No doubt that Scripture, the Bible, puts a lot of emphasis and importance on faith. But where does Scripture, the Bible, state 'FAITH ALONE'? TIA
The expression "faith alone" does not come from a Biblical quotation, but from a Biblical proposition.
It is similar to our understanding of "trinity"... it is a thing taught in scripture, so Christians decided to create a term for it, to easily identify the doctrine.
Claims & Logic:
1.) No one who teaches on "faith alone", or the "trinity", or the "hypostatic union", ever claims those exact terms are quoted from scripture verbatim.
2.) No one ever makes that claim.
3.) You cannot demand people defend a claim they never made.
4.) I can't demand that YOU defend some claim that YOU never made... it's just silly.
5.) So what claim actually IS made?
6.) The claim is that "faith alone" is a doctrine, which the bible TEACHES.
7.) So if we want to argue, we need to argue whether or not the concept of "faith alone" is TAUGHT in scripture as a doctrine... regardless of the specific words used to convey that teaching.
Discussing Doctrine:
1.) I think it's good to discuss this doctrine, and this particular expression.
2.) I think there's a lot of nuance to this topic, and many related doctrines involved.
3.) I think it's a great topic for discussion.
4.) However, when we're talking about doctrine, it's usually a fallacy to demand people provide particular phrases from scripture. Because when discussing doctrine, doctrines don't depend solely up on a particular phrase in the text, but on a "body of teaching" in the text. The word doctrine literally means "teaching", and there are many ways to describe or teach an idea. Jesus taught doctrine, and he worded things in lots of different ways.
It's great to discuss these topics... but we can also afford to tone it down a bit, and relax.
C.