Who's Who in CAF? I'm just Curious

[Syele]

It would be good if the OP would give a concise, yet clear explanation of what Molinism vis-a-vis Thomism is, so we can all give better responses to the poll.

Well I wish I could. I’m not Catholic so I’m not Thomist or Molinist. I have read some about both and did a Google search for someone else who’d given a clear concise definition of them, like I found easiy for Armenian or Calvinist unfortunately all I found were very lng detailed explainations. I put them because I had heard they were the most common Catholic ones and that both were legit. This is why I put that I hoped a Catholic would post up a clearer definition.

 

[Syele]

Maybe this link will be helpful:
help.com/wiki/Thomism/Thomistic_philosophy

This is an anti-Molinist article, it seems to try and debunk Molinism and in the process has to explain it a little leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/docs/adams.html

Actually, I’m surprised by the response to this… I figured someone would have been teaching me about them by now.

 

[Syele]

Theological Fatalism:

By David Misialowski

]The idea, roughly, is that while God knows what I will do at some particular time in some particular scenario, he also has counterfactual knowledge of what I would have done had I been placed in a different set of circumstances. Apparently this is intended to preserve free will on the ground that depending on the particular scenario, I can freely choose my response. God just knows, given any particular scenario, what I would, or wouldn’t, do.
There is an extensive literature on Molinism, which was forumulated by the Spanish Jesuit Luis Molina. What Molinism boils down to, though, is this: The Molinist wishes to say that the formulation, If God knows I will do p, then I will do p, is wrong; rather it is correct to say: If I do p, then God knows I will do p; where I do p freely.

 

[Zirconia]

Protestant Arminian.

BTW, I’m finding this whole Thomist/Molinist debate quite interesting…I had no idea that Catholicism had anything similar to the Calvinist/Arminian deal.

Does either the Thomist or the Molinist camp have a (relatively) concise statement of beliefs held? For example, the Calvinist camps refer back to the Synod of Dordt, anything similar for either Catholic group?

Zirconia

 

[Pug]

An article that could help with understanding TULIP from a Catholic perspective (Thomist like) is here.

For me, I tend to think of predestination as done without God having sat there and thought through how I would freely react to a variety of situations and then making me predestined based on that rumination. So I am more Thomist than Molinist. The difference is also tied up in how you think God does grace. Does he give us grace that is somehow efficatious, and if so, how. Is it merely efficatious because he foresaw that this particular grace would be responded to well, and so he gave it to you, and thus it is efficatious because it works, but because he foresaw that you would respond in a positive manner? I don’t look at it that way, so I am more Thomist.

Perhaps you could say it is about how grace and free will interact, or how it is that God predestines and reprobates.

 

[Zooey]

Some people think I live in my own little world…

I am a United Methodist, was raised Free Methodist, have meandered 'round all kinds of other “ists”, and landed back with the Wesleys again.
I call myself a “High Church Methodist”, & I think it would take one of our British posters to understand what an unlikely thing that is to call oneself.
I agree with a lot of the Arminian position. I agree with :nope: absolutely nothing of the Calvinist position (loudly).
When I disagree with the Arminian position, it is because I am agreeing with the Catholic one…Except now, you have me:whacky: totally confused as to whether I am agreeing with the Thomists or the Molinists…Which one of those is least like the Calvinists?? Whichever one that is, I agree with it. (Some of the time. I think…).

I’m a member of the Religious Society of Friends. I seek to follow the Light Within and develop a strong spiritual life where the Fruits of the Spirit are evident.

I thought so!! Welcome aboard our little place on the net!!

 

[Syele]

Some people think I live in my own little world…

I am a United Methodist, was raised Free Methodist, have meandered 'round all kinds of other “ists”, and landed back with the Wesleys again.
I call myself a “High Church Methodist”, & I think it would take one of our British posters to understand what an unlikely thing that is to call oneself.
I agree with a lot of the Arminian position. I agree with :nope: absolutely nothing of the Calvinist position (loudly).
When I disagree with the Arminian position, it is because I am agreeing with the Catholic one…Except now, you have me:whacky: totally confused as to whether I am agreeing with the Thomists or the Molinists…Which one of those is least like the Calvinists?? Whichever one that is, I agree with it. (Some of the time. I think…).

Zooey, your post confuses me. :whacky:

What Arminian point do you disagree with? The Calvinists made TULIP to point out how worng Arminius was… I’m trying to figure out how you can disagree with ALL of TULIP and some of Arminian?

