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lawrenceop · 4 years

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HOMILY for 2nd Sunday of Advent (EF)

Rom 15:4-13; Matt 11:2-10

“Excita… Domine.” For the last two Sundays, and again today, the Collect of the Mass has begun with these words: “Rouse up, we beseech you, O Lord…” And we will hear it again on the fourth Sunday of Advent. So, four times over this time of year and in this season of Advent, the Mass opens with this word Excita, meaning excite, rouse up, arise, stir up. It is an allusion, perhaps, to psalm 80:2, “Stir up thy might, and come to save us!”, calling upon God to come and rescue us. The allusion is clearer in last Sunday’s Collect: “Stir up Thy power, we beseech Thee, O Lord, and come”, and it is a prayer addressed directly to God the Son, asking Christ our Lord to come into our world as our Deliverer, to protect and save us from sin. What is implicit in this prayer, though, is made more explicit in today’s Collect.

For how is it that Christ will come to save and protect us from sin? If our focus is simply on his historical first coming at Advent, then we are speaking about the objective reality of what Christ has accomplished by his incarnation and his Passion, Death, and Resurrection. Christ, in coming as Man has rescued Man from the sin of Adam. However, Advent, as I noted last Sunday, is concerned with the second coming of Christ as our Judge. So, Christ comes, definitively at the end of time, to deliver the Elect, his chosen ones, his holy Church, and to put an end to sin and its effects. The Collect, then, becomes a prayer suffused with eschatological hope, looking forward to Christ’s return in glory. And this, of course, is fitting for Advent. Indeed, the cry of the early Church, Marana tha, (Come, Lord!) is echoed in last Sunday’s Collect, “Stir up Thy power… Lord, and come!”

However, this Sunday’s Collect, deepens our understanding of precisely the manner in which we desire Christ to come and save us: it isn’t historical, in the past, nor something visible in the future. Rather, we ask the Lord to come here and now to us. Christ comes to us unseen and invisibly but truly through grace. Thus St Bernard of Clairvaux says that between the two comings of the Lord in the flesh there is an “intermediate coming [which is] a hidden one; in it only the elect see the Lord within their own selves, and they are saved.” Today’s Collect alludes to the coming of divine grace into our own selves; a prevenient grace, one might say, meaning, a grace that goes before in order to prepare us to be receptive to the Lord. So we said in the Collect: “Stir up our hearts, O Lord, to prepare the ways of Thine only-begotten Son”.

This means that, even before we can pray, even before we can do anything good, anything that has merit in God’s sight, we need God’s grace to move us, to prepare us, to cause us to be receptive. It is God, therefore, who first acts to choose us as his own; it is he who gives us our vocation, we might say, and so it is he who, foreseeing all things, has predestined us for glory, and so he gives us his grace to accomplish this. In a nutshell, this is the vital aspect of Catholic teaching on grace, on divine predestination, that safeguards the sovereignty and utter necessity of God’s grace for us human beings. For as Jesus says in St John’s Gospel, “without me you can do nothing” (Jn 15:5). Without the grace of God moving us, preparing us, supporting our good actions, and bringing them to perfection, we can do nothing good, including pray, assent to God’s Word in the Scriptures, obey the moral law, and so on.

A contrary notion, and sadly very common these days, would hold that we human beings can still do good and turn towards God and be saved purely through our own wills and natural reasoning, independent of God’s graced first moving us. There is in modernity, therefore, this idea that Man’s reason and will is sovereign, and seemingly on a par with God’s. And yet, the Council of Trent corrected this kind of thinking. It said: “God touches the heart of man with the illumination of the Holy Spirit, but man himself is not entirely inactive while receiving that inspiration, since he can reject it; and yet, without God’s grace, he cannot by his own free will move toward justice in God’s sight.” In other words, no human being can, simply by his own power and will, resist sin and be saved.

