If Non-Christians Can Go to Heaven, Why Introduce the Faith to Others?

[Linux]

Because, as Lewis states, Christianity makes claims on the truth, to explain what the universe is really like. Therefore it is NOT like every other religion. The moral imperative is in the claim of it’s founder: “I am the way, the truth, and the life…”

Your objection isn’t really that “it’s just another religion”; what you’re really saying is,“why do I need to bother with it? Why not just get on with being ‘good’?”

The fact that we’re human beings we have a thing about us that we have to know things for the sake of knowing them. That’s not what’s happening here. It’s as if you’re advocating not just innocent ignorance, but outright willful ignorance. To just let sleeping worms lie. Its like avoiding going to the doctor even though you feel that pain in your chest, or avoiding the duty roster for fear that you’ll get some unpleasant assignment.

That’s not honest ignorance, that’s dishonest ignorance.

Any religion can claim a similar thing to what you just said.

First of all a pain in my chest is a good reason for me to go to the doctor. Somebody saying to me that a ufo is going to judge me according to their faith or an ancient scripture is not a good enough rational reason for me to take it seriously as in feel morally compelled to investigate.

Saying that Jesus said is not a self evident moral imperative.

Wilful ignorance in context of christianity is when you know something to be true but deny it anyway.

 

[The_GreyPilgrim]

Any religion can claim a similar thing to what you just said.

Name any outside of the big three western faiths, that come even close to what Christ said about Himself.

First of all a pain in my chest is a good reason for me to go to the doctor. Somebody saying to me that a ufo is going to judge me according to their faith or an ancient scripture is not a good enough rational reason for me to take it seriously as in feel morally compelled to investigate.

Jesus wasn’t a UFO, but a real person. There are plenty of non-biblical sources that point to His existence.

Try again.

Saying that Jesus said is not a self evident moral imperative.

Jesus claimed to be God. It’s real simple, either he was a lunatic, a diabolical liar, or he was/is God who brought you into existence and sustains you even now. The moral imperative is that you must decide on one of the three.

Wilful ignorance in context of christianity is when you know something to be true but deny it anyway.

Not necessarily, knowledge of Jesus’ existence is sufficient enough cause to warrant further investigation.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

linux

**You aready believe and so you percieve that moral imperative as the result of belief. Theere is no reason for an atheist to think his soul is in danger or his disbelief is foolishness outside of faith. **

Yes, there is a reason. The reason is that the atheist can never be certain that he is fooling himself there is no God. If that is not reason enough, he truly is a fool, because then the would be declaring himself to be infallible about the non-existence of God. My experience with atheists is that they hate the very notion of infallibility because it is so distinctly Catholic.

So yes, the atheist has every reason to wonder if his soul is in danger. And believe me when I tell you this: the wonder increases in proportion as the atheist approaches the hour of his death.

 

[Linux]

the atheist can never be certain that he is fooling himself there is no God.

Any more than he can be certain that he isn’t fooling himself about hinduism or that the universe is just a computer generated experience.

I don’t see the connection between somebody saying that something is true and the moral imperative to find out if it is true. Just becuase somebody says that my soul is in danger doesn’t mean that i have a rational reason to waste my time worring about something i don’t know to be true. Only gullible people do that.

 

[Linux]

Name any outside of the big three western faiths, that come even close to what Christ said about Himself.

What does it matter if any religion said what jesus said. The point is most religions talk about some kind of moral judgement of the soul. Why is the words of Jesus any-more significant than the personal subjective significance you choose to place on his words.

Jesus wasn’t a UFO, but a real person. There are plenty of non-biblical sources that point to His existence.

Yes, people saying he existed. Just like there are many people who say that they experienced an encounter with small intelligent grey beings with almond shaped eyes.

Try again.

It would be wasted on you.

Jesus claimed to be God.

A lot of people throughout history have claimed the same thing.

It’s real simple, either he was a lunatic, a diabolical liar, or he was/is God who brought you into existence and sustains you even now. The moral imperative is that you must decide on one of the three.

Why is there a moral imperative?

Not necessarily, knowledge of Jesus’ existence is sufficient enough cause to warrant further investigation.

It might be sufficient for the curious or the paranoid, but I see no moral imperative to have faith.

 

[openmind77]

I read a recent blog post, and the following comments reflect my thoughts.

