You're conflating "faith isn't a meritorious work" (true, everyone agrees) with "faith isn't an act of the will at all" (which is what monergism actually implies once you follow TULIP through).BusyTarpDuster2017 said:Doc Holliday said:BusyTarpDuster2017 said:Doc Holliday said:BusyTarpDuster2017 said:Doc Holliday said:BusyTarpDuster2017 said:Doc Holliday said:BusyTarpDuster2017 said:Doc Holliday said:Oldbear83 said:
A popular claim made here by some members, is that no one can be saved without doing some good works. While those members protest that this does not equate salvation by merit, the works-necessary claim logically claims that God cannot save someone unless that person chooses to be saved by doing some good work. In essence, allowing man to veto God's will, which I cannot accept.
Scripture has quite a few cases where people were saved from destruction and death without doing works. Adam and Eve, for example, disobeyed God but He did not abandon them after their expulsion from Eden (Genesis Chapter 3). In fact, God's whole plan of redemption for Humanity is built completely from God's mercy and grace, not human actions.
In Genesis Chapter 32, God makes Jacob the patriarch of Israel, despite Jacob having done nothing to deserve such kindness from God. Jacob received undeserved mercy from God before he ever did any service for God.
In Genesis Chapter 50, God uses Joseph to save his entire family, including his brothers the same ones who sold him in to slavery in the first place and are not recorded as doing any good works.
That's just in Genesis. In the New Testament, Jesus refused to condemn the woman caught in adultery (John Chapter 8) despite no works by her to deserve such. The Prodigal Son in Luke Chapter 15 is welcomed back by his father without deserving it. And of course there is the Thief on the cross; zero evidence of works by him.
Paul explained it concisely in Romans 5:68: "While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."
It was always about God's Will, God's Grace, God's Mercy.
If we do works which serve God, we receive the reward of God's pleasure, which is real and significant, but is not about Salvation. We certainly should rejoice at the opportunity to serve the Lord, reflecting the Holy Spirit at work in us, but the works flow from being aligned with the Lord; they do not play any role in God's Salvation of us.
.....Guy #1 is the one actually striving to enter the narrow gate (Luke 13:24). He's for real about it, but not because his effort earns anything, but because living faith always produces the fight. That's the difference between faith that justifies and faith that's dead.
"...living faith always produces the fight."
That's what I've always been saying. True faith WILL always produce conviction, and hence the fight or struggle, but not necessarily the works for some people. Some people may struggle for the rest of their life and the works they have to show for their faith is very little to none. Especially in the case of someone who dies shortly after coming to faith. They may spend the rest of their life struggling against their old life, and then die, having no works at all, but only their naked faith. Yet, they are saved because their faith is enough. They might not receive many rewards in heaven, but they are saved. So even though they had no works, it doesn't mean that their faith was "dead". Their faith was alive, but they struggled through sanctification. This is why James chapter 2 needs to be understood not as an absolute statement on salvivic doctrine concerning faith and works, but rather as a statement on the normative relationship between the two in someone with real faith, given enough time and opportunity. Roman Catholics and Orthodox are always using James chapter 2 to say "See? Faith without works is dead. That obviously means you have to perform our sacraments or your faith is "dead" and you won't be saved." A complete misuse of James.
Fight and struggle IS works. You're trying to split those into two categories, "internal fight" that's automatic and spiritual, and "external works" that's optional and about rewards. There's no daylight between them. When you resist a temptation, when you cry out to God in the moment, when you choose to turn instead of indulge, that IS an act of the will cooperating with grace. That's the work! I'm not talking about volunteering or performing sacraments, I already said that. Praying, resisting, repenting, turning, that's the works James and I are both talking about.
So your deathbed convert guy. If he spends his last days actually fighting his old life instead of just sitting on "I said the prayer, I'm good," he's not "faith with zero works." He's Guy #1 with barely any time on the clock. Still works. Just compressed. Its not about hitting a quota or earning rewards. It's about whether the will is engaged at all. Guy who fights for one day before he dies is nothing like the guy who believes the gospel and coasts for 40 years. They have the same faith on paper, totally different fruit, because one guy's will showed up and the other guy's didn't.
And James doesn't say "normally this produces works given enough time." He says faith without works is dead. Useless. Can't save (2:14, 17, 20). You're reading in an assumption because the plain text doesn't fit sola fide. Nobody is using this to sneak in "perform our sacraments or you're not saved," that's a different argument you're coming up with on your own. This is just: is faith that never engages the will, even a little, even for one day, the kind of faith James is calling alive? No.
