SPLIT: Does Invincible Ignorance Apply to Devout Protestants?

[TrueLight]

I say it does.

Protestants who are raised by generations of Protestants are ignorant that the Catholic Church is a true church. To assert that anyone can go online and read about the Catholic Church and convert to the Church is the same as saying that any Catholic that stumbles upon a Mormon site, for example will suddenly convert to Mormonism.

The quote below expresses my feelings on the topic.

I am not saying this because I’m an ex Protestant. I can do as other Protestants have done and jump on the condemn all Protestants bandwagon.

That is not to say we are not to try to convert Protestants. I believe we should labor whether in prayer or through evangelical outreach to be God’s instruments in converting these souls.

I am posting this in the Traditional Catholics forum because Traditional Catholics tend to be very close-minded regarding this issue, and reject all Post-Vatican II documents on the topic as if they don’t exist.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t agree with the gist of some more modern documents, but as Catholics, we need to look as everything as a whole and make a decision based on past and present teachings, which should complement each other.

What say you?

Invincible Ignorance

**
Excerpt **

Are there many people in that position? I don’t know; my own impression is that there are very few Protestants who are Protestants in bad faith. They are in good faith, so long as they remain outside the Church through invincible ignorance. That’s a phrase of ours that worries people frightfully; when we tell them they are the victims of invincible ignorance, they always look as if we had said something rude. But if you are arguing with a friend, and are driven to tell him in the last resort that invincible ignorance is what he is suffering from, don’t let him go away with the impression that you are being rude, and that invincible ignorance means a sort of cretinous stupidity. If you’ve got a tutorial at six, and your watch tells you it’s half-past five, and you’re pretty sure your watch is wrong, and there’s a clock in the next room you know to be right – then that ignorance of the time which makes you half an hour or so late for your tutorial is not invincible ignorance. It is vincible ignorance; you could have overcome it if you had taken the trouble to look at the clock in the next room. So your friend’s ignorance would be vincible, if he already had a pretty shrewd idea that the Catholic position was right, but refused to read the Catholic Truth Society tracts you offered him because he jolly well knew he was going to lose a legacy if he became a Catholic. But that’s not his position; a hundred accidents of parentage, education, misconception, sentimental prejudice and so on make him so far from the Church that his conversion would seem a kind of miracle; he really knows nothing about Catholics except that you are one, which may or may not be an inducement – very well, his ignorance is invincible. It is the kind of ignorance he could not get rid of by taking any steps which he could normally be expected to take. So he’s all right.

By now, as I well know, you are all bursting with an objection. It always crops up in these discussions. If (you say) this rosy picture of yours is true about the dispositions of Protestants and their chances of eternal salvation, what exactly is the use of being a Catholic? Aren’t Catholics, by your account of the matter, rather in the position of men who laboriously climb up the rugged slopes of a mountain, to find when they got to the top that their Protestant friends have got ahead of them by means of a funicular railway whose existence they themselves had never been taught to suspect? Here am I (you complain) tied down by all sorts of restrictions and regulations which interfere seriously with my enjoyment of the present life; and here are these Protestants, invincibly ignorant of all these rules and regulations, and therefore having all the fun which I miss, and no worse off when it comes to a future life than myself? Your attitude, in fact, is very much that of the laborers in the vineyard whom we read about in the Gospel, who complained that they had borne all the burden of the day and the heats, and at the end of it found themselves on exactly the same footing as the casual laborers who had been raked in from the marketplace at the last moment.

