Did Hitler disprove faith alone (and you can never lose your salvation)?

[Tis_Bearself]

Catholic sacraments are not meaningless rituals but they do depend on the state of your interior disposition.

Yes. There is nothing about a sacrament that somehow magically keeps a person from going off and doing bad acts if they so choose.

And Hitler would not be the first or only person to have ties to a Christian church and then go off and do horrible acts. Plenty of Protestant Nazis also who participated in his genocides and oppression.

 

[Vico]

Hitler was baptized and received Holy communion. This means he accepted (or at least appeared to accept) Jesus as his lord and savior.

So according to “once saved always saved”, hitler must have gone to heaven regardless of what he did during WW2.

Is this a good argument to use against people who claim “once saved always saved”?

We do not know that a person that is baptized will have final repentance so we do not know if they will be finally saved. We do not know the final disposition of a person that commits suicide.

 

[commenter]

So I’m curious if Catholics claim him as one of your own. I assume (or at least I have read) that he went to Mass at times and he was in communication with the Vatican. There were certainly priests who were supporters. Is he still seen as Catholic? (I’m not trying to say anything at all about his horrific actions, but rather his membership in the RCC.) Same goes for Mussolini. He was baptized, married and buried in the Church. Admittedly, it was a rocky relationship from the beginning, but it seems as if it was one in good standing, as it were.

Once Catholic, always Catholic? Sy Noe, this is your terrain.

Judas was Catholic also. The Judas Scandal far outweighs the scandal of Hitler, or bad priests. It even outweighs the scandalous popes, including Peter who publicly denied Christ. Peter we know repented. To my knowledge, Hitler and Judas did not. Hitler was started in the direction of Catholicism as a child but never independently chose to believe it. Would you say Judas’ betrayal is a scandal against Judaism?

Hitler always had access to the sacrament of Confession. Hitler apparently left Christianity but not spirituality. Some reports suggest he dabbled in what were later called New Age spiritualities, but I have not seen confirmation of this. There definitely was an occult movement within Nazism, and they tapped latent paganism, of the “destiny” of the Germanic peoples. It is irrelevant if Hitler sometimes went to Mass as an adult, every US president for 100 years has sometimes gone to Mass. For that matter, Mr. Obama visited the pope.

The scandal of Hitler is less than the scandal of me, and other Catholics on this forum who fail to live up to the Christ we claim. If 1% of Catholics fully embraced and lived up to the sacraments and gospel, the world would be Catholic in 2 generations. The scandal of me is bigger than the Hitler story.

 

[Lenten_ashes]

Catholic sacraments are not meaningless rituals but they do depend on the state of your interior disposition.

Yes, the CC teaches that and I believe it.

But as a suspectful protestant, that’s not how it is viewed. True encounters with Christ are through asking him to be your personal Lord and Savior. What the CC was doing looked like man made rituals to us.

 

[thephilosopher6]

Some churches practice infant baptism

Most churches practice infant baptism, which includes mainline Protestants as well as certain Evangelicals like Methodist.

I do believe in the doctrine of sola fide,

Right, but if I understand it correctly, since Pentecostals are Arminians, your view of sola fide is a more watered down version than what Luther and the original reformers meant by it (monergism), and you would seem to agree with some Anglicans and Methodist and those in the whole of Wesleyan tradition on what it means to you. In fact I would say the Arminian interpretation is pretty close, if not, then the same, as to what Catholics believe about justification by faith.

 

[Sarcelle]

Yes, the CC teaches that and I believe it.

But as a suspectful protestant, that’s not how it is viewed. True encounters with Christ are through asking him to be your personal Lord and Savior. What the CC was doing looked like man made rituals to us.

To a suspicious Protestant, anything about the Catholic Church is suspect.

The starting position of the suspicious Protestant is that the Catholic Church is wrong and all other assumptions go from there.

As they say, garbage in, garbage out. Wrong starting principle, wrong conclusions.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

Yes, the CC teaches that and I believe it.

But as a suspectful protestant, that’s not how it is viewed. True encounters with Christ are through asking him to be your personal Lord and Savior. What the CC was doing looked like man made rituals to us.

I echo the person who said to a suspicious Protestant, everything about the Catholic Church is suspect, but setting that aside, and without going into a long speech, I and every other Catholic have a personal relationship with Jesus/ God and do not put anyone or anything else on His level, nor are we “required” to go through something else (like a priest, Pope, saint, or even the Blessed Mother Mary) to talk to Jesus/ God.

