OK so in what cases can we be justified by God, by our own works? None, actually. The works don’t justify; they only indicate that which justifies. Faith that is dead does no works but works are not required to be a necessary consequence of faith (I’d think this is rare) Are you talking about “salvation” as in faith without works?
For a fully Catholic version of that, see the Vatican document:
[JOINT DECLARATION
ON THE DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION
by the Lutheran World Federation
and the Catholic Church](
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/p..._31101999_cath-luth-joint-declaration_en.html)
I don’t worry so much about terminology and formulas, and when I have a problem I go straight to my pastor – I do this weekly and we love to talk about everything real to imaginary. I’ll even say “Father I may have another heresy for you” and he will either support me or correct me, and either way he loves to preach so I learn.
You go get yourself straightened out. I appreciate your loving attempts to help me, but honestly me and Jesus are fine – I guess I’m either Don Quixote, or a modern day St. Francis wannabe. Actually I was to be an official wannabe after hanging around for a year with the SFO, but decided my pride was not yet under control. Love the people, the formation, love feeding homeless people with them, but I’m not ready to color inside the lines. I can profess to live a gospel life, but “in the manner of St. Francis?” Are you kidding me? I’m nothing like him – at least not after his conversion. I can’t keep pretending I’m going to conform when I can’t even talk about my favorite Franciscan who even got me interested in joining (Richard Rohr) without raising a controversy over Huge Politics on whether we fund his work based on whether he’s a heretic. Maybe he is, but he’s a darn helpful heretic and the last three popes have all heard about him but failed to take him out of power.
MS
The chief Catholic teaching on justification and merit come from the Council of Trent. There, it is clearly taught that good works are not meritorious (i.e. towards salvation) if one is not yet justified (which itself cannot be merited). It’s in the Decree on Justification, chap. 16.
For since Christ Jesus Himself, as the head into the members and the vine into the branches,[99] **continually infuses virtue into those justified, which virtue always precedes, accompanies and follows their good works,
and without which they could not in any manner be pleasing and meritorious before God, **we must believe that nothing further is wanting to those justified to prevent them from being considered to have, by those very works which have been done in God, fully satisfied the divine law according to the state of this life and to have truly merited eternal life, to be obtained in its [due] time, provided they depart [this life] in grace,[100] since Christ our Savior says:
If anyone shall drink of the water that I will give him, he shall not thirst forever; but it shall become in him a fountain of water springing up into life everlasting.[101]
Thus, neither is our own justice established as our own from ourselves,[102] nor is the justice of God ignored or repudiated, for that justice which is called ours, because we are justified by its inherence in us, that same is [the justice] of God, because it is infused into us by God through the merit of Christ.
This decree makes it clear that the grace and virtue of justification is absolutely necessary for good works to be meritorious, i.e. to have reward in heaven.
Now that said, one should still do good even if in a state of mortal sin, even though those works are not meritorious. The reason posters on this thread are talking past each other is because they have failed to consider that there are actually two kinds of merit: condign and congruous. What we’ve been generally talking about is condign merit (meritum de condigno), which is the merit due to justice, i.e. God gives what is owed. While God technically does not owe man anything, he bound himself to bestow merit on those in the state of grace by virtue of the merits of Christ. God does not “owe” anyone merit who is not in Christ, i.e. in mortal sin or the unbaptized. This is what the Council of Trent is talking about.
But for those who are unjustified and in mortal sin, they do benefit from congruous merit (meritum de congruo), which is pretty much merit or reward “out of the goodness of his heart.” This is not merit that one can “expect” in that God “owes” the person as he kind of does with condign merit. Good works and prayer must be continued by the person in mortal sin because they dispose a person to receive sanctifying grace, and God can reward such people with actual graces to move them toward sanctifying grace and thereby justification. It’s not “expected” in the sense of justice, but something one can reasonably expect knowing God’s goodness. Such congruous merit does not count to one’s reward in heaven, but can move one in the right direction.
