Sacrament of Penance (reconciliation/ confession)

http://ewtn.com/library/BISHOPS/GUIDEPEN.HTM

The Bible alone? Is this even Biblical? Sola Scriptura

Here is a good synopsis of the Catholic view: http://www.integratedcatholiclife.org/2015/08/deacon-bickerstaff-the-holy-bible-and-sacred-tradition-comprise-the-word-of-god/ 

Here is a brief excerpt--but the whole article is worth the read and explanation:

 Simply look at the following sequence:

• In prior times, God spoke to us through prophets in varied ways and through a succession of covenants.
• In present times God spoke to us through His Son.
• Divine Revelation was fulfilled, completed and perfected in the person of Jesus Christ, the Word of God. We await no further Divine Revelation.
• Jesus Christ gave this perfected revelation (the Deposit of the Faith) to the apostles.
• The deposit (word of God) has been passed on (transmitted) to us in writing (Sacred Scripture) and oral preaching (Sacred Tradition) from the apostles through their successors (the bishops).
• It is not by scripture alone that we receive God’s word. (cf. 2 Th 2:15)
• The authority to interpret and teach the Word is entrusted to the Church’s Magisterium. (cf. 1 Tim 3:15; Matthew 16; Matthew 18; 2 Peter)

for more links on this subject see: http://nannykim-catholicconsiderations.blogspot.com/2012/06/sola-and-solo-scriptura.html

Why a crucifix?

http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2011/01/images-of-jesus/

new heaven and new earth

from comment 7 found here http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2015/08/a-catholic-assessment-of-gregg-allisons-critique-of-the-hermeneutics-of-catholicism/

 My response this time will be even more brief. The Book of Revelation (21:5) tells us that Jesus Christ, since it is he who sits upon the throne, says, “I am making everything new.” My position as to what this means is the same as the Dutch Reformed theologian of the late 19th and early 20th century, the great Herman Bavinck: “All that is true, honorable, just, pure, pleasing, and commendable in the whole of creation, in heaven and on earth, is gathered up in the future city of God—renewed, re-created, boosted to its highest glory. The substance [of the city of God] is present in the creation. Just as the caterpillar becomes a butterfly, as carbon is converted into diamond, as the grain of wheat upon dying in the ground produces other grains of wheat, as all of nature revives in the spring and dresses up in celebrative clothing, as the believing community is formed out of Adam’s fallen race, as the resurrection body is raised from the body that is dead and buried in the earth, so too, by the re-creating power of Christ, the new heaven and the new earth will one day emerge from the fire-purged elements of this world, radiant in enduring glory and forever set free from the “bondage to decay” … [Rom. 8:21]. More glorious than this beautiful earth, more glorious than the earthly Jerusalem, more glorious even than paradise will be the glory of the new Jerusalem, whose architect and builder is God himself. The state of glory (status gloriae) will be no mere restoration (restauratie) of the state of nature (status naturae), but a re-formation that, thanks to the power of Christ, transforms all matter … into form, all potency into actuality (potential, actus), and presents the entire creation before the face of God, brilliant in unfading splendor and blossoming in a springtime of eternal youth. Sustantially nothing is lost.” I judge this to be the biblical view of creation, fall, redemption, and consummation; and this is not only the Reformed view but also the Catholic view. ...Of course God’s grace flows through the fallen structures in the sense of renewing, restoring, redirecting, transforming, fulfilling, perfecting, and so forth. The enduring structures of creation–post-fall–are the material through which grace flows. The creation itself is not the source of that grace; that source is God. 

Genesis. Does it contain Hebrew poetry?

Another discussion of this much debated idea : https://faculty.gordon.edu/hu/bi/ted_hildebrandt/otesources/01-genesis/text/articles-books/hummel_gen1_jasa.pdf

Then the following relates it as bordering on poetry: https://books.google.com/books?id=N6_uKRfEVQwC&pg=PA98&lpg=PA98&dq=is+Genesis+1-11+hebrew+poetry?&source=bl&ots=4eNV-vWNCx&sig=lNfErffyXTbnhClTwJdh7a6SR_s&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCIQ6AEwAjgUahUKEwjh1LzW28THAhUMmYAKHT1pDos#v=onepage&q=is%20Genesis%201-11%20hebrew%20poetry%3F&f=false

God's will and man's will--how related?

from comment 9 --a response to some questions concerning this subject found here http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2011/11/lawrence-feingold-on-gods-universal-salvific-will/#comment-178121
You wrote:

Rather, Aquinas believed that what God took into consideration was the greater good of the entire universe. That is to say, the way in which He desired to express His goodness to the fullest extent.

