Luther and Erasmus: The Controversy Concerning the Bondage of the Will

Protestant Reformed Theological Journal ^ | April 1999 | Garrett J. Eriks

[HarleyD]

Introduction

At the time of the Reformation, many hoped Martin Luther and Erasmus could unite against the errors of the Roman Catholic Church. Luther himself was tempted to unite with Erasmus because Erasmus was a great Renaissance scholar who studied the classics and the Greek New Testament. Examining the Roman Catholic Church, Erasmus was infuriated with the abuses in the Roman Catholic Church, especially those of the clergy. These abuses are vividly described in the satire of his book, The Praise of Folly. Erasmus called for reform in the Roman Catholic Church. Erasmus could have been a great help to the Reformation, so it seemed, by using the Renaissance in the service of the Reformation.

But a great chasm separated these two men. Luther loved the truth of God's Word as that was revealed to him through his own struggles with the assurance of salvation. Therefore Luther wanted true reformation in the church, which would be a reformation in doctrine and practice. Erasmus cared little about a right knowledge of truth. He simply wanted moral reform in the Roman Catholic Church. He did not want to leave the church, but remained supportive of the Pope.

This fundamental difference points out another difference between the two men. Martin Luther was bound by the Word of God. Therefore the content of the Scripture was of utmost importance to him. But Erasmus did not hold to this same high view of Scripture. Erasmus was a Renaissance rationalist who placed reason above Scripture. Therefore the truth of Scripture was not that important to him.

The two men could not have fellowship with each other, for the two movements which they represented were antithetical to each other. The fundamental differences came out especially in the debate over the freedom of the will.

From 1517 on, the chasm between Luther and Erasmus grew. The more Luther learned about Erasmus, the less he wanted anything to do with him. Melanchthon tried to play the mediator between Luther and Erasmus with no success. But many hated Erasmus because he was so outspoken against the church. These haters of Erasmus tried to discredit him by associating him with Luther, who was outside the church by this time. Erasmus continued to deny this unity, saying he did not know much about the writings of Luther. But as Luther took a stronger stand against the doctrinal abuses of Rome, Erasmus was forced either to agree with Luther or to dissociate himself from Luther. Erasmus chose the latter.

Many factors came together which finally caused Erasmus to wield his pen against Luther. Erasmus was under constant pressure from the Pope and later the king of England to refute the views of Luther. When Luther became more outspoken against Erasmus, Erasmus finally decided to write against him. On September 1, 1524, Erasmus published his treatise On the Freedom of the Will. In December of 1525, Luther responded with The Bondage of the Will.

Packer and Johnston call The Bondage of the Will "the greatest piece of theological writing that ever came from Luther's pen."1 Although Erasmus writes with eloquence, his writing cannot compare with that of Luther the theologian. Erasmus writes as one who cares little about the subject, while Luther writes with passion and conviction, giving glory to God. In his work, Luther defends the heart of the gospel over against the Pelagian error as defended by Erasmus. This controversy is of utmost importance.

In this paper, I will summarize both sides of the controversy, looking at what each taught and defended. Secondly, I will examine the biblical approach of each man. Finally, the main issues will be pointed out and the implications of the controversy will be drawn out for the church today.

Erasmus On the Freedom of the Will

Erasmus defines free-will or free choice as "a power of the human will by which a man can apply himself to the things which lead to eternal salvation or turn away from them." By this, Erasmus means that man has voluntary or free power of himself to choose the way which leads to salvation apart from the grace of God.

Erasmus attempts to answer the question how man is saved: Is it the work of God or the work of man according to his free will? Erasmus answers that it is not one or the other. Salvation does not have to be one or the other, for God and man cooperate. On the one hand, Erasmus defines free-will, saying man can choose freely by himself, but on the other hand, he wants to retain the necessity of grace for salvation. Those who do good works by free-will do not attain the end they desire unless aided by God's grace. Therefore, in regard to salvation, man cooperates with God. Both must play their part in order for a man to be saved. Erasmus expresses it this way: "Those who support free choice nonetheless admit that a soul which is obstinate in evil cannot be softened into true repentance without the help of heavenly grace." Also, attributing all things to divine grace, Erasmus states,

And the upshot of it is that we should not arrogate anything to ourselves but attribute all things we have received to divine grace … that our will might be synergos (fellow-worker) with grace although grace is itself sufficient for all things and has no need of the assistance of any human will."

In his work On the Freedom of the Will, Erasmus defends this synergistic view of salvation. According to Erasmus, God and man, nature and grace, cooperate together in the salvation of a man. With this view of salvation, Erasmus tries to steer clear of outright Pelagianism and denies the necessity of human action which Martin Luther defends.

On the basis of an apocryphal passage (Ecclesiasticas 15:14-17), Erasmus begins his defense with the origin of free-will. Erasmus says that Adam, as he was created, had a free-will to choose good or to turn to evil. In Paradise, man's will was free and upright to choose. Adam did not depend upon the grace of God, but chose to do all things voluntarily. The question which follows is, "What happened to the will when Adam sinned; does man still retain this free-will?" Erasmus would answer, "Yes." Erasmus says that the will is born out of a man's reason. In the fall, man's reason was obscured but was not extinguished. Therefore the will, by which we choose, is depraved so that it cannot change its ways. The will serves sin. But this is qualified. Man's ability to choose freely or voluntarily is not hindered.

By this depravity of the will, Erasmus does not mean that man can do no good. Because of the fall, the will is "inclined" to evil, but can still do good. Notice, he says the will is only "inclined" to evil. Therefore the will can freely or voluntarily choose between good and evil. This is what he says in his definition: free-will is "a power of the human will by which a man can apply himself to the things which lead to eternal salvation." Not only does the human will have power, although a little power, but the will has power by which a man merits salvation.

This free choice of man is necessary according to Erasmus in order for there to be sin. In order for a man to be guilty of sin, he must be able to know the difference between good and evil, and he must be able to choose between doing good and doing evil. A man is responsible only if he has the ability to choose good or evil. If the free-will of man is taken away, Erasmus says that man ceases to be a man.

For this freedom of the will, Erasmus claims to find much support in Scripture. According to Erasmus, when Scripture speaks of "choosing," it implies that man can freely choose. Also, whenever the Scripture uses commands, threats, exhortations, blessings, and cursings, it follows that man is capable of choosing whether or not he will obey.

Erasmus defines the work of man's will by which he can freely choose after the fall. Here he makes distinctions in his idea of a "threefold kind of law" which is made up of the "law of nature, law of works, and law of faith." First, this law of nature is in all men. By this law of nature, men do good by doing to others what they would want others to do to them. Having this law of nature, all men have a knowledge of God. By this law of nature, the will can choose good, but the will in this condition is useless for salvation. Therefore more is needed. The law of works is man's choice when he hears the threats of punishment which God gives. When a man hears these threats, he either continues to forsake God, or he desires God's grace. When a man desires God's grace, he then receives the law of faith which cures the sinful inclinations of his reason. A man has this law of faith only by divine grace.

In connection with this threefold kind of law, Erasmus distinguishes between three graces of God. First, in all men, even in those who remain in sin, a grace is implanted by God. But this grace is infected by sin. This grace arouses men by a certain knowledge of God to seek Him. The second grace is peculiar grace which arouses the sinner to repent. This does not involve the abolishing of sin or justification. But rather, a man becomes "a candidate for the highest grace." By this grace offered to all men, God invites all, and the sinner must come desiring God's grace. This grace helps the will to desire God. The final grace is the concluding grace which completes what was started. This is saving grace only for those who come by their free-will. Man begins on the path to salvation, after which God completes what man started. Along with man's natural abilities according to his will, God works by His grace. This is the synergos, or cooperation, which Erasmus defends.

Erasmus defends the free-will of man with a view to meriting salvation. This brings us to the heart of the matter. Erasmus begins with the premise that a man merits salvation. In order for a man to merit salvation, he cannot be completely carried by God, but he must have a free-will by which he chooses God voluntarily. Therefore, Erasmus concludes that by the exercise of his free-will, man merits salvation with God. When man obeys, God imputes this to his merit. Therefore Erasmus says, "This surely goes to show that it is not wrong to say that man does something…." Concerning the merit of man's works, Erasmus distinguishes with the Scholastics between congruent and condign merit. The former is that which a man performs by his own strength, making him a "fit subject for the gift of internal grace." This work of man removed the barrier which keeps God from giving grace. The barrier removed is man's unworthiness for grace, which God gives only to those who are fit for it. With the gift of grace, man can do works which before he could not do. God rewards these gifts with salvation. Therefore, with the help or aid of the grace of God, a man merits eternal salvation.

Although he says a man merits salvation, Erasmus wants to say that salvation is by God's grace. In order to hold both the free-will of man and the grace of God in salvation, Erasmus tries to show the two are not opposed to each other. He says, "It is not wrong to say that man does something yet attributes the sum of all he does to God as the author." Explaining the relationship between grace and free-will, Erasmus says that the grace of God and the free-will of man, as two causes, come together in one action "in such a way, however, that grace is the principle cause and the will secondary, which can do nothing apart from the principle cause since the principle is sufficient in itself." Therefore, in regard to salvation, God and man work together. Man has a free-will, but this will cannot attain salvation of itself. The will needs a boost from grace in order to merit eternal life.

Erasmus uses many pictures to describe the relationship between works and grace. He calls grace an "advisor," "helper," and "architect." Just as the builder of a house needs the architect to show him what to do and to set him straight when he does something wrong, so also man needs the assistance of God to help him where he is lacking. The free-will of man is aided by a necessary helper: grace. Therefore Erasmus says, "as we show a boy an apple and he runs for it ... so God knocks at our soul with His grace and we willingly embrace it." In this example, we are like a boy who cannot walk. The boy wants the apple, but he needs his father to assist him in obtaining the apple. So also, we need the assistance of God's grace. Man has a free-will by which he can seek after God, but this is not enough for him to merit salvation. By embracing God's grace with his free-will, man merits God's grace so that by his free-will and the help of God's grace he merits eternal life. This is a summary of what Erasmus defends.

