by Grania
Here’s a little bit of illustrated theology to round out the day, the doctrine of salvation by grace through faith, not deeds. You can read more about sole fide here (but alas there aren’t many funny pictures on the page).
https://twitter.com/_davethomson/status/636994349591621632
Click on the blue button to play the animation.
Jerry also wrote about its inherent lack of morality here a few weeks ago.
Perfect!
That ‘toon is amazing.
The idea is certainly an immoral one, but I suspect it is pervaded by religious institutions in hopes of impressing the average convert rather than the Hitlers and Stalins of the world. It’s just an attempt to lure members by promising to erase their sin and guilt, which likely consists of something like cheating on their spouse.
The targets of this ploy are unlikely to ever take the idea to it’s logical conclusion. Unless they happen to see this cartoon.
Willfully ignorant and childish.
Sola fide or the cartoon? Or both?
Sola Fide was originally the watchword of the Protestant Reformation.
IMO Martin Luther was correct in arguing that the Catholic penitential system of his day undercut that Pauline notion of “justification by faith” but there’s no real “sola” in Paul’s thinking.
Lutheranism elevated faith to the pivotal
be-all and end all of the entire Christian life, ultimately creating the surreal system of thought illustrated in this cartoon.
For me the most troubling implication of the doctrine has always been this: what about everyone in the last 2000 years who lived and died without knowledge of the gospel? I mean, you have entire continents worth of people who had no contact with Christianity for well over a thousand years. By the letter of this rule, all those people would had to have been denied salvation for not accepting a savior they had no way of knowing even existed in the first place.
So you either have to believe that all of those people have been condemned merely for having been born in the wrong place at the wrong time (which is not exactly consistent with a God who “so loved the world” and intended for Christ to be savior for all mankind), OR you have to believe that there is some alternate path to salvation for all of those people (in which case the whole doctrine is undermined–either Christ is the only way, or he isn’t).
I mean, you would think that if God really meant for faith in Christ to be the only path to salvation, he would have at least made sure that everybody got the memo.
The details are gone forever from my mind but many years ago I listened to a debate between a christian apologist and an atheist and this very question came up.
The christian replied, and I swear I am not making this up, that god arranged things so that only those not worthy of salvation would be born in times and places where they would have no chance to hear the gospels and either accept or reject salvation.
That’s not at all an uncommon thought; in fact, through the so-called doctrine of predestination, it is pretty standard in calvinist circles. It would not be difficult to find an explicit statement very similar to the one the christian made (in the debate you referred to) in an 18th century Dutch calvinist theology.
It shows how reluctant people are to face the fact that a doctrinal assumption must be wrong, otherwise, they could just believe that Jesus calls the shots for everybody, regardless of what they believe, on a case by case basis (which is, as far as I can tell, more consistent with the bible and would neatly address the problem).
I find it very telling on two levels: 1) the doctrine cannot be wrong, regardless of what the bible says, or where logic leads 2) the assumed solution is inherently judgemental, spiteful and cruel towards others who are not “the chosen”.
A story I’ve heard, I forget first from where that I’ve shared on this website previously, but:
Inuit elder: “If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?”
Priest: “No, not if you did not know.”
Inuit elder: “Then why did you tell me?”
Most Christians will tell you that’s not how it works. Then they’ll proceed to talk about how good works are important, too, but their efforts to reconcile the two theories of salvation usually results in a theological mess.
Personally, I request an equation that has two parameters, degree of belief and quantity of good works, which results in the level of salvation. It’s implausible that salvation is binary value. Can the lack of one good work result in someone going to Hell vs Heaven?
Lets replay the scene with the guys coming down from the helicopter, shooting you know who and he says the I believe in Jesus but nothing goes anywhere. He is just dead. So instead of arguing about Sola fide you get reality and the dead guy smiles. He now knows the religion doesn’t mean a damn thing.
Just in case anyone is as clueless as me, tapping the picture animates the cartoon. For about 5 minutes I wondered what everyone was talking about.
The explanation I usually hear is that you are saved by faith, but if you are saved you will do good works. So the works are more a way of proving to yourself and others that you are among the saved. So you don’t go to heaven because of your good works, you do good works because you’re going to heaven. Which makes a kind of circular sense I suppose.
Yep, somewhere in the Book of James it says to the effect, “Faith without works is dead” (though the idea of Sola Fide is that one can’t be or do good enough to gain salvation). Ergo, the profession of faith was not a true profession? What earthly being is qualified to judge the Eternal efficacy of anothers “works”? Seems such professions would be more genuinely offered without the threat of Hell.
(For some reason reminds me of the military’s UCMJ [Uniform Code of Military Justice]. Reminds the service member that, “Hey, Duty, Honor and Country and all that, eh? But if not, there’s always the UCMJ.”)
Those who have not ‘heard’ the word are not saved.
Also, what about those born but not yet baptised (purgatory), or those who would have ‘converted’ but were shot in the back of the head (no warning – but an omnipotent god would just know (!) they were going to profess faith)…
I guess purgatory (sort of a divine transit lounge, could be used to prep these recalcitrants and get them to ‘level up’ to full cloud-based eternity…
Fun stuff…no, wait, what’s that red dot on my forehead. Got to go, got some grovelling to do…
Pretty much nails it .lol