sacraments

http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2012/09/lawrence-feingold-why-do-we-need-sacraments/

also here

Question 175: Why do the sacraments belong to the Church? Why cannot anyone use them however he wants?
Jesus entrusted his words and signs to specific men, namely, the apostles, who were to hand them on; he did not hand them over to an anonymous crowd. Today we would say: He did not post his inheritance on the Internet for free access but rather registered it under a domain name. Sacraments exist for the Church and through the Church. They are for her, because the Body of Christ, which is the Church, is established, nourished, and perfected through the sacraments. They exist through her, because the sacraments are the power of Christ’s Body, for example in confession, where Christ forgives our sins through the priest.

 This text comes from the YOUCAT - an accessible expression of the Catechism of the Catholic Church in a simple Q & A format. [Learn more here]

from comment 13 http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2009/12/justification-catholic-church-and-the-judaizers/

All the grace that comes from Christ’s Passion, comes to us in the New Covenant through the sacraments He has established in His Church. That is true even when this sanctifying grace comes to a person prior their reception of the sacrament. In such a case it is not that sanctifying grace came to them apart from the sacrament; rather, the grace they received came through the sacrament, prior to their reception of the sacrament.

from comment  98 http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2013/12/rome-geneva-and-the-incarnations-native-soil/

Speaking of the incarnation and “native soil”, I think it would appropriate to bring up the growing parables. I think you would agree that the parable of the Vine and the Branches in John 15 show the relationship between Christ and the Church. How does a vine grow? It grows from the seed and only while it is attached to the root of the vine. Christ is the seed which was planted into the earth and died; He is the root of the vine. The work of Christ is “finished” in that the grower has finished the planting, the vine has sprung forth from the soil.

But what is unfinished is the growing (and, at some point, the harvest). We are in the growing time, and this is the time in which the Church, who subsists in the many branches of the vine, participates in the life of Christ which springs forth from the seed and the root. It is by this participation in the life of Christ that the Church can bear good fruit.

Christ and the Church are one in many ways. Christ and the Church are one as the Bride and the Bridegroom are one body. Christ and the Church are one as the life in the seed is the life of the vine. And after the seed has sprung into life, the vine is inseparable from the seed. The life of the Church is the life of Christ. What the Church does (the sacraments) is what Christ does, just as what a Body does it what a Head does. Just as the world is saved by a seed falling into the earth and dying, the world is saved by the vine springing forth and growing into abundance. In this way, the life of the Church, the sacraments, are the good fruit and God’s chosen means for the salvation of the world.

When we say salvation is by grace alone, we mean that salvation comes by grace through the life of Christ, the Word, the seed, the root of the vine, who is embodied in His Church, which springs from this seed and this root. Circumcision was a work of the Mosaic Law; but the good fruit of the Church are not works of the old law. These works are the good fruit of a people which _already_ share in the divine life. What the Church does by grace is a participation in the life of God.

The sacraments are the divine life of the Church. When the Church baptizes, she is bearing good fruit by participation in the baptism of Christ, by which He purified the waters. When the Church offers the mass, she is bearing good fruit by participation in the one and only, eternal sacrifice of Christ, by which He atoned for for the sins of the whole world. These sacraments are one with the work of Christ; because our life is one with His. In the sacraments, God meets man in a divine life.

Hopefully you can see the following points.
* Christ’s work is finished, but His divine life continues in the life of the Church and in the “good fruit” which are the sacraments.
* Having one body and one life with Christ does not mean the head has “collapsed” into the Body just as a married man and woman share one body and one life, but still have a head.
* The sacraments are not a “work of the Law”, the sacraments are a participation in Christ’s divine life. There is no way the sacraments could be “works of the Law”, because the sacraments were not revealed when the Law was revealed. The sacraments were revealed by Christ and so are part of His divine life.
* No one is saved by baptizing Himself. It is God’s grace working through Church who baptizes as an instrument of God’s grace.
* Just as Christ is God’s instrument for the salvation of the world; it is the Church which carries that salvation into the whole world by sharing in His life.
* Salvation and the divine life is more than knowing the “truths of the gospel”. Proclamation and Truth is fundamental, but Christ didn’t come to transform just what we know, He came to transform our whole selves. We are people who live and act; the spirit of Christ transforms our life and actions (habits).

You may not agree with these points, but I hope these points will help you understand the Catholic faith, so you can criticize what we actually believe rather than what you are presenting here.

comment 119 here http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2013/12/rome-geneva-and-the-incarnations-native-soil/#comment-68449

The righteous shall live by faith.

