(Part 2) Reddit mentions: The best christian salvation books

Sure thing buddy:

On the side of Calvinism, Grace and Assurance by Martyn McGeown:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Grace-Assurance-Message-Canons-Dordt-ebook/dp/B07P75Y4S9/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Grace+and+Assurance&qid=1566903176&s=gateway&sr=8-1

This is a commentary on the Canons of Dordt and a defense of five-point Calvinism (if I remember rightly it defends double-predestination as well). Very well written and sourced, but a hard read in places. This is a comprehensive account of conservative Reformed doctrine. After reading this I looked into the other side of the debate as I wanted to see if non-Calvinists really were Semi-Pelagian.


I imagine you've heard of Desiring God ministries? John Piper has some good resources from the reformed point of view:


https://www.desiringgod.org/

Calvin's Institutes is 99p on the Kindle store:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Institutes-Christian-Religion-John-Calvin-ebook/dp/B00394F31U/ref=sr_1_1?crid=237SQ2P8CDI1V&keywords=institutes+of+the+christian+religion&qid=1566903405&s=gateway&sprefix=Institutes+of+the+c%2Caps%2C305&sr=8-1

I like Spurgeon's commentary--this is also very cheap on the Kindle store:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Spurgeons-Commentary-Bible-Commentaries-ebook/dp/B01CZ4LMP0/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=spurgeon%27s+commentary+on+the+bible&qid=1566903614&s=gateway&sr=8-1

On the other side of the debate, I found Salvation and Sovereignty to be interesting (it's a defense of a sort of middle-way between Calvinism and Arminianism):

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Salvation-Sovereignty-Kenneth-Keathley-ebook/dp/B00RYGEPPY/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=salvation+and+sovereignty&qid=1566903451&s=gateway&sr=8-2

Finally, a stronger defence of free-will based soteriology comes from Leighton Flowers. His book (The Potter's Promise) is free on Kindle Unlimited and lays out the counter arguments to Calvinist readings of Romans 9 and the doctrines of Judicial Hardening:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Potters-Promise-Biblical-Traditional-Soteriology-ebook/dp/B01N13T1V2/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=potter%27s+promise&qid=1566903505&s=gateway&sr=8-1

Leighton's YouTube ministry (Soteriology101) is really good as well.


Thank you for the warm welcome, God bless!

The Old Testament isn't composed of parables. Maybe portions of it can be held to be parables, but the essential details of the history of humanity and of Israel related in the Old Testament must be held to correspond to true history. A Catholic could not deny, for example, the special creation of the first man (though his body may have been produced by a process of evolution); the creation of the first woman from his side; the fall of man; the descent of all other true human beings from the first couple; the existence of Noah, and a flood in which some number of people were killed; the existence of Abraham; the existence of Moses, and his authorship in some sense of the first five books of the Bible; or the existence of David. There is freedom to consider whether individual details or incidents may be literary figures, but the broad sweep of sacred history is of the faith.

It is true that the faith contains mysteries that we cannot fully understand. How can three different persons be one and the same God? How can one person be God and man? How can the whole Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of that person be located in a small space under the appearances of bread and wine? Such mysteries take us beyond what reason can demonstrate or comprehend, but they are never contrary to reason. We may not be able to offer any proof of them besides Scripture and Tradition, but we can resist attempts to show such doctrines are impossible or contradictory.

In the case of the Eucharist, Jesus himself said at the first Mass, the Last Supper, "this is my body" and "this is my blood." St Cyril of Jerusalem put the understanding of the 4th Century Church succinctly: "Since then He Himself has declared and said of the Bread, This is My Body, who shall dare to doubt any longer? And since He has affirmed and said, This is My Blood, who shall ever hesitate, saying, that it is not His blood?" Jesus also said that whoever does not eat his body and drink his blood has no life in him, not correcting his hearers who wondered how he could give them his flesh to eat, but reaffirming with an "amen, amen," "my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed." Usually, when Jesus is using figurative language, he makes it clear, or at least the gospel narrator does: "the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field." "Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them." No such thing is said with respect to the Eucharist. In the sacrifices of the old covenant, eating the sacrificial victim was an essential completion of the rite (in many kinds of sacrifices); Jesus is the Lamb of God, the priest and victim of the sacrifice of the new covenant, and it is by eating his body, as he commanded us, that we take part in that sacrifice.

