CALLED TO COMMUNION - 2/7/18 - Dr. David Anders - What are Maronites and Malkites?

what's stopping you from becoming a Catholic why can't women become priests one eighty three three two eight eight EWTN I don't understand why I have to earn salvation one eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six why do I need to confess my sins to a priest what's stopping you this is called to communion with dr. David Anders on the EWTN global Catholic radio network hi everybody welcome again to called communion this is the program for our non Catholic brothers and sisters those of you who have questions about the Catholic faith and you just don't know who to ask well you can certainly ask us now we're not going to be taking phone calls today today is a special mailbag edition of call to Communion where we're answering some of the questions that you have emailed to us over the past couple of weeks if you'd like to send us an email for a future show the address is CTC at ewtn.com CTC at ewtn.com Michael birch field is our producer I'm Tom price along with dr. David Anders hey Tom how are you today I'm doing very well and we've got some great questions for you to tackle today if you are ready well do my best I'm glad to hear here's one from someone named Mike who says dr. Andrews you have stated in the past that nowhere in the Bible is the Protestant view view of imputed or credited righteousness to be found so could you please explain the text in Romans four verses 23 24 and second Corinthians 5:21 as it does seem to support that Protestant view thanks Mike okay sure thank you well first of all nothing in romans 4 23 to 24 says anything about the the the relationship of the atonement to the declaration of justification let me unpack that okay let me read romans 4 23 and 24 but the words it was reckoned to him were written not for his sake alone but for ours also it will be reckoned to us who believed in him that raised Jesus raised from the dead Jesus our Lord all right so the larger passage is that abraham believed God and it was credited to him as right well we believe that as catholics abraham believed god and it was credited to him as righteousness the act of faith is meritorious it is a righteous deed to believe God to believe what God has revealed nothing in that text says anything about the Protestant doctrine of the imputed righteousness of Jesus so with the doctrine in question here is the Protestant belief that that Christ suffered the punishment due to sin so that we can get off scot-free and that Christ obeyed the divine command and that his obedience is credited to us as if it were ours so that we are absolved the up of the obligation to obey in order to obtain heaven now the text in Romans says nothing about that it just says that that Abraham's act of faith was credited as righteousness which we affirm which is why you gave me that confused look like what why are they bringing that yeah okay now what was the other text okay the other text was the one at second Corinthians sure the second Corinthians 5:21 yes I know the text I'm gonna look it up just so I can read it okay alright and if there's a larger context so alright God made him who knew no sin to be sin for so that we saw that in him we might become the righteousness of God okay the larger context again has to do with the nature of Paul's apostolic ministry uh-huh and Paul is actually the whole in this whole section he's defending his rights as an apostle to spread the gospel and begins by saying we have become we speaking of the Apostles have become co-laborers with with God with Christ as if God were making his appeal through us alright so he's talking about the Ministry of the Apostles which course had was was disputed among many of the early Christians I did not recognize that Paul in fact wasn't Apostle in so he's making an argument for for the for his office taluk ministry and the the the righteousness of God he made him to be sin who knew no sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God now in T right who's the Protestant I should add um points out that the righteousness of God in this context in T writes a Protestant biblical scholar yes has to do with God being faithful to his covenant alright so the righteousness of God is God fulfilling his covenant promises as governor oaths and in this case he's manifesting the gospel through the witness of the apostles so that's God's righteousness who's in him that's we're talking about Paulin his and his apostolic co-laborers all right who are through whom God is making his appeal to reconcile all things to himself in Christ okay the passage the phrase for our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin doesn't say a word about our sin being imputed to him it's many translations will render that God made him who knew no sin to be a sin offering all right which is up which is a technical term drawn from the Levitical texts about a particular type of offering offered to God well again this is what the Catholic faith confesses that the that the that the atonement of the death of Christ had the character of the sacrifices of the Old Covenant law whether a sacrifice of an atonement or a sin offering namely something of value offered to God in reparation for sin which is what the Catholic faith believes about the death of Christ but neither of those passages says anything about this abstract bizarre metaphysical theory of the Calvinists that our sins are imputed to him and his righteousness and Peter does you're reading those things into the text they're not actually stated there okay very good Mike we hope that's helpful for you thank you so much for your question and we do appreciate it when we come back from our quick break we'll be getting to some more of these great mailbag questions for you if you have a question for a future show here's the address see TC at ewtn.com see TC at EWTN com it's called communion here on EWTN this is called to communion with dr. David Anders on the EWTN global Catholic radio network father Mitch Pacwa sin does not unite people doesn't bring them together sin causes division and divides people up the leading Catholic voices are on EWTN radio Katherine's out there there are so many misconceptions when it comes to abortion and assisted suicide it's really confusing and I think for a lot of people they don't know how to talk about these things EWTN pro-life weekly to be helped to change that we help to really untangle these web of lies listeners can expect to become informed and then grow more confident so that they can then discuss and dialogue these issues and