‍A Catholic Response to the “Five Solas” of Protestantism

‍Depending on how they’re defined, we can actually agree with most of them

  Gary Hoge  ·  November 6, 2026

‍The Protestant Reformation is often summarized by the “five solas”: sola fide (faith alone), sola gratia (grace alone), solus Christus (Christ alone), soli Deo gloria (to the glory of God alone), and sola Scriptura (Scripture alone).

‍An online friend once gave me his definitions of these five Protestant distinctives, and I gave him my response. What struck me was how much Catholics can agree with—provided we define the terms carefully.

‍The real Catholic-Protestant disagreements often lie not in the truths these slogans affirm, but in what Protestants sometimes understand them to exclude.

‍“Faith alone”

‍Sola Fide (“Faith Alone”): This principle emphasizes that salvation is attained solely through faith in Jesus Christ, independent of human efforts or works. It underscores the belief that faith is the exclusive means by which one receives God’s grace and justification.

‍Catholics often push back on the phrase “justification by faith alone” because it’s blatantly unbiblical. The only place the phrase “faith alone” occurs in Scripture is James 2:24, which says, “You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone.” We Catholics are often accused of holding “unbiblical” doctrines, and that can be a little galling coming from people who insist on a slogan that, taken at face value, couldn’t contradict Scripture harder if it tried.

‍That said, we recognize that theological slogans can carry more nuance than their wording suggests. When evangelicals say, “We are justified by faith alone,” what they generally mean is, “We are justified freely by God’s grace. We can’t earn it by doing good works.” They’re contrasting justification freely given with what they sometimes call works righteousness—the idea that we can earn justification through our good works.

‍Of course, we agree with that. The Council of Trent declared that “none of those things that precede justification, whether faith or works, merit the grace of justification.”¹

‍The difficulty is that this isn’t quite what the words faith alone say. They say that faith, all by itself, justifies us. And that’s where Catholics disagree.

‍Catholics believe that the faith which justifies must be a living faith, animated by charity. Charity—also called love—isn’t simply something that appears afterward as evidence that we’ve already been justified. It’s essential to the faith by which we’re justified. And charity itself is a gift of God’s grace, not something we earn or produce independently.

‍Paul explicitly linked the two. He wrote that what matters in Christ is “faith working through love” (Galatians 5:6). And James tells us that Abraham’s faith was working together with his works and was completed by them (James 2:22). Good works are the expression of charity, the love that makes faith living. So when James says that we’re justified “by works and not by faith alone,” he isn’t treating faith and works as competing alternatives. He’s describing a faith that works through love, a faith that is brought to completion by what we do.

‍As John Henry Newman, at the time an Anglican priest, put it:

‍“Faith alone can make works living; works alone can make faith living. Take away either, and you take away both; he alone has faith who has works, he alone has works who has faith.”²

‍Of course, evangelicals don’t generally believe that genuine faith can remain barren. They expect it to produce love and good works. But there’s an important difference between saying that faith alone justifies and subsequently produces love, and saying that faith must be animated by love in the first place in order to justify.

‍And here’s something important that often gets lost in these discussions: Catholics don’t believe that we must first perform good works in order to receive justification. God gives us both faith and charity when he justifies us. The works James discusses show how living faith acts and is brought to completion. They aren’t works that earn our justification.

‍So the disagreement isn’t about whether we can earn our justification by works. We can’t. It’s about whether faith alone justifies, or whether the faith that justifies must be animated by charity.

‍This distinction helps explain why Pope Benedict XVI could say:

‍Being just simply means being with Christ and in Christ. And this suffices. Further observances are no longer necessary. For this reason Luther’s phrase: “faith alone” is true, if it is not opposed to faith in charity, in love.³

‍That qualification is the key. Catholics can affirm “faith alone” if it expresses the gratuity of justification and doesn’t separate justifying faith from charity. What we cannot affirm is a conception of justifying faith that excludes charity from the faith by which we are justified.

‍“Grace alone”

‍Sola Gratia (“Grace Alone”): This principle asserts that salvation is granted solely by God’s grace, without any merit on the part of the individual. It highlights the notion that salvation is a divine gift, bestowed by God’s sovereign grace.

‍Catholics agree wholeheartedly. As a saying popular among Protestant preachers puts it, “You contribute nothing to your salvation except the sin that made it necessary.”

