How does a Catholic attain Salvation?

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It is a bit disconcerting that answers by us “lay people” may include answers not well versed in Catholic doctrine.

I don’t *presume *to know the complete answer in regards to the question: how does a Catholic attain salvation? However, Jesus said “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me”. Accepting Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior is central and key in our Catholic faith. It is why we celebrate the Eucharist at Mass. Without Jesus Christ we have no church. St. Peter, one of Jesus’ Apostles was the first Pope of the Catholic Church- Christ’s church founded over 2,000 years ago. So that without Jesus we have no salvation. The Sacraments are an *affirmation *of our believe in Jesus and that He will come again to judge the living and the dead and that His kingdom will have no end. Infants by their very nature are pure and go to heaven with or without baptism. They are angels. I have confirmed this with my priest.

Hope my answer is useful in some way. Thanks.
 
Truth_Faith13 said:
Thanks for all of your answers and replies! 🙂

How would you answer Protestants regarding verses where the Bible does seem to state that salvation is through faith. What is your interpretation (or the Churches) of these verses?

Eg Eph. 2:8-9, “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. 9Not by works, lest any man should boast.”

Please note: I’m not arguing myself, I still don’t know whether I believe sola fidela or the CCs position. Just trying to understand arguments and counter arguments.

Thanks 🙂
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Hi!

Catholics believe in Salvation by Faith - just not by Faith ALONE!

The Book of James 2:24 is powerful evidence claimed by the Catholic Church to show that salvation involves more than simply belief ALONE:

“See how a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.”

Also, note St. Paul’s words in Scripture: “Faith without works is dead”. 👍

The Catholic Church takes these very seriously - note the enormous number of Catholic hospitals, charities, missions, schools, care of the poor, marginalized, and homeless. These Bible verses are seen by us as a mandate: we must reach out to others and DO things to help them. (Note Jesus Christ in Scripture: “Love the Lord your God and Love your neighbor as yourself”. Christ characterizes these two mandates as summing up all of the Law and the Prophets!) We cannot simply feel warm and have nice thoughts about our neighbors and expect that Christ will not notice that we do nothing to bring His Love, and assistance (like the good samaritan) to our brothers and sisters in need. :nope:

I listen to Catholic Answers on the radio and on this website. If you listen to recordings of the show from this website (radio section), Jimmy Akin and Tim Staples answer all of the questions that Protestants have - they both used to be Protestants! They are VERY highly trained and can explain subtleties regarding Protestant vs. Catholic beliefs, from the Bible, in a magnificent way! :extrahappy:

Jimmy Akin, who knows ancient texts and languages, has said that the Protestant Bibles use some words (translations of Greek, etc.) which alter the original & true meaning from the author(s). It is incredibly clarifying to listen in - Open Forums for Non-Catholics are great! Tim Staples also uses the original languages to explain Bible passages that are in dispute by the Protestant World.

Blessings to you, & prayers for you, on your faith journey! 👍

Catherine
 
TRH1292 said:
In a fully formed Catholic view, Salvation is through Faith. Faith, the biblical term, is still the best way to express it.

Faith is defined a bit differently in the Catholic Church.
Faith, a theological virtue, is a submission of mind and will to God.
A submission of mind and will obviously is closely related to “works” in the protestant sense, as there is no real hard and fast distinction in the Catholic Church.

We are saved by Faith, because Faith is our choice to submit ourselves to God and follow his will. Everything else follows from that.
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For the most part I have to agree with the replies here, however I think there are a few areas that do need some clarification. There is no Catholic and Protestant view, per se. The defentiion held by the Catholic Church for 2000 years is simply the authentic teaching of Christ.

Two of the issues I’ve seen with Protestantism in general, and most Protestants I’ve met is the “Biblical Formation” they have been indoctrinated with. First it is ant-Catholic, so anything the Church teaches they suspect and most times reject. At least in the manner which the Church teaches it in.

Translation and interpretation. Protestants are not held to any standard except what they feel the Holy Spirit inspires them to believe. So when a Protestant reads the Bible, they feel the right to interpret the verse as far as they read it, and without need to understand the original language and text. So for many Protestants, they read the word saved, and it always means that at a single moment of time they “accepted Jesus” and were from that moment forward saved. No if’s, and’s or but’s. However in the Greek New Testament, we see the word Saved, used in different senses. In some cases St. Paul writes of saved as an ongoing process, in others the actions of our Lord on the Cross are sufficient to save us, but must be applied to us. Etc. So it’s not as simple as just read it for yourself without the guidance of the Church, who has preserved the original sense of the Scriptures.

If you are dealing with someone who is a King James Only, there are additional issues. Language changes. An example would be the word bald. If I asked everyone here what image comes to mind when I say bald, 99% of those here would probably picture a man with no hair on the top of his head. However at the time the KJV was written bald had the meaning of white haired. The U.S. Bald eagle is not featherless on his head, but has white feathers. So private interpretation without any guidance or preparation is a dangerous thing.

