Faith in the Epistles of St. Paul

A Biblical Word Study

One of the most important and controversial concepts in the theology of St. Paul is faith. Following from the understanding of faith in the Old Testament, with which Paul as an educated Pharisee was intimately acquainted, and informed by the transformation of faith in light of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, Paul expounds on the nature and purpose of faith in several significant ways. Paul’s treatment of faith, both as a noun and a verb, at once personal and ecclesial, has been formative for Christian teaching on the subject throughout the centuries, clarified by the Fathers and Doctors of the Church and in official doctrine. This essay will explore the linguistic and theological dimensions of faith in the life and writings of Paul.

Language

The word “faith” and its related forms are borrowed by Paul and the other New Testament writers from the Septuagint, or Greek Old Testament. As the New Catholic Encyclopedia explains:

The LXX had already used the noun πíστις (faith) and the verb πιστεύειν (to believe) to translate the corresponding Hebrew words; the NT continued to use these words in the same way, but here they occur more frequently than they do in the OT. Classical Greek seldom employed these terms in a religious sense, except to indicate a belief in the existence of the gods. In the NT, to believe means to rely on, to trust, or simply to have faith (Mk 13.21; Jn 4.21; Acts 27.25; Rom 4.17). The noun faith can mean loyalty or trust as well as belief (1 Thes1.8; Phlm 6; Heb 6.1), just as the adjective πιστóς (faithful) can mean loyal or trustworthy as well as believing (Mt 25.21, 23; Lk 16.10–11; 1 Tm 3.2; 3 Jn 5; Rv 2.10,13).[1]

In Romans 14, Paul also uses the word πίστεως in the sense of conscience, meaning that whatever acts are not in accordance with faith come from sin.[2] Frequently in Paul’s letters, faith “has the connotation of ‘faithfulness’ or ‘trustworthiness’… The Greek term pistis also has the connotation of ‘obedience’… Here ‘faith’ (Greek pistis) means more than just holding a particular belief. ‘Faith’ involves submitting to God’s will in trust… For Paul, true faith is ultimately sharing in the life-giving sacrificial love of Christ.”[3]

What is Faith?

Faith in the theology of St. Paul can be examined from two perspectives: as a gift from God and as a human act. Faith is first and foremost an attribute of God, who is perfectly faithful to His covenants: “The God, who has called you into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful to his promise.” (1 Cor 1:9 Knox Translation) He takes the initiative by offering the gift of faith to individuals and moving them by grace to accept it. In this sense, faith is a kind of promissory bequest; believers are heirs to this promise in Christ, (Rom 8:17; Eph 3:6; Heb 9:15) an inheritance to which the patriarchs of Israel looked forward in faith. (e.g. Heb 1:1, 11:39-40; Mt 13:17)

From the human perspective, faith is a response to the grace of God, the gift of His faithfulness. Human reason is designed by God to know what Christian tradition has called the praeambula fidei, or truths such as the existence of God, His divinity and the natural law, as Paul attests, so that no one has an excuse for unbelief or sin. (Rom 1:19-25) Then, after this initial belief, supernatural faith is gained by freely accepting the grace of God, assenting to and obeying the truth of His supernatural revelation and trusting in His promises, which can only be enabled by His grace and rests on the credibility of God Himself.[4] (Rom 4:3, 23–24; 1 Thes 2:13; Heb 11:6) For Paul, the perfection of faith is participation in Christ and conformity to Him, extending from the words spoken to him by Christ at his conversion: “Saul, Saul, why dost thou persecute me?”[5] (Acts 9:4) The definition of faith given in the Pauline Letter to the Hebrews combines these two perspectives:

What is faith? It is that which gives substance to our hopes, which convinces us of things we cannot see. It was this that brought credit to the men who went before us. It is faith that lets us understand how the worlds were fashioned by God’s word; how it was from things unseen that the things we see took their origin. (Heb 11:1-3)

Faith and Works

The purpose of faith is for good works - humans are made for works, (Eph 2:8-10; Ti 2:14) and only “faith that finds its expression in love” (Gal 5:6) by acts of obedience to the moral law and the new law of Christ is truly an active faith; as St. Augustine wrote, “The Law was given that grace might be sought; grace was given that the Law might be kept.”[6] (CCC 162; Rom 3:31) The “obedience of faith” (Rom 1:15) is thus not static but living; it is perfected over time and gradually sanctifies believers into conformity with Christ. (2 Cor 1:15; Eph 4:13; Philip 1:25; Rom 8:29) “God is entirely responsible for our salvation, but we too play a part by participating in His work. For Catholics, salvation is not ‘God and me,’ but rather, ‘God in me.’”[7] Without good works of love, friendship and obedience, faith is dead and ineffective. (Gal 5:6) Paul therefore teaches that all will be judged by whether or not they remain in the love of Christ, both by faith and works. (Rom 2:6-8, 12, 8:13; 2 Cor 5:10, 11:15; Gal 6:8-9) Sins, or works of corrupt nature, reject the love of Christ while good works conform believers to Him; sins are acts of faithlessness or spiritual adultery which reject God's grace and make “shipwreck of the faith.” (1 Tim 1:19; cf. Romans 11:22; 1 Cor 6:16; Eph 4:28; Is 2:21)

