The Upper Room - 2015-07-24 (page 1 of 2)

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12:16 AM

@curiousdannii Ah, I see that now. I'll read it over; thanks.

@curiousdannii I'm still too afraid to create new tags :)

12:33 AM

@LeeWoofenden That is not traditional Christianity nor Protestantism for that matter - you are so entrenched in your idolatory of Swedenborg that you do not have a clear perspective on other Christians and consistently resort to calumnies. Shame on you.

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@bruisedreed But "abstract, legalistic fiction" is a good description of a lot of Christian theology.

@TRiG only if it's not in fact true. A majority of the legal codes for Western notions coud seem abstract and definitely legalistic when you read them on the books. Some are even fictions in the sense that the justice system never applies them in real life. They are very much real however and find their outworking in daily life. Someone who reads the law-codes but never attends a court may have exactly the same attitude as you do with respect to Christian theology...

...theology that is not lived is an abstract legalistic fiction

12:53 AM

@bruisedreed Sorry if I pay more attention to the Bible than to Christian councils and theologians.

@LeeWoofenden That's not what he's saying

@LeeWoofenden but you don't - you don't operate with a biblical perspective of faith

@curiousdannii No. He's just excoriating me because I object to the non-Biblical teachings of traditional Christianity.

That is to be expected.

No you're arguing against a straw man version of protestantism

@curiousdannii So Protestantism does not teach that faith alone saves?

12:55 AM

@curiousdannii exactly - he is a serial straw-man builder

and slandering those of us who do have a Biblically faithful conception of sin

@curiousdannii I'm not slandering anyone. I'm saying that traditional Christian theology is mistaken and non-Biblical.

@LeeWoofenden not as a unitary doctrine - it is always as part of a wider theology

If you take that personally, that's not my problem.

@LeeWoofenden You always say that. That's not the problem.

@LeeWoofenden You said " To be blunt, traditional Christianity, and especially Protestantism, is hopelessly off-base on its concept of sin and salvation. It's turned the Bible's very practical teachings about human evil and sin into some abstract, legalistic fiction about being saved from the consequences of sin without the need to actually stop sinning."

sure there may be some protestants who teach that

12:57 AM

@LeeWoofenden if you want to have a reasonable converstation with people in respectful terms it is your problem. If not, not so much...

but it's not all. It's not even the majority of protestants

@curiousdannii If the Protestant doctrine of salvation by faith alone is taken as it really is, then not sinning is not necessary for salvation. Only believing is. But most Protestants in practice back away from that, because it's obviously wrong.

@LeeWoofenden You aren't showing any evidence you actually understand what protestants believe

you're putting words in their mouths

@curiousdannii I understand what they believe in practice. But that's not what their theologians teach in theory. Simply saying that salvation is "by grace alone, through faith alone," Protestant theologians are flatly contradicting the Bible.

@LeeWoofenden That is not an accurate summary of protestant teaching

1:00 AM

@curiousdannii It is not the whole of Protestant teaching. But it seems to be the heart of Protestant teaching.

For example, that is primarily what distinguishes Protestant teaching from Catholic teaching.

@LeeWoofenden Do you disagree with "justification by grace alone through faith alone"?

justification and salvation are not identical

@curiousdannii Yes, of course I do, because it is contrary to the teachings of the Bible.

@LeeWoofenden How so?

"Grace alone" appears nowhere in the Bible. "Faith alone" appears once in the Bible: in James 2:24. And in that one verse where it appears, it is specifically rejected as saving.

@LeeWoofenden That's no evidence at all

1:02 AM

You can't build your doctrine on the basis of something that is flatly denied by the Bible.

@curiousdannii So the fact that that doctrine is taught nowhere in the Bible is "no evidence at all"?

You are arguing about salvation. I asked about justification.

And incidentally, the Bible also nowhere says that Jesus paid the penalty for our sin. It's just not there. And yet, that, too, is central to Protestant theology.

El'endia Starman

@LeeWoofenden How do you explain "the wages of sin is death" (NLT), then? If we don't have to die for our sins, then the wages have been paid. By whom? Who else but Jesus?

@LeeWoofenden you consitently conflate Protestant theology with Reformed theology. Please just stop that.

@curiousdannii There is no significant difference between justification and salvation. One always accompanies the other. If you're saved, your justified. If you're justified, you're saved.

1:07 AM

@LeeWoofenden They do accompany each other but they are separate, and if you can't distinguish between them, then that explains a lot of your problems

El'endia Starman

@LeeWoofenden (Unless you're talking about documents. ;) )

@El'endiaStarman Jesus came to save us, not from the penalty of sin, but from the sin itself. When we are no longer sinners, then we no longer draw the wages of sin.

El'endia Starman

@LeeWoofenden Gotcha.

@curiousdannii You can make academic and intellectual distinctions between them. And theologians do. But in real, actual, practical Christian life, they are inseparable.

@LeeWoofenden Here's one difference: new life is an essential part of salvation, but it is not part of justification, it is the result of justification. That isn't an academic distinction, it is a vital part of practical theology

1:09 AM

The Bible in multiple places says that Jesus saves us from sin. It never says Jesus pays the penalty for our sin. In saving us from sin, Jesus also saves us from the penalty of sin. Not by paying the price, but by bringing about our spiritual rebirth so that we are no longer sinners. (Though of course, we will never be perfect.)

Another difference: the gift of the Spirit is part of salvation, but it is not justification. He enables us to turn to faith, but he is not faith

@curiousdannii If you can explain it to me in words that a fifth grader would use, then perhaps I'll agree that there's a significant difference. But it's all couched in fancy theological terminology--which usually means that it doesn't have any real, practical significance in actual Christian life.

