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For the next several chapters, Paul labors this contradiction. "So that Law was put in charge to lead us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith," he declares in 3:24. After having been freed from the bondage of legalism, "How is it that you are turning back to those weak and miserable principles?" he wonders in astonishment. "You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen from grace." The famous passage in Ephesians 2:8, 9 could not be clearer: "For by grace you have been saved, through faith, and none of this is of yourselves; it is all the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast." It is by grace through faith, not of works! This parallels Paul's statement in Romans 11: "For if it is by grace, it is not of works, otherwise grace is no longer grace."

47) Yes, it is clear, but Paul is talking about works of debt in Eph 2:8-9 and Romans 11:6. We know this is his intent in Eph 2:8-9 since he speaks of "boasting" as that which characterizes the work he has in view. "Boasting" is precisely the term Paul uses in Romans 4:2 when he speaks about works not justifying Abraham. Yet Paul goes on in Romans 4:4 to specify what the "works of boasting" are. They are the attempt to work for wages, as if God were an employer and we the employees. That is what is anathema to Paul -- that we would treat God as an employer, not as a Father. Paul is against works that put God in that position.

To Timothy, the Apostle writes, "God has saved us and called us to a holy life--not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace" (2 Tim.1:9). God has called us to a holy life, to be sure, but this is the goal, not the cause, of our justification. Our opponents will say that whenever Paul refers to "works" or "law" as contrary to faith, he is referring to the ceremonial law of the Old Testament, but here we have one of many obvious examples that Paul intends to exclude all works by saying that it is "not because of anything we have done." Surely that includes all works, ceremonial or moral. It is by faith alone.

48) No, Dr. Horton's opponents will not say that the works Paul has in mind are only those of the ceremonial law. Although there are some Catholics who have taken that tact, neither Augustine, Aquinas, the Council of Trent, or the new Cathechism take that tact. They say that "works" refers to any work, be it moral, civil or ceremonial or whatever. Any work that tries to put God in obligation to pay with salvation is anathema, as Paul makes clear in Romans 7:7-8; Galatians 3:10-12, and many other passages, as well as the first Canon of the Council of Trent. It just so happens that the ceremonial law was the chief way that the Jews tried to put God in debt to them, and that is why Paul focuses on circumcision in Romans 4:9-12 as his prime example of how the Jews were trying to be justified by works.

In the Scriptures and throughout church history, proponents of this view have been charged with opening the door to loose-living. It was the Apostle Paul himself who realized the full impact of this Gospel when, after announcing that "where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more," he anticipated his readers' shock: "What shall we say, then? Shall we continue in sin so that grace may abound?" His answer, and ours, is "Heaven forbid! How shall we who have died to sin live any longer in it." We do not deny regeneration and sanctification, we simply do not regard this as the basis for our acceptance before a holy God. While the Apostle Paul knew that the Gospel he preached would raise the objection that this would lead to loose-living, Rome has never had to worry about this accusation concerning the gospel she proclaims.

49) This is nothing but patronizing rhetoric. Rome has had to deal with the same problem. People always take advantage of God's mercy, no matter what form it comes to them. The only truth here is that Dr. Horton's gospel makes it much easier for them to do so. For a gospel that supposedly doesn't want to put too much trust in human nature (thus requiring the imputation of Christ), they sure do put a lot of trust in sinful human beings to do the right thing out of pure altruism.

Why would we "hunger and thirst after righteousness" if it is already imputed?, one may ask. It is precisely because it is already imputed that we hunger and thirst after obedience to God in gratitude for our redemption. It is similar to asking why a foster child would want to obey if he is already adopted. We are sons, not slaves; we serve God out of gratitude, not fear of judgment or hope of rewards. Tell me that I have to sufficiently love God and my neighbor before I can enjoy God's favor and the last thing I will want to do is love God.

50) If that's the case, then Dr. Horton is just proving what I said above. He recognizes that humans are so sin-oriented that they will even do more evil if they are given a command to do good! So how is this sinful nature (even after becoming a Christian) going to find the power to love God and man, altruistically, as easily as Dr. Horton would like it to be?