Fight and struggle are works that arise during sanctification, not performed in order to obtain salvation.
Your second paragraph is just more of your straw manning. "I said the prayer, I'm good" - that's not what Protestants argue as true faith.
The difference between Guy #1 and the guy who "coasts", if they both are true believers, is that one is sanctified more than the other, NOT that one was saved while the other was not. Salvation is dependent on their having true faith, not whether they "cooperated" with their free will to a sufficient degree. The difference between those two believers will lead to differences in rewards in heaven. Can a true believer "coast" for years? Sure (and it depends on what you mean exactly by "coast"). But it will be because they are not responding to the Spirit within them. Eventually, though, with time and opportunity, a true believer becomes convicted about it.
So, if you take James as an absolute statement about salvation, then you have to believe that someone who hears the gospel and comes to genuine faith and trust in Jesus, but dies soon afterwards without having any works, is not saved but is in Hell. Is that correct?
I wouldn't even classify evangelicals as protestants. They basically are radical reformers that schismated away from mainlines. They're more far removed from Luther/Calvin than Luther/Calvin were removed from Catholic positions. You'd be shocked by what some evangelicals teach to millions of people.
The late Charles Stanley, one of the most famous Southern Baptist pastors in American history, wrote a book titled Eternal Security: Can You Be Sure? Here's a quote from that book:Quote:
"You can't lose your salvation... even if you cease to believe. Even if you turn away from Christ. Your salvation is secure." He argued that an atheist who once believed will still be in heaven, though they might sit in eternity with a sense of regret or loss of rewards.
Zane Hodge is a theologian at Dallas Theological Seminary who essentially founded the modern Free Grace movement. He argued that repentance is a work meant only for fellowship with God, not for salvation. He explicitly defended the idea that a "carnal Christian" (Guy #2) could live a completely wicked life after their moment of faith and still be 100% secure in their salvation.
Bob Wilkin is the executive director of the Grace Evangelical Society teaches that making a commitment to turn from sin or obey God is actually a "false gospel of works." He argues that salvation is purely an intellectual acceptance of a promise, and if a person lives like the devil afterward, it only affects their rewards at the judgment seat, never their entrance through the pearly gates.
These views are taught in thousands of independent Bible churches, Baptist churches, and megachurches across America. It is highly structured, deeply funded, and defended by massive publishing houses. I'm not fighting a straw man. I'm arguing against a massive, highly influential wing of modern American Protestantism. Some of your favorite pastors were strongly against this and they called it easy Believism: see John MacArthur. I don't think you realize this is the dominant American Christianity now statistically.
But to your other points, the Thief on the Cross couldn't do physical charity, but he used his free will to defend Jesus, confess his own guilt, and ask for mercy. Those are massive, internal acts of the will, which are exactly what we mean by works. God doesn't have a quota; He looks at whether the heart is cooperating with His grace.
Look at the logical loop you built. You admit a believer can 'coast' but claim they will 'eventually become convicted.' What if they don't? What if a believer coasts, lives in unrepentant sin, never gets convicted, and dies that way? If you say they are still saved, then you're arguing that lifelong, unrepentant rebellion doesn't matter for salvation, which is what I'm worried out. If you say they aren't saved, then you agree with me that active, lifelong cooperation with God's grace is necessary to enter the narrow gate. Which is it?
But none of them say to just say a prayer, and you're saved. So yes, it is a straw man.
So, according to your view about the thief on the cross - if he just believed Jesus and knew his own guilt silently but truly in his heart, and did NOT vocally defend him or confess his guilt and ask for mercy out loud... then he would NOT have been saved and would have gone to Hell. Is this your view?
You know my view - if a "believer" lives a long life of unrepentant sin and never gets convicted, then that person is likely NOT a true believer. But yes, it IS possible for a person to hear the gospel, believe and trust Jesus with all their heart... but not know that their lifestyle is a sin in time to repent before they die soon after. In that example, technically they were in "lifelong" unrepentant sin. Yet they are still saved because their faith was true. What I don't believe, is that someone who continues in unrepentant sin and doesn't even recognize it as sin and is without any conviction for a long time, is a true believer. A pure example of that is someone who continues to bow and pray to/through images and statues and credit Mary for their salvation their whole life without ever sensing that it is wrong.
And why does that "worry" you? Why are you worried about those who aren't true believers not being true believers?
No, he wouldn't go to hell, because you're still confusing the visible fruit with the internal act of the will. If the thief he had been physically mute, or died the exact millisecond he believed, the internal act of his will: surrendering his soul to God and rejecting his past life, would still be a 'work' of the heart.
Works aren't just physical checklist items: they're the human free will cooperating with God's grace. A silent heart that surrenders to God is cooperating. You are the one insisting that works must look like a long list of external duties for them to count.
Your example of the person who dies before realizing their lifestyle is a sin is just 'invincible ignorance.' We agree God doesn't judge people for what they couldn't possibly know. But you are using that rare exception to justify a system where people who do know better can intentionally 'coast' in sin for decades.
Your swipe at Orthodox Christians completely contradicts your own logic. You say a person can be a true believer if they don't know their lifestyle is a sin. But then you claim an Orthodox Christian who loves Jesus but prays in front of an icon, completely unaware that you think it's a sin, is automatically a false believer. Why does your loophole cover your hypothetical guy but completely exclude the historic Church? And for the record, no Orthodox Christian credits Mary for salvation: we ask her to pray for us, just like you ask your friends to pray for you.
Why does this worry me? Because pastors who tell people their daily choices and repentance don't matter for their destiny are handing out a false sense of security. Its horrible. Why does your system have massive, endless grace for a hypothetical guy who intentionally 'coasts' in sin for 40 years, but zero grace for an Orthodox Christian who spends their entire life fasting, praying, and trying to take up their cross?
It seems like you're retreating "works" to even include the process of believing the gospel and trusting Jesus for one's salvation.
Exactly. Faith is an activity, not an opinion.
James 2:22 "You see that faith was working together with his works, and by works faith was made perfect". Faith and works aren't opposites, they cooperate
1 Thessalonians 1:3 Paul commends their "work of faith and labor of love". Faith itself is called a work.
Galatians 5:6 "faith working through love". Faith isn't inert, it's active by nature.
Romans 1:5, 16:26 Paul's phrase "obedience of faith". Faith itself is framed as an act of obedience, not a passive state.
Strict monergism says God regenerates you first, and faith just shows up after as the result, not something you brought to the table. Under that system, telling someone to "believe and trust Jesus" has to be theater. If total depravity means you can't respond at all until grace forces the response, you didn't really do any trusting. So you basically need pick a lane: either believing is something you actually do (which makes it a condition you're meeting, whatever you want to call it), or it's 100% one sided with zero input from you, in which case stop using words like "trust" and "believe" like they're your action at all.
Here's the real issue: that's basically monothelitism applied to salvation. Quick definition: it's the ancient heresy that said Christ had only one will, a divine one, with no real human will operating alongside it. The Church condemned this because it erases Christ's full humanity. This is doing the same move: erasing the human will completely from salvation and calling the leftover "grace alone." Orthodoxy says grace and human will work together, they aren't competitors.
Keep your theological system where faith and works are separated on paper. But if you actually love Christ, you should live as if they're not separated. You should wake up every morning asking yourself: "How do I use my free will today so I'm not resisting Christ's work in me?" Not "I am secure regardless of what I do today." If your love for Christ is real, that question should be the posture of your whole life, whatever your theology says on paper.
"Faith is the assurance of things not seen, the conviction of things hoped for."
The Bible defines faith as something entirely in the heart of the believer. The verses you're citing are not calling faith a "work". The Bible clearly distinguishes them - "By faith we have been saved, not by works".
Your re-defining of "works" so that it includes the act of initially coming to faith in Jesus is only changing the argument to salvation being the result of only ONE work, which is the "work" of coming to faith in one's heart. So it's not supporting your view about salvation at all.
What do you do with the fact that Jesus himself said this: "No one can come to me unless the Father draws them?"
Your "real issue" is a fake one. It's not monothelitism applied to salvation at all. Not everyone believes a person's free will is removed from coming to faith in Jesus. You are punching at your Calvinism straw man again, as if it represents all of true Protestantism. The question "how do I use my free will today so I'm not resisting Christ's work in me" is asked differently by the Orthodox and by the true Christian. The former ends the question "in order that I might be saved" while the true Christian adds "because I have been saved".
On John 6:44, be careful with that verse. "Draw" (helky) shows up again in John 12:32, "I will draw all people to myself." If "draw" means irresistible efficacious regeneration in ch 6, it means the same thing in ch 12… and now you've got universalism.
Is your will doing anything, or just watching?
