Justification by Faith Alone: Catholics and Protestants Together?

http://www.cin.org/users/james/ebooks/gospjust/faith_a.htm ^ | 1996 | James Akin

[Petrosius]

Justification by Faith Alone

by James Akin

Many Protestants today realize that Catholics adhere to the idea of salvation sola gratia (by grace alone), but fewer are aware that Catholics do not have to condemn the formula of justification sola fide (by faith alone), provided this phrase is properly understood.

The term pistis is used in the Bible in a number of different senses, ranging from intellectual belief (Romans 14:22, 23, James 2:19), to assurance (Acts 17:31), and even to trustworthiness or reliability (Romans 3:3, Titus 2:10). Of key importance is Galatians 5:6, which refers to "faith working by charity." In Catholic theology, this is what is known as fides formata or "faith formed by charity." The alternative to formed faith is fides informis or "faith unformed by charity." This is the kind of faith described in James 2:19, for example.

Whether a Catholic rejects the idea of justification by faith alone depends on what sense the term "faith" is being used in. If it is being used to refer to unformed faith then a Catholic rejects the idea of justification by faith alone (which is the point James is making in James 2:19, as every non-antinomian Evangelical agrees; one is not justified by intellectual belief alone).

However, if the term "faith" is being used to refer to faith formed by charity then the Catholic does not have to condemn the idea of justification by faith alone. In fact, in traditional works of Catholic theology, one regularly encounters the statement that formed faith is justifying faith. If one has formed faith, one is justified. Period.

A Catholic would thus reject the idea of justification sola fide informi but wholeheartedly embrace the idea of justification sola fide formata. Adding the word "formed" to clarify the nature of the faith in "sola fide" renders the doctrine completely acceptable to a Catholic.

Why, then, do Catholics not use the formula faith alone in everyday discourse? There are two reasons:

First, whenever a theological tradition is developing, it must decide which way key terms are going to be used or there will be hopeless confusion. For example, during the early centuries it was decided that in connection with Jesus identity the term God would be used as a noun rather than as a proper name for the Father. This enables us to say, Jesus is God and be understood. If the term God were used as a proper name for the Father in this regard, we would have to say, "Jesus is not God." Obviously, the Church could not have people running around saying "Jesus is God" and "Jesus is not God," though both would be perfectly consistent with the Trinity depending on how the term "God" is being used (i.e., as a noun or a proper name for the Father). Hopeless confusion (and charges of heresy, and bloodbaths) would have resulted in the early centuries if the Church did not specify the meaning of the term "God" when used in this context.

Of course, the Bible uses the term "God" in both senses, but to avoid confusion (and heretical misunderstandings on the part of the faithful, who could incline to either Arianism or Modalism if they misread the word "God" in the above statements) it later became necessary to adopt one usage over the other when discussing the identity of Jesus.

A similar phenomenon occurs in connection with the word "faith." Evangelical leaders know this by personal experience since they have to continually fight against antinomian understandings of the term "faith" (and the corresponding antinomian evangelistic practices and false conversions that result). Because "faith" is such a key term, it is necessary that each theological school have a fixed usage of it in practice, even though there is more than one use of the term in the Bible. Evangelical leaders, in response to the antinomianism that has washed over the American church scene in the last hundred and fifty years, are attempting to impose a uniform usage to the term "faith" in their community to prevent these problems. (And may they have good luck in this, by the way.)

This leads me to why Catholics do not use the formula "faith alone." Given the different usages of the term "faith" in the Bible, the early Church had to decide which meaning would be treated as normative. Would it be the Galatians 5 sense or the Romans 14/James 2 sense? The Church opted for the latter for several reasons:

First, the Romans 14 sense of the term pistis is frankly the more common in the New Testament. It is much harder to think of passages which demand that pistis mean "faith formed by charity" than it is to think of passages which demand that pistis mean "intellectual belief." In fact, even in Galatians 5:6 itself, Paul has to specify that it is faith formed by charity that he is talking about, suggesting that this is not the normal use of the term in his day.

Second, the New Testament regularly (forty-two times in the KJV) speaks of "the faith," meaning a body of theological beliefs (e.g. Jude 3). The connection between pistis and intellectual belief is clearly very strong in this usage.

