Understanding God

[Hitetlen]

During these months I learned quite a bit about how Catholics think about God, how they understand him.

This is what I learned. Catholics believe that…

1. God is omnimax, meaning omnipotent, omniscient and omni-benevolent.
2. God does not value mindless robots, even though they would always be obedient.
3. God values obedience, but only if the person gives it freely, without coersion. Some posters said that God values obedience over everything else.
4. God values love, life and happiness. Some posters insinuated that God values love over everything else. Let’s say that love and obedience are both important.
5. God values faith over knowledge.
6. Faith comes as a free gift from God, through his grace.
7. God is just, he does not punish people for something that is beyond their control.

I think this pretty much sums it up, at least in broad terms.

Now, there was another thing I learned, namely that God does not predestine anyone to hell, but he does predestine some people to heaven. So there are some people who are given a generous amount of grace, who gain the necessary faith to love and serve God sufficiently well, so they will be admitted to heaven. These people of course retain their free will.

For the following discussion I will call these people “type-A” persons, because it would be too cumbersome to write every time: “those people who - through God’s grace - gain sufficent faith to enable them to be loving and obedient enough to deserve heaven via exercising their free will; those who are predestined to heaven”. Every other person I will call “type-B”, to save bandwidth.

In order to become a “type-A” person one does have to do anything, the grace and their resulting faith is a free gift from God.

I was also told that God’s grace gives the “type-B” persons a lesser amount of faith, so they can work and expand it, and hopefully they will also merit admission to heaven, though that is not assured.

God nevertheless wants everyone to be good, faithful and obedient enough to deserve and go to heaven, and does not want anyone to be thrown into hell, but will never force anyone against his free will.

I hope that so far my understanding is correct.

Now here comes the question: “Why did God create ‘type-B’ people?”

If everyone would have been created “type-A”, that is predestined to heaven, then all of God’s valued goals would be fulfilled. There would be glory for him from freely exercised obedience, love toward everyone else, eternal life for everyone. There would be no pain, misery or suffering. People’s free will would not be trampled upon. Obviously God’s grace is inexhaustible, he could have given everyone enough grace to gain the necessary faith to be predestined to heaven.

In a sense he would be like a doctor, who has an infinite supply of medication which can cure all the diseases, if dispensed in sufficient dosage. The doctor, however, does not do that. To some of his patients he gives enough medication so they will be cured for good. The rest get only a small amount, and some of them will get cured, others will not. The ones who get enough medication did not have to do anything for it. They were just given. The others just have to take their chances.

Does anyone of you have any reasonable explanation?

 

[DeFide]

There’s another way of looking at it: God simply knows that the “Type A” persons would not veto his graces, and he freely chose to heap on those graces in a way that fits his plan.

You’re getting into the areas of speculation on the open issue of Predestination. I’d recommend that you, at least for a time, adopt the approach that lends the most insight.

 

[john_doran]

Hitetlen:

In a sense he would be like a doctor, who has an infinite supply of medication which can cure all the diseases, if dispensed in sufficient dosage. The doctor, however, does not do that. To some of his patients he gives enough medication so they will be cured for good. The rest get only a small amount, and some of them will get cured, others will not. The ones who get enough medication did not have to do anything for it. They were just given. The others just have to take their chances.

it’s not really like that - it’s more like a doctor who has the cure for a terminal, but incredibly slow-acting, difficult-to-detect disease, as well as the recipe to make more of the cure. that doctor gives everyone the recipe to make their own cure from ingredients that are abundant and easily available; as well, the doctor gives the actual cure to some people, but not others.

and the cure has side-effects like that it causes all those who take it to feel bad about doing things that they otherwise find intensely pleasurable; that it causes all those who take it to feel bad about not doing things they otherwise find displeasure in doing. and so on.

after giving the cure, the doctor leaves the country.

subsequently, some of the type-b people follow the instructions on the recipe, mix their own remedy, ingest it, and are cured. other type-b people don’t: they get lazy; forget that they are even infected; begin to doubt that they’re infected; dislike the idea of the side-effects of the cure enough not to want to take it. some of the type-b people actually start to doubt not only that there is a disease, but that there was a doctor who diagnosed the disease in the first place and provided a cure; some doubt that the cure was ever prescribed by the doctor. and so on…

god is obliged to give the recipe for the cure - directions to the destination he has prepared. anything more than that is a gift, a gift he is free to give as he sees fit.