 

[TrueLight]

Continued…

Well, that opens up rather a large subject. You see, it isn’t true that Protestants are exempt from the law of God, from the Ten Commandments for instance; and it isn’t true that Protestants can be invincibly ignorant, to a full extent, of what God’s law requires of them. Their consciences are doubtless confused; but don’t be too ready to believe them when they say they see no harm in doing this or that which you know to be wrong. There’s a great deal of self-deception going about, when people say they “see no harm” in doing something they very much want to; it’s not invincible ignorance when a man puts blinkers on his conscience. We are not to judge our Protestant friends in such cases; judgment lies with Almighty God, to whom each soul is responsible. But you mustn’t think it true for a moment, or allow other people to think it true for a moment, that there is one Divine Law for Catholics and another for Protestants. However, that takes us away from our subject. Let us admit that where the law of the Church is concerned you are bound and your Protestant friends are not. They can do certain things which you can’t do; they can eat a mutton-chop on a Friday, they can be Freemasons, they can get married in a registry office, they can leave directions in their wills to say they want to be cremated, and so on. From all these riotous pleasures you are excluded. And you want to know whether it isn’t bad luck you should be excluded when they aren’t. Or, putting the thing in a rather more altruistic way, why (you ask) should we bother to convert Protestants? Since they are in good faith, wouldn’t it be better to leave them in good faith, and let them get to heaven in their own way, mutton-chops and all?

The immediate answer to that difficulty is this – that although we ought always to hope, for the sake of charity, that this or that Protestant is in good faith, we can’t be sure that he is in good faith, nor, for that matter, can he. Therefore we should always encourage the conversion of a Protestant, if only for safety’s sake. But, you know, even if you could be certain that some friend of yours was in good faith, and was on the whole a clean-living sort of person, so that there was no great reason to worry about him, it isn’t true to say that you and he enjoy exactly the same supernatural advantages. First, you have the certainty of faith; you are spared the anxious uncertainties which often assail him; he’s not certain whether there is a future life, whether his life’s worth living, whether anything you do or say really matters much – from these doubts you are set free.Second, you have access, where he has no access, to sacramental grace; he can win forgiveness for his sins (for example) only by an act of perfect contrition, and who can be certain that he is making an act of perfect contrition? Whereas for you attrition suffices, as long as you make use of the sacrament of penance. Third, you have the merits of the Church at your disposal; you can go out to Rome in the vacation and get a plenary indulgence, or (if your dispositions are not sufficient for that) an indulgence of some kind; he can go out to Kamchatka and he won’t get off a day’s Purgatory for it. The reason why you don’t realize your privileges as Catholics is because you don’t use them more.

As a matter of fact, even if there were no heaven and no hell, it would still be our duty to try and convert heretics, even those who are only in material heresy, for a different reason – that truth is truth, and has a right to be told. Spiritual truth, which is the highest of all, is something we must necessarily want to impart to other people if we possess it ourselves. I don’t mean by that that I want you to go straight back to your College and try and convert the two people you are sitting next to in Hall. Indiscriminate attempts to convert other people mean, at the best, that you give people a dislike for Catholicism; at the worst, that you shake what faith they have in Christianity altogether, so that the last state of them is worse than the first. No, your duty is to defend the faith to the best of your power where you can see it is being misrepresented, and to help your friends when they begin to take an interest in the Catholic religion, by lending them books, by introducing them to a priest, or in some similar way.

There’s one other point. If you are asked, “What is the exact meaning of the maxim, No salvation outside the Catholic Church,” what are you to say about it? The simplest way to put it, I think, is this – there is no other religious body in the world except the Catholic Church which makes a supernatural contribution to a man’s chances of salvation. He may receive natural help from some other source; his conscience may be stirred by the preaching of the Salvation Army, or he may learn a useful habit of mental prayer from the Buchmanites, or his sense of worship may be stimulated by the beauty of the ceremonies which he witnesses at the Church of the Cowley Fathers. But there’s only one religious body whose membership, of itself, tends to procure our salvation, and that is the Catholic Church. If anybody is saved without visible membership of it he is saved, not because he’s an Anglican, not because he’s a Methodist, not because he’s a Quaker, but for one reason only – because he is a Catholic without knowing it.

 

[NewsTheMan]

I would say: it depends if they are truly invincibly ignorant or not. That’s not circular reasoning either. From the start I’ll reiterate: only God can judge, only God knows the state of a soul, their intentions, etc. All that we know is what we are supposed to do, and what we are supposed to tell other people to do.

