RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Good Works
external, reward-hungry doctrine of the Middle Ages was undermined by mystics like Bernard, Eckhart, and Tauler (qq.v.). The Tridentine council defended the " regard for reward " (see Reward) and the fear of hell and judgment. Christ is not only the Savior whom one should trust, but the lawgiver whom one must obey. The Gospel is not a bare and unconditioned promise of eternal life without the requirement of observing the commands of God and of the Church. As works of satisfaction are mentioned " fasting, works of charity, prayer, and other exercises of the spiritual life." The point of view is not alone that of the observance of the commandments. Good works are regarded also as sufferings with Christ (Rom. viii. 17), as war with the fldlh; and especially noteworthy is the connection with Johannean mysticism. The current Roman Catholic doctrine of good works may be sketched briefly as follows: even a man who has committed a sin deserving of death may perform naturally good works, which, although they will not bring him to Heaven, " are very useful in obtaining from the Divine pity the grace of conversion, and in winning temporal reward or avoiding temporal punishment " (Katholischer Katechismus fur das Apostolische Vikariat im Konigreiche Sachsen, p. 89). The commands of God and of the Church, the performance of which will win Heaven for the doer, are to hear mass, to fast, to confess and partake of the communion, to pay church tithes, and not to marry at forbidden times. To the question, which works are especially recommended by the Bible, the catechism quoted, p. 90, mentions prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, in which are included all works of reverence, mortification, and love of neighbors. A great theological-ethical tradition beginning with Augustine lies back of the doctrine of the catechism that God " especially regards the good intention, through which even with slight works we may obtain great reward of God." The good intention should be awakened every morning with prayer; to renew it frequently through the day increases the merit. A good intention that does not coincide with the proper aim and direction of a good work adds a new species of goodness to the good work, makes it doubly good. An alms, an action or suffering of anything irksome, is spoken of as being " brought as a sacrifice " to God. The good intention then makes doubly good the deed good in itself. The awakening of the good intention is an act of explicit love of God. The acts of faith and hope also should frequently be awakened. These three theological virtues are, together with sanctifying grace, an inpoured ornament of the soul disposing to a fulness of good works. It is evident how great is the number of possible good works. The Catholic needs many of them not only to obtain merit in order to attain blessedness, but also as acts of penance in order to escape temporal punishment for his sins. The acts of penance imposed by the confessor (prayer, fasting, and alms) must be supplemented by voluntary deeds, which avail to help the poor soul suffering the fires of purgatory.
In the Eastern Church the spirit of an Augustine has been lacking to lead the way beyond the formula
" faith and good works." Faith and good works are regarded in that church as the two factors of
all Christianity. According to Metho- 5. In the dius "the praiseworthy are those who Eastern adorn the inner man with the proper Church, faith as well as the outer with good
works." The words of Cyril of Jerusalem are well known: " The way of regard for God is twofold, pious beliefs and good deeds; these beliefs apart from good deeds are not acceptable to God, nor are good works apart from right beliefs received by him " (MPG, xxxiii. 456 B). The " Confession " of Mogilas names fourteen works of charity.
With Luther, it may be admitted, the ethical interest was secondary, in the sense that he preached
the receptive power of faith with more 6. The enthusiasm than the effective power; Teaching of that faith is, according to him, ethic- Luther and ally effective only when it is not too Melanch- far removed from its idealization, as he thon. himself for the most part experienced
it; and that he should have avoided his apparently antinomian modes of expression. His principal work, Von den guten Werken (1520), begins with " It is to be understood in the first place that those things commanded by God are not the only good works." Luther believed that faith brought all religious activities along with it. He refers several times in this tract to the charge that he forbade good works. While he had condemned mere legal good works, intended to procure blessedness for the doer, he defended good works arising from faith. Good works are, according to him, the end and aim of faith, which reenforces the natural human motives to good works. Faith, especially that in the beneficence of God, disposes the recreated man to be beneficent to his neighbor. Good works are not necessary to blessedness; they flow of necessity from the beatific faith. He who has been baptized and believes is just and happy, and has received heaven and eternal life. But in order to remain so, he must retain, exercise, complete, and test his faith, and for this good works are necessary. Good works are a means, at the judgment, for measuring the degree of faith, but are not in themselves causes of blessedness. Luther continued the fight of the mystics against the " regard for reward," but in practise he did not take away the motives of reward. Melanchthon, on the other hand, defended the principle of obligation in the good works of believers — they are not " forced " but " owed." In the Augsburg Confession, VI., the statutory motive, the necessity arising from command and obligation, is placed beside the more idealistic bringing forth of good fruits, and the " thus hath God commanded " contains a third thought — it is aimed at the former emphasis upon " childishly unnecessary works " of which Melanchthon complains in articles XX. 3, XXVI. 2, XXVII. 13. In §§ lxxiii. sqq. of the " Apology " the ideas of merit and reward are brought in — good works are meritorious, but deserve neither justification nor eternal life, but only " other corporal and spiritual rewards in this life and afterward."
For the controversies about the necessity of good works in the seventeenth century see Antinomian-
Good Works Goodwin