Catholic Predestination | Fr. Bonaventure Chapman & Fr. Gregory Pine
March 13, 2025
This transcription was generated using AI technology. Please note that there may be errors or inconsistencies.
00:00:05:12 – 00:00:24:21
Unknown
This is Father Bonaventure Chapman, and this is Father Gregory Pine. And welcome to Godsplaining. Thanks for all those who support us on Patreon with monthly donation. And also please subscribe to us wherever you consume your podcast material. Father Gregory, how are you? I’m doing well, thanks. You made it. Yeah. Now we just got to solve the extra.
00:00:24:22 – 00:00:48:07
Unknown
The, the episode itself. That whatever. But, like, making sure you hit these guys. Yeah, it’s very important. The first 15 seconds of an episode, everything else is basically smooth sailing. Yeah. That’s right. Easy rider. Is that Gene? What’s his name? Pat. Pat. Bandera. The, the the, hockey player for the for the pad crew.
00:00:48:07 – 00:01:04:01
Unknown
Pat Conroy. Shadow Pat Conroy. He’s got a he’s got a voice. He’s a he’s got a face for face radio, too, but I think just the boy’s father, Patrick Briscoe. Do it. Yeah. Association. Random association. Okay. Now, I love the banter, but, there’s so much to talk about in this episode. I want to get into. This is predestination.
00:01:04:03 – 00:01:25:13
Unknown
And so I thought I would just start. It’ll be kind of like a banter, but also kind of friendly opening banter for 25 minutes. Yeah. Three minutes. They have so like predestination. Simple. Yeah. God uses God’s my it’s God whatever. You know, praise be God. It’s kind of like, yeah, the Exodus Canticle, right? You know, his mercy endures forever as the Egyptians are thrown into the seas.
00:01:25:15 – 00:01:46:12
Unknown
Okay. Just warming people up to this this motif. They’re warming up their glasses. You better believe it. Look at that fog action. It’s creeping up. Yeah, exactly. The clouds. The clouds are witness. So, Yeah. Well, I want to ask about is, Because predestination was a big topic for evangelicals, at least for me going into college.
00:01:46:12 – 00:02:02:05
Unknown
So we spent a lot of time talking about this. But from the Catholics, I’m a convert from the Catholic side of things. Like when’s the first time that predestination, like, showed up? Was it some more a Steubenville for use, like college was the time where you duked this out into 2 or 3 a.m.? Or is it like, nah, not at all.
00:02:02:07 – 00:02:24:07
Unknown
So, I don’t really remember college. On account of the fact that I don’t really remember anything from the past. Well, it’s just the way that I retain things is I remember the questions in the Summa Theologica, and I don’t remember people, relationships or interactions. They are just questions. It’s like Borges. Oh, my gosh, don’t go back to that episode.
00:02:24:09 – 00:02:46:08
Unknown
Talk about you think you think predestination is hard? Wait until you think you got. Yeah. So my experience, Steubenville was one. I wasn’t studying theology. Oh, yeah. Two. I wasn’t living seriously, so I wasn’t really entertaining the question of predestination. I don’t know if people were asking about rent, you know, 20 years ago in college, they were.
00:02:46:13 – 00:03:06:15
Unknown
So I studied, I had like, five theology classes, but it was like intro and then Scripture and then the history courses. So I didn’t do much in the way of doctrinal formation. And then I had this, like humanities and Catholic culture thing, you know, but like, I wasn’t it didn’t come up. Yeah. Not right. Yeah. But mostly like personal existential things.
00:03:06:16 – 00:03:26:08
Unknown
I just any doctrinal. Yeah. Otherwise things. Yeah. But it seems like at least in the past five years, maybe 5 or 7 years, predestination has been coming up in conversation with a lot of the folks that I’ll meet at Mystic Institute. Yeah, it’s like the pros are into predestination. They love it. Some are troubled by it. Some are excited by.
00:03:26:08 – 00:03:50:19
Unknown
Yeah, or whatever. By it. Just as long as you use it. Past perfect participles for parallel form. But nevertheless, it seems like it’s the thing that people are talking about. It is. And they out here saying, it’s a I wonder if it’s we talked about this before about like the secret, you know, when I, when I, when I worked at Barnes and Noble, the book that was on the bestseller list, and I walked in the door, front door was this little book called The Secret Hardback.
00:03:50:19 – 00:04:11:17
Unknown
Of course, because you it’s more you cost more. So more revenues are generated. Plus it looks more serious if it’s a hardback or whatever. So it’s called a secret, and I assume that in those pages it had something about the secret to life or something, which, I mean, not there. But I when I left, yeah, when I left a year later, something I guess was still number one bestseller for nonfiction.