…
I still wonder though; why introduce Catholicism to a non-believer? Would it be better to leave them alone? Say they found out about what the faith taught and subsequently rejected it. Wouldn’t they then be answerable to God for this? I personally have very few Catholic friends with the majority being atheist, or at least non-practicing of their religions by birthright. As I progress with my formation in Catholicism, the question resounding in my mind does not cease–“If what I believe is truth, with all of its magnanimity, power, and glory and belief in a supreme, sentient being, then shouldn’t one of the main goals in my life be to share this message and my faith, so that others may know this Truth?” Then again, am I “doing them in” by sharing this message with them and having them subsequently reject truth? Would it not have been better for them to proceed in ignorance, finally perish from this earth, and be judged by God for what good they accomplished on earth sans an actual belief in the Trinity or other dogmas of the Church?

Most non-believers I know do not believe in or would not even seriously acknowledge a belief in a preternatural state, a God if you will (let alone the tenets of Catholicism), despite what I did or shared with them.

Would it not have been better for a non-believer’s ultimate salvation to never have known about the Catholic faith per se, and instead base their life off of good morals and being a morally good citizen, but not necessarily going to Church every Sunday, receiving the sacraments, and ? Perhaps I should simply stress being a “good person” to friends before fancying thoughts on proselytizing? Though now the question beckons: Most, if not all, of my peers and colleagues are “good people,” by society’s standards. They are good-hearted, highly intelligent individuals with a genuine desire to care for the sick of our world (I attend a top-tier allopathic medical school). Why should I try and change them? Why not leave them be; they shall continue on with their good works or at least whatever their conscience deems the correct path, and they shall be judged by God based off what they did on this earth with the knowledge and talents they were given. Why should I place this “burden” of Catholicism (this extra knowledge) on them, if, with their praiseworthy intentions of making the world a better place, they would see salvation anyway?

As I write this question, I am realizing that it seems to be more about the concern for my own salvation. Am I at fault for not introducing the faith as some LDS or Jehovah’s Witness do? What a Catch-22…
.

I don’t believe it is important to spread the Catholic faith or any other faith to an atheist or person of any other religion. I don’t think the chances of entering heaven depend at all on what you believe or what religion you follow. The chances depend purely upon what type of person you are (in spite of what the Church teaches). It is also takes many lifetimes of endeavor (spiritual endeavor as well as good works), before one becomes such a person worthy of eternal heaven.

However, it is extremely important to spread the news of the Christ and his message of unconditional Love. This is what will help the individual be a far better person and help him live a better life as well as the make the world a better place. Jesus’s message is not just be a good person (the atheist may already know. that). Jesus said we need ‘to love our enemies’. He said that ‘what we do to the least of these’ is what actually counts. These two are radical statements that most Christians don’t take to heart, leave alone atheists. These are radical ideas that no teacher has expressed before. This is the message of the Christ that needs to be taken around the world relentlessly. If that message is spread in the name of the Catholic Church, so be it. But it is the message that is important. I would not say you would be at fault if you did not carry this message everywhere, but it would be great if you did.

 

[The_GreyPilgrim]

What does it matter if any religion said what jesus said. The point is most religions talk about some kind of moral judgement of the soul.

No, most religions don’t. Buddhism and other eastern philosophies deny the existence of the soul and are agnostic or pantheistic.

Yes, people saying he existed. Just like there are many people who say that they experienced an encounter with small intelligent grey beings with almond shaped eyes.

That’s just prejudicial. You can’t disregard any evidence that points to Christ just because you don’t want to believe in his existence.

It would be wasted on you.

So who’s really being unreasonable?

A lot of people throughout history have claimed the same thing.

Show me how what they did compaired to what he did and I may consider it.

Why is there a moral imperative?

It’s there.

It might be sufficient for the curious or the paranoid, but I see no moral imperative to have faith.

But you “believe” that statement to be true.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

linux

**I don’t see the connection between somebody saying that something is true and the moral imperative to find out if it is true. Just becuase somebody says that my soul is in danger doesn’t mean that i have a rational reason to waste my time worring about something i don’t know to be true. Only gullible people do that. **

Only gullible people have a reason to believe there is no God when there is no proof whatever that there is no God.

Only gullible people, when they are young and in good health, have a reason to believe the fate of their immortal means nothing to them since they don’t even have one.

 

[_Abyssinia]

Here are more excerpts from a 1964 homily by Cardinal Raztinger:

The question that torments us is . . . why, if there are so many other ways to heaven and to salvation, should it still be demanded of us that we bear, day by day, the whole burden of ecclesiastical dogma and ecclesiastical ethics? . . .

If we are raising the question of the basis and meaning of our life as Christians . . . then this can easily conceal a sidelong glance at what we suppose to be the easier and more comfortable life of other people, who will “also” get to heaven.

We are too much like the workers taken on in the first hour whom the Lord talks about in his parable of the workers in the vineyard (Mt 20:1-6). When they realized that the day’s wage of one denarius could be much more easily earned, they could no longer see why they had sweated all day. . . .

