“Now they (adults) are disposed unto the said justice, when, excited and assisted by divine grace, conceiving faith by hearing, they are freely moved towards God, believing those things to be true which God has revealed and promised, – and this especially, that God justifies the impious by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus”
– Council of Trent, Decree on Justification
“If anyone says that divine faith is not to be distinguished from natural knowledge about God and moral matters, and consequently that for divine faith it is not required that revealed truth should be believed because of the authority of God who reveals it: let him be anathema.”
– First Vatican Council, Dei Filius
A system of morality based exclusively on human reason robs man of his highest dignity and lowers him from the supernatural to the merely natural life. Not but that man is able by the right use of reason to know and to obey certain principles of the natural law. But though he should know them all and keep them inviolate through life-and even this is impossible without the aid of the grace of our Redeemer-still it is vain for anyone without faith to promise himself eternal salvation. ‘If anyone abide not in Me, he shall be cast forth as a branch, and shall wither, and they shall gather him up and cast him into the fire, and he burneth’ (John XV., 6). ‘He that believeth not shall be condemned’ (Mark XVI., 16).
– Leo XIII, Tametsi Futura Prospicientibus
“We declare that the greater number of those who are condemned to eternal punishment suffer that everlasting calamity because of ignorance of those mysteries of faith which must be known and believed in order to be numbered among the elect.”
– Pius X, Acerbo Nimis
Laodicea 
September 21, 2018 at 3:30 pm
Except perhaps for the first one, those quotations are irrelevant to the implicit/explicit debate because implicitists do not claim that belief in truths that are accessible to natural reason is sufficient for salvation. Rather, they admit that everyone must explicitly believe in God’s offer of eternal supernatural happiness, which, according to Pius XII’s encyclical Humani Generis, cannot be known by natural reason.
Even the first quote isn’t decisive, as I will argue:
(1) The quote seems to merely describe the ordinary way of justification without taking account of exceptional cases, for the following reasons:
(1a) The Council talks about “conceiving faith by hearing.” However, St. Thomas said that occasionally someone might receive the faith by an internal inspiration.
(1b) In the same passage (Session VI, Chapter 6, Denzinger 798), the Council also says adults are prepared for justication by “turning themselves away from the fear of divine justice, by which they are profitably aroused, to a consideration of the mercy of God.” However, I think even explicitists usually admit that adults can be saved without explicit belief that God punishes sinners and without conscious “fear of divine justice.” Adolphe Tanquerey writes: “Among the dispositions for justification enumerated by the Council of Trent, not all are equally necessary. […] (c) servile fear is not required, but is useful in most cases; […]” (Synopsis Theologiae Dogmaticae, vol. III, 18th ed., p. 126; my own translation from the Latin).
(1c) Ludwig Ott writes with reference to Denzinger 798: “The Council describes the ordinary psychological course of the process of justification, without thereby defining that all individual acts must be present in the given sequence, and that only these can be present” (Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, 2nd English ed., p. 253).
(2) The Council says people are justified by “believing those things to be true which God has revealed and promised.” However, since people are very often justified without knowing that Abraham married Keturah (which God revealed in Genesis 25:1), the verb “to believe” cannot refer here exclusively to acts of explicit faith; rather, it must include implicit faith or refer to the habit of faith.
(3) You might argue that the expression “and this especially” means that what follows must be believed by an act of explicit faith, but this isn’t the only possible interpretation. According to implicitist theologian Matthias Scheeben, explicit faith in the Trinity and the Incarnation is necessary for salvation by a relative necessity of means (necessitate medii relativa), i.e., it is an ordinary means of acquiring supernatural hope and thereby of justification and salvation, whereas most other dogmas are only necessary by a necessity of precept (necessitate praecepti). Scheeben’s opinion is able to explain why faith in “the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” has a “special” status in comparison to other “things […] which God has revealed and promised.”
(4) In the same chapter, the Council says that adults are disposed to justification “when they resolve to receive baptism.” The magisterium later clarified that this “resolve” can be implicit. Therefore, it is reasonable to think that other aspects of the preparation for justification as described by the Council can also be implicit.
(5) Even explicitists (such as St. Alphonsus) usually admit that implicitism is permissible and at least somewhat probable. Thus, if the Council of Trent had taught explicitism, it would follow that even most explicitists are heterodox because they declare to be an open question what the Church has already settled.
(6) In 1831, the Holy See decreed that confessors were allowed to follow any of St. Alphonsus’s opinions. Hence, they are allowed to follow his opinion that implicitism is permissible and “quite probable.” Hence, explicitism cannot have been binding Catholic doctrine in 1831.
September 21, 2018 at 4:19 pm
Your first point is your conclusion your remaining points are largely either deduced from it or are assertions that others have held it. No actual argument therefore except from human authority.
Trent’s “especially” disposes of 2 (as you observe). St Thomas considers this in IIaIIae, 1, 6 ad 1:
“Some things are proposed to our belief are in themselves of faith, while others are of faith, not in themselves but only in relation to others: even as in sciences certain propositions are put forward on their own account, while others are put forward in order to manifest others. Now, since the chief object of faith consists in those things which we hope to see, according to Hebrews 11:2: ‘Faith is the substance of things to be hoped for,’ it follows that those things are in themselves of faith, which order us directly to eternal life. Such are the Trinity of Persons in Almighty God, the mystery of Christ’s Incarnation, and the like: and these are distinct articles of faith. On the other hand certain things in Holy Writ are proposed to our belief, not chiefly on their own account, but for the manifestation of those mentioned above: for instance, that Abraham had two sons, that a dead man rose again at the touch of Eliseus’ bones, and the like, which are related in Holy Writ for the purpose of manifesting the Divine mystery or the Incarnation of Christ: and such things should not form distinct articles.”
This accords with the 1703 response of the Holy Office that “a missionary is bound to explain to an adult, even a dying one who is not entirely incapacitated, the mysteries of faith which are necessary by a necessity of means, as are especially the mysteries of the Trinity and the Incarnation.” All of which excludes the possibility that assent to these fundamental articles can be merely implicit.
Although he is using a remark of Benedict XIV about he damnation of gentiles and heretics Pius X in context is referring to poorly catechised Catholics on their death beds who ex hypothesi seek post-mortem happiness and seek to avoid punishment but “are entirely ignorant of those truths necessary for salvation” which he describes as “the Incarnation of the Word of God” and “the perfect restoration of the human race which He accomplished”. Elsewhere, of course, echoing Vatican I, he also condemns the denial that faith is “a genuine assent of the intellect to truth received by hearing from an external source. By this assent, because of the authority of the supremely truthful God, we believe to be true that which has been revealed and attested to by a personal God, our creator and lord.”
Florence defined that faith expressed through the Old Law lost its efficacy as soon as Christ died (a doctrine reaffirmed by Pius XII in Mystici Corporis) and yet the Old Law (according to Our Lord Himself) certainly contains the promise of post mortem rewards and punishments which implicitists hold to be the only thing necessary. Judaising while also heretical does at least entail an explanation of how it is required for divine faith that revealed truth should be believed because of the authority of God who reveals it (as Vatican I demands) which is more than can be said for other forms of implicitism.
I’m sure the 1831 decree was not intended to extend to the speculative theological opinions of St Alphonsus as to how firmly the magisterium had taught to be wrong opinions he agreed were wrong!
September 21, 2018 at 6:07 pm
This discussion is out of my league, but what do you think of the possibility (even if rare) that, explicit faith being necessary, a remote pagan may have the chance of salvation through the miraculous teaching of an angel?
September 21, 2018 at 6:16 pm
That is St Thomas’s view.
September 21, 2018 at 9:12 pm
(1) Your quotation from St. Thomas’s Summa is irrelevant because it concerns the distinction between revealed truths which are important enough to be articles of faith versus those that aren’t. Yet it is clear that explicit belief in many articles of faith (such as transsubstantiation) isn’t necessary for salvation by an absolute necessity of means. The explicit/implicit controversy is about the different degrees of necessity of different articles of faith.
(2) The Holy Office’s 1703 response doesn’t settle the debate because it doesn’t say whether the “necessity of means” is absolute or relative. As I explained, the implicitist theologian Scheeben believes in a relative necessity of means with regard to explicit belief in the Trinity and Incarnation.
Joseph Pohle and Arthur Preuss have a similar opinion and explicitly discuss the 1703 response:
“The third and most probable opinion is that even under the New Covenant, explicit faith in Christ, and a fortiori in the Divine Trinity, cannot be regarded as an indispensable medium of justification and salvation […] Nevertheless it must be held that an adult who desires to be received into the Church and is baptized in the name of the Most Holy Trinity, is bound to believe in the Trinity and the Incarnation by more than a mere necessitas praecepti, namely, by what is technically called necessitas medii per accidens, a necessity from which God dispenses only in exceptional cases, when it is either physically or morally impossible to elicit an act of explicit faith. It is for this reason that the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office decided, February 28, 1703, that missionaries are bound to explain to all adult converts who have the use of reason, even though they be near death, those mysteries of the faith which are necessary for salvation necessitate medii, especially the Trinity and the Incarnation” (Dogmatic Theology, vol. VII, 3rd ed., pp. 283-4).
(3) When St. Pius X in Acerbo Nimis talks about “those truths necessary for salvation,” he adds that “the masses or […] those in the lower walks of life […] find some excuse for their ignorance in the fact that the demands of their harsh employers hardly leave them time to take care of themselves or of their dear ones […]” Therefore, he seems to be talking about necessity of precept. Pius goes on to say about nominal Christians with significant secular education:
“They rarely give thought to God, the Supreme Author and Ruler of all things, or to the teachings of the faith of Christ. They know nothing of the Incarnation of the Word of God, nothing of the perfect restoration of the human race which He accomplished. Grace, the greatest of the helps for attaining eternal things, the Holy Sacrifice and the Sacraments by which we obtain grace, are entirely unknown to them. They have no conception of the malice and baseness of sin; hence they show no anxiety to avoid sin or to renounce it.”
Here he mentions some things which clearly do not have to be explicitly believed with an absolute necessity of means. Nobody claims that explicit faith in all seven sacraments and in the Catholic doctrine of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is absolutely necessary for salvation. Consequently, Acerbo Nimis is entirely irrelevant to our debate.
(4) The Council of Florence taught that the ceremonies of the Mosaic law became optional after Christ’s death and have been probited since the “promulgation of the Gospel” (Denzinger 712), but the Council doesn’t say that this is because of the fact that the old ceremonies no longer express all articles of faith that are absolutely necessary for salvation.
Florence (following St. Thomas, Ia-IIae, Question 103) merely says that the ceremonies of the Old Law signified Christ’s redemption as something in the future and therefore were no longer appropriate after the redemtption had been accomplished. In other words, the problem with those ceremonies isn’t that they express an imcomplete faith, but that they now express a false faith. Implicitists can easily agree with that.
(5) I’m sure the 1831 decree was not intended to extend to the speculative theological opinions of St Alphonsus as to how firmly the magisterium had taught to be wrong opinions he agreed were wrong!
It isn’t merely speculative. If explicitism is Catholic doctrine, then implicitist theologians must be refused absolution and Holy Communion until they retract their heterodox opinion. According to St. Alphonsus, they should be absolved and admitted to Holy Communion since their opinion is permissible. According to the 1831 decree, confessors can always follow St. Alphonsus. Therefore, the 1831 decree implies that explicitism isn’t binding doctrine.
If I understand you correctly, you believe that explicitism is a defined dogma. Yet to doubt a dogma is heresy. Hence, your position implies that St. Alphonsus was a heretic, presumably a culpable one (since a well-educated theologian cannot plausibly be considered to be invincibly ignorant of a defined dogma). But it is implausible that the Church declared a culpable heretic to be a Doctor of the Church and permits confessors to follow all of his opinions.
September 21, 2018 at 9:44 pm
1) No St Thomas considers that all revealed truths must be adhered to if known to be true but that only certain key element such as those mentioned in the quotation are necessary as necessities of means.
2) The Holy Office cannot be interpreted in this way. The scenario asked about is precisely an adult on the point of death with “an understanding of God and some of His attributes, especially His justice in rewarding and in punishing, according to this remark of the Apostle “He that cometh to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder'”.
3) The ‘some excuse’ Pius X talks about is clearly a mitigation of guilt for incredulity not a solution to the lack of faith among those he is discussing. Among the more educated he divided the points about which they are ignorant between “those truths necessary for salvation” and “the greatest of the helps for attaining eternal things” the articles you mention are in the latter group.
4) Florence, St Thomas and Pius XII teach that the rites of Old Law lost efficacy immediately upon the death of Christ. The only efficacy they had was derived from the faith they expressed. If they were unable to occasion justification from that moment independently of the culpability of the one making use of them then clearly implicit faith lost its efficacy at Christ’s death.
5) There are many possible denials of explicitism some are heretical others merely erroneous. It is absurd to suppose that every speculative theological judgment of St Alphonsus on the theological note of some doctrine has been indirectly declared de fide.
If you deny 4 then you will have to explain what that truth knowable by revelation alone is that one of your implicit believers would have to hold in order to be saved that an invincibly ignorant Jew in 30 AD did not hold and what its warrant would be.
September 21, 2018 at 9:35 pm
I used to favour a strict explicitism, but now I lean towards a very broad implicitism. Let’s take an extreme case. A man who was brought up without religion on his death bed reflects on his past life and feels sorrow for his sin. He has a vague impression that there is a life beyond death, and his sentiment can more or less be described as, “God, if you do exist, I am sorry and hope for your forgiveness. If there is a heaven I would like to go there, if you would be merciful.” This is about the very furthest implicitism can be taken, I think, because here there is not even an explicit belief in God the Rewarder, but a mere implicit / suppositional belief. However, I would now tend to argue for the salvation of this man, supposing:
(1) his sorrow for his past life / his sins is motivated by a supernatural and perfect contrition,
(2) contained in his vague / confused notion about there being a Merciful God, there is a hope of a more perfect and explicit knowledge of Him and of His revelation,
(3) his desire for God’s forgiveness implicitly contains a desire for the saving merits of Christ,
(4) there is not in his heart any sinful / obstinate denial of revealed truth, but rather he struggles through innocence to sincerely perceive the truth.
