Born With It: Does God Will It?

The Father of Lies Presents to His Followers a Straw God Whose Essence is a Lie

The Trinity — Our Biblical and True God

The Father is the principium, the first among equals who initiates the processions.[1B] A “Father” is someone who “communicates life and existence to another.”[1C] There are two kinds of “creation” in God. … The first is an external process that results in something outside of God. The second is an internal process of knowing and willing by the substance of God.One is “changeable nature,” while the other is “unchangeable truth.”[1D] The creation of man and the material universe is an external process of creation, while the procession of the Son and the Holy Spirit are an internal process by which the single substance of God communicates the divine essence to the other two persons of the Trinity. To better understand this, we must separate the processions into two terms: the “generation” of the Son and the “spiration” of the Holy Spirit. …

Generation

The relationship of the Father to the Son is self-evident in their titles: a son comes from a father. A mortal father [pro-]creates his progeny through an act of love with the mother. The Son of God, however, is not “created” in the same way. He is eternally begotten by the Father alone, “God from God.” Neither made nor created, the Son is instead generated by the Father. This generation is the “origin of a living being from a living principal of the same nature.”[1E] … But what is the nature of this generation. The Church is very careful about the terms it uses to describe these complex mysteries, which is why the word “creation” is best avoided when addressing the procession of the Son from the Father. In the wake of the Arian heresy, which taught that Jesus Christ was a “creation” of the Father, and thus not equal to the Father, the Church had to be very cautious when using terms of “creation” when referred to the Trinity.

The Arian error was never how the Church understood the clear teaching of Christ and the Apostles. As we read in John 1:1-3 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.”

Several things are made clear in these lines. First, the son is co-eternal. He always was. Second, he was not merely “with God,” he “was God.” Third, all things—that is, all created things—were “made through him.” Jesus Christ was not merely equal to God or favored by God, he was of one substance (consubstantial) with God.

It is through knowing and willing [emphasis SML] that the substance of God became three “persons.” The Father is the “originless origin,”[1F] who in turn generates the Son through an act of the intellect [SML]. The thought of the Father generates an image of himself that is identical in all ways except Fatherhood. This image is of the same substance with the Father, sharing a single will while remaining diverse in person.

A normal image may be less than the source, much like a copy of an artwork is less than the original. The generated Son, however, is a perfect image of the Father. He is “true God from true God.” In this process of generation, God the Father communicates his substance to God the Son.

It was left to St. Thomas to clarify the exact nature of this generation. In the Summa, he explains two types of procession. One is an outward act of creation, while the other is an “inward procession corresponding to the act remaining within the agent.” [St. Thomas, Summa Theologiae, Part 1, Q 28.] This second kind of procession is purely an act of the intellect. If you have a thought, that thought may proceed outwards and become manifested as words or actions, or it may proceed inward as a “conception of the object understood, a conception issuing from our intellectual power and proceeding from our knowledge of that object.” [1G]

St. Thomas describes this as an “intelligible emanation.” An idea, even after spoken, continues to exist in the intellect of the speaker. Once you’ve spoken a thought, for example, it’s not erased from your memory. Thus, it becomes possible for an object of the intellect to “proceed” from its origin while remaining part of that origin. The act of intellection is itself a procession.

This divine act of knowing does not result in [a philosophical] accident, as it would for a mortal creature. Since God is not potential but pure act, the result of His knowing is to create a simulacrum of the object being known. What God is knowing is Himself; His own essence, which He obviously comprehends. “The concept of the intellect is a likeness of the object conceived,” write St. Thomas, “and exists in the same nature, because in God the act of understanding and His existence are the same.” This act of self-knowing results in the generation of the Son, identical in all ways except for paternity [1H].

Spiration

As we move from the Son to the Holy Spirit, we encounter a second kind of procession, which St. Thomas called “spiration.” The procession of the Holy Spirit was a thorny issue even among orthodox Church Fathers and Doctors of the Church, particularly between the Eastern and Western churches. The insistence of the Eastern Churches that the Holy Spirit proceeded only from the Father was one of the instigating factors in the Great Schism.

