When the Homily is about Immunology

Faith and works

A lengthy bit of theological pondering while riding the waves to work:

An Orthodox inquiring friend of mine has sent my theological thoughts flying in the direction of faith "vs." works. A topic to which I generally don't give a great deal of consideration. This is perhaps the case because in the Orthodox understanding of things the two are not mutually exclusive and are certainly not dichotomous. Not to mention, the issue is more recent to the theological memory of the western churches and I really do suspect that much of Protestant emphasis on faith over and above works is a knee-jerk and erroneous reaction to medieval Roman Catholic extremes in setting up a system of salvation that an accountant could appreciate.

Many efforts to “reconcile” St. James and St. Paul in such a context end up requiring some truly back-bending and circular reasoning. Looking back in time I suspect we AGers would simply say that works were a natural response to salvation and so whereas faith saves us (and, we must have also said, faith is NOT a work in and of itself but is the gift of the Holy Spirit), the evidence of saving faith is of course works. So, was I saved or not? Because good works never came “naturally” or should I say easily. It was always a struggle and as I read through the NT I saw unending exhortations to struggle and “work” and to do good and avoid bad. And, in fact, the existence of many of the epistles is attributable to the need for such exhortations. Many a late night was spent tearfully asking God to take away my inability to stop sinning. My good works were few and far between and I knew it, and so what could I do with what St. James was telling me? What had become of my “Blessed Assurance”? (Hmmm...contrary to the hymn, maybe I do not own Jesus?) I never could figure out what was meant by “working out your salvation with fear and trembling” despite all the fancy theological foot shuffling to make THAT one fit the mold. Anyway, this was the AG struggle I had...but in general, I think most Protestant struggle to some degree (often in slightly different ways since Scripture is so perfectly clear that dozens of different understandings of the intricate and technical workings of faith and works exist) with salvation being attributable to faith alone and yet works clearly being important for something, but NOT salvation.

I rather sense a need (product of the enlightenment perhaps) to define in the most precise and technical terms the process by which salvation functions. Who, what, where, and how am I saved? It’s like not being satisfied with the fact that your alarm clock wakes you up in the morning, one MUST come to an understanding of how the clock functions in intimate detail. This, I suppose, makes some sense depending on your understanding of what salvation is...literally.

Is salvation a legal contract, a fiscal ledger, or a relationship? If the latter, then I think it is obvious that seeking a system of functionality becomes absurd. Like seeking to understand what is the key "issue" with regard to your marriage working: is it faith in your spouse or is it works? One or the other...choose. If salvation is a legal contract then it makes sense to argue and debate about how that contract is fulfilled, but if it is a relationship then it becomes something that the functionality of which encompasses many things and it becomes silly - even insulting - to try and nail down the technical details. It's like science trying to tell me that my love for my wife is all about biochemistry. Salvation, like any relationship, is REAL, it is not a subjective agreed upon and contracted pseudo-reality. In other words, the little article of paper from the state of Washington truly says nothing about the reality of my marriage.

Works being included in the process of salvation is NOT about keeping score, it is about being in a relationship - we do things to maintain a solid relationship with our spouses - we hopefully do not have a secret tally sheet whereby we are able to keep score. We cannot quantify a relationship...this is the mistake we would say was paramount in western RC thought with notions of indulgences and purgatory all representing sin and holiness quantified.

God will do (or did?) what is impossible for us to do, while we must do what is possible for us to do. It's really rather simple isn't it? What is so difficult to understand here? There is no war between faith and works, unless one overemphasizes one at the expense of the other.

Consider context in Scripture. In my protestant hermeneutics class I was indeed taught that context is important in interpreting Scripture, but I wonder if this was really a bit of lip service to the notion. The New Testament is not and indeed was not intended to be a systematic theology or a sort of “summa theological”, but alas many Christian sects treat it as such. Thus, when St. Paul writes to the Romans and Ephesians about how your good works cannot save you, we might forget that he may very well have been addressing a specific problem in the Churches of Rome or Ephesus or wherever. In other words, like in so many other places he may have been correcting an error that had developed or a controversy to which we simply are not privy. Was someone in Rome or Ephesus overemphasizing works? Or perhaps was pride creeping in such that St. Paul had to remind them that “no man may boast.” Similarly, perhaps St. James was addressing a problem in which the importance of works was being negated?

I, for one, cannot read the New Testament and fail to see the importance of our cooperation with God. I think that too often with Protestants there is an assumed foundation which they set up (based - they say - on the Bible) and then the New Testament is made to fit it, in some cases the fit is perfect and in some areas it doesn't seem quite as good a fit and thus the founder gets out his crowbar and duct tape and forces it into place. A little bit of caulk and paint and you can hardly notice the contortions that had to be done to make it fit. Better to make such contortions than to assume the foundation was wrong to begin with. I've no qualms in saying, that with regard to Orthodoxy I have never seen the New Testament makes so much collective and overall sense...a perfect unity that requires very little explanation or philosophical loop-de-loops, caulk, or paint.

So many of the pages of the NT are wasted space if their words of exhortation to DO SOMETHING are meaningless. Like the woman with the “issue of blood”, her faith may have healed her, but it was intimately and inescapably connected with her reaching out and touching Him. She worked...her will and her body conformed to the will of God.

God has no interest in a marriage contract or a pre-nuptial agreement which act “as if” we have a relationship. He wants a REAL relationship with us and since we are not automatons, clearly we are involved. Salvation implies a real ontological change in our being and in our nature, not a change in legal status. Christ has renewed us so that we are no longer slaves to sin, but made alive in Him. This is the new life to which we are raised and the western theologians of all breeds may bicker and argue and try to label the Orthodox understanding over it all, but it seems clear to me that I have work to do...with fear and trembling – a verse that makes a good deal of sense to me now and the theological loop-de-loops are no longer necessary in this new (actually old) context of understanding (more accurately: experiencing) salvation.