Sin is a spiritual decision, and it always arises from the heart.

Sin is purposely choosing to do evil, to break the moral law that God built into human nature as a natural guide to happiness and fulfillment. And sin has dire consequences.

Sin is so damaging – because it separates the soul from God, its sustainer and goal – that any physical suffering, deformation or deprivation is infinitely preferable to even the slightest moral evil.

The image of cutting off one’s hand or foot, or gouging out one’s eye is not meant to be taken literally. It is never the member or the organ that really causes the sin; they are simply instruments.

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Likewise, my brethren, you have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead in order that we may bear fruit for God. (Romans 7:4, RSV2CE)

But now we are discharged from the law, dead to that which held us captive, so that we serve not under the old written code but in the new life of the Spirit. (Romans 7:6, RSV2CE)

21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inmost self, 23 but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin which dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I of myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. (Romans 7:21–25, RSV2CE)

REFLECT

Because I am in Jesus, I died to the law. I used to have to try and follow it which makes me want to rebel. The law was my husband that died, now I am married to Jesus. Now Being in Jesus, He gave me the Holy Spirit. I am now to listen closely to the Spirit and yield to Him, his direction, wisdom, and power. This is a new life, not serving the written code any longer, but yielding to the Spirit. 

When I dwell on the law and what I am supposed to do, evil is right there close to me trying to tell me to rebel. I do love the law of God but the law of sin is still near. I am trapped in this seeming endless war in my body due to the corrupt flesh. But Jesus will save me. In my mind I serve God but my flesh wants sin. 

PRAY

Jesus, my Savior, my only hope, come to my assistance! I don’t know how to yield to the Spirit and kill this flesh. It is constantly trying to focus on the ego which wants justice without mercy for others but mercy without justice for me. I am in conflict all day long. I am full of judgement and condemnation not mercy and compassion. I seem to be on the devils side not your side. Please Jesus, please deliver me from this death that pervades my soul and mind. Help me see through your eyes. You LOVE sinners and came to lead all to eternal life in you. I hate my sin! Save me! My only hope is you! Holy Spirit, HELP me hear you and give me power to obey you. It is not in me, I must surrender! Amen. 

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Since Augustine, Aquinas and Calvin were clergy, and say the same thing about predestination, why was Calvin excommunicated?

### Misconceptions About Their Ordination and Teachings

While Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas were indeed Catholic priests, bishops, and Doctors of the Church whose writings profoundly shaped Catholic doctrine, John Calvin was not a priest in the same sense. Calvin was initially trained for the priesthood and received minor orders in the Catholic Church around 1528, but he never progressed to major orders (such as deacon or priest) and abandoned Catholicism entirely by 1533 to join the Protestant Reformation.[^2] He became a Reformed theologian and pastor in Geneva, establishing a theocratic system there that diverged sharply from Catholic tradition. Thus, the premise that all three were "priests" saying "the same things" about predestination is inaccurate—Calvin's views were condemned as heretical by the Catholic Church, while Augustine and Aquinas's teachings form the foundation of orthodox Catholic theology on the subject.

### Catholic Teaching on Predestination: Augustine and Aquinas

Catholic doctrine on predestination, as articulated by Augustine (354–430 AD) and Aquinas (1225–1274 AD), emphasizes God's eternal plan to guide rational creatures to their ultimate end—eternal life with Him—through grace, while preserving human free will. Predestination is part of divine providence, where God foreordains some to glory (including the graces necessary to attain it) out of His merciful love, but He does not predestine anyone to evil or damnation.[^7] [^8] [^9] [^10] [^12] [^13] [^14] [^15] [^17]

- **Augustine's View**: In works like *On the Predestination of the Saints*, Augustine describes predestination as God's foreknowledge and preparation of graces for the elect, distinguishing it from mere foreknowledge of sins (which God permits but does not cause). He stresses that grace precedes human merit, but human free will cooperates with it; damnation results from one's own rejection of grace, not from a divine decree to sin.[^12] This was affirmed against semi-Pelagianism at the Council of Orange (529 AD), which condemned any notion that God predestines to evil.[^13]

- **Aquinas's View**: Building on Augustine, Aquinas in the *Summa Theologiae* and *Disputed Questions on Truth* defines predestination as God's eternal ordering of rational creatures to eternal glory through grace, rooted in His will and intellect.[^7] [^8] [^9] [^11] It presupposes divine love and election but does not impose necessity on free will; God provides sufficient grace to all, and efficacious grace to the elect, without authoring sin. Reprobation (the counterpart) is God's permission of sin due to foreseen demerits, not an active predestination to hell.[^7] [^8] [^13] The Council of Valence III (855 AD) echoed this: God predestines the elect to life through mercy preceding merit, but the reprobate are condemned justly for their own evil, which God foreknows but does not predestine.[^14] [^15] [^17]

