The Sufficiency Of Grace.

[ICTHUS]

Likos,

What about Ephesians 2:1-10 and Ephesians 1:4-9. Both of these describe us as DEAD in our transgressions.

[ICTHUS]

Likos,

What about Ephesians 2:1-10 and Ephesians 1:4-9. Both of these describe us as DEAD in our transgressions.

The way I see it is this: if we are dead in our sins, as those passages state, then the only thing that can save us and allow us to enjoy communion with God and eternal life, God physically digging us out of the hole of sin that we (corporately, by the sin of Adam) got ourselves into, and physically breathing life into our dead, sinful, corrupted souls.

To give an example:

Two men in a boat.

Their sons, treading water, are bound to drown.

One father leaps to the left, the other to the right, to save their children.

One father, upon reaching his son, watches his son start to sink. Concerned, the father grabs him and places a life preserver around him, and brings him back to the boat, unconscious. There, he performs CPR on his son, and revives him.

The other father, upon reaching his son, yells over the sound of the waves and storm, "Grab the life preserver! I swam out here to save you! Give me your hand! Listen to me! Take the float! I've provided for your rescue! Take this, and you'll be okay!" The son doesn't hear him, as he's swept under the waves, also unconscious.

Which father saved his son?

Or, another example,

Or, two children are stricken with a debilitating illness whereby their delierium is so severe that they cannot even think, nor form coherent sentences. One father gathers his child in his arms, places him lovingly in the car, drives him to the hospital, and pays for treatment. The other father hands the child his credit card, provides the phone, and tells him that he should call 911. Which father has saved his son?

[p0lar_bear]

Icthus,

I think you know that these examples are ridiculous and grossly misrepresent Catholic thought. However...

One father, upon reaching his son, watches his son start to sink. Concerned, the father grabs him and places a life preserver around him, and brings him back to the boat, unconscious. There, he performs CPR on his son, and revives him.

First, how is this different than how he would save his dog, his favorite book (with the exception of the CPR), etc? God desires to save us as persons, not as things.

God created man with a free will. Why then, in perfecting him, would He take it away? He did not create any of the animals with a free will. He also did not become one of them. Having a free will is part of what makes us persons, what makes us who we are. If God took that away, we would no longer be the persons He intended us to be.

[ICTHUS]

How then, do you get around the fact that the beginning of Ephesians 2 describes us as "dead in our transgressions".

A dead (or in the example, unconscious, which, when in danger of drowning in rough seas, is qualitatively the same thing) person cannot put the life preserver on, nor can he get on the boat. He requires someone to put the life preserver on him, pull him back onto the boat, and breathe life into his unconscious (dead) soul.

[Donna]

"And you, when you were dead in your offences and sins,

Wherein in time past you walked according to the course of this world,

According to the prince of the power of this air, of the spirit that now worketh on the children of unbelief,

Among who also we all conversed in time past,

in the desires of our flesh,

fulfilling the will of the flesh and of our thoughts,

and were by nature [original sin] children of wrath

even as the rest:

But God who is rich in mercy....Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together in Christ

(by whose grace you are saved)...

Not of works, that no man may boast." (Eph. 2:1-parts of 4-9)

St. Paul is speaking to the Gentiles, previously when dead in their sins were cut off from Israel, "strangers to the covenants, having no hope of the promise, and without God in this world."

I think you're taking this phrase "dead in our offences" out of context.

Icthus, thre is an answer to your question, tho' I may not have it.

[p0lar_bear]

ICTHUS,

OK, you gave an example of a father saving his son from drowning as an analogy for God saving us.

How about this...

The father and his son live next to a lake. From the time the son is a small child, the father takes him in the water. He always holds his son up, but allows him to splash and kick. What the son does not realize is that while he's playing, he's also strengthening his muscles. As the child grows older, the father begins to teach him to swim. After a while, he stops holding the son all the time. Sometimes the son struggles when he's trying to swim. The father always helps when the son needs it, and holds him up, but sometimes the father allows the son to struggle a bit first, knowing that this will help strengthen the son and make him a better swimmer.

You see, the father goes through all of this because he doesn't just want to keep his son from drowning, he wants him to be able to swim beside him.

The father is just as responsible for keeping his son from drowning in this example as he is in yours. The difference lies in how he keeps his son from drowning and in what his true goal is.

God doesn't just want to save us; He wants us to share in His life.

That is HUGE and amazing and wondrous. God wants to share His divine life with mere humans. We have become so egotistical that we often fail to realize just how amesome that is.

God's interior life is one of love between the three Persons of the Trinity. If God's life is love, and He wants us to share in His life, He wants us to share in love. Love is IMPOSSIBLE without free will.

Why would God make us less than what we are by taking away our free will if His goal is to make us more that what we are or could ever be without Him? We are not mere animals, following instincts and desires. We are not robots, following the orders of our programmer. We are persons. This is significant and cannot be set aside when discussing salvation and justification.

The Catholic view isn't that we don't need God or that God's grace is not enough, it's that because God loves us and desires to share His life with us, He prepares us for that sharing. It's way beyond merely saving us from our sin. It about becoming sons and daughters of the Living God, about becoming "partakers in the divine life" (2 Peter 1:4). We recognize that we must cooperate with God's grace because we recognize that salvation from sin is only the beginning, that we are destined by God for so much more.

Also, if you hold that God's grace is irresistable and that man has no cooperation or participation, it necessarily follows that God chooses who goes to hell, that He actually destines people to it by not destining them for heaven.

We do need God's grace to act rightly, but that grace is universally available to everyone, not just a select few. The difference is those who recognize the grace and cooperate with it.