Election

[MennoSota]

“faith alone” is by no means a sign that one is among the elect of God. Christians cannot have, on earth, certitude of their predestination without a special revelation from God. Aside from this special revelation no man can know if he will persevere in faith and good works to the end. Nevertheless there are signs of predestination which give a kind of moral certitude that one will persevere. Some of the signs that can help to provide this kind of certainty are:

• a good life;
• the testimony of a good conscience;
• patience in adversities for love of God;
• relish for the light and the God the Word and the holy scriptures - word of God;
• mercy toward those who suffer;
• love of enemies;
• humility

Belief in predestination is not an academic exercise it is an aid to the examination of conscience. For example:

• Do I patiently bear through difficulties?
• Do I maintain a love for the Jesus Christ -Word of God incarnate - and the holy scriptures - the word of God written?
• Do I study the holy scriptures daily?
• Do I order my life according to the teaching in the holy scriptures?
• Do I love the poor and try to assist them?
• Am I praying for and blessing those who hate me?

Do not ask yourself, “Am I predestined?” because nobody can know this without a special revelation. Rather, ask yourself, “Do I resemble the character of the predestined? Am I a man of the beatitudes that the Lord Jesus Christ presented in the sermon on the mount?”

Saint Paul wrote “For whom he foreknew, he also predestinated to be made conformable to the image of his Son: that he might be the Firstborn amongst many brethren.” Romans 8:29. Christians are predestined to not merely be in Heaven, but to be conformed to the image of Christ. If we do not resemble the Beatitudes of Christ from the Sermon on the Mount, we’re not being conformed to Christ. We’re not predestined.

Again...why should humans care? You're so man-centered that you seem incapable of trusting God and believing.
God tells us He elects, chose and predestined. This is a fact, not a myth or a lie. We believe by faith. You can doubt God, MC. Be my guest. But, I have faith that He has made me alive in Christ, adopted me and gave me faith. That's assurance enough for me.
Do you deny that God tells us He chooses, elects and predestines those whom he adopts?
It's laughable that you would dare to judge whom God is sanctifying and tell God that if His adopted children don't resemble that which is taught in the Sermon on the Mount, they can't be adopted. You realize that Satan is the accuser of the saints...don't you?
Those whom God chose, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son. The process of sanctification my dear sir.

 

[pinacled]

Again...why should humans care? You're so man-centered that you seem incapable of trusting God and believing.
God tells us He elects, chose and predestined. This is a fact, not a myth or a lie. We believe by faith. You can doubt God, MC. Be my guest. But, I have faith that He has made me alive in Christ, adopted me and gave me faith. That's assurance enough for me.
Do you deny that God tells us He chooses, elects and predestines those whom he adopts?
It's laughable that you would dare to judge whom God is sanctifying and tell God that if His adopted children don't resemble that which is taught in the Sermon on the Mount, they can't be adopted. You realize that Satan is the accuser of the saints...don't you?
Those whom God chose, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son. The process of sanctification my dear sir.

If you are seeking treasures beyond silver, more coffee will not be able to communicate certain truths.
many have been lied to about the ordinances of Heaven. leaving others to clean up the mess.

Not an issue that should give you discomfort if you were not involved in swearing oaths.

remember the 11 disciples whom were elect.
the other was a devil who sopped bread in wine.

 

[MennoSota]

If you are seeking treasures beyond silver, more coffee will not be able to communicate certain truths.
many have been lied to about the ordinances of Heaven. leaving others to clean up the mess.

Not an issue that should give you discomfort if you were not involved in swearing oaths.

remember the 11 disciples whom were elect.
the other was a devil who sopped bread in wine.

Exactly how much wine have you had...

 

[popsthebuilder]

I have never met a Calvinist who wasn't absolutely sure he/she is elect.

Lol....of course you haven't. I've never met a humble one....see the correlation?

