As an apostate, am I damned to hell?

[chilehed]

Snarky, aren't we?...

Not at all, I'm just pointing out that precision in language is important.

 

[Alonso_Castillo]

DISCLAIMER: This is NOT a bait thread. I am honestly seeking the Catholic opinion on this because I have heard both. If you leave the Catholic Church are you damned to hell? Thanks.

I rather to say that "If you leave the catholic faith, We don't know how can you be saved"

It is almost the same thing but little more polite I guess.

 

[benedictaoo]

DISCLAIMER: This is NOT a bait thread. I am honestly seeking the Catholic opinion on this because I have heard both. If you leave the Catholic Church are you damned to hell? Thanks.

Only if you KNOW this is God's truth and that this is the faith/Church He gave to us personally so we can find His fullness and be saved, and only if you KNOW the teachings are the full truth and you reject that.

 

[JacktheCatholic]

I think the big question your asking is if one can be saved without possessing the fullness of truth..

I always thought the argument from ignorance was a bad one though, since it is self refuting i.e. "ignorance is bliss"...

Lumen Gentium touches on this. Culpability and such...

 

[benedictaoo]

I think the big question your asking is if one can be saved without possessing the fullness of truth..

I always thought the argument from ignorance was a bad one though, since it is self refuting i.e. "ignorance is bliss"...

Yes we can be saved if we are not Catholic. Catholics have the fullness of truth and so we, who practice Catholicism have a short cut to growing in holiness because we do not practice error and believe things that are not true. Something that could interfere with true growth. But salvation? a person can be saved, not saying thy won't spend a whole lot of time in purgatory but they can be saved. Because it is Christ that saves and if they have been baptized, they have Christ.

But if you are a person who is being called to Catholicism, you ought to follow, go where you are being lead.

If you are a person who believes God is calling you away from the Catholic Church, then, Lord Jesus have mercy... you are being deceived by a false spirit. or it's your own spirit deceiving you.

God simply DOES NOT! lead people away from the Church. He may tolerate a person leaving, in order to find his way back again, but he never call someone away from it.

But in any event no one can know a person. If they are acting out of a willful ignorance, a learned bias, a bad example of another Catholic who turned them off...

Only God knows why a person leaves and only God can know if he or she is justified.

Only God knows if He gave a person the light and grace to know this Church really is His one and only... if God gave them the grace to know and they still rejected it, then I guess it wouldn't look good for them.

 

[MacNeil, D.]

Interesting thread. A sprinkling of total hardliners and moderate opinions.

 

[benedictaoo]

There is only one teaching of Catholicism.

It's not a matter of opinion. One of us here is right and the other is wrong.

 

[MacNeil, D.]

There is only one teaching of Catholicism.

It's not a matter of opinion. One of us here is right and the other is wrong.

I'm waiting breathlessly for the consensus on which one is correct.

 

[JimR-OCDS]

I'm waiting breathlessly for the consensus on which one is correct.

Don't hold your breath.


Jim

 

[Colin]

DISCLAIMER: This is NOT a bait thread. I am honestly seeking the Catholic opinion on this because I have heard both. If you leave the Catholic Church are you damned to hell? Thanks.[/quote

How do you think Jesus views it ?

Also the Roman Catholic Church may have been hell for someone e.g. One of the many who have suffered the agonies of sexual abuse at the hands a Roman Catholic priest .

 

[QuantaCura]

Interesting thread. A sprinkling of total hardliners and moderate opinions.

Honestly, there does seem to be consensus in this thread. I don't see anyone who has denied that heresy, schism, or apostacy are not sins that separate one from the Body of Christ and therefore cut one off from salvation. Everyone also seems to agree that these sins requires a kind of obstinance in order for a person to be truly guilty of them and the the final judgment is reserved to God alone.

 

[MacNeil, D.]

Honestly, there does seem to be consensus in this thread. I don't see anyone who has denied that heresy, schism, or apostacy are not sins that separate one from the Body of Christ and therefore cut one off from salvation. Everyone also seems to agree that these sins requires a kind of obstinance in order for a person to be truly guilty of them and the the final judgment is reserved to God alone.

Thanks, reading through the thread more carefully, I see you've summed it up well.

 

[CreedIsChrist]

But ignorance is not bliss. Almost everyone I know who loves God and has come to discover the truth and has decided to embrace it has experienced true joy, not disappointment or sadness, etc. Someone who has the proper good will and good faith is the kind who will rejoice when they find the truth, when the way of salvation is made clear and they no longer need to grope along in the shadows. On the other hand, disregard or negligence of the truth is not the path to salvation--a person who, upon finding the truth, would look back with longing on his ignorant state (think of Lot's wife) or only follow God out of servile fear of personal harm, while perhaps a first step, would not have the proper disposition to be saved.

An analogous situation is that not all of us are called to get rid of all of our possessions, but if we were called to, we should gladly do it and follow where ever the Lord leads. If you were to receive this call and you would become sad and walk away, then you don't have the faith and discipleship necessary for salvation (even if you were to never receive that call).

Plus, we were not given the command to speculate as to the state of someone's soul, but rather to preach the Gospel so that all may be saved. Sure, it is possible for someone in a state of innocent ignorance to comply with the internal graces he is sent, but it's also possible for people to harden their hearts to them internally and therefore need an external voice to call them to repentance.

