Posted on 01/01/2006 4:48:03 PM PST by HarleyD
FK: Yes, absolutely and categorically. I confess that I am mystified that you would ask
I had my reasons, but you left out God the Spirit Whom I included. Do you not believe the Holy Spirit to be co-equal with the Father and the Son?
I don't know of anywhere in the Bible that says that baptism CAUSES righteousness. I thought that's what you all believed
Baptism doesn't cause righteousness -- it's not magic. It's a sacrament. You are "brought" into the Church under grace.
Yes, they accepted Christ as a future Messiah
You will have to show me some scriptual evidence for that, FK. Judaism does not teach that man needs to be saved, so why would the OT righteous have believed it?
You have still not answered my question a few posts ago why would the OT righteous have been in hell if they were ritghteous.
You said the Hebrews did not look for a redeemer; I used the Hebrew text to show that they did.
Study Jewish theology and you will find that they do not believe man needs to be redeemed/saved. The particular verse in Job in your English translation of the Hebrew OT is an abbreviated one -- leaving out some crucial details to wit (a) the Holy One was about to help Job for his (b) present sufferings.
Your version says something completely different: it changes the Holy One to a "redeemer" and also implies that Job's sufferings will be removed in the "latter day" (other versions hint at the distant future even the end of times).
This difference clearly shows how various man-chosen variations of the Bible lead one to read and "believe" different things. The Septuagint was written two hundred years before Christ for Alexandrian Jews, translated from the Hebrew original by 72 rabbis. The Gospels quote from the Septuagint in over 95% of the cases. I place my confidence in them. You place your confidence in a text that was redacted by rabbinical Judaism that rejected Christianity.
The Apostle's Creed, for starters. David, Job, the Psalmists all went to the Hades (Sheol). Perhaps Genesis 37:34-35 "
So Jacob (A)tore his clothes, and put sackcloth on his loins and mourned for his son many days.
Then all his sons and all his daughters arose to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. And he said, "Surely I will go down to Sheol in mourning for my son." So his father wept for him.
From the OT readings it is clear that no one comes back from it until the Lord resurrects them:
Or Job 14:13 -- the righteous Job knew he was going to Sheol.
Now, you said that the OT righteous believed in the future Chirst. But all Jews believed that God is the ultimate Savior, except that they believed only in what we would call God the Father. Isa 43:11 "I, even I, am the LORD, And there is no savior besides Me."
So, when I say that all Jews believe in the same God as we do, then all those who believed, by faith alone, should have been saved, even if they did not believe in Chirst, even if they did not see Christ as the same God.
According to you, only those who believe in Jesus can be saved. That means that those who were OT righteous could not be saved, which is why they were in the Sheol and had to be rescued by Christ. But if they were righteous, why did they need rescuing? Obviously, faith alone does not save, for the righteous, including David and a "perect man" in God's eyes -- Job had -- all had the faith, yet they were not spared. They all went down and had to be rescued by Christ.
I don't think we have to throw out the baby with the bathwater. We both know it is not in God's nature to be surprised. We also know that it is not in His nature to be ignorant, as the text makes Him look in the garden (Adam where are you?) It is a recurring theme. So, I think those kind of things can be safely interpreted without throwing out the underlying story.
-- or, worse, that He intentionally created man so He could drown the whole wicked lot along with innocent animals.
Didn't God create us to eat innocent animals? :)
FK, I know you don't like this, but the simple historical fact of the matter is that Christ SAID those words of Matthew 28 first, they were passed along ORALLY to the future followers of Christ, and only later, perhaps 20-30 years later, only THEN, did those words get WRITTEN. The simple truth is that the Apostles wrote down the Gospels only many years later. The Christian concept of Baptism did NOT come from the Bible, but from Christ, to the Apostles and given ORALLY. Thus, your logic is mistaken. The Scriptures do NOT dictate what the Church taught, but the Scriptures merely relate what was already being taught...
Thus is Sola Scriptura a farce.
Regards
FK answered: Yes, absolutely and categorically. I confess that I am mystified that you would ask.
