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thistle
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Catholics are bound by the Church teachings, not non Catholics.
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thistle
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By the way I was a Methodist before converting and I certainly did not consider myself a heretic or in a state of mortal sin while living as a Methodist.
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steve-b
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How do you interpret the followingsteve-b:
Catholics are bound by the Church teachings, not non Catholics.
“Christ, present to us in His Body, which is the Church, is the one Mediator and the unique way of salvation. In explicit terms He Himself affirmed the necessity of faith and baptism(124) and thereby affirmed also the necessity of the Church, for through baptism as through a door men enter the Church. Whosoever, therefore, knowing that the Catholic Church was made necessary by Christ, would refuse to enter or to remain in it, could not be saved”. [LG paragraph 14]
See that word “whosoever”?
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thistle
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None of that makes non-Catholics heretics. That word is very specific. If a Catholic rejects or stubbornly doubts an infallible teaching then that is heresy.
Don’t get me wrong. Everyone you have said in my opinion applies to whether someone is within the Catholic Church or not but not to non-Catholics being heretics.
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steve-b
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Who does the term “whosoever” ommit?steve-b:
None of that makes non-Catholics heretics. That word is very specific. If a Catholic rejects or stubbornly doubts an infallible teaching then that is heresy.
Don’t get me wrong. Everyone you have said in my opinion applies to whether someone is within the Catholic Church or not but not to non-Catholics being heretics.
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thistle
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A born and brought up non-Catholic is not necessarily refusing to join the Church.
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steve-b
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Then they would enter the Church and cease being a non-Catholicsteve-b:
A born and brought up non-Catholic is not necessarily refusing to join the Church.
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thistle
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That’s not my point. Millions are born Protestant, live and die in their beliefs. That does not mean they have refused to convert. That does not make them heretics.
By the way I would love everyone on the planet to convert to the Catholic faith.
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steve-b
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Your avoiding the question I asked.steve-b:
That’s not my point. Millions are born Protestant, live and die in their beliefs. That does not mean they have refused to convert. That does not make them heretics.
Who is omitted in the term "whosoever"?
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thistle
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“whoever” is not relevant unless they study the Catholic faith and reject it. Why would non-Catholics think they should be studying the Catholic faith in the first place. If they don’t they are not refusing to convert and are not heretics.
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RobynP
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Dude, a poster here has literally quoted the passage from the CCC that explicitly and unequivocally says modern day Protestants are not counted as heretics by the Catholic Church. Why are you trying so hard to prove they are?
Nobody here is qualified to say whether anyone on this planet is invincibly ignorant or not. It’s not our prerogative. Anyone who claims to know otherwise is seeking to play God.
Nobody here is qualified to say whether anyone on this planet is invincibly ignorant or not. It’s not our prerogative. Anyone who claims to know otherwise is seeking to play God.
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steve-b
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All the quotes I have given include knowing about the Catholic faith. One of the most cataclysmic statements IMV is Newman’s statement, to be deep in history is to cease being a Protestant.steve-b:
“whoever” is not relevant unless they study the Catholic faith and reject it.
that’s the excuse and argument for indifferentism, lattitudianarianism condemned by Pius IX
III. INDIFFERENTISM, LATITUDINARIANISM (in extension also Relativism)
- Every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true.—Allocution “Maxima quidem,” June 9, 1862; Damnatio “Multiplices inter,” June 10, 1851.
- Man may, in the observance of any religion whatever, find the way of eternal salvation, and arrive at eternal salvation.—Encyclical “Qui pluribus,” Nov. 9, 1846.
- Good hope at least is to be entertained of the eternal salvation of all those who are not at all in the true Church of Christ.—Encyclical “Quanto conficiamur,” Aug. 10, 1863, etc.
- Protestantism is nothing more than another form of the same true Christian religion, in which form it is given to please God equally as in the Catholic Church.—Encyclical “Noscitis,” Dec. 8, 1849.
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thistle
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I guess we shall just have to agree to disagree on this topic. I don’t want this to get out of control.
As I said when I was a Methodist I did not consider myself being in a state of mortal sin, never mind being a heretic.
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steve-b
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DUDE
That passage isn’t a be all to end all statement. People aren’t just given a permanent pass for their ignorance.
Besides, all the ecumenical speak aside
Protestantism is a heresy The Great Heresies | Catholic Answers. Therefore after one is given the truth, they are no longer ignorant of that truth. Disagreement about truth, doesn’t automatically get one off the hook for being in error of that truth. Especially AFTER having been baptized
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RobynP
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But you agree then that the Church does not consider a person born and raised Protestant a heretic? Correct?
I’m sure you are familiar with the difference between formal and material heresy right? The problem is you are assuming that the mere fact of having heard the Church’s teaching is enough to transform someone from material heresy to formal, but that simply isn’t true.
I haven’t seen anyone here trying to give a permanent pass for ignorance. All we are saying is we are not able to definitively state who or who is not invincibly ignorant, or who is guilty of formal heresy or not. There are a lot more factors that must be taken into account than simply whether or not information is easily available to someone. That’s not indifferentism to point that out - I’m not saying it doesn’t matter what you believe - it’s just psychological realism.
