Justification by Love in Scripture and Catholic Dogma
When one
considers the course of history, the event with the greatest impact is clearly
the coming of Jesus Christ. However, second only to this would appear to
be the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century. The changes
that this period caused in the world were far reaching, encompassing almost all
areas of human thought and life. Many direct results of the Protestant
Reformation are still coming about through the ripples of history even
today. Indeed, this makes perfect sense to any person of faith. All the world exists because of His act of creation, and
everything that exists operates according to the blueprint with which He made
it. Given this, it is obvious that any change in the relationship mankind
has with God will have a dramatic impact on the relationship mankind has with
himself.
As has
already been alluded to, while we can recognize the
Reformation to be the cause of so many changes in the world, the Reformation
was itself a change in man’s understanding of his relationship to God.
The real causes of this change in understanding are many, and are the matter
for another discussion altogether, but it will suffice, and indeed be
requisite, for our purposes to look to two primary principles lying behind it: Sola
Scriptura, and Sola Fide. Sola Scriptura is the
overarching term for what is now a variety of beliefs all of which concern
themselves in at least some way with the idea that all truths about God are to
be derived from the Holy Scriptures alone, apart from any Tradition. This
was called the formal principal of the Reformation, because it gives form to
the rest of the objections raised by the Protestants against the Catholic
Church. An overview of this concept can be found here. Similarly, Sola
Fide is the doctrine which holds that man is justified – that is, made
right with God - by faith in Christ alone, apart from any works. This was
given the title of the material principle of the Reformation, because it is
what the Reformation was made out of, practically speaking. It is with
this idea that we are now concerned.
This point
is a critical one indeed, as it pertains directly to the eternal destiny of all
the souls of the world. Christianity has the notion of salvation as its
very core. It is the only religion in the world, to my knowledge, based
upon the principle of the forgiveness of sins. The two destinations of
Heaven and Hell, in either of which each and every soul will spend all of
eternity, really lie at Christianity’s core. The entire reason for one
being a Christian, at least in a very real and practical way, is to escape the
eternal suffering of Hell and reach the eternal happiness of Heaven.
Thus, how one actually is justified is of the greatest importance; if one
misses this, he misses the entire point of Christianity.
Unfortunately,
there are a great many teachings on this matter in Christianity today. Up
until the Reformation, the Catholic Church, in Her
councils and Traditions, was recognized as the source of all true
teaching. Even those in the East, who were separated from the Church, did
so almost entirely for matters of obedience, rather than any substantial
doctrinal matters. Today, the Eastern churches share virtually all
beliefs with the Catholic Church, albeit using sometimes very different
terminology. The point to this is simply that after the Reformation, new
Christian groups began to spring up - slowly at first, and then more and more
rapidly – teaching any number of different and conflicting doctrines. The
central idea of justification was not immune to this phenomenon.
As a
result, not only are their various views on the matter, but the ensuing debate
over these views has left many with even very erroneous ideas about what a given
group actually teaches. Matters of Christian doctrine are of the utmost
importance, and so believers naturally strive for truth. Christ said that He
Himself is the truth after all, and thus out of true love for Him,
people, seeking to avoid the slightest hint of error, tend to in any discussion
misunderstand opposing viewpoints. Particularly, it is common for those seeking
Truth Himself to argue themselves into a
misunderstanding. When one group disagrees with another over some matter,
the fear of making the slightest error in understanding easily leads to an
emphasis on the points disagreed over, which can often distort the true meaning
of the opposing view. Even those defending their own view can
easily grow to misunderstand it in the same way. Because the Catholic
Church has been questioned more than any other Christian group, it is not then
surprising that countless people misunderstand what She
actually teaches, including Catholics.
This is
especially true of the question of justification. The conversation
between Protestants and Catholics over this so central a matter of the faith
has grown to be recognized as the debate between the adherents to the doctrine
of justification by faith alone and the adherents of the doctrine of
justification by faith and works. This terminology has been even further
emphasized because the Scriptural verse in which the Catholic Church finds Her
primary defense against the Protestant doctrine of Sola Fide happens to
mention works: “You see then, that a man is justified by works and not by faith
alone” (Jam 2:24). The real argument however, is between the concept of
justification by faith alone and the concept of justification by faith and love,
not works. With that being said, it is the purpose of this article to
present the Catholic Church’s true teaching on the matter of justification,
drawing from the Councils and teaching documents of the Church, and presenting
Scripture’s teaching on the matter systematically alongside.
In the
beginning, man was created in justice. Mankind had communion with God,
and no animosity existed between them. The Scriptures teach that the
state of justice, which justification restores to man, consists in knowing
God. In John 17:3, Jesus defines eternal life itself as knowing God: “And
this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ
whom you have sent.” John also indicates this in his first epistle, where
he uses the terminology of ‘knowing God’ to explain being in a state of justice
before God (for example, see 1 John 2:3-4). When Jesus describes the
condemnation of the unjust souls in Matthew 25, He does so on
the basis that they were not known by God. In Genesis, we see that Adam
and Even did know God. God placed them in the garden, where they walked
with Him. They were not afraid of Him, and they believed and trusted
Him. They had a communion with Him. For this reason, the Catechism
of the Catholic Church explains that, “The first man was not only created good,
but was also established in friendship with his Creator…” (#373).
Adam and
Eve were also created without the need to die, a need that only came through
the sin of Adam, as the apostle Paul teaches in Romans: “sin came into the
world through one man, and death through sin” (5:12). It was through this
first sin that man lost his friendship with God, and that death became a
necessity for all men. The Council of Trent - which was called to respond to the
Protestant Reformation and which is the most authoritative document of the Church’s
on the matters of justification - teaches that with Adam’s sin, he “drew upon
himself the wrath and indignation of God and consequently death with which God
had threatened him…” (Session 5, #1). The Church
also teaches that this new state of being affected not Adam alone, but all of
his descendants (Trent, Session 5, #2). The Scriptures convey this point
in Romans, in which Paul writes, “one trespass led to
condemnation for all men” (5:18), and “by the one man's disobedience the many
were made sinners” (5:19).
Adam and
Eve, as their punishment, were cast out of the garden in which God dwelt, and
therefore lost friendship and fellowship with God. In the chapters of
Genesis following the fall, Adam and Eve were still aware of God’s existence,
but they were still not in a proper relationship with Him. They believed
in Him, but they did not have a relationship with Him. They no longer
knew Him, but merely knew of Him. In Genesis 5:24, when Enoch is
taken up to Heaven, it is described as Enoch walking with God, as Adam and Eve
had in the garden. Abraham, the great Old Testament saint whom both Paul
and James use as an example of justification, is described as being a “friend
of God” (2 Chronicles 20:7, Isaiah 41:8, James 2:23). The Book of Exodus
explains that, “the LORD used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks
to his friend.” Adam and Even knew of God, but Enoch and Abraham
and Moses knew God; they were in God’s justice, which consists of
knowing God. This is a critical point which will be returned to later, so
please make a particular effort to keep it in mind.
After this first sin, man is unable to reconcile himself to
God. The Council of Trent teaches that all men are “unable to liberate
themselves and to rise from that state” of being unjust before God (Session 6,
Chapter 1). Christ is the only path to a new relationship with God, as
the Scriptures teach: “his Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the
builders, which has become the cornerstone. And there is salvation in no
one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we
must be saved" (Acts 4:12). This teaching is so abundant in Church
documents so as not to require a reference. Justification is this
reconciliation with God which man by himself cannot achieve. The Council
of Trent defines justification as “the transition from the state in which one
is born a child of the first Adam, to the state of grace and adoption as
children of God (see Romans 8:15) through the second Adam, Jesus Christ our Saviour” (Session 6, Chapter 4).
Another key point on which all agree is that man is
justified by Grace alone. The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains
what Grace is:
Grace is favor, the
free and undeserved help that God Gives us to respond to his call to
become children of God (John 1:12-18, 17:3), adoptive sons (Romans 8:14-17),
partakers of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:3-4) and of eternal life.