Erasmus also deals with the relationship of God's foreknowledge and man's free-will. On the one hand, God does what he wills, but, on the other hand, God's will does not impose anything on man's will, for then man's will would not be free or voluntary. Therefore God's foreknowledge is not determinative, but He simply knows what man will choose. Men deserve punishment from eternity simply because God knows they will not choose the good, but will choose the evil. Man can resist the ordained will of God. The only thing man cannot resist is when God wills in miracles. When God performs some "supernatural" work, this cannot be resisted by men. For example, when Jesus performed a miracle, the man whose sight returned could not refuse to be healed. According to Erasmus, because man's will is free, God's will and foreknowledge depend on man's will except when He performs miracles.

This is a summary of what Erasmus taught in his treatise On the Freedom of the Will. In response to this treatise, Luther wrote The Bondage of the Will. We turn to this book of Luther.

Luther's Arguments Against Erasmus

Martin Luther gives a thorough defense of the sovereign grace of God over against the "semi-Pelagianism" of Erasmus by going through much of Erasmus' On the Freedom of the Will phrase by phrase. Against the cooperating work of salvation defended by Erasmus, Luther attacks Erasmus at the very heart of the issue. Luther's thesis is that "free-will is a nonentity, a thing consisting of name alone" because man is a slave to sin. Therefore salvation is the sovereign work of God alone.

In the "Diatribe," Luther says, Erasmus makes no sense. It seems Erasmus speaks out of both sides of his mouth. On the one hand, he says that man's will cannot will any good, yet on the other hand, he says man has a free-will. Other contradictions also exist in Erasmus' thought. Erasmus says that man has the power to choose good, but he also says that man needs grace to do good. Opposing Erasmus, Luther rightly points out that if there is free-will, there is no need for grace. Because of these contradictions in Erasmus, Luther says Erasmus "argues like a man drunk or asleep, blurting out between snores, 'Yes,' 'No.' " Not only does this view of Erasmus not make sense, but this is not what Scripture says concerning the will of man and the grace of God.

According to Luther, Erasmus does not prove his point, namely, the idea that man with his free-will cooperates in salvation with God. Throughout his work, Luther shows that Erasmus supports and agrees with the Pelagians. In fact, Erasmus' view is more despicable than Pelagianism because he is not honest and because the grace of God is cheapened. Only a small work is needed in order for a man to merit the grace of God.

Because Erasmus does not take up the question of what man can actually do of himself as fallen in Adam, Luther takes up the question of the ability of man. Here, Luther comes to the heart of his critique of the Diatribe in which he denies free-will and shows that God must be and is sovereign in salvation. Luther's arguments follow two lines: first, he shows that man is enslaved to sin and does not have a free-will; secondly, he shows that the truth of God's sovereign rule, by which He accomplishes His will according to His counsel, is opposed to free-will.

First, Luther successfully defends the thesis that there is no such entity as free-will because the will is enslaved to sin. Luther often says there is no such thing as free-will. The will of man without the grace of God "is not free at all, but is the permanent prisoner and bondslave of evil since it cannot turn itself to good." The free-will lost its freedom in the fall so that now the will is a slave to sin. This means the will can will no good. Therefore man does and wills sin "necessarily." Luther further describes the condition of man's will when he explains a passage from Ezekiel: "It cannot but fall into a worse condition, and add to its sins despair and impenitence unless God comes straightway to its help and calls it back and raises it up by the word of His promise."

Luther makes a crucial distinction in explaining what he means when he says man sins "necessarily." This does not mean "compulsion." A man without the Spirit is not forced, kicking and screaming, to sin but voluntarily does evil. Nevertheless, because man is enslaved to sin, his will cannot change itself. He only wills or chooses to sin of himself. He cannot change this willingness of his: he wills and desires evil. Man is wholly evil, thinking nothing but evil thoughts. Therefore there is no free-will.

Because this is the condition of man, he cannot merit eternal life. The enslaved will cannot merit anything with God because it can do no good. The only thing which man deserves is eternal punishment. By this, Luther also shows that there is no free-will.

In connection with man's merit, Luther describes the true biblical uses of the law. The purpose of the law of God is not to show men how they can merit salvation, but the law is given so that men might see their sinfulness and their own unworthiness. The law condemns the works of man, for when he judges himself according to the law, man sees that he can do no good. Therefore, he is driven to the cross. The law also serves as a guide for what the believer should do. But the law does not say anything about the ability of man to obey it.

Not only should the idea of free-will be rejected because man is enslaved to sin, but also because of who God is and the relationship between God and man. A man cannot act independently of God. Analyzing what Erasmus said, Luther says that God is not God, but He is an idol, because the freedom of man rules. Everything depends on man for salvation. Therefore man can merit salvation apart from God. A God that depends on man is not God.

Denying this horrible view of Erasmus, Luther proclaims the sovereignty of God in salvation. Because God is sovereign in all things and especially in salvation, there is no free-will.

Luther begins with the fact that God alone has a free-will. This means only God can will or not will the law, gospel, sin, and death. God does not act out of necessity, but freely. He alone is independent in all He decrees and does. Therefore man cannot have a free-will by which he acts independently of God, because God is immutable, omnipotent, and sovereign over all. Luther says that God is omnipotent, knowing all. Therefore we do nothing of ourselves. We can only act according to God's infallible, immutable counsel.

The great error of free-willism is that it ascribes divinity to man's free-will. God is not God anymore. If man has a free-will, this implies God is not omnipotent, controlling all of our actions. Free-will also implies that God makes mistakes and changes. Man must then fix the mistakes. Over against this, Luther says there can be no free-will because we are under the "mastery of God." We can do nothing apart from God by our own strength because we are enslaved to sin.

Luther also understands the difficulties which follow from saying that God is sovereign so that all things happen necessarily. Luther states: "If God foreknows a thing, it necessarily happens." The problem between God's foreknowledge and man's freedom cannot be completely solved. God sovereignly decrees all things that happen, and they happen as He has decreed them necessarily. Does this mean that when a man sins, he sins because God has decreed that sin? Luther would answer, Yes. But God does not act contrary to what man is. Man cannot will good, but he only seeks after sinful lusts. The nature of man is corrupted, so that he is turned from God. But God works in men and in Satan according to what they are. The sinner is still under the control of the omnipotent God, "which means, since they are evil and perverted themselves, that when they are impelled to action by this movement of Divine omnipotence they do only that which is perverted or evil." When God works in evil men, evil results. But God is not evil. He is good. He does not do evil, but He uses evil instruments. The sin is the fault of those evil instruments and not the fault of God.

Luther asks himself the question, Why then did God let Adam fall so all men have his sin? The sovereignty of God must not be questioned, because God's will is beyond any earthly standard. Nothing is equal to God and His will. Answering the question above, Luther replies, "What God wills is not right because He ought or was bound, so to will, on the contrary, what takes place must be right because He so wills it." This is the hidden mystery of God's absolute sovereignty over all things.

God is sovereign over all things. He is sovereign in salvation. Is salvation a work of God and man? Luther answers negatively. God alone saves. Therefore salvation cannot be based on the merits of men's works. Man's obedience does not obtain salvation, according to Luther. Some become the sons of God "not by carnal birth, nor by zeal for the law, nor by any other human effort, but only by being born of God." Grace does not come by our own effort, but by the grace of Jesus Christ. To deny grace is to deny Jesus Christ. For Christ is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Free-will says that it is the way, the truth, and the life. Therefore free-will denies Jesus Christ. This is a serious error.

God saves by His grace and Spirit in such away that the will is turned by Him. Only when the will is changed can it will and desire the good. Luther describes a struggle between God and Satan. Erasmus says man stands between God and Satan, who are as spectators waiting for man to make his choice. But Luther compares this struggle to a horse having two riders. "If God rides, it wills and goes where God goes…. If Satan rides, it wills and goes where Satan goes." The horse does not have the choice of which rider it wants. We have Satan riding us until God throws him off. In the same way, we are enslaved to sin until God breaks the power of sin. The salvation of a man depends upon the free work of God, who alone is sovereign and able to save men. Therefore this work in the will by God is a radical change whereby the willing of the soul is freed from sin. This beautiful truth stands over against Erasmus' grace, which gives man a booster shot in what he can do of himself.

This truth of the sovereignty of God in salvation is comforting to us. When man trusts in himself, he has no comfort that he is saved. Because man is enslaved to sin and because God is the sovereign, controlling all things according to His sovereign, immutable will, there is no free-will. The free-will of man does not save him. God alone saves.

The Battle of the Biblical Texts

The battle begins with the fundamental difference separating Luther and Erasmus in regard to the doctrine of Scripture. Erasmus defends the obscurity of Scripture. Basically, Erasmus says man cannot know with certainty many of the things in Scripture. Some things in God's Word are plain, while many are not. He applies the obscurity of Scripture to the controversy concerning the freedom of the will. In the camp of the hidden things of God, which include the hour of our death and when the last judgment will occur, Erasmus places "whether our will accomplishes anything in things pertaining to salvation." Because Scripture is unclear about these things, what one believes about these matters is not important. Erasmus did not want controversy, but he wanted peace. For him, the discussion of the hidden things is worthless because it causes the church to lose her love and unity.

Against this idea of the obscurity of Scripture, Luther defends the perspicuity of Scripture. Luther defines perspicuity as being twofold. The external word itself is clear, as that which God has written for His people. But man cannot understand this word of himself. Therefore Scripture is clear to God's people only by the work of the Holy Spirit in their hearts.

The authority of Scripture is found in God Himself. God's Word must not be measured by man, for this leads to paradoxes, of which Erasmus is a case in point. By saying Scripture is paradoxical, Erasmus denies the authority of God's Word.

Luther does not deny that some passages are difficult to understand. This is not because the Word is unclear or because the work of the Holy Spirit is weak. Rather, we do not understand some passages because of our own weakness.

If Scripture is obscure, then this opposes what God is doing in revelation. Scripture is light which reveals the truth. If it is obscure, then why did God give it to us? According to Luther, not even the difficult to understand doctrines such as the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the unpardonable sin are obscure. Therefore the issue of the freedom of the will is not obscure. If the Scripture is unclear about the doctrine of the will of man, then this doctrine is not from Scripture.

