Predestination question

[capablanca911]

On another thread related to this topic, I saw the following posted in regards to predestination. Can anyone tell me if this is an accurate statement?

"The elect are those people who are “holy” right from their beginnings. We know, or have seen people like this. They move through life and you can tell there’s something about them that’s different: purer, holier. So, there are those born “elect,” and those who earn their way into the fold.

That’s the short and sweet of it."

No. The elect are people who God knows (and ONLY GOD KNOWS) to have the grace of Final Perseverance.

This means that at the moment of death, their soul is in a state of grace and they are “saved.”

That can be a deathbed conversion (thief on the cross). It can be someone sinless since conception (the Blessed Mother).

 

[capablanca911]

He asks, if that faithful Catholic is doing the things a faithful Catholic should do, and his fate has been predestined, how is he not merely a robot with no actual will?

There’s a lot about the process that we don’t know.

What we do know is:

1. Free will exists
2. God is sovereign
3. God predestines the elect to salvation
4. God does not predestine the reprobate to damnation.

I’ll sleep on this question.

 

[Qoeleth]

Hello. I have a question about predestination. This was raised to me by a non-religious friend. I’ll start about saying that I know that the Church does teach predestination. (I’ve seen on CAF or from other Catholics who seem to deny any form of predestination.)

So what was posed to me is as follows:

Although God wills all men to be saved and gives all men the sufficient grace to be able to accept said grace and attain salvation, the fact remains that God has foreknowledge. In predestination he knows the course of action each of us will take.

So let’s say there’s a man who spends all his life as a faithful Catholic. He is a good person, he does good works and is strong in the faith. Since there is predestination, is it conceivable that despite the man’s life of holiness, he will still suffer hell? Now I know we obviously don’t believe in OSAS so that’s not what I’m trying to raise here. I guess the point my friend stumped me on is, if there is predestination, then what is the point? If God has willed an elect, why should people attend Church, etc if God already knows who his elect are? In the case of the man I used as example, even if he lives a faithful and Holy life, if he is not among God’s elect, he has no chance.

Or am I looking at this the wrong way? Is to live a Holy life signs of accepting God’s grace?

The first example came from my friend, this second one is something that I was thinking about.

Let’s say a priest meets someone is is not a believer and is actively proud of his sins. He rejects and hates God. The priest tells the man something of Christ. Through his own free will the man contemplated the priest’s words and turned his life to Christ and became Catholic. The man clearly used his own free will to accept a grace. If God knew that this man would angrily reject him and then have a conversion experience, how is that truly free will?

I had never thought about predestination before, so I’m a little confused about the whole matter. Thanks!

I suggest you dispense with confusing Protestant theological concepts like ‘gace’, ‘elect’, ‘predestination’, ‘foreknowledge’, etc., and replace them with simple Catholic terms ‘sin’, ‘good works’ and ‘Judgment’. At the end of our lives, our deeds our weighed as on a scale, and we are sent to the place our works deserve.

 

[capablanca911]

I suggest you dispense with confusing Protestant theological concepts like ‘gace’, ‘elect’, ‘predestination’, ‘foreknowledge’, etc., and replace them with simple Catholic terms ‘sin’, ‘good works’ and ‘Judgment’. At the end of our lives, our deeds our weighed as on a scale, and we are sent to the place our works deserve.

What makes you think that those aren’t Catholic terms?

 

[NeedImprovement]

On another thread related to this topic, I saw the following posted in regards to predestination. Can anyone tell me if this is an accurate statement?

"The elect are those people who are “holy” right from their beginnings. We know, or have seen people like this. They move through life and you can tell there’s something about them that’s different: purer, holier. So, there are those born “elect,” and those who earn their way into the fold.

That’s the short and sweet of it."

We’re all sinners, we’re all wounded. It’s that straighforward.

Whomever you’re quoting above (anonymous to date ?) seems to be of a mind that is a little short on objectivity regarding spirituality and our fallen nature. The Church teaches that only our Blessed Mother was “holy right from her beginnings”, and it was a singular privilege granted to her by God - to her and to no other creature ; and yet she still needed a Saviour.

Exterior appearances can be misleading.

I’ve always thought that Blaise Pascal had a considerably more balanced view . He keeps it real :

**There are only two types of people: Those virtuous who believe themselves to be sinners and the other sinners who believe themselves to be virtuous. **

• Blaise Pascal
  c.1654^1662 Pense es, pt.7, no.534.

quotes.yourdictionary.com/people

 

[AdvanceAlways]

I’m honestly feeling a lot of despair over this… I had always believed that God gave us all grace and the point of working out our salvation was the ability to act on those graces or not. Now it seems (after reading this thread and countless other articles) that no matter what I do in life, no matter how faithful I remain, no matter how much I respond to the graces in the sacraments, etc, it doesn’t matter if I was “passed over.” I know I’m a sinner, I know I’m not worthy of God’s grace but it seems like I can work at being the most faithful follower of Christ that I can be but it means absolutely nothing. As a Catholic, I’ve never believed in OSAS and have always believed that since we cannot be assured of our salvation, that I needed to do my best effort to preserve till the end, but now I can’t help but feel like I’m in God’s chessboard…

 

[soniel]

Again, I know what you’re saying AdvanceAlways. I would not despair in your thinking. It doesn’t come across that your thinking is offensive to God. This prayer, " Oh my Jesus, save us from the fires of hell, lead ALL souls to heaven, especially those in most need of Thy mercy" sounds like ther’s hope for all of us.

