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Introducing “Faith Alone: The ‘Theological Novum’”

Introducing “Faith Alone: The ‘Theological Novum’”

Last updated on: May 12, 2026 at 12:50 pm by Dave Armstrong

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Introducing “Faith Alone: The ‘Theological Novum’” 2026-05-12T12:50:11-04:00 Dave Armstrong

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→ Make a gift of $25 or more and quickly receive Faith Alone: The “Theological Novum”

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***** Go to my Blog Book Page with the Table of Contents, Introduction, and two sample chapters that can be read. *****

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A Doctrine That Came From Nowhere: Announcing Faith Alone: The “Theological Novum”

There’s a striking description in Alister McGrath’s Iustitia Dei, a scholarly history of the Christian doctrine of justification, that continues to astonish me. McGrath — an Anglican, not a Catholic, and the leading Protestant historian on this subject — calls the Reformation doctrine of justification by faith alone a “theological novum”: essentially a complete and unprecedented break from everything Christians had taught about justification for the first fifteen hundred years of the Church’s life.

He says it three times in the same book. And he raises, with admirable honesty, the question of whether the churches of the Reformation can still legitimately claim to be “truly catholic” given their central doctrine on how one is justified and saved.

That sentence is incorporated into the title of my new book — and the reason I wrote it.

The Book

Faith Alone: The “Theological Novum”: Disproofs from 525 Bible Passages & 30 Church Fathers (345 pages) is the most thorough biblical and historical case I’ve ever assembled against the Protestant doctrine of justification by faith alone. It’s also, I hope, the most accessible: thirty chapters, organized into four parts, with every quotation properly sourced (from RSV) and every Bible passage indexed.

A few previews of what’s inside:

Thirty Church Fathers in their own words. Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch, Polycarp, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Origen, Hippolytus, and twenty-two more — speaking for themselves about faith, works, and salvation. The patristic record on this question is not ambiguous or “mixed” at all, and it’s not what most modern Protestants have been told it is.
An entire chapter on St. Augustine. Martin Luther and John Calvin both claimed Augustine as their forerunner on justification. The chapter walks through what Augustine actually wrote — and shows why even a leading Protestant apologists like Norman Geisler admitted — even in his book defending Protestantism over against Catholicism –, that “scarcely anyone taught imputed righteousness” before Protestantism arrived on the scene in 1517.
Three chapters on the Reformers themselves. Luther, Melanchthon, and Calvin — and the surprise of the book, for many readers, will be how late and how recently the “faith alone” formulation was actually invented. McGrath is unambiguous: it traces not to Luther but to Philip Melanchthon, in the 1530s. A doctrine fifteen hundred years late, from one man, that we are told is the very heart of the Gospel!
525 Bible passages, organized by theme. Not a string of proof-texts. Whole categories: Jesus and the Rich Young Ruler, the Sheep and the Goats, the seventy specific good works Scripture says contribute to salvation, the books of James and Hebrews, the relevant Old Testament parallels, and Paul on “works of the Law” — what he actually meant by that phrase, and what he didn’t. The only place the words “faith alone” appear together in Scripture is James 2:24: “You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone.” That’s the door the rest of the Bible opens through.
A point-by-point reply to James White’s exegesis of James 2. White, a Reformed Baptist apologist is considered by many to be the leading critic of Catholicism in America, and he has stated publicly that no Catholic has produced “a meaningful refutation” of his chapter in The God Who Justifies. (and that it would be impossible for me to do it, and that I never did). Nevertheless, this book contains that refutation, and it’ has been posted for many years on my blog with not the slightest reply from Mr. White.
A back-of-the-book index listing every one of the 525 Bible passages by book, chapter, and verse — so the whole thing functions as a working reference for anyone studying or teaching this issue with friends, family, or in formal ministry.

Why I’m Releasing it This Way

I’m not selling this book through Amazon. I’m offering it as an e-book — in PDF, EPUB, and Kindle (AZW3) formats, so it works on every device — directly to anyone who supports my ongoing apologetics ministry with a gift of $25 or more.

That’s the model: a gift to me, a book to you. No publisher takes a cut. No middle man. Every dollar goes directly to keeping this full-time, 100% dedicated work — the writing, the research, the public teaching (now also in videos), the responses to objections — alive and continuing.

If this book helps you, your family, or that Protestant friend you’ve been gently talking with for years, I’ve done what I set out to do. And if it does, the way you return the favor is by helping me write the next one.

Get Your Copy

→ Make a gift of $25 or more and quickly receive Faith Alone: The “Theological Novum”

Within minutes of your donation, you’ll receive an email with download links for all three file formats. Read it on your phone, your tablet, your Kindle, your computer — whatever works for you.

Thank you for partnering with me in this work. May God bless you.

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Photo credit: book cover designed and produced by Kenny Burchard and Dave Armstrong; copyright 2026 by Catholic Bible Highlights (please visit our YouTube channel). The person is Philip Melanchthon (1497-1560): Luther’s best friend and successor, and inventor in the 1530s of the standard “faith alone” outlook now held by almost all Protestants; from the portrait by Lucas Cranach the Elder in 1537.

Summary: Are good works directly connected to justification and salvation? Evidence from 525 Bible passages and 30 Church fathers proves that “faith alone” (sola fide) is a falsehood.

Books by Dave Armstrong

Salvation & Justification

Faith Alone

Faith Alone: The "Theological Novum"

Faith and Works

infused justification

Protestant soteriology

Sola Fide

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