Both are, first because in justice God recognizes the act as objectively good, and second, because anything good that people do is an expression of faith in Christ, however badly recognized by the doer. When an atheist helps a woman across the street, he is at that moment guided by the light of Christ.
Really? I have never heard this before. Does God really look at the act itself, rather than the heart behind it? Could an atheist work up enough good deeds such that his "expression of faith in Christ" would be sufficient to get him into Heaven? I think the Bible actually says just the opposite:
Eph 2:10 : For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. (Who do you think is "we"?)
James 2:18 : But someone will say, "You have faith; I have deeds." Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do.
James 2:22 : You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did.
John 14:15 : "If you love me, you will obey what I command.
John 14:23 : Jesus replied, "If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.
And finally:
Gal 5:6 : For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.
Is the view you're expressing from the Fathers? I've just never heard before that God looks first at the outward act while ignoring the heart in judging righteousness. Does the Church have scripture to back this position? I don't understand how an atheist is accorded "faith in Christ" by doing what we would normally call a "good work". I don't see that in the scriptures anywhere.
[Re: my mother-daughter baking a cake analogy:] The mother bakes the cake in the first place in order to teach the girl how to love others. If the girl was not moved to help, the cake may still end up in her belly, but that cake would not be likened to salvation if the girl did not attempt to participate in its baking.
The mother offered to the girl that she "help". Because of the relationship, established by the mother, the girl naturally accepted with, and in, love. Had the mother been wicked, the girl would have had no interest in "helping", but since the mother was loving the girl NECESSESARILY had the interest.
This is a good analogy because the celebration requires the right attitude from the girl. The girl participated in the work of the baking just like a Christian will participate in the work of the Father on his soul, to culminate in the celebration of the beatific vision.
I'll accept that my writing may have sounded like that, but it isn't what I really intended. It was my intention that the little girl be young enough to be relatively helpless, and totally dependent on her mother (parents) for everything. She was not wise enough to know what was best for her, or even to avert dangers we grown-ups take for granted (in terms of avoiding, like hot stoves). That is how I truly see well developed Christians. That is, totally dependent on God for everything. How can it be that even the most devout amongst us still sins regularly? It's because we are still like that little girl compared to God. We NEED Him, not just sometimes, but at ALL times. This is one of my biggest disagreements with the Latin faith.
Of course God looks at the heart. I was assuming tha tthe hypothetical atheist helps a lady across the street out of a genuine love for her as a fellow human. If he (or a Christian, or anyone else) does it for some ulterior motive, then, of course, not.
That is how I truly see well developed Christians. That is, totally dependent on God for everything. How can it be that even the most devout amongst us still sins regularly? It's because we are still like that little girl compared to God. We NEED Him, not just sometimes, but at ALL times. This is one of my biggest disagreements with the Latin faith.
We are totally dependent on God for everything, but we also grow in holiness, just like the girl in your example grows both as a cook and spiritually. It is not true that we are never transformed by the faith, and it is demostrably not true that even the devout sin regularly. One of the reasons to venerate saints is to take courage of their example, because with them the sanctification has run a complete course.
We NEED Him, not just sometimes, but at ALL times. This is one of my biggest disagreements with the Latin faith.
We say otherwise? WHO does? Show me the sonofagun! I need some target practice.
I keep saying everything we have is gift. I have taught and preached (before the Vatican smacked down us lay-preachers) that if God were somehow to turn his gaze from us, as the psalmist in a desperation I quite understand asks, we would go up more quickly than a spent match. Not even a cinder left.
From a truly humble web < href="http://www.rockhousefarm.com/vftalk.shtml">site, with lots to be humble about
[H]ere's an excerpt from a very interesting little book, Karl Adam, Roots of the Reformation:Yeah, that's just about grace and stuff, but it seems to me really to be about everything. Whatever we may be said in any respect to "have" we do not in fact have. It may be "in us" but it sho' ain't ours. Such justice as we may "have" "dwells in us by faith and hoe", and anything else we "have" is a gift maintained by the constant giving of God, with whom it is always "Yes!"In fact, the phrase "salvation by faith alone" has never been alien to Catholic theology. It was in fact always Catholic teaching that we can only be saved by Christ alone, that is is only God's unmerited, unmeritable grace that lifts us out of the state of sin and death into that of divine sonship, and that even the so-called "meritorious acts" which the redeemed perform in the state of justice are only "meritorious by grace," attributable, that is, the the love of Christ working in us and through us. Insofar as the justification of man is God's work alone, we could speak with Luther of "extrinsic" justice. It is indeed also interior and personal. Luther too, in that same commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, affirms that this extrinsic justice "dwells in us by faith and hope," that it is "in us" though it does not belong to us (in nobis est, non nostra), that it thus, according to the Council of Trent, "inheres" in justified men (atque ipsis inhaeret, sess, 6, cap. 7, can 11).
"Yes" as in, yes you may inhale, yes your lungs and hemoglobin may carry out the oxygen/carbon dioxide exchange, yes, the blood will carry the oxygen to wherever it's needed, and yes, when it gets there it will do some good." and so forth. The "Evangelical poverty" undertaken by some is, inter alia, just a kind of prophetic "sign" for the rest of us, that we live from one instant to another by God's favor alone.