Category: Theology

A reader writes:

1.) Will souls in purgatory be purged at the end of the world? If so,
what will happen to the souls on earth that would need to go to
purgatory to be cleansed?

This one we have a pretty clear answer on. Speaking of the end of the world, St. Paul says:

Lo! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep [i.e., we won’t all die before the end of the world], but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable nature must put on the imperishable, and this mortal nature must put on immortality [1 Cor. 15:51-53].

So anybody who is still alive at the end, or who is still in purgatory when the resurrection happens, will have whatever purification they need taken care of in an instant, "in the twinkling of an eye."

What we don’t know is whether purgatory takes place that fast now. It may or it may not. We don’t know a lot about how time works in the afterlife. (Though since God is outside of time, he can apply your prayers to whenever a person was in purgatory, even if he is "already" out.)

What amazes me is when anti-Catholics throw out the question of what will happen to people in need of purification at the end of the world who don’t have "time" for purgatory as if it were some kind of objection to the doctrine. I always want to respond, "What? God doesn’t have enough omnipotence to clean someone up fast?"

2.) Is it possible that those in purgatory are angels on earth helping us out, or are angels beings of their own?

It’s not impossible that God may have folks in purgatory do things to help us here on earth. If doing so would further their purification, he might well assign them posthumous chores to do. But they would not be angels. Angels are a different order of being than humans. Thus the Compendium states:

60. Who are the angels?

The angels are purely spiritual creatures, incorporeal, invisible, immortal, and personal beings endowed with intelligence and will. They ceaselessly contemplate God face-to-face and they glorify him. They serve him and are his messengers in the accomplishment of his saving mission to all.

Angels are thus different than humans, who are not purely spiritual beings, but embodied spiritual beings (i.e., whose natural condition is to be in a body, which is why we get resurrected at the end of time).

Recently I wrote about a priest pouring wine into a chalice of the Precious Blood and alluded to the fact that he might add enough that the point was reached where the Real Presence ceases.

Following this, Ed Peters wrote:

And Jimmy, what point is that? We’re not talking about adding water, etc., which at some hard-to-identify point would render what is in the cup no longer "Wine" (yes, you know what I mean), since at no point would this not still have the appearance of "Wine". Little help? Great question and a good start toward it. Thx, edp.

Excellent question!

Obviously, we cannot in this case use the test of when the accidents of wine cease to be present since the accidents do not cease to be present.

That fact might lead one to suppose–and I’m not at all saying that Ed supposes this, those someone might–that one could continue to add wine to the Precious Blood without the Real Presence ceasing at all.

This would not be the historic understanding of the Church.

This can be seen from the document De Defectibus in Celebratione Missae Occurentibus ("On Defects Occurring in the Celebration of Mass"), which is a document that deals with liturgical abuses and used to be printed in the front of every Missal before the reform of the liturgy following the Second Vatican Council.

It so happens that I have just translated this document (and will be putting it online soon, after I polish the translation and have it vetted), but since Ed has raised an excellent question, I’ll share one bit of the draft translation here:

If a fly, or a spider, or something else falls into the chalice before the Consecration, he [the priest] pours out the wine in a decent place, and he puts other [wine] in the chalice, mixes in a little water, and offers it, as above, and the Mass proceeds. If after the Consecration a fly or something of this sort has fallen in, he removes it, and washes it with wine. After the Mass is finished he burns it, and the ashes and the liquid of this kind is poured into the sacrarium [De Defectibus X §5].

The document thus expressly directs priests to wash whatever has fallen into the chalice with wine. This would make no sense if the addition of wine did not cause the Real Presence to cease, since the whole point of washing the thing that fell in the chalice is to cause the Real Presence to cease, so that it can be reverently burned.

The Church–in a document that was part of the Roman Missal for 400 years–thus has understood the addition of wine in sufficient quantity to cause the Real Presence of the Precious Blood to cease.

Which gets us back to Ed’s question: At what point does this happen?

My answer would be that this would happen when, in the opinion of reasonable men, so much wine had been added that what is in the chalice would no longer be judged by the senses to be the same wine that was there before. I’m talking, in this case, about the wine that was in the chalice as a whole, not the taste or color or other properties it has.

It’s difficult to verbalize what I mean since "wine" in this context if functioning as a mass noun rather than a count noun, and we don’t have a good word in English for the particular body of wine that is poured into a chalice, but I can offer a couple of examples that should be illuminative:

1) Suppose that a priest had a chalice with the Precious Blood in it and the accidents of wine in this case were of white wine. But then suppose that (God forbid) he started pouring unconsecrated red wine into the chalice. If he poured in only a drop and then mixed it throughly, it seems to me that a reasonable man would say that he had not substantially changed the accidents that were in the chalice–any more than pouring a drop of water in would substantially alter them. The Real Presence would thus remain.

But if he poured in a large amount of red wine then at some point a reasonable man would say, "That’s not the same wine any more" and at that point the accidents masking the Real Presence would have changed so much that the Real Presence would have ceased.

In this case it would be easy(er) to tell because the color would have changed (and the taste as well), but I think the same thing would hold even if the color and taste and smell don’t change. At some point so much wine is added that it no longer appears to be "the same wine" (meaning the same unit of wine) that was in the chalice.

Thus my second illustration . . .

2) Suppose that the priest had a large vat full of white wine and then put some of this in a chalice and consecrated it. He then (God forbid) took the Precious Blood in the chalice and pours it back into the vat and mixes it thoroughly.

