Predestination Judas Iscariot

[Austere]

The issue of divine foreknowledge and free will is a complex-enough issue without the idea of predestination muddying the waters even more. Let me ask, does God will the salvation of all people, and thereby depending on their freely willed choice, do certain persons make the provisions God has set out for them redundant? Following from this, does God do anything vain?

Let us debate as though relating anything outside of our discussion, including references to Church authority and Scripture, be little else than obiter dicta.

 

[porthos11]

The issue of divine foreknowledge and free will is a complex-enough issue without the idea of predestination muddying the waters even more. Let me ask, does God will the salvation of all people, and thereby depending on their freely willed choice, do certain persons make the provisions God has set out for them redundant? Following from this, does God do anything vain?

Let us debate as though relating anything outside of our discussion, including references to Church authority and Scripture, be little else than obiter dicta.

No. I will debate nothing. As I told the other poster: if you have issues with predestination, you have issues with Scripture and St. Paul himself, not with me.

Scripture teaches it, the Church teaches it, but we do not fully understand it. So yes, it is messy and will likely always be. All the Church sets are boundaries, within which we are free to play and think, and outside of which is heresy and condemned. So there will be multiple, differing, but all acceptable theories on the question.

What I know for certain is that it’s the truth, and with all things God, it is good.

 

[Maximus1]

Predestination has to do with the idea that at the beginning God chose the elect if I recall. You are basically on a list or not is the concept.
Judas going to hell is not a certainty.

 

[EndTimes]

God can be viewed as having - in a sense - 2 Wills…

His Creational Will. “Let there be Light!”

And via the necessity of Creating Man with Free Will - His - call it - permissive will.

God has given His Commands to be Obeyed.

But He actually cannot force a human’s will…

Evil has always occurred when either angels or man Disobeys

Disobediences and Obediences of e.g, the will of Man - are the examples of God’s “permissive” will: which again, has to exist because Man will is completely his own.

Again, Evil is never the Result of God Willing Evil

 

[Cathoholic]

EndTimes . . .

Catholicism does not Teach that Judas Iscariot is definitely going to Hell.

Catholicism teaches that Judas lost BOTH body and soul.

I will try to get back here and give you the quote soon.

God bless.

Cathoholic

PS The Church affirms BOTH Free Will AND Predestination (but as many others have said. Not “double predestination”.)

How can BOTH free will AND predestination be operative simultaneously?

We don’t know.

But both are taught so we affirm them both in the proper context.

These are among the truths that are “above reason”.
Not “contrary” to reason, but above it-- a “mystery”.

 

[EndTimes]

“Catholicism teaches that Judas lost BOTH body and soul.
I will try to get back here and give you the quote soon.”

I’ll bite - please do -
for within many discussions on Catholic Forums on that question - no one claiming that has ever produced anything resembling solid Proof…

“The Church affirms BOTH Free Will AND Predestination”

Thanks on the Free Will,

However, please to show me your clear definition of Pre-Destination - otherwise, thus far, it remains a no…

_+

 

[Cathoholic]

please to show me your clear definition of Pre-Destination . . .

Good question.

I don’t have a clear definition of predestination. If it is above reason, how can I?

That being said, these Mysteries CAN be probed and developed.

So when I get to a computer, I will try to put up some insights into Catholic teaching on predestination (as well as free will).

.

Cathoholic . . .

“ Catholicism teaches that Judas lost BOTH body and soul.
I will try to get back here and give you the quote soon .”

EndTimes . . .

I’ll bite - please do -

.

I won’t wait to get to a computer for Judas losing body and soul.

I will do a search (of my prior posts here), find it on my portable device, and post it soon.

 

[EndTimes]

please to show me your clear definition of Pre-Destination . . .

Good question.

I don’t have a clear definition of predestination. If it is above reason, how can I?

IF you don’t understand what you mean by that term, perhaps consider that you should never employ it in any definitive manner concerning serious Questions?

That being said, these Mysteries CAN be probed and developed.

YES - I do it all the time. And some have difficulty when hearing anything which in new to their current mindset

So when I get to a computer, I will try to put up some insights into Catholic teaching on predestination (as well as free will).

Thanks…

“ Catholicism teaches that Judas lost BOTH body and soul.
I will try to get back here and give you the quote soon .”
EndTimes . . .

I’ll bite - please do -
.
I won’t wait to get to a computer for Judas losing body and soul.

I will do a search (of my prior posts here), find it on my portable device, and post it soon.

