Are non-Christian religions acceptable?

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There is no such thing as anyone living a charitable and devout life without conversion to the truth. If she would have died without conversion, she was ultimately neither really charitable or devout. The benefit of the doubt goes to God, not frail creatures. By their FRUITS we know them, especially by fruits that are keeping with repentance. But this fruit is conversion, which is the ultimate proof of a life well lived.
 
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Not in my experience, and I seriously doubt the Church agrees with you on this. In my view, the ultimate proof of a life well lived is the kindness, compassion, and help one has afforded to others, not a deathbed conversion, regardless of which religion.

And my other question: how about Protestants and hell?
 
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The Church doesn’t need to agree with me, I need to conform to the Church, always.

And the Church teaches very clearly

CANON X.-If any one saith, that men are just without the justice of Christ, whereby He merited for us to be justified; or that it is by that justice itself that they are formally just; let him be anathema.

There is no bypassing Jesus while breath is in us.
 
Any Protestant who is baptized has received a Catholic sacrament since all sacraments originate in the Catholic Church. Now, if they love Jesus, believe the Trinity and do not maliciously and knowingly attack the Catholic Church and strive to repent of sins, they can be saved
Because they have the virtue of faith and are already basically unwittingly Catholic.

But if they refuse correction, do not repent of mortal sin and attack the Catholic Church, they go to hell for actively hating and fighting against what Christ has established. If they are sincere in their hatred, they will be converted just as Saul was converted on the road to Damascus, being animated by an inordinate zeal.
 
This view is completely diametrical to that of Judaism, which essentially believes that our default operating mode is heaven (with a probable stopover in purgatory). We are born with the potential for goodness but we must exercise that potential. But that’s okay: I’m here to learn.
 
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meltzerboy2 said:
This view is completely diametrical to that of Judaism, which essentially believes that our default operating mode is heaven (with a probable stopover in purgatory). We are born with the potential for goodness but we must exercise that potential. But that’s okay: I’m here to learn.
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That’s not what the Catechism says.
 
meltzerboy2 said:
This view is completely diametrical to that of Judaism, which essentially believes that our default operating mode is heaven (with a probably stopover in purgatory). We are born with the potential for goodness but we must exercise that potential. But that’s okay: I’m here to learn.
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Judaism has forgotten the psalm of David- “For behold I was conceived in iniquity and in sins did my mother bear me.” Psalm 51.

One of the reasons I would doubt the truth of any other religion is their misplaced optimism in the potential for human nature. It’s the self-exaltation symptom, whereas David says in the psalms “Let them be put to shame that say unto me ‘well done, well done.’”
 
This is what the Ecumenical Council of Trent says in its magisterial teaching-

Session 5

If any one asserts, that the prevarication of Adam injured himself alone, and not his posterity; and that the holiness and justice, received of God, which he lost, he lost for himself alone, and not for us also; or that he, being defiled by the sin of disobedience, has only transfused death, and pains of the body, into the whole human race, but not sin also, which is the death of the soul; let him be anathema:–whereas he contradicts the apostle who says; By one man sin entered into the world, and by sin death, and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned.

If any one asserts, that this sin of Adam,–which in its origin is one, and being transfused into all by propogation, not by imitation, is in each one as his own, --is taken away either by the powers of human nature, or by any other remedy than the merit of the one mediator, our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath reconciled us to God in his own blood, made unto us justice, santification, and redemption; or if he denies that the said merit of Jesus Christ is applied, both to adults and to infants, by the sacrament of baptism rightly administered in the form of the church; let him be anathema: For there is no other name under heaven given to men, whereby we must be saved. Whence that voice; Behold the lamb of God behold him who taketh away the sins of the world; and that other; As many as have been baptized, have put on Christ.

