Faith and Works
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| 🇬🇧 | 🇬🇧 |
| Who was Martin Luther? | Martin Luther was a German monk and professor of theology who felt a deep sense of sinfulness and profound anxiety for his soul’s salvation. |
| What does E.P Sanders think of Luther's message? | Luther and many other theologians had misinterpreted them to mean Paul was opposed to ‘good works’ when this isn’t what he was saying at all. |
| What did Martin Luther do to try and cleanse his sinfulness? | He tried all the spiritual paths available to him to cleanse him of his constant feeling of sinfulness as he felt disturbed by God’s utter power and the fact no unclean being could be presented before him. |
| What does E.P Sanders think of Luther's message? | Luther and many other theologians had misinterpreted them to mean Paul was opposed to ‘good works’ when this isn’t what he was saying at all. |
| What four paths did he take? | The penitential path, the mystical path, hating god and beginning to teach the bible. |
| What was the penitential path? | Penance is one of the sacraments of the Roman Catholic church, designed to offer God’s healing in return for the confession of sins to a priest. During Luther’s quest to find peace he threw himself into confession. |
| What was wrong with the penitential path? | He found that he couldn’t remember every sin he had committed and would find himself having to repent multiple times a day. |
| What was the mystical path? | One of his advisors suggested he must strip himself of all assertiveness, arrogance, pride and self-seeking behaviour. In mysticism, this happens through a quasi surrender during meditation. |
| What was the problem with mysticism? | Luther however believed that his human nature was too entrenched in rebellion against God to reach these experiences again. |
| Why did he hate God? | His turmoil increased as he continued to fixate on the unbridgeable gap between him and God. |
| What did he say about this turmoil with God? | “Is it not against all-natural reason that god out of his mere whim deserts men, hardens them... he who said to be of such mercy and goodness?” |
| What happens when he starts teaching the bible? | He was startled to see Jesus ask “My God, my God why hast thou forsaken me?” - this was exactly how he felt |
| What is sola fide? | This led him to start to study certain Bible passages in which he formed his theory that you are justified by faith only and not works. |
| What scriptures did he use to back him up? | Romans 1:17 , Romans 5:1 , Ephesians 2:8- 9 , Galatians 2:16 |
| Galatians 2:16 | "know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law because by the works of the law no one will be justified." |
| Ephesians 2:8- 9 | For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works so that no one can boast. |
| Romans 5:1 | "Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." |
| Romans 1:17 | For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith." |
| What does it say in James? | The epistle of James maintains that ‘a person is justified by works and not faith alone’ which is contradictory to Luther’s statements. |
| What does Luther say in response to the epistle of James? | Luther concluded that the epistle of James was an ‘epistle of straw’ that had ‘nothing of the nature of the gospel about it’. |
| What did E.P Sanders have to say about faith and works? | E.P Sanders thought it was essential that the writings of Paul were read in context. |
| What context does E.P Sanders put faith and works into? | E.P Sanders recognises the part Judaism as it was at the time had to play in this time when the religion focused on works (kosher food laws, circumcision, observing Sabbath etc). Jews entered the covenant by grace but remained it by works. |
| What does E.P Sanders argue Paul was trying to say? | Paul, therefore, realised through his faith in Jesus Christ that to achieve justification you need to do more than follow the commandments of Moses but also have faith in Jesus Christ. |
| What does E.P Sanders think of Luther's message? | Luther and many other theologians had misinterpreted them to mean Paul was opposed to ‘good works’ when this isn’t what he was saying at all. |
| What was the council of Trent? | The counter reformation in response to challenges posed by Martin Luther |
| How long did it take place over? | 18 years, 25 sessions and spanned 3 papacies |
| Where was it held? | Trento, Italy |
| What was the primary purpose of the council? | To condemn and refute the beliefs of Protestantism, and make the set Catholicism beliefs more clearer |
| What was the council of Trent's ruling against Luther? | The council ruled against Luther’s doctrine of justification by faith alone: man, the council said, was inwardly justified by cooperating with divine grace that God bestows gratuitously. |
| What other points did the council of Trent make? | God doesn’t make people righteous, they must become righteous. Good works are required as a condition for ultimate justification. Justification works in two phases - the first stage is righteousness mediated through baptism and the second is through penanced and increased participation in the eucharist. |
| What was something the council of Trent said? | "truth and discipline are contained in the written books and the unwritten traditions which, received by the apostles from the mouth of Christ himself" |
| What did the council for Trent say about justification by faith alone? | They condemned it as heresy |
| What is heresy? | A belief or opinion contrary to the orthodox religious (especially Christian) doctrine |
| What decree did the council issue in their sixth session? | "If any one saith, that the justice received is not preserved and also increased before God through good works; but that the said works are merely the fruits and signs of Justification obtained, but not a cause of the increase thereof; let him be anathema.” |
| What is anathema? | A formal curse by a pope or a council of the Church, excommunication |
| What did the Protestant reformers reject? | The apocrypha (hidden wisdom) |
| Why is the apocrypha unique for Catholicism? | Many of the scriptures surrounding purgatory, praying for the dead, and salvation by works come from the apocrypha. |
| What did the council of Trent say in the fourth session about anyone who rejected the apocrypha? | “... if any one receive not, as sacred and canonical, the said books entire with all their parts, as they have been used to be read in the Catholic Church, and as they are contained in the old Latin vulgate edition; and knowingly and deliberately contemn the traditions aforesaid; let him be anathema.” |
| What did the Protestant reformation say about the doctrine of transubstantiation? | They heavily criticised it and regarded it as a pseudo philosophy. |
| What did the council of Trent say in the 13th session to reaffirm transubstantiation? | "that wonderful and singular conversion of the whole substance of the bread into the Body, and of the whole substance of the wine into the Blood - the species only of the bread and wine remaining - which conversion indeed the Catholic Church most aptly calls Transubstantiation." |
| What did Protestants claim the only source and norm for Christian faith was? | The holy scripture (the canonical bible without the apocrypha) sola scriptura |
| What did the council of Trent say about sola scriptura? | They rejected it as the council affirmed two sources of special revelation: Holy scripture (all the books including the Latin vulgate version) and traditions of the church (unwritten traditions, such as the importance of the pope, the importance of the virgin mary the practice of confession, the celibacy of the priesthood) |
| What did the Protestant believe about the selling of indulgences? | They were appalled by the practice that had become common in many Catholic Churches. |
| What did the council of Trent say about the selling of indulgences? | The Council called for the reform of the practice, yet damned those who "say that indulgences are useless or that the Church does not have the power to grant them." |
| What did the council say about the criticisms of purgatory? | "that after the grace of justification has been received the guilt is so remitted and the debt of eternal punishment so blotted out for any repentant sinner, that no debt of temporal punishment remains to be paid." |
| What did the council of Trent say about marriage and divorce? | The council affirmed the excellence of celibacy, condemned concubinage (cohabitation), and made the validity of marriage dependent upon the wedding taking place before a priest and two witnesses. In the case of a divorce, the right of the innocent party to marry again was denied so long as the other party was alive, even if the other party had committed adultery. |