This is a no brainer unless one is ideologically retarded. Pain is something. It actually exists. Even if it were a deprivation of something that left one open to the possibility of experiencing pain, that would change nothing about pain's positive existential reality and that what it is not derivable from a negation or perversion of other things.
Yet it's horrific. It's what makes most suffering possible in the first place. Whether it's deformed babies screaming in the throes of pain, people dying in agony from injury or disease, people being tortured, the pain of emotional devastation, and one can go on in innumerable ways, what makes these so horrific to us and so unbearable, even to the point of wanting a cessation of ones existence just to make it stop, is the reality of pain.
Even more, it is the means through which so much evil is done in the world and most evil of man against fellow man.
Truly, even if one wants to argue that pain "naturally" aids survival, the form is hardly necessary for the function, and often the opposite is the case, when pain occurs in spite of the fact that the action causing the pain will save ones life, eg., with amputation of a limb.
I posit that any being responsible for bringing this thing into existence, even in potentia, is a sadistic psychopath.
I have reported this heretical and blasphemous content.
Quote from: Exsurge Domine on February 07, 2020, 11:54:22 AM
I have reported this heretical and blasphemous content.
a) Precisely what dogma does it contradict?
b) Who is it blaspheming?
Answer for yourself or retract your calumny.
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 07, 2020, 01:34:58 PM
Quote from: Exsurge Domine on February 07, 2020, 11:54:22 AM
I have reported this heretical and blasphemous content.
a) Precisely what dogma does it contradict?
b) Who is it blaspheming?
Answer for yourself or retract your calumny.
God inflicts pain in this world and in the next. Your post is blasphemous filth that can only come from the mind of an apostate. I hope the moderation of this forum will act on it if it's worth its salt.
Quote from: Exsurge Domine on February 07, 2020, 02:53:26 PM
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 07, 2020, 01:34:58 PM
Quote from: Exsurge Domine on February 07, 2020, 11:54:22 AM
I have reported this heretical and blasphemous content.
a) Precisely what dogma does it contradict?
b) Who is it blaspheming?
Answer for yourself or retract your calumny.
God inflicts pain in this world and in the next.
I'll ask you again:
a) Precisely what dogma does it contradict?
b) Who is it blaspheming?
That shouldn't be too hard for you to answer, given how you present yourself.
Quote
Your post is blasphemous filth that can only come from the mind of an apostate.
Your response is the kind that can only come from a mind with no counter-argument.
QuoteI hope the moderation of this forum will act on it if it's worth its salt.
This place isn't run by the Dimond "Brothers".
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 07, 2020, 03:01:31 PM
Your response is the kind that can only come from a mind with no counter-argument.
Your filth is plain as daylight. Heretics aren't to be entertained, they are to be exposed and punished. You've been reported again.
Quote from: Exsurge Domine on February 07, 2020, 03:03:47 PM
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 07, 2020, 03:01:31 PM
Your response is the kind that can only come from a mind with no counter-argument.
Your filth is plain as daylight. Heretics aren't to be entertained, they are to be exposed and punished. You've been reported again.
It plain as day, and clearer and clear as like the Sun rising from morning to noon with every consecutive post, that you have no argument against what I wrote. You can't even name the dogma whose contradiction would constitute heresy. But I do imagine, going by your attitude, that your conception of God is as of a diabolical beast.
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 07, 2020, 03:06:15 PM
Quote from: Exsurge Domine on February 07, 2020, 03:03:47 PM
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 07, 2020, 03:01:31 PM
Your response is the kind that can only come from a mind with no counter-argument.
Your filth is plain as daylight. Heretics aren't to be entertained, they are to be exposed and punished. You've been reported again.
It plain as day, and clearer and clear as like the Sun rising from morning to noon with every consecutive post, that you have no argument against what I wrote. You can't even name the dogma whose contradiction would constitute heresy. But I do imagine, going by your attitude, that your conception of God is as of a diabolical beast.
Reported again.
Quote from: Exsurge Domine on February 07, 2020, 03:07:34 PM
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 07, 2020, 03:06:15 PM
Quote from: Exsurge Domine on February 07, 2020, 03:03:47 PM
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 07, 2020, 03:01:31 PM
Your response is the kind that can only come from a mind with no counter-argument.
Your filth is plain as daylight. Heretics aren't to be entertained, they are to be exposed and punished. You've been reported again.
It plain as day, and clearer and clear as like the Sun rising from morning to noon with every consecutive post, that you have no argument against what I wrote. You can't even name the dogma whose contradiction would constitute heresy. But I do imagine, going by your attitude, that your conception of God is as of a diabolical beast.
Reported again.
Yes, keep spamming the mods. That's a great idea. Really. Please continue.
Note what was nowhere stated by me: the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God who is Jesus Christ, is the sadistic psychopath who brought pain into existence.
Note also: this is the Non-Catholic Discussion Subforum. By its very nature it will and has to feature views and statements that contradict those of Catholicism.
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 07, 2020, 03:11:27 PM
Note what was nowhere stated by me: the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God who is Jesus Christ, is the sadistic psychopath who brought pain into existence.
Where exactly are you going with this? Who else could have brought creaturely pain into existence, if not the Creator?
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 07, 2020, 06:56:10 AM
This is a no brainer unless one is ideologically retarded. Pain is something. It actually exists. Even if it were a deprivation of something that left one open to the possibility of experiencing pain, that would change nothing about pain's positive existential reality and that what it is not derivable from a negation or perversion of other things.
Yet it's horrific. It's what makes most suffering possible in the first place. Whether it's deformed babies screaming in the throes of pain, people dying in agony from injury or disease, people being tortured, the pain of emotional devastation, and one can go on in innumerable ways, what makes these so horrific to us and so unbearable, even to the point of wanting a cessation of ones existence just to make it stop, is the reality of pain.
Even more, it is the means through which so much evil is done in the world and most evil of man against fellow man.
Truly, even if one wants to argue that pain "naturally" aids survival, the form is hardly necessary for the function, and often the opposite is the case, when pain occurs in spite of the fact that the action causing the pain will save ones life, eg., with amputation of a limb.
I posit that any being responsible for bringing this thing into existence, even in potentia, is a sadistic psychopath.
You framed this in a way that makes it hard to argue against. Regardless, I'm not cut out to refute what you wrote.
Forgive me but I'm going to relate something about myself.
As a teenager I was pretty well lost, quite lustful, and bore a child out of wedlock.
My daughter's mother, who was automatically given custody, turned out to be an incredibly abusive person and it got worse as time progressed. The state only enabled the abuse and every time family services would give me temporary custody my daughter's mother would comply with whatever she had to and then get custody back. I hired a lawyer and took my daughter's mother to court to gain custody. My lawyer, a women (what was I thinking?), milked out the whole process with countless unproductive hearings, and the Guardian Ad Litem, another woman (court appointed) did not investigate anything on my behalf, went with my daughter's mother's side of the story, said my daughter was exaggerating, and that I was "somewhat of a religious extremist" because I go to mass and pray a lot. Full custody was granted to my daughter's mother and my visitations were restricted. I've never did anything legally wrong in my life other than pot-smoking and under-age drinking as a teen. This all hurt pretty bad. When my daughter's mother disappeared into the city of Chicago with her, nobody would help me except the Police, but they couldn't do much. After a couple YEARS of no contact with my daughter I fell apart. Typing this out isn't that bad, but it's still impossible for me to speak about all this to anybody without crying.
Eventually, I picked myself up (with help) and soldiered on. Putting myself back together caused me to fix things about myself that had always been broken, but I had always been too weak and apathetic to fix. I can honestly say that I've become a much better person from the turd I always was.
My daughter ran off to me right after her 18th birthday. Now she's attending a private Catholic university, every year has been placed on the Dean's List and receives the Dean's Award, and is also a national collegiate scholar. She get's a full-ride from her academic performance and all I have to pay for is housing.
There were a lot of lessons to be learned from the experience, for both my daughter and I. Most notably for myself: the selfishness of lust, and that bringing a child into the world out of wed-lock is as much a crime against the child as it is God.
It's hard to say if all the suffering was worth it or not. Who knows how things could've turned out amid different circumstances?
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 07, 2020, 03:11:27 PMNote what was nowhere stated by me: the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God who is Jesus Christ, is the sadistic psychopath who brought pain into existence.
True, but as Daniel has pointed out, if someone else brought pain into existence, then presumably that entity owes its existence to God. The only way out would be to set up something like a Zoroastrian system of dualistic theology, where the evil deity does not depend on the good god for his being. I don't think that can be said of Satan, though, at least not in an orthodox sense.
Quote from: Pon de Replay on February 08, 2020, 06:23:47 AM
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 07, 2020, 03:11:27 PMNote what was nowhere stated by me: the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God who is Jesus Christ, is the sadistic psychopath who brought pain into existence.
True, but as Daniel has pointed out, if someone else brought pain into existence, then presumably that entity owes its existence to God. The only way out would be to set up something like a Zoroastrian system of dualistic theology, where the evil deity does not depend on the good god for his being. I don't think that can be said of Satan, though, at least not in an orthodox sense.
Or the creator doesn't have power to foreknow the free and unconditioned acts of autonomous subjects or the power to destroy them.
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 08, 2020, 07:11:01 AMOr the creator doesn't have power to foreknow the free and unconditioned acts of autonomous subjects or the power to destroy them.
Point taken, but wouldn't that contradict the notions of God's omnipotence and omniscience? They are kind of the same thing, I suppose, but this would seem to go against at least one of the two, if not both.
Quote from: Pon de Replay on February 08, 2020, 07:21:04 AM
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 08, 2020, 07:11:01 AMOr the creator doesn't have power to foreknow the free and unconditioned acts of autonomous subjects or the power to destroy them.
Point taken, but wouldn't that contradict the notions of God's omnipotence and omniscience? They are kind of the same thing, I suppose, but this would seem to go against at least one of the two, if not both.
QuoteAt first the words toû kósmou were added to distinguish the great Workman from others, but gradually demiourgós became the technical term for the Maker of heaven and earth. In this sense it is used frequently by Plato in his "Timæus". Although often loosely employed by the Fathers and others to indicate the Creator, the word never strictly meant "one who produces out of nothing" (for this the Greeks used ktístes), but only "one who fashions, shapes, and models". A creator in the sense of Christian theology has no place in heathen philosophy, which always presupposes the existence of matter. Moreover, according to Greek philosophy the world-maker is not necessarily identical with God, as first and supreme source of all things; he may be distinct from and inferior to the supreme spirit, though he may also be the practical expression of the reason of God, the Logos as operative in the harmony of the universe. In this sense, i.e. that of a world-maker distinct from the Supreme God, Demiurge became a common term in Gnosticism. The Gnostics, however, were not satisfied merely to emphasize the distinction between the Supreme God, or God the Father, and the Demiurge, but in many of their systems they conceived the relation of the Demiurge to the Supreme God as one of actual antagonism, and the Demiurge became the personification of the power of evil, the Satan of Gnosticism, with whom the faithful had to wage war to the end that they might be pleasing to the Good God. The Gnostic Demiurge then assumes a surprising likeness to Ahriman, the evil counter-creator of Ormuzd in Mazdean philosophy. The character of the Gnostic Demiurge became still more complicated when in some systems he was identified with Jehovah, the God of the Jews or of the Old Testament, and was brought in opposition to Christ of the New Testament, the Only-Begotten Son of the Supreme and Good God. The purpose of Christ's coming as Saviour and Redeemer was to rescue us from the power of the Demiurge, the lord of the world of this darkness, and bring us to the light of the Good God, His Father in heaven. The last development in the character of the Demiurge was due to Jehovah being primarily considered as he who gave the Law on Sinai, and hence as the originator of all restraint on the human will. As the Demiurge was essentially evil, all his work was such; in consequence all law was intrinsically evil and the duty of the children of the Good God was to transgress this law and to trample upon its precepts. This led to the wildest orgies of Antinomian Gnosticism.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04707b.htm
It appears as if Kreuzritter is straying toward Gnosticism, if not there already.
Quote from: dellery on February 08, 2020, 07:35:43 AMIt appears as if Kreuzritter is straying toward Gnosticism, if not there already.
I'm not so sure. He is insistent that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is the one, good, and true God, whereas the classical Christian Gnostic systems posit the opposite. What he might be saying that is the one, good, and true God is less than perfectly omnipotent. That would be interesting if so.
Quote from: Pon de Replay on February 08, 2020, 07:21:04 AM
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 08, 2020, 07:11:01 AMOr the creator doesn't have power to foreknow the free and unconditioned acts of autonomous subjects or the power to destroy them.
Point taken, but wouldn't that contradict the notions of God's omnipotence and omniscience? They are kind of the same thing, I suppose, but this would seem to go against at least one of the two, if not both.
Omnipotence and omniscience cannot include what is nonsensical or logically impossible. There's a presumption that "foreknowing" such acts is meaningful and possible. But it's not even clear what "foreknowledge" is supposed to mean here when God is eternal. Yes, God knew me "before" my conception (Jeremiah 1:5, although one could also read that verse in the sense of the spiritual subject being an eternal creation and God knowing it in its eternal transcendence "before" incarnation) from my temporal perspective, but such foreknowledge wouldn't entail from the eternal perspective knowing what a creation would do "before" it is created; indeed, even if there is an order of being there is no "before" in eternity. To the point in parentheses, the subject considered as such, as it is with the "atman", would be indestructible again because for it in itself there is no before and after; before and after are only part of its experience of the temporal world.
Quote from: dellery on February 08, 2020, 07:35:43 AM
Quote from: Pon de Replay on February 08, 2020, 07:21:04 AM
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 08, 2020, 07:11:01 AMOr the creator doesn't have power to foreknow the free and unconditioned acts of autonomous subjects or the power to destroy them.
Point taken, but wouldn't that contradict the notions of God's omnipotence and omniscience? They are kind of the same thing, I suppose, but this would seem to go against at least one of the two, if not both.
QuoteAt first the words toû kósmou were added to distinguish the great Workman from others, but gradually demiourgós became the technical term for the Maker of heaven and earth. In this sense it is used frequently by Plato in his "Timæus". Although often loosely employed by the Fathers and others to indicate the Creator, the word never strictly meant "one who produces out of nothing" (for this the Greeks used ktístes), but only "one who fashions, shapes, and models". A creator in the sense of Christian theology has no place in heathen philosophy, which always presupposes the existence of matter. Moreover, according to Greek philosophy the world-maker is not necessarily identical with God, as first and supreme source of all things; he may be distinct from and inferior to the supreme spirit, though he may also be the practical expression of the reason of God, the Logos as operative in the harmony of the universe. In this sense, i.e. that of a world-maker distinct from the Supreme God, Demiurge became a common term in Gnosticism. The Gnostics, however, were not satisfied merely to emphasize the distinction between the Supreme God, or God the Father, and the Demiurge, but in many of their systems they conceived the relation of the Demiurge to the Supreme God as one of actual antagonism, and the Demiurge became the personification of the power of evil, the Satan of Gnosticism, with whom the faithful had to wage war to the end that they might be pleasing to the Good God. The Gnostic Demiurge then assumes a surprising likeness to Ahriman, the evil counter-creator of Ormuzd in Mazdean philosophy. The character of the Gnostic Demiurge became still more complicated when in some systems he was identified with Jehovah, the God of the Jews or of the Old Testament, and was brought in opposition to Christ of the New Testament, the Only-Begotten Son of the Supreme and Good God. The purpose of Christ's coming as Saviour and Redeemer was to rescue us from the power of the Demiurge, the lord of the world of this darkness, and bring us to the light of the Good God, His Father in heaven. The last development in the character of the Demiurge was due to Jehovah being primarily considered as he who gave the Law on Sinai, and hence as the originator of all restraint on the human will. As the Demiurge was essentially evil, all his work was such; in consequence all law was intrinsically evil and the duty of the children of the Good God was to transgress this law and to trample upon its precepts. This led to the wildest orgies of Antinomian Gnosticism.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04707b.htm
It appears as if Kreuzritter is straying toward Gnosticism, if not there already.
Insofar as that means identifying this particular physical world and its laws as the work of an ultimately deranged being identifiable as "Satan", sure. I've spoken along such lines before. But I wouldn't identify the creation of Genesis 1 with this world, nor the God of Abraham with Satan, nor materiality (depending on what one means by that) as an evil creation and Jesus' incarnation and death as mere "appearance".
Indeed, as I've said before, if evolution with "theistic" design is in any way correct, then the "God" behind it is most certainly, as I would regard him, a devil.
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 08, 2020, 07:11:01 AM
Or the creator doesn't have power to foreknow the free and unconditioned acts of autonomous subjects or the power to destroy them.
Heresy. Reported.
This seems like metaphysical quibbling. I don't think saying that pain is a privation implies that it is not
real. Like Dellery's being cut off from his daughter: that was clearly a privation, but obviously real. Also note that pain is never pure privation. Pure privation is simply nothingness, non-existence. Pain is in something that positively exists, but which is defective or incomplete in some way. So if one bears a great deal of self-loathing: obviously, that hatred positively exists in one's heart and brain, but metaphysically speaking it is still a privation of something ~ a right relation with oneself. The mystery is why God creates defective creatures, ones that undergo pain, deformation, and destruction. The Bible in a way is written almost entirely to answer that very question.
I've been reading a Catholic psychology book called "Healing: Psychological Healing in the Catholic Mystic Tradition", which has been helping me. Written by Dr. Raymond Lloyd Richmond, who works with traditional Catholic communities in the US (San Francisco, I think). Here's his website: http://www.chastitysf.com/
I want to post an excerpt on victimization, because I think it relates to what Kreuzritter is saying about making God out to be a "diabolical beast".
QuoteVictimization and Abuse
Many persons, especially those who have been abused emotionally, physically, or sexually, tend to recoil from the idea of suffering, primarily because they unconsciously equate suffering with punishment—the same unjust, unfair, and irrational punishment they received at the hands of their abusers. It was this irrational punishment that caused their pain to sink down into the terrifying depths of resentment and anger, to be hidden in the dark corners of the unconscious, shrouded in victimization. Therefore, there can always be a resentful part of us that seeks some recognition of our pain and some compensation for any hurt we suffer.
Consequently, the resentment underlying this victimization—that is, the resentment for unfair and unjust punishment—can spawn either of two pernicious attitudes to life: disobedience and false obedience.
In disobedience, a person rebels against authority, using tactics such as protest, the undermining of traditional beliefs, and the flouting of traditional moral values. Such persons derive recognition from being seen as "free thinkers"—or sociopaths—and they derive compensation for their wounds from watching harm come to others.
In false obedience a person gives the appearance of obedience but instead of acting from love acts from spite: "All right. So you're going to treat me miserably? Well, I'll show you! I'll take everything you can dish out, and I'll take it without a murmur, even if it kills me. So there!" This is spite because, rather than being freely accepted, the mistreatment is merely tolerated as something imposed unfairly. Such persons derive satisfaction from seeing themselves as "victims" of unfair treatment; the danger here is that they tend to slip into the belief that if only they suffer enough then those who have been unfairly rejecting them will eventually be moved to accept them—and this leads into the fruitless self-destruction of masochism.
The biggest problem with masochism is that it clings to the false belief that personal suffering is somehow redemptive, and so it ignores the true redemption worked out in Christ's passion, death, and resurrection. Christ accepted all suffering willingly, not as a victim15, and, in carrying the cross, He willingly bore for our sake the pain of all unfair, unjust, and irrational punishment. He gave meaning to suffering. That is, He bore it all openly and without anger, for the sake of our redemption from sin, and, in doing so, He showed us that real love means the willingness to bear the emotional pain of others, suffering for them in the hope of their salvation. Remember, the pain others afflict on you is really their own disavowed pain; by accepting your suffering willingly you make your suffering into your prayer that eventually their hearts will be open to contrition.
If only you would pray for others and take up your suffering as Christ did—not as self-punishment, but as a gift of forgiveness to others—then you would no longer need to hide your pain and you would no longer be terrified of your own capacity for anger; then you could listen honestly to your family and friends, you could tolerate their anger without flinching from it, and you could help them heal their pain and take up their own crosses.
15. Christ was, and is, a victim in the ancient sense of the term, which referred to an animal offered in sacrifice: as the Paschal Lamb, Christ willingly offered Himself in sacrifice on the cross for our salvation. Keep in mind, though, that in His sacrifice, Christ neither lost anything nor was He cheated or duped. Thus He was not victimized.
QuoteSpiritual Purgation
All of us, in the process of growing from children to adults, require encouragement, reassurance, appreciation, approval, and acceptance from others. Classic psychological theory calls these things narcissistic supplies. Yet most of us, as we become adults, develop an inner sense of confidence and self-esteem which does not depend on constant external reinforcement.
There will be times, however, when it seems that these narcissistic supplies have been lost, whether through loss of love, or loss of security, or loss of self-esteem itself. Most often these losses occur in childhood because of ordinary parental distractions and failures, but they can occur because of emotional pain inflicted by siblings, friends, teachers, bosses, and religious superiors. Moreover, we can experience these losses as adults because of various failures and betrayals from others. However it occurs, we will tend to get angry. Normally, the anger is directed towards the person responsible for the loss we feel. But it can be that we feel guilty and ashamed of our anger, and so the anger can get turned against ourselves.
Why does anger get turned towards the self? Well, it might occur out of a perception that you could have done something to protect yourself from being so vulnerable to loss, and, having failed to do so, you feel deserving of condemnation and punishment. It could be that someone in your past treated you like an object for his or her own pleasure, and you have come to believe that you are nothing but garbage and don't deserve to be treated respectfully. It could be that the person responsible for the hurt in the first place was someone loved, and it might feel too psychologically risky to be angry at such a person, for the fear that the person might withdraw "love" in retaliation. Or it might be that the hurt was caused by some trauma or disaster, and, though you might blame God, if you're at all religious you will feel bad for being angry with God, and so you will blame yourself for being "bad" or "defective" for having blasphemous thoughts.
So there you are, trapped in self-hatred, a lonely victim stuck in "anger turned inwards," right in the middle of depression.
Now, as described by Saint John of the Cross, spiritual purgation can afflict souls with "abandonment, supreme poverty, dryness, cold, and sometimes heat. They find relief in nothing, nor does any thought console them . . ." Although this sounds quite a bit like depression, there is a big difference.
As Saint John of the Cross points out, the oppressive afflictions experienced in purgation are caused by the very flame of God which imparts His love. Purgation is, therefore, an act of God's love, and even though our narcissistic supplies may be stripped from us as a process of spiritual pruning, the purpose of it all is to bring the soul's infirmities to light: "they are set before its eyes to be felt and healed."
