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The Church Courtyard => General Catholic Discussion => Topic started by: martin88nyc on February 09, 2019, 10:59:11 PM

Title: Josef Seifert: Francis Has “Rejected Christianity”, Turned God into a "Relativis
Post by: martin88nyc on February 09, 2019, 10:59:11 PM
https://www.gloria.tv/article/F9AwmbtEsRPP1T3hUyNhRPsv9

QuoteThe famous Austrian philosopher Josef Seifert has sharply criticized Pope Francis' Abu Dhabi claim that pluralism and diversity of religions are "willed by God".

In an article published on en.gloria.tv (February 8) Seifert asks, "How can God will religions that deny Christ's divinity and resurrection?"

For Seifert Francis' statement "contains all heresies" and turns God into a relativist who "does not know" that there is only one truth and "does not care" whether men believe in truth or falsity.

He concludes that in his Abu Dhabi document Francis "rejected Christianity" and implies that God must hate the Catholic Church because it rejects any relativization of the Christian religion that would turn it into one of many contradictory religions.

Seifert asks Francis to recant his heresy,

"If he does not do this, I am afraid that Canon Law may apply according to which a Pope automatically loses his Petrine office when professing heresy, especially when he professes the sum-total of all heresies."
Title: Re: Josef Seifert: Francis Has “Rejected Christianity”, Turned God into a "Relativis
Post by: Gerard on February 09, 2019, 11:22:05 PM
He'll slip through it by saying he meant God's "permissive will." 
Title: Re: Josef Seifert: Francis Has “Rejected Christianity”, Turned God into a "Relativis
Post by: St. Columba on February 10, 2019, 08:51:17 AM
Ok, but see what Quare wrote recently:

Quote from: Quaremerepulisti on January 16, 2019, 07:21:00 AM
The answer is yes, God's positive will is ontologically identical to His permissive will, which are both ontologically identical to His existence.  The distinction between positive and permissive will exists only in our minds but not in God.

If what Quare says above is true, then God does indeed positively will the different religions, making Pope Francis' contention....sound?
Title: Re: Josef Seifert: Francis Has “Rejected Christianity”, Turned God into a "Relativis
Post by: Michael Wilson on February 10, 2019, 11:20:00 AM
One thing is to argue about the identity of God with His attributes, another is to claim that God has positively willed (as what logically follows from what Francis said) false religions or that men have the right to practice these false religions:
Quoteeach individual enjoys the freedom of belief, thought, expression and action. The pluralism and the diversity of religions, colour, sex, race and language are willed by God in His wisdom, through which He created human beings.
God created human beings through his positive will ergo:  so He must also positively will the existence of false religions.
Each man has the duty to seek the truth and will the good; if men turn aside and adhere to error and commit evil acts, they do not have "the right" to do so.
Title: Re: Josef Seifert: Francis Has “Rejected Christianity”, Turned God into a "Relativis
Post by: Kreuzritter on February 10, 2019, 12:25:15 PM
Quote from: St. Columba on February 10, 2019, 08:51:17 AM
Ok, but see what Quare wrote recently:

Quote from: Quaremerepulisti on January 16, 2019, 07:21:00 AM
The answer is yes, God's positive will is ontologically identical to His permissive will, which are both ontologically identical to His existence.  The distinction between positive and permissive will exists only in our minds but not in God.

If what Quare says above is true, then God does indeed positively will the different religions, making Pope Francis' contention....sound?

In that case God wills babies to be raped. And this will for babies to be raped is identical to his existence. But let's take it even further. There is neither any distinction in anything that God wills, all of it being ontologically identical with his existence, which is absolutely simple. The distinction between his willing babies to be raped, flowers to bloom, planets to spin, cows to shit, people to be happy and someone's mom to die of cancer exists only in our minds.

This is where dumb philosophy will get you.

Quare's "God" is a positive nothing, not a person in any sense, but a transcendent locus of unstoppable causal force.
Title: Re: Josef Seifert: Francis Has “Rejected Christianity”, Turned God into a "Relativis
Post by: St. Columba on February 10, 2019, 02:32:01 PM
Well, I will let Quare speak for himself...but maybe God's eternal will encompasses all of the evil that will ensue so that a greater good may come about.  So it is not that He wills babies being raped per se, as an isolated act; rather, any instance of babies being raped is part of an overall enterprise that God integrally wills.

...although, I still have trouble with this idea that God sublimates His tolerance for evil under the auspices of a greater good.  Ontologically, I don't even see how a greater good can even come into existence.  God always and already has every good.  Allowing evil so that "accidental" good may abound seems a possible answer, however.
Title: Re: Josef Seifert: Francis Has “Rejected Christianity”, Turned God into a "Relativis
Post by: St. Columba on February 10, 2019, 02:57:33 PM
Kreuzritter, you recently made the claim that evil necessarily exists.  I can dig up the post if you like.

Question: If evil necessarily exists, how can God not will it?

As far as I am concerned, if evil is necessary, then it is in some sense a "part" of God: but God is simple, and does not admit of parts.  So, if evil is necessary, it must be an attribute of God, and if an attribute of God, then, well, you can imagine the blasphemous implication.
Title: Re: Josef Seifert: Francis Has “Rejected Christianity”, Turned God into a "Relativis
Post by: james03 on February 10, 2019, 03:53:01 PM
I have already answered this and you have failed to refute it.  Do you believe in Free Will?  If you do, then there is no dilemma.  If you don't, then I understand your problem.
Title: Re: Josef Seifert: Francis Has “Rejected Christianity”, Turned God into a "Relativis
Post by: james03 on February 10, 2019, 03:54:05 PM
Getting back to the O.P., Bergoglio has now been accused of heresy 4 times by cardinals and bishops.  He has not recanted.  Make what you want of it.
Title: Re: Josef Seifert: Francis Has “Rejected Christianity”, Turned God into a "Relativis
Post by: awkwardcustomer on February 10, 2019, 06:08:52 PM
Quote from: St. Columba on February 10, 2019, 02:32:01 PM
...although, I still have trouble with this idea that God sublimates His tolerance for evil under the auspices of a greater good.  Ontologically, I don't even see how a greater good can even come into existence.  God always and already has every good.  Allowing evil so that "accidental" good may abound seems a possible answer, however.

God allows evil so that angels and men might exist.  Is that a greater good, or an "accidental" good?

When God created angels and men He gave them Free Will.  For Free Will to be really free, it has to include the freedom to choose evil.  None had fallen and yet Satan, a third of the angels and Adam and Eve, all chose of their unfallen Free Will to rebel against God.  God must have known this would happen.  And yet He created angels and men nevertheless.

Surely the only way God could eliminate evil from His creation is to destroy, or to never have created, the two races of created beings among whose ranks the evildoers are to found?

Is this how God's permissive will can be explained regarding evil?  It was a price worth paying, without which He could not have created angels and men in the first place? 






Title: Re: Josef Seifert: Francis Has “Rejected Christianity”, Turned God into a "Relativis
Post by: St. Columba on February 10, 2019, 07:05:27 PM
Quote from: james03 on February 10, 2019, 03:53:01 PM
I have already answered this and you have failed to refute it.  Do you believe in Free Will?  If you do, then there is no dilemma.  If you don't, then I understand your problem.

Hi James....I think you are referring to me...nice to interact with you friend.

I do believe in free will.  I but do not see where Quare is wrong when he states, "God's positive will is ontologically identical to His permissive will, which are both ontologically identical to His existence.  The distinction between positive and permissive will exists only in our minds but not in God."

Do you agree with Quare's italicized statement immediately above?  If you do, then it seems that God positively wills evil, and the existence of free-will does not solve that problem.  If you don't agree with Quare's statement, then I would be most interested in knowing why, precisely.

