What else is disposable?
The BBC also discussed the limbo question.
But limbo has long been a problem for the Church. Unease has remained over reconciling a Loving God with one who sent babies to limbo and the Church has faced much criticism.
So – there’s unease about a loving god who sends babies to limbo, but what about a loving god who gives babies diseases, or one who lets babies get scalded, or raped (it happens), or beaten, or crushed (slowly) after earthquakes? What about a loving god who hands babies and children over to parents who neglect them or tell them they’re ugly and stupid or sell them into slavery or yank them out of school and force them to marry strangers? What about a loving god who allows all the suffering that sentient beings undergo on this particular planet? I’m curious about that. I’m permanently curious about it. Curious and also worried: because I think the resolution or repression of the problem has some unpleasant consequences – a justification or minimization of suffering that is not morally healthy. I don’t think we ought to reconcile a loving god with the way things are for sentient beings; I don’t think it can be done, and I think the attempt is corrupting.
But, that’s a separate issue, so never mind that for now.
But there are those who argue that it is not simply a “hypothesis” that can just be swept aside; that the notion that unbaptised children do not go to heaven has been a fundamental part of Church teaching for hundreds of years. Then, of course, there is the argument that if this can be abolished, what else is disposable?
My point exactly. If it’s been a fundamental part of Church teaching for hundreds of years then members of the church were expected to take it seriously; they were expected to believe it and take it as true, not just think it was an interesting notion of the church hierarchy that they could take or leave. And given that, it is surely bound to give believers pause to have the hierarchy suddenly say ‘Oh, wait, we’ve changed our minds.’ It just is. They’re bound to wonder why, if the idea has turned out to be as revisable as all that, they were told it was true for so long. And as the BBC shrewdly points out, if they wonder that, they’ll also wonder what else is disposable. Why would they not?
More fundamentally-what about a “Loving God” who is so priggish about his own conceptions of purity that he punishes-eternally-those sentient beings who don’t immediately fall into line with the muddled, conflicting teachings that are supposedly filtered down into our bibles (or korans, or whatevers)? Eternal hellfire is a horrific concept that is far more disturbing than Limbo.
The Gnostics have it right. Jehovah is Satan.
There’s some overlooked victims in this abolition of limbo business – what about the Virtuous Pagans? Aristotle, Homer, Virgil, all out on their arse after being housed in the first circle of Hell for hundreds of years. Do we really want the shades of Greek philosophers, Roman emperors and Muslim scholars wandering the streets aimlessly? Who speaks for them, eh?
Yes, it’s all very well for the German head of an Italian business to set these things in motion, but where are they going to come? Thousands of shades of Greek philosophers, Roman emperors and Muslim scholars wandering around Folkstone, living on benefits, eating our swans.
Bloody pagan revenants, queuing up, they are.
I agree with Brian. Limbo is a tame belief in comparison to hell.
Dang, I hadn’t thought of that. Yuk. Virgil droning on and on about pious Aeneas, Socrates asking all those stupid questions with that superior smirk, Epaminondas being so stinking brave and upright and tedious, wretched Cato (the younger) with that awful Roman virtue, Seneca going to the games and then lecturing everyone about them afterwards, Cicero never shutting up, Atticus being so damn Attic all the time, the big phony, Marcus Aurelius being so bloody thoughtful and self-deprecating – oh it doesn’t bear thinking about.
Ah, you’ve finally twigged: it’s not a theological problem at all; it’s all to do with the logistics of storage…
Surely any church, including the Catholic Church since about the eighteenth century, would regard it as entirely salutory if the laity were to take more of an interest in theological questions like “what is genuinely our central doctrine and what is disposable? (and should it be disposed of if it is)”.
My comment to this BBC article was to suggest that with any luck the answer to “whate else is disposable?” is “the whole nonsensical doctrine”.
Here’s a thought (not orginal, I hasten to add) but suppose Ratzinger is the Gorbachev of Catholicism?
First limbo, then…?
What else is disposable?
