I don’t have time to write much right now, but I just wanted to say that I appreciate your posting this, and your position is indeed much clearer to me now.

You represent accurately and fairly what I wrote, but I wasn’t clear on something. I am saying that everyone who gets into Heaven enters a formal Catholic. So they may enter the Church *right* before their particular/Final judgment. That’s still technically within their earthly lifetime, when they’re homines viatores. What I’m allowing for is a period in a limbo-type situation, pretty much what Old Testament Israelite saints went through. They could be resurrected from this state to a mortal life, like St. Lazarus was. St. Lazarus died, his soul left his body and went — who knows where it went? But it didn’t pass before its particular judgment, since Our Lord brought him back to a normal human life and he died later and went to Heaven. Maybe the hypothetical innocent-yet-ignorant people get their catechesis and Baptism this way, whether at the end of the world or before. That’s what Matthew 25 seems to indicate, and that’s the passage where Our Lord addresses innocent-yet-ignorant people. Still, though, if you follow the passage, they become acquainted with Our Lord before entering Heaven. In other words, these people would go to Heaven in the ordinary (and necessary) way: the Catholic faith, union with the Pope and bishops, reception of the Sacraments. How they received these “ordinary” means would seem “extraordinary” only from our point of view. Consider the example of that Ethiopian eunuch. He got baptized and professed his belief in Our Lord, and God pulled off at least one miracle to make it all happen. Granting the liberal viewpoint, St. Luke, when writing Acts, should have written about some hypothetical Ethiopian for whom God didn’t pull off a miracle.

As for the “normal” type desire, consider the conversion stories in the New Testament. Our Lord calls us, sometimes without our seeking, sometimes despite our not seeking. St. Paul (the former Saul) and St. Matthew (the former Levi) were basically yanked out of their former lives. The Samaritan woman at the well wasn’t even living according to the natural law when Our Lord called her, yet she (apparently) converted. God is perfectly free to pay the same wages to the workers who started work at 6:00 P.M. as to the ones who started at 6:00 A.M.

Re: the Limbo/Final Judgment scenario, Vin Lewis has a tape on this called the “Last Judgment,” and also one on limbo. That’s speculative theology, but it wraps up the loose ends a heck of alot better than the ideas that Our Lord saves people while they remain completely ignorant in every way right up to their judgment itself. Those ideas do violence to the purpose and universal application (to the saved) of the Incarnation.

“And yes, sure, anything is possible. I only object to your using Christ’s words in the Sermon on the Mount as if they naturally or clearly support what seems to me a highly counterintuitive position.”

The link between this passage and EENS is the Church’s three de fide declarations that you have to be a Pope-following Catholic in the bosom of the Church in order to be saved. Contrary to Johnboy, the declarations do not say, “You must be innocent of the sin of formal rejection of the Church.” As for the car crash example, as you point out, these are hypotheticals. We don’t live in a random universe. Everything is either dictated or allowed by Providence. The car can’t hit the catechumen without God knowing it and nodding. We have theories that catechumens can get into Heaven without the Sacrament of Baptism. Some saints hold to these statements. Lots of these same saints elsewhere in their writings say that catechumens in such a situation simply aren’t saved. We have infallible declarations saying that Baptism is necessary for salvation, and that Baptism needs water. We have Our Lord’s solemn statement, “Unless a man be born again of *water* (emphasis added) and the Holy Ghost, he will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” The latter statements trump the former theories, which contain alot of contradictions before you even contrast them to the relevant decrees, etc. Should something opposed come from the infallible magisterium, sure I’ll submit. But I don’t see how that’s possible. As for being counterintuitive, so are the Trinity, Incarnation, Perpetual Virginity of the Blessed Virgin, the Crucifixion, and transubstantiation.

I hope that you don’t take the “rigor” of my writing as a personal affront, which it is not. And please note, I still haven’t had a chance to read the other posts on EENS, which I’ll do presently.

Okay. As support for this last claim (that true seekers will become Catholic), you hang heavily on Our Lord’s words, “Seek and ye shall find.” So, you take this promise to mean, “Look for the truth and you’ll end up Catholic.” (I think?)

