Posted on 03/29/2007 5:20:08 AM PDT by Gamecock
FoxNews reported today that while addressing a parish in a suburb of Rome, Pope Benedict XVI clarified his view of hell. The Pope said concerning hell, [it] “really exists and is eternal, even if nobody talks about it much any more,”
According to reports from the Vatican this straightforward language is in effort to eliminate confusion pending an upcoming release of the new Catholic catechism. One might wonder about confusion from a church that proposes that its doctrine does not change.
However, even the casual Catholic should remember the last Pontiffs less literal view of hell. Speaking of hell, Pope John Paul II said that it is 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.
According to Catholic dogma the Pope is infallible and exists as the functional head of the body of Christ on earth. So how can we have such divergent views on the reality of hell?
Hell is not the only issue with which we seem to see some contemporary doctrinal progression from Rome. In October the Pope indicated that limbo, supposed since medieval times to be a halfway house between Heaven and Hell, inhabited by unbaptized infants and holy men and women who lived before Christ, was only a theological hypothesis and not a definitive truth of the faith.
It is a real shame that millions and millions of folks are walking lock step with the Pope as their authority rather than Scripture. In order to be a good Catholic your theology must progress with the evolution of Papal theology, even at the expense of former Pontiffs. How dangerous it is to be blown about by Papal winds. Not so for Christians who reject Romes magisterial view of authority and embrace the doctrine of Sola Scriptura where Gods unchanging, inerrant, infallible divine Word is the ultimate authority in the church.
Of course, I read Palgrave's Encyclopedia of Econonmics for fun, so what do I know.
Nothing like curling up with a good abstract!
They don't get, they don't want to get that Papal Infallibility is, au fond, about God's faithfulness, not about some special papal mojo that comes with the slippers or something. There is almost a need to find us despicable and superstitious.
Maybe the redemption of Islamofascism will be the putting aside of this kind of strife in the face of a common enemy.
But I love them with Christian love anyway.
Awww. What fun is that?
When you do, try to use decent language.
Oh, thank you!
I'm pretty sure I used to work there.
But what's indecent in what I said? I saw "Mean People Suck" on a bumper sticker yesterday and laughed so hard I just about drove off the road. I hoped other people reading it would find it as funny as I did. Life is full of disappointments
And while you're tithing mint and dill and cumin, I'd rather tell the truth coarsely than express contempt and convey misinformation, either negligently or intentionally in a refined way, thanx. (Misspelling of "thanx" intentional, in homage to the courant nouvelle vague of orthography .....)
"I'm pretty sure I used to work there."
We must have worked in different departments. I'm the one who hid in the breakroom trying to keep out of Satan's way. She did have a way of finding me though.
She even bugged my office!
Look, I found hell!
"http://www.av1611.org/hell.html
THE BIBLE GIVES THE LOCATION OF HELL
When Jesus Christ died on the cross, He descended into hell. In Acts 2, Peter is speaking, verse 31, " . . . seeing this before spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in HELL"
When Jesus Christ died His soul went into hell.
And in Matthew 12:40, Jesus Christ says:
"For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly: so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the HEART OF THE EARTH. "
The Bible is clear Hell is inside the earth!
Ephesians 4:9, says of Jesus: "Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the LOWER PARTS OF THE EARTH."
On page 85 of Beyond Deaths Door, Dr. Rawlings writes patients who described hell said, ". . . this place seems to be UNDERGROUND or WITHIN THE EARTH in some way."
Scientist and Bible teacher, Henry Morris also agrees the Bible plainly teaches that hell is in this earth:
"So far as we can tell from Scripture, the present hell, is somewhere in the heart of the earth itself. It is also called 'the pit' (Isa. 14:9, 15: Ezek. 32:18-21) and 'the abyss' (Rev. 9:2). . .
The writers certainly themselves believed hell to be real and geographically 'beneath' the earth's surface. . .
To say this is not scientific is to assume science knows much more about the earth's interior than is actually the case. The great 'pit' [hell] would only need to be about 100 miles or less in diameter to contain, with much room to spare, all the forty billion or so people who have ever lived, assuming their 'spiritual' bodies are the same size as their physical bodies."
(Henry M. Morris, The Bible Has the Answer, p. 220)"
Sola Scriptura dontchaknow....
Sounds awfully small if you ask me.
I am reminded of a scene from Philadephia Story where the younger sister observes some wedding gift and says "This stinks." To which the mother chides her to not be so crude "If absolutely necessary say 'smells', but only if absolutely necessary."
So for more than 40 years, I have driven up to Long Island to see family. And nearly always I've gone by the Jersey Pike and the "Dark, Satanic Mills" that you get into around Elizabeth and north of there.
So I'm sticking with North Jersey for the location of hell.
Okay, UNDER North Jersey.
ROTFL... Never before has one article gotten so much wrong.
1. The Pope's contemporaneous speech is not infallible. Any idiot can look up on the internet and find the three preconditions for infallibility.
2. There is no contradiction between Benedict's and John Paul II's description of Hell. By "rather than a place," John Paul II was simply stating the obvious, that Hell is not simply going to be chanced apon by mortal planetary explorers.
3. The article uses quotes around "halfway house." This is deceitful. What authority is being quoted The author is such an uninformed idiot, he confused purgatory and limbo. Limbo is a hell which does not include fantastic physical suffering, but which is Hell, because it lacks the hope of attaining the presence of God. Of course, as has been very well repeated, there is no doctrine of Limbo at all; it is only, and has only ever been said to be, mere speculation as to what sort of afterlife experience those who die with neither any sin (but imputed sin through Adam), nor the grace of salvation.
The real issue is why do people republish morons such as this? Even if this author is so stupid to believe his nonsense, you have been corrected hundreds, if not thousands of times. Your persistence in repeating falsehoods, after they have been corrected, is difficult to understand, if not stemming from purposeful deceit.
Amen on that friend! and Christ spoke of hell more than he did heaven!
First of all I have to saywe arent with all respect to look to someone called the pope, there is no pope! Peter was not a pope nor the first pope or what ever is tried to contrive by it, ther is no such a thing as a pope in the bible whatsoever, but Im not here to condem those who might be honest believers in catholocism, but I would urge all catholics to look a little closer at scripture, it would be to there benefit, you are not going to be saved because you cross yourself or go to church on easter and then go and live how you want! it doesnt work like that but there are protestants who live the same way and they are kidding themselves, but for the pope I believe he is right on here when he speaks of Hell fire and brimstone because its no joke! The world is kidding themselves and many supposed believers! Peace!
Are you a messianic Jew?
You are erring in the scripture my friend, Jesus did not go into Hell.
Please visit my web-page
What do you mean by "to be in hell was to be forever separated from the loving God"? Are implying there is some place or some existence where God is not present? Is hell not created by God also? Aren't all things that exist brought into existence by God?
So when the pope sits on the chair of Hercules they become infallible.
COOL!
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