About your list. Some of the things on that list Christians believed long before Joseph Smith was ever born. Other things on the list most evangelicals don’t believe.

“The Christian idea of “accepting Jesus” in your heart and specifically choosing to follow Him is a work indeed. This is required for salvation by Evangelicals. Salvation by the WORK of commiting to Christ.”

I think you are somewhat confused what Evangelicals believe about salvation. Not that all Christians are calvinists, but every calvinist I know would completely reject what I jsut quoted.

The Christian idea of “accepting Jesus” in your heart and specifically choosing to follow Him is a work indeed. This is required for salvation by Evangelicals. Salvation by the WORK of commiting to Christ.

Mormons believe that ALL are saved by grace and will be resurrected to immortality, a free gift of God to ALL mankind, purchased through the blood of Christ. We are SAVED from death by this grace. Those who reject Christ will be in “Hell,” which is better than not existing. Consider babies born in China millenia ago. They had no knowledge of Christ. Mormons (via the Bible) teach that these individuals will have the opportunity to accept Him eventually, if they choose. Protestants & Catholics teach these are damned. That is disturbing.

We must understand the difference between salvation and exaltation. Mormons believe that to be exalted requires more. This is to live where God lives and have the natural society of eternal family units, with the power to increase a kingdom the way a young couple can on Earth, as it is in heaven.

Also, I often hear people say Mormons aren’t Christians. The question is whether Christians are Mormon. Truly, there are many doctrines presented by Joseph Smith that have now become adopted by every wing of modern Christianity. These are teachings that Smith was ridiculed for and were not known then. Now they are common among Evangelicals. For a list see:

http://www.lightplanet.com/mormons/response/general/madsen_christians_mormon.htm

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I’m afraid we are still speaking past each other.

1) I never argued that any Catholic position was “compatible” with any Protestant position. You are clotheslining scarecrows. I only argued that they have important “common ground” on salvation and justification. Your use of Franks comments are therefore irrelevant to my point.

2) You dismissed the relevance of Augustine without addressing my reasons for considering him relevant. For our dialogue to advance, you will need to engage these reasons. Otherwise we will continue to speak past each other.

3) I never argued that Trent was compatible with Protestantism. Again, you are clotheslining scarecrows.

4) No. This is not what’s being taught at Southern. No need to panic. What’s taught at Southern is the view that you are now espousing: that Catholics aren’t Christians because they condemned the gospel at the Council of Trent. I too once held this position. After doing my own research, however, I found this position to be untenable for a number of reasons.

5) Again, my arguments are as follows: 1) The Catholic understanding of salvation, including justification, is that it’s all by God’s grace. Belief in the inheritance of eternal life by good works does not undermine this aspect of the Catholic position, as I have argued. 2) If your accusation sticks against Roman Catholics, it also sticks against St. Augustine and the Pre-Reformation church that followed his doctrine of justification, which included the inheritance of eternal life according to works. And 3) Catholics believe in the triune God, Jesus Christ, trust in his incarnation, substitutionary death, burial, resurrection, and lordship. That doesn’t mean they understand justification the way we Protestants do (especially we Reformed Protestants), just that they still hold to the basic gospel message AS PAUL SUMMARIZED IT IN I COR 15:1-4.

6) Do you think I Cor 15:1-4 is an inadequate summary of the gospel?

I hope the above comments help clarify my train of thought. I think this issue is very important, so I’m willing to continue the dialogue so long as we don’t continue to speak past each other.

In Christ,

Bradley

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You said, “In other words, just because Catholics teach that eternal life is merited by good works doesn’t mean they understand such merit and good works to come about by something other than the grace of God.”

Isn’t this a key aspect of what the Reformation was about? Frank above shows why the Protestant and Roman Catholic faiths are incompatible without going to justification. The fact that Trent anathematizes the Protestant position of sola fide shows the incompatibility of the two positions. This is why I don’t understand what you’re trying to argue. It has all ready been “infallibly” declared dogma what Rome teaches.

The disagreement is really not about Augustine, Trent and McGrath’s treatment of the subject. My friend James Swan has a good article on these areas. Just look at the Trent’s canons on justification.

I’m curious, is this what’s being taught at Southern? That is, if I understand what you’re saying, that the Roman Catholic Gospel is acceptable as Christian? My pastor finished his PhD from Southern last December. I’m going to talk with him about this subject.

Thanks,

Mark

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“Cooperation”, as I understand it, would be the tactical or pragmantic execution of “ecumenism”. It is generally local and limited in objectives.

