"the God of the Bible" (or "unbogging the IotD blog")

[Slartibartfast]

>> Well, you have my vote for Pope, but you should check out what
>> the Vatican has to say on the subject at


Thanks for your vote of confidence, but don't impeach the guy we have now just yet.

To quote his pointy hattedness himself JPII, from a 1990 encyclical [Redemptoris Missio]

>>>

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 moust be concretely available to all. But it is clear that today, as in the past, many people do not have the opportunity to come to know or accept the Gospel revelation or to enter the Church... For such people salvation in Christ is accessible by 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 accomodated 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.

>>>

Okay to translate. Jesus died to save EVERYONE. Not just Catholics,
but EVERYONE (including those pesky fundamentalists that ring your
doorbell -though only God knows why ) Those that are not Catholic and are saved, have had it done so in a way that is not understood (the Pope calls it a mystery, so he don't know either). This covers a lot of ground, and it is essential that it does. Do you think a just born baby that dies of some medical complication goes to hell because it was not baptised? What about all those aboriginees that were living in Austrailia, or the native Americans that never saw the white man until centuries after Christ (aside from that stuff Joseph Smith wrote *cough*) ? The Church teaches they are somehow afforded the chance at salvation. How, only God knows, but He is fair, so they must have been afforded a chance.

Now, to look at the flip side, those who are not saved...
you quoted Dominus Iesus as follows...

>>>

“Go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature. He who believes and is baptized will be saved; he who does not believe will be condemned”

>>>

This means if someone has explained to them the full Gospel with all its meaning and significance and they think about it, ponder its meaning, say to themselves "hey I understand this stuff, but NO, I reject this teaching as being false", "or "I believe in this God and I reject him" Then they are condemned... probably.

Yes even then there is an escape clause!

Those who preach the Gospel are only human, and they sometimes make mistakes (sometimes very big mistakes). Maybe what was preached to this person was true, but not the complete truth, or maybe the person did not fully understand what they were rejecting. So they might still have a chance.

So in the end, you can't be sure who is saved or not, it is really between God and the individual.


>> The rest of the document discusses Catholocism in relation to other >> religions. Here the church declares itself the one true religion while >> not completely denouncing other faiths.

That sounds accurate.


>> This states that anything good found in other religions was inspired
>> by Jesus. I guess this includes paganism, although Christ affecting
>> a religion which predates his birth would have to be considered
>> another miracle. Then again, I don't know enough about paganism >> to say how far back the 'writings' go.

Think of Jesus as a savior of all people and all times. Those who were around BC got a dose of his Good Stuff retroactively (if you can swollow one miracle, why not swollow a dozen, hey miracles happen every day if you just look)


>>The Vatican has a problem in that, if they come down too hard on
>>other religions, people go around committing hate crimes and
>>atrocities. If they are too accomodating and inclusive, they become
>>less unique and run the risk of losing their identity and message in >>a sea of multiculturalism. This document was written in 2000 and >>basically says "we're going to play nice, but let's not forget who's >>top dog around here".

Well, the Catholic Church does believe itself to be in posession of the One True Path (tm) That has always been an up front fact even before Dominus Iesus. It doesn't try to beat other religions over the head with that knowledge (well it used to but let's not go into that right now )
But at the same time the Church believes that its truths are self evident, and that all truths point to the one Truth.

But which of the following would you prefer...

avoiding differences as if they were of no consequence
or
engaging differences in a respectful conversation

The Church teaches that all religions should gather together in peaceful discussion of their beliefs. The truth will float to the top by itself.

All that dogma the Church teaches is not going to be changed for multiculturalism or for anyone. And just because a person says "hey, I believe I am right", does not mean they say "I am right and you are not entitled to believe anything except what I tell you to." The Church believes strongly in the fact that everyone should have a freedom of religion (No? yes! it does!).



I have to go to class this afternoon, but I have more of your post to comment on