Invincible Ignorance

[Apotheoun]

The Church's doctrine on invincible ignorance shows that it is not possible for a man to be saved if he [i]knows[/i] that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary for salvation and then deliberately fails to either enter the Church, or if already in her, to remain in communion with her. Such a man would stand self-condemned before God.

That being said, the nature of invincible ignorance itself, and the concept of explicit rejection of the Church, are not always clearly understood in the Church today.

Invincible ignorance has two aspects: (1) a man can be invincibly ignorant because, [i]through no fault of his own[/i], he has never heard about the Gospel of Christ and His Church, or (2) he can be invincibly ignorant because, [i]through no fault of his own[/i], he has failed to comprehend the Gospel message as it has been preached to him.

Any man, whether or not he explicitly rejects the necessity of membership in the Catholic Church and submission to the Roman Pontiff, who does this act of rejection out of ignorance that is not deliberate, [i]may[/i] still be saved, because the explicit act of rejection has been done out of an ignorance for which he is not culpable. So, if a man hears the Gospel of Christ preached, [i]but through no fault of his own[/i], he is unable to comprehend the message, and then he explicitly rejects the Catholic Church, his action, which is objectively in error, would not be subjectively imputable to him. This is because his act of rejecting the Church was based on a malformed understanding of the truth, [i]and so long as this misjudgment was not through his own fault[/i], he would still have the [i]possibility[/i] of salvation. Such an act of explicit rejection, if it is based on ignorance that is not deliberate, is not imputable to the agent of the action in question. Therefore, if a Protestant, or some other non-Catholic Christian, rejects the Catholic Church or submission to the Pope, but does so because, [i]through no fault of his own[/i], he has been unable to understand the message of Christ entrusted to the Catholic Church alone, he will not be culpable for this explicit act of rejection, and as a consequence he [i]may[/i] still be saved. Only God can know who is or is not invincibly, as opposed to vincibly, ignorant; because only God can see the secrets of the heart.

Let me try to explain this by reference to my own conversion experience. During the 26 years that I was a Protestant, one could say that I had explicitly rejected the Catholic Church. Such a judgment about my own state of mind at the time would be correct in a certain sense, because I had rejected a notion of the Catholic Church based on the polemical attitudes of my parents and of the various religious writings that I had read up to that time. But since I did not really grasp the true nature of the Catholic doctrine of the necessity of the Church for salvation; my explicit rejection of the Catholic Church was based on a misinformed conscience, and so my judgment was impaired in this matter, even though I was really seeking after the truth. I had made an explicit rejection of the Catholic Church, of the Pope, and of the Marian dogmas, along with many other Catholic doctrines, but since I had no real understanding of any of those things, I was not culpable for my error, and I continued my search for the truth. Over the eight years that it took me to convert I did not pretend to be ignorant of the truth in order to remain in the Methodist Church, and later in the Anglican Church; instead, it really took me eight years to grasp the nature of the truth about necessity of the Catholic Church for salvation.

Now, surely a Catholic during that time, would have looked at my explicit rejection of the Church as condemnatory, but since he cannot see the secrets of my heart, and cannot tell if I am vincibly or invincibly ignorant, his judgment of the state of my soul would be false, and in fact, in even making that judgment he would be presuming to know what only God can determine. So, if a man explicitly rejects the Catholic Church, but in doing so is really rejecting a false notion of what the Catholic Church is, based on misinformation or on the anti-Catholic views of members of his family, it follows that such a man would not be culpable for this act of rejection, so long as it was done while he was in a state of invincible ignorance. It may take a man some time to grasp the nature of the truth, and I say this as one speaking from personal experience, because it took me eight years to overcome the false notions about the Catholic Church that I had been inculcated with from my youth.

Based on the Church's doctrine of invincible ignorance, it is clear that a man, who, [i]through no fault of his own[/i], has never heard the Gospel, or a man, who, [i]through no fault of his own[/i], has heard it but has failed to comprehend it, is not culpable for his error, and, as Blessed Pius IX indicated, if he observes the natural law and lives an honest life, he [i]may[/i] ". . . attain eternal life by the efficacious virtue of divine light and grace." [Blessed Pope Pius IX, [u]Quanto Conficiamur Moerore[/u], no. 7] Clearly, any man who is saved, is saved by the grace of God, which is solely communicated to humanity through Christ's one Holy Catholic Church, the sacrament of salvation; so if a man is saved, it follows that he is saved through the Catholic Church even if he is invincibly ignorant of this fact.

Edited July 1, 2004 by Apotheoun

[dUSt]

:thumb:

[Guest JeffCR07]

I'm glad that has been cleared up. Great job, and thanks!

[Chrysologus]

Most excellent, but I suspect we will see some disagreeable responses shortly.

[the lumberjack]

[quote]Based on the Church's doctrine of invincible ignorance, it is clear that a man, who, through no fault of his own, has never heard the Gospel, or a man, who, through no fault of his own, has heard it but has failed to comprehend it, is not culpable for his error, and, as Blessed Pius IX indicated, if he observes the natural law and lives an honest life, he may ". . . attain eternal life by the efficacious virtue of divine light and grace." [Blessed Pope Pius IX, Quanto Conficiamur Moerore, no. 7] Clearly, any man who is saved, is saved by the grace of God, which is solely communicated to humanity through Christ's one Holy Catholic Church, the sacrament of salvation; so if a man is saved, it follows that he is saved through the Catholic Church even if he is invincibly ignorant of this fact.[/quote]


:shootme:

[ThyWillBeDone]

Thanks for posting that, well done,you explained it much better then any source I have seen on it.
Chris

[MorphRC]

Thanks Apotheoun. I need that cleared up

[phatcatholic]

apoth.............ur post is going in the "salvation" entry

good job