Faith alone?

Martin LutherOne essential difference which divides Catholics and many Protestants is the question of faith and works in salvation. The disagreement began at the Reformation. In fact, the “material principle” of the Reformation was that we are saved “Sola Fide”, by “Faith Alone” and that works have no place in our justification whatsoever.

This subject often comes up when speaking with Protestants. I think most Catholics have had the experience at one point or another of being told by a Protestant that Catholicism doesn’t preach the Gospel, teaching instead that we have to earn our salvation. St. Paul’s epistles to the Romans and Galatians are often cited during such an exchange.

When this has happened to me in the past, I tend not to dwell too long upon the person’s interpretation of Paul’s epistles. I usually simply point out that in those letters St. Paul is contrasting faith in Christ with the works of the Mosaic Law. I turn then to the Epistle of James, since it presents a bit of a problem if someone wishes to say we’re saved by faith alone…

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Sola Scriptura Syllogism

I was clearing out some old files on my harddrive today and came across I snippet I copied from somewhere on the Internet:

1. Sola Scriptura [implicitly] says everything we need to know that is necessary for our salvation comes from the Bible alone.

2. Knowing what Scriptures are inspired and what Scriptures are not inspired is necessary for our salvation.

3. Knowing what Scriptures are inspired and what Scriptures are not inspired cannot be known from the Bible.

4. Therefore, Sola Scriptura cannot be true.

I’m not sure, but this seems like something Patrick Vanderpool would write…

“You don’t need God to be a good person”

Trent Horn’s new book Answering Atheism has finally been released. Over the next few weeks I’m going to continue posting one of his short videos responding to the common claims of Atheists:

There have been some good discussions so far. I had originally planned on doing a competition here to win copies of Trent’s book, but after these recent exchanges, I’m just offering them to anyone (theist/atheist/agnostic/…) who joins in the discussion (while my stocks last!).

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