Heaven is our choice

[BobCatholic]

A certain teaching of faith is that “God gives all innocent unbelievers (infideles negativi) sufficient grace to achieve eternal salvation. (Sent. certa.)” - Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, p. 241, Ludwig Ott.

Yes, but how is “innocent unbeliever” defined? Humans have a huge problem with being able to fool themselves.

 

[Vico]

Yes, but how is “innocent unbeliever” defined? Humans have a huge problem with being able to fool themselves.

It means those that do not know the Gospel. Contrast this with *infideles positivi *which are those that have fallen from the Faith: apostates and formal heretics. Biblical argument is from 1 Timothy 2:4 Who will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

 

[BobCatholic]

It means those that do not know the Gospel. Contrast this with *infideles positivi *which are those that have fallen from the Faith: apostates and formal heretics. Biblical argument is from 1 Timothy 2:4 Who will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

And my point still stands. We humans have this almost infinite ability to fool ourselves. We could easily think we are in the “knowledge of the truth” but really are not.

For example, we can have a tiny church out in the boonies who think they’re the only true Christians left on the whole planet. We have CINO politicians who call themselves “practicing catholics” and “faithful catholics” who believe against the Church.

How do I know I’m not fooling myself that I believe I have the knowledge of truth?

 

[NoelFitz]

Apologies to all. From time to time I get a bee in my bonnet about a topic, current one is grace, partially due to my spiritual director being a priest in Opus Dei and we discuss this topic.

I have two threads on the go now about grace, and I think a consensus is emerging.
In a while when the dust settles I hope to summarize the conclusions, as there seems to be a certain amount of agreement.

Then I hope to pose another problem, but it is essentially answered here by Vico who quotes my friend Ott.

A certain teaching of faith is that “God gives all innocent unbelievers (infideles negativi) sufficient grace to achieve eternal salvation. (Sent. certa.)” - Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, p. 241, Ludwig Ott.

Be ye warned!!

 

[Vico]

And my point still stands. We humans have this almost infinite ability to fool ourselves. We could easily think we are in the “knowledge of the truth” but really are not.

For example, we can have a tiny church out in the boonies who think they’re the only true Christians left on the whole planet. We have CINO politicians who call themselves “practicing catholics” and “faithful catholics” who believe against the Church.

How do I know I’m not fooling myself that I believe I have the knowledge of truth?

It is the difference between invincible ignorance and one that has learned what the Catholic Church teaches. The conscience must be formed properly and is not autonomous.

 

[BobCatholic]

It is the difference between invincible ignorance and one that has learned what the Catholic Church teaches. The conscience must be formed properly and is not autonomous.

That doesn’t answer my question. How do I know if I’m fooling myself? If I think that my conscience is formed properly, but I’m fooling myself, then my conscience is not formed properly.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Apologies to all. From time to time I get a bee in my bonnet about a topic, current one is grace, partially due to my spiritual director being a priest in Opus Dei and we discuss this topic.

I have two threads on the go now about grace, and I think a consensus is emerging.
In a while when the dust settles I hope to summarize the conclusions, as there seems to be a certain amount of agreement.

Then I hope to pose another problem, but it is essentially answered here by Vico who quotes my friend Ott.

A certain teaching of faith is that “God gives all innocent unbelievers (infideles negativi) sufficient grace to achieve eternal salvation. (Sent. certa.)” - Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, p. 241, Ludwig Ott.

Be ye warned!!

Likely someone will disagree with me on the following, but I believe this:

Ste Therese of Lisieux is regarded as a Doctor of the Church. Her utterances are, therefore, worthy of belief. She had some remarkable things to say about this general question. At one time, (particularly around WWI) she was immensely popular with Catholics and brought grace to many. She is less so now, probably because the language of her writings is peculiar and 19th Century-ish. But it’s very serious stuff.

She maintained that all persons in hell are volunteers. She believed in “final penitence” in a very major way. She believed that at or around one’s death, one is presented with his Judgment. All the sins of his life are presented to him in total clarity, and it’s appalling, terribly appalling. Sins are like ripples in water when we throw in a stone; they go out and out and out in ways we do not see or do not want to see.

