Posted on 03/27/2007 10:53:30 AM PDT by Mount Athos
Hell is a place where sinners really do burn in an everlasting fire, and not just a religious symbol designed to galvanise the faithful, the Pope has said.
Addressing a parish gathering in a northern suburb of Rome, Benedict XVI said that in the modern world many people, including some believers, had forgotten that if they failed to “admit blame and promise to sin no more”, they risked “eternal damnation — the Inferno”.
Hell “really exists and is eternal, even if nobody talks about it much any more”, he said.
The Pope, who as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was head of Catholic doctrine, noted that “forgiveness of sins” for those who repent was a cornerstone of Christian belief. He recalled that Jesus had forgiven the “woman taken in adultery” and prevented her from being stoned to death, observing: “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.”
God had given men and women free will to choose whether “spontaneously to accept salvation . . . the Christian faith is not imposed on anyone, it is a gift, an offer to mankind”.
Vatican officials said that the Pope — who is also the Bishop of Rome — had been speaking in “straightfoward” language “like a parish priest”. He had wanted to reinforce the new Catholic catechism, which holds that Hell is a “state of eternal separation from God”, to be understood “symbolically rather than physically”.
Agostino Paravicini Bagliani, a Church historian, said that the Pope was “right to remind us that Hell is not something to be put on one side” as an inconvenient or embarrassing aspect of belief.
It had been misused in the Middle Ages to scare the impressionable with “horrific visions” of damnation, as described in Dante’s Inferno.
It had a pedigree, however, that went back to Ancient Egypt and the Greek idea of Hades, and was described by St Matthew as a place of “everlasting fire” (Matthew xxv, 41).
“The problem is not only that our sense of sin has declined, but also that the world wars and totalitarianisms of the 20th century created a Hell on Earth as bad as anything we can imagine in the afterlife,” Professor Bagliani said.
In 1999 Pope John Paul II declared that Heaven was “neither an abstraction nor a physical place in the clouds, but that fullness of communion with God which is the goal of human life.” Hell, by contrast, was “the ultimate consequence of sin itself . . . Rather than a place, Hell indicates the state of those who freely and definitively separate themselves from God, the source of all life and joy”.
In October the Pope indicated that limbo, supposed since medieval times to be a “halfway house” between Heaven and Hell, inhabited by unbaptised infants and holy men and women who lived before Christ, was “only a theological hypothesis” and not a “definitive truth of the faith”.
Timely visions
— “Outer darkness . . . there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth” St Matthew
Considering Pelagianism was condemned as heresy by the Catholic Church, I would love to see your sources...
Does this apply to the millions of people that have never even heard of Jesus Christ? Give your brain a rest. It needs it.
There are no afflictions lacking in Christ's sufferings. His sacrifice is complete, he is in glory, seated at the right hand of the father, his work of atoning redemption fulfilled.
Paul is referencing his own sufferings, and paralleling them to the sufferings of Christians in the church. The KJV translation makes more sense: "...and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh"
Rather:
"The death he died, he died to sin once for all..."
Romans 6:10
"He sacrificed for their sins once for all when
he offered himself." Hebrews 7:27
"He entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his
own blood, having obtained eternal redemption."
Hebrews 9:12
"But now he has appeared once for all at the end
of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice
of himself." Hebrews 9:26
"so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the
sins of many people...." Hebrews 9:28
"we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the
body of Jesus Christ once for all." Hebrews 10:10
This is Scriptural TRUTH!!
you prots are all alike.
Infant baptism is an act of obedience. You see in the NT the apostles baptized the entire household of newly converted believers.
Infant baptism does not confer salvation. I believe the verse says BELIEVE and be baptized. Nor do babies that are not baptized go to hell if they die. There are a lot of misnomers about infant baptism, and I realize I am likely to need my asbestos underwear. My children were all baptized as infants and confirmed as teenagers. And no, I am not Catholic.
>>Nonsense. Only those who are saved even get to purgatory, so nobody can "work their way into salvation" there.<<
Chapter and verse please.
Through the complete canon of scripture, God only speaks of heaven and hell. There are only two paths.
Sheep or goat, wheat or tare, light or dark, hot or cold. Purgatory is akin to lukewarmth - the very thing that is "spewed out" in revelation.
