Faith And/Or Works

When I was in college I liked to pass through the main mall going by the food court and library.  Sometimes I would take the long route just to see what was going on.  There were usually a handful of demonstrators and preachers and it was always an interesting diversion.  I remember one time I heard a preacher yell out: “for all you people who think you’re gonna get to Heaven by being nice people and doing good I’ll tell you the only way to be saved is through Christ.”  The college kids weren’t responding very well.  It might have been because his friend had another poster detailing why every group and subgroup on campus was going to Hell.  But regardless of what people may think, college kids are pretty morally conscious, sometimes hyper-morally conscious.  College kids are always getting involved in efforts to help alleviate poverty and protect the environment out of altruistic, idealistic motives.  And here was a guy telling them that all these good works were a waste of time and that they should instead be focusing on Jesus.

It’s great to testify of Jesus, but why downplay the importance of good works and good character?  Are good works and faith in Christ mutually exclusive?  The question is often framed “are we saved by works or by grace?”  This has been a big theological debate for hundreds of years.  Augustine was probably the most prominent theologian to discuss it in early Christianity.  During the Reformation Martin Luther brought this question to the forefront and it was continued by John Calvin.  But I think this whole discussion is presenting a false dichotomy and actually distorts the meaning of faith.  We don’t have a choice of either faith or works.  If you have faith in Christ you have faith and works.

This whole debate seems like a distraction to me.  Why worry so much about this?  Doing good is never bad.  It sounds silly to even say such a thing but it sometimes seems necessary.  Good works, genuinely good works are never bad and they are never condemned in scripture.  Scriptures only condemn pride, doing good things for glory and honor.  Jesus never said not to help the poor.  He just said to go and do it in private rather than make a big scene for the appearance of piety (Matthew 6:1-4).  Even Paul never condemned good works.  Paul just stressed that despite our efforts to do good work, we fail; but we can still be accepted by God through his grace (Romans 7:19-25; Romans 8).  Paul also warned about pride: “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is a gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9).

There is a certain nuance in the scriptures, especially in Paul.  We sometimes have a difficult time with nuance.  But the tension is this—we are saved by grace and not by our works, but good works are still essential.  We can’t just say “I’m saved” and then live a life of sin.  “What shall we say then?  Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?  God forbid.  How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer in therein?” (Romans 6:1-2)  This is nuance taught in the seminaries and is well understood by the educated clergy.  But unfortunately the message sometimes get’s lost on the rest of us.  It’s easier to avoid the tension and break things down into black and white—faith or works, take your pick.

Theologian J.I. Packer said: “Faith cannot be defined in subjective terms, as a confident and optimistic mind-set, or in passive terms, as acquiescent orthodoxy or confidence in God without commitment to God.  Faith is an object-oriented response, shaped by that which is trusted, namely God himself, God’s promises, and Jesus Christ, all as set forth in the Scriptures.  And faith is a whole-souled response, involving mind, heart, will and affections.

Reformed theologians actually had a very developed understanding of faith.  They broke down faith into three parts: notitia, assensus, and fiducia.

Notitia is the knowledge of the content of the gospel.

Assensus is the agreement, recognition that the gospel is true.  We usually focus primarily on this aspect of faith. 

Fiducia is trust and reliance in God.  It is trusting that although we sin and fail at times, we can trust in the grace of God and in the Atonement of Christ.  This is the element of commitment and dedication.

The idea that we don’t need God or God’s grace is the heresy of legalism.  The people the get all worked up and condemn the idea of salvation by works are very wary of the doctrine of legalism.  The danger of legalism is that it can be very damaging to our individual esteem.  If we think we have to be perfect we are apt to compare ourselves to others and feel we are not good enough.  Or we might get an inflated ego and feel like we are better than everyone else.  Both attitudes are alienating God.

The opposite end of legalism is antinomianism.  Antinomianism (literally “against+law”) is the idea that after we declare our faith in Christ we no longer need to abide by any rules.  The dangers of this doctrine should be obvious.  My big question to antinomianism is—what’s the point?  So God saves a bunch of vile, wretched people who stay that way forever.  That doesn’t even seem like salvation at all.  There is no progress.  It is eternal degeneracy.  I find it hard to admire a religion that doesn’t uplift and ennoble people’s lives or somehow make the world a better place.

