That’s not at all the case.
The matter is justification.
We either need (a) to be absolutely perfect, or (b) God’s mercy, so that despite us doing as He hates, sinning, He yet accepts us even though we’re not perfect.
None of us can live up to A. But through Jesus, we can be saved by B, God’s mercy.
This is really a question of our guilt. We’ve all murdered in our hearts. We’re all murderers in God’s eyes. When someone has committed a murder or other serious crime, what good works offset that? Or can the murderer say that for many thousands of days in his life he never committed a serious crime, and he only did once for a brief moment, so the murder doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things?
When someone claims to be saved by faith and by works, they are claiming that they are partly saved by Jesus (whom they need because of their “bad self,”) and partly saved by themselves (their “good self,” who, as the atheists say, doesn’t need God because it’s already good.)
To be partly “saved by works” is to, like Satan, claim a partial independence and non-need for God. It’s also to claim that both God and self are sources for good. This flies in the face of what Paul wrote, though, that we have nothing to boast about because there isn’t anything good in ourselves we haven’t received from God.
And something else very wrong about the saved by works thinking is that it turns works into a loss to self and would place God in debt to man, as Paul writes. The lie is created that the worker is a “good person” who deserves better than the tough row God gives him to hoe, but sacrifices for God anyway because of how wonderful he is, and would be entitled to feel self-pity or pride, and certainly has more than earned his way to Heaven by all he’s put up with. Again, it all comes back to that we’ve all sinned against God. We’re all sinners and no one could stand justified before God without receiving God’s merciful forgiveness. Who doesn’t need that? Who can claim utter righteousness and that God is entitled to give them eternal life because they haven’t sinned?
Once you understand that you can’t get around the need for God’s mercy, then it’s a lot easier to see how works fit in (and they do - Bible-believing Christians speak of the importance and necessity of works all the time, just not as Catholics do). And that our turning to Christ to begin with is in self-interest (to save our skins, as the Prodigal Son recognized that he’d be better off returning to his father because he’d be taken care of, not because he was initially sorry).
Very well said.