The works of the old law, “what we know as the six hundred and thirteen precepts of the Torah,” both ceremonial and moral, could never merit salvation apart from grace acting through faith: “Neither faith nor works merit our justification. Justification is received by faith and perfected by works of charity, but it is not earned by works alone. Yes, prevenient grace is needed even for our initial faith in Christ.”[8] (Rom 3:27-31) God gave the old law as a “tutor” (Gal 3:24) to correct idolatry through sacrificing animals worshipped by the Egyptians[9] and to demonstrate that no one can obey God as he should apart from grace, both in faith and works. (Rom 9:32) While free cooperation and acceptance are required to accept it, faith is an unmerited gift from God, what the Church calls an infused theological virtue. (CCC 153-154) Paul describes this grace as the seal of the Holy Spirit, which will ensure salvation, if preserved, on the day of redemption. (Eph 4:30) In this way, faith also intrinsically involves hope as the lived conviction that God's promises and our good works will be fulfilled. (Gal 6:9; Heb 11) Accordingly, Paul teaches that faith and hope will eventually pass away, once we can see God face to face, but charity will not. (1 Cor 13: 2, 13)

Justified by Grace, Through Faith, in Love

Faith is justifying, for Christians as for Abraham, in the sense that it merits, by grace, the initial gift of justification from God received in faith, and that it is a lifelong process whereby works of faithfulness, obedience and love more perfectly justify and sanctify believers in Christ; Paul thus says that they “must work to earn [their] salvation, in anxious fear.” (Philip 2:12) Abraham was himself justified by faith multiple times:

Abraham’s justification occurs as an initial event accompanied by several subsequent justifications. In Scripture, justification is by no means limited to a single past event in the life of Abraham or in the life of any other believer. Rather, we can speak of the tenses of justification as past, present, and future.[10]

However, this perfect justification and salvation by faith and works can only take effect through grace, living out and solidifying the transformative power of Baptism, the circumcision of the heart in Christ which destroys original sin (Col 2:11-14) and inspires true holiness and good works. (Rom 8:2; 2 Cor 3:6, 4:16; Eph 4:23-24) This can only be done in Christ, who took on the curse of the law and satisfied it through His perfect sacrifice and obedience in charity on the Cross which only He as God could achieve. (Gal 3:10-14; Philip 2:8-9; Col 2:9-10) The justification of faith is not merely external or judicial but involves the interior sanctification of the heart, or “cardiac righteousness,” both through obedient fidelity and at the final judgement, adopting believers into the divine sonship of Christ and making them into a “new creation” (2 Cor 5:17): “This union with Christ entails nothing less than being conformed to the image of God’s Son (Rom 8:29), such that the believer is now empowered to live a life of pistis, faithfulness.”[11]

Faith in the Christian Vocation

For Paul, following the Great Commission, (Mt 28:19) the work of spreading faith through evangelization is central to the Christian vocation: “The heart has only to believe, if we are to be justified; the lips have only to make confession, if we are to be saved… See how faith comes from hearing; and hearing through Christ’s word.” (Rom 10:10, 17) This shows that, although faith is a free gift from God, it is spread through the efforts of human missionaries; otherwise, evangelization would be unnecessary. (1 Thess 2:13) Belief in God and willing obedience to the Gospel that is preached are prerequisites for faith. (Rom 10:13-17)

While God offers everyone sufficient grace to accept His revelation in faith and thus be saved, (1 Tim 2:4) and while like Christ, Paul preached the Gospel and performed miracles, providing motives of credibility, only the predestined persevere in faith, (Rom 8:29-30) demonstrating the freedom involved in the act of faith (Acts 17:32-34; 1 Thess 1:5) and “that, though God may give efficacious grace only to some, he gives sufficient grace to all.”[12] Baptism is also central to this vocation, so that even children who cannot yet accept faith intellectually can still receive the divine life of Christ through grace. (CCC 1250-1252; e.g. Acts 16:15) Baptism is ordinarily required to confirm and be initiated into the life of faith, to fully receive the initial grace of justification which God offers.[13] (Acts 18:8; Gal 3:27) However, as with the good thief on Calvary and Cornelius, faith can precede Baptism and contain a desire for its superabundant grace which God can choose to bestow without Baptism.[14]

