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Traditional Catholic Faith => Crisis in the Church => The Feeneyism Ghetto => Topic started by: Gregory I on January 06, 2012, 01:38:16 AM
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It would seem that one of the favorite modern heresies that gets trumped up by the NO "church" and treated as "orthodox" is the heresy of semi-pelagianism. Specifically, that part of the heresy that attempted to grant infants who died without baptism a sort of blessedness that was distinct from eternal life in the kingdom of heaven. This view has of course been condemned especially at the Council of Carthage XVI With St. Augustine in attendance.
Now, I am not a Jansenist. I am an Augustinian. There is perhaps little more than a hair's breadth of difference, but I found this interesting in the Catechism of the Council of Trent, on Baptism:
Necessity of Baptism
"If the knowledge of what has been hitherto explained be, as it is, of highest importance to the faithful, it is no less important to them to learn that the law of Baptism, as established by our Lord, extends to all, so that unless they are regenerated to God through the grace of Baptism, be their parents Christians or infidels, they are born to eternal misery and destruction. Pastors, therefore, should often explain these words of the Gospel: Unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God."
Infant Baptism: It's Necessity
"That this law [just previously mentioned] extends not only to adults but also to infants and children, and that the Church has received this from Apostolic tradition, is confirmed by the unanimous teaching and authority of the Fathers."
Besides, it is not to be supposed that Christ the Lord would have withheld the Sacrament and grace of Baptism from children, of whom He said: Suffer the little children, and forbid them not to come to me; for the kingdom of heaven is for such; ° whom also He embraced, upon whom He imposed hands, to whom He gave His blessing.
It seems pretty clear that the Catechism definitely taught that all the unbaptized who die go to MISERY and DESTRUCTION. And this LAW of the necessity of baptism extends to infants, and that the penalties do as well.
SO, I suppose my question is...who is responsible for watering down the Augustinian teaching? Trent clearly did not side with Aquinas's opinion on limbo, and St. Augustine's teachings have at various times been officially promulgated as the doctrine of the church itself (The Tractoria of Pope Innocent I and Zosimus).
I feel inclined to side with Blaise Pascal and blame the moral laxity (and doctrinal simple-mindedness) of the Jesuits. Anyone else?
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Now, I am not a Jansenist. I am an Augustinian.
Yeah, that's what the Jansenists thought. And the Protestants.
Augustine was a Catholic, not an "Augustinian." He didn't invent some alternate Church. This poor guy has had more havoc done in his name! Everyone wants to be St. Augustine, the hammer of heretics, not seeing that what made him great was really his humility. They just want the glory of hammering -- or so they think -- heretics.
That being said, Father Ratzinger, who abolished limbo ( in his own feverish mind ), is certainly a semi-Pelagian and worse, being a kind of living embodiment of all the Modernist filth that has washed up on the shores of Babylon.
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Ok, Mr. Technically correct, I am a Roman Catholic who holds to the Theological School of Augustinianism that was refined during the 17th century, which was admirably defended by Cardinal Henry Noris and Declared by the Pope to be completely orthodox and free of heresy.
"Henry Noris (-1704) was chosen by the Hermits of St. Augustine to defend the honour of Augustine and the Order. He formulated what is known as the “Strict Augustinian School” in his Historia Pelagiana. Several popes favoured him during his lifetime and Pope Benedict XIV wrote an apologia in defence of him after his death. He was Papal Librarian under Innocent XII. The punishment of infants is identically the same as that of adults “generically and specifically” in the flames of hell and varies only in degree. He vigorously denied that the infants would have any natural happiness. In his view the Scholastics were contrary to the popes, the councils and the Fathers. Jesuits attempted to have the book condemned and it was cleared by the Holy Office in 1672, 1676 and 1692."
This is what I mean. :jester:
Plus, notable Jansenist errors:
1. The gifts of Adam in paradise were intrinsic to his nature. (They were gifts, not particular to his nature).
2. The Victorious delight of grace is INTRINSICALLY IRRESISTIBLE. (The Victorious Delight of Grace infallibly attains its end, but is NOT irresistible. It CAN be resisted, but it is also true that men do NOT resist it. Fine distinction)
3. Mass in Vernacular.
4. Attrition is not sufficient for repentance, even in the confessional. (Attrition is NOT sufficient for repentance OUTSIDE the confessional. However, it is acceptable as a motive for repentance IN the confessional. COT)
5. The Church can err in her preservation of Christian doctrine. (Nope. But parties can rise and shrink).
I could go on. But, you get my drift. I accept the Bull unigenitus. THe Augustinianism I am talking about is legit and orthodox and free of Calvin and Jansenus.
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But calling belief in limbo semi-pelagian is condemned.
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But calling belief in limbo semi-pelagian is condemned.
Right, it is "false and rash and as slander of the Catholic schools" (Denz. 1526, De poena decedentium cuм solo originali)
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Hang on a second, you think there is no such thing as an erroneous notion of limbo? What is limbo in y'all's opinion?
I will tell you righ tnow, it is NOT a middle state between heaven and hell. St. Thomas presents limbo as a PART of hell.
The issue is not whether or not unbaptized infants are in hell, they are.
The issue is whether or not they suffer positive Punishment. I take the position of St. Robert Bellarmine. They suffer Positive punishment in Hell.
Nobody denied this from 430 ad until the time of Aquinas.
If it is obviously wrong, what took so long?
Also, it has been promulgated by the Pope that there is no happy blessed middle state for unbaptized infants. The Findings of the XVI council of Carthage were officially promulgated by Popes Innocent I and Zosimus and ratified at the Ecuмenical Council of Ephesus.
Also, the particular censure of that Canon of the False Synod of Pistoia does not say that Limbo is absolutely true, nor does it condemn the teaching of Augustine.
Plus, Let's look at the Council of Lyons:
"All those who die in mortal sin, or in original sin alone, descend to Hell where they are punished, but with disparate punishments." De Fide.
How many kinds of People die in original sin alone? Only infants and Idiots.
Therefore, they suffer definite PUNISHMENT, not natural bliss.
Also, like I said before, Limbo, as understood by Aquinas, is not a middle state. It is the edge of Hell.
It is condemned to believe in a happy middle state between heaven and hell for unbaptized infants.
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I have never been able to keep the names of all the various heresies straight, so I'll take you word that "semi-pelagianism" is the heresy that unbaptized babies go to heaven.
With the wide-spread cancer of abortion plaguing the Western world since the 1960s, the actual, physical deaths of thousands of babies a day was no longer a remote, theoretical issue. It wasn't confined to pagan lands in remote Third World locations they only read about in National Geographic. "Christian" lands were now seeing, literally, thousands of infant deaths every day.
In addition to this reality, Western society was prospering in the aftermath of World War II and technological advances meant that there were relatively few people who had to struggle on a daily basis just to survive. The death of an infant (who was "wanted") was fast becoming a rarity rather than an accepted and normal part of "man's struggle to survive". Large families also became the exception rather than the norm. People found that they had much more leisure time (as all of us who post of forums have much of) and they began to contemplate their soft lives and the reality of abortion.
Couple all of this with the general loss of faith by much of Western civilization and people started asking questions about the fate of these aborted babies (and, by extention, all infant deaths). Priests and bishops, who were also experiencing a loss of faith, could not reconcile their human understanding of "love" and "compassion" with hell for those "innocent" souls: the babies who died in the womb or before baptism. At the same time, Catholic theologians and clergy who, during and after the War, had been forced together with the clergy of heretical sects and Jews were hearing the constant drumbeat that Christianity somehow caused "The Haulocaust" and were ashamed of Christ. They began to work out a theology that could eventually allow for everyone, except, possibly, the worst of the worst, to achieve salvation by exaulting "invincible ignorance", the "anonymous Christian", "Baptism of Desire" (in an extreme and perverted sense), etc. Rather than speak the truth, they salved the consciences of people who questioned (either because they had been involved with an abortion, knew someone who had been, or was just a week-kneed liberal) by telling them that aborted babies will find their way to heaven. The two heresies began to work together and feed off each other.
The idea that unbaptized babies go to heaven is a heresy; it is part and parcel of the heresy of universal salvation.
If you ask virtually any Conciliar priest (go ahead, ask an FSSP priest or a "tradition-friendly" Novus Ordo priest) if aborted babies go to hell and I doubt that you will find many who will answer in the affirmative. There will be a few, but it will be precious few. Many will answer unequivically that they are saved. Others my equivocate, and their answers will be muddy; but, make no mistake, they will leave you with the impression that he told you (even if he did not actually say it) that these babies will go to heaven. And a very distinct minority will tell you that these babies will go to hell for they have not Sanctifying Grace.
It is clear that this heresy is the teaching of the Conciliar church and that the vast majority of people who worship with the Conciliar church believe in that heresy with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength. It is what they teach. Their preaching against abortion (that once-a-year sermon on "Respect Life Sunday") is based only upon humanistic reasons and not on spiritual reasons. While the human element should indeed be discussed, it is not the primary reason abortion is wrong and these reasons cannot be the sole reasons against the practice. The "Golden Rule" just doesn't work with people who have lost faith in the One True God and believe in the evolutionary model of "survival of the fittest."
So, to answer your question on the modern origin of this attitude amongst the people of the Novus Ordo, it is simply a loss of faith and a clergy who refuse to see or teach the Truth.
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Nobody denied this from 430 ad until the time of Aquinas.
Quite a stretch.
The bottom line: if you say limbo without fire is somehow pelagian, you're adhering to a condemned position.
Do so at the peril of your soul.
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Nobody denied this from 430 ad until the time of Aquinas.
Quite a stretch.
The bottom line: if you say limbo without fire is somehow pelagian, you're adhering to a condemned position.
Do so at the peril of your soul.
NO, if you say LIMBO exists midway between hell and heaven, you are adhering to an equally condemned position.
LIMBO has always been taught to be a part of hell. I am simply reemphasizing that.
And no, it is not a stretch, it is a fact. Since the Death of St. Augustine, until the Time of Peter Abelard in the 14th century, the Universal Consensus amongst theologians was that unbaptized Children who died were positively punished in the flames with other sinners; nevertheless, they received the least AMOUNT of punishment.
Abelard was the First to say that the Primary punishment for original sin apart from actual sin was the deprivation of the beatific vision, whilst the punishment for ACTUAL sin was the punishment of Fire. Nevertheless, the infants still suffered the Pain of loss. Then St. Thomas took this view and decided that Infants do not actually SUFFER in Hell, because they have no knowledge of what they are missing out on. Nevertheless, they are considered 'punished" for not being allowed to be in the presence of God.
My response to this is very simple; it seems the council of Lyons and Florence contradict St. Thomas, so I confess what the ecuмenical councils taught, and the regional councils promulgated by ecuмenical councils and popes also taught. I do not condemn the idea that unbaptized infants may be in a place of lesser punishment as long as it is a part of hell; I condemn the notion that they can share any kind of blessedness apart from the life of heaven and NOT be in hell in SOME sense.
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Semi-pelagianism, briefly put, is the heresy that teaches that man can make a choice for God on his own. That is, a man can of his own free will and unaided by grace, can put his faith in God. Initial justification, therefore, is within man's power. How this applies to the salvation of unbaptized infants is beyond me. Maybe there's a connection in there somewhere.
I would add however that many people of all stripes today are Semi-pelagians or even Pelagians.
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I will tell you what we were taught in the fifties--preVII.
Babies that die without Baptism including miscarriages--abortion was not even a consideration at the time---go to Limbo. Limbo was described as being analogous to a closet in Heaven and the suffering consisted of not being able to ever gaze upon the countenance of the Lord.
Mothers could Baptise their infants through desire if they were unable to perform the physical sacrament.
If this is not true then shouldn't infants be baptised while still in the womb or at least as they escape the birth canal?
These are concrete simple explanations given to simple faithful Catholics at the time and decades and centuries prior. I don't know what else to say.
Everyone can't have, nor is smart enough to hope to have, a PhD in Canon Law.
:heretic:
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I will tell you what we were taught in the fifties--preVII.
Babies that die without Baptism including miscarriages--abortion was not even a consideration at the time---go to Limbo. Limbo was described as being analogous to a closet in Heaven and the suffering consisted of not being able to ever gaze upon the countenance of the Lord.
Mothers could Baptise their infants through desire if they were unable to perform the physical sacrament.
If this is not true then shouldn't infants be baptised while still in the womb or at least as they escape the birth canal?
These are concrete simple explanations given to simple faithful Catholics at the time and decades and centuries prior. I don't know what else to say.
Everyone can't have, nor is smart enough to hope to have, a PhD in Canon Law.
:heretic:
That is not inaccurate, nor is it an issue of canon law. The only part of this you weren't told is that LIMBO, according to St. Thomas Aquinas, who invented the modern idea of Limbo, is a part of Hell. It does not exist OUTSIDE of Hell. So all unbaptized children are in HELL. The only really speculative part is what they suffer in this part of Hell. It is NOT a middle place.
No, a parent's desire to baptize the child doesn't count as BOD for children.
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You say limbo is semi-pelagian. Auctorem Fidei condemns the proposition that belief in limbo is pelagian.
Your position is condemned. You need to retract it.
Or you can rave about babies being thrown into the flames like a self-righteous maniac.
You aren't a feeneyite are you?
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Phyrros, Hobble, et all- can you upload any docuмents on this subject?
I don't know how accurate this is, but I know Tele and others has referenced Newadvent.org before.
(Late Latin limbus) a word of Teutonic derivation, meaning literally "hem" or "border," as of a garment, or anything joined on (cf. Italian lembo or English limb).
In theological usage the name is applied to (a) the temporary place or state of the souls of the just who, although purified from sin, were excluded from the beatific vision until Christ's triumphant ascension into Heaven (the "limbus patrum"); or (b) to the permanent place or state of those unbaptized children and others who, dying without grievous personal sin, are excluded from the beatific vision on account of original sin alone (the "limbus infantium" or "puerorum").
In literary usage the name is sometimes applied in a wider and more general sense to any place or state of restraint, confinement, or exclusion, and is practically equivalent to "prison" (see, e.g., Milton, "Paradise Lost," III, 495; Butler, "Hudibras," part II, canto i, and other English classics). The not unnatural transition from the theological to the literary usage is exemplified in Shakespeare, "Henry VIII," act v, sc. 3. In this article we shall deal only with the theological meaning and connotation of the word.
Limbus patrum
Though it can hardly be claimed, on the evidence of extant literature, that a definite and consistent belief in the limbus patrum of Christian tradition was universal among the Jews, it cannot on the other hand be denied that, more especially in the extra-canonical writings of the second or first centuries B.C., some such belief finds repeated expression; and New Testament references to the subject remove all doubt as to the current Jєωιѕн belief in the time of Christ. Whatever name may be used in apocryphal Jєωιѕн literature to designate the abode of the departed just, the implication generally is
that their condition is one of happiness,
that it is temporary, and
that it is to be replaced by a condition of final and permanent bliss when the Messianic Kingdom is established.
In the New Testament, Christ refers by various names and figures to the place or state which Catholic tradition has agreed to call the limbus patrum. In Matthew 8:11, it is spoken of under the figure of a banquet "with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of Heaven" (cf. Luke 8:29; 14:15), and in Matthew 25:10 under the figure of a marriage feast to which the prudent virgins are admitted, while in the parable of Lazarus and Dives it is called "Abraham's bosom" (Luke 16:22) and in Christ's words to the penitent thief on Calvary the name paradise is used (Luke 23:43). St. Paul teaches (Ephesians 4:9) that before ascending into Heaven Christ "also descended first into the lower parts of the earth," and St. Peter still more explicitly teaches that "being put to death indeed, in the flesh, but enlivened in the spirit," Christ went and "preached to those souls that were in prison, which had been some time incredulous, when they waited for the patience of God in the days of Noah" (1 Peter 3:18-20).
It is principally on the strength of these Scriptural texts, harmonized with the general doctrine of the Fall and Redemption of mankind, that Catholic tradition has defended the existence of the limbus patrum as a temporary state or place of happiness distinct from Purgatory. As a result of the Fall, Heaven was closed against men. Actual possession of the beatific vision was postponed, even for those already purified from sin, until the Redemption should have been historically completed by Christ's visible ascendancy into Heaven. Consequently, the just who had lived under the Old Dispensation, and who, either at death or after a course of purgatorial discipline, had attained the perfect holiness required for entrance into glory, were obliged to await the coming of the Incarnate Son of God and the full accomplishment of His visible earthly mission. Meanwhile they were "in prison," as St. Peter says; but, as Christ's own words to the penitent thief and in the parable of Lazarus clearly imply, their condition was one of happiness, notwithstanding the postponement of the higher bliss to which they looked forward. And this, substantially, is all that Catholic tradition teaches regarding the limbus patrum.
Limbus infantium
The New Testament contains no definite statement of a positive kind regarding the lot of those who die in original sin without being burdened with grievous personal guilt. But, by insisting on the absolute necessity of being "born again of water and the Holy Ghost" (John 3:5) for entry into the kingdom of Heaven (see BAPTISM, subtitle Necessity of Baptism), Christ clearly enough implies that men are born into this world in a state of sin, and St. Paul's teaching to the same effect is quite explicit (Romans 5:12 sqq.). On the other hand, it is clear from Scripture and Catholic tradition that the means of regeneration provided for this life do not remain available after death, so that those dying unregenerate are eternally excluded from the supernatural happiness of the beatific vision (John 9:4, Luke 12:40, 16:19 sqq., 2 Corinthians 5:10; see also APOCATASTASIS). The question therefore arises as to what, in the absence of a clear positive revelation on the subject, we ought in conformity with Catholic principles to believe regarding the eternal lot of such persons. Now it may confidently be said that, as the result of centuries of speculation on the subject, we ought to believe that these souls enjoy and will eternally enjoy a state of perfect natural happiness; and this is what Catholics usually mean when they speak of the limbus infantium, the "children's limbo."
The best way of justifying the above statement is to give a brief sketch of the history of Catholic opinion on the subject. We shall try to do so by selecting the particular and pertinent facts from the general history of Catholic speculation regarding the Fall and original sin, but it is only right to observe that a fairly full knowledge of this general history is required for a proper appreciation of these facts.
Pre-Augustinian tradition
There is no evidence to prove that any Greek or Latin Father before St. Augustine ever taught that original sin of itself involved any severer penalty after death than exclusion from the beatific vision, and this, by the Greek Fathers at least, was always regarded as being strictly supernatural. Explicit references to the subject are rare, but for the Greek Fathers generally the statement of St. Gregory of nαzιanzus may be taken as representative:
It will happen, I believe . . . that those last mentioned [infants dying without baptism] will neither be admitted by the just judge to the glory of Heaven nor condemned to suffer punishment, since, though unsealed [by baptism], they are not wicked. . . . For from the fact that one does not merit punishment it does not follow that one is worthy of being honored, any more than it follows that one who is not worthy of a certain honor deserves on that account to be punished. [Oration 40, no. 23]
Thus, according to Gregory, for children dying without baptism, and excluded for want of the "seal" from the "honor" or gratuitous favor of seeing God face to face, an intermediate or neutral state is admissible, which, unlike that of the personally wicked, is free from positive punishment. And, for the West, Tertullian opposes infant baptism on the ground that infants are innocent, while St. Ambrose explains that original sin is rather an inclination to evil than guilt in the strict sense, and that it need occasion no fear at the day of judgement; and the Ambrosiaster teaches that the "second death," which means condemnation to the hell of torment of the damned, is not incurred by Adam's sin, but by our own. This was undoubtedly the general tradition before St. Augustine's time.
Teaching of St. Augustine
In his earlier writings St. Augustine himself agrees with the common tradition. Thus in De libero arbitrio III, written several years before the Pelagian controversy, discussing the fate of unbaptized infants after death, he writes: "It is superfluous to inquire about the merits of one who has not any merits. For one need not hesitate to hold that life may be neutral as between good conduct and sin, and that as between reward and punishment there may be a neutral sentence of the judge." But even before the outbreak of the Pelagian controversy St. Augustine had already abandoned the lenient traditional view, and in the course of the controversy he himself condemned, and persuaded the Council of Carthage (418) to condemn, the substantially identical Pelagian teaching affirming the existence of "an intermediate place, or of any place anywhere at all (ullus alicubi locus), in which children who pass out of this life unbaptized live in happiness" (Denzinger 102). This means that St. Augustine and the African Fathers believed that unbaptized infants share in the common positive misery of the damned, and the very most that St. Augustine concedes is that their punishment is the mildest of all, so mild indeed that one may not say that for them non-existence would be preferable to existence in such a state (Of Sin and Merit I.21; Contra Jul. V, 44; etc.). But this Augustinian teaching was an innovation in its day, and the history of subsequent Catholic speculation on this subject is taken up chiefly with the reaction which has ended in a return to the pre-Augustinian tradition.
Post-Augustinian teaching
After enjoying several centuries of undisputed supremacy, St. Augustine's teaching on original sin was first successfully challenged by St. Anselm (d. 1109), who maintained that it was not concupiscence, but the privation of original justice, that constituted the essence of the inherited sin (De conceptu virginali). On the special question, however, of the punishment of original sin after death, St. Anselm was at one with St. Augustine in holding that unbaptized children share in the positive sufferings of the damned; and Abelard was the first to rebel against the severity of the Augustinian tradition on this point. According to him there was no guilt (culpa), but only punishment (poena), in the proper notion of original sin; and although this doctrine was rightly condemned by the Council of Soissons in 1140, his teaching, which rejected material torment (poena sensus) and retained only the pain of loss (poena damni) as the eternal punishment of original sin (Comm. in Rom.), was not only not condemned but was generally accepted and improved upon by the Scholastics. Peter Lombard, the Master of the Sentences, popularized it (Sent. II, xxxiii, 5), and it acquired a certain degree of official authority from the letter of Innocent III to the Archbishop of Arles, which soon found its way into the "Corpus Juris". Pope Innocent's teaching is to the effect that those dying with only original sin on their souls will suffer "no other pain, whether from material fire or from the worm of conscience, except the pain of being deprived forever of the vision of God" (Corp. Juris, Decret. l. III, tit. xlii, c. iii — Majores). It should be noted, however, that this poena damni incurred for original sin implied, with Abelard and most of the early Scholastics, a certain degree of spiritual torment, and that St. Thomas was the first great teacher who broke away completely from the Augustinian tradition on this subject, and relying on the principle, derived through the Pseudo-Dionysius from the Greek Fathers, that human nature as such with all its powers and rights was unaffected by the Fall (quod naturalia manent integra), maintained, at least virtually, what the great majority of later Catholic theologians have expressly taught, that the limbus infantium is a place or state of perfect natural happiness.
No reason can be given — so argued the Angelic Doctor — for exempting unbaptized children from the material torments of Hell (poena sensus) that does not hold good, even a fortiori, for exempting them also from internal spiritual suffering (poena damni in the subjective sense), since the latter in reality is the more grievous penalty, and is more opposed to the mitissima poena which St. Augustine was willing to admit (De Malo, V, art. iii). Hence he expressly denies that they suffer from any "interior affliction", in other words that they experience any pain of loss (nihil omnino dolebunt de carentia visionis divinae — "In Sent.", II, 33, q. ii, a. 2). At first ("In Sent.", loc. cit.), St. Thomas held this absence of subjective suffering to be compatible with a consciousness of objective loss or privation, the resignation of such souls to the ways of God's providence being so perfect that a knowledge of what they had lost through no fault of their own does not interfere with the full enjoyment of the natural goods they possess. Afterwards, however, he adopted the much simpler psychological explanation which denies that these souls have any knowledge of the supernatural destiny they have missed, this knowledge being itself supernatural, and as such not included in what is naturally due to the separated soul (De Malo loc. cit.). It should be added that in St. Thomas' view the limbus infantium is not a mere negative state of immunity from suffering and sorrow, but a state of positive happiness in which the soul is united to God by a knowledge and love of him proportionate to nature's capacity.
The teaching of St. Thomas was received in the schools, almost without opposition, down to the Reformation period. The very few theologians who, with Gregory of Rimini, stood out for the severe Augustinian view, were commonly designated by the opprobrious name of tortores infantium. Some writers, like Savonarola (De triumpho crucis, III, 9) and Catharinus (De statu parvulorum sine bapt. decedentium), added certain details to the current teaching — for example that the souls of unbaptized children will be united to glorious bodies at the Resurrection, and that the renovated earth of which St. Peter speaks (2 Peter 3:13) will be their happy dwelling place for eternity. At the Reformation, Protestants generally, but more especially the Calvinists, in reviving Augustinian teaching, added to its original harshness, and the Jansenists followed on the same lines. This reacted in two ways on Catholic opinion, first by compelling attention to the true historical situation, which the Scholastics had understood very imperfectly, and second by stimulating an all-round opposition to Augustinian severity regarding the effects of original sin; and the immediate result was to set up two Catholic parties, one of whom either rejected St. Thomas to follow the authority of St. Augustine or vainly try to reconcile the two, while the other remained faithful to the Greek Fathers and St. Thomas. The latter party, after a fairly prolonged struggle, has certainly the balance of success on its side.
Besides the professed advocates of Augustinianism, the principal theologians who belonged to the first party were Bellarmine, Petavius, and Bossuet, and the chief ground of their opposition to the previously prevalent Scholastic view was that its acceptance seemed to compromise the very principle of the authority of tradition. As students of history, they felt bound to admit that, in excluding unbaptized children from any place or state even of natural happiness and condemning them to the fire of Hell, St. Augustine, the Council of Carthage, and later African Fathers, like Fulgentius (De fide ad Petrum, 27), intended to teach no mere private opinion, but a doctrine of Catholic Faith; nor could they be satisfied with what Scholastics, like St. Bonaventure and Duns Scotus, said in reply to this difficulty, namely that St. Augustine had simply been guilty of exaggeration ("respondit Bonaventura dicens quod Augustinus excessive loquitur de illis poenis, sicut frequenter faciunt sancti" — Scots, In Sent., II, xxxiii, 2). Neither could they accept the explanation which even some modern theologians continue to repeat: that the Pelagian doctrine condemned by St. Augustine as a heresy (see e.g., On the Soul and its Origin II.17) consisted in claiming supernatural, as opposed to natural, happiness for those dying in original sin (see Bellarmine, De amiss. gratiae, vi, 1; Petavius, De Deo, IX, xi; De Rubeis, De Peccat. Orig., xxx, lxxii). Moreover, there was the teaching of the Council of Florence, that "the souls of those dying in actual mortal sin or in original sin alone go down at once (mox) into Hell, to be punished, however, with widely different penalties."
It is clear that Bellarmine found the situation embarrassing, being unwilling, as he was, to admit that St. Thomas and the Schoolmen generally were in conflict with what St. Augustine and other Fathers considered to be de fide, and what the Council of Florence seemed to have taught definitively. Hence he names Catharinus and some others as revivers of the Pelagian error, as though their teaching differed in substance from the general teaching of the School, and tries in a milder way to refute what he concedes to be the view of St. Thomas (op. cit., vi-vii). He himself adopts a view which is substantially that of Abelard mentioned above; but he is obliged to do violence to the text of St. Augustine and other Fathers in his attempt to explain them in conformity with this view, and to contradict the principle he elsewhere insists upon that "original sin does not destroy the natural but only the supernatural order." (op. cit., iv).
Petavius, on the other hand, did not try to explain away the obvious meaning of St. Augustine and his followers, but, in conformity with that teaching, condemned unbaptized children to the sensible pains of Hell, maintaining also that this was a doctrine of the Council of Florence.
Neither of these theologians, however, succeeded in winning a large following or in turning the current of Catholic opinion from the channel into which St. Thomas had directed it. Besides Natalis Alexander (De peccat. et virtut, I, i, 12), and Estius (In Sent., II, xxxv, 7), Bellarmine's chief supporter was Bossuet, who vainly tried to induce Innocent XII to condemn certain propositions which he extracted from a posthumous work of Cardinal Sfrondati and in which the lenient scholastic view is affirmed. Only professed Augustinians like Noris and Berti, or out-and-out Jansenists like the Bishop of Pistoia, whose famous diocesan synod furnished eighty-five propositions for condemnation by Pius VI (1794), supported the harsh teaching of Petavius. The twenty-sixth of these propositions repudiated "as a Pelagian fable the existence of the place (usually called the children's limbo) in which the souls of those dying in original sin are punished by the pain of loss without any pain of fire"; and this, taken to mean that by denying the pain of fire one thereby necessarily postulates a middle place or state, involving neither guilt nor penalty, between the Kingdom of God and eternal damnation, is condemned by the pope as being "false and rash and as slander of the Catholic schools" (Denz. 526).
This condemnation was practically the death-knell of extreme Augustinianism, while the mitigate Augustinianism of Bellarmine and Bossuet had already been rejected by the bulk of Catholic theologians. Suarez, for example, ignoring Bellarmine's protest, continued to teach what Catharinus had taught — that unbaptized children will not only enjoy perfect natural happiness, but that they will rise with immortal bodies at the last day and have the renovated earth for their happy abode (De vit. et penat., ix, sect. vi, n. 4); and, without insisting on such details, the great majority of Catholic theologians have continued to maintain the general doctrine that the children's limbo is a state of perfect natural happiness, just the same as it would have been if God had not established the present supernatural order. It is true, on the other hand, that some Catholic theologians have stood out for some kind of compromise with Augustinianism, on the ground that nature itself was wounded and weakened, or, at least that certain natural rights (including the right to perfect felicity) were lost in consequence of the Fall. But these have granted for the most part that the children's limbo implies exemption, not only from the pain of sense, but from any positive spiritual anguish for the loss of the beatific vision; and not a few have been willing to admit a certain degree of natural happiness in limbo. What has been chiefly in dispute is whether this happiness is as perfect and complete as it would have been in the hypothetical state of pure nature, and this is what the majority of Catholic theologians have affirmed.
As to the difficulties against this view which possessed such weight in the eyes of the eminent theologians we have mentioned, it is to be observed:
we must not confound St. Augustine's private authority with the infallible authority of the Catholic Church; and
if allowance be made for the confusion introduced into the Pelagian controversy by the want of a clear and explicit conception of the distinction between the natural and the supernatural order one can easily understand why St. Augustine and the Council of Carthage were practically bound to condemn the locus medius of the Pelagians. St. Augustine himself was inclined to deny this distinction altogether, although the Greek Fathers had already developed it pretty fully, and although some of the Pelagians had a glimmering of it (see Coelestius in August., De Peccat. Orig., v), they based their claim to natural happiness for unbaptized children on a denial of the Fall and original sin, and identified this state of happiness with the "life eternal" of the New Testament.
