Featured Fundamental View of Faith

Most Christian fundamentalists would claim to believe in the principle of "faith alone" i.e Grace + faith = Salvation + works.

But what do fundamentalists think faith looks like? First, are fallen natural people able to seek God and trust in Christ, or must they be "given" faith via irresistible grace?

What criteria does God use, according to scripture, to choose to credit a person's faith in Christ as righteousness?

Would the faith be lip service faith, i.e. dead faith, or demonic faith where the believer is emotionally attached to their beliefs, or dynamic faith, i.e. a faith from which flows works? (I borrowed the alliterative descriptives (dead, demonic and dynamic) from one of my favorites, Warren Wiersbe.)

 

Lets be thoughtful about the subject of a debatable assertion. Anyone can claim it is not true, and then someone else can claim it is true. So the observation that people hold differing opinions on the topic is boilerplate.

The question was are fallen natural people able to seek God and trust in Christ. What is the fundamentalist position? In my opinion, most natural fallen people do have the ability, based on Matthew 13, where three of the four soils are seeking God and trusting in Christ. Only the first soil had been so hardened as to not be able to receive the gospel and respond affirmatively.

 

A quick perusal of the internet provides several articles where IFB and anti-Calvinism are linked. I see the need to explore "Faith Alone" as a fundamental doctrine, but if the only folks that post want to change the subject to anything but fundamentalism, it is going to be hard sledding. My opinion is that most IFB churches believe that scripture teaches most but not all people have sufficient spiritual ability to seek God and trust in Christ.

 

Hi Ktn4eg, your verse does not say when we were quickened, before God credited our faith as righteousness or after when God put us spiritually in Christ. Therefore the verse does not in the slightest support your assertion.

Take a close look at Matthew 23:13. Here we have folks "entering heaven" and therefore must have mustered up some kind of faith. Yet they were turned aside, so they were not under the influence of Irresistible grace. Therefore scripture teaches it is possible for a spiritually dead person to seek God and trust in Christ.

Does your "calvinist" view reflect the view of an IFB church. I know of lots of SBC Calvinist churches. The topic is the faith alone doctrine of IFB churches claiming to be fundamentalist.

 

The short answer is no, the verse indicates salvation is a gift. Back to Matthew 23:13 and folks entering heaven but then blocked by false teachers/teaching. If their faith was a gift from God, via Irresistible grace, then they could not have been turned aside. Therefore the concept of "the gift of faith" as presented by Calvinism is unbiblical.

 

I see the Artful Dodgers are posting again. We are discussing the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist doctrine of faith. All these evasions are calculated to hide the doctrine.


But what do IFB fundamentalists think faith looks like?

1. Are fallen natural people able to seek God and trust in Christ, or must they be "given" faith via irresistible grace?

2. What criteria does God use, according to scripture, to choose to credit a person's faith in Christ as righteousness?

3. Would the faith be lip service faith, i.e. dead faith, or demonic faith where the believer is emotionally attached to their beliefs, or dynamic faith, i.e. a faith from which flows works?​

 

Lets consider Demonic Faith. Lets agree to define the beliefs as ungodly, but the defenders of those beliefs are emotionally attached to them, and would defend their doctrine or belief system in an emotional way, i.e. attacking those who hold differing views with malice. They spend more time defending their beliefs than serving their brothers and sisters in love. As Warren said, defenders of the faith but not doers of the faith.