Faith is active and visible, not something that occures "in your heart".

I believe that the Bible is Its own best commentary, and that the answers to disagreements like this can be found inside Its pages. I also appreciate that he agrees with most of what I am saying. However, it is that last little bit that makes the difference between Heaven and Hell. I also agree with Con that we are not living under the Old Covenant. It was "finished" when Christ died. However, seeing as how Hebrews and James are part of the New Covenant, and they both reference the necessity of works to be justified, my point stands under the New Covenant. God still demands that we come to Him, and obey Him, to be saved. Where is it that we are told that "it is not by works that we come go Jesus"? Romans 6:3-6 says, "Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. " How do we get into Christ Jesus? We are baptized into Him. What does that baptism do? It unites us with Jesus and His Death, so that we can be resurrected just as Jesus was. By what power? The power of the water? NO! By our own power? NO! What does Paul say, ". .. by the glory of the Father". The fact that Jesus did the things He did while He was on Earth by the power of the Father, and the fact that He said He did nothing on his own, does not have any impact on how we are saved. What Jesus meant in saying this was that He had submitted Himself and His authority to the Father. Jesus had laid down all of His power and was "made him a little lower than the angels" (Heb 2:7) Jesus could not have been wholly "man" if He still possessed the power of God. He says Himself that everything He did, He did through the power of the Holy Spirit. But that means nothing to us, and what is required for us to be saved. We must still obey "obey the Gospel" (2 Thes 1:8). Unfortunately, Philippians 2:13 has been taken out of context by my opponent. The first question we have to ask when we read this passage is, "to whom is Paul talking? " It is clear from Phil 1:1 that he is talking "To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi. .. " Paul is not talking to those who are unsaved; he is talking to those in whom the Spirit of God resides. The Spirit of God does help to direct us, and to give us the will to obey God. But we do not receive the Spirit of God until we are "in Christ Jesus" (Acts 2:38). My opponent says that "If we cannot earn salvation the mere idea of doing works in order to achieve this is illogical. .. " I don't believe he is correct. Let us take for instance a multi-trillionaire who we will call Bob. Bob values his time, and he charges $1,000,000 per hour when he consults with companies he does not own. However, he is very giving, and loves to give a hand up to people who seek to become like him. So he has issued an offer to everyone in the world: "I will give an hour a week for a year worth of counseling to anyone who reads these five books. " Now I ask, if I have read those 5 books does that "earn" the 52 million dollars worth of time Bob has offered? I would say, no, it does not. Bob is giving up what to me is a massive value of time and is receiving no compensation for that time (other than his own pleasure in helping me). The same situation applies with God. He has offered everyone salvation as a gift, but He has told us that He will only give it to those who obey a couple of His commands which He specifically links to receiving salvation. An example of this is in Joshua 6. In Joshua 6:2, God tells Joshua, "See! I have given Jericho into your hand, its king, and the mighty men of valor. 3 You shall march around the city, all you men of war; you shall go all around the city once. This you shall do six days. 4 And seven priests shall bear seven trumpets of rams" horns before the ark. But the seventh day you shall march around the city seven times, and the priests shall blow the trumpets. 5 It shall come to pass, when they make a long blast with the ram"s horn, and when you hear the sound of the trumpet, that all the people shall shout with a great shout; then the wall of the city will fall down flat. And the people shall go up every man straight before him. "" God gave Jericho into Joshua's hand, but what do you imagine would have happened if he and the Israelites had decided to stay in camp instead of marching around the city? Would the city have fallen? NO! This is born out in the battle against AI. One person in the nation disobeyed and the entire nation paid the price. But the point is that if you don't obey the command that is linked to the gift, you do not receive the blessing offered. If all of the work required for salvation was God's work, then everyone who has ever lived will be saved, because John 3:17 says, "For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. " So God is willing to save everyone in the world. But as we have shown, not everyone will be saved. That leaves only one option (because Satan will not do anything to save us), we must do something ourselves to receive God's saving grace. I understand the desire people have to putting salvation entirely off on God. He has very large shoulders, and can handle the responsibility. He also has the only power that is capable of making us right with Him. But, as exemplified throughout the Old Testament, He wants us to prove our devotion to Him by coming to Him at least in some small way. Your last quote, James 2:19, proves the inadequacy of belief alone to salvation. James point is that the demons will not be saved. But they believe (more than believe, they KNOW) that God is One, yet they will still not be saved. Why? Because belief without action is useless.