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MarcoPolo
Guest
I’m not sure what you’re asking. Are you saying that suffering puts a person in a position to surrender to evil?
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Aloysium
Guest
There is no one answer since the question itself varies depending on the intent.
The pharasees asked these sorts of questions all the time.
Since you are coming from a position of cynicism and argument rather than earnest searching for truth, my answer will be sort of generic:
All cultures and religions have this sort of paradoxical situation involving the Divine. The Mahabharat for example has the Goddess of the River repeatedly killing her new-born children and causing quite a scandal for her lover the King. The ways of God are mysterious and in spite of the fact that Christ may appear to be a push-over, it is good approach these matters with a certain amount of fear. There is much to fear in existence. God does love us and wants us to be with Him in paradise. Those that do not measure up however, seem to not fare that well. In today’s Gospel reading, the dishevelled guest is bound and thrown out of the wedding party into darkness. This is pretty much the teaching of most other serious religious systems.
Feeling sort of grouchy, not sure if I’m being uncharitable - if so, sorry.
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Charlemagne_III
Guest
We know it happened, and we know Jesus would have approved. The deaths of the children are only tragic from an atheistic perspective. They die and that’s the end of them. From the perspective of Christians, they are with God by virtue of their innocence, and we know Jesus loved to have children around him.
Did you ever study a catechism? If not, it’s understandable why you may not get this.
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Tomdstone
Guest
According to the Baltimore catechism, unbaptised children go to a place in hell called limbo.
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Tomdstone
Guest
I read several versions of the Baltimore catechism and they say that unbaptised children do not go to heaven.
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Tomdstone
Guest
I see it as a simple question as to whether these stories, such as the ten plagues, in the Bible are to be taken literally or whether they are fables intending to teach some lesson, but in reality, these ten plagues did not really happen.
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Charlemagne_III
Guest
Right. And Jesus never lived?
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Aloysium
Guest
I don’t know what “literally” means.
Someone tells me something about their day, I am more interested in the meaning that it holds for them than the actual events.
I am more likely to ask how the person felt about the situation rather than whether it actually occurred the way they say (unless of course that is the issue).
It is clear from studies of witness accounts that objectivity is more an idea or something difficult and unnatural to strive for than a reality.
At any rate, the story, the message seems very clear.
What I understand is that God has freed us from bondage to sin personally and historically and that it involved a battle with the forces of evil - the parting of the Red Sea and the subsequent death of the persecutors of God’s people, alluding to baptism. But, whatever did happen as you might describe it, I can’t see how we could ever know that.
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Charlemagne_III
Guest
This is the official Catechism answer to your question:
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. Indeed, the great mercy of God who desires that all men should be saved, and Jesus’ tenderness toward children which caused him to say: "Let the children come to me, do not hinder them,"64 allow us to hope that there is a way of salvation for children who have died without Baptism. All the more urgent is the Church’s call not to prevent little children coming to Christ through the gift of holy Baptism.
Since children come under the category of people who experience invincible ignorance of God, and since the Church says that invincible ignorance of God is not refusal to know God, it seems logical to conclude that children are not going to hell. After all they have not chosen hell as adults do.
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Tomdstone
Guest
Doesn’t answer the question as to whether the ten plagues are to be taken literally, as something that really happened in the real world, or whether they are fables to be taken in a larger context as a teaching tool.Right. And Jesus never lived?
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Charlemagne_III
Guest
How would you be able to distinguish a historical event recorded by a person (and people) who experienced it from a fable used as a teaching tool? And, not being present for the events, by what authority would you reckon them to be pure myth?
In other words, if it doesn’t accord with your (apparent) idea of the impossibility of miracles, the recorded event must be a fable? Was the story of Samson also a fable? Was Noah’s Ark also a fable? Was David slaying the giant also a fable? Are there nothing but fables in your version of the Bible, or do you recognize that some of it might be true … except for the parts that include no miracles, no talks with God, no heroic adventures and overcoming of great adversity?
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rinnie
Guest
Lets put it this way. If there is a way for unbaptized children to go to heaven it was never taught to us by God. If it was you are free to share this scripture. We are told all must be born again (baptized). One Baptism for forgiveness of sins.
With that said it is taught there is indeed Baptism of Desire. Anotherwards someone is going to RCIA planning to be baptized it would count.
Another way is if a parent has a child was planning to have it baptized. Another example. But both are by extra-ordinary means. A teaching of the RCC.
On the other side how can the RCC teach that a Child does NOT have to be baptized if it was never taught? Again if you have the teaching feel free to present it. And I will indeed forward it to the Pope.
With that said the Church believes and teaches we are free to rely on the mercy of God to indeed have these children to enter heaven. But it by no mean teaches to rely on the mercy of God if baptism is possible.
Again the Church cannot say that you must not be baptized to enter heaven. It would contradict the word of God.
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Bradski
Guest
That Jesus would have approved is an entirely circular argument.
Did it happen? Yes, Jesus would have approved…because it was God’s will. But was it God’s will? Well, of course, because Jesus would have approved!
The fact is that we don’t know whether it happened. It might be a factual account or it might be a fable. But either way, the question remains: Do we actually treat this as something that God did or might have done? Is this story meant to convey a message (true or not). Do we list it as one of things in the OT that we can safely ignore (like stoning children who insult their parents or wearing clothes made from two different materials) or do we treat it as being true?
Did Jesus say anything about stoning people? Apart from encouraging ‘he who is without sin’ to be the first guy to front up with a rock, I don’t think He was a big fan. And I can’t recall anything He might have said where it could be implied that He was a fan of infanticide.
Using Jesus to verify something that happened in the OT seems a non-starter. So we’re still looking for something that can tell us whether we treat what we tread as fact.
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Tomdstone
Guest
Do you think that Pope PIus XII was wrong when he implied that Baptism of desire is not available to infants who die without Baptism?
On October 29, 1951, in his Allocution to Midwives, Pope Pius XII declared, in
conformity with the Council of Trent:
“In the present state there is no other way of communicating [sanctifying
grace] to the child who has not yet the use of reason [other than Baptism].
But, nevertheless, the state of grace at the moment of death is absolutely
necessary for salvation. Without it, it is not possible to attain
supernatural happiness, the beatific vision of God. An act of love can
suffice * for an adult to obtain sanctifying grace
and supply for the absence of Baptism; for the unborn child or for the newly
born, this way is not open.”*
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Tomdstone
Guest
Would you then say that the doctrine of limbo is wrong and is a heresy?
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Charlemagne_III
Guest
There is no doctrine of limbo. This matter has never been settled definitively by theologians. Aquinas disagreed with Augustine and others disagreed with Aquinas. As 1261 in the Catechism indicates, there is no definite revealed source in scripture and the Church has elected to leave the matter entirely in the hands of a just and merciful God and his innocent little children.
By the way, can you provide the Baltimore Catechism statement that refers to limbo being a part of hell? The complete statement, if you please. Thanks.
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Tomdstone
Guest
I don’t have the printed copy of the catechism in front of me but according to materials online:
Here is what the catechism of Pope St. Pius X says:
12 Q: Why such anxiety to have infants receive Baptism?
A: There should be the greatest anxiety to have infants baptized because, on account of their tender age, they are exposed to many dangers of death, and cannot be saved without Baptism.
13 Q: Do parents sin, then, who, through negligence, allow their children to die without Baptism, or who defer it?
A: Yes, fathers and mothers who, through negligence, allow their children to die without Baptism sin grievously, because they deprive their children of eternal life; and they also sin grievously by putting off Baptism for a long time, because they expose them to danger of dying without having received it.
cin.org/users/james/ebooks/master/pius/psacr-b.htm
Baltimore catechism version 4 (updated)
154. Q. Is Baptism necessary to salvation?
A. Baptism is necessary to salvation, because without it we cannot enter into the kingdom of Heaven.
Those who through no fault of theirs die without Baptism, though they have never committed sin, cannot enter Heaven neither will they go to Hell. After the Last Judgment there will be no Purgatory. Where, then, will they go? God in His goodness will provide a place of rest for them, where they will not suffer and will be in a state of natural peace; but they will never see God or Heaven. God might have created us for a purely natural and material end, so that we would live forever upon the earth and be naturally happy with the good things God would give us. But then we would never have known of Heaven or God as we do now. Such happiness on earth would be nothing compared to the delights of Heaven and the presence of God; so that, now, since God has given us, through His holy revelations, a knowledge of Himself and Heaven, we would be miserable if left always upon the earth. Those, then, who die without Baptism do not know what they have lost, and are naturally happy; but we who know all they have lost for want of Baptism know how very unfortunate they are.
Think, then, what a terrible crime it is to willfully allow anyone to die without Baptism, or to deprive a little child of life before it can be baptized! Suppose all the members of a family but one little infant have been baptized; when the Day of Judgment comes, while all the other members of a family-father, mother, and children-may go into Heaven, that little one will have to remain out; that little brother or sister will be separated from its family forever, and never, never see God or Heaven. How heartless and cruel, then, must a person be who would deprive that little infant of happiness for all eternity-just that its mother or someone else might have a little less trouble or suffering here upon earth…
cin.org/users/james/ebooks/master/baltimore/bsacr-b.htm
So this version says that limbo is not Hell. However,
according to the Catholic encyclopedia online, commenting on the Council of Florence:
“Those dying in original sin are said to descend into Hell, but this does not necessarily mean anything more than that they are excluded eternally from the vision of God. In this sense they are damned; they have failed to reach their supernatural destiny, and this viewed objectively is a true penalty.”
newadvent.org/cathen/09256a.htm
Ecclesiastical approbation. Nihil Obstat. October 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, Censor. Imprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York.
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Tomdstone
Guest
Here is a reference from the Council of Florence:
Pope Eugene IV, Council of Florence, “Letentur coeli,” Sess. 6, July 6, 1439: “We define also that… the souls of those who depart this life in actual mortal sin, or in original sin alone, go straightaway to hell, but to undergo punishments of different kinds.” (Denz. 693)
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Aloysium
Guest
What’s your point?
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Tomdstone
Guest
Pre-Vatican II Roman Catholic teaching said that unbaptised babies do not go to heaven.
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