What I must hear if I am to end my war against God is that he forgives the wicked. He makes sons out of his enemies. He declares those to be righteous who in themselves cannot love God and their neighbor. Then I will lay down my weapons and accept the truce.

51) Yes, God forgives the wicked and makes sons out of his enemies. Dr. Horton doesn't have the only gospel that believes those things to be true and essential. But the issue Dr. Horton keeps missing (and will always miss, because his system of theology won't let him see it) is that his theology makes God a liar. Jesus tells us over and over again to love God and our neighbor, but Dr. Horton keeps telling us that this is an impossible command. Its so impossible that God has to compensate by putting a label on our forehead that says "justified," even though we've never loved Him or our neighbor. It is just this type of inimical theology (of making God a liar and man an impotent animal) that was condemned at the Council of Trent. Here are the Canons dealing with the type of theology Dr. Horton is proposing:

Canon 18) If anyone shall say that the commandments of God are even for a man who is justified and confirmed in grace impossible to observe: let him be anathema.

Canon 19) If anyone shall say that nothing except faith is commanded in the Gospel, that other things are indifferent, neither commanded nor prohibited, but free, or that the ten commandments in no way pertain to Christians: let him be anathema.

Canon 20) If anyone shall say that a man who is justified and ever so perfect is not bound to observe the commandments of God and the Church, but only to believe, as if indeed the Gospel were a mere absolute promise of eternal life, without the condition of observation of the commandments: let him be anathema.

Canon 21) If anyone shall say that Christ Jesus has been given by God to men as a Redeemer in whom they should trust, and not also as a legislator, whom they should obey: let him be anathema.

In Protestant theology, "salvation" is a broad word, encompassing not only justification, but election, atonement, regeneration, sanctification, adoption, and final glorification. In these debates, a recurring error on the Roman Catholic side is to assume a false antithesis: Either the Bible teaches that justification and sanctification are identical or the Bible teaches that there is no such thing as sanctification. This debate, therefore, is not over the question of whether God renews us and initiates a process of gradual growth in holiness throughout the course of our lives.

52) From the information I have given earlier in this rebuttal about justification and sanctification (especially the information concerning 1 Corinthians 6:11), the burden of proof is on Dr. Horton to show us, from the Bible, the difference between justification and sanctification.

"We are justified by faith alone, but not by a faith that is alone," Luther stated, and this recurring affirmation of the new birth and sanctification as necessarily linked to justification leads one to wonder how the caricatures continue to be perpetuated without foundation.

53) Sometimes men are so blind to the truth that they call their opponents view of them a "caricature," but miss the caricature they make of their own view. Really think about what Dr. Horton just wrote: "We are justified by faith alone, but not by a faith that is alone." All he has done is change "alone" from an adjective in the first clause to a predicate nominative in the second clause and he thinks this solves the problem. But all such grammatical shifting ends up to be is a useless tautology. Either faith is alone in justification or it is not. It can't be both. It is precisely this kind of theological gobbledegook which is characteristic of Reformed theology. Since there is no other way to deal with this major contradiction in their theology, the Reformed position has to resort to such inane circumlocutions.

Here's what else Luther said about the issue: 'Faith justifies' [Rom. 3:28] stands in flat contradiction to 'faith does not justify' [James 2:24]. If anyone can harmonize these sayings, I'll put my doctor's cap on him and let him call me a fool.

For instance, in the magazine published by Catholic Answers, This Rock, Leslie Rumble (April, 1993) makes the astounding claim concerning Luther that the German Reformer denied that a change takes place in the person who is justified. "He remains exactly as he was before" and the believer is never transformed. This demonstrates a remarkable lack of familiarity with the Protestant position. We affirm conversion and the life-long process of growing in sanctifying grace.