 

[twf]

The same Christians who hold to “once saved always saved” tend to think that Catholics and Orthodox are not saved, so no, I don’t think there is an argument there.

True. They would maintain that simply being baptized or receiving communion does not make one a “true” born again Christian…but rather a personal conversion experience in which one consciously asks Christ into one’s life is the “moment” of salvation. My grandma was of this mindset and she dismissively described the Orthodox as “Catholic-esque”…meaning equally caught up in empty rituals without any true “personal” relationship with God.
If it makes us Catholics and Orthodox feel better, Lutherans and Anglicans are considered to be nearly as bad. They are, after all, just “Catholic lite”.

 

[ComplineSanFran]

Judas was Catholic also.

Sorry, but Judas was a Jew.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

Yes, I’ve heard that about Lutherans and Anglicans too. However, like I said, I have nothing to feel bad about since I have always had a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and I can’t remember a time when I didn’t consider him my “personal savior”. I think it’s odd that anyone would make a generalization about the relationships that whole entire huge groups of other people might have with Jesus Christ. You can certainly accept Jesus Christ as your personal savior without needing to do it in front of some particular minister in a particular branch of a Protestant church at a particular altar call or whatever.

 

[twf]

Most churches practice infant baptism, which includes mainline Protestants as well as certain Evangelicals like Methodist.

Right, but if I understand it correctly, since Pentecostals are Arminians, your view of sola fide is a more watered down version than what Luther and the original reformers meant by it (monergism), and you would seem to agree with some Anglicans and Methodist and those in the whole of Wesleyan tradition on what it means to you. In fact I would say the Arminian interpretation is pretty close, if not, then the same, as to what Catholics believe about justification by faith.

I’m not sure this is true. The majority of Christian traditions with a history that goes back more than a century probably practice infant baptism… but there are now countless Evangelical and Pentecostal groups all around the world, who numerically probably outnumber the Mainline Churches by millions, who don’t baptize infants. Look how Pentecostalism of various stripes has exploded in Latin America. How many “churches” do they represent? Hard to say as often even the local church community is essentially independent. I also wouldn’t classify Methodists as Evangelicals per se…Methodists of a traditional Wesleyan bent could perhaps be classified as “proto-Evangelicals”.

 

[thephilosopher6]

I’m not sure this is true. The majority of Christian traditions with a history that goes back more than a century probably practice infant baptism… but there are now countless Evangelical and Pentecostal groups all around the world, who numerically probably outnumber the Mainline Churches by millions, who don’t baptize infants. Look how Pentecostalism of various stripes has exploded in Latin America. How many “churches” do they represent? Hard to say as often even the local church community is essentially independent. I also wouldn’t classify Methodists as Evangelicals per se…Methodists of a traditional Wesleyan bent could perhaps be classified as “proto-Evangelicals”.

What I mean is that most Christian traditions practice infant baptism. Many in Evangelical movement do not. Wether or not mainline Protestants or Evangelicals out number one another is not the discussion. Besides, Catholics make up 1.2 billion Christians out of 2.4 billion. There are also 300 million Orthodox world wide. Truth is, most Christians believe in the practice of infant baptism anyway and it’s by far the most common type of baptism.

And the modern day Evangelical tradition got its start in the Methodist/Wesleyan movement. Not all Methodist are Evangelical, indeed they have a high church tradition. But Evangelicals are widespread among Methodist and I’d say a large chunk, probably a majority, of Methodist would consider themselves or hold to traditions within Evangelicalism.

 

[Lenten_ashes]

What I mean is that most Christian traditions practice infant baptism. Many in Evangelical movement do not. Wether or not mainline Protestants or Evangelicals out number one another is not the discussion. Besides, Catholics make up 1.2 billion Christians out of 2.4 billion. There are also 300 million Orthodox world wide. Truth is, most Christians believe in the practice of infant baptism anyway and it’s by far the most common type of baptism.

.

Yeah…a overwhelming majority of Christendom baptizes infants…and has been for the duration of the church…yet ironically, fundamentalists look at us like we are the strange ones for this practice.

Now appealing to popularity is a logical fallacy…because the majority believe something does not make it true. But Christians need to understand what is normative in the Christian faith and what is not. In this case, fundamentalists are by far and away the abnormal ones here.

 

[ltwin]

Most churches practice infant baptism, which includes mainline Protestants as well as certain Evangelicals like Methodist.

