I don't remember correctly.... During the course of these conversations did we pass through antecedent and consequent will to save?

I'd like to state two things re:theJack

1) He has never said, "God cannot save anyone". What makes you think he holds that position?
2) On setting limits to God, he did respond, in a post quoting CS Lewis.

Jack3, what makes you think I think theJack holds that position? I know he has never said "God cannot save anyone"!

TheJack said he hopes and prays that I come to appreciate that God is far beyond the limitations that I have set on him. So I asked him:



If you or TheJack, or anyone, thinks God cannot save everyone, then you or theJack, or anyone who thinks it, is setting limits on what God can do.

It's as simple as that.

I have great faith that God is love and saves everyone eventually. If you think he can't, then you are setting limits on what God can do.

But he has never said that God cannot save everyone. In fact, he has said the exact opposite. God can save everyone. He likewise can save no one. Or anything in between. We cannot put limits on God on how many or how few he can save.

God has, however, revealed to us in Scripture that He will not save everyone.

That is not a limit we have set on God. That is God revealing to us what he will or will not do. It has nothing whatsoever to do with God's capacity. It has everything to do with his will, as He has revealed to us in Scripture.

So if, as you believe (which Christian universalists, of course, dispute), God "has revealed to us in Scripture that He will not save everyone", does that mean you therefore believe that God now actually cannot save everyone? I don't mean hypothetically. Do you believe that God, having revealed what he revealed in Scripture, now therefore cannot save everyone? Or do you believe that he still can actually save everyone?



Edited 18 hours later to correct typo which Signum spotted.

Did you misquote CC deliberately, or did you have some ulterior motive for doing so?

Actually, no. She has a point. Because God has revealed that He does not plan to save everyone, and because He cannot change His mind, there is a sense in which it can be said that He cannot save everyone now--not because it would be impossible for Him, had He willed it, but because He has willed otherwise.

I believe that God will not save everyone. But that is not due to him lacking the capacity to do so but because of his will not to do so.

Right. So it depends on what is meant by "cannot."

I'm trying to get some clarity here. Was it a misquote, or simply a changing of the wording?

You'll have to ask the parties that question. I am only saying that there is a legitimate sense in which it can be said that, given what He has revealed, God cannot save everyone.

Thanks. I'm pretty sure that discussion has been had on this board before.

Right. It's the difference in absolute necessity and necessity by supposition. Absolutely, God could have willed to save some, to save none, or to save all. Having willed to save some (and not all or none), it is necessary that God has willed to save some. Thomas' example is that Socrates may sit or stand freely, but having sat down, it is necessary that he is then sitting; or, having stood up, it is necessary that he is standing. None of this, of course, helps DD's case at all, as her "argument", such as it is, really depends on claiming what God can(not) do absolutely. As we have discussed myriads of times over, she has placed God under obligation, denying His divinity and rendering Him a mere contingent, created being. She is not, I am sure, an intentional atheist. Her position entails atheism. She is too far out of her depth to understand that.

I did not misquote CC deliberately, and I did not have "some ulterior motive for doing so".

Where exactly has God "revealed that He does not plan to save everyone", where has God revealed that he has "willed" that not everyone will be saved from eternal damnation?

Thank you.

In Scripture. For example in these examples:

Matt. 7:13-14: "Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is easy, that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few."

Matt. 25:46: "And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."

John 5:28-29: "Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come forth, those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment."

2. Thess. 1:5-10: "This is evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be made worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are suffering—since indeed God deems it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and to grant rest with us to you who are afflicted, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance upon those who do not know God and upon those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They shall suffer the punishment of eternal destruction and exclusion from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might, when he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints, and to be marveled at in all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed."

Rev. 19:20: "And the beast was captured, and with it the false prophet who in its presence had worked the signs by which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped its image. These two were thrown alive into the lake of fire that burns with brimstone."

Rev. 20:10, 14-15: "And the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night for ever and ever. … Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire; and if any one’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire."

My closest friend died 10 days ago. I have cried every day since then. She was an atheist, with a slight interest in Buddhism but although baptised and brought up in a Catholic family, she had absolutely no interest in Catholicism or Christianity. She clearly saw the contradictions in orthodox religion and had no time for it.

