From: eje@irenaeus.mlo.dec.com (Eric James Ewanco)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Sola Fide & James 2:24
Date: 14 Aug 92 07:08:48 GMT
Reply-To: ewanco@kalvin.enet.dec.com
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation

eje> - How do evangelical Protestants justify (unintentional pun)
eje> their "justification by faith alone" teaching when James directly
eje> and explicitly contradicts it?

eje> - How is it that even after 400 years, the word "alone" remains
eje> (in people's minds) right where Luther added it, ignoring the
eje> fact that Paul never said we were justified by faith alone, only
eje> that we were justified by faith?

eje> - How can an evangelical in conscience rally around a slogan that is
eje> patently contrary to Scripture?

> [Rom 3:28 has "justified by faith apart from works".  I think that's
> synonymous with "faith alone".  Since this is flatly contradicted by
> James 2:24 "justified by works and not by faith alone", most
> interpreters assume that one or more of the words is being used in a
> different way.

I don't agree that "apart from works" implies "faith alone"; it means apart
from works, at least the works Paul is referring to . . .

>  The point that's being made is that justification is a pure gift.  All we
> can do is accept it in faith.

Right.

> Faith in this sense is placing our trust and reliance solely on God,
> depending solely on him for the source of our salvation.

As we should.  God is the source of our salvation - we cannot earn, we do
not deserve salvation.  This does not preclude the necessity of an active
life of faith -- including works of charity, as James related -- after we
receive our down-payment on the gift of salvation.

> It's all too easy for faith to turn into a work.  What is *not* being
> recommended is saying that we are justified by God *because* we have faith,
> as if believing certain things is an action that merits salvation.  That
> would make faith into a work.

Hold on, you're really saying two different things.  Certainly having faith
or believing certain things can never "merit" salvation -- our salvation is
undeserved, but one for us by Jesus Christ.  But wouldn't most evangelicals
-- except for the Calvinist ones -- say that our faith causes the legal
action of justification (won by Jesus Christ's merit) to occur?  That is,
we *are* justified "because we have faith", not as an act of merit that
deserves justification, but an act that allows us to receive the
justification that Jesus won on his own merit?

> Generally the assumption is that Paul and James are thinking of
> "justification" in different senses.  It seems to have become a
> technical term in Paul.  Since James is obviously not operating in a
> Pauline context, it's reasonable that he would not be using it with
> the special Pauline associations.  

Or, perhaps they are using different meanings of "work".  Paul is speaking
specificially and exclusively of works of the Jewish law.  James is
speaking specificially and exclusively about works of charity.  Paul is
speaking to Jewish Christians, and James to Gentile Christians.

Hence while justification is apart from works of the Jewish law -- the whole
point of Romans, which speaks nothing about works of charity, works of faith,
or anything --, perhaps James is arguing that faith that justifies must be
bolstered by works of charity, otherwise it cannot justify.

It seems to me that proponents of Sola Fide overgeneralize the topic Paul
was speaking of.  Paul was speaking specifically about the Jewish Law.  I
believe it may be a mistaken eigesis to apply what he says to any idea that
could even remotely be considered a "work".  In other words, I am not
convinced that the Scriptural use of the term "work" supports the notion of
"work" that Sola Fide proponents often wield.

> For Paul, justification is the basic act by which God turns us from his
> enemies into his subjects.  My feeling is that it does not have quite this
> ultimate meaning in James.  Kittel claims that "justification" means "right
> conduct before God", except in Paul where it has his special technical
> meaning.

James does seem to be speaking of justification that saves -- for to him,
faith without works is "useless", comparing it to the demons' belief in
God.  While the term "justification" could have different connotations here
(an ambiguity largely due to the fact that James does not elaborate on it),
I would hesitate to assign to it an entirely different meaning than the
word in Romans.

> He speaks of works as completing faith, and I think also making it
> visible.  The idea is that faith is not complete until it shows itself
> in works.

Would you also agree that we aren't _fully_ justified -- we are
conditionally justified, as it were -- until our faith is completed by
bearing fruit?

Or is Sola Fide opposed to this assertion?

> --clh]

Eric
--
/=============================================================================\
| Eric Ewanco - Software Engineer     For the rash and outrageous opinions ex-|
| Digital Equipment Corp, Maynard MA  pressed herein I alone am responsible;  |
| ewanco@kalvin.enet.dec.com          they do not belong to DIGITAL(TM).      |
\==============================- 2 Th 2:15 -==================================/

[Evangelicals do not believe the same things about justification that
Luther did.  I'm not entirely sure what they would mean by "sola
fide", since it's Luther's phrase.  I was really giving an explanation
based more on Luther's ideas.  For him, the idea of justification
being conditional on any action of ours would be completely
inadmissible.  Remember that Luther and Calvin were very close on most
of these issues -- for Luther, justification was solely an act of God.
We didn't have any choice in the matter.  For Luther, if anything on
our part is necessary at all, then in effect we are earning salvation
by that thing that we have to do.  For him, I think "sola fide" could
not have meant that faith is somehow something we have to do before
God justifies us.  I believe that "sola fide" for Luther was how we
receive salvation, in the sense of how we think about it once God has
done it for us.  We simply trust in God for our salvation.  This trust
in God is faith.  But it's not the faith that saves -- it's God.

Now if you want to look at evangelical views, I'm not sure I'm the
right one to explain it, since I'm not an expert in that area.
Evangelicals generally do believe (as I do) that God offers salvation
to everyone, so it is the individual's decision that is critical.  For
them, "sola fide" would probably take on a meaning closer to the one
you suggest.  It would still express the fact that salvation is only
from God, but now there is the additional idea that we must accept it.
So the faith -- trust in God -- now has a slightly different role.
It's still the way we receive salvation, but now we have to receive it
before it takes effect for us.  I think even in the evangelical model,
it would be unlikely that anyone would say "our faith causes
justification to happen".  I think it's more like our faith determines
whether the justification which God has done becomes effective for us.
This may just be a distinction in wording.  But I'm quite sure no one
who believes in "sola fide" would want to say that our justification
is conditional on works.  That's exactly what "sola fide" is intended
to rule out.

These may be largely issues of terminology.  My impression is that the
typical American evangelical view on justification is fairly close in
substance -- though not necessarily terminology -- to the relevant
section from the Council of Trent.

--clh]