Fr.Tim Finigan on The Hermeneutic of Continuity responds on extra ecclesiam nulla salus - 2

Fr.Tim Finigan

Lionel - I have indeed answered your question (several times now) but I have indicated that I do not accept the terms in which it is phrased. This is a perfectly reasonable procedure in logic. If you say to me "Do you know a single German who is sinless?" I am entitled to say "There is nobody apart from Our Lady who is sinless." That is a sufficient answer to the question without conceding any slur to Germans that might be implied in the way that the question is put.

Similarly if you ask me whether I know for certain of any individual on earth or Heaven saved with the baptism of desire or in invincible ignorance, I am not simply going to answer "No", I am going to point out that we do not know for certain of any individual being saved. Do you accept this?

Lionel:

 If you mean you do not know (for certain?!) these cases then I can accept it.Since neither do I.

Fr.Tim Finigan:

There is now a further point that you seem determined to refuse to face. I said that the 1949 letter did not present desire or invincible ignorance as an "exception" to the nulla salus doctrine but as a proper understanding of it.

Lionel:

'Proper understanding of it'?

1.Is the proper understanding that we know people in Heaven or earth saved with the baptism of desire and this is what the Letter says?

2.It is not an exception but it is just mentioned as a possibility.

So Fr.Leonard Feeney was correct with the literal interpretation of the dogma extra ecclesiam nulla salus ?

3.The Letter was saying and so are you that there are no exceptions to the dogma that we know of ?

You simply reply that there cannot be exceptions to the doctrine.

Lionel:

Humanly we cannot and do know who in general is in Heaven except for the saints.We also know the saints are in Heaven in faith. We cannot see them

So there cannot be exceptions to the literal interpretation of the dogma.

Fr.Tim Finigan:

Do you accept that the magisterium of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church can teach us that a proper understanding of the nulla salus doctrine can allow the possibility of someone being saved through implicit desire or invincible ignorance?

Lionel:

A proper undestanding of implicit desire or invincible ignorance allows the possibility of someone being saved in this way.

A proper understanding of the dogma extra ecclesiam nulla salus does not allow the possibility of invincible ignorance and the baptism of desire being an explicit exception.

The Magisterium (before the Letter of the Holy Office 1949) recognizes them as possibilities but does not say that they are exceptions.If you cannot name a single case how can they be exceptions to the literal interpretation of the dogma?

-Lionel Andrades

"Praying for the SSPX to enrich the Church" The hermeneutic of continuity
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