Faith alone or not?

[catholic1seeks]

On Catholic Answers Live today, John Martinogni struggled to get the message to some callers that the Catholic Church doesn’t believe we are saved by works. He said that the reason works are important is because NOT doing them could cause us to lose our salvation (ie, through mortal sin). He didn’t phrase it like that, but that’s what he meant.

I see a lot of people explain it like that.

But I am confused. It seems like we go at paints to defend the Catholic position by using James 2, but then at the same time we say we are NOT saved by works.

I’m confused. Then what does it mean to be justified by faith and works, if works don’t save?

 

[TheDoctor]

On Catholic Answers Live today, John Martinogni struggled to get the message to some callers that the Catholic Church doesn’t believe we are saved by works. He said that the reason works are important is because NOT doing them could cause us to lose our salvation (ie, through mortal sin). He didn’t phrase it like that, but that’s what he meant.

I see a lot of people explain it like that.

But I am confused. It seems like we go at paints to defend the Catholic position by using James 2, but then at the same time we say we are NOT saved by works.

I’m confused. Then what does it mean to be justified by faith and works, if works don’t save?

The way I have understood and explained it is that we are justified (given the opportunity to be saved from an certain eternity in Hell) by faith in Jesus Christ. Without that faith, we are lost. Without that faith, I am doomed.

So, now I have that faith what do I do with it? Can I just do nothing and rely only on that faith? This is where James tells me that faith without works is dead. The Father does not only want “lip service”, he wants to see me put my faith into action. I think this is why Paul says he is working out his salvation with fear and trembling, because he knows that even with faith it is possible to walk away from God. It is works that keep us close to Him.

The clearest picture for me is the judgement of the nations in Matthew 25. Both groups had faith (becuase each referred to Jesus as “Lord”) but the group that put their faith into works, the group that served the poor and feed the hungry was the group that attained salvation. The group with faith alone that did nothing with that faith were condemned.

Sorry if that is not the most theologically deep reasoning, it is just what works for me.

 

[Catholic_Dude]

On Catholic Answers Live today, John Martinogni struggled to get the message to some callers that the Catholic Church doesn’t believe we are saved by works. He said that the reason works are important is because NOT doing them could cause us to lose our salvation (ie, through mortal sin). He didn’t phrase it like that, but that’s what he meant.

I see a lot of people explain it like that.

But I am confused. It seems like we go at paints to defend the Catholic position by using James 2, but then at the same time we say we are NOT saved by works.

I’m confused. Then what does it mean to be justified by faith and works, if works don’t save?

Justification is grounded in the notion of Adoption. To be part of God’s family, we must be Adopted, receiving the Holy Spirit of Adoption in our souls. Nothing we do can “buy” this adoption, no “works”, no nothing, it’s a gracious adoption that we never deserved but God will give to those who humbly ask Him.

Now, once we’re adopted, we’re called to grow into spiritually mature children, growing up to receive our Father’s inheritance which we as adopted children are entitled to. This is done by ‘good works’. On the other hand, we can repudiate and lose our adoption, and thus loose our rights as children, through grave sin. Grave sin, mortal sin, is effectively saying “I don’t want to be an adopted child anymore.”

The Protestant notion of justification has confused and perverted this, grounding justification on the notion of passing an exam. Since we cannot pass the exam, the Protestant says Jesus passed it for us, keeping the Law perfectly in our place. (Something the Bible never teaches) As a result, they believe God gives us a “passing grade” to enter into Heaven. At this point, it logically makes no sense that our ‘works’ play any role in getting to heaven, since God already “Passed” us based on Christ’s perfect test score. THIS is why Protestants object to “works”. While this is logical in many ways, it is not Biblical at all.

 

[thenobes]

As some of the poster have said already, faith is given to us as a gift. Nothing we can do can earn it. However, after receiving it we must hold onto it!

On Catholic Answers Live today, John Martinogni struggled to get the message to some callers that the Catholic Church doesn’t believe we are saved by works. He said that the reason works are important is because NOT doing them could cause us to lose our salvation (ie, through mortal sin). He didn’t phrase it like that, but that’s what he meant.

