Exactly.
What’s your point with grading papers on world religions? God chooses the foolish things on the world to shame the wise (1 Cor 1). Are you trying to say C.S.Lews and other non-catholic writers are authorative over the Scriptures?
What are you guys trying to say? Do Muslims get special treatment over others who die without faith in Christ? Are you trying to say that those who die have a second chance to believe in Christ in spirit prison? This sounds more like Mormonism than orthodox Roman Catholicism.
Exactly what we have said. What do you think that we are trying to say?
Nope. We are saying that since they profess to worship the One True God, they are in a different place than hindus.
No, you get one and only one shot. That is it. We are saying that God and only God can judge their hearts. I cannot, you cannot, Paul cannot.
that is because you are forcing it to.
Are you saying Muslims are better off then Hindus based on believing God as being a single deity? So, why does that make Muslims closer to the truth than Hindus? Maybe the Hindus are more right since God is triune? I think Catholicism has drifted so far from the scriptures that I cannot even tell if faith in Jesus Christ is central for the world according to your Christian Faith. How do you see the Mormons, better off than the Muslims? I am not trying to argue, but I am trying to understand 21st Century Catholicism. It’s a very difficult taks for a non-Catholic Christian.
Because the Muslims proclaim that their God is the Creator, yet denies that Jesus is God in the flesh, God is triune, and deny that Jesus was crucified on the cross and ressurected, and deny the atonement… they are better off than other false religions who deny the same essentials of the Christian Faith. It seems Mormons should be better off the Muslims because they are closer to the truth on many other the essentials than the Muslims. Are you saying it’s easier to be saved as an orthodox Mormon than an orthodox Muslim? Are you saying God is less angry with the Muslim than the athesist?
If you remove the doctrine of election and the sovereignity of God in salvation, you get man-centered humanistic ideas of what the Catholic Church currently teaches. The Catholic Church denies being semi-pelagius, but what else can you call it? It is not truth based on the Scriptures. It is a blend of partial Christianity and humanism. When that happens, God in Christ becomes less, and man become more. It is the farthest thing from glorifying God in what He has done in Jesus Christ for those who know Him.
No particular point. If any, it would be that I think about non-Christian religions a lot these days (since I teach this course) and so naturally feel strongly about the related theological issues. I wasn’t saying that you should listen to me because I grade papers on world religions, and I think it’s rather startling that you jumped to the conclusion that I was. (Well, I’m not startled, because I’ve lived my whole life in this anti-intellectual culture. But it still seems odd to me.)
No. Of course not.
It’s ok, Edwin, we still love you.
Actually, it’s very much in line with it–man was created good–that is the premise of Creation. God saw His creation as good. Man fell because of Satan, and thus sin entered into the world. God sent Jesus to restore man to what he should be–in the state that Adam was. So through Jesus we are restored of that grace. It is very much Catholic in thinking.
Actually the concept of original sin as taught in the Catholic Church is that man was created with graces befitted to him; these graces were taken from him after his fall.
The basis would be the faith in which they believe in. We go back to that premise–would God be so cruel as to put a Muslim who does not, through no fault of his own, know Christ? The operative term here is “through no fault of his own”–he had not been preached to nor know Christ in any way. Muslims who have heard of the Gospel would of course be excluded in this–they don’t have any reason to not join Christ and His Church. You do contradict yourself though in your statements, as your opening premise is that no Muslim will go to heaven, period. Then you go around and say,
So which is which? Does being Muslim send you to hell, or does it not? I am confused by your notions here. You seem to be just as confused by your own point. So is your stance then that those who do not know Christ are not going to heaven?
Muslims aren’t saved according to constant Church teaching. There is no salvation apart from Jesus Christ or outside of His Church.