Predestination Judas Iscariot

[MockSock]

First, I am a Catholic born and bred and I realise we don’t believe in predestination.

However, this is a question I think of every Passiontide and forget to ask. For some reason it just occurred to me so sorry that its kind of the wrong time of year.

Anyway, the thing is, Judas is always seen as a bad guy, but if he hadn’t betrayed Christ we would never have been saved. No betrayal = no passion and death. No passion and death = no ressurection.

Plus Christ has to die on the cross to fulfill the prophecies right back to Genesis. He might not have been executed if he had not been betrayed and handed over to the Jews.

Jesus doesn’t try to talk Judas out of betraying him, but rather seems to tell him that he’s going to as though he didn’t already know.

" But woe to that man by whom the Son of man shall be betrayed. It were better for him, if that man had not been born. And Judas that betrayed him answering, said: Is it I, Rabbi? He saith to him: Thou hast said it" (Matt 26 : 24-25)

I’m not looking for an argument, just an answer to this question I’ve always wanted to ask.

 

[thistle]

First, I am a Catholic born and bred and I realise we don’t believe in predestination.

However, this is a question I think of every Passiontide and forget to ask. For some reason it just occurred to me so sorry that its kind of the wrong time of year.

Anyway, the thing is, Judas is always seen as a bad guy, but if he hadn’t betrayed Christ we would never have been saved. No betrayal = no passion and death. No passion and death = no ressurection.

Plus Christ has to die on the cross to fulfill the prophecies right back to Genesis. He might not have been executed if he had not been betrayed and handed over to the Jews.

Jesus doesn’t try to talk Judas out of betraying him, but rather seems to tell him that he’s going to as though he didn’t already know.

" But woe to that man by whom the Son of man shall be betrayed. It were better for him, if that man had not been born. And Judas that betrayed him answering, said: Is it I, Rabbi? He saith to him: Thou hast said it" (Matt 26 : 24-25)

I’m not looking for an argument, just an answer to this question I’ve always wanted to ask.

Okay but what is your question? I read your post several times and I can’t find the question.

 

[MockSock]

Okay but what is your question? I read your post several times and I can’t find the question

Sorry. The question is, how can we explain Judas’ actions if we rule out the possibility that he was predestined to betray Christ?

 

[MockSock]

Just that it seems like predestination but I know we don’t believe in that

 

[MockSock]

And how do we explain Jesus’ actions? Sorry for all the posts

 

[thistle]

Sorry. The question is, how can we explain Judas’ actions if we rule out the possibility that he was predestined to betray Christ?

It was not predestination but foreknowledge that God had. He knew Judas would be the betrayer.

 

[De_Maria]

First, I am a Catholic born and bred and I realise we don’t believe in predestination.

We do, actually.

However, this is a question I think of every Passiontide and forget to ask. For some reason it just occurred to me so sorry that its kind of the wrong time of year.

Anyway, the thing is, Judas is always seen as a bad guy, but if he hadn’t betrayed Christ we would never have been saved. No betrayal = no passion and death. No passion and death = no ressurection.

Plus Christ has to die on the cross to fulfill the prophecies right back to Genesis. He might not have been executed if he had not been betrayed and handed over to the Jews.

Jesus doesn’t try to talk Judas out of betraying him, but rather seems to tell him that he’s going to as though he didn’t already know.

" But woe to that man by whom the Son of man shall be betrayed. It were better for him, if that man had not been born. And Judas that betrayed him answering, said: Is it I, Rabbi? He saith to him: Thou hast said it" (Matt 26 : 24-25)

I’m not looking for an argument, just an answer to this question I’ve always wanted to ask.

I think you posted the answer, yourself. Someone was destined to betray Jesus. If it hadn’t been Judas, it would have been someone else. Up until the moment that Judas fulfilled that prophecy, he could have chosen to do something else.

Your first statement is worth revisiting, though.

I realise we don’t believe in predestination.

Yes. We do. We do not believe in double predestination. That is the Protestant error that says that God predestines some to hell and some to heaven.

600 To God, all moments of time are present in their immediacy. When therefore he establishes his eternal plan of “predestination”, he includes in it each person’s free response to his grace: "In this city, in fact, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place."395 For the sake of accomplishing his plan of salvation, God permitted the acts that flowed from their blindness.396

 

[porthos11]

Just that it seems like predestination but I know we don’t believe in that

Here you are incorrect. Predestination is very much a Catholic teaching.

 

[MockSock]

Your first statement is worth revisiting, though.

I realise we don’t believe in predestination.

