“O happy fault, O necessary sin of Adam, which gained for us so great a Redeemer!” – The Exsultet, Traditionally Sung at the Easter Vigil A simple answer of why God allowed the Fall of man runs like this. God did not desire man’s sin but He respected man’s free will by allowing him to [...]

On this day, March 7, in the year 1274, seven hundred and thirty six years ago, St. Thomas Aquinas departed from this life, and thus today is his traditional feast day.1 Last year, on this day, I began a series of posts intending to show how St. Thomas’s theology helps explain the soteriology set forth [...]

God is said to will a thing in one of two ways: absolutely or contingently. If God wills a thing absolutely, then it necessarily happens. So a thing which does not happen cannot be said to have been God’s absolute will. But we know per divine revelation that God wills some things to happen that [...]

There are certain charges which are worthy of a defense only on account of their frequent repetition.  If someone refers to a Calvinist as a hopeless determinist, the well rounded Calvinist might decline to defend such an uneducated attack after hearing it once or twice, but there is a point at which the accused party, [...]

Now the serpent was more subtle than any other wild creature that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God say, `You shall not eat of any tree of the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden; but [...]

Before I talk about the fifth session of the Council of Trent, I will do two things. First, I will offer a brief summary of Aquinas’ teaching in his Summa Theologica regarding the essence of original sin. Following that, I will give a short overview of what Aquinas says about the effects of sin. So [...]

One of the most fundamental points of disagreement between Protestants and the Catholic Church, and one that presently keeps us divided, was the subject of the sixth session of the Council of Trent. This session addressed the doctrine of justification. Some Protestants believe that in this session the Catholic Church “anathematized the gospel” and formally [...]