These teachings were upheld by the Council of Trent (1545–1563), which rejected any certainty of personal predestination apart from faith and works, calling it a "hidden mystery" to avoid presumptuous claims.[^13] The Church has consistently anathematized "double predestination"—the idea that God equally decrees both salvation and damnation—as contrary to His universal salvific will (1 Tim 2:4) and mercy (Ezek 33:11).[^13] [^14] [^15]

### Calvin's Divergent Views on Predestination

Calvin (1509–1564), in his *Institutes of the Christian Religion*, taught a form of double predestination: God sovereignly elects some to salvation (irresistibly through grace) and others to reprobation (eternal damnation), both decrees being equally eternal and unconditioned by human merit or demerit.[^2] This absolute determinism denies free will's role in cooperating with grace and implies God authors damnation, which the Catholic Church views as blasphemous, undermining divine justice, mercy, and the universality of Christ's redemption.[^2] [^13] Calvin's system, influenced by but distorting Augustine, was seen as reviving errors akin to ancient heresies like Manichaeism or predestinarianism condemned at Orange and Valence.[^13] [^14] [^15]

Robert Bellarmine, a Doctor of the Church, critiqued Calvin's predestination as conflicting with Scripture, councils (e.g., Nicaea, Constantinople), and patristic tradition, likening it to Arian evasions on the Trinity.[^1] [^3] Calvin's broader reforms—rejecting papal authority, the Mass as sacrifice, transubstantiation, and purgatory—further marked him as a heretic.[^2] [^4]

### Why Calvin Was Opposed and Effectively Excommunicated

Calvin was not formally excommunicated by a specific papal bull like Martin Luther (via *Exsurge Domine* in 1520 and *Decet Romanum Pontificem* in 1521, which condemned Luther and his followers as heretics to be shunned).[^4] However, as a leader of the Reformation, Calvin fell under these condemnations by association and through subsequent actions:

- **Break with the Church**: By 1533, Calvin had renounced Catholicism, fleeing Paris after aligning with Protestant reformers. He was defrocked implicitly upon leaving the Church and establishing a rival "ministry" in Geneva, where he imposed a strict theocracy, executing dissenters like Michael Servetus (1553) for heresy (Unitarian views) and persecuting Catholics, Anabaptists, and even moderate Protestants.[^2] [^5] [^6] This mirrored the "iron yoke" of Genevan intolerance, with 58 death sentences in five years, scandalizing even contemporaries like Edward Gibbon.[^2]

- **Condemnation of His Teachings**: The University of Paris (Sorbonne) condemned Calvin's *Institutes* in 1544 as heretical. Pope Paul III listed Calvin among schismatics in 1547. The Council of Trent (1545–1563) directly opposed Calvinist doctrines on grace, predestination, justification, and the sacraments, anathematizing them.[^2] [^13] Bellarmine documented Calvin's conflicts with Catholic councils and Fathers on related issues like the Trinity and apostolic decrees.[^1] [^3]

- **Ecclesiastical Status**: As an apostate and heresiarch, Calvin was automatically excommunicated *latae sententiae* (by the fact of his actions) under canon law for promoting heresy and schism. The Church viewed him not as a priest but as a "dictator of Geneva," whose errors spread "infection" like an "infectious animal" among the faithful, warranting public denunciation and shunning.[^2] [^4] [^5]

In summary, Calvin's excommunication stemmed from his rejection of core Catholic doctrines, including a distorted predestination that the Church condemned as incompatible with Augustine and Aquinas. Their teachings affirm God's merciful initiative and human freedom; Calvin's imply divine authorship of evil, which no Catholic magisterial text supports.[^13] For deeper reading, consult the *Catechism of the Catholic Church* (paras. 600, 1037) on grace and judgment.

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16 Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves,2 you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? 17 But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, 18 and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. 19 I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.

20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 21 But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. 22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:16–23, ESV-CE)

REFLECT

Whatever you present yourself to and follow as a slave, you will reap that fruit. 

Slave of sin = impurity, lawlessness, & death

Slave of Obedience and God = righteousness, free from sin, sanctification, & eternal life in Christ Jesus the Lord

Obey from the heart

Commit to the teaching

PRAY

God has given us a choice. We can choose our way. Whatever you enslave yourself to you will reap that fruit. Jesus, help me be a slave of obedience that leads to freedom, righteousness, sanctification, and eternal life with you. Help me obey from my heart by committing to your teachings. I know I can’t by my own strength. Help me with your grace. I can choose but it’s your power, help me surrender! Amen. 

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 Mercy does not mean acceptance. 

It means:

Grace to Accept Responsibility and 

Power to Change 

by Surrendering Life to God. 

