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1. Nick September 3rd, 2009 5:48 am :

   Some constructive comments on your article:
   - I think it missed the heart of Sola Fide – which is essentially about what the Work of Christ was to accomplish (popularly termed “passive” and “active” obedience).

   - The article gave off the impression the issue was “faith working through love,” with the Reformed side denying this. That’s incorrect. The Reformed Confessions expressly say the faith that justifies is the type that works by love (they are seen as a ‘package deal’ in fact). The key distinction is the operations faith and love play. Take this example: You need a fork and spoon to eat dinner, but only the spoon is used to eat the soup while the fork is used to eat the salad. Likewise, in justification, Protestants see faith as the sole instrument necessary because it alone is what ‘takes hold’ of the “righteousness of Christ” at the moment of justification. Love is still right along side ‘genuine faith’, but it plays another (though just as important) role: Sanctification. (Protestants incorrectly separate justification and sanctification into two distinct successive phases)

   - The phrase “justifies the ungodly” in Romans 4:5 is best interpreted in light of situations where we see the ungodly justified, and 1 Cor 6:9-11 is a perfect example, as are passages like Acts 15:9; 26:18; etc.

   - The phrase “justifies the ungodly” poses terrible difficulties for Protestants, because they believe the term “justify” does not entail a transformation but instead a declaration. The problem is that 4:5 is now saying God says “you unrighteous man are righteous,” which is not only a contradiction/lie, the Reformed position repudiates that precise idea. In the Reformed position, God never declares an unrighteous thing to be righteous, that’s why the alien righteousness of Christ is imputed precisely so that God has actual grounds to declare the individual righteous. If the Reformed objects that “ungodly” is in regards to ‘moral righteousness’ (as opposed to ‘legal righteousness’), they must prove this exegetically (impossible to do) as well as why Paul is equivocating using ‘righteousness’ in two different senses.

   - As far as Romans 5:5 goes, the Reformed position considers Rom 5 to be speaking of Justification, rather than sanctification, thus they have some difficult explaining to do. This should be combined with Gal 3:2ff speaking of “receiving the Spirit” by faith, in a justification context, proving infused/transformation rather than imputed and legal justification.

   - I don’t think you took advantage of the context of Phil 3:8-9. Protestants frequently truncate the passage to verses 8f, considering it a justification passage (hence no transformation), despite the fact the passage flatly contradicts it in verses 10ff (and 3:3ff). It’s almost a given to not see 3:10f quoted when a Protestant points to 3:9.

   - You mentioned Eph 2:8 and chalked it up to either a draw or situation where the Catholic position is slightly in favor. Upon proper examination, Eph 2 is devastating to Sola Fide:
   http://catholicdefense.googlepages.com/eph2

   I believe the following points are where the tide has officially turned in this debate because they are solidly and often easily shown to disprove Sola Fide:

   NOWHERE DOES THE BIBLE SAY:
   1) Christ received the punishment we deserved in the Penal Substitution sense.
   http://catholicnick.blogspot.com/2009/01/penal-substitution-debate-negative.html

   2) Christ kept the Law in our place.
   http://catholicnick.blogspot.com/2009/05/calvinists-who-deny-imputation-of.html

   3) Equate “righteousness of God” with the “righteousness of Christ.”
   (Further, “Righteousness of God [the Father]” is a moral quality, not a legal one, hence it cannot be earned by man [eg Adam] nor Christ as a creature)

   4) That good works are guaranteed to one who truly believes.
   (eg 2 Pt 1:9; Acts 8:13,21; Corinthians turning to sin; etc)

   5) A formal separation of justification and sanctification, and in that order. (eg Reformed assume Paul switches from justification in Rom 1-5 to “sanctification” in Romans 6-7 [sometimes 8], but that’s a weak argument when examined.)

   4) The Protestant notion of imputation hangs on isolating a few verses of Romans 4, as well as assuming a incorrect (not even rare) usage of “impute.”
   (Rom 4:4 is killer in that it uses ‘impute’ directly contrary to how the Protestant needs it used in 4:3 and 4:5)

   Once one understands the real issue at stake, and considers the above arguments, it’s all over. The Reformed side is more than sufficiently refuted….AND if Catholics can make these arguments front and center, Protestantism at it’s highest conservative levels will vanish in our lifetime.

2. K. Doran September 3rd, 2009 7:34 am :

   Excellent stuff, Bryan,

   I think I always kind of assumed that there must be a protestant version of the famous “Catholic” verse of James somewhere: “a man is justified by works and not by faith alone.” For example, a spot in the New Testament where someone says: “a man is justified by faith alone, and not by works.” Then the argument between Protestants and Catholics would make sense, because each side would have a definitive piece of evidence for its view. But I haven’t seen the words “faith alone” anywhere in the New Testament except for James’ verse: “a man is justified by faith alone, and not by works.” And as you have shown, the other verses that say things about faith without including the word “alone” could be interpreted in many ways, with the balance of the evidence emphasizing the connection with love.

   One caveat that doesn’t effect your argument. Do you agree with C.S. Lewis that the “For this reason I say to you, her sins, which are many, have been forgiven, for she loved much” in Luke 7:47 could actually mean something like: “For this reason we can tell that her sins, which are many, have been forgiven, for she loved much, in gratitude for all of the forgiveness that she has received.”?

   Sincerely,

   K. Doran

3. JohnW September 3rd, 2009 8:14 am :

   Bryan:

   Good post. I think this can go a long way to clearing the differences between Catholics and Protestants. The Decrees you quote from Trent while condemning a particular position on Justification really doesn’t condemn the position held by many Protestants. When the Canons and Decrees of Trent were stated, and even to this day, the classic Catholic definition of “Faith” has been “Faith is intellectual Assent moved by the Will”. So then the position Trent condemned was what Protestants call “Head Knowledge” which they also equally say is not “Saving Faith”. In other words merely acknowledging intellectually the Gospel is true does not and cannot save anyone. According to your post Bryan Catholics and many Protestants would be on the same page. Protestants would agree that genuine Faith would include “Agape”or Love as well as Hope, trust, and confidence in Jesus. For me, when I read those same Scriptures you cite the position is clear that Faith would INCLUDE Love for Jesus and what He did for us, I can’t understand or conceive of a real and genuine Faith ( the way Jesus and Paul frame Faith) not including Love (Agape)

4. Bryan Cross September 3rd, 2009 10:06 am :

   K. Doran,

   Thanks for your comments. St. Peter tells us that agape covers a multitude of sins. (1 Peter 4:8) We see something similar in Tobit 4:11 where he tells his son, “For charity delivers from death and keeps you from entering the darkness”. And we find something similar in Sirach 3:30, which reads, “Water extinguishes a blazing fire: so almsgiving atones for sins.”

   St. Clement of Rome also repeats St. Peter’s teaching, saying,

   Let him who has love in Christ keep the commandments of Christ. Who can describe the [blessed] bond of the love of God? What man is able to tell the excellence of its beauty, as it ought to be told? The height to which love exalts is unspeakable. Love unites us to God. Love covers a multitude of sins. Love bears all things, is long-suffering in all things. There is nothing base, nothing arrogant in love. Love admits of no schisms: love gives rise to no seditions: love does all things in harmony. By love have all the elect of God been made perfect; without love nothing is well-pleasing to God. In love has the Lord taken us to Himself. On account of the love He bore us, Jesus Christ our Lord gave His blood for us by the will of God; His flesh for our flesh, and His soul for our souls. (1 Clement, chapter 49)

   2 Clement also refers to this passage:

   Good, then, is alms as repentance from sin; better is fasting than prayer, and alms than both; “charity covers a multitude of sins,” and prayer out of a good conscience delivers from death. Blessed is every one that shall be found complete in these; for alms lightens the burden of sin. (2 Clem 16)

   St. Clement of Alexandria, writes,

   But learn the more excellent way, which Paul shows for salvation. “Love seeks not her own,” 1 Corinthians 13:5 but is diffused on the brother. About him she is fluttered, about him she is soberly insane. “Love covers a multitude of sins.” 1 Peter 4:8 “Perfect love casts out fear.” 1 John 4:18 “Vaunts not itself, is not puffed up; rejoices not in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails. Prophecies are done away, tongues cease, gifts of healing fail on the earth. But these three abide, Faith, Hope, Love. But the greatest of these is Love.” And rightly. For Faith departs when we are convinced by vision, by seeing God. And Hope vanishes when the things hoped for come. But Love comes to completion, and grows more when that which is perfect has been bestowed. If one introduces it into his soul, although he be born in sins, and has done many forbidden things, he is able, by increasing love, and adopting a pure repentance, to retrieve his mistakes. (Who is the Rich Man, 38)

   John Cassian writes:

   For after that grace of baptism which is common to all, and that most precious gift of martyrdom which is gained by being washed in blood, there are many fruits of penitence by which we can succeed in expiating our sins. For eternal salvation is not only promised to the bare fact of penitence, of which the blessed Apostle Peter says: “Repent and be converted that your sins may be forgiven;” and John the Baptist and the Lord Himself: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand:” but also by the affection of love is the weight of our sins overwhelmed: for “charity covers a multitude of sins.” 1 Peter 4:8 In the same way also by the fruits of almsgiving a remedy is provided for our wounds, because “As water extinguishes fire, so does almsgiving extinguish sin.” Sirach 3:33 So also by the shedding of tears is gained the washing away of offences, for “Every night I will wash my bed: I will water my couch with tears.” Finally to show that they are not shed in vain, he adds: “Depart from me all you that work iniquity, for the Lord has heard the voice of my weeping:” Moreover by means of confession of sins, their absolution is granted: for “I said: I will confess against myself my sin to the Lord: and You forgave the iniquity of my heart;” and again: “Declare your iniquities first, that you may be justified.” By afflicting the heart and body also is forgiveness of sins committed in like manner obtained, for he says: “Look on my humility and my labour, and forgive me all my sins;” and more especially by amendment of life: “Take away,” he says, “the evil of your thoughts from my eyes. Cease to do evil, learn to do well. Seek judgment, relieve the oppressed: judge the orphan, defend the widow. And come, reason with Me, says the Lord: and though your sins were as scarlet, yet shall they be as white as snow, though they were red as crimson, they shall be as white as wool.” Sometimes too the pardon of our sins is obtained by the intercession of the saints, for “if a man knows his brother to sin a sin not unto death, he asks, and He will give to him his life, for him that sins not unto death;” and again: “Is any sick among you? Let him send for the Elders of the Church and they shall pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up, and if he be in sins, they shall be forgiven him.” Sometimes too by the virtue of compassion and faith the stains of sin are removed, according to this passage: “By compassion and faith sins are purged away.” Proverbs 15:27 And often by the conversion and salvation of those who are saved by our warnings and preaching: “For he who converts a sinner from the error of his way, shall save his soul from death, and cover a multitude of sins.” James 5:20 Moreover by pardon and forgiveness on our part we obtain pardon of our sins: “For if you forgive men their offences, your heavenly Father will also forgive you your sins.” Matthew 6:14 You see then what great means of obtaining mercy the compassion of our Saviour has laid open to us, so that no one when longing for salvation need be crushed by despair, as he sees himself called to life by so many remedies. For if you plead that owing to weakness of the flesh you cannot get rid of your sins by fasting, and you cannot say: “My knees are weak from fasting, and my flesh is changed for oil; for I have eaten ashes for my bread, and mingled my drink with weeping,” then atone for them by profuse almsgiving. If you have nothing that you can give to the needy (although the claims of want and poverty exclude none from this office, since the two mites of the widow are ranked higher than the splendid gifts of the rich, and the Lord promises that He will give a reward for a cup of cold water), at least you can purge them away by amendment of life. But if you cannot secureperfection in goodness by the eradication of all your faults, you can show a pious anxiety for the good and salvation of another. But if you complain that you are not equal to this service, you can cover your sins by the affection of love. (Conference 20)

   St. Augustine, in his first homily on 1 John, writes:

   Not only the past, but haply if we have contracted any from this life; because a man, so long as he bears the flesh, cannot but have some at any rate light sins. But these which we call light, do not make light of. If you make light of them when you weigh them, be afraid when you count them. Many light make one huge sin: many drops fill the river; many grains make the lump. And what hope is there? Before all, confession: lest any think himself righteous, and, before the eyes of God who sees that which is, man, that was not and is, lift up the neck. Before all, then, confession; then, love: for of charity what is said? “Charity covers a multitude of sins.” Now let us see whether he commends charity in regard of the sins which subsequently overtake us: because charity alone extinguishes sins. Pride extinguishes charity: therefore humility strengthens charity; charity extinguishes sins.

   St. Augustine also writes:

   the Lord has power to be reconciled even to the rebaptized by means of the simple bond of unity and peace, and by this same compensating power of peace to mitigate His displeasure against those by whom they were rebaptized, and to pardon all the errors which they had committed while in error, on their offering the sacrifice of charity, which covers the multitude of sins. (On Baptism, Book II, chapter 14)

   Given these comments by the Fathers, I don’t think that Jesus is merely saying that by her love she has made it possible for us to know that her sins were already forgiven. That would be an epistemic construal of Jesus’ statement. Of course her love does show her forgiveness. But the question is whether Jesus was saying something more. When Aquinas speaks of justification, he shows that it involves four things:

   There are four things which are accounted to be necessary for the justification of the ungodly, viz. the infusion of grace, the movement of the free-will towards God by faith, the movement of the free-will towards sin, and the remission of sins. The reason for this is that, as stated above (Article 1), the justification of the ungodly is a movement whereby the soul is moved by God from a state of sin to a state of justice. Now in the movement whereby one thing is moved by another, three things are required: first, the motion of the mover; secondly, the movement of the moved; thirdly, the consummation of the movement, or the attainment of the end. On the part of the Divine motion, there is the infusion of grace; on the part of the free-will which is moved, there are two movements–of departure from the term “whence,” and of approach to the term “whereto”; but the consummation of the movement or the attainment of the end of the movement is implied in the remission of sins; for in this is the justification of the ungodly completed. (ST I-II Q. 113 a.6)

   Those four things are first, infusion of grace, then a movement of the will away from sin, third, a movement of the will toward God, and finally the remission of sins.

   Let’s consider that third component, “movement of the will toward God”. In article 4 of Question 113, Aquinas considers the following objection:

   It would seem that no movement of faith is required for the justification of the ungodly. For as a man is justified by faith, so also by other things, viz. by fear, of which it is written (Sirach 1:27): “The fear of the Lord driveth out sin, for he that is without fear cannot be justified”; and again by charity, according to Luke 7:47: “Many sins are forgiven her because she hath loved much”; and again by humility, according to James 4:6: “God resisteth the proud and giveth grace to the humble”; and again by mercy, according to Proverbs 15:27: “By mercy and faith sins are purged away.” Hence the movement of faith is no more required for the justification of the ungodly, than the movements of the aforesaid virtues. (ST I-II Q.113 a.4 ad 1)

   In other words, according to the objection, it seems as though faith is not necessary for justification, because these other things also contribute to justification. But then notice Aquinas’ response to that objection:

   The movement of faith is not perfect unless it is quickened by charity; hence in the justification of the ungodly, a movement of charity is infused together with the movement of faith. Now free-will is moved to God by being subject to Him; hence an act of filial fear and an act of humility also concur. For it may happen that one and the same act of free-will springs from different virtues, when one commands and another is commanded, inasmuch as the act may be ordained to various ends. But the act of mercy counteracts sin either by way of satisfying for it, and thus it follows justification; or by way of preparation, inasmuch as the merciful obtain mercy; and thus it can either precede justification, or concur with the other virtues towards justification, inasmuch as mercy is included in the love of our neighbor.

   This movement of faith toward God, by which we receive forgiveness of sins and justification, is also a movement of charity. What follows this movement of faith+charity toward God, is forgiveness of sins. The woman’s turning away from sin and turning toward Christ in great love, is followed by the forgiveness of her sins. Notice in the quotation above how Aquinas explains the role of mercy in counteracting sin. If the acts of mercy precede justification, then they prepare the soul for justification. But if the acts of mercy follow justification, then they counteract sin by satisfying for it. In the case of the woman in Luke 7:47, it is also possible that her great contrition, and her act of great love and humility, in washing Jesus’ feet, also made satisfaction for her sins. Catholics believe that it is possible (however infrequent) in one act of contrition and turning to God in charity, if the charity is sufficiently great, to satisfy for all temporal punishment. By grace a person can go from a state of mortal sin, to a state of having no debt of eternal or temporal punishment, in one great act of contrition and charity. It wouldn’t surprise me if that occurred in the case of this woman (thought to be Mary Magdalene). By this great act of charity toward God, she made satisfaction (gave something to Christ that was more pleasing to Him than her sin was displeasing), and in that sense “covered a multitude of sins”. Of course her great charity would also “cover a multitude of sins” in the sense of preventing future sins, both in herself and in others. And if I remember correctly (someone correct me if I am wrong), it is believed according to the tradition that Mary Magdalene never committed a mortal sin the rest of her life. But my point is that Jesus’ statement could refer not only to her movement of charity toward God by which she received forgiveness of her sins, but also to a satisfaction of her sins through her act of charity. We don’t need to interpret this verse in the merely epistemic sense, as though Jesus is merely saying that her love has made it possible for us to know that her sins were already forgiven. I think there is good reason to think He is saying something more than that.

   In the peace of Christ,

   - Bryan

5. Jeremy Tate September 3rd, 2009 10:08 am :

   Dear Brian,

   I think it is very helpful that you speak of agape as the necessity for salvation rather than works. Are you speaking primarily of a disposition of the heart towards God or love as an action? I found parts of the article unsettling because our love for God (in both actions and affections) is so inconsistent.

   I have been having a debate/conversatin recently with Dr. Waters at RTS Jackson and he was willing to admit to me that Rome does indeed teach that “Christ merited our justification.” The problem though, according to Dr. Waters, is that the work of Christ is not the sole instrument of final justificatin for Catholics. Where does this love for God that you speak of in your article come from? Is it exclusively the fruit of the cross?

   Thanks. Peace in Christ, Jeremy

6. Bryan Cross September 3rd, 2009 11:27 am :

   John,

   I agree with you. The Catholic distinguishes between dead faith and living faith, claiming that what makes faith to be living is the presence of agape. I wrote about that in more detail here. The Protestant claims that there is no such thing as dead faith. Mere intellectual assent, for the Protestant, is not dead faith; it is no faith at all. Faith, according to Protestants, includes within its essence fiducia, but (for Protestants) agape is something altogether different from fiducia. They deny that trust involves charity (i.e. agape) or friendship. Typically, Protestants think of charity as an action. Most would not describe faith, hope, and charity as *virtues*. Scott Clark is a case in point. Not seeing these as virtues is partly due to nominalism, anti-sacramentalism (since baptism is, according to the Catholic Church, when our participation in these becomes incorporated into us as a habit/disposition of our soul), and partly due to a solo scriptura approach to Church tradition.

   My argument has been that trust in another involves an implicit friendship. It is an act that not only demonstrates an intellectual recognition of goodness in the other, but is also a giving of oneself to the other. To trust another is, in a certain sense, to give oneself to another, because one is opening oneself to the other. But to give of oneself to another is an act of love. Hence love is inextricably bound up with trust. Moreover, to trust another is to desire some good in the other, i.e. the goodness of his being faithful with that with which one is entrusting him. But to desire some good in the other, is a form of love, called the “love of concupiscence” – I have written about that here. Love of concupiscence, however, is a selfish form of love. It would be unfitting that the love by which we are justified is a selfish form of love. Hence the love involved in trusting in Christ, as my post above sought to explain (from Scripture), must not be one of selfishness, but must be a complete giving over of oneself, for Christ’s sake, i.e. it must be agape. So, for these reasons, fiducia should be recognized to involve agape. And in that case, the disagreement concerning sola fide would largely be resolved, for the reasons I explained in the body of my post.

   In the peace of Christ,

   - Bryan

7. Bryan Cross September 3rd, 2009 12:35 pm :

   Jeremy,

   In speaking of agape (i.e. charity) I am speaking primarily of a disposition of the heart towards God. Agape within us is a participation in the very life of the God who is Agape. (1 John 4:8)

   An action is something that comes from me, but is not intrinsically part of my being (even though it remains part of my history). Many actions of a particular type, explains Aristotle, form a habit. A habit is part of my being in a way that an action is not. A habit is always with me, as part of my second nature, even while I am asleep. But an action is not always with me, and is not part of my second nature. So to have charity only in my actions, is not to be as deeply united to charity as to have charity also as a disposition of my heart, out of which all my actions flow. (Matt 15:19)

   I found parts of the article unsettling because our love for God (in both actions and affections) is so inconsistent.

   That effect (i.e. being unsettling) is understandable for precisely the reason you describe, i.e. conceiving of love for God as either an action or an affection, because these are transient. In baptism, we receive the virtue (i.e. the habit) of charity. It is infused into us as a virtue at that moment. Feelings may come and go, but charity is not primarily a feeling, because it is not primarily at the level of the sensitive appetite, but at the level of the rational appetite, i.e. the will (i.e. the heart). In our actions we do deviate from charity in many ways, but if in that action our heart retains its orientation of charity toward God, then these are only venial sins. That is precisely what distinguishes mortal from venial sins. (Yet, we should beware that many venial sins can lead to mortal sin.) The ‘unsettling’ you describe is probably because you are not distinguishing venial and mortal sin. In mortal sin, our heart turns away from God as our end, and we make ourself our end. Hence in one act of mortal sin, the virtue of charity is destroyed, and we cannot recover it without grace. But God freely offers grace, so that the virtue of charity can be immediately recovered by an act of “perfect contrition”, i.e. sorrow for our sins because it offends God, whom we should love above all things.

   That recovery of sanctifying grace after mortal sin, comes to us through the sacrament of penance, since we cannot be re-baptized. But we don’t have to (and shouldn’t) wait until we go to the sacrament of penance in order to receive the grace that comes from the sacrament of penance. That doesn’t mean that once we have made this act of contrition we should not then receive the sacrament of penance. On the contrary, just as the Catechumen who by faith receives the grace of baptism even prior to his baptism ought nevertheless to receive baptism (and receive an establishment/habituation in grace through it), so the penitent who has made a perfect act of contrition and received the grace of penance even prior to receiving the sacrament of penance must nevertheless receive the sacrament of penance as soon as he is able. (Peter, upon witnessing the Spirit having fallen on Cornelius and his family, did not then say “Skip baptism; they already have the Spirit.”)

   The problem though, according to Dr. Waters, is that the work of Christ is not the sole instrument of final justificatin for Catholics.

   Why exactly is that a problem? Why should grace destroy nature, and nullify the possibility of merit? See this comment in the previous thread, in which I showed that for St. Augustine and St. Thomas, the life lived in grace is a life in which God (not man!) is the co-operator.

   Where does this love for God that you speak of in your article come from? Is it exclusively the fruit of the cross?

   Yes. It comes from the heart of Christ, poured out for us on the Cross, and received by us through the grace (i.e. participation in the divine nature – 2 Pet 1:4) that is given to us in the sacraments. Faith, hope and charity are supernatural virtues that flow from sanctifying grace which we receive through the sacraments as the means Christ has established within His Body by which the members would receive grace. By the sacraments we are incorporated into the Body of Christ and nourished within it on the very life of God.

   In the peace of Christ,

   - Bryan

8. Andrew McCallum September 3rd, 2009 1:22 pm :

   Why is it that the Protestant and the Catholic can each sincerely affirm the truth of each of those verses? Because the Protestant believes that when St. Paul says ‘faith’ or ‘believing’, St. Paul is meaning “faith and not agape.” The Catholic, by contrast, believes that when St. Paul says ‘faith’ or ‘believing’, St. Paul is using the term here in a broader sense, such that the other two theological virtues (i.e. hope and agape) are included together with it. The verses themselves do not specify which sense of the term ‘faith’ is in use here, and hence do not answer the question, or show us who is right. Someone could claim that Romans 4:5 shows that the justified person is simultaneously justified and ungodly, and hence simultaneously justified and devoid of agape.

   Bryan,

   Maybe you are just guilty here of painting with too broad a brush and in reality you are only talking about some Evangelicals, but historic Protestantism does not believe what you say above. We cannot be “simultaneously justified and devoid of agape.” This is seen in the fact that we differentiate between fiducia and merely notitia or assensus. We say that only the former can justify.

   Also, note that Protestants historically hold that regeneration logically precedes justification which means that we cannot be justified by a faith devoid of love. If God has regnerated us and given us a new heart then our justification cannot be something devoid of love.

   But perhaps your critique is just of some Evangelicals?

9. Bryan Cross September 3rd, 2009 1:38 pm :

   Andrew,

   In my post, I mentioned this statement made by Pope Benedict in November of 2008:

   “For this reason Luther’s phrase: “faith alone” is true, if it is not opposed to faith in charity, in love.

   Responding to Pope Benedict’s statement, R. Scott Clark, Professor of Church History & Historical Theology at Westminster Seminary wrote the following:

   That conditional, that “if,” makes all the difference in the world. That one little conditional is the difference between Rome and Wittenberg. Why? After all, Protestants affirm that faith alone is not opposed to charity (love) or sanctification. That’s certainly true, but the question here is whether [...] Benedict means by “faith” what we mean by it and whether we’re talking about the same justification and the same role of faith? For us Protestants, charity is the fruit and evidence of justification. Is it so for Benedict? If so, he’s abandoned his own catechism and magisterial Roman dogma since 1547. That would be remarkable indeed!

   According to Clark, charity is the fruit and evidence of justification; charity plays no role in justification (that would be to abandon sola fide). But in the Catholic position, only a faith conjoined with charity is a justifying faith. So if Clark is wrong, then, given what he said, there is no real difference between “Rome and Wittenberg”, and Protestants should all come back to the Catholic Church. But, if Clark is right, then we can be and are justified by a “faith devoid of love”, because love is the *fruit* of justification, not something that must be conjoined to faith in order for that faith to be justifying.

   Do you think Clark does not represent historic Protestantism, and has fallen into Evangelicalism?

   Also, you may wish to look at footnote 6 of my post, in which I anticipated the objection you have raised.

   In the peace of Christ,

   - Bryan

10. K. Doran September 3rd, 2009 1:39 pm :

    Bryan,

    St. Augustine trumps C.S. Lewis. Well done.

    Sincerely,

    K. Doran

11. Barrett September 3rd, 2009 1:43 pm :

    Andrew,

    “only the former [namely, fiducia] can justify”

    I just read in Berkhof’s ST that, according to Reformed dogmatics, only faith can justify, and that faith includes all three (notitia, assensus, fiducia; p. 503-505). Without knowledge of the one in whom you’re trusting, what good is the trusting? Did you just mean that the volitional element of faith (fiducia) is “the crowning element of faith” as Berkoff states (505)?

    Bryan,

    Thanks for the article. You mentioned that Paul could have been using the word “faith” to mean all three theological virtues. Does Catholic theology include “trusting” in faith or merely intellectual assent? Is the difference between “dead faith” and “living faith” simply the absence of formation in love (fides informis vs. fides formata)? I’m trying to understand where “trusting” comes into play in the Catholic conception.

    Pax,
    Barrett

12. Bryan Cross September 3rd, 2009 1:53 pm :

    Nick,

    I appreciate your comments, but I think you’ve perhaps missed my intention in writing this. I purposefully chose not to deal with the work of Christ. I wanted to focus on the relation of charity to faith. You write:

    The article gave off the impression the issue was “faith working through love,” with the Reformed side denying this. That’s incorrect. The Reformed Confessions expressly say the faith that justifies is the type that works by love (they are seen as a ‘package deal’ in fact).

    See my reply to Andrew above. You’re glossing a subtle but extremely important distinction. Yes, the Reformed Confessions expressly say that the faith that justifies is the type that works by love. But what they mean is that justifying faith necessarily *produces* charity. They deny that only faith informed by charity justifies. Instead, they affirm that only the type of faith that is followed by charity justifies. If you don’t catch the significance of that difference, you’ll miss the point of my post. I agree with the rest of what you say in your comment, but it goes beyond the intended purpose of my post.

    In the peace of Christ,

    - Bryan

13. Bryan Cross September 3rd, 2009 3:15 pm :

    Barrett,

    Yes, I’m claiming that in many of these NT passages, ‘faith’ is a synecdoche for the triad of theological virtues, in that faith is the root of hope and charity. In Catholic theology the faith (objectively) consists of the truths revealed by God, and presented to us for belief by the Church. “We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth ….” Nevertheless, as Aquinas says, these are that by which God is known; God is the true object of faith. (ST II-II Q.1 a.1) Subjectively, faith is the supernatural habit or virtue by which we assent in the intellect to those divinely revealed truths as moved by our will, which is itself moved by God’s grace. In Aquinas’ words, “faith is a habit of the mind, whereby eternal life is begun in us, making the intellect assent to what is non-apparent.” (ST II-II Q.4 a.1) The First Vatican Council says this about faith:

    1. Since human beings are totally dependent on God as their creator and lord, and created reason is completely subject to uncreated truth, we are obliged to yield to God the revealer full submission of intellect and will by faith.

    2. This faith, which is the beginning of human salvation, the Catholic Church professes to be a supernatural virtue, by means of which, with the grace of God inspiring and assisting us, we believe to be true what He has revealed, not because we perceive its intrinsic truth by the natural light of reason, but because of the authority of God himself, who makes the revelation and can neither deceive nor be deceived. (First Vatican Council 3.3.1-2)

    Faith has the certainty of a science, but, unlike a science, faith does not in this life “attain the perfection of clear sight”, because its object (i.e. God) remains unseen. So, the short answer :-) to your question is yes; faith, in Catholic theology is intellectual assent. So in Catholic theology faith, *in itself*, is not an act of trust. Trust involves all three theological virtues, and is one form or expression of the conjunction of these three virtues. We can see that by thinking about what is going on when a person says (sincerely) a sinner’s prayer. He’s not just assenting to revealed truths. He’s asking God to forgive him for sinning against God (that shows love for God), and entrusting his life to God (again, love), and expecting God to save him from hell and give him eternal life with Him. That shows hope and charity.

    Is the difference between “dead faith” and “living faith” simply the absence of formation in love (fides informis vs. fides formata)?

    Yes. In Summa Theologica II-II Q. 4 a.3 Aquinas argues that charity is the form of faith:

    As appears from what has been said above (I-II, 1, 3; I-II, 18, 6), voluntary acts take their species from their end which is the will’s object. Now that which gives a thing its species, is after the manner of a form in natural things. Wherefore the form of any voluntary act is, in a manner, the end to which that act is directed, both because it takes its species therefrom, and because the mode of an action should correspond proportionately to the end. Now it is evident from what has been said (1), that the act of faith is directed to the object of the will, i.e. the good, as to its end: and this good which is the end of faith, viz. the Divine Good, is the proper object of charity. Therefore charity is called the form of faith in so far as the act of faith is perfected and formed by charity.

    Then in the next article, he asks, “Whether lifeless faith can become living, or living faith, lifeless?” There he answers:

    We must therefore hold differently that living and lifeless faith are one and the same habit. The reason is that a habit is differentiated by that which directly pertains to that habit. Now since faith is a perfection of the intellect, that pertains directly to faith, which pertains to the intellect. Again, what pertains to the will, does not pertain directly to faith, so as to be able to differentiate the habit of faith. But the distinction of living from lifeless faith is in respect of something pertaining to the will, i.e. charity, and not in respect of something pertaining to the intellect. Therefore living and lifeless faith are not distinct habits.

    The Council of Trent similarly teaches:

    For faith, unless hope and charity be added to it, neither unites man perfectly with Christ nor makes him a living member of His body.

    For which reason it is most truly said that faith without works is dead and of no profit, and in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything nor uncircumcision, but faith that worketh by charity.

    This faith, conformably to Apostolic tradition, catechumens ask of the Church before the sacrament of baptism, when they ask for the faith that gives eternal life, which without hope and charity faith cannot give. (Session 6, chapter 7)

    I talked about that a bit more here.

    In the peace of Christ,

    - Bryan

14. Tom Riello September 3rd, 2009 3:45 pm :

    Andrew,

    I think to be fair to the Church, it is very hard to try and figure out just what the Reformed mean about “faith alone”. As Bryan pointed out from Dr. Clark with his “if” makes all the difference. By that Clark means that Pope Benedict qualifies “faith alone”, which the Pope does, and I agree. But you, understandably, want to qualify “faith alone” as many others do, “we are saved by faith alone but not by a faith is alone.”

    The real question is, if we believe that faith alone must be qualified in some way to include charity or love (Clark appears not to agree), how can we justify being in schism?

15. Kacie September 3rd, 2009 3:56 pm :

    How does this compare to a Reformed perspective? When asked what is required from humans, they would not even say faith because even faith is impossible for lost humanity. In the eyes of a Calvinist, what is needed is a movement of the Holy Spirit in the heart of a man. When He imparts faith, with it comes everything that faith is by definition linked with – the fruits of the Spirit.

    What you write here is that faith and love are required for salvation. A Calvinist would say that all are impossible, you cannot just gain faith or even faith and love. You gain the entire package with the Spirit’s work in your heart, and then spend your life following hard after Christ.

    I discovered your website a couple of weeks ago and am a Protestant and a layperson, so I don’t speak with expertise, but I do have honest questions.

16. Nick September 3rd, 2009 4:36 pm :

    Bryan: Yes, the Reformed Confessions expressly say that the faith that justifies is the type that works by love. But what they mean is that justifying faith necessarily *produces* charity. They deny that only faith informed by charity justifies. Instead, they affirm that only the type of faith that is followed by charity justifies. If you don’t catch the significance of that difference, you’ll miss the point of my post.

    Nick: Interesting, I didn’t realize this but it makes sense. I will be sure to read your post again.

    What you’re saying is that for Protestants:
    Faith —-> Justification & Charity

    Where as for Catholics:
    Faith & Charity —-> Justification

    What you’re arguing is that the Bible doesn’t show Charity as a byproduct of “Saving Faith,” but rather the heart and soul of it. That then fits in with the James 2 stuff about “faith without works is dead,” rather than “faith without works isn’t true faith in the first place.”

17. Bryan Cross September 3rd, 2009 4:37 pm :

    Hello Kacie,

    Welcome to CTC. In both Reformed and Catholic theologies, faith is necessary for salvation. And in both theologies, faith cannot be had apart from the work of the Holy Spirit. Both traditions agree that faith is a supernatural gift from the Holy Spirit. Calvinists and Catholics agree that faith and love are impossible to acquire apart from work of the Holy Spirit and apart from grace. In Reformed theology (for the most part), when faith is imparted then hope and charity always follow, and none of the three can ever be lost, since they are fruit of the Holy Spirit’s presence, and He never leaves one to whom He has given faith.

    In Catholic theology, by contrast, while charity cannot remain if faith is lost, faith can remain if charity is lost. A person who retains faith but loses charity, would be a person who has unrepented mortal sin, other than apostasy or heresy. The sins of [formal] heresy or apostasy, however, destroy not only charity, but also faith.

    The point of my post is to show that “justification by faith alone”, where justifying faith is understood in a Protestant sense as not being in itself conjoined to / informed by agape, though agape necessarily follows from it, is not supported by the Biblical evidence. The Biblical evidence supports the Catholic understanding that only faith informed by charity is justifying faith. And, even if a reader is not persuaded by my argument, he or she might at least recognize that there is no more evidence in Scripture for the Protestant understanding than there is for the Catholic understanding. And in that case, for the reasons I explained in the conclusion of the post, the Catholic position gets the benefit of the doubt. This issue isn’t trivial, by the way; this issue is at the heart of the nearly 500 year divide between Protestants and Catholics. As R.C. Sproul wrote just the other day:

    At the moment the Roman Catholic Church condemned the biblical doctrine of justification by faith alone, she denied the gospel and ceased to be a legitimate church, regardless of all the rest of her affirmations of Christian orthodoxy.

    But if Sproul is wrong, then as Scott Hahn once said:

    One of my most brilliant professors, a man named Dr. John Gerstner, had once said that if we’re wrong on sola fide, I’d be on my knees outside the Vatican in Rome tomorrow morning doing penance.

    In the peace of Christ,

    - Bryan

18. Bryan Cross September 3rd, 2009 4:40 pm :

    Nick,

    Exactly.

    In the peace of Christ,

    - Bryan

19. Jeremy Tate September 3rd, 2009 8:23 pm :

    Dear Bryan,

    Thanks for the thorough response. Your unequivocal “yes” to my question of whether or not the love of God required for salvation is completely the fruit of the cross clarified things for me. When John Kincaid pointed out in his interview that both Catholics and Protestants require some form of inherent righteousness for salvation (for the reformed we call it “regeneration”), it made the Catholic rejection of “faith alone” not only tenable, but biblical. Much love in Christ, Jeremy

20. Andrew McCallum September 3rd, 2009 11:14 pm :

    Bryan,

    Do you understand the distinction between fiducia and assesnsus and noititia? Do you know what the Reformed say about regeneration? If so, would you agree with me that if regeneration necessarily precedes justification and if we are saved through a true and living faith (fiducia) then it is impossible that we could be “simultaneously justified and devoid of agape?”

    I imagine that you are only quoting for me a little of what Clark likely wrote about the issue, but I don’t see anything in your quote from him to disagree with. He is not stating anything about being devoid of agape either explicitly or implicitly. He is speaking of the ground of our justification. And while I don’t know how much much history he deals with in the context of this particular quote, there is a distinct difference between Protestant and Catholic here. When Trent speaks of the “second plank of justification” and the attendant theologies of satisfaction and the treasury of merits and so on, we certainly do have issues.

    Your footnote #6 should not be a footnote, it should be in the body of the post.

21. Andrew McCallum September 3rd, 2009 11:25 pm :

    I think to be fair to the Church, it is very hard to try and figure out just what the Reformed mean about “faith alone”. As Bryan pointed out from Dr. Clark with his “if” makes all the difference. By that Clark means that Pope Benedict qualifies “faith alone”, which the Pope does, and I agree. But you, understandably, want to qualify “faith alone” as many others do, “we are saved by faith alone but not by a faith is alone.”

    Tom,

    Yes, it’s how we qualify that really structures our respective meanings. And I do think it is possible for RC’s like Benedict to speak of justification by faith alone as true in some sense. Catholics have been debating just in what sense faith relates to work and in what sense grace relates to free will long before there were any Protestants around.

    The real question is, if we believe that faith alone must be qualified in some way to include charity or love (Clark appears not to agree), how can we justify being in schism?

    And since we Reformed don’t see the possibility of being justified apart from a faith that springs from a regenerated heart then we don’t see faith as being separated from love. So we have to dig a little deeper….

22. K. Doran September 4th, 2009 6:45 am :

    Andrew McCallum,

    One thing I’ve been wondering: what would an intelligent magisterial Protestant say that I would have gotten, in terms of my relationship with Jesus, if I had avoided the “error” of becoming a practicing Catholic and had instead joined, say, the OPC?

    From where this lapsed-but-returned cradle Catholic stands, there are just too many damn caveats to understand what you’re “selling,” so to speak. What were you offering me that I even rejected? I think I know what I have rejected in accepting the anathemas of Trent. I understand what I have rejected in the same manner, I believe, as Bryan has explained it above.

    But you seem unsatisfied with his explanation. Please tell me what you think I have rejected — not what ecclesiology I have rejected, but in layman’s terms what in my relationship with Jesus I have rejected. I’ll be up front and say that I feel like becoming a practicing Catholic has involved a process of accepting everything that could lead me to Jesus, and the more I move along this process, the more close I have been to Jesus. Can you explain in simple terms how you are offering me a surer path to Jesus, and how accepting your path entails a necessary rejection of the Catholic path?

    (I realize that ecclesiologically there is an avoidable choice to be made — a choice which I have found it easy to make because the choice is obvious. But I want an explanation of where you think the choice is in terms of relationship with Jesus, and why you think you know of a reliable path to Jesus that an honest Catholic can’t follow without rejecting Trent).

    Sincerely,

    K. Doran

23. Jeremy Tate September 4th, 2009 8:26 am :

    K. Doran,

    Excellent question to Andrew (I enjoy reading all your posts). I’m not yet Catholic, but my journey towards the Catholic Church coudl easily be summed up, “more and more of Jesus”. I’ve been in seven different Protestant denominations and I can assure you that there’s nothing being offered anywhere that is not being superabuntantly given in the sacramental life of the Church. More importantly though, the more Catholics I meet who are truly in love with Christ, the more excited I am to enter the Church.

    Peace in Christ, Jeremy

    I appreciate your insights, Jeremy

24. K. Doran September 4th, 2009 8:28 am :

    Thanks Jeremy,

    I’ve enjoyed reading your posts too. I’ll be praying for you!

    Sincerely,

    K. Doran

25. Tom Riello September 4th, 2009 8:41 am :

    Andrew,

    I am glad that you recognize that Pope Benedict and the Church can speak of justification by faith alone as true in some sense. Many others do not see it that way, so for that I rejoice because truth has triumphed over personal prejudices.

    I also rejoice that you do not see faith as separated from love but, if I may say, that faith works through love (Can I take it that you agree with this?). The question is, is your articulation the traditional Protestant understanding of Faith Alone? Scott Clark makes it very clear that the “provided if ” makes all the difference and he said that in reference to Pope Benedict’s, “Faith alone is true provided if …faith working through love.”

26. Bryan Cross September 4th, 2009 8:46 am :

    Andrew,

    The issue does not ultimately depend whether agape is always co-present whenever faith is justifying. The issue is whether agape is only merely co-present when faith is justifying, and not constitutive of the necessary state of the soul for justification. My argument in this post is that the Biblical case for justification by [faith conjoined to agape] (fides formata) is just as strong if not stronger, than the Biblical case for justification by [faith not conjoined to agape] (fides informis). And if that thesis is correct, then it follows that the Catholic Church’s decision (at Trent) gets the benefit of the doubt over the private interpretive judgments of the early Protestants. If you wish to show my argument to be flawed, you would need to make a case showing that the Biblical evidence shows that justification is by [faith not conjoined to agape].

    In the peace of Christ,

    - Bryan

27. tim prussic September 4th, 2009 5:50 pm :

    Tim T., picking up our conversation on your theological objections to the Reformed doctrine of justification.

    Touching on point #3 – different ways of being real – you mentioned that God’s sees things as the truly are in themselves. I think this notion will be the theological crux of our discussion. Speaking of crux (and moving to my point), did God see Jesus truly as he was when he was on the cross? That is, was Christ truly a sinner? How did the Father “make him to be sin”? The Holy Spirit says, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” 2 Cor 5:21 (ESV). On your view, if God only sees things are they truly are in themselves, then Christ must, himself, have been a sinner, worth of guilt and punishment. That cannot be, ergo, God can “see” things after various fashions and is not limited as you asserted.

    FYI, the Reformed (or, more broadly, historic Protestants) assert that God *imputed* the sins of the elect to Christ, judged him as guilty of them, and punished him justly for those sins. When God imputes sin (or righteousness), he “sees” the recipient through what’s imputed and treats them accordingly.

    Tim, before we move on to critique the Reformed view (which I’m still happy to do), I need to understand how do you solve the problem of Christ’s “guiltiness” on the cross and still hold to tenet that God only sees things are they truly are in themselves.

    BTW, the source of my definition of justification is the Westminster Shorter Catechism # 33 – slightly modified – see http://www.reformed.org/documents/wsc/index.html

    With cheerfulness on a Friday,
    Tim

28. Andrew McCallum September 4th, 2009 11:25 pm :

    My argument in this post is that the Biblical case for justification by [faith conjoined to agape] (fides formata) is just as strong if not stronger, than the Biblical case for justification by [faith not conjoined to agape] (fides informis). And if that thesis is correct, then it follows that the Catholic Church’s decision (at Trent) gets the benefit of the doubt over the private interpretive judgments of the early Protestants. If you wish to show my argument to be flawed, you would need to make a case showing that the Biblical evidence shows that justification is by [faith not conjoined to agape].

    Bryan,

    I don’t think there is anything to prove yet because we haven’t agreed what the problem is yet. You have to agree on the point at issue and the definitions of the terms before you can move any further forward. The issue is not historically whether faith is co-joined to agape unless you are reading something into “co-joined” that I am not seeing. At the point of justification the individual has been regenerated. You know what the Reformed confessions say about regeneration I assume. The individual who has been regenerated has been given a heart of flesh made alive to the things of God and so on. I hope you recognize this kind of language. So if the individual has been made alive to God, etc in regeneration, and regeneration logically precedes justification, then he cannot be devoid of agape at the point of justification, right?

    However, saying that a renewed heart and love for God accompany (is co-joined to?) justification is very different from saying that the works that flow out of our regenerated/justified state are credited to us in God’s declaration of our being justified in His sight. I brought up the concept of satisfaction and the treasury of merits as examples of where we do differ. We hold that the works that flow out of love for God do not form the basis for, nor partly the basis for, our right standing before God. This stands in contrast to Trent’s statements about the “second plank of justification” and the theologies of satisfaction, etc. From the little except you posted I would guess that this is where I think Clark is focusing his thoughts.

29. Bryan Cross September 4th, 2009 11:38 pm :

    Tim P,

    did God see Jesus truly as he was when he was on the cross?

    Yes, God sees all things as they truly are. He is not deceived about anything.

    That is, was Christ truly a sinner?

    No, that’s blasphemous. Christ never sinned, nor could He become sinful or a sinner, nor could sin have any place in Him.

    How did the Father “make him to be sin”? The Holy Spirit says, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” 2 Cor 5:21 (ESV).

    The meaning is that Christ became a sin offering, a sacrifice for sin. St. Augustine explains:

    The same Apostle says in another place, “He made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin.” “Him who knew no sin:” Who is He who knew no sin, but He That said, “Behold the prince of the world comes, and shall find nothing in me? Him who knew no sin, made He sin for us;” even Christ Himself, who knew no sin, God made sin for us. What does this mean, Brethren? If it were said, “He made sin upon Him,” or, “He made Him to have sin;” it would seem intolerable; how do we tolerate what is said, “He made Him sin,” that Christ Himself should be sin? They who are acquainted with the Scriptures of the Old Testament recognise what I am saying. For it is not an expression once used, but repeatedly, very constantly, sacrifices for sins are called “sins.” A goat, for instance, was offered for sin, a ram, anything; the victim itself which was offered for sin was called “sin.” A sacrifice for sin then was called “sin;” so that in one place the Law says, “That the Priests are to lay their hands upon the sin.” “Him” then, “who knew no sin, He made sin for us;” that is, “He was made a sacrifice for sin.” (Sermon 84 on the New Testament)

    And elsewhere he writes:

    Accordingly the apostle says: “We beseech you in Christ’s stead, be reconciled unto God. For He has made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” (2 Corinthians 5:20-21) God, therefore, to whom we are reconciled, has made Him to be sin for us—that is to say, a sacrifice by which our sins may be remitted; for by sins are designated the sacrifices for sins. And indeed He was sacrificed for our sins, the only one among men who had no sins, even as in those early times one was sought for among the flocks to prefigure the Faultless One who was to come to heal our offenses. (On the Grace of Christ and on Original Sin, Book II, chapter 37)

    And elsewhere he writes:

    And they, perchance not understanding this, and being blinded by the desire of misrepresentation, and ignorant of the number of ways in which the name of sin is accustomed to be used in the Holy Scriptures, declare that we affirm sin of Christ. Therefore we assert that Christ both had no sin—neither in soul nor in the body; and that, by taking upon Him flesh in the likeness of sinful flesh, in respect of sin He condemned sin. And this assertion, somewhat obscurely made by the apostle, is explained in two ways—either that the likenesses of things are accustomed to be called by the names of those things to which they are like, so that the apostle may be understood to have intended to call this likeness of sinful flesh by the name of “sin;” or else that the sacrifices for sins were under the law called “sins,” all which things were figures of the flesh of Christ, which is the true and only sacrifice for sins—not only for those which are all washed away in baptism, but also for those which afterwards creep in from the weakness of this life, on account of which the universal Church daily cries in prayer to God, “Forgive us our debts,” and they are forgiven us by means of that singular sacrifice for sins which the apostle, speaking according to the law, did not hesitate to call “sin.” Whence, moreover, is that much plainer passage of his, which is not uncertain by any twofold ambiguity, “We beseech you in Christ’s stead to be reconciled to God. He made Him to be sin for us, who had not known sin; that we might be the righteousness of God in Him.” (2 Corinthians 5:20-21) For the passage which I have above mentioned, “In respect of sin, He condemned sin,” because it was not said, “In respect of his sin,” may be understood by any one, as if He said that He condemned sin in respect of the sin of the Jews; because in respect of their sin who crucified Him, it happened that He shed His blood for the remission of sins. But this passage, where God is said to have made Christ Himself “sin,” who had not known sin, does not seem to me to be more fittingly understood than that Christ was made a sacrifice for sins, and on this account was called “sin.” (Against Two Books of the Pelagians, Bk III, chapter 16)

    And here I showed the contrast between R.C. Sproul and St. Augustine on the sense in which Christ bore the curse.

    In the peace of Christ,

    - Bryan

30. Andrew McCallum September 4th, 2009 11:38 pm :

    One thing I’ve been wondering: what would an intelligent magisterial Protestant say that I would have gotten, in terms of my relationship with Jesus, if I had avoided the “error” of becoming a practicing Catholic and had instead joined, say, the OPC?

    K. Doran,

    If by “relationship with Christ” we are just speaking of personal salvation, I think I have to answer that question differently depending on the profession of the particular Catholic in view. I’ve read quite a bit of the material from folks like those here who to my mind are conservatives and Thomists. They understand the thomistic concept of God’s free grace. And if they really do understand this and they believe that Christ’s work on the cross is sufficient then they have an understanding of the saving work of Christ and Christ profits them much. But every Reformed and Evangelical church has lots of ex-Catholics. I’ve talked to many of them and the stories are often the same. They sit through innumerable masses and do all the things that faithful Catholics are supposed to do and yet they never come to understand nor care about God’s grace. For this sort of Catholic their faith did nothing or so they would say when they came out of Catholicism and joined a congregation such as one of those in the OPC. Of course there are innumerable Protestant churches where folks never hear the gospel and they might be better off in a Catholic congregation.

    I hope I’m getting at your question.

31. Marty September 4th, 2009 11:55 pm :

    If you wish to bring Protestants and Catholics together (or convince Protestants of the RC position) it’s critical that both sides are presented faithfully, especially the Protestant position if one is writing from an RC perspective. It get’s tiresome reading this debate where the same old statements are just bandied back and forth by both sides. But to cut to the chase, justification has a variety of meanings in the NT, but particularly 2 basic ones: to declare that one is righteous / not guilty (the opposite of condemnation, so Rom. 5:16, 18; 8:33-34); to show that one is righteous (James 2:24, Rom. 3:5 etc.).

    Simply observing this would help the discussion and stop the aimless quoting of texts out of context. The biggest problem for Trent is that it’s definition of justification (to make righteous as a process) is nowhere found in Scripture. In historical theology there’s no decent analysis of the word done after Augustine in the mediveal era. When one reads through Alexander of Hales, Albertus Magnus, Bonaventure, Thomas, Scotus, Giles of Rome, Hugolino of Orvieto, Gregory of Rimini, Capreolus, Biel, and the like, the meaning of the word justification is assumed and not proven from the biblical text. And thus when we get to the counter-reformation authors particularly Bellarmine, they appeal to common usage rather than do rigorous exegesis of the NT. This is the achilles heel of the RC position.

    (Of course the biggest problem for Trent [and Florence and Lateran IV] is not justification but Vatican II … but that’s another story).

32. Bryan Cross September 5th, 2009 12:05 am :

    Andrew,

    The Catholic position is that we are justified by [faith conjoined to agape] (i.e. fides formata). The Protestant position is that we are justified by faith alone, even though such faith is always accompanied by agape. My argument in this post is that the Biblical case for justification by [faith conjoined to agape] (fides formata) is just as strong if not stronger, than the Biblical case for justification by faith alone, though this faith is always accompanied by agape. If my argument is a sound argument (or even if the Biblical evidence is a toss-up), then it follows that the Catholic Church’s decision at Trent gets the benefit of the doubt over the private interpretive judgments of the early Protestants. So, if you wish to show my argument to be flawed, you would need to make a case showing that the Biblical evidence overwhelmingly shows that (1) justification is by faith alone, even though this faith is always accompanied be agape, and that (2) justification is not by [faith conjoined to agape].

    The fact that it is even possible to make such an argument should be deeply troubling to you. If sola fide is the fundamental ground for separating and remaining separate from the Catholic Church, it should be a slam dunk case from Scripture that justification is not by [faith conjoined to agape]. There shouldn’t even be a 3% chance that justification is by [faith conjoined to agape]. There is no justification for causing or preserving a schism from the Church (since schism is a grave matter), on the basis of a high probability that one’s own interpretation is right, and the Church’s teaching is wrong. Protestantism needs a knock-down case from Scripture on this question, in order (hypothetically) to justify its separation from the Catholic Church.

    In the peace of Christ,

    - Bryan

33. Bryan Cross September 5th, 2009 1:11 am :

    Marty,

    I agree that in order to bring Protestants and Catholics together, it is important to represent fairly both sides. It is also important not to beg the question (i.e. assume precisely what is in question). You seem to be saying that the declarative sense of justification in Scripture is not by infused righteousness. But that’s precisely what is in question between Protestants and Catholics. Similarly, you claim that James 2:24 is about showing that one is righteous. But that too begs the question, for the reason I explain toward the end of my post. Catholics see James referring to an increase in justification. Similarly, given that Abraham had already believed God in Gen 12, then when St. Paul refers (Rom 4:3) to Abraham believing God in Gen 15, this too must be referring to an increase in justification.

    The biggest problem for Trent is that it’s definition of justification (to make righteous as a process) is nowhere found in Scripture.

    Again, that begs the question, as I just showed. But, to back up, that’s not exactly how Trent defines justification. (As you said, it is important to represent fairly both sides.) According to Trent, justification is both a one time event (at baptism, or when repenting of mortal sin committed after baptism) and something that continues to increase as we grow in grace and abound in graced-works. We (Catholics) see both of those aspects of justification in Scripture.

    In historical theology there’s no decent analysis of the word done after Augustine in the mediveal era. When one reads through Alexander of Hales, Albertus Magnus, Bonaventure, Thomas, Scotus, Giles of Rome, Hugolino of Orvieto, Gregory of Rimini, Capreolus, Biel, and the like, the meaning of the word justification is assumed and not proven from the biblical text. And thus when we get to the counter-reformation authors particularly Bellarmine, they appeal to common usage rather than do rigorous exegesis of the NT. This is the achilles heel of the RC position.

    That you see it as an “achilles heel”, rather than as an expression of faith [by these figures] in Christ’s promise that the Spirit would guide the Church into all truth, again begs the question by expecting Catholics to adopt the perspective of ecclesial deism. Why should we do that? We do not see ourselves as in such a lofty position to correct all those who came before us, or to assume that the Body of Christ, guided by the Holy Spirit, misunderstood the meaning of justification for 1500 years. Instead, we let the Church teach us.

    In the peace of Christ,

    - Bryan

34. tim prussic September 5th, 2009 3:15 am :

    Bryan, how many conversations are you going to get wrapped up in?!?

    Augustine’s answer is fine, but it ends up skirting the issue I’m after. He seems to be interested in the simple terminology, and I’m pleased with his answer. The more pointed question is what does the terminology mean, not what are its roots. God made Christ sin and Christ was punished on the cross, even as the sacrifices of old were “made” sin and put to death. The whole ritual from the beginning smacks of imputation, not infusion. Was, say, the ram infused with the sins of the people and thus made sinful intrinsically? Of course not. He was constituted the sin-bearer, the sins (as it were) imputed to the animal. All this foreshadowed the great Sacrificial lamb, who bore the sins of his people, but not by infusion (which would be blasphemous). Now, if you’re going to reject imputation (and you have A LOT of biblical/exegetical/lexical data against you) you have to explain what the Spirit means by “made him to be sin for us.”

    Incidentally, for the background of this discussion, see Tim T’s and my discussion over on the Semi-Pelagian thread. I’m still looking for Tim’s answer to my query up in #27.

    Have a splendid day, Bryan!
    -Tim

35. Tim A. Troutman September 5th, 2009 4:20 am :

    Tim p – Sorry I have to catch up on this thread. I see that Bryan answered your questinos in 27. I would have answered them the same way. We do not accept penal substitution. The fathers never taught this, and it is not philosophically or theologically sound. A whipping boy, even if divine, does not render true justice. In fact, it furthers injustice. The Ransom Theory of atonement is another one that, although unlike Penal Substitution, did enjoy some support in the early fathers, is incomplete at best and an error at worst. The Scriptures use ‘ransom’ language of course, but again we point to what I call the divine metaphor. (Please take a minute to skim that article as I’ve covered much of this in more detail there. It backs up a little bit to try and help us see where our real disagreement lies. I suspect we’ll find a lot of agreement there but some disagreement also.)

    The Catholic Church has not spoken authoritatively on any particular atonement theory. PS has long been rejected by notable theologians because of its lack of support in tradition and its philosophical problems touched on above and in the link. Your argument seems to be taking PS as a given and we need to back up to an earlier starting point because Catholics reject PS.

36. JohnW September 5th, 2009 8:10 am :

    Bryan and Tim Troutman

    I have read what you say about Penal Sub and I disagree, I asked a Priest who does apologetics about this and he said that a Catholic can hold to Penal Sub. I do hold to Pemnal Sub. If one reads the Biblical texts dealing with Sin Sacrifices in the OT and the New Testament references about Jesus “being made Sin” being the “Propitiation” for our Sins etc., if one reads these without any Philosophical presuppositions, which if you use Aristotle, Plato etc then one can see that Penal Sub is exactly what Scripture says about Jesus’s atonement. Col. 2:8: “Beware lest any man cheat you by Philosophy, and vain deceit; according to the tradition of men, according to the elements of the world, and not according to Christ.” I will not yield on Penal Sub, It is what the Scriptures clearly say and I cannot and will not give up holding to it.

    I am not aware of any OFFICIAL Magisterial Church document or Infallible Teaching that CLEARLY says that a Catholic cannot hold to it or that it is an error or heresy.

37. Andrew McCallum September 5th, 2009 9:04 am :

    The Catholic position is that we are justified by [faith conjoined to agape] (i.e. fides formata). The Protestant position is that we are justified by faith alone, even though such faith is always accompanied by agape. My argument in this post is that the Biblical case for justification by [faith conjoined to agape] (fides formata) is just as strong if not stronger, than the Biblical case for justification by faith alone, though this faith is always accompanied by agape. If my argument is a sound argument

    Bryan,

    It’s not a question of whether your argument is sound. I’m just pointing out that you have not defined your argument well enough yet. I don’t know what you mean by the phrase “conjoined to agape.” This could easily be taken in more than one way and it could be used to describe the historic Protestant position as well as the Catholic position. Did you define the phrase and I did not see it? And you seem to be avoiding the discussion over Trent’s specific language. Trent hits the nail right on the head, but I can’t say the same for your “argument” above.

    And it is not helpful or meaningful to call the Protestant position a matter of “private judgment” while the Catholic position is not. The position that the RCC came to at Trent was just one set of a number of sets of theological opinions prevalent in the late Middle Ages. The statements of the Reformed Churches reflect another set of opinions prevalent in the late Middle Ages. Why should one set be labeled as the product of private judgment? And I would add that the Protestant confessions could hardly be said to be the product of private interpretation because the statements on justification are remarkably unified from one confession to another even though they were composed by different men in different times and different geographies.

38. Bryan Cross September 5th, 2009 11:58 am :

    Tim P,

    St. Augustine is one of the greatest doctors of the Church; perhaps before accusing him of “skirting the issue” you might try a more charitable and humble approach to him. He is not merely interested “in the simple terminology”, because he was not so naive as to think that merely using different words, with the same meaning, avoided the problem he is addressing. It would be “intolerable”, he says, if St. Paul meant that “Christ Himself should be sin”. St. Augustine’s solution to this problem, if it were merely using different words with the same meaning, would leave the problem unsolved. His solution is that St. Paul means not that Christ became sin, but that Christ became a sacrifice for sin, i.e. a sin offering, that is, that by the gift (to the Father) of His holy passion and death, made in humble obedience and charity, Christ offered to the Father something more pleasing to the Father than all our sins were displeasing to Him, and by this great gift to the Father “merited justification for us” such that when we are united to Christ (actually incorporated into His Mystical Body) through baptism, then by the superabundant merit of Christ’s sacrifice we receive grace (i.e. are made partakers of the divine nature), and thus a cleansing of all our sins (by a renewal in the inner man), the canceling of our debt of punishment (because we are members of One who made superabundant satisfaction to the Father), and eternal life, the divine life in which we now live.

    The more pointed question is what does the terminology mean, not what are its roots.

    It is better not to presuppose that understanding the roots of a term cannot shed light on what the term means, as if we must choose between finding its meaning and examining its roots.

    The whole ritual from the beginning smacks of imputation, not infusion.

    “Smacks of” is not a sufficiently reliable method for determining the meaning of a passage, nor of justifying a schism.

    Was, say, the ram infused with the sins of the people and thus made sinful intrinsically? Of course not. He was constituted the sin-bearer, the sins (as it were) imputed to the animal.

    There was neither imputation nor infusion in the cases of the sacrificial animals, because they were mere types, and “it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins” (Heb 10:4). When Noah offered a sacrifice to God after the Flood, we see:

    “And when the LORD smelled the pleasing aroma, the LORD said in his heart, “I will never again curse the ground because of man …

    Of course God (in His divine nature) does not have a nose or smell. This is anthropomorphic language. Why was God pleased? Because this was a gift given to Him, and because it foreshadowed the gift His Son would make to Him. But the poor, if they could not afford pigeons or larger animals, could make sin offerings with flour.

    “If, however, he cannot afford two doves or two young pigeons, he is to bring as an offering for his sin a tenth of an ephah of fine flour for a sin offering. (Lev 5:11)

    In that case the person’s sin was neither imputed nor infused into the flour. God was not punishing the flour for the person’s sins. Rather, the act of offering this possession to God (in figure, since all these are types of Christ’s sacrifice) pleased God, and made satisfaction for sin.

    All this foreshadowed the great Sacrificial lamb, who bore the sins of his people, but not by infusion (which would be blasphemous).

    The sin offerings of the OT did foreshadow the great Sacrificial lamb, who bore the sins of His people by suffering the curse of sin (not by being made sin itself, or being counted by God as having sinned). St. Augustine explains:

    Death comes upon man as the punishment of sin, and so is itself called sin; not that a man sins in dying, but because sin is the cause of his death. So the word tongue, which properly means the fleshy substance between the teeth and the palate, is applied in a secondary sense to the result of the tongue’s action. In this sense we speak of a Latin tongue and a Greek tongue. The word hand, too, means both the members of the body we use in working, and the writing which is done with the hand. In this sense we speak of writing as being proved to be the hand of a certain person, or of recognizing the hand of a friend. The writing is certainly not a member of the body, but the name hand is given to it because it is the hand that does it. So sin means both a bad action deserving punishment, and death the consequence of sin. Christ has no sin in the sense of deserving death, but He bore for our sakes sin in the sense of death as brought on human nature by sin. This is what hung on the tree; this is what was cursed by Moses. Thus was death condemned that its reign might cease, and cursed that it might be destroyed. By Christ’s taking our sin in this sense, its condemnation is our deliverance, while to remain in subjection to sin is to be condemned. (Contra Faustum, Bk XIV

    What it means that Christ bore our sin, explains St. Augustine, is that He bore the effects of sin (i.e. suffering and death). Man was not made to die; death is the result of the curse, on account of sin. But Christ, though He was sinless, endured the effects of sin, and in that sense bore our sin. He also bore our sin through His solidarity with sinful man (having become a man, and sharing in our human nature, and living among us in our fallen world), sorrowing in Himself for all the sins of men committed against His Father.

    Now, if you’re going to reject imputation (and you have A LOT of biblical/exegetical/lexical data against you) you have to explain what the Spirit means by “made him to be sin for us.”

    Catholics do not reject imputation; we explain it. When David speaks of God imputing iniquity in Psalm 32:2, we do not presuppose nominalism when understanding that. When God does not impute iniquity, that means that instead of simply damning us for our sin, God has mercy, and grants the grace of repentance such that his heart can be cleansed of deceit (second half of the same verse, Ps 32:2), and thus his former sins are ‘covered’, i.e. not damning. This is something angels cannot enjoy; they have no opportunity for repentance after sin. But God has mercifully given man an opportunity to repent, and as shown in Ps 51 be “washed thoroughly from [our] iniquity”, “cleansed from [our] sin”, being made true “in [our] innermost being” and “whiter than snow” in the deepest part of our soul. Non-imputation of sin does not mean simul justus et peccator, but that God has mercy, and cleanses us of all unrighteousness.

    In Romans 5:13, when St. Paul says:

    for until the Law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law

    He is referring to culpability. A person is culpable for an objective wrongdoing only if the person knows that it is wrong, or is culpable for not knowing that it is wrong. Just as we do not hold a child culpable for not sharing with a playmate, if the child has not yet been taught that being selfish is wrong, so from Adam until the Law was given through Moses, there was objective wrongdoing in the world (and culpability via natural law), but the peoples’ culpability was not in the likeness of the offense of Adam (Rom 5:14), who had directly received the divine command, nor was it like that of the Israelites, who had received divine laws from God at Mt. Sinai. So the imputation referred to here (in Rom 5:13) is not nominalistic or stipulative, but based on the actual degree of culpability of the persons involved, given what wrongs they did and what they knew about the wrongness of those actions.

    In the peace of Christ,

    - Bryan

39. tim prussic September 5th, 2009 12:00 pm :

    Tim T., I gotta say I’m impressed that you’re unwilling/unable to offer a succinct, clear explanation of exactly what Christ was doing on the cross. I though it was standard fare from the time of St. Anselm to hold to some sort of penal substitution/satisfaction. Anyway, the lack of explanation seems like a biggie to me and it raises a lot of questions, but I’ll let them go for now and return to our specific discussion.

    I’ll try a different way of entry into our discussion. Did God count Adam’s sin to you? How does original sin work? We were certainly not there in the garden, but God counts that sin to us: “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned…. But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many” (Rom 5:12, 15). We died in Adam and we live in Christ. Tim, would you please offer me some clear explanation of this while keeping your specific notion that Gods “sees” things/people only as the are in themselves front and center in the explanation? No rush at all… I probably won’t be back here till Monday.

    With joy,
    Tim

40. tim prussic September 5th, 2009 1:05 pm :

    Thanks for the fraternal rebuke, Bryan, but I think it’s misplaced. Augustine is a great personal hero of mine, but he’s a man and *brace yourself* can skit an issue, just like you and me. To say that “made him sin for us” means “became a sacrifice” simply pushes the question back to the nature of the efficacy of the sacrifice. When I say the whole thing smacks of imputation, I mean that behind most aspects of the sacrificial systems stands imputation. Now, I understand assertion in not proof, but I want to uncover my thoughts alluded to above. The ram for the burn offering, for example, teaches imputation toward propitiation (cf. 1 Jn 2:2), while the scapegoat teaches imputation, but focuses on expiation or the removal of sin (Ps 103:12). The grain offering doesn’t teach about imputation; it doesn’t need to. That’s what I meant when I said the whole thing smacks of imputation. We’re not surprised to find that those who believe are counted righteous in Christ (Rom 4:22-24) and by Christ being made a curse for us (Gal 3:13) and that imputation stands behind both aspects.

    In any event, I need to focus my time here, as I’m trying to avoid the “shotgun” approach of dealing with 19 issues at one time and spend hours a day doing it.

    Good day.

41. Marty September 5th, 2009 1:30 pm :

    Dear Bryan,

    We discover the meaning of words (and phrases and sentences) from the context in which they’re used. That’s just a semantic fact, and this is the assumption from which the rest of my comments will flow. In short, the RC problem is it’s lack of attention to precise exegesis.

    You seem to be saying that the declarative sense of justification in Scripture is not by infused righteousness. But that’s precisely what is in question between Protestants and Catholics.

    Nope it’s not begging any question, it’s a lexical fact. Dikaioo doesn’t have the meaning of “make righteous” as Rome defines it. Nowhere. Read on.

    Similarly, you claim that James 2:24 is about showing that one is righteous. But that too begs the question, for the reason I explain toward the end of my post. Catholics see James referring to an increase in justification.

    Again, no, because in the context of the argument James is talking about how one “shows” (2:18) they have faith (i.e. show they are righteous, i.e. justify that they are righteous and have true faith), and that is by deeds. The RC idea of increasing justification is alien both to the context, and the meaning of the word justification.

    Similarly, given that Abraham had already believed God in Gen 12, then when St. Paul refers (Rom 4:3) to Abraham believing God in Gen 15, this too must be referring to an increase in justification.

    Why? Rom. 4:3 simply shows that the existence of faith shows the existence of a righteousness that allows Abraham to be in a relationship with God. Abraham has done a whole host of good works prior to Gen. 15:6, but that’s not what makes him righteous. There’s not one contextual hint that anywhere in the passage that Paul is talking about an increase of justification. It’s an alien concept read into the passage, not read out of it. The passage is all about what it means to be right with God (and in the covenant people of God), as both the near and wide context show.

    That you see it as an “achilles heel”, rather than as an expression of faith [by these figures] in Christ’s promise that the Spirit would guide the Church into all truth, again begs the question by expecting Catholics to adopt the perspective of ecclesial deism.

    Nope it’s not ecclesial deism, it’s ecclesial realism. Vatican II seems to suggest the Church got some things wrong for longer than 1500 years! Look at Lumen Gentium’s re-interpretation of “no salvation outside the church”. Both Lateran IV and Florence were clear that there was no salvation outside of the RC Church institution. Vatican II took a very different position.

    I certainly believe in the development of doctrine. The church has grown in its understanding of Scripture over the years; on many issues we see further than our predecessors because we’re standing on their shoulders. From growth in our understanding of koine Greek, exegesis, semantics, and linguistics, we can safely conclude that the medievals on justification were quite wrong.

    I wish RCs would read the Bible carefully. The promise to be led into all truth is said to the apostles and applied to just them (cf. esp. John 14:26).

    Why should we do that? We do not see ourselves as in such a lofty position to correct all those who came before us, or to assume that the Body of Christ, guided by the Holy Spirit, misunderstood the meaning of justification for 1500 years. Instead, we let the Church teach us.

    This is all rather idealistic to me. Look at the three converts from Protestantism to Catholicism: Scott Hahn, Bob Sungenis, and Gerry Matatics. They have three different views on the status of Vatican II, and all claim to have the right interpretation of “official” church documents. Whom do I follow? The teaching of the “Church” is a chimera.

    In speaking to Catholics I find as many positions on which “Church” statements are infallible as there are Catholics. Which one do I believe? The official documents are interpreted in a variety of ways, and (of course) we don’t know which documents are infallible to begin with.

    Every blessing in Christ,

    Marty.

42. Bryan Cross September 5th, 2009 2:32 pm :

    John,

    I have read what you say about Penal Sub and I disagree, I asked a Priest who does apologetics about this and he said that a Catholic can hold to Penal Sub.

    If by ‘penal substitution’ is meant that Christ bore our curse in the Anselmian sense, as I explained in a comment above, then Catholics can (and should) believe it. But Catholics cannot hold to “penal substitution” if by it one means that at the Cross, God the Father poured out His wrath (for our sins) on His Son. For example, a Catholic cannot accept what R.C. Sproul says here:

    Sproul says (6’28″) “the One who was pure was pure no more.” That implies that for Sproul, Christ became impure, with all the impurity that was incurred by each and every sin that all the elect ever committed and will commit. If Christ were impure, with the impurity of all such sins, that would entail that Christ in His human nature no longer participated in the divine nature (i.e. no longer had grace). But Christ, devoid of grace, could not merit anything; that would be Pelagianism. Then Sproul says (6’47″) that it was if the Father said to the Son, “God damn you”. But who is the “you” God the Father is damning? If it the second Person of the Trinity, then the error here is an implicit tri-theism, as though the Father can be separated from the Son, when in fact the Three Persons enjoy perfect, eternal and immutable beatitude with each other. But if the one being damned is not the second Person of the Trinity, then it must be a non-divine person, because a nature is not a ‘you’. And that is Nestorianism. But Catholics can accept neither tri-theism nor Nestorianism.

    In addition, the due penalty for [mortal] sin is eternal separation from God. But Christ did not (and cannot) be separated from God (since He is God). Not only that, but He is now seated at the right hand of the Father, not in hell. So, on the penal substitution model in which the Father pours out His wrath on His Son for our sins, it would follow that Christ did not endure the full penalty for these sins. That means that God either has to cancel the remaining debt of punishment for these sins (which makes Christ’s suffering pointless, since if He were going to cancel 99.99…% of the debt, why make His Son go through all this suffering?), or, that even the elect (who committed even one mortal sin during their lifetime) have to pay the remaining debt of punishment, by spending eternity in hell (i.e. no one is saved, which again, makes Christ’s suffering pointless).

    Moreover, a Catholic cannot believe that Christ died only for the predestined. It is “impious, blasphemous, contumelious, dishonoring to divine piety, and heretical” to believe that Christ died only for the predestined. (Cum occasione, 5) Nor may a Catholic believe that Christ died only for the elect and the faithful. (Errors of the Jansenists, condemned by Pope Alexander the VIII) We believe that Christ died “not for our sins only, but also for the sins of the whole world.” (Trent Session 6, chapter 2) But if the nature of the atonement is such that God the Father poured out all His wrath for all human sin on Christ, then it follows that no one else can receive the wrath of God (for it was all poured out on Christ), and hence no one can go to hell, and (since there is no other place to go) that everyone is saved and goes to Heaven (i.e. universalism is true). But such an implication is incompatible with the condemnation by Pope Pius IX of the following proposition, “Good hope at least is to be entertained of the eternal salvation of all those who are not at all in the true Church of Christ.” (Syllabus of Errors, 17). So for this reason, it logically follows that a Catholic cannot accept penal substitution understood in the sense of God pouring out His wrath on Christ for our sins.

    Furthermore, the Council of Trent teaches de fide that Christ, through His passion and death, merited reward from God. (Session 6, chapter 7) But one who is impure with all the sins of the whole world, and is punished with the punishment that is due for that sin, merits no reward, for his punishment is what is due to him. Christ can only merit reward for His suffering and death if He did not deserve His suffering and death. But only if He was not impure (i.e. only if He was sinless) would He not deserve His suffering and death. Hence, for that reason also, a Catholic cannot accept Sproul’s account of penal substitution.

    if one reads these without any Philosophical presuppositions, which if you use Aristotle, Plato etc then one can see that Penal Sub is exactly what Scripture says about Jesus’s atonement.

    The Catholic doesn’t seek to read Scripture in a presuppositionless manner, as if such a thing were even possible. Instead he tries to read and understand Scripture with the Church and through the eyes of the Church, i.e. through the tradition of the Fathers and the teachings of the Magisterium. To read Scripture with the mind of the Church is to read Scripture with the mind of Christ. To try to read Scripture apart from the Church, is to make oneself like the Ethiopian eunuch, who could not understand what he was reading, without the guidance of the Magisterium (in his case a deacon). (Acts 8:31)

    In the peace of Christ,

    - Bryan

43. Bryan Cross September 5th, 2009 4:03 pm :

    Andrew,

    When I refer to “faith conjoined to agape“, I’m talking about faith informed by agape, also referred to as fides formata. See comment #13 above. I explained the nature of the relation between faith and charity in fides formata in more detail in my post titled “Justification: Divided over Charity“. This is quite a different understanding of the relation of charity to justifying faith than the Protestant notion, as described by R. Scott Clark, that “For us Protestants, charity is the fruit and evidence of justification.”

    Given that this is the fundamental issue separating Protestants and Catholics, according to Clark, then in order to justify remaining separate from the Catholic Church, the Protestant needs a rock-solid, slam dunk case from Scripture showing that charity is only the “fruit and evidence of justification”, and not that by which faith is made justifying.

    Regarding the second paragraph (in comment #37) you wrote:

    And it is not helpful or meaningful to call the Protestant position a matter of “private judgment” while the Catholic position is not.

    Propositions do not become meaningless (or less than meaningful) simply because you disagree with them. Claiming such is the equivalent of an ad hominem, essentially accusing your interlocutor of writing gibberish, and hence being insane. I too could respond by claiming that everything you say is meaningless, and simply dismiss it that way, and we would be no closer to agreement. To resort to this is to use brute power, instead of rational dialogue, to resolve our disagreement. So claiming that one’s interlocutor’s claim is meaningless is not permitted here at CTC, because it goes against the rules of rational discourse. Nor are propositions rightly evaluated by whether they are “helpful” or not, especially when the “with respect to what” is omitted. It is a sophistical way of dismissing a claim without actually refuting it. Propositions are rightly evaluated by whether they are true or false. If you think my claim is false, then show it to be false, or at least show that there is good evidence that my claim is not true.

    The position that the RCC came to at Trent was just one set of a number of sets of theological opinions prevalent in the late Middle Ages.

    True. The same could be said for the conclusion of any Ecumenical Council. If the conclusion of an Ecumenical Council had to have been unanimously accepted by all parties *prior* to that Council in order for that conclusion to be binding and authoritative, then almost no decision of any Ecumenical Councils would be binding or authoritative, because almost all the Councils were called to resolve pre-existing theological disagreements. So the fact of there being differing theological opinions prior to Trent, which were then addressed by Trent, in no way lessens the authority of Trent’s decisions about those issues.

    The statements of the Reformed Churches reflect another set of opinions prevalent in the late Middle Ages. Why should one set be labeled as the product of private judgment?

    Because what you refer to as “Reformed Churches” were just the assembling together of dissident lay-Catholics (not having been sent or authorized by the Church’s authorities) who shared the same interpretation of Scripture arrived at by their own private judgment. When two or more people who have reached their theological position by private judgment come together, the fact of their coming together does not mean that their shared position was not reached by private judgment.

    And I would add that the Protestant confessions could hardly be said to be the product of private interpretation because the statements on justification are remarkably unified from one confession to another even though they were composed by different men in different times and different geographies.

    Nothing about “private judgment” precludes different sets of individuals from reaching the same conclusion. So the fact of different persons reaching the same interpretation by private judgment does not make it any less the result of private judgment. This is precisely why there are so many different Protestant denominations; people seek out those who share their own interpretation of Scripture. What makes it private judgment is that it was *not* done by those having the authority to do it, or to speak for the Church, as I showed in comments #15, 65, and 74 of this thread. It was done, rather, in the way that Nadab and Abihu acted in an unauthorized way (Lev 10), and the way Korah, On, Datham and Abiram (notice that they acted together) took authority to themselves (Num 16), saying, “for all the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the LORD is in their midst; so why do you exalt yourself above the assembly of the LORD?” They justified their behavior against the divinely established authority by charging Moses with “lording it over them”. (Num 16:13) Merely because a group of dissidents acts together, doesn’t make them “another Church”.

    In the peace of Christ,

    - Bryan

44. Bryan Cross September 5th, 2009 5:09 pm :

    Marty,

    We discover the meaning of words (and phrases and sentences) from the context in which they’re used. That’s just a semantic fact, and this is the assumption from which the rest of my comments will flow. In short, the RC problem is it’s lack of attention to precise exegesis.

    Again, this begs the question. (Bear with me; I’ll explain.) But the fact that you don’t recognize it as begging the question shows why this schism has endured for almost 500 years. The Church has never believed that *the* way Christians are to discover the meaning of the words of Scripture is from their context. Of course the Church has recognized that the context is an essential guide in interpreting and understanding Scripture. But the Church has never seen herself as having received a book that must then be interpreted. The Church has always seen herself as having already received the deposit of faith, from Christ, and from the Apostles themselves (in person), before receiving the written Word. Christ taught the meaning of the Old Testament to the Apostles, and they subsequently taught it to those whom they ordained to succeed them. They also taught the gospel (the entire deposit of the faith they had received from Christ) to their successors. The role of the Church’s magisterium was to preserve and explain what had been entrusted to them and explained to them by the Apostles, not to figure out the meaning of a book that, as it were, simply fell from Heaven. Your lexical prescription to discovering the meaning of Scripture reflects a mindset that is entirely foreign to the Church. It is if we are on the outside (of Scripture), trying to get in. Whereas, for the Catholic Church, she is already on the inside of Scripture, seeking to hand on and explain what she already knows, to the faithful. So your approach carries with it the presupposition that the meaning of Scripture was not entrusted to the successors of the Apostles, and that there is no Magisterium. Thus, your approach is not a *neutral* presupposition; it is a question-begging presupposition, because it presumes the falsity of Catholicism. As Pope Benedict (while still Cardinal Ratzinger) said:

    Finally, the exegete must realize that he, does not stand in some neutral area, above or outside history and the Church. Such a presumed immediacy regarding the purely historical can only lead to dead ends. The first presupposition of all exegesis is that it accepts the Bible as a book. In so doing, it has already chosen a place for itself which does not simply follow from the study of literature. It has identified this particular literature as the product of a coherent history, and this history as the proper space for coming to understanding. If it wishes to be theology, it must take a further step. It must recognize that the faith of the Church is that form of “sympathia” without which the Bible remains a closed book. It must come to acknowledge this faith as a hermeneutic, the space for understanding, which does not do dogmatic violence to the Bible, but precisely allows the solitary possibility for the Bible to be itself. (“Biblical Interpretation in Crisis”)

    And the Council of Trent decreed:

    Furthermore, to check unbridled spirits, it decrees that no one relying on his own judgment shall, in matters of faith and morals pertaining to the edification of Christian doctrine, distorting the Holy Scriptures in accordance with his own conceptions, presume to interpret them contrary to that sense which holy mother Church, to whom it belongs to judge of their true sense and interpretation, has held and holds, or even contrary to the unanimous teaching of the Fathers, even though such interpretations should never at any time be published. (Session 4)

    And the First Vatican Council decreed:

    8. Now since the decree on the interpretation of Holy Scripture, profitably made by the Council of Trent, with the intention of constraining rash speculation, has been wrongly interpreted by some, we renew that decree and declare its meaning to be as follows: that in matters of faith and morals, belonging as they do to the establishing of Christian doctrine, that meaning of Holy Scripture must be held to be the true one, which Holy mother Church held and holds, since it is her right to judge of the true meaning and interpretation of Holy Scripture.

    9. In consequence, it is not permissible for anyone to interpret Holy Scripture in a sense contrary to this, or indeed against the unanimous consent of the fathers. (Session 3, Chapter 2)

    And at the Second Vatican Council the conciliar fathers likewise declared:

    But the task of authentically interpreting the word of God, whether written or handed on, has been entrusted exclusively to the living teaching office of the Church, whose authority is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ. This teaching office is not above the word of God, but serves it, teaching only what has been handed on, listening to it devoutly, guarding it scrupulously and explaining it faithfully in accord with a divine commission and with the help of the Holy Spirit, it draws from this one deposit of faith everything which it presents for belief as divinely revealed.

    It is clear, therefore, that sacred tradition, Sacred Scripture and the teaching authority of the Church, in accord with God’s most wise design, are so linked and joined together that one cannot stand without the others, and that all together and each in its own way under the action of the one Holy Spirit contribute effectively to the salvation of souls. (Dei Verbum, Chapter II)

    Your lexical approach, by contrast, presupposes that the mind of Christ contained in the Scriptures is determined by matching it to the minds of those pagans contemporary to the writing of Scripture, as these words have been collected in lexicons. But the wisdom of God is greater than the wisdom of man, and the Word of God exceeds the words of men. Hence the meaning of the Word of God is not restricted to the meaning of the words of men. For example, just because pagans used the word dikaiow only in a forensic sense, it does not follow that when God (the Holy Spirit) uses this term in Scripture, it must be meant only in a forensic sense. Why should God’s justification of men be limited in its nature only to what pagans can do (i.e. merely declare righteous, without actually making righteous)? God is greater than man. Hence, this lexical approach carries with it not just anti-ecclesial presuppositions, but anti-theistic presuppositions, in the way I just explained in the example of justification. Call that hermeneutical naturalism. For Catholics, the interpretation of Scripture belongs to those whom Christ authorized, i.e. the Apostles and their successors. They have the mind of Christ, and the Spirit of Christ. The lexical approach that you advocate is fine when used under the guidance and auspices of holy Mother Church. Understanding the contemporary sense of terms as used by the human authors of Scripture can help us deepen our understanding of Scripture and its meaning. But when this method is used as though there is no holy Mother Church, it presupposes that Catholicism is false. So the three presuppositions you are bringing to the table, and by which you are begging the question are: (1) ecclesial deism, as I explained above, (2) hermeneutical naturalism, and (3) the falsity of Catholicism.

    In the peace of Christ,

    - Bryan

45. tim prussic September 5th, 2009 7:26 pm :

    I’m pretty sure that Sproul’s doctrine of penal substitution gets no actual sin into Christ. His thinking is rooted in imputation, not infusion. I learned my doctrine of salvation at Sproul’s feet and figure that my current thoughts are pretty close his.

46. Garret G September 5th, 2009 8:06 pm :

    Hi Bryan, et al
    I am a Reformed Protestant who has read the post and comments, attempting to follow along as best I can. If I may weigh in on a few items, as I see them.

    I understand the point of your post is from #32 that the Biblical case for justification by [faith conjoined to agape] (fides formata) is just as strong if not stronger, than the Biblical case for justification by faith alone, though this faith is always accompanied by agape. If my argument is a sound argument (or even if the Biblical evidence is a toss-up), then it follows that the Catholic Church’s decision at Trent gets the benefit of the doubt over the private interpretive judgments of the early Protestants.

    Further, Protestants have called you on the carpet on the body of your post, in #’s 8, 20-22, with good reasons- From you in #26, a further clarification -The issue is whether agape is only merely co-present when faith is justifying, and not constitutive of the necessary state of the soul for justification…If you wish to show my argument to be flawed, you would need to make a case showing that the Biblical evidence shows that justification is by [faith not conjoined to agape].

    However, speaking as a Protestant here-If the state of your soul does not include regeneration, which imparts saving faith with agape, and works forthcoming, you are not saved at all. There actually is no tenable Biblical argument in ‘faith alone’ that leads to a dead faith which then finds you justified before God. You are asking for something that does not exist biblically that I can see. Maybe you can correct me, perhaps- or show me where I misunderstand. i would always assume that when it is faith alone that justifies, it is saving faith!

    Paragraph 2 and 3 appear to be caricatures of the Protestant position, as I personally have never known a Protestant that believes that saving faith is devoid of agape, or works, period- as Ephesians 2:8-10 show that these works are prepared beforehand by God for us to do.

    You tackle the Protestant ‘biggies’ of Romans and Galatians and add-

    Because the Protestant believes that when St. Paul says ‘faith’ or ‘believing’, St. Paul is meaning “faith and not agape.” The Catholic, by contrast, believes that when St. Paul says ‘faith’ or ‘believing’, St. Paul is using the term here in a broader sense, such that the other two theological virtues (i.e. hope and agape) are included together with it.

    This claim is false, as has been pointed out, it is not mere faith, it is saving faith, which includes, as you show the Catholic does, hope and Agape. But in regards to justification, St. Paul is saying faith- and not works- justifies, as they are contrasted as being in antithesis 4:4-5

    4Now to the one who works, his wage is not credited as a favor, but as what is due.

    5But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness,

    There are those who work, and need to work perfectly in the Law, and there are those who do not work, but believe in Him, and that is credited as righteousness. Now the Bible, as you have shown, is jam-packed with descriptions of the type of faith that one needs to have if one is saved. That then is the type of faith Paul would refer to in a positive sense at all times, so I am stuck then wondering why anybody would be able to read the NT and come away thinking what you seem to apply that Protestants do- that faith is sans agape. Faith is a gift, a grace, and it comes with the whole package when it comes at all. You either have it, or you don’t.

    Okay, thank you and God bless,
    Garret

47. tim prussic September 5th, 2009 9:47 pm :

    Garret, I’ll admit from the outset that I’ve not read this article (I’m reading two others and there’s only so much time!), but the Reformed doctrine of justification doesn’t have a problem with agape, ergoi, elpis or anything else present with faith in justification, in fact ordinarily speaking, they must be. Justification is not on account of accompanying graces, but it not without them.

    Westminster Confession of Faith 11:1-2:

    I. Those whom God effectually calls, He also freely justifies; not by infusing righteousness into them, but by pardoning their sins, and by accounting and accepting their persons as righteous; not for any thing wrought in them, or done by them, but for Christ’s sake alone; nor by imputing faith itself, the act of believing, or any other evangelical obedience to them, as their righteousness; but by imputing the obedience and satisfaction of Christ unto them, they receiving and resting on Him and His righteousness by faith; which faith they have not of themselves, it is the gift of God.

    II. Faith, thus receiving and resting on Christ and His righteousness, is the alone instrument of justification: yet is it not alone in the person justified, but is ever accompanied with all other saving graces, and is no dead faith, but works by love.

    Just because love, works, and hope are *with* faith (even necessarily so), doesn’t mean that justification is on account of them or through them. You may want to brush up on your Reformed doctrine and be weary of understanding it though the lens of its enemies. As to Marty, from my brief reading of him, I think he’s thinking biblically.

    Have a great Lord’s Day!

48. JohnW September 5th, 2009 10:24 pm :

    Bryan:

    When I asked the Priest about Penal Sub I asked it in the meaning that you seem to be against and the way that RC Sproul holds to it and he said that a Catholic may hold to that view. Tim Prussic also commented and I agree with both what RC Sproul stated in that video and what Tim Prussic says here as a follow-up:

    “I’m pretty sure that Sproul’s doctrine of penal substitution gets no actual sin into Christ. His thinking is rooted in imputation, not infusion. I learned my doctrine of salvation at Sproul’s feet and figure that my current thoughts are pretty close his.”

    Like I said earlier I hold to Penal Substitution the way Tim P and RC Sproul do and unless any Catholic can show me an OFFICIAL INFALLIBLE document or official Magisterial teaching of the Church that CLEARLY states that a Catholic cannot agree with or hold to Penal Substitution then I will continue to hold that view.

49. Marty September 5th, 2009 11:18 pm :

    Dear Bryan,

    Of course the Church has recognized that the context is an essential guide in interpreting and understanding Scripture. But the Church has never seen herself as having received a book that must then be interpreted. The Church has always seen herself as having already received the deposit of faith, from Christ, and from the Apostles themselves (in person), before receiving the written Word.

    With all due respect Bryan this is ridiculous. All words whether written or spoken have meaning in context. Whether they are written or orally delivered makes no difference when it comes to semantics. This is just basic linguistics.

    It’s obvious that Trent’s reading of justification from the Bible is wrong linguistically, but you are telling me to throw out how language works and blindly believe the “Church” (whatever that is). Indeed, I have to assume that words have meaning in context to understand your email.

    Yours with no question begging,

    Marty.

50. Andrew Preslar September 6th, 2009 12:30 am :

    Perhaps these bits from Francis Turretin will help clarify the Reformed perspective on the relation between faith, hope and love in justification:

    The question is not whether faith alone justifies to the exclusion either of the grace of God or the righteousness of Christ or the word and sacraments (by which the blessing of justification is presented and sealed to us on the part of God) which we maintain are necessarily required here; but only to the exclusion of every other virtue and habit on our part….

    According to Turretin, there is a sense in which “every other virtue and habit” are excluded from justification per sola fide. But notice that he immediately writes the following:

    The question is not whether solitary faith (i.e., separated from the other virtues) justifies (which we grant could not easily be the case, since it is not even true and living faith); but whether it “alone” (sola) concurs to the act of justification (which we assert); as the eye alone sees, but not when torn out of the body…. The coexistence of love in him who is justified is not denied; but its coefficiency or cooperation in justification is denied. The question is not whether the faith “which justifies” (quae justificat) works by love (for otherwise it would not be living but dead); rather the question is whether faith “by which it justifies” (qua justificat) or in the act itself of justification, is to be considered under such a relation (schesei) (which we deny).

    (Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, Sixteenth Topic, Eighth Question, V-VI.)

    The relevant distinction here can be cast in terms of the different modes of perseity, a per se relation being one in which a thing is know through itself rather than by inference. On the Catholic model, love belongs to justifying faith per se as a matter of definition. “Justifying faith is formed by love” is analogous to “Man is rational”. On the Reformed model, love belongs to justifying faith per se as a matter of material causality. “Love is always present with justifying faith” is analogous to “A living body is always present with the act of sight”. In the first case, “love” is an essential predicate of the subject justifying faith. In the second case, “love” is a proper accident of justifying faith.

    Obviously, both modes of perseity involve an intimate relation between faith and love. But it remains the case that in Reformed theology love is excluded from faith (sola fide) in the sense that, in the act of justification, faith is not considered in relation to love. What is hereby underscored is the fact that Catholic and Reformed Christians understand the formal cause of justification in very different ways. I submit that this is a big difference, and that the seemingly little difference over the per se relation of justifying faith and love is an essential point in the larger discussion.

51. Andrew McCallum September 6th, 2009 12:41 am :

    When I refer to “faith conjoined to agape“, I’m talking about faith informed by agape, also referred to as fides formata. See comment #13 above. I explained the nature of the relation between faith and charity in fides formata in more detail in my post titled “Justification: Divided over Charity“.

    Bryan,

    In this article you refer to above, after quoting Clark you say that “Clark suggests that the fundamental point of disagreement between Catholics and Protestants regarding justification is whether charity is or is not necessarily present with justifying faith as its form”
    But just as in your post here, this is not the main issue. Clark goes on to say quite clearly in his article that “We are not justified on the basis of anything in us or anything wrought in us.” This is the central issue. Can we say that our works are credited to us in justification or are we justified apart from our works? Your talk about whether or not charity accompanies justification does not state the distinction properly. And yes, we do have a very strong argument from Scripture that we are justified by faith apart from works for those who will hear it.

    Propositions do not become meaningless (or less than meaningful) simply because you disagree with them. Claiming such is the equivalent of an ad hominem, essentially accusing your interlocutor of writing gibberish, and hence being insane.

    Take a look at your Post #32. You throw out this statement about “private interpretive judgments of the early Protestants.” You just state this with no attempt at a proof as if it is obviously correct. But do you see that just stating something like this does not make it true? What if I just say in an argument that Catholics add unbiblical tradition to Scripture? Is this an argument just because I say it? Now maybe it’s true and maybe I’ve demonstrated it before, but if in a given discussion I just say it as if it is self-evidently true then I imagine you won’t be impressed, right? So you need to back up statements rather than just making unproven assertions which you know we disagree with. When you do this, Bryan, it is hurtful to the cause of dialogue. It’s not helpful to Protestant Catholic discussions. I don’t think it’s too much to ask you to either 1) prove your statements or 2) not make them.

    The same could be said for the conclusion of any Ecumenical Council. If the conclusion of an Ecumenical Council had to have been unanimously accepted by all parties *prior* to that Council in order for that conclusion to be binding and authoritative,

    If you are just going to assume that Trent is correct then the discussion is over. But obviously that is a point of distinction between us. Trent was all about Rome and expressed Rome’s will. Trent stands in stark contrast to the ecumenical councils of the Early Church where Rome had precious little involvement.

    because what you refer to as “Reformed Churches” were just the assembling together of dissident lay-Catholics (not having been sent or authorized by the Church’s authorities) who shared the same interpretation of Scripture arrived at by their own private judgment..

    This is hardly a correct assessment of the elders, bishops, and theologians of the Reformed Churches. Come on, “dissident lay-Catholics?” Both sides had their theologians and officers and both felt that the other side had chosen their officers incorrectly. Trying to discredit the leaders of the Reformed congregations that opposed Rome merely by sticking such labels on them is no sort of sound argument. And your charge that The Reformed convictions on Scripture were “arrived at by their own private judgment” is just another unproven statement. It makes no more sense than to say the Catholic theologians arrived at their convictions of Scripture by their own private judgment. All you are really stating is that the Reformers didn’t agree with Rome and your judgment is that Rome is correct.

52. Bryan Cross September 6th, 2009 12:42 am :

    Tim P,

    In comment #45, you wrote:

    I’m pretty sure that Sproul’s doctrine of penal substitution gets no actual sin into Christ. His thinking is rooted in imputation, not infusion.

    This raises a very serious dilemma, as I pointed out here.

    That would either make the Father guilty of the greatest evil of all time (pouring out the punishment for all sin on an innocent man, knowing that he is innocent), or if Christ were really guilty and deserved all that punishment, then such suffering would be of no benefit to us.

    I recommend carefully reading the first five comments in that thread.

    In the peace of Christ,

    - Bryan

53. Andrew Preslar September 6th, 2009 1:06 am :

    With all due respect Bryan this is ridiculous.

    Manners, Marty. Why is it that “with all due respect” is almost invariably followed by something disrespectful?

    Bryan can obviously handle this comment himself, but since I am awake….

    (1) There is such a thing as “the root fallacy.” Picking up a lexicon and putting all the definitions in a row, corresponding to the words in the text, is not the same thing as exegesis.

    (2) Bryan’s point about the Church actually has hermeneutical implications. What kind of book is the Bible? By whom was it composed? What is different about reading and interpreting a book that is the word of God in some unique sense? Such literary and historical and theological questions must play into biblical exegesis lest we completely lose sight of reality (seen and unseen) and read these documents with a kind of reductive tunnel-vision, whether of the fundamentalist or naturalistic variety.

    (3) Specifically, Bryan’s comments about and citations of the Church’s perspective on the Bible help to establish what is, in reality, the context in which we must read the Bible if we are not to read it out of context, that is, in some artificially limited way.

    If it is the case that Our Lord established his Church in himself as his mystical Body, endowing her with the Holy Spirit of truth, thereby constituting her as the pillar and foundation of truth, then it clearly follows that any individual who interprets the Bible (and the Bible is a book about Jesus Christ, from beginning to end) in a manner contrary to the Body of Christ is actually misinterpreting the Bible. No one knows the things of Christ more fully than the Body of Christ, which has the mind of Christ.

    (4) Reading the Bible with the Church, submitting my own judgment to her judgment, is not exclusive of exegetical investigations. I submit to you that a thorough investigation of Sacred Scripture on the subject of God’s justification will not yield classical Reformed results. We have been seeing significantly different results come in for some time now. The picture that is emerging therefrom is in some ways quite harmonious with the Catholic view. So we are quite happy to challenge Protestant tradition on exegetical grounds.

54. Bryan Cross September 6th, 2009 1:15 am :

    Garrett,

    First we need to understand carefully the difference between (1) justification by faith alone, but not by a faith that is alone, and (2) justification by faith conjoined to agape, i.e. faith informed by agape. See Andrew Preslar’s comment #50, which clearly explains the difference.

    The argument of my post is that the evidence from Scripture supports the doctrine of justification by faith-conjoined-to-agape. Scripture does not support the “justification by faith alone, but not by a faith that is alone” position over against the “justification by faith conjoined to agape” position. And since even a 50-50 toss-up between one’s own interpretation of Scripture and the decision of the Church is obviously not sufficient grounds to justify forming or remaining in schism, therefore, given the Scriptural evidence on this question, and given the Church’s teaching that justification is by faith informed by agape, this is not an issue for which schism can be justified.

    In order to justify forming or remaining in schism over this issue (if it were possible to justify schism at all), one would need to provide knock-down biblical evidence showing that the “justification by faith conjoined to agape” position is false.

    In the peace of Christ,

    - Bryan

55. Marty September 6th, 2009 1:42 am :

    Dear Andrew,

    Feel free to call me on “manners” but I was not attacking Bryan only his position. The whole point of using the intro “with all due respect” is to show one respects the person but not their opinion. That’s just how it’s used in common parlance. I’m sorry if it’s caused offense, please accept my apologies.

    (1) There is such a thing as “the root fallacy.” Picking up a lexicon and putting all the definitions in a row, corresponding to the words in the text, is not the same thing as exegesis.

    I haven’t been talking about this.

    (2) Bryan’s point about the Church actually has hermeneutical implications. What kind of book is the Bible? By whom was it composed? What is different about reading and interpreting a book that is the word of God in some unique sense? Such literary and historical and theological questions must play into biblical exegesis lest we completely lose sight of reality (seen and unseen) and read these documents with a kind of reductive tunnel-vision, whether of the fundamentalist or naturalistic variety.

    Yes, it has hermeneutical implications, that’s precisely my point. But the hermeneutics of which Bryan spoke are unworkable (is that less offensive than ridiculous?).

    (3) Specifically, Bryan’s comments about and citations of the Church’s perspective on the Bible help to establish what is, in reality, the context in which we must read the Bible if we are not to read it out of context, that is, in some artificially limited way.

    If it is the case that Our Lord established his Church in himself as his mystical Body, endowing her with the Holy Spirit of truth, thereby constituting her as the pillar and foundation of truth, then it clearly follows that any who interprets the Bible (and the Bible is a book about Jesus Christ, from beginning to end) in a manner contrary to the Body of Christ is actually misinterpreting the Bible. No one knows the things of Christ more fully than the Body of Christ, which has the mind of Christ.

    Well, again I wish RCs would read the Bible carefully. The “mind of Christ” in 1 Cor. 2:16 is (in context) a reference to the apostles and their unique role in the church. It’s not a reference to some ongoing magisterium — itself a late idea; that’s alien to the context. The word of the apostles (who were led into all truth John 14:26, 16:13) stands above the church, and those who reject it can’t be in the church (1 Cor. 14:37, 2 Thess. 2:15, 3:14 etc.).

    (4) Reading the Bible with the Church, submitting my own judgment to her judgment, is not exclusive of exegetical investigations. I submit to you that a thorough investigation of Sacred Scripture on the subject of God’s justification will not yield classical Reformed results. We have been seeing quite different results come in for some time now. The picture that is emerging therefrom is in some ways quite harmonious with the Catholic view. So we are quite happy to challenge Protestant tradition on exegetical grounds.

    Well as I’ve said to Bryan, I don’t know how to read the Bible with the RC Church, because there is no unanimity on what is infallible and what is not in the RCC. There are as many interpretations of church documents as there are Catholics. RCC teaching is a chimera, as Vatican II clearly showed.

    I’ve thrown down the gauntlet for RCs to show me one place in the NT where justification = “to make righteous” and as yet have only received replies about believing the “Church” (whatever that is).

    Every blessing,

    Marty.

56. Andrew Preslar September 6th, 2009 3:29 am :

    Marty,

    I will stick with the numbering I gave in #53.

    (1) Nope it’s not begging any question, it’s a lexical fact. Dikaioo doesn’t have the meaning of “make righteous” as Rome defines it. Nowhere. Read on. (#41, emphasis added)

    This is why I brought up the root fallacy, although in this case “lexical fallacy” would have been more accurate. Given that you have made no exegetical arguments in any of your comments (though you have made several assertions), this “lexical fact” stands pretty much by itself. If we take the LXX into account, then the dik- word group (hence, the lexicon) takes on contours of meaning that are not easily reducible to the forensic alone. It is undeniable that St. Paul is working within some kind of covenant theology, and that this is rooted in the covenant promises made to Israel. The “righteousness of God” and “justification of the ungodly” are operative within this (biblical) covenant context. This fact alone does not prejudice the case against either the forensic or the ontological and transformative dimension of God’s creative speech (“justified”), nor are these categories mutually exclusive. In short, what “justification” means in its NT context is largely dependent upon what God is doing and who God is.

    If you have a case to make for a reductive reading of “justification / righteousness” then please do so.

    (2) Yes, it has hermeneutical implications, that’s precisely my point. But the hermeneutics of which Bryan spoke are unworkable (is that less offensive than ridiculous?).

    “Unworkable” is more polite than “ridiculous.” I think you knew that, though. But the claim is no less false. Reading the Bible with the Church actually works quite well, especially if one’s aims are to know truth, avoid schism and, in general, repudiate the modernistic idolatry of one’s own self.

    (3) Well, again I wish RCs would read the Bible carefully. The “mind of Christ” in 1 Cor. 2:16 is (in context) a reference to the apostles and their unique role in the church. It’s not a reference to some ongoing magisterium — itself a late idea; that’s alien to the context.

    Again, you are only making (supercilious) assertions. When Our Lord gave the Apostles the commission to teach the nations all things, claiming “lo, I am with you always, even to the ending of the age,” he does not seem to have envisioned a time at which the Church would cease to teach, nor he to be with her. The Apostles died, but the Apostolic Church lives on. This is the Body of Christ, which teaches per the command of Christ, guided by the promised Holy Spirit. Since you seem to think that the Body of Christ no longer has the mind of Christ, then you must believe that the Church has been decapitated. Catholics are persuaded otherwise. Therefore, we continue to read Sacred Scripture with the Church, submitting our opinions to her conclusions.

