I’ve heard some Protestants say that the only requirement of getting into Heaven is to believe in Jesus and God and accept them as your saviour, and that your actions don’t really mean too much as long as, at the end of the day, you repent.
This is called “Sola Fide” in latin, by Catholics… or “faith alone” – it is a fairly late interpretation of the bible, originating 1,520 or so years after Christianity started.
You are correct in that Catholicism never, from the start, taught Sola Fide. It is considered a heresy or a corruption for a Catholic to spread this, because it is NOT what the original Apostles taught to the early Christians and what the 1st and 2nd century Church forefathers taught others.
Sola Fide is an oversimplification. It is a reductionist view, trying to find the BARE MINIMUM that is asked of us. That is why Catholicism doesn’t like it.
Do Catholics believe the same thing, or is it harder to be forgiven for sins you’ve committed? I’ve heard that you guys take people’s actions a lot more seriously.
You are correct that Catholics take people’s actions MUCH more seriously then non-Catholic Christians, aka Protestants. (FYI… the term “protestant” can be offensive to non-Catholic Christians, as it is a Catholic-centric word which means they are in Protest to Catholicism… so Catholics are OK with it as a term to incorporate all the thousands of non-Catholic Christian denominations, but non-Catholics just prefer “Christian” – however Catholics feel this treats Catholicism as a non-Christian religion. )
Anyways…
Sola Fide, if taken TOO literally and as it is typically expressed… can lead a person to potentially do as they please, while maintaining that they “believe in Christ” and are therefore “saved” - It can treat salvation as a 1 time event and many non-Catholics will even ask each other “WHEN were you saved?” It therefore tries too hard to reduce things to their bare miniumum. To a Catholic… it also seems to divorce our soul, intellect, and our ACTIONS from each other. Treating what we believe and what we DO as 2 completely separate things.
Can we truly say that we know where the separation between our intellect, our soul, and what we do EXISTS? – Can you truly point to a sequence of events and say “this is where the soul was involved, but this… over here… this was where the body took over and the soul was not involved” ?? – NO we can’t. So saying we only have to believe seems at the very least… naive, and at the most… wrong.
NOW… to be fair… the Catholic “Faith AND Works” view can potentially have the opposite affect. To create Catholics who don’t TRULY follow the faith, but delude themselves into thinking that they are going through the right motions and are therefore “right with God” even when their actions and attitude tell a different story.
But as a Catholic… I still think the Catholic view is better, because it teaches BOTH, not one or the other. IF it taught “work alone” then it could be said to be as deficient as the Protestant view. - But since doesn’t differentiate between faith and works and sees BOTH as essential to salvation…then I believe it is actually more Humanistic and true.
I think one of the areas where an Atheist and a Catholic can agree on… is that what we feel and think influences what we do. What we do… in turn, influences what we think and feel.
This is a humanistic view and gives us a much more realistic view of humanity then “Sola Fide” (in other words, we are just dis-embodied souls, floating around)
Therefore… Atheists and Catholics should agree that what we DO with the lives that God gave us (if he exists…in the case of Atheism and Agnosticism) should be of the UPMOST importance. - not just WHAT we believe. - alone.
That a God that ONLY cares about what you ‘believe’ apart from what you DO… isn’t very just or fair at all. (why give us bodies then…why not JUST souls?)
MOST of the objections I hear from Atheists about a good atheist going to hell SIMPLY because he doesn’t believe… only applies to a certain subset of non-Catholic Christians but really is ineffective in arguing against Catholicism.
So Catholics VERY MUCH believe that what we DO and what we BELIEVE are intrinsically linked… at least while here on Earth.
Paul says in the bible that those who do not believe will be judged by how well they followed the commands of God. Their actions can as easily condemn them.
This is why the Catholic church holds out HOPE that non-Christians may be able to get to heaven and how Catholics reconcile scenarios where a person may not have heard the gospel or understand Christianity at all.
Other Christian sects do not always have this same view because to THEM… it is all about 'faith" and if you don’t have that… you are dammed.
I think Atheists can find more reason and logic in Catholicism then other Christian sects. At least that seems to be the case in my conversations with Atheists.
Lastly… remember… of the 2 billion or so Christians in the world… about 1.1billion or just over half are Catholic. So really… the ‘majority’ of “Christians” DON’T believe in “Sola Fide” it just seems like that in the U.S. which is a predominantly Protestant country.
The zeal of a new convert… Keep up the zeal 
