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benedictus2
Guest
What has this got to do with God predestining men to hell.
If God predestines men to hell then He is unjust. But we say God is just and God is loving.
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If God predestines men to hell then He is unjust. But we say God is just and God is loving.
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benedictus2
Guest
Actually, I think it is you who have a very imperfect understanding of God’s will.First, what the Bishops and Priests teach about Predestination is exactly what the Church has always thaught for these thousand years. If they thaught something diffirent, they would be called heretics.
Secondly, if a doctrine ha sbeen defined or thaught by the Magisterium for a thousand years, nobody, not even the Church has a right to change it. This is what Pius II’s Papal Bull Excerabilis defined, that no future Council may teach or reform a doctrine which has already been defined and that no Pope can do the same thing either.
Of course, in all sincerityyou may hold the Molinist view that God predestines people and reporobates them according to their foreseen merits and demerits but this will give you a very imperfect understanding of grace and salvation. Christ died for all and not only for those whom He knew were going to co-operate with His grace.
But anyway, my thoughts regarding Mary and Predestination:
Think about this, God creates men. He is the Only author of life.
Even before He created you in your mother’s womb, he already knew you would be inclined to sin.
Predestination says that even before you were conceived He already determined that He will not give you the grace that will allow you to be saved.
Does that sound like a just and loving God to you?
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benedictus2
Guest
Where? Please cite Biblical verses.
Here again is your problem. God created all these sinners and knew they will be sinners even before He created them. So why did He create them at all.
I have given this example many times over various Predestination threads.
A couple decides that they will have 10 children. The problem is there is 100% certainty that every single child born will be afflicted with a disease that causes them to die a long and agonizing death - bleeding from all the orifices of their body and while incredible pain rack every sinew and bone.
This couple have the cure. A shot of this medicine will cure the child.
But, even before they were conceived they determined that they will give the medicine to only 5 of their children and the rest they will let suffer and die.
Would you not describe such parents psychopaths? Yet that is how you want us to see God.
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philipmarie
Guest
Benedictus, you misunderstood me and do not get me wrong here because I disagree with your views. I NEVER, not in the least did I ever say that God predestines men to hell, that is, He wants them to efficaciously to go to hell. This is what Calvinists hold and not only that, but Calvin even said that God tells the devil to tempt us so that we can go to hell
. Thats blasphemous and was condemned by the Council of Trent.
As for the above example you gave, it is inadquate. First of all, God knew that those sinners which He was going to create were going to sin but He still created them. He wasn’t going to be stopped because of His knowledge of this child’s future sins from creating them because then that would make the human race being the one who determines whether he goes to heaven, and not God. The same goes for virtue, because God doesn’t give His graces to the saints because of the good which He saw that they would do in the future but because He decided to make them saints for His glory and thats what happened. If a father wants his children to love him, he must ‘teach’ them and help them to love him. If he doesn’t teach them they become outcasts from the family becsuse of their inability to love. He even said in the Bible: For when the children were not yet born, nor had done any good or evil (that the purpose of God, according to election, might stand,) (Rom 9:11). It not of he who runneth or he who wills but of God showing mercy.
Look Benedictus, there is alot more I can tell and answer but I honestly can’t answer all that right now. But note that I do not make the rules. I didn’t adopt this view of predestintion for no reason at all (like how Protestants accept Sola Scriptura when it isn’t found even in the Bible), I adopted it because it is the most plausible and the one which is more in conformity with Church teaching (which by the way, if the Church said that it adopted Saint Thomas’ philosophy, it adopted his ways of reasoning in predestination). I suggest reading The Mystery of Predestination by John Salza as it is by far the best book on predestination I ever read, it’s even better that Lagrange’s one. I am not depicting God as a psycothic man, I’m just saying that Gid doesn’t love all the same. If He could prevent Saint Therese from falling into so many mortal sins, why didn’t He prevent Judas from falling in the first place?
