It's pretty widely held, though, that in order to qualify for salvation one must first be baptized. It kind of gets you in the door, so to speak.
And baptism does involve a confession and repentance of sin.
Anyway, I'm pretty sure they gave up on Limbo a while ago.
Babies automatically qualify for salvation?
Accountability is generally accepted to be conditional on awareness and consent, and infants are capable of neither. I also like pointing to the Israelites forty years in the wilderness: The biblical basis is that, because the Israelites refused to enter Canaan when spies reported the natives apparent military supremacy, God decreed that none of them would EVER be allowed to enter, but would instead wander the wilderness until everyone above age twenty had died. What's interesting about that is that it means the Bible states God held the entire Israelite nation responsible for doubting Him and forbade them to ever enter Canaan BUT explicitly excused everyone under the age of consent. In essence, minors got a free pass. It could be argued that was because they had no say in whether to invade (notwithstanding the fact many of them would have been expected to participate), but I trust you see why I consider the incident a kind of precedent, or at least illustration of a principle.
How does that work together with original sin?
I can only give you my take (i.e. personal dogma that I'm not aware of any denomination affirming as official doctrine), but basically it comes down to the inherently negative effects of sin itself vs. the actual penalty contingent on knowingly indulging sin. My understanding of original sin is that Adam and Eves original sin introduced sin into a previously ideal world, not only earning them divine punishment for their acts, but inflicting sins inherently harmful effects, wholly apart from divine judgement, on the world (and, by extension, infected human flesh in particular with susceptibility to it). Original sin does NOT mean, as it's often understood to mean, that all of Adam and Eves descendants are guilty in Gods eyes of their initial sin. It DOES mean that their initial sin forever marred earths initial perfection and made it a place where truly awful things are now routine. The biggest, though not only, cause of that "banality of misery" is that because Adam and Eve infected their own bodies with sin, and because all their descendants are born into bodies directly produced from that flesh, every human being by definition inhabits a tainted vessel inevitably and continually separating man and God. That creates two phenomena:
1) Total depravity, of which you may have heard, and which makes isolation from God a certainty, along with eventual sin by anyone possessed of the awareness to be capable of it.
2) Suffering, decay and eventual death as a result of that isolation from the Creator and Sustainer of life.
Put more simply, I take original sin to mean sins presence in "carnal flesh" ensures isolation from God will bring everyone suffering and eventual PHYSICAL death, but SPIRITUAL deaths permanent total "separation from God" (the definition of Hell to which I subscribe) is due the fleshs susceptibility to temptation ensuring anyone capable of comitting their own sins ultimately will. Infants (among others) lack that capability and are thus not condemned by it (another function of Grace, I believe), but still inhabit the same corrupted flesh equally subject to physical suffering and death.
Hope that was reasonably coherent; again, just my take, I can't claim to represent anything more than my limited understanding of a matter on which there's little explicit doctrine and thus much debate. Interesting post to write while watching The Life of Brian, but since it's almost over and I've been up about 27 hours I think I should probably leave it there.
Honorbound and honored to be Bonded to Mahtaliel Sedai
Last First in wotmania Chat
Slightly better than chocolate.
Love still can't be coerced.
Please Don't Eat the Newbies!
LoL. Be well, RAFOlk.
Last First in wotmania Chat
Slightly better than chocolate.
Love still can't be coerced.
Please Don't Eat the Newbies!
LoL. Be well, RAFOlk.
This message last edited by Joel on 11/06/2011 at 08:16:48 PM
A question on baptism
10/06/2011 09:21:44 AM
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To my knowledge, baptism does not stem from the Resurrection.
10/06/2011 11:01:17 AM
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What I meant
10/06/2011 11:03:08 AM
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I don't follow.
10/06/2011 11:08:07 AM
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Re: I don't follow.
10/06/2011 11:10:40 AM
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I don't keep up with RC theology much.
10/06/2011 11:15:52 AM
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Re: I don't keep up with RC theology much.
10/06/2011 11:17:53 AM
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They should, IMHO, but the difficulty of definitively saying is why Limbo was created.
