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#1

General News and Discussion / Re: Drones over New Jersey

Last post by TradGranny - Today at 04:11:01 PM

Gov officials say we don't know what they are. But don't worry.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1867772538291400714

#2

The Sacred Sciences / Re: Is Banezianism Occassional...

Last post by Michael Wilson - Today at 04:08:45 PM

[

The Occasionalists, like Banezians, believe that God is the cause of every thing, without distinguishing First Cause.  So they have a problem, because this must lead to Universalism.  Also, your damnation MUST rest ONLY upon God's decision.  So they came up with the kooky Insufficient Grace/ Efficacious Grace to explain the scripture.  Why?

Occasionalist sound like Nominalist.
They uphold first and secondary causes; their explanation of actual grace, leads to a denial of free will, so it likened to Calvinism, as the Calvinist over emphasis on the irresistibility of God's grace and the reality of damnation, leads them back to attributing to God the choice of who is saved or damned.

Because they HAVE to reject regeneration, whereby your Will is strengthened.  Because to them you have no will for Good, even AFTER baptism.  Before or after Baptism, you are a dung pile.  Sanctifying Grace is just snow that covers the dung pile.

I think you are pushing the criticism of Banezianism too far. Speaking for the Banezians they would respond: Yes, man in the state of Sanctifying Grace has a new supernatural organism infused into his soul, with the corresponding virtues and gifts of the Holy Ghost i.e. His "ontological" being. But in order to set this new organism in motion, man needs God's actual graces, without with he could not do anything.
Where they go wrong, is that they say: God gives man only those actual graces that he needs, in order to accomplish his predestination infallibly; so for the man that God has predestined to Heaven, God will give him those graces that will lead him there; and for the rest, He will withhold those graces. The result will be that they will be lost. 

#3

The Sacred Sciences / Re: Is Banezianism Occassional...

Last post by james03 - Today at 03:52:04 PM

On the Occasionalist angle, could you explain this more thoroughly and also why you think it leads to the pile of dung covered with snow of Lutheranism.

The Occasionalists, like Banezians, believe that God is the cause of every thing, without distinguishing First Cause.  So they have a problem, because this must lead to Universalism.  Also, your damnation MUST rest ONLY upon God's decision.  So they came up with the kooky Insufficient Grace/ Efficacious Grace to explain the scripture.  Why?

Because they HAVE to reject regeneration, whereby your Will is strengthened.  Because to them you have no will for Good, even AFTER baptism.  Before or after Baptism, you are a dung pile.  Sanctifying Grace is just snow that covers the dung pile.

I have read a lot of Banezian dogmatic material; they all uphold sanctifying grace and the ontological difference between a creature being in the state of nature and the state of grace. From what I have read it is their theory of actual grace that is the problem, not sanctifying grace.

I quit studying them after concluding they are idiots.  Similar to my treatment of Pesch.  However yes, they are trying to work out a system of Actual Grace in their system where Sanctifying Grace has de facto done nothing.  I am unaware if they were ever questioned on what Sanctifying Grace actually accomplished and why the baptized man was unable to cooperate with (insufficient) Grace.  They would say because man is incapable of doing anything good, even though the Grace was "sufficient".  We'll ignore that it is quite clear this grace is Insufficient.  Doesn't matter, they handled the scripture that contradicts them.

And the solution to all this was the brilliant recognition of the Perspective Problem, something I wish I could claim credit for.

[They had grace and merited beatitude without the possibility of sin. The universalist and non-universalist agree,]

#4

The Sacred Sciences / Re: Change from mortal sin to ...

Last post by Michael Wilson - Today at 03:45:03 PM

Michael:

None of that refutes my conclusion. They had grace and merited beatitude without the possibility of sin. The universalist and non-universalist agree, then, that there are circumstances where grace can't be impeded. The debate is about what circumstances this can happen under. That it can happen is clear.
I defend universalism hypothetically in the spirit of "Iron sharpens iron". I don't preach it.

