No. James doesn't mention anything about "saving" faith. "Saving faith" is a Protestant invention. James says "faith," that is, "Can THE faith save him...by itself..." (See Not By Faith Alone, pages 137-138). As Paul said in 1 Cor 13, a man can have faith strong enough to move mountains, but if he has not love (works) he is nothing (he will not be saved)

and justification before men (James 2:18).

No. James mentions nothing about justification before "men." The example James uses (Abraham's offering of his son Isaac) is an act performed totally for God (See Not By Faith Alone, pages 124-125). Abraham's servants were told to wait behind while Abraham took Isacc up to the mountain to sacrifice him to God. Moreover, it was God alone who said through the angel, "Now I know that you fear me," showing that God himself was waiting for Abraham's response of fear.

Faith without works is dead in the sense that true faith results in works.

No. This is another Protestant invention, that is, the idea that once the button of faith is pushed the conveyor belt of works will automatically start running. Faith does not inevitably produce good works. Faith only gives one a better disposition to do works. The whole book of James addresses the issue of Christians who have faith but are not producing the works they should. Read especially James 3-4, not to mention their despising of the poor man in both 2:1-5 and 2:15-16 after it is said that they have faith in James 2:1. (See Not By Faith Alone, pages 139-144; 146).

James can't be saying that faith without works is dead in the sense that people aren't saved until after working.

No, that's exactly what he is saying, since the answer to verse 14 must be NO, that is, "Can the faith save him...by itself?" must be answered negatively, since it is rhetorical.

If he was saying that, he would be contradicting what he wrote in 2:8-12, and he would be contradicting Mark 2:5, Luke 7:50, Luke 17:19, Luke 18:10-14, and other passages in which people are saved through faith alone.

This is a common Protestant mistake. None of these passages cited use the word "alone" or teach that justification is by faith alone. Protestants have a perennial problem: They think every time they see the word "faith," "saved by faith," etc, that it means "faith alone." They fail to understand that some contexts will stress faith because the context is dealing with a faith issue, not because it is trying to divorce good works from faith in the matter of salvation.

Abraham was justified before God when he believed (Romans 4:10-11), not when he later did works as a result of his faith (Romans 4:2).

This is another problem of Protestant theology: the either/or exegesis, that is, if Abraham is justified in one place, he can't be justified in another. We will see below that Scripture will not allow such a conclusion.

Another problem is that they fail to understand the KIND of works that cannot be used for justification. Paul is clear in Romans 4:4 that "works of debt," which are works done prior to faith, are non-salvific, since he already told us that works done in faith and repentance to God are salvific in Romans 2:6-7, 13. (See Not By Faith Alone, pages 1-46).

However, Abraham was justified before men (James 2:18) not through faith alone, but through works (James 2:21-24).

False. There is nothing in all of the NT that says men are justified before other men. God is the only determiner of justification.

Paul and James aren't addressing the same issue.

False. Paul and James quote from the same verse, Genesis 15:6, and therefore must have the same interpretation of the verse, for a different interpretation between them would mean that they are contradicting each other.

Paul is saying that we're justified before God through faith alone.

This just begs the question, for we would have to retort: Where does Paul use the words "faith alone?" Granted, he says, "a man is justified by faith apart from works of law" in Romans 3:28, but that does not mean "faith alone." It only means that "works of law" are excluded from faith, not works of some other sort. In the same way that Protestants have a perennial problem in concluding that every mention of "faith" means "faith alone," they have a similar problem when they conclude that every mention of "works" is non-salvific.

James is saying that saving faith is evidenced by works, which justify us in the sense that they prove that our faith is true.

False. James does not use the term "saving faith." He only says that faith is shown by works. In other words, James does not say that the works turn the faith from non-saving faith to saving faith. If anything, as is proven by the contrast between Abraham and the Jews of Paul's day, one must have faith in God before he can begin to perform works for God.

Protestants mistakenly regard the addition of works to faith as if the only effect of the works is for the purpose of qualifying the faith so that the faith, alone, can save; rather than seeing that salvation is procured only when faith and works act together. That is a crucial distinction. The reason they make this mistake is that they come to the text with a presupposition that faith alone justifies (which teaching they mistakenly believe to acquire from Paul). Hence, since to them faith is the only thing that justifies, then works can only act as the qualifier of the type of faith needed for justification. But James puts no such qualifiers on faith. Faith is faith and works are works.

James agrees with Paul that people are saved through faith, not works, but James is addressing the contrast between true faith and false faith

No. James never sets up a contest between two kinds of faith. That's why he can say in James 2:19 that the devils also believe. The only contest James sets up is between having faith and doing works. David still had faith in God after he committed adultery with Bathsheba, but because of that adultery he was condemned. In the state of adultery, he believed in God just like the devils believe in God, and both trembled, and thus, faith alone could not save him.

That's why he asks in verse 14, "Can that faith save him?" The question assumes that people are saved through faith. James wouldn't be addressing the type of faith that saves if faith didn't save.

If you check the Greek, it doesn't say "THAT faith," it says "THE faith." The words "that faith" are a Protestant invention, since Protestants are desperate to distinguish between two types of faith, "saving" and "non-saving." James isn't addressing the "type" of faith. He is addressing whether the person who says he has faith will now add works to that faith. If he does not add works, it does not mean that he has no faith. It only means that he refuses to add works, and thus he cannot be saved.

People are saved through faith while ungodly and not working (Romans 4:5-6), then they produce fruit as new creations (2 Corinthians 5:17). The fruit justifies the believer before men (James 2:18), just as wisdom is justified by her children (Luke 7:35)."

