Lutheran (Protestant) General

So I've heard from Catholics and ecumenical protestants this theory that sola Christus, gratia, and Deo gloria are Catholic beliefs and there is just misrepresentation about them, and that sola fide is not really contradictory either.

What do ya'll think about it.

Just talk to Catholics and you'll see otherwise. Though I'm not Protestant either.

Roman Catholics believe in salvation through Mary since they believe she is the Mediatrix and Co-Redemptrix, whereas we believe in salvation through Christ alone. So they do not believe in Solus Christus.

Roman Catholics worship Mary are other Saints of theirs as well so they do not believe in Soli Deo Gloria.

Roman Catholics believe salvation is works based, they believe they can earn their way into heaven. So they reject Sola Fide.

Roman Catholics have also added traditions, doctrines and amendments over time. So they reject Sola Scriptura.

They reject sola gratia too because they preach works based salvation.

I’m more of an independent Christian but I might attend a Lutheran Church. Do y’all believe in rapture? Do y’all believe Mary was a perpetual virgin or did she have kids after Jesus? Just a few random questions

I was raised on sola gratia (Methodist).

Another Methodist? On Zig Forums? Well met, friend! A rarity, for sure. I'll answer your questions:

Born and raised Free Methodist.
I don't know. I've never even been to Europe.
Modernism is crippling all churches, but it is what comes with there being a wall of separation between church and state. It's not a wall I want torn down because it would hurt the church more than it helps the state.
In modern times, Pope-Emeritus Benedict XVI. I admire him for his unashamed discussions on doctrine and the future of all Christendom. For an older thinker, I'm a big fan of George Fox - founder of the Society of Friends - for his passion in bringing all to Christ. There's really so many to name, honestly.

Well these are all memes though and not in anyway Catholic doctrine (except for rejecting sola scriptua) and exactly what I was getting at. Many people say that Catholics actually agree on three points and moderatly accept one, however it's generally ignorant laity who misrepresent beliefs on both sides

Sorry, bro, but this isn't a cathodox thread, ergo, nobody cares.

Lutheranism is the perfect example of Catholic lite

Rude.

Sorry baby. That's how it is

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How can you not be non-denom when reading bull like this?

Who wants to dress up as Martin Luther on Halloween just to knock on doors and give people fortune cookies with bible verses for those who answer?

Lutheran
Pretty bad, we have to combat devilry like atheism, hedonism, gay marriage, abortion, feminism etc. Let God guide us, as we are truly in need of his guidance.
As for the people that visit Church, it's mostly the old generation here in Norway, as well as some young people. But I don't think people visit the People's Church anymore because they allow fag marriage. I think I may stop visiting it as well, gonna try a non-government Lutheran Church this Sunday.

I have a very idealised picture of America where everyone goes to the Church on the Sunday in their best clothes, but I don't think it's like that anymore. Especially not in Commiefornia
Probably Augustine

Non-denominational doesn't exist. Its just baptism with another name

Okay, I need an honest explanation of this.
So faith alone saves, which means that I can do all the works I want, if I have no faith and devotion for Jesus, I will not be saved, right?
But what if I have faith, and yet perform no works?
Does that mean that my faith isn't real? Or will I still be saved?

Please give me an explanation, I am very confused by this.

Funny that Protestants believe in Sola Scriptura and Sola Fide, because literally the only place it says "faith alone" in the Bible is when it says man is not justified by faith alone (James 2:24).

Could you hit a more serious tone please?
By making a joke out of everything I feel like none of this is serious bussiness.

Where are you right now?

Eastern Europe

And if this was another attempt to make a joke, go and unironically fun yourself somewhere else!
Stand-up comedists should be whipped out of serious discussion the same way Jesus dealt with the money-changers in the temple!

...

Salvation by works and by Mary is a meme (Co-Redemptrix is not even Church teaching). Sola Fide is actually more similar than what you think to Catholic doctrine. I'll just paste from the other thread:

vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s1c3a2.htm

Faith is what leads you to salvation. Works are a result of a true faith.

You can not gain your own salvation by your works only, you can not even merit the forgivance of one single grave sin by works only.

Even if you would dedicate your whole life to helping others, spreading the Gospel, improving yourself etc etc but for some reason reject Jesus' sacrifice and God's truth and think that your actions are good enough to give you eternal life then you are wrong and will not be saved.

If you say you are a Christian and believe in God, but live a life full of sin, you are not repenting and are hurting others etc then it's a sign that your faith is false and dead.