The RCC uses purgatory to make people feel better about their sins. It is damnable heresy, and has ushered hundreds of millions into the maw of hell through it's teachings.
I love what Spurgeon has to say about it:
"It is held that there are some who die who are believers,
but who are not quite purified from sin, and in an after
state they must undergo a purgatorial quarantine to be
purged by fire, so that they may become quite complete.
Beloved, when the thief died on the cross he had but
just believed, and had never done a single good work,
but where did he go to? Well, he ought to have gone to
purgatory by rights, if ever anybody did, but instead of
that the Savior said to him, "Today you shall be with
me in Paradise." Why? Because the ground of the man's
admission into Paradise was perfect. The grounds of
his admission there was Christ's work, and that is how
you and I will get into heaven, because Christ's work
is finished. The thief did not go down to purgatory,
nor, blessed be his name, neither shall you nor I if
we trust in the finished work of the Lord Jesus."
Either Christ's atonement is satisfactory and complete, or it isn't. You can't have it both ways.
The only two things which hint at the "answer" here are these:
1) Paul, in Romans 9, raises the (obvious) question of whether God is the author of evil. His answer is brief, pithy, and not exhaustive. It is simply "If this were so, how could such a morally confused being judge the world?" Well..., ok, but not really what we had in mind, ya know.
2) Christ's agony in the garden, where he recognized evil (portrayed as "the cup" he was about to "drink") as being horrid, foreign, external to his nature and totally repugnant, and then the tortured scream on the cross "MY GOD MY GOD, WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME?" as he took evil into himself and experienced the hatred, rage, and blistering deluge of the wrath of God for evil. Those truths about Christ do not answer the "idle speculation" about God and evil, but they are enough for me to say "ok, I get it. It ain't from you and you don't have any truck with it."
Infant baptism has been the subject of much dispute. The Waldenses and Cathari and later the Anabaptists, rejected the doctrine that infants are capable of receiving valid baptism, and some sectarians at the present day hold the same opinion.
The Catholic Church, however, maintains absolutely that the law of Christ applies as well to infants as to adults. When the Redeemer declares (John 3) that it is necessary to be born again of water and the Holy Ghost in order to enter the Kingdom of God, His words may be justly understood to mean that He includes all who are capable of having a right to this kingdom. Now, He has asserted such a right even for those who are not adults, when He says (Matthew 19:14): "Suffer the little children, and forbid them not to come to me: for the kingdom of heaven is for such." It has been objected that this latter text does not refer to infants, inasmuch as Christ says "to come to me". In the parallel passage in St. Luke (18:15), however, the text reads: "And they brought unto him also infants, that he might touch them"; and then follow the words cited from St. Matthew. In the Greek text, the words brephe and prosepheron refer to infants in arms.
Moreover, St. Paul (Colossians 2) says that baptism in the New Law has taken the place of circumcision in the Old. It was especially to infants that the rite of circumcision was applied by Divine precept. If it be said that there is no example of the baptism of infants to be found in the Bible, we may answer that infants are included in such phrases as: "She was baptized and her household" (Acts 16:15); "Himself was baptized, and all his house immediately" (Acts 16:33); "I baptized the household of Stephanus" (1 Corinthians 1:16).
The tradition of Christian antiquity as to the necessity of infant baptism is clear from the very beginning. We have given many striking quotations on this subject already, in dealing with the necessity of baptism. A few, therefore, will suffice here.
- Origen (in cap. vi, Ep. ad Rom.) declares: "The Church received from the Apostles the tradition of giving baptism also to infants".
- St. Augustine (Serm. xi, De Verb Apost.) says of infant baptism: "This the Church always had, always held; this she received from the faith of our ancestors; this she perseveringly guards even to the end."
- St. Cyprian (Ep. ad Fidum) writes: "From baptism and from grace . . . must not be kept the infant who, because recently born, has committed no sin, except, inasmuch as it was born carnally from Adam, it has contracted the contagion of the ancient death in its first nativity; and it comes to receive the remission of sins more easily on this very account that not its own, but another's sins are forgiven it."
- St.Cyprian's letter to Fidus declares that the Council of Carthage in 253 reprobated the opinion that the baptism of infants should be delayed until the eighth day after birth.
- The Council of Milevis in 416 anathematizes whosoever says that infants lately born are not to be baptized.
