Hell

[Greg27]

The language these beliefs can be expressed in can be done in terms of damnation and being saved from damnation. This is particularly the case in boiled down evangelical versions today, designed to quickly convey the Gospel and what it is felt to mean in a sound-bite like manner. Still, one often finds the same ‘packaging’ in other religions like Islam and Buddhism, which simplify the rich cores of these religions. The message is that we are saved, but the Christian message is not necessarily and universally negative; rather, it believes in the God you already believe in, but also believes there are certain steps a person needs to take in order for that relationship to be right and proper and brought to a whole, and in which the past is reconciled and dealt with. It also believes the path is not merely one you walk along, but you are (or become a part of) a wider community of believers who also worship and praise God.

It also believes the individual decision to believe is important, as is the individual freedom of a person to choose and reject its beliefs. The consequences of rejection are that salvation may not be reached, but Christian belief does not require that non-Christians cannot or are not saved, and also other religions such as Islam and Buddhism also require belief in certain things in order for salvation to occur (Muslims must believe the shahadah and Buddhists the three jewells, as well as working out a path of salvation by following the shariah or the eight percepts, and also worship as individuals in prayers or as a community at the mosque or temple).

Christianity also has a rich spirituality which involves the contemplation of God and his attributes. As with basically all religions, Christians believe the highest Reality (God) is infinite, incomprehensible, ineffable and a awesome mystery which cannot be encompassed by any definition, term, concept or idea. But Christians also believe it is possible to have an intimate relationship with this reality, at a personal level, in love, praise, repentance when we do something wrong, awe, and in worship with others who believe in the same Reality. In Christianity, this relationship occurs through the incarnation of Christ and baptism, followed by worship at a church and taking part in the sacraments (the Lord’s supper for Protestants, or the Eucharist and other sacraments for Catholics and Orthodox Christians).

Christianity as a whole is more complex than simple theological forumulas which try to explain the ‘mechanics’ of how salvation occurs. Important as these meditations are to the theologians, as a religion and a lived faith Christianity goes beyond formulas or simple statements and embraces the whole person and all their complexity and tries to see that in the light of God.

 

[ralphinal]

This is where my confusion arises. You have stated this to me, yet to the contrary, one of apostolic fathers says; “Whoever is separated from this Catholic Church, by this single sin of being separated from the unity of Christ, no matter how estimable a life he may imagine he is living, shall not have life, but the wrath of God rests upon him” (ibid., 141:5)"

These two positions are incompatible. To say that one may believe none of it and still go to heaven, whilst to the contrary another says whoever is separated from the Church **by this single sin ** regardless how estimable their life, the wrath of God rests on them.

Can you understand my confusion? I hope I am making my questions clear. It appears that two contrary positions are being forwarded and I am not understanding how they click together to make a complete whole.

Thankyou for your kind patience

I am sorry that I missed this point earlier. Part of what you are missing is how sin works. Please everyone do not turn this into an arguement about this part of Catholic Theology, as this is debated on other threads. I just want to introduce this part to see if it will help.

There are two general types of sins: mortal (sends you to hell if you die unrepentant) and venial (damage your reltionship with God and man, but not enough to damn you).

In order for a sin to be mortal, there are some requirements. First, it has to be serious (grave) matter. Second, the person must know that it is a serious sin to commit the act. Third, the act must be committed with free choice to do so. Now, based on my earlier posts, if I know that the Church is the True Church, and I know that Jesus is who he claims to be, then I should be Catholic. If I know that I am called to be Catholic by God, then going against that calling is serious matter. If I know this, then I know that it would be a sin to leave. If I then decide to walk away, turning my back on God’s Church of my own free will, the third part is covered. Leaving the Church is a mortal sin in my case. If I leave the Church in this way, barring a return, would preclude me from sacramental confession, placing my soul in danger.

