Christ's knowledge about himself

http://www.taylormarshall.com/2013/04/did-baby-jesus-know-all-things-answer.html   read the full article  --here is an excerpt:

Question: Some have taught that Christ eventually "discovered" that He was the Messiah and Son of God. That He had a personal epiphany. This is actually a form of Arianism - a denial of His divine nature. Christ was communicating with the Holy Trinity even in the womb and He knew Who He was/is.  He always knew that He was the Second Person of the Trinity. Have you ever been taught that Christ was ignorant of His mission or identity

below: http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p122a3p1.htm#470
 472 This human soul that the Son of God assumed is endowed with a true human knowledge. As such, this knowledge could not in itself be unlimited: it was exercised in the historical conditions of his existence in space and time. This is why the Son of God could, when he became man, "increase in wisdom and in stature, and in favor with God and man",¹⁰¹ and would even have to inquire for himself about what one in the human condition can learn only from experience.¹⁰² This corresponded to the reality of his voluntary emptying of himself, taking "the form of a slave".¹⁰³
473 But at the same time, this truly human knowledge of God's Son expressed the divine life of his person.¹⁰⁴ "The human nature of God's Son, not by itself but by its union with the Word, knew and showed forth in itself everything that pertains to God."¹⁰⁵ Such is first of all the case with the intimate and immediate knowledge that the Son of God made man has of his Father.¹⁰⁶ The Son in his human knowledge also showed the divine penetration he had into the secret thoughts of human hearts.¹⁰⁷
474 By its union to the divine wisdom in the person of the Word incarnate, Christ enjoyed in his human knowledge the fullness of understanding of the eternal plans he had come to reveal.¹⁰⁸ What he admitted to not knowing in this area, he elsewhere declared himself not sent to reveal.¹⁰⁹

Love's importance

Told here by Thomas Keating in Awakenings :

Here is a true story about a psychiatric nurse who was told the lurid history of a certain patient who had just entered the hospital.

This man had committed a terrible crime. It was so terrible that he never wanted it known.

He had completed his long prison sentence and had come to the hospital in a dying condition. He could not believe that God could forgive his crime; hence, he resisted any form of reconciliation.

The chaplain tried to persuade him to trust God. He refused. Any thought of reconciliation awakened his self-hatred. It was more painful for him to think of forgiveness than to feel his self-hatred.

The psychiatric nurse showed him every courtesy. She tucked him in at night, provided him with little favors like flowers, remembered his birthday, asked about his family, and wrote him notes on her day off. Because his illness was prolonged, she developed a friendship with him.

Near the end, his closest friend came to see him and urged him to be reconciled with God. “Please don’t mention it!” the dying man pleaded. “God couldn’t possibly forgive me for what I have done.”

His friend kept urging, “God is good! He loves you. You can trust him.”

But nothing he said could penetrate the sick man’s defenses.

Finally the friend said in desperation, “Think how much love the nurse shows you. Couldn’t God do the same?”

The sick man acknowledged how grateful he was to the nurse who had shown him so much love, but he added, “If she knew what I have done, she too would reject me.”

His friend replied, “I must make a confession to you. When you first entered the hospital, I confided to her the entire story of your crime in every detail.”

The dying man looked at him in stunned astonishment. His defenses dissolved and his eyes filled with tears. “If she could love me,” he murmured, “knowing all that I have done, it must be true. God too can love me.”

- THOMAS KEATING

Galatians

see here: http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2009/12/justification-catholic-church-and-the-judaizers/

 Returning to the Old Covenant, when the New Covenant has been revealed, is to reject Christ, His atonement, and the grace that comes through His atonement. That’s just what St. Paul is saying in his letter to the Galatians.

image of God

quoting from http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2011/10/protestant-objections-to-the-catholic-doctrines-of-original-justice-and-original-sin/ :

 In Catholic theology, man has not lost the image of God; man lost the supernatural and preternatural gifts, but these were not natural to man. Man bears the image of God by nature. So every fallen man still bears the image of God as a rational creature by nature.

later in the same article:

 To be made in the image of God is to be rational, capable of knowing and loving. But that does not entail that man by nature is ordered to the Beatific Vision, which is God’s own vision of Himself. Otherwise, God could never create any rational creature. To be rational would simply mean to be God. But God has created rational creatures, and these creatures are not Himself. They are ordered by nature to a natural end, but ordered by God’s gracious condescension and infinitely generous invitation to the supernatural end of the Beatific Vision, i.e. sharing in God’s own internal Eternal Life.¹⁰

conscience

the first long quote is from a Tumblr blod fatherangel

fatherangel

fatherangel

What is a Catholic conscience?

notunprepared responded to the post on Cafeteria Catholics: 

Just to throw a bit of a spanner in the works here:

Isn’t people picking and choosing the beliefs they have (especially on controversial issues) just them being true to their consciences a lot of the time?

I mean, my conscience tells me to disagree with Catholic doctrines all the time, yet the conscience is meant to be where we’re ‘closest to God’…so is the Church wrong? Or is my conscience wrong? Or everyone’s wrong?

Not confusing at all.

Very good questions, notunprepared. If I may, let’s go to a pretty hard example. Your friend is promoted to a very sensitive level of Homeland Security, and is overseeing a prisoner recently apprehended. He’s a 22 year old Moslem  who’s worked with Al-Quaeda and who knows of an impending attack on the American people. 

Your Catholic friend respects you more than anyone else and informs you that his superiors have ordered him to oversee the torture of this young man with even more sophisticated techniques, which are sure to gain results. Your friend says, “What should I do, as a Catholic, do in this case?”

