Faith vs. Works

[Jon_S_1]

That isn’t really the same comparison though. The gift your giving me your just saying accept it and you can have it, but your saying that God’s gift of salvation you can’t just accept it. I’m still confused on it but your saying that God gives you the opportunity so he is still expecting you to do something or you are saying that God gives you salvation and you have to have faith and works to receive the gift. You see what I’m saying?

I tried thinking of an example like you provided but I couldn’t get my thoughts to the keyboard haha.

The analogy is not perfect.

Maybe think of it this way.

If the gift was 100% Gods grace with nothing for us to do, then EVERYONE would be saved right?

But we know from scripture everyone is not saved. We know we must say yes to God. That does not diminish his grace because we are all 100% damned except he gave us an opportunity to accept his grace.

Terminology may be an issue too. Gods gift is a gracious one. And Gods gracious nature moves on all men’s hearts to seek him.

 

[WorkingFaith]

Yes I am there is no faith and good works apart from the Grace of God. And faith without works is fruitless.

To make it more clear if God has given me the Grace to have faith, and by using that Grace to do good works that is living out my live to do the will of God.

God game me 10 commandments to follow. Those are works.

If I have grace from God to know the truth, which is faith, but reject that grace and refuse to do good works, then my faith willnot save me.

As the gospel tells me faith without works is fruitless.

And faith and works without the Grace of God to begin with is impossible.

Unless you can show me how we can do anything good on our own without the Grace of God. We rely on his grace for everything.

Maybe I said something wrong but I don’t think that our faith saves us. There is no combination of anything that saves us besides God’s grace. The means that He saves us is by faith apart from the works that he supplies us with because as His children we are His workers. Even the faith is provided by Him. So by God’s pure grace He saved us through faith that he gave us not by works so we couldn’t brag about the things we do. We are his workers though and He has set works in our paths. So we should have faith and works. Saved by God’s grace through the faith given to us and we know that we are saved because He has provided us works. I could be totally off here but I feel like there is progress. Thanks for being patient with me.

 

[WorkingFaith]

The analogy is not perfect.

Maybe think of it this way.

If the gift was 100% Gods grace with nothing for us to do, then EVERYONE would be saved right?

But we know from scripture everyone is not saved. We know we must say yes to God. That does not diminish his grace because we are all 100% damned except he gave us an opportunity to accept his grace.

Terminology may be an issue too. Gods gift is a gracious one. And Gods gracious nature moves on all men’s hearts to seek him.

You have a good point Titus 2 says that God’s grace has appeared, bringing salvation to all. So why would I accept God’s grace and not somebody else? For instance what is the difference between my brother and me?

 

[Jon_S_1]

You have a good point Titus 2 says that God’s grace has appeared, bringing salvation to all. So why would I accept God’s grace and not somebody else? For instance what is the difference between my brother and me?

The difference is you accept it, and others reject it. Like Jonah they run from God.

 

[WorkingFaith]

The difference is you accept it, and others reject it. Like Jonah they run from God.

God had a plan for Jonah though and when Jonah tried to run God got a fish to eat him until he would do what God wanted him to do. Would it be the same with choosing Gods grace?

 

[Jon_S_1]

God had a plan for Jonah though and when Jonah tried to run God got a fish to eat him until he would do what God wanted him to do. Would it be the same with choosing Gods grace?

Sure, people convert and turn toward God for a number of reasons. Some dramatic some not so much. The point is it is up to us to choose a life where we allow God to work in us and his grace to flourish or we choose ourselves and things of the world. The choice is always ours.

God died for everyone and extends his gift of salvation to everyone. His grace is written on our hearts as we are in his image and it’s up to is to accept his grace in our lives and his gifts.

 

[WorkingFaith]

Sure, people convert and turn toward God for a number of reasons. Some dramatic some not so much. The point is it is up to us to choose a life where we allow God to work in us and his grace to flourish or we choose ourselves and things of the world. The choice is always ours.

God died for everyone and extends his gift of salvation to everyone. His grace is written on our hearts as we are in his image and it’s up to is to accept his grace in our lives and his gifts.

I guess what I am saying is that Jonah’s choice was his personal choice but God put him in a situation where he pretty much had to say yes. So it is a personal choice to the extent that it was something God already had planned.

 

[Jon_S_1]

I guess what I am saying is that Jonah’s choice was his personal choice but God put him in a situation where he pretty much had to say yes. So it is a personal choice to the extent that it was something God already had planned.

Well sure, but

People reject God all the time. Jonah could have cursed God in the fish and even after being spit out could have said how dare I go through that.