@curiousdannii This is Protestant doctrine, but it is not Biblical doctrine.

@LeeWoofenden "Our new eternal lives are part of salvation, but they are not part of "justification" - our becoming right with God. Our new lives are the result of becoming right with God" - how's that for fifth grade language

The Bible doesn't make these theological and academic distinctions between salvation and justification, or talk about being justified but not saved, or that faith justifies us but doesn't save us. It's all a lot of theological language to justify a fundamentally false and non-Biblical doctrine: salvation by grace alone through faith alone.

@LeeWoofenden The order of salvation is complicated and contested, but it can't be ignored

El'endia Starman

1:13 AM

@curiousdannii "Salvation" and "becoming right with God" are still theological terminology.

Even if Luther himself did not teach penal substitution (I still haven't gotten a clear answer on that), he certainly taught salvation by faith alone. That was his invention. And that is just as false and non-Biblical as penal substitution.

@curiousdannii It can be safely ignored if it's the product of theologians rather than the teaching of the Bible.

@El'endiaStarman yeah but they're comprehendable to fifth graders. maybe 'reconciliation' rather than 'becoming right with god'

@LeeWoofenden That's why I ignore Swedenborgianism ;)

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@curiousdannii Swedenborg's basic theology is all stated plainly in the Bible. Yes, there are parts of Swedenborgian theology that aren't plainly stated in the Bible. But all the essentials are there, with no need for fancy theological interpretations.

El'endia Starman

Incidentally, I studied 1 Timothy 6:1-10 this morning. Verses 3 and 4 (NLT):

@LeeWoofenden Romans 5:1 "Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ."

El'endia Starman

1:15 AM

> 3 Some people may contradict our teaching, but these are the wholesome teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ. These teachings promote a godly life. 4 Anyone who teaches something different is arrogant and lacks understanding. Such a person has an unhealthy desire to quibble over the meaning of words. This stirs up arguments ending in jealousy, division, slander, and evil suspicions. (emphasis mine)

By contrast, Catholic and Protestant theology have made fundamental, key doctrines out of non-Biblical teachings. Swedenborg doesn't do that. That's why he is to be listened to, but not Catholic and Protestant councils and theologians as to what are the fundamental doctrines of Christianity.

El'endia Starman

Now, the question is...who do I label as the false teacher(s)? :P

@curiousdannii It does not say "justified by faith alone." It says "justified by faith." And faith, as Paul and the Bible generally use the term, has little or nothing to do with the intellectual faith of Protestant theology. Faith is something that transforms one's life. It is the beliefs that we live by, and that transform us from the inside out. If that doesn't happen, it's not faith. Faith alone is not faith.

Plus, Protestant theologians read Paul's statements about faith entirely out of the context of his writings as a whole. They focus on everywhere that he talks about faith, and ignore the places where he says we must do good works or we're going to hell. They read Romans 3, and skip over Romans 2.

@El'endiaStarman yes - Logomachia

cause: justification by faith. (one) result: peace with God

peace with God is part of salvation, but is not the same as being justified

1:19 AM

They also ignore Jesus own teaching in Matthew 25:31-46. It just can't get any clearer than that. Those who do good works for their neighbor in need will go to eternal life. Those who do not will go to eternal punishment. That is the Lord's own teaching about who will be saved and who will be damned.

@LeeWoofenden And why do you think protestants think faith does not transform lives?!?!?!?

If Paul is read as contradicting Jesus, then the understanding of Paul must be wrong. Who is the greater teacher, Paul or Jesus? Should we nullify Jesus' teachings because we think Paul is saying something different? Or should we understand Paul in light of Jesus' teachings?

@LeeWoofenden Ah, Marcionism comes back I see

@curiousdannii In actual practice, Protestants don't actually live by their doctrines. But they hold to them tenaciously in theory.

@LeeWoofenden Slandering us all again. Thanks.

How many Protestants do you know? How many do you listen to? You are putting words in our mouths

1:22 AM

@curiousdannii No. As a matter of fact, I believe that most Protestants have good hearts, and therefore they actually do live according to the teachings of Jesus, and are saved. It's the doctrine that's wrong. And it has caused massive confusion.

@LeeWoofenden do you think that the person who said "the faith that saves is never alone" was contradicting Protestant theology?

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No protestants I know would ever teach that real faith does not transform lives

@bruisedreed Are you quoting James? Or someone else?

@LeeWoofenden it's interesting that you don't even know who I'm quoting

@curiousdannii But by saying that faith transforms lives, they are contradicting the doctrine of salvation by faith alone. Faith alone does not transform lives. Faith with hope, love, and works does transform lives.

@bruisedreed You want me to throw some random quotes at you and judge you by whether you know their source?

1:23 AM

@LeeWoofenden If you think the belief that faith transforms lives contradicts the doctrine of salvation by faith alone then that proves you don't understand it!

@curiousdannii Bottom line: the Bible does not teach salvation by faith alone. It denies it. That's good enough for me.

@LeeWoofenden see, the thing is, you say Protestants teach this, Protestant teach that, but you don't actually know what they really teach

@bruisedreed Do Protestants, or do they not, teach salvation by grace alone, through faith alone?

@LeeWoofenden Well what ever you think "faith alone" means, I agree. But it isn't what protestants mean by it.

@LeeWoofenden as I said before, not as a unitary doctrine - it's always as part of a wider theology

1:25 AM

@curiousdannii That's because for the most part, they say "faith alone" but they actually mean "faith with works," which is not faith alone.

@LeeWoofenden That is still not accurate

Protestants believe that faith is the only thing which justifies, but they agree with James that a works-less faith is not such a faith

@curiousdannii I've read many fancy Protestant arguments about how faith alone really is true, and doing all sorts of mental calisthenics to "prove" it, none of which have anything to do with what the Bible actually says.

