Well said, I will add it to my prayers. Thank you.

Bring all the departed into the light of your presence.

I understand wanting all to enter the Kingdom. God Himself is not willing that anybody perish. But, asking God to go outside of His nature is nonsensical. I can’t think of Biblical text to back up your point, and I see plenty of doctrinal problems.

God is all powerful. True. Typically this is stated as “God can do anything.” Not entirely true. Can God create a boulder that God cannot lift? Can God Lie? Either answer leads to “God cannot do Anything.” The real answer is God has a nature, His nature is all good, and certain things he can accept as his nature permits, other things cannot be tolerated. It is what makes God God. So, can God both be just by His standards and unjust by His standards? No. Can God accept sin in His presence while His nature does not allow for this? No.

He made a way to take our sin away so that we could come into His presence. I guess there could be another plan to allow for forgiveness of sin. If that’s the case then He hasn’t let us know about it. In fact, He has told us otherwise, so to suspect a secondary plan would make God a liar, or at least we have greatly misunderstood some pretty straight-forward scriptural doctrines.

Mike, how do you know what God can and cannot do? I understand the Platonian angle to your questions, but the fact remains that you are no more knowledgable about God’s limits (if He has limits) than anyone else.

Mike,

Thank you for the thoughtful comment. I agree with just about everything you say.

There are many biblical quotes that could back up this point, but for me (perhaps my Catholic bias), I would point to your assertion that God “is not willing to let anyone perish.” I think, in the end, God brings about exactly what God wants.

God never acts against Divine Justice, so God has to convince us to get on board with God’s plan. This is the ultimate reconciliation that has to happen: our ultimate conversion to the Love of God.

This is ultimately accomplished by Jesus’ saving work, but it reaches each of us by a very plural and complicated path. The Church is always involved, as I explained above, but God also involves every aspect of creation to reach us. There is one plan, but this plan has many parts, many more than we could ever know or comprehend. Only God sees the whole plan. I don’t think that this makes God a liar. God explained the rough outline of the plan and its most important points. The details are beyond us.

At least that is how I see it.

Among Christians there is a model prayer for everyone called the Lord’s Prayer. I am sure most of you are familiar with it. The “Father”, mentioned in the prayer, is God. It is not a Catholic priest or a priest in any other Christian denomination who is addressed as “Father”. What follows are my comments on Jesus’ model prayer, in five parts:

1.“Our Father, who art in heaven. Hallowed be thy name.”

You are the source of love and hope. We cannot live without you.

2.“Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

This is our shared goal. We cannot be free unless we pursue it.

3.“Give us this day our daily bread.”

Renew your presence in us. We cannot live by bread alone.

4.“Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

If we love others as you love us, this will be automatic.

5.“Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.”

We know we have a relationship with you. We cannot give it away, neither can anyone take it away but you, our Father. Please stay with us in our trials.

For those of us who know that everyone has a relationship with God, the Lord’s Prayer is for everyone.

I think it is right, especially for Roman Catholics, to pray for the dead.

A few years ago, I had a dream. I had been in heaven – thousands of years – and I was standing on the bank of a river with others. The river appeared to contain fast flowing water over rocks. Looking closer, I realized the rocks were the heads of people marching briskly down stream, into heaven – a river of life. I was astonished and asked, the person I was standing next to, who the people were. He said they were “Catholics”. So I asked him: “What took them so long?” He replied: “They tried to give their personal relationship to God to organized religion.”

Davel, your dream comment kind of ticked me off. Are Muslims or Jews or Lutherans or Baptists not members of an “organized” religion? What makes you think your interpretation of the Lord’s Prayer is the correct one? You don’t even know for sure if those were the words that Jesus spoke, given the number of tanslations over the years. It’s nice that you are so sure in your faith, I hope it is not hubris taking over.

Scott,

It’s not my assertation, it’s the man you claim to be your first pope that made that assertation. 2Peter 3:9 I believe.

