possessing faith, this excerpt from the Summa addresses this topic:

Yes of course. The CCC is not addressed to Jesus.
Aquinas uses a very minimalist definition of faith in that passage. I’m not pretending to criticize it in any way, just trying to see the context in which he is speaking. He is speaking of faith as having knowledge of the elements of faith. Jesus of course has that knowledge.
Faith, when seen as the total commitment of self, is embodied by Christ. So in that sense it is perfected in him, in perfect charity.

 

[AveOTheotokos]

And from the Summa regarding faith:

(Summa II-II:1:4)
Article 4. Whether the object of faith can be something seen?

Objection 1. It would seem that the object of faith is something seen. For Our Lord said to Thomas (John 20:29): “Because thou hast seen Me, Thomas, thou hast believed.” Therefore vision and faith regard the same object.

Objection 2. Further, the Apostle, while speaking of the knowledge of faith, says (1 Corinthians 13:12): “We see now through a glass in a dark manner.” Therefore what is believed is seen.

Objection 3. Further, faith is a spiritual light. Now something is seen under every light. Therefore faith is of things seen.

Objection 4. Further, “Every sense is a kind of sight,” as Augustine states (De Verb. Domini, Serm. xxxiii). But faith is of things heard, according to Romans 10:17: “Faith . . . cometh by hearing.” Therefore faith is of things seen.

On the contrary, The Apostle says (Hebrews 11:1) that “faith is the evidence of things that appear not.”

I answer that, Faith implies assent of the intellect to that which is believed. Now the intellect assents to a thing in two ways. First, through being moved to assent by its very object, which is known either by itself (as in the case of first principles, which are held by the habit of understanding), or through something else already known (as in the case of conclusions which are held by the habit of science). Secondly the intellect assents to something, not through being sufficiently moved to this assent by its proper object, but through an act of choice, whereby it turns voluntarily to one side rather than to the other: and if this be accompanied by doubt or fear of the opposite side, there will be opinion, while, if there be certainty and no fear of the other side, there will be faith.

Now those things are said to be seen which, of themselves, move the intellect or the senses to knowledge of them. Wherefore it is evident that neither faith nor opinion can be of things seen either by the senses or by the intellect.

Reply to Objection 1. Thomas “saw one thing, and believed another” [St. Gregory: Hom. xxvi in Evang.]: he saw the Man, and believing Him to be God, he made profession of his faith, saying: “My Lord and my God.”

Reply to Objection 2. Those things which come under faith can be considered in two ways. First, in particular; and thus they cannot be seen and believed at the same time, as shown above. Secondly, in general, that is, under the common aspect of credibility; and in this way they are seen by the believer. For he would not believe unless, on the evidence of signs, or of something similar, he saw that they ought to be believed.

Reply to Objection 3. The light of faith makes us see what we believe. For just as, by the habits of the other virtues, man sees what is becoming to him in respect of that habit, so, by the habit of faith, the human mind is directed to assent to such things as are becoming to a right faith, and not to assent to others.

Reply to Objection 4. Hearing is of words signifying what is of faith, but not of the things themselves that are believed; hence it does not follow that these things are seen.

 

[AveOTheotokos]

Yes of course. The CCC is not addressed to Jesus.
Aquinas uses a very minimalist definition of faith in that passage. I’m not pretending to criticize it in any way, just trying to see the context in which he is speaking. He is speaking of faith as having knowledge of the elements of faith. Jesus of course has that knowledge.
Faith, when seen as the total commitment of self, is embodied by Christ. So in that sense it is perfected in him, in perfect charity.

Aquinas lays out his context of faith in the following:

The virtue itself of faith

Hopefully that helps

 

[goout]

Aquinas lays out faith in the following:

The virtue itself of faith

Right. I’m not disputing any of that.

 

[AveOTheotokos]

Right. I’m not disputing any of that.

I don’t see his definition in that context as being minimalist

 

[goout]

I don’t see his definition in that context as being minimalist

It speaks about faith as an intellectual matter, of having “knowledge”.
As I originally said, I believe the CCC has a fuller definition of faith, which includes the response (commitment) of the entire person, not just a coming to know things unseen.
Aquinas dealt with a question in those passages, but is not really addressing that fuller sense. Again, not criticising St TA.

 

[AveOTheotokos]

It speaks about faith as an intellectual matter, of having “knowledge”.
As I originally said, I believe the CCC has a fuller definition of faith, which includes the response (commitment) of the entire person, not just a coming to know things unseen.
Aquinas dealt with a question in those passages, but is not really addressing that fuller sense. Again, not criticising St TA.

I didn’t think you were criticizing him

The CCC definition right from the start mentions belief in God, and it’s definition is all within this context of belief. Jesus could not believe because he had knowledge.

Aquinas addresses the inability of faith or belief to coexist with a scientific knowledge in Quaestiones disputeae de viritate, question 14 article 9:

1. First truth is the principal subject matter or object of faith. But man cannot have scientific knowledge about first truth, that is, about God, as we see from Dionysius. Therefore, we cannot have faith and scientific knowledge about the same thing.

1. It is by reason that scientific knowledge is made perfect. But reason destroys faith, “for faith deserves no merit when human reason offers it proof. Therefore, faith and scientific knowledge do not engage the same object…

1. The first Epistle to the Corinthians (13:10) says: “But when that which is perfect is come, that which is in part shall be put away.” The knowledge of faith is in part, that is, is imperfect; but the knowledge of science is perfect. Therefore, science destroys faith.

Jesus had a perfect scientific knowledge that eliminated the ability to have faith. He could not believe because he simply knew, and simply was. His actions were not actions of faith; they were actions of his nature.

 

[Bookcat]

**Bookcat et al **

I have also tried to find out names of modern Catholic Biblical scholars, without much success. There seems little Catholic interest at present in the Bible, Patristics and theology, especially in Ireland. .

I cannot speak for Ireland except to note that is the splendid Navarre Commentary in English originates.

As to the Church Universal - such would certainly be rather incorrect statement to say the least.

 

[Bookcat]

I was trying to find out Catholic authors on grace.

Off the top of my head:

“The Meaning of Grace” by Cardinal Journet

and coupled with your Pauline interest:

“The Christian in the Theology of St. Paul” by L. Cerfaux

 

[Bookcat]

• God made us for happiness, and everything made by God is good. I cannot see how a perfect, loving, almighty God could get it so wrong that so many of his creatures might end up in misery and torture permanently. God’s track record is not great. One third of the angels rejected him, humankind also rejected him through our first parents, as they did his own self/son.

Hum I rather think your not God.

Pretty sure you do not know who is saved and who is not…

PS: Adam and Eve can be said to be now in heaven…

Yes the gift of free will can be abused…instead of used for love…yes people can choose hell instead of life…but that is only part of the picture.

The reality of grace and life in Christ and all the good stands in great splendor.

Again I suggest you get the DVD up above.

 

[Bookcat]

• I am not a great fan of JP II, my hero is B XVI.

Benedict XVI is my favorite Pope after Peter as well.

But I recommend you read those two chapters of the great Saint.