Does Roman Catholicism teach a work-salvation?

StealthRolex

antiskeptic wrote: »

You can. Commit mortal sin and you have no chance. Don't commit and you have a chance - if not a guarantee. Having a chance is more of a chance than having no chance at all.

So chance is increased. Do you understand what 'chance' is?





I understand it's not guaranteed, that it's not automatic. The question here is whether things you do have a bearing on your gaining salvation. Mortal sin is one such example: it has a bearing on your gaining salvation ie: you don't gain it.

And it's something you do.

The only thing you can do that has any bearing on your salvation is joining the Catholic Church. After that you do the things you are supposed to do and hope to die in a state of grace.

You do understand "supposed to do"?

If you don't eat, you die. If you don't drink you die. Eating and drinking more than you need or less than you need doesn't make your lifespan any longer or any shorter.

If you have a baby you are supposed to look after it. If you don't it dies or is taken into care. There is no merit or reward to not taking care of it.
Doing your best for your child improves its chances of getting on in the world but there are no guarantees

If you drive a car you are supposed to have a driving licence. If you don't you risk the law. There is no merit or reward to not having one.
Driving as best you can improves you chances of survival but there is always the other guy.

Defining what "you're supposed to do" as works-salvation or as having anything to do with salvation is absurd. Ridiculous.

Doing what you are supposed to do puts you at Gods mercy.
Not doing what you're supposed to do guarantees your damnation.

Going above and beyond the call of duty is a help but not a guarantee.

antiskeptic

StealthRolex wrote: »

The only thing you can do that has any bearing on your salvation is joining the Catholic Church.

A work. Something you do/don't do that has a bearing on your salvation.

What about mortal sin. You can do that and that has a bearing on your salvation.

After that you do the things you are supposed to do and hope to die in a state of grace.

Are "doing what you are supposed to do" and "dying in a state of grace" in any way interconnected?

Are "NOT doing what you are supposed to do" and "dying in a state of grace" in any way connected.

If you don't eat, you die. If you don't drink you die. Eating and drinking more than you need or less than you need doesn't make your lifespan any longer or any shorter.

It doesn't?

If you have a baby you are supposed to look after it. If you don't it dies or is taken into care. There is no merit or reward to not taking care of it.
Doing your best for your child improves its chances of getting on in the world but there are no guarantees

Indeed not. But if your child gets on in the world it will have been part-result of your doing. No?

If you drive a car you are supposed to have a driving licence. If you don't you risk the law. There is no merit or reward to not having one.
Driving as best you can improves you chances of survival but there is always the other guy.

Indeed. And if you get to your destination you can point in part to your own good driving for having gotten you there.

Defining what "you're supposed to do" as works-salvation or as having anything to do with salvation is absurd. Ridiculous.

Have you looked at your example? The doing has very much to do with the outcome. Calling it "what you are supposed to do" doesn't circumvent that.

Doing what you are supposed to do puts you at Gods mercy.
Not doing what you're supposed to do guarantees your damnation.

Conclusion: working improves your chances of salvation - but there's always the other Guy.

Going above and beyond the call of duty is a help but not a guarantee.

The lack of guarantee doesn't alter the fact of it being a works salvation. It's works-assisted salvation if you get it .. afterall.

antiskeptic

S.Rolex wrote:

Does the church teach that one must physically suffer to keep from losing one’s salvation

Another work to add to the list.

StealthRolex

antiskeptic, what colour is black?

lmaopml

antiskeptic wrote: »

As stated: I share the view that lost men haven't got a freewill - that such a thing was lost at the fall. That much seems pretty clear from the various ways in which the Bible decribes the will/heart of lost men:

- their mind, body and spirit are enslaved to sin
- they are under the sway and rule of the wicked one
- they are God-hating and God-slandering
- they love wickedness and are ever finding new ways to do wicked (take a look at the world if you need proof of this one)

You might picture mans fallen will as a boat with a rudder jammed in the direction "doing evil all the time". And man would do only evil all the time if his will was left to his own devices. But it's not. God has given man a conscience and the conscience also influences a man. Towards good.

And so you have something similar to a freewill (which is a will that can move in two opposite directions). You have a situation where man can move in one direction due to his own effort. And be moved in the opposite direction by God's effort.

All that need occur in order that a man move in God's direction is for a mans will to do nothing. If it does nothing man will be moved towards God. By God.

Hi Antiskeptic,

This sounds very like predestination to me....

The man has no 'freewill' until God selects him....?


...and this 'choice' that man makes to subdue his will in order to be selected, sounds much like 'work'; by your own standards, set previously on this thread...? Would you say doing 'nothing' with ones will doesn't require 'work'?

I think this is the tipping point on where our theology would differ...

Mine is built on the foundation that all men are made equal in Gods eyes with a 'will' of their own to make their own choices...This 'will' that God gives us is a beautiful aspect of the 'image' of God and his will, and enables our free choices. Even sinners have freewill and have started out with a 'choice'..


I'm going to answer this in a few posts, cause I already typed a full response and got timed out yet again..lol...

antiskeptic

StealthRolex wrote: »

antiskeptic, what colour is black?

It isn't a colour technically. In common parlance however, it's black

lmaopml

antiskeptic wrote: »

After salvation things are different. The person is born-again and awake to find themselves freed from their only-evil nature. They now have a freewill in the normal sense of the word and can choose for/against God themselves. Satan entices them in one direction still, God exhorts them to go in the other direction. The saved man chooses to obey God or not. But his choice doesn't have any effect on his salvation.

That decision has been made already - it needn't be revisited.

Again, this concept of people being born inherrently evil is perhaps another area where the bedrock of our theology seperate. We believe in original sin, but not that all people are born inherrently more inclined to choose evil. There are people of many faiths in this world who don't 'do' evil, and even people of 'none' that arent' inherrently evil...We are all made 'equal' with equal choices and opportunity...I don't presume their final destination; only God judges, both me, you, and them when we are finally judged.

I just believe that if we are given much in Christ, then the full Gospel applies to us and repentence and perseverence in Grace is requested of us; and it's not something we should ignore as unnecessary. Or try to 'underplay' for the sake of being assured we are saved before our salvation? It just seems weird to judge yourself as saved at a point in time, as the most 'defining' factor of a theology, that underplays the need for repentence and perseverence in Grace until 'God' judges us 'saved'.



.......

lmaopml

antiskeptic wrote: »

There you have your "works salvation". Works being that which you do/don't do which go to deciding whether you are saved or not. It makes no difference whether you haven't salvation and your works prevent you getting it. Or whether you have salvation and your works snatch it out of your hands.


The whole notion is ludicrous on a number of fronts. You mean to tell me that a person could really believe in eternal Hell whose torment doesn't bear thinking about and they would deliberately reject God so as to end up there. It doesn't stack up.

I believe that only a person who really doesn't believe in God or the reality of hell would make that choice, and would question if they genuinely 'seeked, asked, and knocked', using their full free will...

I believe God would like everybody to choose him, but he forces none...and some don't choose God and lead others not to also...this is where justice comes in and God judges according to the individual and their choices, talents, opportunities etc. etc. etc. etc.

...I'm wondering now at your idea of purporting that Catholics do a 'works' based salvation { which can be very miscontrued indeed, when you know that Grace is necessary} and it's by Grace we are 'saved'. It can be misconstrued and is only an half honest opinion, which is not really the full truth. By those standards, your fellow Protestants who believe they can lose salvation are 'working' it too?

The only difference here is that we leave whether we are 'saved' up to God, and not ourselves...we leave that 'judgement' up to the only judge; and in doing so, remember that the Gospels also call us to 'repentence' and 'perseverence' and to 'work out our salvation, with fear and trembling'....The theology of my faith is built on the full Gospel message, and not on a philosophy of how we view our own saving or our own 'status', because, quite simply, there is only one judge and one judgement - It's taking responsibility to look at the full picture...and not overplay the 'Good News' which is rather obvious that Jesus 'saves', by underplaying the need for repentence and perseverence...to honour this gift of Grace as God calls us to....


.....

StealthRolex

antiskeptic wrote: »

It isn't a colour technically. In common parlance however, it's black

what are works?

lmaopml

antiskeptic wrote: »

You did .. but didn't escape the dilemma. You can add as many tiers to the thing: your will produces this, which produces that, which produces the other, which produces salvation. The tiers don't matter - you will does.

If you bind your will, if you don't refuse, if you don't, if you don't. Your salvation is reliant on what you do. And because it is reliant on what you do you have something to boast of. Sure - God might make 99% of it possible but without this 1% done by you, you won't be saved.

You can be proud of your 1%. And that isn't permitted in scripture.

Thanks ! It's great to talk about our outlooks, and understand the 'basis' of our theology without getting antsy with eachother....most likely we will stay on our path, and hopefully it will lead us both home, I pray it does.... and I for one am glad that we both have 'Jesus' as the common denomitator, in faith..!


The 'tiers' don't matter....( oh but they do!...hence the debate for clarity! ) you're will does...

Exactly! ...our 'will'...Which you purport to 'have' too? and reject predestination..

This is why I can't see how one can seperate a osas position from predestination! The answer is always hidden and founded in how we view ourselves, our nature, and God's nature and will.....

lmaopml

antiskeptic wrote: »

If you bind your will, if you don't refuse, if you don't, if you don't. Your salvation is reliant on what you do. And because it is reliant on what you do you have something to boast of. Sure - God might make 99% of it possible but without this 1% done by you, you won't be saved.

You can be proud of your 1%. And that isn't permitted in scripture.

I think, by these estimations, it would be fair to say that you too, 'worked' your salvation the minute you 'did nothing' with your own idea of how your 'will' works, in order to let Jesus in, and begin your journey of Salvation?

It seems you have the 1% factor too

Okay. But off whose 'bat' is your will operating when it permits the Holy Spirit to operate through you unto good works? If not your bat I mean.

Ok, I'll try to look at this from a different angle. Do you believe that when you made the choice to subdue your 'conscience' where your 'will' resided prior to your encounter with the Holy Spirit, that he 'allowes' you to go on sinning if this 'encounter' was 'whole' and 'full'? we are, after all called to be 'holy' and good, and not to sin, to 'know' that the spirit resides within!

...and by those standards - that one can go on 'sinning' and not be lost; how can one really judge themselves as 'saved'? how do they really 'know' they are allowing Jesus to take control...

..the only way to 'know' we can be confident is when we are finally judged. For 'now' it's to 'examine' ourselves and something similar to ( as I alluded to earlier ) see the fruits we bear and just how much we love our neighbour as ourselves..

lmaopml

antiskeptic wrote: »

Me too. The problem with the Bible is that a verse flung in here or there doesn't really do justice to the issue to hand. We both seem to agree that it need be by God's grace at all point. Your task now is to remove yourself from that 1% contribution

I think you have a great faith antiskeptic and no doubt!

I have no wish to remove my 1%, it's how God issues his proper and perfect justice to us, and doesn't leave it entirely up to himself, but gives us the dignity of choice...and made us in his image to 'choose' him for life...

TravelJunkie

What about this...

I have a comment regarding earlier posts in this thread to do with working out your salvation (ie. making sure you're always in a state of Grace).

I don't know if Catholics have this - but born again Christians and some Christian churches have a form of an alter call and people may have been present in one at some stage.

Remember that first feeling you had as a sinner. That urge perhaps, when asked, who wants to give their life to Christ? to put up your hand? I had such an urge the first time I was in that situation, but I didn't put up my hand. (But I did it next time).

Going back to that 'urge'. It's a complete knowledge that yes, you are a sinner, yes you need God and yes you want to give your life to Him. When you do, then the relief is immediate and we all know the joy that follows.
(I'm getting to my point, I promise).

So I reckon, that that feeling that the Catholics keep talking about being constantly in the Grace of God is like that - about putting up your hand. Except - we only need to put up our hand one time. Then we've handed ourselves over.

Then, everytime you say 'I am a christian' you are admitting that dedication and that act you did. There is no fear of losing that salvation.

It brings me to a topic of a back-slidden Christian - I've heard the term before and I'll ask about it in a new thread.

PDN

Guys, to avoid the board being overrun with this kind of stuff I'm asking you to take any further debate on this to the Protestant / Catholic Megathread.
Thanks