The RC/EO Doctrine of Justification is False Because of its Sensibility
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 1 июн 2024
- Info: blessedsacramentlutheranchurch.com
Contact: info@blessedsacramentlutheranchurch.com
Apology IV.108/229-109/230:
"The adversaries base justification on love because they everywhere teach and require the righteousness of the Law. We cannot deny that love is the Law's highest work. Human wisdom gazes at the Law and seeks justification in it. So the scholastic doctors, great and talented men, proclaim love as the Law's highest work and base justification on this work. Deceived by human wisdom, they did not look upon the uncovered, but upon the veiled face of Moses, just like the Pharisees, philosophers, and followers of Muhammad. But we preach the foolishness of the Gospel, in which another righteousness is revealed for Christ's sake as the Atonement, we are counted righteous when we believe that God has been reconciled to us for Christ's sake. Neither are we ignorant about how far distant this teaching is from the judgment of reason and the Law. Nor are we ignorant that the Law's teaching about love makes a much greater show. For it is wisdom. But we are not ashamed of the Gospel's foolishness. We defend this truth for the sake of Christ's glory and ask Christ, by His Holy Spirit, to help us so that we may be able to make this clear and obvious."
I said Isaiah 5, it is Isaiah 55:7-9:
*Let the wicked forsake their ways
and the unrighteous their thoughts.
Let them turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on them,
and to our God, for he will freely pardon.
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the Lord.
“As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.
![Eminem - Tobey (feat. Big Sean & Babytron) [Official Audio]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/9xn0OHEZZ8Q/mqdefault.jpg)
I said Isaiah 5, it is Isaiah 55:7-9:
*Let the wicked forsake their ways
and the unrighteous their thoughts.
Let them turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on them,
and to our God, for he will freely pardon*
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the Lord.
“As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.
Godbless you
Thank you pastor. I was EO and RC Raised RC and joined EC not realizing what they were trying to do to my faith. They say we cooperate with God and so we remain in the faith. So we all go around thinking well yes I am cooperating with God. It is not cooperating with God which fans our faith or helps it. It is that living gift of faith which is continually being purified by God that is in us. If we judge our selves we will surely come into condemnation. But if we learn to rely on God we will not die but remain alive because of him and he will complete the work he has begun in us. We can be sure of this.
So we must learn to trust in the will of God for salvation. Not works or will power. Say to God you are my rock, my fortress my high tower. I cannot attain unto thee but you have come down and lifted me up that I can rejoice in your presence.
Your point is so valid. It should not be shocking that this doctrine of pure grace is rejected by those who would add to or replace it with works in any form, because they can not accept that we could be made righteous before an absolutely Holy God by His own grace as a gift. Yet that is the very gospel itself! Soli Deo gloria!
Finished watching. As an Orthodox Christian, I need to emphasize that we don't believe in "merit." It's a common mistake to lump us together with Roman Catholics. We never believe that any good works can merit the free gift of eternal life.
We would interpret 1 Corinthians 1:18 under the light of John 3:19. The important part here is "to those who are perishing." The gospel is not intrinsically foolish because it is supposedly contrary to rational thinking, but rather, it's foolishness only *to those who are perishing*, because they loved the darkness rather than the light. To those who are "perishing" (a continuous, present tense verb,) the gospel is foolishness, because they developed a love for evil, and scoff at holiness and salvation, which they have no interest for.
"We believe a man to be not simply justified through faith alone, but through faith which works through love, that is to say, through faith and works. But [the idea] that faith can fulfill the function of a hand that lays hold on the righteousness which is in Christ, and can then apply it unto us for salvation, we know to be far from all Orthodoxy. For faith so understood would be possible in all, and so none could miss salvation, which is obviously false. But on the contrary, we rather believe that it is not the correlative of faith, but the faith which is in us, justifies through works, with Christ. But we regard works not as witnesses certifying our calling, but as being fruits in themselves, through which faith becomes efficacious, and as in themselves meriting, through the Divine promises that each of the Faithful may receive what is done through his own body, whether it be good or bad." (Confession of Dositheus, Decree 13).
What is the "correlative of faith"? It was an expression used by Cyril Lucaris in Chapter 13 of his confession and refers to the righteousness of Christ, which is the object of correlative of faith. Dositheus rejects that this is grasped and received by faith, and prefers an articulation of justification not so dissimilar to what the Roman west means by fides formata (faith formed by love). It is the works, as Dositheus plainly says, that make faith efficacious. So, the sensibility here and the appeal to wisdom reflected in the Law, is that salvation cannot be a free gift (as the Scriptures say), but must be some kind of conditional quasi-gift, for which I work, albeit, alongside or with Christ.
And, yes, St. Paul says that the Gospel is foolishness to them that are perishing, but Isaiah says that God forgiving the sinner is "above our thoughts."
I could be misunderstanding EO doctrine on salvation, but they seem to talk about synergism as a paradox. For them, salvation is not the idea of “earning” our salvation, or that God does 90% and we do 10% or something, but it’s rather a mystery how the divine work is so far above us and so incomparable to human work that it would be a mistake to try to think of it analogously to how we think of human works in the world. (That’s just my understanding of what the EO teach) And therefore, our “participation” or cooperation with the will of God is part of the the divine work because all of existence is divine work. Not sure if I’m making sense and probably not doing this position justice.
But my question is, what do you as a confessional Lutheran make of synergism as paradox?
It may be a bad and uninformed opinion, but it does seem to me like the West, including the Augsburg confession & book of Concord, is too scholastic or tries too much to reason out the mysteries. I am saying all this sincerely as someone who wrestles too much and gets too caught up (to my regret) with EO doctrine vs Lutheran doctrine.
Orthodox anthropology post-fall does not take the effect of sin seriously, for if we are dead in trespasses and sins in which we once walked, and must be made alive by God in Christ (Eph. 2:1-4) how exactly can we work together with God? The Lutheran Confessions affirm that those who have been made alive by God's gracious work can, thereafter, cooperate together with the Holy Spirit in the holiness of life, but weakly. The faith that loves justifies, but that love that follows from the faith that justifies does not justify.
The Lutheran Confessions are not scholastic, but ordered and clear. We embrace the mystery of salvation and do not try to explain how certain things can be the case, but only that they are the case. I think it is simply a Western-hating trope that the East peddles, calling the organization of theology scholastic. An eastern Father like John of Damascus orders his theology in his Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, so I don't really understand this strange objection from the East against the West.
This is very helpful. Thank you so much.
So, you have a problem with the Catholic doctrine of merit (I have no idea what the EO has promulgated). Look, if you understand good works and their rewards in Scripture through the strict lens of Romans 4:4-5, and that angle encapsulates your soteriology, then yeah, I can see where you are coming from. All St. Paul is saying in Romans 4:4-5 is that justification is a gift and not a wage owed; God is not our employer where we work for a wage that is due in fair compensation. Christians at no point in their lives can claim a strict right to grace or justification; that’s all the verses say. However, The Old and New Testaments are replete with passages regarding good works (done in grace) and being rewarded by God, i.e. merit; I will not overload you with them. St. Paul clearly says that we will be rewarded with eternal life because of what we have done; hence Christians merit eternal life (cf. Romans 2:6). There is a stark contrast between a wage (what is due) and a reward (a gift promised for faithfulness); the latter is merit, the former is Pelagianism.
Thank you brother. This reminds me Jordan Coopers argument that if you don’t get the same objections that Paul does in regards to the free grace of the gospel, it might just be that you have a different gospel. Praying for speedy parsonage construction.
"the natural position - that is, the *fallen* position".
Boom!
So the nuancing of justification to include human participation through some sort of acts I don’t see as an application of a “natural” and “fallen” reason, but as an understanding of Matt 25 particularly verses 31 to 46.
Both groups acknowledge christ as Lord, but one group participates with christ and the other does not.
