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S i d e b a r
Aw-fensive Strategies
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This Rock
Volume 15, Number 8
 October 2004 
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Here are some examples of questions that you can begin asking people who are trying to evangelize you out of the Church with sola fide. Pay attention to how, with just one or two questions, you can cause some folks some serious problems with consistency.
Question #1: If we are saved by faith alone, then do we need to love in order to be saved? If so, then we are not saved by faith alone, are we? We are saved by faith and love—which Catholics refer to as faith working through love (cf. Gal. 5:6). If a person says we do not need love in order to be saved, then he is saying we can get to heaven without loving God or our fellow man—a patently ridiculous position to take. Also, if faith alone saves us, faith without love, why does 1 Corinthians 13:13 say that love is greater than faith? After all, if salvation is the greatest thing we can achieve, and it is by faith alone that we achieve salvation, then faith should be greater than love. But the Bible says differently.
Question #2: If you have faith, but have not works, can your faith save you? If a persons answers yes, then he contradicts Scripture (cf. Jas. 2:14–17). If he agrees with Scripture and answers no, then he agrees that it’s not faith alone that saves us. And remember, if he says that James is talking about a different kind of faith, what do you do? Ask him to show you where in the Bible it says that, and pay careful attention to what he says. It is not going to match up with the Bible.
Question #3: Christ redeemed all men with his death on the cross. In other words, he paid the price for all men’s sins. Yet not all men are saved. What is the difference between those who are merely redeemed and those who are redeemed and saved? Is it something Jesus did, or is it something each saved individual does? If it’s something Christ did, then why aren’t all men saved? After all, Scripture says he desires that all men be saved (cf. 1 Tim. 2:3–4). But if it’s something the individual believer did, then isn’t that a work? The point here is that the believer has to "do" something in order to be saved. The difference between the believer and the unbeliever is not something Jesus did; it is something the believer did that the unbeliever didn’t do: The former believed, by the grace of God, but he had to cooperate with that grace. He had to do something or else he would not have been "saved."
Question #4: Do we have to forgive others in order to have our sins forgiven by God? If yes, then we are not saved by faith alone. After all, we cannot be saved if we do not have our sins forgiven, and we cannot have our sins forgiven if we do not forgive others. Therefore, we are saved by faith and at least one work: the work of forgiving others of their sins against us. If a person’s answer is no, that we do not have to forgive others in order to have our sins forgiven, then he is going directly against what Jesus says in Matthew 6:14.
Trust in yourself and, more importantly, trust in the Church. It will not lead you astray. Put the Church firmly behind you, and you will have all that it takes to go out and start planting those seeds of truth.
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