Does this help? Please do not turn this into a discussion of sin (always a fun topic, but not the point of the thread, I think), but if this clears the confusion

 

[uglygal]

One of the Doctors of the Church put it very well. She said everyone in hell is a volunteer; a real volunteer, not an accidental volunteer. The Church has never definitevely said what hell is like except in one respect only; that it is permanent separation from God.

From your answer to my question, which I very much appreciate , are you saying that hell is a personal choice and is removed from whether you are a part of a church or not? I am under the impression that for most catholics, the very choice to not be a part of the church is the same in substance and consequence as rejecting God Himself.

Is that not what most replies are to my question? That if a soul learns of the Church doctrines, is educated in the Church theology and decides, “no, I do not believe this to be truth, I choose Islam or I chose Judaism”, then they are committing a mortal sin and rejecting God Himself? I would have thought it to be a simple yes or no answer but there appears to be many gray areas.

It is obvious that you have been misled, uneducated, or assumed incorrectly on those things related to the teachings and beliefs of the Catholic Church. I don’t say this to be insulting, so please do not take it that way. However, from the above post it would seem that you are against many things that the Catholic Church does not even teach, thereby making much of your argument a “strawman.”

To continue with my observations, is it believed by catholics that if a soul rejects the catholic faith as truth they must have been without a doubt subject to a poor religious education?

What of those who did have a correct and accurate catholic education and yet choose, “no this is not truth”? Is it believed that everyone who is taught Catholicism properly would never denounce it as false? And what of those who are educated properly and correctly and reject it as false? Are they hellbound and committing a mortal sin for rejecting catholic doctrine?

from the above post it would seem that you are against many things that the Catholic Church does not even teach, thereby making much of your argument a “strawman.”

I think I will start a new topic thread as this comment raises questions I would like to receive some answers to and asking them here would side-track the topic.

You came here and told us that we should believe you and your version of reality, rather than the version of reality which we’ve been taught by the Church founded by Our Savior, Jesus Christ, the Son of the very same God you claim has given you a completely different version of reality.

I never came here and told you that you should believe in me or my faith.
The only “version of reality” (as you call it) that I have forwarded is my faith that God is Love and Divine Love is the only path and the only means that leads to God (heaven). In other words, Love alone makes one holy before God. If this is a “completely different version of reality” to that which your Jesus and Church gives you, than I pity you for you are in much poverty.

if I know that the Church is the True Church, and I know that Jesus is who he claims to be, then I should be Catholic. If I know that I am called to be Catholic by God, then going against that calling is serious matter. If I know this, then I know that it would be a sin to leave. If I then decide to walk away, turning my back on God’s Church of my own free will, the third part is covered. Leaving the Church is a mortal sin in my case. If I leave the Church in this way, barring a return, would preclude me from sacramental confession, placing my soul in danger.

Is it therefore ultimately an individual choice guided by the individual soul. Ultimately you are left to follow the urgings of your soul and try to do your best. Is that what the answer is?

For instance; if I truly believe and truly feel that I know without a doubt according to my best judgment and understanding that Islam is the true religion, then I am according to catholic doctrine not damned for pursuing the way of Islam? Or if I truly believe and truly believe that I know, with honest intention, that the Catholic church is not true and therefore I reject the church, then I am not damned according to Catholic doctrine?

Whilst to the contrary, if I do know the church is true and its teachings are correct yet I choose to deny the very urges, beliefs and convictions of my soul and reject Catholicism – then I am committing mortal sin and going to hell?

Is that the sum of it - am I any closer to understanding the catholic position?

Thankyou for responding to my questions,
In His Love

 

[ralphinal]

I think that you are getting closer, or at least your posts are

 

[uglygal]

Am I really?

If few out of those who are first in the Church of God are saved, what will happen to you? Take all states, both sexes, every condition: husbands, wives, widows, young women, young men, soldiers, merchants, craftsmen, rich and poor, noble and plebian. What are we to say about all these people who are living so badly? The following narrative from Saint Vincent Ferrer will show you what you may think about it. He relates that an archdeacon in Lyons gave up his charge and retreated into a desert place to do penance, and that he died the same day and hour as Saint Bernard. After his death, he appeared to his bishop and said to him, "Know, Monsignor, that at the very hour I passed away, thirty-three thousand people also died. Out of this number, Bernard and myself went up to heaven without delay, three went to purgatory, and all the others fell into Hell."