Nothing in the quotation you provided from St. Thomas even mentions antecedent or consequent will. So your claim that for St. Thomas, the distinction between antecedent and consequent will is based on taking into consideration either only the good of the individual (i.e. for the antecedent will) or also the good of the whole universe (i.e. for the consequent will), is an unsubstantiated claim.
Regarding this distinction (between God’s antecedent and consequent will) St. Thomas directly and explicitly ties it to the free choices of creatures, when, in answer to the question “Can the divine will be distinguished into antecedent and consequent?” he writes in Quaestiones disputatae de veritate:

In God’s operation in regard to creatures similar factors must be taken into account. Though in His operation He requires no matter, and created things originally without any pre-existing, matter, nevertheless He now works in the things which He first created, governing them in accordance with the nature which He previously gave them. And although He could remove from His creatures every obstacle by which they are made incapable of perfection, yet in the order of His wisdom He disposes of things conformably to their state, giving to each one in accordance with its own capacity.
That to which God has destined the creature as far as He is concerned is said to be willed by Him in a primary intention or antecedent will. But when the creature is held back from this end because of its own failure, God nonetheless fulfills in it that amount of goodness of which it is capable. This pertains to His secondary intention and is called His consequent will. Because, then, God has made all men for happiness, He is said to will the salvation of all by His antecedent will. But because some work against their own salvation, and the order of His wisdom does not admit of their attaining salvation in view of their failure, He fulfills in them in another way the demands of His goodness, damning them out of justice. As a result, falling short of the first order of His will, they thus slip into the second. And although they do not do God’s will, His will is still fulfilled in them. But the failure constituting sin, by which a person is made deserving of punishment here and now or in the future, is not itself willed by God with either an antecedent or a consequent will; it is merely permitted by Him. (QDV Q.23 a.2)

As St. Thomas explains, that to which God has destined the creature as far as God is concerned, is what is called God’s antecedent will. That’s not limited only to the individual creature’s good, nor does it disregard the common good. Rather, what the antecedent will does not take into consideration is the creature’s free response, as St. Thomas then goes on to explain. Because some persons freely work against their own salvation, and the order of God’s wisdom does not admit of their attaining salvation “in view of their failure,” [in view of their sin of freely rejecting grace, they cannot then be saved, given the redemptive economy God has established, by which those who freely and permanently reject grace are allowed to remain in that condition forever] they therefore receive just punishment, because they are the one’s who have damned themselves, by freely and definitively rejecting the grace He offered them.
And for St. Thomas this free choice against God’s antecedent will is precisely the basis for the difference between God’s antecedent and consequent will, the very question St. Thomas is answering in this article. When the creature’s choice diverges from God’s antecedent will, the creature receives God’s secondary intention, or consequent will. For St. Thomas the failure to correspond to the offered grace is neither God’s antecedent will nor His consequent will. Rather, for St. Thomas, this sinful failure (from us) is precisely that by which God’s antecedent will is distinguished from God’s consequent will. Regarding the rejection of grace St. Thomas says something similar in the SCG when he writes:

In fact, as far as He is concerned, God is ready to give grace to all; “indeed He wills all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth,” as is said in 1 Timothy (2:4). But those alone are deprived of grace who offer an obstacle within themselves to grace. (SCG III. 159)

And in the Quaestiones Quodlibetales St. Thomas writes:

God moves everything according to its manner. So divine motion is imparted to some things with necessity; however, it is imparted to the rational nature with liberty because the rational power is related to opposites. God so moves the human mind to the good, however, that a man can resist this motion. And so, that a man should prepare himself for grace is from God, but that he should lack grace does not have its cause from God but from the man…. (Quodlibetales I. Q.4 a.2 ad 2)