    (4) Well as I’ve said to Bryan, I don’t know how to read the Bible with the RC Church, because there is no unanimity on what is infallible and what is not in the RCC.

    It is true that there is not complete unanimity on the identity of all doctrines which have been infallibly taught. But that is not the same thing as no agreement. Virtually all Catholics recognize the same general councils (with some shades of opinion regarding the status of some parts of some medieval councils), believing that the dogmatic pronouncements of these councils have been infallibly made. Likewise, the ex cathedra dogmas concerning the Virgin Mary are universally recognized as infallible. Furthermore, the ordinary Magisterium of the Church through the ages has taught many things in an infallible way, and there is no question about the status of these doctrines, even though they have never been solemnly defined (e.g., the perpetual virginity of Mary).

    In any case, a teaching does not have to be solemnly defined as infallible, generally received as infallible, or even intended to be infallible before a member of the Catholic Church should submit to that teaching. And if we have been graced with even just one infallibly taught doctrine, it is one more than the Protestant churches have received.

    There are as many interpretations of church documents as there are Catholics. RCC teaching is a chimera, as Vatican II clearly showed.

    It is true that not all Catholics immediately understand the full significance of Magisterial teaching. There can be, and have been, various degrees of confusion about how to receive and apply the teaching of the Church. Vatican II is a case in point. Furthermore, some Catholics both understand and disagree with Magisterial teaching. For those in the first category, the Magisterium continues to teach. I assume that you have been in a classroom where a student, perhaps even yourself, did not at first understand the teacher’s instruction. What happened? Did everyone throw their hands up and say, “The teaching in this classroom is a chimera”? Probably not. Nor do we. As for disruptive and contradictory students: that is why there is such a thing as discipline.

    I’ve thrown down the gauntlet for RCs to show me one place in the NT where justification = “to make righteous” and as yet have only received replies about believing the “Church” (whatever that is).

    I would not describe what you have done here as “throwing down the gauntlet.” As for places in the NT where justification means to make righteous: I refer you to the many passages cited in Bryan’s article.

57. Marty September 6th, 2009 4:02 am :

    Dear Andrew,

    You’ve drawn attention to my “manners” (of which I apologized) but in your response have:

    1. Accused me of wrong motives (something you could never know) ['"Unworkable" is more polite than "ridiculous." I think you knew that, though'].

    2. And you yourself have used language that could be construed as demeaning (“supercilious”).

    Either do what you want me to do, or just let it go.

    Now to your post.

    1. Show me one place in the NT where dikaioo unambiguously means “to make righteous”. I’ve argued in previous comments that it means either “to prove righteous” or “to declare righteous” (in a legal setting). The LXX background may or may not be useful–we can only tell once we examine the NT texts. Just show me one unambiguous text.

    2. When you draw attention to Christ’s words “I will be with you to the very end of the age” you read a whole host of ideas about church authority into it that simply isn’t there. Christ being “with” his people says nothing about authority of the church. It’s classic RC eisegesis. Moreover, Matt. verse has nothing to do with the texts I adduced about apostolic authority once for all.

    3. You can speak all you like about some teachings not being infallible but yet RCs being bound to them, but what infallible authority tells you this? That’s precisely the problem. The RC doctrine of infallibility (esp. Vatican I’s definition) is ambiguous and thus unworkable in reality. For example, who infallibly says which council is infallible? Until you have an infaalible statement defining which other church pronouncements are infallible, there is no such thing as the teaching of the “Church”.

    4. As for gauntlets go back and read my comments about the meanings of justification and interact with those. I’m not going to repeat myself in every post I make.

    Every blessing,

    Marty.

58. Richard September 6th, 2009 5:11 am :

    May I ask the extent to which the discoveries of the scrolls in the Judean Desert have helped / undermined the RCC case on the meaning of justification / rightousness esp with an eye to the NPP. The Reformed decry the NPP as leading to Rome and yet Wright’s understanding of justification / righteousness is forensic not transformative though the latter inevitably flows from the former.

59. K. Doran September 6th, 2009 5:33 am :

    Dear Andrew M.,

    You write: “Trent was all about Rome and expressed Rome’s will. Trent stands in stark contrast to the ecumenical councils of the Early Church where Rome had precious little involvement.”

    You are completely wrong. Ephesus, Chalcedon, Nicea II, and Constantinople IV, anyone?

    Sincerely,

    K. Doran

60. K. Doran September 6th, 2009 6:05 am :

    Dear Marty,

    You said: “Well as I’ve said to Bryan, I don’t know how to read the Bible with the RC Church, because there is no unanimity on what is infallible and what is not in the RCC. There are as many interpretations of church documents as there are Catholics. RCC teaching is a chimera, as Vatican II clearly showed.”

    Don’t you think more reflection would lead you to assert, with less exaggeration, that many faithful Catholics have similar interpretations of most Church documents, and that this similarity tends to increase as the level of dogmatic authority of the document increases? Do you really believe that Catholic teaching is a “chimera”? The expression you’re looking for must be: “Catholic teaching can be difficult to pin down.”

    If your assertions prove anything, they prove too much. If our teaching is a mere “chimera,” then why are we having a discussion in which you occasionally presuppose that we are proclaiming a teaching about justification that is sufficiently clear for it to be false? Arguing with a chimera would presumably involve mere positive assertions on your part about what true teaching should be. But you have spent a little too much effort attacking Trent to make us believe that you really view Trent’s teaching as part of a Chimera. If Vatican II proves that we do not have a teaching on justification, why don’t you explain to this group of Catholics why that is the case? I am not intimidated by Vatican II, and I think we may know a little more about it than you do. Please tell us why Vatican II proves that my Church doesn’t have a teaching.

    Indeed, the accusation that your teaching is a mere chimera could be made more easily. If you refuse to admit that your Church’s teaching on, say, a moral issue, can’t be changed by a better interpretation of scripture, then in what sense can I put faith in any moral teaching of your personal branch of the Protestant schism? In another 50 years your Church, whatever it is, may start proclaiming to be good the very actions that it had previously proclaimed to be evil. If you are one of those Protestants whose Church is “you,” then the risk is even greater. It seems to have happened before in Protestant history. . .

    So why don’t you follow your own advice:

    “If you wish to bring Protestants and Catholics together (or convince Protestants of the RC position) it’s critical that both sides are presented faithfully, especially the Protestant position if one is writing from an RC perspective. It get’s tiresome reading this debate where the same old statements are just bandied back and forth by both sides.” Here you presuppose that there actually is an RC perspective, what I would call a C perspective. This is a better starting place for a useful discussion.

    Sincerely,

    K. Doran

61. Bryan Cross September 6th, 2009 9:52 am :

    John,

    In #48 you wrote:

    and unless any Catholic can show me an OFFICIAL INFALLIBLE document or official Magisterial teaching of the Church that CLEARLY states that a Catholic cannot agree with or hold to Penal Substitution then I will continue to hold that view.

    In #42 I showed from the Church’s authoritative documents that Sproul’s version of penal substitution, in which God the Father takes His wrath out on His Son, is incompatible with Church teaching. If you are looking for a Church document to use the term ‘penal substitution’ (in the R.C. Sproul sense), you probably won’t find it. But there are many false theological positions that are so outside the pale of orthodoxy that they have never needed to be explicitly condemned (because there was never a controversy within the Church concerning whether they were true); these are not condemned by name, but only at the level of their principles. And that is the case here, for the reasons I explained in #42. St. Anselm and St. Thomas both represent the Church’s position on the nature of the atonement; that is a doctrine of substitutionary atonement, but not one of *penal* [i.e. punishment] substitution. Sproul’s notion of God the Father pouring out His wrath on His Son, is not found in the Church Fathers or the Church Doctors. It is contrary to what the Church has taught and believed about the atonement. The Catholic approach to such questions is to subject oneself in humility to the mind and tradition of the Church, rather than to presume that one’s own interpretation (and that of those, such as Sproul, who are in schism from the Church) is superior to that of the Church through the ages as guided by the Holy Spirit.

    In the peace of Christ,

    - Bryan

62. JohnW September 6th, 2009 11:37 am :

    No doubt St. Anselm and St. Thomas Aquinas are great theologians and doctors of the Church, you and I both agree that they are only two private theologians who venture their particular views. If one wants to push the idea that everything they wrote is somehow “infallible” and reflects the “mind of the Church” then you have some real problems IE St. Thomas Aquinas taught things about Marian dogma that a Catholic today cannot accept. This is the whole trouble with using Human Philosophy to explain things of God and what Scripture says, as Tertullian so excellently put it “What hath Jerusalem to do with Athens.” Again I will quote St. Paul:

    Col. 2:8: “Beware lest any man cheat you by Philosophy, and vain deceit; according to the tradition of men, according to the elements of the world, and not according to Christ.”

    We as fallen Humans stumble at the scandal of the Cross. When St. Paul told the men of Athens about the the God who was Crucified they thought it was absurd foolishness and scandalous. We cannot sit in judgement of God and say that the way He chose to reconcile us to Him is “unjust”, “immoral”, and some how just plain “unfair”. The Lord tells us that His ways ways are not our ways. The Reformed are right, as creatures of God we must think God’s thoughts after Him by having the mind of Christ, not our fallen, wicked God-Hating Mind and attitude.

    Again, unless any Catholic can show me clear and unambiguous Infallible Magisterial Church documents that condemn Penal Substitution then I will continue to hold to that view. (BTW Yves Congar held that view as well, I will look it up later and post it here) .

63. Marty September 6th, 2009 12:36 pm :

    Dear K. Doran,

    Don’t you think more reflection would lead you to assert, with less exaggeration, that many faithful Catholics have similar interpretations of most Church documents, and that this similarity tends to increase as the level of dogmatic authority of the document increases?

    No. I think (for example) Trent is quite clear in its teachings on justification. Yes, some documents are clear. However, my point refers to “the level the level of dogmatic authority of the document”. That’s the problem. Infallibility of RC documents are a chimera. This is because infallibility has been defined defined so murkily (esp. at Vatican I), and hence there are a multitude of positions on it.

    Blessings,

    Marty.

64. Andrew Preslar September 6th, 2009 3:28 pm :

    Marty,

    Re #57

    You’ve drawn attention to my “manners” (of which I apologized) but in your response have:

    1. Accused me of wrong motives (something you could never know) ['"Unworkable" is more polite than "ridiculous." I think you knew that, though'].

    2. And you yourself have used language that could be construed as demeaning (”supercilious”).

    I accused you of wrong motives? The first bit was a response to a direct question, in which you asked me if “unworkable” “is less offensive than ridiculous?” I answered your question, although it had every appearance of being rhetorical. I do not think that a rhetorical question necessarily proceeds from wrong motives, so your assertion is baseless.

    “Supercilious” is not demeaning, it is descriptive of this sentence: “I wish Roman Catholics would read the Bible more carefully.” Your wish is an expression of your assumption that Roman Catholics do not read the Bible carefully. You simply do not know whether everyone who comes to Catholic conclusions about the meaning of Scripture has been careless in so doing. It might be that some Roman Catholics have carefully considered the texts in their proper context and come to the conclusion that the classical Protestant doctrine of forensic justification to the exclusion of transformative righteousness is inadequate.

    Show me one place in the NT where dikaioo unambiguously means “to make righteous”.

    The transformative nature of justification is unambiguously presented in this place:

    4 but when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, 5 he saved us, not because of deeds done by us in righteousness, but in virtue of his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal in the Holy Spirit, 6 which he poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 so that we might be justified by his grace and become heirs in hope of eternal life. Titus 3:4-7.

    Justification is predicated upon the washing of regeneration and renewal in the Holy Spirit.

    Christ being “with” his people says nothing about authority of the church. It’s classic RC eisegesis.

    Really? Here is the passage:

    18* And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19* Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20* teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age.” Matthew 28:18-20.

    You do not see anything here about authority and teaching in relation to the promise of Christ’s abiding presence?

    The RC doctrine of infallibility (esp. Vatican I’s definition) is ambiguous and thus unworkable in reality.

    Here is the teaching of Vatican I on infallibility:

    The Roman Pontiff is the true vicar of Christ, the head of the whole Church and the father and teacher of all Christians; and to him was committed in blessed Peter, by our lord Jesus Christ, the full power of tending, ruling and governing the whole Church. (citing the Council of Florence)

    This teaching is based squarely upon Matthew 16:16-19, Matthew 28:18-20, Luke 22:31, John 21:15-17. It presupposes that the promises made to the Apostle Peter still apply in the Church. Our justification for this presupposition is that the Church has not been decapitated.

    Hence, the Council teaches:

    9. Therefore, faithfully adhering to the tradition received from the beginning of the Christian faith, to the glory of God our savior, for the exaltation of the Catholic religion and for the salvation of the Christian people, with the approval of the Sacred Council, we teach and define as a divinely revealed dogma that when the Roman Pontiff speaks EX CATHEDRA, that is, when, in the exercise of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians, in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole Church, he possesses, by the divine assistance promised to him in blessed Peter, that infallibility which the divine Redeemer willed his Church to enjoy in defining doctrine concerning faith or morals. Therefore, such definitions of the Roman Pontiff are of themselves, and not by the consent of the Church, irreformable.

    What is ambiguous about that?

    Since this definition was promulgated, one doctrine has been promulgated by the Pope with explicit recourse to the full infallibility of his office. That doctrine is universally recognized has having been infallibly taught. Therefore, the infallibility of Church teaching is no chimera, not even in the epistemic sense that you seem to be giving to that term.

    Since the Council, theologians have discussed and debated “the level of dogmatic authority” of other papal teachings. The Magisterium has offered guidance on this matter as well. That guidance is called teaching. It is true that various positions are allowed within certain parameters. But this does not negate the presence of those parameters.

    As I have said, when a teaching is not fully understood, we do not throw up our hands and cry “Chimera!” We continue to listen and learn, as the Church continues to teach.

    Until you have an infaalible statement defining which other church pronouncements are infallible, there is no such thing as the teaching of the “Church”.

    This is a non sequitur. Infallibility is not meant to replace the natural ability of all men to read and understand a text. If it were so designed, we would be involved in an infinite regress of infallible teaching explaining otherwise incomprehensible infallible teaching. E.g., An infallible list of infallible teachings would need to be verified as such by an infallible pronouncement about the infallibility of the infallible list. That is not how things work. Rather, infallibility is a gift of God in the living Church whereby doctrinal questions, whensoever they may arise, may be settled definitively, so to preserve the Church’s unity in truth and to encourage and assist the faithful.

65. Andrew Preslar September 6th, 2009 4:05 pm :

    Here is another unambiguous presentation of justification as transformative:

    “And to one who does not work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned as righteousness.” (Romans 4:5)

    What is it that is reckoned as righteousness? His faith. Faith is a virtue inherent in the subject. The declaration of righteousness refers to this virtue, not to something extrinsic to the subject. Hence, the transformation of the subject from unrighteousness (not having faith) to righteousness (having faith) is part and parcel of justification.

66. JohnW September 6th, 2009 5:46 pm :

    To Bryan RE Penal Substitution:

    I apologise earlier when I referred to Yves Congar and Penal Substitution, I meant Hans Urs Von Balthasar. I will quote from an essay about Von Balthsar’s view:

    In the Garden of Gethsemane is revealed the essence of Christ’s mission as Son—utter faithfulness to the Father that surrenders even to the obedience of the Cross, the will of the Father loved for it’s own sake. In the handing over of Jesus, however, we see a paradox. He is, on one hand, the principal actor, laying down His life freely. On the other hand, this self-giving entails that He be given over to others, to be handed over into the hands of sinners. Both of these “handings over” have their origin in the will of the Father who “did not spare His only Son but handed Him over for our sakes”—and so Jesus is handed over to the power of sin and death with nothing left but His faithful obedience.
    For Balthasar, the mission of Jesus is the Word of God’s loving mercy to a sinful world even in the face of the world’s rejection of His covenant. Yet it is also, at the very same time, the manifestation of the justice of God by which covenant breaking must be judged. Jesus is accused and condemned, but never seeks to defend Himself against these accusations, nor does he accuse those who condemn Him, manifesting, thereby, His self-surrender to human sin and to the wrath of God against it. Nevertheless, since He does not accuse, those for whom He bears accusation are pardoned, manifesting the love of God.
    Balthasar’s theology of Holy Saturday is probably one of his most intriguing contributions since he interprets it as moving beyond the active self-surrender of Good Friday into the absolute helplessness of sin and the abandonment and lostness of death.
    In the Old Testament one of the greatest threats of God’s wrath was His threat of abandonment, to leave His people desolate, to be utterly rejected of God. It is this that Jesus experienced upon the Cross and in His descent into the lifeless passivity and God-forsakenness of the grave. By His free entrance into the helplessness of sin, Christ was reduced to what Balthasar calls a “cadaver-obedience” revealing and experience the full horror of sin. As Peter himself preached at Pentecost (Acts 2:23-24; 32-33):
    [Jesus] being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you, by lawless hands, have crucified and put to death; who God raised up, having abolished the birth pangs of death, because it was not possible that He should be held by it…This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all witnesses. Therefore being exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit, He pour out this which you now see and hear.
    We ought to pause and note the passivity that is expressed here. Christ experienced what God was doing through Him by His purpose and foreknowledge. Jesus was truly dead and fully encompassed within and held by the pains of death and needed God to abolish them. He was freed from death by God, not simply by God’s whim, but because for God it was impossible that death should hold Christ. Christ Himself receives the Holy Spirit from the Father in order that He might pour out that Spirit. Balthasar writes:
    Jesus was truly dead, because he really became a man as we are, a son of Adam, and therefore, despite what one can sometimes read in certain theological works, he did not use the so-called “brief” time of his death for all manner of “activities” in the world beyond. In the same way that, upon earth, he was in solidarity with the living, so, in the tomb, he is in solidarity with the dead…Each human being lies in his own tomb. And with this condition Jesus is in complete solidarity.
    According to Balthasar, this death was also the experience, for a time, of utter God-forsakenness—that is hell. Hell, then, is a Christological concept which is defined in terms of Christ’s experience on the Cross. This is also the assurance that we never need fear rejection by the Father if we are in Christ, since Christ has experienced hell in our place.
    We can step back now and try to outline Balthasar’s broader soteriology.
    Balthasar seems to favor the category of “covenant” in his discussion of redemption and closely links that with the image of bridal union between God and man which is the goal of redemption in Christ. God’s faithfulness to his covenant promises is the well-spring of redemption, but also the cause of the dilemma. The difficulty is how can God remain faithful to His covenant promises to His bride—and God cannot deny Himself—when she remains unfaithful. The covenant-making God is a God of love who vows love to his bride, but the covenant itself is an establishment of order and justice which must be maintained and restored, and yet, the covenant-breaking bride is in no position to restore it.
    Of course, the solution is in Christ—but how are we precisely to understand what Christ has accomplished. Balthasar is aware of the various systems developed throughout Church history to give us that understanding, but He is wary of any attempts at a theological synthesis that sees itself as complete since human categories of thought cannot capture the full reality, but only illumine it from various perspectives.
    Balthasar lists five aspects of redemption that are prominent in Scripture of which one must not be emphasized at the expense of the others. Frist, there is the double-movement of Father and Son; the Father gives up the Son and the Son is willing to lay down His life. Second, there is the exchange of places between Jesus and the sinner (the admirabile commercium), so that the Son becomes sin that sinners might be sons. Third, there is freedom and deliverance from the power of darkness, from the devil, from the slavery of sin, from the elemental powers of the world. Fourth, there is also a freedom which is not merely a freedom from, but that opens unto the freedom of faithful obedience of life in God. Finally, there is the source of the divine drama of redemption found in God’s own love.

    Sorry about the long quote but this is put better than I could put it. Apparently there is room in Catholic Theology for the idea of Penal Substitution. I can find others, and I plan to. There are some who frame Penal Substitution in a way that is far from the Biblical model and make it sound crass and awful. Even when it is explained using sound and true Biblical exigesis it is a “hard teaching” and difficult to accept with our fallen Humanity that seeks itself rather than God and to think God’s thoughts after Him.

67. Andrew Preslar September 6th, 2009 6:28 pm :

    Richard,

    Re #58

    Taylor Marshall, one of our very own here at CTC, has written about the relationship between contemporary critical exegesis of St. Paul and Catholic doctrine here. His book on the subject is coming out soon. Another member of CTC, John Kincaid, is writing his doctoral dissertation on modern Pauline scholarship and the teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas. So, what I am saying is that some among us are better equipped than I to answer your question. Taylor’s website is a good place to start.

    Here is a sample:

    Climax of the Covenant is great. What Saint Paul really said is a great little introduction that leads to the right questions.

    Jesus and the Victory of God is good but “over-eschatologizes” the Kingdom, which is an understandable tendency for Protestants since they don’t have a robust doctrine of the Church. If you combine this book with a healthy dose of preterism, you need a universal/catholic Church. This book led me to ask Catholic questions – which in turn led to Catholic answers.

    Also, the method Wright uses in The Resurrection of the Son of God could be used to demonstrate that the historical Church is the dogmatic Church.