Moreover, even if one were to admit for the sake of argument that this canon of the Council of Carthage (the authenticity of which cannot be reasonably doubted) acquired the force of an ecuмenical definition, one ought to interpret it in the light of what was understood to be at issue by both sides in the controversy, and therefore add to the simple locus medius the qualification which is added by Pius VI when, in the Constitution "Auctoreum Fidei", he speaks of "locuм illium et statum medium expertem culpae et poenae."
Finally, in regard to the teaching of the Council of Florence, it is incredible that the Fathers there assembled had any intention of defining a question so remote from the issue on which reunion with the Greeks depended, and one which was recognized at the time as being open to free discussion and continued to be so regarded by theologians for several centuries afterwards. What the council evidently intended to deny in the passage alleged was the postponement of final awards until the day of judgement. Those dying in original sin are said to descend into Hell, but this does not necessarily mean anything more than that they are excluded eternally from the vision of God. In this sense they are damned; they have failed to reach their supernatural destiny, and this viewed objectively is a true penalty. Thus the Council of Florence, however literally interpreted, does not deny the possibility of perfect subjective happiness for those dying in original sin, and this is all that is needed from the dogmatic viewpoint to justify the prevailing Catholic notion of the children's limbo, while from the standpoint of reason, as St. Gregory of nαzιanzus pointed out long ago, no harsher view can be reconciled with a worthy concept of God's justice and other attributes.
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You say limbo is semi-pelagian. Auctorem Fidei condemns the proposition that belief in limbo is pelagian.
Your position is condemned. You need to retract it.
Or you can rave about babies being thrown into the flames like a self-righteous maniac.
You aren't a feeneyite are you?
Once again, you fail to make distinctions. Aquinas's understanding of Limbo is not semi-pelagian so long as he maintains it as a part of hell, WHICH HE DOES.
My position is not condemned, because the Saints held the position I hold. Augustine, Bellarmine, Fulgentius, Isidore, etc...
Auctorem Fide dis not issue a single anathema. I definitely adhere to it, and I agree with what Pope Pius VI said. I am not a Jansenist.
The pelagian understanding I attribute to the laity. They seem to think Limbo exists outside of Heaven and Hell, or worse, as a part of Heaven. This is clearly false. TO maintain that unbaptized infants can possibly enjoy blessedness without baptism in some middle realm is a heretical fantasy, condemned by the XVI Council of Carthage which was Presided over by St. Augustine, which in turn was Promulgated by at LEAST two Popes, Innocent I and Zosimus, and Ratified by the Council of Ephesus and the Second Council of Nicea.
History is a beautiful thing. as I said, St. Augustine's view was promulgated by the Church for over 800 years. St. Thomas's milder views have been promulgated for almost the same amount of time. In terms of doctrinal longevity, it's currently a pretty even split.
I choose the Councils of the Church, the Popes, and the teachings of perhaps the most influential saint as my authority.
For example:
The canons of Carthage XVI are considered to be infallible by Roman Catholic theologians because Pope St. Innocent (-417) and Pope St. Zosimus (-418) approved of them as a rule of the faith. The canons include the following.
“It has been decided likewise that if anyone says that for this reason the Lord said: “In my house there are many mansions”: that it might be understood that in the kingdom of heaven there will be some middle place or some place anywhere where happy infants live who departed from this life without baptism, without which they cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven, which is life eternal, let him be anathema. For when the Lord says: “Unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he shall not enter into the kingdom of God” [John 3:5], what Catholic will doubt that he will be a partner of the devil who has not deserved to be a coheir of Christ? For he who lacks the right part will without doubt run into the left [cf. Matt. 25:41,46].”
Augustine wrote that the Pelagian doctrine of an intermediate state had been condemned by the “councils and the Apostolic See.”
St. Augustine: “He who is not on the right is undoubtedly on the left; therefore, he who is not in the kingdom is beyond doubt in eternal fire. [...] Behold, I have explained to you what the kingdom is, and what eternal fire is; so that when you profess that a child is not in the kingdom, you may acknowledge that he is in eternal fire.” (Sermon 294, 3)
St. Augustine: “If a child is not wrested from the power of darkness, but remains there, why do you marvel that he is in eternal fire who is not permitted to enter the kingdom of heaven?” (Unfinished Work to Julian III, 199)
“Be it therefore far from us so to forsake the case of infants as to say to ourselves that it is uncertain whether, being regenerated in Christ, if they die in infancy they pass into eternal salvation, but that, not being regenerated, they pass into the second death. Because that which is written, “By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men,” cannot be rightly understood in any other manner.” (The Gift of Perseverance 30)
WHat does self-righteousness have to do with anything?
No, I am not a Feeneyite. Fr. Feeney held beliefs that are neither part of the ordinary or extraordinary magisterium of the Church, and I reject those.
I told you, I am an Augustinian of the old Rigorist school, a legitimate theological school and position admirably defended by several theologians of the church in the face of the moral laxity and "tolerance" of the Jesuits.
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So you hold that God sends a miscarried child to the Hell of the damned with the Devil and his angels to receive everlasting punishment?
All because He is an absolutist in that every single person must have water baptism or go straight to Hell? Is God incapable of remitting original sin except by water baptism?
Or maybe, just maybe, was He laying down the willed and normative means by which original sin is removed?
This is like saying unless one physically confesses a mortal sin to a priest before death he goes to Hell. Nevermind if the person in question has perfect contrition is about to die and is 100 miles from a priest
I'm also curious if you believe infants went straight to Hell in the Old Testament? What happened to them since they weren't bound by baptism?
If unbaptized infants do not go to Hell, this in no way lessens the sin of abortion. That's like saying if you kill someone in a state of grace it's less wrong than killing someone who is in mortal sin. Doesn't matter. Murder is murder.
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Children who died without circuмcision in the old testament went to hell. FYI, circuмcision remitted original sin.
Children are born guilty, justly condemned, and are not innocent. Cute and innocent are two different things. Don't confuse them.
Every person who is born has the guilt of Adam's sin in him as his own. Therefore, all are justly condemned.
There is no other way for Children to be justified than baptism.
BOD cannot apply to an infant.
All those who die in original sin alone go to hell. That's De Fide.
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Once again, you fail to make distinctions. Aquinas's understanding of Limbo is not semi-pelagian so long as he maintains it as a part of hell, WHICH HE DOES.
You were not clearly making that distinction. On the contrary you were practically saying Aquinas came up with the idea of limbo.
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Aquinas DID come up with the idea of limbo. He was the first to give it that name, as far as I know, and he was also the first to indicate that unbaptized children enjoy positive natural happiness and even a natural knowledge of God.
Nobody ever taught that before him. That is why I do not personally accept it. But, I do not think it is heretical, so long as he maintains that limbo is a part of hell, and he does. I think there is some inconsistency in his thought here.
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So you hold that God sends a miscarried child to the Hell of the damned with the Devil and his angels to receive everlasting punishment?
All because He is an absolutist in that every single person must have water baptism or go straight to Hell? Is God incapable of remitting original sin except by water baptism?
Or maybe, just maybe, was He laying down the willed and normative means by which original sin is removed?
This is like saying unless one physically confesses a mortal sin to a priest before death he goes to Hell. Nevermind if the person in question has perfect contrition is about to die and is 100 miles from a priest
I'm also curious if you believe infants went straight to Hell in the Old Testament? What happened to them since they weren't bound by baptism?
If unbaptized infants do not go to Hell, this in no way lessens the sin of abortion. That's like saying if you kill someone in a state of grace it's less wrong than killing someone who is in mortal sin. Doesn't matter. Murder is murder.
Read the 5th session of the council of Trent, on original sin.
4. "If any one denies, that infants, newly born from their mothers' wombs, even though they be sprung from baptized parents, are to be baptized; or says that they are baptized indeed for the remission of sins, but that they derive nothing of original sin from Adam, which has need of being expiated by the laver of regeneration for the obtaining life everlasting,--whence it follows as a consequence, that in them the form of baptism, for the remission of sins, is understood to be not true, but false, --let him be anathema. For that which the apostle has said, By one man sin entered into the world, and by sin death, and so death passed upon all men in whom all have sinned, is not to be understood otherwise than as the Catholic Church spread everywhere hath always understood it. For, by reason of this rule of faith, from a tradition of the apostles, even infants, who could not as yet commit any sin of themselves, are for this cause truly baptized for the remission of sins, that in them that may be cleansed away by regeneration, which they have contracted by generation. For, unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God."
So infants need baptism to go to heaven, and there is no other way for them to get there.
5. "If any one denies, that, by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is conferred in baptism, the guilt of original sin is remitted; or even asserts that the whole of that which has the true and proper nature of sin is not taken away; but says that it is only rased, or not imputed; let him be anathema. For, in those who are born again, there is nothing that God hates; because, There is no condemnation to those who are truly buried together with Christ by baptism into death; who walk not according to the flesh, but, putting off the old man, and putting on the new who is created according to God, are made inno-[Page 24]cent, immaculate, pure, harmless, and beloved of God, heirs indeed of God, but joint heirs with Christ; so that there is nothing whatever to retard their entrance into heaven."
In other words, those who are NOT born again are enemies of God, and indeed, he hates what is in them: they are guilty, impure, harmful, and enemies of God and heirs of the Devil and his rewards, and all these things retard their entrance to heaven.
Session 6 makes it quite clear:
Chapter 3
"But, though He died for all, yet do not all receive the benefit of His [Page 32] death, but those only unto whom the merit of His passion is communicated. For as in truth men, if they were not born propagated of the seed of Adam, would not be born unjust,-seeing that, by that propagation, they contract through him, when they are conceived, injustice as their own,-so, if they were not born again in Christ, they never would be justified; seeing that, in that new birth, there is bestowed upon them, through the merit of His passion, the grace whereby they are made just."
Read it yourself:
http://history.hanover.edu/texts/trent.html
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Wow. Even wikipedia says that Limbo is on the edge of Hell. Again, I learn something.
I guess that since there is no defined dogma on it, some felt that if its on the edge, describing it as the edge of Heaven is little different since it doesn't change the level or type of suffering.
I am talking about the fact that limbo being part of Heaven is what I remember being taught. I understand that there is no dogma on it. Now I know that it is in Hell by definition.
But for curiosity, take a look at the entry for Limbo in wikipedia. Scroll to the bottom to the third reference in the "External Links" section. Sound familiar?
please don't :heretic: just because I wiki :reading:.
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It is not at all suprising that Vatican II "Catholics" would believe this, considering the fact that Antipope Benedict XVI believes in salvation outside the Church and that infant Baptism is pointless.
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Aquinas DID come up with the idea of limbo. He was the first to give it that name, as far as I know, and he was also the first to indicate that unbaptized children enjoy positive natural happiness and even a natural knowledge of God.
Nobody ever taught that before him. That is why I do not personally accept it. But, I do not think it is heretical, so long as he maintains that limbo is a part of hell, and he does. I think there is some inconsistency in his thought here.
The term Transubstantiation was also coined after St Thomas's time. It was not a new belief.
As far as the claim that there was inconsitency in the thought of St Thomas; could It posibly be that you don't understand what the Angelic Doctor understood? He had arguably the most brilliant intellect as a gift from God which he used for His glory and our benefit.
Could it possibly be that you don't know how to reconcile something that was reconcilable (and possibly with great ease) for the great intellect of St Thomas?
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Children who died without circuмcision in the old testament went to hell. FYI, circuмcision remitted original sin.
So you are saying all female children went to Hell in the Old Testament?
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Children who died without circuмcision in the old testament went to hell. FYI, circuмcision remitted original sin.
So you are saying all female children went to Hell in the Old Testament?
Maybe. It is called the limbo of the FATHERS after all... ;)
I am not sure how female children were made participants in the covenant of Abraham. good point. Does anyone know how this worked for girls?
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This sums up fairly well why there is, at least, some hope for salvation of unbaptized infants.
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_docuмents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20070419_un-baptised-infants_en.html
82. b) God does not demand the impossible of us.[108] Furthermore, God's power is not restricted to the sacraments: ‘Deus virtutem suam non alligavit sacramentis quin possit sine sacramentis effectum sacramentorum conferre’ (God did not bind His power to the sacraments, so as to be unable to bestow the sacramental effect without conferring the sacrament).[109] God can therefore give the grace of Baptism without the sacrament being conferred, and this fact should particularly be recalled when the conferring of Baptism would be impossible. The need for the sacrament is not absolute. What is absolute is humanity’s need for the Ursakrament which is Christ himself. All salvation comes from him and therefore, in some way, through the Church.[110]
83. c) At all times and in all circuмstances, God provides a remedy of salvation for humanity.[111] This was the teaching of Aquinas,[112] and already before him of Augustine[113] and Leo the Great.[114] It is also found in Cajetan.[115] Pope Innocent III specifically focused on the situation of children: “Far from us the thought that all the small children, of whom such a great multitude dies every day, should perish without the merciful God, who wishes no one to perish, having provided for them also some means of salvation....We say that two kinds of sin must be distinguished, original and actual: original which is contracted without consent and actual which is committed with consent. Thus original sin, which is contracted without consent is remitted without consent by the power of the sacrament [of Baptism]; ...”.[116] Innocent was defending infant Baptism as the means provided by God for the salvation of the many infants who die each day. We may ask, however, on the basis of a more searching application of the same principle, whether God also provides some remedy for those infants who die without Baptism. There is no question of denying Innocent’s teaching that those who die in original sin are deprived of the beatific vision.[117] What we may ask and are asking is whether infants who die without Baptism necessarily die in original sin, without a divine remedy.
84. With confidence that in all circuмstances God provides, how might we imagine such a remedy? The following are ways by which unbaptised infants who die may perhaps be united to Christ.
85. a) Broadly, we may discern in those infants who themselves suffer and die a saving conformity to Christ in his own death, and a companionship with him. Christ himself on the Cross bore the weight of all of humanity's sin and death, and all suffering and death thereafter is an engagement with his own enemy (cf. 1 Cor 15:26), a participation in his own battle, in the midst of which we can find him alongside us (cf. Dan 3:24-25 [91-92]; Rom 8:31-39; 2 Tim 4:17). His Resurrection is the source of humanity’s hope (cf.1 Cor 15:20); in him alone is there life in abundance (cf. Jn 10:10); and the Holy Spirit offers to all a participation in his paschal mystery (cf. GS 22).
86. b) Some of the infants who suffer and die do so as victims of violence. In their case, we may readily refer to the example of the Holy Innocents and discern an analogy in the case of these infants to the baptism of blood which brings salvation. Albeit unknowingly, the Holy Innocents suffered and died on account of Christ; their murderers were seeking to kill the infant Jesus. Just as those who took the lives of the Holy Innocents were motivated by fear and selfishness, so the lives particularly of unborn babies today are often endangered by the fear or selfishness of others. In that sense, they are in solidarity with the Holy Innocents. Moreover, they are in solidarity with the Christ who said: “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me” (Mt 25:40). How vital it is for the Church to proclaim the hope and generosity that are intrinsic to the Gospel and essential for the protection of life.
87. c) It is also possible that God simply acts to give the gift of salvation to unbaptised infants by analogy with the gift of salvation given sacramentally to baptized infants.[118]We may perhaps compare this to God's unmerited gift to Mary at her Immaculate Conception, by which he simply acted to give her in advance the grace of salvation in Christ.
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Children who died without circuмcision in the old testament went to hell. FYI, circuмcision remitted original sin.
So you are saying all female children went to Hell in the Old Testament?
Maybe. It is called the limbo of the FATHERS after all... ;)
I am not sure how female children were made participants in the covenant of Abraham. good point. Does anyone know how this worked for girls?
Do you believe that Limbo of the Fathers is the same as Limbo of infants?
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Children who died without circuмcision in the old testament went to hell. FYI, circuмcision remitted original sin.
You are not making correct distinctions.
Please show us approved texts to support that claim.
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Wow. Even wikipedia says that Limbo is on the edge of Hell. Again, I learn something.
I guess that since there is no defined dogma on it, some felt that if its on the edge, describing it as the edge of Heaven is little different since it doesn't change the level or type of suffering.
I am talking about the fact that limbo being part of Heaven is what I remember being taught. I understand that there is no dogma on it. Now I know that it is in Hell by definition.
But for curiosity, take a look at the entry for Limbo in wikipedia. Scroll to the bottom to the third reference in the "External Links" section. Sound familiar?
please don't :heretic: just because I wiki :reading:.
I would like to emphasize something. When people say Limbo is not defined, most don't know what they mean.
The church has definitively and dogmatically taught that unbaptized children do NOT have the vision of God. More specifically, that ANYONE who dies with ONLY the stain of original sin on their soul (which alienates them from God and places them under his wrath) actually is punished in Hell. But this punishment is different from those who die in mortal sin.
THAT is the ONLY loophole that Justifies the theory of The Limbo of the infants. The question is not whether they are in hell: They are.
The question which all the theologians have differed on and argued about is WHAT is the nature of the punishment of Infants? Augustine said hellfire, but not as hot as other sinners. This view was virtually uncontested until the 13th century.
This By itself should speak volumes.
In the 13th century, Peter Abelard said that infants do not suffer HELLFIRE, but they are deprived of the vision of God and have a real spiritual torment from the absence of God. He distinguished between the Punishment for Original Sin alone (Privation of the vision of God) and the punishment for actual sin (The pain of sense, i.e. hellfire).
Now, AQUINAS took Abelard's view and went through two phases with it: He first said that Infants have knowledge of their loss, but they still enjoy a purely natural goodness and even a certain amount of blessedness, due to their natural knowledge of God. He then said that Infants have no knowledge of their loss of heaven and do not suffer anything at all. They enjoy natural happiness.
This view is the most speculative however, and is the most APPARENTLY contradictory to the constant tradition of the Church since Augustine.
Like I said before, I reject it because it seems to contradict the dogma of the Church. We must FIRST profess dogma in its most obvious meaning before we embrace the individual view of theologians; and when we DO embrace permissible theological views, we must choose those which are in the greatest conformity to what we understand to be Catholic dogma.
What bothers me is what looks like a progressive watering down of Doctrine and a substantial shift from its original meaning by some in the church. The church cannot teach error, but parties wax and wane.
In my opinion, nobody will take abortion seriously until this view is held in its Augustinian entirety.
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These are quotes from Aquinas demonstrating that God can remit original sin outside of baptism:
Summa Theologiae III, 64, 7
But it must be observed that as God did not bind His power to the sacraments, so as to be unable to bestow the sacramental effect without conferring the sacrament...
cf. III, 64, 3
And since cause does not depend on effect, but rather conversely, it belongs to the excellence of Christ's power, that He could bestow the sacramental effect without conferring the exterior sacrament.
cf. III, 66, 6
As stated above (Question 64, Article 3), the sacraments derive their efficacy from Christ's institution. Consequently, if any of those things be omitted which Christ instituted in regard to a sacrament, it is invalid; save by special dispensation of Him Who did not bind His power to the sacraments.
cf. III, 68, 2
And such a man can obtain salvation without being actually baptized, on account of his desire for Baptism, which desire is the outcome of "faith that worketh by charity," whereby God, Whose power is not tied to visible sacraments, sanctifies man inwardly. Hence Ambrose says of Valentinian, who died while yet a catechumen: "I lost him whom I was to regenerate: but he did not lose the grace he prayed for."
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This sums up fairly well why there is, at least, some hope for salvation of unbaptized infants.
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_docuмents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20070419_un-baptised-infants_en.html
82. b) God does not demand the impossible of us.[108] Furthermore, God's power is not restricted to the sacraments: ‘Deus virtutem suam non alligavit sacramentis quin possit sine sacramentis effectum sacramentorum conferre’ (God did not bind His power to the sacraments, so as to be unable to bestow the sacramental effect without conferring the sacrament).[109] God can therefore give the grace of Baptism without the sacrament being conferred, and this fact should particularly be recalled when the conferring of Baptism would be impossible. The need for the sacrament is not absolute. What is absolute is humanity’s need for the Ursakrament which is Christ himself. All salvation comes from him and therefore, in some way, through the Church.[110]
83. c) At all times and in all circuмstances, God provides a remedy of salvation for humanity.[111] This was the teaching of Aquinas,[112] and already before him of Augustine[113] and Leo the Great.[114] It is also found in Cajetan.[115] Pope Innocent III specifically focused on the situation of children: “Far from us the thought that all the small children, of whom such a great multitude dies every day, should perish without the merciful God, who wishes no one to perish, having provided for them also some means of salvation....We say that two kinds of sin must be distinguished, original and actual: original which is contracted without consent and actual which is committed with consent. Thus original sin, which is contracted without consent is remitted without consent by the power of the sacrament [of Baptism]; ...”.[116] Innocent was defending infant Baptism as the means provided by God for the salvation of the many infants who die each day. We may ask, however, on the basis of a more searching application of the same principle, whether God also provides some remedy for those infants who die without Baptism. There is no question of denying Innocent’s teaching that those who die in original sin are deprived of the beatific vision.[117] What we may ask and are asking is whether infants who die without Baptism necessarily die in original sin, without a divine remedy.
84. With confidence that in all circuмstances God provides, how might we imagine such a remedy? The following are ways by which unbaptised infants who die may perhaps be united to Christ.
85. a) Broadly, we may discern in those infants who themselves suffer and die a saving conformity to Christ in his own death, and a companionship with him. Christ himself on the Cross bore the weight of all of humanity's sin and death, and all suffering and death thereafter is an engagement with his own enemy (cf. 1 Cor 15:26), a participation in his own battle, in the midst of which we can find him alongside us (cf. Dan 3:24-25 [91-92]; Rom 8:31-39; 2 Tim 4:17). His Resurrection is the source of humanity’s hope (cf.1 Cor 15:20); in him alone is there life in abundance (cf. Jn 10:10); and the Holy Spirit offers to all a participation in his paschal mystery (cf. GS 22).
86. b) Some of the infants who suffer and die do so as victims of violence. In their case, we may readily refer to the example of the Holy Innocents and discern an analogy in the case of these infants to the baptism of blood which brings salvation. Albeit unknowingly, the Holy Innocents suffered and died on account of Christ; their murderers were seeking to kill the infant Jesus. Just as those who took the lives of the Holy Innocents were motivated by fear and selfishness, so the lives particularly of unborn babies today are often endangered by the fear or selfishness of others. In that sense, they are in solidarity with the Holy Innocents. Moreover, they are in solidarity with the Christ who said: “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me” (Mt 25:40). How vital it is for the Church to proclaim the hope and generosity that are intrinsic to the Gospel and essential for the protection of life.
87. c) It is also possible that God simply acts to give the gift of salvation to unbaptised infants by analogy with the gift of salvation given sacramentally to baptized infants.[118]We may perhaps compare this to God's unmerited gift to Mary at her Immaculate Conception, by which he simply acted to give her in advance the grace of salvation in Christ.
uYes, I have read this docuмent, it has NO magisterial authority, even by novus ordo standards. It is the finding of a commitee, nothing more, composed of 30 or so "theologians."
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I would like to emphasize something. When people say Limbo is not defined, most don't know what they mean.
The church has definitively and dogmatically taught that unbaptized children do NOT have the vision of God.
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_docuмents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20070419_un-baptised-infants_en.html#_ftn109
It is clear that the traditional teaching on this topic has concentrated on the theory of limbo, understood as a state which includes the souls of infants who die subject to original sin and without baptism, and who, therefore, neither merit the beatific vision, nor yet are subjected to any punishment, because they are not guilty of any personal sin. This theory, elaborated by theologians beginning in the Middle Ages, never entered into the dogmatic definitions of the Magisterium, even if that same Magisterium did at times mention the theory in its ordinary teaching up until the Second Vatican Council.
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Children who died without circuмcision in the old testament went to hell. FYI, circuмcision remitted original sin.
You are not making correct distinctions.
Please show us approved texts to support that claim.
St. THomas himself taught such:
Catholic encyclopedia: Circuмcision:
St. Thomas holds that circuмcision was a figure of baptism: this retrenches and restrains the animal man as that removed a part of his body — which physical act indicated the spiritual effect of the sacrament (De Sac., Summa, III, Q. lxx, a. 1). He gives three reasons why the organ of generation rather than any other was to be circuмcised:
Abraham was to be blessed in his seed;
The rite was to take away original sin, which comes by generation;
It was to restrain concupiscence, which is found especially in the generative organs (III, Q. lxx, a. 3).
According to his teaching, as baptism remits original sin and actual sins committed before its reception, so circuмcision remitted both, but ex opere operantis, i.e. by the faith of the recipient, or, in the case of infants, by the faith of the parents. Infants that died before being circuмcised could be saved, as were those who lived prior to the institution of circuмcision, and as females were even after its institution, by some sign — the parents' prayer, for instance — expressive of faith. Adults did not receive the remission of all the temporal punishment due to sin as in baptism: — "Adulti, quando circuмcidebantur, consequebantur remissionem, non solum originalis peccati, sed etiam actualium peccatorum; non tamen ita quod liberarentur ab omni reatu p næ, Sicut in baptismo, in quo confertur copiosior gratia" (III, Q. lxx, a. 4). The main points of the teaching of the Angelic Doctor were commonly held in the Church, even before the days of St. Augustine, who with other Fathers maintained that circuмcision was not a mere ceremony, but a sacramental rite. (Cf. City of God XVI.27)
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Yes, I have read this docuмent, it has NO magisterial authority, even by novus ordo standards. It is the finding of a commitee, nothing more, composed of 30 or so "theologians."
The commission's arguments for the possibility, not guarantee, of the salvation of unbaptized infants stand on their own no matter what the Magisterial weight of the docuмent.
Also, it has at least some weight in NO circles as it was approved by Cardinal Levada and the Pope:
This present text was approved in forma specifica by the members of the Commission, and was subsequently submitted to its President, Cardinal William Levada who, upon receiving the approval of the Holy father in an audience granted on January 19, 2007, approved the text for publication.
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I would like to emphasize something. When people say Limbo is not defined, most don't know what they mean.
The church has definitively and dogmatically taught that unbaptized children do NOT have the vision of God.
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_docuмents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20070419_un-baptised-infants_en.html#_ftn109
It is clear that the traditional teaching on this topic has concentrated on the theory of limbo, understood as a state which includes the souls of infants who die subject to original sin and without baptism, and who, therefore, neither merit the beatific vision, nor yet are subjected to any punishment, because they are not guilty of any personal sin. This theory, elaborated by theologians beginning in the Middle Ages, never entered into the dogmatic definitions of the Magisterium, even if that same Magisterium did at times mention the theory in its ordinary teaching up until the Second Vatican Council.
The erroneous conclusions of a NON-MAGISTERIAL committee do not intimidate me. They do not even say what you want. The PARTICULARS of the doctrine of Limbo outlined by St. Thomas were NOT defined by the church, correct.
The church has DEFINED the opposite:
"All those who die in mortal sin, or in original sin alone, descend to Hell where they are punished, but with disparate punishments." Council of Florence, 1438.
Tell me Santo, how many kinds of people die in original sin ALONE? Enumerate all of them.
DO not put your hopes in the words of modernists.
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Yes, I have read this docuмent, it has NO magisterial authority, even by novus ordo standards. It is the finding of a commitee, nothing more, composed of 30 or so "theologians."
The commission's arguments for the possibility, not guarantee, of the salvation of unbaptized infants stand on their own no matter what the Magisterial weight of the docuмent.
Also, it has at least some weight in NO circles as it was approved by Cardinal Levada and the Pope:
This present text was approved in forma specifica by the members of the Commission, and was subsequently submitted to its President, Cardinal William Levada who, upon receiving the approval of the Holy father in an audience granted on January 19, 2007, approved the text for publication.
Where is the "Papal" decree making its acceptance mandatory? Where is the anathema? WHere is the presentation to the catholic church? Where is its insertion in the code of canon law? Where is its promulgation?
That's what I thought.
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Phyrros, Hobble, et all- can you upload any docuмents on this subject?
Uh..., okay. The exigencies of present circuмstance do not allow me to undertake extensive research, so I am compelled to cite only one source.
In the tome Predestination [La prédestination des saints et la grâce] (Trans. Dom Bede Rose, O.S.B.; St. Louis, MO: B. Herder Book Co., 1953), Rev. Father Garrigou-Lagrange demonstrates what the Church has taught in condemning Pelagianism and Semipelagianism. This is necessary for us to understand if were are going to have any discussion upon such issues, which touch upon the very sublime and obscure mysteries of grace and predestination.
(http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d89/platonic123/FrReginaldonPelagianismandSemipelagianism1.jpg)
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Infants that died before being circuмcised could be saved, as were those who lived prior to the institution of circuмcision, and as females were even after its institution, by some sign — the parents' prayer, for instance — expressive of faith.
Christ came and redeemed us, and said "Let the little children come to me". Thus, it is hardly reasonable that the chances of salvation of infants was worse after Christ than before. Thus, at minimum, this quote of yours should demonstrate the possibility of salvation of infants dying without baptism.
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The legacy of Pelagianism and Semipelagianism is very much alive in the heresies of the various and sundry Protestant sects that abound even to our day, so that these ancient controversies still have a disastrous effect upon the interior lives of innumerable souls.
Rev. Father Garrigou-Lagrange in his work Three Ways of the Spiritual Life [Les trois conversions et les trois voies], (Westminster, MD: Newman Press, 1950), shows how the Protestant heretics have degraded the notion of grace and what is the true nature of supernatural grace.
(http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d89/platonic123/Sacred%20Texts/ThePrincipleoftheInteriorLife1.jpg)
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Gregory, you wrote: "Children who died without circuмcision in the old testament went to hell...." And "FYI, circuмcision remitted original sin."
So here is the text you supplied, but with different emphases which negate your claims:
Catholic encyclopedia: Circuмcision:
St. Thomas holds that circuмcision was a figure of baptism: this retrenches and restrains the animal man as that removed a part of his body — which physical act indicated the spiritual effect of the sacrament (De Sac., Summa, III, Q. lxx, a. 1). He gives three reasons why the organ of generation rather than any other was to be circuмcised:
Abraham was to be blessed in his seed;
The rite was to take away original sin, which comes by generation;
It was to restrain concupiscence, which is found especially in the generative organs (III, Q. lxx, a. 3).
According to his teaching, as baptism remits original sin and actual sins committed before its reception, so circuмcision remitted both, but ex opere operantis, i.e. by the faith of the recipient, or, in the case of infants, by the faith of the parents. Infants that died before being circuмcised could be saved, as were those who lived prior to the institution of circuмcision, and as females were even after its institution, by some sign — the parents' prayer, for instance — expressive of faith. Adults did not receive the remission of all the temporal punishment due to sin as in baptism: — "Adulti, quando circuмcidebantur, consequebantur remissionem, non solum originalis peccati, sed etiam actualium peccatorum; non tamen ita quod liberarentur ab omni reatu p næ, Sicut in baptismo, in quo confertur copiosior gratia" (III, Q. lxx, a. 4). The main points of the teaching of the Angelic Doctor were commonly held in the Church, even before the days of St. Augustine, who with other Fathers maintained that circuмcision was not a mere ceremony, but a sacramental rite. (Cf. City of God XVI.27)
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Where is the "Papal" decree making its acceptance mandatory? Where is the anathema? WHere is the presentation to the catholic church? Where is its insertion in the code of canon law? Where is its promulgation?
That's what I thought.
The issue is not whether people who die with original sin on their souls go to Hell. That is admitted. The issue is whether God, who is not bound by His own sacraments as per Aquinas, can or does remit original sin of these infants without baptism.
I never said the results of this Commission were mandatory for belief. In fact, the docuмent itself says that one is very free to believe in limbo. All it is doing is giving theological reasons why the opinion that unbaptized infants COULD be saved is also legitimate.
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Infants that died before being circuмcised could be saved, as were those who lived prior to the institution of circuмcision, and as females were even after its institution, by some sign — the parents' prayer, for instance — expressive of faith.
Christ came and redeemed us, and said "Let the little children come to me". Thus, it is hardly reasonable that the chances of salvation of infants was worse after Christ than before. Thus, at minimum, this quote of yours should demonstrate the possibility of salvation of infants dying without baptism.
No. There is no possibility at all. The Catechism of the Council of Trent says, on the contrary, that BAPTISM is offered to Children because of what Jesus said, and BECAUSE there is no other way for them to be saved. You have the cart before the horse Santo.
CCT on Baptism.
"Besides, it is not to be supposed that Christ the Lord would have withheld the Sacrament and grace of Baptism from children, of whom He said: Suffer the little children, and forbid them not to come to me; for the kingdom of heaven is for such; ° whom also He embraced, upon whom He imposed hands, to whom He gave His blessing."
Baptism Of Infants Should Not Be Delayed
"The faithful are earnestly to be exhorted to take care that their children be brought to the church, as soon as it can be done with safety, to receive solemn Baptism. Since infant children have no other means of salvation except Baptism, we may easily understand how grievously those persons sin who permit them to remain without the grace of the Sacrament longer than necessity may require, particularly at an age so tender as to be exposed to numberless dangers of death."
Remember, Adam's sin is in each AS HIS OWN.
Trent, Session 5, Par 3:
3. "If any one asserts, that this sin of Adam,--which in its origin is one, and being transfused into all by propogation, not by imitation, is in each one as his own, --is taken away either by the powers of human nature, or by any other remedy than the merit of the one mediator, our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath reconciled us to God in his own blood, made unto us justice, santification, and redemption; or if he denies that the said merit of Jesus Christ is applied, both to adults and to infants, by the sacrament of baptism rightly administered in the form of the church; let him be anathema: For there is no other name under heaven given to men, whereby we must be [Page 23] saved. Whence that voice; Behold the lamb of God behold him who taketh away the sins of the world; and that other; As many as have been baptized, have put on Christ."
As such, all children are CONCEIVED under God's wrath and indignation.
1. "If any one does not confess that the first man, Adam, when he had transgressed the commandment of God in Paradise, immediately lost the holiness and justice wherein he had been constituted; and that he incurred, through the offence of that prevarication, the wrath and indignation of God, and consequently death, with which God had previously threatened him, and, together with death, captivity under his power who thenceforth had the empire of death, that is to say, the devil, and that the entire Adam, through that offence of prevarication, was changed, in body and soul, for the worse; let him be anathema."
2. "If any one asserts, that the prevarication of Adam injured himself alone, and not his posterity; and that the holiness and justice, received of God, which he lost, he lost for himself alone, and not for us also; or that he, being defiled by the sin of disobedience, has only transfused death, and pains of the body, into the whole human race, but not sin also, which is the death of the soul; let him be anathema:--whereas he contradicts the apostle who says; By one man sin entered into the world, and by sin death, and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned."
What hope do you hold out for those who die as enemies of God?
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Where is the "Papal" decree making its acceptance mandatory? Where is the anathema? WHere is the presentation to the catholic church? Where is its insertion in the code of canon law? Where is its promulgation?
That's what I thought.
The issue is not whether people who die with original sin on their souls go to Hell. That is admitted. The issue is whether God, who is not bound by His own sacraments as per Aquinas, can or does remit original sin of these infants without baptism.
I never said the results of this Commission were mandatory for belief. In fact, the docuмent itself says that one is very free to believe in limbo. All it is doing is giving theological reasons why the opinion that unbaptized infants COULD be saved is also legitimate.
A king is the supreme legislator of his country. Yet he has no authority to break or contradict his own laws, though he can institute better ones.
The sacraments do not have the Power to bind God;
But God has WILLED to work through them. As such, he will not contradict himself: Therefore, he has bound himself to the observance of the laws he himself has instituted: If he could vaccilate in his own decrees, why do we need Christ at all?
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Gregory, you wrote: "Children who died without circuмcision in the old testament went to hell...." And "FYI, circuмcision remitted original sin."
So here is the text you supplied, but with different emphases which negate your claims:
Catholic encyclopedia: Circuмcision:
St. Thomas holds that circuмcision was a figure of baptism: this retrenches and restrains the animal man as that removed a part of his body — which physical act indicated the spiritual effect of the sacrament (De Sac., Summa, III, Q. lxx, a. 1). He gives three reasons why the organ of generation rather than any other was to be circuмcised:
Abraham was to be blessed in his seed;
The rite was to take away original sin, which comes by generation;
It was to restrain concupiscence, which is found especially in the generative organs (III, Q. lxx, a. 3).
According to his teaching, as baptism remits original sin and actual sins committed before its reception, so circuмcision remitted both, but ex opere operantis, i.e. by the faith of the recipient, or, in the case of infants, by the faith of the parents. Infants that died before being circuмcised could be saved, as were those who lived prior to the institution of circuмcision, and as females were even after its institution, by some sign — the parents' prayer, for instance — expressive of faith. Adults did not receive the remission of all the temporal punishment due to sin as in baptism: — "Adulti, quando circuмcidebantur, consequebantur remissionem, non solum originalis peccati, sed etiam actualium peccatorum; non tamen ita quod liberarentur ab omni reatu p næ, Sicut in baptismo, in quo confertur copiosior gratia" (III, Q. lxx, a. 4). The main points of the teaching of the Angelic Doctor were commonly held in the Church, even before the days of St. Augustine, who with other Fathers maintained that circuмcision was not a mere ceremony, but a sacramental rite. (Cf. City of God XVI.27)
That's understandable, due to the extremely limited nature of circuмcision. BUT when much is given, much is required, and baptism is offered to all, and is free.
As the Catechism of the Council of Trent says:
Necessity of Baptism
"If the knowledge of what has been hitherto explained be, as it is, of highest importance to the faithful, it is no less important to them to learn that the law of Baptism, as established by our Lord, extends to all, so that unless they are regenerated to God through the grace of Baptism, be their parents Christians or infidels, they are born to eternal misery and destruction. Pastors, therefore, should often explain these words of the Gospel: Unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God."
It is plain. If you are not born again, you are born to destruction and MISERY. Not natural happiness.
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Gregory, you wrote: "Children who died without circuмcision in the old testament went to hell...." And "FYI, circuмcision remitted original sin."
So here is the text you supplied, but with different emphases which negate your claims:
Catholic encyclopedia: Circuмcision:
St. Thomas holds that circuмcision was a figure of baptism: this retrenches and restrains the animal man as that removed a part of his body — which physical act indicated the spiritual effect of the sacrament (De Sac., Summa, III, Q. lxx, a. 1). He gives three reasons why the organ of generation rather than any other was to be circuмcised:
Abraham was to be blessed in his seed;
The rite was to take away original sin, which comes by generation;
It was to restrain concupiscence, which is found especially in the generative organs (III, Q. lxx, a. 3).
According to his teaching, as baptism remits original sin and actual sins committed before its reception, so circuмcision remitted both, but ex opere operantis, i.e. by the faith of the recipient, or, in the case of infants, by the faith of the parents. Infants that died before being circuмcised could be saved, as were those who lived prior to the institution of circuмcision, and as females were even after its institution, by some sign — the parents' prayer, for instance — expressive of faith. Adults did not receive the remission of all the temporal punishment due to sin as in baptism: — "Adulti, quando circuмcidebantur, consequebantur remissionem, non solum originalis peccati, sed etiam actualium peccatorum; non tamen ita quod liberarentur ab omni reatu p næ, Sicut in baptismo, in quo confertur copiosior gratia" (III, Q. lxx, a. 4). The main points of the teaching of the Angelic Doctor were commonly held in the Church, even before the days of St. Augustine, who with other Fathers maintained that circuмcision was not a mere ceremony, but a sacramental rite. (Cf. City of God XVI.27)
That's understandable, due to the extremely limited nature of circuмcision. BUT when much is given, much is required, and baptism is offered to all, and is free.
As the Catechism of the Council of Trent says:
Necessity of Baptism
"If the knowledge of what has been hitherto explained be, as it is, of highest importance to the faithful, it is no less important to them to learn that the law of Baptism, as established by our Lord, extends to all, so that unless they are regenerated to God through the grace of Baptism, be their parents Christians or infidels, they are born to eternal misery and destruction. Pastors, therefore, should often explain these words of the Gospel: Unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God."
It is plain. If you are not born again, you are born to destruction and MISERY. Not natural happiness.
So now you brush the subject aside with: "That's understandable...."
Does that mean you retract these earlier claims you made?.. "Children who died without circuмcision in the old testament went to hell...." And "FYI, circuмcision remitted original sin."
I have not posted anything against the Necessity of Baptism, so I don't know why you just placed that quote from Trent in your reply to me.
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uYes, I have read this docuмent, it has NO magisterial authority, even by novus ordo standards. It is the finding of a commitee, nothing more, composed of 30 or so "theologians."
Agreed. Docuмents like that from the NO Church are not worth bringing up as support for (defined or traditional) Catholic Teaching.
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Also, it has at least some weight in NO circles as it was approved by Cardinal Levada and the Pope:
You understand though that traditional Catholics don't give any weight, to the New Teachings of The Novus Ordo Religion? Doesn't matter if it is approved by a novusCardinal or a Novuspope. Those people give stones, not bread.
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It behooves me to take some time to admonish the participants and readers of this thread (and the Forum in general) regarding a fundamental truth often ignored, and I am not at all implying or insinuating that this applies to the participants of this thread, and I apologize if I give that impression in any way.
In my personal experience, I have seen numerous persons give themselves over to the study and disputation of lofty questions regarding sacred doctrine, whilst neglecting to cultivate their own interior life. It often happens that certain souls neglect prayer for the sake of study, and this is often a dangerous delusion which can ultimately imperil the salvation of the individual. So many have been the heresies, errors and dissensions that have had their ultimate origin in such a diabolical disorientation.
It particularly behooves us to be temperate in intellectual endeavors, for the Angelic Doctor expounds upon studiousness as the moral virtue which has knowledge as its proper matter (Summa IIa IIæ, q. clxvi., art. 1), and “is a potential part of temperance, as a subordinate virtue annexed to a principle virtue” (“studiositas sit pars potentialis temperantiae, sicut virtus secundaria ei adiuncta ut principali virtuti”), for the moderation of the natural desire that all men have for knowledge pertains to the virtue of studiousness (“moderatio autem hujus appetitus pertinet ad virtutem studiositatis;” ibid., art. 2). St. Thomas goes on to teach that “on the part of the soul, [man] is inclined to desire knowledge of things; and so it behooves him to exercise a praiseworthy restraint of this desire, lest he seek knowledge immoderately” (“ex parte animae, inclinatur homo ad hoc quod cognitionem rerum desideret: et sic oportet ut homo laudabiliter huiusmodi appetitum refrenet, ne immoderate rerum cognition intendat;” ibid. ad iii. dub.).
However, what is temperance without humility? For it is never expedient to search into things that are above us if we fail to cultivate a pure and earnest heart wherewith to search into such sacred things, after the example of King David who prayed unto the Lord, singing, "Lord, my heart is not exalted: neither are mine eyes lofty. Neither have I walked in great matters, nor in marvelous things above me," "Domine, non est exaltatum cor meum: neque elati sunt oculi mei. Neque ambulavi in magnis: neque in mirabilibus super me" (Ps. cxxx. 1).
Lend ear to the admonitions placed upon the lips of our dear Lord and found in the great treatise De Imitatione Christi: "Son, be not curious, and give not way to useless cares. What is this or that to thee? Follow thou Me," ("Fili, noli esse curiosus, nec vacuas gerere sollicitudines. Quid hoc vel illud ad te? tu me sequere," Lib. III., cap. xxiv. n. 1), for, "I would gladly speak My word to thee, and reveal My secrets, if thou wouldst diligently observe My coming, and open to Me the door of thy heart. Be circuмspect, and watch in prayers, and humble thyself in all things," ("Libenter loquerer tibi verbum meum, et abscondita revelarem, si adventum meum diligenter observares, et ostium cordis mihi aperires. Esto providus, et vigila in orationibus, et humilia te in omnibus," ibid., n. 2). For, "I am He that in an instant elevateth the humble mind to comprehend more reasons of the eternal truth than if any one had studied ten years in the schools. I teach without noise of words, without confusion of opinions, without ambition of honor, without strife of arguments," ("Ego sum, qui humilem in puncto elevo mentem: ut plures æternæ veritatis capiat rationes, quam si quis decem annis studuisset in scholis. Ego doceo sine strepitu verborum, sine confusione opinionum, sine fastu honoris, sine pugnatione argumentorum," Lib. III., cap. xliii., n. 3) --- "For a certain person, by loving Me intimately, learned things divine and spoke wonders. He profiteth more by foresaking all things than by studying subtleties," ("Nam quidam amando me intime, didicit divina et loquebatur mirabilia. Plus profecit in relinquendo omnia, quam in studendo subtilia," ibid., n. 4). "Study the mortification of thy vices; for this will more avail thee than the knowledge of many difficult questions," ("Stude mortificationi vitiorum, quia hoc amplius tibi proderit, quam notitia multarum difficilium quæstionum," ibid., n. 1) --- "In everything attend to thyself, what thou art doing, and what thou art saying: and direct thy whole attention to this, that thou mayest please Me alone, and neither desire nor seek anything out of me," ("In omni re attende tibi, quid facias, et quid dicas: et omnem intentionem tuam ad hoc dirige, ut mihi soli placeas, et extra me nihil cupias vel quæras," Lib. III., cap. xxv., n. 3).
Those who are industrious and diligent to study upon lofty matters and yet neglect their interior lives are in exceeding great peril: "Woe to them that inquire after many curious things of men, and are little curious of the way to serve Me," ("Væ eis qui multa curiosa ab hominibus inquirunt, et de via mihi serviendi parum curat," Lib. III., cap. xliii., n. 2). "For he that would fully and with relish understand the words of Christ, must study to conform his whole life to Him," ("Qui autem vult plene et sapide Christ verba intelligere, oportet ut totam vitam suam illi studeat conformare," Lib. I., cap. i., n. 2). "What doth it profit thee to dispute deeply about the Trinity, if thou be wanting in humility, and so be displeasing to the Trinity?" ("Quid prodest tibi, alta de Trinitate disputare, si careas humilitate, unde displiceas Trinitati?" ibid., n. 3). "Oftentimes call to mind the proverb: The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor is the ear filled with hearing. Study, therefore, to wean thy heart from love of visible things, and to betake thee to the things unseen," ("Memento illius frequenter proverbii: quia non satiatur oculus viso, nec auris impletur auditu. Stude ergo cor tuum ad amore visibilium abstrahere, et ad invisibilia te transferre," ibid., n. 5). "Truly, a lowly rustic that serveth God is better than a proud philosopher who pondereth the courses of the stars, and neglecteth himself," ("Melior est profecto humilis rusticus, qui Deo servit, quam superbus Philosophus, qui se neglecto, cursum cœli considerat," Lib. I., cap ii., n. 1). The humble of heart have not this admonition to fear: "The more thou knowest, and the better, so much the heavier will thy judgment therefore be, unless thy life be also more holy," ("Quanto plus et melius scis, tanto gravius inde judicaberis, nisi sanctius vixeris," ibid., n. 3).
From the above-cited admonitions of this great treatise upon the Christian life, it is clear that prayer should be the primal concern of the student of sacred doctrine.
Now, as I have hitherto written elsewhere, the Holy Rosary is the most apt prayer for students of sacred doctrine, as this most wondrous Psalterium Jesu et Mariæ is above all the school of contemplation and a mirror of virtues to be imitated in the divine lives of Jesus and Mary. The Holy Rosary is in truth a school wherein the Mysteries of the Faith shine forth before the eyes of the soul with a supernal effulgence that dispels the darkness of sin and ignorance, and illumines the soul with a vivifying light that harmonizes prayer with study, and makes the interior and exterior life of the student correspond with these elements that enlighten and strengthen one another.
In my personal experience, at least, it has come to pass that a well-meditated and well-prayed Rosary has in some instances taught me more regarding certain truths than the Manuals and treatises of sacred theology, perhaps because in the course of meditating upon the Rosary Mysteries certain theological principles taken on a profundity and immensity that overwhelm and thrill the amplitude of the soul, so that in due time discursive reasoning at times gives way to the simple and prolonged gaze of the soul rapt in mute veneration and devout dread before the inexhaustible riches of the wisdom and goodness of God. If this continues, and the soul begins to be purified passively (having already been purged actively by the penance and self-abnegation characteristic of the purgative way) and becomes more detached from self and more docile to the Holy Ghost, then the soul enters the ethereal, transluminous realm of the mystical ways of prayer.
Such is the power of the Holy Rosary, and why it was so recommended by Our Lady at Fatima and elsewhere, and so richly indulged and promoted by the Supreme Pontiffs and lauded by Saints and spiritual authors. For the student of sacred doctrine the Holy Rosary is truly the path not only to sacred knowledge, but to holy contemplation, the plenitude of that divinely revealed faith which is the object of sacred theology.
To conclude: a student of sacred doctrine must be given over to prayer first and foremost, and must frequent the holy Sacraments and avail himself of the spiritual direction of a devout and learned Priest (either personally or by correspondence if a Priest is not accessible because of the times). Availing oneself of the divinely-ordained patronage and tutelage of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Sedes sapientiae (Litaniæ Lauretanæ Beatæ Mariæ Virginis, Rituale Romanum, Tit. XI, cap. iii.), particularly by means of the devout recitation of the Holy Rosary, is morally indispensable for the fruitful study of sacred doctrine, for the greater glory of Our Lord and for the salvation and edification of souls.
Well, those are my two cents... nay, they have been clemently vouchsafed me by holy grace, for I of myself can produce nothing but that which is damnably evil: it is by grace alone that man can work any good.
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I 100% agree Hobble. That is why I haven't posted here for about 2-3 months now, and I will probably retire again when this thread has run its course.
Roman Catholic, I wasn't trying to brush aside the issue of circuмcision, I just haven't researched it in depth. Plus, I do not want it to come up as a secondary topic when I am trying to narrow the focus of discussion here.
But, to answer your question, I don't really know for sure the whole...degree of obligation God placed on mankind to receive circuмcision. See, NOW all are obliged to be baptized to be saved, and to be Subject to the Catholic church. But, I do not know alot about the degree of obligation for those who died without circuмcision. I will research it in the meantime, but until then, I will refrain from any rash statements on it.
Yes, that means I will retract what I said about those dying without circuмcision.
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I 100% agree Hobble. That is why I haven't posted here for about 2-3 months now, and I will probably retire again when this thread has run its course.
Roman Catholic, I wasn't trying to brush aside the issue of circuмcision, I just haven't researched it in depth. Plus, I do not want it to come up as a secondary topic when I am trying to narrow the focus of discussion here.
But, to answer your question, I don't really know for sure the whole...degree of obligation God placed on mankind to receive circuмcision. See, NOW all are obliged to be baptized to be saved, and to be Subject to the Catholic church. But, I do not know alot about the degree of obligation for those who died without circuмcision. I will research it in the meantime, but until then, I will refrain from any rash statements on it.
Yes, that means I will retract what I said about those dying without circuмcision.
Thanks Gregory. I did not bring up the issue of circuмcision; I was replying to what you had written about it, but I understand how you do not want to pursue it any further now as a secondary topic.
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A king is the supreme legislator of his country. Yet he has no authority to break or contradict his own laws, though he can institute better ones.
The sacraments do not have the Power to bind God;
But God has WILLED to work through them. As such, he will not contradict himself: Therefore, he has bound himself to the observance of the laws he himself has instituted: If he could vaccilate in his own decrees, why do we need Christ at all?
Actually an earthly king can make laws for certain classes of people; laws that do not apply to him.
A King who is Almighty God definitely makes laws for humans that He is outside the scope of obeying. Clearly those laws do not apply to Him. Humans need to obey them though, if possible. We are to endeavor to use the ordinary means of salvation. God gave them to us for our benefit and His glory.
As well as humans using the ordinary means, God can do extraordinay things via His extraordinay means. We can't place limits on God.
Unlike any earthly king, God has infinite power. He can perform miracles directly, or work them through humans. He made the sun do things in Portugal that humans would say is not possible, because He "broke or contradicted" laws, as we understand them.
God does not ever contradict Himself though. He does not vaccilate.
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Actually an earthly king can make laws for certain classes of people; laws that do not apply to him.
A King who is Almighty God definitely makes laws for humans that He is outside the scope of obeying. Clearly those laws do not apply to Him. Humans need to obey them though, if possible. We are to endeavor to use the ordinary means of salvation. God gave them to us for our benefit and His glory.
YES. But, you are confusing two things here. Yes, clearly God has no need to be baptized, so clearly he has no need to be bound by the law he made for us. This is manifest and obvious. He is God. But his WILL to institute any means of salvation indicates their necessity right off the bat: Otherwise, why institute them at all? God has WILLED the means of salvation, and he does not change his mind. Therefore, he has bound himself to them.
As well as humans using the ordinary means, God can do extraordinay things via His extraordinay means. We can't place limits on God.
This is a vague and indefinite statement. Me most certainly CAN place limits on God, the limits he has by his own nature: He cannot lie, he cannot commit sin, he cannot contradict himself. He acts within these parameters, the parameters of his own nature, which is itself infinite.
There will never be a day when God will lie. It is impossible for him. There will never be a day when he acts needlessly, or when he does something imperfectly, as imperfection is subject to change: but God is changeless, immutable. Therefore, all his works are final, irrevocable, and complete in themselves. This includes the institution of laws and commands, such as the sacraments, and especially the sacrament of baptism. If any other way were possible, then why did he only mention one?
Unlike any earthly king, God has infinite power. He can perform miracles directly, or work them through humans. He made the sun do things in Portugal that humans would say is not possible, because He "broke or contradicted" laws, as we understand them.
There is a vast difference between the laws of nature and moral laws, therefore your argument does not stand. God will never break a moral command EVER, because he cannot lie. He has declared all need to be baptized to enter into heaven, and, since he cannot lie, he means exactly what he says. He instituted no other means of salvation except baptism. Therefore, unbaptized infants cannot hope to be saved: Indeed, the church says they are born to eternal destruction and misery and that they run to the left with the devil, and that they are by nature children of wrath and not of God.
God does not ever contradict Himself.
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Well, if it is a question of authorities, St.Thomas, in two places, on extraordinary means of infant baptism, granted as a privilege,
Those who are sanctified in the womb, receive indeed grace which cleanses them from original sin, but they do not therefore receive the character, by which they are conformed to Christ. Consequently, if any were to be sanctified in the womb now, they would need to be baptized, in order to be conformed to Christ's other members by receiving the character.
...
Children while in the mother's womb have not yet come forth into the world to live among other men. Consequently they cannot be subject to the action of man, so as to receive the sacrament, at the hands of man, unto salvation. They can, however, be subject to the action of God, in Whose sight they live, so as, by a kind of privilege, to receive the grace of sanctification; as was the case with those who were sanctified in the womb.
Suarez went even further, for example holding (Catholic Encyclopedia)
"that unbaptized children will not only enjoy perfect natural happiness, but that they will rise with immortal bodies at the last day and have the renovated earth for their happy abode (De vit. et penat., ix, sect. vi, n. 4)"
And Ludwig Ott, scholar who wrote oft-consulted theology manuals like "Fundamentals of Catholic dogma" stated further,
"Other emergency means of baptism for children dying without sacramental baptism, such as prayer and the desire of the parents or the Church (vicarious baptism of desire—Cajetan), or the attainment of the use of reason in the moment of death, so that the dying child can decide for or against God (baptism of desire—H. Klee), or suffering and death of the child as quasi-Sacrament (baptism of suffering—H. Schell), are indeed possible, but their actuality cannot be proved from Revelation.
And on the back of this longstanding tradition, without however going into one detail or the other, wholly unnecessary for us to inquire beyond what the Church teaches into the hidden ways of God, this all that the Church has said, in response to the question posed by, as is their duty, the Catholic faithful to her visible Magisterium, which it is her duty to do (Mat 18:15-18) and which she always fulfils in every age.
It is possible, very improbable, never to be presumed, but possible for God to do so, as evinced by the Angelic Doctor and Ludwig Ott in this century. Therefore it is lawful to have a prayerful hope for this, always subject to the will of God, and ready to glorify Him even if one's child turns out to be, for reasons inscrutable to us, in hell.
Now limbus infantium, like limbus patrum, is a place in hell, but for us to gain some understanding of the difference of their fates, remember the difference between Lazarus and the rich men in the parable. The children there, in the words of the Catholic Encylopedia, "it may confidently be said that, as the result of centuries of speculation on the subject, we ought to believe that these souls enjoy and will eternally enjoy a state of perfect natural happiness."
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Gregory,
So you are saying that Christ died on the cross so that poor infants would have less chance of salvation than those who died before He instituted baptism? That He instituted a MORE restrictive system of salvation than Judaism for them? In that case they would all have been better of if Christ never came. This isn't logically problematic to you? Christ who died to open the gates of heaven to all men would shut it on helpless infants?
You say Chist willed baptism as the means to remit original sin. Christ also willed sacramental confession as the means to remit mortal sin. However, we know there are exceptions to this rule. Perfect contrition is one. Similarly there are exceptions to water baptism that Trent never intended to erase. Blood and desire are two of them.
God willed the sacrament as the normative means. Not the only means.
God said unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood you have no life within you. Yet a baptized infant who never received communion goes to Heaven, correct? You are taking certain passages of Trent too literally and out of the context they were meant to be understood in.
This is why we leave the business of interpreting Council texts and the Bible to the Magisterium (which Aquinas humbly deferred all of his writings to) and not go off privately interpreting them to, as the Bible says, our own destruction.
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Gregory,
So you are saying that Christ died on the cross so that poor infants would have less chance of salvation than those who died before He instituted baptism? That He instituted a MORE restrictive system of salvation than Judaism for them? In that case they would all have been better of if Christ never came. This isn't logically problematic to you? Christ who died to open the gates of heaven to all men would shut it on helpless infants?
You say Chist willed baptism as the means to remit original sin. Christ also willed sacramental confession as the means to remit mortal sin. However, we know there are exceptions to this rule. Perfect contrition is one. Similarly there are exceptions to water baptism that Trent never intended to erase. Blood and desire are two of them.
God willed the sacrament as the normative means. Not the only means.
God said unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood you have no life within you. Yet a baptized infant who never received communion goes to Heaven, correct? You are taking certain passages of Trent too literally and out of the context they were meant to be understood in.
This is why we leave the business of interpreting Council texts and the Bible to the Magisterium (which Aquinas humbly deferred all of his writings to) and not go off privately interpreting them to, as the Bible says, our own destruction.
Please, there is no such thing as "poor infants." Leave the emotionalism for the soap operas.
All infants are born condemned by God, justly, under the wrath of God, subject to sin, and guilty of the sin of Adam. This is de fide, and cannot be denied.
This is not about BOD or BOB. I believe water baptism can be supplied in extremely limited circuмstances. But it cannot be supplied for infants. BECAUSE:
"All those who die in mortal sin, or in ORIGINAL SIN ALONE, descend to hell where they are punished, but with different punishments."
Council of Florence.
Dogma comes FIRST speculation AFTER.
The DOGMA is that infants and mentally handicapped are definitely punished in hell. These are the only two classes of people who can die in original sin alone.
TRENT teaches that the words of our Lord "Unless a man be born of water and the Holy spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of heaven." Apply to infants.
The CATECHISM of Trent, which can be viewed as the authoritative interpreter of that awesome council, has declared that infants and all the unbaptized are born to eternal misery and destruction.
Once again Santo, the Church teaches CLEARLY, and because she does, we can LEARN and KNOW her true position. Your spin about "interpretation" ultimately leads to not being able to know what the church teaches at all. After all, you can reduce it to "interpretation" ad infinitum
The clear FACT is that the teaching of infants suffering in hell is promulgated by the church herself (In her promotion of the XVI Council of Carthage by 2 Popes and 2 ecuмenical councils), and her theologians, and the greatest saint and theologian of all, Augustine.
As he said:
“If you wish to be Catholic, do not believe, do not say, and do not teach that children who die without baptism can obtain the remission of original sin,”
Pope St. Gregory I taught the same thing:
St. Gregory the Great: “For there be some that are withdrawn from the present light, before they attain to shew forth the good or evil deserts of an active life. And whereas the Sacraments of salvation do not free them from the sin of their birth, at the same time that here they never did aright by their own act; there they are brought to torment. And these have one wound, viz. to be born in corruption, and another, to die in the flesh. But forasmuch as after death there also follows, death eternal, by a secret and righteous judgment ‘wounds are multiplied to them without cause.’ For they even receive everlasting torments, who never sinned by their own will. And hence it is written, Even the infant of a single day is not pure in His sight upon earth. Hence ‘Truth’ says by His own lips, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. Hence Paul says, We were by nature the children of wrath even as others. He then that adding nothing of his own is mined by the guilt of birth alone, how stands it with such an one at the last account, as far as the calculation of human sense goes, but that he is ‘wounded without cause?’ And yet in the strict account of God it is but just that the stock of mortality, like an unfruitful tree, should preserve in the branches that bitterness which it drew from the root. Therefore he says, For He shall break me with a tempest, and multiply my wounds without cause. As if reviewing the woes of mankind he said in plain words; ‘With what sort of visitation does the strict Judge mercilessly slay those, whom the guilt of their own deeds condemns, if He smites for all eternity even those, whom the guilt of deliberate choice does not impeach?’” (Moralia 9: 32)
Again, St. Anselm says:
St. Anselm: “Not all individuals deserve to be tormented in hell in equal degree. Now, after the day of judgment every angel and everyone will be either in the kingdom of God or in hell, So, then, the sin of infants is less”. (The Virgin Conception and Original Sin 23)
The canons of Carthage XVI are considered to be infallible by Roman Catholic theologians because Pope St. Innocent (-417) and Pope St. Zosimus (-418) approved of them as a rule of the faith. The canons include the following.
