Category: Theology

In 1978 the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued an instruction containing norms for the evaluation of reported apparitions.

This document has generally not been circulated publicly, but it seems that someone in France got a copy of it, and I found an unofficial English translation online.

Reading the document, it struck me as having the ring of authenticity. This is written the way that the CDF would have done such a document, and I assume that it’s genuine.

I’ve placed the translation in the below-the-fold section of this post and may be able to interact with it some in future posts. For now, I’d like to see what kinds of questions it raises in folks’ minds.

Continue reading “1978 CDF Document On Apparitions”

A reader writes:

I’m currently lutheran, seeking the Catholic Church. But there is one thing that’s bothering me; the definition of hell. I have allways found the orthodox understanding, that hell is the presence of God, or of the truth and light of God, and that heaven and hell is the same "place." While listening to a talk called "Time and Eternity," Peter Kreeft explained some of it. He said:

"[The truth of God] is the esential nature of both heaven and hell. Heaven is truth embraced, hell is truth refused. Thus we could even say that heaven and hell are the same objective reality, experienced in opposite subjective ways. Metaphoracally, heaven and hell are the same place. Think of the dwarfs at the end of The Last Battle [the seventh Narnia-book]. Or think of a rocker and a opera buff sitting side by side at a rock concert or an opera. What is hell to one, is heaven to the other. So the very fires of hell may consist of the eternal truth and goodness and love of God, that is ultimate reality; every creature’s ultimate other. Those wo have cultivated what Lewis calls «the taste for the other,» love it when it finally appears. Those who have supressed and resented this taste are shocked and squashed by the other. Like Sartre, in «No Exit,» proclaiming the presice creed of the damned; «hell is the others.»"

My question is: what is the position of the Catholic church? Would I be considered a "heretic" for believing this?

You wouldn’t be considered a heretic because the precise nature of hell has not been infallibly defined, and without an infallible definition there is no heresy.

That being said, the language that Peter uses in his explanation is at least different in tone than that which the Church conventionally uses. For example, the Catechism of the Catholic Church states:

1035 The teaching of the Church affirms the existence of hell and its eternity. Immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into hell, where they suffer the punishments of hell, "eternal fire." The chief punishment of hell is eternal separation from God, in whom alone man can possess the life and happiness for which he was created and for which he longs.

At first glance, this makes it sound like the opposite of what you are talking about: Hell as being removed from God’s presence rather than being confronted unpleasantly by God’s presence.

But the two are not necessarily incompatible. Apart from the Incarnation, God does not have a bodily, physical form from which one can be absent or present. It seems to me that speaking of being separated from God here refers to spiritual separation from him–some form of eternal opposition toward God rather than being in union with him in our hearts.

If the eternal separation of hell is understood this way then it could be compatible to say that all are ultimately confronted with the reality of God and, for those who are spiritually united (in harmony) with him it is a wonderful, glorious experience, while for those who are spiritually separated (in opposition) from him it is an unpleasant, painful experience.

I would therefore put the kind of thing that you and Peter are articulating in the category of permitted speculation about the nature of hell. It is one way of trying to envision and understand hell.

It does run against the grain of the language that the Church has traditionally used–which is based on Jesus’ language about the damned being thrown out into the darkness and thus shut out of the presence of the King–but this language is likely to contain a significant element of metaphor to help us have a feel for realities that go beyond our present ability to comprehend.

Hope this helps!

A reader writes:

My wife and I have been debating the hypothetical situation of a space ship of Catholic colonists crashed and stranded on a far-distant planet, with no possibility of return to Earth or communication with Earth. And all the bishops and priests and deacons aboard have been killed in the crash.

Can they acclaim a new bishop and continue the Apostolic Succession, and have sacraments? She says no way. I suspect they could. (My reasoning: 1. The whole Church is Apostolic. 2. Early Christian communities acclaimed their own bishops (Remember Augustine avoiding towns that lacked a bishop, so he wouldn’t be nabbed!) 3. My impression, from reading you and others on subjects like the Chinese bishops, that the process is not purely mechanical or binary. 4. God would surely provide in such a circumstance.

