The Highway Forums General Discussion Open Forum Dear Catholic, Friend

Your sarcasm and disrespect in response to careful instruction on a matter of eternal significance is simply unwarranted.

while churches founded on the biblical doctrine in opposition to Rome are in error

These positions cannot be simultaneously defended.

Your position is redolent of that of the Pharisees who could not answer Jesus because of their self-righteousness and hid in the lie of ignorance: "We do not know".

Theirs was a lie because the entire testimony of God in Scripture and finally his own Son had clearly communicated the truth to them, and they rejected it out of unbelief.

Young Catholic said:
Romans 10:9-11 "for, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For one believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved. For the scripture says, 'No one who believes in Him shall be put to shame.'"

I believe this biblical passage would do some good for both Protestants and Catholics to remember

Even the demons professed as much

Jesus is Lord

I doubt the demons called upon the name of the Lord for help and guidance.

And demons also came out of many, crying, "You are the Son of God!" But he rebuked them and would not allow them to speak, because they knew that he was the Christ. (Luke 4:40-41, ESV)

Jesus then asked him, "What is your name?" And he said, "Legion," for many demons had entered him. And they begged him not to command them to depart into the abyss. (Luke 8:30-31, ESV)

I am ... a Paranormal enthusiast who enjoys discussing theology.

The people you mentioned reject the idea of God in 3 persons...that does not, to me, mean that they believe in Him as they do not believe in all of Him.

I doubt the demons called upon the name of the Lord for help and guidance.

My Jehovah's Witness friend would disagree with you. He, like all JWs I know, deny that Jesus is God.

The Council of Trent has been abrogated/superseded by Vatican II and stands as the OFFICIAL statement of Roman Catholic doctrine. Whether or not you as a "Liberal" Catholic accepts that or not is irrelevant. The Pope, speaking ex-cathedra and the decisions of the Magisterium are binding and said to be infallible. Thus I am warranted to base my understanding and critique of Roman doctrine upon that document. That being so, I quote a portion of Michael Horton from the article I recommended to you where he quotes directly from Vatican II:

The Protestants never denied the sanctification and renewal of the inward man, but this was identified in Scripture as sanctification, not as justification. Rome simply combined the two concepts into one: God justifies us through the process of our moving, by the power of God's Spirit at work in our lives, from being unjust to becoming just. This, however, rejects Paul's whole point in Romans 4:1-5, that justification comes only to those who (a) are wicked and (b) stop working for it. God justifies the wicked as wicked, the sinner as sinner. That is the good news of the gospel, and the scandal of the Cross!

The most relevant canons are the following:

Canon 9. If anyone says that the sinner is justified by faith alone (supra, chapters 7-8), meaning that nothing else is required to cooperate in order to obtain the grace of justification, and that it is not in any way necessary that he be prepared and disposed by the action of his own will, let him be anathema.

Canon 11. If anyone says that men are justified either by the sole imputation of the justice of Christ or by the sole remission of sins, to the exclusion of the grace and the charity which is poured forth in their hearts by the Holy Ghost (Rom. 5:5), and remains in them, or also that the grace by which we are justified is only the good will of God, let him be anathema.

Canon 12. If anyone says that justifying faith is nothing else than confidence in divine mercy (supra, chapter 9), which remits sins for Christ's sake, or that it is this confidence alone that justifies us, let him be anathema.

Canon 24. If anyone says that the justice received is not preserved and also not increased before God through good works (ibid., chapter 10), but that those works are merely the fruits and signs of justification obtained, but not the cause of the increase, let him be anathema.

Canon 30. If anyone says that after the reception of the grace of justification the guilt is so remitted and the debt of eternal punishment so blotted out to every repentant sinner, that no debt of temporal punishment remains to be discharged either in this world or in purgatory before the gates of heaven can be opened, let him be anathema.

Canon 32. If anyone says that the good works of the one justified are in such manner the gifts of God that they are not also the good merits of him justified; or that the one justified by the good works that he performs by the grace of God and the merit of Jesus Christ, whose living member he is, does not truly merit an increase of grace, eternal life, and in case he dies in grace the attainment of eternal life itself and also an increase of glory, let him be anathema.

In other words, men and women are accepted before God on the basis of their cooperation with God's grace over the course of their lives, rather than on the basis of Christ's finished work alone, received through faith alone, to the glory of God alone. There are indeed two fundamentally different answers to that recurring biblical question, "How can I be saved?" and, therefore, two fundamentally different gospels.