Not all humans children of God?

[Maxirad]

Is it true that not human beings are children of God? We’re all creatures of God, of course, but…

 

[pianistclare]

Depends. We become children of GOd in Baptism, but He is the creator of all.

 

[Genesis315]

It depends–we become His children in the sense of His heirs through Baptism. But as St. Paul said in Acts, the pagans got it right when they said: “For we are indeed his offspring.”

Acts 17:26 And he made from one every nation of men to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their habitation, 27 that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel after him and find him. Yet he is not far from each one of us, 28* for ‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your poets have said, ‘For we are indeed his offspring.’ 29 Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the Deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, a representation by the art and imagination of man.

 

[porthos11]

Is it true that not human beings are children of God? We’re all creatures of God, of course, but…

From one standpoint yes. “Children” can be used loosely to refer to all of us since God created us, and because we’re rational creatures, all of us human beings are “children” of God, loosely speaking, and share a certain brotherhood, loosely speaking.

But a key tenet/mystery of Christianity is our status as adopted sons of God, something infallibly taught as happening upon baptism. When one is baptized, the person undergoes a change from a mere creature to a child of God, and this involves a transformation in the soul.

I put it this way: I have two dogs. I love them very much and take care of them according to what is reasonable and prudent. However, no matter how hard I try, no matter how much noise I make, I will never be able to leave my estate to them if I die ahead of them. They can never carry on my name, and will never be able to claim anything that is mine. In other words, they can never be my heirs.

Why is that? Because they do not share my nature. I am man, they are dog.

Well, we are lower than the dust when compared to God. We are infinitely inferior to God than dogs are to us. On our own, we can never become children of God because we do not share his nature. But God, in his goodness, did not want to leave it at that, which is why he sent his Son in our nature, to die and rise again in that nature, so that we can share in his divine nature (cf. Roman Missal). In other words, in baptism, when we die and rise in Christ, we become, in a manner of speaking, “divinized”, partakers, sharers in God’s own nature. In a certain way, we “become God” because only then can we lay claim to becoming sons of God.

So from a stricter reading, all are creatures of God, but only Christians are his sons.

(I intentionally use the word “sons” here to refer to this status, even for women).

 

[CatholicSpirit]

• Blessed are the peacemakers…

I know that making peace is symbolic of being a child of God. In my life, I also try to define the problems we are creating which lead to chaos. That is why I do not treat those who lobby or conduct oversight in regard to government as the opposite, unless it causes more chaos. There are some people who may be freed due to DNA analysis, people who are poor and treated wrongly. If we give them peace through battling on their behalf, though we have to “fight” injustice to do so, peace is the goal. We need world peace, from the prisoner, to the households, to set a good example for our offspring. The tools are available, but corrupt people wield many to use them for the wrong reasons and it is up to us to ensure they use them for good once again.

 

[BlackFriar]

Its a similar ambiguity as seen in “eternal life”.

The damned also have eternal life do they not?
They will also rise one day also.

But what we really mean is eternal life with God.
And supernatural children of God, not natural.