For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith...

[Mr.Ex_Nihilo]

I think that Works are signs of devotion to God but are necessary because they show abandonement of ones selfish will for the Will of God your Father. So there isn’t this legalistic attitude of what is required for salvation except that you are doing the will of God. I don’t think that works are like coins in a soda machine. They show the state of your soul and relatinoship with God. If you profess faith and have no works it is just a profession and not really devotion or obedience. ONLY God knows your heart.

As for the Babies, I believe that they have no sin of their own before the age of reasoning. But baptism washes the guilt for original sin thereby making them pure before God. I dont’ know what works that God is having them do as a child and I don’t believe they necessarily have faith the way we understand it either.

great question. i don’t clearly have an answer.

I guess I would suggest that they have a deposit of faith via the gifts conveyed by their spiritual birth confered during the sacrament of baptism. This is isn’t to say that this is the only way in which God can baptize (cf., references to baptism of desire and baptism of blood for exmaple). But it does suggest that the deposit of faith comes with baptism in whichever form the Lord has allowed-- all by the Holy Spirit.

Likewise, I would only suggest that God apparently holds us accountable only to the degree he has called the person, to the degree which he has enabled them (cf., reference to invincible ignorance for example). God also apparently judges in proportion to that which they’ve been called. So, for example, I don’t think Jabez was called to the same degree that Moses was. Yet both were called by God nonetheless.
Romans 1:20:

For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

And again, it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous.

As Paul remarks, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law.

This is natural law. But going one step further…

The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.

Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they display knowledge.

There is no speech or language
where their voice is not heard.

All people are called by God’s Holy Spirit to believe in God.

In fact, there is no one who has not heard the voice of God to some degree. Jesus even went to the dead and spoke the word to them.
John 5:25:

I tell you the truth, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live.

Nonetheless, within our own mortal lives, for reasons entirely outside our ability to control, many do apparently not heed the voice of God to the level that God actually called them.

And, in the end, I think only God can discern the degree between which works he truly enabled us to do and the degree to which works he did not truly enable us do.

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

I may not understand exactly how this all works, although I do hope the Lord would reveal more to me each and every day. More to the point, however, I do know that he is fair and just in all his decisions concerning salvation.

 

[namguy69]

Exactly.

I don’t have any idea what any Pope said, he’s a man like everyone else that I’m certain of.

Baptism is ’ an outard expression of salvation.’ The baptism of a baby does nothing but get them wet Baptism comes after one has given their heart & soul to the Lord Jesus Christ:thumbsup:

 

[Mr.Ex_Nihilo]

I don’t have any idea what any Pope said, he’s a man like everyone else that I’m certain of.

Baptism is ’ an outard expression of salvation.’ The baptism of a baby does nothing but get them wet Baptism comes after one has given their heart & soul to the Lord Jesus Christ:thumbsup:

Well, so much for being charitable.

In other words, since you’re claiming to have saved yourself when you gave your heart & soul to the Lord Jesus Christ, you’re preaching more works righteousness– essentially stating that God cannot save you unless you let him.

More to the point, you’re mistaking the manifestation of the Holy Spirit with you own human effort, as if by your own human effort you could earn your salvation.

At noon Elijah began to taunt them. “Shout louder!” he said. “Surely he is a god! Perhaps he is deep in thought, or busy, or traveling. Maybe he is sleeping and must be awakened.” So they shouted louder and slashed themselves with swords and spears, as was their custom, until their blood flowed.

So much for your God namguy69-- and good luck with his impotence.

Consequently, as a sacrament, baptism is a visible sign of God’s invisible presence-- the deposit of the Holy Spirit bringing those baptized a new life in Christ. Salvation comes by the Holy Spirit and not by your ‘human decision’ to believe. In fact, you wouldn’t even be believing in Jesus, and would not have even decided to believe, unless the Lord were already moving you to do so by the Holy Spirit in the first place.

I thought you would have understood that by now. Apparently not.

