Faith or works?

“You can’t earn your way into heaven.”

On my way into the Catholic Church (I’m a convert), this was one of the objections my Protestant friends raised.

It’s grounded in the classic (misguided) idea that for Catholics your relationship with God is all about doing things (works of mercy, certain prayers, etc.) with little or no actual personal connection or faith.

It’s usually followed up by an assertion that salvation is a gift from God (that part is true).

The point being that (as they saw it) the supposed hyperfocus on “works” in the Catholic Church was unnecessary at best. At worst, it was a distraction or even an obstacle to faith.

Were my friends right? That there’s a conflict between faith and works, and in that conflict the Catholic Church has it wrong?

Actually, the Catholic Church isn’t focused on works to the detriment of faith. More importantly, there is no conflict between faith and works.

Sadly, this is one of the classic ways that Christians mess things up. And end up turning Christianity into something it was never meant to be. Here’s what I mean:

With the best of intentions, people try to make the Faith simpler and easier – by taking one positive good (like faith) and putting it above all other positive goods. With the idea that if they do this one thing well, then everything else will work itself out.

It’s a very understandable impulse, because the Faith is complex and nuanced (just like life, just like people). But in the long run, hyper-focusing on one positive good almost always ends up putting it in conflict with other positive goods (like works).

BTW, this same sort of thinking is the source of the (very not Catholic) manufactured conflict between faith and reason.

Back to faith and works. Against the “faith alone” perspective, St. James pushes back hard in today’s first reading when he says, “faith without works is dead.”

If that’s true, then what is the relationship of faith and works?

Pope Leo the Great put it simply, “while faith provides the basis for the works, the strength of faith comes out only in works.”

Faith alone is not enough.

Not because you or I have to earn God’s love (hint – we can’t earn it, it’s freely given by God). But because works are the unavoidable result of a living faith. Here’s what I mean.

My mother owns some woods that have a small creek running through them. One day, I decided to walk up the creek to find its source. I eventually found the place where it comes up out of the ground.

I put my foot over the spot, and for a moment the water stopped flowing. With no new water coming in, I could see the bottom of the creek start to emerge as the water drained away. And then it started to fill back up.

I looked back and saw water welling up around my foot and starting to flow again. The living spring that fed the creek was more than a match for my feeble attempt to disrupt it.

That is the relationship between faith and works that Leo the Great is talking about.

That is, if you have a living faith, works will well up out of you. Like me trying to block the flow of the spring, you will not be able to prevent yourself from living out your faith through corporal and spiritual works of mercy.

Just as the water in the creek points to the living spring, our works point to the living faith in us.

It’s not faith or works. It’s faith and works.

May God bless you richly with both.