Clement of Rome - Sola Fide

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Exactly. You keep missing the not as a result of works. Paul states in this short ten verse passage no less than three times that it is by grace that you are saved, not a result of works. And he has already made clear that you are already justified by grace through faith. Works are the response. This is no different in Paul’s epistle to the Romans where he starts off saying that the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith (or in probably a better translation of the Greek which is a bit difficult, “beginning and ending in faith”), then makes clear no less than three times in Romans 3 that we are not justified through works but by faith apart from works (this would be where the sola comes in). He then emphasizes the fact that grace is not earned or worked for, but given as a gift. Your argument continues to turn Paul’s reasoned explanation of justification on its head.
 
“Plain meaning” = “what I personally think it means.” Jesus did not leave us orphans.

Neither did He leave us the bible. He founded a Church which gave us the bible to use along with the Apostolic teaching.

Look at the reformers! They instantly and sharply disagreed over that “plain meaning” What “plain meaning”?

But, if you are claiming infallibility, then that is quite another thing.
 
Romans 2:5-13 clearly does not square with the rest of the book of Romans if we interpret “works of the law” as all works. Paul clearly teaches that our inheriting eternal life is dependent in some way on works.

To be clear the Catholic Church rejects Sola Fide. She acknowledges that we are “initially” justified by grace through faith alone (and I believe the best understanding here is not our own faith but the faith of Jesus, supported by the KJV). She also acknowledges that our entrance into heaven will be determined by the works we perform in cooperation with our justification.

This is to say she acknowledges a moment in our lifetime when we are truly helpless and saved only by God. Then she tells us it is our responsibility after that moment to cooperate with Gods grace. Failure to cooperate can result in a loss of the reward of heaven.

I believe Clement of Rome aligns with this understanding given further reading past Chapter 33
 
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If we either:
  1. die at the moment we come to faith, or
  2. time is suddenly stopped
Then faith alone is sufficient. If we keep living and time keeps ticking, then we need to show the Lord a profit (Matthew 25:14-30) by working to edify the Church.

I note here that 100% of scriptural references to our judgment - all of them - relate strictly to our works, our good deeds, all done in charity and in cooperation with God’s grace.

How else can it be?
 
I think your understanding is supported if we understand faith to be our own faith. However if initial justification is by grace through “the faith of Jesus” then I would say we are born with access to our initial justification.

In this model our own faith can be considered a grace from God and a work because we choose to believe.

I lean toward this understanding because God is as he is eternally. Our “time” is relative.
 
po18guy said:
But, if you are claiming infallibility, then that is quite another thing.
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No, I am claiming that words have typical meanings and that we are capable of understanding those words. Otherwise, why are you here typing and communicating? If we are all just providing our own definitions, why communicate? This nonsense that the apostles wrote so that no one could understand the gospel is completely antithetical to the enscripturation of the gospel. I will divert you to Luke and John and Paul for example:

“Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that YOU MAY HAVE CERTAINTY CONCERNING THE THINGS YOU HAVE BEEN TAUGHT.”

“But these things are written SO THAT YOU MAY BELIEVE THAT JESUS IS THE CHRIST, THE SON OF GOD, AND THAT BY BELIEVING YOU MAY HAVE LIFE IN HIS NAME.”

“Now these things happened to them as an example, BUT THEY WERE WRITTEN DOWN FOR OUR INSTRUCTION…”

I don’t need to claim infallibility to say that the purpose of the authors of the scriptures (and the Holy Spirit who inspired them) was to provide clear instruction to us. Saying different is an insult to the Holy Spirit. By the way, it is your apologetic to claim infallibility of man, not mine.
 
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Yes, you are claiming infallibility! If you oppose the Church that Christ founded, you deny the Pope’s infallibility by (infallibly) proclaiming him to be wrong!

Do you not see this?

As to Luke, his Gospel and Acts was not presented as a stand-alone. You see that Theophilus had already been fully trained. The Christian faith was established on exactly zero writing of any type. It had been growing for decades before Luke wrote a thing. How can that be?

How could the early Christian believe without a bible to thump? The prologue to Luke proves the accuracy and validity of the oral Apostolic Tradition! Luke wrote the Gospel and Acts not to establish anything - but to confirm that which had been known for decades.

