Salvation in Catholicism - Individual Salvation

Individual Salvation

The Council of Trent describes the process of salvation from sin in the case of an adult with great minuteness (Sess. VI, v-vi).

It begins with the grace of God which touches a sinner's heart, and calls him to repentance. This grace cannot be merited; it proceeds solely from the love and mercy of God. Man may receive or reject this inspiration of God, he may turn to God or remain in sin. Grace does not constrain man's free will.

Thus assisted the sinner is disposed for salvation from sin; he believes in the revelation and promises of God, he fears God's justice, hopes in his mercy, trusts that God will be merciful to him for Christ's sake, begins to love God as the source of all justice, hates and detests his sins.

This disposition is followed by justification itself, which consists not in the mere remission of sins, but in the sanctification and renewal of the inner man by the voluntary reception of God's grace and gifts, whence a man becomes just instead of unjust, a friend instead of a foe and so an heir according to hope of eternal life. This change happens either by reason of a perfect act of charity elicited by a well disposed sinner or by virtue of the Sacrament either of Baptism or of Penance according to the condition of the respective subject laden with sin. The Council further indicates the causes of this change. By the merit of the Most Holy Passion through the Holy Spirit, the charity of God is shed abroad in the hearts of those who are justified.

Some points regarding the Catholic doctrine of salvation have been specified by the Catholic Church; Catholic theologians are obligated to teach these. However, there are several other issues which have not been definitively taught by the Church; theologians are permitted to hold different views on these. The views required by the Catholic Church are:

• that the initial grace is truly gratuitous and supernatural;
• that the human will remains free under the influence of this grace;
• that man really cooperates in his personal salvation from sin;
• that by justification man is really made just, and not merely declared or reputed so;
• that justification and sanctification are only two aspects of the same thing, and not ontologically and chronologically distinct realities;
• that justification excludes all mortal sin from the soul, so that the just man is no way liable to the sentence of death at God's judgment-seat.

Other points involved in the foregoing process of personal salvation from sin are matters of discussion among Catholic theologians; such are, for instance,

• the precise nature of initial grace,
• the manner in which grace and free will work together,
• the precise nature of the fear and the love disposing the sinner for justification,
• the manner in which sacraments cause sanctifying grace.

But these questions are treated in other articles dealing ex professo with the respective subjects. The same is true of final perseverance without which personal salvation from sin is not permanently secured.

What has been said applies to the salvation of adults; children and those permanently deprived of their use of reason are saved by the Sacrament of Baptism, in which the Original Sin is washed away.