Thank you for the correction. I was taught predestination was a Calvinist heresy, but my teachers must have been referring to the double predestination to which you refer. I will have to read up on it. Knowing that the Church does believe in predestination makes a lot more sense.

 

[Zaccheus]

Anyway, the thing is, Judas is always seen as a bad guy, but if he hadn’t betrayed Christ we would never have been saved. No betrayal = no passion and death. No passion and death = no ressurection

If Judas had not betrayed Christ then someone else would have done it. And if nobody had done it those who wanted to kill Him would have found a way.
Christ’s suffering and death were necessary. But that could have been accomplished any number of ways. Judas was not forced to do what he did.

 

[Wesrock]

Just that it seems like predestination but I know we don’t believe in that

We do believe in predestination. And free will.

But the topic is more nuanced and complicated than usually makes the rounds in popular discourse.

 

[thistle]

The Church teaches that nobody is predestined to go to Hell. Therefore I don’t see how Judas’ betrayal of Jesus could have been predestined.

 

[EndTimes]

No matter how anyone cares to argue for it, and even though God Knows what lies throughout Eternity, PreDestination has never been any part of God’s Revelation to Man - no matter what the probable non-Christian “Calvin and his cronies” had to say… For that is a False Slur against Free Will as well as Original Sin and Sacred Scriptures… God Knew Judas I would sin - in the same manner that God Knew that Satan would Tempt Judas I… Knowing is Never Pre-Destination…

 

[Vico]

De_Maria:

Your first statement is worth revisiting, though.

I realise we don’t believe in predestination.

Thank you for the correction. I was taught predestination was a Calvinist heresy, but my teachers must have been referring to the double predestination to which you refer. I will have to read up on it. Knowing that the Church does believe in predestination makes a lot more sense.

Catechism

1037 God predestines no one to go to hell; 620 for this, a willful turning away from God (a mortal sin) is necessary, and persistence in it until the end. In the Eucharistic liturgy and in the daily prayers of her faithful, the Church implores the mercy of God, who does not want “any to perish, but all to come to repentance”: 621

Father, accept this offering
from your whole family.
Grant us your peace in this life,
save us from final damnation,
and count us among those you have chosen. 622

 

[mythbuster1]

What you have to remember is that God is outside of time. Judas’ actions were prophesied because Judas chose to commit them.

 

[Dan_Defender]

Jesus doesn’t try to talk Judas out of betraying him, but rather seems to tell him that he’s going to as though he didn’t already know.

The Bible doesn’t record it but I’m sure Jesus gave him plenty of opportunities to repent… even in the last supper he warned him subtly but sadly, Judas chose to go ahead with his betrayal… it is a lesson that anyone can fall away

 

[porthos11]

MockSock:

Just that it seems like predestination but I know we don’t believe in that

We do believe in predestination. And free will.

But the topic is more nuanced and complicated than usually makes the rounds in popular discourse.

Yes. These are the truths we are required to believe:

God desires the salvation of all.
God gives sufficient grace to all that they may be saved.
Man has free will to cooperate with or reject that grace.
God, for no reason than his ow sovereign will, elects certain people to eternal blessedness.
The number of the elect is both fixed and unknown.

Within this framework, the Church allows us to go nuts and perhaps wisely refrains from defining how God’s sovereign decree and man’s free will are reconciled. The Thomists lay it out one way. The Molinists frame it another way. Both are acceptable to the Church and long ago were forbidden to accuse each other of heresy.

A common error among Catholics is to uphold man’s free will at the expense of God’s sovereignty in electing the predestined but that is not an option. Despite the difficulty, we are required to assent to the teaching of predestination.

 

[EndTimes]

“A common error among Catholics is to uphold man’s free will at the expense of God’s sovereignty in electing the predestined but that is not an option. Despite the difficulty, we are required to assent to the teaching of predestination.” –

Say What?

That’s a meaningless circular argument - as in: predestination is because predestination is…

 

[porthos11]

No it’s not. Neither circular nor meaningless, nor even an argument.

It is, however, difficult.

And denial of predestination goes against Scripture. Your issue is not with me, or with John Calvin. It’s with St. Paul himself.

 

[po18guy]

The Catholic Church believes in and teaches predestination.

What she does not teach, or hold to be true, is “double-predestination”, a man-made doctrine originating in Europe 15 centuries after Christ.

Yet, even Judas Iscariot retained free will to the end. His problem is that he fell into despair - doubting God’s mercy.

Our Lord never had anything good to say regarding doubt. That is a mental state which the evil one encourages.