“It has been decided likewise that if anyone says that for this reason the Lord said: “In my house there are many mansions”: that it might be understood that in the kingdom of heaven there will be some middle place or some place anywhere where happy infants live who departed from this life without baptism, without which they cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven, which is life eternal, let him be anathema. For when the Lord says: “Unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he shall not enter into the kingdom of God” [John 3:5], what Catholic will doubt that he will be a partner of the devil who has not deserved to be a coheir of Christ? For he who lacks the right part will without doubt run into the left [cf. Matt. 25:41,46].”
The canon was written by St. Augustine who was present at the council and condemns the doctrine of the Pelagians regarding the fate of unbaptized infants. It also defines his own doctrine about their fate, as the true doctrine of the Catholic Faith.
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Well, if it is a question of authorities, St.Thomas, in two places, on extraordinary means of infant baptism, granted as a privilege,
Those who are sanctified in the womb, receive indeed grace which cleanses them from original sin, but they do not therefore receive the character, by which they are conformed to Christ. Consequently, if any were to be sanctified in the womb now, they would need to be baptized, in order to be conformed to Christ's other members by receiving the character.
...
Children while in the mother's womb have not yet come forth into the world to live among other men. Consequently they cannot be subject to the action of man, so as to receive the sacrament, at the hands of man, unto salvation. They can, however, be subject to the action of God, in Whose sight they live, so as, by a kind of privilege, to receive the grace of sanctification; as was the case with those who were sanctified in the womb.
Suarez went even further, for example holding (Catholic Encyclopedia)
"that unbaptized children will not only enjoy perfect natural happiness, but that they will rise with immortal bodies at the last day and have the renovated earth for their happy abode (De vit. et penat., ix, sect. vi, n. 4)"
And Ludwig Ott, scholar who wrote oft-consulted theology manuals like "Fundamentals of Catholic dogma" stated further,
"Other emergency means of baptism for children dying without sacramental baptism, such as prayer and the desire of the parents or the Church (vicarious baptism of desire—Cajetan), or the attainment of the use of reason in the moment of death, so that the dying child can decide for or against God (baptism of desire—H. Klee), or suffering and death of the child as quasi-Sacrament (baptism of suffering—H. Schell), are indeed possible, but their actuality cannot be proved from Revelation.
And on the back of this longstanding tradition, without however going into one detail or the other, wholly unnecessary for us to inquire beyond what the Church teaches into the hidden ways of God, this all that the Church has said, in response to the question posed by, as is their duty, the Catholic faithful to her visible Magisterium, which it is her duty to do (Mat 18:15-18) and which she always fulfils in every age.
It is possible, very improbable, never to be presumed, but possible for God to do so, as evinced by the Angelic Doctor and Ludwig Ott in this century. Therefore it is lawful to have a prayerful hope for this, always subject to the will of God, and ready to glorify Him even if one's child turns out to be, for reasons inscrutable to us, in hell.
Now limbus infantium, like limbus patrum, is a place in hell, but for us to gain some understanding of the difference of their fates, remember the difference between Lazarus and the rich men in the parable. The children there, in the words of the Catholic Encylopedia, "it may confidently be said that, as the result of centuries of speculation on the subject, we ought to believe that these souls enjoy and will eternally enjoy a state of perfect natural happiness."
Everyone you just quoted is at odds with the teaching of the Church in her dogmatic formulas, her ecuмenical councils and the teaching of her popes.
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It would seem that one of the favorite modern heresies that gets trumped up by the NO "church" and treated as "orthodox" is the heresy of semi-pelagianism.
Yes and it's not just them either. Almost everyone in the world today (Protestants, Orthodox, NO, and unfortunately many traditionalists) are semi-Pelagians, if not full blown Pelagians. Almost nobody believes in original sin as taught by St. Augustine against the Pelagians and confirmed by the Council of Trent. The sin and guilt of Adam effected not only himself, but all his posterity. That is why infants and adults who die in original sin only (even if they have no other mortal sin) can truly be said to be damned. That's not Jansenism. That's Catholicism. It's taught by the Council of Trent, the Council of Florence, and the Second Council of Lyons.
SO, I suppose my question is...who is responsible for watering down the Augustinian teaching?
Peter Abelard, Thomas Aquinas, and the Scholastics.
I feel inclined to side with Blaise Pascal and blame the moral laxity (and doctrinal simple-mindedness) of the Jesuits.
Yes, that was really a problem, but it actually started with the Scholastics. The Scholastics were influenced by the Greeks, who generally were corrupted with Pelagianism. The Scholastics appealed to the Greek Fathers to defend Limbo. But the Greek Fathers denied that original sin was actually a sin and worthy of condemnation. But we know that this is heresy.
Now, I am not a Jansenist. I am an Augustinian.
Yeah, that's what the Jansenists thought. And the Protestants.
And St. Prosper. And St. Fulgence. And St. Gregory the Great. And the Franciscans. And Catholics. So what?
But calling belief in limbo semi-pelagian is condemned.
Right, it is "false and rash and as slander of the Catholic schools" (Denz. 1526, De poena decedentium cuм solo originali)
The bottom line: if you say limbo without fire is somehow pelagian, you're adhering to a condemned position.
You say limbo is semi-pelagian. Auctorem Fidei condemns the proposition that belief in limbo is pelagian.
Auctorem Fidei says:
"The doctrine which rejects as a Pelagian fable, that place of the lower regions (which the faithful generally designate by the name of the limbo of children) in which the souls of those departing with the sole guilt of original sin are punished with the punishment of the condemned, exclusive of the punishment of fire, just as if, by this very fact, that these who remove the punishment of fire introduced that middle place and state free of guilt and of punishment between the kingdom of God and eternal damnation, such as that about which the Pelagians idly talk,--false, rash, injurious to Catholic schools."
Nothing here is said to be heretical, as Pyrrhos pointed out. But if you read the proposition closely, it's not teaching Limbo, and it's not condemning the traditional Catholic belief of St. Augustine either. It's merely condemning (as false, rash, and injurious) the proposition that those who remove the punishment of fire thereby introduce that middle place and state free of guilt and of punishment. The bull is merely pointing out that just because a theologian doesn't believe people who die with the sole guilt of original sin suffer fire, that doesn't thereby mean he believes in the Pelagian heresy (and fable) that there is a middle place between heaven and hell where there is no guilt and punishment.
Limbo is a Pelagian fable. Not because of the absence of fire. But because people who believe in it disbelieve in original sin. This is in no way inconsistent with Auctorem Fidei. On the contrary, in order to defend a painless, guiltless, and happy Limbo you have to have a theology that's incompatible with the teaching of the Church on original sin.
FYI, circuмcision remitted original sin.
Gregory, I'm on your side of the issue as far as I can tell, but I have to point out that this was actually condemned by the Council of Trent in Session 6 Chapter 1 On Justification:
"The holy Synod declares first, that, for the correct and sound understanding of the doctrine of Justification, it is necessary that each one recognise and confess, that, whereas all men had lost their innocence in the prevarication of Adam-having become unclean, and, as the apostle says, by nature children of wrath, as (this Synod) has set forth in the decree on original sin,-they were so far the servants of sin, and under the power of the devil and of death, that not the Gentiles only by the force of nature, but not even the Jews by the very letter itself of the law of Moses, were able to be liberated, or to arise, therefrom; although free will, attenuated as it was in its powers, and bent down, was by no means extinguished in them."
Once again, you fail to make distinctions. Aquinas's understanding of Limbo is not semi-pelagian so long as he maintains it as a part of hell, WHICH HE DOES.
Here I disagree. Aquinas' understanding of Limbo was very much Pelagian. He believed in a Limbo where the unbaptized were free of guilt, pain, and punishment. The were happy and in the presence of God. Even if they were technically in hell, Aquinas' understanding is still Pelagian. The unbaptized are guilty of a real sin and they are under the dominion of the devil and suffer punishments in hell because of that.
So you hold that God sends a miscarried child to the Hell of the damned with the Devil and his angels to receive everlasting punishment?
All because He is an absolutist in that every single person must have water baptism or go straight to Hell? Is God incapable of remitting original sin except by water baptism?
If you had faith in the teachings of the Church, rather than in your emotions, then you wouldn't question this. The Council of Florence and the Second Council of Lyons both teach that the unbaptized go to hell. Pope St. Zosimus confirmed the Council of Carthage which teaches the same, and adds that the unbaptized are under the dominion of the devil. The Council of Trent reiterates this and calls them "Children of Wrath".
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just as if, by this very fact, that these who remove the punishment of fire introduced that middle place and state free of guilt and of punishment between the kingdom of God and eternal damnation, such as that about which the Pelagians idly talk
Sorry, but that character was attacking the Thomist view, as you are. Claiming that the scholastics were corrupted by the Greeks. Anyone who starts throwing around the label pelagian at people who believe in limbo is falling under the condemnation.
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just as if, by this very fact, that these who remove the punishment of fire introduced that middle place and state free of guilt and of punishment between the kingdom of God and eternal damnation, such as that about which the Pelagians idly talk
Sorry, but that character was attacking the Thomist view, as you are. Claiming that the scholastics were corrupted by the Greeks. Anyone who starts throwing around the label pelagian at people who believe in limbo is falling under the condemnation.
That the Scholastics were corrupted by the Greeks is a fact. Even writers who believed in Limbo such as George J. Dyer state as much. He wrote Limbo: Unsettled Question and The Denial of Limbo and the Jansenist Controversy.
The condemnation does not condemn anyone who labels Limbo Pelagian. The bull itself states that there is a type of Limbo (a middle place) that is Pelagian. The bull condemns those who assert that those who deny fire thereby introduce a middle place free of guilt and punishment.
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The condemnation does not condemn anyone who labels Limbo Pelagian.
You seem to have a characteristic Feeneyite defect in reading comprehension. Calling limbo Pelagian is condemned.
The bull itself states that there is a type of Limbo (a middle place) that is Pelagian.
The bull states that it's condemned if you say that limbo without fire is the pelagian middle place.
The bull condemns those who assert that those who deny fire thereby introduce a middle place free of guilt and punishment.
It condemns those who call the Catholic idea of limbo a Pelagian middle place. Which is what is being insinuated, in typically evasive Feeneyite fashion.
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That the Scholastics were corrupted by the Greeks is a fact. Even writers who believed in Limbo such as George J. Dyer state as much. He wrote Limbo: Unsettled Question and The Denial of Limbo and the Jansenist Controversy.
No, it's not a fact.
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That the Scholastics were corrupted by the Greeks is a fact. Even writers who believed in Limbo such as George J. Dyer state as much. He wrote Limbo: Unsettled Question and The Denial of Limbo and the Jansenist Controversy.
No, it's not a fact.
Have you read those books? Do you deny that the Scholastics were influenced by Greeks who denied original sin as well as the pseudo-Dionysian Monophysite forgeries?
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That the Scholastics were corrupted by the Greeks is a fact. Even writers who believed in Limbo such as George J. Dyer state as much. He wrote Limbo: Unsettled Question and The Denial of Limbo and the Jansenist Controversy.
No, it's not a fact.
It's not a fact to say the scholastic schools were corrupted by the Greeks.
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That the Scholastics were corrupted by the Greeks is a fact. Even writers who believed in Limbo such as George J. Dyer state as much. He wrote Limbo: Unsettled Question and The Denial of Limbo and the Jansenist Controversy.
No, it's not a fact.
It's not a fact to say the scholastic schools were corrupted by the Greeks.
Would you agree to the fact that they were influenced by the Greeks?
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Telesephorus, you are mistaken. Read the Catholic encyclopedia article on Limbo:
“It should be noted, however, that this poena damni incurred for original sin implied, with Abelard and most of the early Scholastics, a certain degree of spiritual torment, and that St. Thomas was the first great teacher who broke away completely from the Augustinian tradition on this subject, and relying on the principle, derived through the Pseudo-Dionysius from the Greek Fathers, that human nature as such with all its powers and rights was unaffected by the Fall (quod naturalia manent integra), maintained, at least virtually, what the great majority of later Catholic theologians have expressly taught, that the limbus infantium is a place or state of perfect natural happiness.” (Limbo, Catholic Encyclopedia)
And we KNOW St. Thomas got it wrong on several issues before: I believe in regard to the sacrament of orders, and of course his denial of the immaculate conception. Let's also remember that he died BEFORE the council of Lyons, and that he subjected his work to the judgement of the church. And the CHURCH declared the opposite of what he taught. Namely that all who die in original sin alone descend to hell where they are punished.
I do not say Aquinas was a heretic.
He was a Saint.
However, St. Augustine already refuted the "no pain" alternative to the unbaptized infant question in his lifetime. He actually held to it earlier in his career, but he abandoned it in FAVOR of infant damnation. That should mean something to you.
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"There is a passage taken from the writings of St. Gregory nαzιanzen (-389) that supporters of Limbo sometimes quote as if to give some credence to their doctrine and it well exhibits the Pelagian character of the early Eastern tradition. It heretically claims that unbaptized infants merit – and indeed have – no punishment, which is quite in contrast particularly to the definitions of Florence and Lyons which say that they are “punished” in hell."
“It will happen, I believe, that those last mentioned [unbaptized infants] will neither be admitted by the just judge to the glory of heaven, nor condemned to suffer punishment, since though unsealed, they are not wicked... For from the fact that one does not merit punishment it does not follow that he is worthy of being honored, any more than it follows that one who is not worthy of a certain honor deserves punishment on that account.” (Oration 11, 23)
This is the OPPOSITE of the church's teaching.
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And we KNOW St. Thomas got it wrong on several issues before
Where have I heard this one before?
several issues before. Sounds so familiar.
However, St. Augustine already refuted the "no pain" alternative to the unbaptized infant question in his lifetime. He actually held to it earlier in his career, but he abandoned it in FAVOR of infant damnation. That should mean something to you.
What it means to me is that you support St. Augustine over St. Thomas Aquinas.
The fact that St. Augustine's position was not set in stone over his lifetime doesn't strengthen the position of those who follow it at all, quite the contrary.
The bottom line is this:
The Thomist position is completely Catholic, and those who talk about the "corruption of the scholastics" and who run around insinuating that people who have that position are "semi-pelagian" are latter day jansenists.
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I think there are two mistakes being made here. The first is to say that those who are not re-born in the laver of regeneration can obtain eternal life. The second is to say that God cannot give eternal life to those who are not re-born in the laver of regeneration. We must hold to the truth of divine Revelation with the sure knowledge that it is for our benefit, and we must never put any limitations on God. He can bring souls to eternal life even as they are falling into hell, but so far He has not revealed to us that He has ever done such a thing.
The writings of theologians are very dangerous reads for those not securely anchored in the defined dogmas of the holy Church, especially in our day when all restrictions seem to have been lifted from Modernist theologians. The Modernist theologian never comes out and states his heretical premise. He merely asks his heretical premise as a question, and then produces arguments which lead the reader to come to his heretical conclusion. In this way he avoids censure, for, as he states to his superiors, he is merely fleshing out a theological tangent. But those who are unwary are caught in his web. This is why I will only give my assent to what has been written in the Sacred Councils and in the official writings of the Popes. Those are the only writings of the Church that are guaranteed against error. Today's theologians, on the other hand, are rife with errors and novelties. Indeed, they almost lead one to believe that they revel in their errors and novelties.
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And we KNOW St. Thomas got it wrong on several issues before
Where have I heard this one before?
several issues before. Sounds so familiar.
However, St. Augustine already refuted the "no pain" alternative to the unbaptized infant question in his lifetime. He actually held to it earlier in his career, but he abandoned it in FAVOR of infant damnation. That should mean something to you.
What it means to me is that you support St. Augustine over St. Thomas Aquinas.
The fact that St. Augustine's position was not set in stone over his lifetime doesn't strengthen the position of those who follow it at all, quite the contrary.
The bottom line is this:
The Thomist position is completely Catholic, and those who talk about the "corruption of the scholastics" and who run around insinuating that people who have that position are "semi-pelagian" are latter day jansenists.
2 things:
1. St. Augustine's view WAS set in stone during his lifetime in the XVI council of Carthage. This council saw itself as DEFENDING the doctrine of the Church and was promulgated by Popes and Ecuмenical councils: The Council of Ephesus, and Nicea II in Canon 1.
2. Do you assert this no such thing as a pelagian understanding o Limbo? What would it then be in your mind if not some "middle place where infants have blessedness and life, but not eternal life?"
These are conclusions that are arrived at through FAITHFULNESS to the dogmas of the church.
IN fact, the "development" of this part of the teaching original sin seems to contradict then entire notion of tradition!
When you have a teaching that has it's origin in the early church and has no substantial change to it for 800 years, and is then basically reversed in the span of 100 years, what does that tell you? Someone made a mistake.
When that mistake is promulgated as an enlightened teaching, people should resist. and people HAVE Resisted. Look at Blessed Gregory of Rimini. He was labelled an "Infant Torturer" by his fellow scholastics because he would not break with the Augustinian teaching, which he saw as defintively taught by the church.
Tell me, how many kinds of people die in original sin alone?
Also, insofar as "Limbo" means edge of hell, it is not a problem to say that unbaptized infants are in hell, but only on its very edge. That is the terminological equivalent of saying they suffer the lightest amount. That is fine. THe PROBLEM is saying they enjoy natural happiness. You could probably retain the term limbo, so long as it was understood to mean the edge of hell where the punishment is lightest.
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The Thomist position is completely Catholic, and those who talk about the "corruption of the scholastics" and who run around insinuating that people who have that position are "semi-pelagian" are latter day jansenists.
The Augustinian (also Gregorian, Lyonine, Florentine, and Tridentine) position is completely Catholic, and those who talk about the "rigorous, unjust, unmerciful gloom and doom baby-torturer" position since "babies are innocent" are latter-day Pelagians.
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Also, insofar as "Limbo" means edge of hell, it is not a problem to say that unbaptized infants are in hell, but only on its very edge. That is the terminological equivalent of saying they suffer the lightest amount. That is fine. THe PROBLEM is saying they enjoy natural happiness. You could probably retain the term limbo, so long as it was understood to mean the edge of hell where the punishment is lightest.
I have a problem even with the term "Limbo" because it was originally applied to the place in hell where the just Old Testament Israelites resided (where Christ descended into). Using this term for babies who die without baptism seems to imply that the babies are just (and in most cases that's exactly what they believe).
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I have a problem even with the term "Limbo" because it was originally applied to the place in hell where the just Old Testament Israelites resided (where Christ descended into). Using this term for babies who die without baptism seems to imply that the babies are just (and in most cases that's exactly what they believe).
It's pretty clear you have a problem with belief in limbo. That's your problem, it's not a problem for the Church. It probably is a serious problem for the orthodoxy of your beliefs though.
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The Augustinian (also Gregorian, Lyonine, Florentine, and Tridentine) position is completely Catholic, and those who talk about the "rigorous, unjust, unmerciful gloom and doom baby-torturer" position since "babies are innocent" are latter-day Pelagians.
Now the mask comes off.
Rash, false, slanderous to Catholic schools. That's Feeneyism in a nutshell. The highway to Hell.
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It's pretty clear you have a problem with belief in limbo. That's your problem, it's not a problem for the Church. It probably is a serious problem for the orthodoxy of your beliefs though.
Yes, I have a problem with Limbo insofar as it denies the revelations of Christ through the Catholic Church. Your problem is that you don't believe in the teachings of the Catholic Church.
Now the mask comes off.
Rash, false, slanderous to Catholic schools. That's Feeneyism in a nutshell. The highway to Hell.
There never was any mask, so I don't know what you're talking about.
What does 'Feeneyism' have to do with anything?
The highway to hell is heresy, and that's what you're unfortunately in if you reject the Council of Carthage, the Second Council of Lyons, the Council of Florence, and the Council of Trent, in favor of Pelagianism. If you choose to follow Pelagius into hell, then that's your decision. My decision is to have faith in the infallible dogmas of the Church, not in Pelagius or the idle speculations of Scholastics.
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Re-posting in case anyone missed it:
It would seem that one of the favorite modern heresies that gets trumped up by the NO "church" and treated as "orthodox" is the heresy of semi-pelagianism.
Yes and it's not just them either. Almost everyone in the world today (Protestants, Orthodox, NO, and unfortunately many traditionalists) are semi-Pelagians, if not full blown Pelagians. Almost nobody believes in original sin as taught by St. Augustine against the Pelagians and confirmed by the Council of Trent. The sin and guilt of Adam effected not only himself, but all his posterity. That is why infants and adults who die in original sin only (even if they have no other mortal sin) can truly be said to be damned. That's not Jansenism. That's Catholicism. It's taught by the Council of Trent, the Council of Florence, and the Second Council of Lyons.
SO, I suppose my question is...who is responsible for watering down the Augustinian teaching?
Peter Abelard, Thomas Aquinas, and the Scholastics.
I feel inclined to side with Blaise Pascal and blame the moral laxity (and doctrinal simple-mindedness) of the Jesuits.
Yes, that was really a problem, but it actually started with the Scholastics. The Scholastics were influenced by the Greeks, who generally were corrupted with Pelagianism. The Scholastics appealed to the Greek Fathers to defend Limbo. But the Greek Fathers denied that original sin was actually a sin and worthy of condemnation. But we know that this is heresy.
Now, I am not a Jansenist. I am an Augustinian.
Yeah, that's what the Jansenists thought. And the Protestants.
And St. Prosper. And St. Fulgence. And St. Gregory the Great. And the Franciscans. And Catholics. So what?
But calling belief in limbo semi-pelagian is condemned.
Right, it is "false and rash and as slander of the Catholic schools" (Denz. 1526, De poena decedentium cuм solo originali)
The bottom line: if you say limbo without fire is somehow pelagian, you're adhering to a condemned position.
You say limbo is semi-pelagian. Auctorem Fidei condemns the proposition that belief in limbo is pelagian.
Auctorem Fidei says:
"The doctrine which rejects as a Pelagian fable, that place of the lower regions (which the faithful generally designate by the name of the limbo of children) in which the souls of those departing with the sole guilt of original sin are punished with the punishment of the condemned, exclusive of the punishment of fire, just as if, by this very fact, that these who remove the punishment of fire introduced that middle place and state free of guilt and of punishment between the kingdom of God and eternal damnation, such as that about which the Pelagians idly talk,--false, rash, injurious to Catholic schools."
Nothing here is said to be heretical, as Pyrrhos pointed out. But if you read the proposition closely, it's not teaching Limbo, and it's not condemning the traditional Catholic belief of St. Augustine either. It's merely condemning (as false, rash, and injurious) the proposition that those who remove the punishment of fire thereby introduce that middle place and state free of guilt and of punishment. The bull is merely pointing out that just because a theologian doesn't believe people who die with the sole guilt of original sin suffer fire, that doesn't thereby mean he believes in the Pelagian heresy (and fable) that there is a middle place between heaven and hell where there is no guilt and punishment.
Limbo is a Pelagian fable. Not because of the absence of fire. But because people who believe in it disbelieve in original sin. This is in no way inconsistent with Auctorem Fidei. On the contrary, in order to defend a painless, guiltless, and happy Limbo you have to have a theology that's incompatible with the teaching of the Church on original sin.
FYI, circuмcision remitted original sin.
Gregory, I'm on your side of the issue as far as I can tell, but I have to point out that this was actually condemned by the Council of Trent in Session 6 Chapter 1 On Justification:
"The holy Synod declares first, that, for the correct and sound understanding of the doctrine of Justification, it is necessary that each one recognise and confess, that, whereas all men had lost their innocence in the prevarication of Adam-having become unclean, and, as the apostle says, by nature children of wrath, as (this Synod) has set forth in the decree on original sin,-they were so far the servants of sin, and under the power of the devil and of death, that not the Gentiles only by the force of nature, but not even the Jews by the very letter itself of the law of Moses, were able to be liberated, or to arise, therefrom; although free will, attenuated as it was in its powers, and bent down, was by no means extinguished in them."
Once again, you fail to make distinctions. Aquinas's understanding of Limbo is not semi-pelagian so long as he maintains it as a part of hell, WHICH HE DOES.
Here I disagree. Aquinas' understanding of Limbo was very much Pelagian. He believed in a Limbo where the unbaptized were free of guilt, pain, and punishment. The were happy and in the presence of God. Even if they were technically in hell, Aquinas' understanding is still Pelagian. The unbaptized are guilty of a real sin and they are under the dominion of the devil and suffer punishments in hell because of that.
So you hold that God sends a miscarried child to the Hell of the damned with the Devil and his angels to receive everlasting punishment?
All because He is an absolutist in that every single person must have water baptism or go straight to Hell? Is God incapable of remitting original sin except by water baptism?
If you had faith in the teachings of the Church, rather than in your emotions, then you wouldn't question this. The Council of Florence and the Second Council of Lyons both teach that the unbaptized go to hell. Pope St. Zosimus confirmed the Council of Carthage which teaches the same, and adds that the unbaptized are under the dominion of the devil. The Council of Trent reiterates this and calls them "Children of Wrath".
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Yes, I have a problem with Limbo insofar as it denies the revelations of Christ through the Catholic Church.
But the Church doesn't have a problem with it. It has ruled on it. So you have a problem with Catholic teaching. Full stop. You're the one with the problem. People who believe in limbo don't have a problem. People who say belief in limbo is Pelagian definitely have a serious problem. The sort of sickness that takes pride in seeing God as subjecting infants to eternal torments as an absolute necessity of Catholic doctrine. It's certainly closely connected to the Feeneyite disease, in most cases.
The highway to hell is heresy, and that's what you're unfortunately in if you reject the Council of Carthage, the Second Council of Lyons, the Council of Florence, and the Council of Trent
But I'm not rejecting any of those. In accusing me of rejecting them, in insinuating that people on this thread thread are saying that babies are "innocent" (I don't know anyone claiming they are innocent of original sin) you are the one who is violating the Catholic Faith. Of course, we know that the Church teaches that those who condemn belief in limbo as pelagianism are rash slanderers who speak falsehoods.
in favor of Pelagianism. If you choose to follow Pelagius into hell, then that's your decision.
It's not Pelagianism. The Church has ruled. No either you can accept it or you can reject Catholicism.
My decision is to have faith in the infallible dogmas of the Church, not in Pelagius or the idle speculations of Scholastics.
"Idle speculations" of the scholastics. What insolence.
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But the Church doesn't have a problem with it. It has ruled on it. So you have a problem with Catholic teaching. Full stop. You're the one with the problem. People who believe in limbo don't have a problem. People who say belief in limbo is Pelagian definitely have a serious problem. The sort of sickness that takes pride in seeing God as subjecting infants to eternal torments as an absolute necessity of Catholic doctrine. It's certainly closely connected to the Feeneyite disease, in most cases.
You blaspheme God, who has revealed as much. That is sickness.
Where did the Church ever teach Limbo?
But I'm not rejecting any of those. In accusing me of rejecting them, in insinuating that people on this thread thread are saying that babies are "innocent" (I don't know anyone claiming they are innocent of original sin) you are the one who is violating the Catholic Faith.
For all intents and purposes, you deny original sin. You do not believe it to be a real sin worthy of eternal punishment and damnation. Do you or do you not believe that babies who die without baptism are free of punishment, happy, and in the presence of God?
Of course, we know that the Church teaches that those who condemn belief in limbo as pelagianism are rash slanderers who speak falsehoods.
On top of your lack of comprehension, you're now being dishonest. It's been pointed out to you that Pope Pius VI taught that those who assert that excluding the punishment of fire by that very fact introduces a middle place is false, rash, etc.
It's not Pelagianism. The Church has ruled. No either you can accept it or you can reject Catholicism.
To say that those who die with the sole guilt of original sin are unpunished, happy, and in the presence of God is Pelagianism.
"Idle speculations" of the scholastics. What insolence.
Is the angel in a place? Can he be in several places at once? Can several angels be in the same place?
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Regarding your signature, Augustinian, you have to be a member for a week before you can use the PM feature.
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Where did the Church ever teach Limbo?
You may be interested in this article from 2007:
The Pope will this week overturn a belief held by Roman Catholics since medieval times by abolishing the concept of Limbo.
Limbo is traditionally held to be the place where the souls of children go if they die before they can be baptised and so freed from original sin.
It is also the fate of “holy people” such as the prophet Abraham who lived before the time of Jesus Christ, who Christians believe offered mankind redemption through his death and Resurrection.
This week a 30-strong Vatican international commission of theologians which has been examining Limbo began its final deliberations. Vatican sources said that it had concluded that all children who die do so in the expectation of “the universal salvation of God” and the “mediation of Christ”, whether baptised or not.
The theologians’ finding is that God wishes all souls to be saved, and that the souls of unbaptised children are entrusted to a “merciful God” whose ways of ensuring salvation cannot be known. “In effect, this means that all children who die go to Heaven” one source said.
The commission’s conclusions will be formally approved by Pope Benedict XVI at a mass on Friday in the Redemptoris Mater chapel in the Apostolic Palace, a richly decorated chapel restored by John Paul II and used for the proclamation of papal “magisterial teachings” as well as spiritual retreats and ecuмenical services.
The process of doing away with Limbo began under the late John Paul II. He was backed by the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger – now Pope – who as John Paul II’s guardian of doctrinal orthodoxy once observed that Limbo had “never been a definitive truth of the faith”.
He added:”Personally, I would let it drop, since it has always been only a theological hypothesis”. The theological commission is currently chaired by Archbishop William Levada of the United States, the Pope’s chosen successor as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
Christians hold that Heaven is a state of union with God, while Hell is separation from God. Christians have long wrestled, however, with the conundrum of what happened to those who lived a “good life” but died before the time of Jesus, as well as the fate of children who die without being christened.
The answer since the 13th century has been Limbo – from the Latin limbus, meaning a hem or boundary – held to be the temporary resting place of “the souls of good persons who died before the resurrection of Jesus” (limbus patrum, or Limbo of the Fathers) and the home in the afterlife of “those who die in infancy without having been freed from original sin” (limbus infantium, or Limbo of the Children).
St Thomas Aquinas described the “limbo of children” as an “eternal state of natural joy” in which unbaptised children were unaware of the greater joy of Heaven.