My struggle with the sense of justification that Pastor William’s seems to be suggesting, is that it talks about faith as almost an abstraction. Were as the EO explanation (as far as my flawed understanding knows it) talk about faith as “faithfulness” which incarnates the abstraction.
The problem with your interpretation of Matthew 25 is that it assumes, rather than establishes, that the righteous deeds of those on Christ's right contribute to their justification, as opposed to being the fruit that follow faith. As a matter of a contextual reading, the righteous who are commended because of their deeds do not want to be judged by their deeds, whereas the unrighteous who are accused of a lack of deeds demand to be judged by their deeds. Likewise, Christ's response to each shows how little works do toward righteousness, on the one hand, and how much would have to be done to righteousness on other other. That is, to the righteous, Jesus says, "If you did it to ONE...you have done it to me" and to the unrighteous, "If you DID NOT DO IT TO ONE...you have not done it to me."
As far as the assertion that faith is an abstraction, I'm not sure what you mean. By faith, we signify that receiving organ into which God pours the forgiveness of sins won by Christ and distributed through the Means of Grace in the holy Christian Church. It is a hearty trust and confidence in the promises of God and, of course, it produces a faithful life.
Why exactly is the RC/EO doctrine of Justification false? Also, when God sanctifies you, does he declare that which is ontologically sanctified? God bless you!
Did you watch the video?
@@marcuswilliams7448 I watched it twice.
"It is false based upon the manner in which it accords, not with real wisdom that which is found in the word of God that is given to us by Christ Jesus Our Lord, but because it accords with a certain kind of wisdom and has a certain sensibility that is apparent even to the one who is simply looking at these things from the standpoint of what might be called the natural position, namely the fallen position."
"Human wisdom gazes at the law and seeks justification in it"
You are basically equating the RC/EO doctrine of justification with human/natural wisdom because it apparently bases its justification on the law and subsequently works of love and merit, yes? Please correct me if I am wrong. Peace!
@@fatimatriumphs I'm not saying this makes the case against the RC/EO position on Justification entirely, but that the sensibility (to a certain human wisdom) of including merits moves such a position away from the accusation of "foolishness."
@@marcuswilliams7448 I think I understand. The idea of merits (RC/EO merits) being based on a sensibility of human wisdom contrary to the message of the cross/gospel insofar as human wisdom opposes the cross making the message foolish to those looking at the cross/gospel from a human wisdom perspective; is that what you're saying?
@@marcuswilliams7448 I'm still watching, but I'd like to let you know that us Orthodox do not believe in "merits." Likewise we don't have a notion of a "treasury of merits" that the RCC has.
If your belief in God not translated into love for God (obedience) and neighbor (charity) then your faith is dead and no different from the faith demons have. If you believe your low level demon faith can save you then have at it. They are in hell for a reason.
Agreed. It is a non sequitur, however, to say that, therefore, love or merit or works, justify or are required for justification. St. Paul is clear, God justifies and saves, not even because of works done by us in righteousness (Tit. 3). It is the Roman Church which defines faith as intellectual assent. That is not what is signified by "faith" in the Lutheran Tradition. Rather, it is faith that trusts and, without doubt, is accompanied by all manner of good works and charity.
@@marcuswilliams7448 Works do not get you INITIAL justification. That is 100% on God. Totally a free gift. We become His sons and daughters through His adoption and not through what we have done. However, we must ACT like his son and daughter. We must not and cannot take for granted his FREE adoption. Are you a child of God? Then act like it. Our works will not give us INITIAL justification but it sure will keep us within it. Do you believe in God? Then prove it! The same way Abraham, Moses, the prophets, the apostles had to prove it. God tested ALL of them. God tested their faith. Why? bc it wasn't enough to just say I believe. You had to show the goods. You had to walk the talk. For actions speak louder than words. What did God do to Job? Even God didn't spare his only Son. He tested his only Son to the extreme for our sake and Jesus proved His love through obedience and actions!