Because Scripture is clear, Luther strongly attacks Erasmus on this fundamental point. Luther says, "The Scriptures are perfectly clear in their teaching, and that by their help such a defense of our position may be made that our adversaries cannot resist." This is what Luther hoped to show to Erasmus. The teaching of Scripture is fundamental. On this point of perspicuity, Luther has Erasmus by the horns. Erasmus says Scripture is not clear on this matter of the freedom of the will, yet he appeals to the church fathers for support. The church fathers base their doctrine of the free-will on Scripture. On the basis of the perspicuity of Scripture, Luther challenges Erasmus to find even one passage that supports his view of free-will. Luther emphasizes that not one can be found.

Luther also attacks Erasmus when he says what one believes concerning the freedom of the will does not matter. Luther sums up Erasmus' position this way: "In a word, what you say comes to this: that you do not think it matters a scrap what any one believes anywhere, as long as the world is at peace." Erasmus says the knowledge of free-will is useless and non-essential. Over against this, Luther says, "then neither God, Christ, Gospel, faith, nor anything else even of Judaism, let alone Christianity, is left!" Positively, Luther says about the importance of the truth: "I hold that a solemn and vital truth, of eternal consequences, is at stake in the discussion." Luther was willing to defend the truth even to death because of its importance as that which is taught in Scripture.

A word must also be said about the differing views of the interpretation of Scripture. Erasmus was not an exegete. He was a great scholar of the languages, but this did not make him an able exegete. Erasmus does not rely on the Word of God of itself, but he turns to the church fathers and to reason for the interpretation of Scripture. In regard to the passage out of Ecclesiasticas which Erasmus uses, Luther says the dispute there is not over the teaching of Scripture, but over human reason. Erasmus generalizes from a particular case, saying that since a passage mentions willing, this must mean a man has a free-will. In this regard, Luther also says that Erasmus "fashions and refashions the words of God as he pleases." Erasmus was concerned not with what God says in His Word, but with what he wanted God to say.

Not only does Erasmus use his own reason to interpret Scripture, but following in the Roman Catholic tradition he goes back to the church fathers. His work is filled with many quotes from the church fathers' interpretation of different passages. The idea is that the church alone has the authority to interpret Scripture. Erasmus goes so far in this that Luther accuses Erasmus of placing the fathers above the inspired apostle Paul.

In contrast to Erasmus, Luther interprets Scripture with Scripture. Seeing the Word of God as inspired by the Holy Spirit, Luther also trusts in the work of the Holy Spirit to interpret that Word. One of the fundamental points of Reformed hermeneutics is that Scripture interprets Scripture. Luther follows this. When Luther deals with a passage, he does not take it out of context as Erasmus does. Instead, he examines the context and checks other passages which use the same words.

Also, Luther does not add figures or devise implications as Erasmus does. But rather, Luther sticks to the simple and plain meaning of Scripture. He says, "Everywhere we should stick to just the simple, natural meaning of the words, as yielded by the rules of grammar and the habits of speech that God has created among men." In the controversy over the bondage of the will, both the formal and material principles of the Reformation were at stake.

Now we must examine some of the important passages for each man. This is a difficult task because they both refer to so many passages. We must content ourselves with looking at those which are fundamental for the main points of the controversy.

Showing the weakness of his view of Scripture, Erasmus begins with a passage from an apocryphal book: Ecclesiasticas 15:14-17. Erasmus uses this passage to show the origin of the free will and that the will continues to be free after the fall.

Following this passage, Erasmus looks at many passages from the Old Testament to prove that man has a free-will. He turns to Genesis 4:6, 7, which records God speaking to Cain after he offered his displeasing sacrifice to God. Verse 7 says, "If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? And if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door." Erasmus says that God sets before Cain a reward if he chooses the good. But if he chooses the evil, he will be punished. This implies that Cain has a will which can overcome evil and do the good.

From here, Erasmus looks at different passages using the word "choose." He says Scripture uses the word "choose" because man can freely choose. This is the only way it makes sense.

Erasmus also looks at many passages which use the word "if" in the Old Testament and also the commands of the Old Testament. For example, Isaiah 1:19,20 and 21:12 use the words "if … then." These conditions in Scripture imply that a man can do these things. Deuteronomy 30:14 is an example of a command. In this passage, Israel is commanded to love God with all their heart and soul. This command was given because Moses and the people had it in them to obey. Erasmus comes to these conclusions by implication.

Using a plethora of New Testament texts, Erasmus tries to support the idea of the freedom of the will. Once again, Erasmus appeals to those texts which speak of conditions. John 14:15 says, "If ye love me, keep my commandments." Also, in John 15:7 we read, "If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you." These passages imply that man is able to fulfill the conditions by his free-will.

Remarkably, Erasmus identifies Paul as "the champion of free choice." Referring to passages in which Paul exhorts and commands, Erasmus says that this implies the ability to obey. An example is I Corinthians 9:24,25: "Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain. And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible." Man is able to obey this command because he has a free-will.

These texts can be placed together because Luther responds to them as a whole. Luther does treat many of these texts separately, but often comes back to the same point. Luther's response to Genesis 4:7 applies to all of the commands and conditions to which Erasmus refers: "Man is shown, not what he can do, but what he ought to do." Similarly, Luther responds to Deuteronomy 30:19: "It is from this passage that I derive my answer to you: that by the words of the law man is admonished and taught, not what he can do, but what he ought to do; that is, that he may know sin, not that he may believe that he has any strength." The exhortations and commands of the New Testament given through the apostle Paul are not written to show what we can do, but rather, after the gospel is preached, they encourage those justified and saved to live in the Spirit.

From these passages, Erasmus also taught that man merited salvation by his obedience or a man merited punishment by his disobedience, all of which was based on man's ability according to his free-will. Erasmus jumps from reward to merit. He does this in the conditional phrases of Scripture especially. But Luther says that merit is not proved from reward. God uses rewards in Scripture to exhort us and threaten us so that the godly persevere. Rewards are not that which a man merits.

The heart of the battle of the biblical texts is found in their treatment of passages from the book of Romans, especially Romans 9. Here, Erasmus treats Romans 9 as a passage which seems to oppose the freedom of the will but does not.

Erasmus begins his treatment of Romans 9 by considering the hardening of Pharaoh's heart. He treats this in connection with what Romans 9:18 says, "Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will, he hardeneth." To interpret this passage, Erasmus turns to Jerome, who says, "God hardens when he does not at once punish the sinner and has mercy as soon as he invites repentance by means of afflictions." God's hardening and mercy are the results of what man does. God has mercy "on those who recognize the goodness of God and repent…." Also, this hardening is not something which God does, but something which Pharaoh did by not repenting. God was longsuffering to Pharaoh, not punishing him immediately, during which Pharaoh hardened his heart. God simply gave the occasion for the hardening of his heart. Therefore the blame can be placed on Pharaoh.

Although Erasmus claims to take the literal meaning of the passage, Luther is outraged at this interpretation. Luther objects:

To put it in a word: the result of your exegetical license is that by your new, unheard-of grammar everything is thrown topsy-turvy. When God says: 'I will harden the heart of Pharaoh,' you change the persons, and take it thus: 'Pharaoh hardens himself by my long-suffering'! 'God hardens our hearts' means: 'we harden ourselves while God postpones punishment.'

Showing the absurdity of what Erasmus says, Luther says that this view means that God shows mercy when He sends Israel into captivity because then they are invited to repent; but when Israel is brought back from captivity, He hardens them by giving them the opportunity of hardening in His longsuffering. This is "topsy-turvy."

Positively, Luther explains this hardening of the heart of Pharaoh. God does this, therefore Pharaoh's heart is necessarily hardened. But God does not do something which is opposed to the nature of Pharaoh. Pharoah is enslaved to sin. When he hears the word of God through Moses which irritates his evil will, Pharaoh's heart is hardened. Luther explains it this way:

As soon as God presents to it from without something that naturally irritates and offends it, Pharaoh cannot escape the acting of the divine omnipotence and the perversion and villainy of his own will. So God's hardening of Pharaoh is wrought thus: God presents from without to his villainous heart that which by nature he hates. At the same time, He continues by omnipotent action to move within him the evil will which He finds there. Pharaoh by reason of the villainy of his will, cannot but hate what opposes him, and trust to his own strength; and he grows so obstinate that he will not listen nor reflect, but is swept along in the grip of Satan like a raging madman.

In his consideration of Jacob and Esau in Romans 9, Erasmus denies that this passage speaks of predestination. Erasmus says God does not hate anybody from eternity. But God's wrath and fury against sin are revealed on Esau because He knows the sins he will commit. In this connection, when Romans 9 speaks of God as the potter making a vessel of honor and dishonor, Erasmus says that God does this because of their belief and unbelief. Erasmus is trying to deny the necessity of the fulfillment of God's decree in order to support the freedom of the will.

Once again, Luther objects. Luther defends the necessity of consequence to what God decrees. Luther says, "If God foreknows a thing, it necessarily takes place." Therefore, in regard to Jacob and Esau, they did not attain their positions by their own free-will. Romans 9 emphasizes that they were not yet born and that they had not yet done good or evil. Without any works of obedience or disobedience, the one was master and the other was the servant. Jacob was rewarded not on the basis of anything he had done. Jacob was loved and Esau was hated even before the world began. Jacob loved God because God loved him. Therefore the source of salvation is not the free-will of man, but God's eternal decree. Paul is not the great champion of the freedom of the will.

In defense of the literal meaning of Romans 9:21-23, Luther shows that these verses oppose free-will as well. Luther examines the passage in the context of what Paul is saying. The emphasis in the earlier verses is not man, but what God does. He is sovereign in salvation. Here also, the emphasis is the potter. God is sovereign, almighty, and free. Man is enslaved to sin and acts out of necessity according to all God decrees. Luther shows that this is the emphasis of Romans 9 with sound exegetical work.

After refuting the texts to which Erasmus refers, Luther continues to show that Scripture denies the freedom of the will and teaches the sovereignty of God in salvation. He begins with Romans 1:18 which says, "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness." Luther says this means all men are ungodly and are unrighteous. Therefore, all deserve the wrath of God. The best a man can do is evil. Referring to Romans 3:9, Luther proves the same thing. Both Jews and Greeks are all under sin. They will and do nothing but evil. Man has no power to seek after good because there is none that doeth good (Ps. 14:3). Therefore, men are "ignorant of and despise God! Here is unbelief, disobedience, sacrilege, blasphemy towards God, cruelty and mercilessness towards one's neighbors and love of self in all things of God and man." Luther's conclusion to the matter is this: man is enslaved to sin.