I see a lot of people explain it like that.

But I am confused. It seems like we go at paints to defend the Catholic position by using James 2, but then at the same time we say we are NOT saved by works.

I’m confused. Then what does it mean to be justified by faith and works, if works don’t save?

Works save, but they are God’s works: we are only his instruments. And they save because they keep our faith alive.

How??

Well there are 2 parts to the works God gives us. One part is the assent of our will, the other part is the physical work. God works in us both to will and to do (see Ephesians 2).

And the assent of the will is the part that keeps faith alive. The works are themselves conduits of grace for us and others, but the actual acceptance of the grace of God, God’s life, is the enlivening part of the works.

If we fail to give assent, then slowly we weaken our faith to the point where our mind may cut off the work of the Holy Spirit entirely within us. That is, our faith is dead.

Understand that we earn nothing by assenting to the Holy Spirit’s prompting to work. However, we do become changed inwardly to become worthy of our gift, that is to merit the slavation we are given.

peace
steve

 

[Thoughtfulone]

I have always understood it like this: If we have faith, then our works will reflect that faith. No-one with true faith would say, go out and murder 15 people. If that person says they have true faith, they are not being truthful. If you truly believe that Jesus died on the cross for all of your sins, then your actions in your life will reflect that. So, while we are not justified by our works, our works ARE a reflection of the strength of our faith. This is what it means to say “Faith without works is dead”.

 

[thenobes]

I have always understood it like this: If we have faith, then our works will reflect that faith. No-one with true faith would say, go out and murder 15 people. If that person says they have true faith, they are not being truthful. If you truly believe that Jesus died on the cross for all of your sins, then your actions in your life will reflect that. So, while we are not justified by our works, our works ARE a reflection of the strength of our faith. This is what it means to say “Faith without works is dead”.

You aren’t saying that our works have no effect at all on our faith, are you? Or even that the works we do as prompted by the Holy Spirit have no effect? I hope not!

There is an assent of the will necessary to do any works. If assenting to works given by the Holy Spirit would not be keeping our faith a living one, I don’t what would one could say would be.

Of course the works and the will to work are both also gifts of God.

peace
steve

 

[Thoughtfulone]

You aren’t saying that our works have no effect at all on our faith, are you? Or even that the works we do as prompted by the Holy Spirit have no effect? I hope not!

There is an assent of the will necessary to do any works. If assenting to works given by the Holy Spirit would not be keeping our faith a living one, I don’t what would one could say would be.

Of course the works and the will to work are both also gifts of God.

peace
steve

No, of course I believe that our good works increase our faith and vice-versa. I was merely saying that good works are an outward manifestation of inner faith. Someone who says they have faith but has no works to back it up is generally speaking, a hypocrite.

 

[Hiskid1973]

I have always understood it like this: If we have faith, then our works will reflect that faith. No-one with true faith would say, go out and murder 15 people. If that person says they have true faith, they are not being truthful. If you truly believe that Jesus died on the cross for all of your sins, then your actions in your life will reflect that. So, while we are not justified by our works, our works ARE a reflection of the strength of our faith. This is what it means to say “Faith without works is dead”.

Nice explanation…The good we do is a direct result of the Holy Spirit’s work in our lives…The fruits of the Spirit develop also from this as we are dying daily to the flesh an allowing the Holy Spirit more access to change us into His image and more radiate His fragrance in our lives…Good work vrs flesh work doesn’t add or subtract from our salvation but is what generates rewards or lack of them…In the 1Cor 3 judgment our good works provide gold, silver and precious stones as an offering to the Lord. While what is done in the flesh results in ash…The person is saved but has only ashes to offer…

Grace and peace to you dear one in Christ…

We are not as far apart in our explanations and understanding as one might think…

 

[Bookcat]

Here…let us understand what Paul was teaching on Faith and Works:

Pope Benedict XVI does a splendid job…

vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/audiences/2008/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20081119_en.html

vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/audiences/2008/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20081126_en.html

and

earlier

vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/audiences/2006/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20061108_en.html

 

[Carlan]

BENEDICT XVI
Saint Paul (14):

