Called to Communion with Doctor David Anders - May 25, 2021

[Music] ewtn i don't understand why i have to earn salvation with 1-833-288-3986 david anders on the ewtn global catholic radio network hey everybody welcome again to call to communion here on ewtn this is the program for our non-catholic brothers and sisters you heard me right it's a program on catholic radio for non-catholics we would like to talk about what is keeping you from becoming a catholic or perhaps returning to the catholic faith of your youth that maybe you left you know after high school who knows maybe it was years ago maybe it was just a short time ago so those are the kind of things that we explore on this program we also answer your questions about the catholic faith maybe about other faith traditions as well here's our phone number and i can guarantee we will treat you with all due respect and kindness here's that number 833 288 ewtn that's 833 288 if you're listening outside of north america please dial the u.s country code and then 205-271-2985 you can also text the letters ewtn to 5500 wait for our response and then text us your first name and your brief question message and data rates may apply and of course you can always send us an email we'll hit one of those in just a moment here ctc at ewtn ctc ewtn.com charles berry is our producer and michael birchfield is her phone screener jeff burson is on social media if you're watching us today on youtube or facebook you can put a question of yours into the comments box jeff will shoot that to us here in studio one i'm tom price along with dr david anders tom how are you today very well how are you maya culpa maya culpa maya maxima what's wrong with david well so i answered a question on the radio yesterday yes and uh and as soon as i did it i went you know i could have done that better could have done it better and i got a nice friendly letter from a canon lawyer you better watch those canon lawyers they'll let you know they know their stuff you mess up yes so i just thought i'd clarify my response we had a fellow who called the show yes he was uh he's baptized catholic and received first communion but left the church married outside the church and uh was you know invalid marriage gone for a long time wants to come back and ask me what to do and i indicated he'll have to have his marriage con validated and he'll have to go to confession but i got i said that backwards i said go to confession then get your marriage convalidated and uh and i i didn't respond directly to the question of when he could go to communion and so my answer was it at best ambiguous and it was misleading and what i should have said is got to get your marriage convalidated before you do anything else and then you also have to go to confession and and confess that you're married outside the church yeah you've been in a relationship that's not illicit and presumably you've stopped doing those things in that illicit relationship that you shouldn't be doing yeah then you can be fully reconciled have your marriage convalidated then you come back to communion and i was not that explicit and so my answer left a little bit of well more than a little ambiguity about what the proper order of operations was so to speak so thank you very much to uh monsignor leonard pavonka who issued his kindly correction so appreciate that father for that that help monsignor we do appreciate that thank you so much uh for that uh here is speaking of emails here's an email that we received actually this just came in this is from osita listening in um wait a minute nigeria osita is in nigeria and osita says is it mandatory for catholics to pay a tithe thank you very much i appreciate the question so in in the old testament the tithe was imposed as part of the mosaic law on agricultural produce uh-huh and so the modern idea that you find in many protestant churches that uh that divine law requires uh 10 percent of one's earned uh you know liquid income is uh if neither in scripture nor is it necessarily part of catholic tradition now in the new testament there's no mention of the old testament tithes and offerings being imposed on the gentile church there's a different standard that's applied to monetary donations st paul says the first day of the week that's sunday that's the day of the liturgy each one should set aside what uh the lord promised him in his heart for the care of the poor in particular in the care of the church and and jesus says that the measure should be our charity and uh he holds up as an example of you know the person who sells everything gives to the poor or or the one who has two cloaks ought to ought to give one away so that you know maybe 50 uh proportion or maybe everything proportion and but the point of the matter is is not the proportion right it's the charity with which one gives it right so freely with a willing spirit and at different periods of time in history the church has asked for tithes but at present state that the canton law of the church does not require catholics to type 10 percent of their earned income you know either either top line or or bottom line income now there are catholics who who adopt that as a standard because they recognize that we have a duties one of the precepts of the church to support the temporal needs of the church and and alms giving to the poor and so they think this is a this is a very good proportion uh usccb bishops the united states recommend that that's a that's a reasonable way to think about giving maybe five percent to your local parish and five percent to other charities or catholic agencies uh but again uh i you know if if you're if you're poor yourself and you can't meet your own needs you're certainly not obligated to that standard and if you have great means lord holds you to a great responsibility and so i mean i've even heard about people that do the reverse type they give 90 away and keep 10 percent wow how about that all right osita thank you so much for listening to us uh in nigeria hope that helps you tony on youtube says could dr anders provide a citation for luther's idea that christ tricks us into