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stanley123
Guest
So it doesn’t work if you pray for them after they have died?
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itsjustdave1988
Guest
Matt16_18,
I’ll address your last post. However, do you agree with Dr. Ludwig Ott’s regarding Catholic doctrine which asserts “***the impossibility of justification after death”?
I’ll address your last post. However, do you agree with Dr. Ludwig Ott’s regarding Catholic doctrine which asserts “***the impossibility of justification after death”?
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itsjustdave1988
Guest
He can according to some Catholic schools of thought. Yet, that’s not what I said. I said they are either reprobate or elect. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that “As regards children who have died without Baptism, the Church can only entrust them to the mercy of God.” And so I do. I don’t presume that all such children go to heaven (elect). Nor do I presume that they all go to hell (reprobate). I assert instead that they are either among the elect or among the rebrobate in accord with God’s judgement, and no matter how inexplicable it is, that judgment is just.
St. Augustine, among others, taught that children who died before sacramental baptism, suffered from not only poena damni but also poena sensus.
Thus, if one means by reprobate those who are not elect, St. Augustine would include infants among the reprobate.
St. Thomas asserted that they suffered from *poena damni *only, which seems to be the pre-Augustinian view. Yet all considered this poena damni to be everlasting. So, this notion that infants can be among the reprobate (non-elect) has been taught since the 4th century at least in the Catholic Church.
“In the question of Reprobation, the Thomist view favour not an absolute but only a negative reprobation. This is conceived by most Thomists as non-election to eternal bliss (non-electio).” (Ott, 245). Now, you don’t have to agree with the Thomists. I have a problem with it. However, it is an acceptable Catholic theology.
Nonetheless, I have found no early fathers who taught that poena damni is not everlasting since Christ’s resurrection, as it seems you are suggesting.
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itsjustdave1988
Guest
Extra-sacramentally. Here’s an example: Jer. 1:5 (DR): “Before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee.”
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Axion
Guest
The idea of certain souls being selected for reprobation regardless of merit has never been endorsed by the Church and has been declared unacceptable since at least the Council of Trent.
The Council of Trent, which was an ecumenical Council, pronounced against monergism - i.e. the idea that God alone decides who is and is not going to be saved, without any regard for that individual’s choices or merits…
CANON IX.-If any one saith, that by faith alone the impious is justified; in such wise as to mean, that nothing else is required to co-operate in order to the obtaining the grace of Justification, and that it is not in any way necessary, that he be prepared and disposed by the movement of his own will; let him be anathema.
CANON XVII.-If any one saith, that the grace of Justification is only attained to by those who are predestined unto life; but that all others who are called, are called indeed, but receive not grace, as being, by the divine power, predestined unto evil; let him be anathema.
Again Jansenist monergist ideas were condemned by the Bull “Cum occasione” (31 May, 1653)
The propositions condemned were:
- *Some of God’s commandments are impossible to just men who wish and strive (to keep them) considering the powers they actually have, the grace by which these precepts may become possible is also wanting;
- In the state of fallen nature no one ever resists interior grace;
- To merit, or demerit, in the state of fallen nature we must be free from all external constraint, but not from interior necessity,
- The Semipelagians admitted the necessity of interior preventing grace for all acts, even for the beginning of faith; but they fell into heresy in pretending that this grace is such that man may either follow or resist it;
- To say that Christ died or shed His blood for all men, is Semipelagianism.
These five propositions were rejected as heretical, the first four absolutely the fifth if understood in the sense that Christ died only for the predestined.
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itsjustdave1988
Guest
It is my understanding that once particular judgement occurs, our prayers will not change that judgement. After Christ opened the gates of heaven–the day of Christ’s ascension–souls sent to hell by God are there to stay. So, if indeed God allowed an infant to die with original sin and be sent to hell, then hell is where they stay.
Now, that’s one IF. A very scary IF, and one contrary to my prayers. Yet, that is an IF that has been taught by many saints and doctors of the Church. There’s another IF that I prefer. The other IF is that if God predestined that infant to be among the elect, then that infant cannot have died in original sin and was “born from above” extra-sacramentally, and as such immediately went to heaven after death. No stop for poena damni is necessary or makes any theological sense.
Only the elect go to heaven, no matter what age they happen to be when they die, but only after being born from above supernaturally by the hand of God.
When Catholics pray for the dead, they pray for those in who we believe died in a state of grace (justified), but may still have need to pay the temporal punishment for their sins. We pray that God will be merciful for the just souls, the Church Suffering in purgatory.
