Catholicism versus Protestantism down the centuries

I guess that you are right, given that I asked the same question several times now. And if there actually would have been any evidence for any religion having a higher success-rate in getting people into heaven/nirvana/walhalla than any of the others, we would probably have had it by now anyway...

I'm aware of that.At issue is that people are asking you "how you know" that what you believe is accurate. In other circumstances (say, if asked how you know there's a pen on your desk), you would present evidence and argument establishing that your belief is more likely than competing hypotheses (for example, you might provide a picture of a pen sitting on your desk). We could then determine what evidence you're using to tell that your belief is worth holding instead of other mutually exclusive ones, or even simply the null hypothesis.In this case, you feel no obligation to "convince" anyone that your faith is justified. You have faith; that's it, that's all, that's how you know, and it doesn't particularly matter what anyone else thinks. You aren't playing missionary.This confuses participants who expect a different sort of response to the question "how do you know?"You believe in your salvation; therefore you believe you are saved. It appears rather circular to the outside observer, but that doesn't matter to you - the Biblical support for salvation by faith (I'm not distinguishing here between works+faith and just faith) is pretty clear, at least to me (as a former Christian I was pretty well exposed to those lines of faith; others may not be so familiar, I don't know). No, I don't. I don't follow the extension of the "scapegoat" theology to human sacrifice, I think it's rather silly (for clarity - it's silly whether applied to the traditional goat or when a man-god is sacrificed, it's all the same). No ethical dilemma is solved by casting responsibility onto a third party and killing it; all you've done is needlessly killed something/someone. A murderer still committed murder after the goat is slain; his victim is still dead and the blood remains on his hands, for instance.And I don't actually believe that anything like a god exists, so the theological point is rather moot.I'd just like people in general to stop being so scared and shitty to each other and be willing to help. I don't much care if there is an afterlife involved, I think it's pretty clear that if we were a little less fearful and a little more compassionate we could make this life an awful lot better. Theological doctrine aside, the whole "love thy neighbor as you love thyself," "what you do to the least of these you do to me," and "turn the other cheek" set of ethical guidelines resound pretty strongly with me.Instead of believing that all people are reprehensibly evil monsters who need saving from the eternal torture we all deserve, I rather think that nobody deserves torture or even death, that there's nothing anyone can do to deserve those things, that nature is unfortunately amoral and so death and suffering are frequently unavoidable, but that we can and frequently do make the world a better place. I don't think I or you need "saving," I just think we could (and should) be a little less shitty to each other and more willing to help out when help is needed because we'll all be happier in the end. That makes me more inclined to get along well with Christians of any flavor who think "works" are "good to do," regardless of whether they think works are necessary for any sort of salvation.

Yes.
There are lots of people who have a mere mental assent to a list of doctrines and think that's faith, when in reality it's a deep belief that changes you inside out. It's something you have to determine for yourself. My faith is of no use to anyone else.

Well, clearly YOU can know for sure that you DON'T have saving faith as I have defined it. Some things ARE knowable.If anyone here had even a glimmer of the faith I'm describing THEN we could talk about how they could really know for sure, but as long as nobody even believes the most rudimentary statement of the faith of the gospel, there's really nothing more to discuss. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Really ? You can cast out demons and prophecy just by assenting to a list of doctrines ?Consider this. Matthew 7:26 (KJV)

It's interesting that you continue to portray a defensive/combative stance toward me. My reply was intended more for other participants than for you - I was trying to help clear up the confusion caused by the difference between your actual answer and the form they expected your answer to take, and why you had actually answered the question as asked. I'm not debating against you at all, really - we have different beliefs and I soapboxed a bit to point them out, but I understand your position and the difference between us is a set of polar opposite beliefs on how to determine which beliefs are actually accurate in reality. It's a fundamental difference in basic reasoning and so you and I would never get anywhere on a theological debate - instead I was just trying to help you explain, because your brief answers (while perfectly sufficient for someone familiar with your beliefs) were just not doing it here.

