The Burden of Salvation

INTRODUCTION

 

Christian Tradition is that saving grace could only have been created by Christ’s sacrifice on the cross.  Christ reopened the gates of heaven which had been closed to us by original sin.   But despite this undeserved gift, our personal salvation is not at all guaranteed.  To the extent we have free will, we are accountable for our sins.  So while Christ dramatically lowered the barrier, we must still earn salvation by climbing over it.  This is our burden.

 

Since what we do matters to God, our state of grace is a quid pro quo and not a gift, by definition.  In the most general sense, personal justification can only be called a wage received for a service rendered.  We must still work to earn our place in heaven however great or slight the difficulty.

 

This is because it is both illogical and blasphemous to claim a true gift from God can have any conditions attached.  The possibility of heaven was such a gift.  We can’t reject it nor need we do anything to accept it.  Nothing we can do can close the gates to heaven or open them wider.

 

The distinction is that opening the gates of heaven by itself, does not make us graceful enough to enter.  Just because Christ’s gift, making salvation possible, is great and our duties incomparably smaller, does not mean they are nonexistent.  Failing to either think or act as Christ commanded are sins which stain our soul and distance us from God.  Happy thoughts alone, which deny any personal responsibility for our actions, are no reasonable substitute.  Indeed, Christ commanded, the Bible recorded, and Christian tradition for two millennia taught that we must lead lives of Christian virtue in thought, word, and especially deed, as best we can in order to be saved.  To the extent we strive to do this, we can now be rewarded.  To the extent we are remorseful for offending God, we can now be forgiven.  Our human failings are no longer an insurmountable barrier.

 

Since Christ made salvation possible but not certain, only the possibility of heaven can logically be called a gift.  Jesus never said we have license to commit sin without consequence. Because potentiality is not actuality, the burden is now on us.

 

SEVEN INCONVENIENT TRUTHS

 

Despite a lot of sophistry and obfuscation, burdensome truths about justification necessarily include

 

1.     The existence of saving grace is a gift necessarily without conditions and over which we have no control.  And our personal salvation cannot honestly be called a gift if it is conditional on anything we must do. 

2.     Christ did not guarantee our salvation but only made it possible.   Thus Christ did not do everything sufficient to save us.

3.     To the extent we are rewarded for fulfilling a contract with God, we earn it.  To the extent we are denied rewards for contractual failures, we deserve it.

4.     The denial of moral accountability for our actions, by saying Christ did “everything”, encourages rather than discourages those acts which Christ condemned.

5.     The “works” of Mosaic Law discussed by St. Paul are not the “works” of charity which Christ added to Old Testament moral obligations.

6.     The concept of “faith alone” is not a subtle refinement but rather a drastic reversal of Christian tradition and unambiguous Biblical injunctions to the contrary.

7.     Luther and other Protestant reformers were seemingly motivated more by personal gain than a search for Biblical truth.   They certainly substituted their own words for those of Jesus Christ and lead lavish lives of indulgent luxury in consequence.

 

UNCONDITIONAL GIFTS

 

Personal salvation is not a guaranteed gift of God but rather an opportunity conditional on our own behavior.  So if we choose to act as God commanded, we are rewarded or not depending on our efforts.  The point is that an offer which is advertized to be a “gift for only a small fee” is not really a gift at all but rather a wage received for a service rendered.  To think otherwise is sloppy thinking bordering on delusional so it is hard to understand why otherwise rational people would give it any credence.

 

Perhaps the elimination of moral responsibility and the certainty of eternal bliss are seductive concepts.  But like the empty promises of the serpent in the Garden of Eden, removing constraints of conscience is perfect excuse for unchristian behavior and a slippery slope to eternal damnation.

 

Rather it is the existence of saving grace which is the unconditional and unmerited gift from God.  In a loving act of mercy, Christ reopened the gates of heaven and there is nothing we can do to change that fact.  Our acceptance or rejection of this gift is as inconsequential as it is meaningless.

 

 So when we act in accordance with Christ’s teachings in thought, word, and deed, our previously feeble attempts to do good are now sanctified by grace.  We become pleasing to God and worthy enough to enter the gates of heaven.   But lest we become too proud, we should never forget this possibility was far beyond the ability of mankind to effect by any human works.

 

Protestants irrationally deny the fact that a true gift cannot have any conditions.  Rather we can only make use of it or not.   We cannot will it into or out of existence by accepting or rejecting it.  It appears magically in our bank account.  This is the nature and definition of an actual gift.  It is forever present to retire our debts or in the case of saving grace to forgive our sins to the extent we have true contrition for them.  And this grace is available regardless of what we think or do.  Only the possibility, and not the certainty, of salvation is an honest and unmerited gift.