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itsjustdave1988
Guest
Axion,
I recommend you read the following article from Catholic author Dave Armstrong:
Catholic Predestination
ic.net/~erasmus/RAZ120.HTM
And, this article from Jimmy Akin:
A TIPTOE THROUGH TULIP (This Rock: September 1993)
According to Dr. Ludwig Ott’s *Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, *which carries the Imprimatur and Nihil Obstat of the Church, the following are *de fide *dogmas of Catholicism:
**GOD, BY HIS ETERNAL RESOLVE OF WILL, HAS PREDETERMINED CERTAIN MEN TO ETERNAL BLESSEDNESS (De fide) **
**GOD, BY AN ETERNAL RESOLVE OF HIS WILL, PREDESTINES CERTAIN MEN, ON ACCOUNT OF THEIR FORESEEN SINS, TO ETERNAL REJECTION (De fide) **
As I stated earlier, the Thomists assert a negative reprobation, which means non-election, and a positive unconditional election. This Catholic theology is taught still today as free opinion, and not condemend by the Catholic Church.
An alternative view is that of the Molinists, who assert *conditional *predestination. This too is speculative theology, which belongs to the field of free opinion. What is not free opinion according to Catholic theologians far more learned on this than I am, are the statements cited above for Dr. Ott’s encyclopedia of Catholic dogmatic theology.
Are you implying that the Thomist view has been condemned by the Catholic Church? If so, I disagree.
See more here:
CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Predestination
CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Predestinarianism
CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Thomism
CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Molinism
CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Controversies on Grace
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Matt16_18
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This is a pretty good summary of two schools of theological speculation within the Catholic Church. But no Catholic is obliged to think that either school is correct. Indeed, the hyperlink in the first post of this thread says this: Vatican theologians this week have been wrestling with limbo. Archbishop William Levada, the San Francisco prelate who earlier this year became the Vatican’s guardian of doctrinal orthodoxy, told Pope Benedict XVI and a Vatican panel of theologians that a document on the issue might be published soon. …
The question was one that was important to Pope John Paul II, Benedict reminded the theologians who are part of the Holy See’s International Theological Commission. … The Rev. Luis Ladaria, a Jesuit who is secretary-general of the commission, told Vatican Radio that “there isn’t any binding Catholic doctrine” on the question of children who die without baptism
“We know that for many centuries, it was thought that these children went to limbo, where they enjoyed a natural happiness but did not have the vision of God,” Ladaria said in a radio interview.
“This belief, today, from recent developments not only theological, but also magisterial (teaching authority), is in crisis,” Ladaria said. "We, thus, are now studying this problem knowing that it is a point upon which there has not been a definitive pronouncement."More …
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Matt16_18
Guest
This article from the Catholic News Service gives more detail about the conclusions of the International Theological Commission that met to discuss the fate of infants that died without receiving the Sacrament of Baptism:Many Catholics grew up thinking limbo – the place where babies who have died without baptism spend eternity in a state of “natural happiness” but not in the presence of God – was part of Catholic tradition.
Instead, it was a hypothesis – a theory held out as a possible way to balance the Christian belief in the necessity of baptism with belief in God’s mercy.
Like hypotheses in any branch of science, a theological hypothesis can be proven wrong or be set aside when it is clear it does not help explain Catholic faith.
Meeting Nov. 28-Dec. 2 at the Vatican, the International Theological Commission, a group of theologians led by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger until his election as Pope Benedict XVI, completed its work on a statement regarding “the fate of babies who have died without baptism.”
Redemptorist Father Tony Kelly, an Australian member of the commission, told Catholic News Service "the limbo hypothesis was the common teaching of the church until the 1950s. In the past 50 years, it was just quietly dropped …
A conviction that babies who died without baptism go to heaven was not something promoted only by people who want to believe that God saves everyone no matter what they do.
Pope John Paul II believed it. And so does Pope Benedict.
In the 1985 book-length interview, “The Ratzinger Report,” the future Pope Benedict said, "Limbo was never a defined truth of faith. Personally – and here I am speaking more as a theologian and not as prefect of the congregation – I would abandon it, since it was only a theological hypothesis.
“It formed part of a secondary thesis in support of a truth which is absolutely of first significance for faith, namely, the importance of baptism,” he said.
In “God and the World,” published in 2000, he said limbo had been used “to justify the necessity of baptizing infants as early as possible” to ensure that they had the “sanctifying grace” needed to wash away the effects of original sin.