A few points - this is as I understand it in light of what the Church teaches:

1. Someone cannot claim invincible ignorance
2. Someone who knows what invincible ignorance means, cannot be invincibly ignorant.
3. Those who are truly invincibly ignorant are not non-Catholics. They are Catholics, joined invisibly to the Church.
4. Those who are invincibly ignorant are not guaranteed salvation, they just have a chance.
5. Invincible ignorance is not a means of salvation

From the Catholic Encyclopaedia

So far as fixing human responsibility, the most important division of ignorance is that designated by the terms invincible and vincible. Ignorance is said to be invincible when a person is unable to rid himself of it notwithstanding the employment of moral diligence, that is, such as under the circumstances is, morally speaking, possible and obligatory. This manifestly includes the states of inadvertence, forgetfulness, etc. Such ignorance is obviously involuntary and therefore not imputable. On the other hand, ignorance is termed vincible if it can be dispelled by the use of “moral diligence”. This certainly does not mean all possible effort; otherwise, as Ballerini naively says, we should have to have recourse to the pope in every instance. We may say, however, that the diligence requisite must be commensurate with the importance of the affair in hand, and with the capacity of the agent, in a word such as a really sensible and prudent person would use under the circumstances. Furthermore, it must be remembered that the obligation mentioned above is to be interpreted strictly and exclusively as the duty incumbent on a man to do something, the precise object of which is the acquisition of the needed knowledge. In other words the mere fact that one is bound by some extrinsic title to do something the performance of which would have actually, though not necessarily, given the required information, is negligible. When ignorance is deliberately aimed at and fostered, it is said to be affected, not because it is pretended, but rather because it is sought for by the agent so that he may not have to relinquish his purpose. Ignorance which practically no effort is made to dispel is termed crass or supine.

Here is an interesting blogpost on the topic by a redemptorist too.

If a protestant comes across a Catholic website, it seems to me that he is no longer invincibly ignorant. At all. Think of it in terms of food if you will. There’s a difference between starving and choosing to fast. If someone is starving, then all of a sudden they come across something to eat that clearly others are eating and enjoying and there is plenty to go around… they can no longer have any moral claim to be starving. At that point, they are fasting in a self imposed way. The moral claim has gone. They cannot beg of someone and say “but I am starving” when the option of food was right there. Analogies always fail, but it gets the job done.

Protestants who live among us today - unless they are in the far corners of the globe and only interact with other protestants - cannot, it seems to me, be called invincibly ignorant.

 

[Incomplete]

If a protestant comes across a Catholic website, it seems to me that he is no longer invincibly ignorant. At all. Think of it in terms of food if you will. There’s a difference between starving and choosing to fast. If someone is starving, then all of a sudden they come across something to eat that clearly others are eating and enjoying and there is plenty to go around… they can no longer have any moral claim to be starving. At that point, they are fasting in a self imposed way. The moral claim has gone. They cannot beg of someone and say “but I am starving” when the option of food was right there. Analogies always fail, but it gets the job done.

Protestants who live among us today - unless they are in the far corners of the globe and only interact with other protestants - cannot, it seems to me, be called invincibly ignorant.

But what if they come across a Catholic website and don’t believe they are reading truth?

One of my closest friends is a devout Protestant. We talk and occasionally even debate. She even listens to Catholic radio sometimes. Yet she is not convinced of Catholicism. And I know very few people who love God and try to follow in His path the way she does.

She would say she is not starving. In her dedicated prayer and worship life, and her striving to follow God’s will, I would have to agree. Though you may think that it’s obvious that we are all called to Catholicism (as do I) it is not always so obvious to others.

 

[christosdavid]

I would say: it depends if they are truly invincibly ignorant or not. That’s not circular reasoning either. From the start I’ll reiterate: only God can judge, only God knows the state of a soul, their intentions, etc. All that we know is what we are supposed to do, and what we are supposed to tell other people to do.

