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We don't think [good works] are optional either.

Here's the problem: when you say "we", you'd have a very hard time speaking for all the various non-Catholics on this forum... since, on this topic (and almost all others related to Christian theology), they're all over the map!

Beyond this, I think you'd have a chore on your hands, trying to prove your point--especially given St. James's claim that "we are justified by works" (2:24). Had St. James said that "we are justified by faith which necessarily produces good works", then you'd have a case; but unless you want to claim that James 2:24 is flat-out wrong, you're faced with the Biblical claim that good works have a SUBSTANTIAL ROLE in JUSTIFICATION (and not just as an after-the-fact "diagnostic" of justification). You'd also have to deal with the fact that, in EVERY apocalyptic representation of the "final judgment", we are said to be judged by OUR WORKS; Revelation simply doesn't say that "those with saving faith are in the Book of Life"--rather, it says that "the dead were judged by what was written in the books, by what they had done." (Revelation 20:12). Do a word-search on the words "works", "deeds" and "done" in the Book of Revelation, and the results (for a "sola fide" person, especially) could be eye-popping; Jesus' comments to the seven local Churches are positively RIDDLED with them.

Do you see my point?

Here's the problem: when you say "we", you'd have a very hard time speaking for all the various non-Catholics on this forum... since, on this topic (and almost all others related to Christian theology), they're all over the map!

He speaks for me.

I find nothing in his posts that I disagree with and find them well stated as I would expect from a lawyer. I get a lot out of them and have several saved for future reference.

Count me in when he says "we".

James is differentiating between saving faith and intellectual assent.

Intellectual assent doesn't save anyone.

Faith, trust, does, and it produces works.

So how do you explain the passage in James in light of Paul's comments here....?

Romans 4:1-25 What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.” Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness, just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works: “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.”

Is this blessing then only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? For we say that faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness. How then was it counted to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but before he was circumcised. He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised, so that righteousness would be counted to them as well, and to make him the father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.

For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith. For if it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression. That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring—not only to the adherent of the law but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all, as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”—in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, “So shall your offspring be.” He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah's womb. No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. That is why his faith was “counted to him as righteousness.” But the words “it was counted to him” were not written for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.

Romans 5:1-2 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

SR: We don't think [good works] are optional either.

PL: Here's the problem: when you say "we", you'd have a very hard time speaking for all the various non-Catholics on this forum... since, on this topic (and almost all others related to Christian theology), they're all over the map!

Not really. I know you think they are all over the map. But Sola Fide is in the evangelical dna. You can credit it to the preeminence we give to Scripture, in conjunction with the work of God's Spirit, or however else you'd like to account for it. But I have been among evangelicals of nearly all stripes for over half a century, and I can tell you with some confidence that what I am relating to you is the typical evangelical view of the relationship between faith and works. You can choose to disbelieve that if you wish. But I suggest you study our confessions on the matter. You may be surprised at the unity you find. In our dna. Just sayin ...

Beyond this, I think you'd have a chore on your hands, trying to prove your point--especially given St. James's claim that "we are justified by works" (2:24). Had St. James said that "we are justified by faith which necessarily produces good works", then you'd have a case; but unless you want to claim that James 2:24 is flat-out wrong, you're faced with the Biblical claim that good works have a SUBSTANTIAL ROLE in JUSTIFICATION (and not just as an after-the-fact "diagnostic" of justification). You'd also have to deal with the fact that, in EVERY apocalyptic representation of the "final judgment", we are said to be judged by OUR WORKS; Revelation simply doesn't say that "those with saving faith are in the Book of Life"--rather, it says that "the dead were judged by what was written in the books, by what they had done." (Revelation 20:12). Do a word-search on the words "works", "deeds" and "done" in the Book of Revelation, and the results (for a "sola fide" person, especially) could be eye-popping; Jesus' comments to the seven local Churches are positively RIDDLED with them.

Do you see my point?

First, your problem with James is that he pretty much does make my case, right here:

Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.
(James 2:17-18)

Remember we said earlier that faith doesn't come to the party alone. There will always be works resulting from genuine faith. So we're still on the same page up to that point. But look what James says next. He rebukes the man who says he has faith, but whose life does not show it. How? By declaring that faith is manifested through good works! Just as you yourself said earlier. This is truly the evangelical perspective, and I am sorry I am having such a hard time helping you see this.

