This relationship is focused in verses 14-17 of chapter 2 of the letter of James where it says: “What does it profit, my brethren if a man says he has faith but has not works? Can this faith save him?” So faith by itself, if it has not works, is dead. The faith spoken of here is the Greek term “pistos” and the works are “erga”. The author asks what good is it to say that one has faith if there are no works to show for it?
The contrast is drawn between mere words and deeds which back up, or better yet, express one’s claim to having faith. The trouble is, of course, that it is easier to say that one has faith than it is to show or embody one’s faith in works. We often hear it said: “Faith without works is dead.” As James puts it: “Show me your faith apart from your works and I by my works will show you my faith.” (vs. 18) Somehow the usual contrast expressed here seems wrong to me. So called faith without a life that expresses and embodies it, is to be sure empty, and thus not faith at all.
Take another contrast. If I say I know Finnish, then I must be able to show
my knowledge by my speaking and/or reading Finnish. A claim to knowledge of something has to be in some way capable of being made public. If I say to my wife “I love you” that carries no weight apart from a life of action that conveys that love. There is something wrong with these traditional ways of putting this issue. The real contrast is not between someone saying they love us but behaving in unloving ways. The real contrast, in this context, is between saying one thing and doing something that logically contradicts what we said.
One problem here is that saying you believe, or love someone, is generally thought to be part of actually believing or loving that person. But it is only a part of it, and the contrast we want here is that between merely saying it and really meaning it. And that we really mean something we show in how we behave, which confusingly also includes what we say.
Perhaps the difficulty lies in the fact that there are occasions when simply speaking is adequate expression of what we think or believe and there are other times when simply saying so is not adequate. The author of James offers Abraham’s willingness to offer up his son Isaac as proof of his faith in God.
So here the criterion of having faith is still behavior, but in a negative form. Nevertheless, James remains adamant that somehow the mystery of real faith lies in one’s willingness to live it, not simply say it, which, of course, sometimes also requires expressing it in words.
This is all pretty tangled, but the central point revolves around the fact that speech is often a form of action. So, the confusion arises when we try to limit the forms of behavior simply to speech or to the behavior separate from each other. To turn the whole thing around, being faithful involves the whole person in action, and speech is also a form of action. But there can also be a disjunct between what we say and what we do or do not do.
As the philosopher J.L. Austin, in his book How to Do Things with Words, might have put it, we need to understand that we can and often do actually accomplish things with words. Speech, too, can be a form of action. However, in some contexts words are what are required and other times in addition to words appropriate actions are also required. And, yet in others, words are not required at all. Faith is as faith does. The other side of Austin’s coin is that sometimes actions speak louder than words.
I think what James is really getting at is that there needs to be consistency between our speech-acts and our other actions. Simply put, it’s not enough to say we love someone. This love must be bodied-forth in our behavior, including our speech behavior. At the same time, sometimes simple silent actions speak louder than words. To be sure, James’ point is that “actions speak louder than mere words.”