Obviously, there are others here more qualified to answer that.

No one is more qualified to say what you mean when you say it.

Some are called to understand and discuss theology; others are not because our brains can get tangled up in it. See this instead:

https://mail.yahoo.com/d/folders/1/mess ... artneruser

How are you using the term "love"?

Willing the best for another.

I think your definition is too restrictive. I think "love" is "willing a good to another". Not necessarily "the best good". The best good is to be God, but surely you don't think it is a lack of love on God's part that none of us save Christ are divine.

I don't think the reprobate care that they are among the reprobate. "Better to reign in Hell than to serve in Heaven."

i always felt that there would be neither reining or serving in either place. the devil rules in Hell and God rules in Heaven so I don't see where any of us lowly humans are going to reign in either place and serving is work and there is no work in Heaven

because Work is 4 letter word

I could be wrong, i guess. I do enjoy some kinds of work but you know.. I thought Heaven was a place kind of like Hawaii, where you are on vacation.. never been to Hawaii but whatever

What makes you think that? Where in Scripture or i Tradition do you find this idea?

Exactly. And this is the problem with this discussion.

Seriously, that is the whole problem w/this discussion?

Yes, that you are unwilling to explain what you mean by the words you use makes this discussion impossible. To quote Jack3: "No one is more qualified to say what you mean when you say it."

Well, apparently from others here I don't know what I mean by it, so what does it matter? Look, I posted a link to an article by Tim Staples regarding this issue, I said I believed it and saw no need to go any further w/it. For that I was accused of lying about loving God and had no desire to really know Him, then when I wanted to simply bow out of this discussion all together you accused me of lying and slandering others. I can't win here, the deck is stacked...

No. "I am not an expert in theology" is one thing, "Theology is a waste of time" is another. The latter comes from lack of love, since it is not love that rejects knowledge of the beloved. Dorothy B is not an expert in theology, nor am I. Not everyone should become an expert theologian, as was said to you multiple times on this very thread. Similarly, the omment about slander was not because you wanted to bow out but because you misrepresented the arguments given to you (strawman).

Where did I say that theology was a waste of time? I made no willful misrepresentation, so if they were "strawmen", then I was simply wrong, it was not slander, nor lying.

I'm sorry, "waste of time" came from flyingaway.

But you did say that theology leads you to despair viewtopic.php?p=2803135#p2803135
and later put up asnarky, erroneous "I'm glad some of you here have God all figured out." viewtopic.php?p=2804022#p2804022

The points being made to you are very different from what you seem to understand them to mean.

Guilty of the snarky one, the other was true about this particular doctrine, not theology in general.

Slandering each other over theology is nothing new, I see it all over the internet. In fact, did not the Jesuits and the Franciscans do just that, so much so that the Pope had to step in and tell them to knock it off, over this very subject?

Explain, please - how is predestination opposed to hope, considering that God gives each man grace sufficient for salvation?

Dominicans, not Franciscans.