Understanding free will in light of God's sovereignty

[Robert1111]

God does not give efficacious grace to everyone because he knew some of those who will not have efficacious grace, will go to Hell (but how many are there: a minority ? a majority? all without exception?). And He allowed some to go to Hell in this way to glorify His righteousness

I don’t think that “He allowed some to go to Hell in this way to glorify His righteousness” because God doesn’t want our condemnation. He allowed them to go to Hell because he respects man’s nature, which is not congruent with violent coercion from the outside.

Still, what has to be understood is that those who didn’t receive efficacious Grace still have the true and genuine power to say yes to God, they didn’t receive a mere potency which absolutely needed God’s further intervention to be reduced from potency to act.

This is very important because this is the chief error of classical thomism which makes that theory hardly compatible with God’s universal salvific will.

From the classical thomists we can take the unfrustrability of efficacious Grace but NOT his absolute necessity for salvation.

From the molinists we can take their sufficient Grace as understood by them, that is, a Grace that gives us an actual genuine power to act, which is why for most elect this Grace is indeed sufficient for salvation, which is to say that they don’t need absolutely God’s further unfrustrable intervention.

 

[Robert1111]

I wrote

what has to be understood is that those who didn’t receive efficacious Grace still have the true and genuine power to say yes to God, they didn’t receive a mere potency which absolutely needed God’s further intervention to be reduced from potency to act

And I note that you correctly wrote

God does not give efficacious grace to everyone because he knew some of those who will not have efficacious grace, will go to Hell

Now, the operative word here is ”some”. The problem with the classical thomists is that they believe that no man can be saved unless he receives the unfrustrable efficacious Grace. This view cannot be accepted because, unless we want to be full-blown universalists, logically and unavoidably implies unconditional negative reprobation, which is not congruent with salvation being CONCRETELY available to all.

 

[Mboo]

I don’t think that “He allowed some to go to Hell in this way to glorify His righteousness” because God doesn’t want our condemnation. He allowed them to go to Hell because he respects man’s nature, which is not congruent with violent coercion from the outside

efficacious grace does not do violence to the nature of man! To take a comparison, God has given me a “natural grace” so that I can not coldly kill my child, yet I do not feel like a prisoner because of that, I feel quite free.
efficacious grace is a little similar, but in a supernatural context.

 

[Mboo]

I don’t think that “He allowed some to go to Hell in this way to glorify His righteousness” because God doesn’t want our condemnation

God does not want our condemnation but it is a hypothetical will, not an absolute will

 

[Robert1111]

efficacious grace does not do violence to the nature of man! To take a comparison, God has given me a “natural grace” so that I can not coldly kill my child, yet I do not feel like a prisoner because of that, I feel quite free.
efficacious grace is a little similar, but in a supernatural context.

In a certain sense it does violence in that it compells me to say yes to God, which is not in keeping with our nature and our normal relationship with the Creator.

God still uses it sometimes, but it is outside of his ordinary Providence, which means that it cannot be a necessary Grace to achieve salvation. Ordinary Grace is more than enough, if we aren’t willing to culpably resist it.

 

[Robert1111]

God does not want our condemnation but it is a hypothetical will, not an absolute will

It is not an absolute will only because he can find resistance on man’s part, and when this is the case, he mostly respects our nature and the nature of the relationship between us. Still, he doesn’t give up until the very end, then if a man decides to scorn even the last Grace, he is rightly handed over to Satan.

In this case the man not receiving efficacious unfrustrable Grace is not unjust, because said man had the real, actual, true, genuine power to say “yes” to God, and God didn’t give up on him until the very end.

 

[Mboo]

In a certain sense it does violence in that it compells me to say yes to God, which is not in keeping with our nature and our normal relationship with the Creator

Taking the latest comparison, God does not oblige me to keep my child alive, yet I am free to kill him if I want, but I will never do it. It’s the same with efficacious grace.

 

[Mboo]

It is not an absolute will only because he can find resistance on man’s part, and when this is the case, he mostly respects our nature and the nature of the relationship between us

he could give us the same perfection that he gave to the virgin Mary, and everyone would be in Heaven without violating human freedom

 

[Robert1111]

Taking the latest comparison, God does not oblige me to keep my child alive, yet I am free to kill him if I want, but I will never do it. It’s the same with efficacious grace.

It is not really the same, since it’s only natural for a father to abhore the thought of murdering his own child. Your relationship with God is something different, is more akin to the relationship with a woman, so to speak. You can resist his advances.

 

[Mboo]

It is not really the same, since it’s only natural for a father to abhore the thought of murdering his own child.

it is God who wanted it to be so natural, he could also decide that it was natural not to commit the slightest sin

 

[Robert1111]

he could give us the same perfection that he gave to the virgin Mary, and everyone would be in Heaven without violating human freedom

Yeah, that’s right, but the way i see it, after the fall, the state of perfection of the Virgin Mary is also something that is not in keeping with our nature, in the sense that the Virgin Mary received more Grace than all the elect put together, which is why she is said to be “full of Grace”.

In man’s nature is inherent the actual possibility to refuse his Creator.