The Doctrine of Justification: The Apostle’s Teaching on Faith and Works

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

In the Catechesis last Wednesday I spoke of how man is justified before God. Following St Paul, we have seen that man is unable to “justify” himself with his own actions, but can only truly become “just” before God because God confers his “justice” upon him, uniting him to Christ his Son. And man obtains this union through faith. In this sense, St Paul tells us: not our deeds, but rather faith renders us “just”. This faith, however, is not a thought, an opinion, an idea. This faith is communion with Christ, which the Lord gives to us, and thus becomes life, becomes conformity with him. Or to use different words faith, if it is true, if it is real, becomes love, becomes charity, is expressed in charity. A faith without charity, without this fruit, would not be true faith. It would be a dead faith.

Thus, in our last Catechesis, we discovered two levels: that of the insignificance of our actions and of our deeds to achieve salvation, and that of “justification” through faith which produces the fruit of the Spirit. The confusion of these two levels has caused more than a few misunderstandings in Christianity over the course of centuries. In this context it is important that St Paul, in the same Letter to the Galatians radically accentuates, on the one hand, the freely given nature of justification that is not dependent on our works, but which at the same time also emphasizes the relationship between faith and charity, between faith and works: “In Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love” (Gal 5: 6). Consequently, there are on the one hand “works of the flesh”, which are “immorality, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry…” (Gal 5: 19-20): all works that are contrary to the faith; on the other, there is the action of the Holy Spirit who nourishes Christian life, inspiring “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Gal 5: 22-23). These are the fruits of the Spirit that blossom from faith.

Agape, love, is cited at the beginning of this list of virtues and self-control at the conclusion. In fact, the Spirit who is the Love of the Father and the Son pours out his first gift, agape, into our hearts (cf. Rm 5: 5); and to be fully expressed, agape, love, requires self-control. In my first Encyclical, Deus Caritas Est, I also treated of the love of the Father and the Son which reaches us and profoundly transforms our existence. Believers know that reciprocal love is embodied in the love of God and of Christ, through the Spirit. Let us return to the Letter to the Galatians. Here St Paul says that by bearing one another’s burdens believers are fulfilling the commandment of love (cf. Gal 6: 2).
Justified through the gift of faith in Christ, we are called to live in the love of Christ for neighbour, because it is on this criterion that we shall be judged at the end of our lives. In reality Paul only repeats what Jesus himself said and which is proposed to us anew by last Sunday’s Gospel, in the parable of the Last Judgment. In the First Letter to the Corinthians St Paul pours himself out in a famous eulogy of love. It is called the “hymn to love”: “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal… Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way” (1 Cor 13: 1, 4-5). Christian love is particularly demanding because it springs from Christ’s total love for us: that love that claims us, welcomes us, embraces us, sustains us, to the point of tormenting us since it forces each one to no longer live for himself, closed into his own selfishness, but for him “who for their sake died and was raised” (2 Cor 5: 15). The love of Christ makes us, in him, that new creation (cf. 2 Cor 5: 17), which comes to belong to his Mystical Body that is the Church.
Continued…
Carlan

 

[Carlan]

This is long for a post, I know, but so excellent , God bless, Peace Carlan

…Seen in this perspective, the centrality of justification without works, the primary object of Paul’s preaching, does not clash with faith that works through love; indeed, it demands that our faith itself be expressed in a life in accordance with the Spirit. Often there is seen an unfounded opposition between St Paul’s theology and that of St James, who writes in his Letter: “as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so faith apart from works is dead”(2: 26). In reality, while Paul is primarily concerned to show that faith in Christ is necessary and sufficient, James accentuates the consequential relations between faith and works (cf. Jas 2: 24). Therefore, for both Paul and James, faith that is active in love testifies to the freely given gift of justification in Christ. Salvation received in Christ needs to be preserved and witnessed to “with fear and trembling. For God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure… Do all things without grumbling or questioning… holding fast the word of life”, St Paul was to say further, to the Christians of Philippi (cf. Phil 2: 12-14, 16).

