Original sin, invisible ignorace & the economy of salvation

[MindOverMatter2]

I have bit of a problem with the following quote. Its taken from a free ebook by Donald P. Goodman III here… gorpub.freeshell.org/origsin.pdf

The full website is here if you are interested in analysing the free books there… gorpub.freeshell.org/books.html

“Heaven is a free gift of God, not the fulfilment of a debt. If the invincibly ignorant man is not saved, God is still fulfilling all which He ought, and giving him exactly
what is right. As St. Thomas says, “because of the sin of the first parent
the human race deserved to be deprived of the help of grace.”

I believe that Gods moral nature is intrinsically rational. While I agree that Gods grace is a gift, I cannot rationally agree with how this grace is purported to be distributed in the above quote. It appears contradictory to me.

The following is how I see it. Gods actions cannot be construed as whimsical arbitrary acts of desire or even artistic flare. Rather it seems to me that the correct rendering of God is a being whose very act is a moral act; is the moral ought, and for God to act otherwise would be contrary to the very nature of God and thus impossible. Therefore the creation of man cannot be separated from Gods intention to save man, since salvation is a moral act; as in to say that this is what a good being would always do in any morally possible world because that is the nature of good. God does what God is. This is to say that, while salvation requires those people with knowledge to freely accept salvation, salvation itself cannot be a contingent intention that God can choose not to full-fill merely because a person is ignorant of original sin. God would not create man without the intention to give the human race the grace of God, since the human race in the first place exists for the purpose of heaven; and would not exist otherwise. I can certainly agree that the creation of man is a gift and so is the grace that is necessarily given with it. But I must stress with all due respect that the saving grace of God is also a “moral expression” of Gods nature. God may choose to withhold knowledge of his being until an appropriate time from people; but Humanity is created to receive Gods grace in so far as we were created for heaven. This means that if a man dies in a state of invincible ignorance and original sin, God is not going to put that person in hell on that account, and neither is it logically possible that God could choose not to save that person on the account of his ignorance or original sin, because Gods saving act is both a gift and a fulfilment of what God ought to do in accordance with his nature. The only way we cannot receive salvation is because we freely choose to reject it.

When God created us, by that very act, he in turn was bound to provide for our moral well being, simple because that’s the nature of God which is Love.

What say ye?

 

[JM3]

“When the Gentiles who have not the law do by nature what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even thought they do not have the law. They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or perhaps excuse them.” Romans 2:14-15

Even St. Paul wasn’t sure.

 

[Katholish]

MindOverMatter,

Please believe me when I say that I understand why you are objecting and understand well the nature of the objection. However, I would argue that Don Goodman (whom I happen to know since he is a fellow Christendom grad) is setting forth basic truths upon which the Faith is built, and the premises which you must inevitably adopt to disprove him lead to some nasty and untenable conclusions.

Let us first look at Creation itself. You said, “for God to act otherwise would be contrary to the very nature of God and thus impossible.” This means that all of God’s acts are necessary acts, and God literally has no “Free Will” but is necessitated in absolutely everything that He does. This denies an explicit de fide teaching of the Church that God was free to create or not to create. This is a quote from the Catholic Encyclopedia article on Creation:

God was absolutely free to create or not to create, and to create the present or any possible world. This is an article of Catholic Faith defined by the Vatican Council (Can., De Deo Creante, v). It is the explicit teaching of Scripture, God “worketh all things according to the counsel of his will” (Ephesians 1:11), and of the Fathers generally. It is an obvious rational deduction from the infinitude and absolute self-sufficiency of God. The creative act, as a subjective aspect of the Divine Will, is necessary, but the external positing of a term is free.

As for man’s final end, he has a nature end as well as a supernatural end. God could have created man with just a natural end, and even though our souls would still be naturally immortal, they would not necessarily have access to the Beatific Vision, but have natural happiness as we suppose existed in the Limbo of the Just before the Redemption.

God chose to make man with a supernatural end and thus Adam and Eve were created in a state of Santifying Grace and would have gone to Heaven had they died. However, Original Sin deprived not just Adam and Eve of Santifying Grace, but all mankind with them (since all mankind was descended from them after the Fall). In the state of Original Sin, man might have still had access to a natural end of happiness (again, Limbo of the Just), but man was cut off from Heaven entirely as an end. To deny this is essentially to deny the effect of the Fall. God was perfectly free to leave us in this state. Afterall, we had chosen it for ourselves.

The Redemption, just like Creation, was something God freely chose to do and was not necessitated to do–free both in fact and in manner. If you deny that man was cut off from Heaven though, I can’t imagine how you could understand the role of the Redeemer. What sense would the Redemption make without the full effects of the Fall? Why would Christ suffer on the cross?

In the end, I agree with you that no man wold go to hell without exercise of his free will, but that doesn’t mean that he would go to Heaven either. The fullness of Salvation which God chose to give to man, however, makes Salvation possible for all, and hence there are only two eschatological destinations or ends, Heaven or Hell.

In conclusion, Don Goodman is merely repeating St. Thomas and St. Thomas is merely repeating the fundamental doctrine of the Church on this issue. The only way to argue against this position is to claim that God has no Free Will, which eventually leads to absurd conclusions. The nature of your objection seems to be that it is not fair that all men go to Hell if they do not chose it, and this is a correct assertion, but I hope that I have explained how this isn’t opposed to view expressed by Don Goodman or St. Thomas.

 

[tonyrey]

When God created us, by that very act, he in turn was bound to provide for our moral well being, simple because that’s the nature of God which is Love.

What say ye?

I agree. God is not obliged to create us but by choosing to create us He seems to have incurred an obligation towards us. He is responsible for our welfare forever! But “obligation” is a misnomer because He created us out of love and for His perfect love there are no obligations. He is “compelled” to do what is best for us but “compelled” is another misnomer. It is truer to say that Love is consistent - and consistency is what we should all aim at, especially in our fickle society…

 

[The_Exodus]

“Heaven is a free gift of God, not the fulfilment of a debt. If the invincibly ignorant man is not saved, God is still fulfilling all which He ought, and giving him exactly
what is right. As St. Thomas says, “because of the sin of the first parent
the human race deserved to be deprived of the help of grace.”

This is perhaps a sloppy quotation, and the word “not saved” is particularly vague. I don’t know what context it was taken in, but, on its own, it doesn’t do justice to the topic at hand.

St. Thomas didn’t teach that one who died in the state of original sin went to Hell, or suffered any sort of “loss.” See his supplement to the Summa, where he specifically addresses infants who die in the state of original sin only. They do not go to Hell, since they have no personal or actual sin. Yet they do not attain beautitude, because they still have original sin. But neither do they experience the loss of heaven, since they have no thought of “I could have attained such!” In other words, there state is a sort of natural bliss, in which the possibility of despair or any suffering is eliminated. Think of a situation in which would cause any sort of pain, and they would not experience it. Here is St. Thomas on this:

It must be observed that if one is guided by right reason one does not grieve through being deprived of what is beyond one’s power to obtain, but only through lack of that which, in some way, one is capable of obtaining. Thus no wise man grieves for being unable to fly like a bird, or for that he is not a king or an emperor, since these things are not due to him; whereas he would grieve if he lacked that to which he had some kind of claim. I say, then, that every man who has the use of free-will is adapted to obtain eternal life, because he can prepare himself for grace whereby to merit eternal life [Cf. I-II, 109, 5 and 6]; so that if he fail in this, his grief will be very great, since he has lost what he was able to possess. But children were never adapted to possess eternal life, since neither was this due to them by virtue of their natural principles, for it surpasses the entire faculty of nature, nor could they perform acts of their own whereby to obtain so great a good. Hence they will nowise grieve for being deprived of the divine vision; nay, rather will they rejoice for that they will have a large share of God’s goodness and their own natural perfections. Nor can it be said that they were adapted to obtain eternal life, not indeed by their own action, but by the actions of others around them, since they could be baptized by others, like other children of the same condition who have been baptized and obtained eternal life: for this is of superabundant grace that one should be rewarded without any act of one’s own. Wherefore the lack of such a grace will not cause sorrow in children who die without Baptism, any more than the lack of many graces accorded to others of the same condition makes a wise man to grieve.

mindovermatter:

Therefore the creation of man cannot be separated from Gods intention to save man

Yet neither can it be separated from the intention of condemning those who continually reject God’s grace.

 

[The_Exodus]

mindovermatter:

This means that if a man dies in a state of invincible ignorance and original sin, God is not going to put that person in hell on that account

The Church and St. Thomas agree. The person you quoted above, at least from the individual quote, displayed a sloppy rendering of Church teaching. Here is St. Thomas:

“Do those dying in original sin punished by fire?”

