ok, people:
There's a lot to address, but I'm very happy with the good posts here.
First, please remember though, the request to be shown
Church Fathers that believe it is possible to get out of hell when one died in mortal sin.
A couple things Irish Hermit:
First on page one you stated you believe the fact that God struck the soldiers dead in Maccabees demonstrates that their sin was mortal.
Not necessarily.
The poor guy who tried to prevent the Ark of the Covenant from falling was also struck dead. I doubt that was a mortal sin. So it seems God strikes some people dead even if they didn't commit mortal sin.
Secondly you stated:
Quote from: elijahmaria on January 23, 2012, 04:58:15 AM
Quote from: Irish Hermit on January 22, 2012, 07:58:41 PM
Kaste, I have an uncomfortable feeling that you don't really want to hear what the Orthodox believe.
Apparently St. Mark of Ephesus disagrees with you. Perhaps Kaste would prefer to follow that Church Father.
"But if souls have departed this life in faith and love, while nevertheless carrying away with themselves certain faults, whether small ones over which they have not repented at all, or great ones for which – even thought they have repented over them – they did not undertake to show fruits of repentance: such souls, we believe, must be cleansed from this kind of sin, but not by means of some purgatorial fire or a definite punishment in some place (for this, as we have said, has not been handed down to us). But some must be cleansed in the very departure from the body, thanks only to fear, as St. Gregory the Dialogist literally shows; while others must be cleansed after the departure from the body, either while remaining in the same earthly place, before they come to worship God and are honored with the lot of the blessed, or – if their sins were more serious and bind them, for a longer duration – they are kept in hell, but not in order to remain forever in fire and torment, but as it were in prison and confinement under guard."
First Homily: “Refutation of the Latin Chapters concerning Purgatorial Fire”
St. Mark of Ephesus
This will not do since St. Mark clearly shows that these souls died in faith and love and so are in a state of venial sin. So the hell they go to is not the same eternal hell that mortal sinners go to. St. Mark says this continually.
Thirdly you have good points about the Catholic Church changing its teachings. When I told a Catholic cleric this he became mad. They don't like to have to admit their Church erred, when they haven't been given the green light yet by the Pope to do so.
K