Gandhi in hell?

[TMC]

To die without conversion is to die in the state of mortal sin- the “Original Sin”. Last time I looked- “Original Sin” still exists- and no matter how good any non baptized/converted person is they cannot and will not EVER enter heaven unless they believe and are baptized.

Ken, this is not the Church’s teaching. I have no idea what the state of Gandhi’s soul is, but Catholic doctrine does not provide that an unbaptized person CANNOT enter heaven. As then Cardinal Ratzinger explained in Dominus Iesus:

The Church is the “universal sacrament of salvation”,79 since, united always in a mysterious way to the Saviour Jesus Christ, her Head, and subordinated to him, she has, in God’s plan, an indispensable relationship with the salvation of every human being.80 For those who are not formally and visibly members of the Church, “salvation in Christ is accessible by virtue of a grace which, while having a mysterious relationship to the Church, does not make them formally part of the Church, but enlightens them in a way which is accommodated to their spiritual and material situation. This grace comes from Christ; it is the result of his sacrifice and is communicated by the Holy Spirit”;81 it has a relationship with the Church, which “according to the plan of the Father, has her origin in the mission of the Son and the Holy Spirit”.82

So Gandhi and others could be saved by the grace of Christ. We neither fully understand the mysterious nature of salvation, or the extent of Christ’s mercy. Non-Christians are in a “gravely deficient situation” compared to Catholics, but the salvic power of the Church can be extended to them in God’s mercy.

 

[coleraine]

Reeks of relativism. This means that Jesus’s mission was not necessary for everyone, which is BOGUS.

how so? muslims, for example, do not worship jesus. ok, pagans do not worship jesus, but instead of the one god of muslims, they have seperate. and we have no problem with muslims. just because pagans believe in more than one god does not mean they dont love him, even if they dont realize that it is one god that exists. also, you cant expect everyone to believ the same thing. just because you believe one thing, does not mean that others are “bogus” because they dont agree. when jesus died, there were still pagans. many were bad, as is obvious from scripture, but not all. it is not as if every pagan knew about christ the moment he died. no, they lived on, not knowing of him, but many still loved god. many were peacefull, loving people. sure, they had many customs we would not agree with, but their right and wrong were different. today pagans are different. they dont have nearly as many taboos. is it unfortuante to be pagan, and not know chirst? yes. but is it a one-way ticket to hell? no.

 

[Mr.Ex_Nihilo]

Evidence for this? I think you are seriously garbling the truth here (which I believe is that Gandhi exhorted the Jews to offer only passive resistance to the evil of Hitler–hardly the same thing as “supporting Hitler”).

Edwin

Thank you for clarifying that Edwin.

I was kind of scratching my head with this one, not sure whether to bite at the bait or not.

 

[jay29]

how so? muslims, for example, do not worship jesus. ok, pagans do not worship jesus, but instead of the one god of muslims, they have seperate.

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father, except through me.” John 14:6

and we have no problem with muslims.

We have a problem with muhammed. He contradicted Jesus Christ, so he is a FALSE prophet.

just because pagans believe in more than one god does not mean they dont love him, even if they dont realize that it is one god that exists.

Their “love” is misdirected and applied to idols.

also, you cant expect everyone to believ the same thing. just because you believe one thing, does not mean that others are “bogus” because they dont agree.

Relativism. Jesus did not come with a choice, “Pick Me or Buddha” Bogus.

when jesus died, there were still pagans.

Wrong. They were Jews or Gentiles.

many were bad, as is obvious from scripture, but not all. it is not as if every pagan knew about christ the moment he died.

No, that is why He instructed His Apostles to spread the Gospels to the ends of the earth.

no, they lived on, not knowing of him, but many still loved god. many were peacefull, loving people. sure, they had many customs we would not agree with, but their right and wrong were different. today pagans are different. they dont have nearly as many taboos. is it unfortuante to be pagan, and not know chirst? yes. but is it a one-way ticket to hell? no.

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father, except through me.” John 14:6

Either Jesus was correct or He lied. Take your pick.

 

[gamesport]

Well, supporting Hitler is a pretty good sign of a skewed moral compass, particularly after it became clear what a monster he was.

Gandhi did not love everyone; he did not love Winston Churchill, for example. Churchill certainly didn’t love him.

Let’s not let hero worship skew perception; Gandhi was a complex human being who accomplished great things for good and ill, and was judged upon his demise, as we all shall be. The outcome of that is unknown, since he hasn’t come back to tell us.

i’ve yet to see any evidence that he supported hitler, So what if he did not love winston churchill? The British colonial oppression was horrible at the time

 

[Malcolm_McLean]

He certainly didn’t love everyone. Wasn’t it Gandhi who said to someone “I like your Christ but not your Christians”?

Yes. So maybe that’s enough to make him a Christian, de facto but not de jure, or a member of the “invisible Church”.

