No arguments. I am surprised that so many people equate forgiveness with “freedoms from punishment or consequences” I go to a Lutheran church (my Catholic friends call me Catholic lite) but I do have Bible study with Catholics and listen to EWTN podcasts so I’m becoming more familiar with the different rites.
Very good, thus my point emerges. Whether they're forgiven or not by God, is God's business.
Our business is in offering them a chance to repent before we send them to Him. That's what forgiveness means from a temporal, human perspective. Offering someone a chance to be shriven before you cut off his head.
Once offered we can wash our hands of it. And I use that analogy deliberately. Christ didn't condemn Pilate to hell. Stark as it seems, it was his job.
No arguments. I am surprised that so many people equate forgiveness with “freedoms from punishment or consequences” I go to a Lutheran church (my Catholic friends call me Catholic lite) but I do have Bible study with Catholics and listen to EWTN podcasts so I’m becoming more familiar with the different rites.
Very good, thus my point emerges. Whether they're forgiven or not by God, is God's business.
Our business is in offering them a chance to repent before we send them to Him. That's what forgiveness means from a temporal, human perspective. Offering someone a chance to be shriven before you cut off his head.
Once offered we can wash our hands of it. And I use that analogy deliberately. Christ didn't condemn Pilate to hell. Stark as it seems, it was his job.