I generally think of “good works” as works of charity because of Mt 25 (sheep and goats) etc.
No, I don’t find it strange. What I find strange is the ones who don’t thank Jesus (i.e. the 9 lepers, a huge illness to be cured of).
The fact is that "You act as if you have a perfect grasp on the scriptures".
Oh, so if you get drunk and shoot your wife or friend then you will automatically just repent and be saved? IOW, it really doesn’t matter how you live or what you do because (according to what you have said above) you are a robot without any choice at all. Yet that is not at all what Our lord Jesus Christ says in His Word.
Excellent question - who’s right? The truth is neither one of us knows with absolute certainty based on our fallible deductions. In such circumstances I align myself those teachings of the Apostles(and successors)expressed through the Church. What, EXACTLY, do you do to resolve such situations other than ignore others as being less inspired than yourself?
God does not NEED my cooperation, he has bound himself to RESPECT my choices out of love. If God so desired, he could force me to do whatever He wished.
So then you, and all believers by extension, only do what God wants you to do, right? I mean that is what you are saying here in your attempt to not admit that we play a role in cooperating with God. The only problem is that you have already claimed that believers do, in fact, sin…a lot. And if believers sin then we must conclude that you believe their sins are the will of God. Unless you have someone or something else to blame for their sins. And even if you do - which you don’t - you would then have to admit that somehow that God “needs” the cooperation of that entity to accomplish His will. And that would simply mean that despite your objections to the contrary, your God is very similar to my God in requiring cooperation.
This does nothing to explain why God apparently commands them to walk by the flesh - remember, you said God is in control. If a person can “choose” to “walk by the flesh” then they can remain doing so, by choice. What happens to such a person if they die in the state of unrepentant walking in the flesh?(Please include scripture reference)
Duly noted! For the time being, however, lets just pretend that we are going to offer arguments and rebuttals based upon the presumption that neither one of us has dug any deeper than the other since neither you nor I have any idea how deeply each has dug. You are right that I lack humility, it’s unfortunate that your own pride compelled you to declare it publicly.
We have agreed on precious little. I specifically refuted your notion that believers can’t “fail” in regards to walking in God’s works by appealing directly to the verse itself: “that we SHOULD walk in them”. Should includes the possibility that we will NOT walk in them. James addresses the situation of one who walks past a neighbor in need. I often fail in walking the path that God calls me to. You may be the only person who is unprepared to admit that when they sin, it isn’t because they have chosen to in direct disobedience to God’s will. For this reason, and others (like the entire NT and the reality of unfruitful believers), your attempted reasoning that God’s omnipotence precludes believers from failing to walk in the good deeds simply has nothing in it’s favor apart from your endorsement of it.
God OFFERS the GIFT to ALL is more accurate.
Correct.
REJECTING is not the same as OVERPOWERING. This is your error. They can reject his OFFER OF THE GIFT There is a CONSEQUENCE to rejecting Gods offer, but that consequence was ESTABLISHED BY GOD and therefore there is no “overpowering of God” as you propose.
What - now your a prophet?!
Sweet!You go 1st.
I don’t agree with the views of the author.
I don’t doubt this, however I’m referring more towards his understanding of what I believe. He does not characterize my understanding exactly and therefore some of his arguments aren’t exactly valid for me. If you use his views of Predestination for discussion’s sake, they won’t necessarily be accurate for me.
Ok. So we agree on the concept of “free will”.
Restate this one for me. I think I’m being slow.
It is my understanding from the scriptures that man left freely to either accept or reject grace of his own “natural will” will always reject it. The Bible tells us that there is nothing good about the “flesh”/“natural man” that would enable him to willingly turn to God’s grace (Rom 3:10-12).
Ok. Well when I speak of Saving grace, I mean God giving someone the free gift of faith. When I speak of “grace”, I often mean common grace for man to live. I will try to remember to clarify.Catholics have a detailed definition and understanding of grace.
oce.catholic.com/index.php?title=Grace
but here’s a short answer
Grace is the supernatural gift that God, of his free benevolence, bestows on rational creatures for their eternal salvation, the unmerited gift proceeding from this benevolent disposition. Grace, therefore, is a totally gratuitous gift on which man has absolutely no claim
The Catholic Church answers this with: we are given the grace to repent and turn back towards Him through the sacraments**. Initially through the grace given to us through the sacrament of Baptism.
Let’s go back to the garden.
Paul is only echoing our Lord’s teaching that justification is not achieved by ‘observing the Law’ but by ‘fulfilling the Law’. He uses the term ‘works’ to mean ‘observing the Law’.
