Saved?

Carson wrote:

Hi, Carson. I, for one, appreciated the posting of the canons from the Council of Orange. As a staunchly reformed Christian, I saw very little within the canons (after a cursory reading, mind you) that I would disagree with. I think, however, this is more of a reflection of early Catholic doctrine and would not reflect the majority of Catholic doctrine as it exists today, especially in my neck of the woods, which is predominantly Roman Catholic. If a Roman Catholic, such as yourself, claims to believe the teachings of these canons as they are stated, then I would have no choice but to agree that such a person is truly justified in God's sight. I would daresay, though, that most Catholics (indeed, most Baptists) do not believe the doctrines of sovereign grace as they seem to be stated in this council.

JasonW said:

I think your reaction to Carson's posting is a bit reactionary. Just casting something off without examining it, because it is "Catholic doctrine" is not wise. True, the Bible is the FINAL authority for all truth; however, that does not mean that creeds, statements, and councils cannot make accurate representations of Biblical truth. In the final analysis, they must be weighed against scripture. The statements from the council that Carson posted are extremely scriptural and are a reaction against Pelagianism, a heresy that had been creeping into the church at that time. Unfortunately, this same heresy is finding its way into fundamentalist and evangelical churches once again. As I stated above, many fundamentalists (Baptists included) would not agree with the statements of that council although they are thoroughly scriptural.

I am certainly not one who is cozy with Roman Catholic doctrine, especially contemporary Catholicism, but we should still examine everything first before rejecting it outright. Remember, it was the apostle Paul who said "Examine all things, hold fast to that which is good."

 

Pauline, I am curious as to why you don't finish out that thought with "through faith". Is it because you do not believe that salvation comes by one's faith?

(Eph 2:8 KJV) For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:

Julia

 

Actually, I believe he just proved my point pretty well thankyou

I got the quote from a book on the Sunday Law thing (something I am sure Catholics Apologists are aware of http://www.sundaylaw.com/download/National_Sunday_Law.pdf ), it may not be a real doctrine...which is very possible...but more than likely, it is a real doctrine that some priest wrote.

Regardless, there are so many volumes of Catholic Doctrine (CD) floating around that it becomes a fulltime job just to read it all. And if you want to understand it all, you have to have a PH.D. in theology.

Christians are supposed to read the Bible...let me say that again...the Bible. I have a HUGE problem with CD because Catholics keep referencing that instead of the BIBLE!

 

Hi Sir Ed,

I'm not trying to "bust" anybody -- I seriously would like to find a copy of that decretal, since I've seen it cited before in other places.

If Jason or anyone else here can point me in the right direction, I'd appreciate it.

God bless,

Mark H.

 

Jason -

It seems a bit ... um ... careless to post an attack on somebody else's beliefs just because you saw something on the Internet somewhere that "may not be a real doctrine." (Which is why I try to research what I say before I say it). Some Bible references for this concept would be Exodus 20:16, Deuteronomy 5:20, and Matthew 15:18-20.

If anyone else can point me to a copy of the decretal, I'd be grateful.

Mark H.

 

Mark H.

1. Of course, you are correct. I should have verified the source first. To be fait though, I have a very difficult time finding all of CW's references unless he gives me a direct link (which is sort of my point.....LOTS of CD)

2. I can see where you might want to give the 'false witness' claim (wrongly, but I can see your point), but the Matthew verse? The only reason I write at all about these topics is because I don't want someone blindly following anything (Catholic church, Baptist church). It is all out of love for God and His creations.

3. As always, as long as only God in his three forms is your Master and Lord, we are all good in my book. It is just symantics at that point. The minute anyone elevates anyone to that level other than those three...

jason

 

Hi Jason,

Thanks for your response. I'm not sure, though, that your complaint that there are lots of Catholic writings around is necessarily a sound one.

Would it be fair for a Catholic to say, "Gee, Moody wrote an awful lot, and so did Spurgeon, and Billy Graham's got a lot of books out, and there are various editions of the Baptist Faith and Message, and the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith, and so forth and so on . . . There's just too much "BD" -- you need a Ph.D. to understand it all!"

You'd say, "of course not," and maybe point to the Bible and the seven Baptist distinctives, or whatever your favorite summary is.

