Peter Kreeft and Faith Alone

[MilesJesu]

AquinasXVI,

I apologize for misleading you with my screen name of MilesJesu. I do not belong to the Ecclesial Family of Consecrated Life known as Miles Jesu:

(milesjesu.com/about/about-whatismj.html

I took the name by translating “Soldier of Jesus” into Latin, before I knew about the group known as Miles Jesu. It was based on being a member of the Church Militant.

My apologies if I have confused or misdirected anyone.

Peace,

MilesJesu

 

[JimG]

Whether or not works are part of the essence of Faith, Kreeft’s point was that the language used by Luther and the language used by Trent meant different things by the same words. To the extent that the two parties involved did not understand that their words did not mean the same thing to the other party, they could not help but talk past each other. Not an uncommon situation in apologetics.

 

[JimG]

Back in the days when Hans Kung was still considered an orthodox Catholic theologian, (1964), he wrote a book called Justification: The Doctrine of Karl Barth, and a Catholic Reflection.

Karl Barth, an Evangelical theologian, being satisfied that Kung correctly presented his theological positions, wrote an introduction to the book, in which he says in part:

“The positive conclusion of your critique is this: What I say about justification–making allowances for certain precarious yet not insupportable turns of phrase–does objectively concur on all points with the correctly understood teaching of the Roman Catholic Church. You can imagine my considerable amazement at this bit of news. . . If what you have presented in Part Two of this book is actually the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church, then I must certainly admit that my view of justification agrees with the Roman Catholic view; if only for the reason that the Roman Catholic teaching would then be most strikingly in accord with mine.”

Now I am not a good enough theologian to say whether the Catholic position and the Evangelical / Barthian position are really in such striking agreement. Yet the book did receive a Nihil Obstat, and an Imprimatur from Cardinal Richard Cushing.

 

[Pax]

It is not at all improper to state that faith is a work. Faith[believing] is something “we do.” Moreover, scripture tells us that faith is a work. This can be seen in the following:

In John’s vision in the book of Revelation, Jesus warns members of the church at Ephesus that they might be destroyed if they do not repent and return to the love they once had. This is very clear in Rev 2:4-5 where Jesus says, “But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember then from what you have fallen, repent and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.” Then again just before addressing the transgressions of the church at Thyatira, Jesus says in Rev 2:19 that, “I know your works, your love and faith and service and patient endurance, and that your latter works exceed the first.” These verses are significant in two ways. They show the necessity of love in the plan of salvation, and they show that both love and faith are referred to as works.

Paul teaches that faith and love are works in 1st Thessalonians 1:2-3 where he says, " We always give thanks to God for all of you and mention you in our prayers, constantly remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ."

This linkage is also made by Paul in Galatians 5:6 where we read, “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is of any avail, but faith working through love.”

John 6:27-28
Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For it is on him that God the Father has set his seal." Then they said to him, “What must we do to perform the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”

Faith is both a gift and a work. Light has the characteristics of both particles and waves. Faith is similar in that it shares the characteristics of two things that we might otherwise tend to separate.

 

[BibleReader]

MaryRose35:

BibleReader,

I hear what you are saying, and I agree that Luther was completely wrong, but faith and works are not one and the same thing. Please excuse me if I am misunderstanding you, as I certainly may be. But it seems you are confusing faith and works. You wrote:

It is true to say that belief and obedience go hand in hand. In fact, the Greek word translated disbelieve (in some places) also means to “disobey”. If you look up the definition of the Greek word “apisteo” it means both “to disbelieve” and “to disobey”. So, when Jesus said “He who believes and is baptized shall be saved. He who believes not (apisteo) shall be condemned” (Mk 16:16), it could be translated “he who obeys not shall be condemned”. So it is true to say that belief and obedience go hand in hand, and are both necessary for salvation.

But faith is not works. Theological faith is a supernatural virtue that enables us (helps us) to believe what God has revealed. Faith perfects the intellect by enabling us to believe what is true. We must also do what God has revealed, but faith is not doing, it is believing. Faith and works are two different things.