It seems to me that a reasonable man would say that the unit of wine that appeared to be in the chalice is no longer present. It has been mixed into the vat of wine and has no independent status any longer. Consequently that unit of wine is no longer present, and neither is the Real Presence.

Now, at what precise point the Real Presence would cease is not something that can be determined, any more than the precise point that so much water is added that it ceases can be determined. We can say, in general terms, that this happens when so much water has been added that it would no longer appears to be wine, but we can’t specify a percentage of change where this happens. It’s a fuzzy boundary, like the boundary between red and orange on a color spectrum.

In the same way we can’t specify precisely when too much wine has been added to the Precious Blood, but in principle it seems to me that it would be the point where the unit of wine that appeared to be in the chalice is so substantially altered that it no longer appears to be the same unit. It has been mixed into another unit of wine and no longer has independent status.

Incidentally, we know by faith that these accidents are divisible in the sense that you can drink part of it and leave enough of the apparent unit of wine in the chalice that the Real Presence stays. The apparent unit of wine can be diminished through drinking without losing the Real Presence as soon as the first sip is taken, and the sip also retains the Real Presence. Though at some point, so much can be removed that the Real Presence does cease–as would happen if there were only an undrinkably thin film of wine molecules (or apparent wine molecules) that refuses to form a drop were left in the chalice.

But it seems to me that the accidents masking the Precious Blood can be altered in two ways that cause the Real Presence to cease: (1) they can alter in quality such that it no longer seems to be wine at all or (2) they can alter in quantity such that they no longer appear to be the same unit of wine that was consecrated.

At least that’s the best I can make out of the Church’s historic understanding that the addition of wine to the Precious Blood can cause the Real Presence to cease.

PRE-PUBLICATION UPDATE: After writing the above, I decided to check the Summa Theologia to see what Aquinas said, and he says the same thing. He even uses some of the same examples, like adding red wine to white, and speaks in terms of the wine having to be not just qualitatively but "numerically" the same wine that was consecrated, which is what I was getting at by talking about it being the same "unit" of wine that was consecrated.

Blogger Catholic Mom writes:

I’ve been engaging in an online discussion with some folks and the gist of the discussion is they believe Christ is as present when 2 or 3 are gathered in His name or in the faces of the poor as He is in the Eucharist. Therefore, all this fuss about tabernacles and reverence is irrelevant. As long as we are out there ministering to our fellow man we are meeting Christ just as much as we would in the Eucharist.

I can explain that the Eucharist is the True Presence of Christ, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. I am not sure how to describe the presence of Christ we find in the gathering of Christians or when we minister to the poor. I know it is distinct from the Eucharist. How would you verbalize this difference?

It is somewhat difficult to answer this question because in telling us that he is present wherever two or three are gathered in his name, he didn’t give us a lot of detail about what this manner of presence entails. The same is true for the "if you did it for the least of my brethren, you did it for me" passage.

It is clear that Jesus is present in these places in that his divinity is omnipresent, but he seems to mean more than that.

Yet it is also clear that he is not present there in the same way that he is in the Eucharist. The Eucharist is Jesus–just disguised. But it is clear that a poor person to whom we are ministering is not Jesus himself. It would not be appropriate to react to the poor person exactly the way we would react to Jesus himself. For example, it would not be appropriate to offer the poor person the worship of latreia, which is due only to God.

Common sense thus tells you that–whatever Jesus’ mode of presence is in such cases–it is less than the full reality of that presence which is found in the Eucharist. Therefore, one does an injustice to the Eucharist–and to Jesus himself–if one attempts to flatten the uniqueness of the Eucharistic presence and reduce it to the other modes of his presence which Scripture and theology speak of.

To do so speaks of either gross ignorance of the faith or an agenda of some sort that is so strong it overrides what is patently obvious.

If I were to attempt to unpack what Jesus meant in referring to these alternate and lesser modes of presence, the best I could probably do would be to say that Jesus is speaking metaphorically when he makes these statements in the gospels. It is important to point out that a metaphor is not the same as a fiction. Metaphors are ways of expressing a truth that is otherwise difficult to convey, or at least to convey with the same vividness that hte metaphor carries.

Consequently, I would say that–while Jesus’ divine nature is present in such instances since it is omnipresent–he is also "present" in the sense that he spiritually guides and works through  and helps people gathered in his name. Similarly, since we have a duty toward Jesus to exercise charity toward others, when we show charity or fail to show it to the poor we are fulfilling or failing to fulfill a duty toward Jesus and thus our action has reference to him even though we are outwardly acting toward someone else.

But in these cases Jesus’ Body, Blood, and human Soul are not present, as they are in the Eucharist. Jesus uses the metaphor of his presence in these cases not to signify that he is fully present in them as he is in the Eucharist but that he is guiding and working through and helping people or that our actions toward others have to be viewed in relation to our obligations to him.

There may be more to it than this, for we are not privvy to all of the divine mysteries, and Jesus may be present in more mystical ways that I am not able to articulate, but it is clear that Jesus’ presence in the Eucharist is both unique and supreme and not to be flattened onto a par with other modes of presence.

There is absolutely no difficulty demonstrating that from Church documents, as the following indicate.

The Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church says this:

282. How is Christ present in the Eucharist?

Jesus Christ is present in the Eucharist in a unique and incomparable way. He is present in a true, real and substantial way, with his Body and his Blood, with his Soul and his Divinity. In the Eucharist, therefore, there is present in a sacramental way, that is, under the Eucharistic species of bread and wine, Christ whole and entire, God and Man.

While the Catechism itself says:

1373 "Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us," is present in many ways to his Church: in his word, in his Church’s prayer, "where two or three are gathered in my name," in the poor, the sick, and the imprisoned, in the sacraments of which he is the author, in the sacrifice of the Mass, and in the person of the minister. But "he is present . . . most especially in the Eucharistic species."

1374 The mode of Christ’s presence under the Eucharistic species is unique. It raises the Eucharist above all the sacraments as "the perfection of the spiritual life and the end to which all the sacraments tend." In the most blessed sacrament of the Eucharist "the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, the whole Christ is truly, really, and substantially contained." "This presence is called ‘real’ – by which is not intended to exclude the other types of presence as if they could not be ‘real’ too, but because it is presence in the fullest sense: that is to say, it is a substantial presence by which Christ, God and man, makes himself wholly and entirely present."

One of the most important discussions of this topic is found in Paul VI’s encyclical Mysterium Fidei, which was written precisely to combat erroneous understandings of Christ’s presence. Sections 35-39 of the encyclical are in particular devoted to the topic, and the pope offers an explanation of different ways in which Christ is present in different things and activities, concluding, under the heading "The Highest Kind of Presence":

These various ways in which Christ is present fill the mind with astonishment and offer the Church a mystery for her contemplation. But there is another way in which Christ is present in His Church, a way that surpasses all the others. It is His presence in the Sacrament of the Eucharist [38].

A reader writes:

My question for you is something that struck me as I was walking down the street today; I’m relatively new to Christianity, so it’s a pretty basic question.  Essentially it’s this:  why do we bother to pray to God for earthly blessings, i.e. curing illness, ending abortions, etc?  Firstly, God as an omniscient being already knows our general wishes as humans to end illness etc, and he even knows our specific wishes, i.e. ‘please cure Grandma Ruth’s cancer,’ so the goal cannot be to inform God of our desire.  Secondly, I don’t see how being plaintive about our problems would motivate God to do anything to help us–after all, there’s nothing we have to offer Him.  Finally, it might not be in our interest to end our sufferings, for out of suffering often comes the greatest growth of faith.

I can understand that the purpose of prayer is to bring us closer to God;  as we meditate on Him we grow closer to Him.  But why do we pray for earthly blessings?  I just don’t get it.

While this question is basic in the sense that it applies to one of the most basic elements of religious life–prayer–it is actually a very sophisticated on that many people wonder about, and from that perspective, it is very high-end!

What you’ve written also contains the seed of the answer: drawing closer to God.

The basic reason that God wants us to pray to him is that doing so builds virtue. In fact, prayer builds several virtues, and this applies even when we are praying for the needs of this life.

Let’s take an obvious example first: Praying for an end to abortion. This is indeed an earthly good. But whose good is it? Cui bono? Who benefits? First and foremost, the babies who would be aborted if the horrible practice isn’t ended. By praying for an end to abortion we are led to recognize the needs of these babies (their need to live!) and thus praying for and end to abortion ends up drawing us out of ourselves and causing us to care for others–even others we will never meet. It builds the virtues of love and compassion in us.

And this does not stop with the babies, for anyone who prays regularly about pro-life matters eventually ends up praying for the mothers who have abortions, the fathers who push them into it, the doctors and nurses who perform them, the legislators and Supreme Court justices who enable the practice, the American public who needs to become more strongly against it, and the conversion of the people in evil organizations like Planned Parenthood and NARAL.

All of this helps us grow in love and charity and it helps us to re-orient our values to recognize what is and is not important as we wrestle with this issue in prayer and think through it.

We thus come to more closely model our values to God’s values as we pray about the issue and its different aspects.

Prayer also helps motivate us to take practical steps to help others. Pro-lifers who pray regularly for and end to abortion–because of their increased care and concern that is grown by prayer–are more likely to take practical steps to help end the problem and to help blunt its deadly force in the meantime (volunteering at pregnancy centers, donating to pro-life charities, supporting pro-life legislation, voting for pro-life politicians). Certainly, they are more likely to do so than those who never think to pray for unborn babies.

The same is true whenever we pray for someone else–including people who we do know, whether they are living or dead. By praying for them, the Christian community–and the human community–is built up in love. In prayer, we come to mirror the love for others that God has for them.

We also purify our values as we think about what we should pray for, using the intellects God gave us to think about whether something is really a fitting object of prayer or whether it is a selfish desire that we should learn to either subordinate to some other, more pressing concern or even become willing to do without entirely.

Even when we are praying for ourselves and our needs, this happens, and we also learn another virtue: a willingness to trust and depend on God to give us what we truly need and to help us recognize and live without what we don’t.

If a Christian prays for freedom from suffering and that is the best thing for him and God grants it then the Christian, if nothing else, has learned to turn to and depend on God as the ultimate source of goodness. If a removal of the suffering is not in his best interests and God does not grant the prayer–at least immediately (for all suffering is temporary; there will be none of it in heaven)–then the Christian learns the virtue of patience, as well as whatever other virtues may be built up through the suffering.