Going back to J.I. Packer he says: “But if ‘good works’ (activities of serving God and others) do not follow from our profession of faith, we are as yet believing only from the head, not from the heart, in other words, justifying faith (fiducia) is not yet ours.  The truth is that, though we are justified by faith alone, the faith that justifies is never alone.”  A good way to get a deeper understanding of faith is to observe the different comments by Paul and James.  James famously said, “faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone” (James 2:17).  So does James contradict Paul?  Well, it’s possible that the two themselves got into arguments over this; we don’t know for sure.  But even if they did, they didn’t have to.  J.I. Packer said: “When James says that faith without works is dead (i.e., a corpse), he is using the word faith in the limited sense of notitia plus assensus, which is how those he addresses were using it.  When he says that one is justified by what one does, not by faith alone, he means by ‘justified’ ‘proved genuine; vindicated from the suspicion of being a hypocrite and a fraud.’  James is making the point that barren orthodoxy saves no one (James 2:14-26).  Paul would have agreed, and James’s whole letter shows him agreeing with Paul that faith must change one’s life.  Paul denounces the idea of salvation by dead works; James rejects salvation by dead faith.”

This leads into another key concept in Christian theology—sanctification.  Sanctification is “an ongoing transformation within a maintained consecration, and it engenders real righteousness within the frame of relational holiness” (Packer).  The “born-again” experience is regeneration.  But regeneration is just the beginning.  Sanctification is the continuing process that follows.  As Packer says: “Regeneration is birth; sanctification is growth.”  If you stop your spiritual progress right after you’re born again you remain a spiritual infant.

So maybe someday I’ll run out to the University and start preaching “All you people out there trying to live good lives and do good works, keep it up.  And don’t be discouraged when you make mistakes, God loves you anyway and wants to help you.  Trust God and follow Christ and you can have a great life.”  Or something like that.  We don’t need to have these extreme distinctions, choosing either a life of faith or a life of good works.  It’s not faith or works; it’s faith and works.

Referenced

Packer, J.I. Concise Theology: A Guide to Historic Christian Beliefs.

So the LDS church has these profiles of its members up on mormon.org.  I submitted a profile and I thought it would be good to post the contents and a link here.

Hi, I'm Todd

I'm working to solve the world's energy needs and help the environment. I'm a disciple of Christ and I'm a Mormon.

About Me

I am a chemical engineer working to make fuel from algae. I enjoy science, history, philosophy, and music. I also like to spend time outdoors camping or hiking. 

Why I am a Mormon

I am a follower of Jesus Christ and his Gospel. When I was baptized into the Church I made a covenant to take the name of Christ upon me. I love having both the Bible and the Book of Mormon. Both of these scriptures deepen my faith in Christ.

Frequently Asked Questions

How can we come to know our Father in Heaven?

We read in the Bible that we come to know our Father in Heaven through his Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus said: "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me". As we read of Jesus in the scriptures we can learn of the things he did and follow him. This will lead us unto the Father. For example, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus taught his disciples to pray unto the Father. As we pray to our Father in Heaven we can come closer to him.

Are Mormons Christians?

 Yes. There are millions of Christians throughout the world and we all have some different ideas and practices that we follow. But what unifies us as Christians is our faith in Jesus Christ. Mormons believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the Son of God and that he is our Savior and Redeemer. It is through the Atonement of Christ that all mankind may be saved and resurrected. In fact, this is the most important teaching of our faith.

Personal Stories

What blessings have come through your faith in Jesus Christ?

There is a great power and peace that comes with faith in Jesus Christ. We have all had times of feeling guilty, inadequate, depressed, anxious, trapped, and without hope. But the message of the Gospel is that God loves us. He loves us so much that he sent his Son Jesus Christ that we might have everlasting life. Jesus is on our side and he wants us to succeed. He wants us to be happy. My faith in Jesus Christ has made brought me peace and happiness. I am no longer burdened with guilt or despair. I feel his strength lifting me up.

How I live my faith

My faith is centered in Jesus Christ. He is the way, the truth, and the life. He is my Savior. I enjoy participating in a community of faith when I go to church. There we share our thoughts and feelings as well as our faith with each other. We grow together in Christ. Centering my life and family in Jesus Christ brings me closer to him and to my family.

Original Profile

What Is Our Message?

Has anyone ever asked you point blank “what do you believe”? It can be a very halting question. One reason for this is that it is so personal. When people ask me “what do Mormon’s believe?” there is at least a degree of separation. I find that sometimes people are more comfortable talking about what their church believes and what they were raised to believe. But when you are the center of attention and asked what you believe that can be a little scary. It is important to look within and know how to answer: “be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you” (1 Peter 3:15).

