Orthodox Perspective: Is Salvation by faith alone or by works?

Ceallaigh · Jan 25, 2021

In the 3 minute video Father Spyridon says at the end:

"Salvation is a free gift BUT we must work and repent in order to enable ourselves to receive God's grace."

That seems like a contradiction, so I'm hoping those who are Orthodox can sort it out for me.

A youtube comment talked about there being a difference between the Western understanding of words like "grace" compared to the Orthodox meaning.

Pavel Mosko · Jan 25, 2021

It isn't, I like to cite a favorite article that deals with the topic more from the angle of Predestination and Orthodox dialogue with Calvinists.

Webmaster Note: What follows is an email exchange between Father John and a few Calvinist Protestants:

FJ: "...St. Augustine is as close to a patristic basis for the Calvinist idea of free will and predestination as one can find, and yet where does he say that the fall was unavoidable? Where does he say anything about God withdrawing his grace—but on the contrary, we have God's grace available to a man who could either cooperate with it, or reject it.

Thus, as wrong as St. Augustine was on other points in this regard, he clearly did not hold to the idea that God determined that Adam would fall, irregardless of how he would respond to God.

CP: Either it's (a) you or (b) God who is ultimately responsible for your salvation. Pick one. If (a), then you're a Pelagian heretic. If (b), then either you're a closet Calvinist, or you don't really mean what you say about the grace of God.

FJ: How about God is responsible for my salvation, and I am responsible for my response to his offer of salvation? God holds those responsible who reject the gospel, which would be senseless, if they were not in fact responsible for their response.

CP: But if you say that you are "influenced" by the grace of God to the point where the grace is salvific, then what has happened to your "free will?" Methinks that grace has somehow overriden your free will without becoming externally coercive, and if so, then welcome to the Wonderful World o' Calvinism and glad to have you aboard.

FJ: How about God reveals himself to men, and they must choose to either accept his grace or reject it. If they accept it, they are saved, are being saved, and will be saved. You claim that I add to my salvation by my response. I say you are looking at it wrongly to begin with.

It is not God's Grace (1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000) + my response (1) = 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,001. Rather it is 1,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000 (God's grace) x 1 (my response) which only = 1,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000. Thus God gets all the credit. But if my response is no (0), it is 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 x 0 = 0.

Dialogue on Free Will & Determinism

Phronema · Jan 25, 2021

It's my understanding that the Orthodox Church rejects salvation by faith alone, or by works alone, but rather affirms a combination of the two, and so that's where Fr. Spyridon gets that.

So it's important to understand that sin by definition in the Orthodox Church is "missing the mark". We miss this mark due to spiritual sickness according to Christ (Matthew 8:16, Matthew 12:22; Luke 4:40–41, Luke 13:10–17), and the liturgical, and sacramental life of the Church is the Way we are healed of this spiritual sickness by Christ through Grace.

Christ emphasized salvation through faith in the Holy Scriptures; for instance Mark 5:34, and Mark 10:52. Christ also connected personal faith in Him to our eternal salvation. See Matthew 10:32-33, John 3:16, John 11:25-26, John 20:29.

Christ also emphasized salvation through works when asked by the man in the Gospel of St. Matthew about eternal salvation (Matthew 19:16-19). Further Christ says "if you love me, you will keep my commandments.. if a person loves me he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him, and make our home with him" (John 14:15-17, and 23). In addition we have baptism as an action necessary for salvation in John 3:5. Lastly He emphasizes the necessity of the partaking of the Holy Eucharist in John 6:54. "He who eats my flesh, and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day."

All of this is reflected upon by St. Athanasius of Alexandria who tells us that "He (Christ) became man so that man might become God", and that occurs through the lifelong process of theosis, or to become "Christ-like". Theosis comes through prayer, and repentance with repentance being a changing of the mind. It's not a one off affair though, and requires that we struggle for the Kingdom of Heaven for the entirety of our lives.

The portion on grace that you mentioned should be mentioned along with St. Gregory Palamas. In short St. Gregory Palamas said "Man becomes god by grace." As a result, the life of God becomes man’s life and God’s existence his existence. Not only they themselves rejoice in the presence of God, but His presence is manifested to others through them. So, deification is not only an individual gift of God, but constitutes a means of manifesting Him to the world.

