Soren Kierkegaard, not a Catholic, stresses the importance of works ("works are required of a human being"), but not as a means of "earning heaven." ("Good works in the sense of meritoriousness are naturally an abomination to God.")
Kierkegaard then draws a very apt analogy: we should think of good works "as when a child gives his parents a present procured, however, with what the child has received from his parents; all the pretentiousness which otherwise resides in giving a gift disappears when the child has received from his parents the gift which he gives to the parents." Quoted in Works of Love (Harper Perennial), p. 378.
Sounds like a good solution to the Faith-Works question, doesn't it?
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