M
MacQ
Guest
Honestly folks…
God takes care of them.
God takes care of them.
Questions on Limbo or more importantly the Fate of the Unbaptized Baby
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Jon_S_1
Guest
Two pages in and no one has bothered to quote Holy Scripture?
To answer your question, we can go literally thousands of years before Aquinas to learn about the fate of the unbaptized. I think 2 Samuel 2:15-25 is relevant here. It has granted words of comfort to others. In the passage, David’s son is born very ill; David weeps and prays for his recovery, but his child passes away on the seventh day (before a child would be baptized/circumcised). Yet when the child passes away, David immediately stopped grieving:
I bolded the most important part of that passage. David states that someday, he will go to his son - his son is with the Lord! The child is not experiencing any of the pains of earthly life. We have a loving and merciful God, one who wants His people to be saved, one who says, “Let the little children come to Me.”
M
maklavan
Guest
Amen to that! Why do some want to condemn millions of innocent children to hell ? Jesus is the Divine Mercy. He came to save everyone, He who forgave a criminal on calvary is certainly not going to reject the innocent,
M
MacQ
Guest
Aye!
I
in_servitude
Guest
TOm is attempting to use the past Catholic Church teaching on the fate of unbaptized infants to show that the Catholic Church will change dogma - will blow with the wind - much like another faith tradition that some of us have experienced.
The question is not, “What is the fate of unbaptized babies?”
The question is, “Has the Church’s teachings on unbaptized babies changed with the times?”
If TOm can show that the Catholic Church does change its doctrines, then he can undermine the assertion that the Catholic Church is on the Rock - protected from error.
H
Horton
Guest
Tom’s motive is not one of searching truth but rather an attempt to collect quotes regarding the Catholic Church to repute her truth as Christ’s Church.
T
TOmNossor
Guest
I am not quite so one dimensional as you claim.
Within the Trinity controversy there are some very complex interactions that MIGHT be what I call a “fatal flaw.” Generally this would be a statement made by an EC that is contradicted by another EC. As I alluded to above, there are even more complex conditions for this such that the “acts of the council” (I think) are not irreformable.
I truly was listening to Catholic Answers. I truly thought that the Baltamore Catachism spoke of limbo (and it does, but far more tentatively then I thought it would). But what was obvious was that limbo was an option to rescue the unbaptized baby from obvious alternative hell. I studied this more than a month ago.
I stated and nobody has denied that there was a SEA-CHANGE that occurred sometime long after Aquinas toward the rejection of theological certainty concerning the fate of the unbaptized (be that hell or limbo). If that was ALL I wanted to show I think it is well accepted by all posters here.
That being said, I am truly committed to comparing the BEST view of Catholicism I could embrace to the BEST views of alternate theologies. I think it is possible that this statement: “2) Everyone suffering in Hell has actual sin to account for.”
With the presence of this in the ECF, I think there is much room for either Limbo or something other than hell. Without that I am still undecided, but I am open to being persuaded. The Trent statement by itself does not create the certainty that I had originally thought.
So, not after “fatal flaw” in this line of exploration.
Feel I have demonstrated changes in teaching (doctrine being another name for teaching), but I am not trying to demonstrate a change in binding doctrine.
And looking for the BEST Catholicism has to offer.
Charity, TOm
Within the Trinity controversy there are some very complex interactions that MIGHT be what I call a “fatal flaw.” Generally this would be a statement made by an EC that is contradicted by another EC. As I alluded to above, there are even more complex conditions for this such that the “acts of the council” (I think) are not irreformable.
I truly was listening to Catholic Answers. I truly thought that the Baltamore Catachism spoke of limbo (and it does, but far more tentatively then I thought it would). But what was obvious was that limbo was an option to rescue the unbaptized baby from obvious alternative hell. I studied this more than a month ago.
I stated and nobody has denied that there was a SEA-CHANGE that occurred sometime long after Aquinas toward the rejection of theological certainty concerning the fate of the unbaptized (be that hell or limbo). If that was ALL I wanted to show I think it is well accepted by all posters here.
That being said, I am truly committed to comparing the BEST view of Catholicism I could embrace to the BEST views of alternate theologies. I think it is possible that this statement: “2) Everyone suffering in Hell has actual sin to account for.”
With the presence of this in the ECF, I think there is much room for either Limbo or something other than hell. Without that I am still undecided, but I am open to being persuaded. The Trent statement by itself does not create the certainty that I had originally thought.
So, not after “fatal flaw” in this line of exploration.
Feel I have demonstrated changes in teaching (doctrine being another name for teaching), but I am not trying to demonstrate a change in binding doctrine.
And looking for the BEST Catholicism has to offer.