But of course, you realize that almost nobody will understand the passage that way, unless they come to the table already laden with a very specific theological agenda. If anything, a natural understanding will tell against your argument that most people are culpable for not converting in life. The Lord promises that we will find if we seek; he doesn’t specifically say what we’ll find when. To ordinary observation, it seems patently obvious that those who seek and desire truth don’t always end up Catholic in this lifetime. To me, actually, it seems evident that there are people in other religions who genuinely desire truth (again, perhaps not *entirely* selflessly, but genuinely nonetheless) but don’t find their way to the Catholic church. But even if you won’t buy that, then what about the people who are on the road to Rome (which, as you admit, can be a long journey for some people) but die before they get there? Those look like people who sought but didn’t find — unless we assume that they are rescued by some sort of baptism of desire, or equivalent, which allows them to “find” in the hereafter. So again, Our Lord’s words suggest to me that some people might be excused for failing to make it all the way on Earth.

Because we can’t directly read souls, it is generally possible to hold one’s interpretation of EENS without direct contradiction. That is, you can speculate that perhaps all those people who failed to become Catholic weren’t really and sincerely seeking, but only appeared to be. The catechumen who died in a car crash on the way to his baptism wasn’t in good faith; if he had been God would have prevented the accident. And so forth. And yes, sure, anything is possible. I only object to your using Christ’s words in the Sermon on the Mount as if they naturally or clearly support what seems to me a highly counterintuitive position.

1.) I don’t admit that anyone here has refuted my arguments in that monster-length post, so I stand by them.

2.) Clara: “those who desire to know the truth with perfect and pure sincerity will find it. But grace is required even for us to have that desire, which makes the whole thing much more complicated.”

For once I get to agree with Johnboy, which is good ;) : I don’t know why there’s this stipulation about “perfection/purity” in this desire. I rather doubt that I’ve ever made a “perfect/pure” act of contrition (i.e. one that could not be improved), yet my Confessions are still valid (I hope). Our Lord said, “If you seek, you will find.” Of course grace is required for the searching, and God won’t withhold it. The search for truth requires a sifting of one’s own motives — and the sincere, with God’s grace, will make it through.

P.S. St. Augustine had a doting mother prodding him to join the Church, let’s remember. I don’t fault him if this was a *partial* motivation for his conversion.

3.) “True but I don’t think the Church has ruled on whether it is always certain one who desires the truth will find it…mainly because it is dispensed through fallen people.”

Johnboy, you are convicted by your own words. OUR LORD HIMSELF in the Gospels (which the Church says are infallible) says that those who *seek* (not “desire” — seeking requires effort, mere desire none) truth find it. Maybe they’ll find it at their particular judgment or the Last Judgment, but they’ll get it before they enter Heaven, Our Lord assures you. Once again, you sound like (to use a word invented by a theo. major I knew) a “magisterial positivist” — nothing is true or valid until a notary in the Curia stamps the document. That is not the way truth works.

As for us being imperfect vessels of truth,
A.) If this necessarily impaired the transmission of truth, then the gates of Hell would have prevailed against the Church long ago.
B.) If you run into this crowd of liars, won’t God steer you back toward the right people (if you’re worthy/He’s merciful)? If not, what are the real truth-tellers (the orthodox Catholics) on earth here for in the first place?
C.) Have faith in the Holy Spirit, Who somehow transmits ALL truth through unworthy vessels (i.e. Popes, Bishops, priests = the Magisterium).

4.) On the note of God working in an extraordinary way: nothing is extraordinary for God. If God can give grace in such a way that it is known only to him and the hypothetical ignorant native, then He can also give sacramental Baptism and the Catholic Faith to the same guy. If you read the post about Black African Catholics, you’ll see the story about St. Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8.26-40). This guy was *inculpably* (a MUCH more precise word than *invincibly*) ignorant of the True Faith. All he knew was Old Testament Israelite religion. So God plopped St. Philip down in the desert to explain the Gospel to the guy and give him sacramental baptism. That’s right — with water right there, in the middle of the desert. Then the Holy Spirit swept up St. Philip — a miracle! You might even say, EXTRAordinary. So the Ethiopian returned to his pagan, “invincibly” (sic) ignorant kingdom. What God can do, God can do. If He can give salvific grace to anyone, He can also give formal membership in the Church.