And this fits completely with and explains what St. Thomas says in ST I Q.19 a.6 about the basis for the distinction between antecedent and consequent will.
It would be a mistake to infer from any truth in ST I Q.23 a.5 ad 3 that what St. Thomas says in SCG III.159 and in QDV Q.23 a.2 and in ST I Q.19 a.6 is false. The manifestation of God’s goodness through the creation of free creatures capable of freely sinning and allowed to reject grace freely in an irrevocable, everlasting way does not mean or entail that the basis for the distinction between God’s antecedent and consequent will is not our sins. God’s desire to manifest His goodness most fully through a myriad of grades of being in creatures, thereby including the creation of free creatures capable of sin, does not mean or entail that the creatures’ free choice to reject the grace offered to Him is not the basis for the distinction between God’s antecedent and consequent will. His desire to manifest His goodness through the creation of such creatures makes the distinction possible, but the creatures’ free, sinful choices makes the distinction actual. If every free creature always freely chose to obey God, as Christ in His human will always perfectly obeyed God, there would be no distinction between God’s antecedent and consequent will; they would be one and the same.
You concluded:

Thus, to Aquinas, the consequent differed from the anticident will in that the consequent will considered the greater good of the universe.

The problem with that claim is that there is no evidence for it.

It was never the view of Aquinas that God first took into account our cooperation.

The problem with that claim is that what St. Thomas explicitly says directly refutes it.

Christ's two natural wills

 From Comment 276--bottom of comment found here:

Before the incarnation, Christ could not submit to the Father, because there is only one divine will, not one will submitted to another will, or one divine will equal in authority to another divine will. Submission requires at least two wills, as I explained in comment #269. Regarding Christ’s human will, at the moment of His conception in the womb of Mary and from every moment since then and forever more, Christ’s human will is subordinate to and perfectly submissive to the divine will.

Extended quote from here       

September 22nd, 2009 3:19 pm :
I have noticed in the biblical arguments put forward by the social trinitarians an implicit monothelitism (Christ had only one will) as a presupposition. On account of this presupposition, they tend to mistake NT passages having to do with Christ’s human will as teaching that Christ has a divine will numerically distinct from the Father’s will. In that respect, their rejection of the Fourth Lateran Council seems to be partly caused by their not accepting/recognizing the Sixth Ecumenical Council (680). The Sixth Ecumenical Council teaches that Christ has two “natural wills.” That entails that Christ’s divine will is a will of His divine nature. But there is only one divine nature, the very divine nature which each divine Person is. Hence, it follows from what this Council teaches that there is numerically only one divine will. So when social trinitarians speak of Christ submitting in His divine will to God the Father, they are already going against the Sixth Ecumenical Council.

If anyone does not confess properly and truly in accord with the holy Fathers that the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit are a Trinity in unity, and a unity in Trinity, that is, one God in three subsistences, consubstantial and of equal glory, one and the same Godhead, nature, substance, virtue, power, kingdom, authority, will, operation of the three, uncreated, without beginning, incomprehensible, immutable, creator and protector of all things, let him be condemned. (Lateran Council of 649, canon 1)

Thus, it follows that as we truly confess that He [Christ] has two natures or substances, that is the Godhead and the humanity, unfusedly, indivisibly, incommutably, so also He has both two natural wills and two natural operations, since the rule of piety instructs us that perfect God and perfect man is one and the same Lord Jesus Christ, because it is shown that the apostolic and evangelical tradition and the teaching of the holy Fathers, whom the holy, apostolic, and Catholic Church and the venerable Synods accept, have taught this. (Roman Council of 680, under Pope St. Agatho)