In depression there is nothing but darkness, yet it is not seen as darkness or recognized as darkness. Blind to divine reality, this darkness seems to be the only reality. "For it is impossible to perceive one's darknesses without the divine light focusing on them."
In contrast to being trapped in depression and self-blame, in our turning to God, seeking enlightenment, and willingly accepting our spiritual purgation we can recognize darkness for what it really is: an experience of something lacking in our lives, not an ill-fated defect in our being.
With the darkness illuminate, we can stop believing that darkness is the totality of our being. Consequently, we can stop believing that we are "bad" and undeserving of love. We can see these are false, negative beliefs, created in childhood to protect us from emotional pain. We can see that we made a mistake in creating negative beliefs about ourselves, and that, because we created those false beliefs, we can now create new, positive, and spiritually true beliefs. Once we feel the sorrow for punishing ourselves for having been hurt in childhood, we can cry out to God for mercy. We can change our beliefs about ourselves. Through Christ, our lack can be healed.
In facing up to our own darknesses, however difficult the process may be, we can experience divine love and mercy, not the dreaded wrath of an angry parent. Nor does spiritual purgation cause misery or self-hatred, because the sorrow we feel for our sins and inadequacies has nothing to do with self-blame or self-punishment. Rather than being an obstacle to our progress, sorrow for our past behavior, as will be shown in the next chapter, is the first step on the path to learning how to love.
Moreover, keeping in mind that spiritual purgation is a form of spiritual pruning meant to stimulate the growth of love, you can understand the true spiritual meaning of sacrifice. Sacrifice is something you give up or do in order to make your life or an other's more productive. Sacrifice isn't deprivation or loss; it's an act of love—and it's the only path away from being a "victim."
I think turning God into a pitiless tyrant is in large part a psychological problem like those described here. I think it especially occurs in self-hatred and self-victimization, where you tell yourself that you deserve all the misery and suffering you've experienced, then come to believe on some level that God hates you and that you have to keep punishing yourself masochistically to satisfy Him. Then sometimes you get angry and blame God for being so hard on you, so unfair and tyrannical, whereas in reality it's you that's being so hard and cruel to yourself, not God. By far the greatest pains are the ones that we inflict on each other and on ourselves, and God is not willing this at all (in fact He forbids it).
Quote from: Pon de Replay on February 08, 2020, 07:49:30 AM
Quote from: dellery on February 08, 2020, 07:35:43 AMIt appears as if Kreuzritter is straying toward Gnosticism, if not there already.
I'm not so sure. He is insistent that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is the one, good, and true God, whereas the classical Christian Gnostic systems posit the opposite. What he might be saying that is the one, good, and true God is less than perfectly omnipotent. That would be interesting if so.
The only answer to why a benevolent God would create beings that turn to such evil in the first place seems to be such a compromise on the ideas of omnipotence and omniscience. As you've indicated before, passing through all imaginable arguments about such things, one eventually comes up against the final question: why did God create this Lucifer character at all, and why did God create any beings destined for reprobation in the first place?
Quote from: John Lamb on February 08, 2020, 08:13:23 AM
This seems like metaphysical quibbling. I don't think saying that pain is a privation implies that it is not real. Like Dellery's being cut off from his daughter: that was clearly a privation, but obviously real.
I never used the word "real". You are confusing things. Dellery being cut off from his daughter
is not a thing, an essence, like the colour I see or the taste in my mouth, which pain
is.
QuoteAlso note that pain is never pure privation.
Pain isn't privation at all. The experience of it may be a result of a privation, but the pain in itself is not.
QuotePure privation is simply nothingness, non-existence. Pain is in something that positively exists, but which is defective or incomplete in some way.
No. Pain is what it is. One doesn't obtain what pain is by taking something away. One can't derive it from some "good" like one deduces a conclusion from a set of premises, or like taking 2 away from 3 to be left with 1. Even if adding something into a person's experience changed the experience of pain to an experience of something else, one would have merely changed the experience, not the object that was experienced.
Quote from: Exsurge Domine on February 08, 2020, 08:12:52 AM
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 08, 2020, 07:11:01 AM
Or the creator doesn't have power to foreknow the free and unconditioned acts of autonomous subjects or the power to destroy them.
Heresy. Reported.
Read the name of this subforum again, moron.
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 08, 2020, 08:28:11 AM
Quote from: Exsurge Domine on February 08, 2020, 08:12:52 AM
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 08, 2020, 07:11:01 AM
Or the creator doesn't have power to foreknow the free and unconditioned acts of autonomous subjects or the power to destroy them.
Heresy. Reported.
Read the name of this subforum again, moron.
Error has no rights. You'll be dealt with if the moderation has anything Catholic left in it. This whole thread is a scandal.
Quote from: Exsurge Domine on February 08, 2020, 08:32:41 AM
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 08, 2020, 08:28:11 AM
Quote from: Exsurge Domine on February 08, 2020, 08:12:52 AM
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 08, 2020, 07:11:01 AM
Or the creator doesn't have power to foreknow the free and unconditioned acts of autonomous subjects or the power to destroy them.
Heresy. Reported.
Read the name of this subforum again, moron.
Error has no rights. You'll be dealt with if the moderation has anything Catholic left in it. This whole thread is a scandal.
What's going to happened is you're going to be banned for being a disruptive, spamming, rude and insufferable troll. In every single thread, even something so innocuous as "what are you listening to" and "trad kids", you appear just to criticise and spew vitriol. What an unsavoury bastard you must be and what a miserable existence you must lead because of it. And you probably wonder why you have no friends and no woman wants so much as to touch you. Being an ideological asshat is your crutch.
Quote from: Exsurge Domine on February 08, 2020, 08:32:41 AM
Error has no rights. You'll be dealt with if the moderation has anything Catholic left in it. This whole thread is a scandal.
I've noticed that you have failed to denounce the infamous Antipope Bergoglio in the last three of your posts.
Rest assured that you shall be reported—and summarily executed—by the Holy Inquisition, on suspicion of schism & heresy.
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 08, 2020, 08:44:19 AM
Quote from: Exsurge Domine on February 08, 2020, 08:32:41 AM
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 08, 2020, 08:28:11 AM
Quote from: Exsurge Domine on February 08, 2020, 08:12:52 AM
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 08, 2020, 07:11:01 AM
Or the creator doesn't have power to foreknow the free and unconditioned acts of autonomous subjects or the power to destroy them.
Heresy. Reported.
Read the name of this subforum again, moron.
Error has no rights. You'll be dealt with if the moderation has anything Catholic left in it. This whole thread is a scandal.
What's going to happened is you're going to be banned for being a disruptive, spamming, rude and insufferable troll. In every single thread, even something so innocuous as "what are you listening to" and "trad kids", you appear just to criticise and spew vitriol. What an unsavoury bastard you must be and what a miserable existence you must lead because of it. And you probably wonder why you have no friends and no woman wants so much as to touch you. Being an ideological asshat is your crutch.
Swiveling like a little snake when exposed. You can't bear the light can you? If you look like a heretic and quack like a heretic, then you are one.
Quote from: Exsurge Domine on February 08, 2020, 08:54:12 AM
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 08, 2020, 08:44:19 AM
Quote from: Exsurge Domine on February 08, 2020, 08:32:41 AM
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 08, 2020, 08:28:11 AM
Quote from: Exsurge Domine on February 08, 2020, 08:12:52 AM
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 08, 2020, 07:11:01 AM
Or the creator doesn't have power to foreknow the free and unconditioned acts of autonomous subjects or the power to destroy them.
Heresy. Reported.
Read the name of this subforum again, moron.
Error has no rights. You'll be dealt with if the moderation has anything Catholic left in it. This whole thread is a scandal.
What's going to happened is you're going to be banned for being a disruptive, spamming, rude and insufferable troll. In every single thread, even something so innocuous as "what are you listening to" and "trad kids", you appear just to criticise and spew vitriol. What an unsavoury bastard you must be and what a miserable existence you must lead because of it. And you probably wonder why you have no friends and no woman wants so much as to touch you. Being an ideological asshat is your crutch.
Swiveling like a little snake when exposed. You can't bear the light can you? If you look like a heretic and quack like a heretic, then you are one.
What? I would never deny rejecting your ideology and its tangible darkness. The only question is, did you come to believe it because you're revolting, or are you revolting as a result of believing it?
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 08, 2020, 09:04:30 AM
I would never deny rejecting your ideology and its tangible darkness.
Yes, everyone realizes you're not a Catholic. The question is, what are you still doing here?
Quote from: Exsurge Domine on February 08, 2020, 08:54:12 AM
Swiveling like a little snake when exposed. You can't bear the light can you? If you look like a heretic and quack like a heretic, then you are one.
Therefore, if you weigh as much as a heretic, then you are made of wood and therefore a witch!
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 07, 2020, 06:56:10 AM
I posit that any being responsible for bringing this thing into existence, even in potentia, is a sadistic psychopath.
Okay, quasi-Catholic, are you saying the Creator of mankind is a sadistic psychopath?
Quote from: GBoldwater on February 08, 2020, 12:24:45 PM
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 07, 2020, 06:56:10 AM
I posit that any being responsible for bringing this thing into existence, even in potentia, is a sadistic psychopath.
Okay, quasi-Catholic, are you saying the Creator of mankind is a sadistic psychopath?
Are you capable of reading? Don't chime in if you haven't read the whole thread. I explicitly rejected that the God of Abraham, the El of Genesis 1, who is the creator of man, is such a being. However, I would suggest that man's current physical form is at least an aberration consequent to the Fall, and especially so if it's derived from beasts. That a good God should have created man to live as a vampire, killing and consuming other things to survive and excreting putrid stinking matter is unthinkable. It's a perverse joke that spiritual being should be subject to such indignity.
Materiality is a wonder, but its form as bound by the laws of this world is in part horrific.
Quote from: TheReturnofLive on February 08, 2020, 09:53:40 AM
Therefore, if you weigh as much as a heretic, then you are made of wood and therefore a witch!
Are you a child?
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 08, 2020, 12:43:07 PM
Quote from: GBoldwater on February 08, 2020, 12:24:45 PM
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 07, 2020, 06:56:10 AM
I posit that any being responsible for bringing this thing into existence, even in potentia, is a sadistic psychopath.
Okay, quasi-Catholic, are you saying the Creator of mankind is a sadistic psychopath?
Are you capable of reading? Don't chime in if you haven't read the whole thread. I explicitly rejected that the God of Abraham, the El of Genesis 1, who is the creator of man, is such a being. However, I would suggest that man's current physical form is at least an aberration consequent to the Fall, and especially so if it's derived from beasts. That a good God should have created man to live as a vampire, killing and consuming other things to survive and excreting putrid stinking matter is unthinkable. It's a perverse joke that spiritual being should be subject to such indignity.
Materiality is a wonder, but its form as bound by the laws of this world is in part horrific.
quasi means "seemingly, but not really". So, what are you doing here? What you write sounds like a modernist, agnostic troll.
Quote from: Exsurge Domine on February 08, 2020, 01:07:27 PM
Quote from: TheReturnofLive on February 08, 2020, 09:53:40 AM
Therefore, if you weigh as much as a heretic, then you are made of wood and therefore a witch!
Are you a child?
No, I have mature development at least to a degree to realize that human beings sometimes need humor.
Here's a story from the Desert Fathers (Saint Anthony the Great):
"A hunter in the desert saw Abba Anthony (Saint Anthony the Great) enjoying himself with the brethren and he was shocked. Wanting to show him that it was necessary sometimes to meet the needs of the brethren, the old man said to him, 'Put an arrow in your bow and shoot it.' So he did. The old man then said, 'Shoot another,' and he did so. Then the old man said, 'Shoot yet again and the hunter replied 'If I bend my bow so much I will break it.' Then the old man said to him, 'It is the same with the work of God. If we stretch the brethren beyond measure they will soon break. Sometimes it is necessary to come down to meet their needs.'"
Quote from: GBoldwater on February 08, 2020, 01:12:04 PM
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 08, 2020, 12:43:07 PM
Quote from: GBoldwater on February 08, 2020, 12:24:45 PM
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 07, 2020, 06:56:10 AM
I posit that any being responsible for bringing this thing into existence, even in potentia, is a sadistic psychopath.
Okay, quasi-Catholic, are you saying the Creator of mankind is a sadistic psychopath?
Are you capable of reading? Don't chime in if you haven't read the whole thread. I explicitly rejected that the God of Abraham, the El of Genesis 1, who is the creator of man, is such a being. However, I would suggest that man's current physical form is at least an aberration consequent to the Fall, and especially so if it's derived from beasts. That a good God should have created man to live as a vampire, killing and consuming other things to survive and excreting putrid stinking matter is unthinkable. It's a perverse joke that spiritual being should be subject to such indignity.
Materiality is a wonder, but its form as bound by the laws of this world is in part horrific.
quasi means "seemingly, but not really". So, what are you doing here? What you write sounds like a modernist, agnostic troll.
Do you have a counter-argument, or is that all you can say?
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 08, 2020, 02:13:08 PM
Quote from: GBoldwater on February 08, 2020, 01:12:04 PM
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 08, 2020, 12:43:07 PM
Quote from: GBoldwater on February 08, 2020, 12:24:45 PM
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 07, 2020, 06:56:10 AM
I posit that any being responsible for bringing this thing into existence, even in potentia, is a sadistic psychopath.
Okay, quasi-Catholic, are you saying the Creator of mankind is a sadistic psychopath?
Are you capable of reading? Don't chime in if you haven't read the whole thread. I explicitly rejected that the God of Abraham, the El of Genesis 1, who is the creator of man, is such a being. However, I would suggest that man's current physical form is at least an aberration consequent to the Fall, and especially so if it's derived from beasts. That a good God should have created man to live as a vampire, killing and consuming other things to survive and excreting putrid stinking matter is unthinkable. It's a perverse joke that spiritual being should be subject to such indignity.
Materiality is a wonder, but its form as bound by the laws of this world is in part horrific.
quasi means "seemingly, but not really". So, what are you doing here? What you write sounds like a modernist, agnostic troll.
Do you have a counter-argument, or is that all you can say?
Pretty much says it all.
Quote from: GBoldwater on February 08, 2020, 03:11:22 PM
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 08, 2020, 02:13:08 PM
Quote from: GBoldwater on February 08, 2020, 01:12:04 PM
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 08, 2020, 12:43:07 PM
Quote from: GBoldwater on February 08, 2020, 12:24:45 PM
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 07, 2020, 06:56:10 AM
I posit that any being responsible for bringing this thing into existence, even in potentia, is a sadistic psychopath.
Okay, quasi-Catholic, are you saying the Creator of mankind is a sadistic psychopath?
Are you capable of reading? Don't chime in if you haven't read the whole thread. I explicitly rejected that the God of Abraham, the El of Genesis 1, who is the creator of man, is such a being. However, I would suggest that man's current physical form is at least an aberration consequent to the Fall, and especially so if it's derived from beasts. That a good God should have created man to live as a vampire, killing and consuming other things to survive and excreting putrid stinking matter is unthinkable. It's a perverse joke that spiritual being should be subject to such indignity.
Materiality is a wonder, but its form as bound by the laws of this world is in part horrific.
quasi means "seemingly, but not really". So, what are you doing here? What you write sounds like a modernist, agnostic troll.
Do you have a counter-argument, or is that all you can say?
Pretty much says it all.
Yes. Yes it does. You're low IQ, so instead of contesting against someone's argued assertions in a reasoned way in order to refute them, which you'd be able to do if you were right and intelligent, you just blather.
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 08, 2020, 03:28:04 PM
Quote from: GBoldwater on February 08, 2020, 03:11:22 PM
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 08, 2020, 02:13:08 PM
Quote from: GBoldwater on February 08, 2020, 01:12:04 PM
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 08, 2020, 12:43:07 PM
Quote from: GBoldwater on February 08, 2020, 12:24:45 PM
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 07, 2020, 06:56:10 AM
I posit that any being responsible for bringing this thing into existence, even in potentia, is a sadistic psychopath.
Okay, quasi-Catholic, are you saying the Creator of mankind is a sadistic psychopath?
Are you capable of reading? Don't chime in if you haven't read the whole thread. I explicitly rejected that the God of Abraham, the El of Genesis 1, who is the creator of man, is such a being. However, I would suggest that man's current physical form is at least an aberration consequent to the Fall, and especially so if it's derived from beasts. That a good God should have created man to live as a vampire, killing and consuming other things to survive and excreting putrid stinking matter is unthinkable. It's a perverse joke that spiritual being should be subject to such indignity.
Materiality is a wonder, but its form as bound by the laws of this world is in part horrific.
quasi means "seemingly, but not really". So, what are you doing here? What you write sounds like a modernist, agnostic troll.
Do you have a counter-argument, or is that all you can say?
Pretty much says it all.
Yes. Yes it does. You're low IQ, so instead of contesting against someone's argued assertions in a reasoned way in order to refute them, which you'd be able to do if you were right and intelligent, you just blather.
That you are an admitted fake Catholic....says it all.
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 07, 2020, 06:56:10 AM
This is a no brainer unless one is ideologically retarded. Pain is something. It actually exists.
Why the insults and name calling? And I question this idea that pain has real ontological status.
Admittedly
bodily pain is something real. But let us set that aside for now. Pain in general is a privation. You ask me what's the worst pain I've experienced, and I'd say it's when I've been in mortal sin and at enmity with God. (It has the taste of hell. Makes you desire your own annihilation.) This is clearly a privation: had I the friendship with God, I would not have been experiencing the pain. (And lesser pains work the same way. If I want an ice cream cone but am unable to have one, I experience a sort of pain. Yet it's the pain of
not having what I want. All pain is relative to the joyful or painless state.)
Even God in His divine nature experiences pain in this sense, cf. Genesis 6:6: He suffers 'sorrow of heart' because His creation has betrayed Him. The love that He should be receiving is absent.
Bodily pain, on the other hand, is something positive. It is ordered towards an end. But it isn't evil except insofar as it strays from that order: when it's not doing what it should be doing, or when it's doing what it's not supposed to be doing.
There was no suffering in the Garden of Eden in Paradise. There would have been no suffering if the human will had conformed itself to the Divine Will. All man's suffering and all suffering in the whole creation originates in one way or the other, and is even caused by, primarily and principally the original sin, but secondarily and subordinately also, all the very many billions of mortal sins that are committed each day, all of which has hidden and unseen effects beyond what we think, according to many Saints and Mystics. That's why after Adam's sin, suffering became necessary. But in God Almighty's Goodness and Greatness, that very Suffering and Sacrificial Painful Expiation was used as the now necessary means of Redemption by Christ's Sacrifice on the Cross, so that through Christ Our Lord, Man's very mortality, suffering and death, can become the means of our salvation; in Himself, because He as Perfecct God and Perfect Man, gave His Life in Atoning Sacrifice; in ourselves because by holy sacrificial suffering, by devoutly carrying our daily Cross and following Him as true disciples of His, we can, as the sacrificial and victim souls of the Church who undergo a white martyrdom have shown in a special and exemplary manner, we can sanctify our souls, save other souls, obtain very great and powerful graces for the world, obtain great merits in Heaven, and so many other things far, far, far above the comprehension of secularists and worldlings today who attack God. We are also taught that in the Age of Mary of come, men will begin to live again in peace and love of God and neighbor, and do works of justice and charity and mercy in great abundance as never before in the history of the Church, such that a very great part of humanity's suffering will be alleviated; and the earth will become, with holy Doctors and virtuous Saints, something close to Paradise, or as close to it as we can experience this side of Heaven; the reason being that if man puts an end to all daily mortal and even venial sin - of which there must be countless trilions upon trillions upon trillions in all of humanity's history, which must be cancelled and expiated in gratefully accepted suffering from God's Loving hands before the Age of Mary comes - even his temporal punishment or temporal suffering - as we understand easily by analogy to indulgences for Works of Mercy and for Prayers and Sacrifices - will be ameliorated or reduced. Man has it in his power, by the Grace of God, if only he really desires a very deep and lasting holiness, to end or at least very greatly reduce the amount of suffering in the world, which should be a constant rebuke to our own laziness.
Quote from: Daniel on February 08, 2020, 04:37:44 PM
Pain in general is a privation.
No it's not.
QuoteYou ask me what's the worst pain I've experienced, and I'd say it's when I've been in mortal sin and at enmity with God. (It has the taste of hell. Makes you desire your own annihilation.) This is clearly a privation: had I the friendship with God, I would not have been experiencing the pain.
I think you're confusing the cause of experiencing something with the cause of the object of that experience. You can't even avoid acknowledging there is a tangible experience of something, not a mere absence of the experience of another thing, with the way you use words like "taste of Hell" to convey meaning.
If I cut myself off from light, I will see only darkness, but the absence of light is not the
cause of the darkness I see. Black is not derivable from a mere absence; a phenomenon is no more derivable from an absence of something else than nothing is capable of yielding something.
Quote(And lesser pains work the same way. If I want an ice cream cone but am unable to have one, I experience a sort of pain. Yet it's the pain of not having what I want.
Yes, of hunger or an unfulfilled longing, for example. These experiential phenomena are not identical with the absence of ice cream, and there's no necessary reason these should be objects of my experience in the absence of ice cream, because the mere absence of ice cream in my experience and what the tangible pain in my stomach is are in no way intrinsically related.
I will concede that that on the part of loving a thing and longing for it, a kind of "pain" seems to be an inevitable corollary of it, even of love itself. I wouldn't call this longing itself a privation, but I wouldn't necessarily call it something awful either. Some things
are only possible with an attendant risk and cost. I would call this an intrinsic part of being a being in the image and likeness of God, and I wouldn't blame this reality on a devil.
QuoteAll pain is relative to the joyful or painless state.)
Absence of pain is not joy.
QuoteEven God in His divine nature experiences pain in this sense, cf. Genesis 6:6: He suffers 'sorrow of heart' because His creation has betrayed Him. The love that He should be receiving is absent.
Absence of love is not sorrow. Sorrow
is something.
QuoteBodily pain, on the other hand, is something positive. It is ordered towards an end. But it isn't evil except insofar as it strays from that order: when it's not doing what it should be doing, or when it's doing what it's not supposed to be doing.
