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tonyrey
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The Catechism specifies “the evils in nature which seem to be linked to the limitations proper to creatures” and “above all to the question of moral evil.” There is a clear distinction between natural and moral evil.
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tonyrey
Guest
Those who claim that God causes everything overlook the fact that He shares His power with us, enabling us to defy His Will, deny His existence and live for themselves.
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ivebeenshown
Guest
God does not share his power with us per se, but instead he has given us power that is like his. We cannot defy his will per se, as his action is perfectly effective, hence his will is always done; instead, we use our rational faculty to reject the divine goodness, but even though God is the ultimate cause of this, he has caused it for his own purpose, which is the most good – hence St. Paul writes that which he does in the letter to the Romans, where one vessel is destined for smashing and another for glory.
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tonyrey
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Predestination is condemned by the Church. We alone decide whether we go to heaven or hell according to whether we choose to live for God and others or for ourselves. To deny that we have free will is against the teaching of Jesus who told us to pray “Forgive us as we forgive…”
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Michael_Mayo
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Whose sin? The innocent children who died or others?
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Love4All
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If they are innocent they have no sin, by definition of ‘innocent.’
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Love4All
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Natural evil is a punishment for moral evil.
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Love4All
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Are you upset with God for sacrificing the innocent? What about the approximately 125,000 children murdered every day while still in their mother’s wombs? Is that also a tragedy, or do you ignore it because it is the work of man?
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Love4All
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Michael_Mayo
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It is a tragedy indeed that is the work of both men and women. Men and women have the power to stop it. Not so with natural disasters. I am sorry but don’t see your point.
I am not upset with God. I just do not claim to understand nor do I discount the innocent natural suffering that God permits. You seem to view it as a punishment.
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Love4All
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That is what it is, and specifically it is reparation. Jesus was punished for our sins, and He was innocent. God allows innocent suffering to repair for sin.
By “man,” of course I mean to include woman.
The simplicity of it is, God plainly allows such things — natural disasters, abortions, school shootings — to happen. What is not so plain is that if there were no sin, none of it would happen. What people need to recognize, and what many have already begun to notice, is that these things are increasing in frequency. The reality is that they will continue to increase until sin begins to decrease, and then they will subside. God is eliminating sin.
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tonyrey
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An unChristian, discourteous remark…
You are obviously unaware that predestination is generally associated with John Calvin: “Predestination we call the eternal decree of God, by which He has determined in Himself, what He would have to become of every individual of mankind. For they are not all created with a similar destiny; but eternal life is foreordained for some and eternal death for others. Every man, therefore, being created for one or the other of these ends, we say he is predestinated either to life or to death.” Institutes, Book III, Ch. XXI, Sec. 5.
theopedia.com/Predestination
NB:
[
In broad Christian conversation, predestinationJohn CalvinCalvinistProtestant Reformationthis is the non-technical sense in which the term is typically used todayen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predestination](http://www.theopedia.com/Predestination)
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Michael_Mayo
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When a 6 year old is dying form cancer whose sin is she repairing for? her own? her family? her country? the world?
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ivebeenshown
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Predestination to hell is condemned by the Church. Predestination to salvation is maintained by the Church.
“Whom he foreknew, he predestined.” God does not make man’s decisions for him any more than God rolls downhill for a rock, but he does have ultimate providence and ensures that the elect will make the right decisions to attain to eternal glory. That God does this is called predestination.
I do not deny that we have free will. What I do deny is that man can surpass divine providence.
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tonyrey
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tonyrey
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ivebeenshown
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This is incorrect. Predestination refers the power and grace of God actively destining some to eternal salvation, while reprobation refers to God not doing the same for others. “Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated.”
You are incorrect in stating that God’s predestination would eliminate the responsibility of the elect. God influences the elect man to make the graceful decisions he does, but it is truly the man who does the decision-making, and it is the fact that he does the decision-making that makes him responsible for his decisions. Not everyone belongs to the elect because not everyone makes the right decisions.