11/06/2011 10:39:26 AM
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Re: They should, IMHO, but the difficulty of definitively saying is why Limbo was created.
11/06/2011 11:53:53 AM
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It's complicated?
11/06/2011 08:14:06 PM
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You haven't necessarily developed a wrong impression.
10/06/2011 11:50:53 AM
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Re: You haven't necessarily developed a wrong impression.
10/06/2011 11:52:27 AM
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Re: You haven't necessarily developed a wrong impression.
10/06/2011 11:55:01 AM
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Re: You haven't necessarily developed a wrong impression.
10/06/2011 11:58:36 AM
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Re: You haven't necessarily developed a wrong impression.
10/06/2011 12:16:46 PM
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Re: You haven't necessarily developed a wrong impression.
10/06/2011 12:19:16 PM
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Re: You haven't necessarily developed a wrong impression.
10/06/2011 12:25:08 PM
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Re: You haven't necessarily developed a wrong impression.
10/06/2011 12:26:30 PM
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Re: You haven't necessarily developed a wrong impression.
10/06/2011 12:28:45 PM
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Re: You haven't necessarily developed a wrong impression.
10/06/2011 12:29:43 PM
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Circumcision remains common among Christians mostly for symbolic reasons as well.
11/06/2011 10:48:48 AM
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Hm, I don't know. I don't think I know any non-Jews who are circumsized that see it as a symbol
11/06/2011 04:44:02 PM
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I took a holy dip into the Ganges
10/06/2011 11:48:26 AM
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Early Christians and Jews were obsessed with purity
10/06/2011 12:56:58 PM
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Oh, I know about the historical/academic/anthropological reason
10/06/2011 01:04:43 PM
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A first responce
10/06/2011 02:09:32 PM
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Do you want a theological answer or a historical one?
10/06/2011 03:16:44 PM
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The theological. I already had a fairly good idea of the historical
10/06/2011 03:18:51 PM
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My favorite fact about baptism is that is REQUIRES water... but it can be ANY water
10/06/2011 04:31:12 PM
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That is absurd.
10/06/2011 08:37:13 PM
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It is absurd
10/06/2011 08:56:19 PM
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When your post is eviscerated, resorting to "HURR RELIGION IS DUMB" isn't a winning move.
10/06/2011 10:00:39 PM
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Psh.You can dress it up with spiritualism and semantics, but the concept boils down to "magic water"
11/06/2011 03:56:03 AM
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The point is that it's a symbol.
11/06/2011 04:45:19 AM
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I have no problem with water as a symbol
11/06/2011 04:59:52 AM
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You are totally missing the point.
11/06/2011 02:46:08 PM
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Which again, is something that sounds nice and spiritual, but doesn't actually make any sense
11/06/2011 03:46:51 PM
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your problem is you're trying to apply objective logic to religion
11/06/2011 04:13:01 PM
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I'm not, exactly. Religion has internal logic. For example, certain things are "unclean"
11/06/2011 04:40:33 PM
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Beliefs about holy water are internally logical.
11/06/2011 07:36:08 PM
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Shrug. It was on topic.
11/06/2011 08:06:16 PM
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The more I read of your posts, the more I think you fundamentally misunderstand religious symbolism. *NM*
11/06/2011 10:51:17 PM
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Let me clarify: your statements are absurd.
10/06/2011 10:14:06 PM
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Check my response to Ghav for elaboration, but basically, your argument doesn't hold
11/06/2011 04:00:18 AM
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You went from saying spit was good to saying "clean water".
12/06/2011 02:04:26 AM
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I'm completely consistent. I was just staying away from extremes for conversation's sake.
12/06/2011 09:02:02 AM
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No one from a respectable faith thinks of holy water as "magic water". Period. *NM*
13/06/2011 04:56:53 AM
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All I know, Is a Lutheran Pastor told me, b/c i was not baptised I was going to hell, and had *NM*
11/06/2011 03:44:38 PM
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I never thought of it in that way, that is why I like this site *NM*
12/06/2011 04:26:40 PM
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