We are often induced to fall into the same misunderstandings that characterized the community of Corinth; those Christians thought that since they had been freely justified in Christ through faith, “they could do as they pleased”. And they believed and it often seems that today’s Christians also think this that it is permissible to create divisions in the Church, the Body of Christ, to celebrate the Eucharist without looking after the neediest of our brothers, to aspire to better charisms without being aware that each is a member of the other, and so forth. The consequences of a faith that is not manifested in love are disastrous, because it reduces itself to the arbitrariness and subjectivism that is most harmful to us and to our brothers. On the contrary, in following St Paul, we should gain a new awareness of the fact that precisely because we are justified in Christ, we no longer belong to ourselves but have become a temple of the Spirit and hence are called to glorify God in our body with the whole of our existence (cf. 1 Cor 6: 19). We would be underselling the inestimable value of justification, purchased at the high price of Christ’s Blood, if we were not to glorify him with our body. In fact, our worship at the same time reasonable and spiritual is exactly this, which is why St Paul exhorts us “to present [our] bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God” (Rm 12: 1). To what would a liturgy be reduced if addressed solely to the Lord without simultaneously becoming service to one’s brothers, a faith that would not express itself in charity? And the Apostle often places his communities in confrontation with the Last Judgment, on the occasion of which: “we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive good or evil, according to what he has done in the body” (2 Cor 5: 10; cf. also Rm 2: 16). And this idea of the Last Judgment must illumine us in our daily lives.

If the ethics that Paul proposes to believers do not deteriorate into forms of moralism and prove themselves timely for us, it is because, each time, they start from the personal and communal relationship with Christ, to be realized concretely in a life according to the Spirit. This is essential: the Christian ethic is not born from a system of commandments but is a consequence of our friendship with Christ. This friendship influences life; if it is true it incarnates and fulfils itself in love for neighbour. For this reason, any ethical decay is not limited to the individual sphere but it also weakens personal and communal faith from which it derives and on which it has a crucial effect. Therefore let us allow ourselves to be touched by reconciliation, which God has given us in Christ, by God’s “foolish” love for us; nothing and no one can ever separate us from his love (cf. Rm 8: 39). We live in this certainty. It is this certainty that gives us the strength to live concretely the faith that works in love.​

 

[Third_Day]

Hiskid1973;6897368]…Good work vrs flesh work doesn’t add or subtract from our salvation but is what generates rewards or lack of them…

When we come to faith and cooperate with God’s grace and do good works we are rewarded by God with more grace. Works of grace therefore play an important role in our salvation. THis is why James says we are justified by works and not by faith alone.

In the 1Cor 3 judgment our good works provide gold, silver and precious stones as an offering to the Lord. While what is done in the flesh results in ash…The person is saved but has only ashes to offer…

This verse has nothing to do with the Protestant notion of receiving “crowns” in the afterlife.
1 Cor 3 is scripture on purgatory where our works are tested. Our sinful works and the consequences of our sin must be purged before we can enter heaven. That is why the verse says the “man” must suffer loss but he will be saved as through fire. .

 

[Hiskid1973]

When we come to faith and cooperate with God’s grace and do good works we are rewarded by God with more grace. Works of grace therefore play an important role in our salvation. THis is why James says we are **justified **by works and not by faith alone.

This verse has nothing to do with the Protestant notion of receiving “crowns” in the afterlife.
1 Cor 3 is scripture on purgatory where our works are tested. Our sinful works and the consequences of our sin must be purged before we can enter heaven. That is why the verse says the “man” must suffer loss but he will be saved as through fire. .

I have justified bolded…There is NOTHING we do to earn our salvation…Being justified by faith is maturing in/with that gift of a new life with Christ…We can enhance our walk yearning to hear a "well done good and faithful servant but the salvic part is Christ’s alone…The good works or lack of them has nothing to do with that free gift…Works or lack of them is topping on the dessert provided by the Lord…Yes our works are tested and this has nothing to with salvation…This is just for those believing…I imagine is will be a sad disheartening time time for those who never sought to grow and mature in their walk with Christ…To just stand before Christ with a pile of ash…I don’t really see this will be an ongoing event (ie varied times in purgatory for some) but a one time event…What about living believers at the last trump, they will be lifted to Jesus in the clouds in a twinkling of an eye…Purgatory will have to be a very quick in that scenario.
Anyway as for rewards/crowns that will be a joyous time for some…I can see Billy Graham a well as regular Joe’s receiving a “soul winners” crowns for sharing to others how then can become born anew in Christ… H even has a crown waiting for those looking for His return…As always these are non catholic thoughts…Check the scriptures for everything… Grace and peace to you…

