Pope: You Don't Have To Believe In God To Get To Heaven

[KnightofChrist]

Kewl

[Apteka]

No u, by joining the enemies of the Church and adopting their misinterpretation of what the Pope stated. I agree and do wish the Pope would cease making off the cuff statements. Because it makes it easy for Satan, the media and misled souls like yourself to twist and pervert what was actually stated into something that was not.

 

The problem Knight is that this wasn't an off the cuff remark. The Pope sat down one day and wrote a letter which he knew would be made public. His words were chosen carefully. I'm not misinterpreting  the text, the Pope's answer to the atheist editor's question on whether God will forgive an atheists disbelief is that, (1) God is merciful and (2) follow your conscience. Therefore, even an atheist who does not seek the faith has hope in salvation if it turns out there really is a heaven. Now I'm not saying this is heretical, perhaps the Church has always taught salvation through conscience?

[Apteka]

Tell that to the countless people who are in RCIA because other Catholics suggested it to them. ;)

 

Like, for example, my girlfriend.

 

Has her catechist taught her about the tansignification yet?

[CatholicsAreKewl]

Apteka and others make good points. 1. Pope sat down and wrote this. 2. The Pope didn't say anything definitively. 3. I'm late for work. I don't know why I'm typing this message.

[KnightofChrist]

The problem Knight is that this wasn't an off the cuff remark. The Pope sat down one day and wrote a letter which he knew would be made public. His words were chosen carefully. I'm not misinterpreting  the text, the Pope's answer to the atheist editor's question on whether God will forgive an atheists disbelief is that, (1) God is merciful and (2) follow your conscience. Therefore, even an atheist who does not seek the faith has hope in salvation if it turns out there really is a heaven. Now I'm not saying this is heretical, perhaps the Church has always taught salvation through conscience?

 

Still it is a personal letter, not authoritative. In any event we don't agree about what he stated and we're clearly not going to agree with what he stated.

You want to continue to ignore the fact he stated God's mercy is limitless for those whom turn to God with a sincere and contrite heart.

[John Ryan]

"Everything we believe about God, and everything we know about man, prevents us from accepting that beyond the limits of the Church there is no more salvation, that up to the time of Christ all men were subject to the fate of eternal damnation. We are no longer ready and able to think that our neighbor, who is a decent and respectable man and in many ways better than we are, should be eternally damned simply because he is not a Catholic. We are no longer ready, no longer willing, to think that eternal corruption should be inflicted on people in Asia, in Africa, or wherever it may be, merely on account of their not having "Catholic" marked in their passport.

Actually, a great deal of thought had been devoted in theology, both before and after Ignatius, to the question of how people, without even knowing it, in some way belonged to the Church and to Christ and could thus be saved nevertheless. And still today, a great deal of perspicacity is used in such reflections.

 

Yet if we are honest, we will have to admit that this is not our problem at all. The question we have to face is not that of whether other people can be saved and how. We are convinced that God is able to do this with or without our theories, with or without our perspicacity, and that we do not need to help him do it with our cogitations. The question that really troubles us is not in the least concerned with whether and how God manages to save others.

 

The question that torments us is, much rather, that of why it is still actually necessary for us to carry out the whole ministry of the Christian faith—why, if there are so many other ways to heaven and to salvation, should it still be demanded of us that we bear, day by day, the whole burden of ecclesiastical dogma and ecclesiastical ethics? And with that, we are once more confronted, though from a different approach, with the same question we raised yesterday in conversation with God and with which we parted: What actually is the Christian reality, the real substance of Christianity that goes beyond mere moralism? What is that special thing in Christianity that not only justifies but compels us to be and live as Christians?

 

It became clear enough to us, yesterday, that there is no answer to this that will resolve every contradiction into incontrovertible, unambivalent truth with scientific clarity. Assent to the hiddenness of God is an essential part of the movement of the spirit that we call "faith." And one more preliminary consideration is requisite. If we are raising the question of the basis and meaning of our life as Christians, as it emerged for us just now, then this can easily conceal a sidelong glance at what we suppose to be the easier and more comfortable life of other people, who will "also" get to heaven. We are too much like the workers taken on in the first hour whom the Lord talks about in his parable of the workers in the vineyard (Mt 20:1-6). When they realized that the day's wage of one denarius could be much more easily earned, they could no longer see why they had sweated all day. Yet how could they really have been certain that it was so much more comfortable to be out of work than to work? And why was it that they were happy with their wages only on the condition that other people were worse off than they were? But the parable is not there on account of those workers at that time; it is there for our sake. For in our raising questions about the "why" of Christianity, we are doing just what those workers did. We are assuming that Spiritual "unemployment"—a life without faith or prayer—is more pleasant than spiritual service. Yet how do we know that?

 

We are staring at the trials of everyday Christianity and forgetting on that account that faith is not just a burden that weighs us down; it is at the same time a light that brings us counsel, gives us a path to follow, and gives us meaning. We are seeing in the Church only the exterior order that limits our freedom and thereby overlooking the fact that she is our spiritual home, which shields us, keeps us safe in life and in death. We are seeing only our own burden and forgetting that other people also have burdens, even if we know nothing of them. And above all, what a strange attitude that actually is, when we no longer find Christian service worthwhile if the denarius of salvation may be obtained even without it! It seems as if we want to be rewarded, not just with our own salvation, but most especially with other people's damnation—just like the workers hired in the first hour. That is very human, but the Lord's parable is particularly meant to make us quite aware of how profoundly un-Christian it is at the same time. Anyone who looks on the loss of salvation for others as the condition, as it were, on which he serves Christ will in the end only be able to turn away grumbling, because that kind of reward is contrary to the loving-kindness of God."  -- Joseph Ratzinger, What It Means to Be a Christian

Edited September 19, 2013 by John Ryan

[AugustineA]

3 pages later. Still, all I have to say is... interestingg..

