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Author Topic: Trinity/Incarnation vs. Rewarder God: Which is more likely to be correct?  (Read 948 times)

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Offline Ladislaus

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So, bosco and Nado, which of these is more likely to be correct?

A) Rewarder God

B) Trinity/Incarnation (in addition to Rewarder God)

in support of B you have
1) unanimous consensus of the Church Fathers
2) the Athanasian Creed
3) 1600 years of uncontested and universal belief
4) the unanimous consensus of all Church Doctors (no Doctor held A)
5) the Holy Office under St. Pius X (we'll cite that shortly)
6) Vatican I (I will cite that one as well)
7) majority of Catholic theologians even all the way up to Vatican II (as testified by Msgr. Fenton)

in support of A you have
1) Suarez and a few other Jesuits (inventors of the notion) in about the year 1600
2) most modernist theologians
3) bosco and Nado

So, bosco and Nado, will you at least concede (if you have even a shred of intellectual honesty) that based on the above evidence, opinion B is FAR more likely to be correct?  B has Church authority behind it whereas for A you only have "negative infallibility", i.e. the failure to condemn.

At least admit that you are rebels following a minority opinion against what appears to be the preponderance of authoritative actions by the Church.


Offline Matto

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  • The A position also had Suprema Haec Sacra.
    R.I.P.
    Please pray for the repose of my soul.


    Offline Augustinus

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  • The A position also had Suprema Haec Sacra.
    It actually endorses neither position but just says that in addition to an implicit desire for baptism you need supernatural faith and charity. It neither limits nor defines the extent of the necessary articles of faith, whether 2 or 4.
    I say 4 for many reasons, in part because you see authors in the 18th century specifically saying that the watering down of the dogma EENS and the theorizing of implicit faith is a recent innovation. Indeed, I blame it on two things-
    1. The discovery of America leading to speculation on the state of deceased Indians,
    2. Protestantism in its 2nd and 3rd generations, namely souls departing as "Protestants in good faith."
    These two elements combined with the liberalism arising from the renaissance and disordered humanism became a recipe for theological disaster.
    The saints are few, but we must live with the few if we would be saved with the few. O God, too few indeed they are; yet among those few I wish to be!
    -St. Alphonsus Liguori. (The Holy Eucharist, 494)

    Offline Ladislaus

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  • The A position also had Suprema Haec Sacra.

    Debatable.  Msgr. Fenton actually argued that SH did not have to be interpreted as siding with Rewarder God theory.

    Offline Ladislaus

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  • 1. The discovery of America leading to speculation on the state of deceased Indians,
    2. Protestantism in its 2nd and 3rd generations, namely souls departing as "Protestants in good faith."
    These two elements combined with the liberalism arising from the renaissance and disordered humanism became a recipe for theological disaster.

    I would agree.  These are all emotional and not theological reasons.  Another example of how people start with an agenda rooted in emotion and then create the theology afterwards in support of it.  Protestantism, however, would not be an example of BoD in many cases where Protestants are in fact validly baptized; that involves the notion of potential material heresy (vs. formal) ... which is a very blurry discussion (blurred by people who think of material heresy as synonymous with "sincerity" or "meaning well").  But let's stay way from that question for now.


    Offline Matto

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  • Debatable.  Msgr. Fenton actually argued that SH did not have to be interpreted as siding with Rewarder God theory.
    I know. I remember reading his opinion about that on the Te Deum Forum. But nearly everyone else thinks it taught otherwise and most people in the Church and the Novus Ordo interpreted it as teaching otherwise. And when I read it, it seems to me that it taught otherwise also.
    R.I.P.
    Please pray for the repose of my soul.

    Offline Ladislaus

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  • I know. I remember reading his opinion about that on the Te Deum Forum. But nearly everyone else thinks it taught otherwise and most people in the Church and the Novus Ordo interpreted it as teaching otherwise. And when I read it, it seems to me that it taught otherwise also.

    That's why I said debatable.  We could add SH tentatively to category A.  Even then, the preponderance of evidence is in favor of B.  And SH's authority is pretty low ... not even "authentic" due to its failure to appear in AAS.  I consider it a fake and the handiwork of the same modernists who brought us the V2 revolution.

