The second part of Lane Keister's response to me concerns II Peter 1:3ff. I wrote, "All the elements of Jesus’ and John’s and Paul’s paradigm are there: God’s divine power causes us to partake of the divine nature (Peter’s way of talking about what Paul speaks of in terms of the indwelling of the Spirit of the risen Christ). He then says that our faith, far from being alone, is supplemented with spiritual virtues, the final and greatest of which is 'love.' Finally, he says that we must 'practice these qualities,' for 'in this way' we will gain our eternal inheritance."

Lane responded:

Jason says something with which I agree, but maybe not with the same slant. He says that faith must be supplemented. I agree. But doesn’t that mean that faith is one thing, and the things that accompany it are other things, at least distinct, even if not inseparable? 

Yes, faith is "one thing" that must be supplemented with "other things," and as James says, "faith alone" (or, faith without those other things) is insufficient. So Peter's insistence that we "add to our faith" the Spirit-wrought qualities he lists in vv. 5-7 (virtue, knowledge, self-control, steadfastness, godliness, brotherly affection, and love) is similar to that of James's point about "faith alone, apart from works" not justifying. Paul makes a similar point (albeit in a poetic context) when he says that if he has "all faith" so that he could move mountains "but has no love," it profits nothing.

The fact that these three writers insist that faith must be "supplemented" with other spiritual fruit causes me to scratch my head at Lane's question about these things being "inseparable" from faith. If they were inseparable, then it seems to me somewhat superfluous for Paul, James, and Peter to insist that those who have faith strive to also have these other things.

Lane continues:

Lastly, what is the way in which we obtain the eternal inheritance? The immediate context of the statement is not the virtues that Peter listed, but rather the idea of not falling. The passive voice of “will be supplied” in 2 Peter 1:11 is important here, as well. It is probably a divine passive, with God the implied subject. And who makes the calling and the election? We can add to our assurance, but not to our hope, for as 1 Peter says, we were born again to a living hope. We do not give ourselves the new birth any more than we gave ourselves physical birth. 

There's a clear progression in Peter's thought in vv. 3-11 to which I am not sure Lane is doing justice. I will try to elucidate that progression by working backwards from the end to the beginning and asking a series of questions taken directly from the text:

How will we be richly provided our entrance into the eternal kingdom? By not falling. How do we not fall? By confirming our calling and election. How do we confirm our calling and election? By not being unfruitful. How do we not be unfruitful? By adding to our faith the spiritual fruit Peter lists.

Thus Peter is saying the same things that Jesus, Paul, James, and John said, namely, that it is by living out the Spirit-wrought life of Christ that we will enter heaven, which power we have because of Jesus' death and resurrection.

Lane concludes:

We enter into the eternal state not because of our works, but not without our works, since they are the inevitable result of God’s grace. 2 Peter is not saying that we gain an entrance into the eternal state because of what we do. Otherwise, why would he write 2 Peter 1:3, wherein ALL things necessary for life and godliness are given to us as a gift? 

Yes, we enter not by works nor without works. But Lane's statement that these works are "the inevitable result of God's grace" is incorrect. In Gal. 5 (which we discussed in my prior response to Lane), Paul explicitly tells the Galatians that if they seek justification by circumcision instead of by faith working through love, they have "fallen from grace" and "severed themselves from Christ." These kinds of warnings would not arise from an inevitable result or foregone conclusion.

Finally, in my opinion Lane is forcing a false dilemma upon Peter by insisting that either his own Reformed understanding of the passage is true, or else salvation is "by works," "because of what we do," and earned rather than gifted. But the problem for Lane is that the Catholic position is not found in either of these options, meaning that he is responding to a position that no one has even suggested.

To be as clear as I possibly can, the sinner is saved by God's grace alone, and not because of his own works (of the law or otherwise). However, once a child of God who "partakes of the divine nature," the believer must do all the things Peter says to do in this passage, for "if he does this" then by God's grace "he will never fall."