thessalonian Posted July 7, 2004 Share Posted July 7, 2004 I asked the question on my other thread about scriptures and salvation. Hope you have weighed in on that one. Here is another question for non-catholics that interests me. I have been discussing Sola Scriptura with a protestant aquantence and asked him the other question that apparently some scriptures are uneccessary for salvation even though it is a protestant axiom of faith that the scriptures contain everything neccessary for our salvation. He accused me of believing in merritted salvation when I tried to explain the Catholic concept that we must "work out our salvation in fear and trembling" and that I was confusing sanctification and justification and quoted the verse "it is by grace that you are saved". I don't really want this to be one of those old justification threads. My question for you is where in the Bible does it say that man can sanctify himself? You see his implication is that somehow that by grace we are saved is a contradiction to working out our salvation. Yet in putting our works after justification in to the realm of sanctification, he is saying that we work out our sanctifiction. I would contend that sanctification is by grace as well and so it is a straw man to use the salvation is by grace alone arguement against the verse "work out your salvation in fear and trembling. Any takers Blessings Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chucho Posted July 7, 2004 Share Posted July 7, 2004 (edited) How de doo thessalonian? I'll take a swing at this one. "My question for you is where in the Bible does it say that man can sanctify himself?" "As all his ideas were chiefly rooted in the old, pagan philosophy, especially in the popular system of the Stoics, rather than in Christianity, he regarded the moral strength of man's will (liberum arbitrium), when steeled by asceticism, as sufficient in itself to desire and to attain the loftiest ideal of virtue." Pelagius (or Pelagian) said that man has free will therefore if I want to be saved, it becomes God's obligation to save me. In other words you decide to save yourself. Some protestants might say that this is similar to their claims about Catholics and merited salvation. One thing they need to remember or realize is that faith without works is really no faith at all. If this is true, then faith alone doesn't cut the mustard. Also it is notworthy that Pelagianism has been condemned as heresy by the Church, so any comparison between Pelagius' idea of salvation and salvation as given through the Church can't hold up. "The value of Christ's redemption was, in [Pelagius'] opinion, limited mainly to instruction (doctrina) and example (exemplum), which the Saviour threw into the balance as a counterweight against Adam's wicked example, so that nature retains the ability to conquer sin and to gain eternal life even without the aid of grace." And it continues, "By justification we are indeed cleansed of our personal sins through faith alone (loc. cit., 663, "per solam fidem justificat Deus impium convertendum"), but this pardon (gratia remissionis) implies no interior renovation of sanctification of the soul. " These are beliefs as given by Pelagius, something more fittingly protestant than Catholic. While Protestants believe in grace and Pelagian doesn't, the similarities are there. Certainly a person must will to be saved in order to be saved, but we do not believe that we obtain salvation simply because we will it. Why is this? It is because we know that we must "work out our salvation in fear and trembling." If we only had to have faith to be saved and say we've been saved because of our faith alone, then is that any different than salvation by a simple act of the will? This doesn't touch on the other points of your post, but I'll give it some thought. Works Cited [url="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11604a.htm"]http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11604a.htm[/url] Edited July 7, 2004 by Chucho Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thessalonian Posted July 8, 2004 Author Share Posted July 8, 2004 bump Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thessalonian Posted July 8, 2004 Author Share Posted July 8, 2004 Common you ES OSAS people. I know your out there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DojoGrant Posted July 8, 2004 Share Posted July 8, 2004 Thess, Are you the same Thess from BaptistBoard? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neal4Christ Posted July 8, 2004 Share Posted July 8, 2004 I was wondering the same thing, Grant! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DojoGrant Posted July 9, 2004 Share Posted July 9, 2004 He's already Church Militant too! That was fast! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ironmonk Posted July 9, 2004 Share Posted July 9, 2004 [quote name='DojoGrant' date='Jul 8 2004, 10:09 PM'] He's already Church Militant too! That was fast! [/quote] Thess is a good friend of mine. He taught me a lot... he was with me on a prot board, we were defending our Mother against at least 50 different anti-Catholics. He is the one on Baptist Board. God Bless, ironmonk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DojoGrant Posted July 9, 2004 Share Posted July 9, 2004 Well, while I apologize for hijacking the thread... Hey Thessalonian! It's GraceSaves from BB! :-D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thessalonian Posted July 9, 2004 Author Share Posted July 9, 2004 (edited) Oh, excuse me. Wrong guy I was thinking of. There was a grace saves on another board. How ya doing grant. It's me. Did you get booted from BB also? For speaking the truth. Edited July 9, 2004 by thessalonian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thessalonian Posted July 9, 2004 Author Share Posted July 9, 2004 Good to see you over hear as well neal. I got booted from BB. I post here once in a while. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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