What is the minimun amount of knowledge that one must have to be saved?

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zz912 said:
What I always see in these discussions are people who will take one or two verses and try to minimalize down the requirements necesary for salvation. They try to strip down to some bare essential, but ignore the totality of the Gospel message. They will say that you only need to call on the name of Jesus, or say the sinner’s prayer, or ask Jesus into your heart, or believe in Jesus, or something else.

Well the problem with this is that this is pulling the verses out of context, and ignoring the implications of what those verses mean in whole. When you call on His name, it isn’t a one-time event, and it isn’t something that is something you can check off like a list. Calling on His name means aligning yourself with Him, claiming Him as your Lord, and obeying all that He commands. If you at a later date refuse to obey His commands, you have refuted and rejected your prior calling upon His name.

Trying to simplify the Gospel message and the requirements of Christ is a sure path to heresy. Christ doesn’t want a checklist, He was ALL of you.
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The question is the “minimum amount of knowledge.” That obviously implies we are talking about people who are just beginning their faith journey. Someone just answering Christ’s call to take up their cross and follow him is not going to know all the ends and outs. They aren’t going to know everything about being a Christian or about what it all means. Christ meets us where we are, and we grow in grace as we grow in the knowledge of who he is.

“Calling on the name of the Lord” is not about checking a box off a list. It is someone realizing that they need Jesus, and that is the first step of faith. You are right, though. Faith is not a single step; its a lifelong journey, and we learn as we walk the path Christ has laid out for us.
 
I would express this a bit differently.

Jesus meets us where we are, and we grow in Grace as our relationship to Him grows.

I agree with another poster who suggested that the spiritual life is about following the teachings of Jesus; the spiritual life is about our relationship to Jesus. The emphasis is critical.
ltwin said:
Christ meets us where we are, and we grow in grace as we grow in the knowledge of who he is.
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To understand more indepth the understanding of Christ’s teachings, we have the primary witnesses–the Apostles…and the tradition through the Holy Spirit of these understandings passed down through the tradition of faith, or, how we understand Christ’s words today. That is why Christ gave us His Church…to help guide, teach, and nurture, and make Christ present in the sacraments as well as His Word…

But thinking more about this…we can reverse it…and ponder how does God approach us? Does He consider us through knowledge about us? What is the minimum knowledge God needs to understand us? Again, I don’t think the primary issue is knowledge, but conversion to the life of Christ.

Likewise, what God looks at us…is not our spiritual knowledge, or Biblical knowledge…but rather what resides in our hearts…The heart is the essence of the person.

We turn back around…we encounter Christ in the essence of His person…rather than in His teachings…which follow…and also provide us wisdom in dealing with daily life.
 
=hapaxparadidomi;9878734]I know that different protestant backgrounds will answer this question differently. But let’s see what we get:
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What is the minimun amount of knowledge that one must have to be saved?
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WHAT CHRIST HIMSELF COMMANDS

Which is if rightly understood; all in the bible

To “Seek TRUTH” [a singular truth per issue] where Christ Truth is guareented to be found;
ONLY in the Catholic Church.

**Mt. 10:1-8

Mt. 16:18-19

Mt. 18:18

Mt. 28:16-20

John 14:16-17 [filled in John 20:21-22]

John 17:15-19

John 20:19-23**

EACH OF WHICH APPLY DIRECTLY TO THE APOSTLES ALONE AND EXCLUSIVELY; and from whom the CC get’s God’s Actual Authorty and Powers, Protection, Guidence and Inspirtation.👍

God Bless,
pat /PJM
 
hapaxparadidomi said:
I know that different protestant backgrounds will answer this question differently. But let’s see what we get:

What is the minimun amount of knowledge that one must have to be saved?
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The “Protestant” answer is pretty easy really–salvation is by grace and has no relationship at all with personal knowledge, except that knowledge in whatever form is a grace as well. To say that salvation depends in any way on knowledge would be antithetical to salvation by grace.
 
I used to ask this question as a fundamentalist and generally got blank stares.
What about the mentally handicapped?
 
Dave_Noonan said:
The “Protestant” answer is pretty easy really–salvation is by grace and has no relationship at all with personal knowledge, except that knowledge in whatever form is a grace as well. To say that salvation depends in any way on knowledge would be antithetical to salvation by grace.
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I wouldn’t say that’s the Protestant answer - I’d say you nailed the traditional Christian answer.
 
I haven’t read all of the replies, but here is my 2 cents worth…

John 3:17 (KJV) And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.
 
Yes…that they may have life.

