Beatus Vir

Lest it be lost in the combox of a post that is a couple of months old (which is moving at about my speed), I wanted to bring to the top a response to my post about Cyprian on Justification.

This quote from Cyprian is similar to what we find in the Common Responsory in Matins (LSB, p. 221). The sung verse is: "Blessed are those who hear the Word of God and keep it." (Luke 11:28)

Or as Cyprian writes, "We ought therefore to stand fast on His words, to learn and do whatever He both taught and did. But how can a man say that he believes in Christ, who does not do what Christ commanded him to do? Or whence shall he attain to the reward of faith, who will not keep the faith of the commandment?"

The Scriptures are clear -- faith and works go together.

Interesting that you bring up the responsory which quotes Luke 11:28. While I would not have disagreed with your conclusion that faith and works go together (nor do I now), as a Lutheran I would have always argued that this verse is speaking about faith and not works. "Keep" is used in the sense not of obedience, but possession. That seems to be the sense of phulasso, or tēreo in similar passages.

Still I would not have denied that the faith with which we are blessed produces obedience. So I am not sure the exegetical distinction matters.

But lets assume for a minute that your interpretation of the verse is correct. It well may be. Then the blessing of God consists in this that we hear the Word of God and obey it, and that faith is in there as well. In other words, Faith is a blessing, a gift. In the same way, obedience is a blessing from God, a gift.

This is perfectly in line with what I believe as a Catholic. My obedience is not the cause of God's blessing or grace, it is the result. In the saying of Augustine Da quod jubes, God gives what he commands of us. I think the particular concern of Lutherans is to clearing maintain that we do not earn our salvation. That is a valid concern. And to set your mind at ease, Catholics do not believe that we earn our way into heaven. We are saved by Christ alone.

So faith alone seems to have been invented in order to exclude the notion that we earn our way into heaven. But it should be enough to emphasis Christ alone. Faith alone has the unfortunate tendency to lead one into the equal but opposite error of the antinomians or at least of a degree of moral laxitude. I know that true Lutherans do not approve of these errors, but the reality is that they are hard to avoid, which is evidenced by the fact that the antinomian error has never ceased to be a problem. It just won't die and stay buried for long.

But here's the deal. If "Faith alone saves, but faith is never alone." What is the point in saying that faith alone saves? In other words, a faith existing by itself doesn't exist, faith is never alone, and yet this thing which doesn't exist (faith standing alone) saves. Doesn't that seem a little absurd to you? It's like saying "Ducks with three legs are good swimmers. But ducks never have three legs."

Let me put it another way. If the intention of that slogan is to say that God saves us by putting in us a faith that always exists together with love, what is the problem in saying it this way. God saves us by putting into us both faith and love?

Or to put in still another way: If "faith and works go together", why do you separate them when it comes to soteriology?

Posted by Dan Woodring at 10:16 AM |  

Labels: Justification