Our chronicles relate an even more dreadful happening. One of our brothers, well-known for his doctrine and holiness, was preaching in Germany. He represented the ugliness of the sin of impurity so forceful that a woman fell dead of sorrow in front of everyone. Then, coming back to life, she said, “When I was presented before the Tribunal of God, sixty thousand people arrived at the same time from all parts of the world; out of that number, three were saved by going to Purgatory, and all the rest were damned.”

• St Leonard of Port Maurice

How am I to understand this?

 

[uglygal]

What about this?

Pope Innocent III, Fourth Lateran Council, Constitution 1, 1215, ex cathedra: “There is indeed one universal Church of the faithful, outside of which nobody at all is saved, in which Jesus Christ is both priest and sacrifice.”

or

Pope Boniface VIII, Unam Sanctam, Nov. 18, 1302, ex cathedra:

“With Faith urging us we are forced to believe and to hold the one, holy, Catholic Church and that, apostolic, and we firmly believe and simply confess this Church outside of which there is no salvation nor remission of sin… Furthermore, we declare, say, define, and proclaim to every human creature that they by absolute necessity for salvation are entirely subject to the Roman Pontiff.”

or

Pope Eugene IV, Council of Florence, Sess. 8, Nov. 22, 1439, ex cathedra:

“Whoever wishes to be saved, needs above all to hold the Catholic faith; unless each one preserves this whole and inviolate, he will without a doubt perish in eternity.”

or

Pope Eugene IV, Council of Florence, “Cantate Domino,” 1441, ex cathedra:

“The Holy Roman Church firmly believes, professes and preaches that all those who are outside the Catholic Church, not only pagans but also Jews or heretics and schismatics, cannot share in eternal life and will go into the everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels, unless they are joined to the Church before the end of their lives; that the unity of this ecclesiastical body is of such importance that only for those who abide in it do the Church’s sacraments contribute to salvation and do fasts, almsgiving and other works of piety and practices of the Christian militia produce eternal rewards; and that nobody can be saved, no matter how much he has given away in alms and even if he has shed blood in the name of Christ, unless he has persevered in the bosom and unity of the Catholic Church.”

Any comments? Are you sure you are instructing me truthfully about what the church teaches?

No matter what way I look at it, all I see is hell.

Any help would be appreciated.
Thankyou

 

[peary]

I am not a Christian. I do not believe in the christian “theology” of God because it is cruel and unjust.

I guess you never read the New Testament. Your loss.

What I do believe is that God is One, all Pure and Perfect, Perfect Love, Perfect Mercy, Perfect Justice. I do not adhere to any identifiable religion other than to simply say: my faith = “I Believe”, my God = “He Is”, eternity = “perfect love”.
My spirituality has become profoundly simple and pure and it has been given to me by God Himself. I asked Him, how am I to know what way is right and all he showed me was His heart - the Heart of God.

Like Alice in Wonderland said: "Any road will take you there if you don’t know where you’re going."

Yet I am damned according to Christians.

Your perception is self-defeating. Christians do not damn you. Perhaps inwardly you are unjustly damning yourself for who you think you are.

God has not abandoned me and is present in my life on a daily basis, but according to church dogma, I am hellbound and damned because I am not in the institution of the church.

The Church does not teach anything of the sort. You are believing a lie.

So my question is, why do christians hate non-christians so much?

Maybe in your experience, but certainly not in mine.

why is religion reduced to a tug of war of trying to get people to pay lip-service the way the church teaches? Where does the church get authority to proclaim any soul damned to hell?

The Church does not have the authority to proclaim any soul damned to hell. That is something YOU believe, NOT the Church.