And yet, she said that even if she committed every sin there was, she would not fear hell because she loved God. How does that make sense when we are so used to thinking of sin and redemption in terms of a balance scale or a ritualistic endeavor?

She believed that we would be so struck by the naked reality of our sins that we would cast ourselves into hell, except that God then offers His mercy and His love. Oddly enough, it will be hard to accept it, because we will have to openly admit reality to Him and to ourselves and accept it that His mercy and love, and not our own doing, is all that will save us. We then choose.

We choose to be affronted by the reality, and even more by His offer of mercy and love. “How dare you show me in this way and then tell me only you can rid me of it!” We will then choose to accept His mercy and love or we will cocoon ourselves up in self-worship of ourselves forever, knowing with absolute clarity what we are choosing.
Our pride will not be the pride of emotion, but the icy pride of Satan who chose self-worship knowing exactly what the choice meant. We choose a lie, knowing it’s a lie, but preferring it.

Some of us, she said, will be accepting, but will think ourselves unworthy to actually be in His presence. (probably the great bulk of us). We would cast ourselves into hell except that we have another choice, which is purgatory. Purgatory will be no picnic. Perhaps there’s fire of some sort and perhaps there isn’t in a physical sense. The exceedingly hard and painful part will be in facing our own reality and working on ourselves to purge ourselves of pride and selfishness, down to the very last trace.

But some will choose hell, knowing full well what it is. Hard to imagine that in a way, but what we do know of human pride, we can sort of imagine it. Ice cold self-choice, with a finality so strong we never wish to break out of it. That exists. In our hearts we know it does. And we know some degree of it is in us.

How do we get away from that? How do we change ourselves here and now? By loving God, she says. But how do we do that? By little things, she says; by what she called her “Little Way”. Small things, largely. Self-denial in small ways with the intent (however poorly felt at times) that we’re doing it out of gratitude to a God that has made our everlasting joy in His presence possible. Little efforts at helping others; things as small as making someone feel better about something we think is ridiculous but don’t say so. Small but huge would be in encouraging the love of God in someone else. We endeavor, by sheer force of will if necessary, to see the face of Jesus even in the most repulsive of people.

Why is any of that effective? Because we die as we lived, by and large. If we don’t “practice” getting out of our own self-worship, we’re less likely to do it when it really counts.

Finally, she compared the soul’s journey to a parable she told about the king and the rabbit. The king is out hunting and spies the rabbit. The king gives chase. The rabbit runs and pulls every evasive rabbit trick there is. But finally the rabbit is cornered. There is no escape. What does the rabbit do?

He leaps into the arms of the king, throwing himself on the king’s mercy. The king has pity and the rabbit is saved.

I like that.

 

[Vico]

That doesn’t answer my question. How do I know if I’m fooling myself? If I think that my conscience is formed properly, but I’m fooling myself, then my conscience is not formed properly.

The conscience should be aligned with the teaching of the Church, such as given in the Catechism.

1786 Faced with a moral choice, conscience can make either a right judgment in accordance with reason and the divine law or, on the contrary, an erroneous judgment that departs from them.
1787 Man is sometimes confronted by situations that make moral judgments less assured and decision difficult. But he must always seriously seek what is right and good and discern the will of God expressed in divine law.

1788 To this purpose, man strives to interpret the data of experience and the signs of the times assisted by the virtue of prudence, by the advice of competent people, and by the help of the Holy Spirit and his gifts.

1789 Some rules apply in every case:

• One may never do evil so that good may result from it;
• the Golden Rule: "Whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them."56
• charity always proceeds by way of respect for one’s neighbor and his conscience: "Thus sinning against your brethren and wounding their conscience . . . you sin against Christ."57 Therefore "it is right not to . . . do anything that makes your brother stumble."58

1792 Ignorance of Christ and his Gospel, bad example given by others, enslavement to one’s passions, assertion of a mistaken notion of autonomy of conscience, rejection of the Church’s authority and her teaching, lack of conversion and of charity: these can be at the source of errors of judgment in moral conduct.

