Once Saved Always Saved?

  • Thread starter Thread starter shocktrooper
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Lisa44 said:
I don’t really think God needs our consent to do anything. He could save us without our consent if he wanted to.
Click to expand...
Of course He doesn’t need our consent-the question is does He want it anyway?. It’s absolutely impossible for man to save himself. But that doesn’t mean God can’t include us in the process anyway, for His purposes. Adam & Eve willed wrongly. Maybe God’s after people who will rightly, with His help, having recognized what A&E presumably didn’t, the supreme goodness and value of God, and so like the Prodigal Son they can turn back to the Father.
Lisa44 said:
He saved Saul without his consent (sort of). I mean Paul was running around killing Christians happy as could be and then God blinded him. So in a way, he did “save” him without his consent, or without his freely choosing to follow Jesus along with others of his time.
Click to expand...
Paul, himself, said that he needed to strive to win the race in order to attain to the resurrection of the dead.
Lisa44 said:
As for the Catechism, same thing, its not entirely true that the soul only enters “freely” as has been shown by Paul.

Once a person has been “elected” by God, can they really reject that? That is the question I think. Are they then saved, or can they be removed from election by their participation in sin.
Click to expand...
In Catholicism, the will of man is never divorced in at least some aspect from involvement in his salvation. The scripture passages I quoted should help demonstrate that.
Lisa44 said:
I guess you are suggesting by the “be perfect” and “be holy” quotes that a person will lose their salvation if they are not perfect or holy or obedient to God?
Click to expand...
To be perfect or holy simply means to be wholly the person God created us to be, no more and no less. By trying to become more, Adam & Eve ironically became less-they lost something, an innocent obedience to God, with all that implies.
 
Sig said:
I know. 🙂

The statement of the apostle is that humans can know they are saved. I know you don’t like that, but that’s a biblical truth.
Click to expand...
The statement of the apostle was simply that he was unimpressed with faith alone.
 
fhansen said:
The statement of the apostle was simply that he was unimpressed with faith alone.
Click to expand...
Unimpressed with faith alone with regard to what? Gaining a right standing before God, or as a proof one is truly saved?
 
Sig said:
Unimpressed with faith alone with regard to what? Gaining a right standing before God, or as a proof one is truly saved?
Click to expand...
He doubted a faith altogether that didn’t include works-works of love as Catholics understand it.
 
Sig said:
I know. 🙂

The statement of the apostle is that humans can know they are saved. I know you don’t like that, but that’s a biblical truth.
Click to expand...
You do know that one can lose that knowledge, right? I know, right now, that I am not sick. However, I can still get sick and lose the knowledge that I am not (because the knowledge that I am not is no longer true). It especially holds true for me because I almost just choked on my cereal. 😃
 
Sig said:
I’m referring to the statements of John in Jn 20:31 and 1 Jn 5:13.
Click to expand...
1 John 5:13 RSV - I write this so you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.

1 John 5:3 - For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments.

Mt 19:16-17 - . . . Teacher, what good deed must I do. to have eternal life? . . . If you would enter life, keep the commandments.

I know I have eternal life as long as I keep His commandments and fulfill other requirements. But I can’t be metaphysically certain that I will always do so. I know this moment that I am in the state of grace; but I can’t be certain that I will always resist temptation in the future – even the near future. Like all human beings, I suffer from the effects of Original Sin – I am inclined to sin and in need of God’s grace

I cut my teeth on OSAS, born and raised Southern Baptist, and believed that come-lately doctrine for too many years. I know now that it was invented in the 16th century. Jesus and the Apostles didn’t teach it. Deo gratias!

I came to view it as man’s way of imagining that he controls God. According to OSAS, once a person accepts Jesus Christ as his personal Lord and Savior, God suspends His commandments and MUST allow him into heaven, whether he does the will of His Father or not (Mt 7:21), and no matter the sins he may commit thereafter. Luther wrote - “It suffices that through God’s glory we have recognized the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world. No sin can separate us from Him, even if we were to kill or commit adultery thousands of times each day.” Calvin’s accomplices dubbed his concept Perseverance of the Saints.

Protestant denominations fight among themselves over this doctrine, slinging Bible verses at each other. One example is the book, *The Believers Conditional Security - A study on perseverance and falling away *by Daniel D. Corner, a Protestant minister, published by Evangelical Outreach. It’s 800 pages of why OSAS is wrong.😛

Jim Dandy
Ex-Southern Baptist, ex-agnostic, ex-atheist, ecstatic to be Catholic!
 
Sig said:
Why do you guess that?

I can’t speak for no one, but I’m not.

What have you heard about it?
Click to expand...
When people use the term free will, I think that they mean that they can act independent of anything else. I’m guessing? I do not know that free will exists.
I don’t understand it because I eat because I’m hungry. I sleep because I’m tired. I work because I have to. I ask questions because I am curious. etc. Where is free will? I want someone to tell me precisely what free will is. I haven’t had a satisfactory answer.

I don’t know anything about the preservation of the saints.
 
Originally Posted by Sig
I’m referring to the statements of John in Jn 20:31 and 1 Jn 5:13.
Click to expand...
John 20:30-31 - Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name.

How are these verses a prooftext for OSAS?

How 'bout the sixth chapter of John?

So Jesus said to them [the unbelieving Jews], Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day, John 53-54.

I don’t want to hijack the thread and start an argument about the Eucharist, but I am making the point that prooftexting results in fallacy. The Bible must be read holistically, thematically, to be correctly understood. And the only authorized interpreter is the Catholic Church – authorized by God who entrusted the Church to write the New Testament during the first Christian century and compile the Bible at the end of the fourth.

Every Protestant is his own authority, authorized by himself. That’s how doctrines like OSAS are invented. If Christ and the Apostles didn’t teach it, I say forget it.
 
Sig said:
Unimpressed with faith alone with regard to what? Gaining a right standing before God, or as a proof one is truly saved?
Click to expand...
Martin Luther invented Sola Fide (faith alone). He “discovered” it in Romans while sitting on the privy in the monastery tower. Historical fact.
 
Hi, Sig,

I do not know if you are having trouble reading the posts that have been written by me and others or trouble understanding what has been written.

In my opinion, you have misused the idea of ‘…slave of sin…’ to the total disregard of one’s free will. Now, make no mistake about it, you are your free will are …well… free… to disregard everyone else’s posts and you just keep on repeating what you have said previosuly. You really are free to do this - but, it does not further communications and does make me wonder if you are even listening to another point of view.

Now, are you free to chose to respond back to a post or are you not?

God bless
Sig said:
Man is said to be either a slave of sin, or a slave of righteousness (Jn 8:34; Rom 6).

How is it you confuse slavery with freedom?
Click to expand...
 
Hi, Jim Dandy,

And, if I may add an item … 😃

It is the fact that private interpretation is encouraged (and quite contrary to Scripture - 2Peter 1:20 ) that we find that there are 40,000+ Protestant groups around - all claiming to have the truty and their competitors down the street don’t! In fact, the only think that they agree on is that the Catholic Church is wrong! 😃

God bless
Jim_Dandy said:
John 20:30-31 - Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name.

How are these verses a prooftext for OSAS?

How 'bout the sixth chapter of John?

So Jesus said to them [the unbelieving Jews], Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day, John 53-54.

I don’t want to hijack the thread and start an argument about the Eucharist, but I am making the point that prooftexting results in fallacy. The Bible must be read holistically, thematically, to be correctly understood. And the only authorized interpreter is the Catholic Church – authorized by God who entrusted the Church to write the New Testament during the first Christian century and compile the Bible at the end of the fourth.

Every Protestant is his own authority, authorized by himself. That’s how doctrines like OSAS are invented. If Christ and the Apostles didn’t teach it, I say forget it.
Click to expand...
 
Hi, Sig,

I guess I really do not understand - are you now doubting the existence of sin? Is it that you really do not know, or are you just playing a word game with the posters?

God bless
Sig said:
And what is this sin according to John, and where in that passage does John say what kind of death that sin brings, either physical, or eternal?
Click to expand...
 
Lisa44 said:
When people use the term free will, I think that they mean that they can act independent of anything else. I’m guessing? I do not know that free will exists.
I don’t understand it because I eat because I’m hungry. I sleep because I’m tired. I work because I have to. I ask questions because I am curious. etc. Where is free will? I want someone to tell me precisely what free will is. I haven’t had a satisfactory answer.

I don’t know anything about the preservation of the saints.
Click to expand...
IMO, for our purposes, free will is the ability to oppose the will of God, to choose a lesser good over a greater one.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top