The concept was given papal authority by Pope Pius X (1903-1914), who in his Catechism declared Limbo to be a place where the unbaptised “do not have the joy of God but neither do they suffer…they do not deserve Paradise, but neither do they deserve Hell or Purgatory”.
This was quietly dropped from the Cathechism issued under John Paul II, who in his encyclical Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life) – referring to victims of abortion – said the Church “does not know the fate of unbaptised infants” and can only “trust in God’s mercy and love.”
Father Tony Kelly, an Australian member of the theological commission, said that dropping Limbo reflected “a different sense of God, focusing on his infinite love.”
This is not only proof that the Church had originally taught Limbo, but also shows how corrupt Benedict is.
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This is not only proof that the Church had originally taught Limbo...
It does nothing of the sort. All it does is show that Benedict XVI and the bishops and theologians under him are Pelagians, deny multiple councils of the Church, and are heretics of epic proportions.
The Pope will this week overturn a belief held by Roman Catholics since medieval times by abolishing the concept of Limbo.
How is this proof that the Church originally taught Limbo when it says here that it's only been believed since Medieval times?
St Thomas Aquinas described the “limbo of children” as an “eternal state of natural joy”
That's Pelagianism.
The concept was given papal authority by Pope Pius X (1903-1914), who in his Catechism declared Limbo to be a place where the unbaptised “do not have the joy of God but neither do they suffer…they do not deserve Paradise, but neither do they deserve Hell or Purgatory”.
That's a lie. Pius X never "declared" anything, whether it was in a catechism or not. There is no evidence he even wrote the catechism. If you look at the early versions of the catechism, you will see that it was written by a cardinal with the alleged "approval of Pope Pius X".
Also, that quote from the so-called "Pius X" catechism is explicitly Pelagian and heretical. "...neither do they deserve hell or purgatory." This clearly denies that Limbo is in hell, which means Limbo must be some middle place, which is the exact thing Pope Pius VI called Pelagian.
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Good post, Spiritus. I know a few on-the-edge NOers into traditional Catholicism/sedevacantism that will like to read that.
Just shows how corrupt Benny and them all are, and how everyone needs to oppose them now. Not tomorrow, not after a few more meetings, right now. Its too late to apologize, as the pop song goes.
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Actually, there is alot of confusion here regarding several points:
1. Everyone here HAS to agree that when an unbaptized infant dies, they go to hell in SOME SENSE, because ALL the scholastic theologians place the Limbo of the infants IN HELL.
2. The "speculation" on infant damnation and limbo was never a speculation as to PRINCIPLE (That unbaptized babies are deprived of the vision of God and are punished in hell), but as to DETAIL. I.E. what do the pains of the damned infant consist of? Augustine said Fire, but to a lesser extent, Abelard said spiritual suffering from the lack of the vision of God.
3. St. Albert the great was the FIRST to coin the term Limbo in reference to the fate of Infants, and St. Thomas was the first to teach that it consisted of zero pain, and in fact natural happiness. This is 800 years AFTER St. Augustine.
4. If St. Augustine was in error, why did nobody before Aquinas come to his conclusions?
5. The DOGMA of the Church, as set forth by the ecuмenical councils of Lyons, Florence and Trent, Specify that those who die in original sin alone are in Hell, where they are punished, but with a different punishment from those who die in mortal sin. There is room to discuss both the type and degree of punishment if we go by the language of this canon alone.
a. Key question: How many types of people die in mortal sin alone? Generally, one: Those who do not have the use of reason; specifically, two. Infants, and the mentally handicapped.
6. The Council of Trent has authoritatively declared in the fourth paragraph of the fifth session, that the words of our Lord "unless a man be born of water and the Holy spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of heaven" apply to infants.
"... For, by reason of this rule of faith, from a tradition of the apostles, even infants, who could not as yet commit any sin of themselves, are for this cause truly baptized for the remission of sins, that in them that may be cleansed away by regeneration, which they have contracted by generation. For, unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God."
See here: The decrees on original sin, paragraph four http://history.hanover.edu/texts/trent/ct05.html
7. The Catechism of the Council of Trent, Promulgated by a Pope and a Saint, Pius V, is the AUTHENTIC interpreter of the council of Trent. It states without any lack of clarity that those who are not born again, are born to eternal misery and destruction. See Here: Key word search "misery" http://www.catholicapologetics.info/thechurch/catechism/Holy7Sacraments-Baptism.shtml
Necessity of Baptism
"If the knowledge of what has been hitherto explained be, as it is, of highest importance to the faithful, it is no less important to them to learn that the law of Baptism, as established by our Lord, extends to all, so that unless they are regenerated to God through the grace of Baptism, be their parents Christians or infidels, they are born to eternal misery and destruction. Pastors, therefore, should often explain these words of the Gospel: Unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God."
Baptism Of Infants Should Not Be Delayed
"The faithful are earnestly to be exhorted to take care that their children be brought to the church, as soon as it can be done with safety, to receive solemn Baptism. Since infant children have no other means of salvation except Baptism, we may easily understand how grievously those persons sin who permit them to remain without the grace of the Sacrament longer than necessity may require, particularly at an age so tender as to be exposed to numberless dangers of death."
I could go on...We haven't even seen the quotes of Sts. Augustine, Fulgentius, Prosper and Caesarius, Gregory I, etc....
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That docuмent doesn't even teach. it simply says "Here's some history." THen it says "Here are some problems we have with that theological history." Then it ends with "But we don't really know for sure."
Wow. I just wasted a day of my life when I read that docuмent, it is really worthless.
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Nobody has really addressed my points.
Namely, the most important. That God can remit original sin outside Baptism. It defies logic to think baptism is absolute where circuмcision was not. Thus somehow Christ came to damn unbaptized infants who were eligible for Heaven before He instituted baptism?
That truly makes sense to you? Does it not offend your sense of justice in the least that an infant baby whose parents don't baptize him and has no will and dies, burns in eternal Hellfire of the damned? Is that justice? Or sadism? If I truly believed that is what the Church taught de Fide, I'd leave it. It would then be a monstrous institution. Thankfully it does not.
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I wonder if one of these characters is Pope Augustine.
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How is this proof that the Church originally taught Limbo when it says here that it's only been believed since Medieval times?
The Church never made its teaching on Limbo an official Dogma, but never-the-less it is what the Church generally believed for centuries, and it's what several Popes taught in their encyclicals.
Does it not offend your sense of justice in the least that an infant baby whose parents don't baptize him and has no will and dies, burns in eternal Hellfire of the damned? Is that justice? Or sadism? If I truly believed that is what the Church taught de Fide, I'd leave it. It would then be a monstrous institution. Thankfully it does not.
From my understanding, the Church does not know for certain where unbaptized infants end up for eternity, which is perhaps why they did not make the teaching of Limbo a Dogma. But the Church still believed in Limbo for many centuries until Benedict changed it in 2007.
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Spiritus,
BXVI did not change the teaching on limbo.
I would have thought the media would get tougher scrutiny from a board such as this.
The article you posted was horribly inaccurate. The author had an agenda and/ or little knowledge of the docuмent.
If you read the docuмent you'll see that it in no way was meant to "reject" limbo or to declare that all unbaptized infants go to Heaven as dogma. The only thing it did was provide some theological basis for the opinion that unbaptized infants COULD POSSIBlLY go to Heaven. The docuмent itself states one is surely free to still believe in limbo. It also stresses the need for parents to baptize their infants without delay, since, obviously, it is the only 100% safe course.
Please read the docuмent if you have time and then compare it with the article. You'll see how it is shoddy journalism at best.
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How is this proof that the Church originally taught Limbo when it says here that it's only been believed since Medieval times?
The Church never made its teaching on Limbo an official Dogma, but never-the-less it is what the Church generally believed for centuries, and it's what several Popes taught in their encyclicals.
Does it not offend your sense of justice in the least that an infant baby whose parents don't baptize him and has no will and dies, burns in eternal Hellfire of the damned? Is that justice? Or sadism? If I truly believed that is what the Church taught de Fide, I'd leave it. It would then be a monstrous institution. Thankfully it does not.
From my understanding, the Church does not know for certain where unbaptized infants end up for eternity, which is perhaps why they did not make the teaching of Limbo a Dogma. But the Church still believed in Limbo for many centuries until Benedict changed it in 2007.
The church HAS defined the final resting place of unbaptized babies; Hell. Apart from the vision of God, undergoing punishment. That is the teaching of Lyons II, Florence and Trent. That's a three shot blast that no side-stepping can get around guys. You don't take that seriously?
Santo, how many kinds of people die in original sin alone?
No, the belief that unbaptized babies who die enjoy natural happiness has only been taught since the time of Aquinas, and it is only speculative and is on its face counter to the teaching of the church revealed in her ecuмenical councils, her popes, and regional councils approved by Ecuмenical councils.
What would a Pelagian and heretical understanding of the fate of unbaptized infants be in your opinion santo or spiritus?
BTW Santo, INFANTS are NOT Innocent. You have to understand that first. Second, understand that all are destined for Hell FIRST unless God intervenes.
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Nobody has really addressed my points.
Allow me to indulge you.
Namely, the most important. That God can remit original sin outside Baptism.
God possesses the power to do so. Look at the blessed Virgin who was born without the taint of Sin.
Look at John the Baptist and Jeremiah, they were sanctified in the womb.
That is not the problem.
It defies logic to think baptism is absolute where circuмcision was not.
No, it does not. Because we have a certain principle at work here: Circuмcision was given to the Jews to show forth their being chosen by God and united to his covenant. But God did not give the Jews a commission to convert the world to Judaism. Rather, he did not give the Hebrew people the universal task of converting everyone to Judaism and making them Jews, though they could become Jews if they wanted to.
Remember the Parable of the Talents: To whom little is given, little be required. But to whom much is given, much will be required.
The world was given little, and little was required. Scripture even speaks of God allowing or at least tolerating the misguided attempts of the gentiles to know him, because they had no way of having any knowledge of Judaism, and God had not willed to make them Jews.
But when Christ came, he fulfilled the law and the prophets, and he placed upon the entire world the obligation to know him in order to be saved. There is no other way for anyone after Pentecost to be saved than through Christ. This is a universal obligation imposed upon the world by God that was not previously imposed. Christ spilled his blood for his friends, and the world was offered that blood to bathe in freely. The blood of God.
MUCH HAD BEEN GIVEN!
Now, much will be required.
On Holy Saturday, when he trampled down the gates of Hell and descended to the Limbo of the Fathers, he led out the just and all those who were righteous in his sight (Yes, the Holy innocents as well, who are martyrs on account of their being slain because of the name of Christ). He emptied Hell of the Just, and only those who were stained by original sin alone or mortal sin, infant or not, were left.
Now, Christ made Baptism obligatory ONLY after Pentecost, the birthday of the church.
Therefore, since Pentecost, the entire world is under the obligation to come to Christ for salvation, and the only means he instituted for this is Baptism, which alone unites a man to the Church, outside of which absolutely none are saved.
But, because this obligation is placed on all humanity, humanity is accountable as a whole for their sinfulness: Every infant of a single day, every man of 100 years, must account for his sinfulness before God. Unless the stain and Guilt of original sin is remitted, along with any mortal sin, there will be no entrance into heaven.
Thus somehow Christ came to damn unbaptized infants who were eligible for Heaven before He instituted baptism?
Don't be facetious. Christ came to save his elect, not to damn people unconditionally.
From all eternity Christ has known whom he will save. Therefore, he has known from all eternity who will respond to the victorious delight of grace he sends their way. Therefore, when he died upon the cross, though his blood merited and was capable of saving the entire world, he only willed to make his grace efficacious for those he had in his mind for all eternity: his elect. St. Thomas Aquinas teaches as much as well as St. Augustine. So, though his death was sufficient for all, he only willed to communicate its merits to some, as the council of Trent plainly teaches.
Council of Trent, Session 6 Chapter III
"But, though He died for all, yet do not all receive the benefit of His death, but those only unto whom the merit of His passion is communicated"
This includes those infants he wills, and excludes those infants he does not will.
That truly makes sense to you? Does it not offend your sense of justice in the least that an infant baby whose parents don't baptize him and has no will and dies, burns in eternal Hellfire of the damned? Is that justice? Or sadism?
Yes it makes sense, because I haven't twisted blood out of a stone trying to come to the opposite conclusion. It's manifest and plain. It's dogma, and it is taught by the Popes, saints and regional councils of the Catholic church, which councils were given Papal endorsement, promulgated by said Popes, and ratified by two ecuмenical councils.
You do not understand original sin or justice. You obviously do not believe that the GUILT for Adam's sin resides in the soul of every single child conceived on the face of this planet. Trent teaches the opposite. You obviously do not believe that every single soul in original sin ALONE is an enemy of God, already condemned, under his wrath, a partner with the devil, incapable of being supernaturally pleasing, and runs to the left.
Infants are NOT INNOCENT. They possess no innocence except in a qualified and relative way to us who are tainted with mortal sin. But not in any absolute or meaningful way. They are damned already from their conception.
THIS is why grace is so amazing! This is what makes the power and the beauty of God so majestic and so powerful! Don't you see? When the darkness of human nature is understood, and explored, and when we know our just desserts, only THEN do we really praise God for granting us the grace of baptism and allowing us access to his perfect society, the church.
Until we can weep for our sins and our sinfulness, we will not fully appreciate God's choices. Everything is a grace, and all is from God.
If I truly believed that is what the Church taught de Fide, I'd leave it. It would then be a monstrous institution. Thankfully it does not.
No, it does. You may be in denial, but the historical record is clear, as well as the dogmas of the church's ecuмenical councils. Man is darkened in his will and sinful. God alone is pure and capable of freeing our will enough to actually desire him worthily. Those who die in the darkness stay in the dark. They are punished, justly, and they will not see the face of God. Ever. This too is the will of God: That no unclean thing enter into heaven.
One other thing, Hell is not full of little children. The Soul of an infant is a human soul like any other, and it's not as if a bunch of little kids were getting lashed in their infantile flesh. These are disembodied souls, human beings awaiting their final judgement when they will be clad in their bodies. It's not even clear if they will be infants then. ;)
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bump
Aquinas DID come up with the idea of limbo. He was the first to give it that name, as far as I know, and he was also the first to indicate that unbaptized children enjoy positive natural happiness and even a natural knowledge of God.
Nobody ever taught that before him. That is why I do not personally accept it. But, I do not think it is heretical, so long as he maintains that limbo is a part of hell, and he does. I think there is some inconsistency in his thought here.
The term Transubstantiation was also coined after St Thomas's time. It was not a new belief.
As far as the claim that there was inconsitency in the thought of St Thomas; could It posibly be that you don't understand what the Angelic Doctor understood? He had arguably the most brilliant intellect as a gift from God which he used for His glory and our benefit.
Could it possibly be that you don't know how to reconcile something that was reconcilable (and possibly with great ease) for the great intellect of St Thomas?
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Evasion. You have plenty to go back and re-read Tele. Read slowly. I am not going to speculate on the merits of my intellect.
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Evasion. You have plenty to go back and re-read Tele. Read slowly. I am not going to speculate on the merits of my intellect.
Your evasion speaks volumes. It is very telling that you do not have enough humilty to admit that The Angelic Doctor may have been able to understand and reconcile things that you may not be able to.
BTW, for any intelligent, educated, pious Catholic, it would be a very easy admission to make, and it would require very little humility.
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Ad hominem. I am only arguing from the standpoint of the Church's self-professed DOGMA, which NONE have refuted or said much of anything about.
St. THomas is a superior intellect. No Doubt.
But your criticism of my criticizing him does not constitute either a refutation or any kind of clear line of thought. I do not criticize the MAN, I criticize an Idea he left open to criticism.
So: How about reading the last 3 pages and we get back to it, eh?
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Ad hominem. I am only arguing from the standpoint of the Church's self-professed DOGMA, which NONE have refuted or said much of anything about.
St. THomas is a superior intellect. No Doubt.
But your criticism of my criticizing him does not constitute either a refutation or any kind of clear line of thought. I do not criticize the MAN, I criticize an Idea he left open to criticism.
So: How about reading the last 3 pages and we get back to it, eh?
You may not be aware that an ad hominem is of itself not an unacceptable thing to make. Sometimes, it is a very fitting and justifiable approach.
You said "I think there is some inconsistency in his thought here."
I asked if it is possible that you don't understand what the Angelic Doctor understood. And I asked: Could it possibly be that you don't know how to reconcile something that was reconcilable (and possibly with great ease) for the great intellect of St Thomas?
If the answers are yes, then you should not be saying you think there is insconsistency in the thought of St Thomas. Rather with some respect, diffidence, and humility you should say you do not understand or know how to reconcile what St Thomas taught. But instead it took three attempts, after you twice tried to ignore the objection, to get you make the admission that you did.
Sorry Greg, I am not going to waste time reading what you are pushing or debating it all with you. I would rather read the canonized works of St. Thomas anyday.
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The Church never made its teaching on Limbo an official Dogma, but never-the-less it is what the Church generally believed for centuries, and it's what several Popes taught in their encyclicals.
The Scholastic theologians from the 1200's to the 20th century do not constitute "general belief of the Church" since they are not "the Church". If this was true, then laxism was the belief of the Church during the 16th and 17th centuries, until Pope Innocent XI finally condemned it. There's a difference between popes infallibly teaching something through bulls and councils, and theologians speculating on errors and heresies. The former constitutes the teachings and beliefs of the Church, the latter does not, even if they are scandalously tolerated.
Who are the "several popes" that taught Limbo in their encyclicals?
From my understanding, the Church does not know for certain where unbaptized infants end up for eternity, which is perhaps why they did not make the teaching of Limbo a Dogma. But the Church still believed in Limbo for many centuries until Benedict changed it in 2007.
Your understanding is mistaken. The Church does know for certain where unbaptized infants end up for eternity because God revealed it to us:
Pope Eugene IV, Council of Florence: "But the souls of those who depart this life in actual mortal sin, or in original sin alone, go down straightaway to hell to be punished, but with unequal pains."
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Pope Eugene IV, Council of Florence: "But the souls of those who depart this life in actual mortal sin, or in original sin alone, go down straightaway to hell to be punished, but with unequal pains."
Pope St. Zosimus, Sixteenth Council of Carthage, Canon 3.1:
"If any man says that in the kingdom of heaven or elsewhere there is a certain middle place, where children who die unbaptized live in bliss, whereas without baptism they cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven, that is, into eternal life, let him be anathema. For when the Lord says: 'Unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Spirit, he shall not enter into the kingdom of God', what Catholic will doubt that he will be a partner of the devil who has not deserved to be a coheir of Christ? For he who lacks the right part will without doubt run to the left."
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Sorry Greg, I am not going to waste time reading what you are pushing or debating it all with you. I would rather read the canonized works of St. Thomas anyday.
If Thomas Aquinas spent more time studying the refutations of St. Augustine and the teachings of the Church, and less time studying Aristotle and Greek philosophy, then maybe he wouldn't have fallen into Pelagianism.
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Sorry Greg, I am not going to waste time reading what you are pushing or debating it all with you. I would rather read the canonized works of St. Thomas anyday.
If Thomas Aquinas spent more time studying the refutations of St. Augustine and the teachings of the Church, and less time studying Aristotle and Greek philosophy, then maybe he wouldn't have fallen into Pelagianism.
That is a shameful and bold attack on the Angelic Doctor, from a comparative nobody.
Tell your story to St Thomas and ask him to help you. He has been canonized and is in heaven now, also having been proclaimed a Doctor of the Church for his preeminence as a theologian. He will help you if you pray to him sincerely.
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Sorry Greg, I am not going to waste time reading what you are pushing or debating it all with you. I would rather read the canonized works of St. Thomas anyday.
If Thomas Aquinas spent more time studying the refutations of St. Augustine and the teachings of the Church, and less time studying Aristotle and Greek philosophy, then maybe he wouldn't have fallen into Pelagianism.
That is a shameful and bold attack on the Angelic Doctor, from a comparative nobody.
Tell your story to St Thomas and ask him to help you. He has been canonized and is in heaven now, also having been proclaimed a Doctor of the Church for his preeminence as a theologian. He will help you if you pray to him sincerely.
Try praying to St. Augustine for light to come out of the darkness that is Pelagianism.
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ON ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
Studiorum Ducem
Encyclical of Pope Pius XI promulgated on June 29, 1923
To Our Venerable Brethren, the Patriarchs, Primates, Archbishops, Bishops and other Ordinaries in Grace and Communion with the Apostolic See.
Venerable Brethren, Greeting and the Apostolic Benediction.
In a recent apostolic letter confirming the statutes of Canon Law, We declared that the guide to be followed in the higher studies by young men training for the priesthood was Thomas Aquinas. The approaching anniversary of the day when he was duly enrolled, six hundred years ago, in the calendar of the Saints, offers Us an admirable opportunity of inculcating this more and more firmly in the minds of Our students and explaining to them what advantage they may most usefully derive from the teaching of so illustrious a Doctor. For science truly deserving of the name and piety, the companion of all the virtues, are related in a marvelous bond of affinity, and, as God is very Truth and very Goodness, it would assuredly not be sufficient to procure the glory of God by the salvation of souls-the chief task and peculiar mission of the Church-if ministers of religion were well disciplined in knowledge and not also abundantly provided at the same time with the appropriate virtues.
2. Such a combination of doctrine and piety, of erudition and virtue, of truth and charity, is to be found in an eminent degree in the angelic Doctor and it is not without reason that he has been given the sun for a device; for he both brings the light of learning into the minds of men and fires their hearts and wills with the virtues. God, the Source of all sanctity and wisdom would, therefore, seem to have desired to show in the case of Thomas how each of these qualities assists the other, how the practice of the virtues disposes to the contemplation of truth, and the profound consideration of truth in turn gives luster and perfection to the virtues. For the man of pure and upright life, whose passions are controlled by virtue, is delivered as it were of a heavy burden and can much more easily raise his mind to heavenly things and penetrate more profoundly into the secrets of God, according to the maxim of Thomas himself: "Life comes before learning: for life leads to the knowledge of truth" (Comment. in Matth., v); and if such a man devotes himself to the investigation of the supernatural, he will find a powerful incentive in such a pursuit to lead a perfect life; for the learning of such sublime things, the beauty of which is a ravishing ecstasy, so far from being a solitary or sterile occupation, must be said to be on the contrary most practical.
3. These are among the first lessons, Venerable Brethren, which may be learned from the commemoration of this centenary; but that they may be the more clearly apparent, We propose to comment briefly in this Letter on the sanctity and doctrine of Thomas Aquinas and to show what profitable instruction may be derived therefrom by priests, by seminarians especially, and, not least, by all Christian people.
4. Thomas possessed all the moral virtues to a very high degree and so closely bound together that, as he himself insists should be the case, they formed one whole in charity "which informs the acts of all the virtues" (II-II, xxiii, 8; I-II, Ixv). If, however, we seek to discover the peculiar and specific characteristics of his sanctity, there occurs to Us in the first place that virtue which gives Thomas a certain likeness to the angelic natures, and that is chastity; he preserved it unsullied in a crisis of the most pressing danger and was therefore considered worthy to be surrounded by the angels with a mystic girdle. This perfect regard for purity was accompanied at the same time by an equal aversion for fleeting possessions and a contempt for honors; it is recorded that his firmness of purpose overcame the obstinate persistence of relatives who strove their utmost to induce him to accept a lucrative situation in the world and that later, when the Supreme Pontiff would have offered him a mitre, his prayers were successful in securing that such a dread burden should not be laid upon him. The most distinctive feature, however, of the sanctity of Thomas is what St. Paul describes as the "word of wisdom" (I Cor. xii, 8) and that combination of the two forms of wisdom, the acquired and the infused, as they are termed, with which nothing accords so well as humility, devotion to prayer, and the love of God.
5. That humility was the foundation upon which the other virtues of Thomas were based is clear to anyone who considers how submissively he obeyed a lay brother in the course of their communal life; and it is no less patent to anyone reading his writings which manifest such respect for the Fathers of the Church that "because he had the utmost reverence for the doctors of antiquity, he seems to have inherited in a way the intellect of all" (Leo XIII, ex Card. Caietano, litt. Encycl. Aeterni Patris, 4th August, 1879); but the most magnificent illustration of it is to be found in the fact that he devoted the faculties of his divine intellect not in the least to gain glory for himself, but to the advancement of truth. Most philosophers as a rule are eager to establish their own reputations, but Thomas strove to efface himself completely in the teaching of his philosophy so that the light of heavenly truth might shine with its own effulgence.
6. This humility, therefore, combined with the purity of heart We have mentioned, and sedulous devotion to prayer, disposed the mind of Thomas to docility in receiving the inspirations of the Holy Ghost and following His illuminations, which are the first principles of contemplation. To obtain them from above, he would frequently fast, spend whole nights in prayer, lean his head in the fervor of his unaffected piety against the tabernacle containing the august Sacrament, constantly turn his eyes and mind in sorrow to the image of the crucified Jesus; and he confessed to his intimate friend St. Bonaventura that it was from that Book especially that he derived all his learning. It may, therefore, be truly said of Thomas what is commonly reported of St. Dominic, Father and Lawgiver, that in his conversation he never spoke but about God or with God.
7. But as he was accustomed to contemplate all things in God, the first Cause and ultimate End of all things, it was easy for him to follow in his Summa Theologica no less than in his life the two kinds of wisdom before referred to. He himself describes them as follows: "The wisdom which is acquired by human effort . . . gives a man a sound judgment with regard to divine things according as he makes a perfect use of reason. . . But there is another kind of wisdom which comes down from above . . . and judges divine things in virtue of a certain connaturality with them. This wisdom is the gift of the Holy Ghost . . . and through it a man becomes perfect in divine things, not only by learning but also by experiencing divine things" (II-II, xlv, 1, ad 2; 2).
8. This wisdom, therefore, which comes down from, or is infused by, God, accompanied by the other gifts of the Holy Ghost, continually grew and increased in Thomas, along with charity, the mistress and queen of all the virtues. Indeed it was an absolutely certain doctrine of his that the love of God should ever continually increase "in accordance with the very words of the commandment: 'Thou shalt love the Lord, thy God, with thy whole heart'; for the whole and the perfect are one same thing. . . Now the end of the commandment is charity from a pure heart, and a good conscience and an unfeigned faith, as the Apostle says (I Tim. i, 5), but no standard of measure is applicable to the end, but only to such things as conduce to the end (II-II, clxxxiv, 3)." This is the very reason why the perfection of charity falls under the commandment as the end to which we ought all to strive, each according to his degree. Moreover, as "it is the characteristic of charity to make man tend to God by uniting the affections of man to God in such a way that man ceases to live for himself and lives only for God" (II-II, xvii, 6, ad 3), so the love of God, continually increasing in Thomas along with that double wisdom, induced in him in the end such absolute forgetfulness of self that when Jesus spoke to him from the cross, saying: "Thomas, thou hast written well about me," and asked him: "What reward shall I give thee for all thy labor?" the saint made answer: "None but Thyself, O Lord!" Instinct with charity, therefore, he unceasingly continued to serve the convenience of others, not counting the cost, by writing admirable books, helping his brethren in their labors, depriving himself of his own garments to give them to the poor, even restoring the sick to health as, for example, when preaching in the Vatican Basilica on the occasion of the Easter celebrations, he suddenly cured a woman who had touched the hem of his habit of a chronic hemorrhage.
9. In what other Doctor was this "word of wisdom" mentioned by St. Paul more remarkable and abundant than in the Angelic Doctor? He was not satisfied with enlightening the minds of men by his teaching: he exerted himself strenuously to rouse their hearts to make a return of His love to God, the Creator of all things. "The love of God is the source and origin of goodness in things" he magnificently declares (1, xx, 2), and he ceaselessly illustrates this diffusion of the divine goodness in his discussion of every several mystery. "Hence it is of the nature of perfect good to communicate itself in a perfect way and this is done in a supreme degree by God . . . in the Incarnation" (III, i, I). Nothing, however, shows the force of his genius and charity so clearly as the Office which he himself composed for the august Sacrament. The words he uttered on his deathbed, as he was about to receive the holy Viaticuм, are the measure of his devotion to that Sacrament throughout his life: "I receive Thee, Price of the redemption of my soul, for the love of Whom I have studied, kept vigil and toiled."
10. After this slight sketch of the great virtues of Thomas, it is easy to understand the preeminence of his doctrine and the marvelous authority it enjoys in the Church. Our Predecessors, indeed, have always unanimously extolled it. Even during the lifetime of the saint, Alexander IV had no hesitation in addressing him in these terms: "To Our beloved son, Thomas Aquinas, distinguished alike for nobility of blood and integrity of character, who has acquired by the grace of God the treasure of divine and human learning." After his death, again, John XXII seemed to consecrate both his virtues and his doctrine when, addressing the Cardinals, he uttered in full Consistory the memorable sentence: "He alone enlightened the Church more than all other doctors; a man can derive more profit in a year from his books than from pondering all his life the teaching of others."
11. He enjoyed a more than human reputation for intellect and learning and Pius V was therefore moved to enroll him officially among the holy Doctors with the title of Angelic. Again, could there be any more manifest indication of the very high esteem in which this Doctor is held by the Church than the fact that the Fathers of Trent resolved that two volumes only, Holy Scripture and the Summa Theologica, should be reverently laid open on the altar during their deliberations? And in this order of ideas, to avoid recapitulating the innumerable testimonies of the Apostolic See, We are happy to recall that the philosophy of Aquinas was revived by the authority and at the instance of Leo XIII; the merit of Our illustrious Predecessor in so doing is such, as We have said elsewhere, that if he had not been the author of many acts and decrees of surpassing wisdom, this alone would be sufficient to establish his undying glory. Pope Pius X of saintly memory followed shortly afterwards in his footsteps, more particularly in his Motu Proprio Doctoris Angelici, in which this memorable phrase occurs: "For ever since the happy death of the Doctor, the Church has not held a single Council but he has been present at it with all the wealth of his doctrine." Closer to Us, Our greatly regretted Predecessor Benedict XV repeatedly declared that he was entirely of the same opinion and he is to be praised for having promulgated the Code of Canon Law in which "the system, philosophy and principles of the Angelic Doctor" are unreservedly sanctioned. We so heartily approve the magnificent tribute of praise bestowed upon this most divine genius that We consider that Thomas should be called not only the Angelic, but also the Common or Universal Doctor of the Church; for the Church has adopted his philosophy for her own, as innumerable docuмents of every kind attest. It would be an endless task to explain here all the reasons which moved Our Predecessors in this respect, and it will be sufficient perhaps to point out that Thomas wrote under the inspiration of the supernatural spirit which animated his life and that his writings, which contain the principles of, and the laws governing, all sacred studies, must be said to possess a universal character.