Third, Catholic theology has focused on the triad of faith, hope, and charity, which Paul lays great stress on and which is found throughout his writings, not just in 1 Corinthians 13:13 (though that is the locus classicus for it), including places where it is not obvious because of the English translation or the division of verses. If in this triad "faith" is taken to mean "formed faith" then hope and charity are collapsed into faith and the triad is flattened. To preserve the distinctiveness of each member of the triad, the Church chose to use the term "faith" in a way that did not include within it the ideas of hope (trust) and charity (love). Only by doing this could the members of the triad be kept from collapsing into one another.

Thus the Catholic Church normally expresses the core essences of these virtues like this:

Faith is the theological virtue by which we believe in God and believe all that he has said and revealed to us . . . because he is truth itself. (CCC 1814)

Hope is the theological virtue by which we desire the kingdom of heaven and eternal life as our happiness, placing our trust in Christ's promises and relying not on our own strength, but on the help of the grace of the Holy Spirit. (CCC 1817)

Charity is the theological virtue by which we love God above all things for his own sake, and our neighbor as ourselves for the love of God. (CCC 1822)

In common Catholic usage, faith is thus unconditional belief in what God says, hope is unconditional trust in God, and charity is unconditional love for God. When we are justified, God places all three of these virtues in our hearts. These virtues are given to each of the justified, even though our outward actions do not always reflect them because of the fallen nature we still possess. Thus a person may still have the virtue of faith even if momentarily tempted by doubt, a person may still have the virtue of trust even if scared or tempted by despair, and a person may still have the virtue of charity even if he is often selfish. Only a direct, grave violation (mortal sin against) of one of the virtues destroys the virtue.

As our sanctification progresses, these virtues within us are strengthened by God and we are able to more easily exercise faith, more easily exercise trust, and more easily exercise love. Performing acts of faith, hope, and charity becomes easier as we grow in the Christian life (note the great difficulty new converts often experience in these areas compared to those who have attained a measure of spiritual maturity).

However, so long as one has any measure of faith, hope, and charity, one is in a state of justification. Thus Catholics often use the soteriological slogan that we are "saved by faith, hope, and charity." This does not disagree with the Protestant soteriological slogan that we are "saved by faith alone" if the term "faith" is understood in the latter to be faith formed by charity or Galatians 5 faith.

One will note, in the definitions of the virtues offered above, the similarity between hope and the way Protestants normally define "faith"; that is, as an unconditional "placing our trust in Christ's promises and relying not on our own strength, but on the help of the grace of the Holy Spirit." The definition Protestants normally give to "faith" is the definition Catholics use for "hope."

However, the Protestant idea of faith by no means excludes what Catholics refer to as faith, since every Evangelical would (or should) say that a person with saving faith will believe whatever God says because God is absolutely truthful and incapable of making an error. Thus the Protestant concept of faith normally includes both the Catholic concept of faith and the Catholic concept of hope.

Thus if a Protestant further specifies that saving faith is a faith which "works by charity" then the two soteriological slogans become equivalents. The reason is that a faith which works by charity is a faith which produces acts of love. But a faith which produces acts of love is a faith which includes the virtue of charity, the virtue of charity is the thing that enables us to perform acts of supernatural love in the first place. So a Protestant who says saving faith is a faith which works by charity, as per Galatians 5:6, is saying the same thing as a Catholic when a Catholic says that we are saved by faith, hope, and charity.

We may put the relationship between the two concepts as follows:

Protestant idea of faith = Catholic idea of faith + Catholic idea of hope + Catholic idea of charity

The three theological virtues of Catholic theology are thus summed up in the (good) Protestant's idea of the virtue of faith. And the Protestant slogan "salvation by faith alone" becomes the Catholic slogan "salvation by faith, hope, and charity (alone)."

