Do Catholics think they can save themselves? Part 5 of a series on John Calvin’s Institutes IV.18.

Note: This post belongs to an ongo­ing series on Calv­in’s Insti­tutes which begins here.

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t will not do,” John Calvin cries, “to say that the only ground on which we obtain for­give­ness of sins is in the mass, because it has been already pur­chased by the death of Christ.” Protes­tants love false dichotomies: The Mass or the death of Christ; as though they are dif­fer­ent. But no. The Mass is the death of Christ. It is not, as I point­ed out in the last seg­ment, a new death of Christ, but the same sac­ri­fice done in obe­di­ence to Luke 22:19. (Do this is sac­ri­fi­cial lan­guage; the Mass is not a bare com­mem­o­ra­tion.) But Calvin will have none of that. “This,” he says, “is just equiv­a­lent to say­ing that we are redeemed by Christ on the con­di­tion that we redeem our­selves.” Then he goes on to call priests “min­is­ters of Satan,” and it’s all very histri­on­ic. But it was the six­teenth cen­tu­ry.

Now, to be sure, the Church has Pela­gians in its midst. Any­one who denies this like­ly does so to hide his own Pela­gian­ism. So yes: Some Catholics do think they can save them­selves; or, they act as though they believe it. But the Church con­demned it as a heresy in 431, at the Coun­cil of Eph­esus, over a thou­sand years before Calvin took out his ink bot­tle to write the Insti­tutes. And the Church con­demned it again at Trent, in the Canons on Jus­ti­fi­ca­tion:

If any one saith, that man may be jus­ti­fied before God by his own works, whether done through the teach­ing of human nature, or that of the law, with­out the grace of God through Jesus Christ; let him be anath­e­ma.

And Trent goes on to say that no one can be saved with­out:

• pre­ve­nient grace (Canon 2)
• the right­eous­ness of Christ (Canon 10)
• the action of the Holy Spir­it who pours grace into our hearts (Canon 11)
• per­se­ver­ance, which comes only with God’s help (Canon 21)

The grace where­by we are made just, says Trent, comes only from “the mer­its of [Christ’s] pas­sion.” That’s in Chap­ter III: Jus­tifed Through Christ.

No, the Church does not teach works sal­va­tion. But one must be care­ful. Though the Church does not teach that works are suf­fi­cient to save us, it does teach that works are nec­es­sary. One may not declare faith in Christ, trust in his mer­its and his pas­sion, and then put his feet on the fend­er.

And the Mass is a work. It is the most impor­tant work that Catholics do, in fact. When Christ insti­tut­ed the Eucharist, he spoke of it as some­thing that we are to “do.” “Do this in remem­brance of me,” he said.

But by this work we can­not claim that we are sav­ing our­selves. That would be to deny that Christ is tru­ly present—body, blood, soul, and divinity—in the Eucharist. It would be like say­ing that the Eucharist is my body and my blood. Rather, in par­tic­i­pat­ing in Mass, we obtain the sal­va­tion already won for us by Christ. But we have to pray, we have to get in line, and we have to go up and receive it. God does not come down and force sal­va­tion upon us.

Calvin is cer­tain that Catholics for­get about Jesus or his pas­sion alto­geth­er at Mass, and that they think they’re there engag­ing in an effort at self-redemp­tion. He is con­tent to have this remain a claim. I don’t doubt there are Catholics who go to Mass and for­get to think of Jesus at all. I don’t doubt there are many more Catholics who think of Jesus at Mass and then for­get him for the rest of the week. But that is a dif­fer­ent thing from claim­ing that the Mass is a form of works sal­va­tion, which is Calv­in’s point. He can claim it, but he can’t prove it.