00:04:11:17 – 00:04:31:02
Unknown
I think it was nonfiction. I mean, I’ve. Yeah, the secret there it was. It welcomed me into the store, and it it, it said goodbye, and I think so in The Secret Life of. No, it’s just called The Secret. This little like, you know, it was the sister of the secret pants. So it was. And that people were.
00:04:31:03 – 00:04:58:18
Unknown
Because people were. They wanted the secret right now, of course, you know, the pros and the Catholics and we don’t we don’t believe in the secret kind of stuff. But I wonder if you put, like a hardback, small hardback called said predestination, you know, or Kerrigan grunge or whatever. And, if that wouldn’t be like. Yeah. Because it has the same kind of like if we can figure this is the biggest thing, if we can figure this out, we’ll be good to go, because either it’s going to, like, wreck my life or, like, change my life or something like the way it’s going to.
00:04:58:19 – 00:05:20:23
Unknown
It’s going to do something ruination or ruination in my life. Like, I think about the guys with whom I’ve had this conversation. And often enough, there’s a genuine desire from the church as tradition as it’s mediated. The things that the church is formulated in, you know, like her Magisterium and pronounced upon definitive fashion. So like to take that seriously.
00:05:21:02 – 00:05:49:08
Unknown
Yeah. Like in the setting of their own lives as they struggle with habitual sin and working on a consistent exercise of virtue and interesting themselves in the contemplative life more broadly interesting. There’s this notion that, like, if the faith is true, you should see it play out in your life. Yeah, some modicum of clarity. So, I mean, it’s yeah, there’s always going to be obscurity to it, but there should be some modicum of clarity that, yeah, the promises of God are fulfilled.
00:05:49:10 – 00:06:10:03
Unknown
You know, 100 fold here and in the life to come. And this predestination question is a kind of existential personal backstop. Yeah. Which a lot of those claims are judged because it’s like, all right. If I’m not perceiving any, any change, if I’m not perceiving any ongoing conversion, then maybe it’s just the case that. Yep, principles, arguments stacked up against me.
00:06:10:03 – 00:06:29:00
Unknown
And as a result of which I’d be best to walk away now. Yeah, in my life for its entire duration. Yeah, sure. It’s not like my my sense isn’t so much that, but like, it’s the secret so much as it is the like, like substantial backdrop against which all of the claims. Oh sure. Be judged or assessed.
00:06:29:02 – 00:06:59:01
Unknown
Yeah, yeah. Because it speaks of a kind of ultimate and it speaks of said intimacy with clarity. Yeah, but well, as far as maybe in the scientific analysis, it’s like a unification of principles or like the laws behind things that determine stuff. And so there’s a sense of knowing whether which stream I’m in on this way, maybe before we get into it, though, I suppose this, a definition says we’re all on the same page, but because people might predestination it, it does sound like it could be determinism or fatalism or like, is this about grace or is is about nature?
00:06:59:01 – 00:07:04:05
Unknown
Is is about providence. So maybe before we get into talking about progression a little bit, what do you what’s
00:07:04:05 – 00:07:20:11
Unknown
let’s set terms on what predestination is in the church’s understanding of predestination. Yeah. I think, people will hear the word predestination, in, in the Calvinist. Yeah. They hear double predestination. Yep. Goes to heaven. It’s by God’s choice for heaven.
00:07:20:13 – 00:07:45:10
Unknown
If one goes to hell, it’s by God’s choice for hell. Yeah. So you can so predestined you before you. Whereas in the Catholic tradition it’s if one goes to heaven, it’s by God’s choice. If one goes to hell, it’s by virtue of the fact that that individual has chosen against, God’s, you know, loving kindness or God’s loving mercy.
00:07:45:12 – 00:07:58:20
Unknown
So when we’re talking about predestination, we’re talking about the causality. One goes to heaven. Yeah. And we’re identifying its causal source. We’re rooting that in the divine knowledge and the divine.
00:07:58:20 – 00:08:10:23
Unknown
Yeah. One goes to heaven. It’s by virtue of the fact that God has chosen for that person to go to heaven. Now we’re not necessarily saying anything just in that statement.
00:08:10:23 – 00:08:32:13
Unknown
Yep. About created causality. We’re talking about divine causality. Yeah. There’s there’s a whole account that we can give a created causality. And we will around, you know, like minute 2425. Stay tuned. But the basic idea is that heaven is beyond us. Yeah. All right. So it doesn’t pertain to us by nature to realize the life of heaven because it just requires resources beyond earth.