Acts 4 does not require that a man specifically MUST KNOW Jesus Christ, but that there is no other name on the earth that will save. Other religions do not save, although they might prepare someone for the Gospel. When a person loves, they abide in Christ, even if they do not "know" intellectually about Jesus. By choosing to do God's will, to love, even if unaware of the NT Scriptures, this person is acting in the faith given by the Spirit, who blows where He wills. Recall, the Spirit moves even among the Gentiles to write a Law onto their hearts, says Paul in Romans 2.
I believe this was addressed before. God desires ALL men to be saved. But God is not bound by the sacrament of Baptism. He can send His Spirit to those who are open to this Law written in their hearts. Thus, the Native American Indians of the 500's AD have Jesus Christ as their Savior, IF they abided in Him through love.
As I think Jo Kus has correctly pointed out, we see the concept of "salvation" very differently.
What you call "salvation", we call "initial justification". Thus, when you say we are saved by faith alone, we say we are justified by faith from God alone although we do not deny that man must also be open to this gift of faith given by God. (Man can reject God's good gifts) We do not believe that one will go to heaven based on faith alone, as the Bible clearly says there are other things necessary AND that people CAN fall after this initial justification. This confusion of terms causes us to sometimes speak past each other.
Regards
Where did you get that idea from? Faith comes from God as a gift, as Eph 2:8-9 states, among others.
With that faith comes also love and perseverance.
Both Paul and James separate faith and love and persevernace. They do not come together. Thus, we say that love must be added to faith to achieve our eternal reward - which comes from God and accepted by man.
So the words of men are equal to the words of God? Your three-legged stool just lost a leg. :)
Are the teachings of the Apostles from men? If you can answer that question in the affirmative, as the Bible does, then you SHOULD be able to understand that oral Apostolic teachings are from GOD. Thus, coming from God, they bear the same "weight" as Scriptures. Scriptures do not contain the entire Word of God.
It sure looks like He [I am not sure if you are refering to Satan or Jesus here] used a lot of scriptures here, but not much Tradition. In fact, NO tradition. What else do you think He used?
Look more closely. Note that the devil and Jesus both used Scriptures - that tells us that Scripture can be twisted to suit one's personal needs. Thus, the need for Tradition, which gives us the correct interpretation. Christ was giving us Tradition by stating the correct interpretation and utilization of the Scriptures.
So your interpretation is that when Paul praised the Bereans because they tested his say-so against scripture he didn't really mean that. Instead, he only meant to praise them because they gave Paul an honest hearing. I see. That silly scripture has confounded me again.
That's OK. No one is generally infallible. That is why I rely on the Church, which IS infallible in matters of faith and morals. The fact of the matter is that Scripture reading is not complimented, but the acceptance of the message. The Thessalonians ALSO read the Scriptures. So did other Jews. What happened? Isn't Scripture so clear for even a child can read it and understand it???
Putting aside your total error concerning our belief about man's responsibility
You have told me time and time again that God leads man infallibly to choose good or evil. If man has no free will, how is man responsible for his actions?
My discussion regarding reading Scriputes through a particular tradition is not complicated. We ALL have our ideas of the basics of the faith. Protestants believe that man is totally corrupt after the fall and remains in sin even AFTER his regeneration. Their is no REAL regeneration, we are merely covered with alien justice of Christ. With this paradigm, you read the Scriptures - thinking that man cannot possibly do anything to prepare or cooperate with salvation. Even when Scriptures clearly point out this is false, you change the meaning of the text or ignore it. Your paradigm, then, is based on the teachings of Calvin and Luther, not on the Scripture as taught by the Catholic Church from the Apostles.
I never said you couldn't interpret scripture either. I said that you think the Church is the only Authority, and gave you credit enough that you would not claim to be an Authority.
As I have just said, we look at Scripture through a particular paradigm. That there is an "analogy of Faith", or an "economy of salvation". For example, we know that God is a Trinity of Persons, but with one Divine Will. This is not explained fully in Scriptures, nor does the Scriptures make this clear UNLESS YOU ALREADY ARE AWARE OF THAT! You would NOT be able to come to that conclusion UNLESS you already were taught that and were pointed out the verses and how to read them a certain way, or ignore other verses that might contradict them. For example, there are many verses that an Adoptionist could point to and say that Jesus was the Adopted Son of God the Father - only taking up the mantle of divinity upon His Baptism. Or that Jesus was subordinate to the Father. WE know that this means something else - that Christ was only subordinate in terms of His humanity. But you won't come to that understanding with your King James Version by yourself.
