Justathought,
First, let me keep us on track by saying what I like about Protestants: they ask very good questions, and you’re no exception.
justathought:
…to anyone who will claim that the Catholic church is the ONLY True Church, therefore the only way to obtain Salvation,… you are very mistaken.
“True Church” does not mean that only Catholics will be saved. Anyone who says otherwise – Catholics included – need to read up on Vatican Council II that solemnly proclaimed Protestant Churches to be instruments of God’s salvation.
Yes, salvation comes through the Catholic Church only which has as its earthly shepherd the pope as instituted by Christ through Peter. However, Protestants, according to Catholic teaching, are “imperfectly joined to the Catholic Church” by the sacrament of baptism. In other words, baptised in both water and Spirit, Protestants are like “associate members” of the Catholic Church.
In addition to baptism, most Protestants have adopted other essential Catholic doctrines, such as salvation by grace alone, the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Resurrection, scripture inerrancy, and many more. It is belief in these essential Catholic doctrines that have allowed other Christians to come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. In essence, Christians who are being saved through this knowledge are ultimately being saved through the Catholic Church. This is what was meant by the Council of Trent when it proclaimed that “there is no salvation outside the Catholic Church.”
Further, when we say that the Catholic Church is the one true Church, we mean that the Church that follows after St. Peter is perfectly in line with what Christ had intended for His Church to be in its visible structure, global reach and teaching.
Has the Catholic Church behaved perfectly? Well, no, but Christ never promised that the Church would be impeccable. He did, however, promise Peter that His Church would teach His word perfectly: “Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and what you lose on earth will be loosed in heaven,” (Matt 16:19).
justathought:
The Catholic church of today has strayed far from the original Church.
How do you know that it isn’t Protestants who have strayed instead? Protestants formed their own churches on shaky ground about 1500 years after Pentacost, and from our perspective the more than 30,000 different protestant denominations cannot even agree on the most basic doctrines.
By contrast, the Catholic Church has been around since Peter was appointed by Christ to “feed His sheep” (John 21:15-19), and our teaching on salvation has not changed for nearly 2000 years. Not a single Catholic critic can point to any proclamation made by early church councils to show that they contradict either scripture or current Catholic teaching. There has been nothing but a continual development of doctrine inspired by the Holy Spirit as promised by Christ when he said that the Spirit would instruct us “in everything” and remind us of all that He taught (John 15:26).
I suspect that your perception of us stems from the persistent myth that Catholics believe in salvation by works, which couldn’t be further from the truth. We believe that we are saved by grace only. Saving grace is manifested as faith and works which are the inward and outward marks of our salvation, but they are never the grounds for our salvation. Hand in hand, faith and works justify us before God but they don’t save us. Further, faith and works are never mutually exclusive, for without works, faith is dead (James 2:17); and without faith, works are like filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6) and an exercise in vanity (Ec 1:14).
We believe this because both Paul and James taught this: “You see that man is justified by works and not by faith alone,” (James 2:24). And if you reread Ephesians 2:8-10 you’ll see that even Paul emphasizes that, though we are saved by grace through faith and never by works, genuine faith in Christ is never detached from works: (v10) “for we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”
You may say that in Romans and Galatians Paul discounts works as irrelevant to justification entirely. But a closer reading shows that what Paul actually discounts are “works of the law.” He never discounts “good works” per se, nor does he or anyone else in scripture ever say that we are justified by “faith alone.” For him, dietary laws and temple rituals are not good works. Instead, good works are works of charity “which God prepared beforehand” and therefore demonstrate our justification along with faith. This is why James can rightly say and agree with Paul that we are justified by both faith and works, but not saved by them.
Getting this thread back on track, allow me to finish by saying that what I also like about Protestants, particularly evangelicals, is their zeal for seeking the truth.
Your brother in Christ,
Mike
