Do You Have to be Catholic to be Saved? W/ Trent Horn

where is it that the church teaches that someone can not have explicit faith and yet be saved and has the church developed its understanding of this well when we look for example in lumen gentium paragraph 16 of the Second Vatican Council we see the church articulate that it is possible for those it says possible those of no knowledge of Christ or his church to still be saved if they are following the revelation that God has given them primarily in nature and in conscience right so the question is does this person have is what is kept in them from God some kind of an invincible ignorance something that they cannot overcome now if it's something they could have overcome by investigating the matter and giving it serious thought and they cavalierly dismissed it because they feel there are more important things in life than whatever God is that may not bode well for them in the next life but if it's something they're an honest seeker about and they're trying to find then I do believe God will eventually reveal themselves to this person but it's also possible that a person could have other kinds of cognitive defects that prevent them from coming to know God the Catechism even talks about how one thing that can create vincible ignorant sin atheists are the examples of Christians the Catechism says that sometimes Christians are poor examples of the faith they teach it improperly and present a poor example of it that others don't want to ya have anything yet to do with whatsoever and so that would be there if you're a Jew raised in Nazi Germany and your only experience of Christ is that of the Third Reich yeah or if you're a Jew living in the Middle Ages and you're being charged with blood libel and you'reyou're consigned to a to a ghetto you know but I would say that this understanding that non-christians can be saved is not a unique one that's modern I think you go back to like Pope Gregory the Great he talks about how there is no one who is kept from receiving the the fruits of the atonement of Christ's death on the cross this is something to benefit everyone now as the church articulated this principle there is no salvation outside of the church it was primarily understood to mean that those who have come to know what the church is and reject to it there is nothing else that is going to save them and so it's directed at Jews or pagans or even Muslims who have encountered Christians who have you know interacted with the faith and have rejected there's nothing else to provide them salvation God himself and seems paragraph 12 57 of the Catechism says that this salvation is bound to the sacraments specifically baptism but God himself is not bound by those things right and so God is able to be merciful towards people and take an understanding of whatever epistemic position he has placed them in okay but then the church came to see an understanding that there were people like in the new world Native Americans who could not possibly have not what our Mormon friends notwithstanding could not who believed that Jesus appeared to the Native Americans that's a whole different topic to talk about could not have possibly known God and yet and yet I would say that it would it would just seem to me to be such an injustice for it would be similar to the Calvinist doctrine of double predestination hmm where that's interested decides who goes to heaven and who goes to hell and God has made it the case that certain people no matter what decision they make in this life will be consigned to hell I would say that's really not that far from double predestination where God decides now all Christians believe in predestination right the Bible talks about it and in paragraph 602 the Catechism it says that God all moments of time are known to God in his immediacy but he God is able to make our free choices a part of his predestined plan that's the essence of what paragraph 602 the Catechism says and so the point being what the Church teaches on predestination is more what you can't believe you just can't believe that God doesn't know the future mm-hmm he is omniscient but you can't believe that we don't have free will God knows the future he has chosen us he's given us grace we did not choose him that's a great way to put it he's chosen us but we also say yes to him right it's not we we were not just we're not dragged kicking and screaming around dragged into the kingdom we say yes to him and sometimes we say no we got a back is a yes again but God I mean the two mystic view and I guess the Catholic view is if we go to heaven we have no one to think but God if we go to hell we have no nothing but ourselves right and so when it comes to how freewill and predestination work together in God's foreknowledge and free will that's where Catholics there's disagreement you'll have people have the two mystic understanding of predestination which is anybody close to Calvinism but important in important respects and then you have more views down the line like Molin ISM the Jesuit priest Luis Molina who says that God gave sufficient grace to people for them to be saved but the grace that he's given to people who that he chooses he chooses those that he knows and his counterfactual foreknowledge will say yes if he were to offer them fair enough salvation and if we're in their novice can disagree among themselves on the on those things and I'm not even fully settled I lean towards mullen ISM not completely settled on the issue but the point is we have with with predestination that God has this plan for us but it includes our free choices within that plan how do we get to predestination we were talking about the hiddenness of God there's people who don't know but to say like okay God has made it so that they're born chance of hearing the gospel I can't accept the idea that God would make it the case that someone could exist and there is not a single choice they could have ever made in this life there's not a single choice they could have ever made in this life to avoid being separated from God for all eternity that to me would seem to be very very Catholic is sort of disgusted at the kind of Calvinistic idea that God can predestined someone to hell then they as you say it doesn't seem too far off to say people here in the new world had no chance of hearing the gospel in a sense he has predestined them to hell if you want to say strictly speaking if he's given them no opportunity to make a decision whether it's to recognize his existence in nature or to follow the revelation he's giving them to conscience and you go back I mean for Gregory to go back to Romans chapter 2 Romans 2 14 through 16 st. Paul says even though the Gentiles don't have the Mosaic law written on stone they have the law written on their hearts and God will judge them by their conscience which will either accuse or excuse them on that day yeah so I believe there's this I had a principal to show that God reveals himself to different people in different ways but I think at the end of the day for us for you and I who go to Mass who have the sacraments who have so many resources available to us for our spiritual growth it really leaves us without excuse no yeah totally I mean that's so we should pray for people salvation we should evangelize yeah so sometimes people will say to me well if you think that people can be saved if they're never evangelized there's not evangelist you're just giving them a chance to reject God yeah and I would say here well no I'm saying a possibility is not the same as a probability just because it's possible these people can be saved that's not a guarantee yeah it could be that we still live in a sinful world where a person can be ensnared by sin and choose to flee from the good I mean it's still so you're running muscle you're in a much better place generally speaking if you've heard the gospel proclaimed to you've been baptized and accepted yes and if you've never heard at all especially if you're baptized and you've accepted it because upon being baptized you're pure and undefiled all the stain of any sin original or actual has been removed there's nothing to hinder you from being entering the kingdom of God immediately after baptism hey if you enjoyed that clip you will absolutely love the full interview so click right there to enjoy the whole thing also the big thanks to these groups who made that interview possible learn more in the show notes below about these guys they're absolutely incredible and honored to have them as sponsors oh and also if you haven't subscribed yet click Subscribe and then that fell button that way YouTube will be forced to let you know when we put out more content

Channel: Pints With Aquinas

Views: 32,717

Rating: 4.8103027 out of 5

Keywords: Apologetics, Christian, Trent Horn, Council of Trent, Catholic, Atheist, Agnostic, Podcast, Discussion, Clip, Fradd, God, Faith, Whitness, Stories, Religious Experiences, Heaven, Hell, Going to Hell?, Protestant

Id: YQMERQlSlLg

Length: 8min 23sec (503 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 22 2020