Salvation for Non-Catholics

[z0wb13]

Let me ask you a honest question. What would make you think that if you do not choose to accept Jesus in this life you would change your mind in the next then?

well, the main reason that i don’t accept jesus is that i don’t believe in the supernatural. so ghosts and fairies and all other mythology are just that to me.

now, if christians, specifically catholics,were right all along, then i’m supposed to die and float up, figuratively, to be judged, literally, i guess by saint peter, but really it could be anything, even a dragon, “because anything is possible with the Mercy of God.”

but my point is that i’m honestly not close-minded. if santa claus came down my chimney on chirstmas, i would immediately start “believing” in flying reindeer and his naughty/nice list and all the rest of it. just like if i get to the afterlife, it would be irrefutable that an afterlife exists, and i would probably be much more responsive to the christian message. but it won’t, so i don’t.

PJM:
2. The MAJOR reason is that through CREATION 1st. of the Universe, then humanity; the evidence For a God is unavoidable and THEREFORE "can be known by everyone’. Anyone one who rejects this FACT; HAS chosen to reject God; the one unforgiveable sin and therefore DAMMS themself for Eternity.

i don’t think that the existence of the universe PROVES that your god exists. it could just as easily be “proven” that any other god created the universe. it could have been a giant hippo god. but i think that it is much simpler to believe that there are no gods, and no miracles, and that’s actually what my religion teaches, so you kind of have to respect that as per the forum’s rules;p

so but if you are right, and your god made me, why did he make me an atheist? why didn’t he give me the tools to turn off the part of brain that stops me from believing in the impossible? why did your cruel god damn me to hell by making me this way?

thanks for answering, these are still real questions;p

 

[grandfather]

so does this mean that i can still go to heaven, even though if i’m an atheist? please be specific, this is a real question.

because i’ve never thought that believing in jesus as a god was a choice that i could make. it isn’t that my heart is hardened; if jesus christ floated down on a cloud to meet me, i would dramatically revise my worldview;p

Catholics believe there are three things necessary for salvation, faith, hope and charity. My little penny catechism asks, “What must I do to be saved”? The answer is, “You must worship God in faith, hope and love”.

Faith is knowledge. It is knowledge we obtain about spiritual things by believing what God has revealed, not figuring it out by the power of our finite intellect. We can not discover by the power of human intellect things about a spiritual dimension we can not experience with our physical senses. Even if we have spiritual experiences our minds are to small to understand what they mean and we could misinterpret the meaning. We can not know what will become of our souls when we die not having experienced it anymore than a baby can know what his life will be like here on earth.

Hope is inspired by faith.

Faith and hope end when we die.

Faith, hope and charity (love) are called theological virtues, because they come to the soul directly from God who would give them to everyone willing to accept them. We can reject them.

Love endures forever. The purpose, the reason we exist is to love and be loved. That is why God made us. We know this by faith. If you believe what I just wrote you know why you exist, by faith. I did not figure it out. I believed it and now know why I exist, and you do. It is the universal purpose of all of us.

We will either achieve it or be lost forever. You take love with you when you die. It is more powerful than death. It is very difficult to get to a destiny, to head in its direction if you do not know where you are going.

Everyone talks about love and most people believe it exists, but they know little of what it really is. Love can not be weighed or measured or timed by instruments of the natural sciences. It exists outside the material world. If it exists and is not material, then it is spiritual.

If you love you will go to heaven. You have to know how to do that. You will not find out if you have charity until you face God in judgement on whether or not you achieved your purpose. He tells us. We can not judge ourselves.

 

[grandfather]

I personally don’t care about the afterlife.

You will!

 

[grandfather]

OK!

But does Baptism have more than a single acceptable form?

What about those that TRULY do not have an opportunity to KNOW OF CHRIST?

Godbless,
pat/PJM

We are judged by what is given to us. Think of the parable of those given various amounts of talents to invest. We have to use what we have been given properly.

 

[fred_conty]

Alright, so we ‘don’t know’ and ‘just leave it up to God to decide.’ What do Catholics do with the idea:

Hi, here is an old post that explains this for you.
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=644884&page=14

Boniface is making a solemn statement not about the salvation of individual human persons but rather one about the essential nature of the papacy to the salvation of humanity and individual persons. He is trying to clarify his office and why it is essential at a time when the papacy was increasigly being challenged. His reign was very difficult. He had continued feuds with kings and their populace who rejected his authority. When King Frederick III of Sicily attained his throne after the death of Pedro III, Boniface tried to dissuade him from accepting the throne of Sicily. When Frederick persisted, Boniface laid excommunication on him, and an interdict upon the island of Sicily in 1296 that denied Catholic priests the right to conduct certain services there. Neither king nor people responded to this censure but ignored the Pope.

