The Great Debate X

[rgrove]

Dr. James White has just announced what the next debates topic will be. Very interesting choice of topic. This is one of the most amazing aspects of current Catholicism after Vatican II. Universalism has become fairly common amoung Priests (a missionary friend who was a Chaplain in the Navy for years said all of the Catholic Chaplains he worked with were universalists). How anyone can reconcile some of the current teachings with the Papal Encyclicals of the past and the general councils of the past is beyond me. Those were supposed to be infallible after all and anyone who disagreed was placed under anathema. I'm sure that Dr. White will bring that up during the debate.

www.aomin.org/index.php?itemid=169

Great Debate X: Can Non-Christians Receive Salvation?

The Great Debate X will be June 9th. I will be debating Bill Rutland, a lay Catholic apologist, on the topic of salvation as laid out by the modern Roman Catholic Catechism, in particular, in passages such as these:

841 The Church's relationship with the Muslims. "The plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator, in the first place amongst whom are the Muslims; these profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, mankind's judge on the last day."

1260 "Since Christ died for all, and since all men are in fact called to one and the same destiny, which is divine, we must hold that the Holy Spirit offers to all the possibility of being made partakers, in a way known to God, of the Paschal mystery." Every man who is ignorant of the Gospel of Christ and of his Church, but seeks the truth and does the will of God in accordance with his understanding of it, can be saved. It may be supposed that such persons would have desired Baptism explicitly if they had known its necessity.

Obviously, details will be forthcoming.

[Soulfyre]

Thanks for the post. I will be watching for this with great interest. There has long been the Roman Catholic concept of the "baptism of desire", as well as that of "invincible ignorance." If the exceptions establish the rule, then it is not unreasonable to have projected that universalism was not far behind. After all, for St. Theresa (Mother Theresa) wasn't it sufficient that a "Hindu be the best Hindu he could be"? I try to avoid speculation concerning how God will deal with any given pagan in any given situation. That, in some sense, is God's business. I think, however, that my own responsibility in the proclamation of the Gospel in word and deed is clear, as is the statement by John the Apostle (3:18), "Whoever believes in him is not concemned, but whoever does not believe stands condeemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son." I believe that we play fast and loose with this scripiture at our own peril, that we might finally approach God with hands bloody from the destruction of those to whom we might have sounded a clear note, a sound of alarm, by merely speaking the truth in Love.

God bless and keep you,

Matthew (soulfyre)

[rgrove]

I agree completely. I just finished a book last night by Timothy George called "Is the Father of Jesus the God of Muhammad?". Excellent book! You may be interested in the topic as well. Here's the Amazon link (though I don't know how to change it so that you get credit)

Is the Father of Jesus the God of Muhammad?

It is extremely Trinity centric so I'm going to start recommending this little book to those who don't understand the Trinity well. He demonstrates very clearly how the primary differences between the two religions doctrine of God make them radically different. The Trinity truly is essential to the Christian faith. Anyhow, Dr. George touches a little on these areas considering some of the things many Christians (especially Rome) say about Islam and salvation. He has an extended quote from Pope John Paul II that does a good job of describing the serious differences between the two religions. It's kind of hard to believe that the Pope would say what he said in that quote and then essentially publically express the kind of sentiment that you ascribed to Mother Theresa (which I would agree was her position and a significant reason why the gospel never penetrated that dark land). I'll be interested to see how this play out in this debate. In the book Dr George appears to be significantly influenced by how so many Muslims that have come to Christianity did so through what appear to be some workings of the Spirit in dreams after they took an extra special interest in the Quran's statements regarding Jesus. Since Timothy George is Calvinistic in his soteriology I have read him before in other articles caution us Calvinists on being too critical of how God may go about reaching the lost in these circumstances. I get the feeling he has spent a lot of personal time looking at how people from different religions came to faith in Christ and that he has an aggressive view of how God actively seeks out his people.

[Soulfyre]

I just modified the link. Thanks for your graciousness, as well as for the book reference. Let me know what you think of the book, as I have great respect for Timothy George! I also appreciate his desire to avoid restricting the salvific work of our sovereign God. While I know God has ordained "the foolishness of preaching" as a means in particular for evangelization, I should not wish to assume that God is Himself limited to our own foolishness.

God bless and keep you and yours, brother,

Matthew (soulfyre)

[rgrove]

Unfortunately this debate may not happen. The RC debater, Bill Rutland, has decided to make heavy demands on change of format now six weeks from the debate. He wrote the debate committee six times asking to take part and wanted to debate this topic. He knew the format that all of the previous debates were in. Now that the group that sponsors the event has spent thousands of dollars on rooms, printed materials for promotion, etc he is saying make the changes he wants or he's pulling out completely. Extremely unfortunate.

James White has agreed to cut the by 1/3 the interaction of the participants. If you've ever listened to a debate he's done there is always a section where each side asks direct answers of one another, the other debater answers and then the next question etc. This is actually where the real debate takes place. Giving 20 minute monologues is easy. Having to answer the hard questions of the other debater isn't. Mr Rutland would evidently like to eliminate this part almost completely...