A common doctrine that I take issue with is that works are an enemy to grace. My take is in two statements.

1. Are works required for salvation? No.
2. Are works required to show you love God? Yes

Everybody sit down before you read this, I side with the catholics on this one.

I need the definition of
" saved"

An do all religions share the same definition?

We were counseled by Christ as to corrections in our character and perspectives. In Matthew chapter 5 He is specific even down to saying “be ye therefore perfect, as your Heavenly Father is perfect.” He delineated behaviors and thoughts. Ask yourselves why He would do that. To me it means one of the purposes of life is to refine ourselves to be more like our Heavenly Father.

In my own experience I can see I am unable to reach that goal without Christ’s sacrifice and mercy. I accepted that Christ is the savior of mankind and demonstrate my commitment by aligning my will and choices with His example and counsel. In that way I believe we are saved by grace and scriptural doctrine that “faith without works is dead” is heeded.

I’m sometimes curious if other Christians think that once a man has been saved, can he lose that salvation by bad behavior. If Manson accepted Christ and was saved before he chose evil, what happens then?

I agree that works are extremely important, if not a required counterpart to faith. We should strive to be Christ-like. To keep beating the C.S. Lewis horse: he says something like When we look in the mirror, we should see Christ looking back at us.

James says, “For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also” (James 2:26). Faith without works is a dead faith because the lack of works reveals an unchanged life or a spiritually dead heart. There are many verses that say that true saving faith will result in a transformed life, that faith is demonstrated by the works we do. How we live reveals what we believe and whether the faith we profess to have is a living faith.

Got questions.org

quote:

Originally posted by reloader-1:
If you actually want to dive into what the Catholic Church teaches, here’s a start: https://www.catholic.com/magaz...on/faith-and-works-0

Catholic Answers is a good resource.

Another...for those interested:
Catholic Bridge

For those who'd like a little light reading:
Rome Sweet Home by Scott Hahn
Catholicism and Fundamentalism: The Attack on "Romanism" by "Bible Christians" by Karl Keating (Editor of Catholic Answers above)
The Surprised By Truth Series By Patrick Madrid
Evangelical Is Not Enough by Thomas Howard
Radio Replies: Classic Answers To Timeless Questions About The Catholic Faith by Fr. Leslie Rumble
Why I Am A Catholic by (the great) G.K. Chesterton

"There are not one hundred people in the United States who hate The Catholic Church, but there are millions who hate what they wrongly perceive the Catholic Church to be.” - Archbishop Fulton Sheen

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Gustofer,

A bit of a deviance from the recent course: A notion I have lately been fond of is as follows...

Christ is God come to the mortal world for the human experience. Because Christ is also man, He feels the pulls of temptation. He has a mortal knowledge of how a man feels drawn by sexuality, greed, power, laziness, envy, and more because He experiences it Himself. Of course He is sinless, and therefore ultimately without the human shame and guilt that comes with having succumbed to temptation. But His divine intuition and human imagination can conjure those feelings. On the verge of His ultimate sacrifice, He was understandably terrified of what it would feel like to take-on the cumulative shame and guilt of the entire human race as we know it, forever. He had a good idea of what it was going to entail; but could He really know 100%, because He never did sin as man? He had a good-enough idea that He knew it was going to be the most terrible thing God or man could ever endure, but it was still ultimately an unknown to him. And he took it on anyway.

I know this is not an original train of thought, but it's been one to which I have assigned weight of late.

I am curious if the more scholarly here can provide scriptural insight that would either prove or disprove parts or all of the idea.

After not reading any scripture for a while, I have starting reading the bible again. I have found it to be comforting and a faith promoting experience. (I started with the new testament.) I always found the King James version to be a tough read, so I am reading a current modern English version. For me anyway, I find it more easy to follow and am getting more out of it.

In all of my years of church attendance (off and on) and scripture study, there is something I remain troubled by. So take an individual who leads an entirely virtuous and moral life in every sense. Just an outstanding example of decency and virtue. This person is raised in the Jewish faith or is raised as a Buddhist and never accepts Jesus Christ as his savior. When this individual dies, is he doomed and will never be "saved." Will he be condemned to eternal damnation? My own concept of a just supreme being would not allow that.

I doubt it. I think tons of people are in heaven who never heard of Christ, who were outstanding individuals in many different ways, and certainly better than many Christians who are already in heaven now. And I don't think all that started with the modern version of homo sapiens as we identify ourselves today. I don't think these types of questions are answerable with a high degree of certainty. If we knew these things we would not be human, we would be God himself. But since we are his creatures lots of knowledge is out of reach now, in heaven, and forever. I think being comfortable without knowing the answers to these types of questions is more helpful than racking one's self trying to figure out if one's own salvation or anyone else's is on the chopping block or not. On the other hand, if I'm wrong, there's nothing one can say unless you're willing to tell God he was wrong, and I'm not willing to go there. I'm his creature, his creation, I am not allowed to know all the answers. For all I know dogs go to heaven, and as far as I can tell they most certainly do, and I don't think my dog could ever fully understand the technical aspects of the Gospel of Christ, though I think he does in his own way, by his actions. As stated earlier in this thread, I believe God condemns his creatures to perdition because they love their sin and destruction, not because they were born in a certain timeframe or ever heard or not heard about Christ.

