A Coherency of Merit and Salvation

Bill Dunn wrote an article the other day called, ‘How Come You Catholics Try To Earn Your Way Into Heaven?' (go read it!). I rather enjoyed it but kept feeling like there was something that could be expanded on. A good friend of mine, Mark Gross OP, had previously asked me to do a piece on merit and here is my expansion on a small part of this subject.

The whole merit and salvation debate can get rather heated. Most Protestants, Evangelicals in particular, will argue that nothing but Christ’s death on the cross can merit salvation while some will point to a single act in time for each believer in which they were saved. They often accuse Catholics of trying to work their way to heaven. The biggest misunderstanding is that we, like them, believe in justification by grace alone. Grace, in regards to justification, is defined by the Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 1996, is “Grace is favor, the free and undeserved help that God gives us to respond to his call to become children of God, adoptive sons, partakers of the divine nature and of eternal life.” Let us presume grace and, for this article, faith since we have a mutual agreement there, though our definitions differ slightly.

We also believe that justification has been merited by Christ’s death on the cross (CCC 1992). However, that is not where merit stops, “Our merits are God’s gifts” through “filial adoption” and “Our merits are God's gifts” as the Catechism rightly points out in paragraph 2009.

Merit is only possible once we are in Christ, not before and only if we are in a state of grace. Once we are in Christ, we can be saved or condemned. This is quite apparent when in the context of a covenant. I doubt that most Protestants would deny that they have entered into a covenant. However, the predominant Protestant position is that our works cannot save us.

The argument looks like this:
Premise 1: The Bible teaches that faith alone is all we need for salvation.
Premise 2: One cannot merit salvation through works.
Conclusion: Therefore, one who believes in Jesus Christ is saved.

Again, like my previous article, we are going to take a look at Premise 2 and leave Premise 1 alone. This is not to say I agree with Premise 1 but that the intent of this article is to focus on Premise 2.

When looking at it from a covenantal stand point it is apparent from the Old Testament as all we have to do is look at Deuteronomy 28 to see the blessings and the curses of the covenant. Hebrews 10:26-31 gives us reason to believe that this still holds true even for the new covenant:

For if we sin deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful prospect of judgment, and a fury of fire which will consume the adversaries. A man who has violated the law of Moses dies without mercy at the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much worse punishment do you think will be deserved by the man who has spurned the Son of God, and profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and outraged the Spirit of grace? For we know him who said, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge his people.” It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

According to this passage, sin leads to a fearful prospect of judgement and an outraged Spirit of grace which surely doesn’t sound like salvation to me at all. Instead, it sounds like condemnation. Paul even talks about the possibility of himself deliberately sinning. Since, as discussed in my previous article, good works are not automatic, one must choose to do good in order to avoid sin. Wouldn’t the choice to do good result in doing a good work? So if sinning leads to a fearful prospect of judgement then doing good works would result in the opposite. In other words, our salvation would be much clearer since we actively chose to avoid evil and do good works.

To continue on in Hebrews from the above quoted section, Hebrews 10:36 talks about a need of endurance to do the will of God and receiving what is promised, which is salvation. It sure seems like the writer of Hebrews believed that doing the will of God would lead us to salvation through the merit of our actions through Christ.

James, Jude and Paul all believed that we could even save others and merit salvation for both us and them:

James 5:19-20, “My brethren, if any one among you wanders from the truth and some one brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from the error of his way will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.”

Jude 20-23, “But you, beloved, build yourselves up on your most holy faith; pray in the Holy Spirit; keep yourselves in the love of God; wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. And convince some, who doubt; save some, by snatching them out of the fire; on some have mercy with fear, hating even the garment spotted by the flesh.”

1 Corinthians 9:22-23, “To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.”

Even the Protestant’s great hope Paul refutes their claims that salvation cannot be merited. Naturally I would be expecting a Protestant to tell me that this runs counter to Ephesians 2:8, 9. I agree that, out of context, this does seem to refute the arguments made here but in context, post entry into the covenant, it does not. Somewhere along the line of conversation it is inevitable that you will be faced with a similar argument that John Hallman made to Bill Dunn’s article linked above:

Their new argument looks like this:
Premise 1: If the Bible teaches that faith and works are what we need for salvation.
Premise 2: One can merit salvation through works.
Conclusion: Therefore, works are necessary in order to get enough points to merit our way into heaven.

The major problem here is that the conclusion to the new argument does not necessarily follow the premises. It makes an assumption that we have to be on a points system which is not true. Merit would only require a points system if God OWED us salvation because of the works done. It would be the same, as some (maybe most) Protestants do claim, to say that God owes us salvation because we have faith. It does not work like that since it is through God’s grace that we are saved. I agree with John’s rejection of this conclusion but it is not the same conclusion that the Catholic Church draws from the above premises.

In order for God to owe us salvation, it would mean that we are on equal footing with God. That would be a mistake to believe. As CCC 2007 says, better than I could, “With regard to God, there is no strict right to any merit on the part of man. Between God and us there is an immeasurable inequality, for we have received everything from him, our Creator.” Catholics do not believe that God owes us salvation, but instead that He chose to freely associate with us. In order for the accumulation of enough points conclusion to be true here, God would have to owe us salvation after a certain amount of points, which is illogical considering the immeasurable inequality. Only through God’s association with man can we do the works that are required for salvation.

What then is required? Jesus tells us that we must deny ourselves, take up the cross daily and follow Him in Luke 9:23. Of course Jesus is in heaven and in the context of the surrounding verses, and Bible, it makes sense that we must do these things to have a chance to go to heaven. Jesus also tells us in Matthew 19:17 that “If you would enter life, keep the commandments.” Surely keeping the commandments would be a work.

God doesn’t owe us salvation but He did choose to freely associate with us through our faith and works and in His charity. We, as Catholics, do not earn salvation as we are often accused of believing, but live in hope that we have pleased God and in His mercy He will save us since “without faith it is impossible to please” God as Hebrews 11:6 makes clear.

The concluding argument is as follows:
Premise 1: The Bible teaches that faith and works necessary for salvation.
Premise 2: One can merit salvation through works and faith.
Premise 3: There is no right to any merit owed to man.
Conclusion: Therefore, we live in hope that God will save us through our faith and works in Christ.

Note: I used the Catechism to define the terms for the context in which the Church uses them not as proof, though they are, that the Bible teaches this way.

If you have a suggestion for an apologetic article please leave me a comment and I will do my best to get to it or a similar topic. I will also credit you with the question.