Are We Saved by Faith or Works?

[Guest Luke]

For those Christians out there. Are we saved by Faith or Works?

[Guest Soldier of God]

Salvation “depends on faith in order that the promise may rest on grace” (Romans 4:16) – this Pauline phrase could well be the motto of the Methodist movement. It started as a missionary movement after the Wesley brothers and their friends experienced the liberating Gospel of salvation by faith alone. It is only through God’s grace that human beings are saved by faith alone. By faith we commit ourselves to the saving, redeeming, healing and renewing work of God’s grace and love in our lives. Therefore genuine Christian faith is always “faith working through love” (Galatians 5:6). Neither faith nor love are the achievement of human efforts, but by God’s call to faith and by the outpouring of God’s love we as human beings are included in the reality of God’s salvation.

 

Entire sanctification” or “Christian perfection” is nothing else than “loving God with all your heart and all your soul and with all your mind” and “your neighbour as yourself” (cf. Matthew 22:37-39; 1 John 2:5)

 

Christian perfection” is not the absolute perfection which belongs to God alone; and it “does not imply an exemption either from ignorance, or mistake, or infirmities, or temptations” (Wesley’s Sermon 40, Christian Perfection, I.9).

 

Even if our whole being is filled with the love of God which has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit (Romans 5:5), this will always remain God’s gift and the work of God’s grace and never our human merit or achievement.

 

The hope of conquering sin should never lead us to deny or disregard the danger of backsliding and being caught by the power of sin. Thus 1 John 1:6-9 states: “If we say that we have fellowship with God while we are walking in darkness, we lie and do not do what is true; but if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

 

Those who are justified and sanctified by God's grace will struggle with temptation and sin during their whole lives. But in this struggle they are strengthened by the promise of the gospel that in Christ God has broken the power of sin. Even if "the contradiction to God within the selfish desires of the old Adam" (JDDJ 28) remains in the lives of the justified, God's grace "reigns through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ" (Romans 5:21).

[Guest Praise Jesus]

Our good works reflect our faith. If you have many, the Holy Spirit is happy.

[Guest Guest]

Luke.........when researching this topic be aware there is the Calvinistic view which says that we were "predestined" to be saved because God looked into our future and foreknew we would either reject him or accept him.

 

http://en.wikipedia....%28Calvinism%29

 

Armeniasm is in my opininon the more logical choice which states that we have "free will" as to whether or not we want to accept Christ. There are some very wacky evangelicals out there that claim to be "special" in the name of calvinism. They will tell you that God Chose them and that we were all destined for hell and that God turned us around and saved us, etc.

Arminianism

 

Main article: Corporate election

Arminians hold that God does not predetermine, but instead infallibly knows who will believe and perseveringly be saved. This view is known as Conditional Election, because it states that election is conditional on the one who wills to have faith in God for salvation. Although God knows from the beginning of the world who will go where, the choice is still with the individual. The Dutch Calvinist theologian Franciscus Gomarus strongly opposed the views of Jacobus Arminius with his doctrine of supralapsarian predestination.

Critics of the Arminian belief might also believe it supports the concept that God actually created evil. If God knows from the beginning of the world who will go where, why did he bring into existence those he knows will be condemned? So, if he knows person A's 'choices' will ultimately lead him to be lost, then why bring person A into existence?

[Guest RAPHEAL X. THOMAS]

Faith is like our breathing. The scipture is like our food. How can one have food without breathing. So unless you have faith in your heart how are you going read the bible. For that I can give you an example. The Theif who was crucified along with Jesus, He knows that he himself is going to die and also Jesus also going to die,even then he had faith that our Lord Jesus can redeem him. So he asked to Jesus to remember him in His Kingdom. And our Lord Jesus accepted his prayer, and said that TODAY you will be with me in Heaven. Now you just think it over, did he do any good things in His life? or did he carry scoll of scripture in his hand? No. he was not worth to say Human by his deeds, but at the neck of the moment he realised his sin, and by his faith he seccured the redemption. SO I CAN STRONGLY SAY ONLY THE FAITH, GIVES EVERYBODY THE LIFE OF ETERNAL. RAPHEAL x. THOMAS. rapheal@dcemail.com:

[Guest Soldier of God]

Faith needs to be a major social issue in the debates.

 

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2012/january/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20120119_bishops-usa_en.html

 

ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI

TO THE BISHOPS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

ON THEIR "AD LIMINA" VISIT

Consistory Hall

Thursday, 19 January 2012

 

 

Dear Brother Bishops,

 

I greet all of you with fraternal affection and I pray that this pilgrimage of spiritual renewal and deepened communion will confirm you in faith and commitment to your task as Pastors of the Church in the United States of America. As you know, it is my intention in the course of this year to reflect with you on some of the spiritual and cultural challenges of the new evangelization.

One of the most memorable aspects of my

Pastoral Visit to the United States was the opportunity it afforded me to reflect on America’s historical experience of religious freedom, and specifically the relationship between religion and culture. At the heart of every culture, whether perceived or not, is a consensus about the nature of reality and the moral good, and thus about the conditions for human flourishing. In America, that consensus, as enshrined in your nation’s founding documents, was grounded in a worldview shaped not only by faith but a commitment to certain ethical principles deriving from nature and nature’s God. Today that consensus has eroded significantly in the face of powerful new cultural currents which are not only directly opposed to core moral teachings of the Judeo-Christian tradition, but increasingly hostile to Christianity as such.