This was recognized a few years ago in The Church's Confession of Faith: A Catholic Catechism for Adults, put out by the German Conference of Bishops, which stated:

Catholic doctrine . . . says that only a faith alive in graciously bestowed love can justify. Having "mere" faith without love, merely considering something true, does not justify us. But if one understands faith in the full and comprehensive biblical sense, then faith includes conversion, hope, and lovegood Catholic sense. According to Catholic doctrine, faith encompasses both trusting in God on the basis of his mercifulness proved in Jesus Christ and confessing the salvific work of God through Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit. Yet this faith is never alone. It includes other acts

The same thing was recognized in a document written a few years ago under the auspices of the (Catholic) German Conference of Bishops and the bishops of the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany (the Lutheran church). The purpose of the document, titled The Condemnations of the Reformation Era: Do They Still Divide?, was to determine which of the sixteenth-century Catholic and Protestant condemnations are still applicable to the other party. Thus the joint committee which drafted the document went over the condemnations from Trent and assessed which of them no longer applied to Lutherans and the condemnations of the Augsburg Confession and the Smalcald Articles, etc., and assesses which of them are not applicable to Catholics.

When it came to the issue of justification by faith alone, the document concluded:

"[T]oday the difference about our interpretation of faith is no longer a reason for mutual condemnation . . . even though in the Reformation period it was seen as a profound antithesis of ultimate and decisive force. By this we mean the confrontation between the formulas 'by faith alone,' on the one hand, and 'faith, hope, and love,' on the other.

"We may follow Cardinal Willebrand and say: 'In Luther's sense the word 'faith' by no means intends to exclude either works or love or even hope. We may quite justly say that Luther's concept of faith, if we take it in its fullest sense, surely means nothing other than what we in the Catholic Church term love' (1970, at the General Assembly of the World Lutheran Federation in Evian).

If we take all this to heart, we may say the following: If we translate from one language to another, then Protestant talk about justification through faith corresponds to Catholic talk about justification through grace; and on the other hand, Protestant doctrine understands substantially under the one word 'faith' what Catholic doctrine (following 1 Cor. 13:13) sums up in the triad of 'faith, hope, and love.' But in this case the mutual rejections in this question can be viewed as no longer applicable today

"According to [Lutheran] Protestant interpretation, the faith that clings unconditionally to God's promise in Word and Sacrament is sufficient for righteousness before God, so that the renewal of the human being, without which there can be no faith, does not in itself make any contribution to justification. Catholic doctrine knows itself to be at one with the Protestant concern in emphasizing that the renewal of the human being does not 'contribute' to justification, and is certainly not a contribution to which he could make any appeal before God. Nevertheless it feels compelled to stress the renewal of the human being through justifying grace, for the sake of acknowledging God's newly creating power; although this renewal in faith, hope, and love is certainly nothing but a response to God's unfathomable grace. Only if we observe this distinction can we say in all truth: Catholic doctrine does not overlook what Protestant faith finds so important, and vice versa; and Catholic doctrine does not maintain what Protestant doctrine is afraid of, and vice versa.

"In addition to concluding that canons 9 and 12 of the Decree on Justification did not apply to modern Protestants, the document also concluded that canons 1-13, 16, 24, and 32 do not apply to modern Protestants (or at least modern Lutherans)."

During the drafting of this document, the Protestant participants asked what kind of authority it would have in the Catholic Church, and the response given by Cardinal Ratzinger (who was the Catholic corresponding head of the joint commission) was that it would have considerable authority. The German Conference of Bishops is well-known in the Catholic Church for being very cautious and orthodox and thus the document would carry a great deal of weight even outside of Germany, where the Protestant Reformation started.

Furthermore, the Catholic head of the joint commission was Ratzinger himself, who is also the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome, which is the body charged by the pope with protecting the purity of Catholic doctrine. Next to the pope himself, the head of the CDF is the man most responsible for protecting orthodox Catholic teaching, and the head of the CDF happened to be the Catholic official with ultimate oversight over the drafting of the document.

Before the joint commission met, Cardinal Ratzinger and Lutheran Bishop Eduard Lohse (head of the Lutheran church in Germany) issued a letter expressing the purpose of the document, stating:

"[O]ur common witness is counteracted by judgments passed by one church on the other during the sixteenth century, judgments which found their way into the Confession of the Lutheran and Reformed churches and into the doctrinal decisions of the Council of Trent. According to the general conviction, these so-called condemnations no longer apply to our partner today. But this must not remain a merely private persuasion. It must be established in binding form."

