Blessings!
Unfortunately, there is a big difference wit the flip side. One side is Biblical and the other is completely unbiblical.
I am a lot more concerned of losing it and doing all the formalities, in order not lose it; as oppose to believing one can never lose it and have no worries at all.
God Bless you
God bless Nicea and every readers of the CAF.
According to your post, seems like you have a great concern that you may lose your Initial Justification and might end up in hell.
**There are two group of people in Catholic theology as follows:
- YET UN-REGENERATED/CARNAL GROUP OF PEOPLE**
**THE SPIRITUAL POSITION OF AN UN-REGENERATED/CARNAL MAN
Rom.8:6-8;**
6 For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.
7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.
8 So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.
1 cor.2:14;
But the natural man
does not receives the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
2. THE OTHER GROUP OF PEOPLE WHO HAVE RECEIVED GOD’S GIFT OF INITIAL JUSTIFICATION / THE SPIRITUAL GROUP – PREDESTINED TO HEAVEN
THE COUNCIL OF TRENT Session 6 CHAPTER VII
… justification itself, which is not only a remission of sins but also the sanctification and renewal of the inward man through the voluntary reception of the grace and gifts whereby an unjust man becomes just and from being an enemy becomes a friend.
CCC 2022; “The divine initiative in the work of grace PRECEDES, PREPARES, and ELICITS the free response of man. …”
**THE FOLLOWING TEACHINGS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH MAYBE HELPFUL FOR YOU NICEA
The Catholic Church affirms predestination as a *DE FIDE *Dogma (the highest level of binding theological certainty).
CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA
THE CATHOLIC DOGMA. – The predestination of the elect.**
Consequently, the whole future membership of heaven, down to its minutest details, has
been IRREVOCABLY FIXED FROM ALL ETERNITY. Nor could it be otherwise. For if it
were possible that a predestined individual should after all be CAST INTO HELL or that
one not predestined should in the end REACH HEAVEN, then God would have been
MISTAKEN in his foreknowledge of future events; He would NO LONGER be omniscient.
God’s unerring foreknowledge and foreordaining is designated in the Bible by the beautiful
figure of the “Book of Life” (liber vitæ, to biblion tes zoes). This book of life is a list which
contains the names of ALL THE ELECT and admits NEITHER ADDITIONS NO ERASURES.
(2) The second quality of predestination, the DEFINITENESS of the number of the elect,
follows NATURALLY from the first. For if the eternal counsel of God regarding the
predestined is UNCHANGEABLE, then the number of the predestined must likewise be
UNCHANGEABLE and DEFINITE, subject NEITHER to ADDITIONS nor to
CANCELLATIONS. Anything indefinite in the number would eo ipso imply a lack of
certitude in God’s knowledge and would DESTROY His omniscience. End quote.
I believe, according to your post Nicea until this point you are fine, you have received God’s gift of Initial Justification and you are predestined to heaven.
I believe, if you are un-regenerated and not predestined to heaven, heaven couldn’t even come up into your mind. – Your desire to live in heaven, because God put it into your mind for the reason.
Continue