I think though that whether you are predestined or not, you need the Blessed Virgin’s help always and always. She will never forsake you as She made this promise to us at Fatima, She does not permit us to fall into sin or abandon us because if that were true then it would be a contradiction to the fact that She was destined to crush Satans head and instead, She permits us to go to hell.
. Thats blasphemous and was condemned by the Council of Trent.As for the above example you gave, it is inadquate. First of all, God knew that those sinners which He was going to create were going to sin but He still created them. He wasn’t going to be stopped because of His knowledge of this child’s future sins from creating them because then that would make the human race being the one who determines whether he goes to heaven, and not God. The same goes for virtue, because God doesn’t give His graces to the saints because of the good which He saw that they would do in the future but because He decided to make them saints for His glory and thats what happened. If a father wants his children to love him, he must ‘teach’ them and help them to love him. If he doesn’t teach them they become outcasts from the family becsuse of their inability to love. He even said in the Bible: For when the children were not yet born, nor had done any good or evil (that the purpose of God, according to election, might stand,) (Rom 9:11). It not of he who runneth or he who wills but of God showing mercy.
Look Benedictus, there is alot more I can tell and answer but I honestly can’t answer all that right now. But note that I do not make the rules. I didn’t adopt this view of predestintion for no reason at all (like how Protestants accept Sola Scriptura when it isn’t found even in the Bible), I adopted it because it is the most plausible and the one which is more in conformity with Church teaching (which by the way, if the Church said that it adopted Saint Thomas’ philosophy, it adopted his ways of reasoning in predestination). I suggest reading The Mystery of Predestination by John Salza as it is by far the best book on predestination I ever read, it’s even better that Lagrange’s one. I am not depicting God as a psycothic man, I’m just saying that Gid doesn’t love all the same. If He could prevent Saint Therese from falling into so many mortal sins, why didn’t He prevent Judas from falling in the first place?
I think though that whether you are predestined or not, you need the Blessed Virgin’s help always and always. She will never forsake you as She made this promise to us at Fatima, She does not permit us to fall into sin or abandon us because if that were true then it would be a contradiction to the fact that She was destined to crush Satans head and instead, She permits us to go to hell.
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benedictus2
Guest
Huh! How does that make the human race determine whether they are going to heaven. If God did not create those He does not intend to save, how does that make us the determiners of whether we are going to heave or not? That does not make sense.The analogy I gave applies very well to what you wrote.
Then we are back to square one. God makes people for the sole purpose of sending them to everlasting torture. How does that make God a God of love?
But according to you, the Father withholds this “teaching” from some of them. If you go by St Thomas’s view, he said that God reprobates by withholding grace.
(Rom 9:11). It not of he who runneth or he who wills but of God showing mercy. Election to heaven yes, but not predestination to damnation.
I believe that some were indeed pre-destined to heaven in the sense that God has chosen some people specifically for heaven (like our Blessed Mother). But they are not chosen just for themselves. They were chosen to bring about the whole economy of salvation.
Actually the Church didn’t. St Thomas taught that God reprobates. He also taught that Grace is always efficacious. The Church does not teach that.
I will do a summary of the Church’s position in my next post.
So you are saying that God has favourites? But the Bible says that God does not have favourites.
But how do you know that Judas is in hell?
You see, this is the main problem with most people’s argument for predestination. They misread as eternal punishment those that are in fact temporal.
But of course that stands without saying.
But something you probably have not thought about. If you have been predestined to hell, no amount of prayer will help you.
We may say that Calvin’s predestination is terrible but once you put Augustine’s and St Thomas’s view through the microscope, it does not differ much from John Calvin. God still decided before they were born that there will be men to whom He will deny the grace of salvation.
If this has been determined from the beginning, then no amount of prayer will help because the dice had been rolled.
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benedictus2
Guest
Predestination - The Catholic Position
I thought I’d re-post here something I posted in another thread.
Sometimes there is confusion as to where the Church stood with regards predestination as some cite St Augustine and St Thomas and claim that that is the Catholic position. But along side this is Molina who holds a different view.
