Inculpable Ignorance

[Veridicus]

Following my previous inquiry, I would like an explanation of how inculpable ignorance really works? Obviously we have to entrust to the grace of God those who live and die in a true 'inculpable ignorance' (like native Americans before the missionaries arrived or the unborn); but at what point in the modern world does this excuse cease to have meaning? I mean look at the United States just as one example...how many people are so isolated that they've never heard of the Catholic Church? With the proliferation of internet usage, how does anyone truly have the 'ignorance' card to play anymore? I have a very difficult time because I've challenged my protestant friends on their belief, but they persist and resist giving Catholic Theology (despite being forced to see the fallacies of their own...)...would these friends have been better off if I would have NEVER challenged them? Woudl they have then been able to use the "inculpable ignorance" card for not joining the true Church?

I guess really what I'm asking is, at what point to ignorance become 'culpable' because of arrogance, bigotry, or hardness-of-heart? Because I just can't fathom that there are that many people who have never heard of the Catholic Church before...and if they haven't given it a genuine look in search of truth...is that not simply hardness of heart?

[Thy Geekdom Come]

[quote name='Veridicus' post='1770033' date='Feb 2 2009, 05:46 PM']Following my previous inquiry, I would like an explanation of how inculpable ignorance really works? Obviously we have to entrust to the grace of God those who live and die in a true 'inculpable ignorance' (like native Americans before the missionaries arrived or the unborn); but at what point in the modern world does this excuse cease to have meaning? I mean look at the United States just as one example...how many people are so isolated that they've never heard of the Catholic Church? With the proliferation of internet usage, how does anyone truly have the 'ignorance' card to play anymore? I have a very difficult time because I've challenged my protestant friends on their belief, but they persist and resist giving Catholic Theology (despite being forced to see the fallacies of their own...)...would these friends have been better off if I would have NEVER challenged them? Woudl they have then been able to use the "inculpable ignorance" card for not joining the true Church?

I guess really what I'm asking is, at what point to ignorance become 'culpable' because of arrogance, bigotry, or hardness-of-heart? Because I just can't fathom that there are that many people who have never heard of the Catholic Church before...and if they haven't given it a genuine look in search of truth...is that not simply hardness of heart?[/quote]

Ignorance becomes culpable at a point that can only be known to God and could vary given individual circumstances. Sure, there are many Americans who have heard of the Catholic Church. For some, what they know of the faith should be enough to convince them, and that grace is not utilized by them. For some others, the same knowledge may not be enough to convince them. The issue at hand is that for a person to be culpable of ignorance, that person has to have had the grace they required offered to them and rejected it. The problem arises in the fact that we can't know what specific grace a particular person needs. One man may be "not far from the kingdom of God" and hears that one last thing that pushes him over the edge into faith. Another man may be in the same place, but may not ever receive that specific gift of grace, that bit of evangelization, that would help him see the truth of the faith. One aspect that helps one to believe may not be the same issue that is keeping another person from embracing the faith.

The reason a person does not accept the faith can be known only to that soul and to God. What I can say is that if that person was offered the chance that gift brings to know and accept the faith and rejected it with sound mind (understanding what that gift was) and free will (choosing to reject it freely), then that person is terribly culpable for a lack of conversion. So you probably see a parallel here between culpable ignorance and mortal sin. It goes back to basics: in order for us to be culpable, we have to know better and do it anyway. In the case of rejecting the grace of faith, one would have to know that the faith (fides quae, "the faith which" we believe) is right and choose to reject it freely. Of course, we believe that God offers all the chance to accept the fides qua ("faith by which," or the gift of the virtue of faith, as opposed to "the" faith).

Then the question becomes: how much of the faith must a person be exposed to until that person is on the brink between accepting and rejecting? Again, though, that can only be known in the realm of conscience, which though formed by grace and the work of God (and in this case especially, prevenient grace), we cannot judge as outsiders.

So this is one of those cases where the Church gives us basic principles. It is up for the individual, the conscience (at whatever level of formation, since pretending not to know something is wrong isn't really an act of conscience and therefore can't excuse), and God to figure out the culpability.

I realize that this leaves us in virtually the same spot as before, but still, I hope it helps.

God bless,

Micah