Strange views for a Catholic.

[Scriptorium]

Vetus,
To clarify, you are taking the objective teachings of the Church and applying them as though the subjective person does not matter. This is not the position of the Church. So, for example, even though objectively speaking all men are under original sin, you seem to indicate that each person's subjective circumstances into which they are born (their parents, where in the world it is, and the time; the temporo-spatial factors) "fates" them to eternal damnation, as though those outside of the influence of the Church have already been judged at the moment of conception. You bend God to time, and our relationship to Him as one outside of the present moment. So to take the Indians of America before Columbus, they all were already judged, and we know this by the sheer fact that they were born where they were. Now if you took the objective teaching only, that would make sense, but if we include the subjective, the actual people living in time, then that teaching does not make sense, since those people acted on free will. And free will is the flourish to predestination that is needed to balance an extreme view. It is like looking at grace and free will. Grace is in eternity. Free will is in time. Predestination is in eternity. In time each man's eternal destination is unfolds before him. So the man's power in the present moment to shape his eternity is real. Grace precedes this, all of this comes from eternity, but the aspect of the subjective input is what shapes our experience. This is where you are running roughshod over souls. You are discounting them in an effort to support the objective teaching of the Church. While we can make statements about the knowledge of God based on revelation, that gives us no basis to deny each person's ability in time to seal their own fate. The Church does not support the teaching that we can conclude that all people outside the influence of the Church are damned, because She knows that would deny free will. Prestination is not some insurmountable fated karma, which reduces man's view of Christ's mission to save souls to nothing more than how an Untouchable views his life under the burdensome yoke of Krisha.

Concerning sufficient and efficacious grace, you attempt to take a peak into eternity, and see who gets and who doesn't based on factors which are not eternal (like someone's birthplace). Interestingly you say, according to your emphasis on objectivity, that all do not get dealt the same cards. Why is this interesting? Because God in justice is by His nature equally just to all. God in eternity is not emotionally swayed here and there, or favors one or the other. Inequality and a disparity in "cards dealt" is an aspect of created reality, or unequal life in space and time. Appropriately then from eternity God wills all men to be saved. He is life, and His will is purely good. He delivers to man by His very being grace to be saved. This is the.prevenient grace, the very life God breathes into him which makes him a soul. And the process continues on from there. Sufficient grace is a concept appropriate in relation to eternity (a universal will). Efficacious grace is a concept appropriate for time (a particular application). Why? Because we can be unequal, we can resist grace, and God wills that this is to be a moral universe. So efficacious grace is not known to man as past (fate), but potentially given to man in the present or future. In a sense the fate we experience is God's will to save, and the free will we experience is our answer of yes or no. In no way does this detract from God power, because He Himself wills the moral universe we live and underlies all of our actions with grace, and freely rewards actions in accordance with His very nature. The reason man would choose sin without grace is essentially the same as man would  naturally die if he didn't have food. But now you are seeing some of the paradoxes of our religion. The situation concerning how eternity is played out in time, and how the objective is played out in the subjective, is a huge theological problem which we have barely begun to scratch the surface of. Related to this is the problem of evil.

Let's try to get this straight: no man can come to the Father but through Christ (John 14:6). Faith is the knowledge of God and His will and a filial trust in His promises. "Implicit faith" is a destruction of the very concept of faith divinely revealed and of the Christian religion as a whole: it makes it ultimately irrelevant. Men can be saved without believing in the sole mediator between God and man, in the sole way to be reconciled with the Father, in the sole expiation of one's sins: they are saved not by grace through faith in Christ their saviour but by following their corrupted consciences and the precepts of the natural law. In other words, pelagianism revamped.

You seem hung up that Christ is not involved. I have not said that. What I have said is Christ is involved according to the subjective person's recognition of Him. We ourselves recognize Him differently, so why not the people out in timbucktoo. One person see Him as a man in beard and robe. Another sees Him as the pure Logos. Another as bridegroom lover. Another as crucified  Messiah. Another as loving brother. Another as the strong leader whipping the moneychangers. Another as the burning furnace of charity. Etc. And this changes throughout our life. "implicit" only is saying that they are not exposed to the explicit revelation given in the gospels and tradition. They may recognize the burning furnace of charity, and not know even how to describe Him. This has nothing to do with pelagianism or naturalism. These conditions simply describe a reality outside of the Christian influence. Your level of necessity is one which would demand us to force people to convert, and to quickly take over every nation of the earth to make sure that none did not get this message which is so vital, because these exterior conditions demand another exterior sign to mean to us that these people would have a chance to be saved. Force, not love. Force because it is more about assuring ourselves instead of loving others. The true zeal of the Church is love unified to our Lord's love. And so our preaching is a free gift. That's why we don't force people to convert. We respect God's providence, and man's free will. We don't need to accrue souls as an exterior sign of God's favor, but we reach out in a loving zeal in a quest to love Him more fully. It is an entirely different perspective.

[Vetus Ordo]

You seem hung up that Christ is not involved. I have not said that. What I have said is Christ is involved according to the subjective person's recognition of Him. We ourselves recognize Him differently, so why not the people out in timbucktoo. One person see Him as a man in beard and robe. Another sees Him as the pure Logos. Another as bridegroom lover. Another as crucified  Messiah. Another as loving brother. Another as the strong leader whipping the moneychangers. Another as the burning furnace of charity. Etc. And this changes throughout our life.

This is pure subjectivism. Either a man recognises Christ as the Lamb of God that died for his sins, the only way to be reconciled with the Father, or he doesn't. In other words, either he has faith or he doesn't. Either he's a Christian or a heathen. You're suggesting that, say, Confucians who have a natural trust in divine providence are "recognising" Christ impliclty which is the same logical absurdity that led Vatican II to claim that Muslims and Christians worship the same God.

"Implicit" only is saying that they are not exposed to the explicit revelation given in the gospels and tradition. They may recognize the burning furnace of charity, and not know even how to describe Him. This has nothing to do with pelagianism or naturalism. These conditions simply describe a reality outside of the Christian influence.

This idle speculation that you present as "teaching" belies the spirit of naturalism and pelagianism. If people are not exposed to explicit revelation, then they simply have no faith at all because "faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ." (Rom. 10:17)

Your level of necessity is one which would demand us to force people to convert, and to quickly take over every nation of the earth to make sure that none did not get this message which is so vital, because these exterior conditions demand another exterior sign to mean to us that these people would have a chance to be saved. Force, not love. Force because it is more about assuring ourselves instead of loving others. The true zeal of the Church is love unified to our Lord's love. And so our preaching is a free gift. That's why we don't force people to convert. We respect God's providence, and man's free will. We don't need to accrue souls as an exterior sign of God's favor, but we reach out in a loving zeal in a quest to love Him more fully. It is an entirely different perspective.

Finally you're starting to admit the logical conclusion of your position: evangelisation is not a priority.

[Vetus Ordo]

As for your long tirade on predestination and how God deals the same cards to everyone, etc., I'll just submit the following food for thought:

"Woe to thee, Corozain, woe to thee, Bethsaida: for if in Tyre and Sidon had been wrought the miracles that have been wrought in you, they had long ago done penance in sackcloth and ashes. But I say unto you, it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment, than for you. And thou Capharnaum, shalt thou be exalted up to heaven? thou shalt go down even unto hell. For if in Sodom had been wrought the miracles that have been wrought in thee, perhaps it had remained unto this day."

"Woe to thee, Corozain, woe to thee, Bethsaida. For if in Tyre and Sidon had been wrought the mighty works that have been wrought in you, they would have done penance long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes."

"And when they had passed through Phrygia, and the country of Galatia, they were forbidden by the Holy Ghost to preach the word in Asia. And when they were come into Mysia, they attempted to go into Bythynia, and the Spirit of Jesus suffered them not."

"Tyre and Sidon would not have been condemned, although more slightly than those cities in which, although they did not believe, wonderful works were done by Christ the Lord; because if they had been done in them, they would have repented in dust and ashes, as the utterances of the Truth declare, in which words of his the Lord Jesus shows to us the loftier mystery of predestination. […] But can we say that even the Tyrians and Sidonians would have refused to believe such mighty works done among them, or would not have believed them if they had been done, when the Lord himself bears witness to them that they would have repented with great humility if those signs of divine power had been done among them? And yet in the day of judgment they will be punished; although with a less punishment than those cities which would not believe the mighty works done in them."

"This is the predestination of the saints, – nothing else; to wit, the foreknowledge and the preparation of God’s gifts, whereby they are most certainly delivered, whoever they are that are delivered. But where are the rest left by the righteous divine judgment except in the mass of ruin, where the Tyrians and the Sidonians were left? who, moreover, might have believed if they had seen Christ’s wonderful miracles. But since it was not given to them to believe, the means of believing also were denied them. […] But what the Lord said of the Tyrians and Sidonians may perchance be understood in another way: that no one nevertheless comes to Christ unless it were given him, and that it is given to those who are chosen in him before the foundation of the world, he confesses beyond a doubt who hears the divine utterance. […] ‘To you,’ said he, ‘it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.’’