Below are some text that gives us a guide as to where the Church stands on this issue.
Council of ** Orange - Canon 25.** Concerning the love with which we love God. It is wholly a gift of God to love God. He who loves, even though he is not loved, allowed himself to be loved. We are loved, even when we displease him, so that we might have means to please him. For the Spirit, whom we love with the Father and the Son, has poured into our hearts the love of the Father and the Son (Rom. 5:5).
The following was taken from this link ** pontifications.wordpress.com/predestination/**
In his apostolic constitution Cum Occasione (1635), Pope Innocent X condemned the following Jansenist proposition: “It is Semi-Pelagian to say that Christ died or shed his blood for all human beings without exception.” The Second Vatican Council asserted: “The Word of God, through whom all things were made, was made flesh, so that as perfect man he could save all men and sum up all things in himself” (Gaudium et spes 45).
The universal salvific will of the merciful God who has become incarnate in Jesus Christ underlies the documents of Vatican II, the encyclicals of John Paul II, and the Catechism of the Catholic Church.** It is true that some Catholic theologians, notably ** St Augustine**, have restricted God’s salvific will to the elect; but the Magisterium of the Catholic Church has achieved dogmatic clarity on this matter and has **rejected this thesis.
In the words of the Catholic Catechism:
By giving up his own Son for our sins, God manifests that his plan for us is one of benevolent love, prior to any merit on our part: “In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the expiation for our sins.” God “shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.”
Further:
"Joined to the assertion of God’s provision of sufficient grace to all is the rejection of the thesis of the Jansenists that all grace is necessarily efficacious. In 1713 Pope Clement XI condemned the proposition that “Grace is the working of the omnipotent hand of God which nothing can hinder or retard” (Unigenitus Dei Filius). There is an authentic grace that is truly sufficient for salvation, which provides to the sinner the Spirit-enabled freedom to turn to God but does not necessarily and irresistably realize its salvific end, a grace that man may mysteriously and inexplicably reject.
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philipmarie
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GOD DOES NOT PREDESTINE PEOPLE TO HELL! Honestly man, haven’t you read my posts in full? And anyway, efficacious grace doesn’t make us puppets in the hand of God, but it disposes our will to that of God.
That document which says that it rejects Augustines thesis that only the predestined predestined are saved only refers to the idea that only the predestined predestined are saved and nobody else. It doesn’t mean that those who go to hell are there because God wanted to send them there… He merely permitted them. When God said that He hardened Pharoahs heart, He merely meant that He withheld the grace of conversion from him.
My position doesn’t contradict in the least my views, which are the Church’s views, because I do not mean to say that God is a hate filled being, not a tall. But it can’t be denied that God has favorites. What about chapter 9 of Paul’s epistles to the Romans? What about God hating Esau and loving Jacob? You still haven’t answered my question why God didn’t keep Judas from falling before the latter had any chance of performing his sin.
Note that we are not puppets in God’s hands. If the reprobate go to hell it is because of their own will. It is like a family outing to the grand canyon which ends tragically. There is a family who went one saturday to the grand canyon. Now the parents told their four children to not go near any precipice.
One of the children is afraid of falling into the precipice so he accepts his parent’s offer to be held in their arms (this signifies efficacious grace which gives us the will and power to do good);another one obeys his parents continual pleadings but doesn’t stay in his parents arms because they didn’t tell him to (this signifies sufficient grace which only gives us the power but not the will to do good); the other, despite his parents pleadings, goes near the precipice but his parents see him doing so and rush to hold him back (this signifies the soul who resists sufficient grace but is saved by the will of God and Mary from falling into sin or after he has fallen); the other goes near the precipice and even though his parents shout to him to come back, he goes near it and falls to his death. This last example shows that soul who resists sufficient grace (the pleadings of his parent’s symbolizing sufficient grace) but is not given efficacious grace. Surely his parents could have ran and tugged him back from falling but they didn’t (both the parents here though are symbolizing God only and not the Blessed Virgin). But we didn’t see the parents telling their boy to sin, they only permitted/let/allowed him to walk to the precipice and to fall. They didn’t push him off, that kid fell because he was too curious and stubborn. Just watch this clip to see what I mean, go on: youtube.com/watch?v=wfBRnXxKPUM
That clip was a bit funny but it illustrates what I mean.
