Is my thinking right? (salvation)

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shondrea

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So I was thinking today…

We Catholics believe we are saved by grace, yes? And believe it takes both faith and works, correct? However, we do not believe that we can earn or work our way into heaven. We believe rather that those who have faith and believe in god will wish to obey god and do good works for him.

So…in a roundabout way, isn’t it that our views on salvation really aren’t aaaall too different from some protestant views? It seems to be that I could say I am “saved by faith”, as i consider devotion, submission and obedieance to god, and the desire to follow God’s laws as part of “faith” itself.

Or am I completely missing something? If so, kindly, please correct me
 
Well you’re on the right track. While our view of salvation isn’t very different than some protestant denominations, many do stress the “saved by faith alone” part. Some believe it’s the idea that you don’t have to go through all the “rigmarole” of the Catholic Church (e.g. Sacraments) That a person doesn’t require a building(church) to find salvation. That it’s perfectly fine for a person to simply obtain salvation based on their own interpretation of the bible and only the bible.

Remember there’s thousands of protestant denominations so I can’t speak for all, but that’s* sort of* how we differ from the protestant line of thinking.
 
Your reasoning seems very sound to me. The protestants in India always attack us about works. But isn’t faith also a work?
 
Your reasoning is sound and it echoes the sentiment of Pope Benedict when he said “faith alone” is accurate if faith is considered the whole package of the charity and drive to conform to Christ that goes with it. In Catholic thinking, faith-works is a singular concept.

Where we largely different from Protestants is that for the Catholic, justification includes sanctification and the day by day renewal of our interior self. That means justification is first a gift entirely of God apart from faith or works. The faith-works response we give does not justify us initially but contributes to our justification throughout our lives. Protestants believe in a single “moment” of justification but this does not account for Scripture language of “having been saved,” “being saved,” and “hope to be saved,” past, present, and future tense (much less James chapter 2 or Matthew 25 or any Scripture tying in our salvation with what we do).

For what I’ve said here, refer to CCC#2019 for a description of justification.

This is taken from the Council of Trent–session 6 which also says:none of those things which precede justification-whether faith or works-merit the grace itself of justificationandHaving, therefore, been thus justified, and made the friends and domestics of God, advancing from virtue to virtue, they are renewed, as the Apostle says, day by day; that is, by mortifying the members of their own flesh, and by presenting them as instruments of justice unto sanctification, they, through the observance of the commandments of God and of the Church, faith co-operating with good works, increase in that justice which they have received through the grace of Christ, and are still further justified…
 
A simple definition comes from Jesus’ Himself in Matthew 25 verses 31-46, and He most definitely doesn’t say that good intentions and faith alone are our salvation. As Judge of souls He insists on practical good works.
 
Salvation is a gift offered by God, and each human has the freedom to accept or reject this gift. It is possible to express such acceptance or rejection by thought, word and deed. Along these lines, there is the old saying, “Actions speak louder than words”, so our deeds play a very big role in how we treat God’s offer of salvation.

In light of all this, doing good works is an important way of saying “yes” to God’s gift of salvation. The Parable of the Sheep and the Goats is one of many biblical foundations for this idea. Therefore, Catholics believe that good works are a very important aspect of our spiritual journey, not because we think we can earn our way into heaven, but because they strongly express our desire to accept the gift of salvation won for us by Jesus.

Certain Protestants, however, believe that saying “yes” to God’s gift is simply done through words (for example, saying the Sinner’s Prayer) and thought (“I love Jesus”), but good works do not play any part.
 
Thanks for the (name removed by moderator)ut, y;all, especiallt the extra links!
 
I agree with Marco Polo above.
Salvation is offered to everyone as a gift (ie. grace) from God.
I would only add that Protestants tend have an egalitarian view of justification- and also no understanding of the ontological change of the soul- they think we will all be on one level in heaven.

But once we are in Sanctifying Grace we can grow in it by our works and charity. The BVMary was full of grace and grew in grace (relationship to God) and is on a higher level than any human other than Christ himself in heaven. The great saints will be on a higher level of heaven than the lesser saints. It is like the angels with the 9 choirs–Seraphim being the closest to the throne of God, but if you notice Michael the archangel is head of the angels but archangels are second from the bottom of the choirs.
So what gives?
Well he seems to have been the first to defend God’s honor against Lucifer-- this was the test of the angels, so he merited a higher position than his natural order.

Our test is in this life and as much as we respond to grace we deepen our love of God and neighbor thus increasing our rewards in heaven especially by good works.
Most people know the 7 corporal works of mercy but JPII said there is more need of the 7 Spiritual works of Mercy in today’s world.

The 7 Corporal Works of Mercy
To feed the hungry
To give drink to the thirsty
To clothe the naked
To shelter the homeless
To visit the sick
To visit the imprisoned
To bury the dead

The 7 Spiritual Works of Mercy
To counsel the doubtful
To instruct the ignorant
To admonish the sinner
To comfort the sorrowful
To forgive all injuries
To bear wrongs patiently
To pray for the living and the dead
**
The 3 Eminent Good Works**
Prayer
Fasting
Almsgiving
 
shondrea said:
So I was thinking today…

We Catholics believe we are saved by grace, yes? And believe it takes both faith and works, correct? However, we do not believe that we can earn or work our way into heaven…
Click to expand...
If you really wish to make progress in this discussion, decide first if you wish to discuss
being “saved” or going to Heaven. The differences are significant and represent the biggest stumbling block between Protestant and Catholic theology. Many Protestants fail to distinguish between “being saved” and actually “going to Heaven”. Scripture is pretty clear on the distinction and as a Catholic you must recognize the difference between them before attempting to discuss or understand their positions.
 
shondrea said:
So I was thinking today…

We Catholics believe we are saved by grace, yes? And believe it takes both faith and works, correct? However, we do not believe that we can earn or work our way into heaven. We believe rather that those who have faith and believe in god will wish to obey god and do good works for him.

So…in a roundabout way, isn’t it that our views on salvation really aren’t aaaall too different from some protestant views? It seems to be that I could say I am “saved by faith”, as i consider devotion, submission and obedieance to god, and the desire to follow God’s laws as part of “faith” itself.

Or am I completely missing something? If so, kindly, please correct me
Click to expand...
It is semantics to a degree. The problem is that Scripture says we are justified by Faith and Works (James 2:24 - my namesake). So Scripture sees these 2 terms as different. Why? Because you can have a Dead Faith (Jemes 2:17). In Catholic teaching, Faith is generally passive, that is, it is a gift from God, a revelation. At that point, what do we do with this Faith? Through God’s grace, we can act on this Faith and this produces Works or we can do nothing and we have a Dead Faith. To get around this protestants will say a person who has walked the aisle and is thought to be saved is, sometimes, delcared by other members to be unsaved if it is discovered they committed a mortal sin and it becomes known. They will say Works prove you are saved by Faith, however, you were already saved by Faith Alone. This means, in reality, that you can’t know absolutely that you are saved and certainly not by Faith Alone. Catholics are the ones who are the biblical because we use all of Scripture.
 
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