A sketch of the Catholic view of Salvation

A fellow Catholic blogger asked me to write a post explaining the Catholic view of Salvation. He made a good point: We hear a lot of why Sola Fide is wrong, but we don't hear enough about why Catholicism is right. It's not enough for Catholicism to just disprove Protestantism.

In this post I will try to lay out the main facets of Catholic soteriology (the Catholic understanding of salvation), which can be further appreciated with the Protestant view shown in contrast. Since this is a sketch view, I will not really focus on proving Catholicism here (but I've done so elsewhere).

The first question to address is: What is salvation?
The very essence of salvation means a person is in a relationship with the Trinity. (John 14:23; Eph 3:17; 1 Cor 3:16) A person "is saved" when Trinity indwells in the soul of the Christian. Adam was originally in a relationship with the Trinity, he was created in a "saved" state, but through grave sin he broke this communion and became "unsaved." This is why the Bible describes believers "getting saved" in terms of reconciliation, adoption, in-grafting, etc. (Rom 5:10; Rom 8:14-17; John 15:4-5) It is in restoring of the communion through the Divine Indwelling that one "gets saved."

While the Catholic and Biblical view of salvation is a state of being, the contrast to this is the Protestant view of salvation, which an aftereffect of a performance. The Protestant view of salvation is that to "get saved" one must keep God's commandments perfectly, and upon doing so they are awarded a legal status of "perfect law-keeper." This status makes one legally worthy to enter Heaven. Since Adam and all mankind failed to keep God's commandments perfectly, Protestants reason that the only way to get awarded the status of "perfect law-keeper" is if Jesus keeps the law perfectly in our place and 'imputes' this to us. So when a Protestant speaks of "getting saved" they are speaking of believing that Jesus lived the life you were supposed to live, and the Father crediting you with the status of "perfect law-keeper," as if you yourself had kept the commandments perfectly, making you now worthy of entering Heaven.

The second question to address is: Why are Catholics so concerned about works?
From the previous paragraphs, one can see the radical difference between Protestantism and Catholicism. In Protestantism, one is saved independently of being in a relationship with God. (Protestants certainly believe Christians enter into a relationship with God, but it is not this relationship that determines their salvation.) On the flip side, it is clear why sin can cause a Catholic to lose salvation, because sin undermines the relationship with God, and if the sin is grave enough then it can sever that relationship, causing one to become "unsaved." (John 15:6; 1 John 3:15; Rom 11:19-22) This is why Protestants generally believe one cannot lose salvation, because even when they sin, God only looks at the "perfect law-keeper" status that Jesus credited to them. (Luther described this situation as Christians representing piles of dung covered with snow, where God only "sees" the pure white snow and not their own filth.)

From this it becomes clear what "good works" mean in the Catholic context. In the Catholic view, good works (acts of love) are what grow and deepen the relationship with God. It's similar to when a married couple grows in love and appreciation for each other. The relationship gets stronger or weaker in response to how much love or sin is committed. It is not only a duty, it's crucial for maintaining a strong relationship. But from the Protestant view, "good works" are anathema in the "getting saved" context, because we are law-breakers by nature and we'd be deceived to think our good works could contribute towards a "perfect law-keeping" status. (Recall that in that view, God the Father looks at Jesus' "perfect law-keeping" alone, not our sinful record.) So from the Protestant perspective, "good works" (quite logically) don't "save" us, but Protestants insist that we should do good works out of gratitude for God, as a way of saying thank you and being a witness to others about what Jesus already did for you.

The third question to address is: What about the Cross?
The Cross is viewed very differently by Protestants and Catholics. Most people don't realize this, but after the above sketches it should be apparent that there must be radically diverging views. The Cross was about making Atonement for sins, but what most people don't know is that to make atonement in the Biblical sense means to repair a damaged relationship through offering up something of value. Given this, the Catholic view of the Cross is that of Jesus offering up his life, with His shedding of blood signifying He held nothing back. This act of Jesus offering up everything out of love of God was so pleasing in the Father's sight, that this act of Atonement carried a value greater than all the sins in history combined. The Bible describes this as an aroma that blots out the stench caused by sin. (Eph 5:1-2; Lev 4:31; Gen 8:21) It is from this Atonement that our relationship with God can be restored, for instead of approaching God 'empty handed' asking to restore this, through faith we now appeal to God "in the Name of Jesus," to which God is pleased to listen to the Intercession of His Beloved Son. 

Unfortunately, Protestants don't follow the Bible (or Tradition) on this matter, and so they have a radically distorted view of the Cross. They see "Atonement" in an almost pagan form, in which their sin is punished in a substitute. The reason why Protestants believe this is because they view salvation in terms of a legal status, where the Judge must punish the guilty and acquit the innocent. Before God can look at the "perfect law-keeping" of Jesus credited to them, the sinner's 'criminal record' must first receive the punishments due to those crimes. Thus, Adam's sins and our sins had to be punished in Christ. From this they mistakenly think the Old Testament sacrificial animals were receiving the death penalty in place of the sinning Jew who offered it. But worse yet, from this mistaken idea Protestants think God the Father punished Jesus with the divine wrath and vengeance our sins deserved, which translates into God the Father unleashing hellfire and damnation upon His Beloved Son while He hung on the Cross. (It is no wonder that Protestants don't like to view the Crucifix or the Sacrifice of the Mass, because the conscience rightly shudders thinking that Jesus endured damnation and hellfire.)

