Sole Fide but not OSAS - how can salvation be lost?

[Elzee]

Can someone who believes in salvation by faith alone, but not OSAS, explain to me how salvation can be lost? Up until not too long ago I thought everyone who believed in Sola Fide also believed in OSAS. Thank you!

 

[Kevan]

Sola fide refers to the method whereby salvation is received. OSAS, on the other hand, addresses the question of whether it is one genuine act of faith or whether faith is something that must continue.

Those who reject the OSAS doctrine believe that, just as a lamp only shines while it is connected to the electric socket on the wall, the state of grace only continues as faith continues.

So it’s “faith alone” whether you believe in OSAS or not.

How do they believe that salvation is lost? There’s no detailed answer to that. Compare it to the question “How can a wife quit loving her husband?” It’s possible, but it can’t be outlined.

Generally speaking, they say that faith dies when the Christian, over time, chokes it by rebelling against the known will of God, i.e., sin. Saving faith “works by love” (Galatians 5:6), but “demon faith” is empty and does not impel the believer to good works (James 2:19).

One more illustration in an attempt to head off the expected objections: the exhaust doesn’t propel the car, the combustion in the engine propels the car. But the engine must be allowed to produce its exhaust. Otherwise it will die.

Likewise, to a non-OSAS believer in sola fide, good works do not contribute any saving merit to his salvation account; but they, like eating and breathing, are necessary if he is to continue in faith–that is, in genuine saving faith.

But even those good works must issue from a heart of love rather than from an attitude of “what can I get from God if I do this good work?” If they come from a heart of love, they are the product of faith and make it possible for faith to continue and increase.

 

[Contarini]

Elzee:

Can someone who believes in salvation by faith alone, but not OSAS, explain to me how salvation can be lost? Up until not too long ago I thought everyone who believed in Sola Fide also believed in OSAS. Thank you!

Well, it depends on what you mean by “sola fide.” In the strict sense, I suppose the Lutherans are the only folks who believe in Sola Fide but not OSAS. As I read Luther (I won’t claim to know for sure exactly how later Lutherans would put it), you could “lose” your salvation by ceasing to trust in Christ alone. Orthodox Lutherans (like most Protestants historically) would say that persisting in serious sin is a sign that one does not have saving faith, but of course sin itself does not make you lose faith or “salvation” (i.e., a saving relationship with Christ) in the Lutheran view. Presumably the mechanism by which one would lose one’s faith would be a confidence in one’s own righteousness. That might, practically speaking, take the form of religious pride, or it might take the form of complacency and a loss of the sense of one’s need for Christ. But I’ll let the Lutherans say if I’m reading Lutheran doctrine correctly.

The more “Arminian” Protestant traditions (Methodists, Anabaptists, etc.) would generally say that they believe in “sola fide” (at least folks in the Wesleyan tradition generally would), but what we mean by it is a bit different from what Baptists or Lutherans or even the classic Reformed mean by it. Indeed, hardline Reformed would say that Arminians aren’t fully Protestant in our view of salvation and are part way to “Rome.” This because we do believe that serious, deliberate sin, especially if persisted in over a period of time, breaks our relationship with God and hence makes us “lose our salvation.”

So why do Arminians still tend to claim to believe in “faith alone”? (I wouldn’t, but I’m not typical.) We believe that past sins are forgiven through faith alone, but as I understand it that isn’t really incompatible with Catholic teaching. I think the real key–and in fact the main difference between all forms of evangelical Protestantism and Catholicism with regards to salvation–is our belief that faith is inseparable from charity. No, your eyes didn’t deceive you. I really think that in a sense it’s Catholics who believe in sola fides. You don’t of course think that unformed faith saves when not joined to charity–but then neither do most Protestants (those who do are antinomian heretics and all the major Protestant traditions condemn them, although Lutherans hedge a bit and it’s easy to misunderstand them). Still, you believe that “sola fides” can actually exist. Protestants generally don’t. That is to say, we don’t think that the “faith” that exists without love is a supernatural gift of God. We simply think that it’s a religious opinion, no more divine in origin than an opinion about the ripeness of strawberries. That’s why we can say that “faith alone” saves–because the faith that God bestows by grace never is alone. Whenever I place my faith in Christ, the love of God is present in my heart.
(Where Arminians differ from Calvinists and Lutherans is in holding that the opposite is also true–that if I sin gravely and persistently, that sin is the direct cause of my loss of saving faith rather than a symptom thereof.)

This does have practical consequences, I think. When ex-Catholics say that they “weren’t Christians” or “weren’t taught the Gospel,” what I think they mean is that this unified act of faith and charity was never held clearly before them as the way by which they can be united to Christ. From the immense numbers of such people, I think the Protestant approach clearly has some pastoral advantages. Whether it is a matter of theological truth or error I won’t venture to pronounce. In a sense it’s a matter of definition.

Edwin

 

[briand]

I am not sure about God taking our salvation, but in the Earthly fellowship, I think “fellowship” is lost the second a person becomes irrelevant, I believe that is the worse sin a person can commit.