But do proceed to mistake the manifestation of the Holy Spirit with you own human effort, and believe the illusion that you ‘choose to believe’, the ‘decision theology’ which embodies the very definition of heresy.

You didn’t choose God. God chose you.

Can I make it any clearer than that?

 

[simbagizmo]

In other words, your argument so far seems to be mainly focused on the proper distinction in regards to the possession of faith in contrast to my arguments which question where this faith is actually coming from to begin with.

Do you see the difference?

We are discussing where faith comes from. You state that if we believe ourselves this is saving ourselves. That when we believe this is not of ourselves but of God. Therefore the act of believing is nothing we do, because this would be work and in your interpretation, we would be earning our own salvation. If I got this wrong again, please let me know. If not, please explain the following form the Catholic Catechism to me.

154 Believing is possible only by grace and the interior helps of the Holy Spirit. But it is no less true that believing is an authentically human act. Trusting in God and cleaving to the truths he has revealed is contrary neither to human freedom nor to human reason. Even in human relations it is not contrary to our dignity to believe what other persons tell us about themselves and their intentions, or to trust their promises (for example, when a man and a woman marry) to share a communion of life with one another. If this is so, still less is it contrary to our dignity to “yield by faith the full submission of… intellect and will to God who reveals”, and to share in an interior communion with him.

 

[santaro75]

I don’t have any idea what any Pope said, he’s a man like everyone else that I’m certain of.

rabblerouser.

The pope is just a man you are right. SO WAS PAUL, PETER, MARK, MATTHEW, LUKE, JOHN,JAMES need I say more?

these were all men and sinners.

 

[Mr.Ex_Nihilo]

We are discussing where faith comes from.

Yes. And I’m saying that faith comes from God.

simbagizmo:

You state that if we believe ourselves this is saving ourselves.

No. I’ve never said that believing ourselves is saving ourselves.

On the one hand, I’m saying that those who claim to be saved because of their own faith in God are indirectly making the subtle claim that they have saved themselves by responding to God’s grace.

I’ve also said that God living within us and believing on our behalf, effectively sharing his faith with us, is where salvation comes from-- it’s God’s grace by the Holy Spirit.

simbagizmo:

That when we believe this is not of ourselves but of God.

I think you’re starting to get it here. Yes, when we believe, it’s because the Holy Spirit indwells us and enables us to believe.

simbagizmo:

Therefore the act of believing is nothing we do, because this would be work and in your interpretation, we would be earning our own salvation.

Yes. But there’s more than that.

I’m also saying that God created us to believe in him and give him praise-- all the by the Holy Spirit. There’s nothing wrong with stating that God created humanity to believe in him, no more so than saying God designed human lungs to breathe air.

simbagizmo:

If I got this wrong again, please let me know.

I think you’re generally understanding my position on this matter.

simbagizmo:

If not, please explain the following form the Catholic Catechism to me.

Ok.

CCC:

Believing is possible only by grace and the interior helps of the Holy Spirit.

This part should be understood now.

CCC:

But it is no less true that believing is an authentically human act.

Exactly. Because God designed us to believe in him by the Holy Spirit.

Just like a lightbulb is designed to give light when electricity is properly applied, humanity is designed to praise God when the Holy Spirit empowers them to do so.

CCC:

Trusting in God and cleaving to the truths he has revealed is contrary neither to human freedom nor to human reason.

Exactly. Because God is logical and reasonable. Therefore the faith he shares with us should be the same.

CCC:

Even in human relations it is not contrary to our dignity to believe what other persons tell us about themselves and their intentions, or to trust their promises (for example, when a man and a woman marry) to share a communion of life with one another.

This comes to this, drawing the anology between husband and wife-- a profound mystery which is acutally talking about Christ and the church.

This is profound mystery between husband and wife is pointing toward the deeper reality of the divination of the flesh when the Word became flesh.

In other words, God becomes more like man so that man can become more like God.

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.

In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church— for we are members of his body.

“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.”

This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.

However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

CCC:

If this is so, still less is it contrary to our dignity to “yield by faith the full submission of… intellect and will to God who reveals”, and to share in an interior communion with him.

