Good gravy, not the right to be called merciful? I swear you are just full of puffery to say that. You reserve the right, men deserve the right to call Him merciful or not? Does truth come in numbers now? Is that why you keep citing that more church fathers were repulsed by these ideas? Why then, were Augustine and Aquinas made saints?
Murder is an act of the will, being born in original sin isn’t.
YES. To create a being who has no choice but to merit his own eternal suffering is * UNSPEAKABLY EVIL*. Even Hitler, even Miguel Trevino Morales, even Joseph Mengele, all of them cannot even come close to the unspeakable evil that we would have to face in a God who creates some human beings who have no choice but to suffer.
Because of their virtues, which doesn’t mean that they were right. Most fathers were repulsed by those theories and this is why they came up with different system.
Murder is the result of our corrupted state. We wouldn’t even choose to murder if we weren’t first born siinful.Murder is an act of the will, being born in original sin isn’t.
AugustineFanNYC:
Ok, calm the heck down. I swear you reveal yourself with weird writings such as this. Your emotions as well as your intentions are way too evident.
I already hinted as to where Calvin’s confusion comes from. He joins two acts in one. Augustine and Aquinas did neither. Then come people such as yourself, with this chip on their shoulder, and a strong belief that it should be the way they determine God should act, and come up with overly convoluted interpretations such as Molinism. The Church teaches predestination. It honors Aquinas and Augustine.
Of course, but the thing is, we have the choice to avoid murder, this is why most people don’t do it. We can’t choose, however, to be born without original sin.Murder is the result of our corrupted state. We wouldn’t even choose to murder if we weren’t first born siinful.
Robert1111:
I have nothing to hide, really, so it’s not a problem if i “reveal myself”.
Oh for God’s sake man, i don’t have a problem with that specifically. I have a problem with the idea that some souls are simply denied the help they TRULY beed to avoid eternal damnation.
Ok, yes, we cannot save ourselves. That is God’s domain.
Eternal damnation is a deserved consequence of sin. If God passes over someone, they are just going to to where they were always meant to go. He is not sending anyone to Hell, He is SAVING people from going there.
Ok, that you’re going against what the Church wants which is no enmity between the people of the two schools?
Fr.Most’s theory is not convoluted for example. I have no chip on my shoulder, it’s just that when something walks like a duck and talks like a duck, then it is duck. I’m simply saying what i see without hiding myself under some clever theological blanket.
So what? “does truth come in numbers”?
I’m not their enemy, but if they preach an evil God, i cannot help but pointing it out. A “god” who creates people who really have no choice but to merit eternal misery IS EVIL. Truly, genuinely, unspeakably, unreasonably, viscerally EVIL.
I don’t even think Fr Most would categorize their position that way.
I think again, as I have said before, people start with this premise then read back into what Thomists believe. They have a view of how a loving God should be, should act, and should enact His diving will.
EViL, EVIL, EVIL. Oh this is the most vilest of all evils. For God to even dare act an ounce of His will over us mere mortals is akin to putting people in gas chambers!! Never mind that men all over the world actually do this repeatedly throughout history, if God doesn’t decide to grant them grace, then He is more evil than they are!
And to create people who have no chance to avoid damnation without you doing nothing to save them is supposed to be good?
Where they were always meant to go, exactly predestination to Hell, because they couldn’t have possibly avoided that fate without God’s Grace, and God wasn’t willing to give said Grace to them in the first place.
I do believe that God’s divine will is SALVIFIC, NOT DAMNING. he is not a merciful father to some and a spiteful goblin to others.
He will show mercy on whom he shows mercy.
It’s not great, it just is. Only thing is that you’re refusing to see the distinction between what Calvin says and what Aquinas says; He sends no one. God is not actively sending anyone to hell, because we were already destined there through the decisions of Adam and Eve.
No, you’re right, He is not spiteful. Again, you think that Him passing over others is spiteful? Again, you’re implying so much about what you want God to do. What you think He should do and be like instead.
Of course he wouldn’t, but the fact is, he came up with that theological system to avoid the cleverly covered double predestination of classical thomism.
If a loving God is someone who creates people who have no choice but to be roasted forever, then i really want to know what an unloving God is supposed to be. Because imagination fails me, since i cannot imagine, i literally cannot EVEN IMAGINE, someone or something more evil than that.think again, as I have said before, people start with this premise then read back into what Thomists believe. They have a view of how a loving God should be, should act, and should enact His diving will.
Robert1111:
They couldn’t possibly avoid those acts without his Grace, so yeah, it is much worse than putting people in gas chambers.
That passage has been misinterpreted, he wasn’t talking about individual salvations.
This is nuts. It is like saying that if I commit a sin my son deserves eternal torture for it. This is NUTS”.
It is when said “other” has not other choice but to merit eternal damnation with no way out and no end.
Eternal damnation comes with the package of sin. I don’t understand how you’re separating the two? This isn’t about your darn son, this is about mankind. We were all born in a state of sin, a corrupted human condition. This condition has unleashed the terrible pits of hell on earth. I don’t know why you paint us all as poor little children that need, nay DESERVE, the saving grace of God. A grace He paid for with the death of His son.
So when you hear this, you don’t get on your knees and thank God every day that He saved you from eternal damnation? Instead you hear, what an awful putrid God that didn’t also save the one next to me? You say if I were God, I’d do this because then and only then would I merit be called a merciful God.
Ok, we are done here. I am sorry but you need to see a shrink. This is beyond my expertise. Human evil acts collectively are not finite, they are the cause for the evils of the world. Heck, without God we’d be utter lunatics. It is God who sustains this planet, and without His grace over it, who knows what unspeakable evils we’d commit. I am more afraid of men, than any Thomistic God. That is why we are collectively blamed for sin. That is why the consequences of sin are death. You are WAY too busy making sure there is a fair deal here, in where we sinful human beings who have shown that we can take a beautiful world and create some amazingly evil things from it, need any sort of mercy at all from God?
And yet, it’s only through a personal act of the will that someone merits eternal damnation. This is why the Church refused Augustine’s theory on infants who died without Baptism.
Once again, i’m not Adam nor Eve. I didn’t choose to commit original sin. They chose it. And God chose to create me with original sin tainting my soul.
He did what? There is no assurance of salvation in Catholicism, did you forget that? So if thomism is true i’m either a predestined or a reprobate and i had no say in the matter. This cannot be right.
Yeah, I lashed out, sorry.
But then again, who chose to be born in the state we are born? We didn’t. If i’m born crippled and i’m required to run, i need someone to give me the means by which i can actually run, otherwise how can i be blamed if i don’t run? You never explained this, you simply described the human condition (as if we individually chose to be born this way) and that’s all.
But then again, like i said, did we choose to be born with such a tainted soul? I didn’t. I can be blamed for my personal actual acts but we cannot simply be left to our own sinfulness without a real offer of salvation, having been born like this through no fault of our own. I don’t see what is controversial about this. It’s just that you are way too influenced by your Calvinistic background.
No no, you are right, it is perfectly just to willingly create a rabid dog who bites everyone in sight when you could have prevented it from having these defects so that you can have the excuse to beat the hell out it with a baseball bat when he acts upon the instinct he is born with because you created it that way, you are perfectly right, my bad.
I guess that i was wrong and i just needed to see a shrink, because it is obvious to everyone that a government who would act like that would be just and fair through and through. You are right, man, sorry.