Hi David/Anna, so in the end, it's our "cooperation" w/God that actually saves us, rather than His grace (or do you believe that God gives His saving grace to certain individuals and withholds it from others)?
You believe that faith is necessary for salvation. So, in the end, it's our "faith" in God that actually saves us, rather than His grace.
The logic in that statement is exactly the same as your statement, and equally faulty. As a Calvinist, you would say that grace and faith are not inconsistent because faith itself is a product of God's grace. That is, faith itself is a gift from God. And that is absolutely true.
But you can apply the same principle to works of
one who is justified (as opposed to the works of one who is not justified, which St. Paul refers to). The works of one justified are not meritorious because they are the result of the person's own efforts or intrinsic goodness. They are meritorious because they are done in God, they are fruit of the Holy Spirit, and because the works themselves are the gifts of God himself (just as your faith is a gift from God).
Thus, Trent states both of the following:
1) But when the Apostle says that man is justified by faith and freely, these words are to be understood in that sense in which the uninterrupted unanimity of the Catholic Church has held and expressed them, namely, that we are therefore said to be justified by faith, because 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;
and we are therefore said to be justified gratuitously, because none of those things that precede justification, whether faith or works, merit the grace of justification.
For, if by grace, it is not now by works, otherwise, as the Apostle says, grace is no more grace.
2) Therefore, to men justified in this manner, whether they have preserved uninterruptedly the grace received or recovered it when lost, are to be pointed out the words of the Apostle: Abound in every good work, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.
For God is not unjust, that he should forget your work, and the love which you have shown in his name; and, Do not lose your confidence, which hath a great reward.
Hence, to those who work well unto the end and trust in God, eternal life is to be offered, both as a grace mercifully promised to the sons of God through Christ Jesus, and as a reward promised by God himself, to be faithfully given to their good works and merits.
For this is the crown of justice which after his fight and course the Apostle declared was laid up for him, to be rendered to him by the just judge, and not only to him, but also to all that love his coming.
For since Christ Jesus Himself, as the head into the members and the vine into the branches, continually infuses strength into those justified, which strength always precedes, accompanies and follows their good works, and without which they could not in any manner be pleasing and meritorious before God, we must believe that nothing further is wanting to those justified to prevent them from being considered to have, by those very works which have been done in God, fully satisfied the divine law according to the state of this life and to have truly merited eternal life, to be obtained in its due time, provided they depart this life in grace, since Christ our Savior says:
If anyone shall drink of the water that I will give him, he shall not thirst forever; but it shall become in him a fountain of water springing up into life everlasting.
Thus, neither is our own justice established as our own from ourselves,
nor is the justice of God ignored or repudiated, for that justice which is called ours, because we are justified by its inherence in us, that same is the justice of God, because it is infused into us by God through the merit of Christ.
Nor must this be omitted, that although in the sacred writings so much is attributed to good works, that even he that shall give a drink of cold water to one of his least ones, Christ promises, shall not lose his reward; and the Apostle testifies that, That which is at present momentary and light of our tribulation, worketh for us above measure exceedingly an eternal weight of glory; nevertheless,
far be it that a Christian should either trust or glory in himself and not in the Lord, whose bounty toward all men is so great that He wishes the things that are His gifts to be their merits.