despair with his moral teaching so that we accept justification by faith alone i've heard this said multiple times haven't been able to find any quotes online thank you tony yeah sure so the the best place to go would be to paul althouse's book the theology of luther luther was not a systematic theologian never wrote a systematic theology so if you want to look up any topic outhouse uh synthesizes systematizes luther's thought drawn from luther's writing so he can pull a lot of direct quotations right out of old house's summary of luther's thought um you know some of the classic texts uh uh you know luther's commentary on the galatians uh you know very salient points in there like luther's statement that god never smiled upon a man for his charity or virtues uh not exactly the point under discussion but no but long discussion of the purpose of the law in luther's commentary on the galatians i could come up with with many more if you but here i go to a break so i think i'll stop there go check out house very good good resource for you there tony thank you so much for checking in with us in a moment we'll talk with chris in keller texas the commentary luther's preface to the new testament is preface of the gospels there you go my wife and i are former protestants who are considering converting to the catholic church about what the catholic view of purgatory would be i have a religious teacher who tells us women should be priests how long do you have to be in that school mother angelica answering the call sunday 2 and 8 p.m eastern exclusively on ewtn radio [Music] 60 on 10 with monsignor charles pope the eighth commandment you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor at one level the reputation a person has is one of their most precious gifts and to intentionally harm the good reputation of someone is a very grave matter we can do this often through detraction by disclosing others faults without a valid reason or callumly just outright lying about other people likewise through rash judgment this commandment also protects the truth which is another very very great good to lie is to speak something that we know is false with the intention of deceiving others we ought to be dedicated to the truth it is the truth that sets people free while errors and lies entrap people in many difficult and often sinful situation the lord asks us to give witness to the truth of the gospel this commandment therefore asks us to stay dedicated to the truth and to other people's reputation the eighth commandment you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor for more about the ten commandments visit ewtnrc.com [Music] call to communion in progress on this tuesday afternoon here on ewtn radio our phone number 833 288 ewtn that's 833-288-3986 if you're watching us today on youtube or facebook look at this i'm pointing to a wonderful new book now available from ewtn's um religious catalog and that is web of faith a curious catholic answers to theological questions father john tragillo of course from open line monday and father ken bregenti they are the hosts of ewtn television's web of faith in this great new book they draw on the years of pastoral experience to compile a comprehensive list of the best questions ever asked of them including things like this how to deal with family collapse now that is not just a myth that actually happens in far too many families what about this bad words and unwanted thoughts what is sinful and what is not not everything here is sinful and also what the church teaches about cremation versus burial and that's a question that comes up all the time on open line called to communion web of faith it's a common question do check out this wonderful book where you're going to get answers to these and so many more topics web of faith a curious catholic's answers to theological questions it's available right now from ewtn publishing go to ewtnrc.com to get your very own copy ewtn by catholic shopcatholicewtnrc.com if you're ready now let's go to the phones at 833 288 ewtn we're going to begin today with chris in keller texas listening on sirius xm 130. hello chris what's on your mind today hello thank you for taking my call i have a question about uh plenary indulgences okay sure i understand there's many things many things we can do to earn an indulgence but they often say but you have to follow especially for a plenary follow the prescribed other requirements and i know that there's a requirement that you be detached from sin you attend sacramental confession you have communion in the state of grace and you pray for the intentions of the pope but in different lists i see different other requirements that include reading scripture for 30 minutes or 60 minutes or 15 minutes and i also see requirements for our time with the blessed sacrament for again various times is there one complete set of uh requirements for indulge uh plenary involvement okay thank you so what what there are i appreciate the question by the way there are different indulgences or or indulgences are granted for different things and oftentimes the church maybe a bishop or the pope will offer an indulgence for a particular act or devotion that that the ordinary wishes to encourage at that particular time for example uh during the year of faith pope benedict called a year of faith and he issued a plenary indulgence for people that would pray at the church of their baptism he thought it'd be a good idea for people to go back and reflect upon their baptism because they affirmed the faith in their baptism so he attached an indulgence specifically to that right in the year of saint paul if memory service me correct there were indulgences attached to pilgrimages to pauline sites uh pilgrimage sites and shrines and whatnot this this this kind of thing okay and uh then there's a there is actually a book published by the penitentiary it's the the in coridian of indulgences that lists all of the indulgences that the church habitually offers for things like reading scripture praying to rosary but basically i mean the purpose of this is it's so the church is a good mother and saying