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Faith, one of the three Theological Virtues named with Hope and Charity by St Paul in 1 Corinthians 13, carries a live tie of seven distinct Christian bodies each holding a variant, differently-accounted, stance toward it in this atlas: Anglicanism, Baptist, Calvinism, Eastern Orthodoxy, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Lutheranism and Presbyterianism.

Faith as Trust, Not as a Virtue That Justifies

Five of the seven converge on the same reformation-era point stated in five slightly different formularies. Lutheran teaching holds faith not as one infused habit among three but as the trust by which a sinner is justified apart from works, so that love follows justification instead of forming the faith that justifies, and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America confesses the identical position in the Lutheran sense, faith as trust rather than a virtue completed by charity. Reformed teaching, held by both Calvinism and Presbyterianism in this atlas's own record, holds faith as the instrument by which the righteousness of Christ is received, not a quality in the believer that merits anything, itself named a gift. Baptist confessions hold justification by faith alone in the same shape, faith read as reliance on Christ rather than as an infused virtue perfected by charity.

Two That Do Not Use the Scheme at All

Anglicanism's own Articles of Religion state that a believer is accounted righteous before God only for the merit of Christ by faith, and not for its own works, a different account, the atlas notes, of what faith does from the one Rome teaches, without the sola fide vocabulary the five bodies above share. Eastern Orthodoxy does not order the Christian life by the Latin scheme of three theological and four cardinal virtues at all; the atlas records faith there as spoken of within an ascetic tradition of participation in the divine life rather than as an infused habit of the soul, a structural difference rather than a disagreement over the same terms.

Where To Read More

• FaithTheological VirtuesThe virtue itself, seven distinct bodies holding a distinct account of it
• LutheranismChristianityFaith as trust, not one infused habit among three; love follows justification
• Evangelical Lutheran Church in AmericaChristianityConfesses the identical Lutheran position: faith as trust
• Calvinism (Reformed)ChristianityFaith as the instrument receiving Christ's righteousness, itself named a gift
• PresbyterianismChristianityHolds the same Reformed instrument-of-justification account as Calvinism
• BaptistChristianityJustification by faith alone, faith as reliance rather than infused virtue
• AnglicanismChristianityA different account of what faith does from Rome's, without the sola fide vocabulary
• Eastern OrthodoxyChristianityDoes not use the Latin virtue scheme at all; faith framed as ascetic participation