 

[JonNC]

=Catholic Dude;6897021]Justification is grounded in the notion of Adoption. To be part of God’s family, we must be Adopted, receiving the Holy Spirit of Adoption in our souls. Nothing we do can “buy” this adoption, no “works”, no nothing, it’s a gracious adoption that we never deserved but God will give to those who humbly ask Him.

Now, once we’re adopted, we’re called to grow into spiritually mature children, growing up to receive our Father’s inheritance which we as adopted children are entitled to. This is done by ‘good works’. On the other hand, we can repudiate and lose our adoption, and thus loose our rights as children, through grave sin. Grave sin, mortal sin, is effectively saying “I don’t want to be an adopted child anymore.”

As alutheran, I have no dispute with this.
But this…

The Protestant notion of justification has confused and perverted this, grounding justification on the notion of passing an exam. Since we cannot pass the exam, the Protestant says Jesus passed it for us, keeping the Law perfectly in our place. (Something the Bible never teaches) As a result, they believe God gives us a “passing grade” to enter into Heaven. At this point, it logically makes no sense that our ‘works’ play any role in getting to heaven, since God already “Passed” us based on Christ’s perfect test score. THIS is why Protestants object to “works”. While this is logical in many ways, it is not Biblical at all.

regarding good works, is contrary to what I’ve been taught.
Specifically, what Protestants are you talking about?
Jon

 

[JonNC]

This is long for a post, I know, but so excellent , God bless, Peace Carlan

…Seen in this perspective, the centrality of justification without works, the primary object of Paul’s preaching, does not clash with faith that works through love; indeed, it demands that our faith itself be expressed in a life in accordance with the Spirit. Often there is seen an unfounded opposition between St Paul’s theology and that of St James, who writes in his Letter: “as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so faith apart from works is dead”(2: 26). In reality, while Paul is primarily concerned to show that faith in Christ is necessary and sufficient, James accentuates the consequential relations between faith and works (cf. Jas 2: 24). Therefore, for both Paul and James, faith that is active in love testifies to the freely given gift of justification in Christ. Salvation received in Christ needs to be preserved and witnessed to “with fear and trembling. For God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure… Do all things without grumbling or questioning… holding fast the word of life”, St Paul was to say further, to the Christians of Philippi (cf. Phil 2: 12-14, 16).

We are often induced to fall into the same misunderstandings that characterized the community of Corinth; those Christians thought that since they had been freely justified in Christ through faith, “they could do as they pleased”. And they believed and it often seems that today’s Christians also think this that it is permissible to create divisions in the Church, the Body of Christ, to celebrate the Eucharist without looking after the neediest of our brothers, to aspire to better charisms without being aware that each is a member of the other, and so forth. The consequences of a faith that is not manifested in love are disastrous, because it reduces itself to the arbitrariness and subjectivism that is most harmful to us and to our brothers. On the contrary, in following St Paul, we should gain a new awareness of the fact that precisely because we are justified in Christ, we no longer belong to ourselves but have become a temple of the Spirit and hence are called to glorify God in our body with the whole of our existence (cf. 1 Cor 6: 19). We would be underselling the inestimable value of justification, purchased at the high price of Christ’s Blood, if we were not to glorify him with our body. In fact, our worship at the same time reasonable and spiritual is exactly this, which is why St Paul exhorts us “to present [our] bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God” (Rm 12: 1). To what would a liturgy be reduced if addressed solely to the Lord without simultaneously becoming service to one’s brothers, a faith that would not express itself in charity? And the Apostle often places his communities in confrontation with the Last Judgment, on the occasion of which: “we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive good or evil, according to what he has done in the body” (2 Cor 5: 10; cf. also Rm 2: 16). And this idea of the Last Judgment must illumine us in our daily lives.