Thank you for educating me James.  Have a pleasant evening friend! 
Title: Re: Josef Seifert: Francis Has “Rejected Christianity”, Turned God into a "Relativis
Post by: St. Columba on February 10, 2019, 07:15:17 PM
Quote from: awkwardcustomer on February 10, 2019, 06:08:52 PM
God allows evil so that angels and men might exist.  Is that a greater good, or an "accidental" good?

Hi awkwardcustomer.  Thanks for the post friend.

From the point of view that God has always, and will always, possess every good, it seems to me that anything created, as distinct from a transcendent God, will only possibly bring about an "accidental good" or alternatively, an increase in "accidental glory" in God.  I don't see how there could ever be an actual increase of ontological good.  It would imply that God lacked some good, which is impossible.  It also would imply that God, as goodness itself, can essentially change, which is also unpalatable.
Title: Re: Josef Seifert: Francis Has “Rejected Christianity”, Turned God into a "Relativis
Post by: Kreuzritter on February 11, 2019, 03:45:40 AM
Quote from: St. Columba on February 10, 2019, 07:05:27 PM
I do believe in free will. I but do not see where Quare is wrong when he states, "God's positive will is ontologically identical to His permissive will, which are both ontologically identical to His existence.  The distinction between positive and permissive will exists only in our minds but not in God."

It doesn't even come down to him being "wrong" when I have no reason whatsoever for agreeing with that or the philosophy that lies behind it in the first place. What a subject is is not what he wills, thinks, judges or otherwise does; these are mere actions upon something.  A subject is existential and posesses a certain nature, and out of himself he acts, but he is not his acts. This is why I remain self-identically who I am through time despite what I will, think, judge, etc. constantly changing with respect to time. The divine ousia is precisely that, the I am, a subject, in the primary sense, and the physis or nature of that subject in the secondary sense with which it becomes a generic term; and simplicity applies to the ousia, but it applies to it  just like it does to any transcendental existential subject.

QuoteDo you agree with Quare's italicized statement immediately above?  If you do, then it seems that God positively wills evil, and the existence of free-will does not solve that problem.  If you don't agree with Quare's statement, then I would be most interested in knowing why, precisely.

If God creates a free being and allows him to murder or God directly wills and causes a murder, this is not a mere distinction in my mind. It's an objectivley real distinction,a nd it doesn't go away by claimign they "somehow" becoem one in God.

As I already stated, Quare's "God" is a positive nothing, not a person in any sense, but a transcendent locus of unstoppable causal force. That is not the personal, feeling, loving, suffering deity of the old Hebrew scriptures and the New Testament. It just isn't. It's a construct of "Christianised" pagan philosophy, or rather of pagan philosophy playing with Christian language, and I reject it out of hand.
Title: Re: Josef Seifert: Francis Has “Rejected Christianity”, Turned God into a "Relativis
Post by: John Lamb on February 11, 2019, 03:50:29 AM
Quote from: St. Columba on February 10, 2019, 07:05:27 PMI do believe in free will.  I but do not see where Quare is wrong when he states, "God's positive will is ontologically identical to His permissive will, which are both ontologically identical to His existence.  The distinction between positive and permissive will exists only in our minds but not in God."

Do you agree with Quare's italicized statement immediately above?


Quare's right that God's positive and permissive wills are ontologically identical, because ontologically speaking God is absolutely simple and has only one divine Will identical to His very essence. However, even though there are no ontological distinctions in God the divinely simple Being, there are logical distinctions, and God's positive and permissive wills are logically distinct in the one divine Will or Essence.

So yes, although God's positive and permissive wills are substantially one and the same identical divine Will, the way these two "wills" manifest in creation are logically distinct. In the positive the divine Will is actively causing some metaphysical entity to exist, whereas in the permissive the divine Will is allowing a certain metaphysical defect or deficiency in a thing by causing the thing's existence without supplying its full perfection of being. If you like you can view it as a fountain flowing into two cups, but one cup is leaking: it's the same water but one cup receives its fullness and the other does not – Similarly, it's the same divine Will through which all being or existence flows into creatures, but God permits some creatures to "leak". In fact, in our fallen world all creatures are "leaking". If you ask if God is the cause of the hole through which being leaks out of creatures: only in the sense that He chooses not to patch up the hole, not in the sense that He created the hole to begin with. The reality is we are all entirely hole – entirely "nothing" – until God fills us up, and to the extent that He does fill us up. Revelation teaches that God made the world without these metaphysical holes or leakages, but He permitted them to enter through Adam's sin – Adam's sin is like an enormous rupture or tear in the very fabric of created reality. One of the problems of Christian / Theistic evolutionism is that it fails to preserve this truth and reduces the world-shattering event we call the Fall to a mere local event occurring in some animal somewhere at some time.
Title: Re: Josef Seifert: Francis Has “Rejected Christianity”, Turned God into a "Relativis
Post by: Kreuzritter on February 11, 2019, 04:00:33 AM
Quote from: St. Columba on February 10, 2019, 07:15:17 PM
Quote from: awkwardcustomer on February 10, 2019, 06:08:52 PM
God allows evil so that angels and men might exist.  Is that a greater good, or an "accidental" good?

Hi awkwardcustomer.  Thanks for the post friend.

From the point of view that God has always, and will always, possess every good, it seems to me that anything created, as distinct from a transcendent God, will only possibly bring about an "accidental good" or alternatively, an increase in "accidental glory" in God.  I don't see how there could ever be an actual increase of ontological good.  It would imply that God lacked some good, which is impossible.  It also would imply that God, as goodness itself, can essentially change, which is also unpalatable.

I really don't understand this language. And who's quantifying "good" and keeping tally?

God encounters the potency of all that he can bring forth by virtue of his power and does so out of his love, creating something beautiful and good and establishing a relationship where there was nothing before. That's not God changing in his ousia or physis , though it certainly implies a change experienced by the deity in another sense. But what's the issue? The hypostasis of the Son had to have changed in taking to itself a human nature in time, though it remained unchanged in its divine nature.
Title: Re: Josef Seifert: Francis Has “Rejected Christianity”, Turned God into a "Relativis
Post by: Kreuzritter on February 11, 2019, 04:04:57 AM
Don't you just love the way the Scholastically trained talk our living, loving God as though he were their pet machine to be figured out by the principles of their semantic system?

Whoever can point me to any of this bullshit in the Bible, the liturgy or the Ante-Nicene Fathers gets a cookie. To think people were literally killed over this kind of stuff.
Title: Re: Josef Seifert: Francis Has “Rejected Christianity”, Turned God into a "Relativis
Post by: Kreuzritter on February 11, 2019, 04:10:20 AM
Quote from: St. Columba on February 10, 2019, 02:57:33 PM
Kreuzritter, you recently made the claim that evil necessarily exists.  I can dig up the post if you like.

Question: If evil necessarily exists, how can God not will it?

As far as I am concerned, if evil is necessary, then it is in some sense a "part" of God: but God is simple, and does not admit of parts.  So, if evil is necessary, it must be an attribute of God, and if an attribute of God, then, well, you can imagine the blasphemous implication.

Evil exists as a pure potency by virtue of God's existence and creative power. That is what I mean by its necessity. God does not will it. The moment God allows freedom is the moment that evil can actualise.
Title: Re: Josef Seifert: Francis Has “Rejected Christianity”, Turned God into a "Relativis
Post by: John Lamb on February 11, 2019, 04:13:42 AM
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 11, 2019, 04:04:57 AM
Don't you just love the way the Scholastically trained talk our living, loving God as though he were their pet machine to be figured out by the principles of their semantic system?

