Here are the Pope's actual words. The words "heaven", "salvation", and "saved" don't even appear in the text. How anyone could conclude from this that Pope thinks atheists can work their way to heaven ... beats me.
He's not the theologian BXVI was, I'll grant you, but give the man a little credit: he knows what Pelagianism is, and why it's wrong.
Hmmm...
Now it makes sense. I was confused, that Pope would ever say one could be saved by works.
Thnx
Thanks for the link.
However, these apparently "off the cuff" remarks, while not being a formal theological teaching, nor actually stating atheists can work their way to heaven, are nonetheless in error taken at face value.
The fact that Christ died for all does not translate into all being redeemed and thus God being children of God and the father of atheists. Instead, Scripture teaches that before regeneration, all were "children of wrath," (Eph. 2:3)_ and those who are not true Christians are "children of the devil," (1Jn. 3:10) whom the Lord stated the opposing Jews were of. (Jn. 8:44)
In addition, the idea of Francis that the apostles (Mk. 9:38,39; cf. Lk. 9:49,50) “were a little intolerant,” closed off by the idea of possessing the truth, convinced that “those who do not have the truth, cannot do good,” is not the actual case, as rather than these 3rd party types being portrayed as souls who do not have the truth, they were casting out devils in Jesus name (which did not work for the vagabond Jews in Acts 19:13), and the disciples objection was that they were not physically part of their group. Thus the rebuke of the Lord is against a sectarian spirit rather than correcting the idea that who do not have the truth about Christ cannot go good, which is an extreme that is unlikely the apostles held to.
Moreover, the idea that,
"The Lord created us in His image and likeness, and we are the image of the Lord, and He does good and all of us have this commandment at heart: do good and do not do evil. All of us. ‘But, Father, this is not Catholic! He cannot do good.’ Yes, he can. He must. Not can: must! Because he has this commandment within him; ignores the reality that being made in the image of the Lord, and who died for them, does not mean they must do good. For in dealing with this subject, Paul warns that, contrary to souls "who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality," are souls who "are contentious and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness," who shall suffer "indignation and wrath." (Rm. 2:7,8)
Along with this, the idealistic exhortation,
"If we, each doing our own part, if we do good to others, if we meet there, doing good, and we go slowly, gently, little by little, we will make that culture of encounter: we need that so much. We must meet one another doing good. ‘But I don’t believe, Father, I am an atheist!’ But do good: we will meet one another there,”
presumes the atheist has the same basis for doing good, yet his basis is objectively baseless, rejecting any supreme transcendent moral authority which he claims to be bound to, and instead the atheist is the supreme judge, and can easily justify what seems "reasonable" to him . As Mao, Pol Pot and others exampled, doing like and worse than false religion can, as in using the sword against theological dissidents. However, note that DaveMSmith is part of the Swedenborgian cult and which was countered extensively in such threads as here and here (and scroll up both pages) .
Hmmm...”let us ask of her this grace, this grace that all, all, all people would do good and that we would encounter one another in this work, which is a work of creation, like the creation of the Father. A work of the family, because we are all children of God, all of us, all of us!”
But we are NOT all children of God. Doing “good” doesn’t make you a child of God, unless by good you refer to this:
“Therefore they said to Him, “What shall we do, so that we may work the works of God?” Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent.” - John 6
“But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” - John 1
Those who do not repent and believe are in rebellion against God, refusing to acknowledge Him. They are NOT children of God, although they could, at any time prior to death, BECOME children of God by repenting and believing.
“As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”