OneForTruth Posted October 13, 2007 Share Posted October 13, 2007 Why do Catholics seem to be so afraid of this doctrine? It is very clearly spelled out for us in Romans 3-5. At the same time, the objections that I usually find ringing from those Catholics that I engage in this discussion seem to follow the same tone of Romans 6:1,15... Ro 6:1 What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? Ro 6:15 What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid. Paul is addressing his critics...are you his critics? I do not mean to try to sound offensive here but only wish for you to explain why you cannot see justification as a past event that has taken place in the life of the elect Christian where he was justified by faith apart from works. In Christ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hyperdulia again Posted October 13, 2007 Share Posted October 13, 2007 Silly Catholics. Don't you know we is unda da blood! Do whatever you want, just believe in your hearts and you are saved! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OneForTruth Posted October 13, 2007 Author Share Posted October 13, 2007 [quote name='hyperdulia again' post='1401742' date='Oct 13 2007, 02:32 PM']Silly Catholics. Don't you know we is unda da blood! Do whatever you want, just believe in your hearts and you are saved![/quote] I guess there is a misunderstanding...I would typically get the objection...let us go sin all we want then!! This was the objection that Paul was trying to respond to...this is what justification by faith alonie seems to imply. I once came to Christ when I renounced all self-righteousness and realized myself to be completely unable to commend myself to God with any works that I might do...I repented from sin and turned to Christ as Lord and Savior...this being all God's work by His Spirit and the Word...I was justifified and received the death of Christ AND His righteousness. I was born again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hyperdulia again Posted October 13, 2007 Share Posted October 13, 2007 I must admit I din't read your scriipture quotes. If we properly understand the meanings of the word faith and justification, Catholic Christians have no problem giving assent to justification by faith alone. If faith is understood as inseperable from holiness of life, then yes I can stand with my Protestant brothers and sisters and the whole of Christian Tradition and say yes Faith working through grace will save/is saving/has saved me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dairygirl4u2c Posted October 13, 2007 Share Posted October 13, 2007 James 2: for it is by works that you are justified, and not by faith alone. the only place that "faith alone" ever surfaces in the bible, ironically. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dairygirl4u2c Posted October 13, 2007 Share Posted October 13, 2007 [url="http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/contra/faithalone.html"]http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/contra/faithalone.html[/url] John 5:29 And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation. [quote]QUOTE Rom 5:18 Therefore as by the offence of one [judgment came] upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one [the free gift came] upon all men unto justification of life. galatians.... "for it is by grace that ye are saved, not of works, lest any man should boast" or is that ephisians v. QUOTE Sheep and the goats…. Matthew 25 Rom 2:4-84] Or do you presume upon the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience? Do you not know that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? [5] But by your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment will be revealed. [6] For he will render to every man according to his works: [7] to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; [8] but for those who are factious and do not obey the truth, but obey wickedness, there will be wrath and fury. -------only for the jews? [9] There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, [10] but glory and honor and peace for every one who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek.[/quote] those are really what the debate comes down to. there are other works passage and other passages cited, but they are all ambiguous as to which side it comes down on. at least as per those protestants that beleive that works are required.... just that they do not justify or save. (remember catholics believe they justify, and ultimatley even if final grace is purely a gift it's still based on the fact of your justification.... i think, isn't it? i guess if a prots isn't based on the justification of a person, then the justification of the person in catholic theology could be incidental to the final grace but required in much the same way works are required but incidental to prot theology salvation) [quote]an interesting idea. so prots say grace is not grace if you have to cooperate. but, even prots beleive in sanctification. is that sanctification through human effort alone, or does it require grace cooperating? i think she'd have to agree it's cooperating with grace, and grace is not negated just because cooperation.[/quote] [quote]even if santification is essentially the same in both prot and catho circles, except that the sanctification adds to teh justification of catholics. you need to be justified to be saved right? even if they are not the same thing. and even if in the end you cannot justify your self completely even when cooperating with grace. you must cooperate to get to the final grace of justification. maybe prots should say cooperate instead of work, as catholics tend to get hung up on the word "works". if you must cooperate to be justified, even if its' just a technical difference between the two groups, then you could argue that goes against.... galatians.... "for it is by grace that ye are saved, not of works, lest any man should boast" or is that ephisians of course catholics say it's not works, ie not works without the grace of God. but saying you're cooperating wit the grace could be argued as essentially going against the passage. hence prots saying the cooperation with grace thing is a subtle but damnable heresy. of course, the catho view isn't that far off. especially given all the works passages cited here, and James. speaking from a catholic perspective, that ephisians verse in my last post is a thorn in the side. but from a rational perspective, how can so much rest on that one verse? i think i could say this, because without that one verse, it's debatable the faith and works debate, reasonably. i'd even lean towards