Protestantism is not monolithic. There is no club to be kicked out of. So what? Individual Protestants are not the authority in Protestantism, God always is.
You're dodging! Basically what you are saying is "FK's belief are the Word of God"...When you say "Protestants are not the authority, God is", that is baloney, because God doesn't "speak" in that manner. You are presuming, along with all of your non-monolithic brothers, that God speaks to YOU personally - and often contradictorily. I would say that God is not speaking to all of you...
If you were a Protestant and you felt that the Spirit had led you to believe that there were only two persons in the Godhead, then I would strongly counsel you, and show you the truth of what you must believe in as a Protestant, the Bible.
And we'd argue and get nowhere, since you have no authority over me. Nor can you "take it to the Church", since there IS no "visible" Church in your eyes, just the invisible one. I could certainly bring out enough verses to prove that either the Spirit or the Son is NOT God. This is why Apostolic Tradition is so important.
What? Whose fundamental stance are you talking about. Mine as an individual? Mine as a Protestant? Mine as a Southern Baptist? In none of these cases am I told how to interpret scripture. None.
Yes you are. You are told that Genesis is to believed as literal history and CANNOT be taken as allegory. Otherwise, you are told, how can we know ANYTHING to be historical? Your whole concept of Biblical inerrancy comes to a crashing thud if your literal interpretation is disproved. Thus, this idiotic notion from Young Earth Creationists who desperately try to show that science proves the earth is 6000 years old - which the Bible NEVER states or even hints at! It is people like these who make Christians look like they are afraid of science and prefer to live in a dreamworld.
You claim there are only a dozen or so verses set in stone, but that ignores the Catholic lens which you must peer through for any understanding. That lens affects ALL SCRIPTURE. Effectively, then, you have drastically less freedom than you attempt to portray.
I have no problems with interpreting Genesis as allegory. I have no problem with seeing Jonah as a parable, or Esther as an historical novel. And on many other issues, the Church has not "defined" our faith precisely. Sure, the Church has defined many things. But we also realize that God works through His Church to bring us to the knowledge of the Truth. We are very appreciative when the Church defines something, since now we KNOW what is the Truth. You, on the other hand, cannot know if you are correct, or the guy across the street in the 2nd Baptist Church of Main Street is correct. This is quite scary, to be honest. Sure, there are some particulars that we are told is Truth. Is that a problem?
Regards
Very confusing because this is something Kosta50 denies of the Old Testament Jews.
Apparently the church of Rome and the Eastern Orthodox haven't bridged this particular gap.
Not at all. God was being being humble and Fatherly with Adam. He gave Adam every opportunity to repent.
In case of the Flood He was "sorry" and "grieved" that mankind turned the way they did -- I don't think so.
Didn't God create us to eat innocent animals?
No. "Then God said, "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you" (Genesis 1:12)
Even after God expelled Adam and Eve from the Garden, He said: "Cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you will eat of it. All the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; And you will eat the plants of the field" (Gen 3:17-18)
It is only later that man began killing animals, as the rest of the creation became corrupt by our Ancetral Fall. In fact, the Judaic idea of peace and prosperity to be established by a warrior-king meshiach (messiah) on earth would include cessation of hunting even by predatory animals.
By the way, this is probably why the Orthodox strict fast forbids any animal products for 40 days prior to Nativity (i.e. "Christmas") and Pascha or Resurrection (i.e. "Easter"), and why monastics do not eat meat.
I don’t know anyone who elects himself. … I disagree that God’s promises are null and void until after death, which it sounds like you are saying. I believe that they were effective when made. What good are His promises if they apply to no one during life?
You are misunderstanding my question. If man sins PERIOD in this life, which God allows, why wouldn't He allow man to sin more often, even to sin grievous and fall away from Him? The fact that man CAN sin tells us that God doesn't actively override our will to prevent us from sinning or falling away. ANY sin is a sin against His infinite justice.