Though it is an extreme case it may be somewhat common these days. I think when people say things like “everything happens for a reason” there is a vague and implicit belief in God who orders all things reasonably, and in “he’s gone to a better place” a vague and implicit belief in an afterlife. Even if in most this is a weak and sentimental belief, it can still be the grounds, I think, for supernatural faith, hope, and charity. Implicit faith is not no faith. It contains belief in the Holy Trinity and the Incarnation, and is incompatible with any obstinate rejection of revealed truth. This does not empty the Cross of Christ, but rather confirms its power to extend to those even with the most remote desire to receive its saving merits. These people would not fall under “he who believes not shall be condemned” or “he who is not with Me, is against Me”, because they do (implicitly) believe in, and do (implicitly) belong to, Jesus Christ. They are His own, despite them having only a vague notion of Whom it is they belong to. It does not lessen the necessity of preaching the faith, because those who know Our Lord Jesus Christ explicitly have a much firmer foundation for making acts of supernatural faith, hope, and charity, and therefore are much likelier to receive the reward of eternal salvation. On what grounds would the aforementioned be denied eternal salvation? “Sorry, your belief in God’s revelation was not sufficiently explicit.” This seems a merely legalistic objection and contrary to the spirit of the gospel. If there is a even a seed of supernatural charity and contrition left in the soul, it would seem sufficient to save a person from eternal damnation (even despite a long stay in purgatory). What offends God ultimately is hardness of heart and impenitence (the sin against the Holy Ghost). When Our Lord separates the sheep from the goats, it is ultimately the separation of men who have hearts of flesh & men who have hearts of stone. “Men of good will” shall be saved, always through and in Christ, and never without at least an implicit desire to be united to Him through His Body the Church.
September 21, 2018 at 9:46 pm
(4) . . . but rather he struggles through innocence to sincerely perceive the truth.
struggles through ignorance*
As for why Christ pronounced harsh judgement against those cities that did not receive the teaching of the apostles, “it shall be better for Sodom & Gomorrah on that day than, etc.” The greater the manifestation of Christ’s gospel, the greater is the guilt and obstinacy of those who reject it. So those towns of Israel, having seen the great miracles of the apostles, and having been taught through the Law to expect the Messiah: were indeed very culpable for rejecting the Messiah, for they had every reason to believe. The situation is different in our postmodern cities where confusion reigns and people are “tossed about by every wind of doctrine.” There are I would imagine plenty of lost sheep around without comparatively less individual guilt, even if the corporate guilt is very high due to the extreme wickedness of our leaders in covering up the truth for worldly and often nefarious reasons. However, it does not at all follow from this that we should hide the gospel because that would increase people’s culpability for rejecting it: no, the gospel is a revealer of hearts, if it is made openly manifest and people still reject it, that only reveals that they are hard of heart and not in the way of salvation. The true preaching of the gospel through the ministry of the Church under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost can only bear good fruits. Those who have ears to hear will hear, and the rest are hard-hearted sinners. We should not deny the good-willed the preaching of the gospel and a greater hope of salvation, just to save the evil-willed from falling into greater sin through rejecting the gospel. Although we should always observe the precept not to cast our pearls before swine: the gospel should only be preached to those with a reasonable hope of accepting it. This is my gripe with Protestants who preach in the marketplace to people with only shopping on their minds.
September 21, 2018 at 10:01 pm
The scenario you describe is not possible because the truths to which the dying man adheres are all naturally knowable, do not logically entail the Trinity and Incarnation, and (as the anathema from Vatican I makes clear) for divine faith it is required that revealed truth should be believed because of the authority of God who reveals it and its content must be distinguished from natural knowledge about God and moral matters. As Dominus Iesus defines “the distinction between theological faith and belief in the other religions, must be firmly held. If faith is the acceptance in grace of revealed truth, which ‘makes it possible to penetrate the mystery in a way that allows us to understand it coherently’, then belief, in the other religions, is that sum of experience and thought that constitutes the human treasury of wisdom and religious aspiration, which man in his search for truth has conceived and acted upon in his relationship to God and the Absolute.” A willingness to believe whatever God might reveal is a requirement of the natural law and (as Leo XIII points out above) even if, per impossibile, a man were to fulfil the natural law perfectly without faith he could not be saved. This is impossible anyway because the first requirement of the natural law is that we worship God in the manner He has appointed and if we are without subjective guilt God would not fail to send us a preacher (as St Thomas observes).
Your remark “If there is a even a seed of supernatural charity and contrition left in the soul, it would seem sufficient to save a person from eternal damnation” implies a misunderstanding. Man is born a child of wrath without supernatural charity of any kind. If he is to endowed with supernatural charity it will only be an undeserved gift through the Gospel (which is performative good news for that very reason). That man in subjectively inculpable for incredulity will not excuse him his other sins because he does not earn supernatural faith it comes to him as a gift. If he has no other sins (and if so he must be below the age of reason) and dies without supernatural faith then he will go to limbo, he will not be saved.
September 21, 2018 at 10:15 pm
But as St. Thomas says, the rational proofs for the existence of God are difficult and beyond the understanding of most men. Also, just because the existence of God is an object of natural reason, does not mean it cannot also be an object of faith. Granted that those with a greater rational understanding of God’s existence do not require such great faith in the same, the truth is that the rational understanding of God’s existence is not very great in most men. Furthermore, granting the natural knowledge of the existence of God, the supernatural goodness, benevolence, and mercifulness is not immediately obvious, as one can have a deistic conception of God as a First Cause without seeing Him as Father paternally caring for His creatures. Therefore, one could feasibly know God’s existence by reason, but still believe in His benevolence by faith. Let us suppose the man I described at death’s door is a great natural theologian like Aristotle, who is rationally convinced of the existence of the Unmoved Mover; still, the intuition at that moment that his soul hangs in the balance, and that he might be rewarded or punished by God depending on the acceptance of his plea for divine mercy: this could very well be an act of supernatural faith. He does not have an explicit knowledge of the Church which is the established public authority of “God revealing”, but he has a vague notion at that moment that God is speaking to him internally and eliciting supernatural acts of faith, hope, and charity: therefore, he does indeed believe in the authority of God revealing (through a private rather than public revelation, but still no less supernatural). “I think God is speaking to me and telling me to feel sorry for my evil deeds.” If he receives this truly as divine revelation, as God speaking, then surely it is a supernatural faith in the “authority of God revealing.”
September 21, 2018 at 10:35 pm
It is true that prescinding from sin a direct revelation of God’s supernatural providence would suffice to make possible acts of faith, hope and charity but for one in actual sin adherence to the means by which God has taken away sin (‘that God justifies the impious by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus’) known either through direct revelation or the authority of the Church would be necessary.
September 21, 2018 at 10:27 pm
“Man is born a child of wrath without supernatural charity of any kind. If he is to endowed with supernatural charity it will only be an undeserved gift through the Gospel (which is performative good news for that very reason).”
I do not deny that the seed of supernatural charity is an effect of divine grace. I’m not a Pelagian. I’m fully Augustinian/Thomistic in this sense (the absolute necessity of grace). My point is that it is not clear that souls lacking explicit knowledge of revealed truths are also lacking in supernatural charity, for granting that charity builds on faith, it may be that the charity which we observe in apparently unbelieving souls is actually built upon a vague and implicit belief which is no less supernatural on that account. So they should not be classed as unbelievers in an absolute sense, though in the external forum they may be rightly classified infidels or heretics – internally they are true believers. The logic of explicitism is that to whomsoever God shall give the reward of eternal life, He shall also predestine to receive explicit knowledge of the gospel truths; but this would only seem intrinsically necessary if explicit knowledge of the gospel is absolutely necessary for an act of supernatural charity. On the contrary, however, the pagan who goes out of his way to selflessly succour another because he has a vague notion that there is a moral order to the universe and punishment & reward after death, is acting with supernatural charity based on an implicit belief, it would seem, in the good news (the gospel) which makes it explicit. That is, the Good Samaritan, who does more with his lesser knowledge than does the Indifferent Israelite with his greater knowledge.
September 21, 2018 at 10:39 pm
It is true that prescinding from sin a direct revelation of God’s supernatural providence would suffice to make possible acts of faith, hope and charity but for one in actual sin adherence to the means by which God has taken away sin (‘that God justifies the impious by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus’) known either through direct revelation or the authority of the Church would be necessary. The Good Samaritan did adhere to the revelation to Abraham and confusedly (but presumably inculpably) to the means established in the Mosaic Covenant for the removal of sin. These means lost all efficacy at Christ’s death.
September 22, 2018 at 9:48 am
But it isn’t clear to me why explicit knowledge of the mechanism of sin’s remission (the shedding of the Precious Blood of Christ) is necessary for an act of supernatural perfect contrition which infallibly obtains that remission. Surely anyone who is supernaturally sorry for their sins ipso facto has a supernatural desire (even if only implicit) for the Precious Blood. It would seem to me that the Lord can wash souls in the Precious Blood of Christ who have even a vague yearning for it, because in yearning for the remission of their sins they thereby yearn for its means. This would not take away the advantage of an explicit faith in Christ’s Blood, because an explicit knowledge of it would provide a greater motive for that supernatural hope and trust which obtains it. It is the advantage of the child at the table over the dog licking up the crumbs.
September 22, 2018 at 6:47 pm
An act of supernatural perfect contrition infallibly obtains the remission of sins because the person who elicits this act ex hypothesi enjoys friendship with God. This friendship is not available to man in his natural state and still less in his fallen state. It is available to men through a gratuitous offer made in virtue of Christ’s merits. Knowledge of Christ (the Good News) is thus logically antecedent to the charity necessary to an act of supernatural perfect contrition. Ignorance of Christ precludes the necessary conformity to Him. It can be accomplished without the conscious consent of the subject only when the subject is below the age of reason (and licitly only by his parents). Because God makes it really possible for all men to fulfil his decrees, providence will not withhold the necessary knowledge of Christ from anyone who has attained the age of reason unless in that moment they sin. Nor would God, on account of His universal salvific will, allow even an actual sinner to persevere after natural repentance in conformity with the natural law until death without sending him a preacher. However, these are limit cases. St Paul assures us there are no such people (Romans 3:10).
September 21, 2018 at 11:29 pm
According to the Summa, Ia-IIae, Question 103, Article 2, the ceremonies of the Old Law were never, strictly speaking, efficacious for justification; however, they were professions of supernatural faith in the future redemption by Christ, and that faith (when informed by charity) did have the power of justification.
After the Passion, Jewish Christians were for a time permitted to continue the old ceremonies, not as professions of faith, but as national customs. They weren’t justified by that, anymore than Mexicans are justifed by wearing sombreros.
If anyone after the Passion performs the ceremonial precepts of the Old Law as a profession of faith in a future redemption, that is a merely natural faith, since supernatural faith cannot refer to falsehoods. However, someone can simultaneously have natural faith in some propositions (including false ones) and supernatural faith in others, and someone can be justfied and saved despite (but not because of) his natural faith in certain falsehoods.
If someone today performed the ceremonial precepts of the Old Law with the intention of professing his supernatural faith in God’s supernatural providence, that would be an inappropriate way of professing the faith since God intended those ceremonies to signify faith not just in His supernatural Providence in general, but specifically in the future redemption by Christ. An inappropriate manner of professing supernatural faith cannot be said to contribute to justification, even though the faith itself may prepare for justification.
In conclusion, after the Passion, the ceremonies of the Old Law can never be appropriate professions of supernatural faith, which is the only sense in which they were conducive to justification before the Passion.
September 22, 2018 at 12:17 am
It is entirely possible for a Jew living since the passion to be inculpably ignorant of Christ’s coming and to profess a human faith in the Old Law but we know that the truths of the Old Law did suffice to profess supernatural faith in God’s supernatural providence before the passion so they ought (were impicitism true) to suffice for justifying faith for someone living since the passion and inculpably ignorant of Christ’s coming. But the Church teaches that they became universally ineffectual from the moment of Christ’s death which could not be the case were implicitism true.
December 2, 2018 at 7:01 am
Pope Pius IX, Bl. John Henry Cardinal Newman, Victor Cardinal Dechamps, Pope Pius X, Bishop Louis Gaston de Ségur, Msgr. Joseph Pohle, Fr. Matthias Scheeben, Fr. Stephen Keenan, Fr. Bertrand L. Conway, C.S.P., Fr. Francis Spirago, Fr. Patrick Power, Charles Cardinal Journet, Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., Mgsr. Joseph Fenton, Fr. Louis Monden, S.J., etc. all taught that implicit desire for baptism suffices for salvation.
Of course, I also hold with previous magisterial statements that something must be explicitly believed on divine authority for one to have supernatural faith. Considering that the phrase “implicit desire for baptism” implies ignorance of the Christian faith, this suggests that one can be saved without necessarily believing in the Trinity of the deity of Christ.
In the ninth article of his catechism (question 29), Pope Pius X wrote,
“If he is outside the Church through no fault of his, that is, if he is in good faith, and if he has received Baptism, or at least has the implicit desire of Baptism; and if, moreover, he sincerely seeks the truth and does God’s will as best he can such a man is indeed separated from the body of the Church, but is united to the soul of the Church and consequently is on the way of salvation.”
Furthermore, Pope Pius XII in his enycilcial Mystici Corporis Christi wrote that non-Catholics can be associated with the Catholic Church through an unconscious desire, “For even though by an unconscious desire and longing they have a certain relationship with the Mystical Body of the Redeemer, they still remain deprived of those many heavenly gifts and helps which can only be enjoyed in the Catholic Church” (Mystici Corporis 103).
Later in 1949, with the full approval of Pope Pius XII, the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office responded to the Feeneyite heresy by declaring,
“Therefore, that one may obtain eternal salvation, it is not always required that he be incorporated into the Church actually as a member, but it is necessary that at least he be united to her by desire and longing. However, this desire need not always be explicit, as it is in catechumens; but when a person is involved in invincible ignorance God accepts also an implicit desire, so called because it is included in that good disposition of soul whereby a person wishes his will to be conformed to the will of God. These things are clearly taught in that dogmatic letter which was issued by the Sovereign Pontiff, Pope Pius XII, on June 29, 1943, (AAS, Vol. 35, an. 1943, p. 193 ff.). For in this letter the Sovereign Pontiff clearly distinguishes between those who are actually incorporated into the Church as members, and those who are united to the Church only by desire.”
