Yes. More than you realize. It's actually the first thing I pray at the start of most of my prayer life, which is an idea I first picked up from C.S. Lewis in his book The Screwtape Letters. The quote I have in mind is this:

The humans do not start from that direct perception of Him which we, unhappily, cannot avoid. They have never known that ghastly luminosity, that stabbing and searing glare which makes the background of permanent pain to our lives. If you look into your patient’s mind when he is praying, you will not find that. If you examine the object to which he is attending, you will find that it is a composite object containing many quite ridiculous ingredients. There will be images derived from pictures of the Enemy as He appeared during the discreditable episode known as the Incarnation: there will be vaguer — perhaps quite savage and puerile — images associated with the other two Persons. There will even be some of his own reverence (and of bodily sensations accompanying it) objectified and attributed to the object revered. I have known cases where what the patient called his “God” was actually located — up and to the left at the corner of the bedroom ceiling, or inside his own head, or in a crucifix on the wall. But whatever the nature of the composite object, you must keep him praying to it — to the thing that he has made, not to the Person who has made him. You may even encourage him to attach great importance to the correction and improvement of his composite object, and to keeping it steadily before his imagination during the whole prayer. For if he ever comes to make the distinction, if ever he consciously directs his prayers “Not to what I think thou art but to what thou knowest thyself to be”, our situation is, for the moment, desperate. Once all his thoughts and images have been flung aside or, if retained, retained with a full recognition of their merely subjective nature, and the man trusts himself to the completely real, external, invisible Presence, there with him in the room and never knowable by him as he is known by it — why, then it is that the incalculable may occur. In avoiding this situation — this real nakedness of the soul in prayer — you will be helped by the fact that the humans themselves do not desire it as much as they suppose. There’s such a thing as getting more than they bargained for!

So that line, "Not to what I think thou art but to what thou knowest thyself to be," which I grant is a line, is one of the sincerest prayers I know how to pray, and it's one I pray very regularly.


And for the ten millionth time you've failed the ideological Turing test and proven you are out of your depth. You've wasted yet another opportunity to learn something.

God does not love all people equally. He loves some people more than others.

I've enjoyed reading this blog post on the question of God's different love for different people.

https://www.dominicanajournal.org/does- ... an-others/

He doesn't address the question of damnation, but I don't think the line of thought he does offer is too difficult to extend (except, of course, insofar as our emotions mind tend to get in the way on some more difficult parts of the problem).

But for the more explicitly Thomisticly minded, here's another good entry on that perspective

https://deeperwaters.wordpress.com/2010 ... s-equally/

And that is the core of the disagreement. First, who speaks of eternal torture? And second, why is suffering worse than non-existence? And in addition, what do you think suffering means?

I will give those questions some thought before attempting to reply, I don't have time currently.

Oh Jack, I am so grateful to you for opening my eyes to the fact that I am "out of my depth" in my thinking about the nature of God and salvation, thank you so very very much for instructing me so wisely, you've made me see that I should stay out of these discussions because my little feminine brain does not have the ability to think about these big theological issues
the way that your superior brain is able to, you are so much more intellectually capable than I am, so I should leave it up to intellectually superior scholars such as yourself to do my thinking for me, and I should believe whatever you tell me, because you are so much more likely to be right than I am, I should never disagree or challenge your opinions because you are so much cleverer than I am, I don't have the intellectual capacity to do my own thinking, I don't have the knowledge and wisdom that you have to decide for myself what is true, I should therefore just listen to you and become a Protestant just like you because you know about these things so much better than I know, and therefore if I listen to you I am much more likely to be saved from God's eternal punishment for the unwise.

So thank you very much Jack, sorry, I mean TheJack, because you are not just any old Jack like young Jack3, you are the self-titled THEJack and if THEJack tells me that I am out of my depth in these discussions then I must be out of my depth in these discussions because THEJack is so much cleverer than I am.

I'm sure you'll agree.

I'm sure that was an emotionally satisfying rant. It, unfortunately, doesn't get you any closer to being able to see the truth. Also the projection of arrogance isn't lost on me--it's evident in more ways than one. May the day come when you become willing to learn.

Or you could simply acknowledge that your opinion is wrong, and listen to those who have shown you, from Scripture, why it is wrong. I'm certain that theJack is not trying to convert you to Protestantism.

I missed the Protestantism bit. Probably because I tend to tune that word out, and I was paying more attention to the overall tone. Frankly, the tone was the intended substance of her post. But yes ma'am, clearly, I've no interest in converting DD to "Protestantism."

It's the height of hypocrisy and nonsense for you, Signum, to say that I should listen to and accept what theJack says, if he is one of the people you are referring to when you say "listen to those who have shown you, from Scripture, why it is wrong" when you yourself don't listen to and accept what theJack says about Scripture, otherwise you'd be a Protestant. If you don't accept what theJack says about Scripture, why do you think I should?