12. In dealing orally or in writing with divine things, he provides theologians with a striking example of the intimate connection which should exist between the spiritual and the intellectual life. For just as a man cannot really be said to know some distant country, if his acquaintance is confined merely to a description of it, however accurate, but must have dwelt in it for some time; so nobody can attain to an intimate knowledge of God by mere scientific investigation, unless he also dwells in the most intimate association with God. The aim of the whole theology of St. Thomas is to bring us into close living intimacy with God. For even as in his childhood at Monte Cassino he unceasingly put the question: "What is God?"; so all the books he wrote concerning the creation of the world, the nature of man, laws, the virtues, and the sacraments, are all concerned with God, the Author of eternal salvation.
13. Again, discussing the causes of the sterility of such studies, namely curiosity, that is to say the unbridled desire for knowledge, indolence of mind, aversion from effort and lack of perseverance, he insists that there is no other remedy than zeal in work with the fervor of piety which derives from the life of the spirit. Sacred studies, therefore, being directed by a triple light, undeviating reason, infused faith and the gifts of the Holy Ghost, by which the mind is brought to perfection, no one ever was more generously endowed with these than Our Saint. After spending all the riches of his intellect on some matter of exceptional difficulty, he would seek the solution of his problem from God by the most humble prayer and fasting; and God was wont to listen to His suppliant so kindly that He dispatched the Princes of the Apostles at times to instruct him. It is not therefore surprising that towards the end of his life he had risen to such a degree of contemplation as to declare that all he had written seemed to him mere chaff and that he was incapable of dictating another word; his eyes even then were fixed on eternity alone, his one desire was to see God. For, according to Thomas, by far the most important benefit to be derived from sacred studies, is that they inspire a man with a great love for God and a great longing for eternal things.
14. He not only instructs us by his example how to pursue such a diversity of studies, but also teaches us firm and enduring principles of each single science. For, in the first place, who has provided a better explanation than he of the nature and character of philosophy, its various divisions and the relative importance of each? Consider how clearly he demonstrates the congruence and harmony between all the various sections which go to make up the body as it were of this science. "It is the function of the wise man," he declares, "to put things in order, because wisdom is primarily the perfection of reason and it is the characteristic of reason to know order; for although the sensitive faculties know some things absolutely, only the intellect or reason can know the relation one thing bears to another. The sciences, therefore, vary according to the various forms of order which reason perceives to be peculiar to each. The order which the consideration of reason establishes in its own peculiar activity pertains to rational philosophy or logic, whose function is to consider the order of the parts of speech in their mutual relations and in relation to the conclusions which may be drawn from them. It is for natural philosophy or physics to consider the order in things which human reason considers but does not itself institute, so that under natural philosophy we include also metaphysics. But the order of voluntary acts is for the consideration of moral philosophy which is divided into three sections: the first considers the activities of the individual man in relation to their end and is called 'monastics'; the second considers the activities of the family group or community and is called economics; the third considers the activities of the State and is called politics" (Ethics, I, I). Thomas dealt thoroughly with all these several divisions of philosophy, each according to its appropriate method, and, beginning with things nearest to our human reason, rose step by step to things more remote until he stood in the end on "the topmost peak of all things" (Contra Gentes, II, lvi; IV, i).
15. His teaching with regard to the power or value of the human mind is irrefragable. "The human mind has a natural knowledge of being and the things which are in themselves part of being as such, and this knowledge is the foundation of our knowledge of first principles" (Contra Gentes, II, 1xxxiii). Such a doctrine goes to the root of the errors and opinions of those modern philosophers who maintain that it is not being itself which is perceived in the act of intellection, but some modification of the percipient; the logical consequence of such errors is agnosticism, which was so vigorously condemned in the Encyclical Pascendi.
16. The arguments adduced by St. Thomas to prove the existence of God and that God alone is subsisting Being Itself are still to-day, as they were in the Middle Ages, the most cogent of all arguments and clearly confirm that dogma of the Church which was solemnly proclaimed at the Vatican Council and succinctly expressed by Pius X as follows: "The certain knowledge of God as the first principle of creation and its end and demonstrable proof of His existence can be inferred, like the knowledge of a cause from its effect, by the light of the natural reason, from creation, that is to say the visible works of creation" (Motu Proprio Sacrorum Antistitum of the 1st September, 1910). The metaphysical philosophy of St. Thomas, although exposed to this day to the bitter onslaughts of prejudiced critics, yet still retains, like gold which no acid can dissolve, its full force and splendor unimpaired. Our Predecessor therefore rightly observed: "To deviate from Aquinas, in metaphysics especially, is to run grave risk" (Encycl. Pascendi of the 8th September, 1907).
17. Philosophy is undoubtedly a most noble science, but as things are not constituted by divine Providence, it must not be said to excel all others, because it does not embrace the whole universality of things. Indeed, in the introduction to his Summa Contra Gentes, as also to his Summa Theologica, the saintly Doctor describes another order of things set above nature and eluding the grasp of reason, an order which man would never have suspected unless the divine goodness had revealed it to him. This is the region in which faith is supreme, and the science of faith is called Theology. Science of this kind will be all the more perfect in man in proportion as he is the better acquainted with the evidence for faith and has at the same time a more fully developed and trained faculty of philosophizing. There can be no doubt that Aquinas raised Theology to the highest eminence, for his knowledge of divine things was absolutely perfect and the power of his mind made him a marvelously capable philosopher. Thomas is therefore considered the Prince of teachers in our schools, not so much on account of his philosophical system as because of his theological studies. There is no branch of theology in which he did not exercise the incredible fecundity of his genius.
18. For in the first place he established apologetics on a sound and genuine basis by defining exactly the difference between the province of reason and the province of faith and carefully distinguishing the natural and the supernatural orders. When the sacred Vatican Council, therefore, in determining what natural knowledge of religion was possible, affirmed the relative necessity of some divine revelation for sure and certain knowledge and the absolute necessity of divine revelation for knowledge of the mysteries, it employed arguments which were borrowed precisely from St. Thomas. He insists that all who undertake to defend the Christian faith shall hold sacrosanct the principle that: "It is not mere folly to assent to the things of faith although they are beyond reason" (Contra Gentes, I, vi). He shows that, although the articles of belief are mysterious and obscure, the reasons which persuade us to believe are nevertheless clear and perspicuous, for, says he, "a man would not believe unless he saw that there were things to be believed" (II-II, i, 4); and he adds that, so far from being considered a hindrance or a servile yoke imposed upon men, faith should, on the contrary, be reckoned a very great blessing, because "faith in us is a sort of beginning of eternal life" (Qq. disp. de Veritate, xiv, 2).
19. The other branch of Theology, which is concerned with the interpretation of dogmas, also found in St. Thomas by far the richest of all commentators; for nobody ever more profoundly penetrated or expounded with greater subtlety all the august mysteries, as, for example, the intimate life of God, the obscurity of eternal predestination, the supernatural government of the world, the faculty granted to rational creatures of attaining their end, the redemption of the human race achieved by Jesus Christ and continued by the Church and the sacraments, both of which the Angelic Doctor describes as "relics, so to speak, of the divine Incarnation."
20. He also composed a substantial moral theology, capable of directing all human acts in accordance with the supernatural last end of man. And as he is, as We have said, the perfect theologian, so he gives infallible rules and precepts of life not only for individuals, but also for civil and domestic society which is the object also of moral science, both economic and politic. Hence those superb chapters in the second part of the Summa Theologica on paternal or domestic government, the lawful power of the State or the nation, natural and international law, peace and war, justice and property, laws and the obedience they command, the duty of helping individual citizens in their need and co-operating with all to secure the prosperity of the State, both in the natural and the supernatural order. If these precepts were religiously and inviolably observed in private life and public affairs, and in the duties of mutual obligation between nations, nothing else would be required to secure mankind that "peace of Christ in the Kingdom of Christ" which the world so ardently longs for. It is therefore to be wished that the teachings of Aquinas, more particularly his exposition of international law and the laws governing the mutual relations of peoples, became more and more studied, for it contains the foundations of a genuine "League of Nations."
21. His eminence in the learning of asceticism and mysticism is no less remarkable; for he brought the whole science of morals back to the theory of the virtues and gifts, and marvelously defined both the science and the theory in relation to the various conditions of men, both those who strive to attain Christian perfection and fullness of spirit, in the active no less than in the contemplative life. If anyone, therefore, desires to understand fully all the implications of the commandment to love God, the growth of charity and the conjoined gifts of the Holy Ghost, the differences between the various states of life, such as the state of perfection, the religious life and the apostolate, and the nature and value of each, all these and other articles of ascetical and mystical theology, he must have recourse in the first place to the Angelic Doctor.
22. Everything he wrote was securely based upon Holy Scripture and that was the foundation upon which he built. For as he was convinced that Scripture was entirely and in every particular the true word of God, he carefully submitted the interpretation of it to those very rules which Our recent Predecessors have sanctioned, Leo XIII in his Encyclical Providentissimus Deus and Benedict XV in his Encyclical Spiritus Paraclitus. He laid down the principle "The chief Author of Sacred Scripture is the Holy Ghost. . . But man was the instrumental author" (Quodlib., vii, 14, ad 5), and would not allow the absolute historicity of the Bible to be doubted; but on the basis of the meaning of the words or literal sense he established the fecundity and riches of the spiritual sense, the triple nature of which, allegorical, tropological and anagogical, he expounded with the most ingenious commentary.
23. Lastly, our Doctor possessed the exceptional and highly privileged gift of being able to convert his precepts into liturgical prayers and hymns and so became the poet and panegyrist of the Divine Eucharist. For wherever the Catholic Church is to be found in the world among whatsoever nations, there she zealously uses and ever will continue to use in her sacred services the hymns composed by St. Thomas. They are the expression of the ardent supplications of a soul in prayer and at the same time a perfect statement of the doctrine of the august Sacrament transmitted by the Apostles, which is pre-eminently described as the Mystery of Faith. If these considerations are borne in mind as well as the praise bestowed by Christ Himself to which We have already referred, nobody will be surprised that St. Thomas should also have received the title of the Doctor of the Eucharist.
24. The following very relevant conclusions may be drawn from all that has gone before. Let Our young men especially consider the example of St. Thomas and strive diligently to imitate the eminent virtues which adorn his character, his humility above all, which is the foundation of the spiritual life, and his chastity. Let them learn from this man of supreme intellect and consummate learning to abhor all pride of mind and to obtain by humble prayer a flood of divine light upon their studies; let them learn from his teaching to shun nothing so sedulously as the blandishments of sensual pleasure, so that they may bring the eyes of the mind undimmed to the contemplation of wisdom. For he confirmed by his precept, as We have said, his own practice in life: "To abstain from the pleasures of the Body so as to be certain of greater leisure and liberty for the contemplation of truth is to act in conformity with the dictates of reason" (II-II, clvii, 2).
Wherefore we are warned in Holy Scripture: ". . . wisdom will not enter into a malicious soul, nor dwell in a body subject to sins" (Wisdom, i, 4). If the purity of Thomas therefore had failed in the extreme peril into which, as we have seen, it had fallen, it is very probable that the Church would never have had her Angelic Doctor.
25. Inasmuch, therefore, as We see the majority of young men, caught in the quicksands of passion, rapidly jettisoning holy purity and abandoning themselves to sensual pleasures, We instantly exhort you, Venerable Brethren, to propagate everywhere, and particularly among seminarians, the society of the Angelic Militia founded under the patronage of Thomas for the preservation and maintenance of holy chastity and We confirm the privileges of pontifical indulgences heaped upon it by Benedict XIII and others of Our Predecessors. And that the Faithful may be persuaded the more eagerly to enroll in this Militia, We grant members of it the privilege of wearing instead of a cord a medal round the neck impressed on the obverse with a picture of St. Thomas and the angels surrounding him with a girdle and on the reverse a picture of Our Lady, Queen of the Most Holy Rosary.
26. But inasmuch as St. Thomas has been duly proclaimed patron of all Catholic schools because he marvelously combined both forms of wisdom, the rational and the divinely inspired, because he had recourse to prayer and fasting to solve the most difficult problems, because he used the image of Christ crucified in place of all books, let him be a model also for seminarians, so that they may learn how to pursue their studies to the best advantage and with the greatest profit to themselves. Members of religious communities should look upon the life of St. Thomas as upon a mirror; he refused even the highest dignities offered to him in order to live in the practice of the most perfect obedience and to die in the sanctity of his profession. Let all the Faithful of Christ take the Angelic Doctor as a model of devotion to the august Queen of Heaven, for it was his custom often to repeat the "Hail Mary" and to inscribe the sweet Name upon his pages, and let them ask the Doctor of the Eucharist himself to inspire them with love for the divine Sacrament. Priests above all will be zealous in so doing, as is only proper. "For Thomas was accustomed, unless prevented by illness, to say Mass daily and heard another Mass said by his socius or some other friar which he very often served," declares the careful historian of his life. But could anyone find words to express the spiritual fervor with which he said Mass himself, the anxious care with which he made his preparation, the thanksgivings he offered to the divine Majesty after he had said it?
27. Again, if we are to avoid the errors which are the source and fountain-head of all the miseries of our time, the teaching of Aquinas must be adhered to more religiously than ever. For Thomas refutes the theories propounded by Modernists in every sphere, in philosophy, by protecting, as We have reminded you, the force and power of the human mind and by demonstrating the existence of God by the most cogent arguments; in dogmatic theology, by distinguishing the supernatural from the natural order and explaining the reasons for belief and the dogmas themselves; in theology, by showing that the articles of faith are not based upon mere opinion but upon truth and therefore cannot possibly change; in exegesis, by transmitting the true conception of divine inspiration; in the science of morals, in sociology and law, by laying down sound principles of legal and social, commutative and distributive, justice and explaining the relations between justice and charity; in the theory of asceticism, by his precepts concerning the perfection of the Christian life and his confutation of the enemies of the religious orders in his own day. Lastly, against the much vaunted liberty of the human reason and its independence in regard to God he asserts the rights of primary Truth and the authority over us of the Supreme Master. It is therefore clear why Modernists are so amply justified in fearing no Doctor of the Church so much as Thomas Aquinas.
28. Accordingly, just as it was said to the Egyptians of old in time of famine: "Go to Joseph," so that they should receive a supply of corn from him to nourish their bodies, so We now say to all such as are desirous of the truth: "Go to Thomas," and ask him to give you from his ample store the food of substantial doctrine wherewith to nourish your souls unto eternal life. Evidence that such food is ready to hand and accessible to all men was given on oath at the hearing of the case for the canonization of Thomas himself, in the following words: "Innumerable secular and religious masters flourished under the lucid and limpid teaching of this Doctor, because his method was concise, clear and easily followed . . . even laymen and persons of little instruction are eager to possess his writings."
29. We desire those especially who are engaged in teaching the higher studies in seminaries sedulously to observe and inviolably to maintain the decrees of Our Predecessors, more particularly those of Leo XIII (the Encyclical Aeterni Patris), and Pius X (the Motu Proprio Doctoris Angelici) and the instructions We Ourselves issued last year. Let them be persuaded that they will discharge their duty and fulfill Our expectation when, after long and diligent perusal of his writings, they begin to feel an intense devotion for the Doctor Aquinas and by their exposition of him succeed in inspiring their pupils with like fervor and train them to kindle a similar zeal in others.
30. We desire that lovers of St. Thomas-and all sons of the Church who devote themselves to higher studies should be so-be incited by an honorable rivalry in a just and proper freedom which is the life-blood of studies, but let no spirit of malevolent disparagement prevail among them, for any such, so far from helping truth, serves only to loosen the bonds of charity. Let everyone therefore inviolably observe the prescription contained in the Code of Canon Law that "teachers shall deal with the studies of mental philosophy and theology and the education of their pupils in such sciences according to the method, doctrine and principles of the Angelic Doctor and religiously adhere thereto"; and may they conform to this rule so faithfully as to be able to describe him in very truth as their master. Let none require from another more than the Church, the mistress and mother of all, requires from each: and in questions, which in Catholic schools are matter of controversy between the most reputable authorities, let none be prevented from adhering to whatever opinion seems to him the more probable.
31. Therefore, as it behooves the whole of Christendom worthily to celebrate this centenary-because in honoring St. Thomas something greater is involved than the reputation of St. Thomas and that is the authority of the teaching Church-We desire that such celebration shall take place throughout the world from the 18th July until the end of next year wherever seminarians are in regular course of instruction, that is to say not only among the Preaching Friars, an Order which, in the words of Benedict XV, "must be praised, not so much for having been the family of the Angelic Doctor, as for having never afterwards departed so much as a hair's breadth from his teaching" (Acta Ap. Sedis, viii, 1916, p. 397), but among other religious communities also, and in all seminaries and Catholic colleges and schools to which he has been appointed for heavenly patron. It is only proper that this Eternal City in which Aquinas was once master of the Sacred Palace should take the lead in holding such celebrations and that the Pontifical Angelical College, where St. Thomas may be said to be at home, and the other academies in Rome for the education of priests set the example in these holy rejoicings.
32. In virtue of Our Apostolic power and for the purpose of increasing the splendor and profit to be derived from this celebration, We grant the following privileges:
1) That in all churches belonging to the Order of Preachers and in all other churches or chapels to which the public has or may have access, more particularly in seminaries, colleges or other institutions for the education of priests, prayers may be said for three or eight or nine days with the pontifical indulgences attaching to them which customarily attach to prayers said in honor of the saints and the blessed;
2) That in the churches of the Friars and the Sisters of St. Dominic the faithful may once on any day they choose in the course of the centenary celebrations, after duly confessing their sins and receiving Holy Communion, obtain a plenary indulgence toties quoties they pray before the altar of St. Thomas;
3) That in churches of the Order of St. Dominic, priests, members of the Order or tertiaries, may, in the course of the centenary year on any Wednesday or the first free day of the week, celebrate Mass in honor of St. Thomas, as on his feast-day, with or without the Gloria and the Credo, according to the ritual of the day, and obtain a plenary remission of sins; those present at any such Mass may also obtain a like indulgence on the usual conditions.
33. In addition, a disputation shall be held in seminaries and other institutions for the education of priests on some point of philosophy or other important branch of learning in honor of the Angelic Doctor. And that the festival of St. Thomas may be kept in future in a manner worthy of the patron of all Catholic schools, We order it to be kept as a holiday and celebrated not only with a High Mass, but also, at any rate in seminaries and among religious communities, by the holding-of a disputation as aforesaid.
34. Finally, that the studies to which Our young people devote themselves may, under the patronage of Aquinas, daily yield more and more fruit for the glory of God and the Church, We append to this Letter the form of prayer which the Saint himself was accustomed to use and exhort you to see that it be widely published. Let any person duly reciting it know that by Our authority an indulgence of seven years and seven quarantines is granted him.
35. As an augury of divine favor and in testimony of Our paternal benevolence, We most affectionately grant you, Venerable Brethren, and the clergy and people committed to your care the Apostolic Blessing.
Given at Rome at St. Peter's on the 29th day of June, the feast of the Princes of the Apostles, in the year 1923, the second year of Our Pontificate.
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In the Encyclical "Pascendi", prescribing remedies against Modernism, Pius X, following in this his illustrious predecessor, gives the first place to "Scholastic philosophy, especially as it was taught by Thomas Aquinas"; St. Thomas is still "The Angel of the Schools".
http://www.newadvent.org/adverts/99001f.htm
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If we all blindly followed Scholasticism, then we'd all end up in hell for denying several dogmas.
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Sorry Greg, I am not going to waste time reading what you are pushing or debating it all with you. I would rather read the canonized works of St. Thomas anyday.
If Thomas Aquinas spent more time studying the refutations of St. Augustine and the teachings of the Church, and less time studying Aristotle and Greek philosophy, then maybe he wouldn't have fallen into Pelagianism.
That is a shameful and bold attack on the Angelic Doctor, from a comparative nobody.
Tell your story to St Thomas and ask him to help you. He has been canonized and is in heaven now, also having been proclaimed a Doctor of the Church for his preeminence as a theologian. He will help you if you pray to him sincerely.
Try praying to St. Augustine for light to come out of the darkness that is Pelagianism.
I am not a Pelagian.
I am A Roman Catholic.
I pray to St Augustine.
I pray to St Thomas Aquinas.
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Sorry Greg, I am not going to waste time reading what you are pushing or debating it all with you. I would rather read the canonized works of St. Thomas anyday.
If Thomas Aquinas spent more time studying the refutations of St. Augustine and the teachings of the Church, and less time studying Aristotle and Greek philosophy, then maybe he wouldn't have fallen into Pelagianism.
That is a shameful and bold attack on the Angelic Doctor, from a comparative nobody.
Tell your story to St Thomas and ask him to help you. He has been canonized and is in heaven now, also having been proclaimed a Doctor of the Church for his preeminence as a theologian. He will help you if you pray to him sincerely.
Try praying to St. Augustine for light to come out of the darkness that is Pelagianism.
I am not a Pelagian.
I am A Roman Catholic.
I pray to St Augustine.
I pray to St Thomas Aquinas.
Do you believe that the unbaptized (particularly children) are innocent of any damnable sin, painless, in bliss, and in the presence of God?
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Sorry Greg, I am not going to waste time reading what you are pushing or debating it all with you. I would rather read the canonized works of St. Thomas anyday.
If Thomas Aquinas spent more time studying the refutations of St. Augustine and the teachings of the Church, and less time studying Aristotle and Greek philosophy, then maybe he wouldn't have fallen into Pelagianism.
That is a shameful and bold attack on the Angelic Doctor, from a comparative nobody.
Tell your story to St Thomas and ask him to help you. He has been canonized and is in heaven now, also having been proclaimed a Doctor of the Church for his preeminence as a theologian. He will help you if you pray to him sincerely.
Try praying to St. Augustine for light to come out of the darkness that is Pelagianism.
I am not a Pelagian.
I am A Roman Catholic.
I pray to St Augustine.
I pray to St Thomas Aquinas.
Do you believe that the unbaptized (particularly children) are innocent of any damnable sin, painless, in bliss, and in the presence of God?
I believe what is de fide.
Do you believe you are an Inquisitor?
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Do you believe that the unbaptized (particularly children) are innocent of any damnable sin, painless, in bliss, and in the presence of God?
I believe what is de fide.
Do you believe you are an Inquisitor?
That's an evasive answer. Do you believe in those Pelagian heresies or not? If you don't, then you should have no problem professing your Catholic faith and condemning those Pelagian doctrines.
I'm not an official Inquisitor in the "court of the Inquisition" sense, no. I am an inquirer and defender of the teachings of the Catholic Church, as all Catholics are supposed to be.
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Dogmatic Teachings Against Pelagianism
Any doctrine of 'Limbo' that is understood to be a guiltless, painless, blissful place, lacking all punishment, in the presence of God, and/or in a middle place (or any place other than the Hell of the Damned) is a Pelagian Fable.
Pope St. Zosimus, Sixteenth Council of Carthage, Canon 2 (418 AD):
"If any man says that new-born children need not be baptized, or that they should indeed be baptized for the remission of sins, but that they have in them no original sin inherited from Adam which must be washed away in the bath of regeneration, so that in their ease the formula of baptism 'for the remission of sins' must not be taken literally, but figuratively[/u], let him be anathema."
Pope St. Zosimus, Sixteenth Council of Carthage, Canon 3.1 (418 AD):
"If any man says that in the kingdom of heaven or elsewhere there is a certain middle place, where children who die unbaptized live in bliss, whereas without baptism they cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven, that is, into eternal life, let him be anathema. For when the Lord says: 'Unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Spirit, he shall not enter into the kingdom of God', what Catholic will doubt that he will be a partner of the devil who has not deserved to be a coheir of Christ? For he who lacks the right part will without doubt run to the left."
Pope Gregory X, Second Council of Lyons, Profession of Faith Transcribed For Michael Palaeologus (1274 AD):
"The souls of those who die in mortal sin or only with original sin go down into hell, but there they receive unequal punishments."
Pope Eugene IV, Council of Florence, Bull Laetentur Coeli (Definition), Session 6 (1439 AD):
"But the souls of those who depart this life in actual mortal sin, or in original sin alone, go down straightaway to hell to be punished, but with unequal pains."
Pope Eugene IV, Council of Florence, Exultate Deo (Bull of Union With the Armenians), Session 8 (1439 AD):
"Holy baptism holds the first place among all the sacraments, for it is the gate of the spiritual life; through it we become members of Christ and of the body of the church. Since death came into the world through one person, unless we are born again of water and the spirit, we cannot, as Truth says, enter the kingdom of heaven... The effect of this sacrament is the remission of all original and actual guilt, also of all penalty that is owed for that guilt."
Pope Eugene IV, Council of Florence, Bull Cantate Domino (Bull of Union With the Copts), Session 11 (1442 AD):
"With regard to children, since the danger of death is often present and the only remedy available to them is the sacrament of baptism by which they are snatched away from the dominion of the devil and adopted as children of God..."
Council of Trent, Session 5, Chapter 2, Decree On Original Sin (1546 AD):
"If any one asserts, that the prevarication of Adam injured himself alone, and not his posterity; and that the holiness and justice, received of God, which he lost, he lost for himself alone, and not for us also; or that he, being defiled by the sin of disobedience, has only transfused death, and pains of the body, into the whole human race, but not sin also, which is the death of the soul; let him be anathema:--whereas he contradicts the apostle who says; By one man sin entered into the world, and by sin death, and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned."
Council of Trent, Session 5, Chapter 4, Decree On Original Sin (1546 AD):
"If any one denies, that infants, newly born from their mothers' wombs, even though they be sprung from baptized parents, are to be baptized; or says that they are baptized indeed for the remission of sins, but that they derive nothing of original sin from Adam, which has need of being expiated by the laver of regeneration for the obtaining life everlasting,--whence it follows as a consequence, that in them the form of baptism, for the remission of sins, is understood to be not true, but false, --let him be anathema... For, by reason of this rule of faith, from a tradition of the apostles, even infants, who could not as yet commit any sin of themselves, are for this cause truly baptized for the remission of sins, that in them that may be cleansed away by regeneration, which they have contracted by generation. For, unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
Council of Trent, Session 5, Chapter 5 Decree On Original Sin (1546 AD):
"If any one denies, that, by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is conferred in baptism, the guilt of original sin is remitted; or even asserts that the whole of that which has the true and proper nature of sin is not taken away; but says that it is only rased, or not imputed; let him be anathema."
Council of Trent, Session 6, Chapter 1, Decree On Justification (1547 AD):
"The holy Synod declares first, that, for the correct and sound understanding of the doctrine of Justification, it is necessary that each one recognise and confess, that, whereas all men had lost their innocence in the prevarication of Adam-having become unclean, and, as the apostle says, by nature children of wrath, as has set forth in the decree on original sin,-they were so far the servants of sin, and under the power of the devil and of death, that not the Gentiles only by the force of nature, but not even the Jews by the very letter itself of the law of Moses, were able to be liberated..."
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Do you believe that the unbaptized (particularly children) are innocent of any damnable sin, painless, in bliss, and in the presence of God?
I believe what is de fide.
Do you believe you are an Inquisitor?
That's an evasive answer. Do you believe in those Pelagian heresies or not? If you don't, then you should have no problem professing your Catholic faith and condemning those Pelagian doctrines.
I'm not an official Inquisitor in the "court of the Inquisition" sense, no. I am an inquirer and defender of the teachings of the Catholic Church, as all Catholics are supposed to be.
I profess the Faith, and I defend it. I adhere to no heresies and I condemn all heresies that Holy Mother Church condemns.
Do you think that St Thomas held beliefs that are heretical?
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The authorities cited do not establish the point. Here's why.
Everyone who denies the presence of a common doctrine practically equivalent to what we now call limbo in the early patristic tradition should read the Catholic Encyclopedia article on this subject found here (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09256a.htm) which Rhea earlier cited.
Selected Excerpts
There is no evidence to prove that any Greek or Latin Father before St. Augustine ever taught that original sin of itself involved any severer penalty after death than exclusion from the beatific vision, and this, by the Greek Fathers at least, was always regarded as being strictly supernatural.
Thus, according to Gregory[of nαzιanzus], for children dying without baptism, and excluded for want of the "seal" from the "honor" or gratuitous favor of seeing God face to face, an intermediate or neutral state is admissible, which, unlike that of the personally wicked, is free from positive punishment.
In his earlier writings St. Augustine himself agrees with the common tradition ... But this [later] Augustinian teaching was an innovation in its day, and the history of subsequent Catholic speculation on this subject is taken up chiefly with the reaction which has ended in a return to the pre-Augustinian tradition.
Pope Innocent's teaching is to the effect that those dying with only original sin on their souls will suffer "no other pain, whether from material fire or from the worm of conscience, except the pain of being deprived forever of the vision of God" (Corp. Juris, Decret. l. III, tit. xlii, c. iii — Majores).
(Comment: This suffices to establish that no one can accuse this view of being heretical without falling into schism himself, unless he was a sedevacantist who goes centuries back. It is at the least a permissible theological opinion.)
Only professed Augustinians like Noris and Berti, or out-and-out Jansenists like the Bishop of Pistoia, whose famous diocesan synod furnished eighty-five propositions for condemnation by Pius VI (1794), supported the harsh teaching of Petavius. The twenty-sixth of these propositions ... condemned by the pope as being "false and rash and as slander of the Catholic schools" (Denz. 526).
This condemnation was practically the death-knell of extreme Augustinianism, while the mitigate Augustinianism of Bellarmine and Bossuet had already been rejected by the bulk of Catholic theologians.
As to some points raised by you, Gregory,
1. Original sin formally is, in the classic definition of the Angelic Doctor, "the privation of original justice" or, of indwelling sanctifying grace. In no wise, therefore, do I deny that those dying in original sin suffer the deprivation of the beatific vision. This follows necessarily.
And when the indescribable blessedness of the beatific vision that the Saints enjoy in paradise is appropriately understood, it will be recognized, as said in the article, that this is a true penalty indeed, objectively considered, and those who delay baptism therefore sin grievously and incomprehensibly.
2. I believe the above post answers "1 to 4" of your post. Now, importantly, coming to Lyons II and Florence, it must be understood that these are effectively reunion Councils. They did not define new dogmas strictly so called that had not been ironed out in the schools, but proposed to the Greeks and other schismatics the necessary objects of Catholic faith they were bound to confess. In many places these Councils repeat the view of the Angelic Doctor verbatim.