And anyway, efficacious grace doesn’t make us puppets in the hand of God, but it disposes our will to that of God.That document which says that it rejects Augustines thesis that only the predestined predestined are saved only refers to the idea that only the predestined predestined are saved and nobody else. It doesn’t mean that those who go to hell are there because God wanted to send them there… He merely permitted them. When God said that He hardened Pharoahs heart, He merely meant that He withheld the grace of conversion from him.
My position doesn’t contradict in the least my views, which are the Church’s views, because I do not mean to say that God is a hate filled being, not a tall. But it can’t be denied that God has favorites. What about chapter 9 of Paul’s epistles to the Romans? What about God hating Esau and loving Jacob? You still haven’t answered my question why God didn’t keep Judas from falling before the latter had any chance of performing his sin.
Note that we are not puppets in God’s hands. If the reprobate go to hell it is because of their own will. It is like a family outing to the grand canyon which ends tragically. There is a family who went one saturday to the grand canyon. Now the parents told their four children to not go near any precipice.
One of the children is afraid of falling into the precipice so he accepts his parent’s offer to be held in their arms (this signifies efficacious grace which gives us the will and power to do good);another one obeys his parents continual pleadings but doesn’t stay in his parents arms because they didn’t tell him to (this signifies sufficient grace which only gives us the power but not the will to do good); the other, despite his parents pleadings, goes near the precipice but his parents see him doing so and rush to hold him back (this signifies the soul who resists sufficient grace but is saved by the will of God and Mary from falling into sin or after he has fallen); the other goes near the precipice and even though his parents shout to him to come back, he goes near it and falls to his death. This last example shows that soul who resists sufficient grace (the pleadings of his parent’s symbolizing sufficient grace) but is not given efficacious grace. Surely his parents could have ran and tugged him back from falling but they didn’t (both the parents here though are symbolizing God only and not the Blessed Virgin). But we didn’t see the parents telling their boy to sin, they only permitted/let/allowed him to walk to the precipice and to fall. They didn’t push him off, that kid fell because he was too curious and stubborn. Just watch this clip to see what I mean, go on: youtube.com/watch?v=wfBRnXxKPUM
That clip was a bit funny but it illustrates what I mean.
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Odell
Guest
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benedictus2
Guest
Aaah. Okay. Now that you’ve said that then I agree. That is what I believe too.GOD DOES NOT PREDESTINE PEOPLE TO HELL! Honestly man, haven’t you read my posts in full?
** That document which says that it rejects Augustines thesis that only the predestined predestined are saved only refers to the idea that only the predestined predestined are saved and nobody else. **
I believe that not only those predestined are saved.
Since you seem quite familiar with the Thomistic view, can you explain to me how you understand St Thomas’s explanation of reprobation because as far as I can understand, barring the minor nuances, it still means a predestination to hell.
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philipmarie
Guest
God, as I said, does not predestine men to hell. This is the impious Calvinist view, where they even say that God tells the devil to tempt us so that we may fall and where they say that if we sin, it is because God puposely made us sin.
god: Hmm, so that I may show my justice, I’m going to force this lad here to sin on purpose.
They depict God as a tyrant… nuff said.
The Thomistic view isn’t like this of course. It holds that if a soul is predestined or goes to heaven, it is because God loved him more than the soul who went to hell because He actually willed to save the predestined soul. Of course, it is erronous and wrong to say this:
‘What’s the use of becoming a saint? If I am predestined, I will go to heaven no matter what sins I do.’
We can’t say that, because predestined souls go to heaven because of the things they do. God and Mary help these souls lead a saintly life on earth so that they may obtain merit in heaven and be happy in it. They give them efficacious grace which disposes their wills to do good and so brings about the good works they perform. It is free will cooperating with God and Mary’s will.