Perhaps this way. As a matter of logic, I am certain you recognize the distinction between causation and concurrence. James here does not say you must have works as a cause of redemption. Check the language. That statement isn't in James. I know, because as a young person I once memorized every verse of James. Not anymore of course. But look at it. That's not the language. Rather, he is saying the person who has faith will have works. He does not say that works demonstrate their own redemptive value, or that they have a cross-dependence on faith, where they are co-equal partners in causing redemption. But only that they demonstrate the presence of true faith.

At this point I would expect the objection, what about the crystal clear statement of James 2:24? Fair enough. Let's look at that:

Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar? Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect? And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God. Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.
(James 2:21-24)

Here's the interesting thing about that. What Scripture does both Paul and James use to make their respective cases? This one:

And Abram said, Behold, to me thou hast given no seed: and, lo, one born in my house is mine heir. And, behold, the word of the LORD came unto him, saying, This shall not be thine heir; but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir. And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be. And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness.
(Genesis 15:3-6)

But look back at James. When did James see this justification taking place? When Abraham acted on his faith in offering Isaac. But when did the accounting of his faith as righteousness take place according to Genesis? Before Isaac was ever born, all the way back to when he believed the promise of God, and had no act to offer at that time. Now bear with me a little more, and look at Paul's use of that incident:

What shall we say then that Abraham our father, as pertaining to the flesh, hath found? For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God. For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.
(Romans 4:1-5)

Now we know that one Holy Spirit inspired the whole of Scripture, so we know there cannot be a true contradiction. James and Paul and Moses must all agree, when rightly understood. Yet it does superficially look as though Paul wishes to exclude works from justification, and James wishes us to see them as related.

I know the solution typically offered by those wishing to retain works as a condition of salvation, which is to say that Paul is only excluding the works of the Mosaic law. But that shortchanges one of Paul's main arguments in Romans, that Jew and Gentile alike are under conviction of sin under the universal law of God, whether expressed through Moses, or the natural law. So that argument is unpersuasive. Paul is setting up a major theme of contrast between faith and human efforts as a means of obtaining righteousness, and he is doing this to explain grace. We cannot break that theme in order to avoid the apparent conflict with James.

But there is another solution which both grants Paul his thematic contrast between faith and works, and still allows James to say what he does in 2:24. The key is that the word "justify" (δικαιόω, "dikaioō") has a fair semantic range. It doesn't always mean forensic justification of the sinner, as in acquittal from the guilt and penalty of sin. That's what it generally means in Romans, which is why Paul can speak of a separation between faith and works in that context. Justification in Paul is the judicial act of God in response to our faith, and according to Paul, that judicial act comes to us at the same point it came to Abraham, when we believe God, and is therefore, in that sense, apart from works.

But the same exact word also has the sense of public vindication of something that was already true. For example:

This is he, of whom it is written, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee. For I say unto you, Among those that are born of women there is not a greater prophet than John the Baptist: but he that is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he. And all the people that heard him, and the publicans, justified God, being baptized with the baptism of John.
(Luke 7:27-29)

Now, the people hearing John's message are not justifying God in any forensic sense. That would be blasphemy, to say God had to be acquitted of some sin. Rather, it is a more basic sense, agreeing with God that He is right about something, or right to do something, or worthy of praise, etc. In other words, it fits perfectly with James' use of the term in chapter 2, because with James it does indeed have that "diagnostic sense," as you put it, of showing true faith, not causing redemption. And in James it comes in, not at the moment of belief, but later, when some overt action is set forth to demonstrate that true faith. So here justification is NOT forensic, but illustrative. It doesn't vacate the penalty of sin; it vindicates that sinner as one who has true faith.

Very telling in this regard is his immediate resort to showing one of the most striking examples of "dead faith" in all of Scripture:

Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.
(James 2:19)

What good does it do to believe there is one God? Even the devils believe that, yet their intellectual assent to the truth cannot save them. They remain devils. But as Paul shows in Romans, Abraham had a living faith, much more than an assent to some list of facts, but a full heart trust in God that was real, and God counted it for righteousness. It was by his faith Abraham was justified. The justification needed no other good work. But good works resulted from it.

And so the apparent contradiction is resolved. Paul keeps his forensic justification under pure grace, and James gives us a diagnostic for distinguishing true faith from false.

Peace,

SR