Nor can we say that it is de fide that he is in Hell for eternity, for even though we know Hell exists and people go there, we can't even say for certainty, private revelations aside, that Judas is there, let alone some infidel from Bangladesh.

I have to disagree with the part about Judas. According to scripture, Jesus himself predicted Judas' damnation. From Matthew chapter 26:


[21] And whilst they were eating, he said: Amen I say to you, that one of you is about to betray me. [22] And they being very much troubled, began every one to say: Is it I, Lord? [23] But he answering, said: He that dippeth his hand with me in the dish, he shall betray me. [24] The Son of man indeed goeth, as it is written of him: but woe to that man by whom the Son of man shall be betrayed: it were better for him, if that man had not been born.

The only way that "it were better for him, if that man had not been born" was if he would be damned to hell.

If they didn't become a Catholic, only God can say whether their reasons were justifiable, (ignorance of the existence of the church, ignorance of the teachings of the church, bad example by Catholics who should have known differently, etc.) and only God can choose whether to extend to them the sanctifying grace to save their soul.  

Are you aware that what you have written goes against the dogmatic Athanasian Creed, which is ancient and believed by all the Fathers of the Church, St. Thomas and all the saints? Ignorance of the existence of the church, ignorance of the teachings of the church, bad example by Catholics who should have known differently, have been around since the beginning and have been directly rejected as "excuses" for salvation by the Church Fathers and Saints since the beginning.

Athanasian Creed

1. Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholic faith;
2. Which faith except every one do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly.
 3. And the Catholic faith is this: That we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity;
[/b] 4. Neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance.
 5. For there is one person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Spirit.
 6. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit is all one, the glory equal, the majesty coeternal.
 7. Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Spirit.
 8. The Father uncreated, the Son uncreated, and the Holy Spirit uncreated.
 9. The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, and the Holy Spirit incomprehensible.
 10. The Father eternal, the Son eternal, and the Holy Spirit eternal.
 11. And yet they are not three eternals but one eternal.
 12. As also there are not three uncreated nor three incomprehensible, but one uncreated and one incomprehensible.
 13. So likewise the Father is almighty, the Son almighty, and the Holy Spirit almighty.
 14. And yet they are not three almighties, but one almighty.
 15. So the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God;
 16. And yet they are not three Gods, but one God.
 17. So likewise the Father is Lord, the Son Lord, and the Holy Spirit Lord;
 18. And yet they are not three Lords but one Lord.
 19. For like as we are compelled by the Christian verity to acknowledge every Person by himself to be God and Lord;
 20. So are we forbidden by the catholic religion to say; There are three Gods or three Lords.
 21. The Father is made of none, neither created nor begotten.
 22. The Son is of the Father alone; not made nor created, but begotten.
 23. The Holy Spirit is of the Father and of the Son; neither made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding.
 24. So there is one Father, not three Fathers; one Son, not three Sons; one Holy Spirit, not three Holy Spirits.
 25. And in this Trinity none is afore or after another; none is greater or less than another.
 26. But the whole three persons are coeternal, and coequal.
 27. So that in all things, as aforesaid, the Unity in Trinity and the Trinity in Unity is to be worshipped.
28. He therefore that will be saved must thus think of the Trinity.
29. Furthermore it is necessary to everlasting salvation that he also believe rightly the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ.  
 30. For the right faith is that we believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and man.
 31. God of the substance of the Father, begotten before the worlds; and man of substance of His mother, born in the world.
 32. Perfect God and perfect man, of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting.
 33. Equal to the Father as touching His Godhead, and inferior to the Father as touching His manhood.
 34. Who, although He is God and man, yet He is not two, but one Christ.
 35. One, not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh, but by taking of that manhood into God.
 36. One altogether, not by confusion of substance, but by unity of person.
 37. For as the reasonable soul and flesh is one man, so God and man is one Christ;
 38. Who suffered for our salvation, descended into hell, rose again the third day from the dead;
 39. He ascended into heaven, He sits on the right hand of the Father, God, Almighty;
 40. From thence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
 41. At whose coming all men shall rise again with their bodies;
 42. and shall give account of their own works.
 43. And they that have done good shall go into life everlasting and they that have done evil into everlasting fire.
44. This is the catholic faith, which except a man believe faithfully he cannot be saved.  


