Do Catholics try to accumulate "merit" with God through doing works?

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bettercallpaul

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I am Catholic but I’d like to increase my understanding of why Protestants are so critical of our Faith and Works policy.
Do some Catholics have the mindset of building up credit with God by doing volunteer work for instance? So if they have given much of their life to charity works, they feel secure in reaching in heaven?
 
Mostly because they misunderstand the role and order of faith and works. Protestants frequently and falsely accuse Catholics of earning justification. Also, gross misinterpretations of Scripture, namely Ephesians 2:8,9 and Romans 3:28.
 
Ever heard the phrase “Christ has no hands and feet but yours now”?

Corporal and Spiritual works of mercy.
We have to extend mercy to those who are suffering if we expect mercy from the suffering Christ.
 
My father volunteered for St. Vincent de Paul more than half of his life. He was never one to boast about it nor did it appear that he was scoring “brownie points” with God. He maintained humility throughout his life.
 
I just finished reading something similar 😀 that I think kinda fits the theme of this thread:
God has no other hands, feet, eyes, mind or heart than ours to continue God’s creating. The Spirit of God is everywhere present and filling all things, and human beings have been called to cocreate with God. The raw materials, so to speak, need our working with God to bring about life, harmony, peace, justice, and beauty out of chaos and disorder.
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from “Thoughts Matter” by Margaret Funk, quoted from the iconographers preface by Rebecca Cowan
 
God judges by the heart according to Scripture. The Catechism, quoting St John of the Cross, puts it this way, "At the evening of life we shall be judged on our love."

And love acts, or works, for the good of others by it’s nature. These are the works mentioned in Eph 2:10 that God has prepared for us to do. And these are the kinds of works, done “for the least of these”, mentioned in Matt 25:31-46, by which we’ll be judged. Again, it’s not the works themselves that save us, but the love behind them, the change. Works done strictly for merit, with no change of heart motivating them, are worthless; they’re “filthy rags” as Scripture describes man’s “righteousness”, apart from God. “Apart from me you can do nothing.” John 15:5.

This is the essence of the New Covenant, where it’s said that God ‘puts His law in our minds and writes it on our hearts’; only God can make man righteous, via communion with Him as He transforms us into His image. And this righteousness-or justice-can best be defined and described by the virtue of love, the nature of God, which is why the Greatest Commandments are what they are.

So Protestants rightfully object to legalism, that we can be justified by mere obedience of the Law, or to anyone thinking they can earn their way to heaven, but wrongfully object to needing anything more than faith. Most of them believe that faith virtually replaces the need for us to be authentically righteous, as Christ’s’ righteousness is said to be imputed to us, making us “pretend” saints, so to speak, while sinners in practice. But again, the Church teaches that love is the center of Christian spirituality; love constitutes man’s righteousness, and righteous we must be; God didn’t create anyone to sin after all, even as we must struggle with sin in this life until we’re fully restored to communion with Him in the next. So Augustine would say, “Without love faith may indeed exist, but avails nothing.” And St Paul in 1 Cor 13: “…if I have a faith that can move mountains but have not love, I am nothing”. And, "Now these three remain, faith, hope, and love but the most important of these is love."

St Basil of Cesarea, a 4th century bishop, I believe, summed up much of this best perhaps: "If we turn away from evil out of fear of punishment, we are in the position of slaves. If we pursue the enticement of wages, . . . we resemble mercenaries. Finally if we obey for the sake of the good itself and out of love for him who commands . . . we are in the position of children."
 
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What exactly determines the path you lead through life if not your compiled works?

To assume you are saved by sitting on your backside and being a burden to the planet you were born into, all whilst participating in self gratification.

How ludicrous.
 
I think after reading the Book of Job, I realised that having the mindset “accumulating merit” with God is a big error. Never think that we are somehow, progressing further than our peers because we are doing charitable acts.
 
Doing good works to accumulate “merit” is wrong thinking. It sounds similar to Jansenism, which taught that we should all be piling up stacks of sacrifices and good works so we can even have a prayer of being allowed into Heaven when we present all this to God at judgment time. Jansenism was deemed heretical by the Church.

We do good works out of love for our neighbor, not to impress God with how many good works we are doing. We should strive to do all we can for others and then throw ourselves on God’s mercy.
 
Saint Teresa of Jesus wrote a prayer called Christ has no body, but yours, and it sounds kind of similar to what you said.
 
fhansen said:
Again, it’s not the works themselves that save us, but the love behind them. Works done strictly for merit, with no change of hearty motivating them, are worthless; they’re “filthy rags” as Scripture describes man’s righeouenss, apart from God.
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Well put. Its the attitude we have. An ungenerous heart doing generous acts is a contradiction.
 
