Is Goodness Enough for Salvation?

“You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt. 5:48).

Just as truth never changes, the questions we raise in the depths of our souls in search for truth never change either. We now ask, “Is being a good person enough to go to heaven?” So, too, Truth incarnate was asked by the rich young man, “Teacher, what good deed must I do, to have eternal life?” (Mt. 19:16). What does it mean to be good, and how does goodness relate to salvation?

Advertisements

“If you would be good, keep the commandments” (Mt. 19:17). Basically, goodness in this respect means moral uprightness. Christ directs the man to the Ten Commandments, which encompass fundamental precepts of the natural law. One must do good and avoid evil (cf. Mt. 19:18).

We are called to fulfill natural goodness, and we often recognize this within our inquiry into goodness and salvation. Yet, the question often supposes a sharp distinction in an individual between being a “good person” engaged in the moral life without religion in general or the Catholic Church in particular. “My friend is an atheist, or a Catholic who hasn’t attended Sunday Mass in years, but he’s such a good person.” (We often grant our appraisal of goodness to our friends who reject various precepts of the natural law, which raises other difficulties in our understanding of goodness beyond this essay’s scope.)

Yet even in granting natural goodness, we, with the young man, may recognize its insufficiency: “All these I have observed; what do I still lack?” (Mt. 19:20). We recognize a relationship between this goodness and eternal life, but still ask, if only out of a sense of their disjoint. “Is this good way of life enough for eternal life? What do I still lack?”

“Jesus said to him, ‘If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me’” (Mt. 19:21). The “good” life alone lacks the perfection necessary to attain salvation. The Beatific Vision, in which “we shall see him as he is” (1 Jn 3:2) and, in union with Him, reside in His glory and majesty, is granted to “[t]hose who die in God’s grace and friendship and are perfectly purified” (CCC 1023). (All prior emphasis is mine.) Eternal life asks for more than individually good actions: it demands perfection of sanctity through which we submit our will to His and desire Him perfectly, solely for and through love of Him.

Embracing the call to sainthood perfects and sustains our natural goodness. Christ’s call to perfection builds on the foundation of man’s faithfulness to the moral law. In the two greatest commandments (cf. Mt. 22:37-30), love of God takes primacy over and enables the practice of love of neighbor. The second is necessary for the first: “If any one says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar” (1 Jn. 4:20).

Yet, the inverse also holds, for if we reject God and His Bride, Mother Church, how can we say we love our neighbor in fullness? How can we be truly good while spurning our relationship with Him who is perfect goodness? St. Josemaría writes in The Way, “If you lose the supernatural meaning of your life, your charity will be philanthropy; your purity, decency; your mortification, stupidity; your discipline, a whip; and all your works, fruitless.” We are all called to sanctity–to salvation–and the moral life alike. Without the former giving form to the latter, our sanctity and goodness are incomplete at best or non-existent at worst.

How often do we hear this call crying out deep within our soul, or from a trusted friend or family member, or a saint, and reject it? How often do we imitate the rich young man: “When the young man heard this he went away sorrowful; for he had great possessions” (Mt. 19:22). And yet this knowledge is cause for joy! God gives the graces necessary to respond to our call in its fullness, for all good we do comes from God. We can only fail on our own accord in rejecting His invitation to friendship, which He sincerely extends even in the very midst of our betrayal of Him (cf. Mt. 26:50).

With Lent at hand, may we embrace robust spiritual practices of prayer and mortification. May we frequent the sacraments, and contemplate our coming judgement. God, grant us the gift to desire you more, and the contrition for when our desire lacks.