Thus, doubters who asked for a sign could read it and be more certain.

Ah, but the Apostolic Tradition cannot be twisted or warped! And that is why the reformers rejected it. They pathologically desired to twist and warp Christian doctrine, and bible alone gave them all the freedom they needed. They finally succeeded in getting Christ to agree with them.

But, the huge stumbling block for you, and the huge indicator that bible alone actually means ego alone - is that you assume the Church, for 2,000 years, has got it wrong and you and your bible finally have it right.

AYKM?

“Plain meaning”

OK. Find me one word in the dictionary that has only one meaning.

Just one.

Dare ya.
 
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Sorry but Sola Scriptura is proven to be incompatible logically with knowing what the Canon of Scripture is. It is a fact (an absolute) that you can not practice Sola Scriptura prior to the writing of the New Testament.

Otherwise it is then your burden of proof to show just one passage in the Old Testament (Scriptura for the first Christians) that gives authority to anyone to add to the scriptures.
I repeat there is zero possibility for you to maintain that Scripture “Alone” is infallible prior to the writing of the New Testament and then recieve the New Testament as infallible. This is a logical contradiction.

As to the infallibility of men. Protestants believe that it is possible that God worked infallibly through the various fallible men who wrote scripture. Yet they reject the possibility of even a single man today, through the power of God, being infallible in specific capacities. They opt instead as fallible men to judge infallibly that the Pope can in no way be infallible. 😂🤣

Good luck saving anyone through the writings of the New Testament you logically can not have.

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po18guy said:
Yes, you are claiming infallibility! If you oppose the Church that Christ founded, you deny the Pope’s infallibility by (infallibly) proclaiming him to be wrong
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LOL please, go on. I’m enjoying the ludicrous nature of this line of reasoning. So because you have declared the Pope as infallible, something found nowhere in scripture by the way, I must be declaring myself infallible. Well, sir, since I don’t acknowledge the Pope to be infallible, I don’t need to claim infallibility. Your apologetic just makes an unsupported presupposition which I deny.
 
catholicray said:
Sorry but Sola Scriptura is proven to be incompatible logically with knowing what the Canon of Scripture is. It is a fact (an absolute) that you can not practice Sola Scriptura prior to the writing of the New Testament.
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This is an oft repeated fallacy, and the repetition of it makes it no less true. The canon exists because the Holy Spirit has inspired some books and not others. It exists because God has revealed himself through his son, not because a man made authority declared it to be so. And by the way, the canon was established on its own long before Trent made a declaration in opposition to Protestantism.
 
  1. I do not question your faith.
  2. I do not question your zeal.
  3. I question your theology - it traces to men in Europe 500 years ago and no further back. It does not trace to the Apostles and it does not trace to Christ. Careful and thoughtful reflection reveals that it does not accurately represent even Paul.
If you do not believe the bible when it “plainly” says that the scriptures are twisted and distorted by certain people, I cannot help you. As a general rule, the first error we make when challenging something (i.e. Catholicism) is to assume that anyone with whom we disagree is wrong. Is that not the ego dominating one’s thoughts? Yes, it is.

As with all such challenges to Apostolic Christianity, bible alone assumes that 1.5 billion - billion - Orthodox and Catholic Christians are all wrong…

…and that one’s private opinion is correct. The original “reformer” thought exactly this - and so did those who disagreed with him!

Anyway, I believe that you are beating a dead horse. The Church which Christ founded for your salvation has always and everywhere believed that we are saved by God’s grace through our faith.

Yet, the bible “clearly” states that there is more than this.

Full story bro’
 
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Hodos said:
He then emphasizes the fact that grace is not earned or worked for, but given as a gift.
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100% Absolutely agreed!
Hodos said:
then makes clear no less than three times in Romans 3 that we are not justified through works but by faith apart from works
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You misquoted Romans 3, seemingly deliberately. Saint Paul uses the term ‘works of the LAW’ in Romans 3:

For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight - Romans 3:20

For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. - Romans 3:28

As mentioned before, ‘works of the law’ are works performed without grace! Works of charity done through grace, not ‘works of the law’, are works that justify. Hence the ‘doers of the law will be justified’ in Romans 2:13.
Hodos said:
You keep missing the not as a result of works. Paul states in this short ten verse passage no less than three times that it is by grace that you are saved, not a result of works.
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You keep missing the point as to what kind of ‘works’ Saint Paul is referring to. As already mentioned:

by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast - Ephesian 2:8-9

Read the highlighted words and comprehend. Saint Paul explicitly states that this is not a result of works OF YOUR OWN DOING. Works without grace are works of your own doing and those do not justify. That is why no one can boast of their own works without God’s grace and say, “Hey, look at me, I worked for my salvation all by myself of my own doing without any help from God!” Those are the ‘works of the law’ Saint Paul condemns!
 
po18guy said:
I question your theology - it traces to men in Europe 500 years ago and no further back. It does not trace to the Apostles and it does not trace to Christ. Careful and thoughtful reflection reveals that it does not accurately represent even Paul.
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Actually it does. It’s right there in the apostolic documents.
po18guy said:
If you do not believe the bible when it “plainly” says that the scriptures are twisted and distorted by certain people, I cannot help you.
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No, I completely agree that some people distort the Bible. However, man’s willingness to twist God’s word doesn’t make God fallible. It proves man’s sinfulness, it doesn’t disprove the perspicuity of scripture in revealing God’s word. Note that Peter does not hold Paul at fault. He holds the unstable hearers of Paul’s word at fault. I would suggest that through your comments which have proven a low view of scripture that you are the one who disbelieves Paul and the Holy Spirit who inspired Paul’s writing.
 
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Ha! An amusing, even if honestly offered statement. Strongly attempting to avoid your temptation to pride, I shall boast only in the Lord Jesus Christ. You should fear, yes fear not me, but any Catholic with a bible, as his or her knowledge will put any and all bible “theology” to utter shame.

Word.

I feel truly sorry for you, as someone has taught you serious error. I will risk pride here by stating that I most likely hold the scriptures on a much - much - higher level than you do. I hold them in such esteem that I demand an authoritative, divinely appointed reading and exegesis of them. I flatly reject the twisting and distortion - the abuse - of scripture - which 100% of bible Christians are forced to do!

Sadly, I am convinced that you have learned anti-Catholic bigotry from some well-meaning but horribly misguided persons.

Instead of blindly following the blind, dig into Church history. Go back, even before the “reformation.” Read the early Church Fathers - and not from a Catholic-hating site. Examine the Church as Christ founded it - not as you want it to be. Read John Henry Cardinal Newman. Read James Cardinal Gibbons’ Faith of our Fathers. read the Reverend Henry Graham’s Where We Got The Bible.

As I mentioned the only thing you lack is knowledge of the Church that Christ founded. He said the gates of hell would not prevail against her. You seem to claim that they did.

Is Christ a liar?

Nonsense. Question your novel beliefs first. Many of us, myself included, have held your beliefs - and found them wanting.
 
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Hodos, what if my bible reading and study lead me - like millions of others - into the Catholic Church? What then? What you are unknowingly doing is inviting Catholics to less of Christ. That is simply unacceptable. We invite you to more of Christ.

I will tell you, being deliberately provocative here, that to leave the Catholic Church for any other (EXCEPTION: The Orthodox), I would have to deny Christ. How so? He is present in both Catholic and Orthodox Churches in a real, true, Sacramental sense in the Holy Eucharist. I cannot and will not leave Him! An Orthodox and Catholic’s relationship with Christ is so intensely deep and personal, that it is light years beyond any other denomination. Not even close - exactly as Christ intended.

OK, so you hate the Catholic Church. Fine. Go investigate the Orthodox.

As well, your energy is far better spent preaching to Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses.
 
po18guy said:
As I mentioned the only thing you lack is knowledge of the Church that Christ founded. He said the gates of hell would not prevail against her. You seem to claim that they did.

Is Christ a liar?
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Only if you assume that the Church is dictated by a pedigree, rather than obedience to Christ and belief in the apostolic faith. I reject your assertion that it is a pedigree, and I choose the latter. As Paul stated about Israel, not all who are descended from Israel are Israel. Or in Mark 9 where Christ tells the apostles not to stop those who are casting out demons in his name. Seems like your understanding of the Church is shallow indeed.
 
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