I read a book by this author. Carroll used to be a wacko Roman Catholic priest. In his book he basically told the Church what they needed to do to improve. Basically he wanted a whole new religion. Also Carroll is a wacko. After he left the priesthood and married he had some kids. They were visiting Berlin when the kids saw an open park-like area where they went to play. Carroll realized this was where Hitler's FuehrerBunker was once located and he went screaming after his kids because he was scared that Hitler's ghost would cast an evil spell over them.....Like I said, a WACKO!
The author has not been given the gift of faith.
There is no such thing as "the gift of faith". But you're in good company. Even William F. Buckley, Jr., has made this goof. This comes from the ambiguity of English in the translation of Ephesians 2:8: "For by grace have you been saved through faith and
this not of yourself. It is the gift of God not of works lest any man should boast."
The reason why Ephesians 2:8 doesn't identify faith as being a gift from God has to do with with fact that Greek has gendered nouns. This makes it easy to identify which pronouns refer to which nouns. In English, one has no clue which antecedent in the chapter "this" is referring to. Because of this, many mistake it to be referring to faith. It also doesn't help that folks who presume it to refer to faith punctuate the passage in English in a way that reinforces what the Greek doesn't allow and destroys the parallelism with the construction in the first part of the chapter, "for you have been saved through faith" being an interjection.
Faith (pistis), however, in Greek is a feminine noun, as is grace (karis). The singular pronoun in question, "this", however, has a neuter form. It is referring neither to "faith" nor to "grace" but to a singular neuter noun earlier in the passage, and referred to immediately thereafter as “G-d’s “gift” (to doron, a singular neuter noun). That “gift” to which
this is referring is found immediately prior in verse 7: "the overwhelming riches" (to huperballon plutos, a singular neuter noun and adjective). Its apposition is found at the end of verse 8, G-d's "gift" (to doron, another singular neuter noun). A translation that pays attention to the actual Greek instead of to subsequently developed theologies would be the following, the singular neuter nouns and pronouns in italics:
"...in order that in the coming ages he might show the overwhelming wealth (the singular neuter noun and its neuter adjective) of his grace in lovingkindness toward us in Christ Jesus--for by grace you have been saved through faith--and this (singular neuter pronoun, ie., the "overwhelming riches"), God's gift (singular neuter noun, ie, the apposition of the "overwhelming riches"), [does] not [come] from you, [it does] not [come] from works, in order that no one should boast. Because we are his works, created in Christ Jesus for the purpose of good deeds which God has prepared in order that we should live [literally "walk about"] in them."
Without the parenthetical comments and with the singular neuter "this" accompanied by its singular neuter referent and the referent's apposition, the singular neuter noun "gift" in order to get rid of the English ambiguity, the passage correctly reads thus:
"...in order that in the coming ages he might show the overwhelming wealth of his grace in lovingkindness toward us in Christ Jesus--for by grace you have been saved through faith--and this [overwhelming wealth], God's gift, does not come from you; it does not come from works, in order that no one should boast. Because we are his works, created in Christ Jesus for the purpose of good deeds which God has prepared in order that we should live in them."