A few points - this is as I understand it in light of what the Church teaches:

1. Someone cannot claim invincible ignorance
2. Someone who knows what invincible ignorance means, cannot be invincibly ignorant.
3. Those who are truly invincibly ignorant are not non-Catholics. They are Catholics, joined invisibly to the Church.
4. Those who are invincibly ignorant are not guaranteed salvation, they just have a chance.
5. Invincible ignorance is not a means of salvation

From the Catholic Encyclopaedia

Here is an interesting blogpost on the topic by a redemptorist too.

If a protestant comes across a Catholic website, it seems to me that he is no longer invincibly ignorant. At all. Think of it in terms of food if you will. There’s a difference between starving and choosing to fast. If someone is starving, then all of a sudden they come across something to eat that clearly others are eating and enjoying and there is plenty to go around… they can no longer have any moral claim to be starving. At that point, they are fasting in a self imposed way. The moral claim has gone. They cannot beg of someone and say “but I am starving” when the option of food was right there. Analogies always fail, but it gets the job done.

Protestants who live among us today - unless they are in the far corners of the globe and only interact with other protestants - cannot, it seems to me, be called invincibly ignorant.

I’m not sure Protestant Christians really are starving, after all, they pray for our Father to provide their daily bread the same as we do…

of course, it may not be as sumptuous as our banquet

 

[Incomplete]

of course, it may not be as sumptuous as our banquet

 

[TrueLight]

…of course, it may not be as sumptuous as our banquet

It certainly is not. I can say this from experience.

There were times that my spiritual life was lacking because of my own sinful decisions. There were times I walked closely with the Lord and didn’t even realize anything was missing.

When I look back on my life, I can see I was searching, and that I was missing something but I didn’t know it then.

I feel it is important to put into perspective the repeated comment that people are able to hop on the internet and find information and if they don’t do the proper research it is their fault.

First of all, everyone is not as intelligent as everyone else. Secondly, there is an overload of information out there about every faith.

It is not reasonable to expect that someone who has a strong faith is going to automatically believe what is on a Catholic site and say, “Ah! That’s where I should be.”

Do you suddenly believe the Evangelical street preacher just because?

 

[NewsTheMan]

But what if they come across a Catholic website and don’t believe they are reading truth?

Just because they don’t believe it, it doesn’t make them invincibly ignorant. Once they come across the website, they know about the faith, yet they still do not accept it as truth, they cannot be invincibly ignorant. That makes no logical sense. Not in my mind anyway.

 

[A_Catholic]

But what if they come across a Catholic website and don’t believe they are reading truth?

One of my closest friends is a devout Protestant. We talk and occasionally even debate. She even listens to Catholic radio sometimes. Yet she is not convinced of Catholicism. And I know very few people who love God and try to follow in His path the way she does.

She would say she is not starving. In her dedicated prayer and worship life, and her striving to follow God’s will, I would have to agree. Though you may think that it’s obvious that we are all called to Catholicism (as do I) it is not always so obvious to others.

Invincible ignorance means that knowledge of the Catholic faith is not physically available to a person, or a person has some impairment that he or she is truly unable to understand it, the article cited here nothwithstanding. Therefore, it is not that person’s fault that they are ignorant of the truth and can not be held culpable. If someone is in that position, they are in a position of invincible (unable to be conquered) ignorance. We all have free will. We are all able to accept or reject anything we want. Knowledge of the Catholic faith is available to anyone and everyone in our society and most of the world. I would not begin to judge your friend or anyone else. God will. But invincible ignorance will not be an excuse she can use.

This is what St. Augustine wrote:

*Although there is One present everywhere who in many ways through His creation beckons to hostile servants, instructs believers, comforts those who hope, encourages those who work, aids those who try, and hears those who pray, you are not considered at fault if you, against your will, are ignorant; however, if you are ignorant because you fail to ask, you are at fault. *

 

[ConstantineTG]

Its hard to quantify really who qualifies or not. Only God knows the hearts of each and every person.

