Works Worthless

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Montie_Claunch

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I am having a discussion with a fundamentalist Gentleman via e-mail. We are talking about Sola Fide.

I was wondering if ya’ll could help me respond to a certain scripture? Isaiah 41:24 “But you are less than nothing and your works are utterly worthless; he who chooses you is detestable.”

If it is all right, if I run into any other questions I am just going to post them on this thread and not clutter up the Apologetics panel with questions essentially on the same topic.

Thanks and God bless.
 
I’d start by asking, does he think that God is detestable (another translation is “an abomination”)?
 
Montie_Claunch said:
I am having a discussion with a fundamentalist Gentleman via e-mail. We are talking about Sola Fide.

I was wondering if ya’ll could help me respond to a certain scripture? Isaiah 41:24 “But you are less than nothing and your works are utterly worthless; he who chooses you is detestable.”
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JMJ + OBT​

First of all, let’s look at the larger cotext from which this passage is pulled:
The Lord is mightier than idols
(that is the section header given in my Navarre Bible for the following verses)
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Set forth your case, says the LORD; bring your proofs, says the King of Jacob. Let them bring them, and tell us what is to happen. Tell us the former things, what they are, that we may consider them, that we may know their outcome; or declare to us the things to come. Tell us what is to come hereafter, that we may know that you are gods; do good, or do harm, that we may be dismayed and terrified. Behold, you are nothing, and your work is nought; an abomination is he who chooses you. I stirred up one from the north, and he has come, from the rising of the sun, and he shall call on my name; he shall trample on rulers as on mortar, as the potter treads clay. Who declared it from the beginning, that we might know, and beforetime, that we might say, “He is right”? There was none who declared it, none who proclaimed, none who heard your words. I first have declared it to Zion, and I give to Jerusalem a herald of good tidings. But when I look there is no one; among these there is no counselor who, when I ask, gives an answer. Behold, they are all a delusion; their works are nothing; their molten images are empty wind.****(Isaiah 41:21-29 [RSV])
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So the condemnation of Isaiah is leveled at the idols and those who choose those idols. In verse 24, the Prophet is speaking polemically to the idols; in verse 29 he seems to be speaking of both the idols and those who embrace them as gods.

In Christ.

IC XC NIKA
 
Now … why is your fundamentalist acquaintance trying to tie this into faith and works?

He could just be presenting a passage which speaks negatively of the value of works in order to bolster his case that works are not involved in “being saved,” and he may not have much concern for the verse’s wider context.

More likely, though, he is preparing to make a case that the Catholic Sacraments, sacramentals, worship ceremonies, statues and icons – altogether understood by him as a system of works – are condemned by the Word of God through the Prophet Isaiah in the same way and for the same reasons that the pagan idols were condemned back in OT times.

The key there is to show that Sacraments are not “works” nor are they the creation of men; rather they are ordinary instruments instituted by Christ Himself for the transmission of grace through and in His Mystical Body, the Church.

In the Hearts of Jesus and Mary.

IC XC NIKA
 
Montie_Claunch said:
I am having a discussion with a fundamentalist Gentleman via e-mail. We are talking about Sola Fide.

I was wondering if ya’ll could help me respond to a certain scripture? Isaiah 41:24 “But you are less than nothing and your works are utterly worthless; he who chooses you is detestable.”

If it is all right, if I run into any other questions I am just going to post them on this thread and not clutter up the Apologetics panel with questions essentially on the same topic.

Thanks and God bless.
Click to expand...
Ask him what how he translates James 2:

14
What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?
15
If a brother or sister has nothing to wear and has no food for the day,
16
and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well,” but you do not give them the necessities of the body, what good is it?
17
So also faith of itself, if it does not have works, is dead.
18
Indeed someone might say, “You have faith and I have works.” Demonstrate your faith to me without works, and I will demonstrate my faith to you from my works.
19
You believe that God is one. You do well. Even the demons believe that and tremble.
20
Do you want proof, you ignoramus, that faith without works is useless?
21
Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered his son Isaac upon the altar?
22
You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by the works.
23
Thus the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,” and he was called “the friend of God.”
24
See how a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.
25
And in the same way, was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she welcomed the messengers and sent them out by a different route?
26
For just as a body without a spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.
 
Montie,

We are in the paradoxical state of believing that while works will not do anything towards getting you into Heaven, you will not get into Heaven without them. We get to Heaven by being a particular sort of person (the Catholic Church calls this “merit”) and works have the combined effect of showing what sort of person we are (that we have “merit”–and Evangelicals will agree with this if you press hard enough) and of reinforcing what sort of person we are (increasing our merit–and Evangelicals, in my experience, disagree with this). I would point to Galatians 5:19-21 and Revelation 20:8 as showing that certain sorts of people will NOT get into Heaven.

Incidentally, Isaiah 41:24 is directed at idols and not at people. This is clear from the preceding few verses. Idols are indeed less than nothing and their works are utterlyworthless, and anyone who chooses them is indeed detestable.
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