Posted on 01/16/2006 6:00:21 AM PST by NYer
Theologian Ilaria Morali Responds
ROME, JAN. 15, 2006 (ZENIT.org).- If it is enough to seek peace with good will to be saved, of what use is Christianity?
This is the question posed after Benedict XVI's address during the Nov. 30 general audience, in which he spoke about the possibility of salvation for non-Christians.
In Part 1 of this interview with ZENIT, theologian Ilaria Morali, a professor of theology at the Gregorian University, and a specialist on the topic of grace, explains the Pope's words, and the Church's magisterium on the subject.
Q: The Pope said in that general audience that the salvation of non-Christians is a fact: "There are people who are committed to peace and the good of the community, despite the fact that they do not share the biblical faith, that they do not know the hope of the eternal city to which we aspire. They have a spark of desire for the unknown, for the greatest, for the transcendent, for an authentic redemption." How is this possible?
Morali: According to what I have been able to read in the press or hear on the radio, the Holy Father's words have caused great surprise. It would seem that he said something absolutely new and revolutionary.
Some believe that with these words the Church has admitted at last that it isn't necessary to be a Christian to do good and to obtain salvation; that what matters is to be men of peace regardless of the faith one professes. It is, of course, a very hasty and superficial reading of the Holy Father's words.
To understand this address we must first emphasize three aspects.
The Holy Father made this affirmation in the context of St. Augustine's commentary for this Psalm: For St. Augustine, as for Christians of the first centuries, Babylon was the symbol par excellence of the city of evil, of idolatry. It is the opposite of Jerusalem, which, on the contrary, represents the place of God, the place where Christ's redemption was accomplished.
In Christian tradition the antithesis Babylon-Jerusalem has very many meanings. Essentially, the Pope presents two of them, which are intertwined. According to the earlier meaning, Babylon is the present in which we are prisoners, while Jerusalem is the heavenly goal.
The second meaning is of a different sort: Babylon as the city or area where people live who do not profess the biblical faith. On this level is encased what the Pope sees in St. Augustine as a "surprising and very timely note," the fact that the saint recognized the possibility that also in such a city, where faith in the true God is not cultivated, there can be people who promote peace and goodness.
A second aspect that must be pointed out of the Pope's words is the point of departure, taken from St. Augustine's words. The Pontiff stresses three specific characteristics: In the first place, that the inhabitants of Babylon "have a spark of desire for the unknown," desire for eternity; in the second place, that they harbor "a kind of faith, of hope"; and in the third place that "they have faith in an unknown reality, they do not know Christ or God."
A third and last point refers to these people's fate. The Pope affirms with St. Augustine that "God will not allow them to perish with Babylon, being predestined to be citizens of Jerusalem." But with a very specific condition: "That they be dedicated with a pure conscience to these tasks."
The Pope, as the words of St. Augustine themselves demonstrate, try to remind us of a truth that belongs from the beginning of Christian history to our faith and that profoundly characterizes the Christian conception of salvation.
This truth contains two fundamental principles: The first is that God wants all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of truth, as St. Paul says in the Second Letter to Timothy. To know, in this sense, means to adhere, to welcome the Lord in one's life.
The second: Historically, the Gospel has not been able to conquer all hearts, whether because it has not arrived materially in all places on earth, or because, though it has arrived, not all have accepted it.
Q: And, in this context, what is the Christian doctrine of salvation?
Morali: The Christian doctrine of salvation is very clear. To explain it, I would refer to two texts of the magisterium: The first is an address of Pius IX on the occasion of the consistory that took place on December 8, 1854, on the occasion of the solemn proclamation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. The Pope said that those who do not know the true religion, when their ignorance is invincible, are not culpable before the eyes of God.
Years later he wanted to take up this teaching again clarifying the meaning of invincible ignorance in the encyclical letter "Quanto Conficiamur Moerore" of 1863. "It is known," he wrote, "that those who observe with zeal the natural law and its precepts engraved by God in the hearts of all men, can attain eternal life if they are willing to obey God and lead a good life."
Pius IX proposed again a conviction consolidated for centuries in Christian theology: There are men and women who, for various reasons, whether because of cultural conditionings, or because of an experience or a negative contact with the Christian faith, are unable to consent to the faith.
