why would any rational person believe this???!!!

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Double predestination is probably the most cruel doctrine of all. It just doesn’t seem like it could pass the “God is Love” test either.

Predestination=👍

Double predestination= :eek:

Me tired now.
please define predestination
 
If you are predestined to heaven what can you do to serve God?
You can’t help any other souls to heaven because they are predestined one way or another.
You can’t sin because you are predestined to go to heaven - well unless God has favorites :rolleyes:.
The only thing you could really affect is time spent in purgatory and I’m willing to bet those who believe in predestination don’t believe in purgatory - but hey 🤷 I could be wrong.

And if you are predestined for hell - what would more sinning hurt?
thank you … you’ve just shown, quite well… the lunacy of predestination.

why would Jesus havae died such a horrible death… To save us from what?? If everything is pre-ordained… why would God allow such a terrible thing as His Crucifixion???

I should have my bible… I could tear this belief to shreds with nothing but the Bible…

But then there is the 2000 year old institution known as the True Church… (also)
 
I took this off a Presbyterian website about their belief of predestination:
Calvinism:
A. God’s sovereign decision to save is sufficient; all those whom God wills to save are saved.

C. Some are damned (because God chose them to be damned).

D. Those who are saved must respond in faith (because God’s grace creates this faith in them).

John Calvin is the creator of Presbyterians…
pcusa.org/today/archive/believe/wpb9703.htm
John Calvin, also known as Human being… (fallible).

thank God for the infallible Church… 🙂
 
No one is being forced to believe anything, so don’t worry about it.
Secondly, it’s not charitable to claim another believing person’s beliefs are not rational.
I could see you saying mine are not rational, but really! Your own beleving sisters and brothers? Even if you disagree, you have to realize they don’t think it is the least bit irrational. Give them the benefit of the doubt they sincerely believe as they do.
It would be better to say, I don’t agree in this doctrine because XYZ.
But, just dismissing it as not rational, that is not helping anyone see your objection at all.
I personally think your use of emotional appeal, and later statements don’t do much to prove it is irrational at all. It’s no more irrational than Lot and his daughters story. I mean, I think it fits perfectly within rational if you compare those two events.
Anything goes with God after all. 🤷
I really wish that horrible story about Lot was not in the bible. It makes me sick.😦
why because you are gay? 😃

i wish the story of the babies being killed because Herod was trying to get Jesus wasn’t there…

but… there are a lot of things in this world that aren’t the way they should be…

which probably proves better than anything that there is another world beyond this…
 
Its the same thing he said many other places in many other ways; and the same thing the Scriptures say. But the key point Augustine made there was this:

“neither can he that is pardoned glory in any merit of his own, nor he that is condemned complain of anything but his own demerit”

Just because we don’t know what the future holds, doesn’t mean God doesn’t know who will respond to His grace and who won’t. And notice Augustine explicitly states:

“He used the very will of the creature which was working in opposition to the Creator’s will as an instrument for carrying out His will, the supremely Good thus turning to good account even what is evil”

I agree completely. There’s nothing wrong with saying that God predestined some to Hell; its the same thing as saying He predestined some for Heaven. But again, that is from God’s perspective, knowing the end from the beginning - which I see that you agree with! 👍
this proves nothing…

if anyhing, it confirms my previous statements on the subject…

except for one thing: no confirmation ws needed…
 
With your clarification, I would agree with you. I think the comfusion is where you underlined and bolded the passage. It definitely illudes to our free will to turn to Christ or not.
yes and its not the only scirpture psg that does… wish i had my Bible…

and the Catechism… 😦
 
.

