Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Luther: Grace is justified by Faith alone


By Hanno

I'm reading my friend Dr. Gimbel's book on Einstein's Jewish Science, and in discussing Martin Luther's view of Christianity  he quotes the following from Luther:
Therefore it is clear that, as the soul needs only the word of God for its life and Righteousness, so it is justified by faith alone and not any works; for if it could be justified by anything else, it would not need the Word, and consequently, it would not need faith.
Gimbel takes that to mean, as is usual, that for Luther, Faith is sufficient for God's Grace.  It is clear Luther means to entail that no works justify Grace.  God's Grace, ("Life and Righteousness") do not come from anything you do, but from faith.  But there is an argument presented here, and I'm not sure it does what Luther wants it to do.

First, lets take a look at the conclusion of the argument:  The soul needs only the word of God for its life and righteousness.  Let me use '->' to symbolize the material conditional. 'Only' reverses the order of the conditional, so as written, the claim is:  R -> W, meaning that the word is a necessary condition for salvation, righteousness, Grace.  If the soul only needs  the word for salvation, the Word is a necessary condition.  If you have life and righteousness, then you must have the Word, since it is only through the Word that you can have life and Righteousness.

It follows, according to Luther, that the soul is justified by faith alone, and not any works.  He gives an argument.  If it could be justified by anything else, it would not need the Word.  This is straightforward:  A -> ~W.  And if it does not need the Word, it does not need Faith:  ~W -> ~F.  But it needs faith.  F.  Therefore, it does not need anything else.  ~A.

So then we have the following premises:

A -> ~W
~W -> ~F
F

It certainly follows from that second argument

W

by Modus Tollens, and

~A

By Modus Tollens as well.  If you need Faith, nothing else is sufficient on its own.  So you need the Word, and nothing else.
What does not follow is that Faith or the Word is sufficient for Grace.  It only follows that nothing else is sufficient.  For the Word to be sufficient, he would need

W -> R

to be entailed by the premises, but it is not.  He has defended that Faith is necessary for Grace, but not that it is sufficient.  Why couldn't it be that you have Faith, but still are not give Grace?  Yet that is the conclusion he wants to draw:  it is justified by faith alone.  This simply does not follow from any premise given.  "As the soul needs only the word of God for its life and Righteousness"  does not entail "it is justified by faith alone and not any works."

9 comments:

Gary said...

Many Reformed Protestants, including Baptists and evangelicals, are under the impression that the Reformation began due to a dispute over the Doctrine of Salvation. They are wrong. The first episode of the Protestant Reformation...the LUTHERAN Reformation...was not about Salvation...it was about Satisfaction.

Let me explain.

The Catholic Church in the early 1500's was teaching that in order for a Christian to enter heaven, he had to be purified of the sins which he had committed after his salvation; and for the overwhelming majority of catholic Christians of that era, salvation had occurred in their infant Baptism. There were very few adult converts to Christianity in that time, as had been the case in the Early Church. All of Europe had been Christian for hundreds of years.

During the preceding centuries, the Church in Rome had come up with the false teaching that Christ did not make satisfaction for ALL of your sins when he died on the cross. Christ only made satisfaction for original sin, the sin you inherited from your Grandfather Adam. All sins committed after salvation were YOUR responsibility. You needed purification of these "post-salvation" sins in order to enter heaven as "perfect"...sinless. So, from a few vague passages of Scripture, the Church of Rome came up with the concept of Purgatory; a place for Christians, in which their souls are purified by fire: a place where Christian souls burn to pay for their "post-salvation" sins. Once you have spent an adequate amount of time paying for your sins in the flames of Purgatory, you then get released and allowed into heaven.

In the early 1500's, the Pope was building his grand, luxurious palace in Rome, St. Peter's Basilica. Someone came up with a brilliant idea: Let's sell indulgences! Let's tell the Christian people that they can give money to the Church in exchange for the forgiveness of the temporal punishment for post-salvation sins. Translation: Give money to the Pope, and he will reduce your time in Purgatory! The money started pouring in! If you had the money, you would have been foolish not to shell out some cash to the Church to cut down the number of years that you would be roasting in Purgatory on your own personal "Purgatory spit", right?
Continued here:
http://www.lutherwasnotbornagain.com/2013/10/the-lutheran-reformation-was-about.html

Namaste Bookshop said...

Write more, thats all I have to say. Literally, it seems as though you relied on the video to make your point. You clearly know what youre talking about, why waste your intelligence on just posting videos to your blog when you could be giving us something informative to read?

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