 

Do you ever read what Pope Pius IX taught immediately before and after the text you keep quoting to support salvation outside the Church? I mean you can't possibly miss it because your quote is sandwiched right in-between two explicit affirmations of the EENS dogma. The sentence you keep quoting as you do can be used to deny the dogma only if it is lifted out of its context between these two affirmations, and deliberately misunderstood or mistranslated, as you constantly do.

If you read the whole thing, you will not be able to deny the EENS dogma as you do now by taking it out of context - as you constantly do. If you sincerely want to understand it in context, you need to post the whole part.

7. Here, too, our beloved sons and venerable brothers, it is again necessary to mention and censure a very grave error entrapping some Catholics who believe that it is possible to arrive at eternal salvation although living in error and alienated from the true faith and Catholic unity. Such belief is certainly opposed to Catholic teaching. There are, of course, those who are struggling with invincible ignorance about our most holy religion. Sincerely observing the natural law and its precepts inscribed by God on all hearts and ready to obey God, they live honest lives and are able to attain eternal life by the efficacious virtue of divine light and grace. Because God knows, searches and clearly understands the minds, hearts, thoughts, and nature of all, his supreme kindness and clemency do not permit anyone at all who is not guilty of deliberate sin to suffer eternal punishments.

8. Also well known is the Catholic teaching that no one can be saved outside the Catholic Church. Eternal salvation cannot be obtained by those who oppose the authority and statements of the same Church and are stubbornly separated from the unity of the Church and also from the successor of Peter, the Roman Pontiff, to whom "the custody of the vineyard has been committed by the Savior." The words of Christ are clear enough: "If he refuses to listen even to the Church, let him be to you a Gentile and a tax collector;" "He who hears you hears me, and he who rejects you, rejects me, and he who rejects me, rejects him who sent me;" "He who does not believe will be condemned;" "He who does not believe is already condemned;" "He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters." The Apostle Paul says that such persons are "perverted and self-condemned;" the Prince of the Apostles calls them "false teachers . . . who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master. . . bringing upon themselves swift destruction."

BeatusRusticus, in all charity, your post just reeks modernism.

...And my friend, if you yourself read it, with the mind of the Church, you would understand that you cannot selectively ignore the parts of a docuмent or teaching that you do not like. Pius IX does not contradict himself, he rather re-echoes the constant teaching of the Catholic Church. God commands all of us to be Catholic. We must be Catholic if we are to be saved. But God is not bound by the laws he gives to man (EENS) and can bestow grace where He will, so that if He wills to save someone who is not outwardly Catholic, He certainly can do so -and His mercy might compel Him to, when there is a certain pagan who through natural virtue has responded to the graces which God has sent him, but who, through the fault of Catholics, has not been shown the Catholic religion.

Of course Pope Pius IX does not contradict himself. His stamements on invincible ignorance understood in context and in light of Catholic dogma mean that these invincibly ignorant people who strive to live upright life can receive graces from God to find the Catholic faith, be converted and saved. That does not mean that they can be saved in the state of invincible ignorance.

And again, just like many Cushingites, you introduce the notion that someone "could not become Catholic faith becaue he has not been shown Catholic religion". So apparently God is bound by efforts of missionaries and can't provide faith to His elect in other ways whenever He pleases. This is denial of God's providence.

