Posted on 08/27/2010 11:45:13 AM PDT by Hank Kerchief
Except no scripture says that
No??? Arminians are forced to either edit Eph. 2:8 out of their Bible or simply not read it. The sentence is that clear.
And yet some Arminians still miss it.
lol.
"For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast."
Yeah, real inscrutable. I can barely make it out. I'm straining my brain to the max to understand that sentence. Oh, the pain. Wait...it's coming...slowly...in focus...
"For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast."
AAHHH... Now I see. Faith is a gift from God by His grace. And it has nothing to do with me or my filthy rag works so I can't boast of being smarter than the next guy.
You might call that "tradition." I call it a factual sentence in my bible.
Whew! Hope this Christianity stuff doesn't get much harder. That was a real challenge.
God commands many things we can not do..remember you are not God..He is
"Be ye Holy as I am Holy"...Love your neighbor as yourself... Love God with all your heart..Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.....Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful.....
Luther noted this .. And again: "He came unto his own, and His own received Him not. (v. 11)"The law indicates the impotence of man and the saving power of God..."if any man will come after me': 'he that wills to save his life'; 'if ye love me'; 'if ye shall continue'. In sum, as I have said-let every occurrence of the conjunction 'if', and all imperative verbs, be collected together (so we may help the Diatribe...) [indicating that all commands to believe or follow Christ are conditional, not stating man's ability]"
"...'if thou art willing' is a verb in the subjunctive mood, which asserts nothing...a conditional statement asserts nothing indicatively." "if thou art willing", "if thou hear", "if thou do" declare, not man's ability, but his duty. pg 157
Rom 12:3 For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.
1Co 12:9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit,
2Th 3:2 and that we may be delivered from wicked and evil men. For not all have faith. Note: Not everyone has faith
Heb 12:2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
So will you answer Harleyd’s simple question, or just dance around it?
Where does your faith come from?
The church THEN was not like the church today..the church was composed of believers.. there was a cost to being a Christian
How did you, by an effort of your will, came to understand the spiritual things of God? For no natural man ever has before you. Are you boasting?
The LAREC (pronounced "la wreck" by people in the know) is the largest driving force behind catechetical publishing in the English speaking world. If it's Catholic then I'm not.
But anyway, that's HOW bad religious education is spread all over the place.
The "why" question that wasn't asked is this thing called the "New Theology" and the list of names most identified with it is a rogues gallery that includes the major heretics and condemned theologians of the 20th century... and of course the current bishop of Rome.
Before the Second Vatican Council there was a raging war between the proponents of Scholastic Thomism and this "New Theology" thing. Most of the new theology guys had their writings condemned as dangers to the faith and Thomism was by all appearances wiping the floor with them. Then along comes VatII and KABLOOEY! the world woke up to find itself renewed. Thomism was left in tatters and the New Theology had gained ascendancy.
The result of which is the rampant homosexuality of the clergy we see today. There, I said it and I mean it. It cut the very foundations out from under everything Catholics believed and replaced it with an almost nothing. It's the reason the seminaries and convents emptied almost over night. It's the reason priests who question the divinity of Our Blessed Lord aren't whipped out of their parishes. It's the reason bishops who cover up child abuse aren't taken out and shot... it's the reason BISHOPS COVER UP CHILD ABUSE!
I spit on the Nouvelle Théologie.
Well... you did ask me to spell it out. :)
it’s like a little baby saying “ I borned myself”
Well, Reggie, there IS something I can agree with you about-—I am a contemporary of yours, my oldest being 59.
It has been a good life, I am incredibly grateful, I have much to look forward to
....and I am not stubborn. :-)
I thought that’s what you meant but I didn’t want to jump to conclusions.
Faith is what exists when we believe.
I became a Christian in the 7th grade. I met some Jr High kids who were different than anyone I had known. They were different from me.
And I wanted to be like them. They said the difference was that they knew they had done wrong, and had asked God to forgive them, and asked Him to make them more like Jesus.
And I didn’t want to go on being me. So I asked God to forgive me, and to change me, and make me different. And God, true to His word, did. I believed God would keep His promise, and God started the process of changing me. Either I had a long way to go, or I’m just slow, because I still have a long way to go after 40 years.
There is nothing boastful about it. God held up a mirror, and I didn’t like what I saw in front of me. That is the opposite of pride. I believed because I was ugly!
The Catechism contains some dogmatic teaching and some things that are in there for basic teachings not expanded upon.
It’s a basic tool on a whole bunch of topics for all different intellects and ages
The Code of canon law is available and various expansions on dogmas are as well.
