Faith Not "Enough" in Chritianity?

[BluffTHIS!]

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Furthermore, to my knowledge the only sin unforgivable is suicide, since you can't possibly repent since its your last action on earth.

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The sin against the Holy Spirit that will not be forgiven is most likely attributing works of God/miracles to demonic forces. And re suicide, the state of mind of the person would be taken into account, as to be a sin an act must be known to be sinful and be a freely chosen act which suicide by a person with psychological problems would not necessarily be.

[bobman0330]

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Furthermore, to my knowledge the only sin unforgivable is suicide, since you can't possibly repent since its your last action on earth.

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The sin against the Holy Spirit that will not be forgiven is most likely attributing works of God/miracles to demonic forces. And re suicide, the state of mind of the person would be taken into account, as to be a sin an act must be known to be sinful and be a freely chosen act which suicide by a person with psychological problems would not necessarily be.

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For those interested in this issue, Graham Greene's "The Heart of the Matter" is a fascinating study. For that matter, people reading this thread might enjoy reading "The End of the Affair" as well. I won't get into details for fear of ruining the ending, but it deals with the sufficiency of belief.

[djj6835]

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"proclamation of beliefs", and "professes new found faith".
the truth of these proclamtions and profesations(which only God can know) is going to be the determining factor for christians. if the child molester actually finds faith rather than merely professing it in his last seconds i think many christians(esp evangelical and fund) think he will be ok and will not be punished for having the misfortune to die seconds after this conversion of the heart.


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Furthermore, to my knowledge the only sin unforgivable is suicide, since you can't possibly repent since its your last action on earth.

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So basically what you are saying is a person who is in a great amount of pain and commits suicide has zero chance of going to heaven, but a child molester can go to heaven as long as he truly "finds faith".

Is this the belief of most christians?

[mike4bmp]

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Because all Christians seem to believe that beleiving in Jesus while SIMULTANEOUSLY doing bad things or PLANNING to do bad things is AUTOMATIC evidence that you don't believe. (What I am not sure about is the case where the capitalized word is changed to EXPECTING.)

So when critics say that a Christian can be a scoundrel and still go to heaven if they have the right faith, I think most of them realize that the scoundrel has to have changed his ways before his proclamation of belief holds any water.

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I think this depends on what school of theology you subscribe to. With the exception of being a "scoundrel" which would mean the person is living a hypocrtical life and probably doesn't "believe", the average knowledgeable Christian understands that his faith/theology system has certain guidlines.
If you are Calvinist I believe the above statement would be true...since if you were chosen to be saved then you would not commit any sins (at least you would try hard not to). If you were an Arminianist then you would believe that you had a choice in every manner...i.e. to commit the sin...in which you would have the opportunity to repent later for...lest you lose Salvation.
If you are Catholic (like myself) then it wouldn't matter because you would be guilty all the time anyways!! LOL! J/K
If you are Catholic then you have to be concerned what the Church would consider a venial sin or a mortal sin and confess and do penance accordingly.

Although hypocrisy is prevalent in Christian churches I think it has to do with nominalism due to characteristics of the foundation of the Christian faith as being a "PERSONAL conviction."
It is interesting to note that although Christianity is an Evangelical religion which requires the "spreading of the Good news" people tend to get complacent with their own salvation (unless you are a fundamentalist). Its kind of like saying, "oh well I know that I am saved and that Jesus forgives me so I don't have to sweat the things that are deemed as bad by other Christians."

[coolhandluke]

Allright, I will attempt to answer based on my 4 previous large areas of christian thought. here is the crux of the argument from your post

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Because all Christians seem to believe that beleiving in Jesus while SIMULTANEOUSLY doing bad things or PLANNING to do bad things is AUTOMATIC evidence that you don't believe. (What I am not sure about is the case where the capitalized word is changed to EXPECTING.)


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1. Catholicism (roman, anythying in full communion with rome, and I'm pretty sure the orthodox faiths also). This is a tough one, since they don't really have the concept of "saving faith" like I believe you are referencing here. They believe in a 3 stage salvation, you ARE saved, you are BEING saved, you hope to BE saved. now, they would say that an informed, knowledgeable Christian, who knowingly does very bad things is in mortal sin, and seperated from God, (including for eternity, if they happened to die at that point) it does not mean they didn't have faith in Christ to begin with.


2. Reformed Protestantism. Calvinism teaches, in its most literal since, that nothing anyone does can possibly have any effect on there salvation, so it doesn't matter how much bad stuff a person does or doesn't do, but whether or not they were pre-ordained (elected) by God for salvation.

