Go to Hell - Stay there forever

[Latin]

“sin as a means to eternal damnation”,

IT IS THE OPPOSITE, GOD PERMITS SIN FOR ONE REASON, TO CAUSE GOOD TO EMERGE FROM EVIL ITSELF.
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311 For almighty God. . ., because he is supremely good, would never allow any evil whatsoever to exist in his works if he were not so all-powerful and good as to cause good to emerge from evil itself.
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324 Faith gives us the certainty that God would not permit an evil if he did not cause a good to come from that very evil, by ways that we shall fully know only in eternal life.
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308 The truth that God is at work in all the actions of his creatures is inseparable from faith in God the Creator.
God is the first cause who operates in and through secondary causes: For God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

1034 Jesus often speaks of “Gehenna” of “the unquenchable fire” reserved for those who to the end of their lives refuse to believe and be converted.

The key to understand 1034 is the Book of Jonah.

The Book of Jonah, for the attention of the Ninevites Jonah forty days promised distraction and hell for all Ninevites and after forty days God provided Universal Salvation and saved all Ninevites. - The same principle applies to 1034.

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When we reading the Scripture, we see in parallel there are two lines of teachings.

One line is only a few people saved, the other line is God’s Universal Salvific Will and God saves everyone. – Rom.5:18; Eph.1:10-11; Col.1:20; etc.
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CCCS 1996-1998; This call to eternal life is supernatural, coming TOTALLY from God’s decision and surpassing ALL power of human intellect and will.

Acts 13:48; … as many as had been appointed for eternal life believed. – No one rejects God’s call to heaven.

GOD SAVES EVERYONE

294 The ultimate purpose of creation is that God who is the creator of all things may at last become all in all, thus simultaneously assuring his own glory and our beatitude.

Eph.1:10; “In the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth—in Him.”
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321 “ Divine providence consists of the dispositions by which God guides all his creatures with wisdom and love to their ultimate end.”

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CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA Divine Providence explains;

His wisdom He so orders all events within the universe that the end for which it was created may be realized.
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He directs all, even evil and sin itself, to the final end for which the universe was created.
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Nor would God permit evil at all, unless He could draw good out of evil (St. Augustine, Enchir. xi in P.L. LX, 236; Serm.
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Evil, therefore, ministers to God’s design (St. Gregory the Great, op. cit., VI, xxxii in “P.L.”,

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12510a.htm

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God bless

 

[Vico]

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The Catholic Church does not teach that all are certainly saved. That is not shown by the quotes you posted.

Christ did not die for the salvation of only the predestined – the idea that he did was condemned as heresy by Pope Innocent X in 1653. As stated in Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, Ludwig Ott, p. 189:

The universality of Christ’s vicarious atonement refers to the objective Redemption only. Christ made sufficient atonement for all men without exception. The subjective appropriation of the fruits of Redemption is, however dependent on the fulfillment of certain conditions, on faith (Mk. 16, 16), and on the observation of the Commandments (Hebr. S, 9; 2, Peter I, 10). Accordingly the Schoolmen distinguish between sufficientia (adequacy) and efficacia (efficacy, success) of the atonement, and teach that Christ offered atonement for all mankind, secundum sufficientiam, but not secundum efficaciam. In other words: in acto primo Christ’s atonement is universal; in actu secundo, it is particular. Cf. S.c.G. IV 55

Here you can read how St. Thomas explains it in S.c.G. IV 55:

[29] Granted, of course, that Christ has sufficiently satisfied for the sins of the human race by His death, as the twenty-sixth argument proposed, every single one, for all that, must seek the remedies of his own salvation. For the death of Christ is, so to say, a kind of universal cause of salvation, as the sin of the first man was a kind of universal cause of damnation. But a universal cause must be applied specially to each one, that he may receive the effect of the universal cause. The effect then, of the sin of the first parent comes to each one in the origin of the flesh, but the effect of the death of Christ comes to each one in a spiritual regeneration in which the man is somehow conjoined with Christ arid incorporated into Him. And for this reason each must seek to be regenerated through Christ, and must himself undertake to do those things in which, the power of Christ’s death operates.

https://dhspriory.org/thomas/ContraGentiles4.htm

Also you read there in Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, same place:

by virtue of Christ’s Atonement will also liberate the fallen angels out of hell, was rejected as heresy by a Synod at Constantinople (543).

