'Sola Caritas' Trumps 'Sola fide'

[De_Maria]

De_Maria:

Nope. Abraham was justified. But Catholics are the children of Abraham because, we approach the fountain of grace by faith and our faith is reckoned as righteousness by God. The difference between Abraham’s justification and ours is that Abraham did not receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, which is the washing of regeneration. Therefore, he was not born again.

Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.” (John 3:3)

So how could Abraham enter Heaven if he was not born again?

He was not born again when the events of Genesis 15-22 transpired. Scripture says that he and the rest of the righteous Jews were made perfect when we were made perfect. See Heb 11:40. I take that to mean that they were not born again, nor enter heaven, until Jesus died upon the Cross.

Hebrews 9:15 And for this cause he is the mediator of the new testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance.

 

[De_Maria]

Johan:

So how could Abraham enter Heaven if he was not born again?

Right, and water baptized, as you mentioned earlier…and dont forget this one, Eucharist, for we must eat Him to have eternal life.

Basically, because he was born before Jesus Christ revealed the New Dispensation.

And the Catholic church does not use theologians also?

Not to invent stuff the way Protestants do. See your question to Johan above. That’s the kind of stuff that Protestants do.

Catholic Theologians merely endeavor to make God’s revelation more understandable to the masses. They don’t invent new doctrines.

Indeed we rest on all the saints and all the wisdom garnered by those who went before us.

Certainly.

The church, tradition, writ, councils indeed are part of this. But i would not interject the church where the underlying force of all is intended. Psalms does not say,

“Trust in the church with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding”

Though she (the church) may be a pillar of truth, even Augustine correctly says the Lord teaches me. Job also says God puts undetstanding in the heart of a man.

Augustine said, “were it not for the Catholic Church, I would not accept the Gospel.”

The Paraclete has been given like never before to that end, making this statement purely political if intended to mean a particular denomination/church even office:

" He did not leave us orphaned".

Again, the New Testament says, Eph 3:10, “The Church Teaches the Wisdom of God”.

So, your understanding, based upon the teachings of Protestant theologians, is the political understanding meant to undermine the authority of Jesus Christ being exercised by the Catholic Church. When you lean upon the Catholic Church for your understanding, you lean upon Jesus Christ.

Ok but you posted:

De_Maria:

Even Catholics say, “Sure, I give glory to God alone.

I was giving an example of the way that Protestants trap Catholics with their sweet sounding innovations. But they mix truth with a great deal of error in order to deny the Truth that Jesus Christ empowered the Church to bind and loose in His name.

Ok, we were not once a slave to sin?

And using free will, with the aid of God’s grace, threw off those chains.

cont’d

 

[De_Maria]

cont’d

Then you quote verses that says to be holy, because we have been brought from death (slavery) to life, and by the grace of God, which I agree with.

God didn’t force us to do so. He attracted us with His grace.

It seems one is not so free to be holy if they are dead, and need grace to be otherwise.

To your Protestant influenced mind. To us, we are free to choose and if we choose to do so, God gives us the grace to succeed.

Please tell me how can we be free to choose something we are dead to ?

Were you really dead before you chose Christ? I wasn’t. I was alive and living in sin. But I had a living brain and a pounding heart. If you were actually dead before you chose Christ, what are you doing here? Am I talking to a ghost?

It seems a bit silly that your Protestant theologians have not even taught you that being dead in sin is a mere metaphor for not having a relationship with the living God and anticipates what will happen to you upon your actual death if you don’t change your ways.

Agree. He did not deny free will, as I posted, but he certainly qualified such free will as inoperable in realm of righteousness.

Ugh. Didn’t you read the link? Shake off the lies of the Protestants man. They cripple the human mind.

Correct, and that by grace, and is not in itself excercise of the will you as you properly suggest with the next step:

and to ask God for the strength to choose to do what is right. God will not deny us that >help.