This is really all that need be said on the subject. If the early Fathers seem more "simple and straightforward," "staunch," "austere," however you want to put it, it is not because "liberals have softened the doctrine since the high Middle Ages," (liberals have softened the doctrine, but this has taken place in the mid-20th century to today, not in the 19th)  but because all their writings assume the context of a completely Christianized world, so they did not need to verbalize apparent "exceptions" about "invincible ignorance," etc. They write for the Catholic, and for a literate world that knew Christ. If a man knew Latin or Greek,  or knew people who knew these languages, then he knew the Church and therefore needed to be reminded that his salvation depended on being a Christian. It's hard for us to understand this today, but in, let's say, A.D. 400, until the 1400s when seafaring began to open new lands, it was simply impossible to conceive of a wider world of many continents and nation states, as we do now. It was a long journey of days between cities that we can now zip between in our cars in 20 minutes. It could take months to travel from Italy into France. Ireland was a mysterious land on the very edge of the world. Most people never in their entire lives travelled more than 20 miles from their birthplace. The Sahara and the empty steppes of Central Asia, and the frozen wastelands of the north, meant that beyond the Mediterranean region of Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East (as we now call it, with our knowledge of China, India, etc. Back then it was just "the east") comprised the whole world, and anything beyond that was merely legends, wild stories, and fables.

Perfect and truly modernist example of explaining the dogma away through historical criticism. Apparently the dogma does not mean what it says, we need to know all historical circuмstances to understand what it actually means (which turn out to be opposite to what the dogmatic pronouncements actually say). People use the same methodology to explain away Unam Sanctam, saying that Pope Boniface VIII wrote that against the French king to discipline him and that thus it cannot be treated as infallible statement binding on all Christians till the end of time.  

The understanding of Catholic dogma cannot change because we discovered new lands with millions of pagans, so that suddenly an alternative way of salvation ("invincible ignorance" etc.) has to be invented for them. You articulate the heresy condemned by Vatican I - the meaning of the dogmas cannot change and they have to be understood as the Church understood them when they were defined. According to you, the meaning Cantate Domino, which teaches that all who die as pagans go to hell, has changed because of geographical discoveries etc.

In this context, it makes perfect sense that most of the earlier statements (e.g. the Athanasian Creed) don't become 20 page theological treatises explaining every apparent "exception" -that's not their purpose. The purpose of that creed is to contradict those who think that the Trinity is false, and secondly, for our purposes, to contradict those who think that a man has just as much chance of enjoying paradise after death if he worships Apollo or Sol Invictus, or follows the false teaching of a heretic like Arius.

More modernism. The Athanasian Creed says that those without the Catholic faith without a doubt shall perish in eternity. No exceptions are even hinted at. According to you, what it actually means is "it is best to hold the Catholic faith, but it is possible to be saved without it under certain circuмstances" - directly opposite of what the Athanasian Creed says.

"Historical criticism," as you term it, has nothing at all to do with the "explaining away of doctrine." Rather, anyone with common sense can see that the context of time and author will inevitably color any statement. This is what the Church takes care of for us. She knows the Faith, and she applies the relevant principles to teach all men the truths necessary to save their souls. Saint Augustine, Saint Ambrose, St. Gregory the Great, St. Thomas, St. Ignatius of Loyola, all wrote to specific audiences, and their statements were colored by their context. It's the responsibility of the Church in every age, to teach us the faith, teach us to avoid heresy, and address the troubling questions of the times, as in every age the Devil will throw up some controversy to try to draw souls from the Church by attacking one doctrine or the other.

In the fourth century it was Arianism, in the fourteenth, monarchical usurpation of Church rights, in the sixteenth, Protestantism, in the nineteenth, Religious Indifferentism. Now, apropos to this discussion, there are two current errors: religious indifferentism has still not been crushed, as it is being enthusiastically upheld by secular governments, and has in practice morphed into Agnosticism. And on the other hand there is a small but vocal group of persons who, though intending to uphold the Church's teaching, in practice scandalize many souls by their wresting of every docuмent to try to prove that any soul who has not been baptized with water is surely and absolutely going to Hell, and with them, must go very many saints, popes, and martyrs, who committed monstrous crimes of heresy by daring to suggest that God is not bound by the rules He sets forth for man.