I say this as a preface to noting that the commission concluded that canon 9 of Trent's Decree on Justification is not applicable to modern Protestants (or at least those who say saving faith is Galatians 5 faith). This is important because canon 9 is the one dealing with the "faith alone" formula (and the one R.C. Sproul is continually hopping up and down about). It states:

"If anyone says that the sinner is justified by faith alone, so as to understand that nothing else is required to cooperate in the attainment of the grace of justification . . . let him be anathema."

The reason this is not applicable to modern Protestants is that Protestants (at least the good ones) do not hold the view being condemned in this canon.

Like all Catholic documents of the period, it uses the term "faith" in the sense of intellectual belief in whatever God says. Thus the position being condemned is the idea that we are justified by intellectual assent alone (as per James 2). We might rephrase the canon:

"If anyone says that the sinner is justified by intellectual assent alone, so as to understand that nothing besides intellectual assent is required to cooperate in the attainment of the grace of justification . . . let him be anathema."

And every non-antinomian Protestant would agree with this, since in addition to intellectual assent one must also repent, trust, etc.

So Trent does not condemn the (better) Protestant understanding of faith alone. In fact, the canon allows the formula to be used so long as it is not used so as to understand that nothing besides intellectual assent is required. The canon only condemns "sola fide" if it is used "so as to understand that nothing else [besides intellectual assent] is required" to attain justification. Thus Trent is only condemning one interpretation of the sola fide formula and not the formula itself.

I should mention at this point that I think Trent was absolutely right in what it did and that it phrased the canon in the perfect manner to be understood by the Catholic faithful of the time. The term "faith" had long been established as referring to intellectual assent, as per Romans 14:22-23, James 2:14-26, 1 Corinthians 13:13, etc., and thus everyday usage of the formula "faith alone" had to be squashed in the Catholic community because it would be understood to mean "intellectual assent alone"

The Church could no more allow people to run around indiscriminately using the faith alone formula than it could equall confusing formulas. This formula can be given an orthodox meaning, that is not how it will be understood by the masses. There must be continuity in the language of the faithful or massive confusion will result.

In fact, one can argue that the problem of antinomianism in Protestantism is a product of the attempt by the Reformers to change the established usage of the term "faith" to include more than intellectual assent. The English verb "believe" (derived from Old High German) and the English noun "faith" (derived from French and before that Latin) were both formed under the historic Christian usage of the term "faith" and thus they connote intellectual assent.

This is a deeply rooted aspect of the English language, which is why Protestant evangelists have to labor so hard at explaining to the unchurched why "faith alone" does not mean "intellectual assent alone." They have to work so hard at this because they are bucking the existing use of the language; the Reformers effort to change the meanings of the terms "believe" and "faith" have not borne significant fruit outside of the Protestant community.

This is also the reason Evangelical preaching often tragically slips into antinomianism. The historic meaning of the terms "believe" and "faith," which are still the established meanings outside the Protestant community, tend to reassert themselves in the Protestant community when people aren't paying attention, and antinomianism results.

This reflects one of the tragedies of the Reformation. If the Reformers had not tried to overturn the existing usage of the term "faith" and had only specified it further to formed faith, if they had only adopted the slogan "iustificatio sola fide formata" instead of "iustificatio sola fide," then all of this could have been avoided. The Church would have embraced the formula, the split in Christendom might possibly have been avoided, and we would not have a problem with antinomianism today.

So I agree a hundred percent with what Trent did. The existing usage of the term "faith" in connection with justification could not be overturned any more than the existing usage of the term "God" in connection with Jesus' identity could be overturned.

What both communities need to do today, now that a different usage has been established in them, is learn to translate between each others languages. Protestants need to be taught that the Catholic formula "salvation by faith, hope, and charity" is equivalent to what they mean by "faith alone." And Catholics need to be taught that (at least for the non-antinomians) the Protestant formula "faith alone" is equivalent to what they mean by "faith, hope, and charity."

It would be nice if the two groups could reconverge on a single formula, but that would take centuries to develop, and only as a consequence of the two groups learning to translate each others' theological vocabularies first. Before a reconvergence of language could take place, the knowledge that the two formulas mean the same thing would first need to be as common as the knowledge that English people drive on the left-hand side of the road instead of on the right-hand side as Americans do. That is not going to happen any time soon, but for now we must do what we can in helping others to understand what the two sides are saying.

