OK…so, I want to shamelessly tell you about the power of sorting out the Faith/Works issue in keeping the Gospel clear, assurance solid, and judgmentalness banished. It is all in Back to Faith (see www.backtofaith.com)
Here’s the beginning of Chapter 5 from the book to consider:
CHAPTER 5
The Cliché Is Pragmatically Invalid
If the arguments presented have been unpersuasive to this
point, consider that this one great weakness of the cliché is the
only real challenge needed to justifiably abandon it: The cliché is
pragmatically invalid. Pragmatic invalidity simply means that, in
any practical sense, the theology behind the cliché is useless, even
if it is true. Assume the cliché, “It is therefore faith alone which
justifies, and yet the faith which justifies is not alone,” is true. In
other words, with the assumption that the cliché is valid, it is held
that one can indeed look at works (or the lack of works) and
determine something about the true nature of an individual’s
eternal salvation. Said otherwise, works prove faith. But can one
truly know if the works are authentic? Or, can the works be
hidden? Here a great problem appears, practically speaking,
because the true works arising from a true salvation are
indeterminable, and so the cliché is pragmatically useless. How
can one know for sure that the works seen in another are “because
of salvation,” rather than “in order to get saved?” To appreciate
this argument, one need only consider the distinction between fact
and theory.
A fact, in the simplest sense, is something that corresponds
to the actual state of affairs. Facts are those things which are
knowable and demonstrable and correspond with how things really
are. A theory, on the other hand, as used in this context, is an
unproved assumption. It parallels words like conjecture and
speculation when one speaks of theory in this sense. Obviously the
[This argument admittedly matches the correspondence theory of truth.
Ted Honderich, ed., The Oxford Companion to Philosophy [book on-line]
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995, accessed 4 October 2006), 267;
available from Questia, http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d= 74362715;Internet.
Defined 6b: an unproved assumption: conjecture, c: a body of
theorems presenting a concise systematic view of a subject. Merriam-Webster’s
Collegiate Dictionary, 11 ed. (2003), s.v. “theory.”]
word of God does not contain theory, as such, but the factual
explanations from God concerning His will and revelation to
mankind. Whether or not one can demonstrate the validity of the
cliché as a biblical concept is not at issue. At issue is the
distinction between that which is provable and factual, in contrast
with that which is theoretical and based on conjecture.
If the cliché’s theory is true, then it is apparent that one can
look at works or lack of works to point to the genuine nature of
another’s saving faith. So the puritan Matthew Henry asserts,
Faith is the root, good works are the fruits, and we
must see to it that we have both. We must not think
that either, without the other, will justify and save
us.
The truth, however, is that scripturally speaking, believing
individuals can indeed lack works, while unbelievers can indeed
have good, albeit dead, works. Judas serves as a glaring example
of one whose works never betrayed him. When Jesus predicted
that one of the disciples would betray him, all were perplexed, and
no disciple stated, “Well, it is obviously Judas.”
Woe!
Fred Lybrand