 

[A_Catholic]

Its hard to quantify really who qualifies or not. Only God knows the hearts of each and every person.

That is absolutely true. Only God can read the heart. But we have to be honest here - knowledge of the Catholic faith is available to anyone who really wants it. Why would the Holy Spirit allow the faith to be spread everywhere, and then allow conditions where it is not possible to understand it? This truly does not make any sense.

A real problem in our western world is that there is so much “noise.” And I don’t mean just physical noise, even though there is too much of that. People are plugged into their Ipods, they take their phones, their Ipads with them everywhere. They are playing games all the time. We are constantly being entertained and distracted. We are never given time to really think and reflect on anything. Do you think this is just an accident? Don’t you think the evil one is doing everything he can to snatch away the truth? We have to say no to our culture. When people are willing to do that, they will hear the Holy Spirit calling them.

 

[Samuel63]

God will decide based on criteria you would expect from a great loving Father.

My general view is you have to keep the commandments as Jesus said. You must eat of the Bread of Life (John, Chapter 6). You must use the sacraments liberally (confession and eucharist).

We can hope others will be with us in heaven. Jesus said however, the gate is narrow and few make it.

I recommend your fried take role of a great detective and search for the one true faith by uncovering documented miracles in history. This is a sign of favor by God. Stay on this trail and you will come in contact with the one true faith.

 

[Swiss_Guy]

It absolutely does. Usually.

For instance, when I was searching for the truth (online ) I came across sites that explained the Catholic faith clearly. The problem was my previous misconceptions blinded me from actually understanding what the website was saying. I would say that was invincible ignorance.

OTOH, there was a point in time where in my heart I knew that faith alone wasn’t true, yet I still wanted to hold on to that belief because it was the pillar of Lutheranism. That wasn’t invincible ignorance. (Once I realized that Protestantism–including Lutheranism–had traditions of men, I dropped faith alone.)

My sister could be called a devout Protestant. But she has many misconceptions about the Church, along with my mom, who has many more than my sister. Heck, it took me almost 1 1/2 years to understand what the Church really taught.

It’s a sad world we live in.

 

[Pfaffenhoffen]

I say it does.

**
Excerpt **

I would say that invincible ignorance is something too serious for anyone of us to judge. Only God can judge that.

Who was it? I remember a Jewish Philosopher who maitained a correspondence with a Jesuit (?), a priest(?), a Bishop (?), this was a Lady who lived around 1950, I remember reading her story but what I kept was her sentence.

“I know Catholicism is the best, but I feel I am not going to convet. I feel that God does not want me to convert. I feel that God’s way to me is not convertion”

It is a pity I do not remember her name. I feel that God has a way for everyone of us. 75% of humanity is not Christian. North of Africa was Christian till it was conquered by Muslims.

What are God’s intentions? And who am I to discuss His intentions. As the Bible says, as far the Heavens are from the Earthe, as far God’s thoughts are from mine !!!

 

[A_Catholic]

It absolutely does. Usually.

For instance, when I was searching for the truth (online ) I came across sites that explained the Catholic faith clearly. The problem was my previous misconceptions blinded me from actually understanding what the website was saying. I would say that was invincible ignorance.

OTOH, there was a point in time where in my heart I knew that faith alone wasn’t true, yet I still wanted to hold on to that belief because it was the pillar of Lutheranism. That wasn’t invincible ignorance. (Once I realized that Protestantism–including Lutheranism–had traditions of men, I dropped faith alone.)

My sister could be called a devout Protestant. But she has many misconceptions about the Church, along with my mom, who has many more than my sister. Heck, it took me almost 1 1/2 years to understand what the Church really taught.

It’s a sad world we live in.