Prayer has never been about giving God information he didn’t already have. Jesus made that quite clear in Matthew 6. Prayer has always been about more closely modeling ourselves after God by re-orienting our values to become his and thus buliding virtue and being more godly. To encourage us along this path, God has made our obtaining certain blessings conditional on our willingness to ask him for them–and it happens whether the blessing in question is a spiritual or an earthly one. Virtue and a greater sharing in God’s values is built up, regardless.

This is not to say that there are no missteps in prayer. We certain pray for some things that are not in accord with God’s will, that are not good for us, but we learn through time as the process of prayer gradually purifies us and we learn to subordinate our wills and our values to God’s. We always start with where we are–which in the beginning is quite self-centered–but as we pray we are drawn out of ourselves, to respect and love God and the other immortal beings he has created.

All of this is also in accord with our natures as earthly creatures. We instinctively ask for things when we need them, and if God prohibited us from asking for our earthly needs, he would be prohibiting us from acting on our natures.

There is, of course, a natural temptation to view earthly matters are inconsequential in comparison to spiritual ones, and it is quite true that spiritual matters are of transcendant importance compared to earthly ones, but one should not set the two in opposition to each other. God made us as creatures that are both earthly and spritiual. Earthly matters are thus important, too, because God made them essential to human nature. They’re part of his creation and of us in particular.

In fact, since what we do in this life determines our eternal fate–since the flesh is the hinge of salvation, as the saying goes–earthly matters have eternal rammifications, for the virtues we build in this life by learning love and compassion for others will affect the way we are rewarded in heaven.

So here, as in so many areas of Christianity, the truth is paradoxical: The last shall be first, one gains by giving, acknowledging one’s weakness and need for God’s help makes one stronger, and praying for earthly things leads to spiritual growth.

A reader writes:

Hello Mr. Akin,

In the comboxes of a recent post on your blog, we were discussing a question I had: Is it wrong to say that God loves each of us to the same degree?

(https://www.jamesakin.com/reels_squares/2006/08/a_priest_foreve.html)

Ed Peters wrote:

"… in our subtly-egalitarian culture, we tend to jump from "we are all sinners" to "we are all sinners to the same degree." That is wrong, just as wrong as saying we are all holy to the same degree, or that God loves each of us to the same degree."

I essentially asked him to clarify and defend the last of his propositions. He pointed me to St. Therese of Lisieux. I have no difficulties with Ed’s comment that "… in loving, God acts with utter freedom, and is not bound to love according to our notions of equality." But those propositions do not seem equivalent to, or sufficient for the defense of, the claim that: "God loves each of us to the same degree" = "wrong."

Ed twice said that this is a "JimmyQ." He advised me, "Do continue to look into this, though. It is a startling concept for each of us when we first come to grips with it."

This question has several dimensions, which are reflected in Scripture. There’s a tension in the Bible between clear assertions that God loves one person more than another (e.g., "Jacob I loved but Esau I hated"–where "hated" more likely means "did not prefer") and other, equally clear statements that God loves everyone and is not a respecter of persons.

It seems to me that the solution to this difficulty is that there are different concepts of love or divine preference in play.

If we back up and look at things from a Thomistic perspective, part of the puzzle may come into focus. According to St. Thomas, God’s love works differently than our love does. When we love things, according to St. Thomas, we perceive something good in them and respond to that. But from God’s perspective, nothing has any goodness at all unless he endows it with that goodness. Therefore, our love consists in being moved by the good qualities God has given to a creature, whereas God’s love consists in granting that creature good qualities in the first place.

From this starting point, one could say that God loves one creature more than another by giving it more good qualities than another.

One could also say, though, that God does not love one creature more than another in that he recognizes that all creatures are equal before him–they have nothing unless he gives them something.

Whatever one makes of that paradox, it’s certainly true that some individuals are given more blessings than others, and this seems to be the concept behind statemenst like "Jacob I loved and Esau I hated," which seems to reflect that God unconditionally gave Jacob certain blessings that Esau did not receive, though the particular biblical idiom phrases this somewhat hyperbolically in terms of love versus "hate."

But there’s a flip side to the fact that some are given more blessings than others, which is that they are held to a higher standard in what they do with their blessings.

Jesus put this pointedly in saying that more is expected of those to whom much has been given. If you’ve had a lot of blessings, you need to show a lot of fruit. If you have meager blessings then meager results are just as good. This is the principle by which Jesus valued the widow’s mite more than the objectively larger contributions that others made. The widow had very limited means, and her use of them to the utmost was more valuable in God’s eyes than the non-utmost contributions of those who had been given much greater material blessings.

The same theme is worked in to St. Paul’s comments regarding Jews and Gentiles in Romans, Galatians, and Ephesians. There the apostle acknowledges that Jews have been given significant blessings that Gentiles lack and that salvation is "first of the Jew and then of the Greek" but he also acknowledges a correspondingly stricter standard will be applied to Jews such that judgment is also "first of the Jew and then of the Greek." He thus sees in this a fundamental equality of God’s treatment of all peoples: If Jews have special blessings, they also have special responsibilities; if Greeks have fewer blessings, they also have fewer responsibilities. And so from this perspective God is an egalitarian who is not a "respecter of men."

There’s one final dimension to this (that I can think of at the moment), which is that some individuals who have been given blessings by God choose to use them for good while others choose to use them for evil. It’s not a question in this case of whether one uses one’s blessings to produce little fruit or much fruit. It’s a question of whether you choose to produce fruit or whether you choose to produce . . . uh . . . anti-fruit.

