‍Catholics teach salvation by works instead of faith

  Gary Hoge  ·  November 7, 2026

‍Evangelical Protestants sometimes accuse Catholics of teaching salvation by works instead of faith. But Catholics believe that faith is absolutely essential to salvation. We can’t earn our way into heaven by doing good works, and we can’t save ourselves by being good people.

‍In fact, the Catholic Church teaches that even our ability to believe in Jesus Christ is a gift of God’s grace.

‍Faith is essential to salvation

‍The Council of Orange, in AD 529, condemned the idea that we can come to faith in Christ through our own natural abilities. It taught that even “the beginning of faith and the very desire for faith” come to us through the grace of God.¹

‍More than a thousand years later, the Council of Trent declared:

‍Faith is the beginning of human salvation, the foundation and root of all justification, without which it is impossible to please God and to come to the fellowship of His sons.²

‍Trent went on to explain that nothing we do before justification, “whether faith or works,” can earn the grace of justification.

‍Does that sound like a Church that teaches salvation by works instead of faith?

‍Catholics believe what Paul wrote to the Ephesians:

‍For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast (Ephesians 2:8–9).

‍Salvation begins with God’s grace, and faith is indispensable. On that point, Catholics and evangelicals agree.

‍What about good works?

‍Faith is supposed to transform us. The grace that brings us to faith also enables us to live as followers of Christ. As Paul wrote, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

‍Notice how well this fits with what Paul wrote immediately after declaring that we’re saved by grace through faith:

‍For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do (Ephesians 2:10).

‍Paul wasn't teaching faith instead of works. He was teaching faith that works. As he wrote to the Galatians, what matters is "faith expressing itself through love" (Galatians 5:6).

‍And throughout the New Testament, we find that genuine faith is inseparable from love and obedience.

‍Jesus said, “If you love me, keep my commands” (John 14:15).

‍And Paul warned the Galatians:

‍Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up (Galatians 6:8–9).

‍Notice that Paul connects our final destiny with how we live. He doesn’t describe obedience and good works as optional extras in the Christian life.

‍Nor does he suggest that we accomplish these things independently of God’s grace. As he told the Philippians:

‍Continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose (Philippians 2:12–13).

‍We act, but God is the one who enables us to act. That’s the Catholic understanding of the relationship between grace and good works.

‍The faith that justifies is a living faith

‍James gives us a particularly clear illustration of this principle.

‍He begins by asking:

‍What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? (James 2:14).

‍James’s answer is no. He explains:

‍Faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead (James 2:17).

‍Then he turns to Abraham, the same man Paul uses as his great example of justification by faith.

‍James writes:

‍You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did (James 2:22).

‍That’s an important statement. James doesn’t say that Abraham’s works replaced his faith. He says they worked together, and that Abraham’s faith was made complete by what he did.

‍And then James draws his conclusion:

‍You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone (James 2:24).

‍For Catholics, there’s no contradiction between Paul’s insistence that we’re saved by grace through faith and James’s insistence that faith must be completed by works.

‍The faith that justifies isn’t merely an intellectual acceptance of certain truths about Jesus. It’s a living faith that responds to God’s grace through love and obedience.

‍Faith and works belong together

‍So Catholics don’t teach salvation by works instead of faith. We believe that faith is indispensable, that even faith itself is a gift of grace, and that the faith through which God justifies us is meant to grow and reach its fulfillment in a life of love and obedience.

‍John Henry Newman, at the time an Anglican, expressed the relationship beautifully:

‍Faith alone can make works living; works alone can make faith living. Take away either, and you take away both;—he alone has faith who has works,—he alone has works who has faith.³

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^‍1 Second Council of Orange (529), canon 5, on the beginning of faith and the desire for faith as gifts of divine grace. https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/local-council-history-and-text-1472

^‍2 Council of Trent, Session VI (1547), Decree on Justification, chapter 8. https://www.papalencyclicals.net/councils/trent/sixth-session.htm

^‍3 John Henry Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. 5, sermon 12. https://www.newmanreader.org/works/parochial/volume5/sermon12.html