Christianity and Salvation

[BIG NIGE]

The main problem seems to be that no matter how lenient or strict Jesus is claimed to be with regard to who can be saved and who can't, it's easy to rationalize committing sins with impunity for the purpose of enjoying base pleasures.

If having a good conscience and doing good meritorious deeds will aid you in obtaning salvation, as Catholicism says, then some people will say "Well I've done all these awful things in my life for as long as I can remember, and if you add them all up then it's not possible to be virtuous enough and meritorious enough in the future to cancel out or make up for all the bad things I've done up until now. Therefore, since I have no chance of achieiving salvation and am doomed to an eternity in hell, I might as well either committ suicide, or continue with the evil deeds that I have been doing, since they give me pleasure, base as that pleasure may be."

Now you could argue that someone who does bad things throughout their life, then tries to make up for it at the very end but has too little time left, will only endure a "milder" version of hell that is not the worst possible fate. Likewise, people whose net contribution on earth is only modestly meritorious will enjoy a lesser version of heaven than people like Mother Teresa. However I have not heard this position espoused by any Christian, and as I understand it there are only two possible destinations after life on Earth: heaven or hell.

This is where the "merit" point of view runs into trouble: if you add up all the positive and negative things someone has done throughout their life, and it comes out barely positive, they go to heaven, whereas if it comes out barely negative, they go to hell. As poker players, we can understand how ridiculous this notion is because we have all seen the pokertracker graphs where someone is playing $1000 NL and has wild fluctuations and swings of thousands of dollars, then shows a $45 profit after 10,000 hands or more. That clearly doesn't mean they're a winning player or a losing player, in fact the only thing you CAN tell from graphs like those is that the person would probably need to play hundreds of thousands more hands before they can get an accurate representation of their winrate. Of course Jesus doesn't just say "Hmm this guy has a high virtue variance, I better give him another thousand years on Earth to see whether he's a long term good guy or bad guy."

On the other hand, if you take the view that anyone can be saved no matter what they've done, then you have the dilemma of people doing whatever they please regardless of whether its a sin, because they know they can just appeal to Jesus afterward and he'll save them and allow them into heaven.

[chezlaw]

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This is where the "merit" point of view runs into trouble: if you add up all the positive and negative things someone has done throughout their life, and it comes out barely positive, they go to heaven, whereas if it comes out barely negative, they go to hell. As poker players, we can understand how ridiculous this notion is because we have all seen the pokertracker graphs where someone is playing $1000 NL and has wild fluctuations and swings of thousands of dollars, then shows a $45 profit after 10,000 hands or more. That clearly doesn't mean they're a winning player or a losing player, in fact the only thing you CAN tell from graphs like those is that the person would probably need to play hundreds of thousands more hands before they can get an accurate representation of their winrate.

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This confuses results with intent. Poker heaven is where you get your Sklansky bucks.

chez

[vulturesrow]

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However I have not heard this position espoused by any Christian, and as I understand it there are only two possible destinations after life on Earth: heaven or hell.


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Google "purgatory"

[BIG NIGE]

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However I have not heard this position espoused by any Christian, and as I understand it there are only two possible destinations after life on Earth: heaven or hell.


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Google "purgatory"

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Looked it up in Wikipedia and I'm still unsatisfied. Purgatory is described as the Catholic Church's idea of where people go who will attain salvation but need "final purification" so that they can enjoy heaven. The Catholick Catechism sys this:

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…While patiently bearing sufferings and trials of all kinds and, when the day comes, serenely facing death, the Christian must strive to accept this temporal punishment of sin as a grace. He should strive by works of mercy and charity, as well as by prayer and the various practices of penance, to put off completely the "old man" and to put on the "new man"

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The phrase "temporal punishment" seems to confirm that purgatory is indeed not a final or eternal destination, but only an intermediate step that some of the imperfect-but-still-good people must take before getting into heaven. However since heaven is eternal, then getting into purgatory is tantamount to getting into heaven, because you are guaranteed to end up there. There remains the problem of someone whose overall resume, filled with saintly and pernicious deeds alike, ends up just barely on the positive side of the ledger, and thus he goes to purgatory and then heaven, whereas a similar person who is only slightly "in the red" at the end of the day, suffers eternal damnation in hell. There seems nothing just about this at all.

Chez: You make a good point about the Sklansky Bucks; however, it's still perfectly possible that someone's Sklansky Bucks are on par with their actual results, which would leave us with the problem I pointed out above and in my first post.

