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how do today's theologians understand and explain Limbo?
-- anita gutierrez (eaortiz@yahoo.com), February 27, 1999Answers
Dear Anita,The word is rarely used these days. It has never been used in an official Church document as a teaching, so far as I know, although the Council of Florence referred to something like the idea about 600 years ago, without providing any details. Some theologians speculated that unbaptized infants, though deprived of the beatific vision, were still able to enjoy a perfect, natural happiness in the afterlife, and theologians referred to this possible state as limbo. In Vatican II and the Catechism, the Church does not go into this subject, but merely says that it is a good thing to have hope for the salvation of unbaptized infants in the afterlife. Does this help? Take care.
In Christ's love, Chris
-- chris B -- February 27, 1999.Chris,Chris, since the Bible never explicitly excludes infants from the necessity of baptism, we can reasonably conclude that it is God's will that we may be "hoping" against. Why would the Church teach one to hope that God's will be thwarted (assuming He wills them to Hell)? Shouldn't Catholics (and others) be hoping that God's will be done, whatever that is?
Respectfully,
David Harrison
-- David Harrison (sharr3193@aol.com), April 07, 1999.Hi. You wrote:{{{Chris, since the Bible never explicitly excludes infants from the necessity of baptism, we can reasonably conclude that it is God's will that we may be "hoping" against.}}}
On the contrary, the Bible is filled with implied exceptions. When Paul says that children are to obey their parents, he obviously doesn t mean if the parents tell them to commit a clear sin. When Paul tells Christians to obey the state, he obviously doesn t mean that they are to do so when the state tells them to commit a clear sin (such as idolatry). When James (I think it is) says that Christ s death reconciled ALL to Himself, he obviously does not include the Devil. So, too, when Jesus taught th necessity of water baptism in the Gospel of John, there are exceptions. The Catholic Church follows just what Aquinas says: God s hands are not tied to His sacraments.
{{{{Why would the Church teach one to hope that God's will be thwarted (assuming He wills them to Hell)?}}}
God wills no one to hell. Damnation is a result of a person s free will. God forsees that some will be damned, because he is outside of time, but He does not cause this.
-- chris B -- April 10, 1999.thinking about the problem of limbo i have come to some conclusions, and i hope to have the opinion of other catholics :1- God wants everyone to be saved (1 Tim 2,4)
2-the unbatized infants have comitted no personal sin, therefore they cannot go the hell.
3- for the same reason the cannot go to purgatory.
4- no hell, no purgatory, there si only one place to go: heaven.
-- ENRIQUE ORTIZ (eaortiz@yahoo.com), April 18, 1999.Dear Anita, In the world of today, you won't hear much about limbo because it presents a few very sticky problems for Catholic instructors. What we learned as children was that all unbaptized people, who led a good life, and all unbaptized babies went to limbo. They would then get another chance to come back to earth and learn about Jesus and be able to enter heaven upon death, if they were good. Since it is pretty obvious that they wouldn't be the same people, this brings up the question of reincarnation. I'm not trying to cloud the issue with ideas that they would come back as trees or animals, but as a new person with and old soul. This is what reincarnation means to me- the ability to return to earth with a new body and a soul that has been here before. I know the Catholic church doesn't believe in reincarnation, so what do they call it? I'm Catholic and I don't know. None of my religion teachers had an answer--any takers? Ellen
-- Ellen K. Hornby (dkh@canada.com), September 02, 1999.Ellen,With all due respect, your instruction concerning limbo was clearly deficient and does not reflect even authentic Catholic speculation on the nature of limbo. There is no hint of reincarnation taught anywhere in the Catholic faith and certainly nothing like what you just described.
