Predestination

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Melchior said:
Thanks! I was going for Jonathan Edwards meets Fr. Corapi. 😉
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I love Fr. Corapi’s style! I wish we had more priests like him. We should always be charitable, but that certainly does not mean becoming the Pillsbury DoughBoy. 😃

God Bless,
Michael
 
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mikeledes:
God allowed sin in the world. It was part of His permissive will.
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So, according to you, God did not decree, by a voluntary act of His will, that sin should enter the world. Rather, God knew that sin was possible; therefore, He waited for Adam’s will to act, and when Adam had acted sinfully, God permitted sin after Adam sinned?
 
sandusky said:
So, according to you, God did not decree, by a voluntary act of His will, that sin should enter the world. Rather, God knew that sin was possible; therefore, He waited for Adam’s will to act, and when Adam had acted sinfully, God permitted sin after Adam sinned?
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He also allowed Adam to sin. Allowing sin to occur is a voluntary act of the will of God. He could have created creatures that would have perfectly obeyed Him if He wanted to, “robots” programmed to do good. Instead, He chose to create creatures with free will and hence personal responsibility. What is the alternative? That God caused Adam to sin and causes us to sin so that sin could exist in the world?

God Bless,
Michael
 
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mikeledes:
He also allowed Adam to sin.
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God allowed Adam to sin, you say. God didn’t know what Adam would do, but, knowing Adam could choose to sin, God decided, should Adam sin, that He would allow it?
 
sandusky said:
God allowed Adam to sin, you say. God didn’t know what Adam would do, but, knowing Adam could choose to sin, God decided, should Adam sin, that He would allow it?
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And hence God caused Him to sin, right?

God Bless,
Michael
 
mikeledes said:
But that’s what it’s apparently leading to. Either Adam freely chose to sin or God caused it.
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That’s not what I’m leading to; at least not yet.

What I’m interested in, from you, is when did the “allowance” of sin, issue from God? Was God’s will affected by Adam’s choice? Or, was Adam’s choice affected by God’s will?
 
sandusky said:
That’s not what I’m leading to; at least not yet.

What I’m interested in, from you, is when did the “allowance” of sin, issue from God? Was God’s will affected by Adam’s choice? Or, was Adam’s choice affected by God’s will?
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:hmmm: Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Let me quote a passage from the Catholic encyclopedia, which I think can explain this better than me:

Of moral evil (malum culpæ) God is not the cause (Counc. of Trent, sess. VI, can. vi), either directly or indirectly. Sin is a violation of order, and God orders all things to Himself, as an ultimate end, consequently He cannot be the direct cause of sin. God’s withdrawal of grace which would prevent the sin does not make Him the indirect cause of sin inasmuch as this withdrawal is affected according to the decrees of His Divine wisdom and justice in punishment of previous sin. He is under no obligation of impeding the sin, consequently it cannot be imputed to Him as a cause (I-II:79:1). When we read in Scripture and the Fathers that God inclines men to sin the sense is, either that in His just judgment He permits men to fall into sin by a punitive permission, exercising His justice in punishment of past sin; or that He directly causes, not sin, but certain exterior works, good in themselves, which are so abused by the evil wills of men that here and now they commit evil; or that He gives them the power of accomplishing their evil designs. Of the physical act in sin God is the cause inasmuch as it is an entity and good. Of the malice of sin man’s evil will is the sufficient cause. God could not be impeded in the creation of man by the fact that He foresaw his fall. This would mean the limiting of His omnipotence by a creature, and would be destructive of Him. He was free to create man even though He foresaw his fall, and He created him, endowed him with free will, and gave him sufficient means of persevering in good had he so willed. We must sum up our ignorance of the permission of evil by saying in the words of St. Augustine, that God would not have permitted evil had He not been powerful enough to bring good out of evil. God’s end in creating this universe is Himself, not the good of man, and somehow or other good and evil serve His ends, and there shall finally be a restoration of violated order by Divine justice. No sin shall be without its punishment.

newadvent.org/cathen/14004b.htm

Now I’m interested in how you would respond to your own question.

God Bless,
Michael
 
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mikeledes:
Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
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My question is, which is first, the will of God, or the will of man?

This, from your encyclopedia is closing in on that answer:
God’s end in creating this universe is Himself, not the good of man…
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Also from your encyclopedia:
God could not be impeded in the creation of man by the fact that He foresaw his fall. This would mean the limiting of His omnipotence by a creature, and would be destructive of Him. He was free to create man even though He foresaw his fall…
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That is closer to my question, but still doesn’t answer it.

What do they, and you, mean, “God foresaw his [man’s] fall?”
 
[sandusky;2687851]My question is, which is first, the will of God, or the will of man?
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I’m not sure I understand your question, but the will of God is first, however the will of God is either God’s active will or His permissive will. God can actively cause something to happen in His permissive will, but He can actively choose evil. to happen to anyone, that would go against God’s essential nature which is love. His atributes of justice, holiness all flow out of His essential nature which is love.
However, He can allow evil because of our free will. And evil is not a “thing” it is the act of disobeying God.
What do they, and you, mean, “God foresaw his [man’s] fall?”
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God foresaw man’s fall but that doesn’t mean He actively in His active will made man fall nor that He predestined mans fall either. God’s permissive will allows mans true freedom to choose good or evil.
Suppose God saw two cars heading down the road going opposite ways toward each other. Both are on a course poised to slam into each other and both are already know that they aren’t supposed to drive down this road.
God foresaw what is going to happen He foresees their eventual crash into each other; He also sees that they don’t die, they are just injured for the rest of their lives.
God foresaw their eventual demise, He didn’t predestine their crash or will it, just permitted it to happen as each person had a free choice to not drive down that particular road.
That He chooses by His permissive will to allow us to crash doesn’t mean He predestined it to happen, but that because He created us free, allows us to choose to follow good or evil.
Point being, God’s foreknowledge doesn’t mean
He actively predestined some to hell; they freely chose to be without Him.
 
mikeledes said:
Yes, by withholding His grace and thus allowing him to remain in his rebellious state. However, he did not positively increase his wickedness.

