Salvation comes by God's divine grace or "unmerited favor" only — not as something merited by the sinner. This means that salvation is an unearned gift from God for Jesus' sake.
While some maintain that this doctrine is the opposite of "works' righteousness" and conflicts with some of the aspects of the Roman Catholic Church Roman Catholic doctrine of Merit, it might be asser-
ted that this article, taken at face value, conflicts in no way with Roman Catholic teaching.
While the doctrine that grace is truly and always a gift of God is held in agreement between both views, the difference in doctrine lies
mainly in two facts: that of God as sole actor in grace (in other
words, that grace is always efficacious ''without'' any cooperation by man), and second, that man cannot by any action of his own, acting under the influence of grace, cooperate with grace to "merit" greater graces for himself (the latter would be the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church).
This doctrine asserts divine monergism in salvation: God acts alone
to save the sinner. The responsibility for salvation does not rest on the sinner to any degree as in "synergism" or Arminianism.
Lutheranism holds that this doctrine must not be maintained to the exclusion of ''gratia universalis'' (that God seriously wills the salva-
tion of all people).
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