(Needless to say, this whole issue of translating theological vocabularies is very important to me since I have been both a committed Evangelical and a committed Catholic and thus have had to learn to translate the two vocabularies through arduous effort in reading theological dictionaries, encyclopedias, systematic theologies, and Church documents. So I feel like banging my head against a wall whenever I hear R.C. Sproul and others representing canon 9 as a manifest and blatant condemnation of Protestant doctrine, or even all Protestants, on this point.)

The fact "faith" is normally used by Catholics to refer to intellectual assent (as in Romans 14:22-23, 1 Corinthians 13:13, and James 2:14-26) is one reason Catholics do not use the "faith alone" formula even though they agree with what (better) Protestants mean by it. The formula runs counter to the historic meaning of the term "faith."

The other reason is that, frankly, the formula itself (though not what it is used to express) is flatly unbiblical. The phrase "faith alone" (Greek, pisteos monon), occurs exactly once in the Bible, and there it is rejected:

"You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone. (Jas. 2:24)"

Without going into the subject of what kind of justification is being discussed here (which is misunderstood by most Evangelical commentators on Catholicism, see below), the phrase "faith alone" is itself rejected. Even though Protestants can give the phrase orthodox theological content, the phrase itself is unbiblical. If we wish to conform our theological language to the language of the Bible, we need to conform our usage of the phrase "faith alone" to the use of that phrase in the Bible.

Thus, if we are to conform our language to the language of the Bible, we need to reject usage of the formula "faith alone" while at the same time preaching that man is justified "by faith and not by works of the Law" (which Catholics can and should and must and do preach, as Protestants would know if they read Catholic literature). James 2:24 requires rejection of the first formula while Romans 3:28 requires the use of the second.

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Copyright (c) 1996 by James Akin. All Rights Reserved.

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[Quester]

Could we say, for example, that we are saved by Grace alone, and that God saves those with a total commitment to follow Christ in obedience to his Will ?

Who has such a 'total commitment' ?

Would not such one be perfectly obedient ?

Know of anyone who is ?

[annalex]

We do not need to fear anything

So, you disagree with St. Paul in Phil 2:12?

Can I ask you, next time if you have the urge to go to the concordance and pull the quotes you like with "fear" in them, also tell me why a particular quote is relevant, and why you reject the quote we are discussing?

[InterestedQuestioner]

RnMomof7

Thank you for your post, I appreciate your listing of those wonderful Scriptures which demonstrate the importance of Faith in God. However, if you look at those verses, you will notice that none of them say that we are saved by faith alone. You've listed the verses that you think say we are saved by faith alone, and they're right there in front of you. Look and see, none of them say we are saved by faith alone. As it turns out, nowhere in Bible does it say that we are saved by Faith alone.

Now you also listed a lot of wonderful Scriptures that discuss belief. Let's be very clear about those, they don't juxtapose works versus belief at all, and they definitely, definitely don't say we are saved by belief alone.

"You can believe Sola Fide, Sola Christus or Sola Ecclesia, not both. But remember God never promised salvation by works or the church"

No problem with sola Christus, but let's not oppose Christ to his Church. As for sola fide, that's a man made tradition, it was invented a millennial and a half after the time of Christ. It's unbiblical and anti-scriptural.

I suspect that the tradition "saved by faith alone" may have been taken to an extreme in this case, and that when Scripture says, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved," that you have understood that to mean that you are already saved based on a conversion experience. That doesn't follow as a logical reading of the Scripture. Have I misunderstood your position?

[RnMomof7]

Can you explain what you mean by this statement? In particular, what do you understand the term "unsaved" to mean, and what do you understand when you refer to a "saved" person?

The Bible tells us who is saved.

Mat 10:32 Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven.

Jhn 3:36 He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.

Rom 10:9 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
Rom 10:10 For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation

1Jo 4:15 Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God.

1Jo 4:2 Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God:

A saved man is a temple of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit works in him .

The Holy Spirit does not indwell the unsaved.