The fact that a faith has a lot of different insights is, I would say, a good thing rather than a bad one. Whether Baptist or Catholic, we both can either take a small sip or drink deeply of the historical insights of our respective communities, as the Spirit moves us.

God bless,

Mark H.

 

(I like lists...for some reason...so..)

1. I wouldn't point to and 'BD' as I don't really feel it is worth much either. Reading scripture, praying over it and asking for God's vision for my life is the only way I feel comfortable doing business. Anything else is relying on man, and we all know where that gets you.

2. Those books (Grahmn, Spurgeon etc etc) are not church doctrine. They are not law. That is a huge difference. Makine those doctrines and writing church law (which is more often quoted and referenced than the Bible) just obsfucates the entire issue. Sure, read it..pray over it...use it to strengthen your love of God, but don't let it replace HIS words with some priest/monk/pope from 1000 years ago who had a gambling/lust/slandering problem (you see what I mean?)

3. Insights into faith are great...and like I said...using them to strengthen your faith is a good thing. But not to the point of falling back on them as gospel or ultimate truth. THAT is where I will have to draw a line and say 'NO'. I hope you agree, or can at least think about it more and pray about it.

jason

 

Jason, you are a plagarist and a hypocrite. So all those Baptists don't write doctrine, but a priest does? I hope you aren't really that ignorant. I also hope you aren't intentionally bearing false witness.

 

Wow, maybe you should read a post before you respond to it!

1. I never said all baptists don't write doctrine. I said I don't care for what any human writes on spiritual matters. None of that is law. The Bible is the beginning and the end when it comes to God's law written down on paper. Following anything else is just foolish.

2. I hope when you call me ignorant, you are doing so fondly, and in jest. Else, I am afraid it is you who is the fool.

 

Cartesian Kid,
I certainly agree with the canons that Carson posted. I've been telling people on this board that this is how Catholics believe ever since I began posting here. And every Catholic that I know well would agree with what is in those canons too.

I don't know why you think Catholic Church teaching has changed on this. Can you explain why?

Pauline

 

Hi Jason,

You wrote, "Quoting Catholic doctrine is pretty much the same thing as quoting the Koran for most of us here...it doesn't mean anything. The bible is the ONLY Christian authority"

I was quoting the Council of Orange (529) so that future dialogue between non-Catholics and Catholics on this board would be based upon an understanding that Catholic doctrine holds to what is widely known in Latin as "Sola Gratia" and is misrepresented quite frequently by both Catholics and non-Catholics. I hope that by this posting, we can come to understand one another in truth and so to grow and not to detract in truth by our speech.

I was not meaning to convince, but to enlighten; I pray we learn from one another.

--

Hi Cartesian,

I misunderstood much of Catholic doctrine as a "Catholic" before I began studying in my spare time while working towards my undergraduate degree in business. Now that I'm working towards my MA in Theology, I have continually come to firmer understanding of grace and the differences between Protestant and Catholic soteriology.

Unfortunately, because theology is very complex and surface terms such as "faith" and "faith and works" absolutely abuse mutual understanding of the actual realities underlying dialogue, very little advance is made on either side of the dividing line (we're much closer than most think).

The Council of Trent, in its decrees and canons on justification in its 6th session (1547), quoted much of Orange and worked from it in its defense of Catholic doctrine against the Protestant organism. For a detailed, pure, and thorough explanation of Catholic soteriological doctrine, I wholly recommend taking up this one webpage:

http://history.hanover.edu/texts/trent/ct06.html

James Akin has also formulated a brief and wonderful explanation of the Thomistic and Molinist sides of Sola Gratia within Catholic doctrine:

http://www.cin.org/users/james/files/grace_al.htm

With all of that said and presented, I would like to make one final comment. Catholics in no way profess that God merely assists us in our salvation by extra help. Our free will is moved by grace and our works are the object of grace. "God by cooperating with us, perfects what he began by operating in us, since he who perfects by cooperation with such as are willing, begins by operating that they may will." (as Aquinas quoted Augustine)

God bless,

Carson

[ February 25, 2002, 09:30 PM: Message edited by: Carson Weber ]

 

Julia,
Catholics believe faith is essential to salvation. We also believe repentance, hope and charity are essential.

For just one reference: Ro 8,24: For we are saved by hope KJV.
Pauline

 

Jason, perhaps you should reread everything you have posted in this thread.

