Contradiction claim
Is a person justified by faith apart from works, or by works?
Romans 3:28 concludes that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law. James 2:24 states that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only. The two sentences use the same three key terms and reach opposite-sounding conclusions.
2 source records · no review date recorded
How to read this record
Passages side by side
TextThe primary text, as seeded. Nothing here is summarised or paraphrased.
Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.
Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.
Why they appear to conflict
AnalysisEach side states a proposition attributable to its passages. A claim is not assumed to have exactly two sides.
Romans
A person is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.
Romans 3:28
James
A person is justified by works, and not by faith only.
James 2:24
Formal analysis
AnalysisA contradiction requires a proposition and its incompatible counterpart under materially equivalent conditions. Every dimension below must hold for the formal test to succeed.
Proposition A
justified(person, by=faith, without=works_of_law)Proposition B
justified(person, by=works, not_by=faith_alone)| Dimension | Question | Assessment |
|---|---|---|
| Same subject | Do both propositions predicate of the same subject? | Yes |
| Same referent | Do the referring expressions pick out the same individual? | Yes |
| Same event | Do both describe the same event token, not merely the same event type? | Not applicable |
| Same time | Do both describe the same time or time-window? | Not applicable |
| Same sense | Are the key terms used in the same sense? | Uncertain |
| Same scope | Are quantifiers, counting criteria and boundaries the same? | Uncertain |
| Same textual tradition | Are both readings secure in the same textual tradition? | Yes |
The formal test isolates the real question: whether the key terms are used in the same sense. Because that is unresolved, the record is not classified as a formal logical contradiction. The methodology forbids treating this as settled in either direction.
Analytical questions
AnalysisWhat a researcher must answer to classify this record. Open questions are recorded, not resolved by preference.
- Does "faith" denote the same thing in both letters — trust, or bare assent?
- Does "works" denote the same thing — deeds of the Mosaic law, or acts of obedience generally?
- Does "justify" denote the same act — being declared righteous, or being shown to be righteous?
- Are the two writers addressing the same question, or answering different opponents?
Hebrew / Greek relevance
LanguageThis is the clearest case in the seeded set where the classification depends on lexical semantics. Each of the three Greek terms carries a range, and the claim survives or dissolves depending on which senses are in play in each letter.
Textual variants
ManuscriptA variant is a transmission phenomenon, never in itself a logical contradiction.
No textual variant record is linked to this claim.
Manuscript evidence
ManuscriptManuscript evidence has not yet been curated for this record.
Narrator and speaker analysis
AnalysisWhat the narration establishes, distinguished from what would additionally establish that the reported event occurred.
No narrator or speaker analysis has been recorded for these passages yet.
Proposed harmonisations
InterpretationEach proposal records the premises it must supply that the text does not state. Premises are never injected silently.
The key terms differ in sense
Paul denies that observance of the law earns acceptance; James denies that a faith producing no action is genuine faith.
Premises this proposal must supply
- textualAt least one of the three key terms is used in a different sense by each writer.
Editorial Harmonisation Cost Heuristic
2 / 5 — Ordinary contextual inference
Each letter supplies its own contextual definition — Paul argues against law-observance as a ground, James against professed faith without deeds — so the sense distinction is drawn from the immediate contexts rather than imported.
Reviewed by CodexTrace Editorial Board on 2026-09-07. This is an editorial heuristic, not an objective measurement.
Critical responses
InterpretationArguments that the proposed reconciliations do not succeed, treated structurally the same way as the harmonisations.
The letters use the same vocabulary and the same example
Both writers argue from Abraham and use the same three terms, which makes a purely semantic separation harder to sustain than the vocabulary alone suggests.
No unstated premises recorded for this argument.
Analytical classification
Analysis- Classification
- Semantic ambiguity
- What it means
- The conflict depends on the sense assigned to one or more key terms.
- Requires formal analysis
- No
- Review status
- reviewed
- Source collections
- codextrace_research
Sources
SourceEvery externally-sourced claim on this page resolves to one of these records.
- [1]
CodexTrace. "CodexTrace editorial research". licence: CC-BY-4.0
Critical / scholarlyotherCC-BY-4.0 - [2]
King James Version (Authorised Version)
"King James Version (Authorised Version)". licence: public-domain-us
Primarytranslationpublic-domain-usLink unverified
Related records
TextCommunity
CommunityCommunity discussion requires a configured Supabase project on this deployment. Research pages are unaffected.