L
Lief_Erikson
Guest
What is prevenient grace?
- Status
B
Bishopite
Guest
Actually it’s not just semantics it is more than that. Sola fide which Luther et al the reformers argued for meant imputed righteousness and not the Catholic idea of infused righteousness, so even though on the surface the “faith and works” issue seems to be a semantical issue, it actually isn’t when we juxtapose imputed vs infused righteousness and whether salvation is a process.
I don’t know of any Protestant Christian group who argues for salvation being a process. I recently read a Oneness Pentacostal website where they did argue for salvation being a process, but they are not considered Christian according the Catholic church, being they don’t don’t accept the Trinity, ergo they don’t baptize by the Trinitarian form.
If Protestant’s accepted salvation as a process they wouldn’t be Protestant’s, well perhaps they still would but they wouldn’t be Protestants who defend the teachings of Luther, Calvin, Zwingli or the reformation; and to not defend the reformation would mean to many Protestants, that the reformation was an uneccessary event which poses many problems for them being they split from Catholicism.
Again, the Protestant meaning and use of the word dikaiosune justification/righteousness is different from Catholicism’s use and that’s the problem. Catholicism says justification is a process Protestants say NO it is a one-time event only. This poses a large gap between us that need to be resolved. There is a juridical element in scripture for justification but not only for it, there is also and primarily one as a familial relationship of being just as God is our Father we are His children. A judge isn’t a father to all whom he sees. A father is a judge to his children and primarily a Father to them; that’s what God is to us. He is primarily our Father who judges us as a Father judges His children.
We Catholics say Amen to that.
Protestants say we can’t really be made righteous, for to be made righteous we have to be without sin and that can’t happen with imputed righteousness because Christ only covers your sins, He doesn’t change you within to actually make you righteous.
Catholicism’s view of justification is like a glass of water, the glass is us the water is God’s grace. When we are made just by faith and baptism the glass is completely filled even though the glass still retains some structural errors which tend to make it spill water (concupscience). After we are made just and do actual sin the water gets deepleted and when we cooperate with God’s grace He gives us more grace so the water fills the glass as we grow in grace 2 Peter 3:18
“But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ”
Sin isn’t just missing the mark but a lack of something, a lack of divine grace.
L
Lief_Erikson
Guest
Protestants, or at least a significant number of them, do believe in sanctification as an ongoing process. The Protestants I know believe that when we are saved, Christ enters us and begins transforming us from inside out, creating good works through us by his grace and transforming our personalities to make them more like his. They think that born again believers become more and more like Christ throughout their lives in the process of sanctification. Though they are already saved, they need to still clash with the sinful nature and only become more and more like Christ with time. Is the Protestant view of sanctification essentially the same thing as the Catholic view of salvation as a process? Or when you talk about salvation as a process, are you referring to the sacraments like baptism that Catholics believe are also crucial to salvation?
That’s good. I don’t think many Protestants would disagree with that, though. Although they do think we are saved from our sins in a one time event, when we turn to Christ in faith, they do recognize that if we sin and fail to repent, God “disciplines us as sons.”
I really don’t know any Protestants who believe that. All of the ones I know believe in infused righteousness and a transformation of the believer over time through sanctification to become more and more like God, and finally (in heaven) sinless.
Well said.
M
misslollipops
Guest
I think prevenient grace is a gift from God that draws you to Him BEFORE you are saved. It is that calling from God while you are still in your sinful state. Anyway that is how it was explained to me a couple of months ago. I had never heard of it either.
L
Lief_Erikson
Guest
Okay, thanks for the explanation.
F
fellowChristian
Guest
Faith and Works
14What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him?
15If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food,
16and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,” and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that?
17Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself.
18But someone may well say, “You have faith and I have works; show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith by my works.”
19You believe that God is one You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder.
20But are you willing to recognize, you foolish fellow, that faith without works is useless?
21Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up Isaac his son on the altar?
22You see that faith was working with his works, and as a result of the works, faith was perfected;
23and the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “AND ABRAHAM BELIEVED GOD, AND IT WAS RECKONED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS,” and he was called the friend of God.
24You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone.
25In the same way, was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way?
26For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also **faith without works is dead. **
not so anonymous anymore huh?
L
Linkowski
Guest
We are “justified” by faith apart from any works done to merit salvation. The only place that our works have are to evidence our faith - this evidence will be used publicly in the judgment to vindicate those who hav been born of God. We and justified by faith **that **works - not faith AND works. This justification of God starts the Christian life.
M
mainusch
Guest
That is what I’m saying. It is useless to simply believe, but not live your life based on that belief (“the demons also believe, and tremble”).
To look at it another way, in the Bible, how many times did Jesus say to someone something to the effect of “your faith has saved/healed you” in response to that person just sitting around idly “believing?” The answer to that question is “zero.” He always said that kind of thing in response to something someone DID in faith.
S
Saul.Tentmaker
Guest
So it seems as though faith is something that requires works, as well as simple belief, to truly be faith.
Otherwise, what is faith, as distinct from works? What would it look like?
S
Saul.Tentmaker
Guest
This assumes that there is more than a semantic difference between imputed and infused righteousness. In both cases, from this short conversation, it seems as though we are truly righteous in our justification. Are we so because God makes us so, or because God delcares us so, thereby making us so? Is this the distinction?
Are there more than semantic differences between imputed and infused righteousness? In other words, are people who are imputed as being righteous not truly righteous?
There is one Protestant who has posted on this thread who claims this. Maybe you should ask him what his group is.
Possibly. Or possibly Calvin, Luther, Zwingli truly believed salvation was a process, but used different vocabulary to describe it (again, if salvation means justification, and sanctification, and glorification, it seems all protestants posting here accept it as a process; I may easily be wrong).
If it is simply meaning, and different words are used to achieve the same or similar concept, then the differences are semantic.
So a Protestant would actually say, “I accept, in justification, a person is still not righteous, but God calls this person righteous anyway”? It’s possible, but in that case, either God is a liar, or something else is involved here.
I’m not trying to be difficult. I’m just trying to understand.
S
Saul.Tentmaker
Guest
Just so we don’t get too sloppy, to change what you have said, “we are justified by grace through faith that works…”
What is different between this and being justified by grace through faith and works?
S
Saul.Tentmaker
Guest
The substance of things hoped for would likely involve working to bring these things about.
L
Linkowski
Guest
Because - AT CONVERSION - one is justified by faith. It is an event that takes place. The work in view at this point in time is the work of God in Christ. That is the focal point of faith - Christ as Savior and Lord. Repentance and faith leading to obedience in baptism…works are the inevitable fruit. Does it require our participation?? Of course…but, for the elect, it must happen and it WILL happen.
S
Saul.Tentmaker
Guest
I suppose I am still missing the distinction between faith and works.
Are you saying that faith is mere assent? Or more? And what do you mean when you say “works”?
L
Linkowski
Guest
Works of love - before one’s conversion, one is either in rebellion against God by breaking God’s laws OR trying to earn favor/heaven/eternal life by “keeping” it (self-righteous pride). Keeping the law to get favor is not love. It is only after we come to the realization that we cannot be justified by the law (because we have all broken it) and we repent and trust Christ that we can truly love - then, our keeping of the commandments is now for the glory of God - loving God as it was meant to be and loving others without expecting in return. Doing works for the purpose of using it as a basis for your justification is not faith. Oh, you may know facts - but that kind of faith is demonic (James 2:19).
This is a faith that is child-like…humble…submissive and a wholehearted trust in Christ and His great sacrifice for salvation. It’s accomanied by repentance leading into growing discipleship. It involves the mind, will, emotions - and is a work of God.
M
misslollipops
Guest
Eph 2:9 pretty clear- slavation is NOT of works
S
SyCarl
Guest
Just a brief question here that has occurred to me since I took part in this discussion yesterday. Does the Catholic Church really teach that “good works” are required? I am thinking of the case of someone baptized. My understanding is that if a baptized person avoids what the Catholic Church calls mortal sin they are saved soley on the basis of the baptism. Is this correct about the Catholic view?
S
Saul.Tentmaker
Guest
It is by the grace of God, I agree. Grace, not faith, and not works.
But that grace operates within us to form our response to God. Since salvation is by grace, through faith, and faith is the substance of things hoped for, and we work for that which we hope for, salvation involves works.
L
Linkowski
Guest
Again - we are speaking of justification…sanctification involves the inner working of the Holy Spirit in the one who was miraculously saved and the inevitable fruit is love and good works. These works do help us in our sanctification - we are to work out our salvation with fear and trembling - but - ultimately, it is God working in us to cause us to do His will…left to ourselves, we would fall away completely.
Jer 32:40 And I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from them, to do them good; but I will put my fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me.
Eze 36:27 And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.
The elect must do the works of God and they WILL.
Joh 14:12 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.
BUT…justification is a matter of the heart only - what follows is the working out of that salvation.
Ro 10:10 For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
*Those who utterly fall away - commiting “mortal sin” were never born again:
1Jo 5:16 If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for it.
17 All unrighteousness is sin: and there is a sin not unto death.
18 We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not; but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not.
Those who have been born of God do not practice sin - and when they sin, they are repentant and make confession. A just man falls seven times, but God holds him up with His powerful and gracious hand…Christ prays for us…
Heb 7:25 Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.
And He prays in accordance with the will of God.*
S
Saul.Tentmaker
Guest
That depends on what people mean when they say “works”. I think it must be something different than St. Paul, who I believe was talking of circumcision (etc.).
Performing a baptism involves work. Just ask the Priest.
The faith in this case is supplied by the whole Church, for the child. And the faith of the Church is definitely a working faith, and not mere assent.
"…as “As Augustine says, writing to Boniface (Cont. duas Ep. Pelag. i), “in the Church of our Saviour little children believe through others, just as they contracted from others those sins which are remitted in Baptism.” Nor is it a hindrance to their salvationAugustine says, writing to the same Boniface (Ep. xcviii), “little children are offered that they may receive grace in their souls, not so much from the hands of those that carry them (yet from these too, if they be good and faithful) as from the whole company of the saints and the faithful. For they are rightly considered to be offered by those who are pleased at their being offered, and by whose charity they are united in communion with the Holy Ghost.” And the unbelief of their own parents, even if after Baptism these strive to infect them with the worship of demons, hurts not the children. For as Augustine says (Cont. duas Ep. Pelag. i) “when once the child has been begotten by the will of others, he cannot subsequently be held by the bonds of another’s sin so long as he consent not with his will, according to” Ezekiel 18:4: “‘As the soul of the Father, so also the soul of the son is mine; the soul that sinneth, the same shall die.’ Yet he contracted from Adam that which was loosed by the grace of this sacrament, because as yet he was not endowed with a separate existence.” But the faith of one, indeed of the whole Church, profits the child through the operation of the Holy Ghost, Who unites the Church together, and communicates the goods of one member to another.” (Summa Theologica, 3rd Part, Q. 68, Art. 9, Rep. Obj. 2)
- Status