Catholicism versus Protestantism down the centuries

You need to remember that Faith speaks only for those Protestants that happen to be members of her particular Chapters of Club Christian.As a Protestant and having been raised as a Protestant and educated in a Protestant school I can say that we were taught that works were essential. As my old mom used to say, "It ain't what you profess to believe, it's what you do that hows what you REALLY believe."There are some chapters of Club Christian that hold and market the old "Jesus paid for all my sins" theology. I have to admit that is an attractive product, easy to to sell, epitomized by the oft seen bumper sticker "Not perfect, just saved." It is a great con job, totally legal and with absolutely no product liability.

Salvation comes from the grace of God. No, there's no such thing as "enough", you don't earn salvation by having a belief.

Its an easy sell: "You mean, I don't have to actually do anything? All I have to do is say I believe something and viola, I'm saved?.. well dang, count me in."

Right, I was mainly asking for his point of view. Especially considering that one of his main arguments against Catholicism is the Council of Trent, which included canons specifically against Protestant beliefs of that time, one of which was:
"If any one saith, that by faith alone the impious is justified; in such wise as to mean, that nothing else is required to co-operate in order to the obtaining of the grace of Justification, and that it is not in any way necessary, that he be prepared and disposed by the movement of his own will; let him be anathema."So, it is excommunicating the protestants for believing they do not need to do works. Obviously this was before Protestantism fractured in smaller sub-groups so it only applies then. But as the Council of Trent is one of Faith's main points, I thought it important to bring up.

You'd think that it was just Catholic vs Protestant to listen to this. But of course it's nothing of the sort. There have been schisms in Christianity for as long as there's been Christianity. And just within Protestantism there's hundreds of groupings But Faith knows which is THE ONE. Just like all the other members of all the other sects do.But actually, that's only true of the fundamentalists; more normal religious believers think nothing of the sort. They think that a belief in Christ and living a reasonably good life is enough to be a Christian. They also generally think that you don't have to be a Christian to be 'saved'. I have no idea how the fundie's weird and bigotted views get so much air time.

It's also important to note that the Councils (there were several and they went on for years) of Trent also affirmed Luther's 95 Treatise and agreed with him on almost every point.

You seem to know a lot about the Talmud. Could you please quote the relevant passages?

I think Heinlein is right once again:

Theology is never any help; it is searching in a dark cellar at midnight for a black cat that isn't there.

​

Robert A. Heinlein, JOB: A Comedy of Justice

Her. Faith is a woman. For clarity, what is meant by "needing" to do works is in a 'by their fruits we shall know them' sort of way as opposed to a 'earning heaven through action' sort of way.Jesus said that we love God by doing things for people in need. You can't say that you "believe in Jesus" and then not help the needy, that would be contradicting yourself. So in that sense, you need to do works because that's a direct result of having the belief. You can't just say you believe it.It just gets confusing when people see "needing to do works" and think that you can some how barter your way into heaving by paying God with actions here - that's not how its supposed to work.

My fault, I shall correct that in all future posts. Yeah, that is the sentiment I meant to portray with that comment. Live the Gospel, if you will, to show that you are a follower of Christ. The other way sounds far too close to the old practice of indulgences that the Catholics used.

And that's exactly how Protestants tend to portray Catholics: they liken the performance of good deeds with the indulgences of the church's history, whereby money bought salvation.

Faith and I have remarkably similar views on this issue: --Percy

Thank you, Tempe, for acknowledging that. And thank you for being polite too. But we do. This is preached all the time.Here's the difference, which I hope I can explain clearly enough:Catholicism says you are SAVED by faith plus works. The works are essential to salvation.Protestantism says you are saved by faith alone in Christ alone through grace alone: Not of works, lest any man should boast.That is, if our works contribute to our salvation then we can boast and take credit for our salvation, but all glory and honor go to Christ for saving us without our help.That's one aspect of it.Another is that if our works have anything to do with whether we are saved or not it puts us on a treadmill of anxiety about whether or not we've ever done ENOUGH to merit salvation, and if we're honest we know we could never do enough. If any of it depends on me, forget it, I'm sunk, no matter how much I try to be a good Christian. Sometimes I have fallen into a works-based consciousness myself without really being aware of it and had to pray myself out of it. Yikes.Luther felt this strongly as a devoted Augustinian monk. He drove his confessors crazy with long drawn out sessions in which he tried to confess every little thing he ever did wrong and never felt he'd reached a point where he could relax and accept forgiveness of his sins. You could say he was obsessed and no doubt he was, but he was also right, he recognized the problem and didn't know how to solve it. His superior tried to get him to trust God but Luther was too aware that even one little unconfessed sin would damn him. That would include any sin of omission, any failure to perform a good deed that was called for. When his longsuffering superior tried to get him to focus on the love of God, he could only confess "Love God? I hate him!" because nothing he did could release him from his sense of condemnation for his sins at God's hand.He went on in this state for a long time. He didn't grasp the principle of salvation by grace alone until after he'd nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the Wittenberg Church. Those theses were intended as points for debate, and reflected a common practice of the day. He had no intention of leaving the Church, he was only seeking reform at that point.Perhaps you know this famous story. One day as he was studying the Bible, Romans 1:17 suddenly appeared to him in a new light. He knew the verse very well, but it had always contributed to his sense of condemnation. He thought it was simply showing God's immeasurably superior righteousness which could only condemn a worm like himself who could never stop sinning. But then suddenly he saw that it was saying something else: that God's righteousness was shown in His justifying sinners by faith, that He had decreed that "The just shall live by faith." You cannot possibly be just in yourself or achieve justification in yourself, it is something you can only receive from God. "It is a gift, lest any man should boast."That was the beginning of the Protestant Reformation.BUT, also WORKS FOLLOW FAITH, are the evidence of faith, and cannot be done in the Spirit of Christ without saving faith. The verses from Ephesians I quote above are followed by this verse: We are HIS workmanship. We are "created in Christ Jesus" and we are created "UNTO GOOD WORKS." In Him who has saved us we now do good works that He has ordained for us, by the power to do them in His Spirit which we now have. We are no longer driven by a need for perfection because He has saved us. We now try to learn to depend completely on Him and do what HE wants of us -- by faith.I hope this makes sense.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

The problem with that hypothesis is that non-Christians can do the exact same works. It is by grace (essentially by God's whim) that we can be "saved" from whatever we need saving from - but God's whim seems to be based on the works we do. The faith that some Protestants over-emphasize so much should be faith in the message, not the messenger. And the message is, "Do the works."

It's OK to call it God's whim, but there's no way His whim has anything to do with works, because if it did -- well if it did it wouldn't just be a whim, there would be a reason for it -- and if it did I could never have been saved, being by nature a selfish self-centered crabby sort of person with a long history of sins galore. I'm well aware that I did nothing to deserve His favor, He just sovereignly decided to make a saved person out of this lost person, and I'm SO grateful He did.Works won't save anybody, according to the Protestant Reformers. That's how they understood the message of the gospel and that's how I understand it. You can of course agree with Rome or any of the other works-based religions if you prefer.