This blog will be the third of four blogs
about why I am a Catholic. Over the past two years I have been studying and
searching for the truth in Christianity. I have been praying for Jesus to guide
and direct my paths and lead me to the truth and a deep relationship with him.
I was born and raised a Catholic but decided that I was not going to just be
Catholic because that's how I was brought up, I need to find the truth and own
it for myself. I started reading the writings of Early Christians, the reformers,
Protestants apologetics, Catholic apologetics, and visiting/attending different
Christian Church's. With that being said I think my search is over, I think the
Catholic faith is the true Church founded by Jesus himself, and below is why.
The great writer and
Christian apologetic GK Chesterton (convert to the Catholic faith) once said
"The difficulty of explaining
"why I am a Catholic" is that there are ten thousand reasons all
amounting to one reason: that Catholicism is true." I will not cover
here all the beliefs and doctrine of the Catholic faith, that would take
forever. But I will tackle four of the biggest issues, The Eucharist (is it
symbolic or is it Christ's actual flesh and blood), the protestant belief of
Sola-Scriptura (that the bible alone is our sole authority), protestant belief
in Sola-fide (Faith Alone) and the Catholic Church's teaching on Mary. After
studying and researching what the Catholic Church truly teaches I have come to
see that Archbishop Fulton Sheen was completely correct when he said "There are not one hundred people in
the United States who hate the Catholic Church, but there are millions who hate
what they wrongly perceive the Catholic Church to be." I saw a blog titled “Almost not Catholic” and
laughed to myself because I came very close to buying into some of the
anti-catholic beliefs and propaganda and was myself “almost not Catholic.” Even
more so, after reading in depth about why the Church teaches what it teaches I
have realized that Sheen was also speaking truly when he said "The Catholic Church is like a lion in
a cage. You don't need to defend it, you simply need to open the door." With
all this being said I would like to be very clear hear, I am not trying to
attack or be negative towards any Christian denominations, I am simply stating
why it is that I have come to believe in the Catholic faith. I have a great
respect for my brothers and sisters in Christ that are not a part of the
Catholic Church. I just think there are a lot of misconstrued views of
Catholicism and many people don't understand why we believe what we
believe. "There
are not one hundred people in the United States who hate The Catholic Church,
but there are millions who hate what they wrongly perceive the Catholic Church
to be." I will use
scripture, the writings of the first Christians, and quotes from converts to
the Catholic faith to make my case. It is my prayer that this will at least
allow those who are not Catholic to come to a better understanding and respect
for the Catholic faith. This being the third blog is about Sola-Fide, the
Protestant belief that we are saved by faith alone.
Let me just get
this out of the way. Catholics do not believe we are saved by works! Nowhere in
the Catechism does it say a man is saved by his works. Many
people mistakenly believe that Catholics teach a works based salvation. THIS IS
NOT TRUE.
Catechism:
1996 Our
justification comes from the grace of God. Grace is favor, the free and
undeserved help that God gives us to respond to his call to become children of
God, adoptive sons, partakers of the divine nature and of eternal life.46
2002 God's free initiative demands man's free response, for God has created man in his image by conferring on him, along with freedom, the power to know him and love him. The soul only enters freely into the communion of love. God immediately touches and directly moves the heart of man. He has placed in man a longing for truth and goodness that only he can satisfy. The promises of "eternal life" respond, beyond all hope, to this desire.
2007 With
regard to God, there is no strict right to any merit on the part of man.
Between God and us there is an immeasurable inequality, for we have received
everything from him, our Creator.
2008 The
merit of man before God in the Christian life arises from the fact that God
has freely chosen to associate man with the work of his grace. The fatherly
action of God is first on his own initiative, and then follows man's free
acting through his collaboration, so that the merit of good works is to be
attributed in the first place to the grace of God, then to the faithful. Man's
merit, moreover, itself is due to God, for his good actions proceed in Christ,
from the predispositions and assistance given by the Holy Spirit.
All clear? We do not teach we are saved by works.
However, we are also not saved by "faith alone" as Martin Luther mean't it. Let me explain.
If we take a
concordance and look up every occurrence of the word "faith," (246 times in the New Testament, NASV) we come
up with the undeniable fact that; the only time
the
phrase "faith alone" is used in the entire Bible is when it is
condemned (James 2:24).
"You see that a
man is justified by works and not by faith alone."
That fact is pretty
clear. This is why Martin Luther during the reformation threatened to rip out
the book of James from the Bible because he considered it "an epistle of
straw." He also went as far as to
add the word alone after faith in his German translation of the Bible in the
book of Romans.
St. Paul also says in
Corinthians "and if I have a faith that can
move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing." (1 Corinthians 13: 2)
"Who will repay everyone according to his works; Eternal life to those who seek glory, honor, and immotality through perseverance in good works, But wrath and fury to those who selfishly disobey the truth and obey wickedness " - Romans 2:6-8
And there
is this passage in Matthew Chapter 25:
31"When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels
with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. 32All the nations
will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another
as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33He will put the
sheep on his right and the goats on his left. 34"Then the King will
say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your
inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35For
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, 36I needed
clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison
and you came to visit me.' 37"Then the righteous
will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and
give you something to drink? 38When did we see you a stranger and invite
you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39When did we see you sick or
in prison and go to visit you?' 40"The
King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least
of these brothers of mine, you did for me.' 41"Then he will say to
those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire
prepared for the devil and his angels. 42For I was hungry and you gave
me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43I
was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not
clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.' 44"They also will
answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing
clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?' 45"He will reply, 'I
tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you
did not do for me.' 46"Then they will go away to eternal
punishment, but the righteous to eternal life."