So God can present himself to us in many profound ways. If we are oriented toward him and open we can hear and see and grow and love, but if we are closed off we miss it. And many do.

I am afraid that in talking to a great number of atheists, that Hod could manifest as the burning bush or more and they would still not believe. They choose to be closed to God.

 

[CHRISTINE77]

But to accept God’s grace, first you have to have faith. Many people turn to God at their darkest hour, when they have no where else to go. But at least they had the faith to turn to God and then they felt the grace of God. So I say faith first, works second.

 

[WorkingFaith]

But to accept God’s grace, first you have to have faith. Many people turn to God at their darkest hour, when they have no where else to go. But at least they had the faith to turn to God and then they felt the grace of God. So I say faith first, works second.

Isn’t faith the gift from God?

 

[josie_L]

Oh this is a fun thread. No one defines their terms. Because I assure you what Protestants mean by “faith” and what Catholics mean by “faith” are very different. To be precise, the proximate object of faith is different. This faith/works debate tends to get reduced to Protestants having faith alone, and Catholics faith + works. I have a good Catholic friend - very devout, cradle Catholic - who can not tell me straight what role personal faith in Jesus actually serves in Catholic soteriology. Which is not surprising. The profession of faith on becoming Catholic after all affirms faith in what-the-RCC-says-about-God, not in God directly. I cannot fathom what Catholics must believe in order to be saved except for believing in the Roman Catholic church. CrossofChrist says:

And Catholics are justified by baptism - not faith. Baptism is not not simply the outward sign of inner faith, but it, like all Catholic sacraments, works ex opere operato. “By the work worked”. So that still leaves me asking what need Catholics have for faith. CrossofChrist has a good grasp of Catholic salvation, and it’s clear that faith in Christ isn’t necessary.

But let’s continue. Should you commit a mortal sin you are re-justified by penance - not faith. Your justification is increased by “good works through divine grace” - not faith. “Temporal punishment” for sins denies Christ took the full punishment in your place, so you do not put your faith in Christ for that like Protestants do. You have to suffer “satisfactory punishments” (Trent’s words) to satisfy the justice of God by making reparation for sin (did Jesus suffer the punishment for your sin, which made no difference to anything because you must still suffer too?), until which time - either in this world or the next (purgatory) - you are separated from God. Man was separated from God at the fall, and Jesus’ sacrifice for the sins of mankind has not restored anything for Catholics who still cannot “approach the throne of grace with confidence” (Hebrews 4:16) because that would be the sin of presumption. Personal trust in Jesus Christ doesn’t doesn’t come into it. In practice, it’s only “works”. When I ask what Catholics must believe in order to go to heaven, I’m not being silly. If Catholics want to debate about “faith alone” as opposed to “faith + works” then that assumes faith plays some role. I really want to know: what is the content of Catholic faith in Christ and what role does it play in justification? Is the proximate object of Catholic faith Christ… or the RCC? Make no mistake, the faith alone vs. faith + works debate speaks right to the heart of the Gospel. Either Jesus’ sacrifice is once and sufficient, or it was insufficient and needs adding to. Let’s avoid the fallacy of moderation in this case: it has to be one or the other, there is no middle ground. And how one answers that will be reflected in whether you subscribe to sola fide or not.

Before entering into another “faith vs. works” debate, and we’ve all seen these before, Catholics need to fight to make faith in Christ part of the debate in the first place. End this thread here and now. Have the debate about the role of justifying faith in Catholicism first.

And Jon S, you quote a whole lot of Scripture - are you using private judgement like a Protestant or has the Infallible Interpreter finally got around to interpreting those verses?

God bless
Stephen

Firstly, the idea of “faith alone” is not biblical, i.e., the word “alone” was added in later additions of the Bible post-reformation. Secondly, there are two definitions of faith that are being parlayed in the Bible, the one defined in James is referring to an “intellectual” faith, that is, a belief system understood by the Christian as truth but without “soul”. In other words what James is trying to convey is that such a faith does not save (is dead) because it is not faith working in love. The faith which justifies, and the faith which St. Paul refers to is the latter faith, i.e., faith working in love/charity. The infallible interpreter, i.e., the Holy Spirit, which inspired both St. Paul and St. James I’m sure never meant there to be a contradiction of any sort with regard to interpretation, i.e., it is human folly/pride that has caused many to misunderstand the Bible. In order to understand the Catholic position, one must realize that Christ left behind an undivided Church guided by the Holy Spirit to preserve the faith handed down by the apostles, so that as Jesus promised to Peter the “gates of Hell shall not prevail.”

