Full Question
Are we justified by faith or works or both?
Answer
It depends on what stage of justification we’re talking about. If the initial stage of justification is in question, then our good works have no part to play. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church states:
Since the initiative belongs to God in the order of grace, no one can merit the initial grace of forgiveness and justification, at the beginning of conversion (2010; emphasis in original).
However, if the question refers to the ongoing (Rom. 3:23-24, 5:8-9) and final stages of justification (Rom. 6:16, Gal. 2:16), then works do play a part. This is how St. Paul understands the placement of works:
For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God—not because of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them (Eph. 2:8-10).
Notice that Paul excludes works only with regard to that initial stage of salvation/justification. After we’re initially justified, then we must carry out the good works that God wills for us.
St. James teaches the same with regard to the corporal works of mercy:
You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone (James 2:24).
We also know that works pertain to our final justification, since Jesus teaches in Matthew 25:31-46 that the determining factor for those who go to heaven or hell are those who did and did not do the corporal works of mercy.
https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/is-salvation-an-act-or-a-process
We are justified by saving faith, the kind of faith that produces works, as opposed to mere intellectual assent, that does acknowledge the truth but is nothing more than recognition of it.
Works do NOT contribute in the least to salvation and adding them to intellectual assent does not make it saving faith and save anyone.
Matthew 25:31-46 has to be understood in relation to believers and non-believers.
In Scripture, believers are referred to as sheep; non-believers as goats.
The sheep [the righteous] are on His right as they are His.....the goats on His left as they are not.
Will believers produce fruit? Yes. The NT is clear that is part of the changed life of the believer.
The goats though had nothing to do with Christ. They never believed in Him.
Now the question to be asked is this:
If a Hindu were to visit someone in prison, or give a cup of water....is that person a sheep or a goat?
“Since the initiative belongs to God in the order of grace, no one can merit the initial grace of forgiveness and justification, at the beginning of conversion (2010; emphasis in original).
However, if the question refers to the ongoing (Rom. 3:23-24, 5:8-9) and final stages of justification (Rom. 6:16, Gal. 2:16), then works do play a part. This is how St. Paul understands the placement of works:”
But, again, are those works done out of faith, or not? Again, faith and works are being made separate things according to the belief you describe.
Paul wrote that it was Christ within Him that did the works. On the other hand, the Bible says our righteousness is like filthy rags. Whose righteousness does those works?
As I’ve said, and others have said, we believe that genuine faith produces works. You bring up James 2 again, but both Testaments, which we study to show ourselves approved, as Paul wrote to Timothy, teach and say as such thousands upon thousands of times.
Then something else to consider. Jesus paid our sin debt to God because we couldn’t. Now, then, how much of it did He pay? I believe He paid it all, in full, and we could never pay any of it. To say, though, that “faith and works” save us, is to say He paid some of our debt, and we pay the rest. So while Protestants say He paid the whole debt, Catholic belief doesn’t. But what then would you estimate the split to be? 50/50? Probably not, but maybe. I think Catholics would struggle to come up with that answer because the truth is simply Jesus paid it all, as the hymn says, and all to Him we owe.
Which, of course, restores us to our proper places as creatures before a Creator, whom we entirely, not just mostly, depend upon for everything, including His goodness. We have none of our own until He gives us some. (cont’d)
Now, I don’t say this to be mean, but I do see, and I know that’s what Protestants object to, that in the Catholic belief on our salvation, some of that Satanic rebellion that caused both the fall of Satan and the fall of man is still present. Like, that God is mostly the origin of good, but somehow we are also little gods, and some tiny amount of goodness comes from us apart from Him. The whole claim about merit in our “cooperation” sounds like that, but I think what God has revealed to us in many ways thoroughly makes that impossible.
Again, we can’t equate our “currency” to pay our sin debt with Christ’s because His currency was His innocence. The whole reason why we need an innocent sacrifice on our behalf is because we can’t make one ourselves. So I believe it’s wrong to think we have any of that currency in and of ourselves.
And then recalling the parable that Jesus told about forgiveness concerning a master whose servant owed him a great amount, think of what we might owe God due to all of our sinfulness and our sins in thought, word and deed. I believe it’s like we owe an infinite debt, but let’s just say, to use actual numbers to make it easier to consider, that we owe God in the neighborhood of a trillion trillion dollars.
So let’s say that according to “faith and works,” we believe that Jesus’ work for us paid some of that trillion trillion, and we pay the rest, and we would also need to believe that our own works, done by our own resources apart from faith, can be a currency for paying on that debt. Assuming all that, and assuming that even when we’ve been born again in Christ, we still commit sins, just not in the same way, could we still ever get out of the red and into the black in our relatioship with God?
Still more could be said, but I have to believe that the idea of “merit” through our “cooperation” is a Satanic stronghold, a preserving of a little of that rebellion against God in claiming a small amount of independence from Him and independent good on our part is somehow there.
We may do what involves pain in this life for us in order to follow God’s will, but we do that with the knowledge that it’s best for us, in our self-interest, eternally. It doesn’t make sense to say that it’s selfless to avoid overeating, to abstain from taking drugs and getting drunk, or to abstain from robbing banks. It also doesn’t make sense, if someone’s drowning, to say that they were rescued by both their rescuer and themselves because they allowed themselves to be rescued. You can go on YouTube and see all sorts of videos of wild animals that ordinarily flee from humans allowing themselves to be rescued by humans when they’re in dire situations and know it. Their desperation drives them to take human help. We’re even in a more desperate situation since the wrath of God abides on us eternally without Christ.
Question: What "stage" of justification matters WRT our eternity? If it's only at the "initial" stage that our works do not justify but by faith only, then explain how our works suddenly DO matter when we die? Aren't you actually promoting the Pelagian (or semi-Pelagian) heresy that we must merit our salvation through our works? It really is a matter of faith OR works - it can't be both. The very concept of grace demands that the gift is underserved, unmerited, unearned. Catholicism's accursed doctrine of justification has been the error whereby they have perverted the Gospel.