So often non-Catholics get caught up on the Catholic Church’s doctrine of salvation by faith and works. Most protestant denominations believe in salvation Sola Fide, or by faith alone. However, not only is this principle of salvation by faith alone not found in scripture anywhere, it is actually contradictory to scripture. Further, it would seem to me to also be very contradictory to reason as well.This has been debated on a scripture verse-by-verse basis plenty of times in the past. I don’t want to recount that entire argument here, but, instead, hopefully get the reader to look at the issue from a little different perspective. It’s easy to take a scripture passage out of context and make it seem to say something that it really doesn’t say. Scripture always and everywhere must be taken in its entire context – not just the context of the paragraph, or the chapter, or the book, or even the entirety of scripture – but in it’s place in salvation history as the Word of God, the entire deposit of Faith, and natural law. In other words, how does it fit into all that is Truth, whether divinely or naturally revealed?However, even just looking at scripture by itself as a whole, the written Word of God, the overwhelming message from God is very clear: Jesus redeemed every one of our sins, at no cost to us. There is nothing we can do to earn it. However, God doesn’t force it on us, but always respects our free will. We must accept this gift of salvation. In other words, it requires a response on our part. And what response does it ask of us? Catholics would say that this response is to be one of faith and works. Protestants would say that it requires a response of faith alone. What does scripture say? .......
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