You keep asking this. Basically, to be entitled to call yourself a Catholic, you must at a minimum accept the articles of the Apostles’ Creed. So if for example you think Jesus Christ never existed, or that if he did his father was a mortal, or that he wasn’t crucified, or if he was he didn’t rise from the dead, then you’re definitely out. These are just four articles; with a bit of fudging when it comes to the count, the Creed contains twelve.
It seems to me the question you are asking is not the one you want answered. Let’s consider a few which may be nagging at you. Would the requirements of Catholicism strain your credulity too far? Almost certainly, yes, barring some sort of Damascus Experience. What are the sources of these beliefs? Various texts – the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles in particular. The link provides details. Their authority derives from the fact that God is believed to have had a hand in writing them. Is there any compelling reason to believe that? None that I know of, but look what happened to Joan of Arc and St Paul. If you heard a voice from the clouds, you’d pay attention, wouldn’t you?
Kevin,
“If you heard a voice from the clouds, you’d pay attention, wouldn’t you?”
Well, after initially trying to discover (with subtlety & tact) whether anyone else had heard the stentorian pronouncement from on high, surely you’d start to worry for the state of your mental health? :-)
I know I would…or maybe not:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/5346930.stm
“Voices in the head ‘are normal'”
OB,
Forget about Marcus Aurelius and Cicero and Seneca. I’ve got problems a lot closer to home. What about unbaptized me? I always thought that I still might make “heathen-but-still-a-good-guy” status. Now all of that is up in the air.
Come to think of it, though, I don’t want to end up in the same place as Seneca. Spending an eternity listening to him hacking and wheezing and whining about his asthma, or alternatively praising the virtues of poverty from the swimming pool in his villa, is not my idea of fun.
(As to the topic: I would argue that limbo is a rather obscure part of doctrine: I only know about the concept because of Dante. So yeah, limbo is disposible. The Trinity or the resurrection most likely aren’t)
“If you heard a voice from the clouds, you’d pay attention, wouldn’t you?”
Well of course I’d pay attention, but if you mean ‘you’d think it was or at least might be the voice of God, wouldn’t you?’ the answer is no. I would think it was an auditory hallucination, and would check local news sources to find out if there’d been any strange noises coming from a skyward direction.
What’s your point? I can’t quite tell if you’re saying shut up, or what’s your point, or that’s a stupid question, or something else.
“So yeah, limbo is disposible.”
I still don’t buy it, and none of the defenders have yet said anything that causes me to buy it. If it’s so easily disposable, why were people asked to believe it for so long, especially when, as the news articles all say, it made them so very unhappy?
If it’s so easily disposable, why were people asked to believe it for so long…?
They weren’t. That’s what I keep telling you. It wasn’t an article of faith.
I can’t quite tell if you’re saying shut up….
God forbid (if you’ll pardon the expression). I think you are going around in circles and the way to break out is to acknowledge the fact that religious beliefs mostly originate in personal experiences of some kind. Typically, somebody has a vision or hears voices and finds the experience too overwhelming to be explained as a hallucination. In many such cases the person concerned is treated as a lunatic but not always.
So let’s suppose you actually want an answer to a question such as this: Okay – you’ve got your Vatican commission of theologians, thirty of them, and they have been ‘examining’ limbo. They’ve been what? What does that mean?
The answer, most likely, is that they asked where the notion of limbo originated. Is it to be found in the Bible? Evidently not. Apparently it was dreamt up by some theologians who thought the souls of unbaptised babies couldn’t go to heaven, hell or purgatory, so they had to posit some alternative destination. Now the Pope evidently thinks – and for once you will probably agree with him – that this is not a compelling argument for the existence of limbo.
Where you part company with the Pope is, he thinks he really does have adequate grounds for believing in heaven and hell (and purgatory I presume, though now I come to think of it, I’m not sure it is any more securely founded than limbo). Here he is relying on “better” sources, notably the Bible. Of course they are no better from your point of view, since at the end of the day it all comes down to madman who hear voices in the air, distilling their frenzy into holy writ. But however little you may like it, the fact is that the Vatican accords greater credence to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John than it does to medieval scholars. That’s why limbo can be demolished without endangering the whole edifice.
“They weren’t. That’s what I keep telling you. It wasn’t an article of faith.”
But does the fact that it wasn’t an article of faith in fact mean that they weren’t asked to believe it? If they weren’t asked to believe it, why did they believe it? If they weren’t asked to believe it, why is there any need to change it now? If they weren’t asked to believe it, why do various accounts say it made parents unhappy for centuries? Are they all inaccurate? (That’s certainly possible.)
You seem to be saying that if it’s not an article of faith it has no weight at all; I’m saying it appears to be the case that items short of articles of faith do have weight. That may not be how things are supposed to be, but it certainly looks as if that’s how they are.
“I think you are going around in circles and the way to break out is to acknowledge the fact that religious beliefs mostly originate in personal experiences of some kind.”
Well, one, I don’t particularly want to break out. The circles I’m going around in (in my view) are the circles created by religious teachings and beliefs; they’re repetitive and non-revisable, so circularity is in that sense inevitable. In other words, if I notice a bit of dogmatic silliness, I’m likely to point it out even if it’s very like (or identical to) one I’ve pointed out before.
And two, I’m not about to ‘acknowledge’ the ‘fact’ that ‘religious beliefs mostly originate in personal experiences of some kind’ because I don’t know that it is a fact, and don’t think it is. I think religious beliefs mostly originate in upbringing. And that’s especially true of specific and bizarre bits of belief such as limbo. What ‘personal experiences’ are the origin of belief in limbo? Sitting in church for a lot of years, would be my guess, not god shouting from a cloud.
“Typically, somebody has a vision or hears voices and finds the experience too overwhelming to be explained as a hallucination.”
Not really. Sometimes that’s the case, but my guess is that more typically (yes, it’s a guess, but so is yours – you don’t really know what’s typical, do you) that somebody never considers the possibility that it’s a hallucination, because people generally aren’t skeptical, because they’re not taught to be (cf hours in church theory). Look at Elizabeth Loftus’s work on memory for example – people generally are adamant that their memories are accurate, including when the memories in question are ones that experimenters have deliberately created. Skepticism is rare.
“But however little you may like it, the fact is that the Vatican accords greater credence to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John than it does to medieval scholars. That’s why limbo can be demolished without endangering the whole edifice.”
Well, that leaves out a few things. The fact that Matthew and the gang contradict each other, for instance; the fact that even the Vatican doesn’t accord credence to every bit of the bible; the fact that it’s selective about which medieval scholarship it chooses to repudiate; and so on. Anyway, the issue isn’t whether limbo can be demolished without endangering the whole edifice (I have no hope whatever that the limbo thing is going to endanger the edifice), it’s whether limbo can be demolished without raising questions in the minds of some believers as well as some impertinent outsiders; I would say no, it can’t, since the impertinent outsiders have already asked some of the questions.
Enough for the present; thanks for your replies.
Just to clarify one thing, re: “I think religious beliefs mostly originate in upbringing.” We are using the word “originate” in different ways. Of course my parents and teachers believed in the divinity of Christ because their parents and teachers believed in it before them. But the origin of the idea, in the sense I mean, is that Christ and/or his followers somehow convinced themselves. Precisely how, I don’t really know, but I suppose if they really saw him walking on water that would be quite persuasive. That’s all I mean by saying that religious beliefs mostly originate in personal experiences.
So it’s pointless to complain that we can’t test these ideas scientifically, which is what I presume you are complaining about when you write, for example: “How have they been examining limbo? They’ve been looking at it through a telescope? Through a microscope? Both at once? Both in alternation? Fifteen theologians on the tele and fifteen on the micro, and they combine their findings? Or they X-ray it? Run it through an MRI scan? Shave off bits of it for radio-carbon dating?”
