At the risk of opening a can of worms

[MaxRosen]

Some people – mainly Muslims and fundamentalist Protestants – assure me that as an unbeliever in their faith I am destined for hell.

But where in the Bible does it say anything of the sort? What biblical basis is there for believing that a non-Christian is destined for hell?

And while we’re about it, what is the basis for belief in purgatory?

 

[promethius]

But where in the Bible does it say anything of the sort? What biblical basis is there for believing that a non-Christian is destined for hell?

If we reject God, then this is mortal sin… but we can only reject God if we have been offered proper catechesis (teaching) on God. Thus no where in the Bible does it empower us to determine who, specifically, is in hell.

We can only know that those who gain full knowledge of God and reject Him are damned, but hold to hope that those who do not accept God in some way were ignorant of good catechesis (through no fault of their own) and that God, who is Love and Mercy, offered them a chance to accept salvation in the last moment.

And while we’re about it, what is the basis for belief in purgatory?

Question first: how do you understand purgatory?

Officially, it is the process by which one is made clean in order to be present with God. With this understanding, Revelation reveals “Nothing impure can enter heaven”. So since all humans alive (today) have been touched by sin in some way, any impurity (which is not sin that renders one unto death) at the time a person is judged is removed via the process of purgation, after which the soul is pure and may enter heaven. Protestants believe in this as well, they just tend to call it “glorification” instead.

Shabbot Shalom, by the way…

 

[slywakka250]

We can only know that those who gain full knowledge of God and reject Him are damned,

Then why teach people about God, opening up the risk for damnation, if they can’t be damned without that knowledge???

When people say this, it makes me wish I had never heard of Catholicism, seems. I would be better off, if that meant it was impossible for me to choose hell.

 

[JackQ]

Some people – mainly Muslims and fundamentalist Protestants – assure me that as an unbeliever in their faith I am destined for hell.

But where in the Bible does it say anything of the sort? What biblical basis is there for believing that a non-Christian is destined for hell?

And while we’re about it, what is the basis for belief in purgatory?

The only way one can go to hell is to commit mortal sin. The only way that we know of to have mortal sin forgiven is through the sacraments of baptism and reconciliation.

Purgatory is a lengthy subject. John the Baptist spoke about a baptism of fire. Jesus said that everyone would be salted with fire. St. Paul said that everyone’s works would be tested by fire. Heaven is for the perfect. If we’re not perfect when we die, then we have to go through purgatory in order to be perfected.

 

[Defender1]

I do not have time to get into purgatory with you at this moment perhaps a little later .For right now I have a blog on the Catholic faith . It covers the subjects of purgatory/prayers for the dead,saint intercession,pope Peter/apostolic succession,Faith and Works etc.And i have shown the Biblical basis for all of them . I also show the links between Paul and these beliefs. www.defendingthefaith-frankie.blogspot.com I hope you enjoy it.

 

[Dtmccameron]

Then why teach people about God, opening up the risk for damnation, if they can’t be damned without that knowledge???
…

Because where it would be uncharitable and false of me to declare any soul damned, it would be infinitely less charitable of me to not strive and seek their conversion and salvation. Shouldn’t I desire that they join with the faithful in the joys of right and proper service to God?

What’s more, to rely overmuch on God’s limitless Mercy seems a might bit like the sin of Presumption.

 

[Jim_Dandy]

If we reject God, then this is mortal sin… but we can only reject God if we have been offered proper catechesis (teaching) on God. Thus no where in the Bible does it empower us to determine who, specifically, is in hell.

We can only know that those who gain full knowledge of God and reject Him are damned, but hold to hope that those who do not accept God in some way were ignorant of good catechesis (through no fault of their own) and that God, who is Love and Mercy, offered them a chance to accept salvation in the last moment.

Question first: how do you understand purgatory?

Officially, it is the process by which one is made clean in order to be present with God. With this understanding, Revelation reveals “Nothing impure can enter heaven”. So since all humans alive (today) have been touched by sin in some way, any impurity (which is not sin that renders one unto death) at the time a person is judged is removed via the process of purgation, after which the soul is pure and may enter heaven. Protestants believe in this as well, they just tend to call it “glorification” instead.

Shabbot Shalom, by the way…

Hey, um, uh, I doubt that Protestants believe in purgatory and call it ‘glorification.’ I was a Protestant for many years, and rejected purgatory as an unbiblical Catholic invention. Which Protestants are you referring to? Please post your evidence.

