I'm with CB on this. This is amazing. The closest thing to a Catholic stating the Protestant position as I've ever seen on FR. Although I think if we poke at it a bit we will still see some differences. But this really is remarkable.
:) I'm both pleased to have pleased you and sad to be likely to disappoint you, successively.
As my lovely (and faithful and brilliant, if I may say so) wife is fond of saying: "It's not 'faith OR works'; and it's not even 'faith AND works'; rather, it's 'faith THAT works'!"
We are not justified/saved by faith alone (the heresy of Luther). We are not justified/saved by works alone (the heresy of Pelagius). We require both of them, working together; and anyone who seeks to emphasize one at the expense of the other will distort the true Faith.
As C.S. Lewis said, in "Mere Christianity" (forgive the long quote... but it's good!):
Christians have often disputed as to whether what leads the Christian home is good actions, or Faith in Christ. I have no right really to speak on such a difficult question, but it does seem to me like asking which blade in a pair of scissors is most necessary. A serious moral effort is the only thing that will bring you to the point where you throw up the sponge. Faith in Christ is the only thing to save you from despair at that point: and out of that Faith in Him good actions must inevitably come.
There are two parodies of the truth which different sets of Christians have, in the past, been accused by other Christians of believing: perhaps they may make the truth clearer. One set were accused of saying, "Good actions are all that matters. The best good action is charity. The best kind of charity is giving money. The best thing to give money to is the Church. So hand us over £10,000 and we will see you through."
The answer to that nonsense, of course, would be that good actions done for that motive, done with the idea that Heaven can be bought, would not be good actions at all, but only commercial speculations. The other set were accused of saying, "Faith is all that matters. Consequently, if you have faith, it doesn't matter what you do. Sin away, my lad, and have a good time and Christ will see that it makes no difference in the end." The answer to that nonsense is that, if what you call your "faith" in Christ does not involve taking the slightest notice of what He says, then it is not Faith at all—not faith or trust in Him, but only intellectual acceptance of some theory about Him.
The Bible really seems to clinch the matter when it puts the two things together into one amazing sentence. The first half is, "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling"—which looks as if everything depended on us and our good actions: but the second half goes on, "For it is God who worketh in you"— which looks as if God did everything and we nothing. I am afraid that is the sort of thing we come up against in Christianity. I am puzzled, but I am not surprised.
You see, we are now trying to understand, and to separate into water-tight compartments, what exactly God does and what man does when God and man are working together. And, of course, we begin by thinking it is like two men working together, so that you could say, "He did this bit and I did that." But this way of thinking breaks down. God is not like that. He is inside you as well as outside: even if we could understand who did what, I do not think human language could properly express it.
This is the reason why the Bible can say that "a man is justified by faith apart from works of law" (Romans 3:28), and can at the same time say that "a man is justified by works and not by faith alone" (James 2:24). Those who see a contradiction in these two statements simply don't know logic: since neither says that its particular "part" is sufficient ALONE for justification (even Romans 3:28 only says that it's apart from works OF THE LAW--i.e. the non-Decalogue Mitzvot, and not apart from ALL WORKS WHATSOEVER [which many Protestants/Evangelicals on this board seem to believe]), there is no conflict at all. It's a bit like saying that "water is made of hydrogen, and not of oxygen alone", and then saying that "water is made of oxygen, and not of hydrogen alone"; both statements are true (since neither said that water is made of water ALONE or hydrogen ALONE). It's only when someone or other tries to take one and say that it--and it ALONE--constitutes the matter, that such people fall into serious error.
Anyone who takes the time (and care) to study Catholic doctrines will see that the Church requires BOTH (faith and works), under non-extraordinary circumstances, for salvation... and that trying to neglect one or the other will lead to trouble (if not outright heresy).
...the Church requires BOTH...
Micah 6:8
He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.
John 6:28-29
Then they asked him, "What must we do to do the works God requires?
Jesus answered, "The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent."
1 John 3:21-23
Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleases him.
And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us.
James 1:27
Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.