jac3510 wrote:
beng wrote:
That's jerome_2's understanding.
Well there seems to be some general disagreement between you, Jerome, and Obi on this whole issue. How am I supposed to understand proper Catholic doctrine if you Catholics can't even figure it out? But that goes to my general argument against the necessity of interpretation at some level regardless and therefore the final uselessness of a magesterium . . . that's an old argument I've made more than once here. I'll just defer to you all's conversation. If you can come to some consensus, I'll be sure to note it. Otherwise, when this issue comes up, I'll have to tell people that I've met practicing Catholics of several different opinions, all of whom think their position is that of the Church's. *shrug*
Why don't you see which is more inline with
CE: Final Perseverance and Trent canon?
Did Trent say that we could merit the grace of Final Perseverance? No. Trent Canon merely secures the freedom of the will with relation to the gift of final perseverance. It's answer Luther and Calvin error that freedom of the will is destroy (Luther) and that there's a grace that overrides Free Will to secure someone's election (Calvin).
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The grace of final perseverance is secured (you can't lost it), but the grace of justification is not.
Of course it's secure. But on that ground, the grace of initial justification is secure as well. Everyone predestined to initial justification will be initially justified; and everyone predestined to initial justification and not predestined to final justification will not be finally justified. So both positions are equally secure. And likewise, everyone not predestined to initial justification (and by extension final justification) will wind up in Hell. That's a secured position as well.
You can't say it like that.
As far as I know there's no teaching that says that the grace of initial justification is secure. The doctrine merely said that it's un-merited (from this one might infer that it is secure, nevertheless I've never heard or it such inference. So it's best to leave it as it is [ie. that the grace of initial justification is unmerited).
The same goes with the one who are justified but won't attained heaven. There's no teaching that says that they are securely going to hell.
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As I said, I'm not mounting an argument here. I'm just incredibly incredulous! I always thought Calvinism's double-predestination was terribly wrong, and while a logically necessary conclusion of the system's other positions, I see that as just a reductio against the system itself. Here, we seem to have a triple-predestination: those predestined to be saved; those predestined to lose their salvation; and those predestined to never be saved at all.
Really?
Calvin ventured to the place he should not venture.
The doctrine that the elect are unconditionally predestined MIGHT makes us infer that the damned are unconditionally predestined to damnation. It just makes sense, isn't it. What middle ground is there?
But on the other hand: 1) the fathers never taught it and strongly rejected it, 2) it's not scriptural (although the doctrine of unconditional predestination of the elect is, but the unconditional predestination of the damned isn't), 3) it just doesn't make sense that the Christian God unconditionally predestined damnation.
This reminds me of a certain scene in one of Brad Pitt's movie (I forget which). But I will modify it a bit: In the movie Brad Pitt is driving a car near an intersection. There's a sign saying "caution, no speeding, drives extra carefully" (this is not in the movie). He looks right, there's no car in sight. He quickly looks left, there's no car in sight. When he's about to step on it and speed away a big truck from the right passes by, honking and almost hit him.
Calvin is much like Brad Pitt. He's so sure that because scripture and the fathers teach unconditional predestination to glory then it logically follows that there's an unconditional predestination to damnation. He didn't care about the signs (the 1-3 I pointed out above). So, unlike Brad Pitt, Calvin will get rammed over by the truck.
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Yes. You were looking for verses where heaven is given as a reward. That is one of the verse.
But that verse never calls heaven a reward.
Come now. You are arguing like a muslim who says that Jesus is not God because if He were, and if it's an important point, He would've said clearly and plainly in scripture: "I am God, worship Me."
It is beyond obvious that the verse is talking about heaven as a reward.
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What does it mean by "God has so arranged the nature of things to be so?"
It means that God could have arranged the world such that other things would have caused us to deserve Hell (or, for that matter, nothing could have made us deserving of Hell). God wasn't bound to having to make this decree rather than that.
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Be at is may, in our current state (fallen) we deserve hell.
Absolutely. But, again, that's just by God's decree. He could have decreed otherwise. I'm just saying that I don't see a difference in God saying, "If you do a, b, and c, then I promise you heaven; but if you do x, y, and z then I will condemn you to Hell." 'Condemn' in the second sentence could be replaced just as easily with 'promise' and the meaning would stay the same.
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I'm gonna skip this because it still confuses me, and I think it's irrelevant.
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Now, I'm 99% certain that it's a doctrine of the faith that if Adam did not sin, we would still end up in hell after we die (in natural state man would die, immortality is a gift). That is, the part of hell with natural happiness (no punishment of the senses, but only punishment of damnation [ie. away from the Creator]). Unbaptized children who die before committing actual sins go there.
Wait, what? I'm obviously very ignorant of Catholic doctrine, but you really believed that unbaptized children go to
Hell?!? Really? Can you give me some documentation for that?
I will give you citation later, but it is true that unbaptized children went to hell. Otherwise you would end up denying the necessity of baptismal regeneration and original sin (said St. Augustine). But a few things first:
1. They would be going to the "edge of hell" or "limbo" where there is natural happiness and no punishment of the senses. The only punishment would be damnation, that is the state of being far from God (Actually this is a natural state. But since man are destine to heaven, being in this place has the nature of punishment).
2. God could intervene in mysterious ways. For instance, let's say there's a mother who suffer a miscarriage. Let's also said that the baby is an elect. How would then God secures the baby's election? He could do so by infusing the baby with reason to enable him receive baptism by desire. This way, the baby is miraculously baptized (by desire) and save without the parents knowing it.
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Heaven is never the place for naturally perfect person (ie. human) or the place for preternaturally perfect person (ie. angels). Heaven is supernatural, beyond any created nature. No created nature deserves this. But hell they do [deserves it].
I'm not even sure that means very much. Could you clarify? What do you mean by "perfect" here? I understand "perfect" relative to a thing's form. So why can't a human be perfect? All that would mean is that they fully actualize their human nature. If you mean "perfect" in an absolute sense--that is, having all perfections and thus lacking nothing--then only God is perfect in that sense. But how does it follow that we deserve Hell because we can't be God
qua God? That just makes no sense . . .
I meant a perfect live (no sin) in the natural state.
For the record human never live the natural state. When Adam was born he was immediately endowed with gifts beyond his natural state. When he sinned, he become less than his natural state. When human is justified we are still in a state different than our natural state.
In the natural state, human does not have sanctifying grace, does not have immortality, does not have dominion over animals, is not corrupted by sin etc.