You seem like an honest fellow (or lady sorry don’t know which) so I would like to comment on this issue of “earning one’s salvation”.
First, I don’t know if you were saying that that is what the Catholic Church teaches, but if you were, then please let me try to explain how this is not the case.
The Church does teach that good works are required for salvation (unless one repents at the end of a sinful life of course like the Good Thief but that’s another subject really). But assuming one comes to have faith in Christ while one still has life left on this earth to lead, then yes, good works are required for his salvation. The Church also teaches though that our good works are not what save us, by themselves or more precisely She teaches that we can’t earn our way into Heaven by doing good works.
So how can this be, one may ask, isn’t it a contradiction to say on one hand Catholics don’t earn their own salvation by doing good works but also to say good works are required for salvation? Which is it, are they required for salvation or are they not?
They are required for salvation because, as the Church strictly teaches, by doing good works and not bad works (sinful works) one cooperates with the saving grace of God. She teaches, in other words, that the good works we do are only possible for us to do because God helps us do them by His Grace.
Let me conclude by putting this concept a third way, which may be of help to you and/or others: when we sin, that’s by definition a “bad work”. Sin, or bad works separate us from God, all because of the Original Sin (and the stain it left on all souls called “Concupiscence”, which makes us more prone to sin than do good things). The opposite of sin is “good work”, or work that does not separate us from God and indeed does the opposite, they draw us closer to God. Examples of such would be prayer (“pray unceasingly”) or visiting the sick and caring for the poor (“when you have done these things you have done them to Me”). These things draw us closer to God.
Now, we are human beings living in a temporal existence. We only have so much time in the day to do things. We all find time to sin (“all have fallen short”), so the problem is that we spend time sinning, drawing us away from God, and not doing good things that draw us closer.
This is where the concept of “good works are required for salvation” comes in as part of Catholic teaching. It’s not that the good works in of themselves save us, it’s that when we cooperate with God by accepting His Grace first, that we are then able to do good works instead of bad works. And thus, since we have only so much time during the day, if we spend more (ideally all but whoever does that since again we all sin) time daily doing good works instead of bad, then we slowly over time become transformed into what God intends which is for us to be an image of Him, of Christ on Earth. Not that we become literally God of course, but that the good works limit and eventually, ideally, eliminate the time we can spend sinning. (again done with His help, because without His help we’d, at most, only rarely want to do them)
This is how they are “required” for salvation yet still aren’t somehow work done in expectation of a reward. Put quite simply they are done to save us from our fallen tendency to sin. Of course that’s not always successful, for anyone from the Pope to any Saint in history to anyone. We all eventually fall. But that’s what Confession is for, to set us right again so we try the next time and the next and the next. Always trying, with God’s help, to avoid sin, but not just avoid it by sitting around doing nothing because that would be impossible. It’s always impossible to just stop sinning. You have to find something else to do with your time or else your fallen tendency is to sin. “Idle hands are the devil’s playground” is not just a cutesy euphemism.
Hopefully this helps. I’m sure this will engender a response from all the usual anti-Catholic (doctrine) folks on FR (and there are some of those kinds of “nutters” here too, to use a word another FReeper used upthread.). I don’t care about that though and won’t be responding to any of their vile. Hopefully though this has helped you because you seem like an honestly ignorant person (and I don’t use that term “ignorant” pejoratively.). It’s a spiritual work of mercy to inform the ignorant after all.
Salvation is strictly by grace through faith.
Works only enter the equation AFTER one is saved and one can still be saved without doing good works.
The Catholic church's position that you describe still requires works for salvation, meaning you are trusting something besides the finished work of Christ on the cross.
Tell me, if someone does not have the *right* works, is he still saved?
And just what works are required and who decides what they are and if they are enough?
Luke 18:9-14 He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’
But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”
This shows clearly the great error of Romanism, to which you apparently subscribe. Here is the correct formulation:
God's free gift of salvation does not require works of any kind but that of Christ alone, performed on the Cross. The Father confers both salvation and justification at the instant the sinner places his/her entire continual irreversible trust in Jesus alone, with nothing more added, ever.
To think otherwise is an insult to the perfection and graciousness of His Finished Suffering on the Cross for our crimes against God, which as depraved humans we are not and can never be fit to pay.
At the point of total commitment to Jesus as Master, the human being ceases to be the sole possession of the Devil Satan, becomes the permanent never-changing possession of The Son, forever, having obtained the gift of everlasting life as a newly-born spiritual being, with the destination that one's soul and spirit will instantly exist in God's Heaven when it parts from the physical non-functioning material body.
At that same moment when salvation and freedom from sin-guilt is conferred through faith, the newly-born person is enrolled as a servant of The Christ; that is, made a saint, accountable for his/her thoughts and actions, as well as given the responsibility of managing as much of the Father's earthly estate as has been apportioned to him.
This process is called "sanctification," and is progressive in nature. The person's ultimate destination is not affected whatsoever by his/her work product, but his/her final rewards are dependent on the amount and quality of the works performed in this life.
Part of this sanctification involves progressively growing in spiritual maturity through discipleship, starting as a newborn babe (βρέφος, 1 Pet. 2:2); into infancy (νήπιος, Heb. 5:13) totally faithful but as yet unskilled in the scriptural truths; advancing into trainability as a spiritual child with accountability in learning to overcome both one's own lusts as well as devilish influences (παιδια, 1 Jn. 2:13, Jas. 1:14); from thence into status as a true warrior for Christ in early spiritual adulthood (νεανίσκος, 1 Jn. 2:13,14) no longer vulnerable to Satanic devices; and finally in this world, reaching the spiritual age of spiritual wisdom and discernment, having the mind of Christ (πατήρ, 1 Jn 2:13,14; τέλειος = of full age, discerning, having the mind of Christ, Heb. 5:14, 1 Cor. 2:14-16, Phil. 2:5-8) yet not having reached the state of infallibility (Philippians 3:12).
The eternal finality, of course, is perfected sanctity, not possible until death of the earthly body and its corruptibility (Jas. 1:3-4).
Once more, as long as the Romish opinion is that works are required for salvation, as you have cited at the outset, your religion is false, and the doors of your church house, no matter how beautified, lead one to Hell and eternal death. You deny that the necessity of good works to obtain eternal life is not "working one's way to Heaven," but that is exactly what the proposed Romish transaction is. And this concept is totally unscriptural and unchristian.
Luther had it right, but he merely recovered and reinstated the Gospel principle well-known and advertised by the Apostles that irreversible, total faith alone in Jesus The Christ of the Bible alone, is sufficient and totally adequate, and is all that is required or desired by the Father to admit one to His Heaven, guilt-free.
"Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth* on me hath everlasting life" (John 6:47 AV).
Plus nothing.
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Note: * = present tense, active voice, participle mode; means ". . . is persistently and without ceasing continually believing . . ."
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It’s a spiritual work of mercy to inform the ignorant after all.
That's true, but you cannot claim to be learned or helpful when your doctrine is so twisted that it points in the wrong direction. The Apostles Simon Peter and and Paul have warned you:
"Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace,
without spot, and blameless.
And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as
our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you;
As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things
hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned* and unstable wrest,
as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction" (2 Peter 3:14-16 AV; with my emphasis marking).
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Note:
* = ἀμαθής = undiscipled
It seems clear that your doctrine does not come from having been discipled by a Bible-believing teacher.