/lit/ - Literature

If believing means seeking god with everything you are. The prophets were very near to God and knew much. Their faith actually produced Real Results.

>>15184580
Yes, anyone who denies sola fide simply has not understood the purpose of Christ's mission. Christ came to die for us precisely because we all fall short of the glory of God, because we are all sinful and tainted creatures. We are not able to get into heaven with our works because our works are always going to be insufficient. It is only through the gift of Christ, which we accept when we believe on him, that we are able to be saved and admitted into heaven.

there would be no NT if there wasn't a church since the documents were not written as things were happening. The church tradition predates the writings of the NT and it was the church tradition that established the canonical and apocrypha documents. It makes no sense to stick to sola fide.

Jesus -> church -> NT -> council of rome
that's reality as it happened in history

How do Christians know if they're truly seeking and obeying God and not just running in circles?

>>15184603
But is seeking God with everything you are possible? I would argue that it is not. Nothing is true on earth, everything can be and is doubted, and humans know nothing really. The teacher in Ecclesiastes says to obey God, but he never makes the claim that this is profitable, instead it is the process of believing and hence doing which gives the soul sustenance.

Now who are we really to say we will one-day keep God's commands perfectly? We don't even know anything for certain! This is why I've been coming to the conclusion that it is just a matter of believing, and that those boomers who seem to know nothing about religion and have no great seriousness in practicing it, are in fact wise through a total lack of wisdom. Instead the mere act of belief gives them peace of mind, they are totally skeptical and materialist for all intents and purposes, yet have an immaterial comforter.

Am I making sense? It's a very eastern kind of belief, in that it has no rational antecedents.

>>15184703
>How do Christians know if they're truly seeking and obeying God and not just running in circles?
OP here, yes that's what I mean. I've gone in circles trying to be right with God, and now I've spent the last few months realizing that I don't even have the knowledge to start out on the right foot. Since you're right and any seeking of God would mean running about in circles, therefore the seeming triteness of the "believe and be saved" evangelicals is in fact the only way forward. It's either "believe and be saved" or no possibility of salvation.

>>15184631
Thanks for the response; this question comes after I watched a segment of Greek and Jewish religious thought from Plotinus to Jesus. Funnily enough, it made the claim that the religious quest for salvation in Greek philosophy came only after the philosophy of Pyrrhonian skepticism destroyed virtually all truth-claims that the Greeks had in the name of mental freedom and peace of mind which were Stoic concerns, except Pyrrho didn't believe in or take the ascetic route, he just found peace of mind (ἀταραξία/ataraxia) when he realized that all knowledge was doubtful.

Consequently belief in God became the solution since they saw the whole universe as bogged down in irrelevant claims to knowledge.

>>15184580
sola fide runs into problems when you start to ask yourself if you have genuine faith, then it all becomes a question of 'do you have faith that you have faith? do you believe that you believe?' and you start searching for evidence (ie works) in your life for proof of that faith, and fall into despair when you don't see it

basically whitoids (luther, calvin etc) don't get christianity or life, and if you've divorced faith from works you are mentally ill

>>15184861
No, the Bible makes it clear that works are a *sign* of a saved person, but they are never a prerequisite for admission to heaven.

>>15184861
I don't get it, questioning if you have faith is itself a lack of faith by definition.

>>15184883
>he Bible makes it clear that works are a *sign* of a saved person

It does not.

>>15184917
t. prideful person lacking in self-awareness

>>15184966
>t. prideful person lacking in self awareness
How? You're just resorting to slander! If you question if you have faith, isn't that a lack of faith in your faith, and hence just a lack of faith?

>>15185070
>>15185070
if you're a meme calvinist whitoid it is

>>15185083
Thank you for honestly telling me that you have no argument my dear Catholic friend

Faith is cultivated by deliberate actions, but the root of all works is grounded in faith
both are important, but ultimately faith moreso for justification since someone could perform 'good works' with the wrong intentions

>>15184580

If all knowledge is "dubitable" than how is your assurance of belief indubitable?

>>15184631

Retard starts his theology in Romans and Galatians. This works/faith dialectic wasn't an issue until over a millennium after Christ. How is this NOT antinomian?

>>15184883

Do you think the people who "canonized" the Bible believed in sola fide?