CCC doesn’t seem to give us an answer. Any thoughts?

Your wife is right on this one. The sacrament of holy orders can be conferred only by a validly ordained bishop. Thus if there are no bishops alive to do the conferring on this planet, the laity cannot create one.

Thus the Catechism teaches: 

CCC 1600 It is bishops who confer the sacrament of Holy Orders in the three degrees.

The Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church is even more explicit:

332. Who can confer this sacrament [holy orders]?

Only validly ordained bishops, as successors of the apostles, can confer the sacrament of Holy Orders.

And this has been Church teaching down through the ages. In some times and places the laity may have been given a voice in who would become bishop, but the episcopal consecrations were always carried out by other (usually neighboring) bishops. The laity themselves could not do it.

While we might hope that God would provide such that a situation like the one you mention would not happen (or we might hope that the space ship builders would make sure that the bishop was adequately protected), the laity could not produce their own bishop if he didn’t.

And, indeed, there have been situations here on earth where significant numbers of Catholics were deprived of the benefit of clergy for a significant period of time. Underground Catholics in Japan between the seventeenth and the nineteenth centuries, for example, could only celebrate the sacraments of baptism and matrimony (the two that laity can perform) due to lack of clergy caused by state persecution of the Church.

Despite this, an underground community of Catholics survived without priests for two centuries, and there were 50,000 of them when the persecution was finally lifted and priests were allowed back in to Japan. The Catholic Encyclopedia notes:

In the new church at Nagasaki on 17 March, 1865, occurred an ever-memorable event, when fifteen Christians made themselves known to Père Petitjean, assuring him that there were a great many others, about 50,000 in all being known. It is easy to imagine the joy which greeted this discovery after more than two centuries of waiting and patience. There were three marks by which these descendants of martyrs recognized these new missionaries as the successors of their ancient fathers: the authority of the Pope of Rome, the veneration of the Blessed Virgin, and the celibacy of the clergy [SOURCE].

The reader also writes:

PS: a related question. If bishops did travel to this impossible distant world, they could not be in communion with the Holy Father!

Actually, this wouldn’t be a problem. Ecclesiastical communion is a spiritual thing that does not require communication and is not affected by distance.

If you get washed up on a desert island and can’t communicate with the pope, you’re still in ecclesiastical communion with him.

In fact, if you die and thus aren’t physically in the universe at all, you’re still in ecclesiastical communion. That’s why the Church Militant (here on earth) is still in communion with the Church Suffering (in purgatory) and the Church Triumphant (in heaven). They are all part of the mystical body of Christ, his Church. Distance, communication, and even death itself are no barrier to ecclesiastical communion.

Hope this helps!

A reader writes:

I have a friend who is not happy in her current job.  She has received a good offer from another company but in a different state.  She wants to do the Lord’s will.  In discerning his will would it be appropriate 1) to lay out the pros and cons of the choices?  2) The choice that leaves her at peace would most likely be his will?  What are good sign posts for determining his will in prayer?  As always, thanks!

This is a difficult question to answer, because I suspect that God works with different people in different ways on subjects like this. However, I can tell you how I would tend to approach the question, and I suspect that the way God works with me on such matters is not that different than how he works with most folks.

There are three general things that God gives us in order to guide us in making decisions:

1) Our instincts

2) Our reason

3) His revelation

The first includes our wants and desires–our emotions and basic physical and psychological drives. This is the most fundamental guide we have. It’s what motivates us to do things rather than just sit passively and do nothing.

The way God has designed us, our instincts provide the basis of human action, and we are to go with this guide unless it is overruled by one of the two higher guides.

Reason includes both moral reasoning and practical reasoning. Moral reasoning includes conscience (Is what I want just or unjust?) and practical reasoning (What are the pros and cons of this? If I go down this path will I really get what I want or will it cost me more than I think it will?)

