- Aug 4, 2013
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I have started reading Fr. Martin's book as suggested by a friend. Very interesting and full of good information.
I do have a question which has come up in the very first chapter of the book. Martin points out that the earliest writings of the Church, including such Fathers of the Church as Augustine, Chrysostom, and others taught very clearly and without mincing words that there is no salvation outside the Church.
Now this is NOT a discussion of EENS. Please don't even go there. Here's my problem.
On Page 35, it is stated
This is a council of the Catholic Church. In other words, the Church, which is the "pillar and ground" of truth, has spoken. This is the truth. End of discussion, right?
Wrong.
I find as I read, that at Vatican II, this unassailable dogmatic teaching of the damnation of all outside the Church, is now changed. At Vatican II, the doors are open for those who are outside the Church as schismatics (Orthodox) and heretics (Protestants) to find eternal life and have the possibility of salvation.
HOW
IS
THIS
POSSIBLE??????
If the TRUTH was stated at Florence in 1442, then that settled the question, didn't it?
TRUTH DOES NOT CHANGE.
Not with time or cultural mores. Yet here we have the Church, the pillar and ground of truth, changing the truth in a later ecumencal council.
Do you see the problem this creates for me? It's either one or the other, it can't be both. And either way, since it is a council in which these canons are being set forth, then this is serious business as this is where we expect the guidance of the Holy Spirit and protect of the Church from error.
Okay.....I'll go back to reading the book now. Very interesting, if not challenging.
I do have a question which has come up in the very first chapter of the book. Martin points out that the earliest writings of the Church, including such Fathers of the Church as Augustine, Chrysostom, and others taught very clearly and without mincing words that there is no salvation outside the Church.
Now this is NOT a discussion of EENS. Please don't even go there. Here's my problem.
On Page 35, it is stated
One of Augustine's theological followers, who lived almost a century after Augustine, Bishop Fulgentius of Ruspe (468-533), formulated these ideas in a form that was to find its way into a decree of the Council of Florence in 1442 and become a particularly formidable "monument of tradition."
Most firmly hold and by no means doubt, that not only all pagans, but also all Jews, and all heretics and schismatics who die outside the Catholic Church will go to the eternal fire that was prepared for the devil and his angels
This is a council of the Catholic Church. In other words, the Church, which is the "pillar and ground" of truth, has spoken. This is the truth. End of discussion, right?
Wrong.
I find as I read, that at Vatican II, this unassailable dogmatic teaching of the damnation of all outside the Church, is now changed. At Vatican II, the doors are open for those who are outside the Church as schismatics (Orthodox) and heretics (Protestants) to find eternal life and have the possibility of salvation.
HOW
IS
THIS
POSSIBLE??????
If the TRUTH was stated at Florence in 1442, then that settled the question, didn't it?
TRUTH DOES NOT CHANGE.
Not with time or cultural mores. Yet here we have the Church, the pillar and ground of truth, changing the truth in a later ecumencal council.
Do you see the problem this creates for me? It's either one or the other, it can't be both. And either way, since it is a council in which these canons are being set forth, then this is serious business as this is where we expect the guidance of the Holy Spirit and protect of the Church from error.
Okay.....I'll go back to reading the book now. Very interesting, if not challenging.