Justification and Salvation

I just listened to a debate between a team of Roman Catholics and Reformed Protestants on the issue of justification by faith.  The Reformers argued that it is justification by faith alone that saves a person while the Catholics argued that one is justified by faith and works.  I think alot of the time the two parties talk past each other since they use the same words but mean something different from each other.  Here I will try to construct a visual model for the two views:

Reformed Protestant view:

—Pre-Christian Life—Regeneration–Justification/Salvation–Sanctification–Death-Glorification

Here a person is Regenerated by God before he/she has faith that enables them to have faith.  Then on the basis of that faith, that person is justified before God and saved.  So naturally this view is justification/salvation by faith alone.  Sola Fide.  Now in this view, Justification necessitates Sanctification, you cannot have one without the other, but Sanctification has no role is Salvation, it is a product of it.

Roman Catholic View:

—Pre-Christian Life—Regeneration–Justification/Sanctification–Death-Purgatory–Salvation/Glorification

In this view, the person is regenerated and that person then is able to exercise faith in God.  Now that person initially becomes Justified on the basis of that faith alone, or perhaps baptism.  But since that initial justification only covers past sins, one must continually be justified throughout one’s life if one commits more sins.  One is not actually saved until one dies in a state of grace or justification.  So in the Catholic view, justification and sanctification are the same thing, once one becomes a Christian, that person must grow in holiness through works.  So since justification lasts till one dies, we can say that a person is justified by faith and works.

Now one might notice some similarities in the two above accounts that I think often overlooked.  First, both believe that works are necessary in some sense, although not in the same sense.  For the Reformed Christian, works are necessary products of a genuine faith and justification.  For the Roman Catholic, works are necessary for final salvation.  However, both agree that the initial justification is by faith (or baptism) alone.

Notice that the Roman Catholic account also allows one to fall away from the faith while the Reformed account does not.

Now where does this leave the Arminian?  Well the Reformed Arminian view would be closest to the Reformed view, except that they allow that one can lose that faith and thus fall away.  But good works are still necessitated by justification.  Wesleyan Arminians would be closer to the Roman Catholic view since they believe that one can fall away either by faith or by continual intentional sin, however I’m sure they might differ more but not sure how.

I hope I have accurately portrayed both views and I hope this clears some things up.

P.S. Dr. Robert Koons has an excellent and much more in depth discussion of this here.

Edit: I may messed up on the term ‘Regeneration’, i’m not sure how to interpret it now where to put it in both systems, however I have used it to signify that God gives us sufficient grace before we are saved in order to enable us to make the choice to accept or reject Christ, e.g. to restore our free choice in that decision; or as in the Calvinist position, God’s grace necessitates us making that choice for faith.  

Another note, Protestants frequently accuse Catholics of believing that we can merit or earn our own salvation by works.  This is simply untrue as can be seen from the outline of the views above.  Both sides agree that nothing merits our initial justification.  We cannot earn it, period.  However, after that point, the views diverge from agreement.  Since Catholics take justification to be simultaneous with sanctification, from that initial point on to death we are constantly being justified/sanctified and this we do by works.  So our final salvation is dependent upon faith and works but we initially become justified by faith alone, not by works of the law.

Another Edit: Evidently Lutherans do not fit under the Reformed view, they believe that one can lose one’s salvation so perhaps they are similar to the Reformed Arminian view, except that one can also commit apostasy by losing one’s faith and/or by grace sin.

An argument against Perseverance of the Saints

According to some circles of Christian theology, once a person is saved, that person is always saved and can never become unsaved.  But how does this happen?  Proponents of this view usually state that God guarantees that the person will persevere to the end.  But this answer seems to tacitly admit that the person could become unsaved on his own, if it weren’t for God keeping him saved.  

But if one were to argue this way, I say that this has unacceptable consequences.  Namely a person who answers thus has no answer against Universalism.  My argument goes like this:

(1) God guarantees that person X will always remain a Christian after he/she is saved (Assumption)

(2) If God guarantees that person X will always remain a Christian after he/she is saved, then God overrides their freedom to do otherwise

(3) God overrides their freedom to do otherwise

(4) But if God overrides their freedom to do otherwise, then getting person X to heaven is a greater good than is their freedom

(5)  Getting person X to heaven is a greater good than is their freedom

(6) But if getting person X to heaven is a greater good than is their freedom, then generalized, getting all people to heaven is a greater good than is their freedom

(7) Getting all people to heaven is a greater good than is their freedom

(8) If getting all people to heaven is a greater good than is their freedom, then God guarantees all people get to heaven

(9) God guarantees all people get to heaven (Universalism)

So there’s my argument, it’s kind of long but I think it’s valid, but is it sound?  (6) is probably the weakest premiss with (8) following a close second.  Most likely, defenders of the view will say that (6) should say this:

(6a) But if getting person X to heaven is a greater good than is their freedom, then generalized, getting all Christians to heaven is a greater good than is their freedom

and this doesn’t lead to Universalism, this just leads to the doctrine in question.  But why should God restrict his attention to only Christians?  Why might someone’s freedom only be the greatest good when they are not a Christian, and when they do become one, their entrance into heaven becomes a greater good?  It doesn’t seem to me that God would restrict people’s freedom in this way.

Piety

So lately I’ve been thinking about the culture in our nation and world. Juxtapose Christian culture with our nation’s culture. Is there any difference? We are called to be holy as God is holy (cf. 1 Peter 1:15-16). To be holy means we are set apart for religious purposes. Personally, am I really set apart from the world and corporately are we set apart as a church? Now, I’m not claiming as a church we should all leave our present lives and join a cloister, renouncing every part of our lifestyle. But have we been so caught up in our culture and world that we don’t live for the gospel the way we should. Acts 2:42 records that the church “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, to fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayers.” A few verses later it says that they gathered everyday for this. Where is such devotion today? Why does the church seem nearly (not entirely) void of living in this manner? I fear we’ve become merely cultural Christians. We go to church on Sunday, maybe even read our Bibles a few times during the week, thus fulfilling our duties to be “good Christians” but then we go and submerse our lives into a culture void of Christ and Christian morality. Engaging such a culture wouldn’t be a bad thing if we actually let the light of Christ shine in our lives, but we can be just as bad if not worse than those who don’t believe. We, Christians, do not act in love for God in our culture, we act according to the love of ourselves. Living a true love and reverence for God in daily life is what we need to do. If we started engaging everything we did according to our love for Jesus Christ, how would our lives change? What would we do different? What would we stop doing and remove because it doesn’t show God love? The issue in which this relates that I’ve been thinking about is how we entertain ourselves. The early church Fathers condemned what was to them modern entertainment—the Roman coliseums and theaters for their violence and immorality. Has entertainment changed any? Movies and T.V. shows are rated according to their violence and immorality. William Wilberforce has an interesting note to add “Much of the content of popular entertainment contains elements the Bible expressly forbids. Somehow, when it comes in the form of entertainment, we find it less offensive. In reality it is all the more dangerous. We often let our guard down when engaging in certain types of entertainment. I fear we have been conditioned to accept such things in much the same way that a frog learns to accept ever-warming water, until eventually it is boiled to death without even noticing the changes in temperature. Such is the influence of the entertainment industry in our time.” (Real Christianity. Revised and updated by Bob Beltz. 2006). How we spend our time, how we use our day, do the activities display a love for God or do they subtly feed and please our sinful nature?

There is possibly a middle position to this that I’m not certain about. Romans 14 speaks of strong and weak Christians referring to their strength in the faith. Could it be the case that stronger Christians are able to watch the violence, etc…, without its effect spiritually? Paul writes the Corinthians in his first letter to them saying “Everything is permissible but not everything is beneficial”. Maybe activities in life should be judged according to how beneficial they are to our’s or others’ lives?

Levels in Heaven?