Whoever can point me to any of this bullshit in the Bible, the liturgy or the Ante-Nicene Fathers gets a cookie.

God created man with a rational nature to offer Him "rational worship". It is perfectly legitimate to approach the Deity through reason, and the Church Fathers – while simultaneously professing the superiority of divine faith – are practically in unanimous agreement in this (apart from heretical oddballs like Tertullian). If you're not the kind of person for whom reading Aristotle is like listening to music that's no problem, but you shouldn't think that other's tastes or preferences are false or inferior. Rational / Natural theology is inferior to ascetic and mystical theology in the spiritual order, but it would be wrong to discredit all rational theology through a false hyper-mysticism / hyper-spiritualism which would practically deny the rational nature of man and the legitimate use of human reason. Think about it, if man is not allowed to use his reasoning powers to speak about God, then what are they for? Business? Making tools? You'd be denying the noblest purpose of human reason which is precisely to reason about God the way Aristotle and Aquinas did.
Title: Re: Josef Seifert: Francis Has “Rejected Christianity”, Turned God into a "Relativis
Post by: Kreuzritter on February 11, 2019, 04:26:05 AM
Quote from: John Lamb on February 11, 2019, 04:13:42 AM
God created man with a rational nature to offer Him "rational worship". It is perfectly legitimate to approach the Deity through reason, and the Church Fathers – while simultaneously professing the superiority of divine faith – are practically in unanimous agreement in this (apart from heretical oddballs like Tertullian). If you're not the kind of person for whom reading Aristotle is like listening to music that's no problem, but you shouldn't think that other's tastes or preferences are false or inferior.

That's all fine, but Aristotle != reason, and I find Scholasticism to be eminently unreasonable in what it's doing here and further in its constant confusuon of reality with mere linguistic constructs that begin to lose any cognitive meaning once one digs beneath the surface of the syntactic conventions that appear to give them sense. When the Eleatics said that motion is impossible because of Zeno's paradoxes, that was nothing compared to what Scholastics at times do .

QuoteRational / Natural theology is inferior to ascetic and mystical theology in the spiritual order, but it would be wrong to discredit all rational theology through a false hyper-mysticism / hyper-spiritualism which would practically deny the rational nature of man and the legitimate use of human reason. Think about it, if man is not allowed to use his reasoning powers to speak about God, then what are they for? Business? Making tools? You'd be denying the noblest purpose of human reason which is precisely to reason about God the way Aristotle and Aquinas did.

I regularly engage in rational theology, as I'm doing in this thread, even if it's from a philosophical perspective that is not even operatign in the same dimension as Arisotelianism. That doesn't change that that one is talking of God - GOD - like he is a machine operating on the rules of Scholastic language.
Title: Re: Josef Seifert: Francis Has “Rejected Christianity”, Turned God into a "Relativis
Post by: awkwardcustomer on February 11, 2019, 05:20:00 AM
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 11, 2019, 03:45:40 AM
If God creates a free being and allows him to murder or God directly wills and causes a murder, this is not a mere distinction in my mind. It's an objectivley real distinction,a nd it doesn't go away by claimign they "somehow" becoem one in God.

Blurring the distinction shifts the responsibility for evil onto God and away from the free beings who rebel against God.   
Title: Re: Josef Seifert: Francis Has “Rejected Christianity”, Turned God into a "Relativis
Post by: awkwardcustomer on February 11, 2019, 05:38:33 AM
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 11, 2019, 04:10:20 AM
Evil exists as a pure potency by virtue of God's existence and creative power. That is what I mean by its necessity. God does not will it. The moment God allows freedom is the moment that evil can actualise.

I'm not theologically trained in any way and so cannot join in the debate on those terms.  But I'm sensing that the language and terms of Scolasticism are being manipulated in order to - putting it crudely - blame God for evil?

"The moment God allows freedom is the moment that evil can actualise."  This is the best answer to the problem of evil that I have heard.  Of course, it also corresonds with where my own thoughts have been leading.  In other words, evil cannot "actualise" unless angels and men are i) given the freedom to choose evil, and ii) go on to make that choice? 

Evil exists as "pure potency" until angels and men with free will choose to actualise evil, or bring it into being by that choice. In other words, only the potential for evil exists, until free, created beings bring evil into being/existence/reality etc?
Title: Re: Josef Seifert: Francis Has “Rejected Christianity”, Turned God into a "Relativis
Post by: Xavier on February 11, 2019, 05:43:03 AM
The Church should be engaged in evangelism and in winning the souls of Muslims and others to Christ. That is the only way Peace will come.

Looking at the gulf press today, which is mostly fawning over the Pope, I see that the Pope was trying to make a plea for religious freedoms - in this situation, obviously for Christians in the UAE. https://gulfnews.com/uae/government/pope-in-uae-oppose-war-with-sweet-prayer-abu-dhabi-declaration-signed-1.1549298647331

I would like Pope Francis to begin with the Gospel of Peace and the Kingship of Christ. We cannot have Peace unless we recognize the Prince of Peace in our lives and nations and beg Him to reign in our hearts and homes. As Pope Pius XI put it in Quas Primas, "We referred to the chief causes of the difficulties under which mankind was laboring. And We remember saying that these manifold evils in the world were due to the fact that the majority of men had thrust Jesus Christ and his holy law out of their lives; that these had no place either in private affairs or in politics: and we said further, that as long as individuals and states refused to submit to the rule of our Savior, there would be no really hopeful prospect of a lasting Peace among nations. Men must look for the Peace of Christ in the Kingdom of Christ; and that We promised to do as far as lay in Our power. In the Kingdom of Christ, that is, it seemed to Us that peace could not be more effectually restored nor fixed upon a firmer basis than through the restoration of the Empire of Our Lord"

I lived in a Gulf country for a few years some time ago. Christians have maybe "freedom of worship", but not really freedom to express and defend their belief in Christ as God and Saviour, let alone openly to evangelize Muslims for Christ. In Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arb Emirates, as Wiki puts it, "Christians and other religions are allowed to have their own places of worship, but they are not allowed to convert Muslims. Christians, however, may revert to Islam. [20]" As Bp. Fellay once said, it would be acceptable to ask Muslim and other non-Christian countries to grant religious freedom to Christians, and for this to appeal to principles of the common good and speak of the way in which Christians contribute toward society and why therefore the state should not hinder the exercise of Christianity. That would be the ideal way to proceed.

What modern Popes tend to do today is "Religious freedom is an absolute right; therefore Christians should be granted religious freedom" (it's a wrong principle to appeal to; securing freedom for Christians is good but there are other ways to do it)

What Traditional Popes used to do is (see Libertas by Pope Leo XIII for e.g.) "Christianity promotes the good of society; so Christianity should not be hindered by the state."