Faith in the Church, Heir of Abraham and the True Israel

For St. Paul, faith is the sap which enlivens the Church. It originates with the root, grown from the patriarchs, which is the tree of the true Israel, the remnant who kept faith, not simply those biologically descended from Abraham or under the Mosaic law. (Rom 11:5) This remnant became the Body of Christ through grace. God always intended the Gentiles to be saved through Abraham's faith, according to His promise, and this is achieved in Christ, whose Sacraments allow the wild shoots of the Gentiles to be grafted onto the tree of Israel via the true vine of Christ. (Jn 15:1-10; Rom 2:28-29, 4:13, 11:17; Gal 3:29) In this way, the Church is the true Israel and heir of Abraham, the fulfillment of the blessing promised to him by God. (Rom 4:16-17; Gal 3:7-8, 6:16)

Paul lists faith as one of the spiritual gifts or charisms; (Rom 12:16; 1 Cor 12:9) this indicates that some are given more magnanimous expressions of faith than others, enabling them to make heroic acts of faith, like Abraham, Paul and Maximilian Kolbe, trusting in God even unto death. Paul also lists faith as one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit, which “are perfections that the Holy Spirit forms in us as the first fruits of eternal glory.” (CCC 1832; Gal 5:22-23) A central function of faith in the Church is unity, (Eph 4:12-13) with all Christians sharing the same faith through the communion of Tradition (2 Thess 2:14) and the Sacraments (1 Cor 10:17) as the “family” of faith; (Gal 6:10) heretics possess a distorted form of this faith and must be corrected. (Rom 10:1-3; Eph 4:4-6; 1 Tm 6:12; 2 Tm 4:7; Titus 3:10-11) The ministers of the Church and the saints, including Paul, are witnesses whose obedient and loving faith is an example to be imitated. (1 Cor 11:1; Philip 1:30; Heb 12:1-2)

One necessary aspect of faith, for Christians (Philip 1:29) as it was in the Old Testament (Heb 11:36-38), is to suffer for the Faith, enduring the persecution and temptation of the world for God. “For Paul, faith involves ‘co-crucifixion.’”[15] This is done in Christ, participating in the redemptive suffering of the Cross which conforms Christians to His death. (Philip 3:10) It requires perseverance and grounding in Tradition (Philip 1:27-28; Col 1:23, 2:7) and can even demand martyrdom. (Philip 1:21) As Paul wrote: “Shew a bold front at all points to your adversaries; that is the seal of their perdition, of your salvation, and it comes from God; the grace that has been granted you is that of suffering for Christ’s sake, not merely believing in him.” (Philip 1:28-29)

Faith: A Light in the Darkness

Now, however, ‘we walk by faith, not by sight’; we perceive God as ‘in a mirror, dimly’ and only ‘in part.’ Even though enlightened by him in whom it believes, faith is often lived in darkness and can be put to the test. The world we live in often seems very far from the one promised us by faith. Our experiences of evil and suffering, injustice, and death, seem to contradict the Good News; they can shake our faith and become a temptation against it. (CCC 164)

In his letters, St. Paul offers a multifaceted understanding and application of faith. Initially, faith is an unearned gift from God, a participation in His divine faithfulness fulfilled in Christ; faith is also an act of assent to God’s gift which imparts justification and enables obedience to the law and the performance of good works through the grace of the Sacraments. Faith then becomes the “instrument” (Eph 2:8) of grace by which believers are conformed to Christ. In this way, faith imparts salvation both to the individual and the Church through the grace of God and draws the world into Christ.

---

[1] C. H. Pickar and A. R. Jonsen, “Faith,” in New Catholic Encyclopedia, ed. Berard L. Marthaler, 2^nd ed., vol. 5 (Detroit: Gale, 2003), 591.

[2] Knox Translation (Westminster Diocese, 2013), note on Romans 14:23, at New Advent, www.newadvent.org.

[3] Michael Patrick Barber, Salvation (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2019), 108.

[4] Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2^nd ed. (Washington, DC: United States Catholic Conference, 2020), 155-157. Kindle.

[5] Taylor Marshall, The Catholic Perspective on Paul, 2^nd ed. (Dallas: Saint John, 2021), 27-28. Kindle.

[6] Scott Hahn and Curtis Mitch, Ignatius Catholic Study Bible New Testament (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2010), 264.

[7] Marshall, Catholic Perspective, 30.

[8] Marshall, Catholic Perspective, 44, 47.

[9] Barber, Salvation, 30.

[10] Marshall, Catholic Perspective, 51; cf. Akin, 19-20.

[11] Brant Pitre, Michael P. Barber, John A. Kincaid et al., Paul, a New Covenant Jew (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2019), 279, 281. Kindle.

[12] James Akin, The Salvation Controversy (El Cajon, CA: Catholic Answers, 2001), 81.

[13] Pitre et al., New Covenant Jew, 280.

[14] Barber, Salvation, 64-65.

[15] Barber, Salvation, 107.