Sola Fide: Part 2

Sorry this post is a little late. Today we'll be dealing with common arguments against Sola Fide.

Martin Luther said that Sola Fide was the "doctrine by which the church stands or falls." But can it stand up to the opposing arguments? Let's take a look.

James 2:14-26
James 2 seems to be the go-to passage for Catholics who want to promote Salvation by faith+works. Here's what the passage says in full context:

'What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.
But someone will say, “You have faith, and I have works.” Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe—and tremble! But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead? Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar? Do you see that faith was working together with his works, and by works faith was made perfect? And the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” And he was called the friend of God. You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only. Likewise, was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out another way? For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.'

By this passage alone, it may seem like Salvation is by a combination of faith and works. But you have to understand what James is talking about here. The key verses are 17 and 18:

Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.
But someone will say, “You have faith, and I have works.” Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.

James is not saying that salvation is a combination of faith and works. He's saying that true faith will produce good works, and that faith that does not produce works is no faith at all. Works are a result of salvation, not the other way around.

Abraham
After James 2, those trying to promote justification by works like to point to Abraham. Abraham is mentioned in the above passage, reproduced below:

"Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar? Do you see that faith was working together with his works, and by works faith was made perfect? And the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” And he was called the friend of God. You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only."

This passage refers to Genesis 22, where God commands Abraham to sacrifice his only son, Isaac. Genesis 22:1 says:

"Some time later God tested Abraham."

What was this a test of? When we read the chapter, it becomes clear that it was a test of Abraham's loyalty, his trust, his faith in God. Abraham's works are not what saved him. He had a covenant with God long before God brought along this test, and was already saved by his faith. Abraham's obedience to God was an outward manifestation of hi faith. His faith produced his works, and his works bore evidence of his faith. In Genesis 22 verse 12, God says to Abraham:

"Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son."

Abraham proved he was faithful to God by his actions. That's what James is talking about when he says "Do you see that faith was working together with his works, and by works faith was made perfect?"  

"Now wait a minute" you say. "That sounds like salvation by faith+works." Well, it's not. Do faith and works work together? Absolutely. One without the other, as James tells us, is dead. But do works contribute to our salvation? No. If that were the case, then Christ's death on the cross was not sufficient for salvation, because we must work to earn it. Faith is what saves, works are the natural by-product.

Sola Fide creates false converts who continue in sin
A variation of this argument is also used against Perseverance of the Saints, the doctrine represented by the "P" in TULIP. It basically says that people who believe Sola Fide (or Perseverance of the Saints) take a "once saved, always saved" approach to salvation, thinking that since they're saved by faith, that they don't need to do any good works. They think that they can just say a prayer, maybe get baptized, and then live a sin-filled life doing whatever they want because they're saved by faith. But this is not the case.

As we discussed above, true faith will produce good works. If someone claims to be a Christian but lives a sinful life, then it's clear that they don't have true faith. "You will know them by their fruits" (Matthew 7:17-20). Sola Fide does not produce false converts who continue in sin. People continue in sin because they do not have true faith. If they had true faith, they would produce good works naturally.

Matthew 21

"Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven." (emphasis added)

Does this mean that we're saved by works and not faith? Not really. Catholics often overlook or leave out the following verses:

"Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’"

Sounds like good works, doesn't it? But what does Jesus say?

"And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’"

This passage does not advocate salvation by works+faith. These people had good works, didn't they? But Jesus says they practice lawlessness. Their works had no faith behind them, and thus, were dead.

There are other verses like this which seem to indicate that works contribute to salvation. But on closer inspection, we find the same thing: Salvation is by faith, and good works are the result. Not the other way around. Hebrews eleven rams this point home quite nicely.

"By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts; and through it he being dead still speaks.
By faith Enoch was taken away so that he did not see death, “and was not found, because God had taken him”; for before he was taken he had this testimony, that he pleased God. But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
By faith Noah, being divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his household, by which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith.