"And again, at the very moment that the preachers of the gospel were sent out to all the nations, the apostles were forbidden to go to certain regions by him ‘who will have all men to he saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth’, with the result, of course, that many, detained and going astray during this delay of the gospel, died without having known the truth and without having been sanctified in baptism. Let, then, holy scripture say what happened: ‘And when they had passed through Phrygia and the country of Galatia, they were forbidden by the Holy Ghost to preach the word in Asia. And when they were come into Mysia, they attempted to go into Bithynia, and the Spirit of Jesus suffered them not.’ Is there any wonder that at the very beginning of the preaching of the gospel the apostles could not go except where the Spirit of God wanted them to go, when even now we see that many of the nations only begin to have a share in the Christian grace, while others have not yet got a glimpse of that divine gift?"

"Or should we say that the wills of men obstruct the will of God, that those peoples are of such wild and fierce ways that the reason why they do not hear the gospel is that their ungodly hearts are not ready for its preaching? But who else changed the hearts of believers but he ‘who hath made the hearts of every one of them?’ Who softened the hardness of their hearts into willing obedience but he ‘who is able of these stones to raise up children of Abraham?’ And who will give the preachers intrepid and unshaken firmness but he who said to Paul: ‘Do not fear, but speak, and hold not thy peace, because I am with thee and no man shall set upon thee, to hurt thee. For I have much people in this city?’ […] For none other will have a share in the inheritance of Christ than those who before the creation of the world were elect, predestined, and foreknown, according to the counsel of him ‘who worketh all things according to the counsel of his will.’’

"He who says that the Lord withholds from some men the message of the gospel, lest hearing it they be saved, can escape the odium of the objection by invoking the authority of the saviour himself. He did not want to work miracles among people who, he said, would have believed had they seen them. He forbade his apostles to preach to some nations, and he still allows other nations to live untouched by his grace."

[Scriptorium]

You seem hung up that Christ is not involved. I have not said that. What I have said is Christ is involved according to the subjective person's recognition of Him. We ourselves recognize Him differently, so why not the people out in timbucktoo. One person see Him as a man in beard and robe. Another sees Him as the pure Logos. Another as bridegroom lover. Another as crucified  Messiah. Another as loving brother. Another as the strong leader whipping the moneychangers. Another as the burning furnace of charity. Etc. And this changes throughout our life.

This is pure subjectivism. Either a man recognises Christ as the Lamb of God that died for his sins, the only way to be reconciled with the Father, or he doesn't. In other words, either he has faith or he doesn't. Either he's a Christian or a heathen. You're suggesting that, say, Confucians who have a natural trust in divine providence are "recognising" Christ impliclty which is the same logical absurdity that led Vatican II to claim that Muslims and Christians worship the same God.

I am sorry to say, but you don't understand subjectivism then, because subjectivism would have not appealed to the objective facts concerning the dogmas of God. What I am stating is an appeal to both the objective facts and the subjective presentation of those facts. Everyone knows this when they see some pretty well known cases amongst us -- the mentally ill, the mentally disabled, and children. One extreme is to completely disregard their situation, which is what you do in essence, and the other extreme is to apply total weight to their subjective experience, i.e., whatever they do must will salvation. The true point is objective facts presented to people who then accept them or reject, and then according to their deeds and circumstances God judges them, having infallible knowledge of their souls.

"Implicit" only is saying that they are not exposed to the explicit revelation given in the gospels and tradition. They may recognize the burning furnace of charity, and not know even how to describe Him. This has nothing to do with pelagianism or naturalism. These conditions simply describe a reality outside of the Christian influence.

This idle speculation that you present as "teaching" belies the spirit of naturalism and pelagianism. If people are not exposed to explicit revelation, then they simply have no faith at all because "faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ." (Rom. 10:17)

Faith comes by hearing? That contradicts that the child receives faith in baptism. You need to get out of your minds that I am suggesting that people do what they want and they're okay. I am suggesting that Christ really does try to save every person, and they are judged accordingly based on their response.

Your level of necessity is one which would demand us to force people to convert, and to quickly take over every nation of the earth to make sure that none did not get this message which is so vital, because these exterior conditions demand another exterior sign to mean to us that these people would have a chance to be saved. Force, not love. Force because it is more about assuring ourselves instead of loving others. The true zeal of the Church is love unified to our Lord's love. And so our preaching is a free gift. That's why we don't force people to convert. We respect God's providence, and man's free will. We don't need to accrue souls as an exterior sign of God's favor, but we reach out in a loving zeal in a quest to love Him more fully. It is an entirely different perspective.

Finally you're starting to admit the logical conclusion of your position: evangelisation is not a priority.

You misread. It is the utmost priority, but the motivation is different. One looks for external reassurances of predestination, like the Calvinists. The other seeks the face of Christ, and responds to His call, and that call leads them wherever He wills, be it India or Japan or whatever. A viewpoint that places humanity into two extreme camps, those who are within earshot, and those aren't, first limits Christ to our humanity and His creation, and then promotes us from instruments to the very voice of Christ. The Church has never said that those outside of earshot are damned, or outside of the grace of salvation. That is the simple truth.