And it's the height of hypocrisy and nonsense for you, TheJack, to say that I should listen to and accept what the Catholics on this website say, when you yourself don't listen to and accept what they say, otherwise you'd be a Catholic.




Once again TheJack you have shown that when you don't have a good response to a point I make, you resort to a personal attack against me, instead of addressing the point I'm making. Your condescending comments towards me are aimed at demeaning me, but your demeaning comments say more about you than about me. You demean yourself by such low comments. If you had addressed the point I made AND made a demeaning comment about me, that would have been better (though still good) but instead you completely fail to respond to the point I made, and instead just hurl a condescending insult at me. If you don't have a good answer, you would be far far better to just say nothing.

I've seen the way you systematically try to demean Thomist, who is clearly a sincere conscientious Catholic who deserves respect. And whereas I too disagree with Thomist on various issues, I treat him with complete respect.

Obi and I argue and disagree about quite a few things yet neither of us have ever resorted to personal insults.

So stop the personal attacks and address the points I make, or say nothing, theJack. Stop demeaning yourself by trying to demean others.

So if you'd like to address this point I made, please do so in a respectful manner, or say nothing:

Respect isn't given freely. It's earned, and it can be forfeited. You'll get the respect you ask for when you start acting in a respectful manner. Your arrogance on this and a host of issues is, to put it charitably, unbecoming. There's no reason for me to continue answer your questions when I, and others, have already answered them.

Do better, DD.

God can save everyone if he wants, he can damn everyone if he wants, and he can save some and damn others if he wants.

I don't think we can know from reason which of these he will choose. But God has made his choice known to us by revealing it in the Bible.

(ETA: I'm using anthropomorphic language; God doesn't "make" a choice as though there was a time when this was undecided)

You tried to belittle me, theJack, with your condescending "you are out of your depth" comment, I forgive you, maybe you’ve had a bad day or something, like we all have from time to time, I don’t know what’s happening in your life, but equally you don’t know what’s going on in my life, so maybe it’s not such a good idea for you to try to demean me with an insulting condescending comment. It wasn’t the worst comment I’ve been subjected to, but it wasn’t nice. You shouldn't be surprised that I didn't let it go, sadly you're not the first person to try to belittle me, and I've learned to defend myself. If you want to treat me as someone who does not deserve respect, that definitely says a lot more about you than it does about me. I made a fair point, and there was nothing disrespectful about it.

So, I think it's best to forgive, move on, and get back to the point with no more personal insults. My point quite simply was that you said:

"I hope and pray you come to appreciate that God is far beyond the limitations you have set on Him"

and my point is that if you are praying that I come to appreciate that God is far beyond the limitations I have set on Him, you should equally pray that YOU come to appreciate that God is far beyond the limitations YOU have set on Him, YOU think God cannot save everyone.

If you don’t wish to respond to that point, no problem, perhaps someone else will, and I see that Jack3 already has.

You've not been belittled. You've been informed that you don't know what you are talking about, that you are out of your depth criticizing ideas that you don't understand, and that you are (and in your very last post again continuing to) failing the ideological Turing test. Your preference for your self-assessment over what appears to be the universal assessment of absolutely everyone who has actually taken the time to understand this material is the most telling thing of all. When my nine year old daughter gets her sums wrong, it isn't belittling for her to be corrected. If she thinks she has the right and standing to insist that she is right and that her teachers and tutors don't know what they're talking about, she would be being incredibly disrespectful, which is what you are being and have been for some time now.

As I said, do better. I've already responded to the points you've raised. I suggest going back and actually trying to understand what has been said to you by me and others. And the point I'm making to you here (and over the last couple of posts) is far more fundamental than whether or not you can pass a theological quiz -- right answers actually don't get you very far. Better to have the right answers than the wrong ones, but when your answers are wrong, as yours are, you do much better to remember that "the wise person seeks counsel" (so Prov 12:25, for instance) is much more about an attitude than it is about a prescribed action.

1 Timothy 2-3
"This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth."

TheJack, I stopped reading after the first couple of insults. I'm leaving this thread and this entire message board and website until you calm down. I'll be neither posting nor reading nor accessing this entire website for at least a few days. Hopefully by then you'll have let it go.

Color me shocked for proving my point. Again.

FTFY

You have some really strange ideas, DD. Catholics and Protestants don't agree on the interpretations of certain passages in the Bible, but that doesn't mean they disagree on all of it. Agreement doesn't turn a Catholic into a Protestant or vice versa. Engaging in deflection doesn't make your error go away. Running away from it won't make you any less wrong. You're still wrong.