What the Roman Catholic Church teaches:

(I found this @ catholicsource.net/Predestination.html emphasis added)

Any theological position on election, however, must conform with the Church’s soteriological teachings. Molinism, Thomism, and Arminianism all conform, Calvinism does not. To conform, your theology must accept the following:
  1. Free will; that is, God allows people to choose him, and allows them to reject Him.
People always have the option. Thus election, if you believe it, must be an act of persuasion and not compulsion.
  1. Co-operation; it is necessary for salvation for a man to cooperate with God’s grace. Man must continuously allow God’s grace to work in him. ***If at any point a man prevents this, he falls from grace.***3) Jesus died for all men, and his sacrifice has the potential of saving all, but his act did not automatically save anyone, only those who choose to accept him.
  2. Man is born in a state of sin, and must be called by God in order to accept Him and thus receive the merits of Christ’s sacrifice.
  3. God predestines no one to Hell. i.e. you can only believe in negative reprobation, not positive.
 

As does the Cross. Why should common sense be the index of what is true ? Christian faith is full of paradoxes, but it makes sense. “Common sense” would dictate that Jesus should avoid the Cross, as Peter wanted him to - but all Peter got for his commonsensical advice was, to be called Satan. That is what Jesus thought of Peter’s commonsensical, & so reasonable, advice. Common sense would do away with the “folly of the Cross”, with the mercy of God to sinners who hate Him, & with a thousand other things that a realirties in how He acts. Common sense does not suggest that conversion is a good idea at all - look what a great price a man of Newman’s stature had to pay for his. Common sense was against what he did, & against what many others too have done. Be guided by common sense - & have an abortion. The prohibition of it, is not based on following common sense.​

I thought Christians lived by faith - not by common sense :mad:
see Post #48
 
This sounds as contrived as some Catholic apologists trying to defend some Marian doctrines.

I’d rather have a canned answer.
for what the Catholic Church teaches see #48

also… Are you against Marian doctrines???
 
Well, I’m not an expert on Calvinism, but all the Calvinists that I come across and or debate do deny free will (example). And you’re right, they love to speak of it in exalted terms like the “sovereignty of God”! But do you know why that is? Its because heretics love to cover their poison with honey - the “sovereignty of God” tastes sweet in your mouth, but the denial of free will becomes bitter in your stomach (cf. Rev. 10:10).

😛
that could probably said of all heresy…

or in other words People believe what they want to believe…

When God tells someone to kill a whole town (Old T), even women and children… for the sin of idolatry (He wanted to wipe it out completely, obvoiusly)… some say: I can’t believe in a God like that & they fall away from any faith at all… or fail to pursue a different approach…

Even the Jews who survived Aushwitz… said that kind of thing… after ALL that they had been through!! Yes, i can TOTALLY u/stand that feeling: the feeling of… God, if you exist, How could you let this happen? I definitely u/stand that… but to just stop there… even after 40 years had gone by since the Nazis imprisoned them… boggles my mind…(read the book: The Last Seven Days of Anne Frank - i think that’s what it was called). Its like they (certain kinds of people who witness terrible evil…) just don’t even try to apprehend God… seeming to forget that maybe, just maybe, God DID intervene in WWII, through the Allies… (Russians in the case of Aushwitz) who freed them. but anyway, i am getting on a bit of a rabbit trail here…

the point i was originally trying to make is that belieiving in predestination - that some are destined by God for Hell and some for Heaven… seems to be believed by those who are (whether intentionally or not) saying that they have no control over their lives…

needless to say, this is not a good belief to have, even if it didn’t lead to Hell in the next life…

seems like a good way to let demons in…
 
the point i was originally trying to make is that belieiving in predestination - that some are destined by God for Hell and some for Heaven… seems to be believed by those who are (whether intentionally or not) saying that they have no control over their lives…

needless to say, this is not a good belief to have, even if it didn’t lead to Hell in the next life…

seems like a good way to let demons in…
I suppose a good example of predestination is Judas Iscariot. In Christian theology the crucifixion wasn’t a mishap, or something entirely unintended by God, so presumably God must have willed the means by which it was to come about - namely Judas’s treachery. But does the Bible in any way represent him as not being responsible for his deeds? As paradoxical as it may seem to us, the answer is that no it doesn’t. In the Bible God’s absolute predestination, and human free will, exist side by side.
 
so you say…

maybe you misrepresent the Catholics’ interpretation of the Calvinist position…
The Catholic representation of Calvinist theology is that God positively intervenes to bring about the damnation of those not predestined to life, is it not?

