Church Fathers & Sola Fide (vs. Jordan Cooper)

Incl. St. Ignatius of Antioch vs. Faith Alone; Epistle to Diognetus; Council of Trent on Justification by Faith & Imputation; Anti-Catholicism in the Lutheran Confessions 

Rev. Dr. Jordan B. Cooper is a Lutheran pastor, adjunct professor of Systematic Theology, Executive Director of the popular Just & Sinner YouTube channel, and the President of the American Lutheran Theological Seminary (which holds to a doctrinally traditional Lutheranism, similar to the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod). He has authored several books, as well as theological articles in a variety of publications. All my Bible citations are from RSV, unless otherwise indicated. Jordan’s words will be in blue.

This is my 10th reply to Jordan (many more to come, because I want to interact with the best, most informed Protestant opponents). All of these respectful critiques can be found in the “Replies to Jordan Cooper” section at the top of my Lutheranism web page.

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This is a response to Jordan’s YouTube video, “A Response to Trent Horn on Sola Fide in the Church Fathers” (11-27-23).

3:22 Trent Horn cites a number of passages from the apostolic fathers where these figures write about the necessity of striving, the necessity of continuing to do good works, the necessity of of striving in the faith, even to the point of saying that it is through that striving in the faith that you are going to inherit eternal life, and if you don’t strive, then you are not going to. Now these passages, to be clear, fit easily into a Lutheran framework. They’re really not a problem at all because in a confessional Lutheran framework we recognize that there is is a necessity of perseverance. We do believe that one can apostatize, and if you are not walking in the faith; if you are not striving to walk in Christ, you can indeed fall into what we would call mortal sin, in that you can live in unrepentant sin and in fact be cut off from Christ.

5:07 there are citations that you find in Trent Horn’s video that speak about a recompense for one’s works. This is not a problem at all; there is no issue with this within Lutheran theology . . . the rewards for good works . . . are heavenly rewards.

The problem here for Lutherans and Protestants generally is that the Bible doesn’t merely describe differential rewards in heaven for the works we do (both sides agree on that).  The problem for them is that the Bible massively connects these good works to salvation itself, when it refers to the criteria of salvation and entrance into heaven. I have compiled fifty biblical passages along these lines, and it’s a huge difficulty for Protestants to explain away, because it’s clearly a denial of faith alone and of the denial of meritorious works. These passages simply don’t “read Protestant.”

To put it another way, if the true view is supposedly that faith alone saves us and works have nothing directly to do with it, and are only rewarded separately with differential rewards in heaven, then Protestants must explain why it is that the Bible so often ties works directly to salvation and entrance into heaven, and why faith was only mentioned once alongside works in all of these fifty passages. We agree that faith and works save us. But why are works featured so prominently and exclusively in all these passages? This biblical fact is not plausible under Protestant soteriology, but it’s perfectly harmonious with Catholic and Orthodox theology, and  not surprising at all to us.

5:31 now it depends on what you mean by recompense. If the assumption is, I am earning my justification or increasing my justification by my good works, we would deny that categorically, explicitly, and clearly. But that’s not what these fathers especially Ignatius [say]. Ignatius says he speaks about there being a recompense for our good works once we enter into the kingdom of God eternally. We have always confessed that there are heavenly rewards for the good works that we do in this life.

Jordan provides no reference for Ignatius of Antioch’s statement[s] concerning this matter. After searching “works,” “heaven,” and “reward” in his letters, as best I can determine, he is referring to this:

Let none of you be found a deserter. Let your baptism endure as your arms; your faith as your helmet; your love as your spear; your patience as a complete panoply. Let your works be the charge assigned to you, that you may receive a worthy recompense. (Epistle to Polycarp, ch. 6)

I think equally pious, reasonable Christians can hold that he could be referring (in using “recompense”) either to differential rewards in heaven or the reward of heaven itself.  I shall contend that it is the latter, and provide reasons for so believing. If it refers to differential rewards, it’s no problem for Catholicism, since we agree that these occur. But if it refers to heaven, it’s a problem for the Protestant sola fide position. The fact that he refers to the possibility of desertion and also includes the corresponding idea of “endure” may mean that — at least at that point — Ignatius had apostasy in mind.

Thus, “recompense “would seem to be the converse of falling away: staying the course unto salvation itself. A paraphrase, if this is correct, would be: “Don’t fall away. Let your baptism, faith, love, patience, and works in general preclude this eventuality, and lead to the reward of heaven.” In 1 Corinthians 3:14 Paul, I think, refers to differential rewards in heaven. In Colossians 3:24 it seems to be heaven (“from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward”). So Paul uses the notion in two ways.

