Quite agreed.  At the end of the day, that's all BOD is, speculation. 

Indeed, St. Augustine admitted as such when he floated the speculation.  While he's always cited as THE authority behind the "teaching," if you read what he actually wrote without the ellipses generally inserted by the BoD-promoters, you'll find that he said that he floated the opinion after he had gone back and forth on the question, so, something along the lines of, "Having gone back and forth on the matter in my mind, I find that ..."  There's no assertion that this was received teaching or that he was teaching it with authority, but that he was clearly speculating and opining based on HIS personal thinking ("I find ...").  Lesser known is the fact that he later retracted this youthful speculation, issuing some of the strongest ANTI-BoD statements in existence, after he had cut his teeth battling the Pelagians.  St. Augustine barely ever had a thought he didn't write down, to the point that as the years went by, he felt compelled to issue an entire book of "Corrections".  There's St. Ambrose but I believe that the oration for Valentinian is seriously misinterpreted, probably on purpose.  He said that he HOPED that Valentinian could receive some grace from his confession and zeal, similar to the martyrs, but then added that even the martyrs who die without Baptism are not crowned even if they are washed.  That sentence generally has escaped everyone's notice.  That's your sum total of Patristic authority for BoD.  Meanwhile you have 6 or 7 Church Fathers who explicitly rejected it.

There's no need for it either.  If I promote disbelief in it, that makes it all the MORE likely that someone would ardently desire the Sacrament and possibly be saved by it (if that is in fact part of God's salvific providence).  Yet if I promote BoD, it actually could make individuals more complacent that they could be saved without it and therefore desire it less ardently.  There's no benefit.  If I'm wrong, God will save this soul regardless of my opinion.  If I'm right, then some souls might be lost due to an indifference to receiving the Sacrament.

St. Thomas wrote that explicit faith in the Holy Trinity and the Incarnation are necessary for salvation, and said that if there's some poor ignorant native who had not placed obstacle (from other sin) in the way, God would send an angel if necessary (or else interior enlightenment) to convert the soul ... and then that same angel could easily baptize the individual or God could bilocate a Catholic, such as He had done with Mary of Agreda to the Native Americans.

See, the BoDers claimed that we "limit" or "constrain" God by the Sacraments.  Hogwash.  We're trying to lean what constraints God has imposed on us.  Quite to the contrary, the BoDers limit God by "impossibility", a heretical notion since the Holy Ghost teaches us that with God all things are possible.  So St. Augustine later declared that you can't accept that God could be prevented from bringing the Sacrament to His Elect ... if "you wish to be Catholic".  God arranges all things according to His Providence for the good of His elect.  Period.  And no kind of "impossibility" could ever prevent bringing Baptism to His elect being simple childsplay for God.

Great find, Ladislaus.  This agrees with Christ, in Scripture, where He tells us:


1.  He who believes, and is baptized, will be saved.  (Belief + Baptism = members in the Church)
2.  He who does not believe, will be condemned.  (No belief = no membership = damnation).

The "unspoken middle ground" are those who BELIEVE but are not baptized (i.e. BOD).  These are neither saved, nor condemned.  They aren't members in the Church but they die justified.  Which leaves them to Limbo.

I didn't read what everyone wrote, yet.  So I apologize if this was discussed.

Limbo of the Just existed before Jesus' death, when he went to hell he visited these souls.  I assumed he took them to heaven and that part of Hell was closed.  (sorry just my simplicity of thought)  From your discussion it sounds like it may not have closed, and others continue to go to Limbo of the Just.  These would be people who believed, but were never baptized.  For clarification the Limbo of the Just is a place of natural happiness, but not of the beatific vision, right?  Would this be where miscarried babies go? 

Now this is where I will probably cause heads to spin.

Now here is why this topic becomes very sensitive.  If a mother wants to go to Heaven, and has had miscarriages, and is told that the baby is in a natural place of happiness, but not Heaven and if Heaven is the happiest place, then how could it be happy for the mother who lost a child and will never see that child again.  Do you think that those in Heaven can visit those in the Limbo of the Just.  It is just mothers are constantly told that Heaven will have everything you could want and more, but most Catholic women want there family and friends to be there.  Most of the time when we bring up these thoughts we get "you will understand when you are there", but for miscarriages, that seems kind of insensitive.  Probably some men feel this way, too.

Thoughts?

Personally I could handle EENS and BoD better, if this topic was addressed.

Seems odd that people insist on speculating about the various means possible regarding someone's salvation. Imagine speculating about the means of someone's salvation and getting it wrong, leading individuals to perdition. So why do people speculate as if something like BOD might save when they have no guarantee and no proof?

Yes, that's a solid question.  So, St. Augustine explained it a bit actually.  He pointed out that some Catholics had been put off by situations where a devout Catechumen may have died before Baptism but then some scoundrel who continued sinning was Baptized in his final moments ... i.e. questioning the Mercy and the Justice of God.  That's largely where the attitude comes from.  This speculation absolutely does NOT benefit someone who MAY somehow be saved by a BoD.  In fact, it lessens the chance they might be, since they would undoubtedly be less ardent in their desire for Baptism if they felt that their "desire" will suffice for their salvation even if they dont' actually receive Baptism.  No, this does nothing to help save souls, and in fact could be an impediment to savings souls not only if they're wrong about it, but even if they're right because, as I said, it'll make it less likely that people will desire Baptism with sufficient ardor that it would qualify as "Baptism of Desire".  It's utterly pointless.  This questioning of God's Mercy and Justice is 100% the impetus behind it and not the welfare of those souls who die before receiving the Sacrament, since God will decide their eternal fate regardless of our OPINION regarding BoD.  So many people have lost the faith after questioning God's Mercy after some tragedy or something they judged to be "unfair".

 This notion, however, that these "Anonymous Catholics" float around the entire world, not only does it gut Tridentine ecclesiology, but it's perfectly consistent with the Vatican II ecclesiology that's at the root of all the V2 errors.  If I believed as most Trads do that non-Catholics can be saved, I would drop all theological objections to Vatican II ... with the NOM being a separate matter.

Where do you think that Vatican II teaches this ecclesiology ? Do you think it is taught clearly anywhere ?

Limbo of the Just existed before Jesus' death, when he went to hell he visited these souls.  I assumed he took them to heaven and that part of Hell was closed.  (sorry just my simplicity of thought)  From your discussion it sounds like it may not have closed, and others continue to go to Limbo of the Just.  These would be people who believed, but were never baptized.  For clarification the Limbo of the Just is a place of natural happiness, but not of the beatific vision, right?  Would this be where miscarried babies go? 

Right, that is in fact my theory.  If you look at what the Church actually teaches about the exact layout of the realms in eternity, it's actually VERY LITTLE.  Until about the 12th century, all Catholics (in the West at least) held that unbaptized infants, for instance, went to Hell.  It wasn't until Abelard and then St. Thomas Aquinas speculated about a "Limbo Infantium" that this idea of a continuing Limbo came about.  Clearly speculation, but the Church actually condemned the strict Augustinians who rejected Limbo as a "Pelagian fable".  In other words, the Church declared belief in Limbo permissible even though it was speculated upon much later, with the reasoning that some of the Eastern Fathers HAD in fact worked out, namely, this state of people who are not good enough to be glorified, but not bad enought to be punished (per St. Gregory "the Theologian" nαzιanzen).

So there's a ton of room for speculation.  When St. Ambrose said that martyrs could be washed but not crowned, what does that imply?  Well, it implies that they do not enter the glory of the Kingdom, the Beatific Vision, but nevertheless are not punished in Hell.

So this is my theory as well.

I believe that the biggest animus working against the acceptance of EENS dogma has been this strange monolithic view of Hell, where some naturally virtuous Jєωιѕн grandma, who maybe even lays down her life for her grandchildren, ends up burning in Hell right next to Joe Stalin, in some monolithic cauldron of fire.  But even one of the Catholic EENS definitions explains that each individual's punishment is commensurate to his sins.  We all know some naturally virtuous, genuinely kind and generous people who die without the faith, so do those people get hurled into a cauldron of fire to be burned forever next to the serial murderers who are also there?

I believe that there are some naturally virtuous people who suffer very little or not at all in eternity due to their natural virtue having offset some of their natural vice, or due to invincible ignorance (that God mercifully allowed them to live in, knowing that if they had received the gift of faith they would have been damned for eternity), perhaps similar to the "Happy Hunting Ground" concept the Native Americans have.

So, it was St. Thomas Aquinas (though the Greek Fathers, not well known in the West, thought this through before him) who distinguished clearly between the NATURAL aspect of sin and the SUPERNATURAL state of the Beatific Vision.  NOBODY is owed the latter, it is a free gift from God, and no one's perfect happiness requires the beatific vision, since we are not suffering any privation of our nature, which would then cause suffering.  In other words, we have no idea what we're missing ... just like an animal has no idea what it's missing by lacking our rational faculties and therefore doesn't suffer for privation of them.  Suffering results from a privation of a due good.

I also think that many of the descriptions of God's justice make God sound like some sadist who enjoys torturing people.  I understand that they're TRYing to put out deterrents against the lax who without such fear would undoubtedly continue in sin, but what would someone think of a PERSON who captured people, even if they were criminals, for instance, and then tortured them.  We'd think the man a deviant of some kind.  So then why would we project this kind of a notion on God?  I believe that the sufferings of Hell, the Latin poenae are nothing more than the direct natural results caused by the privation of good on our souls.  Because various natural virtues are required for our happiness, if we die without these, we enter into a state or SELF-INFLICTED misery that's the direct consequences of what we made of ourselves.

There have been some episodes of the famous Twilight Zone series which were descriptions of Hell, where the individual first got there and thought it was a great place, filled with any pleasure they wanted, but then after a short time they got sick of it and found themselves disgusted by it all, thereby realizing what Hell is truly about.  Or imagine if you love sugar or cake, but then it's all you ever wanted, and then you get to eat nothing but sugar, how you'd get sick and disgusted by it.