If making the best application of reason we can to a situation tells us that we should not pursue our desires then we should not pursue them. In man, reason is meant to govern instinct.

But there is a danger here: overthinking. One of the things people often do–especially people of conscience–is to try and overthink decisions, which can lead to paralysis and missed opportunities. While we have an obligation to use reason as a check on any decision of major consequence, if we find ourselves being paralyzed and unable to make decisions then–at some point–we simply have to assume the risk inherent in the decision and "go with our instincts."

These two guides that God has given us–instinct and reason–are gifts of nature. They are things that he has bulit into human nature itself. But human nature is limited and, especially in its fallen condition, it often is not enough. Thus God also gives us a third guide, which belongs to the realm of grace rather than nature: his revelation.

This comes in two forms: the public revelation that he has given to all mankind through his word and through the created order (the laws of God written on the hearts of men) and the private revelation that he makes available as guidance for particular individuals.

The public revelation that he has given takes priority. Private revelation is meant to help implement the principles of public revelation but cannot overrule it (e.g., God will never via private revelation give you permission to sleep with someone other than your spouse; public revelation’s "Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery" is a moral absolute).

Public revelation interfaces with the two gifts of nature God has given us. We are meant to appropriate public revelation and make it part of our reason and instincts through the education of our conscience. It’s already there to some degree, for the laws of God are written on the hearts of men, but in our fallen condition our consciences and instincts require special training in moral reasoning.

If, in making a particular decision, we’ve done all we can to educate our consciences about what God has said in public revelation, though, that still leaves private revelation.

As the term is commonly used, private revelation refers to extraordinary mystical phenomena like visions that some individuals have (e.g., the children of Fatima), but as I am using the term here it refers to any information that God gives an individual in addition to public revelation.

In the case of extraordinary mystical phenomena, this may take the form of a vision or a voice or sudden, infused knowledge, but this type of private revelation is uncommon, and there is a risk associated with the assumption that God will provide it if asked. The risk is that we will generate a false mystical experience by our own imaginations if we operate on the assumption that God will provide this kind of guidance virtually on demand.

In the case of ordinary experience, many people report experiencing God’s guidance in the form of feelings of confidence or peace or in small coincidences that happen to them in conjunction with prayer.

I know for a fact that God does often give guidance in these manners, but there is a danger here as well of imagining things or fooling ourselves (e.g., rationalizing our desires as a "sense of peace" or seeing coincidences as signs of divine guidance when in reality they’re just coincidences and we’re reading tea leaves).

There is also a danger of overthinking in this area and ending up more confused than we started out.

I think part of the issue can be addressed by keeping the way that this form of guidance works in perspective: Because it is a gift of grace rather than of nature, God means for it to be exceptional. He expects us to make most of our decisions on the basis of the gifts he built into our nature, together with public revelation, and to rely on private revelation only when these prove inadequate.

In other words: Don’t expect God to give you private revelation about which kind of bread to buy at the supermarket. Ordinary decisions like that are meant to be handled by the gifts of nature he has given us, and bad consequences will ensure (like paralysis, confusion, and self-deception) if we expect him to give us supernatural guidance on such matters.

In general, we should use the gifts of nature that God has given us–our instincts and our reason–together with his public revelation–to make most decisions in life.

We should prayerfully ask him to superintend the process of decision-making as we work through it (changing our desires where they need to be changed, guiding us to information resources that can inform our reason, helping us to better understand how principles from public revelation may or may not apply to the question in front of us) and we should ask him to make it clear to us if we are going wrong in our thinking, including via private revelation if necessary.

This much applies to all human beings, but here we come to a point where there seems to be a difference in how God works with certain individuals.

Some individuals report–and I have no reason to challenge their statements–that God gives them many small signs in the form of feelings and coincidences and similar things. Other individuals do not report this.

Myself, I have had a handful of really startling coincidences–usually in conjunction with major life events (like the death of my wife)–that I attribute to unambiguous divine intervention, but most of the time God does not give me the little nudges in prayer that some individuals report (or if he does, I’m too thickheaded to perceive them).

In fact, knowing myself and how introspective I can be, I find it better for me not to try to focus on or hunt for such nudges. At least for me, the way I am psychologically configured, doing so would result in paralysis and endless introspection and the reading of tea-leave.

So I try to make my decisions based on my instincts, reason, and what God has said in public revelation, trusting that he will guide the process and that he’ll hit me over the head (with private revelation if necessary) if I get too far off the path.

I also try to do two other things:

1) Experiment. Whenever possible I try to get more data by experimentation–trying something out to the extent I can and seeing if I meet with success. If I do, it may be a sign that this is the way God wants me to go. If I meet with failure, it may be a sign that he wants me to do something else.

2) Keep in perspective the way God’s will often applies to our lives. Very often people think that–on a particular question–there is only one right answer and that God wills one particular thing for us. If we miss finding that one particular thing, then we’ve missed God’s will, and this thought can generate a lot of anxiety individuals, who naturally don’t want to fail to do God’s will.

But in reality God’s will often does not apply in this manner. There are often a number of options, each of which have good and bad points, that God would be perfectly happy for us to choose. Some options might be better than others, and of course he would like to see us chose from among the best options, but as long as we do not choose an evil option, God is not displeased.

He’s pleased if we choose a good option, and he’s very pleased if we choose a very good option, but he isn’t displeased unless we actually choose evil.

Much of the time we thus don’t need to shoulder the burden of finding the right option or risk God’s displeasure.

This realization can be a liberating experience for many people, and it may help your friend as she makes a decision about what to do regarding the job offer she has.

While taking or not taking a job is a significant decision and the consequences should be carefully thought through, this isn’t likely to be a situation in which God expects your friend to make the right decision or incur his displeasure.

So to sum up, if I were in your friend’s position, I’d try to relax, ask myself what I want (instinct), try to figure out the pros and cons (reason), and then make the best decision I can, while all the while asking God to superintend my thoughts as I work through the decision and asking him to let me know if I’m going wrong.

Hope this helps!

If you thought the recent efforts to rehabilitate Judas with a so-called "Gospel of Judas" were strange, then take a look at this:

"A former Jesuit turned university professor has set himself an ambitious project: rehabilitating the devil.

"Henry Ansgar Kelly says Satan is the most maligned figure in history and has endured 17 centuries of unjustified character assassination.

"’For 1700 years Satan has been the enemy of God, whereas in the Bible he works for God, he’s his prime minister or attorney-general, in charge of policing the world,’ Professor Kelly said.

GET THE STORY.

God himself didn’t seem all that appreciative of his alleged "prime minister’s" efforts, as I recall:

"[The devil] was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies" (John 8:44).

The Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church is now out (FINALLY!) and I got a copy of it (FINALLY!). So here are some thoughts after an initial leafing through of it:

1) This is good. Really good. It’ll really help make the teaching of the faith accessible to people in a way that the Catechism doesn’t. Why do I say that? Well . . . .

2) The Catechism is a big, huge, honking book. It’s too much for the average person to absorb (given how intimidated many are by big, huge, honking books). The Compendium is much more absorbable for the ordinary person, and this will help more folks absorb the faith.

3) The Compendium is also much easier to read than the Catechism. It’s written in a Q & A format that is very friendly and digestible, whereas the Catechism is written in prose that is at times very dense and flowery.

4) The Compendium focuses more on the essentials of the faith than the Catechism does. In order to get the material down to size, they had to leave out a bunch of the less important, more debatable stuff, which has the effect of concentrating the reader’s mind more (not perfectly, but more) on the essentials of the faith. By covering the essentials alongside secondary material, the Catechism had a tendency to flatten Catholic doctrine so that people couldn’t always tell what is infallible and essential versus what is merely the common opinion and non-essential.

5) The Compendium also gives straightforward explanations in a way that the Catechism doesn’t. One of the problems with the way that the Catechism was written is that it often tried to get really flowery and inspiring and it also tried to quote so much from Vatican II and other church documents and various Christian writers and this often impeded its ability to state doctrine in a straightforward manner.

Let me illustrate. . . .

Here is what the Catechism says about original sin:

Original
sin – an essential truth of the faith

388
With the progress of Revelation, the reality of sin is also illuminated.
Although to some extent the People of God in the Old Testament had tried to
understand the pathos of the human condition in the light of the history of the
fall narrated in Genesis, they could not grasp this story’s ultimate meaning,
which is revealed only in the light of the death and Resurrection of Jesus
Christ. We must know Christ as the source of grace in order to know
Adam as the source of sin. The Spirit-Paraclete, sent by the risen Christ, came
to "convict the world concerning sin", by revealing him
who is its Redeemer.

389
The doctrine of original sin is, so to speak, the "reverse side" of
the Good News that Jesus is the Saviour of all men, that all need salvation and
that salvation is offered to all through Christ. The Church, which has the mind
of Christ, knows very well that we cannot tamper with the revelation
of original sin without undermining the mystery of Christ.

That’s it. That’s the whole section.

Now–other than saying "It’s an essential truth of the faith, just look at the section head"–can anybody tell me what original sin actually is based on this passage?

Didn’t think so.

Now here’s what the Compendium says:

76. What is original sin?

Original sin, in which all human beings are born, is the state of deprivation of original holiness and justice. It is a sin "contracted" by us not "committed"; it is a state of birth and not a personal act. Because of the original unity of all human beings, it is transmitted to the descendants of Adam "not by imitation, but by propagation." This transmission remains a mystery which we cannot fully understand.

77. What other consequences derive from original sin?

In consequence of original sin human nature, without being totally corrupted, is wounded in its natural powers. It is subject to ignorance, suffering, and to the domination of death and is inclined toward sin. This inclination is called concupiscence.

Now, the Compendium’s treatment of original sin is not that much shorter than the Catechism’s, but it’s worlds better in terms of telling you what original sin actually is. The reason is that the discipline of giving concise answers to questions people would have about a doctrine–rather than simply discoursing on theological themes–forced the authors of the Compendium to write with much greater clarity than the writers of the Catechism did.

That’s a big, BIG plus in my mind.

The Compendium thus stands to serve as a catechetical tool that will be far more practical in normal settings than the Catechism ever was.

Having said how great I think the Compendium is, though, let me add something else about the Catechism: I’m glad it came first.

At the time the Catechism was released, I was disappointed that it wasn’t more like the Compendium, but having seen what happened in the intervening years and having seen the Compendium, I think it’s a good thing that we had over a decade to get familiar with the Catechism before this one came out.

The reason is that the Catechism had an enormous stabilizing effect on the teaching of the Catholic faith. After Vatican II, everything was topsy turvy. Vatican II took such a different tack in articulating the faith compared to previous councils and magisterial statements that it was very hard for many individuals to harmonize the different articulations of the faith. The content of the faith was the same, but the language being used to express it was vastly different. Because of this, it made it easy for dissidents to simply harp on Vatican II and dismiss everything from before the Council, which was not at all the Council’s intent.

Further, the Vatican II documents themselves were nothing like an attempt to articulate the whole of the Catholic faith. They addressed it in a here-and-there manner, not a systematic manner. There is virtually no treatment of the subject of justification in Vatican II, for example. ("Why should there be?" the Council Fathers might say. "That subject was already treated by Trent. Go look up what Trent said.")

The fact that Vatican II used such different language, coupled with the fact that it was not a systematic presentation of the faith, meant that enormous amounts of chaos were created once the "That’s pre-Vatican II, so don’t pay attention to it" meme kicked in.

What we needed (BADLY!) in the years after the Council was a summary of the faith that was (a) authoritative (not just some author’s opinion), (b) comprehensive, (c) systematically organized, and (d) integrating both pre-Conciliar, Conciliar, and post-Conciliar statements of the faith.

In other words, we needed the Catechism of the Catholic Church. We needed a big, huge, honking book that did all that stuff.

