God's Judgement and Pagan Nations

[MichaelFilo]

Oh, ok, so the man who would stab his children cannot be known to have committed sin? Or girls flashing before Lent is not some sort decadance? Why is it that it is so neccessary to claim ignorance of something that we see. It is worse to deny what you see in front of your face. I can't imagine any living being seeing the Mardi Gras celebration and not thinking that there is some devilish business going down. If you don't see or "know" that God doesn't approve, then you are blinding yourself. What the hell, really now.

And the analogy to the priest is in error. God actively gave Free Will and passively Wills it to be carried out in whatever expression is chosen. God didn't give nature Free Will, unless you are one of the athiestic breed of Catholics who seem to think Evolution that needs not a God is the way it went down. God always plays an active Hand in His creation, otherwise, He'd be a distant God.

God bless,
Mikey

Edited September 6, 2005 by MichaelFilo

[Era Might]

Michael,

Evil happens everywhere. New Orleans has hardly cornered the market. Every Sunday, there is probably some person in your parish who receives God sacriligeously. This is an even graver sin than flaunting down Bourbon street. But God doesn't go and destroy your parish because there are grave sinners within it. Could he, theoretically? Sure. Perhaps Katrina was a punishment on Catholics in New Orleans, and no one else. I don't know. You don't know. That's the point. We can't know.

[quote] God didn't give nature Free Will, unless you are one of the athiestic breed of Catholics who seem to think Evolution that needs not a God is the way it went down. God always plays an active Hand in His creation, otherwise, He'd be a distant God.[/quote]

God has established a natural order of creation. He allows this order to play itself out. This does not posit a deist conception of the universe, because God gave those laws, and he trumps them as he pleases. But he established those laws nonetheless. He created gravity, and he lets it do its job.

Edited September 6, 2005 by Era Might

[Era Might]

And, if we apply your theory faithfully, every non-human disaster is an actively willed chastisement from God. If someone's toaster short-circuits, and their 5 children burn to death, the family was being chastised by God; we better show up at the funeral and shout it from the rooftop, lest they miss out on the chastisement. If St. Thomas Aquinas gets whacked in the head by a low-lying tree trunk, and dies soon afterword, God must've placed that branch low to chastise him.

Edited September 6, 2005 by Era Might

[MichaelFilo]

Evil happens everywhere, and God chastises and punishes, but not everyone and not always. It's a gift, really, more than anything else. Besides, God dropping universal lawas and leaving everything to itself to carry out it's little job is really what dieism is. God makes the "clock" and watchs it "tick". Any dieist will claim God made the "clock". Sadly, my Catholicism requires me to reject such a silly view. If indeed it were as simple as a set of laws, then the sheer randomness of hurricanes starting would hardly be explained by laws (which are always expressable in a mathematical formula).

By the way, if God destroyed every sinner, there would be none. However, what an unloving God that does not show His displeasure from time to time and lets people do as they please. Oh, how many people have converted when their life seemed to be drawing to an end.

God bless,
Mikey

*Edit* All things happen for a reason. God does not sit back and watch the world, but instead actively plays a hand in His creation, however small it maybe.

Edited September 6, 2005 by MichaelFilo

[Era Might]

[quote]God dropping universal lawas and leaving everything to itself to carry out it's little job is really what dieism is. [/quote]

No, Deism is the conception that God is not involved with his creation at all.

God keeps nature in existence, but he still lets it do its job. If God didn't intend nature to run itself, he wouldn't have made it. If he intended to keep man forced down, he wouldn't have created gravity. Nature is how he effects his creation. He set it in motion. He occasionally supercedes it, for whatever reason.

[quote]If indeed it were as simple as a set of laws, then the sheer randomness of hurricanes starting would hardly be explained by laws (which are always expressable in a mathematical formula). [/quote]

Hurricanes are climactic phenomena. They're hardly mysteries.

[quote]However, what an unloving God that does not show His displeasure from time to time and lets people do as they please. [/quote]

You keep missing the point. There is no question that God shows his displeasure from time to time. The point is that you and I don't know when that time to time is. It's not our job. He worries about the who what and where of chastisement. Not us. Our job is to worry about responding in faith when tragedy hits, helping the homeless, helping the distressed, being icons of Jesus Christ in the flesh. If we are truly living our faith as Christians, we shouldn't have to rant and rave about what we "think" are chastisements of God, because our lives should be a sufficient witness to people. Call people to faith in Christ, not because of some passing tragedy, but because he is the Eternal Word.

[quote]God does not sit back and watch the world, but instead actively plays a hand in His creation, however small it maybe.[/quote]

If God directly effects all bad natural occurences, then I suppose he directly mutates the Harlequin gene.

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Of course, he doesn't. Harlequin's disease, like Hurricanes, are the result of a natural order in discord.

Edited September 6, 2005 by Era Might

[Don John of Austria]

[quote name='Era Might' date='Sep 6 2005, 04:42 PM']And, if we apply your theory faithfully, every non-human disaster is an actively willed chastisement from God. If someone's toaster short-circuits, and their 5 children burn to death, the family was being chastised by God; we better show up at the funeral and shout it from the rooftop, lest they miss out on the chastisement. If St. Thomas Aquinas gets whacked in the head by a low-lying tree trunk, and dies soon afterword, God must've placed that branch low to chastise him.
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Well You see I am a pesky medievalist who believes all those silly church teachings of the Middle ages, and so I believe that there was an angel appointed to that very storm and that it's path and strength was appointed by that angel. So No I reject the Idea that any thing in nature is Random in the since a modernist would propose. All storms come because they are sent, the evil of a storm might be allowed inorder that some other good might come or the other good might infact be the goal of it and the seecondary evils just the double effect of the storm, but all Natural disasters happen by the will of God alone and therefore for a reason.

Now your as for the women and her five children --- it is a seriously flawed analogy, a toaster is a product of man not of nature so it would come under man made disaster, that said no that would nnot be a chastisment to them, they are dead, no purification can come from that unless it was in the pain of beingburned to death, which is of course possible, however it could be a chastisment of her husband, or someone else who loves her and her children but not to them. Funny that you bring up St Thomas A. as he would certianly attribute natural disasters to an act of God.




[quote]No, *we* know no such thing.

If you have received a special revelation of God telling you his business, do what you see fit with that knowledge.

As is my right, I reject your private revelation, tooth and nail. [/quote] I fail to see the need for any private revalation, unless you concider a basic understanding of sin to be a private revelation.

[Era Might]

[quote]Well You see I am a pesky medievalist [/quote]

Well, therein lies our difference. I'm a Roman Catholic.

Nice to meet you, though.

[Don John of Austria]

[quote]Hurricanes are climactic phenomena. They're hardly mysteries.[/quote]


Really! you haven't studied meterology very much have you-- hurricaines are quite mysterious, what is happening we have a good grasp of, why it happens not so much.

[Don John of Austria]

[quote name='Era Might' date='Sep 6 2005, 05:13 PM']Well, therein lies our difference. I'm a Roman Catholic.

Nice to meet you, though.


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Well while the rite you belong to is meaningless in this discussion I too am a Catholic of the Latin rite, I just actually believe the Teachings of the Latin rite though out the century's and not what my modernist CCE teacher may have taught me. Try educating yourself abit more about the teachings of the Church for oh say the ENTIRE 2000 years of Her existance not just the modern liberal clap trap spewed forth by the heretics which dominate the religious education of this country.

[Era Might]

You never fail to wrap discussion in drama and scary words, Don John. That's why I love you.

I do find it apropos, however, that the Pope, and every other Bishop for that matter, didn't feel the need to announce the great "chastisement" that is supposedly Hurricane Katrina. He offered comfort and aid. His name is Benedict, fortunately, not Pope Frown I.

I guess it's up to the Lay Magisterium [TM] to keep the real truth going.

Edited September 6, 2005 by Era Might

[Don John of Austria]

[quote name='Era Might' date='Sep 6 2005, 05:19 PM']You never fail to wrap discussion in drama and scary words, Don John. That's why I love you. 

I do find it humorous, though, that the Pope, or any other Bishop, didn't feel the need to announce the great chastisement of Hurricane Katrina. His name is Benedict, fortunately, not Pope Frown I.
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I don't quite now what that means, but why would the Church comment on it the chastisment is accomplished, it would kind of like going to the guy with the bullet in his chest and saying " i told you not to tic that guy off"

[Era Might]

Well, when God chastises, he does it for a reason. If the people who were chastised don't know it, it kind of defeats the purpose.

[Don John of Austria]

ooops incomplete double post

Edited September 6, 2005 by Don John of Austria

[Don John of Austria]

Did you read son of angels post, I thought it was fairly good. But you are of course wrong the Bishop of New orleans started to say something verymuch along these lines when the TV abruptly cut him off and switched to a protestant minister who would say what they wanted to hear. It started with a statment that while this was bad it wasn't the worst thing that had ever happened the Crusifixion was the worst thing that had ever happened and got less PC by the second.... He wasn't on very long. That said Chastisment doesn't require understanding simply the act of enduring the hardship can and as a Catholic I believe [i]is[/i] a means of purification Of course the dead may not have known when they died, thaat they where being chastised but they know now, unless of course they where smiten which would mean they certianly know that.

Edited September 6, 2005 by Don John of Austria

[hierochloe]

[quote name='Era Might' date='Sep 6 2005, 05:19 PM']I guess it's up to the Lay Magisterium [TM] to keep the real truth going.
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Ouch, I'll have to remember that one.