Yes, any sin is against God and His justice. However, the reason that God’s allowance of one sin does not carry over to the allowance of such sin as to fall away, is that God specifically promises His elect that He will not let that happen. He makes no such promise for a single sin. God must, and does, keep all of His promises.
Define what you mean by "Justice". How "just" would God be if He didn't provide ALL men an opportunity to be saved from himself?
God would be perfectly just if He did this. He would also be just if no one were saved at all. You appear to be applying man’s sense of justice to God. You are obligating Him to be “fair” with you as you define fair. In reality, God sets all the standards and God makes all the rules. His justice is self-defining, and not subject to our scrutiny.
That fact of the matter is, whether you understand or agree with it, is that God desires all men to be saved. It is clearly written and we must clearly accept this as fact. Elsewhere, such as in Peter, the same thing is written. God died for the sake of ALL men, for the sin of the WORLD. Why would God die for the sin of the world if He only intended on saving a percentage of men?
That is a perfectly reasonable question. From what we know is true, the only answer has to be that either God did NOT die for the sin of the whole world, or that He did NOT intend on saving all men, or both. If you believe that God does the actual saving, then to hold otherwise is to say that God failed to achieve His intention. I believe that diminishes God.
God's plan IS accomplished - He STILL desires ALL men to be saved - but at the same time, He desires them to freely choose God. This falls in the same category as God desires all men to obey His commandments. It is a signified will, not a decreed will.
OK, that sounds alright. I was focusing on your use of “intention”, because that signifies something more to me than a signified will. But, if you are saying that it’s all the same, then OK.
Thus, the predestined don't merit anything, while the reprobate earn hell. As I have said time and time again, God does not actively choose the reprobate, AND God actively chooses the rest to be the predestined, since God desires all men be saved - but He will not save those who do NOT desire to be saved.
I agree with the first statement. The way I look at it, if God actively chooses the elect, then doesn’t He implicitly also choose the reprobate by not choosing them to be of the elect? Doesn’t He choose them by default? Perhaps you and I arrive at very similar results, but we use chicken vs. egg reasoning to get there. When you say that God will not save those who do not want to be saved, I can say that is a true statement. But I believe it is true because God does not grace them to want to be saved.
Thus, every act of an unregenerated man is not sinful, then, is it?
Well, in the normal way we think of sin, I would say “Sure”. If, however, someone said that sin is any act outside of God or apart from God, then the answer might be different. Our experience is clear that unregenerated men do acts which we would consider “good”, in the normal sense.
Man is transformed. But according to Protestant theology, man remains unchanged, a lump of crap, covered with the righteousness of Christ. Now, you are saying that man's will is changed for goodness?
I do think the elect are covered with the righteousness of Christ. Righteousness is imputed rather than infused. I didn’t say that man’s will is changed so that he can choose to actually be righteous on his own account. I said that man’s will is changed (from stone to flesh) so that God’s plan of salvation for His elect is accomplished.
When have I said we must do "x" or "y" to earn salvation? Our actions determine whether we are rejecting Christ, …
Well, do we persevere with a free will or not? If you say that God causes the perseverance of His elect, then OK. But, if we persevere through our own actions, then why isn’t that earning salvation?
Your discussion regarding the Passion has given me cause to question your concept of WHY He did it. It appears that you think God was 'forced' to crucify His only Son! Perhaps I have judged wrongly, but your posts seem to point in that direction.
I just don’t think Christ would have given up His life if it was not necessary to accomplish His objective of saving us. I don’t think He was forced because He set up the whole thing from the beginning. He ordained that man would be fallen, and require redemption. He knew that man would not be able to accomplish it on his own, so He ordained that He would do it for us. He didn't owe anything to anyone, it was His choice.
I assure you, I am still Jo Kus :-)
I’m glad to hear it. I would have missed our conversations. :)
Very well put, Jo. It is the sequence of transmission of the word of God that the Protestants actually deny -- which is a farce because it is so blatantly wrong.
As I mentioned earlier, the only reason the Church combined inspired texts into what we call the New Testament was to make sure the 200-plus Gnostic "gospels" never got confused with and incorporated into the genuine word of God. The Church selected inspired works based on the knowledge given to the Apostles by word of mouth. That which the Apostles taught in public were the major criteria for inclusion.
That means that the Patriarch of Antioch, St. Ignatius, who was made bishop by none other than St. Peter in person, knew what we now read in the Bible by learning it from the mouth of St. Peter and not reading it in the "Bible" mainly because the only Bible in those days was the Old Testament. The New Testament did not see the light of the day for another three hundred years.
Dr E: Very confusing because this is something Kosta50 denies of the Old Testament Jews
I am not denying it. I am merely asking why were the OT righteous in hell if they were righteous.
If they were rigtheous, that was in spite of their religion and not because of it. To the best of my knowledge, there is no instance in the OT that teaches to love your enemies. And I don't remember a single one among the OT righteous professing that idea.
Jo is absolutely right that most religions of the world have what the Greeks call "sporoi" or "seeds" of truth and that the Spirit is not limited to whom He will move to love and to abide in Christ even if he or she does not know Christ by name.
God is certainly not limited as to who will be saved.
To the best of my knowledge, there is no instance in the OT that teaches to love your enemies.You are right. The closest is Leviticus 19:17-18:
You shall not bear hatred for your brother in your heart. Though you may have to reprove your fellow man, do not incur sin because of him. Take no revenge and cherish no grudge against your fellow countrymen. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD.Jesus extended this precept beyond countrymen to enemies.
We are "initiated" into the Church by patism and "justified" by faith that is God-given. However, man must humble himself to believe in God. If you try to "reason" and say I can never understand God, what good is believing something I can't see or understand, then you are placing man's pride and arrogance in the way and blocking or rejecting God's overtures; you are making the man the final arbiter as to what is possible.
Being "saved" in Orthodoxy (and I am quite sure in Catholicism too) means "how Christ-like" you are -- hitting the mark. How Christ-like is sufficient? As much as possible! That is whay we venerate our saints, people who have attained that "holiness" about them through works of faith, through meekness, through renunciation of everything worldly, through humility, through love, through self-sacrifice, etc. These are the people in whom we recognize the light of God, through whom we hear the words of God, by whose works we see the blessings of God.
Obviously, when you accept faith that is God-given, you do not instantly become Christ-like. Regaining the likeness of God we lost through Adam is a process (we call it theosis, the Catholics sanctification) that combines our free will to follow God and asking God to lead us; it literally means "deification" in Greek, or "becoming holy" in Latin.
Yes, but "just" is ciritcal. Thank you for this excellent post. Another fine exmaple that the OT is not a full revelation, and that Christ brought it to its intended fullness.
So you didn’t elect yourself? It sounds like you know infallibly that you WILL be of the elect, thus you elected yourself. I don’t find your name in the Bible as one of the elected! I disagree that we have that knowledge of the future. We are justified currently, but that doesn’t mean we will be saved for heaven, as some of the previously justified have fallen away. God’s promises are not null and void until after death! John’s Gospel makes it clear that we are to have “eternal life” [Christ] even now – meaning, God’s abiding presence. This doesn’t mean we will live forever, but that “eternal life” [Christ] dwells within us UNLESS we fall into sin. Eternal life [Christ] cannot dwell within us if we are slaves to sin. God’s promises are conditional – meaning that we must not reject Him. He doesn’t randomly choose the elect, but foresees who will reject Him.
Yes, any sin is against God and His justice. However, the reason that God’s allowance of one sin does not carry over to the allowance of such sin as to fall away, is that God specifically promises His elect that He will not let that happen. He makes no such promise for a single sin. God must, and does, keep all of His promises.
But we don’t know who the elect are. To make the claim is presumption. To me, you ARE self-elect. Yes, His elect will persevere. That is why we are told to persevere. If we were infallibly chosen, from our point of view, what exactly is the point of perseverance? In this sort of theology, why does Jesus tell us to beware, and to persevere until the end? If I “know” I am of the elect, can’t I take a passive attitude towards final salvation, since it is God’s righteousness that covers me anyway? Again, I see absolutely no point in sanctification or perseverance in classic Protestantism. At least Wesley makes more sense then Luther or Calvin.
I wrote : Define what you mean by "Justice". How "just" would God be if He didn't provide ALL men an opportunity to be saved from himself?
God would be perfectly just if He did this. He would also be just if no one were saved at all.
Not if HE says that He desires ALL men to be saved and throughout the Scriptures says that He will draw men to Him and will provide the means for men to be saved.
You appear to be applying man’s sense of justice to God. You are obligating Him to be “fair” with you as you define fair. In reality, God sets all the standards and God makes all the rules. His justice is self-defining, and not subject to our scrutiny.
We define justice, and to us, it means a particular thing. Thus, to say that God is “just” is to apply our terms of “justice” to God. Otherwise, we’d call God something else. God sets the standards, but this doesn’t mean He overthrows the concept of justice because He is God. If God’s justice is as you define it, then it is not justice in human terms, and we can no longer call God “just” using our vocabulary. Otherwise, what is the meaning of “God’s justice” to men?
I wrote Why would God die for the sin of the world if He only intended on saving a percentage of men?
That is a perfectly reasonable question. From what we know is true, the only answer has to be that either God did NOT die for the sin of the whole world, or that He did NOT intend on saving all men, or both. If you believe that God does the actual saving, then to hold otherwise is to say that God failed to achieve His intention. I believe that diminishes God.
And I twist Scripture? Clearly, the Scripture tell us that God died for ALL sin, just as Adam’s sin universally affects ALL men. Was Christ’s action inferior in scope to Adam? God does the actual saving, but His actual saving is conditional on His creation’s rejection of Him. We do agree that God is love, correct. IS. God CANNOT force man to reciprocate freely. Thus, if God desires to share His divine nature with all men, it must come from a freely given will to not reject God. This does not diminish God! This makes God magnanimous, a kingly attribute.
Thus, the predestined don't merit anything, while the reprobate earn hell. As I have said time and time again, God does not actively choose the reprobate, AND God actively chooses the rest to be the predestined, since God desires all men be saved - but He will not save those who do NOT desire to be saved.
if God actively chooses the elect, then doesn’t He implicitly also choose the reprobate by not choosing them to be of the elect? Doesn’t He choose them by default? Perhaps you and I arrive at very similar results, but we use chicken vs. egg reasoning to get there. When you say that God will not save those who do not want to be saved, I can say that is a true statement. But I believe it is true because God does not grace them to want to be saved.
No, God is giving man the freedom of choosing His great gifts. God deeply desires our acceptance of them. God does not choose the reprobate. God’s signified will is that all men are saved – but He doesn’t force men into heaven. God’s wrath is manifest by His turning from those who reject Him.
The inherent problem of our disagreement is our view of anthropology. You believe that man is totally corrupt, that man cannot do anything BUT sin. We have already established that even an unregenerate man can do good deeds. You also believe that even AFTER regeneration, man continues to be sin, and is only externally covered with Christ’s righteousness. Thus, you rely entirely on God’s actions to save. There is no cooperation that man can do or is expected to do. This view is based on the incorrect concept of Adam’s original nature. Protestants believe that Adam was created with no supernatural capabilities. Everything that God gave Adam was his by right. Catholics, on the other hand, believe that God created Adam with a human nature endowed with supernatural characteristics – Sanctifying Grace. This was something added to human nature as a GIFT. It is not part of human nature.
Thus, during the fall, Protestants say that man’s totally human nature was corrupted entirely, because the “supernatural” characteristics were lost – which were really part of human nature that was his right. Catholics say that Adam lost the supernatural life given as a gift to him. We are not neo-Pelagians. Sanctifying Grace was a gift given to Adam, not something that was owed him as part of his human nature. Thus, during the Fall, when Adam lost this supernatural grace, he lost that gift that was not part of his human nature. In addition, since the grace was no longer there, Adam’s flesh was no longer subject to the spirit of Adam, the will and intellect. Sin entered the world, and concupiscence remains, the desire to do the ill.
This is a fundamental difference, this anthropology. Since Protestants believe that Adam’s original nature is totally corrupted because of this loss of grace that was part of his nature, there is no point in trying to say that man can cooperate or that man can do anything regarding salvation. Catholics, though, believe that this Sanctifying Grace that Adam was given is given anew upon Baptism. Not in the same degree, but in the same mode. The Scriptures tell us that we are a new creation, regenerated, born anew from above. It is Catholic (I am not discounting Orthodox, as this teaching came before the Schism) teaching that makes sense of Scriptures regarding man and his capabilities once he is regenerated. Now that we are born from above, a new creation, in the mold of the Second Adam, we CAN cooperate. We have the supernatural gift of grace within us. Internally. Not only externally in a legal sense. WE ARE CHANGED!!! Thus, we CAN be led by God to do the good that He commands. We CAN become righteous in God’s eyes. We CAN repent and love. And these are counted as merit in God’s eyes – because we can also freely reject these things. By choosing to do the good, we are only practicing the gifts given to us. But just the same, because we are a new creation, WE are in Christ, we abide in Him. Thus, God has not only declared our righteousness, He has made it effective in reality because we now, through faith working through love, are pleasing to Him. Against Luther, we are no longer sinners internally while graced externally. Internally, we indeed are changed.
I just don’t think Christ would have given up His life if it was not necessary to accomplish His objective of saving us. I don’t think He was forced because He set up the whole thing from the beginning. He ordained that man would be fallen, and require redemption. He knew that man would not be able to accomplish it on his own, so He ordained that He would do it for us. He didn't owe anything to anyone, it was His choice.
It was the Father’s will that Jesus would obey the Father and lay down His life for mankind. The only reason why the Passion was necessary was because it was decreed by God. It was not an act that God owed anyone. God choose this act willingly, not owing anything to the devil or some other force. What other way could have shown God’s will in a more loving manner than the Passion?
Regards
And who do you ask? Yourself?
Of course not. That would be leaving Biblical interpretation in the hands of fallible men. Perish the thought. God already gives us His interpretation in other scripture. Some rely on that, and some rely on men.
Everything in the Church can be traced to the word of God and corroborated in the Bible.
Really? You mean things like papal authority, and the filioque? Please show me the corroboration.
Again, the Church did not compile the New Testament so that the Reformed may discover the "true" church 15,000 years later, but because of some 200 false Gnostic "gospels" launched by Satan and his demons.
So it was the Church that decided to create the New Testament, and it was because of the Gnostics? Seeing as how you don't mention God at all in the creation of the NT, I guess we really have the Gnostics to thank for its creation. How did the Church get God to agree to inspire the Church's word?
The Church did not need the New Testament to exist.
Of this I have no doubt. :)
I do not believe that there is any hard evidence that even the earliest Gnostic "gospels" (those of "Peter" and "Thomas") predated the canonical Gospels -- or at least the first three. There is furthermore no evidence in Christian tradition or really any internal evidence that the writing of those first three Gospels happened as a reaction to the writing of Gnostic gospels.
Modern scholars such as Elaine Pagels, who are very hostile to traditional Christianity, are categorical in stating that Gnosticism came first, and then big bad orthodox Christianity with its hierarchical structure and patriarchal attitudes came along and ruined it all. I think that the anti-Christian partisan nature of such theories is fairly obvious, and we should be careful about accepting such things as the "Gospel truth" (forgive the pun.)
There is certainly some internal evidence that the Gospel of St. John was in part written specifically to refute the claims of docetism, an early form of Gnosticism, but the tradition of the Church is clear that the main thing that St. John was doing was conveying many events and teachings from the life of Christ that were not included in the first three Gospels. As the last of the Apostles, he was in a position to "fill in the blanks" for the Church before he died. In addition, he was placing the life of Christ into a more specifically theological context in the sense of knowing God -- hence us calling him St. John the Theologian in the Orthodox Church. And much of that theology can only be thought of as a reaction to Gnosticism by stretching things.
A very strong case has been made that St. Matthew and St. Luke wrote their Gospels primarily for the simple purpose of catechesis. The need for such catechesis would have been very early in the life of the Church, especially as the Church grew beyond the ability of those who had personally seen and heard Christ to visit all of the Christian communities. Such catechesis would also have been necessary whether or not there was heresy in the Church, and that need would have predated the rise of Gnosticism. Converts would be coming from paganism, Judaism, etc... and would need to be taught the faith.