Although it might seem that these people consciously reject Christ, one cannot make an unquestionable judgment on this rejection.
Invincible ignorance indicates precisely a condition of lack of knowledge in regard to Christ, the Church, the faith, a lack of knowledge that, for the time being, cannot be overcome with an act of will.
The person is blocked, as though unable to express a "yes" to faith.
As we see every day among our acquaintances, the reasons why many people say no to Christ are many: disappointment, betrayal, poor catechesis, cultural and social conditioning.
Pius IX himself admitted the difficulty of delimiting the cases of invincible ignorance, stating: "Who will arrogate to himself the power to determine the limits of that ignorance according to the character and variety of peoples, of regions, of spirits and of so many other elements?"
Pius IX taught us therefore a great prudence and great respect for those who do not have the gift of faith in Christ.
We are not able to understand altogether the reasons for a rejection of faith, nor can we know with certainty that someone who seems to have no faith, in fact has a very imperfect form of faith.
Q: Given the fact that a Christian is baptized, can he think he is already saved?
Morali: Of course not. Baptism is not an automatic guarantee of salvation. If it were so, the effort to lead a Christian life would be futile. Every Christian must make the effort to merit this salvation with a life of fidelity to God, of charity towards his brothers, of good works. However, no one can be certain of his own salvation, because only God has the power to grant it.
Look, I'm not bashing Catholismm here, I'm trying to grasp why Catholics look at scripture the way they do (with all this extraneous focus) and why they have this need to have others tell them what to think of scripture.>>>
Because we take seriously that Christ didn't freeze His thought in time but spread it through eternity via His chosen disciples.
Even the New Testament was 300 + year in the making, so "solo scriptura" is nonsense on its face.
It's truly amazing to me that the first post of this thread is from Nyer and attached to the Original article, the second is her ping list and a post about the doctrine being wrong is the third.
Well, at least you had the decency to put it as a question.
He "gets it"!
>> Why quote something a Pope said that has absolutely NOTHING to do with salvation? <<
Because many Catholics -- the intended audience of this writing -- may believe that the Pope is asserting some novel *interpretation* of scripture. The author is making clear that this interpretation is not new with Pope Benedict XVI.
The intent of this article is not convince anyone certainty of the Pope's statement, but to defuse an ad-hominem counterargument:
Catholics have witnessed Protestants cite opposing scripture passages on just about every issue you can imagine. If they can be made to believe that the Pope is stating a doctrine which contradicts past church teachings, it may be very easy to make a successful ad-hominem attack against the teaching: the devil also quotes scripture.
Christ gave us the entirety of the Holy Tradition and instructed His Church to keep it in perpetuity. The Church obeyed Him and produced the Holy Scripture, the Holy Liturgy, and works - verbal and iconographic -- of the Fathers. Our teacher is Christ Whose whole Person is the Word. It is not the scripture alone and in isolation of the entire written and unwritten Tradition, but that Tradition as a whole, which is sustained by the Church.
Sola Scriptura, -- the conceit that a certain part of the written tradition is sufficient and can be understood alone -- is a recent innovation that signaled a separation of a large number of people from the mystical body of Christ. Lost sheep without a shepherd, they cut themselves off the living Church, and gradually lost the understanding of the subset of the Canon that they once perhaps had. We do not want to repeat their plight.
"Does Good will equal salvation?"
Well, let's look at that question carefully. Let's presume you are talking about truly good will, not self-deceiving rationalization. Could truly good will come from the devil? Is not God the author of all good things?
Next question: Is it possible to have a good will apart from Christ? No.
But is it possible to have a good will without knowing the name of Christ? Well, there's Moses and Abel and the prophets...
OK, could a gentile have a good will without knowing the name of Christ? Well, there's the three wise men, Naomi, Cyrus of Persia, and in the opinion of the Church fathers, even such people as Plato, "the prophet to the Greeks."
OK, could a gentile born after Christ have a good will without knowing the name of Christ? Well, now we have a problem with sola scriptura, since there are no people in the bible who lived after Christ who were not known of by the Christians who wrote the bible. But if we know that Moses was redeemed without knowing the name of Christ, on what basis can we assert that a just person who sought righteousness, but was born in Indonesia in AD 35 could not be redeemed without knowing the name of Christ?