This happened on numerous occassions, and Boniface had simply had enough. And so on 18 November 1302, Boniface issued the bull Unam sanctam. It declared that both spiritual and temporal power were under the pope’s jurisdiction, and that kings were subordinate to the power of the Roman pontiff.

It is a difference in degree, and not of kind. You have simply, to my mind, read it to mean something which it doesn’t.

Boniface is saying that the papacy is essential to the salvation of the world. All human beings are subject to his authority and this must be the case because the papal jurisdiction over humanity is essential. Its an ingenious slap in the dish to the plethora of kings who rejected his authority and told their populations to do so, and it made Boniface most unpopular. There was even a posthumous trial held after his death by the next pope because people were accusing him of ‘sodomy’ and heresy because they hated him so much for his standing up to Europe’s secular rulers.

If you read this in context, you can clearly see the desperate situation Boniface was in and why he had no choice but to make a solemn declaration of papal authority.

If he had said it “off-the-cuff” without the dire contemporaty circumstances in which Unam Sanctum was promulgated, then you would have more cause I think to ask: “Why is Boniface stating the obvious?”

He’s stating “the obvious” because actually, secular kings thought that they could control him like a pawn and rejected papal authority and so it wasn’t at all obvious that the office of papacy was essential in the minds of many laymen of the time.

And also its not my interpretation but rather Pope Innocent III’s and Pope Innocent IV’s and that of the Medeival Church

Boniface is simply taking their doctrine in their deecres, parts of which he referenced and quoted in the bull, and making it solemn, defined and irrefutable for the secular kings challenging his authority: The papal ministry of jurisdiction over all souls is essential to salvation and cannot be disputed.

The whole Bull is about defending papal authority, not judging the salvation of those outside the Church. That is giving it a meaning not warranted by the text of the Bull or the reasons for why it was promulgated - which is even more ludicrous given that Boniface bases his arguement on the writings of the Pope who defined papal authority as being already over all souls both within and without the Church each according to their own law.

 

[Publisher]

I personally don’t care about the afterlife.

I don’t either friend…this life has enough for me to care about. The afterlife will take care of itself. “Today IS the day of salvation…NOW is the appointed time”. We have enough to do in this world to be concerned with “the world to come”…Eternal Life begins NOW…not later…so we live NOW a New Life…and will find perfect continuity when we finally breath our last…some times Christians are “so heavenly minded, they become no earthly good.”

 

[Kristin234]

now, if christians, specifically catholics,were right all along, then i’m supposed to die and float up, figuratively, to be judged, literally, i guess by saint peter, but really it could be anything, even a dragon, “because anything is possible with the Mercy of God.”

No. It won’t be just anything. Jesus Christ will be our judge. The Bible tells us that.

“This will take place on the day when God will judge men’s secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares.”

but my point is that i’m honestly not close-minded. if santa claus came down my chimney on chirstmas, i would immediately start “believing” in flying reindeer and his naughty/nice list and all the rest of it. just like if i get to the afterlife, it would be irrefutable that an afterlife exists, and i would probably be much more responsive to the christian message. but it won’t, so i don’t.

Yes you are right that won’t happen. He has proven His existence through our universe and His Word. THAT is Him shouting at you telling you He loves you and He exists. Whether you choose to believe in that or not is up to you. He will not come down from heaven and force you to believe in Him.

so but if you are right, and your god made me, why did he make me an atheist? why didn’t he give me the tools to** turn off the part of brain that stops me from believing in the impossible**? why did your cruel god damn me to hell by making me this way?

That is subjective. To me I believe one would have have to have more faith to believe that we came from nothing than to believe that something…or someone made us. So, to me believing the impossible would be to believe we came from nothing. Even if someone showed you all the proof in the world you would still need that faith to believe it.

God did not make you an atheist. Just like how God does not make a murderer, a pedophile, or a rapist. You chose to become an atheist. You see, God loves us and He wants us to love Him back on our own. He wants to have a genuine relationship with every single person in the world. He does not want robots who will worship Him with the snap of His finger. He could have done that if He really wanted to. Because He loves us He let’s us choose. However, just because He let’s us choose does not mean there will not be any consequences if you choose the wrong thing. It is like a 16 year old who just got his license. His parents say he can drive but if he speeds and gets a ticket they will take the car away from him. This kid can listen to his parents and drive carefully and always be allowed to drive, or he can speed and get a ticket and have his car taken away. If he makes the decision to speed and get a ticket because he had to make his curfew and his car is taken away what right does he have to argue it? He was told that that would happen to him. How ridiculous would it be for him to say “my parents made me get a ticket because my curfew was too early and now they are punishing me by taking my car away.”