Calvins theology is very roughly summed up in the 5 letter acrostic TULIP, each letter has bearing on your question, so I will go through them.
T - total depravity - mankind is inherently totally evil, and unable to choose to do anything pleasing to God on there own. So, in other words, we are all really expected to be really bad

U - Unconditional Election - God chooses those whom he will, at his own divine perogative. How Good or bad they are is immaterial. this is the only thing that matters whether or not you will reach heaven.

L - Limited Atonement - The sacrifice of Jesus is only efficacious for those pre-ordained by God for Salvation.
The Goodness and badness doesn't matter.

I - Irresistible Grace - God's grace that is offered to those he elects cannot be denied, So, even if a bad guy wants to be bad, and has no desire to ever do good or know God, if he is elected, God's grace will win him over.

P - Perserverance of the saints ***** no matter what one does, if they are elected, they will be saved. So, Pol Pot, Hitler, Oprah, the guy that founded the IRS or any other society destroying plague of humanity can keep right on doing whatever, and there salvation in safe.


Sorry it took me so long, I'll get to the other two (more complicated} ASAP

any questions about these?




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I have a feeling that critics of Christianity, including myself, as well as members of some other religions, and athiests, sometimes make a statement (regarding what it takes to be "saved") that they kind of figure is obviously exaggerated. Christians, however often assume that there is no exaggeration in those statements.

Speaking only for myself (but thinking that most Christian critcs would agree with me) my actual understanding is this:

The Christian god wants two things from humans. That they be good and that they believe in him. If they do, they are "saved". There seems to be some difference of opinion among Christians if the "being good" part should be considered only a indication that you believe, or is in fact relevant in and of itself. But it doesn't matter for the purposes of this discussion. Because all Christians seem to believe that beleiving in Jesus while SIMULTANEOUSLY doing bad things or PLANNING to do bad things is AUTOMATIC evidence that you don't believe. (What I am not sure about is the case where the capitalized word is changed to EXPECTING.)

So when critics say that a Christian can be a scoundrel and still go to heaven if they have the right faith, I think most of them realize that the scoundrel has to have changed his ways before his proclamation of belief holds any water. I'm guessing that if he just had been shot after molesting a child, and using her as a shield against police he was firing at, and now professes his new found faith and his desire to be good ten seconds before he dies, he has a problem as far as Chritian belief goes. And that most non Christians have the same opinion about Christian belief in this case.

A less dramatic example is the fellow who attends Church, does all the necessary preliminaries, truly believes that Jesus exists, and is planning to get the last rites and repent before he dies. But he is also planning to have way more fun than he should before that happens. Most non-Christians, again assume this guy will run into a problem according to Chritianity.

Now even if all the above is correct, there are still a lot of things about the way Chritianity overemphasizes faith that I, and others don't like. But it isn't as extreme as our statements sometimes appear. That subject is for another time.

For now I would just like to know if I accurately described the Christian position and also if I have accurately described the way most non Chritians think of Christianity as regards to this subject.

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[David Sklansky]

Appreciate your comments. Betting Not Ready will say you are wrong.

[sexdrugsmoney]

"For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God" Ephesians 2:8

Really David, no offence but you seem very curious about Christianity yet clearly you haven't read the New Testament. (I would hope given your Jewish heritage you have read the Old Testament, at the very least the Torah)

When I wanted to know about Islam, I read the Qu'ran and Ibn Warraq. (for both sides)

If you want to know about Christianity, read the New Testament, you already have the other side taken care of. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Cheers,
SDM

[The Dude]

David,

You're not going to very far with this one. There are so many different views within Christianity regarding the "minimum requirements" to be saved that it will be very difficult for an outsider to get a view they can apply to Christianity.

Sadly enough, blurt out some random requiements and I'll find you a Christian who thinks you're right on.

[Girchuck]

This depends on the method of suicide.
If you slash your veins in a bath tub, or take a slow poison, you'll have some time to repent this sin.

[BillsChips]

From a historical perspective, the idea that you must believe in Jesus as a condition for salvation, was introduced by Emperor Constantine's panel when they assembled the New Testament using only a few of the hundreds of gospels that existed at the time. The Gnostic gospels, which were among the few rejected gospels to survive Constantines minions, held that Jesus said that you only had to follow his teachings to be saved, and that Jesus often liked to raise from UTG with small suited connectors.