together we can really impact culture in that way EWTN pro-life weekly Sunday morning at 10:00 a.m. on EWTN radio listen to EWTN radio day or night audio on demand brings you your favorite EWTN programs prayers and devotionals instantly to you for free visit ewtn eps comm and get started today the reason for our hope with father Larry Richards do you know Christ do you know him intimately like you know your wife like you know your best friend like you know your children and if the answer in your heart of hearts is no I haven't a clue then you haven't even begun yet to live the purpose of your life and that's what needs to start happening you got to deal with that question it's the most important question of your life and again it's gonna take you time you know how do you fall in love with anybody those of you who are married you didn't get married to your wife by meaning her once and giving her 45 minutes to an hour once a week you spent time with her you got to know her so the same thing that has to happen with God you got to ask that question and it's gonna take your time but you got to do it you got to answer that question my thing is always seek truth because truth will always lead you to God what's stopping you from becoming a Catholic you are called to communion with dr. David Anders glad you could join us for this special mailbag edition of call to communion here on EWTN David we're gonna get right to one here from Beth Beth says dr. Andrews my husband and I sometimes discuss religion and then he stops the conversation when it comes to the concept of a soul he says that if a human personality consists of our DNA and our experiences which are kept in the body and the brain which both pass away at death how can some part of us live on what our souls made of and where are they found is there have any any evidence for the existence of the human soul or any arguments thanks so much Beth yeah thanks Beth I really appreciate it so let me tell you a story if I can one of my favorite stories from the works of CS Lewis the the great Anglican a literary critic and and also novelist who wrote the famous Chronicles of Narnia mm-hmm so in the novel entitled the voyage of the Dawn Treader there's some characters from earth who have traveled to the fantastical land of Narnia and they're traveling on a ship to the end of the world uh-huh and they they get almost to the end of the world and they land on an island and they meet a retired star STAAR okay named Ramin do Andromeda has come down from the heavens and he's now living on an island and there's a human character named Eustace and used to learns that ramen do is a star and he says wow you're a star that's really interesting in our world a star is just a great big ball of flaming gas and ramen do looks at him and says no son even in your world that's not what a star is it's only what it's made of oh and that is a that is a profoundly simple and poetic way of capturing a deep philosophical truth all right that to that to analyze something just in terms of its material composition is not to give all the information we need about what it fundamentally is what its definition is now this can easily be seen you know I was listening to a Dominican priest give a lecture some time ago from the to Mystic Institute and he said you know this can easily be seen in the case of rover your dog and you know here's a Rover and he's running across the highway to you you know wagging his tail and smiling and you can't wait to greet him and all of a sudden he gets hit by 10-ton truck and is flattened alright and and you know you would be very naive and stupid to say well you know it's the same material before and after it's made of the same stuff you know we haven't actually lost any any any mass at all it's just you know same stuff no but the form has changed radically so before you had a live dog and now you have a dead dog it's not the same thing it's a substantial change even though the the matter that it is consistent hasn't changed at all it's just the the form of it has been changed well something similar is going on with the human soul so so neuroscientists can break down the sub structure of human brain activity and and you know up to all your little neurons and so forth and dendrites whatnot is quite complex of course but to say that human consciousness is nothing but the operation of brain matter or neurology is kind of like saying the star is nothing but flawed flaming gas or Rover is nothing but a pile of goo on the sidewalk all right or otherwise all right yeah and and we know I mean we know quite obviously by introspection because we're conscious thinking beings that that whatever is the medium of human thought you know whether it takes place in a in a purely material context of brain and neurons and all that the actual experience of consciousness is not a material thing excuse me all right and it can't possibly be because one of the most characteristic aspects of our conscious awareness is our is our ability for abstraction all right well abstraction if I you know think of triangles or democracy or you know any kind of any sort of abstract object I'm not thinking about a concrete particular material thing and I'm certainly not you certainly can't reduce a highly abstract concept like democracy or the law of thermodynamics or the Pythagorean theorem or something like that to to a specific set of neurons twirling around in your brain all right so even if our thinking takes place in material medium it has something about it that transcends the purely material so you know I can I can think about Newton's law of gravitation for instance a little bit not very much and and know that it applies to the pen and the paper that are sitting on my desk in front of me as much as it does to distant galaxies across you know the Stars right I can I can apply the same concept to an infinite variety of material things so the concept itself is not reducible to any one material thing right i'm--you we could multiply examples and there are other there are other things about human cognition you know my ability to form intentions would be another one this is different from my power of abstraction right what's an intention well my ability to think about something well purely material objects are not about anything like that directedness of human thought is what we call intentionality and it's a it is uniquely the mark of the mental and philosophers of mind go on and they delineate several other aspects of human cognition that that that defy reduction to the purely material okay okay and so now what is the soul I mean that those are some of the things that we can discern about the soul through introspection what is it well the classic Catholic and for that matter Aristotelian definition is the soul is not a substance like you know toothpaste squeezed into a toothpaste tube right not like Patrick Swayze and ghost who dies in this kind of ethereal you know goop kind of floats out of it now the the classic definition of the soul's the soul is the form of the body and form here doesn't mean shape form means the thing that gives something its characteristic identity all right okay and what's characteristic of humans and distinction from other animals is that we have this power of abstraction and election and intentionality that have that particularly immaterial character so they're not they're not purely reducible to the material substrate okay Beth thank you so much for your question this is a special mailbag edition of call to Communion here on EWTN this is a rather lengthy one from Nick from Tucson try to get to this as best as we can here hello Tom and dr. Anders love your show I'm currently in RCIA as I await the Easter Vigil of 2018 to enter full communion in the faith I owe a great deal of gratitude to all the church fathers who have helped me along the way and to other Catholics such as yourself that have built a stronger foundation of understanding in the Catholic faith thank you for all that you guys do here's my question I have heard it often said that when Jesus addresses Peter in chapter 16 of Matthew giving him the keys that it is a fulfillment of what was written in Isaiah 22 verses 20 through 224 which says and I will give him the glory of David and he shall rule and there shall be none to speak against him and I will give him the key of the house of David upon his shoulder he shall open and there shall be none to shut and he shall shut and there shall be none to open and I will make him a ruler in a sure place and he shall be for a glorious throne of his father's house and everyone that is glorious in the house of his father shall trust in him from the least to the greatest and they shall have they shall depend upon him in that day unquote I believe I have a good understanding of this being Peter as well and have nothing to add to church teachings on these verses however what gets me is the last two verses which contain at this verse 25 by saying thus saith the Lord of hosts the man that is fastened in the shore place shall be removed and be taken away and shall fall and the glory that is upon him shall be utterly destroyed for the Lord has spoken it end quote is this also speaking of Peter seems to me that it could be referring to the unjust steward Shabnam but appears more likely that it is referring to the man who is quote a tent peg in a shore place now if this is Peter can you explain why the one with the keys would be removed okay thanks there's a little bit more god I got enough to answer the question right there okay so here's here's the difficulty with the your your question is premise taun a false understanding of the nature of Old Testament prophecy and typology okay so typology is when we find in the Old Testament a character or an event or a figure that somehow or another for shadows or intimates a character or event or some sort of spiritual truth in the New Testament it's not a it's not necessarily a one-to-one allegory like this stands for that this stands for that this stands for that it's rather it's it's it's it's a suggestive intimation so the historical details surrounding Aliyah came the son of Hilkiah in Isaiah 22 don't have to correspond point by point to the Apostle Peter all right and in fact I don't even think that it's proper to speak of Matthew 16 as a fulfillment of Isaiah 22 I think rather what Christ is doing is he's drawing a biblical metaphor like the language of the keys and binding and loosing which is in Isaiah 22 and he's simply applying it in a different context so if aliekum was made the majordomo or the prime-minister of the house of david all right well Christ is making Peter the prime minister of his house which is the church okay and and he ain't gonna fall okay then that's where we're gonna leave it Nick in Tucson thank you so much for your email we're doing a special mailbag edition of call to Communion here on EWTN here's one from Stephen who is very complimentary love your show hope it continues for a long time well we do - I recently discovered the existence of reserved sins while I completely understand the view of interpreting John 20 verse 23 as Jesus asking his apostles to forgive all sins lest they be retained forever I do take issue with the dogmatic view of not forgiving sins as a sort of weapon against heretics and the like when forgiveness is sought could you please provide insight or history as to why this is also yeah let me stop there all right okay you misunderstand obvious understand reserve sense okay so first of all in John 20 Jesus doesn't say you have to forgive everybody sons he doesn't say that all right what he says is whoever sins you forgive are forgiven and whoever sins you retain retain uh alright he just says you have the power to do this he doesn't he doesn't tell them they have to forgive everybody right okay secondly the the Disciplinary practice of reserving sins does not mean that the penitent can't be absolved that's not what it means all right the reserved sins our sins that are reserved to the Holy See for absolution to the Pope to absolve so if you have committed one of these atrocities you can still get forgiven mmm you can still get forgiven but there's a there's a specific discipline a procedure that you have to go through okay now normally what happens is these things don't actually go straight up to the Pope it's not like the Pope is sitting around you know and they come in every day with a list of you know penitence with reserved sins it doesn't work that way okay what happens if maybe if I understand the process correctly is let's say these are sins like desiccating desecrating the Blessed Sacrament attacking the person of the Pope using the confessional to solicit sexual favors I mean really really really atrocious things really awful things gross abuses of the the sacred nature of the church and the sacraments okay okay um so mostly people are not capable of performing these so a lot of them are things that only a priest could do by really abusing his office okay right and and the the purpose of reserving them to the Holy See first of all let's say a priest we're guilty of this kind of thing he if if I understand the process and you can and