"Alone" or not?

I had the day off due to a holiday today, so I did something I have not done in a very long time, I browsed the internet blog world. I played catch up on some blogs I usually read more regularly but have not been able to do so lately, and I went to a few blogs that I have not visited in many months (almost years).

One such blog that I had not visited in almost a year (maybe more) had a post that really set me off. Now, I should preface all this by declaring that this particular blog is a very staunch fundamentalist blog, and one that thinks the Roman Catholic Church is false from start to finish. That being said, this particular post was, of course, about the false teaching of the Roman Catholic Church regarding salvation/justification.

While I will not detail the entire post, you can go to the link provided and read the post if you like, I did want to comment on the first few sentences of the post; these sentences read as follows,

“Roman Catholic theology does not embrace the interpretation of salvation and justification as that presented by Scripture and the Protestant Reformers. The Roman Church does teach that we are justified by grace through faith on account of Christ. What is missing, however, is the word alone. By omitting this word the Roman Church redefines grace, faith and justification in a way that undermines and invalidates the teaching of Scripture.”

Hmmm. What I can't help but notice is how this author makes a declaration about Scripture that simply does not exist. While I agree that the Roman Catholic Church does not put forth a doctrine of justification that matches the Reformers (well, certain Reformers anyway), what I find quite strange is the idea that the word alone, as used by this author, is elevated to a definitive "keyword" from Scripture that seems to hinge any and every doctrine of salvation/justification as being the "proof" of whether that doctrine is correct.

This is simply not the case. In fact, the term alone is never used in the same context with salvation or justification anywhere in Scripture except one place, and that is James 2:24; "You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone." That is the only time the term alone is used in the context of "justification." It comes across in the text so strongly that Martin Luther wanted the Epistle of James removed from the canon of Scripture. And yet, time and again, I read later Reformers (new Reformers is what I tend to call them), from the 17th century to the present, who make comments that salvation or justification pivots on one term, alone, or else the doctrine is false.

While I am not Roman Catholic, and for other reasons besides the solas of the Reformation, I can't help but chuckle whenever I read something like this post. And what I find more intersting is the fact that the author of this post actually agrees that the Roman Catholic Church teaches, "that we are justified by grace through faith on account of Christ." What other kind of justification is there? This is where the Scriptures are the most replete with regard to justification or salvation. That being the case, to add the term alone would seem to run more contrary to Scripture than simply declaring "we are justified by grace through faith on account of Christ" would it not?