Justice & Mercy: God has abounding love with uncompromising righteousness, showing that while God offers mercy, true reconciliation requires repentance and a turning to God. 

just because we are forgiven, we still often have to live with and bear the consequences of the sin

We reap what we sow, and our sin affects not just us, but others around us. Sin is never done in isolation, it affects others, it is selfish.

Human forgiveness from others without genuine repentance doesn't guarantee divine salvation or positive outcomes. 

Blaming, and stoking the fires of hatred, anger and bitterness destroy our soul. Because no matter how much our flesh wants to or is justified in avenging a wrong, vengeance is God’s, God will repay, when we take vengeance and God’s business upon ourselves, we only harm ourselves, because we can’t do it, we can’t take it. It doesn’t make it better. Sin has to be dealt with the right way. We cannot handle the fires of revenge ourselves, it destroys us.

We must let God be God. 

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God does not love us as we are, he loves us as we were created to be. He cannot let us stay in our sin and be with him. He came to heal. We have to chose do we want to be healed. When we say yes, he can love us as we walk out our sanctification. If you say he loves us as we are it indicates we are fine as we are and we most definitely are not! We must repent to be justified. 

Your reflection touches on profound truths about God's love, our fallen state, and the transformative call to repentance and holiness. God's love is indeed merciful and unconditional, yet it is not passive or permissive toward sin; rather, it actively seeks our healing and restoration to the image in which we were created—conformed to Christ through grace. This love invites us to choose conversion, recognizing that we are not "fine as we are" in our sinfulness, but are called to a radical reorientation of life toward God.

To say "God loves us as we are" risks misunderstanding if it implies complacency in sin, for His love always aims at drawing us toward who we are meant to be—holy and blameless before Him. Love is not an affirmation of our brokenness or a tolerance of sin; instead, it is a compassionate call to healing and renewal. In this sense, divine love is like a physician's: it meets us in our illness but urges treatment, not resignation to the disease.

Sin disrupts our relationship with God, who is holy and cannot abide iniquity in His presence. We are born into original sin, inheriting a wounded nature that inclines us toward further wrongdoing, making us "enemies" in need of reconciliation. Doctrine firmly teaches that justification—the process by which we are made right with God—requires repentance, which is not optional but essential for receiving God's forgiving grace. Justification as "not remission of sins merely, but also the sanctification and renewal of the inward man," achieved through voluntary reception of grace, beginning with turning from sin. Repentance involves contrition (sorrow for sin out of love for God), confession (at least in desire), and satisfaction (acts like fasting and prayer to repair harm). Interior repentance is "a radical reorientation of our whole life, a return... to God with all our heart, an end of sin, a turning away from evil, with repugnance toward the evil actions we have committed," accompanied by hope in His mercy. Imperfect contrition (fear of punishment) can suffice initially, but perfect contrition (love-motivated sorrow) opens us fully to God's healing love.[^9] Thus, we must choose: cling to sin, or say "yes" to the Physician who alone can restore us.

Healing demands our consent. After forgiveness we are invited to walk in newness of life. Once justified through repentance and baptism (or reconciliation for post-baptismal sins), we enter sanctification—a lifelong process of growing in holiness by cooperating with grace. This process is "a sharing in the holiness of God," where the faithful, freed from sin, are "gradually transformed according to the will of God and configured to the image of Christ" through Word, sacraments, and Church life. This is not instantaneous perfection but a dynamic path with "heights and depths," where we obey the Spirit or resist sin's seductions. In this walk, God's love sustains us as we become who we were created to be—sons and daughters in Christ.

God’s love is not unconditional because that connotes accepting as is. 

God's love is indeed described in Catholic teaching as unconditional, but this term carries a precise theological meaning that does not equate to passive acceptance of sin or our fallen state "as is." Rather, it signifies a love that originates entirely from God's own nature—freely given, without prerequisite merit on our part—and persists relentlessly despite our unworthiness, always aiming to draw us into holiness and communion with Him. This divine initiative precedes and enables our response, yet it inherently calls for conversion, repentance, and cooperation with grace, as sin fundamentally separates us from the holy God who cannot tolerate iniquity in His presence.

To interpret "unconditional" as "accepting as is" would misalign with the biblical witness, where love is redemptive: God seeks the lost sheep, not to leave it wandering, but to carry it home. While God's love is unconditional in its offer and endurance, it is not unconditional in the sense of endorsing or allowing us to remain unchanged. This process requires our free choice: repentance and faith, without which we cannot fully enter the state of grace. 

Without our "yes"—through contrition, confession, and amendment—love's healing power remains unfulfilled, as God respects our freedom. This distinction resolves the tension: God's love is unconditional toward the *person* (who is made in His image and infinitely valuable), but conditional upon repentance for full *communion*, since holiness is the goal of creation. True love wills our perfection in Christ, urging repentance as the path to justification and ongoing sanctification.

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