In today’s Collect, therefore, the Church prays for that which we had not been able to ask for ourselves, namely, for God’s prevenient grace that prepares one for conversion, and that brings a person to faith and trust in the Saviour. So we, in praying this in the Church’s Liturgy today, are praying for the countless others who have not yet heard the Gospel, who do not yet believe, and who are not yet Saints, just as, since the 8th-century when this prayer began to be said in the Advent Liturgy, the Church has been praying for you and for me. We pray, therefore, that God’s grace will stir up our hearts and prepare us to serve the Lord when he comes, and so to be protected and kept safe from sin. Hence scholars say that today’s Collect is a correlative of last week’s Collect. Because last Sunday we asked Jesus to come and save us from sin, and today, we pray that God the Father will save us from sin by first moving our hearts, inclining us towards the good, preparing us to be open to divine grace, and to say “Yes” to the Father’s will. In fact, the coming feast of Our Lady’s Immaculate Conception shows us the primacy of God’s grace and the astonishing power of prevenient grace in the lives of the elect. For it is God’s prevenient grace that sanctifies Mary from the moment of her conception, choosing her and causing her to be the predestined Mother of God. So, too, God’s grace has been at work in us, even before we were baptised, even before our conversion to faith in Christ. Today’s Collect points to the primacy of God’s grace, and the Liturgy prays for all those who are still to join us in worshipping the one true God.

Moreover, we pray today for ourselves. During this season of Advent, we ask God for the grace of a deeper conversion to his ways, a greater authenticity in our Christian lives; we pray God’s grace to come invisibly to excite our hearts; to rouse us from the slumbers of sin, and to stir us up from our complacency. Thus St Bernard says, “Let [God’s Word, ie: Jesus Christ] enter into your very being, let it take possession of your desires and your whole way of life. Feed on goodness, and your soul will delight in its richness. Remember to eat your bread [ie: sacred Scripture], or your heart will wither away. Fill your soul with richness and strength.” For it is only through this coming of Christ within our selves, as St Bernard says – through the coming of God, through grace active in us – that we are thus kept from sin and saved.

Today’s Collect, therefore, is a prayer for now, and indeed for every day, that the Lord will stir up our hearts with his grace, and so prepare us for salvation and good works, even as St John the Baptist had been sent to prepare the world through repentance and miracles for the Son’s first coming.

#prevenient grace #grace #salvation #preparation #premotion #divine premotion

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betwixt-eventide-blog · 6 years

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As witches we are all pulled towards certain aspects of the craft, personally, I have always had a strong pull towards divination; whether I wanted to admit it or not. The strongest times that I have had a promotion hit me has never been a pleasant experience. The first time I had a promotion was when I was four; my parents had kept me in the dark about one of my grandparent's illnesses. They lived a few states away, so I had not seen them in over a year. However, one day around April I had a strong urge to need to see them. It was an overwhelming feeling that it would be the last chance I would get to see them. I threw a fit three days straight; my father went up to visit before me and my mother. A couple days later my mom and I drove up as well. My grandfather died four days later. Since that time I have had that same horrible overwhelming feeling four times; each time someone has passed within two weeks of the promotion. Both young and old, animal and human.

Once, ok fluke. Twice, ok it’s a coincidence. The third and fourth time I got suspicious. I started to trust my intuition more; however, I didn’t start to try to practice with this intuition until very recently. Since then I went out and I purchased the Green witch tarot by Ann Moura. I got this deck because I had a good feeling about them. They felt right. Since then I have made an effort to pull at least one card a day. This is my theme of the day card. I don’t pull from the top of the deck but just a random one that just feels right. My experience with these cards has been a positive one.

I started pulling one card a day so I could get to know the cards, as well as build up the trust in my intuition in small steps. I then moved onto pulling three cards a day; ones used to paint a picture of my day. I have the theme of the day, challenges, and then solutions. Recently I have moved on to larger spreads; as well as keeping a log of what I think each reading means.

For those of you who feel like you have a gift in promotions or are thinking about getting into reading Tarot cards and are new to it like me, I would like to offer some help; especially to any of you who identify as a closet witch.

1) You do not have to have a deck; you can find a quiet place and concentrate on what your intuition is telling you. If you have a strong feeling about what may happen, jot it down somewhere. This is especially helpful for us closet witches who can’t be carrying a deck or own one due to life’s circumstances.

