annalex wrote:
“The Protestant error is that faith produces good works somehow, perhaps, through a chemical reaction.”
annalex, either you, who are quick to criticize anyone for not knowing what the Catholic Church teaches when they criticize it, are yourself quite guilty of the same thing when it comes to what the heirs of the Reformation teach or you just enjoy being (or so you think) the wizard of snark. Neither becomes you nor does it advance your case or win you the respect of others. It’s just cheap and tacky.
I never promised anyone here a rose garden. The usual Protestant reaction to James 2 is that, you see, works are "the result of God's grace; not the cause of it" (4143). But the only way that argument would make sense is if the doer of the good works does it without participating in them. Hence, “The Protestant error is that faith produces good works somehow, perhaps, through a chemical reaction.”
If you have another explanation why you tell people that works have nothing to do with our salvation, when the gospel teaches the exact opposite, I'd like to see it. So far, I haven't. If therefore I do not have a very high opinion of the intellectual probity of the people of Protestant persuasion generally and often make fun of them, well, this is an opinion forum and I opine. If you have a substantive argument, I am all ears, -- you, Belteshazzar of all often do, and I respond in kind, and thank you. If, on the other hand, you evade direct and textual questions based on nothing but the text of the scripture, then I think you should expect the ridicule, and I have an abundance of it. Dr. Eckleburg seems to be coming back for more all the time.