DAY 251
CHALLENGE
“Belief in mortal sin denies Catholics assurance of salvation, but God wants us to have it: ‘I write this to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life’ (1 John 5:13, emphasis added).”
DEFENSE
We can have assurance of salvation if we fulfill God’s conditions for it, but self-deception and mortal sin are real possibilities.
We must be careful about the term “know.” Knowledge can mean different things. “I know physics,” “I know it’s raining,” “I know John,” and “Adam knew his wife” involve different senses of knowing.
We often say we know something without implying there is no pos- sibility of being wrong. If you ask someone, “Do you know what you had for dinner last night?” he might say, “Yes.” But if you ask, “Do you have an infallible memory so there is absolutely no possibility you are misremembering?” he would likely say, “No.”
Scripture sets forth the conditions for salvation. In fact, 1 John sets out multiple conditions, including keeping the commandments (2:3– 5, 5:1–3) and believing in Jesus and loving one another (3:23–24, 4:20– 21). If we have fulfilled these conditions then, per 1 John 5:13, we may know that we have salvation in the ordinary sense of the term “know,” but that doesn’t mean there is absolutely no possibility of being wrong.
Paul says: “I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted [Greek, dedikaiōmai, “justified”]. It is the Lord who judges me” (1 Cor. 4:4). If even a figure like Paul refused to pronounce definitively on his own spiritual state, so must we.
The possibility of self-deception is real. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately corrupt; who can understand it?” (Jer. 17:9). Thus the New Testament repeatedly warns Christians against self-deception, particularly with regard to sin and its consequences (1 Cor. 6:9– 10, 15:33–34; Gal. 6:7–8; Eph. 5:5–6; James 1:22, 26; 1 John 1:8, 3:6–7).
If we fulfill the conditions Scripture lays out for salvation, then we may be assured of and know that we have salvation. But we cannot claim infallible certitude as if there were no possibility of self-deception.
Further, mortal sin is a real possibility, and John goes on to warn against it right after the verse this challenge is based on (1 John 5:16– 17; cf. Day 302).