While limbo was allowed to disappear from the scene, the future pope said, Pope John Paul’s teaching in the “Catechism of the Catholic Church” and the encyclical “The Gospel of Life” took “a decisive turn.”
Without theological fanfare, Pope John Paul “expressed the simple hope that God is powerful enough to draw to himself all those who were unable to receive the sacrament,” the then-cardinal said.
Father Kelly said turning away from the idea of limbo was part of “the development of the theological virtue of hope” and reflected “a different sense of God, focusing on his infinite love.”
The Redemptorist said people should not think the changed focus is a lightweight embrace of warm, fuzzy feelings.
“The suffering, death and resurrection of Christ must call the shots,” he said. “If Christ had not risen from the dead, we never would have thought of original sin,” because no one would have needed to explain why absolutely every human needed Christ’s salvation.
The fact that God loves his creatures so much that he sent his Son to die in order to save them means that there exists an “original grace” just as there exists “original sin,” Father Kelly said.
The existence of original grace “does not justify resignation,” or thinking that everyone will be saved automatically, he said, “but it does justify hope beyond hope” that those who die without having had the opportunity to be baptized will be saved.
Closing the doors of limbo: Theologians say it was hypothesisThe Feeneyites are gonna freak out …
Instead, it was a hypothesis – a theory held out as a possible way to balance the Christian belief in the necessity of baptism with belief in God’s mercy.
Like hypotheses in any branch of science, a theological hypothesis can be proven wrong or be set aside when it is clear it does not help explain Catholic faith.
Meeting Nov. 28-Dec. 2 at the Vatican, the International Theological Commission, a group of theologians led by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger until his election as Pope Benedict XVI, completed its work on a statement regarding “the fate of babies who have died without baptism.”
Redemptorist Father Tony Kelly, an Australian member of the commission, told Catholic News Service "the limbo hypothesis was the common teaching of the church until the 1950s. In the past 50 years, it was just quietly dropped …
A conviction that babies who died without baptism go to heaven was not something promoted only by people who want to believe that God saves everyone no matter what they do.
Pope John Paul II believed it. And so does Pope Benedict.
In the 1985 book-length interview, “The Ratzinger Report,” the future Pope Benedict said, "Limbo was never a defined truth of faith. Personally – and here I am speaking more as a theologian and not as prefect of the congregation – I would abandon it, since it was only a theological hypothesis.
“It formed part of a secondary thesis in support of a truth which is absolutely of first significance for faith, namely, the importance of baptism,” he said.
In “God and the World,” published in 2000, he said limbo had been used “to justify the necessity of baptizing infants as early as possible” to ensure that they had the “sanctifying grace” needed to wash away the effects of original sin.
While limbo was allowed to disappear from the scene, the future pope said, Pope John Paul’s teaching in the “Catechism of the Catholic Church” and the encyclical “The Gospel of Life” took “a decisive turn.”
Without theological fanfare, Pope John Paul “expressed the simple hope that God is powerful enough to draw to himself all those who were unable to receive the sacrament,” the then-cardinal said.
Father Kelly said turning away from the idea of limbo was part of “the development of the theological virtue of hope” and reflected “a different sense of God, focusing on his infinite love.”
The Redemptorist said people should not think the changed focus is a lightweight embrace of warm, fuzzy feelings.
“The suffering, death and resurrection of Christ must call the shots,” he said. “If Christ had not risen from the dead, we never would have thought of original sin,” because no one would have needed to explain why absolutely every human needed Christ’s salvation.
The fact that God loves his creatures so much that he sent his Son to die in order to save them means that there exists an “original grace” just as there exists “original sin,” Father Kelly said.
The existence of original grace “does not justify resignation,” or thinking that everyone will be saved automatically, he said, “but it does justify hope beyond hope” that those who die without having had the opportunity to be baptized will be saved.
Closing the doors of limbo: Theologians say it was hypothesisThe Feeneyites are gonna freak out …
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Dan-Man916
Guest
I’m not sure if this question was ever answered, however, i wonder about this as well.
Does anyone have thoughts on this?
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Matt16_18
Guest
… do you agree with Dr. Ludwig Ott’s regarding Catholic doctrine which asserts “the impossibility of justification after death”?
