What is the Catholic teaching on 1 Cor. 1:8?

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Benny12 said:
I guess is one changes their mind then we apply scripture to it…correct?

They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us.

[1 John 2:19]
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Whoever “they” are, and whoever the “us” are, referred to in the passage. We’ll know with absolute certainty in the end, when we’re all judged on our love. Then we’ll know who the predicted elect actually were, who went out, who never were one of “us”.

Meanwhile we can assess the level of our love for God and neighbor as best we can; fruit always accompanies that love, and by our love we are known. That’s the best indicator of our state of justice and therefore of our salvation. We’re freely justified -made just-as we’ve come to believe. We’ve received the full inheritance of God’s children at that point. Now we’re supposed to live like it. As an example, again, with Jesus speaking to-warning- His followers:
"For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins." Matt 6:15

Such forgiveness is a natural component and expression of love, as are the other acts of righteousness, and the perfection and righteousness in general, spoken of previously in the same chapter. .
 
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Benny12 said:
Right…not “for“
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We work. We strive, we persist, we persevere.

“I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to Him in His death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize of God’s heavenly calling in Christ Jesus. All of us who are mature should embrace this point of view. And if you think differently about some issue, God will reveal this to you as well. Nevertheless, we must live up to what we have already attained.” Phil 3:10-16
 
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“Created for Him to do good works He has prepared for us in advance, that we SHOULD live in them.”
 
Benny12 said:
God has prepared a path of good works for believers which HE …HE will perform in and through believers as they walk by faith.
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And which we SHOULD LIVE IN. It’s not a question of working for God, it’s a question of working WITH God.
 
That’s a good question. I love because I fellowship with He who is love.It’s kind of a matter of who we hang out with. “We love Him because He first loved us.” His love compelled our meeting-loving me as He did, and through that initiative I came to know Him and the more I know Him the more I love Him-and the more generally I then love as well, beginning to love other fellow beings as He does.

It’s a work of His that occurs in me as I remain in communion with Him. This relationship begins, from my perspective, with faith, faith in His existence, trustworthiness, mercy: in His infinite and uncompromising goodness, in His love that I’ve now come to know. “Knowledge of God” is the object of faith. We’re justified and saved by faith, through faith. This is not a mere act of believing and professing that belief, but more, the act of communing with God and remaining in that communion. This is a continuous choice and to the extent to which we continuously choose that relationship our justice or righteousness will be intact-and presumably growing.

I honestly don’t believe that Paul would be satisfied with the concept of faith alone-I don’t think he would’ve ever framed things with those words. I don’t believe he would have thought that having faith, by itself, satisfies God’s requirements for our being justified but instead was using it to point us away from ourselves and towards grace, towards God as the means to salvation, direct relationship with Him, the closer the better. Communion with God justifies us IOW.

“I will put my law in their minds
and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
No longer will they teach their neighbor,
or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’
because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest,”
declares the Lord." Jer 31:33-34

"Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent." John 17:3
 
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Benny12 said:
If we go with your logic, Paul contradicts himself. We were created to do hoods works for His glory. Not to make us right with God like you’re hoping.
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It’s both/and. We glorify Him as we reflect His glory in ourselves. Good works only come-for the right reason anyway-when their motivated by the goodness/righteousness that He’s cultivated in us. Then our righteousness is no longer “filthy rags”; we’d no longer be white-washed tombs, clean on the outside while filthy on the inside.

To the extent that we agree and therefore will the same as God, that we desire to be like Him, our own righteousness is all the greater. We’re here to learn of the absolute rectitude or perfection of God’s will- and of our absolute need for Him. So that we’ll choose rightly.
 
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Why do you miss the “that we SHOULD WALK IN THEM?”

Seems to me YOU’RE missing the point.
 
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Benny12 said:
Why do you add your works to Christ sacrifice?
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They add nothing. We add nothing that God needs to begin with for that matter. He doesn’t need anyone to glorify Him either- He’s full of glory. And yet, our works are God’s will for us-and therefore necessary. Again, man will always be obligated to be righteous, to be who he was created to be. God will have nothing less. Faith opens the door to that realization. Christ makes our righteousness finally possible. He and His Father want us to be like them. Recognizing that we’re not them, that we’re the creature and in no way the Creator, is a first step in that accomplishment.

We should understand that, not needing us or anything from us, everything God does is ultimately for our own good and beatitude/happiness. That’s what love does.
 
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So why do you keep avoiding “that we should walk in them?”

The fact is we who are saved have an obligation to do good, to continue in His kindness as Romans 11 says. You seem not to want to do that.
 
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Guess what? There is something lacking in the suffering of Christ according to Colossians.

Now I rejoice in my sufferings for you, and I fill up in my physical body – for the sake of his body, the church – what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ.
Colossians 1:24 NET

Our participation is what’s lacking. We need to suffer with Him on order to reign with Him.
 
And Jesus Himself said good works are necessary.

“I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in me – and I in him – bears much fruit, because apart from me you can accomplish nothing. If anyone does not remain in me, he is thrown out like a branch, and dries up; and such branches are gathered up and thrown into the fire, and are burned up."
John 15:5‭-‬6 NET

In order to remain in Him you must do the good works He has prepared. Otherwise you will be cut off.
 
Benny12 said:
I’m not avoiding anything.

You avoid the key to the text.

For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
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No one’s denying that. What you seem to be denying is that we MUST DO good works.

Lol.
 
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Benny12 said:
Christians will do good works because God is working through us. You are saying we do them for God and for salvation
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And Jesus said that anyone who doesn’t produce fruit will be cut off. Paul says the exact same thing in Romans 11.
 
A better question is do we do the will of the Father?

And there is one person who Jesus lost: Judas.

When I was with them I kept them safe and watched over them in your name that you have given me. Not one of them was lost except the one destined for destruction, so that the scripture could be fulfilled.
John 17:12 NET
 
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