-- David Palm (djpalm64@yahoo.com), September 02, 1999.Dear David, I was only stating what was taught in both catholic grade schools and catholic high schools about the purpose of limbo. This is back when I was in school, circa 1969. I took the information given to me, that souls unbaptized were not allowed in heaven, and asked what happened to them. I was told that they would get another chance to come to earth and learn about Jesus and at that at the point of their death, if they were good, having learned about Jesus this time, they were allowed to go to heaven. What were you taught about limbo? I am fully aware that the Catholic church does not cotton to reincarnation, but I'm not going to play a semantics game either. If gettting another chance to come to earth is not a reincarnation, then what is it? Do you have any information on limbo that could straighten this out? This is important to me as I have a son who died unbaptized and I have been told by many persons, both catholic and not, that he a)went to heaven b)went to hell(my fault, of course) c)went to limbo. What is limbo and how does it work? Ellen
-- Ellen K. Hornby (dkh@canada.com), September 02, 1999.Helen - this Catholic of 54 born in '45 was told limbo is state of neither purgatory or hell?? I recall as a child taught by Ursuline nuns this being confusing then and now. We had a thread on this subject in July which explored the area in depth I thought.My own surmised view was/is the theologians are out to lunch on their teaching and felt they had projected their own sense of sin on to a newborn. The slaughter of the innocents by Herod along with the debt paid by Christ's crucifixion annulled the said limbo. +Peace+
-- jean bouchardRC (jeanb@cwk.imag.net), September 02, 1999.We know that individuals must have sanctifying grace to be with God in heaven. We also know that the normal means by which individuals receive sanctifying grace is through baptism. So then it raises the question what happens to those who die without the sanctifying grace of baptism.In the case of adults, the Church has always taught that there is a "baptism of blood", i.e. martyrdom, and a "baptism of desire", that is the person would have been baptized if they had the chance, so God treats them as if they had been baptized. There are examples of these in Scripture.
Infants present a special case. Some have speculated that there is a "middle state", called limbo, in which these individuals live eternally in perfect happiness but without the full vision of God shared by those who received sanctifying grace. Others speculate that God simply "makes up the difference" for infants and provides them sanctifying grace (this is my view, Jeans' view I think, and now the majority view in the Church).
All of this is speculation; it has never been a part of Church dogma. There are those who think that the idea of limbo is "ridiculous". Well then, show us a definitive Scripture passage that tells us exactly what happens to those who die as infants. The Scriptures do not say what happens to them; we are left to speculate. The new Catechism says, rightly, that with trust we leave them to the infinite mercy and grace of God.
What confused me about your instruction was this idea that these individuals "come back" in a different body. I have never heard this and it has never been part of Catholic teaching.
God bless,
-- David Palm (djpalm64@yahoo.com), September 03, 1999.David - I think about the misinformation given to many these past thirty years is dreadful. I agree with you on re-incarnation??? I have patients who are terrible confused about their relgion and how it applies to daily living. I being one at times.Ellen - Sadly I feel you have been imprinted with some form(s) of feel good Catholic Religion. The New Covenant I believe closed the book on this type of speculation as we are told " rise on the last day " surely means what it implies.
I wonder of some priests are confusing their own " understanding " of the faith and passing this confusion on? Did the Jewish people believe in re-incarnation I wonder. Any thoughts on that?
-- jean bouchardRC (jeanb@cwk.imag.net), September 04, 1999.I agree word for word with the last response from David. Just as a literary appendix, it is interresting to note that Dante explains the limbo as the upper circle of Hell, and describes it some kind of beutiful garden. I shows that this isterpretation must have been current at his time (a most natural thing, as the concept of limbo is an escholastic one, I think). But I speculate much in the way of Dave, that is, that having His Hands not tied by the Sacraments, He probably concedes "baptism of desire" to these children, on behalf of their parents4 desire, of of a "would be" desire should the child not die.Jean, as far as I know, many Jews believed in Reincarnation, not as an "offical" doctrine but much in the same way as almost everybody here in Brasil belives in it (including our 95% "catholic" population). Spiritism is the most insidious religious plague here. With the raise of the fashion os "regression to previous lives", this has been being accepted as nothing less than both a scientific truth and an obviuos common-sense belief. That's amazing and, to tell the truth, very difficult to endure.
-- Atila (me@somewhere.com), September 06, 1999.
-- The Thread Restorer (Thread@Restoration.com), December 02, 2003
I have in the distant past, pondered upon the subject of limbo. I have always speculated limbo as a state of peaceful eternal sleep. Maybe a state where all the creatures apart from humans find their rest after death. The infants who die without baptism has neither done any wrong to suffer hell, nor die with any special grace or desire for God to merit heaven.Baptism makes them eligible for heaven because God takes into account the faith of the parents/godparents/believers, etc. and justifies the infant by proxy in the sacrament of baptism, until they are big enough to have their own conscience exercise their faith.
If unbaptized adults die having a strong desire for baptism, they are thought have obtained the same graces that of an baptized. If so, the same logic may apply to infants. If the parents intensely desired that their unbaptized infant be baptized and share in the true faith before the child died, then God in his mercy would justify the child just like any baptized child. But then the intensity of the intention unexpressed by a formal baptism can only be judged by God. Therefore, the church rightly commends these children to God's mercy without any specific judgement.
But, then the question arises, what about the state of innocent infants who die born of pagans who have no desire for God? I guess, the limbo is not totally out.
-- leslie john (leslie_jn@yahoo.com), December 05, 2003.
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