Are faith, God and love without deeds, dead?

Paul took the position that salvation could be gained on faith alone. James took the position that faith without works and deeds is dead. Even if one had faith, like demons and Satan must, without works they were still going to hell.

Most have landed with James who said that faith without deeds and works was dead. This may be due to Jesus who said that we would recognize his people by their works.

Love, it would seem to me, has the same characteristic as faith. Love without works and deeds is dead. Be it love for a spouse, our children, parents or friends or even God, if we did not do works and deeds, they could not know that we love them. At the very least, we would have to tell them we love them and that falls into works and deeds.

Many believers tell me that God is love or loves us all. They always point to deeds and works that fall in the range of un-provable miracles. Most of these miracles are in the ancient past. Creation and what not. Some take it to the present and I have been told often that God can do whatever he wants with us because he made us. I discard this out of hand because I believe that if that were true, God would not also create all those things that kill us and cause us to suffer. That is not a loving act.

Love, human to human, must have ongoing deeds and works to be alive. Without these, love is dead.

Love, God to human, must also have ongoing works and deeds. If God is alive, he must and would express his love with viable and recognizable actions.

If we cannot see these acts on God’s part --- and you agree that love must be expressed somehow with works and deeds, ----does that mean that God does not love or that he is dead?

Regards
DL

Greatest I am wrote:Are faith, God and love without deeds, dead?

Paul took the position that salvation could be gained on faith alone. James took the position that faith without works and deeds is dead. Even if one had faith, like demons and Satan must, without works they were still going to hell.

Or Paul didn't really teach that, but that's how we understand the text now due to a 500 year long tradition of reading him out of context and misinterpreting what he says?

No argument.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xH93PSZ6fQ

Regards
DL

If your interested in hearing more on that, try reading E.P. Sanders' Paul and Palestinian Judaism, I highly recommend it.

Greatest I am wrote:Are faith, God and love without deeds, dead?

Paul took the position that salvation could be gained on faith alone. James took the position that faith without works and deeds is dead.

Paul was cunning and wrong; James was right here.

paarsurrey wrote:

Greatest I am wrote:Are faith, God and love without deeds, dead?

Paul took the position that salvation could be gained on faith alone. James took the position that faith without works and deeds is dead.

Paul was cunning and wrong; James was right here.

Actually, turns out Paul probably was way closer to James than you'd think - it's actually Luther and his contemporaries that invented the ideas you think Paul had.

What Zwaarddijk said.

Paul taught about not confining oneself to the ritual of the law, acts of the flesh. But he also taught that one should "walk" by the Spirit. (Galatians 2) He didn't disagree with James and in fact in the Book of Acts when James gives the 4 standards that Christians should adhere to Paul did not speak up. Furthermore, Paul urged people in the book of Romans not to use their freedom from the law of the flesh to stumble a brother or sister. The verse goes:

Therefore let us not judge one another anymore, but rather determine this—not to put an obstacle or a stumbling block in a brother’s way. I know and am convinced in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself; but to him who thinks anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean. For if because of food your brother is hurt, you are no longer walking according to love. Do not destroy with your food him for whom Christ died. 16 Therefore do not let what is for you a good thing be spoken of as evil; for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.

Another easier way to put it is: Faith is what saves us and through faith we do good works. (Ephesians 2:10)

As an interesting side note: Martin Luther did not consider James biblical canon solely because Luther viewed it as being directly contradictory to what Paul had to say.

Zwaarddijk wrote:
Actually, turns out Paul probably was way closer to James than you'd think - it's actually Luther and his contemporaries that invented the ideas you think Paul had.

I use Paul as a symbol of deviation from Jesus' teaching; I want to keep it simple.

paarsurrey wrote:

Zwaarddijk wrote:
Actually, turns out Paul probably was way closer to James than you'd think - it's actually Luther and his contemporaries that invented the ideas you think Paul had.

I use Paul as a symbol of deviation from Jesus' teaching; I want to keep it simple.

Isn't it immoral to keep piling inaccurate accusations on someone that can't defend themselves due to having been dead for over nineteen centuries?

Strip the question of its religious trappings and see what you think. Can you really be said to believe something, anything, if that belief isn't in some way exhibited in your behavior?

Seems to me that if there is no effective difference in your behavior then the claim of belief is, at best, meaningless.

