Faith and TRUE Faith... What's the Difference?

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Singinbeauty said:
John 2:14 proves that there are different kinds of Faith. He says “That KIND of faith can’t save anyone.”

You means James 2:14??

And actually the verse is as follows:

“What does it profit, my brethren, if a man says he has faith but has not works? Can his faith save him?”
 
On another thread (the one I linked to in my OP) Catholic4aReason asked the following…
That’s in direct contradiction to God’s word:
1 Cor. 13:2 if I have all faith, so that I can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.
This specifically says that it’s entirely possible to have faith, ALL faith in fact, and still not have love.
Where do you believe scripture teaches that you can’t have faith without love?
You can also have faith without works which makes that faith DEAD. What I speak of is the TRUE and WHOLE Faith. You cannot have that without Love because God IS Love. You can’t have FULL FAITH in Him without it. There are different kinds of faith as evident in James when he said that a faith without works is the kind that won’t save you. 🙂
You’re simply proof-texting here. These verses merely have the word “faith” in them. They have nothing to do with the question I asked.
I apologized if I didn’t answer the question to your liking. To what I had interpreted your question to ask is what I answered to. Perhaps if you were to re-ask it and state it differently? I really do want to answer your question and not what I perceive it to be.
Please don’t use the New Living Translation on this board. James does not say “no faith it all”. That was added by the editors and it completely changes James’ meaning. Why would you use a translation that adds to the word of God???
You know, in the whole time I have been on this board NOT one person has asked me not to use the NLT. If you got a problem with it then we should just stop this conversation because this is the translation I usually use if I don’t use the NIV. I use the NLT because, with my dyslexia, it is the one I have been able to get the most understanding from. You don’t speak for the whole board so I will take your request as a suggestion but probably will keep using it as it is the easiest for me to understand. 🙂
Please show me that recipe in scripture, without prooftexting.
I have answered this above… I await your objection…
 
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Singinbeauty:
On another thread (the one I linked to in my OP) Catholic4aReason asked the following…

You can also have faith without works which makes that faith DEAD. What I speak of is the TRUE and WHOLE Faith. You cannot have that without Love because God IS Love. You can’t have FULL FAITH in Him without it. There are different kinds of faith as evident in James when he said that a faith without works is the kind that won’t save you. 🙂

I apologized if I didn’t answer the question to your liking. To what I had interpreted your question to ask is what I answered to. Perhaps if you were to re-ask it and state it differently? I really do want to answer your question and not what I perceive it to be.

You know, in the whole time I have been on this board NOT one person has asked me not to use the NLT. If you got a problem with it then we should just stop this conversation because this is the translation I usually use if I don’t use the NIV. I use the NLT because, with my dyslexia, it is the one I have been able to get the most understanding from. You don’t speak for the whole board so I will take your request as a suggestion but probably will keep using it as it is the easiest for me to understand. 🙂

I have answered this above… I await your objection…
So what is you point in all of this? You can have faith without works or love, but it won’t save you…is that it?

(Just my two cents - the NLT is a poor translation that adds words to verses to change the meaning. You would do better to get the NAB or RSV if you want a good, easy to read translation.)
 
E.E.N.S.:
You means James 2:14??

And actually the verse is as follows:

“What does it profit, my brethren, if a man says he has faith but has not works? Can his faith save him?”
Yes, yes… sorry :o JAMES… forgive my dyslexia!
 
Paris Blues:
Hmmmmmmm…interesting…

So does that mean…let’s say I don’t have a devotion toward our Lady (believe me, this was hard to accept but it’s growing!), then I don’t have TRUE faith then? I’m asking this because I heard somewhere on EWTN that having a devotion towards Mary is a MUST to be Catholic?
No, it’s not a must. I’d be really surprised if it was stated as such on EWTN!! What is a must is accepting as true those teachings about Mary which have been infallibly defined. Furthermore, it’s not necessary that one completely understand these teachings, just that one believe them.

In Christ,
Nancy 🙂
 
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Orionthehunter:
Singing, I’m once again impressed w/ you. As soon as the thread got off on another track, you created a new thread.