Telling someone they are hellbound is a very serious accusation to make (I think). Please don’t attack me personally because of the question and/or don’t attack me as an ‘answer’ to the question. I genuinely want to know if someone like me (non-christian) is going to hell - and why.

Thankyou

You are not hellbound, but I think you have quite a few misperceptions as to what the Church believes and what Catholics believe. Again, read the New Testament scriptures and the message of Jesus to us. You’ll begin to see the ‘bigger’ picture - not the one you have now.

 

[ralphinal]

What about this?

or

or

or

Any comments? Are you sure you are instructing me truthfully about what the church teaches?

No matter what way I look at it, all I see is hell.

Any help would be appreciated.
Thankyou

We are still correct. The above quotes were made under the assumption that everyone had been taught the Gosple. See, it cannot be claimed that the people in the Church ever knew everything. At one point in history, they actually felt that the world had been presented with the Gosple in an acceptable way. Look at the dates on these: all before the discovery of North and South America. What the popes here pronounce ex cathedra is in line with what we are saying. Now then, they were wrong about if the world had been presented with the Gosple. I have spoken to many, many protestants who feel that the entire world knows the truth of Jesus today, and all the evidence is to the contrary. You see hell because you are fixed upon it. I see opportunity for salvation.

 

[peary]

I have read the link to “salvation outside the church” and I am none the wiser. I see in those words exactly what I have always understood the doctrine to be.

“Whoever is separated from this Catholic Church, by this single sin of being separated from the unity of Christ, no matter how estimable a life he may imagine he is living, shall not have life, but the wrath of God rests upon him” (ibid., 141:5). - The wrath of God is upon me and people like me regardless of how well I may/attempt to live???

“salvation, which is the strength of the sacrament, he will not have, if he has had the sacrament outside the Catholic Church [and remains in deliberate schism]. He must therefore return to the Church, not so that he might receive again the sacrament of baptism, which no one dare repeat in any baptized person, but so that he may receive eternal life in Catholic society, for the obtaining of which no one is suited who, even with the sacrament of baptism, remains estranged from the Catholic Church” (The Rule of Faith 43 [A.D. 524]) - People like me have no salvation because we are not and refuse to be in the fold of the church???

“Whoever does not enter there or whoever does not go out from there, he is a stranger to the hope of life and salvation” - People like me are strangers to hope and salvation???

“Let them not think that the way of life or salvation exists for them, if they have refused to obey the bishops and priests, since the Lord says in the book of Deuteronomy: ‘And any man who has the insolence to refuse to listen to the priest or judge, whoever he may be in those days, that man shall die’ [Deut. 17:12]” - I am going to die because I do not believe in or obey the catholic clergy???

The men who wrote those works were not amongst the damned … of course

if there is a common incorrect perception that exists among non-catholics, maybe there is a reason for it? In answer to my question, what I read from those quotes is that yes, people who are not a part of the church do not have salvation and to be without salvation is to be damned.

Seriously, I am at a loss. What am I misunderstanding?
Thanks,

You can’t ‘read’ 16th century documents with 21st century eyes. It was a different era entirely, with a different mindset and different approach to the Faith. You are better off reading the Vatican II documents for a more “up-to-date” understanding of the Faith more in line with our era.

 

[Verbum_Caro]

Just a note of observation:

Gal is not Christian. She does not believe in the divinity of Christ. It seems a bit odd to discuss the necessity of the Church which Christ founded without first discussing who Christ is.

Perhaps a book like “Mere Christianity” or something along those line would be a better place to start then discussing “*Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus.” *After all, EENS makes no sense at all if it isn’t based on the authority of Christ.

VC

 

[peary]

That is correct. I am not a christian because I do not believe in the christian religions. Some people call them denominations, yet they are so theologically divergent one from the other (and even openly hostile one to the other) that I can see no reason to not say what is really just being left unsaid - they are a multitude of religions.

