General question about Evangelical belief, disturbing if true

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Mijoy2

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I’m looking for either confirmation that I am correct (generally speaking) or someone to tell me I am under a mistaken belief.

The following is my understanding.

Catholics believe - salvation is through the Catholic Church.
However, this being said, it need not imply that all others outside the Church are not going to be “saved”. The Church teaches a doctrine of invincable ignorance. Invincible ignorance may include Christians who love Christ but have not had adaquet insight into the fullness of the Faith through the Catholic Church. Invincible ignorance may include those who simply were never exposed to Jesus Christ at all.
Invincible ignorance may include those of other religions who are doing all they can to honor thier heritage and thier family and truly believe thier respective Faith is Truth.

Evangelicals believe - The ONLY way to salvation is through belief and acceptance of Jesus Christ as the Savior. They believe anyone who does not believe in Jesus as the Divine Savior, regardless of the reason, cannot be saved. I’m fairly certain a popular radio talk show Christian believes this. His reasoning for this is that if ignorance was an acceptable excuse, then Jesus did us a disservice by coming here and dying on the cross for us. And of course that cannot be the case. Therefore we MUST believe or we are doomed.

Furthermore the Evangelical community believes that there are only two places of which we all end up. Heaven and Hell. Non-existance or a Purgatory is not an option. Therefore virtually all Jews, Muslims, Buddists, Hindus, Atheists, Mormons, Jehova Witnesses, and those of other faiths are going to Hell to burn for eternity.

Tell me please, do I have this correct?
 
That was always my understanding and what I was taught while in those churches.
 
How do they reconcile this with a “loving God”. Virtually entire Nations, billions upon billions of people are now, or later going to burn in Hell. How can they possibly explain the logic? If this is true or course.
 
You are exactly correct. In fact, you expain it with your question better than I could with an answer!

I think Karl Keating points out that we Catholics too believe in only two final destinations (Heaven or Hell). Purgatory is temporary. Everyone who goes to Purgatory will go to Heaven eventually, once they are made perfect.

You are correct in that most Evangelicals believe Jews, Muslim,etc. are Hellbound unless they come to Christ. That is why Evies spread the Good News so effectively (we Catholics can learn from them on this). They ignore, however, the authority granted to the Church by Christ Himself. And while the Magisterium teaches that it is indeed possible to reach Heaven outside of the Catholic Church, and even outside of Christianity, it becomes much more difficult. And I figure I need all the help I can get!!
 
100% correct - no question. I have always believed that only the blood of Jesus can wash away our sins and that free gift of eternal life is available for all those who believe in Him. Those who die without believing in Jesus die in their sins and cannot go to heaven.
 
carol marie said:
100% correct - no question. I have always believed that only the blood of Jesus can wash away our sins and that free gift of eternal life is available for all those who believe in Him. Those who die without believing in Jesus die in their sins and cannot go to heaven.
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Therefore you have also believed that God created many billions of people with virtually no hope of attaining Heaven and (even much more distressing) a virtual guarantee of an everlasting life of torment correct?

It is monumantally unlikely that a devout Jew, Hindu whatever, or a tribesman in some tropic wilderness, is likely to magically come to know Christ isn’t it? A little boy or girl tragically brought up in a terrible family environemnt where nobody ever took the time to teach them of Jesus Christ…the list goes on and on. ALL due to no fault of thier own. Yet, they warrant Hell. :confused:

God, may be stamped on our hearts, therefore we are expected to believe or have hope in a loving deity. But how can Jesus, a savior, be stamped on our hearts? One can come to know God inherently, but one can only come to know Jesus died for our sins if we are taught this. And in many cases, to accept this teaching would mean one must turn thier back on the Faith they were taught by thier parents, tradition, heritage, communities. They would literally have to break a commandment simply to accept the teaching.