What do you say? “You know what? Your job is security and interrogation, and your government hired you to do this, so you owe it to them to do it, do it well, and get the job done. Maybe you’ll save a lot of lives.” In other words, just do whatever is going to be good for you.

Or do you say, “Just do what your conscience tells you to do.” In that case, your friend says, “Well, my conscience tells me don’t rock the boat and I’m just torturing one person. It’s not I’m dropping a nuclear bomb.” The only thing, if the friend had a conscience that would mysteriously spit out these wise answers all on its own, they would have never come to you seeking advice!

Finally, would you be inspired, for the sake of friendship and faith, to confront your friend with the issues? “You know, I’m going to be really honest. We are Catholics. We do not believe in torturing people, first of all. We don’t poke, prod, twist, and make people do blood curdling screams at the top of their voice. Remember the Gospel of Life we learned from the Church? Remember the sanctity of life and the dignity of the human body as a temple of God? And how many times has our government told us that “this is the person who will spill the beans” only to leave a trail of scarred bodies and broken minds from our “enhanced techniques of interrogation?”

“Honestly, I think you should put your foot down and say that the law was supposed to be changed and we weren’t supposed to stand by anymore and accept this. I think you should let people know that there are certain things you just won’t to do people, because even if they gave results, which they don’t often give, these actions against handcuffed and tied up prisoners simply lowers us to the level of the evil people we are supposed to be fighting.”

Conscience is like a chalkboard. A person’s conscience takes in moral knowledge (from the Latin words, cum+scientia, meaning “with wisdom”) of right and wrong from various sources, various people writing on that chalkboard, so that at a future date it can be a beacon for doing what is right.

A conscience can be well formed with God’s Word and the infallible guidance of the Church, or it can be warped, twisted, and acting on ignorance and peer pressure.

So yes, we are supposed to pick and choose as Catholics, but guided by the wisdom of our Church’s moral heritage and the sure guidance of the saints. Otherwise, we are picking and choosing what may be erroneous, and a conscience can be severely in error and because of that, harming the person or harming others damaged by the erroneous actions.

We are not closest to God when we are following our conscience. We are closest to God when we are following Jesus. So your conscience needs to submit to Jesus and assent to the Church’s guidance, and in that assent and obedience, your conscience blossoms with wisdom and gives you the tools for doing what will make you holy. “You are my friends if you do what I command” (John 15:14). It is in finding God’s will through His revealed truth that the conscience finds the Truth and becomes worthy to command us. For if you conscience is confused from poor formation, it is like the blind leading the blind into the ditch. God bless and take care! Fr. Angel

from comment 31 http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2014/10/roots-of-the-reformation-what-it-means-for-today/#comment-139239

 1. Am I correct in understanding that you think if the church tells someone to light the match to burn a heretic, that the person (if their conscience is fully formed) is duty bound to obey the church and do it?

No, you would not be correct. But the question is also well-poisoning (e.g. “Am I correct in understanding that you’ve stopped beating your wife?”), because I’ve said nothing that would even suggest such a thing. In fact, I explicitly distinguished (in #15) between authentic Magisterial teaching on faith and morals on the one hand, and on the other hand prudential judgments, disciplines, or practices. Individually directed imperatives would fall under prudential judgments, which, as such do not bind the conscience.

2. For someone who chose to not light the match (out of their own personal conscientious objections), how would the church view them, or view their conscience? Would that person be considered anathema for disobeying the church? Or, would the church just consider that person to be in need of additional sanctification and forming of their conscience?

See below.

3. If the person is not duty-bound to light the match, and thus disobey the Church, why not?

The Church can bind the conscience absolutely regarding an act or belief only in teaching a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole Church. No imperative directed to an individual is conscience-binding as such. For this reason your language of “duty-bound” presupposes a duty that does not exist.

why death?

from comment 9  http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2011/10/protestant-objections-to-the-catholic-doctrines-of-original-justice-and-original-sin/
I think the slam-dunk proof that has been frequently brought up for the Catholic view of nature and grace is the fact Adam was created immortal – but we know only God is immortal by nature. Since Adam was a creature, he should have aged and his body decayed at least a little every day, eventually leading to death (even if he lived to 900 years! Oh wait, he did). The only way Adam, a creature, could halt bodily decay and death is a special grace added to his nature. Another proof is the fact Adam needed divine gifts like faith to be able to believe and be in communion with God, otherwise there couldtn’t have been an initial intimate communion with God. Yet another proof is the fact Paul calls us “Temples of the Holy Spirit,” meaning the Holy Spirit is SUPPOSED to dwell in man, and thus had to have originally indwelt in Adam, else Christians have a human capacity that Adam lacked.

from comment 10 --a slight correction to the above statement

 angels are contingent beings, but they are immortal by nature, because they are spirits, not material beings. Otherwise immortality would be a supernatural gift, and not a preternatural gift.

from comment 12:

Of the four preternatural gifts (i.e. integrity, immortality, impassibility, and infused knowledge), Christ received integrity (i.e. absence of concupiscence) and infused knowledge. He did not receive the other two, because it was His mission to suffer and die for our redemption.

from  comment 19 http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2011/10/protestant-objections-to-the-catholic-doctrines-of-original-justice-and-original-sin/ :