(#1996)
Grace alone saves men, because Grace is a free gift
of God without which no man can be saved. The Council of Trent teaches
that Grace is the only means by which any person is saved. It is a
passage worth quoting at length:
The council moreover
declares that in adults the beginning of justification must be attributed to
God’s prevenient grace through Jesus Christ, that is,
to his call addressed to them without any previous merits of theirs.
This, those who through their sins were turned away from God, awakened and
assisted by his grace, are disposed to turn to their own justification by
freely assenting to and cooperating with that grace. In this way, God
touches the heart of the human being with the illumination of the Holy Spirit,
but one is not inactive while receiving the inspiration, since one can reject
it; and yet, without God’s grace, one cannot by one’s own free will take one
step towards justice in God’s sight (Session 6, Chapter 5).
Thus it is seen that only by Grace may a man be
justified. The teaching does emphasize man’s free will, because man must
accept God’s grace. The Scriptures teach this, such as in Acts, wherein
Stephen insists that the people “always resist the Holy Spirit” (7:51), or in
Matthew, where Jesus says He has long desired to gather the people of Israel but they
were “unwilling” (23:37).
Nevertheless, the teaching that man must cooperate with
Grace does not detract from the fact that by Grace alone may one be justified,
as the Council goes on to insist that “without God’s grace, one cannot by one’s
own free will take one step towards justice in God’s sight.” It further
establishes this in Session 6, wherein the first Canon, which is considered to
be of the level of infallible dogma by the Catholic Church, declares the
absolute need for Grace in the strongest possible terms:
If anyone says that,
without divine grace through Jesus Christ, one can be justified by one’s own
works, whether they be done by one’s own natural
powers or through he teaching of the Law, let him be anathema.
What’s more, Grace is far more than a mere help or
assistance of some kind. The Catholic Church teaches that it is Grace
alone which saves us. Canon 2 condemns the idea that “divine grace is
given through Jesus Christ only in order that one may more easily live justly and
merit eternal life…”
In fact, the Catholic Church goes so far as to teach that
man cannot even believe in God without Grace. The third Canon of
Session 6 declares,
If anyone says that
without the prevenient inspiration of the Holy Spirit
and without his help one can believe, hope and love or be repentant, as is
required, so that the grace of justification be bestowed on one, let him be
anathema.
This is the same teaching as the apostle Paul offers in his
epistle to the Ephesians. It is chapter 2 verses 8 and 9, a passage that
Protestants often cite against the Catholic Church: “For by grace you have been
saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not
a result of works, so that no one may boast.” Even a man’s faith, the
Church declares along with Paul, is a Grace of God, rather than something man
has done himself. Nevertheless, man must cooperate with this Grace, and
must not resist or reject it, as the Council and Scriptures teach, some of
which teachings have been cited above.
Up until
this point, there is a large degree of - though imperfect - agreement between
Catholics and Protestants. The differences are not important enough to
the present discussion to elaborate on here. Suffice it to say that, up
until this point, there is a general agreement on the need for salvation for
all men, and on the inability of man to reconcile himself with God. All
agree that Jesus Christ came, God in the flesh, to die for man’s sins so that
men may be reconciled to God through Him. He is a man who knew God better
than any other, because He Himself was God, and so He is the mediator between
God and man (1 Timothy 2:5). All agree that man
is justified by grace alone. All agree that man is justified by faith, as
the Scriptures make it so plain that this is the case.
The disagreement arises over whether
man is justified through Christ the Mediator by faith alone or not. The
primary difficulty can be summed up by referring to two verses.
