Posted on 06/08/2018 8:54:57 AM PDT by Salvation
There are a lot of “solos” sung by our Protestant brethren: sola fide (saved by faith alone), sola Scriptura (Scripture alone is the rule of faith), and sola gratia (grace alone). Generally, one ought to be leery of claims that things work “alone.” Typically, many things work together in harmony; things are interrelated. Very seldom is anyone or anything really “alone.”
The problem with “solos” emerges (it seems to me) in our mind, where it is possible to separate things out; but just because we can separate something out in our mind does not mean that we can do so in reality.
Consider, for a moment, a candle’s flame. In my mind, I can separate the heat of the flame from its light, but I could never put a knife into the flame and put the heat of the flame on one side of it and the light on the other. In reality, the heat and light are inseparable—so together as to be one.
I would like to argue that it is the same with things like faith and works, grace and transformation, Scripture and the Church. We can separate all these things out in our mind, but in reality, they are one. Attempting to separate them from what they belong to leads to grave distortions and to the thing in question no longer being what it is claimed to be. Rather, it becomes an abstraction that exists only on a blackboard or in the mind of a theologian.
Let’s look at the three main “solos” of Protestant theology. I am aware that there are non-Catholic readers of this blog, so please understand that my objections are made with respect. I am also aware that in a short blog I may oversimplify, and thus I welcome additions, clarifications, etc. in the comments section.
Solo 1: Faith alone (sola fide) – For 400 years, Catholics and Protestants have debated the question of faith and works. In this matter, we must each avoid caricaturing the other’s position. Catholics do not and never have taught that we are saved by works. For Heaven’s sake, we baptize infants! We fought off the Pelagians. But neither do Protestants mean by “faith” a purely intellectual acceptance of the existence of God, as many Catholics think that they do.
What concerns us here is the detachment of faith from works that the phrase “faith alone” implies. Let me ask, what is faith without works? Can you point to it? Is it visible? Introduce me to someone who has real faith but no works. I don’t think one can be found. About the only example I can think of is a baptized infant, but that’s a Catholic thing! Most Baptists and Evangelicals who sing the solos reject infant baptism.
Hence it seems that faith alone is something of an abstraction. Faith is something that can only be separated from works in our minds. If faith is a transformative relationship with Jesus Christ, we cannot enter into that relationship while remaining unchanged. This change affects our behavior, our works. Even in the case of infants, it is possible to argue that they are changed and do have “works”; it’s just that they are not easily observed.
Scripture affirms that faith is never alone, that such a concept is an abstraction. Faith without works is dead (James 2:26). Faith without works is not faith at all because faith does not exist by itself; it is always present with and causes works through love. Galatians 5:6 says, For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision; but faith working through love. Hence faith works not alone but through love. Further, as Paul states in 1 Corinthians 13:2, if I have all faith so as to move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing.
Hence faith alone is the null set. True faith is never alone; it bears the fruit of love and the works of holiness. Faith ignites love and works through it. Beware of the solo “faith alone” and ask where faith, all by itself, can be found.
Solo 2: Grace alone (sola gratia) – By its very nature grace changes us. Again, show me grace apart from works. Grace without works is an abstraction. It cannot be found apart from its effects. In our mind it may exist as an idea, but in reality, grace is never alone.
Grace builds on nature and transforms it. It engages the person who responds to its urges and gifts. If grace is real, it will have its effects and cannot be found alone or apart from works. It cannot be found apart from a real flesh-and-blood human who is manifesting its effects.
Solo 3: Scripture alone (sola Scriptura) – Beware those who say, “sola Scriptura!” This is the claim that Scripture alone is the measure of faith and the sole authority for the Christian, that there is no need for a Church and no authority in the Church, that there is only authority in the Scripture.
There are several problems with this.
First, Scripture as we know it (with the full New Testament) was not fully assembled and agreed upon until the 4th century.
It was Catholic bishops, in union with the Pope, who made the decision as to which books belonged in the Bible. The early Christians could not possibly have lived by sola scriptura because the Scriptures were not even fully written in the earliest years. And although collected and largely completed in written form by 100 AD, the set of books and letters that actually made up the New Testament was not agreed upon until the 4th century.
Second, until recently most people could not read.
Given this, it seems strange that God would make, as the sole rule of faith, a book that people had to read on their own. Even today, large numbers of people in the world cannot read well. Hence, Scripture was not necessarily a read text, but rather one that most people heard and experienced in and with the Church through her preaching, liturgy, art, architecture, stained glass, passion plays, and so forth.
Third, and most important, if all you have is a book, then that book needs to be interpreted accurately.
Without a valid and recognized interpreter, the book can serve to divide more than to unite. Is this not the experience of Protestantism, which now has tens of thousands of denominations all claiming to read the same Bible but interpreting it in rather different manners?
The problem is, if no one is Pope then everyone is Pope! Protestant “soloists” claim that anyone, alone with a Bible and the Holy Spirit, can authentically interpret Scripture. Well then, why does the Holy Spirit tell some people that baptism is necessary for salvation and others that it is not necessary? Why does the Holy Spirit tell some that the Eucharist really is Christ’s Body and Blood and others that it is only a symbol? Why does the Holy Spirit say to some Protestants, “Once saved, always saved” and to others, “No”?
So, it seems clear that Scripture is not meant to be alone. Scripture itself says this in 2 Peter 3:16: our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, also wrote to you, Our Brother Paul speaking of these things [the Last things] as he does in all his letters. In them there are some things hard to understand that the ignorant and unstable distort to their own destruction, just as they do the other scriptures. Hence Scripture itself warns that it is quite possible to misinterpret Scripture.
Where is the truth to be found? The Scriptures once again answer this: you should know how to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of truth (1 Tim 3:15).
Hence Scripture is not to be read alone. It is a document of the Lord through the Church and must be read in the context of the Church and with the Church’s authoritative interpretation and Tradition. As this passage from Timothy says, the Church is the pillar and foundation of truth. The Bible is a Church book and thus is not meant to be read apart from the Church that received the authority to publish it from God Himself. Scripture is the most authoritative and precious document of the Church, but it emanates from the Church’s Tradition and must be understood in the light of it.
Thus, the problems of “singing solo” seem to boil down to the fact that if we separate what God has joined we end up with an abstraction, something that exists only in the mind but in reality, cannot be found alone.
Here is a brief video in which Fr. Robert Barron ponders the Protestant point of view that every baptized Christian has the right to authoritatively interpret the Word of God.sss
We are justified by saving faith, the kind of faith that produces works, as opposed to mere intellectual assent, that does acknowledge the truth but is nothing more than recognition of it.
Works do NOT contribute in the least to salvation and adding them to intellectual assent does not make it saving faith and save anyone.
That does not change my point.
It IS forced on an infant and then the claim is made that there’s nothing they can do to remove that *indelible* mark*.
They have no choice in the matter.
I’m caught up in this thread; time to look at the others I’m in for any overnight stuff...
You would think in Romans or Galatians Paul would have carved out, or noted Mary as the exception to all have sinned.
Or somewhere it would be explained that the bread and wine actually change as claimed by Rome and we are not to just do this in remembrance.
Or somewhere Paul would have explained purgatory....or even indicated it was a legit topic.
But as Rome did not formalize its canon until Trent you would think they would have included any of the writings they derive their "Tradition" from. But they did not.
That is telling and should be a concern for any Roman Catholic.
Be careful....the hall monitor may chastise you for being late to the party!
When did Rome formalize goddess Frig day, holy Satyr day and astarte sun day as the first/chief importance of the gospel, as opposed to Paul’s 1st/chief importance of Passover, Unleavened Bread and First Fruits, in accordance with the scriptures?
x
Matthew 25:31-46 has to be understood in relation to believers and non-believers.
In Scripture, believers are referred to as sheep; non-believers as goats.
The sheep [the righteous] are on His right as they are His.....the goats on His left as they are not.
Will believers produce fruit? Yes. The NT is clear that is part of the changed life of the believer.
The goats though had nothing to do with Christ. They never believed in Him.
Now the question to be asked is this:
If a Hindu were to visit someone in prison, or give a cup of water....is that person a sheep or a goat?
You might want to explain your position a little more.
[quoteYou might want to explain your position a little more]
What day does the Old Testament scriptures, Paul referenced to the Corinthians in 1 Cor 15, says the Passover Lamb was to be slain?
Passover, in accordance with scripture, or Rome’s goddess good Fri day, in accordance with Rome?
Paul calls Him our Passover Lamb for a reason. Rome doesn’t have that Passover Lamb. They formalized goddess Friday instead at some point.
When?
“well....that’s what happens when you’re late to the party, you don’t know the basis of the discussion and then jump to ridiculous charges.”
That isn’t the case, though, because I did read your post #24 before I commented on this question. Before commenting at all on this question, I followed back and read again all the comments you and others made on this particular question. I actually read all the comments for this article up through yesterday.
Now again, I wrote this:
“And what is the point to your claim about New Testament Scripture? Are you saying you don’t believe it’s legitimately God’s Word?”
