Do Non-Catholics go to Heaven?

[nuntym]

Yes.

It was simply not convincing.

And yet I did not see you refute any of my views, Erethorn. You just gave up.

Do NOT give up to know the Truth, who is Jesus Christ.

As long as you are prepared to accept anything the Church teaches as true, and as long as you are prepared to accept any manner of “interpreting” an valid, then yes, for you, there is consistency in the teaching.

Church: A can never be B.

The same Church, later on: A can be B.

Me:

You: You misunderstand.

You just gave up Erethorn. Fight some more. Wrestle with God.

And how exactly can, say, a chinese peasant from the fifth century be expected to “try to know Christ” ?

WIth the resources and abilities he/she has. Nature. His/her conscience and reasoning. His/her society. And, especially, the Grace of God.

Again, didn’t you read what I posted by St. Justin Martyr?

“We have been taught that Christ is the first-begotten of God, and we have declared him to be the Logos of which all mankind partakes [John 1:9]”

Jesus Christ is the Wisdom of God that the Father has given to all of mankind to be partaken by men to the best of their abilities.

All men know Christ, but in different degrees, according to their resources and abilities, and the generosity of God.

God love you.

 

[1voice]

I have read several books written by/ describing experiences of people that experienced Heaven and /or had a personal encounter with Jesus. None of them were Catholic.

There are currently multiple reports of Jesus appearing to people in strict Muslim countries where Christianity is forbidden. None of those people mention anything about Catholicism.

I know a 14 yr old boy who’s best friend (again, not Catholic) recently died. He is being raised by single Christian mom, not Catholic. The boy told his mom that he had wondered and worried about his friend that he missed so much… he said that he saw Jesus and his friend and that his friend talked to him and told him not to worry or be concerned … he said he was in heaven and described a wonderful place and he talked about the amazing love he experienced from everyone there…

Comments?

 

[Neildown]

Comments?

An example of the fact that Catholics are not the only ones who go to heaven. I do believe Catholicism [followed correctly] is the best and most reasonable way to get there however.

 

[Kristin234]

And so you are saying that only those who are alive on earth by this time will be judged at the end of the world?

I never said that. Obviously the Bible says that he will judge everyone. I’m just saying that everyone will know who Jesus is when he comes back so they would know what was going on.

And what of people who had not the opportunity to hear of the Gospel during their lives?

That’s a good question and I will honestly answer that with an I don’t know. I was waiting for you to ask me that question. The Bible doesn’t tell us what happens to those who have never heard the gospel and I am definitely not trying to judge others, but one thing I am sure the Bible does say is that the only way to God is through Christ. The Bible also says that no one is good except for God, so if the Bible says that no one is good and that we must believe in Christ to be saved then what? What does that mean?

 

[nuntym]

+JMJ+

I never said that. Obviously the Bible says that he will judge everyone. I’m just saying that everyone will know who Jesus is when he comes back so they would know what was going on.

OK, I will grant you that. However, how come the people there DIDN"T know the well taught Christian doctrine that whatever you do to others you did unto Jesus?

That’s a good question and I will honestly answer that with an I don’t know. I was waiting for you to ask me that question. The Bible doesn’t tell us what happens to those who have never heard the gospel and I am definitely not trying to judge others, but one thing I am sure the Bible does say is that the only way to God is through Christ. The Bible also says that no one is good except for God, so if the Bible says that no one is good and that we must believe in Christ to be saved then what? What does that mean?

Will you consider this?

Erethorn;8148754:

And how exactly can, say, a chinese peasant from the fifth century be expected to “try to know Christ” ?

WIth the resources and abilities he/she has. Nature. His/her conscience and reasoning. His/her society. And, especially, the Grace of God.

Again, didn’t you read what I posted by St. Justin Martyr?

“We have been taught that Christ is the first-begotten of God, and we have declared him to be the Logos of which all mankind partakes [John 1:9]”

Jesus Christ is the Wisdom of God that the Father has given to all of mankind to be partaken by men to the best of their abilities.

All men know Christ, but in different degrees, according to their resources and abilities, and the generosity of God.

God love you.

 

[rinnie]

YES.

But… The Church used to say otherwise.

Well I disagree with you on both accounts. There is NO Salvation outside of Jesus Christ, and please show me where the Church has ever taught otherwise.

 

[rinnie]

Comments?

I do, in the gospel Christ says he and his Church are one. How do you separate Christ from the Catholic Church?

 

[Lui]

I once asked a priest after mass if non catholics went to heaven and he said of course they did.

I’ve asked many priests if non-Catholics can go to Heaven because most of my relatives/friends are either atheists or non-Catholic. All said yes.

Then again I think only God knows, so technically I should have voted for both answers.

The Bible doesn’t tell us what happens to those who have never heard the gospel and I am definitely not trying to judge others, but one thing I am sure the Bible does say is that the only way to God is through Christ.

Did you study theology? I’m just curious because you seem to know better than all the priests I talked to.
As far as I know The Bible DOES tell us what happens to those who never heard of the gospel.

 

[Lui]

The Bible doesn’t tell us what happens to those who have never heard the gospel and I am definitely not trying to judge others, but one thing I am sure the Bible does say is that the only way to God is through Christ.

Did you study theology? I’m just curious because you seem to know better than all the priests I talked to.
As far as I know The Bible DOES tell us what happens to those who never heard of the gospel.

 

[Lui]

As far as I know The Bible DOES tell us what happens to those who never heard of the gospel.

I remembered there was something in the Bible that explains what happens to people who never heard of the gospel(like tribes in the amazon for instance)
Since I haven’t studied theology myself, I am not 100% sure but I think this part of the Bible explains what happens to people who have never heard of the gospel:

Romans 2:

13 For the ones that God will justify are not those who have heard the Law but those who have kept the Law.

14 So, when gentiles, not having the Law, still through their own innate sense behave as the Law commands, then, even though they have no Law, they are a law for themselves.

(New Jerusalem Bible)

 

[Erethorn]

And yet I did not see you refute any of my views, Erethorn. You just gave up.

Do NOT give up to know the Truth, who is Jesus Christ.

Uhmm, excuse me, are “your views” the Truth of Jesus Christ ?

You just gave up Erethorn. Fight some more. Wrestle with God.

I did. I prayed. A lot. I prayed to God and asked Him to tell me if it was true that for a finite amount of guilt a man should receive an infinite amount of punishment. He never answered.

I asked Him if my father would go to hell for missing Mass. He never answered.

I asked Him if a good man would go to hell for one mistake; He never answered.

I asked him if the Catholic Church got it right. He never answered.

I wrestled. I became angry and I raised my fist and I told God: "If You exist, and if You’re laws are such that my good and loving father will go to eternal torment and gnashing of theeth and the lake of fire and so on, for missing Mass; then I will have no part with You !!!. You can keep your Heaven for yourself ! I do not want to go there.

He never answered.

In the meanwhile, The Church does have an answer. The Church is telling me that, however loving, however caring, hoewever self-sacrificing my father may be, he would go to HELL and SUFFER AND BE TORMENTED FOR ALL ETERNITY because he didn’t attend Sunday Mass.

That cannot be. That cannot be right. That cannot be true, it cannot be just, it cannot be good, ot cannot be godly, it CANNOT BE !!!

I will have bo part in such a monstrous system.

In fact, this has been the last straw. I will no longer call myself Catholic, as long as the Catholic Church teaches that my father would be subject to eternal torment.

No more.

 

[jmcrae]

I did. I prayed. A lot. I prayed to God and asked Him to tell me if it was true that for a finite amount of guilt a man should receive an infinite amount of punishment. He never answered.

Have you ever done anything (small or large) that you later regretted - for a longer time than it took to do the action?

The experience of Hell may very well be just like that seemingly-never ending feeling of regret that takes place after an instant of poor judgement.

I asked Him if a good man would go to hell for one mistake; He never answered.

