Interesting. I'd like to read the quote, since I believe the same thing. I actually also believe that the so-called "noble pagan," one who lived according the lights of natural law and practiced natural virtue could even merit a type of natural happiness very similar to that enjoyed by the unbaptized infants in Limbo ... entering into a sort of "happy hunting ground", as it were. I believe that the degree of temporal punishment (and temporal happiness) can vary based on natural virtue and natural vice.
But supernatural reward (or lack thereof) is an entirely different matter and has little relationship with natural virtue. No human being can earn this through the exercise of natural virtue. It is a free gift of God. Why, then would God allow someone who excelled in natural virtue to die without sanctifying grace? Well, God also knows whether or not the person would have corresponded to the grace or, alternatively, rejected it and merited punishment in eternity.
If one were to properly separate the natural and the supernatural, then there would not longer be any questioning regarding the "mercy" of God in not rewarding natural virtue with supernatural grace. But people tend to blend these together and blur them in some kind of semi-Pelagan cocktail.
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It is a view attributed to him but I have not read the primary source, which is in French. If you read French or can get it translated, it is here:
https://www.scribd.com/doc/209579800/Cardinal-Louis-Billot-LA-PROVIDENCE-DE-DIEU-ET-LE-NOMBRE-INFINI-D-HOMMES-HORS-DE-LA-VOIE-NORMALE-DU-SALUT.
The anthropological evidence suggests that a great many Pagans, especially in the Americas, were extremely savage and did not normally live lives commensurate with the natural law. Given that, I don't hold out the same sort of hopes attributed to Billot that a
great many pagans went to Limbo. The precepts of the natural law are something no one can be completely ignorant of, and while the Light of the Gospel certainly gives us added incentive to follow the natural law, reason alone-- which all men have-- is enough to not violate it. One does not need the Gospel to arrive at certitude about the immorality of murder, for instance. I do not think being unevangelized makes someone
so morally imbecilic as to miss a point like this.
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Byzcat3000,
There’s no such thing as a non-visible, indirect or partial member of the Church.
In his encyclical Mystici Corporis, Pius XII wrote, “Only those are to be considered members of the Church who have been baptized and profess the true faith.”
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I said this because it's a logical conclusion for those who believe in invincible ignorance (which has never been proved, btw). If invincible ignorance exists, then missionaries are a waste of time, because there's no reason to preach the Faith to a person who will already be saved through no fault of their own.
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There's obviously and sensibly a lot of talk in this thread about the Vatican II view of the Church and salvation. In my opinion, the real and fundamental problem is not invincible ignorance, not even Vatican II "ecclesiology" in a direct sense, but religious liberty. Obviously this is debatable, but my reasoning is this. The question of man's fundamental rights and duties before God are really philosophical questions first, with theological implications after. If you get the philosophy of man's fundamental duties to God wrong, then you're simply
bound to err later down the line as well, especially with regard to how God will treat those who do or do not belong to some Church or another. Now it's certainly possible to wind up with a bad ecclesiology and soteriology via other routes, but
if you start with an individualistically-sovereign view of man like DH does, you essentially
guarantee that you'll get a bad ecclesiology and soteriology.
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Part of my reason for pinning the problem on Vatican II's view of religious liberty more directly than its teachings on ecclesiology this is that having read what a great many pre-conciliar authors have to say about these issues, and I am not talking about authors like Rahner and the like but traditional authors, concepts like invincible ignorance, baptism of desire, membership in voto, etc. are easily maintained with a logic that simply does not lead to big-tent churches and the like. The missing ingredient for getting those sorts of conclusions is a view of man that insists on some inviolable duty to follow his specific religious impulses regardless of what they actually are. And that's not a premise granted by any of the pre-conciliar theologians so far as I can tell-- that's a
true novelty (it's condemned in the
Syllabus, after all), and that's really what "gets us" to these universal and quasi-universal salvation schemas. That's what gets us things like the Ballamand Declaration and similar anti-missionary policies and teachings.