143. How salvation “works” and why faith alone is not enough
143. HOW SALVATION “WORKS” AND WHY FAITH ALONE IS NOT ENOUGH
How does God save us?
If the point of the previous article is true, what we do is done by free choice and what God does is done by grace (which is also free—freely given). What do we do and what does God do? How does salvation work?
The justification (salvation, reconciliation) of the sinner is a certain movement . . . from the state of sin to the state of justice (grace). Hence it is necessary for the human mind to regard both extremes (both terms of this change, the beginning and the ending of it, the state of sin and the state of justice) . . . just as a body in local (spatial) movement is related to both terms of the movement. Now it is clear that in local movement the moving body leaves the term whence and nears the term whereto. Hence the human mind while it is being justified must by a movement of its free will withdraw from sin and draw near to justice. . . . Hence in the justification of the ungodly there must be two acts of the free will: one whereby it tends to God’s justice, and other whereby it hates sin (I-II, 113,5).
There are four things which are accounted to be necessary for the justification of the ungodly, viz. the infusion of grace, the movement of the free will towards God by faith, the movement of the free will regarding sin, and the remission of sins (I-II,113,6).
The first and last of these four things is God’s part. The other two are ours.
(1) “The infusion of grace” is first, because God is first. This causes us to believe. Faith is a gift of God. However, this truth is understood and appreciated only after we believe, not before. After, because it dispels the illusion that we rather than God are the first movers. Not before, because we are so foolish that we will inevitably use this truth as an excuse for laziness, and say: “Well, if God does not move me to believe, there is nothing I can do, and I am not responsible.” This denies our free will.
(2) Our own act of faith opens our soul to God’s presence. That is the essence of faith: “believing” = “receiving” (Jn 1:12). There must be intellectual content to faith, of course; we can’t “just believe something”; but we do not know how adequate, or how clear, that understood content must be, or how efficacious for salvation an “anonymous faith” can be in righteous pagans like Socrates.
(3) The other half of our response is repentance. It is usually simultaneous with faith, since “marrying” God (by faith) and “divorcing” God’s opposite, sin (by repentance), imply each other.
(4) The God we embrace by faith is the God Who remits our sin in Christ; so this is the result, or “payoff”, of our faith and repentance. We do not cause it but we allow it to be caused in us by God.
So two things, on our part, are required to receive God’s saving grace: repentance from sin and faith in God Who saves us (by grace, in Christ). Both are free choices, and both are necessary to allow grace to enter our souls.
Of course “repentance” from sin does not mean instant sanctity. We keep having illicit affairs with our old lover, sin, or the idol of self served as if it were God, even after we are divorced from him. But if we honestly repent, we are no longer married to him, but to God.
This grace also necessarily produces good works (gradually, more and more), which become cooperative agents in our salvation process. Faith always blossoms into love: it’s all one plant. It’s not that we all by ourselves add good works (the works of love) as a second “layer” to what God all by Himself does in giving us grace in the first “layer”. Salvation is not a two—layer cake. It’s like a marriage: not 50% + 50% but 100% + 100%. We can do nothing without Him and He will do nothing without us.