It is true that those who go to hell go there because of their own choices, but it is also true that they did not make the choices necessary for salvation because God did not give them the sufficient grace needed to do so. from Catechism, paras. 2008 and 2025:
“Man’s merit, moreover, itself is due to God, for his good actions proceed in Christ, from the predispositions and assistance given by the Holy Spirit.”
“We can have merit in God’s sight only because of God’s free plan to associate man with the work of his grace. Merit is to be ascribed in the first place to the grace of God, and secondly to man’s collaboration. Man’s merit is due to God.”
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ivebeenshown
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According to the Catechism, man would not experience suffering if not for original sin.
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Love4All
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While you are free to take offense at anything you choose to be offended by, to offend you was most certainly not my intent. Since to instruct the ignorant is in fact a Work of Mercy, that was my intent: to help you to learn. Ignorance is simply a condition of lack of knowledge, and you seem to lack particular knowledge. I am looking out for your best interest! I am encouraging you to educate yourself regarding the proper theological use of terms.
I won’t apologize for kindly encouraging you to learn. But perhaps I was too brief in my remark. I would have thought the link I provided was clear enough, but, it seems not. So you are offended — not my fault. But perhaps I should have taken the time to explain to you clearly, exactly why I held that you were in want of some instruction. While I do not perceive that I had that duty, I allow that I may have assumed too much. So in any case, I mean to repair, in this post, for any lack in my previous post.
Your statement of what you call “obvious” is in fact false. I am not unaware of Calvin’s abuse of the theological term. I thought I was talking to a Catholic. I was unprepared for a discussion of Protestant Error.
As someone else also pointed out to you, the term “predestined” is from Holy Scripture. Thus, it is Catholic Doctrine that God predestines His Elect. Now, it is also Catholic Doctrine, and likewise Scriptural, that God leaves man in the hand of his own counsel, i.e. gives him free will. Calvin denied this; Calvinism is heresy. Calvin’s false doctrine of predestinationism is that man, as a result of the Fall, is so entirely depraved (“Total Depravity”) that his free will is extinguished. Therefore, according to Calvin, God has foreordained His elect, and saves them without requiring anything at all on their part. (“Unconditional Election”) Further, not all are saved. (“Limited Atonement” — but that not all are saved is also Catholic Doctrine) Since there is no free will, grace works, according to Calvin, entirely without the co-operation of the human being. (“Irresistible Grace”) And finally, according to Calvin, once a person believes, he is forever saved, and no amount of sinning can ever earn him eternal damnation (“Perseverance of the Elect.”)
By contrast: God’s Church teaches that human free will is attenuated, not extinguished, by the Fall; that the elect are so not only by God’s choice but also by their own co-operation with grace; that God positively wills the salvation of all without exception; that grace can be resisted, and requires co-operation; and finally, that perseverance in grace essentially consists in the soul’s co-operation with grace. Mysteriously, even this co-operation, is itself a grace.
To sum up: the Catholic Church maintains that human free will is real, and that salvation is not an affair that is all on the side of God and none on the side of man, but a co-operative venture between God and man.
That said, the fact of a soul being led by God into total co-operation with grace (whether in this life or by Fire in Purgatory) has a name given to it in theology, taken from Scripture. It is called predestination.
I have very little interest in discussing the nuances of Calvin’s heresy. I am not a Calvinist heretic. I was a little bit surprised that first of all, you would state, “predestination is condemned by the Church,” when the reality is that predestination is taught by the Church; it is Calvinism that is condemned. And second, that you would assume, on a Catholic forum, that someone using a term from Catholic theology was using it in an inaccurate and heretical sense.
I assumed you were in good faith and were actually unaware of your error; that is why I asked you, kindly, to educate yourself.
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Love4All
Guest
Are you mistaking me for God?
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