And briefly we shall intimate to your divinely instructed Piety, what the strength of our Apostolic faith contains, which we have received through Apostolic tradition and through the tradition of the Apostolical pontiffs, and that of the five holy general synods, through which the foundations of Christ’s Catholic Church have been strengthened and established; this then is the status and the regular tradition of our Evangelical and Apostolic faith, to wit, that as we confess the holy and inseparable Trinity, that is, the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, to be of one deity, of one nature and substance or essence, so we will profess also that it has one natural will, power, operation, domination, majesty, potency, and glory. …
For when we confess two natures and two natural wills, and two natural operations in our one Lord Jesus Christ, we do not assert that they are contrary or opposed one to the other (as those who err from the path of truth and accuse the apostolic tradition of doing. Far be this impiety from the hearts of the faithful!), nor as though separated (per se separated) in two persons or subsistences, but we say that as the same our Lord Jesus Christ has two natures so also he has two natural wills and operations, to wit, the divine and the human: the divine will and operation he has in common with the coessential Father from all eternity: the human, he has received from us, taken with our nature in time. This is the apostolic and evangelic tradition, which the spiritual mother of your most felicitous empire, the Apostolic Church of Christ, holds. This is the pure expression of piety. This is the true and immaculate profession of the Christian religion, not invented by human cunning, but which was taught by the Holy Ghost through the princes of the Apostles. …
Moreover, the Apostolic Church of Christ, the spiritual mother of your God-founded empire, confesses one Jesus Christ our Lord existing of and in two natures, and she maintains that his two natures, to wit, the divine and the human, exist in him unconfused even after their inseparable union, and she acknowledges that each of these natures of Christ is perfect in the proprieties of its nature, and she confesses that all things belonging to the proprieties of the natures are double, because the same our Lord Jesus Christ himself is both perfect God and perfect man, of two and in two natures: and after his wonderful Incarnation, his deity cannot be thought of without his humanity, nor his humanity without his deity. Consequently, therefore, according to the rule of the holy Catholic and Apostolic Church of Christ, she also confesses and preaches that there are in him two natural wills and two natural operations. For if anybody should mean a personal will, when in the holy Trinity there are said to be three Persons, it would be necessary that there should be asserted three personal wills, and three personal operations (which is absurd and truly profane). Since, as the truth of the Christian faith holds, the will is natural, where the one nature of the holy and inseparable Trinity is spoken of, it must be consistently understood that there is one natural will, and one natural operation. But when in truth we confess that in the one person of our Lord Jesus Christ the mediator between God and men, there are two natures (that is to say the divine and the human), even after his admirable union, just as we canonically confess the two natures of one and the same person, so too we confess his two natural wills and two natural operations.
But that the understanding of this truthful confession may become clear to your Piety’s mind from the God-inspired doctrine of the Old and the New Testament, (for your Clemency is incomparably more able to penetrate the meaning of the sacred Scriptures, than our littleness to set it forth in flowing words), our Lord Jesus Christ himself, who is true and perfect God, and true and perfect man, in his holy Gospels shews forth in some instances human things, in others, divine, and still in others both together, making a manifestation concerning himself in order that he might instruct his faithful to believe and preach that he is both true God and true man. Thus as man he prays to the Father to take away the cup of suffering, because in him our human nature was complete, sin only excepted, “Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.” And in another passage: “Not my will, but thine be done.”
If we wish to know the meaning of which testimony as explained by the holy and approved Fathers, and truly to understand what “my will,” what “thine” signify, the blessed Ambrose in his second book to the Emperor Gratian, of blessed memory, teaches us the meaning of this passage in these words, saying: “He then, receives my will, he takes my sorrow, I confidently call it sorrow as I am speaking of the cross, mine is the will, which he calls his, because he bears my sorrow as man, he spoke as a man, and therefore he says: ‘Not as I will but as thou wilt.'” Mine is the sadness which he has received according to my affection. See, most pious of princes, how clearly here this holy Father sets forth that the words our Lord used in his prayer, “Not my will,” pertain to his humanity; through which also he is said, according to the teaching of Blessed Paul the Apostle of the Gentiles, to have “become obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross.” Wherefore also it is taught us that he was obedient to his parents, which must piously be understood to refer to his voluntary obedience, not according to his divinity (by which he governs all things), but according to his humanity, by which he spontaneously submitted himself to his parents.
St. Luke the Evangelist likewise bears witness to the same thing, telling how the same our Lord Jesus Christ prayed according to his humanity to his Father, and said, “Father, if it be possible let the cup pass from me; nevertheless not my will but thine be done,”–which passage Athanasius, the Confessor of Christ, and Archbishop of the Church of Alexandria, in his book against Apollinaris the heretic, concerning the Trinity and the Incarnation, also understanding the wills to be two, thus explains: And when he says, “Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me, nevertheless not my will but thine be done,” and again, “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak;” he shews that there are two wills, the one human which is the will of the flesh, but the other divine. For his human will, out of the weakness of the flesh was fleeing away from the passion, but his divine will was ready for it. What truer explanation could be found? For how is it possible not to acknowledge in him two wills, to wit, a human and a divine, when in him, even after the inseparable union, there are two natures according to the definitions of the synods?
For John also, who leaned upon the Lord’s breast, his beloved disciple, shews forth the same self-restraint in these words: “I came down from heaven not to do mine own will but the will of the Father that sent me.” And again: “This is the will of him that sent me, that of all that he gave me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day.” Again he introduces the Lord as disputing with the Jews, and saying among other things: “I seek not mine own will, but the will of him that sent me.” On the meaning of which divine words blessed Augustine, a most illustrious doctor, thus writes in his book against Maximinus the Arian. He says, “When the Son says to the Father ‘Not what I will, but what thou wilt,’ what doth it profit thee, that thou broughtest thy words into subjection and sayest, It shews truly that his will was subject to his Father, as though we would deny that the will of man should be subject to the will of God? For that the Lord said this in his human nature, anyone will quickly see who studies attentively this place of the Gospel. For therein he says, ‘My soul is exceeding sorrowful even unto death.’ Can this possibly be said of the nature of the One Word? But, O man, who thinkest to make the nature of the Holy Ghost to groan, why do you say that the nature of the Only-begotten Word of God cannot be sad? But to prevent anyone arguing in this way, he does not say ‘I am sad;’ (and even if he had so said, it could properly only have been understood of his human nature) but he says ‘My soul is sad,’ which soul he has as man; however in this also which he said, ‘Not what I will’ he shewed that he willed something different from what the Father did, which he could not have done except in his human nature, since he did not introduce our infirmity into his divine nature, but would transfigure human affection. For had he not been made man, the Only Word could in no way have said to the Father, ‘Not what I will.’ For it could never be possible for that immutable nature to will anything different from what the Father willed. If you would but make this distinction, O ye Arians, ye would not be heretics.” …
From these truthful testimonies it is also demonstrated that these venerable fathers predicated in the one and the same Lord Jesus Christ two natural wills, viz.: a divine and a human, for when St. Gregory Nazianzen says,” The willing of that man who is understood to be the Saviour,” he shows that the human will of the Saviour was deified through its union with the Word, and therefore it is not contrary to God. So likewise he proves that he had a human, although deified will, and this same he had (as he teaches in what follows) as well as his divine will, which was one and the same with that of the Father. If therefore he had a divine and a deified will, he had also two wills. For what is divine by nature has no need of being deified; and what is deified is not truly divine by nature. (Letter of Pope St. Agatho to the Sixth Ecumenical Council)

