[soc.religion.christian] On faith and works

hedrick@geneva.rutgers.edu (05/11/91)

Recently, we seem to have gotten into one the perennial topics: faith
and works. 

The common Protestant view is that it is faith that justifies, but
works are a necessary consequence.  If they don't follow, we have good
grounds to doubt whether faith is really present.  I can't really
object to this formulation, but it isn't the one I normally use.  In
my view, what really saves us is *neither* our faith nor our works,
but God's grace.

"Justification by faith" comes from Paul, particularly Romans and
Galatians.  It has always seemed to me that what Paul is really
contrasting is reliance on works of the Law vs. reliance on Christ.
He uses "faith" to refer to reliance on Christ.  In pushing
justification by faith, what Paul is doing is asking us to put our
reliance on Christ rather than on anything we can do.  The problem is
that we have come to think of faith itself as something we do.  This
leads us to read Paul as contrasting two different things we do: faith
vs works.  Of the two, we should rely on faith.  The problem I have
with this is that it's one too many "relies".  We end up being told to
rely on our reliance, rather than on Christ.

As for works, I agree with the classical Protestant position that they
are a consequence of salvation rather than its cause.  However I see
faith that way as well.  As I just said, I see the actual cause of
salvation as being God's grace, present to us through Christ's death
and resurrection.  Both our faith and our works are responses to this
grace.  Both are equally necessary parts of an overall process that
(depending upon which tradition we come from) can be called
sanctification or discipleship.  We are called to conform both our
minds and our actions to Christ.  Faith emphasizes conformance of our
minds.  Works emphasizes conformance of our actions.  Both are
necessary, but both are only responses to God's grace, and to the
presence of Christ within us, which are the real basis of our
salvation.

I realized after sending it out that I made a comment on one posting
that could be misleading.  In a comment on James Quilty's posting, I
identified Mt 19:16-30 (the rich young ruler) as the passage that
Steven Timm was citing.  In doing so, I may have given the impression
that I agree with Steven's use of the passage.  I'm not sure whether I
do or not.  I see some complexities in the story of the rich young
ruler.  These make it a bit more than simply "the way to be saved is
to obey the comamndments".  I'm going to use the version in Mark 10,
on the grounds that scholars think it's the closest to what Jesus
actually said (though I don't think the differences are enough to
really change the overall message).

The major signs of complexity are the following: (1) The man starts
out by calling Jesus "good teacher".  Jesus responds "No one is good
but God alone".  (2) After listing the commandments, the man says he
has carried them out.  Jesus doesn't just say "OK, then you're saved".
He challenges the man further.  (In Mark and Luke Jesus initiates the
challenge.  In Mat. the man does, but presumably something in Jesus'
attitude has suggested to the man that there's more to it than just
the commandments.)  Both of these aspects have led to a lot of
discussion among commentators.  I don't claim to have a final
resolution or to understand all the details.  But Jesus' "no one is
good but God alone" seems to be trying in some way to direct the man
away from human goodness to God.  This seems to qualify somewhat the
importance of the list of commandments that follows.  While God is
calling him to obey those commandments, he doesn't thereby become
good, or (it seems to me) merit salvation.  Similarly, Jesus'
challenge seems clearly to say that following the commandments alone
isn't the whole answer.  Jesus calls him to abandon all and follow
him.  While the term "justification by faith" isn't used, it seems to
me that something similar is being said.  The man is expected to obey
the commandments, but in the context of reliance on God and Christ,
not as an end in itself.  

I think the passage has been misinterpreted because of the tendency to
use it as the basis for a discussion of the dangers of riches.  Thus
people tend to emphasize Christ's call for the man to give up his
possessions, whereas in my opinion the real emphasis of the call was
on following Christ.  Giving up possessions wasn't a goal in itself,
but was what that man would have to do to get rid of an obstacle to
following Christ.  The disciples then say to Christ: but in that case,
how can *anyone* be saved, and we get the famous camel through the eye
of a needle.  Again, this generally gets absorbed in a discussion of
the dangers of riches.  But the displines don't say, "then how can any
rich man be saved".  They say "Then who can be saved?"  According to
many commentators, in 1st Cent. Judaism it was considered that the
rich were in the best position to carry out the Law.  So if even they
have serious problems being saved, everyone else is even worse off.
Jesus responds that while it might be humanly impossible, God will
save people anyway.  It seems to me that again what Jesus is doing is
pointing to the fact that salvation is based entirely on God's grace,
and not on human possibility or impossibility.

math1h3@jetson.uh.edu (05/13/91)

In article <May.11.04.21.55.1991.8108@athos.rutgers.edu>, hedrick@geneva.rutgers.edu writes:
> Recently, we seem to have gotten into one the perennial topics: faith
> and works. 
> 
> The common Protestant view is that it is faith that justifies, but
> works are a necessary consequence.  If they don't follow, we have good
> grounds to doubt whether faith is really present.  I can't really
> object to this formulation, but it isn't the one I normally use.  In
> my view, what really saves us is *neither* our faith nor our works,
> but God's grace.

Actually what you have just said is a very Lutheran statement.  In fact your
statement on 'the common Protestant view' is almost a straw man, at least
as far as Lutherans are concerned. The Augsburg confession states, simply
and clearly,

"It is also taught among us that we cannot obtain forgiveness of sin
and righteousness before God by our own merits, works, or satisfactions,
but that we receive forgiveness of sin and become righteous before God
*by grace, for Christ's sake, through faith*, **when we believe** [not if]
that Christ suffered for us and that for his sake our sin is forgiven and
righteousness and eternal life are given to us.  For God will regard and
reckon this faith as righteousness, as Paul says in Romans 3:21-26 and 4:5."

It is true that Paul wrote, "For we maintain that a man is justified by faith
apart from observing the law."  But the whole theme of this part of Romans
is 'righteousness from God'.  

"But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to
which the Law and the Prophets testify.  This righteousness from God comes 
through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe."  --Romans 3:21,22.

As we have discussed before, the best summary seems to be Ephesians 2:8-10:

"For it is by grace you havce been saved, through faith--and this not from 
yourselves, it is the gift of God--not by works , so that no one can boast.
For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works,
which God prepared in advance for us to do."

That little passage ties in justification, election, conversion, good works,
grace, and faith, and puts them all in their proper places.

[On Mt 19:16-30 (the rich young ruler) --clh]
> I see some complexities in the story of the rich young
> ruler.  These make it a bit more than simply "the way to be saved is
> to obey the comamndments".
[deletion] 
> The major signs of complexity are the following: (1) The man starts
> out by calling Jesus "good teacher".  Jesus responds "No one is good
> but God alone".  (2) After listing the commandments, the man says he
> has carried them out.  Jesus doesn't just say "OK, then you're saved".
> He challenges the man further. [deletion]
> ...  While the term "justification by faith" isn't used, it seems to
> me that something similar is being said.  The man is expected to obey
> the commandments, but in the context of reliance on God and Christ,
> not as an end in itself.  

What you have just given is, as far as I know, the standard Lutheran
interpretation of this and the parallel passages.  See, for example, the 
Concordia Self-Study Bible, or Kretzman's Popular Commentary.

Yours is an interesting example of how we struggle with the Word.  If
we think we have a new idea, we work very hard on it, and are more pleased
with our conclusions, than if someone simply taught it to us.

David H. Wagner
a confessional Lutheran.

My opinions and beliefs on this matter are disclaimed by
The University of Houston.

[I certainly didn't mean to claim originality.  I looked at several
commentaries and other sources in writing that posting.  --clh]