00:08:32:15 – 00:08:52:00
Unknown
All right. And it represents a life truly speaking. You know like beyond there. So if we are to be raised up, if we are to be healed and elevated, you know, this life as it is to be enjoyed in heaven, then God must condescend, bestow upon us a share in his divine life. Yep. Into its term is realized fully in heaven.
00:08:52:04 – 00:09:12:12
Unknown
Yeah. Yeah. If I’m getting up to that second floor or something to boost. No. Simplest way. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe we can make ladders. I don’t know, I mean, you in a position would have you. Okay, great. Now, that’s. It’s in there. Yeah. That’s what a game. Who knew that game was secretly. Yeah. Secretly. Like, you know, snakes and ladders.
00:09:12:12 – 00:09:33:08
Unknown
Double free, doesn’t it? Okay. We’ll get into that. Yeah. Calvin, who knew that he was not a game fan? And maybe this was like. Yeah, I’ve seen it in there. Okay, so one of the things predestination, God is the one who is the causality cause of our, of our salvation, and our damnation, at least in the Catholic model of things, is, is are our choice, right?
00:09:33:14 – 00:09:49:18
Unknown
Okay. And a lot of people find. Oh, yeah, that’s standard stuff. This is, prima parse question 23 of the summa. Right. This is where predestination hits. If you go in the, you know, the index, you say, I want to know about predestination. What what does the Catholic Church believe about this? Well, obviously, we should check Saint Thomas.
00:09:49:18 – 00:10:20:11
Unknown
So you open up the, you know, primary parse, first and you go, 23. You look oh, predestination. Good. They’ve got eight. I think it’s eight articles in there. Yeah. On predestination. And you read that like. Whoa. Okay. But we want to encourage you to say, actually, there are at least 22 questions before that. And obviously those break out in, in large, you know, in larger fashion because they have many subs, sub articles, you could say, and you, you have the room question, question, spawn questions, turtle questions.
00:10:20:13 – 00:10:49:23
Unknown
So before you get to 23 and predestination, the Catholic Church is and Saint Thomas and any you know saint saint thinking person insistent that there are a lot of backstop or background presuppositions allow you to understand it. It’s just like hard cases make bad law, right? I think in the same way, when you go to a hard teaching and I don’t want to call it a hard teaching because it sounds like, well, I hope we gives us a lollipop somewhere else because this is going to this is going to be painful.
00:10:49:23 – 00:11:06:17
Unknown
This, like no predestination is beautiful teaching. In fact, it’s it I mean, it’s if it’s truth about God, then it was also good, and desirable to understand. So it’s not like a hard teaching that way, but to get the realization that it’s not a hard teaching. I think we have to do a lot of background work to understand.
00:11:06:17 – 00:11:26:12
Unknown
What do you get up to there? You don’t just, like, pop in in the way that say, even to be fair to the Calvinist brethren, this is a move that Calvin Calvin because predestination is so important, he moves it from the first, from the prima prima pars of the institutes to the third part, the grace of Christ.
00:11:26:12 – 00:11:41:23
Unknown
The section on. So this is like the see a pause in the in the institutes because he wants to Nestle this sucker. The hug of predestination in in Christ. So he realizes that you need to do a lot before you get here, and you have to put this in the right place to be able to understand it.
00:11:42:01 – 00:12:06:17
Unknown
Saint Thomas has something, of course, very similar. Involved here. So walk us, maybe give us a let’s why don’t we just talk through, the presuppositions that get us to just kind of, approach predestination in the right way, and it’s actually helpful, and salubrious. Salubrious. And that’s a great word. Yeah. So let’s think first about who God is, and then how God acts.
00:12:06:19 – 00:12:25:08
Unknown
Yeah. So when we think about, like, who God is, we can come to an appreciation of the fact that he’s not like us in a very significant way. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Identifying like that he doesn’t change that. He is eternal. Is good helpful down the road. Yeah. And how God acts like specifically how God knows. How God wills.
00:12:25:09 – 00:12:52:13
Unknown
Yeah. That means for creating causality. Yeah. Participation in divine causality. Maybe let’s just ask who God is and then we’ll go to what God does. So God at whom Saint Thomas arrives in question two. You know we’ve heard of these things five ways. It’s not just like a superhuman or a super angel. Yeah. Yeah. So what we’re talking about is the very being itself.
00:12:52:15 – 00:13:17:15
Unknown
All right. So we’re talking about like God in some essay process of assistance, ladies and gentlemen, is being like exhaust all that there is of. Yeah, yeah. There’s nothing deficient in God. There’s nothing lacking in God. There’s nothing median God. Right. So God is, as it were, kind of beyond our understanding and implementation of causality. And so one very concrete application, God can act more interior to us than we can to ourselves.