54) Dr. Horton knows what Leslie Rumble is trying to say, but he pretends that he doesn't. It is a fact, and Leslie Rumble is correct, that in Luther's and Calvin's Justification (not Sanctification), there is no change in the individual. It is simply and only a forensic enterprise. The only internal change that occurs in the individual is in Luther's and Calvin's understanding of Sanctification. That is the only time that the individual begins to deal with his internal sinful condition.

This is why we do not find a problem with James, although Roman Catholics find great problems with the rest of Scripture on this subject.

55) No, Dr. Horton and company have great problems with James, as I pointed out earlier in this rebuttal (see Answer #2). Luther had so many problems with James that he wanted to take him out of the canon of the New Testament. Here's what Luther said about James:

"Therefore James concludes falsely that now at last Abraham was justified after that obedience; for faith and righteousness are known by works as by the fruits. But it does not follow, as James raves: 'Hence the fruits justify,' just as it does not follow: 'I know a tree by its fruit; therefore the tree becomes good as a result of its fruit. Therefore let our opponents be done with their James, whom they throw up to us so often."

Therefore St. James' epistle is really an epistle of straw, compared to these others, for it has nothing of the nature of the gospel about it. The epistle of James gives us much trouble, for the papists embrace it alone and leave out all the rest...Accordingly, if they will not admit my interpretations, then I shall make rubble also of it. I almost feel like throwing Jimmy into the stove, as the priest in Kalenberg did.

Besides, he [James] throws things together so chaotically that is seems to me he must have been some good, pious man, who took a few saying from the disciples of the apostles and thus tossed them off on paper...In a word, he wanted to guard against those who relied on faith without works, but was unequal to the task. He tries to accomplish by harping on the law what the apostles accomplish by stimulating people to love. Therefore I cannot include him among the chief books, though I would not thereby prevent anyone from including or extolling him as he pleases, for there are otherwise many good sayings in him.

Four years before his death, Luther still viewed James with contempt. In his Table Talk lectures of 1542 he wrote:

We should throw the epistle of James out of this school [Wittenberg], for it doesn't amount to much. It contains not a syllable about Christ. Not once does it mention Christ, except at the beginning. I maintain that some Jew wrote it who probably heard about Christian people but never encountered any. Since he heard that Christians place great weight on faith in Christ, he thought, 'Wait a moment! I'll oppose them and urge works alone.' This he did. He wrote not a word about the suffering and resurrection of Christ, although this is what all the apostles preached about. Besides, there is no order or method in the epistle. Now he discusses clothing and then he writes about wrath and is constantly shifting from one to the other. He presents a comparison: 'As the body apart from the spirit is dead, so faith apart from works is dead.' O Mary, mother of God! What a terrible comparison that is!

For Paul, speaking to new converts who have been steeped in legalism and paganism, the content of the Gospel is uppermost. For James, addressing believers who gloried in what they called "faith," but did not seem to think that works were a necessary consequence of saving faith, justification was a matter of making your claim to being justified stand up in a court of law. For Paul, the court of law is God's and it is heavenly; for James, it is man's and it is earthly. For Paul, the fact of justification is in view; for James, the proof of justification is the concern. Therefore, when James declares that faith is dead if it is alone, how could one object? Luther himself said that we were justified by faith alone, but not by a faith that is alone. This is James' point: Anything that you call faith that does not love or serve is not really justifying faith, but is "dead." Of course, this faith-- "dead" faith, cannot save anybody. Only living, active, working faith is the genuine article. However, it is not the fruit of faith that justifies. It does not justify in acting, working, loving, or serving, but in believing and receiving Christ's gift of righteousness. The faith that Paul described is not the faith the James sees in those antinomians who thought that faith was nothing more than an assent to certain facts.

56) No, James does not talk about works as "proof" of our faith. He teaches specifically we are justified by works. If James wanted to say that the works he has in view are merely for the purpose of proving whether we had "saving faith," he could have done so very easily, but he did not. The reader should consult my earlier rebuttal concerning the problems in James for the Protestant view (see Answer #2). Here is another problem. Protestants, like Dr. Horton, are always talking about "saving faith" when they come to the epistle of James. Why is that? James never uses the phrase "saving faith." He just says "faith."