Purification of the soul after death came from Judaism. Orthodox Jews still pray for the souls of their dead for eleven months.

This is the teaching of the Church regarding salvation of non-Christians:

Catechism of the Catholic Church # 847 “Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience – those too may achieve eternal salvation.”

Emphasis on the “may.” It’s difficult to achieve salvation outside the Catholic Church, without the sacraments. God gave them to us to help us get to heaven.

Jim Dandy

 

[edwest2]

1 Corinthians 3:15

New International Version (©1984)
If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames.

New Living Translation (©2007)
But if the work is burned up, the builder will suffer great loss. The builder will be saved, but like someone barely escaping through a wall of flames.

English Standard Version (©2001)
If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.

New American Standard Bible (©1995)
If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.

Our God is called a consuming fire. There is another Bible reference that tells us we will be refined like gold.

Peace,
Ed

 

[promethius]

Then why teach people about God, opening up the risk for damnation, if they can’t be damned without that knowledge???

When people say this, it makes me wish I had never heard of Catholicism, seems. I would be better off, if that meant it was impossible for me to choose hell.

I never said they can’t be damned without that knowledge… only that we hold to hope for them. God certainly is merciful, but He is also just, and the invincibly ignorant will still be judged and potentially damned. We don’t know how it works, so we can only say that we commit them to the Mercy of our Loving God and submit them before the judgement of the selfsame Just God.

In that regard, it is better that we DO catechize people, so that they do not have to rely on mere hopes of an abstract process and might come to know and love God, or to reject God through a fully informed conscious decision. It is their right to have truth, and we are out of line if we think we can remove a person’s right to truth.

Finally, we are also commanded by God to go forth and make disciples of all nations, so it is God’s will and God’s plan that people be catechized in order to make their own conscious choice.

 

[Mystic_Banana]

For a long time, the Catholic faith seemed to generally hold the same opinion - that, outside of our faith, all were damned to Hell. Since Vatican II, the validity of this de facto position has been questioned, and as I understand it, has been recently been officially revoked.

The basis of this revocation?

If you are not introduced to the one true faith, how can God condemn you to hell for not following it?

I’ll bet there are many Catholics who still hold this position, however, and I’ll bet the actual theological understanding of modern Islam and Judaism aren’t neccesarily of this position either

‘Purgatory’ and ‘Hell’ are updatings of the Jewish ‘Shoah’. In many ways, Purgatory is more similar to Shoah in character (Hell matching the more marginally established ‘Gehenna’), and so, in continuing the Jewish understanding more closely, amply justifies the Catholic understanding, especially compared to the more polarised exclusivity of Heaven and Hell alone that fundamentalists often portray, I think

 

[JP2Admirer]

Then why teach people about God, opening up the risk for damnation, if they can’t be damned without that knowledge???

When people say this, it makes me wish I had never heard of Catholicism, seems. I would be better off, if that meant it was impossible for me to choose hell.

How about an analogy to help with this question. Let’s say that from a young age I was taught that I could have whatever I wanted, no matter who had the object of my desire.

When I got to my early twenties, I wanted to be rich, so I robbed a bank and along the way I killed someone.

When arrested, would it be okay for me to plead ignorance? Would justice allow me to go free?

In short, we are obligated as “seekers of knowledge” to know the things we ought to know. In our day and age, there are not many door knockers in the sense of philosophizing in a way that might be a threat to personal preference morality. We do what we want and don’t seek to know in order to follow whatever our personal desires are.

As far as people of other faith’s going to hell – the Catholic Church does not teach that – it has what is known as baptism by desire in cases where proper catechesis is not practiced.

 

[promethius]

For a long time, the Catholic faith seemed to generally hold the same opinion - that, outside of our faith, all were damned to Hell. Since Vatican II, the validity of this de facto position has been questioned, and as I understand it, has been recently been officially revoked.

It has not been revoked. It is merely understood that those who are invincibly ignorant may be Catholic without us being able to know it. There is no salvation outside the church, but sometimes it is difficult to tell if someone is or is not a part of the church.

 

[edwest2]

I invite everyone to read the following:

catholiceducation.org/articles/apologetics/ap0043.html

Peace,
Ed

 

[Mystic_Banana]

It has not been revoked. It is merely understood that those who are invincibly ignorant may be Catholic without us being able to know it. There is no salvation outside the church, but sometimes it is difficult to tell if someone is or is not a part of the church.