00:13:17:15 – 00:13:38:01
Unknown
Yeah. Into may that look beautiful line you not gives us our nature. He gives us our agency. We’ll talk about creation briefly. Yeah. And so he’s able to furnish us not only with the existence of, you know. Yeah. And the agency, but the exercise. Yeah. So, like, God can cause us to. Let’s keep talking with this God guy.
00:13:38:05 – 00:13:58:17
Unknown
Right. Let’s talk about this guy. So then all the things that are important is like, God doesn’t change, right? So God isn’t reacting to us. God isn’t taking our spiritual. Why not ignoring his divine plan? That seems crazy went on because God is being itself. Yeah, like there’s no like A or B in God. All that is pre exists in God, eminently and virtually that is to say in a higher mode by power.
00:13:58:22 – 00:14:18:12
Unknown
And so like when we look at stuff we’re like oh I’ve got to choose between this and that. Like God doesn’t have to God is all that there is. Yeah. But like so so in God there’s no this than that. Yeah. There’s always he is. I like to think about it in terms of, agency versus passivity or like dependency.
00:14:18:14 – 00:14:39:02
Unknown
Everything outside of God has a dependency to. And the more dependent things are, the weaker they are. You sure you, like think about children. No one would ever say like, yeah, children are the height of humanity. They say a desirable and delightful to have children. They’re wonderful to have around. But like they are dependent upon you. Like if if you don’t help children around, I think something happens to them that’s not good.
00:14:39:04 – 00:14:56:15
Unknown
So they’re dependent upon you, and you become, you become an adult because you have the powers to do things, right. You have. You don’t need to depend so much on other people. So there’s dependency is a sort of a deficiency, but a necessary part of nature. But wouldn’t it be great if you never had to depend on anyone?
00:14:56:15 – 00:15:17:00
Unknown
We say no, of course. It’d be great to depend on people because we want community and such, but in God you have no dependency whatsoever. He’s not waiting upon, as you said, anyone, and therefore there’s nothing that he has to like that hinders him. He’s able to act. And in essence, he just lets himself go, as love everywhere and doing his thing.
00:15:17:01 – 00:15:35:19
Unknown
And therefore there’s no thing, there’s nothing that he could ever wait upon. And if he did have to wait upon something, then he wouldn’t be the he wouldn’t be God. He would be dependent upon creatures which, you know, as much as nice. It might sound like God is waiting for eternity for you to ex false. He’s not waiting for anything, right?
00:15:35:19 – 00:15:58:09
Unknown
He’s doing it. He’s doing his stuff. I think people hear that God is not passive. That God. And that God is not responsive. And they think that that represents a lack in God. But again we go back to this identification of God as being itself subsisting through itself. Right. God is is teeming with life. God is overflowing with there’s no room for dependency, as it were.
00:15:58:09 – 00:16:21:23
Unknown
Yeah. For him to relate in a manner of passivity, dependance. Yeah. Responsiveness. So like because God is teeming with life, overflowing with the attitude, he’s poised, as it were, or he’s in a position to visit mercy to exercise. Yeah. You know, his divine causality in the way that best befits his glory and our salvation. So it’s it’s good news.
00:16:21:23 – 00:16:36:22
Unknown
It’s not bad news. It’s great. Well it’s great news because it means we don’t have to depend on, like, luck or something, like, to have God act in your life. You don’t have to hope that there are conditions set up such. I mean, obviously you are the one who hindered, who hinders him act in your life. But you not to worry.
00:16:36:22 – 00:16:54:05
Unknown
But I show up. I do all my stuff. I hope that he wasn’t sleeping or that he was not paying attention to someone else that time. Like the fact that he is not dependent upon our conditions to act other than us refusing him, means that he’s capable of always assisting us, which is great. It’s great truth. Great truth.
00:16:54:05 – 00:17:25:20
Unknown
Okay, so one last thing. With who? God is. You know how God. Yeah. What I’m talking about, like God is immutable. He doesn’t change you. God is eternal. He’s not him. So Saint Thomas will establish. I mean, the Christian tradition establishes early on that God isn’t composed of parts. He isn’t divided in himself. He just is, being itself, subsisting through itself or in itself, and as a result of which there’s no like God coming to be better for God in some way, shape or form, devolving into a worse thing than he was previously.
00:17:25:22 – 00:17:50:05
Unknown
God is is and that’s that. And when we talk about time we’re talking about something like the measure of motion. It’s kind of what charts changes. Yeah. Created things. And on account of the fact that God doesn’t change. He’s timeless. Yep. He’s eternal. So the way that but easiest describes eternity. He says it’s the whole and simultaneous possession of endless life.
