The question I was asked to talk on was, are we saved by faith or by works?

Now, that is a classical Reformation question, question placed by the Reformation.

But I think one of the first things the Catholic theologian has to say is that that's a question badly put.

Once you have the question framed that way, you're going to have a hard time, I think, getting at the real issues.

Now, part of the problem at the time of the Reformation was precisely that I think the different sides tended to think they were discussing different questions.

It's very hard to get a nice, neat line up. One side says X, the other says not X, and they mean the same things by X. I mean, you have a nice, neat lineup. One side says X, the other says not X, and they mean the same

things by X. I mean, you have a problem in sort of how people understood words. I do think the

phrase, or we say by faith or works, faith versus works, is a classically Protestant way of

setting the question. And once one sets the question that way, faith or works,

Catholic theology has already sort of lost the game.

One thing I want to do is, tonight,

is sort of blur that distinction.

I want to sort of run faith and works together

to a certain degree.

If forced, if a Catholic theologian has to say, are we saved by faith

or works, I think the Catholic theologian clearly has to say we're saved by faith. If that's the

question, what I want to do is undermine the question. How do we put the question that we should

be talking about? It has to do, I think, with grace. It's agreed by the question. How do we put the question that we should be talking about?

It has to do, I think, with grace.

It's agreed by everyone in the Western tradition

that we are saved primarily by grace.

The question is what do you mean by grace?

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