Posted on 09/11/2019 10:52:15 AM PDT by Gamecock
Like all accounts of God’s faithfulness, mine begins with a genealogy. In the late seventeenth century, my mother’s Congregationalist ancestors journeyed to the New World to escape what they saw as England’s deadly compromise with Romanism. Centuries later, American Presbyterians converted my father’s great-grandmother from Coptic Orthodoxy to Protestantism. Her son became a Presbyterian minister in the Evangelical Coptic Church. By the time my parents were living in twenty-first-century Illinois, their families’ historic Reformed commitments had been replaced by non-denominational, Baptistic evangelicalism.
This form of Christianity dominated my Midwestern hometown. My parents taught me to love God, revere the Scriptures, and seek truth through reason. In middle school, my father introduced me to theology, and as a present for my sixteenth birthday he arranged a meeting between me and a Catholic philosopher, Dr. B—. From high school into college, Dr. B— introduced me to Catholic thought and graciously helped me work through my doubts about Christianity. How could a just and loving God not reveal himself equally to everyone? What are we to make of the Bible’s creation stories and flood narrative? Did Calvinism make God the author of evil? My acquaintance with Dr. B— set my intellectual trajectory for several years.
The causes of any conversion (or near conversion) are many and confused. Should I foreground psychological and social factors or my theological reasoning? Certain elements of my attraction to Catholicism were adolescent, like a sixties radical’s attraction to Marx or a contemporary activist’s to intersectionality: I aimed to preserve the core beliefs of my upbringing while fleeing their bourgeois expressions. When I arrived at the University of Chicago, I knew just enough about Calvinism to hold it in contempt—which is to say, I knew very little. Reacting against the middle-aged leaders of the inaptly named “Young, Restless, and Reformed Movement,” I sought refuge in that other great Western theological tradition: Roman Catholicism.
During my first year of college, I became involved in campus Catholic life. Through the influence of the Catholic student group and the Lumen Christi Institute, which hosts lectures by Catholic intellectuals, my theologically inclined college friends began converting to Catholicism, one after another. These friends were devout, intelligent, and schooled in Christian history. I met faithful and holy Catholic priests—one of whom has valiantly defended the faith for years, drawing punitive opposition from his own religious superiors, as well as the ire of Chicago’s archbishop. This priest was and is to me the very model of a holy, righteous, and courageous man.
I loved Catholicism because Catholics taught me to love the Church. At Lumen Christi events, I heard about saints and mystics, stylites and monastics, desert fathers and late-antique theologians. I was captivated by the holy martyrs, relics, Mary, and the Mass. I found in the Church a spiritual mother and the mother of all the faithful. Through Catholicism, I came into an inheritance: a past of saints and redeemed sinners from all corners of the earth, theologians who illuminated the deep things of God, music and art that summon men to worship God “in the beauty of holiness,” and a tradition to ground me in a world of flux.
Catholicism, which I took to be the Christianity of history, was a world waiting to be discovered. I set about exploring, and I tried to bring others along. I debated tradition with my mother, sola Scriptura with my then fiancée (now wife), and the meaning of the Eucharist with my father. On one occasion, a Reformed professor dispensed with my arguments for transubstantiation in a matter of minutes.
Not long after this, I began to notice discrepancies between Catholic apologists’ map of the tradition and the terrain I encountered in the tradition itself. St. Ambrose’s doctrine of justification sounded a great deal more like Luther’s sola fide than like Trent. St. John Chrysostom’s teaching on repentance and absolution—“Mourn and you annul the sin”—would have been more at home in Geneva than Paris. St. Thomas’s doctrine of predestination, much to my horror, was nearly identical to the Synod of Dordt’s. The Anglican divine Richard Hooker quoted Irenaeus, Chrysostom, Augustine, and Pope Leo I as he rejected doctrines and practices because they were not grounded in Scripture. He cited Pope Gregory the Great on the “ungodly” title of universal bishop. The Council of Nicaea assumed that Alexandria was on a par with Rome, and Chalcedon declared that the Roman patriarchate was privileged only “because [Rome] was the royal city.” In short, I began to wonder whether the Reformers had a legitimate claim to the Fathers. The Church of Rome could not be straightforwardly identified as catholic.
John Henry Newman became my crucial interlocutor: More than in Ratzinger, Wojtyła, or Congar, in Newman I found a kindred spirit. Here was a man obsessed with the same questions that ate at me, questions of tradition and authority. With Newman, I agonized over conversion. I devoured his Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine and his Apologia pro Vita Sua. Two of his ideas were pivotal for me: his theory of doctrinal development and his articulation of the problem of private judgment. On these two ideas hung all the claims of Rome.
In retrospect, I see that Newman’s need to construct a theory of doctrinal development tells against Rome’s claims of continuity with the ancient Church. And at the time, though I wished to accept Newman’s proposal that “the early condition, and the evidence, of each doctrine . . . ought consistently to be interpreted by means of that development which was ultimately attained,” I could not. One could only justify such assumptions if one were already committed to Roman Catholic doctrine and Rome’s meaningful continuity with what came before. Without either of these commitments, I simply could not find a plausible reason to speak of “development” rather than “disjuncture,” especially because what came before so often contradicted what followed.
The issue of ecclesiastical authority was trickier for me. I recognized the absurdity of a twenty-year-old presuming to adjudicate claims about the Scriptures and two thousand years of history. Newman’s arguments against private judgment therefore had a prima facie plausibility for me. In his Apologia, Newman argues that man’s rebellion against God introduced an “anarchical condition of things,” leading human thought toward “suicidal excesses.” Hence, the fittingness of a divinely established living voice infallibly proclaiming supernatural truths. In his discourse on “Faith and Private Judgment,” Newman castigates Protestants for refusing to “surrender” reason in matters religious. The implication is that reason is unreliable in matters of revelation. Faith is assent to the incontestable, self-evident truth of God’s revelation, and reasoning becomes an excuse to refuse to bend the knee.
The more I internalized Newman’s claims about private judgment, however, the more I descended into skepticism. I could not reliably interpret the Scriptures, history, or God’s Word preached and given in the sacraments. But if I could not do these things, if my reason was unfit in matters religious, how was I to assess Newman’s arguments for Roman Catholicism? Newman himself had once recognized this dilemma, writing in a pre-conversion letter, “We have too great a horror of the principle of private judgment to trust it in so immense a matter as that of changing from one communion to another.” Did he expect me to forfeit the faculty by which I adjudicate truth claims, because that faculty is fallible? My conversion would have to be rooted in my private judgment—but, because of Rome’s claim of infallibility, conversion would forbid me from exercising that faculty ever again on doctrinal questions.
Finally, the infighting among traditionalist, conservative, and liberal Catholics made plain that Catholics did not gain by their magisterium a clear, living voice of divine authority. They received from the past a set of magisterial documents that had to be weighed and interpreted, often over against living prelates. The magisterium of prior ages only multiplied the texts one had to interpret for oneself, for living bishops, it turns out, are as bad at reading as the rest of us.
But I did not remain a Protestant merely because I could not become a Catholic. While I was discovering that Roman Catholicism could not be straightforwardly identified with the catholicism of the first six centuries (nor, in certain respects, with that of the seventh century through the twelfth), and as I was wrestling with Newman, I finally began reading the Reformers. What I found shocked me. Catholicism had, by this time, reoriented my theological concerns around the concerns of the Church catholic. My assumptions, and the issues that animated me, were those of the Church of history. My evangelical upbringing had led me to believe that Protestantism entailed the rejection of these concerns. But this notion exploded upon contact with the Protestantism of history.