Those who go to hell though go to hell not because God didn’t want them to go to heaven or that He excluded them from it but He simply permitted/allowed/let them follow their own bad inclinations and in the process did not give them efficacious grace to convert or repent. (And here note that I’m referring to God. Mary’s love is another story which is part of this) However, while God does not give efficacious grace to all, He gives to everyone sufficient grace which gives them the power to do good but doesn’t dispose their will to do good. Sufficient grace is like the example of the family outing to the grand canyon which I gave.
Here is another example: a father took his two children to the park where they saw a huge dog. He tells them to not go near it or it may harm them and lets them off to play. However, he tells one of them to stay with him and away from the dog and the child agrees; he doesn’t tell the other one to stay with him, the boy disobeys his father’s orders and pleadings to stay away from the dog, the dog bite the child’s head off and the child dies
. OK, maybe he didn’t bite his head off but you know what I mean
.
This is the mystery though: while sufficient grace doesn’t dispose our will to do good, it is still sufficient and enough to bring us to heaven.
god: Hmm, so that I may show my justice, I’m going to force this lad here to sin on purpose.
They depict God as a tyrant… nuff said.
The Thomistic view isn’t like this of course. It holds that if a soul is predestined or goes to heaven, it is because God loved him more than the soul who went to hell because He actually willed to save the predestined soul. Of course, it is erronous and wrong to say this:
‘What’s the use of becoming a saint? If I am predestined, I will go to heaven no matter what sins I do.’
We can’t say that, because predestined souls go to heaven because of the things they do. God and Mary help these souls lead a saintly life on earth so that they may obtain merit in heaven and be happy in it. They give them efficacious grace which disposes their wills to do good and so brings about the good works they perform. It is free will cooperating with God and Mary’s will.
Those who go to hell though go to hell not because God didn’t want them to go to heaven or that He excluded them from it but He simply permitted/allowed/let them follow their own bad inclinations and in the process did not give them efficacious grace to convert or repent. (And here note that I’m referring to God. Mary’s love is another story which is part of this) However, while God does not give efficacious grace to all, He gives to everyone sufficient grace which gives them the power to do good but doesn’t dispose their will to do good. Sufficient grace is like the example of the family outing to the grand canyon which I gave.
Here is another example: a father took his two children to the park where they saw a huge dog. He tells them to not go near it or it may harm them and lets them off to play. However, he tells one of them to stay with him and away from the dog and the child agrees; he doesn’t tell the other one to stay with him, the boy disobeys his father’s orders and pleadings to stay away from the dog, the dog bite the child’s head off and the child dies
. OK, maybe he didn’t bite his head off but you know what I mean.This is the mystery though: while sufficient grace doesn’t dispose our will to do good, it is still sufficient and enough to bring us to heaven.
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philipmarie
Guest
I haven’t spoken so much on the Blessed Virgin, even though this thread is about Her.
But if God doesn’t give equal grace to all, how on earth are these sinners going to be saved? You say that one of the reasons the predestined were predestined was so that they may bring about the salvation of others yet, not all souls are saved. If God willed to use the predestined to efficaciously save every sinner in the world, then why are there so many people in hell? There are more people in hell then there are in heaven according to the Saints and doctors of the Church. This does not mean that there are very few people in heaven because the Bible says that there are millions of people in there (excluding the angels. How the Blessed Virgin can remember all their names I don’t know
).
Everything goes under the providence of God. If a soul is given grace it is because God willed to give it and if sin happens, it is because God permitted it to happen. Of course, it cannot be that God from all eternity decided that this and this soul will recieve only these graces, going so far as to not listen to prayers which ask for other good graces. If it was true that God decided EVERYTHING THAT WAS TO HAPPEN, EVERY good work a soul does from all eternity, we would have no free will and we wouldn’t have any freedom to do good in our own way. If every soul wanted to become a hermit, not only would the human race die out because of the lack of children but we wouldn’t have such great religious orders such as the Salesians, the Dominicans, the Claretians, the Jesuits, the Carmelites, the Sisters of Charity, etc… hence, no missionaries, no Christianity in China, or India or America. If it wasn’t for the free will of the founders of such orders, you wouldn’t be here on Catholic answers forum.
