Month: December 2021

I seem to have lots of Calvinists popping up in my life at the moment. This has lead me to look at the internal debates in Protestantism about it. Here’s one I just watched on Free Will.

I thought the “Provisionist” case was pretty devastating against the Calvinists. It was unfortunate that the Calvinists got rather testy in the cross-examination – it needed better moderation in my opinion and only one person from each side at a time doing cross-examination…

When speaking about the fire of Purgatory, Benedict wrote…

Some recent theologians are of the opinion that the fire which both burns and saves is Christ himself, the Judge and Saviour. The encounter with him is the decisive act of judgement. Before his gaze all falsehood melts away. This encounter with him, as it burns us, transforms and frees us, allowing us to become truly ourselves. All that we build during our lives can prove to be mere straw, pure bluster, and it collapses. Yet in the pain of this encounter, when the impurity and sickness of our lives become evident to us, there lies salvation. His gaze, the touch of his heart heals us through an undeniably painful transformation “as through fire”. But it is a blessed pain, in which the holy power of his love sears through us like a flame, enabling us to become totally ourselves and thus totally of God.

Pope Benedict XVI, Spe Salvi