I quote again,
Finally, in regard to the teaching of the Council of Florence, it is incredible that the Fathers there assembled had any intention of defining a question so remote from the issue on which reunion with the Greeks depended, and one which was recognized at the time as being open to free discussion and continued to be so regarded by theologians for several centuries afterwards.
What the council evidently intended to deny in the passage alleged was the postponement of final awards until the day of judgement. Those dying in original sin are said to descend into Hell, but this does not necessarily mean anything more than that they are excluded eternally from the vision of God.
3. You've already conceded that like St.John the Baptist, some were sanctified in the womb. This is the plain teaching of the Angelic Doctor, that some may be subject to a similar cleansing even now, as a kind of privilege and that such actually removes from original sin and is therefore an extraordinary means of the sacrament. This intention then may be raised up to God in prayer and the good God may see fit to grant it through His own means, or the good God may not.
Expecting you to cite the later Councils, I mentioned Suarez who lived after Florence and even Trent as typical of what was recognized by theologians and the Church as open to free discussion. Moreover, Ludwig Ott can accurately be said to represent a peer-reviewed publication the theological consensus of Catholic scholars in the last century, all of whom were well aware of Florence.
So it isn't a question, all told, of the Ecuмenical Councils, but of your interpretation of them which you impose without a mandate from the Church against the studied interpretation of several other theologians in the last century who were never condemned in their day.
4. In the light of all that has been said therefore, even apart from a decision by the Catholic Church which I believe has come, for the faithful Catholic mother, say, who suffers a miscarraige, it would be lawful to submit in prayerful hope to divine Providence the intention of meeting her child in the heavenly kingdom.
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You know, I was thinking about this last night and today, and I really want to remain within the bounds of Charity here. SO, while I disagree, I hope to do it AMICABLY, instead of self-righteously.
So, Nishant, here is what I think:
As to some points raised by you, Gregory,
1. Original sin formally is, in the classic definition of the Angelic Doctor, "the privation of original justice" or, of indwelling sanctifying grace. In no wise, therefore, do I deny that those dying in original sin suffer the deprivation of the beatific vision. This follows necessarily.
Wait. Stop. Original sin is NOT ONLY the privation of original justice, but also the the actual personal participation in the GUILT of the sin of Adam.
Council of Trent Session 5. Paragraph 3.
"If any one asserts, that this sin of Adam,--which in its origin is one, and being transfused into all by propogation, not by imitation, is in each one as his own, --is taken away either by the powers of human nature, or by any other remedy than the merit of the one mediator, our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath reconciled us to God in his own blood, made unto us justice, santification, and redemption; or if he denies that the said merit of Jesus Christ is applied, both to adults and to infants, by the sacrament of baptism rightly administered in the form of the church; let him be anathema: For there is no other name under heaven given to men, whereby we must be [Page 23] saved. Whence that voice; Behold the lamb of God behold him who taketh away the sins of the world; and that other; As many as have been baptized, have put on Christ."
AND part of those consequences are being under the wrath of God, a slave to the devil, subject to cupidity, and incapable of being supernaturally pleasing.
1. "If any one does not confess that the first man, Adam, when he had transgressed the commandment of God in Paradise, immediately lost the holiness and justice wherein he had been constituted; and that he incurred, through the offence of that prevarication, the wrath and indignation of God, and consequently death, with which God had previously threatened him, and, together with death, captivity under his power who thenceforth had the empire of death, that is to say, the devil, and that the entire Adam, through that offence of prevarication, was changed, in body and soul, for the worse; let him be anathema."
2. "If any one asserts, that the prevarication of Adam injured himself alone, and not his posterity; and that the holiness and justice, received of God, which he lost, he lost for himself alone, and not for us also; or that he, being defiled by the sin of disobedience, has only transfused death, and pains of the body, into the whole human race, but not sin also, which is the death of the soul; let him be anathema:--whereas he contradicts the apostle who says; By one man sin entered into the world, and by sin death, and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned."
And when the indescribable blessedness of the beatific vision that the Saints enjoy in paradise is appropriately understood, it will be recognized, as said in the article, that this is a true penalty indeed, objectively considered, and those who delay baptism therefore sin grievously and incomprehensibly.
Wait. There is no PUNISHMENT where the penalty is not experienced. St. Thomas repeatedly says that the condemned infant does not know of his loss. In what therefore does his punishment consist? It is the same problem that reincarnation-ists have: Reincarnation is unjust because there can be no effective learning of mistakes because nobody knows what they did wrong in a past life. Similarly, If the unbaptized infant has no knowledge of what he has lost, there is no effective punishment, and therefore, how is justice fulfilled? Original sin is a punishable offence.
It makes FAR MORE sense to say that the unbaptized infant is made aware of Christ and of his lack, and experiences a kind of eternal sorrow and gloom. It would be condemned to say that this view is Pelagian simply because it lacks the punishment of fire. That is what Auctorem Fide is condemning. This was the view of Peter Abelard. It is not my view however.
2. I believe the above post answers "1 to 4" of your post. Now, importantly, coming to Lyons II and Florence, it must be understood that these are effectively reunion Councils. They did not define new dogmas strictly so called that had not been ironed out in the schools, but proposed to the Greeks and other schismatics the necessary objects of Catholic faith they were bound to confess. In many places these Councils repeat the view of the Angelic Doctor verbatim.
I quote again,
Quote:
Finally, in regard to the teaching of the Council of Florence, it is incredible that the Fathers there assembled had any intention of defining a question so remote from the issue on which reunion with the Greeks depended, and one which was recognized at the time as being open to free discussion and continued to be so regarded by theologians for several centuries afterwards.
What the council evidently intended to deny in the passage alleged was the postponement of final awards until the day of judgement. Those dying in original sin are said to descend into Hell, but this does not necessarily mean anything more than that they are excluded eternally from the vision of God.
But it DOES, because it says they are PUNISHED. And punishment must be subjectively experienced to be JUST.
Once again, the context is actually irrelevant. We are BOUND to understand the dogmas on their face, and as presented.
Vatican I clearly taught that NO ONE may rescind from the clear meaning of a dogma on the grounds of a "deeper interpretation."
3. You've already conceded that like St.John the Baptist, some were sanctified in the womb. This is the plain teaching of the Angelic Doctor, that some may be subject to a similar cleansing even now, as a kind of privilege and that such actually removes from original sin and is therefore an extraordinary means of the sacrament. This intention then may be raised up to God in prayer and the good God may see fit to grant it through His own means, or the good God may not.
Yes, before the advent of Pentecost when Baptism was made OBLIGATORY UPON ALL. Circuмcision was not. TO whom much is given (the world) much will be required (conversion).
Expecting you to cite the later Councils, I mentioned Suarez who lived after Florence and even Trent as typical of what was recognized by theologians and the Church as open to free discussion. Moreover, Ludwig Ott can accurately be said to represent a peer-reviewed publication the theological consensus of Catholic scholars in the last century, all of whom were well aware of Florence.
As I said, the dogmas are clear, the teaching of the XVI council of Carthage is clear, its promulgation as the teaching of the Catholic Church is clear, its ratification at Ephesus and Nicea II is clear, and 800 years of unquestioned Augustinian teaching and the teaching of the Latin Fathers is clear.
So it isn't a question, all told, of the Ecuмenical Councils, but of your interpretation of them which you impose without a mandate from the Church against the studied interpretation of several other theologians in the last century who were never condemned in their day.
False. It is about adherence to the clear and manifest Augustinian teaching which the church has adopted as its own, in its OWN WORDS.
I know it's hard, but that's the truth. History bearing witness, and the dogmas of the church.
4. In the light of all that has been said therefore, even apart from a decision by the Catholic Church which I believe has come, for the faithful Catholic mother, say, who suffers a miscarraige, it would be lawful to submit in prayerful hope to divine Providence the intention of meeting her child in the heavenly kingdom.
"The Roman Church teaches... that the souls of those who depart in mortal sin or with only original sin descend immediately to hell, nevertheless to be punished with different punishments and in disparate locations..."
-Pope John XXII, Nequaquam Sine Dolore, 1321 AD
"Likewise, whoever says that those children who depart out of this life without partaking of that Sacrament (Baptism) are alive in Christ, certainly contradicts the apostolic declaration and condemns the universal Church, in which it is the practice to loose no time and run in haste to administer Baptism to infant children, because it is believed as an indubitable truth, that otherwise they cannot be made alive in Christ."
-Saint Augustine, Father and Doctor of the Church, Epistle 167, AD 415
“The idea that infants can be granted the rewards of eternal life without even the grace of baptism is utterly foolish.”
-Pope Saint Innocent I, Letter to the Bishops of the Church, 417 AD
“Regarding children, indeed, because of danger of death, which can often take place, since no help can be brought to them by another remedy than through the sacrament of baptism, through which they are snatched from the domination of the devil and adopted among the sons of God, [the sacrosanct Roman Church] advises that holy baptism ought not to be deferred for forty or eighty days, ... but it should be conferred as soon as it can be done conveniently…”
-Pope Eugene IV, Council of Florence, Cantate Domino, February 4, 1442
Ecuмenical COUNCIL.
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If we all blindly followed Scholasticism, then we'd all end up in hell for denying several dogmas.
That could be true, for example the DOGMA of the immaculate conception. But I BELIEVE the Franciscan defenders of this dogma were also scholastics, correct?
I am not against Scholasticism per se. It is a fully coherent system of christian philosophical thought and has its place, for sure. The problem for me is when certain theologians appear to deny, or to mitigate, what the dogmas of the church and the teaching of the popes had been for 800 years.
Isn't that the opposite of tradition?
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Do you believe that the unbaptized (particularly children) are innocent of any damnable sin, painless, in bliss, and in the presence of God?
I believe what is de fide.
Do you believe you are an Inquisitor?
That's an evasive answer. Do you believe in those Pelagian heresies or not? If you don't, then you should have no problem professing your Catholic faith and condemning those Pelagian doctrines.
I'm not an official Inquisitor in the "court of the Inquisition" sense, no. I am an inquirer and defender of the teachings of the Catholic Church, as all Catholics are supposed to be.
I profess the Faith, and I defend it. I adhere to no heresies and I condemn all heresies that Holy Mother Church condemns.
Do you think that St Thomas held beliefs that are heretical?
Yet you refuse to answer regarding the Pelagian doctrines.
Thomas held several heretical beliefs, some of which were heretical prior to his birth (ex: Pelagianism) and some of which were heresy only after his death (ex: denial of the Immaculate Conception). Thomas was condemned for several counts of heresy in 1277.
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Do you believe that the unbaptized (particularly children) are innocent of any damnable sin, painless, in bliss, and in the presence of God?
I believe what is de fide.
Do you believe you are an Inquisitor?
That's an evasive answer. Do you believe in those Pelagian heresies or not? If you don't, then you should have no problem professing your Catholic faith and condemning those Pelagian doctrines.
I'm not an official Inquisitor in the "court of the Inquisition" sense, no. I am an inquirer and defender of the teachings of the Catholic Church, as all Catholics are supposed to be.
I profess the Faith, and I defend it. I adhere to no heresies and I condemn all heresies that Holy Mother Church condemns.
Do you think that St Thomas held beliefs that are heretical?
Yet you refuse to answer regarding the Pelagian doctrines.
Thomas held several heretical beliefs, some of which were heretical prior to his birth (ex: Pelagianism) and some of which were heresy only after his death (ex: denial of the Immaculate Conception). Thomas was condemned for several counts of heresy in 1277.
I neglected to answer your interrogation in the manner you wanted.
I can recite any creed of the Catholic Church. I do not need to submit to you or answer you in the manner that you demand.
Why don't you refer to him as Saint Thomas?
Do you believe he is a canonised saint and a Doctor of the Church?
The church did not comndemn St Thomas of heresy. Who cares if you or others did and do?
You have already been exposed for numerous errors in this thread alone. You even have been corrected on some of them by Catholics here (including some corrections by a sympathizer of yours). Any reasonable Catholic would do well to place their trust in St Thomas rather then the likes of you.
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But I BELIEVE the Franciscan defenders of this dogma were also scholastics, correct?
Not all of them. Most of them adopted their own form of anti-Thomist Scholasticism after Bonaventure adopted it. Alexander of Hales was a Scholastic before him, but it wasn't really until Bonaventure (and later Duns Scotus) that it became very widespread among Franciscans. Not all of the Dominicans were Scholastics at first either.
St. Francis and St. Dominic were not Scholastics either. Men like Bonaventure, Scotus, and Thomas departed from the spirit and intentions of the founders of these orders. Sitting in a university babbling about metaphysics and the cosmos is exactly the opposite of what St. Dominic and St. Francis envisioned for their orders.
I am not against Scholasticism per se. It is a fully coherent system of christian philosophical thought and has its place, for sure. The problem for me is when certain theologians appear to deny, or to mitigate, what the dogmas of the church and the teaching of the popes had been for 800 years.
It's a most incoherent system of perverse Greek rationalist syncretism. Essentially the "modernism" of the 1200's. That is why certain theologians deny and mitigate the dogmas of the Church and the teachings of the popes prior to the Scholastic era - they're modernists.
This is why the traditionalist movement is going nowhere, and why Pius X utterly failed in his mission to stop 20th century modernism; they're trying to fight 20th century modernism with 13th century modernism. Two sides of the same coin.
Isn't that the opposite of tradition?
The opposite of tradition would be opposing Apostolic Tradition, which (according to all the early councils) the unanimous teachings of the fathers gives witness to, and the dogmatic teachings of the popes and councils. Certainly many theologians (especially Dominicans and most of the Jesuits later on) departed from tradition when they adopted Thomistic-Greek Pelagianism, even in the face of the Second Council of Lyons, the Council of Florence, and the Council of Trent.
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You have already been exposed for numerous errors in this thread alone. You even have been corrected on some of them by Catholics here (including some corrections by a sympathizer of yours).
I beg pardon, I think that part applies to the other one of you guys.
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I'm not an official Inquisitor in the "court of the Inquisition" sense, no. I am an inquirer and defender of the teachings of the Catholic Church, as all Catholics are supposed to be.
You appear to be an interrogator who also clearly despises at least one Saint and at least one Doctor of the Church.
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Men like Bonaventure, Scotus, and Thomas departed from the spirit and intentions of the founders of these orders. Sitting in a university babbling about metaphysics and the cosmos is exactly the opposite of what St. Dominic and St. Francis envisioned for their orders.
Is that SAINT Thomas and SAINT Bonaventure whom you are attacking and accusing of babbling?
Is "Pius X" SAINT Pius X?
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I neglected to answer your interrogation in the manner you wanted.
It was really a simple (set of) question(s) regarding your faith. Either you believe the unbaptized are innocent, in bliss, and in the presence of God, or you don't.
I can recite any creed of the Catholic Church.
So can the Anglicans and the Lutherans. They recite the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Athanasian Creed. But do they recite them honestly?
I do not need to submit to you or answer you in the manner that you demand.
What you're basically saying is that no one has a right to ask you whether or not you believe in heresies which you appear to be defending. Your refusal to answer is more than enough to condemn you, just like Jan Hus. If you have nothing to hide, then you wouldn't have any problem admitting your belief.
Why don't you refer to him as Saint Thomas?
For the same reason you don't refer to Blessed John Paul II and Saint Josemaria Escriva.
Do you believe he is a canonised saint and a Doctor of the Church?
Obviously he was canonized.
The church did not comndemn St Thomas of heresy. Who cares if you or others did and do?
Actually it did. Have you ever read any book on him or on ecclesiastical history? In his works were found several heresies and they were condemned in 1277.
You have already been exposed for numerous errors in this thread alone. You even have been corrected on some of them by Catholics here (including some corrections by a sympathizer of yours). Any reasonable Catholic would do well to place their trust in St Thomas rather then the likes of you.
Latter-day Pelagianism has been exposed numerous times in this thread. If the majority doesn't accept it, including you, that's their (and your) regrettable decision. Truth is not a democracy. And good thing it isn't, since it's so unpopular. You and the sympathizers of Pelagius have also been corrected many times, and you ignore the corrections, as if they didn't happen. Particularly that one guy who quoted the catechism which explicitly teaches that there is a middle place. A reasonable Catholic places his faith in what is the proximate rule of faith. The proximate rule of faith is the dogmatic teachings of the Church, not Thomas Aquinas and not catechisms. If Thomas Aquinas and catechisms were the proximate rule of faith, then the faith would be contradictory, schizophrenic, and opposed to the infallible councils.
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Why don't you refer to him as Saint Thomas?
For the same reason you don't refer to Blessed John Paul II and Saint Josemaria Escriva.
Do you believe he is a canonised saint and a Doctor of the Church?
Obviously he was canonized.
Do you believe in the validity and infallibility of the canonisations, of St. Thomas Aquinas, St Bonaventure, St Albert The Great, and St Pius X?
Do you believe that Holy Church legitimately and correctly bestowed the title Doctor (of the Church) on St Thomas Aquinas and St Albert the Great?
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So can the Anglicans and the Lutherans. They recite the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Athanasian Creed. But do they recite them honestly?
I recite them honestly.
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Is that SAINT Thomas and SAINT Bonaventure whom you are attacking and accusing of babbling?
"That celestial bodies are moved by an internal principle, which is soul; and that they are moved by a soul and by an appetitive power just as an animal; for just as an animal is moved by desire, so is the sky."
Sounds like babbling to me.
Is "Pius X" SAINT Pius X?
Not anymore than Pope Honorius is Saint Honorius.
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Do you believe in the validity and infallibility of the canonisations, of St. Thomas Aquinas, St Bonaventure, St Albert The Great, and St Pius X?
Do you believe that Holy Church legitimately and correctly bestowed the title Doctor (of the Church) on St Thomas Aquinas and St Albert the Great?
I see you're the inquisitor now. Funny how that works. I'm not allowed to inquire about you, but you are allowed to inquire about me. I have no problem answering your questions, unlike you. I've answered all your questions so far, while you've ignored my main one. I'll make you a deal. I'll answer any questions you want, including the ones you just asked here, but on the condition that you first answer my main question which you've so far refused to answer.
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What you're basically saying is that no one has a right to ask you whether or not you believe in heresies which you appear to be defending. Your refusal to answer is more than enough to condemn you, just like Jan Hus. If you have nothing to hide, then you wouldn't have any problem admitting your belief.
No I am saying YOU have no right.
I do not appear to be defending any heresies. I am defending some Saints.
My refusal to answer to YOU is more than enough to condemn me? :laugh2:
Who condemened Jus - YOU or the Church?
Please show us the Catholic Church's condemnations of St. Thomas Aquinas, St Bonaventure, St Albert The Great, and St Pius X.
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No I am saying YOU have no right.
Every Catholic has a right to ask another would-be Catholic what they believe.
I do not appear to be defending any heresies. I am defending some Saints.
You refuse to condemn the Pelagian doctrines
My refusal to answer to YOU is more than enough to condemn me? :laugh2:
Your refusal to answer anyone on these matters is more than enough to condemn you in the eyes of God. Just like a coward who would refuse to profess his Christian faith in the face of martyrdom by Pagan Romans. You are even more pathetic though since no one here is going to be inflicting physical harm on you, or deriding you in person as a faithless coward when you go to church on Sunday.
Who condemened Jus - YOU or the Church?
Hus condemned himself. The Church merely pointed out the fact.
Please show us the Catholic Church's condemnations of St. Thomas Aquinas, St Bonaventure, St Albert The Great, and St Pius X.
Condemnation of 1277: http://www.fordham.edu/gsas/phil/klima/Blackwell-proofs/MP_C22.pdf
Their actions, words, and inactions condemn them. The Church doesn't need to, although it should.
Also...
By what RIGHT do you reject Vatican II? By what AUTHORITY do you reject nearly 3,000 bishops? Who ARE YOU to deny John Paul II is "Blessed" and in heaven?
If you're a Sedevacantist, or even if you're not, you have some nerve bringing up any argument about "authority" and "rights". The only people who can use that argument logically are blind VII followers of the Novus Ordo church.
Now how about answering my main question, for once?
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Do you believe in the validity and infallibility of the canonisations, of St. Thomas Aquinas, St Bonaventure, St Albert The Great, and St Pius X?
Do you believe that Holy Church legitimately and correctly bestowed the title Doctor (of the Church) on St Thomas Aquinas and St Albert the Great?
I see you're the inquisitor now. Funny how that works. I'm not allowed to inquire about you, but you are allowed to inquire about me. I have no problem answering your questions, unlike you. I've answered all your questions so far, while you've ignored my main one. I'll make you a deal. I'll answer any questions you want, including the ones you just asked here, but on the condition that you first answer my main question which you've so far refused to answer.
Don't you get it? I have no faith in YOU. YOU have no authority to DEMAND that I recite or answer according your formula on the pretext that YOU will decide if I am in heresy based on YOUR Q and A session.
YOU have no authority to demand that I recite any formula even an approved creed, let alone your home-made declaration that you think is designed to hunt out heretics.
I will not play your game, or according the rules YOU try to make up.
YOU and YOUR BUDDY are the ones who are suspect of heresy and schism.
I can honestly recite any approved Creed. It is enough for the Church why not enough for you?
We could spend our entire lives here - you and me asking each other to recite different formulae, make home-made professions of Faith, and demanding condemnation of various heresies.
How do I know that YOU don't hold some heresies? You despise people that The Church has declared to be Saints and Doctors of the Church
You are suspect.
Unlike your type that I have seen before, I also believe that Vatican 1 was a legitimate Council of the Church. I believe in papal infallibility too. I wonder if you do.
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I do believe in papal infallibility. You don't. You reject the infallible teachings of the Church in favor of fallible (and heretical) teachings. Your other hypocritical objections were already answered.
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You show absolute horror in the face of criticism of Scholastic theologians. But you show no horror for heresy and Pelagianism. That's because you don't care about the Catholic faith.
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Your refusal to answer anyone on these matters is more than enough to condemn you in the eyes of God.
Gus,
I have not refused to answer anyone. I refused to answer YOU.
Now YOU dare to have the audacity to speak for God. It is shameful.
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...you don't care about the Catholic faith.
:rolleyes:
As if YOU would know, let alone be in any postion to declare.
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Condemnation of 1277: http://www.fordham.edu/gsas/phil/klima/Blackwell-proofs/MP_C22.pdf
What is the title of this work and who authored it and when?
Do you have any docuмents from The Church condemning Her Saints?
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No I am saying YOU have no right.
Every Catholic has a right to ask another would-be Catholic what they believe.
Problem: I am not a would-be Catholic. I am a Roman Catholic.
Problem: I do not know if you are a Roman Catholic.
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Roman Catholic said:
Please show us the Catholic Church's condemnations of St. Thomas Aquinas, St Bonaventure, St Albert The Great, and St Pius X.
Augustinian said:
Their actions, words, and inactions condemn them. The Church doesn't need to, although it should.
Now you condemn SAINTS that The Church praises and declared to be saints.
Then you have the boldness to declare the church was wrong and to declare what the Church should you.
Your belief in the Church is warped and heretical.
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Correction to format:
Roman Catholic said:
Please show us the Catholic Church's condemnations of St. Thomas Aquinas, St Bonaventure, St Albert The Great, and St Pius X.
Augustinian said:
Their actions, words, and inactions condemn them. The Church doesn't need to, although it should.
Roman Catholic says:
Now you condemn SAINTS that The Church praises and declared to be saints.
Then you have the boldness to declare the church was wrong and to declare what the Church should you.
Your belief in the Church is warped and heretical.
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I do believe in papal infallibility....
I mentioned Vatican 1.
I see you dropped any reference to Vatican 1. :scratchchin:
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I do believe in papal infallibility....
I mentioned Vatican 1.
I see you dropped any reference to Vatican 1. :scratchchin:
:rolleyes:
Unlike you, I believe in the infallible teachings of the Church, including the first Vatican Council.
You are a hypocrite. You reject the Novus Ordo church (rightfully so - but according to your logic - by what "right" and "authority"?). You reject Joseph Ratzinger (rightfully so - but according to your own logic - by what right and authority? Where has the Church condemned him?). You ask a million inquisitive questions and expect answers, yet deny me the same right, and refuse to answer a simple question about your faith because you know you hold to Pelagian heresies.
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Canon 1325 §1: "The faithful are bound to profess their faith openly whenever under the circuмstances silence, evasion, or their manner of acting would otherwise implicitly amount to a denial of the faith, or would involve contempt of religion, an offense to God, or scandal to the neighbor."
(Translated here: http://www.olmhtchurch.org/Church/1stCommandment.html)
Answer this question or get out of this thread and stop pretending to be in a place to ask me questions:
Do you believe that babies who die without baptism are guiltless, free of punishment, blissful, and in the presence of God?
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[Unlike you, I believe in the infallible teachings of the Church, including the first Vatican Council.
... you know you hold to Pelagian heresies.
In fact I believe all the infallible teachings of the Church and I hold to no heresies.
You sow discord among traditional Catholics. You are disruptive, divisive, impious and rash.
You despise Saints and the Catholic Church's pronouncements on them.
YOU are suspect.
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Canon 1325 §1: "The faithful are bound to profess their faith openly whenever under the circuмstances silence, evasion, or their manner of acting would otherwise implicitly amount to a denial of the faith, or would involve contempt of religion, an offense to God, or scandal to the neighbor."
(Translated here: http://www.olmhtchurch.org/Church/1stCommandment.html)
Answer this question or get out of this thread and stop pretending to be in a place to ask me questions:
Do you believe that babies who die without baptism are guiltless, free of punishment, blissful, and in the presence of God?
You sure are presumptuous. The Canon you quote does not apply to the the situation at hand concerning me.
I have not acted in a manner which implicitly amounts to a denial of the faith. On the contrary I have explicitly professed that I am a Roman Catholic.
Even though you presume to, you can't arrogate any authority to demand that anyone gets out of this thread or any other thread.
But what is a much more grevious matter is that you have manifested that you have a contempt of the Church by despising Saints and Popes that have been declared infallibly by Holy Church to be worthy of veneration.
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Thomas held several heretical beliefs, some of which were heretical prior to his birth (ex: Pelagianism) and some of which were heresy only after his death (ex: denial of the Immaculate Conception).
Further proof that it is not a "given" that St Thomas Aquinas denied the Immaculate Conception, is found in the following survey of the opinions of theologians on this question, from Volume VI, "Mariology", of Pohle-Preuss, Dogmatic Theology (12 volumes) Herder 1953, page 67:
"5. The Teaching of St Thomas --- Theologians are divided in their opinion as to what was the mind of St Thomas in regard to the Immaculate Conception. Some frankly admit that he opposed what in his day was not yet a defined dogma, but insist that he virtually admitted what he formally denied. Others claim that the Angelic Doctor expressly defended the Immaculate Conception and that the (about fifteen) adverse passages quoted from his writings must be regarded as later interpolations. Between these two extremes stand two other groups of theologians, one of which holds that St Thomas was undecided in his attitude towards the Immaculate Conception, while the other merely maintains the impossibility of proving that he opposed it."
Full article here: http://www.sedevacantist.net/stthomas/StThomas&IC.htm
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Canon 1325 §1: "The faithful are bound to profess their faith openly whenever under the circuмstances silence, evasion, or their manner of acting would otherwise implicitly amount to a denial of the faith, or would involve contempt of religion, an offense to God, or scandal to the neighbor."
(Translated here: http://www.olmhtchurch.org/Church/1stCommandment.html)
Answer this question or get out of this thread and stop pretending to be in a place to ask me questions:
Do you believe that babies who die without baptism are guiltless, free of punishment, blissful, and in the presence of God?
Why wouldn't the Athanasian Creed suffice?
The church you linked to above seems to think it would be a suitable profession of Faith.
BTW your question is defective and unsuitable for your aims, but I am not going to help you fix it because I do not want to aid you in your cause.
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Lastly (for now :smile:)bump:
It behooves me to take some time to admonish the participants and readers of this thread (and the Forum in general) regarding a fundamental truth often ignored, and I am not at all implying or insinuating that this applies to the participants of this thread, and I apologize if I give that impression in any way.
In my personal experience, I have seen numerous persons give themselves over to the study and disputation of lofty questions regarding sacred doctrine, whilst neglecting to cultivate their own interior life. It often happens that certain souls neglect prayer for the sake of study, and this is often a dangerous delusion which can ultimately imperil the salvation of the individual. So many have been the heresies, errors and dissensions that have had their ultimate origin in such a diabolical disorientation.
It particularly behooves us to be temperate in intellectual endeavors, for the Angelic Doctor expounds upon studiousness as the moral virtue which has knowledge as its proper matter (Summa IIa IIæ, q. clxvi., art. 1), and “is a potential part of temperance, as a subordinate virtue annexed to a principle virtue” (“studiositas sit pars potentialis temperantiae, sicut virtus secundaria ei adiuncta ut principali virtuti”), for the moderation of the natural desire that all men have for knowledge pertains to the virtue of studiousness (“moderatio autem hujus appetitus pertinet ad virtutem studiositatis;” ibid., art. 2). St. Thomas goes on to teach that “on the part of the soul, [man] is inclined to desire knowledge of things; and so it behooves him to exercise a praiseworthy restraint of this desire, lest he seek knowledge immoderately” (“ex parte animae, inclinatur homo ad hoc quod cognitionem rerum desideret: et sic oportet ut homo laudabiliter huiusmodi appetitum refrenet, ne immoderate rerum cognition intendat;” ibid. ad iii. dub.).
However, what is temperance without humility? For it is never expedient to search into things that are above us if we fail to cultivate a pure and earnest heart wherewith to search into such sacred things, after the example of King David who prayed unto the Lord, singing, "Lord, my heart is not exalted: neither are mine eyes lofty. Neither have I walked in great matters, nor in marvelous things above me," "Domine, non est exaltatum cor meum: neque elati sunt oculi mei. Neque ambulavi in magnis: neque in mirabilibus super me" (Ps. cxxx. 1).
