“By itself each human life is an open question, an incomplete, not fully realized project, something to be brought to fruition. Each human being faces these questions: How can the full potential of my life be realized? How does one learn the art of living? What is the path to true happiness?”
That was the first paragraph of the then Cardinal Ratzinger’s (now Pope) speech entitled “The path to true happiness”. There are so many paths to true happiness it seems – Buddhism, new age spiritualism, yoga, tai chi maybe… I guess you could ask Madonna if they work?
One link in the chain to true happiness is obviously really and truly knowing God. Theologian Metz identified the true problem of our time as being the “Crisis of God,” the absence of God, disguised by an empty religiosity. He said that theology must go back to being truly theo-logy, speaking about and with God.
The then Cardinal Ratzinger said that he thought that Metz was right and the one necessity of man is God, and we often in reality live as if God does not exist. We have to have a personal relationship with God and know how to pray and talk to Him at home or whenever. Otherwise we will never have personal evidence of His existence.
But how do you really and truly know God? Easier said than done perhaps? Maybe you pray on the bus or as you walk to work in the morning. Maybe you silently ask for God’s help throughout the day with little aspirations. Or do you make sure you get up early each morning to read the bible and talk to God? Are you open to the Holy Spirit’s presence with you, asking it to guide you? Maybe you find it useful to have a homegroup or youth group that means you have some time set aside each week to concentrate on the bible, fellowship and prayer.
Whatever your action plan, to be honest sometimes I find it HARD to concentrate enough on praying to God and having a personal relationship with him. Sometimes I feel very close and sometimes I don’t. I tend to like to learn a whole lot about God and different aspects of Christianity, but sometimes forget to concentrate on actual prayer…
I guess we are all on a path to really and personally knowing God. Not something that is done without personal exertion and effort unfortunately. Anyway… that’s something to think about along your journey of learning the art of living… ïŠ
How does one learn the art of living?
According to Father Raniero Cantalamessa, Jesus has given us an infallible guide to the art of living : “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
http://www.zenit.org/article-24041?l=english
There are so many paths to true happiness it seems – Buddhism, new age spiritualism, yoga, tai chi maybe
New age is a very mixed bag and I don’t know much about tai chi, but I’m convinced that Buddhism and Yoga are genuine paths to God.
Religion is supposed to unite us – we’re really failing when we allow it to divide us.
God Bless
If there are other genuine ways to God as equally valid as an exclusive faith in Jesus Christ as God then perhaps God would have done better to let us know this by leaving the Israelites in Egypt.
As Benedict says writing about truth in religion in ‘Truth and Tolerance’ p 212
“The conclusion to be drawn is clear: the Exodus must be reversed; we must go back to ‘Egypt’ – that is to say, the distinction between true and untrue in the realm of religion must be done away with; we must return to the realm of the gods, which are an expression of all the wealth and the variety of the cosmos and thus do not ever exclude one another but rather facilitate mutual understanding.”
In Buddhism there can be no truth in this world only by leaving it. That seems to be counter to God’s plan of Revelation overall. If there can be no truth in this world then Jesus resurrection must be a myth.
But of course in ‘Egypt’ all is one, so no problem.
Unfortunately, Cdl Ratzinger is not known for his religious tolerance – remember the Regensburgh faux pas ?
In the interview with the French newspaper L’Express, 20 March 1997, Cdl Ratzinger said:
Leaving aside the scandalous accusation of a major world religion as “a spiritual auto-eroticism of some sort”, it simply isn’t true the Buddhism doesn’t have concrete religious obligations.
It does.
One of them is compassion.
Which is the same as Christian love.
What St Paul called the whole law.
Some Christians are far too quick to condemn other religions that they simply do not understand.
God Bless
Chris,
I’m convinced that Buddhism and Yoga are genuine paths to God
What has convinced you of that? Reading Church documents and analysing the teaching of Doctors of the Church? Wikipedia?
Some Christians are far too quick to condemn other religions that they simply do not understand.
Some Christians are far too quick to condemn their own religion while promoting the awesomeness of other religions.
Oh, and nice post eyeWitness. Some thought-provoking ideas in there.
What has convinced you of that? Reading Church documents and analysing the teaching of Doctors of the Church?
Yes.
And reading what buddhists themselves write and talking with them about what they themselves say they believe.
A Christian once visited a buddhist monastry somewhere in Asia.