In the next chapter (7), Ignatius talks very “Catholic” and states, “I also am the more encouraged, resting without anxiety in God, if indeed by means of suffering I may attain to God, so that, through your prayers, I may be found a disciple [of Christ].” He attains to God and will be found to be a disciple if he suffers (not a word about faith there). This is meritorious works (anathema to Lutheranism and larger Protestantism). Ignatius didn’t stick works into a separate category of “non-salvific sanctification” as Lutherans do.

Then he writes, “Now, this work is both God’s and yours, when you shall have completed it to His glory. For I trust that, through grace, you are prepared for every good work pertaining to God.” Here he expresses the paradoxical biblical notion that our good works, enabled by God’s grace and done in faith, are at the same time God’s works, too. This means they are meritorious: examples of what St. Augustine calls “God crowning His own gifts.” This reflects four statements from St. Paul:

1 Corinthians 3:10 According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and another man is building upon it. Let each man take care how he builds upon it.

1 Corinthians 15:10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God which is with me.

2 Corinthians 1:12 For our boast is this, the testimony of our conscience that we have behaved in the world, and still more toward you, with holiness and godly sincerity, not by earthly wisdom but by the grace of God.

2 Corinthians 6:1 Working together with him, then, we entreat you not to accept the grace of God in vain. (in 6:7 Paul said that he did various things by “the power of God”)

In his Epistle to the Smyrnaeans, Ignatius couples “faith and love” three times (Greeting, chapters 6, 13), and he writes:

Let no man deceive himself. Both the things which are in heaven, and the glorious angels, and rulers, both visible and invisible, if they believe not in the blood of Christ, shall, in consequence, incur condemnation. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it. Matthew 19:12 Let not [high] place puff any one up: for that which is worth all is faith and love, to which nothing is to be preferred. But consider those who are of a different opinion with respect to the grace of Christ which has come unto us, how opposed they are to the will of God. They have no regard for love; no care for the widow, or the orphan, or the oppressed; of the bond, or of the free; of the hungry, or of the thirsty. (6)

He places faith and works together; directly reflecting the words of Jesus at the Last Judgment in Matthew 25:31-46, and when he is commenting on grace he immediately brings up various good works. He refers to grace, faith, love, and good works, all in the same context, which is what St. Paul habitually does. Again, in his Epistle to the Trallians, he makes similar connections: “Wherefore, clothing yourselves with meekness, be renewed in faith, that is the flesh of the Lord, and in love, that is the blood of Jesus Christ” (ch. 8). In his Epistle to the Magnesians, he couples “faith and love” three times (chapters 1, 6, 13). In his Epistle to the Ephesians, he again uses the phrase “faith and love” twice (chapters 1, 14). And he associates faith and works:

. . . your name, much-beloved in God, which you have acquired by the habit of righteousness, according to the faith and love in Jesus Christ our Saviour. (1)

For it was needful for me to have been stirred up by you in faith, exhortation, patience, and long-suffering. (3)

. . . faith cannot do the works of unbelief, nor unbelief the works of faith. (8)

. . . making use of the Holy Spirit as a rope, while your faith was the means by which you ascended, and your love the way which led up to God. You, therefore, as well as all your fellow-travellers, are God-bearers, temple-bearers, Christ-bearers, bearers of holiness, adorned in all respects with the commandments of Jesus Christ, . . . (9)

None of these things is hid from you, if you perfectly possess that faith and love towards Christ Jesus which are the beginning and the end of life. For the beginning is faith, and the end is love . . . The tree is made manifest by its fruit; so those that profess themselves to be Christians shall be recognised by their conduct. For there is not now a demand for mere profession, but that a man be found continuing in the power of faith to the end. (14)

This simply isn’t faith alone, folks; no way, no how.

7:17 there is a way to accept the idea of faith alone or justification through faith alone if what you mean is an initial justification.

Indeed. See my papers:

Initial Justification & “Faith Alone”: Harmonious? [5-3-04]

Monergism in Initial Justification is Catholic Doctrine [1-7-10]

8:02 there is an allowance for this language of justification through faith alone that simply doesn’t seem to be consistent with the Roman tradition when you look at the responses to the reformers [at] Trent and then post-Trent. . . . the allowance for justification through faith alone in one sense really is not there in the way that it tends to be within modern Roman Catholic apologetics. 

