Do you believe in limbo?

[rlg94086]

I said “I do not know”

This is, theologically speaking, the CORRECT answer.

This is my belief. I think any speculation is a waste of time. No matter what we theorize or vote, the decision of whether anyone goes to heaven or hell (or other, if it exists) is God’s.

Personally, I think it’s better to be concerned with becoming holy and keeping the Sacraments than to worry about the fate of unbaptized babies. We can of course pray for the fate of anyone, and leave it in His hands.

 

[JoeMike]

I believe that:

1. Limbo exists.
2. It’s the fringe of Heaven, not of Hell.
3. It’s a wonderful place to be, almost as wonderful as Heaven.
4. We, the living, can help souls get from Limbo to Heaven, in the same way we help the souls in Purgatory- through prayer, good deeds, sacrifice, etc.

 

[JackQ]

Theologically, I think it is possible, but I can’t perceive of a Heaven in which I won’t get to hold the baby I lost in miscarriage. I don’t know if that is a purely emotional response.

However, if I who love imperfectly can’t conceive of it, then how can God who loves perfectly not have these little ones around him?

It is an emotional response, and you’re right.

 

[Steve_O_Brien]

This is my belief. I think any speculation is a waste of time. No matter what we theorize or vote, the decision of whether anyone goes to heaven or hell (or other, if it exists) is God’s.

Personally, I think it’s better to be concerned with becoming holy and keeping the Sacraments than to worry about the fate of unbaptized babies. We can of course pray for the fate of anyone, and leave it in His hands.

No, it’s not that simple.

We must, of course, commend every human being to God’s justice and mercy, and recognize that God alone determines who is saved and who is damned. We must also be humbly prayerful and receive the sacraments to obtain and preserve the supernatural life. But we must not be incoherent and do these things in such a manner that they are done at the expense of the truth of the Faith that God has revealed for our salvation.

Jesus tells us that he protects the one true Church from erroneous teachings (Mt 16:18). If we say that the Catholic Church erred in teaching the Catholic dogma that the souls dying in original sin only are somehow punished in the next world (which penalty has to apply to unbaptized infants), then we are indirectly saying that Jesus is not protecting his Church. How can a Catholic say this?

The Church enunciated this dogma about the afterlife punishment of original sin at the Council of Lyons II in 1274 and at the Council of Florence in 1439. If you accept this dogma, then you are driven by logic to say one of two things: either (1) that the souls of unbaptized children go to hell (Pope St. Gregory the Great, St. Augustine, and St. Anselm said this), or (2) that the souls of these children go to limbo, where they enjoy unending natural happiness (St. Thomas Aquinas said this).

The Church teaches in section 1261 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church that I do not have to accept the pessimism and rigorism of Pope St. Gregory the Great, St. Augustine, and St. Anselm on this issue. On this point, they spoke merely as individuals, and not in the name of the Magisterium. Accordingly, I agree with St. Thomas, because I believe that his solution is the reasonable one.

I must come to some conclusion on this matter to uphold the truth of the Faith and to ensure the continued adherence of my intellect to it. If I felt that the Church could contradict even one of her dogmas, then it would be impossible for me to continue being a Catholic, because Catholicism would not be true in that scenario. But the Faith is true.

Keep and spread the Faith.

 

[Struggling]

Didn’t Satan and the other angels that fell have the beatific vision? They sinned, right? Sorry this is off topic but I’m just curious about this. I’ll have to do some reading, it’s fascinating.

No, they didn’t. They were created (like Adam and Eve) in a state of sanctifying grace, but then were given the choice of using that freely given grace to either merit the beatific vision, or reject it and go to hell.

1. We, the living, can help souls get from Limbo to Heaven, in the same way we help the souls in Purgatory- through prayer, good deeds, sacrifice, etc.

I’m sorry. But this (like the “parental desire” or “enlightenment with choice at the last minute”) is a theory that simply has no precedent and does not really make sense. It just complicates things and doesn’t fit elegantly into the structure of the rest of theology.

If a soul were in Limbo, then by definition it wouldn’t have done anything wrong that would need prayer and sacrafice. They would have no Temporal Punishment…that’s *why *their natural happiness would be perfect.

And there is no reason for it. Why would our prayers and sacrafice help them (in terms of grace and merit theology)?? Why would God put them there in the first place, then? If you can, as in your theory, get to heaven while dying without baptism eventually…why would God bother with any intermediate “prayer” and stuff when they personally aren’t guilty?

This is my belief. I think any speculation is a waste of time. No matter what we theorize or vote, the decision of whether anyone goes to heaven or hell (or other, if it exists) is God’s.

Yes, but that wasn’t my point. I think “speculation” is a valid endeavor (even though it can’t produce dogma if the thing speculated on was delibrately never revealed) and it is not a waste of time. Niether is the very good hope I think we can have that God gives them grace before they die. But the point was…we don’t know. God hasn’t revealed what he does. IF someone dies with original sin…they go to limbo, that’s for sure. But the real question is if he does let anyone die in original sin if they havent also committed mortal? Or, since the coming of Christ, does he give grace before death to anyone who doesn’t reject it? We don’t know. I think it makes sense that he would, but he hasn’t revealed it…so we can’t presume it and must act on what we DO know, which is the absolute command to baptize urgently.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

In the context of Catholic doctrine, it is not true that “there is always room for maneuver,” in the sense that dogmas do not have immutable meanings.

The position that a dogma can pass from one meaning to another that conflicts with the sense that it first had in the Church is Modernism (which the Catholic Church has condemned as a heresy), not Catholicism (DS 3541).

