Having been in ROTC as well as having studied one of the hard sciences I would always like a base theory on which to base the calculational or strategic/tactical path I wish to take. That is why I have to have a theory about God which includes all of biblical revelation as well as the reasons we have the various traditions in the Church.
The bible says “in the beginning” there was God. More accurately we should say always there is God (as in every way because “before” God created time there is no beginning, before or after because God created everything including time). Saint Augustine referred to this fact in his book on his conversion called Confessions. And again using a term that is meaningless in the reality before time, “once” there was only God and nothing. Why even mention nothing? Because if you think about it nothing is everything God is not. Nothing has no power and God is all powerful. Nothing is the essence of non-existence and God is the essence of existence itself (I Am Who Am). Nothing can do nothing and God can do everything.
Now what nothing is, is absolutely like nothing else. People think of nothing as what “exists” between galaxies – intergalactic space. But even space has depth, height and width as well is overlayed with time. Nothing has none of these qualities. In interstellar space there is still the fabric of space time which allows things to have depth, height and width and because of time gives things the capability to move. It must be understood that God had absolutely nothing, or in our sphere of thinking “no prior concept” of how things should be and constructed all reality from logic and a plan He created with no previous blueprint of how things should be (the actual truth is that God always knew the perfect reality and the perfect set of characteristics in a human to enable free will to cull suitable sentient beings for heaven and the characteristics needed in those beings, too, through free will, make heaven unimaginably wonderful; and which would make those unsuitable, the composers of an unimaginably evil mode of existence, due to the weakness they decided not to try to correct by free will in this life, of the mode of existence we call hell – God will not create hell, those there will create it through their own stubbornness to continue to do what they know is wrong).
It should be a humbling thought that God basically created the universe for our benefit. God created the universe, the fact that it started (see St. Augustine’s book confession) the fact that it is a finite size and the ordered laws of nature so that we could see the hand of a creator in it and that order is the way to insure some sort of predictability and give witness to the fact that God is good. God created human nature, human intelligence and human free will in concert with the way He created the universe, to give us enough information to make an informed decision for the most important question of our existence, the ultimate deciders of our own eternal fate (Genesis 1:26-31, Genesis 2:8, Mark 2:27 – “The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath” if even “God’s” day was made for man all creation was essentially made for man in general, but most of all for one person who was both man and God – Jesus Christ). The how and should of everything was God’s mind child (AS OPPOSED TO BRAINCHILD SINCE GOD IS A PURE INTELLECT NO PHYSICAL BRAIN TO ACCOMPANY HIM – at least not until the incarnation when he specifically became a Jewish male). But we know from scripture that God is not one but 3 persons AS one being, one will, one essence. If this 3 persons in one being were not so, in my opinion, He could not be perfect because he would be lonely. He might need to create us “not to be lonely” but since He wasn’t “alone” He did not need us or creation, He could be self-satisfied in himself. Just about anyone married and/or who has a child, probably knows how you can look for long stretches of time at the other and be happy because of the love between you. Since God made us in his own image and likeness He can come to satisfaction in the same way but in relation to someone perfect – i.e. another person of the Trinity.
From the bible we know God created everything that exists including height, depth, width and time (the actual fabric of reality – spacetime, which Einstein theorized was deformed by matter/energy to give rise to gravity) as well as everything else that exists in a universe which at its base is defined by those concepts. Even the logic we use when we think was given rise to by this universe. But “before” all this, God existed alone, outside of the concept of time with nothing but the unlimited power and intellect that was Him. All things He created must constantly be kept in existence by Him, were He to “forget” about us/universe for a split second we and verily the universe would all disappear. Along with this concept goes the fact that He is aware of every single particle as well as the thoughts and emotions of every single higher order being in the universe.