I understand what you are saying but you are creating a definition of a word (faith) that is not correct. Words mean something so that thoughts, ideas, principles and truth can mean something. When we “make up” our own definition, we are unable to communicate with others who have a different definition. Faith means by definition “unquestioning belief”. Pope Benedict (when he was Cardinal Ratzinger) took 90 pages in “Introduction to Christianity” to explain what it means to believe and faith means that you approach what you hold as truth without question or reservation.

You are trying to add the component of “love” to faith and this is not semantically correct. Love is our response to our faith but it isn’t a prerequisite or automatic. I can unquestioningly believe that God exists and have no love (which Paul called a faith without life but it still remains faith). Once I have Faith, I need to pray for the gifts of Love, Hope, and Charity. These are all distinct gifts from God for which we must respond to God’s invititation to Faith, His unconditional Love, His unending promise of his Mercy through Christ, and calling to Witness the Good News.

In short, you are trying to combine two distinct "thoughts (faith and love) into your own definition that you call “True Faith”. While in your mind, you know what you are talking about but many other people have definitions of “True Faith” that are different and these differences erect barriors for effective communication. For instance, some use “True Faith” when referencing what the Catholic Church teaches, others use “True Faith” to describe Mormonism, others use “True Faith” to describe Paganism.

In fact, maybe I’m pretty thick-headed, when I read your definition of “True Faith” what I hear is the combination of Faith and Charity as Charity is the outward response to Faith in God and basking in God’s Love and Hope. Anyway, see why it is imperative that to communicate thoughts we ahve to be diligent about using words for which the definitions are clear and universally understood?
Yes, this is very true. Protestants have come to re-define “faith” to include works so that they can say it really is “faith alone”. We see in scripture that faith and love are two separate things and that it’s possible to have faith WITHOUT love, but here faith has been re-defined to include love so that it’s still “faith alone”.

We need to be careful that it’s not the misuse of terms that separates us. That would be a pity.

In Christ,
Nancy 🙂
 
E.E.N.S.:
I think it would be better to differentiate the two by saying “Living Faith” and “Dead Faith.”

😉
That would be very scriptural!

In Christ,
Nancy 🙂
 
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Singinbeauty:
You can also have faith without works which makes that faith DEAD. What I speak of is the TRUE and WHOLE Faith. You cannot have that without Love because God IS Love. You can’t have FULL FAITH in Him without it. There are different kinds of faith as evident in James when he said that a faith without works is the kind that won’t save you. 🙂
I understand that YOU speak of “true” or “whole” faith but God never does in his word. He speaks clearly of “dead” faith, “useless” faith, and “incomplete” faith, the converse of which would be live, useful and complete faith, but never “true” or “whole” faith.

It doesn’t seem to be the case that you can’t have full faith without love since Paul says just the opposite:

1 Cor. 13:2 if I have all faith, so that I can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.

Wouldn’t ALL faith be this “FULL” faith to which you are referring?
You know, in the whole time I have been on this board NOT one person has asked me not to use the NLT. If you got a problem with it then we should just stop this conversation because this is the translation I usually use if I don’t use the NIV. I use the NLT because, with my dyslexia, it is the one I have been able to get the most understanding from. You don’t speak for the whole board so I will take your request as a suggestion but probably will keep using it as it is the easiest for me to understand. 🙂
Perhaps the inferiority of the NLT becomes most evident in James where words are added to scripture. James 2:14 does NOT say “kind of faith”, the NLT added that. Nor does James say that faith without works “is no faith at all”. That’s a terrible mistranslation and completely changes Jame’s meaning. No other Protestant bible translates James in this way. In it’s attempt to be more “readable” it has added to the word of God and changed its meaning.

This is no different than the Watchtower rendering John 1:1 “in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was a god”. JW’s point to it and say “see? It’s in the bible”, but it really isn’t.

My question to you is where, in scripture, do we find the teaching that one cannot have faith without love? What you did earlier was simply to offer many, many verses that had the word “faith” in it but none of them had anything to do with the impossibility of having faith without love.

In Christ,
Nancy 🙂
 
Good idea moving this to a new thread, by the way. I’ll need to remember to do that.

In Christ,
Nancy 🙂
 
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Catholic4aReasn:
My question to you is where, in scripture, do we find the teaching that one cannot have faith without love? What you did earlier was simply to offer many, many verses that had the word “faith” in it but none of them had anything to do with the impossibility of having faith without love.

