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Does the bible say that only Catholics will make it to heaven? No. Does the bible say that only Christians will make it to heaven? No.



It says that Salvation comes through Christ alone. It is Christ's sacrifice and God's grace give us the possibility of salvation. It is how we react to those things that allow us to actually be saved. As Christians, our reaction is quite obvious: we follow Christ. However, there is nothing in the bible that explicitly states that those who have never had a chance to hear the gospel will have no chance to accept Christ's sacrifice. It's completely silent on that particular subject.
The Catholic Church trusts in the mercy of God and says that salvation may be possible for these people.

You are misreading it, actually.
From that website:
"Yet Christians have also always realized that the necessity of water baptism is a normative rather than an absolute necessity. There are exceptions to water baptism: It is possible to be saved through "baptism of blood," martyrdom for Christ, or through "baptism of desire", that is, an explicit or even implicit desire for baptism.

Thus the Catechism of the Catholic Church states: "Those who die for the faith, those who are catechumens, and all those who, without knowing of the Church but acting under the inspiration of grace, seek God sincerely and strive to fulfill his will, are saved even if they have not been baptized" (CCC 1281; the salvation of unbaptized infants is also possible under this system; cf. CCC 1260–1, 1283). "

This includes those people who are seeking truth and trying to live good lives according to their conscience who do not know God, through no fault of their own.

I really wish I could find the vatican II documents for you. Our priest read them in last week's homily, and this is the exact subject those papers addressed. I've been trying to weed my way through various documents to find the one I'm thinking of, but I've been so busy with school (midterms and 2 practicums this week!) that I really haven't had much time to spend on this. However, I'll email our priest and see if he can send me that information and get back to you on it. It really is spelled out very plainly in those documents.



I'm sorry, but I'm not sure what you are referring to here. The only definition I know for canonization refers to the Church declaring someone a saint.
If that's what you're referring to, then I'm not sure how normative baptism factors in, as there are several saints who were martyrs and did not receive a water baptism.



Actually, the information sited was really based off of excepting baptisms. The Catechism is written to explain Catholic beliefs, not to create them.



What are the events I am speaking of and what are the topics of discussion?
I'm not speaking of an event, so much as a belief. If you want to pinpoint when this belief became official, that would be Vatican II, but if you look back at the page you quoted, you can see several much earlier references to baptism of blood or desire.
The topic of discussion I replied to was on current Christian views on salvation for those outside of their faith.
So, did the events I spoke of happen before the topic of this discussion? Pretty sure they did.



That doesn't necessarily follow from the necessity of baptism. After all, we Catholics still want converts, even though we don't think that non-Catholics will automatically go to hell. Just because Catholicism isn't the only way to Christ doesn't mean we Catholics don't think it's the best way.

Though, granted, there were many things that were done in the name of converting people and could very well have been based on a belief that those outside that religion would be going to hell. Don't think that I'm saying this was not the case with many historical events. Just acknowledge that wanting people to convert doesn't necessarily have to follow from believing non-members are doomed.

As for the Church, it is true that the they did not always acknowledge this particular belief as part of their doctrine. However, what bearing does that have on the fact that it is doctrine today?



But if you wish to deduce from this that Catholic doctrine at the time stated that non-believers go to hell, you must show that actual doctrine. Stating that Dante based his book on many doctrinal things does not prove that his book is in fact doctrinally sound.



And I never claimed that my view was universal. I claimed that In Medias Res IV's view was not universal and gave a counterexample: the Catholic Church.

Ok, let's go over this one more time.
"Those who die for the faith,"

Martyrs

those who are catechumens,

Those who are planning on joining the Church.

and all those who, without knowing of the Church but acting under the inspiration of grace, seek God sincerely and strive to fulfill his will,

People who don't realize that the Church is legit, but act under the inspiration of Grace, God's call to each and every one of us, and seek God, seek the truth, and try to do his will (which equates to listening to the Holy Spirit speaking to you through your conscience and private revelation, which the Catechism talks about in another spot. I can find it if you want, or you can search the Catechism for it, or we can just take my word on it. Just let me know which one we're going with).

So you don't have to be at Mother Teresa status on the good person meter. You just have to be trying to follow God's will to the extent that you know it.

are saved even if they have not been baptized"

So, these are the people who qualify for the whole baptism of desire thing.

We clear?



True, our documents don't actively deny your position.
However, they also don't state your position.
Remember what we're trying to clarify here: The Position of the Catholic Church.
Just because someone doesn't say that they don't believe in something doesn't mean that they do in fact believe it.

Here's the problem: You are interpreting what the Catholic Church has said to be much more exclusive than it truly is.
Though your terms would still qualify people to go to heaven, the Church actually has a wider view than that.



I could argue that. And I think I will.
The criteria are loose. Why? Because we're not all knowing. (surprise surprise)
Could we offer a set list of criteria on entering heaven? Yes.
Are we going to? Hell no.

And I disagree that having loosely defined criteria opens the door for you to add in whatever criteria you would like.
That would be like saying, well, you don't specify whether Purgatory is a physical place or a state of being, so clearly you believe it's a physical place.