We can't say who is in what state, but ultimately it's irrelevant. Those in good faith who seek to love God unconditionally deserve the full patrimony their Father has given them and the full depths of Christian charity so that they can have what their heart holds most dear. Those who have hardened their hearts to the moving of the spirit need that external preaching and acts of charity to reawaken in them that openness to the Spirit.

I go with St. Augustine on the issue of ignorant or unknowing people(not negligent or discarding, but truly cut off and fully ignorant), like unbaptized babies or children cut off from the world in pagan tribes. They do not go to heaven, but they goto a pleasant peaceful place in Limbo free from pain and sadness. To say they goto heaven would be self-refuting because it makes ignorance out to be bliss and the Gospel to be a curse. St. Augustine wrote about this. I remember an apologist talking about the story of an Eskimo who got angry at a priest. The priest told him that people can goto heaven because of their ignorance of Christ, of which the Eskimo stated, "then why did you tell me!"..

 

[benedictaoo]

Honestly, there does seem to be consensus in this thread. I don't see anyone who has denied that heresy, schism, or apostacy are not sins that separate one from the Body of Christ and therefore cut one off from salvation. Everyone also seems to agree that these sins requires a kind of obstinance in order for a person to be truly guilty of them and the the final judgment is reserved to God alone.

I think one person questioned the validity of invincible ignorance.

 

[benedictaoo]

I go with St. Augustine on the issue of ignorant or unknowing people(not negligent or discarding, but truly cut off and fully ignorant), like unbaptized babies or children cut off from the world in pagan tribes. They do not go to heaven, but they goto a pleasant peaceful place in Limbo free from pain and sadness. To say they goto heaven would be self-refuting because it makes ignorance out to be bliss and the Gospel to be a curse. St. Augustine wrote about this. I remember an apologist talking about the story of an Eskimo who got angry at a priest. The priest told him that people can goto heaven because of their ignorance of Christ, of which the Eskimo stated, "then why did you tell me!"..

Umm, Creed, FYI- Augustine as great a biblical scholar he was.. He was not the magisterium and these were ideas of his that to this day, remain speculation.

We don't know these things for sure becuase Christ was silent on these things and so is the Church. Augustine gave us speculation, not some definitive truth on the matter.

So you can believe this if you wish, but only piously so. Meaning, you should not go around posting this as dogmatic teaching or even doctrinal teaching becuase it's speculation.

Now the CCC that the Vatican did come out with in 1994- does clarify a lot for us pertaining to invincible ignorance and those outside the Church.

I'm sorry but Augustine's writings are not more authoritative the the Vatican. he does not trump the Vatican.

Even Augustine said, "Rome has spoken, the matter is closed..."

 

[WarriorAngel]

Indeed when the world knew of only the Church established by Christ - it was dreadful to leave her.
But many years after the reform, the people are no longer accountable for the actions of the predecessor's apostasies.

The Church calls that invincible ignorance.

However; on the other hand, anyone who knows the Church is the one Christ built and they refuse to follow for any earthly reason, and not give up mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers - are not worthy of Christ.
SO much to mean if we refuse to go where we are led, and by no mistake has God left us many treasures of proof in His Church - and He will always lead us to His Church for the grace in the sacraments, but if we remain hard-hearted, then we have vincible ignorance which is to say, we are judged then on what we were given to know but yet refused.

We should ponder why Jesus said if we love others more than Him then we are not worthy, for even in His time Christ knew the Church would be splintered, but He also knew graces would lead people back to His Church that was His.
So if some refuse the Holy Spirit leading them to His Church - because their family disapproved - then He stated this for their account.

But one must first accept in their hearts where he deposited the faith and only than after knowing in their hearts - they still refuse, then they are accountable for dismissing the grace given to them by the Holy Spirit.

Hearts are not ours to read...

And the Church has understood that people born today are not accountable for the mass confusion begun many centuries ago.
And as she has the keys to open and shut, has accepted that the baptism outside the Church if done properly [Father, Son and Holy Spirit as Triune] is salvivic for those in invincible ignorance.


AS an aside:
Although Protestants are judged by the knowledge given them, and we know we judged by the knowledge given us - then it appears that Protestants do go to Heaven who knew no better. But that Catholics who are given more and remain faithful - are given more reward in Heaven.


Where does your heart lead you?
And will you eventually follow it IF it leads you to His Church?

God's peace be with you in your heart.

 

[Dark_Lite]

Yeah, Augustine came up with some things that were not adopted into Christian doctrine. Original sin passing on genetically was one of the big ones if I remember correctly.

 

[Alonso_Castillo]

Only if you KNOW this is God's truth and that this is the faith/Church He gave to us personally so we can find His fullness and be saved, and only if you KNOW the teachings are the full truth and you reject that.

Now he knows, it is different if he believes.

 

[JimR-OCDS]

True knowledge isn't just being told the truth, true knowledge is when you receive it and understand it from within.

Jim

 

[benedictaoo]

True knowledge isn't just being told the truth, true knowledge is when you receive it and understand it from within.

Jim

Right... and only God truly knows what is what. The person themselves don't even know. That is why we say, only God can judge a person. We can't read hearts.