But generally speaking, it is a delicate task, and those especially who've been in the Middle East for some time and even others would know that people there take their religion, mistaken though it is, quite seriously. I don't agree with the manner in which the Pope has expressed himself, but I can sympathize to some extent in any attempt to secure some basic rights and protections for Christians who live and work there. The Church Fathers in the early ages also attempted to secure freedom for Christians from being persecuted or from being hindered from proclaiming the Gospel, but they did it differently. This is Pope Leo XIII distinguishing real liberty from moral license: "every man in the State may follow the will of God and, from a consciousness of duty and free from every obstacle, obey His commands. This, indeed, is true liberty, a liberty worthy of the sons of God, which nobly maintains the dignity of man and is stronger than all violence or wrong - a liberty which the Church has always desired and held most dear. This is the kind of liberty the Apostles claimed for themselves with intrepid constancy, which the apologists of Christianity confirmed by their writings, and which the martyrs in vast numbers consecrated by their blood. And deservedly so; for this Christian liberty bears witness to the absolute and most just dominion of God over man, and to the chief and supreme duty of man toward God. It has nothing in common with a seditious and rebellious mind; and in no title derogates from obedience to public authority; for the right to command and to require obedience exists only so far as it is in accordance with the authority of God, and is within the measure that He has laid down. But when anything is commanded which is plainly at variance with the will of God, there is a wide departure from this divinely constituted order, and at the same time a direct conflict with divine authority; therefore, it is right not to obey." (Libertas, p.30)
Title: Re: Josef Seifert: Francis Has “Rejected Christianity”, Turned God into a "Relativis
Post by: bigbadtrad on February 11, 2019, 07:04:55 AM
After decades of saying all heretics subsist in the church, then an official declaration saying Lutherans belong to the body of Christ,  that Orthodox belong to the body of Christ and don't need to convert, that God uses other religions as means of salvation at Vatican II how is this guy to be taken seriously?

How is Francis's statement really any different than JPII's litany of stupidity and public displays of heresy at Assisi. There he visually enshrined Indifferentism as the new religion.

I took a picture of the wall of the basilica of the Portiuncula in Assisi where there is a slate/blackish image of JPII and all the other religions worshiping together on the front wall.

I attached it if you want to see it.
Title: Re: Josef Seifert: Francis Has “Rejected Christianity”, Turned God into a "Relativis
Post by: awkwardcustomer on February 11, 2019, 07:55:17 AM
Quote from: St. Columba on February 10, 2019, 07:15:17 PM
Quote from: awkwardcustomer on February 10, 2019, 06:08:52 PM
God allows evil so that angels and men might exist.  Is that a greater good, or an "accidental" good?

Hi awkwardcustomer.  Thanks for the post friend.

From the point of view that God has always, and will always, possess every good, it seems to me that anything created, as distinct from a transcendent God, will only possibly bring about an "accidental good" or alternatively, an increase in "accidental glory" in God.  I don't see how there could ever be an actual increase of ontological good.  It would imply that God lacked some good, which is impossible.  It also would imply that God, as goodness itself, can essentially change, which is also unpalatable.

This is a bit too theological for me. But if "anything created" can only possibly bring about an "accidental good", then that must have been good enough for God.

Just out of interest, if evil remains as pure potential until the moment God allows freedom, as Kreutz stated above, then evil would never have been actualised if God hadn't created angels and men with Free Will.

Should God have refrained from creating angels and men in order to prevent evil being actualised? During another thread in which God was being described as a tyrant for allowing evil to exist, I asked Quare basically the same question and he didn't reply.  Perhaps you could.
Title: Josef Seifert: Francis Has “Rejected Christianity”, Turned God into a "Relativis
Post by: St. Columba on February 11, 2019, 09:04:42 AM
Quote from: John Lamb on February 11, 2019, 03:50:29 AM
Quote from: St. Columba on February 10, 2019, 07:05:27 PMI do believe in free will.  I but do not see where Quare is wrong when he states, "God's positive will is ontologically identical to His permissive will, which are both ontologically identical to His existence.  The distinction between positive and permissive will exists only in our minds but not in God."

Do you agree with Quare's italicized statement immediately above?


Quare's right that God's positive and permissive wills are ontologically identical, because ontologically speaking God is absolutely simple and has only one divine Will identical to His very essence. However, even though there are no ontological distinctions in God the divinely simple Being, there are logical distinctions, and God's positive and permissive wills are logically distinct in the one divine Will or Essence.

So yes, although God's positive and permissive wills are substantially one and the same identical divine Will, the way these two "wills" manifest in creation are logically distinct. In the positive the divine Will is actively causing some metaphysical entity to exist, whereas in the permissive the divine Will is allowing a certain metaphysical defect or deficiency in a thing by causing the thing's existence without supplying its full perfection of being. If you like you can view it as a fountain flowing into two cups, but one cup is leaking: it's the same water but one cup receives its fullness and the other does not – Similarly, it's the same divine Will through which all being or existence flows into creatures, but God permits some creatures to "leak". In fact, in our fallen world all creatures are "leaking". If you ask if God is the cause of the hole through which being leaks out of creatures: only in the sense that He chooses not to patch up the hole, not in the sense that He created the hole to begin with. The reality is we are all entirely hole – entirely "nothing" – until God fills us up, and to the extent that He does fill us up. Revelation teaches that God made the world without these metaphysical holes or leakages, but He permitted them to enter through Adam's sin – Adam's sin is like an enormous rupture or tear in the very fabric of created reality. One of the problems of Christian / Theistic evolutionism is that it fails to preserve this truth and reduces the world-shattering event we call the Fall to a mere local event occurring in some animal somewhere at some time.

Thank you John for the post!

But if there are no ontological distinctions in God's Will, could it not be argued that He wills the leak just as much as the pouring of water?  How are logical distinctions in permissive and positive will, if these distinctions even exist, relevant here?  They wouldn't change the ontological reality.

...Anyway, this should all be in another thread...my apologies guys!
Title: Re: Josef Seifert: Francis Has “Rejected Christianity”, Turned God into a "Relativis
Post by: Kreuzritter on February 11, 2019, 10:42:43 AM
Quote from: awkwardcustomer on February 11, 2019, 07:55:17 AM
Quote from: St. Columba on February 10, 2019, 07:15:17 PM
Quote from: awkwardcustomer on February 10, 2019, 06:08:52 PM
God allows evil so that angels and men might exist.  Is that a greater good, or an "accidental" good?

Hi awkwardcustomer.  Thanks for the post friend.

From the point of view that God has always, and will always, possess every good, it seems to me that anything created, as distinct from a transcendent God, will only possibly bring about an "accidental good" or alternatively, an increase in "accidental glory" in God.  I don't see how there could ever be an actual increase of ontological good.  It would imply that God lacked some good, which is impossible.  It also would imply that God, as goodness itself, can essentially change, which is also unpalatable.

This is a bit too theological for me. But if "anything created" can only possibly bring about an "accidental good", then that must have been good enough for God.

Just out of interest, if evil remains as pure potential until the moment God allows freedom, as Kreutz stated above, then evil would never have been actualised if God hadn't created angels and men with Free Will.

Should God have refrained from creating angels and men in order to prevent evil being actualised? During another thread in which God was being described as a tyrant for allowing evil to exist, I asked Quare basically the same question and he didn't reply.  Perhaps you could.

That's the only legitimate question here. Why make the Devil at all knowing he would, of his own free will, become what he is. For the traditionalist, suffering is the means to growth and power, a path to liberation. It's not the "I'm above this because I am eternally safe from it", but it's staring death in its face, taking the Devil up on his challenge and, failure after failure, eventually wrestling him to the ground. But we need a Devil for that.

I'll say this: even God, through Jesus' humanity, knows suffering by personal experience. And in it he performed his greatest act of love (John 15:13).
Title: Re: Josef Seifert: Francis Has “Rejected Christianity”, Turned God into a "Relativis
Post by: Miriam_M on February 11, 2019, 11:21:14 AM
Quote from: awkwardcustomer on February 11, 2019, 05:20:00 AM
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 11, 2019, 03:45:40 AM
If God creates a free being and allows him to murder or God directly wills and causes a murder, this is not a mere distinction in my mind. It's an objectivley real distinction,a nd it doesn't go away by claimign they "somehow" becoem one in God.

Blurring the distinction shifts the responsibility for evil onto God and away from the free beings who rebel against God.

