MichaelP3. You said . . . .
QUOTE:
I just wonder why Catholics are even talking to us if our responses doesn’t mean anything before you even read them.
Because I DID read the responses.
I not only read the responses, . . . .but the theological points that
I brought out were basically
ignored.
I explicitly mentioned we as Catholics AFFIRM the necessity of faith.
I specifically said it THREE TIMES (I even recapitulated all three of my responses again
here).
Part of Alwayswill’s “retort” to me earlier was . . . . that you have to have faith and quoted to me Hebrews 11:6 which I already affirm and made it clear that I affirm it.
QUOTE:
Hebrews 11:6 And without faith it is impossible to please God
This is EXACTLY MY POINT that I made earlier about Protestants MISCHARACTERIZING Catholic teachings then demolishing a straw man when I said earlier in the thread (
here) . . . .
QUOTE:
But when we Catholics say the same thing about our works as you do your faith (there is a mere human dimension, but ALSO a necessary GRACE dimension) we get admonished by some of our Protestant friends and Protestant family members.
The admonition from Alwayswill implicitly suggests Catholics (or at least me here on this thread) DENY the necessity of faith (and/or we as Catholics work ourselves into Heaven).
Which isn’t a big deal except that I just affirmed the necessity of faith (three times), you have who knows how many people lurking this thread that may not know better, and there is an OP that is a Mormon adherent that has a reasonable question that a muddled answer could confuse.
And I am also not going to sit by and watch confusing terminology being bantered about and pretended it is in conformity with Catholic teaching, Catholic-Lutheran dialogue, and in agreement with what Jimmy Akin allegedly said, without appropriate clarification.
That’s not “ecumenical”.
Sola fide means “everything from soup to nuts” among Protestants as I said earlier depending on WHICH Protestant you are talking to.
Even Jimmy Akin’s article talks about the “good Protestants” (which implies there are if not bad . . . at least
“confused” Protestants or at the very least confused Protestant “understandings”).
Quote from Jimmy Akin’s very article (
here with bold mine) . . . .
QUOTE from Akin (source
here):
The three theological virtues of Catholic theology are thus summed up in
the (good) Protestants idea of the virtue of faith. . . . .
. . . . The reason this is not applicable to modern Protestants is that
Protestants (at least the good ones) do not hold the view being condemned in this canon.
. . . . So Trent does not condemn
the (good) Protestant understanding of faith alone. In fact, the canon allows the formula to be used so long as it is not used so as to understand that nothing besides intellectual assent is required. The canon only condemns sola fide if it is used so as to understand that nothing else . . .
. . . . . The fact faith is normally used by Catholics to refer to intellectual assent (as in Romans 14:22-23, 1 Corinthians 13:13, and James 2:14-26) is one reason Catholics do not commonly use the faith alone formula even though they agree with **what (good) Protestants **mean by it. The formula runs counter to the historic meaning of the term faith.
The other reason is that, frankly, the formula itself (though not what it is used to express) is flatly unbiblical. . . . .
Sola fide means a hodge-podge of muddled often self-contradictory teachings on salvation MichaelP3 and the fact that I am Catholic does not necessarily disqualify me from commenting on this (and I am not accusing you of saying that btw).
My dad was Lutheran, I went to Baptist Sunday School as a kid (some) and I participated in Protestant para-Church ministry as a youth.
I have a reasonable understanding of the issue of justification and the frequent Protestant objections.
Sola fide means a lot of different things to a lot of different Bible ALONE Christians.
That’s what you get with private interpretation. And with no authority but the Bible reader, there cannot be authoritative human correction except by the Bible reader.
Many of the sola fide variants are at odds with one another and thus
cannot at the same time . . . . be true.
I’ve asked for clarification in this case and got none.
Some of these **MUST be traditions of men **(they can’t all be true).
I was told by Alwayswill, he wanted to dialogue about Jimmy Akin’s article here.
Alwayswill then proceeded to mischaracterize what I was saying while ignoring Jimmy’s article that I took the time to re-read, copy and paste the salient portion, and comment upon that he/she said he/she wanted to discuss.
I stand by everything I’ve said on this thread MichaelP3 and I want to invite you into the discussion too.
I am OK with you showing me where I am wrong but please don’t ignore the points that I made.
You will not find
justification by faith ALONE taught ANYWHERE in Scripture. It is a tradition of men that at least in some cases, makes void the word of God.
If you want to parse the terms fine.
But don’t parse the terms then re-define those parsed terms in a way that contradicts the Catholic faith all the while, trying to sell others on this thread that it all means the same thing.
It doesn’t all mean the same thing.
I will happily await your (and alwayswill’s) (name removed by moderator)ut on the justification issue.
