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how can reformed protestants and others cling to the belief of sola fide (faith alone)
doing works is actually quite biblical. take a look at James 2:14-17
“What does it profit, my brethren, if a man says he has faith but has not works? Can his faith save him? if a brother or sister is ill-clad and in lack of daily food, and one of you says to them ‘Go in peace, be warmed and filled.’ Without giving them the things needed for the body, what does it profit? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.”
also James 2:20-22
“Do you want to be shown, you shallow man, that faith apart from works is barren? Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he offered his son Isaac upon the altar? you see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by works.”James 2:24
“You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone.”how can people STILL claim FAITH ALONE saves you when the bible sais otherwise?
People see what they want to see. Most of us are taught what our parents and grandparents belived, and are given some sort of proof to back up the belief. Evangelical Protestants are taught Faith alone, and Scripture alone. Niether are supported by the Scirptures. However if you look through the Bible, you will find other verses that speak of being saved, or healed by our faith. If you carefully select those passages, and ignore the others you can easily distort what the Bible really says.
Many Evangelical Christians are taughe that they cannot accept or give any credence to what the Catholic Church teaches. They have been trained that the Catholic Church is not Chrisitan, so they will not listen with an open heart to what it really teaches. Another problem is that they learn “Proof Texts” which are individual verses they think “prove” the teachings they want to believe. Usually proof texts are isolated from the entire context of the Scriptures, and do not take the Scriptures as a whole story of God’s plan for the salvation of mankind.
I have noticed a lot of Protestants remembering bible verses as well when they talk with me about the differences on our beliefs. I don’t remember near as many verses as some of them but I know where to look in the bible to point my side out to them. James 2:24 always does the trick with the faith vs. works topic along with when Abraham was told by God to sacrifice his son Issac in order to show works of proving his faith.
Protestants are taught to memorize “Proof Texts”, but that does not mean that they know the Bible any better than Catholics. While it can be very intimidating to some Catholics, the key is that they take select quotes, out of context and make them seem to say something else.
An example of this is the way Bottiner, an Anti-Catholic writer quotes from Catholic sources in his main book attacking the Catholic Faith. He quotes John Henry Newman, in his book, Apologia pro vita sua. Bottiner tells us that Newman wrote that the Papacy and Papal Infallibility are inventions of the Middle Ages, and there is no proof that it was held in the Early Church. Did Cardinal Newman write that? Well yes and no. Cardinal Newman was a very Anti-Catholic Anglican in his early life. He wrote those lines before he started reading the Early Church Fathers, and converted to the Catholic Faith. Newman was ordained a priest, and later was elevated to the Cardinalate. He did write the Apologia, but he wrote it to show what he had believed earlier in life and why he no longer believes it and was now a Catholic. He quotes his own writings, like the statement that Bottiner quotes, leading others to believe that even as a Cardinal he does not believe in the Papacy. Anyone who reads the Apologia, would soon realize that Bottiner did not tell the story in context. (Another problems with Bottiner, is that he does not give any references, so not only would you have to get a copy of the Apologia, but read through until you found the quote.)
Protestants don’t really want to be deceptive with their “proof texts” it is just that they have been misled into a false understanding of the Bible. Just as they have been led into a false understanding of what the Catholic Church teaches.
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