Hello, I am a Catholic, I come in peace simply seeking understand Protestant thought a bit more from Protestants themselves.
Hi, no expert but did share my thoughts with those of a Catholic persuasion daily for over ten years with many Catholics. While I do not think be of the Catholic denomination eliminates a person from being a Christian it is more like a dark place.
There are many here that could help you have a better understanding of the faith of Christ and how it works in us.
In the end it is the same thing that plagued the Jews when Christ was here. Sola scriptura or all that is written in the law and the prophets. It made the traditions of the fathers to no effect and not the other way around as it is with those who do serve a law of the fathers . there tradition also called “apostolic succession” do make sola scriptura to no effect.
This is what I understand of Protestant anthropology and soteriology, at least according to the primary reformers i.e. Luther and Calvin. Please let me know if I am correct:
Reformers are not in the place of God.
The original sin of Adam and Eve destroyed the goodness of man's nature and thereby destroyed the ability of his reason to know God or supernatural things, and also destroyed the freedom of his will thereby rendering him incapable of free moral actions.
The phrase “original sin” is a law of the Catholics fathers as an oral tradition of men. All sin originates when one violates a commandment of God. No such thing as artificial sin or unofficial
Because of man's total depravity of mind/will he is unable to participate in any way in his salvation and thus salvation is a matter of grace alone.
Yes according to Christ’s grace alone. He does all the work needed for us to believe Him. The grace of Christ in respect to Christ work of faith does not come from a persons own work called purgatory . Christ made the payment in full. When he said it was fiished it was
Now the consequence of this which Luther never seems to deny and Calvin affirms outright is that because salvation is by grace ALONE then the difference between those who are saved and those who are damned depends not on human responsibility but on God, hence Calvin's doctrine of predestination.
We are lovingly commanded not to have the faith of Christ or generated by which comes from hearing God, rather by seeking the approval of any man, Luther. Calvin or the Pope. God is not a man as us and neither is there any daysman (Pope) set between God and man as an infallible fleshly interpreter.
My first question is, have I understood this correctly?
If you were looking for the flesh of Christ to profit for something then what you offered would be correct. Christ said of His own flesh it did not profit, the living Words of the Spirit is that which alone does. But again we do not need any man to teach us… that kind of idea that we do ned man to teach us defines the antichrists . We study to seek His approval not that of the creation(Pope)
Secondly my question is this: How does such a theory avoid altering radically both God and man in such a way that God seems to be unavoidably monsterous for creating people who have absolutelly no chance of salvation, and man seems to no longer be a responsible moral agent since he can neither know the good nor does he have any power (even assisted by grace) to co-operate in doing good?
God reveals himself as having one mind and therefore always does whatsoever His soul pleases with the clay he is forming Christ in. nothing comes by chance. or a toss of the coin He is not served by human hands
Philippians 1:6 Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:
Christ does all the work of salvation from the first hearing of faith to the last hearing of faith. Those who look to some work they could perform that could add to his work are called foolish . And.as the scriptures inform us we are born again of a imputed a righteousness not of our own selves, but of God working in us to both will and perform his good pleasure
O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you?This only would I learn of you,
Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by “the hearing of faith?”Are ye so foolish?
having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?Have ye suffered so many things in vain? if it be yet in vain.He therefore that ministereth to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you,
doeth he it by the works of the law, or by “the hearing of faith”?Even as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Gal 3:1-6
If man does not even have the power to co-operate how can we speak of him as a responsible moral agent? And if God, as Calvin insists, is ultimately the only agent in human actions, how is it that man and not God is responsible for sin?
If someone can please help me to understand better I would appreciate it, thanks
When God breathed the breath of spirit life into a body made from the dust he became a responsible moral agent.
Again we are not to have the faith as a work of God that works in us in respect to any man… to do so is to commit blasphemy of the Holy Spirit our one teacher guide and comforter As new creatures we do have the authority or power to believe God but again it is not of us. Its Emanuel God with us and not God is one of us as if he was a man and hade a beginning of days and end of Spirit life. He remains without father and mother..Seek his approval. .
Giving that authority we have in us to the Pope, Luther or Calvin simply turns things upside down . Where are hearts are there we will find of treasure
But we have this
treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; 2Co 4:7
Study what the phrase “hearing of faith” means and in respect to that.... whose faith . Hearing our own imaginations of one heart as the source of faith or another of flesh and blood?