Thoughts on faith and works.

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seebs

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Hi, I normally wouldn't post stuff like this here, but this grew out of a conversation here, and I thought I'd seek feedback.

That sounds good. So, I don't have to do anything then. Just recieve the gift through the works of Christ.:clap:

Here, I think, I begin to see the problem.

You're asking what you have to do.

The goal here is not to find the bare minimum and pursue it! To do this is in fact to reject God's grace.

If you are gratefully receiving God's grace, then you will do things. You "have to", not in the sense that it is demanded of you, but that it is inevitable that you will wish to.

To put the question as you do here is to go back to the question of how we can earn salvation. The answer "since we can't earn it, we don't have to try" is just as misleading as any other answer that purports to tell you how much you have to do to obtain salvation.

As soon as you begin to express the question in terms of what the requirements are, you start expressing the notion that this salvation is a lot of work and it'd be nice to get saved so we can go get some golf in while the weather's nice.

Nothing we do can ever be enough to earn salvation, so obviously, we don't need to earn it. We can't earn it, so if we needed to, we'd be in a lot of trouble.

However, that doesn't mean that we don't have to try.

Imagine, if you will, a six-year-old child who has just caused an accident that destroyed a $200,000 sports car.

He cannot pay for the car. He has $2.73 in his piggy bank. No money he has is enough to cover this cost.

So he can't pay. And if the car owner is a good person, he won't try to sue the kid or his parents.

But... Imagine that, instead of just not paying, the kid offers the man his $2.73. Is this enough to pay for the car? No.

But it is enough that we know, from this action, that the child is the sort of person who would pay, if he could.

Works do not buy heaven, but if you don't do works, it means you not only can't pay, but don't want to. It means that, if the man gave you a check for $200,000, you wouldn't sign it over to him to "pay for his car", recognizing forgiveness and responding to it appropriately; you'd just keep it and buy a whole lot of bubblegum.

Which means that, until you're the sort of person who offers what you've got, you're not getting anything more.

Except, of course, for purely unmerited grace.

...

So, any feedback? I've been wrestling with how to express this relation for a long time.
 

holyorders

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seebs said:
Hi, I normally wouldn't post stuff like this here, but this grew out of a conversation here, and I thought I'd seek feedback.



Here, I think, I begin to see the problem.

You're asking what you have to do.

The goal here is not to find the bare minimum and pursue it! To do this is in fact to reject God's grace.

If you are gratefully receiving God's grace, then you will do things. You "have to", not in the sense that it is demanded of you, but that it is inevitable that you will wish to.

To put the question as you do here is to go back to the question of how we can earn salvation. The answer "since we can't earn it, we don't have to try" is just as misleading as any other answer that purports to tell you how much you have to do to obtain salvation.

As soon as you begin to express the question in terms of what the requirements are, you start expressing the notion that this salvation is a lot of work and it'd be nice to get saved so we can go get some golf in while the weather's nice.

Nothing we do can ever be enough to earn salvation, so obviously, we don't need to earn it. We can't earn it, so if we needed to, we'd be in a lot of trouble.

However, that doesn't mean that we don't have to try.

Imagine, if you will, a six-year-old child who has just caused an accident that destroyed a $200,000 sports car.

He cannot pay for the car. He has $2.73 in his piggy bank. No money he has is enough to cover this cost.

So he can't pay. And if the car owner is a good person, he won't try to sue the kid or his parents.

But... Imagine that, instead of just not paying, the kid offers the man his $2.73. Is this enough to pay for the car? No.

But it is enough that we know, from this action, that the child is the sort of person who would pay, if he could.

Works do not buy heaven, but if you don't do works, it means you not only can't pay, but don't want to. It means that, if the man gave you a check for $200,000, you wouldn't sign it over to him to "pay for his car", recognizing forgiveness and responding to it appropriately; you'd just keep it and buy a whole lot of bubblegum.

Which means that, until you're the sort of person who offers what you've got, you're not getting anything more.

Except, of course, for purely unmerited grace.

...