If it is (and I am sure it is) that is a misrepresentation. The Calvinist and Thomist position in that respect are identical. Those predestined to eternal life receive the necessary grace from God, whilst those not so predestined are left to go there own way. Since, however, they cannot engineer their own salvation, their eventual fate is a foregone conclusion.

Calvinists call the double predestination; Catholics call it predestination and reprobation. The different vocabulary, however, is the only difference.
 
I suppose a good example of predestination is Judas Iscariot. In Christian theology the crucifixion wasn’t a mishap, or something entirely unintended by God, so presumably God must have willed the means by which it was to come about - namely Judas’s treachery. But does the Bible in any way represent him as not being responsible for his deeds? As paradoxical as it may seem to us, the answer is that no it doesn’t. In the Bible God’s absolute predestination, and human free will, exist side by side.
interesting point.

this is what i’ve been thinking lately about this:

i think taht Judas probably came from a long line of people who were not “religious”… it’s harder to be good when your whole fmily is not good… but then, these are half-baked thoughts… I just htink he, like everyone, had tempations in his life “too hard” to resist

and/or something… just thinking… :eek:

In any case, God does know when a person is very unlikely to ever repent… So he may have (hate to say it this waybut ) USED Judas… to accomplish what he wanted. Even still, Judas could have repented… and from what i can tell, he 1/2 way did repent… He took the $$ back … He just didn’t go the rest of the way and forgive himself… allow Jesus to forgive him… or so it seems… We don’t know what happened with his soul… He could have begged Chrsit for forgiveness just as he was ready to expire … I hope so… Yet the Bible says that it would have been better that he was never born… That doesn’t prove he’s in Hell… maybe he just got long years in Purgatoyr… Some saint (I think it was a saint… memory fails me, but someone reliable) is supposed to have said that there is someone now in Purg who will be there till the end … (of the world??) … From what i’ve heard of Purg, i woudn’t want to be there long… :eek: which is why i offer up sufferings NOW in expiation of my sins…
 
Can anyone tell me what would be God’s purpose in predistining some to hell? Does that even make sense?

So Judas had no free will? He was placed on the earth to give Christ up? In other words, Judas has no culpability in his sin against Christ?

Lastly, God created hell to send all the people he predestined to go there?

How in the world could anyone live under such a system of belief?

:confused:
 
The Catholic representation of Calvinist theology is that God positively intervenes to bring about the damnation of those not predestined to life, is it not?
i don’t know exactly… but i think the RCC says that Calvin taught some are predestined to Heaven and some to Hell… which is a better way to put it that you have put it because i’m not sure i u/stand your way…

in any case… I have found Truth and don’t feel inclined to investiage false religions thoroughly…

i have more important things to do…
 
Can anyone tell me what would be God’s purpose in predistining some to hell? Does that even make sense?

So Judas had no free will? He was placed on the earth to give Christ up? In other words, Judas has no culpability in his sin against Christ?

Lastly, God created hell to send all the people he predestined to go there?

How in the world could anyone live under such a system of belief?

:confused:
exactly…

:rolleyes:
 
Can anyone tell me what would be God’s purpose in predistining some to hell? Does that even make sense?
Read Aquinas. Or Paul for that matter.
So Judas had no free will?
He did have free will. That is one of the paradoxes with which Christian theology is full.
He was placed on the earth to give Christ up? In other words, Judas has no culpability in his sin against Christ?
He was culpable because his intention was not to serve God, even though that was the effect.
Lastly, God created hell to send all the people he predestined to go there?
God does not positively predestine to hell; he merely refrains from granting the grace necessary for salvation to anybody other than the elect.
How in the world could anyone live under such a system of belief?
You are not invited to like what the Bible has to say, but you are invited to believe what it has to say, because of its status as the inspired word of God.
 
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