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
Just your opinion.
ADSUM,
Thanks for the copied materials.
Unfortunately, they are false. There is no Biblical record of an infant being baptized that I am aware of in Scripture.
Why????
If it was necessary, or desirable to avoid hell, or whatever, God would have given instructions and commands to do so.
No Apostle taught it.
No Apostle practiced it in recorded Scripture.
No commands are given.
No examples are given.
It is an argument from silence to support a practice that did not exist.
I will take this as confirmation that you have nothing but “it was not forbidden” or “there is no reason to think...”
All bogus.
Now, to the issues.
If you're going to cite the ECFs you have to be prepared to accept all of their statements...not just the ones you like.
Augustine, like the other ECFs was all over the board on the issues near and dear to Roman Catholicism, so let's agree to reject him.
Second, we have to understand that baptism is not what saves you. If it were, the thief on the cross is not saved as he was not baptized. Further, some of your fellow RCs have admitted the actual act of baptism is not needed. The examples I use to illustrate this are a soldier mortally wounded on the battlefield. If he/she places their faith in Christ and are not baptized do they go to Heaven or Hell? Rome has to dance around this with a "baptism of desire" which is not attested to in the NT.
So No. Baptism does not save you. Faith in Christ, and only Christ saves you.
Now to the rest of the post.
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.
Whoa now....you've changed from infants, presuming these to be babies, now to small children.
Acts 16:16 should be Acts 16:15.
The Roman Catholic is making a HUGE presumption of the members of the households in the passages noted. In neither of the passages are any children mentioned nor infants.
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).
15And they were bringing even their babies to Him so that He would touch them, but when the disciples saw it, they began rebuking them. 16But Jesus called for them, saying, “Permit the children to come to Me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. 17“Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it at all.” Luke 18:15-17 NASB
This is an interesting passage. It does not say the children were saved or healed after He touched them. It is possible they were sick....we don't know. When verses like this are vague in their meaning we have to rely upon the context of the overall passage and possibly the remainder of the NT.
Jesus is addressing a childlike faith to enter into the kingdom. Children are wonderful in that they simply believe what they are told. Their faith is a simple one in their parents...they trust their parents.
We should have such a simple trusting faith in Christ as well.
However, all throughout the NT it is clear one must have the ability to believe in Christ or reject Christ.
The Lord explicitly “called infants to him[self]” in Luke 18:15-17:
No....He said permit the children to come to Me.
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.
The requirement was for all to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. If the jailer were to believe and his household would believe they would be saved.
This is why context is important in understanding the New Testament.
I cannot believe in Christ for the benefit of my family. If that is the case then all of my household, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc will be saved by my faith in Christ by Roman Catholic logic.
That is not attested to in the New Testament.
Which covenant is that ?
All seven covenants in the Bible deal with Israel, not infants
Original sin is a reality from which each and every human person desperately needs to be freed. Biblically speaking, Romans 5:12 is remarkably clear on this point:
Infant baptism frees a human from original sin?
I guess the writers of the NT forgot to make that point in all their writing. The blood of Christ actually does that. Just a suggestion but reading Romans Chapter 5 in context might clarify your misunderstanding of Romans 5:12 which has nothing to do with infant baptism.
You're avoiding the question. Surely if a Hindu were to ask you that question you'd be able to answer.
Your obsession with the calendar is not wise or prudent, holding to the form of godliness and denying the power of it.
And besides, again, just how do you function in our modern culture without using the calendar that you so despise?
How do you do banking, pay bills, or make appointments without using it?
Do you use it for those purposes? Yes or no?
Romans 14:1-9 As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions. One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables. Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him. Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand.
One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God. For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's. For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.
Galatians 4:8-11 Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more? You observe days and months and seasons and years! I am afraid I may have labored over you in vain.
Colossians 2:16-23 Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind, and not holding fast to the Head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God.
If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations— “Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch” (referring to things that all perish as they are used)—according to human precepts and teachings? These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.
I don't recall you ever talking about Jesus and saving faith in Him. Seems that your only agenda is to convert people to your form of who knows what, back into the bondage of observing days and months and seasons and years.
It proves nothing. It certainly is NOT strong support for infant baptism, but a very weak stretch based on presumption and assumption.