eat your vegetables eat your vegetables and you can get ice cream afterwards and uh and so this practice that the church wishes to encourage that's like the vegetables and the indulgences that's a good bit better than ice cream but that's sort of the sweetener if you will okay chris thanks so much for your call that opens up a line for you right now if you have a question for dr david anders or if you'd like to share what is stopping you from becoming a catholic that line is 833 288 ewtn that's 833-288-3986 call to communion on this tuesday afternoon here on ewtn let's go to uh gus in imperial california right now gus is listing on john paul ii radio a first-time caller hello gus what's on your mind today um yeah i have a question i i grew up catholic um but then when i became maybe about 16 17 years old i converted to christianity i now i'm a non-denominational christian i i do have a question about what the difference is between being christian and be the catholic like what yeah thank you i really appreciate the question thank you so much so of course jesus christ the son of god was born of blessed virgin mary in bethlehem and he he lived he taught the gospel uh he uh he died an atoning death on the cross he rose again from the dead he also founded the church he speaks of this in a number of places christ especially matthew chapter 16 jesus said to the apostle peter who at that time was called simon he changed his name to peter which means rock and he said you're peter i'm changing your name now i'm not naming you rock and on this rock i will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it whatever you bind on earth is bound in heaven whatever you loose on earth is loosed in heaven so the concept of christianity does not occur in jesus's teaching but the church does occur jesus talks about the church he doesn't talk about christianity now the first time the word christian was used was we read about in the book of acts was in the city of antioch uh saint peter whom christ had named the rock the rock foundation of the church had gone to antioch to become a bishop of antioch peter was a bishop in the catholic church and and many people were coming to belief in christ and joining the church and because they followed christ other people in antioch referred to them as christians because they were followers of christ but they followed christ by coming to the church that christ had founded and they were in communion with the church with peter there in antioch as their bishop now peter eventually moved on to the city of rome and uh and there he ended his days and his his episcopal or bishop bishopri bishop lee duties if you will in the city of rome and the bishops of rome ever since have have held that authority that christ gave to saint peter so christ didn't found christianity he founded the church the church that was to go throughout all the world and thus be catholic so the word that's that's basically the foundation of the church the modern catholic church is the continuation of that institution that society that was founded by jesus now throughout the years there have been different groups of people who at one time started out within the catholic church that decided that they only wanted part of what jesus had given they might maybe they liked some of the bible but not all of it or maybe they liked some of the teachings of catholicism but not all of them or maybe some founder got some ideas of his own that he wanted to supplant catholic teaching with and so they would pull away from the catholic church and they would establish their own church martin luther was someone who did that he founded a church they called the lutherans after luther and they still exist to this day others did the same thing john calvin or john knox or henry viii of england or john smith the first baptist and they founded their own little groups now since they had part of the teaching of the gospel part of the bible some of the truths about jesus and they desire to follow jesus we can still call them christians just like the people in antioch were called christians because they're trying to follow christ but they're not catholics because they don't belong to the church that was founded by jesus so the way the way a catholic looks at it is this all catholics are christians not all christians are catholics catholics have the full truth given by christ those that are christians who are not catholics have some of the truths taught by christ so that's the relationship there we go hey gus thank you so much for listening to us today on jp2 radio glad to hear from you on this beautiful tuesday afternoon let's go now to uh chaff in columbus ohio listening on the blowtorch saint gabriel radio a first-time caller hello jeff what's on your mind today hi um i was just calling to kind of answer the question you guys nicely posed which is why i haven't decided to return to catholicism and for me i i've yet to be able to kind of engage find either a justification either intellectually or an experience in my own search that is justified belief so to that point i haven't been able to find it yeah okay so what would constitute justification for you oh i think any if i were able to demonstrate um i think for me i'd have to start with god uh because i haven't been able to identify um anything to justify a belief in god to this point okay so what when you're looking for justification for god's existence what conception of god are you bringing to that to that search for evidence oh my conception of god yeah so like in other words if we want to establish the existence or non-existence of a thing we need to have some sort of determinate idea of what we're looking for right sure so i i mean i was raised catholic and so my understanding of a god i think is probably most influenced by catholicism and so as i've grown up i've not been convinced that that conceptualization of god is true and as i've looked for any others i haven't been able to be convinced by any others as well okay that's fine i really under appreciate that and i understand it so um i you know i wouldn't pretend that in a few minutes on