00:17:50:06 – 00:18:16:20
Unknown
So as in our case, we experience our lives step by step. We reasoned, discursive. We choose piecewise. Okay, not the case with God. God embraces the whole of his life in one single embrace. Yeah, one ever subsisting, eternal now. So God enjoys this whole and simultaneous possession of endless life, which is not measured by time, which is in no way divided.
00:18:16:22 – 00:18:41:01
Unknown
Right? But which just is. Yeah, right. So that creates for us the problem of God foreseeing predestined. And then our as it, we’re trying to make sense of the arrangement because if God knows where we will end, people ask then how are we free. Yeah. Know towards that end. Yep that’s true. Transitions us into the. Yeah one one I’m just thinking it’s good this
00:18:41:01 – 00:18:52:02
Unknown
the infinite versus finite fundamental instinct between God and creatures, but also this temporal versus temporal outside of time aspect means that God isn’t a player in the sort of chess game of life.
00:18:52:05 – 00:19:09:14
Unknown
So let me say like, well, if God knows ahead of time, like I know ahead of time, you know, that someone is going to do this because I planned it and this sort of thing, we have to remind ourselves that, yeah, it’s it’s not the same plane. So whatever we say about that and how it interacts and we want to say some, there’s some sense in which he does.
00:19:09:16 – 00:19:32:20
Unknown
He knows ahead of time, of course, because you choose ahead of time and all this stuff. But we also to be very careful any time we use language from our finite realm to talk about God, that it’s always analogous and that we remind ourselves that, yeah, he’s not a player amongst players, he’s not like the great player. This is, I think, again, an extremely valuable because, if God is just a really good chess player, then there’s a chance.
00:19:32:22 – 00:19:48:22
Unknown
I mean, it’s not likely, but the chance that I can beat him, you know? So if he’s interacting in time with us, even though he’s out ahead of us, he’s more powerful. He’s just like a super angel. Again, I think this is what we generally think about with with God. We can think about this. And he’s like, oh, he’s just a super angel.
00:19:49:00 – 00:20:08:20
Unknown
No, not at all. And he’s far, far above that because he’s transcends all those categories. And therefore his knowing of things ahead of time and all the rest of all that’s going to be. But not like we do almost anything you say about God in this realm. We’re going to say, but not like us and remind ourselves.
00:20:08:20 – 00:20:28:21
Unknown
And it’s hard to do but that we always have to negate a good signification involved, or a meaning in our in our terms to be able to make sense of this. So it allows at least the mystery to appear in its full glory, and with due reverence and appreciation for actually what he is as opposed to saying, well, we just can’t we can’t really know.
00:20:28:21 – 00:20:45:03
Unknown
And, you know, we’d be careful. And it’s not a dodge. It’s not a dodge to say all these things. It’s just to embrace and actually deal with the mystery as it is given to us. Good. So we got to be careful about this finite kind of realm and putting our categories of time into him and thinking he’s like he just sees all times ahead of us.
00:20:45:04 – 00:20:48:12
Unknown
No, no, no, all times a present him at once because he’s outside of time,
00:20:48:12 – 00:21:05:21
Unknown
because all that is pre exists in him. We’ll get to this with knowledge. All that is pre exists in him and he embraces it in embracing himself. Because that is is a participation or sharing in his divine life. So it’s not as if you know, the temporal changes which he observes from a distance is a surprise to him.
00:21:06:01 – 00:21:27:19
Unknown
Yeah. Can be things that are being giving all things that are agency and sustaining them through kind of prompting them through the whole course of it. Yeah. All right. So it’s not as if God’s, you know, laid up in his heavens and utterly shocked or scandalized by the choices made by his creatures. All right. I think what, through primus prima pas is maybe now like question 13 or 12 or something of analogous language at 13.
00:21:27:19 – 00:21:46:00
Unknown
So now we’re moving forward. Now let’s do some knowledge and love. And then we’ll get down to the breeders because everyone’s like, yeah, I know, I know, but give me the Breeders Nation business. Give it to me I think. So time starts a question 14 about knowledge. Question 15 about the divine ideas. Yeah. And then it’s like question 14 maybe about truth and question 17 about falsity.
00:21:46:00 – 00:22:08:02
Unknown
And then I’ve got a couple things. 18 yeah, yeah. You could be on there. Yep. Like life. Yep. But thinking specifically about knowledge this is important. We’ve already introduced. But God doesn’t know things as receiving from them their intelligibility. You know not like our, our knowledge has a perceptive quality a theoretical knowledge of like I come to something and I perceive it, it I depend to respond to it with my mind.