As I stated at the outset, the form is unnecessary for the function. It's not only unnecessary that the means, or even the sensation, that informs a body it's being burned and to avoid it should be what it is, but, for example, when it comes to someone being engulfed in flames and inevitably burned to death, the degree to which that pain is amplified without adding any utility is not just unnecessarily excessive but sadistic. One could program a computer to detect and respond to dangerous levels of heat without any experience of pain, yet in this supposedly good" creation, even innocent babies undergo the most horrific experience imaginable because of this thing "ordered towards an end". And pain in itself is absolutely something awful, regardless of whether or not it can serve an end to some good. Why else would devils relish torture, and human devils like the Marquis de Sade as much as any!
Quote from: Xavier on February 08, 2020, 04:44:37 PM
There was no suffering in the Garden of Eden in Paradise. There would have been no suffering if the human will had conformed itself to the Divine Will. All man's suffering and all suffering in the whole creation originates in one way or the other, and is even caused by, primarily and principally the original sin, but secondarily and subordinately also, all the very many billions of mortal sins that are committed each day, all of which has hidden and unseen effects beyond what we think, according to many Saints and Mystics.
This doesn't address the ontological cause of pain's existence and it being what it is. That's the whole point. Suffering from pain is
only possible because pain exists and is awful, and if we go with the model of creation
ex nihilo, someone had to have created it.
Quote from: dellery on February 07, 2020, 08:10:40 PM
You framed this in a way that makes it hard to argue against. Regardless, I'm not cut out to refute what you wrote.
Forgive me but I'm going to relate something about myself.
As a teenager I was pretty well lost, quite lustful, and bore a child out of wedlock.
My daughter's mother, who was automatically given custody, turned out to be an incredibly abusive person and it got worse as time progressed. The state only enabled the abuse and every time family services would give me temporary custody my daughter's mother would comply with whatever she had to and then get custody back. I hired a lawyer and took my daughter's mother to court to gain custody. My lawyer, a women (what was I thinking?), milked out the whole process with countless unproductive hearings, and the Guardian Ad Litem, another woman (court appointed) did not investigate anything on my behalf, went with my daughter's mother's side of the story, said my daughter was exaggerating, and that I was "somewhat of a religious extremist" because I go to mass and pray a lot. Full custody was granted to my daughter's mother and my visitations were restricted. I've never did anything legally wrong in my life other than pot-smoking and under-age drinking as a teen. This all hurt pretty bad. When my daughter's mother disappeared into the city of Chicago with her, nobody would help me except the Police, but they couldn't do much. After a couple YEARS of no contact with my daughter I fell apart. Typing this out isn't that bad, but it's still impossible for me to speak about all this to anybody without crying.
Eventually, I picked myself up (with help) and soldiered on. Putting myself back together caused me to fix things about myself that had always been broken, but I had always been too weak and apathetic to fix. I can honestly say that I've become a much better person from the turd I always was.
My daughter ran off to me right after her 18th birthday. Now she's attending a private Catholic university, every year has been placed on the Dean's List and receives the Dean's Award, and is also a national collegiate scholar. She get's a full-ride from her academic performance and all I have to pay for is housing.
There were a lot of lessons to be learned from the experience, for both my daughter and I. Most notably for myself: the selfishness of lust, and that bringing a child into the world out of wed-lock is as much a crime against the child as it is God.
It's hard to say if all the suffering was worth it or not. Who knows how things could've turned out amid different circumstances?
I'm so glad you and your daughter found one another again.
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 08, 2020, 05:42:01 PM
Quote from: Xavier on February 08, 2020, 04:44:37 PM
There was no suffering in the Garden of Eden in Paradise. There would have been no suffering if the human will had conformed itself to the Divine Will. All man's suffering and all suffering in the whole creation originates in one way or the other, and is even caused by, primarily and principally the original sin, but secondarily and subordinately also, all the very many billions of mortal sins that are committed each day, all of which has hidden and unseen effects beyond what we think, according to many Saints and Mystics.
This doesn't address the ontological cause of pain's existence and it being what it is. That's the whole point. Suffering from pain is only possible because pain exists and is awful, and if we go with the model of creation ex nihilo, someone had to have created it.
Pain ought to be seen by Christians as a remedy, a medicine for sin. Think of sin as a virus, a coronavirus say, since everyone is talking about that, that infected us when we sinned in Adam. Then pain, although originating from the devil's power and man's evil choices, is nonetheless used by the Great Physician of souls to progressively remove all traces of that virus from our system. This painful purification must be completed either in this life or the pain of Purgatory.
Now that pain is a given in Creation, God re-directs the evil the devil intends for a higher purpose, I.e to (1) create personal merits for eternity, such as we behold on the 12 stars in Mary's Crown in Heaven (12:1) for Her great suffering in Union with Christ and Her great pains, such as we are all called to bear heroically and well in our own measure in our own life, for each of which sufferings borne well we will also have a specific reward in Heaven in our own Crowns (2) to advance one's own purification from all sin. Thus, some Saints have completed their Purgatory in this world and gone straight to Heaven; as all of us can do by the Life Offering to Jesus and Mary. Indeed it is wise to see this world itself now after the fall as having become a kind of Purgatory, and time as our most precious resource that is rapidly running out, and which we must utilize to sacrifice and to save souls before it is too late; (3) to also pays the debts of other souls to Divine Justice, as we can do both for the Poor Souls, and for other living souls. This is how the Martyrs of the Church have taught us to see the Wisdom of the Cross, though it is folly to those outside Christ.
So sin is the virus. The virus itself causes pain. But pain can also become medicinal and even salvific for oneself and for others by meriting graces for us and for them in Union with Christ Crucified, Whose pains are the very greatest, and Who still suffers for love of souls and desire for the salvation of all 24*7 in the Blessed Sacrament. The pains of all the whole world united are vastly vastly less than the pains of Christ alone, on account of which the Holy Doctors call the Savior the King of Martyrs. To console Him for those pains before the Blessed Sacrament and wherever else we can as often as we can and bear our own cross much lighter than His well should be one of the foremost duties in our life. Pain is a mystery now but it has a role to play in the present order of Creation. It will all become very clear in the end when we understand all things in the light of the beatific vision, when every tear will be wiped away, pain will be no more and endless happiness awaits us.
Quote from: Xavier on February 08, 2020, 07:29:39 PMPain ought to be seen by Christians as a remedy, a medicine for sin. Think of sin as a virus, a coronavirus say, since everyone is talking about that, that infected us when we sinned in Adam. Then pain, although originating from the devil's power and man's evil choices, is nonetheless used by the Great Physician of souls to progressively remove all traces of that virus from our system. This painful purification must be completed either in this life or the pain of Purgatory.
This would hold true, Xavier, if pain was only something that was experienced by humans above the age of reason with access to the Church and the sacraments. The problem being set forth by Kreuzritter, so far as I understand him from some other threads where he criticized theistic evolution, is the preponderance of what can only be called
gratuitous pain. The suffering of, say, an animal as it gets eaten alive in the wild, or languishes in misery on a factory farm, cannot be redemptive for that animal.
Similarly for a malarial baby born to famished impoverished naked primitives ignorant of the gospel. When it dies after a brief life of knowing only pain and want, that infant's soul is going to Limbo. The fact of its earthly suffering did nothing to merit its eternal fate: its eternal fate was determined by the sheer lottery of its birth. (Kreuzritter himself, I should add, would probably disagree with this last sentence, as his soteriology comes across to me as being of a different sort from the orthodox Catholic view as I received it. But you get the general idea).
Quote from: Xavier on February 08, 2020, 07:29:39 PM
Pain ought to be seen by Christians as a remedy, a medicine for sin. Think of sin as a virus, a coronavirus say, since everyone is talking about that, that infected us when we sinned in Adam. Then pain, although originating from the devil's power and man's evil choices, is nonetheless used by the Great Physician of souls to progressively remove all traces of that virus from our system. This painful purification must be completed either in this life or the pain of Purgatory.
This is fine, in context. Indeed, it's the answer presented to Job regarding suffering. But I defer to Pon's reply.
Also, it still doesn't address the ontological cause of the existence of pain, which is a fundamental focus of this thread. Sin may lead us into a world of pain, given the possibility of pain, but that doesn't account for the existence of such a thing as pain. Again I draw attention to the analogy of black. Withdrawing all the colours associated with the spectrum of light from my vision doesn't account for what black is; taking everything having a positive existence out of an image ought to leave one with nothing at all, but blackness is not nothing; it is something with its own essence and character, just as much as any colour. Either it was created or it just exists, but what it is not is a mere absence.
It is that, coupled with the existence of gratuitous pain, pain that doesn't redeem or edify but is so extreme that it in fact casts down and destroys, turning innocent children or dignified men into squealing animals as all will and reason, even consciousness itself, departs from their earthly existence, that leads me to the position I have presented here.
edit - post deleted. But I will say that I'm pretty sure that the experience of pain owes its ontological status to God. This doesn't mean that God ever wanted us to experience it though. (It's clear that God didn't want Adam to experience it. And it's clear that He doesn't want the saints in heaven to experience it.)
Why did God make it in the first place? Why not make something nicer--something less painful? I will say that none of us are in the position to be answering that, seeing as none of us are God and this isn't something He ever revealed.
Though Xavier's answer is pretty good--the experience of pain has been supernaturalized such as to be the remedy for sin. (Though it does raise more questions, such as, why couldn't God have made a nicer, less-painful remedy for sin? Again I'd say that none of us are in the position to be answering that. Whatever reason God may have had, it's obviously a very good reason albeit beyond our comprehension.)
Quote from: Daniel on February 09, 2020, 10:46:40 AMedit - post deleted. But I will say that I'm pretty sure that the experience of pain owes its ontological status to God. This doesn't mean that God ever wanted us to experience it though. (It's clear that God didn't want Adam to experience it. And it's clear that He doesn't want the saints in heaven to experience it.)
He certainly wants the sinners in Hell to experience it, that much is certain.
And it would be extremely difficult to argue that God doesn't want people to feel pain in this life when He ordained and created whatsoever there is. Even by way of permission, it is still an act of His sovereign will.
Hi dear friends, Daniel, Pon and Kreuz [Edit] and Vetus, just passing through for now. I'll respond in more detail later. I would encourage everyone who can, especially those who may be experiencing acute pain in their life, and would like additional Heavenly Helps and Super-Abundant Graces to heroically and victoriously overcome the difficulties, to try to make the Life Offering to Jesus and Mary revealed by the Twin Hearts, specifically for this purpose, which has had amazing effects in so many suffering souls who made them. Fully Church approved, Our Lady and Our Lady promised full salvation and final perseverance, and even Heaven without Purgatory, and the Salvation of all our family members, if we make this Life Offering to Jesus and Mary. It is like Total Consecration to Jesus through Mary or the Heroic Vow. All who receive Holy Communion daily, or at least weekly, are called by Jesus and Mary to make it. You will experience immense relief when you do; I will post some testimonies of those who've made it and who've experience that. From: https://marianapostolate.com/life-offering/
LIFE OFFERING
A Call to be a quiet modern apostle!
"My children, I am calling you to apostolic privilege!" -Our Lady
LIFE OFFERING TO THE INTENTION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY
The following messages, prayers, and promises were received by a privileged Hungarian nun, a consoling soul, who in her humility and obedience to her spiritual director wished to remain anonymous while living (her name was Sr. Maria Dolores, O.S.M., born Elizabeth Krizsan). She died on May 27, 1998, at the age of 96.
Mary, our Heavenly Mother, implores those who receive Holy Communion daily, or at least weekly, to offer their lives for the greater glory of God and the salvation of souls, that the souls of sinners may not be damned but receive, at least at their last hour, the graces of eternal life.
THE FIVE PROMISES OF OUR HEAVENLY MOTHER TO THOSE WHO OFFER THEIR LIVES TO HER
I. Their names will be written in the Hearts of Jesus and Mary, inflamed by love.
II. Their life offering, together with the infinite merits of Jesus, can save many souls from damnation. All souls who will live until the III. end of the world will benefit from their life offering.
III. None of their family members will go to hell, even if it seems otherwise, because they will receive, in the depths of their souls, the grace of sincere contrition before the soul departs from their bodies.
IV. On the day they offer their lives, their loved ones suffering in Purgatory will be released.
V. I will be with them at the hour of their death. They will not know Purgatory. I will carry their souls straight to the presence of the Glorious Trinity, where they will live with me in a special place created by God and will rejoice forever.
TEXT OF THE LIFE OFFERING
My dear Jesus, before the Holy Trinity, Our Heavenly Mother, and the whole Heavenly Court, united with your most precious Blood and your sacrifice on Calvary, I hereby offer my whole life to the intention of your Sacred Heart and to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Together with my life, I place at your disposal all Holy Masses, all my Holy Communions, all my good deeds, all my sacrifices, and the sufferings of my of my entire life for the adoration and supplication of the Holy Trinity, for unity in our Holy Mother Church, for the Holy Father and priests, for good priestly vocations, and for all souls until the end of the world.
O my Jesus, please accept my life sacrifice and my offerings and give me your grace that I may persevere obediently until my death. Amen.
* * *
This life offering must be made with a humble heart, firm resolution, and clear intent. All prayer, good deeds, suffering, and work done with a pure intention has great merit, if it is offered together with the merits, the sufferings, and the Blood of Jesus Christ.
It is recommended that you make this life offering as soon as you feel ready, and to renew it from time to time."
From the link, OUR LADY (to those who offer their lives): "If the Eternal Father chooses to give a soul the grace of being among the elect, He will order that soul to become similar to His only-begotten Son while on earth; but in what way should this soul be like His Son? In love and acceptance of sufferings. If you follow your Jesus in these two ways, then the Eternal Father will recognize His Holy Son in you.
"Souls chosen by the Eternal Father to offer their lives must strive to save as many other souls as possible. This can be done through fervent prayer, through the practice of love, through meekness, humility and self-denial, but above all through the patient acceptance of sufferings. I believe that my Motherly Heart will find among my children souls who love God with the love of the martyrs.
"My children, even during the greatest trials, hold my motherly hand with unbounded trust. Come together with me to the Sacred Heart of Jesus: He is your strength on your earthly pilgrimage. Thus, strengthened by Him daily, you will march toward your eternal dwelling place of happiness where you will recognize each other in glorious ecstasy, you who sacrificed your lives for the glory of God and the salvation of souls. Then my Holy Son will embrace you to His flaming Heart, and He will immerse you in the ecstasy of the united love of the Trinity. In this state of eternal bliss, you will rejoice forever, together with those souls who were able to gain eternal life because of your selfless life sacrifice.
"Hope and love, because God is with you. My children, each offered life is pleasing to God. Therefore, do not limit your sacrifice. This should be your life slogan: Give more and love better!
"The design of my Holy Son included the deeds of the elect. He is eagerly waiting to see if they fulfill His plan or cross it. He could realize His plan without them, but in His merciful goodness, He wants them to participate in the distribution of the fruits of redemption throughout the world. Do you know why I am telling you all this? Because I watch, with great anguish, the fight of the souls in the Church. It is very painful for my motherly heart that there are many, even among the elect, who do not believe that God can do whatever He wants! Unfortunately, they are using their knowledge not to increase faith and unity, but to encourage disbelief.
"You, however, my life-offering children, should believe with a living faith. You should strive to increase in your hearts the flame of faith, because when faith becomes stronger, it will increase your hope and love too.
"Once you surrender yourself to great sufferings of either body or soul, the experience can be a fountain of immeasurable grace. You can pay for the sins of your life, or for the things you have failed to do. Or if this has already been paid, then the merit of your patient sufferings can be applied to conversion of hardened sinners. By that you can glorify God. The souls you save by your obedient acceptance of sufferings may even become saints. When the weight of suffering lies heavily on you, whether illness or suffering in the soul, always remember that you are just a pilgrim on this earth. Beyond the grave there is a wonderful world that was prepared by God for His faithful children, where your happiness will be greater than that which your patient and obedient sufferings could possibly merit. As it is written: your soul will forever be immersed in such happiness that eye has not seen, ear has not heard, neither has it entered into the heart of man, what things God has prepared for those that love Him (1 Cor. 2:9).
"No matter how heavy your suffering on earth, it will last but a short time. Rejoice while you suffer, because you are proceeding toward a sure goal, and at the end of this road, your Heavenly Mother is waiting for you to embrace you with the eternal love of the Trinity.
"My children! I am calling you to apostolic privilege. You are chosen to suffer martyrdom of the heart for the sins of others. And by this voluntary life sacrifice – coming from your good heart – God will be able to pour out the flood of His mercy. Think about that!
"My beloved children! If you carry patiently the little thorn from the cross of my Son that He has given to you, you can save countless souls from eternal damnation. Thus, holding the hand of your Heavenly Mother, you too will partake in the work of redemption. My Children! Do not ask for sufferings, but always accept with humility and selflessness those that the Lord hands to you.
"My dear children! You should burn with fervor to help save those who suffer in the slavery of sin. In life, captivity often results in freedom and uplifting of the soul. But most prisoners of sin are more pitiable than those in earthly prison because they are not aware that they are imprisoned by their depravity, and thus they do not even ask for freedom. The blindness of the soul, with its darkness, is more pitiable than anyone in a dark prison. I would like to free these souls. Since they do not want to be set free, I need the help of my faithful children and their life-offering, the patient acceptance of sufferings and trials, in order that I may save them. Combined with the treasures of my Holy Son, that will enable me to save not only your loved ones, but a multitude of souls from everlasting darkness – even those who will be born later, until the end of the world.
"My children! Give everything to me and I will give everything to my Holy Son, united with my interceding prayers. I am the Woman who sets slaves free."
"My beloved Children: My Holy Son finished the work of redemption. His own sacrifice was enough, but He left a little part to you. He calls and elects certain souls to share His sacrifice in an intimate union with Him. He suffered for the glory of God and for the salvation of souls. It is a joy for my Son to see Himself in them."
Quote from: Daniel on February 09, 2020, 10:46:40 AMWhy did God make it in the first place? Why not make something nicer--something less painful? I will say that none of us are in the position to be answering that, seeing as none of us are God and this isn't something He ever revealed.
Though Xavier's answer is pretty good--the experience of pain has been supernaturalized such as to be the remedy for sin. (Though it does raise more questions, such as, why couldn't God have made a nicer, less-painful remedy for sin? Again I'd say that none of us are in the position to be answering that. Whatever reason God may have had, it's obviously a very good reason albeit beyond our comprehension.)
The problem with this is that the same principle could be used to defend Calvinism. A person could even posit an extreme form of theistic Satanism, where the deity actually delights in creaturely suffering, and theologically justify it with "he has his reasons." It's not that God might have an occult reason beyond our understanding, which is possible, but it doesn't compute with gratuitous suffering, or even omnibenevolence. As the forum user QMR used to point out, in his attempts to defend theistic evolution, the fact of God allowing even the tiniest pinprick contradicts omnibenevolence, technically speaking.
I think it's possible to qualifiedly refute QMR there, though, since some forms of suffering seem necessary for a heightened experience of pleasure. Such as when learning how to play the guitar, there's the physical pain from getting the blisters that will eventually form callouses. And there's the psychological pain of frustration when making mistakes, or despair that you'll never master it. But when the skill is finally acquired, it's almost as if the pain that was endured in the process helps you to appreciate the mastery. From a creaturely standpoint, some measure of suffering might be needed to experience bliss. The problem with gratuitous suffering, on the other hand, is that it isn't the means to any end at all.
Quote from: Pon de Replay on February 09, 2020, 01:54:39 PMThe problem with gratuitous suffering, on the other hand, that it isn't the means to any end at all.
Except we are not in a position to establish that with any confidence. What seems gratuitous or pointless to us, like babies dying of cancer, can make perfect sense when all things are considered.
Only God knows the time and space continuum to its fullest extent and the end point of all the effects of all the causes. Existence is His sublime puzzle after all. The burden of proof in your proposition, namely that some suffering is gratuitous and that it isn't the means to any end at all, is simply too heavy. The best you could posit is that it doesn't seem likely that there's any end to some forms of suffering but even then you'd end up in a probabilistic guess that cannot be reasonably proven.
Quote from: Pon de Replay on February 09, 2020, 01:54:39 PM
The problem with this is that the same principle could be used to defend Calvinism. A person could even posit an extreme form of theistic Satanism, where the deity actually delights in creaturely suffering, and theologically justify it with "he has his reasons." It's not that God might have an occult reason beyond our understanding, which is possible, but it doesn't compute with gratuitous suffering, or even omnibenevolence. As the forum user QMR used to point out, in his attempts to defend theistic evolution, the fact of God allowing even the tiniest pinprick contradicts omnibenevolence, technically speaking.
While I've yet to find a logical reason which definitively demonstrates why God is omnibenevolent (other than my own spiritual experiences, which anecdotally cannot be used for argumentation) and perhaps that's a fool's errand given that God's Essence is, in its entirety, incomprehensible, isn't Christ Himself an example which heavily suggests that God is omnibenevolent? Why would a God who creates a world of pure suffering and pain lower Himself to the level of such a world and experience pain and suffering to an exact degree his "victims" does? The Crucifixion not withstanding, Jesus weeping over Lazarus and John the Baptist, for example.
Quote
I think it's possible to qualifiedly refute QMR there, though, since some forms of suffering seem necessary for a heightened experience of pleasure. Such as when learning how to play the guitar, there's the physical pain from getting the blisters that will eventually form callouses. And there's the psychological pain of frustration when making mistakes, or despair that you'll never master it. But when the skill is finally acquired, it's almost as if the pain that was endured in the process helps you to appreciate the mastery. From a creaturely standpoint, some measure of suffering might be needed to experience bliss. The problem with gratuitous suffering, on the other hand, that it isn't the means to any end at all.
Charity? Love? Growth? Desire to go back to God? For example, the death of a loved one, while bringing about suffering, allows the opportunity for people to go back to God, to express love to each other, and to grow as people.
And in the case of Hell, Free Will? (Assuming one defines God's Judgment of people to Hell as nothing more than the spiritual consequences of people's choices)
Quote from: TheReturnofLive on February 09, 2020, 02:21:19 PMWhile I've yet to find a logical reason which definitively demonstrates why God is omnibenevolent (other than my own spiritual experiences, which anecdotally cannot be used for argumentation) and perhaps that's a fool's errand given that God's Essence is, in its entirety, incomprehensible, isn't Christ Himself an example which heavily suggests that God is omnibenevolent? Why would a God who creates a world of pure suffering and pain lower Himself to the level of such a world and experience pain and suffering to an exact degree his "victims" does? The Crucifixion not withstanding, Jesus weeping over Lazarus and John the Baptist, for example.
