Role modeling & 'works'

[Flopfoot]

If you want to show someone how to be a Christian rather than just telling them how, you have to use works because they are the only visible part of faith. This would come up in the case of parents trying to be role models to their children. But after the children learn how to be Christians by observing the works of their parents, the parents have to turn around and say the works are not actually an important part of the faith. Does this cause cognitive dissonance?

 

[ltwin]

Does this cause cognitive dissonance?

I suppose it could, but it doesn’t have to.

A Protestant could affirm that we are saved by grace through faith only but that faith is never alone. It is always accompanied by works, because good works are the fruit of faith.

The danger is doing works to earn salvation rather than doing good because you have been born again and have been changed on the inside by the work of Christ.

Another way to put it, from the Protestant perspective, is that we are not justified because of our good works, rather we do good works because we are justified.

Once again, this is a Protestant perspective to what appears to be from the OP’s question a Protestant problem. I don’t think Catholics have this problem because their theology incorporates works into the formula for justification.

 

[fhansen]

Why aren’t they an important part of our faith? Spiritual works of mercy? Corporal works of mercy? Read Matthew 25:31-46. The sheep and the goats were judged based on what they did.

We’re certainly not judged merely on our level of faith, if that’s what you’re thinking. Here’s the Church’s teaching on our “particular judgement”:
1022 Each man receives his eternal retribution in his immortal soul at the very moment of his death, in a particular judgment that refers his life to Christ: either entrance into the blessedness of heaven-through a purification[592] or immediately,[593]-or immediate and everlasting damnation.[594]

At the evening of life, we shall be judged on our love.[595]

Love is what ties the whole thing together in Catholic understanding. And love acts, BTW, by its nature.

 

[JonNC]

If you want to show someone how to be a Christian rather than just telling them how, you have to use works because they are the only visible part of faith. This would come up in the case of parents trying to be role models to their children. But after the children learn how to be Christians by observing the works of their parents, the parents have to turn around and say the works are not actually an important part of the faith. Does this cause cognitive dissonance?

Works are a critically important part of faith, but that is the point: Faith justifies, but it must be a faith that works through live.
From Luthet’s Commentary on Galatians 5:6:

Faith must of course be sincere. It must be a faith that performs good works through love. If faith lacks love it is not true faith. Thus the Apostle bars the way of hypocrites to the kingdom of Christ on all sides. He declares on the one hand, “In Christ Jesus circumcision availeth nothing,” i.e., works avail nothing, but faith alone, and that without any merit whatever, avails before God. On the other hand, the Apostle declares that without fruits faith serves no purpose. To think, “If faith justifies without works, let us work nothing,” is to despise the grace of God. Idle faith is not justifying faith. In this terse manner Paul presents the whole life of a Christian. Inwardly it consists in faith towards God, outwardly in love towards our fellow-men.

 

[Aspidistraflyer]

If faith lacks love it is not true faith.

Is the love merely a consistent accompaniment to true faith, or is God’s gift of love (as is God’s gift of faith) causal to salvation?

Because “only a faith which operates by means of love avails anything,” does not sound so much like, “You have faith which God ensures is accompanied by love.” It sounds like love actually empowers the efficacy of faith to avail anything.

 

[JonNC]

JonNC:

If faith lacks love it is not true faith.

Is the love merely a consistent accompaniment to true faith, or is God’s gift of love (as is God’s gift of faith) causal to salvation?

Because “only a faith which operates by means of love avails anything,” does not sound so much like, “You have faith which God ensures is accompanied by love.” It sounds like love actually empowers the efficacy of faith to avail anything.

I read it that, just a a good tree bears good fruit, true faith. Works should come as a result of Faith, guided by the Spirit.
Failure to do good works, however, is a rejection of Christ’s call. This is sin, and repeated unrepentant sin leads to a loss of saving faith.

 

[Aspidistraflyer]

That faith should lead us to good works, and that failure to perform good works is a sin, and that sin can cause a fall from grace - no Catholic will disagree with this.

But where does love come into it?

 

[ltwin]

Isn’t it the love spread abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit (Romans 5:5)? If we are truly placing our faith in Christ, then we share in the life of Christ and the Spirit dwells in us, and that supernatural love flows from him.

 

[Aspidistraflyer]

Right, but that does not answer the question. I mentioned that both love and faith were God’s gifts in my previous comments.

What I am wondering about is how a passage in Galatians on love and faith can be explained by JonNC without reference to love in his explanation?

Not that I think he hasn’t considered it; it just isn’t explicated.

 

[ltwin]

I don’t know if this answers the question, but I would consider an adequate definition of faith to partly be the assurance that we are loved by God, even in our unworthiness. Coming face to face with God’s love, we are changed and become vessels of God’s love to others.