Charity, TOm
T
TK421
Guest
The proposition of limbo wasn’t that there was a Heaven, a limbo, and a Hell, but that limbo was a part of Hell. In the broadest sense, Hell is a state of being outside of the Beatific Vision in the next life. Unbaptized infants were said to be in limbo because they had original sin, and therefore were not perfected and could not enter the Beatific Vision, but because they had no personal sin, they would either be in a state of neutrality or in a state of natural happiness. Dante similarly described this “top level of Hell” as being the abode where the virtuous pagans dwelt, such as Plato, and they were not in a state of torment there. Below limbo, things became grizzly.
K
klm120861
Guest
In all of the searching of Church documents, you overlook on very simple but profound truth. According to the Catechism, there is the baptism of desire. In your arguments, you apply that baptism of desire only to adults who are catechumens and able to desire to be baptized - to make that choice for themselves.
In a way, all infants receive the baptism of desire because they are unable to choose to be baptized. Their parents choose it for them. The parents desire their child to be baptized. In that case, if the truly horrible should happen and the child should pass, the parent’s have sacramentally stated their desire that their child should go to heaven.
Would any parent, if they knew their child was not going to live long, desire less? It’s extremely doubtful. Even non-Christian parents would not want their child in hell. They just don’t believe such a place exists, therefore they don’t baptize their children as infants. Protestant parents would baptize their infants if they knew what baptism really was: a sacrament for the remission of sin, and not what they have been taught that it is: an outward sign of an inward transformation. How do I know these parents would desire that their child was baptized in the event of his death? Because I am one of those parents. Had I known then what I know now, I definitely would have had my child baptized. I didn’t. He passed long before I became Catholic. I know he is not in hell or in limbo. I know he is I heaven. I know he beholds the Beatific Vision. If you want to know the fate of unbaptized infants, ask their parents, especially their moms, because God, in his mercy and love lets us know. Or maybe it’s Our Lady who tells us. After all, she’s a mom, too. She knows what it is to bury your son.
Kris
In a way, all infants receive the baptism of desire because they are unable to choose to be baptized. Their parents choose it for them. The parents desire their child to be baptized. In that case, if the truly horrible should happen and the child should pass, the parent’s have sacramentally stated their desire that their child should go to heaven.
Would any parent, if they knew their child was not going to live long, desire less? It’s extremely doubtful. Even non-Christian parents would not want their child in hell. They just don’t believe such a place exists, therefore they don’t baptize their children as infants. Protestant parents would baptize their infants if they knew what baptism really was: a sacrament for the remission of sin, and not what they have been taught that it is: an outward sign of an inward transformation. How do I know these parents would desire that their child was baptized in the event of his death? Because I am one of those parents. Had I known then what I know now, I definitely would have had my child baptized. I didn’t. He passed long before I became Catholic. I know he is not in hell or in limbo. I know he is I heaven. I know he beholds the Beatific Vision. If you want to know the fate of unbaptized infants, ask their parents, especially their moms, because God, in his mercy and love lets us know. Or maybe it’s Our Lady who tells us. After all, she’s a mom, too. She knows what it is to bury your son.
Kris
J
Jon_S_1
Guest
It’s not correct to say a doctrine changed.
No
Instead a theological speculation changed or at least the focus/popularity of different speculations changed.
D
Della
Guest
Exactly. Just because some in the Church taught as if limbo were more than theological speculation doesn’t at all mean that the Church herself held to that understanding.
The Church is constantly exploring the meaning of Christ’s teachings as given to us by the Apostles. Thus doctrine develops over time to a deeper understanding but the teaching itself does not change. This is where dogma comes in–as doctrine that has been declared as required for belief, thus ending all theological speculations, such as the Immaculate Conception, which was not a new doctrine or belief when do declared, but rather an ancient teaching more fully explored and declared a dogma.
Unless one has a firm grasp on the development of doctrine/dogma it is very easy to fall into thinking that this or that teaching or speculation has changed. There has been no “sea-change” in the teaching regarding the fate of unbaptized infants. The Church has always held that we cannot know their fate since God has not revealed it to us. Many have put forward theological speculations about it, but that’s all they are, nothing more and nothing less and never will be anything else. We give the unbaptized infants (and indeed all the unbaptized) into God’s mercy because that is all we can do since we have not been definitively told what happens to them.
Stephen168
New member
R
RebeccaJ
Guest
Tom, the sea change was the discovery of the “new world”.
The ECF addressed the fate of apostates and heretics, which first has a basis in an understanding that apostates and heretics are taught Christians and reject the church’s authority, or teaching, on the necessity of baptism for those who have been taught the Gospel message.
Forward to the time of Constantine, the theology was then based on the belief that the world had been taught explicitly, or heard of, the Gospel message, and therefore, rejection of this message via rejection of baptism had a consequence of condemnation and no appeal to invincible ignorance.
This remained the theological view through the Middle Ages, where we come to St. Thomas Aquinas, whose analysis shows that the yet unbaptized or martyrs, who had a desire to be baptized but were not before death, have a baptism of desire. BTW, his analysis explicitly shows that the Sacraments are not necessary to God.
