You would be correct in your understanding that he is supporting the doctrine of Sola Fide. We are justified by faith, not by works. His verbiage is echoing Paul in Romans and Ephesians. However, he equally treats the importance of works in the Christian life as a response to God’s grace such as in Chapter 34. This fits in perfectly with what Paul says in Ephesians 2, that we are saved by grace through faith, not through works. However, now being saved and created anew in Christ Jesus, we commence to living out our purpose, which is to accomplish through Christ the works which were prepared for us. This is the biblical and apostolic apologetic.
No, because they address the topic as well. If you read the documents created during the Reformation, this was a subject that was frequently addressed. See for example Luther’s Treatise on Good Works or Calvin’s Institutes, both of which discuss the role of works in the Christian life, but doing so from the Biblical position that we are justified by grace through faith.
This is basically Catholic doctrine, all except using “Sola Fide” (Faith alone). The reason why Catholics reject this phrase is because the only place “faith alone” is used in the New Testament, it is rejected as the basis of our justification: You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone —James 2.
Considering the source of the doctrine of justification is the Bible as my original statement suggested, the truth of the matter is well documented. I would invite you to perhaps consider that maybe Paul kinda knew what he was talking about.
This passage strongly refutes Protestant faith alone theology. In this passage, Clement is merely echoing what Paul says in Romans 4 and Titus 3:5 and elsewhere: GOOD WORKS DO NOT SAVE US. The reason why is because good works never did save us, they weren’t intended to. Protestants have it entirely backwards: Protestants teach we are saved apart from grace, apart from faith, apart from Jesus, by our own works alone. The reason why they hold to this is because they wrongly think that Adam was supposed to get to heaven by his own abilities, living a life of perfect obedience. This is a Works Alone framework. But since Adam sinned, Protestants say God didn’t change the Works Alone framework, rather God shifted it to someone else. Protestants think, contrary to the Bible, that Jesus lived a life of obedience in our place and “imputed” this perfect obedience to us, so that we would appear before God as if we perfectly kept the law our whole life. Protestants say that since we are sinners, we coudln’t live this life of perfect obedience, so Protestants mistakenly think we simply need to “believe” that Jesus did it for us. But that’s not what “believing” is in the Bible. It isn’t about getting ‘perfect obedience’ tranferred to us. Protestants think that we are saved by good works, just that we need a substitute. Paul and Clement says good works dont save because they never were intended to. Paul never says our works are ‘tainted with sin’ or that we can never be good enough. That’s a Protestant myth. Rather, Paul says we enter a relationship with God by faith, because that’s how God wanted it to happen. And this is precisely what Catholics believe.
Your misuse of scripture is not the result of scripture not having sufficient clarity to reveal God’s salvific act on behalf of man. It’s the result of your hardness of heart.
No, the problem remains how do YOU disprove Mormons or JWs. You are offering one manmade authority against another. I can demonstrate through the plain meaning of scripture whether Christ is revealed as divine when speaking with a JW, or I can demonstrate that there is only one God when speaking to a Mormon. They will in turn frequently reject that based on revelation from their source of authority (which is your apologetic response by the way), however, this can still be demonstrated objectively through exegesis of scripture.
If you say so. I actually find this to be a strength of Protestantism. It has the capacity for self-correction.
‘Works of the law’ we are not justified by. In other words, we are not justified by works performed ‘of ourselves’ through the strict merits of the law. However, when you are Baptized and grafted into Christ, being infused with His Holy Spirit, you are not longer ‘under the law’ but ‘under grace’, and it is under the auspices of grace that we can cooperate with His Spirit within us to perform grace-infused works bringing our faith to completion, hence “we are justified by works and not by faith alone” (James 2:24).
Feel free to demonstrate this whole line of reasoning from the text.
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works (Eph. 2:8-9 ESV)AugustTherese:
Feel free to demonstrate this whole line of reasoning from the text.