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Author Topic: R&R -- why don't you get behind Father Chazal's sede-impoundism?  (Read 55327 times)

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Re: R&R -- why don't you get behind Father Chazal's sede-impoundism?
« Reply #490 on: May 31, 2023, 10:16:11 PM »
I've already answered this question.  Did you not read what I wrote?  Yes, it can be, in the unique case of an infant where the supernatural virtue of faith is merely infused.  Then without supernatural faith, there can be no supernatural virtue.  You're framing your question from the mindset of a normal adult in a state of sanctifying grace.  That is completely different from the state of an infant who has merely infused supernatural virtues.  You continue to be fixated on this notion because your mind can't grasp anything outside the normal paradigm for adults.

Now answer my question about whether you think an atheist in the above scenario can be saved.

So your answer is a simple “yes,” correct?

Re: R&R -- why don't you get behind Father Chazal's sede-impoundism?
« Reply #491 on: June 01, 2023, 06:06:34 AM »
I've already answered this question.  Did you not read what I wrote?  Yes, it can be, in the unique case of an infant where the supernatural virtue of faith is merely infused.  Then without supernatural faith, there can be no supernatural virtue.  You're framing your question from the mindset of a normal adult in a state of sanctifying grace.  That is completely different from the state of an infant who has merely infused supernatural virtues.  You continue to be fixated on this notion because your mind can't grasp anything outside the normal paradigm for adults.

Now answer my question about whether you think an atheist in the above scenario can be saved.
This is really twisted stuff, Ladislaus, stop trying to be a theologian.
No one who has reached the age of reason is in a moral vacuum. Every act is either virtuous or sinful. If it is gravely sinful, grace is lost. This child, through baptism, has grace. If he does not commit mortal sin, the grace is never lost.
It is right there in the very first book of Holy Scripture: "Before man is good and evil. That which he chooses shall be given him".


Offline Ladislaus

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Re: R&R -- why don't you get behind Father Chazal's sede-impoundism?
« Reply #492 on: June 01, 2023, 06:49:26 AM »
This is really twisted stuff, Ladislaus, stop trying to be a theologian.

Give us a break.  Many people post their opinions about theological subjects here, and that doesn't make them a theologian.  I fact, by calling it twisted, you're "trying to be a theologian".  That's called hypocrisy.  But your characterization of it as twisted merely shows your ignorance.

Offline Ladislaus

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Re: R&R -- why don't you get behind Father Chazal's sede-impoundism?
« Reply #493 on: June 01, 2023, 06:53:55 AM »
No one who has reached the age of reason is in a moral vacuum. Every act is either virtuous or sinful. If it is gravely sinful, grace is lost. This child, through baptism, has grace. If he does not commit mortal sin, the grace is never lost.
It is right there in the very first book of Holy Scripture: "Before man is good and evil. That which he chooses shall be given him".

See here you have yourself hypocritically acting like a theologian ... much more so than I ever was.  I qualified my option above with phrases like "I hold ..." where as you bloviate as if this were fact.

Until the recent ramblings of Bergoglio, it was universally held by all theologians that someone without explicit faith in something, at LEAST in a Rewarder/Punisher God ... and more commonly in the Holy Trinity and Incarnation ... cannot be saved.  Period.

Based on your thinking, however, an atheist could be saved in the hypothetical scenario where ...

1) he was baptized as an infant
2) was raised as an atheist and reaches the age of reason as an athiest
3) commits no mortal sin

How do you explain, then, that this atheist can be saved ... contrary to all Catholic theology to the contrary?

Offline Ladislaus

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Re: R&R -- why don't you get behind Father Chazal's sede-impoundism?
« Reply #494 on: June 01, 2023, 07:00:51 AM »
So your answer is a simple “yes,” correct?

Yes, as I have repeated several times.  How about your answer to how the atheist in the above hypothetical scenario can be saved?  No Catholic theologian has ever held that an atheist can be saved, requiring at least a minimum of explicit faith in the Rewarder/Punisher God.

For infants, in a special case, this supernatural virtue is infused in the soul, along with supernatural charity.  But for adults it does not work this way.  If an atheist adult were baptized, say unwillingly, would he have the supernatural virtue of faith or charity?  Of course not.  If he did not assent to the truths of the faith, and, in short, have all the dispositions necessary, as described by the Council of Trent, while he would receive the Baptismal character, he would not receive supernatural faith or charity.  That's because FOR ADULTS a cooperation of the will is required.

Infants are dispensed from this obligation, since they cannot actively cooperate with their will and their intellect.  But once they reach the age of reason, they are then required to cooperate.  If they do not cooperate, then they are in the same state as the adult above who was baptized without the proper dispositions.

Virtues are also known as habits.  Supernatural faith and supernatural charity are habits, and they are potencies.  Upon reaching the age of reason, however, what was a mere potency in the infant has to be "activated" and cooperated with, or the potency fades away, just as any habit or virtue fades away if it's not exercised.  This is true of the natural "virtues" as well.  If they are not exercised, the potency eventually fades, and the virtue dies.  Virtues need to be exercised to be kept alive.