As the beginning paragraph already stated, believing is possible only by grace and the interior helps of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, to share an interior communion with God is God sharing his faith with us by the Holy Spirit so that we may believe in him.

 

[simbagizmo]

As the beginning paragraph already stated, believing is possible only by grace and the interior helps of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, to share an interior communion with God is God sharing his faith with us by the Holy Spirit so that we may believe in him.

As I stated before, I was once Catholic for many years, so I do have some understanding for the Catholic thought. Your is different than I have encountered before. If you permit me, I would like your interpretations of the Profession of Faith in the Roman Catholic Catechism. Let’s start with this.

Profession of Faith
Section One Chapter Three is entitled “Man’s response to God”

Doesn’t this state that man has to respond to God in some way?

 

[namguy69]

Well, so much for being charitable.

In other words, since you’re claiming to have saved yourself when you gave your heart & soul to the Lord Jesus Christ, you’re preaching more works righteousness– essentially stating that God cannot save you unless you let him.

More to the point, you’re mistaking the manifestation of the Holy Spirit with you own human effort, as if by your own human effort you could earn your salvation.

So much for your God namguy69-- and good luck with his impotence.

Consequently, as a sacrament, baptism is a visible sign of God’s invisible presence-- the deposit of the Holy Spirit bringing those baptized a new life in Christ. Salvation comes by the Holy Spirit and not by your ‘human decision’ to believe. In fact, you wouldn’t even be believing in Jesus, and would not have even decided to believe, unless the Lord were already moving you to do so by the Holy Spirit in the first place.

I thought you would have understood that by now. Apparently not.

But do proceed to mistake the manifestation of the Holy Spirit with you own human effort, and believe the illusion that you ‘choose to believe’, the ‘decision theology’ which embodies the very definition of heresy.

You didn’t choose God. God chose you.

Can I make it any clearer than that?

Believe what you wish.

 

[Mr.Ex_Nihilo]

As I stated before, I was once Catholic for many years, so I do have some understanding for the Catholic thought. Your is different than I have encountered before.

Admittedly, as Kreeft’s link I posted above notes, many fellow Catholics have not thought deeply about this. But I need to be clear on this.

I think insofar as fellow Catholics have thought about this, they do readilly admit that it is by grace that we believe in God. I’ve never met a fellow Catholic on this board who did not believe this was the case.

But insofar as some fellow Catholics have limitedly thought about this (none of which are on this board as far as I can tell), they generally have not thought about this beyond, “Be a good person.”

But, for example, when Jesus said in Mark 10:18, *“Why do you call me good? No one is good—except God alone,” *he definitely wasn’t claiming to not be God. He was saying that the reason he is good is because he is God.

And, I might note when coming back to those who say, “Be a good person,” even this much is accurate to the extent that their faith in God indicates that they do believe that God makes them a good person through their belief. Good works are a form of worshipping God in this sense-- a form of worship which comes by the Holy Spirit.
James 1:17:

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.

continued…

 

[Mr.Ex_Nihilo]

continued…

…continued.

simbagizmo:

If you permit me, I would like your interpretations of the Profession of Faith in the Roman Catholic Catechism.

Well, I happen to think that the Catechism is perfect in it’s descriptions of faith. I also highly doubt that anything I suggest is going to change the Catechism-- because the Catechsim does essentially state what I’m claiming already.

As with most matters of faith, the faith in question is expressed phenomenologically from the perspective of man’s response to God– because that’s generally the only way we perceive the world. The mystical idea of the body of Christ is not easilly captured in this phenomenolical perspective.

In other words, the dynamics behind the response requires a deeper insight into the mystery of the Church’s relationship to God as the ‘bride of Christ’. It is not easilly understood by most people – the divinitation of the flesh tends to be confused with the proclomation that men are ‘minor gods’ as some non-Trinitarian para-Christian groups advocate – so it is simply stated that man responds to God in order to avoid the opposite apostate extremes claimed by other essentially non-Christian groups which claim to be Christian.