just take it easy on me or you can correct me if I get it wrong I think that a penitent and with the reserved sin can in fact approach the confessional like anybody else would it's just that the Confessor is going to essentially make the case known to the apostolic penitentiary which is the office of the Vatican that handles the confessional all right as well as indulgences and things like that and the penitent still retains his anonymity all right but it basically is kind of given a case number if you will and then has an obligation to the Confessor to engage in a pretty lengthy and specific penance I mean it might be a penance that lasts for a year or maybe two years or something there may be very specific things that that penitent has to do over length the time and the Confessor is going to be consulting back with the Apostolic See with with the penitentiary to make sure the thing is handled properly okay okay no why would you do it that way well I mean I think is fairly obvious why you would do that way let's say you have some priest who's doing some horrible thing like soliciting sex in the confessional I mean you don't want to let him off with two Hail Marys no all right you know you got it you got to make sure you've really got penitence and you're handling this thing this is a really really serious thing and things like that all right so that's that's the rationale for reserving sense when they're just really gross abuses of of justice the Holy See wants to get involved and make sure that the penitential process has been handled appropriately now you know by way of comparison mm-hmm in the ancient church like in the second century if you committed a really grave sin like murder or apostasy you would be consigned to public penance that could sometime last for years even to the end of your life and not just you know reserved sins but I mean a whole host of sense basically almost major mortal sins and not just priest but laypeople too so we've kind of toned it down a good bit since then but still the Holy See keeps an eye on these things now the Pope Francis has monkeyed around a little bit with the reserved sins by commissioning the missionaries of mercy and there's about a thousand I think or maybe that's about give or take a hundred in the in the world and we've got a hundred and fifty or something like that in the United States oh we have 180 wtn that's right right father John Paul exactly is one of the missionaries of mercy and I've seen the papal bulls that commissioned him and these guys have the right to just directly forgive reserved sins very cool here's uh if you've got one on your soul you know go find yourself a missionary of mercy there you go Stephen has a part too he says this may be an unrelated question how is this what we just talked about how is this related to the forgiveness of murder easier to obtain than achieving an annulment oh okay yeah we're comparing apples and oranges here all right so an annulment is not an an action of manat involve the church's power of absolution at all right all right an annulment is a legal declaration it's a finding of fact you know when you when you go to a jury trial in the Civil in the civil court or in the Criminal Court all right the purpose of the jury is to determine whether the accused is liable or not liable innocent or guilty it's a question of finding fact all right right and then and then the judge after the jury has found the fact then it imposes the you know the punishment of the fine is that what you know as it as it were all right in a marriage annulment there's a court as a church court who's just involved in the finding effect was there a valid marriage yes or no but no question of forgiving or not forgiving it's a question it's a completely different category were these two people validly married yes or no no why would it be difficult to ascertain the truth of that fact well here's why because the church presumes the validity of marriage so in other words let's say you you get married to a woman all right or you think you're married you represent yourself as married you say I'm married this woman and then you show up a month later and say yeah I don't think so I think I want out of this thing well the church has a very very strong interest in not letting people run away on their wives for spurious reasons like if you're really validly married you're you're morally obligated to remain faithful until you die mm-hmm so we're not just gonna let you off scot-free all right and and if if you want to separate you have to demonstrate in a court that you're not actually married now since you went and told the whole world you were married now proving that you're not married well you have to meet a pretty significant standard of evidence to demonstrate that yeah that's got nothing to do with the question of absolution okay so hope that's a helpful for you Steven and thank you so much for both of your questions here on this edition of called a communion we're doing the mailbag program today so if you have an email that you'd like to send us for a future show the address is CTC at ewtn.com CTC at ewtn.com as we're taping this on a Tuesday afternoon we've opened up our social media a lot of people are watching us right now on YouTube and Facebook we got a question from vitaly from ukraine how about that we'll be tackling that as soon as we come back here on call to communion again our email address ctc at ewtn.com it's called a commune with dr. David Anders here on EWTN to stay with us EWTN s cathedrals across America and the Diocese of Nashville Tennessee invite you to a celebration of apostolic succession as they welcome their new apostle and Shepherd father J mark Spalding join our brothers and sisters in Christ for the mass of ordination and installation of father J mark Spalding as the 12th Bishop of Nashville Tuesday at 3:00 p.m. Eastern on EWTN television and radio classics I know Carmelite nuns who get a call from their mother Superior every June telling them where they're gonna be assigned in the year ahead and even if they know they're probably not going to be transferred before that call they're supposed to pack up all their belongings and wait for the phone to ring it's an exercise and detachment from the world we all go through that in our own ways don't we maybe sometimes you know something becomes unstable and our current jobs or a new opportunity opens up but we have a financial crash that forces us to rebut everything are we going a job interviewer maybe get a call from a doctor with some disturbing news you know even if those experiences don't pan