@@MrJayb76 I can agree with nearly your entire paragraph (with the exception of the line "[Our works] sure will keep us within it"; God's continued work through the Word and Sacrament keep us in Justification), but it doesn't necessitate saying that merit has anything to do with final justification. No Confessional Lutheran worth his salt would say, "Faith alone means I don't have to act like God's adopted son." You have a caricatured view of sola fide, I'm afraid.
@marcuswilliams7448 you are correct. Let me qualify my words. Our works are done by Christ. We don't get any credit for them. Hence why we never boast. So there is NEVER ever a chance for us to use our works and hold God indebted to us. That can NEVER happen. Works can save us but not the ones deprived of Christ. If I feed the poor Jesus gets all the credit, not me. And if I meet Jesus at his judgement throne I will not use any of my works that He has done through me to demand eternal life. He will judge whether I have cooperated with His grace to see if I acted like a true son of His. Did this clarify my point? Protestants are wrong for accusing catholics of uses good works to earn salvation. No! That is heresy.
@@MrJayb76 Tell me if you recognize your own position in this description and then we can proceed (because, for the record, I wouldn't say that RCs say "good works earn salvation", but I still think your position is flawed): Final Justification is the ongoing process of becoming righteous and is the result of the cooperation of the Christian with infused sacramental grace in works of charity, whereby the Christian moves in a justward direction toward God.
It seems you dealt with the RC doctrine of justification only superficially and the EO doctrine not at all.
I addressed a particular aspect of Justification, namely the inclusion of merit or human striving. I suppose you could say it was superficial in the sense that it wasn't comprehensive, but I also didn't intend to address it comprehensively, but, again, on a particular point.
@@marcuswilliams7448 and why even include EO in the title? They don't even have a well-developed doctrine of justification and they don't talk about merit at all. In fact, Lutheran and Catholic doctrines are much closer to each other than either are to Eastern Orthodoxy.
@@jimmu2008 Well, you're simply wrong on both counts. Contemporary, Western-hating Orthodox priests may not speak about Justification, but to say they don't have one, or that it doesn't include merit (not in the sense of treasury of merit, but merit as in human effort, synergy, etc.) is simply incorrect.
Such a misunderstanding of justification with the apostolic churches.
The highly forensic nature of a Protestant conception of justification by faith alone-with its notion of imputed righteousness-is foreign to the Great Tradition of Christianity and owes much of its intellectual support to nominalism. It’s all about the punitive reality of breaking a law, and not about the restorative quality of healing humanity. It’s deeply individualistic-it involves the arbitrary legal fiction of swapping the currency of the guilty for that of the innocent. Because of its reliance on nominalism, it has no place in the Platonic-realist tradition.
This reads as a copy and paste comment from an information board on how to argue against the Lutheran Confession on Justification. Forgive me, but it is poppycock beginning to end.
The Lutheran confession on Justification can be handily defended from the Sacred Scripture and, if one has an honest reading of various Holy Fathers, even from articulations from the holy Christian Church. Read St. Athanasius On the Incarnation, for example, and you will encounter his remarks about the legal hold death had on man, which had to be fulfilled and reversed by the Righteous One. Symeon writes similarly, as does Clement. This is also not at all opposed to notions of restoration and healing. It is the Orthodox that want to drive the discussion into one ditch, the Reformed in another. The Lutherans, as usual, travel the middle way.
@marcuswilliams7448 It is wholly irrelevant if the previous comment was a "copy pasta", when in fact the Lutheran position does not adequately address the claims made against it, particularly concerning its implicit nominalism.
Furthermore, the assumption that the sincerity of the Lutheran's reading of the Fathers is not in question is unfounded. Rather, it is the conclusions drawn from this reading that are being scrutinized.
I’ve been examining the quotes above in the Latin and Greek by employing the Patrologia Latina and the Patrologia Graeca. Nearly all the quotes refer to a contrast between Mosaic Law and saving faith - not one of them approximates Luther’s solafideism.
