Faith and works

[goldenchild17]

I'm starting to discuss this with a friend and he posed this question. Any explanation, with Scripture, would really help.


"The only problem I could feasibly have would be in how works perfect faith. Do they point to and prove faith to be genuine, distinguishing it from dead faith, or do they have some sort of justifying power in them that serves as some sort of merit credited to our account to save us?

Right now, I see that we are united to Christ by saving faith, and that from this union flows our justification. Also, as a result of this union, we do good works and become more righteous. These works testify to the genuine nature of the faith, showing that we are indeed, in a life-giving way, attached to the Vine. However, these works do not produce our union with Christ, and thus do not produce our justification. Rather, they flow from that union, are a part of our salvation, and restify to living faith, for living faith always produces them. Thus, they are effects, not causes. How is your position different?"

[thessalonian]

Golden,

There is alot of ground to cover here but I will do my best. First of all it is important to realize that we as Catholics speak a different language than protestants (and their are flavors of Protestants as well). There are those who believe that works make no difference at all. We are saved by faith alone they say. Now one may do good works and avoid sin out of love of God but they make no real difference. Some even say that one should not recieve baptism because this is a work. There are those whom say that works are neccessary but only as a byproduct of salvation and that they contribute toward sanctification but not justification in any way. There are also flavors inbetween. One problem we have in dialoging with them is that their idea of what being saved means is different than ours. In truth we are saved when we are baptized. (1 Pet 3:20, baptism now SAVES you". We call it a state of grace. But for many of them this being saved includes forgiveness of past, present, AND FUTURE sins. It is a salvation you cannot loose. Therein lies the difference. We believe scripture teaches that we can fall from grace through willful grave sin called mortal sin. (I will give you a few scriptures of which there are many more at the end of this post) We can be brought back to the state of grace by the sacrement of reconcilliation.

Now there is something I want you to note. We are not brought to a state of grace (ie. saved by their definition) by our works. A Christian whom is fallen or one who comes to know he is the messiah can build a skyscraper to the heavens and fill it with all the poor and food and clothe them theoretically and will end in hell. As a Catholic we must recieve a sacrement to be "saved". If we are unbaptized it is baptism and if in mortal sin it is confession (John 20:19-21). Outside of grace our works "are as filthy rags" as the scriptures say.

Now once a Christian is in this "state of grace" grace begins to work in our lives. Works are produced by grace.

Mark 4:20
"And those are the ones on whom seed was sown on the good soil; and they hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold."


Ephesians 3:20-21
Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us,
to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.


Note the good that we do is him working in us. Thus we cannot boast of these works. We cannot say we save ourselves by our good works because we could not do them without his grace. Yet they do take effort.

But there is a problem in protestantism when they say we are saved by faith or faith alone and that works have no real part in our salvatoin. That problem is exemplified in the following verses.

Romans 2:5-8
But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God,
who WILL RENDER TO EACH PERSON ACCORDING TO HIS DEEDS:
to those who by perseverance in doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life;
but to those who are selfishly ambitious and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, wrath and indignation.



Matthew 25:31
"But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne.

Matthew 25:32-46
"All the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats;
and He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left.
"Then the King will say to those on His right, 'Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.
'For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in;
naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.'
"Then the righteous will answer Him, 'Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink?
'And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You?
'When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?'
"The King will answer and say to them, 'Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.'
"Then He will also say to those on His left, 'Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels;
for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink;
I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit Me.'
"Then they themselves also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not take care of You?'
"Then He will answer them, 'Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.'
"These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."



We had better have some works when we come to the pearly gates, it is quite apprent. God of course does not owe us salvation by our works. But works do play a role in salvation. Once again one of the main reasons for the difference rests in Eternal Security or OSAS, whereby you cannot loose your salvation. If your future sins are fogiven then works have no part in justification, though some protestants will acknowledge that they have a part in sanctification. Actually in Catholicism sanctification is a subset of justification. Protestants in general hold them as separate. But when we sin, we need justification for the forgiveness of those sins and sanctification to cleanse them from our soul. Further we need to stop doing them. This is where works come in. Virtue counteracts vice. When one is doing good works he is not sinning. He is showing charity (which is greater than faith by the way, "faith hope and love abideth, and the greatest of these is love"). Works are like excercise that makes us strong against sin. Weightlifting so to speak. While the Eucharist is the spiritual food we recieve for the grace to do the good works that God works in us.

Now many protestants will say we are saved by faith alone. Interestingly enough the Bible mentions the word faith 273 times in the New Testament. And only once does it mention it in the same verse as the word alone. That doesn't do them much good for it is James 2:24 where it says we are saved "NOT BY FAITH ALONE". More properly we are saved by grace alone. That is we live our lives in faith, working in love by the grace of God.

