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I might try approaching it by looking at this part first :
Default in the sense that it has been used , implies a non participation in sin on the part of all of us except our original parents . Whoever believes that has (unfortunately) never had the privilege of receiving the sacrament of Reconciliation.
If it was by “default” , then our Blessed Lord never could have said [John 8:7 , (NAB) ]
**“Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” **
It isn’t by default, but by our own fault .
We have to love the new translation of the Roman Missal which really brings this home in a clearer sense, in one of the choices for the Penitential Rite:
"I confess to almighty God and to you my brothers ans sisters, that I have gravely sinned . . . ; "
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slywakka250
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wow. this cartoon really describes my own relationship with God. amazing.
I would emphasize that God is love. God has no space in his heart to damn us, because all God does is Love us completely, even so much as to become one of us. God is an eternal outpouring of love; God supports us. He is always on our side, looking out for us. God is our best friend. We can always Trust God to do what’s best for us. If anyone is damned it is their own fault, and not God’s who does everything he can to save us.
Of course saying that would never convince me, but interesting…thanks for posting.
After the fall, all are indeed damned by default at conception, or if not damned per se, infected with original sin. Sure, things change at Baptism, but Sacraments are special Graces from God that many never receive. In fact, by Default, we don’t receive them.
I would emphasize that God is love. God has no space in his heart to damn us, because all God does is Love us completely, even so much as to become one of us. God is an eternal outpouring of love; God supports us. He is always on our side, looking out for us. God is our best friend. We can always Trust God to do what’s best for us. If anyone is damned it is their own fault, and not God’s who does everything he can to save us.
Of course saying that would never convince me, but interesting…thanks for posting.
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englishredrose
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interesting point though
God damns us all so his son can save us all. If he hadn’t damned us then his son can’t save us…
where does thought go from here
God damns us all so his son can save us all. If he hadn’t damned us then his son can’t save us…
where does thought go from here
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JRKH
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Not sure what you mean by “how would you respond to this?”
First off, I would not be evangelizing this way and so this line of questioning is unlikely to come up.
Now if you are referring to the actual objection offered in the cartoon…One has to remember that the person writing the cartoon has an agenda and places words on the lips of the evangelizers that will promote his point of view.
But - that doesn’t mean that there are not Christians who have such a simplistic view on the matter and for them it IS quite possible to get tripped up by such a response.
This problem lies in the idea that the evangelists here have an overly simplistic and literal view of original sin and the problems we face as humans. The “atheist” (I presume) then takes this simplistic and literal view and turns it back on the unprepared evangelist.
Suffice it to say that, if I ever actually encountered someone who wished to approach the matter this way, it might lead to a very lengthy discussion - which I won’t get into right now.
Peace
James
First off, I would not be evangelizing this way and so this line of questioning is unlikely to come up.
Now if you are referring to the actual objection offered in the cartoon…One has to remember that the person writing the cartoon has an agenda and places words on the lips of the evangelizers that will promote his point of view.
But - that doesn’t mean that there are not Christians who have such a simplistic view on the matter and for them it IS quite possible to get tripped up by such a response.
This problem lies in the idea that the evangelists here have an overly simplistic and literal view of original sin and the problems we face as humans. The “atheist” (I presume) then takes this simplistic and literal view and turns it back on the unprepared evangelist.
Suffice it to say that, if I ever actually encountered someone who wished to approach the matter this way, it might lead to a very lengthy discussion - which I won’t get into right now.
Peace
James
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empther
Guest
The premise of that cartoon is that “we are all damned by default”.
That’s a lie.
Suppose there’s an atheist couple in Borneo. They never heard of Jesus. They have a baby. The baby dies a few days after birth. Is the baby damned? Obviously not. It gets a free ticket to Heaven.
And so it is with all of us,
unless we mess things up by choosing to do evil.
That’s a lie.
Suppose there’s an atheist couple in Borneo. They never heard of Jesus. They have a baby. The baby dies a few days after birth. Is the baby damned? Obviously not. It gets a free ticket to Heaven.
And so it is with all of us,
unless we mess things up by choosing to do evil.
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Fone_Bone_2001
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I’d respond by pointing out the two ways in which the cartoon is incredibly stupid.
“Savior from what?”
A fair question.
“From eternal damnation, of course.”
Wrong. Well, not wrong per se, but misleading. I would say,
*
“From sin.”*
I’d love to hear this smug cartoonist try to say he hasn’t sinned. Actually, I wouldn’t. That would be horrible, because he’d be deluded.
Also, the next exchange is just as irredeemably stupid:
“Who damned me?”
“God! He damned all of us… by default.”
Wrong. We do this to ourselves through sin. God did not do it to us.
While the answers the evangelists in the dialogue give are themselves smug and wildly inaccurate caricatures of the Christian understanding, the bigger problem with the cartoon is the attitude exhibited by the way these particular caricatures are expressed.
The cartoonist is thinking of it in this way: God’s a mean ol’ tyrant who makes rules. He doesn’t like what we do, so he declares us guilty and cuts us off from him in punishment. Then He sends His Son to save us from His own chastisement.
What a base and simplistic understanding this is. That kind of god would need psychological treatment.
The reality is closer to this: We cut ourselves off from goodness by doing bad things. God wants us to be like Him - goodness, joy - so He sends His Son to bridge the gap between us and Him that we cannot cross on our own.
Our “damnation” - if we don’t repent - isn’t an arbitrary slap on the wrist from an authoritarian deity. It’s the natural and logical consequence of sinning.
I don’t remember where I found this quote, but I once read a writer who said (and I paraphrase), "The notion that through Christ God saves us from punishment for sin is a mean, low, base notion. He saves us from sin itself."
“Savior from what?”
A fair question.
“From eternal damnation, of course.”
Wrong. Well, not wrong per se, but misleading. I would say,
*
“From sin.”*
I’d love to hear this smug cartoonist try to say he hasn’t sinned. Actually, I wouldn’t. That would be horrible, because he’d be deluded.
Also, the next exchange is just as irredeemably stupid:
“Who damned me?”
“God! He damned all of us… by default.”
Wrong. We do this to ourselves through sin. God did not do it to us.
While the answers the evangelists in the dialogue give are themselves smug and wildly inaccurate caricatures of the Christian understanding, the bigger problem with the cartoon is the attitude exhibited by the way these particular caricatures are expressed.
The cartoonist is thinking of it in this way: God’s a mean ol’ tyrant who makes rules. He doesn’t like what we do, so he declares us guilty and cuts us off from him in punishment. Then He sends His Son to save us from His own chastisement.
What a base and simplistic understanding this is. That kind of god would need psychological treatment.
The reality is closer to this: We cut ourselves off from goodness by doing bad things. God wants us to be like Him - goodness, joy - so He sends His Son to bridge the gap between us and Him that we cannot cross on our own.
Our “damnation” - if we don’t repent - isn’t an arbitrary slap on the wrist from an authoritarian deity. It’s the natural and logical consequence of sinning.
God doesn’t damn us, though. We put ourselves in the position we’re in through our sin, from which God rescues us.
I don’t remember where I found this quote, but I once read a writer who said (and I paraphrase), "The notion that through Christ God saves us from punishment for sin is a mean, low, base notion. He saves us from sin itself."
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ThinkingSapien
Guest
There are many understandings of many Christian denominations. Some of them have understandings that fit this caricature pretty well
So there is a chance this author’s rendering is consistent with his experience. I can certainly say my experiences at some southern Baptist churches match this (only the people in the cartoon seem friendlier).
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JRKH
Guest
Agree -There are many understandings of many Christian denominations. Some of them have understandings that fit this caricature pretty well
We’ve had discussions here about the “door-to-door” and “street-corner” type evangelists and how they often times have a certain set of questions and answers that they have been trained in without any real depth.
Some groups push their new converts, especially young people, toward this kind of street evangelization with only minimal training and when someone challenges their simplistic views and “canned answers”, with a deeper and more troublesome viewpoint, they just don’t have any good responses because they are “off script”.
A cartoon like this - far from causing anyone to question their faith - should actually cause us to dig more deeply and prayerfully into our faith and the reasons for our hope.
Peace
James
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NeedImprovement
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My exception is first, with the word default . If it is by default that we are damned, then we are speaking only of original sin - not our own sins which Christ also died for. That’'s a half-truth.
Furthermore, the word damned cannot be used either because the proper definition of damnation says that it is eternal and irrevocable.
To say we are *damned * by default , using the true meaning of the word damned , automatically precludes any saving action by our Blessed Lord Jesus. If God pronounces that sentence as Just Judge , it is irrevocable. And again, being damned implies "one’s own deliberate estrangement from God" , which in turn implies, *anything but *“default”.
So (in the OP’s linked article) what we have is someone who tried to make a “funny” in the comics , but who twisted the true meaning of words in the process. Twisting the true meaning of words misleads people. And half-truths are deceptive.
From : Modern Catholic Dictionary ; Fr. John Hardon, S.J.
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ThinkingSapien
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I don’t think the general non-catholic public is pulling from that dictionary. Roger’s thesarus has “Condemned, especially to hell” for the entry to damned. And there are similar meanings in other dictionaries.
The meanings of words varies slightly over time, geographies, cultures, and regions. As far as I can tell the author hasn’t changed the meaning of the word but is employing one of the commonly understood meanings. Just as there are differences in the meanings of words in different regions (USA vs UK for example) it seems that as far as religious terms go there are different dialects used by catholics and non-catholics.