Dan-Man916:
What Dave has quoted a footnote in Ott’s book from the decrees of Vatican I that was published in the 7 volume Collectio Lacensis (1892). I don’t have access to that reference, but the decrees of Vatican I can be read online here: ewtn.com/library/COUNCILS/V1.HTM]**FIRST VATICAN COUNCIL (1869-1870)**If Dave can cite the specific paragraph from this link that Dr. Ott has referenced as Coll. Lac. VII 567 from the above hyperlink, then we can look at the quote in its context. I doubt that it has anything to do with a doctrine concerning the limbus infantum since that issue was not addressed at Vatican I, as far as I can see.
Danman, get out your copy of Dr. Ludwig Ott’s Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma and open it to page 474, where Ott is discussing this dogma:**With death the possibility of merit or demerit or conversion ceases. (Sent. certa.)**Dr. Ott discusses here Origen’s theory of Apocatastasis – i.e. the idea that damned angels and men will be converted after death and finally attain God. The Church teaches that this is impossible. At the particular judgement the eternal fate of the person is decided. This is why we don’t pray for demons or the damned. I don’t see how any of this is germane to the discussion of infants that died without receiving the Sacrament of Baptism.
What Dave has quoted a footnote in Ott’s book from the decrees of Vatican I that was published in the 7 volume Collectio Lacensis (1892). I don’t have access to that reference, but the decrees of Vatican I can be read online here: ewtn.com/library/COUNCILS/V1.HTM]**FIRST VATICAN COUNCIL (1869-1870)**If Dave can cite the specific paragraph from this link that Dr. Ott has referenced as Coll. Lac. VII 567 from the above hyperlink, then we can look at the quote in its context. I doubt that it has anything to do with a doctrine concerning the limbus infantum since that issue was not addressed at Vatican I, as far as I can see.
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Matt16_18
Guest
I don’t see how the second dogma that you have quoted is germane to the discussion of infants that die before receiving the Sacarment of Baptism. This dogma is not teaching that God eternally rejects some aborted infants because God knows that they would have committed mortal sin if they had been allowed to live. That belief is just a variation of the theology of the Semipelagians, a belief that the Catholic Encyclopedia calls absurd:1. In distinguishing between the beginning of faith (initium fidei) and the increase of faith (augmentum fidei), one may refer the former to the power of the free will, while the faith itself and its increase is absolutely dependent upon God;
- the gratuity of grace is to be maintained against Pelagius in so far as every strictly natural merit is excluded; this, however, does not prevent nature and its works from having a certain claim to grace;
- as regards final perseverance in particular, it must not be regarded as a special gift of grace, since the justified man may of his own strength persevere to the end;
- the granting or withholding of baptismal grace in the case of children depends on the Divine prescience of their future conditioned merits or misdeeds.
newadvent.org/cathen/13703a.htm]Semipelagianism, The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XIIIAs regards the question of predestination and the theological schools of the Molinists and the Thomists, again, no Catholic must accept the speculations of either school. Personally, I agree with Father William G. Most that both the Thomists and the Molinists are only partially correct in their theology: PREDESTINATION by Fr. William G. Most
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itsjustdave1988
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I don’t have the collection that Ott is citing, but I asked the fine folks at the Vehr Theological Library in Denver if they have this text. However, I take it that you disagree with Dr. Ott’s view.
The authors of the Catholic Encyclopedia understand as I do that the teaching of Florence and Lyons II means that those who descend to hell due to only original sin remain there eternally.
Catholic Encyclopedia - “Particular Judgment”:
newadvent.org/cathen/08550a.htm
You are the only one I’ve ever known to suggest otherwise, (excepting universalists). Were you taught this or did you come to this conclusion on your own?
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itsjustdave1988
Guest
This post was specifically in reply to Axion regarding Catholic reprobation theories. If one understands reprobation as the Thomists do, as non-election, then it is obvious from the above post that the authors of the Catholic Encyclopedia agree that infants can be included among the reprobate.
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itsjustdave1988
Guest
What Ott is asserting here…
It makes no theological sense to me, and there’s nothing in Catholic tradition to suggest such a thing, excepting the rejected teachings of Origenism. And if I’m correct about CCC 1021, such a thesis is contrary to Catholic doctrine.
Seems to be the same as what the Catechism of the Catholic Church is asserting here:
From a theological view, I don’t see the purpose of sending someone to hell to suffer poena damni when they have no need for purgatorial cleansing and are destined for heaven anyways. Limbus patrum was theologically necessary because Christ had not yet ascended to heaven. However, after Christ’s ascension and opening of heaven, why not just send them to heaven? If in God’s particular judgment they are among the elect, then why wait til after death to justify them when He could easily justify before death?
