A Final "edition" for those that want to cut and paste in response to future BODers who start threads:
This thread has degenerated in another BOD thread due to a poster named Angelus. I've been at this for 25 years, and I keep saying the same thing for at least the last 5 years: Why debate with someone whose BOD beliefs are never revealed in detail by them? BOD today can mean a catechumen who dies on the way to be baptized (St. Thomas of Aquinas) , all the way to a strict Muslim who does not want to be baptized, nor be a Catholic, and in fact despises the Church (implicit faith in a God the rewards), AND everything in between. It is like Protestantism, where each Protestant has his own beliefs, a church of one. How can any defender of EENS as it is written, even begin a debate with a BODer without first ascertaining what that particular person believes in detail? From my long experience, the finding out of those details is like pulling teeth, but it is a much shorter path than these never ending debates about who knows what that particular BODer believes.
A cut and paste from my archives:
The writer who calls himself RT, as with 99% of all BODers, will never be convinced of even limiting "his BOD" to the BOD of the catechumen of St. Thomas and St. Alphonsus Ligouri, for his real belief is the same as The SSPV quote below, not really a belief, but an unbelief:
The SSPV, The Roman Catholic, Fall 2003, p. 7: “With the strict, literal interpretation of this doctrine, however, I must take issue, for if I read and understand the strict interpreters correctly, nowhere is allowance made for invincible ignorance, conscience, or good faith on the part of those who are not actual or formal members of the Church at the moment of death. It is inconceivable to me that, of all the billions of non-Catholics who have died in the past nineteen and one-half centuries, none of them were in good faith in this matter and, if they were, I simply refuse to believe that hell is their eternal destiny.”
That quote needs to be updated to address a defined BOD, the limited BOD of the catechumen of St. Thomas. Below is what 99% of BODers really believe TODAY concerning the limited BOD of the catechumen of St. Thomas Aquinas (and of course what the writer above believes):
“With the strict, literal interpretation of the limited BOD of the catechumen of St. Thomas Aquinas, however, I must take issue, for if I read and understand the strict interpreters correctly, nowhere is allowance made for invincible ignorance, conscience, or good faith on the part of those who do not have explicit desire to be baptized or explicit belief in the Holy Trinity and the Incarnation ( the Divinity of Jesus Christ) . It is inconceivable to me that, of all the billions of non-believers - Muslim, Hindus, Buddhists, Jєωs.... who have died in the past nineteen and one-half centuries, none of them were in good faith in this matter and, if they were, I simply refuse to believe that hell is their eternal destiny.”