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JRKH
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This is well stated and actually speaks well to why the exchange in the cartoon should lead to a deeper and more fruitful exchange between the parties instead of the short “flip” sort of responses used in the cartoon.
I don’t doubt that exchanges like these occur. In fact, in my time I have “sprung” things on door-to-door evangelists myself and watched them squirm. Though I am sorry to say now that, in my more distant past, my reasons were less than completely sincere.
But the reasons such exchanges occur is because the people evangelizing are still spiritual babies and have no business trying to engage in such conversations.
At most such spiritual babes should simply say what church community they are from, invite the person to visit them for service or questions and offer to leave some literature. In fact, most of the time that is what occurs in our area. They might ask if you are Christian, what church we attend etc. and then offer an invite…
Of course we do get the occasional ones who, upon learning that we are in that insidious cult of “Catholicism”, want to talk further (LDS, JW’s etc.) But I don’t mind that too much either. I’ve had some good conversations with LDS folks - not so much with JW’s.
Anyway - I apologize for getting “windy” and “rambling” here.
My main point is that - The cartoon, does prove a point. Not that Christianity is foolish, but that those sent out to evangelize need to be well grounded, approachable, and well prepared. Something that the two in the cartoon obviously are not.
Peace
James
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Gorgias
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Whoops! Be careful… you’re close, but not quite on target…!
We believe that God wants to save all people, and therefore, we hope for the child’s salvation (not to mention the salvation of his parents!). We don’t know, however, how that works – so the best we can say is “we hope”, and not “he has a free ticket to Heaven”…!
Hmm… this seems even more problematic, although I’m betting that you don’t mean it in the way that you just put it. On the surface, you’re saying that “all of us”, just like the baby in Borneo, have a “free ticket to Heaven”, “unless we mess things up by choosing to do evil”. That doesn’t sound quite right, don’t you agree?
Blessings,
G.
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empther
Guest
What is your alternative?
What about people who through no fault of their own never learned anything about the true God? What about the mentally retarded? The mentally ill? Those tested beyond human endurance by torture and other horrors?
Are they to be damned too although they never had the chance to make a choice?
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NeedImprovement
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I can agree with all of the above.
I would even venture to posit that we can find some different “dialects” used solely among Catholics if we were to check around .
But coming back to the comic (which actually did make me smile a little originally) the question the two “door-to-door evangelists” ask their would-be convert is if he has accepted Jesus , Son of God as his Savior yet. So the theme is** salvation**.
The would-be convert asks , “Savior from what ?” , to which the door-to-door evangelists reply, “From eternal damnation, of course.”
(And next is where I believe the comic writer makes his/her fatal freudian slip) : The would-be convert asks, “Who damned me?” … and IMO ,that is actually a more **Catholic- even more Christian question/response than what the two evangelists’ are saying . I also may rightfully ask, “Who damned me?” You also may ask , “Who damned me?” The answer is no one damned you, nor me , at least, not yet.
The door-to-door evangelists reply, “God, He damned all of us by default.” (I think that’s where I stopped smiling). God has not damned any of us who are reading these posts .
The Weekday Preface II for the Order of the Mass in the previous Roman Missal said:
. . . In Love You created man
In justice You condemned him
But in mercy You redeemed him . . .
It doesn’t say You “damned” him
The New Roman Missal’s equivalent Preface, Common Preface # 2 now reads:
For in goodness you created man and,
when he was justly condemned,
in mercy you redeemed him,
through Christ our Lord.
If we are sincerely interested in the salvation of souls, whatever our Christian denomination may be, each of us would do well to be able to define the proper difference between being damned and being condemned, and we should keep a clear idea of it in our heads. It makes good Christian eschatological sense.
Comments similar to those contained in that comic strip tend to portray God as a God of vengance . It would certainly be a strech to believe that He might somehow find that to be flattering .
And we could easily go on about semantics all day long without making anything any clearer . When we trim away all of the fluff, what it really boils down to is that:
God never rejected man. It is man who rejects God, and it is this that condemns us, not by default either – no matter which dictionary or thesarus one looks up the word default in.
Lex Orandi Lex Credendi
From Eucharistic Prayer IV
. . .And when through disobedience he had lost your friendship,
you did not abandon him to the domain of death.
For you came in mercy to the aid of all,
so that those who seek might find you.
Time and again you offered them covenants
and through the prophets
taught them to look forward to salvation
From Eucharistic Prayer or Reconciliation II
. . . When we ourselves had turned away from you
on account of our sins,
you brought us back to be reconciled, O Lord,
so that, converted at last to you,
we might love one another
through your Son,
whom for our sake you handed over to death.
** **John 8:10-11 **[NAB]
Then Jesus straightened up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”
She replied, “No one, sir.” Then Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go, (and) from now on do not sin any more.”
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