His sacrifice would be insufficient if you were truly aware that membership to it is a requirement for your salvation, and continued to deny it. Only God will be able to judge the extent of your culpability in rejecting His precepts. That’s why Christians are always called upon to pray for the “faithful departed.” This just means a generic term for all souls who aren’t in hell, but not yet in heaven. Beyond that, only God knows.
Probably because our goal should be to attain heaven, not avoid hell. The fact that hell exists should be motivation enough (imperfect though it may be.)
Ponder this: What many Protestants do in the other direction is take Scripture out of context because they remove it from the light of 2000 years of Tradition. (and often forget about the 300 or so years that Christianity existed before the compilation of the Bible.)
uh - what? While I guess in theory it’s possible, but not highly likely.
When you only have two choices then avoiding one is the same as choosing the other.
On the contrary, the churches refusal to state that even the really nasty Catholics such as Hitler are in hell merely points out that no matter what you do you might still win the big prize.
Stictly speaking, yes. But the motivation is important. We should be motivated to attain heaven not primarily because we fear hell, but because we love and want to please God. As an analogy from a Christian perspective, we should be environmentally conscious not because we’re afraid of destroying the planet, but becasue we love and respect the creation that God has given us.
What’s wrong with that? It merely shows that God is the ultimate judge, and His mercy is infinite. If someone repents at the last second (or millisecond) it’s the same as repenting on the last day or in the last year, or in the last ten years and so on. This isn’t to say that the Church teaches that this is desireable, let alone likely. On the contrary, attachment to a sinful lifestyle inevitably makes it more difficult to renounce that lifestyle. Is it possible? Yes. Probable? It is logical to assume that someone who led a horrible life, entrenched in evil ways probably didn’t repent at the last moment. So the answer to that question is “no.” But, since the answer to the first question is “Yes”, and since we aren’t the judge, the Church will never make any effort to pursue direct knowledge of whether a particular person is, in fact, in hell. Like I said before, the simple fact fo the existence of hell should be enough of a negative motivation. There are certainly plenty of examples of how one might get there without the direct knowledge of who has actually attained this sad existence.
What issues need to be resolved concerning the actual requirements for afterlife happiness that haven’t already been resolved? How would knowing Abraham Lincoln’s eternal status change anything? The Church already teaches everything one needs to know about how to attain salvation. The examples of the Saints are already equal or superior to the example that Lincoln might give. The simple fact that he wasn’t a Catholic doesn’t rule out his salvation, but by virtue of that, it is unlikely (I’d say 0% chance) that he’d ever be declared a saint, since I doubt many people pray for his intercession for miracles.
God’s mystery is a prerequisite for faith. If God just laid everything out on the table (which He certainly could do) faith would be a moot point - you’d either believe and obey or believe and not obey. God has demonstrated through the course of History that that’s not what He wants. (And who am I to question why he wants it that way? - it just is that way). He wants us to believe in Him even if we never see Him on this earth.
Compiling the canon of Scripture has nothing to do with interpreting Scripture according to its context. Nor does tradition have anything to do with interpreting a passage of Scripture according to its context. In fact, based on an erroneous tradition a passage in Scripture could be lifted out of context for hundred of years.
Sounds like another cop out to me. Remember that theology has claimed the right to answer the “why” questions of the universe. You really can’t pick and choose which questions your theology can answer and which it cannot and expect to maintain any degree of credibility.
The FACT that there are none yet in Hell is not based on theory but divine revelation - i.e., according to the Scriptures. The occupying of Hell (the “lake of fire”) is a future event for the “dead” (Rev. 20:11-15) * i.e.,* those who in this life did not believe and therefore did not possess Life in Christ (eternal life).moondweller:
uh - what? While I guess in theory it’s possible, but not highly likely.
I don’t know, because he hasn’t told us. However, I can speculate.
Your answer does not surprise me in the least. In fact, you must answer the way you do in order to be able to remain outside of full communion with Christ’s Church.
Tradition, by its very nature is not erroneous. I’m not sure what you mean by an “erroneous tradition.” Tradition (with a capital T) refers to the teachings of the Church handed down from the Apostles. Surely, you wouldn’t count anything there as being erroneous. The Bible is part of Tradition, but doesn’t encompass it. Also according to your construct, how would it even be possible to determine if something had been lifted out of context for “hundreds of years?” (any examples?)
I don’t pick which question my theology can answer, God does
:byzsoc:Revelation 20:11-15
Very well put!
Moondweller, I believe you are ignoring large parts of scripture that certainly indicate that Jesus was founding a church (ie: institution):