Quo Vadis Petre,
You're right. I have been mistaken all along.
I had held for some time now that BOD/BOB were erroneous and that you could hold either position: water only or BOD/BOB, and that either position was alright as long as either side did not accuse one another of heresy/sin and the like.
But since you mentioned the votum part in Trent, it got me thinking. I had seen that correct translation very recently but didn't really think about it. But now i have.
I didn't really have any problems with bod/bob if they would in fact be true, and in the beginning i did believe in them, but i just thought there were some inconsistencies and contradictions, and i still think there are some, but i will no longer reject them or question them at all from now on.
I take back all that i said against them and i repent.
What i do not agree with though, is the whole "implicit faith and implicit bod" business and invincibly ignorant people being saved.
That, no Saint or Doctor ever taught. St. Thomas, St. Augustine, At. Alphonsus etc. they all taught explicit Faith and that you absolutely need to believe in and know of the dogmas of the Trinity and the Incarnation and in fact they all taught against invincible ignorance.
I doubt that anyone who really knows this subject would object to my stating that there are three schools of thought on so-called baptism of desire
1) the School of St. Augustine (Augustinian) - which says that no one predestined for baptism can be snatched away from his predestination, or die before that has been accomplished in them which the Almighty has predestined.
St. Augustine: “If you wish to be a Catholic, do not venture to believe, to say, or to teach that ‘they whom the Lord has predestinated for baptism can be snatched away from his predestination, or die before that has been accomplished in them which the Almighty has predestined.’ There is in such a dogma more power than I can tell assigned to chances in opposition to the power of God, by the occurrence of which casualties that which He has predestinated is not permitted to come to pass. It is hardly necessary to spend time or earnest words in cautioning the man who takes up with this error against the absolute vortex of confusion into which it will absorb him, when I shall sufficiently meet the case if I briefly warn the prudent man who is ready to receive correction against the threatening mischief.” (On the Soul and Its Origin 3, 13)
2) the School of St. Thomas Aquinas (Thomists) that says that a catechumen or someone like a catechumen, someone who desires to be a Catholic, and believes at a minimum in the mysteries on the Incarnation amd the Holy Trinity, can be saved if they die before they can receive the sacrament and most important, are justified by God. That person will not go to Heaven, but to Purgatory.
St. Thomas, Summa Theologica: "After grace had been revealed both the learned and simple folk are bound to explicit faith in the mysteries of Christ chiefly as regards those which are observed throughout the Church, and publicly proclaimed, such as the articles which refer to the Incarnation, of which we have spoken above."(Pt.II-II, Q.2, A.7.)
Saint Thomas, Summa Theologica: "And consequently, when once grace had been revealed, all were bound to explicit faith in the mystery of the Trinity." (Pt.II-II, Q.2, A.8.)
“And so Our Predecessor, Benedict XIV, had just cause to write: ‘We declare that a great number of those who are condemned to eternal punishment suffer that everlasting calamity because of ignorance of those mysteries of faith which must be known and believed in order to be numbered among the elect.’” (Pope St. Pius X, Acerbo Nimis, April 15, 1905)
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St. Thomas Aquinas, De Veritate, 14, A. 11, ad 1: Objection "It is possible that someone may be brought up in the forest, or among wolves; such a man cannot explicitly know anything about the faith. St. Thomas replies It is the characteristic of Divine Providence to provide every man with what is necessary for salvation... provided on his part there is no hindrance. In the case of a man who seeks good and shuns evil, by the leading of natural reason, God would either reveal to him through internal inspiration what had to be believed, or would send some preacher of the faith to him...”(Fr. Rulleau, Baptism of Desire pg 55-56)
St. Thomas Aquinas, Sent. 11, 28, Q. 1, A. 4, ad 4: "If a man born among barbarian nations, does what he can, God Himself will show him what is necessary for salvation, either by inspiration or sending a teacher to him."(Idem. pg 55)
St. Thomas Aquinas, Sent. 111, 25, Q. 2, A. 2, solute. 2: "If a man should have no one to instruct him, God will show him, unless he culpably wishes to remain where he is."(Idem pg 55)
St. Alphonsus Ligouri was of the Thomist school. That is why he would teach that:
St. Alphonsus: “See also the special love which God has shown you in bringing you into life in a Christian country, and in the bosom of the Catholic or true Church. How many are born among the pagans, among the Jews, among the Mohometans and heretics, and all are lost.” (Sermons of St. Alphonsus Liguori, Tan Books, 1982, p. 219)
St. Alphonsus: “If you are ignorant of the truths of the faith, you are obliged to learn them. Every Christian is bound to learn the Creed, the Our Father, and the Hail Mary under pain of mortal sin. Many have no idea of the Most Holy Trinity, the Incarnation, mortal sin, Judgment, Paradise, Hell, or Eternity; and this deplorable ignorance damns them.” (Michael Malone, The Apostolic Digest, p. 159.)
St. Alphonsus, quoted in Fr. Michael Muller’s The Catholic Dogma: “‘Some theologians hold that the belief of the two other articles - the Incarnation of the Son of God, and the Trinity of Persons - is strictly commanded but not necessary, as a means without which salvation is impossible; so that a person inculpably ignorant of them may be saved. But according to the more common and truer opinion, the explicit belief of these articles is necessary as a means without which no adult can be saved.’ (First Command. No. 8.).”