I think there are theological ramifications to this that would probably entail a different thread. The notion of God suffering, just like the notions of God creating, intervening, or incarnating, seem to contradict at least the classical Platonic notions of God's perfection. Hence why so many pagans resisted Christianity as adding even more problems to what they had already considered the anthropomorphic God of the Jews. "A stumbling-block to the Jews, and to the Greeks, foolishness." But even granting it, I will concede that an incarnate God can certainly mourn for his friends, or undergo scourging, mockery, and crucifixion. Pardon any impiety, but what good does that do for the gazelle being devoured alive, or the pig suffering in the factory farm? I ask in all seriousness, because such instances, of which there are myriad, seem to be gratuitous suffering.
Quote from: TheReturnofLive on February 09, 2020, 02:21:19 PMCharity? Love? Growth? Desire to go back to God? For example, the death of a loved one, while bringing about suffering, allows the opportunity for people to go back to God, to express love to each other, and to grow as people.
Sure. In which case, we can understand how these things, in a grander scheme, aren't purely gratuitous suffering since they are the means to an end. These would be amplified versions of the comparatively minor suffering involved in learning how to play the guitar. A good deal of human suffering can be theologically justified.
One thing to consider is animal suffering. Things would be a lot easier if Descartes had been correct: if animals were merely automatons. But we know from a biological standpoint that animals have brains and nervous systems, and that they suffer, at least
physically, in much the same way that we do. Certain of other mammalian species probably even suffer emotionally, if not near to the same extent as us. But their souls are said to be mortal, not immortal. What can their suffering be other than gratuitous? Their eternal end is annihilation; there's no compensation for their suffering in an afterlife.
Quote from: TheReturnofLive on February 09, 2020, 02:21:19 PMAnd in the case of Hell, Free Will?
Except for the fact that unbaptized infants are denied heaven through no exercise of free will, and baptized infants who die before the age of reason are given heaven without it as well. We also have to consider all the souls who died ignorant of the gospel. Limbo, strictly speaking, is a part of hell.
Quote from: Vetus Ordo on February 09, 2020, 02:19:52 PMThe burden of proof in your proposition, namely that some suffering is gratuitous and that it isn't the means to any end at all, is simply too heavy. The best you could posit is that it doesn't seem likely that there's any end to some forms of suffering but even then you'd end up in a probabilistic guess that cannot be reasonably proven.
That's true, but doesn't the Church's teaching on animals as mortal souls definitively rule out any end for them? God is essentially Sadducean when it comes to the brutes. When they die, their creator is done with them. To paraphrase Galileo, "and yet they suffer."
Just for clarification, ReturnofLive, in order that I might explain myself better, can I ask whether you are a creationist, or whether you accept the theory of evolution?
Quote from: Pon de Replay on February 09, 2020, 02:53:40 PM
Quote from: Vetus Ordo on February 09, 2020, 02:19:52 PMThe burden of proof in your proposition, namely that some suffering is gratuitous and that it isn't the means to any end at all, is simply too heavy. The best you could posit is that it doesn't seem likely that there's any end to some forms of suffering but even then you'd end up in a probabilistic guess that cannot be reasonably proven.
That's true, but doesn't the Church's teaching on animals as mortal souls definitively rule out any end for them? God is essentially Sadducean when it comes to the brutes. When they die, their creator is done with them. To paraphrase Galileo, "and yet they suffer."
We can't rule out the existence of animals in the eschatological New Jerusalem. Regardless, the point stands. We're in no position to confidently rule out that God has sufficient moral reasons to permit, or foreordain from all eternity, the evil and suffering the whole creation experiences in this world,
groaning as in the pains of childbirth (Rom. 8:22).
Quote from: Pon de Replay on February 09, 2020, 02:58:42 PM
Just for clarification, ReturnofLive, in order that I might explain myself better, can I ask whether you are a creationist, or whether you accept the theory of evolution?
I don't have a definite position on it except for some extremes which I reject on both ends. Yeah, I know, to quote the band Rush and the song "Freewill,"
"If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice."
I fundamentally reject the idea that the Earth is merely 6000 years old, and more or less that Adam and Eve were on a physical place on Earth chilling out with flamingos, dolphins, and T-Rex's all eating leaves in the Garden of Eden, standing around with highly detailed, but nonfunctional and nonpurposeful reproductive organs which suddenly were given a purpose when they fell.
I'm also hostile towards certain aspects (not all, like the idea of Eden being "separate and above" the Earth seems heavily plausible) of an Enochian / Talmudist interpretation of Genesis. I don't believe that Eve had an affair with an angel, nor that angels reproduced with humans to produce demon DNA giants, and that's what the Fall from Heaven was. That's so absurd to me in what it implies that even St. John Chrysostom, St. John Cassian, and St. Augustine explained how illogical and nonsensical it was.
On the other hand, I reject the idea that humanity is nothing more than an animal, that we were always in a state of existence as we are now, and that our search for meaning, God, art, beauty, etc. is nothing more than an evolutionary development of our growing intellect. Not only does it seem, to me, statistically improbable that we would be the only species who would develop based on what conditions led to this development, but it doesn't make sense what short-term evolutionary benefits would result from crippling existentialism and incessant boredom with our lives. Sure, long term there may be benefits in the form of the search for meaning driving us forward so we can be the best animals we can be, but evolution seems adept at producing beneficial short term changes that aggregate over time.
I don't get why the optimal or sub-optimal result for humanity wouldn't be that of an ant-colony that is unable to think about our own existence, which mechanically just does what they are there to do without question, considering that Evolution implies so much nuance is in our DNA that is optimal - for instance, why we see more shades of the color green (forest survival) than any other color, why we have different skin colors (different environments), why we find cute things adorable (to protect children from harm to continue the species).
That's also not to mention the various holes in contemporary anthropology that actually exist in academia that cause me to raise an eyebrow, which legitimately exist outside of the Kent Hovind / Ken Ham propaganda machine. For example, anthropologists are still wondering how new world monkeys got there based on what radiometric dating tells us they were therefrom, with some anthropologists proposing some kind of landbridge which there is no evidence for or even monkeys riding on giant leaves. It doesn't dismiss Evolution in that abundance of quantitative evidence which we have that's available, of course, but at the same time, it shows that perhaps all the answers aren't strictly available from purely uniformitarian study.
I think that the "Pre-Fallen, sinless, communion with God, non-death" / "Rebellious, Post-Fallen, fundamentally broken or sinful, death" motif of Genesis is absolutely necessary for the Christian worldview, and in some form, that has to come to fruition in whatever anthropological view one has in Christianity. What form that is, I don't know.
For me, I think a more definite answer would result if I studied Geology, because that's where a lot of the answers lie, but I haven't been exposed to that field outside of high school. That's outside of the fact that I would have no interest in the field outside of reconciling Genesis, which honestly would just be a giant temptation for me with my already existing questions with God. But for now, I'm open to answers that fit within these defined parameters.
The one problem that YEC fails with in my opinion is not so much a philosophical critique of Evolutionary theory, but the absolute failure to engage with the quantitative data we have available - not only the abundance of skeletons which progressively show differentiation from apes to ape-like humanoids to humans, but also radiometric dating.
I already struggle with questions like how our developments in human nature make eschatological and morally theological sense.
For example, human society has progressed in such a way that we now wait several years later before settling down with someone and having kids or a family, and this is due to scientific and medical development allowing human beings to live much longer than they have previously and humanity optimizing for that development. Moreover, we are much taller than we once were back then. Despite this optimization, it seems our biology hasn't caught up with it yet with adolescence.
So, considering that the Virgin Mary got pregnant at age 12, what theologically makes pedophilia immoral? When Jesus comes back from the dead, considering that He still has human nature, will He be five and a half feet tall? Why does God give sexual pangs to adolescents in a way they are most certainly with almost 100% probability going to fall into objective mortal sin, with a large swath falling into subjective mortal sin, even if they have the purest and most innocent intentions, that they wouldn't have really had to the same degree previously? See James Joyce's "Araby."
These questions I already compartmentalize and struggle with alone. I need not to struggle with a Book that even from the 4th century the Church Fathers have started questioning it's literal historical accuracy (with people like Origen and Augustine scoffing at the idea that time in 24 hour periods could be measured without a sun, with the sun's light existing as separate from the sun), and as such, nobody knows how to fully explain it and ever has explained it.
Quote from: TheReturnofLive on February 09, 2020, 05:22:08 PMSo, considering that the Virgin Mary got pregnant at age 12, what theologically makes pedophilia immoral?
That's an apocryphal account.
There's no possible certainty regarding the Blessed Virgin's age at the time of her pregnancy given that Scripture is silent on the matter. However, for the sake of the argument, even if she was 12 years old when she conceived, it is certain that she had already reached puberty. The question of pedophilia that you raised is irrelevant. Pedophilia is, strictly speaking, sexual attraction to a pre-pubescent child. If she got pregnant, she wasn't pre-pubescent.
QuoteWhen Jesus comes back from the dead, considering that He still has human nature, will He be five and a half feet tall?
First, He's not coming back from the dead. Rather, He's coming down from Heaven.
Secondly, I'm not sure what you expect: that Christ would be a 6 ft 7 Lithuanian basketball player? While Scripture does not directly describe any physical traits of the Savior, we can infer a few things. If Christ had been above average in height for a 1st century Palestinian man or had some outstanding physical characteristic, then it is hard to imagine why Judas needed to point Him out in the garden. He obviously did not stand out that strikingly in a group of eleven other men. Furthermore, at His resurrection Mary Magdalene first thought He was the gardener! Again, if He had some unmistakable physical characteristic, then it would be difficult to imagine Him being taken for a gardener. In fact, in Isaiah 53:2 we read that Christ
"hath no form nor comeliness" and
"no beauty that we should desire him." In short, He did not stand out from the crowd.
Why exactly is this a question you struggle with, though? You said that developments in human nature, like the increase in height and average life expectancy, can posit eschatological and theological problems. Are you suggesting the genetics of the Savior are inferior to those of a 21st century Northern European or North American man? And that such presumed inferiority is a stumbling block to you?
Quote from: Vetus Ordo on February 09, 2020, 09:58:48 PM
Quote from: TheReturnofLive on February 09, 2020, 05:22:08 PMSo, considering that the Virgin Mary got pregnant at age 12, what theologically makes pedophilia immoral?
That's an apocryphal account.
There's no possible certainty regarding the Blessed Virgin's age at the time of her pregnancy given that Scripture is silent on the matter. However, for the sake of the argument, even if she was 12 years old when she conceived, it is certain that she had already reached puberty. The question of pedophilia that you raised is irrelevant. Pedophilia is, strictly speaking, sexual attraction to a pre-pubescent child. If she got pregnant, she wasn't pre-pubescent.
It's the same apocryphal account where we learn about the Virgin Mary's life, who her parents were, and the implication of her own personal sinlessness from her devotion to God. I don't think you can dismiss the story of the Virgin Mary's life without resorting to an arbitrarily defined Sola Scriptura (where somehow, the death of the Apostles are all canonical but the life of the Virgin Mary is not).
But regardless, so it's okay to have sexual intercourse with people as long as they are going through puberty and it's legal? Are you going to make that argument?
Quote
QuoteWhen Jesus comes back from the dead, considering that He still has human nature, will He be five and a half feet tall?
First, He's not coming back from the dead. Rather, He's coming down from Heaven.
Secondly, I'm not sure what you expect: that Christ would be a 6 ft 7 Lithuanian basketball player? While Scripture does not directly describe any physical traits of the Savior, we can infer a few things. If Christ had been above average in height for a 1st century Palestinian man or had some outstanding physical characteristic, then it is hard to imagine why Judas needed to point Him out in the garden. He obviously did not stand out that strikingly in a group of eleven other men. Furthermore, at His resurrection Mary Magdalene first thought He was the gardener! Again, if He had some unmistakable physical characteristic, then it would be difficult to imagine Him being taken for a gardener. In fact, in Isaiah 53:2 we read that Christ "hath no form nor comeliness" and "no beauty that we should desire him." In short, He did not stand out from the crowd.
Why exactly is this a question you struggle with, though? You said that developments in human nature, like the increase in height and average life expectancy, can posit eschatological and theological problems. Are you suggesting the genetics of the Savior are inferior to those of a 21st century Northern European or North American man? And that such presumed inferiority is a stumbling block to you?
Aside from the fact that your exegesis can be interpreted in other ways, the issue is not genetic inferiority, but the fact that most people on this planet who die will be taller than Our Savior. It's not a real question theologically, but more causes me to raise an eyebrow as to why God designed it that way, other than "It's a mystery, shut up."
The Blessed Virgin did not conceive Christ at age 12. She must have been around 16, an age at which young girls used to get married at even a century ago, usually to husbands around age 18 or so. The Blessed Virgin was born on Sept. 8, probably in the year 17 B.C. On Her Third Birthday, She was Presented in the Temple with St. Anna and St. Simeon already present there, to be Consecrated as a Temple Virgin. Next, She spent 12 whole Years in the Temple Herself, before being directed by Almighty God, Who had different Plans for His Mother, as the rest of History is witness, to marry St. Joseph for Her perfectly chaste husband, on Her 15th birthday. This must have been on Sept. 8th 2 B.C., a few months after which She was espoused to good St. Joseph. After the espousal, the Blessed Virgin conceived Our Lord Jesus Christ around March 25th, 1 B.C., and gave birth to Him on ChristMas day, 9 months later. It's plain that She would have been 16, then, when Our Divine Redeemer, the Man-God Our Lord Jesus Christ, was born for us on ChristMas Day, 1 B.C. And not 12 years old.
Now, let's review some things we saw about pain briefly. (1) Pains earn merits for us in Heaven. (2) Pain can be like a painful medication for the virus of sin, by which we are purgatorially purified from it. (3) Bearing pain well can lead to heroism on the part of good people, by which they can save even other souls on earth; or shorten Purgatory for departed souls. (4) Pain also teaches us sin has a cost. (5) Pain can sometimes restrain us from further sin, for e.g. when certain sins are punished e.g. with diseases, even naturally. (6) Temporal pain reminds us there is always the eternal pain, if we do not die in the state of grace, but in mortal sin; (7) Pain reminds us that sin alone is to be feared above all things, especially mortal sin; that one should prefer all the pains in the world than to commit one mortal sin, because one mortal sin causes eternal pains. If there were no pains in this world, men would not be prepared for pains after death. But pains after death must exist, because sins exist. Hence, pains must exist in this world.
Beside all this, Our Saviour chose to show His love for us by bearing pains for us, in a far higher degree than any of us, and that shows God feels our pain. Pain was necessary for the Redemption. Pain exists because sin must be expiated in suffering. When sin is completely expiated, we will return to a world without suffering, as it was in the beginning.
Our hearts long for a world without pain, and that world is Paradise. Theologians call this the two world theodicy. God raises men to perfection in two stages; the perfect world exists, but we must be made perfect by Grace in order to inherit it for ourselves. Only souls perfected by divine Grace can enter that perfect world, lest they corrupt it with sin again, and make it imperfect and full of suffering, as we have done to this world.
For animal suffering also, it is man who must be blamed; God taught us this by showing that lambs had to be sacrificed for our sins. It is because of our sins that suffering entered the animal creation. And the suffering of animals too, when consecrated and offered to God, as it was done in the Temple, in a certain degree expiates for sin or reduces the penalty thereof; now, we do not sacrifice animals any longer, since Jesus Christ alone is our Paschal Lamb of God now in the New Testament, but nonetheless the principle is established, that even animal suffering is caused by human sin, and that it would not exist if not for original and actual mortal sins. When God sacrificed animals to cover Adam and Eve's flesh after their sin, He already showed us sin had a cost, which had to be paid in blood. He taught the people of Israel in depth in Leviticus etc, that sin could only be expiated in blood, for sin destroys life, and the life of the flesh is in the blood, which alone expiates for sin; man ought to recall that God sacrifices creatures dear to Him for our sake.
Again, animal suffering is nothing other than a standing reproach to all of us who continually sin. There is a famous prophesy in the Bible of a future age when, "The wolf shall dwell with the lamb: and the leopard shall lie down with the kid: the calf and the lion, and the sheep shall abide together, and a little child shall lead them." (Isa 11:6) There are incidents in the life of St. Francis when the wildest animals became like the meekest lambs, because St. Francis, even without being ordained, was an Alter Christus in spirit, by being a very holy monk; and lived as close to how Adam should have lived, by constant surrender to God's Will, as was possible after the Fall and the Redemption.
Let no one set preconceived limits on what God can and will do in the future; once we have put an end to the many billions of sins, especially mortal sins committed every day. Our Lady has often repeated that the sins of man are the cause of all evils on Earth, even those evils we callously call "natural evils", even though there is nothing natural about our sin that causes them. Let us strive to live first without mortal sin, and then, as we pray in the Te Deum, after at least a few decades of striving for sanctity, with as little venial sin also as possible. And if millions lived like that, in no time at all we would see all kinds of suffering on earth very greatly reduced.
Finally, nothing is so wicked as evolution, in that it denies all this, and wickedly teaches millions and billions of years of gratuitous suffering, whereas Sacred Scripture teaches, and natural science proves, that humanity has lived for less than 10,000 years on this earth, and certainly, what is nearly incontrovertible now that "Ancient DNA" has been discovered preserved in ancient fossils, that those fossils at very, very most, are tens of 1000s of years old only. DNA cannot survive more than 10,000 years. That it has survived to the present is proof that hardly 10,000 years has passed since the Earth's Special Creation. But as with the dating of the Gospels, if someone finds difficulty in believing the earth is less than 10,000 years old, let him believe at least the scientifically demonstrable fact, as proven by A-DNA and other things Creation Scientists have mentioned, which evolutionists have never dealt with, that the earth is at least no more than 100,000 years old; interpreting, if he wants, each of the days of Genesis as being 10-15,000 years old. But let him give no more than that to the evolutionists, otherwise he will confuse himself, and risks losing the Faith, and doubting God's Goodness.
I posted a letter from Piers Compton's the Broken Cross showing Communists and Freemasons invented evolution, knowing that it is a lie, because it subverts Faith and weakens Christians and Christian Civilization: "'We have brought many of them to boast of being atheists, and more than that, to glory in being descendants of the ape! We have given them new theories, impossible of realization, such as Communism, anarchism, and Socialism, which are now serving our purposes. They have accepted them with the greatest enthusiasm, without realizing that those theories are ours, and that they constitute the most powerful instrument against themselves."
And on A-DNA, those who wish can see: https://www.suscipedomine.com/forum/index.php?topic=23205.0 "One unexpected recent discovery, confirmed repeatedly over the last 30 years or so, has been that of ancient DNA - DNA in supposedly millions of years old fossils. But that is a contradiction in terms, because DNA's half life is around 521 years, and even evolutionists admit it should not be present after around 10,000 years or so. So how does one account, without special pleading, for the fact of its survival?
The most direct and defensible inference from the data would be that only around 10,000 years have passed since the fossils were buried. Documentation: "DNA. When an animal or plant dies, its DNA begins decomposing.a Before 1990, almost no one believed that DNA could last 10,000 years.b This limit was based on measuring DNA disintegration rates in well-preserved specimens of known age, such as Egyptian mummies. DNA has now been reported in supposedly a 400,000-year-old hominin femur from Spain,c 17-million-year-old magnolia leaves,d and 11-to-425-million-year-old salt crystals.e Dozens of plants and animals have left DNA in sediments claimed to be 30,000–400,000 years old.f DNA fragments have been found in the scales of a "200-million-year-old" fossilized fishg and possibly in "80-million-year-old" dinosaur bones buried in a coal bed.h Frequently, DNA is found in insects and plants encased in amber samples, assumed to be 25–120-million years old.i" From: https://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/AstroPhysicalSciences29.html"
From: https://www.english.santisimavirgen.com.ar/ofrecimiento_vida_eng.htm A slightly imperfect translation in some places.
The Most Holy Virgin said:
- Make it known, my children, the great graces that the life offer brings: to those who suffer a lot in body and soul, to the incurables patients, to those who are crippled and unable to move, to those that are bedridden. Tell them that their suffering is not in vain. They have a treasure trove for all mankind, and themselves, because in their heart and soul, they have peace, strength, and relief, that by their patient acceptance of its sufferings, great joy and happiness await for them in heaven.
The chosen soul
This request from our Most Holy Mother, by the grace of the Lord, am already practicing it for a long time, and I have experienced how much relief it has brought to patients, when they have been able to understand the great benefits that they receive by the acceptance and the donation of themselves.
I visited in the hospitals the serious patients, especially those who not even their relatives were going to see and who had lost contact with their relatives. The greatest suffering was found amongst the patients who suffered of cancer or were bedridden. Most of them were aware that they were terminal, and for that reason, life no longer had sense for them. They thought that they could not be useful to anybody anymore.
But when they managed to understand:
- that they are the most loved children of the Most Holy Virgin,
- that in them the Lord Jesus is looking for companions,
- that Jesus calls them to so they their sufferings with the sufferings of his sacrifice in the Cross continuing his .redemption,
- that they are the true treasures of the Church,
- that with their sufferings they can save souls,
- that they can reach saintly priestly vocations, that can contribute to world peace, that by means of their sufferings they can repair their own and other people's sins,
- that at the time of death they would arrive - without going through purgatory - to the kingdom of heaven: then, when taking conscience from this, the grace worked admirably in them. They cried of joy when seeing how much God and the Most Holy Virgin loves them. They had thought that God was upset with them and took its suffering like punishment. There were some who did not think that God exists and thought about taking their own life. When they realized what great grace hides in making the offer of life and that the creature cannot give more to its Creator, they have experienced a great change. They became patient and their general prognosis improved. The nurse could not help but notice the change in demeanor of the patients, its new and beautiful behavior. They have become hidden saints from the Lord and have maintained the offer faithfully until the end. Some recovered the health, others died peacefully.
We prayer every night along with our kind and sweet heavenly Mother so that she increases the number of those that have the grace to offer their lives for love, which will give relief, peace, and strengthen them to support their suffering on Earth, and the eternal well-being in heaven. Our heavenly Mother also prays for those to who have reached the moment of grace to offer their life, so that they persevere faithfully in it, with faith, until death.
Prayer recommended by the Most Holy Virgin to the patients
My Jesus, I know that You love to me. That who You love is sick. If at all possible, pass of me this chalice of suffering. But I also add what You said in the orchard of Gethsemane: "Do not let My will be done, but Yours".
Strengthen and console me, my Jesus. Our Mother, Most Holy Virgin, You who cure the sick, pray for me before your Holy Son. Amen.