1. No this is not entirely true. They were created in the state of Sanctifying grace, TRUE;  but had not yet merited the beatific vision; 
2. Our First Parents were also created in the state of Sanctifying Grace, however they had to pass a test in order to merit their eternal happiness.  They failed and would have been damned, if it wasn't for the mercy of God that decreed our Redemption.
3.You do not reject Universalism as being incompatible with Catholic doctrine. You are trying to find an argument to justify it. Your position is the same as a man keeping company with a divorced woman; he knows that she is married, and yet he still wants to marry her, so he keeps seeking ways of justifying in his mind that her marriage was somehow not valid. He will either break off the relationship or end up living in sin.

#5

General News and Discussion / Re: ZOG kicks off Syria Again

Last post by james03 - Today at 03:38:22 PM

Syria is the result of not believing in nationalism.  In Syria you have arab sunni, alawite, turkic sunni, kurds, and Christians.  And there are even sub groups within the arabic sunni.  This resulted in the army collapsing.  You saw it in Rome.  You've just seen it in Syria.  You'll eventually see it in the US.

There is an inherent conflict between the new leader, who is ISIS, who wants an arabic caliphate, and the turkick sunni, who are backed by Erdogan.  Ergogan wants to be the Turkish Sultan.

Iraq is also pan-national, so that is the next trouble zone.

Trump is actually set up to do well if he follows his natural instincts.  He needs to pull US troops out of Syria.  He also needs to pull troops out of Iraq.  That latter is unlikely, but possible.

Iran suffered a huge defeat.  I expect Trump and Iran to mend relations.  Elon already had back door comms with Iran.

I think an alliance between Russia and the US is also in America's interest.  Rubio is a big China hawk, so he even might tacitly support such  a rapprochement. 

Going down the list:

China is a loser as Iran, its source for oil has problems.
Turkey kind of wins, but now has big problems with Kurds, and the wrong Sunnis are now in charge.
Israel wins big.  However it will depend on how Syria shakes out.
Iraq loses.  It has a big target on it from ISIS and Israel.
US.  Depends.  If Trump pulls out of Syria and even Iraq, and comes to a new nuke deal with Iran, the US will gain.  The US doesn't care about Mid East oil.  That is a China/India/Europe concern nowadays.
Iran.  They lose to a degree.  If they cut a deal with Trump, and strengthen ties with Russia, they will be ok and their economy will do well.  Expect Trump to lift at least some sanctions if Iran cuts the nuke deal.
Palestinians.  Huge loss.  Gaza and the West Bank may cease to exist.  It's possible.
Russia.  Some loss of prestige, but no big deal.  If Russia and the US align, it won't matter.

It's really tee'd up for Trump.  If he sticks to his principle that the US isn't in the business of being the World's police, he can win in a big way.

#6

The Sacred Sciences / Re: Is Banezianism Occassional...

Last post by Michael Wilson - Today at 03:36:12 PM

Banezianism's main error is not with regards to predestination.  It is with Cause, and their failure to distinguish between First Cause and Efficient Cause.  They are Occasionalists.  They therefore must adopt Luther's dung pile covered with snow and reject regeneration, like Luther did.  Calvin preached regeneration and sanctification of the elect.  Banezians are closer to Luther than Calvin.

On the Occasionalist angle, could you explain this more thoroughly and also why you think it leads to the pile of dung covered with snow of Lutheranism.

edit:  Banezians must also reject Sanctifying Grace.  It accomplishes nothing.  It is a legal decree only, which makes you elect.  If that sounds like Luther, it's because it is Lutheranism.

I have read a lot of Banezian dogmatic material; they all uphold sanctifying grace and the ontological difference between a creature being in the state of nature and the state of grace. From what I have read it is their theory of actual grace that is the problem, not sanctifying grace. 

#7

General News and Discussion / Re: Russia Invades Ukraine

Last post by clau clau - Today at 03:31:53 PM

According to the free media of the free West, freedom fighters in F16's supplied by the Land of the Free intercepted 75 of the 50 missiles.

Not only did they intercept them, but they hacked their guidance systems and sent 100 missles back to Russia!

I don't believe that, it's bollocks. I'm fed up with this hacker crap. You've been watching too much Top Gun Maverick.

I don't know if this is clau's dry British humor.  It's clear to me that Drummer is being facetious.

No, it is just me not recognising facetiousness.        apologies @drummerboy
(in my defence thought, perhaps the sarcasm tag ( </s> ) would have helped.

[is that if choices are caused by God (nothing can happen without God's sustaining it)]

#8

The Sacred Sciences / Re: Is Banezianism Occassional...

Last post by Michael Wilson - Today at 03:27:05 PM

Michael,

Conditional election only seems to make sense if God has middle knowledge. Otherwise, God would be predestining on the basis of foreseen merit that He already decreed to happen; He'd be predestining based on who He predestined. The problem I have with middle knowledge is that if choices are caused by God (nothing can happen without God's sustaining it), then to have middle knowledge of creaturely choices would imply God has middle knowledge of His own choices. However, middle/prevolitional knowledge of one's own choices is impossible.

Choices of intelligent creatures are made by themselves freely; God sustains and enables our free will, but does not determine it, that is up to us. Therefore the objection that you posited to middle knowledge is based on the false assumption that God determines our free choices.

Also, it seems like a self-righteous position to say that if you go to heaven and someone else doesn't, it's because you were better than them.

That is not "self righteous", it is God's very revelation:
[Mark 16:16]

He that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved: but he that believeth not shall be condemned.

Therefore the person who is saved, believed and is better than the person who refused to believed and is therefore condemned. There is an essential ontological difference between a man in the state of grace and one in the state of Mortal Sin.

Denying Molinism need not lead to Calvinism. God's control of our choices is compatible with our power to do otherwise.

I didn't say that it did. For example, the Congruist, and the Syncretist deny Molinism, yet their theories still preserve the freedom of the will under the influence of God's grace.
Also, I stated that in the Banezian system, man does not have the ability to elect the good and the true without a second "efficacious" actual grace, that God does not grant to all, therefore those who do not receive this grace will be surely damned, as those in the Calvinist system of double predestination.

I can't speak to whether Banezianism and/or neo-Banezianism leads to a denial of free will. I don't know how they're different. But the mere denial of predestination based on foreseen merit doesn't lead to such denial.

Because the Banezian theory of God's future knowledge of the future free acts of creatures, come through His "physical premotion" of their acts; therefore only those acts that God endows His creatures with the ability to consent to and actually perform, will take place, so that ultimately nothing happens except through God's positive decrees to endow His creature with free-will to perform this act or that one.
Here is the article in the Catholic Encyclopedia explaining "God's future knowledge and physical premotion"
https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06710a.htm

Inasmuch as the Divine influence precedes all acts of the creature, not in the order of time, but in that of causality, the motion emanating from God and seconded by free intelligent agents takes on the character of a physical premotion (proemotio physica) of the free acts, which may also be called a physical predetermination (proedeterminatio physica), because the free determination of the will is accomplished only by virtue of the divine predetermination.
In this premotion or predetermination is also found the medium of the Divine knowledge by which God's omniscience foresees infallibly all the future acts, whether absolute or conditional, of intelligent creatures, and which explains away at once the undemonstrable and imaginary scientia media of the Molinists. For just as certainly as God in His predetermined decrees knows His own will, so certainly does He know all the necessarily included determinations of the free will of creatures, be they of absolute or conditional futurity. Now if we carry these philosophical principles from the domain of the natural to the supernatural, then efficacious grace (gratia efficax) must be regarded as a physical premotion of the supernaturally equipped will to the performance of a good act, for revelation undeniably refers back to grace not only the possibility, but also the willing and the actual performance of a good act. But the will predetermined to this free good act must with a metaphysical certainty correspond with grace, for it would be a contradiction to assert that the consensus, brought about by efficacious grace, can at the same time be an actual dissensus. This historical necessity (necessitas consequentiae), involved in every act of freedom and distinguishable from the compelling necessity (necessitas consequentis), does not destroy the freedom of the act.