00:22:08:02 – 00:22:22:18
Unknown
It’s a different kind of knowledge, you could say with God. Yeah. So in the case of God, the truth of things is the fruit of his knowing. It’s like practice. It’s like it has a sort of practical knowledge to in the sense that I will I know this to be true because I’m going to make it true. Yeah.
00:22:22:18 – 00:22:41:10
Unknown
So, God, you can think about it this way. Picture an artist like Hudson River Valley. He’s up on a bluff, you know, like north of West Point. And he’s looking down the valley. Leaves the landscape on the basis of that landscape. He has a notion of what he intends to realize in the medium. And then he grabs his watercolors or his whatever.
00:22:41:15 – 00:23:03:06
Unknown
And then he paints on canvas. So you have the thing which takes up residence in his mind which he then projects in the medium. In the case of God he doesn’t look at anything outside of him. Yeah. He looks to himself. Yeah. And in looking at his divine nature, paints himself all of the ways in which limited creatures share in his divine life.
00:23:03:08 – 00:23:27:20
Unknown
And he realizes them in creation. Yep. So God knows all of the ways in which creation can limited share in his divine life. To some, he conjoins his will, to some he does not. We refer to the former’s ideas or exemplars. And the other notion arises. So when God knows things, he knows them in himself, and he realizes them, so they are true in him and then true in themselves.
00:23:27:20 – 00:23:44:21
Unknown
And we come before those things and learn something of them and perceive them as. And we are those things, and we are those things and appreciate it. Then from a certain vantage, whereas in the case of God, God’s not like learning from them. Yep. God is giving them their very being. Yeah okay. So God’s knowledge is creative.
00:23:44:23 – 00:24:03:18
Unknown
Active realizing of the being of the things. And so yeah. Yeah. And that’s going to get us to Providence as a sort of I like this painting metaphor, this idea that he’s painting himself and painting the glory, his glory in these different shades and different colors, different textures and different all this kind of stuff that God is.
00:24:03:18 – 00:24:29:15
Unknown
This artistic creativity, of course, creates you creation of nothing out of himself, right? Not as is extending, but rather he’s painting himself and creating, from his ideas of himself and knowledge and love of himself. And then it appears in this canvas that is called life in the sort of dramatic fashion which I like that lot. So it gets to the sense that he’s he’s painting, he’s working out, he’s he’s project.
00:24:29:16 – 00:24:51:03
Unknown
He’s, he’s creating, and he’s governing because he’s in charge. So then like in thinking about the divine will and this is in association with divine creation. God is good. Right. In the sense that like when we talk about good, we’re like, I don’t know exactly what’s going on, but I desire it represents a certain perfection. I tend towards it in the case of it, like in the case of God, he just is his goodness.
00:24:51:03 – 00:25:16:21
Unknown
So we’ve said that like God is teeming with life, God is overflowing with beatitude. He doesn’t need to create, but he chooses to create so as to afford creation a share in his divine life. Yeah. Like it doesn’t need us. God doesn’t lack for anything that we supply. Yeah, but God conjoins his will to those notions which he wants to realize in creation, so as to invite those creatures into a participation in his divine life.
00:25:17:03 – 00:25:37:23
Unknown
All right. So God’s purposes in this world are good. First Timothy two four God desires that all be saved. And come to the knowledge of the truth. Yeah. So God knows things in himself and realizes things in creation. Yeah. Wills for them. The good he wills a certain provision of the good for those creatures as pertaining to his, their salvation.
00:25:37:23 – 00:25:59:01
Unknown
Yeah. Okay. So this like sets us up basically for an idea of providence. Yeah. Which is God’s notion of the orchestration of all things in creation as they are intended to return to him. Yeah, but God’s providence, it also takes account of those three creatures. Yep, yep. Themselves have been afforded with the choosing power. Yeah. So God wills that necessary things happen.
00:25:59:01 – 00:26:23:23
Unknown
Necessary. But that three things are contingent. Things happen freely or contingently. Yeah. That doesn’t will a best possible world. God wills a good world in which his glory is made manifest, in which our salvation is communicated, and he affords us in our freedom the capacity to recognize that and respond to that. Okay. So God wills that it transpires through the exercise of our freedom.
00:26:24:01 – 00:26:44:20
Unknown
Yeah. All right. So God is not as it were thrown for a loop. When we choose against, you know, plan takes account of the fact that we can and do choose against. Yeah. Even that is part of the orchestration of all things to his glory and our salvation. Yeah. It’s good to fit. It’s good to fit. So his choice of of those for salvation, and a permission of those for damnation.