The reason is that the phrase "saving faith" is an invention of Protestantism so that they can try to address, however menially, the challenges that the epistle of James gives them. They don't want to relinquish the place of faith as the sole means of justification, thus, when they see the emphasis James puts on works as salvific, they must shift the emphasis back to faith by saying that James means that the faith has to be of a certain kind in order to procure justification. That is why some Protestant translations of James 2:14 will say: "Can that kind of faith save him" or "Can that faith save him," when in reality, the Greek actually says, "Can the faith save him." In doing so, they take the focus off of works and put it on faith. So, to them, its not that works have to be added to faith; its that works only qualify the faith.

In the end, the Protestant can say, "Yes, we are justified by faith alone, but it has to be a good faith, a 'saving' kind of faith." But James doesn't qualify the faith, he only says that works, in themselves when added to faith, are a cause of justification. Works are not a secondary issue, they are a primary issue.

In fact, Protestants believe so firmly in "saving faith" as the answer to the epistle of James that they also claim that once a person has "saving faith," then good works will automatically flow out of him, as if once the button of faith is pushed the conveyor belt of works will start rolling. But that is not the case at all. Works do not automatically flow from the person who has faith. In fact, that is precisely the problem with the people to whom James is writing. The are recognized as "believers in the Lord Jesus Christ" (James 2:1) but their problem is that they have not even begun to win the battle between the spirit and the flesh. The result of this is that they show favoritism to the rich and depise the poor (James 2:2-8). By this sin they were committing spiritual murder and adultery (James 2:11-13; 1 John 3:15).

Now, were the works James requires just flowing from them like water from a fountain? Of course not. James drives home the point by giving them the picture of a man in need of food and clothing, challenging them to care for him (James 2:15-16). If the people to whom James is writing had a hard time with the poor man who came to their worship assembly, what do you think they are going to do with the poor man who needs food and shelter? Yes, it will be an intense struggle in their soul to extend a helping hand to him. Yes, they all have "faith," but will they extend a helping hand? If they don't, it is sin (James 4:17). And because it is a matter of sin, that's why James' teaching on works becomes so very important. If you have faith but are in sin, you cannot be justified. The same was true of David, as we have seen earlier. He had faith but he had committed the sins of murder and adultery and thereby lost his justification, the very same sins about which James warns his people against in a chapter also dealing with Justification (James 2:11-13; 1 John 3:15).

Please consult pages 117-175 and 226-234 in Not By Faith Alone for further details concerning the epistle of James.

But is this doctrine fundamental to our faith? Isn't it simply a matter of fine-tuning things? In our day zeal is more important than knowledge. As long as people "love the Lord" and seek to live the Christian life, such doctrinal debates as these can only serve to distract us from our common mission in the world. And yet, Paul tells us that his fellow-Israelites were zealous indeed. "For I can bear witness of them that they have a great zeal for God, but it is not according to knowledge." Knowledge of certain things is essential for salvation, and the particular piece of knowledge Paul has in mind is the doctrine of justification by grace alone through faith alone: "Since they did not know the righteousness that comes from God and sought to establish their own, they did not accept God's righteousness. Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes" (Rom. 10:1-4).

57) To wrap things up, let me say that although Dr. Horton and company have almost made a mantra out of the saying "grace alone, through faith alone," Scripture does not use either of those phrases. Oh, yes, without God's grace we can do nothing, but Scripture does not teach we are saved by "grace alone." People like Dr. Horton use "grace alone" in order to teach the Calvinistic doctrine that all those who are justified are predestined without the use of free will to accept or reject the call of God. They come to God because the grace is "irresistible," and therefore it is "grace alone." The rest, who are not justified, are predestined to eternal damnation, also without the use of free will to accept or reject the call of God. That is the system of Martin Luther and John Calvin.

