Faith and Works and Faith Alone and Protestants and Catholics

I feel compelled to transcribe a few paragraphs from Peter Kreeft, since Catholics and Protests still to this day commonly misunderstand one another on soteriology (salvation). The "faith and works" issue is particularly important because it is most likely where the heresy that "all good people go to Heaven" comes from, and has to be cleared up wherever that ugly booger rears its head.

The issue of salvation sparked the Protestant Reformation and split the church. It seemed to both sides at the time that Protestants and Catholics taught two radically different gospels, two religions, two answers to the msot basic of all questions: What must I do to be saved? Catholics said you must both believe and practice good works to be saved. Luther, Calvin, Wycliffe and Knox insisted that faith alone saves you. Unfortunately, both sides have been talking past each other for 450 years. But there is strong evidence that it was essentially a misunderstanding and that it is beginning to be cleared up.

Both sides used key terms, faith and salvation, but in different senses.

1. Catholics used teh term salvation to refer to the whole process, from its beginning in faith, through the whole Christian life of the works of love on earth, to its completion in heaven. When Luther spoke of salvation he meant the initial step--like getting into Noah's ark of salvation--not the whole journey.

2. By faith Catholics meant only one of the three needed "theological virtues" (faith, hope and love), faith being intellectual belief. To Luther, faith meant accepting Christ with your whole heart and soul.

Thus, since Catholics were using salvation in a bigger sense and faith in a smaller sense, and Luther was using salvation in a smaller sense and faith in a bigger sense, Catholics rightly denied and Luther rightly affirmed that we were saved by faith alone.

Catholics taught that salvation included more than faith, just as a plant includes more than its roots. It needs its stem (hope) and its fruits (love) as well as its root (faith). Luther taught that good works can't buy salvation, that all you need to do and all you can do to be saved is to accept it, accept the Savior, by faith.

Both sides spoke the truth. Since truth cannot contradict truth, the two sides really did not contradict each other on this most important of all questions. That assessment may sound unduly optimistic, but it is essentially what Catholic and Lutheran theologians said publicly in their "Joint Statement on Justification" a few years ago. Pope John Paul II said the same thing publicly to the German Lutheran bishops. It both astonished and delighted them (D'Souza talks about this very thing in What's So Great About Christianity).

. . . .

The official teaching of Catholicism (as distinct from the popular misconception) is that salvation is a totally free gift that we can do nothing to "buy" or produce. The Council of Trent's "Decree on Justification" is as insistent on the gratuitous nature of grace as Luther or Calvin. So is Aquinas in the Treatise on Grace in the Summa Theologiae, the bottom line of which is that we can do nothing without God's grace--not be saved, not deserve grace, not even ask for grace.

Handbook of Christian Apologetics, p320-321.

Pope Benedict, Bible, Faith.

I don't have to be a Catholic to really appreciate this Pope. God Bless this Pope and may his reign last many years for the good of the world.
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Luther would have been amazed at the efforts of the Vatican today to put the Bible back into the heart of the Roman Catholic Church. . .

Last week, briefly passing through Rome, my wife and I stood in an empty St Peter's Square, where the chairs were still laid out for the 20,000 who had attended the pope's weekly public audience on the Wednesday before. On our return to Holland, we read in the newspaper what the faithful had been told that day. The headline read: Pope quotes Luther: Sola Fide. Luther, the pope had told his audience, had been right to insist in sola fide, that a believer was justified by faith alone!

Disagreement over this doctrine had been at the heart of the Reformation in the 16th century, splitting Christianity in western Europe. Yet, said the pope, it was indeed biblical to say, as did Luther, that it was the faith of a Christian, not his works, that saved him. Such faith however could not be separated from love for God and for neighbour, he qualified. Paul wrote about this balance in his letters, especially the letter to the Philippians, he added.

Full Article Here. Must Read.
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This is lock-step with the basic Christian belief that being "good" does not merit salvation. The reality is, as hard as it is to swallow, there are no "good" people, in the sense that there are no "innocent" people. And "goodness" is a very nebulous standard. Who is good? And, what should be considered "good"? Ghandi? His works? Mother Teresa? Her charity? The Salvation Army volunteer? Are you for helping some lady across the street? Is Richard Dawkins for his promotion of science? Don't laugh, science is a good thing in and of itself.

How would we ever know? We couldn't.

Knowing that we could not attain salvation on the basis of our own works as a result of the Fall, God sent his Son down to us. So while we could not reach up to Him, he solved the problem by reaching down to us.