Look at Satan. Satan knows the truth. Satan could make an A in a systematic theology exam, 100%.

He knows the truth, but he hates the truth.

He's utterly indisposed and disinclined towards the worship of God because he has no love for God, no love for Christ.

James tells us that even the demons believe and shudder tremble, faith that merely affirms the truthfulness of God's existence.

Even the truth of creeds and confessions is not saving faith.

You're listening to the Saturday edition of Renewing Your Mind, I'm Nathan W. Bingham.

Like me, you may have had conversations with neighbors or strangers who when you bring up that you're a Christian,

and state that they're one as well because they believe in God, even though there's no evidence of their faith in how they live.

How can you have a conversation with them about the Bible's description of what true faith is?

Well, as we continue, R.C. Sproul's overview of theology eats Saturday.

Today, he answers the question, since we're saved by faith alone, what is genuine, saving faith? Here's Dr. Sproul.

In our brief discussion of the doctrine of justification, the article upon which the church stands or falls,

we saw how the controversy focused on the instrumental cause of justification, and the reformers insisted that that instrumental cause is faith and faith alone.

Now, one of the great distortions of that struggle and the fact of way in which the Roman Catholic Church is often slandered, particularly by Protestants who don't know any better,

is that the difference between the two groups is stated this way, that Protestants believe that justification is by faith, and Catholics believe that it's by works,

and that Protestants believe it's by grace, and Catholics believe it's by merit.

And that's just simply a false distortion of the matter. The Roman Catholic Church insists upon the necessity of faith in order to be justified, and they call faith,

the foundation and the root and the initiation of justification, and you can't be justified without it.

However, it is not sufficient to justify us because there must also be the works, and so the difference is for the reformers,

it's faith alone for the Roman Catholic view, it's faith plus works, at least the works of satisfaction in the case of penance.

It's also a distortion to say that the reformers believe that justification was by grace alone, and the Roman Catholic Church was by merit alone.

As we've already seen, the Roman Church did not believe that anybody can be justified unless they first receive the infusion of the grace of justification that comes through the sacraments.

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