As for the quotes, I don't disagree with them. I was simply showing that predestination is not something we know beyond our humanity. We are living now, and the story is unfolding now. Predestination tells us something about God, not about us. None of us knows whether we are damned or not, even with the added assurance of being in the bosom of the Church. If it tells us nothing about ourselves, then why would it tell us anything about people outside the influence of the Church. Not to mention the huge misstep that we need to get over that we are favored. In our spiritual life, getting over the idea we're favored can be a real stumbling block to ascending the ladder of holiness. But that's subjectivism ...

Vetus, I will leave it at that, since we've done a bit of back and forth. I leave you the last word if you want. I wish you well. Let's leave assuring each other we'll pray for one another. PAX !

[Vetus Ordo]

I am sorry to say, but you don't understand subjectivism then, because subjectivism would have not appealed to the objective facts concerning the dogmas of God. What I am stating is an appeal to both the objective facts and the subjective presentation of those facts. Everyone knows this when they see some pretty well known cases amongst us -- the mentally ill, the mentally disabled, and children. One extreme is to completely disregard their situation, which is what you do in essence, and the other extreme is to apply total weight to their subjective experience, i.e., whatever they do must will salvation. The true point is objective facts presented to people who then accept them or reject, and then according to their deeds and circumstances God judges them, having infallible knowledge of their souls.

That God has an infallible knowledge of everyone's souls, that God alone can read men's hearts, etc., is not in dispute. What is in dispute is that men can be saved without professing faith in Christ. I utterly reject it, you accept it as true. It's pure subjectivism to imply that Christ can mean anything to anyone to the absurd point that faith in Him is diluted to a mere belief in "providence."

Faith comes by hearing? That contradicts that the child receives faith in baptism. You need to get out of your minds that I am suggesting that people do what they want and they're okay. I am suggesting that Christ really does try to save every person, and they are judged accordingly based on their response.

Faith comes by hearing, yes. The word of God couldn't be clearer. And infants don't have faith, they are saved by baptism.

Your idea of salvation having God reaching out equally to everyone belies a certain pelagian spirit since it destroys the very concept of election and reprobation, not to mention divine predilection and grace. Remember the Apostle's words: "For by grace you are saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, for it is the gift of God; Not of works, that no man may glory. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus in good works, which God hath prepared that we should walk in them." (Eph. 2:8-10) Salvation is a free gift from God, it is not something owed to anyone and everyone. Let's put it this way: if you call 5 different girls and ask them all out on a date and then date the one that answered you back, you didn't really choose the girl, the girl chose you. You played all-in and then hoped for the best. That's how you're presenting salvation, grosso modo, as people choosing God rather than God choosing people. The Lord, however, plainly states: "You have not chosen me: but I have chosen you." (John 15:16)

All are already born condemned and judged under sin. Salvation is not something owed but a free gift from God that he chooses to bestown on His elect. These are two key concepts to hold on to whenever speaking of these matters.

You misread. It is the utmost priority, but the motivation is different. One looks for external reassurances of predestination, like the Calvinists. The other seeks the face of Christ, and responds to His call, and that call leads them wherever He wills, be it India or Japan or whatever. A viewpoint that places humanity into two extreme camps, those who are within earshot, and those aren't, first limits Christ to our humanity and His creation, and then promotes us from instruments to the very voice of Christ. The Church has never said that those outside of earshot are damned, or outside of the grace of salvation. That is the simple truth.

I've never suggested that those outside the Church were ipso facto damned but rather that those who die as such (non-Christians) will be. In other words, without faith it is impossible to please God and to come to the communion of His children. Evangelisation is an inescapable divine command that we should bring to the farthest ends of the earth. The teaching about election and reprobation doesn't limit evangelisation, it rather encourages it. On the other hand, the teaching about implicit faith and people being able to be saved without profession of the Christian religion indeed poisons the missionary spirit, encourages laxity and ecumenical indifferentism. In fact, its logical conclusion destroys the faith and the Church along with it.

As for the quotes, I don't disagree with them.

So you'll agree with divine predilection (God loves some more than others), inequality in bestowing grace (not all are indeed His elect) and God's sovereignty over all creation.

Vetus, I will leave it at that, since we've done a bit of back and forth. I leave you the last word if you want. I wish you well. Let's leave assuring each other we'll pray for one another. PAX !

My purpose is not to have the last word in discussions but to uncover or affirm truth. I usually assume good faith on the part of everyone here. Disagreeing and locking horns does not equate with any personal animosity. You and everyone else are in my prayers, no need to say it.