On the subject of predestination

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ILoveTheLordGod

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Is it God’s will that some believe & some don’t?
I checked different sources,. Oh, and they aren’t from Calvinists.

Some say that it’s God’s choice since the beginning of who will be saved or damned.
Others say that God gives grace to whom He intends to call/choose only, and that if one believes, he was chosen by God, but if not then he wasn’t.

There’s even lines from the letters of Paul that contain this teaching. If God knows that some are going to hell, why does He even make them in the first place?

What uncomfortable about this is that if predestination is true, would that make God unfair? Also, would that go against free will?

One of these must be true:
  1. Not being chosen doesn’t mean unsaved.
  2. God knows everyone’s eternal fate but doesn’t plan them.
  3. Paul, being human, had errors even though he was inspired by the Holy Spirit.
  4. God calls everyone; being chosen just means being tasked to do something special.
  5. God chooses everyone and gives them grace, it’s up to man to accept it.
What are your insights? I’ve been spiritually paranoid that I’ve researched for hours about this.
 
ILoveTheLordGod said:
Is it God’s will that some believe & some don’t?
I checked different sources,. Oh, and they aren’t from Calvinists.

Some say that it’s God’s choice since the beginning of who will be saved or damned.
Others say that God gives grace to whom He intends to call/choose only, and that if one believes, he was chosen by God, but if not then he wasn’t.

There’s even lines from the letters of Paul that contain this teaching. If God knows that some are going to hell, why does He even make them in the first place?

What uncomfortable about this is that if predestination is true, would that make God unfair? Also, would that go against free will?

One of these must be true:
  1. Not being chosen doesn’t mean unsaved.
  2. God knows everyone’s eternal fate but doesn’t plan them.
  3. Paul, being human, had errors even though he was inspired by the Holy Spirit.
  4. God calls everyone; being chosen just means being tasked to do something special.
  5. God chooses everyone and gives them grace, it’s up to man to accept it.
What are your insights? I’ve been spiritually paranoid that I’ve researched for hours about this.
Click to expand...
I used to be paranoid about that.
Till I gave up thinking about that.

There was a saint, St. Augustin, who was thinking in the Holy Trinity walking on the beach. We are getiing paranoid, persons, one nature, jesus christ, one person, natures, and he was getting crazy.

Then he sumbled upon a child who was taking water from the sea and filling a hole in the sand. “What are you doing?” - asked the saint. “I am going to put the sea in that hole !” - replied joyfully the kid. “My son! It is impossible! The sea is so big and that hole is so small !” - Then the child replied: “So are you, Augustin, thinking on the Holy Trinity!”. And disappeared.

This is not your business and you will have a nervous breakdown for you are trying a businees you do not have teeth to deal with. That is God’s business.

So, if you do not mind, stop playing God. Unless, you want to becoe paranoid…

God Bless
 
It’s very simple.

God, who is omniscient and outside of time, knows who will be saved and who will be lost,
but he decides nobody’s fate.

If he were to decide that somebody was to be damned he would be unjust, but that’s impossible.

Every man determines his own fate.

There really is nothing more that needs to be said.

Yes, some people will write books on the subject, one way or the other,
but just keep in mind,
God is just and will not condemn any good man.

Paul, in I Tim. 2:1-6, gives the answer! "I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for ALL MEN … for this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour;
who will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth."

The Catholic approved New American Bible wording:
.
1 First of all, then, I ask that supplications, prayers, petitions, and thanksgivings be offered for everyone,
2 for kings and for all in authority, that we may lead a quiet and tranquil life in all devotion and dignity.
3 This is good and pleasing to God our savior,
4 who wills everyone to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth. 👍
 
Predestination is a way of understanding God’s omniscience and foreknowledge. God already knows all things, what will happen tomorrow and 1,000,000,000 moments of any size from now. That does not mean he made our choices for us, it just means he knows what they are. In that way, yes, we are all predestined to either heaven or hell, but those who make it to hell make it there because of their own decisions, which God did not make for them, he only knew what they were.

God does however grant the grace of his Holy Spirit to individuals, and the best example of this is the Blessed Virgin Mary, who received so much grace that not only was she born without the stain of Original Sin, but she never fell into sin, being guided by the Spirit all her life. When God gives his grace to us it is always effective.