the radio i could necessarily sort of lay the kingdom of god in front of you demonstrably and convince you but i can give you some maybe some things to talk about think about um and this is somebody who was also raised as a christian but am a convert to the catholic church one of the things that attracted me to catholicism precisely was its view of god and i was attracted to the intellectual humility of catholic theologians who admitted that they had no idea of what god's inner nature was like they did not know what god's essence was and uh and in fact it would be impossible to know the essence of god since everything that we know and experience with our senses is finite and particular and can be conceptualized in a kind of determinate fashion and is dependent and contingent on causes and conditions and god is can be none of those things and so utterly escapes our sort of conceptual faculties and and at the heart of catholic doctrine of god is a is an epiphaticism or a negative theology you might say uh that admits that kind of the unknowability of god in the moment we can lay hands on something and say this is god or that is god well we can almost assuredly know that it isn't and that's not an insight that's unique to catholicism you find it in in many of the world religions in the upanishads you find it in the taoism and so forth the tao that can be named is not the eternal dao that sort of concept and so where i'm going with all this is the catholic theologian says look what i can know is i can know that reality reality has a sort of character to it that's consistent and it's intelligible and that that intelligibility doesn't seem self-explanatory like there's nothing within the material world itself that seems to explain the existence of the intelligibility or the or the order of the material world therefore there there must be some sort of transcendent principle on upon which it depends and i think that's really kind of the presupposition of modern science right is that the world is intelligible can be known uh and that we can that we really know things deeply by examining their causes of course aristotle's notion of cause is quite complex it's not just you know what what are the factors that brought it into being but what is it made out of what are its inherent tendencies uh this kind of thing what are its potentialities really kind of a rich notion of its of its causation and and uh so i know reality through its causes as a cause rather as an effect i should say uh and i can reason backwards and but i can't really get to the first calls because that that sort of escapes all my conceptualizations all i can really arrive at is of the idea there is such a cause there is such a transcendent ground there is a kind of first principle from which things proceed and beyond that i don't really know and that's really the first principle of catholic theology that god is the first principle that's what the fourth lateran council taught that from which all things proceed but whose inner nature is utterly hidden from us and about whom we can speak only by analogy and haltingly and that same counsel also said that whatever analogy we think we find between god and creatures the dis analogy is infinitely greater infinitely greater so anytime i make any sort of affirmation about god like say i say well god thinks sort of but god doesn't have a brain right and anything that i think i know about thinking is deeply embedded in my in my materiality and my biology none of which is predictable of god you're just getting as close as you can yeah it's just it's a it's a it's a word that i can use by analogy to say well you know if something's in the effect it must pre-exist in some fashion in the cause but not in the same mode right and uh and so that's really what it means to believe in god the divinity as a catholic the the the utterly transcendent unknowable and simple first cause of all creation of all reality uh whose inner nature is utterly hidden from us and to deny that such a thing exists strikes me really is saying that reality itself is unintelligible because it there's it lacks any principle from which its intelligibility might derive now if that's an attractive idea to you a couple resources you might consider one would be david bentley hart's book the experience of god which i highly recommend edward fazer's five proofs for the existence of god and uh alexander pruss's work on the principle of sufficient reason okay chap there you go i hope that is helpful for you very intelligent uh questioning on your part good luck on your journey wow fantastic and and keep listening to saint gabriel radio a great resource for you there in the columbus area well we have lines open for you and we would love to hear from you on this beautiful tuesday afternoon here's our phone number two eight 833 ewtn that's eight three three two eight eight three nine eight six in a moment we'll get to an email from frank talking about the phrase god is love we'll kind of unpack that a little bit lots more straight ahead on the tuesday afternoon edition of call to communion here on ewtn [Music] cindy in any language it means the same live truth live catholic ewtn [Music] this is a messy family minute with mike and alicia hernan over the past year many dioceses have given catholics a dispensation from attending mass because of the pandemic this has led to a certain amount of confusion regarding the importance of the lord's day the catechism tells us the institution of the lord's day helps everyone enjoy rest and leisure to cultivate their familial cultural social and religious lives so celebrating sunday isn't really a time for us to go to mass though that is the most important thing you can do that day but the church tells us to also invest in our familial life spend time with your kids play games watch a family movie or take a day trip develop your cultural life by visiting a museum or attending a festival or going hiking together cultivate your social life by having other families over spending time in service of others let's use the lord's day to be refreshed and renewed as a family