Martin Luther, John Calvin, Richard Hooker, Herman Bavinck, Karl Barth—they wrestled with the concerns of the Church catholic and provided answers to the questions Catholicism had taught me to pose. Richard Hooker interpreted the Church’s traditions; Calvin followed Luther’s Augustinianism, proclaimed the visible Church the mother of the faithful, and claimed for the Reformation the Church’s exegetical tradition; Barth convinced me that God’s Word could speak, certainly and surely, from beyond all created realities, to me.
Catholicism had taught me to think like a Protestant, because, as it turned out, the Reformers had thought like catholics. Like their pope-aligned opponents, they had asked questions about justification, the authority of tradition, the mode of Christ’s self-gift in the Eucharist, the nature of apostolic succession, and the Church’s wielding of the keys. Like their opponents, Protestants had appealed to Scripture and tradition. In time, I came to find their answers not only plausible, but more faithful to Scripture than the Catholic answers, and at least as well-represented in the traditions of the Church.
The Protestants did more than out-catholic the Catholics. They also spoke to the deepest needs of sinful souls. I will never forget the moment when, like Luther five hundred years earlier, I discovered justification by faith alone through union with Christ. I was sitting in my dorm room by myself. I had been assigned Luther’s Explanations of the Ninety-Five Theses, and I expected to find it facile. A year or two prior, I had decided that Trent was right about justification: It was entirely a gift of grace consisting of the gradual perfecting of the soul by faith and works—God instigating and me cooperating. For years, I had attempted to live out this model of justification. I had gone to Mass regularly, prayed the rosary with friends, fasted frequently, read the Scriptures daily, prayed earnestly, and sought advice from spiritual directors. I had begun this arduous cooperation with God’s grace full of hope; by the time I sat in that dorm room alone, I was distraught and demoralized. I had learned just how wretched a sinner I was: No good work was unsullied by pride, no repentance unaccompanied by expectations of future sin, no love free from selfishness.
In this state, I picked up my copy of that arch-heretic Luther and read his explanation of Thesis 37: “Any true Christian, whether living or dead, participates in all the blessings of Christ and the church; and this is granted him by God, even without indulgence letters.” With these words, Luther transformed my understanding of justification: Every Christian possesses Christ, and to possess Christ is to possess all of Christ’s righteousness, life, and merits. Christ had joined me to himself.
I had “put on Christ” in baptism and, by faith through the work of the Spirit, all things were mine, and I was Christ’s, and Christ was God’s (Gal. 3:27; 1 Cor. 3:21–23). His was not an uncertain mercy; his was not a grace of parts, which one hoped would become a whole; his was not a salvation to be attained, as though it were not already also a present possession. At that moment, the joy of my salvation poured into my soul. I wept and showed forth God’s praise. I had finally discovered the true ground and power of Protestantism: “My beloved is mine, and I am his” (Song 2:16).
Rome had brought me to Reformation.
What would you add to the Righteousness of Christ to make you worthy of eternal life?
I know neither of us DO works based religions. 👍😁 It’s a beautiful thing. Everyone should try it. 👍
Faith and Works.
Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the imprisoned, etc.
Martin Luher: “it is just as impossible to separate faith and works as it is to separate heat and light from fire! “
Get back to work! :)
Does what you add insure eternal life, or is Jesus the source of eternal life before you add anything?
Why don't you asks Judas when you meet him?
Wow are you ever confused! Why don’t you answer yourself. Is Jesus the source of eternal life before you add your works?
Comments in parenthesis mine.
8For by grace you have been saved through faith; [God's grace, His goodness, allows to us to be saved throughr faith. And that faith is in Christ. It is God Who has made this provision available to us]
and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;
[Again Paul is clearly teaching there is nothing we can do to earn or merit our salvation. It is God Who gives this to us. It is free to us.]
9not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.
[Paul continues to make it clear here there are no deeds good enough for salvation. This is pointing back to faith and that faith is in Christ.