Quite frankly, it's ridiculous imho.



First off, nowhere does the CCC or any vatican document state this.
If you wish to claim that this is in fact the Catholic position, you're going to have to find some sort of proof for that.

Secondly, Canonization has nothing to do with getting someone into heaven. It's just a statement of our belief as a Church that that person is in heaven. I'm sure there are many people who lived lives as good as the saints that we've never even heard about. Could they be in heaven? Very possibly.


Also, I would like to take a moment to clarify something which may have gotten a bit convoluted in in our discussion.
The Church does not believe that good people WILL go to heaven, but rather that good people CAN go to heaven despite not being baptized. We still believe that the only way to heaven is through Christ and his sacrifice, but we make the allowance that God is not limited by human actions. Our actions that limit or prevent people from joining the Church will not stop God from offering his mercy to people who would otherwise seek him.
That is the meat and potatoes of the Church's position right there.



*shrug*
Ok.
Honestly, I don't think this topic relates to our main discussion here in a significant enough to warrant me to spend my limited time tonight on it (limited because my battery is dying right now on my laptop), so for now, I'm just going to drop it and go with what you've said so that I can get back to the main argument.



I'm sorry, but I'm still confused.
Why then are the events I talked about irrelevant?
This question is referring to your first post about this, btw. I'm just completely confused on what you're referring to here.



I don't think that the members of Vatican II were trying to say that the Church held this position prior to their acceptance of it. They were merely trying to point out that it is not a new idea.

The Church also sites certain works of Greek philosophers in discussions about doctrine. By siting those examples, they are not trying to say that the people who said these things believed the exact same things as people today, but rather that those sited had certain insights to what we now commonly hold as truth.



The belief in Limbo was also common knowledge among the literate (and illiterate) subgroup of Catholics for a long time. However, the Church itself never held this belief as doctrine.
Remember, common belief does not dictate doctrine in the Catholic Church.

Again, I'm simply opposed to you siting Dante as an example of Catholic doctrine. If you wish to do that, you must first produce some sort of valid evidence that the doctrine you are trying to show through Dante is in fact legitimate.



And I require you to produce documentation that the Vatican's view is indeed limiting rather than trying to interpret documents in a way that supports your view, but is not supported by the Church.



I appologize if some of those responses seemed brief. I am down to 3 minutes left on my Mac's battery though, so I really do have leave you with what I have written.

Are you referring to Matthew 16:19?
I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.

Catholics generally view this verse in regards to confession and the absolving of sins, rather than to anything the Church decides to say.

But, you could argue that this verse would apply to Canonization. Of course, then you would need to get into the whole mess of what "binding" means. What was the context at the time, etc. etc. etc. and I just don't have enough knowledge on the subject to even begin to approach that particular verse.

So, I'll just say it's a possibility. Maybe Canonization does guarantee you a spot in heaven. However, the Church does not hold to this belief. God has given us a lot of authority, but as far as we know, we do not have the authority to grant someone automatic entrance into heaven.



The official recognition of baptisms of other denominations did indeed happen at Vatican II. You are correct about that.
But there's just one thing I want you to realize about the Catholic Church. We're slow. I mean really really really really slow. Think Ents from LOTR kind of slow. We take a long, long, long time to do anything. There are a ton of ideas that are mulled around for decades, or even centuries before the Church makes any formal statement on the subject.
Baptisms of of non-Catholic Christians is one of those things. It has come up from time to time, people have discussed it briefly, and then it just slips back into the background. Vatican II was the first time the Church really sat down and made a definitive statement on the subject.
So while you are right to say that it was not Church doctrine until recently, it would also be prudent to realize that the teaching did still pop up from time to time in the earlier years of the Church.



Fair enough. And just as a heads up for other threads, I do this sort of thing a lot. People group all Christians together for a certain belief and I just run in long enough to say, "Whoa whoa whoa! Not us Catholics."
I probably should stick to the topic of discussion more often, but . . . . meh.



It doesn't seem to apply to those people, but it really does. Well, it applies to some of them. Again, I'm wishing I had the Vatican document that talks about this. The quote from the Catechism is nice and all, but it's meant to be brief, and when you take a week of discussion and condense it into a paragraph, you kind of loose some stuff.
You know what, I'm going to be up at the Church tonight, so I'll see if I can get that information from Fr. and I'll come back and post a link for you.

But in the mean time, the jist is something like this: The only people who get a "thou shall not pass" sign on their way to heaven are those who know the Church is really what it says it is, but still refuse to convert or who, knowing that the Church is what it says it is, decide to leave it.
Now that's me trying to take days of discussion and condense it into a few sentences, so just bare with me until I get the actual document.



It has been fun. And good luck with those last minute papers. I'm attempting to make sure I don't have any last minute papers this semester by dedicating this weekend to getting most of my papers done early, but . . . . well, that's never worked very well in the past, so we'll see how I do this semester.

You can't ever force anything on anyone, not even religion for that matter. Most religions share a common base, like doing good to others and keeping away from evil stuff and striving to be a better person. Just believe in the God you believe and don't let others dictate anything to you.