By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he dwelt in the land of promise as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise; for he waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.

By faith Sarah herself also received strength to conceive seed, and she bore a child when she was past the age, because she judged Him faithful who had promised."

This passage lists the many good works done by these Bible heroes, but the repeated phrase is always this: "By faith."

Well, that's what I could find. I recommend that you do your own research on the subject, you're bound to learn some really good stuff. As last time, if you think I didn't do justice to a certain objection, or have heard of another argument that you want to see addressed, leave a comment! I'll see what I can do for you. :)

Stay tuned for the next post, which is on Sola Gratia!

Sola Fide, Part One

Our journey through the Five Solas continues, and today we're looking at Sola Fide: Faith alone.

The Catholic Church taught that Salvation is gained by a combination of faith and works, and that you must have both to be able to be saved. The Protestants objected to this teaching with Sola Fide, which said that salvation is by faith alone, not by works or by faith+works.

Some of us don't realize (and others forget) just how important Sola Fide is. The doctrine is what separates not only the Protestants from the Catholics, but it's what separates Christianity from almost all other religions and cults. Most other belief systems emphasize works, and that you can only gain your salvation by completing certain deeds, living a certain way, or by doing certain things. Christianity is the only belief system that recognizes the fact that mankind can never achieve salvation through his own accomplishments, because "all our righteous acts are like filthy rags" (Isaiah 64:6).

But is Sola Fide biblical? Does the Bible really teach that salvation is by faith alone? The answer is yes.

"For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast." (Ephesians 2:8-9)

"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." (John 3:16)

“Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life." (John 5:14)

"Jesus answered and said to them, 'This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent.'" (John 6:29)

 "All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name." (Acts 10:43)

"Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law." (Romans 3:28)

These are just a few verses that serve to prove that we are justified by faith, and not by our works. However, I'm going to go a step further and say that if good works were required for salvation, then nobody would get saved, because of our sinful nature.

Isaiah 64:6 says that:

"all our righteous acts are like filthy rags." 

Psalm 53:1-3 says:

"The fool has said in his heart,'There is no God.' They are corrupt, and have done abominable iniquity; There is none who does good. God looks down from heaven upon the children of men, To see if there are any who understand, who seek God. Every one of them has turned aside; They have together become corrupt; There is none who does good, No, not one."

Psalm 14 and Romans both echo the same thing. It's clear that man cannot do good works apart from God's grace (and I'll talk more about this when we get back to Total Depravity). If man can't do good works outside of salvation, then he can't save himself by said works.

In summary, Sola Fide s a Biblical doctrine, and the Reformers were right to challenge the Catholic Church's false teaching that works contribute to salvation. We are justified by faith alone!

Stay tuned for the next post, which will deal with common objections to Sola Fide.

Sola Scriptura: Part Two

Now we come to the second part of our two-part series on Sola Scriptura, as we make our way through the Five Solas of the Reformation. In this post, we will be tackling the most common objections, arguments, and scripture verses used to try to debunk Sola Scriptura. Let's get right to it.

Sola Scriptura is not in the Bible!
We already dealt with this in the last Sola Scriptura post, but I thought it would be good to mention it again. Though Sola Scriptura isn't explicitly mentioned in the Bible, it can be logically inferred from what is taught in the scriptures.

Until the invention of the printing press, the Bible was not readily available for most Christians. How could they possibly have applied Sola Scriptura?
This argument is usually brought up by Catholics, in an attempt to justify tradition. If the Bible isn't available, than tradition is necessary, and Sola Scriptura is impractical at best. But here's the problem: the Bible's authority is not based on it's availability. The Bible is the word of God, and thus, its authority is universal, regardless of its whether or not you have access to it.