 

[John_Henry]

Hitetlen:

During these months I learned quite a bit about how Catholics think about God, how they understand him.

This is what I learned. Catholics believe that…

1. God is omnimax, meaning omnipotent, omniscient and omni-benevolent.
2. God does not value mindless robots, even though they would always be obedient.
3. God values obedience, but only if the person gives it freely, without coersion. Some posters said that God values obedience over everything else.
4. God values love, life and happiness. Some posters insinuated that God values love over everything else. Let’s say that love and obedience are both important.
5. God values faith over knowledge.
6. Faith comes as a free gift from God, through his grace.
7. God is just, he does not punish people for something that is beyond their control.

I think this pretty much sums it up, at least in broad terms.

Now, there was another thing I learned, namely that God does not predestine anyone to hell, but he does predestine some people to heaven. So there are some people who are given a generous amount of grace, who gain the necessary faith to love and serve God sufficiently well, so they will be admitted to heaven. These people of course retain their free will.

For the following discussion I will call these people “type-A” persons, because it would be too cumbersome to write every time: “those people who - through God’s grace - gain sufficent faith to enable them to be loving and obedient enough to deserve heaven via exercising their free will; those who are predestined to heaven”. Every other person I will call “type-B”, to save bandwidth.

In order to become a “type-A” person one does have to do anything, the grace and their resulting faith is a free gift from God.

I was also told that God’s grace gives the “type-B” persons a lesser amount of faith, so they can work and expand it, and hopefully they will also merit admission to heaven, though that is not assured.

God nevertheless wants everyone to be good, faithful and obedient enough to deserve and go to heaven, and does not want anyone to be thrown into hell, but will never force anyone against his free will.

I hope that so far my understanding is correct.

Now here comes the question: “Why did God create ‘type-B’ people?”

If everyone would have been created “type-A”, that is predestined to heaven, then all of God’s valued goals would be fulfilled. There would be glory for him from freely exercised obedience, love toward everyone else, eternal life for everyone. There would be no pain, misery or suffering. People’s free will would not be trampled upon. Obviously God’s grace is inexhaustible, he could have given everyone enough grace to gain the necessary faith to be predestined to heaven.

In a sense he would be like a doctor, who has an infinite supply of medication which can cure all the diseases, if dispensed in sufficient dosage. The doctor, however, does not do that. To some of his patients he gives enough medication so they will be cured for good. The rest get only a small amount, and some of them will get cured, others will not. The ones who get enough medication did not have to do anything for it. They were just given. The others just have to take their chances.

Does anyone of you have any reasonable explanation?

Not to get into the specifics, but you have been misled if someone has told you there is one view of predestination in the CC. There is not. Multiple interpretations exist, with none having “official” approval. There are, however, some things one cannot say about predestination, one being that God predestines people to hell.

At the root, you need to remember that this is a deep deep mystery. You need to basically perform a juggling act. God desires all people to be saved. He gives all people sufficient grace to be saved. Some people are nevertheless not saved. Why not? If you say, it was people’s free will to reject God, you imply that it was people’s free will to accept God that got them to heaven, which to an extent denies the effectiveness of grace. If you say that the difference between type A and B was some difference in God’s grace, then you end up denying free will to a certain extent. Neither of these options are satisfactory, and people have been debating how to understand it for millenia. The debate will continue until the Church resolves it, if she ever does.

 

[Mike_O]

DeFide:

You’re getting into the areas of speculation on the open issue of Predestination.

I am curious about what you say here with regard to this being an “open” issue. The Catechism does not seem to delve into this too deeply. Other sources such as New Advent cite Calvinistic errors such as predestination of the negative reprobation variety (God “predestining people to hell”). It would seem that this phrase is best used to refer to the fact that God, existing outside of time, has perfect foreknowledge of all that will happen and so knows who will accept and reject His graces by their own free will.

Then, too, there is the fact that some people are inherently holier than others (e.g., the Blessed Mother) and therefore, God, in His inscrutable ways, bestows certain graces on some and not on others.

 

[John_Henry]

Mike O:

I am curious about what you say here with regard to this being an “open” issue.

Do a google on “predestination Thomist Molinist” and feast to your heart’s content.

