Homosexuals And Our Attitude Towards Them

[Aloysius]

:yep: I've been trying to remember that quote to put in here but for the life of me couldn't remember exactly what it said or where it was from, I just knew there was a helpful quote from somewhere that I'd seen before.

[rkwright]

[quote name='KnightofChrist' post='1599554' date='Jul 13 2008, 09:48 PM']"Common Teaching is doctrine, which in itself belongs to the field of free opinions, but which is accepted by theologians generally."

So not quiet dogmatic proof, or that which compels any Catholic to believe.
The councils of Lyon and Florence [b]formally defined[/b] that people in hell are punished by unequal punishments.

"Also, the souls of those who have incurred no stain of sin whatsoever after baptism, as well as souls who after incurring the stain of sin have been cleansed whether in their bodies or outside their bodies, as was stated above, are straightaway received into heaven and clearly behold the triune God as he is, yet one person more perfectly than another according to the difference of their merits. But the souls of those who depart this life in actual mortal sin, or in original sin alone, go down straightaway to hell to be punished, but with unequal pains. We also define that the holy apostolic see and the Roman pontiff holds the primacy over the whole world and the Roman pontiff is the successor of blessed Peter prince of the apostles, and that he is the true vicar of Christ, the head of the whole church and the father and teacher of all Christians, and to him was committed in blessed Peter the full power of tending, ruling and governing the whole church, as is contained also in the acts of ecumenical councils and in the sacred canons."

ECCUMENICAL COUNCIL OF FLORENCE
Session 6, paragraph 11—6th July 1439[/quote]

Yes... Ott mentions this. Do you have the Ott book your priest was referring to? It surprises me that you look to Ott for your dogma, then when it doesn't come out the way you thought it was you re-interpret the same thing he's looking at.

Anyways, this is where Ott gathers that this teaching is a "Common Teaching" and not a dogma. This council doesn't actually say there are different levels of hell, for the same line could be interpreted to read that those who die in the state of original sin and those who die in a state of mortal sin will experience different punishments.

[Aloysius]

if there are different punishments in hell, then it stands to reason that they flow from justice. justice DEMANDS that different people in hell be punished differently; anyone who says that they are not in my mind is contradicting the doctrine that God is perfectly just, because I say that would be unjust of God.

and the claim that we shouldn't refute it because you don't see the Church's teaching as definitively refuting it is incorrect; we have every right to use our minds to reason things out from what the Church teaches and argue about that. if anyone says that someone who commits genocide and someone who commits murder who are both equally culpable for their particular sin do not suffer different degrees of punishment I will say enthusiastically that they are absolutely wrong and I don't feel I need any Church teaching to back me up except the fact that [b]God is just![/b]

if you're proposing something as novel as the idea that everyone in hell suffers the same level of punishment, the burden of proof rests very heavily upon you. you're not off the hook if we don't provide some definitive dogmatic teaching, you have to provide something really convincing because what you're saying is completely counterintuitive to our understanding of justice.

does anyone out there really think that it is just for someone who committed genocide to be punished equally as someone who committed singular murder if both were equally culpable for their sin? that would really shock me.... honestly, does anyone actually believe this? if not, then you believe in various degrees (or "levels") of punishment in hell.

[KnightofChrist]

[quote name='rkwright' post='1599566' date='Jul 13 2008, 10:00 PM']Yes... Ott mentions this. Do you have the Ott book your priest was referring to? It surprises me that you look to Ott for your dogma, then when it doesn't come out the way you thought it was you re-interpret the same thing he's looking at.

Anyways, this is where Ott gathers that this teaching is a "Common Teaching" and not a dogma. This council doesn't actually say there are different levels of hell, for the same line could be interpreted to read that those who die in the state of original sin and those who die in a state of mortal sin will experience different punishments.[/quote]


I do not see how I have re-interpret anything when all I have done is repeat the words of Fr. R.
I have written to him about these concerns.

[CatherineM]

I can't recall ever discussing different levels of punishment in any of my theology classes. It may just have never come up, or it may have been obvious and taken as a given. I remember discussing the Council of Florence in a canon law class, but we discussed the re-unification issues, and not the levels of sin issue. Although looking back, that probably would have been more germane for the class.

I personally believe that I will receive more punishment for more serious sins. I don't have anything specific to base that on except my own personal feeling that I should be punished more severely for more serious sins.

I do remember discussing the 4 sins that cry out, can't remember which class now. I do remember that we discussed the definition of sodomy in that instance. We were taught that sodomy included any sexual act that didn't lead to procreation. So that would obviously include a lot of stuff done by heterosexuals as well. Much different than the definition we got in law school, which basically only called acts sodomy if they were not consensual.

[KnightofChrist]

[quote][quote]This council doesn't actually say there are different levels of hell, for the same line could be interpreted to read that those who die in the state of original sin and those who die in a state of mortal sin will experience different punishments.[/quote]

This violates what is called the principle of the limitation of act which simply states that when two things are in the same category of being and are different, one is by nature higher than the other.

God bless.

Fr. R.[/quote]

Edited July 14, 2008 by KnightofChrist

[rkwright]

Its common teaching, it belongs to "free opinions".