 

[giuseppeTO]

The church teaches that a sinner who intends to seek absolution but dies before he can be sacramentally absolved may be saved by an act of perfect contrition made after the sin but before receiving the sacrament.

 

[Isearch]

To be fair to the passage by St. Paul that is quoting the 500 witnesses, he was quoting what could be the earliest Christian creed that was already circulating during that time. Hence, he was not the only one who believed that there are 500 witnesses.

 

[Magnanimity]

Indeed, having suffered and died on the wood of the cross for the salvation of the human race, he descended to the underworld, rose from the dead and ascended into heaven. He descended in the soul, rose in the flesh, and ascended in both. He will come at the end of time to judge the living and the dead, to render to every person according to his works, both to the reprobate and to the elect. All of them will rise with their own bodies, which they now wear, ( quae nunc gestant ) so as to receive according to their deserts, whether these be good or bad; for the latter perpetual punishment with the devil, for the former eternal glory with Christ.

Vico, sorry to jump in on you and Latin, but it seems fairly clear from the context of the paragraph you quote from Lateran 4 (above) that the usage of the word “now” refers to the type of body that will be resurrected, rather than a present tense explanation of the current state of things. I don’t think anyone would read that passage and understand that it means that right now, these bodies are in Hell. It seems clearly to be speaking of a future time, right? “He will come at the end of time…” “All of them will rise…” are future tenses. So, the context is the classic eschatological teaching of a final judgment and describing the type of body to be resurrected, isn’t that right?

 

[Vico]

… I don’t think anyone would read that passage and understand that it means that right now, these bodies are in Hell. …

Tim Staples wrote about it meaning now not the future:

Are There Souls in Hell Right Now?

It has become fashionable in some Catholic quarters to question where there are now or will ever be any souls populating hell. Tim Staples gives a response.

www.catholic.com

 

[Magnanimity]

Thanks @Vico, I read the article. So it’s “all of them will rise with the bodies which they are now wearing… “ From a paragraph which is plainly speaking of a future event and uses future tense verbs, I’m not sure why he would want to believe that it’s simultaneously saying anything other than that we are resurrected in our own bodies (which we are now wearing).

Put another way, the paragraph is reaffirming that which has been taught several times over by the church—in the resurrection one doesn’t get a brand new (not you) body. Rather, you get your body made new, though a “spiritual body,” as St Paul teaches. Not wholly other, but your own body, recreated… Interesting that Staples would try to assert that that is what the phrase is teaching—that there were, at the time of that 13th century writing, human souls in the place of neverending torment. Curiouser and curiouser are the ways of the infernalist. :man_shrugging:t2:

 

[Latin]

The Catholic Church does not teach that all are certainly saved. That is not shown by the quotes you posted.

Let’s see Vico step by step what I believe.

Rom.5:18; Therefore, as through one man’s offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation, even so through Man’s righteous act the free gift came all men, resulting in justification of life.

I believe: Through Christ “ the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life.”

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COUNCIL OF TRENT Session 6 Chapter 8
. . . None of those things which precede justification - whether faith or works - merit the grace itself of justification.

I believe: Neither faith or works PRECEDES God’s gift of justification.

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Ezekiel 36:26-27; I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.
27 And I will put my Spirit in you and cause you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.

I believe: At this point God recreated and justified us and declared righteous (Rom.3:24, 1 Cor.6:9-11).
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In the sequences of events, AFTER God recreated and Justified us He has provided us is gift of efficacious grace of His call to heaven.

CCCS 1996-1998; This call to eternal life is supernatural, coming TOTALLY from God’s decision and surpassing ALL power of human intellect and will.

308 The truth that God is at work in all the actions of his creatures is inseparable from faith in God the Creator.
God is the first cause who operates in and through secondary causes: For God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

CCC 2022; “The divine initiative in the work of grace PRECEDES, PREPARES , and ELICITS the free response of man. …”

I believe: As 308 and 2022 describes, we all freely, infallibly, and without any force, joyfully say YES to God’s call to heaven.
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324 Faith gives us the certainty that God would not permit an evil if he did not cause a good to come from that very evil, by ways that we shall fully know only in eternal life.

I believe: In the light of the teachings of 324, etc.
I would be an intellectually disabled if I could believe, God would permit me or others an act of sin which could cause me or others to end up in hell. – My reason described below.

I believe: 311, 324, etc. EQUALLY refers to everyone, there is no other way.

