Faith alone thread

Quote:

---

the whole idea is debating about earning. you can't earn it, you don't merit it. again - what christian sect teaches otherwise?

---

I was reading through the Council of Trent. 6th Session, Chapter 16: On the fruit of Justification, that is, on the merit of good works, and on the nature of that merit:

We must believe that nothing further is wanting to the justified, to prevent their being accounted to have, by those very works which have been done in God, fully satisfied the divine law according to the state of this life, and to have truly merited eternal life, to be obtained also in its (due) time.

If you read the whole chapter, it includes Christ infusing virtue which precedes and accompanies good works, without which it cannot be pleasing or meritorious before God. But the fact of the matter remains that this teaches works merit eternal life according to the Council of Trent.

I have issues with this thinking for a couple of reasons:
1. To merit something, you must do it yourself. Not someone else infusing a quality or good work in you to merit it.
2. Merit should be equal to the reward. There's no way any work I do, however good, equals eternal life.
3. When I look at my good works, I recognize there is always a mixture of sin with them.

Just pointing out a Christian sect that teaches it.

Zobel said:

---

But I would say "good works done in God" are His works, not ours.

---

This goes against my first point. If they are God's works, and not ours, then it is not us who merit salvation.

Again, I think this is saying the merit is due to God's actions.

Merit means to have the quality of being worthy. To be worthy of something isn't necessarily related to personal effort. For example we pray at every liturgy that God makes us worthy to partake without condemnation.

So this is just saying your point 1 is the problem.

I'm glad that thread has spurred you to further research. I'm going to answer this in two parts. Part one is the text of the Council document you cited.

Before men, therefore, ***who have been justified in this manner,-whether they have preserved uninterruptedly the grace received, or whether they have recovered it when lost,-are to be set the words of the Apostle: Abound in every good work, knowing that your labour is not in vain in the Lord; for God is not unjust, that he should forget your work, and the love which you have shown in his name; and, do not lose your confidence, which hath a great reward. And, for this cause, life eternal is to be proposed to those working well the end, and hoping in God, both as a grace mercifully promised to the sons of God through Jesus Christ, and as a reward which is according to the promise of God Himself, to be faithfully rendered to their good works and merits. For this is that crown of justice which the Apostle declared was, after his fight and course, laid up for him, to be rendered to him by the just judge, and not only to him, but also to all that love his coming. For, whereas Jesus Christ Himself continually infuses his virtue into the said justified,-as the head into the members, and the vine into the branches,-and this virtue always precedes and accompanies and follows their good works, which without it could not in any wise be pleasing and meritorious before God,-we must believe that nothing further is wanting to the justified, to prevent their being accounted to have, by those very works which have been done in God, fully satisfied the divine law according to the state of this life, and to have truly merited eternal life, to be obtained also in its (due) time, if so be, however, that they depart in grace: seeing that Christ, our Saviour, saith: If any one shall drink of the water that I will give him, he shall not thirst for ever; but it shall become in him a fountain of water springing up unto life everlasting. Thus, neither is our own justice established as our own as from ourselves; nor is the justice of God ignored or repudiated: for that justice which is called ours, because that we are justified from its being inherent in us, that same is (the justice) of God, because that it is infused into us of God, through the merit of Christ. Neither is this to be omitted,-that although, in the sacred writings, so much is attributed to good works, that Christ promises, that even he that shall give a drink of cold water to one of his least ones, shall not lose his reward; and the Apostle testifies that, That which is at present momentary and light of our tribulation, worketh for us above measure exceedingly an eternal weight of glory; nevertheless God forbid that a Christian should either trust or glory in himself, and not in the Lord, whose bounty towards all men is so great, that He will have the things which are His own gifts be their merits. And forasmuch as in many things we all offend, each one ought to have before his eyes, as well the severity and judgment, as the mercy and goodness (of God); neither ought any one to judge himself, even though he be not conscious to himself of anything; because the whole life of man is to be examined and judged, not by the judgment of man, but of God, who will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts, and then shall every man have praise from God, who, as it is written, will render to every man according to his works. After this Catholic doctrine on Justification, which whoso receiveth not faithfully and firmly cannot be justified, it hath seemed good to the holy Synod to subjoin these canons, that all may know not only what they ought to hold and follow, but also what to avoid and shun.