And here’s the problem as I see it, and as it relates to Mark’s overarching point vis. Roman Catholicism and “baptists”: there is no basis for ecumenism, therefore there is no basis for cooperation. Trent has anathematized all people who reject the deuterocanon as Scripture. You don’t have to go any farther than that to see how plain the differences between real Protestantism and actual Catholicism is. If that’s where either side demands a dividing line, there’s no sense talking about justification: there’s no basis for discussion.

When there is cooperation before ecumenism, we establish a false ecumenism. We sugar-coat deep and abiding differences. And we frankly dilute the Gospel in ways which do harm to the faith of others.

I’d be wary of any form of “cooperation” in which there is not a sound and clear statement of objectives involved. The matter of “cooperating” with unbelievers and the merely-cultural judeo-christians contributed to the current social problem we have as believers in politics today, where we are somehow equated with the republican party. That is our fault, and that the Gospel is seen as a gay-bashing, empire-making grab for wealth came in great part to our lack of care in establishing the basis for cooperation, and what it means for us to, for example, advocate in the political system for the right to life.

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Thanks for your thoughts and honesty.

So far, your grounds for accusing the Roman Catholic position of adding to grace appear to be based on the fact that they teach that we can merit eternal life by good works. You provide quotations to show this is what they teach. I was a step ahead of you, thought. I’ve already attempted to provide much needed clarifications on exactly how the Catholics understand the notion of meriting eternal life through good works. They understand that good works are simply grace “at work,” so that whatever merit we accumulate by good works is given purely by the grace of God on the basis of Christ’s merit. **I get this because as a Protestant I also believe that our good works come about purely by the grace of God.** So far, you haven’t addressed these quotations I have provided that demonstrate that Catholics understand both good works and merit as a gift of grace. Instead, you’ve provided statements that show what I already was assuming. Namely, that Catholics teach the meriting of eternal life by good works. Unless I’ve missed something, this does not appear to have taken us any further in our understanding of one another.

Maybe an illustration will help: The Catholic notion of receiving the reward of eternal life based on good works can be better understood if we compare it to Protestant notions of the judgment of believers. Protestants understand that varying degrees of reward will be given to believers. Our own understanding (as Protestants) is that our degree of reward in heaven will be based on our lives here and now (one might even say :: what we do with salvation/grace God has given us). According to protestant teaching, some believers will receive greater rewards than others, based on how they live (i.e. their works). Yet, at the same time, we wouldn’t say (as Protestants) that we therefore “deserve” such rewards, because whatever good we do in this life we do solely by the grace of God because of the work of Christ on our behalf. What we really deserve is eternal damnation. We will receive reward for our good deeds in heaven, but that doesn’t mean we don’t receive them totally by grace—we do. Everything—including the degrees of rewards that believers will receive in heaven—is given totally by grace, even thought it’s based on our works in this life. Just as Protestants allow for rewards to be given by grace, so the Catholics allow for the reward of eternal life to be given by grace. In other words, just because Catholics teach that eternal life is merited by good works doesn’t mean they understand such merit and good works to come about by something other than the grace of God. Sola gratia is compatible with the Catholic/Augustinian notions of merit, just as it is compatible with Protestant notions of work-based reward in the afterlife.

You say, “we aren’t speaking about Augustine’s personal beliefs, but about the official Roman Catholic position.” But Augustine is highly relevant to our discussion in several ways. For starters, Augustine laid the foundations for the Catholic understanding of Justification. No one was more influential on the doctrine of justification in the early development of Roman Catholicism than St. Augustine. More importantly, though, Augustine is relevant in a major way because if your objection to Catholicism sticks also on Augustine (since he also taught that eternal life is merited through good works) then you can’t logically consider St. Augustine a Christian. Yet another reason he is relevant is because you are already convinced that Augustine was a champion of sola gratia, so I want to show you that Augustine, just like the Catholics, understood even this meriting of eternal life by good works to be nothing more than God’s rewarding his own grace.

Augustine did not understand justification the way the Reformers did. He understood justification to mean “to be *made* righteous” by the infusion of grace (the imparting of the new heart, including faith and love), just as the Catholics believe.

e.g. Alister McGrath says:

@ “It is utterly alien to Augustine’s thought to speak of a forensic doctrine of justification, or of imputed righteousness in the Reformed sense of the term. The later patristic writers followed Augustine in their understanding of the nature of justification. Indeed it seems that this understanding of the nature of justification passed into the vernacular. … This understanding of justification can be shown to have been retained by all the scholastic writers up to the Council of Trent. … The basic meaning of the term “justification” as “making righteous” remained.” Alister E. McGrath, “Forerunners of the Reformation?: A Critical Examination of the Evidence for Precursors of the Reformation Doctrines of Justification,” Harvard Theological Review 75 no 1 (1982): 220.

As my quotations show, Augustine also believed that although initial justification could not be merited, after initial justification one must merit eternal life by good works. The quotations you provide from Augustine do not overturn this historical fact, and the quotations you provide must be understood in light of this fact. If you are interpreting Augustine’s strong statements of grace (that you have provided) as if they rule out the notion of meriting eternal life by good works, you have probably read your own Protestant categories into Augustine. It’s a common mistake. Augustine taught BOTH: 1) that salvation was totally by the grace of God, AND: 2) that eternal life was merited by good works. If you can’t understand how these could possibly fit together, and my illustration above was unhelpful in this regard, perhaps you should read more of Augustine and more of the ecumenical discussions that have recently taken place between Protestants and Catholics.

I hope that will help clarify my concerns and help us not speak past each other.

Thanks for your engagement with my thoughts.

Your Southern Baptist brother,

Bradley

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Did you mean Bradley?

If not, I am unsure how my comment spurned that response. Maybe I am just misunderstanding something. It happens a lot!

I’m not confusing the Gospel with right understanding of justification. Have you forgotten about the Reformation and Trent? Those at Trent thought justification important enough to the Gospel to anathematize the solas. That is, my positions.

Further, we aren’t speaking about Augustine’s personal beliefs, but about the official Roman Catholic position.

We could look at a couple of quotes from Augustine.

Augustine (354-430): . The enemy of grace presses on and urges in all ways to make us believe that grace is given according to our deservings, and thus grace is no more grace; and are we unwilling to say what we can say by the testimony of Scripture? NPNF1: Vol. V, Augustine’s Anti-Pelagian Works, A Treatise on the Gift of Perseverance, Chapter 40 – When the Truth Must Be Spoken, When Kept Back.

Augustine (354-430): Grace, however, is not bestowed according to men’s deserts; otherwise grace would be no longer grace. For grace is so designated because it is given gratuitously. NPNF1: Vol. V, Augustine’s Anti-Pelagian Works, A Treatise on Grace and Free Will, Chapter 43.

Contrast those with Rome’s positions.

John Hardon’s Catechism Q&A 1096. What can we merit supernaturally? We can supernaturally merit for ourselves an increase of sanctifying grace and the infused virtues, actual graces and a title to them, the right to enter heaven if we die in the divine friendship, and an increase of happiness in heaven.
John Hardon, S.J., The Question and Answer Catholic Catechism (New York: Doubleday, 1981), p. 220.

John Hardon’s Catechism Q&A 1390. How is satisfaction remedial?
Satisfaction is remedial by meriting grace from God to enlighten and strengthen a person against committing the same sins in the future. John Hardon, S.J., The Question and Answer Catholic Catechism (New York: Doubleday, 1981), p. 276.

CCC 2010: Since the initiative belongs to God in the order of grace, no one can merit the initial grace of forgiveness and justification, at the beginning of conversion. Moved by the Holy Spirit and by charity, we can then merit for ourselves and for others the graces needed for our sanctification, for the increase of grace and charity, and for the attainment of eternal life. Even temporal goods like health and friendship can be merited in accordance with God’s wisdom. These graces and goods are the object of Christian prayer. Prayer attends to the grace we need for meritorious actions. Catechism of the Catholic Church (Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 1994), #2010, p. 487. See also #2025 & #2027

John Hardon’s Catechism Q&A 1102. What is the main purpose of our human freedom?
The main purpose of our human freedom is to cooperate with the graces that God gives us. Fidelity to grace gives joy to the heart and merits further grace. Infidelity to grace has the opposite effect. It discourages the soul and deprives persons of the graces they would have gained had they been faithful to the graces already received.
John Hardon, S.J., The Question and Answer Catholic Catechism (New York: Doubleday, 1981), p. 221-222.
Fidelity to grace gives joy to the heart and merits further grace.

Even the Mormons believe, as stated in 2 Nephi, that they are saved by grace after all they can do. They too would agree with the 1 Cor. quote you gave above. I say this not to equate Rome with Mormons. I say this to show you that the understanding of the Gospel is more than just quoting Scripture and claiming to be “grace based”.

I don’t deny that Rome’s position does name grace. I believe they add something to grace as Trent seems to indicate against the Protestant position. Even Canon 32 you quote above states that by grace our good works merit eternal life.

This position of Rome’s concerning justification and grace is only the beginning. Other objections are the veneration of Mary (latria vs dulia), re-presentation of Christ’s sacrifice at the Mass, purgatory, etc.

I hope you understand my position. I stand with the Reformers against the infallibly declared doctrines of Trent.

Mark

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