Must salvation include correct doctrine?

Perhaps you were not listening!

Perhaps you missed all the Sermons on being born-again!

Perhaps you went to a lousy Catholic Church!

 

These are two very different things.

 

Saying that a German shepherd is a dog is not like saying that cats are dogs!

I draw the line the same place that the Bible draws the line. You have painted over the line and painted a new one in the wrong place!

 

John 7
16 Jesus answered them, and said, My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me.
17 If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God,
or whether I speak of myself.

2 John 1:9
Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God.
He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son.

 

Another ex-catholic and now born again. Catholicism is a religion of works. I was told repeatedly to "do this" or "do that." All the traditions of man have so dilluted the simplicity of the gospel that most catholics don't know what they believe. And what they do believe is not based on scripture. The false sence of friendship that is expressed toward the "protestants" is to lull them to sleep. My grandmother died thinking that because she went to church and communion every day whe would go to heaven. She told me that is what the priests told her. Notice the works religion.

 

Scripture says salvation is contingent upon no work. If salvation is contingent upon adherence to corect doctrine, then we're all hellbound, because we're all probably guilty of at least one faulty doctrine or another. Thankfully, Jesus, grace is much more abundant than doctrine.

 

But it is not more abundant than doctrine; that is false theology. His grace is contingent upon doctrine. What is grace? Basically it is undeserved merit. However one person put it into an anacronym like this:

God's
Riches
At
Christ's
Expense.

Grace does not = zero.
Grace is contingent upon the doctrine of salvation.
"By grace are ye saved through faith and that not of yourselves."
What grace does Paul refer to here?
It is the grace that brings salvation. It is the grace of God that Christ left the glories of Heaven and came to earth, was born of virgin, suffered, died, and rose again. He took our place on the cross. He died and paid the penalty that we deserved for our sins, in other words he made an atonement for our sins. He could do this for He was the sinless Son of God: both God and man at the same time. If we believe in his sacrifice we accept his offer of salvation by faith. It is a gift from him to us. That is doctrine.
Grace does not equal zero or the absence of doctrine.
Grace is contingent on the doctrine of the gospel or what Christ has done for you. If you can't understand who Christ is, and what salvation is being offered to you, how can you be saved? It is not simply: Believe on Jesus and be saved. There is meaning behind those words. Like who is the Jesus that I am believing? Do I understand what I a believing? What is the object of my belief? What does it mean to "be saved?" It is not just a glib statement "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved." There is meaning behind those words. The meaning is called doctrine. God's grace that brings salvation is contingent upon the doctrine that paid for the salvation that he has brought for us.
DHK

 

the majority of the catholics do not even know what the Bible says. It is statistic that many of them simply adhere to the teaching that membership to the mother church and moral living are the keys to salvation. Belief in catholic doctrine, Mary & Jesus are enough!

 

No, I did not.

No, I am not doing that.

People have told me that I would make a good attorney. However, I do not believe that “everything odd” can be found in SDA and Roman Catholic theology.

Very many Catholics, former and present, know very little about the theology of their church because they have never studied it. Indeed, I would dare to say that most Catholics have never read more than two or three catechisms. I have read VERY much more than that, and I have spent more time is dialog with former and present Catholic priests discussing the theology of the Roman Catholic Church than most Catholics do in a lifetime. Do you know more about Catholic theology than I do? Who are you to judge me?

No, I did not!

I do not regard the Bible as being “cute nonsense.”

You don’t know me at all.

You yourself wrote about me, “You have appointed yourself as the public defender of everything odd.” I am against bigotry, arrogance, self-righteousness and other such sins. I am for fairness, humility, righteousness by grace through faith, and other things that are pleasing to our Savior.

CBTS

 

And therein is your problem: "Who are you to judge me?" Shall we as the corollary: "Who are you to judge us."

Romans 2:1 Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest: for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doest the same things.

You know only what we have revealed to you of our backgrounds, education, etc., but you don't know everything. You are the one that in much haste are quick to make rash judgements, without having the proper knowledge of the subject that you are dealing with.

It is true that the average Catholic doesn't know neither their Catechism nor theology very well. Well what do you think? When the Catholics were permitted to post in the Other Religions forum (up until last year), do you think it was the "average Catholic" that posted there? No. Those that posted there were the cream of the crop, so to speak. They were the apologists for the Catholic Church, the recruiters. One of them was a seminarian studying under Scott Hahnn (sp?).
You seem to have judged people even before you have posted.

Probably.
DHK

 

What have I said in judgment against you? I have spoken here only about Catholics in general, and I did not judge them and pronounce them sinners damned to hell as you have done, but I have defended them with the sole exception of the lack of Biblical and theological knowledge on the part of many of them.

In the one and only area in which I have “judged” Catholics, you are in total agreement with my observation.

The comments that I made about theses posters were based solely upon your comments about them. I suppose that I should have known better than to take your word for it, and for that I apologize.

