March 3, 2008

This Post is Old!

The post you are reading is years old and may not represent my current views. I started blogging around the time I first began to study philosophy, age 17. In my view, the point of philosophy is to expose our beliefs to rational scrutiny so we can revise them and get better beliefs that are more likely to be true. That's what I've been up to all these years, and this blog has been part of that process. For my latest thoughts, please see the front page.

"'Trust' without action is dead"

I was listening to a sermon on James 2 last night, and I was thinking about how much clearer the passage would be if pistis and it's cognates were translated consistently by "trust" and its cognates rather than by "faith" in the noun form and "believe" or "have faith" in the verb. Let me demonstrate. Here is my translation of vv. 14-25:

What good is it, my brothers and sisters[1], if someone claims to trust, but does not perform [any] actions? Is that 'trust' able to save him? If there exists a brother or sister and they[2] are naked and lacking daily food and someone among you says to them: "Go in peace, be warm and filled," but does not give the necessary things to them what good is that?

But someone says: "you have trust, and I have actions: show me your 'trust' without action[3], and I will show you my trust by my actions." Do you 'trust' that God is one? Good job! The demons also 'trust' [in this way] - and tremble!

Do you want to know, senseless person, that 'trust' without action[3] does nothing? Wasn't Abraham our father judged to be on the right side of the law on account of [his] actions when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see that trust was working together with his actions and that by action[3] trust is brought to completion, and the Scripture was fulfilled which says, "Abraham trusted God and it was credited toward his being on the right side of the law" and he was called a friend of God. You see that a person is judged to be on the right side of the law because of actions and not because of 'trust' only. Likewise, wasn't Rahab the prostitute judged to be on the right side of the law on account of her actions when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also 'trust' without action[3] is dead.

[1] I translate adelphoi, plural, as "brothers and sisters" as it does typically refer to a mixed group, but adelphos, singular, as "brother," as it does not typically refer to a female.
[2] Yes, this is the singular "they." The ESV uses singular "they" here too. Why? Because there's a switch from singular to plural in the Greek. James is not a native speaker.
[3] Lit. 'actions' (pl.)


Isn't that much clearer? The message is to "put your money where your mouth is." Just as in the example someone who doesn't provide for the needs of the poor is not serious in desiring them to "be warm and filled," so someone who claims to trust another person but is unwilling to actually rely on that person day to day is not serious about trusting. Trust does not simply involve intellectual assent. Rather it involves adopting an attitude toward another person, and that attitude is necessarily visible in action.

Posted by Kenny at March 3, 2008 8:12 AM
Trackbacks
TrackBack URL for this entry: https://blog.kennypearce.net/admin/mt-tb.cgi/400

Comments

In light of other scriptures it shouldn't have needed the re-translation... but yeah, some people do need it. I was just going around with a friend about this the other day. I came to this post by searching on original guilt. My Orthodox friends are confusing me.

What is your Christian tradition of choice? You sound like a Lutheran.

Posted by: Jen at November 21, 2008 4:40 PM

I don't always sound like a Lutheran :)

My views are, as I like to say 'classically Protestant' - which is simply to say that I believe in almost everything that Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin can agree on, and where they disagree I go different ways on different issues (there are probably some cases in which I don't agree with any of them). I have been a non-denominational Evangelical most of my life, but am joining a Presbyterian church now.

Orthodoxy is often hard to get a grip on, because it has so many different faces, and there is kind of a vague tradition, but most points have not been defined precisely. There is not really any Orthodox equivalent to the Protestant confessions or the Catechism of the Catholic Church. During the later part of the Reformation period, they drew up some documents in response to the Roman and Protestant documents, which won varying degrees of acceptance, and one which is widely used is available online here. The writings of Metropolitan Kallistos (Timothy) Ware are often recommended to English speakers, but some people have charged him with misleadingly making Orthodoxy look like Protestantism. I don't know about that, but it is certainly true that he represents a very Protestant-friendly strain of Orthodoxy, and there are other less Protestant-friendly strains.

See the archives of my other discussions of Orthodoxy here.

Posted by: Kenny at November 21, 2008 5:19 PM

Thanks. I'll look at those. I'm a newish Lutheran and I'm investigating EO claims. So far, I'm not convinced... only mildly troubled that they don't see my faith or my church as valid.

You should check out weedon�blogspot�com.

I like the way you think.

Posted by: Jen at November 22, 2008 8:22 PM

Post a comment





Return to blog.kennypearce.net