Molinist is least like Calvinism.

 

[Zooey]

My comments are the red type:

Arminianism holds to the following tenets:

• Humans are naturally unable to make any effort towards salvation This would mean that we are, in fact, totally depraved; we are not. We are deeply wounded, fallen far from what He intended…BUT–we are not ravening wolves!!..Like the prodigal, we are trudging toward Him, in the best way we know how…
• Salvation is possible by grace alone true
• Works of human effort cannot cause true or contribute to salvation But then why are we trying to please God? Have we nothing left of the Divine image in which He made us???
• God’s election is conditional on faith in Jesus true…as far as it goes…But what about those who :crying: have never even heard of Jesus?
• Jesus’ atonement was potentially for all people true
• God allows his grace to be resisted by those unwilling to believe true
• Salvation can be lost, as continued salvation is conditional upon continued faith true

 

[Zooey]

Molinist is least like Calvinism.

Then, Zooey=Molinist. ( More or less. I refuse to be put into a box.)

Zooey, your post confuses me. :whacky:

Confusion is:blush: what I do best!!

 

[Spirithound]

I am Catholic - Other, basically because i haven’t studied whether i’m Thomist or Molinist yet

 

[StMarkEofE]

Eastern Orthodox Catholic

 

[mommyof4]

Shoot. I voted “other” instead of “other Catholic.” I wanted to vote “other Catholic” because I don’t understand the Tomast and Molinist (or whatever) views. I’m just your good old average Catholic mommyof4.

 

[lak611]

I am a Christian.
However, to clarify, I could also accurately be called a Mid-Acts dispensationalist right dividing OSAS King James Only Pauline nondenominational Christian.

What is a Mid-Acts dispensationalist? Is it the same as belief in a Mid-Tribulation Rapture?

I am adamently opposed to the false doctrines of Calvinism and Arminianism.

Which do you consider to be false doctrines? Would you be willing to tell us which of the 5 points of Calvinism and which of the 5 points of Arminianism you consider to be false?

 

[lak611]

The chief area of disagreement with Wesleyan/Arminianism thought is the role of works in salvation. Conditional salvation is a buzz word for Christians too *conditioned * to admit they are works based Christians. Since you asked.

What do you mean by conditional salvation? I have never heard that term.

 

[cpayne]

I am a Protestant Thomist, which I guess would make me “Protestant, Other.” However, I’m SO Thomistic I lean toward voting that way (Catholic, Thomist). This is honestly thought-provoking: Even though Protestant, would I identify myself as Catholic because I think of myself as more of a Thomist than a Protestant?

Sorry–guess I was thinking out loud there.

 

[lak611]

My comments are the red type:
Humans are naturally unable to make any effort towards salvation This would mean that we are, in fact, totally depraved; we are not. We are deeply wounded, fallen far from what He intended…BUT–we are not ravening wolves!!..Like the prodigal, we are trudging toward Him, in the best way we know how…

Actually “Humans are naturally unable to make any effort towards salvation” is not contradictory to Catholic belief. It does not equal total depravity. From the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “Faith is a grace
153 When St. Peter confessed that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, Jesus declared to him that this revelation did not come ‘from flesh and blood’, but from ‘my Father who is in heaven’.[24] Faith is a gift of God, a supernatural virtue infused by him. ‘Before this faith can be exercised, man must have the grace of God to move and assist him; he must have the interior helps of the Holy Spirit, who moves the heart and converts it to God, who opens the eyes of the mind and makes it easy for all to accept and believe the truth.’[25]”

Also from the Catechism: “406 The Church’s teaching on the transmission of original sin was articulated more precisely in the fifth century, especially under the impulse of St. Augustine’s reflections against Pelagianism, and in the sixteenth century, in opposition to the Protestant Reformation. Pelagius held that man could, by the natural power of free will and without the necessary help of God’s grace, lead a morally good life; he thus reduced the influence of Adam’s fault to bad example. The first Protestant reformers, on the contrary, taught that original sin has radically perverted man and destroyed his freedom; they identified the sin inherited by each man with the tendency to evil (concupiscentia), which would be insurmountable. The Church pronounced on the meaning of the data of Revelation on original sin especially at the second Council of Orange (529)[296] and at the Council of Trent (1546).[297]”

 

[Syele]

				[forums.catholic-questions.org/images/buttons_cad/viewpost.gif](http://forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?p=2024598#post2024598)]

