See this is how the church has you confused
Works are works are works,
If you do them in order to GAIN, MAINTAIN or NOT LOSE salvation.
You believe in a works based Gospel
it does not matter if they were prepaired for us, they were done in love, or through grace or whatever
If they are done to earn a reward or wage, (in this case salvation)
then it is a works based salvation gospel
That is a Calvinist conclusion based on a false premise. God does everything so that means we don't have to do anything??? Cooperating with God's grace does not over-ride the faith requirement.
You seem unwilling or unable to understand the relationship of human free will to God’s grace. We believe we can
cooperate with God’s grace in order to
“merit.” Yet that very merit
is itself completely an act of God’s grace. Here is some more relevant information to consider:
The Second Council of Orange (529 A.D.), accepted as dogma by the Catholic Church, dogmatically taught in its Canon 7:
If anyone asserts that we can, by our natural powers, think as we ought, or choose any good pertaining to the salvation of eternal life . . . without the illumination and inspiration of the Holy Spirit . . . he is misled by a heretical spirit . . . [goes on to cite Jn 15:5, 2 Cor 3:5]
One would think that that alone would be enough to dispel the myth, but the "works based Gospel" myth won't go away.
Likewise, the ecumenical Council of Trent (1545-63): Chapter 5,
Decree on Justification:
. . . Man . . . is not able, by his own free-will, without the grace of God, to move himself unto justice in His sight.
Canon I on Justification:
If anyone saith that man may be justified before God by his own works, whether done through the teaching of human nature or that of the law, without the grace of God through Jesus Christ; let him be anathema.
Again, the "works based Gospel" myth won't go away.
The existence of a measure of human free will in order for man to cooperate with God’s grace does not reduce inevitably and necessarily to Semi-Pelagianism, as Luther, Calvin, MailManDan and present-day Calvinists
wrongly charge. The Catholic view is a third way. Our “meritorious actions” are always necessarily preceded and
caused and
crowned and
bathed in God’s enabling grace. But this doesn’t wipe out our cooperation, which is not intrinsically meritorious in the sense that it derives from us and not God . . . Second Orange again:
The reward given for good works is not won by reason of actions which precede grace, but grace, which is unmerited, precedes actions in order that they may be accomplished meritoriously.
Catholic theologian Ludwig Ott describes the Catholic view:
As God’s grace is the presupposition and foundation of supernatural good works, by which man merits eternal life, so salutary works are, at the same time gifts of God and meritorious acts of man. (Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, Rockford, Illinois: TAN Books, 1974 [orig. 1952], 264)
St. Augustine wrote:
What merit of man is there before grace by which he can achieve grace, as only grace works every one of our good merits in us, and as God, when He crowns our merits, crowns nothing else but His own gifts? (Ep. 194, 5, 19; in Ott, 265)
The Lord has made Himself a debtor, not by receiving, but by promising. Man cannot say to Him, “Give back what thou hast received” but only “Give what thou hast promised.” (Enarr. in Ps 83, 16; in Ott, 267)
The concept of merit and its corollary reward is well-supported in Scripture
Matthew 5:12, 19:17, 21, 29; 25:21; 25:34 ff.;
Luke 6:38
Romans 2:6
1 Corinthians 3:8; 9:17;
Colossians 3:24;
Hebrews 6:10; 10:35; 11:6;
2 Timothy 4:8;
Ephesians 6:8
. . . . The Catholic Church was right in maintaining against Luther, at the Council of Trent, that heaven is merited by our good works, because this is the clear teaching of revelation. “We have shown that according to Holy Scripture the Christian can actually merit heaven for himself by his good works.
But we must realize that these works have to be performed in the state of grace and with a good intention . . .
But we must realize that these works have to be performed in the state of grace and with a good intention . . .
Yet, the "works based Gospel" MYTH lives on. The Bible doesn't fabricate a false dichotomy between faith and good works the way the reformers did. They are inseparable.
Jesus himself tells his disciples: ‘I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me (by the state of grace), and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit (for heaven). If a man does not abide in me (by mortal sin) . . . he can do nothing’ – he can bear no fruit for heaven; just as the branch that is cut off from the vine cannot produce any grapes.
By sanctifying grace we are
children of God. Only by sanctifying grace do we have a right to heaven as our heritage. By purely natural good acts, such as even the sinner can perform, heaven cannot be merited as a reward; we must be in the state of grace, a child of God.
Only after human nature has been united to God by grace and raised up above it’s own nature can good acts, which proceed from this supernaturally elevated nature, be directed towards the possession of God in the hereafter. Only in this way can we merit the vision of God in heaven, since it completely surpasses the powers of our pure human nature.
By sanctifying grace we become
living members of the mystical body of Christ, one with Christ our Head. Thus our acts become acts of Christ, who, in an incomprehensible way, is living and working in his members. Through this intimate union with Christ, our Mediator before the Father, we merit the happiness of heaven.
Finally, sanctifying grace makes us
temples of the Holy Spirit, who compels us to good works (Rom 8:14). St. Francis de Sales writes that the Holy Spirit performs good works in us with such consummate skill that the works belong more to him than to us. He works with us and we work with him. In this activity we use our
free will. By our free will we submit all our human activity to the grace and will of God. By this act of reverence and worship, our good acts redound to the glory of God. Our will could also take a stand against God’s will, and commit sin.
Justification by faith alone absent from hope and charity is a meaningless concept that cannot be defended.
