Posted on 01/16/2006 6:00:21 AM PST by NYer
Look, I'm not bashing Catholismm here, I'm trying to grasp why Catholics look at scripture the way they do (with all this extraneous focus) and why they have this need to have others tell them what to think of scripture.>>>
Because we take seriously that Christ didn't freeze His thought in time but spread it through eternity via His chosen disciples.
Even the New Testament was 300 + year in the making, so "solo scriptura" is nonsense on its face.
It's truly amazing to me that the first post of this thread is from Nyer and attached to the Original article, the second is her ping list and a post about the doctrine being wrong is the third.
Well, at least you had the decency to put it as a question.
He "gets it"!
>> Why quote something a Pope said that has absolutely NOTHING to do with salvation? <<
Because many Catholics -- the intended audience of this writing -- may believe that the Pope is asserting some novel *interpretation* of scripture. The author is making clear that this interpretation is not new with Pope Benedict XVI.
The intent of this article is not convince anyone certainty of the Pope's statement, but to defuse an ad-hominem counterargument:
Catholics have witnessed Protestants cite opposing scripture passages on just about every issue you can imagine. If they can be made to believe that the Pope is stating a doctrine which contradicts past church teachings, it may be very easy to make a successful ad-hominem attack against the teaching: the devil also quotes scripture.
Christ gave us the entirety of the Holy Tradition and instructed His Church to keep it in perpetuity. The Church obeyed Him and produced the Holy Scripture, the Holy Liturgy, and works - verbal and iconographic -- of the Fathers. Our teacher is Christ Whose whole Person is the Word. It is not the scripture alone and in isolation of the entire written and unwritten Tradition, but that Tradition as a whole, which is sustained by the Church.
Sola Scriptura, -- the conceit that a certain part of the written tradition is sufficient and can be understood alone -- is a recent innovation that signaled a separation of a large number of people from the mystical body of Christ. Lost sheep without a shepherd, they cut themselves off the living Church, and gradually lost the understanding of the subset of the Canon that they once perhaps had. We do not want to repeat their plight.
"Does Good will equal salvation?"
Well, let's look at that question carefully. Let's presume you are talking about truly good will, not self-deceiving rationalization. Could truly good will come from the devil? Is not God the author of all good things?
Next question: Is it possible to have a good will apart from Christ? No.
But is it possible to have a good will without knowing the name of Christ? Well, there's Moses and Abel and the prophets...
OK, could a gentile have a good will without knowing the name of Christ? Well, there's the three wise men, Naomi, Cyrus of Persia, and in the opinion of the Church fathers, even such people as Plato, "the prophet to the Greeks."
OK, could a gentile born after Christ have a good will without knowing the name of Christ? Well, now we have a problem with sola scriptura, since there are no people in the bible who lived after Christ who were not known of by the Christians who wrote the bible. But if we know that Moses was redeemed without knowing the name of Christ, on what basis can we assert that a just person who sought righteousness, but was born in Indonesia in AD 35 could not be redeemed without knowing the name of Christ?
The reason the question is a prickly one is because the natural follow-up question: If people can be redeemed without knowing the name of Christ, why should we teach people about Christ?
Well, for starters:
1. Jesus told us to.
2. Christians, a knowledge of Christ, and most significantly, the grace given through the sacraments, are means of avoiding sin. A person may discern God's will through nature (Romans 1), but such graces as the Church confers are means to discern that will clearer, combat temptation, and resist the confusion and lies of Satan.
3. Jesus is a healer of souls. Does compassion not compel us to heal the sick?
4. The church is the means through which Jesus acts that the souls who go to Hades without knowing Him will be raised up to Heaven. "Apon this Rock I shall build my Church, and the Gates of Hades shall not withstand it." Bringing people to Jesus strengthens the Church.