(Incidentally, we also have Bernard Law to thank for the Catechism. Whatever his sins as archbishop of Boston, he was the one that first proposed writing the Catechism at the 1985 Synod of Bishops.)

If the Compendium had been released in 1992 instead of the Catechism, it wouldn’t have had as much of a stabilizing effect on the teaching of the faith as the Catechism did.

So I’m glad that the Catechism came out when it did, and now I’m glad that we have the Compendium, too.

ORDER YOUR COPY TODAY!

Tim Powers writes:

Has the Church definitively said that animals _don’t_ go to Heaven, or at least have some posthumous happy state? They suffer, but they don’t sin. They’re not fallen. Their suffering-&-death is both real and undeserved, which is an inbalance, bad math, unless it’s made up for somewhere else in the equation. After all, we’re told that "the wolf shall dwell with the lamb and the leopard shall lie down with the kid" and all. Maybe that’s literal!

Maybe, though the literal sense of those texts is that God will send a great age of peace, during which it will be as if all strife–even between animals–will be eliminated. There may be an even more literal fulfillment in the next life–if animals have souls that can survive death–but we don’t have strong reason to think that it will happen in this one.

As to whether animals have a posthumous happy state, the standard position is that they don’t because their souls are unable to survive death. This is not something that the Church has taught definitively (infallibly), but it is the standard opinion among theologians historically.

(Note for those who may want to be cantankerous about animals being
unfallen: Many would say that they suffer bad effects due to our fall,
but that doesn’t mean that they themselves sinned. I also would be
hesitant to say that carnivorism only came into the universe with the
fall of man. I tend to go with Aquinas in saying that human death entered the world through the fall of man, but animal death was already there.)

You’re right, though, that there is a bad math problem here: Many animals do seem to live very short lives in which they suffer more than they benefit, making it look like they come out on the negative side of the equation, which is hard to square with God’s justice and mercy.

This isn’t a problem (or not nearly as much of one) for humans since our souls survive death and so–no matter how much we’re banged around in this life–God can make it up to us in the next.

But how can we solve the equation for animals? How can we make sure that they get more good out of existence than bad? It would seem that there are several possible ways:

1. Animals are sufficiently insignificant in the moral order that it really doesn’t matter what happens to them individually and whether they suffer more than they benefit from life.
2. Animals actually do benefit more than they suffer, because (despite how it may appear if you’re a baby mouse being eaten by a predator who has discovered your warm, cozy nest) life ITSELF is of sufficient value that any amount of it overbalances whatever sufferings you may experience in it (at least if you’re an animal).
3. Animals have excess sufferings made up to them in a mysterious way that we can’t perceive in the last moments of life.
4. Animals really do survive death–at least the ones who need some suffering made up to them–but they don’t survive permanently, the way we do.
5. Animals do survive permanently the way we do.

Each of these has benefits and problems associated with it. The standard account would presumably go in the direction of #1 or #2.

#5, though, seems to be the most common sensically attractive to many (especially children suffering from the loss of a pet), though it isn’t the way most theologians have gone historically.

An especially creative solution (that comes from C. S. Lewis, if I recall correctly) to what to tell a child who is grieving for a pet is that the pet will be in heaven "if you need it" since God will certainly let us have everything we need in heaven. I’ve used that one myself in answering questions on the Catholic Answers Live kids’ show.

A reader writes:

If everything that happens to us is by God’s will or permission, then of what value are prayers that request things from God.  For example, if a person is sick and you pray that they be healed, do our prayers really make a difference in the outcome of that person’s final health?  Can we really "change God’s mind" about things?

I know that the Church, scripture, and the lives of the saints teach our prayers do make a difference, but I can’t seem to get any light on how this might be the case.

Do you have any thoughts on this or books I might consult?

I don’t have any books to recommend (though I’m sure there are some), but I can give you some thoughts.

The purpose of prayer is not to give God information or change his mind. He’s already got all the information he needs, has no need to change his mind, and couldn’t anyway since he’s outside of time.