It makes no theological sense to me, and there’s nothing in Catholic tradition to suggest such a thing, excepting the rejected teachings of Origenism. And if I’m correct about CCC 1021, such a thesis is contrary to Catholic doctrine.
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itsjustdave1988
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What I find more compelling is that God might supply the grace of baptism by some other means before death, extra-sacramentally. We have Scriptural examples where infants were made holy by God, even in the womb. St. Bernard suggested that infants who died withut Baptism could reach heaven because of the faith of their parents. This seems conguent with Scripture, likened to the paralytic who was healed and had sins forgiven due to the faith of his friends. Also, St. Paul asserts in 1 Corinthians 7:14 that an unbeliever is sanctified by a Christian spouse. Similarly, Cardinal Cajetan suggested a vicarious baptism of desire such that prayer and desire of the parents OR the Church might be efficacious toward a child’s extra-sacramental baptism. It seems to me that these assertions are congruent with Catholic doctrine.
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itsjustdave1988
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Wow… gotta love the guys at Vehr Theological Library…they’re fast…
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Matt16_18
Guest
Not at all. I just don’t see the relevance of the dogma that you are quoting to question of infants that die before they receive the Sacrament of Baptism. Certainly the theologians that sat in on the Pope’s International Theological Commission would be aware of the dogmas you are quoting.
You quote the Catholic Encyclopedia concerning the Particular Judgement, but why would an infant be subjected to the Particular Judgement? What is God going to judge? The infant is not culpable of any personal sin because the infant cannot commit sin!
If this was as clear cut as you are making it out to be, then there would be no debate about the eternal fate of infants that die without receiving the Sacrament of Baptism. It would be a settled question - there is no hope for these infants of ever attaining heaven – which is exactly what the Feeneyites claim.
How do you get the idea that I believe in universalism? I don’t. What I am saying is that spiritual condition of people who died before Christ was such that they were in a state where it was not possible for them to behold the beatific vision. It seems to me that you are claiming that those who died before Christ that were in the limbus patrum already possessed the grace that Christ released by his death and resurrection, and that their state of justification and sanctification was the same as a Christian that would immediately enter heaven upon their death. How did the OT saints ever receive the graces that the Sacrament of Baptism bestows before Christ died on the Cross? What sacrifice had been offered to God to atone for their sins before Christ died?
The Catechism teaches those in the limbus patrum were “deprived of the vision of God”, and that Christ had to come to the limbus patrum to preach the Good News and to release them from their prison. **
Catechism of the Catholic Church
Christ Descended into Hell
632** The frequent New Testament affirmations that Jesus was “raised from the dead” presuppose that the crucified one sojourned in the realm of the dead prior to his resurrection. This was the first meaning given in the apostolic preaching to Christ’s descent into hell: that Jesus, like all men, experienced death and in his soul joined the others in the realm of the dead. But he descended there as Savior, proclaiming the Good News to the spirits imprisoned there.
633 Scripture calls the abode of the dead, to which the dead Christ went down, “hell” – Sheol in Hebrew or Hades in Greek - because those who are there are deprived of the vision of God. Such is the case for all the dead, whether evil or righteous, while they await the Redeemer: which does not mean that their lot is identical, as Jesus shows through the parable of the poor man Lazarus who was received into “Abraham’s bosom”: “It is precisely these holy souls, who awaited their Savior in Abraham’s bosom, whom Christ the Lord delivered when he descended into hell.” Jesus did not descend into hell to deliver the damned, nor to destroy the hell of damnation, but to free the just who had gone before him.
Exactly! The CCC is talking about those that have reached the age of reason that have the capacity to make a choice to accept or reject the saving grace that God has offered them. Infants don’t have the capacity to accept or reject grace. And we can be sure that God does not predestine infants to eternal torment in hell, since it is impossible for an infant to commit mortal sin.CCC 1037 God predestines no one to go to hell; for this, a willful turning away from God (a mortal sin) is necessary, and persistence in it until the end.
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Matt16_18
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Too bad I can’t read Latin.
Can you point me to what is being quoted in this English translation of Vatican I: ewtn.com/library/COUNCILS/V1.HTM
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Dan-Man916
Guest
Quote:
“Si quis dixerit, etiam post mortem hominem iustificari posse; aut poenas damnatorum in gehenna perpetuas esse negaverit; anathema sit.”
which is found in Appendix A. Documenta synodalia, of Acta et decreta sacrorum conciliorum recentiorum. collectio Lacensis, vol. 7 (Friburg: Herder, 1890), p. 567.
Forgive my ignorance of latin, but can someone translate this into English?
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