The Law (god's Law, Not The Civil Law)

[Justified Saint]

[quote]Does one who goes to Mass on Sunday honor or glorify God? Yes. Does God require this? No.[/quote]

If God doesn't require it then why does the Church? Yes, God does require it, but we should go because we want to honor and glorify God not because we feel we have to.

[Thy Geekdom Come]

[quote name='Justified Saint' date='Aug 22 2004, 04:44 PM']
If God doesn't require it then why does the Church? Yes, God does require it, but we should go because we want to honor and glorify God not because we feel we have to. [/quote]
Sorry, it's my connotation of the word "require". I use it in the context of requiring something for existence, which is the original intent of the word.

In the context of "require" as meaning "demand," then yes, God requires us to go to Mass on Sundays. I meant that He does not require it to exist...that is, He doesn't need us to go to Mass on Sundays.

[Justified Saint]

Ok, that makes sense. Thanks for the clarification.

[Thy Geekdom Come]

[quote name='Justified Saint' date='Aug 22 2004, 05:09 PM'] Ok, that makes sense. Thanks for the clarification. [/quote]
No problem.

[Guest JeffCR07]

Icthus, I hope that you will view the following thoughts as a legitimate reply to your post, though I admit that it may not seem as such.

I think that to view God's "Law" as a sort of unachievable standard that, by failing to live up to, forces us towards Christ out of fear of eternal damnation is a warped view of that Law.

I think to view it as such is to fall into that same sense of "legalism" that the Pharisees and Sadducees fell into.

Rather, the true "Law of God" is the Love of Christ, and it is a law inscribed upon the hearts of men. It is Faith, Hope, Love, and Charity. It is the inborn desire to do the Will of God in all things and at all times.

The Law is not an unattainable force of wrath and judgement. Rather, it is something that, when we embrace it and open ourselves to it, sets us free. It is that thing which combats the effect of original sin, our concupiscence, and corrects our flawed nature, that we might truly walk with God.

- Your Brother In Christ, Jeff

[ICTHUS]

[quote name='Raphael' date='Aug 22 2004, 03:18 PM'] I said that in following the law, we better prepare ourselves to accept Christ's graces.  It is not in following the law that we accept those graces, but only that we prepare ourselves to do so.  For instance, it is God's law to honor the Sabbath.  Does one who goes to Mass on Sunday honor or glorify God?  Yes.  Does God require this?  No.  Rather, our going to Sunday Mass increases our knowledge of how much we need God, increases our anticipation of Heaven, and increases our appreciation of God.  With such increases, we are better preparing ourselves to accept God' grace by our faith.  The law is to support our faith.  It is to protect us from the devil.  In protecting our faith from sin, it allows our faith to blossom and thus allows us to receive graces from God through that faith. [/quote]
Semi-Pelagianism, all!

Has anyone here read Martin Luther's "On the Bondage of the Will"?. This is the perspective I'm arguing from...

We are better preparing ourselves? So, our salvation comes partly from our own preparing ourselves, and partly from God? This is textbook semi-Pelagianism!

Edited August 23, 2004 by ICTHUS

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='ICTHUS' date='Aug 22 2004, 01:19 PM'] So, a Roman Catholic could agree with the idea that the Law chases us to Christ by fear of judgement, and we consequently take refuge in Him from said judgement? [/quote]
ICTHUS, can you contravene the moral law by committing fornication, adultery, bestiality, homosexual acts, murder, theft, etc., with impunity and still be saved? If you commit these acts are you a member of Christ?

One other thing to keep in mind is that the Mosaic Law and the Moral Law are not identical. The judicial and ritual precepts of the Mosaic Law have been fulfilled in Christ. Thus, those elements of the Mosaic Law are not binding on a man; instead, because Christ fulfilled the Law of Moses all of those elements have been kept by those who have been incorporated into His Body. But by the power of God's grace a man must keep the Moral Law, and so, he cannot commit the sins of the flesh and be in a state of grace, he cannot break the moral law and be in Christ. In other words, by the power of God's grace a man must keep the Moral Law, and when he does keep it, it is Christ who keeps the Moral Law, in, with, and through the justified man. All is by grace and yet man is not passive in his own salvation. [cf. Philippians 2:12-13]

[ICTHUS]

Galatians 3:23 says that the law was our disciplinarian for Christ.

A disciplinarian is one who disciplines - one who beats and threatens to beat, who curses at us (as the law curses those who fail to keep us).

So, why do we see the Law as something helpful? The ONLY purpose of the Law is KNOWLEDGE OF SIN, and consequently, God's wrath against such sin.

[ICTHUS]

[quote name='Apotheoun' date='Aug 23 2004, 05:30 PM'] ICTHUS, can you contravene the moral law by committing fornication, adultery, bestiality, homosexual acts, murder, theft, etc., with impunity and still be saved? If you commit these acts are you a member of Christ?

One other thing to keep in mind is that the Mosaic Law and the Moral Law are not identical. [/quote]
[quote]ICTHUS, can you contravene the moral law by committing fornication, adultery, bestiality, homosexual acts, murder, theft, etc., with impunity and still be saved?  If you commit these acts are you a member of Christ?[/quote] No. A person who does such things without repenting of them shows by their evil ways that they are not (nor ever were, for that matter) in Christ.

[quote]One other thing to keep in mind is that the Mosaic Law and the Moral Law are not identical.[/quote] Why? Show me Scripture that establishes this dichotomy.

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='ICTHUS' date='Aug 23 2004, 03:36 PM'] Galatians 3:23 says that the law was our disciplinarian for Christ.

A disciplinarian is one who disciplines - one who beats and threatens to beat, who curses at us (as the law curses those who fail to keep us).

So, why do we see the Law as something helpful? The ONLY purpose of the Law is KNOWLEDGE OF SIN, and consequently, God's wrath against such sin. [/quote]
ICTHUS, you are confusing the Mosaic Law, which had elements that were temporary, and the Moral Law, which must be kept by all men through grace.

[ICTHUS]

I'm confused. I thought that the whole law was intended to bring knowledge of sin, and God's judgement, so that we may be aware of our sin and come to Christ...

[Apotheoun]

Grace empowers man to act, and so it is not merely "divine favor." Thus, the man who has been incorporated into Christ's Body must live his life in the Spirit and power of God, for ". . . it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me." [Galatians 2:20] Grace is a supernatural and dynamic principle of life, it is the infusion of God's own life into man.

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='ICTHUS' date='Aug 23 2004, 03:42 PM'] I'm confused. I thought that the whole law was intended to bring knowledge of sin, and God's judgement, so that we may be aware of our sin and come to Christ... [/quote]
That is the Reformers view of the Law (but they often confuse the Mosaic Law and the Moral Law), but that is not the view of anyone prior to them. The Mosaic Law and the Moral law are not identical. No man can live an immoral life and still be saved. [cf. 1 Cor. 6:9-11]

Faith in Christ is not a license to commit sin.

[ICTHUS]

So, is any part of the Law intended to be our disciplinarian for Christ, to 'chase us to Christ', so to speak?

[Apotheoun]

The Mosaic Law was given only to the Hebrews, and so Luther's view of the (Mosaic) Law, i.e., that it was meant to convict all men of sin, makes no sense when talking to non-Jews. Luther's view can only make sense in a Jewish, or a medieval Christian context, and to think that Paul ran around preaching to the gentiles telling them that a Law which they never received has shown them that they are sinful, is really the height of lunacy. Paul preached Christ crucified and risen from the dead, and so he didn't give the gentiles he came across an education in the Torah before preaching Christ.