 

Besides the possibility of salvation, the existence of our immortal souls is another example of God’s necessarily unconditional gifts.  The fact that we exist, know we exist, and have free will constitutes our immortal souls.  We can neither accept nor reject their existence whatever that would mean.   And so the gift of our free will is both our glory and our burden.  It makes us responsible for what we do.  It got us thrown out of the Garden of Eden and tempts us into everyday sin. 

 

Claiming that Christ doesn’t ask us to be virtuous, or that any action on our part has no moral or practical consequences, or that we can be great sinners and still waltz into Heaven because we somehow think Christ did “everything”, is ridiculous. 

 

THE PROBLEM OF SIN

 

Long standing Christian tradition is that Christ reopened the gates of heaven which had been closed by original sin.  Because this is something mankind couldn’t do, Protestants say we only have to acknowledge this fact to be made graceful enough to walk through into paradise.  Since Christ did everything necessary, our own actions are morally irrelevant.  But if good works don’t count, then neither do our sins or our mental attitudes concerning them.

 

Protestants can break the Ten Commandments to lie, steal, cheat, murder, commit adultery, and even slander God after any personal difficulty in life, with joyous abandon.  They can selfishly refuse to share food with the hungry and clothes with the naked.  They can resent a neighbor’s good fortune and refuse to forgive trespasses.  And they need not be sorry for any of this or even intend to stop sinning.  Rather they are still saved if they honestly harbor a blind trust that Christ actually did reopen heaven.  And their own wickedness is of no consequence.

 

Nor is this in any way logically inconsistent.  It is rather the classic embodiment of the thought we can have our cake and eat it too.  In practice, taking advantage of Christ’s good nature is simply all too easy and by far the more appealing choice.  Why should we struggle to be good if we don’t have to?  Martin Luther found this concept of “faith alone” liberating.   As a Catholic monk, his life of service and sacrifice was hard.  Having subsisted on monastery gruel for years, he could now lead a more lavish lifestyle to the point of gluttony and infamous drinking bouts.  He could renounce his vows of chastity.  He could encourage mass murder, q.v Luther’s Peasant War, of any who rejected his revisionist theology.  In Martin Luther’s own words:

 

“To kill a peasant is not murder; it is helping to extinguish the conflagration.  Let there be no half measures! Crush them! Cut their throats! Transfix them. Leave no stone unturned!  To kill a peasant is to destroy a mad dog!” – “If they say that I am very hard and merciless, mercy be damned.  Let whoever can stab, strangle, and kill them like mad dogs”

 

In his view civil laws are divorced from moral considerations and have only a practical necessity.   And Heaven is guaranteed for any who only recognize it is now open again.  It seems almost impossible anyone could believe this is what Christ taught when He said “love your neighbor”, but many actually do twist their minds and souls into pretzels and do.

 

Unfortunately, everyone has a conscience and knows the difference between right and wrong.    In a stunning reversal of Christ’s teachings, Luther’s quotes on the irrelevance of conscience are disturbing and intrinsically evil.   In Martin Luther’s own words:

 

"Do not ask anything of your conscience; and if it speaks, do not listen to it; if it insists, stifle it, amuse yourself; if necessary, commit some good big sin, in order to drive it away.  Conscience is the voice of Satan, and it is necessary always to do just the contrary of what Satan wishes."

 

Liberty is not license.

Freedom exists in action not in potentiality.

Nothing in human affairs is free and there can be no absolute freedom.

Obvious constraints on freedom are physical, societal, and moral.

We may fail many times, but only our refusal to stop trying can deny us heaven.

 

Jesus didn’t say “Don’t worry, be happy.  Sin all you want.   I will do everything for you.”   Jesus did say we have moral obligations and moral accountability.   While the existence of saving grace is necessary for salvation, it is not sufficient.   Heaven is not as Protestants say, kind of like a gift even though it can’t really be one if it is conditional, that you only have to accept.  Rather entry to heaven requires us to climb over the barrier of our sinful nature.  And in an act of love, this barrier was dramatically lowered by Christ to make entry even possible.

 

SCRIPTURE AND APOLOSTIC TRADITION

 

Catholics since the time of the Apostles taught we have to love our neighbor by doing good works of Christian charity to merit saving grace.

“Faith hope and charity ..”.  Regardless of whether the word for charity or “agape” is love or kindness, it is apart from and more important than faith.

 

CONCLUSIONS

 

Getting grace is said to be earned, if you have to do anything to get it.  That is to say, possibility is not actuality, much less certainty.

In a practical sense, good intentions are the road to hell.  They almost never turn out well.

 

Personal salvation is not achieved by simply believing the gates of heaven are open and “accepting” that fact but rather by climbing over the barrier of our concupiscence that Christ dramatically lowered.

 

Luther’s “faith alone” is logically inconsistent, historically inaccurate, clearly contrary to Biblical verse, and only a feeble and damning excuse for personal indulgence. We are not saved not by what we think, but by what we do.