Ephesians 2:8
For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;

Remember God gives us the grace for the works so we may not boast of them as our own. Now if one says that we are saved by "faith alone" it can only be said in the context of an active, living, and persistent faith.

Matthew 7:21
"Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter.

So faith in and of itself is not enough. Now he will probably say that such a faith is not a true faith. That's a whole nother debate. Well I could go on and on and get in to imputed righteousness (which they teach) but I think that is enough for now. I should also not that there are some verses that indicate that justification is not just a one time thing. A couple of intesting verses:

Romans 4:2
For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God.
For what does the Scripture say? "ABRAHAM BELIEVED GOD, AND IT WAS CREDITED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS

James 2:21
Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up Isaac his son on the altar?


Note these are two separate points of justification for Abraham (actually justification is a one time act (at baptism) and an ongoing process according to Catholicism, rather than a one time act for Protestants).

There is an intersting verse in Romans 4 about David being justified where Paul quotes a psalm I believe it is from david where he is repenting of his sins which caused his sons death.

Romans 4:6
just as David also speaks of the blessing on the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works:

Romans 4:7
"BLESSED ARE THOSE WHOSE LAWLESS DEEDS HAVE BEEN FORGIVEN,
AND WHOSE SINS HAVE BEEN COVERED.
"BLESSED IS THE MAN WHOSE SIN THE LORD WILL NOT TAKE INTO ACCOUNT."

But David had already been justified before that time.

Well I need to end this. Here are some verses that indicate we can loose our salvation which I am sure your conversation will run in to. There are many more verses I could post on these topics. Perhaps I will later. It is from an email to a friend.

1 Corinthians 15:2
by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain.

Romans 11:22
Behold then the kindness and severity of God; to those who fell, severity, but to you, God's kindness, if you continue in His kindness; otherwise you also will be cut off.

Even the Apostle Paul speaks as though his salvation could be lost.

Corinthians 9:27
but I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that, after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified.


There are a lot more verses that seem to conflict with the doctrine to me. Also there is the story in Luke 12 about the slave whom the master comes and finds doing good. But it presents the case of the master delaying his arrival and then finding THAT slave, getting drunk and beating the other servants and says he will be treated as the unbeliever.


Hope that all helps.

[cathqat]

[quote name='goldenchild17' date='Jan 13 2005, 03:56 AM']I'm starting to discuss this with a friend and he posed this question.  Any explanation, with Scripture, would really help.[/quote]

Get your friend (and yourself) a copy of the three-tape/CD set [i]Faith Alone: Is It Justifiable?[/i] from Catholic Answers. It's essential, especially for the questions your friend asked.

Free items on the web that are excellent:
[url="http://www.cuf.org/nonmemb/justification.pdf"]It Works for Me: the Church's Teaching on Justification[/url] by Catholic United for the Faith
[url="http://www.cin.org/users/james/files/righteou.htm"]Righteousness & Merit[/url] by James Akin

For the slightly more advanced, I think [i]The Spirit & Forms of Protestantism[/i] by Louis Bouyer is also essential. I think your friend could probably handle it.

[b]Basic Catholic Teaching on Justification in a Nutshell[/b]

Without God, you're dead (Eph. 2:5), and there's absolutely nothing - not works, not faith, not anything - a dead person can do to make himself alive (Council of Trent, [i]Decree on Justification[/i] chapter 8). A dead person cannot be a cause in his own regeneration (Council of Trent, [i]Decree on Justification[/i] chapter 7). Unfortunately for us, this is the state into which we were born, [b]in Adam[/b], deprived of grace and spiritual life (Council of Trent, [i]Decree on Original Sin, Decree on Justification[/i] chapter 1).

However, when the Father gratuitously recreates you in Christ (2Cor. 5:17-18), gives you supernatural life by "the Spirit of sonship" (Rom. 8:15-17), and gives you faith, hope, and charity (the virtues of 1Cor. 13:13), He can empower you with His grace to do anything (Council of Trent, [i]Decree on Justification[/i]). After all, "all things are possible with God" (Mk. 10:27) and "nothing will be impossible to you" (Mt. 17:20). Jesus promised "you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you" (Acts 1:18). To what purpose? "We have received grace... to bring about the obedience of faith" (Rom. 1:5; also known as "faith working in love" in Gal. 5:6, which Paul calls "good works" in Eph. 2:10). The Lord says "My grace is sufficient for you" (2Cor. 12:9), and we answer "by the grace of God I am what I am" (1Cor 15:10), a child of God the Father (1Jn. 3:1).