 

[Robert1111]

it is God who wanted it to be so natural, he could also decide that it was natural not to commit the slightest sin

Yeah, he could also have created us directly in Heaven, for that matter. I see where you are coming from, but what cannot be discarded is that man, even in this fallen state, has the actual, real chance to achieve his final end, not merely a potential chance is he is a reprobate and an absolute assurance if he is numbered among the elect.

No, a true chance. So who goes to Hell, goes there because of his fault, he wasn’t passed over.

 

[Richca]

Robert1111:
The worst possible version of God was created not by me, but by Augustine who decided to invent the notion of unconditional predestination, notion that no other father of the Church upheld at the time. He was ALONE with that horrific misconception. Unfortunately Aquinas decided to adopt Augustine’s understanding later on, but if they have been pretty much alone on this, there is a reason. And the reason is that most fathers could see how monstrous this kind of “god” is.

Fr. Most agrees with the idea of unconditional predestination so here Augustine and Aquinas are not wrong. Your confusing predestination with reprobation, they are not the same thing. Aquinas doesn’t use the word ‘predestination’ in regard to the reprobated. He only applies predestination to the saved. Reprobation is the word used for the unsaved. For Fr. Most as well as from various texts of Aquinas himself, reprobation is conditional in that God decrees it after foreseeing persistent resistance to the end of his grace. Non-resistance to grace is not technically a condition.

 

[Richca]

Robert1111:
Yet, this is what Aquinas and Augustine taught. We receive graces that cannot possibly save us because God gives his saving grace only to the elect. And yet he blames us and punishes us because we suffered a death in mortal sin that we were never supposed to avoid in the first place.

This is not what Aquinas or Augustine taught. Your extrapolating the distinction between sufficient and efficacious grace and its understanding made by certain Thomists or Molinists onto what Augustine or Aquinas actually taught or wrote. As Fr Most says, Aquinas does not make this distinction himself at least not explicitly or at all.

 

[Richca]

Is just double speak at its finest. If you don’t realize it, i don’t know what to do with you, really. Augustine and Thomas remind me of those advocates who manage to defend the worst criminals on heart with their slimy loopholes and technicalities

This is thoroughly out of line and possibly even sinfully slanderous and calumnious. You might want to examine your conscience and possibly go to confession because I don’t think it is pleasing to God. And this is not the only thing you have said concerning Augustine and Aquinas that could be considered slanderous and calumnious. These kinds of statements do not reflect what either Augustine or Aquinas taught but are simply your own words and misconceptions. Indeed, it would be heretical if Augustine or Aquinas taught what you falsely claim they taught at least in the words you use and they wouldn’t be canonized saints and like the two greatest doctors in the history of the Church.

Now I get where your coming from in a certain sense but your drawing conclusions they really didn’t draw or say. And if your going to say such slanderous things about Augustine or Aquinas then you might as well as put on your list a lot of other holy people, doctors and saints of the Church. If you know anything about the history of the Church and the theological reflections concerning the mystery of predestination and related doctrines, than we know it was a deep mystery that was reflected on throughout pretty much the entire history of the Church and seemingly without very satisfying answers in some ways and possible misinterpretations of Scripture.

Consider it an unmerited grace of God that you have been made aware of Fr. Most’s work. His book on this matter which I have mentioned in prior posts was published in just 1997. As Fr Most remarks, the Church ‘from the cumulative light which the Holy Spirit has now sent throughout so many centuries, teaches many truths more clearly, especially the salvific will of God…’ Fr. Most does not cast St Thomas in the light that you do, not even a remote resemblance nor should anybody because it is false and not an entirely accurate picture coming from the whole corpus of Thomas’ works. Your entire focus is wholly on a couple of texts from the entire Summa Theologica and corpus of his works.

Give the fathers, doctors, and saints of the past a break. You don’t need to slander and calumniate them if you disagree with something they said or if we understand now through the grace of the Holy Spirit certain truths more clearly. If certain truths are more clearly understood today, consider that the work of the Holy Spirit but don’t slander the Holy Spirit because certain mysteries of the faith were not as clear in the past as they may be today. Consider that the Church itself did not choose a side definitively during the controversies de auxiliis but allowed each school of thought to continue teaching what they taught. I mean, are you going to calumniate the Church itself of the past too?

 

[AugustineFanNYC]

What are we to make of John 6: 35-40?

35 Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. 36 But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe. 37 All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. 38 For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. 39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. 40 For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.”

 

[Richca]

What do you mean? What do you make of it?

 

[AugustineFanNYC]

What do you mean? What do you make of it?

That’s why I am asking. I don’t know what to make of it. It seems as though Jesus is saying that the church is given to Him before they actually come, and that everyone who comes is raised on the last day. Is this different from what Fr. Most’s says of being able to impede and resist God’s grace? Perhaps I am reading this passage wrong, correct me if I am, but according to it, all who are given by the Father and drawn, inevitably come to the Son and the Son will raise them all up unto eternal life, no?

 

[Richca]

I think it has to be understood in the light of the entire teaching of the Church and other scriptural passages. We need to consider God’s universal salvific will (1 Timothy 2:4) and that Christ died for all mankind without exception. Jesus also said ‘Many are called but few are chosen’. The many here are all mankind, all called to eternal life in heaven. The chosen are those who accept God and Jesus and cooperate with his grace. These chosen are the ones whom the Father gives to Jesus and whom he will raise up on the last day. This is my understanding of the passage from John.