Philip Melanchthon on the nature of saving faith
Knowledge + assent + trust; all three required
that faith which justifies is not merely a knowledge of history... but it is to assent to the promise of God, in which for Christ's sake, the remission of sins and justification are freely offered. And that no one may suppose that it is mere knowledge, we will add further: it is to wish and to receive the offered promise of the remission of sins and of justification.
THE POSITION
The Apology argues the case that later Lutheran dogmatics compressed into notitia, assensus and fiducia. Faith is not bare knowledge of the history, which the devils have; it is assent to the promise; and lest assent itself be mistaken for knowledge, Melanchthon adds that it is to want and to take the promise offered. All three moves are there, and the weight falls on the third.
16 Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may rest on grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham’s offspring—not only to those who are of the law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all.
4 OTHERS HOLD THIS
ABOUT THIS FIGURE
Luther's colleague at Wittenberg and the Reformation's systematizer. He wrote the first Protestant systematic theology (Loci Communes, 1521), drafted the Augsburg Confession (1530) and its Apology (1531), and then revised his own work far enough that the Formula of Concord condemned the later version seventeen years after his death. This entry rests on the Augsburg Confession read in Latin and English — Part I less Articles VI-VIII and XIV-XVI, plus Part II Articles XXII-XXIV and XXVIII — on the opening articles of the Apology in English, and on the successive editions of the Loci through Latin sentences preserved by Schaff and Bente; no edition of the Loci itself was read.
Cite this page
"Philip Melanchthon on the nature of saving faith", Examined Doctrine, July 2026 edition, https://examineddoctrine.com/position/melanchthon/saving-faith (archived at https://examineddoctrine.com/editions/2026-07/position/melanchthon/saving-faith).