To what extent do coincidences affect our lives?

[LoganBice]

tonyrey wrote:

This is the sort of reply one only gets on the internet. No, Tony, I am aware, and I rightly stated that one’s understanding of causation has great import for one’s answer to the problem of evil, which is entirely and obviously true.

You won’t even get concensus on that from the Catholics* in this thread*, much less on this message board, to say nothing of ‘all’ of them. Just try it. I dare you. Robert Sock wrote:

Start with him. Tell him he’s not orthodox, see what happens. I can already guess which verses of theologically inerrant scripture he’ll quote to you to prove his point.

Here is what you have to understand. The Church guides us and leads us in matter important to our salvation through faith in God, his sacraments and through social guidance, and all the aspects revealed to us, all based of Gods word. God interacting directly or indirectly or not at all in a situation has absolutely NO affect on my faith and the laws given to us by God. The reason that people disagree on this or may have different views seems to reflect to you a good reason not to be Catholic or Christian. If you did a little research into the Church from church doctor and saints you would get better answers. It seems to me that you come to this site, realize not everyone is in a consensus about something and then claim thats a perfect reason not to accept something. This forum is going to be full of people who are not fully knowledgeable on some matters, may hold a different view, my be a different religion and some who could be professional apologists. This is a forum and may not always reflect proper catholic teaching because most of us are laity. Its upsetting to me that you base your entire judgement on our Church because there is disagreement between some people. I mean lets be reasonable there are 1.2 Billion Catholics and 2.8 Billion Christians, now do you logically think 2.8 billion people are going to agree on every tiny little detail? If you want the truth go to the direct sources, Augustine, Aquinas, Balthasar, the countless popes, encyclicals, documents. I mean read stuff around the other parts of this site. Ask an apologist directly. Heck, start with Aristotle’s work on natural law and then move into Aquanis. This forum is a wonderful tool for help and guidance but that does not make it infallible.
Please don’t give up on something so easily.

God Bless

God Bless

 

[tonyrey]

You are obviously unaware of all the Christian theologians and philosophers who have written extensively about the Problem of Evil, commencing with St Irenaeus in the 2nd century AD. This is the sort of reply one only gets on the internet. No, Tony, I am aware, and I rightly stated that one’s understanding of causation has great import for one’s answer to the problem of evil, which is entirely and obviously true.

You also stated:

Catholicism has apparently done nothing on it, or about it. Sure, ecumenical councils can be called and Bishops made to ride camels for thousands of miles to meet to determine what title will be given to the Virgin Mary, but nobody ever thought to answer the question 'Does God kill people and take them or do they die naturally?" or “Does God cause Tsunamis?” or even “Does God give people cancer?”.

Two false statements!

All orthodox Catholics believe natural disasters are inevitable:

You won’t even get concensus on that from the Catholics* in this thread*, much less on this message board, to say nothing of ‘all’ of them. Just try it. I dare you. Robert Sock wrote:It is God alone who affects our lives, with nothing due to chance.

Start with him. Tell him he’s not orthodox, see what happens. I can already guess which verses of theologically inerrant scripture he’ll quote to you to prove his point.

A consensus of Catholics on this thread is an arbitrary criterion of Catholic doctrine. Only Fundamentalists believe** all** verses in the Old Testament are “theologically inerrant”.

The fact remains that the Catechism reflects orthodox Catholic teaching:

385 God is infinitely good and all his works are good. Yet no one can escape the experience of suffering or** the evils in nature which seem to be linked to the limitations proper to creatures**: and above all to the question of moral evil.

In other words as a general rule we are **directly **affected by the laws of nature, not by
“particular volitions of the Deity” (in Hume’s words). It was a Protestant, John Calvin, who believed “not a single drop of rain falls without God’s explicit command” - which is obviously incompatible with belief in a loving Father when we remember the horrific disasters caused by floods and landslides…

I wish you well.

 

[wmw]

Why does everyone expect Eden? Did the story of Adam and Eve not meet our ears and echo in our heads?

The major point of the story is that we are NOT in the perfectly safe Garden of Eden. It is us humans that rejected his place of vegan lions, tigers, & bears. It’s funny to hear folks who don’t want God around to ask why He isn’t here to right all the wrongs before they happen.

Then what would this atheist say when his car wouldn’t start on the day he should be in an accident? What an ogre of a God, the atheist would say if he knew God was keeping his car stuck in the driveway. We all want it all, the right to do as we will and the right that all things should be to our own liking. It “ALL” is just not logically possible, but we still want God to be making the impossible possible for us.

This is the problem, we are either completely in His care, as in Eden, or we are not. Guess what, we are not. We can have the soul restored to eternal life, but the material of this earth has been forever marked for decay and the end of days. Yet, it is we who forced this upon God to let us go our own way and it’s not just the first two humans, but we have all been born into this sinfulness.

 

[LoganBice]

Why does everyone expect Eden? Did the story of Adam and Eve not meet our ears and echo in our heads?

The major point of the story is that we are NOT in the perfectly safe Garden of Eden. It is us humans that rejected his place of vegan lions, tigers, & bears. It’s funny to hear folks who don’t want God around to ask why He isn’t here to right all the wrongs before they happen.

Then what would this atheist say when his car wouldn’t start on the day he should be in an accident? What an ogre of a God, the atheist would say if he knew God was keeping his car stuck in the driveway. We all want it all, the right to do as we will and the right that all things should be to our own liking. It “ALL” is just not logically possible, but we still want God to be making the impossible possible for us.

This is the problem, we are either completely in His care, as in Eden, or we are not. Guess what, we are not. We can have the soul restored to eternal life, but the material of this earth has been forever marked for decay and the end of days. Yet, it is we who forced this upon God to let us go our own way and it’s not just the first two humans, but we have all been born into this sinfulness.

yes