Mary’s role is to inspire us to do that good which God otherwise wouldn’t have inspired us with. This isn’t because God doesn’t want us to do this good: in fact, God in His mercy gave the Blessed Virgin the role to inspire this goodness in us. It is a fact that many religious orders were founded because Mary intervened: it was Mary who gave Saint Dominic the Rosary, it is to Mary that the Carmelites are dedicated to, it is Mary who is the main patron of the Jesuits, it is Mary who guided and inspired Saint John Bosco and Saint Mary Mazzarello to found the Salesians.
I’m going to repeat alot of things here because a) I love speaking about Mary and b) Mary’s awesome and c) I need to clarify things up.
It also doesn’t mean that this role is some kind of job to the Blessed Virgin. She isn’t the type of Mother who looks upon her child as a burden. No, in the annunciation, She freely chose to become our Mother and even though She didn’t have the obligation to choose us as Her adopted children, She did just that.
But if God doesn’t give equal grace to all, how on earth are these sinners going to be saved? You say that one of the reasons the predestined were predestined was so that they may bring about the salvation of others yet, not all souls are saved. If God willed to use the predestined to efficaciously save every sinner in the world, then why are there so many people in hell? There are more people in hell then there are in heaven according to the Saints and doctors of the Church. This does not mean that there are very few people in heaven because the Bible says that there are millions of people in there (excluding the angels. How the Blessed Virgin can remember all their names I don’t know
).Everything goes under the providence of God. If a soul is given grace it is because God willed to give it and if sin happens, it is because God permitted it to happen. Of course, it cannot be that God from all eternity decided that this and this soul will recieve only these graces, going so far as to not listen to prayers which ask for other good graces. If it was true that God decided EVERYTHING THAT WAS TO HAPPEN, EVERY good work a soul does from all eternity, we would have no free will and we wouldn’t have any freedom to do good in our own way. If every soul wanted to become a hermit, not only would the human race die out because of the lack of children but we wouldn’t have such great religious orders such as the Salesians, the Dominicans, the Claretians, the Jesuits, the Carmelites, the Sisters of Charity, etc… hence, no missionaries, no Christianity in China, or India or America. If it wasn’t for the free will of the founders of such orders, you wouldn’t be here on Catholic answers forum.
Mary’s role is to inspire us to do that good which God otherwise wouldn’t have inspired us with. This isn’t because God doesn’t want us to do this good: in fact, God in His mercy gave the Blessed Virgin the role to inspire this goodness in us. It is a fact that many religious orders were founded because Mary intervened: it was Mary who gave Saint Dominic the Rosary, it is to Mary that the Carmelites are dedicated to, it is Mary who is the main patron of the Jesuits, it is Mary who guided and inspired Saint John Bosco and Saint Mary Mazzarello to found the Salesians.
I’m going to repeat alot of things here because a) I love speaking about Mary and b) Mary’s awesome and c) I need to clarify things up.
It also doesn’t mean that this role is some kind of job to the Blessed Virgin. She isn’t the type of Mother who looks upon her child as a burden. No, in the annunciation, She freely chose to become our Mother and even though She didn’t have the obligation to choose us as Her adopted children, She did just that.
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philipmarie
Guest
Just writing that I recieved new hope and elation in Mary’s mercy. I also believe that God only saved the human race because He considered that He would create the most perfect and immaculate creature ever from the fallen human race (Mary!) and I also believe that without Her, we wouldn’t have sufficient grace to sustain us.
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benedictus2
Guest
And there’s the rub.