Our Father really does have both the love and the power to completely transform men, in Christ and by the Holy Spirit, into beloved sons.

If you can understand and remember this, you can understand Catholic teaching about justification.

[And remember: Christ himself has merited for us our ability to merit; in Augustine's words: "You are glorified in the assembly of your Holy Ones, for in crowning their merits you are crowning your own gifts."]

[phatcatholic]

basically, we need good deeds (of which we make an account when face the lord) b/c they are proof of us allowing God to work w/in us. another nuance of "faith and works" that separates us from some protestants is the role of our free will in our salvation. some believe that God's grace is irresistable, that he forces us to make an act of faith and come to him. but, this denies free will. we must accept God's grace. it is never foisted upon us. when we make ourselves open to God's grace, he works w/in us for the good of us, motivating us to receive the sacraments. when we die, if we do not have good works, then we will not receive eternal salvation b/c the absense of these works will be proof of our resistance to God. no man can enter eternal beatitude who has lived a life of resistance to Him.

Edited January 14, 2005 by phatcatholic

[goldenchild17]

Thessalonian, he responded and said this...

"Let me see if I understand this. At baptism, we enter into a state of grace. This is what the biblical writers speak of when they reference being raised from spiritual death, transformed into the kingdom of light, washed, justified, etc. At this point, our past sins are forgiven and cleansed by the grace granted through baptism. Our future sins are also forgiven and cleansed by other sacraments (confession and Eucharist I'm assuming, though it's really irrelevant right now). Ultimately, when we die, the remaining sins are cleansed via purgatory.
Now, once we are in the state of grace, we must persevere in faith and good works to be saved in the end, using God's sacraments as means of His grace. If we fail in this, we are cast from the state of grace and end up in hell if we do not repent and, through another sacrament, are reinstated into the state of grace and persevere for the remainder of our lives. Of course, that faith and works we persevere in are granted by the grace of God, so as not to lend to boasting.



If I am understanding the essence of this doctrine, my problem is that it doesn't seem to be exegetically based. What I see, in both the case of extreme protestantism and Roman Catholicism, is an established doctrine that is supported by a series of prooftexts. When I read Paul, I don't see your above system. It isn't naturally there in the way he approaches things and writes. Yes, you could point to an occasional text that may seem to teach the salvific effect of baptism or confession or other Roman Catholic sacraments, but Paul doesn't seem to present salvation in the way your friend does, and neither does Paul's presentation seem consistent with modern evangelicalism's misunderstanding of sola fide.

I'll just leave it at that right now and see if I understood your beliefs correctly. If so, I'll go ahead and flesh out my objection with some comments on a couple long passages from a few Pauline epistles so you know what I mean.

God bless,
+Donny"

[cathqat]

[quote name='goldenchild17' date='Jan 16 2005, 11:14 AM']"Let me see if I understand this. At baptism, we enter into a state of grace."[/quote]

Yes, initial justification. According to the teaching of the Church, no one can act as a cause in his initial justification. This is one of the reasons we baptize infants: to show that no one can do anything to earn it. (An adult must be willing to be baptized, must have some natural faith in order to receive the benefit of the sacrament. "Repent, believe, and be baptized." But even this willingness and natural faith are a gift of God, and neither is an actual cause of the recipient's justification.) After baptism, the recipient is entirely pure and there is nothing objectionable in him. He lives [i]in Christ by the power of the Spirit[/i]. By the power of the Spirit, he is able to perform good works that God rewards.

[quote]"This is what the biblical writers speak of when they reference being raised from spiritual death, transformed into the kingdom of light, washed, justified, etc. At this point, our past sins are forgiven and cleansed by the grace granted through baptism."[/quote]

Yes. The grace of divine life in Christ.

[quote]"Our future sins are also forgiven and cleansed by other sacraments (confession and Eucharist I'm assuming, though it's really irrelevant right now)."[/quote]

If we commit mortal sins, we must confess them to be made pure and receive the divine life again. (Repent, believe, and confess.) A good confession and reconciliation is a gift of God, because only by his grace are we enabled to do this.

The Eucharist should not be received unless a person is already in a state of grace.

[quote]"Ultimately, when we die, the remaining sins are cleansed via purgatory."[/quote]

Purgatory cannot give divine life to someone who lacks it. It can, however, cleanse a person who is in Christ of venial faults and some consequences of sin.

[quote]Now, once we are in the state of grace, we must persevere in faith and good works to be saved in the end, using God's sacraments as means of His grace.... Of course, that faith and works we persevere in are granted by the grace of God, so as not to lend to boasting.[/quote]

The last sentence is absolutely essential. All of our supernatural faith and good works --even the ones God specially rewards-- are gifts of God himself, empowered and enabled by the Holy Spirit living within us.

