# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Mai 1855_S143
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

James’s Doctrine of Justifying Faith. 143

express the connection; that he does so, we saw when considering the words “and not by faith alone” outside their context; that he had to do so, and could not speak differently about faith at this point, becomes clear when those words are considered in their context. Finally, the linguistic form in which he teaches that there is a justification by works without prejudice to justification by faith is

a. unambiguous as far as the words “and not by faith alone” are concerned. The form of the word “alone” shows most definitely that it does not belong merely to “faith,” even though it is placed after that word because it primarily modifies it. One should not translate: not by mere faith (not by faith alone, namely, that a person is justified), but only: not by faith alone, pointing to an implied “but also” that must be supplied here (not only by faith but also by works). In addition,

b. the linguistic construction of the whole of verse 24 does not allow us to see in it a justification by faith and works together. In the first part of the sentence James asserts justification by works so sharply and conclusively, and keeps every thought of faith as such so far removed from it, that as we read, “You see, then, that a person is justified by works,” we might stop in astonishment and ask whether he acknowledges any justification by faith at all. In a sentence as entirely complete as this one, no one expresses a thought as incomplete as one that would mention only the part concerning works in a justification by faith and works. The second part of the sentence is then joined to it by the merely coordinating “and,” which connects words or clauses of the same kind, and this gives it from the outset the character of a thought that, like the first, is complete and self-contained. It cannot contain the sort of completion of the first clause that would be indicated by adding faith in a justification by faith and works together; it can only complete the first clause, which is otherwise already self-contained, by bringing out its relation to another self-contained thought or its effect upon such a thought. If we conceive of justification by works as James directs us to do in the first part of verse 24, this thought is not completed by adding something that, together with it, might constitute a justification by faith and works, but by demonstrating its relation to justification by faith, or its effect upon the position of the latter. This is what “not by faith alone” does, by indicating that justification by faith is neither the only justification nor one that excludes justification by works.

In verse 24 James speaks of