I think terms are being confused here. There is such a thing as ignorance. You can find the definitions here

*Ignorance is lack of knowledge about a thing in a being capable of knowing. Ignorance is said to be invincible when a person is unable to rid himself of it notwithstanding the employment of moral diligence, that is, such as under the circumstances is, morally speaking, possible and obligatory. This manifestly includes the states of inadvertence, forgetfulness, etc. Such ignorance is obviously involuntary and therefore not imputable. On the other hand, ignorance is termed vincible if it can be dispelled by the use of “moral diligence”. *

Once a person has been exposed to the truth and chooses to reject it, that is called ignorance. But it is NOT invincible ignorance. Invincible ignorance cannot be overcome. Ignorance can be overcome.

Is any of this making sense?

Our Lord said, Many are called and few are chosen. Think about what that really means. Are the “many” just invincibly ignorant? I don’t think so.

 

[Swiss_Guy]

I would say that invincible ignorance is something too serious for anyone of us to judge. Only God can judge that.

Who was it? I remember a Jewish Philosopher who maitained a correspondence with a Jesuit (?), a priest(?), a Bishop (?), this was a Lady who lived around 1950, I remember reading her story but what I kept was her sentence.

“I know Catholicism is the best, but I feel I am not going to convet. I feel that God does not want me to convert. I feel that God’s way to me is not convertion”

It is a pity I do not remember her name. I feel that God has a way for everyone of us. 75% of humanity is not Christian. North of Africa was Christian till it was conquered by Muslims.

What are God’s intentions? And who am I to discuss His intentions. As the Bible says, as far the Heavens are from the Earthe, as far God’s thoughts are from mine !!!

There is one way - Jesus Christ.

 

[PJM]

POSTED BY TRUELIGHT

I say it does.

Protestants who are raised by generations of Protestants are ignorant that the Catholic Church is a true church. To assert that anyone can go online and read about the Catholic Church and convert to the Church is the same as saying that any Catholic that stumbles upon a Mormon site, for example will suddenly convert to Mormonism.

The quote below expresses my feelings on the topic.

I am not saying this because I’m an ex Protestant. I can do as other Protestants have done and jump on the condemn all Protestants bandwagon.

That is not to say we are not to try to convert Protestants. I believe we should labor whether in prayer or through evangelical outreach to be God’s instruments in converting these souls.

I am posting this in the Traditional Catholics forum because Traditional Catholics tend to be very close-minded regarding this issue, and reject all Post-Vatican II documents on the topic as if they don’t exist.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t agree with the gist of some more modern documents, but as Catholics, we need to look as everything as a whole and make a decision based on past and present teachings, which should complement each other.

What say you?

My DEAR friend in Christ;

I suspect that I’m as Traditional as anyone on the Forum. I have even been accused of “being too Catholic” by a couple of priest

I have pondered at great length mutiple times your OPQ.

Certainly is is a factor, a reality, and a problem for many.

Behind these beliefs are several [IMO] logical facts.

1. That true faith; that comes bundles with Right understanding, Wisdom, and Knowledge are completely “owned by God” who alone shares these precious gifts.
2. In this age of information flow; the obligation to seek truth that always exist for each of us takes on greater meaning and importance. Finding the [singular[ truth on any issue is far more easy than at any time in the past. So do we ALL actually have an obligation to seek the truth. OF COURSE WE DO.
3. God obligates Himself to provides sufficient grace for everyone to KNOW Him. Not just about Him.
4. Some of the most primary and basic truths are not known because they have been taught incorrectly, incompletely or simply; by choice ignored or denined.
5. In that so many other faith churches claim to be “bible churches” and are encouraged to read and translate it themselves; one assmes that they, even unknowingly are being exposed to The singular truths; even if not evident to them.[This despite the bible itself warning them NOT to do theis] such as: 2nd. Pet.1:16-21;Eph.3:9-12; Mt.13:9-12; 2nd. Tim. 3:16-17;Jn. 10:16; Eph. 4:1-7; Mt. 16:15-19, Jn.14:16-17; and John 17:15-19; are but a few warnings.
6. Add to the above that the NT alone has over 100 references to ONLY One God; Only His One set offaith- teachings, and Only One church; and we might ask where is LOGIC in these other faiths?
7. Then look at the how old and WHO founded there particualr brand of faith and there seems good cause for God who reads hearts; at least ask why have they not sought the truth?
8. Your position nevertheless remains very valid because the further one gets from the founder of there beliefs [time span]; the less cupable they become. Yet the futher they get from there origin; the more it would seem [IMO} that they would be asking questions. HOW MANY versions of “One are possible.”? What makes them right and everyone else wrong [at least is part?]
9. My sister and bother both have left the CC [long ago]. My sisters faith formation was very poor; but my brother like me had twelve years of solid Catholic Shool education. In discussing some issues earler this year with my sister I used HER OWN BIBLE to attempt to clarify for her what it said; and even more what it means and obligates. Her responce was to the effect of: “well it may say that that BUT that is NOT what it means.” So we stopped discussing these issues.
10. I’m GLAD GOD, not me has to make this call