Protestants cite Romans 3:28, in which the apostle Paul states that “we hold
that man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law.” Catholics
respond with James, who insists “you see that man is justified by works, and
not by faith alone.” The basic resolution of this problem has been
written on extensively, and is readily available elsewhere. While it is a
worthwhile, and indeed important, study to undertake, this article seeks to approach
the issue from a perhaps more important, and certainly less frequently
approached, standpoint
The
problems is that the traditional disagreement poses the doctrines of salvation
by ‘faith alone’ and ‘faith plus works’ against one another, as if ‘faith plus works’
is the doctrine of the Catholic Church, while Her official teaching does not
contain this emphasis on works. In fact, the most official Catholic
statement concerning James 2:24 is one which teaches something Protestants are
inclined to agree with, at least in part. Chapter 10 of Trent’s 6th Session teaches on the
increase in justification that man may receive once He has already been
justified:
When ‘faith is active along with works’ (James
2:22), [the justified] increase in the very justice they have received through
the grace of Christ, and are further justified, as it is written… ‘You see that
one is justified by works and not by faith alone’ (James 2:24).
Most
Protestants would agree with this insofar as it means that faith and good works
done by those already justified earn greater Heavenly rewards. However,
the Church does not teach that this verse means that works themselves justify a
person apart from faith, or apart from the Grace of God, as is evident from the
passages of Trent cited above. Many Catholics, because of the arguments
over works had with Protestants, unfortunately believe that this is what the
Church does teach.
The true
teaching of the Church is at the same time much more complicated and much more
beautiful. It begins with the idea that justification is not only
external, but internal as well; Protestants most often disagree. To the
Protestant, justification is merely a decision whereby God declares man not
guilty in view of the offering of Jesus Christ. Man is still unjust in fact,
but God accepts him into Heaven anyways, because of the sacrifice of
Christ. Martin Luther explained this idea by use of an analogy. He
compared sinful man to a pile of dung. By faith in Christ, the Savior
would cover this dung with snow. Beneath the snow, the man was really
still dung, but God would look at the man as if he were really snow. This
idea is known as imputation of righteousness because it holds that Christ’s
righteousness is merely imputed – assigned - to the justified. At last we
come to this point, which is really where the entire disagreement lies.
The
Catholic Church’s teaching is that righteousness is infused – really put into –
the justified. It holds that man is not only forgiven in justification by
some assignment of Christ’s righteousness to them, but he is also made
righteous inside. It is the difference between covering the dung with
snow and actually turning the dung into snow. This teaching can be
found in the Council of Trent:
…justification itself… is not only the remission
of sins but also the sanctification and renewal of the interior person through
the voluntary reception of grace and of the gifts, whereby from unjust the
person becomes just, and from enemy a friend, that one may be “an heir in hope
of eternal life” (Titus 3:7). (Session 6, Chapter 7)
Immediately, the statement that justification makes men the
friends of God jumps out, calling to mind the earlier point that justice is in
some way equivalent to knowing God.
Of course, it is true that nobody is
good except God alone, as Jesus teaches in Matthew 19:17, which is why the
means by which a person is made righteous is by the infusion of the Holy Spirit
and the virtues which He instills in men. Trent speaks to this in Chapter
7 of Session 6, teaching that in justification “’God’s love is poured through
the Holy Spirit into the hearts’(Romans 5:5) of those who are being justified
and inheres in them.” The quotation that Trent makes here is one of the strongest
teachings in the Scriptures on this matter, and it will be returned to
later. However, there are many other Scriptural presentations on this
point. God prophesied this through Ezekiel:
I will give you a new heart,
and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of
stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And
I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be
careful to obey my rules” (36:26-27).
Paul teaches in Romans that the justified are actually “made
righteous,” (5:19), not just declared to be so. In Ephesians he writes
that the justified “put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in
true righteousness and holiness” (4:24). In Colossians 3:10, he writes
that the justified “have put on the new self, which is
being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.” It is
important to notice all of the references to the image and likeness of God;
this helps to indicate that man is not merely being forgiven, but is being
restored to what he was before the fall, when he was created in the image and
likeness of God (see Genesis 1:26). At this time, man was truly free of
sin and was internally righteous; he was “very good” according to God (see
Genesis 1:31).