Yes, agree. Many evangelicals do practice infant baptism, but they don’t believe in baptismal regeneration.

Right, but if I understand it correctly, since Pentecostals are Arminians, your view of sola fide is a more watered down version than what Luther and the original reformers meant by it (monergism), and you would seem to agree with some Anglicans and Methodist and those in the whole of Wesleyan tradition on what it means to you. In fact I would say the Arminian interpretation is pretty close, if not, then the same, as to what Catholics believe about justification by faith.

I wouldn’t say it is watered down, just biblical. We believe that we are saved by faith alone, and that our assurance of salvation is conditional on remaining in that faith. The Holy Spirit is grieved by unbelief and disobedience. This leads to our life in Christ being harmed by ever increasing degrees as we continue to reject His love.

 

[reader124]

Adolf Hitler was a catholic, not a calvinist protestant; this discourse is therefore meaningless.

 

[Wesrock]

Hitler was baptized and received Holy communion. This means he accepted (or at least appeared to accept) Jesus as his lord and savior.

So according to “once saved always saved”, hitler must have gone to heaven regardless of what he did during WW2.

Is this a good argument to use against people who claim “once saved always saved”?

They would claim he was never in a state of justification and never received the fraces of justification.

 

[thephilosopher6]

I wouldn’t say it is watered down, just biblical. We believe that we are saved by faith alone, and that our assurance of salvation is conditional on remaining in that faith. The Holy Spirit is grieved by unbelief and disobedience. This leads to our life in Christ being harmed by ever increasing degrees as we continue to reject His love.

“Biblical” right… Anyways, Pentecostals view soteriology in light of Arminianism which doesn’t conform with what Luther and Calvin and Zwingli had in mind when they were professing sola fide. As said, your view on faith is probably much closer to the Catholic view than you think.

 

[Estevao]

I find the argument funny when people say “Hitler was a Catholic”. According to Catholic theology, in some sense, yes he was. But the interest in Hitler is historical. Now go ask your typical internet atheist who says “Hitler was a Catholic” what they think about doing history according to Catholic theology in general or is it just when they can say “Hitler was a Catholic nyah nyah nyah” that they approve of it, and once again you will get another instance of hand-waving. Sociologically speaking, he was an apostate, just like Stalin. The only reason we hear of those two apostates is the mass-murdering secular dictatorships they headed based on the two most common secular, progressive and scientific ideologies of their day—Darwinism and Marxism—not because they may have had some sacraments in their teens.

 

[HolyCrusader007]

Hitler was baptized and received Holy communion. This means he accepted (or at least appeared to accept) Jesus as his lord and savior.

So according to “once saved always saved”, hitler must have gone to heaven regardless of what he did during WW2.

Is this a good argument to use against people who claim “once saved always saved”?

Hitler was a Catholic, never excommunicated while some Communist Christians were. 98 % of the Third Reich population was Christian, and I do wonder if those Christians can get into heaven or are they in heaven if they have passed?

If this was 1942 with WW2 raging on what would be the appropriate Christian response to Hitler?

Today I feel must folks and myself included, detest the policies of intolerance and anti multiculturalism as did Hitler and the Reich.America was also majority Christian during WW2 and these Christians risked life and limb to fight the Reich but they also engaged in war actions but I submit for righteous reasons.

 

[Vico]

Hitler was a Catholic, never excommunicated while some Communist Christians were. 98 % of the Third Reich population was Christian, and I do wonder if those Christians can get into heaven or are they in heaven if they have passed?

If this was 1942 with WW2 raging on what would be the appropriate Christian response to Hitler?

Today I feel must folks and myself included, detest the policies of intolerance and anti multiculturalism as did Hitler and the Reich.America was also majority Christian during WW2 and these Christians risked life and limb to fight the Reich but they also engaged in war actions but I submit for righteous reasons.

If they understood what he proposed then opposition would have been correct, however, the fear of death of family and self is a factor related to moral culpability.

Catechism 2352 although addressing offenses against chastity provides some insight on culpability:

To form an equitable judgment about the subjects’ moral responsibility and to guide pastoral action, one must take into account the affective immaturity, force of acquired habit, conditions of anxiety or other psychological or social factors that lessen, if not even reduce to a minimum, moral culpability.

Also Caetechism:

1735 Imputability and responsibility for an action can be diminished or even nullified by ignorance, inadvertence, duress, fear, habit, inordinate attachments, and other psychological or social factors.