Works without faith

[Montalban]

Sounds like something from a Kafka novel. Yes, 'feeding the poor; is good in the absolute sense. You may not get great credit for it from God, but the hungry person sure does enjoy it.

Nothing is good without God.

Actually, good works are done for the benefit of the object, rather than the doer, right?

Not quite. Nothing is good without God.

Thank God I’m a Christian. I don’t have to get involved in your strange morality.

Novel idea that you have; a concept of ‘good’ without God!

There is nothing that is ‘good’ of itself. Goodness doesn’t exist outside God. All goodness comes from God.

For you, and you think I’m strange this act somehow autonomously has goodness itself. Where did it’s goodness come from?

God’s got a competitor out there!

 

[BrewMax]

Nothing is good without God.

Not quite. Nothing is good without God.

Novel idea that you have; a concept of ‘good’ without God!

There is nothing that is ‘good’ of itself. Goodness doesn’t exist outside God. All goodness comes from God.

For you, and you think I’m strange this act somehow autonomously has goodness itself. Where did it’s goodness come from?

God’s got a competitor out there!

I agree with this not just because it is undeniably true, but because it also sheds light upon the fact that what we have gained in Christ’s sacrifice is something that we absolutely need and nothing that we could ever do could duplicate this.

 

[ChrisWRIT]

What about works without faith? Would you consider them to be useless and non-spiritual?

Depends on your assumptions. I don’t think any works are useless in and of themselves – God seems to be able to turn all actions to good in some way.

What would remain would be any idea that these works that God prepared for us would directly merit our salvation apart from our faith in Christ. My only issue here would be that many verses in Scripture assure us that we could never be clean before God without Christ’s initial atone for our sins.

This seems to be the way that “faith vs. works” discussions always seem to morph into - a discussion of “faith alone” vs. “works alone”.

Are people capable of being saved by “works alone”? Absolutely not. NOR by “faith alone”.

Salvation isn’t a matter of “EITHER faith (alone) OR works (alone)”, as neither faith alone nor works alone merit salvation, but “BOTH faith AND works.”

According to the CCC, paragraphs 161-162:
*161 - Believing in Jesus Christ and in the One who sent him for our salvation is necessary for obtaining that salvation.42 "Since “without faith it is impossible to please (God) " and to attain to the fellowship of his sons, therefore without faith no one has ever attained justification, nor will anyone obtain eternal life ‘But he who endures to the end.’”]

162 - Faith is an entirely free gift that God makes to man. We can lose this priceless gift, as St. Paul indicated to St. Timothy: "Wage the good warfare, holding faith and a good conscience. By rejecting conscience, certain persons have made shipwreck of their faith."44 To live, grow and persevere in the faith until the end we must nourish it with the word of God; we must beg the Lord to increase our faith;45 it must be “working through charity,” abounding in hope, and rooted in the faith of the Church.46

42 – Mk. 16:16; Jn. 3:36; 6:40
44 - 1 Tim. 1:18-19
45 – Mk. 9:24; Lk. 17:5; Lk. 22:32
46 – Gal. 5:6; Rom. 15:13; Jas. 2:14-26*

well, it doesn’t point to works as a part of salvation either does it?

Sure it does.

*" God “will give to each person according to what he has done.” (Rom. 2:6).

“For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive recompense, according to what he did in the body, whether good or evil” (2 Cor. 5:10).

“Their end will correspond to their deeds” (2 Cor. 11:15).

“Now if you invoke as Father him who judges impartially according to each one’s works, conduct yourselves with reverence during the time of your sojourning” (1 Pet. 1:17).

“Then another scroll was opened, the book of life. The dead were judged according to their deeds, by what was written in the scrolls. The sea gave up its dead; then Death and Hades gave up their dead. All the dead were judged according to their deeds” (Rev. 20:12-13).*

Excepting Rev., all of these were written specifically to believers.

In the same way that no passages of the Bible state that we are saved by “faith alone”, neither do any of these passages state that we are saved by “works alone.”

Chris

 

[Montalban]

I agree with this not just because it is undeniably true, but because it also sheds light upon the fact that what we have gained in Christ’s sacrifice is something that we absolutely need and nothing that we could ever do could duplicate this.

For mgrfin there seems to be things that independently of God exist in a state of being ‘good’, which would be devastating to Christian claims about God - because for us, he is the only way/path.

If other things exist, outside of God that are good, where did they get this ‘goodness’ from?

There would be a plethora of pathways to ‘good’.

What Jesus did was unique. And good!