You’re wrong. You seem to think that we are without God and then call upon God and then God enters our lives. A Protestant innovation which denies the fact that God is omnipresent and that He put His law in our hearts and that He works even through the ungodly.

There is good in everyone. And by that good, which God put in us and through which God calls us, we are able to call upon Him even in our sins.

Now there is an excercise of “free” will, towards righteousness, but only possible by His help, His grace, as scripture and Augustine and Calvin and many other saints tell us, even testify.

All the Catholic Saints. Not Calvin. Calvin is the one innovating the idea that dead in our sins meant that we could not respond to God when in our sins.

So free will is a term that needs qualifying. Enslaved, dead, weak, inoperable towards righteousness are appropo.

Neh. What needs correction is the Protestant notion that we are “totally depraved”. Actually, that is irredeemable. It just needs to be junked, cast into a furnace and destroyed.

 

[mcq72]

Neh. What needs correction is the Protestant notion that we are “totally depraved”. Actually, that is irredeemable. It just needs to be junked, cast into a furnace and destroyed.

Ok, my good man.

 

[TULIPed]

What needs correction is the Protestant notion that we are “totally depraved”.

Of the five points of Calvinism, this is actually the one that rings truest for me. The more time I spend with Christ, the more I am aware of what a wretched sinner I am, and thus the more I need his grace, love and mercy. Sin’s pervasiveness - in my life at least - is only matched by its virulence. Of this I personally have no doubt.

“But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’”

Now that’s a man I can relate to. Thank God for Christ.

 

[mcq72]

You’re wrong. You seem to think that we are without God and then call upon God and then God enters our lives

Well, it does happen that way in the way that really counts, yes, knowing God in a saving way. I mean even Satan is a creature of God, and never out of His presence and knowledge.

That is exactly how it happens, God must enter our lives in truth and spirit, in a saving gospel way…like all things become new, we see for the first time. Anyone who has been truly born again as a non infant, answered the knock of Christ at our door, knows what I am talking about.

There is good in everyone. And by that good, which God put in us and through which God calls us, we are able to call upon Him even in our sins.

Well, we are not robots, and indeed God can move thru us. Yet one has to ask, why did Jesus the man have to die, and why do we have to die in Him ? Not partially die, totally die in baptism. We are not then called a revived man, a reformed man but a new man.

All the Catholic Saints. Not Calvin. Calvin is the one innovating the idea that dead in our sins meant that we could not respond to God when in our sins.

So Augustine was not a Catholic saint? Please should me where he writes out of our inherent goodness we respond, with inherent faith.

Neh. What needs correction is the Protestant notion that we are “totally depraved”. Actually, that is irredeemable. It just needs to be junked, cast into a furnace and destroyed.

Lol, please dont hold back your true feelings on my account.

The irredeemable must be your injection into Calvin thought, but as you know, I am not sure all that he wrote.

But i kind of undetstand total depravity if I steer away from twisting it too far. Like some people do with “bible alone” ( curling up in a ball, in a closet, cluthching the bible and thats it, we are save by bible alone, no preacher, teacher, presbyter, church).

I certainly of my own could not save myself in Christian sense. I could not believe on my own. I could not even will salvation on my own. I could not see on my own, nor think it on my own. I could not sincerely declare the Lord Jesus as my savior on my own. I was lacking, depraved enough, even to my own destruction.

Call it what you like, total, partial, whatever, it was bad, even hell bound. So what good would have my goodness or partial undepravity done me in hell? Please tell me. That I was not that bad, God loves me, He wouldn’t have sent me to hell?

 

[mcq72]

Basically, because he was born before Jesus Christ revealed the New Dispensation.

Agree partially but these new dispensations did not just pop up out of the ground, unannounced or un propophesied, or un foreshadowed, or even partially unexperienced (faith, forgiveness, mercy, grace, justification, fellowship, clean hearts, even after God, being His children, moved by the Spirit, even in the Spirit are all present since the fall, even regeneration).