Humans are naturally unable to make any effort towards salvation

They mean without the grace of God, humans are unable to make any effort towards salvation. This was put in explaination most likely to distinguish Arminians from pelagianism. Maybe the following will help more (the red & bold I added):

***This is Arminian

1. Free Will or Human Ability*** Although human nature was seriously affected by the fall, man has not been left in a state of total spiritual helplessness. God graciously enables every sinner to repent and believe, but He does not interfere with man’s freedom. Each sinner possesses a free will, and his eternal destiny depends on how he uses it. Man’s freedom consists of his ability to choose good over evil in spiritual matters; his will is not enslaved to his sinful nature. The sinner has the power to either cooperate with God’s Spirit and be regenerated or resist God’s grace and perish. The lost sinner needs the Spirit’s assistance (because he is not naturally able to do it alone), but he does not have to be regenerated by the Spirit before he can believe, for faith is man’s act and precedes the new birth. Faith is the sinner’s gift to God; it is man’s contribution to salvation.

Calvinist*

---

******1. Total Inability or Total Depravity
Because of the fall, man is unable of himself to savingly believe the gospel. The sinner is dead, blind, and deaf to the things of God; his heart is deceitful and desperately corrupt. His will is not free, it is in bondage to his evil nature, therefore, he will not–indeed he cannot–choose good over evil in the spiritual realm. Consequently, it takes much more than the Spirit’s assistance to bring a sinner to Christ–it takes regeneration by which the Spirit makes the sinner alive and gives him a new nature. Faith is not something man contributes to salvation but is itself a part of God’s gift of salvation–it is God’s gift to the sinner, not the sinner’s gift to God.

 

[Syele]

What is a Mid-Acts dispensationalist? Is it the same as belief in a Mid-Tribulation Rapture?

It’s about dividing Scripture ‘rightly.’ they believe that only certain portions of scripture apply to us today beginning in Mid acts, not Matthew. not the same a mid-trib rapture.

 

[Syele]

                          Arminianism holds to the following tenets:

• Works of human effort cannot cause true or contribute to salvation But then why are we trying to please God? Have we nothing left of the Divine image in which He made us???

The Arminian chose God. We aren’t pleasing God because we have to, but because we want to… This is the point. Would you be interested in receiving “Love” from someone who didn’t want to love you? Is it still love if you love out of force? God offers the gift of salvation to those who love Him. You do not do evil to someone you love… no you do right by them, you try to make them happy. The whole point is that we are not trying to please a big scary God so He won’t throw us in a scary painful hell. We are trying to please Him because we love Him, are grateful to Him and we want to be with Him for eternity.
"lak611:

What do you mean by conditional salvation? I have never heard that term.

• God’s election is conditional on faith in Jesus true…as far as it goes…But what about those who :crying: have never even heard of Jesus?

I think the long version will help in this question too:
Armenian
2. Conditional Election God’s choice of certain individuals unto salvation before the foundation of the world was based upon** His foreseeing that they would respond to His call. **He selected only those whom He knew would of themselves freely believe the gospel. Election therefore was determined by or conditioned upon what man would do. The faith which God foresaw and upon which He based His choice was not given to the sinner by God (it was not created by the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit) but resulted solely from man’s will. It was left entirely up to man as to who would believe and therefore as to who would be elected unto salvation. God chose those whom He knew would, of their own free will, choose Christ. Thus the sinner’s choice of Christ, not God’s choice of the sinner, is the ultimate cause of salvation.
Calvinist
2. Unconditional Election God’s choice of certain individuals unto salvation before the foundation of the world rested solely in His own sovereign will. His choice of particular sinners was not based on any foreseen response or obedience on their part, such as faith, repentance, etc. On the contrary, God gives faith and repentance to each individual whom He selected. These acts are the result, not the cause of God’s choice. Election therefore was not determined by or conditioned upon any virtuous quality or act foreseen in man. Those whom God sovereignly elected He brings through the power of the Spirit to a willing acceptance of Christ. Thus God’s choice of the sinner, not the sinner’s choice of Christ, is the ultimate cause of salvation.​

So in other word the Arminian says God chose them for election because He knew they would choose him given the option. This can easily apply even if they were never actually given the option… God knows everything.
The Calvinist, however,says God chose completely arbitrarily so what the person would have or would not have done is moot.

 

[Kitty_Chan]

Voted Other, bits of all of it are ok so I will just go with my sig line