We might be able to argue contrariwise through the Fathers, maybe even from Scripture itself that anyone outside of the Catholic Faith cannot be saved. However, one thing disturbs me - I Corinthians xiii.
si linguis hominum loquar et angelorum caritatem autem non habeam factus sum
velut aes sonans aut cymbalum tinniens.
I'm sure that we can argue someone outside of the the Church and to Damnation, since St Cyprian is right - there is no salvation outside of the Church. However, Salvation belongs to God.
I am not learned enough to get into this argument on the level of the Fathers, but a mere appeal to I Cor xiii suggests that if we can argue someone out of the Church, then we cannot ourselves be part of it unless we find ourselves in great pain.
How can we speak of the pain of others as Christians and not feel their pain ourselves? Our disunity as Christians is a scandal, and our further schisms too lightly described as "an embarassment". It must hurt us, it must be seen as the worst thing, but if people have no choice but to walk away then what can we do?
That there is a clear demarcation between right and wrong is correct. That we can see a clear demarcation between right and wrong is absolutely fallacious. The boundary between right and wrong is fractal possessing structure on every scale of magnitude. Get too close and you lose the bigger picture, go too far out and you lose the fine detail. Only an infinite mind can resolve an infinite structure. There are things which are irreconcileable within the paucity of our belief.
There are the "pot-boilers" which inflame polemics between the Catholic Church and the Protestant. As I said below, I believe the Catholic Church to be more consistent in its interpretation of the Divine Will from His Revelation. Only when this consistency is rejected do the "pot-boilers" become valid because they are argued from inconsistency.
We cannot adopt consistency and inconsistency. Either the ordination of women is valid or it is not. Since it is not valid in the eyes of the Catholic Church, there is an irreconcilable split between those who hold it and those who don't. Does this damn women "priests" and their supporters? I pray to God that it isn't so, but I do believe that they have put themselves into severe danger.
So the Church is split, rent and fragmented into Communions and all we can do is follow the Rule of St Benedict and never despair of the mercy of God. We must also trust in God's ability to hold contradictions together. Reconciliation can and will only occur as a result of the Grace of God and if I am honest it will only occur at His hands. Until then the talking must occur, but there must also be a time for silence.
3 comments:
I think you are correct in centering your answer on 1 cor 13. I can be eloquent in argument, irreproachable in logic, faithful to Apostolic doctrine and practice, and rigotous in aceticism, but without love none of that is worth anything at all.
Sine caritas IN ecclesiam nulla salus
Without love there is no salvation, even IN the Church. If I take pleasure in concluding that anyone whatever is to be damned, then I have effectually renounced my own claim to salvation. This is a debate to be approached with humility and with fear and trembling. If any man be damned, that must be an occasion of deep grief, of pain and heartbreak, for those who would follow a Lord who willingly gave up His life that such a thing need not happen. Triumphalism, rejoicing in what I have obtained as making me better than others, is the sin that converted righteous teachers of the Law known as Pharisees into 'whitewashed sepulchres full of dead men's bones." "So there, that proves my point," is one of the most mischievous things that can be said, as it builds pride and reduces compassion. Only when we have this matter of love uppermost in our consciousness, only when we have acknowledged the beam in our own eye, only when we have admitted that we, though within the Church, deserve salvation no more than any other man, only then are we qualified even to ask about those we perceive as 'outside'. Our asking, moreover, must, absolutely must, be accompanied with a loving desire that they too mau be saved -- not that they may perceive the wisdom of my arguments, even if that be part of the answer, but that they receive the grace of God. Perhaps. if I be convinced that their salvation is not possible, I may need to pray that I be proven wrong about that. For me to be proven right is simply not sufficient reason for one soul to be lost.
Once I am qualified to ask the question, I am confronted with the knowledge that however well I think I understand the matter, I really don't, and can't. I like the way you point out how difficult it is for us to perceive the clear demarcation that God has defined between right and wrong. It was indeed the 'tree of the knowledge of good and evil' that tempted the First Couple. That was forbidden ground then and still is. We have to let God be God. Yes, we have received certain truths by revelation, on this discussion that none are saved but through Christ, and that it us as members of His Church that He saves us. Can we trust God to decide how that works in given cases?
So where are we now? We are in a world where there are a host of conflicting claims as to what and where the Church of God is, and a number of separated bodies, each claiming to be the Church or a part of the Church. Are any of us qualified to 'fix' this mess? No, we can only do our best to follow Him, and to attract others to the way we have found. The rest is God's business.
ed
I followed the link to his aite. This is the comment I left there:
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Leo:
Your response to my comment was a really clever 'bait and switch'. What sounded like a gracious compliment turned out, on following the link, to be in actuality an invitation to read a polemic denying precisely everything I said. This is not acceptable argumentation.
Your piece on your page is so full of logical nonsequiturs that I'm not even going to try to respond to specifics. All through your piece, as also in the similar writings of a number of others I've run across, there is the incidence of plausible, though badly worded, half- or three-quarter-truths, bound by weak links to conclusions that don't follow. It would take me more time than I have available to discuss all this, so I will cut this short, at least for now.
ed
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