Virtus In Medio Stat

Comments by Laurence Gonzaga Romans 10 New King James Version Israel Needs the Gospel 10 Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for [a]Israel is that they may be saved. 2 For I bear them witness (A)that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. 3 For they being ignorant of (B)God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own (C)righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God. 4 For (D)Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. -- Paul hopes for all of the Israelites to be saved. They have zeal, presumably sincere, but don't have the knowledge. Why? Because they don't have the truth. Partial truth is not enough. They lack the knowledge of the new covenant. They think they can be saved by their righteousness of Law (Old Covenant) rather than the rightousness of Grace (New Covenant). Christ ends the Law, so that all who believe will become truly righteous. --- 5 For Moses writes about the righteousness which ...

The Protestant Claim: All of what is to be known, understood, taught, believed, and done by the Christian is found in the Bible/Scripture ALONE, the Reformation doctrine of "sola scriptura". The Catholic Claim: All of what is to be known, understood, taught, believed, and done by the Christian is found in the Bible/Scripture, the Oral Tradition of the Church, and the Living Teaching Magisterium of the Church. Matthew 2:23 And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, “He shall be called a Nazarene.” --Where is this prophecy found in the Old Testament? If you can't find it, it must have come down to the time of Jesus by the Oral Tradition of the Jews. Jude 1:9 Yet Michael the archangel, in contending with the devil, when he disputed about the body of Moses, dared not bring against him a reviling accusation, but said, “The Lord rebuke you!” --Where did the Apostle Jude get this story from? It's not recorded...

Finished the Dahmer series. As much as I feel the justice of the universe demands him burning in Hell for all eternity... if his conversion was sincere, and his baptism valid, he may just be in Heaven before any of us. That's the radical twist of Christianity, isn't it? Anyone can be elect, chosen before all time. Because God's justice is balanced by mercy... And that's His prerogative, not ours. If you disagree, just remember the fact that you don't deserve Heaven any more than Jeff Dahmer.  None of us do.

I'm being interviewed for an atheist/agnostic podcast or YouTube cast whatever it's called, tomorrow, 5 pm PST. He wanted to debate me on predestination and free will a few months ago. I said a debate wouldn't make sense. My reason for it is faith. His reason for rejecting free will is "science". I only agreed if this was a discussion, not a debate. So anyway, it's happening. I'll write my basic thesis today. Probably won't be official Catholic teaching, but not outside of the defined dogmas, which are basically there is predestination, and there is free will. Not much else has been defined. Interview on this channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/shanemysterio/videos Determinism, Free Will, and Predestination Laurence Gonzaga Free will, as I understand it, is the ability to choose between two or more options with each of the options being equally probable. Apart from theological assumptions or conclusions, I believe there is sufficient reason to concl...

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Facebook post:  https://www.facebook.com/laurencegonzagausa/posts/10100133425018386  On a recent thread, I shared with a friend, a potential convert, about the traditional view of Divine Revelation, Catholic Tradition and Scripture, known as partim-partim. Now, modern apologists and theologians would probably distance from partim-partim to a sort of middle way with sola Scriptura, a concept some call "prima scriptura". I've heard it used by Patrick Madrid, and Robert Sungenis shared with me that this idea likely came from the influence of Scott Hahn.  Anyway, the idea of partim-partim is that there are two separate sources (plural) of Divine Revelation, Scripture and Tradition. This was certainly the idea at the time of the prep for the Second Vatican Council as the draft schema for the document on Sacred Scripture, Schema Constitutionis Dogmaticae de Fontibus Revelationis, referred to "sources of revelation". What came out of Vatican II, in Dei Verbum, was a si...

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