False. The word "justified" in Luke 7:35 is metaphorical. It is not metaphorical in James 2:21-25. In fact, since James uses "justified" right after he quotes from Genesis 15:6, we know that he has the same definition of the word that Paul does, since Paul also quotes from Genesis 15:6 in Romans 4:2-3.

Moreover, if the word "justified" did not have the same meaning for James as it does for Paul, then the statement in James 2:24 would make no sense. The verses says, "a man is justified by works and not by faith alone." Let's assume that the word "justified" here means something other than what Paul meant. Let's use the word "vindicated," which is the meaning Protestants claim for it in Luke 7:35. Then it would read: "a man is vindicated by works and not by faith alone." Do you see what just happened? In an effort to eliminate the word "justified" from works, they have eliminated it from faith, too, for the verse now reads, "a man is vindicated...not by faith alone." This anomaly occurs with whatever word one uses in place of "justified." Hence, we see clearly, that if you change the definition of the word "justified" in James to be different than that of Paul's definition, then you inadvertently make "faith alone" non-salvific, and only "vindicative."

"Even when advocates of salvation through works agree about the type of works that are excluded from the gospel, they often disagree with one another about just which works are included in the gospel, which sins must be avoided in order to be saved, etc.

False. The type of works that are excluded are, according to Trent, "his own works" or "works done under the law." These are any works that men do which are not under God's grace.

They agree that salvation isn't through faith alone. But they don't know how to attain eternal life, aside from trying to do a lot of good works and hoping that it will be enough.

False. The Catholic Church is clear how its members are to attain eternal life, but she warns that no one can presume to place themselves in heaven, since, on earth, one may fall into serious sin at any time, just as David did with Bathsheba, even though he was a man after God's own heart.

The gospel of salvation through faith alone has an assurance and a clarity of focus, a focus on Christ and His finished work (1 Corinthians 2:2, Galatians 6:14), that are absent from every gospel of works.

False, since neither Christ nor Paul used the words "faith alone." Moreover, Catholicism is clear that Christ finished His work. Now it is our responsibility to finish the work Christ gave to us. Unfortunately, there are many, as James teaches in 2:1-13, who fail in doing their work, and who will be "judged without mercy" (James 2:13). Protestants, like Jason Engwer, believe that no Christian will ever be "judged without mercy," for they believe that, once received, a person cannot lose his/her justification. The Bible nowhere teaches that concept. It is the worst heresy ever devised.

Even so, if Jesus and the apostles were excluding only some works from the gospel, then the practical benefits of salvation through faith alone would be irrelevant. We should ask, then, did Jesus and the apostles intend to exclude only some works from the gospel?

No, because they excluded from the gospel all works performed without faith and devoid of grace. Works not done in faith and grace are works of debt. As long as Jason fails to make that distinction, he will forever be trapped in his falsification of Catholic doctrine.

One way to answer the question is to examine the context of passages such as Romans 3-4 and Galatians 3. In these passages, is Paul excluding only some works? Or all works? Paul explains in Romans 3:27 and Galatians 3:21-25 that there is no law of works whereby people can be saved. The text proves that Paul isn't just excluding one law of works, such as the Mosaic law, but rather is excluding all laws of works. Even if Paul had been excluding only works of the Mosaic law, what works wouldn't be part of that? The Mosaic law included obeying God (Deuteronomy 6:2) and loving others as ourselves (Leviticus 19:34), which would encompass every work we can do.

Yes, Jason has that correct. Paul was excluding ALL works. He does the same in Titus 3:5 when he says "He saved us not on the basis of deed which we have done." But Catholicism has been crystal clear on this. Read Canon 1 of Trent. It says that ANY work done by man cannot merit the grace of Justification. But unlike Jason, Trent also knows that Scripture speaks of works that DO justify (Romans 2:6-13). Obviously, then, we must make a distinction between the kind of works that justify and the kind of works that don't justify. The simplest way to describe this distinction is to refer to the one as works of grace and to the other as works of debt, after Paul's terminology in Romans 4:4. If not, then Jason, and all the rest of Protestantism will be stuck trying to understand Romans 2:6-13 where Paul says that good works and obedience to the law justifies a man.

Was Paul, then, excluding only works not done with faith and done without God's enabling grace? No, Paul uses Abraham's circumcision, a work done with faith and in obedience to God, as an example of a work excluded from the gospel (Romans 4:10-11). The advocate of salvation through works may respond that Paul was only excluding circumcision because the work of circumcision is no longer commanded by God. It's not a part of the new covenant. But it was part of the covenant during Abraham's time. When Abraham was circumcised, he did that work with faith and in obedience to God. It was a good work commanded by God and it was done in faith, yet it wasn't a means of salvation.

The argument in Romans 4 is not that circumcision is not salvific, but that faith must come before circumcision. In other words, if Abraham had been circumcised without faith, there would be no justification for him. As Trent says in Ch 8, "faith is the root of all justification." Faith must be behind every work in order for the work to be considered a work of grace. Otherwise, the work is a work of debt. By the same token, if after he exhibited faith Abraham refused to circumcise, then he would have been condemned (lost his justification), which is clear from Genesis 17:14. This is the very reason Paul mentions David in the same context of Romans 4, since after his sin with Bathsheba, David lost his justification. It was restored when he repented of his sin.

In Titus 3:5, Paul excludes works of righteousness from the gospel. How could a work done without faith or apart from God's enabling grace be a work of righteousness? Obviously, Paul is excluding all works, including good works, from the gospel.

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