No Faith until Salvation?

[Calvibaptist]

Originally posted by Hope of Glory:
I wasn't being sarcastic. I was stating a simple fact, in that I believe in the inerrancy of Scripture.

And I wasn't being insulting. I, too, was stating a simple fact: that I believe that God knows how to use language. I also believe in the innerancy of Scripture, but we need to figure out how to properly understand an ancient language and not assume that every word is directly translated into English. Different languages have different structures.

 

[Hope of Glory]

You are the one who brought up Young's Literal Translation

If I did, it was simply as part of a list of translations that translated something a particular way. It is based on the TR, and therefore part of it is questionable, although it's a pretty good translation of the TR.

"The faith", "The life", and "The sin" are all specific and not general. There is a reason the definite article is there, even if the KJV translators omitted it.

Including the definite article makes it specific; omitting the definite article does not necessarily make it general, it can be anarthrous.

 

[EdSutton]

Originally posted by Calvibaptist:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Hope of Glory:
I don't really care what words are in the English, I'm more concerned with what they are in Scripture. We are to compare Scripture to Scripture. There's a reason that the definite article is there; it's not simply something that is haphazard.

And, again, the definite article just makes it definite. You are the one who brought up Young's Literal Translation, focusing on the English translation. I showed multiple verses, where in the Greek there is a definite article and there is no way it could possibly be translated "the faith."

An example is where Jesus told someone, "Your faith has saved you." There is a definite article there. It could not possibly be translated "Your the faith has saved you." Nor could it be referring to a body of beliefs like you claim it has to in the Thessalonians passage which has the same definite article. It is referring to the faith or belief of that person, which is the question of this whole thread. And that is the point I was making with my quote of the passage, "not all have faith." </font>[/QUOTE]Get your facts straight, please. I brought up the definite article and the YLT, not someone else. And that happens to be the point I was going for the definite or specific usage, unlike the 'general' definition of faith, as in Heb. 11.1. To merely ascribe this as 'not all (men) have faith', i.e., not all are believers, the very definition of which is one "having faith" (in Christ), BTW, seems to be a bit less specific than I think is intended, here. And unnecessarily redundant, as well. Christians can, unfortunately, be 'wicked' or 'unreasonable'. Were this not so, some of the admonitions in Scripture would certainly be unnecessary. Any furthur evidence needed on this? Read a few more threads on the BB. One might 'repent' (change their mind) when one reads these threa...



Ed

 

[Hope of Glory]

Get your facts straight, please. I brought up the definite article and the YLT, not someone else.

Whew! I thought I was going crazy. I didn't remember quoting the YLT, but it's not outside the realm of possibility.

 

[EdSutton]

Originally posted by Hope of Glory:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> Get your facts straight, please. I brought up the definite article and the YLT, not someone else.

Whew! I thought I was going crazy. I didn't remember quoting the YLT, but it's not outside the realm of possibility. </font>[/QUOTE]Uh- well, you can go back and read your own posts, you know. It's not unethical.

Ed

 

[Hope of Glory]

Uh- well, you can go back and read your own posts, you know. It's not unethical.

It wasn't that important to me actually.

 

[Calvibaptist]

Sorry for the confusion Ed and Hope. I mixed up who I was discussing with! Maybe I'm getting too old, although I doubt it. I just wasn't paying attention.

My point about the definite article is this: read Matthew 9:2

Matthew 9:2 Then behold, they brought to Him a paralytic lying on a bed. When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, "Son, be of good cheer; your sins are forgiven you."

Both faith and sins have the definite article in front of them in the Greek. It is not some amorphous faith or sins. It is definite because it belongs to that particular person.

Here is something interesting from Vaughan and Gideon's Greek Grammar of the New Testament:

"In Greek there is only a definite article...The basic rule for interpreting the article is as follows: Nouns which have an article are either definite or generic; noun without an article are indefinite or qualitative."

So, my point stands. Faith and sins with the definite article in the Greek could be definite or generic. They go on:

"It does more than simply make a word or an idea definite. Some words are definite enough without it; others may be made definite by other means - for example, by the use of prespositions, pronouns, the genetive case, and adjectives. The distinctive force of the Greek article is to draw attention to a word or an idea."

So, the point of all this is don't try to take the idea of the English usage of the definite article and force it into koine Greek. It is different.