[RnMomof7]

Can I ask you, next time if you have the urge to go to the concordance and pull the quotes you like with "fear" in them, also tell me why a particular quote is relevant, and why you reject the quote we are discussing?

with fear and trembling--the very feeling enjoined on "servants," as to what ought to accompany their "obedience" ( Eph 6:5 ). So here: See that, as "servants" to God, after the example of Christ, ye be so "with the fear and trembling" which becomes servants; not slavish fear, but trembling anxiety not to fall short of the goal ( 1Cr 9:26, 27 Hbr 4:1 , "Let us fear, lest a promise being left us of entering into His rest, any should come short of it"), resulting from a sense of our human insufficiency, and from the consciousness that all depends on the power of God, "who worketh both to will and to do" ( Rom 11:20 ). "Paul, though joyous, writes seriously" [J. J. WOLF].
Jamieson, Fausett & Brown

[RnMomof7]

Thank you for your post, I appreciate your listing of those wonderful Scriptures which demonstrate the importance of Faith in God. However, if you look at those verses, you will notice that none of them say that we are saved by faith alone. You've listed the verses that you think say we are saved by faith alone, and they're right there in front of you. Look and see, none of them say we are saved by faith alone. As it turns out, nowhere in Bible does it say that we are saved by Faith alone.

So would you say that Jesus and the apostles had a HIDDEN gospel they did not teach?

[annalex]

the very feeling enjoined on "servants,"

"Servant" implies work. "Work" is the first word in the verse. St. Paul puts it in the imperative. He mentions fear, an emotion meaningless if the salvation had been already assured. Why do you twist the scripture like that? The meaning is clear, we must work out our salvation every day. The next verse, about God driving the work is not there to negate the previous verse, but to explain that grace is necessary for all good work.

[InterestedQuestioner]

"Who has such a 'total commitment' ?
Would not such one be perfectly obedient ?
Know of anyone who is ?"

Good questions, Quester. Frankly though, I don't know of anyone who has faith even the size of a mustard seed, so perfection on the part of the believer may not be the appropriate standard by which to judge our theological formulations. I think all of us have been totally committed to Christ at one point or another in our lives, and most of us are committed to Christ right now, so it seems like a good place to start. As for perfect obedience, I didn't use that term myself, I simply referred to an obedience to the Will of Christ, and that would involve turning to God for mercy and forgiveness when we sin. That would be true obedience, wouldn't it? Judas and Peter both abandon Christ, to a certain extent, and Christ is fully aware that they will do so. Yet Peter goes to Christ after his fall and is re-habilitated, whereas Judas loses all hope and destroys himself. Which one was obedient to Christ? Frankly, it's the one who loved Christ, and he is the one who repented and went to Christ.

I would be happy with a formulation that said we are saved by Grace through faith, hope and love, or we are saved by Grace through a faith that works in love, but apparently it's a deal breaker when we go beyond the formulation "we are saved by faith alone." Given 1 Corinthians 13:2 and James 2:24, this puts Christians who do not hold to that formulation at pains when it comes to the issue of reaching agreement with our fellow Christians on this point, that we may, in accordance with Christ's prayer, all be one.


For now, we'll just have to work with what we have. Do you believe in the formulation, "we are saved by faith alone"? If so, what do you understand by the word "faith" in that statement?

[RnMomof7]

"Servant" implies work. "Work" is the first word in the verse. St. Paul puts it in the imperative. He mentions fear, an emotion meaningless if the salvation had been already assured. Why do you twist the scripture like that? The meaning is clear, we must work out our salvation every day. The next verse, about God driving the work is not there to negate the previous verse, but to explain that grace is necessary for all good work.

A servant is ALREADY the property of the master .

You want to isolate that scripture for all the others and make it mean what it does not.

It does not say work to be saved

Read it

Phl 2:12 Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out YOUR OWN salvation with fear and trembling.

HE WAS TALKING TO THE SAVED . THEY WERE ALREADY SAVED,

[Salvation]

Part I -- second part coming next week.

Thanks for posting this.

[Logophile]

HE WAS TALKING TO THE SAVED . THEY WERE ALREADY SAVED,

I don't want to argue with you, but I am curious. If they were already saved, why would it be necessary for them to work out their salvation with fear and trembling?

[Salvation]

You are correct here. She is wrong.