The real reason for prayer, therefore, is not for God’s benefit but for ours.

How does this work?

Well, first off, when we pray for things we realize our dependence on God. It’s too easy to forget that in the hustle and bustle of life. But when we turn to him to ask for something, we realize that we need him, that he is the source of all the good things we have, and that’s important.

Second, we often pray for other people, and this builds up the Christian community–and the human family–in love. It fosters an attitude of mutual caring and concern. (This also extends to those in purgatory and heaven via prayer for the souls in purgatory and prayer to the saints in heaven.)

Third, by trying to figure out what to pray for, we exercise the intellects God gave us in a way that brings glory to God.

Fourth, when we succeed in figuring out what we should pray for then we in so doing align our intellects and wills with God’s.

Fifth, when we fail in figuring out what we should pray for we may simply ask God to do what is best, thus confessing our own limitations and dependency on him.

Sixth, we are taught as Christians to ultimately subject our prayers to whether or not they are God’s will (either by saying "If it is your will" or some equivalent or by leaving this condition unspoken), so even when we pray for the wrong thing we are conditioning our will to be subject to God’s.

We thus see that prayer has a whole host of benefits, as it schools us in a variety of virtues, including humility, love, thoughtfulness, and holiness. Because of all these benefits that prayer has, God has chosen to make prayer effective.

That is to say, he has chosen that if we pray for certain things then he will grant the request. This is not changing his mind. (He knows from all eternity whether we will pray, leading to us getting what we’re praying for.) It’s triggering the condition on which he will grant certain boons to us.

Hope this helps!

A reader writes:

I read that if a person repents, God will forgive him.  But the Bible has many examples of people who repented, but weren’t forgiven.  Judas "repented of his sin," but the Bible implies he is now in Hell.  Simon Magus repented, but Peter only said that God will "perhaps" forgive him, like it’s not certain he will.  Esau in Hebrews 11 repented, but to no avail.

I am so confused about this.  Will God forgive our sins when we repent and Confess, what about the examples above?

The Council of Trent infallibly defined the following:

If any one saith, that in the Catholic Church Penance is not truly and properly a sacrament, instituted by Christ our Lord for reconciling the faithful unto God, as often as they fall into sin after baptism; let him be anathema [Trent, Canons on the Sacrament of Penance, 1].

Any sin that you commit after baptism is thus one for which Christ instituted the sacrament of penance so that you can be reconciled. As long as you repent and go to confession, the sin will be forgiven.

Do not worry further about this. To do so is scrupulous.

Regarding the three biblical figures you mentioned:

• Judas didn’t repent and go to confession. He got sorry and killed himself. Repentence means turning your will away from grave sin so that you do not will to commit grave sin. Judas obviously didn’t do that because he went out and committed what was known at the time to be a grave sin. He may have experienced regret for his actions, but he did not turn his will away from grave sin. He despaired and went further into it.
• Simon Magus appeared to repent, but Peter couldn’t know for sure what was in his heart. Hence Peter phrased himself tentatively.
• Esau didn’t commit an act of sin; he committed an act of foolishness: He sold his birthright. When you sell something to someone, the only way you can get it back is if they’re willing to sell it back to you. Jacob wasn’t willing to sell it back to Esau, so Esau didn’t get his birthright back. This is not the case of a person being unforgiven by God. It’s the case of a person making a foolish deal and then having "seller’s remorse." That’s used in Hebrews 12 as an example to us that we must repent while there is still time (i.e., during this life), but there is nothing in Scripture that implies Esau is damned. In fact, he ends up forgiving and being reconciled with Jacob, even though he no longer has the birthright.

The reader also writes:

I read on your website that if a person believes he has committed the unforgivable sin, it means he hasn’t, since repentance is a sign that the Holy Spirit is at work in him, convicting him of sin.

That’s not quite what I said: I said wanting to repent (i.e., wanting to turn your heart away from grave sin) shows that the Holy Spirit is still at work in your heart. It’s not just believing that you haven’t committed the unforgivable sin; it’s wanting to repent that shows that you haven’t totally closed yourself off to God’s grace.