If the ethics that Paul proposes to believers do not deteriorate into forms of moralism and prove themselves timely for us, it is because, each time, they start from the personal and communal relationship with Christ, to be realized concretely in a life according to the Spirit. This is essential: the Christian ethic is not born from a system of commandments but is a consequence of our friendship with Christ. This friendship influences life; if it is true it incarnates and fulfils itself in love for neighbour. For this reason, any ethical decay is not limited to the individual sphere but it also weakens personal and communal faith from which it derives and on which it has a crucial effect. Therefore let us allow ourselves to be touched by reconciliation, which God has given us in Christ, by God’s “foolish” love for us; nothing and no one can ever separate us from his love (cf. Rm 8: 39). We live in this certainty. It is this certainty that gives us the strength to live concretely the faith that works in love.​

Carlan,
I’ve read through this a couple of times, and there is nothing here to disagree with. I am particularly moved by the highlighted part. I am truly fond of Pope Benedict XVI.

Jon

 

[Hiskid1973]

Quote:
The Protestant notion of justification has confused and perverted this, grounding justification on the notion of passing an exam. Since we cannot pass the exam, the Protestant says Jesus passed it for us, keeping the Law perfectly in our place. (Something the Bible never teaches) As a result, they believe God gives us a “passing grade” to enter into Heaven. At this point, it logically makes no sense that our ‘works’ play any role in getting to heaven, since God already “Passed” us based on Christ’s perfect test score. THIS is why Protestants object to “works”. While this is logical in many ways, it is not Biblical at all.

I have never heard an explanation like this in my life and I have been walking with Christ as a non catholic for almost 40 years…We object when some try to say the works are “needed” to experience salvation…Works appear as we grow in our faith. Works open the door for rewards, but works in and of themselves have no salvic benefits…

 

[Carlan]

Carlan,
I’ve read through this a couple of times, and there is nothing here to disagree with. I am particularly moved by the highlighted part. I am truly fond of Pope Benedict XVI.

Jon

Yes, thank you Jon.
Peace, Carlan

 

[bona_fides_1]

Justification is grounded in the notion of Adoption. To be part of God’s family, we must be Adopted, receiving the Holy Spirit of Adoption in our souls. Nothing we do can “buy” this adoption, no “works”, no nothing, it’s a gracious adoption that we never deserved but God will give to those who humbly ask Him.

Now, once we’re adopted, we’re called to grow into spiritually mature children, growing up to receive our Father’s inheritance which we as adopted children are entitled to. This is done by ‘good works’. On the other hand, we can repudiate and lose our adoption, and thus loose our rights as children, through grave sin. Grave sin, mortal sin, is effectively saying “I don’t want to be an adopted child anymore.”

The Protestant notion of justification has confused and perverted this, grounding justification on the notion of passing an exam. Since we cannot pass the exam, the Protestant says Jesus passed it for us, keeping the Law perfectly in our place. (Something the Bible never teaches) As a result, they believe God gives us a “passing grade” to enter into Heaven. At this point, it logically makes no sense that our ‘works’ play any role in getting to heaven, since God already “Passed” us based on Christ’s perfect test score. THIS is why Protestants object to “works”. While this is logical in many ways, it is not Biblical at all.

This is a good essay. But I would draw a different conclusion about why Protestants object to works, The real reason is because they need a way to 1st JUSTIFY their faith in Protestants theology SEPARATE from Catholics in order to get to a faith in Jesus alone. Sola Fide has a duality to it - before it is a faith in Jesus alone it is FIRST a faith in Protestant Reformer theology. Think about it - they MUST have a reason to be different from the Catholic Church in order to convince anyone that they have a better mouse trap. Once they have sold the idea of an easier salvation (e.g. no works) they imagine they have the inside track on Christianity that can be easier to teach and evangelize. The problem is its snake oil and there’s no one coming back from the grave to tell anyone its all a bad mistake and even a lie.

