The belief that the sacraments convey grace is reasonable based on the Bible and historical evidence

Thanks, Pro! I have never debated a Catholic before, but here goes!I never said you stole money. I like Pro’s argument, and I agree that those closest to the authors of the Bible would be probably have a good idea of what the authors were talking about. But the “I never said you stole money” argument fails because of context. The argument is basically an argument for examining verses in context. Pro fails to realize that if that phrase had appeared in the Bible (or any other complete literary manuscript), there would be little or no unintentional ambiguity. Context (the rest of the book) would enable us to discover what the author was trying to say. Pro employs the part-to-whole fallacy here. One sentence can be hard to understand, so the Bible must be hard to understand because it is composed of sentences. This is quite obviously not the case, as I can read blogs and DDO arguments written by people I have never met and still understand the accumulated weight of their sentences. In addition, the same is true of the Bible. If studied carefully, even a man on a desert island who had no access to commentators, scholars, or the Complete Works of Augustine could understand the Bible. As the sentences accumulate, they contribute to coherency and create context, enabling us to understand each of the individual sentences more accurately. “So you tell me whose interpretations you can count on to be most authentic? Those who knew the authors personally, or someone doing their best, 2,000 years later?” Good question. Whose interpretation is more authentic to the original meaning of the author? Well, if the interpreter did know the author personally, it is likely he would have been able to transmit the original meaning best. But, no matter how well he knew the author, if he doesn’t know language very well his interpretation is not going to be very good. But, talking of translations, Jerome started translating the Vulgate in 382 and finished in 405. [1] That makes the gap between his efforts and the authorship of the Bible around 300 years, assuming the Bible was written before 100 AD. That is a long enough gap for the benefits of proximity to dissipate. Translators in our time could quite possibly be doing a better job than Jerome if they paid closer attention to the meaning of Hebrew and Greek words, avoided falling into doctrinally friendly ruts, and did their research. I wished originally to debate sacramental ramifications on salvation, so that will be my main focus. This is my main, albeit simple, argument: Grace is the “free and unearned favor of God,” according to just about any definition, including ours. Something is not “unearned” if a state of being must be maintained to keep that object. If one says that grace is “earned,” whether by sacraments or by continuation of good works, they are mistaken as grace cannot be “earned” if defined as a free gift. If I told my daughter (I’m 15 and unmarried but just let me use this example) I would give her a pony, but that the pony would be lost if she did not keep her room tidy, would the gift be free? No, because a condition would be attached. Having stated my main argument, I will now move on to the rest of Pro’s first post. Baptism: Pro presents verses in an attempt to prove that baptism is necessary for salvation. I will answer each verse in turn, but first consider whether baptism should logically be considered a condition for salvation. The thief on the cross, to whom our Lord granted salvation, was not baptized. In Paul’s appeal to the jailer in Philippi Paul does not even mention baptism, simply saying, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you shall be saved and your household” (Acts 16:31). Baptism was intended to be the outward sign of true inward birth, rather than a cause of the new birth. Paul stressed repeatedly that circumcision, the outward sign of the Old Testament, did not guarantee salvation. Indeed, requiring human rites for the extension of God’s “grace,” (hardly true “grace,” which is defined as unmerited favor) is an attempt to bring believers back to the legalism that Paul condemned. Galatians 2:15-21: Paul is here speaking of his encounter with Peter concerning the Jewish attempt to conform Gentiles to the Mosaic law: “[K]nowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law; for by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified. But if, while we see, to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is Christ therefore a minister of sins? Certainly not! For if I build again those things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor. For I through the law died to the law that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain.” (Italics obviously added.) Works truly do not justify us, by adhering to the Seven Sacraments, or by confessing and doing penance for our sins. Christ died once for all of our sins. Listen again to Paul’s words: “For if I build again those things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor.” Attempting to justify ourselves by works is trying again to live by “the law,” this time a law of man’s own devising, and doing so only succeeds in proving us transgresors.Finally, why would Paul say, "I thank God that I baptized none of you . . ." in I Corinthians 1 if baptism were necessary for salvation? If baptism were an integral part of the salvation process, then one would imagine Paul would be quite preoccupied with the subject. Later he says, "For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the Gospel," (I Corinthians 1:17) indicating that the salvation of men was his main concern and that men could be saved regardless of their further baptisimal condition. Acts 2:38: The reference to baptism here does not imply that baptism is necessary for salvation. The reference to baptism is, according to C. Gordon Olsen, parenthetical, indicating that those who repent should also be baptized. Acts 2:16: Commentators agree that this reference refers to baptism as emblematic of the washing away of sins. Barnes says, “It cannot be intended that the external rite of baptism was sufficient to make the soul pure, but that it was an ordinance divinely appointed as expressive of the washing away of sins.” [2] I Peter 3:20-21: The NKJV renders “(not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God),” indicating that Peter is clearly speaking figuratively and even breaks his line of thought (indicated by the parenthesis) to tell his readers that he is speaking of the regenerate work of God rather than the physical ritual. The Eucharist: Luke 22:19-20: Jesus says “do this in remembrance of me.” This is a command, but there is no implication here that those who do not do it are denied grace or salvation. John 6:51: Jesus says, “ . . .if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever . . .” This is an affirmation that Christ is the living bread that came down from heaven to make and keep men alive to God. In verses 35 and 47 He already established that, so to define the bread as a figurative term for Christ is no large leap of the imagination. Setting up the Lord’s Supper as a ritual that must be performed regularly in order to maintain salvation in an individual is contrary to the Bible’s clear message of Christ dying once for all. I Corinthians 10:16-17: This verse talks of the fellowship of believers. Barnes states: “The cup of blessing which we bless - The design of this verse and the following verses seems to be, to prove that Christians, by partaking of the Lord's Supper, are solemnly set apart to the service of the Lord Jesus; that they acknowledge Him as their Lord, and dedicate themselves to him, and that as they could not and ought not to be devoted to idols and to the Lord Jesus at the same time, so they ought not to participate in the feasts in honor of idols, or in the celebrations in which idolaters would be engaged; see 1 Corinthians 10:21.”[3] Paul has just been referencing the idolatry that the Israelites who partook of the heavenly bread in the wilderness sinned in doing. The drift of Paul’s words seem to be that one who drinks the symbolic blood of Christ and eats the symbolic body of Christ is engaging in a ceremony of remembrance and that those who eat and drink together are (or should be) the church Body of Christ. Viewing this “sacrament” as a means by which we gain favor with God and possibly entrance into heaven is quite unreasonable. [1] http://www.christianitytoday.com... [2] BibleHub.com—acts 2:16, Barnes [3] BibleHub.com, I Corinthians 10:16, Barnes