My question, “Do you know more about Catholic theology than I do?” was asked not of you, but of Mr. Kelly, and it was NOT a rhetorical question. As for your personal knowledge of Catholic theology, what you have posted thus far in this thread strongly suggests to me that you have never made any sort of a formal study of Catholic theology, but since you have said very little, I will allow for the possibility that you have advanced degrees in Catholic theology.

 

The salvation of mankind is based on His mercy and His will.

 

Russ,

You can ignore this post because it is based solely upon academic scholarship rather than touchy-feely stuff.

Father Richard Peter McBrien, who holds a doctorate in theology which he earned at the Gregorian University in Rome and became a teacher of theology in Catholic seminaries, colleges, and universities (including Boston College and the University of Notre Dame), the president of the Catholic Theological Society of America, and a prolific Catholic writer, wrote some interesting things about the Roman Catholic Church.

In his 1973 book, The Remaking of the Church: An Agenda for Reform, he wrote:

“…the body of Christ embraces non-Catholic Christians as well as Catholics….”

“…Catholics reject proposals for expanding the conditions under which Catholics and Protestants can participate in a common Eucharist, not because they dislike Protestants or regard them as inferior people, but because they perceive intercommunion of any kind, under any circumstances, as a compromise of the fundamental principle that the Catholic Church is the ‘one, true Church of Christ’ and that all other Christian communities can be nothing more than ecclesiastical pretenders, without valid ministries or sacraments.”

“For all practical purposes, the Pope is never wrong; to criticize him, however, is always wrong. There has been such an identification of the Pope with Christ (Vicarius Christi) that one is led even to the conclusion that to differ with the Pope is to differ with the Lord himself. Canonically, of course, the authority of the Pope is supreme and unchallengeable. His decisions are final, and no other major decisions are final until they have received his approval: whether the issue is priestly celibacy, the appointment of bishops, the admission of women to the priesthood, or the substitution of vegetable oil for olive oil in the administration of the sacrament of the sick.

"Accordingly, the Church must willingly, and perhaps painfully, demythologize its understanding of the papacy, bringing its perceptions into greater conformity with New Testament and historical scholarship and contemporary theological reflection. While he remains the symbol of faith and unity for all the churches of the world, and while his office retains, in principle, the greatest authority for moral and doctrinal utterance, the Pope himself can no longer function as an absolute monarch, embodying in his single person all executive, legislative, and judicial power-without limitation, without accountability, without the possibility of correction.

"General policy decisions affecting the universal Church should be reserved, not to the Pope alone, but to the Pope and the International Synod of Bishops. The function of the Curia is to assist in the execution of these decisions. In the course of such execution, the Curia may issue administrative directives concerned with interdiocesan or supranational questions, but it should have no administrative authority in purely local matters. Problems which are national, not international, in character should be within the competence of the national conference of bishops rather than the Pope, and the same would be true of problems at regional and diocesan levels, in keeping with the Church's fundamental principle of subsidiarity. The election of the Pope by the International Synod of Bishops rather than by the College of Cardinals and some limitation of tenure (e.g., ten years, renewable) would serve to modify the present absolutely monarchical pattern.”

 

I believe that there is a little more to it than that.

 

Certainly, I agree that adherence to the doctrine of salvation is critical to salvation. However, for all doctrine to be just as ctitical to salvation is where I would disagree. For example, there are several folks on the board who adhere to the false doctrine of single-translation-onlyism. Does that mean they're not saved, because they're adhering to incorrect doctrine? No, they're as saved as I. Same for those who adhere to headcoverings as doctrinal, etc. We, for example, adere doctrinally to immersion only. What if we're wrong? Are we barred from salvation? Of course not.

 

Thomas Francis O’Dea (1915-1974), a Roman Catholic scholar who graduated summa cum laude from Harvard University in 1949, and went on to earn his M.A. (1951) and Ph.D. (1953) from the same university, was, along with Tracy Ellis and Gustave Weigel, an outspoken individual who argued that both criticism and of, and commitment to, the Roman Catholic Church were necessary for her wellbeing. Dr. O’Dea wrote the following in his early work, American Catholic Dilemma (the emphasis in bold type is mine):

"If the Catholic has an immature faith and many unsolved, partially repressed problems in his own mind, then the intellectual critic becomes the external surrogate of the repressed interior questionings, and the well-known psychological mechanism of displacing aggression and guilt ensues. One sees a good deal of what looks like this—the rigidity and hardly disguised panic are telltale signs—in American Catholic life, but such Catholics, often the victims of their facile and superficial rationalism and verbalism, do not seem to see what is going on. If one has repressed the unsolved problems at one of the crises of transition to which modem psychology has called our attention, one will of course have one's intellectual difficulties compounded with psychological ones, and often with moral ones.