I’m not sure what your basis is for the plural nature of God’s plan, or exactly how plural you’re talking. If you say that creation declares His glory, then I agree there are many ways that creation can bring us God’s plan. If you mean that you can come to God by belief in alternate religions that deny the deity of Christ, deny the true God, deny the need for salvation, or put faith in anything but the true God, then I don’t know that your talking about Christianity anymore.

I can say that we only can know (as in know for certain) what He has told us, no more, no less. That absolutely does not mean that we know everything. So by that concept maybe you could be right, and it would not make God a liar. But, if any guesses at that plan include concepts that contradict what He has told us, then either the guess is bad, or God is a Liar, which I think we all agree that He cannot be. Yes, God explained his plan – at least the rough outline – and the important parts we do know – We know what He WILL do. Also, maybe more important, He told us what the plan was not – We can know what He WON’T do. I think the subject at hand is in the playing field of what he CAN do. This is between the WILL and WON’T areas and is bounded by them – he won’t do something that he said he WON’T do, and He will do what he said He WILL do. Make sure that your guesses at the rest of God’s plan fall within those bounds. I don’t think allowing unforgiven sinners into His presence is in that range. He said some people will enter his presence – and he told us how and why – and that others will be cast away for eternity – and he told us how and why. The how and why part have to be done before death. This is basic theology, and I’m not sure any mainstream protestant or catholic deny this. So hoping for God to do some thing He told us He WON’T do does not make much sense. Remember “YOUR will be done.”

Tim,

To answer your question:

To know God’s nature is tantamount to salvation. You must know God to believe in Him and accept his plan for salvation. To know God, you must understand who God is. You can go your whole life putting your faith in “God” but not understanding who He is can prevent you from putting your faith in the right God. Unless you know about God, how can you put your faith in God. We must understand God’s nature to know about Him, and to know Him.

I know what He has revealed to us, and what we can deduce conclusively about Him from His Word.

This is why all heresy begins with a misconception of God’s nature. You start believing enough of the wrong things about God, and eventually you aren’t even talking about the same being, but an imagined one that can do you no good.

This is all contingent on accepting the Bible as the Word of God. If you don’t accept that, then there is a whole different discussion for a different day.

Tim,

It was only a dream. Probably, I would not have had that dream if I was not married to a Catholic and all my kids are Catholic. I think it was the result of a father’s anxiety but if it ticked you off could it be there is, at least, a shred of truth in it?

The example of Christ for having a relationship with God is not one of chasing after organized religion. The model Christ presents is an individual relationship with God applicable to all. I am human. My interpretation of the Lord’s Prayer is definitely not entirely correct. Jesus did not speak English and even if he did, something would get lost in the translation to our day. However, I believe the Lord’s Prayer, which I enclosed in quotation marks, is consistent with the way Jesus lived his life in relationship with God. What followed each quote was my comment on how I felt about that portion of the Lord’s Prayer. It was not intended to be a scholarly interpretation, although, I can see how, it could be seen that way.

With the ability to read the Bible - in print during and after the Protestant reformation - comes the realization that universal personal relationships with God, after the example of Christ, are more important than Church relationships with God. Consequently, Protestants are likely to care less about their organized religion than Catholics, where the role of the Church is mandated. I do not know enough about Jews or Muslims to say they have a similar situation - like Catholics and Protestants - where organized religion is valued more or less, depending on their own personal relationship with God.

Sometimes I feel like the token protestant commenter here

From time to time, in my church, we recite the Apostles creed, including the line, “…the holy Catholic Church…”. Which is interesting. What I was taught when I was young about that is that the word “Catholic” in Latin (or is it Greek) means “Universal”. So, to dave’s dream, I plug in the word “universal church” and I’m ok.

I believe it is perfectly appropriate to pray for all the people of the earth, no matter what God (or no-God) they profess to believe in. I do have a problem with praying for the dead….the decisions that will land them on the right or left hand of Christ at the judgment have already been made.

I also fully agree with the sentiment expressed that God can (and will) do whatever it is that GOD chooses to do. It’s really not up to me to worry too much about whether some other person is walking the right path towards God. I have enough to work on making sure I’m on the path God wants ME on.