Faith of Our Fathers

 

 

  There are many pursuits in life which can lead to an all consuming preoccupation.   While some people are attracted to hobbies like sports, football, soccer, or motor racing; these things can leave you feeling more empty than fulfilled.  Human beings have a tendency to fixate on the superficial aspects of life more than the transcendent and philosophical.  In this way I wish to approach this article; delving more deeply into the human condition of distractions verses the  deeper aspects of the soul’s attraction to religion and ultimately to God.

   We see so many distractions in life, but we also see an attraction in some persons to a higher calling; one of faith and morality.  After years of observing people’s reaction to God and religious things, I have determined man to be a most weak and impressionable creature.  He is prone to the most extreme emotions and habits, both good and bad.  We read in Sacred Scripture that “man is made in the image of God,”but in this similitude we see the height of mankind’s achievements and also his utter depravity.  How May this paradox be explained in terms of our understanding of Scripture and our own human experience.

   If I compare the experiences I see in my own life, some people may claim to have a personal encounter with the Lord by knowing the Bible or some religious affiliation.  But if we consider that Christ himself said, “the gate is narrow that leads to life…and there are few who find it.”(Matthew 7:14)  Knowing this truth, we must look deeper and seek a more definitive definition of how we may be saved from hell and perdition.  If we accept that faith is a gift, “ For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.”(Ephesians 2:8-10)  How do we know if a person has saving faith, or that their faith is in vain.   Let us also look at another citation,  “If you love Me, [d]keep My commandments “(John 14:15)  and James says that faith without works is dead:

  “What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. But someone will say, “You have faith, and I have works.” Show me your faith without [a]your works, and I will show you my faith by [b]my works. You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe—and tremble! But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is [c]dead? Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar? Do you see that faith was working together with his works, and by works faith was made [d]perfect? And the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “Abraham believed God, and it was [e]accounted to him for righteousness.” And he was called the friend of God. You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only. Likewise, was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out another way? For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.(James 2:14-26)

   So, a man is justified by works, and not by faith only.  Another place in the Scripture we can find evidence is "he who does the will of my father" refers to someone who follows and obeys the commands of God, considered to be a true follower of Jesus Christ, as stated in Matthew 7:21 where Jesus says, "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.  There are those who claim to believe that only faith is necessary, but this is known as the heresy of antinomianism. 

  Shall we move on?  Then we will find the question of cooperation of faith and works taught by the Church. The Council of Trent was convened by the Catholic Church to address the challenges posed by the Protestant Reformation, aiming to reaffirm Catholic doctrine, condemn Protestant beliefs, and implement internal reforms within the Church, essentially marking the start of the Catholic Counter-Reformation. Key points about the Council of Trent: 

• Response to Protestantism:

  The primary goal was to clearly define Catholic doctrine in response to the spread of Protestant ideas, clarifying disputed points and condemning Protestant teachings. 

  
  

  Internal Reform:Besides addressing Protestant challenges, the Council also aimed to reform abuses and improve the discipline within the Catholic Church. 
• Doctrine Clarification:

  The Council solidified Catholic teachings on sacraments, the nature of the Eucharist (including transubstantiation), justification by faith and works, and the authority of the Bible and tradition.

  
  

  Impact on the Church:
The Council of Trent is considered a pivotal moment in Catholic history, revitalizing the Church and laying the groundwork for the modern Roman Catholic faith. 

    “In order to emphasize how mysterious and unapproachable is Divine election, the Council of Trentcalls predestination "hidden mystery". That predestination is indeed a sublime mystery appears not only from the fact that the depths of the eternal counsel cannot be fathomed, it is even externally visible in the inequality of the Divine choice. The unequal standard by which baptismal grace is distributed among infants and efficacious graces among adults is hidden from our view by an impenetrable veil. Could we gain a glimpse at the reasons of this inequality, we should at once hold the key to the solution of the mystery itself. Why is it that this child is baptized, but not the child of the neighbour? Why is it that Peter the Apostle rose again after his fall and persevered till his death, while Judas Iscariot, his fellow-Apostle, hanged himself and thus frustrated his salvation? Though correct, the answer that Judas went to perdition of his own free will, while Peter faithfully co-operated with the grace of conversion offered him, does not clear up the enigma. For the question recurs: Why did not God give to Judas the same efficacious, infallibly successful grace of conversion as to St. Peter, whose blasphemous denial of the Lord was a sin no less grievous than that of the traitor Judas? To all these and similar questions the only reasonable reply is the word of St. Augustine (loc. cit., 21): "Inscrutabilia sunt judicia Dei" (the judgments of God are inscrutable).

“ The counterpart of the predestination of the good is the reprobation of the wicked, or the eternal decree of God to cast all men into hell of whom He foresaw that they would die in the state of sinas his enemies. This plan of Divine reprobation may be conceived either as absolute and unconditional or as hypothetical and conditional, according as we consider it as dependent on, or independent of, the infallible foreknowledge of sin, the real reason of reprobation. If we understand eternal condemnation to be an absolute unconditional decree of God, its theological possibility is affirmed or denied according as the question whether it involves a positive, or only a negative, reprobation is answered in the affirmative or in the negative. The conceptual difference between the two kinds of reprobation lies in this, that negative reprobation merely implies the absolute will not to grant the bliss of heaven while positive reprobation means the absolute will to condemn to hell. In other words, those who are reprobated merely negatively are numbered among the non-predestined from all eternity; those who are reprobated positively are directly predestined to hellfrom all eternity and have been created for this very purpose. It was Calvin who elaborated the repulsive doctrine that an absolute Divine decree from all eternity positively predestined part of mankind to hell and, in order to obtain this end effectually, also to sin. The Catholic advocates of an unconditional reprobation evade the charge of heresy only by imposing a twofold restriction on their hypothesis: (a) that the punishment of hell can, in time, be inflicted only on account of sin, and from all eternity can be decreed only on account of foreseen malice, while sin itself is not to be regarded as the sheer effect of the absolute Divine will, but only as the result of God's permission; (b) that the eternal plan of God can never intend a positive reprobation to hell, but only a negative reprobation, that is to say, an exclusion from heaven. These restrictions are evidently demanded by the formulation of the concept itself, since the attributes of Divine sanctity and justice must be kept inviolate (see GOD). Consequently, if we consider that God's sanctity will never allow Him to will sinpositively even though He foresees it in His permissive decree with infallible certainty, and that His justice can foreordain, and in time actually inflict, hell as a punishment only by reason of the sinforeseen, we understand the definition of eternal reprobation given by Peter Lombard (I. Sent., dist. 40): "Est præscientia iniquitatis quorundam et præparatio damnationis eorundem" (it is the foreknowledge of the wickedness of some men and the foreordaining of their damnation). Cf. Scheeben, "Mysterien des Christentums" (2nd ed., Freiburg, 1898), 98—103.”(https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12378a.htm#:~:text=The%20counterpart%20of%20the%20predestination,created%20for%20this%20very%20purpose.)

   The question is why are some men saved to everlasting life, and others to eternal punishment?  This is the mystery that the Bible hints at; the inscrutability of God’s judgments.  While we can speculate about which of these two dynamics drive the eternal decrees of God, either man’s free will or God’s sovereign choice, we cannot deny that Holy Scripture attests to both truths working in harmony.