Baptism is nowhere recorded to forgive *original sin*.
For that matter, there’s no such thing even mentioned in Scripture as *original sin*.
Catholicism has created a solution to a problem it made up.
" A monsignor who was a former advisor at the Vatican's US embassy in Washington will face charges of possessing and exchanging child pornography, the Holy See announced on Saturday.In a statement it said that Carlo Alberto Capella was ordered to face trail on Thursday, with the first hearing set for June 22nd.
Capella, who was in office until last year, was recalled from Washington by the Vatican in September.
The US State Department notified the Vatican in August through diplomatic channels of a possible violation of child pornography laws by a member of its diplomatic corps in Washington, the Vatican said at the time.
The United States had made "an official request" for the man's diplomatic immunity to be lifted but the Vatican refused, said a US official on condition of anonymity.
It is the latest case the Catholic Church has faced after repeated criticism for the way it has handled scandals over paedophile priests.
So quick,metmom, to defend Rome when her version of Jesus is being questioned.
I know the difference between Rome’s Jesus and Paul’s..
Rome has another Jesus.
It seems you are so quick to defend Rome whn she is questioned.
Odd irony indeed.
That is the most important aspect of understanding Scripture.
A Strong's and several good commentaries are essential to having a good foundation for understanding what the Word says.
I always find it amazing how tradition in the RCC tortures scripture to support non biblical theology such as Romans 5 :12
Well, they did it to people in the Inquisition too...
1 Corinthians 1:11-17 For it has been reported to me by Chloe's people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers. What I mean is that each one of you says, “I follow Paul,” or “I follow Apollos,” or “I follow Cephas,” or “I follow Christ.” Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?
I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, so that no one may say that you were baptized in my name. (I did baptize also the household of Stephanas. Beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else.) For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.
How could Paul ignore baptism and refuse to baptize if it were necessary for so called original sin to be dealt with?
And notice that CHRIST was the one who sent Paul NOT TO BAPTIZE, but to preach.
Why?
Romans 10:14-17 How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?” So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.
Faith does NOT come through baptism.
Regarding the often confusing and contradictory world of organized Christianity, there’s gotta be a pony in there somewhere.
Exactly. getting baptized is an symbolic outward manifestation of your faith, your new life in Christ that your sin has been washed away by the blood of Christ.
Strangely, none of my six children asked to be baptized while they were infants. All they did was cry and poop themselves.
When they came of age and recognized they are sinners, they ask for baptism...
Mine too, except that one of my kids was a little spit up machine, too.
Metmom is not defending Roman Catholicism.
You a priest?
I really want to weigh in on this baptism issue, but I have a bad feeling that I’d derail the thread if I did, and a little worried that I’d get lumped in with believing the same thing as Roman Catholics, even though I very much don’t.
“Since the initiative belongs to God in the order of grace, no one can merit the initial grace of forgiveness and justification, at the beginning of conversion (2010; emphasis in original).
However, if the question refers to the ongoing (Rom. 3:23-24, 5:8-9) and final stages of justification (Rom. 6:16, Gal. 2:16), then works do play a part. This is how St. Paul understands the placement of works:”
But, again, are those works done out of faith, or not? Again, faith and works are being made separate things according to the belief you describe.
Paul wrote that it was Christ within Him that did the works. On the other hand, the Bible says our righteousness is like filthy rags. Whose righteousness does those works?
As I’ve said, and others have said, we believe that genuine faith produces works. You bring up James 2 again, but both Testaments, which we study to show ourselves approved, as Paul wrote to Timothy, teach and say as such thousands upon thousands of times.
Then something else to consider. Jesus paid our sin debt to God because we couldn’t. Now, then, how much of it did He pay? I believe He paid it all, in full, and we could never pay any of it. To say, though, that “faith and works” save us, is to say He paid some of our debt, and we pay the rest. So while Protestants say He paid the whole debt, Catholic belief doesn’t. But what then would you estimate the split to be? 50/50? Probably not, but maybe. I think Catholics would struggle to come up with that answer because the truth is simply Jesus paid it all, as the hymn says, and all to Him we owe.
Which, of course, restores us to our proper places as creatures before a Creator, whom we entirely, not just mostly, depend upon for everything, including His goodness. We have none of our own until He gives us some. (cont’d)
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