out to be anything and they usually don't don't overlook their importance that's God reminding us that in the end this world is in our home if you get too attached to the little comforts you surround yourself with you won't be available to God's grace and is calling your life stay open this is Krista Fannin from real life Catholic comm on ewtn radio EWTN teaching the truth I have wanted to thank you so very much thank God thank God you guys are here for us believe it I just can't believe all that you've done and how you stuck with it many times when I think I can't do something I think about some of the things that you talked about EWTN live truth live Catholic what's stopping you from becoming a Catholic you are called to communion with dr. David Anders hey thanks for joining us for this special mailbag edition of call to communion here on EWTN as I mentioned we are on social media today as we're doing this taping and we got and a text from Vitaly in Ukraine watching us right now on YouTube hey there Vitaly he says how do I deal with anti-religious propaganda at the University I am faced with this and I just don't know how to deal with it any thoughts yeah I do so thanks I appreciate the question um I find that the anti religious propaganda comes in a variety of forms all right look highlight some of these all right one of them would be increasingly it takes the character of postmodernist identity politics all right post modernist identity politics like all ideologies identity politics tries to analyze social conflict indifference through one single narrow lens and that is the lens of of bias and discrimination and argues that every kind of social conflict or difference is reducible to two to identity group conflict and and to bias and discrimination right and clearly there's a lot of bias and discrimination in the world but there are a lot of other reasons for social differentiation sure you know Tom's just a better lecturer than I am you know it's not it's not like anti apologist bias that he gets more jobs lecturing his wife's a better singer than I am you know they actually hired me to canter once at EWTN really they never made that mistake yeah they never made that mistake again and it's not it wasn't anti male bias that they excluded me from cantering on television it was because a I forgot the Lord's Prayer in Latin Oh yep and B I kept singing so softly that nobody could hear me so they're like okay Andrews is out was it because of my my age or my gender my sexual orientation no is because I had a weak voice I wasn't competent to do the job Adrienne is so she gets more gigs cantering than I do well not everything is explainable by unjust discrimination now post-modernism is the belief that essentially there is no right or there's no true or false there's only victor and defeated that all that all intellectual conflict can be reduced to the will to power well that's just absurd that's just manifestly absurd because there's a right answer to a arithmetic some you know I mean there's a right and wrong in geometry and it doesn't reduce to the will of power but those two ideas combined are incredibly destructive because they essentially suggest that we can't if there's only identity group conflict and there's no true or false then there's no way we can have a discussion we can just fight ultimately it's just a way of justifying my my own aggressive resentful desire to dominate you and not to have a conversation all right so it's motivated by resentment and and anger and jealousy and so forth so it's a it's a very very destructive ideology and that's infected a lot of the university campuses especially in the humanities now in terms of tools to to combat that intellectually I think kind of a guy leading the charge on that right now and the in the in the Academy is this Canadian psychologist named Jordan Peterson oh yeah and he's not a Catholic but but if you want to get some pretty decent lectures on combating postmodernist neo-marxist identity politics in the university Peterson's YouTube lectures are a gold mine now the other way in which I think you're gonna encounter any religious bias is not so much from science but from scientism all right and it's the idea that that sort of the only paradigm of rationality is the Natural Sciences and if it doesn't fall within the scope of the Natural Sciences that it doesn't count as rationality and a lot of times this this scientism is also linked to a sort of radical materialism the belief that only that only material objects exists and there is no transcendent world there's no spirit there's no there are no moral values that aren't reducible ultimately to to biology chemistry and physics and that you need to be aware of that that that's the sometimes the character the quality the form of anti religious bias is going to take the form of materialism and scientism which are themselves unscientific theories because they you can't discern the theses of scientism by looking at our microscope this is a philosophical bias right um some places that I would go to shore yourself up intellectually against materialism and scientism would be interestingly the atheist philosopher Thomas Nagel although he's an atheist he's a deep opponent of materialism and scientism in the modern academy in his book mind in cosmos I found very helpful in this and articulating the case against those philosophical errors as well as the works of edward fazer fe ser his book the last superstition i think is particularly helpful in that one is one that i know we have in the ewtn religious catalogue yes and then the last way i think in which you're gonna encounter any religious bias is a revisionist approach to history that is basically to foment the narrative of identity politics you're going to get a very very narrow construal of especially western history simply as the chronicle of oppressive unjust actions by you know white male heterosexual europeans against everybody else on the planet and clearly there are a lot of white male heterosexual christians that that fomented a lot of evil and did a lot of oppression but that's hardly I mean that's an extremely reduction reductionistic way to look at history there's an awful lot of things that happened in Western and Eastern history that aren't reducible to identity group conflict and you know not least would be the the tremendous philosophical scientific and moral contributions of the Catholic faith to world civilization I mean the whole reason we can have a moral debate about oppression and oppressors and right and wrong injustice is because these ideas have been imbued into