But the parable is not there on account of those workers at that time; it is there for our sake. For in our raising questions about the “why” of Christianity, we are doing just what those workers did. We are assuming that spiritual “unemployment”—a life without faith or prayer—is more pleasant than spiritual service. Yet how do we know that?

We are staring at the trials of everyday Christianity and forgetting on that account that faith is not just a burden that weighs us down; it is at the same time a light that brings us counsel, gives us a path to follow, and gives us meaning. We are seeing in the Church only the exterior order that limits our freedom and thereby overlooking the fact that she is our spiritual home, which shields us, keeps us safe in life and in death. We are seeing only our own burden and forgetting that other people also have burdens, even if we know nothing of them.

And above all, what a strange attitude that actually is, when we no longer find Christian service worthwhile if the denarius of salvation may be obtained even without it! It seems as if we want to be rewarded, not just with our own salvation, but most especially with other people’s damnation—just like the workers hired in the first hour. That is very human, but the Lord’s parable is particularly meant to make us quite aware of how profoundly un-Christian it is at the same time. Anyone who looks on the loss of salvation for others as the condition, as it were, on which he serves Christ will in the end only be able to turn away grumbling, because that kind of reward is contrary to the loving-kindness of God.

firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2013/05/23/pope-francis-atheists-heaven

 

[catholictiger]

if you had the truth and someone else didn’t why would you not tell them what the truth is?

but in the Catholic Faith there is this idea of a hirearchy I guess you could say in heaven. can’t think of a good word to explain it.

Here is the simple point the best I can explain it.

Someone like JPII has been very blessed by God in grace. His joy his vision of God because of the vast closeness he had of God will be more than someone who is just an average parish going priest. JPII has a pool of grace in heaven full of God’s grace. The parish priest probably more like a pitcher of water filled to the brim. A Non-Catholic Christian probably has a 20 ounce glass of grace. A good athiest who is in heaven a shot glass in heaven.

By coming to the truth of the Christian faith the amount we see of the beatific vision is more than non Catholics. We should show everyone this truth so they can know and love God more.

 

[MarcoPolo]

Its irelivant. Without it, there is no reason to investigate accept for curiosity or paranoia.

Pardon my interruption but I dont think this answered Charlemagne’s question. In fact does the statement you claim require or not require investigation itself? Ultimately I think if a claim has some basic merit at the outset that would be important to one’s life, it is worthy of investigation and silly to dismiss all claims on the grounds that anyone can make a false claim.

 

[snarflemike]

When it comes to the fate of one’s immortal soul, it is downright foolishness not to investigate, not only out of curiosity, but out of real concern that one’s own atheism may be the ultimate foolishness.

I agree that any atheist or agnostic who does not investigate with sincerity and honesty the question of God and his interaction with us, is behaving in a manner that borders on the irrational. And I think a great many atheists and agnostics are behaving in exactly that manner. And I was one for about 30 years.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Imagine yourself driving up a winding mountain road with only two lanes. You cannot see around the next bend whether or not a car is coming toward you. Your lack of interest in the matter leads you to believe that there is no ground for believing a car is coming toward you because you cannot see it around the bed.

What fool then decides he can safely ignore the question of a car coming straight at him? What fool then decides to take up both lanes when rounding the next bend in the road?

And if God is coming straight at us, without proof to the contrary, what fool snubs his nose at God just because he cannot see around the bend?

 

[snarflemike]

I’ve been reading David Bentley Hart lately, and he remarks at how amazingly frivolous the New Atheism is, with respect to atheism throughout history. They seem utterly uninterested in the biggest questions that all of us face as human beings, and completely unwilling to gain any substantial insight into that thing to which they object so vehemently. He tells of an agnostic philosopher acquaintance of his who said of Richard Dawkins’ argument against God: “It might very well be the single worst argument made for or against any proposition in the history of human thought.”

 

[Charlemagne_II]

snarf
**
He tells of an agnostic philosopher acquaintance of his who said of Richard Dawkins’ argument against God: "It might very well be the single worst argument made for or against any proposition in the history of human **

Yet another proof that expertise in science is no guarantee of expertise in philosophy.

 

[snarflemike]

snarf
**
He tells of an agnostic philosopher acquaintance of his who said of Richard Dawkins’ argument against God: "It might very well be the single worst argument made for or against any proposition in the history of human **

Yet another proof that expertise in science is no guarantee of expertise in philosophy.