There are no “good men” - we are all sinners. And yes, one unrepented, proud sin can generate enough regret in the afterlife to bind us into Hell for all of eternity.

In the meanwhile, The Church does have an answer. The Church is telling me that, however loving, however caring, hoewever self-sacrificing my father may be, he would go to HELL and SUFFER AND BE TORMENTED FOR ALL ETERNITY because he didn’t attend Sunday Mass.

Actually, the authentic teaching of the Church is that we don’t know how God judges particular individuals.

Obviously, your father was not a saint during his lifetime. What you (and we) don’t know is whether his intention in missing Mass was to fly the finger at Jesus in defiance against Him, or simply because he had no idea of the importance of going to Mass - that he simply didn’t know any better.

 

[Erethorn]

Have you ever done anything (small or large) that you later regretted - for a longer time than it took to do the action?

The experience of Hell may very well be just like that seemingly-never ending feeling of regret that takes place after an instant of poor judgement…

There’s a huge diference between “seemingly never ending” and “never ending”.

“Never ending” means a million years. A billion years. A billion billion years and more to come.

There are no “good men” - we are all sinners. And yes, one unrepented, proud sin can generate enough regret in the afterlife to bind us into Hell for all of eternity.

Hell is not just regret. Hell is the lake of fire, the neverending torment, the gnashing of teeth, the worm, TORTURE, NEVERENDING. Jesus said that, didn’t He ?!

ONE sin equals NEVER-ENDING TORTURE ?

You say “regret”. One who regrets aknowleges their mistake and would make up for it.

Yet Hell is NEVER-ENDING TORTURE, it Is FOREVER, is it not ?

 

[Lui]

In the meanwhile, The Church does have an answer. The Church is telling me that, however loving, however caring, hoewever self-sacrificing my father may be, he would go to HELL and SUFFER AND BE TORMENTED FOR ALL ETERNITY because he didn’t attend Sunday Mass.

Seriously, where did you get this information? My father is a good person but a passionate atheist. That’s why I asked several priests if he can still go to Heaven and they all said yes.
Anyway, who really knows what Hell is like. The version of people burning in fire seems more like an old-fashioned version of Hell. I would actually think Hell is the absence of God and that people go there voluntarily if they actually reject God.

 

[novusCatholic]

Paragraphs from the CCC:

818 - However, one cannot charge with the sin of the separation those who at present are born into these communities [that resulted from such separation] and in them are brought up in the faith of Christ, and the Catholic Church accepts them with respect and affection as brothers . . . . All who have been justified by faith in Baptism are incorporated into Christ; they therefore have a right to be called Christians, and with good reason are accepted as brothers in the Lord by the children of the Catholic Church.

819 - Furthermore, many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside the visible confines of the Catholic Church: "the written Word of God; the life of grace; faith, hope, and charity, with the other interior gifts of the Holy Spirit, as well as visible elements. Christ’s Spirit uses these Churches and ecclesial communities as means of salvation, whose power derives from the fullness of grace and truth that Christ has entrusted to the Catholic Church. All these blessings come from Christ and lead to him, and are in themselves calls to "Catholic unity.

846 - How are we to understand this affirmation, often repeated by the Church Fathers? Re-formulated positively, it means that all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his Body:

Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one Christ is the mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his body which is the Church. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and Baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through Baptism as through a door. Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it.

847 - This affirmation is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church:

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.

 

[PRmerger]

Hell is not just regret. Hell is the lake of fire, the neverending torment, the gnashing of teeth, the worm, TORTURE, NEVERENDING. Jesus said that, didn’t He ?!

ONE sin equals NEVER-ENDING TORTURE ?

You say “regret”. One who regrets aknowleges their mistake and would make up for it.

Yet Hell is NEVER-ENDING TORTURE, it Is FOREVER, is it not ?

It is indeed forever. And God’s mercy and love is forever, as well.

However, to those in hell, God’s light is abhorrent and odious.

As Catholic philosopher Peter Kreeft says, “Imagine a man in hell—no, a ghost—endlessly chasing his own shadow, as the light of God shines endlessly behind him. If he would only turn and face the light, he would be saved. But he refuses to—forever.”