As explained in “Nature, Grace, and Man’s Supernatural End: Feingold, Kline, and Clark” and “Lawrence Feingold on Original Justice and Original Sin,” according to a Catholic anthropology, human nature is distinguished from the four preternatural gifts (i.e. integrity, infused knowledge, impassibility, and immortality), and from the supernatural gifts of faith, hope, agape and sanctifying grace. When Adam sinned, he retained human nature intact, but he lost all four preternatural gifts, and he lost all the supernatural gifts. Because he lost the supernatural gifts, he was without the life of God, and dead in sin, living for himself in the curved-inwardness of Godless narcissism. Because he lost the preternatural gift of integrity, he acquired the disorder of concupiscence. Because he lost the preternatural gift of infused knowledge, he acquired the condition of ignorance. Because he lost the preternatural gift of impassibility, he became subject to suffering. And because he lost the preternatural gift of immortality he became subject to death. All his offspring likewise were born in this condition, i.e. with human nature intact, but without these preternatural and supernatural gifts. To be conceived and born without the supernatural gifts is to be conceived and born in what is called “original sin.”

from the same article:

in the Council of Carthage (AD 418) which was approved by Pope Zosimus:

Can. 1. All the bishops established in the sacred synod of the Carthaginian Church have decided that whoever says that Adam, the first man, was made mortal, so that, whether he sinned or whether he did not sin, he would die in body, that is he would go out of the body not because of the merit of sin but by reason of the necessity of nature, let him be anathema.

[note the same article stated that sinless Adam's body was mortal---so how this agrees with the Can 1 is stated by another comment 26:

The Canon is speaking of Adam as endowed with the preternatural gift of immortality; the second statement is referring to his body.

from Fr. Hardon here http://www.therealpresence.org/archives/God/God_013.htm

 The three gifts of bodily immortality, integrity and infused knowledge are called preternatural because they are not strictly due to human nature but do not, of themselves, surpass the capacities and exigencies of created nature as such. In other words, they are not entitatively supernatural.

Bodily immortality is the converse of mortality, i.e., the possibility of separation of soul from body. Adam was therefore capable of not dying. Yet the gift was conditional, provided he did not sin; it was gratuitous, since Adam's nature by itself did not postulate this prerogative but came from the divine bounty; and it was participated, since only God enjoys essential immortality.

and in this same document:

 Besides the Councils of XVI Carthage (DB 101) and orange (DB 174), the Council of Trent defined that "If anyone does not profess that the first man Adam… when he disobeyed the command of God in the Garden of Paradise…incurred the death with which God had previously threatened him…let him be anathema" (DB 788).

Later on, when Baianism was condemned by the Church, among the rejected propositions was, the claim that "The immortality of the first man was not a gift of grace, but his natural condition" (DB 1078). This corresponds to another condemned proposition of Baius, to the effect that "The integrity found in first creation was not a gratuitous elevation of human nature, but its natural condition" (DB 1026).

and

Patristic Evidence

The Fathers unanimously taught as a matter of faith that man in his primeval condition was gifted with immortality of body and soul. Thus Theophilus of Antioch explained that God made man neither mortal nor immortal, but capable of either, depending on whether Adam would sin or not (RJ 184). Tatian describes the Word of God “making man a sharer in His own divine immortality" (RJ 156). According to St. Cyprian, with the advent of the first sin there disappeared both man's integrity of body and immortality, which were a special grace of God (RJ 566). St. Athanasius taught that men who are by nature mortal would have been immortal, had they not sinned, thus rising superior to the powers of nature by the power of the Word of God (RJ 750). St. Ambrose says that God did not make death, but imposed it upon man as a penalty for sin, so that now he must return to the earth from which he came (RJ 1325). And St. Augustine held that man was mortal because he was able to die, immortal because he was able not to die, so that he was mortal conditionenaturae and immortal beneficio Dei (RJ 1699).

A Protestant answer found here http://www.ligonier.org/learn/devotionals/why-do-christians-die/

'There are many answers to this question. First, while the penalty for the sin of Christians has been paid, the Lord has not yet removed the presence and effects of sin from creation. Creation is groaning, waiting for the adoption of God’s children, which will be plain to all when our bodies are raised from the grave (Rom. 8:18–23). The full benefits of Christ’s work will not be consummated until He returns to bring the new heaven and earth (Rev. 21). We will suffer the results of sin until then, but we should be glad God did not wrap up His plan two thousand years ago. If He had done so, you and I would never have existed or seen His glorious grace.

Our deaths, as the Heidelberg Catechism states, do not pay the debt for our sins. Instead, they mark the point at which we enter directly into the presence of Christ (Phil. 1:21–23). The death of Christians is holy and precious to God. When we die, He receives us into heaven, where we rest before Him until the final resurrection.

And there is this:

Westminster Larger Catechism of 1647:

Q. 85. Death being the wages of sin, why are not the righteous delivered from death, seeing all their sins are forgiven in Christ?

A. The righteous shall be delivered from death itself at the last day, and even in death are delivered from the sting and curse of it; so that, although they die, yet it is out of God’s love, to free them perfectly from sin and misery, and to make them capable of further communion with Christ in glory, which they then enter upon.

In this post is a partial answer http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2009/07/the-gospel-and-the-meaning-of-life/  below:

And yet He left in them certain effects of sin, the disorder of their lower appetites, and the susceptibility of their bodies to suffering and death. Why did He do that? To help them see that their true end is not this world, and to give them an opportunity for greater merit.¹⁰ The greater the trial, the greater the merit of the obedience through that trial.