Yes, certainly that. I’d say it goes even deeper. Our “thinking elite” seems to have forgotten how to actually think, or else seems to think it no longer important to think. It is as if, while science and technology continue to march on, the rest of the western elites capacity is atrophying. Their philosophy is juvenile, their art and architecture and music and storytelling banal. Of course there are those who resist the atrophying, who keep the flame burning in all these areas, and who for that reason are despised by the elites. I’m all in with the resisters myself.

 

[polytropos]

848 “Although in ways known to himself God can lead those who, through no fault of their own, are ignorant of the Gospel, to that faith without which it is impossible to please him, the Church still had the obligation and also the sacred right to evangelize all men.”

 

[DENNYINMI]

I leave these matters to God, but may ‘I’ be found lacking nothing, having a share in the great commission according to my state in life.

 

[Eufrosnia]

I still wonder though; why introduce Catholicism to a non-believer? Would it be better to leave them alone? Say they found out about what the faith taught and subsequently rejected it. Wouldn’t they then be answerable to God for this? I personally have very few Catholic friends with the majority being atheist, or at least non-practicing of their religions by birthright. As I progress with my formation in Catholicism, the question resounding in my mind does not cease–“If what I believe is truth, with all of its magnanimity, power, and glory and belief in a supreme, sentient being, then shouldn’t one of the main goals in my life be to share this message and my faith, so that others may know this Truth?” Then again, am I “doing them in” by sharing this message with them and having them subsequently reject truth? Would it not have been better for them to proceed in ignorance, finally perish from this earth, and be judged by God for what good they accomplished on earth sans an actual belief in the Trinity or other dogmas of the Church?

The short answer to your question is found in Lumen Gentium (Dogmatic Constitution of the Catholic Church). Paragraph 16 says the following

1. Finally, those who have not yet received the Gospel are related in various ways to the people of God.(18*) In the first place we must recall the people to whom the testament and the promises were given and from whom Christ was born according to the flesh.(125) On account of their fathers this people remains most dear to God, for God does not repent of the gifts He makes nor of the calls He issues.(126) But the plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator. In the first place amongst these there are the Muslims, who, professing to hold the faith of Abraham, along with us adore the one and merciful God, who on the last day will judge mankind. Nor is God far distant from those who in shadows and images seek the unknown God, for it is He who gives to all men life and breath and all things,(127) and as Saviour wills that all men be saved.(128) Those also can attain to salvation who through no fault of their own do not know the Gospel of Christ or His Church, yet sincerely seek God and moved by grace strive by their deeds to do His will as it is known to them through the dictates of conscience.(19*) Nor does Divine Providence deny the helps necessary for salvation to those who, without blame on their part, have not yet arrived at an explicit knowledge of God and with His grace strive to live a good life. Whatever good or truth is found amongst them is looked upon by the Church as a preparation for the Gospel.(20*) She knows that it is given by Him who enlightens all men so that they may finally have life. But often men, deceived by the Evil One, have become vain in their reasonings and have exchanged the truth of God for a lie, serving the creature rather than the Creator.(129) Or some there are who, living and dying in this world without God, are exposed to final despair. Wherefore to promote the glory of God and procure the salvation of all of these, and mindful of the command of the Lord, “Preach the Gospel to every creature”,(130) the Church fosters the missions with care and attention.

The bolded part above is what is missed by many. It indicates that although people can technically be saved without being Catholic, it is more likely that the conditions for being saved this way are not met as well. It cites the following Scripture passages in the footnotes as evidence of this

for though they knew God, they did not honour him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their senseless minds were darkened. because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever! Amen. – Rom. 1:21, 25

It should also be mentioned that Catholic tradition, till very recent times, has unanimously held that many will be lost. This is why the gospel is preached, so that all may come to truly know Christ and be saved.

This is discussed in more detail in a book I am reading right now. If you have the time do check it out for a more indepth analysis “Will many be saved?” by Ralph Martin.

 

[SurfsUp]

Christianity absolutely warrants investigation. These people believe some specific guy 2000 years ago was the “Son of God”, and they’re still here! The universality of blood sacrifice in all civilized man 2000 years ago has passed away, and only these Catholics make present the sacrificed true God-mans most precious body and blood, to this day.

To me, I want people to be Catholic because there is just no hope otherwise, in this world. My years of worldly discernment into all areas of knowledge made me have to reject the world and conclude existence is a tragedy. Absurdism wasn’t going to cut it for me, with the thought of oblivion, yet I still had hope for this world. I wouldn’t have trusted the Catholic church at all if I wasn’t converted by more mysterious experiences. Now I know that as bad as the world seems, it is that bad, and no one is making decisions from a place of morality or divinity, and the edifice of modernity could fall apart well short of any “end times.”