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[popsthebuilder]

You act as though God doesn't guide our path and somehow we have to forge our own. Can we not trust God to direct us according to His Sovereign will?
Rest. Let God carry the burden and remove it at the cross. No worries. God will provide.
Enjoy! Even the deep valleys are by God's ordination.
Trust. God has this in control. You don't.
Peace. God gives peace, even in the midst of the storm. God will bring us home to his mansion exactly at his bidding. This world is not our home. We are exiles in this foreign land. We are ambassadors of reconciliation. It's all good.
Joy!

"We are ambassadors of reconciliation."


So that means we as ambassadors of reconciliation are to do nothing for the sake of the lost sheep?



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[MoreCoffee]

Of course GOD knows, but the question was about the person gifted by Him with saving Faith.

And the point there is that no one knows his destiny for certain--not believers in Election, but also not those who believe the opposite, i. e. those who believe that Man can save himself by trying to be good enough to win God's favor. Catholics never ever think that when they die, the best that they can hope for is that the next stop will be Purgatory--not Heaven but Purgatory which is like Hell. However that is exactly what their church teaches will happen to those whom God intends to save! The faithful Catholic churchgoer still doesn't want to think it will happen to him.

Yikes!!!

MC - This sounds true!

What a prognostication!

I guess you could say that the good news is that it is temporary and not eternal...

Arsenios

You replied to the reddish bold bit in Albion's post. I made the text reddish bold so that the part you replied to would be visibly obvious.

Albion's post is in error for several reasons.

• The section that is not reddish bold asserts that somebody, no names given, believes that Man can save himself by trying to be good enough to win God's favor but I do not see any posts in CH that teach that. God is the one who saves. Catholic Church teaching is that people do not save themselves in any sense.
• The great majority of Catholic Christians expect to be received into purgatory upon death but purgatory is not like hell as Albion asserted. Purgatory is the place/state of transition from human fallen-ness and imperfection into the place/state of complete communion with God in the perfection of Christ's glorified human nature. How the transition is accomplished is a matter of all sorts of speculation over the ages but the Church does not teach the speculations as doctrine even though some do think such things are accurate.
  
  210. What is purgatory?
  (see Catechism of the Catholic Church sections: 1031,1054)
  

  Purgatory is the state of those who die in God’s friendship, assured of their eternal salvation, but who still have need of purification to enter into the happiness of heaven.​

  
  211. How can we help the souls being purified in purgatory?
  (see Catechism of the Catholic Church section: 1032)
  

  Because of the communion of saints, the faithful who are still pilgrims on earth are able to help the souls in purgatory by offering prayers in suffrage for them, especially the Eucharistic sacrifice. They also help them by almsgiving, indulgences, and works of penance.​

  ​
• The good news is that all who experience purgatory also experience the beatific vision. Of those who enter purgatory none is lost, all are saved, all are deified.

 

[Albion]

You replied to the reddish bold bit in Albion's post. I made the text reddish bold so that the part you replied to would be visibly obvious.

Albion's post is in error for several reasons.

The section that is not reddish bold asserts that somebody, no names given, believes that Man can save himself by trying to be good enough to win God's favor but I do not see any posts in CH that teach that. God is the one who saves.

How coy can you be? We all know that God is the one who saves. The question concerns the method he has established for bringing that about in the lives of us mortals.

[*]The great majority of Catholic Christians expect to be received into purgatory upon death

This is not easy to prove one way or the other, since we would have to poll all Roman Catholics everywhere, but I have found that Catholics believe pretty much the same as Protestants do when it comes to death and the afterlife, that they will be received into the arms of the Lord and, hopefully, not be found wanting.

They never think that they are bound, absolutely, to either punishment in Purgatory or punishment in Hell, one or the other, yet this is the teaching of their church, the RCC.

 

[Arsenios]

I have never met a Calvinist who wasn't absolutely sure he/she is elect.

I met only one...

An alchoholic - No surprise...

Terrified of dying...

Pastor's kid...

Grew up under the HellFire preachings...

He just stayed drunk in terror, starting around 16...

He KNEW he was not one of the saved...

He is Orthodox now, married with kids, working out his Salvation...

Sober and joyful...

Arsenios

 

[Arsenios]

You replied to the reddish bold bit in Albion's post. I made the text reddish bold so that the part you replied to would be visibly obvious.

