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PRmerger
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Actually, I am your sister in Christ.
See my above response regarding my parents. And their decision to have me baptized into the One Faith.
Predestination, free will, Augustine Pelagian controversy, Catholic views, Calvinism...
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Christian_Unity
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That too is a form of election when you think about it. God destined you to be born in a Catholic houshold in comparison to a pagan household, Muslim household, or even a Protestant household. Do you think being born in a Catholic household who adhered to infant baptism is by blind luck or fate or by the sovereign grace of God? Okay, got the correction, sister in Christ.Yes. I thank my parents for baptizing me when I was just a babe.
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KathleenGee
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Christian Unity,
Don’t feel bad if others imply you are a Pelagiast…this is what the Dominicans also called some Jesuits who fell into some teachings…
Pelagianism, if you break it down…is essentially changing meanings and intents of something into something else based on whimsy. There is cherry picking Scripture quotes to make a new theology that doesn’t uphold the understanding and intent of Jesus Christ, or people cherry pick a bible quote and then are out making a new sect, all based on whimsy or incomplete understanding.
Don’t feel bad if others imply you are a Pelagiast…this is what the Dominicans also called some Jesuits who fell into some teachings…
Pelagianism, if you break it down…is essentially changing meanings and intents of something into something else based on whimsy. There is cherry picking Scripture quotes to make a new theology that doesn’t uphold the understanding and intent of Jesus Christ, or people cherry pick a bible quote and then are out making a new sect, all based on whimsy or incomplete understanding.
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PRmerger
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Sure.
There is no such thing as blind luck* or fate. All things are destined under the sovereign will of God.
Of course, I am talking about his antecedent will. Not his consequent will.
*Edit: as it applies to the Faith.
Now, as I lost at the poker table last night, due only to the bad luck of having some stinkin’ bad cards, I will proclaim that I do believe in bad luck. At the poker table. :sad_yes:
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Christian_Unity
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I’m the opposite end of Pelagism since I’m a Calvinist. Catholics are much closer to Pelagism than Reformed Augustinian Calvinist Christians.
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SteveVH
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Yes, I believe that God has drawn me to himself all of my life. It is his gift of faith that allows me to believe. But I have also accepted this gift. There was a time in my life when I did not accept it. I was having a good time and didn’t want God’s interference. Like Frank Sinatra I wanted to do it “my way”. I returned home to my Church, to Christ, again because God never stopped drawing me there.
But I believe that God draws all of us to himself, not a predestined few. He offers all of us the gift of faith. But he does not force himself into anyone’s ultimate decision. He looks down the road waiting for us to return. Some decide not to return, even though they are called.
I don’t really agree with your statment that “most freely reject it”. That is something we cannot know. We have no idea, in the last minutes of someone’s life, if that seed, once planted, may sprout. We know that if there is any way for one to be saved, God will save them.
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Christian_Unity
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Okay, I need to break. So the will is not free from outside influences… because the will is influenced by God. Free will means that nothing outside of yourself influences your decision to come to Christ.
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KathleenGee
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If you want a good thread to answer my previous comment about how we understand predestination differently…there was a short but good thread out, September 18, 2012 on the Sacred Scripture forum, ‘Predestination or Free Will’ by Adamski.
Our understanding of predestination is of Sacred Scripture and of the Church…the proper interpreter of Scripture.
Calvin was both reacting to not only the Catholic Church but to prior reformers. But I cannot see how one individual man can reform the Church, but St. Francis was called by Christ to do so, but he didn’t split people up…that is the working of sanctifying grace in his soul. Several other mendicant orders followed…and then we had the Reformation…
It is the Council of Trent that reformed the Church in that period.
Our understanding of predestination is of Sacred Scripture and of the Church…the proper interpreter of Scripture.
Calvin was both reacting to not only the Catholic Church but to prior reformers. But I cannot see how one individual man can reform the Church, but St. Francis was called by Christ to do so, but he didn’t split people up…that is the working of sanctifying grace in his soul. Several other mendicant orders followed…and then we had the Reformation…
It is the Council of Trent that reformed the Church in that period.
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SteveVH
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Well, that’s just not a true statement. Our will is influenced by many things; temptations of the flesh, pride, envy, greed, etc. But it is we who are ultimately free to choose which direction we will follow. God says to me: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” The flesh promises pleasure if I will just submit my will to it. I have to make a choice. Free will means you have the ability to choose, not that you will be free of all outside influences. The evidence for this is that we are culpable for our sins. If we were not free to choose good instead of evil we could not be culpable for our sins.
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PRmerger
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No. Free will means nothing more than that which you exercise when you choose to love your Beloved.
So when you choose, freely, to propose to your wife, you are under the influence of many things: your culture, your family, your spiritual health, your circumstances, your mental health, your physical health…etc etc etc.
But that you offer a marriage proposal is of your own free will.
And that she accepts is of her own free will.
There are influences. But it is free nonetheless.
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SteveVH
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Great way to put it.
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PRmerger
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Haha! I guess we posted the same thoughts at essentially the same time. For what I said was really only a repetition of what you posted 1 minute earlier, right?Great way to put it.
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Radyj
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The opposite of falsehood is truth, not another falsehood.
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Radyj
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The opposite of Falsehood is Truth, not a different falsehood
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SteveVH
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Yes, but your was with much more simplicity and clarity. I like that.
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Christian_Unity
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Yep, we have to clarify what everyone means by free will. We also should start discussing our ablity or inability to come to Christ on our own free will, and what we mean by that. Does God the Holy Spirit enable us to come to Christ in the same way from other sinners. It seems you stated that you were baptized as an infant by Catholic parents. So, it was never your own free will to be born again since it was your parent’s will to give you the gift of infant baptismal regeneration. Now, this entire conversation of free will is taking a strange twist. Do you agree by Catholic theology that you were born again as an infant through baptismal regeneration… and your free will had nothing to do with it? Now that’s sovereign grace in a Catholic way of seeing things.
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PRmerger
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The Catholic teaching is that we love because He first loved us. So of our own, we have an inability to come to Christ.
The ONLY way any sinner can come to Christ, CU, is through His Church.
Indeed.
Yes, it was not my own free will–but that of my parents–that I be born again. My own free will had nothing to do with it.
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Christian_Unity
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Now that’s what I am talking about. Even Scripture bears witness that we do not come to Christ by our own free will. Check out John chapter 1 and let’s play like Protestants.
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Radyj
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I think perhaps what you need to understand is that catholics have a different view of salvation. OSAS doesn’t hold water.
While there are influences both for good and for evil in my life, it is my decision as to what to do with those influences that determines the ultimate state of my soul.
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I am already saved (Rom. Viii 24, Eph ii 5-8), but I am also being saved (1 Cor. i 18, 2 Cor ii 15), and I have the hope that I will be saved (Rom v 9-10, 1 Cor iii 12-15. Like the apostle Paul I am working out my salvation in fear and trembling (Phil ii 12)
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PRmerger
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Were you under the misapprehension that Catholics believe otherwise?
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