An Introduction to What Catholics and Evangelicals Believe about Salvation

Many of our readers will know that one of the main issues that divided Catholics from Protestants at the time of the Reformation was the doctrine of salvation. How are we saved? How do we make it to heaven? Can we know for sure if we are among the saved?

A simplistic answer would be that for Evangelical Protestants, we are saved by God's grace alone, through faith alone, whereas the Catholic Church teaches that we are saved by faith and good works. But, in reality, the whole matter was much more complex than that back in the 16th century, and it still is today.

From a Catholic perspective (the author of this article is a Catholic theologian), the first thing to note is that our Evangelical brothers and sisters in Christ are not in full agreement among themselves regarding this doctrine.

Those who follow the Calvinist tradition (and this includes many North American Baptists) believe that one’s salvation is secure on the basis of God's eternal decree of predestination. That is to say, from all eternity, God "elects" some people and not others for salvation. To them alone He gives His saving grace, which will at some point in their lives convert them to Christ and enable them to persevere in faith to the end. Thus, for the Calvinists it is quite literally true that the elect are saved by God's grace alone, through faith alone. Salvation is a "done deal," by God's sovereign will, from all eternity. It follows that the elect have no reason to boast, because they did not earn or merit their place among the saved; and the lost have no just reason to complain, because they only receive what they deserve for their sinful rebellion against God. In short, out of His sovereign mercy, God chooses to save some and not others; we do not know on what basis He makes that choice, but we do know from Holy Scripture that God is both perfectly loving and perfectly just in all that He does.

Other Evangelical Protestants follow the Wesleyan tradition on this matter (and this includes many Methodists and Pentecostals). They believe that once you have undergone a grace-filled conversion experience, in which you have freely accepted Jesus Christ by faith as your personal Lord and Savior, all your sins of the past are forgiven. But you must continually surrender your life to Christ's Lordship. You must continue in the way of holiness or you can lose your "saved" status, in which case you would need to recover it again through repentance and faith. In short, for the Wesleyan tradition you cannot earn your salvation: it’s a free gift of the love of God on the basis of the blood that Jesus Christ shed for you; but you do have to freely receive and accept your salvation, by accepting Jesus Christ as your only Savior. And that acceptance includes a life of discipleship — letting him become more and more the Lord of your whole life — without which you can wander from the path to heaven. In other words, you cannot earn salvation, but you can blow it!

A third group is sometimes called "semi-Calvinism" — a position in between the other two (and by far the most popular over the past half-century or so. It is essentially the position of the great Evangelical missionaries Billy Graham and John Stott). These folks believe that with the assistance of God's grace you must freely commit your life to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior; this is your "conversion experience," in which you are "born again," but from that point on your salvation is secure. You can never lose it. With the help of grace, once you place yourself in the arms of Jesus His love will never let you go.

There are a few passages from the Bible that can be cited to support each of these positions. Evangelicals continue to debate these matters among themselves even today. So it is sometimes difficult for Catholics to dialogue with them about this doctrine, because often they claim to be expressing or defending the Evangelical view, when actually it is only one of three!

Then how does the teaching of the Catholic Church compare with these three positions? Sadly, I will bet that many Catholics really have no idea what our Church teaches about all this, much less are they able to locate the roots of the Church's position on this matter in the New Testament. Catechesis on the doctrine of salvation has been very poor in our Church over the past few generations, which is one reason why so many Catholics gravitate toward the Evangelical churches these days. Too many Catholics believe that salvation is something you just accomplish by doing good works and receiving the grace of the sacraments to help you. That is a caricature of the actual teaching of the Catholic Church on this subject, of course, but in the absence of proper catechesis, it’s the default “best-guess” of many Catholics in the pews.

Thus, on the vitally important doctrine of salvation, we have lack of unity among Evangelicals, and widespread confusion and misunderstanding among the Catholic faithful. No wonder ecumenical dialogue on this issue is often so difficult!

Perhaps the shortest way to sum up the official Catholic position would be this: We believe that we are initially "saved" in the sense of "brought into a state of grace," a life-giving union with Jesus Christ, through the free gift from God's grace of living faith (Eph 2:8-10), but final salvation, the attainment of heaven at the last, involves "faith working in love" (Gal 5: 6), through the assistance of God's grace and our free cooperation with that grace, leading to full "sanctification, and its end, eternal life" (Rom. 6:22).

I was recently reminded of these matters through a good letter from an Evangelical friend who was trying to "wrap his head around" the Catholic point of view. For him, what makes Evangelicalism so attractive is that it teaches that our salvation is "secure": if you are a Calvinist or a semi-Calvinist, at least, you never have to worry about whether you are going to make it to heaven or not. Jesus Christ gives you heaven as a free gift that you don't have to earn or even hang onto in order to keep. Rather, He hangs onto you! Once you have repented and accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, it's a "done deal." My friend's favorite passage on this is Philippians 1:6, where St. Paul prays that "He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." He also cites Galatians 3:3, Romans 8:38-39, and John 10:27-29.

We don't have the space here to go over the proper interpretation of all of these passages, but let me just make a few comments, from a Catholic perspective, to get this dialogue rolling.