This free will response is also something that one may relate to the subject of God’s love or approval. Those who freely choose to do good may be judged the objects of God’s esteem, while those who freely choose to do evil may be judged the objects of God’s disesteem. On this basis there would also be grounds for saying that God loves some (the good-doers) more than others (the evil-doers).

So whether God loves some more than others seems to me to depend on the perspective you are speaking from:

1) If you are talking about God’s perspective on individuals apart from his blessings and their responding actions, God loves all equally since we all have nothing apart from what he has given us.

2) If you are talking about God’s granting of blessings as his love then God loves some more than others–not because he is more drawn to their good points (for they have none apart from his blessings)–but because he gives some greater blessings than others.

3) If you are talking about God’s perspective on what he expects from us once he has given us his blessings then he does not love one more than another since he expects performance from creatures in proportion to the blessings they have received.

4) If you are talking about God’s perspective on what people actually have done with their blessings by free will (produce much fruit; produce little fruit; produce little anti-fruit; produce much anti-fruit) then God does love one more than another because he approves those who have worked good rather than evil and he approves those workers of good who have applied themselves more diligently with what they were given.

One final thing that it’s helpful to remember in thinking about this subject is that God loves everyone and gives everyone sufficient grace to be saved. These are truths that set the parameters of the above discussion, which takes place within the limits they set.

A reader writes:

As a person scheduled to start RCIA courses this Fall with my family, I approach this issue with fresh new eyes.  I’m interested in the Catholic perspective on the below issues, and there seems to be a wide variety of opinions on the topic.  We’ve got a pretty interesting thread going in your "What Is Happening In The Middle East" article

I’ll say! The thing is almost a month old and still going strong. It’s got almost 500 comments at the time of this writing, which as far as I know makes it the single most-commented on post we’ve ever had here at JA.O.

…a lot of interesting theories, but great need for sound scholarship in a few different areas…namely:

1. Is the redemptive process for Jewish folks the same as it is for Gentile folks? (both pre and post return of the Messiah); and

St. Paul is quite clear that the basis for salvation is the same for both Jews and Gentiles and that it is Jesus Christ. All are bound to accept the Christian faith for salvation. To culpably refuse to do so would be to reject salvation on the terms that God offers it. This is not to say that God cannot save those who inculpably do not accept the Christian faith. He can. It will still be Christ who saves them, even if they didn’t realize this in the present life.

The New Testament furher makes it clear that the covenants God established with Israel prior to the time of Christ–while they are of great value and enduring significance–do not provide salvation. Therefore it is not possible to hold that Jewish people are saved on the basis of covenants established prior to Christ.

The Old Law thus in some ways functioned for Israel the way that canon law tends to today. It was a body of legislation that made a particular application of the eternal law to a particular people living in a particular time and place–and failing to observe its grave provisions could be a mortal sin just as much as failing to observe grave obligations under canon law can be–but the Mosaic Law’s purpose–like canon law–was never to provide salvation itself:

"We ourselves, who are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners, yet who know that a man is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ, and not by works of the law, because by works of the law shall no one be justified" (Gal. 2:15-16).

"If a Law had been given which could make alive, then righteousness would indeed be by the Law. But the scripture consigned all things to sin, that what was promised to faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe" (Gal. 3:21-22).

"For it is impossible  that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins. Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, "Sacrifices and
offerings thou hast not desired, but a body hast thou prepared for me; in burnt  offerings and sin offerings thou hast taken no pleasure.  Then I said, `Lo, I have come to do thy will, O God,’    as it is written of me in the roll of the book" (Heb. 10:4-7). 

Because the Mosaic Law never provided salvation (it dealt with ceremonial and temporal consequences of sin; see my book The Salvation Controversy for more on that), it cannot so provide salvation to anyone today.

This means that the basis for salvation for all human beings today is the same as it always has been: Jesus Christ. It’s just a question of how much knowledge a person in a particular situation has regarding God’s plan and whether he accepts it according to the understanding he has. If a person knows that God’s plan centers of Jesus of Nazareth then he is responsible for accepting that. If he does not (as is the case with many people–including Jewish individuals–in today’s world and as was the case with everybody prior to the First Coming of Christ) then he is responsible for accepting as much of God’s plan as he understands.

Thus the New Testament makes it clear that acceptance of the Christian faith is mandatory for both Jews and Gentiles today, and this will not change after the Second Coming. That will simply make it obvious to all that God’s plan centered on Jesus of Nazareth.

Just to clear away another possible misunderstanding: Having heard about Jesus is not sufficient to make one culpable for rejecting him. It is quite possible for a person to hear about Jesus without being presented with sufficient evidence for his role in God’s plan so that one is not under a moral obligation to accept this message. This is the same as it is with any truth claim: The mere fact that we hear it does not automatically mean we are responsible for believing it. We have to be given sufficient evidence for its truth before we are morally bound to accept it. (There are a few exceptions to this–in the case of statements that are self-validating like "You think, therefore you are [maybe]"–but even then one must think through the statement sufficiently well to realize that it is self-validating. Hearing it isn’t enough.)

2. Are the Jews still God’s chosen people (post-new covenant), with any right and entitlement to the land of Israel? (either exclusive of or with Gentile rights, etc.)

This is actually two questions.