IF it is not a result of works. IF it is not a result of anything we can do then it comes down to faith as Paul noted in the beginning of these verses]
10For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.[A believer in Christ will produce fruit. But note: this comes about as a result of salvation; it is not the cause of salvation. You can do a million good deeds but without faith in Christ you will not be saved.]
********
IF read in context the NT is clear. We come to Christ through faith/believing in Him and only Him.
Because of that we produce fruit, good works to use Paul's description but no matter how much or how little fruit we produce it does not result in our salvation.
Catholics are great at rationalizing their disobedience to Jesus after bragging on how they obey Him in everything.
It's not a yellow brick road, Dorothy.
Except that Scripture does not teach that so we don't believe in abusing it and living a sinful lifestyle.
Romans 6:1-4 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
Romans 6:12-18 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.
What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.
So now you can ditch that argument against Christians.
Since The Word of God tells you that the Righteousness of Christ is IMPUTED to a person when they are born again in the now, what works will you tell God you added togive you the right amount of righteousness for eternal life, ebb?
Yes sir!
Oh, really?
Clement of Rome (d. c. 101)Let us take Enoch, for example, who was found righteous in obedience and so was taken up and did not experience death. (Letter to the Corinthians / First Clement, 9: 3; Lightfoot / Harmer / Holmes, 33; cf. 11:1; 12:1)
Abraham, who was called “the Friend,” was found faithful in that he became obedient to the words of God. (Letter to the Corinthians / First Clement, 10: 1; Lightfoot / Harmer / Holmes, 33)
Take care, dear friends, lest his many benefits turn into a judgment upon all of us, as will happen if we fail to live worthily of him, and to do harmoniously those things which are good and well-pleasing in his sight . . . It is right, therefore, that we should not be deserters of his will. (Letter to the Corinthians / First Clement, 21: 1, 4; Lightfoot / Harmer / Holmes, 40)
Since, therefore, all things are seen and heard, let us fear him and abandon the abominable lusts that spawn evil works, in order that we may be shielded by his mercy from the coming judgments. For where can any of us escape from his mighty hand? And what world will receive any of those who desert him? (Letter to the Corinthians / First Clement, 28: 1-2; Lightfoot / Harmer / Holmes, 44)
Let us therefore join with those to whom grace is given by God. Let us clothe ourselves in concord, being humble and self-controlled, keeping ourselves far from all backbiting and slander, being justified by works and not by words. (Letter to the Corinthians / First Clement, 30: 3; Lightfoot / Harmer / Holmes, 44-45)
All, therefore, were glorified and magnified, not through themselves or their own works or the righteous actions which they did, but through his will. And so we, having been called through his will in Christ Jesus, are not justified through ourselves or through our own wisdom or understanding or piety or works which we have done in holiness of heart, but through faith, by which the almighty God has justified all who have existed from the beginning; to whom be the glory for ever and ever. Amen. (Letter to the Corinthians / First Clement, 32: 3-4; Lightfoot / Harmer / Holmes, 45-46)
The good worker receives the bread of his labor confidently, but the lazy and careless dares not look his employer in the face. It is, therefore, necessary that we should be zealous to do good, for all things come from him. For he forewarns us: “Behold, the Lord comes, and his reward is with him, to pay each one according to his work.” He exhorts us, therefore, who believe in him with our whole heart, not to be idle or careless about any good work. (Letter to the Corinthians / First Clement, 34: 1-4; Lightfoot / Harmer / Holmes, 46-47)