2) You do not have to feel like you have a gift in promotions to do this, every person witch or not has intuition. What makes us witches is the fact we practice to hone and expand our abilities.

3) You do not have to have someone gift you a deck; when I first started researching I found a lot of sources saying you needed to have someone give you a deck for it to work. This is false: Tarot cards are a tool for helping you build an intuition you already have. You don’t have to have a dumbbell gifted to you for it to help build up arm muscle, do you?

4) If you get a deck make sure you feel something towards it, having a connection to your cards helps.

5) You do not have to carry your deck everywhere you go; I have mine hidden under my bed. It comes out only when I do a reading; which is not every day.

6) Its ok to make predictions for yourself; personally, I think that one has to build up confidence in one's predictions for oneself before reading for someone else.

7) Don’t second guess yourself!

8) You do not have to do a fancy ritual to consecrate your deck; What I did was I sat with my deck in my hands and meditated. Thinking about what I wanted the cards to do for me and channeled that energy into the deck. What I wanted those cards to do for me was help me build up my confidence in my intuition. I should note the place that I meditate is in my room on my bed. It is good to be in an environment where you can relax and feel safe.

9) When you meditate or do any magic for that matter and you suddenly get a bad feeling and don’t feel safe. STOP! Stop what you’re doing. Close your mind and back away. That area or time has a negative energy you do not want influencing your magic. But hey if you get that feeling CONGRATULATIONS your intuitions working; listen to it.

My hope for this post is that it will help other witches out there; if you have any questions or would just like to talk. Feel free to message me or comment on this post.

#witchcraft #witch #tarot #premotion #divination

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x-d3ntes · 3 years

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Song recommendations for my fellow divine kins

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Greetings! Since i use music alot for recovering memories and its just a big part of my every day life i decided to maybe share some recommendations. My music taste is pretty wide and please guys, i know my taste is shitty. But i like it and its my own personal opinion, if you do not like them its fine haha. I personally feel they are more for my fellow demons BUT other divine kins will propably find songs that fit them too!

I sorted them out into four categories depending on their genre and mood so its easier to find something you might like. You can find them all on spotify.

Thanky you for reading :]

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!!! Some of these might be explicit or trigger disassociation !!!

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This category is pretty much a mix of random songs i really liked. Not really the same genre, i just didn’t know where to put them. I personally really do recommend Enter the Demon. Stabbed Her to Death is also interesting. Couture just had relatable lyrics for me.

Stunna - Freddie Dredd

Enter the Demon - Trevor Something

Premotion - Killstation

Couture - Epsyle

Stabbed Her to Death - Zheani

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This playlist is basically just weird combination of songs that are mostly screeching into the microphone with some bass and lame rap. I honestly adore songs from Fenrir and Istasha, they are both underrated and especially Istasha has some very unique style.

Snorting cocaine for Jesus - Istasha

Ridin’ with the Devil - CoaastGxd

Flyter - Fenrir

Why haven’t i died - Warlord Colossus

Obsolote - Istasha

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Next one is just metal. Metal helped me recover alot of memories and it feels very comforting. I have especially Death and Alt metal here. Gojira really means alot to me, their songs are just bangers. Same goes for System of a Down and Korn. System of a Down has very unique rhythmic songs, if you want to get into metal, Systems are great to start with. I really really recommend Flying whales. Its 7 minutes long and the beginning is just 3 minutes of repeating sound but the drop is worth it.

Born in winter - Gojira

Coming undone - Korn

Flying whales - Gojira

The art of dying - Gojira

Aerials - System Of a Down

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This type of music. I can’t really describe it, but it hits hard. Jack Conte has sort of a creepy vibe, sometimes maybe unsettling but in a good way? Crywank just means alot to me, his songs are expressive. But warning ahead, these songs a lil bit negative and upseting. So if you don’t want to get the sad vibes just try Jack Conte.