Yet the Western understanding of the Holy Spirit proceeding from Father and Son was quite common among the Fathers. Even if we assume that the Athanasian Creed was not in fact written by St. Athanasius in the 3^rd century, it existed at least by the 5^th century, and reflects clearly the thought of St. Athanasius on the subject in asserting that “the Holy Ghost is from the Father and the Son, not made, nor begotten, but proceeding.[1I] …”

[T]he holy Spirit proceeds eternally from the Father and the Son, not as from two principles, but as from one principle; not by two spirations, but by one single spiration. This the holy Roman [C]hurch, mother and mistress of all the faithful, has till now professed, preached and taught; this she firmly holds, preaches, professes and teaches; this is the unchangeable and true belief of the orthodox fathers and doctors, Latin and Greek alike. But because some, on account of ignorance of the said indisputable truth, have fallen into various errors, we, wishing to close the way to such errors, with the approval of the sacred council, condemn and reprove all who presume to deny that the [H]oly Spirit proceeds eternally from the Father and the Son, or rashly to assert that the holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son as from two principles and not as from one.”[1J]

This important (and binding) declaration by the Council clarifies two important points. First, the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. Second, this procession is from a single spiration, proceeding from a single substance. This means that a single act of the will, shared through the consubstantiality of Father and Son, results in the spiration of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit has its origin not in an act of the intellect, as with the generation of the Son, but in an act of the will. It is, in fact, an act of love between Father and Son. St. Bernard of Clairvaux called the Holy Spirit the kiss of God, saying “If, as is properly understood, the Father is he who kisses, the Son he who is kissed, then it cannot be wrong to see in the kiss the Holy Spirit, for he is the imperturbable peace of the Father and the Son, their unshakable bond, their undivided love, their indivisible unity.”[1K]

The Holy Spirit is thus not generated, but proceeds from the love of the Father and the Son through an act of their unified will. Together, they breathe forth the Holy Spirit.

In John 15:26, Jesus says, “But when the Counselor comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness to me.” We see in this quote that 1) the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father, and yet 2) it is Jesus who will send him. Since Jesus also proceeds from the Father, and has authority to send the Holy Spirit, we may conclude that Jesus is equal in every way to the Holy Spirit.[2]

It’s important to distinguish between generation and spiration in order to truly understand the [T]rinity. If the Son proceeds from the Father and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father, then Son and Holy Spirit would be the same. God would have two Sons. This, obviously, is not the case. Each has a distinct origin. The Son is often called the Wisdom of God, proceeding from an act of the intellect. Meanwhile, the Holy Spirit is the love of God—the very breath of God—proceeding from an act of the will: an act of love. In these two great acts we find the two processions which form the eternal Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.[3]                                         

1. The Trinity is an eternal and fruitful expression between The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

2. Man was made (expressed) in great glory from the dust of the earth in the image and likeness of an eternally Good and Fruitful God. However, when man fell, he was held in existence by God’s power, but he ceased to be unceasingly expressed by God. After the Ascension of Jesus and the Sacraments (especially Baptism and the Eucharist), he once again became eternally expressed.

3. All creation came into being through a fruitful and eternal expression of the Trinity; Three Divine Persons in unceasing dialogue.

Some Lies That Flow from the Straw/False God Argument

First Lie: Same–Sex Attraction is Part of God’s Image and Likeness

Second Lie: We Have the Right to Control Our Fecundity

Thus God is Three Persons, eternal before all ages; and the assumption of the flesh by the Son did not occur before the beginning of the world, but at the preordained time near the end of times when God sent His Son. And when the Son became incarnate and the virginal flower blossomed in her intact virginity, God was still in Three Persons and willed to be so invoked; and therefore, no Person was added to the ineffable Trinity, but the Son of God simply assumed flesh. Hence also these Three Persons are one God in Divinity. And whoever does not believe this will be cast out of the Kingdom of God, for he tears himself away from the wholeness of Divinity in faith. [Hildegard of Bingen, Hildegard of Bingen: Scivias, ed. Bernard McGinn, trans. Columba Hart and Jane Bishop, The Classics of Western Spirituality (New York; Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1990), 419].

Third Lie: Nature was Created in Chaos — Undirected by God

1) “He said to me, ‘You are my son, today I have begotten you’” (Ps. 2:7). In the eternal ‘now’ of God, the Father is eternally and fruitfully begetting the Son, which would necessarily encompass all of creation … within time. Does the term today suggest that two years ago, or two days ago, the Son had not been begotten;

2) “Jesus answered them, ‘My Father is working still, and I am working’” (Jn. 5:16). This can be understood further by Genesis 2:2, where it is written, “And on the seventh day God finished his work which he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done.” As I said earlier, working is also ‘Doing’, and all doings are expressions … all creation is an expression of God;

3) “Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing; for whatever he does, that the Son does likewise. For the Father loves the Son, and shows him all that he himself is doing’” (Jn. 5:19–20). Hmm. There’s a lot of doing / expressing going on in this verse;

4) “I can do nothing on my own authority; as I hear, I judge; and my judgment is just, because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me” (Jn. 5:30). How would the Son know what the Father’s will was, unless the Father communicated it to him? Also, being sent is an expression of the sender, and lastly;

5) “No longer do I call you servants … I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you” (Jn. 15:15). Again, doing, hearing, and befriending are all forms of expression.     

