This is part of “Unconditional Election.” (U of TULIP, see the cite) This is the concept of predestination: that God has divided humanity into two groups. One group is “the elected.” It includes all those whom God has chosen to make knowledgeable about himself. The rest will remain ignorant of God, and the Gospel. They are damned and will spend eternity in Hell without any hope of mercy or cessation of the extreme tortures.
They’re also big on “Perseverance of the saints:” (P of Tulip, see the cite) This is the “Once saved, always saved” belief – that everyone who has been saved will remain in that state.
I never really got with that program.
[/QUOTE]
Wow, that sounds like nothing more or less than an open invitation to do any damn thing you please: if you’re saved, you can’t lose it; if you’re damned, you can’t attain it. So let’s all rob and rape and murder and destroy!
[QUOTE=begbert2]
Wow, that sounds like nothing more or less than an open invitation to do any damn thing you please: if you’re saved, you can’t lose it; if you’re damned, you can’t attain it. So let’s all rob and rape and murder and destroy!
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Indeed. Historically, however, at least one response to this doctrine was to try to be as proper and prosperous as possible, so as to convince everyone else (and yourself) that you were one of God’s Elect.
[QUOTE=Polerius]
How did some Christian denominations ever get any converts floating this stupid idea around?
[/QUOTE] begbert2 nails the reason why :
[QUOTE=begbert2]
Wow, that sounds like nothing more or less than an open invitation to do any damn thing you please: if you’re saved, you can’t lose it; if you’re damned, you can’t attain it. So let’s all rob and rape and murder and destroy!
[/QUOTE]
If you believe in “salvation by faith not works” or “once saved always saved” or anything similar, you don’t even need to rationalize your bad behavior as being for your victim’s own good. It’s pretty obvious why a belief like that would win converts.
Here is something it is interesting to note about that story quoted in the OP.
Jesus said to the guy “Do X and you’re all right.” The guy then said “I did X. What else should I do?”
The guy says he’s done exactly what Jesus told him to do, and insists there needs to be more for him to do. So Jesus says, in paraphrase, “Okay then, do Y also.”
There are no deeds that can get you into heaven, that is make you acceptable to God, we fall short. Accepting Jesus gives us the grace (undeserved favor) we need to forgive the times we missed the mark. Thats all well and good, but now accepting Jesus means He is your Lord, your God, and as such you are to glorify Him (as if you didn’t you really haven’t accepted Him as your God), those are the deeds. What do they do for you, a quick and dirty way of looking at it is it gives you a better place in heaven/new earth.
Catholics: saved by good works.
Protestants: saved by good faith.
Episcopalians: saved by good taste.
::d&r::
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“The Universalists believe that God is too good to damn anybody, and the Unitarians believe they are too good to be damned.”
Unitarian Universalists could probably be said to be somewhere in the middle of those two statements. Of course, another UU is going to come along and argue with my conclusions shortly.