And I ask those questions again, because your claim that Jesus never instructed His disciples to write Scripture is one thing, but then it raises a much larger question of how you regard Scripture. Do you believe Matthew and John wrote their Gospels against Christ’s will?
And again, you can say that nowhere in Scripture did Jesus instruct His disciples to write, other than in Revelation, because whether it was Jesus or His angel, it was absolutely His direction, but you can’t claim to know all that went on that isn’t recorded in Scripture, so you can’t rightfully claim that Jesus never instructed His disciples to write anything.
So will you now believe?
Augustine
“The custom of Mother Church in baptizing infants is certainly not to be scorned, nor is it to be regarded in any way as superfluous, nor is it to be believed that its tradition is anything except apostolic” (The Literal Interpretation of Genesis 10:23:39 [A.D. 408]). “Cyprian was not issuing a new decree but was keeping to the most solid belief of the Church in order to correct some who thought that infants ought not to be baptized before the eighth day after their birth. . . . He agreed with certain of his fellow bishops that a child is able to be duly baptized as soon as he is born” (Letters 166:8:23 [A.D. 412]).
There is no doubt that the early Church practiced infant baptism. Christ himself proclaimed the suitability of infants for initiation into the kingdom (Luke 18:15-16), and Peter declared: “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children” (Acts 2:38–39).
The apostolic Church practiced the baptism of whole households, with no exceptions mentioned for small children (Acts 16:16, 33, 1 Cor. 1:16). There is no record anywhere in the Bible of a child of a Christian first having to reach the age of reason and then being baptized.
The Lord explicitly “called infants to him[self]” in Luke 18:15-17:
Now they were bringing even infants to him that he might touch them; and when the disciple saw it, they rebuked them. But Jesus called them to him, saying, “Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them; for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.”
These were not just children who were being brought to Jesus, the Greek word here is “brephe,” which mean infants. And again, the Jews listening would understand that the parents’s belief and obedience suffices for the child until he is old enough to own his own faith. The parents bringing children to Christ, according to Christ, is equivalent to the children coming to him on their own. Moreover, because babies are icons of what we all should be, i.e., they put up no obstacles to the work of God in their lives, and they can most obviously do absolutely nothing to merit anything from God, they are reminders of “the sheer gratuitousness of the grace of salvation” as CCC 1250 says.
Household Salvation
From the very beginning whole “households” received baptism. There is no reason to believe infants would not have been included (cf. Acts 11:14; 16:15, 33; 18:8; I Cor. 1:16). For brevity’s sake, I will use just one of the five examples cited in that parenthesis while I’ll encourage all reading this to take a look at the other four examples as well.
When St. Paul led the Philippian jailer to Christ in Acts 16, he said to him, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household” (Acts 16:31, emphasis added). He does not say that all in his household must first believe. He simply says they will all be saved. How could he say that? St. Paul seems to have understood what St. Peter had already preached back when Paul was still persecuting Christians (in Acts 2:38). The promise of faith and baptism is for the jailer and his children.
https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/infant-baptism
Scripture was defined and compiled via tradition.
Christ never told his disciples to write anything, he told them to preach.
And here’s why I didn’t reply directly to 24 — there’s a gaping hole in it that I wasn’t going to take time to address, but since you brought it up, I will. You say Scripture was basically judged to be Scripture by “tradition,” and that’s after the fact, and you make your claim about Jesus and the disciples, but in all that you don’t address how Scripture got to be written in the first place.
And regarding what you say about tradition, all the world has traditions. All the religions of the world have them, countries and peoples can have them.
But what only the Christian faith has is God’s Holy Spirit. He directed the writing of Scripture, the recognition that it was God’s Word, the preserving of it, and the discerning of what’s Scripture and what isn’t.
There are many atheists who would say that The Last Temptation of Christ or Jesus Christ Superstar are as inspired by God as a sermon delivered by a born-again Christian and even the Bible itself, if not more so. That’s because they don’t have the Holy Spirit to be able to discern what’s of God and what’s not.
You are entitled to believe whatever you desire.
So the forgiveness of original sin is a problem? Why?
Very true. That’s a good point.
God is the judge. Not you or me.
I was certainly surprised that a Catholic priest would make that claim. I would think he’d know differently. It’s absurd on its face, for one thing, and you’d think a Catholic priest would see that, but you’d also think he’d want to track down where the claim came from to see whether it was true or not.
There are definitely some arguing on this thread who are glossing over most—possibly even all—of the content presented to them. They use their automatic talking points to set aside information they appear not even to read. It’s a real shame.
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