Then two things occurred, relatively close together. The Protestant Reformation and the discovery of the “new world”. In this time, you have the Council of Trent, but also theological analysis on what it means when you discover an entire hemisphere of people who have never heard the Gospel message, yet, obviously have been living in the Christian age. They do not fall in the theological analysis concerning apostates, heretics or people of the known world who have heard the Gospel message.
The sea change comes from necessity. Papal encyclicals teach, at this time, that a person who has never heard the gospel message, yet lived or are living, after our Salvation in Jesus Christ, are justified by Saving grace! Completely scriptural as St. Paul teaches the desire of the Father is that ALL should be saved.
The theological analysis follows, in explaining how this is possible, and is seen going forward at Vatican I, Vatican II, papal encyclicals and the catechism.
I think it is obvious, if theological analysis of doctrine can explain how invincible ignorance excuses an adult, logically the same can be said for infants. As the Catholic Churches have never viewed age as a reason to discriminate against baptism, or definitions of salvation.
The ECF addressed the fate of apostates and heretics, which first has a basis in an understanding that apostates and heretics are taught Christians and reject the church’s authority, or teaching, on the necessity of baptism for those who have been taught the Gospel message.
Forward to the time of Constantine, the theology was then based on the belief that the world had been taught explicitly, or heard of, the Gospel message, and therefore, rejection of this message via rejection of baptism had a consequence of condemnation and no appeal to invincible ignorance.
This remained the theological view through the Middle Ages, where we come to St. Thomas Aquinas, whose analysis shows that the yet unbaptized or martyrs, who had a desire to be baptized but were not before death, have a baptism of desire. BTW, his analysis explicitly shows that the Sacraments are not necessary to God.
Then two things occurred, relatively close together. The Protestant Reformation and the discovery of the “new world”. In this time, you have the Council of Trent, but also theological analysis on what it means when you discover an entire hemisphere of people who have never heard the Gospel message, yet, obviously have been living in the Christian age. They do not fall in the theological analysis concerning apostates, heretics or people of the known world who have heard the Gospel message.
The sea change comes from necessity. Papal encyclicals teach, at this time, that a person who has never heard the gospel message, yet lived or are living, after our Salvation in Jesus Christ, are justified by Saving grace! Completely scriptural as St. Paul teaches the desire of the Father is that ALL should be saved.
The theological analysis follows, in explaining how this is possible, and is seen going forward at Vatican I, Vatican II, papal encyclicals and the catechism.
I think it is obvious, if theological analysis of doctrine can explain how invincible ignorance excuses an adult, logically the same can be said for infants. As the Catholic Churches have never viewed age as a reason to discriminate against baptism, or definitions of salvation.
M
MacQ
Guest
I’m with you Kris…very well stated.
It’s apparent that when people get down in the weeds on such subjects, they don’t see simple truths…such as that you have nicely articulated.
(what’s that thing about not seeing the forest for the trees…!)
Another simple truth is that we believe in a loving and merciful God, whose desire is that we all be with Him. Hard to see how such a God would do anything other than hold them in His care.
I too feel sure about where your baby is…in Jesus loving arms.
T
TRH1292
Guest
I
in_servitude
Guest
What are you talking about?
I had a class taught by one of the people that wrote the current CCC. I think he would be very surprised by your statement.
Can you please support your “Ordinary Magisterium” claim?
T
TOmNossor
Guest
I had a class taught by one of the people that wrote the current CCC. I think he would be very surprised by your statement.
Can you please support your “Ordinary Magisterium” claim?
I hope to respond more to a number of the above comments, but it will probably not be today and maybe not till next week.
The statement I ATTEMPTED to make was that the current CCC had a lot more authority than the Baltimore Catechism. I understand the current CCC was reviewed and approved by, the Pope after it had been revised by 100’s of Bishops. I titled this a teaching of the “Ordinary Magisterium” to distinguish it as lesser than the acts of an EC or an Infallible decree from a Pope. The Baltimore Catechism didn’t get near this much scrutiny in its creation.
I am assuming that your response to me means that I erred in one direction or the other, but I am not sure which. If you can correct me that would be great.
Charity, TOm
J
Jon_S_1
Guest
You are correct Tom. The Baltimore Catechism is not at the same level as the current CCC
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RebeccaJ
Guest
The Baltimore Catechism was put out by the US Bishops, for use in the United States, only. The CCC is out of the Roman Curia, under John Paul II, meant for the entire Church. Catholics are under the jurisdiction of their Bishop first, who is in communion with all the US Bishops, and the Bishop of Rome.
There is an excellent “United States Catholic Catechism for Adults”, put out by the USCCB.
T
TexanKnight
Guest
This is a way for Tom to try to compare Popes, who do not claim to speak face to face with God and who do NOT claim to be prophets and therefore will speculate with lds “prophets” who claim to speak directly to God and call themselves “prophets, seers and revelators”
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