Comparing Luther’s Treatise on Good Works with the Council of Trent’s Teaching on Justification

(In both texts, “justification” means the process by which sinners are made “just” – that is, righteous and good in God’s eyes.)

Luther	Trent
Starts with the question whether faith or works is what justifies a person. Faith is the primary work and is what makes good works good – so that even the picking up of a pin, by a person who has faith, is a good work.	Starts with neither faith nor works but grace: people must be “born again in Christ” in order to be justified: “in that new birth there is bestowed upon them, through the merit of His passion, the grace by which they are made just.” Also, “none of those things that precede justification, whether faith or works, merit the grace of justification.” Even the desire to turn back to God is impossible without this grace – you can’t develop it out of your own nature. Specifically against Luther, “it must not be said that sins are forgiven or have been forgiven to anyone who boasts of his confidence and certainty of the remission of his sins…”
What is it that we have faith in? Luther says it is in God’s assurance that he is pleased with us. Faith “trusts God and does not doubt that for it all things that a man does are well done.”	What is it that we have faith in? Trent says it is the whole range of revealed truth that we believe: “believing to be true what has been divinely revealed and promised, especially that the sinner is justified by God by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus…”
Where do works fit in? A person who is confident that God is pleased with him or her “serves God purely for nothing, content that his [or her] service pleases God.” On the other hand, “works righteousness” is the worried bustling around of people who lack the confidence that God is pleased with them. They try to make him love them through their own “good” works. Such works may seem objectively good, but without faith they are not good at all.	Where do works fit in? They arise from charity, one of the virtues that are infused into a person when he or she is justified. The others are faith and hope. Together these virtues enable a just person to become more just.