December 2, 2018 at 9:41 am
There is nothing about baptism here. Explicitism is the dogma that an adult under the new law must possess explicit faith in the Trinity and the Incarnation in order to be justified. A merely “implicit desire for baptism” can certainly coexist with explicit faith in the Trinity and the Incarnation. Msgr Fenton expressly held this doctrine and that nothing in the 1949 letter contradicted it. As it happens, however, the 1949 letter was never promulgated by the Holy See in the AAS and Feeney was excommunicated for disobedience not heresy and was not asked to change any of his theological opinions (which I do not agree with as it happens) when he was reconciled in 1972. You have no right to brand them heretical.
December 4, 2018 at 4:19 pm
It may or not be consistent with the 1949 letter, but I don’t see how it is consistent with LG 16 and NA 3.
What level of authority do you think these two documents are exercising: merely the non-infallible ordinary magisterium or the universal magisterium?
December 4, 2018 at 7:10 pm
Neither of those two documents (which belong to the authentic magisterium) assert the possibility of justification without explicit faith in the Trinity and the Incarnation. LG says that those “who through no fault of their own do not know the Gospel of Christ or His Church, yet sincerely seek God and moved by grace strive by their deeds to do His will as it is known to them through the dictates of conscience”. This an empty set (see: Romans 3:9-18) as Leo XIII points out in the quote I gave in the blog post. Even if it were not an empty set such persons could not be justified in that state. All LG asserts is that they would not be left without a revelation until death in that state. This can be seen from AG7 which is quoted together with LG16 at CCC847-848 “God in ways known to Himself can lead those inculpably ignorant of the Gospel to find that faith without which it is impossible to please Him”. NA3 just says Muslims worship one God. That in no way implies these acts are acceptable to Him. Doubtless these texts are ambiguous and liable to misinterpretation as so many texts from Vatican II are due to the large number of Modernists active at the Council but they do not teach error.
December 4, 2018 at 11:03 pm
What do you mean by authentic magisterium? I’m asking whether they are taught under the universal magisterium or not. What are you thoughts on the level of authority of these two documents?
December 4, 2018 at 11:11 pm
The (merely) authentic magisterium is the teaching office (and the teaching) of the successors of the apostles when exercised legitimately but in a non-definitive way. It enjoys a rebuttable presumption of reliability. The recognition of this presumption is what is known as religious submission of will and intellect. This is explained in Lumen Gentium 25 “Bishops, teaching in communion with the Roman Pontiff, are to be respected by all as witnesses to divine and Catholic truth. In matters of faith and morals, the bishops speak in the name of Christ and the faithful are to accept their teaching and adhere to it with a religious assent. This religious submission of mind and will must be shown in a special way to the authentic magisterium of the Roman Pontiff, even when he is not speaking ex cathedra; that is, it must be shown in such a way that his supreme magisterium is acknowledged with reverence, the judgments made by him are sincerely adhered to, according to his manifest mind and will. His mind and will in the matter may be known either from the character of the documents, from his frequent repetition of the same doctrine, or from his manner of speaking.” This is distinct from the ordinary and universal magisterium of which the Church herself is the subject and which is infallible but which does not take a documented form but rather represents the universal immemorial consensus of the entire teaching office. The term ‘ordinary [but not universal] magisterium’ is also used to describe the teaching office of which each individual bishop or pope or council is the subject. The ordinary but not universal magisterium is identical with the (merely) authentic magisterium. All teaching of which the church herself is the subject is infallible. When this is articulated by means of a definition issued by a Pope either alone or with the entire episcopate (gathered in council or dispersed but in communion) it is the extraordinary magisterium. When it is expressed though universal immemorial consensus it is the ordinary and universal magisterium. As Vatican I explains “Wherefore, by divine and Catholic faith all those things are to be believed which are contained in the word of God as found in Scripture and tradition, and which are proposed by the Church as matters to be believed as divinely revealed, whether by her solemn judgment or in her ordinary and universal magisterium.”
December 3, 2018 at 4:20 pm
Recent thoughts. All merely hypothetical.
Only a baptised soul is conformed to Christ and able to perform an act of supernatural merit. This is why: “Truly I tell you, among those born of women there has risen no one greater than John the Baptist. Yet even the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.” So a mere infant, which is baptised, is greater in God’s eyes than a Moses, Elijah, or John the Baptist. This only makes sense if baptism is absolutely necessary for works of supernatural merit conformable to Christ.
Those who receive a “baptism of desire” (or blood) therefore do not receive the sacramental character of baptism at all, are not conformed to Christ, are not able to perform works of supernatural merit, are lesser than the least in the kingdom of heaven, and yet they receive a grace analogous to baptism (in particular, the remission of sin) in view of Christ’s merits. Therefore, those who are saved through a baptism of desire will enter the next life equal to the just men of the old law whom Christ delivered on Holy Saturday. Therefore, they cannot be called “anonymous Christians” except by analogy (e.g. in the way that the Church fathers said that the true religion prior to Christ was “Christianity”, albeit in an incomplete form), because they do not have the baptismal character which conforms them to Christ, which makes them truly Christians.
So implicit faith is something like a desire to be conformed to God’s Will excused from needing to be explicit by invincible ignorance. I think perhaps therefore it is supernatural in its cause but not in its effect, i.e. it is a supernatural grace of God, but the act which it produces in the human intellect is not that supernatural faith which belongs to Christians, but is something like the natural submission to God which belonged to the un-fallen Adam. Supernatural grace is needed to perform such natural acts because of the corruption of man’s nature by original sin. So just as “baptism of desire” is only baptism in an analogous sense, so “implicit faith” is only faith in an analogous sense.
So if a man on his deathbed feels sorry for his sins on a natural level (because of their injustice and the harm they caused), and has a desire to atone for his sins, God accepts him as a “just man” according to the definition of the old law (i.e. not a man who has been made truly just by being born again in Christ through baptism) and saves Him on that account.
Given Christ’s statement quoted above, there must be a very clear distinction in the next life between those who have received baptism and those who haven’t. He even makes it sound as though John the Baptist is not really a member of the “kingdom of Heaven” (but perhaps Christ Himself later baptised John).
December 3, 2018 at 10:33 pm
I can’t see how to reconcile that with the dogma of Florence that those who are not aggregated to the Church will go to everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels. Mere willingness to do what God wills does not unite you to Christ so I can’t see how it would procure the forgiveness of sins. I think St Thomas interprets the least in the kingdom of heaven as an infant with the beatific vision (I’ll check).
December 5, 2018 at 4:00 am
Why are only the doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation needed to be believed in explicitly, and not the other articles of faith listed in the “Constantinoplitan Creed” to be saved?
Also, given that most protestant sects believe in the Trinity and Incarnation, could a protestant who is invincibly ignorant be saved?
Fr. Michael Muller, Bishop George Hay and Orestes Brownson would say no, as this article aptly demonstrates:
https://raphaelmarie.wordpress.com/2018/06/21/charles-i-of-england/
December 5, 2018 at 4:13 am
“Some things are proposed to our belief are in themselves of faith, while others are of faith, not in themselves but only in relation to others: even as in sciences certain propositions are put forward on their own account, while others are put forward in order to manifest others. Now, since the chief object of faith consists in those things which we hope to see, according to Hebrews 11:2: ‘Faith is the substance of things to be hoped for,’ it follows that those things are in themselves of faith, which order us directly to eternal life. Such are the Trinity of Persons in Almighty God, the mystery of Christ’s Incarnation, and the like”. (IIaIIae, 1, 6 ad1)
A Protestant who has faith in the Trinity and the Incarnation and is invincibly ignorant of the claims of the Church can have faith and be saved but he is in grave peril because he lacks adequate warrant for the assent of faith and if he notices this he will lose the faith because he will no longer be assenting to God revealing.
“Now the formal object of faith is the First Truth, as manifested in Holy Writ and the teaching of the Church, which proceeds from the First Truth. Consequently whoever does not adhere, as to an infallible and Divine rule, to the teaching of the Church, which proceeds from the First Truth manifested in Holy Writ, has not the habit of faith, but holds that which is of faith otherwise than by faith.” (IIaIIae, 5, 3)
https://exlaodicea.wordpress.com/2013/03/22/no-protestant-babies-pope-benedict-xv-to-king-henry-ix/
December 5, 2018 at 4:14 am
“NA3 just says Muslims worship one God. That in no way implies these acts are acceptable to Him.”
I never said such acts were acceptable to God. But what is the point of claiming that they “adore” God if the author(s) of the document weren’t implying that such acts were acceptable to Him?
December 5, 2018 at 4:17 am
Because it’s true? The Jews adore God and their adoration is not acceptable to Him.
December 5, 2018 at 4:32 am
Fr. Michael Muller, Bishop George Hay and Orestes Brownson expressly condemn the view you are upholding, namely, that protestants can be saved if they fulfill certain conditions. They hold that one must seek union with the church (an explicit desire of baptism).
What are your thoughts on these authors? Have you read “The Catholic Dogma” by Michael Muller?
December 5, 2018 at 4:33 am
I recommend pages 213-216
December 5, 2018 at 4:34 am
Slight mistake: it’s not merely an explicit desire for baptism, they must explicitly believe that the Catholic church is the true church and must seek union with it.
December 5, 2018 at 4:36 am
I am not familiar with them. I think that the position you describe is a permissible opinion so long as one recognises that any validly baptised person is a Catholic unless and until he becomes personally guilty of heresy or schism (as Benedict XIV defines).
December 5, 2018 at 6:35 am
The position of these three authors is that one who has reached the age of reason cannot be saved without explicit Catholic faith and a desire to be united to the Roman Catholic Church.
Bishop George Hay
Q. 15. But can none who are in heresy, and in invincible ignorance of the truth, be saved?
A. God forbid we should say so! All the above reasons only prove that if they live and die in that state they shall not be saved, and that according to the present providence they cannot be saved; but the great God is able to take them out of that state, to cure even their ignorance though invincible to them in their present situation, to bring them to the knowledge of the True Faith, to the Communion of His Holy Church, and to salvation: and we further add, that if He be pleased, of His infinite mercy, to save any who are at present in invincible ignorance of the truth, in order to act consistently with Himself, and with His Holy Word, He will undoubtedly bring them to the union of His Holy Church for that purpose before they die.
December 5, 2018 at 7:07 am
It seems to me that this is erroneous. Someone who has faith in the Trinity and the Incarnation and is validly baptised is a Catholic unless and until he perceives that the pastors to whom he is subject are in fact without apostolic warrant and so falls into heresy and schism subjectively. That was the canonical practice of the Church until Vatican II (and possibly de jure until 1983). Irregularly baptised persons under fourteen years old were treated as Catholics who had not yet made their first confession and first communion. After fourteen they were presumed to be subjectively in heresy and/or schism but it was a rebuttable presumption and if it was rebutted they would be absolved for these sins conditionally.
December 6, 2018 at 12:28 am
You should consider examining the three authors I mentioned and do a post on the matter.
December 18, 2018 at 6:12 pm
Aelianus, there’s a theologian called Ronald Conte who is the broadest, most thorough-going implicitist I’ve come across. I thought you might want to read some of his blogposts to get a better picture of the implicitist position.
https://ronconte.wordpress.com/2018/07/18/an-overview-of-heresy-in-the-church-today-part-two-salvation-theology/
https://ronconte.wordpress.com/2011/06/29/salvation-for-atheists-and-agnostics/
https://ronconte.wordpress.com/2013/09/25/salvation-for-atheists-possible-but-difficult/
https://ronconte.wordpress.com/2018/04/08/church-teaching-on-salvation-for-non-christians-and-non-believers/
https://ronconte.wordpress.com/2015/02/01/roman-catholic-teaching-on-implicit-baptism-of-desire/
https://ronconte.wordpress.com/2015/03/02/rachel-lu-on-baptism/
https://ronconte.wordpress.com/2015/01/14/are-we-all-children-of-god/
https://ronconte.wordpress.com/2017/11/08/a-canon-lawyer-narrows-the-baptism-of-desire/
https://ronconte.wordpress.com/2017/02/25/some-atheists-go-to-heaven-some-catholics-go-to-hell/
https://ronconte.wordpress.com/2017/09/05/things-that-seem-unfair-in-salvation-theology/
December 19, 2018 at 1:45 am
He seems quite confused. For example he says “When speaking of unbaptized prenatals, infants, and young children, it is a grave error to say that they can only be saved by a baptism of water. Essentially, that claim is Feeneyism applied to the very young.” In fact, Florence defines what he calls a “grave error” when it teaches “With regard to children, since the danger of death is often present and the only remedy available to them is the sacrament of baptism by which they are snatched away from the dominion of the devil and adopted as children of God, it admonishes that sacred baptism is not to be deferred”. Feeneyism is not condemned as he supposes. Feeney (who I do not agree with) was ecommunicated for disobedience not heresy and was received back into the Church without being asked to recant any of his opinions. The blogger you cited thinks the only people who die in “original sin only” (who Florence say go to Hell) are “those who die unrepentant from the actual mortal sin of omission of never having found the state of grace by some form of baptism, despite ample opportunity”. This is idiotic, someone who is guilty of mortal sin is necessarily not guilty of “original sin only”. He provides no evidence for his claim that love of neighbour implicitly involves love of God. He fixates on baptism (an absolute necessity only of precept) and ignores faith an absolute necessity of means. He states that “every human person in the state of grace is a child of God — including Jews, Muslims, other believers, and non-believers such as agnostics or atheists” but this is clearly impossible as Unam Sanctam solemnly defines that there is no forgiveness of sins (and thus no sanctifying grace) outside the Church. Florence defines that Jews, Pagans (among which they would have numbered Muslims), heretics and schismatics cannot be saved unless they are joined to the Church before death. He also seems to think atheists can be saved because they may not be subjectively culpable for their atheism as if we were saved by moral athleticism rather than by grace through faith. In short, he teaches Pelagianism.
December 22, 2018 at 6:07 pm
The council of Florence seems to reject the soft form of explicitism you espouse, when it writes that even heretics and schismatics cannot be saved, which includes both Protestants and Eastern/Oriental heretics.
Protestants don’t have faith, because they do not submit their intellect and will to God revealing, and the Church proposing.
No charity, because, not “submit[ting] to the Sovereign Pontiff, and … hold[ing] communion with those members of the Church who acknowledge his supremacy,” they are separated from the Mystical Body of Christ, the Church (cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiæ II-II, q. 39, art. 1, corp.).