- The Council of Trent solemnly defines the doctrine of infant baptism (Sess. VII, can. xiii). It also condemns (can. xiv) the opinion of Erasmus that those who had been baptized in infancy, should be left free to ratify or reject the baptismal promises after they had become adult.
Theologians also call attention to the fact that as God sincerely wishes all men to be saved, He does not exclude infants, for whom baptism of either water or blood is the only means possible. The doctrines also of the universality of original sin and of the all-comprehending atonement of Christ are stated so plainly and absolutely in Scripture as to leave no solid reason for denying that infants are included as well as adults.
To the objection that baptism requires faith, theologians reply that adults must have faith, but infants receive habitual faith, which is infused into them in the sacrament of regeneration. As to actual faith, they believe on the faith of another; as St. Augustine (De Verb. Apost., xiv, xviii) beautifully says: "He believes by another, who has sinned by another."
As to the obligation imposed by baptism, the infant is obliged to fulfill them in proportion to its age and capacity, as is the case with all laws. Christ, it is true, prescribed instruction and actual faith for adults as necessary for baptism (Matthew 28; Mark 16), but in His general law on the necessity of the sacrament (John 3) He makes absolutely no restriction as to the subject of baptism; and consequently while infants are included in the law, they can not be required to fulfill conditions that are utterly impossible at their age.
While not denying the validity of infant baptism, Tertullian (De Bapt., xviii) desired that the sacrament be not conferred upon them until they have attained the use of reason, on account of the danger of profaning their baptism as youths amid the allurements of pagan vice. In like manner, St. Gregory Nazianzen (Or. xl, De Bapt.) thought that baptism, unless there was danger of death, should be deferred until the child was three years old, for then it could hear and respond at the ceremonies. Such opinions, however, were shared by few, and they contain no denial of the validity of infant baptism.
Well,to be perfectly honest with you,I don't really care much about"Christian Orthodoxy"or any other kind of orthodoxy.It seems all way to PC to me.
I believe in God.I believe in the divinity of Christ.I try to live by as many Christian teachings as I possible and humanly can.Yet thats where it ends.There are some tenets of Buddhism that I like as well.Even some of New Agey concepts have some validity even though I don't relate well to lots of their fuzzy thinking.
I am just not a follower of any religious or political dogma.I take some of this and a little of that and let it percolate for a while and if it needs adjustments I do some alterations.
Works for me.
Not so, really...some of us read Muggeridge and Chesterton. =]
Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle.
Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray;
and do Thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Host -
by the Divine Power of God - cast into hell, satan and all the evil spirits, who roam throughout the world seeking the ruin of souls.
Amen.
Jew...man...I'm a Jew...don't know what a prot is? I know what you are thinking..."stinkin' Jew," right?
Actually, only a God WITHOUT an ego could put up with such hubris from his creation.
The God of Mercy has provided a way for you to not go to hell at great cost to Himself. There are no little sins, any deviation from God's perfect law is damnation. Even just once.
There is only one mortal sin in the world - not accepting Christ and His free offer of Salvation dearly bought for you.
I am no Plebe.
I was being nice to you.
If you say so, it must be so... regardless of how it appears in civil society.
The book and author you recommended are garbage...
I assume this means you read it. If so, I'm sorry you didn't find inspiration. If not, I have very little use for someone who condemns the work of another... sight unseen.
I'm about to do it again.
>>an infant is an empty vessel to be filled.<<
We are not born "sin neutral". We are born sinful and fallen creatures - every one of us - since Adam. David speaks of this flowingly in several of the Psalms.
No one has to teach a child to reach for a toy and say "MINE!". No one has to teach a child to cry and fuss when he doesn't get his way. People hate hearing that their children are little sinners, but it's the Biblical truth.
There are none righteous, none who seek God. We are all born at enmity with him. Romans is very clear on this.
This is a use of the term "PC" with which I am unfamiliar. Traditional Christianity is anything but politically correct these days.
I am just not a follower of any religious or political dogma.
The two are not in the least equivalent, incidentally.
I take some of this and a little of that and let it percolate for a while and if it needs adjustments I do some alterations.
Works for me.
That remains to be seen.
As I said, you're welcome to it. I didn't come to the thread to change anyone's mind. Good luck with your approach.
Is that the regular hell, or the special one reserved for child molesters and people who talk at the theater?
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