For a good defence of the Catholic understanding of justification and salvation, from the perspectives of two Evangelical converts to Catholicism, I highly recommend the relevent chaptes in Dave Armstrong’s
A Biblical Defence of Catholicism (you can get this cheap in .doc format, his site is
ic.net/~erasmus/BOOKS.HTM) and David Currie’s
Born Fundamentalist, Born Again Catholic, which is avaliable on amazon and such…and I think on this very site as well.
Here’s an explanation of the Catholic understanding of justification as I understand it that I wrote for another thread once:
The Church teaches that justification is by grace through faith and works. Sola fide (faith alone) is rejected by the Church as heresy, but sola gracia (grace alone) is upheld as sound teaching. We must realize that neither faith nor works can save us. All the faith in the world would be nothing, without grace. Likewise, all the works under the sun would be, as you said in the other thread, like filthy rags without grace. This is where the distinction must be made. Both faith and works are worthless if they do not flow from God’s grace. Our salvation is only made possible because Christ took our eternal penalty on the tree at Calvary; however, this perfect work of Christ must be applied to each of us. God has given us freewill, so we must accept this gift and co-operate with him. Not just once (the moment you accept Christ), but all through our lives. Catholics can say that we merit salvation, but only in a secondary and derivative sense. The grace that Christ gives us leads to faith. This grace-empowered faith leads to works. The two go hand in hand. Our faith and works become our way of co-operating with God’s plan for our salvation, and become worthy of merit before God because Christ’s merit is applied to us through his grace. Do you understand what I am saying? The faith and works in and of themselves are nothing, but when they flow from the grace Christ has given us, they become creditable.
One thing that really hit home for me was the realization that even the Evangelical position requires human effort to obtain salvation. If we are to say that there is nothing we can do to be saved, then logically, all human beings should be saved automatically…as Christ’s grace would be universally applied; however, we know that this is not the case. Even in the Evangelical view, one must make an conscious act of the will, exert a mental effort, to decide to accept Christ and to repent of one’s sins. In a sense, this is a work, as it is an act of the will, and takes effort on our part. But this is only made possible by grace in the first place (remember, the Father must draw us to His Son before we can accept Him), so we can not take credit for it, even though our effort was involved. So once you realize that even the Evangelical view requires human effort, it falls into place (at least for me) that works, those that are the fruit of the grace God has given us, can also play a role in our part in salvation.
If you are to say that salvation involves no effort on our part, then even personal repentance should be unnecessary. Every step of the way, we must choose to continue to co-operate with God, or to reject His grace. We should not be terrified, however, for we trust that God will always provide us with the grace necessary to persevere.