If it weren't for the Catholic Church, you wouldn't even have the Bible!
This argument basically says that we Protestants are shooting ourselves in the foot when we challenge the Catholic Church with Sola Scriptura, since the Catholics are the ones who decided upon and compiled the canon of scripture. Essentially, they say we have the Catholics to thank for the Bible, because we wouldn't have it without them. But that's not quite how it is. We don't have the Bible because of the Catholic Church. On the contrary, we have the Bible in spite of the Catholic Church! Let me explain. For a long time, the Catholic Church didn't want the common person to have access to the Bible, but instead wanted them to rely on the Church to get their daily dose of Biblical truth. The Bible was stuck in Latin, and was not translated into other languages until around the time of the reformation. In this way, the Catholic Church maintained a "monopoly" of sorts on scripture and it's meaning, forcing everyone to accept their interpretation of the scriptures, since the common people of the Middle Ages couldn't read (much less read Latin). It wasn't until the reformers came along that the Bible began getting translated into common languages, and even then the Catholics did everything they could to stop it, by persecuting and excommunicating people such as William Tyndale, John Wycliff, and Martin Luther. If we have anyone to thank for the Bible, it's not the Catholics. It's the Reformers and the printing press.

There are thousands of Protestant denominations! How's Sola Scriptura workin' out for ya?
Catholics argue that Sola Scriptura is a dangerous doctrine, and creates disunity between Christians. Most Protestants hold to the doctrine of Sola Scriptura, but how many Protestants agree on what the Bible means? Not many, as is evidenced by the many different Protestant denominations which exist throughout the world. Thus, Catholics say that interpretation of the Bible should be left to the Catholic Church authority and none else. Otherwise, we get the divided mess that Protestantism is.
But this argument doesn't prove anything. It doesn't prove that Sola Scriptura is wrong or bad, it just proves that mankind is fallible and tainted by sin, as we pointed out in the last post. And for the record, there is division in the Catholic Church as well. This argument only reinforces the fact that there is no human can infallibly interpret the scriptures, and that includes the Pope.

The Bible says we should follow tradition!
Yet another Catholic argument, used in the defense of the traditions that Sola Scriptura attempts to tear down. I Corinthians 11:2 and II Thessalonians 2:15 are some of the verses Catholics cite. However, we must remember, Sola Scriptura is not an argument against all tradition. It is an argument against unbiblical, extra-biblical, and anti-biblical traditions.The traditions Paul was referring to in those passages were not in disagreement with scripture. Traditions that do disagree with scripture should be discarded, which is the whole point of Sola Scriptura.

Protestants are being hypocritical when they preach Sola Scriptura. They claim to follow the Bible only, but in reality, they follow the teachings of men such as Calvin and Luther!
Not exactly an argument against Sola Scriptura, but still an argument that I thought was worthy of mention, seeing as I'm a Calvinist and hear this a lot. Here's my answer: Men like Calvin and Luther didn't add their own separate teaching to the Bible, the way the Catholic Church has done. They simply interpreted what the Bible says to get their teachings. Whether their interpretations were correct or not is up for debate, since, as I've said, all men are fallible (including Luther and Calvin). So yes, a lot of Protestants follow the teaching of Luther and Calvin, but said teachings are derived from scripture, not added to it, and thus we are not being hypocritical when we claim Sola Scriptura while following said teachings.

Well, that's it. Six of the most common arguments I could find against Sola Scriptura, refuted. However, this is by no meas an extensive or exhaustive list. There are many more, but it would take a much larger post to address them all. If you think I didn't do a good job refuting these objections, or you know of a specific objection that you haven't heard a good rebuttal to, let me know in a comment, and I'll see what I can do!

Thus concludes our brief look at Sola Scriptura. Next up is Sola Fide!

Sola Scriptura: Part One

Image courtesy of myself

I've been waaay too lazy about getting back into the five points of Calvinism, and so, I will finally be re-booting the series I started a while back. This time though, I'll be starting with the Five Solas of the Reformation first, and then I'll do the five points of Calvinism after that. This posts will be shorter, hopefully sweeter, and Lord-willing, daily. Let's start out with a little history of the Five Solas.

