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Author Topic: God's salvific will to save "all men" and the death of unbaptized infants  (Read 304918 times)

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Online Pax Vobis

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Re: God's salvific will to save "all men" and the death of unbaptized infants
« Reply #95 on: March 17, 2025, 07:37:40 PM »

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If it is, as Pax maintains, then of course one can question how it's "fair" for a Mayan, or Incan, etc. who has never heard of Christ to go to hell - what choice did they have if they didn't reject Christ, but never even heard of him? Or someone, as JPII says in one of his encyclicals, whose cultural upbringing and circuмstances "prevent" them from formally converting to Christ, etc. 
Decem, salvation is a mystery.   If you ponder it too deeply, you’ll lose your Faith.  It is a doctrine of the Faith that “God wills all men to come to the knowledge of the Truth” as Scripture infallibly tells us.  Accept this, with childlike acceptance and move on.  Or let the devil an opening for temptation.  
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Online Pax Vobis

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Re: God's salvific will to save "all men" and the death of unbaptized infants
« Reply #96 on: March 17, 2025, 08:04:56 PM »
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My fundamental thesis - and a major reason why I started this thread - is that the rot that has lead to the place we are in the Church post-V2 stems from a dilution and perversion of the purer doctrines of grace which, indeed,  can be traced in a strong line from Scripture, through St. Augustine,  and then to St. Thomas (and others you note).
Yes, this sentiment has been posted many times, by many different people.  I agree.

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Fr. Feeney famously noted the diminution of EENS,  and then the perverse extensions of BoD. Those, in my view, are symptoms of a disease whose cause goes more essentially to a diminution of Predestination and the stricter doctrines of grace, i.e., how God saves. The necessity of "fairness" to man keeps broadening and broadening,
Agree.

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If salvation is simply in man's hands  and must be to be fair,
It is in man's hands, in one sense.  Because God gave everyone free will.  He will not save anyone AGAINST their will, so there MUST be some human cooperation with grace.  This cooperation with grace is the part that is "in man's hands".

Your larger point, about salvation being "fair" is a good one.  The strict understanding of "fair" means that God deals with every human being differently, as every soul is different, and their life is different.  So, yes, God is "fair" to every person ever born.

But God is not "fair" in the modernist, liberal sense, i.e. God treats everyone the same -- no, He doesn't.  This is an error.  I think you agree.

Liberals and Modernists want everything to be "equal" (which is a by-product of the gradual freemasonic influence into the Church/society since 1789 and the French Revolution.

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it is easily seen how one moves from the necessity of being Catholic, to then any "Christian" with faith in Christ, then to non-Christian monotheists, and then, in the Novus Ordo Church, even to atheists of "good will." You see, all men must have a chance, no matter how they were raised, where they were born, etc.  Otherwise God is unjust and . . .
Yes, I agree.  God does give all men "a chance".  The error is to suppose that such "chances" can be perceived outwardly, measured, calculated, and compared to other human beings.  This type of thinking is just the heresies of rationalism and materialism, thinking incorrectly that God ONLY works through material things, and everything spiritual can somehow be known or compared.


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But if you recognize that God has elected those predestined to salvation, the objection to them all being Catholic evaporates. There is no basis for accusations of injustice if the ultimate determinate is not man's choice, his free will. If it is, as Pax maintains, then of course one can question how it's "fair" for a Mayan, or Incan, etc. who has never heard of Christ to go to hell - what choice did they have if they didn't reject Christ, but never even heard of him? Or someone, as JPII says in one of his encyclicals, whose cultural upbringing and circuмstances "prevent" them from formally converting to Christ, etc.
God gives ALL men the graces to be saved.  To those whom He knows will accept such graces, He gives MORE graces, so that they will make it.  This is not a contradiction, nor is it an injustice.  It is a mystery.

Plenty of people are damned due to sins against the 10 commandments.  Their lack of hearing about the True Faith is not the reason they are damned.  Rejecting the natural law is why they are damned.  Example:  A muslim can't complain to God that He never heard about Christ, if this muslim rejected his muslim faith, rejected all prayer, and lived like a degenerate.    If he won't even try to "spiritually crawl" he can never "spiritually walk".

