The book of James and the book of Hebrews extoll the virtues of Works or Grace. They are squarely in one side of the argument respectively.
Interestingly, they both use Abraham as the father of their point of view.

They differ from each other but are both scripture. I say you meet in the middle!!!


True, you are saved by Grace. Period. You have no ability to affect even the very first step toward redemption on your own. No 'work' will suffice. It is all in and through the merits of Jesus Christ and His infinite Atonement.

How much of this saving, redeeming, and ennobling power you are able to utilize, take hold of, absorb, or have applied to you IS dependent on you.

Work yourself in your life to become more like Him. Take that change with you beyond the grave and indeed you can realize the blessing in Matthew 5:48.

You can BECOME Perfected IN/THROUGH/BECAUSE of that Grace.

There is no more worthy aspiration in this life!!!




It is circular logic, and thus confusing to make perfect sense of. I admit!



My $0.02

And the king will say to them in reply, ‘Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.’
41
Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.
42
For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink

Whereas other parts of the Bible can be ambiguous, this seems pretty straightforward to me.

I am not a theologian and am not equipped to go deep on this topic. But my thoughts nonetheless...

I think there's more that we don't know than we do. By we, I mean all of us, and I think Christians in particular would do well to be humble on this point.

This paragraph would be considered blasphemy in some circles I've walked in, but I am concerned that supposed grace through uttering a few words based on a feeling at a moment, and then nothing more in life lived and sincere ongoing faith, comes far too cheap to possibly be real. I take nothing for granted with regards to my own salvation. I worry that many evangelical churches serve as country clubs of a sort and not much more. I cringe when so-called Christianity is conflated with MAGA nationalism and associated tribalism and rejection of others, but perhaps that's better for another board.

To address another point raised in this thread... Having left the Catholic faith largely on theological points, I nonetheless wholeheartedly reject the suggestion that Catholicism is not true Christianity. I learned a lot about Christian faith through fellow Christians who are Catholic while at ND... and at times that continues to this day on this board (see ndtnguy below).

Yes, one may be saved by receiving grace in duress. But Catholics insist on evidence that you've made it through the duress while continuing to maintain possession of your grace before declaration that you, in fact, possessed it in the first instance.

"What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead"

entry at those pearly gates, Our Lord will be there and say to us, "Show me your hands. Do they have scars from giving? Show me your feet. Are they wounded from service? Show me your heart. Have you left a place for Divine Love?"

How much evidence? How many works? Who decides?

I try hard never to judge the heart (eternal fate) of another; it's way above my pay grade.

I will say that if I observed a life seemingly completely devoid of conduct consistent with a faith in (submission to) Jesus, I'd have a difficult time concluding that person had eternal life (That same super smart guy said, "If you love me, you will obey my commands.")

But even in that scenario, I'll leave it to God to sort out, kind of like the thief on the cross.

I might humbly propose that many of us and many churches (of all Christian denominations) spend far too much time trying to decide who is in and who is out.

It might be better for all concerned -- churches and individuals alike -- if we spent more time examining (and seeking to grow in) our own love for Jesus and graciously encouraging others to an ever-increasing pursuit of that love (and obedience - per John 14:15).

I have my own plank in my ocular cavity to worry about

Judge not lest you be judged and all that.




I've taken to this quote as my main driver, it's often mischaracterized to Francis, but goes like this.


"Preach the gospel at all times, and when necessary, use words"


Brow beating people on the rules and judging them isn't going to get anyone where they need to go

In experience and thought. I have also left the Catholic Church, and yet the two best Christians I have ever met were both Catholic.

If Paul was worried about "finishing the race" we should be as well.

With respect to the certitude that many profess, Richard Rohr said it well:

In the Franciscan worldview, separation from the world is the monastic temptation, asceticism is the temptation of the desert fathers and mothers, moralism or celibacy is the Catholic temptation, intellectualizing is the seminary temptation, privatized piety and inerrant belief is the Protestant temptation, and the most common temptation for all of us is to use belonging to the right group and practicing its proper rituals as a substitute for any personal or life-changing encounter with the Divine.

Rohr, Richard (2014-07-27). Eager to Love: The Alternative Way of Francis of Assisi (p. 5). Franciscan Media. Kindle Edition.

Same old bullshit. Just say the magic words and you can act like an asshole the rest of your life because you’re going to heaven.

Really, by definition in the Catholic Church, you can only pray to God.

It's accurate that no Saint can grant your prayers (not even Mary which some folks seem to forget), they can only pray on your behalf to God. But, as noted elsewhere, you can certainly pray to the Saints asking them to pray for you (and, technically, they are not dead).

Of course this is another area of discrepancy in Christianity which leads to a lot of judgment. I belive that the practice is referred to in the Apocrypha.

It’s pretty clean cut.

We don’t pray TO Saints. We ask Saints for pray for us.