What does it actually mean to believe? A modern definition of the word is “to have confidence in the truth, the existence, or the reliability of something, although without absolute proof that one is right in doing so.” This is an acceptable definition though I don’t find it satisfactory. The reason I don’t find it satisfying is because it doesn’t really describe my personal experience with belief. Is my belief a confidence in truth? Sure, but is that it? No, I feel there is more to it than that. The English verb “believe” was translated in the Bible from the Hebrew “munah” and the Greek “pistuo”. These Hebrew and Greek words mean something more than the modern English definition. But before the sixteenth century the verb “believe” had a slightly different meaning which more closely matched the Hebrew and Greek concepts.

“Modern German usage of ‘belieben’ still means ‘to cherish’, or ‘to hold dear,’ and the modern German term for faith (Glaube) can be traced back to common roots with a family of Old English words ‘leof’, ‘liof’ (dear, beloved) that formed the verb ‘geleofan’, ‘gelafen’, ‘geliefen’, ‘to hold dear, to love, to consider valuable or lovely’; this parallels the Old High German ‘gilouban’, which has the same meanings. This word developed into ‘glauben’ (to have faith).” [1]

The original meaning of our verb “believe” might be better stated “belove”. Your belief is what you value. The Hebrew and Greek concepts of faith and belief were not of confidence in the truth of God’s existence, that was taken as a given. Rather faith or belief in God is a dedication to God. That Latin word “credo” translated “I believe” can be broken down into two components: first, “cor” or “cordia” meaning “heart”; second, “do” meaning “put, place, set” also “give”. So in Latin, saying “I believe...” is another way of saying “I set more heart upon...”

What do I believe? I believe in atonement with God. This is the best way I can express in English the core of my belief. This requires some explanation as well. To “atone” is usually understood to mean “to make amends”, but this is not a satisfactory definition. You can make amends for damage you cause to someone’s car in an accident and never enter into a relationship with that person. You may not even like that person. That is not atonement. To atone is to make “at one”. It is a neologism created by William Tyndale, but it was a brilliant creation. Atonement is a complete reconciliation, unification of heart, mind, and will.

I understand the whole of the Gospel of Jesus Christ through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. In the Book of Mormon when Christ came to the Nephites and Lamanites he gave a sort of definition of his gospel: “this is the gospel which I have given unto you—that I came into the world to do the will of my Father, because my Father sent me. And my Father sent me that I might be lifted up upon the cross; and after that I had been lifted up upon the cross, that I might draw all men unto me, that as I have been lifted up by men even so should men be lifted up by the Father, to stand before me, to be judged of their works, whether they be good or whether they be evil—And for this cause have I been lifted up; therefore, according to the power of the Father I will draw all men unto me, that they may be judged according to their works... Now this is the commandment: Repent, all ye ends of the earth, and come unto me and be baptized in my name, that ye may be sanctified by the reception of the Holy Ghost, that ye may stand spotless before me at the last day. Verily, verily, I say unto you, this is my gospel...” (3 Nephi 27:13-21) Notice here how Christ says that he draw all men unto him and invites all to come unto him. There is an effort on both ends to be brought into unity, atonement. “Draw near unto me and I will draw near unto you; seek me diligently and ye shall find me; ask, and ye shall receive; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” (Doctrine and Covenants 88:63)

When in mortality Jesus taught his disciples that they should “abide” in him. “I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman... Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing. If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.” (John 15:1-7) I love this image and find it to be one of the most moving explanations of unity and atonement in all scripture. Jesus here describes an intimate and organic connection of two living entities actually existing and living as one organism. When we are brought into unity with Christ we are able to bring forth good fruit because we are part of him. Alma described this unity in a way that our very image and appearance is transformed to reflect the image of Christ (Alma 5:14,19).

This transformation must be very powerful because as mortal beings we are much different than divine beings now. We know we are of the same kind as God, even after the same image. But there is still a great difference. After, Moses saw God in the mountain he was left to his own strength and was completely famished. He reflected within himself saying, “Now, for this cause I know that man is nothing, which thing I never had supposed.” (Moses 1:10) Yet, a little while later he was shown a glorious vision of the universe and the history of this world and asked for what purpose they were created. God responded saying “this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.” (Moses 1:39) Just after learning of the nothingness of man, it was revealed to him that the plan of God was to grant man immortality and eternal life—to transform this mortal man that can hardly withstand the presence of God into a new creature like unto God himself.

