HELP!!! Protestant & Catholic views on Salvation

[Vimy_Ridge]

If God truly gave us free will then he must allow us make choices, right?

Do you believe in free will?

I do not believe in free will. I see God as an author and we are the characters in His novel. The story is already written, we are reading the story, but none of us know the ending.

 

[geometer]

But anyways I think we are mistaken in obsessing over salvation and the afterlife. I try to see what God wants to save us from in the here and now.

What I have been saved from was all too obvious to me. And I believe that I was saved because I remembered love when I was surrounded by danger. I was only ten years old, so I wasn’t at all sure this world was such a good idea.

Fear won’t save you, but love will give you the courage to have a little conversation with God, the next time you find yourself in an absurd situation in this world that he created,

 

[CHESTERTONRULES]

I do not believe in free will. I see God as an author and we are the characters in His novel. The story is already written, we are reading the story, but none of us know the ending.

Why bother then? What’s in it for God?

 

[Vimy_Ridge]

Why bother then? What’s in it for God?

Why bother with what? If you are bothered then you are trying to save yourself. God tells a good story and I’m sure the ending will be great, then He will tell us another one. God does what God does, no?

 

[Carlan]

PLUS. Why do you say you do not know if there is a heaven and a hell? It seems you left the CC for other reasons. If you believe there is a GOD why would there not be a place in eternity for you.

Catholics believe we are saved only by God’s grace working in us. Thus we are justified, transformed from the state of unrighteousness into a state of holiness and the sonship of God, on account of Christ. Justification is the merciful and freely given act of God which takes away our sins and makes us just and holy in our whole being. This justification is given to us in the sacrament of baptism. Justification is the beginning of our free response to God, that is our faith in Christ and our cooperation with the grace of the Holy Spirit. Thus Catholics believe in salvation by grace alone, solely on account of the work of Christ. However, neither Catholics nor Orthodox accept the reformation concept of forensic justification or “justification by faith alone.”

Yes, the Catholic Church does believe a person must be born again to be saved. However, Catholics believe that one is born again at Baptism. In fact, when Christians for the first 1500 years of Christianity, including Martin Luther, used the phrase “born again,” they were referring to baptism. The Catholic Church recognizes the possibility of salvation for Protestants and even for non-Christians, although in Catholic Teaching, all salvation comes through Jesus, who is “the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”

Taken from:
ancient-future.net/basics.html

Why does Jesus emphasize doing good works if one is saved or lost no matter what one does?

The Catholic Church teaches that God desires all men to be saved (see I Timothy 2:4). Therefore, if man cooperates with God’s graces he is capable of attaining salvation through the merits of Jesus Christ. God gives everyone sufficient grace in order to obtain heaven. However, not all people receive the same amount of graces. For example, the Blessed Virgin Mary received the singular grace of the Immaculate Conception. St. Paul received the grace of conversion. “To me, the least of all believers, was given the grace to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ” (Ephesians 3:8).

The Church has not defined every aspect of predestination. Therefore, she allows liberty of interpretation within the boarders it has established. In order to be an acceptable form of predestination, one’s theory must contain the following:

1. an emphasis on the Free Will of man
2. note that man must cooperate with God’s graces
3. Jesus’ sacrifice having the potential to save all people
4. that man, born in sin, must be called by God in order to be able to accept Him
5. an affirmation that God predestines no one to hell

God is all knowing. So yes, you might be predestined to be saved. But you can LOSE salvation, so actually confessing, and doing GOOD works, can help you get to heaven.

I hope I am saying this correctly.

Thank you for this excellent post, kristani, It should be so helpful to Vimy who is coming home to the Church. Carlan.

 

[Carlan]

I have recently found away to return to the Church, it is through a better understanding of the teaching about forming our conscience. I thought that we had to accept all that the Church teaches even if it violates ones conscience, as this doctrine did for mine.

The Church teaches that we must follow our conscience first even if it is contrary to Church doctrine, does it not?

 Wecome Vimy on your new journey back into the Catholic Church.Yes, we must trust t

the forming of our conscience to the whole truth of the Catholic Church,taught to us by the teaching authority of the Church( Magisterium) which is guided by and through the Holy Spirit, Carlan

c

 

[Vimy_Ridge]

Wecome Vimy on your new journey back into the Catholic Church.Yes, we must trust t
the forming of our conscience to the whole truth of the Catholic Church,taught to us by the teaching authority of the Church( Magisterium) which is guided by and through the Holy Spirit, Carlan

c

Thank you. But I think I’m more small ‘c’ catholic. Catholic not Roman Catholic, hope that makes sense.