Looking forward to it -

PEACE…

 

[Cathoholic]

From the Roman Catechism:

ROMAN CATECHISM Furthermore, no one can deny that it is a virtue to be sorrowful at the time, in the manner, and to the extent which are required. To regulate sorrow in this manner belongs to the virtue of penance. Some conceive a sorrow which bears no proportion to their crimes. Nay, there are some, says Solomon, who are glad when they have done evil. Others, on the contrary, give themselves to such melancholy and grief, as utterly to abandon all hope of salvation.
Such, perhaps, was the condition of Cain when he exclaimed: My iniquity is greater than that I may deserve pardon.
Such CERTAINLY was the condition of Judas,
who, repenting, hanged himself,
and thus lost soul AND body.

ROMAN CATECHISM The additional words for you and for many, are taken, some from Matthew, some from Luke, but were joined together by the Catholic Church under the guidance of the Spirit of God. They serve to declare the fruit and advantage of His Passion . For if we look to its value, we must confess that the Redeemer shed His blood for the salvation of all; but if we look to the fruit which mankind have received from it, we shall easily find that it pertains not unto all, but to many of the human race. When therefore ('our Lord) said: For you, He meant either those who were present, or those chosen from among the Jewish people, such as were, with the exception of Judas, the disciples with whom He was speaking. When He added, And for many, He wished to be understood to mean the remainder of the elect from among the Jews or Gentiles.

ROMAN CATECHISM Some are attracted to the priesthood by ambition and love of honours ; while there are others who desire to be ordained simply in order that they may abound in riches, as is proved by the fact that unless some wealthy benefice were conferred on them, they would not dream of receiving Holy Orders. It is such as these that our Saviour describes as hirelings, who, in the words of Ezechiel, feed themselves and not the sheep, and whose baseness and dishonesty have not only brought great disgrace on the ecclesiastical state, so much so that hardly anything is now more vile and contemptible in the eyes of the faithful, but also end in this, that they derive no other fruit from their priesthood than was derived by Judas from the Apostleship, which only brought him everlasting destruction.

ROMAN CATECHISM The pastor, then, should admonish the faithful, that he who comes to offer this Petition must first acknowledge, and next feel sorrow and compunction for his sins. He must also be firmly convinced that to sinners, thus disposed and prepared, God is willing to grant pardon. This confidence is necessary to sinners, lest perhaps the bitter remembrance and acknowledgment of their sins should be followed by that despair of pardon , which of old seized the mind of Cain and of Judas, both of whom looked on God solely as an avenger and punisher , forgetting that He is also mild and merciful.

Emphasis mine.

 

[Cathoholic]

And just a quick caveat for you.

You will have Catholics that look at these and say . . . .

“Well this doesn’t mean Judas lost both body and soul.”

(They won’t quite put it that way. They rather might say. . . “This doesn’t mean Judas lost his soul.”
Or . . . “This doesn’t mean Judas is in Hell.”

(I am using the word and concept of “hell” in the eternal sense. Not in a mere, lesser-defined, “hades” sense on all of these posts here.)

Or they will sometimes say . . . .

“Well this isn’t ex-Cathedra” (which is correct but misses the point).

Some will say the Roman Catechism is “out of date”.

Yet CCC 9 (memory so I might be off on the number a bit here) calls the Roman Catechism a “work of first rank among Christian teaching.”

 

[EndTimes]

OKAY - and please consider this Excerpt from the comprehensive article in the Catholic Encyclopedia on Judas iscariot - replete with Imprimatur and Nihil Obstat

---

It may be urged that in exaggerating the original malice of Judas, or denying that there was even any good in him, we minimize or miss the lesson of this fall. The examples of the saints are lost on us if we think of them as being of another order without our human weaknesses. And in the same way it is a grave mistake to think of Judas as a demon without any elements of goodness and grace. In his fall is left a warning that even the great grace of the Apostolate and the familiar friendship of Jesus may be of no avail to one who is unfaithful. And, though nothing should be allowed to palliate the guilt of the great betrayal, it may become more intelligible if we think of it as the outcome of gradual failing in lesser things. So again the repentance may be taken to imply that the traitor deceived himself by a false hope that after all Christ might pass through the midst of His enemies as He had done before at the brow of the mountain. And though the circumstances of the death of the traitor give too much reason to fear the worst, the Sacred Text does not distinctly reject the possibility of real repentance. And Origen strangely supposed that Judas hanged himself in order to seek Christ in the other world and ask His pardon (In Matt., tract. xxxv).

