Hi Sean,

We make a distinction between an absolute assurance of salvation and a moral assurance of salvation.

It's my understanding of Protestant theology that to "have an absolute assurance of salvation" is to declare that Jesus is your personal Lord and Savior, then next day go out and commit mortal sins that are against the Bible and the Church Our Lord established on St. Peter, while still having the hope of being saved.

Despite those sins, this false theology would say that the person, despite his sins, would still go to Heaven due to his public proclamation of faith. People incorrectly substitute FAITH for HOPE in this false theological view of salvation, but don't realize it.

To have a moral assurance of salvation is NOT absolute. Why? Because real, invisible, demonic, spirits of this world could tempt us through other people:

• to sin or
• persuade us to rationalize sin or
• persuade us that we are not sinning.

As Catholics we believe that as long as we strive to live a moral life in accordance with the teachings of the Church and the Scriptures we have a moral, but not absolute, assurance of our salvation.  We could CHOOSE to mortally sin at the end of our lives.  Such a sin would be detrimental to our salvation.

This is why solid Catholic spirituality always stresses a daily prayer life and perseverance in good works. These works are obviously not our own works ALONE, but Christ working through us, eucharistically.

Hope this answers your question.

Mike

Hi Sean,

Mike's answer sounds good but I just wanted to add to his answer.

It's easy to see how the issue of gift vs. the necessity of obedience can be confusing. We should look at it this way.

Our human life is a gift. Nothing we did merited our being born. Just as our natural birth was a gift, so our supernatural birth is a gift.

After we are born, we have a choice. We can choose to live, or we can choose to die. If we commit suicide, we die. Nothing physically prevents us from committing suicide or endangering our health by failing to eat or see the doctor or what have you. None of these choices change the fact that our birth was still a gift. Likewise, we can make moral choices that are tantamount to spiritual suicide. We call these mortal sins. Again, the fact that we can reject our salvation by committing sin doesn't prove that we really earned our salvation in the first place. After all, being able to reject a gift doesn't make it not a gift. And so salvation is a gift first because it initially comes to us independently of anything we do. What we then do with our salvation is up to us; once we are saved, our wills are freed by God's grace, and we can turn our backs on salvation or, moved by God's grace (again a gift), we can persevere and obey. Even in this secondary sense, salvation is a gift because the will to obey is even a grace and gift from God.

We believe that ultimately our salvation is a pure gift of God. We cooperate in our salvation by grace (with grace going before, enabling us to do so), and we can resist or spurn that grace, but ultimately we are saved by grace alone.

Eric