Since this is a sketch, I guess that covers three of the most important issues. Other important questions I hope to address in a second part to this post will be the various aspects of the nature-grace distinction (similar to what I wrote in this post). 

Why Protestantism is caving into Homosexuality

In my last post talking about the HomoHeresy (the agenda to normalize homosexuality) having strong roots in the Catholic Church, I felt it important to point out that the HomoHeresy is infact far worse outside the Catholic Church. Things are particularly worse in Protestantism, since they have no good way to stop it. Just last month a prominent Evangelical Pastor of a large congregation came out in favor of gay marriage. The fact that homosexuality is such a central issue today is a clear indication of the failure of the Protestant-Enlightenment experiment in the West. The sin of sodomy has always been around, but never in the 2000 years of Christianity has it received public support on the popular and legislative level. Never has it been viewed as just as normal as a heterosexual marriage. What was unthinkable a generation ago is now mainstream and taking over fast, and there's no stopping it. In fact, the main reason why homosexuality is gaining ground in this country and the world is because of Protestantism, which is caving in more and more each day to this plague.

We all know the Liberal Protestants are already fully engulfed in supporting and even advocating for this agenda, but what most Conservative Protestants don't realize is that it’s becoming more and more difficult to make a case against homosexuality from within a Conservative Protestant framework. The following are the main reasons why.

The suspicious nature of Benedict's resignation.

I know we're not supposed to "go there," but for the sake of those 'mature' Catholics I think we should not be caught off guard if dirty details emerge down the road surrounding Pope Benedict's resignation. The act of a Pope abdicating does not have precedent in the sense most people think (see this post on the excellent blog Unam Sanctam Catholicam), since mere old age has never ever been the conditions for a Pope stepping down. Rather, something more was (likely) involved. I'm not talking about conspiracy, but rather about seeing the bigger picture. Benedict often speaks in subtle ways, which isn't always helpful, when he's trying to get a bigger message across. For example, some astute individuals have recalled that when Benedict was first elected, he made some 'cryptic' references in his speech to the effect of, "pray brethren that I may not flee for fear of the wolves." It would be naive to suggest he was speaking of the Devil and demons in a generic sense. Most likely, this was speaking about bishops will ill motives who are in the Vatican who wish to undermine the Faith and attack anyone who stands up for the Truth. 

A Calvinist blogger attempts to refute my extensive Logizomai (Imputation) Article

A Calvinist blogger named Joey has written a multi-part series aimed at refuting my hard-hitting article refuting the Protestant doctrine of Imputation. I have interacted with Joey many times over the years, so I know his style and approach to things. I consider him to be a pretty intelligent guy, but I think most of what he has written is trying to defend the indefensible in trying to defend erroneous doctrines like Imputation. 

So I wont end up having to write multiple posts, and since I don't think he actually touches upon the important stuff of my article until later on in his series, I will try to deal with the main points of each of his (currently) 7 posts.

Modern Medicine and Pope Benedict's Resignation

Everyone has heard the news of Pope Benedict's sudden resignation today. I wont spend time with all the details because you can get that information elsewhere in abundance. I think one chief factor to take into consideration of the modern day Papacy is the advances in modern medicine. This day and age people can be kept alive a lot longer than nature might have intended. I'm not saying this to suggest euthanasia is a good thing, but rather that nature should be allowed to take its course and our modern technology has in many ways gone against nature.

It is quite ironic that we have the most amazing medicine and yet we abort a significant percentage of our children, along with not really curing most ills but rather just killing the pain. So what's this life saving technology and medicine all about then? Well, it seems as if it's been used to keep people alive a lot longer with a greater quality of life as long as possible. But the problem here is that medicine is no longer something to restore someone to health, but rather to artificially inflate the quality of life, particularly with a mentality that this life is all there is so let's make the most of it. Modern medicine really isn't about helping people, but rather about making money. If it were about helping people, then we'd have all kinds of diseases (especially in Africa) eradicated. Modern medicine looks less and less to God, to the Cross, (redemptive) suffering, and the afterlife. These are all things that were traditionally kept front and center of traditional medicine.

In the case of Pope Benedict, and maybe even future Popes, the resignation is due to decline in health, particularly at such an elderly age. If modern medicine had it's way, the Pope Benedict would not decline as nature intended, with a period of preparing oneself for death, but rather it could have the potential of basically keeping our Pope on life support in an incapacitated state for possibly a few years. The bad part about this is that it would be like not having a Pope, with the bad guys in the Church having more or less free reign to go about their dirty work, all under the overall good reputation of Benedict. A similar thing happened with Pope John Paul II, where his bad health left him more or less incapacitated towards fulfilling his pastoral duties.

I'm not saying any of this to be heartless or to in any way suggest the contraceptive/euthanasia mindset - just the opposite. I think more details will come out in the next month or so as to why Benedict made this decision, but I trust his judgement here and think the conditions were right for him to make this choice (e.g. no scandals). I have high hopes we will get a good more traditional minded Pope and think liberal minded candidates will have no chance.