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una_fides
Guest
Yes it is. The outer edge, where there is no suffering. Only perfect continual natural happiness.
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una_fides
Guest
Catholic theology teaches that to make an act of charity one must make use of his will. In fact, the will is where the act of charity is primarily rooted as it is guided by grace. We don’t just “feel” charity. In reality we might not feel anything at all and make a perfect and supreme act of love for God. It is through the use of our will that acts of charity are accomplished. God can guide our souls by his grace, but he does not act on our souls contrary to their wills.
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una_fides
Guest
Those who struggle with the teaching that God would send unbaptized infants to a place of eternal natural bliss but just not to share the beatific vision in heaven would most likely also be the ones who have much difficulty understanding how anyone could suffer eternally the most intense substantial pains in the fires of hell. Do we realize that just one mortal sin merits an eternity of fiery punishment in hell? Limbo for unbaptized infants is not as difficult I think to grasp than that fact, yet a correct view of sin, seeing it as God does, makes the picture fit together.
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Benadam
Guest
The thing that bother’s me about Limbo. Jesus decended into the bowels of the earth so that every one who lived during the ages before the Incarnation would be given the opportunity to respond to the Gospel and Salvation. Before Christ came I doubt that anyone had ever concieved that God would do such a thing. I find it difficult to reconcile that there would be human souls denied such a choice yet suffer the judgement caused by choice. I believe that the soul is not incapeable of responding to God no matter what stage of bodily developement. God can be there with them with a body and at the exact same stage of developement. .
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sidbrown
Guest
It was not always taught that there is no suffering in limbo.
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Benadam
Guest
and it was never taught as perfect happiness. There is a natural bliss attached to having never personally offended God. The extent of that bliss is set by the imperfection of sin nevertheless.
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una_fides
Guest
All souls are conceived in a state endowed with all natural gifts by God. Because of Adam’s sin, they lack sanctifying grace, which is something to which no one is entitled. God has blessed them with much more than they deserve just by giving them life. He does not “punish” them by not giving to all men sanctifying grace. He has blessed us by giving us baptism as the means to dispense this most sacred, necessary, and undeserved blessing. If we do not commit any actual sin, we will not be punished eternally for Adam’s sin. Infants are not “punished” with any actual physical pain, but they are not all conceived in a state of grace because Adam, who was the human race then, made the choice for all of us.
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una_fides
Guest
True, but the ones who ever taught that there was any form of suffering at all have taught that it would be most minimal. Even St. Augustine who many today claim was harsh in his theology dealing with unbaptized infants taught the following:
“Who can doubt that non-baptized infants, having only original sin and no burden of personal sins, will suffer the lightest condemnation of all? I cannot define the amount and kind of their punishment, but I dare not say it were better for them never to have existed than to exist there” (qtd. in John Randolph Willis, The Teachings of the Church Fathers, 245).
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surritter
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Yes, but you are making it sound like the will is an act of the biological organ known as the brain, thus your conclusion that infants have no will.
I am saying that the will is part of a soul, which exists from the moment of conception. (Angels have a will, but no physical brain.) So certainly God can speak to the soul directly.
Look at it from the other end of the spectrum: some elderly persons suffer from senility, and your logic would say that they have no will, because – similar to infants – their developed will has withered away. Yet you can be sure that when they die, they will be perfectly able to communicate with God face to face. So there is no automatic connection between physical development and the ability of a soul to assent to God.
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una_fides
Guest
An April 21 Associated Press article by Nicole Winfield quotes Fr. Richard McBrien (professor of theology at Notre Dame and noted dissenter) as saying, “If there’s no limbo and we’re not going to revert to St. Augustine’s teaching that unbaptized infants go to hell, we’re left with only one option, namely, that **everyone is born in the state of grace **. . . Baptism does not exist to wipe away the ‘stain’ of original sin, but to initiate one into the Church.” catholic.com/thisrock/2007/0710fea4.asp
This demonstrates the end result of such thinking.
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Benadam
Guest
It’s the fact that God died so every one who lived before His incarnation could respond to Him. Isn’t that what happened in Hades? Isn’t the habitual response to God during life that was the dominant factor in regards of that response ? This makes me think it a valid theological reason to pursue the possibility that a response to God is possible for the souls denied that opportunity.
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una_fides
Guest
Angels are extremely intelligent beings. Much more intelligent than you or I. I suggest reading more on the will and what it is and entails. It requires an intellectual act. One can loose his ability to control his will through old age or drinking in excess. Every time you sleep you loose complete control of your will, though at times your intellect can be active and will while dreaming. If you do something bad while sleeping you are not culpable for the action. If someone with a mental handicap commits what would objectively be a sin, he would not be guilty because he did not make use of his will to carry out the action. In your example, someone entirely senile could have a diminished use of his will. Nevertheless, when we die we attain a higher degree of understanding and our ability to will becomes fixed. If we are in a state of sanctifying grace, then it becomes fixed on God. If we are in a state of mortal sin, then it becomes fixed against God. If we were incapable of making an act of the will or committing sin, then our wills would be in a neutral state I suppose; however, we can be sure to know that infants do not have use of reason and therefore cannot control their wills. Do you have any teachings from Church fathers or doctors of the Church that support your idea that one can will without the ability to reason? I’ve never encountered such a teaching before now.
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una_fides
Guest
Do we all have a right to make such a response? Are we given such a right when God gives us our human existence? I guess I don’t see how any of us deserve or how reason necessitates that just because we are created we therefore have to be permitted to make an act of the will.
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Benadam
Guest
No one deserved it no matter what, how , when our life was lived. Your argument supports the reason to persue a theological reason to believe that they have not been denied what no one desrved.
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sidbrown
Guest
Have angels written anything on the Big Bang theory or how the universe began?
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Hesychios
Guest
… 
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simple_soul
Guest
*Dear una fides,
Could you please supply the source of Pope Pius XII’s explanation?
Not that I am disputing that he said it, I would just like to read it.
I would also not that I heard some were that it was St. Augustine believed in and taught about “delayed ensoulment”. He wrote that a human soul cannot live in an unformed body. 3 Thus, early in pregnancy, an abortion is not murder because no soul is destroyed (or, more accurately, only a vegetable or animal soul is terminated). Did St Augustin really believe and teach this and if so why do we not still believe and teach this?
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Javl
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surritter
Guest
I am wondering if you mean St. Thomas Aquinas…
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simple_soul
Guest
*Dear javl and surrritter,
I found this out when I google the CAF site.
This is the link to the thread that I found it on, forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=418911 Title of thread is “Life begins at conception belief.”
The following quote is taken from post # 4
I believe that when I did the google search there are also references to St. Thomas Aquinas having this belief also. Again I do not have the resources to verify this.
I found this out when I google the CAF site.
This is the link to the thread that I found it on, forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=418911 Title of thread is “Life begins at conception belief.”
The following quote is taken from post # 4
I do not know what the reference is to this “claimed” quote of St. Augustine. Maybe you would know and could share it with us?
I believe that when I did the google search there are also references to St. Thomas Aquinas having this belief also. Again I do not have the resources to verify this.
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