Through the sin of Adam we all are born in a state of what is called “original sin.” That means that we are born deprived of the life and righteousness of God, darkened and separated from that for which we were originally made, i.e. fellowship with God. We are born without sanctifying grace.¹¹

So how do we receive sanctifying grace? Through Baptism, and subsequently through the Eucharist and the other five sacraments. Why through the sacraments? Because Christ, by His atonement on the cross, has merited this grace for us, and has established the sacraments as the means by which His grace would be given to us, in His Mystical Body, the Church. That is why we baptize babies, for through baptism they receive the sanctifying grace (i.e. participation in the divine life) that was merited for them by Christ on the cross, and thus their original sin is removed. This grace which is the participation in the divine nature, is absolutely essential for us to attain the Beatific Vision.

The message of the gospel is that through the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, the way to the Beatific Vision is open to all, by the grace that is given to all who believe and are baptized. Through Christ, the purpose for which we were created and our final ultimate end (i.e. the Beatific Vision) is opened up to us as a gracious gift.¹²

And yet this present life remains for us. Why? If the Beatific Vision is that for which we were created and that which we seek, then why are we here now? For the very same reason that Adam and Eve were placed in the Garden. This present life is for us a period of testing. If this present life were not a period of testing, then there would be no reason for us to be here, rather than in Heaven.¹³ But grace perfects nature; grace does not destroy nature. And so the grace that comes to us from Christ does not rob us of the gift and opportunity to participate in freely choosing and contributing to our own eternal end. This is the same gift given to Adam and Eve, and it is not lost in the New Covenant established by the Second Adam. The grace that comes to us from Christ, through the sacraments He has instituted in the New Covenant, vivifies and strengthens us, enabling us to be victorious through the test, in the midst of the trials and temptations and sufferings of this life.
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Not everyone in heaven is equally happy. Some are more blessed (i.e. happier) than others. Does that mean that some people in heaven are unhappy? No. Everyone in heaven is perfectly happy. As an illustration, consider a series of cups on a table. Each cup is a different size and thus is capable of containing a different volume, and each cup is filled completely to the brim. Are they all perfectly full? Yes. Do they each contain the same amount? No. Some contain more than others. Likewise, in heaven while all souls will be perfectly happy (i.e. filled ‘to the brim’ with love for God), some souls will have a greater capacity to love God, and since the degree of happiness depends upon the degree of love, therefore those who have a greater capacity to love God are happier than those who capacity to love God is less. How does that relate to our present life? Our capacity to love God in heaven is directly related to our choices here on earth. The more we love Him (and love others for His sake) here during this life, the more we will be capable of loving Him in heaven, and thus the happier we will be in heaven eternally.¹⁵ When we are in a state of grace, our acts done out of love for God merit more grace (i.e. a greater participation in the divine nature), and thus greater charity. And in this way, those who in grace live lives of loving obedience and sacrifice to God as Father, merit a greater eternal happiness.
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This relation between our present life and the life to come is the condition for the meaningfulness of our sufferings in this present life. The gospel shows us that suffering is an opportunity given to us to participate in our future blessedness by offering our present sufferings, in union with Christ’s sufferings, to God in self-giving sacrifice. Our suffering then takes on a whole different dimension, transformed from the occasion of a fist-shaking interrogation of God or cause for doubting His goodness or existence into the greatest opportunity to show Him trust and self-donation, without the least futility, knowing that it will be repaid a hundred fold.¹⁶This is why the Christian martyrs rejoiced when they were chosen for martydom, and why after being flogged the Apostles went away “rejoicing that they had been considered worthy to suffer shame for His name.”¹⁷ Apart from the Gospel, much of our suffering seems gratuitous and even sinister. But in the light of the Gospel we see that our suffering is a gift, a gift of the same sort as this present life, but even greater. It is the gift of an opportunity to give ourselves entirely to God in the greatest possible expression of love, i.e. sacrifice: “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.”¹⁸
.......
Likewise, not only does everything we do have meaning, every thing that we do out of loving obedience to God increases the perfect happiness that we will have in beholding God in the Beatific Vision. Every day is an opportunity, among the limited opportunity that is our short life on earth, to serve God in loving sacrifice and obedience. Every day is a gift from God to participate in the preparation of our own eternal state, by giving ourselves to God freely and lovingly. In this way the Eternal Life manifested in the gospel makes every choice and decision in our present life eternally meaningful. The Gospel not only saves us from hell by opening to us the perfect happiness of the Beatific Vision; through the gospel our every choice and every sacrifice have eternal significance.

also here: http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2009/08/a-catholic-reflection-on-the-meaning-of-suffering/

this deals with why we are allowed to suffer--for example point 4 in this:

(4) To give us an opportunity to love God, to give God glory, to merit glory, and to participate in His work of redemption

With respect to suffering and evil, Christianity turns the atheistic position on its head. While the atheist sees suffering as evidence that God does not exist, the Christian sees suffering as a great gift from God. It is a gift of mercy by which we are being led to repentance and eternal life.³¹ It is also a gift by which we know that God is working some great good in us. In addition, it is another sort of divine gift, an opportunity to give something great to God, just as Christ did in accepting His sufferings. Finally, for a Catholic, suffering is an opportunity to participate in Christ’s sufferings, sharing in the fellowship of His sufferings.


also on this same post:

Contrast the Catholic perspective on suffering with that of what is called the “Health and Wealth” gospel. According to that position, since Christ on the cross paid the full price for the salvation of our soul and body, therefore, all Christians should be wealthy and healthy in this life. There is no point to suffering, because Christ has already suffered for us. All suffering must therefore be of the devil, due to a lack of faith. This is a logical extension of the error of monergism. The monergistic idea is that since Christ suffered for us, therefore we do not need to suffer. And since Christ’s suffering was redemptive, therefore our suffering is not redemptive. This position fails to recognize that in our suffering we are given the great gift, through our union with Christ, of participating in Christ’s own sufferings. Our suffering is not meaningless, but meaningful precisely because it is joined to Christ’s own sufferings, as a sharing in His suffering.