[quote]"If I am understanding the essence of this doctrine, my problem is that it doesn't seem to be exegetically based."[/quote]

It may not appear so to someone raised in his tradition, but it definitely is.

This is when it would be very helpful for your friend to have a copy of [url="http://shop.catholic.com/cgi-local/SoftCart.exe/online-store/scstore/p-CA132.html?L+scstore+tqnj3278ffdc0ddc+1112735293"][i]Faith Alone: Is It Justifiable?[/i] by Scott Hahn[/url] (CDs). I'm not kidding, it is worth every dime of its cost. (And [i]The Spirit and Forms of Protestantism[/i] by Louis Bouyer: though it's not a commentary or book about biblical interpretation, it is very helpful for it.)

These resources are free:
[url="http://www.cuf.org/nonmemb/justification.pdf"]It Works for Me: The Church's Teaching on Justification[/url] by Catholics United for the Faith
[url="http://www.cin.org/users/james/files/righteou.htm"]Righteousness & Merit[/url] by Jimmy Akin (sadly, a few sentences are missing.)

I also recommend these:
[url="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0898709385"]Letter to the Romans (Ignatius Catholic Study Bible)[/url]
[url="http://www.saintjoe.com/p/prod_desc.pl?id=150"]Romanism in Romans[/url] by Scott Hahn
[url="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0818908025"]The Mystery of Christ in You: The Mystical Vision of Saint Paul[/url] by George A. Maloney
[url="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1888992182"]The Salvation Controversy[/url] by James Akin

[quote]"When I read Paul, I don't see your above system. It isn't naturally there in the way he approaches things and writes."[/quote]

It is [i]very clearly[/i] there when Paul is read carefully and in context. Life in Christ, empowered by the Holy Spirit, being conformed to Christ, divine sonship in Christ by the Spirit of adoption, etc. (I especially recommend [i]Faith Alone: Is It Justifiable[/i] and [i]The Mystery of Christ in You[/i] here.) Your friend needs to be willing to unlearn some of his preconceived notions.

[thessalonian]

In general it sounds like he has it pretty good and it is quite exegetically sound I believe. Prooftexts? Well I think Matt 27 is pretty clear. And I suspect proftexting from him. Tell him I want to see his fleshing out and to make sure he includes Romans 2:5-8 and Matt 25 in there. I simply don't see how he can get around these verses. I have other verses from Paul like Romans 14 as well. I am curious as to whether he believes in Paul Alone? Some do. I look forward to his response. Glad you were able to use my info.

Blessings

[thessalonian]

by the way, the verses he will come back with are not unexpected. He will likely quote Romans 10, Romans 8, some verses about having eternal life, the verse that says "they were never really a part of us" and a few other proof texts.

[thessalonian]

Let me address this more directly:

"The only problem I could feasibly have would be in how works perfect faith. Do they point to and prove faith to be genuine, distinguishing it from dead faith, or do they have some sort of justifying power in them that serves as some sort of merit credited to our account to save us?

Why does it have to be either or all the time. Most certainly works performed do show that the Christian has genuine faith. " you shall know them by their works" Jesus says. But how does this being true prove that they do not have some sort of merit credited to our account. Most certainly they do, for the Bibles speaks of reward all over. Once again from my previos post works in the protestant sense of "getting saved" do not save us. But from a preventative perspective in Catholicism they do, building our spiritual muscles. Further he may well bring up the verse about our works being as filthy rags. I think the ephesians verse I quoted before about God working in us answers that quite well as does the

Eph 3:20
[20] Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think,


Matt.13
[8] Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.
[23] As for what was sown on good soil, this is he who hears the word and understands it; he indeed bears fruit, and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty."


Now I simpy don't see what can be filthy about God working in us. Why can their not be merrit in these works? Why there can be no merit in these works HE DOES in us? They are products of the grace he earned for us on the cross. The only arguement we would have is do they prevent us from loosing the salvatoin that we have in us, his grace. We would say yes. He would say that you cannot loose that salvatoin. An untenable positoin form scirpture that requires God to be a bluffer. Romans 2:5-8 and Matt 25 among many others make it clear that works are required for entry in to heaven. Doing the will of the Father is not optoinal, whereby if you don't do them but simply have faith you will slide in anyway. Surely these works are evidence of true faith. But that does not mean they have other value for the believer. Doing good to others invigorates the heart. Doing good removes occassion to do evil. Is 1 also shows the distinction between works of the Law and Works of charity, which I am sure he will bring up.