Sola gratia

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Sola gratia is one of the five solas propounded to summarise the Reformers' basic beliefs during the Protestant Reformation; it is a Latin term meaning grace alone. The emphasis was in contradistinction to the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church of the day. Catholic doctrine, as defined by the Council of Trent, does also hold that salvation is made possibly only by grace: the faith and works of men being secondary means that have their origin in and are sustained by grace. (See Catechism of the Catholic Church No. 1987-2029.)

During the Reformation, Protestant leaders and theologians generally believed the Roman Catholic view of the means of salvation to be a mixture of reliance upon the grace of God, and confidence in the merits of one's own works performed in love, pejoratively called Legalism. The Reformers posited that salvation is entirely comprehended in God's gifts (that is, God's act of free grace), dispensed by the Holy Spirit according to the redemptive work of Jesus Christ alone. Consequently, they argued that a sinner is not accepted by God on account of the change wrought in the believer by God's grace, and indeed, that the believer is accepted without any regard for the merit of his works—for no one deserves salvation, a concept that some take to the extreme of Antinomianism.

Sola gratia is different from Sola fide because faith alone is considered either a work or is insufficient for salvation which can only be granted freely by God to whom he chooses. This doctrine is especially linked with Calvinism's unconditional election and predestination.