Replies

I should perhaps have noted that I posted this article because on another thread (Lutheran leader calls for an ecumenical council to address growing biblical fundamentalism) it seemed that after the normal back and forth, charges and counter-charges in this debate between Catholics and Protestants, that a possible consensus was arising. In summary there was this exchange:

gscc:

If you understand the nature of true faith from which we are saved then you understand that the transformation of your life will produce fruits or good works. A life void of the signs of the salvation experience is probably void of a true commitment to pick up your cross and follow Christ. As we experience salvation through Christ's work on the cross we will bear fruit, however there is no amount of works that will earn any degree of salvation.

Mr. Lucky:

It may be we're talking past one another by our church's different traditional concepts of "faith". Be that as it may, my entry to this discussion was to answer to the obviously false charge that the doctrine of "sola gratia" was unscriptural. Whether you subscribe to "sola gratia" or not, it is clearly a belief based upon scripture. Understand that (most) orthodox Protestants draw a distinction between a sort of merely professed faith and a saving faith.

Petrosius:

But if you need "a true commitment to pick up your cross and follow Christ," are you too not adding something to "faith alone?" If you say that faith includes this commitment then you are using faith in a manner other than the original Reformers. It would also be different than the way Catholics use the term "faith" when we are speaking of faith and works where faith is understood as an intellectual assent to God. Is it possible that we are saying the same thing with different meanings to the words?
I have repeatedly stated that Catholics do not believe that we earn our salvation by our works. Salvation is a complete gift. Rather the value of works, i.e. a life lived in righteousness, is that it completes the process of sanctification. This is a process that occurs after the act of faith. But a return to a life of sin after faith renders that faith useless.

Mr. Lucky:

The orthodox Lutheran position on Justification was stated 460 years ago in Article IV of the Augsburg Confession:
Also they teach that men cannot be justified before God by their own strengths, merits or works, but are freely justified for Christ's sake, through faith, when they believe that they are received into favor, and that their sins are forgiven for Christ's sake, who by His death, has made satisfaction for our sins. This faith God imputes for righteousness in His sight.
As a Lutheran, I believe nothing more about justification and nothing less.

Petrosius:

Does not this reduce faith to solely an intellectual assent to the saving action of Jesus Christ without the our commitment to live righteously? This is how Catholics understand the Protestant idea of salvation "by faith alone." This is also what I have often heard preached, quite explicitly, by some Evangelicals on the radio.

gscc:

Reducing the doctrine of 'Salvation by faith alone' to "solely an intellectual assent to the saving action of Jesus Christ without a commitment to live righteously", is equivalent to reducing your view to equalizing it with the sale of indulgences. You have to be able to come up with something better than that.

Petrosius:

This is not a charge but an attempt to understand. As I stated, I have heard this understanding preached quite explicitly by Evangelicals on the radio. This is also the Catholic understanding (misunderstanding ?) of its meaning as contained in the Augsburg Confession. If this is wrong (and here I am only speaking of the formulation of the Augsburg Confession) please show where faith, as formulated in the confession, goes beyond the belief "that they are received into favor, and that their sins are forgiven for Christ's sake."
Is it possible that some Protestants hold this view and others do not?

I know that there are many other areas in which we disagree but is it possible that the debate between "faith alone" and "faith and works" is based on the different usages of the term "faith"?

I know how debates on FreeRepublic can wander all over the place so I would ask everyone that on this thread we could keep to the question above.

The author of this article is talking about two things:

1. How we get to heaven.

2. What separates us as Christians.

On the second point, with regards to salvation, he argues that it's words and definitions which are separating us--that we mean the same thing when we talk about Salvation, but either use different words to mean the same thing, or use the same words to mean different things. He also suggests that what we need is a common formulation--an agreed way of thinking about things.

According to his thesis, it is the understanding of the word faith that divides us. I might add that speculative theology divides us as well: that is, were the Bible completely clear about something, most of us could probably agree on it. It tends to be on issues where Scripture is not explicit that we come into disagreement.

With regards to salvation, gscc talks about a faith in terms of a commitment to Christ, and elsewhere he has talked about it in terms of an obedience to Christ. Could a formula be constructed that would utilize concepts such as those to accurately reflect a true Christian understanding of what is required for salvation, in such a way as to produce genuine agreement? 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?