That article is a tissue of lies.
I would recommend finding the Pope's remarks and reading them. And if you find where he said, in so many words, people can be saved without Jesus, show me.
For one simple thing, which seems often to be overlooked, there's an important difference between "without Jesus" and "Without faith in Jesus." A person who is "without Jesus" in the sense that he does not believe or trust explicitly in Jesus, but who later comes to believe and trust -- at some point he was both without Jesus (in one sense) and with Jesus, in another, because it was by the action and grace of God in Jesus and through the Spirit that he came to faith. It is apparent that we have many differing views. If one holds to TULIP, one differs from what Catholics hold in many ways. The Pope contradicted the ‘L’ of TULIP and that contradiction also implies that the ‘I’ is, in our view, a little more mysterious and harder to pin down than most TULIP believers consider it to be.
Therefore, in our system, to say that redemption is for all, is NOT the same as saying all are saved. And to take one part of our system out of ours and view in in terms of yours can only give a false evaluation of what how that part works in our system.
But there's a further difference. With (I would think) a great many TULIP adherents, PapaF is very concerned with the encounter with Christ, and with the great commission.
So the question arises: how do I lovingly and respectfully evangelize an atheist? Well — as I understand PapaF, one way is to do a good work with him.
Because good works save? HECK no! Because, for example, to feed the hungry is itself good, even if a sinner does it. It may not be good or salvific for the sinner (indeed, without grace, it cannot be), it is good in itself.
And all good comes from God. So, however it ends up working in his life, when I join with “Atheists for Life” for a rally outside Planned Parenthood, or at the ‘Bread for the Hungry’ place, I am WITH him and sharing a good work with him.
Our atheist is close, albeit mostly externally, to a good thing, and close to graced people, people grafted into the body, at the same time. He may stubbornly resist anything they have to say, bit he is already a teeny-tiny bit open to the good they are doing with him. He is, in fact, in a gentle encounter with Christ, which may help him to be less skittish and shy in any subsequent and more intense encounter.
So, as PapaF says, there is an “encounter,” an encounter with Christ mediated by the goodness of the good work and the association with graced people.
I don't see him saying that this is any kind of completion or end. It's a START, a beginning or early step in facilitating, by witness and prayer, an encounter with Christ.
Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works,and glorify your Father who is in heaven.
When I read an article like this one, I just shake my head. It is okay when people misunderstand. It is a very great evil when people set out to misunderstand, when they listen to or read some words waiting to pounce on some unwary sentence. When they evaluate the sentence NOT in the context of the speaker but in their context in which it does not fit.
Good answer.
Ours??? Yours??? How about God's??? (which is the same as ours, btw.)
No one outside the body of Christ is redeemed...And to be more precise, the 'new man' and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the believer is the 'earnest money, the down payment of the future redemption of the believer...No atheists of muzlims have redemption without a trust in Jesus Christ as the Savior...