So, any feedback? I've been wrestling with how to express this relation for a long time.
You have some very good points. Works show God our faith and God loves us to have faith in Him. The more we give to God the more we are saying "I give you all of myself and everything I own for You, my God". It doesn't merit salvation..........it merits conjugal love with God.....thereby granting graces to be able to "work out our salvation with fear and trembling" more effectively.
 
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Rising_Suns

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Hi Seebs,
I like your analogy. Here is an anlogy that I formulated a while ago (realizing that all analogies break down if taken far enough, I ask you to please bear with me on this);

THEME PARK ANALOGY said:
Think of salvation as a ride at a theme park, one that takes us from earth to heaven. Now, it is Christ who hands us a free ticket to get on this ride, but now what? Now we must take the ticket and walk over to the ride and get in. There are two parts here; receiving, and doing (faith and works). One action cannot be successful without the other; we cannot get on the ride (heaven) without the ticket (Jesus) and we cannot benefit from the ticket without getting on the ride. And the critical lesson of this analogy is two-fold: Yes, Jesus Christ is the source of this whole series of events. And yes, we still play a role in this process. This is the unified nature of faith and works, in a rather clumsy nutshell.

The relation between faith and works can be confusing, because the two are so closely united. Ordinarily, they are one in the same. The action of receiving the ticket and getting on the ride is one complete action, in which both parts are dependent on the other. One cannot have faith without good works, and one cannot do good works without faith.

This is why, ultimately, faith itself IS a work; faith is action, not complacent. As your analogy points out, the theif on the cross *would* have done good works if he had the opportunity to. His conversion was true, and God knew this, and made an exception given his state.

Blessings,

-Davide
 
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RoseofLima

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This is where I have really fallen in love with (in my very limited knowledge of) our Eastern brethren and their theology.

It is very clear to them that the whole point of life is to become Christ, to be in total union with Him-without losing my own identity, for my heart and His heart to be so intertwined to beat as one inseperable unit (though still distinctly two)...

The goal is perfect union, total espousement...

To me if we look at the life of a Christian in this way, how different it seems. It isn't about yes, this is a mortal sin--and do I really have to do that? Rahter it becomes- "What can I do to please my Beloved?" "How can I serve my Love and those who He loves?"

Anyone who knows anything about healthy marriage knows that in order to grow inunity, there must be an ever constant gift of mutual selflessness--a dying to self, in order to please the object of our love...done not begrudgingly, but with great joy. There must also be physical union in marriage..there must be intimacy both spoken, listened and physical. With our Heavenly spouse - that is the life of prayer, of the sacraments- of total physical and spiritual union in Holy Communion.

I am able to enter into this union with Jesus, becuase of His death. I can grow in union with Him, through dying to myself- and loving Him and those whom He loves--through uniting with Him in prayer and in the sacraments-particularly in the marital embrace of Holy Communion-where we are one, and I can be with Him in union forever when I die if I have tried to live united with Him during my life- He will complete the process that I might dwell with my Spouse forever falling in deeper love.
 
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Miss Shelby

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It's my understanding that we are sanctified by our works, that's to say as we progress in the Christian life, we become more set apart in holiness as a result of them.

An example that many people use as proof that works are not necesary for salvation is the thief on the cross. They will contend that he didn't do anything, but yet Jesus told him he would be in paradise with Him. What they forget is that he did perform a work with his dying breaths on the cross he defended Jesus. This was proof of his repentance and his change of heart. But, his case is extreme, his is a deathbed conversion, he was a worker in the field, but for the minimum amount of time.

Had the theif not died and been removed from the cross and lived another 20 years, I doubt it would have been his action on the cross that saved him or even his one time expression of belief--if he would have done nothing after that point in time but backslide into complacency, his heart would have hardened and he wouldn't have grown and progressed. Our actions keep us alive in the faith. Not our thoughts or thinking about what we should do, but actually what we do. Which we are able to do only by the grace of God.

/end rambling

Michelle
 
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RoseofLima

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Miss Shelby said:
It's my understanding that we are sanctified by our works, that's to say as we progress in the Christian life, we become more set apart in holiness as a result of them.