But bottom line is, only God can see a person’s heart and know whether they obstinately rejected the truth or not. What may look like obstinacy to us might not in fact be. Maybe a person has heard what Catholics believe, even has heard a Catholic explain it, but the explanation was so poor and they came away with such a bad misconception of the teaching that they naturally rejected it. To us on the outside it looks like they are knowingly rejecting the Church, but in reality they are not.
It’s not our right to declare what only God can know. And if the Church herself refuses to call Protestants formal heretics today, why should we?
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steve-b
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As I’ve already posted
(emphasis mine)
“The Church’s moral theology has always distinguished between objective or material sin and formal sin. The person who holds something contrary to the Catholic faith is materially a heretic. They possess the matter of heresy, theological error. Thus, prior to the Second Vatican Council it was quite common to speak of non-Catholic Christians as heretics, since many of their doctrines are objectively contrary to Catholic teaching. This theological distinction remains true, though in keeping with the pastoral charity of the Council today we use the term heretic only to describe those who willingly embrace what they know to be contrary to revealed truth. Such persons are formally (in their conscience before God) guilty of heresy. Thus, the person who is objectively in heresy is not formally guilty of heresy if 1) their ignorance of the truth is due to their upbringing in a particular religious .”
From: https://www.ewtn.com/expert/answers/heresy_schism_apostasy.htm
The author Colin B. Donovan, ST
See the distinction between objective / material and formal?
When one knows the truth, and THEN refuses to accept the truth, THEN they move from objective to formal.
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Gorgias
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Actually, that’s pretty much what ‘invincible ignorance’ means.
This!
It’s “whosoever, knowing that the Catholic Church was made necessary by Christ”, not just “whosoever”. Are you saying that non-Catholic Christians “know that the Catholic Church was made necessary by Christ”? If so, then it would be interesting to see you back up that claim. If not, then you really don’t have an argument.
Yes. For Catholics.
Yep, that’s fair. And, if you’ve read Newman’s Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, you’ll recall that his point here is that the Protestantism of his day already had been attempting to refocus their attention – away from historical Christianity, and toward an ahistorical ‘Bible-only’ viewpoint. So, if they’ve been successful – and, you would have to admit, they’ve been successful at doing this among their adherents! – then you would have to conclude that those at whom you’re pointing your finger have never encountered the truth of Catholic doctrine as truth. They’ve been taught, consistently, that Catholic doctrine is untrue. How, then, can you make the claim that they’ve ‘rejected’ Catholicism, when they’ve never really encountered it, aside from hyperbolic or malformed characterizations?
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steve-b
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ANDsteve-b:
Actually, that’s pretty much what ‘invincible ignorance’ means.
by definition, Invincible means
- Subject is highly difficult to know and no matter the effort they can’t understand the subject matter * Evidence or information is scarce * Insufficient mental ability by the individual
While John Newman was still a Protestant, and trying to come up with a reason for all the divisions he saw in Christianity, he wrote (he didn’t invent this phrase but he made the phrase popular) “to be deep in history is to cease being a Protestant”
That is a stunning sentence. No Protestant regardless of stripe, can refute that statement. One dopesn’t even have to appeal to anything theological. THEN Just a tiny bit of extra work shows who started the Catholic Church and when He did that…
WHAT ???
Since the NT was written in by and for the Catholic Church, and canonized by the Catholic Church, Is the bible then just for Catholics?
When the NT says the Church is the pillar ans bulwark of truth, the Church talked about is the Catholic Church.
And you’re saying nobody but Catholics need to pay attention to the Catholic Church because what it teaches is just for Catholics?
Newman’s phrase (above) is soooo simple AND true. So to your question, what argument can an Anglican or any Protestant regardless of stripe use against it?
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Gorgias
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Here’s a hint that we often must remember, when we’re talking about specialized fields, as well as jargon that originates in other languages: you can’t go to a general-purpose dictionary and expect it’s explaining specialized contexts.
The term comes from the Latin. In this context, I would argue, it means merely what it says: “not overcome”. This is ignorance that is not overcome. Period. Nothing about the amount of “mental ability” a person has, or inability to understand the subject – just ignorance that has not been overcome. (Of course, not all ignorance is ‘invincible’ – but it is an ignorance that had permanently been present in the course of a person’s life.)
Oh, my. You really haven’t read it, have you? This phrase is found in Newman’s On the Development of Christian Doctrine, which he wrote in 1845, after his conversion to Catholicism. So, this isn’t written “while [he] was still a Protestant”, nor was it a part of an attempt to “come up with a reason for all the divisions he saw”.
You didn’t quote the Bible; you quoted Lumen gentium. More precisely, you quoted paragraph 14 of Lumen gentium. Let me refresh your memory of that paragraph by quoting its opening sentence:
LG#14:
So, you cannot in good faith quote a statement directed to Catholics and then attempt to claim that it is discussing non-Catholic Christians. (If you want to discuss what LG said about them, you’ll have to move on to paragraph 15.)
“I disagree with your assessment of history.”
After all, the arguments you’ve been attempting to make are that there is an obligation to study theology, not history. The Church doesn’t require us to be experts in history, under pain of heresy… does she?
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QwertyGirl
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Can’t wait to see the surprised looks on the faces of some people when they get to heaven and see that the riff-raff made it there, too.
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