Goodbye...for now

On Wednesday, January 9th I will be boarding a plane headed to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. I’m shipping out for Basic Training.

Yup, call me crazy, but I enlisted in the Army during war time. As insane as it may sound it was far from a rash decision. I’d thought about it for many years before finally deciding to take the plunge. For a much more detailed explanation of my decision click here.

This means I will be taking a break from writing until I return in June. (Unless, of course, blogging is now a part of boot camp; but I am not counting on that.)

So this is goodbye for now and my last post as a civilian – I shall return a soldier.

Considering Catholicism - Part IV Sola Fide

Most of my life I have been told that Catholics believe you are saved by works, not by faith. Of course, while growing up it scared me to hear this. All I could think about were the Pharisees whom Jesus so clearly despised. Besides, I was always shown scriptural passages which made it clear—or so I thought—that faith and faith alone is what saves us.

One popular example is: "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith - and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no-one can boast" (Eph 2. 8,9).

And of course, the most famous scripture of all says: "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life" (John 3.16).

Despite these scriptures, the idea of faith alone saving us has always been a bit puzzling to me, but I have been afraid to question it for fear of, well, sounding like a Pharisee— or even like a Catholic.

While I certainly believe that we cannot be saved without faith, it seems unreasonable and unscriptural to me to say we are saved by faith alone. The scripture makes it clear that "we shall know them by their fruits."

James says: "faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead (2. 14-17)." So, after reading that how could I believe that works have nothing to do with salvation?

Jesus says: "I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me….Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life (Matthew 25: 45)." How could I interpret that to mean works count for nothing in salvation?

But I believe no one makes it clearer than Paul does when he says: "God will give to each person according to what he has done. To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life (Romans 2: 6-7)."


While I believe that faith is a necessary beginning for the process of salvation, and faith helps to sustain it, I am beginning to believe works are also essential for salvation. This is frightening for me to say—it is even hard to write or think it, because it goes against everything I have ever been taught.

Yet when I read the scriptures, I find nothing which tells me that faith alone saves me. I only find scriptures which tell me that faith is necessary for salvation, but not that salvation is made up of faith alone. I do however find scriptures which tell me that "a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone" (James 2:24).

Besides, if faith means simply believing, that doesn't seem to be enough for salvation. After all, the Bible says, "You believe that there is one God, Good! Even the demons believe that - and shudder (James 2. 19)."

It seems to conclude that faith must be followed by good works, or else it is truly dead.

Recently, on a Catholic apologetics website I read what I feel is a very beautiful way to answer the question, "Are you saved?"

"Are you saved?" asks the Fundamentalist. The Catholic should reply: "As the Bible says, I am already saved (Rom. 8:24, Eph. 2:5–8), but I’m also being saved (1 Cor. 1:8, 2 Cor. 2:15, Phil. 2:12), and I have the hope that I will be saved (Rom. 5:9–10, 1 Cor. 3:12–15). Like the apostle Paul I am working out my salvation in fear and trembling (Phil. 2:12), with hopeful confidence in the promises of Christ (Rom. 5:2, 2 Tim. 2:11–13)."

I expect this will offend my Protestant friends, as well as my Protestant family. But this is what I have discovered through study and prayer, and to go against conscience is neither right nor safe.

Considering Catholicism - Part III Sola Scriptura

I have often been told that Catholicism greatly devalues the scriptures and puts more faith in what the Pope says than in the Word of God. This seemed credible at first. I believed that the scripture alone, as interpreted for us by the Holy Spirit, was all we needed – and anyone who preached differently was dreadfully misguided.

Yet, the doctrine of sola scriptura has created many obvious problems: there are now thousands of different Protestant churches, all of which preach a different doctrine based on their own interpretation of the scriptures.

It seems increasingly clear to me that relying solely on our own personal interpretation of scripture, without the aid of any authoritative guide, will lead us to confusion and the spreading of unbelief.

In fact, the Bible talks of such confusion: “Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. ‘Do you understand what you are reading?’ Philip asked the man. ‘How can I’ he said ‘unless someone explains it to me?’ So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. (Acts 8:30-31)”

Accordingly, unless someone explains the scriptures to us how can we really understand them?

I am now beginning to believe that it is neither unreasonable nor unscriptural to suppose that the Lord would have given us something or someone in addition to the scriptures to help guide us.

Protestants often recite 2 Timothy 3:16 as confirmation of their sola scriptura teachings:

“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.”

However, that passage only proves that the scriptures are useful, not that they are wholly sufficient in themselves -- I can find no scripture which states such a thing as that.

John Henry Newman, a famous adult convert to Catholicism explains the error of sola scriptura teachings clearly. He says,

"Surely then, if the revelations and lessons in Scripture are addressed to us personally and practically, the presence among us of a formal judge and standing expositor of its words is imperative. It is antecedently unreasonable to suppose that a book so complex, so unsystematic, in parts so obscure, the outcome of so many minds, times, and places, should be given us from above without the safeguard of some authority; as if it could possibly from the nature of the case, interpret itself. Its inspiration does guarantee its truth, not its interpretation. How are private readers satisfactorily to distinguish what is didactic and what is historical, what is fact and what is vision, what is allegorical and what is literal, what is [idiomatic] and what is grammatical, what is enunciated formally and what occurs, what is only of temporary and what is of lasting obligations. Such is our natural anticipation, and it is only too exactly justified in the events of the last three centuries, in the many countries where private judgment on the text of Scripture has prevailed. The gift of inspiration requires as its complement the gift of infallibility."

Like it or not, when Protestants preach the doctrine of sola scriptura, they are essentially putting their faith in the Catholic Church’s ability to originally determine which scriptures would even make up the Bible. Since, after all, the Catholic Church is the authority which initially formed the canon of scripture.

Without an authoritative guide, i.e. the Catholic Church, it seems to me that Christians will inevitably splinter into thousands of opposing fragmentary groups, as we have already witnessed in great proportion.

I am beginning to believe that if we are to truly understand the scriptures then there must be an apostolic unity of teaching.