However, this isn’t very comforting, because — how does a person know if his repentance is the kind that comes from the Holy Spirit, instead of the kind that judas had, the worldly sorrow described in 2 Corinthians?

The solution to the issue is clear. If you read 2 Corinthians 7, we find Paul saying:

9: As it is, I rejoice, not because you were grieved, but
because you were grieved into repenting; for you felt a godly grief, so
that you suffered no loss through us.
10: For godly grief produces a repentance  that leads to salvation and brings no regret, but worldly grief  produces death.

Paul contrasts two kinds of sorrow: godly grief that leads to repentance and salvation and worldly grief that leads to death.

The contrast between the two depends on whether repentence is produced. If you repent then it was godly grief. If you don’t repent then it was what Paul calls "worldly" grief.

Godly grief is thus the sorrow for sin that makes you want to repent (i.e., makes you want to turn your will away from grave sin). Worldly grief is sorrow for one’s actions that does not make one want to turn one’s will away from sin (as when Judas despaired and plunged further into grave sin).

So do not worry about these issues. If you feel that you have committed a sin, turn your will away from it, go to confession, and do not allow scrupulous worries to mar the peace that God wants you to have as a result of the sacrament.

As long as you turn to God (as opposed to despairing and turning further away from him), you will be forgiven.

20

The question I dealt with earlier about why one should not baptize a baby and immediately murder it to ensure its salvation brought to mind a related question that struck me back when I was a Calvinist.

The question was this: Why should one have babies at all since they will just grow up to become sinners–even saved ones–who commit more offenses against God and thus add to the evil in the universe?

The solution that I came up with at the time is that new people don’t just add new offenses to the grand ledger of the universe. They also add good to the universe. They add natural good based on what God has given them by nature, and they add supernatural good based on what God gives them by grace.

To the extent that people add good to the universe, it makes the evil they add more tolerable in a sense.

Whether they ultimately add more good than they do evil is something that only God knows, but we do know that it is his will that the human race continue until the end of the world. It’s that "Be fruitful and multiply" think, y’know?

There is another consideration here also: ultimate justice. It isn’t just that they’re adding evil to the universe and that this situation will remain unredressed, with the universe acquiring an ever more and more negative moral charge. God will ultimately balance the scales (to mix metaphors). Those who have done evil and refused to repend and accept God’s grace will ultimately get what’s coming to them. Even the saved who are forgiven their sins will still have to repent of them and deal with their consequences, either in this life or purgatory.

This also allows the evil that is done in the world to be tolerable for the sake of the good that is also done. It’s not like the evil will go on forever, unaddressed. It’s something that is only temporarily allowed so that the good in the universe can also flourish.

I’d also add one point that I would not have added as a Calvinist: God is simply not risk averse. In order to get new saved immortal beings who freely chose their salvation he is willing to risk letting them have freedom. The biggest threat to our salvation is our free will, but God is willing to let us have freedom because he’s not just after saved souls but after a certain kind of saved soul: those who have chosen him.

If he, then, is willing to take the risk that a given baby may grow up to ultimately reject him, who are we to question that?

Our job is to have the babies and point them toward God as their ultimate destination, not to decide beforehand that the risk is too great and prevent them from exercising the freedom that God wills them to have.

We can thus help children along the road to heaven by giving them spiritual goods, like the gospel and baptism (when they’re too small and trusting to reject either of these things), but we must also allow them to grow into that maturity of reason and freedom that would allow them to reject the graces they have been given if they choose to do so.

If God is willing to take that risk, we must be willing as well.

We can’t murder them right after baptism, and we can’t refrain from having babies just because we’re afraid of the risk.

We have to live our lives in accordance with God’s known goals. We must be fruitful and multiply, and we must do what we can to ensure that The Circle Will Be Unbroken, but we cannot do this in a way that seeks to eliminate human freedom and the risks that accompany it.

Freedom is essential to what God is trying to do with us.