Lend ear to the admonitions placed upon the lips of our dear Lord and found in the great treatise De Imitatione Christi: "Son, be not curious, and give not way to useless cares. What is this or that to thee? Follow thou Me," ("Fili, noli esse curiosus, nec vacuas gerere sollicitudines. Quid hoc vel illud ad te? tu me sequere," Lib. III., cap. xxiv. n. 1), for, "I would gladly speak My word to thee, and reveal My secrets, if thou wouldst diligently observe My coming, and open to Me the door of thy heart. Be circuмspect, and watch in prayers, and humble thyself in all things," ("Libenter loquerer tibi verbum meum, et abscondita revelarem, si adventum meum diligenter observares, et ostium cordis mihi aperires. Esto providus, et vigila in orationibus, et humilia te in omnibus," ibid., n. 2). For, "I am He that in an instant elevateth the humble mind to comprehend more reasons of the eternal truth than if any one had studied ten years in the schools. I teach without noise of words, without confusion of opinions, without ambition of honor, without strife of arguments," ("Ego sum, qui humilem in puncto elevo mentem: ut plures æternæ veritatis capiat rationes, quam si quis decem annis studuisset in scholis. Ego doceo sine strepitu verborum, sine confusione opinionum, sine fastu honoris, sine pugnatione argumentorum," Lib. III., cap. xliii., n. 3) --- "For a certain person, by loving Me intimately, learned things divine and spoke wonders. He profiteth more by foresaking all things than by studying subtleties," ("Nam quidam amando me intime, didicit divina et loquebatur mirabilia. Plus profecit in relinquendo omnia, quam in studendo subtilia," ibid., n. 4). "Study the mortification of thy vices; for this will more avail thee than the knowledge of many difficult questions," ("Stude mortificationi vitiorum, quia hoc amplius tibi proderit, quam notitia multarum difficilium quæstionum," ibid., n. 1) --- "In everything attend to thyself, what thou art doing, and what thou art saying: and direct thy whole attention to this, that thou mayest please Me alone, and neither desire nor seek anything out of me," ("In omni re attende tibi, quid facias, et quid dicas: et omnem intentionem tuam ad hoc dirige, ut mihi soli placeas, et extra me nihil cupias vel quæras," Lib. III., cap. xxv., n. 3).
Those who are industrious and diligent to study upon lofty matters and yet neglect their interior lives are in exceeding great peril: "Woe to them that inquire after many curious things of men, and are little curious of the way to serve Me," ("Væ eis qui multa curiosa ab hominibus inquirunt, et de via mihi serviendi parum curat," Lib. III., cap. xliii., n. 2). "For he that would fully and with relish understand the words of Christ, must study to conform his whole life to Him," ("Qui autem vult plene et sapide Christ verba intelligere, oportet ut totam vitam suam illi studeat conformare," Lib. I., cap. i., n. 2). "What doth it profit thee to dispute deeply about the Trinity, if thou be wanting in humility, and so be displeasing to the Trinity?" ("Quid prodest tibi, alta de Trinitate disputare, si careas humilitate, unde displiceas Trinitati?" ibid., n. 3). "Oftentimes call to mind the proverb: The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor is the ear filled with hearing. Study, therefore, to wean thy heart from love of visible things, and to betake thee to the things unseen," ("Memento illius frequenter proverbii: quia non satiatur oculus viso, nec auris impletur auditu. Stude ergo cor tuum ad amore visibilium abstrahere, et ad invisibilia te transferre," ibid., n. 5). "Truly, a lowly rustic that serveth God is better than a proud philosopher who pondereth the courses of the stars, and neglecteth himself," ("Melior est profecto humilis rusticus, qui Deo servit, quam superbus Philosophus, qui se neglecto, cursum cœli considerat," Lib. I., cap ii., n. 1). The humble of heart have not this admonition to fear: "The more thou knowest, and the better, so much the heavier will thy judgment therefore be, unless thy life be also more holy," ("Quanto plus et melius scis, tanto gravius inde judicaberis, nisi sanctius vixeris," ibid., n. 3).
From the above-cited admonitions of this great treatise upon the Christian life, it is clear that prayer should be the primal concern of the student of sacred doctrine.
Now, as I have hitherto written elsewhere, the Holy Rosary is the most apt prayer for students of sacred doctrine, as this most wondrous Psalterium Jesu et Mariæ is above all the school of contemplation and a mirror of virtues to be imitated in the divine lives of Jesus and Mary. The Holy Rosary is in truth a school wherein the Mysteries of the Faith shine forth before the eyes of the soul with a supernal effulgence that dispels the darkness of sin and ignorance, and illumines the soul with a vivifying light that harmonizes prayer with study, and makes the interior and exterior life of the student correspond with these elements that enlighten and strengthen one another.
In my personal experience, at least, it has come to pass that a well-meditated and well-prayed Rosary has in some instances taught me more regarding certain truths than the Manuals and treatises of sacred theology, perhaps because in the course of meditating upon the Rosary Mysteries certain theological principles taken on a profundity and immensity that overwhelm and thrill the amplitude of the soul, so that in due time discursive reasoning at times gives way to the simple and prolonged gaze of the soul rapt in mute veneration and devout dread before the inexhaustible riches of the wisdom and goodness of God. If this continues, and the soul begins to be purified passively (having already been purged actively by the penance and self-abnegation characteristic of the purgative way) and becomes more detached from self and more docile to the Holy Ghost, then the soul enters the ethereal, transluminous realm of the mystical ways of prayer.
Such is the power of the Holy Rosary, and why it was so recommended by Our Lady at Fatima and elsewhere, and so richly indulged and promoted by the Supreme Pontiffs and lauded by Saints and spiritual authors. For the student of sacred doctrine the Holy Rosary is truly the path not only to sacred knowledge, but to holy contemplation, the plenitude of that divinely revealed faith which is the object of sacred theology.
To conclude: a student of sacred doctrine must be given over to prayer first and foremost, and must frequent the holy Sacraments and avail himself of the spiritual direction of a devout and learned Priest (either personally or by correspondence if a Priest is not accessible because of the times). Availing oneself of the divinely-ordained patronage and tutelage of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Sedes sapientiae (Litaniæ Lauretanæ Beatæ Mariæ Virginis, Rituale Romanum, Tit. XI, cap. iii.), particularly by means of the devout recitation of the Holy Rosary, is morally indispensable for the fruitful study of sacred doctrine, for the greater glory of Our Lord and for the salvation and edification of souls.
Well, those are my two cents... nay, they have been clemently vouchsafed me by holy grace, for I of myself can produce nothing but that which is damnably evil: it is by grace alone that man can work any good.
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So Augustinian, you don't think Pope Pius X is a Saint? Wow, are you AntiClimax (aka "Pope" Augustine) or David Landry on another account?
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Gregory, did you read the New Advent article? Because it traces the history fairly well. Specifically it shows the doctrine of the early Fathers and St.Augustine's own early thought being opposed to his later one. After the ascendancy of extreme Augustinianism, the article says, it was sounded the death knell by the condemnation of Pius VI in 1794. This seems to answer the question with which you began your thread, so I'd like to see you address it. Thanks.
Moreover, please answer this question. Was Pope Innocent's teaching that infants experience no other pain than the deprivation of the beatific vision heretical? I'm even willing to concede it is theologically permissible to say that infants experience some conscious pain, but I don't hold it, nor do I believe the Church requires it, and I'll explain why to the former below.
This is the argument offered contra the view of actual sensible torment, and I'd like to see you address it.
"Nor does this sin belong to this particular man, except in so far as he has such a nature, that is deprived of this good, which in the ordinary course of things he would have had and would have been able to keep. Wherefore no further punishment is due to him, besides the privation of that end to which the gift withdrawn destined him, which gift human nature is unable of itself to obtain.
Now this is the divine vision; and consequently the loss of this vision is the proper and only punishment of original sin after death: because, if any other sensible punishment were inflicted after death for original sin, a man would be punished out of proportion to his guilt, for sensible punishment is inflicted for that which is proper to the person, since a man undergoes sensible punishment in so far as he suffers in his person. Hence, as his guilt did not result from an action of his own, even so neither should he be punished by suffering himself, but only by losing that which his nature was unable to obtain."
SO, while I disagree, I hope to do it AMICABLY
Likewise, me too.
Wait. Stop. Original sin is NOT ONLY the privation of original justice, but also the the actual personal participation in the GUILT of the sin of Adam.
I do not think you express your thought with the precision of the Angelic Doctor, but no problem, I essentially agree with you here. I just ask you to be careful, because on some points regarding original sin you seem to border on the exaggerations of the early Protestants, who also appealed to St.Augustine, and which neither the Church nor her theologians adopted.
In all of humanity, descended from one man, the first Adam, there is the character of what is truly and properly sin, and the effect of this is both the privation of grace and a fallen nature that is wounded and turned away from God.
Wait. There is no PUNISHMENT where the penalty is not experienced.
Not at all. The punishment is the objective loss of supernatural bliss. To say that the loss of such majestic glory, the joy we were created to share, does not constitute punishment, is what is truly baffling to me.
St. Thomas repeatedly says that the condemned infant does not know of his loss. In what therefore does his punishment consist?
If you want to argue with St.Thomas, you will have to argue against this - "If unbaptized children have interior sorrow after death, they will grieve either for their sin or for their punishment.
If for their sin, since they cannot be further cleansed from that sin, their sorrow will lead them to despair. Now sorrow of this kind in the damned is the worm of conscience. Therefore these children will have the worm of conscience, and consequently theirs would not be the mildest punishment, as Augustine says it is. [Comment: the worm of conscience is formally excluded by Pope Innocent III later, as is material fire]
If, on the other hand, they grieve for their punishment, it follows, since their punishment is justly inflicted by God, that their will opposes itself to divine justice, and thus would be actually inordinate, which is not to be granted. Therefore they will feel no sorrow."
Further, right reason does not allow one to be disturbed on account of what one was unable to avoid; hence Seneca proves (Ep. lxxxv, and De ira ii, 6) that "a wise man is not disturbed." Now in these children there is right reason deflected by no actual sin. Therefore they will not be disturbed for that they undergo this punishment which they could nowise avoid."
It is the same problem that reincarnation-ists have: Reincarnation is unjust
Interesting argument, but reincarnation has bigger problems. And the analogy is inaccurate, because divine justice is satisfied by the exclusion of the infant from the beatific vision, and of supernatural bliss.
It makes FAR MORE sense to say
I disagree, but I note that this is an argument from reason. So I ask again, is this, whether the punishment is positive or not, in your opinion, a matter open to theological dispute, or objectively heretical? Because theologians often disagree with each other and offer arguments in support of their position, and the Church lets it play out before finally passing judgment. Has the Church closed the question or not?
that the unbaptized infant is made aware of Christ and of his lack, and experiences a kind of eternal sorrow and gloom.
Again, your argument is not based on what follows from the nature of original sin. I maintain that all that follows from the nature of original sin is the deprivation of the beatific vision. Your argument is that God actively intervenes to make the child's fate worse, theologically permissible, but in my judgment, unwarranted by argument.
Once again, the context is actually irrelevant. We are BOUND to understand the dogmas on their face, and as presented. "
This is exactly what those who follow Fr.Feeney argue, and with their own interpretation of canons opposed to the theological consensus of interpretation on the same canons. It is the same case here. The truth is that we are to understand the dogmas in accordance with the mind of the Church.
Vatican I clearly taught that NO ONE may rescind from the clear meaning of a dogma on the grounds of a "deeper interpretation.
Of course, but that doesn't apply at all here.
Yes, before the advent of Pentecost when Baptism was made OBLIGATORY UPON ALL.
St.Thomas treats of baptism and argues for its explicit necessity, especially for infants. He also says infants may be sanctified in the womb today, being cleansed of original sin, because this grace granted them is not to be accounted apart from the sacrament, but is an extraordinary means of the same which remits original sin.
To say God can do this is clearly in his view hindered by no theological difficulty of the Faith considered as a whole, never taught by the Church before or after (he himself held the view that they descend immediately to hell and are punished), and to say the contrary frankly seems to place limits on His Omnipotence. He can do this, therefore the mother can pray for her dying child. He may do it, though, or He may not.
As I said, the dogmas are clear, the teaching of the XVI council of Carthage is clear, its promulgation as the teaching of the Catholic Church is clear, its ratification at Ephesus and Nicea II is clear, and 800 years of unquestioned Augustinian teaching and the teaching of the Latin Fathers is clear.
If that is the case, Thomas Aquinas is not a Saint but a heretic for embracing something the Church had already condemned, and perhaps one should embrace the sedevacantism that goes further back several centuries. And if that seems evidently absurd, the early Councils must be admitted to have in no way settled the question.
Moreover, even if one were to admit for the sake of argument that this canon of the Council of Carthage acquired the force of an ecuмenical definition, one ought to interpret it in the light of what was understood to be at issue by both sides in the controversy, and therefore add to the simple locus medius the qualification which is added by Pius VI when, in the Constitution "Auctoreum Fidei", he speaks of "locuм illium et statum medium expertem culpae et poenae."
I know it's hard, but that's the truth. History bearing witness, and the dogmas of the church.
I appreciate the tone of this discussion with you so far, and also that you think so, but I respectfully disagree.
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Augustinian, I appreciate your zeal, but I think there are some things you need to think a bit more about.
Let's assume for a minute that you are a Jansenist. I am not saying you are, but that is the worst case scenario, so let's pretend.
The Jansenist theologian, Arnauld, came to have a great respect fro St. Thomas Aquinas and his writings on free will and liberty. In fact, it was due to St. Thomas that he left behind some of the erroneous propositions of Jansenism. I suggest you read the article entitled:
Grace and free will in Arnauld. http://www.romancatholicism.org/jansenism/kremer-arnauld.htm
I appreciated it, although I myself am NOT a Jansenist. I accept the declarations of the Bull Unigenitus, I accept the condemnation of Baius, and The Bull Auctorem Fidei.
I make no bones about the sanctity of St. Thomas. I make no bones about the fact that in his writings there are some mistakes. Let's remember that, just like St. Augustine, whom everybody is ready to ignore, he also submitted his work to the final judgement of the church, and the church has made decisions that appear to run counter to some of his arguments.
Roman Catholic, perhaps it would be beneficial for peace for you to simply say that there is such a thing as a pelagian understanding of limbo and tell us what it would be in YOUR opinion. You seem to avoid doing that. I converse to understand things.
Nishant, I appreciate you taking the time to reply to me. Let's see if I can get through this intact...lol.
Moreover, please answer this question. Was Pope Innocent's teaching that infants experience no other pain than the deprivation of the beatific vision heretical? I'm even willing to concede it is theologically permissible to say that infants experience some conscious pain, but I don't hold it, nor do I believe the Church requires it, and I'll explain why to the former below.
NO. In the bull Auctorem Fide, Pope Pius VI condemned the notion that a view of infant damnation that does not involve The torment of Fire is pelagian.
TO believe that infants are not tormented by fire is not pelagian.
It introduces no middle place and does not grant them any kind of blessedness. This is the essence of a heretical understanding of the condemnation of unbaptized infants.
I would like to see this adressed in your response. I do not call The Angelic Doctor a heretic. It is a mortal sin of sacrilege and blasphemy and temererity to call a canonized saint a heretic.
There ARE objectively speaking, saints who were material heretics, and unwittingly so. St. John Cassian is a prime example. He founded the heresy of semi-pelagianism, albeit somewhat unwittingly.
"Nor does this sin belong to this particular man, except in so far as he has such a nature, that is deprived of this good, which in the ordinary course of things he would have had and would have been able to keep. Wherefore no further punishment is due to him, besides the privation of that end to which the gift withdrawn destined him, which gift human nature is unable of itself to obtain.
Now this is the divine vision; and consequently the loss of this vision is the proper and only punishment of original sin after death: because, if any other sensible punishment were inflicted after death for original sin, a man would be punished out of proportion to his guilt, for sensible punishment is inflicted for that which is proper to the person, since a man undergoes sensible punishment in so far as he suffers in his person. Hence, as his guilt did not result from an action of his own, even so neither should he be punished by suffering himself, but only by losing that which his nature was unable to obtain."
Whose argument is this, Abelard's, or Pope Innocent III's? Or the Angelic doctor?
Here is my sole problem with this argument: If man is guilty for the sin of Adam, which Trent teaches that he is, then he bears IN HIS SOUL the guilt for a proper act. Because of the general corruption of human nature (not total depravity), all men bear the guilt of a proper sin: the sin of Adam. Otherwise, whence flows the inherent guilt of all humanity?
Allow me to establish authoritatively that this is indeed so:
COT, Session 5, Par. 3:
" ...this sin of Adam,--which in its origin is one, and being transfused into all by propogation, not by imitation, is in each one as his own..."
Pardon the ellipses, but they are not deceitful.
COT Session 6 Capter III
"...seeing that, by that propagation, they contract through him, when they are conceived, injustice as their own"
The sin of Adam is in each as his own, as well as the loss of justice . Therefore the guilt is present as well, for there is no sin present without guilt.
Now, the sin of Adam was committed with the body, and we contract this sin, therefore we contract the deserved guilt due to the body and are therefore bodily punished for original sin alone.
Consider this:
"The Augustinian General Vasquez sent a formal petition to Pope Clement XIII requesting protection from calumny in 1758 because the Jesuits of France, Spain and Italy were calling his men “Jansenists” and accused them of heresy. He sent Clement a list of twenty-three propositions fundamental to the Augustinian doctrine. The following was among them.
“Unbaptized children who die in original sin are not only distressed by the loss of the beatific vision but the are tormented by the pain of fire in hell, however mildly it may be. This is in keeping with the opinions of St. Augustine.”
Clement replied that the doctrine of the Augustinian school had been made secure by the decision of Paul III in Alias in 1660; of Innocent XII in Reddidit in 1694; Clement XI in Pastoralis officii in 1718; Benedict XIII in Demissas preces in 1724 and in Pretiosus in 1727; Clement XII in Exponit in 1732 and in Apostolicae providentiae in 1733; and Benedict XIV in his letter to the Spanish Inquisition.
This belief has never been censured or declared as wrong by the church, because the church endorsed it for 800 years.
Now, lest you accuse me of wresting Trent to my own devices, allow me to quote the Catechism of the Council of Trent which is an AUTHENTIC and Authoritative` interpreter of that council:
In Article II of the Apostles creed:
Wherefore, the pastor should not omit to remind the faithful that the guilt and punishment of original sin were not confined to Adam, but justly descended from him, as from their source and cause, to all posterity.
So, in sum, infants are punished sensibly because they are guilty of a sin that was sensibly committed: the sin of Adam. Therefore it is not erroneous to believe that infants are sensibly tormented in hell.
In Fact, the same Catechism which is an AUTHENTIC and AUTHORITATIVE interpreter of Trent CLEARLY says:
Necessity of Baptism
If the knowledge of what has been hitherto explained be, as it is, of highest importance to the faithful, it is no less important to them to learn that the law of Baptism, as established by our Lord, extends to all, so that unless they are regenerated to God through the grace of Baptism, be their parents Christians or infidels, they are born to eternal misery and destruction. Pastors, therefore, should often explain these words of the Gospel: Unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
Infant Baptism: It's Necessity
That this law extends not only to adults but also to infants and children, and that the Church has received this from Apostolic tradition, is confirmed by the unanimous teaching and authority of the Fathers.
There is no mention of the mitigation of consequences for infants. Indeed, they are treated as being subject to the same severity.
I just ask you to be careful, because on some points regarding original sin you seem to border on the exaggerations of the early Protestants, who also appealed to St.Augustine, and which neither the Church nor her theologians adopted.
All the terminology I used is used by the council of Trent and its catechism in the same Context. God hates what is in the infant born in original sin. This is taught in Trent. Men are subject to God's wrath because of sin. This is taught in Trent. They are partners with the devil from their birth. This is also taught by Trent.
So if an unborn infant is guilty of the sin of Adam (defined by Trent), they bear the consequences for that guilt, and they are under the wrath of God (Trent), his enemies (Trent), and God hates the sin within them (Trent), deprived of any holiness (Trent) and are unjust (Trent), then what kind of mitigation do you hope for?
Further, right reason does not allow one to be disturbed on account of what one was unable to avoid; hence Seneca proves (Ep. lxxxv, and De ira ii, 6) that "a wise man is not disturbed." Now in these children there is right reason deflected by no actual sin. Therefore they will not be disturbed for that they undergo this punishment which they could nowise avoid."
This to me is EXTREMELY problematic. Hell is a complete absence of the vision of God coupled with the fire of torment for sinners. The will and the intellect are darkened by sin. They are surrounded by sinners and misery and terror. In what conditions are they supposed to enjoy a natural blessedness? How are they even capable of clear and rational thought in HELL? That is to me simply absurd.
The Angelic doctor here does say that we should not be tormented by the thought of the unavoidable. But the problem is that the infants COULD have been baptized. They will know what baptism is. THey will know that they were not given this cure.
But even worse:
What happens in the general judgement? Christ is revealed to ALL. There is no ignorance. The condemned infants in hell, whether at its edge or in its flames are FIXED in their fate. And after the general judgement, death and hades are thrown, along with the Devil, into the burning lake of fire, the second death. So whether now, or later, infants who die without baptism are destined to undergo the sensible punishments of hellfire. In the end, there is nowhere else for them to be except in the fire, justly condemned by the just judge for their participation in the guilt of Adam's sin.
Remember the last day. If they are not in heaven NOW, they never will be, and where will they go but with the devil?
PLease tell me if there was anything in particular you want me to get to. Thanks Nishant!
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TO Nishant:
Allow me to Add:
"According to Abbé A. Michel (The Last Things, Edinburgh, 1929), “many eminent theologians, such as Petavius, St. Robert Bellarmine, Estius, Bossuet and others have upheld the Augustinian interpretation of the decree” of Florence that it implies the doctrine that “unbaptized infants are not only deprived of the beatific vision, but have to undergo a positive punishment.”
Dionysus Petavius (-1652) judged that the Council of Florence had determined that the punishment of unbaptized infants is of the same kind (in the same hell) as that of adults who died in mortal sin. “Infants,” he taught, “are tormented with unequal tortures of fire but are tormented nevertheless.”
Incredibly, Petavius was a Jesuit.
The idea that Florence was simply a reunion council and did not have these things in mind apparently never crossed the minds of these Catholic theologians
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It should also be noted, by a Pelagian understanding of the fate of unbaptized infants, I meant the almost universal Bogus Ordo sentiment that these souls will simply go to heaven somehow, even though they have not been baptized and are stained with the fault, the consequences and the guilt of original sin, which is the sin of Adam, in each as his own.
It was not originally about the Angelic Doctor's notion of infants in a state of natural happiness, though I view that as problematic, but not with hostility.
Just FYI.
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It comes to mind that those who support the limbo of the infants of St. Thomas Aquinas need to wrestle with a key question; it is a question that it would seem the Angelic doctor did not consider.
We must remember there are two judgments: the immediate particular judgement, and the general judgement.
The particular judgement is what we experience immediately upon death. The general judgement is what we experience bodily and at the end of this world with the coming of Christ.
It seems that the Angelic doctor's teaching on limbo takes seriously only one of these judgments: the particular judgement. That is, the intermediate state of the dead before the Resurrection. In the intermediate state of the dead, the damned do experience various degrees, and perhaps KINDS of suffering. However, in the general judgement, ALL the damned share one common suffering, one common KIND of torment, the lake of Fire.
Apocalypse 20: 11-15
11" And I saw a great white throne, and one sitting upon it, from whose face the earth and heaven fled away, and there was no place found for them. 12 And I saw the dead, great and small, standing in the presence of the throne, and the books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged by those things which were written in the books, according to their works. 13 And the sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and hell gave up their dead that were in them; and they were judged every one according to their works. 14 And hell and death were cast into the pool of fire. This is the second death. 15 And whosoever was not found written in the book of life, was cast into the pool of fire."
This is apparent because death itself and Hades, that is, the abode of the dead which is the intermediate state of the dead and the damned, are cast into the lake of fire along with Satan and all those who are already damned.
So we must ask a serious question:
If the souls of the unbaptized infants are forever deprived of the vision of God (Everyone agrees with this), and if Limbo is itself a part of Hell (anyone who has read the Angelic doctor will agree with this) then it is INEVITABLE that those ressurected souls who were once infants who are brought before the general judgement, CANNOT IN ANY WAY escape the common fate of Satan and his angels and all the rest of the damned. Why? Because their names are NOT WRITTEN IN THE BOOK OF LIFE:
That is, they MUST be subject to the eternal and sensible punishment of the lake of fire.
This brings up another point: It would be unjust for God to trade a lighter suffering for infants for a greater one when they have done nothing more to merit a greater suffering.
However, since it is inevitable the infants will be sensibly tormented in fire at the END of the world, it does NOT stand to reason that they deserve to be in anything less NOW. Otherwise, where is the justice of God?
Why would soul of the unbaptized infant get such a rude awakening?
But if LIMBO is in itself debatable (and it is, since there are two other perfectly orthodox explanations) then IT must bow to any inconsistencies in the reasons given for its existence. The primary reason Limbo must be done away with is because it implicitly DENIES the truth of scripture: That ALL the damned are tormented together in fire with the Devil at the end of the world.
NOW we begin to see what St. Augustine was so furious over: It is plain and manifest to all that the damned will be sensibly tormented forever with the Devil. It is also plain that infants are damned, since limbo is a part of Hell. Those in Hell are not written in the book of life.
Now, to grant them natural happiness is to turn away the justice of God: for it makes him out to be a monster who allows the souls of unbaptized infants a gentle ignorance (ignorance is bliss) for a time (until the world's end) only to awaken them to the horror of their condition in the general Resurrection!
This is not justice, and is against the Fathers, the dogmatic teaching of the Church, and scripture. Perhaps now we can understand why the African synod of Carthage condemned any such blessedness and declared that the souls of the unbaptized infants run to the left with the devil. Incidentally, this synod was promulgated by two Popes and two ecuмenical councils.
Remember the Final day.
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Nishant...waiting.
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Hi Greg. Thanks for your patience. I should note that I don't maintain either that your position is condemned, only that my own about no pain other than deprivation of the beatific vision is more amenable to reason and the whole Faith in general, while the topic is open to theological discussion and hasn't been closed by the Magisterium. However, as a matter of fact, what you say of the Angelic Doctor is not strictly accurate. I'll quote some more passages from him that should suffice as a reply to all you have said, respectively.
Original sin is the sin of nature, as stated above. But nature is equally in all. Therefore original sin is too.
There are two things in original sin: one is the privation of original justice; the other is the relation of this privation to the sin of our first parent, from whom it is transmitted to man through his corrupt origin. As to the first, original sin has no degrees, since the gift of original justice is taken away entirely; and privations that remove something entirely, such as death and darkness, cannot be more or less, as stated above. In like manner, neither is this possible, as to the second: since all are related equally to the first principle of our corrupt origin, from which principle original sin takes the nature of guilt; for relations cannot be more or less.
Of all sins original sin is the least, because it is the least voluntary; for it is voluntary not by the will of the person, but only by the will of the origin of our nature.
The limbo of the Fathers and the limbo of children, without any doubt, differ as to the quality of punishment or reward. For children have no hope of the blessed life, as the Fathers in limbo had, in whom, moreover, shone forth the light of faith and grace. But as regards their situation, there is reason to believe that the place of both is the same; except that the limbo of the Fathers is placed higher than the limbo of children, just as we have stated in reference to limbo and hell
The bodies of children will be impassible, not through their being unable in themselves to suffer, but through the lack of an external agent to act upon them: because, after the resurrection, no body will act on another, least of all so as to induce corruption by the action of nature, but there will only be action to the effect of punishing them by order of the divine justice. Wherefore those bodies to which pain of sense is not due by divine justice will not suffer punishment. On the other hand, the bodies of the saints will be impassible, because they will lack the capability of suffering; hence impassibility in them will be a gift, but not in children.
Accordingly, it must be observed that if one is guided by right reason one does not grieve through being deprived of what is beyond one's power to obtain, but only through lack of that which, in some way, one is capable of obtaining. Thus no wise man grieves for being unable to fly like a bird, or for that he is not a king or an emperor, since these things are not due to him; whereas he would grieve if he lacked that to which he had some kind of claim.
So there you have it, which I think more or less addresses most of your posts. Tell me if I've left something out.
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Apocalypse 20: 11-15
11" And I saw a great white throne, and one sitting upon it, from whose face the earth and heaven fled away, and there was no place found for them. 12 And I saw the dead, great and small, standing in the presence of the throne, and the books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged by those things which were written in the books, according to their works. 13 And the sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and hell gave up their dead that were in them; and they were judged every one according to their works. 14 And hell and death were cast into the pool of fire. This is the second death. 15 And whosoever was not found written in the book of life, was cast into the pool of fire."
This is apparent because death itself and Hades, that is, the abode of the dead which is the intermediate state of the dead and the damned, are cast into the lake of fire along with Satan and all those who are already damned.
So we must ask a serious question:
If the souls of the unbaptized infants are forever deprived of the vision of God (Everyone agrees with this), and if Limbo is itself a part of Hell (anyone who has read the Angelic doctor will agree with this) then it is INEVITABLE that those ressurected souls who were once infants who are brought before the general judgement, CANNOT IN ANY WAY escape the common fate of Satan and his angels and all the rest of the damned. Why? Because their names are NOT WRITTEN IN THE BOOK OF LIFE:
That is, they MUST be subject to the eternal and sensible punishment of the lake of fire.
This brings up another point: It would be unjust for God to trade a lighter suffering for infants for a greater one when they have done nothing more to merit a greater suffering.
However, since it is inevitable the infants will be sensibly tormented in fire at the END of the world, it does NOT stand to reason that they deserve to be in anything less NOW. Otherwise, where is the justice of God?
Why would soul of the unbaptized infant get such a rude awakening?
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All right, Gregory. Now I know you don't read my posts, though I do yours. ;)
The bodies of children will be impassible, not through their being unable in themselves to suffer, but through the lack of an external agent to act upon them: because, after the resurrection, no body will act on another, least of all so as to induce corruption by the action of nature, but there will only be action to the effect of punishing them by order of the divine justice.
Wherefore those bodies to which pain of sense is not due by divine justice will not suffer punishment. On the other hand, the bodies of the saints will be impassible, because they will lack the capability of suffering; hence impassibility in them will be a gift, but not in children.
So on the contrary, the Angelic Doctor does address your question directly. And frankly, he conceived every possible objection to what he said, including objections most people wouldn't think enough to make, and sufficiently answered them, in my view.
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No, I do read your posts, and I read that. But Philosophy is SUBJECT to divine revelation. According to REVELATION, all those whose names are not written in the book of life are cast into the lake of fire.
Why are infants excepted?
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But the lake of fire, Hades, Gehenna etc all refer simply to hell. And limbo is a part of hell. So they will indeed be in hell as such even after the resurrection.
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But they are in a LAKE OF FIRE, not some remote far off corner.
Great and SMALL are brought before the throne.
And Death and HADES (The intermediate abode of the dead, where the dead go in the particular judgement) are thrown INTO IT.
If they share a common fate in the end, then justice demands that they share the same fate in the beginning, no? Of course there could be gradation in terms of INTENSITY, but there is one KIND of punishment for the damned in the Resurrection:
Hellfire. Alienation.