I can’t imagine any believer becoming doubtful as a result of contemplating these questions. It’s not that hard to find out how theologians actually go about their work.
FWIW, as someone whose acquaintances are nearly all lapsed Catholics, I reckon the point on which they mostly part company with Christianity (usually in their teens) is the virgin birth. The resurrection is also hard to swallow. Those Roman GIs were pretty efficient; when they executed somebody, he stayed dead. But I’ve never met anyone who was much bothered about limbo one way or another.
Kevin,
While Limbo is not an article of faith, it is an article of faith that baptism is necessary to enter heaven.
‘… unless we be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, we can not enter into the kingdom of Heaven’
It is heretical to suggest otherwise. By dropping the idea of Limbo the church must either accept this heresy or find another place to consign the souls of unbaptised infants. Despite incedibly complex attempts, no acceptable alternative has ever been found.
But how do you get from Jesus’s followers believing in his divinity because of personal experience to the assertion that it’s pointless ‘to complain [I’m not complaining – OB] that we can’t test these ideas scientifically’ citing the examination of limbo as an example? What is the connection between the experience of Jesus’s followers and a panel of Vatican theologians examining limbo?
“I can’t imagine any believer becoming doubtful as a result of contemplating these questions.”
But so what? They’re still reasonable questions, whether any believer becomes doubtful or not. I’m interested in the questions themselves.
I think it more likely that there’s just one, not two, kinds of origin accounting for religious belief: as Ophelia said ‘upbringing’ – to which semantic blunder has to be added. I very much doubt that anomalous experience plays any great part at all. It’s amazing the amount of far from adequate convoluted toshery generated in explanation of our wacky ways. But, then again, that’s the way the process works – semantic blunder worse confounded.
_____
Don,
While Limbo is not an article of faith, it is an article of faith that baptism is necessary to enter heaven.
Are you sure? Admittedly Wikipedia isn’t the most reliable of sources, but in this case it coincides with what I remember from my youth:
“Through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries individual theologians … continued to formulate theories of how children who died unbaptised might still be saved. By 1952 a theologian such as Ludwig Ott could, in a widely used and well-regarded manual (Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma), openly teach the possibility that children who die unbaptised might be saved for heaven – though he still represented their going to limbo as the commonly taught opinion.”
So, was Ott a heretic? If so, how come his manual was well-regarded?
Fairly sure. There were a lot of suggested outs, as I mentioned, but none of them recieved any encouragement as far as I can find. The baby might, in exremis, experience a desire for salvation which could be construed as baptism, the pregnant mother could desire the child’s salvation at the moment of miscarriage, which might be construed as baptism, other speculative scenarios. All were sidelined because they must lead to denying the necessity of actual baptism for entry into heaven.
I must admit I’m unfamiliar with Ott. Which is putting it mildly. My impression is that non-orthodox speculation was tolerated because it might just lead to a solution to an intractable problem. Limbo was more or less an interim position which sidelined the uncompromising Augustinian
doctrine.
Until the current repositioning, the church seems to have held that the unbaptised were not entitled to heaven, but we could hope that God might stretch a point. Not really consistent for a church who claimed their leader the infallible representative of christ and whose priests could open or close the doors of heaven.
I don’t claim to be a scholar of such things. Like you, I’ve been yo-yoing between Wiki and the Catholic Encyclopedia. But, yes, I am sure that to deny the necessity of baptism is a heresy. Perhaps Ott stopped short of that?
I agree with Kevin’s contention that limbo is not a central article of faith – not anything like the resurrection, the Holy Trinity, the institute of sainthood, the seven sacraments, and all that. Simply on basis of my experience that throughout all of Catholic school, probably hundreds of Catholic masses, talking to Catholic priests and laymen about matters of faith and all that – the subject of limbo has never come up. It simply wasn’t a living part of Catholic doctrine.
I mentioned this to someone who was born into a Catholic family and raised as one and she’d never heard of the concept at all, leading me to conclude that while it may have been mentioned during her religious education, it doesn’t seem to have received great emphasis.