“Without faith it is impossible to please God” (Hebrews 11:6), “and if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:3).
December 22, 2018 at 6:16 pm
Certainly formal heretics and schismatic cannot be saved but a merely material heretic or schismatic an be saved. Any person validly baptised even irregularly is a Catholic until they fall into the sin of formal heresy or schism. This is not soft explicitism. It differs from Feeney in that Feeney denied the possibility of an implicit desire to belong to the church (and also held that God could justify but would not save an unbaptised person). I don’t know how Feeney would have dealt with Benedict XIV on this topic: https://exlaodicea.wordpress.com/2013/03/22/no-protestant-babies-pope-benedict-xv-to-king-henry-ix/
December 22, 2018 at 6:29 pm
“Certainly formal heretics and schismatic cannot be saved but a merely material heretic or schismatic an be saved.”
Where does the council of Florence make this distinction, or any of the theologians pre-19th century?
The position I am elucidating isn’t that of Fr. Feeney, but rather that of Fr. Michael Muller and Bishop George Hay who believed that baptism of desire was efficacious. However, hey rejected that implicit desire for baptism (or, to be united to the church for those already baptized), was sufficient unto salvation.
December 22, 2018 at 6:30 pm
*implicit desire to be united to the Catholic Church for those already baptized.
December 23, 2018 at 2:11 am
Fr. Michael Muller talked about material heretics as “not lost on account of their heresy, which for them was no sin, but on account of the grievous sins that they committed against their conscience.” He personally doubted that Protestants could have the virtue of faith without the grounds for it that we have. He said “Protestant belief, as it does not come from Christ, has no power to bind persons in conscience.” He rightly said “if Protestants, even material ones, hold some Catholic truths, they hold them from Catholics, and these truths are so many proofs to convince them that they should also believe the other truths of the Catholic Church, and be Catholics”. He rightly also said “An ignorant Catholic is not a material heretic”. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Catholic_Dogma:_Extra_Ecclesiam_Nullus_Omnino_Salvatur/Chapter_V/Part_2
He said there are Protestants “who are not guilty of the sin of heresy and live up to the dictates of their conscience.” I don’t think every Protestant treats the truths of salvation as just “simple opinions, as he makes those truths depend on his private judgment.” I think there are Protestants who accept the “four great truths of salvation, which everyone must know and believe in order to be saved” and who have “divine Faith, Hope, Charity, true sorrow for sin with the firm purpose of doing all that God requires the soul to believe and to do, in order to be saved”. So I think that we can follow Muller’s thinking but just say that he underestimated the possibility that a Protestant could sincerely believe the truths of salvation. https://catholicism.org/questions-answers-salvation-muller.html
December 23, 2018 at 2:59 am
“I think there are Protestants who accept the “four great truths of salvation, which everyone must know and believe in order to be saved”
How can Protestants believe explicitly all that the Catholic Church teaches, when they either implicitly or explicitly reject the Catholic Church? Unless, of course, you are substituting the Church for the bible?
December 22, 2018 at 6:35 pm
Also, the article you cite merely mentions that infants baptized by heretics are baptized into the Catholic Church. However, it adds that when they have reached the age of reason and confirm their error, they become heretics. None of this contradicts the view of either of the authors I have mentioned.
December 23, 2018 at 1:15 am
For more on the strict interpretation of eens I recommend:
http://eens123.blogspot.com
December 23, 2018 at 1:24 am
St. Alphonsus
Still we answer the Semipelagians, and say, that infidels who arrive at the use of reason, and are not converted to the Faith, cannot be excused, because though they do not receive sufficient proximate grace, still they are not deprived of remote grace, as a means of becoming converted. But what is this remote grace? St. Thomas explains it, when he says, that if anyone was brought up in the wilds, or even among brute beasts, and if he followed the law of natural reason, to desire what is good, and to avoid what is wicked, we should certainly believe either that God, by an internal inspiration, would reveal to him what he should believe, or would send someone to preach the Faith to him, as he sent Peter to Cornelius. Thus, then, according to the Angelic Doctor [St. Thomas], God, at least remotely, gives to infidels, who have the use of reason, sufficient grace to obtain salvation, and this grace consists in a certain instruction of the mind, and in a movement of the will, to observe the natural law; and if the infidel cooperates with this movement, observing the precepts of the law of nature, and abstaining from grievous sins, he will certainly receive, through the merits of Jesus Christ, the grace proximately sufficient to embrace the Faith, and save his soul.
http://eens123.blogspot.com/search/label/St.%20Alphonsus%20de%20Liguori
December 23, 2018 at 7:02 pm
I will answer your various posts above here. I am assuming a Protestant in order formally to be a Protestant and not a Catholic must both reach the age of reason and then adhere to the errors of the sectaries who baptised him. Only then would he lose the virtue of faith. I assume some irregularly baptised persons do not adhere to these errors immediately and innocently suppose their pastors to have apostolic warrant. My understanding is that before the last council this presumption was observed canonically until the age of fourteen and that the counter presumption (observed from the age of fourteen) was rebuttable. If rebutted the penitent would be reconciled conditionally.
December 29, 2018 at 12:36 am
“This an empty set (see: Romans 3:9-18) as Leo XIII points out in the quote I gave in the blog post. Even if it were not an empty set such persons could not be justified in that state.”
Can you elaborate what you mean by “empty set” in this context?
December 29, 2018 at 11:36 am
No one who reaches the age of reason without receiving the revelation of the end and the manner of worship God has appointed ever fulfils the law.
December 30, 2018 at 12:40 am
Would you say that Protestants in general do *not* possess the virtue of faith?
Can only those Protestants who are invincibly ignorant of the Holy Religion be saved? How doe you define invincible ignorance?
December 30, 2018 at 7:53 am
Yes. Protestantism as such is a rejection of the Church as a proximate norm of faith and this is incompatible with faith. However, an unknown number may not realise this and accept from Protestantism some sort of ‘mere Christianity’ falsely but innocently assuming their pastors have apostolic warrant. They would thus accept the Church as the proximate norm of faith but misidentify it. Invincible ignorance would be a state of error which in which the erring person has no reason to suspect involves error.
December 31, 2018 at 10:07 pm
Do you think it is possible for someone with a PhD in New Testament studies to be invincibly ignorant?
January 1, 2019 at 12:22 am
Who am I to judge?
January 1, 2019 at 8:57 am
Are Oriental/Eastern “Orthodox” more likely to be saved than protestants?
January 1, 2019 at 10:01 am
Presumably. It would seem to be easier for them to suppose their pastors have apostolic warrant and they have access to the Eucharist and sacramental absolution.
January 2, 2019 at 9:45 pm
CCC 839 seems to express the implicitist heresy
“Those who have not yet received the Gospel are related to the People of God in various ways.”325
January 3, 2019 at 5:04 pm
How do you interpret this section of the catechism?
January 3, 2019 at 5:15 pm
It is an allusion to LG and in LG it is reference to S. Thomas, Summa Theol. III, q. 8, a. 3, ad 1. which makes it clear they are related as potential members.
January 18, 2019 at 4:50 am
How do you interpret this passage:
“10. The universality of salvation means that it is granted not only to those who explicitly believe in Christ and have entered the Church. Since salvation is offered to all, it must be made concretely available to all. But it is clear that today, as in the past, many people do not have an opportunity to come to know or accept the gospel revelation or to enter the Church. The social and cultural conditions in which they live do not permit this, and frequently they have been brought up in other religious traditions. For such people salvation in Christ is accessible by virtue of a grace which, while having a mysterious relationship to the Church, does not make them formally part of the Church but enlightens them in a way which is accommodated to their spiritual and material situation. This grace comes from Christ; it is the result of his Sacrifice and is communicated by the Holy Spirit. It enables each person to attain salvation through his or her free cooperation.
“For this reason the Council, after affirming the centrality of the Paschal Mystery, went on to declare that “this applies not only to Christians but to all people of good will in whose hearts grace is secretly at work. Since Christ died for everyone, and since the ultimate calling of each of us comes from God and is therefore a universal one, we are obliged to hold that the Holy Spirit offers everyone the possibility of sharing in this Paschal Mystery in a manner known to God.” [Redemptoris Missio, inner quote from Gaudium et Spes 22]
January 18, 2019 at 5:23 am
Those who do not explicitly believe in Christ can be saved if they are baptised as infants and die before the age of reason. Those who have not entered the Church can be saved if they explicitly believe in Christ and have at least an implicit desire for baptism. Those who neither explicitly believe in Christ nor have entered the Church cannot be saved if they die in that condition.
January 20, 2019 at 1:57 am
JPII seems to adopt the implicitist error here:
“many people do not have an opportunity to come to know or accept the gospel revelation or to enter the Church. The social and cultural conditions in which they live do not permit this, and frequently they have been brought up in OTHER RELIGIOUS TRADITIONS. For such people salvation in Christ is accessible by virtue of a grace which, while having a mysterious RELATIONSHIP to the Church, does not make them formally part of the Church but enlightens them in a way which is accommodated to their spiritual and material situation.”
He seems to implying that they have a real relationship to the church, and thus can be saved.
January 20, 2019 at 3:43 am
Well that would be true of someone who received illumination concerning the articles of faith but was not directly informed about baptism. I appreciate that this is a highly optimistic interpretation of his words but it is a possible reading.
January 19, 2019 at 8:53 am
I’d be inclined to say that John Paul II was importing his private ideas into his teaching, without saying that anyone was bound to agree with him.
February 17, 2019 at 7:05 pm
Thoughts?
174. Scholium 2. On the truths to be believed with a necessity of means. The act of faith in the strict sense must terminate in some truth. Therefore there is a question about what, at the very minimum, must be believed explicitly with a necessity of means.
a) We say that at the very minimum it must be believed that God exists and is the rewarder. For this is stated explicitly in the text of St. Paul (Heb 11:6). However, the rewarder is understood to be in the supernatural order, as this has been made known to us from revelation, that is, God gives the reward of eternal life.29 There indeed faith in God’s existence is implicit, according as he is the author of the supernatural order. There are those who hold also that faith in the existence of God in the natural order is required. Actually, the Apostle seems to be speaking only about God, the first principle, the supreme Lord, the last end, as it is had from revelation. 30
b) All theologians hold that it is also necessary to believe, at least with the necessity of a precept, the mystery of the Incarnation and the Trinity. But they dispute about whether these two truths must also be believed explicitly with a necessity of means. Many Thomists affirm it; but those who deny it are Suarez, Lugo, Salmanticenses, Kilber, Wilmers, Persch, Lennerz, and others. Really this very serious necessity must not be affirmed unless there is a absolute certainty about it. But that does not seem to be the case. Of course the decree of the Holy Office in the year 1703 (D 2380-2381) is brought forward. There a necessity of means is affirmed on the obligation to believe in the mysteries of the Incarnation and Trinity. But a restriction is mentioned (“one who is not entirely incapacitated”), which seems to allow for an exception and which a true necessity of means in the matter does not allow. Hence it seems necessary to say that those mysteries (at least those in the N.T.) must be believed with a necessity of means; but this is not so absolute that sometimes without it justification accidentally (per accidens) cannot be obtained. What is cited from Holy Scripture and the Fathers in opposition does not seem to prove more than this.31
29 Mitzka, 680, does not accept this.
30 See Persch, 441-447; Beraza, 822-838
31 See Persch , 448-458; Beraza, 839-868.
(Severino González Rivas & Joseph A. de Aldama, “Sacrae Theologiae Summa IIIB: On Grace & On the Infused Virtues,” (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos: 1956), Translated by Kenneth Baker S.J., 344-345)
February 17, 2019 at 11:23 pm
Faith in God and His supernatural providence is what would be necessary by necessity of means for divinization in any order of providence. Under sin it is also necessary to be justified and for this one must appropriate Our Lord’s merits on the Cross. Until Our Lord’s death the rites of the Old Law sufficed for this but from the moment of Our Lord’s death these lost their efficacy (Florence) and from that moment it has been necessary to believe explicitly ‘that God justifies the impious by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus’ (Trent) which cannot be believed without explicit faith in the Trinity and the Incarnation. It is also necessary in all orders of providence to worship God in the manner he has appointed and one must assent to positive revelation on this point. The Holy Office’s qualification “one who is not entirely incapacitated” refers to whether one can baptise someone without have ascertained their belief in the Trinity and the Incarnation not to whether such belief is necessary.
February 19, 2019 at 1:46 am
Can you cite the relevant portions of Florence and Trent?
February 19, 2019 at 2:17 am
Florence: “The Holy Roman Church, founded on the words of our Lord and Saviour … firmly believes, professes and teaches that the legal prescriptions of the old Testament or the Mosaic law, which are divided into ceremonies, holy sacrifices and sacraments, because they were instituted to signify something in the future, although they were adequate for the divine cult of that age, once our lord Jesus Christ who was signified by them had come, came to an end and the sacraments of the new Testament had their beginning. Whoever, after the passion, places his hope in the legal prescriptions and submits himself to them as necessary for salvation and as if faith in Christ without them could not save, sins mortally. It does not deny that from Christ’s passion until the promulgation of the gospel they could have been retained, provided they were in no way believed to be necessary for salvation. But it asserts that after the promulgation of the gospel they cannot be observed without loss of eternal salvation. Therefore it denounces all who after that time observe circumcision, the sabbath and other legal prescriptions as strangers to the faith of Christ and unable to share in eternal salvation, unless they recoil at some time from these errors. Therefore it strictly orders all who glory in the name of Christian, not to practise circumcision either before or after baptism, since whether or not they place their hope in it, it cannot possibly be observed without loss of eternal salvation.”
February 19, 2019 at 2:19 am
Trent: “The Synod furthermore declares, that in adults, the beginning of the said Justification is to be derived from the prevenient grace of God, through Jesus Christ, that is to say, from His vocation, whereby, without any merits existing on their parts, they are called; that so they, who by sins were alienated from God, may be disposed through His quickening and assisting grace, to convert themselves to their own justification, by freely assenting to and co-operating with that said grace: in such sort that, while God touches the heart of man by the illumination of the Holy Ghost, neither is man himself utterly without doing anything while he receives that inspiration, forasmuch as he is also able to reject it; yet is he not able, by his own free will, without the grace of God, to move himself unto justice in His sight. Whence, when it is said in the sacred writings: Turn ye to me, and I will turn to you, we are admonished of our liberty; and when we answer; Convert us, O Lord, to thee, and we shall be converted, we confess that we are prevented by the grace of God. Now they (adults) are disposed unto the said justice, when, excited and assisted by divine grace, conceiving faith by hearing, they are freely moved towards God, believing those things to be true which God has revealed and promised,-and this especially, that God justifies the impious by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus”
February 19, 2019 at 5:54 am
What do you think the council Fathers meant here?