through prayer and cultivating true leisure for more ideas on developing your family culture visit us at messy messyfamilyminute.org here is today's quote from mother angelica's perpetual calendar admit it we're all battling against god's will and our own wills give me one example of a problem you have and i'll make a bet you're fighting god's will mother spiral bound perpetual calendar features an inspirational message for each day of the year it's available from the ewtn religious catalog at ewtnrc.com that's ewtnrc.com where is one place you'd love to travel again and why let us know about it next on take two with jerry and debbie on most of these ewtn stations now we return to call to communion with dr david anders [Music] what's keeping you from becoming a catholic let's talk about it here on ewtn's call to communion our phone number 833-288 ewtn that's 833-288-3986 here's a question now from frank who says just about every catholic source i have read or heard says that quote god is love but i have also heard that god doesn't even feel emotions the same way we do and he cannot ever change can you please explain how this works thanks frank yeah love's not not an emotion aha love is not an emotion right um so love means the the uh the will for the will of benevolence towards another person and the will to be in union with that person okay all right so i i if i love you means i want what's good for you i will what is good for you and i and i want to be in union with you and you have to have both of them if you have just one and not the other it's not love i can i can want what's good for you and not want to be in union with you so for example you know maybe i maybe i will good towards a beggar and i want to give alms but i don't want to have him over to dinner well that would really fall short of what jesus is teaching on charity is right go out and find the lime the blame to the lime and i just said that wrong the blind and the lame and you know bring them to the feast sure right when you give a banquet go bring him in well you know that's a lot of people might want to give alms to a beggar but maybe out of pity maybe mercy but not that didn't quite meet the biblical standard of love i might want to be in union with you but not love you you know hey tom you don't play tennis this afternoon well you destroy me so i'm not gonna offer but you know maybe i want to be in union with you over a tennis game because i want to play tennis that mean i love you right um but if i want your good genuinely and benevolent want your good and i wish to be in union with you then i have then i have charity and that's consistent on the human side with a whole range of emotions anyone who's ever had a child knows that love is the most painful of emotions when you want to be in union and you wish the good of a child who wants neither of those things [Music] and it's not an emotion well if it is an emotion it's agony right now does god will our good and does god will to be in union with us yes that is his very nature god is goodness itself self-effusive goodness it's goodness pouring out uh into the creation of the universe and the creation of rational creatures that are called back to participation in him rational participation in the divinity that's the whole purpose of the created order we we proceed from god by way of creation and we ascend to god by way of redemption but it doesn't necessitate any emotion or change in god okay frank thanks so much for your email by the way i don't think i mentioned this earlier but if you would like to send us an email for a future show uh we uh tackle at least we try to tackle uh two or three emails every show and then do a whole bunch of them probably about once a month or so on one of our mailbag shows we'll be taping one of those very soon so in any event if you would like to send us an email you can do that 24 7 at ctc ewtn.com there we go ctc at ewtn.com back to the phones right now at 833 288 ewtn here is jimmy jimmy is in tampa listing on siriusxm 130. hey there jimmy what's on your mind today hey good hey um just a real quick um uh question for dr anderson and i've talked to a couple different pastors i'm you know i'm christian dr anders um i just need to can you help me sum up you know first samuel where basically saw god you know commanded saul to kill you know women children and babies and everything like that so my question would be you know if god's supposed to be grace and merciful and loving why would he do that um to to our you know to our babies and women and children as well yeah thanks appreciate the question so you raise what is a perennial difficulty for christians approaching the old testament and it's been around a long time this problem has been around a long time and i'm going to tell you how catholics have handled it from the beginning and some of the ways that they handle it now from the beginning of the catholic church and i really am going all the way back to jesus and saint paul but also to the church fathers the christian church the catholic church has allegorized the old testament and when they have approached a passage that would seem morally repugnant in light of the christian teaching on god's universal will to save and the dignity of persons the approach has been to allegorize the passage now allegory is built into the new testament jesus himself employs allegory and other forms of relativizing the old testament i'll give you some examples when he's asked by the pharisees if it's lawful for a man to divorce his wife jesus says no and they say well then why does the law of moses permit it he says because of the hardness of your hearts boom he just relativized the mosaic law and then he points to the creation ordinance god made them male and female and what god has joined together let man not separate so that's the sort of relativizing principle in terms of allegory when christ is asked explicitly why do the prophets say that elijah must come first because we don't see we don't see any elijah running around and yet you're doing messianic kind of stuff jesus's response is well if you're willing to accept it