I sat with her brother looking at her corpse in the hospital room in which she died, just a few hours after she died. We both felt overwhelming love for her, we loved her for all the years we knew her during her life, even though she was often very difficult, she had problems and sometimes took out her frustrations on those closest to her, which we often didn't deserve. But we understood, and we forgave her, and we knew that underneath her sometimes harsh exterior was a very soft, fragile, loving heart, which often melted my heart, and other people's hearts.

As I sat gazing at the face of her corpse, with feelings of immense love for her, I said to her brother "We have overwhelming love for her, if you believe that God is love, can you imagine how much God loves her?"

At such times cold dry theories and doctrines and speculative theologies about who will or will not be "saved" from "eternal punishment" are entirely irrelevant. The feeling of overwhelming love for my friend outshone all else, answered all doubts.

I know that not all Catholics believe that "few will be saved" but can you imagine anyone who believes that "few will be saved" actually stating that belief to me and my friend's brother as we sat in the room with her (corpse) feeling immense love for her? Can you imagine a hospital chaplain coming into the room and stating his belief that only a few will be saved, we would have kicked him out and told him to wise up.

My deceased closest friend, who had no time for Christianity but whose death left a lot of people crying with love for her, is no exception. There are very many people like that, ordinary imperfect people who do not agree with teachings of Catholicism or Christianity, but who are not wicked. Any teaching which suggests that almost all of these people (with just possibly a tiny few exceptions) will be condemned by an infinitely merciful loving God to suffer eternal punishment is ludicrous beyond belief, and incredibly cruel to close friends and family members who may be susceptible to possibly believing such nonsense.

The fact that no responsible person who believes in the doctrine of "Only a few will be saved" would state this belief at the wake or funeral of a nonbeliever, shows that it is not the truth, because the truth is not something that needs to be hidden.

In all my experience of Catholicism and funerals, there are barely any Catholics who believe that God is not as loving and kind and merciful as we humans are. Ordinary Catholics are often wiser than some of those higher up in the hierarchy of the Catholic Church. Ordinary Catholics are often closer to their own hearts and their own humanity and do not live in ivory towers.

I am truly and deeply sorry for your loss. I've done my job long enough to know that no amount of condolences take away the pain. I've also done my job long enough to know that, in these times, celebration of your love (still present, no less) for the one you've lost and empathetic presence is truly helpful in times of grief. Sincerely, I've prayed for you and will do so as well.

As for your quoted statement above, I agree that no responsible person would make declarations regarding people's possible damnation in these times. Actually, I'd go further, and say that truly responsible people are even careful about making declarations regarding the dead being "in a better place." All that language tends to be little more than cliches people say who don't know what else to say. The truth is that in these moments, loving and empathetic presence and compassion is worth infinitely more than theological speculation.

I do not agree, however, that the inappropriateness of such statements at that time suggests that those statements are false. To take a real example from my own life, my wife's favorite grandfather died a few years back. She saw him just a day or two before he passed at it really shook her seeing him, as he was, hooked up to all the machines and gasping for breath. Not long after he died, she turned to me and with complete conviction told me that if I ever so much as touched a cigarette she would leave me then and there. Billy died of emphysema related directly to his smoking habits. His last two years were absolutely miserable.

Now, it is objectively true that had Billy not smoked, he almost certainly would not have died of emphysema at the time and in the matter that he did. It is equally true that, despite the truth of that statement, no responsible person would say to Billy as he was passing or to his family, "Well, let this be a lesson--this is what can happen when you smoke!" Such a statement, while objectively true, is cold and grossly inappropriate and entirely beside the point.

And so it is with those who might be damned. We do well to remember when we care for the grieving that it is not our place to make pronouncements, as if we were God, as to the condition of that person's soul. It's our job to laugh and cry with them, to share with them in their tears and memories, to be present, and to leave the rest to God. To hope with sincerity regarding their salvation and ours. To entrust them to a God of Love. To rely on the mercies of that God. But we don't allow the impropriety of theological speculation at that particular moment to condemn theological speculation in and of itself or the fruits of that speculation.

So, again, I am sorry for your loss. May your friend's soul rest in peace. I don't know where she is. But God does, and I, for one, trust Him in these matters.

I remember when I met my birth mother she said at first she had some guilt about giving me up for adoption, for bringing me into the world like that, adultery. However, she dismissed it by saying I must have really wanted to be born since it was only one time that she did that, it was my choice and my responsibility. It amazes me what lengths and preposterous ideas we will come up with to dismiss guilt!