I ask again how can it possibly be reconcilled? Unless, they are to deny thierr logic and deny thierr conscience.
 
carol marie said:
100% correct - no question. I have always believed that only the blood of Jesus can wash away our sins and that free gift of eternal life is available for all those who believe in Him. Those who die without believing in Jesus die in their sins and cannot go to heaven.
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I always find when one says “cannot go to Heaven” it is a copout on saying “Goes to Hell”. (generally speaking Carol Marie)

Cannot go to Heaven = Goes to Hell.

I think we should always use the later, it makes us think twice about what we are actually saying.
 
The Catholic Church teaches that Salvation is through Christ! Period! Christ established the Catholic Church. It is both a Divine and a human institution, both visible and invisible Corporal as well as spiritual. A person who is totally ignorant of the Catholic Church and of Christ can obtain Salvation, through Christ, even though they have not had the opportunity to come to know Christ.
 
I too believe that you are 100% correct. I have always liked to use the following analogy.

If one is going to drive from Los Angeles to San Francisco there are traffic laws and road signs one must obey: stop signs, stop lights, speed limits, freeway transistions, on/off ramps etc. These rules/laws were given for a reason, for one to have a safe journey and ultimately reach their destination. One can drive from Los Angeles to San Francisco while ignoring most of the the traffic laws and road signs, but they are taking a risk. They may get distracted and lose their way, or worse they may be involved in a terrible accident and not make it at all.

Christ gave us His Church to help guide us. If we follow Her instructions we have a much better chance of reaching our destination. The more of Her instructions we fail to follow the more dangerous our journey becomes. There are those outside the Church who can make the journey safely because they responded rightly to the grace (some inherent driving knowledge and respect for the road) God bestows upon them, but to be sure their journey would be safer with the guidance of Holy Mother Church.

I realize there are some limitations to this analogy so if anyone has any ideas or suggestions to improve it, please feel free to post them.

God Bless,
Greg
 
what you’ve said is precisely correct. this is why i have a fun time dialoguing (sp?) with my protestant friends. i’m a convert, and have a degree in baptist theology. i was confirmed catholic 5 years ago.

my prot friends say that our position (the RCC) is too narrow and unchanging. that we’re too rigid.

i point out that we catholics believe that people who are not even theists can be saved, while their church (mostly baptists) teaches that only people who believe what they believe (not just christian, but mostly protestant) can be saved. seems like they tend more towards rigidity.
 
Salvation is indeed found in the church. Why? Because THROUGH the sacraments, that the church offers, sinners receive God’s grace and forgiveness. One of the great sacraments is the blessed Eucharist. After the bread is consecrated, we receive the LITERAL Christ, body, blood and divinity. Because we receive Christ we receive his forgiveness and eternal life for our souls as well.

The sacrament of Baptism cleanses us from original sin that we are born with from birth. The sacrament of penance is where we receive the absolution of sins we commit daily in our lives as we confess them to our priest who stands in the place of Christ for us.

This is why there is NO SALVATION outside the Catholic church.

Ron from Ohio
 
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gsaccone:
I too believe that you are 100% correct. I have always liked to use the following analogy.

If one is going to drive from Los Angeles to San Francisco there are traffic laws and road signs one must obey: stop signs, stop lights, speed limits, freeway transistions, on/off ramps etc. These rules/laws were given for a reason, for one to have a safe journey and ultimately reach their destination. One can drive from Los Angeles to San Francisco while ignoring most of the the traffic laws and road signs, but they are taking a risk. They may get distracted and lose their way, or worse they may be involved in a terrible accident and not make it at all.

Christ gave us His Church to help guide us. If we follow Her instructions we have a much better chance of reaching our destination. The more of Her instructions we fail to follow the more dangerous our journey becomes. There are those outside the Church who can make the journey safely because they responded rightly to the grace (some inherent driving knowledge and respect for the road) God bestows upon them, but to be sure their journey would be safer with the guidance of Holy Mother Church.

I realize there are some limitations to this analogy so if anyone has any ideas or suggestions to improve it, please feel free to post them.

God Bless,
Greg
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I like your analpgy. For those outside the Church, I would add that they are able to navigate the traffic dangers by using their common sense guided by a rightly-formed conscience.
 
