Which is more important? What a person believes or actions they take? What about works done without faith? Deep thoughts.
[poll id=”143″]
Discuss.
Agency, Doctrine, Faith, Morality, Mormon, Mormon Belief, Mormon Culture, Uncategorized
Faith vs. Works: Weekend Poll
Wheat & Tares 
Both are important. No good comes from disputing about which one is more important.
You can believe a lot and yet choose to not care or choose to go against God. So it can’t be belief that is most important.
Also, you can fake a lot of actions but for selfish, superficial reasons. So it can’t be actions that is most important.
I’m going to go with what I have learned about the gospel. Love God and put him first. If you do that with all of your belief and all of your action you still fail so Christ saves you.
I’ve always felt this topic is much ado about nothing. They’re both important, but not at the expense of the other.
The Apostle James covered this (James 2:18).
“Works” are a result of faith. If we don’t have faith, we can still do good works, but what is the motive and desired result?
I think of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade as giving a great example. At the end, Indy is coerced into retrieving the grail when Walter Donovan shoots his Dad. When he gets to the chasm, and sees the drawing showing the Knight crossing it apparently in mid-air, he’s faced with having to put his trust in this legend that he’s known since childhood. Since his father is dying of the gunshot wound, he has to trust the legend. So out goes his foot…and it lands on a rock bridge, camouflaged against the background.
Hopefully we won’t be put on the spot like the fictional Dr. Jones, but our souls and those of our loved ones are on the line. I suspect that each of us has a test where we have to take that step or leap of faith and pray we’re not going to plunge to our doom.
This question is anti-Mormon, and I don’t mean that in the strictly negative sense of hostility. It is simply not a question that Mormonism accepts as legitimate. Works and Faith are interconnected. Do without one or the other and there is a deficiency.
Since modern understandings of physics compel me to the belief that there are many parallel universes where variations of each of us do everything possible under natural law, I think works are definitely subordinate to faith in any individual universe.
However, I wouldn’t equate faith in this context to “belief” in any doctrine. Rather, I would equate it to a deep, direct conscious or unconscious connection to the Spirit that puts us in harmony with the role in which we best fit in this individual universe.
God turns even works of evil to ultimately achieve a greater, more glorious creation.
Jettboy:
Perhaps the phrase you were looking for was not “anti-Mormon”, but “does not compute” within Mormonism, like asking “what’s the difference between a duck?”
The question is framed as belief vs. actions. But this is a very Mormon way to frame the question. In the Bible and Book of Mormon, faith is not really just “what a person believes.” Faith is supposed to be the motivation behind the good works. It is by faith that good works happen. Therefore, from that perspective, faith is more important than works. According to Moroni 7:8, if a person does good works without “real intent” (i.e., faith), then “it profiteth him nothing.”
Christ never said, “If ye love me, believe in me.” He never taught that the greatest commandment was to “love the Lord thy God with thy thoughts and thy belief.” Everything that Christ taught was about works. Faith and belief and necessary because they lead to good works. Our belief leads us to what we do. What we do is who we truely are. God will judge us based on who we truely are.
I think the poll answers are problematic in themselves. In the broad sense, I do believe that one’s actions are more important than one’s beliefs. I don’t believe it follows from that, however, to claim that “Non-believers who obey anyway are better than believers who are too weak to obey.” There’s simply no such thing as a person who is never “too weak to obey” their beliefs. We ALL screw up and fall short of our values, no matter where those values are based.
I once heard Truman Madsen respond this way…
Question: What is more important, food or air?
Answer: yes
I get “Failed To Verify Referrer” after trying to vote.
For me faith without works is dead, so works are more important than just beliefs.
Works without faith puts one in the terrestrial kingdom eventually, like most good decent atheist will be.
I think a better question is, are we saved by our faith in Christ, his grace, or our we saved by our works?
Oops! should be *are* not, our. 🙂