our culture in our society in our language by the Christian tradition so you need to get a strong foundation in in the Catholic contribution to culture down through the centuries some of the places you might want to go for that Christopher Dawson who was a professor of Catholic studies at Harvard University and a Catholic and has written he's probably the go-to guy on Catholicism and culture Christopher Dawson is excellent and then where else would I send you um you know not a Catholic but Harold blooms work on the Western Canon bloom not not not a question not a believer not a Catholic but but but deeply suspicious of the influence of identity politics on the study of literature and history so there's are some resources for you very good vitaly thank you for checking us out today in the ukraine on called to communion also Thomas woods book how the Catholic Church built Western civilization of call to communion here on EWTN excuse me we have one now from Pamela in Piedmont South Dakota this is a longer letter so we'll tackle it right here and right now dear Tom and dr. Andrews I have been fortunate enough to meet both of you Tom you interviewed my husband and myself in Rapid City South Dakota back in September and dr. Andrews I met you at the fundraising reception in Rapid City in November yeah it was an honor both times you probably remember I remember I do remember she says my question begins with a comment you made to a woman recently she thought you needed to clarify what you said the previous day to a caller when you said that Mary didn't have the capacity to sin you went on to explain that although Mary did not have the capacity to sin she still had free will and that grace enhances our freedom by reducing our capacity to sin and enhances our ability to do good and to choose between only goods you further went on to say that Eve also had sanctifying grace but not the plenitude of grace that Mary had and that our sinfulness is of defect in the operation of our freedom so all this got me thinking about our she understood that very well I'd say so yeah she says all this got me thinking about our free will I have used the standard line there is sin and evil in the world because God wanted us to love him and the only way we could love him is by freely choosing to with a free will unless until you made that statement about Mary I don't think I ever gave thought to the fact that God could have not only made us perfect as he did for even for Mary one of whom rebelled against God and one who said yes to him he could have filled all of with grace as he did Mary we would have still loved him with a free will we would have remained perfect and and heaven would have been everybody's destiny of course I know that Mary was chosen to be the mother of God so she had to be a perfect vessel after all Jesus took on her flesh and I know that he is God and I am not so of course he can choose the manner in which to create and that it's a far better plan than my puny one even though I don't understand it but does the church have a teaching or theologians have an opinion about why God didn't make us all filled with grace thanks for your thoughtful answer grace to you and peace from Pamela in Piedmont sound right question very very contextualized extremely sophisticated pushed out like this very much yeah absolutely and Jesus talks about it he says there's more rejoicing in heaven over one right one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who don't need to repent okay so the question is what if God could create humans with freedom but without the capacity to sin why didn't he do so and the answer sort of hinted at by Christ is that there is a kind of virtue there's a kind of nobility that's characterized by repentance that is not captured in a universe in which no one has the capacity to repent so you know the the classical teaching is that God allowed human evil because he intended to bring out of it a greater good now God is God he could make any universe he wanted he could have made a universe without moral evil all right he that's not the one he made he made one that allows moral evil all right what the when when with anything in Revelation God could always have done it differently you know God could have redeemed us with a poker game if you want to do all right he could do anything you want to do so we don't we don't try to we're not trying to twist God's arm and come up with some deductively certain reason why God had to make the universe he made in fact this is another point of Catholic dogma God didn't have to make the universe he made God's act of creation was free so there is no there's no deductive reason why the universe must be the way it is okay all right God chose this one what we do with with the with the revelation that we have is not trying to deduce why no other universe is possible but to do deduce why the universe or rather to infer I should say why the universe that we do inhabit is intelligible in light of God's goodness transcendent simplicity and so forth now interestingly the fact that we cannot rationally deduce the necessity of the current universe from God's immortal nature and then we can't write because God acts freely to create right is one of the reasons that the Catholic Church and the civilization that the Catholic Church created allowed for the for the invention of the modern scientific method hmm because in ancient Greek philosophy which was extremely rationalistic and deductive all right there was a heavy tendency to try to start at the top and then reason your way down to the bottom all right but in a universe the Christian mental universe where where there's no necessary connection between between God's will and the University created because he could have created any number of universes you cannot deductively derive everything you need to know about nature of the natural world because it's contingent it might not have been it could not have been therefore if you want deeper understanding of the natural world you have to rely on the empirical method hence the development of the modern scientific worldview out of out of the bedrock of Catholic theology okay very good Pamela thank you so much for your very thoughtful letter and we really appreciate that this is called a communion here on EWTN we're doing a mailbag program today so if you'd like to send us an email for a future show and this is probably a good time to do it because the mailbag is eating a little on the thin side ctc at ewtn.com CTC at ewtn.com want to take a moment here to tell you about a brand-new book available now from ewtn