In Christ,
Nancy 🙂
Ahhhhhhhh… I see where you are coming from now. Sorry for the confusion… My reasoning behind my though process is this… God IS Love. To have faith in Him void of Love is almost like you have a faith that is void of Him. You cannot have it both ways. Maybe this is why Jesus said that there will be those who cast out demons in His name but He will claim to never know them. 🤷
 
Perhaps the inferiority of the NLT becomes most evident in James where words are added to scripture. James 2:14 does NOT say “kind of faith”, the NLT added that. Nor does James say that faith without works “is no faith at all”. That’s a terrible mistranslation and completely changes Jame’s meaning. No other Protestant bible translates James in this way. In it’s attempt to be more “readable” it has added to the word of God and changed its meaning.
This is no different than the Watchtower rendering John 1:1 “in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was a god”. JW’s point to it and say “see? It’s in the bible”, but it really isn’t.
Ok, James 2:14
NLT

14Dear brothers and sisters, what’s the use of saying you have faith if you don’t prove it by your actions? That kind of faith can’t save anyone.

NIV
Code:
14What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can **such** faith save him?
NASB

14(A)What use is it, (B)my brethren, if someone says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him?

AMP

14What is the use (profit), my brethren, for anyone to profess to have faith if he has no [good] works [to show for it]? Can [such] faith save [his soul]?

CEV

14My friends, what good is it to say you have faith, when you don’t do anything to show that you really do have faith? Can that kind of faith save you?

It’s not only the NLT that states this view my friend. 🙂
 
I have heard it resolved in this way. The Catholic understanding of the word “Faith” and the Protestant understanding of the word “Faith” are different.

Catholics use the threefold formula Faith, Hope and Love progressively. Faith apprehends the unseen God. Hope is placing trust in that Faith. And Love/charity is acting on that trust (putting your foot out onto seemingly empty space and walking on it).

Protestants use the word Faith to mean all three virtues. So that any faith that is not also exhibiting the qualities of all three virtues is not “true faith.”

This confusion of terms seems to have led us to where the conversation on “Faith Alone” is.
 
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jpusateri:
I have heard it resolved in this way. The Catholic understanding of the word “Faith” and the Protestant understanding of the word “Faith” are different.

Catholics use the threefold formula Faith, Hope and Love progressively. Faith apprehends the unseen God. Hope is placing trust in that Faith. And Love/charity is acting on that trust (putting your foot out onto seemingly empty space and walking on it).

Protestants use the word Faith to mean all three virtues. So that any faith that is not also exhibiting the qualities of all three virtues is not “true faith.”

This confusion of terms seems to have led us to where the conversation on “Faith Alone” is.
You explaine that so much better than I did. And the different “definitions” in other matters also leads to division when in reality there is greater unity than is understood.
 
Faith and TRUE Faith… What’s the Difference?

Faith is not different in kind, yet there can be a difference in degrees. One can be “of little faith” (Matt 6:30) or “of great faith.” (Matt 8:10). Furthermore, one can have faith without works (James 2:20), which is dead, or one can have “all faith,” but without love (1 Cor 13:2), it is nothing. But faith is simply faith.
 
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Singinbeauty:
Ok, James 2:14
NLT

14Dear brothers and sisters, what’s the use of saying you have faith if you don’t prove it by your actions? That kind of faith can’t save anyone.

NIV

14What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him?

NASB

14(A)What use is it, (B)my brethren, if someone says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him?

AMP

14What is the use (profit), my brethren, for anyone to profess to have faith if he has no [good] works [to show for it]? Can [such] faith save [his soul]?

CEV

14My friends, what good is it to say you have faith, when you don’t do anything to show that you really do have faith? Can that kind of faith save you?

It’s not only the NLT that states this view my friend. 🙂
RSV

What does it profit, my brethren, if a man says he has faith but has not works? Can his faith save him?

Douay-Rheims

What shall it profit, my brethren, if a man say he hath faith, but hath not works? Shall faith be able to save him?
 
