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Author Topic: Council of Florence: a final nail in the coffin of BoD  (Read 21105 times)

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Offline Ladislaus

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Re: Council of Florence: a final nail in the coffin of BoD
« Reply #20 on: February 19, 2025, 03:03:15 PM »
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".

Offline Pax Vobis

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Re: Council of Florence: a final nail in the coffin of BoD
« Reply #21 on: February 19, 2025, 03:07:37 PM »
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.


Re: Council of Florence: a final nail in the coffin of BoD
« Reply #22 on: February 19, 2025, 03:07:56 PM »
 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 ?

Offline DecemRationis

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Re: Council of Florence: a final nail in the coffin of BoD
« Reply #23 on: February 19, 2025, 03:29:53 PM »
Decem Decem, you ought to mean what you say.  You obviously had the intention of revisiting "this oft repeated topic," which is evidenced by the fact that you revisited it.  Brownson, in 1874, two years before his death, wrote an article precisely against those who deny the dogma, Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus. Brownson never in his writings opened the door of salvation to those imaginary people of good will, those people whom catholic liberals like to parade in their own minds, people who never knew the Church but somehow wanted to enter it.  In fact this is what Brownson said about the matter:

"To us there is something shocking in the supposition that the dogma, Extra ecclesiam nulla salus, is only generally true, and therefore not a catholic dogma.  All Catholic dogmas, if catholic, are not generally, but universally true, and admit no exception or restriction whatever.  If men can come to Christ and be saved without the church or union with Christ in the church, she is not Catholic, and it is false to call her the one holy Catholic Church, as in the creed.  The latitudinarianism which explains away the dogma of exclusive salvation, and which is so widely prevalent, is a denial, in principle, of the catholicity of the church, and of the faith she holds and teaches, and seems to us to grow out of forgetfulness of the relation of the church to the Incarnation, her office in the economy of salvation, the teleological character of the Christian order, the religion of the end, and the disposition of the modern world to mistake liberality for charity...One thing is certain, namely, that no one can be saved, enter into the kingdom of God, or attain to beatitude, without being regenerated or born again of the incarnate Word, or if not united to regenerated humanity in Christ."
"Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus," April, 1874

And in the same article Brownson quotes the Council of Florence and says that unbaptized infants go to hell, in infernos, though they will not suffer for actual sins, of which they were incapable. Hopefully this clears up your confusion about Brownson.

OA,

No, my intention was simply to point out to an admirer of Brownson's intellect, judgment and theological sense his view on the possibility of saving regeneration without receiving the waters of baptism, a position you jibed at as "ridiculous." I thought that might temper your judgment; apparently not.

There was no need for "clear[ing up." Brownson was quite clear: he does not believe that there is a need to actually receive the sacramental waters of the fount to be saved. I notice you did not address the quote on baptism. I understand why.

There is no contradiction between Brownson's position on BoD and your quote on EENS. None. His view on BoD and EENS are consistent.

Did you actually read Brownson's quote on baptism?

In case you meant one of your last sentences to indicate the quotes were inconsistent and Brownson rejected his view on baptism which I quoted, unbaptized infants are incapable of exercising the volition necessary to receive the sacrament "in voto et proxima dispositione." So that observation is irrelevant.

I believe you can do better than that, or hope so.



Offline Ladislaus

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Re: Council of Florence: a final nail in the coffin of BoD
« Reply #24 on: February 19, 2025, 03:31:30 PM »
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.