This idea of God can be contrasted with human beings. We stay in existence (i.e. don’t turn back into nothing) because of God. When I was young used to think of saints or Old Testament people being overly humble in saying in their prayers “God, I who am but dust ask . . .” (Genesis 18:27), but as I now think about it they were really exaggerating their own importance (not knowingly I’m sure because nothingness is such an alien concept), dust exists, also by God’s beneficence, but our bases origin is nothingness. So those that say lord though I am nothing are absolutely right, because of God we spring from nothingness. Human beings learn things and sense the world a slither or sliver of time at a time. God senses all things, senses all times and has all knowledge simultaneously. In popular literature (and at least the movie is R rated) the science fiction novel the Slaughter House five by Kurt Vonnegut, where the alien scientist has a device where he can see the end of time, is how I see God is, except, like I said He does not have to look forward in time but sees all time, or more precisely is aware of all time at the same time. Unlike us who have to learn, absorb information and think to make use and understand information, God already knows everything. With regard to things happening in time, He only intervenes when we pray but he can see the outcome and only influences it when we do pray/ask his help. The fact that He does not normally purposely influence reality is why we have free will.
If He was constantly imposing his will on us we would not be free willed sentient self-aware beings at all but merely puppets for his amusement, which cannot be since He is all loving. Also if a parent were to give everything to a child, as we see quite often, the child would become spoiled. This is part of why there is suffering in the world, so that we, as God’s hands in this world through being Catholic can fix it, and so when we can’t, we can ask our father – God. If people got on board with God’s agenda and were not so preoccupied with their own sexual pleasure, their own greed and their own personal comfort, it is possible all disease, all hunger and all poverty would be cured by now and instead of worrying about contraception we would be traveling to the stars wondering how we, beings who, at most, can produce about 24 children in a lifetime assuming we started to procreate as soon as we could, could produce enough people to conquer all the stars and learn all that we can about our universe to try to make an actual paradise for everyone, especially those not Catholic, who will not inherit eternal life.
The reason God created human beings is since He is all loving he wanted to share both the fantastic feeling of existence, free will and creation with other sentient beings that could appreciate it. Good is order, everybody getting along and doing most, if not everything, for the happiness of others as well as ourselves. Evil is the lack of some order and only doing things for our own happiness and ether ignoring or disregarding the happiness of others. Doing good reproduces a small slice of heaven here in our world. Doing evil reproduces a small slice of hell here in our world.
The way my mind sees a hell created by an all loving God is that it will be exactly like heaven to start with except without the unfathomable repair to the souls in heaven which ones going to heaven will have to consent to with an unqualified yes to God (Mark 12:25, Matthew 22:30), an assent that was found in how they lived their lives and, of course, with the ever present love of God constantly filling their being and environment in heaven. In essence people in hell will be people living in a perfect environment with all the ills of their bodies repaired by an all good God when they arrive. Unfortunately they will be the same people they were on earth, with their petite foibles, their petite minds, their easily bruised egos, their monumental pride, their inconsideration for their neighbor and their unwillingness to compromise to help anybody but themselves. This unrepaired original sin continuing to dominate their character will result in wars, just like on earth, epidemics (only because in their pride they will think themselves gods and after a few thousand years of research in their new world create artificial life, like germs and worms, for “help” in their wars) and eventually weapons systems that will help the leaders conquer their adversaries. I see one of these weapons or research from developing them do what some atomic bomb scientist thought might happen upon exploding the first atomic bomb, an uncontrolled reaction that will set all of hell ablaze. Voila, not having saints to control their stupidity (i.e. weeds with the wheat in Matthew 13:24-29) they will have created hell for themselves.
I think that the secret that God tried to reveal in His gospel is if we help each other we can make earth like a heaven, but as we get closer to doing this, a majority of people, influenced by certain evil people, start to think that God (who is the orderer of all things as Jesus Christ through his church tried to show us “that order” and what would result if we followed it) is unnecessary (think French revolution, Russian revolution, Nazi Germany, Pol Pot, Chavez’s Venezuela etc.). Through observing history, even recent history, we see how godless society that in theory would become a utopia degenerates into a dysfunctional society – a dystopia, in which all, except those at the very top, are treated as worthless. In these societies we can see how hell can come about without Gods intervention or more precisely because God does not intervene, as he will not in hell, for those that have chosen their god as themselves, and in doing so rejected the real God the one that once (had they followed his way of taking care of their neighbor as themselves) would have led them to eternal happiness.