First, yes, the Jewish people is still elect of God. St. Paul makes this very clear, particularly in Romans 11. Note in particular St. Paul’s statements about unbelieving Jews still being beloved on account of the Patriarchs and how they can and one day will be grafted back into "their own" tree (in contrast to us Gentiles, who have been grafted into it contrary to our nature since it is not "our" tree). This presupposes a continuing role for the Jewish people in God’s plan, and Paul could not be more explicit than saying that "as regards election they are beloved for the sake of their forefathers. For the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable" (Heb. 11:28-29).

The Jewish people is thus still elect, whether or not a particular Jewish individual has accepted the Christian faith.

The Church also acknowledges a continuing role for the Jewish people that is linked to the Second Coming of Christ:

CCC 674 The glorious Messiah’s coming is suspended at every moment of history until his recognition by "all Israel", for "a hardening has come upon part of Israel" in their "unbelief" toward Jesus. St. Peter says to the Jews of Jerusalem after Pentecost: "Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time for establishing all that God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old." St. Paul echoes him: "For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead?" The "full inclusion" of the Jews in the Messiah’s salvation, in the wake of "the full number of the Gentiles", will enable the People of God to achieve "the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ", in which "God may be all in all".

MORE HERE.

AND HERE.

As to the second question, whether the Jewish people still have a special title to the Holy Land, this is a theologically open question. Scripture certainly uses emphatic language about it being an everlasting possession of theirs, but Scriptural statements of this nature often have to be understood with some nuance and cannot always be applied in a straightforward fashion.

I’d also note that whether there is some kind of continuing title to the land is a separate question than whether the present state of Israel is a legitimate bearer of that title, which is a separate question than whether the present state of Israel was created in a moral means, which is a separate question than whether the present state of Israel–now created–has a right to defend itself vigorously. So there’s a bunch of separate questions there.

A reader writes:

Can a sincere atheist get saved? I’m convinced he can, since God won’t punish somebody for not knowing something he genuinely never knew, but it seems to me that his salvation requires that his choice be made after his death, since presumably he never saw the choice while he was alive. I think anybody has to at least say, "God, whoever or whatever you are, forgive my sins and take me to be with you." This lets in Moslems and (I suppose) Hindus and what-have-you — Christ has a long reach —  but the real athesit wouldn’t ever have occasion to say that.

I keep thinking of the bit in 1 Peter 3, where Christ preaches to the "spirits in prison." Since they needed preaching-to, it seems that their consequential decision was not yet made, but there they were in some Purgatory-like situation.

I always agree with Protestants — mostly while discussing Purgatory — that a person is saved or damned at his death, with no second chances, but now I wonder if people who truly never had the occasion to choose God while alive get that choice after they die. I suppose they might each have got a clear sight of it during their lives, and rejected it, but a lot of atheists seem to be completely honest.

The idea that someone at least has to say something like, "God, whoever or whatever you are, forgive my sins and take me to be with you" is found in the book of Hebrews, where we read that

without faith it is impossible to please him. For whoever would draw
near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who
seek him [Heb. 11:6].

Based on this, many have conjectured that belief in God is an indispensible prerequisite for salvation and thus that atheists are damned.

There is a question, thoug, about whether the author of Hebrews means his statement to be an absolute statement about salvation that admits of no exceptions or whether it is meant in a looser sense that could allow some without an explicit belief in God to be saved.

This was a matter of discussion in Catholic theology prior to the Second Vatican Council, but Vatican II seemed to answer that, in addition to Jews and Muslims and others who believe in God, it was possible for people who do not believe in God to be saved:

Nor does Divine Providence deny the helps necessary for salvation to those who, without blame on their part, have not yet arrived at an explicit knowledge of God and with His grace strive to live a good life [Lumen Gentium 16].

"Those who . . . have not yet arrived at an explicit knowledge of God" would seem to include not only members of non-Abrahamic religions but also atheists.

The constitution Gaudium et Spes also stressed the universal possibility of salvation:

[S]ince Christ died for all men, and since the ultimate vocation of man is in fact one, and divine, we ought to believe that the Holy Spirit in a manner known only to God offers to every man the possibility of being associated with this paschal mystery [Gaudium et Spes 22].

The question is: In what way does God offer this possibility of salvation? Is it something that comes to people after this life if they never heard the gospel during it or is it something that comes in this life?

The passage that you refer to in 1 Peter is one that has often been taken as suggesting that there is a kind of second chance after death for at least some people, and it is easy to see why. The passage reads:

For Christ also died for sins once for all, the righteous for the
unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the
flesh but made alive in the spirit;  in which he went and preached to the spirits in prison, who formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of
Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight
persons, were saved through water [1 Peter 3:18-20].

If the preaching that Christ does in this passage is the preaching of the gospel so that they may be saved then it would seem that there is a second chance after death for at least some people (i.e., those who died in the Flood). On the other hand, this may not be what Peter is referring to. He might mean something else. Possibilities could include:

1) The preaching is that the time of release has come. In this case it might be that the spirits who disobeyed in the past–although saved–were held in a kind of purgatorial prison and that now that Christ has died their time of purification is over and they will be going to heaven.

2) The preaching is a bare declaration of Christ’s coming, with no offer of salvation. In this case it would seem to be a vindication of God’s justice and/or mercy in the face of those who refused it. In other words: "God would have saved you from your sins if you had turned to him, as he has now proven by sending his Son to die for the sins of the world. You refused to repent and turn to God, so your condemnation is just."

