How Can I Get to Heaven? : The Bible's Teaching on Salvation Made Easy to Understand

How can I get to heaven? Across the centuries thousands have wrestled with that question, and often found as many answers as there are people and churches to give them. How Can I Get to Heaven? is the abridged version of Not By Faith Alone, one third the size of its parent and organized for easy reading, with user-friendly titles, larger print, and no footnotes or appendices. It is written for the lay person who wants to know the Catholic Church's teaching on justification as it is seen through Scripture, and it is excellent for RCIA, small Bible studies, and high school and college study.

This is the condensed version of the best-selling Not By Faith Alone: The Biblical Evidence for the Catholic Doctrine of Justification, and it clears away the confusion to give you an understanding you always sensed was possible but needed the right guidance to reach. It is written especially for the beginner, the student, the busy layman, the young adult. As with most things that are godly and true, the answer is really very simple, and if your mind and heart are open, this book will not only show you the way to heaven but give you a new outlook on life on earth.

Kenneth J. Howell, Ph.D.: This book may well become the most significant contribution to ecumenical relations between Protestants and Catholics that has appeared in a long time.

Reviews

Fr. George Rutler, November 23, 1996: I am pleased that the important doctrine of Justification has received a thorough apologia as this book offers. It is especially gratifying to read so clear an account of a matter which has often been sadly confused in the rush of polemics.

Bp. Fabian Bruskewitz, November 23, 1996: Robert Sungenis leaves nothing to chance, no stone unturned, no concession for any other reasonable argument.

Fr. Ronald Tacelli, November 23, 1996: Only some books deserve to be called seminal and revolutionary. This book is surely one of them.

Sample, Chapter 1: Did Paul Teach That I Can Be Saved By Faith Alone? Okay, But How Do My Works Fit In?

If Paul did not intend to teach faith alone, then how do we explain his statement in Romans 3:28, that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the law? Could one not argue that the phrase apart from is very similar to the word alone, and thus conclude that Paul really did teach that faith is alone in justification? To answer this, we must first point out that justified by faith alone does not mean the same thing as justified by faith apart from works of the law. Just based on grammar, the phrase faith alone means that faith is the only instrument for justification, while the statement faith apart from works of the law merely means that works of the law, whatever they are, are the only thing that cannot be coupled with faith for justification. In other words, faith alone excludes anything from being added to faith, while faith apart from works of the law excludes only works of the law from being added to faith.

This leaves open the possibility that perhaps something may be added to faith that is not considered works of the law, or that we could understand faith as being associated with other virtues that are not technically related to works of the law. In light of this reasoning, we never find Paul saying, man is justified by faith apart from love, or man is justified by faith apart from obedience, or man is justified by faith apart from hope. In fact, in speaking of justification, in Galatians 5:6 Paul creates an intimate bond between faith and love by the statement faith working through love. In Romans 1:5 and 16:26 Paul demonstrates an intimate link between faith and obedience by the unique phrase, the obedience of faith. By the same token, Paul never says faith working through works of the law. Apparently there is something very important to be discovered concerning Paul's meaning of works of the law which prohibits him from joining it with faith.

It is precisely on this point that Martin Luther (1483-1546) decided to divorce love, hope, and obedience from faith, opting to use the phrase faith alone and to put these three virtues on the side of works of the law that cannot justify. Other Protestants disagreed with Luther and leaned more toward defining faith in terms of love and obedience. Therein lies the controversy, a controversy not only between Catholics and Protestants, but among Protestant denominations themselves. Much of it hinges on just how one defines and understands Paul's reference to works of the law.

Consider this further difficulty. If the justification of the person requires that faith be apart from works of the law, then what did Paul mean when he wrote just one chapter earlier, in Romans 2:13, that it is not the hearers of the law that are just with God, but the doers of the law will be justified? In this passage Paul says precisely that the law justifies, while in Romans 3:28 he says specifically that justification comes apart from works of the law. Paul suggests that there is a particular sense in which works of law justify and another sense in which they do not.

Paul himself gives us a very simple principle that unlocks his teaching, which he introduces in that most famous of passages, Romans 4:4: To the one working, the wage is not reckoned according to grace but according to obligation. To help us understand, Paul uses the example of the employer who is obligated to pay his employee for his work. Obligation here refers to a measured compensation which is legally owed by one party to another. Unless the employer wants to break the law, he is legally required to pay the worker what is due him, whether he loves or hates the employee. He is under obligation to pay him.

From this Paul draws the foundational rule for anyone who attempts to work his way to God. If the appeal to God is based on obligation, then the man who works is placing God under legal obligation to deem him righteous, worthy of living with God and being blessed by him for eternity. Since God would then owe a legal debt to the man who works, the relationship is one based on law, a legal contract, and if it is based on law it cannot be based on God's personal benevolence, otherwise known as grace. This is precisely why Paul, in Romans 3:28, says a man is justified by faith apart from works of the law. In the larger picture, works of law refers to works done solely under legal contract, which demand payment for performance regardless of whether the person doing the work believes in and loves his benefactor. If instead man appeals to God's graciousness, God repays out of benevolence, not legal debt. Paul reiterates the principle in Romans 11:6: And if by grace, then it is no longer by works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace.