William Lane Craig, Doctrine of Salvation

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William Lane Craig had this to say on Faith and Works in a recent podcast in his Reasonable Faith series on The Doctrine of Salvation. He is saying Good Works does nothing but is a result of Faith.

… saving faith is a sufficient condition for doing good works. If you have genuine saving faith then you’ll perform the good works. So a sufficient condition of doing good works is having genuine saving faith. But notice then that in a logical sense, doing good works is a necessary condition of genuine saving faith. You don’t have genuine saving faith without doing good works. So in a logical sense good works are a necessary condition of salvation, not because they contribute to salvation or because they are the means by which one stays in the covenant; rather, they are a necessary condition simply in the purely logical sense that genuine saving faith doesn’t exist without these good works.

Read more: reasonablefaith.org/defenders-2-podcast/transcript/s11-10
 
Qwikness said:
William Lane Craig had this to say on Faith and Works in a recent podcast in his Reasonable Faith series on The Doctrine of Salvation. He is saying Good Works does nothing but is a result of Faith.

… saving faith is a sufficient condition for doing good works. If you have genuine saving faith then you’ll perform the good works. So a sufficient condition of doing good works is having genuine saving faith. But notice then that in a logical sense, doing good works is a necessary condition of genuine saving faith. You don’t have genuine saving faith without doing good works. So in a logical sense good works are a necessary condition of salvation, not because they contribute to salvation or because they are the means by which one stays in the covenant; rather, they are a necessary condition simply in the purely logical sense that genuine saving faith doesn’t exist without these good works.

Read more: reasonablefaith.org/defenders-2-podcast/transcript/s11-10
Click to expand...
Sounds similar to the Lutheran-Catholic “Joint Declaration” on Salvation. Protestants, from the time of Luther, have used the word “faith” to mean “intellectual assent” which is neither how St. Paul used it or how the Catholic Church has ever understood. The Church doesn’t, and has never, taught that we can be saved by works (that’s Pelagianism), but has always maintained that we are saved by the grace of God through having an active faith (one which necessarily results in works).
 
PietroPaolo said:
…but has always maintained that we are saved by the grace of God through having an active faith (one which** necessarily results in works**).
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Hmm this sort of sounds like you agree with him that Works are a Fruit of Faith. which I believe is disagreed with by Canon 24 of Trent when it says,
Canon 24.
If anyone says that the justice received is not preserved and also not increased before God through good works,but that those works are merely the fruits and signs of justification obtained, but not the cause of its increase, let him be anathema.
 
Qwikness said:
William Lane Craig had this to say on Faith and Works in a recent podcast in his Reasonable Faith series on The Doctrine of Salvation. He is saying Good Works does nothing but is a result of Faith.

… saving faith is a sufficient condition for doing good works. If you have genuine saving faith then you’ll perform the good works. So a sufficient condition of doing good works is having genuine saving faith. But notice then that in a logical sense, doing good works is a necessary condition of genuine saving faith. You don’t have genuine saving faith without doing good works. So in a logical sense good works are a necessary condition of salvation, not because they contribute to salvation or because they are the means by which one stays in the covenant; rather, they are a necessary condition simply in the purely logical sense that genuine saving faith doesn’t exist without these good works.

Read more: reasonablefaith.org/defenders-2-podcast/transcript/s11-10
Click to expand...
I appreciate his ability to make the Protestant doctrine simple, but the problem is precisely with his assertion that works contribute nothing to salvation. The bible clearly states, “A man is justified by works, and not by faith alone.” James 2:24. The phrase “justified by works” has no place in Protestant doctrine, but in Catholic doctrine, which recognizes that God produces good works, this phase fits with our theology. The initial entry into justification is unmerited, but the perseverance in justification is justification too, and that requires good works as a cause, not just as an effect.
 
Qwikness said:
Hmm this sort of sounds like you agree with him that Works are a Fruit of Faith. which I believe is disagreed with by Canon 24 of Trent when it says,
Canon 24.
If anyone says that the justice received is not preserved and also not increased before God through good works,but that those works are merely the fruits and signs of justification obtained, but not the cause of its increase, let him be anathema.
Click to expand...
Remember that we Catholics don’t draw as sharp a distinction between justification and sanctification as the original Protestants (and many of their descendants) did. So I think it’s entirely possible for good works to be a fruit of saving faith, but not only a fruit in that they also develop virtue and therefore contribute to our ongoing sanctification.

Usagi
 
I think the central issue here is the will, which is probably why so many Protestant theologians effectively denied free will.

It is evident to all believers that we do not become mindless automatons when we believe the Gospel. It is clear that I have to conform my behaviour to my beliefs. I can know what I ought to do and still not do it. The knowledge of Faith therefore engages me personally and involves my will: it perfects my will by supplying my intellect with the proper objects of or for my will or what I should will. Still, none of this could be at all possible without God and without His help. Notwithstanding, I always have the choice: I am, I guess, the subject of the choice to do good at some point - it can’t happen without me or without the cooperation of my will or initiative. I become a piece of the puzzle.

Now “good will” is attributed to men in the Gospel. But what is good will in man? In every analysis, it is something we acquire by discipline and habit. Still, without God we can do nothing at all; so while we have the power or capacity to do or choose what it is right ourselves, we could neither know it nor actually perform it without God. Revelation comes from and is inspired by God. Man can only receive this as a gift, whether or not he receives it directly from God as the Prophets did, for example, or whether he receives it from men of God as the first gentile converts received the Gospel from the Lord’s holy Apostles. Knowing it, man can either accept or refuse it; accepting it, he can either act upon it or not and he can either share it with others or not.

Now if we deny this we start to collapse into a scenario where everything that is or happens is simply a direct action of the divine, and consequently praise or blame becomes impossible. However, the Protestant for instance does not really accept this, as then he could not blame, say, the Catholic Church with teaching, as he alleges, falsehood or error as the people who populate the Church on earth would only be performing God’s will of necessity. But then the Protestant would be in protest against God’s will, which would be absurd.
 
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