We really don’t know. There were flaws with Gandhi’s political ideas, for instance the flag of India, absurdly, contains a spinning wheel, symbol of Gandhi’s Luddism. His legacy kept India back for many years. But he was a great man, and a serious moral thinker. No doubt about that. His is the hard case that tests the doctrine. Is Gandhi himself saved? We cannot say, but we can have reasonable confidence that God in His mercy and justice will find a way. Could Gandhi’s ideas provide salvation for mankind? That’s easy to answer. No they could not, they are too interlarded with human folly.

 

[ralphinal]

No one can say the state of his soul. Who knows where he is.

As far as the post that only people who beleive in Christ go to heaven, what about everyone who lived at the same time in other places? Are all native Americans in hell because they were on the wrong continent?

 

[Cling2Cross]

i dont really see how he could be in hell, i mean, he did nothing but embrace everyone, but someone on this site told me he is probably in hell. the person who told me this probably wasnt catholic though, because he says that, “if your not christian, you will go to hell”. i dunno…

Was he born again? Did he trust and follow Christ or did he seek to glorify another?

(Titus 3:5) He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit,

All the good works a person can do will never make up for their sin and the only way to be justified is by faith in Christ.

 

[Josephina]

*Is Gandhi himself saved? We cannot say, but we can have reasonable confidence that God in His mercy and justice will find a way. *

Blessed are those who show mercy, for mercy shall be shown to them!

The following is the correct quote from Mr. Ghandi re: Christianity

A Hindu, Ghandi nevertheless admired Jesus and often quoted from the Sermon on the Mount. Once when the missionary E. Stanley Jones met with Ghandi he asked him, “Mr. Ghandi, though you quote the words of Christ often, why is that you appear to so adamantly reject becoming his follower?”

Ghandi replied, “Oh, I don’t reject your Christ. I love your Christ. It’s just that so many of you Christians are so unlike your Christ.”

Ghandi’s rejection of Christianity grew out of an incident that happened when he was a young man practising law in South Africa. He had become attracted to the Christian faith, had studied the Bible and the teachings of Jesus, and was seriously exploring becoming a Christian. And so he decided to attend a church service. As he came up the steps of the large church where he intended to go, a white South African elder of the church barred his way at the door. “Where do you think you’re going, kaffir?” the man asked Ghandi in a belligerent tone of voice.

Ghandi replied, “I’d like to attend worship here.”

The church elder snarled at him, “There’s no room for kaffirs in this church. Get out of here or I’ll have my assistants throw you down the steps.”

From that moment, Ghandi said, he decided to adopt what good he found in Christianity, but would never again consider becoming a Christian if it meant being part of the church.

How we treat those others tells people MORE about what we believe, and what followibng Jesus means to us than all tracts we pass out, or all the fine semons we deliver.

Jesus told St. Faustina that His Divine Mercy was greater than the sin of the world combined and that it was denied to none who would trust in Him.

If we trust that God is good and is the source of all goodness, then wherever we find good, we find God is present. Wherever God is present, His mercy is present.

Ghandi was a good man. I do not believe God would deny His mercy to a good man - especially one that “loved” Jesus.

Imagine two souls before God - Ghandi and the Christian Church elder…

 

[Atemi]

i dont really see how he could be in hell, i mean, he did nothing but embrace everyone

Does the Catholic Church now teach that we are saved by works?

…

 

[Church_Militant]

Does the Catholic Church now teach that we are saved by works?

I think you know better than that. Coleraine is expressing his own opinion…not that of the Church, though I’m sure that you wish he was.

 

[Cling2Cross]

I think you know better than that. Coleraine is expressing his own opinion…not that of the Church, though I’m sure that you wish he was.

Based on the opinion, it appears that Coleraine does not have the truth if there is a belief that we earn salvation through works. The only loving thing to do would be to correct Coleraine with regard to biblical salvation…one who does not have Christ but has an external “righteousness” alone has nothing…works without faith in Christ is nothing because the God we know (I AM) was not glorified by his mouth/words. Who was he glorifying?

 

[Larry1700]

The following is the correct quote from Mr. Ghandi re: Christianity…

…Ghandi’s rejection of Christianity grew out of an incident that happened when he was a young man practising law in South Africa…

From that moment, Ghandi said, he decided to adopt what good he found in Christianity, but would never again consider becoming a Christian if it meant being part of the church.

Good info, Josephina. I had never seen the quote in context.

A little off topic, but my daughter recently raised that quote. My response was that I was sure that many in Gandhi’s religion didn’t always adhere to its precepts.However, I lacked the ability to cite examples. If anyone can provide names, etc. of well-known “bad guys” in Gandhi’s religion, or any information about something Gandhi was known to have done against it, I would appreciate it. Yes, I realize it’s kind of a “well, they do it too!” argument, but I think it would be helpful, along with my already-admitted awareness that Christians don’t always follow Christ’s teachings, nor do people of any organization follow its rules/teachings perfectly.

 

[bpbasilphx]

Coleraine, you believe that Ghandi is in heaven because you WANT to believe it, not because of the evidence of his life and the teaching of Christianity.

Ghandi made a specific and definite rejection of the Christian faith.

We may hope and pray tha God is merciful to him, but we cannot know his fate until the Last Judgement, and even then, we will have better things to think about.

