Continued debate post from before...
The term "economy of salvation" is theo lingo for how humans are saved. The whole systematic approach.

With some 36,000+ variants to protestantism (each maintaining their validity over the other... except the new liberal "mainstream" protestant take over of the PCUSA, ELCA, UMC and especially the Episcopalians) I won't cover them all. It seems that most of you are evangelical/baptist/non-denom. But there is still a basic storyline (a bit different from the "Economy" language and meaning).



The Story:

God created the world. God created you and me, along with everything and everyone else (ignoring the how and why for now). Sin came into the world (again, ignoring the how and why) and mankind entered into a fallen state.

Here's where we see a common split beginning and our stories diverge. Again, please note that different denominations amongst the protestants believe differently and I am addressing only a certain commonly held viewpoint.

The evangelical/baptist/non-denom (of which there are an estimated 100,000,000 in the world, perhaps less, perhaps slightly more... hard to estimate due to the decentralized nature) story of salvation runs, generally, thusly:

God tried to save his people, his children from their forthcoming doom. So he passed down laws to Moses and the purity laws and language were born and adopted. But alas, this was not working. Hardly anyone (if anyone) could live up to the laws imposed and thus no one could be reckoned as righteous before God.

So God had to send his only begotten son, Christ, to reconcile mankind to atone for their sins. In doing so, he provides mankind the opportunity to be saved by participating in Christ's beautiful sacrifice. By participating in this act, thru faith and faith alone, we too can be reckoned as righteous before God.

Works cannot save in any way shape or form. One can sometimes identify if someone has 'saving faith' if good works spring from their faith. That is, if someone does not have genuine saving faith then they is a good chance that they will sin. On the contrary, if someone does have genuine saving faith then this may be seen by their good works. These works are still not saving however, as salvation can only come about thru faith (John 3:16, etc).

Many (not not all) of the above mentioned groups (evangelical, baptist, non-denom) also believe in a doctrine called "eternal security". That is, once saved, always saved. Once a person has entered in a bona fide moment of heart felt faith in Christ, and thus participates in the sacrifice of Calvary, the person is guaranteed a spot in heaven. Bad works on earth may affect the grandeur of their glory in heaven but the war has already been won.

To understand God and come to him, one should read the Bible and join a local church of (insert evangelical brand here). The latter is unnecessary, insofar as one can be completely saved by just reading the Bible. The Spirit will guide them to understand the scriptures as they need to in order to make sense out of them and thus be called to a saving faith. There is no outside authority that ought to oversee the people's understanding of the Bible as only the Spirit can enlighten each person individually and guide them towards God (variations exist on this as well). As such, the Pope is rejected as commanding legitimate spiritual jurisdiction. Additionally the church councils, spanning the entire existence of the church (beginning in Acts) and held every few hundred or so years, are usually held as as best good work gone to waste and at worst as downright heresey and blasphemy of the worst kind.

Often, there is veneration for the 1611 King James Bible, also known as the Authorized Version (authorized by King James of England at the time).


And in the opposite corner...


The Catholic Church, Orthodox Church and Anglican Church all agree on most of the basics (especially the Catholic and Orthodox) (there are over 1,000,000,000 Catholics, about another 250,000,000 Orthodox. Anglican numbers are difficult to place due to the nature of the Anglican World Wide Communion)

We start again with the same brief story...

God created the world. God created you and me, along with everything and everyone else (ignoring the how and why for now). Sin came into the world (again, ignoring the how and why) and mankind entered into a fallen state.

And now the Catholic and Orthodox story picks up, again, painting in broad strokes...

God realized that his children needed some help. In his divine wisdom he decided to seed the world with the law of Moses along with the purity laws to help bring people to him. Through their works and daily deeds, they can practice perhaps a shadow of the kind of love that God feels for his children and in doing so can be reckoned as righteous. But alas, this was not working as hardly anyone (if anyone) could follow the commandments at hand. Time for plan J.C.

So God had to send his only begotten son, Christ, to reconcile mankind to atone for their sins. In doing so, he provides mankind the opportunity to be saved by participating in Christ's beautiful sacrifice. By participating in this act, thru faith and good acts which complete a person's faith (James 2), we too can be reckoned as righteous, eventually, before God.

Works by themselves do not save. No Catholic theologian has ever argued this point without being rebuked by the Church and them falling back into line, or outright ex-communication. It was the Catholic Church who (well, the Catholic Orthodox split had not happened and Protestantism was still 1100 years off), around the year 400 A.D. fought against one of the great early heresies known as Pelagianism. To simplify, all Pelagius argued is that one can attain Grace (through which we are saved, as all modern groups agree) thru striving to live the most holy life and doing good deeds. In effect, one could earn their way into heaven with good deeds. Well, a guy (and saint) named Augustine who was a bishop in the Church in north Africa at the time argued that no: you need faith AND works. Both complement and complete one another (this is not a statement of proportionality) as described in the New Testament and affirmed by scores of early Church theologians and martyrs from the year 100-315 (Polycarp, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus to name a few). Pelagius was rebuked, ex-communicated and exiled (there were a number of other early histories that the Church defeated, Arianism, Gnosticism, Donatism, Marcionism, the list goes on).

So, in brief, one is saved by faith and deeds acting in concert (as described in James 2). A person's faith is completed by their deeds, exactly as described by James.