 

[CHESTERTONRULES]

Why bother with what? If you are bothered then you are trying to save yourself. God tells a good story and I’m sure the ending will be great, then He will tell us another one. God does what God does, no?

I meant, why would God bother to create us if we are automatons? What’s the point?

I believe that God created us in his image so that we could choose to love him and to be with him forever.

 

[Seeker100]

Salvation is a gift from God. It is the state where a person is in obediance to God and loves God with all of his or her heart. In this state the servant of God serves Jesus in everyone that he or she meets.

This is a gift of God as people do not have the ability to choose this on their own strength. God through life circumstances often through serious personal problems brings people to Him. Thus it is by grace as God draws us to Him. It is part of His predestined plan.

We always however have freewill to reject God’s predestined plan, thus rejecting God’s grace of life for us.

This salvation is in this life and the after life. It is the Kingdom of God.

 

[ljubim]

Can someone please explain this view on salvation while discussing purgatory (Jesus wanting perfect beings to enter heaven) :
you would make them perfect by Christ’s blood being shed on the cross so instead of God seeing us imperfect humans. he sees us as perfect because we are saved by His perfect Son

Human beings are not perfect, no matter how hard we might try. This is common sense… Only God is perfect. Even angels, far above us, are imperfect (remember Satan was once an angel.) God is not stupid, He won’t overlook our faults just because we tell Him we are born again. He will say, prove it! in your daily lives. Now imagine a terrible sinner who is able to recieve the last rites and confess on his deathbed, truly is sorry, and truly renounces his sins, but still has some remnants of sin in his mind, and habits of sin still exist. God will not send this man, so close to heaven, to hell to be tortured by his own hatred for all of eternity. But the man clearly is not fit for heaven (say he curses all the time and doesn’t feel this is wrong). He needs to be cleansed just a bit… It’s like srriving at a formal banquet with gym clothes on. You need to change before you go in.

I understand that Jesus died for our sins and all of that. But I really truly believe that not every sin should not count as the SAME sin. If I murder someone it is a lot different then talking behind someones back. I understand Jesus forgave our sins if we are to enter into heaven. But why do some people not think we need to repent, and become more perfect through confession etc.

I agree! Why do they feel this way:shrug:beats me. I remember reading that Luther said that our sins are like a pile of manure, that God covers up with a blanket of snow. Common sense: the manure is still there…

Also, this:
God is perfect and he can save us however He wants. We shouldn’t think that we are able to save ourselves at all… because we cant. Christ did it all.

God gave us free will. He allowed Adam and Eve to sin and allows us all to sin because He wants us to truly love Him, of our own accord. An obligatory love isn’t complete… just like kids leaving home need to discover a new and better relationship with their parents, so we need to love God.

It justs so hard to talk to someone when they believe this way, because yes we believe grace and faith save us. But we also think WHAT WE DO matters as well.

Btw, predestination is Protestant!!! Not Catholic at all. Invented circa Puritan America

 

[Carlan]

Thank you. But I think I’m more small ‘c’ catholic. Catholic not Roman Catholic, hope that makes sense. /QUOt

Sorry , didn’t read all of your posts, Sort of get you now,still somewhat though. Carlan:blush:

 

[DOShea]

I do not believe in free will. I see God as an author and we are the characters in His novel. The story is already written, we are reading the story, but none of us know the ending.

The only way we can really know anything at all about God is through His revelations to us. Thus if He takes on human form and lives among us, teaching His Truth, THE Truth, then it seems illogical to reject the only way we can know of Him in favor of what we think. Jesus certainly taught the idea of man having a choice in the matter, from one end of the Gospels to the other, from His own Mother choosing to do God’s will by giving human birth to Jesus all the way to those two thieves crucified alongside Him making a choice. Parable after parable; seeds growing to fruitfulness or drying up and dying; choosing to forsake earthly goods in favor or eternal life - or not.

