Sola Fide...

Sola Fide is one of the doctrines introduced by Luther as part of his Five Solas. It is one of the two Solas, the other being Sola Scriptura, that most Protestants will agree on. Many of those same denominations denounce the Catholic Church for sharing, what it believes as a faith and works based salvation.

Before I talk about my understanding of what the Catholic Church teaches about Faith Alone, I think that it is important to get a better understanding of my interpretation of what Sola Fide means. In essence, it means that after accepting the Lord Jesus Christ as our personal Lord and Savior, there is nothing that we can do to earn or merit our salvation. It is a divinely given free gift from God to an unworthy wretch like me.

It would probably surprise most readers of this blog to know that this is the exact same teaching of the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church does not believe that a person can merit salvation. Instead, it believes that it is a completely free gift of God.

Where the Catholic Church disagrees with Sola Fide is the notion that once you have accepted this faith, there is no responsibility on your part to remain in God's Grace. Your work is done. In other words, the Church teaches that justification is not a one time event, it is instead a continual process over your life. To put it another way, so long as you remain in a state of grace your salvation is assured.

It has been my experience that many people of other faiths believe instead that when you accept Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, from that point on you are justified in the eyes of God. It is faith alone in God that saves you. After listening to many different debates on this topic, I have come to the conclusion that this belief cannot be justified scriptural. Make no mistake, I do believe that we must have faith in order to be saved, I just don't agree with the "alone" part of Sola Fide.

One of the Scriptures that seem to support the idea of faith alone can be found in Romans.

"For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the Law"-Romans 3:28

On first glance, this would appear that the Bible is telling us that we are saved by faith and not by works. But notice at the end, Paul is telling us that we are saved by faith and not from "the works of the Law". What is the "the works of the Law" that Paul is referring to? In order to understand Scripture, we all have to be better about cherry picking verses. We should all be challenged to look at the entire context that the Scriptures are speaking. We have to consider to whom this letter was addressed, and why it was written.

Without going into a lot of detail at this time in Early Christianity, you had two very different cultures within the God's Church. You had the Jews (God's chosen people) and the Gentiles (everyone else). There were Christians in the Jewish culture who believed that it was not enough to believe in God. They wanted the Gentiles to also follow the traditions of their culture under the old covenant - namely to be circumcised (Acts 15). Paul is telling the Church in Rome that justification comes to us apart from the Law - Mosaic Law. In other words, the Gentiles do not need to be burdened with the disciplines of the Old Law under the Old covenant. Man's justification before the Lord comes through not our faith of the Old Covenant, but of the New Covenant through the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.

This context can be better understood, once we read the remaining verses
"Or is God the God of Jews only? Is He not the God of Gentiles also?..."-
Rom 3:28

So what are we to understand from this? Paul has just explained to the Church that we are saved by faith and not by the works of the old covenant law. Also notice that Paul never said that we are saved by faith alone. As a matter of fact the words "faith alone" never appears anywhere in the Bible...well there is one place:

"You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone"-
James 2:24

Here is the one spot where the words faith and alone appear together. I think that the point that James is making is that we are not saved by faith alone, but instead we are saved by faith and works. The two complement eachother and are absolutely critical. He even takes the time to explain what faith is if it does not have any works to complement it:

"Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself"-
James 2:17

"For just as the body without spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead"-James 2:26

This is how the Apostle James shows how works is vital to faith. He compares it to the relationship between the body and spirit. You cannot have one without the other.

Just to make sure that I am not setting the stage for a match between what the Apostle James is saying and what the Apostle Paul is saying, I do not believe they are saying anything contradictory. As a matter of fact, if you read the entire Letter from Paul to the Romans (which I would recommend everyone doing), you will come upon these verses:

"God will give to each person according to what he has done. To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life..."-Romans 2:6-11

...he has done.
Notice how Paul is not saying according to how much he believed only. Instead Paul is saying that God will judge according to what he did.

...persistence
Righteousness, justification is not a one time event. We must continually persist in God's grace.

I have merely scratched the surface of this topic. There are many other scripture passages that are worth examining further. This is something that I personally have wrestled with in order to get a better understanding of what God is asking from all of us. I at one time also believed that we are saved and justified through faith alone. In light of things that I am learning, I just can no longer accept that position.

Peace be with you all...