A small participation in the sufferings of Christ
During the Holy Marian Year (1983-1984) the Most Holy Virgin said to me:
- You, dear children, must with greater fervor still share the feelings of the Savior. Watch with compassion how he sweated blood in the orchard of the Olive trees, watch the chains, the ropes, how He was dragged from one judge to another, the spittle in the face, the different tortures, how He was whipped, the mantle of ridicule, the crown of thorns, the weight of the Cross, His falls and painful encounters. From your heart, you must follow Him to until His arrival at Calvary hill and to see Him there him, since they strip his garments and they crucify Him. Hanging from the Cross, soaked in His blood in agony, how much pain, how much torment, until exclaiming: "Everything is completed"
- My holy Son, dear children, made the work of the Redemption. His repairing sacrifice was total, but off Him He also left you a small participation since He chooses and calls to some souls to offer in intimate union with Him, the sacrifice of their life. He jointly shares with them the sufferings for the glory of the Father and the good of the souls so that nor a single one of them is lost. These souls are souls entirely given and can do much for the glory of God and salvation of the souls. My holy Son finds His joy in them.
- In today's world, my children, my holy Son has one hundred times greater necessity of lambs for the sacrifice. But you must think that the participation in the work of the Redemption can only consist of the sacrifice. It is necessary to start off from the orchard of Gethsemane and follow the way of the Cross of my holy Son. Without this there would be no merits nor offering of fecund life.
- The sooner a soul is offered, the more it glorifies the Father, and thus more souls help to save and will be beneficent to mankind. Oh how many graces can it reach for the Church and the priests! A soul thus cooperates effectively to the conversion of sinners, to the relief of patients, the salvation of the dying and for the souls to arrive at the mother country of eternal happiness. A soul thus makes, in union with my Most Holy Son, a true redeeming work.
- With all your heart and complete confidence, can you, my beloved children, count with your heavenly Mother, who is always with you, so that together we can pursue the divine Redeemer to the foot of the Cross where His Mother followed Him.
- Let yourselves be the trees of the Lord that produce always good fruits, blessing for the Earth and joy for heaven! Blessed be the Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit for ever and ever.l Amen!"
Quote from: TheReturnofLive on February 09, 2020, 11:09:44 PM
But regardless, so it's okay to have sexual intercourse with people as long as they are going through puberty and it's legal? Are you going to make that argument?
No... it's only ok
if you're married to that person. Pedophiles generally aren't married to their victims in the first place.
On top of that, pedophilia (or whatever it is we're talking about) is a kind of lust. Lust is always wrong, even within the context of marriage. Husbands are to love their wives, not to lust after their wives.
If we're talking about the mere desire to marry a post-pubescent 12-year-old, I think the only real problem is impropriety. Girls that are that young, in our day, aren't ready for marriage. (But maybe they were back then.) And society in our day is scandalized when a grown man marries a 12-year-old girl. (Not so much back then... though a 'grown man' by their standards would generally have been a lot younger as well.) There's also the question of why the man wants to marry a girl who isn't ready for marriage. Does he honestly think it's what's best, or is he just using her for his own sick pleasures?
I also don't think the ratio of puberty age to death age has much to do with medical advancements. Even in the Old Testament, we see that some people lived into their 120s, which is pretty much the cap today, even with the medical advancements. And they probably reached puberty at around the same time as we do today. My guess is, there's probably supposed to be a roughly 1:9 ratio. The fact that many people died younger does not indicate that the ideal ratio is less.
(Interestingly, the ratio even seems to hold during the time before the flood. With the exception of Enoch, the scriptural evidence shows that humans back then didn't have children until they were much older, indicating that maybe they didn't go through puberty until much later in life. But they also died much older--some lived into their late 900s. The ratio back then is about the same as it is now: Eve's first child was probably when she was in her 120s, and she probably died when she was just under 1000... which, granting certain assumptions, would be the equivalent of a woman having gone through puberty by the age of 12 and dying at 100.)
Regarding Christ's height, I think the Shroud places his height a bit above 5'06''. Second, who cares if most men today are a lot taller than him? Maybe most men today are freakishly tall. I believe 5'06'' was pretty average for a Roman man. I myself am around 5'06'', and I don't feel
that short. I'd say my height is pretty average... maybe a little on the short side, but not anything that really stands out as odd. (People caricaturize Napoleon as well, but Napoleon was 5'07''--really not
that short. Strangely enough, Alexander the Great was the same height as Napoleon, and nobody caricaturizes Alexander the Great.)
Quote from: TheReturnofLive on February 09, 2020, 05:22:08 PM
Why does God give sexual pangs to adolescents in a way they are most certainly with almost 100% probability going to fall into objective mortal sin, with a large swath falling into subjective mortal sin, even if they have the purest and most innocent intentions, that they wouldn't have really had to the same degree previously?
Among other reasons, to teach humility. See 1 Corinthians 10:13 and Romans 13:14. It's not an issue of probability--it's an issue of knowing your place, trusting God, and asking God for help.
Quote from: TheReturnofLive on February 09, 2020, 05:22:08 PM
See James Joyce's "Araby."
Nice to know how much these things go over my head :laugh: I thought that story was completely unintelligible.
Thank you for your considered answer on evolution, ReturnofLive. But even if man is "more than just an animal," I think so long as you accept an old earth and the fact of humans existing on the tree of life, then you would have to accept that at some point and for quite a long time, there were humans and, as you well put it, "ape-like humanoids" who were in fact purely animals. Even if what makes us special (things like art and self-contemplation) are what separates us from the animals, there would have to have been interim generations who either had these things only in a painfully rudimentary sense, or were entirely lacking them (if something like "ensoulment" was gifted to a particular generation by God).
So you'll have to imagine many thousands of years of these humans and proto-humans, existing and suffering in a harsh world that they were helpless to understand—buffeted by the cruelties of famine, disease, predation, and internecine violence, all of it beyond their comprehension. Even if you want to discount mere animal suffering, you would still have to account, I think, for the gratuitous suffering of these poor early humans during the long evolutionary march to arrive at the special kind of humans who could later reflect on themselves and their place in the universe. It seems inexplicable, does it not, that God would use such an unforgiving process just to arrive at a unique species that could rightfully appreciate, obey, and give praise to him? At the very least, creationism for all its faults posits far less gratuitous suffering. I agree with you, of course, that creationism is largely untenable. As I see it, this makes for a very difficult wedge in terms of theodicy.
Quote from: Xavier on February 10, 2020, 02:34:12 AMFor animal suffering also, it is man who must be blamed; God taught us this by showing that lambs had to be sacrificed for our sins. It is because of our sins that suffering entered the animal creation. And the suffering of animals too, when consecrated and offered to God, as it was done in the Temple, in a certain degree expiates for sin or reduces the penalty thereof; now, we do not sacrifice animals any longer, since Jesus Christ alone is our Paschal Lamb of God now in the New Testament, but nonetheless the principle is established, that even animal suffering is caused by human sin, and that it would not exist if not for original and actual mortal sins. When God sacrificed animals to cover Adam and Eve's flesh after their sin, He already showed us sin had a cost, which had to be paid in blood. He taught the people of Israel in depth in Leviticus etc, that sin could only be expiated in blood, for sin destroys life, and the life of the flesh is in the blood, which alone expiates for sin; man ought to recall that God sacrifices creatures dear to Him for our sake.
Sorry, Xavier, but I don't think this scenario accords with our sense of justice at all. It is not right to inflict suffering on innocents for the misdeeds of others. Though there may be specific exceptions, nevertheless this is a basic moral principle which is absent in the account you have given here.
Quote from: Vetus Ordo on February 09, 2020, 03:54:39 PMWe can't rule out the existence of animals in the eschatological New Jerusalem. Regardless, the point stands. We're in no position to confidently rule out that God has sufficient moral reasons to permit, or foreordain from all eternity, the evil and suffering the whole creation experiences in this world, groaning as in the pains of childbirth (Rom. 8:22).
True, we cannot rule it out. "
With God all things are possible"—but some things are more likely with God than others. We can speculate with confidence that animal salvation is among the more improbable eschatological scenarios. I thought you of all people would be my ally on this one. I think it's fairly consistent in both scripture and traditional theology that God is, on the whole, not mindful of animals. Even the supposition that "
the lamb will lie down with the lion" (Isaiah XI.6) is supposed to refer to the this-worldly Messianic age, perhaps in some final millennium of peace in the future or, as many theologians have been forced to conclude, is really only a metaphor.
Quote from: queen.saints on February 10, 2020, 06:19:36 AM
Quote from: TheReturnofLive on February 09, 2020, 05:22:08 PM
See James Joyce's "Araby."
Nice to know how much these things go over my head :laugh: I thought that story was completely unintelligible.
It is.
But sexual repression and the Church's role in that is undoubtedly a theme if not a subtext of the story; how he's in love with her hair and the light revealing her body's outline in the dress, and how he can't think about anything else but her, even in the context of praying; the fact that she is "going to a convent" which prevents him from going out with her; his frustration at the market in seeing a young attractive woman not give him attention but give two other men attention, so he angrily drops his pennies, and how he's subsequently left in darkness; etc.
That's not to mention the dead priest in the beginning with the rotten, yellow pages - decay or rot, death, yellow, and brown are associated with the Church and Britain throughout Dubliners.
Haven't read Ulysses, and I don't know if I want to. It looks like insanity.
Quote from: TheReturnofLive on February 09, 2020, 11:09:44 PMIt's the same apocryphal account where we learn about the Virgin Mary's life, who her parents were, and the implication of her own personal sinlessness from her devotion to God. I don't think you can dismiss the story of the Virgin Mary's life without resorting to an arbitrarily defined Sola Scriptura (where somehow, the death of the Apostles are all canonical but the life of the Virgin Mary is not).
The information we may extract from apocryphal writings is completely subordinate to the scriptural account, always prone to be corrected by it. It is Scripture that is the word of God. I don't dismiss outright that the Blessed Virgin may have conceived Christ at 12 years or 14 years old but that isn't a dogmatic fact. In other words, the information is not definitive.
QuoteBut regardless, so it's okay to have sexual intercourse with people as long as they are going through puberty and it's legal? Are you going to make that argument?
You said that there was a moral problem with a 12 year old getting pregnant, suggesting it was a case where Scripture condoned pedophilia. As we've already established, that cannot be the case. Pedophilia is sexual attraction to a pre-pubescent child. Pre-pubescents don't get pregnant. Puberty is the mark that distinguishes a child from a young adult. Moot point. Furthermore, the age of consent has varied a lot throughout the ages. People have been able to get a canonical marriage as young as 12 or 13 years old in medieval Europe.
QuoteAside from the fact that your exegesis can be interpreted in other ways, the issue is not genetic inferiority, but the fact that most people on this planet who die will be taller than Our Savior. It's not a real question theologically, but more causes me to raise an eyebrow as to why God designed it that way, other than "It's a mystery, shut up."
I confess this is one of the most bizarre problems I've come across. What exactly does the idea that many people will be physically taller than Christ, including some modern women, mean to you?
Quote from: Pon de Replay on February 10, 2020, 07:59:18 AMQuote from: Vetus Ordo on February 09, 2020, 03:54:39 PMWe can't rule out the existence of animals in the eschatological New Jerusalem. Regardless, the point stands. We're in no position to confidently rule out that God has sufficient moral reasons to permit, or foreordain from all eternity, the evil and suffering the whole creation experiences in this world, groaning as in the pains of childbirth (Rom. 8:22).
True, we cannot rule it out. "With God all things are possible"—but some things are more likely with God than others. We can speculate with confidence that animal salvation is among the more improbable eschatological scenarios. I thought you of all people would be my ally on this one. I think it's fairly consistent in both scripture and traditional theology that God is, on the whole, not mindful of animals. Even the supposition that "the lamb will lie down with the lion" (Isaiah XI.6) is supposed to refer to the this-worldly Messianic age, perhaps in some final millennium of peace in the future or, as many theologians have been forced to conclude, is really only a metaphor.
When I say that we can't absolutely rule out the presence of animals in the new Earth, I don't mean by it that they are somehow
saved. There's no moral agency in animals, they don't need to be saved from anything. Perhaps through their presence in the eschatological life, all creation is thus symbolically redeemed from the Fall. My original point stands, though. God has sufficient moral reasons to permit all evil and suffering in the world, for sentient and non-sentient life, and we're not in a realistic position to argue convincingly against it.
Quote from: PonIt is not right to inflict suffering on innocents for the misdeeds of others. Though there may be specific exceptions, nevertheless this is a basic moral principle which is absent in the account you have given here.
Suppose, just for an example, that a person or persons contracted a disease through their own fault. And then, to remedy the disease, it sadly became necessary for animals to suffer and die in order to provide the toxin for that disease leading to its ultimate cure. In this case, man would be at fault; those animals would have been sacrificial victims suffering on account of man's fault, and that would be the analogy. If we want to put an end to unnecessary animal suffering, Pon, and for the future Age to come, we must stop all sin, especially grave mortal and public repetitive sins imo. That Age has been prophesied in Scripture as the Sixth Age of the Church, it is spoken of by Ven. Fr. Bartholomew, it is when Israel has returned to Christ, it was spoken of by Our Lady of Fatima, and by many other Saints, and it is most assuredly coming. Then, we will all know the Truth.
I have to disagree on Creation Science. I would like to see someone address the fact of DNA still remaining in ancient organisms, which show those ancient organisms are less than 10,000 years young: https://www.suscipedomine.com/forum/index.php?topic=23024.0
"Creation has an excellent list of 101 evidences for a young earth here, I'm only enlisting the top ten: https://creation.com/age-of-the-earth Highly recommended read, and very powerful evidence the earth is a lot younger than evolutionary secularists need for their atheistic and pagan theory to work.
"I. DNA in 'ancient' fossils. DNA extracted from bacteria that are supposed to be 425 million years old brings into question that age, because DNA could not last more than thousands of years.II. Lazarus bacteria—
bacteria revived from salt inclusions supposedly 250 million years old, suggest the salt is not millions of years old. See also Salty saga.III. The decay in the human genome due to multiple slightly harmful mutations each generation is consistent with an origin several thousand years ago. Sanford, J., Genetic entropy and the mystery of the genome, Ivan Press, 2005; see review of the book and the interview with the author in Creation 30(4):45–47, September 2008. This has been confirmed by realistic modelling of population genetics, which shows that genomes are young, in the order of thousands of years. See Sanford, J., Baumgardner, J., Brewer, W., Gibson, P. and Remine, W., Mendel's Accountant: A biologically realistic forward-time population genetics program, SCPE 8(2):147–165, 2007.IV. The data for 'mitochondrial Eve' are consistent with a common origin of all humans several thousand years ago.V. Very limited variation in the DNA sequence on the human Y-chromosome around the world is consistent with a recent origin of mankind, thousands not millions of years.VI. Many fossil bones 'dated' at many millions of years old are hardly mineralized,
if at all. This contradicts the widely believed old age of the earth. See, for example, Dinosaur bones just how old are they really? Tubes of marine worms, 'dated' at 550 million years old, that are soft and flexible and apparently composed of the original organic compounds hold the record (original paper).VII. Dinosaur blood cells, blood vessels, proteins (hemoglobin, osteocalcin, collagen, histones) and DNA are not consistent with their supposed more than 65-million-year age, but make more sense if the remains are thousands of years old (at most).VIII. Lack of 50:50 racemization of amino acids in fossils 'dated' at millions of years old, whereas complete racemization would occur in thousands of years.IX. Living fossils—
jellyfish, graptolites, coelacanth, stromatolites, Wollemi pine and hundreds more. That many hundreds of species could remain so unchanged, for even up to billions of years in the case of stromatolites, speaks against the millions and billions of years being real.X. Discontinuous fossil sequences. E.g. Coelacanth, Wollemi pine and various 'index' fossils, which are present in supposedly ancient strata, missing in strata representing many millions of years since, but still living today. Such discontinuities speak against the interpretation of the rock formations as vast geological ages—how could Coelacanths have avoided being fossilized for 65 million years, for example? See The 'Lazarus effect': rodent 'resurrection'!""
And from: https://answersingenesis.org/evidence-for-creation/the-10-best-evidences-from-science-that-confirm-a-young-earth/
The 10 Best Evidences from Science that Confirm a Young Earth
#1 Very Little Sediment on the SeafloorFor Additional Information (please see the link):
The Sands of Time: A Biblical Model of Deep Sea-Floor Sedimentation
The Sands of Time: A Biblical Model of Deep Sea-Floor Sedimentation (pdf)
"Sea Salt, Erosion, and Sediments" from Earth's Catastrophic Past1 (pdf)#2 Bent Rock LayersFor Additional Information:
Rock Layers Folded, Not Fractured
"Soft-Sediment Deformation Features" from Earth's Catastrophic Past2 (pdf)
"Megasequences of North America" from Earth's Catastrophic Past3 (pdf)#3 Soft Tissue in FossilsFor Additional Information:
Two: Those Not-So-Dry Bones
More Soft Tissue in "Old" Fossils#4 Faint Sun ParadoxFor Additional Information:The Young Faint Sun Paradox and the Age of the Solar System#5 Rapidly Decaying Magnetic FieldFor Additional Information:
The Earth's Magnetic Field Is Young
The Earth's Magnetic Field and the Age of the Earth
"The Earth's Magnetic Field" from Earth's Catastrophic Past4 (pdf)#6 Helium in Radioactive RocksFor Additional Information:
Helium Diffusion Rates Support Accelerated Nuclear Decay
Young Helium Diffusion Age of Zircons Supports Accelerated Nuclear Decay
The Age of the Earth's Atmosphere Estimated by its Helium Content
"Helium in Rocks and in the Atmosphere" from Earth's Catastrophic Past5 (pdf)#7 Carbon-14 in Fossils, Coal, and DiamondsFor Additional Information:
Carbon-14 in Fossils and Diamonds
Carbon-14 Evidence for a Recent Global Flood and a Young Earth
Measurable 14C in Fossilized Organic Materials: Confirming the Young Earth Creation-Flood Model
"The Pitfalls in the Radioactive Dating Methods—The Radiocarbon Dating Method" from Earth's Catastrophic Past6 (pdf)
"Carbon-14 Dating" from Thousands . . . not Billions7 (pdf)#8 Short-Lived CometsFor Additional Information:
Comets and the Age of the Solar System
Kuiper Belt Objects: Solution to Short-Period Comets?
More Problems for the 'Oort Comet Cloud'#9 Very Little Salt in the SeaFor Additional Information:
The Sea's Missing Salt: A Dilemma for Evolutionists
"Sea Salt, Erosion, and Sediments" from Earth's Catastrophic Past8 (pdf)#10 DNA in "Ancient" BacteriaFor Additional Information:
Bacterial Life in Ancient Salt
Quote from: Vetus Ordo on February 10, 2020, 10:44:32 AM
Quote from: TheReturnofLive on February 09, 2020, 11:09:44 PMIt's the same apocryphal account where we learn about the Virgin Mary's life, who her parents were, and the implication of her own personal sinlessness from her devotion to God. I don't think you can dismiss the story of the Virgin Mary's life without resorting to an arbitrarily defined Sola Scriptura (where somehow, the death of the Apostles are all canonical but the life of the Virgin Mary is not).
The information we may extract from apocryphal writings is completely subordinate to the scriptural account, always prone to be corrected by it. It is Scripture that is the word of God. I don't dismiss outright that the Blessed Virgin may have conceived Christ at 12 years or 14 years old but that isn't a dogmatic fact. In other words, the information is not definitive.
Here's a hard truth for ya, Vetus: The Apocryphal accounts were created for the same reasons Scripture was created, and we know they were used in the Early Church
as Scripture. We know, for example, that Saint Athanasius disregarded canonical Catholic Books of Scripture as uninspired (which is partly the reason why Luther dismissed those same books in his translation of the Bible), while people like Saint Clement of Alexandria saw the Shepherd of Hermas and the Apocalypse of Peter as inspired. Saint Irenaeus saw Enoch as a canonical part of Scripture, and the Apostles Peter and Jude both clearly reference Enoch in canonical Scripture.
Of course, centuries later the Church would sift the wheat from the chaff, but much of the stories from the Apocryphal accounts are still a fundamental part of Oral Tradition that are as authoritative as Scripture itself.
What Scripture exactly is commemorated for the Feast Day of the Presentation of Mary,
(https://1.bp.blogspot.com/_7eam6s4rRUs/R0Rk38IHQ-I/AAAAAAAAASE/B5r69L-PGH8/s400/PresentMary%5B1%5D.jpg)
or the Feastday of the Immaculate Conception itself (where the Virgin Mary was miraculously conceived when St. Joachim and Anne were unable to conceive)?
(https://i.pinimg.com/originals/f3/29/04/f329049ccc5d7333afdcbcf6e0229f92.jpg)
Both of these feast days come straight out of the Protoevangelium of James. Indeed, the only thing that is not seen as part of Oral Tradition from the Protoevangelium of James, it seems to me, is the part of the story which rendered the book
not inspired. See Protoevangelium 19 -20.
Let's not forget the Catholic mystics who have had visions which pretty much regurgitate the Protoevangelium of James as well.
Quote from: Vetus Ordo on February 10, 2020, 10:44:32 AM
You said that there was a moral problem with a 12 year old getting pregnant, suggesting it was a case where Scripture condoned pedophilia. As we've already established, that cannot be the case. Pedophilia is sexual attraction to a pre-pubescent child. Pre-pubescents don't get pregnant. Puberty is the mark that distinguishes a child from a young adult. Moot point. Furthermore, the age of consent has varied a lot throughout the ages. People have been able to get a canonical marriage as young as 12 or 13 years old in medieval Europe.
But why have we changed to such a degree where the mere thought of such a thing is morally repulsive and abominable?
Quote from: TheReturnofLive on February 10, 2020, 02:54:14 PM
Quote from: Vetus Ordo on February 10, 2020, 10:44:32 AM
You said that there was a moral problem with a 12 year old getting pregnant, suggesting it was a case where Scripture condoned pedophilia. As we've already established, that cannot be the case. Pedophilia is sexual attraction to a pre-pubescent child. Pre-pubescents don't get pregnant. Puberty is the mark that distinguishes a child from a young adult. Moot point. Furthermore, the age of consent has varied a lot throughout the ages. People have been able to get a canonical marriage as young as 12 or 13 years old in medieval Europe.
But why have we changed to such a degree where the mere thought of such a thing is morally repulsive and abominable?
