ARE CATHOLICS SAVED?
One common challenge to a person’s Catholic
faith comes in the form of a question, "Are you saved?" Many
people, both Catholic and Protestant, are unclear how to answer this
question. Since Catholics do not usually talk about themselves as
"being saved," some, even life-long Catholics, can come to
believe that Catholics are not saved. The truth is that one’s
salvation is more complicated than answering a "yes" or
"no" question.
You should know that there is a lot of history
behind this question. This is one of the issues over which the
Protestant reformers split from the Catholic Church. The basic
difference is over what, if anything, a person has to do to be
"saved", and whether after being "saved" a person is
able to do anything to lose his salvation.
As you will see below, some verses in the Bible
say there is nothing we can do to earn the grace of salvation, and there
are others that say we can refuse this grace, and so lose salvation.
Catholics believe that both of these positions are true. Some
Protestants think that because there is nothing we can do to deserve
salvation, there is nothing we can do to lose it. "Once Saved,
Always Saved." Not all Protestants, however, take this extreme
position.
Jesus Christ: Savior and Redeemer
At the core of the Catholic faith is the belief
that Jesus Christ died for our sins, and so redeemed the whole human
race. Catholics accept completely the teaching of the Apostle Paul:
Since all have sinned and fall short of the
glory of God, they are justified by his grace as a gift, through the
redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as an
expiation by his blood, to be received by faith (Rom 3:21-26).
"Justification has been merited for
us by the Passion of Christ who offered himself on the cross as a
living victim, holy and pleasing to God, and whose blood has become
the instrument of atonement for the sins of all men" (Catechism
of the Catholic Church [CCC], no. 1992).
Catholics believe that God offers every person
forgiveness for their sins through the sacrifice of his Son, Jesus
Christ. We further believe that no one can do anything to deserve this
forgiveness. Salvation is a completely free and gratuitous gift from
God.
The Necessity of Faith
Catholics, like all Christians, believe that
faith in Jesus Christ is necessary for salvation. As St. Paul tells us,
salvation comes to us through faith.
If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is
Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you
will be saved. For one believes with the heart and so is justified,
and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved. For scripture says,
"No one who believes in him will be put to shame" (Rom
10:9-11).
Believing in Jesus Christ and in the One who
sent him for our salvation is necessary for obtaining that salvation.
Since ‘without faith it is impossible to please [God]’ (Heb
11:6) and to attain to the fellowship of his sons, therefore without
faith no one has ever attained justification, nor will anyone obtain
eternal life ‘But he who endures to the end’ (Mt 10:22) (CCC
161).
Moreover, we cannot do anything to deserve or
earn having faith in Jesus. Faith itself is a grace, a free gift from
God. "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is
not from you; it is the gift of God; it is not from works, so no one may
boast (Eph 2:8).
A Christian is able to believe in Jesus as an
effect of this free gift of God. It is only God’s grace which allows
us to the accept this gift. "Since the initiative belongs to God in
the order of grace, no one can merit the initial grace of
forgiveness and justification, at the beginning of conversion" (CCC
2010).
God offers the grace to believe in Him and we
respond and cooperate with his action in our life. The difference
between Catholics and some other Christians is whether our response to
God’s grace happens all at once and forever, or whether we need to
continue to respond to grace over a lifetime.
Instead of being "saved" in one
moment by just one profession of faith, Catholics understand that you
have to persevere in a life of faith. A person may have a very powerful
and emotional conversion at one very particular moment in time. But the
salvation that comes through faith is not over and finished as soon as
one accepts Jesus Christ and is baptized. It is then that the life of
faith has only begun. And this is a life lived in obedience to God. As
Jesus Himself says, "Not everyone who says to me ‘Lord, Lord,’
shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father
who is in heaven" (Mt 7:21).
Salvation and Human Freedom
Both Catholics and non-Catholic Christians hold
that we must cooperate with God’s grace in order to believe in Christ
and receive the salvation won by Him on the cross and offered to us.
Catholics, however, believe that our cooperation has to last until the
end of our life in order to reach final and ultimate salvation in
heaven.
This is why St. Paul tells Christians to
"work out your salvation with fear and trembling. For God is the
one who, for his good purpose, works in you both to desire and to
work" (Phil 2:12-13). Elsewhere he says, "For through
the Spirit, by faith, we await the hope of righteousness. For in Christ
Jesus, [what] counts for anything [is] only faith working through
love" (Gal 5:5-6). So, if faith and a life lived in grace
are not sustained and nurtured, of if they are out-right rejected, the
salvation that comes through grace can be lost.
Faith is an entirely free gift that God makes
to man. We can lose this priceless gift, as St. Paul indicated to St.
Timothy: ‘Wage the good warfare, holding faith and a good
conscience. By rejecting conscience, certain persons have made
shipwreck of their faith’ (1 Tim 1: 18-19)" (CCC162).
Catholics believe, as Christians have from the
beginning, that one can fall away from faith, and so lose the salvation
they have been offered. As St. Paul warns, "See, then, the kindness
and severity of God: severity toward those who fell, but kindness to
you, provided you remain in his kindness, otherwise you too will be cut
off" (Rom 11:22-23; see also, Mt 26:21-46, Lk
8:13, 1 Tim 4:1-2, Heb 10:26-27). He did not even consider
his own salvation completely assured and beyond any possibility of being
lost (see 1 Cor 9:27 and 10:12).
As Catholics, we believe that if we are
faithful in our service, God will be faithful to his promises to save
those who, through faith, belong to his Son. We have some assurance of
salvation, but this assurance is not completely guaranteed since we
always remain free to reject God’s offer of grace.
Good Works Done in Faith
So, while faith in Jesus Christ is necessary
for salvation, Catholics believe that it must also be lived out through
good works, as Scripture attests. "So also faith of itself, if it
does not have works, is dead. . . . See how a person is justified by
works and not by faith alone. . . . For just as a body without a spirit
is dead, so also faith without works is dead" (Jas 2:17, 24,
26).
When done in faith and for the love of God,
these works really are good, and so pleasing to God. These works will
therefore be rewarded by God. As St. Paul says, God "will repay
everyone according to his works: eternal life to those who seek glory,
honor, and immortality through perseverance in good works" (Rom
2:6-7; see also Gal 6:8-9).
It is not that God merely forgives our sins and
forgets that we are depraved and corrupted by sin; instead, through
uniting ourselves with Christ, and by his power working in us, our
sinfulness is healed and we are restored to God’s favor. That is, we
are sanctified, made holy. We become more holy as we unite ourselves
more and more closely to Jesus: Christ living in us (Gal 2:20).
It is, therefore, not easy for a Catholic to
answer the question, "Are you saved?" There are really three
tenses of answers to this question for Catholics: I have been
redeemed from my sins through the blood Jesus Christ shed on the
cross. I am being saved by cooperating in faith with the grace
God offers me to do his will. I will be saved and happy forever
in God’s presence in heaven if I persevere in the life of grace, and
die in that state.