Canons I-III and X on justification from Trent (Sixth Session: 13 January 1547, while Melanchthon and Calvin were still alive) teach initial justification, which is by grace through faith, and not by works:

CANON I. If any one saith, that man may be justified before God by his own works, whether done through the teaching of human nature, or that of the law, without the grace of God through Jesus Christ; let him be anathema.

CANON II. If any one saith, that the grace of God, through Jesus Christ, is given only for this, that man may be able more easily to live justly, and to merit eternal life, as if, by free will without grace, he were able to do both, though hardly indeed and with difficulty; let him be anathema.

CANON III. If any one saith, that without the prevenient inspiration of the Holy Ghost, and without his help, man can believe, hope, love, or be penitent as he ought, so as that the grace of Justification may be bestowed upon him; let him be anathema.

CANON X. If any one saith, that men are just without the justice of Christ, whereby He merited for us to be justified; or that it is by that justice itself that they are formally just; let him be anathema.

Likewise, the Decree on Justification, chapter 5:

The Synod furthermore declares, that in adults, the beginning of the said Justification is to be derived from the prevenient  grace of God, through Jesus Christ, that is to say, from His vocation, whereby, without any merits existing on their parts, they are called; that so they, who by sins were alienated from God, may be disposed through His quickening and assisting grace, to convert themselves to their own justification, by freely assenting to and co-operating with that said grace: in such sort that, while God touches the heart of man by the illumination of the Holy Ghost, neither is man himself utterly without doing anything while he receives that inspiration, forasmuch as he is also able to reject it; yet is he not able, by his own free will, without the grace of God, to move himself unto justice in His sight.

The italicized portions refer to initial justification by grace alone and faith alone; over against Pelagianism and in agreement with Protestantism. Former Presbyterian minister and professor Kenneth Howell comments on these declarations of the Council of Trent:

I am puzzled why anyone would say that extrinsic righteousness might be excluded by Trent. The only righteousness that justifies is Christ’s. But Catholic theology teaches that what is Christ’s becomes ours by grace. In fact Canon 10 anathematizes anyone who denies that we can be justified without Christ’s righteousness or anyone who says that we are formally justified by that righteousness alone. . . . Canon 10 says that Christ’s righteousness is both necessary and not limited to imputation i.e. formally. So, imputation is not excluded but only said to be not sufficient. With regard to imputation, if Trent indeed excludes it, I am ready to reject it. But the wording of the decrees does not seem to me to require this. . . .

The Protestant doctrine, it seems to me, has at least two sides. Imputation is the declaration of forgiveness on God’s part because of Christ’s work but it is also a legal fiction that has nothing immediately to do with real (subjective) state of the penitent. Now I think the declaration side of imputation is acceptable to Trent but not the legal fiction side. The difference between the Tridentine and the Reformation views, in addition to many other aspects, is that in the latter view God only sees us as righteous while in the former, Christ confers righteousness upon (and in) us. . . .

What is wrong with the Reformation view then? It is the sola part. Faith is essential but not sola fide. Remission of sins is essential but not sola remissione. Imputation via absolution is essential but not sola imputatione. I remember well how this hit me one day in my journey. So much of Protestantism represents a reductionism of the Catholic faith. The Protestants added their qualifiers (sola) and thereby threw out the fullness of faith. [Trent Doesn’t Utterly Exclude Imputation, July 1996]

8:24 Now I’m glad that they’ve kind of changed. I think they’ve come our way a little bit and I think that’s good, but they don’t want to say that, of course. I just want to say that . . . personally in my interpretation of Trent . . . I don’t see the way that a lot of modern Roman Catholic apologists have moved on this as consistent with Tridentine soteriology, so I think that it’s actually a capitulation to our particular view or perspective on things.

As I believe I have just shown, there has been no change, and Trent itself does indeed teach monergistic justification or justification by faith alone, as pertains to initial justification. See the crucial distinctions highlighted by Dr. Howell above. Jordan simply needs to be more acquainted with the subtleties and nuances of Trent’s teaching. I think Dr. Howell’s exposition in particular can help him do that.

Ironically, if Jordan thinks we Catholic apologists have changed and departed from Trent’s soteriology, whereas in fact — if my reasoning above is correct — , we haven’t at all, then Jordan has actually confirmed in a roundabout way that Trent agreed with Protestants on initial justification all along. That should make him happy, I would think, if in fact the two sides have more in common than he had previously thought (and as many Catholics have thought and do think, as well). It makes me happy whenever we can agree; less to disagree about and less work for me as an apologist!