meaning that it requires a kind of interpretive decision if you're willing to accept it john the baptist is elijah because he comes in the spirit in the power of elijah now saint paul does this even more and explicitly uses the term allegory in the book of galatians when he says that sarah and hagar stand for two covenants one of the flesh and one of the promise and the two mountains of horeb and sinai and these uh symbolize the two different ways of approaching god either either through legal observances or through faith now none of that of course is evident in the patriarchal narratives of sarah and hagar this is an allegory that saint paul derives from the text when it comes to these particular kinds of passages that you're mentioning you know saint paul says our struggle is not against flesh and blood it's not against amalek or the philistines or the canaanites or the jebusites but rather against the powers and principalities in the heavenly realm when someone like saint gregory of nissa treats the life of moses his celebrated life of moses when he deals with the question of the death of the firstborn in egypt which he fully admits this is a very problematic text if taken literally he says well then let's just let's just present from the literal and go to the allegorical which has to do with the death of our own evil affections and passions and so forth and the origin of alexandria another great algorithm the christian tradition does the same thing and today the catholic church continues to endorse the allegorical method of interpreting the old testament because it's well grounded in the teaching of jesus saint paul and the fathers of the church and so one approach and i'm summing up kind of the first approach is to say uh we read these texts as allegories for the battles of the spiritual life are battles against flesh and blood not against powers and principalities now um with the advent of modern higher criticism of the bible scientific higher criticism of the bible archaeology and so forth um it seems more and more that we can discern sort of the human element in scripture's production many of the texts that are under discussion are in fact products of the post exilic and post exact period of of judah and are not contemporaneous with the events that they recount so we shouldn't imagine that samuel wrote the book of samuel for example produced much much later and so forth through other books of the new testament and therefore they reflect the perspective of exilic judeans right and probably don't reflect actual historical events in in bronze age uh israel and so if you are a if you are an israelite or rather a judean languishing on the banks of the rivers of babylon and we know what your attitude is the psalms talk about it you're in anguish because somebody has come in and they have slaughtered your children and bashed their heads against rocks and and uh ravaged your women and subjected you to servitude and a natural human response is god would you do that to them i want you to get back at these folks but have just done this to me and we find that sentiment explicitly in the psalms the the imprecatory psalms are filled with the cry for bloodshed because it's suffering people like you know you've been through a holocaust sure you want them to get theirs and it expresses that point of view but what does jesus do with that point of view when he when he encounters it in the new testament does he validate it uh yes and no vengeance his mind saith the lord god jesus does admit that at the end of time there will be a recompense for evil but for us who wish to enter the kingdom of god the ethic is pray for your enemies and for those who and do good to those who persecute you and so the moral of the stories whether we look at this from a higher critical point of view or from a patristic and allegorical point of view we have to read the entire bible old and new testament alike through christ we have to see it through christ through the person of jesus jesus is the key that unlocks the meaning of the whole bible saint augustine when he wrote great treatise on the interpretation of the bible he wrote it in the fourth century it's called on christian doctrine says whenever you encounter any passage of scripture and you you are struggling to make sense of it in light of the faith you test it against the rule of love that charity is the ultimate guide to biblical interpretation and whatever interpretation encourages or coheres with charity that's the one that we make use of in the catholic church we do not limit ourselves to grammatical historical exegesis of the bible we read it in a lot of the doctrines and the fathers in light of christ in light of the rule of love jimmy dr anders unpacked an awful lot of information there you may want to check out the podcast for future reference and that address ewtn radio.net ewtn radio dot net just click on the podcast button hey jimmy thank you so much for your call call to communion here on ewtn or phone number eight three three two eight eight ewtn that's eight three three two eight eight three six hey be sure to join us later today for catholic answers live that's at 6 00 p.m eastern two full hours of an open forum q a in the first hour uh catholic apologist trent horn in the second hour father anthony check it out catholic answers live tonight at 6 p.m eastern on ewtn radio the exclusive radio home for catholic answers live very very glad to partner with catholic answers for many many years hopefully many years into the future here now kevin in rockville maryland listing on the great guadalupe radio hello kevin what's on your mind today hi tom uh it's a pleasure to be on here thank you i'm a catholic i wanted to ask um i i've often wondered why it is that god allowed the sin of adam and eve to to kind of create this concupiscence to affect you know to affect the whole human race the way it did if you don't mind i'm going to listen on the radio now okay yeah thanks appreciate the question well of course we actually celebrate the son of adam and eve in in the easter vigil liturgy we celebrate the happy fault that won