It can be extremely hard, using language alone, to avoid the extremes between ‘works righteousness’ and the claim that ‘men are gods’ – and yet this is exactly what the Catechism is doing when it makes the claims it makes under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

So, again, in order to avoid the extreme of saying that we are ‘gods’, it is proper to say that man responds to God-- and it is not wrong so long as one also realizes that this response is a motion of the Holy Spirit too (which is stated many times in the Catechism to be fair).

simbagizmo:

Let’s start with this.

Profession of Faith
Section One Chapter Three is entitled “Man’s response to God”

Doesn’t this state that man has to respond to God in some way?

Yes it does. But, as you read through it further, you also read latter that this response is coming from the Holy Spirit too. So, if there’s any kind of change necessary, I suppose one could say that God manifests himself through man by faith-- maybe saying…

Profession of Faith
Section One Chapter Three is entitled “God works in Man”

Or…

Profession of Faith
Section One Chapter Three is entitled “God empowers Man”

Myself, I have really no problem with how the very first Profession of Faith is stated. Saying that man responds to God is not wrong insofar that man really is responding to God. It’s only that one has to realize that man’s response to God comes by the Holy Sprit-- and that man is not responding to God by his own power. God is calling them by the Holy Spirit and empowering them to believe.

As the beginning paragraph already stated, believing is possible only by grace and the interior helps of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, to share an interior communion with God is God sharing his faith with us by the Holy Spirit so that we may believe in him.

This is how we become temples of the Holy Spirit, God indwelling us and empowering us to act according to God’s will.

The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else.

From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.

’For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.'

The Apostle Paul quoted pagans in Scripture at least fours times.

For example, as noted above, Acts 17:28, where Aratus, Phaenomena 5, is paraphrased. Acts 26:14. The phrase “it hurts you to kick against the goad” is a Greek proverb (see Euripides, Bacchae, 794-795). 1 Corinthians 15:33, where Paul quotes Menander, Thais, Frg.218. Titus 1:12, where Epimenides, De oraculis/peri Chresmon is quoted.

Even the pagan nations understood some of these aspects-- quite well at that, which must indicate that at least some truths revealed by the Holy Spirit could be understood by the pagan nations enough for their poets to express this.

 

[Mr.Ex_Nihilo]

Believe what you wish.

So let me get this straight: believing that God saves us is an error?

um…yeah whatever.

 

[simbagizmo]

Originally Posted by simbagizmo
Let’s start with this.

Doesn’t this state that man has to respond to God in some way?

Yes it does. But, as you read through it further, you also read latter that this response is coming from the Holy Spirit too. So, if there’s any kind of change necessary, I suppose one could say that God manifests himself through man by faith-- maybe saying…

Profession of Faith
Section One Chapter Three is entitled “God works in Man”

Or…

Profession of Faith
Section One Chapter Three is entitled “God empowers Man”

Myself, I have really no problem with how the very first Profession of Faith is stated. Saying that man responds to God is not wrong insofar that man really is responding to God. It’s only that one has to realize that man’s response to God comes by the Holy Sprit-- and that man is not responding to God by his own power. God is calling them by the Holy Spirit and empowering them to believe.

But does man have the choice to accept or reject this calling? Man spirit is dead until something happens to give it life. I understand that the Baptism of the Holy Spirit creates us as a new creation. But what causes this baptism to happen in your understanding?
[/QUOTE]

 

[Mr.Ex_Nihilo]

But does man have the choice to accept or reject this calling?

Yes and no.

In the sense of answering yes to this question, we see that God has indeed allowed humanity the full capacity to reject his offer of grace.

This is displayed very well when we look to Adam and Eve in my opinion.

Adam and Eve were initially created ‘believing in God’. God did not create them ‘not believing in God’.

Later, after they chose to reject his grace, they separated themselves from God’s default position of fully believing in him, the default position that God created them in to begin with.

In the sense of answering no to this question, we also see that if someone is going to enter into paradise with God, then the person really has no choice at all.

In other words, no one can reject God’s free offer of grace and still expect to enter into paradise with God. So, in all actuality, there really is no choice on this matter at all as far as salvation is concerned.

But even this knowledge comes by the Holy Spirit too.

simbagizmo:

Man spirit is dead until something happens to give it life.

As I said before, it seems fairly evident that God’s grace has been with humanity, at least as offered, since the very beginning. Catholicism would instead maintain that man’s spirit is wounded (and even in serious danger of dying) but not completely dead.

This doesn’t mean that man has earned anything to return to their life in Christ. It only means that man has never been entirely cut off from God’s grace due to original sin.

In this light, God has continued to work through the Holy Spirit to call all of humanity back into full communion with him. Therefore, if man returns into full communion with God, it is because God has brought them back by the Holy Spirit-- which is what God intended all along from the beginning*.

*Of course, not all people have been docile to the motion of the Holy Spirit like Adam and Eve were. Many throughout history have resisted the motion of the Holy Spirit (by their own free-will) and apparently damned themselves from God’s grace in the process.

continued…

 

[Mr.Ex_Nihilo]

…continued

Have you ever read a book called Distinctively Catholic by Daniel Donovan?

If not, and if you are at all interested in returning to Catholicism, I would highly encourage you to read it. This book explains many of the points we’ve been discussing and I’ve placed brief quotation from the test below for you to examine further…
Daniel Donovan:

The formal endorsement by Vatican II of the notion of the sacramental nature of the church presents an opportunity for broadening and deepening our appreciation of what is entailed in the traditional understanding of Catholicsim as a sacramental religion.

One area in which this has been done in the post-conciliar period has been in regard to the relation of the church to the vast non-Christian would that surrounds it. Vatican II reflects what might be called an optimism of grace. It affirms that inspite of sin God never has abandonned humanity but has stayed close to it and in various ways offered people the possibility of salvation.

I will briefly note that there is nothing unscriptural about this statement. As I’ve already pointed out many times from the book of Acts…

From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.

Coming back to Donovan’s words on this…
Daniel Donovan:

With the coming of Christ, God’s saving activity is focussed in a particular way on the church, but is by no means restricted to it. God wills the salvation of all and, in ways unknown to us, remains present to people everywhere, offering them a share in the divine life.

Karl Rahner spoke of God’s universal offer of salvation. For him every human life is lived out in relationship to the God of grace, even though because of their religious and cultural backgrounds many are unable to recognize that this is the deepest meaning of their experience.

To speak of the church as a sacrament in this context is to point to its role within a world where grace, at least as offer, is universal. In the midst of that world, the church proclaims and celebrates in explicit language what in a more hidden way God does throughout the length and breadth of human history

Again, when we look to Adam and Eve, we see the truth that humanity was never completely separated from God due to original sin coming to light.

For example, even after they’ve sinned against God, they can still hear God’s voice and converse with him. They can still understand why God is punishing/protecting them. They can also still continue to raise their own children to believe in God too.

If Adam and Eve were spiritually dead, they would not have been able to do any of these things. In other words, if they were entirely cut off from God, then the Holy Spirit would not have been able to allow them to still hear God’s voice and converse with him, neither understand why God is punishing/protecting them, nor continue to raise their own children believing in God either.

continued…

 

[Mr.Ex_Nihilo]

…continued

As a side note, I will suggest that if original sin had not happened, all people would have most likely innately known God by the Holy Spirit from conception-- at least to some extent. This is, in my opinion, much like how John the Baptist recognized God from the womb within our Christian Scriptures…
Luke 1:14-15:

He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is never to take wine or other fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from birth.

And again…
Luke 1:41:

When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.

Do you find it odd that John the Baptist was never actually baptized, even after he noted to Christ that Christ should be baptising him instead of the other way around?

A similar thing could be seen, to a lesser extent within the Hebrew Scriptures, with the prophet Jeremiah…

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”

But this is another matter which comes back to the sacrament of baptism…

simbagizmo:

I understand that the Baptism of the Holy Spirit creates us as a new creation. But what causes this baptism to happen in your understanding?