If any one denies, that infants, newly born from their mothers’ wombs, even though they be sprung from baptized parents, are to be baptized; or says that they are baptized indeed for the remission of sins, but that they derive nothing of original sin from Adam, which has need of being expiated by the laver of regeneration for the obtaining life everlasting,–whence it follows as a consequence, that in them the form of baptism, for the remission of sins, is understood to be not true, but false, --let him be anathema. For that which the apostle has said, By one man sin entered into the world, and by sin death, and so death passed upon all men in whom all have sinned, is not to be understood otherwise than as the Catholic Church spread everywhere hath always understood it. For, by reason of this rule of faith, from a tradition of the apostles, even infants, who could not as yet commit any sin of themselves, are for this cause truly baptized for the remission of sins, that in them that may be cleansed away by regeneration, which they have contracted by generation. For, unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.

http://www.thecounciloftrent.com/ch5.htm
 
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So you’re saying the Catechism is heretical.

It’s a question - I swear I’m not picking a fight. I’m not theologically talented enough for that, and I know it.
 
Not at all, there can be NO contradiction between Trent and Vatican II, and look how often the catechism references Trent and Florence.

If there is an error, it is in a failure to
Understand the new in light of the old instead of vice verse.
 
Let me put it this way- you cannot show me a real contradiction, lol. Why don’t you try just for fun something really simple? I dont think you will succeed.

Oooooo, the varying ideas on the fate of unbaptized infants could be good… but you can choose.
 
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The verse is not forgotten, just taken in context of the whole psalm as well as Deuteronomy 24:16, in which it is clearly stated that the sons are NOT punished for the sins of the fathers. However, if one is conceived by a parent with sin or lives in a household in which one’s parents are sinful, something is bound to rub off on the children. There is a solution, however, which is repentance or turning one’s behavior away from sin, which is what David is talking about in this psalm. Each individual is capable of such behavior since each has a potential toward goodness despite their sinful environment.
 
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I had to chop this up into a few snips, but I didn’t delete anything.

What about all this? Straight from the USCCB’s online CCC.
 
There’s a potential, but it’s broke, so our acts cannot get us to heaven, the best we can do is purely natural good, but not supernatural good. If a person gave to the poor while in a state of mortal sin, it means nothing for example in terms of his salvation, though it can bring aid to the person.

What is needed is a way to supernaturalise our acts, and that is what it means to put on Christ. By putting on the Godman, we obtain the ability to work with his power as our own. So our acts really are pleasing to God, because they are acts done through and in God.
 
All this comes down to Lumen Gentium- and what does it say? All these good and wonderful things in other religions exist as a preparation to receive the gospel.

So, let’s consider- are those things which exist as a preparation for something else the GOAL or a means to obtaining the actual goal?

Now, if in spite of having all these wonderful preparations we die without actually obtaining this goal, what is the result?

See the above from post 427 onward. The contradiction is resolved, Vatican II respected and tradition retained.

Remember this is all future conditional, “They CAN be saved…”

Not “They exist in a state of salvation.”
 
That’s my point. I didn’t say they existed in a state of salvation from the start. I said the Catechism said they’re not all condemned just because they don’t know Christ.

We’re all judged at the end.

It also says Jews and Muslims worship the same God as us, the God of Abraham.
 
Ah, but there two distinctions not made here-
  1. Objective/subjective.
  2. Living with invincible ignorance/Dying in invincible ignorance.
  3. It is true that Catholics together with the Muslims share a similar subjective experience- we both consider ourselves monotheists and worship the God of Abraham. But it does not follow OBJECTIVELY that we are both actually doing so, for we define the God of Abraham differently, and that means something.
  4. It is completely true to assert that those who live in invincible ignorance can be saved, and they will be helped by the preparations for the reception of the gospel that they cooperate with, and the sainted Theologians like St. Thomas Aquinas and others spell out the mechanics of HOW. But nowhere is it stated in Lumen Gentium or the Catechism that those who end their lives in invincible ignorance will in fact be saved, for all the above reasons given by the Theologians on the nature of mortal sin, ignorance, unbelief, lack of repentance etc.
There is no contradiction by the Church, just by people.

Also, the catechism says they MAY be saved. It doesn’t they are uncondemned. Maybe, maybe not, it DEPENDS. On what? On if they attain to Christ.
 
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Read 840 and then the above. What is the significance of their believing in one God? It is part of God’s plan to lead them to salvation.

It doesn’t say they will be saved, it is saying if they are faithful with what they have, God will include them in his plan of salvation, which is in Christ. Not error.
 
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