For her part, the Church in the United States is called, in season and out of season, to proclaim a Gospel which not only proposes unchanging moral truths but proposes them precisely as the key to human happiness and social prospering (cf.

Gaudium et Spes, 10). To the extent that some current cultural trends contain elements that would curtail the proclamation of these truths, whether constricting it within the limits of a merely scientific rationality, or suppressing it in the name of political power or majority rule, they represent a threat not just to Christian faith, but also to humanity itself and to the deepest truth about our being and ultimate vocation, our relationship to God. When a culture attempts to suppress the dimension of ultimate mystery, and to close the doors to transcendent truth, it inevitably becomes impoverished and falls prey, as the late Pope John Paul II so clearly saw, to reductionist and totalitarian readings of the human person and the nature of society.

With her long tradition of respect for the right relationship between faith and reason, the Church has a critical role to play in countering cultural currents which, on the basis of an extreme individualism, seek to promote notions of freedom detached from moral truth. Our tradition does not speak from blind faith, but from a rational perspective which links our commitment to building an authentically just, humane and prosperous society to our ultimate assurance that the cosmos is possessed of an inner logic accessible to human reasoning. The Church’s defense of a moral reasoning based on the natural law is grounded on her conviction that this law is not a threat to our freedom, but rather a “language” which enables us to understand ourselves and the truth of our being, and so to shape a more just and humane world. She thus proposes her moral teaching as a message not of constraint but of liberation, and as the basis for building a secure future.

The Church’s witness, then, is of its nature public: she seeks to convince by proposing rational arguments in the public square. The legitimate separation of Church and State cannot be taken to mean that the Church must be silent on certain issues, nor that the State may choose not to engage, or be engaged by, the voices of committed believers in determining the values which will shape the future of the nation.

In the light of these considerations, it is imperative that the entire Catholic community in the United States come to realize the grave threats to the Church’s public moral witness presented by a radical secularism which finds increasing expression in the political and cultural spheres. The seriousness of these threats needs to be clearly appreciated at every level of ecclesial life. Of particular concern are certain attempts being made to limit that most cherished of American freedoms, the freedom of religion. Many of you have pointed out that concerted efforts have been made to deny the right of conscientious objection on the part of Catholic individuals and institutions with regard to cooperation in intrinsically evil practices. Others have spoken to me of a worrying tendency to reduce religious freedom to mere freedom of worship without guarantees of respect for freedom of conscience.

Here once more we see the need for an engaged, articulate and well-formed Catholic laity endowed with a strong critical sense vis-à-vis the dominant culture and with the courage to counter a reductive secularism which would delegitimize the Church’s participation in public debate about the issues which are determining the future of American society. The preparation of committed lay leaders and the presentation of a convincing articulation of the Christian vision of man and society remain a primary task of the Church in your country; as essential components of the new evangelization, these concerns must shape the vision and goals of catechetical programs at every level.

In this regard, I would mention with appreciation your efforts to maintain contacts with Catholics involved in political life and to help them understand their personal responsibility to offer public witness to their faith, especially with regard to the great moral issues of our time: respect for God’s gift of life, the protection of human dignity and the promotion of authentic human rights. As the Council noted, and I wished to reiterate during my Pastoral Visit, respect for the just autonomy of the secular sphere must also take into consideration the truth that there is no realm of worldly affairs which can be withdrawn from the Creator and his dominion (cf.

Gaudium et Spes, 36). There can be no doubt that a more consistent witness on the part of America’s Catholics to their deepest convictions would make a major contribution to the renewal of society as a whole.

Dear Brother Bishops, in these brief remarks I have wished to touch upon some of the pressing issues which you face in your service to the Gospel and their significance for the evangelization of American culture. No one who looks at these issues realistically can ignore the genuine difficulties which the Church encounters at the present moment. Yet in faith we can take heart from the growing awareness of the need to preserve a civil order clearly rooted in the Judeo-Christian tradition, as well as from the promise offered by a new generation of Catholics whose experience and convictions will have a decisive role in renewing the Church’s presence and witness in American society. The hope which these “signs of the times” give us is itself a reason to renew our efforts to mobilize the intellectual and moral resources of the entire Catholic community in the service of the evangelization of American culture and the building of the civilization of love. With great affection I commend all of you, and the flock entrusted to your care, to the prayers of Mary, Mother of Hope, and cordially impart my Apostolic Blessing as a pledge of grace and peace in Jesus Christ our Lord.

[Guest Luke]

I believe that James points answers faith without works clearly

 

Chapter 2

 

17 So also faith, if it have not works, is dead in itself.

18 But some one will say: Thou hast faith, and I have works: show me thy faith without the works, and I will show thee my faith by the works.

19 Dost thou believe that God is one? thou doest well: the demons also believe and tremble.

20 But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is idle?

21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he offered up Isaac his son on the altar?

22 Thou seest that faith worked with his works, and by the works the faith was made perfect;

23 and the Scripture was fulfilled which says: And Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness, and he was called the friend of God.

24 You see that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only.

25 But in like manner also was not Rahab the harlot justified by works, when she received the messengers and sent them forth by a different way?

26 For as the body without spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.