Amazing Grace

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I have come to love Amazing Grace. However, a number of the people on this forum have called it “Calvinism dressed in white clothes.” Why is there so much hate for it?
 
JB_Brother_4446 said:
I have come to love Amazing Grace. However, a number of the people on this forum have called it “Calvinism dressed in white clothes.” Why is there so much hate for it?
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The lyrics are a mess. Any Catholic should recognize this. Music for liturgy should be more than just a catchy tune.
 
Well, for starters, we are not saved by grace. Grace equips us for trials, but it is not the source of our salvation.
We are saved by the blood of Christ.
 
pianistclare said:
Well, for starters, we are not saved by grace. Grace equips us for trials, but it is not the source of our salvation.
We are saved by the blood of Christ.
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We ARE saved by Grace.

Acts 15: 7-11

7 [d]After much debate had taken place, Peter got up and said to them, “My brothers, you are well aware that from early days God made his choice among you that through my mouth the Gentiles would hear the word of the gospel and believe. 8 And God, who knows the heart, bore witness by granting them the holy Spirit just as he did us. 9 He made no distinction between us and them, for by faith he purified their hearts. 10 Why, then, are you now putting God to the test by placing on the shoulders of the disciples a yoke that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear? 11 On the contrary, we believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, in the same way as they.”[e]
 
As pianistclare points out it speaks to Sole Fidei (salvation by faith alone). From a Catholic perspective it contains bad (or at best weak) theology. This is clear in the phrase:

How precious did that grace appear
The hour I first believed.

Grace is freely given and not a product of belief.
 
Usige said:
As pianistclare points out it speaks to Sole Fidei (salvation by faith alone). From a Catholic perspective it contains bad (or at best weak) theology. This is clear in the phrase:

How precious did that grace appear
The hour I first believed.

Grace is freely given and not a product of belief.
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Jesus gives Grace freely and Faith is the act of receiving that Grace. Grace has no effect if you do not believe.
John_Martin said:
We are justified by faith alone, and not by works (alone).
The trouble is not the word “alone” but the trouble is the correct understanding of “justification” and “works”.
We all here know that we will not inherit eternal life without doing the works of love (agape, charity), loving God from our whole heart in all our soul and in all our strength and in all our mind and loving our neighbor as ourselves as Jesus told the Lawyer in Luke 10, “Do this and you will live”. And we will not have an inheritance in the Kingdom of our Lord if we do the works of vice listed by Paul in several places like Ephesians 5.

So, we are justified by faith alone, and we receive our inheritance in our operating according to Virtue, and Virtue is infused in us with Grace, by the presence of the Holy Spirit filling us like the light infuses the atmosphere, so that we can see what is true and good and love it, and therefore do it. We must do it as the true manifestation of what we are in our union with God in Christ,

Justifying oneself by works means accumulating a list of what you yourself consider “enough” and using that as an argument with God to “let you in”, “You have to let me in because I did this, this, and that, and because I have possession of other things like my circumcision, genealogy, documentation.” It is the argument of someone who does not want to operate, but instead wants to do nothing but take it easy, because he should already have the price of admission…

Abraham operated when he believed God - he set out for Hebron, doing the works that obtain the inheritance of the promise. So his “justification” was not an argument with God to let him have a new name and the birth of Isaac where he was in Haran. And he did not argue with God in Hebron, that now he should pay him what was owed for moving. What did Abraham do? He asked God, “Where is your promise? Where is the inheritance? I can’t see it.” Then the Lord asked him to do some more work, to bring a sacrifice for a covenant operation. Abraham did not say, “I am already justified by coming here, so I do not need to do this sacrifice.” No, Abraham was justified, so he operated as the Lord’s friend and brought the animals and offered them as asked, because the Lord was working to bring him into his inheritance.

Justification means being made just, being a just person whose doings are just, being a good person whose doings are good, being a righteous person whose doings are righteous.

Doing things that are good do not make a person into a good person, therefore we are not made a good person by having a cache of works, we are not justified by works.
However, Faith (as a virtue, not the actions of Faith, but Faith itself) is something put into us when we were baptized, intensified when we were confirmed and when we receive absolution - it is that light shining in our souls like the sunlight infuses the air outside, so that we can see what is from God, so that we recognize it is Good, and so that we Love it and therefore make it real in the world. This is the Faith, the Virtue, that makes us Good People, the People of God, the People in the world but not of the world. This is the Faith, the infused Virtue, the Light shining in our souls, that justifies us, that makes us good and makes our works good, which God put in us when we were baptized, by himself breathing himself into us.

And with this light shining in us, we recognize and know that we are children of God, Sons of the Most High. We recognize that we are justified in claiming “we are this Holy People”, and we know that it is this light (Faith) illuminating our souls that enabled us to see we are his and he is ours. And so we take on the journey to Hebron, no, to the new inheritance of the Kingdom of Christ that awaits us: loving God and our neighbor is the path that gets us there. Jesus was totally serious when he said, “Do this and you will live”; no other path.
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Tell that to the many priests I have worked for as Music Director.
Nearly 100% of them don’t like this song used in Mass or funerals.
You like it, fine.
But it’s not Catholic.
I’m out.
 
pianistclare said:
Tell that to the many priests I have worked for as Music Director.
Nearly 100% of them don’t like this song used in Mass or funerals.
You like it, fine.
But it’s not Catholic.
I’m out.
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It has nothing against Catholic doctrine. Sorry to see you go. But Truth is Truth.:o
 
Usige said:
As pianistclare points out it speaks to Sole Fidei (salvation by faith alone). From a Catholic perspective it contains bad (or at best weak) theology. This is clear in the phrase:

How precious did that grace appear
The hour I first believed.

Grace is freely given and not a product of belief.
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It can only be reconciled to Calvin’s theology (and, at times, that of his friends). However, remember, Protestants tend to have two uses for “grace,” only one of which refers to sanctifying grace. One can also find subtypes in the work of some later theologians, but those are for particular people.

I remarked on another thread about this song that they should have named the song “Irresistible Grace”! :bounce:
 
Hatikvah said:
It can only be reconciled to Calvin’s theology (and, at times, that of his friends). However, remember, Protestants tend to have two uses for “grace,” only one of which refers to sanctifying grace. One can also find subtypes in the work of some later theologians, but those are for particular people.

I remarked on another thread about this song that they should have named the song “Irresistible Grace”! :bounce:
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See my posts above.
 
JB_Brother_4446 said:
I have come to love Amazing Grace. However, a number of the people on this forum have called it “Calvinism dressed in white clothes.” Why is there so much hate for it?
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Don’t know, but I like the Cherokee version by Walela. In Cherokee, it’s not a direct translation.
 
JB_Brother_4446 said:
Jesus gives Grace freely and Faith is the act of receiving that Grace. Grace has no effect if you do not believe.
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JB_Brother_4446 said:
It has nothing against Catholic doctrine. Sorry to see you go. But Truth is Truth.:o
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There are several Catholic theologians that disagree with your assessment. One of the first I ran into was on EWTN 10+ years ago. You can see his answer here.

You asked why some object, we have told you. You disagree. 🤷

Between a theologian and random poster on the Internet, I’ll take the one mandated by the Church to teach theology.
 
JB_Brother_4446 said:
It has nothing against Catholic doctrine. Sorry to see you go. But Truth is Truth.:o
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Here are my reasons for not wanting to sing non-Catholic hymns:

-If the person writing the hymn knew The Truth, they would be Catholic

-I love Catholic hymns and feel there are not enough of them at mass so why fill in with other hymns?

-When I am singing at mass, I often wonder about the origin of the song because I think the history of the hymn is important

-I don’t want to sing songs written by non-Catholics at mass.

-I live in Utah and do not want to sing a Mormon hymn either, no matter how beautiful it may be. (Calvin, Joseph Smith…not people I look up to)

-If I learn that a hymn sung at mass is not Catholic it will bother me.

🙂
 
Usige said:
As pianistclare points out it speaks to Sole Fidei (salvation by faith alone). From a Catholic perspective it contains bad (or at best weak) theology. This is clear in the phrase:

How precious did that grace appear
The hour I first believed.

Grace is freely given and not a product of belief.
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But the grace does not **appear ** to you until you believe.

ICXC NIKA
 
Let’s look at the lyrics, shall we? 🙂

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me. Though such language can be interpreted more broadly, it fits into the Calvinistic doctrine of total depravity, which is not Catholic.
I once was lost but now I’m found,
Was blind, but now I see. These lines refer to a monergistic model of salvation, and appear to rule out any role for human free will or cooperation.

'twas Grace that taught,
my heart to fear.
And grace, my fears relieved.
How precious did that grace appear,
the hour I first believed.

Through many dangers, toils and snares,
I have already come.
'tis grace that brought me safe thus far,
and grace will lead us home.

The Lord has promised good to me,
His word my hope secures. Could be a reference to Sola Scriptura.
He will my shield and portion be,
as long as life endures. This appears to teach “Final Perseverance”, which is not Catholic. People can and do fall away. St. Paul wasn’t discussing theoreticals in the Epistle to the Hebrews.

When we’ve been there ten thousand years,
bright shining as the sun.
We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise,
than when we first begun. This assumes that all the “saved” go straight to heaven; no need for purification. This makes is a singularly inappropriate song to perform at Catholic Masses for the Dead, as Clare already said.

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost but now am found,
Was blind, but now, I see.

Summing up, we can find four of the five “solas” in this song. Calvinism (and its Catholic counterpart, Jansenism) are heresies that a Catholic cannot hold to. The Council of Trent is quite explicit on the issue.
 
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