for us so great a redemption because though none of us could have foreseen it saint peter says that that the angels in heaven uh were longing with eager expectation to see the fulfillment of the prophetic promise of christ they themselves didn't know how it was going to play out we always know that god brings good out of evil and so the answer is that god permits he doesn't he doesn't intend but he permits a human choice for evil because he knows how to write straight with crooked lines and and he anticipated the redemption that we have in christ and so you know history is a narrative god is a storyteller among other things no story uh you know begins everything is great it's going to be great tomorrow and it's going to stay great be in the end there's a story arc yes and the story arc of history as the story arc of our own lives i mean really in us i mean the call of the christian life is we are born in adam we are reborn in christ and then we recapitulate christ's life in us we we seek to become another christ and alter christus and and and live his divine life after him and participate in his self-offering that we might ascend to his divinity and that's the story of the individual christian it's also the story of the church and of humanity that fall redemption rise that's it appreciate that uh kevin thank you so much for checking in with us today listening on uh the great guadalupe radio am 1160 out of uh the dc area you're in rockville great place called a communion here on ewtn we have a very interesting letter here from um i'm not sure if i'm even going to get the name right but i believe it's asuqua and asukwo says good day dr anders i'm taking a course on moral and political philosophy from harvard the course is obviously secular biased with readings from aristotle kant lock jeremy bentham etc but nothing at all from any catholic philosophers so my plan is to try to inject catholic moral principles into resolving the moral dilemmas that are frequently presented as part of the course and in the discussions that follow anyway i believe the catholic church has a set of fundamental moral principles that catholics can apply to day-to-day moral decisions and actions including resolving moral dilemmas could you share please such principles with me or point me to sources where i can read about them including how they can be applied in situations thank you and again that's from uh asuquo yeah thanks asuka really appreciate the question so several resources for you to begin with one would be perhaps uh a good place to start would be the the second part of the summit theologica of saint thomas aquinas okay um thomas is one of the great moral theologians as he is one of the great theologians of the catholic tradition and he'll lay out for you a pretty wide vision of catholic moral thinking derived from scripture as well as from natural law and philosophy grounded in the life of the virtues and and the the universal quest or or desire for happiness or you don't know me really blessedness not just subjective satisfaction but a life of well-being um as we come to realize more and more perfectly what we really are our true humanity now what what christianity adds to the classical moral picture is not just a life of virtue but a life of virtue in christ that our true humanity is is to be united with something that is above us and not merely within us and namely god himself so thomas aquinas is a great place to start now i anyone who wants to approach catholic moral thinking particularly if you want to be in dialogue with a secular philosophy class needs to be grounded in sort of the wider principles of the catholic philosophical tradition and for that you need aristotle you need plato um and you probably need some modern moral theorists that can help translate that into a contemporary context here are a few for you to think about one is the philosopher david oderberg his uh his book on moral theory a non-consequentialist approach is a nice place to start another would be if you want someone who is actually an atheist but who has a deep appreciation for moral realism philippa foote um is somebody to consider iris murdoch the sovereignty of the good um and then um let's see uh edward fazer his book i think for dialogue with with harvard types the last superstition would be a great place to go so uh those are some places that i would start if i were you there you go asuquo thank you so much for your email call to communion here on ewtn here's one now from rita in reading pennsylvania rita says dr anders what is the catholic church is teaching on the reason for a new earth at the end of the world as mentioned in the book of revelation will this be our heaven after the final judgment since we will have bodies again thanks i watch your show every day it's really helped me understand my faith more fully your vast knowledge and ability to articulate that knowledge is truly a gift thanks rita thanks rita i appreciate the question so saint thomas says that we can assign no reason for the will of god the will of god is the highest cause that we can know we can't go higher than the will of god so we can't there's not something above and beyond the will of god that explains god's will all right that's that's the that's the end of the explanatory chain and the fact that god created this world rather than another one if we seek into the reason that why did god choose this world as opposed to one you know where there actually were unicorns or pink elephants we can't answer that question right uh what we can do so i can't tell you the reason that redemption takes the form that it does what i can tell you is how redemption is intelligible why it makes sense or why it's fitting but not but not why in an ultimate sense now it's fitting that god would redeem the created world because the created world was vitiated by sin and christ comes to take away sin and its consequences okay well there we are arita thank you so much for your email it's called a communion here on ewtn if you want to call now um we've got about six minutes left in the show you could get in um not making any guarantees