Anaphoric part 2

There is the charge, of course, from that section of the internet that thinks that grace costs us nothing - that it's nice to do good, but it might not happen in your faith life - that Dr. Daniel Wallace is a bit of a jerk for interjecting his theology into his Greek grammar. The particular person who says this claims that we cannot take Dr. Wallace's analysis of the anaphoric use of the article at face value - because it demands a theological conclusion.

Well, let's test his theory. Here's James 2:14-26 (from that shameless ESV):

14What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? 15If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, 16and one of you says to them, "Go in peace, be warmed and filled," without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? 17So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

18But someone will say, "You have faith and I have works." Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. 19You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe--and shudder! 20Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless? 21Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? 22You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works; 23and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, "Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness"-- and he was called a friend of God. 24You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. 25And in the same way was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? 26For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.

Now, I have annotated this passage with some candy colors to help you follow me. The "faith" highlighted like this are the antecedent occurrences of "faith". The "faith" hightlighted like this are the anaphoric "faiths" – the ones which refer back to the other "faiths". And then we have one whole sentence which I want to approach because it is the hardest part of this passage to get, grammatically.

Listen: all the examples outside of v. 22 are pretty transparent. The anaphoric applications are references to predicate "faith" – faith which is the object of the action. But in v. 22 we have something very interesting happening. In the previous verse, we see that Abraham was justified by works when he offered up his son, right? But then, if we translate the words of v. 22 without any kind of art or English idiom in mind, we get this:

You see since {that} faith works together {with} {those} works of him and by {those} works {that} faith was made perfect.

The person who cannot grasp context will look at this and demand, "hey: the antecedent of ‘pistis’ is the one way up in v. 18 – which you say is the false faith, and that doesn’t make any sense. You’re done." I think you’d be right except for the crazy, contextual fact of the adjective "auton" – "of him". There is clearly a juxtaposition here between the faith without works and the faith of him -- that is, of Abraham. The faith of him works together with the works of him. It’s not a faith without works: it is a faith which is perfected by these works.

In that, it's 100% acceptable to not translate the article at all -- because it's not necessary. The particular nature of that faith and that work is conveyed in English 100% by the possessive pronoun -- it distinguishes this pairing from the dead pair of faith without works.

That’s it. That’s all I have to say. If you have an objection, bring it on.