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jwashu
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Posted: Mon Sep 17th, 2007 06:57 pm |
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Agree Ruth.
Our Pope has made it clear that there are individuals who are "saved" or will find salvation who are "technically" outside the RCC. Yet those in these ecleastical communities (sp) are brothers and sisters in many ways and should be considered part of the spiritual body.
In my studies the past few years it seems to me that one of the definiing difference is that the Catholic Church takes the Bible and Tradition at their word in that there is both a Spiritual and a Physical sense.
Most Protestants only understand or have been taught that there is a spiritual one. Those who fall into the Dispensationalist category are still looking for their Earthly one, much like the Jew in the first century.
The bottom line I believe is that only God knows mens hearts. How can someone be saved outside the physical body of the Church, I don't know... but God does 
Joe
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mrbill
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Posted: Mon Sep 17th, 2007 08:51 pm |
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Sorry guys, but this controversy has come up before and Saints of the Catholic Church have taken different positions on it. A few days ago (Sep. 11) was the feast day of St. Cyprian. He was martyred in the year 258. According to the Saint of the Day (American Catholic.org)
"A friend of Pope Cornelius, Cyprian opposed the following pope, Stephen. He and the other African bishops would not recognize the validity of Baptism conferred by heretics and schismatics. This was not the universal view of the Church, but Cyprian was not intimidated even by Stephen's threat of excommunication. "
He also went on to say the following in his writings-
“The Lord says to Peter: ‘I say to you,’ He says, ‘that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church’…On him He builds the Church, and to him He gives the command to feed the sheep; and although He assigns a like power to all the Apostles, yet He founded a single chair, and He established by His own authority a source and an intrinsic reason for that unity. Indeed, the others were that also which Peter was; but a primacy is given to Peter, whereby it is made clear that there is but one Church and one chair. So too, all are shepherds, and the flock is shown to be one, fed by all the Apostles in single-minded accord. If someone does not hold fast to this unity of Peter, can he imagine that he still holds the faith? If he desert the chair of Peter upon whom the Church was built, can he still be confident that he is in the Church?” St. Cyprian of Carthage, The Unity of the Catholic Church, 1st edition, A.D. 251
“You cannot have God for your Father if you do not have the Church for your mother.... God is one and Christ is one, and his Church is one; one is the faith, and one is the people cemented together by harmony into the strong unity of a body.... If we are the heirs of Christ, let us abide in the peace of Christ; if we are the sons of God, let us be lovers of peace” (St. Cyprian, The Unity of the Catholic Church/.
These views aren't very popular today, because we don't want to seem elitist or anger our Protestant friends. But at the Community Church we left almost a year ago (a confused mish-mash of Baptist and Pentecostal beliefs), the 'Saved Christians' profess that Baptism is merely symbolic, it does nothing for you, and the important thing is that you are 'willing' to be Baptized, not that you ever are Baptized. The only similarity between their Baptisms and the action that the Pope is referring to is the label attached to it. Is it possible for Bible reading people to spin so far out in left field that they become like the Gnostics that all of the early Church Fathers condemned? The Decree on Ecumenism from Vatican II states-
22. Whenever the Sacrament of Baptism is duly administered as Our Lord instituted it, and is received with the right dispositions, a person is truly incorporated into the crucified and glorified Christ, and reborn to a sharing of the divine life, as the Apostle says: "You were buried together with Him in Baptism, and in Him also rose again-through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead".(40)
How far "technically" can one be removed from the Church and still be saved? Most, if not all of the Protestants I know of personally have a completely different view of Christianity (all of it) than the Catholic Church currently has and ALL of the early Christians had. Ignatius of Antioch was first converted to the faith by the Apostle John. They were both in Antioch when Paul traveled through. The Apostle Peter was the Bishop of Antioch for a time (before he went to Rome), and when he left, he made Ignatius the new Bishop of Antioch. So he lived with and studied with three men who wrote the majority of the New Testament. In the year 110 (almost 300 years before the Catholic Church put together the books of the New Testament as one collection of scriptures) he said-
“For as many as are of God and of Jesus Christ are also with the bishop. And as many as shall, in the exercise of repentance, return into the unity of the Church, these, too, shall belong to God, that they may live according to Jesus Christ. Do not err, my brethren. If any man follows him that makes a schism in the Church, he shall not inherit the kingdom of God. If any one walks according to a strange opinion, he agrees not with the passion of Christ.”
St. Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Philadelphians, 3.2, ca. A.D. 110
St. Ignatius' writings aren't considered scripture or divinely inspired, but my guess is, based on who his face to face teachers were, he probably knew what he was talking about.