My guess is that with the breakdown of paternal authority – which used to safeguard the chastity of young women – the state had to step in and impose stricter age of consent laws to prevent girls from being exploited. Back when sex/marriage was more paternally managed, it was easier to protect a 12-18 year old girl from being exploited and abandoned with a baby. As sex has come to be more understood as a private decision rather than a family one, it's become more reprehensible to induce still immature girls to have sex before they understand the full repercussions of it. It's difficult to maintain that "consent" guarantees the morality of sexual acts when you could have 30 year olds grooming ignorant 12 year olds.
Quote from: TheReturnofLive on February 10, 2020, 02:49:14 PM
Quote from: Vetus Ordo on February 10, 2020, 10:44:32 AM
Quote from: TheReturnofLive on February 09, 2020, 11:09:44 PMIt's the same apocryphal account where we learn about the Virgin Mary's life, who her parents were, and the implication of her own personal sinlessness from her devotion to God. I don't think you can dismiss the story of the Virgin Mary's life without resorting to an arbitrarily defined Sola Scriptura (where somehow, the death of the Apostles are all canonical but the life of the Virgin Mary is not).
The information we may extract from apocryphal writings is completely subordinate to the scriptural account, always prone to be corrected by it. It is Scripture that is the word of God. I don't dismiss outright that the Blessed Virgin may have conceived Christ at 12 years or 14 years old but that isn't a dogmatic fact. In other words, the information is not definitive.
Here's a hard truth for ya, Vetus...
The
hard truth is that only Scripture is inspired and canonical. That's what makes it materially sufficient to derive doctrine from, a most Patristic and Catholic principle. The value of the apocryphal writings varies greatly but all of them are subject to the authority of the word of God, as with everything else. Francis' teachings about the intrinsic immorality of the death penalty, though issued with his full apostolic authority and incorporated into the Catechism, are ultimately squashed by the authority of Scripture. Thus is life.
Nevertheless, this is a digression. You brought up a point about pedophilia regarding the Virgin conceiving Christ at 12 years old. However, there's no pedophilia to speak of. If she can conceive, she is not prepubescent. Your point has been refuted. I was also wondering if you wanted to elaborate on your misgivings regarding Christ's physical height.
Quote from: TheReturnofLive on February 10, 2020, 02:54:14 PMBut why have we changed to such a degree where the mere thought of such a thing is morally repulsive and abominable?
Cultural conditioning, besides what John Lamb has already mentioned.
Menarche continues to mark the physical transition to adulthood in females.
I did.
"Although a number of church councils condemned it as an inauthentic writing of the New Testament, this did little to diminish its popularity. Pope Innocent Icondemned this Gospel of James in his third epistle ad Exuperium in 405 AD, and the so-called Gelasian Decree also excluded it as canonical around 500 AD.[13] Thomas Aquinas, in his Summa Theologiae, rejects the Protevangelium of James teaching that midwives were present at Christ's birth, and invokes Jerome as contending that the words of the canonical gospels show that Mary was both mother and midwife, that she wrapped up the child with swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger. And thus concludes, "These words prove the falseness of the apocryphal ravings."[14] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_James
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 07, 2020, 06:56:10 AM
Truly, even if one wants to argue that pain "naturally" aids survival, the form is hardly necessary for the function, and often the opposite is the case, when pain occurs in spite of the fact that the action causing the pain will save ones life, eg., with amputation of a limb.
I think you just glossed over a fatal flaw in this theory. If Lucifer created pain, what exactly was his goal in making it so useful for the preservation of life and limb and for the acquisition of wisdom and strength?
Quote from: Xavier on February 10, 2020, 11:40:55 AMSuppose, just for an example, that a person or persons contracted a disease through their own fault. And then, to remedy the disease, it sadly became necessary for animals to suffer and die in order to provide the toxin for that disease leading to its ultimate cure. In this case, man would be at fault; those animals would have been sacrificial victims suffering on account of man's fault, and that would be the analogy.
I don't think this analogy works for two reasons. Firstly, I would have to take the disease cure thing on a case-by-case basis. It would depend on the disease, the human, and the animal in question. Since you've put us in the realm of hypotheticals, imagine a sexually transmitted disease that only afflicts adults who rape children. Then imagine that the antidote requires the painful death of certain cats with just the right kind of genetic code, and your own cat happens to be one of the unlucky few. Would you make that trade? Even if I was told, "the pedophile rapist is truly sorry for what he did," my answer would be to start chiselling his tombstone because that antidote is not coming from my cat.
But secondly, the problem is that it was not man who decreed that the penalty or remedy for sin would be the suffering of animals. So the analogy does not capture the problem. This is God's universe; every aspect of the design is his. Surely God was never constrained by having to make certain animal suffering was part of the equation. This isn't something along the lines of, "can God make a rock so heavy he can't lift it?" It's not a logical impossibility. We don't even have to take it back to the question of why God would let man sin knowing it would cause the suffering of innocents. It's a question of why he chose to make the suffering of innocents a consequence of sin. According to our sense of justice, the proper thing to do is to punish the guilty. We don't torture the pets of people convicted of crimes, or go to their neighborhood and give poisoned bread to the local ducks. That would be absurd.
.
Pon, Pon. Please heed the Wisdom of Jeshua ben Sirach: "Sir 39:[38] Therefore from the beginning I was resolved, and I have meditated, and thought on these things and left them in writing. [39] All the works of the Lord are good, and he will furnish every work in due time. [40] It is not to be said: This is worse than that: for all shall be well approved in their time.
[41] Now therefore with the whole heart and mouth praise ye him, and bless the name of the Lord." http://www.drbo.org/chapter/26039.htm
And Job also: "Job submits himself. God pronounces in his favour. Job offers sacrifice for his friends. He is blessed with riches and children, and dies happily,
Job 42:[1] Then Job answered the Lord, and said: [2] I know that thou canst do all things, and no thought is hid from thee. [3] Who is this that hideth counsel without knowledge? Therefore I have spoken unwisely, and things that above measure exceeded my knowledge. [4] Hear, and I will speak: I will ask thee, and do thou tell me. [5] With the hearing of the ear, I have heard thee, but now my eye seeth thee.
[6] Therefore I reprehend myself, and do penance in dust and ashes ... And the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before. http://www.drbo.org/chapter/20042.htm
In any good Mystery Book, the Mystery is made fully clear in the end only, not in the beginning. The more one reads, parts of it will become clear. Similarly, the more one prays, the more one allows oneself to be touched by suffering, one exercises the compassion and empathy God wants to see in us, one will slowly begin to gain some understanding as to why it is necessary that suffering currently exist. Job became a Saint through his suffering; he gained treasures for himself in Heaven. Then his material wealth was restored as well.
The ways of God are marvelous and wonderful, and high above our limited thinking and little comprehension of Him; we hardly discern the Mysteries of the Universe; can we claim to know and understand all the ways of the Supreme Being Who made all these things? It is enough to know that the God Who came down from Heaven to Sacrifice His Life for us is All-Good and Loves us more than we can ever think; otherwise, He would not have died for us, nor spoken so many Words of Love and Encouragement and Comfort to us, as in fact He has, both Himself, telling us to cast all our cares on Him, that He will give rest to the weary and the heavy laden, and so much else; and through His Apostles. St. Paul the Apostle justly says, "[18] For I reckon that the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come, that shall be revealed in us ... [28] And we know that to them that love God, all things work together unto good, to such as, according to his purpose, are called to be saints. " http://www.drbo.org/chapter/52008.htm
But, as to your questions; no, I would not consider myself bound to sacrifice my cat to save an evil criminal who deserves jail; but if I did it, it would clearly be an act of gratuitous mercy, would it not? How much more God shows His Love for us, dear Pon, in that He Sacrificed not His cat, but His Son, One with Himself, for love of us greatest of criminals who deserve hell; even for those who committed the Deicide and killed God Himself; God in His Goodness Sacrificed Himself for all. We repeat the Deicide every time we commit mortal sin, for mortal sin is to kill God living in Spirit among or in us. And after killing God so many times, after becoming the worst of killers and the greatest of criminals, what an amazing thing that God shows us Mercy again and again, and offers us possibility of contrition and repentance, and Baptism or Confession. We ought to praise His Mercy, dear Pon, for giving us so many opportunities. If God sacrificed animals for us without being bound to cure our sin, we ought only to praise Him for it.
Everything we have on this planet comes from God. We did not create the Earth; would we condemn a King when we are living in His home only through His generosity? Yet, the Earth is the House of the Lord, which He built and gave to us for free. Would we despise the generosity and goodness of a King, Who has given us so much in Nature itself, and so much more in the Sacraments of His Church, especially in the Blessed Sacrament and Holy Communion? God has shown in numberless ways that He is Infinite Goodness and All-Love. We ought to thank Him for such goodness, we ought to act, pray and work, so that all unnecessary suffering may soon end, as we are promised that it will. God always keeps His Promises. He promised the Messiah would come, and in the fullness of time, He did. God will keep all His Promises no matter who says He cannot. God has promised us not only that a period of temporal peace with very little suffering will come soon, in the Sixth Age soon to begin, but also has promised us of Heaven one day, where there will be no sorrow; which ought to fill our hearts with happiness right now, just as we would be delighted if a King promised to take us to His palace one day. What we ought to do is prepare our own hearts and minds so that we will be worthy of the inheritance promised to us. No one can go to heaven still attached to many sins; he or she must be purified by contrition and sorrow, by repentance and penance, and through the Sacraments or much prayer and sacrifices. So it is a merciful action of God that sorrow exists by which we can pay our debts and go to heaven. If we bear in a holy way sorrow when, say, our pets or other animals die, that too can be a good and holy sorrow, which can purify us progressively. God allows everything for a reason beyond our comprehension right now. It will be clear one day when we see Him face to face. We must prepare ourselves to be very pure, before we see Him.
Peace be with you, Xavier. If this is a mystery, then it is a mystery, and we must leave it at that. I will say only that we seem to be talking about two different things. You are focused on what might be called redemptive suffering, while I am focused on gratuitous suffering. You are, of course, contending that even apparently gratuitous suffering is in fact redemptive in some way—the suffering of animals contributes to the redemption of the humans. But I must return you to the problem at hand: that any deity or entity which deliberately and purposefully extracts suffering from innocents in order to benefit the guilty is a strange one ("mysterious ways" indeed). It could certainly be said that this entity must love the guilty very much, but it seems a perverse way of demonstrating love. Things like love and mercy must be tempered with a sense of justice. "Gratuitous mercy" sounds like a fine thing, but not when it's at the expense of innocents. It's lavishing all the mercy on the undeserving, and depriving it from blameless others.
I think we agree, though: there is no constraint upon God, nor any necessity forced upon him, that would require him to extract suffering from innocents to redeem the guilty. It is simply the way he has decided to do things. I do take your point about the crucifixion, but I don't think it's analogous to (or greater than) the hypothetical act of me sacrificing my cat. If I had the power to resurrect my cat after it died, then yes, I would sacrifice it to save the life of even a repentant pedophile rapist. But then, it wouldn't be much of a loss to me.
Peace, Pon. Yes, all suffering contributes toward the redemption of the world. This is the hope promised to us by Jesus Christ Our Lord. We wait patiently for the veil to be lifted and for us to understand fully in the end of time, how all suffering contributed to sanctification and salvation in some way; even those we could not understand at the time. I deny gratuitous suffering. All suffering is redemptive. No suffering appeared at the time to be more "gratuitous" than the unjust suffering of the Innocent Son of God, the blameless Victim and Lamb of Sacrifice for our sins; yet it was Redemptive.
Romans 8:[16] For the Spirit himself giveth testimony to our spirit, that we are the sons of God. [17] And if sons, heirs also; heirs indeed of God, and joint heirs with Christ: yet so, if we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified with him. [18] For I reckon that the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come, that shall be revealed in us. [19] For the expectation of the creature waiteth for the revelation of the sons of God. [20] For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him that made it subject, in hope:
[16] "The Spirit himself": By the inward motions of divine love, and the peace of conscience, which the children of God experience, they have a kind of testimony of God's favour; by which they are much strengthened in their hope of their justification and salvation; but yet not so as to pretend to an absolute assurance: which is not usually granted in this mortal life: during which we are taught to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. Phil. 2. 12. And that he that thinketh himself to stand, must take heed lest he fall. 1 Cor. 10. 12. See also, Rom. 11. 20, 21, 22.
[19] "The expectation of the creature": He speaks of the corporeal creation, made for the use and service of man; and, by occasion of his sin, made subject to vanity, that is, to a perpetual instability, tending to corruption and other defects; so that by a figure of speech it is here said to groan and be in labour, and to long for its deliverance, which is then to come, when sin shall reign no more; and God shall raise the bodies and unite them to their souls never more to separate, and to be in everlasting happiness in heaven.
[21] Because the creature also itself shall be delivered from the servitude of corruption, into the liberty of the glory of the children of God. [22] For we know that every creature groaneth and travaileth in pain, even till now. [23] And not only it, but ourselves also, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption of the sons of God, the redemption of our body. [24] For we are saved by hope. But hope that is seen, is not hope. For what a man seeth, why doth he hope for? [25] But if we hope for that which we see not, we wait for it with patience."
I'd like to extend an olive branch to Kreuzritter in this thread and say that one of my frustrations with traditional Catholics is that sometimes I feel Aristotle is being preached more strongly than Christ, inasmuch as the religion becomes more about moral training in the virtues than about recognising what Christ has accomplished for us on the Cross, and being healed by His grace. I think I'm going to call this dog-training Christianity, as in the priest is the dog-trainer and those in the congregation are his disobedient dogs. That may be hyperbolic, but you get the point. This is tangential to the current thread, but I just want to say that using some Aristotelian jargon and metaphysics doesn't necessarily mean selling out the religion to Aristotle. The point in this discussion is that God does not positively will pain for anyone, but only tolerates it for the sake of some greater good. As for suffering animals and children I admit it's difficult to countenance, but they will all find peace without doubt, and their suffering ought to arouse compassion in the rest of us.
Quote from: John Lamb on February 11, 2020, 09:36:52 AMThe point in this discussion is that God does not positively will pain for anyone, but only tolerates it for the sake of some greater good.
A question for both you, John Lamb, and Kreuzritter. I only wonder how this is squared with what God says in scripture: "
I will intensify your toil in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children" (Genesis III.16). It seems in Genesis that God positively willed it that the punishment for the fall was to be pain, sorrow, travail, death, and animal sacrifice. Kreuzritter says some other entity created pain, whereas you say God only tolerates it.
Just to be clear, I am not arguing against the
O felix culpa position, which by extension becomes "O happy pain" if everything is designed for some future greater good. That is something we can put aside as a mystery. I am just unclear on how God is not the author of pain, if pain is a penalty he deliberately imposed. I think this gets us on topic as per the OP.
Quote from: Pon de Replay on February 11, 2020, 12:34:56 PM
Quote from: John Lamb on February 11, 2020, 09:36:52 AMThe point in this discussion is that God does not positively will pain for anyone, but only tolerates it for the sake of some greater good.
A question for both you, John Lamb, and Kreuzritter. I only wonder how this is squared with what God says in scripture: "I will intensify your toil in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children" (Genesis III.16). It seems in Genesis that God positively willed it that the punishment for the fall was to be pain, sorrow, travail, death, and animal sacrifice. Kreuzritter says some other entity created pain, whereas you say God only tolerates it.
Just to be clear, I am not arguing against the O felix culpa position, which by extension becomes "O happy pain" if everything is designed for some future greater good. That is something we can put aside as a mystery. I am just unclear on how God is not the author of pain, if pain is a penalty he deliberately imposed. I think this gets us on topic as per the OP.
Why are you pretending to talk about God when you don't believe He exists?
Quote from: GBoldwater on February 11, 2020, 01:33:49 PMWhy are you pretending to talk about God when you don't believe He exists?
It's not a belief of mine that God does not exist. I'm assuming he does exist in order to ask, if so, whether he's the author of pain. Kreuzritter's contention is that God exists, and yet someone else is the author of pain (presumably Satan). That's intriguing. But I'm curious how he reconciles it w/ Genesis, chapter III.
Quote from: Vetus Ordo on February 10, 2020, 04:01:30 PM
Quote from: TheReturnofLive on February 10, 2020, 02:49:14 PM
Quote from: Vetus Ordo on February 10, 2020, 10:44:32 AM
Quote from: TheReturnofLive on February 09, 2020, 11:09:44 PMIt's the same apocryphal account where we learn about the Virgin Mary's life, who her parents were, and the implication of her own personal sinlessness from her devotion to God. I don't think you can dismiss the story of the Virgin Mary's life without resorting to an arbitrarily defined Sola Scriptura (where somehow, the death of the Apostles are all canonical but the life of the Virgin Mary is not).
The information we may extract from apocryphal writings is completely subordinate to the scriptural account, always prone to be corrected by it. It is Scripture that is the word of God. I don't dismiss outright that the Blessed Virgin may have conceived Christ at 12 years or 14 years old but that isn't a dogmatic fact. In other words, the information is not definitive.
Here's a hard truth for ya, Vetus...
The hard truth is that only Scripture is inspired and canonical. That's what makes it materially sufficient to derive doctrine from, a most Patristic and Catholic principle. The value of the apocryphal writings varies greatly but all of them are subject to the authority of the word of God, as with everything else. Francis' teachings about the intrinsic immorality of the death penalty, though issued with his full apostolic authority and incorporated into the Catechism, are ultimately squashed by the authority of Scripture. Thus is life.
Nevertheless, this is a digression. You brought up a point about pedophilia regarding the Virgin conceiving Christ at 12 years old. However, there's no pedophilia to speak of. If she can conceive, she is not prepubescent. Your point has been refuted. I was also wondering if you wanted to elaborate on your misgivings regarding Christ's physical height.
Quote from: TheReturnofLive on February 10, 2020, 02:54:14 PMBut why have we changed to such a degree where the mere thought of such a thing is morally repulsive and abominable?
Cultural conditioning, besides what John Lamb has already mentioned. Menarche continues to mark the physical transition to adulthood in females.
We can continue this discussion elsewhere, but for me it heavily suggests that the world is more complicated than what can easily be explained by a prima-facie Christianity, and I can't help but shake off that feeling with ease.
It's things like this where although I think Christianity proposes a brilliant, intelligent, and experience-based solution that answers so much of the questions we have in our existence - I think that there's more than just Nietzsche's "Christian skepticism" that made Christianity so successful, but rather, it was that it resonates with human experience - a perfectly normal, young, iconographically handsome Jewish man, morally upright, loved His parents, worshipped God, is sentenced to a most grueling and disturbing death. That's life. - Nonetheless, there are just oddities like this that aren't what one would predict given Christianity's message of a timeless and universally moral Gospel.
QuoteNonetheless, there are just oddities like this that aren't what one would predict given Christianity's message of a timeless and universally moral Gospel.
Live, the Blessed Mother was in Her 16th year, a young teenager, when She conceived and gave birth to Our Lord Jesus Christ. Not 12.
I'm reposting a couple of posts on the Blessed Mother's revealed history, from the Gospel as revealed to me by Saintly Maria Valtorta, which has a Church Imprimatur from Bp. Ramon Danylak, and a verbal seal of approval from His Excellency Bishop Williamson. If we truly desire to advance in sanctity every day, we must also advance in knowledge and love of Mary.
"Let us revisit the Childhood of the Blessed Virgin Mary, to understand in more depth and detail the Love our Mother had for us all Her Life.
6. The Purification of Anne and the Offering of Mary. 28th August 1944.In Jerusalem I see Joachim and Anne, together with Zacharias and Elizabeth, coming out from a house, which must belong to friends or relatives, and they are turning their steps towards the Temple for the ceremony of the Purification. Anne is carrying the Baby, all wrapped up in swaddling clothes, nay, all tied up in a wide garment of light wool, which, however, must be soft and warm. It is impossible to describe how carefully and lovingly she carries and watches her little creature, lifting the edge of the fine warm cloth to see if Mary is breathing freely, and then she readjusts it to protect Her from the sharp air of a clear but cold winter day.
Elizabeth is holding some parcels in her hands. Joachim is pulling with a rope two big and very white lambs, that are more like rams than lambs. Zacharias has nothing in his hands. He is handsome in his linen garment, which can be seen under a white heavy woolen mantle. Zacharias, much younger than the one already seen at the birth of the Baptist, in his full manhood, as Elizabeth is a mature woman, but still fresh in her appearance, and she bends in ecstasy over the tiny sleeping face every time Anne looks at the Baby. She also looks beautiful in her blue almost dark violet dress and in her veil that covers her head and then falls on her shoulders, and on the mantle which is darker than her dress.
But Joachim and Anne are certainly solemn in their best clothes. Unexpectedly, he is not wearing his dark brown tunic. Instead he has on a long garment of a very deep red, which we would now call St. Joseph's red, and the fringes attached to his mantle are new and beautiful. He, too, is wearing a kind of a rectangular veil on his head and it is secured with a leather band. Everything is new and of excellent quality. Anne, oh! She is not wearing dark clothes today!
Her dress is a very pale yellow, almost the colour of old ivory, tied at her waist, neck and wrists with a large belt that seems of silver and gold. Her head is covered by a very light damask veil, held at her forehead by a thin but precious plate. She has a filigree necklace round her neck and bracelets at her wrists. She is like a queen, also because of the dignity with which she wears her dress, and particularly her cape, which is of a light yellow colour hemmed with a Greek fret beautifully embroidered in the same shade.
« You look exactly as the day you got married. I was just a little older than a girl, then, but I still remember how beautiful and happy you were » says Elizabeth.
« But now I am even more so... and I decided to wear the same dress for this rite. I had kept it for this... and I was no longer expecting to put it on for this . »
« The Lord has loved you very much...» says Elizabeth sighing.
« And that is why I am giving Him the thing I love most. This flower of mine. »
« How will you be able to tear it from your heart when the time comes? »
« Remembering that I did not have it and that God gave it to me. I shall always be happier now than then. When I know She is in the Temple I will say to myself: "She is praying near the Tabernacle, She is praying the God of Israel also for Her mummy" and I will have peace. And a greater peace I will have in saying: "She belongs entirely to Him. When these two old but happy parents, who received Her from Heaven, are no longer alive, He, the Eternal, will still be Her Father."
Believe me, I am fully convinced, this little creature is not ours. I was not able to do anything more... He put Her in my bosom, a divine gift to wipe away my tears and fulfill our hopes and our prayers. That is why She belongs to Him. We are the happy guardians... and may He be blessed for this! »
They have now reached the walls of the Temple.
« While you go to Nicanor's Gate, I will go and inform the priest. And then I will come, too » Zacharias says. And he disappears behind an arch leading into a large yard surrounded by porches.