Why does God do it that way? Because, they say, for no other reason than that God uses man to show his mercy and his justice. Dr. Horton's God is in the business of promoting himself at the expense of man. He just picks some, damns the rest, without any consent of theirs, just so he can show how great he is. So the next time you see the phrase "grace alone," don't be fooled into thinking that there is some bridge between Protestants and Catholics because we both believe in grace. No, the Council of Trent anathematized the Protestant concept of "grace alone," as they did the concept of "faith alone." Here's what the Council said about man's free will cooperating with God's grace:

Chapter 5: On the Necessity of Preparation for Justification of Adults, and Whence it Proceeds: It furthermore declares that in adults the beginning of that justification must be derived from the predisposing grace [Canon 3] of God through Jesus Christ, that is, from his vocation, whereby without any existing merits on their part they are called, so that they who by sin were turned away from God, through His stimulating and assisting grace are disposed to convert themselves to their own justification, by freely assenting to and cooperating with the same grace [Canons 4 and 5], in such wise that , while God touches the heart of man through the illumination of the Holy Spirit, man himself receiving that inspiration does nothing at all inasmuch as he can indeed reject it, nor on the other hand can he of his own free will without the grace of God move himself to justice before Him. Hence, when it is said in the Sacred Writings: 'Turn ye to me, and I will turn to you,' we are reminded of our liberty; when we reply: 'Convert us, O Lord, to thee, and we shall be converted,' we confess that we are anticipated by the grace of God.

Chapter 6: The Manner of Preparation: Now they are disposed to that justice [Canon 7 and 9] when, aroused and assisted by divine grace, receiving faith 'by hearing,' they are freely moved toward God, believing that to be true which has been divinely revealed and promised [Canon 12 and 14], and this especially, that the sinner is justified by God through his grace, 'through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus,' and when knowing that they are sinners, turning themselves away from the fear of divine justice, by which they are profitably aroused [Canon 8], to a consideration of the mercy of God, they are raised to hope, trusting that God will be merciful to them for the sake of Christ, and they begin to love him as the source of all justice and are therefore moved against sins by a certain hatred and detestation [Canon 9], that is, by that repentance, which must be performed before baptism; and finally when they resolves to receive baptism, to begin a new life and to keep the commandments of God. Concerning this disposition it is written: 'He that cometh to God must believe, that he is and is a rewarder to them that seek him,' and, 'Be of good faith, son, they sins are forgiven thee,' and, 'The fear of the Lord driveth out sin' [Eccl 1:27], and, 'Do penance, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of your sins, and you shall receive the Holy Spirit,' and, 'Going therefore teach al nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you, and finally, 'Prepare your hearts unto the Lord' [1 Kings 7:3].

And for the record, the Council of Trent condemned the phrase "faith alone" thirteen different ways in thirteen different contexts.

1) Those who believe with certainty that they are absolved from sin (Chapter 9, Canon 14 on Justification)

2) Those who say that faith makes one automatically an heir that God cannot reject (Chapter 11 on Justification)

3) Those who say that they don't need to suffer (Chapter 11 on Justification)

4) Those who say nothing else is required to cooperate to attain the grace of justification (Canon 9 on Justification)

5) Those that say it is not necessary to be prepared and disposed by an action of his own will (Canon 9 on Justification)

6) Those that say that nothing but faith is commanded in the gospel (Canon 19 on Justification)

7) Those that say other things are indifferent, only faith counts (Canon 19 on Justification)

8) Those that say the Ten Commandments are not necessary for Christians (Canon 19 on Justification)

9) Those that say that mortal sin can be absolved by faith alone without the sacrament of Penance (Canon 29 on Justification)

10) Those that say that without the sacraments, or the desire for them, men can be justified (Canon 4 on Sacraments)

11) Those that say faith alone is nourished by sacraments (Canon 5 on Sacraments)

12) Those that say grace is not conferred by the sacraments (Canon 8 on Sacraments)

13) Those that say baptism makes one obliged to attribute justification to faith alone (Canon 7 on Baptism).

May the grace of God be with you all, and may you have the courage to respond to it.

Robert A. Sungenis, M.A. Ph.D. (cd)
President of Catholic Apologetics International

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