This over-literal selective interpretation flies in the face of common sense and reality. What if the only "exposure" an infidel had to the faith was the warped gospel taught by some happy-clappy charismatic who believes that the Catholic religion consists of barking like a dog and talking about Jesus' love ad nauseam? Or, to sharpen my point a bit more, we all know the crazy lady at Mass who sprinkles holy water and blessed salt everywhere, wears a half dozen medals, and tells you that you will go to Hell if you aren't a Catholic. She's not wrong, and there is nothing wrong with sacramentals, but if she were the only exposure a pagan ever had to the faith, you might understand that he would mentally say "these Catholics are crazy, I think in my heart that my Buddhist religion is a bit silly and I can feel there's something amiss, but I'm quite sure Catholicism isn't the answer, maybe this pious seeming imam who talks about Mohammed and peace, has better answers?" Or what if we are speaking of Saint Appolonia, who heard the gospel, accepted it, and was martyred before she was given the grace of a water baptism?

Of course, the Feeneyite will probably tell me that God's providence takes care of this problem, because if He put a pagan where the only gospel he would hear is that of Crazy Woman or Fr. Happy, then that pagan was predestined to be damned, and it is God's mercy that put him where he could never hear the faith and embrace it, instead of putting him into, say, a Catholic Traditionalist family where he could receive the faith in toto, reject it, and suffer even more in Hell because of it. (And Saint Appolonia wasn't a real Saint, and the Church has just erred in saying she is, for the last 1700 years. Or maybe she was given an "invisible water baptism" by angels, the moment before she died.)

It may be that this is correct, but it is not, to be sure, de fide doctrine on providence and justification, which is justly called a mystery (that intangible but very real divide, somewhere, between grace and free will, God's mercy, and God's justice.) And this is the crux of the matter, for me. If the saints and popes treat this topic with the greatest reverence and caution, then who are we, as layfolk, to pronounce assuredly, calling one another "Feeneyites" and "Cushingites" and insisting that anyone who doesn't accept our particular understanding of a very convoluted subject in a very confused time, is a pertinacious heretic? This attitude lacks charity, and smacks of pride, because it results in an attitude of "I and the two dozen other people in my online circle of friends, and a handful of clergy, are the only real Catholics, and everyone else is best friends with the devil, and probably has horns and a tail." What kind of attitude is that? The question of the thread was "Can pagans be virtuous?" Not "what do you think of BOD and BOB."

"Historical criticism," as you term it, has nothing at all to do with the "explaining away of doctrine." Rather, anyone with common sense can see that the context of time and author will inevitably color any statement. This is what the Church takes care of for us. She knows the Faith, and she applies the relevant principles to teach all men the truths necessary to save their souls. Saint Augustine, Saint Ambrose, St. Gregory the Great, St. Thomas, St. Ignatius of Loyola, all wrote to specific audiences, and their statements were colored by their context. It's the responsibility of the Church in every age, to teach us the faith, teach us to avoid heresy, and address the troubling questions of the times, as in every age the Devil will throw up some controversy to try to draw souls from the Church by attacking one doctrine or the other.

This is typical modernist way of speaking. Dogma is not "written to specific audiences" and its definition is not "colored by their context" - Catholic dogmas are an object of Divine and Catholic faith and must be understood as the Church defined them. You articulate the modernist heresy which was explicitly condemned by St. Pius X in Pascendi, according to which dogmas are not trues fallen from heaven, but interpretations which need to be elaborated upon to understand its true meaning.

In other words, according to you the EENS dogma is not a truth fallen from Heaven announcing that all who die as non-Catholic cannot be saved (Athanasian Creed, Cantate Domino), but kind of theological statement which needs to be properly interpreted in its historical context. This is totally heretical.