00:26:44:20 – 00:27:01:03
Unknown
Right, is fitted in this one grander scheme of who he is and how he acts. And then to his desiring, his acting out of love and all these in all these ways of Providence, it’s fitted. 22 is providence, 23 is predestination an application of providence to supernatural life? I also think this is for the unlettered boys out there.
00:27:01:05 – 00:27:21:17
Unknown
This is nice that we don’t interact, with causality, in a modal way. We can’t change the modal structure. So necessary, you said. Or contingency or just actuality. Like, things have a modal structure that I have to direct with. So that I. I can’t change them. I can’t twiddle and say, well, I want this thing to be contingent, that it’s raining today.
00:27:21:23 – 00:27:45:12
Unknown
Yeah. No, no, it just is contingent raining today or like, you know what? I want it necessarily to be the case that it rains today. Like I can work or I want it necessarily to be the case that this person loves me. I can’t do that. I don’t have the ability to twiddle with the modal nature of things, whether they’re by necessary truths like mathematics or contingent truths, like physical things or, you know, choices.
00:27:45:14 – 00:27:46:03
Unknown
But
00:27:46:03 – 00:28:07:23
Unknown
God, since everything is at his summons, in his control, he gets to choose not only that things happen, but the way they happen. That’s where you get the modal modality, the modal structure, whether the necessity or contingency and he’s not like, again, handicapped or hindered by well, if it’s going to happen, it has to happen. There’s no he chooses that way and God chooses that as rational creatures.
00:28:07:23 – 00:28:33:19
Unknown
He wants us to come to him freely, but his causality is working again in that modality. Whereas I, I put up with you freely choosing to hang out with me. And I have to like, you know, offer things and kind of play around and hope for the best. No, God’s in there at every level of being. And since contingency, necessity or levels of being, modes of being, therefore he’s got total control over how those things happen to.
00:28:33:21 – 00:28:43:20
Unknown
So the predestination is, is again an outworking of not only his general providence, but also the special providence of eternity that doesn’t run roughshod over our freedom,
00:28:43:20 – 00:28:51:22
Unknown
but not in the sense of like he allows it to be free, and then he’s just a really good chess player or allows to be free. But he’s going to win us over at the end.
00:28:51:22 – 00:29:13:06
Unknown
This kind of stuff. No, no, no, he he allows us to be free because that’s how he chooses to bring about his plan in bringing us to eternal salvation or allowing us, to to reject him. Yeah. Okay. But that’s. Yeah. Final to get to the some final now that we’ve reached 23 and we’ve got the hard parts, we’ve got left roughly two minutes left.
00:29:13:08 – 00:29:31:02
Unknown
But it’s important. But I think that this, this. Yeah. Then the actual. We’re not dodging the question, folks. We could talk a lot of predestination. Yeah. It’s like we need to realize that there are a couple of key principles that need to be held in mind if we’re going to think, you know, like, profitably about this issue, you’re gonna be prepared for it is
00:29:31:02 – 00:29:33:23
Unknown
so, I think original sin, God’s response, personal sin.
00:29:33:23 – 00:29:54:20
Unknown
God’s response? Yeah. Keep in mind, so God furnished our first parents with everything they needed in order to communicate the life of grace to their offspring. And our first parents chose against that. That’s our responsibility because we’re present in Adam’s nature. Were present in Adam’s choice. Were present in Adam’s loins. There’s, there’s a, there’s a choice that he made.
00:29:55:01 – 00:30:16:02
Unknown
Yeah. In solidarity with the whole of the human race, which would issue from him and his wife, and as a result of which were bound by that later episode. Yeah. But in in the sense that, like, our sinful solidarity. Yeah, devastating our graceful solidarity with Christ is how much more awesome on account of the fact that it’s against this.
00:30:16:04 – 00:30:36:14
Unknown
Yes. So like our sinful solidarity with Adam, it’s not necessary for God to work because God doesn’t need sin in order to operate. But it provides a beautiful backdrop against which the tale of redemption, the reality of redemption, is told forth most excellently. Yeah, everything bad God got to use doesn’t mean. But God can use to bring about something beautiful.
00:30:36:15 – 00:30:54:07
Unknown
Yeah. White shows up better against black Dominican. All right. So so, so we see in the offer of redemption and offer for all and you know, like people in the tradition have tried to say like oil redemption is offered to all those who accept it. And the church is always a firm. No. It’s offered to. Yeah.