Yes, because de fide dogma is that God is the source of all goodness because he is goodness itself. It is a paradox, not a confusion, that God permits evil. The consistency within the paradox is that the evil is permitted for a greater good -- the sinner's good, the Church's good, the glory of God as a good, etc.  This is also why it is dogma that God will allow a prideful person to fall into mortal sin in order to humble that sinner and make him aware of his pride and his capacity for great evil.  All of that is for the purpose of drawing the sinner closer to God, which is obviously a good.

Good and evil do not co-exist within God because of His unity and simplicity.  Evil is radically incompatible with God's holy will.

Separately, I think there's a misunderstanding about scholasticism on this thread.  It's merely a system for understanding an interconnected set of philosophical ideas.  From the Church's point of view it was not meant as a spiritual tool, necessarily, in our personal relationship with God, although for some people, intellectual understanding is an additional or supportive path.
Title: Re: Josef Seifert: Francis Has “Rejected Christianity”, Turned God into a "Relativis
Post by: awkwardcustomer on February 11, 2019, 02:00:03 PM
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 11, 2019, 10:42:43 AM
That's the only legitimate question here. Why make the Devil at all knowing he would, of his own free will, become what he is.

Exactly. 

Why?
Title: Re: Josef Seifert: Francis Has “Rejected Christianity”, Turned God into a "Relativis
Post by: Prayerful on February 11, 2019, 02:44:20 PM
Quote from: bigbadtrad on February 11, 2019, 07:04:55 AM
After decades of saying all heretics subsist in the church, then an official declaration saying Lutherans belong to the body of Christ,  that Orthodox belong to the body of Christ and don't need to convert, that God uses other religions as means of salvation at Vatican II how is this guy to be taken seriously?

How is Francis's statement really any different than JPII's litany of stupidity and public displays of heresy at Assisi. There he visually enshrined Indifferentism as the new religion.

I took a picture of the wall of the basilica of the Portiuncula in Assisi where there is a slate/blackish image of JPII and all the other religions worshiping together on the front wall.

I attached it if you want to see it.

The black colour is suited to that then and still shocking act of public sacrilege. It does serve as a reminder that in this Conciliar age there is as Ecclesiastiastes i. 3 says 'there is nothing new under the sun.' JP2 was already a bishop under Pius XII, Francis did have a fairly appalling formation. Assisi '86 was a public gesture of Indifferentism as a V2 pseudo-dogma.
Title: Re: Josef Seifert: Francis Has “Rejected Christianity”, Turned God into a "Relativis
Post by: Arvinger on February 11, 2019, 03:33:01 PM
Quote from: Gerard on February 09, 2019, 11:22:05 PM
He'll slip through it by saying he meant God's "permissive will."

That will not fly, since the document explicitly says that false religions "are willed by God in His wisdom, through which He created human beings", which directly indicates that God positively wills existence of non-Catholic religions. But I would not be surprised if Novus Ordo apologists for Francis will make a desperate attempt to use this kind of argument.
Title: Re: Josef Seifert: Francis Has “Rejected Christianity”, Turned God into a "Relativis
Post by: Non Nobis on February 11, 2019, 07:19:23 PM
Quote from: awkwardcustomer on February 11, 2019, 02:00:03 PM
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 11, 2019, 10:42:43 AM
That's the only legitimate question here. Why make the Devil at all knowing he would, of his own free will, become what he is.

Exactly. 

Why?

I can go farther than that - why didn't God create all of us, angels and men, in heaven where we would freely adore God but absolutely would not sin?  These are ultimately God's questions to answer.  But doesn't God's becoming man (the evil: the Devil, the fall... and the good: Christ becoming man and dying for us) have much to do with this?  And also, giving men and angels  the power to choose evil or good, and become more like God, in the exercise of their free will (rather than just beholding God in heaven, in a way just a spectator).  Free will and the love/choice of God is that wonderful of a good, that it makes permitting an evil worth it.  God brings good out of permitted evil.
Title: Re: Josef Seifert: Francis Has “Rejected Christianity”, Turned God into a "Relativis
Post by: awkwardcustomer on February 12, 2019, 04:31:26 AM
Quote from: Non Nobis on February 11, 2019, 07:19:23 PM
I can go farther than that - why didn't God create all of us, angels and men, in heaven where we would freely adore God but absolutely would not sin? 

This was basically Quaremare's answer.  He said something like "God should have arranged things so that the angels didn't rebel".

But if God had created us, and the angels, so that we "absolutely would not sin", then He would have had to create us without Free Will, would He not?  What is Free Will without the freedom to choose evil?

Can human beings, and angels, exist without Free Will?

Quote
And also, giving men and angels  the power to choose evil or good, and become more like God, in the exercise of their free will (rather than just beholding God in heaven, in a way just a spectator).

Yes, God could have created beings without the capacity to choose either good or evil and presumably evil would have remained as pure potential without ever being actualised. But what would those created beings - angels and men - be like?

Quote
Free will and the love/choice of God is that wonderful of a good, that it makes permitting an evil worth it.  God brings good out of permitted evil.

Is Free Will a wonderful good?  Or is it simply a faculty that we, as human beings, could not exist without.

God bringing some kind of 'greater good' out of an ocean of suffering is a much repeated explanation.  But it also helps, I find, to acknowledge that evil is inevitable in a world of created rational beings and that the only alternative, the only way, that the world could exist without evil having been actualised, is if God had not created angels and men.

A world without evil can only be a world without angels and men.  That's the deal.
Title: Re: Josef Seifert: Francis Has “Rejected Christianity”, Turned God into a "Relativis
Post by: Kreuzritter on February 12, 2019, 05:18:07 AM
Quote from: awkwardcustomer on February 12, 2019, 04:31:26 AM
Is Free Will a wonderful good?  Or is it simply a faculty that we, as human beings, could not exist without.

This is what I say. Freedom, and freedom to act out of itself, is intrinsic to the nature of an "I" and it's transcendental self-identity and real unity. There is no "I" without it, human or otherwise.

Yes, I'm sure some will whittle away the essential meaning of "human" to the point that one can have "humans" with free will and "humans" without it, but this is game of semantics. Biblically, a "human" is an imago dei and possesses this freedom.
Title: Re: Josef Seifert: Francis Has “Rejected Christianity”, Turned God into a "Relativis
Post by: awkwardcustomer on February 12, 2019, 06:09:27 AM
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 12, 2019, 05:18:07 AM
Quote from: awkwardcustomer on February 12, 2019, 04:31:26 AM
Is Free Will a wonderful good?  Or is it simply a faculty that we, as human beings, could not exist without.

This is what I say. Freedom, and freedom to act out of itself, is intrinsic to the nature of an "I" and it's transcendental self-identity and real unity. There is no "I" without it, human or otherwise.

Yes, I'm sure some will whittle away the essential meaning of "human" to the point that one can have "humans" with free will and "humans" without it, but this is game of semantics. Biblically, a "human" is an imago dei and possesses this freedom.

Agreed.  It is impossible to be human without the freedom to choose, which has to mean the freedom to choose evil.  When the the abortionist asserts that principle by stating the 'pro-choice' arguement, the question then becomes - is it your choice to follow God's law or not?  And some will inevitably say "not".  The existence of the capacity to choose isn't the issue.  It's the actual choice that matters.

I find it quite consoling to view things in this way.  In creating rational creatures with Free will, God knew that a some/many would choose evil, thereby making evil a real and active force in the world. And He went ahead anyway.  That's the deal, and if it wasn't, we wouldn't exist.