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The Divine will is cause of all things that happen, as Augustine says (De Trin. iii, 1 seqq.). Therefore all things are subject to fate.
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I believe: The fates/ salvation of all of us is in God’s capable hands and He saves all of us.

Proof: God would not permit an evil if he did not cause a good to come from that very evil.
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321 Divine providence consists of the dispositions by which God guides all his creatures with wisdom and love to their ultimate end. - NOT just only a few people, but all of us.
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God bless

 

[Vico]

Thanks @Vico, I read the article. So it’s “all of them will rise with the bodies which they are now wearing… “ From a paragraph which is plainly speaking of a future event and uses future tense verbs, I’m not sure why he would want to believe that it’s simultaneously saying anything other than that we are resurrected in our own bodies (which we are now wearing).

Put another way, the paragraph is reaffirming that which has been taught several times over by the church—in the resurrection one doesn’t get a brand new (not you) body. Rather, you get your body made new, though a “spiritual body,” as St Paul teaches. Not wholly other, but your own body, recreated… Interesting that Staples would try to assert that that is what the phrase is teaching—that there were, at the time of that 13th century writing, human souls in the place of neverending torment. Curiouser and curiouser are the ways of the infernalist. :man_shrugging:t2:

A better translation is found elsewhere:

Who all shall rise with their own bodies which they now have that they may receive according to their merits, whether good or bad, the latter eternal punishment with the devil, the former eternal glory with Christ.

https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/basis/lateran4.asp

So that includes the people of that day it was spoken: some to punishment some to glory.

 

[Vico]

…

I understand that you are not Catholic and do not believe in free will.

 

[Latin]

I understand that you are not Catholic and do not believe in free will.

I’m a Catholic and I believe in FREE WILL very much as the Catholic Church teaches free will as follows.
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CCC 2022; “The divine initiative in the work of grace PRECEDES, PREPARES , and ELICITS the free response of man. …”
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308 The truth that God is at work in all the actions of his creatures is inseparable from faith in God the Creator.
God is the first cause who operates in and through secondary causes: For God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

St. Thomas also teaches that all movements of will and choice must be traced to the divine will: and not to any other cause, because Gad alone is the cause of our willing and choosing. CG, 3.91.

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Aquinas said, “God changes the will without forcing it.
But he can change the will from the fact that He himself operates in the will as He does in nature,” De Veritatis 22:9.

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ST. AUGUSTINE ON GRACE AND PREDESTINATION

De gratia Christi 25, 26:
For not only has God given us our ability and helps it, but He even works [brings about] willing and acting in us; not that we do not will or that we do not act, but that without His help we neither will anything good nor do it.
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De gratia et libero arbitrio 16, 32:
It is certain that we will when we will; but He brings it about that we will good . . . . It is certain that we act when we act, but He brings it about that we act, PROVIDING MOST EFFECTIVE POWERS TO THE WILL.

Ezekiel 36:27; I will put my Spirit in you and cause you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.
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As you see above Vico, our free wills are AIDED free wills, I believe in free will very much, God’s efficacious graces enlightens our mind and WITHOUT ANY FORCE, we always FREELY CHOSE THE GOOD, the good God wills for us.
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CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA Divine Providence explains also: Life everlasting promised to us, (Romans 5:21); but unaided we can do nothing to gain it (Rom.7:18-24).

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I was an Evangelical Protestant (without protesting), kind of a Molinist, since four years I’m a Catholic, a Thomist Catholic.
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I believe: 321 Divine providence consists of the dispositions by which God guides all his creatures with wisdom and love to their ultimate end.
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Do you believe Vico, the above paragraphs of the CCC, De gratia Christi 25, 26:, De gratia et libero arbitrio 16, 32:, De Veritatis 22:9, CCC 311, CCC 321, CCC 324, equally applies to everyone?

Thank you for your answer in advance.
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God bless

 

[Vico]

…

Your profile says Christian so I misunderstood. I don’ know what a Thomist Catholic is for it is not defined anywhere. The Catholic Church does not accept all the things taught by the good Doctor of the Church St. Thomas Aquinas.

Damnation of each person is due to a personal free choice of the person and for final penitence one is conjointly responsible, because that act of will is a free choice response to grace of God given first. We cannot be certain, without divine revelation, of the state of sanctifying grace, of ourselves or others. The Church has declared some saints and affirms what Jesus Christ said that some are condemned to hell. Matt 25:33 “And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on his left.” and particularly lost John 17:12 “While I was with them, I kept them in thy name. Those whom thou gavest me have I kept; and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition, that the scripture may be fulfilled.” and Matt 5:20 “For I tell you, that unless your justice abound more than that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.”