Let us therefore make every effort to be found in the number of those who patiently wait for him, so that we may share in his promised gifts. But how shall this be, dear friends? If our mind is fixed on God through faith; if we seek out those things which are well-pleasing and acceptable to him; if we accomplish those things which are in harmony with his faultless will, and follow the way of truth, casting off from ourselves all unrighteousness and lawlessness, covetousness, strife, malice and deceit, gossip and slander, hatred of God, pride and arrogance, vanity and inhospitality. (Letter to the Corinthians / First Clement, 35: 1-5; Lightfoot / Harmer / Holmes, 47)
Let us, therefore, join with the innocent and righteous, for these are the elect of God. (Letter to the Corinthians / First Clement, 46: 4; Lightfoot / Harmer / Holmes, 54)
Blessed are we, dear friends, if we continue to keep God’s commandments in the harmony of love, that our sins may be forgiven us through love. For it is written: “Blessed are those whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will reckon no sin, and in whose mouth there is no deceit.” (Letter to the Corinthians / First Clement, 50: 5-6; Lightfoot / Harmer / Holmes, 56)
[S]urely will the one who with humility and constant gentleness has kept without regret the ordinances and commandments given by God be enrolled and included among the number of those who are saved through Jesus Christ, through whom is the glory to him for ever and ever. Amen. (Letter to the Corinthians / First Clement, 58: 2; Lightfoot / Harmer / Holmes, 61)
Ignatius of Antioch (d. c. 110)
[T]hose who profess to be Christ’s will be recognized by their actions. For the Work is not a matter of what one promises now, but of persevering to the end in the power of faith. (Letter to the Ephesians, 14:2; Lightfoot / Harmer / Holmes, 91)
Justin Martyr (d. 165)
[E]ach man goes to everlasting punishment or salvation according to the value of his actions. (First Apology, Chapter XII; ANF, Vol. I, 177)
[F]or not those who make profession, but those who do the works, shall be saved, according to His word: . . . (First Apology, Chapter XVI; ANF, Vol. I)
[T]hey who choose the good have worthy rewards, and they who choose the opposite have their merited awards. (First Apology, Chapter XLIII; ANF, Vol. I)
So that if they repent, all who wish for it can obtain mercy from God: . . . not as you deceive yourselves, and some others who resemble you in this, who say, that even though they be sinners, but know God, the Lord will not impute sin to them . . . how can the impure and utterly abandoned, if they weep not, and mourn not, and repent not, entertain the hope that the Lord will not impute to them sin? (First Apology, Chapter CXLI; ANF, Vol. I)
Irenaeus (d. 202)
God has given that which is good, and those who do it will receive glory and honor because they have done good when they had it in their power not to do so. But those who do not do it will receive the just judgment of God, because they did not do good when they had it in their power to do so. (Against Heresies, IV, 37, 1; commenting on Romans 2:7; Bray, 59; ANF, Vol. I: 519)
This able wrestler, therefore [having just cited Paul in 1 Cor 9:24-27], exhorts us to the struggle for immortality, that we may be crowned, and may deem the crown precious, namely, that which is acquired by our struggle, but which does not encircle us of its own accord . . . (Against Heresies, IV, 37, 7; ANF, Vol. I)
Clement of Alexandria (d. 215)
[W]hen we hear, “Thy faith hath saved thee,” we do not understand Him to say absolutely that those who have believed in any way whatever shall be saved, unless also works follow . . . No one, then, can be a believer and at the same time be licentious . . . those that have been glorified through righteousness. (Stromata / Miscellanies, Chapter XIV; ANF, Vol. II)
Tertullian (d. 225)
A good deed has God as its debtor, just as an evil has too . . . . Further, no deed but an evil one deserves to be called sin, . . . (On Repentance, Chapter II; ANF, Vol. III)
Hippolytus (d. 236)
He, in administering the righteous judgment of the Father to all, assigns to each what is righteous according to his works . . . the justification will be seen in the awarding to each that which is just; since to those who have done well shall be assigned righteously eternal bliss, and to the lovers of iniquity shall be given eternal punishment. (Against Plato, 3; ANF, Vol. V, 222-223)
Origen (d. 254)
