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To: ksen
Read it again. It is a general statement.

I respectfully disagree.

Your position makes good and evil subjective. Tending to the poor and comforting the afflicted, etc. are objectively good acts. They are not sins.

The Good Samaritan is reduced to nonsense if you believe this. His faith was incorrect and ill formed, but it is his actions which are praised.

Now, don't get me wrong, I understand that the reprobate can never merit Heaven. But that doesn't mean that he never does anything good.

Your interpretation of this verse sure does explain alot, though. It's good to have this difference out in the open.

Just because a heathen could earn salvation neither by caring for an orphan or by eating him, this does not mean that one is not good and the other bad.

In addition, the corollary to any action being taken without faith being automatically a "sin" is that anything underdone in faith is automatically a virtue. That's untrue as well.

SD

2,438 posted on 04/07/2004 12:59:26 PM PDT by SoothingDave
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To: SoothingDave; ksen
The Good Samaritan is reduced to nonsense if you believe this. His faith was incorrect and ill formed, but it is his actions which are praised.

Now, don't get me wrong, I understand that the reprobate can never merit Heaven. But that doesn't mean that he never does anything good.

Sure. It's the difference between the dog fetching your slippers and your son getting them for you. One is by a creature, the other by a child out of love for his father. You view the same action in different ways. Both are objectively "good" but one merits nothing.

2,443 posted on 04/07/2004 1:05:24 PM PDT by IMRight
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