Defensive, combative? Not anywhere near anything I'm aware of. Just matter of factly answering questions, or commenting as things come up, that's all, but whatever.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Cute but calling all Protestant denominations, which probably number in the thousands at least, "n minus 1" or a "sect" is startlingly strange. You reduce all the churches that came down from the Protestant Reformation to a "sect?"ALL denominations that identify themselves as Protestant or Evangelical and adhere to one or another of the Christian Creeds, subscribe to Justification by Faith, or Salvation by Grace Alone through Faith Alone in Christ Alone. I have no idea what all that 30,000 number somebody put up is supposed to represent but a wild guess would be that the number I believe are wrong is more like n-29,000.

OK maybe I misread you in my haste to get through everything on the thread, but I don't think there IS a way to answer the question "how do you know" in the terms you are requiring. I know I'm saved because I believe what the gospel requires me to believe. It says if I believe on the Lord Jesus Christ I will be saved. It says if I believe in my heart that He was raised from the dead I am saved. It says if I love the brethren I am saved. And I easily agree with other statements in scripture. On top of that I also have certain experiences that aren't proof but support my belief that I'm saved, such as a deep peace that comes over me when I read scripture. So I can test myself in these ways, but there's nothing I know of I can say to an unbeliever to answer the question "how do I know?"This thread to this point has been mostly an attempt to define the different formulas for salvation held by Catholicism and Protestantism, so the question How do I know is really a tangent anyway and I just try to answer as briefly as possible so as not to hang up the thread too much on a side issue.Edited by Faith, : correct awkward phrasingEdited by Faith, : No reason given.

This question used to bother me until I realized that its ok to not know, scientifically speaking. That I believe is good enough for me.

God forgives you your sins. But Christians who believe they are saved routinely accuse other Christians who believe they are saved of having been fooled by Satan. Obviously the feeling of having let Jesus into your heart is prone to error. A logic similar to Pascal's Wager applies here. Seeking grace through both works and faith covers all bets.--Percy

I get exactly what you are saying and why you do believe that you are saved.However, I believe that the bolded parts really speak to why I wanted to continue this topic from the other thread. Your claim there was that Catholics are not Christians and yet, they believe every single one of these bolded items exactly the same as you do. This is why I do not understand the Catholic/Protestant War at all. The similarities (especially in such true key theological issues) really should be tying all of these groups together as brothers and sisters in Christ, but neither of the groups wants to forget the tumultuous past and agression that the other showed their group.I find this particularly interesting considering the person they all claim to follow wants them to forgive their enemies and turn the other cheek.The question I would then have is, "Could there be anyway to end the constant bickering between the different Christians and get them to actually work together? Or, are these slight differences really so important to salvation that choosing to work together would be negative?Edited by Tempe 12ft Chicken, : No reason given.

(is this on topic? Itis the history of the church prophesied in Revelation.)

But only through the death of Christ. Otherwise we all remain in our sins and die in our sins unsaved. That's what the Bible reveals, and that's what the Protestant Reformation understood.As I told the story earlier, Catholicism as Martin Luther experienced it kept him under condemnation for his sins no matter how often and how thoroughly he confessed them and how often his confessor gave him absolution, because he knew that even one sin damns a person without complete confession and absolution.He didn't understand that Christ died to pay for his sins completely. He thought he had to be completely clean to be forgiven because of the Catholic emphasis on works for salvation.He knew he was forgiven only when he knew that Christ had been given as a complete and perfect sacrifice for his sins and put all his trust in that accomplished fact. That's the essence of the Protestant Reformation.As I understand it, most Catholics will tell you that there's no way to know if you're saved. But the Reformation showed us that we can and should know. I didn't say I was saved by a feeling, nobody is saved by a feeling, nobody is saved by "asking Christ into your heart." You are saved by the belief that He is God who became a man who died to pay for your sins. Faith is resting in that promise. I don't know what you have in mind about people being fooled but if someone has a false understanding of the gospel you simply know they aren't saved because the gospel tells you how to be saved. Well, I wasn't offering a wager myself, I didn't mean to say you could be SAVED by agreeing with Rome, merely that of course you can believe what you want. But the knowledge of salvation by grace alone was THE achievement of the Protestant Reformation. Faith plus works will in fact damn you.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

If you say that you have faith, but no works result from it, then you don't really have faith. The works don't buy your way to salvation, its just that without them we know you don't have faith. It doesn't stop at just faith, according to Jesus.