here but i will give you the phone number 833-288 ewtn that's 833-288-3986 john checks in and says dr anders i heard you state that god does not create evil and i believe that's correct if you're referring to evil in the moral sense however the word ra evil in hebrew can mean many things for example scripture clearly teaches in isaiah 45 7 and amos 3 6 that god does create evil in the sense of earthly disaster or calamity what say you yeah i agree with you well that was easy i agree with you you know like molten lava pouring out on your house is an evil sure all right god makes molten lava sure yeah and why you know why would god let molten lava pour down on your house well i can think of a number of reasons one maybe you're a really bad guy and you need some molten lava in your house right i think we all have been happy if some molten lava had poured down on hitler's bunker you know that would be all right fire and brimstone kind of thing um maybe uh you know maybe god thinks you need a new house ah for some reason and you get out in time you know and you go off and get a new one and then you find out that you move into the next door neighbor is a catholic and you come to the church and all kinds of good things happen that you wouldn't have anticipated if your house hadn't gone up you know maybe uh this is an incredible trial and god seeks to test your faith and your perseverance and endurance and to and to bring you to perfection um uh you know teach you the life of prayer maybe maybe god desires that you should grow in compassion and by subjecting you to some sort of temporal suffering you develop deep empathy for those who suffer you know there any kind of any number of reasons why god might subject us to temporal suffering but what god wills in that is our good okay well very good and thank you so much uh for your email there john appreciate that here's one this one pops up this probably should be on our on our top ten list we hear it all the time this is from jack let me guess where's purgatory in the bible you're close okay uh jack listens to ewtn in toledo jack says were catholic missionaries threats to kill native americans who refuse to convert to christianity not a violation of the faith's commitment to preserving the sanctity of human life from birth until the moment of death yep they blew it they blew it nothing yep no no no defense here no justification can't let them off the hook no no so so when catholics do atrocious things and don't repent they go to hell clear and simple yeah okay that's what we teach appreciate that uh jack thanks for listening to us in toledo a couple of other more short ones here a few more short ones we had an email early in the show from nigeria here's another one from nigeria this is from dilena delena says thanks for your good work that you're doing i watch your show on youtube how can i explain mary's assumption to heaven to a non-catholic and were any of the apostles there with her thanks delena okay thanks i appreciate the question so mary was assumed into heaven because she participates in the most imminent way in the salvation which we have in christ now in the same way that she was immaculately conceived so the rest of us if we are extremely virtuous heroically charitable we might come to perfect sanctity before we die and that's jesus calls us to this is be perfect as your father in heaven is perfect and but for the for the saints who achieve that it's usually the end of a very long row to hoe before they arrive at that kind of union with god well mary had that given to her completely in the first moment of her conception in the same way all of us will be assumed into heaven at the second coming saint paul says will be caught up to christ in the air on the clouds as he comes back in the same way well just as mary participated in the fullness of redemption and her sanctification from from the moment of her conception so she gets uh the the fruits of that of that uh glorification early right she gets it because and why is that fitting why would christ give this to his mother well because she is for us a kind of icon or picture of what christian redemption looks like and of total holiness uh so she has her body now yeah like the rest of the souls in heaven don't have their bodies she's the only one up there with a body and um her whole life has this iconic character to it and i would like to summarize it in her response to the angelic salutation and to when angel gabriel tells her all that's going to happen to her and look it was pretty tough stuff that she was looking at it was tough stuff her response is be it done to me according to thy word she says yes to the divine plan where the first eve had said no and in this way she becomes the mother of god the mother of jesus christ and in him the mother of all those who believe in christ and so it's fitting that the mother of our redemption would share in this iconic way and all of the effects of the redemption in a most imminent way all right delena thanks so much for your question and thank you for watching us on youtube in nigeria very cool we could not get to a veronica in san antonio uh she may either want to hang on and talk to uh father during open line or perhaps call us on another day we'll be glad to put her at the head of the line in any event hey dr david anders thank you sir hey thanks tom don't forget we did the program monday through friday here on ewtn radio 2 p.m eastern with an encore at 11 pm eastern and the podcast available 24 7 for you at ewtnradio.net ewtnradio.net on behalf of our fantastic team i'm tom price along with dr david anders thanks for joining us today see you tomorrow right here on ewtn's call to communion god bless [Music] this is conversations with consequences where we delve deeper into issues affecting our church our country and our core the family as catholics we need to be informed aware and able to talk through some of the tough topics

Channel: EWTN

Views: 2,768

Rating: 4.9555554 out of 5

Keywords: Catholic, EWTN, Christian, television

Id: nziaOKvvXJk

Length: 54min 5sec (3245 seconds)

Published: Tue May 25 2021