The essential question to ask is the same question Enos had: “how is it done?” (Enos 1:7) The answer is the same as it was for him—through faith in Jesus Christ (Enos 1:8). “...Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself...” (2 Corinthians 5:17-19)

This is, according to my understanding, the meat and core of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. God has come after us and sought after us because of his desire to dwell in unity with us. Though we were separate from him by our imperfect nature, sin, weakness, frailty, and death, the Atonement of Jesus Christ brings us together, to be “at one” with God. This is our message: at-one-ment with God through the Atonement of Jesus Christ.

References

[1] Fowler, James. Stages of Faith: The Psychology of Human Development and the Quest for Meaning. Harper Collins. 1981. p. 12

There Is Grandeur in These Views of Life

In 1859 in London, John Murray published a book that has become one of the most important works in the history of science to this day. The book was On the Origin of Species by author Charles Darwin. As denoted by the title, Darwin sought in this book to propose a theory that would explain how species originate and what conditions lead to speciation. His theory is known as the theory of evolution by natural selection. It was not the only theory of evolution proposed at the time and was not the only method Darwin proposed to bring about the origin of species. But current understanding of biology recognizes natural selection to be the most significant form of evolution.

Move forward to 1931, a Catholic Priest named Georges Lemaitre, who was also a physicist and astronomer, was researching Albert Einstein’s equations of General Relativity. He independently derived what are now known as the Friedman Equations. He had predicted in 1927 that the recession of a nebula was actually due to the expansion of space itself. Noting the expansion of space in forward time, he suggested that space should contract looking backward in time. Of course, eventually this contraction would reach a single point from which the entire universe would have expanded. In other words, all the matter and energy of the universe was originally contained in a single point of immense density and heat. Fred Hoyle, another scientist, was opposed to Lemaitre’s theories and derisively referred to them as “this big bang idea”. This name was eventually adopted as the accepted name for the Big Bang theory.

Both Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection and the Big Bang theory seem to cause people of faith some discomfort. If God is not mentioned in either of these theories then where does that leave him? I can understand this discomfort but I don’t share it myself. I get a little worried that science and faith are so often placed at odds against each other. The reason this worries me is because both science and faith are important parts of my life. We lose something if we discount the benefits of either.

Orson Pratt, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, said in 1860, “The study of science is the study of something eternal. If we study astronomy, we study the works of God. If we study chemistry, geology, optics, or any other branch of science, every new truth we come to the understanding of is eternal; it is a part of the great system of universal truth. It is truth that exists throughout universal nature; and God is the dispenser of all truth—scientific, religious, and political. Therefore let all classes of citizens and people endeavour to improve their time more than heretofore—to train their minds to that which is best calculated for their good and the good of the society which surrounds them.” As God is the dispenser of all truth it is wise to seek truth in all disciplines.

But to a certain extent scientists have to share some of the blame for the conflict between science and religion. There is a trend of anti-religion sentiment lately among some scientists that ignores the power of faith and its redemptive power. As much as I like the science books of Richard Dawkins, his attacks on religion are unfair. When people hear scientists and professors attack religion in this way it gives the impression that science is something dangerous and a tool of Satan to attack our faith in God. But this is not the purpose of science. The purpose of science is to understand the nature of the physical universe. Attacking faith and our relationship with God does nothing to forward the cause of science.

But on the other end is a more important question for people of faith. Are there theories of science that contradict faith and religion? From what I know of Charles Darwin, he had no intention of attacking religion. He was considering a profession in the Anglican Church before embarking on his voyage on the Beagle. He did say, when asked, that he would be best described as agnostic, but he did not publicize this nor attack religion. George Lemaitre was a Catholic priest and understood the Big Bang theory as a confirmation of the creation account in Genesis, i.e. “let there be light”. So I don’t think that the originators of these theories had any anti-religious intent, but what about the theories themselves?

I don’t think that the Big Bang theory or the theory of natural selection have any detrimental implications for religion. True, the creation account of Genesis does not mention natural selection or the expansion of space. But I wouldn’t expect to find these in the Bible. The Bible does not mention anything about the structure of the atom, germ theory, Galilean physics, or Newtonian physics either. These things were not understood at the time the Bible was written and even if they were I doubt the authors would have included them. Biblical authors were writing for other purposes.

Charles Darwin said in the final paragraph of On the Origin of Species, “There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.” I see “grandeur” everywhere I look. I find grandeur in physics, chemistry, and biology. I especially find grandeur in the works and glory of God.

The greatest grandeur I see is in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. There is grandeur in these views of life. As I think of all the people who have ever lived on this earth, children of God, I am grateful for the Plan of Salvation that will elevate these “endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful” to eternal life and salvation. There is grandeur in faith and in our relationship with our Heavenly Father.