He spoke to an old buddhist monk who had spent years in prayer.
He told the monk about Jesus.
The monk thanked him for telling him the name of the one whom he has communed with in prayer for many years.
Buddhism is a path to Christ.
All genuine religions are.
Because there is only one mediator.
God Bless
re #1, yoga.
Yoga is rooted in Hinduism and Hinduism is famously syncretic, as any Moslem, Christian or Buddhist living in India will point out.
Thus once you’ve said “yoga”, adding anything else to the list of salvic paths is redundant because Hindu yoga pretty much covers everything every which way 10 times over.
Yoga = everything = nothing in particular.
I think maybe what you mean Chris is that when practicing those sort of religions people are seeking the same God, and maybe even experience the same God within themselves (as there is only one God that is seeking them) but the actual religions aren’t true in their doctrines? Because two opposing things can’t both be true.
“Buddhism is a path to Christ.
All genuine religions are.
Because there is only one mediator.”
The Church teaches that any truth in other religions is only a seed of the Truth. Eyewitness is quite right – the foundation of rational thought is that two opposites can’t both be true at the same time and be the same thing. God is a God of reason. Buddhism has no God – it has a void – ultimate annihilation.
The essential problem with your approach, Chris, is that it recognises the transcendent gift of God who is a gift for all people and also that many seem to experience in similar ways what we experience in Christian union and transcendant moments. But we don’t know that the source is the same, it is speculation.
The Church Doctors teach that only through faith in Christ and the Church (head and body) and obedience therein that God comes to us and we can go to Him. What Pope Benedict has alluded to in ‘Christian Brotherhood’ (his speculation?) is that faithfulness of Christians within the Church saves our unchosen brother. Seems the safer path to tread in faith if you love your brother. As he is Pope it seems a strong endorsement from the Holy Spirit, and the body stays attached to the head.
You see, the Church as the Body of Christ is not separated from its head – so where does this ‘all genuine religions are paths to Christ’ leave the Body of Christ?
I have relatives who are Buddhist they reject the revelation of Christ as God incarnate, nor do they seek him.
Isn’t it a disservice and a discourtesy to even interpret their religion as a path to Christ when they don’t? I think we should accept world religions on their own terms and not try to redefine them in ‘christian’ terms. This I think is a real problem with some ‘christian’ thinking – almost ‘colonial evangelising by osmosis’.
One thing the Gospels make clear – God likes the truth and authenticity.
eyeWitness,
I’d say that the five precepts of Buddhism are true doctrine, even if some Buddhists express them rather more vaguely than the Catholic Church does (Cdl Ratzinger is not entirely off the mark on the lack of concrete obligations in some Western Buddhists; and even the Dalai Lama has questioned whether Westerners are better to follow our own spiritual traditions (Christianity) rather than a rather loose and easy form of Buddhism).
God Bless
The Church Doctors teach that only through faith in Christ and the Church (head and body) and obedience therein that God comes to us and we can go to Him.
The Church does not teach that.
God comes to heaps of people who don’t have faith in Christ.
Just start with the book of Genesis and start reading and you’ll meet some of them !
I have relatives who are Buddhist they reject the revelation of Christ as God incarnate, nor do they seek him.
If they are seeking the truth then they are seeking him, for he is truth.
God Bless
Benedicta
Are you infering that only Catholics will make it to Gods Kingdom and if so what will happen to your Buddist realatives?
Helens Bay
The Church knows of no other way to be saved other than through true Baptism in Christ.
If others are saved it is not through ordinary means but through extraordinary means which the Church does not know. Though the Church hopes that all are saved through God’s mercy. Mercy lies with God and not with our loose interpretations, that is presuming on God’s mercy which is considered a sin.
Know I’m not presuming only Catholics will make it to God’s kingdom but God’s true Church subsists within the Catholic Church and Baptism is the door to the Kingdom through the Church.
Chris
‘If they are seeking the truth then they are seeking him, for he is truth.’
You are missing the point – they don’t want him though they know about him, they reject God’s revelation in Christ. I think God will respect that – its called freewill.
Yes, God comes to heaps of people, but the whole point of the Bible is that not only does God come to us but we have to respond to God. You can’t respond and reject at the same time.
“The Church does not teach that.” One cannot know that the Church is the true Church of Christ, reject that and be saved. – Its in the Catechism. If you know that the Church is the true Church and reject it in essence you are rejecting Christ and therefore as one who knows and rejects you can’t be saved. Peter’s keys – as above as below.
