Logic is not phony, the theology of faith alone is phony.
SCRIPTURE:
Eph. 2:8 ... And this is
not your own doing ...
Eph. 2:9
not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
2 Tim. 1:9 who saved us ...
not because of our works
Tit. 3:5 he saved us,
not because of works ...
Rom. 4:5 And
to the one who does not work ... his faith is counted as righteousness,
Rom. 4:6 ... the one to whom God counts righteousness
apart from works:
Rom. 11:6 But if it is by grace, it is
no longer on the basis of works;
ECF's:
“And we, too, being called by His will in Christ Jesus,
are not justified by ourselves, nor by our own wisdom, or understanding, or godliness,
or works we have have wrought in holiness of heart, but by that faith through which, from the beginning, Almighty God has justified all men; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.”
-
Clement, First Epistle to the Corinthians, Ch. 32 (AD 99)
“Every mystery which is enacted by
our Lord Jesus Christ asks only for faith. The mystery was enacted at that time for our sake and aimed at our resurrection and liberation, should we have faith in the mystery of Christ and in Christ.”
-
Marius Victorinus, Epistle to the Galatians,1.3.7 (AD 356)
“Let him who boasts boast in the Lord, that Christ has been made by God for us in righteousness, wisdom, justification, redemption. This is perfect and pure boasting in God, when one is not proud on account of his own righteousness but knows that he is indeed unworthy of the true righteousness and is (or has been)
justified solely by faith in Christ.”
-
Basil of Caesarea, Homilia XX, Homilia De Humilitate (AD 379)
“God has decreed that a person who believes in Christ
can be saved without works. By
faith alone he receives the forgiveness of sins.”
-
Ambrosiaster, on 1 Cor 1:14b (AD 384)
“They are justified freely
because they have not done anything nor given anything in return, but
by faith alone they have been made holy by the gift of God.”
-
Ambrosiaster, on Rom. 3:24 (AD 384)
“The patriarch Abraham himself before receiving circumcision
had been declared righteous on the score of faith alone; before circumcision, the text says, Abraham believed God, and credit for it brought him to righteousness.”
-
Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis, 27.7 (AD 407)
“See he calls the faith also a law delighting to keep to the names, and so allay the seeming novelty. But what is the ‘law of faith’? It is, being saved by grace. Here he shows God’s power, in that He has not only saved, but has even justified, and led them to boasting, and this too
without needing works, but looking for faith only.”
-
Chrysostom, Homilies on the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Romans, Homily 7, vs. 27 (AD 407)
“For a person
who had no works, to be justified by faith, was nothing unlikely. But for a person richly adorned with good deeds, not to be made just from hence, but from faith, this is the thing to cause wonder, and to set the power of faith in a strong light.”
-
Chrysostom, Homilies on the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Romans, Homily 8, Rom. 4:1-2 (AD 407)
“
God justifies by faith alone” (“Deus ex
sola fide justificat”)
-
Jerome, Epestolam Ad Romanos, Caput X, v.3 (AD 420)
“What Paul meant was that
no one obtains the gift of justification on the basis of merits derived from works performed beforehand, but they gift of justification comes
only from faith.”
-
Bede, Cited from the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture (ed. Gerald Bray), NT, vol. 11, p. 31.(AD 735)
"But in addition that you might believe also this, that sins are given to you individually, this is the testimony, which the Holy Spirit bestows in your heart, saying, Your sins are forgiven by you. For the Apostle thinks thus, that man is
gratuitously justified through faith."
-
Bernard of Clairvaux , First Sermon on the Annunciation (AD 1153)
“Therefore the hope of
justification is not found in them [the moral and ceremonial requirements of the law],
but in faith alone.”
-
Thomas Aquinas, Expositio in Ep. I ad Timotheum cap. 1, lect. 3 (AD 1274)
