L. Different Commitments: Faith Alone
L. Different Commitments: Faith Alone
In a certain sense, Newman and Vermigli both affirm sola fide.968 In the first edition of his Lectures, Newman, writing as an Anglican, used the language of “faith only” as a “lively mode of speech [figurative] for saying that we are justified neither by faith nor by works, but by God only.” However, it is clear that Newman’s interpretation of sola fide differs vastly from Vermigli’s, who regards faith as the sole instrument. For Newman, faith is “the sole internal instrument, not the sole instrument of any kind.”969 Such a distinction is a critical component of Newman’s doctrine:
There would be nothing inconsistent, then, in Faith being the sole instrument of justification, and yet Baptism also the sole instrument, and that at the same time, because in distinct senses; an inward instrument in no way interfering with an outward instrument. Baptism might be the hand of the giver, and Faith the hand of the receiver. However, this is not the exact relation of Faith to baptism, as is plain for this reason—that Baptism occurs but once, whereas justification is a state, and Faith “abides.” Justification, then, needs a perpetual instrument, such as faith can be, and Baptism cannot. Each, then, has its own office in the work of justification; Baptism at the time when it is administered, and faith ever after.970
In Newman’s vision, the means by which one grasps Christ includes more than faith; it also consists in baptism.971 Faith, Newman argues, represents a series of activities that include the sacraments, love, and obedience.
While then we reserve to Baptism our new birth, and to the Eucharist the ultimate springs of the new life, and to Love what may be called its plastic power, and to Obedience its being the atmosphere in which faith breathes, still the divinity appointed or (in other words) the mysterious virtue of Faith remains. It alone coalesces with the Sacraments, brings them into effect, dissolves (as it were) their outward case, and through them unites the soul to God.972
Newman and Vermigli both countenance Hebrews 11:1 in their definition of faith: “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”973 For Newman, this “substance” of faith, because it is “unseen,” remains undefined until it grasps its proper object, which, for the Christian, is the living Christ.974 With this exegesis, Newman understands the object of faith to be the presence of Christ.975 Thus, faith is not merely assent of the mind (assensus); nor is it simply trust (fiducia)—it is, for Newman, essentially union with Christ.976 As we have noted, the closest Newman comes to offering a positive definition of faith alone is in the following words: “Salvation by faith only is but another way of saying salvation by grace only.”977
By contrast, Vermigli uses Hebrews 11 to insist that faith is the instrument by which one first appropriates justification, and, furthermore, continues to lay hold of it:978 “But nothing else is meant by those words [of Hebrews 11] than that the things we hope for are strengthened and confirmed in our minds by faith.”979 In the context of expositing this passage, Martyr offers a cogent definition of how he understands faith. It is, he explains, “a firm and assured assent of the mind to the words of God, an assent inspired by the Holy Spirit to the salvation of believers.”980 Looking at the larger context of Martyr’s Romans locus, he moves from the proposition that justification is “not by works” to the proposition that forgiveness is properly “received by faith.” Here he concentrates on Romans 4, stressing Paul’s statement, “To one who does not work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly, faith is reckoned to him as righteousness.”981 Thus, the believer “takes hold and receives” the promise of forgiveness.982 It is “never alone but always draws along with it various motions of the mind,” particularly “confidence, hope, and similar affections.”983 The manifestation of righteous qualities verifies that the believer truly possesses justifying faith.984
Newman’s overall vision of Christian faith, with its emphasis on virtue, is not far from Vermigli’s concern to fortify post-conversion faith with qualities such as hope and affection. Again, in Vermigli’s words, “Christ requires more of us than faith, for who doubts that he wants those who are justified to live uprightly and to practice virtue of all kinds.”985 Thus, one might say that, for Peter Martyr, the nature of faith is active and holy. But if we were to ask Vermigli about the function of faith with regard to justification, he would instinctively answer with sola fide, arguing that one’s good works have no role whatsoever in causing justification.986 “And when we say that one is justified by faith alone,” Vermigli specifies, “we obviously say nothing else than that one is justified only by the mercy of God and by the merit of Christ, which we cannot grasp by any other instrument than faith alone.987