My own personal speculative view I have adopted from Pope Benedict.
I think there will be others saved who are brothers of Christ though they do not know him – perhaps brothers in suffering.
The Mercy of God will be theirs and others will be saved and God’s mercy is the more abundant through the faithfulness of those who know him and say they follow him. To be effective in this economy of salvation one has to be in true relationship with Christ on the path of holiness in the Church, loving Christ and the Church. So our faithfulness matter.
I think God will have less difficulty in saving a Buddhist, an atheist or a Muslim etc than he will in saving a rebellious Catholic with fancy theology. So take your chances. Its not as if you don’t know or can’t follow is it?
Benedicta
as you appear to have some inside running as to whom will be saved what about our good friends the brethern, very moral,very upright and firm believers that only they are right.
same goes for Jehovah Witness,and the Mormans .
Or what about babies aborted and who have not been baptised.
your theory would appear to be confused and your only constant that Catholic`s who question will be doomed!
re post #6.
I want to hear more about yoga.
Greg,
Here you go …
God Bless
Ah.
More Scandal ‘all religions are the same.’
I have non christian friends and I don’t presume to say anyone goes to heaven or hell.
However if on a Catholic blog you want to put Catholic teaching on the same level as well…everything……then please take it elsewhere. That is not Catholic teaching, no matter how much it may talk about others being saved. The Church quite clearly teaches that.
I agree Gianna. You can’t just say everything’s true, no matter how non-judgmental you are trying to be, because it doesn’t make sense to say that. You can’t say for certain who will go to heaven and who won’t, and you certainly shouldn’t presume to go around judging others. But there are still clear rules taught by the Church and clearly written in the bible, and not everyone is saved.
Helen’s Bay the Church actually teaches that other Christian denominations and followers of Christ, such as brethen, can be saved, as can babies who have had no chance to be baptised.
“Lets be open minded but not so much that our brains fall out.”
not everyone is saved.
Believe that if you wish, but the Catholic Church does not teach that not everyone is saved.
She prays constantly in her official prayers at Mass and in the Divine Office for the salvation of everyone.
And her prayers are efficacious.
As are those of Our Lady, who asks us to pray, and prays with us, for Jesus to lead all souls into heaven, especially those in most need of his mercy.
God Bless
Chris what are you saying? Are you saying that no one is in hell?
Helens Bay #14
You haven’t read what I said at all. My thoughts are consistent with the Church. That we hope that all will be saved. That Christ AND his Church are the means of salvation. HOW they are the means of salvation for those who are NOT BAPTISED (not just Catholics) is not known or stated.
If I am confused then so is the Church!
As Eyewitness says
“Helen’s Bay the Church actually teaches that other Christian denominations and followers of Christ, such as brethen, can be saved, as can babies who have had no chance to be baptised.”
The important words here are ‘can be saved’ not ‘will be saved’. the fact is the Church teaches for the unbaptised that we hope that they are saved and rely on the mercy of God. We don’t condemn anyone.
As I said earlier faith in Christ in the Church through Baptism is the ordinary means of salvation anything else is extraordinary. Knowingly rejecting the ordinary imperils the extraordinay.
The Catechism does state this but also it does not say what ‘knowingly rejecting the Church’ exactly means and nor could anyone know as the heart is God’s to know.
Chris
“Believe that if you wish, but the Catholic Church does not teach that not everyone is saved.”
There is a difference between a hope and a revealed knowledge. We hope, we don’t know and can only speculate. The doctrine of Hell has not been revoked or revised. Have you read the Pope’s encyclical Spe Salvi?
I think Benedict’s thoughts are very beautiful and inspire faith in the Church and measured agsinst something like a Pascal’s wager seems the infinitely wise path. Either way you did the right thing. We are Catholics and are called to be faithful Catholics.
Gianna
Lets be open minded but not so much that our brains fall out.”
I agree. Also at the end of the day lets keep pointing the finger at ourselves and not at anyone else.
infuriator,
As John Paul II pointed out in Crossing the Threshold of Hope (an excellent title for the current discussion), the Church has not defined that anyone ever went to Hell, not even Judas.
She has defined that lots of people (cannonised saints for starters) went to Heaven.
Cross the threshold of hope.
God Bless
Ah yes but the Church does teach that hell exists and people can definitely go there (as Jesus seemed to keep on harping on about.)