Kitchen fork - Jack Conte

Bloody Nose - Jack Conte

Long long time ago - Jack Conte

Song for a guilty sadist - Crywank

Only everyone can judge me - Crywank

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Aight that would be it. If you have some songs to share tell me and I’ll happily listen to them :]

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#demonkin #delusional attachment #godkin #demoncore #divinekin #alterhuman #deitykin #angelkin #werewolfkin

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amutheology · 5 years

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New Book by Ph.D. Alumnus Taylor O’Neill: Grace, Predestination, and the Permission of Sin

PhD alumnus Taylor O’Neill recently had his book, Grace, Predestination, and the Permission of Sin: A Thomistic Analysis published by CUA press. It is available for purchase today!

According to the summary:

Grace, Predestination, and the Permission of Sin seeks to analyze a revisionist movement within Thomism in the 20th century over and against the traditional or classical Thomistic commentatorial treatment of physical premotion, grace, and the permission of sin, especially as these relate to the mysteries of predestination and reprobation. The over-arching critique leveled by the revisionists against the classic treatment is that Bañezian scholasticism had disregarded the dissymmetry between the line of good (God's causation of salutary acts) and the line of evil (God's permission of defect and sin). The teaching of St. Thomas is explored via intimate consideration of his texts. The thought of St. Thomas is then compared with the work of Domingo Bañez and the foremost 'Bañezian' of the 20th century, Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange. The work then shifts to a consideration of the major players of the revisionist treatment, including Francisco Marín-Sola, Jacques Maritain, and Bernard Lonergan. Jean-Herve Nicolas is also taken up as one who had held both accounts during his lifetime. The work analyzes and critiques the revisionist theories according to the fundamental tenets of the classical account. Upon final analysis, it seeks to show that the classical account sufficiently distances God's causal role in regard to free salutary acts and His non-causal role in regard to free sinful acts. Moreover, the revisionist account presents significant metaphysical problems and challenges major tenets of classical theism, such as the divine omnipotence, simplicity, and the exhaustive nature of divine providence. Finally, the implications of the traditional view are considered in light of the spiritual life. It is argued that the classical account is the only one which provides an adequate theological foundation for the Church's robust mystical and spiritual tradition, and in particular, the abandonment to divine providence.

In the words of Fr. Romanus Cessario, O.P., “No previous work has so admirably integrated so many major figures in a treatise that does not shrink before the complexity of their historical and speculative particularities. This book will be a required acquisition for all college and university libraries, and students of the history of theology in the twentieth century will find it invaluable.”

Below is a brief interview with Dr. O’Neill:

What was the inspiration for this book, and how did it come about?

An old high school teacher and mentor of mine called my attention to ST I, q. 22 [“The Providence of God”] right around the time that I was beginning my M.A. studies. I was unfamiliar with St. Thomas’ thought on providence, so I was absolutely shocked to find out that he states that “all things are subject to divine providence.” I was used to people speaking about this or that particular event as being providential, but everything? My initial thought was that St. Thomas must surely have been wrong about this (which I am now embarrassed to admit)! What about human freedom? Does this mean that Catholics believe in some form of predestination? I thought that was only for Calvinists. I picked up Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange’s Predestination which aided me in contemplating these questions. I ended up writing a research thesis on the topic under Fr. Thomas Weinandy, OFM while at CUA. That helped me work through some questions, but I still had others. When I arrived at the doctoral program at Ave, I assumed that I would leave this topic behind and pick something else upon which to write my dissertation. But it kept tugging at me, and after continued conversations on the topic in seminars led by Professor Steve Long, I knew that I had to write on this. The book is the fruit of that study.

Who is the main audience for this book?

I think that this book will be of interest to anyone who has already thought and perhaps read a little bit about the questions surrounding providence, grace, human freedom, and predestination. It seems to me that there has been something of a resurgence of interest in this topic, and my hope is that this book can join a wider conversation. The book will appeal to Catholics and Thomists, of course, but I also think that it will be of interest to Orthodox and Protestant Christians as well, since the topics discussed are among those most pertinent to the areas of on-going conversation between us (grace, justification, human works, etc.)

Did you find it challenging to complete the book while teaching at Mount Mercy University?