[annalex]

It does not say work to be saved

True, it doesn't. It says that since you had been saved, work it out unless you lose it. This is what the fear implies, loss of salvation.

THEY WERE ALREADY SAVED

The sacrifice of Christ is available to all, so all have been saved if they have faith and work daily to keep it. This is the plain reading of the verse.

There are plentiful references to necessity of work infused with grace, so I am not isolating this verse. It is well corroborated in the Gospel. I showed that in my #15.

[Quester]

However, if you look at those verses, you will notice that none of them say that we are saved by faith alone. You've listed the verses that you think say we are saved by faith alone, and they're right there in front of you. Look and see, none of them say we are saved by faith alone. As it turns out, nowhere in Bible does it say that we are saved by Faith alone.

I've always felt that this passage was good for showing the relationships between grace, faith, works, and salvation.

Ephesians 2:8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:

9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.

10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

So then ... we are saved wholly by God's grace ... through our own faith (which, like everything else we have ... is a gift from God).

In no part (are we saved) by our own works ... which prevents anyone (other than God) from boasting.

Therefore ... as saved individuals, ... we are the products of God's work ... created in Christ Jesus ... for the purpose of performing the works which God has already decided that we should do.

Paul must have got this question a lot.

[Quester]

I would be happy with a formulation that said we are saved by Grace through faith, hope and love, or we are saved by Grace through a faith that works in love, but apparently it's a deal breaker when we go beyond the formulation "we are saved by faith alone." Given 1 Corinthians 13:2 and James 2:24, this puts Christians who do not hold to that formulation at pains when it comes to the issue of reaching agreement with our fellow Christians on this point, that we may, in accordance with Christ's prayer, all be one.

For now, we'll just have to work with what we have. Do you believe in the formulation, "we are saved by faith alone"? If so, what do you understand by the word "faith" in that statement?

See post #54.

[ScubieNuc]

12 Wherefore, my dearly beloved, (as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only but much more now in my absence) with fear and trembling work out your salvation. 13 For it is God who worketh in you, both to will and to accomplish, according to his good will. Notice the emphasis

IT IS GOD THAT WORKETH IN YOU BOTH TO MAKE YOU WILL AND TO ACCOMPLISH ANY WORK .

God does not work in the unsaved.

Excellent post!! Very well said.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

Paul must have got this question a lot.

LOL. Amen.

"Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law.

Or is He the God of the Jews only? Is He not also the God of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also,

since there is one God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith." -- Romans 3:28-30

Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ" -- Romans 5:1

His blood shed once for all His sheep, ordained by God for His glory from before the foundation of the world.

[InterestedQuestioner]

That's are good quotes, and a good explanation of your views. Paul is speaking about the Works of the Jewish Law, however, and that's important to keep in mind. I think we're having some miscommunication, so let's see if we can work around that. To begin with, correctly speaking, we are not saved by our Faith, right? We are saved by God, correct?

Where we agree with regards to salvation is that we are saved, not that we save ourselves. That is, God saves us, we don't have the power to do it ourselves. Both this life and the next are gifts from God, freely and graciously given. (I think the passive voice in "are saved" seems to be misread in many cases as a past tense, but the appropriate reading seems to be that we are the objects of God's saving Grace.)

Where we have room for discussion is in the role of the believer in the economy of Salvation. We believe that Christ died for our salvation, and yet, none of us understand this to mean that human beings will all automatically go to Heaven, regardless of their beliefs and actions. Rather, we believe that the individual too has a responsibility in the economy of Salvation, that is, we must accept Christ's gift, we must respond to God's call, we must Choose Life. How do we do this?

The Protestant Formulation is that our response is Faith alone. There is much that suggests this is a formulation with serious drawbacks. To begin, it's not Scriptural, and in fact, it flies in the face of Scripture. Secondly, we must read it apart from the witness of Scripture which tells us that we will not be saved without mercy, without love, without forgiveness of others, and to be blunt, without works. How do you resolve this conflict? That is one of the questions that is being asked here. The author of the article asserts that "good" Protestants do so by defining faith in such a way as to include hope and love. He suggests that many Protestants, however, make an honest mistake of not defining Faith in this way, but rather see it as an intellectual assent only, and he argues that such an understanding is dangerous.