 

[rinnie]

OK!

But does Baptism have more than a single acceptable form?

What about those that TRULY do not have an opportunity to KNOW OF CHRIST?

Godbless,
pat/PJM

We are taught there is Baptsim of desire in the CC.

Again we are not saying that Baptism trumps the mercy of God, We can believe in his mercy.

But we also cannot teach you can enter heaven without it because we cannot go against the word of God.

But here is what I think, If we agree we can rely on Gods mercy who is to say when a person on the last day meets Christ and accepts him face to face can’t get in, I think they can.

But again I do not know the mind of Christ.

 

[rinnie]

I don’t either friend…this life has enough for me to care about. The afterlife will take care of itself. “Today IS the day of salvation…NOW is the appointed time”. We have enough to do in this world to be concerned with “the world to come”…Eternal Life begins NOW…not later…so we live NOW a New Life…and will find perfect continuity when we finally breath our last…some times Christians are “so heavenly minded, they become no earthly good.”

Boy I do. Personally I could care less about his life. This life is temporary.

Jesus tells us this is not his world. If this was his world he said my people would not want to kill me.

He tells his Apostles this is not your world either. This is the world of the evil one. Jesus said my world is the next world.

Jesus says if this world hates you remember it hated me first. But the next world is what I am waiting for.

The next world is eternal life In Christ. To be able to see God face to face. thats what I ma talking about. Thats worth waiting for.

I will continue to suffer, carry the crosses God gives me, and pray he helps me carry every one of them. But I cannot wait for the perfect world with Christ.

Where there is no death, no suffereing, no hate, no jealousy. Only pure eternal bliss.:extrahappy:

 

[rinnie]

We are judged by what is given to us. Think of the parable of those given various amounts of talents to invest. We have to use what we have been given properly.

Exactly. We can only be held responsible for what Grace we are given by God.

There are many who have never had the Grace to receive the good news. God will judge us on what we do with the grace we were given.

 

[fred_conty]

so does this mean that i can still go to heaven, even though if i’m an atheist? please be specific, this is a real question.

because i’ve never thought that believing in jesus as a god was a choice that i could make. it isn’t that my heart is hardened; if jesus christ floated down on a cloud to meet me, i would dramatically revise my worldview;p

In answer to that question here are some considerations from the catechism…

846 … they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it.336
847 This affirmation is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church:

Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too may achieve eternal salvation.337
end of quote…

Whether this happens to an atheist or not would depend on the person.
It has been stated that God can be known thru the light of natural reason.
Tho this is true, there are shades of handicaps and prejudices that may alter this which the person is not responsible for. So whether each atheist is sincere in his conscience is his knowledge and not anyone else’s, then if there are such, then I believe they would fit the church’s description above. How this would come about is entirely left to divine goodness.

Just a few thoughts.

 

[Publisher]

Boy I do. Personally I could care less about his life. This life is temporary.

Jesus tells us this is not his world. If this was his world he said my people would not want to kill me.

He tells his Apostles this is not your world either. This is the world of the evil one. Jesus said my world is the next world.

Jesus says if this world hates you remember it hated me first. But the next world is what I am waiting for.

The next world is eternal life In Christ. To be able to see God face to face. thats what I ma talking about. Thats worth waiting for.

I will continue to suffer, carry the crosses God gives me, and pray he helps me carry every one of them. But I cannot wait for the perfect world with Christ.

Where there is no death, no suffereing, no hate, no jealousy. Only pure eternal bliss.:extrahappy:

The life you describe will not occur unless THIS LIFE is given the utmost concern and lived to it’s fullest…“I have come that you may have life and have it more abundantly”…“the Kingdom of God is among you…within you.” It is a present reality…the afterlife will take care of itself.

But to each his own…I find no meaning in an “afterlife”…but I do find deep profound meaning in this one.

 

[meltzerboy]

so does this mean that i can still go to heaven, even though if i’m an atheist? please be specific, this is a real question.

because i’ve never thought that believing in jesus as a god was a choice that i could make. it isn’t that my heart is hardened; if jesus christ floated down on a cloud to meet me, i would dramatically revise my worldview;p

Pardon my ignorance, but is it true that Taoism does not believe in either a personal or impersonal G-d?

 

[meltzerboy]

The life you describe will not occur unless THIS LIFE is given the utmost concern and lived to it’s fullest…“I have come that you may have life and have it more abundantly”…“the Kingdom of God is among you…within you.” It is a present reality…the afterlife will take care of itself.

