Originally Posted by Peytonator
Hello,

I have recently been involved in discussion with a converted paedobaptist (to Roman Catholicism).

I would greatly appreciate it if you could direct me to answers to some questions that are raised in my mind?

1) Can a Catholic be saved? When I said that Catholics are under a curse by relying on works of the law, he says that Catholics do not rely on works of the law, but the grace of God alone, because (i) sacraments are not works but the means of God's grace as faith is, and (ii) they confer grace on you as a gift, and are not done by you. Now I understand that Catholics believe that the priest acts "in persona Christi" and that Christ is the author of the sacraments. So why then are they a work?
That's a good question, I think Catholics have to cut through a great deal of religious distractions and traditions to get to the heart of the matter which is that we are depraved sinners in need of the grace of God & the blood of Christ applied to us via the Holy Spirit in which we are made new creatures in the image of Christ. I think it's essential to rise above the malaise of dead ritual/traditional and experience that personal and initmate relationship between ourselves and our savior in which we go to our inner chamber and lay it all before the LORD. Our soul, our sins, our daily needs, everything, give it all up to Him...... and read the Bible becasue his WORD trumps everything!
Originally Posted by Peytonator
2) Why do the church fathers promote such things as baptismal regeneration (including Augustine, which I have read with my own eyes) and the real presence, and yet we still accept them as Christians, and derive so much of our doctrine from them? Indeed I must apply myself to study church history (which can't happen in a day!), but until I make more significant progress ... Is there a correlation between what we believe and what the fathers believed?

No men are infalliable. I believe some of Augustine's later writings contradicts or at least detracts from the whole Baptismal Regenration concept.

To figure out what the ECF's really believe about real presence and how it lines up with today's RCC perspective on real presence is a HUGE undertaking that I won't touch. To me, the Reformed view makes more spiritual sense....

AC

The mercy of God is necessary not only when a person repents, but even to lead him to repent, Augustine