Cherry Picking. Another very popular thing. Catholics can be just as guilty of it as Protestants. However When we see the Bible as just a collection of rules, we miss the big picture of salvation. Aside from the errrors contained in Sola Scriptura and Private Interpretation, the Catholic Church takes the stance that the Sacred Scriptures are a source given by God to inform our understanding of God, and foster our spiritual life. But you can’t just read it as a jumble of disconnected tales and legends with some laws thrown in here and there. From the First verse to the last it is the story of our salvation. So to say OK, this verse says your Faith has saved you, and leave it there, ignoring Jesus Command that the Apostles go out to the ends of the earth and teach the Gospel, baptizing in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, is to cheat onself and misrepresent what God has done for us and expects of us.
 
The clearest insight I have received on the question of Faith vs. Works came from a 15-min podcast on this subject by Dr. Peter Kreeft, which you can find here:

peterkreeft.com/audio_more.htm

As you may know, Dr. Kreeft is a professor of philosophy at Boston College and a Catholic convert who writes and lectures extensively on apologetics and other topics. In this podcast, he describes a little-known document titled “The Decree on Justification,” drafts of which have been signed by senior members of both the Catholic and Lutheran hierarchies, that declares the divisive issue of Faith vs. Works largely resolved on what are essentially semantic grounds.

You really MUST hear this gem of a podcast to profit from Kreeft’s incredibly clear and compelling description, but in brief he notes that Protestants have traditionally claimed that you only need one ticket to get to Heaven, while Catholics have said you need two. Both agree that Faith is essential, but Catholics say you also need Works.

The key to resolving this issue is to recognize that both sides have always talked about the same thing, but that Catholics have used a rather broad interpretation of what it means to be “Justified” to enter Heaven, while Luther used a somewhat narrower interpretation. Both agree that it is by Faith that we are justified; that is, we only need to have Faith in Jesus to gain access to Heaven. So if a Catholic dies without an unconfessed mortal sin and has Faith, he’s in – whether he ever did any good works or not. (The “Good Thief” on Calvary had no time to do any good works but was guaranteed access to Heaven by his Faith alone).

For Protestants, Justification is the end of the story. Catholics, however, recognize another process called Sanctification, by which God perfects you as needed to make you compatible with Heaven. In the Sanctification process, the sins of already-Justified souls are cleansed away, and there are two ways to do that. One is by purgation in the next life (Purgatory), and one is by Good Works in this life. So Works isn’t about WHETHER you get in – that’s a matter of Faith alone – but it has much to do with WHEN you get in. The general guideline is to devote yourself to as many Good Works as the limited time allotted to you in this life permits, as Purgation is a much harsher cleansing process.

This explanation by Kreeft brought much clarity to me on this issue. I hope it does the same for you!
 
MGouveia17 said:
. Infants by their very nature are pure and go to heaven with or without baptism. They are angels. I have confirmed this with my priest.
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The Church has not declared this. For unbaptized infants, we entrust their care into the perfect hands of God. We know they don’t go to hell, but they may not go to heaven, but instead to a place of perfect natural joy, but without supernatural joy. We don’t know, and we can’t declare it on our own.

One other minor point, humans don’t become angels in heaven. Humans are not angels, and angels are not human. We never become the other. Angels are pure spirit while humans are spirit and body.
 
Works AND faith have to go together, although there is some ambiguity here and there.

Taken from: catholic.com/quickquestions/why-does-the-church-teach-that-works-can-obtain-salvation

The Council of Trent harmonizes the necessity of grace and works: “If anyone says that man can be justified before God by his own works, whether done by his own natural powers or by the teaching of the Law, without divine grace through Jesus Christ, let him be anathema” (Session 6; can. 1).

The Council fathers continued by saying, “If anyone says that the sinner is justified by faith alone, meaning that nothing else is required to cooperate in order to obtain the grace of justification and that it is not in any way necessary that he be prepared and disposed by the action of his own will, let him be anathema” (Session 6: can. 9)

James 2:17 reminds us that “faith of itself, if it does not have work, is dead.” In verse 24 James says, “See how a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.” And later: “For just as a body without a spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead” (2:26).
 
By the way, in the verse from Ephesians (and all his letters, actually) - when Paul is speaking about “works” he is specifically speaking about the “works of the Law” - the ritual laws. They were laws of discipline, to teach the Israelites how to more properly worship God - “orthodoxy” means “right worship/praise”. They are meant to imbue an attitude that keeps one in the right orientation to God. But they can’t/don’t “save”. He was not speaking about what Catholics might call Corporal or Spiritual Works of Mercy which are natural extensions of and results of our faith in, and love for, God.
 
Many answers posted here to the question, “How does a Catholic attain salvation?” have stressed faith and minimized the role of works, a number of posts going so far as to offer the traditional Protestant position that as long as you have faith, your works are irrelevant to your salvation. I recommend the following Audio Sancto podcast for a convincing counter-argument:

audiosancto.org/sermon/20060723-Regarding-the-doctrine-of-Once-Saved-Always-Saved.html

The speaker describes the relationship between the two uniquely Protestant positions of “saved by faith alone” and “once saved, always saved,” noting many scriptural references and logical arguments to support the idea that one can easily become “unsaved” by bad works, after which “good works” can reinstate you notwithstanding your prior faith or state of having been once saved. It’s a worthwhile listen, with some pretty compelling arguments.
 
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