Faith, working through love
In a discussion I took part in a long time ago, a point was made that there is a difference between fides quae per caritatem operatur (‘faith working through love’) and fides caritate formata (‘faith formed by love’). Both are Latin phrases linked to Galatians 5:6, here i the NRSV-translation: “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything; the only thing that counts is faith working through love [pístis di’ agápēs energouménē].” It is clear that the first Latin sentence is the best translation, but is there any substantive contradiction between these two?
The question we, as Lutherans, must ask ourselves is this: What does it mean that we are ‘justified by faith alone’? The Latin wording behind this is iustificationem sola fide. How should we understand the grammar here? The phrase can be read in two diametrically different ways, something that has often been shown to be appropriately represented by Lutheran and Calvinist/Reformed theology. I have no written sources for this, other than the occasional blog post, and base this exclusively on oral transmission and my own memory.
In Lutheran theology it has traditionally been said that sola is an adjective that modifies the noun fide. One says that one is justified by an ‘alone-faith’, i.e. by a faith that is alone. We can call this a ‘naked faith.’ Then, as a result of this initial justification, the sanctification process begins where one, in gratitude to God, and by virtue of Him, lives out the new life and shares in God’s gifts, as we can see in Confessio Augustana VI:
Likewise, [the Lutheran congregations] teach that this faith is bound to yield good fruits and that it ought to do good works commanded by God on account of God’s will and not so that we may trust in these works to merit justification before God. For forgiveness of sins and justification are taken hold of by faith, as the saying of Christ also testifies [Luke 17:10*]: “When you have done all [things] . . . say, ‘We are worthless slaves.’ ” The authors of the ancient church teach the same. For Ambrose says: “It is established by God that whoever believes in Christ shall be saved without work, by faith alone, receiving the forgiveness of sins as a gift.”1
In Reformed thinking, on the other hand, it has traditionally been said that sola is an adverb that modifies the verb (or the participle) iustificationem (accusative singular of iustificātiō). What one says there is that it is faith that alone justifies. The difference is subtle, but it leads to two diametrically different views, yet one cannot simply decide which is correct based on the grammar.
Traditional Lutherans, then, usually say that regeneration comes after or at the time of justification, while tradional Calvinists say that justification happens by faith alone, but that this faith is far from being alone, and it comes by regeneration. We can read about this in the Westminster Confession of 1646, chapter 11:1-2 (my emphasises):
I. Those whom God effectually calleth, he also freely justifieth: not by infusing righteousness into them, but by pardoning their sins, and by accounting and accepting their persons as righteous; not for any thing wrought in them, or done by them, but for Christ’s sake alone; not by imputing faith itself, the act of believing, or any other evangelical obedience to them, as their righteousness; but by imputing the obedience and satisfaction of Christ unto them, they receiving and resting on him and his righteousness by faith; which faith they have not of themselves, it is the gift of God.
II. Faith, thus receiving and resting on Christ and his righteousness, is the alone instrument of justification; yet is it not alone in the person justified, but is ever accompanied with all other saving graces, and is no dead faith, but worketh by love.
On the Reformed side (and among many Lutherans) you probably often hear that you are justified by faith alone, but not by a faith that is alone.
What many Lutherans claim is that the faith that justifies is a ‘naked faith,’ which is trust in God. But does it make sense to talk about trust as ‘free’ from love? The faith that justifies is a trust, but to have trust in a person is to have a relationship with him in love, to be his friend (cf. Romans 4:3; Galatians 3:6; James 2:23). We do not trust person without first having relationships with them. Persons are not objects like stairs or seat belts (things you may ‘trust’ in an analogous sense). The love with which we show our faith (cf. James 2:18) is God’s love in us, and love must first be in our hearts before it can show itself (Romans 5:5). Faith cannot show itself in love until it is formed by love. We accept faith – or at least that which faith gives us. But this reception requires love, in this case God’s love which “has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.” (Romans 5:5).
Here one could perhaps object, and say that we should accept as children, and children often trust people they do not know. But I think it is precisely the childlike trust that is the key here: The childlike trust has its basis in an unconditional, childlike love, a love that the child naturally shows to the world around it. It is precisely because it is virtually unconditional, that it is truly love. Of course, many children are in fact weary of strangers, so I don’t think there is that much of a difference anyway. The point is simply this, that the trust a person gives another person is a species of love.
I am not saying that we must do a deed, but that the faith that justifies is a living faith – a faith that is shaped by hope and love, and should result in good works. One can grow further in faith, hope and love, act according to God’s will, and be rewarded accordingly, so as to be justified at the end/judgment. This is exactly what I think James’s point is in James 2:20-26:
Do you want to be shown, you senseless person, that faith without works is barren? Was not our ancestor Abraham justified by works when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was brought to completion by the works. Thus the scripture was fulfilled that says, ‘Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness’, and he was called the friend of God. You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. Likewise, was not Rahab the prostitute also justified by works when she welcomed the messengers and sent them out by another road? For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is also dead.
Abraham was saved by ‘living faith,’ i.e. “faith working through love,” in the love of God. The love that made itself know in his actions (e.g. that he was willing to sacrifice Isaac) was not just an external sign of ‘faith alone’ (whatever one now means by this). It was a visible manifestation of his living faith, i.e. “faith working through love.” It is, indeed, this living faith that was “counted as righteousness” for Abraham (Romans 4:5). It is God’s work, but he works in and through our own will, cf. Philippians 2:12-13. Grace does not destroy nature. Love, then, was working but it was also forming him.
This perhaps comes out even more clearly in Titus 3:4-7. We read that God’s salvation is entirely his work, but that this salvation is “through the water of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit,” the Spirit which He “poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Saviour, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.” We stand righteous before God because we are born again, because we have received the Spirit. Because we are in a relationship with God. It is not because we have done great deeds that we can boast of, but because God works in us. The true position, then, is somewhere in between the Lutheran and Reformed positions, and it is, also, deeply Catholic.
For the English translation of the Lutheran confessions, see The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, eds., Robert Kolb and Timothy J. Wengert (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2000). For a critical edition of the Latin and German texts, see Die Bekenntnisschriften der Evangelisch-Lutherischen Kirche, vollständige neuedition, ed., Irene Dingel (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2014). If not otherwise noted, all quotations of Confessio Augustana follow the translation of the Latin text.