Catechism of the Catholic Church # 847 "Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience – those too may achieve eternal salvation."

Pretty much refutes what you’re saying. Although I suspect you’re using the term ‘Catholic’ in an alternate fashion to justify your position

 

[kbwall]

Then why teach people about God, opening up the risk for damnation, if they can’t be damned without that knowledge???

When people say this, it makes me wish I had never heard of Catholicism, seems. I would be better off, if that meant it was impossible for me to choose hell.

Because there is so much more to Christianity/Catholicism than just getting a ticket out of Hell and into Heaven.

 

[Mystic_Banana]

I invite everyone to read the following:

catholiceducation.org/articles/apologetics/ap0043.html

Peace,
Ed

…er, in which case he may be interpreting it more faithfully than I! Well, it’s the same meaning, in the end…

 

[promethius]

Catechism of the Catholic Church # 847 "Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience – those too may achieve eternal salvation."

Pretty much refutes what you’re saying. Although I suspect you’re using the term ‘Catholic’ in an alternate fashion to justify your position

It most certainly does not contradict what I said. No one who is unbaptised and does not have the True Communion can be saved… but those who are Invincibly Ignorant may be offered these fundamental and requisite sacraments in some way by our loving and merciful God before they are judged. We simply don’t know how such an action would operate.

But the bottom line is they will either be given these sacraments and saved (which makes them part of the body of the Church prior to judgement and eternally thereafter) or they will not be given these sacraments and not be saved.

Being invincibly ignorant is not a ticket to heaven. It includes a possible hope that they might have the choice to accept God in His required sacraments in some way that we do not understand. This option in no way negates the fact that those who have not eaten the Body and drank the Blood of Christ will NOT be saved.

 

[promethius]

…er, in which case he may be interpreting it more faithfully than I! Well, it’s the same meaning, in the end…

the article certainly gets at what I’m meaning more eloquently. But sacramental grace is not bound by physical form (hence sacrament of Baptism offered by desire), and as such, God may offer such sacramental grace as is required for salvation (and thus initiation into the Church) in a way we don’t understand…

And I think we really are just saying tomato and tomato in two different ways (that saying doesn’t work as well when typed…)

 

[Mojoforyeshua]

This is the Catholic view of the Jews concerning their salvation:
Catechism of the Catholic Church 839-840
Those who have not yet received the Gospel are related to the People of God in various ways."325

The relationship of the Church with the Jewish People. When she delves into her own mystery, the Church, the People of God in the New Covenant, discovers her link with the Jewish People,326 "the first to hear the Word of God."327 The Jewish faith, unlike other non-Christian religions, is already a response to God’s revelation in the Old Covenant. To the Jews “belong the sonship, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; to them belong the patriarchs, and of their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ”,328 "for the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable."329

840 And when one considers the future, God’s People of the Old Covenant and the new People of God tend towards similar goals: expectation of the coming (or the return) of the Messiah. But one awaits the return of the Messiah who died and rose from the dead and is recognized as Lord and Son of God; the other awaits the coming of a Messiah, whose features remain hidden till the end of time; and the latter waiting is accompanied by the drama of not knowing or of misunderstanding Christ Jesus.

As far as I am concerned, the Jews are in because God does not abandon His chosen people because God is more faithful than any husband on Earth. God has a special covenant with Abraham and his descendants. Follow God’s law in Faith and Love and I think that God will have mercy on you as He has mercy on those who call on the name of God the Son, Jesus Christ.

Shalom V’Kul Tov.

 

[JDaniel]

Then why teach people about God, opening up the risk for damnation, if they can’t be damned without that knowledge???

First of all, did someone tie you to a chair and use a retractor to keep your ears open to feed you the knowledge you have of God? Or, did your natural inclination to get answers to your questions lead you to that knowledge? Are you not aware of the consequences of the Fall? Whether you had knowledge of it or not?

When people say this, it makes me wish I had never heard of Catholicism, seems. I would be better off, if that meant it was impossible for me to choose hell.

Yes. That’s the price you and I must “pay.” We now know. So, now what? Can you not love? Can you not manifest Charity? Can you not follow God commands? Can you not reconcile your transgressions? Is your life not made more sublime, more full, more happy? Do you now hate your life? I don’t. I love my life and I am happy to do is asked of me.

God bless,
jd