The Pope Speaks Out Against Pelaginiasm

Complicated? Oh come on... Calvin went on for almost 1,000 pages in Institutes of the Christian Religion... this is about 2 or 3 pages.

Are you arguing against theological works of reason altogether?

I don't give a rip about Calvin's theological musings either.

God made the gospel simple.

Romans 10:9-13 because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.” For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

If people complicate it to the point where only the elitists can *understand* it and have to relay it on to the unwashed, then it needs to go right into the trash, where it belongs.

Your chosen target for your attack is ironic. (Seriously, someone would think this is the first time you read a post in the religion forum.) The 2nd sentence of the post, minus my introduction: “... it is not knowledge that betters us or makes us saints, but the kind of life we lead....”

From there, he provides examples and history of how people forget that, and how it interferes with living the gospel. (Specifically, his topic is pelagianism, the same topic as much of Calvin’s writing.)

His conclusion is simple, and strictly biblical:

“Saint Paul says that what truly counts is “faith working through love”
(Gal 5:6).

We are called to make every effort to preserve charity: “The one who loves another has fulfilled the law… for love is the fulfilment of the law” (Rom 13:8.10).

“For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself’” (Gal 5:14).

What do you mean my *chosen target for attack*?

Also... the bible itself is a pretty big book. It has a few very concise summations buried within it (pointed out here by Pope Francis, and by millions of other people), but Paul alone wrote 13 letters of commentary on the Gospel, and the God himself ordained that the bible includes not only the gospel but several hundred pages of supporting documents (i.e., the Old Testament) and commentary (i.e., most of the New Testament).

I mean the language you chose was very hostile. “I don’t give a rip .... it needs to go straight into the trash.” These are not kind, encouraging words. These are the words of someone who writes as if about an enemy.

Actually, I was seeking to attract Calvinists for a discussion about grace alone; pelagianism has been in years past a YUGE topic in Calvinist threads, but there was a false notion that this was a point of departure between Calvinism and Catholic theology.

It still is. In Catholicism, while grace can't be earned, once bestowed it enables one to deserve Heaven. In Fundamentalist Protestantism (at least as I always understood it), it isn't grace but salvation that is freely bestowed. There's a world of difference there. Naturally to anyone of this latter view, the former is going to seem Pelagian.

Fundamentalist Protestants can't really see G-d as capable of creating anything less perfect than He is (an error since by definition anything other than G-d is less perfect than G-d). "Heaven" is simply the world as it was originally created. There was no "test," no provisional period between this world and the next. G-d simply created absolute perfection, and "salvation" is the restoration of this original perfection. In this view it is literally impossible to "merit salvation" any more than one can merit being created in the first place. Thus all human action becomes superfluous.

It was a long time until I could see the flaws in this worldview. For one, as mentioned above, anything G-d created is going to be other than Him and therefore less perfect than He is, however sinless it is. Second, G-d obviously gave Adam and Eve a test when he commanded them not to eat of the fruit (if the world really had been merely created to be Heaven, such a commandment would not have been given). And third, the first sin was not committed by a "fallen" man but by the perfect man. Then you have the Jewish exegesis that when G-d commanded Adam to "guard" and to "keep" the Garden of Eden, the former referred to negative commandments and the latter positive commandments. If the world had been created to be Heaven, no such commandments would have been given.

I suppose all this makes Fundamentalist Protestants look bad to some people, but there is a consistency in their worldview lacking in historical chrstianity. Traditionally, Paul's "antinomian" teachings have been applied only to the Torah, leaving human effort (and even post-Biblical ritual and ceremonial) untouched. There is an inconsistency here. If Biblical rituals and ceremonies commanded directly from the Mouth of G-d are of no use, then how much the more so ('al 'achat kammah vekhammah) are post-Biblical rituals and ceremonies which developed slowly over hundreds of years of no account? Once one begins doing away with rituals and ceremonies, 'im ken, 'ein ladavar sof (if that were so, there would be no end to the matter). This is an inconsistency that all the history and all the authenticity in the world cannot solve. Thus the ultimate end result of the rejection of Protestant "antinomianism" is Judaism, since both Catholicism and Orthodoxy simply go in that direction. Why stop half or two thirds of the way?

You’re reading more into it that is stated.

VERY interesting comments.

But...

You say, “And third, the first sin was not committed by a ‘fallen’ man but by the perfect man.” THIS is the big point of departure between Catholics and Calvinists. Adam was not the perfect man; he was the incomplete man. He was unblemished by sin, but still did not know God, and therefore could not trust or love God.

Only by sinning, and being redeemed could mankind/Adam understand and therefore at least to some infinitesimally small extent know God. “That has to be a mistake,” you might say, “That would mean GOOD things came from Adam’s sin?” No mistake! This isn’t God’s Plan B. This is why the ancient Easter hymn goes, “O necessary fault of Adam which has gained for us our redeemer!”

The deviation between Catholics and Calvinists is over whether grace is irresistable. Calvinists say that grace cannot be resisted; they consider even the choice to accept grace to be a deed, and therefore amounts to the Semipelagian heresy. Catholics answer that if man cannot resist grace, then Adam’s fall was pointless; if those who are saved are merely automatons, there would be no need to show Adam God’s love through redemption; God could merely have designed Adam to know God’s love and the reason that God allowed Adam to see grace and its absence was to allow him to freely choose between both.

If you don’t mean to be hostile or oppositional, you should be aware that you are choosing very hostile words.

“I don’t need it” is not hostile.

“It goes straight in the trash” is hostile; it implies that it can be of no use to anyone. You’re obviously speaking metaphorically, but to extend that metaphor, throwing it in the trash would be how one disposes of something, so that no-one can use it.

Also, “I don’t give a rip” means it’s not worth a fart. That’s mildly vulgar, but very demeaning of someone else’s work. Again, hostile.

The more you debate that you intended no such hostility, the more you should pay attention when you are informed that you have chosen hostile words.

pedantic

He can be pedantic.