[B-Greek] Grace vs Faith in Ephesians 2:8

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Fri Jun 4 09:17:57 EDT 2004


If you are indeed Roger Hutchinson, would you please observe B-Greek
protocol hereafter and give a full-name signature to messages that you send
to the list? Thank you.

At 7:30 AM -0400 6/4/04, RHutchin at aol.com wrote:
>I am having a discussion with someone about Ephesians 2:8.
>
>I want to read this verse as--
>
>"ŠBy Grace (you are saved through faith)Š"
>
>He reads it as--
>
>" (By Grace you are saved) through faithŠ"
>
>
>He has made the following statements.
>
>1. In response to my claim that grace is the basis for a person to be
>saved by faith, he replied,  "Grace" is in the dative, which means that it
>is an indirect object. "By" is a prepositional phrase of agency, telling
>us by what means salvation comes. "Through" is causal in nature. Both
>prepositional phrases modify "being saved." Thus, faith causes us to be
>saved by means of grace.
>
>2. To my claim that "You" is the subject of the sentence, he replied
>SESWSMENOI is a Perfect Passive Participle, Nominative, Masculine, and
>Plural. It has no person (thus, no "you"), and is ambiguously adjectival.
>Literally translated "One who has been saved."
>
>Is this correct? And what exactly is he saying?

First, let's cite the text in question:

	Eph. 2:8 THi GAR CARITI ESTE SESWiSMENOI DIA PISTEWS--KAI TOUTO
	OUK EX hUMWN, QEOU TO DWRON.

One thing he is not saying but demonstrating is that his Greek grammar is
very shaky: (a) he doesn't recognize that SESWiSMENOI ESTE is a
periphrastic perfect tense compounded of the verb EIMI and the participle;
(b) it's also hard to see how a plural participle could refer to a singular
"one who has been saved."; (c) THi CARITI is in the dative, but that
doesn't mean it's an "indirect object"--it is an instrumental dative, or
"dative of means." And of course THi CARITI in the Greek text is not a
prepositional phrase at all but the case form of a noun.

It should also be noted that this forum has the Greek language and the
Greek Biblical text as its focus, not theological propositions that may be
derived from the Biblical Greek text.

Where your interlocutor is correct is in insisting that both THi CARITI and
DIA PISTEWS are qualifiers of ESTE SESWiSMENOI: it's not an "either/or"
interpretation factor (not "by grace" or "through faith") but rather a
matter of "both/and."  THi CARITI as a qualifier of ESTE SESWiSMENOI means
the same as what is indicated in the clarification that follows ("and that
not as a consequence of your action, it's God's gift."); DIA PISTEWS as a
qualifier of ESTE SESWiSMENOI means that "faith" or "faithfulness" on the
part of those addressed is the factor that makes that gracious gift
efficacious.

Your question really does not extend beyond the initial clause of Eph 2:8,
but the second clause, about which you did not ask, certainly illuminates
the first clause. We have had numerous discussions in this forum over the
antecedent of TOUTO, which is generally (but not universally) agreed to
have the entire preceding clause as its antecedent; but some will attempt
all sorts of alchemy to convert the demonstrative pronoun TOUTO into some
sort of element that will allow it to take PISTEWS as its antecedent.
-- 

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/



More information about the B-Greek mailing list