‍In fact, the Catholic Church teaches that even our ability to turn to God in faith is itself a gift of his grace. We can’t take the first step toward salvation on our own and then expect God to meet us halfway. God takes the initiative, and everything we do in response is made possible by his grace.

‍Where some evangelicals differ from Catholics is in how they understand our response to that grace. Catholics believe that God’s grace enables us to respond freely. We can cooperate with it, but we can also resist it. And even our cooperation isn’t something we can take credit for independently of God, because it’s his grace that makes our response possible.

‍But that disagreement doesn’t change the fundamental point. Whether we’re talking about the beginning of our salvation or our continuing growth in holiness, everything depends on God’s grace.

‍So if sola gratia means that salvation is God’s gift from beginning to end, and that we can do nothing to earn it apart from his grace, Catholics can say amen to that.

‍“Christ alone”

‍Solus Christus (“Christ Alone”): This principle maintains that Jesus Christ is the only mediator between God and humanity, and that salvation is achieved exclusively through His atoning sacrifice. It rejects the concept of other mediators, such as saints or priests, having any role in the process of salvation.

‍We certainly agree with the first sentence. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states, “Jesus Christ is true God and true man, in the unity of his divine person; for this reason he is the one and only mediator between God and men.”⁴ In fact, the Catechism affirms Christ’s unique mediation no fewer than ten times.⁵

‍But does Christ’s unique mediation mean that no one else can participate in his work as the one mediator?

‍The very passage that tells us there is “one mediator between God and men” (1 Timothy 2:5) begins by urging Christians to offer “petitions, prayers, intercessions and thanksgiving” for others (1 Timothy 2:1). Evidently, Christ’s unique mediation does not prevent Christians from interceding for one another.

‍That’s because our intercession doesn’t compete with his mediation. It depends upon it.

‍Christ alone bridges the gap between God and humanity. Yet because we are united to him, he allows us to participate in his work. Christians pray for one another, preach the Gospel to one another, baptize, minister, and become instruments through which God brings his grace to others. None of this detracts from Christ’s unique mediation; all of it depends upon it.

‍The real disagreement, therefore, isn’t whether Christ is the one mediator. Catholics agree that he is. The disagreement is whether Christ’s unique mediation excludes subordinate participation in his work through such things as the intercession of the saints and the ministry of priests.

‍Catholics say it doesn’t. As Jesus told his disciples, “you are in me, and I am in you” (John 14:20). Whatever Christians accomplish as members of his body is accomplished only because they participate in the life and work of Christ.

‍So if solus Christus means that Christ alone reconciles humanity to the Father and that every grace of salvation comes through him, we completely agree. If it means that Christ cannot allow members of his body to participate in his work, then we don’t.

‍“To the glory of God alone”

‍Soli Deo Gloria (“To the Glory of God Alone”): This principle stresses that all aspects of life, including salvation, are to be conducted for the glory of God alone. It denies any human boasting or glorification in matters of faith and salvation, affirming that all credit and honor belong solely to God.

‍We agree with this, too.

‍Paul tells us, “Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31). Everything we have comes ultimately from God, including whatever holiness exists in us. There is therefore no room for boasting as though we had accomplished our salvation independently of him.

‍Even the Catholic practice of honoring the saints doesn’t constitute an exception. Catholics don’t regard the saints as independent sources of holiness or glory. Whatever is admirable in them is the work of God’s grace.

‍As Mary herself said:

‍My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior. . . . For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for he who is mighty has done great things for me. (Luke 1:46–49)

‍Calling Mary blessed doesn’t diminish God’s glory; according to Mary herself, it magnifies the Lord precisely because it acknowledges the great things he has done in her.

‍So if soli Deo gloria means that God is the ultimate source and end of everything good and that all the glory for our salvation ultimately belongs to him, Catholics can say soli Deo gloria without hesitation.

‍“Scripture alone”

‍Sola Scriptura (“Scripture Alone”): This principle posits that the Bible alone serves as the supreme authority in all matters pertaining to faith and practice. It repudiates the authority of ecclesiastical traditions and teachings that are not explicitly found in or aligned with Scripture.