"From these problems the Church suffers two important kinds of loss. First, there is the positive secession of potential intellectuals among our youth. Some of them go on to become |important in the cultural scene. Every sensitive parish priest can tell you of this kind of problem. Secondly, others, who do not revolt, sink into a kind of stultified intellectual lethargy, avoiding dangerous areas of thought or life; or they may fail ever to have had their intellects vitally engaged in living at all. This last category is not necessarily confined to laymen. Such persons may channel their energies into other areas, but it is to be suspected that their activities in those areas are often unrelated in anything except the most residual way to the life of faith which they continue in terms of the performance of the required practices.

"Certain aspects of this problem may be seen again in many Catholic utterances and even in Sunday sermons in some parts of the country. What is most noticeable is the relative absence of the presentation of the great dogmas of the Catholic religion in preaching and writing, combined with a great deal of unwarranted dogmatizing on all sorts of unessential questions, precisely in fact in the areas where the Universal Church leaves the Catholic explicitly unbound and urges him to use his own judgment. Persons in this category dogmatize about everything from the Fifth Amendment to psychoanalysis, although their knowledge is usually not proportionate to their misdirected zeal. Such behavior is found unfortunately among clerics as well as laymen. It deserves to become the object of serious study. If such attitudes are in fact widespread in the Catholic milieu, and if they make up a considerable part of the latent content of Catholic culture patterns in certain areas of this country, then it is small| wonder that no intellectual stratum of sizable proportions has| emerged."

 

Certainly, I agree that adherence to the doctrine of salvation is critical to salvation. However, for all doctrine to be just as ctitical to salvation is where I would disagree. For example, there are several folks on the board who adhere to the false doctrine of single-translation-onlyism. Does that mean they're not saved, because they're adhering to incorrect doctrine? No, they're as saved as I. Same for those who adhere to headcoverings as doctrinal, etc. We, for example, adere doctrinally to immersion only. What if we're wrong? Are we barred from salvation? Of course not. </font>[/QUOTE]Amen!

 

Lest my thought be lost in the multitude of words, I would like to say this:

From my earliest days of the study of Christian theology through to the present time, I have noticed a huge disparity between the thoughts and writings of Roman Catholic theologians and the beliefs of the Catholic layman. Certainly we see much of this kind of disparity in our Baptist churches, but not nearly to such a great extent. Perhaps the reason for this chasm is that the Catholic Church tends to make to great a distinction between the clergy and the laity, so that the laity is not making the connection with either the clergy or the theologians.

And most unfortunately, this huge disparity extends to what the Roman Catholic theologians believe and what the Protestant layman perceives the Roman Catholic Church to teach. And what is true here of the Protestant layman is all too often true of the Protestant clergy. Most certainly harsh criticism of the Roman Catholic Church on the part of Protestant clergy is contributing nothing to a more accurate knowledge of Roman Catholicism and the needs of those who rely upon it for their instruction.

I know people who read books and articles about tropical fish so that they will be better able to care for them. I also know “Christians” who read books and articles about Roman Catholics so that they will be better able to criticize them and prove that they are not saved. Are not Catholic people of more value than many tropical fish!

 

Craig,
You cite a man who talks more about pshychology than he does about theology. He speaks about the condition of the Catholics in the Catholic Church and their psychological need. Your quote is a red herring. It is basically off topic.
Go to the Catechisms, the documents of Vatican II, and other official dogmas. There is no salvation outside of the Catholic Church. Baptism is essential to one's salvation. To be baptized is to be born again. These are some of the basic heresies of the Catholic Church, well documented throughout their history, their, catechism, their Vatican II documents, and yes, even their theologians. What some psycologist says about the Catholc faith is totally irrelevant. It is opinion and that is all.

John,
Your argument holds no water. You compare apples to oranges as the saying goes. Better still, you strain at the gnats while trying to swallow a camel! I hope you don't choke.

You have got that right. Too bad that the Catholics have no idea what the doctrine of salvation is. They believe in baptismal regeneration. That is not the doctrine of salvation. They believe that Mary is a mediatrix. That is not salvation. They believe that purgatory is a place where one suffers for their sins. That is not salvation. Shall I continue??

You refer to some who differ with us by believing in KJVO, or in wearing headcoverings. This is the most anemic argument I have ever heard. These matters have nothing to do with salvation, as your opening statement says--there are some doctrines critical to salvation--which the Catholic Church does not have. Tell me John, if my wife does or does not wear a head covering will she be condemned to Hell? Will it affect her salvation? Is this a doctrine critical to her salvation? If it isn't critical to her salvation, why bring it up?
Baptists have historically believed in soul liberty, the right to believe what we believe the Bible teaches. There is soul liberty on this doctrine. Good men agree to disagree on this subject. It is not critical to salvation.

Go to the versions forum. Find some of those who believe that only the King James is inspired. Ask them to give their testimony of salvation. Does belief in this doctrine affect their salvation? Ask them! Is it critical to their salvation? I challenge you to open a thread there on this very topic: Is belief in KJVOism critical to one's salvation? You are going on a wild goose chase. You are straining at a gnat. You know full well that those who post in that forum are sincere Christians.
The Catholics believe in heresies that damn people to Hell. You are comparing apples to oranges.
DHK