Posted on 01/17/2014 10:17:41 AM PST by dangus
HINT: Matthew 18:21-22.
No. You give them a free will to see if they will listen to your message. They decide if they choose good or evil. There is no question of the elect. The problem is 'double pre-destination' when your god creates beings to suffer forever in hell, with no chance whatsoever for salvation.
A mentor described it to me this way - many moons ago now:
The call to salvation is universal - a public invitation to the banquet - the wedding feast of the Lamb. Inside the entrance to the hall is found the sign: ‘Welcome, My Chosen Ones’
Say more. If they were created that way....
Yes, but I just thought this was too funny to let go by... and in no ways belittles anyone.
A couple thoughts:
- without claiming to understand the original text, 'is' in the above context sounds more like a state of mind - than an event. Iow, staying angry is definitely a sin.
- in ref. to judgment: everyone will judged. Whether or not one's heart is actually in the right place during a moment of anger, may be a matter for God to judge...
I don’t actually see the word “anger,” or any permutations, or any synonyms of any permutations in that passage. His behavior was both rational and effective.
Part of the problem is that English now uses one word (”emotion”) in the place of a different word (”feeling”). Anger is a feeling, meaning we actually feel it. Although the word “emotion” now has become synonymous with feeling, it used to include rational inspirations for action. So if your face gets red and you steam up the car window, you’re angry. But you should be able to decide to right a wrong without such anger.
Jesus came as a peace-maker; peace-makers are not angry.
Anti-hypocrisy note: Anger is one of my personal vices. But contrary to the foolish psychotherapists of the 1970s (dating back to Freud and even Luther), stoking anger and physicality is very counterproductive to overcoming a tendency to anger.
If this is true, they were created that way. Only an evil god would do this.
"If anyone says that it is not in the power of man to make his ways evil, but that God produces the evil as well as the good works, not only by permission, but also properly and of himself, so that the betrayal of Judas is no less his own proper work than the vocation of Paul, let him be anathema.... If anyone shall say that the grace of justification is attained by those only who are predestined unto life, but that all others, who are called, are called indeed, but do not receive grace, as if they are by divine power predestined to evil, let him be anathema." - The Council of Trent
“Subject to judgment” is a poor translation. The King James says, “in danger of the judgment.” “Subject to” used to mean “thrown down under.” Hence, a “subject” to a ruler was one who was thrown beneath that ruler. To be under judgment means you lost in the face of the judge.
Fair enough.
I have no choice then but to fall back on my first point, and claim to have a correct understanding of what the meaning of ‘is’ is...
8^)
Do 'All' have the ability (not desire, but ability) not to sin?
If I can hijack my own thread that was initially intended for humor: A more Catholic way of looking at predestination (which is Catholic) is this:
God created you incompletely sanctified that you may choose to become sanctified. He desires that all should be sanctified. But in giving Man free will, being that he is ominscient, he recognized that some men would choose not to be sanctified. Contrary to a cartoonish view of Calvinism, this does not mean that God desires that any man not be sanctified. When God calls someone, he knows that that person will follow, but that does not mean that the decision to follow is not consistent with that person’s created nature.
Now, a Calvinist will object to that definition, but not because the Catholic understanding behind it is untrue, but because Calvinists have a different understanding of free will, and would argue that no man has free will before he is saved.
Free will is the ability to act according to one’s own nature. Catholicism sees Man as having been created in God’s image, and having fallen. In his fallen nature, he has no free will. Therefore, Christ restores his free will by paying the debt of original sin. Calvinism asserts that Adam sinned because he was evil, which is true in the sense that Adam was ignorant and untrusting, but not in the sense that Adam was malevolent. Free will means, necessarily to the Calvinist, that Man will always return to sinfulness from which he came.
The true theological distinction I can detect between Calvinism and Catholicism is that Calvinism denies prevening grace; IOW, they don’t believe there is any grace until a man is converted, at which grace is complete. Catholics view attaining grace as a continual process. At some point along the journey, one will become Christian according to outward signs (”sacraments”), but that processed began from the first encounter with Christ’s church, and continues until they are rid of all sin (including concupiscence). Therefore Calvinists believe that “once saved, always saved,” since grace is irresistable, which Catholics believe that while someone may receive certain graces, but still may reject salvation.
It is for this reason that Catholics pay special attention to the Luke’s unique wording for Mary: “ketocharitoumene” meaning “(already having been) completely (full of ) grace”: At the point of sinlessness, one’s grace is complete. Protestant word studies frequently simplify this word to “charitou,” which fails to convey that this grace was present achieved before the conception of Christ (the “immaculate conception” refers to Mary’s own conception), and was complete.
Jesus was angry at the money changers in the temple. He is sinless.
'One body' sounds suspiciously like 'brothers and sisters'. "In your anger do not sin": in other words, you may be angry with the action/word/deed of your neighbour, NOT with the neighbour, else you are sinning.
Matthew 7:12 "So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets." That might be harder to do if you are angry at the person rather than just angry at their actions! Look to the parable of the 'Good Samaritan' in Luke 10:29–37ble. A little background that adds depth to the parable: Samaritans and Jews hated each other and a Jew would normally have walked around Samaria so as not to interact with them. A 'modern' context might be a Jew travelling from Kerem Shalom through Gaza, being mugged while on the way to Jaffa (very likely), and being aided by a Palestian who would put him up and care for him (not at all likely).
Is that you Bill Clinton?
Key to the anathema is “that God produces the evil as well as the good works.”
Whether you hold that doctrine, I’m sure St. Paul does not. If God produced evil, he would be unjust, since evil is unjust.
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