@curiousdannii That's just doubletalk. If they agree with James, then they will know that "a person is justified by his works, and not by faith alone."

@LeeWoofenden so the full quote from Martin Luther: “We are saved by faith alone, but the faith that saves is never alone.” please note the 'but' in there

When Protestants try to explain away James, that is when they get at their most mentally calisthenic. I must admit, my brain does loop-de-loops when I read the incredibly fancy arguments protestants use to say that James doesn't actually mean what he says.

@bruisedreed Martin Luther was in a tough position. He needed a doctrinal point on which to distinguish his doctrine from Catholic doctrine. So he came up with salvation by faith alone, even though it's not in the Bible, and makes no sense. Then he went into all sorts of gymnastics to try to show that it was actually true.

Luther himself wasn't so bad. But his followers took his "salvation by faith alone" doctrine and ran with it.

@LeeWoofenden Well that says a lot about you then. I don't see any need for any complicated explanation of James. It is simple and not in conflict with either Paul or Jesus

1:29 AM

I don't think Luther actually believed in salvation by faith alone. At least, the various extracts from his works that I've read indicate that he actually believed in faith together with works.

@curiousdannii I agree. All three of them teach that if we wish to be saved, we must have faith and do good works.

@LeeWoofenden Yet more evidence you don't understand what Protestants mean by "faith alone"

As pleasant as this has been, I'm being called away.

@LeeWoofenden Martin Luthen was in a tough position because he was excommunicated, pronounced a heretic and was hunted for his life. All for honestly teaching what he believed the bible was saying. He didn't need to differentiate his teaching from the Catholic Church

@LeeWoofenden Your question for simplicity in doctrine is valid, but I fear you have let it lead you simplistic doctrines

You may not want to distinguish between salvation and justification, but the Bible does at times. Such as Romans 5:9: "Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God."

Furthermore the different Biblical authors do not always use language in identical senses.

Romans 5:10: "For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life"

were enemies -> were reconciled -> now are reconciled -> will be saved

@LeeWoofenden If they are as famous or influential as that last quote, no I wouldn't have a problem; and if I wasn't already familiar with it, I would appreciate you for introducing me to it

1:38 AM

Paul is obviously making some point by his use of tense here. What that point is is not immediately clear, it takes careful study. And it's a point that is specific to this passage. Other passages, whether by Paul or another author, which say different things using different tense constructions, are saying different things

El'endia Starman

@bruisedreed I didn't know who said the part you quoted. Simply because I haven't read very much of Martin Luther's writing. Hardly anything, come to think of it. And yes, I'm a Protestant. Well, sorta. I consider myself non-denominational after all...

@El'endiaStarman Me too. I'd heard it from so many people I didn't know that it traced back to Luther himself! But it's good to know!

@El'endiaStarman you're still relatively young - Lee's been around a lot longer

El'endia Starman

@curiousdannii Definitely good to know!

@bruisedreed True.

2:31 AM

@curiousdannii I'd say that very few people live by their doctrines. Don't we all have principles we fail to live up to?

2 hours later…

4:42 AM

I'm thinking of auditioning for this game show.

Predator Shield Demo for Japanese TV

4:57 AM

@bruisedreed I'm sure he believed that the Bible was saying that faith alone saves. Unfortunately, it simply doesn't say that. So he made a mistake on that one. And that mistake of Luther's has been replicated in various permutations throughout Protestantism.

@bruisedreed In other words, Martin Luther not only contradicted the Bible, he contradicted himself on this point.

@LeeWoofenden before you can say he contradicted himself, you should demonstrate that you actually understand what he says in toto - something you have manifestly failed to do.

@curiousdannii The true, Biblical doctrine is actually quite simple. It took theologians to make something complicated and incomprehensible out of it.

@bruisedreed I don't think anyone understands the doctrine of salvation by faith alone, because it is self-contradictory. Same with the Trinity. Not only are they not in the Bible, but they simply don't make sense.

El'endia Starman

@Mr.Bultitude I was a LOT more amused when I made the connection between the video and who posted it... :P

I feel no need whatsoever to understand a doctrine that is not only not taught in the Bible, but is directly contradicted in the Bible. That's not a doctrine that is worth comprehending.

@LeeWoofenden Do you think Ephesians 2:8-9 is contradicted by James 2:17 or vice-versa?

5:03 AM

If you can show me a single passage in the Bible that says either that we are saved by faith alone, or that we are saved by grace alone, I will be happy to reconsider. But you can't do it, because it's not there.

@LeeWoofenden If you don't understand something then don't presume to speak about it - simple as that.

@bruisedreed No. Paul emphasizes faith, while James emphasizes works, but both agree that there must be both together. It's just that "works" in Paul is almost always a code word for the Torah, or Jewish circumcision, sacrifices, and so on. Paul is saying in Ephesians 2:8-9 that we're not saved by that, but by God's love (which "grace" is another word for), which we receive by faith in Jesus. And faith in Jesus involves a changed life, and doing good works.

So it is all seamless if properly understood.

@bruisedreed As I said, nobody really understands it, because it is self-contradictory. Same with the Trinity. That's why, in the case of the Trinity, that they say it's ultimately a mystery. Which basically means: nobody understands it.

And I'll talk about both as much as I want. Neither one is in the Bible. Therefore neither one can be considered basic Christian doctrine.

In other words, you think "works" in Paul is different to "works" in James - what's your evidence for that

@LeeWoofenden confessing you don't understand it is fine. Saying no-one understands it is both arrogant and stupid (just to be clear, \I'm not talking about the trinity here, but salvation by faith)

@bruisedreed Because in Paul "works" is almost always accompanied by telltale words such as "circumcision" or "of the Law" or other such things that indicate what he's talking about. In Romans 2 he uses it differently. There he's talking about good deeds. Elsewhere he is usually talking about the Torah when he uses the word "works."

