SPLIT: Once Saved Always Saved? (Revisited)

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The God I believe in is revealed in Scripture.
I must admit I do not enjoy this particular cop-out. Yes the God we all believe in is revealed in scripture....but not necessarily your interpretation of that scripture. Which is what this fellow is at odds with. Its all well and good to make a vague response like this, but at the end of the day the church is the pillar and the foundation of truth. It is the church that gave you the bible and the church that will tell you what it means. because they have the authority to tell you what it means because it is there book. You have free will that is right, but you were made good. God made all things good. You are stained with original sin which taints that goodness however we have baptism to bring us back to God in Jesus creating a new person by the power of that sacrament. This new person is responsible for doing good things before God and man. for faith without good works is dead. I read that last line somewhere. gee what was that book called... I do think it is sometimes referred to as scripture. It is Christ Jesus who shows us the way in his infinite sacrifice of the cross, but it is us who are responsible for following that way not just in words but in action. and so what we do can be good in Jesus. For Jesus effects the world through man. and what Jesus does is good all day long.
 
jerome_vincent said:
The God I believe in is revealed in Scripture.
Code: 
I must admit I do not enjoy this particular cop-out.  Yes the God we all believe in is revealed in scripture....but not necessarily your interpretation of that scripture.  Which is what this fellow is at odds with.  Its all well and good to make a vague response like this, but at the end of the day the church is the pillar and the foundation of truth.  It is the church that gave you the bible and the church that will tell you what it means. because they have the authority to tell you what it means because it is there book.  You have free will that is right, but you were made good.  God made all things good.  You are stained with original sin which taints that goodness however we have baptism to bring us back to God in Jesus creating a new person by the power of that sacrament. This new person is responsible for doing good things before God and man.  for faith without good works is dead.  I read that last line somewhere.  gee what was that book called... I do think it is sometimes referred to as scripture. It is Christ Jesus who shows us the way in his infinite sacrifice of the cross, but it is us who are responsible for following that way not just in words but in action.  and so what we do can be good in Jesus.  For Jesus effects the world through man. and what Jesus does is good all day long.
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i agree
 
OSAS was created by the devil so that people wouldn’t worry about being in a state of mortal sin–they would die in that state–and then he could laughingly escort them to Hell forever!

OSAS is appealing to Protestants because if you truely believe it you don’t worry about anything and you don’t listen to St. Paul when he says “work out your salvation with fear and trembling”–you don’t fear–you don’t tremble–you sing hymnslike “Blessed Assuarance” and the devil just waits figuring the odds are in his favor that you’ll die in a state of mortal sin without repenting and he will drag you to Hell!

Can a Proestant committ a mortal sin?

YES!–not only Protestants but anybody INCLUDING Catholics!

If he dies in a state of mortal sin will he go to Hell?

YES!!!–but that’s true for Catholics too–it’s true for everybody!

The sad thing is that many people–Protestants and Catholics alike do not want to believe the HARD TRUTH that it is possible to die in a state of mortal sin and if you die that way you will spend eternity in Hell!

If people believed this truth you’d see alot more people at confession!
 
Jerry-Jet said:
OSAS was created by the devil so that people wouldn’t worry about being in a state of mortal sin–they would die in that state–and then he could laughingly escort them to Hell forever!

OSAS is appealing to Protestants because if you truely believe it you don’t worry about anything and you don’t listen to St. Paul when he says “work out your salvation with fear and trembling”–you don’t fear–you don’t tremble–you sing hymnslike “Blessed Assuarance” and the devil just waits figuring the odds are in his favor that you’ll die in a state of mortal sin without repenting and he will drag you to Hell!

Can a Proestant committ a mortal sin?

YES!–not only Protestants but anybody INCLUDING Catholics!

If he dies in a state of mortal sin will he go to Hell?

YES!!!–but that’s true for Catholics too–it’s true for everybody!

The sad thing is that many people–Protestants and Catholics alike do not want to believe the HARD TRUTH that it is possible to die in a state of mortal sin and if you die that way you will spend eternity in Hell!

If people believed this truth you’d see alot more people at confession!
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Agreed. If you understand and believe the Catholic teaching on fallling from grace, it seems unbelievable that you wouldn’t be in mass every week (or every day) and go to confession regularly…
 
Lisa44 said:
That is what I said.
It is saying that you cannot say that with God’s help a person cannot persevere.