A. Not liking an idea, is no proof it can’t happen.​

B. I believe it has, several times. I know it is possible to dress up contradiction & difference as perpetuity in faith, but that doesn’t make any real contradiction there may be any less real. Dishonesty & ignorance remain those things in ordinary life, & I see no reason at all why the same does not hold for Church matters. Changing names does not change realities. Not even a Pope can alter that.

C. Popes are at the mercy of reality, as are we all - & it can be held at bay for only so long. Sometimes they remind me of children with hands over their eyes who think they cannot be seen by others because they can themselves not see. ##

The dogma that principally supports the supposition of limbo is the dogma that teaches that souls dying in original sin only are penalized for this in the next world. This dogma means something definite, and it it is not going to be revoked.

But *what *does it mean ? The present Pope did not think it more than an hypothesis in an interview published as “The Ratzinger Report”. Surely the SCDF’s own Prefect ought to know what is to be taught. He said it was not in the Catechism published by the Italian bishops. If it is true, then they were negligent. I’ve known priests to deny it was ever taught.​

The dogma you mention does not positively require a notion of Limbo, because it is possible that God may provide for unbaptised infants in the moment of death. ##

If the Church were to annul this dogma,

Solution - deny its dogmatic status. Problem solved.​

then she could annul any dogma, and could, for instance, declare that the Blessed Trinity is a mere metaphor, that Jesus was only a human person, and that he is present in the Eucharist purely symbolically. She could further declare that abortion is not murder and that contraception is not a mortal sin. As much as some people would like to see these retractions, they are not going to happen.

Not in our time - but in 20,000 AD - who knows ? I don’t.​

I have every confidence in the Church’s ability to reverse her teaching without seeing any contradictions or difficulties in so doing. Cynical ? Probably.

The Catholic Church is not going to be transformed into the “broad and liberal Protestantism” that Pope St. Pius X associated with Modernism (DS 3465).

Whether rightly, is another matter.​

Limbo is *not *total separation from God, as St. Thomas Aquinas explains:

***“Although unbaptized children are separated from God as regards the union of glory, they are not utterly separated from Him: in fact they are united to Him by their share of natural goods, and so will also be able to rejoice in Him by their natural knowledge and love” (*Summa theologiae, appendix 1, question 1, article 2, reply to objection 5).

Keep and spread the Faith.

Still not convinced - sorry ​

1. In the strict sense, no creature can be separated from God, for it is by God’s omnipotence that all creatures are sustained in existence. In this sense, even the devil is not separated from God.
2. Compared to the Beatific Vision, Limbo would be no better than the pit of Hell. To fail in one’s vocation to the life of Christ, is to lose everything. It is not a tiresome nuisance that can somehow be recouped by having a few “natural gifts”. What are they worth without Christ ? Nothing. To imply that eternal Life in Christ is a nice thing to have, but, hey, it’s always possible to get over not having it - as this notion of natural goods implies - makes God another object in the universe alongside others: it destroys the transcendence & infinity of His Goodness, & so, of God.
3. I think we are probably at odds in our ideas about man’s vocation to eternal life. I believe it is wholly gratuitous, but also utterly essential for any happiness worth the name. I believe that a man has a vocation to Christ by the very fact of his being man at all. Which is why it is so final a disaster for us to die outside Christ. I especially believe that all creatures without exception are made in, by & for Christ.

I suspect your outlook is more along traditional Thomist lines ?

 

[Steve_O_Brien]

Gottle of Geer;15877661.:

In the strict sense, no creature can be separated from God, for it is by God’s omnipotence that all creatures are sustained in existence. In this sense, even the devil is not separated from God.

1. Compared to the Beatific Vision, Limbo would be no better than the pit of Hell. To fail in one’s vocation to the life of Christ, is to lose everything. It is not a tiresome nuisance that can somehow be recouped by having a few “natural gifts”. What are they worth without Christ ? Nothing. To imply that eternal Life in Christ is a nice thing to have, but, hey, it’s always possible to get over not having it - as this notion of natural goods implies - makes God another object in the universe alongside others: it destroys the transcendence & infinity of His Goodness, & so, of God.
2. I think we are probably at odds in our ideas about man’s vocation to eternal life. I believe it is wholly gratuitous, but also utterly essential for any happiness worth the name. I believe that a man has a vocation to Christ by the very fact of his being man at all. Which is why it is so final a disaster for us to die outside Christ. I especially believe that all creatures without exception are made in, by & for Christ.

I suspect your outlook is more along traditional Thomist lines ?

Michael, I honor St. Thomas as a Catholic mega-teacher, but my outlook is primarily along Catholic lines.

Your point #1 is on the money.

Your point #2 is–and I say this with great respect, brother–utterly false and reflects confusion. What you are saying is tantamount to contending that it was a waste of time for God to create any creature, either animate or inanimate, that is not capable of enjoying the beatific vision. (This would, absurdly, rule out the existence of pizza and ice cream! )

On the contrary, as Pope Pius XII taught in the 1950 encyclical Humani generis, we should reject the error of those who “destroy the gratuity of the supernatural order, since God, they say, cannot create intellectual beings without ordering and calling them to the beatific vision” (DS 3891). Any Catholic who is so confused as to think that all unbaptized children go to heaven should ponder those words of Pius XII.

The utterly gratuitous supernatural order, and the utterly gratuitous supernatural life, are at the core of the Catholic Faith. God doesn’t have to give us anything. Our mere existence, apart from anything else, is a stupendous gift.

Your point #3 has already been answered in the response to your point #2.

A “broad and liberal Protestantism” need not care about limbo, or much else. But it is Catholicism, not any kind of Protestantism, that stands in direct continuity with the person and message of Jesus.

Keep and spread the Faith.