 

I really don't know what to make of this. Clearly, conscience and good actions are not enough for salvation. Man can be charitable, awesome-sauce, kind, but not understand goodness without salvation. Jesus says only God is good.

 

As Catholics, we embrace a teleological understanding. The Catechism, paragraph 27 says that man is made for God, who constantly calls him. So an atheist is actively pushing away from God. Hmm.. While conscience in paragraphs 1776 onwards urges one to be in accord with divine law. The presence of the conscience may make one responsible (1781) for his evil actions, but it does not make one saved.

 

Or check out paragraph 161 on the necessity of faith: "Believing in Jesus Christ and in the One who sent him for our salvation is necessary for obtaining that salvation. 'Since "without faith it is impossible to please [God]" and to attain to the fellowship of his sons'...."

 

So I'm not sure how to relate to the Pope's comments here.. Maybe I will have to take a closer look at them and relate them to holy scripture and the codes and creeds of the church. But in the mean time I'm a bit baffled..

[arfink]

Has her catechist taught her about the tansignification yet?

 

I ought to punch you in the nose, but this is the internet. Get lost troll boy

[Apotheoun]

Let's not start all the accusations about being trolls. Heck for the first time in more than five years there are actual debates in the Phatmass debate table.

[Fidei Defensor]

It seems quite simple, to me: you can't fault someone who lacks the gift of faith. Since it is God alone who grants it, one cannot condemn those he hasn't granted it to.

[John Ryan]

3 pages later. Still, all I have to say is... interestingg..

 

I really don't know what to make of this. Clearly, conscience and good actions are not enough for salvation. Man can be charitable, amesome-sauce, kind, but not understand goodness without salvation. Jesus says only God is good.

 

As Catholics, we embrace a teleological understanding. The Catechism, paragraph 27 says that man is made for God, who constantly calls him. So an atheist is actively pushing away from God. Hmm.. While conscience in paragraphs 1776 onwards urges one to be in accord with divine law. The presence of the conscience may make one responsible (1781) for his evil actions, but it does not make one saved.

 

Or check out paragraph 161 on the necessity of faith: "Believing in Jesus Christ and in the One who sent him for our salvation is necessary for obtaining that salvation. 'Since "without faith it is impossible to please [God]" and to attain to the fellowship of his sons'...."

 

So I'm not sure how to relate to the Pope's comments here.. Maybe I will have to take a closer look at them and relate them to holy scripture and the codes and creeds of the church. But in the mean time I'm a bit baffled..

 

Yet, are most atheists truly pushing away from the God of Christ, or are they pushing away from man-made alienated conceptions of the Divine?

[AugustineA]

Yet, are most atheists truly pushing away from the God of Christ, or are they pushing away from man-made alienated conceptions of the Divine?

 

Speak clearly man, may as well come out and say what you're implying, lol.

 

Clearly, disbelief in God is pushing away from God. Faith in God draws one near to God. People who argue what is man-made and what is God-given are of a different order. The latter people you refer to believe in God but are trying to discern between what is authentically from God and what is not. 

 

[CatholicsAreKewl]

Yet, are most atheists truly pushing away from the God of Christ, or are they pushing away from man-made alienated conceptions of the Divine?

Atheism simply implies non-belief. There isn't really a "pushing away" from God as if we're mad at him or what religion has made him into or something. If someone chooses to call himself/herself an atheist because they're upset with god or religion but deep down they know a god exists, that person isn't an atheist. 

Edited September 20, 2013 by CatholicsAreKewl

[AugustineA]

Atheism simply implies non-belief. There isn't really a "pushing away" from God as if we're mad at him or what religion has made him into or something. If someone chooses to call himself/herself an atheist because they're upset with god or religion but deep down they know a god exists, that person isn't an atheist. 

 

Disbelieving in God is actively pushing away from God. Check out the words of the Apostle in Romans chapter 1. The Catholic Church alludes to it in chapter 1 as well.

 

If someone calls himself/herself an atheist but is upset with some of the details of religion, they're not an atheist. We all agree. :saint2:

 

 

edit: lol, apparently the forum automatically translates Roman Catholic Catechism to "The Catholic Church".

Edited September 20, 2013 by AugustineA

[John Ryan]

Atheism simply implies non-belief. There isn't really a "pushing away" from God as if we're mad at him or what religion has made him into or something. If someone chooses to call himself/herself an atheist because they're upset with god or religion but deep down they know a god exists, that person isn't an atheist. 

 

Atheism in asia is of a different variety than in the Western world where the atheistic tradition arose in antithesis to religion. Atheists in the West tend to be hostile towards religious belief. I think you can push against a concept even if you do not believe the notion exists concretely in the world, but only in the minds of mice and men. It seems as if atheism is a virulent vomiting out of the mind the notion of the evangelical-fundamentalist deity. In an abstract sense, atheism is merely the non-belief in a supernatural deity, but its concrete manifestations take on much more differentiation.

 

It was not my intent to castigate atheism. In my humble opinion, atheistic philosophy has offered an indispensable critique of religion and allowed my own faith to become more genuine. The two intellectuals who influenced me the most — Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud — were staunch atheists. I actually assent to their critiques of religion and establish my faith through their negations. I love the old atheists. It is merely the new atheists who I think are boorish, uneducated, ill cultured and totally useless for society.  

Edited September 20, 2013 by John Ryan