[sluggger5x]

The best answer you can possibly find to this question is in the bible itself. People who proclaim that good works lead you to heaven either (a) have completely misinterpreted the salvation message in the bible or (b) have only read a small portion of the bible in their lifetime.

I think the answers will come if you simply dig deep into the text itself. It is my belief that there is a whole slew of evidence that shows the bible's message to be salvation by faith in Jesus Christ alone.

[Taraz]

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The best answer you can possibly find to this question is in the bible itself. People who proclaim that good works lead you to heaven either (a) have completely misinterpreted the salvation message in the bible or (b) have only read a small portion of the bible in their lifetime.

I think the answers will come if you simply dig deep into the text itself. It is my belief that there is a whole slew of evidence that shows the bible's message to be salvation by faith in Jesus Christ alone.

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I'm sure there are many, many Christian pastors who would disagree with you.

[yukoncpa]

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The best answer you can possibly find to this question is in the bible itself. People who proclaim that good works lead you to heaven either (a) have completely misinterpreted the salvation message in the bible or (b) have only read a small portion of the bible in their lifetime.

I think the answers will come if you simply dig deep into the text itself. It is my belief that there is a whole slew of evidence that shows the bible's message to be salvation by faith in Jesus Christ alone.


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Salvation without works sounds strange to me. How do Christians interpret their own Bible? For example:

1) Faith without works is dead - James 2-17

2)What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? James 2-14

3) The Father, who without partiality judges according to each one's work. 1 Peter 1-17

4) And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation. John 5-29

5) For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not. Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee? Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.
Matthew 25:41-46

Etc, etc.
I recall dozens of places in the Bible that says you are supposed to do good things ( as well as have faith in Jesus) in order to get to heaven. Maybe I need a more knowledgeable preacher to interpret the Bible for me

[demon102]

christainity is false and salvation imo has to do with what shape ur karma is in. One thing I always thought of since I was a kid when I was christian, if you need to accept Jesus as ur savior to go to heavan then all the people that lived before jesus all went to hell, just doesnt seem realalistic to me.

[NotReady]

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The main problem seems to be that no matter how lenient or strict Jesus is claimed to be with regard to who can be saved and who can't, it's easy to rationalize committing sins with impunity for the purpose of enjoying base pleasures.


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Salvation is far more than just saying "I believe" and then getting on with your life as if nothing happened. Many, many passages warn about this attitude. The whole book of James is about the genuineness of faith. Paul deals with your scenario explicitly. Even if a real Christian did adopt that attitude there are verses that indicate he won't be happy living a sinful life and Paul even talks about physical death resulting from that approach.

But the main idea is that true conversion involves God instilling a new "life" in the person, giving him a new heart, being "born again". God doesn't just pronounce one justified, He works with that person, changing his goals and attitude, weaning him away from a love of this world and making him into a "new creature".

Professing Christians who display no "before" and "after" in their lives should re-examine the reality of their conversion. The gift of eternal life isn't only justification from sin but actual deliverance from the bondage of a life of sin. Paul called it "this body of death" and exclaimed "Who shall deliver me?" The freedom of the sons of God is the freedom to be righteous, to have one's entire life and worldview molded into that for which we were designed.

[bills217]

I posted this in your "Christianity, Sin, and Pascal's Wager" thread, but apparently it didn't take the first time:

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The Bible states all have sinned, not all will sin in the future - there is a pretty significant difference in the two.


23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God...
-Romans 3:23


Here are some Bible verses that directly address the seriousness of sin, and some of the issues you raise:


11 ...And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.
-John 8:11


14 But afterward Jesus found him in the Temple and told him, “Now you are well; so stop sinning, or something even worse may happen to you.”
-John 5:14


3 And we can be sure that we know him if we obey his commandments. 4 If someone claims, “I know God,” but doesn’t obey God’s commandments, that person is a liar and is not living in the truth. 5 But those who obey God’s word truly show how completely they love him. That is how we know we are living in him. 6 Those who say they live in God should live their lives as Jesus did.
-1 John 2:3-6


6No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.

7Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. He who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous. 8He who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's work. 9No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God's seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God.
-1 John 3:6-9

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Edited to add: Also,

"21Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.

22Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?

23And then will I profess unto them, I never KNEW [emphasis mine] you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity." -Matthew 7:21-23

Interestingly, "knew" in Matthew 7:23 is the same in the original Greek as "known" in 1 John 3:6, "ginosko" (Strong's Concordance #1097).