Otherwise, Chris RE point #23 I agree with what you say
So we are in agreement that there is indeed hell and that there is a strong possibility that there are souls there now?
One would hope so
As the Church officially and constantly prays, at Mass and in her Divine Office, for the salvation of all men, as Jesus says that what we pray for in faith will be granted, and as we know for certain that God wills the salvation of every man, is it really faith if we don’t believe what the Church prays for ?
God Bless
I have two questions:
If the Church doesn’t teach assured salvation does that mean we also don’t teach assured condemnation? In other words, we can’t know for certain based on our lives now whether we will end up in Heaven or Hell. Nor can we claim to know the same for other people. Correct?
Which leads me onto question two from Chris’ comment in #23:
the Church has not defined that anyone ever went to Hell, not even Judas.
We have evidence of people being in Heaven – canonised saints have miracles attributed to them after their death. What would be our evidence of a soul being in Hell, if there are souls there?
Open to correction if my thoughts have taken me to a position in opposition to Church teaching!
Um Chris. Wow. Your going down a whole new and in my mind, dangerous path here. Sorry brother but I see where you argument is leading…
What would be our evidence of a soul being in Hell
The Church defining that a soul is in Hell.
Which she has never done.
The opinion that the population of Hell is zero is entirely in accord with what the Catholic Church teaches.
What’s more, it’s what we ought to be working towards with our prayers, good works, and our entire lives.
God Bless
The opinion that the population of Hell is zero is entirely in accord with what the Catholic Church teaches.
Funny, someone should tell Pope Benedict that: http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21460090-2,00.html
Have to disagree with you there Chris. As much as I would love for it to be true that there are no souls in hell, my belief in that people choose to go there through their actions outweighs that thought.
Scribe,
Precisely where in that link you posted did the Holy Father say that the population of hell is greater than zero ?
God Bless
infuriator,
my belief in that people choose to go there
What makes you think people choose to go to hell ?
Is it really rational for a soul to choose eternal misery ?
God Bless
Erm I think the idea is that people choose hell when they reject God.
Read the Great Divorce by C.S.Lewis. It gives quite a good account of it, although of course, is not dogma but fiction.
Is it really rational for a soul to choose sin? No but we do.
Striving #28
“If the Church doesn’t teach assured salvation does that mean we also don’t teach assured condemnation? In other words, we can’t know for certain based on our lives now whether we will end up in Heaven or Hell. Nor can we claim to know the same for other people. Correct?”
The Church accepts the reality of Hell and the possibility of going there. She can’t in love say that someone is in there is the Church has power – as in above so below. If the Church condemned people to hell that might that then be a fact. (Just a thought).
Also to equally balance revelation of salvation with revelation of condemnation skirts extrememly close to the Calvinist view of double predestination. Which the Church rejects.
Double predestination says that the elect are predestined for heaven (that’s fine you may or not go with that) but also that the damned are predestined for hell. The Church absolutely rejects that notion.
Also the notion that souls Choose to go to hell – that’s fine. But don’t forget that the soul is judged by God (Christ is our judge). How are we judged? By the covenant – you must love your God with all you heart all your soul and all your mind (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) and then love your neighbour as yourself.
What often happens is that we reverse that in our relativist view of Christianity – we love our neighbour with all our heart all our mind and all our soul and then love God as ourself.
Huge difference don’t you think?
Christopher Sullivan, I know how you work, if you read what I wrote I said “people choose to go there through their actions” I repeat “people choose to go there THROUGH THEIR ACTIONS”. It is all good and well to believe that no one would chose a life of eternal sufferring, but Christopher, here in lies the truth (which you should relate to as this saying is also in a musical song): Actions speak louder than words.
Free will for you mate, if you talk the talk but can’t walk the walk, then adios amigos
Striving #28
Further to your statement
“In other words, we can’t know for certain based on our lives now whether we will end up in Heaven or Hell. Nor can we claim to know the same for other people. Correct?”
We certainly can make no judgement on the state of someone’s soul But we can judge actions that are not fruits or signs of a loving relationship with God or neighbour.