>>15184786

Have you heard of the via negativa? Apophaticism solves your dilemma of seeking God and running in circles and bypasses this retarded Romans road "believe and be saved" theology.

>>15184703
They are running in circles because nothing changes in their life.

>>15185693
>How is your assurance of belief indubitable?
One can doubt knowledge, but not belief. That I believe that Christ is the son of God is evident in the fact that I say so. Of course, if I said that I knew that Christ is the son of God, then I could doubt that all day.

>>15185693
>Have you heard of the via negativa?
No, please enlighten me.

>>15185958
>One can doubt knowledge, but not belief. That I believe that Christ is the son of God is evident in the fact that I say so.

so saying words = belief

>>15185978
>so saying words = belief
No, but I cannot demonstrate my belief in a more convincing way.

>>15186003
so how does that prove that one cannot doubt belief?

>>15185958
>One can doubt knowledge, but not belief.

You say this while transforming belief into a type of knowledge, since for the Calvinist God eternally chooses those who believe. So how do you know you're saved? By *knowing* that you believe. Belief becomes a form of knowledge and the Calvinist either becomes extremely smug, falls into despair, or copes by trying to work at his belief by forcing piety and hoping that one day he'll *know* that he really did truly believe the whole time.

>>15185968

When we consider God's transcendence, or how incomprehensible he is to the human mind, we're simultaneously confronted with how man can apprehend God (Exodus 33 illustrates both aspects of this problem). When we speak of God, such as goodness, being, love, etc., those "names" of God are not accurate, as God is the precondition of those "goods." This realization is the beginning of the via negativa. Yet, as in Exodus 33, God's glory, as a shadow, tells us something about God. Even to the Greeks, they could philosophize about "the One" as the precondition of all goods, yet fell short regarding how man could approach or participate in that goodness (achieve salvation). How could something divine also manifest and affect the changeable if the divine is, as the Greeks posited, absolutely simple? The revelation of Christ is the fulfillment not only of the Old Testament prophecies, but also the missing piece in Greek ideas surrounding god, as Paul makes clear in his talk on the Areopagus. The "way" to salvation, participation in the good, in this view, is a participation in Christ as revealed to his apostles and the church they established. It is NOT this retarded say-the-sinners-prayer to avert judgment from a wrathful God. Salvation truly is becoming like Christ through faith leading to virtue (which is Christ).

>>15186022
If you doubt something you believe, then you don't believe it anymore. It's an entirely subjective state.

>>15186090
But I'm not a Calvinist! I don't know if I was eternally chosen to believe, in fact I doubt I was. All I "know" is that I have a belief, but that belief is not knowledge.

>>15186162
Excellent, I will research this further. I especially like the reference to Exodus 33. I assume you mean the part where God lets Moses see only his back. This incomprehensibility of God has bedeviled me continually.

Where in Acts is Paul on the Areopagus?

>>15186245
How do you know?

>>15186260

Acts 17.

>>15186196
>>15186205
You're simplying refusing to see the logical conclusion of your theological position, or, dare I say it, belief.

>>15186205

>All I "know" is that I have a belief, but that belief is not knowledge

Bruh

>>15186354
Bruh

>>15186319
Why does Calvinism necessarily result? If you can tell me I may become Calvinist

>>15186525
I'm arguing against Calvinism, which is the natural conclusion of Luther's theology. Reject sola fide entirely.

>>15186502

>Nigga thinks I'm an atheist

>>15186568
>>15186585
You're Catholics then, I'm just a disillusioned Christian, I don't know what I am, and I think it's getting less important by the day

>>15186568
Perhaps what I believe is not sola fide in the classical sense. My concern is with a problem in Greek philosophy that seems to necessitate a divine conclusion. That in order to attain peace, since all things are unknowable and humans are utterly flawed, one must have a God in such a way that freedom from these kinds of natural limitations is found through Him.

This is not a claim like double predestination that some people are born to go to hell, this is a much more ancient claim, that belief is the only -- to use a JBP gayism -- antidote to chaos. Hence there is no need to worry about sin, or rather such a view sees sin as more all-encompassing, that sin is not just what we do or fail to do, but saying we are sinners is more like saying that we don't know the right way and cannot know the right way, because our minds fail us when approaching the subject of God.

>>15187101

I'm >>15186585 Eastern Orthodox; I don't know about the other gent.