“There are however, Christians who believe that upon dying, one remains in the same spiritual state that one was in at the last moment of death. Thus there will be some more spiritually mature people in Heaven than others.” —Zach from his post about Purgatory

In my reading of Scripture I’ve found that there are possibly 2 final judgments. The first judgment would be as to whether or not you had faith in Jesus Christ. But there is also a judgment about your works here on earth. These works store up a treasure for you in heaven. Now heaven is occasionally described as a big wedding feast, but Christ tells a parable about a man who went to such a banquet and sat near the head of the table to be close to host, appearing to be more prominent. The host, seeing someone whom should be recognized more, forced the man to move away from the head of the table for this person the host was closer to. Might heaven actually be like this? Two people will actually get to sit at the right and left sides of Christ having a higher authority or dignity than the rest? Maybe the way Zach puts it could be true to a sense (though I’m modifying the idea slightly), that in heaven, though all equally sanctified, some are more mature and therefore in higher positions in heaven.

Of course this could force one to question whether there are levels of hell too for those who may not have had faith but performed good deeds here. But that’s a sticky subject for another time.

An argument for Purgatory

I think a reasonable argument can be made on behalf of Purgatory existing.  Purgatory is a distinctive Roman Catholic Doctrine, however I think a case can be made that if it is defined broadly enough, some Protestant groups end up accepting it too.  Purgatory is the state that one enters immediately upon dying iff one is a Christian, one has persevered and remained a Christian to the end of his/her life, and that Christian has not been completely sanctified.  This, in Catholic terms, would be all Christians who are not ordained as Saints, Catholic Saints skip Purgatory and enter directly into Heaven.

So here is the argument:

(1) When a Christian dies either he is completely sanctified or is not

(2) If he is not, then in order to enter heaven, he must be perfect

(3) In order to be perfect, he must be completely sanctified

(4) Thus, the sanctification process must be completed after death

(5) This is Purgatory

How strong is this argument?  I actually think it is strong for those Christians who accept (2) and (3), indeed a lot do because they believe that God makes people perfect in order to be in Heaven with him.  They may quibble at (5) but I doubt a good argument could be given as to why.  Even the Catholic church has not specified what kind of state Purgatory actually is, they have said it could be a timeless state, or instantaneous, or a temporal state where one is cleansed of one’s impurities.  Either way I suspect the most common Protestant understanding would be that God cleanses the person instantaneously.  This must occur after death and so this really is Purgatory.  

There are however, Christians who believe that upon dying, one remains in the same spiritual state that one was in at the last moment of death.  Thus there will be some more spiritually mature people in Heaven than others.  So they would not accept (2).

I’m not sure where I stand, I guess we would then need to look at the theological data to make a full decision.

Election

There are several ways of thinking of how God saves people in Christianity.  I hope to make an outline of them here.  First, we can ask, who does God save? We can divide election in to two categories, individual and corporate.  In individual election, God chooses certain beings to be saved, in corporate, he chooses a group of beings to be saved.  We can also ask on what basis does God save?  We must then distinguish between conditional and unconditional election.  If God elects unconditionally, then he saves a being without any requirement on the being’s part, or, without the being having to do anything before God saves it.  On the other hand, if God elects conditionally, then there is some prerequisite that a being must satisfy before God saves them.

So if we put these categories together we get these options:

(1) Unconditional individual election, (2) unconditional corporate election, (3) conditional individual election, and (4) conditional corporate election.

I can think of Christians who have held each of these positions.  Calvinists and people who hold to Reformed theology typically embrace (1).  Universalists can either hold (1) or (2), that is God can save everyone by choosing every individual to be saved or choosing the whole human race to be saved.  Most non-reformed people and Arminians embrace either (3) or (4).

It can be hard to distinguish between (2) and (4) though.  In (2), God decrees that a group of people shall be saved no matter what, perhaps the Jews as an example.  But this doesn’t say if or how people can become a part of that group.  Perhaps one has to do something in order to become a Jew, but once one is a Jew, one is saved unconditionally.  But that seems kind of strange, wasn’t salvation supposed to be unconditional?  Perhaps then according to (2) God chooses who will become a part of that group unconditionally too.  (4) can also be thought of in these two ways.  In one case, God chooses to save a group of people only if the members do something first, say accept his grace.  Then even if one becomes a member of that group, one would still have to do that thing also.  Or God could choose who comes into that group unconditionally but then still have a condition for that group.  So perhaps in the case of group election, we should be careful to spell out how one becomes a part of the group and then how one becomes saved after that.