Paul gives a tremendous amount of teaching on this
matter. In his letter to the Ephesians, he provides a rather concise
presentation of it:
For this reason I bow my
knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is
named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be
strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ
may dwell in your hearts through faith--that you, being rooted and grounded in
love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth
and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses
knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God (3:14-19).
Here we see that the Holy Spirit works in the “inner being”
of the justified, causing Christ to dwell in his hearts. This causes him,
through faith, to be rooted in love, which enables him to know Christ and His
Love which is put within him, which is, as Jesus taught, the very nature of
eternal salvation (John 17:3). It is for this reason that he provides a
test for believers in his second letter to the Corinthians to see if they are
within the faith: “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith.
Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ
is in you?--unless indeed you fail to meet the test!” (13:5)
Those who are in the faith have Jesus Christ dwelling within them, and
only those within the faith are justified.
Paul goes on to provide even more extensive teaching on the
inner change of the justified in his second letter to the Corinthians. In
chapter 5 verse 17, the apostle teaches that “if anyone is in Christ, he is a
new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” This
shows beyond all doubt that man’s sins are not merely covered up, but he is
literally changed into something new. In chapter 4, he teaches that that
“our inner nature is being renewed day by day” (verse 16). This is a
restatement of a more in depth point which Paul makes in 3:18: “And we all,
with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into
the same image from one degree of glory to another.”
This is the very same point that James makes when he says
that “man is justified by works and not by faith alone” (2:24). As we do
works day by day in Christ, our justification increases and we are more and
more transformed into the image of Christ. Our share in the virtues infused by
the Holy Spirit increases, and we grow to deeper faith, greater hope, and more
complete love. Protestants may have difficulty with this point, because
most often they do not view justification as something which can increase; to
Protestants, a man is either justified or he is not. The Church teaches
otherwise, and the multiple passages cited here provide good evidence for Her understanding. Indeed, if this understanding is
not correct, then James really does contradict Paul in teaching that a man is
justified by works. Justification is understood by the Church to be a
true inner change, as these passages indicate. If the link between all of
these things is not yet completely clear, it will be after examining the true
center of the entire process of justification, and indeed the center of
everything: love.
The Scriptures are very, very clear that man cannot be
justified without love. John, in whose gospel Jesus equated eternal life
with knowing God, writes in his first epistle that “whoever loves has been born
of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because
God is love” (4:7-8). In 1 John 3:14, he teaches that “Whoever does not
love abides in death.” St. Paul,
along with the Council of Trent, identifies justification with being made
children of God, and John teaches that it is the love of God which makes us His
children: “See what kind of love the Father has given to us,
that we should be called children of God; and so we are” (3:1).
Recall two of Trent’s
teachings on justification that were mentioned above. First,
justification is the transition to being adopted as a child of God (Session 6,
Chapter 4). Second, justification occurs when the love of God is infused
into the soul (Session 6, chapter 7). In this verse, John explains that
the love that God gives us makes us His children, encompassing these two
teachings beautifully. John further speaks against loving the world,
warning that if one is to do this “the love of the Father is not in him” (2:15)
This warning makes sense because the state of being justified
consists of having the love of God in a person. The examples from this
epistle could be multiplied.
St. Paul also speaks extensively of
love. As has already been cited, he teaches that God’s love has been
poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit (Romans 5:5). In 1 Corinthians
2:9, he says that the rewards God has in Heaven are “for those who love
Him.” He writes to Timothy that women will be saved “if they continue in
faith and love and holiness” (1 Timothy 2:15). Perhaps the strongest
statement in the entire Scriptures concerning love comes from Paul in 1
Corinthians 13:2, where he writes, “if I have all
faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.” This,
beyond all doubt, proves that man cannot be saved by faith without love.
The chapter ends with Paul teaching that “faith, hope, and love abide, but the
greatest of these is love.” The Council of Trent teaches on all of this,
in the 7th chapter of Session 6:
For faith without hope and
charity neither unites a person perfectly with Christ, nor makes one a living
member of his body. Therefore, it is rightly said that “faith by itself,
if it has no works, is dead” (James 2:17) and unprofitable, and that “in Christ
Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is of
any avail, but faith working through love” (Galatians 5:6).