    Offline Augustinus

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  • That's why I said debatable.  We could add SH tentatively to category A.  Even then, the preponderance of evidence is in favor of B.  And SH's authority is pretty low ... not even "authentic" due to its failure to appear in AAS.  I consider it a fake and the handiwork of the same modernists who brought us the V2 revolution.
    I am not certain of this, but I don't think every Curial decision needs to be rendered part of the AAS, and they are binding on the laity simply as Curial decisions IIRC.
    The saints are few, but we must live with the few if we would be saved with the few. O God, too few indeed they are; yet among those few I wish to be!
    -St. Alphonsus Liguori. (The Holy Eucharist, 494)


    Offline Ladislaus

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  • I am not certain of this, but I don't think every Curial decision needs to be rendered part of the AAS, and they are binding on the laity simply as Curial decisions IIRC.

    Not inherently, obviously, or by divine law.  But the reason for the Church law which specifies that all acts of the authentic Magisterium must appear here ... is precisely to avoid spurious or fraudulent garbage from being attributed to the Magisterium.  All signs are that SH was just such a fraud.  WHY would the Holy See fail to include this in AAS?

    Offline Ladislaus

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  • bosco and Nado are rather silent about the question posed in this thread.  That's quite telling.

    Given the support for the two positions, as outlined above (even if we throw SH into the mix), which would appear more likely to an independent objective observer?  Clearly the Church has failed to condemn as "wrong" the position that explicit faith in the Holy Trinity and Incarnation are necessary for salvation.  So, by Nadonian "logic", it must be right.  Be that as it may, you have the Church canonizing Doctors who taught this.

    Offline Augustinus

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  • Not inherently, obviously, or by divine law.  But the reason for the Church law which specifies that all acts of the authentic Magisterium must appear here ... is precisely to avoid spurious or fraudulent garbage from being attributed to the Magisterium.  All signs are that SH was just such a fraud.  WHY would the Holy See fail to include this in AAS?
    I do think it is suspicious if it is correctly attributed to the express will of Pope Pius XII.
    The saints are few, but we must live with the few if we would be saved with the few. O God, too few indeed they are; yet among those few I wish to be!
    -St. Alphonsus Liguori. (The Holy Eucharist, 494)


    Offline BumphreyHogart

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  • bosco and Nado are rather silent about the question posed in this thread.  That's quite telling.

    Laszlo, do you understand that your question inherently reveals that you admit that the position that is less likely is still probable?

    How can something that you admit is possible be against previously defined solemn dogma? 

    That would be making you publicly calling into doubt a previously defined dogma if you admit a possibility against it!
    "there can be no holiness where there is disagreement with the pope" - Pope St. Pius X

    Today, only Catholics holding the sedevacantist position are free from the anguish entailed by this truth.

    Offline Cantarella

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  • Even Msgr. Fenton agrees that the Faith necessary for salvation must be explicit in 4 points: the existence of God, He being a Rewarder, the Incarnation of Our Lord, and the Holy Trinity.

    From his work The Meaning of the Church Necessity for Salvation, 1951:

    "Likewise, and by force of the very content of Catholic theology, it is standard scholastic teaching that the votum or desire of entering the Catholic Church may be merely implicit and still sufficient to bring a man “within” the Church so as to make his salvation possible. Salvific faith must be explicit on four points. No man can believe in God as he must believe in order to possess the life of sanctifying grace without distinctly acknowledging the existence of God as the Head of the supernatural order, the fact that God thus rewards the good and punishes evil, the mystery of the Blessed Trinity, and the mystery of the Incarnation. The mystery of the Catholic Church is not one of these facts which must be believed explicitly in salvific faith."
    If anyone says that true and natural water is not necessary for baptism and thus twists into some metaphor the words of our Lord Jesus Christ" Unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Spirit" (Jn 3:5) let him be anathema.

    Offline Ladislaus

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  • Laszlo, do you understand that your question inherently reveals that you admit that the position that is less likely is still probable?


    Complete dodge.  I'm not interested in this conclusion of yours (which doesn't necessarily follow).  You draw this from the fact that the A opinion exists out there and the Church has not explicitly condemned it.  That doesn't make it probable.

    Answer the question.  Based on the support above for each position, which is more likely to be true?

    Also, it's simple logic that one of these is false.  Consequently, the Church would have tolerated AT LEAST ONE FALSE theological position ... which you claim is impossible.