The idea that can we know for certain whether we are saved or not is a big question especially with some Christians. The question are you saved? Is relevant here. It helps to understand that ’saving’ is an ongoing event until death. Yes I believe that you know if you are in saving relationship with God and that relationship is alive and active, God is not distant from you, so he is with you and your hope is assured. But the soul needs to be assured also to be in faithful communion with the Church. The Church is our comfort and our Mother in this regard. So in essence I would consider once saved always saved a bad interpretation of scripture and reduces Baptism to a magical rite that kind of castes a perptual spell of salvation on you. It places us within the covenant which is Christ, but we are still free to fail his love.
But yes tomorrow I may fail, if I am in relationship with God today and abandon Him, reject him for another (whatever that may be) and stay in that place then scripture is clear I am in a worse state than if I had never known God. So yes it is possible to lose your salvation.
But the good news is that God loves us and I believe that for souls that genuinely love him he will not allow them to fail. (The end of the book of Hosea is goood on this).
God knows our beginning and our end. Isn’t it great?
Gianna
re #19:
A paraphrase of G.K. Chesterton
Those sealed servants of God from every tribe of the sons of Israel are a countable number (symbolically 144,000 = 12 * 12 * 1000).
But, all those saved are way more than this, too many for any man to count.
God Bless
Chris,
HELL is a place where sinners really do burn in an everlasting fire, and not just a religious symbol designed to galvanise the faithful, Pope Benedict XVI has said.
[Emphasis mine]
Scribe,
1. That’s not quoting the Holy Father, it’s paraphrasing him.
2. It does not state that anyone is actually in Hell.
3. What he actually said was :-
God Bless
Chris, what do you call someone that doesn’t take his own advice?
re posts #1, 6, and 16.
I don’t see how a letter from the Pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialogue during Diwali confirms that yoga and Hinduism are paths to salvation.
Thanks for your comments Benedicta! I once heard someone give a “Catholic answer” to the question ‘are you saved?’ but all I remember of it now is that it had three parts (doesn’t every good thing) something along the lines of: I have been saved, I am being saved and I believe I will be saved…
greg,
It’s love that is salvific.
Religions, properly speaking, are not salvific.
Religions assist salvation to the extent that they help us to love; in that sense they are a path to salvation.
It’s clear from the Pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialogue Diwali message that Hinduism teaches non-violent love.
Hence Hinduism is a path to salvation.
QED.
God Bless
Well…
Faulty premise.
Equating to Indifferentism. Condemned as a heresy.
This is not Catholic teaching.
This is Sullivanism.
Post #46.
QED.
FXD,
Indifferentism is the error that denies that it is the duty of man to worship God by believing and practicing the one true religion.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07759a.htm
Saying that religions assist salvation to the extent that they help us to love and in that sense they are a path to salvation is not indifferentism. It’s just Nostra Aetate:-
God Bless
Chris
Religions may hold a ‘ray of truth’ but they cannot be valid ways to God. No one comes to the Father except by the Son (the narrow door). To say that somehow Jesus Christ is in some closet relationship with these religions or at there end, thereby they provide a path to salvation is wrong and illogical.
#1 Within revelation (and only Christ is the revelation) Christ cannot be separated from his Church, the body of Christ. Any acceptance of other religions make the church unneccessary for salvation. So what is the point of Baptism?
#2 These religions are opposed in essence, and in overt teachings and philosophical ways to Christ as the ONLY revelation. They don’t agree with the other religions including christinaity themselves.
#3 While God is not restricted in giving grace and salvation to whomever he chooses, and he does so in his mercy, that is not the revealed ordinary way of salvation. It is extraordinary and cannot be defined by ideas such as yours.
There is no life to be found cuddling up with sentimental love and sucking on the dummy of relativism, pacifying oneself that other religions are ways to God. As none of them agree with you regarding this unique perspective on Christ in effect creates just another religion. This dictates terms to God from man which in effect make the incarnation, death and resurrection of His Son just one more road to the big highway in the sky.(and takes us back to Egypt and the Garden of Eden – did God really say that?) I think God is intimately concerned as to how we regard his supreme and unique gift to us – his son.
Yesterday’s reading was very apt here:
Luke 22-30
“Someone asked him ‘Lord, will only a few be saved?’ He said to them, ‘Strive to enter through the narrow door; for many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able. ……………(after saying the door is shut and you stand outside wanting in, saying that we ate and drank and he taught in our streets, he says).”I do not know where you come from; go away from me, all you evildoers!” (Here comes Hell then….) “There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth…..and you yourselves thrown out……..etc
I’m sure Teeth will be provided! Sounds like a lot of wobbly Christians in trouble here folks!