St. Alphonsus, The History of Heresies, Refutation 6, #11, p. 457: “Still we answer the Semipelagians, and say, that infidels who arrive at the use of reason, and are not converted to the Faith, cannot be excused, because though they do not receive sufficient proximate grace, still they are not deprived of remote grace, as a means of becoming converted. But what is this remote grace? St. Thomas explains it, when he says, that if anyone was brought up in the wilds, or even among brute beasts, and if he followed the law of natural reason, to desire what is good, and to avoid what is wicked, we should certainly believe either that God, by an internal inspiration, would reveal to him what he should believe, or would send someone to preach the Faith to him, as he sent Peter to Cornelius. Thus, then, according to the Angelic Doctor [St. Thomas], God, at least remotely, gives to infidels, who have the use of reason, sufficient grace to obtain salvation, and this grace consists in a certain instruction of the mind, and in a movement of the will, to observe the natural law; and if the infidel cooperates with this movement, observing the precepts of the law of nature, and abstaining from grievous sins, he will certainly receive, through the merits of Jesus Christ, the grace proximately sufficient to embrace the Faith, and save his soul.”
O ye atheists who do not believe in God, what fools you are! But if you do believe there is a God, you must also believe there is a true religion. And if not the Roman Catholic, which is it? Perhaps that of the pagans who admit many gods, thus they deny them all. Perhaps that of Mohammed, a religion invented by an impostor and framed for beasts rather than humans. Perhaps that of the Jews who had the true faith at one time but, because they rejected their redeemer, lost their faith, their country, their everything. Perhaps that of the heretics who, separating themselves from our Church, have confused all revealed dogmas in such a way that the belief of one heretic is contrary to that of his neighbor. O holy faith! Enlighten all those poor blind creatures who run to eternal perdition! (St. Alphonsus Liguori)
3) the School of Salamances - the theory that surfaced in the early 1600's , and went nowhere outside of the theological schools, till it resurfaced in the late 1800's, and was thereafter thrust upon the laity in the 20th century catechisms. This is what is referred to as the theory of implicit faith. It says that to be saved a person needs to have "a belief in a God that rewards", and to make an act of love which implicitly (
implicit faith in Jesus Christ and the Holy Trinity) is equivalent to baptism of desire and there is no need to be baptized, or belong to the Catholic Church, or desire to be baptized, or to know about Jesus Christ (the Incarnation) and the Holy Trinity.
From the book Against the Heresies, by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre:
1. Page 216: “Evidently, certain distinctions must be made. Souls can be saved in a religion other than the Catholic religion (Protestantism, Islam, Buddhism, etc.), but not by this religion. There may be souls who, not knowing Our Lord, have by the grace of the good Lord, good interior dispositions, who submit to God...But some of these persons make an act of love which implicitly is equivalent to baptism of desire. It is uniquely by this means that they are able to be saved.”
2.Page 217: “One cannot say, then, that no one is saved in these religions…”
Pages 217-218: “This is then what Pius IX said and what he condemned. It is necessary to understand the formulation that was so often employed by the Fathers of the Church: ‘Outside the Church there is no salvation.’ When we say that, it is incorrectly believed that we think that all the Protestants, all the Moslems, all the Buddhists, all those who do not publicly belong to the Catholic Church go to hell. Now, I repeat, it is possible for someone to be saved in these religions, but they are saved by the Church, and so the formulation is true: Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus. This must be preached.”
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Bishop Bernard Fellay, Conference in Denver, Co., Feb. 18, 2006: “We know that there are two other baptisms, that of desire and that of blood. These produce an invisible but real link with Christ but do not produce all of the effects which are received in the baptism of water… And the Church has always taught that you have people who will be in heaven, who are in the state of grace, who have been saved without knowing the Catholic Church. We know this. And yet, how is it possible if you cannot be saved outside the Church? It is absolutely true that they will be saved through the Catholic Church because they will be united to Christ, to the Mystical Body of Christ, which is the Catholic Church. It will, however, remain invisible, because this visible link is impossible for them. Consider a Hindu in Tibet who has no knowledge of the Catholic Church. He lives according to his conscience and to the laws which God has put into his heart. He can be in the state of grace, and if he dies in this state of grace, he will go to heaven.” (The Angelus, “A Talk Heard Round the World,” April, 2006, p. 5.)
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I am an Augustinian. More importantly, I don't see the Thomists as dangerous to the faith if people really only believed in St. Thomas Aquinas's BOD, however, no one today does restrict it to STA's BOD. There are few pure Thomists left in the world. In my experience, even those that say they restrict it to STA's BOD, do not really, for you never see them strongly opposing implicit faith'ers as they do with their incessant adamant fight against strict Augustinian EENSers.
In my experience that is because they really do not restrict their belief to STA's BOD, because if they really believed STA's BOD they would be more horrified by the Implicit Faith'ers. You rarely find a Thomist or any traditionalist writing against implicit faith.
Topic: Feeneyism (Read 8369 times)