Like many others I was baptised although I’m no longer a believer. Just to do a ‘Pascal wager’ what happens to me after the big D?
If I know my alphabet, you’re then in for the big E…
(which could stand for a lot of things)
With all respect, your comments and so much of what the media has written about this issue is at best inaccurate. First of all, the Pope has not endorsed the findings of this commission. Second of all, Limbo is not a dogma of the Church. It is theological speculation on an issue that was not defined in Divine Revelation, and therefore which may be speculated about until the Church definitively settles the matter.
Yes, many theologians and Popes over the centuries have held this idea of limbo for unbaptized infants to be true, which adds to its weight and increases the probability of its truth. However, it still does not make it rise to the level of official Church teaching. The Church could sweep it aside tomorrow with no great theological difficulty (except that of finding an alternative explanation that itself does not contradict defined teaching).
A loving God allows suffering. Those are two facts that are and so must be reconcilable. That means that there must be some reason for suffering. Yet Christianity alone answers this by showing us Jesus Christ who suffered more than any other for our sakes. God became man and as man, suffered for our sakes. He did not leave us alone to suffer. He suffered with us and thus gave our suffering real meaning.
Limbo as a Church teaching is an attempt to reconcile God’s perfect mercy with His perfect Justice, both of which in Him are the same, since He is utterly one and not separated into different attributes. Limbo is a place of complete natural happiness with no pain of sense. The reason for this idea is that the baby, as being unregenerated by Baptism and thus in the condition of a fallen human nature, is capable only of natural, not supernatural happiness. So God in His mercy allows the child to be happy to the fullest extent of its nature. The deprivation of the Beatific Vision is, according to St. Thomas, not even known by the Child. This teaching makes sense. It simply lacks certainty because God has not told the Church what He does with unbaptized infants.
It is thus unlikely that the Pope will make any effort to end discussion of the idea of Limbo in the Church. Such a thing is unnecessary. The Church usually allows a wide range of opinions on matters that are not explicitly defined in Divine Revelation, the speculation of which does not contradict other official Church teaching. Limbo is one such teaching which does not contradict anything and is fully in accordance with the sense of Scripture, with God’s Mercy and Justice.
The simple answer to your apparent perplexity and that of the BBC is that nothing else becomes “disposable” even if the Church disposes of this idea for the very reason that this has never been officially defined Church teaching. It has simply been a probable theological opinion, upheld on the weighty authority of some of the Church’s greatest theologians and saints. For that reason, Benedict, regardless of his own person opinion, is unlikely to touch it. Even if he does, however, it presents absolutely no theological problem to the Church if properly understood.
Regarding Don’s reply to Kevin, he wrote, “it is an article of faith that baptism is necessary to enter heaven . . . It is heretical to suggest otherwise. By dropping the idea of Limbo the church must either accept this heresy or find another place to consign the souls of unbaptised infants.”
Don, you have overlooked the other possibility, which is that God remits the Original Sin of the infants who die without baptism. In such a case there would be no need for an intermediate state. Of course, we have no reason to believe that He does this, and some would argue that it is contrary to the requirements of His Justice, but it is another alternative that shouldn’t be ruled out without a good reason.
The only other alternative would, as far as I can see, be Hell, since that is the penalty for not only actual sin but for Original Sin as well.
“Yes, many theologians and Popes over the centuries have held this idea of limbo for unbaptized infants to be true, which adds to its weight and increases the probability of its truth.”
Does it? How?
“A loving God allows suffering. Those are two facts that are and so must be reconcilable. That means that there must be some reason for suffering.”
Well, they’re not facts. And the conclusion you come to is precisely why I think this goddy stuff can be so sinister.
“It has simply been a probable theological opinion, upheld on the weighty authority of some of the Church’s greatest theologians and saints.”
So if the pope throws it out, that weighty authority is dented, on account of how the pope is saying the greats were wrong. The problem remains. The hole in the sock is still visible.