Galatians and works

a " distinction between the works of the ceremonial law as part of the Old Covenant, and works of the moral law, done in a state of grace in the New Covenant, out of love [agape] for God. In his letter to the Galatians, St. Paul wasn’t condemning (or even referring to) growth in justification through good works done in a state of grace; he was condemning a return to the Old Covenant by Christians, because that was a rejection of the New Covenant and implicitly a rejection of Jesus as the Messiah who established the New Covenant in which the requirement of those ceremonial laws is done away. If you don’t understand the distinction between the ceremonial law and the moral law, then you have entirely misunderstood Paul’s point in his letter to the Galatians" [quote found here: http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2009/12/justification-catholic-church-and-the-judaizers/]

"The Catholic Church rejects the requirement of returning to the Old Covenant for justification or salvation. From the Catholic point of view, adding the requirements of the ceremonial law would be nothing less than apostasy from the New Covenant established by the blood of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God. So in this respect, the Catholic Church does not fall under St. Paul’s condemnation of the doctrine of the Judaizers."

from the comment section

"The distinction between justification and its increase is not trivial. It makes the difference between Pelagianism and the orthodox Catholic faith. The notion that we can justify ourselves by our own works, is nothing less than Pelagianism. But the notion that when in a state of grace, none of our good deeds really matters for our eternal condition, is temporal nihilism. So the distinction between justification and its increase is essential for avoiding both of those alternatives."

"The person who by acts of love (agape) increases his justification is subsequently “different” only in that it is a greater participation in the divine nature. But, there is no part of our justification that is from us, as though justification could be divided into parts. The conjunction of divine and human causality in the increase in justification is not part/part, as though God does part and we do part. God justifies us, but not without our free consent. Likewise, our actions in a state of grace are gratuitously meritorious, because it is God who freely and graciously granted us this grace, and every subsequent good act, done by us inagape, is a divinely-granted gift of participation in that divine movement of justification we received through our baptism.

. If “initial justification” determined our “future justification”, all the Scriptural warnings about perseverance and apostasy would not only be misguided; they would be heretical, i.e. contradicting the doctrine that initial justification guarantees future justification.