5.) Can people not formally belonging to the Church “be saved”? Yes. People living in mortal sin “can be saved,” provided they repent. And people not formally in the Church “can be saved,” by persisting in prayer and searching till they find the Church and join. What you need is proof that they “can be saved AS THEY ARE.”

6.) Johnboy pointed out that those who have what they want don’t really desire it. An excellent point! Very few people seem to realize this! If Baptism of Desire does everything that sacramental Baptism does vis-a-vis salvation, then what is the guy with Baptism of Desire (BOD) still desiring? He has salvific grace, and everything necessary to get into Heaven. Granting that, Faith and formal Church membership are not necessary, and would be encumbrances insofar as they would provide all sorts of extra truths he could go to Hell for denying and rules he could go to Hell for breaking.

7.) Johnboy: “I just took Tobias (and your) remarks as ways to rationalize that yes, theoretically one may be saved outside the Church but practically (or actually) this is not possible.”

Not so, at least not on my end. No one can be saved outside the Church, even theoretically. I said that someone theoretically and (in constrained circumstances that I don’t think are all that prevalent, perhaps even existent, among adult non-Catholics in this country) practically could be *inculpable* in heresy or schism. That means that they’re innocent of a charge. It’s a negative statement. Unbaptized babies are not formal heretics either, but they don’t have grace. People don’t go to Heaven by default — you need water (!) and the Holy Ghost for that, as Our Lord and His Church teach. If someone *has been baptized* and is a heretic or schismatic only materially, then they are in fact full-fledged Roman Catholics, despite the appearances.

8.) John-Boy said that one is saved on the basis of salvific grace, not being in the Church. This is muddled thinking. EVEN if we take the most liberal interpretation of BOD, everyone who implicitly desires salvation and thereby receives sanctifying grace BY THAT VERY FACT joins the Church, implicitly. So you are not even representing the most developed BOD theory correctly. You have to belong to the Church to get into Heaven, period. There have been three De Fide declarations to this effect, plus all the Creeds, etc., etc. The question (if there really is one) concerns the possibility/terms of *informal* membership in the Church. Get this right: even accd. to BOD, you have to be *in* the Church. (Although I almost concede the point to your credit for seeing that informal Church membership really is equivalent to non-membership in such instances.)

9.) Clara: “I mainly just wanted to point out that Tobias Petrus’ straightforward reasoning — God gives truth to those who ask, so those who don’t find it must be culpable — probably has some truth in it, but oversimplifies the case by an order of magnitude.”

Our Lord is the One Who said, “Seek and ye shall find.” I hope that I didn’t *over*simplify conversion. I did grant that there are difficulties, sometimes (but not always) severe. My only point is that anyone who gives up in the face of these difficulties is culpable, and anyone who persists will be rewarded. But I’ll read your post later . . .

10.) Joe Six Pack, you are dead-on when you bring up Original Sin. This is the true elephant in the room. And the Hosea passage is great. Let us recall that wisdom, understanding, counsel, and knowledge are Gifts of the Holy Spirit, which Confirmation stengthens within our souls. Without them, we will go to Hell. The non-Catholic religions of the world survive and thrive through a lack of these four Gifts of the Holy Spirit (and the other three, I might add). This is a proof of these religions’ ultimate source, ruler, and destiny.

Phew, what a long post!

The reason the Church emphasized such teaching at Vatican II is because people misunderstood it.

Do I think Protestants have some sort of free ride? Never. If anything their ride is much, much more difficult than the Catholics’. But it is possible. And this is God’s business, not yours. You are a humble Catholic.

Additionally, I am of the opinion that many non-Catholics are not Catholic because of a sinful lifestyle, up to and including twisting truths to suit their fancy. But I am not talking about those folks.

P.S.–I think your comment on the 6th and 9th commandments is relevant; however, I think it is potentially for heretical Catholic people.

By the time the Israelites returned from Egypt the current generation of Canaanites were many many generations removed from the original apostasy of Ham and Canaan, yet God slaughtered them all.

