I saw this on a related thread and it sums up the distinction nicely. Can you see the difference between these two?
Faith = Salvation + Works
Faith + Works = Salvation
In both cases, without works the equations fail. In the first equation, without works, there wasn't True Faith. In the second equation, without works, you haven't earned salvation.
Hm. I’m thinking that your position and the Catholic position are far closer than you might think.
The Catholic teaching is the following:
“Salvation by Faith Alone” = error
“Salvation by Works Alone” = error
“earning salvation by works” = error (heresy known as “Pelagianism”, condemned 1500 years ago)
As my wife is fond of quoting: “It’s not ‘faith OR works’... and it’s not even ‘faith AND works”; rather, it’s ‘faith THAT works’! That’s Catholic teaching, as well. Salvation is a free, unmerited gift of grace (cannot possibly be “earned”), but it requires good works in order to “work” (pun slightly intended) toward salvation. Good works are not optional; and anyone who asserts that salvation can be present without any sort of good work at all (even a “work” of the mind, such as the effort to trust in Jesus Christ, as St. Dismas, the good thief, worked out upon his cross), while still attaining salvation, are mistaken (as St. James says quite plainly.
That's not what you saw from someone who has any concept of theology. Above, you are saying that Works added to Salvation gives a person Faith. That's impossible.
The only Works that have any value to God are the ones performed by a person Saved by his/her Faith.
That is, Faith + Salvation = Works Think it out.
There are four characteristics of any false religion:
1. Seeking after God
2. Earning one's way to heaven
3. A second chance after death
4. Adding to what Jesus did on thr Cross (works of supererogation
In the abovw, #2 is Faith + Works = Salvation
Definitely the equation
One appears to have made an assumption that at least ONE of those equations are correct.
Neither are.
period
Hebrews 11