Somewhat, yes. One simply has to carve out time to work and write, which isn’t always easy. I found that devoting myself to working over the summer was particularly helpful. And, thankfully, my wife has been amazingly helpful in aiding and supporting me in the time needed. In many ways, this book was a joint project, if you will, because getting it done required work from both of us.

How do you balance time researching, writing, and teaching?

In my experience, it is really just a matter of time management. One has to select times in one’s schedule that are set aside for particular kinds of work such as meeting with students, writing, etc. As I mentioned before, working during the summer is also very helpful. But, while I need to set aside blocks of time for certain kinds of work, I find that writing and teaching tend to be mutually beneficial to each other. Writing helps to keep me fresh in the classroom while researching for class and engaging with students helps me to further consider ideas that help shape what I am writing.

Are there any other writing projects you are working on?

I am working on a new book which will be, in some ways, a follow up to this one. The recent release of David Bentley Hart’s book That All Shall Be Saved has a lot of theologians thinking about universalism. As a corollary, if universalism is not true, we’re left with this really big question as to why God might permit evil and even hell. At the end of Grace, Predestination, and the Permission of Sin, I begin to give a response to that question. But I am hoping to engage it more fully in this second book, especially according to the mutually enriching insights of St. Thomas Aquinas and Julian of Norwich. And this opens up onto other questions such as whether this is the best of all possible worlds. And I think that, upon final analysis, St. Thomas gives a pretty surprising response to that question!

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bern33chaser · 7 years

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Motion and Movement

If a word begins with mot- or mov-, chances are that it refers to literal or figurative motion or movement. This post describes many such words.

Motion and movement themselves are exemples of this class of word, which stems from the Latin verb movere, meaning “move.” (The connection for motion and other mot- words is that they derive from motus, the past participle of movere.) Motion and movement both mean “a change in place or position” and can also refer to physical activities and gestures. Motion also refers to an application or proposal made during a meeting or legal proceedings, and movement also describes an organized effort to achieve a goal or a distinct part of a musical composition.

Motion is also a verb describing a signaling gesture or, in a legal context, making a motion. The verb form of movement is move, although move can also itself serve as a noun, referring to changing the position of a game piece or otherwise taking a turn during a game; it is also a synonym for maneuver, as in the phrase “making a move.” Mutiny, meanwhile, originally meaning “revolt” but later coming to denote an insurrection of military personnel, also ultimately derives from movere.

Moment is, like mutiny, a word with a disguised shared ancestry; it derives from movere by way of movimentum. It generally refers to a brief portion of time or the present time, or a distinctive period, but on its own and as the basis of the adjective momentous, it also has the connotation of importance. (Moment also applies in specialized senses to physics and statistics.)

Something that can be moved is mobile and has the capacity of mobility (motile and motility also have this sense); the antonyms are immobile and immobility. Mobile, in addition to referring to a piece of kinetic, or moving, art, is the second element in the compound automobile, the formal alternative to car (which derives from carriage), which is sometimes truncated to auto.

Automobile literally means “self-drive” (in the sense of the driver operating the vehicle himself or herself, rather than the car driving itself, though technology for the latter has been developed). Coinages such as bookmobile (the name for a mobile bookstore or library) and bloodmobile (the name for a mobile laboratory for drawing blood to be donated), as well as snowmobile, have been derived in imitation. Automotive is the adjective pertaining to automobile.

To remove is to change the location of something or take it away or eliminate it, and the word is also a noun meaning “a distance or degree of separation.” Removal is the action or process of removing something. Something that can be removed is described as removable, and the quality of the ability of something to be removed is removability or removableness, though such usages are rare.

A motor is a device that enables an object to move or otherwise operate; that word is the first element of compound nouns such as motorboat and motorcycle (and motormouth, slang for a talkative person), as well as the altered compound motocross, which refers to a motorcycling sport and races in that sport.

An associated adjective is motive, which describes causing motion. As a noun, motive means “a reason to do something.” Motive is also a verb, albeit a rare one; its meaning is identical to that of motivate, which means “give a reason to do something”; motivational is the adjectival form.

