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To: InterestedQuestioner; gbcdoj; bornacatholic
Personally, my main concern with non-Baptized infants not going to heaven, is that they do not have a chance to accept the Grace of God.

Obviously this is the greatest scruple. But consider that the Angels, presented with once chance to obey or disobey, and 1/3 disobeyed. Is it better, from the perspective of God, that He enjoy some form of natural union with all these unfortunate souls, and lose none of them, or enjoy a perfect supernatural union with some of them, and lose the others to eternal rebellion and death? I'm not God, so I can't answer that. It is an assured thing though, that free human souls, presented with a single choice, will not all choose to love, honor, and obey the Lord God, sicne the Angels did not. Some will necessarily be lost of their own fault by such a mechanism. It is presumptuous in the extreme to assume all would choose the Lord.

If I understand the point of limbo, however, it is that the unbaptized infant is not actually punished, but is deprived.

They are deprived only of that which is beyond their nature. As St. Thomas says, they are deprived of supernatural life in the same manner that men on earth are deprived of the sensation of flapping their arms and flying like a bird - it is beyond anything that can be rationally expected.

So the idea here is that what people do not know will not be held against them? It would seem that the Gospel has not been promulgated to a stillborn infant. Both it and the parents do not have the opportunity to reject Christ.

Exactly to your first statement. People who have never heard of the Gospel are not held liable for being ignorant of it. And the same for infants. They are not punished for failing to be baptised, since it was outside of their control. They are personally innocent of sin, but they also are deprived of grace by their very nature as fallen human beings.

I'm going to expose my ignorance here, Hermann. Might we not say that the old Covenants are still valid, but that the point of Christianity is that we have a new and better Covenant?

The Old Covenant is no longer valid. The Council of Florence anathematizes those who still follow it since the promulgation of the Gospel.

There is also the possibility that Hell is in fact anhillation, which would resolve the infinite punishment for finite crime delima, and make it simply a permanent punishment for an ultimate crime. (“Fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matthew 10:28)

The soul is not immortal by nature, but is immortal only in union with God. Hell is eternal death.

That those in hell are not annhilated is because God loves even them. Hell consists of their inability to accept, reciprocate, and enjoy this love, because of their own twisted spiritual dementia. They hate God, therefore being around Him causes them torment. God's love is torturous to them because they are spiritually inequipped to accept it. All of their misery and despair comes from within themselves at the realization that their fate is all their fault.

This is why Scripture says that they are "tormented with fire and brimstone in the sight of the holy angels, and in the sight of the Lamb" (Revelations 14.10). And: "Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy face? ... if I descend into hell, thou art present" (Psalm 138.7,8b)

God brings them to Himself, and they are in agony because of their freely willed choice to hate God. The damned are tormented because God will not destroy them.

114 posted on 02/01/2006 1:23:07 PM PST by Hermann the Cherusker
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To: Hermann the Cherusker
The soul is not immortal by nature, but is immortal only in union with God.

Isn't this position ruled out by the definition of the Fifth Lateran Council?

115 posted on 02/01/2006 1:29:00 PM PST by gbcdoj (Let us ask the Lord with tears, that according to his will so he would shew his mercy to us Jud 8:17)
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To: Hermann the Cherusker
"They are deprived only of that which is beyond their nature."

That makes sense.

" People who have never heard of the Gospel are not held liable for being ignorant of it."

Would they go to Limbo, then, or is there a way for them to possibly go to Heaven?

"The soul is not immortal by nature, but is immortal only in union with God. Hell is eternal death.... Hell consists of their inability to accept, reciprocate, and enjoy this love, because of their own twisted spiritual dementia."

Your description of hell is the most interesting description of hell that I have ever seen. From a Scriptural standpoint, it's very interesting, because Heaven is often spoken of as Eternal Life. Your description of Hell is symmetrical to a Scriptural expression for Heaven--Eternal life. It makes meaningful a number of passages in Scripture which would otherwise be difficult to understand. For example:


Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life. (John 6:47)

and

And this is eternal life, that they know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. (John 17:3)

The passages on John seem to collapse in on themself read literally: He who believes in God and that he sent Christ has eternal life, and eternal life is to know God and Jesus Chris whom He has sent. In your description of the afterlife, however, the difference between Heaven and Hell is the nature of the relationship to God: defined by love of God for those in Heaven, and defined by hatred of God for those in Hell. In this sense, believing in God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent is a foretaste of Heaven: the basic relationship is established, but we do not have the vision. We now have belief and faith, which the basis of the relationship, but will move to certain knowledge in the next life with God.

I'm having a hard time reconciling what seem to be two separate views of hell, however. One sounds a lot like anhilation--eternal death, that is deprivation of and separation from God who we understand to be everywhere. In another sense, it seems that both the damned and the saved are looking upon God, both see God, but the experience is supernatural bliss for those who love God, and supernatural pain for those who hate God. Am I understanding that correctly? If so, how does one square this later view with Matthew 7:23:

And then will I declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from me, you evildoers.'

This is echoed in the Catechism, which describes hell as a deprivation of God (#633), and as an eternal separation from God (#1057)

It seems that a total annihilation would be easier to reconcile with an eternal separation from God. I guess the difficulty I am having is with the concept of eternal death. We usually think of death as a one time event, but eternal death sounds like a perpetual, ongoing experience of death, which is something none of us have ever experienced. It sounds like an extinction of self that is never quite completed.
124 posted on 02/01/2006 3:43:34 PM PST by InterestedQuestioner (Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.)
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