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There's a chasm of difference between "works-based" and "works-are-not-optional". We are justified and saved by faith--but not by faith "ALONE" (i.e. not by what some Evangelicals and other Protestants call "faith apart from works"--those people usually neglect to quote the rest of the verse: "works OF THE LAW"--i.e. the Old Covenant Mitzvot). Works are an essential requirement of our salvation--NOT because of any nonsensical idea of "earning" our salvation (as if we could possibly get God to "owe" us anything on the basis of justice), but because God has freely chosen to make our salvation contingent on having the type of faith which MANIFESTS GOOD WORKS. No good works, no fullness of faith; no fullness of faith, no salvation.

I'm with CB on this. This is amazing. The closest thing to a Catholic stating the Protestant position as I've ever seen on FR. Although I think if we poke at it a bit we will still see some differences. But this really is remarkable.

The anticipated objection is that Protestants/Evangelicals don't believe in justification by faith plus works, but by faith alone, and that is true. But this is one of those semantic problems we've seen so often here. When we say "faith apart from works," or "faith alone," we do not and have never meant that faith occurs by itself, without accompanying works. This is one of the oldest and dustiest straw men we evangelicals are seemingly continuously refuting here at FR. It's so senseless. We don't teach faith comes to the party alone. We teach, just as you said, exactly as you said, that saving faith "manifests good works."

But what I think happens is this word "apart" or "alone" gets applied to the wrong category. True faith produces action. Abraham believed God, and because he believed God, he chose one set of actions over another. But Paul tells us in Romans those actions are not what saved him. It was the faith that made the difference. It is in that sense we say faith is "alone/apart from" works, because the judicial act of God in acquitting us of sin and accounting us as righteous is based on us having genuine faith, not on our performance against any particular set of rules, Mosaic or otherwise. That indeed is why Abraham, who was justified before there ever was a law of Moses, or even a Christian list of rights and wrongs, makes such a good example of the point.

And as RnMomof7 has pointed out, the lack of formal good works did not prevent the salvation of the thief on the cross. But one could argue his faith was already producing good works, because he began his new life of faith by offering to defend the good name of Jesus against the unbelieving taunts of the other thief. We may not think of such things as good works, but whatever flows from the heart as an expression of love for God or love for our neighbor is in fulfillment of the two highest commands God ever gave, and would certainly qualify as good works. But they did not cause the thief's salvation. They were the inevitable byproduct of a heart that God Himself had marvelously changed, even if within only a few hours of his decease.

So to reiterate, the sense in which we say faith and works are separate is NOT in the category of occurrence, or in the category of cause and effect, because we agree that saving faith will both precede and be accompanied by good works. We just don't see them as co-causal to salvation. They are a result of having a changed heart. They are a consequence of having saving faith. Not a co-requirement of salvation, as though faith and works were two independent, parallel sources of God acquitting us of sin and granting us new life through His Spirit. Rather, just as you appear to be saying, true faith is the logical predecessor of truly good "good works."

And really, how else could it be? How good can good works be if they are only done to avoid punishment of the narcissist that lives within each of us? Doesn't that change "good works" from the unselfishness of love to raw self-preservation? I think this was at the heart of the Pharisees' problem understanding the true meaning of God's law. They couldn't grasp the unselfishness of divine (agape) love. So much of their works-doing was ultimately centered on the self, not the other. It was a formal appearance of love, but inwardly hollowed out to an empty shell of self-serving actions. If we could see our own "good deeds" the way God sees them, down to the deepest hidden motivations, I wonder how they would look to us. Sort of like putting an ultraviolet lamp on that rug you thought was so clean, and seeing the stains of truth. Thank God for His grace, without which we would be undone.

But in any event, I am encouraged we have come so close to saying the same thing concerning the relationship between faith and works.

Peace,

SR

I'm with CB on this. This is amazing. The closest thing to a Catholic stating the Protestant position as I've ever seen on FR. Although I think if we poke at it a bit we will still see some differences. But this really is remarkable.

:) I'm both pleased to have pleased you and sad to be likely to disappoint you, successively.

As my lovely (and faithful and brilliant, if I may say so) wife is fond of saying: "It's not 'faith OR works'; and it's not even 'faith AND works'; rather, it's 'faith THAT works'!"

We are not justified/saved by faith alone (the heresy of Luther). We are not justified/saved by works alone (the heresy of Pelagius). We require both of them, working together; and anyone who seeks to emphasize one at the expense of the other will distort the true Faith.

As C.S. Lewis said, in "Mere Christianity" (forgive the long quote... but it's good!):

Christians have often disputed as to whether what leads the Christian home is good actions, or Faith in Christ. I have no right really to speak on such a difficult question, but it does seem to me like asking which blade in a pair of scissors is most necessary. A serious moral effort is the only thing that will bring you to the point where you throw up the sponge. Faith in Christ is the only thing to save you from despair at that point: and out of that Faith in Him good actions must inevitably come.

There are two parodies of the truth which different sets of Christians have, in the past, been accused by other Christians of believing: perhaps they may make the truth clearer. One set were accused of saying, "Good actions are all that matters. The best good action is charity. The best kind of charity is giving money. The best thing to give money to is the Church. So hand us over £10,000 and we will see you through."

The answer to that nonsense, of course, would be that good actions done for that motive, done with the idea that Heaven can be bought, would not be good actions at all, but only commercial speculations. The other set were accused of saying, "Faith is all that matters. Consequently, if you have faith, it doesn't matter what you do. Sin away, my lad, and have a good time and Christ will see that it makes no difference in the end." The answer to that nonsense is that, if what you call your "faith" in Christ does not involve taking the slightest notice of what He says, then it is not Faith at all—not faith or trust in Him, but only intellectual acceptance of some theory about Him.

The Bible really seems to clinch the matter when it puts the two things together into one amazing sentence. The first half is, "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling"—which looks as if everything depended on us and our good actions: but the second half goes on, "For it is God who worketh in you"— which looks as if God did everything and we nothing. I am afraid that is the sort of thing we come up against in Christianity. I am puzzled, but I am not surprised.

You see, we are now trying to understand, and to separate into water-tight compartments, what exactly God does and what man does when God and man are working together. And, of course, we begin by thinking it is like two men working together, so that you could say, "He did this bit and I did that." But this way of thinking breaks down. God is not like that. He is inside you as well as outside: even if we could understand who did what, I do not think human language could properly express it.

This is the reason why the Bible can say that "a man is justified by faith apart from works of law" (Romans 3:28), and can at the same time say that "a man is justified by works and not by faith alone" (James 2:24). Those who see a contradiction in these two statements simply don't know logic: since neither says that its particular "part" is sufficient ALONE for justification (even Romans 3:28 only says that it's apart from works OF THE LAW--i.e. the non-Decalogue Mitzvot, and not apart from ALL WORKS WHATSOEVER [which many Protestants/Evangelicals on this board seem to believe]), there is no conflict at all. It's a bit like saying that "water is made of hydrogen, and not of oxygen alone", and then saying that "water is made of oxygen, and not of hydrogen alone"; both statements are true (since neither said that water is made of water ALONE or hydrogen ALONE). It's only when someone or other tries to take one and say that it--and it ALONE--constitutes the matter, that such people fall into serious error.

Anyone who takes the time (and care) to study Catholic doctrines will see that the Church requires BOTH (faith and works), under non-extraordinary circumstances, for salvation... and that trying to neglect one or the other will lead to trouble (if not outright heresy).