The Five Solas were essentially a theological outline of were the early Protestants stood; specifically, where they believed the then-dominant Catholic Church had gone wrong.

'Sola' means 'Alone' in Latin.The five Solas are as follows:
Sola Scriptura: Scripture alone
Sola Fide: Faith alone
Sola Gratia: Grace alone
Solus Christus/Solo Christo: Christ Alone
Soli Deo Gloria: For the glory of God alone

Today we'll be looking at Sola Scriptura, or "Scripture alone."

What the Protestants meant by Sola Scriptura was that the Bible is the ultimate and infallible authority for Christian doctrine, and as such, that all Christian teachings and practices should be in line with or derived from the Bible, rather than from Papal decree or from tradition.

It's important to point out that Sola Sciptura isn't necessarily an attack on Popes and traditions, as many Catholics portray it. Sola Scriptura is an attack on unbiblical and anti-biblical traditions, where the teaching of man contradicts the Word of God. Purgatory, Indulgences, Praying to Mary/Saints, and divine papal authority are all examples of unbiblical teachings and traditions, which the Protestants disagreed with.

When the Protestant Reformer Martin Luther was told to recant his beliefs, his reply to the Catholic Church was this: “Unless therefore I am convinced by the testimony of Scripture, or by the clearest reasoning, unless I am persuaded by means of the passages I have quoted, and unless they thus render my conscience bound by the Word of God, I cannot and will not retract, for it is unsafe for a Christian to speak against his conscience. Here I stand, I can do no other; may God help me! Amen!”

This was the Protestant stance. The Bible, not Popes or tradition, was the ultimate authority by which Christians should live.

But for all the emphasis on scripture, what does the Bible say about Sola Scriptura? Is it taught in the Bible or not? Because if "scripture alone" is not in scripture, then we have a serious logical problem. Let's take a look.

Catholics will be quick to point out that the Bible does not explicitly teach or command Sola Scriptura. So is Sola Sciptura not scriptural then? Someone should make that last sentence into a tongue-twister.

Though the Bible doesn't explicitly teach Sola Scriptura, it does teach it implicitly.

Here's what the Bible says:

“All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work." 2 Timothy 3:16-17

If scripture is God-breathed, then it is infallible and without error, just as God is. Secondly, all that one needs in order to live a life devoted to Christ can be found in the Bible. With the Bible, we are "Complete, equipped for every good work." 2 Peter 1:3 also supports this fact.

"His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence"

If we have all things that pertain to life and Godliness, and are equipped for every good work through the Bible, then tacking on extra-biblical teachings and practices and saying that they MUST be observed is wrong.

There are two other facts, things the Bible talks about, which support Sola Scriptura. The first one is Man's sin. We are fallible creatures, and as a result of the fall, none of us are righteous, no, not one (Romans 3:10). We are often wrong, and just as often, we lie. This is true of all mankind, including Popes, Cardinals, Priests, everyone (Romans 3:23).

The second fact is God's Righteousness. I shouldn't need to point out that God is perfect. He cannot make an error or a contradiction, and He cannot tell a lie (Titus 1:2; Numbers 23:19). He is infallible.

What do these two fact tell us? If God is infallible, and Man is fallible, then the situation should be clear. God's Word will always trump man's word. If the two contradict, then God's Word wins all day, every day, and twice on Sunday.

So even though Sola Scriptura is not explicitly mentioned in the Bible, it is perfectly in line with what the Bible does say.

In summary, Sola Scriptura is biblical, and the Bible is the only basis for Christian doctrine. As such, all Man-made tradition and teachings should be lined up with and tested by Scripture, and if found to be unbiblical, should be abandoned.

Click here to read the next post on Sola Scriptura, which deals with the objections and arguments against it (which, as we'll see, are quite numerous!)