Moreover, Catholics believe we have been redeemed by Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, and as such, are saved, and we continue to be saved as long as we stand firm in Christ’s truth/commandments. Christ’s truth entails not only accepting Jesus as our Lord and Saviour, but in living out the truth as He himself lived it out, hence, we will suffer for upholding Truth in this world as He did, i.e., we will be tempted, ridiculed, persecuted. . .etc. As Catholics we believe salvation is an on-going process, i.e., it is not enough to be covered in Christ to hide the dirt underneath, the dirt must be removed, we must be transformed from within through the graces we receive from God. Any dirt still remaining after we die will be purged in purgatory,but that is still God’s graces working within us. Salvation is complete once we enter Heaven.

 

[WorkingFaith]

Well sure, but

People reject God all the time. Jonah could have cursed God in the fish and even after being spit out could have said how dare I go through that.

So God can present himself to us in many profound ways. If we are oriented toward him and open we can hear and see and grow and love, but if we are closed off we miss it. And many do.

I am afraid that in talking to a great number of atheists, that Hod could manifest as the burning bush or more and they would still not believe. They choose to be closed to God.

I get what your saying its just hard to reconcile our responsibility to accept God’s grace and the fact that He chose us and He has to reveal it to us. Know what I mean? I’m gonna do some diggin on everything we talked about so if I take a while to get back thats why. Thanks for sacrificing your time. I find this to be the hardest thing to sacrifice for someone else.

 

[josie_L]

But to accept God’s grace, first you have to have faith. Many people turn to God at their darkest hour, when they have no where else to go. But at least they had the faith to turn to God and then they felt the grace of God. So I say faith first, works second.

This is erroneous, faith is a gift from God, i.e., it is through His grace that we come to believe. Faith cannot exist without receiving God’s grace first.

 

[CHRISTINE77]

This is erroneous, faith is a gift from God, i.e., it is through His grace that we come to believe. Faith cannot exist without receiving God’s grace first.

Okay I stand corrected. According to Pope Francis, even atheists can receive grace. Still, I think there is a some sense of seeking the good/ the light that leads one to recognize the presence of God’s grace. Maybe that’s what I’m trying to say. When one is following an evil path it is difficult to find God in one’s life.

 

[josie_L]

Okay I stand corrected. According to Pope Francis, even atheists can receive grace. ** Still, I think there is a some sense of seeking the good/ the light that leads one to recognize the presence of God’s grace.** Maybe that’s what I’m trying to say. When one is following an evil path it is difficult to find God in one’s life.

Seek and you shall find . . . etc.

 

[WorkingFaith]

Well sure, but

People reject God all the time. Jonah could have cursed God in the fish and even after being spit out could have said how dare I go through that.

So God can present himself to us in many profound ways. If we are oriented toward him and open we can hear and see and grow and love, but if we are closed off we miss it. And many do.

I am afraid that in talking to a great number of atheists, that Hod could manifest as the burning bush or more and they would still not believe. They choose to be closed to God.

I’ve been trying to find scripture on this but is the grace of God given to everybody? I looked at that Titus 2:11 verse but I’m not 100% sure that its saying that God has extended grace to everyone. I’m also still stuck on bringing together the Romans 9 God choosing and us making the choice. I know that God chose His people and that we are responsible for choosing or not choosing to follow Christ…

Thanks.

 

[Good_Fella]

In the next verses of Ephesians we see that the salvation comes by faith its a gift from God apart from any works we have done so that nobody may boast. But it goes on to say that we were created to do the work that he has already planned for us. So God in His wisdom showed grace to us that by faith in Christ whom he raised from the dead we would be saved its not because we did something to appeal to God not because of some kind of work but because He is who He is. Along with that work

Concerning Ephesians 2:8-10, no human being can merit the initial grace of forgiveness and justification at the beginning of conversion. Our sanctification and regeneration through baptism - the moment we become a new creation in Christ - depends solely on the Divine initiative and no preceding merit of ours. However, moved by the Holy Spirit and the love of Christ, who is the source of all our subsequent merits gained by our good works done in charity and grace, we can merit for ourselves and for others the graces needed for our sanctification and sustained justification for the attainment of eternal life. Since grace has gone before us, we are given what is due for our collaboration with the Holy Spirit: the increase of charity and grace in our lives. Grace unites us to Christ’s active love and confers a supernatural quality to our righteous deeds so that they are meritorious in God’s sight. Our merits are thus the fruits of divine grace, and so God could not possibly dismiss them. Of course, we cannot claim any merit for ourselves, despite how well we collaborate in God’s work, for without divine grace we could do nothing that would please God. He is the one who has prepared us to freely will what he wills so that we are worthy of obtaining eternal life. Meanwhile God could not be pleased with how we conducted our lives if we had no freedom to respond to the promptings of the Holy Spirit. It is He who indeed prompts us to freely act out of love for God and our neighbour so that we should be saved - not because we have already attained our salvation. The graces we receive are for the purpose of enabling us to know God and to love him, to complete what God has begun in our lives - if we are receptive to his assistance. Our salvation does depend on the measure of our love for God and for his sake above all for our neighbour.

