The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Is Christian Faith a Gift from God?

Evangelical Universalism
#1

  1. Is Christian Faith a gift from God, received by different people at different times (including after death)?

  2. Is Christian Faith a human, free will choice?

  3. In Ephesians 2:8, is faith the gift, or is salvation the gift, or both?

#2

I am betting that most people on this forum will agree that christian faith is a gift of God.

However, there are several articles and papers on the subject, that are available on line and that do not reach such a conclusion. For example, in the following paper (see link below), the author lists, in the section labeled, “The Conflict: If faith Is A Gift,” five theological problems with the view that faith is a gift:

  1. Too much like a Roman Catholic Sacrament. Faith becomes a transmitted and efficacious element which God gives to men for salvation.
  2. Human responsibility is nullified.
  3. People should be asking God for regeneration before they can believe.
  4. It engenders a less-than-balanced view of sanctification.
  5. Many scriptural commands become superfluous.

But - - in my opinion - - those theological problems do not exist when you have an EU perspective!

The link is:
dts.edu/download/publication … ercise.pdf

#3

I’m not sure those theological ‘problems’ exist anyway, EU or not. What do they do with “By grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.”? or “He gives to all men the measure of faith.” Or do they talk about that at all?

#4

I’m just scooting through and noticed the enticing thread title! Libertarian Free Will-ists would certainly say that salvation is the gift of God and that Ephesians 2:8 is not referring to the faith as the gift. That is, I am told, the most authentic rendering of the Greek. Though it has nothing to do with this particular verse, one could fairly state that without God’s grace we could not have faith. So in a very limited sense (one that would probably confuse people) faith ultimately has its source in the gift of grace, for within orthodox soteriology, grace necessarily precedes absolutely every stage of salvation. This grace, LFWists say, is resistible however.

Placing faith in something couldn’t fairly be considered a work. In fact, Paul isn’t even referring to works in general here, but works of Torah (cf. Ephesians 2:14-17); but that’s a distracting can of worms we needn’t open fully :slight_smile: It is impossible that one could boast in their faith. For faith is placing trust in Yeshua — so any expression of genuine faith is inherently self-deprecating. Boasting of your faith to necessarily defer to Yeshua because you’re too weak isn’t something you can logically boast about. Not only is boasting of your faith impossible, it’s a logical absurdity — it would cease to be faith! I defended this further here if anyone were interested…

Regarding “He gives to all men the measure of faith” (which I presume is Romans 12:3), we can see that Paul is writing within the context of a renewed life and service (as preceding verses show) and refers to a measurement of an ability to exercise our gifts. Paul had already well and truly covered salvation (through faith, and not unto faith) in 3:, 4: and 5: and it would make no sense to return to that topic with one peculiar and completely unnecessary sentence. By Romans 12, Paul has completed his big defence of God’s salvific promises to the Jews, and moved onto the truly beautiful orthopraxy of authentic Christian life (Romans 12-15).

I won’t exegete this fully as I really am just dropping through, but Paul is writing (in 12:1), that we must “present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship” and then (12:3) “For through the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith.” Faith here, as the context shows, is the capacity (our knowledge and experience) of “spiritual service of worship”. So “Christian service” is probably a fair translation for ‘faith’ in 12:3. For Paul continues, writing (12:4-8) “For just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. Since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, each of us is to exercise them accordingly: if prophecy, according to the proportion of his faith; if service, in his serving; or he who teaches, in his teaching; or he who exhorts, in his exhortation; he who gives, with liberality; he who leads, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness.” Paul is simply writing here that our extension of Yahweh’s grace in service to others (cf. 1 Peter 4:10-11) is measured differently, in capacity and in kind, so we can’t consider ourselves more haughty than those with a different service. Paul isn’t saying anything about salvation unto faith, nor even through faith, but simply that we have different abilities to serve others in diverse ways.

I hope that might explain how LFWists like myself understand those verses. Godspeed sisters/brother!

#5

The word “grace” itself implies a gift. Galatians 12:4 speaks of a variety of charisma. The word “charisma” is usually translated as “gifts”. This word is derived from “charis”, usually translated as “grace”.

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It is the grace, God’s gift which is not your own doing. But your faith—that is your own doing.

It’s an interesting thought to consider these “works” as the works of the law. But I think the following verse implies otherwise:

So I think the “works” of which Paul is speaking is the works of self-effort. When we achieve through self-effort we tend to glory in our achievement. If we can save ourselves from wrongdoing through self-effort, we have something in which to glory.
But we are** God’s** workmanship, and we can appropriate His enabling grace through our faith in Him. We are unable to achieve righteousness through self-effort apart from God, and God is unwilling to deliver us from wrongdoing unilaterally.
Rather:

We must coöperate with the enabling grace of God in order to overcome wrongdoing and to live righteously. If we attempt to receive God’s grace and do nothing, then it is in vain.

#6

Paidion, I don’t want to distract from the subject, but I suspect the word “good” in Ephesians 2:10, meaning intrinsically good, is what differentiates between the two. One is of thoroughly good works (the spirit of Torah/Love) the necessary expression of faith, one is just of works (the Mosaic Torah, the codified expression of that love, insofar as love could be expressed and understood by the spiritual and cultural restraints of that age — it was merely a tutor). The author of Hebrews, talking to the Jews and meaning the same sentiment instead refers to works [of Mosaic Torah] as ‘dead works’ (6:1; 9:14). I think Paul (and everyone else in the Christian scriptures) is saying that following that particular Mosaic expression of Torah now would be thoroughly misplaced — it’s culturally irrelevant and was always concessional — because now we have the proper Torah that Yeshua taught and modelled: Love. Proper faith, I think, is belief in the promise (not belief in past revelation) and finding its expression in good works. If we truly have faith in the promise, and not the static Torah of old, our faith will “work through love” (Galatians 5:6). I find it helpful to insert the word “Mosaic” before the words ‘Torah’ or ‘works’ in Romans and Galatians because that is predominantly what Paul, an (ex-)Pharisee who was talking to Jews or about Jews, would have meant and understood by those words. James is the obvious departure from this, but he is clearly referring to fulfilling the “royal law” (2:8) or the “law of liberty” (2:12). I hope that makes some sense. And I am probably wrong on this and am happy to be corrected — just trying to understand this stuff. I really don’t want this to detract from my earlier post, which is more Protestant and Arminian compatible.

But I largely agree with your summary here. We are never able to achieve anything apart from the grace of God! Whether we think that faith is in someone who will otherwise save us in a more independent way, or someone who will secure, empower, show and invite us into salvation, faith is always a grace-enabled LFW choice and not a decree by God. And that’s ultimately how we are saved — through faith. There is never anything to boast about (…unless of course, determinism is true and you’ve been hand-picked before the foundation of the world to be in the higher Churchly caste :wink: )