The weak link in Protestantism is:

1. Lack of a single scriptural case for rebellion against God’s Church & Authority (closest case is OT Korah’s rebellion - and he was swallowed whole into hell and his followers incinerated into ash)
2. Lack of credibility and poor character of the reformers - not one single sign or miracle and very poor personal character of the principal men involved (murders of competitors, womanizers and established mental instability).
3. Irrational basis for Protestant theology. Just how do men with totally depraved intellects escape their own depravity to come up with a reformed blueprint for the new perfected church? Duh… ironically the blatant irrationality makes the case for total depravity though.

BF

 

[Third_Day]

=Hiskid1973;6898245]I have justified bolded…There is NOTHING we do to earn our salvation

. I agree. We are saved by God’ grace. We cannot be rewarded heaven without God’s grace

Being justified by faith is maturing in/with that gift of a new life with Christ…

We are saved by faith but not faith alone as scripture tells us The fact that you added "maturing " shows that works are necessary along with faith. How does one mature if not by odedience which leads to righteousness?

We can enhance our walk yearning to hear a "well done good and faithful servant but the salvic part is Christ’s alone

…Why is it necessary to "enchance " our walk if we are saved by faith alone? Notice that your scripture says “well done good and faithful” servant. No where does that verse suggest faith alone apart from works of grace.

The good works or lack of them has nothing to do with that free gift…

Can one have faith, not keep the commandments and have eternal life? Yes or no.

Works or lack of them is topping on the dessert provided by the Lord

…
It is through our good works, done by God’s grace, that keep us children of God.

Yes our works are tested and this has nothing to with salvation

…
Explain James “so faith by itself, if it has not works, is dead”. Can you enter eternal life with a dead faith? Explain James again"if a man says he has faith but has not works, can his faith save him? The answer is no. We are not saved by faith alone.

To just stand before Christ with a pile of ash

…Scripure never says that

don’t really see this will be an ongoing event (ie varied times in purgatory for some) but a one time event…What about living believers at the last trump, they will be lifted to Jesus in the clouds in a twinkling of an eye. Purgatory will have to be a very quick in that scenario.

If you believe in the rapture of all believers that you will not understand this. Christians will not be raptured to escape the tribulation where they will suffer greatly for the faith. Suffering in this life is part of our purification.The last Christians will have their purification on earth and will not need time in purgatory which ends at the second coming of Christ.

Anyway as for rewards/crowns that will be a joyous time for some…I can see Billy Graham a well as regular Joe’s receiving a “soul winners” crowns for sharing to others how then can become born anew in Christ… H even has a crown waiting for those looking for His return…As always these are non catholic thoughts…Check the scriptures for everything… Grace and peace to you…

There is no such thing as “jewels in the crown” in the sense that you have been taught. There is one reward that the saved will receive and that is eternal life.
“For he will render to every man according to his works…eternal life” Romans 2:6-7.

There will be those who will be "rewarded "with the gift of a fuller beatific vision of God. Those who were martyred for the faith, those who fed the poor and clothed the hungery like a Mother Teresa. Those who faithfully taught the true gospel and were an example of faith, hope and charity.
You have probably been told that one cannot lose his salvation he can only lose his “rewards”. This false teaching comes from a mis-interpretation of 1 Cor 3 which is speaking of purgatory where we will “suffer loss” yet be saved “as through fire”

 

[bona_fides_1]

Pope Benedict XVI:

This is essential: the Christian ethic is not born from a system of commandments but is a consequence of our friendship with Christ. This friendship influences life; if it is true it incarnates and fulfils itself in love for neighbour.

Carlan,
I’ve read through this a couple of times, and there is nothing here to disagree with. I am particularly moved by the highlighted part. I am truly fond of Pope Benedict XVI.
Jon

Pope Benedict XVI has a gift of re-stating the gospel message[sup]1[/sup] to show Catholic teaching through a spirit of ecumenism that stresses a commonality of belief but without provoking non-Catholic defensive responses and avoids inciting charges of Catholic Triumphalism when the theology is irrefutable. He likes to go to the source of all knowledge and grace - Christ; but he simply avoids rudely pointing to the obvious that the river of grace flows through His Body - His Catholic Church (which has informal members who may not yet realize they are Catholic ).

**[sup]1[/sup]John 14:15 If you love me you will keep my commandments,” **

BF