Last I'm not perfect, and it's possible I've missed the mark on something in my explanation, and if so hopefully someone will correct me.

Lukaris · Jan 25, 2021

We are called to do works worthy of repentance. St. John the Baptist said this in Luke 3:6-18, particularly in Luke 3:8. St. Paul in Acts of the Apostles 26:15-20 ( particularly in Acts of the Apostles 26:20 ). I think this is preached by St.Paul within his overall preaching in Colossians 1, particularly in Colossians 1:10.

I think these are much of what underlies what St. Paul says in Ephesians 2:8-10. As another poster noted, we need to do works ( & should want to) if we are to keep the Lord’s commandments ( Matthew 19:16-19, Romans 13:8-10). Whatever good we can do should, I think, be done in a way that helps anyone in the slightest possible way to be saved as well as for our own salvation ( Philippians 2:12).

One thing I recall that was often raised by those who neglect the role of works within salvation ( especially in the context of Ephesians 2:8-10) is connecting Isaiah 64:6 to Ephesians 2:8-9. This( I used to often hear the “filthy rags” analogy approach) is, I believe, an inadvertent cut & paste of scripture that has seriously upended sound doctrine in the matter of salvation by grace and has produced a mess of useless arguments among professing Christians. The “filthy rags” analogy, I believe, fails within the overall context of Isaiah 64 not to mention the book of Isaiah, especially when we read Isaiah 58.

Another approach I remember often discussed before I became Orthodox is dredging up James 2:20 ( faith without works is dead). This is much better & valid than the “filthy rags” analogy, but it still seems to suffer from scripture cut & paste approach.

The Lord gave us His Gospel & the Apostles preached that very same Gospel.

ArmyMatt · Jan 25, 2021

MMXX said:
"Salvation is a free gift BUT we must work and repent in order to enable ourselves to receive God's grace."

That seems like a contradiction, so I'm hoping those who are Orthodox can sort it out for me.

if you were trapped in a well, and someone at the top lowered a rope, the rope is given freely but you have to grab and hang on to get pulled out.

Ceallaigh · Jan 25, 2021

ArmyMatt said:
if you were trapped in a well, and someone at the top lowered a rope, the rope is given freely but you have to grab and hang on to get pulled out.

I agree with that analogy. However what it sounded like to me is that we don't get pulled out, but rather that we have to climb our way out. That salvation is an end goal we have to climb our way up to, rather than something attained and held at the beginning of our relationship with God.

Ceallaigh · Jan 26, 2021

Phronema said:
It's my understanding that the Orthodox Church rejects salvation by faith alone, or by works alone, but rather affirms a combination of the two, and so that's where Fr. Spyridon gets that.

So it's important to understand that sin by definition in the Orthodox Church is "missing the mark". We miss this mark due to spiritual sickness according to Christ (Matthew 8:16, Matthew 12:22; Luke 4:40–41, Luke 13:10–17), and the liturgical, and sacramental life of the Church is the Way we are healed of this spiritual sickness by Christ through Grace.

Christ emphasized salvation through faith in the Holy Scriptures; for instance Mark 5:34, and Mark 10:52. Christ also connected personal faith in Him to our eternal salvation. See Matthew 10:32-33, John 3:16, John 11:25-26, John 20:29.

Christ also emphasized salvation through works when asked by the man in the Gospel of St. Matthew about eternal salvation (Matthew 19:16-19). Further Christ says "if you love me, you will keep my commandments.. if a person loves me he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him, and make our home with him" (John 14:15-17, and 23). In addition we have baptism as an action necessary for salvation in John 3:5. Lastly He emphasizes the necessity of the partaking of the Holy Eucharist in John 6:54. "He who eats my flesh, and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day."

All of this is reflected upon by St. Athanasius of Alexandria who tells us that "He (Christ) became man so that man might become God", and that occurs through the lifelong process of theosis, or to become "Christ-like". Theosis comes through prayer, and repentance with repentance being a changing of the mind. It's not a one off affair though, and requires that we struggle for the Kingdom of Heaven for the entirety of our lives.