The group continues to proceed along the ensuing terraces. I do not know whether I have said this before: the enclosure wall of the Temple is not on level ground but it rises up higher and higher by means of successive terraces. Each terrace is reached by means of a flight of steps and on each terrace there are yards and porches and beautiful portals wrought in marble, bronze and gold.
Before reaching their destination they stop to take out the contents of the parcels: cakes, I think, which are wide and flat and very greasy, some white flour, two doves in a small wicker cage and some big silver coins: they are quite heavy but fortunately garments did not have pockets in those days. They would have made holes in them.
Here is the beautiful Gate of Nicanor, all chiselled in heavy bronze silver plating. Zacharias is already there beside a stately priest dressed in linen.
Anne is sprinkled with what I suppose is lustral water and then she is instructed to move towards the altar of the sacrifice. The Child is no longer in her arms. Elizabeth, who has stopped at this side of the Gate, has taken Her. Joachim, instead, enters behind his wife, dragging a miserable bleating lamb.
And I... I do exactly what I did on the occasion of Mary's purification: I close my eyes not to see any slaughter. Now Anne is purified.
Zacharias whispers something to his colleague, who nods smiling. He then approaches the group which has reassembled and congratulating the mother and father on their joy and their loyalty to the promises, he is given the second lamb, the flour and the cakes.
« So this daughter is sacred to the Lord? May His blessing be with Her and with you. Here Anna is coming. She will be one of Her teachers. Anna of Phanuel of the tribe of Asher. Come here, woman. This little one is offered to the Temple as a victim of praise. You will be Her teacher and She will grow holy under your guidance. »
Anna, already completely grey, fondles the Child, who has awakened and is looking with Her innocent and surprised eyes at all the white and gold lit up by the sun.
The ceremony must be over. I did not see any special rite for the offering of Mary. Perhaps it was sufficient to tell the priest, and above all God, at the sacred place.
« I would like to give the offering to the Temple and go over there where I saw the light last year. »
They go accompanied by Anna of Phanuel. They do not enter the actual Temple; since they are women and it is the case of a little girl, it is understandable that they do not even go where Mary went to offer Her Son. But very close to the wide open door, they look into the half-dark inside from which sweet songs of girls can be heard and where precious lamps are lit and spread a golden light on two flower beds of white veiled heads: two real flowerbeds of lilies.
« In three years' time You will be there too, my Lily » promises Anne to Mary, Who looks fascinated at the inside and smiles at the slow song.
« You would say that She understands » says Anna of Phanuel. « She is a beautiful child! She will be as dear to me as if She were my own. I promise you, mother. If I shall be granted to be so. »
« You shall, woman » Zacharias says. « You will receive Her amongst the sacred girls. I also shall be there. I want to be there that day to tell Her to pray for us from the very first moment...» and he looks at his wife who understands and sighs.
The ceremony is over and Anna of Phanuel withdraws, while the others leave the Temple speaking to one another. I hear Joachim say: « Not only two lambs and the best, but I would have given all my lambs for this joy and to praise God! » I do not see anything else.
-------------
Jesus says:
« Solomon in his Wisdom says: "Whoever is a child, let him come to me." And really from the stronghold, from the walls of her city, Eternal Wisdom said to the Eternal Maiden: "Come to Me", longing to have Her. Later the Son of the Most Pure Maiden will say "Let little children come to Me because the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs, and those who do not become like them will not have any part in My Kingdom." The voices follow one another and while the voice of Heaven cries to little Mary: "Come to Me", the voice of Man says, and thinks of His Mother in saying so: "Come to Me if you can be like children."
I give you My Mother as a model.
Here is the perfect Maiden with the pure and simple heart of a dove, here is the One Whom years and worldly contacts do not make defiant in the cruelty of a corrupted, twisted, false spirit. Because She does not want it. Come to Me, looking at Mary.
Since you see Her, tell me: Is Her glance as an infant very different from the one you saw She had at the foot of the Cross or in the delight of Pentecost or when Her eyelids closed upon Her innocent eyes for Her last sleep? No. Here is the uncertain and astonished glance of an infant, then it will be the amazed and modest look of the Annunciation, and then the happy one of the Mother in Bethlehem, then the worshipping glance of My first and sublime Disciple, then the tormented one of the Tortured Mother on Golgotha, then the radiant glance of Resurrection and Pentecost, then the veiled look of the ecstatic sleep of the last vision. But whether it opens at the first sight, or closes tired on the last light, after seeing so much of joy and horror, Her eye is the clear, pure, placid piece of the sky that always shines below Mary's forehead. Wrath, falsehood, pride, lewdness, hatred, curiosity never soil it with their smoky clouds.
It is the eye that looks at God lovingly, whether it cries or laughs, and that for God's sake fondles and forgives and bears everything, and by the love of God is rendered unassailable to the assaults of Evil, that so often makes use of the eye to penetrate the heart. It is the pure, restful, blessing eye that the pure, the saints, the lovers of God possess. I said: "The lamp of the body is the eye. If your eye is sound, your whole body will be filled with light. But if your eye is diseased, your whole body will be all darkness." Saints possessed this eye which is the light for the soul and salvation for the flesh, because like Mary throughout their lives they looked only at God. Even more: they remembered God.
I will explain to you, My little voice, the meaning of this word of Mine. »
"7. The Son Has Put His Wisdom on His Mother's Lips. 29th August 1944.
I see Anne once again: since yesterday evening I see her thus: sitting at the entrance of the shady pergola, busy at her needlework. She is wearing a grey sand coloured dress, a very simple one and very wide, probably because of the great heat.
At the end of the pergola the mowers can be seen cutting the hay. But it cannot be first-crop hay because the grapes are almost golden coloured and the fruits of a large apple-tree are like shiny yellow and red wax. The cornfield is nothing but stubble with poppies waving like tiny flames and stiff and clear cornflowers shaped like stars and as blue as the eastern sky.
A little Mary comes forwards from the shady pergola: She is already quick and independent. Her short step is steady and Her white sandals do not stumble amongst the pebbles. Her graceful gait already resembles the slightly undulating step of a dove, and She is all white – like a little dove – in Her linen dress which reaches down to Her ankles. It is a wide dress curled at the neck by a blue ribbon and the short sleeves show rosy and plump forearms. She looks like a little angel: Her hair is silky and honey-blonde, not very curly but gracefully wavy ending in curls: Her eyes are sky blue, Her sweet little face is rosy and smiling. Also the breeze that through Her wide sleeves inflates the shoulders of Her linen dress helps to give Her the appearance of a little angel having his wings half-open ready to fly.
She has in Her hands poppies, cornflowers and other flowers that grow in cornfields, but I do not know their names. She is walking and when She is near Her mother She starts running, shouting joyfully and, like a little dove, She ends Her flight against Her mother's knees: she has opened them to receive Her. Anne has put her needlework aside so that She would not get pricked and has opened her arms to embrace Her So far yesterday evening. This morning She reappears and continues as follows.
« Mummy, Mummy! » The little white dove is completely in the nest of Her mother's knees, touching the short grass with Her little feet and hiding Her face in Her mother's lap, so that only Her golden hair can be seen on the nape of Her neck over which Anne bends to kiss it fondly. Then She lifts Her head and offers Her mother flowers. They are all for Her mummy and of each one She tells the story She has invented. This blue and big one, is a star which has come down from Heaven to bring the kiss of the Lord to My mummy. Here: kiss this little celestial flower there, on its heart, and you will see that it tastes of God.
This other one, instead, which is a paler blue, like daddy's eyes, has written on its leaves that the Lord loves daddy very much because he is good. And this tiny little one, the only one to be found, (it is a myosote), is the one that God made to tell Mary that He loves Her. And these red ones, does mummy know what they are? They are pieces of king David's dress, stained with the blood of the enemies of Israel and sown on the battlefields and the fields of victory. They originate from those strips of the heroic regal dress torn in the struggle for the Lord.
Instead this white and gentle one, that seems to be made with seven silk cups looking up to the sky, full of perfumes, and that was growing over there, near the spring – daddy picked it for Her amongst the thorns – is made with the dress of Solomon. He wore it, so many many years before, in the same month in which his little granddaughter was born, when he walked in the midst of the multitudes of Israel before the Ark and the Tabernacle, in the splendid majesty of his robes. And he rejoiced because of the cloud which returned to encircle his glory, and he sang the canticle and the prayer of his joy.
« I want to be always like this flower, and like the wise king I want to sing throughout My life canticles and prayers before the Tabemacle » ends Mary.
« How do You know these holy things, my darling? Who told You? Your father? »
« No. I do not know who it is. I think I have always known them. Perhaps there is one who tells Me and I do not see him. Perhaps one of the angels that God sends to speak to good people. Mummy, will you tell Me another story? »
« Oh, my dear! Which story do You wish to know? »
Mary is thinking, deeply absorbed in Her thoughts. Her expression should be immortalized in a portrait. The shadows of Her thoughts are reflected on Her childish face. There are smiles and sighs, sunshine and clouds, thinking of the history of Israel. Then She makes up Her mind: « Once again the story of Gabriel and Daniel, where Christ is promised. » And She listens, with Her eyes closed, repeating in a low voice the words Her mother says, as if to remember them better. When Anne comes to the end She asks: « How long will it be before we have the Immanuel? »
« About thirty years, my darling. »
« Such a long time! And I shall be in the Temple... Tell Me, if I should pray very hard, so hard, day and night, night and day, and I wanted to belong only to God, for all My life, for this purpose, would the Eternal Father grant Me the grace of sending the Messiah to His people sooner? »
« I do not know, my dear. The Prophet states: "Seventy weeks". I do not think a prophecy can be wrong. But the Lord is so good » she hastens to add, seeing tears appear on the fair eyelashes of her child, « the Lord is so good that I believe that if You do pray very hard, so hard, He will hear Your prayer. »
A smile appears once again on Her little face, which She has lifted up towards Her mother and the rays of the sun, filtering through the vine branches cause Her tears to shine like dew-drops on very thin stems of alpine moss.
« Then I will pray and I shall be a virgin for this. »
« But do you know what that means? »
« It means that one does not know human love, but only the love of God. It means that one has no other thought but for the Lord. It means to remain children in the flesh and angels in the heart. It means that one has no eyes but to look at God, and ears to listen to Him, and a mouth to praise Him, hands to offer oneself as a victim, feet to follow Him fast, and a heart and a life to be given to Him. »
« May God bless You! But then You will never have any children, and yet You love babies and little lambs and doves so much... Do You know that? A baby is for his mother like a little white and curly lamb, he is like a little dove with silk feathers and coral mouth to be loved and kissed and heard say: "Mummy!" »
« It does not matter. I shall belong to God. I shall pray in the Temple. And perhaps one day I will see the Immanuel. The Virgin who is to be His Mother must be already born, as the great Prophet says, and She is in the Temple... I will be Her companion on... and maidservant. Oh! Yes. If I could only meet Her, by God's light, I would like to serve Her, the Blessed One. And later, She would bring Me Her Son, She would take Me to Her Son, and I would serve Him too... Just think, mummy!... To serve the Messiah!! »
Mary is overcome by this thought that exalts Her and makes Her totally humble at the same time. With Her hands crossed over Her breast and Her little head slightly bent forward and flushed with emotion, She is like an infantile reproduction of the Annunciation that I saw.
She resumes: « But will the King of Israel, the Lord's Anointed, allow Me to serve Him? » « Have no doubts about that. Does King Solomon not say: "There are sixty queens and eighty concubines and countless maidens?" You can see that in the King's palace there will be countless maidens serving the Lord. »
« Oh! You can see then that I must be a virgin? I must. If He wants a virgin as His Mother, it means that He loves virginity above all things. I want Him to love Me, His maiden, because of the virginity which will make Me somewhat like His beloved Mother... This is what I want... I would also like to be a sinner, a big sinner, if I were not afraid of offending the Lord... Tell Me, mummy, can one be a sinner out of love of God ? »
« But what are You saying, my dear? I don't understand You. »
« I mean: to commit a sin in order to be loved by God, Who becomes the Saviour. Who is lost, is saved. Isn't that so? I would like to be saved by the Saviour to receive His loving look. That is why 1 would like to sin, but not to commit a sin that would disgust Him. How can He save Me if I do not get lost?»
Anne is dumbfounded. She does not know what to say. Joachim helps her. He has approached them walking noiselessly on the grass, behind the low hedge of vine-shoots. « He has saved You beforehand, because He knows that You love Him and You want to love Him only. So You are already redeemed and You can be a virgin as You wish » says Joachim.
« Is that true, daddy? » Mary embraces his knees and looks at him with Her clear blue eyes, so like Her father's and so happy because of this hope She gets from Her father.
« It is true, my little darling. Look! I was just bringing You this little sparrow, that at its first flight landed near the spring. I could have left it there but its weak wings did not have enough strength to fly off again, and its tiny legs could not hold it on to the slippery moss stones. It would have fallen into the water. But I did not wait for that. I took it and now I am giving it to You. You will do what you like with it. The fact is that it was saved before it fell into the danger. God has done the same with You. Now, tell me, Mary: have I loved the sparrow more by saving it beforehand, or would I have loved it more saving it afterwards? »
« You have loved it now, because you did not let it get hurt in the cold water. »
« And God has loved You more, because He has loved You before You sinned.»
« And I will love Him wholeheartedly. Wholeheartedly. My beautiful little sparrow, I am like you. The Lord has loved us both equally, by saving us... I will now rear you and then I will let you go. And you in the forest and I in the Temple will sing the praises of God, and we shall say: "Please send the One You promised to those who expect Him." Oh! Daddy, when are you taking Me to the Temple? »
« Soon, my dear. But are You not sorry to leave Your father? »
« Yes, very much! But you will come... in any case, if it did not hurt, what sacrifice would it be? »
« And will You remember us? »
« I always will. After the prayer for the Immanuel I will pray for you. That God may give you joy and a long life... until the day He becomes the Saviour. Then I will ask Him to take you to the celestial Jerusalem. »
The vision ends with Mary tightly clasped in Her father's arms.
-------------
Jesus says: « I can already hear the comments of the doctors with captious objections: "How can a little girl not yet three years old speak thus? It is an exaggeration." And they do not consider that they make a monster of Me by ascribing adults'actions
to My own childhood.
Intelligence is not given to everybody in the same way and at the same time. The Church has fixed the age of reason at six years of age, because that is the age when even a backward child can tell good from evil, at least in basically important matters. But there are children who long before that age are capable of discerning and understanding and wanting with sufficiently developed discretion. Little Imelde Lambertini, Rosa da Viterbo, Nellie Organ, Nennolina, may give you confirmation, o difficult doctors, to believe that My Mother was able to think and speak like that. I have quoted four names at random amongst the thousands of holy children who populate My Paradise, after reasoning on earth as adults for possibly more or fewer years.
What is reason? A gift of God. God can therefore give it as He wishes, to whom He wishes and when He wishes. Reason in fact is one of the things that make you more like God, the Intelligent and Reasoning Spirit. Reason and intelligence were graces given by God to Man in the Earthly Paradise. How full of life they were, when Grace was alive, still intact and active in the spirit of the first two Parents!
In the Book of Jesus Ben Sirach it is stated: "All wisdom is from the Lord, and it is His own forever." What wisdom, therefore, would men have had, had they remained children of God?
The gaps in your intelligence are the natural fruits of your fall from Grace and honesty. By losing Grace you banished Wisdom for centuries. As a meteor which is hidden behind masses of clouds, Wisdom no longer reached you with its bright flashes, but through mist which your prevarications have rendered thicker and thicker.
Then Christ came and He restored Grace, the supreme gift of the love of God. But do you know how to keep this gem clear and pure? No, you do not. When you do not crush it with your individual will in sinning, you soil it with your continuous minor faults, your weaknesses, your attachment to vice. Such attempts, even if they are not a proper marriage with the septiform vice, are a weakening of the light of Grace and of its activity. And then, to weaken the magnificent light of intelligence that God had given the First Parents, you have centuries and centuries of corruption, which exert a harmful influence on the body and on the mind.
But Mary was not only the Pure, the new Eve created for the joy of God: She was the super Eve, the Masterpiece of the Most High, She was the Full of Grace, the Mother of the Word in the mind of God.
Jesus Ben Sirach says: "Source of Wisdom is the Word." Will the Son therefore not have put His wisdom on His Mother's lips?
If the mouth of a Prophet was purified with embers, because he had to repeat to men the words that the Word, the Wisdom, entrusted to Him, will Love not have cleansed and exalted the speech of his infant Spouse Who was to bear the Word, so that She should no longer speak as a little girl and then as a woman, but only and always as a celestial creature melted in the great light and wisdom of God?
The miracle is not in the superior intelligence shown by Mary in Her childhood, as afterwards it was by Me. The miracle is in containing the Infinite Intelligence, that dwelt there, within suitable bounds, so that crowds should not be startled and satanic attention should not be awakened.
I will talk again on this subject which is part of the "remembrance" which saints have of God. »
Quote from: Pon de Replay on February 11, 2020, 12:34:56 PM
Quote from: John Lamb on February 11, 2020, 09:36:52 AMThe point in this discussion is that God does not positively will pain for anyone, but only tolerates it for the sake of some greater good.
A question for both you, John Lamb, and Kreuzritter. I only wonder how this is squared with what God says in scripture: "I will intensify your toil in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children" (Genesis III.16). It seems in Genesis that God positively willed it that the punishment for the fall was to be pain, sorrow, travail, death, and animal sacrifice. Kreuzritter says some other entity created pain, whereas you say God only tolerates it.
Just to be clear, I am not arguing against the O felix culpa position, which by extension becomes "O happy pain" if everything is designed for some future greater good. That is something we can put aside as a mystery. I am just unclear on how God is not the author of pain, if pain is a penalty he deliberately imposed. I think this gets us on topic as per the OP.
Pon, that's a good question. To understand that, we may have to make a further distinction. Theologians speak of Ordaining Will, Permissive Will, and the Accomplished Will of God. The relevant "equation" here is,
"Ordaining Will+Permissive Will=Accomplished Will".In His Ordaining Will, God created the world and all things, and gave man the simple command by which he could enter eternal Paradise; we cannot rightly enter Paradise forever until we have proved our fidelity to Supreme Goodness, and gained personal merits by our good actions. Thus, the Lord's Command was a simple way for Adam and Eve, in the face of temptation, to prove their fidelity to goodness and to gain merits for themselves by keeping His Word and obeying His command; just as we still are to do to re-enter there.
In His Permissive Will, God foreknew that they would fall and took into account in formulating His Perfect Divine Plan. Thus, God foreknew from the beginning of the world the Painful Redemption of Christ, and the pains that would follow the sin of Adam and Eve, that Jesus and Mary would bear in their highest measure. In His "Accomplished Will", God also ratifies human choices. The passage in question is to be understood of God's Accomplished Will, which announced to Adam and Eve the consequences of their human choices?
So, does that clear up the objection, Pon? The below passage in the lives of the Saints, St. Joachim and St. Anne, parents of the Blessed Mother, is for you, on sacrifices and suffering.
"Jesus says:
« The High Priest had said: "Walk in my presence and be perfect." The High Priest did not know that he was speaking to the Woman Who is inferior in perfection only to God. But he was speaking in the name of God, and therefore his order was a sacred one. It is always sacred, particularly with regard to the Virgin Full of Wisdom.
Mary had deserved that "Wisdom should precede Her and show Itself to Her first," because "from the beginning of Her day She had watched at Its door, and wishing to be taught, out of love, She wanted to be pure to achieve perfect love and deserve to have Wisdom as Her teacher."
In Her humility She did not know that She possessed Wisdom before being born and that the union with Wisdom was but the continuation of the divine pulsations of Paradise. She could not imagine that. And when God whispered sublime words to Her in the depths of Her heart, in Her humility She considered them thoughts of pride and raising Her innocent heart to God, She besought Him: "Lord, have mercy on Thy Servant!"
Oh! It is true that the True Wise Virgin, the Eternal Virgin, has had only one thought from the dawn of Her day: to raise Her heart to God from the morning of life and to watch for the Lord, praying before the Most High, asking forgiveness for the weaknesses of Her heart, as Her humility convinced Her, and She was not aware that She was anticipating the request for forgiveness for sinners, which She would later make at the foot of the Cross, together with Her dying Son.
"When the great Lord will decide, She will be filled with the Spirit of intelligence" and will then understand Her great mission. For the time being She is only a child, who in the sacred peace of the Temple, establishes and reestablishes closer and closer connections, affections and memories with Her God.
This is for everybody.
But for you, My little Mary, has your Teacher nothing special to tell you? "Walk in My presence, be therefore perfect." I am slightly modifying the sacred phrase and I am giving it to you as an order. Be perfect in love, perfect in generosity, perfect in suffering.
Look once again at Mother. And consider what so many ignore or wish to ignore, because sorrow is too irksome to their taste and their spirit. Sorrow.
Mary suffered from the very first hour of Her life. To be perfect as She was, implied the possession of a perfect sensitivity. Consequently sacrifice was to be more piercing. And thus more meritorious. He who possesses purity possesses love, who possesses love possesses wisdom, who possesses wisdom possesses generosity and heroism, because he knows why he makes a sacrifice.
Raise your spirit, even if the cross bends you, breaks you and kills you. God is with you. »
9. Death of Joachim and Anne. 31st August 1944.Jesus says:
« Like a quick winter twilight when an ice-cold wind gathers clouds in the sky, the lives of My grandparents had a quick decline, after the Sun of their lives was placed to shine before the Sacred Veil of the Temple.
But it is said:
"Wisdom brings up her own sons, and cares for those who seek her. Whoever loves her loves life, those who wait on her will enjoy peace. Those who serve her, minister to the Holy One and the Lord loves those who love her. If he trusts himself to her he will inherit her and his descendants will remain in possession of her because she accompanies him in his trials.
First of all she selects him, then she brings fear and faintness on him, ploughing him with her discipline, until she has tested him in his thoughts and she can trust him. In the end she will make him firm, will lead him back to the straight road and make him happy.
She will reveal her secrets to him, She will place in him treasures of science, and knowledge of justice."
Yes, all this has been said. The books of wisdom may be applied to all men, who will find guidance in them and a light for their behaviour. But happy are those who can be recognised amongst the spiritual lovers of Wisdom.
I surrounded Myself with wise people, in My human kinship. Anne, Joachim, Joseph, Zacharias, and even more Elizabeth, and then the Baptist, are they not real wise people? Not to mention My Mother, the abode of Wisdom.