Our story is already written, God has a plan, but it is not ours to know that plan. It is ours to make a choice, to participate in life through the grace He lovingly gives us or to reject that grace, thereby rejecting Him, and live or die with the results of our choice. God exists outside of the constraints of time and space, but we were created to live IN time and space. Thus we have the ability to desire Him on Monday, fall out of grace on Wednesday, and come back into his grace on Friday. If we did not live in time, we would be more like angels, where we get only one choice to follow Him or not and however we decide, that’s it, forever.

What we can’t do is take only the items that taste good to us on the plate He offers us. You have to take the whole enchilada, so to speak. That means, in practical terms, like every Catholic everywhere, some things we accept easily and some things we have to struggle with because they seem too “something” to us; too harsh, too demanding, too ridiculous, too simplistic, too complex, too whatever. If you study the life of Jesus, you find time after time He turns every established “thing” on its head. He comes into the world not in the splendor of a King, but as a pauper resting in a cattle feeder. He picks people to follow Him who have no credentials, little education, people who, in our human understanding, we would never choose. Every time those in authority, educated and credentialed, presented the overwhelming, logical human case to Him, thinking they’d finally corralled Him with ideas, He figuratively knocks their legs out from under them. Time after time after time after time.

Every time the world said no and He said yes, yes somehow manages to always triumph. There is a lesson in that.

If we approach our faith thinking everything in it must fit into our template or be rejected, we will never mesh with His teaching. It just doesn’t. So faith is more than accepting “what we think,” it’s accepting what He taught.

Have faith, and enjoy your journey.

 

[AwGusTeen]

Would God give a gift knowing that you would later lose it? It is either grace or works, if you have to do something to keep it then it is no longer grace.

But anyways I think we are mistaken in obsessing over salvation and the afterlife. I try to see what God wants to save us from in the here and now.

That’s a false dicotomy. Catholics use the both/and interpretation where as most Protestants use the either/or approach. Using your philosophy, God is either One Person **or **Three Persons – he cannot be both. With that vehicle, the Trinity cannot be. Since most Protestants would never admit to that, the either/or philosophy is fallacious.

 

[RickHolland]

My understanding is that salvation is by grace alone.

A priest told me that the RCC teaches that some are predestined for heaven by God. I asked if that meant that those who are not predestined for Heaven are then predestined for Hell. He said no, the Church does not teach double predestination.

I then asked if the Church really teaches that Hell is a place of eternal conscious suffering, and I was told it does. I left the Church because of this doctrine.

Perhaps you asked the wrong question. What is hell in its purest form? It is total seperation from the grace and mercies of God; which means that those who do not accept Christ in all His fullness have in essence chosen to be separated from God; they get what they asked for. No harm no foul. The problem is that you do not see just how sinful and offensive your nature is before God, but in His grace and mercy He gives a way of escape, but most people chose their own course; then God upon death leaves you to your miserable sinful nature self manifested in all of its fullness, which is horrible.

All humans were made in His image, which means we are eternal beings. The question is then, where will you choose to spend that? With or without God? With God is heaven, without God is hell.

Hope that puts things in clearer perspective for all who read.

 

[Vimy_Ridge]

I meant, why would God bother to create us if we are automatons? What’s the point?

I believe that God created us in his image so that we could choose to love him and to be with him forever.

I used to ask people that same question. Now I ask why would God create humans while knowing that the vast majority would reject Him and suffer for all eternity in Hell? I too thought that I chose God but it turned out God chose us. An old nun told me that, and I’m pretty sure she knew her Catholic faith.

Btw, predestination is Protestant!!! Not Catholic at all. Invented circa Puritan America

I used to think the same thing but the RCC does teach predestination (not double predestination, not that it matters , the end is the same) and so does the bible.

 

[geometer]

Predestination

 

[PJM]

=geometer;5749565]Love God with your whole heart, soul, mind and strength. hold no grudge against your neighbor, love your neighbor as your self.

These you must do. Is there something else that you have in mind?

Me? NO!

God? YES!

Read John 20:22-23
Mt. 16:19
Mt.18:15-18
Mt. 19:16
John.3:5
1John 5:16-18

Loving God is necessary, but friend, that’s JUST the beganing:thumbsup:

 

[CHESTERTONRULES]

I

I used to think the same thing but the RCC does teach predestination (not double predestination, not that it matters , the end is the same) and so does the bible.