If grace is ALWAYS efficacious and God denies these to the people who go to hell, you are therefore saying that God, even before they were created, had already decided that He will deny them efficacious grace which essentially means hell has the place where they were destined to before they were born. Can anyone attain to heaven without efficacious grace?. Since grace is what enables us to follow His will, then, even before the reprobate was born, God has determined where this soul was going because He knew even then He will not give them efficacious grace.
Is that not exactly what I said in my example of the couple who even before they were born, they have decided that they will give the medicine only to some of their sick children and the others they will ALLOW to suffer through the pain of the disease?
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philipmarie
Guest
First, I said that GRACE IS NOT ALWAYS EFFICACIOUS BECAUSE THERE IS BOTH SUFFICIENT AND EFFICACIOUS GRACE!!!
Well Benedictus, that is what happens. God allows them to fall. Just look at this quote from Romans 9:16-18:
So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy. For the scripture saith to Pharao: To this purpose have I raised thee, that I may shew my power in thee, and that my name may be declared throughout all the earth. [18] Therefore he hath mercy on whom he will; and whom he will, he hardeneth."
Challoner said in the commentary:
*“To this purpose”… Not that God made him on purpose that he should sin, and so be damned; but foreseeing his obstinacy in sin, and the abuse of his own free will, he raised him up to be a mighty king, to make a more remarkable example of him: and that his power might be better known, and his justice in punishing him, published throughout the earth. *
“He hardeneth”… Not by being the cause or author of his sin, but by withholding his grace, and so leaving him in his sin, in punishment of his past demerits. Although in the first one Challoner made an error, because, in contradiction to Rom 9:11, he said that God withheld grace from Pharoah because he foresaw the sins he was going to commit. This does not mean that God decided to punish Pharoah before the latter even commited the sin (Minority Report is fiction. it only happens in politics
) but He merely willed to allow Pharoah to commit the sin and after he does commit it, God punishes him.It also doesn’t mean that from all eternity He withheld from Pharoah every sufficient grace. As I said, God gives sufficient grace to all that they may accept it but it is men who doesn’t accept sufficient grace and so damns himself. But God doesn’t give the fficacious grace to convert and become a saint to all, just as he doesn’t give the always efficacious grace of final perseverance to all.
Had Pharoah though accepted sufficient grace and had Mary existed at that time, there is no doubt that She would have helped him to repent and that She would have asked God to have mercy upon this sinner. That is Mary’s role, to keep God from chastising sinners who otherwise deserve it and give them a chance to repent. She Herself said at Fatima and La Salette that She keeps the arm of Her Son from striking the world in punishment.
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benedictus2
Guest
Okay, that’s good.First, I said that GRACE IS NOT ALWAYS EFFICACIOUS BECAUSE THERE IS BOTH SUFFICIENT AND EFFICACIOUS GRACE!!!
Yes, but that does not mean that somehow, this results in the Pharaoh going to hell.
So think about this:
If efficacious grace is what is necessary for salvation, what determines the giving of this grace? If God knew from the beginning that a sinner will need efficacious grace to be saved, why withhold it?
But this does not make sense since from the beginning, God already knew that this person will be obstinate and abuse his own free will. Why create him at all considering that God knows that He will deny him?
This portrays god as some hungry adulation hungry god
Aaah, now you’re talking.
This is similar to how I see it.
We are all given sufficient grace to say yes to God. All through our life there is always sufficient grace given to cooperate with God’s will. If we say yes most of the time, then the our wills become trained to say yes to God such that in the end what is merely sufficient becomes efficacious, because the continual yes results form our conscience and our will such that in the end, we can do nothing but to say yes. That is why each response to God is important for it helps shape our souls.
As they say, the first murder is hard the second is easier and the third even easier.
It is the same way with virtue, the more we practice virtue, our virtue muscles increase so practicing virtue becomes easier and in the end the only possible way to respond therefore grace has become efficacious.
Anyway, that is just my musing and my attempt to make sense of predestination.