It seems like it would be a better formulation to say that we are saved by grace through faith and love, or through a faith that works in love. The appropriate response on the part of the creature to the Love and Mercy of God is not a mere belief in God, but rather Love of God, gratitude for his works, and Love of our fellow human beings, who are created in the image and likeness of God, and whom are also the objects of God's Love. Perhaps you understand these terms to be implied in the formula, "salvation by faith alone"?

From a Catholic understanding, God does not compel those who do not love Him to spend eternity in his presence. We've seen Matthew 25: 31-46, the judegement scene described by Christ as a separation of the Sheep and the Goats. Notice that God's command to those who did not show mercy to the suffering is: "Depart from Me." I understand this to mean that hell is a separation from God, and it is the choice made by those who do not love God, in this case through Love of fellow human beings. Notice that elsewhere in Scripture, Heaven is described as a place prepared for those who love the Lord, and Scripture repeatedly tells us that God is gracious to those who love Him and keep his commandments. Simple belief is not enough, rather we must Love God and our fellow man. Notice in the Judgement scene described in Matthew, that everyone calls God, "Lord," and yet it is on the basis of whether they have shown compassion to the suffering or not that they are either go to God or are dismissed from Him.

Do you understand compassion, mercy, and forgiveness to be implied in the term, "fatih alone"? If so, then we probably have little disagreement, although I might point out that such an understanding doesn't follow from the statement, "saved by faith alone", and there appear to be many who understand these things to not be part of that formulation.

"Blessed is a man who endures trials, because when he passes the test he will receive the crown of life that He has promised to those who love Him.--James 1:12

[ScubieNuc]

Actually, the Bible doesn't say we're saved by faith alone,

Why do you refuse to see the verses dealing with salvation say nothing about faith PLUS works, or the church, or something else? I see on this thread and the previous one you have NO Bible verses that say that salvation is through faith and works.

it says we're not saved by faith alone.

You have continuously brought up James 2:24, and here and the previous thread, explanations were given. Explantions like: Paul is talking to the saved, the context of the whole chapter, the word in the verse is justified (not saved as you indicate)which means to demonstrate,etc., but your response is the same "salvation through faith ALONE is not in the Bible."

The reference here is correct, Luther did indeed add his teaching to the Bible when he translated it.

This is an interesting topic. One which deserves more then a brief summary, but here it is in a nut shell...I, and most others I see here, are not basing our belief on the writtings of a mortal man named Luther, but on the teachings of Jesus in the Bible.

He also effectively removed the part of the Bible that says we are saved not by faith alone. To be correct, "salvation by faith alone" is what men say, saved "not by faith alone is what God's word says.

This discussion also deals with what is your Bible based on. The 1611 King James Bible is based on over 3000 Greek manuscripts that colaborate each other,not the writtings of Luther. From what I have been able to find out so far, the Catholic Bible is based on 3 manuscripts that are full of omissions and errors. So when you and I disagree on the meaning of a word or a verses origin, our sources are different.

[RnMomof7]

I don't want to argue with you, but I am curious. If they were already saved, why would it be necessary for them to work out their salvation with fear and trembling?>

All the letters were written to the SAVED ( believers) There were letters of doctrine and/or instruction on how to live out your Christian life.

Read the people that Paul addressed it to

Phil1:1To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi, with the overseers and servants:

1:12 Now I desire to have you know, brothers, that the things which happened to me have turned out rather to the progress of the Good News;

It was written as an instruction on how to live to be seen by the world. Notice the opening of that passage ... it is to THE BELOVED (the saved)

2:12 So then, my beloved, even as you have always obeyed, not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. 2:13 For it is God who works in you both to will and to work, for his good pleasure.

He then gives examples on how to do that and WHY

2:14 Do all things without murmurings and disputes, 2:15 that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you are seen as lights in the world, 2:16 holding up the word of life; that I may have something to boast in the day of Christ, that I didn’t run in vain nor labor in vain.

We all work out our salvation as we live it out . NO WHERE does Paul say that they are to do this to be saved, but like the letter from James it is a call to live your life so the unsaved can see your faith at work.

Eph 2:10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.