Along with that faith God has created works for each of His children to do. Therefore we need the works to represent that we truly have faith and we truly are God’s children. He doesn’t want me to boast in the things that I do because its Him who saved me, but my works will show that God has saved me.

We need good works to complete our faith. If we need good works to show that we truly have faith, then obviously it relies on good works for its completion. Some Christians are more or less charitable than others, so there are some who are more or less faithful. There are some who are more or less faithful because they are more or less charitable than others.

James says you can’t claim to have faith but not have works because they are inseparable but that does not mean that your works save you and what I was trying to say is faith saved her.

If faith saves and is inseparable from works, then works should also save.

Faith and works are like a disease and symptoms. If you have faith you will have works just like if you have a disease you will have symptoms. He would have nothing perhaps because “faith without works is dead”.

Not necessarily. There are numerous ‘silent killer’ diseases which have hardly noticeable or no symptoms at all by the time it’s too late. You could walk and talk just fine one day as you did since you were little and then the following morning die of a sudden stroke while taking a shower because of a brain aneurysm. Seriously, good works aren’t symptomatic of having faith, but are the result of our free response to divine grace through faith. Physiological symptoms are beyond our control once a disease sets in. But we have the freedom to resist God’s grace even in our faith. Our salvation does hinge on how well we cooperate with divine grace. The decrease of symptoms indicates the disease is in remission. Once the symptoms are entirely gone that doesn’t mean the disease was never there to begin with. So a dead faith does not mean that there wasn’t any faith to begin with.

PAX

 

[CHRISTINE77]

Not necessarily. There are numerous ‘silent killer’ diseases which have hardly noticeable or no symptoms at all by the time it’s too late. You could walk and talk just fine one day as you did since you were little and then the following morning die of a sudden stroke while taking a shower because of a brain aneurysm. Seriously, good works aren’t symptomatic of having faith, but are the result of our free response to divine grace through faith. Physiological symptoms are beyond our control once a disease sets in. But we have the freedom to resist God’s grace even in our faith. Our salvation does hinge on how well we cooperate with divine grace. The decrease of symptoms indicates the disease is in remission. Once the symptoms are entirely gone that doesn’t mean the disease was never there to begin with. So a dead faith does not mean that there wasn’t any faith to begin with.

PAX


What about people who have no faith, but do a lot of good works?

 

[Jon_S_1]

What about people who have no faith, but do a lot of good works?

Good works apart from Faith have no role in salvation. One can never do enough good works to bridge the chasm of sin that separates man and God.

 

[Cathoholic]

Heatfoam. You stated:

And Jon S, you quote a whole lot of Scripture - are you using private judgement (sic) like a Protestant or has the Infallible Interpreter finally got around to interpreting those verses?

No Heatfoam. Jon S is NOT using “private judgement like a Protestant” and you know that. If you thought he was using private judgment like a Protestant you wouldn’t be criticizing him would you? You know it is different and that’s one of the things that bother you about the Church is the submitting to proper authority.

Yes there are constraints as to how people in the fullness of Christianity (Catholicism) use Scripture but we have much more freedom than you imply. We cannot “interpret whatever we want to”.

(But if somebody does, there is an order of authority in the Church that can give authoritative correction)

The Council of Trent back in the 1500s AD put this teaching in the following manner . . .

COUNCIL OF TRENT Session IV “Furthermore, in order to restrain petulant spirits, it decrees that no one, relying on his own skill, shall, – in matters of faith, and of morals pertaining to the edification of Christian doctrine, –wresting the sacred Scripture to his own senses, presume to interpret the said sacred Scripture contrary to that sense which holy Mother Church – to whom it belongs to judge of the true sense and interpretation of the holy Scriptures – hath held and doth hold; or even contrary to the unanimous consent of the Fathers; even though such interpretations were never (intended) to be at any time published. . . .
– Council of Trent, Session IV, April 8 1546 (From page 11 Tan Edition Dogmatic Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent).

The laity do in fact have some authority to spread God’s teachings when used in the proper context. Jon S and many others here have used Sacred Scripture quite appropriately.