In Romans 8, St. Paul writes:

Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory. I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.³⁴

This is the gospel; it is a gospel of suffering. “If any man would come after me… let him take up his cross daily.”³⁵ Elsewhere Jesus says, “Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you the crown of life.”³⁶Only when we take up our cross can we begin to understand the meaning of redemptive suffering. We cannot see its meaning in the stance of resistance or distrust. And this is why the atheist cannot see it. Only from the stance of humble trust does the possibility of its meaning come into our field of vision.

For a Catholic, suffering is even an opportunity for merit. What do we mean by ‘merit’? Aquinas writes,

“Merit implies a certain equality of justice: hence the Apostle says (Romans 4:4): “Now to him that worketh, the reward is reckoned according to debt.” But when anyone by reason of his unjust will ascribes to himself something beyond his due, it is only just that he be deprived of something else which is his due; thus, “when a man steals a sheep he shall pay back four” (Exodus 22:1). And he is said to deserve it, inasmuch as his unjust will is chastised thereby. So likewise when any man through his just will has stripped himself of what he ought to have, he deserves that something further be granted to him as the reward of his just will. And hence it is written (Luke 14:11): “He that humbleth himself shall be exalted.”³⁷

In this way, by embracing the cross of suffering given to us in this life, those in a state of grace may merit an eternal reward. In 2 Thessalonians St. Paul says,

“We ourselves boast of you… for your steadfastness and faith in all your persecutions and in the afflictions which you are enduring. This is evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be made worthy of the Kingdom of God, for which you are suffering”³⁸

..................................

 According to the Church, one reason Christ does not remove concupiscence from us at baptism is precisely to allow us a greater opportunity for merit. By manfully resisting our disordered lower appetites, out of love for God, we merit a greater reward than would those without concupiscence.

........................

III. How do we participate in Christ’s Sufferings?

Because we are joined to Him, as members of His Body. Pope Pius XII wrote:

Because Christ the Head holds such an eminent position, one must not think that he does not require the help of the Body. What Paul said of the human organism is to be applied likewise to the Mystical Body: “The head cannot say to the feet: I have no need of you.” It is manifestly clear that the faithful need the help of the Divine Redeemer, for He has said: “Without me you can do nothing,” and according to the teaching of the Apostle every advance of this Mystical Body towards its perfection derives from Christ the Head. Yet this, also, must be held, marvelous though it may seem: Christ has need of His members. First, because the person of Jesus Christ is represented by the Supreme Pontiff, who in turn must call on others to share much of his solicitude lest he be overwhelmed by the burden of his pastoral office, and must be helped daily by the prayers of the Church. Moreover as our Savior does not rule the Church directly in a visible manner, He wills to be helped by the members of His Body in carrying out the work of redemption. That is not because He is indigent and weak, but rather because He has so willed it for the greater glory of His spotless Spouse. Dying on the Cross He left to His Church the immense treasury of the Redemption, towards which she contributed nothing. But when those graces come to be distributed, not only does He share this work of sanctification with His Church, but He wills that in some way it be due to her action. This is a deep mystery, and an inexhaustible subject of meditation, that the salvation of many depends on the prayers and voluntary penances which the members of the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ offer for this intention and on the cooperation of pastors of souls and of the faithful, especially of fathers and mothers of families, a cooperation which they must offer to our Divine Savior as though they were His associates.⁴²

Because we are joined to Christ, our suffering is joined with His, and participates in the Redemption He accomplished. The New Testament authors teach this same thing.

“If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.”⁴³

“For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.”⁴⁴

“We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For while we live we are always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh …. knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus.”⁴⁵

“That I may know him (Christ) and the power of his Resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that if possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.”⁴⁶

“Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I do my share on behalf of His body, which is the church, in filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions.⁴⁷

Does that mean that Christ’s work was insufficient? No, Christ’s work was sufficient for its purpose. But God has graciously allowed us to participate in Christ’s work of redeeming the world, the greatest of all God’s works"

and

"Offering it up

Spend enough time with Catholics, and you will hear the phrase, “Offer it up.” The phrase is typically heard as a reply to a list of personal woes. So what does this phrase mean? We are priests of God by our baptism.⁵³ We are not ministerial priests, who offer up the sacrifice of Christ upon the altar at holy Mass. But, as non-ministerial priests, we do offer something to God: our bodies, our actions, our labor, and even our sufferings.

“I appeal to you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.”⁵⁴

We offer up our lives and our sufferings formally, in the Mass, by consciously offering ourselves up with our sufferings, along with Christ to God the Father during the Offertory. Informally, we “offer it up” simply by asking God, in the midst of our suffering, to join our suffering to Christ’s, and to use our suffering."

The article concludes:

Conclusion

The relation between our present life and the life to come is the condition for the meaningfulness of our sufferings in this present life. The gospel shows us that suffering is an opportunity given to us to participate in our future blessedness by offering our present sufferings, in union with Christ’s sufferings, to God in self-giving sacrifice. Our suffering then takes on a whole different dimension, transformed from the occasion of a fist-shaking interrogation of God or cause for doubting His goodness or existence into the greatest opportunity to show Him trust and self-donation, without the least futility, knowing that it will be repaid a hundred fold. (Matt 19:26) This is why the Christian martyrs rejoiced when they were chosen for martyrdom, and why after being flogged the Apostles went away “rejoicing that they had been considered worthy to suffer shame for His name.” (Acts 5:41) Apart from the gospel, much of our suffering would seem gratuitous and even sinister. But in the light of the gospel we see that our suffering is a gift, a gift of the same sort as this present life, but even greater. It is the gift of an opportunity to give ourselves entirely to God in the greatest possible expression of love, i.e. sacrifice: “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.”