The bolded is important to understand justification, but the italicized is the part you summarized in it's fullness. It plainly states that the good works that we do to "merit" salvation are only present because JESUS'S virtue that He imbues in us is why the good works are meritorious. This clearly refutes the idea that we can earn Heaven with our own power. Further bolded points will show that our merit is only through our willful participation in the merit of Christ. We follow Him. We do not chart our own path.

***To clarify how this document views justification, here is the definition from chapter 1:

The holy Synod declares first, that, for the correct and sound understanding of the doctrine of Justification, it is necessary [Page 31] that each one recognise and confess, that, whereas all men had lost their innocence in the prevarication of Adam-having become unclean, and, as the apostle says, by nature children of wrath, as (this Synod) has set forth in the decree on original sin,-they were so far the servants of sin, and under the power of the devil and of death, that not the Gentiles only by the force of nature, but not even the Jews by the very letter itself of the law of Moses, were able to be liberated, or to arise, therefrom; although free will, attenuated as it was in its powers, and bent down, was by no means extinguished in them.

In my next post I will respond to your three points.

Quote:

---

I have issues with this thinking for a couple of reasons:
1. To merit something, you must do it yourself. Not someone else infusing a quality or good work in you to merit it.
2. Merit should be equal to the reward. There's no way any work I do, however good, equals eternal life.
3. When I look at my good works, I recognize there is always a mixture of sin with them.

---

I learned a ton from that thread, and these three points summarize it well. This question is not protestant vs catholic. It's not sola scriptura vs magisterium. It's not even faith alone vs "faith and works" (quotations because, from my Catholic perspective, I think it mischaracterizes the Catholic view). It is a question of monergism vs synergism. Your three points are very concerned with avoiding any semblance of synergism as it applies to our ultimate salvation. This is a pure monergism approach. The problem is that this is not a view of the early church*

Monergism is the view that there is NOTHING (I want to emphasize NOTHING as much as I can here) we can do to affect our salvation. This is reflected in your statement that, "There's no way any work I do, however good, equals eternal life". The premise is nothing that we do can affect whether or not we are saved. We don't initiate salvation (almost all Christians agree) AND we don't agree to be saved. This is vital, because if you had to accept His grace, that is a "work" you must do. **If you can accept then you could have rejected, and therefore you have a role to play in your salvation. And in case that sounds like I'm making too strong of a case for accepting faith as a "work", Luther, Calvin and Zwingli agree with my definition of monergism. It's that extreme. Even us saying yes is a "work" in their view. If you believe you choose to follow Christ, you are attributing a "merit" to yourself.

To contrast, in synergism we can hold that God is doing the initial call AND gives the initial grace to accept the call. The question is whether or not we accept. That is the "work". If we accept, we don't do it by ourselves. He gave us the grace we need to say yes. He simply allowed our free will to stay intact enough to say yes or no. If we say yes, we "merited" salvation. But what "merit" is it really if not His to begin with?

You say to merit something, you must do it yourself. I disagree. For example, let's say you get a 100% on your math test. You may say you "did that yourself". But did you? Did your teacher not teach? Did your parents encourage you to work hard? Did you have a textbook to review? A book that you didn't write yourself? To go further, didn't someone have to print the test in order for you to be able to take it? Even more fundamental, didn't God Himself have to create mathematics for the subject to exist in the first place? Isn't your reward of a 100 not really a reflection of His work on both creation in general, and your intellect more specifically? And even if you recognize your personal pride in that perfect score, isn't it still His providence, through your willing participation, that made it happen?

The better way to state this, in my opinion, is that you did what you could and what was asked of you, but you didn't do it "by yourself". This is why the writings of the saints are so humbling. The holiest of men and women that have recently walked this earth are unanimous in the belief that they couldn't have done ANY of it without God's grace first.

This is why I feel firmly that the only logical options are Calvin's view (in which case all any and all dialogue is already pre-scripted by God and has no affect on anyone He has not ordained for it to affect) or the synergist view that makes the gospel much more urgent, as each of us retains our agency in accepting or rejecting His call, even though that decision "merits" us our eternal reward in either direction.


*Many protestants will try to point to Augustine here, but they tend to be pretty selective in which of his teachings they decide to agree with. Augustine breaks initial salvation out from ultimate salvation. In other words, he rejects "once saved, always saved", "always saved, always saved", or any sort of modern notion of perseverance of the saints. What Augustine does agree with modern protestants on is that God is doing the initial saving. But we must continue in that saving grace or perish. And that is both an active acceptance of God's grace, as much as it is a rejection of His grace, despite Luther's contrary view.

**If you believe you do need to accept, you have accepted what protestants would call Arminianism and you are no longer monergistic in the way Luther, Calvin, Zwingli or any other original reformer was. If you believe this, you believe something that the reformers didn't believe. And if you disagree with the reformers on the view of how we are saved (which is the most important topic we can possibly discuss), then I would challenge you to take the rest of what they say with a massive grain of salt, including sola scriptura, sola fide, etc. In short, if you agree with Arminianism, you agree with the Catholic view of salvation, and there was no reason for the split to begin with.

Zobel said:

---

Again, I think this is saying the merit is due to God's actions.

Merit means to have the quality of being worthy. To be worthy of something isn't necessarily related to personal effort. For example we pray at every liturgy that God makes us worthy to partake without condemnation.

So this is just saying your point 1 is the problem.

---

Yes, the merit at that point would not belong to you, but to someone else.

I appreciate the posts, but most of it is addressing something else. You say you get a 100% on your math test and there are other factors that contributed to it outside of yourself. I have a hard time looking at my works (even if God infused in me a quality to perform them) and think, yes, those are sufficient to merit eternal life. Do you?

Notwithstanding God's work in the background of your life, do you believe "those very works which have been done in God, fully satisfied the divine law according to the state of this life, and to have truly merited eternal life?"

Martin Q. Blank said:

---

Zobel said:

---

Again, I think this is saying the merit is due to God's actions.

Merit means to have the quality of being worthy. To be worthy of something isn't necessarily related to personal effort. For example we pray at every liturgy that God makes us worthy to partake without condemnation.

So this is just saying your point 1 is the problem.

---

Yes, the merit at that point would not belong to you, but to someone else.

---

In Catholic theology, in general, we profess a "participation in" the things of God. Examples... Fatherhood. Suffering. And merit. This leads me to think that we're approaching merit as infused (like grace, or rather by grace) as opposed to imputed, like Trent was addressing.

Quote:

---

Notwithstanding God's work in the background of your life, do you believe "those very works which have been done in God, fully satisfied the divine law according to the state of this life, and to have truly merited eternal life?"

---

Sure… As long as we're using the document's definitions of what this means. I already cited chapter 1 that says there is nothing that we can personally do on our own to be saved. Stick with this document and go to chapter 3. Here we read: if they were not born again in Christ, they never would be justified; seeing that, in that new birth, there is bestowed upon them, through the merit of His passion, the grace whereby they are made just

I think the reason why you

Quote:

---

"have a hard time looking at my works (even if God infused in me a quality to perform them) and think, yes, those are sufficient to merit eternal life"

---

is because you're bringing in a view that the document isn't claiming: works as sufficient. The document never uses the word sufficient. Control + F finds nothing. No Catholic can say their works are "sufficient" for eternal life. If you read it that way, I could see why it would bother you. But that's not what it says. It actually rebuts this entirely in Canon 2:

CANON II.-If any one saith, that the grace of God, through Jesus Christ, is given only for this, that man may be able more easily to live justly, and to merit eternal life, as if, by free will without grace, he were able to do both, though hardly indeed and with difficulty; let him be anathema.



Back to the math test: When you answer the questions correctly, it is because you are working with the mathematical laws God gave. You aren't conquering or defining the laws with your own will. You are recognizing them and working with them. And we know for a fact that none of us could get a single question right if God didn't give us the intelligence to begin with. Similarly, we can't get to Heaven without the grace God gives. When we cooperate with this grace (good works), we are cooperating with God Himself.

Now, you might say that these good works, even though they are a cooperation with God Himself, are still flawed. Maybe they are. If they are, we should ask God to purify us of any selfish intentions. Through spiritual direction, I've recently stumbled upon some selfish motivations I was unaware of, and I repent of them. But this is still radically different from the student who knows the right answer (hears God's call) and refuses to write it down (refuses the work). He knows what he should do and refuses it. What happens if that student persistently refuses to do his work until the end? He might know the right answer (intellectually assented to God) but if he doesn't do the work (live the Christian life) what does he merit? That is a genuine question for you. I'd like to know your views on this.

Edit: Removed some of the earlier post because I'm asking too many questions. I'll simplify and see what you think about my ending question here

The Banned said:

---

one MEEN Ag said:

---

This is the most catholic answer ever. Citing counsel minutiae through an absolute wall of text.This is why the profession of Canon Lawyer exists (wrongly).

---

And this is the most Ortho-bro comment ever. Unnecessarily interjecting yourself into a conversation for the sole purpose of ****ting on the Catholic Church, ignoring the facts that your church's theology on this matter is the same and that they have their own lengthy conciliar documents.

It's amazing to me how much protestant converts to EO bring their Protestantism with them.

---

Easy Banned. Its a joke. If you can't take a joke that the catholics have an ever changing, talmudic level of canon law its going to be a long stay on the R&P board.

one MEEN Ag said:

---

The Banned said:

---

one MEEN Ag said:

---

This is the most catholic answer ever. Citing counsel minutiae through an absolute wall of text.This is why the profession of Canon Lawyer exists (wrongly).

---

And this is the most Ortho-bro comment ever. Unnecessarily interjecting yourself into a conversation for the sole purpose of ****ting on the Catholic Church, ignoring the facts that your church's theology on this matter is the same and that they have their own lengthy conciliar documents.

It's amazing to me how much protestant converts to EO bring their Protestantism with them.

---

Easy Banned. Its a joke. If you can't take a joke that the catholics have an ever changing, talmudic level of canon law its going to be a long stay on the R&P board.

---

That's fine. The joke falls a little flat when the pot is so obviously calling the kettle black.

https://www.oca.org/statute/article-xv

Zobel said:

---

Don't ask me to defend RCC doctrine.

But I would say "good works done in God" are His works, not ours.

---

That is correct. God is crowning his own works when we do good works that are meritorious in God's calculus.

Quote bold of you to misrepresent the Reformation views and then draw conclusions that anybody who disagrees with you also disagrees with Luther, Calvin, etc.

AgLiving06 said:

---

Quote bold of you to misrepresent the Reformation views and then draw conclusions that anybody who disagrees with you also disagrees with Luther, Calvin, etc.

---

OP already said that that part of my post was off topic, and I don't want to derail it anymore than I did with MEEN. I believe I represented their views on monergism well. If you think I missed the mark, I'm happy to discuss in a new thread.

Martin Q. Blank said:

---

I have issues with this thinking for a couple of reasons:
1. To merit something, you must do it yourself. Not someone else infusing a quality or good work in you to merit it.
2. Merit should be equal to the reward. There's no way any work I do, however good, equals eternal life.
3. When I look at my good works, I recognize there is always a mixture of sin with them.

---

I think a lot of these items come down to a matter or perspective. Perspective on what you are defining as "merit" is everything and I'll admit I may not be clear on what you are asking. It didn't take much shift in perspective to decide taking a bite of the "apple" was acceptable. And yet, it was the thing poisoned everything.

First and foremost, it is the Grace of God that saves us. That is not earned. Through the acceptance of that Grace, we can now bear the fruit that defines us. Your "works"(?merit) are the fruit, the evidence that you have fully incorporated that which you claim.

"5 I am the vine, you are the branches; the one who remains in Me, and I in him bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing" -John 15:5

There are a lot people claiming Christ as Lord yet carry on their day living as if that wasn't true. I think all of us have likely met or been inspired by someone who is a saintly figure for us. Did we sense that simply because they said "Christ is Lord" or did we sense that because of the way they moved through the world, the way they speak, they way they treat others, the way they show mercy and charity? Faith in Christ as Lord is the only thing that opens Heavens door but it's our willingness to do the "will of the Father", works, that makes sure we don't crash out on the threshold.

"21 "Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter." -Matt 7:21


1. To merit something, you must do it yourself. Not someone else infusing a quality or good work in you to merit it.

"18 in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus" -Thess 5:18

You discuss the example of making good grade on another post and suggest the "100%" is the merit/work that would open the window to eternal life? If that were true, then someone who made an "80" would have less merit? That simply wouldn't be true as we are all only capable of achievement based on the gifts we have received (i.e "Widows offering" -Mark 12). The perspective of the "salvific work" seems centered on the wrong act, in this case the achieving a desired outcome. The proper fruit, "the work" that demonstrates obedience to God, is choosing to give credit to God for "infusing" you the gifts of your brain power, willingness to study, placing a good teacher in your path, etc. If you got a 100, give thanks and glory to God for those things. If you got an 80 and that was the best of your ability, give thanks and glory to God. Yes, you got a 100 by your effort/merit but you didn't do that in a vacuum. If you claim you did it all yourself and that you have full control, you risk violating the first commandment.

2. Merit should be equal to the reward. There's no way any work I do, however good, equals eternal life.

See Matthew 20:1-16. Again, change the perspective away from the salvific action as the work vineyard and towards the agreement with the landowner. The laborers who "worked less" got the same payment as the ones you worked all day. All were paid equally once they agreed to the landowners terms. Without accepting those terms, they were not obligated to get "paid" for the work. God is merciful for all that accept Him and possibly to some who don't (i.e. unborn child). All will have equal reward. That acceptance is what gets your payment, your reward of eternal life. Nonetheless, once you accept to that agreement, you need to get working until the day is done. This work/merit doesn't get you "more" reward but rather it is a reflection that you are honoring the agreement that you made.

"18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 So then, you will know them by their fruits." -Matt 7:18-20

3. When I look at my good works, I recognize there is always a mixture of sin with them.

Is the perspective of your "good works" as an instrument to elevate yourself or to give glory to God? If it's for yourself, it is already tainted with sin. If it is for God's glory, then the "mixture" is irrelevant. We can achieve to the abilities that we have been granted by God.

"5 Not that we are adequate in ourselves so as to consider anything as having come from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God, 6 who also made us adequate as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life." -2 Cor 3:5-6

Great points.

I think this reflection on divine love is relevant to the OP:

We see inscriptions like, "I Liverpool", "I my church", etc. in which the heart symbol translates as love. In essence, the heart signifies love. Hence, the heart symbol in the Sacred Heart picture signifies the love of Jesus Christ, and the Solemnity of His Most Sacred Heart is a celebration of His love.

Through His incarnation (i.e. becoming human), His earthly life and ministry, Christ has loved us. His love for us was climaxed in His suffering and death. Hence, on the eve of His passion, Christ said: "Greater love has no one than to lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13). By extension, this solemnity is a celebration of God's love or Divine Love.

DIVINE LOVE IS FOR ALL

God's love is universal: it is for all humanity. The fullness of this universal love is enjoyed through Jesus Christ. Thus, Jesus Christ Himself assures us: "For God so loved the world that He gave us His only Son that whoever believes in Him may not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16). Indeed, God loves all and He wants everyone to be saved (cf. 1 Tim. 2:4).

Therefore, if someone misses salvation, it does not mean that God's love is insufficient. It rather means that he/she refused to accept God's love. To illustrate this, imagine a case, whereby a deceased loving parent left behind a written will in which he/she included every child in the equitable distribution of his/her wealth, but a son (for a personal reason) decides not to enjoy his share of the inheritance. In this case, we cannot blame the deceased parent for not being loving enough. Similarly, if some people are not saved, it is not because God's love is limited, but because they chose to reject God's love.

RESPONSE TO DIVINE LOVE

The unfathomable Divine Love calls for our loving response. This is symbolized by the extension of the open hands of Jesus in the Sacred Heart picture. Our response is, first and foremost, through faith (cf. Eph. 2:8). However, to prevent our faith from being a mere interior conviction or an empty profession, we should express it in good works, particularly, in the love of our neighbour. Thus, St. John admonishes us to love others as a response to God's amazing love for us: "Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. God's love was revealed among us in this way: God sent His only Son into the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another" (1 John 4:8-11).

A LITANY OF GOD'S LOVE

Let me wrap up this message on Divine Love in the form of a litany:

Why did God create us? Response: Because of His love!
Why does God overlook our sins? Response: Because of His love!
Why does God repeatedly call us to repentance? Response: Because of His love!
Why does He forgive our sins? Response: Because of His love!
Why does He save us? Response: Because of His love!
Why has He given us His only begotten Son? Response: Because of His love!
Why did God's Son die for us? Response: Because of His love!
Why is the answer "love" to all these "whys"? Or, why does God so love us? Response: BECAUSE GOD IS LOVE!
Amen!

By Most Rev. John Kobina Louis

Another reflection from C.S. Lewis that I think nicely sums up the way in which our good works, made possible by the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ, "saves" us:

Today's Meditation
"People often think of Christian morality as a kind of bargain in which God says, 'If you keep a lot of rules I'll reward you, and if you don't I'll do the other thing.' I do not think that is the best way of looking at it. I would much rather say that every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before. And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing either into a heavenly creature or into a hellish creature: either into a creature that is in harmony with God, and with other creatures, and with itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God, and with its fellow-creatures, and with itself. To be the one kind of creature is heaven: that is, it is joy and peace and knowledge and power. To be the other means madness, horror, idiocy, rage, impotence, and eternal loneliness. Each of us at this moment is progressing to the one state or the other." C. S. Lewis, p. 92
An excerpt from Mere Christianity

FTACo88-FDT24dad said:

---

Another reflection from C.S. Lewis that I think nicely sums up the way in which our good works, made possible by the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ, "saves" us:

Today's Meditation
"People often think of Christian morality as a kind of bargain in which God says, 'If you keep a lot of rules I'll reward you, and if you don't I'll do the other thing.' I do not think that is the best way of looking at it. I would much rather say that every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before. And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing either into a heavenly creature or into a hellish creature: either into a creature that is in harmony with God, and with other creatures, and with itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God, and with its fellow-creatures, and with itself. To be the one kind of creature is heaven: that is, it is joy and peace and knowledge and power. To be the other means madness, horror, idiocy, rage, impotence, and eternal loneliness. Each of us at this moment is progressing to the one state or the other." C. S. Lewis, p. 92
An excerpt from Mere Christianity

---

Love that from Lewis and agree. It is ontological and synergistic after justification.

747Ag said:

---

Martin Q. Blank said:

---

Zobel said:

---

Again, I think this is saying the merit is due to God's actions.

Merit means to have the quality of being worthy. To be worthy of something isn't necessarily related to personal effort. For example we pray at every liturgy that God makes us worthy to partake without condemnation.

So this is just saying your point 1 is the problem.

---

Yes, the merit at that point would not belong to you, but to someone else.

---

In Catholic theology, in general, we profess a "participation in" the things of God. Examples... Fatherhood. Suffering. And merit. This leads me to think that we're approaching merit as infused (like grace, or rather by grace) as opposed to imputed, like Trent was addressing.

---

This is a misunderstanding of imputed righteousness.

When Reformers/Lutherans speak of imputed righteousness we mean specifically that our salvation and righteousness before God is not because of our works but solely because of the perfect works of Jesus. This is the classic standing before the judge example, and while we are guilty, we are declared innocent and free because of Jesus.

What Lutheran's emphasized in contrast to Rome was the importance of vocation as opposed to some hierarchy of "godly" activities. So to your examples, yes, that is a more Lutheran concept than Roman Catholic. There's nothing more holy or godly in being a priest vs a father. To hear confession vs. healing someone as a doctor. To do those tasks to the glory of God is equal in God's eyes because that's what He created us to do.

AgLiving06 said:

---

747Ag said:

---

Martin Q. Blank said:

---

Zobel said:

---

Again, I think this is saying the merit is due to God's actions.

Merit means to have the quality of being worthy. To be worthy of something isn't necessarily related to personal effort. For example we pray at every liturgy that God makes us worthy to partake without condemnation.

So this is just saying your point 1 is the problem.

---

Yes, the merit at that point would not belong to you, but to someone else.

---

In Catholic theology, in general, we profess a "participation in" the things of God. Examples... Fatherhood. Suffering. And merit. This leads me to think that we're approaching merit as infused (like grace, or rather by grace) as opposed to imputed, like Trent was addressing.

---

This is a misunderstanding of imputed righteousness.

When Reformers/Lutherans speak of imputed righteousness we mean specifically that our salvation and righteousness before God is not because of our works but solely because of the perfect works of Jesus. This is the classic standing before the judge example, and while we are guilty, we are declared innocent and free because of Jesus.

What Lutheran's emphasized in contrast to Rome was the importance of vocation as opposed to some hierarchy of "godly" activities. So to your examples, yes, that is a more Lutheran concept than Roman Catholic. There's nothing more holy or godly in being a priest vs a father. To hear confession vs. healing someone as a doctor. To do those tasks to the glory of God is equal in God's eyes because that's what He created us to do.

---

I agree and used to struggle with that a lot. If I was truly to serve the Lord, did I have to be a minister, evangelist, missionary, etc.?

The Spirit kept telling me to keep doing exactly what I was doing and make it as ministry. When I realized God created me to be a dermatologist, go back to my hometown, to be me the waves of peace and love just washed over me.

FTACo88-FDT24dad said:

---

Quote:

---

There's nothing more holy or godly in being a priest vs a father. To hear confession vs. healing someone as a doctor. To do those tasks to the glory of God is equal in God's eyes because that's what He created us to do.

---

If you start from Luther's novel premise, sure.

---

There's nothing novel about it. It's simply scriptural.