“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
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.