5. Luther chopped this out of the bible, so Protestants don't like to hear this, but God actually likes us to participate in atonement for sin (2 Maccabees). Such a participation makes us understand better God's love for us. That is why (even in the censored, Protestant bibles) Jesus commands those who would follow him to take up their crosses. If atonement has an effect, is the world not better if there is less to atone for?
6. By spreading the word, reducing the sins that must be atoned for, and bringing an opportunity to respond to God's love to all people, we allow Jesus to act through us to establish the Kingdom of Heaven.
>> 6 <<
And yes, it is Jesus who is the author of our will to allow his work... I do not use the phrasing "we allow Jesus" to suggest that our action is more important than Jesus', but because the listing of our actions requires grammatically to make "we" the subject of the sentence.
The above is a blasphemous statement. God's justice isn't for sale by performing works of penance, or any meritorious thought we might have. The ONLY method one may obtain salvation is as a gift of grace from God. When we have a purely NON-MERITORIOUS faith in our Lord and Savior, Christ Jesus, then our faith is identical to that of Christ. When we believe in God through Christ, God's perfect justice is free to give us by grace, salvation from condemnation. Salvation doesn't depend upon our morality. it is dependednt upon God, and our remaining in fellowship with Him by adjusting to His justice by putting o the mind of Christ.
God is perfectly holy. His holiness is comprised of perfect righteousness and perfect justice. Whereever he encounters unrighteousness, His perfect righteousness demands perfect justice.
Whenever we think we are performing good in order to receive favor, we fail to put on the mind of Christ. Gospel and our Lord and Savior Christ Jesus have provided a method by which we may understand, namely through faith in God, which is non-meritorious and is frequently manifest in our works.
Kolokotronis in 14 also noted, correctly, that the choice of words is not the best, as we associate merit with an exchange transaction, when salvation obviously is not. However, here "merit" is clearly put in the context of lifelong faith and charitable works; the sovereignty of God in granting salvation is clearly stated. The statement is consistent with what the Church has always taught, that robust faith and works of charity are necessary for salvation.
This is true, although the set of men who are able to lead a good life without faith in Christ is the null set, as their humanly good works, void of divine good is simply good for nothingness to be cast into the lake of Fire after the Great White Throne Judgment. This is a little fact that freemasons on many religious people fail to tell their juniors.
IMHO, I wouldn't go so far as to deny good of those who fail to have faith in Christ,...it's merely they have a knowledge of good and evil that isn't required for a relationship with God. On the contrary, many do-gooders confuse morality with having faith. I suspect there may be more carnal Christians and unbelievers who have succombed to a counterfeit God of good works due to their own intentions rather than a simple faith in Christ in even the least of things and will be quite surprised at either the bema seat or the Great White Throne Judgment.
"The statement is consistent with what the Church has always taught, that robust faith and works of charity are necessary for salvation."
To the extent that one understands that the works of charity are not some payment to God or for the piling up of merit but rather because charitable acts, properly undertaken, allow us to die a bit more to the self thereby becoming more receptive to grace which in turn leads to more "works" which lead to more dying to the self, which leads to becoming more receptive to grace, etc.
IMHO, the article goes much further to confuse believers who have fallen into religiousity and legalism into mistaken and confused notions. Rather than clarify the meanings of belief, faith, trustworthiness, doctrine, sanctification, life after salvation, and non-meritorious thinking, the article tends to encourage morality and now condoning any good in any environment as identifiable with God.
It might be noted that in every instance of Satan's falls in the Scripture, he was always promoting good and surrounded by perfect environment, yet in each case he failed to exhibit the mind of Christ and remain obedient to God by God's methods.
Do you mind giving me some Chapter and Verse references?
From my notebook..
Perfect environment is insufficient to provide a relationship with God on His grounds.
We only have to look at each time in Scripture where God reveals to us a perfect environment surrounding Satan when he suffers a fall due to his rebellion from God's will.
