Can you be "saved" and go to hell?

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october_baby

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My uncle say’s that once your “saved” you can no longer go to hell. He says that you don’t
need to make an effort to go heaven, God does all the work. he says that if you question this doctrine your calling God a liar. 🤷 By the way, he is a former Baptist.
 
Umm, no. That is not correct. That’s not even logical. By those standards the most hardened and unremorseful murderer would still get to heaven, as long as he “accepted Jesus” one time in his life. That’s just loony theology.
 
Many protestants believe that your salvation is a one time event that occurs when you accept Christianity. From then on, you can’t fall (so they believe). But this ignores free will.

It is not consistent with the Catholic faith and is contradicted in the bible also. God judges us after our death and at that time rewards us with heaven (perhaps via purgatory) or condemns us to hell. We are saved through Christ, but up until the moment of death, we retain free will and can at any time choose to reject Christ (ie commit a mortal sin), thereby ensuring our judgement and condemnation. If we retain our faith in Chirst, and avoid mortal sins, we place our trust in His offer of salvation.
 
I’m pretty sure that this verse sums up that “once saved, always saved” is a load of bull leavings:

Matthew 7:22
When the Judgement Day comes, many will say to me, “Lord, Lord! In your name we spoke God’s mesage, by your name we drove out many demons and performed many miracles!” Then I will say to them, “I never knew you. Get away from me, you wicked people!”
 
By Catholic definition, one is only truly saved when they reach heaven. So, by that definition, when one is truly saved, they cannot go to hell.
 
october_baby said:
My uncle say’s that once your “saved” you can no longer go to hell. He says that you don’t
need to make an effort to go heaven, God does all the work. he says that if you question this doctrine your calling God a liar. 🤷 By the way, he is a former Baptist.
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In that case then there would be no free will.
People commonly “get saved”, by the protestant definition, and then later reject God. Humans are given that choice. God grants us free will.
Your uncle is mistaken.
 
Some texts from the bible that disprove your uncle’s claim that once saved no good works are needed.

Suggest first that he reads Matthew 25 verses 31-46 where Jesus demonstrations that His criteria for judging souls fit for heaven is whether they have lived practical acts of kindness to others,
and those who have not, go to hell, which is existence without love as they have not lived out the command to love God above all, and others as self in practical kindness.
Yes our grace and goodness comes from God, but we are judged on our practical response to these graces, our actual living-out of our Baptism, and by doing so we accept His redemption of us.

Paul also says, in Phillipians 2:12
" work out your own salvation with fear and trembling;
for God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
13 It is God who, for his own generous purpose, gives you the intention and the powers to act.
14 Let your behaviour be free of murmuring and complaining
15 so that you remain faultless and pure, unspoilt children of God surrounded by a deceitful and underhand brood, shining out among them like bright stars in the world."

We must work at our salvation while receiving God’s grace, so that we remain faultless and pure, by God’s grace. If we were simply justified then we would not have to work at our salvation to ‘remain’ saved

Your Uncle may also like into account the words of James, apostle and disciple of the Lord?
Yes Jesus is our Savior and redeemer and from God comes all grace.
But James warns us:

"Take the case, my brothers of someone who has never done a single good act but claims that he has faith. Will that faith save him?
If one of the brothers or one of the sisters is in need of clothes and has not enough food to live on, and one of you says to them, ‘I wish you well; keep yourself warm and eat plenty’, without giving them these bare necessities of life, then what good is that?: if good works do not go with it, it is quite dead.
This is the way to talk to people of that kind:'You say you have faith and I have good deeds; I will prove to you that I have faith by showing you my good deeds–now you prove to me that you have faith without any good deeds to show.