“All this holds true not only for Christians, but for all men of good will in whose hearts grace works in an unseen way.(31) For, since Christ died for all men,(32) and since the ultimate vocation of man is in fact one, and divine, we ought to believe that the Holy Spirit in a manner known only to God offers to every man the possibility of being associated with this paschal mystery.”
February 19, 2019 at 7:38 am
The passage you quote is merely authentic magisterium but it can be interpreted in line with Florence and Trent. All men who attain the age of reason receive at least sufficient grace. Were God to give a man efficacious grace without having sent him a preacher He would infuse the the articles of faith by a private revelation. As Ad Gentes 7 teaches “God in ways known to Himself can lead those inculpably ignorant of the Gospel to find that faith without which it is impossible to please Him”. This is in line with the teaching of St Thomas.
February 20, 2019 at 12:46 am
I think the most probable interpretation, in line with the statements of Severino Rivas & Joseph Aldama, is that salvation extends even to non-Christians.
Supposing for arguments sake that these two documents are merely exercises of the authentic magisterium (which I happen to agree), the authentic magisterium still requires a religious submission of intellect and will.
One might appeal to the remote magisterium in cases when magisterial documents contradict each other. The question is, has explicitism truly be defined as a doctrine or as merely theological certain?
February 20, 2019 at 12:47 am
Two documents refers to LG 16 and GS 22
February 20, 2019 at 4:43 am
The two Vatican II documents are entirely compatible with the dogmas of Trent and Florence. The teaching of Trent and Florence is clear (as the Holy Office in 1703 indicates) and the lesser teaching of LG and AG must be interpreted to accord with it.
February 21, 2019 at 12:52 am
If it is a dogma of the the church, then why does St. Alphonsus say that implicitism is also “quite probable”.
February 21, 2019 at 12:53 am
If it is a dogma of the church, why does St. Alphonsus say that implicitism is also quite probable?
February 21, 2019 at 1:17 am
Why does Thomas deny the Immaculate Conception? Even Homer nods. I expect it’s the influence of the Jesuits. They have done a lot to make pelagianism respectable.
February 21, 2019 at 3:38 am
“All this holds true not only for Christians, but for all men of good will in whose hearts grace works in an unseen way.[31] For, since Christ died for all men,[32] and since the ultimate vocation of man is in fact one, and divine, we ought to believe that the Holy Spirit in a manner known only to God offers to every man the possibility of being associated with this paschal mystery. ”
If we read the text carefully, it says that God gives to *every* man the possibility of being associated to the paschal mystery, and not only Christians.
It would be a strained reading to suggest that the only way they can be associated to the paschal mystery would be by becoming Christians.
It also adds that the Holy Spirit *in a manner known only to God* suggesting that this is not by bringing them to explicit Christian faith.
I’m not trying to refute explicitism (I am in agreement with the view). I’m just trying to read the text honestly.
February 21, 2019 at 3:45 am
This is the way John Paul II interpretps GS 22.8:
“The universality of salvation means that it is granted not only to those who explicitly believe in Christ and have entered the Church. Since salvation is offered to all, it must be made concretely available to all. But it is clear that today, as in the past, many people do not have an opportunity to come to know or accept the gospel revelation or to enter the Church. The social and cultural conditions in which they live do not permit this, and frequently they have been brought up in other religious traditions. For such people salvation in Christ is accessible by virtue of a grace which, while having a mysterious relationship to the Church, does not make them formally part of the Church but enlightens them in a way which is accommodated to their spiritual and material situation. This grace comes from Christ; it is the result of his Sacrifice and is communicated by the Holy Spirit. It enables each person to attain salvation through his or her free cooperation.
For this reason the Council, after affirming the centrality of the Paschal Mystery, went on to declare that “this applies not only to Christians but to all people of good will in whose hearts grace is secretly at work. Since Christ died for everyone, and since the ultimate calling of each of us comes from God and is therefore a universal one, we are obliged to hold that the Holy Spirit offers everyone the possibility of sharing in this Paschal Mystery in a manner known to God.”
Either which way, implicitism has been taught by the pope under the authentic magisterium.
February 21, 2019 at 5:18 am
Salvation is concretely offered to all who have attained the age of reason but only to those to whom it is offered efficaciously need it be offered in the form of the explicit proposition of the Christian mysteries. To those to whom it is offered merely sufficiently and who sin against the light it need not be offered explicitly. Those who adhere to the articles of faith (if such there are) due to a special revelation do not necessarily formally enter the Church by baptism and may only have an implicit desire for baptism but an explicit faith. For infants salvation is offered through baptism and those who receive it do formally enter the Church but do not necessarily explicitly believe in Christ. I do not deny that these two documents are ambiguous and tend to favour implicitist readings but they do not absolutely demand such a reading and I attribute that to the graces and providential helps afforded to the successor of St Peter even when he errs in his private theology.
February 21, 2019 at 5:58 am
“I attribute that to the graces and providential helps afforded to the successor of St Peter even when he errs in his private theology.”
So you agree that JPII’s comments are erroneous in redemptoris missio?
February 21, 2019 at 6:04 am
No. I think they can be interpreted as I indicated. I do not imagine that interpretation corresponded to his private theology but I think he was uncertain on these points and that is why he preserved a certain ambiguity and ultimately promulgated Dominus Iesus and the CCC which are clearer on the necessity of explicit faith.
February 22, 2019 at 1:24 am
A somewhat related question:
In Unitatis Redintegratio it said that the Orthodox churches are a “means of salvation.”
Which pre-Vatican II theologian makes that claim? Isn’t the contrary true, that heretical sects are means of damnation?
February 22, 2019 at 1:55 am
Well they are qua heretical sects but obviously the dissident eastern churches have valid orders and confess enough of the faith for justification so someone who did not culpably adhere to their errors and received the sacrament from them would do so as means of salvation. That does not seem problematic to me.
February 23, 2019 at 12:09 am
Thoughts on this comment:
Valid orders do nothing apart from the Church to effectuate salvation. If anyone is saved coming from the Eastern Schismatics, it is in spite of their seeming membership. God could enlighten the soul and infuse faith and sanctifying grace (BOD) before the moment of death so they die within the Church.
Pope Pius XI taught, “In this one Church Of Christ no man CAN BE OR REMAIN who does not accept, recognize and obey the authority and supremacy of Peter and his legitimate successors.” (See Mortalium Annos # 11).
There is no salvation in false sects. People may be saved in a miraculous way in spite of their putative membership, by a miraculous grace of God. False sects have nothing conducive to salvation.
February 23, 2019 at 12:28 am
Anyone who is validly baptised is a Catholic unless and until they culpably severe themselves from the Church. https://exlaodicea.wordpress.com/2013/03/22/no-protestant-babies-pope-benedict-xv-to-king-henry-ix/
February 23, 2019 at 12:13 am
Another question concerning the Council of Florence:
Where does it permit the possibility of salvation for the inculpable schismatics/heretics?
February 23, 2019 at 12:29 am
Unless it is otherwise indicated it would be improper to assume Florence means merely material heretics or schismatics.
February 23, 2019 at 1:40 am
How about the notion that for one to have supernatural charity they must be subject to the Roman Pontiff (or have the desire thereof)?
February 23, 2019 at 2:23 am
That is true in the sense a) that if they know Christ commands them to be subject to the Roman Pontiff and refuse they sin mortally and lose charity b) without a proximate universal and infallible norm of faith one cannot have supernatural faith (and so one cannot have charity). But even in the second instance one might naively suppose that scripture or the orthodox episcopate provided such a norm and so long as one did not sin in failing to realise the incoherence of this idea one could maintain the theological virtue of faith. My understanding is that pre conciliar canon law assumed such naivety until age fourteen and then there was a (rebuttable) counter presumption. The only difference made by a rebuttal was that the absolution for heresy and schism would be conditional.
February 23, 2019 at 3:50 am
Where do you get the age fourteen from?
February 23, 2019 at 3:54 am
According to canonist Woywood, “When fully seven years of age, the law presumes that the child has sufficient use of reason to be responsible” (Canon 88). “Unbaptized persons are not held to laws which are purely Church laws, nor baptized persons who have not a sufficient use of reason, nor children under seven years of age though they may have sufficient knowledge and judgement, unless the law does in some instances declare the latter to be held to its observance [Canon 12]. The word ‘purely’ is to be emphasized in this Canon, because laws which are an explanation or applicationof the natural law or Divine positive law bind every human being as soon as there is sufficient understanding of the law and consequent responsibility, apart from any definite age.” (See “The New Canon Law” [1918], pg. 17; and pgs. 3-4).
Any person with use of reason who is instructed in the sect ceases to be Catholic. Heretical sects make a pathway to Hell. While the more probable opinion of the theologians and canonists is that the mysteries of the Trinity and Incarnation are to be believed as a necessity of means, this does not make the other truths either “optional” nor does it excuse from Church membership.
While God can (and does) save those who APPEAR to be outside Her confines, one MUST belong to the Church for salvation. The recipient of BOD dies within the CHURCH, not as a member of a false sect. The go to Heaven in spite of the false sect. Vatican II claims that the sects–as corporate bodies–are a “means of salvation.”
February 23, 2019 at 4:11 am
Your argument is circular the question at issue is whether the individuals in question are members of the church not whether one needs to be aggregated to the Church for salvation. I have spoken to an English convert from before the Council who was in his early teens who was not received through absolution from the ban but just given his first confession and communion and added to the register. This also seems to have been the method in the US from a pre-conciliar ritual I have examined.
February 23, 2019 at 4:31 am
what is your source for the age fourteen?
February 23, 2019 at 6:20 am
I think that was in the ritual and it was what the pre-conciliar convert I mentioned was told. The formula itself also contained provision for conditional absolution: “By the authority of the Holy See which I exercise here, I release you from the bond of excommunication which you have (perhaps) incurred; and I restore you to communion and union with the faithful, as well as to the holy sacraments of the Church; in the name of the Father, and of the Son, + and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”
https://sanctamissa.org/en/resources/books-1962/rituale-romanum/61-appendix-reception-of-converts-profession-of-faith.html
February 23, 2019 at 1:22 pm
The individuals in question are not Catholic because of “elements of sanctification” exist in the false sect. The false sect leads them to Hell. If they are saved, it is because of the miraculous grace of God bringing them into the One True Church, and IN SPITE OF any seeming adherence to a false sect.
Bottom line: They are not members of the Church due to a false sect. If they are members of the Church it is in spite of such outward appearance of membership in a false sect. No sect helps anyone to salvation.
February 23, 2019 at 5:02 pm
Well qua false sect it is obviously bad and adherence to it is incompatible with salvation but insofar as it masquerades as the Church and teaches true doctrines and possesses valid orders and its material adherents are deceived in good faith it can be an instrument of salvation (just like many evils) per accidens.
February 24, 2019 at 2:38 am
It can in no way be an instrument of salvation. Replace the words “false sect” with “Satanism” (some of whom have defrocked priests with valid orders) and you see the absurdity.
February 24, 2019 at 5:06 am
But being arrested and tortured by Elizabeth I’s government can be an instrument of salvation. Reading a book by a pagan Neo-Platonist can be an instrument of salvation. A false minister of valid infant baptism in some sect is obviously an instrument of salvation not qua false minister but qua valid minister of the sacrament. I don’t see why you can’t make the distinction.
February 25, 2019 at 1:00 am
I’m hoping you’re not serious. “…being arrested and tortured by Elizabeth I’s government can be an instrument of salvation.” No. It is dying with the Integral Catholic Faith in the state of sanctifying grace that saves you. Being tortured is merely the manner in which you died. How about slow death from a disease? Is the disease a “means of salvation” too?
Yes, there was a conditional absolution. How does this make false sects a “means of salvation”? In your (weird) “distinction” ANYTHING could be a “means of salvation.” Someone prays to Satan. There are demonic manifestations. The person, by the grace of God, is frightened, repents in Confession and dies. Ergo, praying to Satan is a “means of salvation.”
To be clear something is a means of salvation, if and only if, it is positively willed by God to effectuate the same. You are saved BECAUSE of it and not IN SPITE OF IT. Is being tortured positively willed by God, and the torture is what saves you?
February 25, 2019 at 6:46 am
When a false minister aware or culpably ignorant of his lack of apostolic mission validly baptises someone he sins but he is the instrument by which someone enters the Catholic Church. Do you deny this?
February 25, 2019 at 12:55 pm
and what do you make of this statement by JPII?
For her part, the Catholic Church recognises the mission which the Orthodox Churches are called to carry out in the countries where they have been rooted for centuries. She desires nothing else than to help this mission and collaborate with it, as well as to be able to carry out her own pastoral task for her faithful and for those who turn freely to her. To strengthen this attitude, the Catholic Church has sought to sustain and to assist the mission of the Orthodox Churches in their native countries, and the pastoral activity of many communities living side by side in the diaspora with Catholic communities. However, where problems or misunderstandings arise, it is necessary to face them by means of a fraternal and frank dialogue, seeking solutions that can involve the two parties reciprocally. The Catholic Church is always available for such a dialogue so as to bear an ever more credible Christian witness together.
https://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/speeches/2002/october/documents/hf_jp-ii_spe_20021012_teoctist.html
February 25, 2019 at 7:16 pm
Well these are originally properly constituted sees and the authentically patriarchal sees in themselves hold the power to create new sees. At Florence and on other occasions we have effected corporate reunion with these bodies so they do not simply not exist (in contrast to the ‘Church’ ‘of England’). I think therefore a coherent and orthodox reading can be given to St John Paul II’s words but I agree they are open to an unorthodox reading. In this instance, however, I think JPII while being deliberately ambiguous for the sake of ‘Orthodox’ sensibilities does genuinely mean the words in the orthodox sense. I disagree with this tactic but the words in the sense he meant them are orthodox.