The reason the question is a prickly one is because the natural follow-up question: If people can be redeemed without knowing the name of Christ, why should we teach people about Christ?
Well, for starters:
1. Jesus told us to.
2. Christians, a knowledge of Christ, and most significantly, the grace given through the sacraments, are means of avoiding sin. A person may discern God's will through nature (Romans 1), but such graces as the Church confers are means to discern that will clearer, combat temptation, and resist the confusion and lies of Satan.
3. Jesus is a healer of souls. Does compassion not compel us to heal the sick?
4. The church is the means through which Jesus acts that the souls who go to Hades without knowing Him will be raised up to Heaven. "Apon this Rock I shall build my Church, and the Gates of Hades shall not withstand it." Bringing people to Jesus strengthens the Church.
5. Luther chopped this out of the bible, so Protestants don't like to hear this, but God actually likes us to participate in atonement for sin (2 Maccabees). Such a participation makes us understand better God's love for us. That is why (even in the censored, Protestant bibles) Jesus commands those who would follow him to take up their crosses. If atonement has an effect, is the world not better if there is less to atone for?
6. By spreading the word, reducing the sins that must be atoned for, and bringing an opportunity to respond to God's love to all people, we allow Jesus to act through us to establish the Kingdom of Heaven.
>> 6 <<
And yes, it is Jesus who is the author of our will to allow his work... I do not use the phrasing "we allow Jesus" to suggest that our action is more important than Jesus', but because the listing of our actions requires grammatically to make "we" the subject of the sentence.
The above is a blasphemous statement. God's justice isn't for sale by performing works of penance, or any meritorious thought we might have. The ONLY method one may obtain salvation is as a gift of grace from God. When we have a purely NON-MERITORIOUS faith in our Lord and Savior, Christ Jesus, then our faith is identical to that of Christ. When we believe in God through Christ, God's perfect justice is free to give us by grace, salvation from condemnation. Salvation doesn't depend upon our morality. it is dependednt upon God, and our remaining in fellowship with Him by adjusting to His justice by putting o the mind of Christ.
God is perfectly holy. His holiness is comprised of perfect righteousness and perfect justice. Whereever he encounters unrighteousness, His perfect righteousness demands perfect justice.
Whenever we think we are performing good in order to receive favor, we fail to put on the mind of Christ. Gospel and our Lord and Savior Christ Jesus have provided a method by which we may understand, namely through faith in God, which is non-meritorious and is frequently manifest in our works.
Kolokotronis in 14 also noted, correctly, that the choice of words is not the best, as we associate merit with an exchange transaction, when salvation obviously is not. However, here "merit" is clearly put in the context of lifelong faith and charitable works; the sovereignty of God in granting salvation is clearly stated. The statement is consistent with what the Church has always taught, that robust faith and works of charity are necessary for salvation.
This is true, although the set of men who are able to lead a good life without faith in Christ is the null set, as their humanly good works, void of divine good is simply good for nothingness to be cast into the lake of Fire after the Great White Throne Judgment. This is a little fact that freemasons on many religious people fail to tell their juniors.
IMHO, I wouldn't go so far as to deny good of those who fail to have faith in Christ,...it's merely they have a knowledge of good and evil that isn't required for a relationship with God. On the contrary, many do-gooders confuse morality with having faith. I suspect there may be more carnal Christians and unbelievers who have succombed to a counterfeit God of good works due to their own intentions rather than a simple faith in Christ in even the least of things and will be quite surprised at either the bema seat or the Great White Throne Judgment.
"The statement is consistent with what the Church has always taught, that robust faith and works of charity are necessary for salvation."
To the extent that one understands that the works of charity are not some payment to God or for the piling up of merit but rather because charitable acts, properly undertaken, allow us to die a bit more to the self thereby becoming more receptive to grace which in turn leads to more "works" which lead to more dying to the self, which leads to becoming more receptive to grace, etc.
IMHO, the article goes much further to confuse believers who have fallen into religiousity and legalism into mistaken and confused notions. Rather than clarify the meanings of belief, faith, trustworthiness, doctrine, sanctification, life after salvation, and non-meritorious thinking, the article tends to encourage morality and now condoning any good in any environment as identifiable with God.
