Albion
Facilitator
Yes.Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think we agree that genuine faith causes good works;
That's right EXCEPT that if "it" does not...then it isn't really Faith.However, faith in and of itself if it does not have works, is dead.
That was the big point that James was making about people who said that they were disciples of Christ but nothing in their lives seemed to have changed.
It is not. Just as we have to know what all sorts of oth4er religious terms actually mean, lest we misunderstand them, so Sola Fide has to be understood as it is meant. Sure, anyone can think it means something else, but there is nothing wrong with the term itself.That is why sola fide if left undefined causes unneeded confusion as the term itself means faith alone - which by it's plain meaning is misleading.
Faith Alone justifies. That doesn't mean Faith will BE alone!
The latter rendering of the meaning is what the people who believe in Faith + Works = Salvation try to make it mean, but the term itself obviously isn't saying that.
Because I take you at your word, I will concede that some people may be confused and are sincere about that. But it still isn't the fault of a term that was important 500 years ago. That it is still used is no more unusual than that all Christians are using special language about Trinities and Hallelujahs and all sorts of other terms that were not the invention of anyone using them today.
Here is another example. The Catholic Church believes in "Papal Infallibility." Well, that term could be taken to mean that the Pope is always correct, infallible, whatever and whenever he says something. That, of course, is not what Catholics believe, but I don't hear many people insisting to Catholics that that is what they must mean by it since "that is what the words say!"
Yet we hear often that Sola Fide just cannot be correct, that it is an erroneous belief, that it has to mean (insert misunderstanding here), and that Protestants therefore believe that!
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