Rome and Universalism

[oneGODoneCHURCH]

Dear Scott,

Cordial greetings and thankyou for your reply above. Please forgive my delay in responding but it is my custom to have a breather from the boards at weekends.

Whilst I do appreciate the general purport of your argument, Pope Eugene’s words are, nevertheless, quite specific, “The most holy Roman Church firmly believes, professes and preaches that none of those existing outside the Catholic Church, not only pagan, but also Jews and Heretics and Schismatics can have a share in eternal life; but they will go into the eternal fire which was prepared for the Devil and his angels, unless before death they are joined with her” (Cantate Domino). Now clearly these words have no application to and indeed do not even refer the faithful who may be contemplating leaving the Church; they are incontrovertibly refering to “those existing outside the Catholic Church”.

Now it seems that at the Second Vatican Council a new and much broader religious definition of the church began to emerge and make its presence felt; one in which God’s presence is no longer exclusively contained within the Church. Thus, in such a new religious milieu, supposedly harsh and uncharitable words such as those of Pope Eugene’s, which unequivocally circumscribed the limits within which God and salvation could be found, presented a problem and embarrassment to the new Vatican II theologians, who were undeniably men of universal vision, or should I say, *universalist *vision?

The question for the new thinkers, men such as Karl Rahner (an official adviser), was precisely how can the new emerging theology endorse at the same time the tradtional view of the Church (noted for its exclusiveness), as expressed by Pope Eugene and Pope Innocent III for example, and the new vision with its new view of man (noted for its inclusiveness)?

The new progressive theologians were confident that a harmonization between the two opposing viewpoints could be found not merely by a legitimate development but by a radical reinterpretation of the old in terms of the new. In this way, elements of the traditional doctrine (which many disliked intensely) could be retained though their real substance was adapted and transformed. It is surely rather naive to assume that the likes of Rahner et al had no influence whatsoever, since their impact is to be seen in all the Council documents.

The old traditional Catholicism was formulated by men who were thoroughly and unreservedly convinced that they could know God’s truth infallibly; truth was always truth, error was always error and the distinction between the twain was never blurred. Consequently, there was, and still is, for traditional Catholics an unbridgeable chasm between Christ and the Devil, light and darkness, Catholic and non-Catholic religion. Morevover, traditional Catholics would not regard this as a rather facile oversimplification of of the actual situation, on the contrary, they would regard it as being loyal to the consistent teaching of the Church throughout its magnificent history, rather than capitulating to wishy-washy liberal sentiments, such as the whole notion of “anonymous Christians”.

Warmest good wishes,

Portrait

Pax

Dear Friend,

I still do not see the conflict, as Pope Eugene and others could not have been refering to those that had never heard the word. therefore God can not hold you respocible for what you have not been told. That the Pope could only have been teaching of those that had heard and been taught of God and Christ yet still reject. While it may sound that today teaching differs It is no more of a different teaching than Chirst giving us the Eucharist and years later the teaching of transsubstaniation. Many things have been taught at one point and it has been many years later that that teaching becomes more clearly defined.

Pope Eugene correctly taught no salvation outside the church. then people statred asking What about those before the church,or that have never heard of the churc, or God for that matter. So it bacame nessicary to expand upon that teaching.

 

[Portrait]

Dear Friend,

I still do not see the conflict, as Pope Eugene and others could not have been refering to those that had never heard the word. therefore God can not hold you respocible for what you have not been told. That the Pope could only have been teaching of those that had heard and been taught of God and Christ yet still reject. While it may sound that today teaching differs It is no more of a different teaching than Chirst giving us the Eucharist and years later the teaching of transsubstaniation. Many things have been taught at one point and it has been many years later that that teaching becomes more clearly defined.

Pope Eugene correctly taught no salvation outside the church. then people statred asking What about those before the church,or that have never heard of the churc, or God for that matter. So it bacame nessicary to expand upon that teaching.

Dear Scott,

Cordial greetings and thankyou kindly for your reply to my post.

