Richard:
If salvation did not rest at least in part on hope, then hope would not be specified as a virtue. “
We hope for what do not see” (Romans 8:24-25).
Even you qualified yourself to some degree by pointing out " . . .IF there is a God . . .", “IF the Bible is true . . .” . I would add to those qualifiers:
IF your interpretation, built of a framework of a select number of passages while making others subordinate to that framework, is correct.
I have had people tell me ‘of a surety’ that Christ would return before 1988, and yet again before AD 2000. You’re of an age with me and likely recall those doomsday fads that swept the Evangelical world. Obviously, eschatology is not intended by God to be so clear as soteriology, yet it is perfectly true–and Catholics can say this as much as Evangelicals–that “we HAVE BEEN saved, we ARE BEING saved, we WILL BE saved”.
You cannot, finally, be assured that despite your bold assertions, you have not boasted in that which you have not received. That your professions, for all their boasting, for all their theological correctness, might not be a false confidence. That you, like those spoken of in the epistles of John might not ultimately go way from Christ “
because they were never truly of us”. (I Jn 2:19)
I cannot tell if you are a hard-shell Calvinist who believes in double predestination–the position which I hold, frankly–or if you hold to some form of moderate Calvinism, but the fact is that the election theory suffers from a fatal flaw. Yes, the promises of God are certain, and He will perform all His purposes . . . . .but YOU cannot be certain, in this life, that YOU, beyond all disputing are an object of those promises.
Over and above that . . .the cheese seems to have moved. Your earlier point was that the Catholic Church, by it’s own lights, had by it’s anathema condemned you to Hell. My response was that the Catholic Church does anathematize you–it does exclude you from full fellowship within it’s body, unless and until such time as you accept Her teachings and repent of your heresies–but She does NOT suggest that you are absolutely, irrevocably, bound for Hell. “
Those who are without, God will judge”, (I Cor 5:15).
Richard Abanes:
And from the Bible, and form my own inner love for Jesus, and the witness of the Holy Spirit to my heart, and the testimony of my life (see James 2), I can say with full assurance I KNOW I will go to heaven and live forever with my God.
You might reference Job 4:6 (NIV):
Should not your piety be your confidence and your blameless ways your hope? Take note of who was speaking in verse 1.
And aside from the specific theological construct which you bring to the Scriptures–how is the ‘witness of the Holy Spirit’ and the “witness of my life” in your case–or in mine–different from the “witness” which constitutes a ‘testimony’ among Mormons? There IS a reason why even very learned and very solid Bible Christians hold to an Arminian position which places more emphasis upon the hope we have in God our Savior (Psalm 25:5, NIV) than upon our own smug reading of the text.
And this is not even all the cannons. You can add the retraction of the Council of Trent to my list of reasons why I could never join the RC Church – I’d forgotten about that Council’s pronouncements (I must be getting old).
:extrahappy:
