Sola gratia

Sola gratia is one of the fundamental rules of the Protestantisme. In Latin, the expression means By the grace alone .

This concept brings the idea that the man cannot deserve his safety near God, but God offers to him free by love. What makes the man able to like him too. Thus, the value of a person depends only on the love of god, and not on his qualities, neither of its merit, nor of its social status…

Among the Protestant families, this grace is undoubtedly the object of the most diversified richest comprehensions and. These comprehensions are organized according to the idea that one has place of the church (adhesion with a church is a manifestation of the grace? ), according to the answer of the man or the woman (if the grace is given to all, are there people which can refuse it and not to receive it? ), or according to what one believes of the devil or the sin (is the grace given absolutely free, like the sun everyone, or it heats is only given within the framework of the forgiveness of the sins? ). These considerations have important consequences on the practice of the evangelization: when it is believed that the grace finds full sound achievement only within the church, then the faithful ones are more active on the evangelization; and, if one believe that the grace of God radiates on everyone, whatever his religious membership, then the evangelization is felt like less urgent.

The Protestant controversies relating to the grace often led to the charge of Semi-pélagianisme.

Other points of view

The Catholic church signed the Joint Declaration on the justification by the faith and proclaimed with the Lutherans that: We confess together that the human person is, for his safety, entirely dependant on the saving grace of God. That involved the conversion of eminent Lutherans like Francis Beckwith.

Indeed, the thesis augustinienne on thanks to summer defended by the Catholic church against Jean Cassien and the monk Peeling. It exists there several systems of grace, of which the Thomisme, the Molinisme, the Congruisme, the Liguorisme.

In the Bible, it is known as that charity works have also an importance as a conformation with Christ (, cf Deus Caritas Is). The faith is presented like a heritage, an answer in love to the grace.

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