I really wish Catholics could understand the scriptures...
The good works were the result of salvation...not the cause..
And we wish you Protestants would stop misrepresenting what we say and stop talking only about the selective verses of Scripture you prefer.
There is an organic connection between faith, works and salvation. The illustration of the sheep and the goats bears out what Paul says (Rom. 2:6-7) about eternal life being rendering in accordance with works and what Jesus teaches (John 15) about abiding in His love through obedience to His commandment to love one another.In my prior post I explicated this in detail.
And I've laid out in detail why "a man is justified by works and not by faith alone" is the natural, straightforward reading, while the "James is talking about how others saw Abraham" is a ridiculous spin given that there were no other men around to witness what Abraham did. Yet you cling to poor, forced interpretations.
Your retort that "Catholics don't understand" is devoid of substance. We're the ones here doing the close examination of Scripture (and all of them).
“A prince, while he is a little child, is presumably as willful and as ignorant as other little children. Sometimes he may be very obedient and teachable and affectionate, and then he is happy and approved. At other times he may be unruly, self-willed, and disobedient, and then he is unhappy, and perhaps is chastised—but he is just as much a prince on the one day as on the other. It may be hoped that, as time goes on, he will learn to bring himself into willing and affectionate subjection to every right way, and then he will be more princely, but not more really a prince. He was born a prince” (C.I.Scofield, Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth).