Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: jhpb@granjon.garage.att.com Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Faith and Works:(Was Re: priesthood) Message-ID: Date: 27 Jan 91 08:42:53 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: AT&T Bell Labs (Liberty Corner) Lines: 96 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu David Wagner writes (not to me): But you take this, and say that I am teaching a predestination to damnation. By so doing you are putting words into my mouth, because I flatly deny any predestination to damnation. The scriptures clearly teach that God wants all men to be saved, 1 Tim 2:4, but that some men resist the Holy Spirit, Acts 7:51. Perhaps the simplest summary of 'predestination' is this: If we are saved, it is God's work, for he chose us for this before the creation of the world, Eph 1:4. If we reject the Gospel and remain dead in our transgressions and sins, it is our own fault. Every time this subject comes up, I am absolutely astonished and utterly dumbfounded. Protestants believe in the Catholic doctrine on grace, if this group is representative at all. The concept of irresistible grace is what the Reformation was ABOUT. And now almost everyone follows the Council of Trent! I thought perhaps that the following considerations might help clarify some of the difficulties on the issues of grace being discussed. I sent another posting to the moderator on the subject that was somewhat more involved, and want to repeat what I said as simply as possible here. There are two kinds of works. One kind proceeds from my human nature alone. This is the sort of thing that everyone can do, just by being human. For example, being nice to your friends. The other kind of work cannot be done except by grace. An example here is an act of perfect love of the Trinity. This is utterly impossible without God's grace, because you can't even KNOW that He is a Trinity without His grace convincing you, much less LOVE Him as a Trinity. Works proceeding from human nature don't save. Works proceeding from grace DO. Without God's grace, we could not do the works that we need to do to be saved. Not because we can't do any good without grace, but because we can't do the kind of good that will result in our salvation. For that kind of good, we need grace. God's grace does not force us to do what we are supposed to do. It gives us the ability to do something that we could not do before. (This is a little simplified, because grace is a little more than just a granting of an ability, but I'm trying to keep this simple, and what I'm saying is close.) Thus the importance of works. A person with the grace had better darn well do the good works that the grace gives the power to, because otherwise they're abusing grace. Thus also the proper attitude towards Heaven and Hell. People end in Hell because they don't use God's grace properly. They end in Heaven because they do. Joe Buehler [You are certainly right in general. Few Protestants believe in election any more. As far as I can determine, what they believe in is almost exactly the doctrine taught by Trent. However I think that's not true for David. He is trying to present Luther's view. He really does believe in election. I don't want to speak for David, so I'm going to summarize Luther as I understand him. But I suspect David's comments should be taken the same way. Luther said that it is impossible to be saved without God's grace, that God's grace is irresistible, and thus that those who are saved are saved entirely through God's grace. It's clear that those he does not choose are thus going to be damned. However they are damned because they reject God. The elect would have done so as well if they hadn't been chosen. But Luther chooses (for reasons that I think have a lot to be said for them) to regard damnation as being entirely the result of their choice, not of God's failure to elect them. God did give them all that they needed to be saved, in some nominal sense. Calvinists think this is double-think. If everyone who God doesn't choose will end up being damned, then God is responsible for deciding who will be damned. Calvinists in effect accuse Luther of setting up a set of assumptions that lead to double predestination, but simply refusing to draw the conclusion to which those assumptions lead. This is not an entirely fair criticism, because theology isn't mathematical logic. We don't understand things well enough to axiomatize them, and the best we can do from our perspective may indeed look like it is logically inconsistent. At any rate, I think when David says he rejects predestination to damnation, it is in this context. He seems to believe in predestination to salvation, and also that all who are not predestined to salvation will be lost. But his view (as well as the straight Calvinist view) is unusual these days. Most Protestants say they believe in salvation by grace alone, but what they *mean* by this is almost exactly the Catholic doctrine. --clh]