Commotion (literally, “with motion”) and emotion (literally, “out of motion”) both originally meant “agitation,” but the former word came to mean “a disturbance,” while emotion eventually applied to mental reactions to stimuli. Emotional and emotive are adjectival forms, emotionally and emotively are the corresponding adverbs, and emote is the pertinent verb, while the slang word emo applies to a subgenre of punk music emphasizing anguish and screamo is a more intense variant. Commotion, by contrast, has only the rare verb form commove.

Promotion (literally, “forward movement”) refers to advancing something by advocating for or publicizing it or advancing someone by giving the person greater authority and responsibility; the verb form is promote, and promotional serves as an adjective in the former sense. Premotion is a rare word referring to movement before another movement, sometimes in the religious context of a divine impetus to act.

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Original post: Motion and Movement from Daily Writing Tips https://www.dailywritingtips.com/motion-and-movement/

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pamphletstoinspire · 7 years

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Catholic Physics - Reflections of a Catholic Scientist - Part 40

Free Will and God's Providence - Part III. The Problem of God's Grace

"Do not say 'It is the Lord's doing that I fell away', for he does not do what he hates.

Do not say 'It was he who led me astray', for he has no need of the sinful........

It was he who created mankind in the beginning, and he left them in the power of their own free choice." - Sirach 15:11-15

The objections to Free Will stated in Part II of this series were

Physics gives only one future for the Universe;

Our brains are pre-wired, so moral choices are not possible;

Our environment determines what our moral choices will be;

God's grace determines our actions.

I countered the first three objections in Part II, and in Part III (here) will examine the most difficult, #4, using in part propositions set forth by Fr. Luis de Molina, a 16th century Jesuit theologian and philosopher. Before giving these arguments, I should summarize the Church's position on free will and God's foreknowledge. Please note that as a theological novice, I would be grateful for corrections and emendations where I err or am wanting. The term "grace" in what follows is used without definition or exegesis (that would need a book), but my meaning is that of "Actual Grace" (God's gift undeserved by us), the push the Holy Spirit gives us to do moral deeds and salvific acts.

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH ON FREE WILL AND GOD'S GRACE

"To God, all moments of time are present in their immediacy. When therefore he establishes his eternal plan of "predestination", he includes in it each person's free response to his grace..."For the sake of accomplishing his plan of salvation, God permitted the acts (The Passion of Jesus Christ) that flowed from their blindness." - CCC, 600

A brief account of the history of the teaching of Catholic theologians on free will and God's grace is given below. For a more extended explanation see the references below.* In the Old and New Testaments are many references to the tension between God's Will and man's free will (including the most excellent one from Sirach, given above). See On Grace and Free Will for a compendium of these.

ST. AUGUSTINE ON GRACE AND FREE WILL

St. Augustine of Hippo laid the foundations for the Church's teaching on God's grace and man's free will in his treatise against the Pelagian heresy, "On Grace and Free Will". His arguments, based on Scripture, can be summed up in the following quote:

".. not only men's good wills, which God Himself converts from bad ones, and, when converted by Him, directs to good actions and to eternal life, but also those which follow the world are so entirely at the disposal of God, that He turns them wherever He wills, and whenever He wills [emphasis added]— to bestow kindness on some, and to heap punishment on others, as He Himself judges right by a counsel most secret to Himself, indeed, but beyond all doubt most righteous." St. Augustine, On Grace and Free Will, Ch. 41

THEOLOGIC ARGUMENTS ON GRACE AND FREE WILL

If it is by grace given by the Holy Spirit that God affects men's will, and if, as St. Augustine says, this is done "wherever He wills, and whenever He wills", where is man's free moral choice? In order to unravel this theological knot, we have to think about how God bestows grace, given His omnipotence, His omniscience, and His will to create good.

To give in detail the theological arguments on this question would require a chapter, not a blog post, so I'll summarize the extreme points of view by an example. (For fuller accounts refer to the references below, particularly Controversies on Grace.) Consider St. Maximilian Kolbe, who took the place of another prisoner at the Nazi concentration camp, Auschwitz, to die by starvation and carbolic acid injection. We can think about this salvific act in two ways:

Scenario 1--God wills that St. Maximilian Kolbe acts as he does and knows by His "Free Knowledge" that St. Kolbe will perform this salvific act. He knows that because he wills to give him grace ("efficacious" grace) to perform the act.