Fourth Lie: Same–Sex Attraction is Natural

The laws of Nature are preexisting, immutable, and universal[10B] … Aristotelian anthropology claims that man is by Nature a rational, political animal for whom the basic societal unit is the family[10C]. … By Nature or natural law, we mean the principle of development that makes any living thing what it is and, given the proper conditions, what it will become when it fulfills itself or reaches its end. For Aristotle, “Nature ever seeks an end” [Aristotle, Generation of Animals, 1.715b15].[10D]

By unnatural, we mean something that works against what a thing would become were it to operate according to the principle of its development. For instance, an acorn will grow into an oak unless its roots are poisoned by highly acidic water. One would say that the acidic water is unnatural to the oak or against its “goodness”—its “goodness” being the fulfillment of its Nature. The term teleological, when applied to the universe, implies that everything has an end, and the ends inhere (inseparable element or quality of the substance) in the structure of things themselves. There is what Aristotle called entelechy, “having one’s end within.” The purpose of an eye, for instance, is built-in; it is for seeing. Were this not so, one would have to believe that the eye—and indeed every organ of the body—came about by chance and that the eye can see only by sheer accident. Teleological means the goal [i.e., the “natural end”] of the thing is intrinsic, not extrinsic, to it. These laws of Nature, then, are not an imposition of order from without by a commander in chief, but an expression of it from within the very essence of things, which have their own integrity.[11]

Deeds are considered good or bad, natural or unnatural, in relation to the effect they have on man’s progress toward his end in achieving the good,[12B] … Socrates and Plato, were unambiguous in their condemnation of homosexual acts as unnatural. In the Laws, Plato’s last book, the Athenian speaker says, “I think that the pleasure is to be deemed natural which arises out of the intercourse between men and women; but that the intercourse of men with men, or of women with women, is contrary to nature, and that the bold attempt was originally due to unbridled lust.”12 By its nature, lust is unbridled, irrational, and therefore destructive of what it is to be human. Giving in to it is therefore dehumanizing (Kindle Locations 451-455).[13]

Once Eros [sexual/romantic love] is released from the bonds of family, Dionysian passions can possess the soul. Giving in to them is a form of madness, because erotic desire is not directed toward any end that can satisfy it. It is insatiable—what Plato calls in the Laws “endless and insatiate of evils”. Once loosed, it will destroy the rational [and Divine — SML] order of things. “That which causes evil in the soul”—in which Plato includes homosexual intercourse—will ultimately result in political disorder. The liberation of Eros is not freedom but annihilation [emphasis SML].

For Aristotle, the irreducible core of a polity is the family. Thus, Aristotle begins his Politics not with a single individual, but with a description of a man and a woman together in the family, without which the rest of society cannot exist [same-sex so-called marriage produces an poor imitation and artificial family — SML]. He says: “First of all, there must necessarily be a union or pairing of those who cannot exist without one another.” Later, he states that “husband and wife are alike essential parts of the family.” The family is the nursery of virtue, which reaches its perfection in the polis [community, city]. “Every state is [primarily] composed of households”, Aristotle asserts. Without the family, there are no villages, which are associations of families, and without villages, there is no polis. In other words, without households—meaning husbands and wives together in families—there is no state. In this sense, the family is the prepolitical institution. The state does not make marriage possible; marriage makes the state possible. Homosexual marriage would have struck Aristotle as an absurdity since a polity cannot be founded on its necessarily [and inherently] sterile relations.[14]

Sex has a natural purpose. In using or treating any part of our body, the critical question is: What are the ends to which the Nature of the thing directs it, and is the action outside of, or within, those ends?