James is clearly talking about good deeds, because he gives examples of what he's talking about: feeding the hungry, etc.

It was common for observant Jews to boast about their observance of the Law, and consider themselves superior to others because of it. See Jesus Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector in Luke 18:9-14. That's what Paul was talking about in Ephesians 2:8-9.

@bruisedreed The doctrine of salvation by faith alone requires the doctrine of the trinity of persons in order to work. If the trinity of persons falls, so does salvation by faith alone.

Both are non-Biblical, and both fall together.

Aside from penal substitution and salvation by faith alone, most of Protestant doctrine is derived directly from Catholic doctrine. And it's all based on the doctrine of the Trinity.

@LeeWoofenden your interpretation of this is seriously undermined by the fact that Paul clearly uses it in a different sense in the following verse

5:14 AM

Yes, Paul does use "works" in different senses. And the very next verse reads: "For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life." I don't think Paul could be a whole lot clearer than that that we are supposed to both have faith and do good works. He actually agrees with James. It's just that he emphasizes faith more, as the gate to savation.

In fact, Paul is correct that we're not saved by works. We're also not saved by faith. We are, in fact, saved by "grace," meaning God's love. It is a pure, undeserved act of salvation out of pure love on God's part. But if we do not have faith and do good works, we reject God's presence in us, so we reject both the grace and the salvation.

So technically, we're saved neither by faith nor by works, but by God's love.

Rather, faith and works are necessary conditions in us for us to accept God's love, grace, and salvation.

And notice that in the very next verse, Paul talks about circumcision. That's the telltale sign that he's discussing being an observant Jew vs. being a follower of Christ.

When Paul talks about "works" and "the works of the Law," "circumcision" usually occurs nearby.

@LeeWoofenden You're finally getting close to actually discussing faith alone

Paul, by his own account, was a Pharisee. He was steeped in the Torah. And he was dealing with a major issue over whether Christians must also be observant Jews. Without understanding that, much of what Paul writes is opaque. These days, that issue has long since been settled. So it's easy to read Paul completely out of the context of the issues and debates that he was embroiled in with the Jerusalem (Jewish) Christians.

@curiousdannii Once again, faith alone is not taught in the Bible. I'm talking about what actually saves us. God saves us. Faith and works are necessary conditions in us for that to happen. Faith alone does not save, nor is it even faith.

@LeeWoofenden How can you know it's not taught in the Bible if you admit you don't understand it and have no interest in learning what it actually is?

Further, both the faith and the works are God's in us. They are not ours. All we can do is accept or reject them from God.

@curiousdannii I think Protestants are so stuck on faith alone, because that was the dividing line between Catholicism and Protestantism, that they cannot read the Bible for what it actually says. There is a powerful overlay of faith alone in their thinking, which skews everything in the Bible.

I'm speaking very simply here. "Grace alone" appears nowhere in the Bible. "Faith alone" appears only once, and in that one place it is specifically rejected. There is really no need for fancy theological argumentation to understand that. It is very simple.

@LeeWoofenden Insisting on talking about things that you don't understand is the action of a fool. You seem very intelligent, why would you do something so foolish?

5:25 AM

@LeeWoofenden Everyone has beliefs which affect their natural reading of scripture, but everyone can look past them too. Many Protestant scholars have of course considered non-protestant arguments. Many of those will have been persuaded by them. But many do not.

Further, why did no one come up with those doctrines until 1,500 years after Christ? If the Bible is so clear about these things, why was Martin Luther the first one to promulgate it as a doctrine, and have it accepted by his followers? If it were in the Bible, Christians would have noticed it a thousand and a half years ago.

@bruisedreed I actually think I understand faith alone quite well. I simply think it is wrong, mistaken, and unbiblical. It requires massive amounts of fancy argumentation to derive. But it is nowhere actually stated in the Bible.

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A: Did Augustine teach sola fide?

Yes - the wikipedia article on sola fide baldly asserts that Augustine is among the "Church Fathers whom Protestant apologists believe taught the doctrine of Sola Fide (although Catholic and Orthodox apologists quote the same fathers as supporting a justification that includes works)." Confusion...

user image

@curiousdannii Meh. Protestants are always going back and claiming that all sorts of church fathers taught faith alone, penal substitution, and so on. But their arguments are weak and partial, based on selective readings of only passages that support their views, while ignoring overwhelming volumes of statements to the contrary.

Exactly the same as their reading of the Bible.

@LeeWoofenden You seem to be basing everything you're saying now on a single verse in James

No. The whole Bible teaches the same thing. Read Matthew 25:31-46. It doesn't get any clearer and more direct than that.

Ezekiel 18. Very clear.

5:30 AM

@LeeWoofenden Augustine: "...works proceed from faith, and not faith from works..." - that in essence is all the Reformers were agreeing with

@LeeWoofenden Neither passage seems to have any direct bearing on the doctrine called faith alone

Exodus 20:1-21

@bruisedreed Do you think this is a good definition of the doctrine? "No one can merit justification through any action or belief."

Matthew 19:16-29. See especially verses 17-19. Why would Jesus tell the young man to keep the commandments, and specifically list several of the Ten Commandments, if all the young man needed to do was believe in Jesus?

@curiousdannii not really, I'd say that it is accurate, but incomplete

5:35 AM

Romans 2:1-16, on "God's righteous judgment." Written by Paul, no less.

I don't think I can improve on: "Justification comes only by grace through faith, not by any merit of works."