Of course we all inherit the sin of our first father, Adam. Tell me Johnboy, are we only “materially” guilty of Original Sin? Can’t the Novus Ordo relook this issue? In fairness only Adam should be guilty of “formal” original sin. The rest of us really even shouldn’t need baptism. We’re only material original sinners, we still get to heaven?

How about this quote from the Almighty:

Exodus 20:5, God said “For I, the Lord Your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me.”

Obviously, the Lord needs to update his theology to get inline with Vatican II. The third and fourth generations are “responsible”, this simply isn’t fair.

Hosea 4:6, God said “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” This lack of knowledge of the true faith continues to destroy generation upon generation.

No one can force their way into Salvation. There is but one door and one narrow path. Just because you can get a bunch of wishy washy theologians in these latter days to write some feel-good, “fair”, “enlightened” theology doesn’t mean you are changing the mind of God on these issues, which can clearly be seen in both Sacred Tradition and Holy Scripture.

You are no different than the rest of the liberals in this regard. If they can change the Church’s position, then somehow they feel they are forcing their way into Salvation.

It isn’t my view exclusively. It is the Church’s.

I appreciate being compared to EWTN.

I am of the opinion, however, that people who are not Catholic have more of the Church exposed to them through places like your EWTN. This means if the truth is in front of their faces day and night they might have to convert eventually.

As an aside. Check out the last play on:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=ccFgi46Y46g

;)

The scary fact remains that a father can curse his offspring for generations and generations.

The modernist notion that it is not their fault (the present day protestant) is totally irrelevant.

Bad Catholic fathers can play a huge role in sending generations upon generations to hell.

This may upset Johnboy and his EWTN-universalist-judeo/masonic world view.

Good points about the many other factors at play that keep people away from the Catholic faith.

It made me remember of a young mormon soldier who I selected to be my assistant/driver a few years back. (In my experience, Mormon young men make the best soldiers. They are honest, hard-working, and keep confidences: which is important for an assistant/driver to be able to do, since they overhear more than the average joe. As the commander of the unit at the time, I had the pick of the whole outfit, so of course I chose the best. **this is not the say however that young traditional Catholics wouldn’t be equal to or better than the Mormons; there just isn’t many of them enlisting.)

Anyway, this kid was basically an apostate Mormon. Grew up in Utah in a practicing Mormon family. He was seduced as a teenager by a nominally Catholic girl with loose morals. Eventually marrying said girl and leaving his satanic mormon faith for no faith at all.

Of course his parents are heart-broken over this and you can imagine what this did to their already poor imagine of Catholicism.

This being said, however, there will always be bad Catholics in the world. Even if another Catholic Golden Age should come upon us.

Yet, people still convert to the True Faith.

How can any sane person with an ounce of reason look at a Protestant or Mormon religion and not see all the errors and contradictions?

It’s plain to see.

Frankly, it’s not unlike conservative Novus Ordonarians. They live in world where they have to tolerate a certain amount of cognitive dissonance in order to make sense of what’s going on in the Church. They have to have a sort of willing suspension of disbelief and abandon reason to some degree, in order to hold to their ultra-montanist, Novus Ordonarianism.

When I say this I inversely mean when one is not invinciple in ignorance (presumably a Baptised Catholic) and breaks from the Church; that is actually what condemns them…that’s the sin that throws their moral life into a black hole. So my point is we really should be more aggressive with those Baptised Catholics who are heretics and schismatics and not chide the non-Catholics on the basis of their being not Catholic…

I made another incorrect reference…my comment to Tobias on “I will lead you unto all truth” should be “he will lead you unto all truth”…whereas the “he” Jesus refers to is the Holy Spirit.

All I know is that God wants us to be saved. If anyone is saved outside the Church, it is because of God’s extraordinary grace. The Church I do not believe has meddled in such details. Only God knows them ultimately since He is reaching out in extra-ordinary ways. I’d say the injunction “to much that has been given, much will be required” is also at play.

I think the thing here is that one is ultimately not saved on the basis of being Catholic. One is saved on the basis of being in God’s grace. This greatly oversimplifies things and will greatly tick off people. However, it is true. How one could not be Catholic and is saved plays upon the teachings of morality…one who is invinciple in ignorance is not guilty of a moral fault.