Wisdom had inspired My grandparents how to live in a way which was agreeable to God, from their youth to their death, and like a tent protecting from the fury of the elements, Wisdom had protected them from the danger of sin.
The sacred fear of God is the root of the tree of wisdom, that thrusts its branches far and wide to reach with its top tranquil love in its peace, peaceful love in its security, secure love in its faithfulness, faithful love in its intensity: the total, generous, effective love of saints.
"Who loves her, loves life and will inherit Life" says Ecclesiasticus. This sentence is linked with Mine: "Who loses his life for My sake, will save it."
Because we are not referring to the poor life of this world, but to the eternal life, not to the joys of one hour, but to the immortal ones. Joachim and Anne loved Wisdom thus. And Wisdom was with them in their trials.
How many trials they experienced, whilst you, men, do not want to have to suffer and cry, simply because you think that you are not completely wicked! How many trials these two just people suffered, and they deserved to have Mary as their daughter! Political persecutions had driven them out of the land of David, and made them excessively poor. They had felt sadness in seeing their years fading through without a flower that would say to them: "I shall be your continuation." And afterwards, the anxiety of having a daughter in their old age when they were certain they would never see Her grow into a woman. And then the obligation of tearing Her from their hearts to offer Her on the altar of God.
And again: their life became an even more painful silence, now that they were accustomed to the chirping of their little dove, to the noise of Her little steps, to the smiles and kisses of their creature, having to wait for the hour of God, their only company being the memories of the past. And much more... Diseases, calamities of inclement weather, the arrogance of mighty ones of the earth... so many blows of battering rams on the weak castle of their modest possessions.
And it is not enough: the pain for their far away creature, who was going to be left lonely and poor and, notwithstanding their cares and sacrifices, would get only the remains of Her father's property. And how will She find such remains, since they will be left uncultivated for many years, awaiting Her return? Fears, trials, temptations.
And yet, loyalty to God forever!Their strongest temptation: not to deny their declining lives the consolation of their daughter's presence. But children belong first to God and then to their parents. Every son can say what I said to My Mother: "Do you not know that I must be busy with My Father's affairs?" And every father, every mother must learn the attitude to be maintained looking at Mary and Joseph in the Temple, at Anne and Joachim in the house of Nazareth, a house which was becoming more and more forlorn and sad, but where one thing never diminished, but increased continuously: the holiness of two hearts, the holiness of a marriage.
What light is left to Joachim, an invalid, and to his sorrowful wife, in the long and silent nights of two old people who feel they are about to die? Only the little dresses, the first pair of little sandals, the simple toys of their little daughter, now far away, and memories of Her, memories... And peace when they say:
"We are suffering, but we have done our duty of love towards God.[!!!]"
And then they were overcome by a supernatural joy shining with a celestial light, a joy unknown to the children of the world, a joy that does not fade away when heavy eyelashes close on two dying eyes: on the contrary, it shines brighter in the last hour, illuminating the truth that had been hidden within them throughout their lives. Like a butterfly in its cocoon, the truth in them gave faint indications of its presence, just soft flashes, whereas now it opens its wings to the sun and shows its beautiful decorations.
And their lives passed away in the certainty of a happy future for themselves and their descendants, their trembling lips murmuring words of praise to God.Such was the death of My grandparents.
Such as their holy lives deserved. Because of their holiness, they deserved to be the first guardians of the Virgin Beloved by God, and only when a greater Sun showed itself at the end of their days, they realized the grace God had granted them."
And so we see again that far above the ways of men are the Ways of God. Saint Joachim and Saint Anne seemed not to have a daughter for many years; it was a trial, but it was among the Greatest Grace of all, because they were being prepared to have the Mother of God for their Child! "They were dreaming of any child" said Jesus; but "they got the Mother of God"! The Grace! The Great Grace that follows holy suffering well borne out of love for the Lord! Far beyond what any human lips can tell, and what can only be correctly described by the Lord our God Himself as above. And then the Painful Sorrow of having to dear their Daughter from their hearts and offer Her on the Altar of God, for love of Him, and love of us, their children. But God was Good to them, and compensated them for their heroic life sacrifice, by an abundance of hidden Grace, and thanks to that same heroic life sacrifice of theirs, we had our Mary, and our Jesus, which God had willed to give us only through it; and we would not have had it without those sacrifices. And so we see how meritorious, how pleasing to God, is sacrifice and suffering well borne out of love, what heroism can inspire. And next, we see how God so super-abundantly rewards it, both by making them the Greatest of Saints, after Jesus, Mary and Joseph, and also in this life itself, by giving them overflowing tokens of His Joy, that they had caused. How great the happiness of the believer should be to know he has given Glory and Joy to Almighty God; how great should be his happiness in giving pleasure to his Beloved Lord. And such was the holy lives, and even holier deaths, of the Grand-Parents of God, who teach us the meaning and possibility of co-redemptively suffering pain.
In Jesus and Mary,
Xavier.
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 07, 2020, 06:56:10 AM
This is a no brainer unless one is ideologically retarded. Pain is something. It actually exists. Even if it were a deprivation of something that left one open to the possibility of experiencing pain, that would change nothing about pain's positive existential reality and that what it is not derivable from a negation or perversion of other things.
Yet it's horrific. It's what makes most suffering possible in the first place. Whether it's deformed babies screaming in the throes of pain, people dying in agony from injury or disease, people being tortured, the pain of emotional devastation, and one can go on in innumerable ways, what makes these so horrific to us and so unbearable, even to the point of wanting a cessation of ones existence just to make it stop, is the reality of pain.
Even more, it is the means through which so much evil is done in the world and most evil of man against fellow man.
Truly, even if one wants to argue that pain "naturally" aids survival, the form is hardly necessary for the function, and often the opposite is the case, when pain occurs in spite of the fact that the action causing the pain will save ones life, eg., with amputation of a limb.
I posit that any being responsible for bringing this thing into existence, even in potentia, is a sadistic psychopath.
I tend to consider pain a mercy.
As for sadistic psychopathy, "As a dog that returneth to his vomit, so is the fool that repeateth his folly".
If it were not for pain, I might repeat my folly more often. Or worse, I might not consider it a folly at all. As far as I am concerned, pain, never bereft of God's commandments, is a mercy.
Quote from: Philip G. on February 12, 2020, 01:23:35 AM
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 07, 2020, 06:56:10 AM
This is a no brainer unless one is ideologically retarded. Pain is something. It actually exists. Even if it were a deprivation of something that left one open to the possibility of experiencing pain, that would change nothing about pain's positive existential reality and that what it is not derivable from a negation or perversion of other things.
Yet it's horrific. It's what makes most suffering possible in the first place. Whether it's deformed babies screaming in the throes of pain, people dying in agony from injury or disease, people being tortured, the pain of emotional devastation, and one can go on in innumerable ways, what makes these so horrific to us and so unbearable, even to the point of wanting a cessation of ones existence just to make it stop, is the reality of pain.
Even more, it is the means through which so much evil is done in the world and most evil of man against fellow man.
Truly, even if one wants to argue that pain "naturally" aids survival, the form is hardly necessary for the function, and often the opposite is the case, when pain occurs in spite of the fact that the action causing the pain will save ones life, eg., with amputation of a limb.
I posit that any being responsible for bringing this thing into existence, even in potentia, is a sadistic psychopath.
I tend to consider pain a mercy.
As for sadistic psychopathy, "As a dog that returneth to his vomit, so is the fool that repeateth his folly".
If it were not for pain, I might repeat my folly more often. Or worse, I might not consider it a folly at all. As far as I am concerned, pain, never bereft of God's commandments, is a mercy.
Ah, right, so when you're trapped in a burning building, your flesh is melting off your bones, the unimaginably excruciating pain is a "mercy". It's serving a "purpose". Keep telling yourself that when comparing the pin pricks on your finger with the full extent and reality of pain.
Quote from: Vetus Ordo on February 09, 2020, 02:19:52 PM
What seems gratuitous or pointless to us, like babies dying of cancer, can make perfect sense when all things are considered.
No. It can't. Not given the premises about God. Even if it has a purpose, and even Auschwitz had a
purpose, it's gratuitous and deranged.
QuoteOnly God knows ...
This is the last resort answer to defend a set of inconsistent premises about a being who,
for all you know, could be a sadistic psychopath. Only God knows ... if I know enough of God, the God who revealed himself in Christ, to
know he's good, then I'm giving myself the benefit of the doubt about what he wouldn't do in this regard. If I don't, then I may as well concede I don't know enough about the "supreme being" to even know he isn't at least partly evil. Yes,
evil according to my limited human understanding, because
evil is a human word whose meaning is given by and limited to my understanding.
Let's put it this way: I wouldn't, morally, worship a being who is the enabler of this, no matter how "supreme" he is and no matter his unfathomable reasons. And if I ever did give him lip service, he'd have to coerce me into it by threat of that exact thing: excruciating pain.
Quote from: TheReturnofLive on February 09, 2020, 05:01:55 PM
I'm also hostile towards certain aspects (not all, like the idea of Eden being "separate and above" the Earth seems heavily plausible) of an Enochian / Talmudist interpretation of Genesis. I don't believe that Eve had an affair with an angel, nor that angels reproduced with humans to produce demon DNA giants, and that's what the Fall from Heaven was. That's so absurd to me in what it implies that even St. John Chrysostom, St. John Cassian, and St. Augustine explained how illogical and nonsensical it was.
All of these men were operating under a late Hellenistic metaphysics and cosmology and regarded angels as some sort of incorporeal, immaterial being in a world divided into "soul" and "body", "form" and "matter". This is
certainly not the Hebrew and Biblical view of these things (it isn't the ancient Greek one either, if one looks at their stories about the gods), which one can begin prying into through an analysis of the word nephesh and absence of any word for "body", so the "illogical and nonsensical" claim applies to an irrelevant straw man.
It is, of course, silly to dismiss the "mythology" under which a text was actually constructed because it's "nonsensical" and to force onto it an anachronistic, "correct", meaning which
was not intended by the authors. If one can't accept it, and Genesis 6:1–4 was written in the context of the "mythology" that appears in Enoch, then one ought to throw it out.
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 12, 2020, 07:22:31 AMNo. It can't. Not given the premises about God. Even if it has a purpose, and even Auschwitz had a purpose, it's gratuitous and deranged.
No-one is in a position to logically establish that. Given that creation proceeds from the Word, everything has an ultimate
telos.
QuoteLet's put it this way: I wouldn't, morally, worship a being who is the enabler of this, no matter how "supreme" he is and no matter his unfathomable reasons. And if I ever did give him lip service, he'd have to coerce me into it by threat of that exact thing: excruciating pain.
The God who revealed himself in Christ
format lucem et creat tenebras, facit pacem et creat malum (Isaiah 45:7). I'm afraid your emotional struggles regarding what you can and cannot worship are irrelevant to the point at hand. No-one can demonstrate that God has no moral sufficient reasons to allow evil and suffering in creation. That's why not even serious atheists use the problem of evil anymore.
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 12, 2020, 07:10:29 AM
Quote from: Philip G. on February 12, 2020, 01:23:35 AM
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 07, 2020, 06:56:10 AM
This is a no brainer unless one is ideologically retarded. Pain is something. It actually exists. Even if it were a deprivation of something that left one open to the possibility of experiencing pain, that would change nothing about pain's positive existential reality and that what it is not derivable from a negation or perversion of other things.
Yet it's horrific. It's what makes most suffering possible in the first place. Whether it's deformed babies screaming in the throes of pain, people dying in agony from injury or disease, people being tortured, the pain of emotional devastation, and one can go on in innumerable ways, what makes these so horrific to us and so unbearable, even to the point of wanting a cessation of ones existence just to make it stop, is the reality of pain.
Even more, it is the means through which so much evil is done in the world and most evil of man against fellow man.
Truly, even if one wants to argue that pain "naturally" aids survival, the form is hardly necessary for the function, and often the opposite is the case, when pain occurs in spite of the fact that the action causing the pain will save ones life, eg., with amputation of a limb.
I posit that any being responsible for bringing this thing into existence, even in potentia, is a sadistic psychopath.
I tend to consider pain a mercy.
As for sadistic psychopathy, "As a dog that returneth to his vomit, so is the fool that repeateth his folly".
If it were not for pain, I might repeat my folly more often. Or worse, I might not consider it a folly at all. As far as I am concerned, pain, never bereft of God's commandments, is a mercy.
Ah, right, so when you're trapped in a burning building, your flesh is melting off your bones, the unimaginably excruciating pain is a "mercy". It's serving a "purpose". Keep telling yourself that when comparing the pin pricks on your finger with the full extent and reality of pain.
Try a different analogy, because that is not reality. The reality is that such trapped person is going to first pass out from breathing smoke or pass out from shock, and unless saved from the flames by another, not experience any melting flesh.
The pains that I will say are perhaps not a mercy, are those which the works of mercy seek to address.
As for pain however, Our Lord does recommend that one may even pluck out their eye if it causes them to sin. Surely there will be physical pain, but that pain, better yet, the thought of that pain, will/may be counted a mercy in many respects. For if pain did not exist, gone would be fear.
Fear of the Lord is a gift of the Holy Ghost. And, that fear is associated with the imperfect love of God. It is imperfect, but it is still love. That is how pain can be a mercy. It can result in love, imperfect, but none the less love. And, this pain is different from that which one might experience who cuts their own flesh for pleasure. That is a different situation, not to be confused or associated with my thought process.
Scripture says the Lord chastises those he loves. In comparison, it is the devil who lures victims with pleasures, only to be the cause of pains eternal that are not in comparison to the little we may experience here on earth.
Quote from: Philip G. on February 12, 2020, 11:43:09 AM
Try a different analogy, because that is not reality. The reality is that such trapped person is going to first pass out from breathing smoke or pass out from shock, and unless saved from the flames by another, not experience any melting flesh.
No, I won't try another analogy, because it is reality, as I've heard burn survivors testify to. It also changes nothing the reality of the excruciating, prolonged and entirely unnecessary pain that exists in suffering severe burns. In fact, the very fact that the pain can reach a threshold where the victim is incapacitated, either mentally or physically, from escaping the dangers that is causing it, testifies to its gratuitousness.
QuoteThe pains that I will say are perhaps not a mercy, are those which the works of mercy seek to address.
This is a non-answer. "Works of mercy" would not needs to address these gratutitous pains if they did not exist in the first place.
QuoteAs for pain however, Our Lord does recommend that one may even pluck out their eye if it causes them to sin. Surely there will be physical pain, but that pain, better yet, the thought of that pain, will/may be counted a mercy in many respects. For if pain did not exist, gone would be fear.
What? What does it help me to fear plucking my eye out if it is better to pluck my eye out?
QuoteFear of the Lord is a gift of the Holy Ghost. And, that fear is associated with the imperfect love of God. It is imperfect, but it is still love. That is how pain can be a mercy. It can result in love, imperfect, but none the less love. And, this pain is different from that which one might experience who cuts their own flesh for pleasure. That is a different situation, not to be confused or associated with my thought process.
Yeah, clearly that's happening with babies beign scrambled by abortionists in the womb. their pain is a mercy.
QuoteScripture says the Lord chastises those he loves. In comparison, it is the devil who lures victims with pleasures, only to be the cause of pains eternal that are not in comparison to the little we may experience here on earth.
Which is only possible becaue such pains exist. This is just endlessly begging the question. "The little". Give me a break. The things some humans beings have to go through in this life is not "little".
Seriously, the answers given in this thread exemplify the cognitive dissonance involved in trying to rationalise something, in this case something patently sick, disgusting and, if intentionally created, psychopathic, to hang on to an system of viewing the world.
Nobody engulfed in flames is thanking God for the mercy of the experience. That's high-minded nonsense detached from the reality of human experience. He's crying for his mother like a baby, out of his wits, or begging to die.
I am reminded why I never post in the non catholic section. Tunnel vision only serves those who view from a distance.
Quote from: Vetus Ordo on February 12, 2020, 11:36:35 AM
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 12, 2020, 07:22:31 AMNo. It can't. Not given the premises about God. Even if it has a purpose, and even Auschwitz had a purpose, it's gratuitous and deranged.
No-one is in a position to logically establish that. Given that creation proceeds from the Word, everything has an ultimate telos.
I don't need logic to establish it's
deranged, which it is, and yes, under all circumstances and regardless of telos, a being having
created the pain we're talking about here is absolutely irreconcilable with him being
love if that word has any sense like it has when used of mother to child, husband to wife, etc.; and if one retorts that God's love is different and incomprehensible to us, then the word used of God is
meaningless, a semantic charade that lets "God" do anything, because he always has a "higher reason", and because that higher reason is an expression of his"love", it can never contradict that love. Do you think I'm ten years old that I'd fall for such sophistic language games?
However, a being having
created the pain we're talking about here is certainly reconcilable with a self-glorifying narcissistic psychopath whose character would give a man reason to pause regarding any rebel chreub's motives for disobedience.
QuoteQuoteLet's put it this way: I wouldn't, morally, worship a being who is the enabler of this, no matter how "supreme" he is and no matter his unfathomable reasons. And if I ever did give him lip service, he'd have to coerce me into it by threat of that exact thing: excruciating pain.
I'm afraid your emotional struggles regarding what you can and cannot worship are irrelevant to the point at hand.
There are no "emotional struggles" here. The case is crystal clear, and the decision has nothing to do with emotion.
QuoteThe God who revealed himself in Christ format lucem et creat tenebras, facit pacem et creat malum (Isaiah 45:7).
I think you've ripped that out of context.
QuoteNo-one can demonstrate that God has no moral sufficient reasons to allow evil and suffering in creation. That's why not even serious atheists use the problem of evil anymore.
Vetus, I don't care about "moral sufficient reasons". There are no such things in my view, and at no point in this thread have I made this a moral issue or drawn an argument from the farce of "morality" as conceived by ethics. And we're not talking about "allowing" evil; we're talking about the fact that pain is not a "deprivation" and, given the theistic cosmogony, had to have been created. This is not a "moral" problem to be addressed by some is-ought nonsense. It's simply an observation of the nature of these things and the nature of the being who could have willed to create them. What serious atheists think or use is of no import to me.
Quote from: Philip G. on February 12, 2020, 01:29:50 PM
I am reminding why I never post in the non catholic section. Tunnel vision only serves those who view from a distance.
Tunnel vision? Like Pon I've conceded to the possible secular and spiritual utility of pain from the start. You are the one with tunnel vision who avoids addressing the core of the issue.
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 12, 2020, 01:40:09 PM
Quote from: Philip G. on February 12, 2020, 01:29:50 PM
I am reminding why I never post in the non catholic section. Tunnel vision only serves those who view from a distance.
Tunnel vision? Like Pon I've conceded to the possible secular and spiritual utility of pain from the start. You are the one with tunnel vision who avoids addressing the core of the issue.
Please explain what you mean by secular and spiritual utility.
Quote from: Philip G. on February 12, 2020, 01:49:17 PM
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 12, 2020, 01:40:09 PM
Quote from: Philip G. on February 12, 2020, 01:29:50 PM
I am reminding why I never post in the non catholic section. Tunnel vision only serves those who view from a distance.
Tunnel vision? Like Pon I've conceded to the possible secular and spiritual utility of pain from the start. You are the one with tunnel vision who avoids addressing the core of the issue.
Please explain what you mean by secular and spiritual utility.
As in the natural function of pain, on the one had, although the form is not necessary for the function. On the other, ascesis, penance or growth through suffering, and so forth, though there are again limits of intensity at which a thing simply breaks and the utility is lost, and the form is also not strictly necessary for the function.
.
Pain is always a symptom of a cause. As a result, it is useful for those who address causes, because it can help point to what the cause is. That is how it is a mercy.
Only for the damned is pain a cause, with some other end or symptom in mind. This is subjective however. Because, the cause of their delusion is the devil, who is the cause. Which, doesn't change the fact that pain is always a symptom.
When I contrast this with your thread's title, I perceive that you may think otherwise. If pain is a positive existence/creature, it sounds as though that would make it a cause. The devil, however, being this discussion's quasi cause, is still none the less a deprivation of God, which is not a cause per say.
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 12, 2020, 01:37:46 PMI don't need logic to establish it's deranged, which it is, and yes, under all circumstances and regardless of telos, a being having created the pain we're talking about here is absolutely irreconcilable with him being love if that word has any sense like it has when used of mother to child, husband to wife, etc.; and if one retorts that God's love is different and incomprehensible to us, then the word used of God is meaningless, a semantic charade that lets "God" do anything, because he always has a "higher reason", and because that higher reason is an expression of his"love", it can never contradict that love. Do you think I'm ten years old that I'd fall for such sophistic language games?
I don't think you're ten years old, Kreuz, but it's clear you're caught up in some sort of emotional struggle.
I have stated that you are in no capacity to establish that pain cannot have an ultimate
telos that is perfectly reconcilable with the omnibenevolent nature of God. The burden of proof is too heavy. You're simply not equipped to do it. No-one is.
QuoteThere are no "emotional struggles" here. The case is crystal clear, and the decision has nothing to do with emotion.
Of course it does.
QuoteI think you've ripped that out of context.
Eppur Lui crea.QuoteVetus, I don't care about "moral sufficient reasons". There are no such things in my view, and at no point in this thread have I made this a moral issue or drawn an argument from the farce of "morality" as conceived by ethics. And we're not talking about "allowing" evil; we're talking about the fact that pain is not a "deprivation" and, given the theistic cosmogony, had to have been created. This is not a "moral" problem to be addressed by some is-ought nonsense. It's simply an observation of the nature of these things and the nature of the being who could have willed to create them. What serious atheists think or use is of no import to me.
The moral dimension seems to be at the root of your concerns. Pain is morally repugnant to you because it seems gratuitous and incompatible with God's character. Am I understanding you incorrectly? Pon expressed a similar concern. But it is precisely because we cannot establish with any confidence that God could not have a morally sufficient reason to ordain evil into existence - I'll use this formulation if you prefer - that the concern (or the objection) is baseless on logical grounds. That's why I mentioned that even serious atheists have dropped the classical Epicurean argument. Emotionally, though, it remains relevant and that's why many forms of this problem keep resurfacing every now and then.
The bottom line is that pain and suffering are very real and often gruesome. Evil is present everywhere, amidst a few good. The whole creation is groaning, as Scripture aptly puts it. And God willed it to be so. He has a morally sufficient reason to have willed His creation to be flawed and fraught with these dramatic and often inexplicable events. If He did not have a morally sufficient reason to have ordained things thus, He would have a defect in nature and wouldn't be God to begin with. And without God, the problem of evil, suffering and pain is meaningless.