It might be noted that in every instance of Satan's falls in the Scripture, he was always promoting good and surrounded by perfect environment, yet in each case he failed to exhibit the mind of Christ and remain obedient to God by God's methods.
Do you mind giving me some Chapter and Verse references?
From my notebook..
Perfect environment is insufficient to provide a relationship with God on His grounds.
We only have to look at each time in Scripture where God reveals to us a perfect environment surrounding Satan when he suffers a fall due to his rebellion from God's will.
1) In eternity past, Lucifer became Satan upon declaring the 5 "I wills'. At that time Lucifer was the light bearer, highest of all angels at the time as a member of the order of the Morning Star. Arrogance explains Satan's fall. He became enamored with his beauty, with his genius, with his ability, with all the attention and approbation he received. As a result, he revolted against God and said, "I will be like the Most High God," Isa 14:12-14.
Lucifer resided in heaven at that time in a perfect environment, declared the five 'I wills' and was cast down from heaven with a third of the angels.
2) In the Garden of Eden, again God created a perfect environment, free of sin, and the Adversary as the serpent tempted Eve, who then tempted Adam who rebelled on his own volition from God's will and in his spiritual death he surely died. Satan then made lower still, to be trampled under the foot of man, but also enmity was placed the in the heart of man toward Satan.
The fall of mankind in the Garden duplicates the fall of Satan in the Garden of God, according to Ezek 28. In both cases, the fall occurred under conditions of perfect environment.
With the fall of Adam, Satan became the ruler of this world. That in itself is the explanation for a tremendous amount of suffering in this world, because Satan, though brilliant and a genius, does not have the capabilities of producing the perfect environment he intends to produce before the Second Advent and millennial reign of Christ.
3) Once again, when our Lord and Savior was on earth, the volition of Satan tempted our Lord. Later, when unsuccessful at tempting our Lord to fall, Satan influenced others around Him so that they would use every device they could conceive to tempt our Lord away from remaining faithful in His thinking in soul and spirit and body to the will of the Father.
Upon our Lord's descension into Hades, a consequence of His first death, a state of existence involving separation of his spirit from His body and soul, being returned to the Father, and his soul having been separated from the body by His fleshly death with the body going to the grave for three days, and His soul descending to Hades, now that same perfect soul in Hades perfect in de re and de dicto, unlocked the gates of Abraham's Bosom another perfect environment, that allowed the believers to ascend and come face to face with our Lord in heaven. In contrast, the authority of Satan to use death as a weapon upon man was again fallen even to the depths of Hades itself.
Once again, Satan is diminished after a series of temptation and sins, but in this case, our Lord and Savior bore the sins of all mankind, past, present and future, and they were imputed upon Him. Satan however had no part in that propitiation. God in His perfect justice provided grace to those who also shared the same faith and allowed them to ascend, while no action was necessary for the dual of the argument further lowered the status of Satan amongst even those he held by the threat of death.
God also demonstrates that perfect environment is not the solution to man's problem. The solution resides in man's mental attitude, in his thought pattern, and in his resultant decisions all directed toward relationship with God.
In the case of Abraham's Bosom, indeed a type of perfect environment, when believers resided their in faith, even more grace was extended and they also were raised.
4) Our Lord Jesus Christ supersedes Satan as the ruler of this world under His third royal title, King of kings and Lord of lords, the Bright Morning Star. He rules for 1000 years under perfect environment. When He returns to the earth, Christ brings with Him His royal family of God in resurrection bodies.
Satan led a revolt against the perfect environment of heaven in which he took one third of all angels, Rev 12:4.
The Bible describes this perfect environment of the Millennium in many ways: "The lion and the lamb shall lie down side by side." "The swords will be turned into plowshares, the spears into pruning hooks; man will learn war no more." "The child will put his hand in the cobra's den and pet cobras." "The desert will blossom like a crocus." "A child will be a child for 100 years." In most cases, except for capital punishment for criminals, death will take a holiday and everyone will live through the entire Millennium. Everyone will have perfect health. There will be no such thing as starvation. Though there will be a little crime (inevitable since the old sin nature still exists), there will be no jails since the enforcement of capital punishment will tremendously discourage most crime.