Man cannot obtain salvation by his works. Romans 3:20 says that by the works of the law no man can be justified in God's sight. It is impossible for a man to merit salvation by his works. Salvation must be the sovereign work of God.

Luther thunders against free-will in connection with Romans 3:21-16 which proclaims salvation by grace alone through faith.58 Free-will is opposed to faith. These are two different ways of salvation. Luther shows that a man cannot be saved by his works, therefore it must be by faith in Jesus Christ. Justification is free, of grace, and without works because man possesses no worthiness for it.

Finally, we notice that Luther points out the comprehensive terms of the apostle Paul to show that there is no free-will in man. All are sinners. There is none that is righteous, and none that doeth good. Paul uses many others also. Therefore, justification and salvation are without works and without the law.

Over against the idea of free-will stands the clear teaching of Scripture. Luther clearly exegetes God's Word to show this. In summary, the truth of predestination denies the free-will of man. Because salvation is by grace and faith, salvation is not by works. Faith and grace are of no avail if salvation is by the works of man. Also, the only thing the law works is wrath. The law displays the unworthiness, sinfulness, and guilt of man. As children of Adam we can do no good. Luther argues along these lines to show that a free-will does not exist in man. Salvation is by grace alone.

The Main Issues and Implications of Each View

Luther is not interested in abstract theological concepts. He does not take up this debate with Erasmus on a purely intellectual level. The main issue is salvation: how does God save? Luther himself defines the issue on which the debate hinges:

So it is not irreligious, idle, or superfluous, but in the highest degree wholesome and necessary, for a Christian to know whether or not his will has anything to do in matters pertaining to salvation…. This is the hinge on which our discussion turns, the crucial issue between us.

Luther finds it necessary to investigate from Scripture what ability the will of man has and how this is related to God and His grace. If one does not know this, he does not know Christianity. Luther brings this against Erasmus because he shows no interest in the truth regarding how it is that some are saved.

Although the broad issue of the debate is how God saves, the specific issue is the sovereignty of God in salvation. The main issue for Luther is that man does not have a free-will by which he merits eternal life, but God sovereignly saves those whom He has chosen.

Luther is pursuing the question, "Is God, God?" This means, is God the omnipotent who reigns over all and who sovereignly saves, or does He depend on man? If God depends on man for anything, then He is not God. Therefore Luther asks the question of himself: Who will try to reform his life, believe, and love God? His answer, "Nobody." No man can do this of himself. He needs God. "The elect, who fear God, will be reformed by the Holy Spirit; the rest will perish unreformed." Luther defends this truth so vigorously because it is the heart of the gospel. God is the sovereign God of salvation. If salvation depends on the works of man, he cannot be saved.

Certain implications necessarily follow from the views of salvation defended by both men. First, we must consider the implications which show the falsehood of Erasmus' view of salvation.

When Erasmus speaks of merit, he is really speaking as a Pelagian. This was offensive to Erasmus because he specifically claimed that he was not a Pelagian. But Luther rightly points out that Erasmus says man merits salvation. According to the idea of merit, man performs an act separate from God, which act is the basis of salvation. He deserves a reward. This is opposed to grace. Therefore, if merit is at all involved, man saves himself. This makes Erasmus no different from the Pelagians except that the Pelagians are honest. Pelagians honestly confess that man merits eternal life. Erasmus tries to give the appearance that he is against the Pelagians although he really is a Pelagian. Packer and Johnston make this analysis:

Erasmus had supposed that by stressing the smallness of the power which man can exercise, and of the merit which he can gain in his own strength, he was softening the offence of his Pelagian principles and moving closer to the Augustinian position, which denies all merit and ascribes salvation wholly to God.

According to Luther, Erasmus does not succeed in moving closer to the Augustinian position. Instead, he cheapens the purchase of God's grace. Luther says:

This hypocrisy of theirs results in their valuing and seeking to purchase the grace of God at a much cheaper rate than the Pelagians. The latter assert that it is not by a feeble something within us that we obtain grace, but by efforts and works that are complete, entire, perfect, many and mighty; but our friends here tell us that it is by something very small, almost nothing, that we merit grace.

The Pelagians base salvation upon works; men work for their own righteousness. But Erasmus has cheapened the price which must be paid for salvation. Because only a small work of man is needed to merit salvation, God is not so great and mighty. Man only needs to choose God and choose the good. God's character is tarnished with the teaching of Erasmus. This semi-Pelagianism is worse than Pelagianism, for little is required to earn salvation. As Packer and Johnston say, "that is to belittle salvation and to insult God."

Another implication of the synergistic view of salvation held to by Erasmus is that God is not God. Because salvation depends upon the free-will of man according to Erasmus, man ascribes divinity to himself. God is not God because He depends upon man. Man himself determines whether or not he will be saved. Therefore the study of soteriology is not the study of what God does in salvation, but soteriology is a study of what man does with God to deserve eternal life.

This means God's grace is not irresistible, but man can reject the grace of God. Man then has more power than God. God watches passively to see what man will do.

Finally, a serious implication of the view of Erasmus is that he denies salvation is found in Jesus Christ alone. In his Diatribe, Erasmus rarely mentions Jesus Christ. This shows something is wrong. This does follow from what Erasmus says. The emphasis for Erasmus is what man must do to be saved and not on what God has done in Jesus Christ. Therefore Jesus Christ is not the only way of salvation and is not that important.

Over against the implications of Erasmus' view are the orthodox implications of Luther's view. God is sovereign in salvation. God elects His people, He sent Jesus Christ, and reveals Jesus Christ only to His people. It is God who turns the enslaved wills of His people so that they seek after Him. Salvation does not depend upon the work of man in any sense.

The basis of salvation is Jesus Christ alone. Because man is enslaved to sin, He must be turned from that sin. He must be saved from that sin through the satisfaction of the justice of God. A man needs the work of Jesus Christ on the cross to be saved. A man needs the new life of Jesus Christ in order to inherit eternal life. The merits of man do not save because he merits nothing with God. A man needs the merits of Jesus Christ for eternal life. A man needs faith by which he is united to Christ.

The source of this salvation is election. God saves only those whom He elects. Those who receive that new life of Christ are those whom God has chosen. God is sovereign in salvation.

Because God is sovereign in salvation, His grace cannot be resisted. Erasmus says that the reason some do not believe is because they reject the grace which God has given to them. Luther implies that God does not show grace to all men. Instead, He saves and shows favor only to those who are His children. In them, God of necessity, efficaciously accomplishes His purpose.

Because man cannot merit eternal life, saving faith is not a work of man by which he merits anything with God. Works do not justify a man. Salvation is the work of God alone in Jesus Christ and through the Holy Spirit. Faith is a gift of God whereby we are united to Jesus Christ and receive the new life found in Him. Even the knowledge and confidence as the activity of faith are the gifts of faith.

Finally, only with this view of salvation that God is sovereign can a man have comfort that he will be saved. Because God is sovereign in salvation and because His counsel is immutable, we cannot fall from the grace of God. He preserves those who are His children. Erasmus could not have this comfort because he held that man determines his own salvation.

The Importance of This Controversy Today

Although this controversy happened almost five hundred years ago, it is significant for the church today. The error of "semi-Pelagianism" is still alive in the church today. Much of the church world sides with Erasmus today, even among those who claim to be "Reformed." If a "Reformed" or Lutheran church denies what Luther says and sides with Erasmus, they despise the reformation of the church in the sixteenth century. They might as well go back to the Roman Catholic Church.

This controversy is important today because many deny that Jesus Christ is the only way of salvation. A man can worship heathen gods and be saved. This follows from making works the basis of salvation. Over against this error, Martin Luther proclaimed the sovereignty of God in salvation. He proclaimed Jesus Christ as the only way of salvation. We must do the same.

The error of Pelagianism attacks the church in many different forms. We have seen that in the history of the Protestant Reformed Churches. The sovereignty of God in salvation has been attacked by the errors of common grace and a conditional covenant. Over against these errors, some in the church world have remained steadfast by the grace of God. God does not love all. Nor does He show favor to all men in the preaching of gospel. Erasmus himself said that God showed grace to all men and God does not hate any man. The Arminians said the same thing at the time of the Synod of Dordt. Yet, men who defend common grace claim to be Reformed. They are not.

Also, in this synergistic view of salvation, we see the principles of the bilateral, conditional covenant view which is in many "Reformed" churches. If God and man work together in salvation, then the covenant must be a pact in which both God and man must hold up each one's end of the agreement. Over against this we must proclaim the sovereignty of God in salvation especially in regard to the covenant. The covenant is not conditional and bilateral. God works unconditionally and unilaterally in the covenant of grace.

Finally, we must apply the truth of the sovereignty of God defended by Luther to ourselves. We could say there is a Pelagian in all of us. We know God sovereignly saves, but we often show by our practice that we proudly want to sneak a few of our works in the back door. We must depend upon God for all things.

May this truth which Martin Luther defended, the truth of the sovereignty of God in salvation, be preserved in the church.

[jo kus]

I might welcome oral teachings as a compliment to scriptures if they are in support of what is already in the Bible, or at the very least, not contradictory to it.

That's well and good, but one's interpretation should not be the rule of faith of Christianity. Christianity is NOT a religion of the book, but of a God-man, Jesus Christ. If anything, it is quite amazing how Christianity often had to SEPERATE themselves from the "book", the commonly-held interpretation of the Bible. For example, "he who hangs on a tree is condemned". The book says Jesus is condemned. But we base our religion on the experience of the Risen Lord, which was prophesied by reading this book in a CERTAIN MANNER! As a result, by slavishly following "the book" while disregarding Christian interpretations of it, I find it difficult to understand how one can accuse those first Christians of "contradicting" Scripture, as if that disqualifies one from being Christian. The Bible was NEVER their first and only rule of faith! Christians found that they HAD to "contradict" the commonly-held notions to explain their cognitive dissonance that they experienced.

Before condemning an interpretation, one SHOULD look at what the FIRST Christians did and practiced. It is possible that your own interpretations might be incorrect - since you are far removed in time and culture from the original authors of Scripture, the Apostles.