To reiterate God created the entire universe for man so that man could experience existence, free will, the act of secondary creation (i.e. composing new devices, literature, songs, ideas and even other beings – i.e. our children, from already existing things, what we imprecisely call creation) and happiness. But we need each other to realize these things. All the fine technological developments we are heir to come about from men discovering things and other men using those discoveries to discover other things and finally other men use those discoveries to build things like cars, planes, computers, good things to eat etc. In turn other men gathered together to create hospitals to help repair our broken or sick bodies, while other men banded together to create learning centers like universities to pass on the knowledge discovered so other future men could use it to the benefit of man (see the book “How the Catholic Church built Western Civilization” by Thomas E. Woods, jr.).
But the greatest “joy” God had was creating sentient, self-aware, free-willed beings. He gave these beings the similar power to reproduce. As God created the universe and the order that was to become human civilization, He expected each family, in their own microcosm of creation, to use sex to produce children and educate them to live in society (Genesis 1:27 – 28), educate them to love God (which is synonymous to becoming contributing members of the society through participation/assimilation of dogmas/doctrines of the Catholic Church) and educate them to love their neighbor. Raising the children gives one a more complete happiness not just the intense pleasure felt in sex. You are able to see your children grow, learn to love God, learn to love live and become happy in their own right to hopefully eventually become citizens of heaven and participate in eternal happiness. The basic purpose of sex is to produce eternal beings, hopefully citizens of heaven that will live in happiness forever.
In the secular world of today sex is separated from its procreative function and instead of being the incredible pleasurable joy felt from creating and raising a new citizen of heaven, it is simple sterilized to just extract the incredible pleasure. This is the problem with homosexuality, just like it is with sex before marriage or sex with someone else who you are not married too. God built free will into everything so like nuclear energy you could use it for good (like building reactors to supply electricity to keep people from freezing in the winter and dying of heat stroke in the summer) or evil (like the construction of an atomic bomb to coerce people into giving you their land and freedom). The power of sex is the same way you can use it to create new people of God and enjoy the accompanying pleasure and joy with the added joy of raising children, or you can use contraceptives or worst yet, abortion to turn other humans into pleasure machines for your own enjoyment i.e. turn them basically into prostitutes, other humans you use only for your pleasure regardless of any psychological or physical damage (like a botched abortion) you might do to them. In addition the use of the pill may result in an unintended abortion (i.e. the fertilized egg is unable to implant in the uterus because of chemical byproducts of a normal pill). Oral contraceptives, have also been shown to influence a higher chance of cancer (see the government website https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK234348/) as well as stroke or heart attack in women as young as twenty seven years of age (https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/strokeaha.117.020084 ).
This cognitive dissonance in acting as a prostitute (i.e. simply supplying pleasure to your spouse), or worst yet as simply a sex toy to produce pleasure and knowing your higher calling that you should be producing citizens of heaven, in my opinion, is the main reason why those Christians using artificial birth control of any kind have a higher incidence of divorce than those who use natural family planning (read here things like the Billings ovulation method, the older rhythm method or the thoroughly modern form of natural birth control outlined in the book “Taking Charge of your Fertility” by Toni Weschler or in the more expensive computerized lady-Comp Fertility Computer). Of course knowing their God given duty, the other reason for less divorces among those who don’t use contraception may be more careful selection of spouses in these marriages. These natural planning methods are based in knowing nature and taking advantage of selective abstinence which is allowed in accordance with 1 Corinthians 7: 3-7, if by mutual consent, accompanied by prayer and for a good reason. Mutual consent implies that, in reality, in marriage, once a spouse gives the other spouse control of their bodies, sex is to be used primarily for the procreation of citizens of heaven. This is the reason solitary vice is forbidden. This, if observed, prevents abuse of the gift of sex for one’s own pleasure either by themselves or with someone other than one’s spouse.
