Catholic apologist Dr. Karlo Broussard joins Cy Kellett to respond to a thoughtful caller.
Transcript:
Caller: Why is it that Protestants are so set against the fact that we do believe that your good works do count? It’s not just a matter of faith. I mean, you know, the fallen angels, they believe in God, we believe in God. But Jesus was very clear in Matthew when he said, “Whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers, that you do unto me.” I mean, he gave us a roadmap for good works. And yet they think we’re not supposed to do, you know, the good works aren’t going to get us anywhere. Okay, understand that philosophy.
Karlo: All right, Elizabeth. It’s a good question, and here’s how a Protestant would respond. That question assumes that the Protestant doesn’t believe good works have a purpose, but that’s a false assumption. Protestants do affirm the necessity of good works, but the question is, to what end? For many Protestants, especially of the Reformed tradition, good works do not contribute to or affect our peace with God, our standing with God, what they call our salvation or justification.
But what our good works do affect is our sanctification and being made holy and being rightly ordered to God and our behavior. And so they will affirm good works are indeed important and necessary in relation to sanctification. The precise view of it denies the relation that good works have to our salvation.
Secondly, they want to articulate what they believe to be truth concerning good works, namely that good works do not have a causal role with our justification, but rather are mere fruits of our justification. The reason why they want to articulate that truth and defend that truth is because of a prior belief that our justification or salvation is solely on account of the imputed righteousness of Jesus, such that nothing we can do can be as perfect as the righteousness of Jesus.
So Protestants, at least these Protestants who hold this view, perceive the understanding of good works playing a causal role in our justification or salvation as taking away from Jesus. That’s really the answer to the question of why they hold to this view once the view is properly understood. So that would be my answer to the first part of your question, and hopefully that’s helpful.
Now, you also brought up Matthew 25, where Jesus says, “Whatever you have done to the least of my brethren, you’ve done it to me.” Our Protestant friends, Elizabeth, are going to counter you and say we agree 100% here, right? We have that passage in our Bibles too, and we believe that our good works are indeed important and necessary.
But here is going to be the difference: where we as Catholics see these good works in Matthew 25 as contributing to our salvation, at least our final salvation and getting into heaven, our Protestant friends who hold to this view of justification of the Reformed view are going to interpret this passage in Matthew 25 and argue that the good works are not the reason why the sheep enter into eternal life or receive eternal life.
The good works there in Matthew 25 are contributing to the experience of the eternal life that is reigning with Christ and receiving rewards in heaven. So hopefully you can see the distinction between the two of good works playing a causal role to attain eternal life versus good works having a role to play in experiencing higher rewards of reigning with Christ in heaven.
And Elizabeth, I’m glad you asked this question because I actually wrote an article on this very issue of Matthew 25 and the sheep and the goats and how Protestants counter our Catholic exegesis. The title of the article is “Protestants Rain on the Catholic Parade.” You can access that at catholic.com; just type that in, “Protestants Rain on the Catholic Parade.”
In that article, I go into great detail why this alternative Protestant interpretation of the text does not succeed. What I point out in there is, first of all, the juxtaposition between eternal life and eternal punishment. Notice Jesus talks about the goats going into eternal punishment. Surely Jesus is not just articulating what the goats are going to experience in hell. He’s articulating that the goats enter hell. They merit eternal punishment on account of their failure to perform works of love.
And if that’s the case for the goats, and given the juxtaposition with the sheep, then we can conclude that the sheep not only experience the eternal life of reigning with Christ, but the good works are a reason why they actually enter into it, entrance into the kingdom. And so that’s one line of argumentation.
As I point out in the article, even in Matthew’s Gospel, in Matthew chapter 19, the phrase “eternal life” is already familiar with Matthew’s audience because in Matthew chapter 19, eternal life is synonymous with entering the kingdom of heaven, not merely experiencing heaven, like this Protestant interpretation of Matthew 25 would have us believe.
But eternal life is associated with actually entering. As the rich young man asks, “What good deed must I do to have eternal life, to attain eternal life?” And so in Matthew 25, when Jesus speaks of eternal life being given to the sheep on account of performing works of love, we can reasonably conclude that Jesus envisions the sheep attaining eternal life on account of the works of love, not merely experiencing eternal life by reigning with Christ on account of their works of love.
Now I realize that’s a lot, Elizabeth, but hopefully what I said here is helpful to at least prompt you to go and read the article for further details. What do you think of that?
Caller: I will definitely, absolutely look that up.
Karlo: Awesome. Fantastic. Yeah. And this is a great conversation. Yeah. Because it would seem so clear to us, right, in Matthew 25:31 through 46, that good works play a role for our salvation. But our Protestant friends, they’re pretty savvy, right? And they have their alternative lines of interpretation, which is important for us to engage in order to make our arguments stronger.
Cy: One thing I will tell you, Elizabeth. Dr. Broussard. Oh, did you have a follow-up? I’m sorry, Elizabeth, I feel like I stepped on something you were saying. Go ahead.
Caller: No, I was just going to say that, you know, a lot of other denominations believe that, you know, once saved, always saved. And Christ died to redeem every living soul that ever will be or was. He did that for everyone. But your salvation is something you’ve got to work with that grace. People don’t realize that, you know, he just, you know. Yes, it was once and for all and nothing could ever match his sacrifice. But you’ve got to do some things to work that salvation out. And people just, it kind of flies over their head. They just look at…
Karlo: Yeah, well, you sound like St. Paul in Philippians 2:12. “Work out your salvation with fear and trembling.” Now remember, that applies to after our initial stage of justification, like once we’re already saved, once we’re already in Christ. That’s where our works come into play as contributing to our salvation. As Paul would say, “Work out your salvation with fear and trembling.” But thanks so much for the call, Elizabeth.
Cy: Elizabeth, God bless you. If you’d like, Carlo has two kind of dialogue books where he’s going back and forth with Protestants on many issues like this. As a matter of fact, I believe this issue is, in fact, in *Meeting the Protestant Challenge*.
Karlo: It is in *Meeting the Protestant Response*.
Cy: In the response. Okay, so I’ll tell you what. You know what? Let’s go crazy. Let’s give Elizabeth both of those if she wants.