Regards

[jo kus]

However that is different that saying Jonah is a story meant to convey a spiritual truth or it was impossible for the Great Flood to cover the entire world. The Bible clearly states this to be so.

The Bible does NOT make that clear! Jonah does not begin "this is a true story, it is not a parable"...As to the Great Flood, the Scriptures can be interpreted to mean the entire KNOWN world. It is unlikely that men in Israel would have knowledge about people in North America. It is just as acceptable to say that God flooded only the world of Noah.

It has always been held by the early church fathers (and even our pre-Christ Hebrew fathers) that the Bible was the error free writing of God given to man. The early church fathers took great care to distinguish between God's word by setting it aside in the scriptures we have today.

But it is also clear that the Church Fathers did not always take the literalist view of Scripture. There is a whole school from Clement of Alexandria (with Origen as his prime student) that delved into allegory readings of Scriptures. St. Augustine himself wrote a whole book on the Literal interpretation of Genesis, saying it was acceptable to read the Creation account in a spiritual sense - not taken literally. St. Thomas Aquinas ALSO noted, while refering to other Fathers, that it could be seen that animals evolved and changed by noting nature. Thus, it is incorrect to say that the Church looks ONLY to the literal view of Scriptures. Example? There are numerous interpretations of the Song of Songs - and very few of them (none, I'd think) see it as an erotic love story...

Today many want to distance themselves from this position claiming there are all sorts of astronomical, geographical, or zoological errors, so the scripture must be only for "spiritual awareness". This is utter nonsense. Would you want to make the claim the Virgin Birth is biologically impossible so that it must be "spiritual" interpretation? There have been people who have made such claims.

These are two separate things. The Virgin Birth can NEVER be disproved by scientific means. We will NEVER have such empirical evidence. However, modern science CAN tell us that the earth took longer than 6 literal days to form, through EMPIRICAL means. By scientific study, we find evidence of rocks that are greater than 6000 years old. God is the God of nature as well as Scripture. HE does NOT lie. Thus, either our INTERPETATION of Scripture is incorrect, or science is incorrect. I think their is ample evidence to hold that science is correct - BUT - the Church does NOT make an infallible declaration one way or the other. One is able to hold, with clear conscience, either view (FK, another example of that Catholic flexibility!). As a Catholic, we are not held to the literal interpretation of Genesis 1-3, scientifically speaking. However, it IS inerrant in that what God wanted to say was infallibly said. Apparently, God wasn't telling us that the earth was created in 6 literal days, but something else. God was using a creation story to pass along information about Himself and man, about how HE created the universe out of love, and so forth.

There is nothing "novel" about Christianity nor was there anything novel about it at the time.

Whoa, nelly! Hold on there! If Christianity wasn't novel, how come so many Jews did NOT convert? Where does the Hebrew Bible explicitly spell out that the Messiah must hang from a tree? Or that the Messiah must rise from the dead? Or the idea that God became man? Or that there was three persons in one God? Or that during their communion feast, the followers would eat the body of their savior??? Or that the community no longer had to observe circumcision or dietary laws, or a change in the sabbath day???? A Jewish reading of the Scripture found Christianity to be QUITE novel.

In fact Paul takes great pains to show that our belief system is exactly as Abraham. I believe there is a thread on this showing how we are losing this view

OF COURSE he does! But notice how few Jews actually buy into it! Do you think the original Jews reading the letter of Paul to the Romans understood that letter with the same authority as the Torah??? To the Jews, Paul was crazy and a destroyer of the Law. Of course WE read Paul's writings differently. But Jews at the time didn't make the connection. There was a major cognitive dissonance going on with early Christianity - between what was in Hebrew Scriptures did NOT match up with their experience of the Risen Lord. (for example, Deuteronomy says that "he who hangs from a tree is condemend". A sola Scriptura view of the OT would say that Jesus was NOT the Messiah). Those who hadn't experienced the Risen Lord would consider the Gospel to be foolishness and a stumbling block.

Regards

[Forest Keeper]

I think, though, that this realization makes it such that the average Orthodox Christian spends amounts of time at prayer in church that would astonish the average "drive-through" American Christian.

I'm sure that it would, and I admire the devotion.

[HarleyD]

Jonah does not begin "this is a true story, it is not a parable"

Our Lord Jesus refried to many events such as Adam and Eve, Noah, the Queen of Sheba and Jonah as real events.

As to the Great Flood, the Scriptures can be interpreted to mean the entire KNOWN world.

While others would disagree, I don't have a problem with that interpretation and I think it can be supported scripturally assuming one would say that everyone on earth perish except those in the Ark.

But it is also clear that the Church Fathers did not always take the literalist view of Scripture.

Yes, I don't know of any Christian, Protestant or Catholic that takes every single thing in scripture literally.

However, modern science CAN tell us that the earth took longer than 6 literal days to form, through EMPIRICAL means. By scientific study, we find evidence of rocks that are greater than 6000 years old. God is the God of nature as well as Scripture. HE does NOT lie.

If you believe the Virgin Birth as a miracle than why not creation? Science can prove that a virgin can't give birth under EMPIRICAL means. Science HAS NO PROOF that the world was formed over billions of years. God is a God of nature but that God can also make the sun stand still, part the Red Sea and cause an iron ax head to float. People can look at a rock and believe it to be far older but they cannot duplicate it in laboratory conditions. I will say I have my own personal take on this but it is unorthodox to say the least.

"If Christianity wasn't novel, how come so many Jews did NOT convert?" They did. They're called Christians.

"Where does the Hebrew Bible explicitly spell out that the Messiah must hang from a tree?" Isaiah - "bruised for our transgressions"

Or that the Messiah must rise from the dead? Our Lord Jesus stated Jonah was this type but it was concealed from even the apostles.

"Or the idea that God became man?" King David - I said to my Lord

"Or that there was three persons in one God?" Genesis - Let us make man in our image

"Or that during their communion feast, the followers would eat the body of their savior???" Nowhere-that's Catholic doctrine. Thought you throw me a curve, eh? ;O)

A Jewish reading of the Scripture found Christianity to be QUITE novel.

Not to Paul. He understood it very clearly. Not to the Bereans. They searched the scriptures.

"But notice how few Jews actually buy into it!"

This is your synergistic Arminian view rearing its ugly head. Where is the grace of God or God will have mercy on those who He will have mercy? The Lord Jesus specifically stated He didn't come to call the righteous to repentance but the sinners. It doesn't matter how "few" bought into it. The people who God chose to be merciful to were the ones who He established His church with; and they did a pretty good job.

I am reminded of Gideon who God told to attack the Midianites. Gideon had a whole army at his disposal but God wanted the glory and said that He would conquer the entire Midianite army with but 300 of the weakest men and He did just that (Judges 7). The church doesn't rest on our shoulders but God's.

[annalex]

The alternative is to say that only some bear the sin of Adam as opposed to others.

This is exacly what is being argued for Blessed Mary and John the Baptist, as well as Christ himself. Do not forget the children and the insane either.

[annalex]

How are these passages [Mark 2:7 and John 20:23] reconciled?

On the face of the former, they don't even need to be, as it is the pharisees say that only God can forgive sin. But even taking the word of the Pharisees as inspired in this instance, Christ (God) has placed the Holy Ghost (God) into the apostles and then empowered them to forgive sin. The only reason this is met with any mental resistance in the Protestant world is the extrascriptural anticlerical indoctrination.

[annalex]

I am unaware of a case where Jesus quoted oral tradition as authority, whereas he quoted scripture as authority very often.

It is true, but neither do we consider Jewish traditions as authority. We consider the word of Christ as authority, and all of it was initially oral.

Much of what Christ said has never been committed to paper, as is clear from the Gospels themselves. Many times Christ is described teaching the multitudes but the content of the teaching is not revealed. One can speak the words of Christ as recorded in the Gospel in the space of 30 minutes at the most, -- where is the rest? He spent about three years teaching. Likewise, St Paul and St. John mention that they would rather come and talk than write, and their ministry took years and years.

We can assume that the essential teaching of Christ is expressed in the Gospel; the gnostic heresy that there is or was an essentially different hidden teaching was condemned by the keeper of the totality of the revelation, the Church. Nevertheless, that leaves the commentary and the clarifications to the recorded doctrine, and that Holy Tradition was committed to writing in a non-Canonical way as the patristic legacy, the hymnody and the iconography.

[jo kus]

Our Lord Jesus refried to many events such as Adam and Eve, Noah, the Queen of Sheba and Jonah as real events.

Wasn't Jesus refering to the Jonah STORY? Jesus can refer to a fictional charecter as well as I can refer to a comic strip charecter. Can't I say something like "Did you see how Dilbert made fun of that engineer?" Does that mean that Dilbert existed?

If you believe the Virgin Birth as a miracle than why not creation? Science can prove that a virgin can't give birth under EMPIRICAL means.

Science can only observe nature. They make the basis of their hypothesis on this datum. They cannot ABSOLUTELY tell us that something will happen, only that based on past observable data, we can infer with a high probability that a woman cannot give birth to a child without male sexual interaction. Of course, technically speaking, women CAN give birth while remaining a virgin today, through artificial means! Thus, science can only give us its conclusions on ordinary observations, and thus, cannot take into account a divine intervention. Anyone who disagrees with that has philosphical presumptions at the heart of their so-called science.

Science HAS NO PROOF that the world was formed over billions of years.

Science does have a fair amount of evidence. It has fairly good evidence that the earth is older than 6000 years. Again, this is from observation of nature. And in this case, we are proving a positively observable phenomenom, the existence of million year old rocks, not whether NO WOMAN can give birth without having sex, a negative. Logically, it is impossible to disprove a negative. All it means is that we haven't observed one such event yet. That doesn't make it impossible.

God is a God of nature but that God can also make the sun stand still, part the Red Sea and cause an iron ax head to float. People can look at a rock and believe it to be far older but they cannot duplicate it in laboratory conditions. I will say I have my own personal take on this but it is unorthodox to say the least.