Latin:

• 311 [can cause good to occur from evil], 324 [in ways we do not understand], etc. equally refers to everyone, there is no other way.
• In the light of the teachings of 324, etc. [that] … God would permit me or others an act of sin which could cause me or others to end up in hell.
• As 308 and 2022 describes, we all freely, infallibly, and without any force, joyfully say yes to God’s call to heaven.

A. Fallen man can naturally do non-salvic (non meritorious) morally good acts without grace, however salvific acts (those with merit) require grace first. Atonement was made for all persons (but not the angels). That alone does not result in eternal heaven, however, for it also requires grace and free choice of final penitence. We are cleansed from all that would stop entry to heaven with baptism, however subsequent mortal sin can prevent it. It is not clear what is meant by you with “there is no other way.” The Church teaches that we only end in hell from free choice.

Catechism 1861 “Mortal sin is a radical possibility of human freedom, as is love itself. … , it causes exclusion from Christ’s kingdom and the eternal death of hell, for our freedom has the power to make choices for ever, with no turning back.”

The Church teaches that we do not all say yes in the end, although Jesus Christ atoned for the sin of Adam. Rather the Church teaches that one must die in friendship with God.

Catechism 1864 " "Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven.“136 There are no limits to the mercy of God, but anyone who deliberately refuses to accept his mercy by repenting, rejects the forgiveness of his sins and the salvation offered by the Holy Spirit.137 Such hardness of heart can lead to final impenitence and eternal loss.”

 

[NoelFitz]

I think it would be worthwhile to have a thread dedicted to predestination.
It seems unfair that on our own we can go to hell, but not to heaven, as without grace we can not do anything meritorious.
I thought I had considered most posts in this thread, but now the number has increased to almost 500.

 

[Vico]

I think it would be worthwhile to have a thread dedicted to predestination.
It seems unfair that on our own we can go to hell, but not to heaven, as without grace we can not do anything meritorious.
I thought I had considered most posts in this thread, but now the number has increased to almost 500.

Yes, there are many that do not understand how it is fair. (Matt 13: 49 Thus it will be at the end of the age. The angels will go out and separate the wicked from the righteous 50 and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.) However, hell means exclusion from the Beatific Vision which is in proportion to merits. The Church has taught us in the Catechism:

1261 As regards children who have died without Baptism , the Church can only entrust them to the mercy of God, as she does in her funeral rites for them. … [we] hope that there is a way of salvation for children who have died without Baptism.

Now, it was proposed more than once before (St. Augustine 352–430 A.D., Peter Abelard 1079–1142 A.D.) that for those that have not sinned personally there can be a state of mildest condemnation or natural peace, of course without the Beatific Vision. Catechism 1028 "The Church calls this contemplation of God in his heavenly glory “the beatific vision” … "

 

[ProdglArchitect]

G-d said to the prophet Isaiah, “Who forms light and creates darkness, Who makes peace and creates evil [רע]; I am Adonai, Who makes all these.”

The darkness is a deprivation of the light, not a direct force in and of itself. In creating light, darkness came about. There’s no reason this has to be read as an active act of creation, rather than a passive outcome of the positive creation of light.

 

[Rabbi]

But the verse does say, “I make all these things.” So even a passive creation is, nonetheless, a creation.

 

[ProdglArchitect]

Catholics would agree that God “created” evil in that, through His existence and acts of creation, evil was allowed to come into existence. (Because He allows his creation to reject Him, which is the definition of evil.)

However, your formulation seemed to imply active creation, which we would reject.

 

[Rabbi]

It is still active, regardless, because It - G-d - willingly allowed its existence.

 

[ProdglArchitect]

It is still active, regardless, because It - G-d - willingly allowed its existence.

Again, we would disagree. We believe that God passively allows evil to exist as a side-effect of His active will.

God actively wills that all people should freely come to know and love Him, and spend eternity with Him. In order for this freedom to choose Him to exist, the freedom to reject Him must also exist. God allows the rejections (evil) to exist because if it was not possible to reject Him, then the choice to love Him would not be free, and would therefore not serve His purpose in creating us.

Passively allowing something to occur is very different from actively willing it.

 

[Rabbi]

Ok, I concede, you win.