St. Mary's Church Elizabeth, IL

8/23

A Closer Look at Faith and Works (1)

Have Catholics and Protestants resolved their differences?

You could say that the Protestand Reformation officially ended in 1999.  In that year Pope John Paul II and representatives of "subscribing Lutheran churches" signed a document titled, 'The Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification."  Emerging from the specific and technical language of this twenty some-odd page document is a humble admission:  The essential disp[ute between Roman Catholics and the first Protestants was grounded in  an inadequate of Justification by Faith.  This document is a milestone in the efforts of the Church to honor the will of Jesus, "that all may be one."

Faith alone or faith and works?

The trouble all stems from a basic misunderstanding of two biblical verses on both sides.  Paul's letter to the Romans proclaims that all humanity has been justified-that is, put right with God-through the risen Christ (Romans 5:1-2).  Salvation, in other words is God's free will gift to humanity. It cannot be earned, altered, or affeted by human action but can only be received through Faith.  Paul explains that although Israel had the Law-divinely revealed instructions for how to act in a mnner pleasing God- it ultimately did them no good because the chosen people were unable to follow it.  "For 'no human being will be justified in his (God's) sight by deeds prescribed by the law, for through the law comes the knowledge of sine" (Romans 3:20).

                                        The trouble all setems from a basic misunderstanding

                                                  of two biblical verses on both sides.

And then there's the letter of James.  "What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works?  Can faith save you?  If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them.  'Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,' and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that?  So, faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead" (James 2:14-17).  Martin Luther, the Catholic monk whose 95 Theses were the inspiration for the first phase of the Protestand Reformation in the early 16th Centry despised these words of James.  It is said he refused to recognize the letter of James as divinely inspired book of the New Testament.

     Luther's reaction can now be seen much more clearly as a misinterpretation of James' point.  The letter of James was written some time-and possibly a generation after-Paul's letter to the Romans.  His point is not to negate Pauls' proclamation of God's gift of salvation, but to develop it further.  If a person has not been transformed by an encounter with God's unconditional love through faith in the risen Christ in the way in which he or she acts toward those in need, then the person that has not been in the presence of Christ at all.  "Faith without works is dead," in other words, because faith never existed in the first place.

Fr. Joachim