I am familiar that the Catholic stance is that we are saved by God’s grace through faith, which is perfected by works, through love and charity (or something similar to this).
Due to my mother I came face to face with a protestant minister. I said something similar to this that we are saved by grace, through faith and works (since faith without works is dead). However, the protestant minister said if we need works, then it’s not grace anymore.
I understand that works on their own merit nothing (from Trent I believe), and that it must be works that comes about from the cooperation with God’s grace.
How would I answer this question? He says that if works are necessary, then the initial grace is no longer grace, regardless of whether it’s from works of our own (meriting nothing) or works from cooperating with God. He says any form of a work regardless of the source means the initial grace is no longer grace…
How do I refute this? (He’s a general protestant minister but working at a UMC)
The problem is that the Protestant minister apparently confuses being made right with God (justification) with gaining eternal salvation. The two are connected but not the same. He also seems to be of the Protestant school of thought that confuses the use of the term “works,” as I will demonstrate at the end.
First of all, some Protestants (and Catholics too) never bother to learn that there is a difference between being justified or declared righteous by God and being saved. One comes before the other. You don’t die and go straight to heaven upon being justified through God’s saving grace. That’s just the beginning.
Catholics believe that we are justified by faith in the saving action of God in Christ. Our resulting salvation will occur only if we “work” in cooperation with the saving grace of God. By doing so our works have merit, but only because the strength to accomplish these and the resulting grace from them originate with Christ. Only by means of Christ working in us can we follow the inspired instruction: “Work out your salvation with fear and trembling.”–Philippians 2:12.
The second part has to do with the confusion over the use of the word “works.” In English Bibles we are limited to a single word to describe two different concepts. We use the expression “works” to describe the actions we take as Christians in cooperating with Christ’s grace. But in some of the epistles, especially Romans, the English word “works” means “mitzvah,” and refers to obedient actions of Jews in compliance with the Mosaic Law.
St. Paul was trying to warn Gentile Christians that their attempt to live according to Mosaic Law to be like Jews was actually breaking the Mosaic Law. To this day Jews do not believe that they are “saved” by performing acts of obedience or “mitzvah” or “works” in accordance with the Law. Any Torah-observant Jew will tell you that they perform “mitzvah” as a sign of their faith in God and his Law. They are not saved by the “work” or “mitzvah” anymore than a Gentile who does the same action is saved by it apart from the Law.
But this message got lost in the minds of some Gentile Christians. They believed performing “mitzvah” was a requisite to salvation for them and they tried to preach a gospel that claimed that such “works” were necessary for salvation. If you note Paul’s epistles, the apostle to the Gentile often quotes from the Mosaic Law itself to show that such reasoning is wrong. Salvation isn’t dependent on performing “mitzvah” or “works” of the Law because the Law doesn’t promise salvation by their performance. By trying to obey the Law and forcing it upon other non-Jews, these Gentiles were actually breaking it.
The confusion is here. Most people aren’t keenly aware of when Paul means “mitzvah” or just the performance of obedient actions when he uses the term “works.” Basically speaking if you read in Scripture that we “are not saved by works” then you can bet that the word “works” in this context means “mitzvah.”
Anti-Semitism mixed with hatred for the Catholic Church has made some Protestants hesitant about reading Scripture in its proper Semitic or Hebrew context. They thus read every use of the word “works” to mean the performance of actions which cannot save and often link them to Catholic actions like praying the Rosary and even reception of the Sacraments. This school of thought is very dangerous as it leads to a misunderstanding not only about Catholicism, grace and works, but also the Jews and the people from which our Lord sprang and to which Paul belonged.
So “works” or “mitzvah” are not requisites to salvation–those kind of works are limited to obedience to the Mosaic Law. But actions of cooperation with God’s grace, these types of “works” are.
Again Scripture says: “Work out your salvation with fear and trembling.” (Philippians 2:12) If you don’t cooperate with grace and “work” with the direction by the Spirit, you cannot expect to be saved.