Catholic Theologians merely endeavor to make God’s revelation more understandable to the masses. They don’t invent new doctrines.

Thankfully so especially in early history, but as you know, we say leaven, that we are warned about by Jesus, entered on church on certain doctrines.

Augustine said, “were it not for the Catholic Church, I would not accept the Gospel.

Well I would hope so, all other churches had false doctrine and not the true gospel.

Augustine in his Confessions portrays a good balance between preacher and church and Writ and personal divine revelation from Jesus/Holy Spirit. But he did write about the church and it’s preacher (Ambrose) and Writ and He (God) teaches Augustine thru them. So yes God must be the teacher also. He could not make neither hide nor hair of writ, ,Ambrose, the church, if not for "“Him”.

Again, the New Testament says, Eph 3:10, “The Church Teaches the Wisdom of God”.

Yes, my translation has that His wisdom be known by the church.

So, your understanding, based upon the teachings of Protestant theologians, is the political understanding meant to undermine the authority of Jesus Christ being exercised by the Catholic Church.

Yes, correct from your point of view.

Any incorrect doctrine, practice is not of Jesus Christ and has no authority over the Christian and is to be brought under subjection to the truth

God didn’t force us to do so. He attracted us with His grace.

Yes, and His goodness, towards us, while we were yet sinners and at enmity with Him.

To your Protestant influenced mind. To us, we are free to choose and if we choose to do so, God gives us the grace to succeed.

Why do you need grace then if you are so free, …and good?

It seems a bit silly that your Protestant theologians have not even taught you that being dead in sin is a mere metaphor for not having a relationship with the living God and anticipates what will happen to you upon your actual death if you don’t change your ways.

It seems silly that you cant see that is what I meant.

You do not quicken yourself do you?

Can that being that is alive and thinking quicken itself , ?

Of course we speak of a spiritual, moral depravity, as being " dead", not the fleshly body.

 

[De_Maria]

… God must enter our lives in truth and spirit, in a saving gospel way…

The True Gospel way is that God is with us, offering His salvation, all our lives. Your way is the counterfeit Protestant way which denies the omnipotence, omnipresence and continual loving presence of God.

like all things become new, we see for the first time.

That doesn’t mean that God wasn’t there loving us and offering His grace to us all the time.

Anyone who has been truly born again as a non infant, answered the knock of Christ at our door, knows what I am talking about.

You don’t know what you’re talking about.

Well, we are not robots, and indeed God can move thru us. Yet one has to ask, why did Jesus the man have to die, and why do we have to die in Him ? Not partially die, totally die in baptism. We are not then called a revived man, a reformed man but a new man.

What are you talking about and how does it pertain to our discussion?

I repeat, a. God is with us always, whether we know it or not.
b. God is continually trying to save us, whether we know it or not.
c. We have free will to accept or reject His grace.

So Augustine was not a Catholic saint?

Yep. But not Calvin.

Please should me where he writes out of our inherent goodness we respond, with inherent faith.

Why don’t you read the link I provided?

Lol, please dont hold back your true feelings on my account.

Lol! OK.

The irredeemable must be your injection into Calvin thought, but as you know, I am not sure all that he wrote.

And yet, you defend it. Really strange.

But i kind of undetstand total depravity …

Too bad. Because by that, I think you mean that you have accepted it.

I certainly of my own could not save myself in Christian sense…

Are you insinuating that is what I’m saying? I’m the one saying that God is always with us working to save us and you are denying that.

Call it what you like, total, partial, whatever, …

No, no, no. Lol! Protestants call it TOTAL DEPRAVITY. Not partial depravity. And you’re stuck with that until you admit that it’s an error.

You’re logic is bereft of reason. First, you bring up Calvin to support your arguments. Then you admit you don’t really know what he taught. Then you claim to understand his teaching about Total Depravity. Then you want to change it to partial or whatever…

Basically, I think you know that Protestant doctrines are totally irredeemable but you want to hold on to them in some semblance because you don’t want to admit that the Catholic Church is absolutely right.

