The Christian Vanguard

Why do lingering feelings of guilt, shame, doubt still haunt us after we have confessed our sins which we think are the cause for such feelings? St. Thomas Aquinas may have some insight into the issue here when he says, "...passion is properly to be found where there is corporeal transmutation." Which is just basically to say that when you have a certain emotion, there is a corresponding bodily change. When you feel fear, your heart races, you begin to sweat. When you see the woman you are infatuated with, you have a slight pain in your stomach. When you see your wife walk over to the bed to fulfill marital duties, you also have an appropriate physical response.  And is well known, there is a difference between your passions and your intellect, or your will, in this case. When our intellect craves for something, we don't "feel" it like we feel our emotions. If I feel hungry, I have a bodily reaction to it, and is very immediate. When I feel sad, I have an ...

I was having a discussion with a Calvinist friend of mine, and he presented this argument from analogy to me, and I thought it was interesting. He was wearing a hat, and he tossed the hat upon the table. He asks me, "Do you believe I just tossed the hat on the table?" I nod. "And did you have a choice in believing that I just tossed the hat on the table?" I say probably not. So likewise, when God presents us with His grace, we have no choice but to accept it.  It's a cute and memorable argument. I don't think it really works though. So, I have this belief about his hat being tossed onto the table. Why? Because I visually sensed it and I abstracted from it with my intellect, and when my senses and intellect function properly, I have knowledge, and we are knowledge/truth oriented beings. So, it seems like a strange question to ask, where in the process of knowledge did I have a choice?  It isn't clear that grace works in the same way. Grace is not...