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Author Topic: Fr Wathen - on EENS, Invincible Ignorance and the "Unsaints"  (Read 7438 times)

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Offline Ladislaus

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Re: Fr Wathen - on EENS, Invincible Ignorance and the "Unsaints"
« Reply #10 on: July 21, 2023, 07:24:11 AM »
How to get modern traditional priest to realise that invincible ignorance is heresy? It seems they all believe this and "3 baptisms"...

Well, "invincible ignorance" is not heresy.

It should be easy to explain to any trad priest that invincible ignorance by itself cannot be salvific, but merely exculpatory.  Supernatural faith, charity, etc. are still required for salvation.

To claim that invincible ignorance BY ITSELF saves is nothing short of Pelagian heresy, the basic notion that people are saved by default unless they do something to get un-saved.

Offline Ladislaus

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Re: Fr Wathen - on EENS, Invincible Ignorance and the "Unsaints"
« Reply #11 on: July 21, 2023, 07:31:33 AM »
That's the problem with ignore Limbo.

It's difficult to accept that God would condemn to eternal torment an unbaptized babies or someone what followed the natural law written in their consciences but they didn't have the chance to know God and the Church, for example virtuous Americans before the arrival of the Europeans. But if we accept that unbaptized babies and virtuous pagans who didn't have the opportunity to know God would be in a place where, although they don't have perfect happiness because they don't have beatific vision, they have a kind of natural happiness, it's different.

This is what people don't understand about salvation.  Salvation, defined as entry into the Kingdom of Heaven, into the Beatific Vision, is not owed to anyone, nor is human nature even capable of it without a special gift from God to elevate human nature above its intrinsic capabilities.  That is why the infants in Limbo do not suffer, since they are not lacking anything that is required for the perfection of their nature.  It's like animals do not suffer for their lack of intellectual capabilities, since they basically have no idea what they're even missing.

Another problem that leads to EENS denial is a false notion of Hell, this idea of a single monolithic cauldron of fire, where a noble savage who perhaps gave his life to save his family is burning in Hell right next to mass murderers like Joe Stalin.  We see people around us who have natural virtue and goodness, so people have trouble imagining them in the torments of Hell.  One of the EENS definitions states that each individual suffers in Hell to the extent of their sins.  I hold that some who lived lives of natural virtue suffer very little, and I believe that there are those who can approximate or even reach the same state as infants in Limbo.  There are in fact probably some Native Americans existing in some "Happy Hunting Ground".  So the view of Heaven and Hell being just binary states, where you're either happy beyond words or in an extreme cauldron of torment has actually done a lot to inspire the rejection of EENS dogma.


Offline AnthonyPadua

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Re: Fr Wathen - on EENS, Invincible Ignorance and the "Unsaints"
« Reply #12 on: July 21, 2023, 07:34:38 AM »
Well, "invincible ignorance" is not heresy.

It should be easy to explain to any trad priest that invincible ignorance by itself cannot be salvific, but merely exculpatory.  Supernatural faith, charity, etc. are still required for salvation.

To claim that invincible ignorance BY ITSELF saves is nothing short of Pelagian heresy, the basic notion that people are saved by default unless they do something to get un-saved.
Things for clearing that up. Though there are those who believe that someone outside the church can be saved in 'invincible ignorance'. And also saved 'by the Church' rather than 'in the Church'....

Offline Ladislaus

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Re: Fr Wathen - on EENS, Invincible Ignorance and the "Unsaints"
« Reply #13 on: July 21, 2023, 07:34:53 AM »
So if the elect are limited to the Feeney adherents, we're talking a couple hundred people at most with any chance at salvation.

What the heck are you babbling about?  This is the same nonsense you spewed on another thread that I debunked numerous times already.  Very few Feeneyites believe that you have to be a Feeneyite in order to be saved.  And, despite my having told you this a half dozen times already, you keep just repeating it.

Offline Ladislaus

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Re: Fr Wathen - on EENS, Invincible Ignorance and the "Unsaints"
« Reply #14 on: July 21, 2023, 07:37:40 AM »
Things for clearing that up. Though there are those who believe that someone outside the church can be saved in 'invincible ignorance'. And also saved 'by the Church' rather than 'in the Church'....

Yeah, "invincible ignorance" was explained by St. Thomas and also by Pope Pius IX (whose explanation was identical to that of St. Thomas but has been distorted by the enemies of EENS).  Both of them said that no one would be condemned BECAUSE OF invincible ignorance.  This does not mean that they will be saved, just that they will not be punished for their lack of faith.  Faith is a free gift, and simply not having it does not lead to punishment.  What's heresy is to hold that invincible ignorance is salvific, since that's basically Pelagianism.