February 26, 2019 at 12:00 am
Individuals in this sense are not means of salvation. What is meant by means of salvation is dogmas and doctrines of a church. It is the Catholic sacrament of Baptism that is a means of salvation. Not the heretics false doctrines. If the heretic validly baptizes a soul it is from a sacrament that owes its source to the Catholic Faith, not from the heretics false faith. The false faith offers nothing to anyones salvation. But like a broke clock they may be correct now and then.
You also overlooked what I wrote:
To be a “means of salvation” something must be POSITIVELY WILLED BY GOD. God wills the Catholic Church and the Sacraments. He does not will false sects and their false ministers.
Vatican II clearly was teaching that they are willed by God, as Pope Fancis clearly stated just this month.
February 26, 2019 at 12:34 am
You are defining your terms so as to allow for no sense in which these statements can be orthodox but there is no reason to suppose these document spoke in such an idiosyncratic way.
February 26, 2019 at 12:52 am
Were you aware that Fr. Salaverri wrote a commentary on Lumen Gentium?
https://www.mercaba.org/DicEC/S/salaverri_joaquin.htm?fbclid=IwAR2As4xZpsfIyT3kubliORbdzNlv3n89P75fvVap3c0NlY9V_5V4DvFfQOg
Would be interested in reading it.
March 1, 2019 at 5:32 am
Isn’t the interpretive approach you’re taking with the VII documents concerning the salvation of non-Christians the same approach that modernist take to the decrees of previous ecumenical councils?
Using the example of the dogma of limbo, the modernists will claim that Lyon II and Florence didn’t *explicitly* mention unbaptized infants, therefore, they might all be saved. This ignoring the obvious sense in which the original authors meant it.
March 1, 2019 at 7:21 pm
I don’t think hat is fair. Significant figures at VII did not hold to the implicitist position and there was more awareness than today of how far one was going in any given formulation to close off theological opinions. I think LG is intended to advance the position of the implicits without closing off explicitism because that was what was necessary to get a two thirds vote. Dulles agrees that nothing in the Conciliar is incompatible with explicitism (though Dulles himself is an implicitist).
March 1, 2019 at 11:41 pm
Can you cite the relevant portion from Dulles?
March 2, 2019 at 4:58 am
https://www.firstthings.com/article/2008/02/001-who-can-be-saved-8
https://www.firstthings.com/article/2008/05/may-letters
March 14, 2019 at 12:34 am
Can you cite the relevant portion from the links? I can’t seem to find what you were referring to.
March 14, 2019 at 1:22 am
“Brian Harrison is a very acute reader of magisterial documents. He is correct, I believe, in saying that Vatican II does not reject the positions I have ascribed to Thomas Aquinas. His use of Dominus Iesus is ingenious. His supposition of a final illumination, although it lacks direct support from Scripture and tradition, in no way contradicts them and relieves his theory of the harshness that might otherwise be found in it. Harrison’s minority position is internally consistent and fully orthodox. Its principal weakness is its reliance on the dubious hypothesis of large-scale end-of-life conversions.”
March 7, 2019 at 11:06 am
Would your friend happen to be from england? I found this interesting piece from the CE
Converts to the Faith, before being received, should be well instructed in Catholic doctrine. The right to reconcile heretics belongs to the bishops, but is usually delegated to all priests having charge of souls. In England a special licence is required for each reconciliation, except in case of children under fourteen or of dying persons, and this licence is only granted when the priest can give a written assurance that the candidate is sufficiently instructed and otherwise prepared, and that there is some reasonable guarantee of his perseverance. The order of proceeding in a reconciliation is: first, abjuration of heresy or profession of faith; second, conditional baptism (this is given only when the heretical baptism is doubtful); third, sacramental confession and conditional absolution.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07256b.htm
March 7, 2019 at 5:34 pm
He was in England at the time.
March 7, 2019 at 11:20 am
“2. It is an open question whether, after Christ’s coming, Faith in the Christian economy is not indispensable. Many texts in Holy Scripture seem to demand Faith in Christ, in His death and resurrection, as a necessary condition of salvation. On the other hand, it is not easy to understand how eternal salvation should have become impossible for those who are unable to arrive at an explicit knowledge of Christian Revelation. The best solution of the difficulty would seem to be that given by Suarez (De Fide, disp. xii., sect. iv.). The texts demanding Faith in Christ and the Blessed Trinity must not be interpreted more rigorously than those referring to the necessity of Baptism, especially as Faith in Christ, Faith in the Blessed Trinity, and the necessity of Baptism are closely connected together. The Faith in these mysteries is, like Baptism, the ordinary normal means of salvation. Under extraordinary circumstances, however, when the actual reception of Baptism is impossible, the mere implicit desire (votum) suffices. So, too, the implicit desire to believe in Christ and the Trinity must be deemed sufficient. By “implicit desire” we mean the desire to receive, to believe, and to do whatever is needful for salvation, although what is to be received, believed, and done is not explicitly known. The implicit wish and willingness to believe in Christ must be accompanied by and connected with an explicit Faith in Divine Providence as having a care of our salvation; and this Faith implies Faith and Hope in the Christian economy of salvation (see St. Thom., 2 2, q. 2, a. 7).”
https://www.ecatholic2000.com/theology/manual.shtml#_Toc417822018
March 7, 2019 at 5:42 pm
Our Lord clearly implies in Mark 16:16 that the faith which comes from preaching is more necessary than baptism. The position described in the extract is condemned by Vatican I “If anyone says that divine faith is not to be distinguished from natural knowledge about God and moral matters, and consequently that for divine faith it is not required that revealed truth should be believed because of the authority of God who reveals it: let him be anathema.” No one is proclaiming God’s supernatural providence apart from the Trinity and the Incarnation ‘because of the authority of God who reveals it’ and even if they were it would only facilitate the salvation of people in a state of pure nature as any adult in original and actual sin would have to believe “that God justifies the impious by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” to be justified. It is this kind of Jesuitical nonsense that has led us to the calamitous situation of the Church today.
March 7, 2019 at 8:16 pm
“Our Lord clearly implies in Mark 16:16 that the faith which comes from preaching is more necessary than baptism.”
That is one possible interpretation. The commentary by Cornelius a Lapide says that St. Mark failed to mention baptism in the second part of the verse merely for the sake of brevity.
March 7, 2019 at 10:47 pm
Right. So the historical Jesus mentioned both?
March 7, 2019 at 11:42 pm
Fr. a Lapide says that we have to complete the sentence as follows: “He that believeth, and is baptized, shall be saved: but he that believeth not, [or is not baptized,] shall be condemned.”
He claims that St. Mark was striving for brevity, which suggests that Jesus Himself may have spoken more completely. He also says that the notion of faith in the Bible may include baptism (which is called the “sacrament of faith”) and everything that arises or follows from faith.
The second reading in the Ordinary Form Mass next Sunday will be Romans 10:8-13. First, St. Paul says that “if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” Then he quotes the Old Testament as saying, “No one who believes in him will be put to shame.” Then he says that “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
So is our salvation guaranteed by interior belief or by exterior confession or by the combination of both? And don’t we also need hope and charity? It appears that if only one condition for salvation is mentioned, the reader is meant to supply the others.
March 7, 2019 at 11:46 pm
It seems clear that the omission of baptism from the negative half of the statement is because it would not be true to say ‘he who is not baptised would be condemned’. There are non-baptised people who are saved. No one who lacks belief is saved.
March 8, 2019 at 1:06 am
But Jesus did say, “Unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God” (John 3:5). Catholic exegetes understand this to refer to the sacrament of baptism.
I think the lesson is that biblical statements about the necessary or sufficient conditions of salvation often shouldn’t be understood in the most natural or obvious sense. There may be unspoken exceptions, or terms may not be used with their usual meanings.
E.g., baptized babies can be saved even though they don’t “believe” anything (in the usual sense of the word). They have the habit or virtue of supernatural faith, but this isn’t what we usually mean when we talk about someone “believing” something. (And in normal speech, we never talk about a “habit” unless it is sometimes actualized.)
Similarly, when Jesus Christ says a man “cannot enter into the kingdom of God” unless he is baptized, we have to add, “by actual reception or by desire.” But the desire can be an implicit one, which is not what a normal person would call a “desire.”
March 8, 2019 at 4:18 am
I think any principle of interpretation that demands that the text in principle “shouldn’t be understood in the most natural or obvious sense” has essentially dispensed with the text. Baptised babies have the habit of supernatural faith infused through the sacrament. It is no more true to say such a baby lacks faith than to it would be to say an adult Christian reverts to paganism in his sleep.
March 14, 2019 at 8:13 pm
We shouldn’t arbitrarily depart from the natural meaning of the text, but we should do so when the magisterium, the context etc. force us to do so.
Other examples:
“Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you” (John 6:54). This can only be necessity of precept or relative necessity of means (not absolute necessity of means), because someone who dies from a heart attack immediately after baptism (without ever having received Holy Communion) will “have life in him” and be saved.
“He that eateth this bread, shall live for ever” (John 6:59). Here the word “worthily” must be added.
When we say, in ordinary language, that a sleeping person believes in something, we presuppose that he consciously believed in it at some point.
March 14, 2019 at 9:19 pm
Your appeal to ‘ordinary language’ shows that you are not in the case in question departing from the natural or obvious sense. An arbitrary principle ‘that biblical statements about the necessary or sufficient conditions of salvation often shouldn’t be understood in the most natural or obvious sense’ is quite inadmissible. In this case it would also require that that solemn definitions about the necessary or sufficient conditions of salvation shouldn’t be understood in the most natural or obvious sense. Florence’s use of ‘aggregated’ and eschewal of ‘made members’ also implies that faith and baptism are both necessary but only faith is absolutely necessary as a means.
March 14, 2019 at 10:32 pm
“An arbitrary principle ‘that biblical statements about the necessary or sufficient conditions of salvation often shouldn’t be understood in the most natural or obvious sense’ is quite inadmissible.”
This isn’t an “arbitrary principle,” but an inescapable conclusion once you examine the relevant Scripture passages (since Scripture cannot contradict itself or the Catholic faith). I find it surprising that you disagree with me on this point, since you yourself do not understand all of those passages in their most natural sense. E.g., you certainly do not believe that literally “whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Romans 10:13). (Compare Matthew 7:21: “Not every one that saith to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven: but he that doth the will of my Father, who is in heaven, he shall enter into the kingdom of heaven.”)
“In this case it would also require that that solemn definitions about the necessary or sufficient conditions of salvation shouldn’t be understood in the most natural or obvious sense.”
Sometimes they clearly shouldn’t be. E.g., the Council of Trent infallibly taught that baptism or the “desire” (“votum”) thereof is necessary for salvation. But the magisterium later taught that an “implicit desire” (“included in that good disposition of soul whereby a person wishes his will to be conformed to the will of God”) can sometimes suffice.
That isn’t the most natural or obvious sense of the word “desire.” An “implicit desire” to be baptized would even be compatible with an explicit desire not to be baptized.
March 14, 2019 at 11:25 pm
Where does the magisterium teach this (bearing in find the letter to the Archbishop of Boston is not magisterial)?
March 15, 2019 at 1:12 am
Mgr. Clifford Fenton certainly took the 1949 letter to be magisterial:
“Because it has done these things, and because it has joined up the teaching on the Church’s necessity with the doctrines of the necessity of faith and of charity, the Holy Office letter will stand as one of the most important authoritative doctrinal statements of modern times” (American Ecclesiastical Review, December 1952, pp. 450-461).
At any rate, the notion of implicit desire was also taught by Pius XII in Mystici Corporis #103:
“For even though by an unconscious desire and longing they have a certain relationship with the Mystical Body of the Redeemer, they still remain deprived of those many heavenly gifts and helps which can only be enjoyed in the Catholic Church.”
March 15, 2019 at 1:26 am
I have a lot of time for Fenton and I agree with the 1949 letter but that letter has never appeared in the AAS. Feeney held it (wrongly in my view) to be heretical and was not asked to renounce this view when his excommunication (for disobedience not heresy) was lifted. Pius XII’s words are quite broad and could apply to baptised schismatics and heretics and/or to evangelised but not baptised persons. Feeney did not deny non-baptised persons could be justified only that God would sustain them until death in a state of grace without baptism. Pius XII’s words don’t really address that view either way.
March 14, 2019 at 11:27 pm
In respect of the other points I think it is entirely within the sense of ordinary language to use ‘necessity’ in regard to means and precept and inherent to the concept of a precept that inculpable ignorance excuses. An ordinary reader would also take it as given that ‘calls upon the name of the Lord’ implies ‘sincerely’.
March 15, 2019 at 2:54 am
“An ordinary reader would also take it as given that ‘calls upon the name of the Lord’ implies ‘sincerely’.”
In Romans 10, St. Paul distinguishes between belief “in the heart” and confession “by the mouth.” So on the most obvious and literal reading, he would seem to refer precisely to an external act of worship.
You take it as given that “calling upon the name of the Lord” must be based on faith, hope and charity because you have internalized Catholic doctrine. But many pagans apparently believed that external acts of worship were sufficient, and the prophets of the Old Testament found it necessary to remind the Israelites of the necessity of the correct disposition of the soul (Hosea 6:6: “For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice: and the knowledge of God more than holocausts”).
An ordinary reader is very likely to misinterpret Romans 10:13 unless he already knows the Catholic doctrine of salvation or at least the other scriptural passages referring to salvation.
But our discussion was originally about Mark 16:16. You argued that this verse shows that faith is more necessary than baptism, since the second half of the verse mentions only the damnation of those who lack faith, but not of the unbaptized. I replied that, according to Cornelius a Lapide, St. Mark failed to mention the damnation of the unbaptized merely for the sake of brevity; the reader is meant to add the clause “or is not baptized” in Mark 16:16.
You replied that Fr. a Lapide is wrong, since the unbaptized aren’t in fact always damned. I think I have sufficiently demonstrated that biblical statements about the conditions of salvation must often be understood in a somewhat loose or not-absolutely-literal way (or however you want to put it) and that Christ does speak in other passages of the damnation of the unbaptized and even of those who don’t receive Holy Communion.
Hence, I think that Fr. a Lapide’s interpretation is possible and that your argument based on Mark 16:16 isn’t compelling.
(I agree that the habit of faith is more necessary than baptism; but that is irrelevant to the explicit/implicit debate.)