In contrast to the terrible violence during the Tribulation, the millennial reign of Jesus Christ will be one of perfect environment in every way.
The instigation of the Gog Revolution against God and the perfect environment of the Millennium is tantamount to Satan's admission of his guilt, the guilt of all fallen angels, and the proof of guilt of all unregenerate mankind
Rev 12:9, "And the great dragon was thrown down out of heaven, the serpent of ancient times who is called the devil and Satan, who deceived the entire inhabited earth; he was cast down to the earth and his angels were cast out with him."
Then there is a post-historic sentence carried out against Satan and all fallen angels when they are cast into the Lake of Fire forever, Rev 20:10. Unbelievers of the human race are resurrected and cast into the Lake of Fire forever, Rev 20:11-15.
Rather than attacking one another, let's remain in faith with our Lord Christ Jesus and search the Scripture for even more significance in this rarely taught doctrine. It's a nice reminder whenever some get too enthralled by worldly or carnal luxuries without faith in God (not appealing to either asceticism or a frantic search for counterfeit happiness, but simply occupied with how how Lord Christ Jesus gave us the perfect example of how we all shoulf solve problems in all our thinking and approaches to all situations.
Greetings in Christ! Ironically your screen name is the name of a bar i go past on the way home from work so i have a vision of a bulldog in my mind as i type...but i digress...a few respectful comments to your post..
You stated:
"Here's a thought: Jesus says, "I have other sheep that ye know not of," (displaying a regrettable use of dangling prepositions, tsk, tsk). Now I know that a lot of Christians are only too eager to explain that He meant the Gentiles, and that therefore they DO in fact know of the sheep of whom Jesus says "ye know not of." Personally, I'm content to say that Jesus is right and I don't know of all His sheep."
I agree that none of us would know who those sheep are to even claim to know is foolishness...However, we do have the Holy Spirit's inspired words to guide us to a reasonable conclusion to who is saved...we know that those who have faith in Christ as their Savior, confess their sins, etc will live with God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit in paradise...to say that those are are "ignorant" of Christ aka the Jew who doens't know Christ, is to de-value Christ's death and promise of life thru him is it not? For if it is possible that eternal life can be achieved apart from him him then those who don't know him should never try to know him for they are invinsibly "in"...I truly believe The Holy Spirit can fuel the flame of faith in Christ in anyone's heart...anywhere, anytime...but the need to believe in Christ as our savior is a doctrine throughout the oral and written traditions of the chruch. If we were discussing pre Christ, then faith in God's promise of an impending Savior, Christ, is still pointing the faithful, the believers to Christ, whether or not they knew his name.
You stated:
"Just as an exercise, "... all who believe in Him should not perish but have everlasting life" does not in itself necessarily imply that ONLY those who believe in Him can have everlasting life."
In regard to your use of John 3:16 for your point I would contend that if you continue the contextual meaning and include verses 17, 18 you will see the additional clarification that whoever does not believe is condemned...this tell us that those who do not believe + those who do believe = all who can either believe or not believe. There is no middle ground on this question, either you believe in Christ's promise or you don't...For those who are not familiar with the text see below:
"16For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son,[a] that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son."
Regards in Christ...
On a lighter note, I wonder if the arguemnt of invincible ingorance works for speeding tickets?
As a person reading how you put it and how the other quote was it does make a HUGE difference in how it's stated...the way you stated it Kolokotronis is agreeable to me...the way the other quote stated it is not because it changes the cause of salvation from faith, which incorporates works of love, to faith and works as seperate concepts...
works in and of themselves are not "bad" in the terms of the way many lutherans think of them...properly stated works of love are among the best things we can do because as you said the doing of such works allows Christ and the Holy Spirit to hold a larger and larger portion of our hearts allowing us to have a stronger and stronger faith and therefore a desire to do more and more works of love which, well you get the point......it all works in lock step, building on the foundation, the rock of ages, Christ...I guess to me it can be said that works of love without faith are just as dead as faith without works of love...after all, isnt' the goal to let the old ways of our life before Christ to fall by the wayside and our rebirth into Christ to shine as examples to the world to demonstrate our faith in our Savior?
In Christ...
I am a conservative lutheran by the way...
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