Yeah, you’re right about the original post. Of course, they’re not “Protestant” or “Evangelical” by any means, but there are many “Universalist” type “churches” that have come into existence here in the recent past. To me, the “invincible ignorance” line of argumentation sounds like the Catholic Church is just echoing the Universalists, or maybe the vice versa. They basically say “everybody is saved, because God is good and loving and we will all be with Him eternally.” Or maybe there’s differences in the “because” clause, but there you have it.
  1. We are sinners
  2. Christ has reconciled us to God by His death on the cross.
  3. It’s only through Christ that we have part and parcel in this reconciliation.
That’s not meant to be a syllogism, though it looks like that’s what I’m going for.

I know Catholics should agree with 2 and 3, but you seem to leave out the implications of 1. What injustice is done if God forever punishes those who hate Him? Come on, get real!! Like don’t get all boo-hooey about God’s justice on sinners! We are all sinners, and it’s by God’s grace that we repent and believe the Gospel. If God does not give some people faith to repent and believe the Gospel, it doesn’t change the fact that we all have every reason to obey God. The difference is, without God’s actual grace, we don’t do it.

Though, I think that in all fairness to Catholics, I should say that I understand the Church’s teaching on “Extra Ecclessia Sanctum” or invincible ignorance to be something like this:
It’s a mystery, maybe some people are saved outside of the Catholic Church, but it’s a mystery that we don’t fully comprehend.
 
Here’s something from the CCC:

1260 “… Every man who is ignorant of the Gospel of Christ and of His Church, but seeks the truth and does the will of God in accordance with his understanding of it, can be saved. It may be supposed that such persons would have desired Baptism explicitly if they had known it’s necessity.”

Like, who does this rule out? Muslims who kill Christians are certainly doing the will of God in accordance with they’re understanding, and as far as we know, many of them were honestly seeking the truth.

What about the atheist who denies Christ, even after you share the Gospel with him time and time again? Maybe he’s just ignorant of the Gospel because you didn’t present it in such a convincing way.

What about the Arian who still thinks that Arius taught what Christ and His Apostles taught concerning the nature of God and Christ?

Certainly this doesn’t rule me out from final salvation at this time. Even though I’m a Protestant (Reformed at that) and I seek the truth and do the will of God in accordance with my understanding of it. I’ve heard many arguments for the Catholic Church’s “necessity of Baptism” but I see it for what it is, a theological smokescreen to cover up the fact that you teach that nobody has to be baptised to be saved!

I find the Catholic’s belief very disturbing indeed. But this post is not about “me.” Rather, the question was asked, and the challenge is implicitly presented to defend the “Evangelical belief.”
 
Catholics believe that all who are saved, are saved by Christ through His Church–even those who were not formal members of it during their lifetimes.

We do believe in the necessity of the Church for salvation; and we believe that we receive the grace of justification through Baptism.

Yet we condemn no one to hell, since that is solely the province of the Lord.

Jesus established a Church which makes it easy to come to union with Him in the sacraments. Yet we do not deny that others may also attain union with Him. Why? Because we cannot limit the salvific will of God or the salvific power of God.

The Sacraments are made for Man, not for God, who is not limited by them.

Just as God may work miracles by going outside the laws of nature, He assuredly may distribute His grace to many in ways that to us seem to be outside the Church. His ways are not always apparent to us. That salvific grace does come always through the Church, though we can not see the workings of it.
 
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Mijoy2:
One can come to know God inherently, but one can only come to know Jesus died for our sins if we are taught this. And in many cases, to accept this teaching would mean one must turn thier back on the Faith they were taught by thier parents, tradition, heritage, communities. They would literally have to break a commandment simply to accept the teaching.
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Interesting… let’s hear what Jesus had to say about the difficulty one would face having to choose Him over their family…

Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law - a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household. Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me ; and anyone who does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Mat 10:34 - 37

And I agree, it does seem that there are entire nations of people who do not believe in Jesus and therefore will end up in hell. What did Jesus have to say about that?

Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and MANY enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and ONLY A FEW find it. Mat 7:13

We are all sinners deserving of hell. Jesus provided a way for us to get to heaven. He is that way. There is no other way. No through Budda, not through Mohammad, not through obeying the Law given to Moses and not by our good works. Jesus himself said, **I AM THE WAY AND THE TRUTH AND THE LIFE, NO ONE COMES TO THE FATHER BUT THROUGH ME. **
 
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Mijoy2:
The following is my understanding.

Catholics believe - salvation is through the Catholic Church.
However, this being said, it need not imply that all others outside the Church are not going to be “saved”. The Church teaches a doctrine of invincable ignorance. Invincible ignorance may include Christians who love Christ but have not had adaquet insight into the fullness of the Faith through the Catholic Church. Invincible ignorance may include those who simply were never exposed to Jesus Christ at all.
Invincible ignorance may include those of other religions who are doing all they can to honor thier heritage and thier family and truly believe thier respective Faith is Truth.

Evangelicals believe - The ONLY way to salvation is through belief and acceptance of Jesus Christ as the Savior. They believe anyone who does not believe in Jesus as the Divine Savior, regardless of the reason, cannot be saved. I’m fairly certain a popular radio talk show Christian believes this. His reasoning for this is that if ignorance was an acceptable excuse, then Jesus did us a disservice by coming here and dying on the cross for us. And of course that cannot be the case. Therefore we MUST believe or we are doomed.

Furthermore the Evangelical community believes that there are only two places of which we all end up. Heaven and Hell. Non-existance or a Purgatory is not an option. Therefore virtually all Jews, Muslims, Buddists, Hindus, Atheists, Mormons, Jehova Witnesses, and those of other faiths are going to Hell to burn for eternity.

Tell me please, do I have this correct?
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SOME churches believe this. And remember that there are many Protestant churches. Many claim this in their beliefs, others do not. And it is very often easier to nail jello to the wall then to find which one believes what.
I have often found many Protestant churches will tell you nearly anything about their beliefs to get you to join their church.

.02 duly deposited.

Z
 
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JimG:
Just as God may work miracles by going outside the laws of nature, He assuredly may distribute His grace to many in ways that to us seem to be outside the Church. His ways are not always apparent to us. That salvific grace does come always through the Church, though we can not see the workings of it.
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I agree with this. I think we all have a role to play in God’s plan. This constant attempt to determine who’s in hell is like looking at the speck in your brother’s eye. Trust in the Lord, be obedient, and do the best you can.

It is not our place to judge who will or will not go where. We should evangelize and bring people to a knowlege of the Lord and what he expects from us. That does not require imagining who’s damned.

not sure if my observations contributed. It’s a disturbing subject.
:confused:
 
carol marie:
We are all sinners deserving of hell. Jesus provided a way for us to get to heaven. He is that way. There is no other way. No through Budda, not through Mohammad, not through obeying the Law given to Moses and not by our good works. Jesus himself said, **I AM THE WAY AND THE TRUTH AND THE LIFE, NO ONE COMES TO THE FATHER BUT THROUGH ME. **
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Very true, but this is also true and He said it after speaking to a man who sought Him but could not sell all that he owned.

25When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and asked, “Who then can be saved?”
26Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

His ways are not our ways, though assuredly Jesus is the only Way. How he makes himself availble in every way is not something he’s revealed; hence, this long thread. peace
 
carol marie:
We are all sinners deserving of hell. Jesus provided a way for us to get to heaven. He is that way. There is no other way. No through Budda, not through Mohammad, not through obeying the Law given to Moses and not by our good works. Jesus himself said, **I AM THE WAY AND THE TRUTH AND THE LIFE, NO ONE COMES TO THE FATHER BUT THROUGH ME. **
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Carol Marie, why did God create vitually an entire race of sinners just so that they would end up in Hell?

Can’t you see that is precisley my question?

How do you reconcile the design? Did God begin by saying, 'let’s see now, I think I will create billions of people and those of who are not in on little secret will be cast into a burning fire for eternity". CAROL MARIE! is this what you believe?!?!?!
 
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