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CajunRick
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Posted: Tue Sep 18th, 2007 01:13 am |
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Carlus Magnus wrote: But what about the Holy Father Gregory XVI, and Leo XIII?
Were not they too the Vicars of Christ?
Were not they the head of Holy Mother Church?
Are you saying that the Church has since "changed" its doctrine?
His Holiness Pope Gregory XVI has just stated that God can only be truly worshipped in the Catholic religion, has the Church changed its belief on this point?
Is not the Catholic Church the body of Christ?
Is not Christ the only way to the Father?
Yes to all of the above. However, the path to salvation is clearly described in Matthew 25:31-46. Can salvation be restricted from those who, through no fault of their own, never have the opportunity to hear the gospel message and yet, because of the law of God written on their hearts, follow the words of our Savior in Matthew 25:31-46? Certainly the words of a pope cannot supercede the words of our Savior, and so the Church recognizes that those who seek God with the sincerety of the law written on their hearts at the moment of their conception may be counted among the sheep and not the goats.
To quote the Catholic Encyclopedia (1917 edition) article on ignorance, 'Ignorance is said to be invincible when a person is unable to rid himself of it notwithstanding the employment of moral diligence, that is, such as under the circumstances is, morally speaking, possible and obligatory. This manifestly includes the states of inadvertence, forgetfulness, etc. Such ignorance is obviously involuntary and therefore not imputable. On the other hand, ignorance is termed vincible if it can be dispelled by the use of "moral diligence". And to quote further, "It is undeniable that a man cannot be invincibly ignorant of the natural law, so far as its first principles are concerned, and the inferences easily drawn therefrom. This, however, according to the teaching ofSt. Thomas, is not true of those remoter conclusions, which are deducible only by a process of laborious and sometimes intricate reasoning. Of these a person may be invincibly ignorant. Even when the invincible ignorance is concomitant, it prevents the act which it accompanies from being regarded as sinful."
So invincible ignorance is, according to St. Thomas Aquinas, a valid reason to consider an act other than sinful, as long as that act is not part of the natural law. Faith in God is part of the natural law; belief in the Catholic Church is not, and that is obviously true because the Catholic Church did not exist prior to the coming of the Savior.
So the answers to your questions are all "yes", but while all salvation is through the Catholic Church, and the true Church subsists in the Catholic Church, those who are invincibly ignorant of the requirement to be Catholic are not bound by the restriction. This is not a "change" in doctrine; it dates to at least Thomas Aquinas.
____________________
Understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand. - Augustine
Rick Luquette
Luquette Lane
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brian
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Posted: Wed Sep 19th, 2007 03:03 am |
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CajunRick wrote: Carlus Magnus wrote: But what about the Holy Father Gregory XVI, and Leo XIII?
Were not they too the Vicars of Christ?
Were not they the head of Holy Mother Church?
Are you saying that the Church has since "changed" its doctrine?
His Holiness Pope Gregory XVI has just stated that God can only be truly worshipped in the Catholic religion, has the Church changed its belief on this point?
Is not the Catholic Church the body of Christ?
Is not Christ the only way to the Father?
Yes to all of the above.... So the answers to your questions are all "yes", but while all salvation is through the Catholic Church, and the true Church subsists in the Catholic Church, those who are invincibly ignorant of the requirement to be Catholic are not bound by the restriction. This is not a "change" in doctrine; it dates to at least Thomas Aquinas.
are you sure the answer is yes to the 4th question that we changed our doctrine? I thought doctrine can not change, and it was simply a misunderstanding that was cleared up while the true doctrine remained always there even if misunderstood.
I am thinking that maybe you were saying that we have changed or clarified our point of view from what many Catholics falsely understood in the past or that we "changed" or elaborated on the doctrine from how it was previously commonly perceived.
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CajunRick
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Posted: Wed Sep 19th, 2007 08:48 am |
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brian wrote: CajunRick wrote: Carlus Magnus wrote: Are you saying that the Church has since "changed" its doctrine? Yes to all of the above....
are you sure the answer is yes to the 4th question that we changed our doctrine?
I clarified my answer further in the question. Since the word "changed" was placed in quotes, I acknowledged that the focus has changed, but my answer may be misleading since the doctrine has truly not changed. It is the same today as it was when Jesus spoke at the Sermon on the Mount.
