Viewpoint VIII

The Church teaches that: Endowed with a spiritual soul, with intellect and a free will, the human person is from his very conception ordered to God and destined for eternal beatitude. He pursues his perfection in seeking what is true and good. (Catechism, 1711, p. 426)

Predestination, for ages, has been a point of departure for conjectures concerning the “will of God” and the “free will” of human kind.

Taking the idea that “the human person, from his very conception is ordered to God, and is destined for eternal beatitude,” surely does not mean that the outcome is predetermined.

God does not make “straw men.”

We have our freedom from God to reject the end result by refusing his will and substituting our own will to the contrary.

Does God, who is omniscient, know what our fickle, free decisions are or will be? The answer to that question would have to be – yes!

When we say “thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (eternal beatitude), from the prayer our Savior gave us, we are asking that God prevent us from being lead into temptation, and deliver us from the evil of contradicting his will; primarily the rejection of his love.

We can never be free of God, but we are certainly free in God, our Creator; and in the flesh with Jesus Christ, God, our Redeemer and his triumph over death; and in the Holy Spirit, God, our Advocate from whom we know the truth.

The Spirit continuously suggests the truth in good conscience, a responsibility that all men and women of good will must follow so that truth may be known and not relatively surmised.

We are free to hold God in contempt for works of evil done in the name of religion, but we must remember that God did not, in effect, create ‘religion”. God in Christ instituted a church, a “Kingdom of God” through the Jews, which became known as a “religion”.

Intrinsic in Creation was inevitable man with a subconscious memory of the Creator brought into focus by the reality of non-being, and the difficulty of being-with-meaning.

Living a life of choice or free will, offers the opportunity of channeling the good rather than evil through thoughts and acts of reason, made available to all.

Many who support the modern “enlightened” idea of God’s noninvolvement in the affairs of men, either believe in predestination or in no God at all (atheism). God is not perceived to be with us here and now, although they are always with God since he is Spirit and Life. It is only human that ill will makes the distinction.

Feast of St. Thomas the Apostle 2009

“My Lord and my God” (Jn., 20: 28)

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