 

[De_Maria]

Agree partially but these new dispensations did not just pop up out of the ground, …

If you’re insinuating that Father Abraham was born again when he was justified, you’ll have to prove it. Please provide the chapter and verse.

Thankfully so especially in early history, but as you know, we say leaven, that we are warned about by Jesus, entered on church on certain doctrines.

Jesus Christ said His Church would never fall and St. Paul said the Church would Teach the Wisdom of God to eternity.

Well I would hope so, all other churches had false doctrine and not the true gospel.

Thank you. But earlier you tried to spin it as though St. Augustine put his interpretation of Scripture above the Church.

Augustine in his Confessions portrays …

You’re writing style is a bit convoluted. I can make hide nor hair of what you just said. But I repeat, St. Augustine understood that the Catholic Church has supreme authority on earth and that the Catholic Church is infallible. Period.

Yes, my translation has that His wisdom be known by the church.

Correctomundo. Not by you or any Protestant or anyone else.

Yes, correct from your point of view.

From any point of view. It is obvious.

Any incorrect doctrine, practice is not of Jesus Christ and has no authority over the Christian and is to be brought under subjection to the truth

Which is brought to you by the Catholic Church, the Pillar and Foundation of the Truth (1 Tim 3:15).

Yes, and His goodness, towards us, while we were yet sinners and at enmity with Him.

And thus you prove free will.

Why do you need grace then if you are so free, …and good?

Lol! It is grace that makes us free. In saying what you just said, you have proved that it is Protestants who are Pelagian. Wow! They have really done a job on you.

It seems silly that you cant see that is what I meant.

If that is what you meant then why do you claim that we can’t make a free decision?

You do not quicken yourself do you?

Why are you asking this question if that is not what you meant?

Can that being that is alive and thinking quicken itself , ?

A person that is alive does not need to quicken himself. HE’S ALREADY ALIVE!!!

Of course we speak of a spiritual, moral depravity, as being " dead", not the fleshly body.

Thank you.

 

[De_Maria]

Of the five points of Calvinism, this is actually the one that rings truest for me. The more time I spend with Christ, the more I am aware of what a wretched sinner I am, and thus the more I need his grace, love and mercy. Sin’s pervasiveness - in my life at least - is only matched by its virulence. Of this I personally have no doubt.

“But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’”

Now that’s a man I can relate to. Thank God for Christ.

I’m not sure what you mean. Are you saying that you, personally, feel that you are totally depraved? Or that you feel that everyone else is?

 

[RaisedCatholic]

“For if Abraham was justified by works , he has something to boast about, but not before God . For what does the Scripture say? “ABRAHAM BELIEVED GOD , AND IT WAS CREDITED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS .””

Where in the text is Paul talking about water baptism??? You are reading way too much into the text. It is nowhere to be found!

 

[De_Maria]

De_Maria:

“For if Abraham was justified by works , he has something to boast about, but not before God . For what does the Scripture say? “ABRAHAM BELIEVED GOD , AND IT WAS CREDITED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS .””

Where in the text is Paul talking about water baptism??? You are reading way too much into the text. It is nowhere to be found!

The New Testament was written by the Catholic Church. We don’t subscribe to the error of Scripture alone. We subscribe to the Teachings of Jesus Christ. It is by the context of those Teachings that we understand what St. Paul meant.

You’re stuck with your erroneous doctrine of the bible alone. Now live with it.

 

[mcq72]

The True Gospel way is that God is with us, offering His salvation, all our lives

Yes and? At some point we are graced to accept right? Then He will not just be with but in us.

As to saving us all of our lives, we differ on just how a believer is saved past, present and future.

I wonder if some obfuscate pondering their own original salvation by saying not to worry for it is really a lifelong thing, like one doesnt have to worry about a dramatic new birth like some claim.

That doesn’t mean that God wasn’t there loving us and offering His grace to us all the time.