God Bless,
Michael
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Hello again,

Rather than attempt to explain what has been rumbling in my head and heart for years, I found this rather amazing article by Godwell Andrew Chan titled ‘Luther on Free Will’ under the heading, ‘God the ultimate cause of evil.’

I hope it will be of value to this thread, but it I am just repeating what has already been covered, I apologize.

Love,
Pophead.
*God, the Ultimate Cause of Evil
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If man’s will is not free but under God’s sovereign control, this would neccesarily lead to the conclusion that God is the ultimate cause of evil. Many find this idea very hard to swallow, even many within Reformed circles. Before I read Luther, before I read Calvin, I read Gordon H. Clark. In Religion, Reason and Revelation, Clark attributed the ultimate cause of evil to God. I was totally shocked when I read it, but his arguments were unrefutable. I thought it was a novel idea, at least until I read Luther and Calvin. Then I found that this was the position of the Reformation all along. (This view does not in any way deny secondary causes)
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'Commenting on Pharoah’s heart being hardened by God. Luther wrote:
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“His [Pharoah’s] evil will would not have been moved or hardened of itself, but as the omnipotent Agent makes it act (as he does the rest of his creation) by means of his own inescapable will.”
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Furthermore, God did not simply look into the future and see what Pharoah would do. God is the one who actually caused the hardening of his heart.
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On God’s foreknowledge, Luther wrote: “Had there been in Pharoah any power to turn, or freedom of will that might have gone either way. God could not with such certainty have foretold his hardening.”
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In other words foreknowledge is due to foreordination, not visa versa. Luther continued: “It would certainly be a hard question, I allow-indeed, an insoluble one-if you sought to establish both the foreknowledge of God and the freedom of man together; for what is harder, yea, more impossible, than maintaining that contraries and contradictories do not clash ? The apostle, therefore, is bridling the ungodly who take offense at his plain speaking, telling them they should realize that the Divine will is fulfilled by what to us is necessity, and that it is definitely established that no freedom or “free-will” is left them, but all things depend on the will of God alone”
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Two things should be observed from the above quotations. First, to hold contradictories as both true is not the position of the Reformation, but the position of a muddle-headed thinker (or non-thinker).
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Second Luther calls the free-willists “ungodly.” So the foreknoweldge and omnipotence of God are diametrically oppossed to our “free-will.” Either God makes mistakes in his foreknowledge, and errors in his action (which is impossible), or else we act, according to his foreknowledge and action. And by the omnipotence of God, I mean, not the power by which he omits to do many things that he could do, but the active power by which he mightily works all in all. It is in this sense the Scripture calls him omnipotent. This omnipotence and foreknowledge of God, I repeat, untterly destroys the doctrine of free-will. The hardening of Pharoah’s heart was not done by the passive permission of God. Nor did God merely forsee it as and observer passively observes the future. God caused it to come to pass by his “active power.” This view certainly establishes God as the ultimate cause of evil. But does this view make man a mere puppet on a string ?
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Luther answered, “It is true that Judas acted willingly, and not under compulsion, but his willing was the work of God, brought into being by his omnipotence, like everything else.”
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Man acts willingly. A puppet not only does not have free will; it does not have any will at all. Man has a will, but his will is in the hands of God, and he directs it wherever he likes (Proverbs 21:1). Therefore, God never causes man to act against his own will, for it is the very will that he controls. Judas acted willingly, not by compulsion.*
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Pophead said:
Hello again,

Rather than attempt to explain what has been rumbling in my head and heart for years, I found this rather amazing article by Godwell Andrew Chan titled ‘Luther on Free Will’ under the heading, ‘God the ultimate cause of evil.’

I hope it will be of value to this thread, but it I am just repeating what has already been covered, I apologize.

Love,
Pophead.
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Pharoah was already in rebellion against God prior to his encounter with Moses. Unenlightened by God’s grace, he could not submit to God’s will. God did not directly intervene in his heart to cause him to grow in wickedness because that would make God the efficient cause of Pharoah’s sin, a violation of God’s own righteousness. Hardening means that He continued to withhold His grace from Pharoah and thus did not put any restraints on his wickedness. He allowed Pharoah’s obstinance to run its full course and used Pharoah’s sin in order to accomplish a greater good.

God Bless,
Michael
 
mikeledes said:
Pharoah was already in rebellion against God prior to his encounter with Moses. Unenlightened by God’s grace, he could not submit to God’s will. God did not directly intervene in his heart to cause him to grow in wickedness because that would make God the efficient cause of Pharoah’s sin, a violation of God’s own righteousness. Hardening means that He continued to withhold His grace from Pharoah and thus did not put any restraints on his wickedness. He allowed Pharoah’s obstinance to run its full course and used Pharoah’s sin in order to accomplish a greater good.

God Bless,
Michael
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Yes, that seems to be your view.

What did you think of the chapter from the article by Godwell Andrew Chan titled **‘Luther on Free Will’ **under the heading, ‘God the ultimate cause of evil.’ ?

Love,
Pophead.
 
Melchior said:
That’s absurd. Try reading the Bible you will have to conclude that God is unloving and cruel if you wish God to live by your superior standards. Read Romans 9 and the entire Old Testament, the book of Acts, Revelations etc. Your problem is with God.
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My problem is with some people’s INTERPRETATIONS of these books. The trouble is that their interpretations go against the teachings of Jesus
 
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