to salvation is external and common. Travel it if you want, but you should
keep in mind that everything good comes from God and nothing from
human beings; and therefore people have no power of their own in spiritual
matters. How then can people do something good that is spiritually good
by themselves?’
[ 5 ] “When he heard that, our spokesperson was outraged and said, ‘I
am more familiar with your supposed revelations on justification than
you are! And I will tell you bluntly that I have explored those supposed
revelations and have found nothing but phantoms in them. Surely reli-
gion is a matter of acknowledging God and avoiding and hating the
Devil. God is goodness itself. “The Devil” is evil itself. Every religious per-
son in the world knows that. Acknowledging and loving God is a matter
of doing what is good, because what is good belongs to God and comes
from God. Avoiding and hating the Devil is a matter of not doing what is
evil, because what is evil belongs to the Devil and comes from the Devil.
But does your view of the activation of faith (which you label as a faith
that fully justifies people and saves them) or rather, your view that we
become just through faith alone, teach us to do anything good (keeping
in mind that what is good belongs to God and comes from God)? Does it
teach us to abstain from any evil (keeping in mind that what is evil
belongs to the Devil and comes from the Devil)? Absolutely not, because
you have decided that there is no salvation in either of these actions.
“‘What is this ongoing state of faithyou are talking about, which you
just called a faith that emanates from God and perfects us? Isn’t it exactly
the same thing as your activation of faith?How can this faith be perfected
if you exclude from it any good that human beings do as if they are act-
ing on their own?
“‘In your supposed revelations you say, “How can people be saved by
any goodness that comes from themselves when in fact salvation costs
them nothing? What good can people do without hoping to earn merit,
when in fact all merit belongs to Christ? Doing something good for the
sake of salvation would therefore be equivalent to attributing to ourselves
what belongs to Christ alone. This would be trying to grant ourselves jus-
tification and save ourselves. Also how can people do any good work
when the Holy Spirit does all the work without any help from us? What
need would there be then for any additional goodness from us, since any-
thing good that comes from us is not intrinsically good?” And so on.
[ 6 ] “‘Aren’t these your supposed revelations? To my eyes, however,
they look like mere sophistry and trickery aimed at doing away with
good works, which are acts of goodwill, in an effort to establish your
§389 faith 477