Correct. In fact when we finally see His steadfastness in His Sheperding, of His continual trying to bring us to safety, even while we rebelled and were at emnity with Him, we are broken and moved by such grace and goodness, and finally call out for salvation.

You don’t know what you’re talking about.

Lol, even though not a funny matter, this being born again. But I suppose I deserve your quip here, not being very gracious with my quip on the matter.

What are you talking about and how does it pertain to our discussion?

I believe you mentioned that there is something good in us (we are not depraved). Hence I ask why do we need a new man, a new creature in Christ, instead of a reformed man, you know, clean up the bad but keep the good. Why does baptism signify this death of the old inner man. Why would good have to die?

And yet, you defend it. Really strange.

And vice versa?

Too bad. Because by that, I think you mean that you have accepted it.

So understanding something ( total depravity) is accepting it? So I should say you dont accept it because you dont understand it?

Are you insinuating that is what I’m saying? (that we can save ourselves)

No, but you aren’t saying it as strongly as one who proports total depravity.

I’m the one saying that God is always with us working to save us and you are denying that.

Yes but you are also saying we work to be saved after initial salvation.

Again, we differ in understanding of being saved, past, present and future. No one denies it however.

No, no, no. Lol! Protestants call it TOTAL DEPRAVITY.

Do they…all of them? Why do you not address my point, irregardless what you call it. Jesus saves us because we could not. All the goodness you suggest we have does not help us and still would send us straight to hell apart from His saving intervention.

First, you bring up Calvin to support your arguments

Yes I do (find it helpful).

 

[mcq72]

First, you bring up Calvin to support your arguments

Yes I do (find it helpful).

Then you admit you don’t really know what he taught.

No, I admit I am not a Calvin scholar, and have not heard that you are either.

Then you claim to understand his teaching about Total Depravity.

No, I admitted some understanding

 

[mcq72]

Then you want to change it to partial ( depravity) or whatever…

No, i apply that term to accommodate what others seem to proport ( if you are against total depravity I would think you proport partial depravity of some sort).

Basically, I think you know that Protestant doctrines are totally irredeemable

Lol…no such thing as " totally irredeemable"…we have good in us per God’s creation… isnt that partly what you say against total depravity.

 

[SyCarl]

Are we inclined to do so, to leave sin?

Augustine wrote:

It is not, therefore, true, as some affirm that we say, and as that correspondent of yours ventures moreover to write, that “all are forced into sin,” as if they were unwilling, “by the necessity of their flesh;” but if they are already of the age to use the choice of their own mind, they are both retained in sin by their own will, and by their own will are hurried along from sin to sin. For even he who persuades and deceives does not act in them, except that they may commit sin by their will, either by ignorance of the truth or by delight in iniquity, or by both evils,—as well of blindness as of weakness. But this will, which is free in evil things because it takes pleasure in evil, is not free in good things, for the reason that it has not been made free. Nor can a man will any good thing unless he is aided by Him who cannot will evil,—that is, by the grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord. For “everything which is not of faith is sin.” And thus the good will which withdraws itself from sin is faithful, because the just lives by faith. And it pertains to faith to believe on Christ. And no man can believe on Christ —that is, come to Him—unless it be given to him. No man, therefore, can have a righteous will, unless, with no foregoing merits, he has received the true, that is, the gratuitous grace from above.

Against Two Letters of the Pelagians, Chapter 7
https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf105.xviii.iii.vii.html

So according to Augustine we have free will but can only use it too will evil unless we are aided by God.

I have seen our free will described by analogy to a hungry tiger who has a pile of straw and a pile of fresh meat put before him. The tiger is free to choose the hay or the meat but, because of its nature, will always choose the meat.

 

[De_Maria]

( if you are against total depravity I would think you proport partial depravity of some sort).

No. I follow Catholic Teaching.

Lol…no such thing as " totally irredeemable"…we have good in us per God’s creation… isnt that partly what you say against total depravity.