Well sit it out. Don't get over-emotional about what happens in the Church. People are people, and unfortunately the Church is in a sucky phase. And the Pope may be a crappy person, too. We'll see.

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To counter our Dutch Reformed friend above... here are some books from ex-Reformed folks. They all became Catholic - one is a website:

The Salvation Controversy - A tutorial through TULIP (5 points of Calvinism from an ex-Calvinist, turned Catholic)

The Mystery of Predestination According to Scripture, the Church and Aquinas -

Rome Sweet Home - From a Reformed professor at Westminster, turned Catholic -

http://www.calledtocommunion.com/ - - all Reformed guys who became Catholic

Reformed High Church Anglican Pastor who became Catholic The Crucified Rabbi https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Q2HSJ6cbMY -

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If I was religious, I would be Catholic.

David's references take you through everything you basically read and rejected before - just more sophisticated Sola Scriptura. "It's not 'me' saying it - it's Calvin and me saying it! Every church father before Calvin knows better than me insofar as they agree with Calvin. "

For David: in all of their own words. This book is nothing but quotes - starting literally from those ordained by the apostles themselves: https://www.amazon.com/Teachings-Church-Fathers-John-Willis/dp/0898708931

I hope you stay honest with your pursuit of truth. You can eliminate all presuppositions and trust your mind.

I'll definitely check out John Paul II's stuff, any other authors or books you recommend I may check out, too.

I highly recommend Francis Turretin's Institutes of Elenctic Theology . This is perhaps the best multi-volume systematic theology defending Reformed Orthodoxy. Turretin engages with Catholic Theology extensively and offers Protestant answers to Catholic problems.

Anything by Peter Martyr Vermigli is worth reading, but especially check out his treatises on Predestination and Justification. Vermigli was a conservative Protestant reformer who was very familiar with Thomist philosophy and Scholastic theology. His best work was in Eucharistic theology.

Finally, I recommend Allen & Swain's Reformed Catholicity: The Promise of Retrieval For Theology And Biblical Interpretation for an interesting read. Modern Evangelical Christianity has strayed far away from the principles of the Reformation. Doctrines like Sola Scriptura have been perverted and maimed by Evangelicals until they no longer mean what the Reformers meant for them to be. Moreover, Evangelicals are known for "Tradition is bad" arguments wherein they flat reject Christian orthodoxy or the consensus of the Church. This book is a call for Evangelicals to engage with the Ecumenical Councils and Creeds, Patristic Theology, and Reformed Orthodoxy; viewing ourselves as being in continuity with the Great Tradition.

Called to Be the Children of God: The Catholic Theology of Human Deification

Deification and Grace (Introductions to Catholic Doctrine)

The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition

Deification in the Latin Patristic Tradition

The One Christ: St. Augustine's Theology of Deification

The Glory of God's Grace: Deification According to St. Thomas Aquinas

Sanctification by Michael Allen. Part of the excellent New Studies in Dogmatics series.

According to Todd Pruitt, "We're hearing that it's the greatest work since the Bible."

It shows consistency throughout scripture starting with the protoevangelium through the New Testament. It unifies scripture instead of breaking it apart and highlights God's invariance.

Covenant theology presents and overarching covenant within the Godhead between the Father and the Son in relation to creation (covenant of redemption). It is by nature Christ centered.

God has sovereignly and graciously established a covenant relationship with sinful men through his only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, the mediator of the covenant. Covenant theology is involved in every doctrine the church holds, either explicitly or implicitly.

For a pretty brief explanation of Covenant Theology I recommend Covenant Theology: Sovereign and Gracious

Here are the three books that participate (the first accidentally) in the dialogue:

• Paul in Fresh Perspective by Wright
  
• The Future of Justification: A response to N.T. Wright by Piper
  
• Justification by Wright
  
  My impression from the forewords to each is that the exchange was friendly, though Piper does quite a bit of scaremongering. Each allowed the other to read their books before publication and so forth. All three are at the "probably suitable for seminarians" level of discourse, rather than popular-level.
  
  I can remember eagerly waiting for Justification to come out back in 2009. Seems crazy that it was almost ten years ago.

Its very religiously oriented and for sure controversial but Eim Habanim Semeichah is a brilliant piece of work.

> What ever happened to "even a single example to the contrary is enough to doubt all others, too," which you were so fond of arguing re: aionios?

Developing views are not the same thing as developing a scientific theory or a theory of what a word means to a particular culture. I maintain that if I can find one person using aionios in a way that cannot possibly mean "forever" in the particular culture in question, then your theory is suspect. I further maintain that even if you prove it has to always mean "forever" or at least "lasting as long as it could possibly last", but I then bring up places where this word is being used in a hyperbolic fashion (like Jonah), then it still doesn't prove that the authors actually believed in eternal punishment.

>But honestly, how many other verses are there that really establish this so-called "consensus"?

There are lists and lists out there - often what happens when these lists are provided is that people play the game of "find one that is weak and attack that one relentlessly while ignoring all the others". I recognize that within these lists are verses that would provide "strong" evidence and others that are more subtle, thus are "weak" evidence. But the fact that some of these lists number above 100 is enough to establish consensus. And combining this with the logic of Universalism makes it undeniable. I'd highly recommend picking up a copy of "God's Final Victory" if you can - I'm not the only person who has said this, but it is simply the best philosophical defense of Christian Universalism out there. It comes at the issue from multiple angles, demonstrating with numerous logical proofs that if certain Christian ideas are true, Universalism is the only logical conclusion.

Best book on the subject: Spiritual Gifts in the Local Church by David Pytches.

What have you read or researched about this?

One place to look would be Berkhof's Systematic Theology. There is a whole chapter there on baptism. John Murray's Christian Baptism is another good resource.

Understanding Reformed covenant theology is an important starting point for this, I would think.

Online Resources

http://www.bereanbeacon.org/index.php

http://christiantruth.com/articles_roman_catholicism.php

http://www.monergism.com/topics/roman-catholicism

http://carm.org/roman-catholicism

http://carm.org/roman-catholicism-pdf (not free, but good)

http://www.justforcatholics.org/

http://vintage.aomin.org/Roman.html

James White on Catholicism videos

Paper books:

Justified by Faith Alone by Sproul

http://www.amazon.com/Holy-Scripture-Reformation-Principle-Scriptura/dp/1893531023/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1236124688&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.com/Church-Rome-at-Bar-History/dp/0851517102

http://www.amazon.com/Roman-Catholic-Controversy-James-White/dp/1556618190

http://www.amazon.com/Holy-Scripture-Historical-Reformation-Principle/dp/1893531031/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_b

http://www.amazon.com/Holy-Scripture-Affirming-Reformation-Scriptura/dp/1893531058/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_c

God's vindication of His faithful suffering people by judgement of the nations.

God's Glory in Salvation through Judgement

I lied... its called "Election and Free Will" by Robert Peterson

http://www.amazon.com/Election-Free-Will-Responsibility-Explorations/dp/0875527930

Here's one from a favorite pastor of mine. Frank Walker

Join a church that you think Jesus founded and find out.

Try to learn a little more about why sin and salvation are important in context of the Old Testament: creation, communion with God, God's covenant with man, prophesies of Jesus. Jesus taught heavily about his relationship with us and how that impacts our eternity. If he's wrong, he's probably crazy and his teachings could be harmful. However his resurrection gives us assurance that he is who he says he is. Follow your attraction to Christianity if you believe it to be true and continue to find out more answers.

Lastly, don't let your faith depend heavily on your feelings. Feelings change but truth does not. Follow where Christ is leading you and continue to pursue your questions and be open to the answers. Be confident in that many wise Christians have travelled this road before us and can offer help through their holy example, writings, or prayers.

These might help:

http://www.catholic.com/video/what-do-catholics-believe-about-salvation

> "I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.
> We are faced, then, with a frightening alternative. This man we are talking about either was (and is) just what He said or else a lunatic, or something worse. Now it seems to me obvious that He was neither a lunatic nor a fiend: and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that He was and is God. God has landed on this enemy-occupied world in human form."
>Quotes from Mere Christianity, Part 20
http://merecslewis.blogspot.com/2011/09/jesus-is-not-just-great-moral-teacher.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis's_trilemma

http://www.amazon.com/The-Salvation-Controversy-James-Akin/dp/1888992182