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Sola fide asserts that, although all people have disobeyed God's commands, God declares those people not guilty who place their confidence in what God has done through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and who consider God's work to be their commendation for acceptance by God. Conversely, the doctrine says that those who trust God in this way do not trust what they themselves have done (which has no worth, because of sin). The doctrine holds that it is not through inherent, personal goodness that God is reconciled to sinners (because we have none, according to adherents of this doctrine). Reconciliation is only through the mercy of God himself, made effectual for forgiveness through the sacrifice of his son; thus it is only through the obedience of Christ given in substitute for the disobedience of believers, who for their sake was raised from the dead, that they have hope of eternal life. This doctrine is accepted by many Protestants, including Lutherans and Baptists, and is rejected by Catholics.
Luther's German translation of the New Testament added the word allein (alone) to Romans 3:28, rendering "...is justified by faith..." as "...is justified by faith alone... " (emphasis added).
The doctrine proposes that faith in Christ is both necessary and sufficient for sinners to be accepted by God, to count them among his people, and to equip them with the motive of trust, gratitude and love toward God from which good works are to be done. Some Christian groups such as Catholics believe that faith is necessary for salvation but not sufficient; that is, they assert that sola fide is an error because, in addition to believing, God also requires obedience as a prerequisite for acceptance into his kingdom, and for the reward of eternal life.
The precise relationship between faith and good works is an issue of continuing controversy in Lutheran and other churches. Even at the outset of the Reformation, subtle differences of emphasis appeared. For example, because the Epistle of James emphasizes the importance of good works, Martin Luther sometimes referred to it as the "epistle of straw." Calvin on the other hand, while not intending to differ with Luther, wrote of the necessity of good works as a consequence or 'fruit' of faith. The AnabaptistAnabaptists ("re-baptizers", from Greek ana and baptizo in German: Wiedertaufer are Christians of the so-called "radical wing" of the Protestant Reformation. The term was coined by critics, who objected to the practice of performing baptism for adults whos tended to make a nominal distinction between faith and obedience. Recent meetings of scholars and clergy have attempted to soften the antithesis between Lutheran and Catholic conceptions of the role of faith in salvation, which, if they were successful, would have far reaching implications for the relationship between most Protestants and the Catholic Church. These attempts to form a consensus are not widely accepted among either Protestants or Catholics, so sola fide continues to be a doctrinal distinctive of the Reformation churches, including Lutherans, Reformed and many evangelicalsEvangelicalism in a strictly lexical, but rarely used sense, refers to all things that are implied in belief that Jesus Christ is the savior. To be evangelical would then mean to be merely Christian that is, founded upon, motivated by, acting in agreement. Nevertheless, some statements of the doctrine are interpreted as a denial of the doctrine as understood by other groups.