Another analogy is this.  People who just love rock music often hate Classical music.  I on the other hand love listening to Classical music.  Now we both die, and in Heaven all you hear is Classical music.  I would find it blissful, while these others, based on their on self-conditioning, would find it torture to just listent to it all the time.

Some people love to pray and to be with God, whereas others hate being in church and can't wait to get out.  But eternity is one long "church", and so these types were be horrifically tortured by it.

I had a Modernist Jesuit teacher who did hold some heresies, but he had an interesting analogy for Hell.  He said that there was a married couple and the husband was unfaithful to the wife, and the wife found out, but then instead of hating on him she still treated him with love, kindness, respect, etc.  Well after weeks and months of this, the husband finally blew up because he couldn't take it anymore, telling her that he wished that she would chew him out, yell at him, something ... to which she just said that she still loves him and refused.  That caused him torture.  So in fact some saints indicated that those who go to Hell are tortured actually by God's love for them, since they hate it and want it to stop.

God is perfectly simple, where He does not have a Just side and a Merciful side, and every single "act" of His, though He is pure Existence, is at once perfectly Just and perfectly Merciful, where the same God (Who is Love) causes both Justice and Mercy on all souls without Himself being different or changing despite the dispositon of the soul, so it's your own disposition that causes your own suffering.

So if people understood these types of considerations, they would not be averse to EENS dogma, since no one gets thrown kicking and screaming into Hell against their will.  There was a saint who pitied the damned and asked God to help one of them.  So God plucked a soul from Hell and put it in Heaven.  Immediately the soul absolutely hated it there and wanted out.  So the saint then said, please at least put him in Purgatory.  So God complied.  There the soul complained about being neither here nor there.  So then finally God said, "I will let you go wherever you choose." ... and the soul dove right back into Hell, because that's where he willed to be.

Gray, the "Limbo of the Just" in the Old Testament is ended, since it's purpose was for OT holy persons to wait for Christ to open the gates of heaven.

The new testament Limbo is the highest/upper part of hell (as is purgatory).  While purgatory is a state of purification, Limbo is state of natural happiness.

In God's mercy, some babies are sent to Limbo due to dying young and without baptism.  God foresaw (as only He can do) that had they been baptized and lived an adult life, they would not have saved their soul.  So, in his mercy, he hears the prayers of their parents/family and sends them to Limbo, which is infinitely better than hell.

That last paragraph is important.  Now one criticism the anti-BoDers get is that we deny God's will to save all people, and that everyone must have the active concrete opportunity to be saved.  So I always ask about the unbaptized infants.  What about them?  I always get crickets in reponse.  Then I explain as you did that God's Mercy made it so they ended up in a place of perfect happiness because foresaw that if they had received the gift of faith they would have been damned and would suffer forever in Hell.

I have once read someone claiming that God could infuse them reason and reveal Himself to them at the last moment before their death, making it possible for them to receive BoD. I don't know if it works.

Well that's a speculation, rooted in emotion, that runs counter to a long Tradition in the Church, and repeated Magisterial teachings that the only hope for infants to be saved is actual reception of the Sacrament of Baptism.  Cajetan held that theory, where the infants could be saved by VICARIOUS desire (of parents or godparents), but St. Pius V ordered that opinion stricken from his works.  Even the, why would God allow some infants who died without Baptism who vicariously saved them by their desire but other infants not to have such parents?

There's no requirement for God to present some choice to an infant before death, and, as mentioned, the Patristic and Magisterial Tradition strongly militates against this view.  In fact, if this were the case, there couldn't possibly be a  Limbo of Infants at all, a possibility which the Church largely endorsed, since everyone would then make a choice for or against God before dying.

But the bottom line, if it's permissible to hold there's such a thing as Limbo, then it's not inherently incompatible with God's will that all be saved for some to be deprived of the actual grace for conversion.  God WOULD certainly offer the grace of He foresaw that the soul would accept it and then be saved, but foreseeing that the soul would reject it, God in His Mercy permits them to have PERFECT natural happiness rather than an eternity in Hell.  Imagine every possible joy one could have, on this eternal vacation with no more pain or suffering or sickness or any affliction of any sort, but perfect natural bliss ... that's actually what MOST peole envision Heaven to be, one long extended enjoyable vacation, and none of us can even begin to imagine the actual Beatific Vision, since our minds are naturally incapable of conceiving of it.

It's for that reason that I hold there to be a huge surge in abortions, with 73 million per year worldwide, every year now for many decades.  We're approaching quickly a billion aborted infants ... and they will all enjoy perfect natural happiness forever.  What a great Mercy from God ... because in this wicked, corrupt world, especially if you were to be born to and raised by parents who would think nothing of murdering you, your chances for salvation are slim to none anyway, so the less a chance people have of being saved, the more you'll see them being aborted and going to Limbo for eternity ... where they will praise God in perfect bliss for His Mercy through all eternity.