____________________
Understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand. - Augustine
Rick Luquette
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Carlus Magnus
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Posted: Wed Sep 19th, 2007 03:00 pm |
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The Athanasian Creed says “Whoever wishes to be saved, needs above all to hold the Catholic faith; unless each one preserves this whole and inviolate, he will without a doubt perish in eternity.– But the Catholic faith is this, that we worship one God in the Trinity, and the Trinity in unity... Therefore let him who wishes to be saved, think thus concerning the Trinity. But it is necessary for eternal salvation that he faithfully believe also in the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ...the Son of God is God and man...– This is the Catholic faith; unless each one believes this faithfully and firmly, he cannot be saved.” So, is it then possible that this is not so, that those can be saved without holding the Catholic faith, while not preserving it at all, and that one can simply not believe in it and still be saved?
That is tantamount to saying that not every word that proceeds from the mouth of God is necessary unto salvation as our Lord said to satan, it would be contrary then, am I not right? Correct if I'm wrong, I'm new to the faith, so I'm still kinda learning it, and so far, from what I've been learning from the magisterium and some of what I've seen the doctrines seem to have changed from no one is saved outside the Church, to yes, they can be saved on this or that condition, to now meaning most people, if not all, of those outside of the Church are saved. Is tantamount to saying that explicit belief in Christ is necessary, as Christ said, to then changing it to mean yes, belief is only necessary for those who know of it, to then saying those who do not believe, for whatever reason, can still be saved, without belief in Jesus Christ's divinity. It seems that the evolution of dogma is evolving to mean the opposite of what it did mean.
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Quicumque vult salvus esse, ante omnia opus est, ut teneat catholicam fidem: Quam nisi quisque integram inviolatamque servaverit, absque dubio in aeternum peribit.
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Daffodil
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Posted: Wed Sep 19th, 2007 05:25 pm |
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| The creed you cited refers to those who wish to have salvation. That would imply someone who was already Christian, or someone who was discerning it. If the truth is revealed to you, then you are responsible for responding in faith to it. If, through no fault of your own, you have not been told about the Church, or Christ, etc.........then there is no possible way that you could know about it. This in no way contradicts the Doctrines of the Catholic Church. Many of the things you have cited, were written to a Catholic audience, and it is assumed that those who hear the message are Catholic. Taken in proper context, it makes no contradiction whatsoever.
____________________
My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior....
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mg57
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Posted: Wed Sep 19th, 2007 06:03 pm |
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Carlus -
We can use the passage of the good thief / criminal ( Lk 23:39-43) to illustrate what the others were saying.
Was he saved ? Evidently so.
Was he baptised ? No.
Was he a disciple ? Only at the end as he was dying.
He lead his life as a criminal and did not participate in nor had experience with the Christian community previous to serving his sentence, yet he was saved.
In principle, this applies to and underlies the answers given previously, ( see again CCC # 846, 847,848 ).
God bless.
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Br_Carlo
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Posted: Thu Sep 20th, 2007 08:38 am |
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God's peace. The situation in Korea, which was closed to missionaries of all types for centuries, is pertinent to this discussion. As mentioned in the accounts of the martyrs whose lives are celebrated today (Sts. Andrew Kim Taegon, Paul Chong Hasang, and their companions), the Church existed in Korea for quite a long time as a "lay phenomenon" without priests. Are we to say that the many lay people who perished under persecutions beginning in the 1800's, who knew incompletely of Christianity--and only from Bible fragments and a few smuggled books--were lost because they died "outside the Church"?
The reason we venerate the Doctors of the Church, such as St. Thomas Aquinas, is that these great teachers open up our understanding of both the substance and the application of the truths of the Catholic Faith. None of them invents new doctrine, or reverses doctrine. Blessings, ~Br_Carlo~
Last edited on Thu Sep 20th, 2007 08:41 am by Br_Carlo
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CajunRick
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Posted: Thu Sep 20th, 2007 09:03 am |
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Carlus Magnus wrote: That is tantamount to saying that not every word that proceeds from the mouth of God is necessary unto salvation as our Lord said to satan, it would be contrary then, am I not right? Correct if I'm wrong,
You are not seeing the "whole picture". The Word of God (Jesus) is necessary for salvation for those who are aware. If God is just, then he cannot hold those people responsible who do not hold knowledge, including those whose knowledge of the Church is lacking or incomplete through no fault of their own.