^^^^^I think you’re right. I think if there wasn’t an opportunity, there will be. Anything else would be unjust.

quote:

This person is raised in the Jewish faith or is raised as a Buddhist and never accepts Jesus Christ as his savior.

quote:

I think tons of people are in heaven who never heard of Christ

Two different types of people presented. For the discussion's sake, we'll say the first type knew of Christ. To know and deny is certainly different than not knowing, and I think the unknowing could potentially be judged more leniently, though they may have lived a more sinful life.

I am in overall agreement that God's capacity for forgiveness is greater than we can imagine, and the overwhelming majority of unbelievers are destined for paradise.

Wrightd's response to my post was I believe outstanding. That's the best way to deal with the issue I raised about the ultimate fate of non Christians who lead exemplary moral and decent lives. I too believe that heaven is full of people who who lead decent moral lives, but never accepted Jesus Christ as their personal savior. It's really not my place to concern myself with the issue. So I guess I shouldn't waste any time or thought to the issue. I should concern myself with my own salvation and to the extent possible the salvation of those around me.

The question about the afterlife fate of good people who aren’t Christians gets raised on occasion, and I first asked it myself when I was still a kid long ago. The first part of the answer often refers to what has been mentioned in this thread: human “virtue” and good works don’t get us to Heaven. “All have sinned,” and all that. The people who believe that can point to various Biblical passages in support of their position, which is that only acceptance of Christ as one’s savior can get anyone there.

So, the second part of the question is what about all the people who never so much as even heard about Jesus and his sacrifice? When I asked that 60+ years ago the answer I received from the minister I posed it to was that everyone on Earth has had the opportunity to learn the message via missionaries, if no other way, and if they didn’t accept it, that was on them. That claim was of course nonsense then as it is today, but being a dutiful child I didn’t press the matter.

As for believing that God wouldn’t condemn any good person to eternal torture for not being a saved Christian, that’s understandable. In fact, according to the surveys I’ve seen it’s a common belief (evidently among non-Christians) that a good God wouldn’t condemn anyone to such a fate. But there are scriptural reasons to firmly believe the opposite, and many people do. Some years ago I attended a Pentecostal service with relatives who knew my own beliefs and as I walked into the building one man who evidently also knew who I was said to his companion in a voice that was strangely very loud and clearly audible to me, “Hell is full of good people.”

quote:

Originally posted by Fed161:
Wrightd's response to my post was I believe outstanding. That's the best way to deal with the issue I raised about the ultimate fate of non Christians who lead exemplary moral and decent lives. I too believe that heaven is full of people who who lead decent moral lives, but never accepted Jesus Christ as their personal savior. It's really not my place to concern myself with the issue. So I guess I shouldn't waste any time or thought to the issue. I should concern myself with my own salvation and to the extent possible the salvation of those around me.

If one hears the Gospel and chooses not to believe it and accept Christ, and leans on their own understanding or thoughts about what is right and just in their own eyes, they could live an amazingly “good” life and in the end it will do them no good. Like has been noted already in this thread, our good works are like dirty rags to Him. The only way to Heaven is through Christ.

“Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”
‭‭John‬ ‭14‬:‭6‬ ‭NKJV‬‬


““Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’”
‭‭Matthew‬ ‭7‬:‭21‬-‭23‬ ‭NKJV‬‬



““Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock. “But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall.””
‭‭Matthew‬ ‭7‬:‭24‬-‭27‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

Another way of looking at things, following on sigfreund:

There is no way we can gain heaven, without Jesus. By His coming down from Heaven and dying for our sins, he has accepted us and saved us.

We don’t deserve any of that, he is the one who opened it to us. The concept of “I gain heaven when I accept Jesus”, when viewed in that light, is a bit egoistic.

Two potential conversation topics, prompted by two good movies about Jesuits:

Roland Joffe's 1986 film The Mission is a favorite of mine. I believe the central Christian theme to be that of pacifism. Seeing the movie or knowing its plot isn't required for the conversation to be productive.

Is pacifism a central New Testament Christian message? As far as I know, there are only two passages from the New Testament that could be interpreted in such a way as to condone violence: the millstone passage and the sell your cloak to buy a sword passage.

Matthew 18:6 "But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea."

Luke 22:36 "Then said he unto them, But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip: and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one."

Contemporary conservative Christians lean on these passages at times.

I have seen the millstone passage cited by some who are aghast at the child sex trafficking horrors we're becoming more aware of, and used as a battle cry of sorts, when expressing rage at the perpetrators.

I have seen the garment/sword passage cited by advocates of self defense and contemporary "2A culture" in general.