D
Disinherited
Guest
Might I add something? I hold the Thomist position too and if my meditations and prayers to Mary thought me something it is that we are MUCH better off with Mary Immaculate than we are simply going to God alone without Her help. How many sinners did God convert in the old testament because He loved them so much? What about the billions upon billions of people such as the Americans to whom it was impossible for them to receive knowledge of God and the true religion? What about the genocides which God allowed the Jews to commit, specifically when they reached the land of Canaan? I know the original occupants were violent people but would it not have been better if they preached to them and tried to make a deal with them? Like what happened between the Catholic Church and North America when it was discovered? Didn’t Chris Colombus find America on 12th October 1492, the Feat of Our Lady of the Pillar? Didn’t the Blessed Virgin convert more than 8 million people and counting when She appeared to Juan Diego? Didn’t the Pope at that time also prohibit the slavery of north Americans?
I hold that if God doesn’t love a person very much then how can this person convert if God doesn’t have the will to give him grace? That is where Mary comes in. God didn’t give us the Blessed Virgin for nothing and this to me confirms the saying that if a sinner converts then there surely must have been an intervention on Mary’s part. She sees us sinners all miserable and poor and not only does She implore God to have mercy on us and pardon us but She also gives us graces which She is the Mediatrix of so that we may become attracted to virtue.
Sorry for my purple prose but thats how I naturally write. Anyway this is what I think. And if any traditionalist Catholics like me are reading this, then I tell them that they shouldn’t rely on some stupid three days of darkness in order to wipe out the evils of the world. Thats slothful; thats lazy. That is not hope in God, it is a lack of hope in the Blessed Virgin Mary.
We are not sure if prophecies will happen at all. God said that He will destroy Ninive if the inhabitants don’t repent: * Now the word of the Lord came to Jonas the son of Amathi, saying: Arise, and go to Ninive the great city, and preach in it: for the wickedness thereof is come up before me.* (Jonas 1:1-2), and: And Jonas began to enter into the city one day’s journey: and he cried, and said: Yet forty days, and Ninive shall be destroyed (Jonas 3:4) Tell me if that isn’t a prophecy in the first place. Did it happen? Did God sentence the people of that place to death? Of course he didn’t.
We should pray to Her, spread devotion to Her. She promised us that Her Immaculate Heart will triumph in the end and for Her to truly triumph, we should work hard so that we, as Her children really should earn and merit Her triumph over Satan.
Viva the Virgin of Guadalupe! Long live the Blessed Virgin Mary.
I hold that if God doesn’t love a person very much then how can this person convert if God doesn’t have the will to give him grace? That is where Mary comes in. God didn’t give us the Blessed Virgin for nothing and this to me confirms the saying that if a sinner converts then there surely must have been an intervention on Mary’s part. She sees us sinners all miserable and poor and not only does She implore God to have mercy on us and pardon us but She also gives us graces which She is the Mediatrix of so that we may become attracted to virtue.
Sorry for my purple prose but thats how I naturally write
. Anyway this is what I think. And if any traditionalist Catholics like me are reading this, then I tell them that they shouldn’t rely on some stupid three days of darkness in order to wipe out the evils of the world. Thats slothful; thats lazy. That is not hope in God, it is a lack of hope in the Blessed Virgin Mary.We are not sure if prophecies will happen at all. God said that He will destroy Ninive if the inhabitants don’t repent: * Now the word of the Lord came to Jonas the son of Amathi, saying: Arise, and go to Ninive the great city, and preach in it: for the wickedness thereof is come up before me.* (Jonas 1:1-2), and: And Jonas began to enter into the city one day’s journey: and he cried, and said: Yet forty days, and Ninive shall be destroyed (Jonas 3:4) Tell me if that isn’t a prophecy in the first place. Did it happen? Did God sentence the people of that place to death? Of course he didn’t.
We should pray to Her, spread devotion to Her. She promised us that Her Immaculate Heart will triumph in the end and for Her to truly triumph, we should work hard so that we, as Her children really should earn and merit Her triumph over Satan.
Viva the Virgin of Guadalupe! Long live the Blessed Virgin Mary.
- Status