This is not exactly a new concept. Catholic Answers has a tract called Savation Outside the Church which quotes extensively from the Fathers. To quotet briefly from that pamphlet, "The following quotations from the Church Fathers give the straight story. They show that the early Church held the same position on this as the contemporary Church does—that is, while it is normatively necessary to be a Catholic to be saved (see CCC 846; Vatican II, Lumen Gentium 14), there are exceptions, and it is possible in some circumstances for people to be saved who have not been fully initiated into the Catholic Church (CCC 847)." Click the link above to see the actual quotes from the Fathers. (emphasis added)
Catholics United for the Faith have a Faith Fact called Without the Church There is No Salvation which contains the following statement:
Many people who claim that God restricts salvation to baptized Catholics cite the Fathers of the Church to prove their assertions. While space does not allow an exhaustive analysis of the Fathers, there are several necessary points to keep in mind. First, the Fathers must be understood in the context of their writings, not in the context of the one quoting them. The majority of the Fathers who wrote on this topic were concerned about those who had once believed or had heard the truth, but now rejected it. Many of them believed the entire world had heard the Gospel. Their words were not directed at those who, by no fault of their own, did not know the Gospel of Christ. (emphasis added)
The very next line reads, "The Fathers do affirm the inherent danger in deliberately rejecting the Church. For example, St. Ignatius of Antioch wrote at the turn of the second century, 'Be not deceived, my brethren; if anyone follows a maker of schism, he does not inherit the kingdom of God'" (Letter to the Philadelphians 3:3).
And finally, "On the other hand, many of the Fathers did write about those who were invincibly ignorant of the Gospel. Of these, the Fathers accepted that salvation was open to them, even if in a mysterious way. The Fathers recognized that the natural law of justice and virtue is written on the hearts of all men. Those who respect this law respect the Lawgiver, though they do not know Him." This is followed by a quote from St. Justin Martyr from the second century.
Click on the links on the two sources referenced above for the entire articles. You will see that the doctrine of the Church has not changed but has been consistently taught for 2000 years. Only the wording and emphasis has been revised over time, depending on the language and the focus of the Church.
And the Church also acknowledges a difference in the possibility of salvation for those who actively follow a heretic into schism, and those many generations later who are only believing what they were taught by their ancestors. The former are most likely culpable, the latter are most probably not, and may well be called "invincibly ignorant".
What you have to remember is that our God is a god of inclusion, not exclusion. God desires all men to be saved, and God will certainly not judge harshly those people who live the best life they possibly can given the information in their possession. John Lennon was once derided for saying the Beatles were more popular than Jesus, but most people missed his explanation. He was really saying that it's a sad world where more people had heard the names of John, Paul, George, and Ringo, than had heard the name of Jesus Christ. And a god who is infinitely just and merciful will not condemn those who know no better.
And that is, was, and always will be the doctrine of the Church.
____________________
Understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand. - Augustine
Rick Luquette
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brian
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Posted: Thu Sep 20th, 2007 11:07 am |
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CajunRick wrote:
I clarified my answer further in the question. Since the word "changed" was placed in quotes, I acknowledged that the focus has changed, but my answer may be misleading since the doctrine has truly not changed. It is the same today as it was when Jesus spoke at the Sermon on the Mount.
sorry rick. i realized that after re-reading your post, but then I wanted to delete mine and tried to stop it and it did not seem to instantly load so I thought I got rid of it. So I never ment to send it, and I did understand from your last sentence what you meant. i was just confused when I saw the first sentence saying yes to all questions, but I realize "changed" was quoted like that and your last sentence of course specifically mentioned that it was not a change. It is an important distinction and I see you definitely made it. sorry for the confusion.
as for the topc,c I do think it is dangerous to either too strongly determine what we think will happen regarding men's salvation, so much as trust the mercy of God. We definitely do believe that salvation is possible to those with certain ignorance of truth, but we do not know how easy or diffficult it is or want to use this to assume that it will apply to what % of people.
I hope it applies to as many as possible, becasue God wants all men to be saved and so should we. But for the sake of missionary zeal, and because we simply do not know who will or will not qualify and because there is greater joy in experiencing the fullness of salvation and truth as much as we can while on earth, it behooves us to live as if there is danger to leaving the world unevangelized, and I do think the church has done that.
But I worry that this doctrine (which is more there to give us hope and to make sense of how God can judge people who never heard of Him or who were not guilty of causing the schisms, without seeming unfair) at times leads people to just assuming that everybody will go to heaven and there is no need to fel any urgency in evangelizing, which the doctrine is not their for.
Last edited on Thu Sep 20th, 2007 11:21 am by brian
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David W. Emery
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Posted: Thu Sep 20th, 2007 12:20 pm |
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brian wrote:But I worry that this doctrine (which is more there to give us hope and to make sense of how God can judge people who never heard of Him or who were not guilty of causing the schisms, without seeming unfair) at times leads people to just assuming that everybody will go to heaven and there is no need to feel any urgency in evangelizing, which the doctrine is not there for.
Indeed, there are people who take this point of view. But it is not justified. If hell exists (and our dogma states that it does), it cannot be empty. God makes nothing to no purpose.
David
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