This can be tricky given the complex nature of the subject, but the Church teaching is very clear:

1992 Justification has been merited for us by the Passion of Christ who offered himself on the cross as a living victim, holy and pleasing to God, and whose blood has become the instrument of atonement for the sins of **all men. **

1966 Our justification comes from the grace of God. Grace is favor, the free and undeserved help that God gives us to respond to his call to become children of God, adoptive sons, partakers of the divine nature and of eternal life.46

2002 God’s free initiative demands man’s free response, for** God has created man in his image by conferring on him, along with freedom, the power to know him and love him.** The soul only enters freely into the communion of love. God immediately touches and directly moves the heart of man. He has placed in man a longing for truth and goodness that only he can satisfy.

 

[guanophore]

Can someone please explain this view on salvation while discussing purgatory (Jesus wanting perfect beings to enter heaven) :

you would make them perfect by Christ’s blood being shed on the cross so instead of God seeing us imperfect humans. he sees us as perfect because we are saved by His perfect Son

This statement emanates from the Calvanistic heresies. The error comes from a warped perspective on the understanding of original sin. It is true that we are legally declared justified by God’s grace. However, the process of cleansing us from sins (sanctification) is not always completed at the time of our death. He does not impute our sins to us, becuase of the perfect sacrifice of His son. However, this does not make the effects of the sins vanish. Cleansing and healing is still necessary. This is why only the saved will be in purgatory.

I understand that Jesus died for our sins and all of that. But I really truly believe that not every sin should not count as the SAME sin. If I murder someone it is a lot different then talking behind someones back. I understand Jesus forgave our sins if we are to enter into heaven.

Jesus was clear that there are degrees of sin. This is also found in Jewish teaching,and salvation comes from the Jews.

Why do some people not think we need to repent, and become more perfect through confession etc.

I have learned a great deal about this since I came to CAF, and have had occasion to pose these questions. The basic problem is that people are separated from the Apostolic Tradition. They attempt to reconstruct what the Apostles believed and taught by extrapolating it from scripture. This causes all kinds of errors. One of these errors is that Jesus’ sacrifice paid for all the sins that are past, present, and future. Since He paid for them all, there is no longer any need to concern oneself with them. Paying attention to sin is considered being “stuck with a sin issue”. On the contrary, it is thought that repentance means we turn from unbelief to belief. I even had one Reformed Evangelical tell me that the Bible does not say we need to repent of our sins! This is a very gross departure from the Apostolic Faith. But, one must keep in mind that modern Evangelicals never received the Apostolic faith. They are born of 500 years of cumulating heresies and don’t even know that there is something different.

I hope I am not digging a bigger hole, I am really just trying to understand this as I hear this type of way of discussing salvation all the time!!

The other major problem we encounter when discussing “saved” with evangelicals is that many of them have fallen into the heresy of OSAS (once saved, always saved). They were taught that praying the “sinners prayer” saves them, and that nothing they can ever do will cause them to lose it. This perspective is not consistent with the Apostolic Teaching.

Also, this:
God is perfect and he can save us however He wants. We shouldn’t think that we are able to save ourselves at all… because we cant. Christ did it all.

I cannot see what it is about this statement that is not consistent with Catholic teaching, except that we must choose to participate in the saving work of Christ, in order for us to benefit from it.

It justs so hard to talk to someone when they believe this way, because yes we believe grace and faith save us. But we also think WHAT WE DO matters as well.

Please help me understand!!!
Thanks!!

Yes, what we do matters, and it matters because it is a reflection of our faith (or lack of it) and grace working in us. We know the tree by it’s fruits, and a bad tree bears bad fruit. As saved person does not persist in a life of sin because it is inconsistent with one’s identity.

 

[guanophore]

My understanding is that salvation is by grace alone.

Really? How did you arrive at that understanding?

A priest told me that the RCC teaches that some are predestined for heaven by God. I asked if that meant that those who are not predestined for Heaven are then predestined for Hell. He said no, the Church does not teach double predestination.

I then asked if the Church really teaches that Hell is a place of eternal conscious suffering, and I was told it does. I left the Church because of this doctrine.

Really? WHY?

Do you believe everything a person tells you? If the priest had told you that, if you threw yourself off a cliff, you would go straight to heaven, would you do that?

It is likely that you left for other reasons, and used this as an excuse.

Also, one has to wonder why you are visiting a Catholic forum, if you think that Catholic doctrine is erroneous.