Human generative organs are perfectly matched, the male for penetration [through which the seed is sent], the female for reception [in which the egg is fertilized by the seed]. [The natural end of this one flesh union is always procreative, for–creation of a third person]. The matching takes place only in heterosexual intercourse and is a perfect biological fit, which causes no physical harm to either party. There is no anatomical fit in [any] same-sex couplings. There is and can be no union of sexual organs in any same-sex act. Unlike the vagina, the anus is solely an excretory organ; it is an exit, not an entrance.[15]

Why Same–Sex Attraction Can Never Be Accepted as a Moral Sexual Act

1. “‘The Lord showed me that our present times are worse than Babylon and Sodom and Gomorrah,’ writes [Marino Restrepo], a former musician, now evangelist, who lived the life of Babylon before an experience that puts us in mind of Saul.”[18]

2. “The present times are worse than at the time of Noah. Then the world was scourged by a deluge of water; now the world is going to be scourged by a deluge of fire” (Apparition of Our Lady to Anna at Seredne, December 20, 1954).[19]

3. “In 1634 in Quito, Ecuador, Our Blessed Mother warned about our present times. In an apparition approved by the Church, Mary appeared as Our Lady of Good Fortune/Success to Mother Anne of Jesus Torres... At the end of the Nineteenth Century and for a large part of the Twentieth Century, various heresies will flourish on this earth, which will have become a free republic. The precious light of the faith will go out in souls because of the almost total moral corruption. …. the air will be filled with the spirit of impurity which like a deluge of filth will flood the streets, squares and public places. The licentiousness will be such that there will be no more virgin souls in the world. … The devil will take glory in feeding perfidiously on the hearts of children. The innocence of childhood will almost disappear. … Satan will take control of this earth through the fault of faithless men who, like a black cloud, will darken the clear sky of the republic consecrated to the Most Sacred Heart of my divine Son.[20] This republic, having allowed entry to all the vices, will have to undergo all sorts of chastisements: plagues, famine, war, apostasy, and the loss of souls without number. And to scatter these black clouds blocking the brilliant dawning of the freedom of the Church, there will be a terrible war in which the blood of priests and of religious will flow.... Men possessing great wealth will look on with indifference while the Church is oppressed, virtue is persecuted, and evil triumphs. They will not use their wealth to fight evil and to reconstruct the faith. The people will come to care nothing for the things of God, will absorb the spirit of evil and will let themselves be swept away by all vices and passions.”[21]

Quotes Relating to Tolerance

 1). Craig McMillan writes,

America has become dysfunctional not because of incompetence, but because of bad ideas that bastardized our limited government and corrupt officials at every level of governance. ...Stupid people aren’t always evil. Those we disagree with aren’t always evil. Corrupt people are always evil. ...A secular nation...is unable to understand the true nature of evil; its people don’t comprehend that evil is a living, growing, consuming thing. In the end, evil consumes even the people who cooperated with it.

Evil has an insatiable appetite. Evil is intent on destroying everything God has created, especially humanity. ...Coexistence is not a strategy for countering the evil that has overtaken our nation. Faith in God’s ultimate goodness is. And remember: It never hurts to ask Him for help in defeating the evil that has overtaken our nation.

As Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn observed of his homeland Russia, “Over a half century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of old people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: ‘Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.’”[22]     

2). Daniel O’Connor PhD,

Scripture is a guide as to how a Christian should view tolerance of grave moral disorder: – “‘I have this against you, that you tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and beguiling my servants to practice immorality [specifically sexual immorality — SML]’ — a quote from ‘Jesus to the Church in Thyatira. Revelation 2:18-20. Recall, cf. 1 Kings, that Jezebel, wife of Ahab, persecuted the true prophets, protected false prophets, and incited the faithful to idolatry. Jesus here condemns so much as tolerating such a person.’”[23]

3).  Archbishop Charles Chaput

“We need to remember that tolerance is not a Christian virtue. Charity, justice, mercy, prudence, honesty – these are Christian virtues. And obviously, in a diverse community, tolerance is an important working principle. But it’s never an end itself. In fact, tolerating grave evil within a society is itself a form of serious evil.”[24]

3).  Archbishop Fulton Sheen

“There is no subject on which the average mind is so much confused as the subject of tolerance and intolerance. Tolerance applies only to persons, but never to principles. Intolerance applies only to principles, but never to persons. … Modern man has so long preached a doctrine of false tolerance; he has so long believed that right and wrong were only differences in a point of view, that now when evil works itself out in practice he is paralyzed to do anything against it.”[25]