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If God determines the person and the means,  there is simply no rational objection for His choice that it be via the Catholic Church, baptism,  etc. - the choice, after all, being His, and at His own discretion.
God does not determine WHO He will save (He does not pick and choose), but He determines WHO WILL ACCEPT SALVATION.  The mystery of salvation is that God has given all men free will and He will not violate this freedom.  In his providential omnipotence, He also knows those who will freely choose Him, thus He gives *more* than adequate graces for those to be saved.  But to ALL MEN he gives adequate graces, this is infallible.
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Offline DecemRationis

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Re: God's salvific will to save "all men" and the death of unbaptized infants
« Reply #97 on: March 18, 2025, 07:19:17 AM »
Pax,

You spin this stuff out of your own head, mostly. Though you pick up the threads spun out of many a head these days, where the tendency to man's "freedom" throws out or ignores most of the Scriptural testimony, the testimony of St. Augustine, St. Thomas, old churchmen who annotated the Haydock and Douay Rheims bibles, etc. So you can simply assert, "he gives all men adequate grace," without citation. 

A few posts back I cited St. Alphonsus dealing with the question of whether infants who die without baptism received "adequate grace" regarding salvation. His response, a traditional response: God gives the grace that could save all infants by making the sacrament of baptism "available" to all of mankind without distinction, or, he doesn't damn infants by punishing them in hell (providing a natural peace and joy in Limbo) if they don't have the opportunity to respond to the adequate grace which adults get but they don't. He does not say the infants get "adequate grace" in your sense to "choose" God because, well, they don't. 

You see, St. Alphonsus was a reasonable man, and cares about truth, and the facts upon which truth rests. 

You ignore the Scriptures and commentary by the doctors posted in this thread, and simply say, "no, all men get adequate grace to choose God, it's up to them ultimately, that's "infallible," when it's not. I know it's not because the truth teaches truthfully in her dogma, and those infants, for one, don't get "adequate grace" (in your sense) to choose God, factually and in reality. This is way baptism is the only way to heaven for them, as Pius XII noted in his delivery to midwives, since infants "can't make an act of love," i.e. can't respond to an "adequate grace" that isn't there for them (in your sense).

God elects some men to salvation ante praevisa merita, without a previewing of "what they would do to deserve it," before, as Scripture says, they were born and did anything, and not based on His foresight of what they did. Which is why Scripture emphasizes the before they were born and did anything. Rom. 9:11-12 -

 
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11 For when the children were not yet born, nor had done any good or evil, (that the purpose of God according to election might stand)

12 Not of works, but of him that calleth,

From Haydock's Commentary:


Not yet born. By this example of these twins, and the preference of the younger to the elder, the drift of the apostle is, to shew that God, in his election, mercy, and grace, is not tied to any particular nation, as the Jews imagined, nor to any prerogative of birth, or any foregoing merits. For as, antecedently, to his grace, he sees no merit in any, but finds all involved in sin, in the common mass of condemnation; and all children of wrath; there is no one whom he might not justly leave in that mass; so that whomsoever he delivers from it, he delivers in his mercy: and whomsoever he leaves in it, he leaves in his justice. As when, of two equally criminal, the king is pleased out of pure mercy to pardon one, whilst he suffers justice to take place in the execution of the other. (Challoner) — Nor had done any good or evil. God was pleased to prefer, and promise his blessings to the younger of them, Jacob, declaring that the elder shall serve the younger; that is, that the seed of the elder should be subject to that of the younger, as it happened afterwards to the Idumeans. And the prophet, Malachias, said of them, I have loved Jacob, but hated Esau, and turned his mountains into a desert, &c. — That the purpose of God, his will, and his decree, (see the foregoing chap. ver. 28.) might stand according to election, might be, not according to any works they had done, or that he foresaw they would do, but merely according to his mercy. And though the preference which God gave to Jacob was literally true, as to temporal benefits; yet St. Augustine observes in divers places, that Jacob was a figure of the elect or predestinate, and Esau of the reprobate; and that as Jacob and his posterity was more favoured, purely by the mercy of God, without any merits on their side; so are God’s elect, whom he has called, and to whom, according to his eternal purpose, he decreed to give eternal glory, and special graces to bring them thither. (Witham)


I'll wait for when you're able to deal with the facts, and the expressions of truth in Scripture and the fathers about grace, Predestination, and other relevant topics. Hopefully I won't be waiting in vain.  

But then you tend to promote "fables" and wishful thinking, as with the Great Catholic Monarch, a period of a thousand years of material peace and prosperity, etc. - also contrary to Scripture, the fathers, and those thorny things called the facts which one can't wish away.