 

[Della]

If everyone would have been created “type-A”, that is predestined to heaven, then all of God’s valued goals would be fulfilled. There would be glory for him from freely exercised obedience, love toward everyone else, eternal life for everyone. There would be no pain, misery or suffering. People’s free will would not be trampled upon. Obviously God’s grace is inexhaustible, he could have given everyone enough grace to gain the necessary faith to be predestined to heaven.

I’m not a deep philosopher or theologian so I beg your indulgence with an idea that has come to me from reading this portion of your questions and comments.

It seems to me that not all the “type-A’s” are predestined, but rather that they have a heightened sensibility about God and spiritual things as a natural gift. I can understand that. Some people have the natural gift to become great violinists while others can only scratch away at it. I could use more examples but I’m sure you get the point.

What if many of these “type-A’s” never heard the authentic Gospel or never heard it at all? What would they become? That’s what I was wondering and I hope I won’t be taking the thread off topic if I share what came to me:

I thought about Lucifer. Now, he wasn’t/isn’t a human being, but he was endowed with a greater intelligence and created a higher being than all the other angels, and yet, he chose against God. But why? Because he was a “type-A” or because he misused what he had been given and turned it into pride and ambition?

I figure there must be human beings like that too. People like Stalin, Mao-tse-tung, Nietzsche or others like them (not to cast judgment on their souls, but just as visible examples of natural gifts turned to negativity and/or destruction).

One great example of a “type-A,” who is venerated in the Church nearly as much as the Virgin Mary, is St. Therese of Lisieux. She only lived to the age of 24 and lived in a convent from the age of 15, but she is a Doctor of the Church whose spirituality and insight into the love of God have made popes wonder at her. She never considered herself as special. Indeed, she went out of her way to announce how ordinary she thought she was, and yet she was one of the greatest souls the Church ever produced.

Anyway, sorry for the length, but that’s my layman’s take on it, for what it’s worth.

 

[Hitetlen]

DeFide:

There’s another way of looking at it: God simply knows that the “Type A” persons would not veto his graces, and he freely chose to heap on those graces in a way that fits his plan.

No that is not a different way to put it. God created both types, and there is no reason why all of us should not have been created as “type-A”. The “why” of the “type-B”-s is what I am questioning.

 

[Hitetlen]

john doran:

it’s not really like that - it’s more like a doctor who has the cure for a terminal, but incredibly slow-acting, difficult-to-detect disease, as well as the recipe to make more of the cure. that doctor gives everyone the recipe to make their own cure from ingredients that are abundant and easily available; as well, the doctor gives the actual cure to some people, but not others.

So what is the difference? It does not answer why “type-B” people should exist at all. Why does the “doctor” not cure all the people, especially since the “doctor” is the one who created both types?

 

[puzzleannie]

Hitetlen:

During these months I learned quite a bit about how Catholics think about God, how they understand him.

first of all a Catholic or anyone else who claims to understand God has just committed heresy. We can know the attributes of God as He has revealed them to us, and His actions in human history, as He has revealed them, but we cannot know or understand God.

 

[Hitetlen]

John_Henry:

At the root, you need to remember that this is a deep deep mystery. You need to basically perform a juggling act. God desires all people to be saved. He gives all people sufficient grace to be saved. Some people are nevertheless not saved. Why not? If you say, it was people’s free will to reject God, you imply that it was people’s free will to accept God that got them to heaven, which to an extent denies the effectiveness of grace. If you say that the difference between type A and B was some difference in God’s grace, then you end up denying free will to a certain extent. Neither of these options are satisfactory, and people have been debating how to understand it for millenia. The debate will continue until the Church resolves it, if she ever does.

I am not denying or curtailing free will at all. We all have the capability to perform “bad” acts, however some people have no desire to do them - those are the “type-A” persons. The lack of deisre does not limit their freedom in the slightest.

 

[Hitetlen]

Mike O:

Then, too, there is the fact that some people are inherently holier than others (e.g., the Blessed Mother) and therefore, God, in His inscrutable ways, bestows certain graces on some and not on others.

They were created “holier”, it was none of their own making. They did not do anything before they existed to “deserve” it, just like the others did not do anything before they existed not to deserve it.

By the way your word of “inscrutable” brought back the memory of a nice little limerick I read a long time ago. It goes:

They say that God is immutable,
And their reasoning is truly irrefutable.
When He acts as He should,
They say He is good,
When He does not; His ways are inscrutable.