To me, love is the expression of faith. Without love, faith is merely talk or thought. Love is the result or fruit of an authentic faith.

 

[fhansen]

JonNC:

If faith lacks love it is not true faith.

Is the love merely a consistent accompaniment to true faith, or is God’s gift of love (as is God’s gift of faith) causal to salvation?

Because “only a faith which operates by means of love avails anything,” does not sound so much like, “You have faith which God ensures is accompanied by love.” It sounds like love actually empowers the efficacy of faith to avail anything.

In Catholic teaching faith, hope, and love are separable, as 1 Cor 13 as well as James 2 indicate. Augustine put it this way:
"Without love faith may indeed exist, but avails nothing".

 

[Aspidistraflyer]

That difference is a bit of what I was hinting at.

Although, (and I think Augustine would agree) without love, your faith will inevitably falter and fail you.

 

[Aspidistraflyer]

There is much in what you say. To it I would add:

So, “faith” means fidelity. The “faith of Christ” (which Paul most frequently refers to when speaking about faith) is the ultimate in filial fidelity, of filial piety. Good Father-Son relationships are inherently loving, so love and faith are bound up.

A Catholic may believe that love inspires faith, or that faith inspires love (in truth, they probably often inspire each other).

But the reality, is that the plain meaning of Galatians, is not “Faith causes salvation, but is always accompanied by love, so works is a good diagnostic tool for love and faith.” The plain meaning is “Faith can only cause salvation through love (a different gift than faith).”

So, God’s gifts of love and faith are both causal to salvation.

 

[JonNC]

That faith should lead us to good works, and that failure to perform good works is a sin, and that sin can cause a fall from grace - no Catholic will disagree with this.

But where does love come into it?

Good works are love: faith working through love.
Matthew 22:

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart and with thy whole soul and with thy whole mind. 38 This is the greatest and the first commandment. 39 And the second is like to this: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. 40 On these two commandments dependeth the whole law and the prophets.

We show our love to our neighbors by caring for them, caring for the least of His children. We do that through good works.

 

[JonNC]

In Catholic teaching faith, hope, and love are separable, as 1 Cor 13 as well as James 2 indicate. Augustine put it this way:
"Without love faith may indeed exist, but avails nothing".

Luther phrases it, “On the other hand, the Apostle declares that without fruits faith serves no purpose. “

 

[Aspidistraflyer]

That still isn’t an explanation of Gal. What exactly is Paul saying there in your view about love?

And interesting. In your explanation “Good works” are identified with both love and faith.

Are faith and love the same thing in your reading?

 

[JonNC]

That still isn’t an explanation of Gal. What exactly is Paul saying there in your view about love?

And interesting. In your explanation “Good works” are identified with both love and faith.

Are faith and love the same thing in your reading?

I think it does answer the question, but that said,
God is love, and because of His love for us He sent His only Son. By His love He brings us to faith (through baptism and hearing the word), and stirs up in us the ability to love others.

 

[Aspidistraflyer]

I think we are coming at this different. When I say, “what is Paul saying in Gal,” I am asking, “What is Paul saying in that specific sentence we were talking about,” not, “what Biblically orthodox opinion can we get from various verses including this one?”

That said, if you feel you have left a substantial, lucid, plain explanation, then it may be my own obtuseness/ academic weirdness which causes me to not understand (not improbable :crazy_face.

But as for your last sentence, it now sounds like you are saying, that God’s love is causal to salvation and our faith, and our faith causes our love.

Am I reading you right? So, finally, is love in anyway causal to salvation?

 

[JonNC]

But as for your last sentence, it now sounds like you are saying, that God’s love is causal to salvation, and our faith, and our faith causes our love.

Am I reading you right? So, finally, is love in anyway causal to salvation?

Of course God’s love is causal to salvation. Without God’s Grace, no one is saved because no one is worthy of salvation. It is the reason we baptize.
So, love is causal to salvation-God’s love, and the faith He imparts to us as a gift, freeing us to do His will.

Again, from Galatians:

For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but faith which worketh by love.

What avails before God? Faith, and specifically, a faith that works by love.

 

[Aspidistraflyer]

So, what Paul means when he talks about faith, is that faith needs to become ours. It isn’t enough for it just to be God’s faith; the faith of Christ has to be in us, and that effects salvation.

And you think what Paul means whenever he talks about love in the same context, in the same breath, is…something different? That seems implausible.

Do you see what I am getting at? Wouldn’t it be reasonable, based on what we are reading, to say, “God gives us faith, and God gives us love; we now have both faith AND love - and so are saved because God gave us both faith AND love, which are now ours”?