God’s love is so odious to some that they prefer hell.

 

[Erethorn]

Seriously, where did you get this information?
Anyway, who really knows what Hell is like. The version of people burning in fire seems more like an old-fashioned version of Hell. I would actually think Hell is the absence of God and that people go there voluntarily if they actually reject God.

Old fashioned or not, this is the hell that was taught for 2000 years.

Where do I get my information ? From the Bible. Isn’t that what Jesus said ? “The lake of fire” ? “Wailing and gnashing of theeth” ?!

From the Church aproved Fatima revelations:

Our Lady showed us a great sea of fire which seemed to be under the earth. Plunged in this fire were demons and souls in human form, like transparent burning embers, all blackened or burnished bronze, floating about in the conflagration, now raised into the air by the flames that issued from within themselves together with great clouds of smoke, now falling back on every side like sparks in a huge fire, without weight or equilibrium, and amid shrieks and groans of pain and despair, which horrified us and made us tremble with fear. The demons could be distinguished by their terrifying and repulsive likeness to frightful and unknown animals, all black and transparent. This vision lasted but an instant. How can we ever be grateful enough to our kind heavenly Mother, who had already prepared us by promising, in the first Apparition, to take us to heaven. Otherwise, I think we would have died of fear and terror.

I have pondered the “God doesn’t send people to hell, they go there willingly because they reject God” argument long and hard and I came to the conclusion that it simply doesn’t hold water.

Nobody who is at least partially sane would ever “willingly” choose eternal torment and torture over eternal bliss.

This argument makes it sound as if the ones in hell are some kind of monsters, with nothing good in them, with no humanity, no soul, no nothing.

Regarding your (and my) father, the priests who told you he could go to Heaven were obviously good and decent people.
However, the official doctrine of the Church is that:

“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.”

What does “no fault of their own” mean ? When there is a Catholic church at every corner, and you hear the word Jesus in every sentence, and you have internet and libraries and a Bible in every other bookshelf, can you still claim invincible ignorance ?
Of course not.

Let’s take my father for example. He is not an atheist, he was raised Catholic, even served as an altar boy when he was a child. He is an educated man. However, he simply does not believe everything the Church teaches, and is one of those “I can pray at home, God is not in a building” type of person. He does go to Mass on occasion, but not because he feels compeled.

Can he claim invincible ignorance regarding the teaching that missing Mass is a mortal sin that will send you to hell ? Of course not. He simply does not believe it. And, the official teaching of the Church is that he, among many others, is headed right for hell.

Despite the fact that he is a good man who tried to do good all his life and he believes in God and prays and sometimes goes to church, the official teaching is that he rejects God and shall wilingly go to hell and eternal torment because he cannot bring himself to believe that going to Mass every Sunday is necesary. Now how does that make sense ?

 

[Kristin234]

+JMJ+

OK, I will grant you that. However, how come the people there DIDN"T know the well taught Christian doctrine that whatever you do to others you did unto Jesus?

Well, it’s like what’s going on now. Why do so many people who call themselves Christians do so much that the Bible forbids, or do so little of what the Bible tells us to do, and when you tell them what they are doing they are shocked that that’s what the Bible teaches. I believe it is because they are ignorant to it and do not truly know what God is telling us to do.

I do believe through nature everyone has a chance of knowing God. God has left a fingerprint on this earth and it is undeniable who he is.

 

[Erethorn]

By the way, the post in which I detailed why I didn’t want to be a part of the Church anymore was deleted and I received an “infraction” for it.

Nuntym, thank you very much.

 

[PRmerger]

By the way, the post in which I detailed why I didn’t want to be a part of the Church anymore was deleted and I received an “infraction” for it.

Nuntym, thank you very much.

When one is searching for truth with a humble heart, God proclaims that he will find truth.

So keep up your search, Erethorn. Seek and you will find.

It’s important for you to be here and remain in dialogue and thus you can be exposed to the Truth of Catholicism.