Posted on 04/09/2006 1:13:59 PM PDT by Gamecock
And how many good works to tilt the balance in ones favor is the great unknown.
We Catholics can explain our own doctrine, thank you very much. You represent your position, we'll represent ours.
The Catholic position is that we are saved by grace through faith, but faith without works is dead faith with no power to save anyone. It's straight from the Bible.
Does the picture in your post #22 come painted on black velvet?
The "balance" is "tilted" in favor of the Christian by the cross. But if you don't live faith, you don't have it.
Equating Catholicism with Pelagianism is a lie. Sorry, I don't have any other word for it, so I'll simply call it what it is -- a lie. I don't earn my salvation any more than you earn yours.
So you don't need works? Make up your mind!
Equating Catholicism with Pelagianism is a lie.
So your soteriology lines up with Augustine and Calvin?
Do your works contribute to your justification before God, or not?
Hey, I once knew a St. Bernard...
...So this Franciscan charismatic priest decides to raise a little extra money for the parish youth league by opening up a dog-training school. After a few weeks go by without one customer, he mentioned his disappointment in a homily. A parishioner comes us to him and says, "Listen, we all know how much you love animals, but no-one figures you know much about training."
So the priest makes this deal with him: "Leave you dog with me for two weeks. At the end of the two weeks, I'll show you what the dog can do. If you're not satisfied, you don't owe me anything.
Two weeks later, the guy shows up, and the priest proudly shows him his dog.
"Ok, boy, sit!" says the man, and the dog sits up perfectly.
"Roll over!" he says, and the dog lies down and rolls over, then sits back up.
"Heel!" he says, and the dog...
[At this point in the joke, you have to smack your hand onto someone's forehead, raise the other hand skyward, and start making "Rorruruff owroo roofarooaowr.." sorta noises. It's kinda a lame pun (so to speak), so you really have to sell it with the obnoxious healer behavior.]
No, no, no, no, it isn't!
It's salvation by grace alone! And if it truly is grace which has saved us, we will have faith, as demonstrated by works!
If we THINK we have faith, but do not produce works, then our faith is misplaced, or it is not true faith. But the Catholic church also teaches that faith precedes works. Did Jesus not have faith those 30 years before his ministry? Did Paul not have faith those years he spent in Damascus? But both faith and works depend on grace, and grace alone.
I would take the Dread Boston Salty and the Ferocious Feline Bebop Trio to be blessed in a minute, if I had crates enough.
hehehe
>> So your soteriology lines up with Augustine and Calvin? <<
Since Augustine was a firm defender of orthodox Catholicism, yes. But Augustine, though a Doctor of the Catholic Church, and one of the most esteemed Catholic thinkers of all time, was not blessed with perfect, living Word, the way the apostles were. Many Catholics believe Thomas Aquinas' writings were necessary to balance Augustine's; the two do not conflict, as James and Paul do not conflict. And both Aquinas and Augustine taught that salvation cannot be gained through works.
As for Calvin... it's hard for a Catholic to focus on purely soteriological issues, so much of the language he uses is colored by other issues, that a Catholic has to study up on what Calvin meant by the words he chose, and not what a Catholic would mean by such words.
I'm often opposed people who treat the 1911 Catholic Encyclopedia, a publication of midwestern American laity ("Our Sunday Visitor"), as if it were infallible towards history (much of its history it apparently gleams from secular history books). But the book does have a nihil obstat and an imprimatur, indicating that the bishop found nothing heretical in it. (Of course, heresies are only theological, not historical, errors.)
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12378a.htm
A Catholic priest and a Protestant minister had a problem with crows nestin in their church buildings.
However, following Easter, the Catholic church was free from the birds. So the minister asked the priest how he had dealt with the problem.
-- I baptised them and confirmed them. Have never seen them again.
Sacraments are a means through which God bestows his graces. I am aware that many Protestants consider sacraments to be "works." But it's God who calls people to the sacraments. Without God's grace, we would flee from them, rather than be drawn to them. Further, our going through the motions of the sacraments apart from God would be completely meaningless.
If a child is driven to school every day, would you say that the child gets himself to school every day? If a child must wear a jacket to go to school, and the parent will insist that the child put on his jacket, would you say that the child gets himself to school on his own because he willingly put on his jacket? Will not the parent put the jacket on the child? Of course! But is it not good for the child to put the jacket on himself?
If the school is many, many miles away, and it is bitter cold outside, and the child wanders off without a jacket, to head to school on his own, not even knowing which direction to walk, will not people think he has no parents? Or that his parents are wicked to send him out into the weather like that? But in truth, will his Father not seek him out, to rescue him?
Explain what you mean by "depend".
Bottom line, do our works merely identify our salvation or are they active in meriting salvation?
for the record!
i by no means am bashing orthodox catholics.
i was just having fun on a silly thread.
orthodox catholicism is closer to the truth than many so-called protestant denominations!
by the way the dog picture haunts me,because my german shepherd probably knows more scipture than most professing believers.
5 SOLAS!
SCRIPTURE!
SORRY!
Some Protestants (anabaptists, mostly) would claim that they never returned because you didn't A) wait until they were fully able to make a saving confession of faith, and/or B) baptism was administered by sprinkling or pouring, instead of by full immersion, nullifying it's validity.
They would say that because God is still busy sanctifying their sense of humor.
Fully immersing a crow who just made a profession of faith is indeed an image the humor of which will require quite some time to sanctify.
I love the "Heal!" joke; I've seen the human version too many times to take it seriously anymore.
Seriously, there is an innocence to animals I envy. Yes, they turn on each other, eat each other, but they don't do it out of spite or hate or vengence. Our pets remind us of what perfect trust can be; only a dog or cat seems capable of truely unconditional love in this sorry world.
After all, Pope Benedict loves cats, and if it's good enough for him....
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.