1) In eternity past, Lucifer became Satan upon declaring the 5 "I wills'. At that time Lucifer was the light bearer, highest of all angels at the time as a member of the order of the Morning Star. Arrogance explains Satan's fall. He became enamored with his beauty, with his genius, with his ability, with all the attention and approbation he received. As a result, he revolted against God and said, "I will be like the Most High God," Isa 14:12-14.
Lucifer resided in heaven at that time in a perfect environment, declared the five 'I wills' and was cast down from heaven with a third of the angels.
2) In the Garden of Eden, again God created a perfect environment, free of sin, and the Adversary as the serpent tempted Eve, who then tempted Adam who rebelled on his own volition from God's will and in his spiritual death he surely died. Satan then made lower still, to be trampled under the foot of man, but also enmity was placed the in the heart of man toward Satan.
The fall of mankind in the Garden duplicates the fall of Satan in the Garden of God, according to Ezek 28. In both cases, the fall occurred under conditions of perfect environment.
With the fall of Adam, Satan became the ruler of this world. That in itself is the explanation for a tremendous amount of suffering in this world, because Satan, though brilliant and a genius, does not have the capabilities of producing the perfect environment he intends to produce before the Second Advent and millennial reign of Christ.
3) Once again, when our Lord and Savior was on earth, the volition of Satan tempted our Lord. Later, when unsuccessful at tempting our Lord to fall, Satan influenced others around Him so that they would use every device they could conceive to tempt our Lord away from remaining faithful in His thinking in soul and spirit and body to the will of the Father.
Upon our Lord's descension into Hades, a consequence of His first death, a state of existence involving separation of his spirit from His body and soul, being returned to the Father, and his soul having been separated from the body by His fleshly death with the body going to the grave for three days, and His soul descending to Hades, now that same perfect soul in Hades perfect in de re and de dicto, unlocked the gates of Abraham's Bosom another perfect environment, that allowed the believers to ascend and come face to face with our Lord in heaven. In contrast, the authority of Satan to use death as a weapon upon man was again fallen even to the depths of Hades itself.
Once again, Satan is diminished after a series of temptation and sins, but in this case, our Lord and Savior bore the sins of all mankind, past, present and future, and they were imputed upon Him. Satan however had no part in that propitiation. God in His perfect justice provided grace to those who also shared the same faith and allowed them to ascend, while no action was necessary for the dual of the argument further lowered the status of Satan amongst even those he held by the threat of death.
God also demonstrates that perfect environment is not the solution to man's problem. The solution resides in man's mental attitude, in his thought pattern, and in his resultant decisions all directed toward relationship with God.
In the case of Abraham's Bosom, indeed a type of perfect environment, when believers resided their in faith, even more grace was extended and they also were raised.
4) Our Lord Jesus Christ supersedes Satan as the ruler of this world under His third royal title, King of kings and Lord of lords, the Bright Morning Star. He rules for 1000 years under perfect environment. When He returns to the earth, Christ brings with Him His royal family of God in resurrection bodies.
Satan led a revolt against the perfect environment of heaven in which he took one third of all angels, Rev 12:4.
The Bible describes this perfect environment of the Millennium in many ways: "The lion and the lamb shall lie down side by side." "The swords will be turned into plowshares, the spears into pruning hooks; man will learn war no more." "The child will put his hand in the cobra's den and pet cobras." "The desert will blossom like a crocus." "A child will be a child for 100 years." In most cases, except for capital punishment for criminals, death will take a holiday and everyone will live through the entire Millennium. Everyone will have perfect health. There will be no such thing as starvation. Though there will be a little crime (inevitable since the old sin nature still exists), there will be no jails since the enforcement of capital punishment will tremendously discourage most crime.
In contrast to the terrible violence during the Tribulation, the millennial reign of Jesus Christ will be one of perfect environment in every way.