God and Time

There are 6 conceivable views one could hold regarding God’s relationship to time:

1. God is timeless and time began

2. God is timeless and time didn’t begin

3. God is temporal and time began

4. God is temporal and time didn’t begin

5. God existed temporally without time and existed atemporally with time

6. God existed atemporally without time and existed temporally with time

5 and 6 are hybrid views which don’t get much attention, one of them for good reason, 5 seems pretty unlikely unless God existed in his own separate time before he created time and once he created time he became timeless.  That is indeed a strange view.  6 is not so strange for it is plausible that God existed timelessly without creation but temporally with time.  3 is not very plausible either since that would imply that God came into existence with the first moment of time and thus would have a finite past history, thus violating his eternality.

So we are left with 1,2,4, and 6 as options available to the traditional theist.  So which one is correct?

Does Satan really do anything?

So I was thinking about this topic today, and I noticed that anytime someone said anything like: “Satan did such and so;”   I always seemed to brush it off by thinking: “Well Satan didn’t really do anything because God is the one who controls Satan, so really God is the one who did it.”  I have come to the realization that my reasoning was false.

For consider, if Satan is a free agent, that is, minimally, his actions are not caused or determined by God, then Satan is free to choose to do something or not.  If he is, then God isn’t controlling him.  But since God is the master of the universe, he is sovereign, which means nothing comes to pass except either through God determining it to happen or God allowing it to happen.  I have already supposed that God doesn’t determine Satan’s actions, so God must allow Satan to do what he wishes.  If this is true, I can now find reason to say that Satan really does have power in the world.  For consider some action that Satan does, say possessing some pigs and making them drown in the river.  God allowed that action to happen.  But what if Satan would not have existed?  That directly implies that the pigs then wouldn’t be drowned in the river.  So there is at least one action that would not have occurred if Satan didn’t exist.  God allowed Satan’s action, but didn’t determine that he do it.

Now I can see why Satan has causal power in the world, when before I most likely would have dismissed such talk as nonsense.

Once Saved, Always Saved

The issue of “once saved always saved” and “ one can lose their salvation” is the topic that drove me into theology. Being brought up in a Baptist church, one of the core doctrines taught me is eternal security. As I began to examine Scripture more closely I found within the writings of Paul conditional statements “He has reconciled you…if indeed you remain grounded and steadfast in the faith” (Col 1:22-23); “If you remain in His kindness” (Ro 11:22). These (and other passages) made me question and doubt the idea about “once saved, always saved.” In response to my doubts I began asking “Are people saved at the moment they have faith?” Hebrews 9:28 says that “the Messiah…will appear a 2nd time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for Him.” Also, in Romans 13:11 Paul writes “Besides this, knowing the time, it is already the hour for you to wake up from sleep, for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed.” Technically, we are not saved until Christ’s return and our faith is the assurance of the salvation we will receive at that time. So when I went forward to accept Jesus into my heart, I did not receive salvation at that time but I accepted in faith that salvation will be provided in the glorious day of Christ’s return. Perhaps the reason why we could speak of it in a past-tense form is that because anything we ask for in faith we are to act as if we’ve already received it (Mark 11:24). To accept the phrase “once saved, always saved” literally leaves the phrase useless because salvation has not yet been received. What I have accepted through my faith and belief is that salvation will be brought to me. Ergo, I cannot lose something which I have not yet received nor can I permanently keep something which I have not yet obtained.

Could I have been born in 1200 BC?

An interesting to think about is whether I could have been born at a different time and place, perhaps 1200 BC to pick a date.  As far as I can tell, a dualist approach to identity has an easy time with this question.  A dualist can answer an easy yes.