@LeeWoofenden I don't understand why you are linking to these passages

Should I keep listing passages? It's the teaching of the entire Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, that we must not only believe in God, but follow God's commandments if we wish to be saved and go to heaven.

@bruisedreed Yes that is good.

Believing and doing good works is not faith alone. It is faith together with works. And the Bible teaches throughout that that's how we're saved.

Those who do good to their neighbor will go to everlasting life, while those who do not will go to everlasting punishment.

5:36 AM

to follow God's commandments firstly requires faith, if you try to follow them without it, you will fail

@LeeWoofenden You are not showing that you understand the protestant belief.

@bruisedreed By the same token, having faith requires following God's commandments. If you try to have faith without following God's commandments, you will fail. One simply does not exist without the other. They are inseparable. There is no such thing as "faith alone."

@LeeWoofenden the way James puts it is "faith by works"

not faith and

@LeeWoofenden Well, except for those like Abraham who had faith before the Law

@LeeWoofenden Seriously, you are not arguing against the real doctrine of faith alone

@curiousdannii And as James explained, his faith was expressed in his works, and that's why his faith was a saving faith.

5:39 AM

It is not about independent faith

@LeeWoofenden yes, exactly

"Faith alone" is meaningless.

And it is rejected by the Bible.

It was invented by Martin Luther.

@LeeWoofenden No, you see no meaning because you've must never have understood it

@LeeWoofenden not when it is appropriately raised against works-based soteriologies

@curiousdannii We're just going in circles. Until you can show me a place where the Bible says that we are saved by faith alone, or by grace alone, I simply won't believe it. I can show you hundreds of passages that say we're saved by our beliefs and our actions. You cannot show me a single passage saying we're saved by faith alone.

5:41 AM

@LeeWoofenden I'm not trying to prove the doctrine to you, I'm just trying to tell you that you don't actually understand what it is

You are arguing against a straw man

@curiousdannii Maybe you should explain what you think it is, then. Whatever it is, it's not taught in the Bible.

"No one can merit justification through any action or belief." or "Justification comes only by grace through faith, not by any merit of works."

I'm simply saying what the Bible does and does not say.

@LeeWoofenden well there's plenty of grist for that mill here: christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/5410/…

@curiousdannii Nobody merits anything by works. That's just a basic Biblical teaching. But it has nothing to do with faith alone. It has to do with the fact that "without me [Jesus], you can do nothing." We don't merit anything by our faith. We don't merit anything by our works. We humans have absolutely zero merit. Nothing to do with faith alone.

5:44 AM

@LeeWoofenden sigh

Ephesians 2:8-9 is pretty unambiguous (except for those determined not to see it)

What you have just said is the whole essence of faith alone

So I don't understand why you want to keep calling it something else

@LeeWoofenden ok, that's a nice concession. But bear in mind that isn't the position of the Catholic church, hence the Reformation.

@bruisedreed A quick word search of that Q&A shows that "faith alone" occurs in various explanations of the answerer, but not in any of the Bible passages, except in James 2:24. It's making my case for me.

@bruisedreed It's not a concession. It is part of actual, Biblical teaching. We don't have merit, nor is Christ's merit infused into us so that it is ours. All merit is always Christ's.

@LeeWoofenden Do you know why jargon exists?

5:47 AM

@LeeWoofenden oh bravo! that settles it then. Far be it from you to engage with what the passages actually mean

@LeeWoofenden you have singularly failed to grasp my point

We don't gain any merit by our works. Merit has nothing to do with salvation. Having faith and doing good works is salvation, because that is Christ's presence in us. Without those two, we are not saved because Christ is not in us.

@bruisedreed I think they mean exactly what they say. When James says, "You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone" (James 2:24), I think he means exactly what he says. No fancy explanation is necessary. It's crystal clear.

@LeeWoofenden this is nothing the Reformers would have disagreed with. You just aren't grasping what they had to deal with in terms of the prevailing Catholic soteriology and how to teach against it

When Jesus says in Matthew 25:31-46 that those who do practical good deeds of love and service to their neighbor will go to everlasting life, while those who don't will go to everlasting punishment, I think he means exactly what he says. No fancy interpretation necessary. All you have to do is read it.

@LeeWoofenden Sure. But Romans 3 says no one does good.

When Paul says in Romans 2:13 that "It is not the hearers of the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but the doers of the law who will be justified," what else can he possibly mean but that those who follow God's commandments will be justified? The rest of the chapter fully reinforces that point, and explains how non-Christians (Jews and "Greeks") are saved, through Jesus Christ.

Romans 3 says that faith leads us to righteousness. If it doesn't it is useless. Faith that doesn't lead to righteousness is faith alone. Faith that does lead to righteousness is not faith alone. It is faith together with righteousness. That is faith that saves. And not from our own merit, or "boasting," or anything like that, but simply because it is God's commandment, which we must follow or we are rejecting both God and salvation.

5:55 AM

@LeeWoofenden In general it is considered respectful to let those who adhere to a belief be the ones who define it, rather than forcing definitions they'd disagree with onto them

When Paul says in Romans 3:28, "For we hold that a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law," he immediately follows it in Romans 3:29 with, "Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also." He is saying that it is not necessary to keep the Jewish ritual law in order to be saved.

"Faith that doesn't lead to righteousness is faith alone." no, it is a false faith. It is in fact unbelief

@curiousdannii It is considered Christian to base beliefs on the Bible. And my understanding of Protestantism is that the Bible is supposed to be allowed to speak for itself, in its plain, literal words. The doctrine of salvation by faith alone fails that test.