I think all paths to spiritual maturity have their chacteristic stages and obstacles that need to be negotiated.

What you say is not uncommon in the Catholic way for the spiritually young.

It is not bad, just limited if we dont layer beyond that.
Still, there is much good in the world from doing the corporal and spiritual works of mercy simply because its duty and that God will reward surely.
Doing it for merit only is not well internalised admittedly, but it is a dry place where hopefully a spark will alight one day and reward the groundwork.
 
Catholics actually have a word for trying to earn your salvation: it’s called pelagianism.
 
Hello better, The understanding is that since faith alone does not justify us before God, (Galatians 5:19,20,21, Ephesians 5;5,6, 1 Corinthians 6:9,10), we shall each be given according to our works. (Matthew 16:27, Revelation 2:8,9, Romans 2:6, 1 Peter 1:17, Matthew 25:35,42, John 5:29). Peace always in the Most Precious Blood of Jesus Christ, our Good and Great God and Saviour
 
Jesus tells us to store up treasures in Heaven. That’s what acquiring merit is, but the motivation should be for love of God. See below from the CCC:
III. MERIT

You are glorified in the assembly of your Holy Ones, for in crowning their merits you are crowning your own gifts.59

2006 The term “merit” refers in general to the recompense owed by a community or a society for the action of one of its members, experienced either as beneficial or harmful, deserving reward or punishment. Merit is relative to the virtue of justice, in conformity with the principle of equality which governs it.

2007 With regard to God, there is no strict right to any merit on the part of man. Between God and us there is an immeasurable inequality, for we have received everything from him, our Creator.

2008 The merit of man before God in the Christian life arises from the fact that God has freely chosen to associate man with the work of his grace. The fatherly action of God is first on his own initiative, and then follows man’s free acting through his collaboration, so that the merit of good works is to be attributed in the first place to the grace of God, then to the faithful. Man’s merit, moreover, itself is due to God, for his good actions proceed in Christ, from the predispositions and assistance given by the Holy Spirit.

2009 Filial adoption, in making us partakers by grace in the divine nature, can bestow true merit on us as a result of God’s gratuitous justice. This is our right by grace, the full right of love, making us “co-heirs” with Christ and worthy of obtaining "the promised inheritance of eternal life."60 The merits of our good works are gifts of the divine goodness.61 "Grace has gone before us; now we are given what is due. . . . Our merits are God’s gifts."62

2010 Since the initiative belongs to God in the order of grace, no one can merit the initial grace of forgiveness and justification, at the beginning of conversion. Moved by the Holy Spirit and by charity, we can then merit for ourselves and for others the graces needed for our sanctification, for the increase of grace and charity, and for the attainment of eternal life. Even temporal goods like health and friendship can be merited in accordance with God’s wisdom. These graces and goods are the object of Christian prayer. Prayer attends to the grace we need for meritorious actions.

2011 The charity of Christ is the source in us of all our merits before God. Grace, by uniting us to Christ in active love, ensures the supernatural quality of our acts and consequently their merit before God and before men. The saints have always had a lively awareness that their merits were pure grace.

After earth’s exile, I hope to go and enjoy you in the fatherland, but I do not want to lay up merits for heaven. I want to work for your love alone. . . . In the evening of this life, I shall appear before you with empty hands, for I do not ask you, Lord, to count my works. All our justice is blemished in your eyes. I wish, then, to be clothed in your own justice and to receive from your love the eternal possession of yourself.63
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I am reminded of the parable of the last judgment given in Matthew 25. Jesus accepts or rejects people based upon their works of corporal and spiritual mercy. Strange that in this parable, “works” are the only thing that count in being admitted to heaven.
 
I think it’s because they think we are trying to buy a way into Heaven.

I also think it’s because they misunderstand indulgences (and frankly many Catholics misunderstand indulgences too)

Do some Catholics try to accumulate indulgences? Yes. But indulgences are only good for people who are already saved, applied to purgatory.

So I think they see Catholics working to accumulate indulgences and think we Catholics are doing that in order to get saved. Which we are not.

They also think we are saying that works save, they don’t. Sanctifying Grace saves. But no works leads to a dead faith. This is what protestants are missing, because they simply feel that if you don’t do good works, you don’t have faith.

But we acknowledge that even the devil has faith, but he lacks good works.
 
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