Not to be obtuse, but I think God causes it to happen in his own time, on his own schedule.

In the sacremental nature of baptism, I would merely suggest that sacraments within the Christian era are the counterpart to Covenants within the Judaic period.

The difference, in this sense, is that the sacraments of the Christian era reflect the living presence of Christ whereas the Covenants of the Hebrews were pre-figuring, or prophesying toward the sacramental nature that God ultimately intended to be found in Christ.

The covenant of circumcision points toward the sacrament of baptism for example. As Colossians 2:17 says, these are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ.

 

[simbagizmo]

Yes and no.

In the sense of answering yes to this question, we see that God has indeed allowed humanity the full capacity to reject his offer of grace.

This is displayed very well when we look to Adam and Eve in my opinion.

Adam and Eve were initially created ‘believing in God’. God did not create them ‘not believing in God’.

Later, after they chose to reject his grace, they separated themselves from God’s default position of fully believing in him, the default position that God created them in to begin with.

But this state of being outside of God’s Grace is now the default state for all man. If we do nothing we are condemned. Jesus did not come into the world to condemn it, but to save it. The world is already condemned in its default state. We are by default dead in Spirit. So something has to be done change the default state of man.

In the sense of answering no to this question, we also see that if someone is going to enter into paradise with God, then the person really has no choice at all.

In other words, no one can reject God’s free offer of grace and still expect to enter into paradise with God. So, in all actuality, there really is no choice on this matter at all as far as salvation is concerned.

But this argument is stating that the default state is salvation and one has to choose to reject salvation to be condemned.

 

[Mr.Ex_Nihilo]

But this state of being outside of God’s Grace is now the default state for all man.

Not to the extent that some claim. If man were completely outside the state of God’s grace, so much so that he were completely cut off from God’s spirit, he would be more than spiritually dead. He would be physically dead too, essentially returning to the ineffable dust in which he were formed…

For example…
Job 34:14-15:

If it were his intention
and he withdrew his spirit and breath,
all mankind would perish together
and man would return to the dust.

And again…
Isaiah 29:4:

Brought low, you will speak from the ground; your speech will mumble out of the dust. Your voice will come ghostlike from the earth; out of the dust your speech will whisper.

And, as I said before, if God were to have completely withdrawn his Spirit from Adam and Eve, our original parents would never have been able to continue to talk with him after their original sin.

As Psalm 143:7 says, “Answer me quickly, O LORD; my spirit fails. Do not hide your face from me or I will be like those who go down to the pit.”

On the opposite end, we see that Psalm 34:18 says the LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. This echoes Jesus words in the beatitude of Matthew 5:3 which states, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

simbagizmo:

If we do nothing we are condemned.

But we’re not doing nothing. The Spirit of the Lord is moving many toward salvation-- even those who do not know God are being moved by the Spirit of the Lord toward salvation in Christ.

People can worship that which they do not know.

For example, in John 4:22, Jesus said, “You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews.”

The parable of the good Samaritan, by the way, is an excellent example of someone who did not know God but who nonetheless worshiped God by the things he did.

Likewise, as Acts 17:23 points out, people can worship God without actually knowing the God who enabled them to act in accordance with his will.

For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.

As Acts 15:8 says, “God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us.”

continued…

 

[Mr.Ex_Nihilo]

…continued

…continued.

simbagizmo:

Jesus did not come into the world to condemn it, but to save it.

Yes. And yet Christ was slain from the foundation of the world too, as Revelation 13:8 notes. When Jesus proclaimed, “It is finished” this calls us back to the day the Lord rested, as Hebrews 4:4 notes…

And yet his work has been finished since the creation of the world. For somewhere he has spoken about the seventh day in these words: “And on the seventh day God rested from all his work.”

simbagizmo:

The world is already condemned in its default state.

Not necessarilly.

The world is already condemned only to the extent that they reject the grace offered freely in Christ. It’s true to say that people perish due to lack of knowledge. But it is unbelief which damns.