@LeeWoofenden only to those who willfully choose to misunderstand it

@LeeWoofenden This is what you are doing to protestantism: "Swedenborgians are modalists who believe that God is only one person who appears as different forms at the different times"

5:58 AM

@bruisedreed You have still not shown me a single passage in the Bible that says we are saved by faith alone, or that we are saved by grace alone. When are you going to show me the passage where the Bible plainly teaches this doctrine that you say is fundamental to Christianity?

We didn't do that. We said "Swedenborgism looks very similar to modalism. Is it the same? Is it different? Please help us understand.

@LeeWoofenden Why should we do that when you refuse to acknowledge that we mean something different by it than what you are asking about?

@LeeWoofenden actually I keep coming back to Eph 2:8-9. It is you that choose to ignore the clear implications of that passage. It uses "not of works" rather than "alone" - so what, the meaning is clearly there

Protestants can believe whatever they want to believe. But I will not believe it as fundamental Christian doctrine unless it is stated plainly in the Bible.

@LeeWoofenden You have shown that you actually believe something very similar to what protestants mean by faith alone, or possibly even exactly what they mean. But for a reason I don't understand, you keep saying that protestants mean something else by it

@bruisedreed If that's what the Bible means there, then why does the Bible explicitly reject that interpretation in James?

Paul is not saying what you're attributing to him.

@curiousdannii All I'm saying is that both salvation by faith alone and penal substitution are false doctrines because they're not taught by the Bible. If they were peripheral doctrines, I wouldn't make such a big deal about the fact that they're not taught plainly in the Bible. But they're held as essential doctrines. That's a problem.

6:01 AM

@LeeWoofenden it doesn't. You said before you don't understand it. You are right, you don't, that's why we keep going round in circles

@bruisedreed I said nobody understands it. Because it's self-contradictory. As for the words that are used to explain it, and the formulas that are used to express it, I understand those perfectly well. But either they're not faith alone, or they're not true because they're not in the Bible.

@LeeWoofenden Well then I guess you're a heretic, because you just showed you believe it: chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/22978094#22978094

@curiousdannii No. Not gaining merit by our works is not the same as salvation by faith alone. One is Biblical. The other is not.

@LeeWoofenden Where did you learn about faith alone?

This, in fact, is a fundamental misunderstanding that I'm continually running into among Protestants that I talk to: the idea that good works must involve merit, and therefore they're not saving. But doing good works because God commands us to has nothing to do with merit. It's simple obedience. And disobedient people are not saved.

@curiousdannii I really don't know why Protestants are so stuck on that doctrine.

6:05 AM

So you keep running into people who tell you that you don't understand what faith alone is?

all of us are mistaken about what it really means? All our confessions and explanations are wrong too?

I actually had a fundamentalist try to convince me to say that we are saved by faith alone together with works. It was very important to him, for some reason, that I affirm "faith alone," even if I did it in a context that denied faith alone. "Faith alone" comes from Luther. And Protestants are very stuck on it.

This is amazing

@curiousdannii All of the ones I've seen so far are wrong. They contradict the plain teachings of the Bible.

Luther knew that James contradicted his doctrine, which is why he tried to have the book of James removed from the Bible.

@curiousdannii I don't mean "wrong" as in they improperly explain the doctrine. I mean "wrong" as in the doctrine itself is wrong.

@LeeWoofenden How can you say it's wrong if it's illogical?

@curiousdannii Do you think that being illogical implies that it's right?

6:11 AM

Nonsense doesn't normally get called true or false

@curiousdannii Nonsense commonly gets called false. That's why it's nonsense.

If something is nonsense then it can't make any truth claims, so it can't be either right or wrong

anyways, I ask again, where did you learn about faith alone? Who taught you the definition by which you understand it now?

@curiousdannii Nonsense! Nonsense is nonsense because it makes no sense, and is therefore false.

Does "g32gewfsdf34t" make a truth claim?

@curiousdannii What does it matter who taught me the definition?

@curiousdannii No. But "the moon is made of green cheese" makes a truth claim. And it's nonsense.

6:13 AM

@LeeWoofenden I think so. I'd want to rebuke them for teaching you the wrong understanding

@LeeWoofenden try thinking about this - I say to you: "my gidget is yellow" - is that a true or false statement?

@LeeWoofenden No that's perfectly comprehensible. It's not nonsense, but it is false.

@LeeWoofenden I'm going now. But I'd ask that you have the humility to be willing to consider that protestants might mean something different by "faith alone" than what you think they mean by it

@curiousdannii Well, let's get technical about "nonsense." I'm using it in the common meaning of the word, not in some technical definition. Something that is self-contradictory is false. Faith alone is self-contradictory, because faith cannot exist in an "alone" state. It is therefore false.

"I alone are the only Dannii in this chat room"

El'endia Starman

Wow, what a derailment! Going from arguing in circles about "faith alone" to arguing about the nonsense/false distinction! :P

6:16 AM

@curiousdannii Defining "faith alone" as something other than "faith by itself" is just playing with words. If there's something else with it, it's not faith alone.

I've read your definition of faith alone, I've read various Protestant definitions of it. Either they're not actually faith alone, or they're just plain false and non-Biblical.

@LeeWoofenden That's not humility

@LeeWoofenden So is "I alone am the only Dannii in this chat room" nonsense?

@curiousdannii What does humility have to do with whether something is true or false? This whole "humility" thing is in itself a derailment.

@curiousdannii What does that have to do with faith alone?

@LeeWoofenden Is it an appropriate use of the word "alone"?

@curiousdannii Well, it's rather poor writing, :-P but other than that it does not involve any contradictions or falsities that I can detect.

Even though there are other people in this chat room?

Defining "Dannii alone" as something other than "Dannii by himself" is just playing with words.

6:20 AM

@curiousdannii Are there other Danniis in the chat room?

Not to my knowledge.

If so, then it is a false statement. If not, then it is a true, if awkward, statement.

But I'm not by myself, there are six other people here

El'endia Starman

......[whistles].......

What do you want me to do? LEAVE? Then they'll keep being wrong!

@curiousdannii That's why it's awkwardly stated. A person ordinarily wouldn't state it that way. But if someone did say that, it would mean that you're the only Dannii in the chat room. Otherwise it would mean nothing at all.

6:22 AM

@El'endiaStarman Yeah I know :P

@LeeWoofenden So in principle you would allow "faith alone" to mean something other than "Faith by itself"?

@El'endiaStarman You mean there are people who are right on the Internet?!?

El'endia Starman

@LeeWoofenden Me, obviously.

@curiousdannii Once again, this is just playing with words. If you want to define "faith alone" as "faith that has six other virtues with it," then be my guest. And I'll define a cat as a dog, and a rose as dog poop.

@LeeWoofenden That's not how we want to define faith alone

@curiousdannii I know. You want to define it as something that isn't really faith alone.

6:24 AM

Good bye

Let me know if you want to actually listen to anyone else

@curiousdannii Let me know if you find any place where the Bible says we're saved by faith alone.

Or that Jesus paid the penalty for our sins.

@LeeWoofenden I already told you, I'm not trying to prove it to you yet, only to get you to realise you don't understand what we actually believe

@curiousdannii Does that mean you're admitting that what you believe might be wrong?

"Faith alone" does not mean a faith that is not accompanied by anything else, it means that only faith can do X

@curiousdannii And if "X" is "save you," then that is wrong. Only God can save you.

@curiousdannii I also think you're defining "faith alone" entirely differently than the way the vast bulk of Protestants believe it. The vast bulk of Protestants think it means that you're saved by believing in Jesus. Period. But you seem to be defining it in a whole different way.

6:29 AM

@LeeWoofenden Finally getting somewhere. You may have that perception, but it is not an accurate one

@curiousdannii I've been told that quite explicitly by Protestants. I've even been told by a Protestant that I'm going to hell because I won't say "faith alone saves."

El'endia Starman

...y'know, guys, this is a time where it might be helpful to do a controlled, randomized survey of the Protestant population... :P

To be clear, I don't think Protestants are going to hell because they doctrinally believe in faith alone. I simply think that doctrine is irrelevant to their salvation.

@LeeWoofenden Unfortunately there are obtuse people everywhere

I expect that most Protestants are going to heaven. And they're going to heaven because they not only have faith, but they do their best to follow Jesus' teachings about loving the neighbor.

El'endia Starman

6:31 AM

@curiousdannii And my future wife is acute person!

@curiousdannii But the doctrine of salvation by faith alone lends itself to that sort of obtuseness. It suggests to people that all you need to do is believe in Jesus, and you're saved. And that gets preached from thousands of Protestant pulpits.

It's all over the televangelists. Put your faith in Jesus, and you're saved. Believe in Jesus, and you're saved. But if you don't believe in Jesus, you're damned to hell. All Jews, Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, Native Americans, and anyone who doesn't believe in Jesus is damned to eternity in hell.

That's what the doctrine of salvation by faith alone lends itself to people believing.

@LeeWoofenden That is true, which is why protestant teachers keep going on about faith alone, so that people won't fall for the idea that perversion of it

And since it's not actually stated in the Bible, it's a totally unnecessary doctrine.

@LeeWoofenden It's necessary because lots of people still have the idea that they can earn God's favour

@curiousdannii I would say that far more Protestants believe in it the way I'm expressing it than the way you're expressing it.

And it is simply false.

6:34 AM

And btw, most protestants reject the teachings of the televangelists

El'endia Starman

@LeeWoofenden ...you do realize that the more-educated Protestants probably don't believe or agree with the televangelists...right? They snag the more gullible segment of the general population.

charistmatic pentecostal prosperity gospel teachers are a small part of protestantism

El'endia Starman

@curiousdannii Aw dangit, ninja'd because I had to look up the correct spelling of "gullible"...

and the prosperity gospel is usually called a false gospel

@El'endiaStarman heh :P

@El'endiaStarman Protestantism has its fundamentalists and its mainliners. Fundamentalists teach the hard version of faith alone. Mainliners--at least, the ones I've hung out with--don't actually make much of a big deal about faith alone. They believe that Christians should live good lives, and that's what they do.

6:35 AM

@LeeWoofenden teleavangelists are not normally considered fundamentalists

@curiousdannii Prosperity gospel is not the same as the common teaching of salvation by faith in Jesus. It's a weird mongrel of OT and NT teachings aimed at reaching people who are more focused on material struggles than on spiritual life.

@curiousdannii They come in all stripes. Some of the more recent ones have struck out on their own tangents.

FYI, I spent ten years heavily engaged in the local Council of Churches and Clergy Group in the town where I was pastor. Mainline Protestant pastors and congregations were the backbone of the group, plus the Unitarian Universalists. They were all about doing good in the community.

We occasionally got some of the fundamentalists involved (even though the UUs didn't like it!), and they were all about getting people to believe in Jesus so they could be saved.

Oh, and the Catholic Church was involved here and there. They, too, were all about doing good in the community.

In my experience, the doctrine of salvation by faith alone just isn't much of a consideration among mainline Protestants. They believe in following Jesus teachings about loving God above all and loving the neighbor as oneself . . . in practical ways.

I've mostly encountered it among fundamentalist Protestants. They're the ones that push it hard. And to them, it means that the only thing that saves you is believing in Jesus. If you believe in Jesus, you're saved. If you don't, you're damned. That, practically speaking, is what salvation by faith alone actually means to the bulk of Protestants who actually consider it to be an important doctrine.