 

[AdvanceAlways]

On another note… why will there be a judgement when we die if God has already judged us before we were born? I wish I hadn’t stumbled on this whole topic…

 

[capablanca911]

I think you have misunderstood.

God saves all who follow the sacraments, and if you do follow the sacraments then you were predestined to do so.

Just follow the sacraments, working out your salvation with fear and trembling and you will be fine.

 

[capablanca911]

On another note… why will there be a judgement when we die if God has already judged us before we were born? I wish I hadn’t stumbled on this whole topic…

He hasn’t judged us before we were born, he simply foreknows what his judgement will be. And he has given us grace efficacious for whatever good we achieve.

 

[AdvanceAlways]

I think you have misunderstood.

God saves all who follow the sacraments, and if you do follow the sacraments then you were predestined to do so.

Just follow the sacraments, working out your salvation with fear and trembling and you will be fine.

Thank you for this. You have no idea how much relief this just brought me.

 

[capablanca911]

Thank you for this. You have no idea how much relief this just brought me.

My pleasure.

I never responded to the robot scenario. I’ll try to do so as a parting thought on this subject.

There are many scenarios in which God’s predestination could be enacted on our will.

For example, there could be a scenario where the man with bloodshot eyes says, “Nooo!..Must…resist…God’s…will!” ceases resisting

Then there’s predestination where there is a Divine Jedi Mind Trick.
God: You will go home and rethink your life.
Man: dazed I’ll go home now and rethink my life…

Neither of those are Catholic theories.

Then there could be predestination like in Oedipus Rex.
Oedipus is told one day he will kill his father and sleep with his mother.
So Oedipus says, “No way Jose!” and runs away from Polybus and Merope, beleiving them to be his real parents. They aren’t. On his journey running away, he kills his real father and sleeps with his mother.

Oedipus acts on his own free will (and in this scenario is even given a prophecy) but yet he can’t escape his destiny.

That’s probably closer to my view.

This is a hard subject to comprehend, but I don’t think anyone would say that Oedipus is a robot obeying the fates, so this shows there’s a way predestination can work without being a robot, as opposed to other forms of predestination.

Does that help, or did I muddy the waters?

 

[AdvanceAlways]

My pleasure.

I never responded to the robot scenario. I’ll try to do so as a parting thought on this subject.

There are many scenarios in which God’s predestination could be enacted on our will.

For example, there could be a scenario where the man with bloodshot eyes says, “Nooo!..Must…resist…God’s…will!” ceases resisting

Then there’s predestination where there is a Divine Jedi Mind Trick.
God: You will go home and rethink your life.
Man: dazed I’ll go home now and rethink my life…

Neither of those are Catholic theories.

Then there could be predestination like in Oedipus Rex.
Oedipus is told one day he will kill his father and sleep with his mother.
So Oedipus says, “No way Jose!” and runs away from Polybus and Merope, beleiving them to be his real parents. They aren’t. On his journey running away, he kills his real father and sleeps with his mother.

Oedipus acts on his own free will (and in this scenario is even given a prophecy) but yet he can’t escape his destiny.

That’s probably closer to my view.

This is a hard subject to comprehend, but I don’t think anyone would say that Oedipus is a robot obeying the fates, so this shows there’s a way predestination can work without being a robot, as opposed to other forms of predestination.

Does that help, or did I muddy the waters?

I think that helps but I’ll stick with what you said above. That seems to be the short and simple gist of it. Essentially, your statement on following the Sacraments leads me back to what my views have been all along, it seems that technicalities and phraseology messed with my head. I also reread what Father Grac’s post and that helped things too. All the technicalities were making me think that Catholics essentially taught Calvinism and that in no way can I cooperate with grace.

 

[capablanca911]

From the Synod of Orange:

CANON 18. That grace is not preceded by merit. Recompense is due to good works if they are performed; but grace, to which we have no claim, precedes them, to enable them to be done.

CANON 20. That a man can do no good without God. God does much that is good in a man that the man does not do; but a man does nothing good for which God is not responsible, so as to let him do it.

Conclusion:

According to the catholic faith we also believe that after grace has been received through baptism, all baptized persons have the ability and responsibility, if they desire to labor faithfully, to perform with the aid and cooperation of Christ what is of essential importance in regard to the salvation of their soul. We not only do not believe that any are foreordained to evil by the power of God, but even state with utter abhorrence that if there are those who want to believe so evil a thing, they are anathema. We also believe and confess to our benefit that in every good work it is not we who take the initiative and are then assisted through the mercy of God, but God himself first inspires in us both faith in him and love for him without any previous good works of our own that deserve reward, so that we may both faithfully seek the sacrament of baptism, and after baptism be able by his help to do what is pleasing to him.