00:30:54:07 – 00:31:16:07
Unknown
Okay. So then when it comes to personal sin we can choose against that. We can put up obstacles or hindrances to that. But the offer is on offer in a non-trivial way. Yeah. It’s kind of like hand waving over here. Saint Thomas likens it to the light of the sun which is always on. You know, question is whether we’ll permit the windows of yes gummed up or whether we’ll shutter the windows on that song.
00:31:16:09 – 00:31:40:04
Unknown
Yeah. So the idea is that he’s always giving us a grace, a certain grace of a certain sort. And grace is our daisy chain together, who’s giving us the grace to begin to pray in the wake of that grace will come other graces. And, you know, to his providence. But it’s our responsibility to address those obstacles and those hindrances within our limited competition, according to our limited resources, so that we can welcome those graces as they come in turn.
00:31:40:05 – 00:31:58:22
Unknown
And what is more, we can have hope, that is to say, a kind of certainty, a kind of confidence that God, who has begun a good work in us, we’ll see it to completion according to his providence, in his time as best you know, his glory and our salvation. So there’s a certainty associated with hope which participates the certainty associated with faith.
00:31:59:03 – 00:32:17:06
Unknown
Faith has a speculative certainty. You know, practical. Yeah. Like motivational certainty. And so I think that those things are all real and they’re non-trivial. We can’t just go back to the fact God knows what’s going to happen. So I’m just going to like lay on the couch or pick a favorite pool float or whatever else you know.
00:32:17:06 – 00:32:33:20
Unknown
Yeah I think those are the things that are important now. And I think that’s and I think it’s important the, the universal call that he wants all to be saved and he gives the grace for all those to be saved, sufficient in the sufficiency of grace, blah, blah. The important part is he he he wants to warm every rock so that every lizard can go on it.
00:32:33:20 – 00:32:40:09
Unknown
That’s why I like lizard on rocks. If the lizard choose not to step on that rock. But that rock is ready for warming, it’s ready to warm that body.
00:32:40:09 – 00:32:49:16
Unknown
So his grace is there on offer, and and we need not worry about, maybe. Well, maybe. Yeah. I’m not doing well because it wasn’t there. No, no.
00:32:49:17 – 00:33:12:17
Unknown
Is God offering grace? Is is God does God love you? Yeah. It does. God woman rocks. Yes. Find your son. Find yourself a rock. There you go. Okay. That’s another hard to leave. Hard to beat that image, right? It’s impossible because there’s nothing happier, than maybe. Well, the Saints. And then secondly, lose it on a warm rock.
00:33:12:19 – 00:33:35:05
Unknown
Everyone who’s seen this knows how delighted that is. It’s the closest thing on a natural level to the grace of heaven listener and warm rock. Okay, viewers, find yourself a rock. The Rock of ages. Here we go. Whatever. Thanks for tuning in. This episode of God’s Plane. I’ll. We’re getting there. If you want to like and subscribe, please do so in the normal channels.
00:33:35:05 – 00:33:50:15
Unknown
If you want to be a Patreon donor, we’d love that. Support us monthly. You can look at that in the show notes, all those things. But we have a special announcement. This is contingent. Not necessary. But it is for the glory of God. Hopefully we’ll see. Father Gregor, what do we got? Okay, here we go.
00:33:50:15 – 00:34:09:23
Unknown
So you’ve heard that there’s a jubilee of hope ongoing, and there are all kinds of events of events like this, based on my words arranged in Rome for the celebration thereof, one of which is the Jubilee of Youth. I’m struggling over here. The Jubilee of Youth, which goes from July, August 3rd and culminates in the canonization of Blessed Peter Giorgio society.
00:34:10:00 – 00:34:29:21
Unknown
So we’re going to have an unofficial gospel pilgrimage for the event. Oh, we’re not booking travel. We’re not booking accommodations. We’re just kind of showing up in the Eternal City and then having a great grand old time meet in Rome. Exactly. So you’re going to find, information about that at God’s ways to remain in the loop. So it looks like Father Patrick will be there.
00:34:29:21 – 00:34:47:13
Unknown
I will be there. Maybe someone else will be there. It’s hard to say at this stage of the game. But we’re going to send out updates of events that we’re participating in or planning so that we can squad up and enjoy the Jubilee together and proceed prayerfully, devoutly, intentionally towards the canonization of Blessed Pierre Georgio Frasatti and the celebration of the Jubilee of Hope.
00:34:47:15 – 00:35:01:13
Unknown
So details forthcoming. But pop into Godsplaining Board to get updates and to find out ways in which you can participate. Find your rock. Fantastic! Well know of our prayers for you. Please pray for us. We’ll catch you next time on Godsplaining.