The problem of evil isn't God's. It's ours.
Title: Re: Josef Seifert: Francis Has “Rejected Christianity”, Turned God into a "Relativis
Post by: Michael Wilson on February 12, 2019, 07:26:38 AM
The Church teaches that the Angels and Blessed in Heaven retain the faculty of free will, but that by the fact of their being admitted to the Beatific vision, they freely and infallibly chooses to love God. Freedom to err, sin or reject God, is a defect of free will; Our Lord, Our Blessed Mother both had free will, yet never sinned.  So God theoretically could have arranged things in such a way that both Angels and men would have had both free will and not have sinned. Yet, when Angels and men sin, they do so freely and in spite of God's assisting grace. So Heaven is not free, and creatures have to earn their place there. God truly does will the salvation of His creatures and provides more than sufficient means to each and every one of them so that they may attain it. 
Title: Re: Josef Seifert: Francis Has ?Rejected Christianity?, Turned God into a "Relativis
Post by: Xavier on February 12, 2019, 08:03:33 AM
As we know, the purpose of our life is that we may learn to know and especially love God above all things; and, for this, freedom is an absolute necessity, since inanimate creatures without freedom can't love God.

The Saints in Heaven have free will perfected both by divine grace and human effort, hearts perfectly united to the Sacred Heart, as the Immaculate Heart always is. Now, for free will to be perfected, a certain period of trial and testing, as it were, is fitting, since we thereby learn to responsibly exercise freedom and desire the Supreme Good above all things; when grace makes known to us the possibility of perfect union with this Supreme Good, so much the more ought we to ensure our hearts and our affections rest solely in God, to serve and love Him as He is in Himself, and in His creatures for His sake. In this way, we become like Him. This likeness is perfect in the Saints who consequently do not sin.

Moreover, as St. Thomas loves to say, the slightest good of grace is greater than the greatest good of nature. Thus, one single perfect act of contrition or love of God for His own sake from us, being supernatural is a greater good than the whole visible creation. In some way, as with all meritorious acts that draw down grace from Heaven, in union with Christ, it mysteriously contributes to creation itself according to mystics. At any rate, each and every good work done in grace merits a special reward in heaven, as we are taught by the Church and Christ in the Gospel.

And merit too is impossible without freedom. Those who respond holily to evil, forgiving enemies, praying for persecutors etc - as Christ Our Lord did, and His Saints and martyrs in union with Him - merit much more and Heaven is filled with brightness and glory through such heroic acts, which even if it stood alone, would seem to fulfill the purpose of creation. Thus, freedom is needed. Of course, freedom should be responsibly exercised, comformable to God's Law, and to our ultimate end, which is perfect union of Love with Him.
Title: Re: Josef Seifert: Francis Has “Rejected Christianity”, Turned God into a "Relativis
Post by: awkwardcustomer on February 12, 2019, 08:35:14 AM
Quote from: Michael Wilson on February 12, 2019, 07:26:38 AM
The Church teaches that the Angels and Blessed in Heaven retain the faculty of free will, but that by the fact of their being admitted to the Beatific vision, they freely and infallibly chooses to love God. Freedom to err, sin or reject God, is a defect of free will; Our Lord, Our Blessed Mother both had free will, yet never sinned.  So God theoretically could have arranged things in such a way that both Angels and men would have had both free will and not have sinned. Yet, when Angels and men sin, they do so freely and in spite of God's assisting grace. So Heaven is not free, and creatures have to earn their place there. God truly does will the salvation of His creatures and provides more than sufficient means to each and every one of them so that they may attain it.

But Michael, surely the Angels and Blessed in Heaven have free will because without it they wouldn't be angels or human in the first place.   The Blessed in Heaven have chosen, of their own free will, to follow God's Law and have attained Heaven as a result of that choice which they consistently acted on during their lives on Earth.  Their free will remains, without which they would not be rational creatures capable of having made that choice.  It's just that their Free Will is now perfectly aligned with God's Will.

Sorry, but how could God, in theory, have created angels humans with free will and then arranged things so that neither sinned?  And if God could have done this, then why didn't He? 

Because there is no free will without the freedom to choose evil, and there can be no angels or men without free will, which means a will that is free to choose evil.
Title: Re: Josef Seifert: Francis Has “Rejected Christianity”, Turned God into a "Relativis
Post by: Michael Wilson on February 12, 2019, 08:50:13 AM
Awkward C.
I don't claim to understand how it all works out; but somehow it does.
Title: Re: Josef Seifert: Francis Has “Rejected Christianity”, Turned God into a "Relativis
Post by: awkwardcustomer on February 12, 2019, 09:06:16 AM
Quote from: Michael Wilson on February 12, 2019, 08:50:13 AM
Awkward C.
I don't claim to understand how it all works out; but somehow it does.

Sorry, but it doesn't.   

If God could have arranged things so that men and angels could have free will but never choose to sin and therefore never be damned, then surely He would have done so.  Simply arguing that God wanted to bring a greater good out of not arranging things in this way is inadequate on its own.

Either the will is free or there is no Free Will.  God 'arranging things' implies God restricting or modifying the will in some way, and God chose not to do this because when He says He's giving His creatures Free Will, He means it. The 'greater good' argument then applies but only once it is established that the God given freedom to choose is what makes us human.  It is how we exercise that freedom that determines what kind of humans we become.

Title: Re: Josef Seifert: Francis Has “Rejected Christianity”, Turned God into a "Relativis
Post by: Santantonio on February 12, 2019, 10:08:39 AM
Within the parameters of space and time, ages and angels, men and animals, etc..
I do not see how it is propitious to split philosophical hairs concerning theodicy and
distinctions between the Father's (Trinity's) so-called positive will and "ontological" will;
it is better consider only the difference between active and permissive will,
as God acts or permits according to His divine plan as it works in real time until the "end".

Considering then the diffferences between active and permissive, the joint statement issued
plainly and strongly states it is God's active will (not even his punishment for original sin)
that dictates pluralism.

The pluralism and the diversity of religions, colour, sex, race and language are willed by God in His wisdom, through which He created human beings.

and therefore: "the imposition of a cultural way of life that others do not accept."..."must be rejected

The statement therefore rejects Original Sin, God's punishments, God's Incarnation, etc...
every prime Scriptural essence. It is worse than heresy. It is total apostasy.
Title: Re: Josef Seifert: Francis Has “Rejected Christianity”, Turned God into a "Relativis
Post by: GloriaPatri on February 12, 2019, 10:18:20 AM
I would like to simply point out that those posters who are saying that free will necessitates the ability to choose evil are either a) Stripping God of His free will, or b) Denying that God's nature is equivalent to the nature of the Good because He could, hypothetically, choose to do evil.

Furthermore, they are implying that either the saints in heaven no longer have free will, or that they are capable of sinning while experiencing the Beatific Vision.

The teaching of the Church has been fairly consistent: freedom of will requires the ability to do good. It does not require the ability to do evil, which is a weakness of free will, not a strength.
Title: Re: Josef Seifert: Francis Has “Rejected Christianity”, Turned God into a "Relativis
Post by: Santantonio on February 12, 2019, 10:38:06 AM
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 11, 2019, 10:42:43 AMWhy make the Devil at all knowing he would, of his own free will, become what he is.

Being Omnipotent, God has the ability to suspend His Omniscience when He pleases, in this case
to allow Free Will for angels and men. Christ is an example of this. Mk 13:32, Mt 24:36
Not only can God suspend His Omniscience in particular instances, He can even adjust His Omniscience so as to not conflict with Free Will of His creatures. So there you have it. Either way, or both, depending upon His Will.
Title: Re: Josef Seifert: Francis Has “Rejected Christianity”, Turned God into a "Relativis
Post by: Kreuzritter on February 12, 2019, 10:53:28 AM
Quote from: awkwardcustomer on February 12, 2019, 08:35:14 AM
Quote from: Michael Wilson on February 12, 2019, 07:26:38 AM
The Church teaches that the Angels and Blessed in Heaven retain the faculty of free will, but that by the fact of their being admitted to the Beatific vision, they freely and infallibly chooses to love God. Freedom to err, sin or reject God, is a defect of free will; Our Lord, Our Blessed Mother both had free will, yet never sinned.  So God theoretically could have arranged things in such a way that both Angels and men would have had both free will and not have sinned. Yet, when Angels and men sin, they do so freely and in spite of God's assisting grace. So Heaven is not free, and creatures have to earn their place there. God truly does will the salvation of His creatures and provides more than sufficient means to each and every one of them so that they may attain it.

