Faith in Faith
For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;
Ephesians 2:8
Faith is not a work.
This is one of the places John Calvin, the leader of reformed theology, in my opinion, missed it. In depth doctrinal analysis of all of the branch of theology today called Calvinism aside, the essence of his argument for many of his works hinged upon the understanding of total depravity as being excluding using the faith God provided. According to that branch of thought, any effort on our part was lacking when it comes to pleasing God.
Many people complain about having “faith in faith”, and saying that it is not what saves you. Unfortunately, this steers very wide of the margin of scripture, and does nothing but raise a smoke-screen against the real issue, that many do not have a real understanding of what faith is.