3) These aren’t human spirits at all and so aren’t subject to redemption. They might be the spirits that Jude refers to as "the angels that did not keep their own position but left their proper
dwelling [and] have been kept by him in eternal chains in the nether gloom
until the judgment of the great day" (Jude 6). Peter might then be linking the non-human spirits with the sins that brought on the Flood. In this case Christ might be preaching to them the fact that he has now come and redeemed mankind, despite their attempt to so corrupt mankind that it would be completely wiped out and destroyed.

In each of these cases, there would be no second chance after death.

Because of the ambiguity in the passage–as well as the general impression that Scripture gives that we have only this lifetime to make our peace with God–it has remained a perpetual conundrum for Bible interpreters.

For its part, the Catholic Church has seen death as the definitive moment at which each must choose for or against God. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states:

Death puts an end to human life as the time open to either accepting or
rejecting the divine grace manifested in Christ [CCC 1021].

I haven’t been able to verify an infallible definition of this point (though there may be one; something in my memory is saying that I’ve seen a claim that there is one, though I’d have to see the original source document to see if this particular point was defined). If there is no definition then it could be possible that there is a post-morten second chance for at least some, but the overall tenor of Catholic theology–with its focus on death as the definitive moment of life–is against it.

It strikes me that it would be easier to account for the salvation of atheists along the lines of an implicit openness to God.

In other words, if an atheist sincerely says to himself, "I want to do whatever is right–that is the controlling axiom of my life; whatever is ultimately true and good, that is what I intend to follow" then this atheist has fundamentally opened himself to God such that if he knew the truth of God’s existence he would believe in and follow God. Due to his circumstance, though, he is unaware that God is what is ultimately true and good.

Thus any atheist who could say, "I don’t think that God exists, but if I was shown convincing reasons to believe that he does then I would go and get baptized immediately and become one of his devout followers" then this person’s heart is such that God will not hold his ignorance against him and will allow him to be saved.

On the other hand, if an atheist says, "Even if there is a God, I’ll still refuse to believe in him and I’ll spit in his face when I die" then this person is toast.

Between the two would be atheists who display some openness to God but who also to one degree or another resist compelling reasons to believe that he exist when they encounter such reasons. These individuals would seem to be in an ambiguous condition. If their openness to believing in and following God is their more fundamental motive then they would be open to his grace and be saved. If their resistance to believing in or following God is their more fundamental motive then they would be closed to his grace and thus lost.

Or that’s how it seems to me.

It’s still a matter for debate.

A reader writes:

I’ve been discussing the issue of ensoulment and personhood with some people
and a person brought up an interesting question: When it comes to identical
twins, which come from the same fertilized egg, when do the two souls and
thus the two persons come into existence? 

I was under the impression that
the Church held that God creates each soul at the moment of conception, but
the splitting off of twins suggests that in this case, he might create the
souls later at the point of division.

Or is it possible that he creates two
souls to share the zygote until they split? 

Anyway, I figured you might be
a good person to ask this question.

I thought I’d answered this on the blog before, but Googling my archives didn’t turn it up, so here goes . . .

The soul is the substantial form of the living human body, and so any time you have a new living human body, you have a new soul (the resurrection doesn’t count, since that’s not a new body; it’s a resurrected old one).

It is very difficult to see how a single living human body could have two substantial forms. Indeed, classical metaphysics would say that this is impossible by definition, so I’m not inclined to go that route in explaining what happens in twinning.

Normally a new living human body comes into existence at conception, so that’s normally when the soul comes into existence as well, but the phenomenon of identical twinning indicates that the situation is more complex than that.

It would seem that there are two possibilities. Either

1) Twinning occurs in such a fashion that Embryo A fissions off a new embryo, Embryo B, without losing its identity as Embryo A. (This is analogous to the way in which a Adult A could have a clone of himself made from a skin cell without losing his identity as Adult A.)

2) Embryo A fissions in such a way that neither resulting embryo can be said to be the same entity as Embryo A, so there are two new entities, Embryo B and Embryo C. (Imagine taking Adult A, splitting him down the middle, and regrowing the missing part of the body on each resulting half so that neither resulting individual has a greater claim than the other to being Adult A.)

In case (1), it would seem that Embryo A received his soul at the time of conception and Embryo B received his soul at the time he fissioned off from Embryo A since that was when Embryo B’s body came into existence.

In case (2), it would seem that Embryo A received his soul at conception and that Embryo A was a short-lived individual who died when he fissioned into Embryo B and Embryo C, both of whom received their souls at the point of fissioning.

Now, just for the sake of completeness, let’s talk about the opposite of twins: chimeras.

As before, there are two scenarios:

3) Chimerism occurs in such a fashion that Embryo A is so large that it absorbs Embryo B without becoming a fundamentally different entity. (This is analogous to Adult A having a heart or kidney transplant from another adult; the minor addition of cells from the other adult does not turn Adult A into a fundamentally different person.)

4) Chimerism occurs when Embryo A and Embryo B merge in such a way that the resulting entity is neither one of them but is a fundamentally new entity, Embryo C. (This is kinda like the Tuvix episode of Star Trek: Voyager, only on the cellular rather than the DNA level.)

In the case of (3), Embryo A received his soul at conception and continued in existence. Embryo B also received a soul at conception but then died when he was absorbed by Embryo A.

In the case of (4), Embryo A and Embryo B both received their souls at conception and both died when they fused into Embryo C, who received a soul at the point of fusion.