Jesus Christ, when He redeemed us with plentiful redemption, took not away the pains and sorrows which in such large proportion are woven together in the web of our mortal life. He transformed them into motives of virtue and occasions of merit; and no man can hope for eternal reward unless he follow in the blood-stained footprints of his Saviour. “If we suffer with Him, we shall also reign with Him.” Christ’s labors and sufferings, accepted of His own free will, have marvellously sweetened all suffering and all labor. And not only by His example, but by His grace and by the hope held forth of everlasting recompense, has He made pain and grief more easy to endure; “for that which is at present momentary and light of our tribulation, worketh for us above measure exceedingly an eternal weight of glory.”(Rerum Novarum, 21)

see also:
http://principiumunitatis.blogspot.com/2009/02/monocausalism-and-temporal-nihilism.html

and here http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2009/03/aquinas-and-trent-part-3/

In Articles 5 and 6 Aquinas argues that death and bodily defects are results of sin, and are not natural to man. According to Aquinas in Article 5, sin is the cause of death and of all bodily defects, because sin removed the original justice our first parents enjoyed. By this original justice the lower powers of the soul were held subject to reason, without any disorder whatsoever. But original justice was not only the ordered harmony of the powers of the soul to each other; it also included the subjection of the whole body to the soul, without any bodily defect.¹⁵  Therefore, by the loss of original justice, our first parents lost the perfect subjection of the body to the soul. This is why the body is now subject to defect and corruption (i.e. bodily decay).

We might then ask why, when all our sin, both original and actual, is removed at baptism, the defects of the body remain. Aquinas answers:

Both original and actual sin are removed by the same cause that removes these defects, according to the Apostle (Romans 8:11): “He . . . shall quicken . . . your mortal bodies, because of His Spirit that dwelleth in you”: but each is done according to the order of Divine wisdom, at a fitting time. Because it is right that we should first of all be conformed to Christ’s sufferings, before attaining to the immortality and impassibility of glory, which was begun in Him, and by Him acquired for us. Hence it behooves that our bodies should remain, for a time, subject to suffering, in order that we may merit the impassibility of glory, in conformity with Christ.¹⁶

 According to Aquinas God does not without reason allow us to suffer in these decaying bodies during this present life. Through our suffering, we are conformed to Christ’s sufferings, and may merit the impassibility of glory, in conformity with Christ.

...........................................

In like manner the human body is the matter chosen by nature in respect of its being of a mixed temperament, in order that it may be most suitable as an organ of touch and of the other sensitive and motive powers. Whereas the fact that it is corruptible is due to a condition of matter, and is not chosen by nature: indeed nature would choose an incorruptible matter if it could. But God, to Whom every nature is subject, in forming man supplied the defect of nature, and by the gift of original justice, gave the body a certain incorruptibility, as was stated in the I, 97, 1. It is in this sense that it is said that “God made not death,” and that death is the punishment of sin.¹⁹

Just as iron is breakable and disposed to rust, though those are not the qualities for which it is chosen to be the knife’s matter, so likewise the body is corruptible due to a condition of matter (for matter is naturally corruptible) though its corruptibility was not the reason it was chosen to be that which the soul informed. More suited to the nature of the soul would have been an incorruptible body. But in forming man, God supplied [supplevit] the defect of nature [defectum naturae], and by the gift of original justice, which ordered the corruptible body to the incorruptible soul, gave to the body a certain incorruptibility [incorruptibilitatem quandam]. By “certain incorruptibility” here Aquinas means a mediated incorruptibility, one that is extrinsic to the body as such, and dependent upon its ordered  relation to something else. By the gift of original justice the body was not made intrinsically incorruptible, but by this gift the body was made incorruptible-by-relation to the soul. So when Adam and Eve forfeited their original justice through sin, they thereby forfeited the mediated incorruptibility their bodies had enjoyed. Death thus entered into the world, through sin.

also"

1 Corinthians 15:25-28

Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (RSVCE)

25 For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. 26 The last enemy to be destroyed is death. 27 “For God[a] has put all things in subjection under his feet.” But when it says, “All things are put in subjection under him,” it is plain that he is excepted who put all things under him. 28 When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things under him, that God may be everything to every one.

consideration of the glory of God

from  http://principiumunitatis.blogspot.com/2009/02/gospel-and-paradox-of-glory.html

What is the underlying principle behind Michael's rejection of the notion that man may cooperate with grace? We can see it more clearly in his book Putting Amazing Back into Grace, where he writes:

"Why do we insist on having something to do with God's gift? Why can't we just say, "To God alone be glory" – and really mean it? Any reference at all to "our part" immediately tends to make for a salvation by works, not grace; hence, salvation would be a product of humans and God, rather than God alone." (p. 158)

Michael's concern is that the doctrine that man participates in his salvation takes some glory away from God, and gives it to man. This concern is based on three implicit philosophical assumptions:

(1) that God gets the most glory when God alone receives glory,

(2) that glory is the sort of thing that is lost by the giver when the giver gives it to others,

and

(3), that the degree of glory is determined entirely by the degree of causality exercised, such that the greater the causality exercised, the greater the glory.

