Etzelnik wrote:

Considering the large amount of Catholics here, I would like to better understand this doctrine. Or more specifically, why lack of belief in either the filio or the spiritus sancti as Divinity precludes one from grace.

In principle it doesn't, as far as I can tell. The one thing the doctrine is guaranteed not to mean (as I believe was affirmed once and for all under Pius XII) is that salvation is available only to those who are expressly members of the Church.

Generally it just means that wherever salvation is found, the Church is there, i.e., all salvation comes from Christ. But the Catechism specifically denies (http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P29.HTM; see section 847) that someone is excluded from salvation by non-culpable ignorance of Christ, so it can hardly be limited to those who expressly believe in the Trinity.

The Catechism does mention seeking God and trying to do His will, though, so that may be your parallel with Rambam. (And it's worth calling explicit attention here to the Church's teaching that the existence of God can be known, and demonstrated with certainty, through natural reason.)

Last edited by Scott (7/01/2015 8:34 pm)

Etzelnik:

Welcome, and thank you for your excellent questions.  Let me try to address a couple of them. 

You ask about the Dogma, "Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus".  It means exactly what it says:  there is no salvation outside the Catholic Church.  In order to be saved (avoid hell and get to Heaven), one must be Baptized, profess and practice the Catholic Faith, and die in the state of (Sanctifying) grace (no unforgiven mortal sins on one's soul).  One becomes a Catholic through Baptism, and only through Baptism.  The un-Baptized are not Catholic, and are therefore incapable of being saved -- "Jesus answered [Nicodemus the Pharisee, who came to Jesus by night]:  Amen, amen I say to thee, unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God" (John 3 : 5).  There is no other way to salvation.  Only Catholics can be saved (but by no means are all Catholics saved).  There have been several infallible pronouncements of Popes that confirm my statements and therefore definitively settle the question.  Furthermore, a Dogma, once defined, can never be altered, even by a subsequent Pope (except perhaps to strenghten it by pronouncing on issues not directly addressed in the original formulation).

You ask about grace.  There are two kinds of grace, Actual Grace and Sanctifying Grace (sometimes referred to as Habitual Grace).  Sanctifying Grace gives us a share in supernatural life, and is therefore necessary for salvation (one cannot attain Heaven without it), and is initially obtained only through the sacrament of Baptism.  Therefore Sacramental Grace is only obtainable in the Catholic Church.  But Actual Grace, the Grace that prompts us to do good and avoid evil, which God continually dispenses to all people (unless, Heaven forbid, they steadfastly refuse His promptings and He reprobates them, leaving them in their sins) is always available to all, and, if faithfully followed to the best of one's abilities, will invariably lead the sinner to repentance and the un-Baptized to Baptism and the Catholic Faith.

Our God is one.  There is only one God.  But He is also Trinity.  His nature is so ineffably immense that three Divine Persons (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) subsist in the one Godhead.  God chose not to explicitly reveal His Trinitarian nature in the Old Testament (although He gave us hints), but did explicitly reveal it in the New Testament.  One must believe all of God's revelation (as given to us in Scripture, Tradition, and the teaching power of the Magisterium -- the infallible dogmas of the Faith) in order to be saved.  Therefore one must believe in the Father, the Son (incarnate in Jesus the Messiah, true God and true man), and the Holy Spirit.  To refuse to believe in the Trinity (even though of course we cannot by our unaided natural reason demonstrate it or fully understand it in our present condition) is a mortal sin against Faith, because, again, we simply must believe everything God, who can neither deceive nor be deceived, has revealed to us.  
 




 

Last edited by Spiculum (7/07/2015 5:35 pm)

Jeremy Taylor wrote:

From the Catechism:

847 This affirmation is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church:
Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too may achieve eternal salvation.
 

Precisely. I've already linked to this part of the Catechism, and it's quite a sufficient reply to the Feeneyist heresy.

Last edited by Scott (7/07/2015 11:01 am)

I would add here that I think I've reached a satisfactory analysis of Maimonides, which I will post here sometime later.

Etzelnik wrote:

Spiculum wrote:

You ask about grace. There are two kinds of grace, Actual Grace and Sacramental Grace (sometimes referred to as Habitual Grace). Sacramental Grace gives us a share in supernatural life, and is therefore necessary for salvation (one cannot attain Heaven without it), and is initially obtained only through the sacrament of Baptism.

Hmm...

This seems wrong, as the immortality of the soul and it's natural enlightenment when separated from the body cannot be truly called "supernatural". It is an entirely natural derivative of the ordering of the soul.

That it is withdrawn on the basis of a lack of belief in a non-rationalist dogma seems bizarre, to say the least. Unless, of course, I misunderstand you.

To refuse to believe in the Trinity (even though of course we cannot by our unaided natural reason demonstrate it or fully understand it in our present condition) is a mortal sin against Faith, because, again, we simply must believe everything God, who can neither deceive nor be deceived, has revealed to us.

I can understand this concept very well. Granted revelation, faith is a natural and necessary outgrowth of our rationalist substrate of monotheism.

The question here is what makes honest disbelief in revelation a mortal sin?

That seems to beg the question. How can one honestly disbelieve revelation? I mean for me, it would sound bizarre in the extreme to say or argue, "I know Almighty God teaches us such-and-such, but I don't honestly believe Him." I think that would rather point to obstinancy in the will than qualify as "honest disbelief."

I think the logic of most who deny revelation is on the grounds exactly that because God is omniscient and because we know from reason/science such-and-such, that the claims of this or that religion that God has taught such-and-such cannot be a true revelation, based on the same reasoning of various believers that God could not possibly teach what is false. That, I think, would be more askin to "honest disbelief"; i.e., they deny on rational grounds that it could even i principle be revelation. That, or they understand on the basis of past or previous revelation that certain possibilities are thereby excluded logically or necessarily on the grounds, of course, of what God has already revealed about Himself. That, too, in my opinion, would be "honest disbelief" but, again, it isn't a denial of the authority or necessary obedience/adherence to God's revelation as such, which they of course agree is binding on the intellect or the conscience.

In Christian thought, it is the conscience of man that has the effect of God's revelation and is binding on all, whether atheist or otherwise and where ignorance can excuse iff one obeys their conscience.

Last edited by Timocrates (7/07/2015 12:38 pm)