9:03 I’m glad that they’re willing to concede that 

The credit goes to Trent, not us apologists who have supposedly modified it, which would be fundamentally unacceptable for a Catholic apologist to do. It would be like Jordan messing around with the Book of Concord, and ignoring parts of it, in order to be more agreeable to Catholics. Nor did Trent “concede” this point. It was reaffirming what had been held all along. The condemnations of the Pelagians a thousand years earlier at the 2nd Council of Orange dealt with and resolved all this.

9:13 I see that as kind of proof that there isn’t even acknowledgement that maybe we’ve done some things right or we were right about certain things 

Not in this instance (because Jordan’s premise is wrong; we never did disagree here as to initial justification), but generally speaking, Catholics believe that there is a lot of agreement between us, and we’re delighted about that and see it as Protestants having gotten many things “right.” See my paper that cites Vatican II in this regard: How Catholics View Protestants. Truth is truth wherever it is found. This works two ways, too, I should add. Catholicism has made a lot of effort in ecumenical matters in the last century or so. But in the Book of Concord: the Lutheran Confessions that Jordan and all orthodox, traditional Lutherans abide by, there are still many statements like the following:

The Mass in the papacy must be regarded as the greatest and most horrible abomination because it runs into direct and violent conflict with this fundamental article. Yet, above and beyond all others, it has been the supreme and most precious of the papal idolatries . . . this dragon’s tail — that is, the Mass — has brought forth a brood of vermin and the poison of manifest idolatries. (Smalcald Articles [1537], Part II, Article II: The Mass, from The Book of Concord, translated and edited by Theodore Tappert, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House / Muhlenberg Press, 1959, pp. 293-294)

So in the papal realm the worship of Baal clings — namely, the abuse of the Mass . . . And it seems that this worship of Baal will endure together with the papal realm until Christ comes to judge and by the glory of his coming destroys the kingdom of Antichrist. Meanwhile all those who truly believe the Gospel should reject those wicked services invented against God’s command to obscure the glory of Christ and the righteousness of faith. (Apology of the Augsburg Confession [1531], Article XXIV: The Mass, in Tappert, ibid., 268)

There may very well be a way that ecumenical Lutherans reconcile the above with respect for Catholics as brothers and sisters in Christ, through some interpretive means that I am not yet aware of. I’d be more than happy to be educated by those who feel that they have a solution to this apparent dilemma for ecumenical Lutherans.

Jordan brings up (around the ten-minute mark) the Epistle to Diognetus with regard to justification. I addressed that in an earlier reply to Jordan, entitled, Faith Alone In The Early Church Fathers? [2-28-24]. Jordan refers to this particular passage:

As long then as the former time endured, He permitted us to be borne along by unruly impulses, being drawn away by the desire of pleasure and various lusts. This was not that He at all delighted in our sins, but that He simply endured them; nor that He approved the time of working iniquity which then was, but that He sought to form a mind conscious of righteousness, so that being convinced in that time of our unworthiness of attaining life through our own works, it should now, through the kindness of God, be vouchsafed to us; and having made it manifest that in ourselves we were unable to enter into the kingdom of God, we might through the power of God be made able. But when our wickedness had reached its height, and it had been clearly shown that its reward, punishment and death, was impending over us; and when the time had come which God had before appointed for manifesting His own kindness and power, how the one love of God, through exceeding regard for men, did not regard us with hatred, nor thrust us away, nor remember our iniquity against us, but showed great long-suffering, and bore with us, He Himself took on Him the burden of our iniquities, He gave His own Son as a ransom for us, the holy One for transgressors, the blameless One for the wicked, the righteous One for the unrighteous, the incorruptible One for the corruptible, the immortal One for those who are mortal. For what other thing was capable of covering our sins than His righteousness? By what other one was it possible that we, the wicked and ungodly, could be justified, than by the only Son of God? O sweet exchange! O unsearchable operation! O benefits surpassing all expectation! That the wickedness of many should be hid in a single righteous One, and that the righteousness of One should justify many transgressors! Having therefore convinced us in the former time that our nature was unable to attain to life, and having now revealed the Saviour who is able to save even those things which it was [formerly] impossible to save, by both these facts He desired to lead us to trust in His kindness, to esteem Him our Nourisher, Father, Teacher, Counsellor, Healer, our Wisdom, Light, Honour, Glory, Power, and Life, so that we should not be anxious concerning clothing and food. (ch. 9; complete)

This is discussing initial justification, which I have addressed above, with citations from Trent. There is no disagreement here. This is referring to an imputation of righteousness to the believer that Catholics can agree with, per the explanations of Dr. Howell above. But as soon as it occurs, the believer works together with God to make it a real, day-by-day righteousness (not merely a declared or proclaimed righteousness that in fact is not righteousness). That’s where the two sides differ, but not on the above.