Are you saying that God is "fooling" scientific study regarding the age of the world? Science dates rocks through a well-known and reasonable manner. Could it be wrong? Sure. But for us, there is a reasonable amount of information available, scientifically, to question whether God intended Genesis 1-2 to be scientifically accurate. THEOLOGICALLY, it is inerrant. Astronomically, I question it. Perhaps you are aware of the Church's high respect for scientific study that predates the Reformation. Even these men had their doubts about the "newness" of the earth. Men such as St. Augustine. They realized that nature came into being SOLELY by God - but that HOW He did it is not necessarily stated in Scriptures.

They did. They're called Christians.

Relatively few converted during the time of Paul.

bruised for our transgressions

That CAN be taken to mean the NATION of Israel OR a servant of God - but it is not necessary to take that to mean THE Messiah. Isaiah does not state that this man would be the Messiah. And very few people understood him in that manner among the Jews. Thus, the stumbling block of Deuteronomy.

Our Lord Jesus stated Jonah was this type but it was concealed from even the apostles.

So how would you expect the Jews to pick up on this if the men who followed Jesus around for three years couldn't figure it out? Read the end of Mark's Gospel. Even AFTER the resurrection, they still had "doubts"... I find this quite amazing and indicative of how Christian interpretation of the OT is a novel spin on Hebrew Scriptures - one that very few Jews admitted to.

King David - I said to my Lord

Again, this is subject to interpretation. A Jew reading his scripture does NOT have to read it that way.

Or that during their communion feast, the followers would eat the body of their savior???" Nowhere-that's Catholic doctrine. Thought you throw me a curve, eh? ;O)

Well, I wasn't trying to! I am merely relating the first ancient witnesses of Christianity, St. Ignatius, St. Justin the Martyr, and even Roman writers, such as Pliny. They all realized that Christians were doing something out of the ordinary with bread and wine. It should be quite clear that a reader of John 6, say, a Jew, would be offended by such writings, just as the first hearers. The Romans often accused Christians of being cannabalistic... Ask yourself, "why?" Why do Christians insist that they are eating the Body of their savior when pressed by the Roman interrogators? Seems like they actually believed it - your interpretation 1900 years later notwithstanding.

Not to Paul. He understood it very clearly. Not to the Bereans. They searched the scriptures.

So did the Thessalonians (who rejected Paul) whom Paul compares the Bereans to! Paul considered them more worthy because they believed Paul. I would think that Paul was able to convince the Bereans based on the power of the Spirit, not the writings of the Hebrew Scriptures. They searched the Scriptures with open hearts, perhaps heard Paul's teachings on the Suffering Servant, and, by the Spirit's indwelling, were able to overcome the obstacle that every Jew faced - that Jesus' Messiahship, according to them - had failed. The Messiah was suppposed to make things better and would free them from captivity. Jesus flaunted the commonly-held interpretation of the Law, the Romans still were in control, and Jesus was ultimately condemned to hang on a tree. AS A JEW, the Scripture is not very convincing as a tool for conversion...It is only through the Power of the Holy Spirit that Paul would be able to convince ANY Jews.

I wrote : But notice how few Jews actually buy into it!"

You responded :"This is your synergistic Arminian view rearing its ugly head. Where is the grace of God or God will have mercy on those who He will have mercy?

Ah, the old fall-back. It's all God's omniscence, His plan. When all else fails, fall back on "it's God's will". Well, doesn't this go against the idea you have that "God only died for the elect?" What was Christ's purpose of coming and teaching to the Jews who would largely ignore Him? Using your theology, wouldn't it had been more proper for God to teach the Gentiles? That He would spread His Word to those Gentiles who He had foreknowledge about?

My point was not to get into God's manners and ways. The point was that Christianity WAS an INNOVATION, one that the typical Jew would have been hard-pressed to accept, simply because their was a cognitive dissonance between Scriptures and what the Christians were claiming - a crucified Savior! WHERE in Jewish tradition do we see such an expectation? IF Isaiah's suffering servant was part of mainstream Judaism (interpreting these passages as we do today), Jesus would have certainly been more understood and accepted by other Jews. Even Peter tried to convince the Lord NOT to undergo suffering. They had no clue about any such suffering servant and the Messiah being the same person.

The church doesn't rest on our shoulders but God's.

Why do you think I am Catholic still? I'd be out the door to some easy-going Protestant fluff if I didn't believe that Christ established His Church among the people who would later be called "Catholic" by St. Ignatius less than eighty years later. I'd sure love to have a nice big thick steak today! Fasting? HA! Why bother, if I could just find a nice "health and wealth" community that bought into the "once saved - always saved" garbage. Then I could do whatever I wanted, because I had declared that God has already chosen me, no matter what I do...

I remain Catholic because I believe it has the fullness of God's revelation, not because it has the best human explanations of a book.

Regards

[kosta50]

I think jo kus already answered your comments exhaustively, but I feel I owe you an answer because your post was directed at me.

Factual errors exist in the Bible, whether it has to do with two different ages of some Jewish king, or the number of children of some Jewish woman, or with the confusion having to deal with what species of living things does a bat or a hare belong to (unless they evolved into present day species), etc.

So, now it is necessary to redefine what is meant by "error." The Bible cannot err in its message of God, because it is a message of love. That much we know. If you can find anything but love in everything the Bible proclaims, you are not reading it correctly because it would be contrary to God being Love.

I will be the first to admit that I often scratch my head and say "where is love in all this?" But that is my failing and when I ask others to show me they can't either, although they claim they see nothing but love in all of it! Which is soooo not convincing indeed...

I will also be frank with you all: my faith comes from God and not from the Bible. The Bible reveals God's Creation and God's Divine Economy, but does not "put" God into your heart. I also know that God's perfect love that I know through Him is expressed in imperfect language and intellect of man.

When you mix Perfect with imperfect you corrupt the Perfect even if you don't desire it, and even if your hand is guided by the Holy Spirit simply because there are no words to express the Perfect, nor could our minds comprehend the Perfect, so our knowledge and expression of the Perfect is always imperfect.

Which is precisely the reason the Fathers held from the beginning that understanding Scripture is a special gift from God and not something to be attained by pure intellect, and henceforth not available to everyone.

Hence, the power of the simple formula we all understand in our hearts but cannot show empirically in its totality -- God is Love. Oh, we can show hormonal and electrical changes in our bodies when we feel loved, but they all fall short of what the experience of love is. Such "empirical evidence" is not even recognizable as love.

But, love, although manifested physically (poorly nonetheless) is not physical or subject to physical laws at all! It is eternal and unlimited. Those whom you love truly today you will love the same tomorrow and forever, not matter where they are, no matter how far. It transcends time and space and all physical barriers and limitations of nature.

Thus we speak of love being limitless, priceless, "great" and "warm", "burning," something we would give up our own life for, our a kidney or an eye if need be, and yet no one can put a dimension or shape to it (heart is merely an "icon" of love).

Yet, although no one has ever seen love, we all claim to know love, even how to recognize love. Love supersedes our reason and logic and we "fall in(to) love," cleaving to the one we are in love with but cannot explain why, and even admit to being blinded by it.

All these terms we use in our daily experience that is known to us as true and very real, yet they cannot be measured, described, or illustrated in their , apply, forst and foremost to God; yeah, especially to God! So, when we find Love in the Bible, we know that it is true, because we know it already. That is our infallible "proof" that the Bible is inerrant.

Now, considering your silly comment about the Mystery of the Virgin Birth, as is the case with the mystery of the Holy Trinity, etc. as jo kus says, science has no power to (dis)prove it! Nor is it the purpose of science to do so. Not is it in the power of the science to prove or disprove God. Quite to the contrary, science only reveals the unimaginable power and glory of God.

Just the fact that we learn more and more about Nature proves that with God everything is possible. We certainly include the Virgin Birth in that, and a Big Flood. But, I can see the Virgin Birth happening much more than God changing His mind as if surprised and disappointed with mankind and deciding to drown the whole rotten lot along with its animals (what have the animals done to deserve that?).

The Virgin Birth makes sense in our Salvation; drowning the whole world because we turned out wicked on God's watch is not as clear. Surely, God had other options at hand! If God's revelation to man has to do with our redemption, out of love, and return to Him, then the Virgin Birth is certainly a big part in our soteriology, and more importantly a necessary step in its realization. The Big Flood is not. God could have killed every living thing, including Noah, and re-created man just as easily.

[Forest Keeper]

FK: "I don't agree (that the word "alone" is not required in Rom 3:28)"

Which rule of English language requires the word "alone" to qualify an idea when only one thing is excluded from a statement? Again, you are reading what is not there for the sake of your theology.

Actually, I'm not the one who is reading what is not there, I'm just reading what IS there and taking it at face value. You are the one who is building in all the "buts" and "except fors" that are plainly not there. You are the one who consistently inserts exceptions into scripture to make it match Tradition. When scripture matches Tradition, there is no need for addition, when it doesn't, then the true meaning is ...

EVERY parable that Jesus speaks of regarding the Kingdom of Heaven talks about rewards to heaven OR damnation to exclusion of heaven. ... I am not sure where you get this Scripture idea that judgment determines what seat we will get at the table. I think we should explore this more...

I understand that is your interpretation, and I respectfully disagree. Here is an excerpt from the article The Joy of Heavenly Rewards by Matt Perman:

Where does the Bible teach degrees of happiness?

"According to the Bible, how we live for God on earth will result in a greater or lesser enjoyment of His glory in heaven. For example, Paul said "This light and momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, because we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen, for the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal" (2 Corinthians 4:17-18). John Piper comments on these verses: "Paul's affliction is `preparing' or `effecting' or `bringing about' a weight of glory beyond all comparison. We must take seriously Paul's words here. He is not merely saying that he has a great hope in heaven that enables him to endure suffering. That is true. But here he says that the suffering has an effect on the weight of glory. There seems to be a connection between the suffering endured and the degree of glory enjoyed." In other words, our experience of God's glory in heaven "seems to be more or less, depending in part on the affliction we have endured with patient faith."

"In the same line of thought is Matthew 5:11-12: "Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and say all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad for your reward is great in heaven." Again, "If a Christian who suffers much for Jesus and one who does not suffer much experience God's final glory in exactly the same way and degree, it would seem strange to tell the suffering Christian to rejoice and be glad (in that very day, cf. Luke 6:23) because of the reward he would receive even if he did not suffer. The reward promised seems to be in response to the suffering and a specific recompense for it."

