No Works, No Love, No God

One of the most common complaints Catholics hear about their faith from Protestants is the false accusation that Catholics believe in “works-based salvation.” The claim goes that Catholics believe that faith in Jesus Christ is insufficient to get one to Heaven, but if one does lots of good works that will be enough to get them there. This is derived from Martin Luther’s liberal translation of Romans 3:28, where he inserts the word “alone” after the word “faith.” Protestants defend the translation because they feel it is self-explanatory, and flows with the other themes Paul teaches in his letters.

Except...Paul is speaking in reference to works of the law, not good works in general. St. Paul, who in addition to being on fire for Christ was one of the foremost early theologians of the Church in defining doctrine and our understanding of the practice of our faith, was an incredibly intelligent person. All of the intellectual ability he possessed as one of the Pharisees, a group of people widely known for their brains and their ability to interpret the law (Christ Himself admits as much during His public ministry), he brings to bear in his conversion to Christianity. This is important, because for Paul in addition to knowledge of God logic would have played a fundamental role in his defining of doctrine for the early Christians.

Why is this important?

Love Without Accompanying Works is Abusive

Marriage is frequently held up as an example in the Scriptures of what authentic love ought to be, specifically in the marriage of Christ the Bridegroom to His Bride the Church. The love is defined as intimate and spousal, to show how deeply God desires to draw all of us to Himself. Jesus utilizes that language consistently throughout His public ministry, and after the Ascension the apostles also utilize that language in their epistles to the various groups of the faithful.

Utilizing that particular example, if we know that our relationship with God is equivalent to a marital relationship, we know how to define what an authentic relationship looks like versus an inauthentic one. No one would logically look at a marriage where a husband comes home from work and proceeds to beat his wife, day after day, and think that that is an example of true love. If the husband were to say, even as he were beating his wife, “I love you,” even as every blow of the belt or however he chooses to administer the physical abuse continues, no one in their right mind would view that scenario playing out and believe him.

In the same way, if a wife waits until her husband comes home from work and verbally abuses him, pouring out scorn and rage and misery on him every hour that he is home, until they go to bed at night, and until he leaves for work the following day, no one would look at that marriage and define it as a loving relationship. Even if the wife tells the husband, after spending all evening wearing him out with yelling and verbal and emotional abuse, as they lay down to go to sleep at night that she loves him, no objective observer would view that scenario and believe that that love is authentic.

We can draw parallels from the two above examples to our relationship with Christ. Some might argue that that is an extreme parallel, but have we not been taught from our youth to see ourselves in the jeering crowds on Good Friday? Have we not been taught to imagine that our sins gave strength to the whip that lashed across Our Lord’s back, again and again, at the command of Pilate? Have we not been taught that our voices were mixed into the howls of “Crucify him” emanating from the crowd when Pilate brought Jesus out before them? Have we not been taught that each of our sins, in an individual and personal way, contributed to the horrifying things Our Lord had to undergo to set us free from the chains of sin and death?

Given Our Lord’s sacrifice for us, given all of the love He poured into His willingness to give up His life for us and to plead for forgiveness even as He hung dying upon the Cross, and our willingness to consistently plunge back into the world of sin again and again, are we any better than the abusive spouse?

Love Without Action is a Dead Thing

If every sin we commit is an abuse against the goodness of God, and there are multiple definitions by theologians not just within the Catholic Church but also within the Protestant denominations that would willingly define sin as just that, can our statement “I love You” to Our Lord rest upon the strength of our words alone? No, by definition, it cannot!

Some might attempt to make an argument of “Oh, well, even though I am a sinful human being, Jesus knows what’s in my heart, and therefore even despite all of my sins I’m going to be okay in the end.” While understandable, in the end this statement is absolute lunacy. It 1) rejects the absolute fullness of the mercy and grace that Jesus desires to extend to every one of us, because it suggests somehow that we’re above that in our particular state of life; and 2) it completely disregards how fundamentally central to our faith lives Our Lord views the actions we undertake while supposedly bearing the name of “Christian.”

Consider, for example, the parable Jesus gives in Matthew 25. He declares that the judgment at the end of days will involve the division of peoples into two groups. He honors the first by applauding them for showing fidelity to Him. How did they demonstrate that fidelity? By good works! They tended to the most vulnerable members of society, choosing to view in those people reflections of Our Suffering Lord and treating them accordingly. Because they showed mercy in the end, mercy that initially our sinful selves were incapable of showing from a lack of His grace, a lack of grace that caused us to be one with the hordes of angry people screaming for His execution on Good Friday, they were treated as true servants of the Kingdom. And they do all of it thoughtlessly, as shown in their response when Our Lord will invite them into the Kingdom: “When did we ever see You…?” Never does it occur to them to do such things because Jesus was there; the burning to enter into those acts of charity was in their hearts, and they acted. Those who are accursed and sent into the eternal fire were given the same opportunity, and instead chose to count the cost and withhold the generosity of spirit to which Our Lord calls each of us.

Or consider the parable Jesus gives to the Pharisees after His triumphant entry into Jerusalem, also in the Gospel of Matthew. In Matthew 21 Jesus asks the Pharisees to consider the example of the two sons, both asked by their father to go and work in his vineyard. One says that he will not, but then changes his mind and goes later; the other says he will, but then proceeds to not go. Jesus asks the Pharisees which would be rewarded, and the Pharisees correctly answer that the first son, because he was the one to do his father’s will. Here again, we see action being offered by Jesus as a defining principle for acceptance of the love and mercy God desires to pour out upon each of our hearts.

Jesus admonishes His listeners in Mark 7 that which comes from the heart makes one impure, not that which they consume through their mouths or take into themselves. It is true that bad influences can color one’s perceptions of the world around them and draw them into evil, but ultimately how those things are taken into the heart and meditated on is what determines whether or not they lead to good or evil actions in a person. In the same way, if love is to be properly reciprocated, it must be received, dwell in the heart, and then poured outward. Actions are the reflection of how well or poorly love has taken hold in the heart.

If We Have No Works, We Have Not Love, And We Have Not God

In 1 John, the apostle tells us that anyone who does not have love cannot know or possess God. To know God is to abide in Him. And how does one abide in Him? John tells us, “All who obey His commandments abide in Him, and He abides in them.” (1 John 3:24, NRSVCE)

So if we know God is the source of all love, and we know that to abide in God means to obey the commandments He has given us, and without doing this we do not know God or love in the truest sense...that means actions have to matter. A pure testimonial of faith is insufficient, a pure protest that one’s heart is aligned to belong to the Lord is inadequate, if we are not actively striving to align our lives and our wills with that of God. If we are called into a relationship of love with God, who is Love Personified, and the very basis of love is determined by the actions undertaken by the one who professes to love, then by extension that means that our actions ultimately have to mean something in determining the validity of the relationship.

Consider the demons. Time and again, when Jesus encounters the demonically possessed in the Scriptures, the demon(s) possessing an individual will cry out, “What have you to do with us? We know Who You Are: the Holy One of God!” The demons cry out and identify Jesus as God, the Source of all life; their statement is true, and yet they remain damned. Why? Because actions matter. They rebelled against the authority of God, and as created beings they are compelled to acknowledge the Creator when they are in His Presence. That acknowledgment does not win them eternal salvation. What is the difference between us and the demons? We still have an opportunity to enter Heaven, to turn back to the Lord when we have sinned. The fallen angels made their choice before time began, and are forever damned because of it.

We must have actions if our faith is to be the relationship of love that God desires it to be. Otherwise, the words of James are prophetic: “Faith without works is dead.”