There is indeed forensic language in the Fathers. However, it is important to keep in mind that the fathers contain a multitude of different ways of describing and explaining salvation in Christ: redemptive, imitative, transformative, covenantal, etc. Moreover, the Protestant reading of the Fathers gives greater attention to its own confirmatory bias, whereas in the Orthodox reading of the Fathers take a holistic approach. What troubles me is that the Protestant doctrine of sola fide, a theological novelty invented by Martin Luther in the 1500s, was never a part of the ancient patristic consensus. By turning sola fide into a dogma and a theological plumb line by which to assess the orthodoxy of other theological traditions Protestantism has become doctrinally schismatic.
Nevertheless regarding your comment, as far as the language of penalty is concerned,
All Eastern Orthodox affirm substitution - God becomes what we are, takes our sin and death into himself to exhaust their power so that we can participate in the new life of resurrection. But the salvific import of these themes can be bracketed holistically with reference to the Person of Jesus Christ who himself IS the atonement. Substitution, Christus victor, recapitulation, etc. are all basically describing the same thing as they inhere in Christ.
And I'm aware words change, but the mechanics don't.
An example of words changing meaning is the word for "penalty" used by the early church and medieval theologians. The early church meant it as relating to the incarnation and mortality, whereas medieval theologians meant it as experiencing death itself. Not as experiencing man’s punishment, but more of a “disadvantage of.”
Words have meaning, but in theology, those words are used to describe machinations. Verbiage can change, but these aspects still are central to the idea.
THIS is Athanasius’s point in “On the Incarnation” where he effectively says that God can not undo the pronouncement of death on human beings lest he go back on his law. All fine.
But for Athanasius, the point is that death is the problem. God doesn’t want us to die. But God can’t simply announce that death is no longer a thing because that would be to go back on himself. So death has to be assumed in Christ and exhausted so that it be done away with. And so the emphasis is CHRIST’S VICTORY OVER DEATH because he wants us to have life.
Of course, as a Lutheran apologist, you will try to bolster your case for sola fide by using highly selective quotes from Church Fathers such as Athanasius, John Chrysostom, Cyril of Jerusalem, Augustine, and Basil of Caesarea. Nevertheless, these quotes, when viewed in isolation from the broader context of the Fathers' writings on church authority, Tradition, and Scripture, create the false impression that they were staunch Lutherans who advocated for an unadulterated sola fide principle reminiscent of Martin Luther's teachings. However, this perception is fundamentally inaccurate.
@@icxcnika7722 Ah, well it isn't a matter of "if" it was a "copy pasta." It was literally copied and pasted, which anyone can verify by simply copying your first comment "The highly forensic nature, etc," to discover the exact paragraph on a blog from a gentleman named Samuel Parkinson. Perhaps that's you. And, for the record, it does matter because it demonstrates in you a dishonesty in this engagement and dashes the credibility of your other assertions as that "The Lutheran position does not adequately address the claims made against it" to the rocks. For, in fact, it isn't true that this charge of nominalism hasn't been addressed.
I was charged with using an ad hominem attack against you for noting the copy-and-paste flavor of your first comment. As it turned out, I was just stating a fact.
@marcuswilliams7448 Instead of addressing the underlying issue, you deflect the discussion by focusing on originality. The source of the objection is irrelevant if the concern is valid. Your approach suggests a competitive mindset that demonstrates your inability to deal with the accusation leveled against the inherent nominalism within your tradition.
@@icxcnika7722 In fact, friend, you copy and pasted that remark, whose original author was a Reformed Christian putting it forth as an objection against forensic justification's supposed connected to nominalism, which he goes on to refute. Unbelievable.
I would like to say that this is a remarkable mischaracterization, but it is in fact typical.
ἐνέργεια - Paul was talking about Synergy. The Protestant doctrine of Sola Fide is utterly naive and only results in lazy "Christianity" It's a wonder Luther's modification to Romans 3:28 didn't stick. Easter Orthodox do believe in a faith alone but not in your oversimplified deviation. The Western tradition departed from Christianity outside of name in the 12th Century. Scholastic theology was fully embraced, and the apophatic method was pridefully dismissed. God does not fit into box that conveniently does not exceed the size of fallen human intellect. This was a serious error. As Paschal exclaimed, "The god of philosophy is not the God of Abraham Issac and Jacob." I began as an atheist in the New Atheist movement ages ago. I realized my error, however many of my concerns with what I thought at the time was Christianity remained. I was unaware of EO outside of vague nations and Western biases. To me they were a bunch of Mary worshipping idolators. I had no idea what I was dismissing! As I said, my concerns about Reformed Theology remained, but I honestly believed that Christianity essentially didn't exist (invisible church) for 1,500 years - a sort of dark age. I studied Reformed Theology from all sides for a decade. I have a whole library of it. To make a long story short, I studied my way into the Eastern Orthodox church. This is something I am currently writing about. Everything the Reformers were rightfully upset about was a direct result of scholastic theology. Having no real way of knowing the actual history (Orthodoxy being isolated and preserved at the time), they basically said, "hold my beer: behold Reformed Theology". Remember now, the Reformation failed, and they were salty about it. Words were badly twisted to make the Reformed doctrine of Sola Fide work. A new religion was born in the 16th century - it was not a correction. The Western perspective and mindset's difficulty in being seen past or escaped is its doom. It is itself quite precisely the "traditions of men" you so hate. Protestant Christianity is in flames; it is a sinking ship. It's current condition stems directly from Sola Fide and Sola Scriptura. Watch any random set of deconstruction testimonies - people think they are leaving Christianity but are really walking away from positions held by Reformed Theology and even worse and more recent Protestant inventions. Christianity started out as an oral tradition and remained that way for a very long time. Christ did not come to deliver a book; He came to establish His church. You misperceive Holy Tradition. It was the Holy Tradition of His church that established the canon. The NT then became a part of Holy Tradition. The truth of Eastern Orthodox Christianity is uncompromising. It does not innovate to accommodate social trends; this is why it is growing so fast. When people leaving Protestant Christianity don't become atheist or some false religion, they come to the stable truth of Orthodoxy. Those who end up in Catholicism will eventually find their way to the fullness of Orthodoxy if they study enough history. I do have sympathy and love for Catholics. It was not under I become EO that I understood what it meant to receive that kind of hate. That is an area of largely different theological dispute and not as grave as the Protestant error. I will admit that cradle Orthodox and the poorly catechized end up all over the map out of ignorance. I am currently writing a book to help course correct this. Right now, I am falling asleep at my keyboard. I will be back to comment on your video at length when I have the time.
Oh, you're back. Given your first couple of sentences, I have no hope that you actually understand what sola fide signifies in the Lutheran Tradition or the manner in which Love and Good Works are beautifully written about, but I'll await. Should be good.
Oh, and by the way, your buddy did, in fact, copy and paste his objection.
You speak of Pelagianism not Catholic teaching. Pelagianism is a heresy condemned by the Church.
The grace of the Holy Spirit has the power to justify us, that is, to cleanse us from our sins and to communicate to us the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ, and through Baptism.
Rom. 3:22. 6:3-4.
The first work of the grace of the Holy Spirit is conversion, effecting justification in accordance Jesus' proclamation at the beginning of the Gospel :"Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. Matt. 4:17.
Moved by grace, man turns toward God and away from sin, thus accepting forgiveness and righteousness from on high. Justification is not only the remission of sins, but also the sanctification and renewal of the interior man.
Incorrect. Justification is not a process, but something finished, proved, in one way, from justification's antithesis, namely, condemnation. If there is *now* no longer condemnation for those who are in Christ (Rom. 8.1), then those in Christ *are* justified. Love follows justifying faith, but it is not the ground of justification, because the faith that justifies--the faith that is counted for righteousness sake--is the one that "does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly" (Rom 4).
@@marcuswilliams7448 So you are denying Scripture ? What i said was Scriptural.
@@aussierob7177 I'm rejecting your last sentence in particular. But for you to assert that in rejecting what you've articulated is to reject Scripture is question begging.
I’m EO, while I disagree with some parts of Protestant ideas of justification- it’s okay for EO to say they are saved by faith alone. Faith isn’t thinking. “I think therefore I am (saved)” is not biblical. Biblical faith means actual repentance. Faith is an action and takes work.
Sola fide does not equal faith as thinking. I also reject "I think, therefore I'm saved."
@@marcuswilliams7448 I didn't think you did- I'm friends with several LCMS pastors and was raised Baptist. I'm relatively familiar with protestant theology, though I've forgotten a lot of it, thank God.
My only point is that in the modern context "faith" has become a bit of an ambiguous term.
@@mikesutton9975 I take exception to the notion that there is a "Protestant" theology. Historically, there have been confessions. I know of no generic Protestant theology, which I assume typically signifies some American Evangelical clap-trap. I know of my Confession, contained in the 1580 Book of Concord, which does not share very much with what passes as Protestant in the 21st c.
Certainly, there is more than one theology- and even in Lutheranism there is minor disagreements (not counting the obvious heretical ELCA) as I understand.
And in some ways I shouldn’t use Protestant to describe Lutherans.
Dishonest
So after ten minutes of theological gobbledygook, the guy in the video finally states that we are JUSTIFIED BY GRACE THROUGH FAITH. Now that is indeed something that can be agreed upon by all Catholics and all Protestants, as far as I am aware. Romans 3:28: “For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.” Eph. 2:8 "For by grace you have been saved through faith......" Here is the deal breaker though. Protestants believe that we are Justified by "faith alone", but Catholics believe that we are Justified by Grace through Faith. Protestant Faith teaches that they receive Grace the moment they first believe. Catholic Faith teaches that Grace can only be received in the Sacraments of the Catholic Church. The Bible is extremely clear on this matter and what the Bible states should be enough to resolve who is right and who is wrong, and the Bible comes down on the side of the Sacraments. For there is not one single example of Justification by faith alone anywhere in the Biblical Church of the New Covenant. Without the Sacraments there can be no Grace, therefore no Justification, therefore no Salvation. God bless.
I'm glad, contrary to Rome, that you've asserted the perspicuity of Scripture on the matter. You'd do well, however, to actually read the Lutheran Confessions on the question of the Sacraments and how that they offer the forgiveness of sins and are, indeed, required objects of faith before you begin talking about other people's gobbledygook. It is clear that you, like most Roman Catholics, don't actually understand what is meant by sola fide; a position Luther asserts even as he affirms the necessity, say, of Holy Baptism. This is not, and never has been, a question of the necessity of the Sacraments, but the nature of the love that follows faith, and whether it is a part of/contributes to Justification.
@@marcuswilliams7448 Thanks for responding. You my friend define sola fide one way, and other Protestants define it another way, which is why they are not Lutheran. Don't take offense when I refer to your presentation of Melanchthon's teaching as gobbledygook. I have tried reading many of his writings, and Luther's writings, and many other Protestant theologians, and even Catholic theologians. Their writings are way over my head. They are much to deep for the average Joe like me to even begin to understand. I refer to them all as gobbledygook, Protestant and Catholic alike. That's why it's much easier to explain these things from the Bible.
Because Protestantism covers a lot of diverse ground, I can't ever be sure if I am stating each of their particular doctrines factually. My understanding is that as a Lutheran you believe that a person is Justified the moment they Believe, hence they receive Grace, and are made Righteous and are Sanctified, all by Faith alone the very moment they first Believe. Modern day Protestant theologians may want us to believe that, but I can't seem to find any support for that anywhere in the Bible. Although I don't understand a lot of what some modern theologians write, I do feel that I understand most of what is written in the Bible. And from the Bible I don't see any teachings or examples of faith alone salvation. So let me ask you to share with us some examples from the Bible of where a person was saved by Faith alone. The Catholic Church teaches in the Bible that a person is Justified, receives Grace, is made Righteous and is Sanctified in the Sacrament of Baptism.
We refer to Acts chapter 2 as the Biblical Blueprint for Sacramental Salvation. I know that you are dying to throw many Biblical verses at me, but instead of bouncing verses off of each other I would invite you to discuss just what is written in that single chapter. In verse 36 the Apostles finish preaching the Gospel. In verse 37 we see that those that heard the Gospel were cut to the heart in their Belief. Then they asked the Apostles what else they must do, presumably to be saved, and Peter tells them to Repent and be Baptized. What is your opinion about when those 3000 converts received Justification, Grace, Righteousness, and Sanctification? Was it by faith alone in vs. 37 or was it when they received the Sacrament of Baptism?
@@purgatorean With respect, if you're going to comment on a video put out by a Confessional Lutheran Pastor, you should at least know what it is you are critiquing. This is the problem with Roman Catholics commenting on Protestantism as a broader category. I reject this in the same way that a Roman Catholic would not abide being lumped in the Sedevecantists and SSPX or the broader Orthodox communion and then critiqued on some point they all vaguely share. This would be as easy for Roman Catholics as reading Martin Luther's Large Catechism in order to see that they way they criticize Luther ends up being a criticism of a straw-man caricature constantly put forth by Roman Catholic apologists. With that out of the way, here are some things for you to chew on:
First, Martin Luther's two remarks in the Large Catechism's treatment of Holy Baptism where he rejects one articulation of sola fide and affirms another.
Here is where he rejects sola fide:
"Our would-be wise, 'new spirits' assert that faith alone saves, and that works and outward things do nothing.' We answer: 'It is true, indeed, that nothing in us is of any use but faith, as we shall hear still further.' But these blind guides are unwilling to see this: faith must have something that it believes, that is, of which it takes hold and upon which it stands," (LC Part IV.28-29).
also
"Now, these 'new spirits' are so crazy that they separate faith and the object to which faith clings and is bound, even if it is something outward. Yes, it shall and must be something outward, so that it may be grasped by our senses and understood, and by them be brought into the heart." (LC Part IV.30)
Then, he makes these positive assertions for sola fide in relation to Holy Baptism:
"So faith clings to the water and believes that in Baptism, there is pure salvation and life." (LC Part IV.29)
also
"Faith alone makes the person worthy to receive profitably the saving, divine water. Since these blessings are presented here and promised through the words in and with the water, they cannot be received in any other way than by believe them with the heart. Without faith it profits nothing,e ven though Baptism is in itself a divine overwhelming treasure." (LC Part IV.33-34)
Finally, here is a quote from a 19th c. Lutheran theologian, C. F. W. Walther, which overturns you'e other assertion that sola fide makes grace unnecessary:
"Grace is already in the Word, in absolution, in Baptism, in the Lord's Supper. Faith does not put such grace in, but rather faith takes it out." (All Glory to God, p. 134).
Roman Catholics need to stop making Confessional Lutherans responsible for their ignorance. The high-handed, "Let me tell you why you're wrong" only to attribute to someone a position they don't hold is insufferable. Does it happen in both directions? To be sure. But it happens quite a lot more from the Roman West and the Orthodox East.
@@marcuswilliams7448 Well that response from you was just as tough to understand as if I were reading Aquinas. So let me try this once again. I really wish that for my sake and for all the others that don't have a PhD that you keep it really simple for us. As I stated before, the language of the Bible is much simpler to understand than what many theologians write about most of the time. So I would respectfully ask that you break down the events of Pentecost so I and others can better see exactly when Grace was received by those first 3000 converts.
In Acts chapter 2 verse 36 the Apostles finish preaching the Gospel. In verse 37 we see that those that heard the Gospel were cut to the heart in their Belief. Then they asked the Apostles what else they must do, presumably to be saved, and Peter tells them to Repent and be Baptized. What is your opinion about when those 3000 converts received Justification, Grace, Righteousness, and Sanctification? Was it by faith alone in vs. 37 or was it when they received the Sacrament of Baptism?
@@purgatorean With respect, I think you're exacting. What I quoted from the Large Catechism is no more difficult to understand than what you yourself have written. Luther wrote the Catechism for the laity. It is not like the Summa and it doesn't require a PhD. If you read the quotes, you'd know the answer to the question.