“What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them?” – James 2:14

A cornerstone of Protestant Christian theology is the notion of sola fide, or “faith alone.” I struggled with this even as a devout Christian – although I refused to admit such – and through much reflection eventually abandoned the idea. 

In a nutshell, sola fide is the idea that to be saved, in the Christian sense, one simply must believe that Jesus was the son of God and died for the sins of humanity. That’s it. 

Running against sola fide is fides formata – “faith formed by charity.” Those who subscribe to this idea maintain that one’s acknowledgement of Jesus’s divinity and sacrifice is meaningless if they do not do good in the world too. Those who cling to the idea of sola fide believe that deeds are a natural result of faith, but are unnecessary for salvation. 

Sola fide is not an original teaching of Jesus. Yes, there are many places in which he tells his followers to have faith, but the other half of Jesus’s teachings – the half many are so quick to forget – involves actively bettering the world around oneself. 

Sola fide arose as part of the Protestant Reformation in the early 1500s and traces its lineage to Martin Luther himself. Luther added the word “only” into a translation of the Bible to support his case that sola fide was the tenet “upon which the church stands or falls.”

Even so, many Protestant denominations reject sola fide or hold to a softer version of it. 

Naturally, the idea of sola fide begs the question: What happens to a good person who does not believe in Jesus? In many churches, they would be condemned to the fires of Hell. In others, there is the possibility of negotiation. Neither answer sits right with me. 

On the other hand, what happens to a bad person who does believe in Jesus?

Growing up, I asked this question of many spiritual leaders and role models, and I often received the same response. If a truly evil person truly believed in Jesus, or truly repented moments before death, they would be saved. Often the example of a certain German dictator was used to support this claim. To these church leaders, the idea that Adolf Hitler might be lounging around in Heaven was somehow not upsetting. It makes me wonder if they would be so forgiving for Islamic fundamentalists. 

For a while, I was young enough that the other question had little meaning to me. I assumed everyone believed in God. I do not remember the first time this happened, but I do remember the horror I felt when I discovered someone I loved, someone I knew was a good person, was an atheist. 

Of course, as I fell into evangelicalism, I had no issue with the other question, but it still bothered me that someone like Hitler could even be considered for paradise. I accepted it, but only reluctantly. As I broke free from the chains of that belief, a little voice in my mind began asking the other question again. 

The idea that God is merciful but throws potentially the best of humanity into Hell simply because they were skeptical – or had not even heard of him – is impossible to rationalize. And, for all the talk of “free grace” and “free salvation,” attaching conditions renders these points moot. 

This is not to say that salvation, whatever it is, should be without conditions. I believe it does come with the condition that one must do good in the world and to others, though my idea of “salvation” is more along the lines of acquiring an everlasting soul rather than lifting oneself from eternal flame. I also believe this is simply the nature of the universe, not a decree from on high. 

Either way, faith in an event and another person’s identity as a condition of salvation is completely arbitrary. More worryingly, it gives bad-faith actors an easy loophole to salvation. For a child abuser, it is far more preferable to declare their faith in Jesus rather than amend their wicked ways. 

On a human level, belief in Jesus labels one a Christian. Christianity is ubiquitous in our society now, but those who are outward in their devotion – which Jesus explicitly commanded his followers to avoid – are perceived as godly and pious regardless of their actions. Case in point – a while after I left the church, I learned that my former youth pastor had been cheating on his wife and had a baby with his lover. 

I do not gamble, but I would bet that everyone has a story like this. I certainly have more, but cheating is among the most evil of actions in my mind, so this example has always stuck out to me. 

Pastors rake in profits, cheaters retain social standing, and bigots spew hate that would make Jesus question his sacrifice. But because they have faith, they are unquestionable. 

So, it is for all these reasons that I say confidently: ‘Sola fide’ repudio.