Bible Question: The Jews that died who didn't believe in Christ as their Savior or the gentile who have died or will die before the rapture..Will they be saved? Isn't there a purgatory where souls go to be clensed and come to know the truth? I just don't feel that it is a person's fault if they don't believe. If this is so then we really don't have a choice but to believe in order to get into heaven. We don't really have a choice then do we? In Catholic school the nuns would teach us that if you believe it's a sin then it is. But if you don't believe it's a sin then it isn't. Please help |
Bible Answer: lookingforanswers, Faith is a gift from God and only God knows the disposition of anyone's heart in that regard. Even in considering Purgatory, if one happens to be Catholic, as I am, one must assume the one being purified departed this earth in the faith. Purgatory is not a substitute for faith or a "second chance for those who do not believe. On the other hand we do not know all the details of how God deals with every individual and what oppourtunites are offered by God to those who have never heard faith in Jesus Christ preached. So in dicussing the sacrament of faith, Baptism, the Church has this to say in the Catechism, which I also quoted from in my other response to you. read especially paragraph numbers 847 and 848. ""Outside the Church there is no salvation" 846 How are we to understand this affirmation, often repeated by the Church Fathers?[335] Re-formulated positively, it means that all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his Body: Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one Christ is the mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his body which is the Church. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and Baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through Baptism as through a door. Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it.[336] 847 This affirmation is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church: Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too may achieve eternal salvation.[337] 848 "Although in ways known to himself God can lead those who, through no fault of their own, are ignorant of the Gospel, to that faith without which it is impossible to please him, the Church still has the obligation and also the sacred right to evangelize all men."[338]" 335 Cf. Cyprian, Ep. 73.21: PL 3, 1169; De unit.: PL 4, 509-536. 336 LG 14; cf. Mk 16:16; Jn 3:5. 337 LG 16; cf. DS 3866-3872. 338 AG 7; cf. Heb 11:6; 1 Cor 9:16. Emmaus |