to works arguments. theoretically speaking. can anyone else argue from the catholic perspective without esentially saying... "it's not "works"... it's "cooperating"[/quote] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PapaHilarious Posted October 13, 2007 Share Posted October 13, 2007 [quote name='OneForTruth' post='1401708' date='Oct 13 2007, 12:31 PM']Why do Catholics seem to be so afraid of this doctrine? It is very clearly spelled out for us in Romans 3-5. At the same time, the objections that I usually find ringing from those Catholics that I engage in this discussion seem to follow the same tone of Romans 6:1,15... Ro 6:1 What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? Ro 6:15 What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid. Paul is addressing his critics...are you his critics? I do not mean to try to sound offensive here but only wish for you to explain why you cannot see justification as a past event that has taken place in the life of the elect Christian where he was justified by faith apart from works. In Christ...[/quote] Oh, my friend, your finger-pointing is once again getting old, even if you try to soften it with saying you're not trying "to sound offensive." As has [u]already[/u] been pointed out to you in other threads, the vast majority of the millions of Protestant Christians around the world do not agree with your Calvinist or other Reformist doctrines, nor do any of the millions of Orthodox Christians. Trying to label biblical interpretations that disagree with you as false holds no water in the least, as you have no authority to claim an inspired interpretation over any other Christian. All your assertions that "the text clearly reads" is preposterous, because not only do 30,000 denominations disagree about much of what you're saying, so do many others who call themselves Christians, like the LDS church and the JWs. You have many problems with your [i]works don't matter[/i] view of salvation, even if you're trying to argue it simply from Paul. Yes, he puts much emphasis on faith over works to chastise people who were clinging to the Old Law and lacking faith. However, when he discusses the theological virtues in 1 Corinthians 13:13, which does he put first? [quote]So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.[/quote] [b]Love is even greater than faith![/b] And what is the greatest example of love? Jesus tells us in John 15... [quote]This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you.[/quote] So [u]love[/u] is greater than faith and the [u]greatest love[/u] is laying down your life for another. Sacrificial love, or agape. [b]Here the Bible clearly shows that faith is not the entirety of salvation.[/b] Martin Luther and some of the Reformers wanted to eliminate the book of James as being too Catholic. (Though they were successful in getting other Protestants to push some Old Testament books to an appendix and eventually remove them hundreds of years later, they fortunately had a much harder time convincing anyone to start chopping up the New Testament.) James 2: [quote]What does it profit, my brethren, if a man says he has faith but has not works? [u]Can his faith save him[/u]? If a brother or sister is ill-clad and in lack of daily food, and one of you says to them, "Go in peace, be warmed and filled," without giving them the things needed for the body, what does it profit? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead. But some one will say, "You have faith and I have works." [u]Show me your faith apart from your works, and I by my works will show you my faith[/u].[/quote] Some Protestants are so put off by what they read in these passages that they STILL try to use the old trick of convincing people they are not as inspired as the words of Paul (excluding where he says love is above faith, of course). The late Reverend Dr. Gene Scott, for example, taught that the book of James was flat-out wrong and that James was a heretic. I surely hope that's not the argument you're trying to make too. The main mistake you're making here is thinking that because you hear the word "works," either from the Scripture or from other Christians who disagree with your position, that it somehow implies that works ALONE save us. That has never been a teaching of the Universal Church. Our agape love, the sacrificial works we do for others, go hand and hand with our faith, an expression of its sincerity. Faith is the building-block, the cornerstone, the beginning of our salvation. But just as the Patriarchs are the beginning of our story of faith, they are not the entirety of it. Salvation began in their faith and works, but was not concluded in them. To pick one passage of Scripture and try to pit it against another is an old, fruitless struggle. As discussed in other threads, Jesus said [u]so much[/u] about salvation, as we learn from the conclusion to the Gospel of John, that it could not even be contained in 27 NT books. That's why it's always important to follow ALL of Scripture and not just the verses and books you like. James and Paul (and Jesus for that matter, who said he came not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it) do not disagree about the importance of faith. That they have unique perspectives and come at the issue from different angles for different audiences is part of what makes our Bible so rich and durable. To be fair, I once asked the questions you asked and made the claims you make, so I can relate. But what you have to be careful of is whether you're doing this to win arguments or to seek Truth. If you really search the Scriptures for Truth and dialogue with your Christian brothers for the same, you will find yourself continually drawn closer to it. One of the best examples I can give, besides my own journey (which you can read about in my [url="http://www.lulu.com/content/861316"]book[/url], of course) is the recent movement among some of the original Reformist churches, like the Lutherans, to dialogue with the Church about our views on faith and salvation. And over the past few decades believe it or not, there was significant progress made. Now that much of the smoke and subterfuge of the old heated finger-pointing has died down, it turns out that we really do have a lot of common ground when it comes to the idea of faith and the need for charitable love, even if we never knew it. God bless. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Starets Posted October 13, 2007 Share Posted October 13, 2007 The only time I can recall seeing "by faith alone" in the Bible, it is preceded by the word "not". What part of "not" do you not understand? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OneForTruth Posted October 13, 2007 Author Share Posted October 13, 2007 Is “justification” in James the same as the “justification in Romans?? The answer is no. You are comparing apples and oranges. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GodChild Posted October 13, 2007 Share Posted October 13, 2007 [quote]Why do Catholics seem to be so afraid of this doctrine?[/quote] I am not afraid of this doctrine (then again I don't consider myself a catholic) - that I am loved and saved by God's grace and His faith in me is what lets me rest easy at night - rather than constantly thinking "have I gone to confession enough?, have I said enough Divine Mercy chaplets? Have I said enough Hail Mary's, have I said enough prayers with 300 days indulgence?" - Thank God I'm out of that routine What I believe, and how I understand the Bible (and I am not an expert) is that GOD is my justification. I pray in the words of St Therese - God, when I die I take YOU as my sanctity, my justice, my glory Yet, though this is a free gift (cause we can never earn it or merit it) we should receive it with [[b]b][/b]LIVING[/b] faith - not a dead faith. A "living" faith is faith in God - faith is not just believing - it is trusting - and living faith flows over into our actions. Namely how can you tell if someone is of God or not - judge them by their [b]fruit[/b] A "dead" faith does not save you - and many ppl have a dead faith ... lots of big prayers, lots of bible quoting, lots of feeling holier than others, lots of praising themselves "thank God I'm not like that person ... im humble, i'm holy" - whatever I think a faith like that is a sin against God - a sin against the Holy Spirit that will never be forgiven???? (anyone know if thats true or not?) I think that's what St James was addressing - there were many ppl with a "dead" faith that began and ended with their words The faith God desires, and St Paul was writing about (i think) - is [b]living [/b]faith, that begins with a [i]word[/i], transforms the [i]heart[/i] and bears much [i]fruit[/i] thats my 2c Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mortify Posted October 13, 2007 Share Posted October 13, 2007 Justification is a past event in the sense that we were justified when we were baptized, but it's really an ongoing "process," not in the sense that we are working towards receiving justification, but in the sense that we must continually cooperate with the Holy Spirit to foster and protect the justified state we received. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mortify Posted October 13, 2007 Share Posted October 13, 2007 [quote name='GodChild' post='1401924' date='Oct 13 2007, 06:18 PM']rather than constantly thinking "have I gone to confession enough?, have I said enough Divine Mercy chaplets? Have I said enough Hail Mary's, have I said enough prayers with 300 days indulgence?" - Thank God I'm out of that routine [/quote] I've never met anyone who thinks this way. Confession is a beautiful sacrament that allows us to reintegrate ourselves into Jesus *after* we have fallen. It's beautiful hearing the words of Christ through the Priest, "I absolve you of your sins..." Divine mercy chaplet is a devotion to God's Loving Mercy, the whole point is to foster our awareness of God's love. We don't see an "X number of days" attached to indulgences anymore precisely because people misunderstood them to mean a number of days out of purgatory. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Starets Posted October 13, 2007 Share Posted October 13, 2007 [quote name='OneForTruth' post='1401914' date='Oct 13 2007, 06:54 PM']Is “justification” in James the same as the “justification in Romans?? The answer is no. You are comparing apples and oranges.[/quote] I would say the answer is "yes" in that they are two aspects of the same thing. Not seeing that is how James can be an "Epistle of Straw" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PapaHilarious Posted October 14, 2007 Share Posted October 14, 2007 [quote name='OneForTruth' post='1401914' date='Oct 13 2007, 04:54 PM']Is “justification” in James the same as the “justification in Romans?? The answer is no. You are comparing apples and oranges.[/quote] My friend, your attempt to skirt around what James [u]actually[/u] says is not surprising, considering "Faith without works is dead" is a complete contradiction to what you are proposing. I notice that you have so much to say when you're on the attack (cutting and pasting from previous conversations as Mateo el Feo has shown), but little to nothing to say when other Phatmassers show the many flaws in Calvin's theories. [quote](Mateo el Feo @ Oct 13 2007, 02:05 PM) PS: I noticed that some of your previous posts were also cut-and-pastes of posts you had previously made here at Phatmass and on Catholic.com's forum. Were they originally your words, or were they taken from someone else, too? BTW, this is what I'm referring to: [url="http://www.google.com/search?q=%22If+God%2...en&fiddler=0"]http://www.google.com/search?q=%22If+God%2...en&fiddler=0[/url] (PapaHilarious's response...) Thanks for pointing this out. I was wondering, too, why our friend wasn't addressing the specific passages I mentioned. No response about authority to settle disputes... No response about authority to interpret Scripture... No response about Jesus saying belief AND baptism necessary for salvation... No response about Paul putting love about faith in 1 Corinthians... No response about Jesus willing [u]all[/u] to himself in Matthew 23... No response to tradition of the Apostles in 2 Thes 2:15... Etc, etc, etc...[/quote] Not sure why you won't tell us why your (or Calvin's) interpreation of Scripture is any more valid than the 30,000 other Protestant intreptations or the Orthodox or the Catholic or even what you would consider more radical groups like Mormons or JWs? I suspect it's because if you answer this question honestly, you know that the best you could do is say that any believer can open up the Bible and see things [i]clearly.[/i] That, unfortunately, leaves little room for disagreement amongst believers (Protestant or otherwise), unless the Holy Spirit is schizophrenic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dairygirl4u2c Posted October 14, 2007 Share Posted October 14, 2007 all he's got to do is admit it's not clear. if he admitted that, thatwouldn't mean his position on the specific matter of faith and works is wrong though. i think both him and you all need to be sure to realize that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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