 

[mgrfin]

Nothing is good without God.

Not quite. Nothing is good without God.

Novel idea that you have; a concept of ‘good’ without God!

There is nothing that is ‘good’ of itself. Goodness doesn’t exist outside God. All goodness comes from God.

For you, and you think I’m strange this act somehow autonomously has goodness itself. Where did it’s goodness come from?

God’s got a competitor out there!

Well, in any heresy there is always a complication with a little bit of truth.

Nothing in this universe exists without God. Obvious.

But there is such a thing as natural goodness. Check it out in St. Thomas. plato.stanford.edu/entries/natural-law-ethics/#2.1

peace.

 

[Montalban]

Well, in any heresy there is always a complication with a little bit of truth.

Nothing in this universe exists without God. Obvious.
peace.

That’s not what I’m arguing; that ultimately everything comes from God else you’d argue evil comes from God. Or, you’d argue that your case of charity even without direct reference to God must, by being part of the universe be good. That’s not what I’m saying at all.

I’m saying nothing is of itself ‘good’. There’s no absolute sense of ‘good’ with anything unless it’s from God who’s good.

God is good.

Any seemingly good act - such as the feeding of the poor is not ‘good’ unless it’s in reference to God.

Sure, some people might be fed, but as pointed out, what if its done by some evil politician to curry favour with the mob?

Else you could argue that that the slaughter of his enemies is also good, because it allows him to stay in power to feed the poor.

 

[mgrfin]

That’s not what I’m arguing; that ultimately everything comes from God else you’d argue evil comes from God. Or, you’d argue that your case of charity even without direct reference to God must, by being part of the universe be good. That’s not what I’m saying at all.

I’m saying nothing is of itself ‘good’. There’s no absolute sense of ‘good’ with anything unless it’s from God who’s good.

God is good.

Any seemingly good act - such as the feeding of the poor is not ‘good’ unless it’s in reference to God.

Sure, some people might be fed, but as pointed out, what if its done by some evil politician to curry favour with the mob?

Else you could argue that that the slaughter of his enemies is also good, because it allows him to stay in power to feed the poor.

Lots of fuzzy thinking going on here. The end never justifies the means: to kill in order to stay in power to feed the poor - never good.

I could have no faith, but I am fulfilling the golden rule, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

These things were argued out a millenium ago. No one even thinks them up any more.

There is such a thing as ‘natural law’, and natural goodness.

peace

 

[Montalban]

Lots of fuzzy thinking going on here. The end never justifies the means: to kill in order to stay in power to feed the poor - never good.

Indeed, so even someone feeding the needy isn’t necessarily doing good

I could have no faith, but I am fulfilling the golden rule, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Then, you might as according to Romans 2 guided by that part of God within you.

But I still don’t think its the same as doing something knowingly in praise of God.

These things were argued out a millenium ago. No one even thinks them up any more.

There is such a thing as ‘natural law’, and natural goodness.

peace

Catholics believe in ‘natural law’

I don’t.

 

[mgrfin]

Indeed, so even someone feeding the needy isn’t necessarily doing good

Then, you might as according to Romans 2 guided by that part of God within you.

But I still don’t think its the same as doing something knowingly in praise of God.

Catholics believe in ‘natural law’

I don’t.

You seem to have a problem reading. Someone feeding the poor is doing something good. But, there could be a distinct action, like slaying someone else to accomplish the final act could be wrong. Feeding the poor is good. Killing someone in order to accomplish that is wrong.

Romans 2?? You have a verse, and what it is you are quoting to prove what?

Yes, Catholics believe in the natural law. We talked about the natural law long before the 16th century.

Lay out your thesis, and then prove it from reason or scripture, or whatever, so we have something to discuss.

peace

 

[St_Violet]

I pray that people make a distinction between works of the law and good works (good deeds). if a man is hungry and you only give him a smile and a god bless you, then what good is your faith?

 

[Montalban]

You seem to have a problem reading.

That’s a typically ill-thought response. I read what you wrote, I just don’t agree with it. You seem to confuse ‘understanding’ and ‘agreeing’

Someone feeding the poor is doing something good.

Not per se, no. For nothing is good of itself.

You’ve yet to show any idea of how something can be good independent of God.

But, there could be a distinct action, like slaying someone else to accomplish the final act could be wrong. Feeding the poor is good. Killing someone in order to accomplish that is wrong.

Nothing is of itself autonomously good.

Romans 2?? You have a verse, and what it is you are quoting to prove what?

How people are judged without knowing the law.

