There is a difference between my experience of God and who God is. There is a difference between affirming that I walk into the mystery of God through the doorway called Jesus and that in my experience this is the only doorway that works in my journey, and asserting that there is no doorway through which anyone can walk except mine. Imagine the idolatry present in the suggestion that God must be bound by my knowledge and experience! Yet that claim has been made and is still being made by imperialistic Christians today. The text written by persecuted minority members of the early Christian community to justify their claim to be part of the larger people of God becomes a text that is interpreted in such a way as to become a claim that issues in religious imperialism. Is it not interesting how little attention is paid to another text that proclaims an open and inclusive faith? It is found in the words attributed to Peter in Acts 10:34ff.: “Truly I perceive that God shows no partiality, but in every nation any one who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.”

We live in a religiously pluralistic world, but there is only one God. This God is not a Christian, nor is this God an adherent of any religious system. All religious systems are human creations by which people in different times and different places seek to journey into that which is ultimately holy and wholly other. Until that simple lesson is heard, human beings will continue to destroy each other in the name of the “one true God.”

Millions of people around the world, clergy and lay, devote their lives to helping others learn the faith and do what is necessary to gain salvation. Obviously they are wasting their time if everyone is saved anyway. You’d think JP2 and BXVI would have the courtesy to let them know.

Joe, salvation is no small matter. If the Church changes its view on who is saved and how, I think it will be obvious. You won’t have to glean this fact by reading a few sentences in one or two encyclicals while ignoring entire libraries of authoritative teaching that says otherwise.

I have quit the field in this discussion, but I think some who have participated might find interesting reading in St. Ambrose’s “An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith” Book II, Chapters XXV through XXIX, particularly the last five paragraphs of chapter XXIX (which requires reading back a few chapters to understand).

God Bless

Paul

Just a word of thanks for mentioning the Carolingian program of Latinization. I happened across a synopsis of this history, and would of passed it over. Because of your reference to it, I actually took time to read a few paragraphs. Quite interesting really. Doesn’t really connect to your point, but I’m done arguing

For any who aren’t familiar, look it up.

Pax et Bonum

Paul

I assume you mean Spe Salve, or Saved by Hope by Pope Benedict? Just checking.

Paul

I’ve read the encyclical. Exactly what passage do you read to equate to universal salvation?

Paul

Try reading his encyclical in context and you will have a different interpretation. JPII and Benedict are essentially universalists.

I hope for all these things. Do I expect them? No. Similarly, I hope that all people will be saved. It does not follow that I think all people will be saved, or even most people. I hope because in many cases it is all I can do. I am well aware that my hopes will often not be fulfilled.

Hope, you may recall, is mentioned in Scripture along with Faith and Love as a good thing. This is why you see Popes expressing it. I don’t get how this is a problem.

I can’t say I am convinced that the Catholic position is *some* non-believers are saved. In his latest encyclical, for instance, the Pope writes that we can hope that most everyone is finally saved, except for the extremely bad people. And all the references in the CCC that hint at universal salvation corroborate the idea. It really seems that post Vatican II theology has made the universal salvific will of God the determinitive doctrine. I think von Balthasar caught it from Barth and passed it on to all the latest Popes.

ACTS 17:24-28 The God that made the world and all things therein, he, being Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands;
25 neither is he served by men’s hands, as though he needed anything, seeing he himself giveth to all life, and breath, and all things;
26 and he made of one every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed seasons, and the bounds of their habitation;
27 that they should seek God, if happily they might reach out to him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us:
28 for in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain even of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring. God gives all people life, breath, and all things. From one man He made every nation that dwells on the whole earth. He determined the times and places people would live. God did this so that men would seek Him, reach out to Him, and find Him; though He is not far from each of us.

JESUS
“Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them. And what ye would not that men should do unto you, do ye not so unto them; for this is the Law and the prophets.”

CONFUCIUS
“When one cultivates to the utmost the principles of his nature, and exercises them on the principle of reciprocity, he is not far from the path.(( What you do not like when done to yourself, do not do to others ))”

“He who lives in Tao (GOD), and Tao (GOD) in him, is a good man: He keeps in good terms with men, takes things easy, loves the world as he does his own person; he is simple like an infant, cautious, modest, yielding. He is humble, and thus he remains entire. He is subtle, penetrating and profound; avoids excess, extravagance, and indulgence. He makes the self of the people his self”… he acts to the good or to the bad with goodness, and to the faithful or the faithless with faith. He returns love for great hatred”…