Following the five holy and universal synods and the holy and accepted fathers, and defining in unison, it professes our lord Jesus Christ our true God, one of the holy Trinity, which is of one same being and is the source of life, to be perfect in divinity and perfect in humanity, the same truly God and truly man, of a rational soul and a body; consubstantial with the Father as regards his divinity, and the same consubstantial with us as regards his humanity, like us in all respects except for sin; begotten before the ages from the Father as regards his divinity, and in the last days the same for us and for our salvation from the holy Spirit and the virgin Mary, who is properly and truly called mother of God, as regards his humanity; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, only-begotten, acknowledged in two natures which undergo no confusion, no change, no separation, no division; at no point was the difference between the natures taken away through the union, but rather the property of both natures is preserved and comes together into a single subsistent being [in unam personam et in unam subsistentiam concurrente]; he is not parted or divided into two persons, but is one and the same only-begotten Son, Word of God, lord Jesus Christ, just as the prophets taught from the beginning about him, and as Jesus the Christ himself instructed us, and as the creed of the holy fathers handed it down to us.
And we proclaim equally two natural volitions or wills in him and two natural principles of action which undergo no division, no change, no partition, no confusion, in accordance with the teaching of the holy fathers. (Sixth Ecumenical Council, 680)

from the same blog from part of comment 287:

 " The notion that the Son in His divine will submits to the Father is entirely incompatible with Catholic doctrine. Grudem denies that Christ in His divine Personhood is equal in authority to God the Father, and claims instead that “God the Father has eternally had … primary authority among the members of the Trinity, and that the Son has eternally been subject to the Father’s authority.” But the Church has condemned the notion that there are grades or inequality in the Trinity. “It condemns also any others whatsoever who place grades or inequality in the Trinity.” (D 705) This can be seen also in the Lateran Council of AD 649, which taught:

Can. 1. If anyone does not confess properly and truly in accord with the holy Fathers that the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit [are a] Trinity in unity, and a unity in Trinity, that is, one God in three subsistences, consubstantial and of equal glory, one and the same Godhead, nature, substance, virtue, power, kingdom, authority, will, operation of the three, uncreated, without beginning, incomprehensible, immutable, creator and protector of all things, let him be condemned. (D 254)

The three Persons are one not only in nature, but also in “authority.” That could not be true if the Father had greater authority than the Son (in His divine nature) and the Spirit. There is only one divine will, and one divine operation, not three wills, or three operations. But in order for the Son (in His divine nature) and Spirit (in His divine nature) to submit to the Father, there would have to be three wills, and three divine operations, otherwise nothing would differentiate the act of the Son submitting to the Father from the act of the Spirit submitting to the Father and from the act of the Father exercising authority over the Son and the Spirit. This notion, by Grudem, Ware, and Starke, that the Son (in His divine nature) and the Spirit submit to the Father is in its implications a form of tritheism (polytheism) that reduces to the error of monarchianism which makes the Son and Spirit mere creatures). By giving the Son and Spirit separate operations from the Father (i.e. submitting to the Father), it makes them different beings from the Father, and thus makes this position like the position of the sixth century figure Johannes Philophonus, according to whom the three divine Persons had only specific unity, not numerical unity." [http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2013/11/sola-scriptura-redux-matthew-barrett-tradition-and-authority/

The Catholic Church - Builder of Civilization, Episode 4: The Galileo Case

Question about Romans 8 and Romans 7

from comment 470  http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2010/04/catholic-and-reformed-conceptions-of-the-atonement/

Or Romans 8:3-4, which talks about punishing sin in the flesh? How does this fit in your scheme?

The meaning is that through the grace that comes to us through Christ’s sacrifice, God did to sin what the law could not do to sin, that is, subdue and destroy sin, breaking its power, so that the righteous requirement of the law could be fulfilled in us who no longer live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit, through infused grace and agape. Here St. Paul writes metaphorically as though sin were a person, but strictly speaking sin is not a person. Sin is ‘condemned’ not in the sense that sin is punished for doing something wrong (because sin itself is not an agent and has no will), but in the sense of being conquered, defeated, and destroyed through the redemptive work of Christ by which He made satisfaction for our sins.

Also, regarding the necessity of the atonement, Jesus makes statements about it being necessary (couldn’t have been done another way); John 3:14 for instance is an example. How do you respond to that?

Again, see comment #19 above, where the different senses of ‘necessity’ are distinguished.


also from comment 527 http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2012/08/imputation-and-paradigms-a-reply-to-nicholas-batzig/#comment-162393     dealing withRomans 7 and *

\St. Paul here is describing the struggle with concupiscence (“law of the flesh”) which, though not itself sinful, inclines us to commit sin. This is not Lutheran nominalism – unless one brings that philosophical predisposition to the reading of Romans 7. He is not simultaneously in a state of mortal sin and “saved.” That is an impossibility since being “saved” means having sanctifying grace – and mortal sin drives out sanctifying grace.

The resolution of the tension in Romans 7 is found in the next chapter: “therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” — that is, for he who is filled with sanctifying grace. Being “in Christ Jesus” is just having sanctifying grace.