 

[Ridgerunner]

And my point still stands. We humans have this almost infinite ability to fool ourselves. We could easily think we are in the “knowledge of the truth” but really are not.

For example, we can have a tiny church out in the boonies who think they’re the only true Christians left on the whole planet. We have CINO politicians who call themselves “practicing catholics” and “faithful catholics” who believe against the Church.

How do I know I’m not fooling myself that I believe I have the knowledge of truth?

With all due respect, Bob, and in no way trying to be smug, but we fool ourselves all the time and will continue to do so. How did Jesus put it? “…even the just man falls seven times a day…”?

One of the ways to punch holes in that ability to self-delude, is to go to confession. We have to face our reality then, or at least we try to do it. It’s no fun. It runs counter to all the things we tell ourselves all the time; our rationalizations, our willful ignorance, our vanity.

And we’re not perfect at that either. We do a miserable job of it, by and large. Yes, there are a few real saints among us, but I don’t think there are many. But even they have trouble. Ste Therese and St. Teresa of Calcutta both had periods when God was so distant from them that they could hardly believe in Him or salvation either one. But they acted the part they knew was right anyway. There were times when they fought off the shadows of doubt by sheer will.

But I think most of us are not tempted as severely as they were.

We’re sinners and we really aren’t very good people. But we have to accept it that God loves us even so and sees the face of Jesus in us too, even though we don’t. We’re his disobedient sons and daughters, and we need to admit that. But we also have to try and accept His second chances.

I remember as if it was yesterday, I did something bad as a child and my mother punished me for it. I was crying; mostly because I felt bad for doing what I did. Then she said “But you can be a good boy now.” That’s what God tells us; “…You did thus and so, but you can be a good boy now.”

That’s how He feels about us.

 

[BobCatholic]

The conscience should be aligned with the teaching of the Church, such as given in the Catechism.

And I can easily fool myself into thinking that my conscience is aligned with the teachings of the Catholic Church. I try my best to do so, but I’m sure I’m fooling myself in some area.

With all due respect, Bob, and in no way trying to be smug, but we fool ourselves all the time and will continue to do so. How did Jesus put it? “…even the just man falls seven times a day…”?

This is precisely my point. The fact we have concupiscence and fall 7 times a day plus tax, shipping and handling, and surcharges, shows that we can easily fool ourselves - and many times we don’t even see the skinned knees because we ignore the pain thinking that is enough to get the forgiveness.

One of the ways to punch holes in that ability to self-delude, is to go to confession.

This is a great idea.

One issue is that, because we fool ourselves, we don’t confess everything that we should be confessing - omitting sins because we redefined them in error. Or maybe we’re too ashamed so we sweep under the rug rather than take it to the confessional.

If the priest was Padre Pio and could read souls, that would be awesome! It would make confession easier and harder at the same time, ironically. Easier because then you know all the sins to confess. Harder because how embarrassing those sins are.

Since I can’t find a priest who can read souls, I always add this line to each confession:

“I also confess any sins I have forgotten and those I have redefined in error.”

 

[Vico]

And I can easily fool myself into thinking that my conscience is aligned with the teachings of the Catholic Church. I try my best to do so, but I’m sure I’m fooling myself in some area.

This is precisely my point. The fact we have concupiscence and fall 7 times a day plus tax, shipping and handling, and surcharges, shows that we can easily fool ourselves - and many times we don’t even see the skinned knees because we ignore the pain thinking that is enough to get the forgiveness.

This is a great idea.

One issue is that, because we fool ourselves, we don’t confess everything that we should be confessing - omitting sins because we redefined them in error. Or maybe we’re too ashamed so we sweep under the rug rather than take it to the confessional.

If the priest was Padre Pio and could read souls, that would be awesome! It would make confession easier and harder at the same time, ironically. Easier because then you know all the sins to confess. Harder because how embarrassing those sins are.

Since I can’t find a priest who can read souls, I always add this line to each confession:

“I also confess any sins I have forgotten and those I have redefined in error.”

We are all sinners, however we do not have to fall in mortal sin.

Is fooling oneself voluntary or involuntary in your definition? So are you defining “fooling oneself” as vincible ignorance or invincible ignorance?