This over-literal selective interpretation flies in the face of common sense and reality.

So now dogma is understood through "common sense" (whatever one thinks is "commonly sensible"), not through its dogmatic definition - more modernism.

By the way, what is "over-literal" in affirming that anyone who dies without the Catholic faith will without a doubt perish in eternity, as the Athanasian Creed explicitly states?

What if the only "exposure" an infidel had to the faith was the warped gospel taught by some happy-clappy charismatic who believes that the Catholic religion consists of barking like a dog and talking about Jesus' love ad nauseam? Or, to sharpen my point a bit more, we all know the crazy lady at Mass who sprinkles holy water and blessed salt everywhere, wears a half dozen medals, and tells you that you will go to Hell if you aren't a Catholic. She's not wrong, and there is nothing wrong with sacramentals, but if she were the only exposure a pagan ever had to the faith, you might understand that he would mentally say "these Catholics are crazy, I think in my heart that my Buddhist religion is a bit silly and I can feel there's something amiss, but I'm quite sure Catholicism isn't the answer, maybe this pious seeming imam who talks about Mohammed and peace, has better answers?" Or what if we are speaking of Saint Appolonia, who heard the gospel, accepted it, and was martyred before she was given the grace of a water baptism?

Right, so according to you God cannot provide faith to people who sincerely seek for truth, He depends upon the efforts of Catholic missionaries and is bound by it.

Of course you bring up the issue of BoD - but Thomistic BoD (for those with explicit faith in Jesus Christ, which Saint Apolonia had) is something entirely different than the Cushingite heresy of salvation without faith in Christ.

Of course, the Feeneyite will probably tell me that God's providence takes care of this problem, because if He put a pagan where the only gospel he would hear is that of Crazy Woman or Fr. Happy, then that pagan was predestined to be damned, and it is God's mercy that put him where he could never hear the faith and embrace it, instead of putting him into, say, a Catholic Traditionalist family where he could receive the faith in toto, reject it, and suffer even more in Hell because of it. (And Saint Appolonia wasn't a real Saint, and the Church has just erred in saying she is, for the last 1700 years. Or maybe she was given an "invisible water baptism" by angels, the moment before she died.)

Yes, God's providence never fails. If one was put in a position where he or she never hears the Gospel it means they would have rejected it anyway. The notion that a person of good will, who sincerely seeks God cannot arrive to the Catholic faith is direct denial of God's providence. And yes, not all people are predestined to eternal life, there are reprobates as well. This is by no means denial of universal salvific will of God.

It may be that this is correct, but it is not, to be sure, de fide doctrine on providence and justification, which is justly called a mystery (that intangible but very real divide, somewhere, between grace and free will, God's mercy, and God's justice.) And this is the crux of the matter, for me. If the saints and popes treat this topic with the greatest reverence and caution, then who are we, as layfolk, to pronounce assuredly, calling one another "Feeneyites" and "Cushingites" and insisting that anyone who doesn't accept our particular understanding of a very convoluted subject in a very confused time, is a pertinacious heretic? This attitude lacks charity, and smacks of pride, because it results in an attitude of "I and the two dozen other people in my online circle of friends, and a handful of clergy, are the only real Catholics, and everyone else is best friends with the devil, and probably has horns and a tail." What kind of attitude is that? The question of the thread was "Can pagans be virtuous?" Not "what do you think of BOD and BOB."

No, its just the difference between those who believe the dogma as it was defined (Athanasian Creed, Cantate Domino, Unam Sanctam), and those who consider it a theological interpretation for further elaboration and use modernist means of explaining it away into meaning something completely different than the dogmatic statements say. That is all there is to it. EENS is the only dogma the world cannot live with, which is visible even among Traditional Catholics.

