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Does God really look at the act itself, rather than the heart behind it?

Of course God looks at the heart. I was assuming tha tthe hypothetical atheist helps a lady across the street out of a genuine love for her as a fellow human. If he (or a Christian, or anyone else) does it for some ulterior motive, then, of course, not.

That is how I truly see well developed Christians. That is, totally dependent on God for everything. How can it be that even the most devout amongst us still sins regularly? It's because we are still like that little girl compared to God. We NEED Him, not just sometimes, but at ALL times. This is one of my biggest disagreements with the Latin faith.

We are totally dependent on God for everything, but we also grow in holiness, just like the girl in your example grows both as a cook and spiritually. It is not true that we are never transformed by the faith, and it is demostrably not true that even the devout sin regularly. One of the reasons to venerate saints is to take courage of their example, because with them the sanctification has run a complete course.

FK: "Does God really look at the act itself, rather than the heart behind it?"

Of course God looks at the heart. I was assuming that the hypothetical atheist helps a lady across the street out of a genuine love for her as a fellow human. If he (or a Christian, or anyone else) does it for some ulterior motive, then, of course, not.

So would it be true in Catholicism that if an atheist helps the old lady because "of a genuine love for her as a fellow human" and a Christian helps the old lady because of his love for God, that those two acts would count the same in God's eyes in terms of what is good and pleasing to God?

It is not true that we are never transformed by the faith, and it is demonstrably not true that even the devout sin regularly.

Of course we are transformed by faith, that is the Reformed position. But, you say that even the devout don't sin regularly???? That is very surprising to me. It's funny because when I hear one person say that he only sins once in a while, and another person say that he sins all the time but by the grace of God he is forgiven, I know which one is devout. :)

One of the reasons to venerate saints is to take courage of their example, because with them the sanctification has run a complete course.

And Saints are created in Heaven by a vote of the Magisterium on earth? I mean, to me it is a huge presumption to declare the salvation status of another as a fact. The Bible actually specifically warns us NOT to do that, but the Church does it all the time.