Christian Liberty
Well-known member
A Catholic and a Calvinist arguing. What a waste. Two kinds of lost souls denying the Truth.
Says the Arian heretic.
Merely a Straw Man Fallacy on your part. The Catholic Church was interpreting, teaching, and providing the answer to Rom. 4:5 for a millennium-and-a-half before a single Protestant ever managed to stumble onto the scene. The Christian Church didn't begin with Billy Graham, after all.
He who does no work, yet believes in Him is saved.
You do not believe this. You believe that the one who does no work is condemned.
Yes, by doing no "work of the law," that is, the Mosaic Law (Hebrew Law Code). That's what the term "work" means in the context of Paul's theology. Thus, merely being a good Jew will not save you.
This does not follow. Romans 6:23 says that the wages of sin is death. Not just the Jewish Law, any sin. You deserve death because of your sin. I deserve death because of my sin. God's standard is perfection.
Are you perfect? If not, nothing you do is acceptable to God (Isaiah 64:6.)
Thankfully, Jesus Christ replaces the filthy robes of any who trust in him alone to save them with clean robes. See Zechariah 3:1-5. This vividly describes the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ. Catholicism rejects this because it is not Christian.
Baptismal regeneration was believed and taught by Christ, the apostles, and the early Church, as was the role of good works (though not of the works of the law) in salvation.
By contrast, Galatians 5:1-2 says that anyone who adds any works of the law to the gospel is dead in his sins. ANY works. Not just Old Testament works. ANY works. Including baptism.
Jesus and the Apostles did not teach the doctrine you are teaching. If any of the so-called "church fathers" did, that is because they were not saved.
And how about you turn away from your errors of Calvinism before it's too late?
Catholicism teaches that double predestination is heresy. Yet Romans 9:19-22 very explicitly teaches it. What you call "Calvinism" is Biblical.