Quote from: Ladislaus

So the Sacraments and the Church are the "ordinary means" of salvation and the Church offers a lot of helps to salvation, making it easier. That's not what Catholic dogma teaches. Besides, if morals are subjective, then fornication is not against natural law and so pagans who fornicate on a regular basis do so without mortal sin while Catholics could go to hell after one sin? Prots who don't think they have a strict obligation to attend church services on Sunday commit no sin but Catholics who sleep in one time from Mass are subject to hellfire? So much for being a "help" to salvation.

Apply this picture to every single doctrine and moral teaching constituting the Catholic religion. When you make everything subjective, at the expense of the objective truth revealed by God, then no dogma of the Faith is ever safe....nothing else matters.  

If EENS (as written) does not matter, then absolutely nothing in Catholicism really does.

"From those to whom much is given, much is expected." A pagan might not be fornicating when he has relations with his half a dozen wives, because he sees it as perfectly normal. When he's baptized, he's supposed to keep the first one he married, his true wife. Or, says the Holy Office, if he can't remember which one he married first, he can just keep his favorite. Obviously God has mercy on human weakness.

Yes, his life got a lot harder when he became a Catholic. He has to live by restrictions on his actions, in accordance with natural and divine law, some of which he now must regard as serious things, when before he thought nothing of them. But his Catholicism now allows him something he never had before, a life of sactifying grace. And not only a life of grace, but a fair shot at eternal salvation, which as a pagan may have been theoretically possible through God's grace, but how likely? Not very.

It bears pointing out, incidentally, that everyone who dies justified is a Catholic. The only question is whether they were a visible, exterior member of the Church Militant on Earth, or if they only become a member of the Church Suffering or Triumphant in Purgatory or Heaven. It's purely academic to us whether God chooses to extend to them his sanctifying grace by the means of a missionary, or the local church, or a bilocating Saint, or a true love of God and a repugnance for sin, on their deathbed. But we know that God has ordered us to go forth and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. God wills us, as members of the Church militant, to be the ordinary ministers of his grace to the world. But if we fail in our duty, being human, and He must intervene, who can say how His providence structures it?

Quote from: Lover of Truth

Quote from: BeatusRusticus

in practice scandalize many souls by their wresting of every docuмent to try to prove that any soul who has not been baptized with water is surely and absolutely going to Hell, and with them, must go very many saints, popes, and martyrs, who committed monstrous crimes of heresy by daring to suggest that God is not bound by the rules He sets forth for man.  

Well-stated.  Are you prepared to be flogged and chastised and have words put in your mouth and be told you are a Cushingite and heretic, mischaracterised, and lied about?  Keep trying to help them as if they are rational human beings without caving in to their beliefs for years and this what will happen.  The will try to beat you down until you quite interrupting their fantasy.  

More straw man argumentation. It is not about water baptism - Thomistic Baptism of Desire is Catholic and absolutely fine. What you really promote is not salvation through Thomistic BoD, but salvation without faith in Incarnation and the Trinity, which is a direct denial of Athanasian Creed and Cantate Domino. No Saint taught that - neither St. Thomas, nor St. Alphonsus, so don't hide behind their statements on Thomistic BoD to promote the Cushingite heresy of salvation without faith in Christ.

I do not promote that.  I have gone into great detail on the subject.  But as long as you claim a "Thomistic BOD" I will share what he actually taught on the issue:

When addressing the issue of Baptism of Desire Saint Thomas Aquinas says:

In like manner a man receives the effect of Baptism by the power of the Holy Ghost, not only without Baptism of Water, but also without Baptism of Blood: forasmuch as his heart is moved by the Holy Ghost to believe in and love God and to repent of his sins: wherefore this is also called Baptism of Repentance.

The mention of the necessity of believing in the Incarnation and Holy Trinity is not mentioned here.  Nor is it mentioned either way whether those in non-Christian sects can even theoretically be saved within the Church or not.

Does this mean he denied the Athanasian Creed.