If you want to be extra complete, you can posit the case of identical twins who then fuse to become a (genetically undetectable) chimera, and you can run the combinations on that one yourself, them being a combination of scenario (1) or (2) with scenario (3) or (4).

You could also think about what would happen if a chimera then twinned. Or if twins chimerized and then twinned again, etc. It’ll all just be combinations of (1)-(4), though.

Because of difficulties in determining when a new individual has come into existence, it could be hard or impossible to distinguish between scenario (1) and (2) or between scenario (3) and (4)  in practice, but these would seem to be what is happening, even if we cannot make the determination in a particular case due to the limits of present doctrinal development on the subject of individual identity.

A reader writes:

I’m a Protestant who is seriously considering the Catholic faith.  I’ve enjoyed, very much, listening to you on the Catholic Answers Live podcast.

Are you familiar with the controversy over open theism within evangelicalism?  How does Roman Catholic theology square with the view of God as envisioned by open theists?

I am familiar with the controversy, and Catholic theology would have significant problems with the overall picture of God painted by open theists. Historically, Catholicism has been very firm on the classical theism model.

For those who aren’t familiar with this distinction,

HERE’S A BACKGROUNDER.

That being said, not all aspects of open theism are equally problematic. The open theist’s assertion that humans have libertarian free will is something that Catholics would have not a problem with. What would be problematic is the inference that because humans have this kind of free will the future must contain things that God doesn’t know.

It is not true that knowing what someone will choose to do next year means that their choice is not the product of libertarian free will. From his perspective outside of time, God sees your future free will choices next year the same way he sees your current choices right now. Both "now" and "next year" are equally present to God, so if his seeing what your current choices are does  not deprive you of free will now then his simultaneously seeing what you are choosing next year does not deprive free will then either.

While open theists have made some interesting arguments regarding God’s omniscience (e.g., omniscience doesn’t require God to know things that are logically impossible to know the way omnipotence doesn’t require God to be able to do things that are logically impossible to do, like make square circles or stones too heavy for him to lift), these arguments are only relevant if God is inside of time and if certain theories about time are true. From an atemporalist perspective, the concerns they are meant to address simply don’t arise because God’s knowledge of the future is equally possible as his knowledge of the present and the past.

Once one recognizes God’s atemporality his immutability immediately falls out of this as a logical consequence.

Open theists’ language about God voluntarily limiting his exercise of power in order to allow free will in the universe can be taken in an orthodox sense (though only if it is understood that his exercise of the power–not the power itself–is what is limited). Something like that might seem to be necessary for free will to exist, and there is nothing unorthodox about saying that God can choose how far he’s going to do something. If he chooses to make beings with libertarian free will so that he doesn’t determine all their choices for them then that’s God’s choice.

The best argument that open theists have is why God allows evil if he has the power to stop it, and here we run into a matter that is significantly mysterious, though classical theists have a framework for answering it even if it does not exhaust the mystery.

An orthodox Catholic theologian would thus tend to view open theism as, to a significant extent, an attempt to alleviate the cognitive tension caused when man is confronted by the divine mystery by positing a God small enough that the mystery doesn’t arise (i.e., God doesn’t stop all evil instantly because he doesn’t have the power to do so).

There are thus a few individual aspects of open theism that could be harmonized with Catholic thought but the system as a whole posits a view of God that would not at all be favorably received.

St. Thomas Aquinas’ articulation of classical theism has been the standard Catholic account for centuries, and the First Vatican Council taught:

The Holy, Catholic, Apostolic and Roman Church believes and acknowledges that there is one true and living God, creator and lord of heaven and earth, almighty, eternal, immeasurable, incomprehensible, infinite in will, understanding and every perfection.

Since he is one, singular, completely simple and unchangeable spiritual substance, he must be declared to be in reality and in essence, distinct from the world, supremely happy in himself and from himself, and inexpressibly loftier than anything besides himself which either exists or can be imagined [Dogmatic Constitution on the Catholic Faith, ch. 1].

Hope this helps!

A reader writes:

I am currently trying to explain the Catholic position on purgatory to a co-worker.  I have given him some info I found on the internet. He looked it over and discussed with a fellow church member. He came back with, “if you believe in purgatory, then you are saying that Jesus dying on the cross was not good enough to save us!” How do I respond?

The purpose of purgatory is to purify us so that we are thoroughly holy and thus fit for heaven. It is part of the process by which we gain "the holiness without which no one will see the Lord" (Heb. 12:14).

But the process of purification doesn’t start in purgatory. It starts in this life, and in Protestant circles it’s known as sanctification. (Catholics also use this term, though not always in exactly the same fashion; the term justification is also used in both circles though not always in the same ways.)

Now, where does sanctification come from? Is it something God gives us by his grace or something that happens apart from his grace?

Protestants will agree with Catholics that it is the product of God’s grace in our lives.

But why is God giving us this grace? Is it because of what his Son did on the Cross or is it separate from that?

Once again, Protestants will agree with Catholics that it is because of what Christ did on the Cross that God sanctifies us.

So sanctification–the process of being made holy–is something that happens to us only because of Christ’s death on the Cross.

Sanctification–including the final stage of sanctification in purgatory–thus presupposes the sufficiency of Christ’s sacrifice. It is so sufficient that it is not only enough to justify us but enough to sanctify us as well. The difference is that (to use language in a Protestant way) justification is something that happens at the beginning of the Christian life while sanctification is something that happens over the course of it.

So that’s what I’d tell him.