faith and forgiveness

[Beer Snob-50]

as part of my lenten routine, i have started reading the letters in the new testament. i am right now reading pauls letter to the romans.

in it, he constantly talks about forgiveness of sins is tied to faith. now, i may be wrong (god forbid!!) but it seems to me he is saying that faith ALONE is enough to be forgiven. in my mind, not only do you need faith, but you must practice that faith. in another letter, i beleive that james says that faith without actions are useless.

your thoughts.......

[hedgehog]

1. This argument reminds me of those ads -

"***** is a breath mint!" "No, ***** is a candy mint!"

or

"Tastes great!" "Less filling!"

IMO, you can't have faith without works; in other words, true faith generates works. Another expression of this is the old question, "he talks the talk, but does he walk the walk?"

[Beer Snob-50]

2. well put nt

[Matilda]

3. The question of faith and good works was the start of the schism

in Christianity that occurred with the Reformation.

The Catholic Church had always taught that good works must go hand in hand with faith, but Martin Luther contended
that man could be saved by faith alone.

It was Luther's reading of the letter to the Romans (1:17) "the just shall live (have eternal life) by faith",
which he interpreted to mean that we are redeemed by Christ's death on the Cross no matter what we've done (or
failed to do). He thought good works should be done, but only out of gratitude to God, and they weren't tied to
salvation; that was a given anyway after Christ's death on Calvary. The Catholic Church didn't, and still doesn't,
agree with this view.

It was this issue alone that began his questioning of much that the Catholic Church taught and practised and led to
the eventual break with Rome and his excommunication. It's a deep theological question with many profound
interpretations, but in a nutshell, that was the reason for Luther's first step away from Rome, and is still a
point of contention today between Catholics and Protestants.

[hedgehog]

4. It's odd when you think about how important that was to Luther and how

unimportant that is today to a lot of Lutherans. It's the same with Calvin and predestination. Vatican II Catholics, Episcopalians,liberal Lutherans, Presbyterians, Baptists and members of the United Church of Christ have more in common with each other than with the conservative factions of their own denominations. My thinking is that all these people are more focused on serving each other than on the fine points of theology. At the same time, while the conservative factions are all convinced that their interpretation of Scripture is the ****TRUTH****, they are really more irritated by the liberal members of their denominations than by the conservatives of other denominations.


I really expect to see a second Reformation hit the Catholic Church in the next 20 years. The difference will be that the last time around the uproar focused on such matters as faith vs. works. This time the split will be between a tolerant faction emphasizing local control and world wide communion vs an intolerant faction emphasizing condemnation of sinners, solid control from the top and punishment of dissenters. Or in other words, is being Catholic a matter of loving each other and God's Creation or is about allegiance to Rome? Undoubtedly there is a dispute over certain key points of theology in there somewhere, but all in all it's more about attitude than about specific doctrines.

[Matilda]

5. The divide between the Lutherans and the Catholics was officially healed

in October 1999. Here is the text of the basic declaration - and if you can work your way successfully through
all the meanings, obvious and hidden, you're a better man than I, Gunga Din.

"The Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification essentially says that Lutherans and Catholics explain justification in different ways but share the same basic understanding. The central passage reads, “Together we confess: by grace alone, in faith in Christ’s saving work and not because of any merit on our part, we are accepted by God and receive the Holy Spirit, who renews our hearts while equipping us and calling us to good works.” The declaration acknowledges that good works are a genuine response to God’s grace—not the cause of it. The declaration also rescinds the formal condemnations of both the Catholic and Lutheran Churches against one another."

So glad they got it sorted! We can all rest easy now.

Personally, I think Elizabeth I nailed it when she said "There is but one Christ, Jesus; one faith. All the rest
is a dispute over trifles".

And yes, you're right about the need for a second Reformation and what it should be about. John XXIII tried, but
look what's happened since - I think the Vatican would like to pretend he never existed.

[Joe Chi Minh]

6. The Christian meaning of the word, 'faith' actually refers more to commitment than to

belief or credence.

When Christ asked people "Do you believe... such and such?" it required commitment on their part to respond affirmatively, since they could be banned from the Synagogue for having any kind of dealings with him, indigent, itinerant preacher that he was - and, in their eyes, a 'bolshie' rabble-rouser, hostile to the exaggeratedly prestigious status they had given themselves. In a small, rural, theocratic state, such a ban would have been a punishment to be feared.

In Christ's description of the Last Judgment in Matthew's gospel, Jesus makes it clear that, indeed, formal assent to credence in the existence of God is not the key factor for salvation at all, but rather the practical help we render to those in need. One of the 'sheep', in fact, told God, "I don't know you!" Performed in the right spirit, such acts are indeed the work of the Holy Spirit, irrespective of the person's particular religious belief or lack thereof. Selfless love, charity, is the active ingredient in all the virtues; often, without it, they may, instead, be vices, e.g recklessness for courage.

Furthermore, James, remarks in his epistle, "You believe that there is one God; you do well: the devils also believe, and tremble."

[Joe Chi Minh]

7. This requirement of commitment, itself, is of profound importance for our

understanding of the nature of faith in the Christian sense, since just as secular faith and knowledge form a continuum, so do Christian faith and knowledge, and the two, with each other. Simple credulity, a blind, intellectual assent is not what Christ expects of us, but a credence based on scripture and tradition and backed by commitment, all of it at the prompting of the supernatural grace inspired by the Holy Spirit. It's not an intellectual exercise we are called to, but a demanding (though still more rewarding) way of life.

Faith or belief in whether a light comes on when you turn on the switch, or whether, for instance, the bulb will be found to have blown, is of no great moment in terms of our merit as human beings, although secularists have distorted our Christian culture to such an extent that worldly knowledge and understanding is currently viewed almost as the sovereign, supernatural virtue. If a young person suffers a terrible accident, it's perfectly normal to hear someone on the TV or anywhere, say: "And he/she was so intelligent!" (It's also a bit like that with a physically-attractive appearance.)

This, however, was definitely NOT Christ's mindset at all. I'm not a philosopher, but it is clear from the Gospels that the philosophical school of voluntarism is the basis of Christ's 'take' on 'belief'/'faith'. Essentially, it holds that we believe what we want to believe; this, of course, in the normal sense of the word, 'belief', as simple 'credence'.

If we opt to believe that the bulb will be found to have blown when we turn on the switch, statistics suggest that we may be sorely lacking in worldly intelligence, but whatever we choose to believe, would not entail a radical change in our world-view, particularly with respect to our personal morality.

Christian faith, on the other hand, does precisely that. It forces us to look outside ourselves to an external authority to define our moral obligations, irrespective of our and/or the world's preferred version of morality. That is why our faith/belief has this marked dimension of commitment. As we can see, also, our choice of morality is likely to strongly influence our sense of reality, Christ's and the World's 'take' on reality are poles apart.