16 Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?

17 Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.

18 A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.

19 Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.

20 Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.

So basically:

Please leave. Thank you.

It's not you can just kill people and still be saved, you should do good works as Luther write, but you shouldn't think that they will save you. Every hypocrite can fast during the lent or on fridays, or pretend to pray daily thinking that he will earn himself a passage to heaven, well guess what, if you aren't sincere then you're not gonna get saved. Luther says that we shall be to others as Christ was to us, instead of being like hypocrites (like the cardinals in his time, that got drunk, went to whorehouses and fathered children). He also writes that relying on your works may cost you your faith, he compares it to a dog holding a piece of meat and seeing its own reflection in the water, he tries to grab the piece of meat in the reflection and ends up loosing both.

How about you leave, you pathetic LARPer?
You may come back when you are willing to treat serious questions in a mature manner!

So basically you are saying that faith is a neccessary requirement for salvation, and those of true faith perform good works, which are a result of their faith, while those who claim to have faith but perform no works are basically people whose faith is not real?

Thanks, this is really helpful.

I just don't see why catholics and protestants tear each other apart based on this.
I don't see anything overly contradictory.

It's in the Luther's letter to pope Leo X in case y'all want to read more about it

I said leave.

It's an ecumenist lie that anyone alive during the Reformation would scoff at

Isn't the whole point of the discussion the sufficiency of faith and grace to save? As i understood it, if one says that we're saved wholly by faith alone, that's considered anathema by the RCC. And then too if you deny that good works lead to an "increase of grace", you're also anathema.
It seems to me like a matter of definition of words.

If grace is unmerited favor, and salvation is through faith alone by grace alone, then you deny the gospel. If you must go through baptism to receive salvation, you are earning unmerited favor, the whole definition breaks down and the rest of everything with it. Logically impossible, unless you define grace as something else.
I find the problem with this idea of baptism being salvific that, if you do something that earns favor, you must also be judged by your misdeeds, leading to an automatic death sentence by sin.

Not only that, but then you have to deal with Paul saying contradictory things such as him being glad to not have baptized anyone but rather spreading the gospel, and the absence of scripture affirming the view of baptismal regeneration.

I was born into the evangelical lutheran state church of Finland, i am now a reformed baptist by doctrine.
I don't know about the rest of europe, but in Finland the church is pozzed and not preaching the gospel at all. In my town currently there are no bishop candidates save one who think the bible is inerrant.
Spots of light in a sea of muck, if pentecostals and their ilk are considered "protestants".
No favorites, but i've recently been listening to sermons by John Macarthur.

I must admit this seems to me a reasonable explanation of salvation by faith. But I think this is a change in the traditional Catholic doctrine.

Therefore, I'd like to ask the Protestants here the following: do you see some difference between this new Catholic doctrine and the doctrines of the various protestant denominations? If yes, then can you explain?

I don't see a problem with what he wrote outside of the link, but you'll have to ask him what he thinks the words mean. If he says faith includes such things as going to church and partaking in the Mass, then there's a difference between me and him. We generally say that belief alone saves. I would define faith as in Romans 4:4-5

You may also note a lutheran for one might answer that baptism is a requirement to being saved (baptismal regeneration), but I would see that as a contradiction to sola fide.

academia.edu/29796297/Sola_Fide_Luther_and_Calvin

Reformed Sola Fide btfo

 Standard Protestant Syllogism

Major Premise: Whoever believes in Christ is saved.

Minor Premise: I believe in Christ.

Conclusion: I am saved.

“Syllogism” is just the standard form of argumentation in Aristotelian logic,which both Luther and Calvin learned at school.Itwas the natural way for them to think when reasoning carefully. The major premise in a syllogism is a kind of general principle or foundation. In this case, it is the promise of the gospel, derivedfrom Mark 16:16, “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved.” 

Many Protestants leave out the “is baptized” part; though to be fair, they do assume and even teach that believers should be baptized.Now this is where the logic becomes important: in order to get from the majorpremise to the conclusion you need a minor premise, which applies the principle tothe particular case in hand. 

How do I get saved? Well, by believing, of course. This is an explicit condition of the promise. For the major premise is logically equivalentto the conditional statement: “

if you believe in Christ, you are saved,” where the

if 

-clause states the condition. So the logic follows from this condition: you are savedon condition that you have faith. Thus if I am to know that I am saved, I must know that I meet the condition.Because the content of the promise is conditional, explicitly making everything conditional upon faith, I am in no position to say that the gospel promise is about me until I can say, “I believe.” For most Protestants, this is a really big deal. The hour I first believed or the moment when I can first say “I truly believe in Christ” isthe moment of my salvation, of my conversion and turning from death to life.What matters is that moment of conversion, not the Sacrament of Baptism, because everything depends on my being able to say “I believe.” For only if I know that Itruly believe can I confidently conclude: I am saved.

...

Same old tried Protestant twisting of the text refuted here: catholicnick.blogspot.com/2011/05/how-to-use-james-224-most-effectively.html

Not quite sure what the point is here

You can't use any of the verses in the bible in a prooftexting way. Right now you're trying to twist James 2 into saying that works merit salvation with faith or keep that salvation alive, aren't you?
Yet all the bible speaks of is salvation by faith alone. The publican who beat his chest went away justified instantly through faith, he was never recorded as having gone through baptism and THEN being saved, it was instantaneous. In contrast, the pharisee who exalted himself in his works and thought much of them, like you would have us do, he was damned. He thought he had something to offer, his keeping of the law. All men are lawbreakers and deserve death, if you wish to be justified (also kept justified) by your keeping of the law, you will be damned just like Paul said. Grace is no more grace to you.

You see, what you try to do with James 2 leads to the God-breathed Scriptures contradicting themselves. What you're doing then is calling the Holy Spirit who inspired them a liar, and God untrustworthy. What this leads to is not only a distorted gospel that will not save, but the destruction of the basis of any knowledge we have of anything.

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>Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. 4For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight_. In love 5he b predestined us for adoption to sonship c through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— 6to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. 7In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace 8that he lavished on us.

>In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will_:, 12in order that we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. 13And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, 14who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.__

So we see that it is not we who decide our salvation, but God who predestines to His own glory. Since He is the one who decides, we can be sure of salvation. Our Lord says in John 6 as much:

>All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. 38 For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. 39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. 40 For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.”

The same He also confirms in the negative, praised be the Lord

And so we see that our faith comes from God, it is He who will also finish our salvation, He will glorify Himself in saving us without qualification by us. As it says, "I will raise them up at the last day." That is a promise, no one loses salvation that they have.

The time of salvation is today, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and what He has said and done.

It's simple really, you anti sacramentalist Baptist piece of crap is Pelagian

I was refuting pelagianism? If anything, if someone has a problem with the verses i quoted, they'd be the (semi-)pelagian.
With that said, I'm not seeing the fruit of the Holy Spirit in your speech. I was delivering the gospel message, and I got the expected response.

The problem is you are Pelagian. Because you look to yourself to know you are elect. Not God and that is disgusting. Like the foolish Galatians!

The problem is you are Pelagian. Because you look to yourself to know you are elect. Not God and that is disgusting. Like the foolish Galatians!
That's so incomprehensibly self-contradicting that it's hard to even respond to.
Great, so according to you the apostles are also rank-pelagians, since they teach that salvation can be known by fruits of the Holy Spirit?

You seemingly accuse me of being Pelagian because according to you, I must know that I have faith to be saved, right? That's not what I say, nor any of the reformers, apostles or Christ taught, nor the Scriptures.
I merely affirm the reality that the Scriptures keep repeating over and over again:

You are lying here. Because even Calvin says you can know if you are elect or not and what do you know…there is literally nowhere else but inward for assurance in Calvinist logic. Why? Because the Sacraments are not objective in efficiacy as only elect gets what it represents. That means one CANNOT use them to seek comfort or assurance at all. Even Calvin rejects this because to do that is to cling to the physical elements of them which is a constant no no in his theology.

Actually there is! By saying believe and you are saved, one must Know he meets this condition, by believing. This is why Practical Syllogism is a thing. This is why it is so well known and even admitted by DA Carson himself that Puritans can and do take retrospection seriously. So that they can test to see if they know they believe and thus "believe"!

So you proven nothing nor Cary as false but show yourself as a Pelagian. When Scripture says believe, it means to cling to the promises given and take a Kierkegaardian leap of faith which has no regard of fixating on these silly introspection and having to notice one somehow becoming more and more righteous!

Also, saying it is God's gift and claiming my point misrepresents you by positing one can somehow "earn" faith or that faith is his own does not negate my and Cary's claims. You are still trusting yourself because even if some other agency is what give you faith, you can still FEEL it. Even as you say in your own words "salvation can be known by fruits of the Holy Spirit"

People thus have to perceive those fruits and if they cant find it, they are either not yet regenerated or reprobate. In fact this solution works not when it states that people can have temporary faith and EVEN FEEL the fruits of Spirit and then be reprobate all along.

Thus your doctrine is Pelagian even if determinist in nature. And guess who is determinist in early Christianity?

The Gnostics

Look, if you're going to argue something I, nor the apostles, nor God Himself in flesh taught, I don't have any part in what you say. You can go off and talk about it on your own, but I don't have to affirm your distorted view of what I believe.
Belief does not come from knowing that you have belief.
Likewise, we know that it is God who saves, not men.

Sacramentalism is a distorted gospel that does not save.

Nope. Like it or not your belief is literally you must know it to be saved. Saying it is a strawman doesnt work because to believe, one must either simply cling onto what is given, or one must have the sense that one meets the requirement of "belief"

ONLY Sacramentalism allows for one to truly believe in the sense of clinging to what is given. In fact this approach contra yours doesnt place the burden on people to feel something is in them and if they dont feel it, they are wrong.

You deny deny but that is your belief like it or not.

And guess what? Scripture does what Sacramentalists do. Even NT scholars like FF Bruce, Beasley Murray and even the Calvinist Douglas Moo all accept that Baptism is part of conversion and where one experiences union with Christ. This means your logic is just a false dicotomy and in fact opposes Scripture. Faith receives what is given. This is why unlike you, Luther stresses the REAL PRESENCE of Christ in faith!

Now let's see what Calvinist NT Scholar Douglas Moo says of Baptism in his commentary on Galatians

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gotquestions.org/spiritual-blindness.html
read and get saved from even stronger judgment

Why do the Orthodox and Catholic generals get to cyclical but this one doesn't? There is an obvious Cathodox bias on this board.

>The solas I find unobjectionable without qualification:
SOLUS CHRISTUS (Christ Alone)
SOLI DEO GLORIA (Glory to God Alone)
>The solas I find unobjectionable if further qualified:
SOLA FIDE (Faith Alone)
SOLA GRATIA (Grace Alone)
>The sola I find utterly indefensible:
SOLA SCRIPTURA (Scripture Alone)

Thus I stand forever in limbo, stuck between various "Protestant" denominations and the "eastern" Orthodox.

Catholics and Orthodox affirm Solus Christus, Soli Deo Gloria, and Sola Gratia without an objections. Catholics and Orthodox might also be willing to affirm Sola Fide with qualifications. Catholics and Orthodox totally reject Sola Scriptura though.

I fully disagree that the Roman Catholic church holds those stances in anything but a legalistic way (i.e. some in the church hierarchy might claim that the solas in question are Roman Catholic dogma in theory, but in practice things are quite different). I find the Roman Catholic sect utterly revolting, an offence to God and all that is Holy.
The Orthodox position is more nuanced, and much more compatible with the Protestant conception of the solas in question.
As would any sane man. But as they say, a broken clock is right twice a day.

Hence my conundrum.

No it's literally official doctrine based off of Augustinian theology. Are you this theologically illiterate?

"Our justification comes from the grace of God. Grace is favor, the free and undeserved help that God gives us to respond to his call to become children of God, adoptive sons, partakers of the divine nature and of eternal life."
- Catechism of the Catholic Church 1996

Ok but baptism isn't something merited. Baptism is itself a part of that free gift of grace, baptism is something Jesus gave to us freely in Matthew 28:19. Likewise with all the sacraments. No one is defining grace as something else. This is how God operates with us in the world. He manifests his fullness in these sacraments. Of course God is not bound by the sacraments, and certainly in his great mercy he can and often does act outside of them. But in the life of the Church this is what we have been given from God as gifts of salvation. Your idea of grace is a one and done thing, and we do believe grace is given to us at one time but that it also guides us to become more like God so that might increase in holiness and that he might fulfill his promise in us, and this grace is often manifested in the sacraments. Nothing is earned or worked up to.

You fail to read the passage in context. The Corinthian Church was in a kind of schism within itself, people who were claiming to be of Paul or of Peter or of Apollos or of Christ instead of simply being one. Paul responds to this by saying,

"Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized in the name of Paul? I thank God that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius, so no one can say that you were baptized in my name. (Yes, I also baptized the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I don’t remember if I baptized anyone else.)

Paul is only glad he didn't baptize because he knows that there would be schism if he did which would create disorder in the Church as it seems to have done for Corinth. Paul then says,

"For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with wisdom and eloquence, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power."

What Paul is saying here is that he didn't just come to simply baptize, for if he did then baptism would mean nothing. And indeed it seems for many in the Corinthian Church it did not matter because they were claiming to be of Paul or Peter or of Apollos or of Christ instead of being one in the Gospel of Christ. Paul came to preach the Gospel, not baptism, because it is only in the Gospel where there is true baptism.

Is there any conservative Lutheran denomination in the U.S. (no gay/female pastors, etc.) that isn't hardcore biblical literalist across the board, i.e. promoting strict 6 day creationism?

That would defeat the purpose of sola scriptura.

Putting the word of God in a cookie like it was a chinese fortune would be presenting it disrespectfully. Maybe you don't have a respect for the word of God?

Yeah probably tbh fam

What do ya'll think of the Augustana Catholic Church? Tired or wired?

Sola scriptura is retarded tbh. The church and its traditions > scripture, which is just a part of tradition.
But I hate papists and slavs, so I could accept a non-degenerate version of lutheranism willing to reinterpret Genesis.

I guess i’d Just say i’m Protestant, I don’t really affiliate with any of the sects
I’m not extremely knowledgeable about European affairs but Christianity as a whole seems pretty threatened due to the large amount of Jewish, Muslim, and Atheist influence over there
America is the same as Europe but slightly more conservative, We definitely need to cut ties with Israel though
I haven’t really read enough material to choose a favorite person

...

If you can’t bring yourself to believe the very foundation of it, how can you have the rest?

It's catholicism without the corruption, the false dogmas and the jewish lies that were added over time

Are you having a laugh

Any American (WELS or LCMS) lutherans here?
Do you think liberalism/modernism is a problem in your synod?
Any other lcms notice the synod becoming slightly more evangelical and baptisty over the years?

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Ummm… No sweety

1 Peter 3:21
The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ:
They will take the part where it says "baptism doth also now save us" and say that proves it, but no, it's "The like figure" that saves us, not baptism. And the like figure is the death, burial, and ressurection of Christ. Colossians 2:12 12 "Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead."

Looks like you have to read it again. That "like figure" refers to the directly previous mention of the flood where Noah and his family where saved through the water. That is the figure

LCMS. South eastern district.
Not that I know of.

Methodist
It's all looking so grim. I've lost all hope for Europe.
From what I gather, there are many genuinely great Christians, but there are also many slack "Cultural Christians" who go to church on Sunday morning and have a one-night-stand Monday Night. I certainly do admire the cultural influence that Christianity has in the public sphere though. I could dream that Christianity was as strong in my country (Australia) as it is in the USA.
Besides those in the Bible, I really like CS Lewis.

Okay I'm gonna have to ask the question. If at any point the earth no longer can bare forth biblical manuscripts -and maybe even ancient church fathers writings- should the whole of the reformed group build a complete and final catechism the explains word for word what the authors of Scripture meant both in context & language?

WELS
Its pretty bad with the exception of SELK in Germany

My church is experiencing good growth
Augustine, very great writer

Yea im WELS
Its much less of a problem than it is in other denominations

Lutheran
At least my country, England, it's waning. The CoE lacks all moral authority.
I don't know much about it, but I hope it's stronger than it is over here.
St. Aquinas. I've been reading parts of Summa Theologica as part of my studies, and it's inspiring.

...

ex-lutheran convert here: we're not that different. honestly, I wish the reformation never happened. Protestantism restrained me from emphasizing the works we must do to merit salvation. Catholicism, as it seems, limits me from expressing the limitless need for god's grace to elevate us to the capacity for works.

It is the saddest destruction of our church, brothers.

On both sides, let us pray for how broken the enemy has made us. Let us pray that the father may make us one again.

Let us confide the both of us though in the god who is a mighty fortress for us all. A bulwark never failing.

This but unironically tbh. I mean basically all the ECFs said something at some point the reformers would strongly disagree with, but their actual doctrines and practices are in general very consistent with the Reformation tradition. Also reminder that Cathodox don't actually read church fathers, they just quotemine them

Don't be so jesuitical, user. Let us pray to be one indeed, but one in mind, united in truth, and let us divide ourselves from all falsehood and heresies.

LCMS in Oklahoma. Liberalism in general is not really a problem where I'm at. I live in probably the most liberal town in the state and even the non-denom and Methodist churches are still pretty conservative.