Zwaarddijk wrote:If your interested in hearing more on that, try reading E.P. Sanders' Paul and Palestinian Judaism, I highly recommend it.

Thanks.
I will check it out.

Regards
DL

Greatest I am wrote:

Zwaarddijk wrote:If your interested in hearing more on that, try reading E.P. Sanders' Paul and Palestinian Judaism, I highly recommend it.

Thanks.
I will check it out.

Regards
DL

Warning, though: it comes with a hefty first half that doesn't even touch on Paul or Jesus, but on how distorted the idea people have of Pharisaism generally is, and some theorizing as to why this is the case and whence this distortion has appeared.

paarsurrey wrote:

Greatest I am wrote:Are faith, God and love without deeds, dead?

Paul took the position that salvation could be gained on faith alone. James took the position that faith without works and deeds is dead.

Paul was cunning and wrong; James was right here.

I agree

Regards
DL

TheOneTrueZeke wrote:Strip the question of its religious trappings and see what you think. Can you really be said to believe something, anything, if that belief isn't in some way exhibited in your behavior?

Seems to me that if there is no effective difference in your behavior then the claim of belief is, at best, meaningless.

I agree.

A hunter who never hunts is not a hunter. We have to walk our talk.

Regards
DL

I like E.P. Sanders. He offers a liberal, biblical scholar perspective without putting in his own theological beliefs. Jesus and Judaism was the first book I read by him. I disagreed with several points of his, but on the whole he is a good, well learned scholar.

Greatest I am wrote:

paarsurrey wrote:

Greatest I am wrote:Are faith, God and love without deeds, dead?

Paul took the position that salvation could be gained on faith alone. James took the position that faith without works and deeds is dead.

Paul was cunning and wrong; James was right here.

I agree

Regards
DL

You agree with what? That Paarsurrey made an inaccurate statement or that you agree with his opinion. If that's the case you just contradicted what you said to Zward o.0

willhud9 wrote:

Greatest I am wrote:

paarsurrey wrote:

Greatest I am wrote:Are faith, God and love without deeds, dead?

Paul took the position that salvation could be gained on faith alone. James took the position that faith without works and deeds is dead.

Paul was cunning and wrong; James was right here.

I agree

Regards
DL

You agree with what? That Paarsurrey made an inaccurate statement or that you agree with his opinion. If that's the case you just contradicted what you said to Zward o.0

I agree that Paul is cunning and wrong with his, on faith alone and that James was correct in faith needing works to be alive.

Regards
DL

Greatest I am wrote:

willhud9 wrote:

Greatest I am wrote:

paarsurrey wrote:

Paul was cunning and wrong; James was right here.

I agree

Regards
DL

You agree with what? That Paarsurrey made an inaccurate statement or that you agree with his opinion. If that's the case you just contradicted what you said to Zward o.0

I agree that Paul is cunning and wrong with his, on faith alone and that James was correct in faith needing works to be alive.

Regards
DL

Paul only said faith was what saved a person. He never said works were not needed. Likewise, James never said works is what saves you, but rather faith is what saves you and through works your faith is justified. Both taught about Christian conduct and Rabbinnic Law.

Stick to being a good non believer friend.

You make a poor apologist.

I will not bother bringing you the quotes to refute your position.
I will just give you this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztDgyOKe ... r_embedded

You might remember that Jesus was a Universalist and rather Gnostic.

Regards
DL

Greatest I am wrote:Stick to being a good non believer friend.

You make a poor apologist.

Uhm... read E.P. Sanders yet?

I will not bother bringing you the quotes to refute your position.
I will just give you this.

Care to bring me those quotes?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztDgyOKej1k&feature=player_embedded

You might remember that Jesus was a Universalist and rather Gnostic.

Gnosticism proper didn't exist when Jesus was alive (although some pre-Gnostic or proto-Gnostic things did; we don't find very classical gnostic ideals to any considerable extent in any of the synoptics). Regarding the particular John-quote in that verse, I find the "rational" side in that video surprisingly ignorant. To understand what such an utterance would've meant to the audience who heard it, and what it would have meant to whoever would have uttered/authored it is more important than making up a metaphor about a moose lodge. Sure, the moose lodge thing is relevant as to possible interpretations, but if we're going to understand which possible interpretation was intended by the author, we need to look at how utterances like those were made and understood in the relevant time period. And it turns out a rather non-universalist interpretation is quite likely.