When God withholds grace from other individuals who may end up in hell, he is not to blame, because God is not obligated to give grace (which is a gift) to anyone he does not want to.
 
When God withholds grace from other individuals who may end up in hell, he is not to blame, because God is not obligated to ,give grace (which is a gift) to anyone he does not want to.
Click to expand...
That’s not quite right. It seems to say God denies some people sufficient grace to be saved. This would mean he chose who was to be lost. Not true.

Since God wills that all be saved, see 1 Tim 2.4 quote in my last post,
he gives every man sufficient grace to be saved,
but he may choose to give some men more grace than others so that they will show heroic faith.

Joan of Arc performed wonders that leave secular historians mystified to this day. The “Voices”, actually St. Micheal and two female saints from the early centuries, appeared to Joan hundreds of times. This would seem to be the granting of an awul lot of grace by God.
However,
I don’t want to imply that God dishes out a certain amount of grace to each individual at birthl and that’s all the individual gets for life, and that if he squanders it by bad acts he can’t be saved. That’s not how it works.
We can always increase the amount of sanctifying grace we have by repentance, and by asking for it through prayer and good deeds. The Church constantly urges us to do so.
So, the raving maniacal serial killer can change and become a saint.
 
“Everyone who acknowledges me before others I will acknowledge before my heavenly
Father. But whoever denies me before others, I will deny before my heavenly Father.” Matthew 10:32-33

It is clear from the above that we, not Christ, are making the choice. Why would God reward us or punish us for decisions that we were powerless to make according to the heresy of predestination?
 
ILoveTheLordGod said:
Is it God’s will that some believe & some don’t?
I checked different sources,. Oh, and they aren’t from Calvinists.

Some say that it’s God’s choice since the beginning of who will be saved or damned.
Others say that God gives grace to whom He intends to call/choose only, and that if one believes, he was chosen by God, but if not then he wasn’t.

There’s even lines from the letters of Paul that contain this teaching. If God knows that some are going to hell, why does He even make them in the first place?

What uncomfortable about this is that if predestination is true, would that make God unfair? Also, would that go against free will?

One of these must be true:
  1. Not being chosen doesn’t mean unsaved.
  2. God knows everyone’s eternal fate but doesn’t plan them.
  3. Paul, being human, had errors even though he was inspired by the Holy Spirit.
  4. God calls everyone; being chosen just means being tasked to do something special.
  5. God chooses everyone and gives them grace, it’s up to man to accept it.
What are your insights? I’ve been spiritually paranoid that I’ve researched for hours about this.
Click to expand...
I personally don’t think you need be worried about paranoia. Paranoia is a believe that “others” are somehow evil and malicious. The elaborate plots that the paranoid hold are mere dramas invented by their mind and circumstance to support their paranoid view. Ironically, there are people who are totally evil. Jesus spoke in parables so that they would not be “converted” – in other words, so that justification would come from faith and faithful works of charity. The error of the paranoid is in holding that all of them are evil (which is possible, I suppose). I see it as a threshold of discernment. It all depends on our grace and forgiveness. Yet we are confronted with the fact that Jesus himself condemned their leaders. Obviously some are not capable of receiving forgiveness because they are evil and have fully rejected the truth of Christ.

Jesus spoke of the ruler of this world, the devil. The evil are followers of the devil. That distinguishes them from those who are merely deceived by the devil’s most current “propoganda” of evil. Thus, you can play a role in the salvation of these unwitting, along with the whole church, by spreading the truth of the gospel - which is light and dispels the darkness of the world’s mentality. The devil is used by God to master the sinful; though God was not its author. He also uses the devil’s followers to do this same thing. When they die, fire ends them. Beware of their evil intentions, but do not fear them. They cannot destroy you, a child of God.

God is not unfair. Our reward is in Heaven. That’s what we hoped and asked for. The evil want their own destruction. “He who loveth iniquity hateth his own soul.”
 
So the Calvinist/Armenian war rages across the Tiber as well…the substance changes, though the accidents remain the same! :knight2:
 
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