Jesus has much to say about being kind, forgiving, loving, gentle, and caring; all of it quite frank. He has little to say about violence, other than to condemn it. I believe the millstone passage is intended to mean that a mortal, worldly death by drowning would a luxury compared to what the perpetrators he speaks of face for eternity once judged.

I have seen the garment/sword passage interpreted in such a way that suggests that Jesus wanted swords present to ensure he was taken into captivity. He wanted his band to appear armed/hostile so that they would be treated as such, guaranteeing his apprehension. He goes on to say...

Luke 22:37 "For I say unto you, that this that is written must yet be accomplished in me, And he was reckoned among the transgressors: for the things concerning me have an end."

They needed to be a band of "transgressors", and swords certainly would help them play the part.

Pride stands in the way of pacifism. Is pacifism a core Christian ideal? My trusty C.S. Lewis would say not, though I don't defer to everything he says.

Two passages that seem to authorize violence perpetrated by worldly moral authorities (though these are not uttered by the Man Himself) *These I copy-and-pasted from the web, as opposed to from my bible:

Romans 13:3-4: “For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer.”

I Peter 2:13-14: “Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human authority: whether to the emperor, as the supreme authority, or to governors, who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right.”

I know I said two topics, but the other can wait.

It’s possible to find support for many different positions in the Bible, but I recently found an interesting discussion about the question of Christian pacifism when rereading the book Carnage and Culture (original, more chauvinistic title: Why the West Has Won) by Victor Davis Hanson.

“As Edward Gibbon most famously argued, in strictly military terms the thousand-year rise of Christianity after the fall of the Western Roman Empire (500-1500) had weakened Western armies. European military atrophy came … in part from the very nature of Christian dogma.
…
“[T]he message of the Sermon on the Mount [and other factors] would turn out to be poor incentives for achieving … military power. The pacifist traditions of Christianity in the short term stood in stark contrast to Islam …. … Turning the other cheek, repugnance for bloody combat, and preparing for the next world in the present one were antithetical to most traditional classical notions of civic militarism, patriotism, and the zeal for martial recognition from the state. The message of the New Testament was much different from the Iliad, Aeneid—or Koran.”

I highly recommend the book, BTW. As the original title indicates, VDH argues that “Western,” i.e., western European nations/powers have been unusually successful when fighting forces from the rest of the world due to several elements that have made up the west’s culture.

Thank you for the reply, sigfreund. I am inclined to think that pacifism is a Christian priority, though it is hard to reconcile with our pride as human beings and our patriotism as Americans.

The other topic is twofold, and inspired by Martin Scorsese's 2016 Silence. The film is based on a book about Jesuit priests attempting to propagate Christianity in 17th century Japan. The Buddhist Japanese government dispatched inquisitorial "squads" to rural villages, in an attempt to root out Christianity, and force Christians to apostatize. Apostatize or die.

This is a circumstance that is relevant in today's atmosphere of radical Islamic terror. I have read anecdotes describing situations in which radical Muslims have had people at their mercy, and demanded that they deny their faith or be executed.

I think Peter's denial of of Christ serves as enough evidence that denial in dire circumstances does not mean damnation.

Another aspect of the film touches on repeated offenses. One of the characters denies his faith multiple times, in order to save himself from death or torture, but is contrite and honestly repents each time. As a result, he watches friends and family die for their faith on numerous occasions, but escapes that fate himself.

Is denial of one's faith in dire circumstances acceptable? Are repat offenses reconcilable?

It has already been mentioned in this thread that Christians may face persecution in the future.

quote:

Originally posted by mark123:
A common doctrine that I take issue with is that works are an enemy to grace. My take is in two statements.

1. Are works required for salvation? No.
2. Are works required to show you love God? Yes

Everybody sit down before you read this, I side with the catholics on this one.

There is a difference between doing works to improve you chance of going to heaven vs. fruit of the spirit (literal evidence the Holy Spirit is active in you) where the amount of selfless works increase due to your faith and Holy Spirit.

quote:

Originally posted by SIG4EVA:

quote:

Originally posted by mark123:
A common doctrine that I take issue with is that works are an enemy to grace. My take is in two statements.

1. Are works required for salvation? No.
2. Are works required to show you love God? Yes

Everybody sit down before you read this, I side with the catholics on this one.

There is a difference between doing works to improve you chance of going to heaven vs. fruit of the spirit (literal evidence the Holy Spirit is active in you) where the amount of selfless works increase due to your faith and Holy Spirit.

I’m not talking about going to heaven or selfless works.

My beliefs are different than most here. I’m willing to be convinced with scripture but I’m not convinced any of us are destined for heaven. The scriptures talk of a resurrection from the dead and the Father coming to earth, splitting the Mount of Olives in two and making his dwelling here with us. I find the doctrine of our existence in an eternal heaven to be unbiblical.

The works aren’t good deeds. They are working Torah in our lives. Just like during the exiles some of it isn’t possible in the current situation but we can show our love for God yearly by keeping the high holy days, weekly by keeping the sabbath and daily by following the kosher rules.