The instigation of the Gog Revolution against God and the perfect environment of the Millennium is tantamount to Satan's admission of his guilt, the guilt of all fallen angels, and the proof of guilt of all unregenerate mankind
Rev 12:9, "And the great dragon was thrown down out of heaven, the serpent of ancient times who is called the devil and Satan, who deceived the entire inhabited earth; he was cast down to the earth and his angels were cast out with him."
Then there is a post-historic sentence carried out against Satan and all fallen angels when they are cast into the Lake of Fire forever, Rev 20:10. Unbelievers of the human race are resurrected and cast into the Lake of Fire forever, Rev 20:11-15.
Rather than attacking one another, let's remain in faith with our Lord Christ Jesus and search the Scripture for even more significance in this rarely taught doctrine. It's a nice reminder whenever some get too enthralled by worldly or carnal luxuries without faith in God (not appealing to either asceticism or a frantic search for counterfeit happiness, but simply occupied with how how Lord Christ Jesus gave us the perfect example of how we all shoulf solve problems in all our thinking and approaches to all situations.
Greetings in Christ! Ironically your screen name is the name of a bar i go past on the way home from work so i have a vision of a bulldog in my mind as i type...but i digress...a few respectful comments to your post..
You stated:
"Here's a thought: Jesus says, "I have other sheep that ye know not of," (displaying a regrettable use of dangling prepositions, tsk, tsk). Now I know that a lot of Christians are only too eager to explain that He meant the Gentiles, and that therefore they DO in fact know of the sheep of whom Jesus says "ye know not of." Personally, I'm content to say that Jesus is right and I don't know of all His sheep."
I agree that none of us would know who those sheep are to even claim to know is foolishness...However, we do have the Holy Spirit's inspired words to guide us to a reasonable conclusion to who is saved...we know that those who have faith in Christ as their Savior, confess their sins, etc will live with God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit in paradise...to say that those are are "ignorant" of Christ aka the Jew who doens't know Christ, is to de-value Christ's death and promise of life thru him is it not? For if it is possible that eternal life can be achieved apart from him him then those who don't know him should never try to know him for they are invinsibly "in"...I truly believe The Holy Spirit can fuel the flame of faith in Christ in anyone's heart...anywhere, anytime...but the need to believe in Christ as our savior is a doctrine throughout the oral and written traditions of the chruch. If we were discussing pre Christ, then faith in God's promise of an impending Savior, Christ, is still pointing the faithful, the believers to Christ, whether or not they knew his name.
You stated:
"Just as an exercise, "... all who believe in Him should not perish but have everlasting life" does not in itself necessarily imply that ONLY those who believe in Him can have everlasting life."
In regard to your use of John 3:16 for your point I would contend that if you continue the contextual meaning and include verses 17, 18 you will see the additional clarification that whoever does not believe is condemned...this tell us that those who do not believe + those who do believe = all who can either believe or not believe. There is no middle ground on this question, either you believe in Christ's promise or you don't...For those who are not familiar with the text see below:
"16For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son,[a] that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son."
Regards in Christ...
On a lighter note, I wonder if the arguemnt of invincible ingorance works for speeding tickets?
As a person reading how you put it and how the other quote was it does make a HUGE difference in how it's stated...the way you stated it Kolokotronis is agreeable to me...the way the other quote stated it is not because it changes the cause of salvation from faith, which incorporates works of love, to faith and works as seperate concepts...
works in and of themselves are not "bad" in the terms of the way many lutherans think of them...properly stated works of love are among the best things we can do because as you said the doing of such works allows Christ and the Holy Spirit to hold a larger and larger portion of our hearts allowing us to have a stronger and stronger faith and therefore a desire to do more and more works of love which, well you get the point......it all works in lock step, building on the foundation, the rock of ages, Christ...I guess to me it can be said that works of love without faith are just as dead as faith without works of love...after all, isnt' the goal to let the old ways of our life before Christ to fall by the wayside and our rebirth into Christ to shine as examples to the world to demonstrate our faith in our Savior?
In Christ...
I am a conservative lutheran by the way...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.