March 15, 2019 at 4:04 am
Romans 10:9 precisely confirms the obvious reading Romans 9:13 that it means a sincere calling upon the name of the Lord. An ordinary reader is very unlikely to misinterpret Romans 10:13 so long as he has read Romans 10:9.
The idea of an adult possessing the habit of faith without assenting to the proposition in which he is supposed to believe is a bizarre idea that could only be concocted by someone who knew enough about scholastic theology to know that this is what happens to a baptised infant. It is utterly alien to scripture.
It would be very odd if Our Lord did not intend us to distinguish the necessity of faith from that of baptism in Mark 16:16. I don’t know what Cornelius a Lapide’s view on baptism was but the obvious reason for an orthodox Catholic to deny this would be because they erroneously supposed baptism to be necessary by an absolute necessity of means and were worried this passage might undermine this conviction.
March 15, 2019 at 11:53 pm
Cornelius a Lapide, in his commentary on John 3:5, notes that people can sometimes be justified by the desire for baptism according to the Council of Trent.
“The idea of an adult possessing the habit of faith without assenting to the proposition in which he is supposed to believe is a bizarre idea that could only be concocted by someone who knew enough about scholastic theology to know that this is what happens to a baptised infant. It is utterly alien to scripture.”
This cannot be true. The habit of faith always has as its so-called “material object” all Divinely revealed propositions (or at least all publicly revealed ones), but obviously an adult can be saved without explicitlly assenting to, let’s say, the proposition that Christ instituted Anointing of the Sick as a sacrament.
On Romans 10: Let’s say someone learns from Romans 10:9 that “calling upon the name of the Lord” must be “sincere” in that it must be accompanied by interior faith. That would still be an inadequate explanation of Romans 10:13, since interior faith plus exterior confession of the faith plus exterior acts of worship are insufficient for justification or salvation. You also need hope and charity. Lots of Protestants get that wrong.
Suppose someone is in the state of mortal sin and makes a sincere act of imperfect contrition, thus “sincerely calling upon the name of the Lord.” If he dies from a heart attack on the way to confession, he will be damned.
March 16, 2019 at 2:12 am
Feeney did not deny sinners could be justified with only the desire for baptism he just denied they could be saved that way (again, I disagree but it isn’t a heresy).
“Some things are proposed to our belief are in themselves of faith, while others are of faith, not in themselves but only in relation to others: even as in sciences certain propositions are put forward on their own account, while others are put forward in order to manifest others. Now, since the chief object of faith consists in those things which we hope to see, according to Hebrews 11:2: “Faith is the substance of things to be hoped for,” it follows that those things are in themselves of faith, which order us directly to eternal life. Such are the Trinity of Persons in Almighty God, the mystery of Christ’s Incarnation, and the like: and these are distinct articles of faith. On the other hand certain things in Holy Writ are proposed to our belief, not chiefly on their own account, but for the manifestation of those mentioned above: for instance, that Abraham had two sons, that a dead man rose again at the touch of Eliseus’ bones, and the like, which are related in Holy Writ for the purpose of manifesting the Divine mystery or the Incarnation of Christ: and such things should not form distinct articles.” IIaIIae, 1, 6 ad 1.
If someone lacks charity they are not friends with God they do not call upon the name of the Lord as a friend but as a means to avoid punishment. Even if they call upon His name in the manner you describe we do not know if God will not bring them to sanctifying grace in such circumstances as a matter of fact. That is, we do not know if God will not prevent the circumstances you describe from ever being realised. Sincerity and presumption exclude each other. Faith in the NT means living faith unless otherwise indicated (as an ordinary reader would assume).
March 30, 2019 at 1:55 am
ccc 1260 “Since Christ died for all, and since all men are in fact called to one and the same destiny, which is divine, we must hold that the Holy Spirit offers to all the possibility of being made partakers, in a way known to God, of the Paschal mystery.”63 Every man who is ignorant of the Gospel of Christ and of his Church, but seeks the truth and does the will of God in accordance with his understanding of it, can be saved. It may be supposed that such persons would have desired Baptism explicitly if they had known its necessity.”
I don’t see how this comment can be interpreted within the framework of explicitism.
You would have to say that God led such a soul to explicit knowledge of the Trinity and Incarnation without knowledge of the necessity of baptism. However, the whole point of the last sentence is to emphasize that those who are ignorant of the gospel may be saved by an implicit desire for baptism.
I don’t hold this view. But we have to deal with the facts.
April 1, 2019 at 5:43 am
The point is they are not subjectively culpable for failing to worship God in the manner He has appointed so their present orientation to the due end combined with God’s universal salvific will suffices to ensure God would reveal to them that faith without which it is impossible to please Him if He causes them to persevere in this state of repentance until death.
April 3, 2019 at 5:46 pm
But we could just interpret “that faith without which it is impossible to please Him” in a wider or more liberal sense: whoever strives to act in accord with the law written on their heart is spiritually a man of faith, since they at least implicitly seek the reward which comes from obeying that law which (whether they know it or not) is really the ordinance of God and an immanent expression of the divine Will. They are material Catholics, souls in a state of grace and pleasing to God. To be a formal Catholic means simply that one has come to a formal knowledge and expression of that faith which is revealed in some way to all men universally: “the true light, which enlighteneth every man that cometh into this world.”
April 3, 2019 at 5:58 pm
P.S. This doesn’t destroy the motive of evangelism, but merely clarifies it. The point of evangelism is not merely to assert our dogma or opinion against theirs like a partisan, but like a catholic to preach the universal religion which is revealed to all men in some way and which all men have at least a partial knowledge of, so that men can act more in accord with what they already know to be true and to become their true selves, removing from their hearts the false opinions and darkness which lead them to sin and fall away from their better knowledge and understanding. We can’t be partisans for Catholicism because catholic and partisan are diametrical opposites. We aren’t preaching anything new, but the religion which has existed since the beginning of time, which is born in every man’s heart from the moment they choose good and reject evil, and which has been perfected by Jesus Christ who is true God and true man. We don’t have an opinion, we have the truth. We aren’t a sect, we’re the universal religion of humanity. Any time someone does something good or says something true they are following our religion, which is also theirs.
April 3, 2019 at 6:50 pm
“If anyone says that divine faith is not to be distinguished from natural knowledge about God and moral matters, and consequently that for divine faith it is not required that revealed truth should be believed because of the authority of God who reveals it: let him be anathema.”
April 3, 2019 at 8:08 pm
I still distinguish between divine faith and natural knowledge, what I’m talking about is divine faith being held in an obscure way. We see this expression of obscure faith for example in people of apparently no religion who say things such as “everything happens for a reason” (implying a divine Mind that will bring all things to their fulfillment) and “days like this are sent to test us” (implying a divine Examiner who will reward or punish). It’s presumptuous to say this is knowledge and not faith. I’m not advocating pelagianism, because I don’t deny that for any of these acts divine grace is absolutely necessary. I think divine grace is necessary for men to do any good and keep any commandment of the natural law in our fallen state. If a man is truly kind to his neighbour for no selfish motive then he is under the influence of divine grace, and if this is habitual then he is likely in a state of grace. You’re the pelagian if you think that the kind and generous human acts you come across daily are not always the work of the Holy Spirit.
April 3, 2019 at 9:03 pm
“Fifthly, I hold with certainty and sincerely confess that faith is not a blind sentiment of religion welling up from the depths of the subconscious under the impulse of the heart and the motion of a will trained to morality; but faith is a genuine assent of the intellect to truth received by hearing from an external source.”
April 4, 2019 at 5:04 am
To say that willing the good of another for another’s own sake (friendship) a perfection natural to man of itself requires divine grace is to say either that God may command the impossible or that the supernatural order is not gratuitous, either of which is blasphemy.
April 3, 2019 at 7:05 pm
You are preaching Pelagianism: a ‘saving’ truth merely proportionate to man’s nature and knowable in principle by reason alone. Not only is this directly contrary to revealed truth and harmful to the salvation of those you preach it to but you yourself cannot persist in this error and be saved (1 Corinthians 1:17).
April 4, 2019 at 3:56 pm
@thejambos I don’t think what I’m describing falls under the description of the heresy of Modernism which you describe. 1. I’m talking about a supernaturally infused faith and charity, not something “welling up” from man’s nature which would imply a confusion of the natural and supernatural orders i.e. Pantheism. 2. The obscure or implicit faith does have an external source, albeit not one as perfect or complete in its pronouncements as the authentic Magisterium, e.g. St Paul refers to the external cosmos as a sign pointing to God and His eternal nature. If from looking at the cosmos a soul, under the influence of grace, comes to believe and hope in God the Rewarder, then I would say they have divine faith. This is not the natural knowledge of the philosophers and reason since it has the nature of assent or belief and not deduction.
@aelianus I think friendship properly so-called is indeed a supernatural virtue and belongs to the supernatural order. See St. Thomas’s description of charity in the Summa and how he identifies it with friendship. It doesn’t belong to the nature of man to will the good of another for the other’s own sake, I don’t think. Even a mother’s love for her child naturally has a selfish component. If she truly loves the child as a soul, a human being, a person for its own sake, I would call that an act of supernatural charity. In order for one to make an act of supernatural charity they must first receive the infused habit, so in fact anyone capable of real friendship is therefore certainly in a state of grace. Sinners are incapable of loving others for their own sake, they don’t have the infused habit. Besides all that, I was referring to men in their fallen state who need the help of healing grace in order to fulfil even the natural law. I’m not a Pelagian. I regard myself as a pretty strict Thomist on grace. I can’t even stand Molinism nevermind Pelagianism.
April 4, 2019 at 4:10 pm
Friendship is a natural perfection as Aristotle observes “we think it is the same people that are good men and are friends”. Your denial that it is possible without grace either abolishes the gratuity of the supernatural order or entails the claim that God commands the impossible. The knowledge of God obtained from the things that have been made is natural non-divinizing knowledge which grounds our natural obligation to the first table of the law. Once again, by suggesting it could be the sufficient matter of the supernatural act of faith you either abolish the gratuity of the supernatural order or claim that God commands the impossible. Obviously, your intention is the latter as Pius X observes “there are Catholics who, while rejecting immanence as a doctrine, employ it as a method of apologetics, and who do this so imprudently that they seem to admit that there is in human nature a true and rigorous necessity with regard to the supernatural order – and not merely a capacity and a suitability for the supernatural, such as has at all times been emphasized by Catholic apologists.Truth to tell it is only the moderate Modernists who make this appeal to an exigency for the Catholic religion. As for the others, who might be called intergralists, they would show to the non-believer, hidden away in the very depths of his being, the very germ which Christ Himself bore in His conscience, and which He bequeathed to the world.”
April 4, 2019 at 7:05 pm
“Your denial that it is possible without grace either abolishes the gratuity of the supernatural order or entails the claim that God commands the impossible.”
Why? God provides sufficient grace to all men to be saved (de fide). So granted my premise that proper friendship belongs to the supernatural order, why am I said to claim that God commands the impossible?
Aristotle says, “we think it is the same people that are good men and are friends”. I don’t see how that places “good men” or “friends” solely in the natural order. Aristotle wouldn’t be the man to ask anyway, since as a pagan he didn’t have full knowledge of the distinction between the natural and supernatural orders. Granted that Aristotle was acquainted with real friendship, why couldn’t his friendship or the friendship of others be, unbeknownst to them, the fruit of the Holy Spirit working in them? “Dearly beloved, let us love one another, for charity is of God. And every one that loveth, is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not, knoweth not God: for God is charity.”
“The knowledge of God obtained from the things that have been made is natural non-divinizing knowledge which grounds our natural obligation to the first table of the law.”
Granted, but this natural knowledge can still serve as a (not sufficient) premise for an act of divine-supernatural faith: “But without faith it is impossible to please God. For he that cometh to God, must believe that he is, and is a rewarder to them that seek him.” The natural knowledge of God that we find in philosophers like Aristotle only gives us an outline of the divine nature: the Unmoved Mover, the First & Final Cause. It doesn’t tell us that God has a paternal interest in us and that He wishes to reward our good deeds and punish our evil ones – that is a conclusion of faith, not reason. Surely we might say that the notion of the divine Nature as the Supreme Good implies such an order, but it does not entail it seeing as one might have a deistic conception of an indifferent God. So besides this natural motive, what is needed is a some kind of supernatural motive, and absent the authentic magisterium God provides through divine grace an interior motion of the will which compels it (freely) to assent to the supernatural article of faith (God the Rewarder).
“there are Catholics who, while rejecting immanence as a doctrine, employ it as a method of apologetics, and who do this so imprudently that they seem to admit that there is in human nature a true and rigorous necessity with regard to the supernatural order – and not merely a capacity and a suitability for the supernatural, such as has at all times been emphasized by Catholic apologists.”
I affirm the gratuity of the supernatural order. I don’t think it’s necessary for the natural order of the universe for men to love each other with the benevolence of friendship. The universe would run just fine without such selfless benevolence, if people were to act according to strict justice and the common good they would be able to live peaceably beside one another while simultaneously looking after their private interests, without the selfless love of divine charity ever entering in. St. Thomas gives us three forms of friendship: pleasure, utility, and the virtuous. I would say that the first two belong to the natural order, and the third (the virtuous) is supernatural as it is nothing else but the supernatural virtue of charity. If you think about it, the world would run just fine on the friendship of pleasure and utility alone, if men’s fallen passions did not corrupt these friendships. The fact that people in the world DO love each other with this true benevolence, simply for the sake of their friend’s own good, is the fruit of the Holy Spirit. In loving another human being this way you are at least implicitly affirming that their is something worthy of unconditional love in them (i.e. the image of God in their souls), and therefore you at least implicitly love God through loving them (since God alone is worthy of this unconditional love, to truly love your neighbour with such love implies some divine aspect – not speaking pantheistically – in them, i.e. the imago Dei). This all takes place under the influence of divine grace.
Note: I am not saying that man naturally needs to make these acts of supernatural faith or charity, or that he is capable of them by nature, but that God has gratuitously bestowed these grace upon man. The fact that some men think that their benevolent love of friendship comes from their own innate human goodness is just a lack of theological knowledge and a remnant of pride. Our Lord rebukes this kind of smug sentimentality when He says, “Why callest thou me good? None is good but one, that is God.”
April 4, 2019 at 7:09 pm
Loving one’s neighbour as oneself sums up the second table of the natural law that is written on all men’s hearts and convicts them of sin. If it were impossible to perform this without grace then God would be obliged in His own justice to give men the grace to perform it and thus grace would not be gratuitous but owed to nature.