Albion's post is in error for several reasons.

• The section that is not reddish bold asserts that somebody, no names given, believes that Man can save himself by trying to be good enough to win God's favor but I do not see any posts in CH that teach that. God is the one who saves. Catholic Church teaching is that people do not save themselves in any sense.
• The great majority of Catholic Christians expect to be received into purgatory upon death but purgatory is not like hell as Albion asserted. Purgatory is the place/state of transition from human fallen-ness and imperfection into the place/state of complete communion with God in the perfection of Christ's glorified human nature. How the transition is accomplished is a matter of all sorts of speculation over the ages but the Church does not teach the speculations as doctrine even though some do think such things are accurate.
  
  210. What is purgatory?
  (see Catechism of the Catholic Church sections: 1031,1054)
  

  Purgatory is the state of those who die in God’s friendship, assured of their eternal salvation, but who still have need of purification to enter into the happiness of heaven.​

  
  211. How can we help the souls being purified in purgatory?
  (see Catechism of the Catholic Church section: 1032)
  

  Because of the communion of saints, the faithful who are still pilgrims on earth are able to help the souls in purgatory by offering prayers in suffrage for them, especially the Eucharistic sacrifice. They also help them by almsgiving, indulgences, and works of penance.​

  ​
• The good news is that all who experience purgatory also experience the beatific vision. Of those who enter purgatory none is lost, all are saved, all are deified.

I understood this Latin Doctrine (it is not an Orthodox one) of Purgatory as an after-death purging of whatever abides in him of sin in his soul, and that it does this purging by temporal punishment - the time needed varying according to the amound of purging needed according to each person's soul... It was, I thought, the basis for the selling of indulgences, whereby the Church could reduce the amount of time on one's loved one in this temporal after-death punishment contingent upon the giving of gifts to the Church... That is was an eggregious selling of heavenly Gifts for the sake of the unjust manna of money, and kicked off the Reformation...

The idea that purging of sin is by punishment is contrary to the Orthodox Catholic teaching going all the way back to the beginnings of the Faith...

I had simply never considered that one has, in its beliefs, the anticipation of temporal punishment of unknown time to look foreward to at one's repose... If I believed such a doctrine, I would look foreward to it eagerly, and perhaps live a much more penitent life...

The whole topic deserves its own thread, I should think...

Arsenios

 

[Arsenios]

Roman Catholics everywhere...
pretty much...
never think
that they are bound, absolutely,
to either punishment in Purgatory
or punishment in Hell

The RCC does teach that the Saints do Not go to Purgatory because they have nothing to purge, and have an excess of merit which the Church can impart to individuals being purged by temporal punishment in Purgatory...

fwiw, The Orthodox understand the soul's ascent after repose being according to its passage through demonic accusation, and it so ascends until an accusation sticks, and it stops there, caught, unable to further ascend... And for those so caught in their unrepented sins, we can pray for them, and they can move on...

People who live active fantasy lives of demonic origins do not get very far, on this understanding...
Nor do people who self-justify...
Self-accusers tend to do much better...

Arsenios

 

[Albion]

The RCC does teach that the Saints do Not go to Purgatory because they have nothing to purge, and have an excess of merit which the Church can impart to individuals being purged by temporal punishment in Purgatory...

EVERYONE who is bound for Heaven must be purged, according to the RCC. The causes of that purging, according to the RCC, are: 1) venial sins (it is a rare person who would die with no venial sins), 2) FORGIVEN mortal sins (so if you are leaving the confessional as you die, but you committed a mortal sin years earlier and had it absolved sacramentally, you are still going to Purgatory for having committed it in the first place), 3) and for general purposes, usually described as necessary to cleanse the human of his fallen nature, tendency towards sin, or whatever is Earthly and cannot exist in Heaven.