In my opinion, God making us ashamed to show our bodies to just anybody (modesty), is a gift when it is not abused through desensitization (think our secular society bringing up hemlines on women’s dress, lewd displays at so called “gay pride parades” etc.). Because of our society’s constant effort to desensitize us, people in our society crave more and more shocking and taboo behaviors to arouse sexual excitement. If we practice modesty not only would our society have less unwanted pregnancies, child pornography and rapes but adolescents would be less tempted to resort to premarital sex/pornography, our celibate clergy (priests, brothers and nuns) would be given less occasion to entertain impure thoughts or downright temptation to break their vows. So how is the shame felt through modesty a gift? Because if we bond closely with our spouse and only reveal ourselves to each other we can eventually experience the thrill and satisfaction God wanted us to feel for each other in the garden of Eden, not feeling or knowing shame between each other and enjoying sex thoroughly, “knowing” each other thoroughly, as God wanted, to the complete satisfaction of both spouses. This act of creation is complemented by the birth of a child, who you can concentrate your God given gifts on to bring them to know God and raise them with the discipline needed to become not only good happy citizens in this world (but not of it John 17:15-21), but through making them knowledgeable and conscientious of their faith, citizens of heaven. This act of creation should also connect us with a firm faith in God that he will only give us the children we can raise correctly and provide for as well as the resources to take care of all the children he gives us.
Natural family planning methods do not intentionally try to frustrate God’s natural law but works in accord with it to some higher good (like health of the mother, finances of the family etc.). We must remember that in going against the natural law, which God put into nature, you are making an idol of sex and are in violation of the first and highest commandment. A woman may still conceive using natural family planning, which is why most people want to “guarantee,” (though it is still possible) with artificial oral contraceptives, they won’t get pregnant. It is well known, especially in Catholic families, selective abstinence still “more easily allows” God to bring children into the world if he so desires and He can also allow conception even in those using contraception and so the occasion for many abortions to non-believers as well as weak “believers.” We must remember that abortion is a violation of the fifth commandment as well as the first if you used contraception to try to prevent the pregnancy in the first place (because it is basically against the natural law which God is also responsible for and created for a reason).
I think that the push to normalize things like transsexuality, transvestitism, and homosexuality as well as multiple gender classifications to push children into confusion and gender dysphoria is a concerted effort by evil in our world to destroy civilization for the benefit of their own twisted perverted preferences to make things such as sexual slavery, sex with children and force sexual relations (rape) legal. Many theories on who these people are, among them, the world economic forum (WEF), the tri-lateral commission, the Bilderberg Group, Satanic guided global elite, the freemasons, illuminati, etc. whoever the culprit we must find out EXACTLY who they are and construct a defense. From Holy Scripture – the Bible, we know we are not fighting against individuals but against rulers of the world and ultimately the devil himself (Ephesians 6:11-13) and that we must arm ourselves against them/him – the devil. This battle we are in, in my humble opinion (IMHO), is not like the one that was fought at the beginning of Catholicism when Jesus Christ first started the Catholic church, when individuals with wills of steel were martyred by the hundreds. This battle can only be won if Catholics unite and, as we built western civilization with the first hospital systems, the first college systems and the first parochial school systems (all of which we should continue to build by Peter 3:15 to be prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for “a reason for the hope that is in you” to do it with gentleness and respect) if we stick together as Catholics with a solid front of organizational steel, proudly being catholic and proudly standing for the protection of life from conception to natural birth (Genesis 38:9-10, Exodus 20:13), against unjust wars, for assisting in helping the non-combatants in just wars (think WWII where the pope protected hundreds of thousands if not millions of Jewish people throughout the world by hiding them in churches, convents, Catholic hospitals, as well as other Catholic owned properties), for fighting in just wars (Genesis 9:6) such as WWII where I read that approximately 40% of soldiers in the U.S. Army were Roman Catholic and standing for two genders (Genesis 5:2) to protect young-ladies/under-aged-girls from being raped in bathrooms and to protect their ability to compete fairly in sports. We must fearlessly fight for what we learn from the bible is right, more over what is the truth. Fighting for right saves pain for all, as we see not standing for just 2 genders creates a safety problem for human females young and old creating the possibility of rape in certain situations and creating inequity in sporting and combat situations.