It is all about recognizing and entering into the life of Jesus Christ. Then we are no longer living in linear time, but in eternal time…in Christ’s kingdom. And it likewise can be fleeting when we commit serious sin.

Christ began His ministry in Galilee after leaving the desert where He prayed and fasted for 40 days. Galilee was where exiled Jews returned, many were sick and infirmed there, rather marginalized people. He came not for the healthy but the sick. And in time, we know that the greatest sickness is sin. He began His ministry as one bringing new life and hope and healing.

All this was done out of love. Recall Corinthians and how having alot of spiritual/faith knowledge is nothing when compared to a life of love founded on Christ.

The great compass of our faith is Divine Love. If we are living in Christ, we are able to follow Him and respond to life’s challenges by love not sin.

The teaching is He has come to liberate us from the bondage of sin and death and bring us new life.
 
I am reading ‘Benedictus’…daily reflections by Pope Benedict.

He does not refer to knowledge.

The encounter with Christ is an ‘event’. And this force of Christ is always coming towards us to break us open to receiving Christ.

Instead of knowledge, Pope Benedict uses the word, ‘Revelation’. Our encounter with Christ is an event that reveals Who God is to us.

I will try to write out this passage some time later.
 
For whomever returns here…we are not concerned as Catholics about knowledge.

Drawing here on Pope Benedictus’ daily readings, October 21, ‘The Missionary Nature of the Church’…'The person who has trust and participates in the faith of the Church wants to believe with the Church. This seems like our life-long pilgrimage to arrive with our entire life at the communion of faith. We can offer this to everyone, so that little by little one can identify and especially take this step over and over again to trust in the faith of the Church…so as to receive the light of faith.

The essence of Christianity is not an idea but a Person. Great theologians have tried to describe the essential ideas that make up Christianity. But in the end, the Christianity that they constructed was not convincing, because Christianity in the first place is an Event, a Person. And thus in the Person we discover the richness of what is contained…’
 
If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the Truth, and the truth will set you free John 8:31,32
 
To clarify here, teachings come after the Event…of encountering Christ and opening our hearts and souls to Him…the next step is in following Him and His teachings.

Christ did not pass out Bibles. Text form is always open to interpretation…We need an interpreter. The Church interprets the Word of God…Logos…Who is Jesus Living Revelation from the witnesses of His apostles. St. Peter in his second letter, chapter 2, tells us to hold on to what the Apostles teach as they were chosen before their time to witness Christ.

We are rather in the Oral Tradition of Christ through the witness of the Apostles…and our union with Christian believers is testimony of faith to the world.
 
VoiceOfBible said:
If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the Truth, and the truth will set you free John 8:31,32
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Can you please qualify your understanding of those verses? Does that mean you cannot BEGIN to be His disciple till you have heard all of His teaching? And in your view is that WHEN a person becomes saved?
 
hapaxparadidomi said:
I know that different protestant backgrounds will answer this question differently. But let’s see what we get:

What is the minimun amount of knowledge that one must have to be saved?
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According to Matthew 4:4, Every word that proceeded from the mouth of God. So a person is required to receive the spirit of re-birth/truth that brings to rememberance ALL things Jesus said.

We don’t have every word simply because we can purchase a book and read it. It is recorded in Prophecy that those of the truth hear “His” Voice. It is also recorded that those who keep the commandments of God, Have the Testimony of Jesus.

So Spiritual Re-birth like what Jesus achieved at his baptism, as well as the spiritual baptism the apostles received on the day of Pentacost, is the minimum requirements of knowlege for salvation, otherwise we as humans have yet to really live and are trapped in the darkness of our own human perceptions.

Thanks for asking.
 
One of my favorite saints is St. Joseph of Cupertino. His mother begged the Franciscan monks to please take Joseph in because he was not bright enough to make his own way in the world. I won’t go into the whole story except to say that this was a man who was most likeky mentally impaired without the ability to even watch over himself. While selling apples from a cart drawn by a donkey, he found a woman laying by the side of the road who had been raped and beaten and stripped bare. He took off the one peice of clothing he owned, wrapped her in it and took her to the doctor. While he was gone the donkey, the cart and the money had been stolen. He returned to the monestary without any clothes and told the Monks what had happened. They were none to pleased and made him stay in the barn. He was found in the barn levitating, in complete rapture, before a bust of Our Lady. He is known as the flying saint because of his ability to levitate and even fixed the cross on the top of the steeple of the local church by “flying” there.

The point is, Joseph of Cupertino probably understood little of scripture, except that one part about loving. We are not called to be theologians, we are called to love. His intellectual ability was so poor that he could not take care of himself. His love was so great that he was canonized.
 
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