Temporal Matters

[MagiDragon]

In the abortion thread, Apotheon said this:
[quote]The idea that some men may have entered into heaven prior to Christ's passion, death, resurrection and ascension is not really a problem, any more than the fact that Mary was conceived immaculate is, for in both cases God applied the merits of Christ's offering prior to its historic enactment.[/quote]
and i thought it deserved to have a thread of its own, as it's a somewhat rare line of thought for many people.

The basic concept is that God is non-temporal: He knows everything that everyone will do before it has happened. Because of this, He can preemptively apply grace from one situation to another. (i.e. the Grace of Christ's crucifixion could be applied to people who died before Christ, and theoretically let them into heaven before the Resurrection.)

i've discussed this idea with friends and we've come to some rather odd paradoxes. One that i find particularly amusing is praying that your grandparents will get together. (Just think about it . . . i know we don't really change God, but the concept becomes quite funny if we ignore this: We pray that our Grandparents get together . . . they have our parents . . . our parents have us . . . and then we pray that our Grandparents get together . . . )

We can also pray for less paradoxical cases: we could pray that Hitler repented at his death. There's no reason we can't do these things.

I'm just curious what other people think about this concept.

Peace,
Joe

[thessalonian]

We cannot pray for what we know has happened. i.e. for our grandparents to get together. They did and it was the will of God, so praying for it did not cause it to happen and has no effect. We do not know that hitler went to hell or repented. He may or may not have, therefore we can pray that he did. The twin towers bombing is a better example. If 10 minutes after we found out that a loved one was in it we can pray that they got out safely. God's will is not know to us, but his knowledge that we would pray can have an effect. But if we know that that loved one died, no amount of praying can bring them back as God's will is already known to us. God's will can only be accepted once it is manifest to us.

BTW - if Hitler did not repent and went to hell God can still use those prayers in an effective manner.

Hope that helps.

Edited December 22, 2004 by thessalonian

[Mary's Knight, La]

Thess with all due respect your first statement is wrong I think, especially in line with God's non-temporal nature. It seems praying for things that have happened is fine, however knowing they happened we can direct our prayer more efficiently as in praying that their meeting be/was a moment of special grace and fruitfulness. it would seem what we cannot do is pray for what we know didn't happen as in praying for the escape of one who did not escape.

also it seems this is an excellent point to mention we should thank God for everything that has happened to us. because for all we know He might have let/made it happen just so we could have the grace of being able to thank Him for it.

so while it seems pointless to pray your grandparents meet, you can thank Him that they did, and pray that He imbued them with special grace at that moment.

[thessalonian]

Oh, I am all for praying to thank him that it did happen. We most definitely should pray in thanksgiving. That was not my point. But praying for something is about praying for our wills to be in union with his. When his will is know all there is to do is to accept it (and certainly thank him for it). I guess in reading your post I am not sure if you are in favor of praying that something happen that did happen or praying just in thanksgiving that it happened?

Edited December 23, 2004 by thessalonian