How much harder is it to go to Heaven than if you're Christian?

[patrickveech]

I’m just wondering. I know people may hear about Jesus if they aren’t brought up Catholic, and I’m wondering if they have a legitamate shot at making it to Heaven. I reason like this.

We, the catholics, are absolutely not any better than anyone else on this earth.

We are catholics because we want to ultimately get to Heaven and we thrive on the journey towards it.

The average man/woman who is ignorant to the truth behind Christ deserves just a fair shot at entering Heaven as we Catholics do. If you think about it, this theory lines up with Christ, how he treated everyone with respect and dignity, called everyone, and did not leave any good man or woman unloved.

Is this statement below a fair theory about Heaven?

If a man grows up with no influence of Christ, and he is fully of aware that people (like us) believe in him fully, but he doesn’t accept Christ as the cornerstone in his life, yet he does good & ultimately God judges that this man is as worthy as Catholics to enter Heaven, and allows him to pass.

 

[tessi]

We are catholics because we want to ultimately get to Heaven and we thrive on the journey towards it.

We are catholics because we received the seed and try to make it grow.
Many people receive the seed but they drop it because they find something better to do. Ultimately is God to decide whether that person never listened or listened and just didn’t want to pay attention.
Nowadays is hard to think of someone who never listened of the Catholic Church or Jesus. They choose to be apart from that uncomfortable truth (Acts 24, verse 25). Anyway we are not to say who listened and who didn’t. God will judge…

 

[reen12]

What is heaven - if not an eternal relationship with God, and in Him?
“Narrow is the gate…” [the gate of heaven?]…
“Then who can be saved?” His followers asked Him.
“For man, this would be impossible, but with God, all things are possible.”

Theology, in the main, is not particularly helpful, in terms of salvation.
It is surely not useless - yet the images that God Himself provided us with,
tell us far more about Him, and Who He is.

*is noting. Benedict, unlike John Paul II, is a biblical scholar, while JPII held a doctorate *in philosophy. Philosophy was my own realm of study - but Benedict is, to me,
far more attuned to scripture…than to ‘systematic theology.’]

God is Father, Good Shepherd, and He loves us. For Christians, He is also Messiah.
Jesus saved His castigating words - for the self-righteous, and those who ‘strained at a gnat,
yet swallow[ed] a camel whole.’ Those, who had added to the Law, that His Father had given.
“You shut the door of heaven, in people’s faces…”
Yes, that’s true, Jesus. …speaking of getting thru the gate…]

What kind of God would I be worshipping - if 5 out of 7 people, on the
planet, today - who hold not at all that a God/Man walked the earth -
were “kept out of heaven,” by accident of birth?

What kind of image of “Father” is reflected - in a stern deity, busily
pouring over the fine print, to make certain that one did not ‘wilfully’ reject Him
…instead of One Who created each of us for eternal joy with Him.
Christ, Himself, prepared us for this.
“Lord, when did we see You and help You?”
Dear heart, when you did this, for one of My sheep that needed help,
you did it unto Me.

It makes as much sense, to me, to demand that one know and accept Jesus -
as it does to demand - for one in the West - to accept Siddaharta Gautma,
the Buddha - the ‘enlighened one.’ *
10,000, in the West, knows of who Gautama Buddha was, or could state,*
coherently, what his teaching [doctrine] was.] Jesus, for many of the
world’s cultures, has as much ‘reality’ - as has the Buddha, in the West.
[If God is going to have some stern words, perhaps He will save them for
those Chrisitians who made no effort to make Him known?]

Is it not possible - even likely, for those who did not know Him -
but who followed the natural law, planted in the heart of each human being -
isn’t it possible, for such a one, to open his/her eyes, after death,
to see Christ standing there - and, in an instant - know Who He is?
A kind of "Oh. There You are "…as such a soul hears, to its eternal joy:
Come, ye blessed. You knew Me not - but you cared for My lambs,
even while expecting no eternal reward - as My follwers did.
Come, blessed, enter into the joy of My Kingdom.

The ones whom Christ had the sternest words for, were those
who added to His Father’s law, and who protested - when He healed,
on the Sabbath, a man, whose hand did not function.
“The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.”
*
lining the shelves of various *ecclesiastics - as there were scrolls of the law -
lining the shelves of the Pharisees, in His day.]

More than a few will learn, to their sorrow, what Jesus meant, when He said:
“The last shall be first, and the first, last.”
His sheep hear His voice - whether in this world, or in the World to Come.
“Oh. *There *You are.”] Such souls - who knew Him not, on earth,
and expected no reward - yet lived by the light of the natural law, are loved by Him.
In fact, isn’t this what Holy Mother Church, herself, teaches?

I don’t expect that I shall be ‘let in.’

But I do note the many parallels that present, in our own day - in terms of the attitude of some of the religious leadership, of His day.

“Déjà vu all over again.” :coffeeread:

reen12

 

[SacredHeartFan]

I’m just wondering. I know people may hear about Jesus if they aren’t brought up Catholic, and I’m wondering if they have a legitamate shot at making it to Heaven. I reason like this.

We, the catholics, are absolutely not any better than anyone else on this earth.

We are catholics because we want to ultimately get to Heaven and we thrive on the journey towards it.

The average man/woman who is ignorant to the truth behind Christ deserves just a fair shot at entering Heaven as we Catholics do. If you think about it, this theory lines up with Christ, how he treated everyone with respect and dignity, called everyone, and did not leave any good man or woman unloved.

Is this statement below a fair theory about Heaven?

If a man grows up with no influence of Christ, and he is fully of aware that people (like us) believe in him fully, but he doesn’t accept Christ as the cornerstone in his life, yet he does good & ultimately God judges that this man is as worthy as Catholics to enter Heaven, and allows him to pass.

The Church teaches that if on has heard of Christ and his Church and does not accept does not have salvation. Also those who have never heard of Jesus nor His Church but try to scincerely seek God and follow their consicence, will attain their salvation. If other christians do not accept the Catholic Church after knowing about it they have no salvation. It’s not polite but it’s true.

 

[SedesDomi]

I’m just wondering. I know people may hear about Jesus if they aren’t brought up Catholic, and I’m wondering if they have a legitamate shot at making it to Heaven.

Yes, they have a more-than-legitimate shot.

 

[MarieVeronica]

“To whom much is given, much will be expected”.

I’m not sure of the answer to your question. But I’ve heard it said, that Our Lord expects more of believers, than of those who don’t know Him. Something to think about. God bless.