So ignorance is clearly an issue. Can it really be Invincible? Only God knows what He wis willing to accept.

It seems completely fair that God WILL Judge ALL of us based on what He makes POSSIBLE for us to know; not what we choose to accept; not just what makes us comfortable.

God Bless you, and welcome HOME friend,

Pat

 

[TrueLight]

My DEAR friend in Christ;

I suspect that I’m as Traditional as anyone on the Forum. I have even been accused of “being too Catholic” by a couple of priest

I have pondered at great length mutiple times your OPQ.

Certainly is is a factor, a reality, and a problem for many.

Behind these beliefs are several [IMO] logical facts.

1. That true faith; that comes bundles with Right understanding, Wisdom, and Knowledge are completely “owned by God” who alone shares these precious gifts.
2. In this age of information flow; the obligation to seek truth that always exist for each of us takes on greater meaning and importance. Finding the [singular[ truth on any issue is far more easy than at any time in the past. So do we ALL actually have an obligation to seek the truth. OF COURSE WE DO.
3. God obligates Himself to provides sufficient grace for everyone to KNOW Him. Not just about Him.
4. Some of the most primary and basic truths are not known because they have been taught incorrectly, incompletely or simply; by choice ignored or denined.
5. In that so many other faith churches claim to be “bible churches” and are encouraged to read and translate it themselves; one assmes that they, even unknowingly are being exposed to The singular truths; even if not evident to them.[This despite the bible itself warning them NOT to do theis] such as: 2nd. Pet.1:16-21;Eph.3:9-12; Mt.13:9-12; 2nd. Tim. 3:16-17;Jn. 10:16; Eph. 4:1-7; Mt. 16:15-19, Jn.14:16-17; and John 17:15-19; are but a few warnings.
6. Add to the above that the NT alone has over 100 references to ONLY One God; Only His One set offaith- teachings, and Only One church; and we might ask where is LOGIC in these other faiths?
7. Then look at the how old and WHO founded there particualr brand of faith and there seems good cause for God who reads hearts; at least ask why have they not sought the truth?
8. Your position nevertheless remains very valid because the further one gets from the founder of there beliefs [time span]; the less cupable they become. Yet the futher they get from there origin; the more it would seem [IMO} that they would be asking questions. HOW MANY versions of “One are possible.”? What makes them right and everyone else wrong [at least is part?]
9. My sister and bother both have left the CC [long ago]. My sisters faith formation was very poor; but my brother like me had twelve years of solid Catholic Shool education. In discussing some issues earler this year with my sister I used HER OWN BIBLE to attempt to clarify for her what it said; and even more what it means and obligates. Her responce was to the effect of: “well it may say that that BUT that is NOT what it means.” So we stopped discussing these issues.
10. I’m GLAD GOD, not me has to make this call

So ignorance is clearly an issue. Can it really be Invincible? Only God knows what He wis willing to accept.

It seems completely fair that God WILL Judge ALL of us based on what He makes POSSIBLE for us to know; not what we choose to accept; not just what makes us comfortable.

God Bless you, and welcome HOME friend,

Pat

Very good post.