Sources

CHRYSOSTOMUS, Hom. De Juda Proditore: MALDONATUS and other commentators on New Testament; EPIPHANIUS, Haeres., xxxviii; Legend on death of Judas in SUICER, Thesaurus. Modern view in STRAUSS, Das Leben

Ecclesiastical approbation. Nihil Obstat. October 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor. Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York.

 

[Cathoholic]

IF you don’t understand what you mean by that term

I didn’t mean to imply I have NO “understanding”.

But I am not going to tell you, that you shouldn’t be talking about God because you don’t completely understand Him either.

ISAIAH 55:9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Not having total understanding (or even enough to give a good complete definition–which is what you are asking for here) does not disqualify me from talking about predestination.

 

[Cathoholic]

And though the circumstances of the death of the traitor give too much reason to fear the worst, the Sacred Text does not distinctly reject the possibility of real repentance.

But I never appealed to “the Sacred Text” here.

I too think the text of the “circumstances of his death” likewise do not distinctly give such reason either.

But I think the prophetic circumstances BEFORE his death do. At least in MY reading.

MATTHEW 26:20-25 20 When it was evening, he sat at table with the twelve disciples; 21 and as they were eating, he said, “Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me.” 22 And they were very sorrowful, and began to say to him one after another, “Is it I, Lord?” 23 He answered, “He who has dipped his hand in the dish with me, will betray me. 24 The Son of man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed!
It would have been better for that man if he had not been born.”
25 Judas, who betrayed him, said, “Is it I, Master?” He said to him, “You have said so.”

I think St. John here, might be admonishing his hearers, not to be in despair even if it looks bad.

I don’t think he is definitively affirming or denying that Judas is in the Hell of condemnation.

 

[thistle]

show me your clear definition of Pre-Destination

The short and the long versions:

Modern Catholic Dictionary (short version):

PREDESTINATION. In the widest sense it is every eternal decision of God; in a narrower sense it is the supernatural final destination of rational creatures; and in the strictest sense it is God’s eternal decision to assume certain rational creatures into heavenly glory. Predestination implies an act of the divine intellect and of the divine will. The first is foreknowledge, the second is predestination.

According to its efficacy in time, predestination is distinguished as incomplete or complete depending on whether it is to grace only or also to glory. Complete predestination is the divine preparation of grace in the present life and of glory in the life to come.

This doctrine is proposed by the ordinary and universal teaching of the Church as a truth of revelation. The reality of predestination is clearly attested by St. Paul: “They are the ones he chose especially long ago and intended to become true images of the Son, so that his Son, might be the eldest of many brothers. He called those he intended for this; those he called he justified and with those he justified he shared his glory.” (Romans 8:29-30). All elements of complete predestination are given: the activity of God’s mind and will, and the principal stages of its realization in time.

The main difficulty in the doctrine of predestination is whether God’s eternal decision has been taken with or without consideration of human freedom. Catholic teaching holds that predestination by God does not deny the human free will. Numerous theories have been offered on how to reconcile the two, but all admit with St. Paul (Romans 11:33) that predestination is an unfathomable mystery. (Etym. Latin praedestinatio , a determining beforehand.)

Catholic Encyclopedia (long version):

Predestination | Catholic Answers Encyclopedia

 

[poche]

Jesus said that because he as God knew all things. He knew what was going to happen. The loss of Judas came about because he (Judas) didn’t trust in the mercy of Jesus. Both Peter and Judas sinned. However Peter trusted in the mercy of Jesus and he became a great saint. Judas had no trust in his mercy so therefore it is a Jesus said" It were better for him if he had never been born"

 

[EndTimes]

Dictionaries - are never Solid Authoritative Sources of Catholic Teachings…

Scriptures, Apostolic Tradition and The Magisterium are…

Even opinion of Cardinals, Bishops and Saints - are never unto themselves - Fully Authoritative. Even the pope - when not speaking ex cathedra - can say things which are not required belief for Catholics

Predestination has come to be discussed by some Catholic theologians in two non-agreeable manners often telescoped, i.e., no distinction was made.

A) An arrangement of Divine Providence to see to it that someone gets either to heaven

or

B) To Full membership in the Church.

The two are different in themselves, different in the principles on which God makes His decisions.

Calvinistic “predestination” - claiming that - According to John Calvin, predestination is God’s unchangeable decree from before the creation of the world that he would freely save some people (the elect), foreordaining them to eternal life, while the others (the reprobate) would be “barred from access to” salvation and sentenced to “eternal death ” remains unacceptable to Christian communities… which is why Calvin - and those who influenced him - are sometimes viewed as Not being Christian…

IMHO, We’ve more than enough on our plates - than to spend too much time wallowing down theological rabbit holes forever…

_