Canon 22.
If anyone says that the one justified either can without the special help of God persevere in the justice received,[123] or that with that help he cannot, let him be anathema.
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No Lisa. You are still not grasping what is being said. Let me repeat:
Two refutations are being made:
  1. It is being refuted that perseverance in the state of grace can occur without God’s help; - this part you seem to understand. But this part you are not understanding:
  2. and it is being refuted that even with God’s help one cannot persevere in the state of Grace.
It’s pretty simple:the statement affirms that it is indeed possible to persevere in the state of grace with God’s help and refutes the erroneous notion that even with God’s help we cannot persevere in the state of grace.

Now, is that clear enough?
 
I was reading the debate between Tim Staples and Mike Gendron in this month’s edition of Catholic Answers magazine on this topic. It was interesting in how they approached the topic. Mike Gendron supported the idea of eternal security with the passages of scripture that say Jesus will save those that believe and that nothing can take them from Jesus’s hand. Tim Staples countered with the scriptural passages that show that eternal security can indeed be lost. Mike Gendron then countered that those that lose their salvation never had it to begin with. They then argued over the interpretation of greek words that may or may not have implied that those that fell away were believers and closed by repeating their arguments.

It seems to me that Mike Gendron actually conceeded that there is no such thing as assurance of salvation when he declared that those that fell away were never saved. It seems as if neither of the debators recognized this simple fact. Simply put, if the truly saved will persist in good works and those that don’t were never saved to begin with, then isn’t it obvious that you won’t know whether you were saved until you die because up until that point, you could always show yourself to be an apostate?

It seems to me that supporters of OSAS have an unsolveable dilemma when it comes to sin. They can take Gendron’s approach and say that those who sin were never saved to begin with. If they do that, they are quickly forced to admit that if sin shows they were never saved, then they can’t know whether they are saved until there are no longer opportunities to sin (i.e. when they are dead). They therefore arrive at the Catholic understanding. If on the other hand, they say that sin is irrelevant to salvation, they are also on untennable ground because the very definition of sin is being in opposition to God’s will and how can anyone make that argument that God will allow those in opposition to him to enter heaven?
 
paul_c said:
Simply put, if the truly saved will persist in good works and those that don’t were never saved to begin with, then isn’t it obvious that you won’t know whether you were saved until you die because up until that point, you could always show yourself to be an apostate?
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Exactly!

I believe I said as much in the original OSAS here.
Originally posted by **PRmerger **
Exactly. The Faux Believer paradigm, which is the most peculiar of all concepts wrought by the Protestant Reformation, IMHO.
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Which, ironically, confirms that there is no such thing as assurance of salvation, if such an entity as the “Faux Believer” exists–for how does one know that he’s not one of those poor saps who thinks he’s saved but actually isn’t? That is, there is no assurance of salvation.
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PRmerger said:
Exactly!

I believe I said as much in the original OSAS here.
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Right. So I was confused as to why Tim Staples, a professional apologist, didn’t hammer this home.

And as I said, if the false believer paradigm is so easily dismissed, then the only alternative for OSAS supporters is to claim that sin isn’t a factor in salvation. Not many will want to defend the position that God allows the elect to oppose God with impunity but He banished Satan from heaven for the same offense. Its completely untennable.

Are there any other positions for an OSAS supporter to take regarding Sin?
 
Originally Posted by Lisa44 View Post
That is what I said.
It is saying that you cannot say that with God’s help a person cannot persevere.
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Canon 22.
If anyone says that the one justified either can without the special help of God persevere in the justice received,[123] or that with that help he cannot, let him be anathema.
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Philthy said:
No Lisa. You are still not grasping what is being said. Let me repeat:
Two refutations are being made:
  1. It is being refuted that perseverance in the state of grace can occur without God’s help; - this part you seem to understand. But this part you are not understanding:
  2. and it is being refuted that even with God’s help one cannot persevere in the state of Grace.
It’s pretty simple:the statement affirms that it is indeed possible to persevere in the state of grace with God’s help and refutes the erroneous notion that even with God’s help we cannot persevere in the state of grace.

Now, is that clear enough?
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Um, again, that is the same thing I said. Read my words in bold, then read yours. The first part was never in question but only the underlined second half.
 
Lisa44 said:
Um, again, that is the same thing I said. Read my words in bold, then read yours.
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Not exactly the same Lisa…
What Lisa said:
"… with God’s help a person cannot persevere."
What Philthy said:
"…even with God’s help one cannot persevere in the state of Grace. "

Ok, so a small difference in our statements - the word “even”, and it has something to do with the controversy…read on.
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Lisa:
The first part was never in question but only the underlined second half.
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Basically there were some who claimed that there is nothing we can do - or that can be done to us - to enable us to persevere in the state of grace. These people would claim that even with God’s grace it is still impossible for one to persevere in the state of grace. Got it?
The Church disagrees with this claim. The Church refuted and anathematized this claim in the second half of the statement you reference. By doing so, the Church declares that it is possible to persevere in the state of Grace with God’s help. You believe the same thing as the Church - that we can, by grace, persevere in the state of Grace.
Now got it?

If this above paragraph still leaves you scratching your head, then we can approach it differently - by looking at your original paraphrase of the Church’s statement and seeing if it is truly objectionable to you. Here it is:
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Lisa:
It is saying that you cannot say that
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with God’s help a person cannot persevere.

Allow me a brief substitution of that underlined portion:
The Church refutes the claim that "… with God’s help a person cannot persevere."
I believe that with God’s help one can persevere, don’t you? And therefore I reject the claim that with God’s help one cannot persevere - and so do you!
Blessings!
 
If anyone believes that with God’s help that a person cannot persevere in a state of grace then what they really believe is that Satan is more powerful than God and when God created man He didn’t create what was good but IRREPARABLE JUNK!

The same people that when Mary is FULL of God’s grace that she’ll still sin!

See they believe that Satan is more powerful than God!

And who do you believe started these heresies that lead people to hell?

You guessed it–Satan!
 
Hi, FutureCatholic1,

You did fine - the real issue is to follow the Scriptures as a whole - not isolated verses that fly in the face of context.

When I read some of the arguments for OSAS it was more like anything can be proven IF I am allowed to pick and chose the verses I want and just ignore the rest. This is what I mean by context - Christ says that those who believe in Him will be saved … but, He also says that those who love Him keep His commands… and then He is quite critical of those who just called out, “Lord! Lord!” and ignored those members of His Body that needed help! So, this issue of ‘believe only’ does not hold up even casual scrutiny, and there are these individuals who acted liked they were saved but came to a rather painful realization they chose poorly.

God bless
FutureCatholic1 said:
i guess this thread is what made me clarify my position on osas what sig said did not seem logical as opposed to what others posted

i loe logic and reason so far on my way into the the catholic church i have come with a open mind as i like to say and i see the logic and reason in what catholics believe i will state forgive me if i come across pride ful but i have always had a wellspring of faith i saw proof in how the church could prove that they are the original church founded by christ through peter then i could let my faith take hold but i still see logic in what the catholic church teaches
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Those who place their faith and hope on OSAS are invited to meditatively read Ezekiel 33:13 “If I tell a righteous person that they will surely live, but then they trust in their righteousness and do evil, none of the righteous things that person has done will be remembered; they will die for the evil they have done.”
 
Hi, Pitcharan,

It would be truly enlightening to find out how verses like this are totally ignored by those who wave the OSAS banner. The very idea that one has to do but one thing and salvation is assured is truly both UN-Scriptural and delusional. For those who are married, try doing one good thing for your spouse and then think that the continued state of marital bliss will continue forever…and, see how long it lasts! 😉

Maybe this is a helpful analogy. Look at those who buy a winning lottery ticket. They are all smiles - they have all of this money and are confident that they have walked through the door of perpetual happiness! Sort of like the ‘Altar Call’ - their salvation is assured! Well, a few short years later they again make the newspapers for their foolish use of this more treacherous prize - money! They did not have it work for them - they became a slave to it… and now it has ridiculed them into shame, humiliation and bankruptcy! They were actually much better off when they had little money and knew that they had to manage it every day - continuous effort. If something like money requires daily attention - then surely one’s eternal salvation should count for more!

God bless
Pitcharan said:
Those who place their faith and hope on OSAS are invited to meditatively read Ezekiel 33:13 “If I tell a righteous person that they will surely live, but then they trust in their righteousness and do evil, none of the righteous things that person has done will be remembered; they will die for the evil they have done.”
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tqualey said:
Hi, Pitcharan,

It would be truly enlightening to find out how verses like this are totally ignored by those who wave the OSAS banner. The very idea that one has to do but one thing and salvation is assured is truly both UN-Scriptural and delusional. For those who are married, try doing one good thing for your spouse and then think that the continued state of marital bliss will continue forever…and, see how long it lasts! 😉

Maybe this is a helpful analogy. Look at those who buy a winning lottery ticket. They are all smiles - they have all of this money and are confident that they have walked through the door of perpetual happiness! Sort of like the ‘Altar Call’ - their salvation is assured! Well, a few short years later they again make the newspapers for their foolish use of this more treacherous prize - money! They did not have it work for them - they became a slave to it… and now it has ridiculed them into shame, humiliation and bankruptcy! They were actually much better off when they had little money and knew that they had to manage it every day - continuous effort. If something like money requires daily attention - then surely one’s eternal salvation should count for more!

God bless
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Hi Tom,
The ones I saw on CAF were absolutely impervious and invariably had their own interpretation in-line with their belief.
 
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