 

[L_piperatus]

I feel it is important to put into perspective the repeated comment that people are able to hop on the internet and find information and if they don’t do the proper research it is their fault.

First of all, everyone is not as intelligent as everyone else. Secondly, there is an overload of information out there about every faith.

It is not reasonable to expect that someone who has a strong faith is going to automatically believe what is on a Catholic site and say, “Ah! That’s where I should be.”

TrueLight, congratulations on your posts, I agree with you. This is not so simple as hopping on the internet and quickly finding out what’s the truth.

What about an older person, or an uneducated person, who is not particularly computer-savvy? Maybe they don’t even own a computer in the first place. Maybe they live in a Protestant environment, among good people fully devoted to God, who don’t have much knowledge about the Catholic Church. Maybe they’ve only heard a few bits of information, mixed with misinformation, about the Catholic Church.

A person in an environment like this may be essentially happy and satisfied with his/her own Protestant faith community, and they may not become aware at all that Christ set up an organization whose leaders were Peter and the Apostles, and that this organization still exists today, deriving its authority from the original leaders, through the system of the Apostolic Succession. The person may not even understand what’s Apostolic Succession, and how the Pope and the Bishops of the Catholic Church today are the legitimate successors of Peter and the other 11 Apostles, how the Pope and Bishops today possess the same legitimate authority, coming down straight from Jesus Christ.

There may exist Protestants who, confronted with detailed and convincing evidence, grasp the whole thing about the legitimacy of the Catholic Church as the only organization set up by Christ, and still reject it. These Protestants are consciously rejecting the will of God, the will of Jesus Christ, and they are committing a grave sin.

But in order to be guilty of a sin, one needs to fully understand that the Catholic Church is indeed what Jesus Christ wanted for all of us to be a part of. Such an understanding only comes through study and through divine grace. Since lots of people never had the opportunity to study and understand all of this, and maybe they never received from God the graces necessary for such knowledge and such understanding, lots of people (including Protestants, Eastern and Oriental Orthodox, agnostics, non-Christians) aren’t guilty of not joining the Catholic Church, or even of rejecting it as a “superstitious, pagan, idolater institution” based on the misinformation they base their opinions on.

One of my favorite Eastern Orthodox saints is St. John Maximovitch of Shanghai and San Francisco, whose incorrupt body rests at the Russian Orthodox Cathedral of San Francisco (deceased in 1967). He was a very humble man, a great ascetic, a miracle worker already during his life, and God recognized his great sanctity by keeping his body incorrupt after his death, in a manner similar to St. Padre Pio.

There are lots of similarities between the lives of these two great 20th century saints, ascetics, and miracle workers I mentioned, the Catholic St. Padre Pio, and the Eastern Orthodox St. John Maximovitch. Yet, St. John Maximovitch never came to know the Catholic Church as the true Church during his life, he never came to recognize the error of Eastern Orthodoxy, which separated itself from Peter’s successor the Pope.

However, I still hope that both St. Padre Pio and St. John Maximovitch are together now, in Heaven, interceding for us. St. John Maximovitch was a humble man, he respected authority. I hope God gave him that missing insight to recognize the Catholic Church as the true Church at the time of his death, I hope he is in Heaven, and that’s why he continues to intercede with great miracles for people praying to him after his death, and also that’s why his body is miraculously incorrupt, similar to the bodies of some of the greatest Catholic saints.

 

[L_piperatus]

Sorry for taking this in the Eastern Orthodox direction. But here’s a Protestant example: Dr. James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family radio ministry, a great Christian, who received some prestigious award from the Vatican. Also, I seem to remember that the Reverend Billy Graham met one of the Popes (Blessed John Paul II?) and they established essentially a friendship and an alliance with each other. Such actions by the Catholic Church, i.e. honoring Dr. James Dobson and Rev. Billy Graham, only make sense in the light of an attitude that does not presume to judge these great Protestant Christians guilty of not becoming Catholics. The Vatican, and the Pope, apparently steared clear of such judgment, and left that part up to God.