Believers can’t fail because God can’t fail. Most of the NT from Paul, Peter, James, etc is about instruction on how to live a holy life and warnings against failing to do so. I just don’t get it - why would the NT authors put so much effort into attempting to alter the behavior of believers if they can’t fail? They wouldn’t of course. I guess the only way to salvage such language in light of the NT is to assume that those who do, in fact fail are not true believers. But just when that realization is made the house of cards constructed with OSAS and eternal security comes crashing down. For if future failings unbenownst to us now have the capacity to render us as among the damned and if those failings represent God’s will for us from all eternity, then what eternal security is there, and what use is it to claim OSAS if our future acts might reveal that we are not truly saved? Like I said earlier:at best a useless doctrine (you simply can’t know your eternal destiny until you have finished the race) and at worst dangerous (it might lead one to complacence in their spiritual life) in that we might not “stay awake”
Becoming a believer is not an event but a process. The beginning is modest and small like the mustard seed and grows with perseverance and long-suffering. When the highest stage is attained, one is able to perfectly imitate our Lord. This stage may not be attained during our earthly sojourn and may require some further purgation.
To “stay awake” is easier said than done. How can anyone be ready to face the Judge any time? It is humanly impossible, but yet made possible by God to those who depend on Him rather than their own ability to avoid sin.
Great idea. Let’s do it.
The truth is no matter what we do of our flesh, “natural man” can’t understand Spiritual teachings apart from the Spirit (1 Cor 2:9-16). So in order to understand the scriptures, we must first be indwelled by the Spirit of God which is at the total discretion of God Himself. This however, doesn’t make one all knowing and work must be done (Spirit led work) to delete all seeming contradictions the Bible contains. This is done by looking at the entire Word of God and taking it as a whole. If the Bible says God never fails and God always does as He pleases, then this must hold true throughout all of scripture. If you have made a conclusion that God fails or His will is not done at any point, then you know you have come to an errant conclusion and you must deduce another conclusion that makes both the text you are reviewing and in this case, God’s characteristics true.
What verse do you use to understand that “He has bound Himself to respect your choices”? Other than the Catholic belief of initial salvation, do you believe God ever forces man to do whatever He wishes?
You willing to put that belief to the test? I don’t believe you would, and for good reasons. No one will take you seriously when making statements like this because the logic follows is that if you truly believed this, you would’ve done so already since the bliss in heaven of seeing God face to face would be the prime motive and any delay of attaining this state is incoherent. If suicide is forgivable, and as long as you have faith in Christ, then suicide is the surest and quickest way to heaven. Since you haven’t done this already, you don’t believe in this statement and should revise your position. Another reason how bible alone mentality is limited.
No, St. Paul does not write that. The “alone” part was added to Scripture by Luther. The “works of the law” in this verse refers to the Jewish rituals, circumcision, etc. Keep reading further into the passage. This has nothing to do with the works of charity required of all Christians.
Add the following from the St. James’ epistle:
To me this is about as clear as it can get.
Incorrect. I have a wife and baby on the way. While my life is far from perfect I have friends and family that I would be selfishly leaving behind and several that have yet to come to Christ. Additionally, I realize through the scriptures that while this life pales in comparison to Heaven, this life is where I “earn” my eternal rewards with good works(NOT SALVATION). By cutting my time, by sinning no less, I don’t just reduce my eternal rewards through the good works I could do, but I suffer loss due to the sin of suicide.
And here is your reply:
Again, you have not answered the question, you have merely begged it. Let me restate the problem clearly and then I will repose the question for you.
Here, is the problem: you and I disagree on exactly what “the Word of God tells us” with respect to this issue of God’s Sovereignty and it’s relationship to our free will. Your position (and mine!) is also at odds with other Protestant denominations - all of which are led by people who use the “word of God” as their ultimate source for understanding the faith. In summary the problem is: based upon our understanding of the word of God, we disagree. Using the word of God and not being able to agree on what, exactly it says is not a good thing - agreed? I can only presume you agree since your actions of attempting to convince me of the truth can only be understood as such. And now, here is the question - again - which you haven’t quite answered, but which we would like answered:
What, EXACTLY, do you do to resolve such situations other than ignore others as being less inspired (in their understanding of Scripture) than yourself?
I wouldn’t fault you for going into a lot of detail
Blessings!
I’ll get to other issues as I am able…you did a much better job of explaining yourself in recent posts IMHO than some of your earlier ones - thank you for your effort.
I think that your very existence, lvl, is a testament to the fallacy of the above statement.