"Suffering is not the only thing that brings about a greater reward in heaven. Our faithfulness to Christ in doing good works for His glory will also have a bearing on our degree of happiness (or, reward) in heaven. To the slave who made ten pounds it was said "Well done, good slave, because you have been faithful in a very little thing, be in authority over ten cities" whereas the slave who made five pounds was told "And you are to be over five cities" (Luke 19:17-19; cf. Revelation 22:5; 2:26, 27). And in 1 Corinthians 3:10-15 Paul explains that the quality of each Christian's work will be revealed at the judgment. He concludes by saying "If any man's work which he has built upon it [the foundation of Jesus Christ] remains, he shall receive a reward. If any man's work is burned up, he shall suffer loss; but he himself shall be saved, yet so as through fire" (vv. 14-15)."

HE rewards us based on our actions - but all is a gift. We cannot say "God, I did such and such, you OWE me heaven." Not even the most holy man can say that.

Of course God doesn't "owe" us anything, but this is another example of salvation depending on the decisions of man, his actions. Then, in the same breath you will say that everything comes from God. These do not match under the theory of free will. At some point you are going to have to admit that man is, by himself and independent of God, partially responsible for his own salvation, in your view.

He who works expects payment, wages. Thus, it is no longer gift. Works of the law and deeds of love are often times the exact same action, but internalized completely differently.

OK, I might see what you're talking about now. I always thought you were drawing a distinction based on whether someone got money or not. But now it seems like you are focusing on the motivation of the "worker". If the motivation is to get something of value in return, it is a "work". If a thing is done out of love for God, then it is not a "work". Is this what you are saying? If so, since I claim that perseverance is necessary, I would have to agree with you.

[TBC ...]

[Agrarian]

I will try to be brief, since I made my views on these subjects pretty clear in my lengthy exchange with Kosta.

Kosta perceptively pointed out in one of his posts that he and I agree on the basic premise that the Bible cannot be used as a scientific textbook or infallible source of historical details. The other half of his perceptive comment was that he disagreed with most of his Orthodox brethren on where to draw the line with regard to what he is willing to believe as factually true in the Bible.

As I have reflected on this thread, one of the things that struck me was that the "argument" that Kosta and I were having is a very rare one within Orthodoxy. In fact, I'm not sure that I've witnessed in print or person any similar discussion of note. It is the kind of discussion that we tend only to have when we are in a situation like this, with non-Orthodox participants.

As with so many things in Orthodoxy, we seem simultaneously to hold to mutually exclusive positions. On the one hand, we know good and well that at least some of what we believe to be true in the Bible, the lives of saints, etc... has to be not quite true, or not true at all. On the other hand, Orthodox Christians tends to take a stance of belief toward the entire body of Tradition, including the entire Bible.

jo kus stated that the Fathers of the Church do not always take a literalist view of the Scriptures, and pointed out the Alexandrian school. This is very true. But I would point out that the Antiochian school took a different emphasis: one of rather literal interpretation. Both are reflecting means of exegesis that we see in the Scriptures themselves.

Origen himself, in what I have read of him, didn't take the view that the literal stories weren't true in Scripture -- as I mentioned before, look at his famous defense of the literal truth of the story of Daniel and Suzannah in the Apocrypha against the smirking attacks of Julius Africanus. It is an exchange that could be right out of a "liberal vs. conservative" Biblical scholar argument today -- and Origen is the conservative.

What Origen and the Alexandrian school wanted to make sure of was that the Church not take *only* the literal meaning of Scripture. They also wanted to make the point that the spiritual meaning is the most important meaning of every passage of Scripture. In the process, they emphasized the allegorical aspect to the point of making the Antiochians (again I'm painting broadly) feel that they were casting the literal meanings into doubt, which for the most part, I don't think they were.

The Church ultimately decided that both "schools" were correct (which shouldn't surprise us, since both were based on Scriptural precedents.) We basically accept the stories as all being true. We acknowledge somewhere in the backs of our minds that perhaps not every detail is true. And we have such a strong emphasis on the importance of the Spiritual meaning that it generally doesn't occur to us to argue about whether Job or Jonah existed or not.

The internal evidence that Christ treated the basic narratives of the Old Testament as historically true is, to me, overwhelming. The evidence that the Apostles treated the OT and the events in the life of Christ that were later written down in the Gospels as being literally true is also, to me, overwhelming. And the evidence that the Fathers treated all of the above as literally true is likewise overwhelming. But all of these emphasized above all the spiritual meaning.

The idea that we have to choose between the two strikes me as being grounded in some sort of Western rationalism, but I understand that some people have an easier time accepting Christianity by taking a basic stance of doubt toward the history recounted, choosing rather to look more exclusively at the spiritual meaning.

It is impossible for me to come away from the services of the Orthodox Church and the writings of the Fathers and see anything but that they simultaneously treat the stories as literally true, and that the spiritual meanings are deep and paramount. Both.

Regarding who amongst the Jewish people did and didn't accept Christianity, what I was reading last night the commentary of St. Theophylact on the reading for the Sunday of Orthodoxy from St. John.

In it, Philip comes Nathanael, and says to him, "We have found him, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.

And Nathanael said unto him, Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth? Philip saith unto him, Come and see.

Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him, and saith of him, Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile!

Nathanael saith unto him, Whence knowest thou me? Jesus answered and said unto him, Before that Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig tree, I saw thee.

Nathanael answered and saith unto him, Rabbi, thou art the Son of God; thou art the King of Israel."

There are so many things here that St. Theophylact talks about. First, Philip identifies Christ as being the one spoken of in the prophets. Second, Nathaniel, knowing the Scriptures, is aware that the Christ will not come from Nazareth, so he doubts it -- as is reasonable. Next, Christ greets him before Nathaniel can even speak, and calls him a "true Israelite, in whom there is no guile." He acknowledges here that Nathaniel is an Israelite with a true understanding of the OT, and that his doubts about him are not based in craftiness or pride, but from a sincere desire to correctly recognize the Messiah.

Then, Christ demonstrates that he knew all about the conversation Philip and Nathaniel had (which was apparently under a fig tree). Nathaniel, then, like Philip, acknowledges Christ as the Son of God.

Now, it is worth noting that what convinced Nathaniel was his direct contact with Christ. All questions of whether the Christ was from Nazareth or Bethlehem disappeared in the face of direct experience of Christ's presence and omniscience. To be sure, Nathaniel would learn, as would the rest of the disciples that Christ really did come from Bethlehem and was of the seed of David. The Scriptures were true, but it wasn't through arguing about them that any of the disciples were convinced that Christ was the Messiah.

[kosta50]

You can either believe [that the Great Flood covered the entrie world]...or dismiss it. However if you dismiss this, or any event in scripture, then you might just as well dismiss everything else.

Another wasted bullet in the air, HD, as jo kus aprtly showed your error in assuming that the world is the entire world.

The early church fathers took great care to distinguish between God's word by setting it aside in the scriptures we have today

Based on the inerrancy of its message, not accuracy in geography, or astronomy, or zoology, or even history.

Of course we don't have any way of knowing what is the original. It doesn't matter as both Agrarian and I've pointed out

Well, if there are factual errors of transcription, language, zoology, mathematics, astronomy, geography, etc. then we really can't say that, can we? What we can say is that the copies and different versions maintain God's inerrant message (of love).

There is nothing "novel" about Christianity nor was there anything novel about it at the time. There were many Jew who understood and came to God through faith accepting Jesus as the Messiah promised by God in the Old Testament scriptures

No HD, this is another one of your sweeping generalizations. There was nothing even remotely close to Christianity in any form of Judaism -- for no one even suggested that any kind of work can be "good" on a Sabbath.

Another unsupported claim here is that there were "many" who accepted Jesus as Messiah...First, in Judaic definition of the Messiah does not have anything in common with Jesus Christ, our Lord. The Messiah was to be ordinary man, anointed (picked) by God to become (literally) the next king of Israel. Jews emphatically reject the notion that man can be God (although they never entertain the idea that God can become Man). Jews emphatically reject the notion than anyone can atone or die or "buy" someone else's sins (that's even biblical, you ought to know).

My next question is just how "many" are "many" who accepted Jesus? If they were "multitudes" as Agrarian believes, someone else would have written about this besides the Apostles. If the High Priest personally dealt with Christ, someone would have made a note because it is not everyday occurrence that the High Priest (the highest official of the country's priesthood) meets and act against someone in person. Nor is it without reason to believe that Romans would not have recorded an important person, with a large following that is even seen as a threat, especially when such an important person was sentenced by the highest official of a Roman Province.

I am sure if the Pope excommunicated someone publicly, the newspapers and archives would record it and document it. I have no reason to believe that it would have been any different in those days for the scribes to record such events. It is not necessarily that I am saying this did not happen: I am saying that those following Jesus were not that "many", not that important, and when He got arrested most of them scattered lest they be crucified as well.

If Christianity was such a large sect within Judaism it would have been impossible to throw them out of the synagogues. The truth is that by and large Israelites rejected Christ and still do. They see nothing Jewish about Christ, but an apostate. So much so is it seen as a different and novel religion by Judaism that one can be a Jew even if one does not believe, but never as a Christian. Only Evangelical Christians believe that somehow Judaism and Christianity are "tied" together. Jews obviously think otherwise; to them Judaism and Christianity are mutually exclusive, as it used to be for Christians for 1900 years.

Finally, without going to gentiles and spreading the word of Christ's message, Christianity would have died out, as the Sadduccees and Essenes died out. The only reason the Pharisees didn't is because they turned into rabbinical Jews after Jamnia in 100 AD, after having rejected Christian books and cursed Jesus of Nazareth. They are the only survivors of one of several sects of Judaism of the pre-Christ era.

[Forest Keeper]

FK: "OK, I checked and there is a clear correlation between 14 and Rom. 3: 10-12. No problem."

Clearly. Paul is directly quoting it. When people quote things, they are quoting within that context! Thus, when Paul is quoting OT Scripture, he is calling to mind THAT context, not inventing a new doctrine!