If mankind reverts back to the Lord, and lives in a simpler, more harmonious way, as He did, in concert with nature — will come what she describes as devices far more revolutionary than even computers. Esperanza [a link to more background on Esperanza is contained in the Endnote below — SML] has foreseen a day when a new type of music [sound waves — SML] will be devised that brings health instead of the disintegrative effects of current music. There will be “amazing devices,” she claims, with far more capacity to diagnose and heal human sickness — if science and religion join forces in God’s plan. One example: a new technology that will allow a powerful new means of illumination, turning dark into day. She foresaw that as tapping into a “stellar curvature.” She also saw forces of light and music [emphasis SML] combined together in ways that currently are unimaginable. In equally surprising language, she foresaw “the registration of equations to their final expression” and computer devices that will replace many of the functions of a doctor. She describes such inventions as coming from “secret forces” hidden in rhythms of nature.[32]

1). A new type of music (i.e., soundwaves) will be [has been] discovered, which, when combined with light (EME), will heal the human body of illness and dysfunction.[32B][Michael Brown, "In Startling Language, Mystic Claimed A Message About 'Future' Of Technology," SpiritDaily, http://www.spiritdaily.net/esperanzatechnology.htm.] Based on my research, I believe it is highly possible the experiments already discussed may identify a component of this new music. However, it has not yet developed sufficiently to fulfill this prophecy. The roots of that science have already been discovered. It is discussed extensively in STOSS, Volumes I and II;

2). Technology will be discovered to neutralize harmful nuclear radiation;[32C]

3). The key to nuclear energy will be unlocked, allowing its reactions to be halted. Esperanza states, “This will come about with the sun and with the drive of magnetic forces of earthly energies [SML]: volcanic forces, wind, water [SML], certain kinds of seaweed because phosphorus will be better assimilated;”[32D] and,

4). New inventions that derive from secret forces hidden in the rhythms of nature.[32E]       

How Does God View Artificially Sterile Sex Acts?

1).  According to Sr. Lucia of Fatima, I find it revealing that the final battle with Satan focuses on marriage and the family. Why the family? The family is the closest earthly image of the Trinity and the relationship between Jesus and his Church, his Mystical Body in creation. Satan asked God for time and power to destroy the Church, so it makes sense that his attack would center on the family. Mortal sins of a sexual nature alienate us from the Church.

2). According to Pope Pius XI, “‘These,’ says St. Augustine, ‘are all the blessings of matrimony on account of which matrimony itself is a blessing; offspring, conjugal faith and the sacrament.’ [St. August., De bono coniug., cap. 24, n. 32.] And how under these three heads is contained a splendid summary of the whole doctrine of Christian marriage, the holy Doctor himself expressly declares when he said: ‘By conjugal faith it is provided that there should be no carnal intercourse outside the marriage bond with another man or woman; with regard to offspring, that children should be begotten of love, tenderly cared for and educated in a religious atmosphere; finally, in its sacramental aspect that the marriage bond should not be broken and that a husband or wife, if separated, should not be joined to another even for the sake of offspring. This we regard as the law of marriage by which the fruitfulness of nature is adorned and the evil of incontinence is restrained [St. Augustine, De Gen. ad litt., lib. IX, cap. 7, n. 12.].’”[37]

Procreation: God Destroys That Which is Deliberately Rendered Unfruitful/Sterile

The sins of Sodom were “not simply [committed] with the sort of impurity and weakness to which [fallen man] are all naturally inclined because of your weak nature ... No, these wretches not only do not restrain their weakness; they make it worse [SML] by committing that cursed unnatural sin [i.e., homosexuality]. ... they do not recognize what miserable filth they are wallowing in. The stench reaches even up to me, supreme Purity, and is so hateful to me that for this sin alone [emphasis SML] five cities were struck down by my divine judgment. For my divine justice could no longer tolerate it, so despicable to me is this abominable sin.”[38]

In this manner [Satan] enticed them to defile themselves with the animals, so that the image of God would be destroyed in man [emphasis SML]. If the product of their unnatural union was of the human kind, they hated it, but if it had more of the form of an animal, they caressed it.

At that time men had forgotten God and acted more like animals than according to the will of God. Hence it came about that many loved animals more than people, so that women as well as men mixed with animals and had relations with them to such an extent that the image of God in them was almost completely destroyed. The whole human race was changed into monsters, and transformed so that in fact some men modeled their way of life and voice after the way of wild animals in their walking about, howling and life.

But after the earth was filled with such a perverse people, I Who Am could no longer tolerate this criminal outrage. I decided to destroy the people in the water, with the exception of the few who acknowledged me. (W. M. 253) Since I could no longer tolerate that kind of thing [SML], I drowned them in the Flood. (World and Man, 285).[41]