religious catalogue and this is called making a holy Lent 40 meditations to prepare you for the church's holiest season our friend EWTN host father bill Casey one of the fathers of mercy he turns our attention to Jesus in brief reflections from the real presence of Jesus and the Eucharist to the role that the Blessed Virgin Mary plays in every healthy prayer life this is a great book making a holy Lent 40 meditations to prepare you for the church's holiest season by father Bill Casey it's available right now at ewtn our c-calm ewtn our c-calm let's go take a look to tackle a question here from Matthias watching us right now on YouTube Matthias says what is the Catholic Church's position of the church on predestination yeah thanks so the word predestination and it's cognates occurs I think about 6 times in the New Testament one of them in Romans 8:29 those whom he foreknew he also predestined and in other passages and similar analogous concepts like the concept of election is one that's analogous to the concept of predestination so it's a biblical idea all right we find all through Sacred Scripture and the election of course of Israel is is the preeminent example of predestination or election in in biblical history and of course God's election of the church so it's a biblical doctrine now the the theologian in the Catholic tradition who wrote most voluminous Liat brought predestination of course was saying agustin and the st. Thomas Aquinas followed him and and you'll find lengthy discussions of the doctrine and the Simha Theologica the Prima par is the first part and I mean it becomes a classic locus of theology you know ever since okay the the the dogmatic position of the Catholic Church and predestination is that predestination is God's determination to give the grace efficient for salvation to those whom he for knows will be saved okay all right and let's break that down a little bit so so that means that if you get to heaven is because God determined to give you the grace that would get you there okay and not everybody gets the grace because not everybody gets to heaven right and and you can't earn it there's nothing you can do that can compel God to give you grace all right now that might sound scary all right but it's not really because one of the things that church does not say first of all the church does not say why God gives efficient grace to one and not to another and there's this significant room for speculation about that the church also says that God desires all people to be saved that God makes grace available to every person and that grace can be resisted all right so he doesn't compel our will now if you think immediately that you have a simple way to fit all of those theses together you didn't just hear what I said okay because it's it's not a simple problem it's actually quite complex and they're they're deep theological analysis on this all right but those are basically that those are the constraints on our doctrine okay that God gives the grace efficient that actually gets the job done to those whom he knows will be saved he offers grace to everybody grace can be resisted not everybody gets grace all right and now if you want a a book-length treatment of the topic that's pretty exhaustive in terms of laying out all the different allowable viewpoints within Catholic tradition and then the disallowed viewpoints of jansenism and Calvinism the book is called predestination and it's by Father Reginald - Gary GU Lagrange it's published by tan and I at one time EWTN carried it I don't know if we still do or not but we've cared a lot of lagron so we might have it all right very good appreciate that thank you so much for checking in with us today Mathias this is mailbags edition of call to communion here on EWTN Josh checking in on youtube says when it comes to grace I have a Protestant friend who says when God gives you grace that saves he gives it a hundred percent not partially which they claim that the sacraments which God dispenses grace are not nonsensical because God doesn't give grace in parts so how do we approach this from the Catholic position okay sure thanks so yeah that's that's a the the way he's framed it is very odd because hard to read yeah I I think I know what he means I think what he's suggesting I think he's really trying to get at the idea of irresistible grace and and the perseverance of the saints the Calvinist idea that if God gives you grace you are translated from death to life you can never lose that state you're guaranteed salvation when you die all right and that's the Protestant view and in a essentially the idea there is that grace is simply divine favor its unmerited favors God to God's determination to save you so if he's if you caught unquote saves you he's regenerated you and he's set you apart you're gonna go to heaven when you die that's kind of the Protestant view the Catholic view grounded in Sacred Scripture is that grace is a participation in the divine nature that's what's that's what st. Peter says in 2nd Peter 1:4 through the promises of Christ we've become participants in the divine nature right we share in God's image and likeness now it clearly is something also let me let me back up um so it's not just it's not just a declaration of God's favor it's actually an infused sort of transformation in in our character in our life it's a participation in God okay okay it's an active principle so st. Paul will say you know I worked harder than all of them but not me rather the grace of God within me you see grace is an active principle now now the Catholic faith teaches that grace is not a substance it's not like you get a shot of grace you know like I could get a you know a shot of B vitamins or something yeah all right rather grace is a quality it's a quality imparted to the soul supernaturally to make us like God now it is also something that definitely comes in degrees it definitely comes in degrees in Sacred Scripture teaches this in numerous places one of them is the angel Gabriel and he speaks to the Blessed Virgin Mary he says hail one who has half of the grace uh-uh-uh-uh-uh and when he was full of grace que Cara tahminae one having been grace to the full alright and in st. Paul exhorts the Ephesians that they might grow in these supernatural gifts in Ephesians chapter one in Ephesians chapter 3 says I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened that you may know the hope to which you're called and so forth so there are numerous passages in Sacred Scripture that encourage us to grow in that in that gracious relationship with God so it can come in degrees and and it's something that can be lost as well we know this because those who have received the heavenly gift have been enlightened by the Holy Spirit who've been born again and joined themselves to Christ are then exhorted and warned not to turn back to to the sins that would disqualify them for the kingdom of God so to sum all that up the Catholic view is that grace is a share in the divine nature that makes us like God all right it's a quality imparted to our souls that's an active principle that causes us to love God and love neighbor that can be had in degrees and can be lost okay very good Josh thank you for checking us out on YouTube and also for your very good question here's one from Shannon who says I had someone try to tell me yesterday that the angels who did not fall are not perfect that they make mistakes and have to answer for them - long story short I got led to the Catechism which says in paragraph 330 that they are perfect beyond any other creature now the person I was talking with is also a Catholic they said show me where it states that they are perfect in the Bible my attitude was what I told them yesterday I didn't agree with that I got led to the section and the Catechism on angels earlier today and message them with what it said I also told them that the Angels being perfect or not is not going to determine whether I get to heaven or not but is my theology correct on saying that they are in front of God no matter what their office is and that when they said yes to God their will was fixed on God so they have to be perfect to be in heaven right this person said since not all of them are in heaven and in front of God this proves in a way that they are not perfect your thoughts um yeah you are correct that the Catholic doctrine on the Angels is that the holy angels were work were confirmed in grace and charity when they obeyed God and the end of grace and charity is that we become perfect because crisis be perfect as your father in heaven is perfect and that's the that's the condition in which we have to exist if we're gonna enjoy the beatific vision which they do and so having their wills permanently fixed on God it's impossible for them to to desire other things once you have the beatific vision the fulfillment of all desire it is a it is literally an impossibility that you should desire something else when you have the fulfillment of all desire you're not gonna want to go get a really bad pizza at all you know I mean the way it works so now in terms of scriptural warrant for the idea I you know to be honest with you I haven't often had to demonstrate from the Bible the Catholic doctrine of the perfections of the angelic will I mean there's plenty of evidence but off the top of my head I'm just kind of coming up cold so I may you know I'll tell you where to go st. Thomas's treatise on the Angels is where I'm gonna go when I get off the air and go through it and see his scriptural warrant on the other hand it's an entirely illegitimate demand that I that that I withhold my obedience to the faith unless somebody can warrant that belief from the Bible alright that's that's that's illegitimate Christ never told us to condition our faith on whether or not some radio host could come up with a quick proof desks off the top of his head on four hours of sleep alright yeah rather we believe everything that God has revealed and conveyed to us by the church with Christ's promise of divine assistance whatever you bind on earth is bound in heaven and I'll be with you to the end of the age so since I know this is a Catholic doctrine I'm gonna believe it I'll go back to the Bible later and I'll find my proof text but that's not why I believe it I believe it cuz the Catholic faith teaches it sounds good one final one here from Tim and Fort Mitchell Kentucky dr. Andrews love your show I've heard you say many times in explaining the concept of purgatory that it is tradition that we pray for the dead and that if there is no purification process or place like purgatory then then there is no reason to pray for the dead but if many Protestants believe you are not judged until the end of time and you kind of sleep until then is it not possible that they are praying for those asleep in hopes of a favorable judgment at the end of time how would we address this thanks Tim yeah I get well sure and I understand that position that's it that's that's I think it's incorrect but it's intelligible it makes sense okay if you think that that's the nature of God's judgment I mean if you think that God is not a just judge right and that he would actually he would actually declare an objectively guilty person innocent because somebody else was basically trying to lean on him if you think that's how God's judgment works you know which I don't think there's any warrant for that position in that view maybe what kind of makes God into himself kind of a well and unjust judge right yeah but would you think about if you know if a lot of people petition the judge to let the murderer off he's going well okay he's popular that's what the that's what the Jews and the Romans did with Barabbas right sure is I said let Barabbas go we like him better than Jesus well okay so it's Pilate I'll let Barabbas go I don't think that's how God operates no not at all appreciate your question there Tim glad you're listening to us in Fort Mitchell Kentucky on Sacred Heart Radio one of our longtime affiliates there dr. David Andrews I want to thank you for actually doing the mailbag today on four hours sleep you uh you yesterday you went up to Omaha did some I was with spirit Catholic radio in Omaha and had to get up hop on the plane this morning at 4 o'clock so I'm kind of and even though you did that you did a great show and so I thank you very much my face don't appreciate it you know what we do the show each and every Monday through Friday at 2:00 p.m. Eastern we have an encore at 11:00 p.m. Eastern that same weekday and then our producer Michael Burchfield picks out what he thinks is the best show of the week kind of a tough job but he does it and we air that one on Sundays at 2:00 p.m. Eastern tell your friends especially your non Catholic brothers and sisters about this show because this show is just for them my thanks to Michael Burchfield and I'm Tom price we'll see you next time right here on EWTN skål to communion have a great day god bless [Music]

Channel: EWTN

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Keywords: Catholic, EWTN, Christian, television

Id: rn6B5X4SYb8

Length: 54min 55sec (3295 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 06 2018