God is not a nominalist. God is truth, and those whom He saves really are saved – filled with sanctifying grace, which drives out mortal sin — though not concupiscence. God does not simply declare us righteous despite our sin (which would be contrary to the truth of our sinful condition), He actually makes us righteous with the infusion of a share in the Divine life.

I do agree that God is above philosophy, as He is above all creatures. But He is not above Himself and cannot tell a lie – cannot say a thing is that which it is not.

and from part of comment 531 at the same link:

 Paul is saying that there is ‘no condemnation for those who are in Christ,’ but he does not say that one cannot willfully separate himself from Christ through sin. Someone that is in Christ has Sanctifying Grace abiding in their soul, but this can be lost through Mortal Sin, which is a willful separation of one’s self from Christ. In essence, by committing Mortal Sin, you are turning away from Christ through personal action, thus it destroys charity in the will (thereby causing you to lose Sanctifying Grace). Such a person is no longer ‘in Christ’ and therefore in a state of condemnation. There is no contradiction; you cannot be both ‘in Christ’ and condemned, but neither can you commit Mortal Sin and remain ‘in Christ,’ until you repent and are restored. At least, that is my understanding of it.

Consider John 15 when Christ is speaking to the disciples:

““I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. 2 Every branch of mine that bears no fruit, he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. 3 You are already made clean by the word which I have spoken to you. 4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. 5 I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If a man does not abide in me, he is cast forth as a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire and burned. 7 If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you will, and it shall be done for you. 8 By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be my disciples. 9 As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you; abide in my love. 10 If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. 11 These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.”

Notice, every branch of his that bears no fruit is “taken away” and if one does not abide in Christ “he is cast forth as a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire and burned.”

This passage is perfectly consonant with the agape infusion paradigm, yet I cannot see how it could be coherently understood from an imputation standpoint. How can someone who is a ‘branch of mine’ (Christ’s words) be taken away because he lacks fruit. Furthermore, he says that keeping his commandments is a requirement for abiding in His love and for those that do not abide in him they are cast away and burned. If Christ’s righteousness is imputed to us (such that God only sees Christ’s perfect righteousness and not our sins), and this imputation cannot be lost through sinning of any sort, then this passage is completely incoherent. God removes and casts forth (or at least is threatening to here) someone for violations that He is going to somehow will Himself not to see? That makes no sense.

Also consider Hebrews 10:

“26 For if we sin deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, 27 but a fearful prospect of judgment, and a fury of fire which will consume the adversaries. 28 A man who has violated the law of Moses dies without mercy at the testimony of two or three witnesses.29 How much worse punishment do you think will be deserved by the man who has spurned the Son of God, and profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and outraged the Spirit of grace? 30 For we know him who said, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge his people.” 31 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”

One is not sanctified by the blood of the covenant unless they are ‘in Christ.’ So, if this person who ‘sins deliberately’ has received knowledge of the truth and has been sanctified by the blood of the covenant and now there ‘no longer remains a sacrifice for sins’ how else would you interpret this other than someone who had formerly been ‘in-Christ’ and then subsequently falling away through sin? See Hebrews 10:19-39 for context; the whole passage is an exhortation to perseverance.

Finally, what about 1 John 5:

“If any one sees his brother committing what is not a mortal sin, he will ask, and God will give him life for those whose sin is not mortal. There is sin which is mortal; I do not say that one is to pray for that.17 All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin which is not mortal.”

Note, other translations translate ‘mortal sin’ here as ‘sin unto death’ (KJV) or ‘sin leading to death’ (ESV) lest you be inclined to think ill of the Catholic translation.

I would say that 1 John 5:16-17 could not be any more clear that there is indeed ‘sin which is not mortal’ and ‘sin which is mortal’ that can be committed by a Christian; so clearly there are two types of sin (although the passage does not describe what exactly constitutes either). I don’t see how this passage could be read in any coherent or meaningful way from a Reformed perspective. Imputation leaves no room for any ‘sin unto death’ because you cannot lose your justification through sin (since you are covered extra nos by Christ’s righteousness).