This last passage cited by the Council shows what Paul means
throughout the rest of Scripture when he speaks of faith: a faith that works
through love.
In Galatians 6:15, he makes a very similar statement which
ties everything together: “For neither circumcision is of any avail nor uncircumcison, but a new creation.” The new creation
that the apostle Paul speaks of over and over in Scripture is a new creation of
faith working through love. Faith working through love is the means by
which men are returned to the image and likeness of God, the righteous state
that they were in before the fall. It is the means by which man is
brought to know God once more, and thus to inherit eternal life. It is
the means by which man is brought to become children of God. It is the
means by which man is justified. Justification, then, is not a matter of
faith and works, but of faith and love.
When Paul speaks of faith, he refers to a faith that is open
to acts of love - one that loves God and neighbor. Faith without works is
dead because faith without love is dead, and real love is something that
works. When Paul says that man is justified by faith apart from the works
of the law, he means a faith that is open to love, not a mere intellectual
belief. Paul makes this clear in his famous teaching on what love is in 1
Corinthians 13, which he gives for the purpose of illustrating what this love
is that he is nothing without:
Love is patient and kind;
love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on
its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at
wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all
things, hopes all things, endures all things (1
Corinthians 13:4-7).
All of these things that love does are
works. Indeed, there are more works that love might do, such as works of
charity, but love is at the very least consistent of these things. The
love Paul speaks of, the love that he teaches must accompany faith for justification, is a love that works. The Church does
not teach that this is human love, but, as the Council of Trent and the
Scriptures teach, is the love of God poured out into man’s heart. It is
itself Grace, but it is a Grace which must be accepted, and without which man
cannot be justified.
Adam and Eve had faith, but not the kind of
faith Paul speaks of. They had the faith of intellectual belief.
They believed in God, but they did not know Him, because they did not have a
faith open to Love.
This intellectual belief is the same as James teaches concerning the demons,
writing, “even the demons believe – and shudder!” (2:19) As John
teaches in his first epistle, God is love (4:8), so to have love is to
know God. They had belief in the same way as the demons which James
teaches about when he writes, “even the demons believe
– and tremble” (2:19). The demons believe God, and they believe in God,
but they do not love God, so they do not know God, so they are not
justified. This was true also, at least for some time, of Adam and Eve
after the fall. Abraham believed God, and he loved God, so he was
justified. The same is true of Moses. They were the friends of
God.
This is also, consequently, why the Catholic
Church is so concerned with the commandments and with sin. John writes
that when we know God, we keep His commandments (1 John 2:3-4). Jesus
said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15). St. Paul also stressed
the importance of keeping the commandments, for this same reason. Just as he wrote that in Christ, “For
in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision
counts for anything, but only faith working through love,” (Galatians 5:6), he
also writes that “neither circumcision counts for anything nor uncircumcision, but keeping the commandments of God” (1
Corinthians 7:19). Thus we see that when Paul speaks of faith, he means a
faith that loves, and thus a faith that is obedient, not an intellectual belief
alone, and so he says that Christ seeks “the obedience of faith” (Romans 1:6,
16:26).
Paul’s teaching here both clears
up an interesting confusion that seems to exist in his writings, and enlightens
us as to the connection works have to love that causes James to write so highly
of them. On the one hand, the apostle says that Christians are not bound
to a law on several occasions (see Romans 7:4, Galatians 2:19, and
others). On the other hand, he also writes that the law is not cancelled
but upheld. For example, Romans 3:31 he writes, “do we then
overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the
law.” The harmony between these two verses lies
in his teachings that by loving, we keep the law. “Owe no one
anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has
fulfilled the law” (Romans 13:8), he commands, and again “For the whole law is
fulfilled in one word: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Galatians
5:14). Here he quotes Jesus, who gave as the two commandments that we
must follow to love God, and to love our neighbor (Matthew 22:36-40), teaching
that these two commandments encompass all that the Law and prophets had taught
before. Paul explains the same thing in Romans 13:9-10: “The
commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery, You
shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,’ and any other
commandment, are summed up in this word: ‘You shall love your neighbor as
yourself.’ Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling
of the law.” James agrees with Paul, writing, “If you really fulfill the
royal law according to the Scripture, ‘You shall love your neighbor as
yourself,’ you are doing well” (2:8). If love is in keeping the commandments,
this is why James writes that “faith by itself, if it does not have works, is
dead” (2:17). One who loves will express that Love in works, and so a
faith without works is a faith without Love, and a faith without Love is
dead.