Also, I think it’s of note that Jesus commanded sinners to “go throughout the whole world baptising…and teaching all He has commanded”. Obviously, God places the ordinary means in which one is presented the Truth through sinners; not directly through his intervention.

–I should not confuse myself too much. Explicit desire means they have a desire for the Truth in the Catholic faith but are not formal Catholics.

So basically you are restricting the “purest desire” for truth to seasoned Catholics?

I am not familiar with this distinction of a “pure” desire. I am familiar with explicit desire and implicit desire. Implicit desire simply means if one was given the opportunity to receive the Truth they would have and they would have because they lived with God’s grace working in an extra-ordinary way. Explicit desire means they have a desire for the Truth as they understand things but it does not mean one knows the Truth in its purest form (Jesus Christ through His Church). I would assume you mean the best desire is this “pure desire” whereas one would fully embrace Jesus Christ through His Church and live out this by bearing fruit as a consequence of “pure desire”. Perhaps that is what you mean. But we must remember even those with implicit and explicit desire to know Jesus Christ (even if they don’t know Him like the highly-graced Catholic) are able to be saved; again because the Church has said so (I’ve heard explicit desire was taught before Vatican II and implicit desire was added during Vatican II).

I would note that it would seem this sort of “desire” term really refers to non-Catholics (or should I also include non-informed Catholics, if that is possible) since the person who has this “pure desire” as you seem to describe really doesn’t have a desire anymore. They have everything. No more desire is necessary.

So really, we might both be more or less right. A person with a pure and uncorrupted desire for truth might always know that the Catholic church is the one truth Church. But it may be that a person can’t ever *have* that sort of desire unless they had already received many graces through the Church. Non-Catholics can certainly have *some* desire for truth, and if they are as faithful as their graces and opportunities allow, it may be that they are ultimately rewarded for this.

For JSP, I agree of course that rejection of God is always base. But it isn’t right to equate a failure to immediately become Catholic with a *rejection* of God. Except for the Blessed Mother and St. John the Evangelist, I don’t think anybody has seen Christ for the first time and immediately said, “Behold the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world.” And those two, as we may recall, were not tainted with original sin, so we can’t expect things to work that way for ordinary people.

The rest of us must be carefully wooed by God, and it is right and natural that this should be a process, and should take some time; our finite minds can’t grasp truth all in a minute. The impulses that lead people to resist for a time are not all base. I agree with you that lust and attachment to sin figure largely among them, sometimes in ways that we ourselves don’t recognize until later. But other prominent reasons might include loyalty to family/customs/earlier beliefs, intellectual honesty (which is a very slippery one, I admit, but it isn’t ALL a ruse), and an unfortunately legitimate concern that Catholic communities in the Western world today are not mirrors of virtue.

Even if a good-hearted protestant isn’t aware of it. Once you explain the teachings of the Catholic Church, it’s the sexual/marriage related dogmas that get them. “You guys seem very pharisaical about all these rules!” Or maybe, they fall back on Mary and the Saints as their big beef. Regardless, it’s about not wanting to conform their entire lives (including reproductive powers) to Christ Jesus.

All rejection of God is very base ultimately. They may couch their dissent in lofty terms, but it comes down to the 7 deadly sins and the 10 Commandments. Mostly the 6th and the 9th Commandments and the sin of Lust.

Answer: in the affirmative.

True but I don’t think the Church has ruled on whether it is always certain one who desires the truth will find it…mainly because it is dispensed through fallen people. Those in remote locations may be saved based on not necessarily their explicit desire to know the truth but to conform their lives to the truth as they understand it. How this happens is of course an extra-ordinary but absolutely possible instance of God’s saving grace (which has been taught by the Church as we all know).

The whole discussion on material XXXXXX is simply to recognize that there are people who are in these types of situations (although perhaps not all of them are so extreme as the case I just mentioned). The Church apparently used to use the term “heretic” and “schismatic” to describe those who materially subscribe to that. In implementing the Second Vatican Council the Church now only applies those terms to people who are known to be formally in XXXXXX. Yes, we assume those who are not in formal XXXXXX are materially such.

I made a goof prior…apparently the Church emphasizes communion when dealing with schismatics and common belief when dealing with heretics.