Author Topic: I cannot believe that (Read 659 times)

spouse of Jesus · « **on:** June 01, 2009, 09:21:32 AM »

People say that the difference between christianity and old law is LOVE. and what is love? "a free choice- to obey God".
" to keep the commandments" But I think that keeping the commandments is the result of love, not love itself. And the problem is that you can keep the commandments even without charity. I really cannot accept that love is a human free choice and is just about serving others.
look at the example:
A woman is married to man for whom she has no affection. Yet she is too pius to commit sin. therefore she decides to love him ( to do good to him) She fulfills all her duties, cooks for him obeys him and so on.
But she still feels emty and broken. She cannot creat the love although she can serve/obey him.
My piont is : If love is a free choice to obey (that is to keeping the commnandments) Then what is our difference with infidels who also keep them? The 10 commandments are kept by many people.
And when you say :" Jesus because of all He did for us merits our love" can you paraphrase it to :" ...merits our keeping of commands"?
And those who say that the human heart can be filled only with the divine love will have to say:
human heart can be filled only with:
not commiting theft- false wittness-adultery-murder and other sins.
I know that law is good holy and necessary, but I think that keeping them is the result of love not love itself. and I think that we cannot creat love, we are not it's source. it must come to us first.

trent13 · « **Reply #1 on:** June 01, 2009, 03:03:20 PM »

The romantic love that is often evident between spouses is not something that is absolutely a necesarry part of marriage - surely a beautiful thing, and a helpful aid, but not necessary, especially since it is an earthly thing. The love that really matters is the love of the spouse (in the spiritual sense) for the love of God. Marriage is for the procreation of children and the attainment of heaven, all the others frills (personal happiness in marriage "twu wuv" isn't required. My point is that I don't think that is a good comparison. And the notion that we keep the comomandments as a matter of love is protestant - they believe that one shows that they are saved by keeping the commandments, b/c they are so grateful for what Our Lord did for them.

I'm not really understanding where you get your definitions - i don't think of loving God as being the same as freely choosing to obey Him. I think when people speak of the difference between the old law and the new as love they mean that it was necesarry for the old law to be eye for an eye and presenting a stern God, who loves but is nevertheless very exacting. This was necessary b/c there was no Redeemer, the only path to heaven was to do exactly what God said without any defiance. There was no confession, no sacramentals, there were none of the helpful aids of the Church. So Our Merciful Lord, founds the Church with all it does to help us attain heaven - the Redemption is a merciful act: For God so loved the world... and the new law is a merciful law, not rigorous and exacting like the old one.

spouse of Jesus · « **Reply #2 on:** June 01, 2009, 10:02:54 PM »

[/quote] I'm not really understanding where you get your definitions

Quote

Here it is the source:

http://en.allexperts.com/q/Catholics-955/2009/5/Free-choice.htm

It is the answer to a question I asked from Fr. Michael.

spouse of Jesus · « **Reply #3 on:** June 01, 2009, 10:06:10 PM »

Sorry. I don't know why doesn't it work as a direct link. You have to copy paste.

spouse of Jesus · « **Reply #4 on:** June 01, 2009, 11:00:23 PM »

Chant said that even 'an eye or an eye' was an act of love, thus preventing people from wanting many eyes for an eye.

trent13 · « **Reply #5 on:** June 02, 2009, 03:16:49 PM »

lol that's kind of funny - I guess I never thought of it that way - regardless though, the eye for an eye system did get thrown out with the new testament and the command to forgive offences.

trent13 · « **Reply #6 on:** June 02, 2009, 03:23:20 PM »

I read Fr. Michael's response - he's not saying that they are interchangeable, love for God and obeying His commandments, he's saying that they are both acts of the will - he was making a comparison between obeying God (an act of the will) and loving God (also an act of the will). You choose to love God. I don't think there was anything in there about what would inspire one to choose to obey the commandments. The obvious one would be b/c God said so and if I don't do it I'll go to hell. But the higher one would be, for the love of God - because He is good and know what is best for us and because He said so. And we would obey him out of love just like the way as children we implicitly trust that our parents love us and for love of them we would do whatever they ask us to.

Dulcamara · « **Reply #7 on:** June 04, 2009, 02:15:50 AM »

I didn't have time to find a proper response to your questions (as I'm very late to bed already). However I do have something you may be interested in.

This is a link to the Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas, online (free), wherein he goes point by point, writing out the objections (or errors) first, and then after, explaining the truth of the matter. It's tough reading, but... there's answers to all kinds of questions there. Just don't confuse the errors for the explanations of the truth. His responses about what is true are LAST, not at the beginning of a topic. Just think of it as question/answer format. First the questions, then the answers.

Summa Theologica Online

There are, among other things, topics on charity and the old law. Hopefully you can find some good answers to your questions there. (If so, they'll be better ones than most of us can give you.)

spouse of Jesus · « **Reply #8 on:** June 04, 2009, 05:13:06 AM »

Thanks!

Matthew · « **Reply #9 on:** June 04, 2009, 11:28:32 AM »

The Summa is about the best way to have a proper grasp of the Faith. St. Thomas Aquinas was used by the Catholic Church for CENTURIES to train priests in the truths of the Faith -- in the true philosophy and theology.

St. Thomas Aquinas is in a class by himself!

Matthew