Free Republic
Browse · Search
Religion
Topics · Post Article

To: Fai Mao
Interesting, but depends on how one defines what an illusion is. Agents within an illusion can have cause and effect, too.

That said, the author of the original article contradicts himself when he attempts to champion one religion as "the only way" and then answers the question, "Are non-Christians all damned then?" with this:

No. Father Feeny was excommunicated by the Catholic Church for teaching that "outside the Church, no salvation" meant outside the visible Church. God does not punish pagans unjustly. He does not punish them for not believing in a Jesus they never heard of, through no fault of their own (invincible ignorance). But God, who is just, punishes them for sinning against the God they do know through nature and conscience (see Rom 1-2). There are no innocent pagans, and there are no innocent Christians either. All have sinned against God and against conscience. All need a Savior. Christ is the Savior

5 posted on 11/24/2013 3:40:18 PM PST by James C. Bennett (An Australian.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies ]


To: James C. Bennett

There is no contradiction in the sense we can’t have many roads to the mountaintop because if that were the case the life and death of the Christ would have been superfluous.

What sadistic God would send His only Beloved Son to be born in a stable, tortured, and crucified between two thieves, if there were other paths to paradise as well? This is why Christ said “No one comes to the Father except through Me,” “I Am the Life and the Resurrection,” “I am the Living Bread,” and gave St. Peter and the rest of His disciples, the Great Commission to go fort and “teach all nations…” This is one truth, one teaching. The rest, as Hillaire Belloc so ably argues and explains in his book, “Heresies,” the rest have no basis of faith, informed by reason, and historical text and tradition.” Nor have they a central Catechism of truth informed by a Church that Christ founded and assured us that the “gates of Hell shall not prevail against it.”

One either accepts or rejects this. As for pagans, who have not been so informed and those who died before the birth and resurrection of Christ, the author of redemption died for those living and dead, pagans included, for the Natural Law of God separated man from beast.


8 posted on 11/24/2013 5:57:57 PM PST by Steelfish (ui)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
Religion
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson