Posted on 09/11/2019 10:52:15 AM PDT by Gamecock
Like all accounts of God’s faithfulness, mine begins with a genealogy. In the late seventeenth century, my mother’s Congregationalist ancestors journeyed to the New World to escape what they saw as England’s deadly compromise with Romanism. Centuries later, American Presbyterians converted my father’s great-grandmother from Coptic Orthodoxy to Protestantism. Her son became a Presbyterian minister in the Evangelical Coptic Church. By the time my parents were living in twenty-first-century Illinois, their families’ historic Reformed commitments had been replaced by non-denominational, Baptistic evangelicalism.
This form of Christianity dominated my Midwestern hometown. My parents taught me to love God, revere the Scriptures, and seek truth through reason. In middle school, my father introduced me to theology, and as a present for my sixteenth birthday he arranged a meeting between me and a Catholic philosopher, Dr. B—. From high school into college, Dr. B— introduced me to Catholic thought and graciously helped me work through my doubts about Christianity. How could a just and loving God not reveal himself equally to everyone? What are we to make of the Bible’s creation stories and flood narrative? Did Calvinism make God the author of evil? My acquaintance with Dr. B— set my intellectual trajectory for several years.
The causes of any conversion (or near conversion) are many and confused. Should I foreground psychological and social factors or my theological reasoning? Certain elements of my attraction to Catholicism were adolescent, like a sixties radical’s attraction to Marx or a contemporary activist’s to intersectionality: I aimed to preserve the core beliefs of my upbringing while fleeing their bourgeois expressions. When I arrived at the University of Chicago, I knew just enough about Calvinism to hold it in contempt—which is to say, I knew very little. Reacting against the middle-aged leaders of the inaptly named “Young, Restless, and Reformed Movement,” I sought refuge in that other great Western theological tradition: Roman Catholicism.
During my first year of college, I became involved in campus Catholic life. Through the influence of the Catholic student group and the Lumen Christi Institute, which hosts lectures by Catholic intellectuals, my theologically inclined college friends began converting to Catholicism, one after another. These friends were devout, intelligent, and schooled in Christian history. I met faithful and holy Catholic priests—one of whom has valiantly defended the faith for years, drawing punitive opposition from his own religious superiors, as well as the ire of Chicago’s archbishop. This priest was and is to me the very model of a holy, righteous, and courageous man.
I loved Catholicism because Catholics taught me to love the Church. At Lumen Christi events, I heard about saints and mystics, stylites and monastics, desert fathers and late-antique theologians. I was captivated by the holy martyrs, relics, Mary, and the Mass. I found in the Church a spiritual mother and the mother of all the faithful. Through Catholicism, I came into an inheritance: a past of saints and redeemed sinners from all corners of the earth, theologians who illuminated the deep things of God, music and art that summon men to worship God “in the beauty of holiness,” and a tradition to ground me in a world of flux.
Catholicism, which I took to be the Christianity of history, was a world waiting to be discovered. I set about exploring, and I tried to bring others along. I debated tradition with my mother, sola Scriptura with my then fiancée (now wife), and the meaning of the Eucharist with my father. On one occasion, a Reformed professor dispensed with my arguments for transubstantiation in a matter of minutes.
Not long after this, I began to notice discrepancies between Catholic apologists’ map of the tradition and the terrain I encountered in the tradition itself. St. Ambrose’s doctrine of justification sounded a great deal more like Luther’s sola fide than like Trent. St. John Chrysostom’s teaching on repentance and absolution—“Mourn and you annul the sin”—would have been more at home in Geneva than Paris. St. Thomas’s doctrine of predestination, much to my horror, was nearly identical to the Synod of Dordt’s. The Anglican divine Richard Hooker quoted Irenaeus, Chrysostom, Augustine, and Pope Leo I as he rejected doctrines and practices because they were not grounded in Scripture. He cited Pope Gregory the Great on the “ungodly” title of universal bishop. The Council of Nicaea assumed that Alexandria was on a par with Rome, and Chalcedon declared that the Roman patriarchate was privileged only “because [Rome] was the royal city.” In short, I began to wonder whether the Reformers had a legitimate claim to the Fathers. The Church of Rome could not be straightforwardly identified as catholic.
John Henry Newman became my crucial interlocutor: More than in Ratzinger, Wojtyła, or Congar, in Newman I found a kindred spirit. Here was a man obsessed with the same questions that ate at me, questions of tradition and authority. With Newman, I agonized over conversion. I devoured his Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine and his Apologia pro Vita Sua. Two of his ideas were pivotal for me: his theory of doctrinal development and his articulation of the problem of private judgment. On these two ideas hung all the claims of Rome.
In retrospect, I see that Newman’s need to construct a theory of doctrinal development tells against Rome’s claims of continuity with the ancient Church. And at the time, though I wished to accept Newman’s proposal that “the early condition, and the evidence, of each doctrine . . . ought consistently to be interpreted by means of that development which was ultimately attained,” I could not. One could only justify such assumptions if one were already committed to Roman Catholic doctrine and Rome’s meaningful continuity with what came before. Without either of these commitments, I simply could not find a plausible reason to speak of “development” rather than “disjuncture,” especially because what came before so often contradicted what followed.
The issue of ecclesiastical authority was trickier for me. I recognized the absurdity of a twenty-year-old presuming to adjudicate claims about the Scriptures and two thousand years of history. Newman’s arguments against private judgment therefore had a prima facie plausibility for me. In his Apologia, Newman argues that man’s rebellion against God introduced an “anarchical condition of things,” leading human thought toward “suicidal excesses.” Hence, the fittingness of a divinely established living voice infallibly proclaiming supernatural truths. In his discourse on “Faith and Private Judgment,” Newman castigates Protestants for refusing to “surrender” reason in matters religious. The implication is that reason is unreliable in matters of revelation. Faith is assent to the incontestable, self-evident truth of God’s revelation, and reasoning becomes an excuse to refuse to bend the knee.
The more I internalized Newman’s claims about private judgment, however, the more I descended into skepticism. I could not reliably interpret the Scriptures, history, or God’s Word preached and given in the sacraments. But if I could not do these things, if my reason was unfit in matters religious, how was I to assess Newman’s arguments for Roman Catholicism? Newman himself had once recognized this dilemma, writing in a pre-conversion letter, “We have too great a horror of the principle of private judgment to trust it in so immense a matter as that of changing from one communion to another.” Did he expect me to forfeit the faculty by which I adjudicate truth claims, because that faculty is fallible? My conversion would have to be rooted in my private judgment—but, because of Rome’s claim of infallibility, conversion would forbid me from exercising that faculty ever again on doctrinal questions.
Finally, the infighting among traditionalist, conservative, and liberal Catholics made plain that Catholics did not gain by their magisterium a clear, living voice of divine authority. They received from the past a set of magisterial documents that had to be weighed and interpreted, often over against living prelates. The magisterium of prior ages only multiplied the texts one had to interpret for oneself, for living bishops, it turns out, are as bad at reading as the rest of us.
But I did not remain a Protestant merely because I could not become a Catholic. While I was discovering that Roman Catholicism could not be straightforwardly identified with the catholicism of the first six centuries (nor, in certain respects, with that of the seventh century through the twelfth), and as I was wrestling with Newman, I finally began reading the Reformers. What I found shocked me. Catholicism had, by this time, reoriented my theological concerns around the concerns of the Church catholic. My assumptions, and the issues that animated me, were those of the Church of history. My evangelical upbringing had led me to believe that Protestantism entailed the rejection of these concerns. But this notion exploded upon contact with the Protestantism of history.
Martin Luther, John Calvin, Richard Hooker, Herman Bavinck, Karl Barth—they wrestled with the concerns of the Church catholic and provided answers to the questions Catholicism had taught me to pose. Richard Hooker interpreted the Church’s traditions; Calvin followed Luther’s Augustinianism, proclaimed the visible Church the mother of the faithful, and claimed for the Reformation the Church’s exegetical tradition; Barth convinced me that God’s Word could speak, certainly and surely, from beyond all created realities, to me.
Catholicism had taught me to think like a Protestant, because, as it turned out, the Reformers had thought like catholics. Like their pope-aligned opponents, they had asked questions about justification, the authority of tradition, the mode of Christ’s self-gift in the Eucharist, the nature of apostolic succession, and the Church’s wielding of the keys. Like their opponents, Protestants had appealed to Scripture and tradition. In time, I came to find their answers not only plausible, but more faithful to Scripture than the Catholic answers, and at least as well-represented in the traditions of the Church.
The Protestants did more than out-catholic the Catholics. They also spoke to the deepest needs of sinful souls. I will never forget the moment when, like Luther five hundred years earlier, I discovered justification by faith alone through union with Christ. I was sitting in my dorm room by myself. I had been assigned Luther’s Explanations of the Ninety-Five Theses, and I expected to find it facile. A year or two prior, I had decided that Trent was right about justification: It was entirely a gift of grace consisting of the gradual perfecting of the soul by faith and works—God instigating and me cooperating. For years, I had attempted to live out this model of justification. I had gone to Mass regularly, prayed the rosary with friends, fasted frequently, read the Scriptures daily, prayed earnestly, and sought advice from spiritual directors. I had begun this arduous cooperation with God’s grace full of hope; by the time I sat in that dorm room alone, I was distraught and demoralized. I had learned just how wretched a sinner I was: No good work was unsullied by pride, no repentance unaccompanied by expectations of future sin, no love free from selfishness.
In this state, I picked up my copy of that arch-heretic Luther and read his explanation of Thesis 37: “Any true Christian, whether living or dead, participates in all the blessings of Christ and the church; and this is granted him by God, even without indulgence letters.” With these words, Luther transformed my understanding of justification: Every Christian possesses Christ, and to possess Christ is to possess all of Christ’s righteousness, life, and merits. Christ had joined me to himself.
I had “put on Christ” in baptism and, by faith through the work of the Spirit, all things were mine, and I was Christ’s, and Christ was God’s (Gal. 3:27; 1 Cor. 3:21–23). His was not an uncertain mercy; his was not a grace of parts, which one hoped would become a whole; his was not a salvation to be attained, as though it were not already also a present possession. At that moment, the joy of my salvation poured into my soul. I wept and showed forth God’s praise. I had finally discovered the true ground and power of Protestantism: “My beloved is mine, and I am his” (Song 2:16).
Rome had brought me to Reformation.
So?
If Bin Laden had accepted Christ, he would go to heaven.
But he apparently didn’t and it’s too late for him now.
I guess we can add that to the *Call no man father* problem Catholics have, that of dismissing verses spoken by Jesus that they don’t like.
Yes, I am familiar with Matt 7:21 and in John 6:40, Jesus comes right out and tells us what God’s will is.
It could not be stated any clearer or simpler.
he gave the right to become children of God,
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Well, the way to “become” children of God is precisely why mankind was given the divinely inspired Scriptures. Consequently it is obvious that becoming such children involves a great deal more than the simplistic theology of the Reformation which is usually expressed in one or two sentences!
That’s a joke, right bro? I am reasonably sure, that since OBL, was a Muslim, he probably never put his trust in Christ, so he will have an eternity that is more horrifying than words can express. My question to you would be, do you intend to end up somewhere else than OBL does? Remember bro, wherever you spend eternity, is where you have chosen to spend it. I hope you make it, but I am not confident in that wish. 🤣🤣🤗🙃👍😆😂👊☝️
I don't have to tell too many...Most on this thread already know...
ye believe (on)
πιστεύω
pisteuō
pist-yoo'-o
From G4102; to have faith (in, upon, or with respect to, a person or thing), that is, credit; by implication to entrust (especially one’s spiritual well being to Christ): - believe (-r), commit (to trust), put in trust with.
Eph_1:13 In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise,
1Th 2:13 For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe.
Actually I don't have to explain it...One finds that the scriptures explain it as the scriptures are searched, comparing scripture with scripture...But just to accommodate, believing on him means knowing and accepting who he is, the Son of the Father, my Saviour, my Redeemer...
Act 13:44 And the next sabbath day came almost the whole city together to hear the word of God.
KNOWING that the words written as scriptures are in fact the actual words of Jesus as given to the authors of the bible...
There were a lot of bible out there...
The Gutenberg Bible, like every Bible before it, contained the Deuterocanonical books - or "apocrapha" in Evangelical circles.
100% wrong...
People go to different denominations for different reasons and I do not ever hear from the pulpit pastors bad mouthing other denominations.
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Other than for purely social reasons or reasons of convenience congregations and their pastors split apart over doctrinal differences, i.e. squabbling over differing interpretations of Scripture. Ride along any metropolitan highway and you will see literally dozens of different denominations which, by their very existence have “denounced” their former church communities.
Adding works to intellectual assent is not going to save anyone.
Saving faith is one that produces works as the natural outflow of the work of the Holy Spirit in the person’s life.
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Both of these statement are plausible in my view EXCEPT that the latter one appears to overlook the role of the will which must voluntarily and consciously conform to the work of the Spirit. Otherwise the works produced have no human attribution at all and the human person is reduced to the level of an automaton, hardly what God intends.
You are absolutely correct but we have already explained all this many times ON THIS VERY THREAD and it doesn’t sink in. They remain absolutely convinced salvation must be merited by their works. They only pay lip service to the Biblical “salvation by grace through faith” doctrine in favor of their boastful, holier-than-thou piousity where God OWES them salvation because they’ve earned and deserve it as good Catholics! Only the Holy Spirit can remove the scales from their eyes and the true meaning of GRACE is grasped. I pray for them all the time.
And how about you read the verse in context as previously instructed. Are perhaps you just like to cherry pick verses that fit your worldview.
That would be all of us.
Sinners, who are the unredeemed, do not inherit the kingdom.
Saints who sin, OTOH, do.
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Yes, yes, and yes.
Ditto!
Jesus answered, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to Me will never hunger, and whoever believes in Me will never thirst. But as I told you, you have seen Me and still you do not believe. Everyone the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will never drive away. For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but to do the will of Him who sent Me.
And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that I shall lose none of those He has given Me, but raise them up at the last day. For it is My Father’s will that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in Him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.” (John 6:36-40)
+1
The gospel is not complicated.
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Supposedly so, but than why is it that there are literally hundreds of divergent and conflicting understandings which have resulted in literally hundreds of different religious denominations and sects each of which claims to have the “correct” understanding of the Scriptures?
Believe and you’ll be saved.
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Not so. Revelation clearly tells us that even the Devil “believes”. And, as James so clearly taught us, faith without works is DEAD. And, as Jesus Himself taught us, simply acknowledging “Lord, Lord” is not enough to be saved, rather it is he who does the will of the Father who is saved. And the will of the Father is clearly revealed in every page of Scripture.
And how about you read the verse in context as previously instructed.
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Doesn’t change a thing!
Those who claimed *Lord, Lord* appealed to their works.
It wasn't them simply calling Jesus Lord that caused them to think they were followers of His, but their works that they claimed they did in His name.
If you're going to want to try to prove works save, you're going to have to find a different verse to misapply.
Sadly, the poster does not want believe Jesus’s clear words because it cancels works to add for salvation. Jesus even gave us an earlier reference illustrate the principle ... Moses in the wilderness and the snake episode. It is doubtful the poster even k ows the basis of the illustration nor would comprehend the truth of it.
.One finds that the scriptures explain it as the scriptures are searched, comparing scripture with scripture
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If that is so why are there multiple and often contradictory interpretations of so many of the key Scriptures upon which primary Christian doctrines are based?
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