 

Pauline said:

As far as "official" Catholic doctrine goes, I must plead ignorance. I only know it somewhat based on my dealings with Roman Catholics in my area. My wife and her family were all Roman Catholic prior to converting to Protestantism. When I was dealing with my in-laws over the issue of salvation, I can assure you that they had no conception of a sovereign grace as it is outlined in the Council of Orange. The articulation of the doctrines of grace in those canons couldn't have been stated any clearer by the staunchest Calvinist; yet, I have never met a Roman Catholic here in El Paso who held to such a view of grace. Most of them are firmly convinced that their efforts play a vital role in their salvation.

I guess the one thing that reveals a discontinuity between that statement of Catholic doctrine and what I have dealt with in my own family is the issue of eternal security. From a Calvinistic, reformed perspective, sovereign grace and eternal security are inextricably linked. Because grace is not dependent upon any actions of man's free will is precisely the reason that we can be assured of our salvation. But I know that the Catholic Church anathamatizes anyone who claims to have assurance of salvation. To claim sovereign grace and then claim that one cannot be assured of whether they're saved (implying that their salvation is dependent upon something they do or don't do) doesn't add up. Other issues I have with Catholic doctrine would be with the sacrifice of the mass. For instance in the Presbyterian church, our Heidelberg Catechism says this about the mass:

There would seem to be some clear contradictions between what some of this ancient Catholic doctrine says, and what goes on in Catholic churches today. Don't get me wrong, though. I'm not saying that the Catholics are the only ones who have departed from such strong Biblical foundations. As a former Baptist, this is precisely one of the reasons that I left the Baptist denomination, because of its wholesale denial of sovereign grace as it has been historically taught within the visible church throughout history. Just as I believe that you would be hard pressed to find many Roman Catholics around these parts who would adhere to those canons from the Council of Orange, so I also believe that you would be hard pressed to find many Baptists (at least in my area) who would accept them, either. There are fewer and fewer repositories in the Christian church today of the teachings that grace is truly free and not based on the whims of man's supposed "free will."

 

Hi Cartesian,

Dr. Hahn, one of my Scripture professors, was a Calvinist pastor (OPC) before he made the switch to the Catholic Church. I just got my hands on a copy of his doctoral dissertation this past Thursday ('95 Marquette University), and it's a Biblical Study of Covenant and Kinship in the Old and New Testaments.. looks very interesting - his bibliography is 75 pages long.

His conversion story is here:
http://www.ewtn.com/library/scriptur/scotconv.TXT

You wrote, "Because grace is not dependent upon any actions of man's free will is precisely the reason that we can be assured of our salvation."

Whatever kind of free will man has (and even Calvinists acknowledge that man has free will of a form; i.e., in the sense of freedom from external compulsion), he has it as a gift from God. But if salvation is dependent on something God has given man, this is no attack on the sufficiency of God's grace.

This is proven by the fact that Calvinists do not regard the fact that salvation is dependent on man's faith as an attack on the sufficiency of God's grace because man's faith is a gift of God. But if it is okay for salvation to be dependent on man's faith because that is a gift, then it is okay for salvation to be dependent on man's ability to choose, for that is just as much a gift.

Many Catholics agree with Calvinists that men are unconditionally elected to come to Christ and that this is brought about efficaciously by God's grace, with no one refusing his efficacious grace. This is the Thomistic school of Catholic theology. According to Thomism, God chooses certain individuals to come to him and gives these a special form of intrinsically efficacious grace which automatically - intrinsically - brings those people to choose Christ. Thus the Calvinist argument could not apply to the Catholic teaching on salvation in general, because many Catholics agree with them.

It would only apply to one school of Catholic theology: Molinism, which normally claims that some do freely choose against God, even when he has given them the fullness of his redemptive grace.

You also wrote about the Mass, "that Christ is bodily present in the form of bread and wine, and there is to be worshipped."

And, I just returned from my Holy Hour down at St. Peter's in downtown Steubenville, Ohio. I think I received a pretty good Son tan.

God bless,

Carson

"Let everyone be struck with fear,
the whole world tremble,
and the heavens exult
when Christ, the Son of the living God,
is present on the altar in the hands of a priest!
O wonderful loftiness
and stupendous dignity!
O sublime humility!
O humble sublimity!
The Lord of the universe,
God and the Son of God,
so humbles Himself
that He hides Himself
for our salvation
under an ordinary piece of bread!

