From: rolfe@dsuvax.dsu.edu (Tim Rolfe)
Subject: Re: Confused Catholicism
Organization: Dakota State University
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 19:38:15 GMT

In <CHRISTIA%92093010391621@ASUACAD.BITNET> Jesse Carnes <NOTJIC@LSUVM.BITNET> writes:

>Dear Tim Rolf ;

Minor quibble --- I prefer my name spelled the way my family spells it
(Rolfe).

>Sorry ol' bean, but the book of Hebrews says that ONLY through the
>shedding of BLOOD can sins be FORGIVEN.

I think the dispute is about the means that God uses in forgiving sins
through the blood of Jesus.  I don't think anyone here would contend
that a person who rejects Jesus will be saved from his/her sins.  So we
agree that salvation DOES depend upon at least one human action --- that
action whereby (in whatever language is used within our separate religious
traditions) each of us avails himself or herself of the salvation offered
in Jesus.

Catholic Christians believe that God acts in many different ways in
offering the forgiveness won by the blood of Jesus, one of these being
through the prayer of the Christian community expressed in his ordained
minister.

If the dispute is whether, after accepting salvation in Jesus, one can
later be in need of forgiveness, you are going to have significant
problems denying the possibility of back-sliding.  If salvation is
assured for believers, why does the author of Hebrews, writing to
believers, exhort

    See to it, my brothers, that no one of you has a wicked, unbelieving
    heart, that turns away from the ever-living God, but encourage one
    another every day, as long as we can still speak of Today, so that no
    one of you may have his heart hardened by the pleasantness of sin.  For
    we are true partners with Christ if we really keep the conviction that
    we had at first unshaken to the very end." (Hebrews 3:12-14)

If you claim that anyone that backslides never actually accepted salvation
in Jesus you have a severe epistemological problem --- how does one ever
KNOW that he or she has REALLY accepted salvation, since our daily
experience shows us many examples of persons who at one time appear --- and
judge themselves --- to be assuredly saved, yet later fall away from their
earlier conviction and even explicitly deny Christ.  (Always keeping in
mind, of course, that we are discouraged from judging others.)

Another minor quibble:  I only have the Goodspeed translation of the Bible
here in the office.  This translation gives Hebrews 8:22 as "In fact, under
the Law, almost everything is purified with blood, and unless blood is
poured out nothing is forgiven."  If this is the source for your statement
"ONLY through the shedding of BLOOD can sins be FORGIVEN", you conveniently
omit the "under the Law" qualifier.  Not that any Catholic Christian would
ever claim salvation apart from Jesus' offering of himself in sacrifice.

One of the sorriest comments on the behavior of Christians in dealing with
each other is the existence of the term "odium theologicum" --- look it up!
Then try to harmonize that with Romans 14:1 - 15:13.
-- 
                                              --- Tim Rolfe
                                           rolfe@dsuvax.dsu.edu
                                            ROLFE@SDNET.BITNET