Justification by Faith Alone by James Akin Many Protestants today realize that Catholics adhere to the idea of salvation sola gratia (by grace alone), but fewer are aware that Catholics also do not have to condemn the formula of justification sola fide (by faith alone), provided this phrase is properly understood. The term pistis is used in the Bible in a number of different senses, ranging from intellectual belief (Romans 14:22, 23, James 2:19), to assurance (Acts 17:31), and even to trustworthiness or reliability (Romans 3:3, Titus 2:10). Of key importance is Galatians 5:6, which refers to "faith working by charity." In Catholic theology, this is what is known as fide formata or "faith formed by charity." The alternative to formed faith is fide informis or "faith unformed by charity." This is the kind of faith described in James 2:19, for example. Whether a Catholic will condemn the idea of justification by faith alone depends on what sense the term "faith" is being used in. If it is being used to refer to unformed faith then a Catholic rejects the idea of justification by faith alone (which is the point James is making in James 2:19, as every non-antinomian Evangelical agrees; one is not justified by intellectual belief alone). However, if the term "faith" is being used to refer to faith formed by charity then the Catholic does not have to condemn the idea of justification by faith alone. In fact, in traditional works of Catholic theology, one regularly encounters the statement that formed faith is justifying faith. If one has formed faith, one is justified. Period. A Catholic would thus reject the idea of justification sola fide informi but wholeheartedly embrace the idea of justification sola fide formata. Adding the word "formed" to clarify the nature of the faith in "sola fide" renders the doctrine completely acceptable to a Catholic. Why, then, do Catholics not use the ther in this regard, we would have to say, "Jesus is not God." Obviously, the Church could not have people running around saying "Jesus is God" and "Jesus is not God," though both would be perfectly consistent with the Trinity depending on how the term "God" is being used (i.e., as a noun or a proper name for the Father). Hopeless confusion (and charges of heresy, and bloodbaths) would have resulted in the early centuries if the Church did not specify the meaning of the term "God" when used in this context. Of course, the Bible uses the term "God" in both senses, but to avoid confusion (and heretical misunderstandings on the part of the faithful, who could incline to either Arianism or Modalism if they misread the word "God" in the above statements) it later became necessary to adopt one usage over the other when discussing the identity of Jesus. A similar phenomenon occurs in connection with the word "faith." Evangelical leaders know this by personal experience since they have to continually fight against antinomian understandings of the term "faith" (and the corresponding antinomian evangelistic practices and false conversions that result). Because "faith" is such a key term, it is necessary that each theological school have a fixed usage of it in practice, even though there is more than one use of the term in the Bible. Evangelical leaders, in response to the antinomianism that has washed over the American church scene in the last hundred and fifty years, are attempting to impose a uniform usage to the term "faith" in their community to prevent these problems. (And may they have good luck in this, by the way.) This leads me to why Catholics do not use the formula "faith alone." Given the different usages of the term "faith" in the Bible, the early Church had to decide which meaning would be treated as normative. Would it be the Galatians 5 sense or the Romans 14/James 2 sense? The Church opted for the latter for several reasons: First, the Romans 14 sense of the term pistis is frankly the more common in the New Testament. It is much harder to think of passages which demand that pistis mean "faith formed by charity" than it is to think of passages which demand that pistis mean "intellectual belief." In fact, even in Galatians 5:6 itself, Paul has to specify that it is faith formed by charity that he is talking about, suggesting that this is not the normal use of the term in his day. Second, the New Testament regularly (forty-two times in the KJV) speaks of "the faith," meaning a body of theological beliefs (e.g. Jude 3). The connection between pistis and intellectual belief is clearly very strong in this usage. Third, Catholic theology has focused on the triad of faith, hope, and charity, which Paul lays great stress on and which is found throughout his writings, not just in 1 Corinthians 13:13 (though that is the locus classicus for it), including places where it is not obvious because of the English translation or the division of verses. If in this triad "faith" is taken to mean "formed faith" then hope and charity are collapsed into faith and the triad is flattened. To preserve the distinctiveness of each member of the triad, the Church chose to use the term "faith" in a way that did not include within it the ideas of hope (trust) and charity (love). Only by doing this could the members of the triad be kept from collapsing into one another. Thus the Catholic Church normally expresses the core essences of these virtues like this: Faith is the theological virtue by which we believe in God and believe all that he has said and revealed to us . because he is truth itself. (CCC 1814) Hope is the theological virtue by which we desire the kingdom of heaven and eternal life as our happiness, placing our trust in Christ's promises and relying not on our own strength, but on the help of the grace of the Holy Spirit. (CCC 1817) Charity is the theological virtue by which we love God above all things for his own sake, and our neighbor as ourselves for the love of God. (CCC 1822) In common Catholic usage, faith is thus unconditional belief in what God says, hope is unconditional trust in God, and charity is unconditional love for God. When we are justified, God places all three of these virtues in our hearts. These virtues are given to each of the justified, even though our outward actions do not always reflect them because of the fallen nature we still possess. Thus a person may still have the virtue of faith even if momentarily tempted by converted by Web2PDFConvert.com doubt, a person may still have the virtue of trust even if scared or tempted by despair, and a person may still have the virtue of charity even if he is often selfish. Only a direct, grave violation (mortal sin against) of one of the virtues destroys the virtue. As our sanctification progresses, these virtues within us are strengthened by God and we are able to more easily exercise faith, more easily exercise trust, and more easily exercise love. Performing acts of faith, hope, and charity becomes easier as we grow in the Christian life (note the great difficulty new converts often experience in these areas compared to those who have attained a measure of spiritual maturity). However, so long as one has any measure of faith, hope, and charity, one is in a state of justification. Thus Catholics often use the soteriological slogan that we are "saved by faith, hope, and charity." This does not disagree with the Protestant soteriological slogan that we are "saved by faith alone" if the term "faith" is understood in the latter to be faith formed by charity or Galatians 5 faith. One will note, in the definitions of the virtues offered above, the similarity between hope and the way Protestants normally define "faith"; that is, as an unconditional "placing our trust in Christ's promises and relying not on our own strength, but on the help of the grace of the Holy Spirit." The definition Protestants normally give to "faith" is the definition Catholics use for "hope." However, the Protestant idea of faith by no means excludes what Catholics refer to as faith, since every Evangelical would (or should) say that a person with saving faith will believe whatever God says because God is absolutely truthful and incapable of making an error. Thus the Protestant concept of faith normally includes both the Catholic concept of faith and the Catholic concept of hope. Thus if a Protestant further specifies that saving faith is a faith which "works by charity" then the two soteriological slogans become equivalents. The reason is that a faith which works by charity is a faith which produces acts of love. But a faith which produces acts of love is a faith which includes the virtue of charity, the virtue of charity is the thing that enables us to perform acts of supernatural love in the first place. So a Protestant who says saving faith is a faith which works by charity, as per Galatians 5:6, is saying the same thing as a Catholic when a Catholic says that we are saved by faith, hope, and charity. We may put the relationship between the two concepts as follows: Protestant idea of faith = Catholic idea of faith + Catholic idea of hope + Catholic idea of charity The three theological virtues of Catholic theology are thus summed up in the (good) Protestant's idea of the virtue of faith.