You believe in one God–that is creditable enough, but the demons have the same belief, and they tremble with fear. Do realise, you senseless man, that faith without works is useless. You surely know that Abraham our Father was justified by his deed, because he offered Isaac on the altar? There you see it; faith and good deeds were working together; his faith became perfect by what he did. This is what scripture really means when it says: Abraham put his faith in God, and this was counted as making him justified; and that is why he was called the friend of God. You see now that it is by doing something good, and not only by believing, that a man is justified." [James 2: 14-24]
 
A few more scripture texts:
“It is not those who call me ‘Lord, Lord’ who will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the person who does the will of my father in heaven.” [Matthew 7:21]

“Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ but not do what I command? I will show you what someone is like who comes to me, listens to my words, and acts on them.
That one is like a person building a house, who dug deeply and laid the foundation on rock; when the flood came, the river burst against that house but could not shake it because it had been well built. But the one who listens and does not act is like a person who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the river burst against it, it collapsed at once and was completely destroyed.” [Luke 6:45-49]

“Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. For he who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption; but he who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. And let us not grow weary in well-doing, for in due season we shall reap, if we do not lose heart.” [Galations 6:7-9]

From Ezekiel 18:24 'But if the upright abandons uprightness and does wrong by copying all the loathsome practices of the wicked, is he to live? All his upright actions will be forgotten from then on; for the infidelity of which he is guilty and the sin which he has committed, he will most certainly die.
 
october_baby said:
My uncle say’s that once your “saved” you can no longer go to hell. He says that you don’t
need to make an effort to go heaven, God does all the work. he says that if you question this doctrine your calling God a liar. 🤷 By the way, he is a former Baptist.
Click to expand...
I can see the logic but that is more of a post hoc ergo propter hoc approach to salvation than a real cause effect relationship. The question that usually follows that statement is “What about people that had faith, claimed salvation, and then they renounced the faith”. The automatic answer is that they were really not saved to start with, and that gives origin to the next question: “How do you know that you are really saved? Those people claimed to be saved but then they failed”. A person that is intellectually honest would see the contradiction.
 
october_baby said:
My uncle say’s that once your “saved” you can no longer go to hell. He says that you don’t
need to make an effort to go heaven, God does all the work. he says that if you question this doctrine your calling God a liar. 🤷 By the way, he is a former Baptist.
Click to expand...
Your uncle, being a Baptist, has a different understanding of what it means to be “saved” than Catholics do.

For a Catholic, salvation cannot occur until after death, when the state of the soul in either grace or sin is actualized into eternity.

For a Baptist, salvation occurs automatically by virtue of faith, or at least is guaranteed by virtue of faith.

Thus, for a Baptist, becoming saved means becoming Baptist. For a Catholic, becoming saved means dying in a state of grace.

In either event, no, it is not possible for a person who is “saved” to go to Hell. It’s just a non sequitur. If you are saved, it’s Hell you’re saved from. Where you and your uncle differ is understanding the moment at which salvation moves from potentiality to actuality.
 
Theologically, he’s still a Baptist. Ask him to read the gospel of Matthew story Jesus tells about the “Sheep and the Goats.” Then ask him to describe the difference between them, according to Jesus.
 
Thanks for all your helpful comments, could you tell me some scriptures to help me back up the catholic side of this debate? :blessyou:
 
He is incorrect. A man is justified through his deeds, and not by faith alone, and faith without works is dead. I don’t have my Bible in front of me, but those two statements are present within scripture
 
I’ve tried to use the quotes from the book of James, but he quotes other scriptures And comes back to me calling god a “liar”. Remember, he’s a protestant so if it’s not in the bible,
he doesn’t believe it. 😦
 
october_baby said:
I’ve tried to use the quotes from the book of James, but he quotes other scriptures And comes back to me calling god a “liar”. Remember, he’s a protestant so if it’s not in the bible,
he doesn’t believe it. 😦
Click to expand...
Many protestants cling to their Biblical proof texts. When you offer a counter argument, even quoting scripture, they just repeat what they quoted earlier, as though they have the winning trump card. When you’re having a discussion with someone and they refuse to address your arguments, you usually have nothing to gain by continuing.
 
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