When it comes to other religions, what is the bottom line?
So bottom line, if you are not with Christ you go to hell? Or in the case of those who don't believe in a literal hell, to eternal separation from God?
I once heard about the Pope saying that even atheists can be saved if they are genuinely good people.
What are your thoughts?
The Pope taught a doctrine known as Invincible Ignorance based on
Romans 2:15Easy-to-Read Version (ERV)
15 They show that in their hearts they know what is right and wrong, the same as the law commands, and their consciences agree. Sometimes their thoughts tell them that they have done wrong, and this makes them guilty. And sometimes their thoughts tell them that they have done right, and this makes them not guilty.
Since most people know that they have done wrong. They do not fall under the definition of Invincible Ignorance any more.
"
Invincible ignorance, whether of the
law or of the fact, is always a valid excuse and excludes
sin. The evident reason is that neither this state nor the act resulting therefrom is
voluntary. It is undeniable that a man cannot be invincibly ignorant of the
natural law, so far as its first principles are concerned, and the inferences easily drawn therefrom. This, however, according to the teaching of
St. Thomas, is not
true of those remoter conclusions, which are deducible only by a process of laborious and sometimes intricate reasoning. Of these a
person may be invincibly ignorant. Even when the invincible ignorance is concomitant, it prevents the act which it accompanies from being regarded as
sinful. The perverse temper of
soul, which in this case is supposed, retains, of course, such malice as it had. Vincible ignorance, being in some way
voluntary, does not permit a man to escape responsibility for the moral deformity of his deeds; he is held to be guilty and in general the more guilty in proportion as his ignorance is more
voluntary. Hence, the essential thing to remember is that the guilt of an act performed or omitted in vincible ignorance is not to be measured by the intrinsic malice of the thing done or omitted so much as by the degree of negligence discernible in the act.
It must not be forgotten that, although vincible ignorance leaves the culpability of a
person intact, still it does make the act less
voluntary than if it were done with full
knowledge. "
CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Ignorance
Ignorance -- Invincible and Vincible | Catholic Answers
Dictionary : VINCIBLE IGNORANCE
Catechism of the Catholic Church
IV. ERRONEOUS JUDGMENT
1790 A human being must always obey the certain judgment of his conscience. If he were deliberately to act against it, he would condemn himself. Yet it can happen that moral conscience remains in ignorance and makes erroneous judgments about acts to be performed or already committed.
1791 This ignorance can often be imputed to personal responsibility. This is the case when a man "takes little trouble to find out what is true and good, or when conscience is by degrees almost blinded through the habit of committing sin."59 In such cases, the person is culpable for the evil he commits.
1792 Ignorance of Christ and his Gospel, bad example given by others, enslavement to one's passions, assertion of a mistaken notion of autonomy of conscience, rejection of the Church's authority and her teaching, lack of conversion and of charity: these can be at the source of errors of judgment in moral conduct.
1793 If - on the contrary - the
ignorance is invincible, or the moral subject is not responsible for his erroneous judgment, the evil committed by the person cannot be imputed to him. It remains no less an evil, a privation, a disorder. One must therefore work to correct the errors of moral conscience.
1794 A good and pure conscience is enlightened by true faith, for charity proceeds at the same time "from a pure heart and a good conscience and sincere faith."60
Catechism of the Catholic Church - PART 3 SECTION 1 CHAPTER 1 ARTICLE 6