RN using Catechism says “”this says CLEARLY that an unbaptized baby can not enter heaven, ir there is no “limbo” there is only one other place..hell””
It clearly says neither and If you knew Church teaching through various encyclicals and other documents through the ages you will see a clear theme of “God is merciful” and wants all peoples to have Salvation since He has written the Law of love on everyone’s heart to follow if they choose.
I understand the wisdom of the Church regarding infants -stressing the extreme importance of Infant Baptism.It is my belief the Church leaves things “as is” in regarding this since knowing some liberal members will decide not to have babies baptized . So, it makes since to me to leave things as is because it assures the importance of baptism.
In saying everything leads to Hope(as in the document I presented)of Salvation all babies that are not baptized fits perfectly with the theme that God is merciful that the Church teaches.Thus infant are in heaven since they cannot refuse the Law of law
well now this is a different version from the post where you heard the gospel and believed. Whatever, how did you , a natural man, believe anything spiritual, of God? How did you know that Christ is who he said he is? Did the kids tell you?
“How did you, by an effort of your will, came to understand the spiritual things of God? For no natural man ever has before you. Are you boasting?”
Again...and again, and again...I have NEVER said that I comprehended God, and reached up to Heaven to pull him down. Arminians believe it is the grace of God, reaching out to those who have hated God and been his enemies.
“God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. 10For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.” - Romans 5
That is why we are saved by grace, not faith...but we are saved BY grace THRU faith. Faith gives us the access to grace, uniting us with Christ. It is FAITH that brings the union, not election.
How does this differ? What do you think those kids were preaching, if not the Gospel? With their lives and words, they preached the Gospel. And I repented, and believed.
So you are boasting
because...belief does not come by repentance. It comes by hearing the word and by grace thru faith. It comes as a revelation from God.
HD and I have gone over this many times before, and I see little value in rehashing the posts of the past.
I believe people make decisions. They can choose to believe, or choose to reject God. Acts 13: “46And Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly, saying, “It was necessary that the word of God be spoken first to you. Since you thrust it aside and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we are turning to the Gentiles.”
Notice, God doesn’t withhold it from the Jews, but “you thrust it aside and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life”. We make choices. We can believe, or not. And if you believe, then by definition you have faith.
Faith: 1 confidence or trust in a person or thing: faith in another’s ability.
2. belief that is not based on proof
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/faith
You must have been away from the Catholic Church for a long time now.
In this post, you are not describing my parish. You are not describing the parishes my adult kids attend and which I often attend with them.
You are not describing the parish activities, such as my parish: feeding (free) the needy people of some 59 families; and active family-designed catechetical program; three Bible study groups, based on hours of convenience for those who attend; an active youth and young adult group; a catechumenate program that is full year after year; a chapel that is open 24 hours for people to come for prayer, and it is never EVER empty, and often there are as many as a dozen people there, even in the night hours; a pastor who includes everyone in the “ministry” of the parish—there are no “special” people, but rather a community effort and response.
Sure, this is personal and anecdotal-—but when I read a post like this one of yours, I simply can’t connect with it.
I'm happy to explain Calvinism to you in the hopes it will prevent you from making the inaccurate comment above again.
Christ says that in order to be saved a man must believe.
"Be not afraid; only believe." -- Mark 5:36
Unlike the Arminian, the Calvinist understands that the ability and desire to believe in Christ is a gift from God who freely gives new eyes to see and new ears to hear and a heart of flesh and a renewed mind, all in order to recognize, worship and be grateful for Jesus Christ as Lord, God and Savior.
Some would say this understanding isn't important. That it's enough to say "believe this and be saved." And certainly, that is true. Faith is the measure of our salvation. Period.
But apparently Paul, John, Peter and Jesus Christ believed that the Christian benefits by understanding why he has been saved. Along that line, Christ and the His apostles certainly wanted to reassure Christians that they weren't on their own in this life; that they were held securely in the hands of their Redeemer who would never let them go. Part of this reassurance is telling Christians that while it may feel like we're coming to faith on our own, it is actually the Holy Spirit moving us toward Christ because our individual and personal salvation is part of God's plan to adopt us as His children.
A plan that was put into place at the foundation of the world, as Paul in Ephesians 1 tells us. A plan to grab hold of the fallen sinner and bring him to his knees with the realization that God loves him and has always loved Him.
Most especially He has loved that sinner before that sinner loved Him. According to Jesus Christ.
Election is not a Calvinist term. It is a Scriptural term. Read your bible..."For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth" -- Romans 9:11
(Waiting for you to tell me that line from Paul doesn't say what it says and how in the Greek it really means "the Acropolis has been tented for termites.")
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