Matthew 25:31-46 and sola fide

[Benadam]

Don’t think in quantity. Jesus describes the judgement

Those who are condemned say to Him…when did we see you naked and hungry?

These people ask because their love is conditional. If they had only known Jesus was among the least.

Those who are saved ask the same question. When did we see you?Since their love was unconditional they loved Jesus without seeing Him.

 

[tablecorner]

Even temporal goods like health and friendship can be merited in accordance with God’s wisdom.

what does this mean?

“Even temporal goods like health and friendship can be merited in accordance with God’s wisdom.”

 

[annad347]

Yes. Good works are the fruits of our faith. Without them, we are like demons, who indeed know of God but do not do His will.

Those are the exact same words my friend in the Lutheran church said to explain the passage in James about without works faith is dead.James 2:14-26.

@Julius_Caesar, not every question is an opening for a debate… sometimes a question is honestly just a question.

You COULD ask the same question about faith.

True, but I think that was answered here as well, dont you?

 

[Julius_Caesar]

Those are the exact same words my friend in the Lutheran church said to explain the passage in James about without works faith is dead.James 2:14-26.

And how do they reconcile that with faith and when James explicitly says faith alone doesn’t justify?

 

[Julius_Caesar]

@Julius_Caesar, not every question is an opening for a debate… sometimes a question is honestly just a question.

And honest questions are sometimes mistaken ones.

 

[Cathoholic]

annad347 . . .

but I think that was answered here as well, dont you?

Partially.

There is a natural faith or belief.

And a supernatural faith (the ability to believe truths as we ought, that are ABOVE REASON [like the Trinity, the Incarnation, the problem of evil, etc.) that we are gifted with from Jesus at the time of our Baptism.

Here is a Scriptural example of those aspects of faith . . . .

JOHN 2:23-25 23 Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover feast,
many BELIEVED in his name
when they saw the signs which he did; 24
but Jesus did not TRUST himself to them,
25 because he knew all men and
needed no one to bear witness of man; for he himself knew what was in man.

(All caps/bold mine.)

The “trust” here in John 2:24 is literally in the Greek “faith”.

Jesus did not “faith Himself to them” (that gift of Jesus “faithing” Himself to them/us comes later when people are Baptized into the Trinitarian life).

Jesus is the author and finisher of our faith (Hebrews 12:2), but that doesn’t mean we can get by without our believing in a natural sense. We have a natural part to carry out as well. (Although God is the initiator there who draws even this out of us. This is God’s prevenient grace at work. The semi-arian heretics denied that God needs to make the first move.)

Here is a CCC example of the Church showing these two aspects of faith as well (supernatural and natural dimensions). . .

Faith is a grace

CCC 153 When St. Peter confessed that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, Jesus declared to him that this revelation did not come “from flesh and blood”, but from “my Father who is in heaven”.24 Faith is a gift of God, a supernatural virtue infused by him . "Before this faith can be exercised, man must have the grace of God to move and assist him; he must have the interior helps of the Holy Spirit, who moves the heart and converts it to God, who opens the eyes of the mind and ‘makes it easy for all to accept and believe the truth.’"25

Faith is a human act

CCC 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”,26 and to share in an interior communion with him.

Bold CCC mine. Italics CCC original.

 

[Cathoholic]

annad347 . . .

Good works are the fruits of our faith.

This is true.

But it is not enough in and of itself.

It also needs to be associated to our charity or love otherwise we are nothing, we gain nothing.
Jesus says “if you LOVE me, you will keep my commandments.”

Works, done UNITED to God, according to your state in life, are necessary too.

That is WHY St. Paul reminds us FAITH ALONE cannot save.
That is WHY St. Paul reminds us we can have FAITH to move mountains, but if we have not charity (or “love” as some translations render) we . . . . (what) . . . .

. . . .gain Heaven anyway?? No!

We gain NOTHING!

1st CORINTHIANS 13:2b,c,-3, 13 2 And if I have . . . all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. . . . 13 So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

.

NOT 1st CORINTHIANS 13:2b,c,-3, 13 2 And if I have . . . all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am saved anyway because we are saved by faith ALONE. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I am backsliding but still saved. . . . 13 So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is FAITH because after all, we are justified by FAITH ALONE and nothing is more important to us than our salvation.

 

[fhansen]

It means that, for His purposes, God can grant good things to us that are within His will. As I see it even those things would be given for the ultimate purpose of advancing His kingdom in some manner. We can ask for such things.

 

[annad347]

Good works are the fruits of our faith.

Exactly, which can only be known by the One who can read your heart and mind.

I just thought it was funny how the exact same words where used by two members of two different churches.

whether you believe its faith plus works or faith which cause works, you are still doing the will of God, Who is the only One who knows the reason behind what you do and why.

@Julius_Caesar, please do not reply to my post, I’m not here to debate or argue with you about anything. My question was just a question, if you read more into that’s on you.

 

[Vico]

…
I just thought it was funny how the exact same words where used by two members of two different churches.
…

One is the only cause of one’s damnation when there is final impenitence.
One is the partial cause of one’s salvation when there is final sanctifying grace.

Catholic Encyclopedia explained:

Owing to the infallible decisions laid down by the Church, every orthodox theory on predestination and reprobation must keep within the limits marked out by the following theses:
a) At least in the order of execution in time (in ordine executionis) the meritorious works of the predestined are the partial cause of their eternal happiness;
b) hell cannot even in the order of intention (in ordine intentionis) have been positively decreed to the damned, even though it is inflicted on them in time as the just punishment of their misdeeds;
c) there is absolutely no predestination to sin as a means to eternal damnation.

Pohle, J. (1911). Predestination. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12378a.htm

 

[Julius_Caesar]

@Julius_Caesar, please do not reply to my post, I’m not here to debate or argue with you about anything. My question was just a question, if you read more into that’s on you

Your post is a public post. If you don’t like the answers you’re getting, that’s on you.

 

[annad347]

Your post is a public post. If you don’t like the answers you’re getting, that’s on you.

you are so adorable…

 

[Julius_Caesar]

Julius_Caesar:

Your post is a public post. If you don’t like the answers you’re getting, that’s on you.

you are so adorable…

No I just have a desire for honesty. One who has asked an honest question should not be afraid of such responses. :man_shrugging:t6:

 

[annad347]

No I just have a desire for honesty. One who has asked an honest question should not be afraid of such responses.

not afraid of an honest answer, it’s the insinuation behind the answer that was unnecessary. If you had just answered the question it would have been honest.

 

[Julius_Caesar]

not afraid of an honest answer, it’s the insinuation behind the answer that was unnecessary. If you had just answered the question it would have been honest.

Which I did. Now, where was the insinuation?

 

[annad347]

Which I did. Now, where was the insinuation?

you called me a straw man, claiming I’m starting a debate before you even answered the question.

I asked if you were addressing me with your question, you said yes, I said I’d like you answer first… then you said I wasn’t addressing you and called me a straw man. When did you answer my question, without trying to insult me with your insinuations that I’m doing something I wasn’t doing? It’s rude.

 

[Julius_Caesar]

you called me a straw man, claiming I’m starting a debate before you even answered the question.

No.

I said you’re addressing a strawman, meaning your question was attacking a position that doesn’t exist.

One has to wonder how they can answer your questions given the type of responses you give to said answers.

 

[annad347]

Someone did

 

[Julius_Caesar]

Someone did

And you twisted their arm in the same day you twisted mine.

 

[annad347]

One is the only cause of one’s damnation when there is final impenitence.
One is the partial cause of one’s salvation when there is final sanctifying grace.

and what is in a person’s heart and mind God knows the truth.