"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter
the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in
heaven” Matthew 7: 21
So what
do Catholics teach?
We teach that we are saved by faith, by grace, through Christ alone. I
had a great conversation with a Catholic friend of mine one day and we were
laughing because we are both pretty sure that if most people actually read what
the Catholic Church teaches on salvation and faith and works they would say
"hey that's what I believe too!?!"
The
one time Calvinist and Yale graduate who converted to Catholicism had this to
say about the confusion of the reformation and salvation after studying the issue: (he says it so well)
“One crucial issue remained to be resolved: Justification by
Faith, the central bone of contention of the Reformation. Luther was obviously
right here: the doctrine is clearly taught in Romans and Galatians. If the
Catholic Church teaches "another gospel" of salvation by works, then
it teaches fundamental heresy. I found here however another case of
misunderstanding. I read in Aquinas' Summa on grace, and the decrees of the
Council of Trent, and found them just as strong on grace as Luther or Calvin. I
was overjoyed to find that the Catholic Church had read the Bible too! At
Heaven's gate our entrance ticket, according to Scripture and Church dogma, is
not our good works or our sincerity, but our faith, which glues us to Jesus. He
saves us; we do not save ourselves. But I find, incredibly, that 9 out of 10
Catholics do not know this, the absolutely central, core, essential dogma of Christianity.
Protestants are right: most Catholics do in fact believe a whole other
religion. Well over 90% of students I have polled who have had 12 years of
catechism classes, even Catholic high schools, say they expect to go to Heaven
because they tried, or did their best, or had compassionate feelings to
everyone, or were sincere. They hardly ever mention Jesus. Asked why they hope
to be saved, they mention almost anything except the Savior. Who taught them?
Who wrote their textbooks? These teachers have stolen from our precious
children the most valuable thing in the world, the "pearl of great
price;" their faith. Jesus had some rather terrifying warnings
about such things something about millstones.
Catholicism taught that we are saved by faith, by grace, by
Christ, however few Catholics understood this. And Protestants taught that true
faith necessarily produces good works. The
fundamental issue of the Reformation is an argument between the roots and the
blossoms on the same flower.
But though Luther did not neglect good works, he connected them
to faith by only a thin and unreliable thread: human gratitude. In response to
God's great gift of salvation, which we accept by faith, we do good works out
of gratitude, he taught. But gratitude is only a feeling, and dependent on the
self. The Catholic connection between faith and works is a far stronger and
more reliable one. I found it in C. S. Lewis' Mere Christianity, the best
introduction to Christianity I have ever read. It is the ontological reality of
we, supernatural life, sanctifying grace, God's own life in the soul, which is
received by faith and then itself produces good works. God comes in one end and
out the other: the very same thing that comes in by faith (the life of God)
goes out as works, through our free cooperation.
I was also dissatisfied with Luther's teaching that
justification was a legal fiction on God's part rather than a real event in us;
that God looks on the Christian in Christ, sees only Christ's righteousness,
and legally counts or imputes Christ's righteousness as ours. I thought it had
to be as Catholicism says, that God actually imparts Christ to us, in baptism
and through faith (these two are usually together in the New Testament)." ( Kreeft)
So, basically this is the way Catholics view salvation and the role works: (this is also the quote from Mere Christianity that Peter Kreeft was talking about above)
“[To have Faith in
Christ] means, of course, trying to do all that He says. There would be no
sense in saying you trusted a person if you would not take his advice. Thus if
you have really handed yourself over to Him, it must follow that you are trying
to obey Him. But trying in a new way, a less worried way. Not doing these
things in order to be saved, but because He has begun to save you already. Not
hoping to get to Heaven as a reward for your actions, but inevitably wanting to
act in a certain way because a first faint gleam of Heaven is already inside
you.” - C.S. Lewis (Mere Christianity)
We are not working to earn heaven; we are working because the first
gleam of heaven is already inside us. We do not believe that salvation is a legal contract between man and God but that it is an ongoing event in ones soul and that we actually receive Christ and his grace transforms us here in this life and allows us to grow towards Him.
"I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live,
but Christ lives in me" - Galatains 2:20
"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new." - 2 Corinithians 5:17
I think the big difference is that as
a Catholic we believe that faith is not just a synonym for belief. As
James states in his letter "You believe that there is one God. Good! Even
the demons believe that—and shudder" (James 2:19). Think about it like
this; "For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything, but
faith
working
through love."(Galatians 5:6)
Further Reading:
This link does an excellent job of explaining the Catholic teaching on Justification and Grace.
http://www.catholic.com/tracts/grace-what-it-is-and-what-it-does
This link does an excellent job of explaining the Catholic teaching on Justification and Grace.
http://www.catholic.com/tracts/grace-what-it-is-and-what-it-does
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