Response to "It's Time Roman Catholics Asked Some Serious Questions - 7) Sola Fide

http://www.biblebc.com/Roman%20Catholicism/Serious_Questions.htm

7) WHY does the Roman Catholic church say salvation comes through good works, when the Bible says salvation is a free gift from God, by faith alone, apart from good works?

The Catholic Church does not teach that salvation comes through good works. Again, the Catholic faith is mischaracterized. Whether this is intentional or not is not something that we can readily discern, but it does seem to be a prevailing theme through most of these websites.

Notice the sleight of hand on the part of the author. The author says that the Bible says salvation is a free gift of God by faith alone, but then gives a Scripture passage (Eph 2:8-9) which says, "for by grace you have been saved through faith." Note that the Scripture passage doesn't actually say faith alone. The author is attempting to convince you that the bible is saying something it doesn't actually say.

Many would suggest that Eph 2:8-9 is greatly misunderstood. When the author is claiming that we have been saved by grace through faith (exactly what the Catholic Church teaches) and this faith is not of works, what the Scripture is telling us is that faith does not come from works. When the scripture here speaks of "it is not of works" it is not speaking about salvation but rather of faith.

If I were to say that I have a ball and a car which is blue; what is blue? Is it the ball or the car. It is the car since the descriptor (blue) is nearest the word car. Now it is true that the ball may be blue too, but the text doesn't tell us.

So what does this Scripture teach? Not only is Salvation a free gift of God, but the faith that is necessary for salvation is also a free gift of God. We can't "do works" to get this faith which is necessary for salvation. If it was, then we wouldn't need Christ to be saved.

If I could "do stuff" and that would give me the faith necessary for salvation, then I wouldn't need Christ in order to be saved. After all, all I would need is to do the stuff apart from God which grants me the faith I need to be saved.

This is very important for Christians as we should remain humble for even those who have great faith cannot boast of their works which gave them that faith for that very great faith that they have is itself a free gift of God.

Imagine a world with a bunch of Christians preaching, "You don't need Jesus to be saved, just do these things and you'll get a saving faith!"

Scripture never teaches that we are saved or justified by faith alone, but Scripture does teach in James 2:24 that we are justified by works and not by faith alone. Why do non-Catholics not believe the bible when it clearly teaches that we are not saved by faith alone?

And if faith alone is all that is necessary for salvation, and salvation is the greatest gift we could ever possibly receive than why does Paul teach that Love is greater than faith?