Exegesis of St. James

[Fear_nam_Beanntan]

It has become apparent to me that it is of little avail to quote James 2:24 as a prooftext for Catholic teaching on justification. Protestants have all read this passage, and if they have ever engaged a Catholic in debate they have most likely had this passage quoted at them as well. Well, they have not yet converted en masse to Catholicism, so most likely they have convinced themselves that there is some contextual justification for not taking this passage at face value and accepting its plain teaching, namely that man is justified before God by works and not by faith alone. It is my endevour here to disprove this notion.

The train of though of which verse 24 of chapter 2 is a part seems to begin at verse 14 of that chapter. St. James poses a question. "What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but he has not works? Can the faith save him?" This question should frame our understanding of the following verses, since it is in response to this question that they are written.

After asking this question, St. James goes on to present the evidence and rational arguments (proof, as he puts it) upon which he will base his conclusion (e.g. even demons believe that God is one, Abraham was justified by works, etc.). Them in verse 24, the conclusion comes. "So you see that man is justified by works and not by faith alone." Here we have an explicit affirmation of Catholic theology on justification. Now, most Protestants will retort that St. James is not speaking about justification in the sense of salvation (a la Rom 5:1, et al.), but rather is speaking about justification before men; a vindication of a salvation already recieved. However, this theory is untenable when we recall the question which this statement answers. The question is "can the faith save him?" And the answer of course is no, we are justified by works and not by faith alone. So the context of James 2:24 is clearly about salvation, not vindication, and there is no justification for positing that St. James suddenly switched without giving his readers any warning. If the statement "man is justified by works" comes in response to the question "can faith alone save him," clearly St. James is using justification in the salvific sense of the word.

As a final note, shortly after this statement St. James contraditcts faith alone theology once again, albeit this time the contradiction is only implicit. The contradiction is found in the first verse of chapter 3, which reads, "Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you realize that we will be judged more strictly."

According to faith alone theology, we will all be judged by the same standard by God, namely the standard of perfection. Hence, since no one is perfect, we must all be legally accredited with Christ's perfect righteousness or we will never make it past the bar. Yet, here St. James states quite plainly that there are varying degrees of judgment in God's court, for teachers will be held to a higher standard than students. And if one standard is higher than the other, obviously the lower of the two can not be the standard of perfection (the higher is most likely not the standard of perfection either). Hence, there are at least some people who will not be judged by the standard of perfection, and thus would not need to be legally accredited with the perfect righteousness of Christ. The righteousness which inhered in them might be enough. And if there are any who are judged by their inherent righteousness yet still make it to heaven, the whole legal imputation scheme falls.