El'endia Starman

@LeeWoofenden I think that if you had said this way earlier, a lot of confusion could have been avoided.

@El'endiaStarman Possibly. But then we wouldn't have had all this fun, now would we??? :P

El'endia Starman

@LeeWoofenden You clearly have a different definition of "fun" than I do. :P (And please, let's not argue about what "fun" means... o_o )

@El'endiaStarman You're no fun!!!

El'endia Starman

6:45 AM

[sigh]

I do realize that there are Protestant theologians that write very fancy explanations of what "salvation by grace alone, through faith alone" actually means. But I don't think those fancy explanations make much of a dent in Protestantism as it actually exists, and in what most Protestants think of when they think of salvation by faith alone.

Here's a good rule: if someone doesn't mention sin then they can't be talking about salvation

@LeeWoofenden mainline protestants are a dying breed

And I think it is no accident that the Protestants who push that doctrine hardest are the same ones that believe that the bulk of the world's population is going to hell because they don't believe in Jesus. It's a doctrine that lends itself to false beliefs.

@LeeWoofenden Well not exactly. They'll go to hell because they're cut off from God

but I already know you don't believe that God ever has wrath

so let's not go down that path

I'm talking about what most Protestants who actually focus on salvation by faith alone believe. And I don't think it's what you're saying.

El'endia Starman

6:49 AM

@curiousdannii Really? I always thought fundamentalists were in the minority. I would generally be in agreement in saying that mainline Protestantism is getting weaker, so to speak, as their moral stances gradually change in accordance with changes in society's moral stances.

@El'endiaStarman I don't exactly know who is classified as "fundamentalist" in the US

El'endia Starman

Hmm. That'd be a good question, maybe? For the main site?

Christianity in the United States

Christianity is the most popular religion in the United States, with 70.6% of polled American adults identifying themselves as Christian in 2014. This is down from 86% in 1990, lower than 78.6% in 2001, and slightly lower than 73% in 2012. About 62% of those polled claim to be members of a church congregation. The United States has the largest Christian population in the world, with nearly 247 million Christians, although other countries have higher percentages of Christians among their populations. All Protestant denominations accounted for 51.3%, while Roman Catholicism by itself, at 23.9%, was...

America’s Changing Religious Landscape

In the U.S. "Evangelical Protestant" is the highest percentage among the various major beliefs.

El'endia Starman

Wow. There are actually a lot more evangelical Protestants than mainline Protestants than I thought. In that case, my previous statement was mistaken.

6:53 AM

mainline affiliation numbers are generally inflated compared to average attendence rates

@curiousdannii Yeah, the pastor of the UCC church across the town square from us had greatly inflated his church's membership figures. When he left and an interim came in, the interim was quite disgusted with how the previous pastor had artificially pumped up the numbers.

You can get affiliation numbers from things like a census, but actual attendance rates would have to be self-reported, so it's hard on both sides to get accurate results

Global Christianity – A Report on the Size and Distribution of the World’s Christian Population - for the worldwide picture.

El'endia Starman

@LeeWoofenden Fascinating stats.

I was especially surprised by this:

There are more Anglicans in Nigeria than the UK, US, Canada and Australia combined

El'endia Starman

6:59 AM

> The share of the population that is Christian in sub-Saharan Africa climbed from 9% in 1910 to 63% in 2010

Okay, here's the one I've been looking for: The Global Religious Landscape. Fascinating maps and charts!

El'endia Starman

@LeeWoofenden Indeed!

Okay, gotta go to bed. Good night all!

Night!

G'night all.

10 hours later…

4:41 PM

@fredsbend No, they don't have "entitlement issues"; they have covetousness/covetice. It is perfectly natural and normal to think "I should get what I deserve, and Jane Doe should get what she deserves"; but when we start ...

thinking, "This is what Jane Doe deserves, or doesn't deserve", then (assuming we haven't been put in a specific position of judgment by society) we've appropriated a function of God's; and that's a sin.

@bruisedreed Finally got around to actually reading that Q&A. I was quite disappointed in the answers. Of the six answers, two of them don't answer the question at all (and I flagged them as such), two of them come nowhere near Christianity.SE standards for a good answer, and the remaining to provide only a couple of quotes from the Bible each.

It's almost as though the answerers thought the answer was so obvious that it wasn't necessary to actually provide a solid answer. Just say that the Bible supports it, and throw in a couple of quotes.

If that's the best you guys got, you're a long way from making a good Biblical case for Sola Fide.

@LeeWoofenden Well have a browse on this one then: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…

@bruisedreed That would be classified as a "link only answer." :-P

What I'm saying is that the answers here on Christianity.SE fall far short of providing a good, solid answer to the question.

5:07 PM

@MattGutting So I don't have a right to think in my own mind that some does or does not deserve something?

@LeeWoofenden It's an old question. 2012. Guidelines were not nearly as strict then.

You were right on those flags though. I recommended deletion on them too, because they do not answer the question.

@fredsbend the tough thing about these old questions is that it's practically impossible for a new answer to displace the old answers, even if there's no accepted answer. I wish there were a way to get a group of users together who agree to review each other's new answers to old questions and vote them up if appropriate

I think I mentioned before how it seems like there are so many questions that say things like "what do the church fathers say about ..." or "what do reformed theologians say about..." and then the answers don't quote any fathers or theologians and have double-digit positive votes

5:26 PM

@fredsbend Well, whose job is it to decide who deserves what? Yours, or God's?

And why focus on someone else, when the important thing is to see what to do with what God has given you?

5:59 PM

@fredsbend Right. But it's what @bruisedreed referred me to as providing "plenty of grist for that mill." Not much grist at all, as it turned out.

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