As I noted in my earlier treatment of this epistle, the author states that God will give salvation and the reward of heaven “to those who have loved Him” (chapter 10). Faith alone without love won’t cut it. He writes again along these lines in chapter 12, observing that “you shall know what God bestows on such as rightly love Him, . . . presenting in yourselves a tree bearing all kinds of produce and flourishing well, being adorned with various fruits.” As I wrote before: “I see nothing whatsoever in this work that contradicts Catholic soteriology.”

This epistle states, “For what other thing was capable of covering our sins than His righteousness?” Precisely! Trent in agreement stated in its Decree on Justification (5): “the beginning of the said Justification is to be derived from the prevenient grace of God, through Jesus Christ, that is to say, from His vocation, whereby, without any merits existing on their parts, they are called . . .”

12:13  I think there are plenty of passages in Luther that are very clear that The Great Exchange is more than just a forensic reality 

I agree, which is why I put out the papers:

Martin Luther: Good Works Prove Authentic Faith [4-16-08]

Luther on Theosis & Sanctification [11-23-09]

Martin Luther: Faith Alone is Not Lawless Antinomianism [2-28-10]

Merit & Sanctification: Martin Luther’s Point of View [11-10-14]

Luther wrote (very “Catholic-like”:

Our justification is not yet finished. It is neither something which is actually completed nor is it essentially present. It is still under construction [to be completed in the resurrection]. (Disputation on the Works of the Law and of Grace, 1537; Luther’s Works, vol. 71; cf. Paul Althaus, “The Theology of Martin Luther,” 245, footnote 96)

[T]he entire man, both as to his person and his works, is to be called and to be righteous and holy from pure grace and mercy, shed upon us [unfolded] and spread over us in Christ. (Smalcald Articles, 1537; Pt. III, Art. XIII)

It was Luther’s successor, Philip Melanchthon, who completely separated works from justification. It was a fatal move, that has led to much false doctrine and the bad fruit that results from falsehood.

16:59 if Rome is willing to say, “okay we have [to] enter into a state of grace through faith alone or through a baptism” . . . 

“Rome” has always said that, so it’s not an issue. The curious thing here is that Jordan, for some reason, thinks we haven’t yet asserted this.

Jordan continues (per his apparently usual custom) in the rest of the video to be all over the ballpark. Once again, his title is a misnomer. He basically dealt with only two pieces of patristic data regarding soteriology, and I responded to both, along with many other things (ostensibly off the topic of what the title describes, though distantly related).

20:41 I don’t want to go back and forth. . . . I don’t really want my channel to be a anti-Roman Catholic Protestant channel. That’s never been my desire, but I do think it’s important to engage in these things. It’s important to debate these things. Trent is a professional Roman Catholic apologist and he can go back and forth on these things with people. That’s just not really my mission. I am certainly a Lutheran apologist. I’m a Lutheran theologian, but I don’t want to just kind of go back and forth on these things.

That’s fine. Everyone has his own vocation, as well as desires and strengths and weaknesses. To each his own. He can decide to reply to Trent Horn and/or Catholic apologists, including myself, as he wishes, and no one should judge his decisions as to how he spends his time and uses the gifts that God gave him (which are many). But he should also be aware that a person like me, who specializes in debate and examination of Protestantism and defense of Catholicism, will reply to claims he has made about the Catholic Church and Catholicism, which need to be able to withstand scrutiny, and which are not all self-evidently true, or unquestionable when examined more closely.

Jordan is now influencing many thousands of his viewers, and so it’s only fair and to be expected that if he treats the subject of Catholicism, Catholics — including myself — will make some kind of reply, so that it can be a “fair fight” and a scenario where both sides are heard and not just one. I hope he does decide to reply to me. I think it would be fun for both of us. I don’t bite! I’m friendly, no matter how many disagreements I may have with a person. The two sides (not just us, but readers) can potentially better understand each other, whether or not anyone is persuaded otherwise (which is always rare, anyway). All of that is good and well worth spending time on, in my humble opinion. More accurate knowledge of views other than our own is always a net gain.