Justification by faith or works?

[Rogue Nine]

Ah, thanks for clearing that up, SilentScope. This topic has been predominantly about the Christian stance on justification, so it's very interesting to see the Sunni Muslim perspective on it. Allah seems to have more clear-cut guidelines on entrance into heaven/hell, which is quite the marked difference from Christianity.

[Jae Onasi]

Her actions are a reflection of her, not necessarily all of Christian philosophy. Christ was more about showing love to people than getting in their faces.

See, that's the thing. What she says is based on what her church teaches her, so it's reflective of at least some part of some Christian doctrine. They're her actions, yes, but she's not getting the impetus for them from nowhere.

 

And yeah, Christ is characterized as being loving rather than in-your-face, so I guess my mom fails in that particular aspect of her quest to be more Christlike.

 

None of us are perfect. We're all going to have some flaws in our worship and lives as well as strengths--it's the nature of being human. I'm certainly not immune to doing stupid things. The challenge is learning how to handle that faith appropriately. Likely what she's doing is based on Christ's words in Matt. 28:19 "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations...." We're enjoined to share Christ's love with others. Now, how that's accomplished is another matter, and that comes down to the individual person/church based on the unique gifts of that person or church and the unique needs of the community.

 

It's not up to her to determine God's judgment and where people go after they die. That's God's job.

See, from what I understand from being forced to go to her church, God's judgment has already been handed down. You either believe or you don't. You believe, you get to heaven and worship God for all eternity come. You don't believe, you go to hell and eternal damnation and suffering. God's way or the highway. This or that. You're not the first to say 'Oh, it's all up to God, he'll mete out His own judgment.' If it's really just arbitrarily up to God, then why preach a message that says you only have two options? My cousins don't believe in Jesus and his ressurection, so that means they're going to hell. That's that.

And:

First of all, we can never truly know what's in someone else's heart. That's between that individual and God--we're not in their heads 24/7 for their entire lives.

Not sure I understand what point you're trying to get at.

Oh, what I was trying to say is that no one here on earth has any right to say that someone else is going to hell. None of us can know for sure what's in someone else's mind and heart for their entire life. If we had infinite knowledge of that person's entire life and thinking, then we might be able to say 'Yes, he's made a decision for God' or 'No, he's rejected God'. Since we don't have that kind of knowledge, at best all we can do is speculate, and even that may be subject to error since we don't have all the details of someone's life and thoughts.

 

There is a decision at some point for all of us that fundamentally does come down to two choices: we either determine that we individually are the sovereign authority in our own lives, or God is the sovereign authority in our own lives. We either accept God as God, or make ourselves our own god. C.S. Lewis says it far more eloquently than I can. We either have a relationship with God on some level, or we reject Him utterly. If we reject or accept God, He respects our decision--He's not going to force us to love Him, because you cannot command someone to love you. We also experience the consequences of that decision, for good or ill. God is just, but He's also loving. I cannot imagine that He has not made some kind of allowance for people who've never even heard of Christ, or for those who express their love for God by doing good works, not because they think it's a ticket to heaven, but because they know it's the right thing to do--the verses I quoted indicate that He's made some kind of arrangement for those who've never heard the Gospel or don't otherwise have access to Christianity.

 

How that relationship with God is expressed is what the different churches are all trying to answer. It grinds my gears to hear someone say "Oh, that person is religion X, so he's going to hell". That's the height of arrogance and it's attempting to pass judgment on something we have no right to do. Now, I don't think there's anything wrong with saying "This is why I'm a Christian, because of x, y, and z," but that's very different from saying "Because you don't believe in (my brand of) Christianity, you'll be burning in the fiery pits of hellfire and brimstone for all eternity, weeping, wailing, and gnashing your teeth."

So why doesn't He? Wouldn't it be better to have one unified position on Christianity, to give people a better chance at reaching paradise, rather than having them pick and choose and hope they've got the right one?

I don't know. Would one unified position meet all our individual needs, though? One unified position might work in one part of the world, but be inadequate to meet the needs of people in a different part of the world. I think it has be fluid enough to meet individual and global needs, so some of it is left for us to learn to apply in our own lives, based on our own talents, abilities, and needs.

 

I'm talking about the fundamental Christian maxim that if you don't accept Christ as your Savior, you go to hell. This isn't some silly little squabble; this is the crux of the entire Christian existence.

From the perspective of the Creator of the Universe, a lot of what we think is terribly important He looks at as mere childishness. However, that's not to say that accepting Christ as our Savior isn't important--if we have that opportunity to accept that gift of atonement and His love for us, we should take it--we're the ones missing out on the relationship with God when we deny Him. The entire New Testament theme is not about damnation, but rather salvation. Certainly there are verses on what happens to those who commit evil or utterly deny God. God deals with people justly as well as lovingly, and I think we need to know that good ultimately wins over evil. However, the overriding theme is salvation and our relationship with Christ and God, not damnation and the experience of hell.

 

This is what I would truly, truly, truly like to believe, but that's not what my mother and her church is preaching. According to them, if you haven't heard of Christ, then you're not going to heaven.