I suspect you differ from the Catholic in your concept of “living faith”. When I read this verse, I see a man whose character is changed by God’s grace such that his life is ordered towards faithful obedience to the God he loves. Bryan describes the Catholic concept of faith here:
http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2009/09/does-the-bible-teach-sola-fide/

You objected to the sacraments being “instruments of God’s grace”, and said:

salvation comes directly thru the Word by work of the Spirit

But earlier, you pointed out Romans 10, which says:

How are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him? And how are they to proclaim him unless they are sent?

What I am saying about the sacraments being instruments of God’s grace is in a similar way true of proclamation of the gospel. Proclamation is an instrument of grace, so when the Church proclaims the gospel, she is participating in the supernatural life of Christ, who is the Word and first proclaimed the gospel. This is another example by which grace comes to sinners through the divine life of the Church.

But the Church would not be proclaiming the gospel in its fullness if she stopped with proclamation and did not administer the sacraments. The sinner who has heard the gospel and been cut to the heart asks “what must I do?” because he desires a new life. Peter’s answer is “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit”. We need the gift of the sacraments because we long not only for knowledge, but also for new life. We need the sacraments because we need not only to know God, but also to meet Him. We need to die with Christ so that we can live with Him.

Finally, you asked if grace is a free gift, or does grace come through the sacraments. To the Catholic, this is a false dichotomy. Grace is free and grace comes through the sacraments. The sacraments themselves are free gifts to the people of God.

Note that grace comes through the sacraments as the ordinary means instituted by Christ. But the Church affirms that God’s grace is found not only in the sacraments. In fact, the sacraments themselves can come to people in extraordinary ways. For instance, there is the ordinary form of baptism, but also baptism of desire, and baptism of blood. There is an ordinary form of reconciliation, but reconciliation happens about whenever we experience contrition and repentance for our sins out of love for God. in which the Holy Spirit works where He wants to work.

comment 120 http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2013/12/rome-geneva-and-the-incarnations-native-soil/#comment-68449

On Warfield, I share Jason’s concerns. Warfield seems to simultaneously affirm that we participate in the Incarnation and yet to put a wedge between Christ and those participating in Him.

Just as a general concern, one big problem is that you are distinguishing the work of Christ and the work of the Spirit, which is impossible if we are to affirm the unity of the Trinity (one divine nature, one divine operation). None of the Trinity work separately. Another is that you are distinguishing the Sacraments from the work of God, and you are suggesting that God did not choose to work through the Sacraments, as if the priests are somehow forcing God to do something. This is why you are thinking of the work of the Spirit through the Word as being an internal effect of hearing Scripture. The entire point is the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are all simultaneously working from the effectual call (the drawing of the Father, the preaching of the Word of God, the internal movement of the Holy Spirit) to the participation in the Sacraments both in initial justification (the work of God, which grants faith). The reason that I reject the justification/sanctification distinction is precisely that I reject this nominalist idea that different words mean different realities. The distinct terms refer to one reality, so that when I see references to faith working in love or the work of God in the soul, I refer them to the one reality of the shared life of God, just as the Fathers did. The same is true of justification, as Catholic Biblical scholars like Joseph Fitzmyer, Brendan Byrne, and Margaret Mitchell all maintained. They do not chop the work of God into pieces, which actually would deny the unity of the divine economy, but they affirm that it is a single reality granted in the Trinitarian work of the Incarnation.

As to the Fathers, I agree that we do not turn into non-human beings in the Incarnation. But there is a difference between that and purely ethical/juridical participation, and reading that account back into the Fathers would be completely anachronistic. That’s the part that you do not seem to have gleaned from the Fathers you cited, and the failure to grasp the concept of anachronism (a common fault of the time) is why Calvin misreads them badly.

On philosophy, again, we, Aquinas, and the Fathers all agree that one can know God only by what is revealed in His works and not by comprehensive knowledge of His essence. You’ve even correctly identified the cause; the nominalist response was answering the radical univocity of late scholasticism (as opposed to the moderate univocity of Scotus, something that the Catholic Brad Gregory gets badly wrong). But the correct response is to go back to the sources and to correct the original mistake (radical univocity), not to read the later solution (nominalism) back into the Fathers. Nor is it to rely on Scripture to solve the problem, because as I have pointed out, anachronistically reading nominalism back into the Scriptures eisegetically will not produce answers, only further confusion. Instead, one must view salvation, justification, and sanctification as a single reality with different aspects, which prevents all of the divisions that you (and Warfield) are introducing.

https://youtu.be/fqltefv6GnE