Without faith it is impossible to please God ..

Is the mantra of some Christians [particularly sonship and josephw] who quote this to support their faith only doctrine.

Heb 11:6 But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.

Is God interested in faith alone Christians? If you read around this passage, both before and after Heb 11, Paul explains the full picture.

Faith is the starting point for the professed believer in Christ. Faith is a means to an end, and any Christian that continues to boast about faith and preach only about their faith then that faith is dead and has not progressed into righteousness and good works. Faith if it is genuine and true will lead in the end to good works and righteous living.

Proof that this is the correct interpretation can be found throughout the teachings of Christ and the Apostles. Nowhere is faith alone a virtue. Faith must have works with it otherwise it is dead. In the very same passage one can find this proof. The entire chapters of Heb 10 and 11 says this:

Heb 10:26 For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins,

Heb 10:38 Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him.

Chritian saints who live a life of sin will find no more sacrifice for their sins... God takes no pleasure in such Christians. All of the patriachs of old listed who had faith, they are listed there with their good works, their righteousness and their obedience to God.

Abel was righteous
Enoch pleased God
Noah was righteous and obedient
Abraham was obedient

Righteousness and good works must come if one proclaims to be faithful otherwise it is dead faith.

Therefore faith alone does not please God.

It is impossible to please god because god does not exist!

Originally posted by 667joe
It is impossible to please god because god does not exist!

It is impossible for you to know that with absolute certainty.

Originally posted by Fetchmyjunk
It is impossible for you to know that with absolute certainty.

Then again, most things we know are not known with absolute certainty.

Originally posted by BigDoggProblem
Then again, most things we know are not known with absolute certainty.

What would you say you do know with absolute certainty?

Originally posted by Fetchmyjunk
What would you say you do know with absolute certainty?

2 + 2 = 4 and similar. (deducible)

Originally posted by BigDoggProblem
2 + 2 = 4 and similar. (deducible)

Would you say someone can know that God doesn't exist with the same amount of certainty as knowing that 2 + 2 = 4?

Originally posted by Fetchmyjunk
Would you say someone can know that God doesn't exist with the same amount of certainty as knowing that 2 + 2 = 4?

Nope. But few things can be known that absolutely. That was the point. Most things we know, we know inductively, i.e., "it is more likely than not" that P.

Originally posted by BigDoggProblem
Nope. But few things can be known that absolutely. That was the point. Most things we know, we know inductively, i.e., "it is more likely than not" that P.

So do you believe it is more likely than not that God doesn't exist?

Originally posted by Rajk999

Is the mantra of some Christians [particularly sonship and josephw] who quote this to support their faith only doctrine.

Heb 11:6 But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.

That is not a mantra. That is a verse in the New Testament which you seem to have contempt for.

Is God interested in faith alone Christians? If you read around this passage, both before and after Heb 11, Paul explains the full picture.

By all means, the whole chapter should be taken in.

Faith is the starting point for the professed believer in Christ.

So now you are saying pretty much what I have been saying for a long time.
We Christians should have faith to take Christ as our everything.

You know He makes His home in man's heart through faith.
That is an on going making of His home. That is a moving more and more in and more and more settling down.

Did you think Paul only mean for just being justified ?
I didn't think that.

"That Christ may make His home in your hearts through faith, ... " (Eph. 3:17a)

I still, after many years need Jesus Christ to make His home in EVERY part of my psychological heart. And I need Him to move in more and more ... "by faith".

Faith is a means to an end,

According to Ephesians 3:17 the end includes Christ making His home in our hearts.

But we should go on to see what else entails the "end" goal of faith.

"That Christ may make His home in your hearts through faith, that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be full of strength to apprehend with all the saints what the breadth and length and height and depth are and to know the knowledge surpassing love of Christ,

that you may be filled unto all the fullness of God.( vs.17-19)

Faith in Christ's end is that a collective living vessel may be filled unto all the fullness of God. And along the way the vast dimensions of the love of Christ, in their infinite directions, may be apprehended in an atmosphere of love with strength to grasp such.

Faith in Christ is for the dispensing of Christ into man.
Faith in Christ making His home in our hearts is for the eternal purpose of God dispensing His fullness into those saved that they may be corporate expression of God in man.

And Paul says that He is able to do this far in abundance to all that the Christians could ask or think. For the next verse says -

" ... that you may be filled unto all the fullness of God. But to Him who is able to do superabundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power which operates in us,

To Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus unto all the generations forever and ever. Amen." (vs.30,32)

By all means read the whole chapter of Hebrews 11. In fact the whole book puts things in the big picture. God is building up a house of God for God to live in man and man in God.

"But Christ was faithful as a Son over His house, whose house we are if indeed we hold fast the boldness and the boast of hope firm to the end." (Heb. 3:6)

I just talk a lot about the big picture. A vision of the big picture has done very much to enrich my living unto God and obeying the commandments of Christ within.

Originally posted by Fetchmyjunk
It is impossible for you to know that with absolute certainty.

Would you ask this same question of someone denying
the existence of faeries at the bottom of your garden?

When you tell a small child there are no monsters under the bed do you expect
the parent to say "It is impossible for you to know that with absolute certainty"

Originally posted by Fetchmyjunk
So do you believe it is more likely than not that God doesn't exist?

Yes.

Originally posted by sonship
I just talk a lot about the big picture. A vision of the big picture has done very much to enrich my living unto God and obeying the commandments of Christ within.

According to the big picture you talk about, are obeying the commandments of Christ and good works - along side faith - explicit prerequisites for "salvation"?

Originally posted by Fetchmyjunk
Would you say someone can know that God doesn't exist with the same amount of certainty as knowing that 2 + 2 = 4?

I think an all-powerful god that wants us to worship it would not be a mystery. If you want a grip, back up a step first.

Originally posted by sonship...

Actually, you are just a fanatic that absorbed the indoctrination as, you know, fanatics do.