DR 







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Online Pax Vobis

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Re: God's salvific will to save "all men" and the death of unbaptized infants
« Reply #98 on: March 18, 2025, 08:24:20 AM »

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Pax,

You spin this stuff out of your own head, mostly. Though you pick up the threads spun out of many a head these days, where the tendency to man's "freedom" throws out or ignores most of the Scriptural testimony, the testimony of St. Augustine, St. Thomas, old churchmen who annotated the Haydock and Douay Rheims bibles, etc. So you can simply assert, "he gives all men adequate grace," without citation. 
It is an infallible doctrine of the Catholic Faith that God wills that all men be saved. 


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A few posts back I cited St. Alphonsus dealing with the question of whether infants who die without baptism received "adequate grace" regarding salvation. His response, a traditional response: God gives the grace that could save all infants by making the sacrament of baptism "available" to all of mankind without distinction, or, he doesn't damn infants by punishing them in hell (providing a natural peace and joy in Limbo) if they don't have the opportunity to respond to the adequate grace which adults get but they don't. He does not say the infants get "adequate grace" in your sense to "choose" God because, well, they don't. 
The exception proves the rule, my man.  You're arguing about infants, which are an exception.  And...you admit they aren't damned.  So it's a non-sequitur.


A.  God wills all men to be saved.
B.  God gives all men the graces necessary for salvation.
C.  Ergo, any man who is damned, is so because he rejected God's grace.
---- The above is catholic doctrine ----

In the case of an infant, the logic is this:

A.  Unbaptized infants die before God gives them grace to accept salvation.
B.  Unbaptized infants do not have the capacity to sin or to accept grace, therefore they are not damned.
C.  Unbaptized infants are neither saved nor damned and thus, are not a contradiction of God's salvific will.
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Offline Angelus

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Re: God's salvific will to save "all men" and the death of unbaptized infants
« Reply #99 on: March 18, 2025, 09:24:40 AM »
I'm probably stepping into a minefield. Put me on ignore, if you wish. 

But can I just suggest that some of these apparent differences can be solved if one will focus on the difference between "justification" and "salvation."

A person can be unjust. If he dies in that state of injustice, he goes to eternal Hell. By what criteria is he judged? He is judged by the "lights" that he had available to him. Most humans that have ever existed were unjust in the eyes of God because they did not follow the good that he knew that was written in their heart by God [Roman chapter 2:11-15].

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 11 For there is no respect of persons with God.  12 For whosoever have sinned without the law, shall perish without the law; and whosoever have sinned in the law, shall be judged by the law.  13 For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified.  14 For when the Gentiles, who have not the law, do by nature those things that are of the law; these having not the law are a law to themselves:  15 Who shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness to them, and their thoughts between themselves accusing, or also defending one another,

A pagan like Plato was not judged by the same criteria as St. Alphonsus because Plato did not have the full light of Truth in Jesus Christ. Plato was judged by the "natural law." Similarly, the OT "just men" were judged by the lights available to them. They did not have the full light of Christ, but the gates of heaven were opened to them after Christ's Resurrection. Just men eventually went to Heaven, but they had to wait in "Abraham's bosom." God's pattern of applying justice does not change. He is eternal. His justice is eternal. 

However, with Jesus Christ, a new path was opened up. This is the path of "salvation." Salvation is a path that can allow a "just person" to go straight to Heaven without a stop "limbo" or Purgatory. This is what happens with the Catholic Saints. And it is only available to those who are members of the Roman Catholic Church, properly understood. But simply being a member is not enough, one needs to do heroic works and take advantage of the Sacraments and Sacramentals offered by the Church. With those additional elements, a "just person" has the chance (however slight) to go straight to Heaven, rather than go to "limbo" or Purgatory first. 

So, EENS, means that no one will go straight to Heaven (be "saved" from the fires) who is outside the Church. It does not mean that a truly "just man" (as rare as they might be) cannot still go to Purgatory or "limbo" before eventually be allowed into Heaven after the Second Coming. Again, most people will not lead a just life and they will not have the true teaching and Sacraments to get them back on track when they fall. So being "outside the Church" is like living in a minefield. Very dangerous for the soul.

The Roman Catholic Church provides a treasury of graces that allow some of its most heroic members to bypass Purgatory if those graces are taken advantage of. Most Catholics, however, are not even "just" much less on the path of "salvation." An unjust Catholic will go to Hell just like an unjust non-Catholic. The difference is that the Catholic had much more "light" to work with and threw it away. So being Roman Catholic is a double-edged sword. To much is given, much is expected [Luke 12:48].

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