Lacking precise knowledge of God for reasons of invincible ignorance should not be conflated with the idea of hardening one’s heart and willingly rejecting God in the deliberate defiance of persistent unbelief in my view.

These are two different things.

simbagizmo:

We are by default dead in Spirit.

For reasons already explained, I would suggest that we are not by default dead in Spirit.

Spiritually wounded? Yes.

In danger of spiritual death? Yes.

Spiritually dead? No. Not unless we persist in sin and thereby further separate ourselves from God.

Furthermore, it needs to be asked why so many other religions and faiths and peoples been able to faithfully believe in some valid aspects of God, such as the Samaritans for example?

Many cultures were aware of the fact that murder and stealing were wrong and marriage and helping others were good well before Moses gave the Mosiac law at God’s command for example.

simbagizmo:

So something has to be done change the default state of man.

But Christ has been at work in humanity since the beginning of creation. In fact, As Romans 1:20 says…

For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

Furthermore, even if we are only spiritually wounded, I think this alone would be sufficient to prevent our entry into heaven. That’s why Jesus came, to repair our broken spirits so that we may enter heaven when our time on earth comes to an end.

If Jesus did not die on the cross, these spiritual wounds within our soul would have been more than sufficient to eventually lead us to spiritual death.

continued…

 

[Mr.Ex_Nihilo]

continued…

…continued.

simbagizmo:

But this argument is stating that the default state is salvation and one has to choose to reject salvation to be condemned.

Not necessarilly.

It makes the claim that God did create Adam and Eve in the initial state of innocence, believing in God, and free from sin.

It also makes the claim that, after Adam and Eve sinned, the transgression they committed were spiritually carried onto their descendents. But it was not the guilt of their original sin which was transfered. It was the effects of original sin which were transfered.

St. Augustine noted that “the deliberate sin of the first man is the cause of original sin”. This principle is developed by St. Anselm too: “the sin of Adam was one thing but the sin of children at their birth is quite another, the former was the cause, the latter is the effect.”

It also makes the claim that, even after Adam and Eve sinned, they were not completely cut off from God’s grace-- that is, not without further transgressions completely breaking their connection to God.

As such, it stands to reason, based on the Scriptures, that God is most certainly still moving people by his Spirit. I would argue, however, that only Christians are temples of the Holy Spirit, whereas non-Christians are more or less moved by the Holy Spirit and do not have the permanent indwelling that Christians have been repeatedly assured of.

This permanent indwelling of the Holy Spirit that I speak of is refering to the grace and the interior helps of the Holy Spirit the catechsim mentions. To share an interior communion with God is God sharing his faith with us by the Holy Spirit so that we may believe in him, a permanent indwelling of the Spirit infused by God which is permanent until death*.

I don’t think unbaptized babies, for example, are, by default, saved. However, we have good grounds to hope that God in his mercy and love looks after these children and brings them to salvation too.

God can be trusted in all that he does. I am confident that he will complete his work in us.

---

*At the time of death, each person undergoes their particular judgment which then determines whether the Spirit will remain with the person, purifiy them as necessary, and carry them forward to heaven or not. Those who have this permanent indwelling are called to a higher standard than those who do not have this permanent indwelling.

An example of this ‘higher standard’ can be found in James 3:1 where he states, “Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.”

And, again, our Lord states something similar to this as follows:

Then Jesus began to denounce the cities in which most of his miracles had been performed, because they did not repent.

"Woe to you, Korazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.

But I tell you, it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you.

And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted up to the skies? No, you will go down to the depths. If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Sodom, it would have remained to this day.

But I tell you that it will be more bearable for Sodom on the day of judgment than for you."

 

[simbagizmo]

…continued.

simbagizmo:

But this argument is stating that the default state is salvation and one has to choose to reject salvation to be condemned.

Not necessarilly.

I am trying to understand your reasoning here, but I need the understanding of what state man is in by default today. A man is either in a Justified or unjustified state to begin. In your thinking does man start off as Justified or Unjustified? I am not looking for a big explanation of your answer yet, just a simple Justified or Unjustified.