“The Church’s Magisterium exercises the authority it holds from Christ to the fullest extent when it defines dogmas, that is, when it proposes, in a form obliging the Christian people to an irrevocable adherence of faith.” (CCC, #88)
I didn’t say you don’t have to
accept doctrine. The first condition is that you realize the Church is right and you are wrong. You accept by “faith” the teaching authority of the Church.
A dogma, defined by the magisterium, obliges [Catholic] Christian people to adhere to it irrevocably. It’s kinda difficult to see how you can claim that "there is not one single believe that must be believed…
I said they had to
accept it. I said they did not need to
believe it.
You’ve moved the goalposts, haven’t you?
Maybe a little bit. But, if disbelief was a sin, it could remove us from a state of Grace. There is certainly an intrinsic relationship between sin and salvation. But I withdraw my statement that we are not saved by our beliefs (the statement is true, but admittedly overreaching for this discussion).
Yet, you’re making a very narrowly-construed assertion and expressing it as if it were a general principle; at best, that’s inaccurate – at worst, misleading.
I’m working on the assumption that a faithful Catholic (who adheres to the five precepts) and is confronted with disbelief is not willfully refusing to believe. People ask if Catholics are required to believe in, say, Transubstantiation. The answer is no. We must accept that it is true despite our disbelief, but there are some people who can’t get their head around the concept.
Can “a Catholic who does not believe in even one dogma get into heaven?” Perhaps, but there’s a whole set of conditions that would have to be true in order for that to hold.
Yes, three conditions (I listed them). I cited disbelief in God as an example of someone who would (by extension) disbelieve every single doctrine of the Church. I think some Catholics sometimes have problems believing even in God. This struggle is not unfamiliar to me - I have bumped against it more than once.
You start describing them in terms of “crises of faith”, but even that needs to carry with it the implication that, prior to the crisis, the Catholic person did believe in the dogmas with which he subsequently struggles.
Not necessarily. Most Catholics are cradle Catholics, and I think most accept the full teaching of the Church at one point in their lives (when they are too young to be cynical). So I think that pre-existing belief is the rule, not the exception.
But I am no cradle Catholic. On the day I converted to the Faith, I flat-out disbelieved in the Assumption, and I wasn’t comfortable with Immaculate Conception. My Anglican roots had not yet been completely pruned away. I told the priest (a very godly OFM-conv). He asked me why my disbelief bothered me, and I said because I knew I should believe. He told me that was enough.
I was having a crisis of faith from my very first breath as a Catholic. I accepted the idea that I was wrong, and I have since reconciled myself fully with both doctrines.
That means that belief was present, but is temporarily waning.
Belief need not be pre-established; disbelief need not be temporary (although it seems that a person who diligently works on disbelief ought to reconcile himself - if one disbelieves for years, his openness and diligence could be called into question).
To characterize that entire discussion as “a Catholic can get to heaven even if he doesn’t believe in any Catholic dogma” isn’t even close to being a reasonably complete description of your case.
You categorically stated that disbelief of any part of Catholic doctrine is sinful. All sin requires some measure of freewill consent. I think the VAST majority of faithful Catholics who disbelieve any (or all) Catholic doctrine would rather believe, and they do not consent in any way to their disbelief. If they did, why would they go to Mass? Why would they receive Eucharist? These acts are, in themselves, a small expression of faith.
Catholics who are not faithful - well, that’s a different category. If a fallen-away Catholic says he doesn’t believe in Eucharist, I say “no duh.” If he believed, he would be there every Sunday, right? But a Catholic who doesn’t believe, and is STILL there every Sunday
trying to believe commits no sin. Among faithful Catholics, I think that sinful disbelief is extremely rare.
…belief is an act of the intellect: “In faith, the human intellect and will cooperate with divine grace: ‘Believing is an act of the intellect assenting to the divine truth by command of the will moved by God through grace.’” (CCC, #155) If belief is an act of the intellect, a person can choose to “compel himself” to the process that will lead him to understanding and believing; more to the point, he can certainly compel himself to neglect those actions that lead to (or which sustain) belief.
Well, I don’t want to argue with the Catechism. I’m not sure it is saying that we can actually compel ourselves to believe that which our intellect finds deficient. No matter how much I want to believe in unicorns, I cannot make myself believe.
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