But each of these three assumptions is not true. If (2) and (3) were true, then God would lose glory by creating creatures and giving them actual causal powers, since St. Paul tells us that creatures already have glory simply by the kind of nature that they have. (1 Cor 15:41) Moreover, if each of these three assumptions were true, then if God wished to maximize His glory, He would have either to avoid creating anything at all, or He would have to give only the illusion of causal powers to creatures, reserving all causality to Himself. This position is called occasionalism, and I have discussed it elsewhere.

 Let's consider what St. Thomas Aquinas says about this. Regarding our genuine participation in God's providential governance of the world, Aquinas argues that it is more perfect for God to give causality to creatures than to make creatures but withhold causality from them. (Aquinas's words are in green font.) 

"[T]here are certain intermediaries of God's providence; for He governs things inferior by superior, not on account of any defect in His power, but by reason of the abundance of His goodness; so that the dignity of causality is imparted even to creatures [ut dignitatem causalitatis etiam creaturis communicet]." (ST I Q.22 a.3) 

"If God governed alone, things would be deprived of the perfection of causality [subtraheretur perfectio causalis a rebus]." (ST I Q.103 a.6 ad.2) 

"Some have understood God to work in every agent in such a way that no created power has any effect in things, but that God alone is the ultimate cause of everything wrought; for instance, that it is not fire that gives heat, but God in the fire, and so forth. But this is impossible. First, because the order of cause and effect would be taken away from created things: and this would imply lack of power in the Creator: for it is due to the power of the cause, that it bestows active power on its effect. Secondly, because the active powers which are seen to exist in things, would be bestowed on things to no purpose, if these wrought nothing through them. Indeed, all things created would seem, in a way, to be purposeless, if they lacked an operation proper to them; since the purpose of everything is its operation. ... We must therefore understand that God works in things in such a manner that things have their proper operation." (ST I Q.105 a.5)(my emphasis) 

It takes a greater power to make a creature with actual causal powers than a virtual reality in which God is the only causal agent. Therefore, creating creatures that have actual causal powers gives God more glory than creating creatures that have no causal powers. Since *natural* causal activity on the part of creatures does not detract from God's glory but further reveals His great power and thus enhances his glory, so also the causal activity of rational creatures in cooperation with *grace* does not detract from God's glory, but likewise enhances it. Regarding our genuine participation in God's salvific work, Aquinas writes: 

"In this way God is helped by us; inasmuch as we execute His orders, according to 1 Corinthians 3:9: "We are God's co-adjutors." Nor is this on account of any defect in the power of God, but because He employs intermediary causes, in order that the beauty of order may be preserved in the universe; and also that He may communicate to creatures the dignity of causality [ut etiam creaturis dignitatem causalitatis communicet]." (ST I Q.23 a.8 ad.2)(my emphasis)

much more in the full article which concludes:

 Another possible objection is that St. Paul teaches that we are saved by faith and not works. (Romans 3:20, 28; 9:32, 11:6, Gal 2:16, 3:2,5,10) Was St. Paul denying human participation in our salvation, and thus implicitly endorsing temporal nihilism? No. The first thing to notice is that believing God is itself a cooperation with God, for it is not God who has faith, but man who believes, as a gift of God. Secondly, in these verses St. Paul is talking about works apart from [grace and faith]. He is not talking about the works that result from grace and faith. If we keep in mind the distinction between ungraced-works and graced-works, then we will recognize that we cannot assume that St. Paul's "grace and not works" dichotomy eliminates the salvific contribution of [graced] works in the life of the believer. 

When we recognize that God is given greater glory by our participation not only in the sufferings of Christ and in the salvation of others through our testimony to Christ's gospel, but also in our own salvation, then we do not need to fear that the gospel is at stake when the Church teaches that God has given us the privilege, gift, and responsibility of cooperating with Him in working out our salvation in fear and trembling. My hope and prayer is that in pursuing earnestly the resolution of that which is at the heart of what has kept Protestants and Catholics separated for almost 500 years, we may, with the aid of the Holy Spirit, receive from Christ the peace and unity He bestowed upon His Apostles when He said, "Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you." (St. John 14:27)

on choosing God

from comment 105 here http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2010/12/signs-of-predestination-a-catholic-discusses-election/   :

You wrote:

If we don’t chose then we make a liar of God. I see. Or we show our inpotence?

If we cannot choose, and yet God calls us to choose, then God is falsely implying that we can do something that we cannot do. But God cannot lie and therefore does not lie. Therefore, when God calls us, we can choose to obey, just as Mary “chose the better part” (Luke 10:42), and the Psalmist chose the faithful way (Ps 119:30), and the people of Israel chose to serve the Lord, according to the words of Joshua: “You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen for yourselves the LORD, to serve Him.” (Joshua 24:22)

We also have Jesus clearly saying that God choses us not we him.

You are referring to John 15:16, where Jesus says to His Apostles, “You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit.” Jesus is speaking about choosing the Apostles to be Apostles. He isn’t saying that all those who become Christians do not choose Christ.

How do we deal with this? Lutheran assert, and I would guess Calvinists, that “ought does not imply can”. We have this all over the OT. Follow the ten commandments! Do this! Don’t grumble! Does the law ever work? Can we be nagged into doing the right thing?

You assume that the OT is evidence that ought does not imply can. But that conclusion does not follow by necessity from the evidence. The fact that people under the law broke the law does not imply that through the grace God continually offered them they could not keep the law. This is how “Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his time” (Gen 6:9). This is how Job was blameless and upright. (Job 1:1,8; 2:3) This is how Joseph was a “righteous man.” (Mt. 1:19) This is how Abraham could have a discussion with God about the righteous and the wicked in Sodom; that conversation wouldn’t have been possible if all people are unrighteous. Does that mean that Noah never sinned? No, as Ecclesiastes 7:20 says, “there is not a righteous man on earth who continually does good and who never sins.” So Noah was both righteous and blameless, and yet not without sin. That’s because though he sinned venially, he didn’t sin mortally. And that is true of all the OT saints, who died in friendship with God. They fulfilled the law not necessarily in the letter, but in the spirit of the law, which is the essence of the law. And the spirit of the law is agape. Because they had agape, they fulfilled the law, for as St. Paul teaches, agape fulfills the law (Rom 13:8, 10; Gal 5:14, James 2:8).

The old testament is an illustration that we cannot follow the law.

The Old Testament shows us that without the grace of God we cannot keep the law. But in the saints of the Old Testament, we see that with grace we can follow the law — see the saints described in Hebrews 11.

Love, hope and all good things happen because he first loved us. When we know what Jesus means to us, we cannot but love and adore him and cherish our fellow Christians and in fact all the world by proclaiming and serving. Like in any relationship of love, there is no coercion. Coercion is a love killer. It produces wrath. We know this. We are all in relationships. This is so real and so simple.

I agree (with a qualification) that coercion is a love killer. That’s precisely why we can choose. If we couldn’t choose, then our service wouldn’t be love, because love is free. People reject Christ not only because they do not know what He did for them. The problem is not fundamentally a lack of knowledge, just as Adam and Eve’s sin was not due to a lack of knowledge. They sinned by freely choosing against what they knew to be right. The solution to sin is not merely knowledge, just as the solution to crime is not merely education. It requires new dispositions in the will, and this requires sanctifying grace, which Christ gives to us through the sacraments.

God’s grace and mercy creates the faith which receives him and his gifts. Faith is not a work. Hope is not a work.

No one can believe for you. Faith is a gift from God, but that doesn’t mean that you don’t choose to believe. We believe (it is our will that assents to the revelation of Jesus), but we are enabled to do this by grace. That is why unbelief is a sin, because we do it, and we know we shouldn’t do it. Likewise, hope is not entailed or necessitated by God’s promise, because people can choose not to hope, even while knowing the divine promises. Such a choice is called the sin of despair.

We can build up or faith and hope and love, by God’s means, his word and sacrament. I can go and be nourished and strengthened. I can pray for help in the empty beggars way. And I can know that in him I have everything. And in him I also have brothers and sister who come to him just as empty handed and who know that they have been made rich in the same undeserved way. These are the most profound relationships. I love these brothers and sister so much, I do want to die for them if needed (so help me God).

I understand.

But what comes first is knowing how much God loved us and how he chose us (everyone in the all encompassing, positive way–contra Calvin–never excluding or limiting.)

I don’t disagree.

The helping of the lifting. You see, the requirement that I do my part by helping lift poses two problems. It implies that the strong man is either not able to or willing to just simply do it for me.

You’re overlooking a third alternative. He is graciously giving you the gift of being allowed truly to participate in what He is doing, just as all men live and move and have their being in Him. God doesn’t move our hand to our mouth at the dinner table; He gives us the gift of being able truly to participate in His creation. And He does the same in the order of grace.

Secondly, I cannot know if I’ve done my part.

Actually you can, through an informed examination of conscience.

Back to Bryan, in this connection, he also said that God is not a glory-monger. In fact, scripture says all over that the glory is God’s. In Isaiah we have several times, that we will NOT give his glory to another, that He HIMSELF is Israels savior.

The meaning there is that God does not permit His people to give to any creature the adoration that belongs only to the Creator. It does not contradict all the verses I mentioned in #74 concerning our participation in His glory.

In fact, and to contradict Bryan, we kow we have the right theology when God gets all the glory. This is like a litmus test. Please, think about it.

Here again you are going beyond Scripture (while treating your extra-Scriptural opinion as though it were Scripture). Scripture never says that God should get all the glory, just as it never says “cleanliness is next to godliness.” If God were to get all the glory, then no one could share in His glory, and thus no one could go to heaven. As Catholics we say, “ad majorem Dei gloriam,” (to the greater glory of God). God is more greatly glorified when through His grace His saints are made glorious. That is most evident in the life of the saint whose feast we celebrate today, St. Thomas Aquinas.

also here http://principiumunitatis.blogspot.com/2009/02/gospel-and-paradox-of-glory.html

 the Council of Trent's teaching that "they who by sin had been cut off from God may be disposed through his quickening and helping grace to convert themselves to their own justification by freely assenting to and cooperating with that grace." Then, explaining the Catholic position, he writes:

So, while a person is not "able by his own free will and without the grace of God to move himself to justice in his sight," he can and must cooperate with grace.

That is correct. If we cannot cooperate with grace, then we are left with the temporal nihilism I described in my previous post. In Catholic doctrine, grace does not destroy nature but restores and perfects it. Grace works faith into our hearts, so that we desire (implicitly or explicitly) baptism. In that way we cooperate with the Holy Spirit; we are not dragged to the baptismal font by the Holy Spirit. The Spirit moves us, not by coercion or violence to our will but by drawing us, so that we freely choose to be baptized. (I'm speaking of adult baptisms here.) In baptism we receive the "washing of regeneration" that St. Paul speaks of in Titus 3:5, and in that font we are justified, having our sins washed away, and receiving within us the righteousness of Christ. This understanding of baptism is what we find both in the New Testament and in the Church Fathers, as I showed here. Likewise, this same cooperation between the Spirit and the baptized believer who has committed sin leads him to the sacrament of penance.