[B]elievers are to be instructed not to think that it is enough merely to believe [lacking fruit]; they ought to realize that the just judgment of God will reward each one according to his works. (Commentary on Romans [2:5]; Bray, 57-58)
Let no one think that someone who has faith enough to be justified and to have glory before God can at the same time have unrighteousness dwelling in him as well. (Commentary on Romans [4:2]; Bray, 109-110)
Cyprian (d. 258)
There is need of righteousness, that one may deserve well of God the Judge; we must obey His precepts and warnings, that our merits may receive their reward. (On the Unity of the Church, 16; ANF, Vol. V, 423)
Lactantius (d. 320)
[W]e may either lose that true and eternal life by our vices, or win it by virtue. (Divine Institutes, 7:5; ANF, Vol. VII, 200)
Hilary of Poitiers (d. 368)
Election, therefore, . . . is a distinction made by selection based on merit. (On Psalm 64 [65], section 5; Jurgens, I, 386)
Athanasius (d. 373)
[E]ach one will be called to judgment in these points–whether he have kept the faith and truly observed the commandments. (Life of Antony; NPNF 2, Vol. IV, 205)
Basil the Great (d. 379)
In like manner they which have grieved the Holy Spirit by the wickedness of their ways, . . . shall be deprived of what they have received, their grace being transferred to others; . . . meaning complete separation from the Spirit. (De Spiritu Sancto, chapter 15; NPNF 2, Vol. VIII)
It is yours according to your merit to be “ever with the Lord” . . . (De Spiritu Sancto, Chapter 28; NPNF 2, Vol. VIII)
Gregory Nyssa (d. 394)
[F]aith without works of justice is not sufficient for salvation . . . (Homilies on Ecclesiastes, 8; Jurgens, II, 45-46)
Ambrose (d. 397)
Nor again is any one more blessed than he who is sensible of the needs of the poor, and the hardships of the weak and helpless. In the day of judgment he will receive salvation from the Lord, Whom he will have as his debtor for the mercy he has shown. (On the Duties of the Clergy, Book I, 11, 39; NPNF 2, Vol. X)
But the sacred Scriptures say that eternal life rests on a knowledge of divine things and on the fruit of good works. (On the Duties of the Clergy, Book II, 2, 5; NPNF 2, Vol. X)
John Chrysostom (d. 407)
“Is it then enough,” saith one, “to believe on the Son, that one may have eternal life?” By no means. . . . let us not suppose that the (knowledge) spoken of is sufficient for our salvation . . . Since though he has said here, “He that believeth on the Son hath eternal life,” . . . yet not even from this do we assert that faith alone is sufficient to salvation. And the directions for living given in many places of the Gospels show this. (Homily XXXI, 1, On John 3:35-36; NPNF 1, Vol. XIV)
Here Paul stirs up those who had fallen away during the persecutions and shows that it is not right to trust in faith only. For God’s tribunal will demand deeds as well. (Homilies on Romans, 5; commenting on Romans 2:7; Bray, 59; NPNF 1, Vol. XI: 362)
Hence I beseech you, let us be zealous in practicing those very deeds (by no other way, in fact, is it possible to be saved) . . . (Homilies on Genesis 47,18; commenting on Romans 2:13; Bray, 66; Deferrari, Vol. 87: 24)
For what he saith is this, “Your salvation is not our work alone, but your own as well; . . . for not through believing only cometh your salvation, but also through the suffering and enduring the same things with us. (Homily on the Second Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians; on 2 Cor 1:6-7; speaking as if from St. Paul’s perspective; NPNF 1: Vol. XII, 277)
[L]et us have a regard for our own salvation, let us make virtue our care, let us rouse ourselves to the practice of good works, that we may be counted worthy to attain to this exceeding glory, in Jesus Christ our Lord . . . (Homily IV on Ephesians 2:10; NPNF 1: Vol. XIII, 68)
Jerome (d. 420)
God created us with free will, and we are not forced by necessity either to virtue or to vice. Otherwise, if there be necessity, there is no crown. As in good works it is God who brings them to perfection, for it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that pitieth and gives us help that we may be able to reach the goal. (Against Jovinian, Book II, 3; NPNF 2, Vol. VI)
Theodore of Mopsuestia (d. 428)
Paul . . . said it in order to counter those who concluded from this that anyone who wished to could be justified simply by willing faith. (Pauline Commentary From the Greek Church; commenting on Romans 3:28; Bray, 104-105)