Scenario 2--God knows by his "Middle Knowledge" that St. Maximilian Kolbe, given God's grace, would perform this salvific act, but the performance of the act is dependent on St. Kolbe's free will assent to that grace. This grace is "neutral", that is to say it is neither "efficacious" nor "sufficient". ("Sufficient grace" is that which would be given by God even though He knows it will not be used.)

Scenario 1 reflects the Thomistic interpretation of Grace and Free Will, emphasizing the supreme sovereignty of God, His omnipotence and omniscience. The Thomists add an extra impetus, Divine Premotion or Predetermination such that good moral actions will "infallibly result", but since these actions are not necessarily invoked, free moral choice is still available to the agent. Both Boedder and I are puzzled by this:

"If we object to this that it is exceedingly difficult to understand how a creature thus predetermined can possibly have the actual use of its freedom, our opponents do not deny that there is some mystery in this. But they refer us to the incomprehensibility of Divine causation at once most sweet and most efficacious." Physical Premotion and Predetermination, Bernard Boedder, SJ.

The philosopher Robert Koons has attempted to explain this apparent "incomprehensibility" by symbolic logic, legerdemain that establishes the identity of the propositions below, such that free will is still operative:

The character of X is such that he freely wills to do the morally correct action in circumstance C;

God predetermines the moral choices of X by efficacious grace.

(I have to confess I don't understand the symbolic logic manipulations or the final conclusion.)

Scenario 2 gives a Molinist interpretation, emphasizing the importance of man's free will. There are variations of this position--Congruism, Syncretism--that vary the importance of God's sovereignty in relation to man's free will. Thomists object to the Molinist position because it apparently sets limits to God's authority. I don't agree with this objection. God gave Adam and Eve freedom to commit Original Sin, as a necessary consequence of free will. If He did not, if all we do--sinful and good--is by His will, not ours, then we are puppets on a stage; the whole notion of moral responsibility fails.

THOUGHTS ON PRAYER AND FORGIVENESS.

As a Catholic I pray privately and in public for the Holy Spirit to give me the grace to do the right thing and for those I love to do also. If our actions are pre-ordained by God then these prayers are futile, and that I cannot believe. Thomists object that active praying, absent God's pre-ordained outcome for the desired event, smacks of the Pelagian heresy that man can save himself without the grace of God. The theologian Thomas Flint counters this argument: praying for the Holy Spirit to make you better, for example to rid yourself of an addiction, is praying for God to do something TO you, not FOR you and is certainly dependent on God's grace.

Now we come to what the initial thrust of this series of posts was all about: can we hold those who commit sins morally responsible for their actions and can we forgive them for their sinful deeds. Given the Thomist view, that God predetermines our moral behavior, I don't see how one can hold sinners responsible for their actions and so forgiveness is automatic. Given the Molinist view, that we are freely responsible for our actions, then we can be held responsible for sins. But as Christians, we can forgive the sinner, but not the sin.

Finally I'll say that I'm not entirely satisfied with the Molinist interpretation. It seem to me that if God knows what we will do--even if he does not determine that we do it--we are not totally free in our moral choices. There need to be options, different possibilities for what we can do, in order that freedom of choice--free will--be exercised. In the fourth post of this series I'll explore what quantum theory might offer to give this freedom, with God's complete knowledge of the future and will for what occurs to hold.

*REFERENCES

Controversies on Grace, The Catholic Encyclopedia

Divine Providence, the Molinist Account, Thomas Flint.

Dual Agency: A Thomistic Account of Providence and Human Freedom, Robert Koons.

Molina / Molinism, Alfred Freddoso.

On Grace and Free Will, St. Augustine of Hippo.

Physical Premotion and Predetermination, Bernard Boedder, S.J.

From a series of articles written by: Bob Kurland - a Catholic Scientist

#catholic physics

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