It takes more than being a “good person” and passing out warm fuzzies to get you into heaven.

 

[Ryan29]

If you people believe that a person like Gandhi is roasting in a brimstone bath, then so is Johnny Cash, C.S. Lewis, and any of the crusaders that sent thousands of Muslims to their deaths at the end of a spearpoint. The pope hasn’t never decreed a sacred note that said people are in hell because he doesn’t know anymore than we do. He is human like the rest of us and anyways it’s not in the Bible either telling who is relaxing in the lake of fire. On the other hand though, the Jewish Torah and Talmud says that Jesus is boiling in excrement for his hersey. So ask the Jews about who is in hell. :knight1:

 

[porthos11]

No one has the power or right to speculate whether a person is in hell.

That said, while Gandhi was clearly a good man, no one ever went to heaven for being good. Only by grace are we saved, Gandhi included.

We pray and hope for is salvation, but if he is saved, it is only through God’s grace, and not for any good works he did. In fact, without having been baptized, his good works were unable to gain him any merit whatsoever, so if he is in heaven, it is solely through God’s sheer grace.

 

[Teflon93]

I suggest people read some biographies of Gandhi before proclaiming him a saint.

It seems many are familiar with the man strictly through the hagiographic movie.

Beyond that, God judges. Bereft of omniscience, omnipresence, and omnipotence, our judgment is lacking.

The Church, of course, is guided by the Holy Spirit in ascertaining such things, which is why canonization is the product of a rigorous and holy process and not the result of Internet opinion polls.

 

[chosen_people]

If you people believe that a person like Gandhi is roasting in a brimstone bath, then so is Johnny Cash, C.S. Lewis, and any of the crusaders that sent thousands of Muslims to their deaths at the end of a spearpoint. The pope hasn’t never decreed a sacred note that said people are in hell because he doesn’t know anymore than we do. He is human like the rest of us and anyways it’s not in the Bible either telling who is relaxing in the lake of fire. On the other hand though, the Jewish Torah and Talmud says that Jesus is boiling in excrement for his hersey. So ask the Jews about who is in hell. :knight1:

As a Jew I will try and answer your question about who is in Hell.

The answer to your question is that no one is in Hell as the Catholic concept of Hell not only does not exist in Judaism it would be contrary to Jewish precepts. Human beings are not born in sin (original or otherwise) but rather with the free choice to choose between good and evil. A certain and severe devine punishment for every transgression would negate such free choice.

Judaisim does have a concept of “gehenom” which is somewhat similar to the Catholic concept of “purgatory” and which can last up to a period of twelve months where the soul is made ready for the world to come.

Jews also believe that it is actually easier for the gentile to get to the world to come then for Jews as they have only to adhere to the seven Noahide commandments.

So basically the Jewish answer to your question to who is in Hell (in the sense you mean) is: no one.

As for the supposed references to Yehoshua bar Yosef “boiling in excrement for his hersey(sic)”. By the Jewish Torah I presume you are refering to the first five books of the Bible. The passage does not exist. Nor does such a passage exist either in the Babylonian or the Jerusalem Talmud. Such passages do exist on several antisemitic websites along with fictitious and impossible citations to pages or books not found in the Talmud.

 

[The_Barbarian]

No one knows who is in hell, but the Church does not teach that non-Christians are going to hell.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

i dont really see how he could be in hell, i mean, he did nothing but embrace everyone, but someone on this site told me he is probably in hell. the person who told me this probably wasnt catholic though, because he says that, “if your not christian, you will go to hell”. i dunno…

**That used to be the normal Catholic position - “if not in union with Rome in this life, then in hell in the next”. Even in Mystici Corporis in 1943, Pius XII lumps non-Catholic Christians together with Jews & heathens. The friendliness with Jews - & especially, with non-Jews - so often taken for granted nowadays is a very recent development. In 1700, No Catholic would have got away with it for a moment: those not in the CC were consigned either to Hell (even if they were Christians) or to Limbo. **​

**The change was only possible because of other changes, which altered the setting in which the teaching & theological positions then current was set out. When the setting in which a thing is believed changes, the overall meaning of the belief can be affected: so the Church has to take account of the presuppositions with which people believe, in order to avoid keeping the words but losing the meaning. Maybe no change would happen if the Church were alone in the world - but it’s not: people believe as they do for billions of reasons which are quite unrelated to the Church: nobody is only a Christian, or Catholic, or Anglican, or whatever, but are influenced by all sorts of factors quite independent of any Church. **

Whether Gandhi was a nice person is irrelevant (I think he was a manipulative hypocrite, but that’s BTW ) **- niceness is no ticket to heaven. All of us are sinners are by nature, & unless we are cleansed from our sinfulness by the blood of Christ & justified by His infinite saving grace, we cannot be saved. BTW, we have not the least right to salvation - if the entire human race were to be plunged into hell, that would be an act of unanswerably just severity; for we can have no rights against the Sovereign Creator-God. *If *Gandhi is damned - & that is not our business, but God’s alone - then it is no more than he deserves. But it would be better to avoid questions that appeal to our curiosity **