Fr. John Romanides has written about this writing of the Gospels as catechesis both in terms of the inner traditions of the Orthodox Church and in terms of how those Gospels (especially those of Sts. Matthew and Luke) are structured in a literary sense -- a parallelism that contrasts over and over the things of sin, death and the devil against the things of God.
It is interesting that in his writings to his spiritual children, St. Ignaty (Brianchaninov) stressed that the two most important books of the Bible to know intimately first are the Gospels of Sts. Matthew and Luke. They are certainly the Gospels that are most heavily emphasized in the Sunday lectionary of the Church. All of this reflects a residual memory of the primacy of these two Gospels as basic catechesis.
Another very obvious reasons for the Gospels to be written was to have writings to be read liturgically at public worship. The ancient tradition of the synagogue was built around readings of the Scriptures, and it was inevitable that Christians would want to have the words of Christ read to them as a part of their worship.
The very writing of these four Gospels plus the book of Acts is seen by some as a self-conscious creation of a Christian Pentateuch. I recently was told, although I have not found any back-up for it, that recent archaeology discovered a portrayal of the Hebrew Pentateuch and the Christian Pentateuch side by side, so whether or not it was specifically designed as such, there may have been those who saw the parallels very early on.
Likewise, the Epistles were written certainly in part to correct errors, but they are a great variety of errors -- Judaizing, paganism, and just plain sinfulness. The need for these books would have been clear regardless of any specific heresy such as Gnosticism, since we are fallen. But even in the Epistles, there is a lot of teaching and exhorting that has nothing to do with correcting error. I certainly don't see a whole lot in the Epistles that are a reaction against Gnosticism.
Regarding St. Ignatius of Antioch, there are numerous places in his letters where he seems to quote the New Testament, so I don't think that one can categorically state that the New Testament was unknown to him. It is certainly possible that his words are simply drawing on the same oral tradition that the New Testament writers drew on, but unless one wants, again, to claim that the New Testament wasn't written by the Apostles (contradicting the Church's tradition), it would be at least as likely that he was quoting the New Testament. There is certainly no compelling reason to believe that none of the NT writings were known to him.
One interesting thing that does arise from looking at St. Ignatius is that the Gospel that he seems to quote is that of Matthew. If Mark had been the first Gospel written as modern scholars claim (as opposed to the Church's tradition), one would expect otherwise -- especially since St. Ignatius was heir to the Petrine see of Antioch.
As a final side-note, there are actually some fairly interesting theories that Gnosticism did have some subtle after-the-fact influences on the text of the New Testament in its Alexandrian text-type. The Alexandrian text-type whose handful of manuscripts primarily underlie the modern critical texts on which all modern translations are based has readings that can, according to some, be read in a Gnostic way -- whereas the Byzantine text-type of those same readings are not at all Gnostic-friendly. None of this is provable, but it certainly adds additional reasons to be cautious regarding the Alexandrian text-type. The links between residual Gnosticism and the later Monophysitism that came to capture Egypt seem, to me, to be fairly clear, which I also find interesting in this regard.
I can certainly understand a measure of zeal in attempting to convince our Protestant brothers of the self-evident fact that the Church and its oral tradition predated the writing down of the New Testament Scriptures, and that thus the understanding of what those Scriptures meant and didn't mean was shaped from the beginning by this Apostolic tradition.
But to swallow the idea that our New Testament Scriptures were written only to react to Gnostic writings seems to me to be "a bridge too far." Likewise, assigning dates of composition to these Gospels beyond the 1st century is not at all in line with our Church's tradition. Dating them much beyond the early 2nd century doesn't even jibe with most scholarly opinions.
And you know that He gave it to you? I am sure you have convinced yourself of that.
Kosta: Everything in the Church can be traced to the word of God and corroborated in the Bible
FK: You mean things like papal authority, and the filioque? Please show me the corroboration
The filioque has to do with Trinitarian theology, which is scriptural. The Catholics are not wrong in asserting filioque; just incomplete. The Petrine office is evidenced in the giving of the keys. His pastoral primacy and his juridical authority, which developed later, are not one and the same. The Orthodox Church recongizes the former, but not the latter.
So it was the Church that decided to create the New Testament, and it was because of the Gnostics?
Not at all! I am apalled that you would take it that way. I will give a more elaborate answer to Agrarian's comment on this.
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