 

[AdvanceAlways]

From the Synod of Orange:

CANON 18. That grace is not preceded by merit. Recompense is due to good works if they are performed; but grace, to which we have no claim, precedes them, to enable them to be done.

CANON 20. That a man can do no good without God. God does much that is good in a man that the man does not do; but a man does nothing good for which God is not responsible, so as to let him do it.

Conclusion:

According to the catholic faith we also believe that after grace has been received through baptism, all baptized persons have the ability and responsibility, if they desire to labor faithfully, to perform with the aid and cooperation of Christ what is of essential importance in regard to the salvation of their soul. We not only do not believe that any are foreordained to evil by the power of God, but even state with utter abhorrence that if there are those who want to believe so evil a thing, they are anathema. We also believe and confess to our benefit that in every good work it is not we who take the initiative and are then assisted through the mercy of God, but God himself first inspires in us both faith in him and love for him without any previous good works of our own that deserve reward, so that we may both faithfully seek the sacrament of baptism, and after baptism be able by his help to do what is pleasing to him.

Makes sense

Thank you for your participation in this thread, it really helped clear things up.

 

[capablanca911]

No problemo!

 

[AdvanceAlways]

No problemo!

I see that you are in RCIA, my prayers are with you as you enter into Christ’s Church. God Bless!

 

[Qoeleth]

From the Synod of Orange:

CANON 18. That grace is not preceded by merit. Recompense is due to good works if they are performed; but grace, to which we have no claim, precedes them, to enable them to be done.

CANON 20. That a man can do no good without God. God does much that is good in a man that the man does not do; but a man does nothing good for which God is not responsible, so as to let him do it.

.

That sounds a little Protestant. For Catholics- everyone has the choice of good deeds or bad deeds. On Judgement Day, these are weighed up and punishments and rewards are dished out accordingly. Each person is entirely responsible for the good and the bad that they do- not God, not the Devil.

Terms like ‘grace’ and ‘predestination’ just muddy the waters, and cause confusion. There is simply the choice of good and evil- and we are capable of both. “I set before you fire and water: reach out your hand to whichever your prefer”.

 

[AdvanceAlways]

That sounds a little Protestant. For Catholics- everyone has the choice of good deeds or bad deeds. On Judgement Day, these are weighed up and punishments and rewards are dished out accordingly. Each person is entirely responsible for the good and the bad that they do- not God, not the Devil.

Terms like ‘grace’ and ‘predestination’ just muddy the waters, and cause confusion. There is simply the choice of good and evil- and we are capable of both. “I set before you fire and water: reach out your hand to whichever your prefer”.

We cannot partake however in good deeds without the grace of God. To say God has no role in our acts of merit would be pelagianism.

 

[capablanca911]

That sounds a little Protestant. For Catholics- everyone has the choice of good deeds or bad deeds. On Judgement Day, these are weighed up and punishments and rewards are dished out accordingly. Each person is entirely responsible for the good and the bad that they do- not God, not the Devil.

Terms like ‘grace’ and ‘predestination’ just muddy the waters, and cause confusion. There is simply the choice of good and evil- and we are capable of both. “I set before you fire and water: reach out your hand to whichever your prefer”.

The quote that you blockquoted above your comments were block quotes from the second Council of Orange on July3,** 529 AD**.

Says the Catholic Encylopedia:

“The acts of the council, which were signed by the bishops, the pretorian prefect Liberius and seven other distinguished laymen, were forwarded to Rome and **approved by Boniface II on 25 January, 531 **(see BONIFACE II). They consequently enjoy œcumenical authority and are printed in Denzinger’s “Enchiridion Symbolorum” (10th ed., nos. 174-200).”

Furthermore, Predestination is all over the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

ccc.scborromeo.org.master.com/texis/master/search/?sufs=0&q=predestin*&xsubmit=Search&s=SS

And Scripture for that matter.

Romans 8:

For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the first-born among many brethren. And those whom he **predestined **he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified.

Ephesians 1:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with spiritual blessings in heavenly places, in Christ: 4 As he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and unspotted in his sight in charity. 5 Who has **predestinated **us unto the adoption of children through Jesus Christ unto himself: according to the purpose of his will: 6 Unto the praise of the glory of his grace, in which he has **graced **us, in his beloved son. 7 In whom we have redemption through his blood, the remission of sins, according to the riches of his grace, 8 which has superabounded in us, in all wisdom and prudence, 9 that he might make known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure, which he has purposed in him, 10 in the dispensation of the fullness of times, to re-establish all things in Christ, that are in heaven and on earth, in him.

It’s also copiously written about by the Early Church Fathers. Augustine for example:

newadvent.org/fathers/15121.htm

So if anything muddies any waters, it is Catholics not understanding Catholic doctrine.