Then they are ignoring the entire 11th chapter of Hebrews, where the author describes all the people who lived before Christ was ever born whose faith in God and their service to Him as an outward sign of that faith was their salvation. Most of them were Jewish, by the way, if that makes you feel any better. Those in your mom's church who espouse the idea that anyone who has not heard of Christ is going to hell are also ignoring the verses I noted above about how those who've never heard of Christ can see God even in the world around us. Christ is the authority over the church, not the other way around, and that authority is revealed through the Bible. The moment the church tries to usurp Christ's authority and turn it into something it is not, then there is likely to be something quite wrong.

 

I'm curious, Jae. Is this positions something you've come up with yourself, or is it something that your church has taught you?

It simply is what's in the Bible. I honestly don't remember if that's something I learned in church or the 2 college classes on the Bible I had, or if it's something I came to a conclusion on through my own study. I've been a part of a number of different congregations of different denominations--Congregational, Lutheran, both evangelical and fundamentalist Baptist (there is a difference), Presbyterian, Methodist and a smattering of Catholicism and Assembly of God thrown in at special services. I've had an all-too-brief study of Judaism and Islam for an Intro to Bible course and History of the Middle East. I'd call myself 'an independent Christian with conservative evangelical leanings who happens to currently attend an evangelical Baptist church'. If God said in the Bible that He made provision for those who've never heard of Him, then how can we say anything different?

 

They were also Jewish and lived well before Christ's time, so I'd like to think that God wasn't going to hold them to standards that hadn't been set yet....That's nice, but does it change the fact that if they've not accepted Jesus into their lives, they're in hell?

I don't believe Rahab was Jewish at that time. She was, in fact, a prostitute. Your next question is a challenge, and I'm walking a fine theological edge, so bear with me. If God counts faith in Him as righteousness, and says the we can find Him without ever having heard of Christ, then He's saved these righteous people from hell. If we have heard of God's gift of Christ's atonement, and we utterly reject that gift and utterly reject God, then God's going to give us what we want in that case--no relationship with Him. Imagine a place after death with no God, no love, no hope, someplace filled with complete despair, hopelessness, and lack of love. If we reject God's love, that's what we'll end up with, but it will have been by our own individual choice.

Now, I don't believe that the "magical fundamentalist words 'I accept Christ as my personal Lord and Savior'" are what give us salvation. It's God's love and Christ's atonement that matter, not how we phrase the wording of our statement of belief in that love and atonement.

 

Yes, and I'm happy to leave her be to do so, since I think her intentions are honest, but it is because of my questions with certain Christian tenets that I cannot do the same. I dislike the fact that she wants me join her, despite the fact that I do not share the same level of faith.

Everyone's level of faith is different, and everyone's faith level fluctuates from time to time. I suspect she wants you to join her because she wants to be assured of your salvation, too, which is an appropriate concern for a mom, even if the execution is not the most effective. You certainly don't have to pray the same way she does. One of my uncles and their kids are Jewish, and I pray for their good health and blessing (and since they now live in the Bronx, their safety. ) and since my mom and her sister are fighting, I've been praying for a peaceful resolution. I understand you not wanting to be a part of that church since their fundamentalist views likely put off a lot of people. I don't believe every single thing that my church believes, but I do agree with the most important doctrinal issues.

 

I don't really want to argue based on my 'spritual authority', as that can be characterized as very weak at best.

Sorry--'spiritual maturity' might be a better term, and she'll view a deacon or the pastor's spiritual opinion to have more weight as a result, simply because they've had more time on earth theoretically to study the Bible. That's not to say you can't be spiritually mature, it's just that you're her child, and the parent/child dynamic is in play, as well as your relative youth. If you bring the issue to her, you might be surprised at the response. There's no downside to this, except that she might start praying for your salvation too, (and knowing the fundamentalist type, she probably already is. ). And if she doesn't change, at least you'll know that you tried to improve things for both you and her.

[Samuel Dravis]

If God counts faith in Him as righteousness, and says the we can find Him without ever having heard of Christ, then He's saved these righteous people from hell. If we have heard of God's gift of Christ's atonement, and we utterly reject that gift and utterly reject God, then God's going to give us what we want in that case--no relationship with Him. Imagine a place after death with no God, no love, no hope, someplace filled with complete despair, hopelessness, and lack of love. If we reject God's love, that's what we'll end up with, but it will have been by our own individual choice.

 

Now, I don't believe that the "magical fundamentalist words 'I accept Christ as my personal Lord and Savior'" are what give us salvation. It's God's love and Christ's atonement that matter, not how we phrase the wording of our statement of belief in that love and atonement.

How convenient! The very discussion we were having yesterday.

 

I think this mostly answers my question, too. Would you consider honest attempts at self-improvement as reasonable justification for salvation? Would you agree with this statement: "Neither faith nor works is explicitly required for salvation (God is not forced to place any restriction on the entry requirements of heaven), but they can be very helpful because they both demonstrate the willingness to improve yourself and can aid you in doing so, which is pleasing to God."?

 

edits:

 

Ah, I am not thinking of it as I should. God does not ever prevent people from being with him, because that's what he wants. Hell is supposedly the deprivation from God, not a place to be entered, and Heaven is the opposite.

 

So would people be stuck if they simply weren't able to believe it? If you didn't know the door was open - or even thought it didn't exist, the idea being too far removed from normal experience - does their not visiting God's house constitute rejection of the hospitality?