Logic Question about Faith Alone

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heisenburg

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Logic Question.

So, there are plenty of places where the bilbe says something akin to you are saved by your faith in christ. These versus are commonly and used to support the Faith Alone theology.

My question and please help me understand if I am wrong…

If you have faith in christ, this means you beleive in christ
If you believe in christ, this means you must beleive in all things christ says
if you beleive in all things christ says, you will do what he says

Thus far very scriptural…

If we then refuse to do what christ says, are we not saying by our actions we do not believe in what he says? Our fruits are bitter.
If we can refuse to the things christ asks of us, and still be save, are we not then calling jesus a liar?
This as we know is impossible

Following this logic, how then can Faith alone be true since by NOT doing what he says means you are saying you do not beleive based on your actions

I am not trying to rude or inconsiderate, it is jsut that using this logic, which seems to me based on my understanding of scripture very biblical, I dont see how faith alone is possible.

I am however open to hear comments to the contrary.

To each of you In Christ
 
Faith and belief are two entirely different things.

Faith can be looked at as belief that is in action. It is like the man who believes his wife when she tells him she is not cheating on him, but he hires a professional P.I. to spy on her. His words says he believes her - but his actions says he has no faith in her.

Faith, regarding scripture, is believeing to the point of living what you profess to believe. St. James tells us that the demons also believe in Jesus, but they tremble… because they do not live according to His teachings and commandments, therefore, they have belief, but no faith.

Thal59
 
to a point I agree…You can have belief, but not have faith, but you cannot have faith and NOT believe. This is a violation ot the meaning of the word faith. “To believe in something that connot be proven.”

Also, by that logic, If faith alone is true, it is then saying that If you have faith, but do not believe you are still saved. I dont think very christians any where would agree with that.

Going to the example of the Wife and husband… He may have SAID he believed, but his actions showed otherwise. If he truely believed, he would not have hired the PI. Saying and doing are two differant things.

Again though, i am still willing to listen and thank you for your response

(please forgive me if I sound rude, I do not intend to and appologize if I came off as such)

In christ
 
heisenburg said:
Logic Question.

So, there are plenty of places where the bilbe says something akin to you are saved by your faith in christ. These versus are commonly and used to support the Faith Alone theology.

My question and please help me understand if I am wrong…

If you have faith in christ, this means you beleive in christ
If you believe in christ, this means you must beleive in all things christ says
if you beleive in all things christ says, you will do what he says

Thus far very scriptural…

If we then refuse to do what christ says, are we not saying by our actions we do not believe in what he says? Our fruits are bitter.
If we can refuse to the things christ asks of us, and still be save, are we not then calling jesus a liar?
This as we know is impossible

Following this logic, how then can Faith alone be true since by NOT doing what he says means you are saying you do not beleive based on your actions

I am not trying to rude or inconsiderate, it is jsut that using this logic, which seems to me based on my understanding of scripture very biblical, I dont see how faith alone is possible.

I am however open to hear comments to the contrary.

To each of you In Christ
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This makes perfect sense, and matches the definition of faith as stated in the Bible:
And without faith it is impossible to please him. For whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. Heb 11:6
 
heisenburg said:
Following this logic, how then can Faith alone be true since by NOT doing what he says means you are saying you do not beleive based on your actions
Click to expand...
To many (most?) Protestants, “faith alone” does not mean that you are free to neglect to do what Christ says. It simply means that it is faith that brings you into a state of grace, works having no part of it. Once you are in a state of grace, the Protestant would say that you MUST obey Christ.
 
So then by protestant understanding, you do still have to DO something. Isn’t that Faith + Works?

If faith alone brings me truely to that point of grace, and then I do not do anything, am I still saved?

in christ
 
heisenburg said:
So then by protestant understanding, you do still have to DO something. Isn’t that Faith + Works?
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Kind of. They (generally) view entering the state of grace as “being saved”. So, in their theology, only faith is required for salvation. It’s the saved who do good works.
If faith alone brings me truely to that point of grace, and then I do not do anything, am I still saved?
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It depends on which Protestant you talk to. Some would say yes, if you truly believe, then no matter what happens, you are saved. But others would say that if you don’t do the good works, then this is proof you were never saved. And others would agree that you were saved, but now you have lost your salvation. And there’s probably other views too.
 
true faith brings on action Eph 2:10

one may disagree with what they think christ is commanding at times.
 
In principal i can agree, if you are truely following christ, and have faith in what he says, you will do the good works He asks of us.

this fits in with the faith plus works mentality. I guess my question is can you NOT do those things, still be saved, and not contradict what must be associated with having faith.

Thank you for your response though…

In Christ
 
The Catechism says that faith is an act of the will in which one turns toward God and away from sin; in which we decide that we will cooperate, with our intellect and will, with the divine grace that God gives us to enable us to comply with the moral law; it is a free response of the human person to the initiative of God; it is a personal adherence of the whole man to the God who reveals himself.