The portion on grace that you mentioned should be mentioned along with St. Gregory Palamas. In short St. Gregory Palamas said "Man becomes god by grace." As a result, the life of God becomes man’s life and God’s existence his existence. Not only they themselves rejoice in the presence of God, but His presence is manifested to others through them. So, deification is not only an individual gift of God, but constitutes a means of manifesting Him to the world.

Last I'm not perfect, and it's possible I've missed the mark on something in my explanation, and if so hopefully someone will correct me.

I understand and agree with that in principle. The part that I struggle with having a full understanding of is - "requires that we struggle for the Kingdom of Heaven for the entirety of our lives". Which leaves me to wonder what qualifies as a sufficient level of struggling? It seems like the the idea is that we'll never know if we did a good enough job of that, until after we die and stand before God. That we can't have any certainty.

ArmyMatt · Jan 26, 2021

MMXX said:
I agree with that analogy. However what it sounded like to me is that we don't get pulled out, but rather that we have to climb our way out. That salvation is an end goal we have to climb our way up to, rather than something attained and held at the beginning of our relationship with God.

we don't climb out, but we are the ones who "work" by hanging on. and unless we hang on, we aren't leaving the well.

Phronema · Jan 26, 2021

MMXX said:
I understand and agree with that in principle. The part that I struggle with having a full understanding of is - "requires that we struggle for the Kingdom of Heaven for the entirety of our lives". Which leaves me to wonder what qualifies as a sufficient level of struggling? It seems like the the idea is that we'll never know if we did a good enough job of that, until after we die and stand before God. That we can't have any certainty.

Also, see Matthew 7:13-14. It's not meant to be easy, but not so difficult that we worry either. Christ is our harshest judge, but also our greatest defense. We have certainty because we place trust, and faith in Christ.

I think it's important to understand in Orthodoxy that there is no "sufficient" level. In the end during the final judgement Christ will reveal Himself, and if we love Him we will feel His radiant presence as blissful, and good, or for those who don't love Him his presence will be torturous, and hellish.

This may expand on that some.

The Orthodox Faith - Volume IV - Spirituality - The Kingdom of Heaven - Heaven and Hell

peregrinus2017 · Jan 26, 2021

MMXX said:
I agree with that analogy. However what it sounded like to me is that we don't get pulled out, but rather that we have to climb our way out. That salvation is an end goal we have to climb our way up to, rather than something attained and held at the beginning of our relationship with God.

I think an Orthodox response to this would be to say that salvation is the end goal and something attained or bestowed at the beginning of our relationship with Christ and is worked out in and by us as we walk in that relationship. One cannot dissect and isolate the parts and expect to have a living wholeness.

MMXX said:
Which leaves me to wonder what qualifies as a sufficient level of struggling? It seems like the the idea is that we'll never know if we did a good enough job of that, until after we die and stand before God. That we can't have any certainty.

This idea of certainty is something that me and my former pastor had a hard time with when I was talking to him before I became Orthodox. I'm not sure how you mean it, but it seems to me that this need for certainty is trying to declare God bound or obligated to save us. I chose to lay down certainty and pick up trust. The more I come to know Christ, the more certain and trusting I am of His goodness, and the more I know I don't deserve it.

If I have said anything poorly or incorrectly towards Orthodox understanding, someone please correct me. I'm not much more than a village idiot.

Ceallaigh · Jan 26, 2021

I should have said assurance or trust in God. As opposed to having to keep your fingers crossed, so to speak. I didn't think that was the case in Orthodoxy, but I wanted to hash it out some for better clarity. The answers I received, which I really appreciate, are in line with what I have been taught and believe.

Really I think when it comes to loving and serving the Lord, getting to heaven shouldn't be the goal in mind. Sanctification and glorification, mainly His glorifican in His work in and through us, should be the goal.

abacabb3 · Feb 16, 2021

Faith in the Trinity and the redeeming sacrifice of Jesus Christ the God-Man is the sole means of our justification. (New-Martyr Daniel Sysoev, Salvation Comes Not By Good Works Alone, p. 5)

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Orthodox Perspective: Is Salvation by faith alone or by works?

Ceallaigh

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Pavel Mosko

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Phronema

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Lukaris

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ArmyMatt

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Ceallaigh

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Ceallaigh

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ArmyMatt

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Phronema

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peregrinus2017

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Ceallaigh

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abacabb3

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