 

[Hitetlen]

Della:

I thought about Lucifer. Now, he wasn’t/isn’t a human being, but he was endowed with a greater intelligence and created a higher being than all the other angels, and yet, he chose against God. But why? Because he was a “type-A” or because he misused what he had been given and turned it into pride and ambition?

Obviously he was not a type-A, since a type-A would never turn down the gift he received, only type-B’s would do that.

 

[John_Henry]

Hitetlen:

I am not denying or curtailing free will at all. We all have the capability to perform “bad” acts, however some people have no desire to do them - those are the “type-A” persons. The lack of deisre does not limit their freedom in the slightest.

1. “You” was the editorial you, not you.
2. Actually type A persons do have the desire to do bad acts…concupiscence.
3. Granting your premise, why do some people desire bad acts and others not? God’s grace? Free will? My point was that either choice tends to misrepresent the picture. What do you say?

 

[doomhammer]

Hitetlen:

By the way your word of “inscrutable” brought back the memory of a nice little limerick I read a long time ago. It goes:
They say that God is immutable,
And their reasoning is truly irrefutable.
When He acts as He should,
They say He is good,
When He does not; His ways are inscrutable.

“The Holy, Catholic, Apostolic and Roman Church believes and acknowledges that there is one true and living God, creator and lord of heaven and earth, almighty, eternal, immeasurable, incomprehensible, infinite in will, understanding and every perfection.” Council Vatican 1869-1870
By the way, this one is much better than your suggested disrespectful parody
geocities.com/Athens/Styx/2347/kiss.html

 

[DeFide]

Hitetlen:

No that is not a different way to put it. God created both types, and there is no reason why all of us should not have been created as “type-A”. The “why” of the “type-B”-s is what I am questioning.

Perhaps I should be clearer. Even the type-A’s are type-B’s in that they both have free will. God merely knows which ones will reject his gifts.

Knowing is not dictating anymore than remembering is dictating.

 

[Aaron_I]

I’d imagine that type-Bs exist because God loves them. Even the mother of a terrible person loves them still, how much more true would this be for God.

As far as your original points, I’d point out to you that “perfect love of God means the complete union
of our will with God’s: ‘The principal effect of love is so to unite the wills of those who love each other as to make them will the same things.’” That should make your list a bit more concise and indeed more accurate.

 

[Ahimsa]

Hitetlen:

Every other person I will call “type-B”, to save bandwidth…

Does anyone of you have any reasonable explanation?

One thing to keep in mind is that (1) even type-Bs are not predestined to hell; and (2) it is possible that everyone in type-B will be saved.

 

[Mike_O]

Hitetlen:

They say that God is immutable,
And their reasoning is truly irrefutable.
When He acts as He should,
They say He is good,
When He does not; His ways are inscrutable.

This is an inane limerick.

God is always good, whether or not human beings enjoy the results of His will. The concept of God “acting as He should” is no more than a cover for people’s “problem” with the “problem” of evil. This is one of the big myths/misconceptions long ago answered by C.S. Lewis and others, namely, that God’s goodness does not derive from people’s conception of how He should act. Maybe in the future you can expound upon questions of theodicy without flinging out ridiculous limericks.

 

[joshua_b]

Just a little insight (or lack thereof…I never claim wisdom). I, being highly intellectual (in my own mind at least) and logical, struggled long and hard with “why” God would do various things, then one day it hit me (maybe it was Divine Revelation, but I dcan’t say that for sure). Whenever we question “why” God would do certain things, we seem to forget that God has infinitely Perfect Wisdom, beyond our finite human intellectual understanding, and we probably can’t grasp with our human intellects (which fall short of the Beatific vision) God’s reasoning.

For example, the house next door to me is vacant, and my daughter (who is 7) and her friends want nothing more than to play basketball in the driveway. I have forbid it. Not because I’m mean or whimsical (unless you ask her), but because I don’t know whether or not they still have homeowners insurance, whether or not one of her friends parents would try to sue them if a child got hurt on their property, etc. and rather than present the posibility of my former neighbors having to deal with an possible insurance nightmare that could affect them in any multitude of ways, I simply deny permission to play in the neighbors driveway (or backyard or anywhere else NOT on our side of the fence). In much the same way a 7 year old would not understand the general concept, much less the legal intricacies and possible repercussions of homeowners insurance, so too I think we are not capable of understanding the ways of God. Now that may not have been much on Scripture, and I’m a sorry excuse for a theologian, but I somehow thought that my own personal diatribe may have provided something useful to you.