Catholics, Orthodox and Anglicans (along with Lutherans and all Zwingli-Calvin tradition based protestants) do not subscribe to the notion of eternal security. One can lose their faith and thus lose their promise in Christ. Historically, this has meant that the most important part of a person's life (ironically held by modern thinkers) was their death. If you lead a 100% Christian perfect life, then 5 minutes before you die you denounce God, break every last one of the 10 commandments, and so on, you probably are going to need an air conditioner where you're going. Even Jesus said that there are certain sins that cannot be forgiven (sinning against the Spirit). I'll jettison this topic, before having to go into predesintation vs. free will talk (of which both sides often adopt various positions). If people want to discuss this more, then we can come back to it.

To understand God and come to him, it is important, though not necessary, to read your Bible. It is important, though not necessary to go to Church. It is both necessary and important to be a good person (implicitly, doing good deeds where applicable) and entirely necessary to have faith. Since there was a period where there was no Bible (the Bible as not canonized until hundreds of years after the death of Christ) Catholics reject the notion that all the martyrs who died (beginning with Stephen in Acts) are lost because they had no Bible (some Protestants argue that these folks constitute an exception). God recognized the kind of faith in a person and will pluck them from the burning (Weselyan reference, anyone?) where he ordains it is right to do so. He still does this today.

In the Book of Acts, we may recall the Ethiopian who could not understand the Scriptures that he was reading and had to have it explained. He simply lacked the capacity. So the Spirit (God) wisked an Apostle to his aide to explain the readings. Catholics see this as an instance where God helps those who are seeking by giving them guidance, understanding that the subject matter is both rich and varied which makes a complete personal understanding without help often times difficult if not impossible. Examples of this may vary from the mundane to the extreme. An easy one is that unless you are reading the Bible in the original Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, then a translator had to help you already. A more advanced one may be to pick out all the obscure Old Testament allusions in Jesus's words. While understanding such advanced intricacies may have no bearing on a person's salvation, it underscores a point that just as the Ethipian needed help, so do we. If you notice the beginning of Paul's letters, he often starts by expressing frustration at the receipients of his letter for simply not understanding the Message. If Paul himself could not keep the Bible? Catholic answer: with few exceptions, we cannot.

Enter the Pope and the Councils. The Pope is one of the most misunderstood elements within the Church. Simply, he is the successor to St. Peter who was the 1st century bishop of Rome. Peter was martyred sometime around 67 AD along with Paul in Rome. Peter was an important figure. Jesus himself gave Peter, as described in Matthew 16, the keys to the kingdom of heaven to "bind and loose" on earth as he so chose, and it would also therefore be done in heaven. Peter, being the head Apostle, held a position of primacy amongst the rest. He was the leader. It was only natural then that he should become the leader of the Christian community in the most important city in the world at the time, Rome. Just as naturally,
when he died someone had to succeed him to lead the Christians in Rome. So the next Pope, St. Linus, followed him into what would become known as the chair of St. Peter. After St. Linus, St. Anacletus, then St. Clement, and so on until the current Benedict XVI.

The Pope has a number of powers, legally speaking. Without digressing into cannon law at length, it is sufficient to call him the most important person in the Church as the successor of St. Peter. He has the power to declare Dogma, summon a Council, and excommunicate amongst others. The Pope is not always right. No one has claimed this, nor is this the definition of infallibility (if you've heard the term...). What Catholics do hold is that no Pope has ever spoken incorrectly, or contradicted another Pope, on an issue concerning faith and morals when speaking as the Pope.

Simply, the role of the Pope is to guide the Church and speak to the people in order to both lead and clarify.

A Council, first seen in the Book of Acts and held as binding, is a call to the world wide Church to convene and resolve perhaps a particular problem or issue at hand. Apart from the one with Peter, Paul and the other Apostles in the Bible, other famous ones have included the Councilf of Nicaea, Constantinople, Ephesus, and so on. In these Councils the Church has rejected heresey, agreed upon a Creed and advanced theological and ecclesiastical understandings of both God, Mankind, and various relationships between the two and amongst themselves. Just as the first Council was respected and held as binding, so too do Catholics hold that all other Church Councils have been binding.

The Catholic Church does not venerate any particular translation of the Bible as some Protestants do the King James Version. The Catholic Church sanctions a small number of english translations as legitmate, amongst those are: The Revised Standard Version, the New American Bible along with a few others.




So what does all of this mean? What is the readers digest?




Importantly, the term "faith" (As I have found during some speaking programs I've given) has a different meaning when used by Catholics and Protestants. Often for some Protestant groups (typically the ones discussed here, though not many others) the term includes a notion of certainty. That is, one must know you are saved in order to be saved. You have must both have faith that there is a God and that you are going to be saved because of the blood shed for you on Calvary. Catholics instead take the word to mean, as literally pulled from Hebrews 11, the assurance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. So you believe in God, you believe in Christ, in his work and that it was for you. You do not presume your salvation, as this would be an presumptuous. If God wants to save you as you work out your salvation with fear and trembling (Philipians), he will. But in the mean time, have faith, complete it with works of charity (James 2).

The essence of the arugment can be desconstructed to the Protestant understanding (or mis-understanding depending upon one's viewpoint) of the definition of faith, as inclusive of personal assurance or not in addition to whether works are to be held as inclusive of the work of salvation. Catholics say yes (James 2), Protestants say no (exception: Anglicans).