Wednesday, February 08, 2012
Who is Saved and How - 2
The prophet Ezekiel says that if a man lives all of his life in righteousness but then in his last days turns to unrighteousness then all of his righteousness will be counted as nothing. But if a man lives his live in wickedness but in his last days repents and turns to righteousness then all of his unrighteous will be counted as nothing. So the key to salvation is one's final estate at the point of death. Augustine and Pelagius debated around http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelagius the fifth century and for the West Augustine won the debate but Pelagius had some interesting arguments. Pelagius argued that each person has within them all that is necessary for them to will to do what is right and to avoid evil. Pelagius points to the passage where Jesus tells the adultress to "go and sin no more" and says that Jesus would not command her to do something which was beyond her abilities. The Eastern Orthodox church always rejected the notion of "original sin" but did believe that all of nature was somehow corrupted and lost its fertility and that the world would be restored at the end in an Apokatastasis (Reconstruction, Tikkun Olam in Hebrew) . Pelagius argued that IF it could be possible for the sin of one man, Adam, to condemn all future generations, even those who never heard of Adam, THEN it should be possible for the sacrifice of one man, Christ, to forgive all future generations, even those who never heard of Christ.
