How do supporters of BOD and BOB hold the position as a teaching of the church when it isn't to be found anywhere in the infallible pronouncements of the Holy Fathers? The BOD/BOB teaching derives from the authority of the fallible Saints who believed Catechumens, who had knowledge and faith in the trinity would go to purgatory since they still had to suffer the temporal punishments due to sin. (They definitely did not hold that ignorant or obstinate heathens would be saved and go straight to heaven) I believe this comes from people elevating the fallible opinions of theologians which contradicted the higher power to low-key apply salvation to other religions. How does one sincerely get past the point that it's nowhere taught in the infallible dogmatic pronouncements of the church?
"30. When anyone finds a doctrine clearly established in Augustine, he can absolutely hold and teach it, disregarding any bull of the pope." (condemned)
Alexander VIII, Decree of the Holy Office, Dec. 7, 1690, Errors of the Jansenists
Source: Denzinger The Sources of Catholic Dogma 1957
Dz. 1291-1321
Furthermore, St. Thomas taught that the infallible pronouncements of the church must be adhered to if there are any contradictions by the doctors of the church.
"The custom of the Church has very great authority and ought to be jealously observed in all things, since the very doctrine of catholic doctors derives its authority from the Church. Hence we ought to abide by the authority of the Church rather than by that of an Augustine or a Jerome or of any doctor whatever." St. Thomas II-II, Q10, A12
Lastly, here is an example I found of how missionaries did not hold any notion of BOD or BOB;
"One of the things that most of all pains and torments these Japanese is, that we teach them that the prison of hell is irrevocably shut, so that there is no egress therefrom. For they grieve over the fate of their departed children, of their parents and relatives, and they often show their grief by their tears. So they ask us if there is any hope, any way to free them by prayer from that eternal misery, and I am obliged to answer that there is absolutely none. Their grief at this affects and torments them wonderfully; they almost pine away with sorrow. But there is this good thing about their trouble—it makes one hope that they will all be the more laborious for their own salvation, lest they, like their forefathers, should be condemned to everlasting punishment. They often ask if God cannot take their fathers out of hell, and why their punishment must never have an end. We gave them a satisfactory answer, but they did not cease to grieve over the misfortune of their relatives; and I can hardly restrain my tears sometimes at seeing men so dear to my heart suffer such intense pain about a thing which is already done with and can never be undone.
...
Before their baptism the converts of Amanguchi were greatly troubled and pained by a hateful and annoying scruple—that God did not appear to them merciful and good, because He had never made Himself known to the Japanese before our arrival, especially if it were true that those who had not worshipped God as we preached were doomed to suffer everlasting punishment in hell. It seemed to them that He had forgotten and as it were neglected the salvation of all their ancestors, in permitting them to be deprived of the knowledge of saving truths, and thus to rush headlong on eternal death. It was this painful thought which, more than anything else, kept them back from the religion of the true God. But by the divine mercy all their error and scruple was taken away. We began by proving to them that the divine law is the most ancient of all. Before receiving their institutions from the Chinese, the Japanese knew by the teaching of nature that it was wicked to kill, to steal, to swear falsely, and to commit the other sins enumerated in the ten commandments, a proof of this being the remorse of conscience to which any one guilty of one of these crimes was certain to be a prey. We showed them that reason itself teaches us to avoid evil and to do good, and that this is so deeply implanted in the hearts of men, that all have the knowledge of the divine law from nature, and from God the Author of nature, before they receive any external instruction on the subject. . . . This being so, it necessarily follow that before any laws were made by men the divine law existed innate in the hearts of all men. The converts were so satisfied with this reasoning, as to see no further difficulty; so that this net having been broken, they received from us with a glad heart the sweet yoke of our Lord. . . ." The Life and Letters of St. Francis Xavier 1552, "To The Society in Europe"
Topic: Implicit BOD (Read 18874 times)