God wants us to love Him of our own free will and so he makes almost all, if not all, of creation a choice between good and evil – living a moral life or living an immoral life. Living a moral life makes you eligible to be a citizen of heaven which basically means at least loving God and your neighbor as yourself and obeying the 10 commandments as a minimum but in addition to be a citizen of heaven you must remove the original offense of man – original sin, an infinite debt incurred by our first parents to an infinite God, through baptism. If we can stay free from mortal sin our whole life or confess it to God’s chosen representative and do the required penance, we can redeem or eligibility to be citizens of heaven on our judgement day to become citizens of heaven – eligibility being ratified upon a positive judgement when we are judged. As Catholics we believe priests are appointed through the church as opposed to heredity in the Old testament (sons of Aaron), and as to opposed to just doing things like scapegoating and sacrificing animal to propitiate, for sinning, they both adjudicate and offer solutions on how to avoid repeating a sin and how to be better Catholics through confession (Catholics in essence get free therapy, usually about $50/hour in the secular world, in addition to the forgiveness of sins if they perform the penance they are asked to which might well include something like turning yourself in for murder John 20:22-23). Original sin is why we tend toward evil, but through the grace of baptism we can use our free will to overcome it. The first step to solving a problem is to know you have it. That is why we have had people like Robespierre, Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot kill thousands if not millions of people (i.e. because they did not know they had a problem which was a weak moral compass caused by original sin).
The debt left over from the original sin of our first parents, Adam and Eve, is infinite because God created us out of nothing and the jump from nothing to something is basically infinite (i.e. can you create or even know how to create anything that is matter/energy out of nothing?). The Bible tells us humans originally did not have 10 commandments/rules but only one and humans broke that one. Breaking that one commandment gave us the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:16-17) and that is why there had to eventually be 10 commandments because of the knowledge and lure of evil opened more possibilities for man and woman to sin.
Now reading the Bible before Adam and Eve sinned Gods injunction to creation was be fruitful and multiply. That’s it, there were no priests, no nuns and no real form of ritual worship only one rule. Basically Adam and Eve were friends of the creator who provided everything for them. Everything that was possible could be done by a man or a woman. Either could be a doctor, either could be a scientist either could be a CEO or either could be an engineer. Only when Eve and then Adam broke God’s only law did their duties have to be separated, each being necessary, through God’s fiat. Females would bear the children in pain and males would provide for them by farming and working hard plowing the fields etc. (Genesis 3:16-18). This is why there can only be male priests. With the wonders of modern science men could probably be implanted with uteruses and ovaries and be able to have children, but just like human gene manipulation, human cloning and in-vitro fertilization it goes against the natural law which is synonymous with “against God and his plan of how he wanted the world to work” (i.e. the first commandment).
So that men and women aren’t redundant under God’s plan Christ made human males the only ones who could provide for mankind’s salvation otherwise males would functionally be redundant and God is perfect and does not make something that is or could become useless especially in His crowning creation. Females have the Charism of being able to have, raise and teach children and males have the charism to confect the Eucharist, the food of heaven, provide spiritual life to those dead to mortal sin (1 John 5:16-18 states that you can pray for forgiveness if the sin is not a mortal sin, of course you must confess to a bishop or priest if your sin is mortal John 20:22-23) through confession. God also gave them the power to pass this power on and if the apostolic succession is broken because of wrong form, bad intent or wrong substance of the sacrament of holy orders, the power is not passed, which as discussed in an earlier blog and in a blog is my theory on why the church is currently filled with child abusers and con men (to see a short study of this and what went wrong in the church read Infiltration by Taylor Marshall).
I think if someone does not wake up to what, AT LEAST I THINK, has happened, loss of the apostolic succession due to changes Pope Paul VI made in the form of the sacrament of holy orders which former popes said were essential ( were former popes wrong or were they part of the rock Christ built his church on? If they were part of that rock no succeeding pope can undo what they said could not be undone. Catholics must realize this, this being the case anybody not consecrated a priest by the old rite may not be a priest or even a bishop, which would include possibly everybody at the top of the clerical hierarchy today, which would explain the child abuse an corruption we see in the church today – just saying maybe because I am not a theologian). If I am right the 2 lines where the apostolic succession that were maintained will be the only 2 orders which will survive this cleansing and if they do continue – i.e. if this is not the end of the world, eventually all other Catholic-in-name-only orders, including those in the Vatican and except where valid apostolic succession still exists (90 year old + bishops validly consecrated using the old Latin rite still have the power to continue the apostolic succession since the power left by valid holy orders is indelible) will have to eventually ascend to restore the Church.
At this point the break in valid apostolic succession is possibly fixable and the fix would be relatively easy if not for the same pride among Catholics – both laity and clergy, the pride which condemned Satan to eternal torment before any humans were eligible or even existed. Whoever reads this knows the likelihood of a bishop or priest asking or made to be re-consecrated by those bishops considered to be either heretical or possibly schismatic (think possibly the Thuc or Lefervre consecrated bishops) or remembering who the older bishops who were consecrated in the efficacious pre-1969 Latin rite, is slim to none. Except in these sects and the few older bishops, (think 90-100 years old) if you believe sacramental theology that was held to be true for at least a millennia and a half (and produced 90% of our saints), no other Roman Catholic bishops have the power to consecrate either new bishops or new priests (as I stated if one assumes that in case that in their consecrations the power of apostolic succession was not validly transferred – i.e. they were not actually made bishops in other words based on sacramental theology the consecrations were not efficacious ). Unlike Pope Pius V in canonizing the Tridentine Latin mass in the 1500s allowing any rites older than 200 years to remain, Pope Paul VI made no such provision. He could not legally dispose of the Latin mass as Pope Benedict XVI’s Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum brought out but he could imply that Catholics must celebrate the Novus Ordo and the new rites of Holy Orders, thereby possibly destroying any line of valid apostolic succession, assuming he was able to force all bishops to only use the new form, which he could not. From what I understand from what I have read of the old canon law and understand from sacramental theology, even without the Popes okay, and I don’t know for sure, the original apostles like their successors the bishops consecrate bishops because once you have the power to consecrate bishops it cannot be taken away from you. This being the case, the world would be hanging by a thread of only maybe a dozen bishops across the world. This is just in the case of the Roman Catholic Rite. Possibly older non-schismatic rites due to Pius V Bull Quo Primum who said rites older than 200 years were still valid, and which neither pope Paul VI nor pope Francis have ever tried to cancel, their “legislations” assuming they can, have only addressed the Roman Rite, could be used to restart the valid Roman Rites.
Finally pleasure from pornography is forbidden due to Jesus Christ personal injunction (Matthew 5:27-30): to even look at a woman, who is not your wife, with lust is adultery (almost like he was God and foresaw the present pornography epidemic – strange huh). In actuality, because of an injunction from God the father in Genesis (Genesis 1:27-28) looking at your wife with intense attraction and acting on it is actually encouraged? Of course most people ignore this fact when they say the Church is prudish about sex. Non-productive sex is not sanctioned, but procreative sex is encouraged. If a human male does not find his wife attractive enough it, is actually almost impossible for him to procreate, so whatever is needed to get that response as long as it does not violate any other of God’s injunctions and climaxes in procreative sex is acceptable. God wants his crowning creation – man, to work with Him especially in the upbringing and education of their children to produce citizens of heaven and through it to find true happiness. The new citizens of heaven which good catholic parents have the God given charter to produce is the only hope our world has of becoming better for everyone and not destroying itself.
Traditional Thomistic Catholic 