Yes, Catholics believe in the natural law. We talked about the natural law long before the 16th century.

Wow! That long!

Lay out your thesis, and then prove it from reason or scripture, or whatever, so we have something to discuss.

I’ve already done this. Only God is the path to goodness. You seem to think that there’s mutiple paths to ‘goodness’ as if ‘goodness’ itself is independent of God.

 

[mgrfin]

Indeed, so even someone feeding the needy isn’t necessarily doing good

Then, you might as according to Romans 2 guided by that part of God within you.

But I still don’t think its the same as doing something knowingly in praise of God.

So, your basic problem is not believing the natural law.

I don’t have the inclination to present to you a whole body of evidence to prove the existence of the natural law.

Lots of luck.

peace

Catholics believe in ‘natural law’

I don’t.

 

[Montalban]

I don’t have the inclination to present to you a whole body of evidence to prove the existence of the natural law.

Although that’s another non-argument, it’s also irrelevant to my discussions with you about things being good unto themselves - unless you have something specifically in mind that something is ‘good’ through natural law.

You believe that there are, aside from God other pathways to goodness.

That is a highly novel argument to have.

You’ve offered no evidence for these pathways.

Good luck with presenting something relevant to the debate.

 

[Daniel_Marsh]

Romans 3:27-4:25 (Contemporary English Version)

27What is left for us to brag about? Not a thing! Is it because we obeyed some law? No! It is because of faith. 28We see that people are acceptable to God because they have faith, and not because they obey the Law. 29Does God belong only to the Jews? Isn’t he also the God of the Gentiles? Yes, he is! 30There is only one God, and he accepts Gentiles as well as Jews, simply because of their faith. 31Do we destroy the Law by our faith? Not at all! We make it even more powerful.

1Well then, what can we say about our ancestor Abraham? 2If he became acceptable to God because of what he did, then he would have something to brag about. But he would never be able to brag about it to God. 3The Scriptures say, “God accepted Abraham because Abraham had faith in him.”
4Money paid to workers isn’t a gift. It is something they earn by working. 5But you cannot make God accept you because of something you do. God accepts sinners only because they have faith in him. 6In the Scriptures David talks about the blessings that come to people who are acceptable to God, even though they don’t do anything to deserve these blessings. David says,

7"God blesses people

whose sins are forgiven

and whose evil deeds

are forgotten.

8The Lord blesses people

whose sins are erased

from his book."

9Are these blessings meant for circumcised people or for those who are not circumcised? Well, the Scriptures say that God accepted Abraham because Abraham had faith in him. 10But when did this happen? Was it before or after Abraham was circumcised? Of course, it was before. 

11Abraham let himself be circumcised to show that he had been accepted because of his faith even before he was circumcised. This makes Abraham the father of all who are acceptable to God because of their faith, even though they are not circumcised. 12This also makes Abraham the father of everyone who is circumcised and has faith in God, as Abraham did before he was circumcised.

The Promise Is for All Who Have Faith
13God promised Abraham and his descendants that he would give them the world. This promise wasn’t made because Abraham had obeyed a law, but because his faith in God made him acceptable. 14If Abraham and his descendants were given this promise because they had obeyed a law, then faith would mean nothing, and the promise would be worthless.
15God becomes angry when his Law is broken. But where there isn’t a law, it cannot be broken. 16Everything depends on having faith in God, so that God’s promise is assured by his great kindness. This promise isn’t only for Abraham’s descendants who have the Law. It is for all who are Abraham’s descendants because they have faith, just as he did. Abraham is the ancestor of us all. 17The Scriptures say that Abraham would become the ancestor of many nations. This promise was made to Abraham because he had faith in God, who raises the dead to life and creates new things.

18God promised Abraham a lot of descendants. And when it all seemed hopeless, Abraham still had faith in God and became the ancestor of many nations. 19Abraham's faith never became weak, not even when he was nearly a hundred years old. He knew that he was almost dead and that his wife Sarah could not have children. 20But Abraham never doubted or questioned God's promise. His faith made him strong, and he gave all the credit to God. 

21Abraham was certain that God could do what he had promised. 22So God accepted him, 23just as we read in the Scriptures. But these words were not written only for Abraham. 24They were written for us, since we will also be accepted because of our faith in God, who raised our Lord Jesus to life. 25God gave Jesus to die for our sins, and he raised him to life, so that we would be made acceptable to God.

 

[Montalban]

Romans 3:27-4:25 (Contemporary English Version)

Indeed we’ve got to have faith. But, as pointed out earlier, faith without works is dead.