‍Catholics agree that Scripture is the inspired Word of God and that no Christian doctrine can contradict it. But we don’t believe Christ intended the Bible to be the Church’s only authoritative source of Christian teaching.

‍And here’s an interesting problem: Nowhere does the Bible tell us to go by the Bible alone.

‍Protestants appeal to passages such as 2 Timothy 3:16–17 and Acts 17:11 to support sola Scriptura. But the first passage affirms the inspiration and usefulness of Scripture, while the second describes the Bereans examining the Old Testament to see whether Paul’s message about Jesus was true. Neither says that Scripture is the only source of Christian doctrine or that Christians should disregard what the apostles taught orally.

‍In fact, Paul explicitly told Christians to hold fast to the teaching they’d received from him, whether in writing or by word of mouth:

‍So then, brothers and sisters, stand firm and hold fast to the teachings we passed on to you, whether by word of mouth or by letter. (2 Thessalonians 2:15)

‍And he instructed Timothy to pass on what he’d learned to others who would be qualified to teach still others (2 Timothy 2:2). That’s four generations of Christian teachers, passing along what the apostles had taught.

‍Remember, the New Testament was written to people who were already Christians. They’d already heard the Gospel, been baptized, celebrated the Lord’s Supper, and received instruction in the Christian faith. The New Testament writings preserved and supplemented that teaching; they didn’t replace it.

‍The results of ignoring that fact are widespread and visible all around us.

‍Churches that profess to follow the Bible alone disagree about what the Bible teaches. Some believe infants should be baptized; others insist that only believers should be baptized. Some believe a Christian can lose his salvation; others say that’s impossible. Some believe Christ is truly present in the Lord’s Supper; others regard it as purely symbolic.

‍These aren’t minor differences. They concern fundamental questions about salvation, the sacraments, and how Christ intended his Church to worship.

‍And all these churches appeal to the same Bible.

‍But perhaps the problem isn’t with the Bible. Perhaps it’s with the assumption that we can understand everything the apostles taught simply by reading what they wrote, while disregarding what Christians learned from them and passed down through the centuries. When churches set aside that inheritance and treat Scripture as if it were written to teach Christianity from scratch to people who knew nothing about it, it’s hardly surprising that they arrive at different conclusions.

‍But what happens when we don’t treat the Bible that way and we don’t set aside that inheritance? Consider the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches. They’ve been separated for nearly a thousand years—about twice as long as Protestantism has even existed. Neither Church accepts sola Scriptura, both embrace the teachings that were handed down in the Church, and both still agree on an extraordinary range of Christian doctrines.

‍Both Churches affirm baptismal regeneration, infant baptism, the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, confession to ordained priests, bishops as successors of the apostles, prayers for the dead, and the invocation of saints. These are precisely the sorts of doctrines over which Protestant churches have disagreed since the Reformation.

‍Catholics and Orthodox certainly have disagreements of their own, including important disagreements about Church authority. But despite nearly a millennium of separation, they’ve preserved a remarkable degree of agreement on doctrines that Protestant churches, appealing to Scripture alone, have interpreted in widely different ways.

‍How have two Churches, separated for nearly twice the entire history of Protestantism, managed to preserve so much doctrinal agreement?

‍It’s not hard to guess.

‍Conclusion

‍The “five solas” may make Catholicism and Protestantism sound farther apart than they actually are. Sola gratia, solus Christus, and soli Deo gloria express truths Catholics affirm. Even sola fide can express an important truth, provided it isn’t understood in a way that separates justifying faith from charity.

‍Sola Scriptura is different. Here the disagreement isn’t merely about what a slogan means. It’s about whether Christ intended his Church to rely on Scripture alone, or on Scripture together with the teaching the apostles entrusted to the Church and that Christians have preserved through the centuries.

‍__________

^‍1 Council of Trent, Decree on Justification, chapter VIII.

^‍2 John Henry Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. 5, Sermon 12, “The New Works of the Gospel,” p. 169. Read the original sermon at Newman Reader. 

^‍3 Pope Benedict XVI, General Audience, Nov. 19, 2008.

^‍4 Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd ed. (Washington, DC: United States Catholic Conference, 2000), no. 480.

^‍5 See Catechism of the Catholic Church, nos. 480, 618, 846, 956, 970 (twice), 1544, 1546, 2593, and 2674.