**Christian ‘sects’ would be more appropriate. **

Regardless, its not my intent to mar people’s beliefs or attack them but I don’t think there is anything wrong in kindly and charitably exposing and rejecting what indeed seems to be absurd.

This amazing mess bears much witness to what is at the core of christianity - confusion - and confusion is not borne of God. God does not desire we little people be confused but to know and see Him clearly.

People want to know God, but only in their own way, not the way God reveals Himself to us.

Generally, yes I do believe Jesus existed, approximately 2000 years ago and was crucified. I think its the deeper and more important issues that make me not a christian. Issues such as; His Divinity and His theology

In God’s peace

You’ll have to take that up with HIM

 

[uglygal]

Is Vatican II proclaimed as ex cathedra?

 

[peary]

Is Vatican II proclaimed as ex cathedra?

Vatican II was an ecumenical council. All of its documents are valid for the Church at this present time in history. All other councils of the past - their documents remain valid also. The church said nothing new at Vatican II. It however placed the beliefs and mission of the Church in the context of contemporary thought and expression. Again, a different time and place in the world.

 

[Shiphrae]

originally posted by uglygal
I am not a Christian. I do not believe in the Christian “theology” of God because it is cruel and unjust.

I haven’t read all the posts so maybe you have already explained the above.

I’m wondering why you see Christianity as cruel and unjust? Christianity is built on the complete opposite. Jesus taught love, mercy and we believe in a just God. My thoughts are that you have not spent much time studying Christianity.

Sometimes the right book, video or sermon can be tremendously enlightening. A while ago I watched Frances Hogan explaining John’s gospel. She did it so well and I was so inspired! I understood John’s gospel in a brand new way. I would ask you to read some of Jesus’ parables in the New Testament.

Peace be with you,
Shiphrae

 

[peary]

*originally posted by uglygal:

I am not a Christian. I do not believe in the Christian “theology” of God because it is cruel and unjust.*

**Usually when something disturbs me as much as Christianity seems to disturb you, it is usually a clue of something inside of me that I refuse to recognize. Maybe there is a part of you that is cruel and unjust and you refuse to acknowledge it. How can one believe in a cruel and unjust God when Jesus revealed just the opposite? Maybe you WANT to believe in a cruel and unjust God as an excuse for your own weaknesses and shortcomings.

Just a thought to ponder.**

 

[uglygal]

*originally posted by uglygal:

I am not a Christian. I do not believe in the Christian “theology” of God because it is cruel and unjust.*

**Usually when something disturbs me as much as Christianity seems to disturb you, it is usually a clue of something inside of me that I refuse to recognize. Maybe there is a part of you that is cruel and unjust and you refuse to acknowledge it. How can one believe in a cruel and unjust God when Jesus revealed just the opposite? Maybe you WANT to believe in a cruel and unjust God as an excuse for your own weaknesses and shortcomings.

Just a thought to ponder.**

lol, I have heard this before many times. I started a post about this very thing in the “spirituality” forum, if you go there you might discover I get my theology from priests and the catholic church itself.

 

[peary]

lol, I have heard this before many times. I started a post about this very thing in the “spirituality” forum, if you go there you might discover I get my theology from priests and the catholic church itself.

Maybe you need to get some psychology from another source.

 

[uglygal]

I have recovered from my catholic upbringing and the damage done to me. I do not need psychology.

 

[blessedtoo]

Gal,
You keep making a false distinction between the Church and God. Catholics do not make this distinction. Christ, the Son of God, left behind His Church, the Catholic Church, and is the “head”, remaining with Her until the end of the world. To Catholics, the Church and Christ are inseparable.

 

[uglygal]

Gal,
You keep making a false distinction between the Church and God. Catholics do not make this distinction. Christ, the Son of God, left behind His Church, the Catholic Church, and is the “head”, remaining with Her until the end of the world. To Catholics, the Church and Christ are inseparable.

I will quote this statement in another topic because it is exactly what I was taught yet when a difficulty arises in the Church, catholics are quick to distinguish Christ and the Church.