The article goes on to critique the Banezian system and its main flaws:

The first objection is the danger that in the Thomistic system the freedom of the will cannot be maintained as against efficacious grace, a difficulty which by the way is not unperceived by the Thomists themselves. For since the essence of freedom does not lie in the contingency of the act nor in the merely passive indifference of the will, but rather in its active indifference — to will or not to will, to will this and not that — so it appears impossible to reconcile the physical predetermination of a particular act by an alien will and the active spontaneousness of the determination by the will itself; nay more, they seem to exclude each other as utterly as do determinism and indeterminism, necessity and freedom. The Thomists answer this objection by making a distinction between sensus compositus and sensus divisus, but the Molinists insist that this distinction is not correctly applicable here. For just as a man who is bound to a chair cannot be said to be sitting freely as long as his ability to stand is thwarted by indissoluble cords, so the will predetermined by efficacious grace to a certain thing cannot be said to retain the power to dissent, especially since the will, predetermined to this or that act, has not the option to receive or disregard the premotion, since this depends simply and solely on the will of God. And does not the Council of Trent (Sess. VI, cap. v, can. iv) describe efficacious grace as a grace which man "can reject", and from which he "can dissent"? Consequently, the very same grace, which de facto is efficacious, might under other circumstances be inefficacious.

Herein the second objection to the Thomistic distinction between gratia efficax and gratia sufficiens is already indicated. If both graces are in their nature and intrinsically different, it is difficult to see how a grace can be really sufficient which requires another grace to complete it. Hence, it would appear that the Thomistic gratia sufficiens is in reality a gratia insufficiens. The Thomists cannot well refer the inefficacy of this grace to the resistance of the free will, for this act of resistance must be traced to a proemotio physica as inevitable as the efficacious grace.

Moreover, a third great difficulty lies in the fact that sin, as an act, demands the predetermining activity of the "first mover", so that God would according to this system appear to be the originator of sinful acts. The Thomistic distinction between the entity of sin and its malice offers no solution of the difficulty. For since the Divine influence itself, which premoves ad unum, both introduces physically the sin as an act and entity, and also, by the simultaneous withholding of the opposite premotion to a good act, makes the sin itself an inescapable fatality, it is not easy to explain why sin cannot be traced back to God as the originator. Furthermore, most sinners commit their misdeeds, not with a regard to the depravity, but for the sake of the physical entity of the acts, so that ethics must, together with the wickedness, condemn the physical entity of sin. The Molinists deny that this objection affects their own system, when they postulate the concursus of God in the sinful act, and help themselves out of the dilemma by drawing the distinction between the entity and malice of sin. They say that the Divine co-operation is a concursus simultaneus, which employs the co-operating arm of God only after the will by its own free determination has decided upon the commission of the sinful act, whereas the Thomistic co-operation is essentially a concursus proevius which as an inevitable physical premotion predetermines the act regardless of the fact whether the human will can resist or not.

#9

General News and Discussion / Re: Russia Invades Ukraine

Last post by james03 - Today at 03:21:15 PM

According to the free media of the free West, freedom fighters in F16's supplied by the Land of the Free intercepted 75 of the 50 missiles.

Not only did they intercept them, but they hacked their guidance systems and sent 100 missles back to Russia!

I don't believe that, it's bollocks. I'm fed up with this hacker crap. You've been watching too much Top Gun Maverick.

I don't know if this is clau's dry British humor.  It's clear to me that Drummer is being facetious.

#10

General News and Discussion / Re: A Woman Comes Clean

Last post by james03 - Today at 03:15:30 PM

The loss of a single soul is a great tragedy; Christ denounced the hardness of heart of the Jewish people, and the wickedness of their leaders in clear and explicit terms, prophesying their temporal and even worse, their eternal damnation; but He also wept over Jerusalem and the tragic fate that awaited its inhabitants.

Conversely, the conversion of one soul causes joy in heaven, and if you convert someone it will be your greatest treasure in heaven.

Reminds me of the starfish story, where a beach is covered with starfish, and a kid is picking up one and throwing it back in the sea.  He's told it is a useless thing to do as there are way too many of them to save.  He holds out his hand and shows the one starfish and says, "It matters to him.".