1790 …Yet it can happen that moral conscience remains in ignorance and makes erroneous judgments about acts to be performed or already committed. 1791 This ignorance can often be imputed to personal responsibility. This is the case when a man “takes little trouble to find out what is true and good, or when conscience is by degrees almost blinded through the habit of committing sin.” 59 In such cases, the person is culpable for the evil he commits.

 

[BobCatholic]

We are all sinners, however we do not have to fall in mortal sin.

Is fooling oneself voluntary or involuntary in your definition? So are you defining “fooling oneself” as vincible ignorance or invincible ignorance?

Well, where’s the line drawn between the two? Some people will fool themselves with what they think is the truth and in reality, they’re not in the truth. So did they choose it? Or not?

Imagine someone living in an Islamic country, being told Christians believe these evil doctrines. A muslim meets a Christian who says they don’t believe that, and tell them what they do believe. The muslim concludes (based on his religion’s teachings) the Christian is being dishonest and still believes bad stuff about Christians, and refuses to hear the Gospel.

What about people here in the USA, who have certain sexually amoral belief sets, who grew up surrounded by people with sexually amoral belief sets, and commit mortal sins in huge numbers, but they think they’re not doing anything wrong.

One can say in both cases, the choice was wrong.

 

[Vico]

Well, where’s the line drawn between the two? Some people will fool themselves with what they think is the truth and in reality, they’re not in the truth. So did they choose it? Or not?

Imagine someone living in an Islamic country, being told Christians believe these evil doctrines. A muslim meets a Christian who says they don’t believe that, and tell them what they do believe. The muslim concludes (based on his religion’s teachings) the Christian is being dishonest and still believes bad stuff about Christians, and refuses to hear the Gospel.

What about people here in the USA, who have certain sexually amoral belief sets, who grew up surrounded by people with sexually amoral belief sets, and commit mortal sins in huge numbers, but they think they’re not doing anything wrong.

One can say in both cases, the choice was wrong.

When a choice is wrong, that is error. Culpability, however, refers to responsibility for error, and is based upon proper formation of conscience and will. Note that Catechism 1791 has … when a man “takes little trouble to find out what is true and good, or when conscience is by degrees almost blinded through the habit of committing sin.” 59 In such cases, the person is culpable for the evil he commits.

Some Catholic teachings about being saved are:

• God gives all the just sufficient grace (gratia proxime vel remote sufliciens) for the observation of the Divine Commandments. (De fide.)
• God gives all the faithful who are sinners sufficient grace (gratia saltem remote sufficiens) for conversion. (Sent. communis.)
• God gives all innocent unbelievers (infideles negativi) sufficient grace to achieve eternal salvation. (Sent. certa.)

 

[AdamP88]

Nothing could be further from the Truth. His will is that all shall be saved. He is in your face 24-7-365-100 years! Some are docile to His presence, others opaque. Rejoice and be glad.

Peace

Yeah. But not everyone follows His will. Jesus himself says that many will go to hell.

 

[AdamP88]

Well, where’s the line drawn between the two? Some people will fool themselves with what they think is the truth and in reality, they’re not in the truth. So did they choose it? Or not?

Imagine someone living in an Islamic country, being told Christians believe these evil doctrines. A muslim meets a Christian who says they don’t believe that, and tell them what they do believe. The muslim concludes (based on his religion’s teachings) the Christian is being dishonest and still believes bad stuff about Christians, and refuses to hear the Gospel.

What about people here in the USA, who have certain sexually amoral belief sets, who grew up surrounded by people with sexually amoral belief sets, and commit mortal sins in huge numbers, but they think they’re not doing anything wrong.

One can say in both cases, the choice was wrong.

Well there’s two arguments to be made:
1- nowadays information is so readily available that none can say they weren’t aware of the gospel message.
2- that society is so amoral and godless that many who are in an objective state of mortal sin aren’t actually culpable.

 

[hazcompat]

PSALMS
Chapter 19: 13

Who can detect trespasses?
Cleanse me from my inadvertent sins.

Happy the man whose hidden faults are forgiven him.

Peace