Listen to this!
“Nobody will be lost unknowingly.” Our Lord’s words to Teresa of Avila. She was undergoing fears as to whether or not she was in the state of grace. (I’ve been told that we can’t really know for sure, we can hope, but we can’t really know for sure…Teresa must have been told this as well.)
Jesus said, “Daughter, light is very different from darkness. I am faithful. Nobody will be lost unknowingly.”
But listen to this!
Last week I discussed the graces of contemplative prayer, in this same passage from Teresa’s writings, taken from Magnificat, Our Lord explains the nature of union:
“Don’t think. daughter, that union lies in being very close to me. For those, too, who offend me are close, although they may not want to be.” (Did ya get that?)
“Neither does it consist in favors and consolations in prayer, even though these may reach a very sublime degree. Though these favors may come from me, they are often a means for winning souls that are not in a state of grace.” - Teresa of Avila
May 10th, 2007 at 6:56 am
Isn’t that frustrating for those of us who just “have to know?!” Living in faith (that space of perpetually NOT knowing) & reliance upon Divine Mercy wreaks havoc on the compulsive planners amongst us. God’s a genius. What else could bring us to our knees in humility as quickly?
May 10th, 2007 at 8:55 am
We can know with moral certitude but cannot know with absolute certitude per Trent and Scripture:
Moral certitude: 1Jo 5:19 KJV “[And] we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness.”…KJV Rom 5:1 “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ..”
Lack of absolute certitude:
I Cor. 4:4 NAB version ” I am not conscious of anything against me, but I do not thereby stand acquitted; the one who judges me is the Lord.”
Trent 6th session sect.IX:
” For even as no pious person ought to doubt of the mercy of God, of the merit of Christ, and of the virtue and efficacy of the sacraments, even so each one, when he regards himself, and his own weakness and indisposition, may have fear and apprehension touching his own grace; seeing that no one can know with a certainty of faith, which cannot be subject to error, that he has obtained the grace of God.”
May 10th, 2007 at 8:59 am
Thanks very much Bill, good instruction and clarificaation!
I hope in His mercy/
May 10th, 2007 at 10:44 am
You’re welcome. I first became aware of the issue long ago while reading Saint John of the Cross who quoted his version of the OT passage Ecclesiastes.9:1…. “No one knows whether he be worthy of the love or the hatred of God”…the NAB reads Ecclesiastes 9:1 “Love from hatred man cannot tell; both appear equally vain..”
By the way, Aquinas gives a brilliant explanation of why such words as “hatred” “wrath” and “anger” are anthropomorphisms about God and not literally true of HIM who does not have any of those three emotions or He would be constantly changing and would not be Love essentially… scripture says “there is in Him no change nor shadow of alteration”… “I am the Lord and I change not.”
Aquinas said that “hatred..wrath…and anger” tell us metaphorically of God’s will (not emotions) which Will can be dire as a consequence of peoples’ choices and that direness of His will is best symbolized for humans by emotions that He does not have literally or He would be a vortex of change itself.
May 10th, 2007 at 7:54 pm
Are we to believe that God, who we are made in the image of, doesn’t have emotions? He CREATED emotions. It is, in my opinion, the fact that due to our fallen natures, our rampant, unchecked emotions can wreak havoc on our lives & the lives of others.
Jesus cried. & the father of the prodigal son was thrilled when his son came home. How can WE, the creaTION, limit HIM… the CreaTOR’s emotions, or any other part of His being?
We can’t. WE are the finite ones, not Him.
May 11th, 2007 at 6:18 am
rhapsody
God is Love according to John’s epistle. That means that He is constant love not changing love like us….though by the choice of His willing a just universe, He indirectly wills into existence just punishment. Christ as incarnate down here had changing emotions which were always in perfect order to the events at hand. The Godhead however is unchanging in Love and Joy. There are 6 billion people. God does not have 6 billion different feelings about each everyday since He says in His word not in yours…”I am the Lord and I change not.” He would be nothing but change if He could go from bright emotions to dark ones and varying with 6 billion peoples’ behaviour day by day.
You have love for a niece and you have affection for a niece. According to Aquinas, your love for your niece is in the higher part of your soul and your affection is in the lower part of your soul. One day you are watching your niece and she is totally fresh. The love in the higher part of your soul whereby you wish her well does not change/ the affection in the lower part of your soul vanishes in an instant and is replaced with anger. The Godhead only has the higher part of the soul not the lower wherein change is constant.
May 12th, 2007 at 7:50 pm
Interesting explanation, but I respectfully disagree.
God can be pleased (with His works, with others’) jealous & angry (of false gods), & He has said so.
His policies or laws certainly don’t change, & to say He can’t keep track of billions of people can’t be accurate. He is God. He can, & has, been keeping track of mankind since He created it. That might be a bit much for us to understand, but He is unlimited, (I believe our word for it is omnipotent).
Aquinas made distinctions between our wills, intellects, senses, etc. We are indeed made in God’s image, on a limited scale… eternal, but in no way all-knowing (do any of us possess the knowledge of the hairs on even our own heads? This is a Biblical example of our limited knowledge.)
& at the same time, you are right in that He hasn’t changed. & from what I understand, time is irrelevant to Him, so all that has been & will be, He sees at once.
Which of course, is not what we experience, except concerning our own lives from our perspective, in our memories & scrapbooks - Him though, knowing all… not impossible for Him.
We can’t completely fathom our Creator - we are limited.
May 13th, 2007 at 7:14 am
PS:
I don’t know how that smiley face got there…
?
May 13th, 2007 at 7:39 am
PPS:
Pardon me one more time…
I do indeed agree that God can do no wrong, (or sin) - as a result of His, (for lack of a better word) mood…
Which is, of course, unlike us. We need the Ten Commandments to guide us - whereas He is the Author of them, & gave them to us because He does indeed love us.
May 15th, 2007 at 7:14 am
I never said God cannot keep track of 6 billion people. Never. I said God does not have changing emotions concerning their choices. And as you point out, He well knows those choices from all eternity and anger requires surprise which would mean that God did not know that Hitler would do what he did beforehand. And only when Hitler did it….did God get angry.
Nor does God get literally jealous….partly because false gods do not exist at all but only in the mind of idolaters.
Jealously in Scripture again is an anthropopathism symbolizing that God wants our full attention. But if He could get jealous or angry or hate (”Jacob I have loved but Esau I have hated”)….then God would not be LOve as John said He was but would simply have “love” at different times like we do. God does not have sporadic love; He is Love. God also is in Heaven and He would not be in Heaven if He got jealous, angry, hateful… since Heaven is total Joy and Love.