That Pope Eugene was addressing Catholics or those who had embraced the Christian religion, does not materially affect the truth of his remarks concerning those outside the bosom of the Church. With respect to these he said that none of them could “have a share in eternal life; but they will go into the eternal fire… unless before death they are joined with her (i.e. the Church)”. These words seem plain enough and I do not see how any man could be mistaken as to their manifestly obvious meaning; they are certainly more perspicuous than the ecumenical language of the Vatican II documents.

With regards to your last paragraph, surely Pope Eugene and those who preceded him would have raised questions regarding the status of the O.T. faithful and the un-evangelised in the Gospel age. After all, these are issues of great moment and would naturally engage the minds of all earnest and thoughtful Christian men from the very earliest times. As a matter of fact the early Fathers, with great unanimity assert, that salvation is only to be had through Christ and in the Church of Christ. The absolute necessity of cleaving to Christ, of being baptized, and of belonging to the Catholic Church, is much and constantly dwelt upon. However, did any of these early Fathers entertain a charitable hope concerning the salvability of pagans, or at least the men of good-will among them?; did they believe that the religious and virtuous Gentile might have been saved? If the answer is in the affiramative, then how do we explain Pope Eugene’s uncompromising and resolute words, which condemn all pagans to Hell, unless before death they are joined to the Church?

With respect to the un-evangelised, the language of Vatican II appears to be based on the premise that to any reasonable person it would be downright unjust to consign to eternal Hell those who have not availed themselves of a medicine of which they have never heard, “through no fault of their own”; God will not abandon those who have not known and therefore have not consciously declined the offer of grace. This is an admirable and charitable sentiment, but is it really true and is it even consonant with a fair and correct interpretation of Sacred Scripture?

St. Paul states that even those with no written law to guide or instruct them “show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness…” (Rom. 2: 15). One could term this the point of contact. Whilst man’s moral consciousness was wounded by the Fall, it was not utterly destroyed. Thus the pagan who has never heard God’s law (or even of God for that matter) still has some intuitive sense of right and wrong; for example, he approves of honesty; he responds to love and kindness; he resents it if a man steals his possessions or injures him. In other words, he has a conscience which passes independent judgement on his conduct - a law written on his heart, to use biblical terminology. It is on this basis that he will be held to account and on which he will be judged and his destiny determined.

There is sufficient knowledge for each man after the Fall to be accountable and liable for his sins. Every man has received the law of God in one form or another and every man has broken it in one way or another. God does not surely allow any of His creatures to be eternally lost without, in His own way, seeking to win them, even by special inspiration.

Warmest good wishes,

Portrait

Pax

 

[Portrait]

F.A.O. one GodoneChurch

Dear Scott,

Cordial greetings dear friend.

Have decided to migrate to the thread, “Salvation outside the Church” (Traditional Catholicism forum), which looks extremely interesting and I would like to get involved.

Maybe I will see you on that forum, if I don’t, then may I thank kindly for your time and courteous responses.

Perhaps you, and the others on this thread, are right and my opinions are mistaken on this issue. It is a topic that I have wrestled with for somewhile, even before I converted to Catholicism last year. Please pray that the penny will drop and that light will dawn for me.

God bless you Scott.

Warmest good wishes,

Portrait

Pax

 

[oneGODoneCHURCH]

F.A.O. one GodoneChurch

Dear Scott,

Cordial greetings dear friend.

Have decided to migrate to the thread, “Salvation outside the Church” (Traditional Catholicism forum), which looks extremely interesting and I would like to get involved.

Maybe I will see you on that forum, if I don’t, then may I thank kindly for your time and courteous responses.

Perhaps you, and the others on this thread, are right and my opinions are mistaken on this issue. It is a topic that I have wrestled with for somewhile, even before I converted to Catholicism last year. Please pray that the penny will drop and that light will dawn for me.

God bless you Scott.

Warmest good wishes,

Portrait

Pax

Dear Friend,

It is a issue that I struggled with for a long time. I just do not see a conflivt between what was taught and what is taught now. I see that now it is taught as an explainations of what was taught and just how that works.

Sort of like chirst said this is my body and blood. for years that was enough. then at some point it became nessecary in the Western church to define the Eucharist with the word Transsubstanitation.