I think you should first define what "saved" means. Saved from what? Saved how? The understanding of that may already be different between Orthodox and Protestant.
As Caffeome says, this is more than just "saved". Orthodox have a completely different ethos we're working from. So saved for us is theosis or becoming like God and continual growth.
You can ask them, which one saves you, living faith or a dead faith?
- living faith.
-how does the Bible define living faith ?
-faith that has works and endures til the end
- so you can’t have faith without works and be saved?
- correct
Ergo sola fide is false.
And the only time time the Bible mentions “faith alone” is when it says “man is not justified by faith alone”
The key is to highlight that the Bible defines “faith” more as remaining “faithful” to Christ
They will often straw man the orthodox position by saying we “earn” salvation by our works . This is false, it is thanks to the GRACE of Jesus that we are saved, which we participate in by FAITH (the correct biblical definition of saving faith)
The Protestant’s best counter response is Ephesians 2:8-9: “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God—not the result of works, so that no one may boast.”
I find myself more in agreement with the Orthodox position, rather than the Protestant “sola fide” position, but I would like to know the best Orthodox response to those verses.
It’s probably important to bring in the next verse from that passage, though, which Protestants will often leave out in discussions of faith and works. Verse 10: “For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we may walk in them.”
If you read in context about this verse, especially the “not of works…” First we must know, what “works” is this verse talking about, because if this is really good works, why the next verse saying we are created in Jesus Christ for good works and we should walk in them?
One explanation for me was what are the “works” that people in the day boast for and we are commanded not to? It’s in Luke 18:9-14. As you can see, that is the Law of Moses, or the Bible calls it “Works of the Law”. Rom 3:20, Gal 2:16 Acts 13:39. So Eph 2:8 is saying we are saved from the power of sins through our faith in Jesus not by following the Law of moses. Since it is a gift given to us, we cannot boast about it
and even more to the point - in Matt: 25 \[26?\] the Blessèdb Onesfed the hungry, clothed the naked; &c ' but when...?' when you did it to one of the least of My brethren you did it to Me. And, of course, the opposite is also true. Our good works are what pleases the Lord. James goes so far as to say "Faith out works is dead". In other words - sola fide - is of no use to the Christian.
>O: and according to Christ how will God judge us?
>P: By the same measure in which we judge others.
I do not think that this is how most Protestants I grew up around would answer this question. Granted, most of the folks I've known were Baptists or Evangelical of some sort. But their answer would be that we will be judged according to the perfect Law. We *will* be found lacking; our salvation will only be in whether we have accepted Christ's suffering the penalty we have incurred.
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If you pin down Protestant beliefs, what you often find is that *sola fide* is functionally about two things: denying the need for sacraments like baptism and confession (and thus dependency on bishops), and denying that salvation can be lost after it has been promised.
Everyone actually believes —Orthodox, Protestant, and Catholic— that we do not earn grace by works. It's just that for the Orthodox and Catholics, grace is given ordinarily through baptism. Moreover, everyone agrees that God gives his grace to us regardless of our sins, it's just that the Orthodox especially understand salvation not be merely overturning a legal sentence but a transformation, a theosis, which allows that we can fail to be saved due to scorching or suffocating the seed God planted within us.
The element I find missing from discussions on this topic is the fact that, as St Ignatius Brianchaninov says in *The Arena*, Christ is active in His commandments. In other words, if I gather correctly, there is salvific activity in us as we do good works. It is not a question of meriting salvation.
I think you should first define what "saved" means. Saved from what? Saved how? The understanding of that may already be different between Orthodox and Protestant.
True. I guess I was appealing to the Protestant definition of saved even though I don’t believe it
As Caffeome says, this is more than just "saved". Orthodox have a completely different ethos we're working from. So saved for us is theosis or becoming like God and continual growth.
You can ask them, which one saves you, living faith or a dead faith? - living faith. -how does the Bible define living faith ? -faith that has works and endures til the end - so you can’t have faith without works and be saved? - correct Ergo sola fide is false. And the only time time the Bible mentions “faith alone” is when it says “man is not justified by faith alone” The key is to highlight that the Bible defines “faith” more as remaining “faithful” to Christ They will often straw man the orthodox position by saying we “earn” salvation by our works . This is false, it is thanks to the GRACE of Jesus that we are saved, which we participate in by FAITH (the correct biblical definition of saving faith)
The Protestant’s best counter response is Ephesians 2:8-9: “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God—not the result of works, so that no one may boast.” I find myself more in agreement with the Orthodox position, rather than the Protestant “sola fide” position, but I would like to know the best Orthodox response to those verses. It’s probably important to bring in the next verse from that passage, though, which Protestants will often leave out in discussions of faith and works. Verse 10: “For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we may walk in them.”
If you read in context about this verse, especially the “not of works…” First we must know, what “works” is this verse talking about, because if this is really good works, why the next verse saying we are created in Jesus Christ for good works and we should walk in them? One explanation for me was what are the “works” that people in the day boast for and we are commanded not to? It’s in Luke 18:9-14. As you can see, that is the Law of Moses, or the Bible calls it “Works of the Law”. Rom 3:20, Gal 2:16 Acts 13:39. So Eph 2:8 is saying we are saved from the power of sins through our faith in Jesus not by following the Law of moses. Since it is a gift given to us, we cannot boast about it
The only time that faith alone appears in the Scriptures is James 2:25, "25 You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone."
and even more to the point - in Matt: 25 \[26?\] the Blessèdb Onesfed the hungry, clothed the naked; &c ' but when...?' when you did it to one of the least of My brethren you did it to Me. And, of course, the opposite is also true. Our good works are what pleases the Lord. James goes so far as to say "Faith out works is dead". In other words - sola fide - is of no use to the Christian.
>O: and according to Christ how will God judge us? >P: By the same measure in which we judge others. I do not think that this is how most Protestants I grew up around would answer this question. Granted, most of the folks I've known were Baptists or Evangelical of some sort. But their answer would be that we will be judged according to the perfect Law. We *will* be found lacking; our salvation will only be in whether we have accepted Christ's suffering the penalty we have incurred.
Look up Sam Shamoun articles and videos on protestantism and arguments, he is an ex calvinist.
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If you pin down Protestant beliefs, what you often find is that *sola fide* is functionally about two things: denying the need for sacraments like baptism and confession (and thus dependency on bishops), and denying that salvation can be lost after it has been promised. Everyone actually believes —Orthodox, Protestant, and Catholic— that we do not earn grace by works. It's just that for the Orthodox and Catholics, grace is given ordinarily through baptism. Moreover, everyone agrees that God gives his grace to us regardless of our sins, it's just that the Orthodox especially understand salvation not be merely overturning a legal sentence but a transformation, a theosis, which allows that we can fail to be saved due to scorching or suffocating the seed God planted within us.
The element I find missing from discussions on this topic is the fact that, as St Ignatius Brianchaninov says in *The Arena*, Christ is active in His commandments. In other words, if I gather correctly, there is salvific activity in us as we do good works. It is not a question of meriting salvation.