Encyclical Satis Cognitum: "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).(Encyclical Satis Cognitum).

Faith is intellectual belief. It is believing the truths that God has revealed. Living according to our faith is not identical with faith, although it is absolutely necessary for salvation.

Some people could interpret what you wrote to mean that if a person behaves the way Jesus requires, yet does not believe He is God, they will be saved. I know you didn’t mean to say that, but if you read over your posts on this thread they seem to imply it.

Can you find something qualifying as an expression of the Magisterium which affirmatively disconnects faith and works?

Like John Paul II, James, in his Epistle, denies “salvation by faith alone.” When James says that faith without works can not save, that it is “dead,” he means that *there is no ultimate distinction, in reality. *James 2:14-17.

And it’s not merely a “procession of thoughts,” where “faith alone” tends to be followed by good works.

It is inherent. Never, in all of salvation history, has the Holy Spirit generated a grace of faith which is dead to the concept of works.

In other words, there is no such thing as “faith alone.”

 

[savone]

JimG:

Whether or not works are part of the essence of Faith, Kreeft’s point was that the language used by Luther and the language used by Trent meant different things by the same words. To the extent that the two parties involved did not understand that their words did not mean the same thing to the other party, they could not help but talk past each other. Not an uncommon situation in apologetics.

I think this is an excellent observation. As well, I might add, there has been, and is, the perpetuation of talking “past each other” for 500 years.

The hope is that the Joint Declaration of Faith between Lutherans and Catholics is a step in talking not at or to each other, but with each other in the Spirit of Christ.

 

[dennisknapp]

BibleReader:

So, Kreeft is an idiot.

Please, no personal attacks. Kreeft is a great philosopher, theologian, and writer. Read what he says before you judge him and find him guilt.

Here is his website:

peterkreeft.com/

Peace

 

[BibleReader]

dennisknapp:

Please, no personal attacks. Kreeft is a great philosopher, theologian, and writer. Read what he says before you judge him and find him guilt.

Here is his website:

peterkreeft.com/

Peace

Listen, you are right: I stand corrected. A personal attack was improper.

But I read Kreeft’s material, and he’s not well-thought-out. Up above, in the the statement I quote, his lack of philosophical order, dressed with the authority of his position and reputation, amounts to an abandonment of the Church’s theology.

I should not have said that he is an idiot. But his position is subtly heretical.

What would his answer be, to my questions about the Parable of the Good Samaritan?

Would he admit that the failure of the overt believers, the priest and the Levite, to engage in the good work indicated a lack of faith, whereas the success of the overt non-believer in rendering aid suggests that the Samaritan has faith?

Sorry, but he’s wrong. His theology is bad.

 

[bigdawg]

savone:

I think this is an excellent observation. As well, I might add, there has been, and is, the perpetuation of talking “past each other” for 500 years.

The hope is that the Joint Declaration of Faith between Lutherans and Catholics is a step in talking not at or to each other, but with each other in the Spirit of Christ.

The Joint Declaration is fairly ambiguous and does not address all the issues that seperate us from the Lutherans with regards to justification.

 

[savone]

bigdawg:

The Joint Declaration is fairly ambiguous and does not address all the issues that seperate us from the Lutherans with regards to justification.

A case in point…

 

[MaryRose35]

BibleReader:

Can you find something qualifying as an expression of the Magisterium which affirmatively disconnects faith and works?

Like John Paul II, James, in his Epistle, denies “salvation by faith alone.” When James says that faith without works can not save, that it is “dead,” he means that *there is no ultimate distinction, in reality. *James 2:14-17.

I don’t have time to locate any quotes right now, but you may want to do a google search on “dead faith”. St. Thomas speaks of it many times in the Summa. “Dead faith” is faith separated from charity. It is faith, but it is dead. When James said faith without works is dead, he meant that it was faith separated from charity. He didn’t say faith without works is not faith… he said faith without works is dead. St. Thomas explains that even “dead faith” is a gift of God, even though it will not profit for salvation unless it is joined to charity.

You should be able to find a lot of good information by doing a google search on “dead faith”.