>>15187196

>one must have a God in such a way that freedom from these kinds of natural limitations is found through Him

I think you're on the right track, but balance the "JBP gayism" with some of the church fathers. You'd be surprised how the churchmen of the first centuries have an existentialist ring to them.

>sin is not just what we do or fail to do
Think less about sin as failing to follow the rules and more like a deliberate choice to move away from God. View sin in an ontological and personal way: as separation from God.

>>15187330
>>15186286
based Orthodox Pelikan poster

>>15184580
>>15184631
>>15184846
>>15186269
Sola Fide refuted in Romans 2:6-8.
>6 For he will render to every man according to his works: 7 to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; 8 but for those who are factious and do not obey the truth, but obey wickedness, there will be wrath and fury.
Some jannie send this thread to the trash.

>>15187330
Could you say ontological in a way that a dumb-dumb could understand? I was only told that word in philosophy class as "the study of being" something I always found unhelpful. Sin is part of my being, I get that, am I supposed to get anything else?

>>15187446
Please actually engage the discussion, I'm asking serious questions >>15187196

>>15187462
I don't care you fucking heretic, you are saying stupidities who contradict the scriptures and every evidence in common sense, if you want to start your own syncretic hippieflower christian sect go and do it, but don't ask for seriousness

>>15187330
Also, please don't take my tone as dismissive, I'm genuinely interested. I don't believe that concepts like ataraxia really figure in Jo-Boy's Evangelical Church of Preachin and Prayin. I started this thread with a provocative statement for the reason of having this discussion in a specifically Christian format. Perhaps my church has limited resources for the kind of thing I'm feeling and thinking, but I genuinely hope I'm on the right track.

>>15187498
We all know at this stage that Greek philosophy was important in Judea at the time of Christ, it's important to ask these questions. Curses and ungodly language won't avail you anything with me.

>>15187446
That doesn't refute sola fide

>>15187682
Yeah, it only says that God will pay you according to your works, yeah, I'm starting to think protestants have a severe brain damage

>>15187330
>>15187682
So I was just reading an account by Sextus Empiricus about Pyrrho, that once he became doubtful of virtually every truth, he finally gained peace of mind, and Sextus relates it to a story about a painter named Apelles, who was trying to paint the foam in a horse's mouth, and when he failed, he angrily threw the sponge he was cleaning his brushes with at the painting. End result was perfect horse-mouth foam.

Similarly, my questions about Sola Fide, perhaps it is the wrong expression, since it implies a doctrine in theology. But I hope it's now evident that my questions about this have more to do with the personal then anything else.

>>15184580
>since all knowledge is dubitable and produces sorrow (as we learn from Ecclesiastes).
is this the profound spiritual wisdom that christoids are always larping about?
>don’t try to learn anything goy, it’ll make you sad

>>15187712
That isn't very charitable of you.
>Eph.2
>[8] For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
>[9] Not of works, lest any man should boast.

>>15184580
No. Its a protestant heresy to justify being a cunt while on Earth. You've seen the absolute state of burger evangelicals? That's the inevitable result. Its also refuted by St James, Hebrews & numerous other books as it was already a common heresy in the early church.

>>15187712
Interestingly enough I read about your kind today.
>It is a most unsound method of reasoning to take one or two expressions out of a book which has been written as one great whole, to place a certain meaning upon those expressions, and then refuse to inquire whether that meaning can be reconciled with the general spirit of the rest of the book. The beginning of every heresy and erroneous tenet in religion may be traced to this kind of reasoning, and to unfair and partial quotations.

>This is precisely the Roman Catholic’s argument, when he wants to prove the doctrine of transubstantiation. “I read,” he says, “these plain words: ‘This is my body — this is my blood.’ I want no more. I have nothing to do with your explanations and quotations 99 from other parts of the Bible. Here is quite enough for me. The Lord Jesus Christ says, ‘This is my body.’ This settles the question.”

>This again is precisely the Arian’s argument, when he wants to prove that the Lord Jesus Christ is inferior to the Father. “I read,” he says, “these plain words: ‘My Father is greater than I.’” It is in vain, you tell him, that there are other texts which show the Son to be equal with the Father, and give a different meaning to the one he has quoted. It matters not. He rests on the one single text that he has chosen to rest on, and he will hear nothing further.