 

[Arsenios]

EVERYONE who is bound for Heaven must be purged, according to the RCC. The causes of that purging, according to the RCC, are: 1) venial sins (it is a rare person who would die with no venial sins), 2) FORGIVEN mortal sins (so if you are leaving the confessional as you die, but you committed a mortal sin years earlier and had it absolved sacramentally, you are still going to Purgatory for having committed it in the first place), 3) and for general purposes, usually described as necessary to cleanse the human of his fallen nature, tendency towards sin, or whatever is Earthly and cannot exist in Heaven.

MC can reply, but if the RC Saints did not have an EXCESS of Merit, then the RCC would have had nothing to sell for its Reformation-generating Indulgences...

Arsenios

 

[pinacled]

Exactly how much wine have you had...

over a lifetime?
perhaps a few bottles of white wine. a bottle or so of champagne.
red wine, perhaps a few cups.

As for bread and wine.
only when needed.

I will partake next yr pesach.

 

[MennoSota]

I met only one...

An alchoholic - No surprise...

Terrified of dying...

Pastor's kid...

Grew up under the HellFire preachings...

He just stayed drunk in terror, starting around 16...

He KNEW he was not one of the saved...

He is Orthodox now, married with kids, working out his Salvation...

Sober and joyful...

Arsenios

The RCC does teach that the Saints do Not go to Purgatory because they have nothing to purge, and have an excess of merit which the Church can impart to individuals being purged by temporal punishment in Purgatory...

fwiw, The Orthodox understand the soul's ascent after repose being according to its passage through demonic accusation, and it so ascends until an accusation sticks, and it stops there, caught, unable to further ascend... And for those so caught in their unrepented sins, we can pray for them, and they can move on...

People who live active fantasy lives of demonic origins do not get very far, on this understanding...
Nor do people who self-justify...
Self-accusers tend to do much better...

Arsenios

Big pretzel...

 

[popsthebuilder]

Big pretzel...

Hey, uhm.....while you are posting pictures of pretzels there are rather pressing questions you have a yet to address elswhere....when you have time of course.

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[RichWh1]

The word church was derived from the Greek word for elect. So the church is made up of the elect of God


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[MoreCoffee]

The word church was derived from the Greek word for elect. So the church is made up of the elect of God


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The word "church" is derived from the phrase "doma kuriakon" (δόμα κυριακόν) meaning house of the Lord, the word κυριακόν (kuriakon) was transliterated as kuriakon which became kiriko and then cirice and then chirche and finally church. But Ecclesiastical and Ecclesiastic are derived from Ecclesia (ἐκκλησία) which means "congregation" and implies a convocation of the people of God - a calling together of God's people - ἐκκλησία is the word usually translated as "church" in English bibles.

 

[MoreCoffee]

MC can reply, but if the RC Saints did not have an EXCESS of Merit, then the RCC would have had nothing to sell for its Reformation-generating Indulgences...

Arsenios

That isn't quite right. The merits of Christ are infinite and I am confident that enterprising monks, bishops, and even a pope or two would find a way to raise money even from the merits of Christ. Religion and money are still bedfellows, even among Protestant denominations.

 

[RichWh1]

The word "church" is derived from the phrase "doma kuriakon" (δόμα κυριακόν) meaning house of the Lord, the word κυριακόν (kuriakon) was transliterated as kuriakon which became kiriko and then cirice and then chirche and finally church. But Ecclesiastical and Ecclesiastic are derived from Ecclesia (ἐκκλησία) which means "congregation" and implies a convocation of the people of God - a calling together of God's people - ἐκκλησία is the word usually translated as "church" in English bibles.

No it’s not. The English version of church comes from the Gaelic word kurk (assembly)
The Greek word is ekklesia elect ekklektoi.

Εκκλεκτοι means those chosen out from not assembly.
Εκκλησία has the same meaning.
Check it out



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[MoreCoffee]

No it’s not. The English version of church comes from the Gaelic word kurk (assembly)
The Greek word is ekklesia elect ekklektoi.

Εκκλεκτοι means those chosen out from not assembly.
Check it out

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The Greek word for elect is ἐκλεκτός (eklektos) meaning chosen out, elect, choice, select, sometimes as subst: of those chosen out by God for the rendering of special service to Him (of the Hebrew race, particular Hebrews, the Messiah, and the Christians).