On the contrary, Augustine says (Enchiridion xxiii) that the mildest punishment of all will be for those who are burdened with original sin only. But this would not be so, if they were tormented with sensible punishment, because the pain of hell fire is most grievous. Therefore they will not suffer sensible punishment.

Further, the grief of sensible punishment corresponds to the pleasure of sin (Apocalypse 18:7): “As much as she hath glorified herself and lived in delicacies, so much torment and sorrow give ye to her.” But there is no pleasure in original sin, as neither is there operation, for pleasure follows operation, as stated in Ethic. x, 4. Therefore punishment by fire is not due to original sin.

Further, Gregory Nazianzen in his fortieth sermon, which is entitled On Holy Baptism, distinguishes three classes of unbaptized persons: those namely who refuse to be baptized, those who through neglect have put off being baptized until the end of life and have been surprised by sudden death, and those who, like infants, have failed to receive it through no fault of theirs. Of the first he says that they will be punished not only for their other sins, but also for their contempt of Baptism; of the second, that they will be punished, though less severely than the first, for having neglected it; and of the last he says that “a just and eternal Judge will consign them neither to heavenly glory nor to the eternal pains of hell, for although they have not been signed with Baptism, they are without wickedness and malice, and have suffered rather than caused their loss of Baptism.” He also gives the reason why, although they do not reach the glory of heaven, they do not therefore suffer the eternal punishment suffered by the damned: “Because there is a mean between the two, since he who deserves not honor and glory is not for that reason worthy of punishment, and on the other hand he who is not deserving of punishment is not for that reason worthy of glory and honor.”

I answer that, Punishment should be proportionate to fault, according to the saying of Isaias (27:8), “In measure against measure, when it shall be cast off, thou shalt judge it.” Now the defect transmitted to us through our origin, and having the character of a sin does not result from the withdrawal or corruption of a good consequent upon human nature by virtue of its principles, but from the withdrawal or corruption of something that had been superadded to nature. Nor does this sin belong to this particular man, except in so far as he has such a nature, that is deprived of this good, which in the ordinary course of things he would have had and would have been able to keep. Wherefore no further punishment is due to him, besides the privation of that end to which the gift withdrawn destined him, which gift human nature is unable of itself to obtain. Now this is the divine vision; and consequently the loss of this vision is the proper and only punishment of original sin after death: because, if any other sensible punishment were inflicted after death for original sin, a man would be punished out of proportion to his guilt, for sensible punishment is inflicted for that which is proper to the person, since a man undergoes sensible punishment in so far as he suffers in his person. Hence, as his guilt did not result from an action of his own, even so neither should he be punished by suffering himself, but only by losing that which his nature was unable to obtain. On the other hand, those who are under sentence for original sin will suffer no loss whatever in other kinds of perfection and goodness which are consequent upon human nature by virtue of its principles.

 

[Katholish]

The problem is that in final eschatology there are only two destinations, Heaven or Hell, and Catholic theology does not admit of a third which is part of neither. The state which Thomas describes was usually seen by the Midevals as the top level of Hell (see Dante’s Inferno).

If you do not ultimately receive the Beatific Vision, then you are forever separated from God even if you are not suffering a *poena damni *or poena sensus. The phrase “not saved” is actually a very precise usage by Mr. Goodman.

 

[MindOverMatter2]

The problem is that in final eschatology there are only two destinations, Heaven or Hell, and Catholic theology does not admit of a third which is part of neither. The state which Thomas describes was usually seen by the Midevals as the top level of Hell (see Dante’s Inferno).

If you do not ultimately receive the Beatific Vision, then you are forever separated from God even if you are not suffering a *poena damni *or poena sensus. The phrase “not saved” is actually a very precise usage by Mr. Goodman.

I know this is a long post but please be patient and read all of it.

I believe that God in his infinite love will give them the beatific vision, since ones salvation is not determined by ones actions. No action can make you deserving of heaven. None of us actually deserve to go to heaven. It is by Gods power that a person becomes a saint. In virtue of our selves, we have no power. But rather; God wills you to heaven in virtue of the fact that God created you to serve in heaven. The only way you can end up in hell is if your heart refuses to serve love. Love cannot possibly enter a door that’s completely closed. If an honest intention is in your heart at the moment of your death, you can be sure that God will not put you in hell.