But to each his own…I find no meaning in an “afterlife”…but I do find deep profound meaning in this one.

And, as you may already know, the emphasis on this life–including making the world a better place to live for everyone–and the belief that the afterlife will be taken care of by G-d, is shared by Judaism.

 

[Publisher]

And, as you may already know, the emphasis on this life–including making the world a better place to live for everyone–and the belief that the afterlife will be taken care of by G-d, is shared by Judaism.

Yes I do…thanks to you I became more curious and have read a few articles on Judaism…as well as a few articles by Jewish Quakers who echoed your post.

 

[rinnie]

The life you describe will not occur unless THIS LIFE is given the utmost concern and lived to it’s fullest…“I have come that you may have life and have it more abundantly”…“the Kingdom of God is among you…within you.” It is a present reality…the afterlife will take care of itself.

But to each his own…I find no meaning in an “afterlife”…but I do find deep profound meaning in this one.

I do not disagree with that. Of course we must live this life in the fullest and to live it to its fullest means to do what we were put here to do.

Praise God, And I also agree that if you have God in your heart and your life you can have a good life on this earth.

But my point is you will not find perfect happiness in this life. It is not possible. No matter how good you are, how much you pray, how full your life is, it will not be even close to the happiness you will receive when you are received into heaven.

You are put in this world to suffer. No one was promised paradise here. And no one can say they ever got it.

Perfect happiness and a perfect life will not be in this world. Only the next.

If you disagree show me ONE person who claims it so.

I don’t care who you are you are going to suffer one way or another in this world. You will not have any suffering in the next.

And as hard as this may be for you to believe, the closer you are to God, the harder this world is. Because when you see others suffer your love for them and God makes you suffer along with them also. And it makes this world harder to bear at times.

 

[Kristin234]

I think the problem is many think that God can go against His Word. They say yes God does say we must believe in Jesus in order to not be condemned but He can still save anyone He wants. True. God can save anyone He wants. He can save the whole world right now if He wants. The thing is, He won’t. I’m not judging who will and won’t go to heaven but the Bible is very clear that those who believe in Him will not be condemned and those who do not believe in Him are already condemned. His Word also tells us that you must be born again in order to be saved. God will not go against His Word. If He did He would be a liar would He not? He will not say that you must do this and believe in this to be saved and then turn around and save those who did not do that. That is why he is a Just God.

When it comes down to it you are living your life in sin. You can be the best person but without Jesus you will continue living your life in sin and being good is not going to cut it. God does not tolerate sin. The only reason anyone has a chance at being saved is because they acknowledge Jesus Christ as God and His precious blood covers them. Without that how can one possibly be saved?

 

[PumpkinSeed]

Of course protestants can make it into heaven. As for the Jews, I’m not sure. Jesus said the only way is through him.

 

[rinnie]

Of course protestants can make it into heaven. As for the Jews, I’m not sure. Jesus said the only way is through him.

Let me ask you this, and think about what I am saying okay?

Okay you believe that Protestants can get into heaven because they accept Jesus. Okay now I agree with you.

But let me turn this around on you just for a minute. Did Jesus die on the cross for the sins of every single person? Or only for the people who see him in the fullness of the Trinity which is the fullness of God.

Because if Jesus only died for those who accept him in the fullness of the faith, then it would be fair to say Jesus did not die for the sins of the Jews only Christians? Right?

Please don’t think I am trying to put words in your mouth. I am only trying to show you another way of seeing this.

We are taught that the Church is a mystery. And the Church acknowledges that in Gods plan of salvation the beginnings of its faith and election are to be found in the partriarch Moses and the Prophets.

In Gal 3:7 It does say all Christs faithful who as people of faith are daughters and sons of Abraham are included in the same patriarchs call and that salvation of the church is MYSTICALLY PREFIGURED in the exodus of Gods chosen people from the land of bondage.

So what I am saying I believe that there is someway they are tied to Christ and his Church. Can’t tell ya how, or why, But just thats its the word of God.

 

[rinnie]

Here is something else to really think about. God said the Jews were the chosen people.

Now many Jews did indeed reject God in Christ. I do not disagree this for a moment.

But God said he would never reject his people. God never lies.

Now listen to what David says. Let their table become a snare and a trap and retribution for them. Let their eyes be darkened so that they Cannot see, and bend their backs forever.

St Paul tells us God himself darkend the eyes of the Jews so they cannot recognize him as the Messiah.

BUt he also says So I ask have they stumbled as to fall? By no means but through their trespasses salvation has come to the gentiles so to make God jealous.

What do you think of this scripture? Does it get you thinking a little more?