These are all actions, things we do in obedience to God. Thus the Apostle Paul says in Romans 1:5 "Through Him we have received the grace of apostleship, to bring about the obedience of faith…”

Faith is a work, it’s about what you DO and not merely about what you believe.
 
Thanks Neo…
My appologies if my questioning was confusing. Perhaps I should have been clearer on who it is direted at. I completely agree that Faith + Works is required. I am jsut curious how protestants can understand faith alone under these circumstances.

To any protestant brothers…
I am not attacking your beleif, I am mearely trying to understand and am not trying to bait for an argument. Please forgive me if you beleive this as such

In christ
 
St. Paul states vehemently in 1 Cor. 13 that faith without love is dead.

1 Cor. 13:2
". . . if I have all faith so as to move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing."
We can’t just believe, we MUST love - we MUST be obedient to our faith in Christ. Remember, an athiest can love - but he is not doing it out of obedience to God and it will merit him nothing.
 
elvisman said:
St. Paul states vehemently in 1 Cor. 13 that faith without love is dead.

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

We can’t just believe, we MUST love - we MUST be obedient to our faith in Christ. Remember, an athiest can love - but he is not doing it out of obedience to God and it will merit him nothing.
Click to expand...

If an atheist loves, that means, or could mean, or may mean, that God is at work in & through him. Merit is is irrelevant: what matters is that the Kingdom of God, which comes by God’s agency (& only in a way that depends on God by ours) can be present as really in an atheist as in any Christian.​

 
the meaning of the word faith. “To believe in something that connot be proven.”
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This is only the secondary definition of the word. The primary and original (remember the word comes from the Latin “fides” from which we take “fidelity”) definition is “1 a: allegiance to duty or a person : loyalty”. Somewhere along the line people started using the word faith to mean belief and they are just plain wrong. Belief is passive, faith is very active.

“Allegiance” is a word that comes from feudal times. It means “1 a: the obligation of a feudal vassal to his liege lord b (1): the fidelity owed by a subject or citizen to a sovereign or government (2): the obligation of an alien to the government under which the alien resides”. Contrary to modern stigma, the feudal system did not make people slaves or reduce them to living on dirt. Feudal lords offered protection, security, and community to their vassals. But the vassals didn’t get it for free. They had to fulfill their obligations to their lord, such as a share of the crop and service in times of war. And this is a pretty fair approximation of what it should mean to us. Christ is our liege lord, we are his vassals here on earth. He offers us redemption, sanctification and everlasting life. But to receive it we must fulfill our obligations to him, such as obeying his law.
 
heisenburg said:
Logic Question…
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I think that one thing that clouds this issue is the difference between the way that Jews and Greeks understand the word “faith”. Since Jesus was a Jew, the Apostles were Jews, and our faith is the flowering of Judaism, then we need to understand faith as a Jew would, not as a Greek.

The Hebrew word aman is translated as “believe”, “trust”, “have faith”, and also “support”, “nourish”, and “make lasting”. A derivative word is omenat, meaning “pillars” or “supports of the door” as in 2 Kings 18:16. Another cognate is emunah, which is “faithfulness” or “trust”, as in Exodus 17:12 where God brought victory to Israel as long as Moses would hold his hands up. Aaron and Hur held up his hands so that they “remained emunah until sundown”. All of these illustrate that faith is an action that we take, which is exactly what the Catholic church teaches. Faith is a work, it’s about what you DO and not merely about what you believe.

We are not able to do this work by our own effort because of the effects of original sin. Each and every time we turn toward God and away from sin it is because God gave us at that moment the grace to be able to do it. It is completely and totally due to the grace of God, who enables all of us at some point in our lives to perform the work of freely responding to Him by performing the “obedience of faith”. At that moment we truly have the choice that Adam had, to submit to God or submit to ourselves, and we only have that choice because of God’s grace.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church expresses this by saying that faith is an act of the will in which one turns toward God and away from sin; in which we decide that we will cooperate, with our intellect and will, with the divine grace that God gives us to enable us to comply with the moral law; it is a free response of the human person to the initiative of God; it is a personal adherence of the whole man to the God who reveals himself.

These are all actions, things we do in obedience to God. Thus the Apostle Paul says in Romans 1:5 "Through Him we have received the grace of apostleship, to bring about the obedience of faith…” This obedience is the essence of Christianity: submission to the Eternal One who was enfleshed, and through that submission being brought into union with Him so that we may participate in His divine life.

It’s important to understand that the Catholic view is not that we are a spirit stuck in a body, nor are we a composite of a body, a soul and a spirit as is commonly held among Protestants. God created us as a body/soul unity, not two things stuck together but one whole. As we pray with our minds using words, so we also pray with our bodies using actions. As we submit to God with our wills, so we also submit with our deeds. To speak of “faith” as separate from “works” is schizophrenic, because faith is the assent of our minds enfleshed in our actions.
 
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