1. I was talking about the false Protestant doctrines.
2. I believe I mentioned that they mixed a bit of truth into their errors to make them more attractive.
3. God’s truths are absolute. All God’s Doctrines are completely true.
4. The Catholic Church Teaches God’s Doctrines, infallibly.

 

[De_Maria]

Are we inclined to do so, to leave sin?

So according to Augustine we have free will but can only use it too will evil unless we are aided by God.

Yeah, but if you read your extract closely, you’ll see that he says the grace of God is always there, “but if they are already of the age to use the choice of their own mind, they are both retained in sin by their own will, and by their own will are hurried along from sin to sin.”

But if that isn’t clear enough in your segment, I provided a link earlier. Here’s an excerpt.

Chapter 2 [II.]— He Proves the Existence of Free Will in Man from the Precepts Addressed to Him by God.
Now He has revealed to us, through His Holy Scriptures, that there is in a man a free choice of will. But how He has revealed this I do not recount in human language, but in divine. There is, to begin with, the fact that God’s precepts themselves would be of no use to a man unless he had free choice of will, so that by performing them he might obtain the promised rewards. For they are given that no one might be able to plead the excuse of ignorance, as the Lord says concerning the Jews in the gospel: If I had not come and spoken unto them, they would not have sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin. John 15:22 Of what sin does He speak but of that great one which He foreknew, while speaking thus, that they would make their own — that is, the death they were going to inflict upon Him? For they did not have no sin before Christ came to them in the flesh. The apostle also says: The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold back the truth in unrighteousness; because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God has showed it unto them. For the invisible things of Him are from the creation of the world clearly seen — being understood by the things that are made — even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are inexcusable. Romans 1:18-20 In what sense does he pronounce them to be inexcusable, except with reference to such excuse as human pride is apt to allege in such words as, If I had only known, I would have done it; did I not fail to do it because I was ignorant of it? or, I would do it if I knew how; but I do not know, therefore I do not do it? All such excuse is removed from them when the precept is given them, or the knowledge is made manifest to them how to avoid sin.

In these precepts, he’s not talking about the Ten Commandments written on parchment. He’s talking about the natural law, written by God directly unto our hearts.

cont’d

 

[De_Maria]

I have seen our free will described by analogy to a hungry tiger who has a pile of straw and a pile of fresh meat put before him. The tiger is free to choose the hay or the meat but, because of its nature, will always choose the meat.

That is the analogy of “Total Depravity”. Notice that it is an illogical analogy since a tiger will never choose the straw no matter how you aid his nature.

But we are not totally depraved. We are made in the image of God and have fallen natures. If a man becomes totally depraved it is because he has refused the grace of God which God is continually offering us from the moment we are conceived.

 

[mcq72]

If you’re insinuating that Father Abraham was born again when he was justified, you’ll have to prove it. Please provide the chapter and verse.

As I said before, not sure there is any verse that says such and such a person was born again…like Peter, or Mary and Joseph, Simeon, Paul. Yet I would say though not specifically mentioned, it is understood never the less.

To say one is born again in NT, after Calvary, in water baptism is problematic also, vs OT regeneration. For example we know that John’s baptism was for preparation, of repentance, confession of sins. No where is there an indication it is regenerational. So what did everyone have to do, including all the disciples, have to get rebaptized after Calvary? Please show me where transitional covenant saints had to get rebaptized ? (baptized in the Holy Ghost yes, but not via water).

Forgiveness of sin, reconciliation, becoming a child of God, born of God, having a heart after God, even a clean heart, spiritual fellowship with God, repentance, being moved by the Spirit indeed are OT experiences.

“Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: “See, I have called by name Bezaleel the son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah. And I have filled him with the Spirit of God, in wisdom, in understanding, in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship” (Exodus 31:1-3).”

“Joshua the son of Nun with you, a man in whom is the Spirit, lay your hand on him” (Numbers 27:18)."

Please tell me Besareel or Joshua were not born of the Spirit, born again.