An example that many people use as proof that works are not necesary for salvation is the thief on the cross. They will contend that he didn't do anything, but yet Jesus told him he would be in paradise with Him. What they forget is that he did perform a work with his dying breaths on the cross he defended Jesus. This was proof of his repentance and his change of heart. But, his case is extreme, his is a deathbed conversion, he was a worker in the field, but for the minimum amount of time.

Had the theif not died and been removed from the cross and lived another 20 years, I doubt it would have been his action on the cross that saved him or even his one time expression of belief--if he would have done nothing after that point in time but backslide into complacency, his heart would have hardened and he wouldn't have grown and progressed. Our actions keep us alive in the faith. Not our thoughts or thinking about what we should do, but actually what we do. Which we are able to do only by the grace of God.

/end rambling

Michelle
There is the very important matter of freedom--don't you think?

Our actions freely chosen change us, change the world around us---for good or for evil. Just as prayer changes the entire cosmos- so to do the things we do or say--or often more powerfully the things we leave unsaid and the things we leave undone.

If we are given the gift of justification, but then choose never to act--God will not impose Himself upon us. Heaven is freely chosen through our cooperation with the life of the Spirit.

Grace is a gift , which gives a capacity for faith whose fruit is works....which increase our capacity to be more filled with grace, which leads to greater faith whose fruit is greater works...which increase our capacity to be more filled with grace...and on and on....until we through our cooperation in the Divine Life reach heaven, and life in its fullness.
 
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geocajun

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The Catholic Church teaches that we do not have to do anything in order to be saved. I repeat, we do not have to do any works to be saved.
We must have the required 'acts of disposition' (faith, love of God, detestation of sin, intention to be baptized in Christ, fear of hell) but these are not works, these are acts of disposition... or states of mind. They are the radical change of inward disposition which is required for salvation. After we have (with Christ) acheived the beginning of this interior transformation, then we can merit sanctification by our good works, but the works are not what justify us.
 
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Carrye

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seebs said:
The goal here is not to find the bare minimum and pursue it!

My pastor once said (about an unrelated matter, though it works here too) . . . is that what love compels us to do? The bare minimum? No. Love is extravagant. It wants to give until it can't give any more . . . and then it finds other people to help with the giving. It creates. And then there is more love.

The same thing applies here. Is my goal "to get to heaven?" Well, yes, but that is not the whole story. The whole story, as Shannon said, is to become like Christ, and the way that we get there is unique for each of us.

Shannon may be really, really good at giving people the benefit of the doubt, but not be so good at being patient with her children. I may have an abundance of patience, but punk people down who disagree with me. We both want to be like Christ, but our paths are different.

Love compels us to do much. Love compels us to do as Christ commanded. Love compels us to create. Love compels us to action.
 
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RoseofLima

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We both want to be like Christ, but our paths are different.
That is so very true and so very often forgotten when we preach the Gospel. Why is it that we tend to want homogony? It seems like one of those things Paul warns of when he urges the faithful to no longer be children in their thinking- rather to be only children in sin. So many (often through no fault of their own), are stuck in thinking like children or adolescence---making everything simplistic; losing much of the heart of the matter.
 
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RoseofLima

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saloman said:
The Catholic Church teaches that we do not have to do anything in order to be saved. I repeat, we do not have to do any works to be saved.
We must have the required 'acts of disposition' (faith, love of God, detestation of sin, intention to be baptized in Christ, fear of hell) but these are not works, these are acts of disposition... or states of mind. They are the radical change of inward disposition which is required for salvation. After we have (with Christ) acheived the beginning of this interior transformation, then we can merit sanctification by our good works, but the works are not what justify us.
But that is not exactly accurate, while it is true...CHrist's sacrifice justifies, baptism gives us life in Christ...that life cannot be lost except through mortal sin (which can be an act or a failure to act)....

However if we do nothing in response to that divine life- it won't be long until we have, indeed, commited mortal sin - through our sins of omission, if nothing else. This is assuming that one who is baptised lives past the age of reason and has an understanding of the Faith.... it is still not works which justify, but rather they keep our heart pumping so as to receive the Divine life in ever greater measure..and don't have a heart attack abruptly separating us from that life.
 