Thus we’re not praying to dead people. Or we shouldn’t.

But to a certain flavor of evangelical, it makes no difference as there are no Saints. Only Jesus.

there is evidence showing that the martyrs were prayed to for their presumed intercessory access to Jesus, since their martyrdom qualified them for instant exaltation to heaven. It's a corollary of the doctrine of the communion of the saints.

Obviously I don't know what Scheffler's correspondent meant in a theological sense. But the grace made accessible through Christ's death on the Cross is (a) sufficient for everyone and (b) always available. And Christ's victory over death is complete and irreversible, although He has not yet (to continue the military metaphor) fully exploited that victory by putting an end to the natural order that resulted from the fall of man.

So sure, one's victory is secure on the cross.

The question that matters to the individual, though, is whether one is going to take advantage of the victory Christ won.

Is it presumptuous to think one has irreversibly done that? Yes, dangerously so.

Contemporary American evangelical Christians frequently posit that sanctifying grace is (a) irresistible and (b) obtained solely through the act of faith, such that virtuous works are merely evidence of the state of one's soul (not a cause of such state) and that no discrete act of repentance is ever necessary for sin. The Protestant quandary was classically "do I really have faith?" (if you do you'll be saved regardless of what you do, but if you don't you won't be saved, also regardless of what you do), but contemporary American Christians of all stripes tend to assume that anyone they liked, particularly anyone they liked who professed to be Christian at death, has been saved. Much less Scarlet Letter, much more All Dogs Go to Heaven.

The Church has always taught that one cannot have perfect knowledge of the state of one's soul, but that the properly formed conscience can get a pretty good idea, and that the sacraments are efficacious for those who receive them properly (even if we can't ever have perfect knowledge of who has). The textbook answer to "are you in a state of grace?" is the one St. Joan of Arc gave, "if I am, I pray that I may remain in it, and if I am not, I pray that I may be restored to it." Or, as Chesterton put it, "every man is damnable, but no man is damned."

In essence, with the prospect of eternal salvation made possible by Jesus, what's a golf tournament.

The complete and total confidence that so many seem to have in their salvation by Faith alone can be very persuasive.

At least ones that come at personal risk.

I’ve also see it used to justify all manner of really disgusting behavior which is justified with a simple “I’ve been saved, so it ok”.

I’ve known men and women who will lead lives of service and good deeds while simultaneously cheating on their spouse or stealing or something else. The infidelity part was really rampant when I lived in Mississippi.

And the never saw the contradiction in their lifestyle. It was really odd.

who were "saved", permanently, at around 6th grade if they said the words. Most went to non-denominational mega-aspiring church. My family, of course, was condemned as Catholics.

press conference on Sunday while doing dishes.

Yes, it is presumptuous and incorrect from a Catholic perspective. I've seen a number of persuasive arguments against "Once saved, always saved" which include using New Testament passages against it. For example: "“Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven." (From the Gospel of St. Matthew). There are various other passages which could be used.

Jimmy Akin has one piece on this topic which I have linked below.

• Click here for link at https://jimmyakin.com/2017/03/answering-arguments-for-eterna

...that this would be about quartodecimanism.

Less arcane answer: This is partly, or maybe completely, a language issue. The typical exposition is that nothing we do can earn us salvation because Christ earned that for all by dying on the cross. It's also claimed that salvation is through grace alone and not works; though the Lutherans and some others will say, through grace and faith alone.

When the seeming paradox is posed, of an apostate, wife-beater, child-abuser, drunkard, etc. being securely saved, the usual answer is that no one who accepted their salvation would act that way; and if they did, it would just show that they were fake believers.

Here's why I say this is a language issue: To claim that you are securely, eternally saved no matter what...as long as you accept that salvation, means that you have to apply the mental process of acceptance, which is in itself an action. My feeling is that one should not say that salvation is something given outside of human agency and then say that each individual human needs to accept it, because cogitating that acceptance is a voluntary act of human agency.

At the risk (or certainty) of oversimplifying this issue, some Christian denominations (Catholics for sure, I think Methodists, etc) teach that you can lose your salvation whereas others (eg Baptists) teach that you cannot, no matter what you do. American evangelicals mostly (overwhelmingly) fall into the "once saved always saved" thought process.

Both groups agree (at least in theory if not in clear instruction) that salvation is not related to what you do, per se, but for the first group you can act in such a way as to discard said salvation.

This topic can be discussed just about as infinitum but that's a very simple version.

We attribute the longevity of our marriage to having a list of topics we don't talk about because we're never going to agree.

Faith vs Good Works is near (if not at) the top of that list.

Much as we try

As I drive by second, third and new reformed churches on a daily basis everywhere I go.

My favorites are where the 1st and 2nd build right next to each other after splitting. You just know the neighbors that go to the different churches no longer speak to each other.

Synod... It will add another number to the list....