See the humility of God, brothers,
and pour out your hearts before Him!
Humble yourselves
that you may be exalted by Him!
Hold back nothing of yourselves for yourselves
that He Who gives Himself totally to you
may receive you totally!

(Meditation of St. Francis of Assisi ca. A.D. 1220)

[ February 26, 2002, 01:56 PM: Message edited by: Carson Weber ]

 

"that He hids Himself
for our salvation
under an ordinary piece of bread!"
---This sounds mighty superstitious to me. The Almighty God; the Creator and Sustainer of this universe; is hiding under a piece of bread?? Come now, do you really believe this? Who is Jesus Christ that He must "hide under a piece of bread?"
DHK

 

Cartesian Kid,
The Heidelberg Catechism you quoted is very wrong when it claims that the mass is a denial of the sacrifice and suffering of Jesus Christ. No Christian group believes in and reverences the sacrifice and suffering of Jesus Christ more than Catholics do. That is demonstrated dozens of ways in Catholic spirituality.

As far as the Catholic Church anathamatizing anyone who claims to have assurance of salvation, you need to study further Catholic teaching on that. The Church does state that we can have a moral certainty. I can't comment any further on this without some research on the subject and don't have time for that today. But if you wish to pursue the subject further we can do so at a later date. Perhaps Carson or some other Catholic can add something on this.

Concerning your comment about our efforts playing a part in salvation: Is faith a personal act? Is it a free response to the initiative of God? This is what our Catholic Catechism says faith is (#166). Don't we have to cooperate with the grace that Christ offers us? If not, then there many scripture passages which do not make sense.

Yes, God gives us the gift of faith. Yes, God enables us to respond to grace. Grace upon grace.
But He enables. He does not force. He does not save a person against his or her will.

So yes, I would say our efforts play a part in our salvation -- BUT I would qualify that by saying our "graced efforts". Our own human, worldly, ungraced efforts can not play a part in our salvation. We are saved by grace. And that grace comes to us as a result of Christ's saving work in our behalf.

Every Catholic should know how essential union with Jesus Christ is in order for the person to be used of Him to do anything of value. "Union" is a very Catholic word. To a Catholic, it is union with Jesus Christ which gives us salvation. He must be formed in us. We must do His works in union with Him, by His grace. This is the life described in Jn 15, 1-5 and in Gal 2,20.

In regard to Catholics who left the Catholic Church -- they never knew their Catholic Faith or they could never have left it.

Hope this clarifies some points.

Pauline

 

Hi DHK,

Yes, I do believe that Jesus Christ is substantially present in the Most Holy Eucharist in the accidents of bread and wine.

"The Almighty God, the Creator and Sustainer of this universe became man." This statement, much more than the Church's 20 c. Eucharistic profession of faith, is bound up with superstition. Do you really believe that the transcendent, impassible, uncreated, and sublime God of the universe was born of a poor Jewish girl as a tiny stinky crying human infant?

God bless,

Carson

"Let us then in everything believe God, and gainsay Him in nothing, though what is said seem to be contrary to our thoughts and senses, but let His word be of higher authority than both reasonings and sight. Thus let us do in the mysteries also, not looking at the things set before us, but keeping in mind His sayings. For His word cannot deceive, but our senses are easily beguiled. That hath never failed, but this in most things goeth wrong. Since then the word saith, 'This is my body,' let us both be persuaded and believe, and look at it with the eyes of the mind. For Christ hath given nothing sensible, but though in things sensible yet all to be perceived by the mind. So also in baptism, the gift is bestowed by a sensible thing, that is, by water; but that which is done is perceived by the mind, the birth, I mean, and the renewal. For if thou hadst been incorporeal, He would have delivered thee the incorporeal gifts bare; but because the soul hath been locked up in a body, He delivers thee the things that the mind perceives, in things sensible. How many now say, I would wish to see His form, the mark, His clothes, His shoes. Lo! thou seest Him, Thou touchest Him, thou eatest Him. And thou indeed desirest to see His clothes, but He giveth Himself to thee not to see only, but also to touch and eat and receive within thee." (St. John Chrysostom, Patriarch of Constantinople, Gospel of Matthew, Homily 82, A.D. 370)