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Faramir
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| Joined: | Fri Jan 25th, 2008 |
| Location: | Lexington, Kentucky USA |
| Posts: | 9 |
| First Name: | Steven | | Gender: | Male | | Faith History: | Baptist, being drawn to the Catholic Church |
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Posted: Wed Jan 30th, 2008 02:18 pm |
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As a Protestant, the idea (although not often explicitly stated) is that Christ's death provided forgiveness for all your sins: past, present, and future, and that when you accept Christ all of that forgiveness is applied to you. Thus the sins you commit after becoming a Christian were forgiven just like the ones you commit before becoming a Christian. I have to admit that this idea is very appealing to me intellectually (not only because it creates no need for confession) because of the idea of the "Eternal Now" in which God lives; i.e. God is outside of time, so there would be no problem for him to apply forgiveness to all our sins, past and future.
In contrast, the Catholic position, which as far as I understand it is that baptism and confession forgive all sins in the past only seems to imply a very "temporal" understanding of God. Can anyone shed some light on the Catholic understanding of this issue?
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"Almost the whole of Christian theology could perhaps be deduced from the two facts: (a) That men make coarse jokes, and (b) That they feel the dead to be uncanny."
- C.S. Lewis, Miracles
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Annie
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| Joined: | Wed Feb 14th, 2007 |
| Location: | Columbus, Ohio USA |
| Posts: | 718 |
| First Name: | Annie | | Gender: | Female | | Faith History: | nothing, Quaker, Mennonite, Presbyterian, Methodist, Anglican, Catholic |
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Posted: Wed Jan 30th, 2008 03:35 pm |
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| I think the difference is that WE live in time and God does not. If we knew our sins were forgiven even before doing them what kind of world would we make for ourselves? The fact that we have to go to confession and specifically NAME what we have done and own up to it and do the penance imposed by the priest is a powerful incentive for the faithful to walk more circumspectly.
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Annie
Ora et labora
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CajunRick
Network Helper
| Joined: | Fri Sep 29th, 2006 |
| Location: | Houma, Louisiana USA |
| Posts: | 4981 |
| First Name: | Rick (& Kermie) | | Gender: | Male | | Faith History: | Lifetime Catholic, Latin Rite |
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Posted: Wed Jan 30th, 2008 04:27 pm |
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Annie is correct. WE are timebound, even though God is not. Think of our lives as a timeline. God can see the entire line, while we must still walk it one step at a time. But since God is outside that line, Jesus' sacrifice on the cross bought my eternal salvation even for sins not yet committed, and yet he knew as he hung on the cross the sins I would commit and died for me anyway.
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Understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand. - Augustine
Rick Luquette
Luquette Lane
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japhy
Member
| Joined: | Thu Apr 26th, 2007 |
| Location: | Princeton, New Jersey USA |
| Posts: | 179 |
| First Name: | Jeff / japhy | | Gender: | Male | | Faith History: | (Roman) Catholic |
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Posted: Wed Jan 30th, 2008 05:28 pm |
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Faramir wrote: As a Protestant, the idea (although not often explicitly stated) is that Christ's death provided forgiveness for all your sins: past, present, and future, and that when you accept Christ all of that forgiveness is applied to you. Thus the sins you commit after becoming a Christian were forgiven just like the ones you commit before becoming a Christian. I have to admit that this idea is very appealing to me intellectually (not only because it creates no need for confession) because of the idea of the "Eternal Now" in which God lives; i.e. God is outside of time, so there would be no problem for him to apply forgiveness to all our sins, past and future.
In contrast, the Catholic position, which as far as I understand it is that baptism and confession forgive all sins in the past only seems to imply a very "temporal" understanding of God. Can anyone shed some light on the Catholic understanding of this issue?
I've heard that Protestant viewpoint a lot, but it doesn't make sense when compared to the multitudes of Scripture where Paul is writing to a community of Christians and admonishing them not to sin (cf. 1 Cor 6:9ff; Gal 5:19-21; Eph 5:5). Or when John or James is writing reminding the recipient to confess their sins (cf. 1 John 1:9; James 5:16). Or the message to the Church in Ephesus in Rev 2:1-7 and Pergamum in Rev 2:12-17: Jesus calls these people -- these churches -- to repent! Such a call would not be necessary if they had already been forgiven, if their future forgiveness did not depend on continued repentence!
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[Mary said,] "Do whatever he tells you." - John 2:5
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