Belief in man’s supernatural end without belief in the means appointed to attain it (and with adequate warrant) is not saving faith bu damnable presumption as St Thomas teaches: “the object of faith includes, properly and directly, that thing through which man obtains beatitude. Now the mystery of Christ’s Incarnation and Passion is the way by which men obtain beatitude; for it is written (Acts 4:12): ‘There is no other name under heaven given to men, whereby we must be saved.'”
April 4, 2019 at 7:24 pm
I thought that the two great commandments of love belonged to the divine law, to the gospel. I suppose I could see them as the first two tables of the natural law as well, but interpreted in a different sense:
In the first table (love of God) – one love’s God for the good He has bestowed upon oneself (love of gratitude) according to the natural law, and one love’s God for His own innate goodness (love of charity) according to the divine law.
In the first table (love of neighbour) – one love’s the neighbour because one recognises in him the same human nature and therefore the same rights (love of fairness or justice) according to the natural law, and one’s loves the neighbour for their own good (love of charity) according to the divine law.
The “golden rule”: do unto others as you would have them do unto you, is a mere code of honour, justice, fairness. It is not divine benevolence. To love God merely because He is one’s Creator, and to love the neighbour merely because he’s a fellow member of the community, belongs I think to the friendship of utility and the natural virtue of justice. To go beyond that and love for them for their own sakes is a supernatural virtue.
Again, I don’t think that the two great commandments Christ pronounces in the gospel are mere tables of the natural law already written on our hearts: I think they belong to the order of the supernatural adoption of the children of God.
April 4, 2019 at 7:30 pm
“Belief in man’s supernatural end without belief in the means appointed to attain it (and with adequate warrant) is not saving faith but damnable presumption . . .”
Granted, but the man of implicit faith of which we are speaking according to my understanding does not deny these means of salvation (the Incarnation and Passion), but implicitly believes them. According to your understanding, how did any man before the Incarnation have supernatural belief & hope of salvation without falling into “damnable presumption”? Was it not that they believed that God would provide the means? Similarly, if a dying pagan today cries out to God for salvation without knowledge of Our Lord’s birth & passion, is not a desire for their redeeming effects included in his plea for salvation? Granted that they do not know the means that God has or intends to use to wipe away the guilt of their sin, are they thereby barred from hoping for this atonement?
April 5, 2019 at 1:04 am
Yes.
April 5, 2019 at 1:23 am
You say: “The ‘golden rule’: do unto others as you would have them do unto you, is a mere code of honour, justice, fairness. It is not divine benevolence.”
The Lord does not agree: “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.”
It is not, however, the Gospel which requires the New Commandment which cannot be known by reason.
‘Implicit faith’ as understood by Modernists (as indeed the defining doctrine of Modernism) is a Pelagian fable. Faith can be implicit in two ways either because a revealed truth is held to which logically implies further truths which together suffice to ground a justifying act of faith. In this sense belief in God as the object of supernatural beatitude would if communicated with adequate warrant (to avoid presumption) suffice for supernatural faith in unfallen man. After the fall it is also necessary that the fact of the atonement and mean of its communication to man also be believed because faith was now not only divinizing but necessarily and antecedently justifying. The means changed at the moment of Christ’s death from a faith in the coming Redeemer to a faith in Jesus Christ Who has accomplished our redemption. The other sense of implicit is the belief in the other articles of faith which is conceded without conscious knowledge of them through submission to the Catholic Church as the proximate norm of faith. This is necessary as a means in order for the believer to have adequate warrant (and so avoid presumption) and necessary by way of precept to fulfil the requirement to hold all that God has revealed. It does not suffice without the explicit faith in God’s supernatural providence and Christ’s atoning death (i.e. the Trinity and the Incarnation) as he Holy Office made clear in 1703 “a missionary is bound to explain to an adult, even a dying one who is not entirely incapacitated, the mysteries of faith which are necessary by a necessity of means, as are especially the mysteries of the Trinity and the Incarnation.”
What cannot save is the mere wilingness to believe whatever God might reveal for this is a requirement of reason alone and cannot elicit a supernatural act of faith else there would exist a proportion between the natural and the supernatural – a Satanic doctrine (Isaiah 14:14).
April 5, 2019 at 10:36 am
“If you love me, keep my commandments.
And I will ask the Father: and he shall give you another Paraclete, that he may abide with you for ever: The spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, nor knoweth him. But you shall know him; because he shall abide with you and shall be in you.
I will not leave you orphans: I will come to you. Yet a little while and the world seeth me no more. But you see me: because I live, and you shall live. In that day you shall know that I am in my Father: and you in me, and I in you. He that hath my commandments and keepeth them; he it is that loveth me. And he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father: and I will love him and will manifest myself to him. Judas saith to him, not the Iscariot: Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself to us, and not to the world? Jesus answered and said to him: If any one love me, he will keep my word. And my Father will love him and we will come to him and will make our abode with him. He that loveth me not keepeth not my words. And the word which you have heard is not mine; but the Father’s who sent me.
These things have I spoken to you, abiding with you. But the Paraclete, the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring all things to your mind, whatsoever I shall have said to you.”
The dilemma we’re confronting was already brought up here during the Last Supper by St. Jude. He’s more or less asking, being that You are the Saviour, how is it you reveal Yourself to us and not the whole world?, i.e. if You’ve come to save the world, why is it only us that have really heard of you? Jesus’ reply is mysterious and non-conclusive (in respect to our dilemma): He says, (1) that whoever “loves Him” will “keep His word” –– this cannot be referencing only the people who have explicitly heard of Jesus Christ (since Jude is asking about people all around the world who have not yet heard of the Saviour’s coming), therefore there must be some kind of implicit love of Christ which does not yet involve knowing His Name, “Jesus”, which involves keeping the commandments, (2) that having kept Christ’s word in some fashion, and thereby having loved Him in some fashion, He and the Father “will come to him and will make Our abode with him.” Now I know what the explicitist interpretation of this would be: it’s St. Thomas’ proposition that the Lord would send a preacher of, or provide some kind of interior illumination of, the Incarnation & Trinity to whomever was adequately disposed to receive it; however, the above-quoted gospel passage does not necessitate that interpretation, as it is open also to the implicitist notion that “we will to him and will make our abode with him” potentially refers to an indwelling of the Holy Trinity in the soul without the soul having an explicit knowledge of these mysteries in which it really participates. Note: Our Lord does not explicitly declare that they will be illumined by explicit knowledge of the mysteries of faith, only that He and the Father will “abode with him”.
The implicitist thesis has been around since at least the Counter-Reformation period and published by eminent theologians (mainly Jesuits to begin with, admittedly), and has not been condemned by the Church throughout all the centuries it has been widely discussed by theologians. Pope Bl. Pius IX came into contact with the thesis and made statements in encyclicals which savour of it (without coming to a permanent conclusion, admittedly); it was not condemned under St. Pius X’s condemnation of Modernism; under Pius XII we have the Holy Office letter against Fr. Feeney which takes a fairly solid implicitist stance; and the Second Vatican Council contains statements also savouring of implicitism. There are also encyclicals of St. John Paul II containing similar statements. Most modern theologians apparently are implicitist; apparently it’s almost unanimous (though I wouldn’t know for certain since I’m not a professional theologian). Ratzinger is one. Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange and Fr. Adolphe Tanquerey were apparently also implicitists, and they belonged to the “Thomistic manualism” school maligned by the Modernists.
I think it’s an error to group implicitism with Modernism or Pelagianism. I think that you could incorporate a corrupt form implicitism into the Modernist and Pelagian errors, but implicitism does not belong necessarily to either heresy any more than explicitism (you can certainly be an explicitist and Pelagian at the same time, for example).
This is still a dispute for the theologians and hasn’t been definitively concluded by the Magisterium. I’ve always had sympathies with explicitism and understand why people think it is necessary to safeguard the integrity of the faith and of evangelism without lapsing into religious indifferentism. However, I think an adequate understanding of implicitism does not lead to religious indifferentism, and does not entail either Modernism or Pelagianism. I agree that the implicitist controversy lies at the heart of our theological troubles since the Council and that an inadequate or ill-conceived notion of it has practically lead to religious indifferentism and false ecumenism, and a prevailing air of Pelagianism. I think what needs to be stressed more by implicitists is that every truth and every good deed that comes from a man is itself the work of the Holy Spirit and divine grace, not mere “human goodness” (which is Pelagianism); that the Holy Spirit enlightens men often despite their being situated in false religion and never directly because of their false religion; and that the partial truth which they happen to have compel them under a grave obligation to seek the fullness of the truth which can only be found in the Catholic religion, and can never be used as an excuse to detain them in false religion (i.e. religious diversity is strictly speaking a work of Satan, not Christ who desires religious unity). In other words, I think the implictist thesis is getting a bad reputation among men like you because it has fallen into confused hands and is being abused to justify real errors.
Please read these pages 254–268 by a contemporary Dominican theologian with a synopsis of the whole debate and a brief articulation / defence of implicitism:
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=0H2aBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA254&lpg=PA280#v=onepage&q&f=false
April 5, 2019 at 3:48 pm
You are misinterpreting Jude and Our Lord’s reply. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Only Our Lord’s disciples and only some of them keep his commandments and this is what manifests the Lord to the world. This seems difficult to beleive in these days because false prophets have arisen iniquity has abounded and the charity of many has grown cold. Many theologians are explicitists. Msgr Fenton absolutely rejected the idea that the Holy Office letter against Feeny entailed implicitism. Fr Brian Harrison is an explicitist and considers implicitism at least proximate to heresy. Cardinal Dulles conceded explicitism is the obvious sense of scripture, the unanimous teaching of the Fathers, the doctrine of St Thomas and was defined at Florence. He just somehow imagined we had moved on since then (with the help of the ‘Society of Jesus’).
April 5, 2019 at 11:09 am
aelianus, I agree with what you write here:
“I suspect that in Lewis and Tolkien’s understanding of ‘Joy’ (found most explicitly in Surprised by Joy and On Fairy Stories) lies the solution to the great theological dispute which lies at the root of the Modernist crisis that dominates our times. I would tentatively suggest a definition of what Lewis and Tolkien’s ‘Joy’ as ‘the reflection of the mind upon itself as capax dei effected by actual grace’. This I suspect is what is going on IaIIae,89,6 where St Thomas describes what happens at the moment a child in original sin reaches the age of reason (and De Veritate,14, 11, ad1). Joy is in a species of sufficient grace by which God awakes in the soul of every man attaining to the age of reason the specific obediential potency for participation in the Divine Nature.”
https://exlaodicea.wordpress.com/2013/07/31/mythopoeia-by-j-r-r-tolkien/
I think this is also at the heart of the implicitist thesis.
Quoting an ancient Chinese poet:
The green wu-t’ung‘s branches down,
we can sit looking out at Yung Lake.
Autumn mountains bathed pure in rain,
forests radiant, soaked in emerald quiet,
its bright mirror of water turns lazily
in a painted screen of changing cloud.
A thousand eras lost to wind, and still
the great sages all share this moment.
–
Li Bai, who lived in the 8th century AD. He lived basically a hermit’s life as a poet. All his poetry is about this, the passing nature of the phenomenal world and the immortal and unchanging Tao (or “Way”, basically the Chinese equivalent of the Logos) which lies within, beneath, and above it. Doesn’t this poem describe a moment of “Joy” in your / Lewis’ sense? My question is how a soul can have this kind of Joy without being in a state of grace.
A young Mormon lady once tried to convert me on the street. She told me that “God was her best friend” and that she prayed to Him every day. How is God not being your “best friend” the very definition of being in a state of grace, seeing as being in a state of grace is nothing but rightly-ordered love and having God as the primary love of your life is prima facie the state of grace itself? Granted we could say that Mormonism proposes a false notion of God and does not contain the Christian mysteries of faith, but what of the possibility that God is alive in her soul despite the errors she nominally holds in her discursive intellect? And that she is receiving the indwelling of the Holy Trinity and the redeeming effects of the Incarnation & Passion of Christ without having an adequate intellectual apprehension of these mysteries as proposed by the Church?
The problem I have now with the explicitist thesis is that it makes the state of grace itself something impossibly obscure, reducing it to something like a legal declaration rather than a lived spiritual reality (like the “Joy” you refer to). How is that a girl who has come from another country to preach to foreigners in a foreign city at night saying sincerely (I intuited her sincerity) that “God is her best friend” is not in a state of grace, but a lukewarm Catholic who is just barely meeting the requirements of the faith and keeping up the practice of confession is in the state of grace? Granted the absolute gratuity of the supernatural order and that God is not bound to give any person the state of sanctifying / divinising grace, what then becomes of the experiential and empirical reality of the state of grace? Obviously we can’t trust in our own private experiences to tell us what are the dogmas of the faith, because that really is authentic Modernism. But that the state of grace can subsist in souls despite their holding nominal errors in reference to revealed doctrine is something we already know to be true in the case of professed Catholics who materially hold to condemned errors (e.g. Monotheletism). Couldn’t these cases of the life of grace outside visible communion in the one Church be like those examples Our Lord came across when He exclaimed, “faith like this I have not found in Israel . . .”?
April 5, 2019 at 3:51 pm
Joy does not entail justification in fact its greatest significance is as an effect of sufficient grace.
But what, in conclusion, of Joy? for that, after all, is what the story has mainly been about. To tell you the truth, the subject has lost nearly all interest for me since I became a Christian. I cannot, indeed, complain, like Wordsworth, that the visionary gleam has passed away. I believe (if the thing were at all worth recording) that the old stab, the old bittersweet, has come to me as often and as sharply since my conversion as at any time of my life whatever. But I now know that the experience, considered as a state of my own mind, had never had the kind of importance I once gave it. It was valuable only as a pointer to something other and outer. While that other was in doubt, the pointer naturally loomed large in my thoughts. When we are lost in the woods the sight of a signpost is a great matter. He who first sees it cries, “Look!” The whole party gathers round and stares. But when we have found the road and are passing signposts every few miles, we shall not stop and stare. They will encourage us and we shall be grateful to the authority that set them up. But we shall not stop and stare, or not much; not on this road, though their pillars are of silver and their lettering of gold. “We would be at Jerusalem.”