But Michael, surely the Angels and Blessed in Heaven have free will because without it they wouldn't be angels or human in the first place.   The Blessed in Heaven have chosen, of their own free will, to follow God's Law and have attained Heaven as a result of that choice which they consistently acted on during their lives on Earth.  Their free will remains, without which they would not be rational creatures capable of having made that choice.  It's just that their Free Will is now perfectly aligned with God's Will.

Sorry, but how could God, in theory, have created angels humans with free will and then arranged things so that neither sinned?  And if God could have done this, then why didn't He? 

Because there is no free will without the freedom to choose evil, and there can be no angels or men without free will, which means a will that is free to choose evil.

I agree. It makes sense to me: the Beatific Vision involves an enternal union with God, and for a free spiritual being to enjoy that union, it has to make the choice to enter into it. I think these things are intrinsic to what Heaven and these beings are; there's no such thing as creating an angel or human in the state of such union.
Title: Re: Josef Seifert: Francis Has “Rejected Christianity”, Turned God into a "Relativis
Post by: Kreuzritter on February 12, 2019, 10:54:33 AM
Quote from: Santantonio on February 12, 2019, 10:38:06 AM
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 11, 2019, 10:42:43 AMWhy make the Devil at all knowing he would, of his own free will, become what he is.

Being Omnipotent, God has the ability to suspend His Omniscience when He pleases, in this case
to allow Free Will for angels and men. Christ is an example of this. Mk 13:32, Mt 24:36
Not only can God suspend His Omniscience in particular instances, He can even adjust His Omniscience so as to not conflict with Free Will of His creatures. So there you have it. Either way, or both, depending upon His Will.

That unfortunately doesn't answer the question, which wasn't the how but the why.
Title: Re: Josef Seifert: Francis Has “Rejected Christianity”, Turned God into a "Relativis
Post by: Santantonio on February 12, 2019, 11:18:16 AM
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 12, 2019, 10:54:33 AM
Quote from: Santantonio on February 12, 2019, 10:38:06 AM
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 11, 2019, 10:42:43 AMWhy make the Devil at all knowing he would, of his own free will, become what he is.

Being Omnipotent, God has the ability to suspend His Omniscience when He pleases, in this case
to allow Free Will for angels and men. Christ is an example of this. Mk 13:32, Mt 24:36
Not only can God suspend His Omniscience in particular instances, He can even adjust His Omniscience so as to not conflict with Free Will of His creatures. So there you have it. Either way, or both, depending upon His Will.

That unfortunately doesn't answer the question, which wasn't the how but the why.

Yes it does. Just suspend as I described, to your quote: "knowing he would"
Title: Re: Josef Seifert: Francis Has “Rejected Christianity”, Turned God into a "Relativis
Post by: awkwardcustomer on February 12, 2019, 11:19:20 AM
Quote from: GloriaPatri on February 12, 2019, 10:18:20 AM
I would like to simply point out that those posters who are saying that free will necessitates the ability to choose evil are either a) Stripping God of His free will, or b) Denying that God's nature is equivalent to the nature of the Good because He could, hypothetically, choose to do evil.

I for one am saying neither of these things.  Can you explain your claims? For example, how could God, even hypothetically, choose to do evil?  It's unthinkable. 

Having free will only means that the rational creature is free to choose evil.  It doesn't mean that he has to.  The saints are in heaven because they have demonstrated by their choice for God and their subsequent lives lived in honour of God and His laws, that their wills are firmly for the good.  That's why they're Saints.  They still have free will, but their wills have been proved to be with God and not against Him. 

Quote
Furthermore, they are implying that either the saints in heaven no longer have free will, or that they are capable of sinning while experiencing the Beatific Vision.

I'm not saying this either.  I've said repeatedly that the saints in heaven still have free will, and that because their wills are perfectly aligned with God's, it is impossible that they would choose, of their own free wills, to sin.

Quote
The teaching of the Church has been fairly consistent: freedom of will requires the ability to do good. It does not require the ability to do evil, which is a weakness of free will, not a strength.

Okay, fair enough. The choice for evil is a weakness of free will and that the teaching of the Church.  Thank you.

But this raises yet another question.  Why did God give angels and men free will that contained this weakness? 
Title: Re: Josef Seifert: Francis Has “Rejected Christianity”, Turned God into a "Relativis
Post by: Kreuzritter on February 12, 2019, 12:38:16 PM
Quote from: Santantonio on February 12, 2019, 11:18:16 AM
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 12, 2019, 10:54:33 AM
Quote from: Santantonio on February 12, 2019, 10:38:06 AM
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 11, 2019, 10:42:43 AMWhy make the Devil at all knowing he would, of his own free will, become what he is.

Being Omnipotent, God has the ability to suspend His Omniscience when He pleases, in this case
to allow Free Will for angels and men. Christ is an example of this. Mk 13:32, Mt 24:36
Not only can God suspend His Omniscience in particular instances, He can even adjust His Omniscience so as to not conflict with Free Will of His creatures. So there you have it. Either way, or both, depending upon His Will.

That unfortunately doesn't answer the question, which wasn't the how but the why.

Yes it does. Just suspend as I described, to your quote: "knowing he would"

No, it doesn't. Telling me God can "supend his omniscience" does not tell me why God would create the Devil knowing what he would do. And the problems with your contention aside, both metaphysical and the fact that the claim God does not foreknow the evils of the world caused by the Devil would contradict the de fide doctrine of predestination, there's is absolutely no logical or ontological conflict between creatures having free will and God having foreknowledge of what they will, making such an act unnecessary at best but also reckless.
Title: Re: Josef Seifert: Francis Has “Rejected Christianity”, Turned God into a "Relativis
Post by: Santantonio on February 12, 2019, 12:41:13 PM
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 12, 2019, 12:38:16 PM
Quote from: Santantonio on February 12, 2019, 11:18:16 AM
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 12, 2019, 10:54:33 AM
Quote from: Santantonio on February 12, 2019, 10:38:06 AM
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 11, 2019, 10:42:43 AMWhy make the Devil at all knowing he would, of his own free will, become what he is.

Being Omnipotent, God has the ability to suspend His Omniscience when He pleases, in this case
to allow Free Will for angels and men. Christ is an example of this. Mk 13:32, Mt 24:36
Not only can God suspend His Omniscience in particular instances, He can even adjust His Omniscience so as to not conflict with Free Will of His creatures. So there you have it. Either way, or both, depending upon His Will.

That unfortunately doesn't answer the question, which wasn't the how but the why.

Yes it does. Just suspend as I described, to your quote: "knowing he would"

No, it doesn't. Telling me God can "supend his omniscience" does not tell me why God would create the Devil knowing what he would do. And the problems with your contention aside, both metaphysical and the fact that the claim God does not foreknow the evils of the world caused by the Devil would contradict the de fide doctrine of predestination, there's is absolutely no logical or ontological conflict between creatures having free will and God having foreknowledge of what they will, making such an act unnecessary at best but also reckless.

