tdandh26:
What other broader idea could he have been dealing with?
I think I already said. The human tendency to think that we can somehow impress God by our own efforts.
Jewish law was the only thing which people considered to have any salvific applications.
I’m not sure what you mean by this. But insofar as you’re right, this actually supports my point. Of course Paul is speaking of Jewish law, because that is what his audience were tempted to use as a means of earning their salvation. But the same principle applies wherever the same attitude appears. Our relationship to God is based on God’s free gift, and anything that compromises this is suspect.
Jewish people at that time would have been very indoctrinated into their law, and as the saying goes old habits are hard to break.
If the Gospel is merely about “breaking old habits”–abandoning one law to take up another–then what’s the point?
Pegans on the other hand would have had the opposite problem. For they would have had no knowledge of the concept of salvific works.
Depends on what you mean. As I understand it, pagan religion consisted largely of ritual. I’m not sure it did make the same sort of connection between morality and religion that Judaism and Christianity did/do. But on the other hand, Greco-Roman paganism was largely based on the idea of bargaining with the gods, if I’m not mistaken. So the sort of thing Paul’s attacking *would *be relevant for converts from paganism.
Their main and formost teachings would have been on the belief that Christ was God and the Savior of the world. Their inclinations would have been to just say ok " I accept Him now Im saved" and this James addresses.
I’m not sure about this. I get the impression that James is addressing Jewish Christians, and Paul is more likely to be the one writing for a Gentile audience.
But apart from these are you saying that Jesus never taught that works were an essential part of salvation.
Of course not. Just where do you get the impression that Protestants as a whole teach this? Lutherans dance around it, admittedly, and of course the U.S. is overrun with Baptist heretics with antinomian leanings. But neither Lutherans (who in my opinion are not heretical so much as a bit too jittery) nor antinomian Baptists (who do not make up the entirety of the Baptist tradition bya ny means) represent all Protestants.
The traditional Protestant point of view is that works are part of salvation, but are not the basis for justification. Some Protestants are willing to speak of a final justification based on works, but reject the view that initial justification is based on works. Catholics reject this too, if I’m not mistaken. So what is the fuss about?
There are real differences between Protestants and Catholics on soteriology–such as the Catholic idea that unformed, nonsalvific faith is a supernatural gift, which most Protestants deny. Whether or not works are part of salvation (when salvation is understood as the entire process by which God unites us to Himself), however, is not a point of controversy between Protestants as a whole and Catholics.
I just love how protestants use the letters to refute Jesus’s own words as if Paul was rejecting his own admonition to let him who teaches a different gospel be anathema.
You might try learning something about Protestant theology before indulging your irony. You could try the writings of hardline anti-Catholics like James White, just to relieve any suspicion you have that I’m giving you some spiel that is unique to Anglicans.
And your idea that Paul seems to be doing something flies directly into the face of Sola Scriptura, does it not.
Quite possibly you don’t understand sola scriptura any better than you do sola fide. I don’t think any classic version of sola scriptura excludes the possibility that a Biblical writer may “seem” to say this or that. Why on earth would it?
Besides, I don’t claim to believe in either sola scriptura or sola fide–I don’t think they are useful slogans, precisely because so many people associate them with very silly theology. I don’t think a slogan-based theology is generally a good idea.
I do believe that the sole ground of our initial justification is the free grace of God given through Jesus Christ and received by faith.
I also believe that all Apostolic Tradition which Christians are bound to obey is found within Holy Scripture, so that whatever cannot be shown to be there (when due respect is paid to the rule of faith handed down by the historic tradition of Christianity) should not be required of Christians as a matter of faith or defined as dogma.
You can tell me if these two statements correspond to “sola fide” and “sola scriptura” or not. I don’t really care either way.
Edwin
Really? That doesn’t make sense to me, because if anything, James is saying that you CAN’T just accept Christ academically, you have to live out your faith.
Gotcha.