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Orionthehunter:
You explaine that so much better than I did. And the different “definitions” in other matters also leads to division when in reality there is greater unity than is understood.
Orion,

Thank you for the compliment! I have to admit I didn’t read your post before I posted, and I went back to find yours after this comment. We are indeed saying essentially the same thing.

I got this explanation from “Not by Faith Alone” by Robert Sungenis whose writings I really like apart from the Geocentrism thing. :ehh:
 
James 2:14 ti ofeloV adelfoi mou ean pistin legh tiV ecein erga de mh ech mh dunatai h pistiV swsai auton

It doesn’t have any Greek work that translates “kind” of faith. Just faith.

Young’s Literal Translation states:

“What [is] the profit, my brethren, if faith, any one may speak of having, and works he may not have? is that faith able to save him?”
 
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Singinbeauty:
This is a question that came up in the Catholics Accused of Worshipping Mary thread and I thought it warrented it’s own because it was detracting from the OP.

I often speak of TRUE Faith in many of my posts because I believe that there is FAITH then there is TRUE FAITH. You can have Faith that God exists, as the pharisees did, but TRUE FAITH means that you have to swallow EVERYTHING that God commands.

What do you think?
Faith is a supernatural virtue that helps us to believe all that God has revealed. Just as supernatural charity (the state of grace) is lost by just one mortal sin, so supernatural faith is lost by the rejection of just one dogma. That is why it is correct to say that we must believe all that the Church teaches if we are to have true faith.

The folowing is taken from the Encyclical Satis Cognitun, which is available on line and everyone should take the time to read.

Pope Leo XIII: * "Faith, as the Church teaches, is “that supernatural virtue by which, through the help of God and through the assistance of His grace, we believe what he has revealed to be true, not on account of the intrinsic truth perceived by the natural light of reason, but because of the authority of God Himself, the Revealer, who can neither deceive nor be deceived” (Conc. Vat., Sess. iii., cap. 3). If then it be certain that anything is revealed by God, and this is not believed, then nothing whatever is believed by divine Faith: for what the Apostle St. James judges to be the effect of a moral deliquency, the same is to be said of an erroneous opinion in the matter of faith. “Whosoever shall offend in one point, is become guilty of all” (Ep. James ii., 10). Nay, it applies with greater force to an erroneous opinion. For it can be said with less truth that every law is violated by one who commits a single sin, since it may be that he only virtually despises the majesty of God the Legislator. But he who dissents even in one point from divinely revealed truth absolutely rejects all faith, since he thereby refuses to honour God as the supreme truth and the formal motive of faith. “In many things they are with me, in a few things not with me; but in those few things in which they are not with me the many things in which they are will not profit them” (S. Augustinus in Psal. liv., n. 19). And this indeed most deservedly; for they, who take from Christian doctrine what they please, lean on their own judgments, not on faith; and not “bringing into captivity every understanding unto the obedience of Christ” (2 Cor. x., 5), they more truly obey themselves than God. “You, who believe what you like, believe yourselves rather than the gospel” (S. Augustinus, lib. xvii., Contra Faustum Manichaeum, cap. 3). For this reason the Fathers of the Vatican Council [Vatican I] laid down nothing new, but followed divine revelation and the acknowledged and invariable teaching of the Church as to the very nature of faith, when they decreed as follows: “All those things are to be believed by divine and Catholic faith which are contained in the written or unwritten word of God, and which are proposed by the Church as divinely revealed, either by a solemn definition or in the exercise of its ordinary and universal Magisterium” (Sess. iii., cap. 3).

When the world speaks of “faith” they often use the word to refer to the beliefs of various religions. For example, they may speak of the Moslem faith, or the Hindu faith, or the Bhudist faith etc. In reality, these “faiths” are simply false religions being glorified by the name of faith; but none of them possess true supernatural faith since they all reject the truth that has been revealed by God.

True faith, as the Church teaches, is a supernatural virtue that help is to believe what God has revealed through the Church; and is lost by the rejection of even one dogmas.

The following is a link to the above encyclical. This encyclical is very good and shines the light of truth on many errors of our day. Errors that even many Catholics are falling into. It is a must read.

72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:hFg6f7OnlWIJ:www.vatican.va/holy_father/leo_xiii/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_29061896_satis-cognitum_en.html+Satis+Cognitum+faith+is+supernatural&hl=en*
 
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