Augustine (d. 430)
But if someone already regenerate and justified should, of his own will, relapse into his evil life, certainly that man cannot say: “I have not received’; because he lost the grace he received from God and by his own free choice went to evil. (Admonition and Grace [c. 427], 6,9; Jurgens, III, 157)
Now, if the wicked man were to be saved by fire on account of his faith only, . . . then faith without works would be sufficient to salvation. But then what the apostle James said would be false. (Enchiridion of Faith, Hope, and Love, Chapter XVIII, paragraph 3; NPNF 1, Vol. III)
Unintelligent persons, however, with regard to the apostle’s statement: “We conclude that a man is justified by faith without the works of the law,” have thought him to mean that faith suffices to a man, even if he lead a bad life, and has no good works. (A Treatise on Grace and Free Will; Chapters 18; NPNF 1, Vol. V)
[E]ven those good works of ours, which are recompensed with eternal life, belong to the grace of God, . . . the apostle himself, after saying, “By grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast;” saw, of course, the possibility that men would think from this statement that good works are not necessary to those who believe, but that faith alone suffices for them . . . “Not of works” is spoken of the works which you suppose have their origin in yourself alone; but you have to think of works for which God has moulded (that is, has formed and created) you. . . . grace is for grace, as if remuneration for righteousness; in order that it may be true, because it is true, that God “shall reward every man according to his works.” (A Treatise on Grace and Free Will; Chapter 20; NPNF 1, Vol. V)
Wherefore, even eternal life itself, which is surely the reward of good works, the apostle calls the gift of God . . . We are to understand, then, that man’s good deserts are themselves the gift of God, so that when these obtain the recompense of eternal life, it is simply grace given for grace. Man, therefore, was thus made upright that, though unable to remain in his uprightness without divine help, he could of his own mere will depart from it. (Enchiridion of Faith, Hope, and Love, chapter 107; NPNF 1, Vol. III)
This must not be understood in such a way as to say that a man who has received faith and continues to live is righteous, even though he leads a wicked life. (Questions 76.1; commenting on Romans 3:28; Bray, 105; Defferari, Vol. 70, 195)
He who made you without your consent does not justify you without your consent. He made you without your knowledge, but He does not justify you without your willing it. (Sermons, 169, 3; Jurgens, III, 29)
Someone says to me: “Since we are acted upon, it is not we who act.” I answer, “No, you both act and are acted upon; and if you are acted upon by the good, you act properly. For the spirit of God who moves you, by so moving, is your Helper. The very term helper makes it clear that you yourself are doing something.” (Sermons 156, 11; Jurgens, III, 28)
[N]either is the law condemned by the apostle nor is free will taken away from man. (On Romans 13-18; commenting on Romans 3:20; Bray, 96; Landes, 5, 7)
Theodoret (d. 466)
Well-doing is for a time, but the reward is eternal . . . Paul wanted to show that there are many rewards for those who are good. (Interpretation of the Letter to the Romans; commentary on Romans 2:7; Bray, 60; Migne PG 82 col. 69)
You’re ignoring Paul’s statement that salvation is not by works and he gives the reason, so that no man should boast.
If works played a role in either attaining or maintaining our salvation, then people would have something to boast about in God’s presence and HE would not get all the glory for the work done in our lives. We’d get some for being so good or special, or whatever.
Do you know why your tagline is accurate? ... For it is God Who is in you both to will and to do of HIS Good Pleasure. How much credit do you acquire for your good works, if it be that you are born again?
Seriously, I’m only looking for a verse—one verse— that clearly asserts we are justified by faith alone.
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Stop looking for what’s not there and read James 2:14-26. Perfectly clear!
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