I see the connection between Rom. 3:10-12 and Psalm 14, but I don't see how this carries through to Rom. 3:23. Since you apparently do not believe Paul was shifting gears starting with verse 21, how long does Paul use words like "all" or "all men" and only refer to the Jews? I suppose you are going to tell me that verse 24 means that all of the unfaithful Jews are saved by grace? But wait, you already agreed with me that the reference was to the elect, not the Jews. This is very confusing.

Holiness doesn't necessarily follow from being book smart or knowledgeable about doctrines.

I know exactly what you mean and agree completely.

Why can't God continue to work through men whom He has promised would be the pillar and foundation of the truth? Why can't the Holy Spirit allow us to KNOW the fullness of the Truth through other men whom have been verified by the community and the Scriptures?

Those are fair questions, and my answer is that certainly God COULD have done that. However, based on the results I have seen, I cannot reconcile them back to God on every account. I do not see how scripture and Tradition can both be right.

Did any Jew consider Moses as a fallible teacher? Check the Gospels. Sure, they knew he had sinned by striking the rock again. But they were confident that God spoke through Moses in an infallible manner.

While you do raise an interesting point in distinguishing between infallibility and sinlessness, in this case I must still strongly disagree. After everything they had seen with their own eyes, what were the Jews doing while Moses was on the mountain receiving the Ten Commandments? What did the Jews do in the desert to warrant their wandering for 40 years? How many times did the Jews grumble at Moses? If I put myself in their place, it would not have occurred to me to do any of these things if I thought my leader was an infallible teacher.

Your own tradition has led you to believe that ONLY the Bible can be the source of faith - although that is NOT IN THE BIBLE. Thus, it comes from Protestant TRADITION. Would it be fair to say you are being hypocritical?

No, that would not be fair. :) Sola Scriptura has a solid foundation in scripture, which you have been shown. You disagree with the Biblical interpretations, and that is fine. One difference is that we both agree that what I use is an authority, while the reverse is not true.

How do you know that EVERY writing in the Bible is from God? How do you know that some didn't get left out? Only the Church can witness to the Bible's source and completeness.

You're right, the assembling of the Bible was too hard for God, or maybe He just didn't have time. Thank God the Church for its witness and authority in assembling the Bible in all its wisdom. Only God the Church could determine which books were correct for inclusion into the Bible.

Some believe that the Bible is inerrant in only matters pertaining to salvation. Thus, historical or scientific errors don't matter. The Catholic Church doesn't teach that. She teaches that God's revelation is inerrant.

On this one, I am squarely with you! :)

God "foresees" everything we do. Thus, He is able to plan accordingly without destroying our free will.

UGH! :) You are implying again that God plans His will around the decisions He already knows we have made. Yet, you will deny this!

FK: "I don't see how a man can use his free will to just "decide" to be perfect."

Me neither. But God doesn't require man to be perfect to enter the Kingdom. All those righteous people in the OT. Were ANY of them perfect or without sin???

You are taking me completely out of context. The subject of my quote was the authorship of the Bible. Look it up. I was supporting my view that God was in control of what went into the Bible, not men. I wasn't talking at all about salvation.

FK: "Even when you say that God foresaw, either He is the luckiest God of all time to have everything work out as He wanted, OR, He ordained and caused it to be so, OR, He saw what man came up with and said OK."

Forget about luck. But there is truth to all of the rest of what you said. God is a truly magnificent God. He brings out His will, despite our own will (which means we sometimes sin). Thus, God's will is done, and we remain free.

I was presenting mutually exclusive options! :) How can you say the latter two are OK? The only way that is possible is if God saw man's choices, and then molded His plan around them. That infringes on God's sovereignty.

[Forest Keeper]

Does the fact that ancient Hebrews could not distiniguish that bats are not fowl make Bible unreliable? Perhaps as a source of zoology, but that's not what the Bible is for, as I mentioned earlier.

I think you are unfairly applying today's standards to the standards of the time of the author. In those days, it appears they defined a "bird" as any animal that flies. There is nothing unreasonable about this. It was only later that man decided to distinguish between birds and mammals. There's nothing wrong with that either, but it certainly doesn't make the earlier designation wrong. It just means that we classify differently today. Who knows how we will classify 100 years from now?

What if Job really did not exist? Does that change what the book of Job has to say?

Absolutely 'Yes'. Since there is no arguable reason to suppose that the story of Job was an allegory or parable, then if it was just made up it would put into question every other teaching of scripture. How would anyone know what to believe? Does your church teach that part or all of the OT is only metaphor, when there is no clear context that it is so?

What if Adam and Eve are only proverbial parents of ours and not real, historical ones? Does that change the message of their transgression, does it make us any less fallen?

It completely changes the message because it never happened! Does God need to lie and invent things that never happened? If God wanted to just explain the nature of our condition at birth why not just do it, as opposed to concocting a false story about it. I believe it matters a great deal whether the stories of the OT are historically true or not. Jesus speaks of Adam for goodness sakes. Was He lying?

[Forest Keeper]

Unless you can show me otherwise, in context (as I said), +Paul is saying that "real" widows do not re-marry; in general, that widows and widowers should not re-marry.

My original comment was directed toward your assertion that Protestants would object to the passage. I still have no idea why you would say that. Paul does not say or imply "must not".

[jo kus]

Actually, I'm not the one who is reading what is not there, I'm just reading what IS there and taking it at face value.

Ridiculous. Where is the word "alone" in Romans 3:28? What language useage requires it to even be implied? This is based on YOU reading into Scriptures what is not there. You have already admitted that we must love to be saved, correct? Thus, how can faith be alone and be saving? Please.

You are the one who consistently inserts exceptions into scripture to make it match Tradition.

Tradition is useful to explain passages of Scripture. Whether it is Protestant or Catholic tradition, we both rely on it, no matter how much you dislike the idea.

Here is an excerpt from the article The Joy of Heavenly Rewards by Matt Perman:

Interesting, but avoids the obvious...That Christ doesn't specifically mention a higher or lower place in heaven. ALL His parables that talk about the Kingdom of God discuss entrance TO the Kingdom, not varying degrees of the Kingdom! Sure, we can ascertain what Mr. Perman says regarding HOW MUCH we love. We Catholics look at it this way: All who enter heaven will be completely filled with God. But some will have larger containers to be filled! However, this has nothing to do with judgment into the Kingdom, when Christ discusses the matter.

Christ's parables don't speak of different levels of glory in heaven, but whether a person even gains ENTRANCE to heaven. Look at Matthew 13, I believe. You'll find several "Kingdom" parables. Not one discusses your idea.

Of course God doesn't "owe" us anything, but this is another example of salvation depending on the decisions of man, his actions.

You just got done posting me a section on how our actions get us different levels of glory in heaven, now this...What is going on? God judges us based on our decision to suffer willingly in His name. I still don't understand this "detachment" you seem to desire between God and man. When I am faced with a moral decision, I don't sense an invisible hand forcing me to do one thing or the other... God has aided me by forming my will, by placing in me the desire to do His will. But it is still I who uses these gifts, freely. OR I can freely reject them. The simple fact that the Scriptures OVER AND OVER command men to do something pretty clearly tells us that WE are to decide.

At some point you are going to have to admit that man is, by himself and independent of God, partially responsible for his own salvation, in your view.

The choice is set before us - death or life, as my tagline states. WE make the decision, based on the tools God has given us. Let's look at an example. Let's say we have two seniors in high school. Both are average students. With one, we give him no incentive, no aid, no counseling to pursue a higher education. We make no relationship between making more money and college degrees. We leave it up to the student. Most would party and not choose to sacrifice to get through college. Now take the other person. We raise him to understand the benefits of college. He has parents that are examples (by their jobs and desire to learn), he is pushed by them, by guidance counselors, and so forth. His intellect and will are formed so that going to college seems a "no-brainer". AND YET, HE IS THE ONE MAKING THE CHOICE, ISN'T HE? God instructs us, guides us, enables us to choose the good and see how it will benefit us. Yet, we are responsible for choosing God or not. In a manner of speaking, we MUST choose God to be saved. How can we repent otherwise? Does God toss you on your knees? And is that you repenting, then? I find this conversation a bit silly. I don't feel an overwhelming will forcing me to do anything. I do things because God has outfitted me to more often choose the good.

If the motivation is to get something of value in return, it is a "work". If a thing is done out of love for God, then it is not a "work". Is this what you are saying? If so, since I claim that perseverance is necessary, I would have to agree with you.

Well, we are on the same page, then, at least here.

Regards

[kosta50]

In those days, it appears they defined a "bird" as any animal that flies. There is nothing unreasonable about this. It was only later that man decided to distinguish between birds and mammals

Nevertheless, it makes the Bible a source of incorrect information. If every word is the Bible is true, this is incompatible. Clearly, the inerrancy of the Bible is not in every word and dotted i, but in the message it brings forth.

How would anyone know what to believe?

It shows how we should be (like Job) if disaster strikes. Never accuse God, and always trust in Him. It's easy for us to love God when things are going good, but any shake their fists at God for their misfortunes. The story of Job simply tells us that such a thing would be wrong.

Does your church teach that part or all of the OT is only metaphor, when there is no clear context that it is so?

No.

[kosta50]

My original comment was directed toward your assertion that Protestants would object to the passage

I didn't say they would object, I said it's not their favorite +Paulian verse because it is never cited by them, yet they have a select set of verses they awlays repeat, but not the ones that talk about hair length, head covering and the like.

[kosta50]

God need to lie and invent things that never happened?

Why would a story of what happens when we transgress and reject God change the nature of our fall, which happens daily -- as we fall repeatedly? What's important in the story of Adam and Eve is that we can recognize ourselves in them, because we repeat their error and "want to be like gods." Adam and Eve exist as "archtypes" of humanity. But excavations show that mankind did not just happen over night, or even in one week.

[stripes1776]

If God wanted to just explain the nature of our condition at birth why not just do it, as opposed to concocting a false story about it.

In Islam, Muhammad simply writes down what Allah dictates to him. That result is the Qur'an which means "reciting" in Arabic.

I am not aware of any Protestants who think of the Bible in this manner, no matter their high regard for scripture. But perhaps some Protestants do regard the Bible in this way. I doubt seriously that any Catholic or Orthodox thinks of the Bible as a "reciting".

But is that how Calvinists think of the Bible? God simply dictates to people who then just record the dictation word for word, like a good secretary?