Thus, the Church teaches that Love is required for
salvation, along with faith, and that love of God requires the keeping of the
commandments. The Council of Trent presents this very concisely in the 7th
chapter of the sixth Session of Trent:
For faith without hope and
charity [Love] neither unites a person perfectly with Christ, nor makes one a
living member of his body. Therefore, it is rightly said that “faith
without works is dead” [James 2:17] and unprofitable, and that “in Christ Jesus
neither circumcision not uncircumcision is of any
avail, but faith working through love” [Galatians 5:6, 6:15]. This is the
faith which, in keeping with apostolic tradition, the catechumens ask of the
Church before reception of baptism when they ask for “the faith that gives eternal
life,” a life which faith without hope and charity cannot give. Hence,
they immediately here Christ’s words: “If you would enter into life, keep the
commandments” [Matthew 19:17].
However, it
is important to stress the Church’s teaching that this Love, and in fact even
the faith that man has in Christ, is no doing of his, but of Grace alone:
…nothing that precedes justification, neither
faith nor works, merits the grace of justification; for ‘if it is by grace, it is
no longer on the basis of works; otherwise (as the same apostle says) grace
would no longer be grace [Romans 11:6] (Council of Trent, Session 6, Chapter
8).
It is only
by the Holy Spirit pouring the Love of God into man’s heart (see Romans 5:5)
that man gains it, and it is only as a free gift that it is given, based on the
merits of Jesus Christ on the cross. As Trent teaches here, Faith too is a gift of
Grace, a virtue which man cannot have without Grace. Jesus teaches this
when He says, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him”
(John 6:44). In 2 Corinthians 4:13, the apostle Paul writes of the
“Spirit of faith,” as it is the Spirit which gives faith to us. As has
been presented above, the same apostle teaches that faith is a gift, rather
than the doing of man, in Ephesians 2:8-9.
Thus, the
Church teaches that faith alone is insufficient for salvation. The
interesting thing is that many Protestants today agree with the general
understanding of the Catholic Church, even if not in its entirety. One
phrase common in Protestant circles is that faith alone saves, but not a faith
that is alone. The statement seems to fall short logically, because it
faith alone by definition excludes any other factor with which it would not be
alone. It also falls short Biblically, because both Paul and James
indicate that faith, in the sense of intellectual belief, is not sufficient
without love. This is why a far more accurate Protestant concept of the
matter is one which holds that faith, if it is an intellectual belief, is
insufficient, whereas faith, if it is a living faith that works, is.
Perhaps the most accurate understanding in Protestantism is the need to accept
Jesus Christ into one’s heart, as the Church teaches, and the Scriptures
provided demonstrate, that salvation requires the Love of God to be poured into
the heart by the Holy Spirit, which can only happen when one willingly
consents. There are still differences, many subtle, between the two
understandings, and it is very important that these are not ignored, as Paul
taught that any erroneous gospel is accursed (see Galatians 1:8). It is
fitting, then, to end with the words of God, and the words of Peter, the prince
of the apostles, as he encourages us on the journey of faith:
For this very reason, make
every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge,
and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and
steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and
brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are
increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge
of our Lord Jesus Christ. For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted
that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins.
Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to make your calling and election
sure, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall. For in this
way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom
of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (2 Peter 1:5-11, emphasis mine).
God Bless,
Shane
Coombs, 2007