It appears obvious to me that God desires “honest intention” even above orthodoxy, since God knows that if a truly honest man or women had the knowledge and power to actualize good by their own will alone they would be perfect and orthodox and would not need the law!!. This is the glory of God! Thus God measures the human will according to its knowledge and God mercifully permits some of us to be ignorant of the true faith and yet saves us anyway. And God will also make preparations for all those children that die with original sin. Limbo is a “theory” based our inability to understand why God would save somebody who had not labored as a christian. It is not true legitimate dogma. I believe it to be wrong.

Any priest will tell you that it really doesn’t matter how many times you sin in your life; its about the intention of your heart, and by that intention Gods will give you the grace that his infinite wisdom sees fit. That’s why i believe that people outside of the church will be saved, and even people on their death bed can be converted having never lived a christian life; and a christian who has been an “Orthodox Catholic” all his life will go to hell simply because he didn’t have an honest heart. How is this possible? It is the sacrifice of Jesus Christ that has made this possible! If you know the truth and you deny the the truth in knowing it, this is how you end up in hell. The only reason the universal salvation won’t happen is because God as love cannot force himself in to the hearts of human beings this is why the presence of the one true church is necessary.

We might think that this is unfair because we labor as Christians all our lives and yet we might never see heaven. But God makes it clear in one of his parables that it is not works that saves, but rather it is Gods power.

*“For the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, which went out early in the morning to hire labourers into his vineyard. And when he had agreed with the labourers for a penny a day, he sent them into his vineyard. And he went out about the third hour, and saw others standing idle in the market place, And said unto them; Go ye also into the vineyard, and whatsoever is right I will give you. And they went their way. Again he went out about the sixth hour and ninth hour, and did likewise. And about the eleventh hour he went out, and found others standing idle, and saith unto them, Why stand ye here all the day idle? They say unto him, Because no man hath hired us. He saith unto them, Go ye also into the vineyard; and whatsoever is right, that shall ye receive. So when the even was come, the lord of the vineyard saith unto his steward, Call the labourers, and give them their hire, beginning from the last unto the first. And when they came that were hired about the eleventh hour, they received every man a penny. But when the first came, they supposed that they should have received more; and they likewise received every man a penny. And when they had received it, they murmured against the goodman of the house, Saying, These last have wrought but one hour, and thou hast made them equal unto us, which have borne the burden and heat of the day. But he answered one of them, and said, friend, I do thee no wrong: didst not thou agree with me for a penny? Take that thine is, and go thy way: I will give unto this last, even as unto thee. Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? Is thine eye evil, because I am good? So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen” (Mt. 20:1-16). *

Not by human actions, but by the grace of God we will be saved.

This is how i see it, to be quite honest with you.

 

[MindOverMatter2]

Yet neither can it be separated from the intention of condemning those who continually reject God’s grace.

I agree, and this is the only reason that a person can go to hell. Otherwise everybody would be saved regardless of their actions.

 

[JM3]

“And if by grace, it will be said, how came we all not to be saved?
Because you would not. For grace, though it be grace, saves the willing, not those who will not have it, and turn away from it, who persist in fighting against it, and opposing themselves to it.”

St. John Chrysostom

 

[Katholish]

MindOverMatter,

I believe that God in his infinite love will give them the beatific vision, since ones salvation is not determined by ones actions. No action can make you deserving of heaven. None of us actually deserve to go to heaven. It is by Gods power that a person becomes a saint. In virtue of our selves, we have no power. But rather; God wills you to heaven in virtue of the fact that God created you to serve in heaven. The only way you can end up in hell is if your heart refuses to serve love. Love cannot possibly enter a door that’s completely closed. If an honest intention is in your heart at the moment of your death, you can be sure that God will not put you in hell.

No action can make you deserving of Heaven. True. But some action is required for you to go to Heaven, i.e. a will act accepting God’s grace–even if implicit. Just because one says that Good works are necessary for Salvation doesn’t make works sufficient for Salvation.

And God will also make preparations for all those children that die with original sin. Limbo is a “theory” based our inability to understand why God would save somebody who had not labored as a christian. It is not true legitimate dogma. I believe it to be wrong.

I do not hold a theory of a Limbo of infants, but your phrase “make preparations” is extremely vague. I don’t know the purpose of bringing up the topic unless you want to explain what you think those preparations are. Are you suggesting that they all go to Heaven?

Any priest will tell you that it really doesn’t matter how many times you sin in your life; its about the intention of your heart, and by that intention Gods will give you the grace that his infinite wisdom sees fit. That’s why i believe that people outside of the church will be saved,

You have to be careful about saying that people outside the Church will be saved since the it is a *de fide *teaching of the Church that “there is no salvation outside the Church”. That doesn’t mean that those who are not visibly Catholic cannot be saved, but if they are, it is through some connection with the Church, either imperfect communion or Baptism of Desire. To blanketly contradict a *de fide *teaching is at least proximate to heresy.

and even people on their death bed can be converted having never lived a christian life; and a christian who has been an “Orthodox Catholic” all his life will go to hell simply because he didn’t have an honest heart. How is this possible? It is the sacrifice of Jesus Christ that has made this possible! If you know the truth and you deny the the truth in knowing it, this is how you end up in hell. The only reason the universal salvation won’t happen is because God as love cannot force himself in to the hearts of human beings this is why the presence of the one true church is necessary.

I am not, nor have I ever suggested that faithful Catholics deserve Salvation. Catholcis do have acess to the sacraments, however, and as such litterally have more access to God’s grace and mercy (especially in the sacrament of Confession). The sacraments also provide an infusion of virtue, both natural and theological.

None of these points that you have made can justify your assertion that God does not have Free Will.

 

[MindOverMatter2]

None of these points that you have made can justify your assertion that God does not have Free Will.

I never said that God does not have freewill, but it is certainly illogical to think that God has the kind of freewill that human beings have. Gods will is identical in nature to Gods being. Gods will is perfectly in line with Gods nature and Gods nature is as such that it represents true freedom. To love perfectly without possibility of failure or sin is true freedom. It is freedom from imperfection. Such a freedom can only exist as a “nature of being”. Only imperfect created things can choose good. Gods existence is an act of love; it is not something that God chooses; it is what God is. If there were a possibility of God choosing evil, such a being would not be God. Love is necessarily creative in that Love shares it nature or existence, because it is in the nature of love to share. To say that God is love is not merely to describe Gods will to do good, but rather its is also a description of what God is intrinsically as a nature; and everything else that begins to exist in that nature is measured by that nature. To “choose” love is not a perfection in and of its self but rather it is a perfection only in the sense of giving created human beings access to the divine life without it being force upon them. In heaven we will no longer be able to choose between good and evil because we will be perfectly free as in our human-will will be perfectly united to Gods nature through Gods grace. But we must first choose this freedom.

This to me is a given fact that needs to be reconciled with church teaching rather than rejected. That you cannot understand how that this is possible is not to me a legitimate basis to reject what I have said as heretical. It is true that God doesn’t have to create if you mean that in the context that nothing outside of Gods will is the reason for creation; God is not necessitated by anything outside of Gods will. I see it as equally legitimate to say that creation exists because Gods nature is love, and thus creation would have always existed because of this fact, simply because it is in the nature of love to share its existence. It something that God does because of what God is.

I accept the possibility that I might be wrong, but it seems to me that what I have presented is the only reasonably possible synthesis and sense that can be said in terms of God being free and also being love, and also being a timeless act of reality.

Of course, I accept that God has freewill. I simply don’t accept your interpretation of it and neither do I yet see that your interpretation is a necessary expression of church teaching.

 

[Katholish]

MindOverMatter,

Don’t get me wrong, I totally see why it would appear that all of God’s actions are necessary actions, and I am not claiming that I understand it perfectly myself. However, I do know that defined teachings of the Church hold both that God is a necessary being and that He has free will to act or not act (in certain cases).

I never said that God does not have freewill…

Rather it seems to me that the correct rendering of God is a being whose very act is a moral act; is the moral ought, and for God to act otherwise would be contrary to the very nature of God and thus impossible.

A denial of free will is logically implicit in the second sentence quoted here, i.e. that it is impossible for God to act in a way other than which He does act. This statement excludes the possibility that God was free to create the world or not create the world which is a *de fide *teaching of the Church and was defined by the First Vatican Council (I referrenced it in my first post).

To love perfectly without possibility of failure or sin is true freedom. It is freedom from imperfection. Such a freedom can only exist as a “nature of being”.

There is a significant difference between a “freedom from” and a “freedom to”. A condition of “freedom from” exists when there are no external restraints preventing the exercise of a certain power. In one sense, since God is the only unlimited being, He is the only thing which is perfectly “free from”. When we speak of the “free choice of the will” we are speaking of a freedom from necessity. Basically a free choice is an unnecessitated choice. This is precisely what you are denying God has. You claim that God’s nature has Love itself necessitates all of his actions.

It is true that God doesn’t have to create if you mean that in the context that nothing outside of Gods will is the reason for creation; God is not necessitated by anything outside of Gods will. I see it as equally legitimate to say that creation exists because Gods nature is love, and thus creation would have always existed because of this fact, simply because it is in the nature of love to share its existence. It something that God does because of what God is.

This seems to be an attempt to use the definition of “Freedom from” in place of a free act of the will. Nature is something which necessitates action. God is not free to choose evil because that would be contrary to His nature. By your definition of freedom, however, you would have to say that God is free to choose evil because there is nothing external preventing Him from doing so. The point is that the Vatican I said that God could have not created, but given your argument, this would represent a contradiction in God’s nature. Vatican I’s statement on God’s freedom directly contradicts your theory.

 

[MindOverMatter2]

MindOverMatter,

Don’t get me wrong, I totally see why it would appear that all of God’s actions are necessary actions, and I am not claiming that I understand it perfectly myself.

I suspect that you are just skipping through what I have said instead of giving it serious attention. All Gods Actions are “free” actions, but not by the definition of “human freewill”. Human freewill is necessary for creation but not for God. Again I never said that God is not free. I simply reject your definition of true freedom. I will explain this further…

However, I do know that defined teachings of the Church hold both that God is a necessary being and that He has free will to act or not act (in certain cases).

That depends on how you define freedom. God is free not to create the universe if by that one means to say that nothing external to Gods nature is forcing God to create. In other words it is not the nature of the universe that causes it to exist.

Now you can say that this is a wrong interpretation, and is not what is meant by church teaching. But this doesn’t change the fact, however, that God, by his very nature is “Love”, and to love is to share the good of ones being. This necessarily entails that God would create, simply because it is the nature of love to do so; that is to say, share. This is not because of the necessity of something external to God, but rather it is because it is Gods perfect will, and Gods perfect will is identical to Gods perfect being, and Gods perfect being is perfect love.

You need to address this fact, rather than ignore it.

Once you ground “personal will” in moral actions, you cannot avoid the fact that ultimately God is going to do what ever conforms to the moral nature of love, nothing more and nothing less, because that is what God is. God does things because it is good and perfect to do them. God doesn’t do arbitrary things or for fancy of the whim; God is not like human beings. This might sound like God is necessitated by something external to his will, but in reality it is the nature of Gods will that necessitates what God does, and Gods will is identical to Gods nature, which is love, and nothing else. Thus God necessarily loves and does that which is good. It is not a choice in the human sense of freewill, but rather its is a perfect expression of moral goodness. It is a loving act to share the good of ones being with that which does not yet have it; and that is why the universe was created. It is because God is perfect that God chooses to create. Gods being is perfectly free from selfish imperfect acts. It is in this sense that God has perfect freedom. Perhaps God can choose what “kind” of creation will exist, and that is to say that our particular universe didn’t have to exist (although I believe that God creates all and whatever “reflects” the good of love). But “love”, which is an intrinsic expression of Gods nature and thus Gods will, is creative by his very nature none-the-less.Thus not sharing the good of ones being is not and cannot possibly be an act of God. Therefore something, as well as God, will definitely exist in the presence of love. You cannot look at Gods actions apart from the moral expression which is love. All of Gods acts are moral acts. Human freewill is, by itself, an imperfection since it can choose and do arbitrary things and it can choose evil. The reason for that kind of freewill, is because, given the nature of humanity, human beings must choose love, whereas God does not require that kind of freedom. The truest of sense of freedom is to perfectly love without possibility of failure since the will in this case is governed by that which is good.

A denial of free will is logically implicit in the second sentence quoted here, i.e. that it is impossible for God to act in a way other than which He does act.

Well one thing is certainly true; God cannot act in a manner that contradicts love. Its impossible, since love is an intrinsic expression of what God is. Some people would see this as a necessity rather than a truly free act of love; and thus God does not really love anyone. This is why a growing number of Christians are rejecting a thomistic understanding of God for a being that can choose evil and can “change”, as in to say that God has potentiality. But given my understanding of what it means to be perfectly free from evil and what it means for human beings to have freewill, I would strongly argue that they are wrong like you are wrong despite appearances to contrary. Thus it depends on how you “interpret” freedom in the moral context of God. Necessity, depending on the context, isn’t always a barrier to freedom, depending on how you define it.