I never said there was a conflict. He can be all-knowing when He chooses as a Divine prerogative.
And yes, even if He chooses to know a being will betray Him, that doesn't countermand Free Will.
Title: Re: Josef Seifert: Francis Has “Rejected Christianity”, Turned God into a "Relativis
Post by: GloriaPatri on February 12, 2019, 02:10:52 PM
God can't suspend His omniscience for the simple reason that the Divine Nature cannot change. God is necessarily omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and omnibenevolent. These aren't properties that God can just turn on and off at will.
Title: Re: Josef Seifert: Francis Has “Rejected Christianity”, Turned God into a "Relativis
Post by: Prayerful on February 12, 2019, 02:19:52 PM
Posted in another related thread: Fr Z reviews and compares his words with those of Dr John T. Lamont, who cannot put a Christian meaning to the words of Francis (http://wdtprs.com/blog/2019/02/another-look-at-catholicislamic-statement-diversity-of-religions-are-willed-by-god-in-his-wisdom/).
Title: Re: Josef Seifert: Francis Has “Rejected Christianity”, Turned God into a "Relativis
Post by: Non Nobis on February 13, 2019, 01:27:35 AM
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 12, 2019, 10:53:28 AM
Quote from: awkwardcustomer on February 12, 2019, 08:35:14 AM
Quote from: Michael Wilson on February 12, 2019, 07:26:38 AM
The Church teaches that the Angels and Blessed in Heaven retain the faculty of free will, but that by the fact of their being admitted to the Beatific vision, they freely and infallibly chooses to love God. Freedom to err, sin or reject God, is a defect of free will; Our Lord, Our Blessed Mother both had free will, yet never sinned.  So God theoretically could have arranged things in such a way that both Angels and men would have had both free will and not have sinned. Yet, when Angels and men sin, they do so freely and in spite of God's assisting grace. So Heaven is not free, and creatures have to earn their place there. God truly does will the salvation of His creatures and provides more than sufficient means to each and every one of them so that they may attain it.

But Michael, surely the Angels and Blessed in Heaven have free will because without it they wouldn't be angels or human in the first place.   The Blessed in Heaven have chosen, of their own free will, to follow God's Law and have attained Heaven as a result of that choice which they consistently acted on during their lives on Earth.  Their free will remains, without which they would not be rational creatures capable of having made that choice.  It's just that their Free Will is now perfectly aligned with God's Will.

Sorry, but how could God, in theory, have created angels humans with free will and then arranged things so that neither sinned?  And if God could have done this, then why didn't He? 

Because there is no free will without the freedom to choose evil, and there can be no angels or men without free will, which means a will that is free to choose evil.

I agree. It makes sense to me: the Beatific Vision involves an enternal union with God, and for a free spiritual being to enjoy that union, it has to make the choice to enter into it. I think these things are intrinsic to what Heaven and these beings are; there's no such thing as creating an angel or human in the state of such union.

If a baptized baby dies, he enters into the Beatific Vision as an intelligent human being with free will loving God (his will aligned with God's), even though he made no personal choice on earth.  He is saved by Sanctifying Grace, even without his own choice of good or evil, since he was not yet capable of that.

I don't see it as metaphysically impossible for God to create a man or angel in the Beatific Vision from the start.  But (as for as we know) God has never chosen to do so.  "Why doesn't He - to prevent all evil?" is a question only He can finally answer.

I think that when a man is not in the Beatific Vision his vision is occupied with many things that are not God, so his will can move to other things. If he chooses something in preference to God, he does evil.  If he chooses God above all else, I think he does what is the grandest thing a man can do.  Here is where I see the wonder of free will. A baptized baby is pure and innocent, but he cannot personally choose what a martyr chooses. God can choose for some to be capable of grander good than others (a  martyr vs a baptized baby) but both are good. 

Free will is worth permitting evil because with it we can do the grandest possible thing on earth that befits a man made in the image of God: loving God in preference to all others.
Title: Re: Josef Seifert: Francis Has “Rejected Christianity”, Turned God into a "Relativis
Post by: Xavier on February 13, 2019, 02:14:06 AM
Many infants can be and are saved purely gratuitously, without personal merits. The ordinary course for adults however requires merits.

When it comes to what theology calls theodicy or why God's Goodness temporarily permits evil to exist before banishing it forever, different possible explanations are legitimate. As Pope Pius IX said once, we will only understand these things fully in light of the beatific vision. Now, we strive to increase in faith, by believing most firmly that God is Goodness Himself. Then we shall know by sight.

The only really legitimate reason imo to seek to know God more and more each day by growing in faith is that we may love Him better. Our understanding of the Infinite God is always limited, but theology "does indeed when it seeks persistently, piously and soberly, achieve by God's gift some understanding, and that most profitable," (Vatican I) when we seek after Him longingly as the Saints did.

Quote from: GloriaPatriThe teaching of the Church has been fairly consistent: freedom of will requires the ability to do good. It does not require the ability to do evil, which is a weakness of free will, not a strength.

Quote from: AwkwardCustomerOkay, fair enough. The choice for evil is a weakness of free will and that the teaching of the Church. Thank you.

But this raises yet another question.  Why did God give angels and men free will that contained this weakness?

Not just a weakness, GloriaPatri, but as the Lord says, "Jesus answered them: Amen, amen I say unto you: that whosoever committeth sin, is the servant of sin." (Jn 8:34) Sin darkens our understanding and hardens our will, especially if we do not quickly repent of it. Yet, without the combat with sin, without the struggle of a Christian warrior against evil and the devil, there is no virtue and no victory. "Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer." says the Lord, "Behold, the devil will cast some of you into prison that you may be tried: and you shall have tribulation ten days. Be thou faithful until death: and I will give thee the crown of life." (Rev 2:10)

The Church reminds us that the more we strive to grow in grace and faith and all the virtues by good works, the greater the crown each of us will have in heaven, if only we are "faithful until death". That is what God and His Church expect of all of us. Evil will ultimately be banished from creation, but without it being temporarily permitted, there would not be such merit. Death considered in itself is evil, but God turned even it to a good purpose when by dying for our sins in an excess of Infinite Love, He purchased eternal life for all of us. Persecution is in itself an evil, but when holy Martyrs gladly and heroically bear it, they obtain much grace for the Church and the world. Without St. Stephen, according to St. Augustine, who prayed for his persecutors to be forgiven, we would not have St. Paul. Christian life is like that. Not to be an easy compromise with the world in which we live and which we must help save, but to be apart from evil, use the instances it occasions to grow in grace, and love God above all.
Title: Re: Josef Seifert: Francis Has “Rejected Christianity”, Turned God
Post by: King Wenceslas on February 13, 2019, 02:39:11 PM

I see the sophists are out and about to canonize Francis's statement.
Title: Re: Josef Seifert: Francis Has “Rejected Christianity”, Turned God into a "Relativis
Post by: Arvinger on March 09, 2019, 12:27:52 AM
Quote from: Gerard on February 09, 2019, 11:22:05 PM
He'll slip through it by saying he meant God's "permissive will."

You were exactly right:

QuoteThe Pope explicitly stated that Bishop Schneider could share the contents of their exchange on this point. "You can say that the phrase in question on the diversity of religions means the permissive will of God," he told the assembled bishops, who come from predominantly Muslim regions.

https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/bishop-schneider-extracts-clarification-on-diversity-of-religions-from-pope-francis-brands-abuse-summit-a-failure?fbclid=IwAR2bU9BYwgsVplP6sF1JcVVVwjdQ0uzKMcRccPJZ6PQy6CkLToox0QEhEOU
Title: Re: Josef Seifert: Francis Has “Rejected Christianity”, Turned God into a "Relativis
Post by: Non Nobis on March 09, 2019, 07:46:29 PM
Isn't it a little late now?  Typical Pope Francis.