Our foundation is the Bible, nothing more, nothing less. The verses on faith are plentiful and self explanatory. The thief on the cross was nailed there and died there unable to do anything but proclaim Jesus was who He said He was. Jesus made it plain He would be with Him. Our works are an evidence of our salvation, but certainly not required. If a mafia don gives money to the poor, it isn't going to wash the blood from his hands. Is it impossible for a bed ridden quadriplegic to be saved because he is unable to move? We are saved by faith, period!
Jesus painted a Spiritual picture of salvation by healing sick people. He didn't just heal their malady, but the sickness was sin and their faith was their cure. He said as He healed them, "By your faith you are healed". If Jesus was interested in healing sickness, He could have easily said a Word and all mankind would be healed. He was making a point to the people that came to Him for their healing. Their real sickness was sin and He is the physician. They did nothing more than believe to gain salvation. It was only natural. however to tell the crowds who it was that healed them and bring others to the Master. Once you are saved, you should be "born again" and never are the same. Your actions should count as "works" for God. If works had anything to do with salvation then a Muslim could be saved by giving oil money to the poor. Without Jesus he may as well throw it in a hole.
I am quoting the Council of Trent to show what the Church definitively taught. I realize that a lot of people don’t accept its authority. Fine. But at least, if you are going to argue against it, know what you’re arguing about.
By your own post, you are showing me that you don’t really understand the Catholic teaching on works either.
The quadriplegic can make interior actions of love every single moment...those are works. He can pray...that’s a work. Even making the “sinner’s prayer” and professing one’s faith is a work. As far as the Muslim example, nothing that we do *apart from Christ* has any merit whatsoever. But everything we do *with Christ* has merit by that very fact.
Secondly, you are quite incorrect that all that the healed folks did in the Gospel was “believe” and be cured without doing anything. The blind man in John 9 had mud and spit put in his eyes and was told to go wash in the pool of Siloam, for example. Suppose he were to refuse to wash, as Our Lord told him? Do you think he would have been saved? Likewise, the man who has faith but who refuses to live out that faith as Our Lord commanded in many many places will be damned.
It’s just as Trent said. It is damnable heresy to believe that man saves himself by his own power. But it is equally damnable heresy to believe that man’s works have nothing to do with his salvation. The orthodox faith is this—that man is saved by his free cooperation with the free and unmerited gift of grace.
Thank you, chuckles. That was a fine post.
FWIW, you are cursed by the RCC because of this belief.
Canon 24: "If any one saith, that the justice received is not preserved and also increased before God through good works; but that the said works are merely the fruits and signs of Justification obtained, but not a cause of the increase thereof; let him be anathema."
Nam Vet
Nam Vet