First of all, it's always dangerous to quote Biblical passages out of context. That passage from Philippians, which looks as if it might clearly teach the Calvinist or semi-Calvinist "security of salvation" view, occurs in the midst of a letter in which St. Paul also writes of the doctrine of salvation as a "two-sided coin," so to speak. He writes (2:12-13): "Work out your salvation in fear and trembling [NB: why do we have to "work it out" in "fear and trembling" if it is already yours as a "done deal" and you can never lose it?], because it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure." In other words, there is no part of the "working out of our salvation," which we can do all on our own. Rather, Catholics believe God's grace is what enables us to work out our salvation every step of the way. Every step we take in the whole process of salvation — from baptism, to repentance and faith, to living out our faith in works of love, to walking through the gates of heaven at our life's end — must be grace-initiated, grace-enabled, and grace-assisted. We can't take a single one of these steps on our own. The only thing we have the power to do all by ourselves is to reject Christ and turn our backs on Him! For this reason, it would not be accurate to say that the Catholic Church teaches that we are saved by faith plus our own good works, as if good works were our part alone to play. Any good thing that we do along the path of salvation can only happen by the grace of Jesus Christ that He won for us on the Cross: His grace prompting, enabling, and strengthening us at every moment.

Second, most Catholics do not sit around in constant "fear and trembling" that they might end up in hell after all. That would be to take to heart only one side of St. Paul's two-sided coin from Philippians 2:12-13 (quoted above). Although we tremble at the thought of our own weakness, and it is possible that we might reject Christ's love in the end, we also have a hope that fills us with joy that "God is working in us" as St. Paul says, to lead us every step of the way on the path to heaven. The virtue of hope lies somewhere between a presumptuous certainty of final salvation ("I am going to heaven no matter what I do!") and constant anxiety about eternal loss ("I probably won't make it, because I am such a hopeless case!"). Hope is based simply on trust in the merciful love of Jesus — that our Good Shepherd will do everything possible to bring His sheep safely to heaven — and also based on the signs we can discern within ourselves that we are growing in the knowledge and love of Him, abiding in His grace, continually restored and refreshed through the sacraments, especially the Sacrament of Reconciliation (aka “Confession”) and the Eucharist. In other words, we see ourselves swimming within the stream of grace and "going with the flow," and that fills us with hope and joy.

Third, what kind of love-relationship would it be if God's love compelled you, by an irresistible grace, to be converted and saved? The Calvinist and semi-Calvinist viewpoints, however, seem to teach that this is how God's grace deals with the saved, for only in such a way could it be said that our salvation is a "done deal" by God's eternal decree of predestination or that from the moment we are born again He will not permit us ever to stray from Him. A true lover neither attempts to compel his beloved to love him back, nor forces his beloved to stay. Nor can it be said that he attracts them to himself by an irresistible grace. God's gracious love certainly enables us to love and trust Him, but surely it never compels us to do so. Much like the Wesleyans, Catholics believe that the freedom of will that He gave to us as one of His most precious gifts He will never take away from us. That is why C.S. Lewis put these words about the process of salvation in the mouth of Jesus in his book Mere Christianity:

Make no mistake, if you let me, I will make you perfect [in faith and love]. The moment you put yourself in My hands, that is what you are in for. Nothing less or mother than that. You have free will, and if you choose, you can push Me away. But if you do not push Me away, understand that I am going to see this job through. (Book 4, chapter 9)

Fourth, Catholics ask: how could anyone possibly know for sure that they are going to heaven, apart from an extraordinary revelation from God? Just having a heart-felt "conversion experience" is no absolute guarantee (after all, people can deceive themselves into thinking they have truly surrendered their hearts to Christ, when, deep down inside, they really haven't); nor is it absolutely guaranteed by any growth in holiness that we may undergo after our conversion (after all, we might spiritually grow for a time and then fall into mortal sin later in life, revealing the true state of their hearts only then). Thus, the most that any Evangelical Christian can say about his or her salvation is: "I have a good hope that I am among the saved, because one time I had what felt like a deep and full conversion experience, and I still seem to be growing in holiness and in my love for Jesus. But since it is only the Lord who really knows our heart of hearts, I cannot be absolutely sure I am irrevocably His." Perhaps St. Joan of Arc said it best. When asked if she was in a state of grace, she responded with a prayer (presumably a prayer prompted and assisted by God’s grace, and uttered with her free-will cooperation): “If I am not in a state of grace, may God put me there, and if I am, I pray He may he keep me there.” In other words, it seems to Catholics that even on the basis of his/her own theology, the Calvinist or semi-Calvinist Christian must rely on the virtue of hope, just as the Catholic and the Wesleyan does. He can no more be absolutely sure that he was irrevocably saved one day in the past than the Catholic and the Wesleyan can be absolutely sure that he will make it to heaven in the end. With regard to assurance of salvation, the playing field seems level here.

In short, neither the book of Philippians, nor the meaning of hope, nor logic of love, nor the psychology of "assurance" fits with the doctrine of salvation taught by the Evangelical Calvinists and Semi-Calvinists — or so it seems to this Catholic author. Of course, this was far from an exhaustive exploration of the topic (for example, we hardly touched upon the exegesis of all the disputed biblical passages in this debate, or the witness of the early Christian writers). But at least in these ways, it seems to me that Catholics and Wesleyan Evangelicals are closer to the truth here, and closer to each other regarding the mystery of salvation.

Next Time: Catholics and Evangelicals are not as Far Apart on Salvation as we Used to Think

Robert Stackpole, STD

Mere Christian Fellowship