>This also is precisely the Socinian’s argument, when he wants to prove that Jesus Christ is only a man, and not God. “I read,” he tells us, “these plain words: ‘The man Christ Jesus.’ — Do not talk to me about other passages which contradict my view. All I know is, here are words which cannot be mistaken — ‘The man Christ Jesus.’”

Bishop Ryle, Knots Untied pgs 150,151

>>15187447

A familiar passage that touches on ontology is in Exodus when God tells Moses "I'm the existing one" or "I'm the one who exists" (there are various translations).

The point is only God truly can be said to exist. When we have faith and participate in God's goodness you could say that we are truly more human, more "existing" than if we ignored God and continued deliberately in sin.

>Sin is part of my being, I get that, am I supposed to get anything else?
That's a more involved question. Evangelicals and Protestants tend to have a different anthropology (view of man) than what's discussed by church fathers. Your sin is not substituted by Christ's sinlessness to appease a wrathful God-the-Father; you are judged for your actions as the scriptures say, though, to be precise, ever good action done for Christ is actually a work wrought via Christ, who is the source of good. Maybe you can see how this view transcends the work/faith dialectic?

To get to the original question of sola fide: sin, because it relates to being (i.e. God), is linked with a different concept of salvation. If sin were merely something erased by a sinner's prayer, then sin would have no bearing on the existence of man, and yet all Christians can read Genesis and see that it was the deliberate move away from God's will which had grave existential consequences (i.e. death entered the world, not just in man, but in the entire cosmos).

>>15187779
Well, perhaps the burger evangelicals are not actually so bad? It's not right to judge, just because it isn't educated or European. Also what about the book of Ecclesiastes? Do you suppose that Ecclesiastes contradicts the rest of the Bible then? Obviously not, clearly therefore, the path to salvation is not found in affirming or denying outward things. The Teacher in Ecclesiastes is not in hell just because he had a good time on earth, far to the contrary, enjoyment is a gift from God as he says himself. Everything may be meaningless, but nevertheless, God has invited us to a banquet both here on earth and in heaven. Everything may be a vapour that we cannot hold in our hands, but in this way Ecclesiastes says that we can only hold with an open hand, so in fact, a proper understanding of material pleasures is always contrary to greed and immoderate lust.

Therefore, "believe and be saved" does not mean that one has a license to be vicious, but it also does a decent thing in rejecting asceticism. Asceticism may be good in one person's case, and bad in another. As St Paul says, one can eat meat or not eat meat so long as it is for God, one can observe a special day, or not, so long as it is for God. Why are you judging the servant of another? (Romans 14:4)

>>15187789
>This is precisely the Roman Catholic’s argument, when he wants to prove the doctrine of transubstantiation. “I read,” he says, “these plain words: ‘This is my body — this is my blood.’ I want no more. I have nothing to do with your explanations and quotations 99 from other parts of the Bible. Here is quite enough for me. The Lord Jesus Christ says, ‘This is my body.’ This settles the question.”
can you find a passage where this inference would be put at doubt? not trying to dispute anything, im just genuinely curious

>>15184580
Hide heretic threads
Ignore heretic posts
Do not reply to heretic posters

>>15187747
Are you implying that the Scriptures are contradicting themselves you fucking filthy heretic? ARE YOU EVEN IMPLYING THAT?
That passage talks about salvation trough works ONLY, because FAITH is indispensable for Salvation, BUT YOU WILL BE JUDGED (lmao look at the verb, judged, in a trial you are judged based on your crimes) because of your works on Earth.

>>15187789

>>15187855 here.
The entire question of how to interpret the Bible is a tough knot to untie; both the Protestant and the Roman Catholic can claim the other side takes verses out of context. I recommend reading some church history, as apparently Ryle did (he's at least aware of Arians no less than modern Socinians). Yet, if anyone read the early fathers they would find a consensus of the real presence of Christ during the eucharistic sacrifice of the liturgy.

The irony is sola fide almost always starts with sola scriptura, yet the men who gave lists and begged one another to accept James or Revelation as inspired in the first several centuries after Christ are the same men who preached theosis as the doctrine of salvation rather than sola fide.

>>15187909

Heretics are people knowingly spouting heresy. OP is trying to find the truth.

