Changes

Lastly, Luther’s other main tenets <i>sola gratia</i> and <i>sola fide</i>, also (and perhaps unintentionally) created a salvation economy that was not predicated on community, but was a matter a of mere individual assent. Why? The doctrines of <i>sola fide</i> and <i>sola gratia</i> were attempts by Luther to remove individual effort or works from having any soteriological (salvific) merit. Works of charity, or good deeds, and sacramental participation were both separated from salvation in Lutheran theology. Luther argued that by faith, and faith alone, one merits eternal life: “Since we are justified by faith alone it is clear that the inner person cannot be justified, freed, or saved by any external work or act, and such works, whatever they may be, have nothing to do with the inner person.”<ref> Luther, Martin, The Freedom of the Christian, trans. William R. Russell in Martin Luther's basic theological writings. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2012), pg. 405</ref> Thus, salvation becomes about inner conviction of mind or assent to the Gospel.

In this way one can see how salvation became an individual matter, not a communal one. This, again, was radically different from Catholic sensibilities. Though Catholics too believed that justification occurred by faith, they also held that salvation could not be divorced from the Catholic communion—bound by neighborly love and sacramental participation. For Luther salvation was a vertical occurrence—between an individual man and God. For Catholics this vertical relationship needed to also expand horizontally into the community--even touching the marginalized and the poor.