Questions by Matt Slick

In an oral debate with Rick Akins, he seems to have wanted to get yes and no answers without nuances or qualifications, to each of them.

So are you saying that if you break the commandments you lose your salvation? And when you repent you get it back? Are you obligated to keep all of the moral commandments in order to stay a Christian; that is, to stay saved, to stay in a state of sins being forgiven?

Let's break this down. And this is a type of questioning that could come off as a Gish gallop, if one had any fear that Matt Slick were to interrupt. How I am glad to be answering in writing instead of, as Rick Akin, orally!

So are you saying that if you break the commandments you lose your salvation?

If one breaks the commandments:

• in an important matter (which cheating on the bus isn't for VIII)
• with full knowledge of what one was doing (like not just gliding on a slippery slope into following situation, but knowing exactly what one was in for)
• and full consent (let's not go into details on the one I was thinking of, but for instance, if you are inattentive at Holy Mass because someone else destroyed your sleep, that's certainly not full consent to being inattentive at Holy Mass)

then, yes. If one died before repenting, one would be going to Hell.

And when you repent you get it back?

Again, yes. The not yet baptised may not have had it in the first place, so would get salvation first time over when baptised, but the ones accessing Penance after Baptism with real remorse for sins for a supernatural motive (like one's sin displeasing God or earning and risking Hell), or even before the sacrament of penance, if the motive is God-centered rather than self-centered (one is really more concerned with the offense done to God than with where one goes oneself), one gets it back and a greater state of grace than one had before.

Are you obligated to keep all of the moral commandments in order to stay a Christian;

To stay a practising Christian, to stay in a state of grace.

that is, to stay saved, to stay in a state of sins being forgiven?

We deny this is the only state in which one can be a Christian. A Christian in a state of sin (that is of mortal sin, venial sins do not constitute a state, they just strengthen an already existing state of sin or weaken the state of grace), is still a Christian, and has one huge advantage over the non-Christian (or Protestant semi-Christian) in a state of sin - he knows exactly what to do to get out of the state of sin.

In an oral debate, I would certainly avoid answering the above questions as put, especially if repeated while I am doing an effort to clarify, that is, before I had a chance to make my clarifying point.

He repeatedly ignored the questions and would ask me questions instead. He kept asking me what happens to the soul when we sin

Our Lord gave the example. He did not allow Pharisees to do all of the questioning. He sometimes instead of directly answering a question asked them a question in return. Rick Akin did right to do the same.

Well, I did not know what he meant by that.

This ignorance seems feigned.

So I asked for clarification. I asked what he meant by “what happens to the soul?” Was he saying there was a physical effect, a spiritual effect, an emotional effect, or a relational effect regarding God – or what?

Physical and emotional effects would be very varying from sin to sin. The question is, very obviously, and to me they are the same question:

Do you believe there is a spiritual effect when you sin?
Do you believe there is a relational effect regarding God when you sin?

And as Slick had given these alternatives, it was obvious he had understood the question and his demand for clarification was filibustering. An excuse to interrupt Rick Akin.

It would seem that the consistent version of OSAS would require, either that sinning in a saved person has no spiritual effect, no relational effect regarding God, or that this effect is always below the level of damning one to separation from God. And this would contradict the very words of ...

• John 14 ... vines being cut off (because cut off from God means damnation)
• the three soils (especially what is said about the soils where the seed started to grow, the stony ground and the thistled ground, but didn't make it to harvest)

and it would contradict the implication of St. Paul in Galatians 5:1. If he did not fear a Galatian could relapse under slavery of sin, he would not have had to say the verse like he did.

It is very simple, OSAS security is unbiblical. As applied to individual believers and apart from special cases to whom God reveals they are not going to fall into a state of sin.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St. Andrew Avellini
10.X.2022

Neapoli, in Campania, natalis sancti Andreae Avellini, Clerici Regularis et Confessoris, sanctitate et salutis proximorum procurandae studio praecelebris, quem, miraculis clarum, Clemens Undecimus, Pontifex Maximus, Sanctorum catalogo adscripsit.

The page where Matt Slick referenced his debate with Rick Akin

CARM : Matt Slick and Richard Akins debate on Roman Catholicism
by Matt Slick | Jan 12, 2019 | Roman Catholicism, World Religions
https://carm.org/roman-catholicism/matt-slick-and-richard-akins-debate-on-roman-catholicism/

PS - Matt asked - "Can you become a Christian without obeying the commands"

You can become a believer who is still in a state of sin without obeying them at all.

But you cannot become justified, unless you agree to keep them henceforth, with whatever light about what that means that is available to you. Abraham was justified without previous works, but not without upcoming ones. Jacobus Latomus was right, Tyndale was wrong, on Romans 3. Once you are a Christian, and justified, you stay justified by keeping them./HGL