>>15187789
Yes, If something is explicitly condemned in a passage, you just quote it lmao. You are the one who believes in Sola Scriptura and cries when something is not in the Bible, not me

>>15187919
Since you aren't very charitable enjoy your LARP.
Also I'll just leave this here.
>"There is no appropriate category in Catholic thought for the phenomenon of Protestantism today (one could say the same of the relationship to the separated churches of the East). It is obvious that the old category of ‘heresy’ is no longer of any value. Heresy, for Scripture and the early Church, includes the idea of a personal decision against the unity of the Church, and heresy’s characteristic is pertinacia, the obstinacy of him who persists in his own private way. This, however, cannot be regarded as an appropriate description of the spiritual situation of the Protestant Christian. In the course of a now centuries-old history, Protestantism has made an important contribution to the realization of Christian faith, fulfilling a positive function in the development of the Christian message and, above all, often giving rise to a sincere and profound faith in the individual non-Catholic Christian, whose separation from the Catholic affirmation has nothing to do with the pertinacia characteristic of heresy. Perhaps we may here invert a saying of St. Augustine’s: that an old schism becomes a heresy. The very passage of time alters the character of a division, so that an old division is something essentially different from a new one. Something that was once rightly condemned as heresy cannot later simply become true, but it can gradually develop its own positive ecclesial nature, with which the individual is presented as his church and in which he lives as a believer, not as a heretic. This organization of one group, however, ultimately has an effect on the whole. The conclusion is inescapable, then: Protestantism today is something different from heresy in the traditional sense, a phenomenon whose true theological place has not yet been determined."
- Benedict XVI

>>15187963
Ok my friendly heretic

>>15187789
(1 Corinthians 10:15-18)
>Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. Let a man examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself.
Why are you Pr*testant?

>>15187855
Thanks, it seems very abstract to me. On the topic of penal substitution theory, I found it in fact does lead to a view in which sin is a nullity. This is because Christ's sacrifice paid for all sin eternally, and hence applies as much to Cain's generation as to mine, as to Jesus's. Therefore sin doesn't really exist at all, its just a thing experienced by human infirmity, which a perfect person like Jesus would be able to see right through.

Overall, I think it makes sense, and it fits nicely with John's Gospel, the parts where Jesus says he judges no man nor does God the Father (i.e. they will judge themselves). You can see where this is going, in that it means that the concept of sin and sin itself is interwoven, since sin is nothing more than a perception. One could phrase this as the concept of sin needs overcoming along with sin itself. So there's a fine hair between that and moral relativism.

>>15184580
>all knowledge is dubitable
I doubt it

>>15188104
And you're free to do so

>>15188067

Glad I could get the gears turning a bit; hopefully I was able to make some sense; I'm still a newbie when it comes to theology.

Read some of the men who lived closer to Christ's time. John Cassian, lesser known, has a few passages that talk about sin and doesn't take an extreme view like Augustine or Origen. Chrysostom is a classic and he has an entire commentary on Romans (and pretty much the whole New Testament also). If you want to delve into the via negativa and more abstract thinking that's nonetheless important, check out Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, or Gregory Nazianzus.

>>15184580
prot-tier, no more needs to be said

Bump.
>>15184580
Sola-fide seems like its stating things unnecessarily and reduces to "sola-fide in sola-fide" and so on in an infinite regress. Do I just need faith, or do I need to believe that I have belief too?
>since all knowledge is dubitable and produces sorrow
This is blatantly satanic.

>>15187789
>This is my body — this is my blood

>>15187789
>an anglo in modernity is more important than hundreds of saints closer to Christ's time

>>15184603
FPBP. Protty belief is much lower than that, it’s completely egotistical and is 100% about “saving yourself”. Just believe in the resurrection and you’re saved...

>>15184739
>I would argue that it is not.
Good thing your argument has zero weight then. It's no wonder a group of prots with no culture of monasticism would say that.
>humans know nothing really.
Thanks for refuting yourself.

>>15184580
Sola Fide contradicts the epistle of St James. If it contradicts the Bible, it is an incorrect position.

>>15184739

>We don't even know anything for certain!
>he says, with certainty

>>15184739
>they are totally skeptical and materialist for all intents and purposes
>in fact wise through a total lack of wisdom
>in fact wise

Thinking is a work and is necessary to attain sola-fide, as you are not born with the historical knowledge of the resurrection.