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Carrye

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RoseofLima said:
That is so very true and so very often forgotten when we preach the Gospel. Why is it that we tend to want homogony?

I've always appreciated that about my pastor too, and his guidance. It isn't about putting a person through a nice "spiritual program" that has been developed and locked neatly in a binder; it's about an individual's unique journey to sanctification, to Christ Himself. It is the most simple and most complex thing in the whole world, it seems.
 
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geocajun

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RoseofLima said:
But that is not exactly accurate, while it is true...CHrist's sacrifice justifies, baptism gives us life in Christ...that life cannot be lost except through mortal sin (which can be an act or a failure to act)....

However if we do nothing in response to that divine life- it won't be long until we have, indeed, commited mortal sin - through our sins of omission, if nothing else. This is assuming that one who is baptised lives past the age of reason and has an understanding of the Faith.... it is still not works which justify, but rather they keep our heart pumping so as to receive the Divine life in ever greater measure..and don't have a heart attack abruptly separating us from that life.
Ummm, so in other words, what I said is, exactly accurate - why did you say it isn't?
Often times it rubs folks wrong when I say it, because pop apologetics spends so much time defending 'works' that it seems like the Church teaches they are required for us to be saved, which they aren't - period.
One can argue the philisophical points that works keep our heart pumping, or they build character, etc... but they aren't what justify us or required for salvation.
 
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RoseofLima

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saloman said:
Ummm, so in other words, what I said is, exactly accurate - why did you say it isn't?
Often times it rubs folks wrong when I say it, because pop apologetics spends so much time defending 'works' that it seems like the Church teaches they are required for us to be saved, which they aren't - period.
One can argue the philisophical points that works keep our heart pumping, or they build character, etc... but they aren't what justify us or required for salvation.
I think that I suppose there is confusion for me - by what you mean by 'to be saved." We are able to get to heaven because of Jesus. Period. But we must cooperate with the redemptive work of Christ to our capacity while we are alive, in order to gain entry into heaven. Obviously a baby is unable to cooperate greatly (at all) with this redemptive work- but won't be barred heaven, becuase it is not works which gives us the right to heaven....but once we reach the age of reason, we cannot do NOTHING-becuase we have to participate in the Divine life to our capacity, because our faith is above all relational...it is a love affair, it is not a check list or a legal document or a treatise.I think my hesitation is that your answer seems to just want to make it all simplistic, and it isn't really just A+B= heaven. We are justified by the Blood of the Lamb, we are redeemed through our cooperation with this salvific work in our lives , we are saved when we enter into heaven. Of course you have a lot more training and schooling to me, and mt thoughts on the matter are very likely the ones which are too simplistic! :)
 
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geocajun

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RoseofLima said:
I think that I suppose there is confusion for me - by what you mean by 'to be saved." We are able to get to heaven because of Jesus. Period. But we must cooperate with the redemptive work of Christ to our capacity while we are alive, in order to gain entry into heaven. Obviously a baby is unable to cooperate greatly (at all) with this redemptive work- but won't be barred heaven, becuase it is not works which gives us the right to heaven....but once we reach the age of reason, we cannot do NOTHING-becuase we have to participate in the Divine life to our capacity, because our faith is above all relational...it is a love affair, it is not a check list or a legal document or a treatise.I think my hesitation is that your answer seems to just want to make it all simplistic, and it isn't really just A+B= heaven. We are justified by the Blood of the Lamb, we are redeemed through our cooperation with this salvific work in our lives , we are saved when we enter into heaven. Of course you have a lot more training and schooling to me, and mt thoughts on the matter are very likely the ones which are too simplistic! :)
Shannon, I wrote up a longer post on this topic a while back which is here: http://www.christianforums.com/t80333
Post #21 deals with loss of justification as well.
 
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Rising_Suns

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Fr. William Most attempted to reconsile the delimas of both schools of Thomistic and Molinistic thought.

His conlusion is quite simply; our "work" comes by not resisting the grace of God. This is salvation without postive merit.

http://www.ewtn.com/library/SCRIPTUR/PREDESTI.TXT

-Davide
 
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