    Once you start reading the New Testament with the new categories supplied by N.T. Wright, you begin looking for new answers. In my own experience, people who read Wright tend to become more liturgical and increasingly move to the margins of their denomination – OR – they begin to explore Catholicism and maybe eventually become Catholic. The latter is rare, but I expect that it will become more common. (link)

68. Andrew McCallum September 6th, 2009 8:09 pm :

    Andrew said “Trent was all about Rome and expressed Rome’s will. Trent stands in stark contrast to the ecumenical councils of the Early Church where Rome had precious little involvement.”

    K. Doran responds You are completely wrong. Ephesus, Chalcedon, Nicea II, and Constantinople IV, anyone?

    K. Doran,

    First I would like to know why you did not include the first two councils in your list above. But let’s take Chalcedon as an example since this was the largest and most influential council on your list. There were several hundred bishops or presbyters present but just four delegates from Rome. The primacy of Peter was never mentioned. The involvement of Rome was quite small when compared with Trent which was all about Rome and the primacy of the Roman See. The discussions at Chalcedon were tributes to the counciliar spirit which pervaded Christendom at the time, but Trent was a tribute to the effectiveness of Rome in squashing anything that even smelt like conciliarism. There was a reform movement in the West known as Conciliarism that sprung up in the 14th and 15th centuries to try to bring back this ancient balance of power. The conciliarists showed up to Trent but their cause was lost – Rome was too powerful and was not about to relinquish the spiritual nor the political power she now possessed.

69. Bryan Cross September 6th, 2009 8:36 pm :

    Marty,

    In #49 you wrote:

    With all due respect Bryan this is ridiculous. All words whether written or spoken have meaning in context. Whether they are written or orally delivered makes no difference when it comes to semantics. This is just basic linguistics.

    I’m not concerned whether what I said seems ridiculous to you; I’m concerned whether what I said is true. (Even our Lord, who is Truth, was ridiculed.) And nothing you said shows anything I said not to be true. I agree with you that all words have meaning in context. But that is not the point that separates Protestants and Catholics. The point in question is whether the Apostles and their successors were entrusted with the deposit of faith and given interpretive authority in the Church. If so, then the meaning of Scripture is not merely a matter for the outsider to determine by lexical analysis, but first and foremost involves coming to Sacred Scripture within the bosom of holy Mother Church, as unveiled and unfolded to us by those to whom the deposit of faith was entrusted, and to whom interpretive authority was given. In that case, the merely lexical approach to Scripture fails to apprehend its true context, i.e. the life and liturgy of the Church. The context of Scripture is not merely within its pages, but is the living organism which is the Body of Christ, i.e. the Church. For that reason, Sacred Scripture can properly be understood only in and by the Church.

    It’s obvious that Trent’s reading of justification from the Bible is wrong linguistically,

    Claiming that Trent’s teaching on justification is wrong linguistically, simply begs the question. If by “wrong linguistically” you mean “is wrong from a perspective that considers only the meaning of terms according to lexicons consisting of meanings derived from pagan usages of these terms”, then you might be correct, but then the question is: Why should we care whether Trent’s teaching is “wrong linguistically”? But if you simply mean, “is false”, then the question is, “How do you know?” And if your answer to that question is: I know Trent’s teaching on justification is false, because it is “wrong linguistically”, then you’ve just moved in a circle.

    but you are telling me to throw out how language works and blindly believe the “Church” (whatever that is). Indeed, I have to assume that words have meaning in context to understand your email.

    I have not said or implied that anyone should “throw out how language works”. Nor have I claimed that anyone should blindly believe the Church. In order for us to have a productive conversation, try to avoid attributing to me claims I have not made. If you’re unsure, just ask. Yes we should believe the Church, not blindly, but with fides quaerens intellectum, i.e. faith seeking understanding. And yes, words have meaning in context. But, the lexical approach assumes that the context of the words of the books of the New Testament is identical to the context of the pagan world contemporary to the NT. That’s not a safe assumption, (nor does it avoid question-begging) because from the Catholic perspective the context of the NT is richer and more specified than that. The lexical approach leaves out this richer, thicker context. Let me explain.

    The Church is a family. If you were to come into my home, you would understand many things said in my family, but some things you wouldn’t get, because you wouldn’t have the inside-the-family point of view. That’s the richer context, the internal lived experience of my family. Likewise, since the Church is a family, there is an inside context that is richer and fuller than the outside context common to the pagans. This is the internal lived experience by those within the Church, those who knew these words before they were written, and shared the internal life in which those words were spoken and understood, and their meaning (as known from the inside) was handed down. So, that is why this lexical approach begs the question against the Catholic, by assuming that there is no inside-the-family perspective with respect to Scripture, which is the book of the Church family. In that respect, the lexical approach presupposes that there is no Church. And that presupposition is contrary to Scripture, which not only tells us that there is a Church, but reveals the divine promise that the gates of hell shall not prevail against her.

    In the peace of Christ,

    - Bryan

70. Garret G September 6th, 2009 11:58 pm :

    Bryan,
    I may or may not be making headway in my understanding here, let’s see. i believe we are looking at the synergism/monergism distinction You responded to me in #54

    I read #50 very carefully- these points are taken in consideration-

    But it remains the case that in Reformed theology love is excluded from faith (sola fide) in the sense that, in the act of justification, faith is not considered in relation to love.

    Saving faith is not something that the reformed believe comes from within oneself. Faith is a gift from God and comes with the package that includes love, charity, the fruits of the Spirit, etc. Before regeneration, you are dead in your sins per Eph. 2:1. This death excludes the ability outside of grace to seek the living god- you will not do so. The Turretin quote- “The coexistence of love in him who is justified is not denied; but its coefficiency or cooperation in justification is denied.” In the monergistic sense, the one way action of God is what saves- nothing from within yourself is added to God’s grace in order to justify yourself before God in anyway- it is HIS work in you. You bring nothing, it is grace, and grace alone in justification. This being the reformed position, that nothing is brought from you and added to grace (synergism), it seems self evident from that understanding to say that justification is not conjoined to…fill in the blank. If you will not have saving faith outside of God’s grace alone, faith alone, you have nothing, and all the agape you could muster from yourself will be meaningless in justification.

    So when you say- The argument of my post is that the evidence from Scripture supports the doctrine of justification by faith-conjoined-to-agape. Scripture does not support the “justification by faith alone, but not by a faith that is alone” position over against the “justification by faith conjoined to agape” position.

    The agape that is conjoined is a product of what- the person, or of God? Am I right, is this a synergism/monergism distinction you are seeking? I can only assume you are talking about what the person brings (agape) to justify the person before God, versus what you would probably call the ‘legal fiction’ of Protestant justification by faith alone- one where the person brings nada, zip, zero.

    Am I hitting it, or missing, if so please advise.
    In His love-
    Garret

71. Marty September 6th, 2009 11:59 pm :

    Dear Andrew,

    I accused you of wrong motives? The first bit was a response to a direct question, in which you asked me if “unworkable” “is less offensive than ridiculous?” I answered your question, although it had every appearance of being rhetorical. I do not think that a rhetorical question necessarily proceeds from wrong motives, so your assertion is baseless.

    “Supercilious” is not demeaning, it is descriptive of this sentence: “I wish Roman Catholics would read the Bible more carefully.” Your wish is an expression of your assumption that Roman Catholics do not read the Bible carefully. You simply do not know whether everyone who comes to Catholic conclusions about the meaning of Scripture has been careless in so doing. It might be that some Roman Catholics have carefully considered the texts in their proper context and come to the conclusion that the classical Protestant doctrine of forensic justification to the exclusion of transformative righteousness is inadequate.

    This response tell me we’re not going to get anywhere in this discussion.

    The transformative nature of justification is unambiguously presented in this place:

    4 but when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, 5 he saved us, not because of deeds done by us in righteousness, but in virtue of his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal in the Holy Spirit, 6 which he poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 so that we might be justified by his grace and become heirs in hope of eternal life. Titus 3:4-7.

    Justification is predicated upon the washing of regeneration and renewal in the Holy Spirit.

    It doesn’t prove your point at all. What we have here is a number of pictures of what Christ has achieved in his cross work: salvation, regeneration, renewal, and justification. These are not all identical but describe the different perspectives of the Christ event. For example, justification can’t occur without regeneration but it’s not the same thing. Moreover the translation you cite doesn’t bring out the tense of “to justify”, which is something that has happened not an ongoing process, better translated “having been justified by his grace”.

    It’s clear from Rom. 5:16, 18 and Rom. 8:33-34 that justification for Paul (in soteriological contexts) is the polar opposite of condemnation (i.e. the law court metaphor). Hence, it must be the judges verdict of “not guilty” (the opposite of condemnation). This makes the RC very difficult to sustain.

    Really? Here is the passage:

    18* And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19* Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20* teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age.” Matthew 28:18-20.

    You do not see anything here about authority and teaching in relation to the promise of Christ’s abiding presence?

    Well if you read what’s written, Christ has been given all authority (in his resurrection ascension, Rom. 1:3-4). But there is nothing said about that authority being passed to the church for all time. The disciples are charged to teach what Christ taught them. But there is NO mention of some ongoing authority invested in the pope or bishops. It’s just a matter of reading what’s there, not reading INTO what’s there.

    The RC doctrine of infallibility (esp. Vatican I’s definition) is ambiguous and thus unworkable in reality.

    Here is the teaching of Vatican I on infallibility:

    The Roman Pontiff is the true vicar of Christ, the head of the whole Church and the father and teacher of all Christians; and to him was committed in blessed Peter, by our lord Jesus Christ, the full power of tending, ruling and governing the whole Church. (citing the Council of Florence)

    This teaching is based squarely upon Matthew 16:16-19, Matthew 28:18-20, Luke 22:31, John 21:15-17. It presupposes that the promises made to the Apostle Peter still apply in the Church. Our justification for this presupposition is that the Church has not been decapitated.

    Hence, the Council teaches:

    9. Therefore, faithfully adhering to the tradition received from the beginning of the Christian faith, to the glory of God our savior, for the exaltation of the Catholic religion and for the salvation of the Christian people, with the approval of the Sacred Council, we teach and define as a divinely revealed dogma that when the Roman Pontiff speaks EX CATHEDRA, that is, when, in the exercise of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians, in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole Church, he possesses, by the divine assistance promised to him in blessed Peter, that infallibility which the divine Redeemer willed his Church to enjoy in defining doctrine concerning faith or morals. Therefore, such definitions of the Roman Pontiff are of themselves, and not by the consent of the Church, irreformable.

    What is ambiguous about that?

    It’s quite simple really, it doesn’t explicitly define the conditions of EX CATHEDRA or “he defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole Church”? The proof of the pudding is in the eating: there are a plethora of views about when the Pope is speaking infallibly. It hasn’t worked.

    Moreover, once one puts these sorts of conditions on infallibility, it is lost, because what’s to stop a later Pope saying “the previous conditions for infallibility are wrong, I’m now giving you what there right ones are”. Rome has basically made infallibility impossible.

    Secondly, Matt. 16:16-19, Luke 22:31, and John 21:15-17 says nothing about a succession of Popes let alone infallibility. One must read later alien ideas into the passage.

    Since this definition was promulgated, one doctrine has been promulgated by the Pope with explicit recourse to the full infallibility of his office. That doctrine is universally recognized has having been infallibly taught. Therefore, the infallibility of Church teaching is no chimera, not even in the epistemic sense that you seem to be giving to that term.

    That’s your own private interpretation of Vatican I, but there are a whole host of others. Who’s right? Unless we have an infallible statement about which statements are infallible, Papal infallibility is a chimera.

    Since the Council, theologians have discussed and debated “the level of dogmatic authority” of other papal teachings. The Magisterium has offered guidance on this matter as well. That guidance is called teaching. It is true that various positions are allowed within certain parameters. But this does not negate the presence of those parameters.

    The parameters haven’t been infallibly defined, so how can we know what they are. All you have is your opinion versus others.

    This is a non sequitur. Infallibility is not meant to replace the natural ability of all men to read and understand a text. If it were so designed, we would be involved in an infinite regress of infallible teaching explaining otherwise incomprehensible infallible teaching. E.g., An infallible list of infallible teachings would need to be verified as such by an infallible pronouncement about the infallibility of the infallible list. That is not how things work. Rather, infallibility is a gift of God in the living Church whereby doctrinal questions, whensoever they may arise, may be settled definitively, so to preserve the Church’s unity in truth and to encourage and assist the faithful.

    So then if we don’t start with an infallible set of truths, how can we proceed with any truth?

    Blessings,

    Marty.

72. Marty September 7th, 2009 12:07 am :

    Dear Bryan,

    Thanks for your reply. I agree the church is a family and that Scripture is to be read and reflected upon in the context of the church. We just disagree on what the Church context is. But this is taking us away from our discussion on justification.

    I’ve challenged you to give me one verse where justification means “to make righteous” because I can’t find one. I find several other meanings in the NT, but not the one you propound.

    Moreover, I would want to challenge you and say that Trent should take the responsibility for schism because it shut the door to a right reading of Scripture on justification, esp. contrary to the appeals of Reginald Pole and co., and for reasons that were quite unjustified.

    God bless you brother,

    Marty.

73. Andrew Preslar September 7th, 2009 2:53 am :

    Marty,

    For example, justification can’t occur without regeneration but it’s not the same thing.

    As I pointed out in #50, the way that justification is related to regeneration, i.e., under what auspices faith is considered to be justifying, is at the heart of this great debate, although the matter seems to turn upon a philosophical nicety. You have simply asserted the Reformed opinion.

    In Titus 3.4-7, justification refers to regeneration in the sense that God declares that a person is righteous based upon the inward transformation wrought by the Holy Spirit in the person’s heart, whereby the righteousness of Christ is formed within that person. This interpretation is not dependent upon any particular rendering of the verb in verse 7. Likewise, in Romans 4:5 justification refers to faith, which is a quality inherent in the subject. Thus, as the Council of Trent clearly teaches, justification “is not only a remission of sins but also the sanctification and renewal of the inward man through the voluntary reception of the grace and gifts whereby an unjust man becomes just and from being an enemy becomes a friend, that he may be an heir according to hope of life everlasting.”

    As to the rest, you might want to address whether the Church has been decapitated, or whether she yet has the mind of Christ. Also, understanding something is not predicated upon that thing being infallibly taught (hence, no infinite regress). This addresses your question about the identification of parameters. Finally, you have taken to repeating the “chimera” remark, although I have addressed the fallacy inherent in this claim several times already (#56, #64). You have not engaged these responses, which indicates that you are employing the phrase as something like a mantra. This does have an effect, but it is not that of persuasion.

74. Marty September 7th, 2009 3:27 am :

    Dear Andrew,

    Thanks for the reply. Your reading of Titus 3:7 is unconvincing to me. It could be read the way you propose, but it also could be read several other ways just as easily (I think the Protestant reading is much easier). In other words this text doesn’t unambiguously prove your point. (I repeat Rom. 5:16, 18 and 8:33, 34 unambiguously define justification–are you ever going to interact with those?).

    A much easier reading is as follows. Justification in Titus 3:7 is “by his grace” (an instrumental dative, i.e. grace is not the basis but the instrument of justification). Here you make the assumption that grace = regeneration. However, (i) nowhere else in Scripture is this so, and (ii) in context Paul’s point is that salvation is by (instrumental) God’s “kindness” and “love” (v. 4) and “mercy” (v. 5) not by (instrument) “works of righteousness” (v. 5) (i.e. good works). In other words God’s grace (in this context) is akin to God’s kindness, love, and mercy.

    Salvation comes when God in his kindness (and grace!) regenerates a person’s heart so that by (instrumental) faith alone (although love is also present) a person is justified.

    I just can’t work out why RCs want to equate justification with regeneration and sanctification when it’s so clear they mean different things in the NT. They can’t be separated but they certainly aren’t identical. It’s not rocket science.

    As to the rest, you might want to address whether the Church has been decapitated, or whether she yet has the mind of Christ.

    Ok. I’ll repeat, Vatican II has caused all sorts of problems for the RCC, mainly because it made statements that contradict other church councils. As I said before, on the issue of no salvation outside the Roman Catholic Church, Vatican II is in plain contradiction to Lateran IV and Florence.

    Also, understanding something is not predicated upon that thing being infallibly taught (hence, no infinite regress). This addresses your question about the identification of parameters.

    Alas, it doesn’t. God’s word is infallible (in whatever form it comes to people). That’s the starting point for certain knowledge about God. The RCC can’t start there because its supreme authority (the Church) hasn’t clearly defined what’s infallible. Hence, the sea of opinion.

    Every blessing,

    Marty.

75. Bryan Cross September 7th, 2009 4:10 am :

    Andrew,

    In #51 you wrote:

    In this article you refer to above, after quoting Clark you say that “Clark suggests that the fundamental point of disagreement between Catholics and Protestants regarding justification is whether charity is or is not necessarily present with justifying faith as its form”
    But just as in your post here, this is not the main issue.

    No, that is exactly the issue I’m focusing on in this post. I’m not addressing (in this post) the role of works in justification, only the role of the supernatural virtue of charity in justification. The role of works is for a different post.

    Take a look at your Post #32. You throw out this statement about “private interpretive judgments of the early Protestants.” You just state this with no attempt at a proof as if it is obviously correct.

    Andrew, we’ve had this discussion before. None of the Protestants who started the first Protestant congregations were authorized to do so by their bishops. That is an objective fact. The Church would never have authorized people to start schisms from her. If you disagree, then please provide historical evidence/documentation showing that these first Protestants were authorized by the Church to start their own congregations, to ‘ordain’ their own pastors, to strip the altars, to stop celebrating the mass, write their own confessions, etc. They did all these things without the authorization of the Church, just as certain rogue Catholics today try to ordain women priests without the authorization of the Church.

    This is hardly a correct assessment of the elders, bishops, and theologians of the Reformed Churches. Come on, “dissident lay-Catholics?” Both sides had their theologians and officers and both felt that the other side had chosen their officers incorrectly.

    The bishops of the Church did not go with the Protestants when the Protestants left the Catholic Church. This is why Protestantism rejected apostolic succession and, for the most part, the distinction between bishop and priest (if they had had apostolic succession they would have appealed to it). Some priests did become Protestant, but they did so in disobedience to their bishops. Of course both sides had “theologians”, but ‘theologians’ do not have ecclesial authority, so that’s irrelevant. And the ‘officers’ had by the Protestants were mostly self-appointed or chosen and ‘authorized’ by these groups of lay Protestants; none were authorized to do what they did by their bishop. Luther’s advocacy of the “priesthood of all believers”, and his denial of Holy Orders and apostolic succession entailed that everyone had equal authority; ‘officers’ only had the authority granted to them by their congregations. Read Luther’s “That a Christian Congregation or Assembly has the Power to Judge All doctrine and to Call and Dismiss All Teachers, as proven by the Scriptures”, written in 1523, two years after being excommunicated. In that work you can see that Luther reduced Holy Orders to a mere ceremony that simply confirmed publicly what the congregation had done in choosing a pastor and entrusting him with the responsibility of expositing the Scripture. He writes:

    Because we are all priests of equal standing, no one must push himself forward and take it upon himself, without our consent and election, to do that for which we all have equal authority. For no one dare take upon himself what is common to all without the authority and consent of the community.

    By 1535 Luther had almost entirely rejected this position, because it was causing anarchy. So his method was to reject ecclesial authority (~1520) for just long enough to justify his own separation from the Church, and then, (1535) when significant disagreement arose within Lutheranism, to return to a hierarchical view of authority, wielding this authority himself over those who appealed to private judgment to do to him (and those Lutherans who agreed with him) what he had done to the Catholic Church. But it was too late; he had opened Pandora’s box by placing himself as the final interpretive authority, setting the precedent for everyone else to do the same.

    You seem to believe that the formation of Protestantism was a Church split involving one group of bishops staying, and another group of bishops leaving. But that’s inaccurate. It was a schism from the Church, not a dividing of the Church (since Christ cannot be divided – 1 Cor 1:13). Protestants followed Luther, who had been excommunicated, in leaving the Church, and starting their own sects. Those Protestants who left were mostly lay persons, not bishops, and none of those persons who left the Church had the permission of the Church to do so. In leaving the Church they followed their own private interpretation. The Catholics who didn’t leave, by contrast, followed their bishops.

    In the peace of Christ,

    - Bryan

76. K. Doran September 7th, 2009 9:20 am :

    Dear Andrew M.,

    You said: “First I would like to know why you did not include the first two councils in your list above.”

    Relative to what we know about the later councils, I believe that we know little about the second council, and very little about the first council. Thus, people can argue from silence a large number of interpretations, which can only be properly assessed through careful consideration of context. Since your comment mentioned all councils before Trent, I thought we could be more efficient to consider ones of which we have more information.

    You said: ” But let’s take Chalcedon as an example since this was the largest and most influential council on your list. There were several hundred bishops or presbyters present but just four delegates from Rome.”

    The council was convened by the Empress Saint Pulcheria, who was anxious to restore the Empire to Roman Orthodoxy. She wrote that she had convened a council to be held “under the authority of the Pope, the overseer and guardian of the holy faith.” The Roman legates were the ecclesiastical presidents.

    You said: “The primacy of Peter was never mentioned. ”

    I have already mentioned the statement of the Empress who convened the council. I will now mention statements from the controversy leading up to the council and from the council itself:

    The controversy:

    Saint Peter Chrysologus: “but we exhort you. . . to attend obediently in all things to all that is written by the most blessed Pope of the city of Rome. For blessed Peter, who lives and presides in his own see, grants the truth of the faith to those who ask him.”

    And again: “For we, for the love of peace and faith, cannot hear causes of faith without the consent of the Bishop of the city of Rome.”

    The council:

    the bishops cried in unison, after the reading Pope Saint Leo’s tome: “This is the faith of the Fathers. It is Peter who has spoken thus by Leo. We all believe so.”

    And again, regarding Dioscorus: “Wherefore, the most holy and most blessed Archbishop of great and elder Rome, by us and the present most holy synod, together with the thrice blessed and praiseworthy Peter the Apostle, who is the rock and base of the Catholic Church and the foundation of the orthodox faith, has stripped him of the episcopal and of all sacerdotal dignity”

    You said: “The involvement of Rome was quite small when compared with Trent which was all about Rome and the primacy of the Roman See. The discussions at Chalcedon were tributes to the counciliar spirit which pervaded Christendom at the time. . .”

    Really? As Chapman explains: “The result in which later ages have rejoiced was produced by the energy of the Emperor in enforcing the uncontested supremacy of the Pope in matters of faith.” The council was convened by an Empress who intended to enforce Roman orthodoxy and thus convened the council under the authority of the Pope. The Pope’s legates presided. Under such circumstances, was there any more question that this council would unanimously proclaim Roman orthodoxy than that various councils held under Arian emperors would proclaim Arian beliefs?

    Sincerely,

    K. Doran

77. Bryan Cross September 7th, 2009 11:01 am :

    Marty,

    In #55 you wrote:

    Well, again I wish RCs would read the Bible carefully.

    We do, thank you. That’s why we read it with the Church, and not in an ecclesial vacuum.

    The “mind of Christ” in 1 Cor. 2:16 is (in context) a reference to the apostles and their unique role in the church.

    Your claim here begs the question, by presuming a Protestant rejection of apostolic succession. Apostolic succession did not come into the Church at some later point in time. Otherwise there would have been an uproar within the Church about it. Apostolic succession was practiced universally within the Church for 1500 years, and continues to be practiced to this day within the Catholic Church, and among the Orthodox.

    The word of the apostles (who were led into all truth John 14:26, 16:13) stands above the church, and those who reject it can’t be in the church (1 Cor. 14:37, 2 Thess. 2:15, 3:14 etc.).

    The question is who determines authoritatively what is the “word of the apostles”. Just anyone, or those whom the Apostles themselves ordained and authorized to speak for them, i.e. in their name, just as Christ authorized the Apostles to speak for Him, i.e. in His name? From the Catholic point of view, only those with apostolic authorization may give the definitive determination of what is “the word of the apostles”. From the Protestant point of view, there is not and never has been (and never can be this side of heaven) a definitive determination of what is “the word of the apostles”. Protestantism’s rejection of apostolic succession entails that no one has apostolic authorization to make such definitive determinations for the Church, and hence every doctrine is still up in the air; even the canon is still up in the air. Every claim about the deposit of faith is uncertain. Every claim about the content of the gospel is uncertain. Catholics, by contrast, are not stuck in such epistemic murkiness. We have a definitive canon and definitive, infallible and irrevocable doctrines.

    I don’t know how to read the Bible with the RC Church, because there is no unanimity on what is infallible and what is not in the RCC.

    The reason you do not know how to read the Bible with the Church is precisely because your criterion for what counts as guidance from the Church is determined by “unanimity on what is infallible”. But the Church is not a democracy, nor is the authority of her teachings determined by counting noses. Nor has the Church ever told us that the way to find her guidance is by finding “unanimity on what is infallible”. If you’re looking at the Catholic Church through Protestant lenses, then of course you’ll be confused. There are objective criteria for what is infallible and what is not. If you want to learn them, just ask.

    I’ve thrown down the gauntlet for RCs to show me one place in the NT where justification = “to make righteous” and as yet have only received replies about believing the “Church” (whatever that is).

    Your gauntlet challenge presupposes a lexical approach to Scripture, which, as I have already showed in comment #69, begs the question by presupposing that there is no Church. If we’re to make progress in reconciling Protestants with the Catholic Church, we have to step back, so to speak, to the place where we’re not begging the question. And that point is the first century Church, because we believe that apostolic succession was already practiced then. And if it was practiced in the first century, then the Catholic (or Orthodox) position follows, as does what I have been saying about reading Scripture in and with the Church, rather than in an ecclesial vacuum, with only a lexicon in hand.

    In the peace of Christ,

    - Bryan

78. Bryan Cross September 7th, 2009 12:04 pm :

    John,

    Regarding #62 and #66, you have not refuted any of the arguments I provided in #42, or the dilemma I raised in #52. Instead, you have criticized philosophy. And you have implied that all those who deny that on the Cross God the Father poured out His wrath on His beloved Son, are doing so simply because they are stumbling at the “scandal of the Cross”, and because they have a “wicked God-Hating Mind and attitude”. Those are ad hominems, and they are not permitted here at CTC; see the posting guidelines.

    Regarding the nature of the atonement you reject St. Anselm and St. Thomas as “only two private theologians who venture their particular views”, advocating instead the late twentieth-century theologian von Balthasar. The Catholic position on a theological issue is not rightly determined by seeing whether or not a person was excommunicated for holding it. To see where and how von Balthasar went wrong on this issue, see Pitstick’s book Light in Darkness: Hans Urs von Balthasar and the Catholic Doctrine of Christ’s Descent into Hell.

    In the peace of Christ,

    - Bryan

79. Bryan Cross September 7th, 2009 12:27 pm :

    Garrett,

    I’m finally responding to your comment #70. There you wrote:

    Saving faith is not something that the reformed believe comes from within oneself. Faith is a gift from God and comes with the package that includes love, charity, the fruits of the Spirit, etc. Before regeneration, you are dead in your sins per Eph. 2:1. This death excludes the ability outside of grace to seek the living god- you will not do so.

    Everything you say here is also the Catholic position.

    The Turretin quote- “The coexistence of love in him who is justified is not denied; but its coefficiency or cooperation in justification is denied.” In the monergistic sense, the one way action of God is what saves- nothing from within yourself is added to God’s grace in order to justify yourself before God in anyway- it is HIS work in you. You bring nothing, it is grace, and grace alone in justification. This being the reformed position, that nothing is brought from you and added to grace (synergism), it seems self evident from that understanding to say that justification is not conjoined to…fill in the blank. If you will not have saving faith outside of God’s grace alone, faith alone, you have nothing, and all the agape you could muster from yourself will be meaningless in justification.

    This paragraph is a red herring. The point in question in my post is not whether we co-operate in justification. That’s a very important question, but for a different thread. The point in question in this post is whether we are justified by a faith informed by agape or justified by a faith not informed by agape. Both faith and agape are supernatural gifts, not something we can muster up ourselves.

    The agape that is conjoined is a product of what- the person, or of God?

    Agape is a gift of God, the fruit of sanctifying grace infused into us by the Holy Spirit.

    I can only assume you are talking about what the person brings (agape) to justify the person before God, …

    No, that’s not what I’m talking about. Remember, “Faith is a gift from God and comes with the package that includes love, charity, the fruits of the Spirit, etc. ” Agape comes with the package, as you put it, as a gift from God.

    I appreciate your congenial approach. This way of dialoguing is potentially fruitful for understanding and resolving the Protestant-Catholic schism.

    In the peace of Christ,

    - Bryan

80. Andrew Preslar September 7th, 2009 12:45 pm :

    Marty: I just can’t work out why RCs want to equate justification with regeneration and sanctification when it’s so clear they mean different things in the NT. They can’t be separated but they certainly aren’t identical. It’s not rocket science.

    OK. Then let’s keep it simple:

    (1) We have addressed the relation of justification and regeneration already. (a) The passages I have cited, among others, indicate that justification refers to the inward change wrought in the individual by God. It is not only a legal declaration. (b) God is not a liar. He does not declare that a man is righteous without regard to any real sense in which the man is, in fact, by grace, righteous. Thus, the Protestant view is not commensurate with the divine nature. (c) Therefore, this declaration (“justified”) does not prescind from the righteousness that is inherent in the individual by regeneration (pace Turretin). Titus 3:4-7, Romans 4:5 and Romans 5:17-19, to cite a few examples, are evidence of the essential, per se relation between justification and inward transformation.

    The words “justification” and “regeneration” are not identical. (Is that what you meant by this not being rocket science?) The question at hand is how the concepts are related. Your construal of this relation in #74 presupposes one particular kind of relation. (e.g. “Salvation comes when God in his kindness (and grace!) regenerates a person’s heart so that by (instrumental) faith alone (although love is also present) a person is justified.”) This, which you admit is not a necessary construal of the textual data, is not a sufficient interpretation either, because it renders justification a legal fiction, which is incommensurate with God’s nature, and it is contrary to 1,500 years of unanimous teaching in the Body of Christ, whose head is Christ, which therefore has the mind of Christ.

    (2) Has the Church been decapitated?

    (3) Marty: God’s word is infallible (in whatever form it comes to people). That’s the starting point for certain knowledge about God. The RCC can’t start there because its supreme authority (the Church) hasn’t clearly defined what’s infallible.

    How do you know this? According to your own principles, you would have to be infallible in making this claim before it counts as knowledge. But you are not infallible. Hence, on your own principles, you do not know that God’s word is infallible, nor can you understand (on your epistemic principles) a word that is written in that which you non-infallibly interpret after non-infallibly declaring it to be the word of God (on the basis of your own non-infallible authority, apparently).

81. Richard September 7th, 2009 2:10 pm :

    Andrew,

    Re #67 – Thanks for point that out.

82. Bryan Cross September 7th, 2009 4:27 pm :

    Marty,

    In #72 you wrote:

    I’ve challenged you to give me one verse where justification means “to make righteous” because I can’t find one. I find several other meanings in the NT, but not the one you propound.

    Here are three examples:

    Romans 3:24, “and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus”.

    Romans 3:28, “For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law”

    Romans 5:1, “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

    If you wish to appeal to a lexicon to prove that the meaning of dikaiow is merely forensic in these three verses, then see comment #69 where I show why the lexical approach begs the question.

    Here’s an argument that we are truly made righteous (not merely declared righteous) at regeneration.

    (1) Love for God fulfills the whole law. Jesus says, “On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets” (Matt 22:40), and St. Paul writes, “For the whole Law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Gal 5:14)

    (2) He who loves God and neighbor is righteous; for God abides in him, and he abides in God. “The one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.” (1 John 4:16) “Everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.” (1 John 4:7) “If we love one another, God abides in us” (1 John 4:12) “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him.” (John 14:23)

    (3) At regeneration the Holy Spirit pours out agape into our hearts. “[T]he love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.” (Rom 5:5)

    (4) Therefore, at regeneration, we are not just declared righteous; we are made righteous, because agape has been poured out into our hearts, and whoever has agape is righteous. [From (1), (2), and (3)]

    Moreover, I would want to challenge you and say that Trent should take the responsibility for schism because it shut the door to a right reading of Scripture on justification, esp. contrary to the appeals of Reginald Pole and co., and for reasons that were quite unjustified.

    Claiming that Trent’s teaching on justification is false simply begs the question (i.e. assumes precisely what is in question). Arians could blame the Council of Nicea (AD 325) for the subsequent schism of Arians from the Church, because the Council of Nicea “shut the door to a right reading of Scripture on” the deity of Christ. Similarly, Nestorians could blame the Third Ecumenical Council at Ephesus for the subsequent Nestorian schism, because Ephesus “shut the door to a right reading of Scripture on” the Person and nature of Christ. And so on. Every group, throughout the history of the Church, whose position was declared heretical by an ecumenical council, could blame the council for the resulting schism. But, in actuality, the true blame for the separation of the Arians from the Church after Nicea was not the Council of Nicea, but the stubbornness and pride of the Arians who insisted on holding on to their own interpretation of Scripture, rather than submit to the Church’s Ecumenical Council. Likewise, the true blame for the separation of the Nestorians from the Church after Ephesus was the stubbornness and pride of the Nestorians who insisted on their own interpretation of Scripture rather than submit to the Church’s Ecumenical Council. So, how do you know that the true blame for the Protestant schism after Trent does not likewise in this case rest with the Protestants who insisted on holding to their own interpretation of Scripture and refused to submit to the Nineteenth Ecumenical Council?

    In the peace of Christ,

    - Bryan

83. JohnW September 7th, 2009 5:11 pm :

    Bryan

    Sorry, I did not mean to imply that any poster here has that attitude towards God, but rather to reflect what St.Paul says that the “natural Man” who is unspiritual cannot and will not understand God’s way. Again I apologise if my remarks offended anyone, it was not my intent.

    Again you line up Anselm and Acquinas, and I respond that other Catholic theologians like Von Balthasar see that the Scriptures teach Penal Substitution, which shows that a Catholic can hold to it and be within the pale of Catholic orthodoxy. If I am not mistaken Von Balthasar was not censured by Rome for his views, not only that he was admired by both Pope John Paul II and the current Pope Benedict XVI, not only that, I believe that Pope John Paul II offered him a Cardinal’s Hat. This was after Von Balthasar had written and taught his views on the Atonement. I hardly think that the Pope would have offered a Cardinal’s hat to someone whose views are heterodox and beyond the pale of orthodox Catholic teaching.

84. Bryan Cross September 7th, 2009 6:47 pm :

    John W,

    In #83, you wrote:

    … which shows that a Catholic can hold to it and be within the pale of Catholic orthodoxy

    That is a non sequitur. As I said in #78, “The Catholic position on a theological issue is not rightly determined by seeing whether or not a person was excommunicated for holding it.” I can point you to many heretofore un-excommunicated Catholic scholars holding heterodox positions, just as I can point you to many heretofore un-excommunicated Catholic politicians who support pro-abortion legislation. That doesn’t mean that supporting abortion is “within the pale of orthodoxy”. The patience and gentleness of the Church with regard to such persons must never be misinterpreted by the faithful as an endorsement of their errors. HUvB was brilliant in many respects, but on this issue, Pope John Paul II opposed him, as Pitstick points out. Pope John Paul II, in the Catholic Catechism (CCC 615-17) taught that it is by Christ’s loving obedience to the Father even in the midst of suffering, not by being punished by the Father, that Christ merited our justification. And in CCC 631-637 Pope John Paul II directly contradicted HUvB’s position regarding what Christ did in His descent into hell. Pope John Paul II opposed HUvB’s position again in Novo Millenio Inuente (2000), where he wrote:

    Jesus’ cry on the Cross, dear Brothers and Sisters, is not the cry of anguish of a man without hope, but the prayer of the Son who offers his life to the Father in love, for the salvation of all. At the very moment when he identifies with our sin, “abandoned” by the Father, he “abandons” himself into the hands of the Father. His eyes remain fixed on the Father. Precisely because of the knowledge and experience of the Father which he alone has, even at this moment of darkness he sees clearly the gravity of sin and suffers because of it. He alone, who sees the Father and rejoices fully in him, can understand completely what it means to resist the Father’s love by sin. More than an experience of physical pain, his Passion is an agonizing suffering of the soul. Theological tradition has not failed to ask how Jesus could possibly experience at one and the same time his profound unity with the Father, by its very nature a source of joy and happiness, and an agony that goes all the way to his final cry of abandonment. The simultaneous presence of these two seemingly irreconcilable aspects is rooted in the fathomless depths of the hypostatic union. (Novo Millenio Inuente, 26)

    We see clearly here that John Paul II affirms that Christ retains His profound unity with the Father on the cross and in death. He does not lose hope. (But those without grace, and in hell, have no hope.) So He could not have been separated from the grace and vision of His Father who is Love. (1 John 4:8, 16)

    You are correct that John Paul II and then Cardinal Ratzinger, praised HUvB’s work and contribution to the Church. This is one thing that Catholics have always been good at: we take the good (and praise it), and reject the bad. We don’t dismiss something entirely, because there is some bad in it. And it is the same with her theologians. The Church is able to praise a theologian for the good that he contributes to our understanding of theology, without implying that everything he said is within the pale of orthodoxy. One need only think of the example of Origen, or even Aquinas. The fundamentalist temptation is to assume that if the Church praises a theologian, then everything he said is within the pale of orthodoxy, and if the Church condemns a heretic, then everything he said was outside the pale of orthodoxy. Both of those assumptions fall prey to an over-simplified either-or type of thinking that has always been rejected by the Church.

    My arguments in #42 and #52 still stand unchallenged and unrefuted. Here’s another. I recently wrote about the Catholic understanding of our participation in Christ’s suffering, in “A Catholic Reflection on the Meaning of Suffering“. The Catechism speaks of it in CCC 618. But, if Christ’s sufferings were an outpouring of the wrath of God the Father, then our present participation in Christ’s sufferings would be a participation in receiving the wrath of God. Are you prepared to embrace that implication, since you (still retaining your Reformed theology) want to believe in the finished [penal substitutionary] work of Christ? In other words, are you prepared to believe that God the Father is still angry with you, having some more wrath He needs to get out of His system on account of your sins? Or do you toss out the Catholic understanding of our sufferings being a participation in Christ’s sufferings, because this Catholic doctrine on suffering doesn’t fit with your Reformed theology of Christ’s atonement?

    In the peace of Christ,

    - Bryan

85. K. Doran September 7th, 2009 7:06 pm :

    Dear Andrew M.,

    You said: “They understand the thomistic concept of God’s free grace. And if they really do understand this and they believe that Christ’s work on the cross is sufficient then they have an understanding of the saving work of Christ and Christ profits them much.”

    So if I believe that God’s free grace has been the the center and hope of my life then what is so terrible about me being Catholic? I learned about God’s grace and his saving work on the cross through the Catholic Church — through her saints, through her teachers, through my friends. His grace has been communicated to me in her mysteries. What did I lose by becoming a practicing Catholic? What did I lose when I got down on my knees and confessed twenty years of sin and have lived a different life ever since, with the crucified and risen Jesus by my side and within me every day? At least from what you have said so far, I lost nothing.

    But I know what I gained. I gained those mysteries. I gained those saints, and teachers and friends. They’re with me when I wake up every morning to my screaming children, and they’re with me when I read the Bible every night before I go to bed. You could have them too. But you could have them to the same degree only by becoming Catholic.

    Isn’t the choice easy? What do you have to lose, but a little bit of pride in your current way of life and a few of the more stubborn of your current friends? What do you have to gain, except more grace?

    Sincerely,

    K. Doran

    p.s. Out of curiosity, what Protestant histories of the early Church have you been reading? I do recommend once again the work of Dom John Chapman, freely available on the web on google books: “The first eight general councils and papal infallibility.” He was a great patristics scholar, he wrote late enough to respond to many of the more devious arguments brought up by Anglicans and others in the late nineteenth century, and his works are short and well-organized. If you want to find out why we Catholics believe so strongly that the first eight councils were not spectacularly conciliar, and why they did involve the Popes to sometimes decisive degrees, then reading short but well-written Catholic accounts (full of good primary-source quotations and context) is a good place to start. I get the feeling that some of the people who have written the books that you have read on early Church history have not been entirely honest with you.

86. JJS September 7th, 2009 8:33 pm :

    Gents,

    I skipped down to the bottom, so this may have been said already, but here is Calvin on the idea that it is a faith-formed-by-love that justifies:

    “When [the Papists] attempt to refute our doctrine, that we are justified by faith alone, they take this line of argument. If the faith which justifies us be that ‘which worketh by love,’ then faith alone does not justify. I answer… it is not our doctrine that the faith which justifies is alone; we maintain that it is invariably accompanied by good works; only we contend that faith alone is sufficient for justification…. We, again, refuse to admit that, in any case, faith can be separated from the Spirit of regeneration [which for Calvin would have included sanctification] ; but when the question comes to be in what manner we are justified, we then set aside all works…. When you are engaged in discussing the question of justification, beware of allowing any mention to be made of love or of works, but resolutely adhere to the exclusive particle [‘alone’]” (commentary on Galatians 5:6).

87. Marty September 7th, 2009 9:09 pm :

    Dear Bryan,

    Re: #77

    We do, thank you. That’s why we read it with the Church, and not in an ecclesial vacuum.
    

    Assertion without proof. I know you know this. I’m far from convinced.

    Your claim here begs the question, by presuming a Protestant rejection of apostolic succession. Apostolic succession did not come into the Church at some later point in time. Otherwise there would have been an uproar within the Church about it. Apostolic succession was practiced universally within the Church for 1500 years, and continues to be practiced to this day within the Catholic Church, and among the Orthodox.

    Assertion without proof. I know you think this. For me the historical evidence is against RCism big time.

    From the Catholic point of view, only those with apostolic authorization may give the definitive determination of what is “the word of the apostles”.

    Good in theory, bad in practice. Greatly idealistic, not very realistic. As I keep saying the mechanism for the RC Church’s official teaching is effectively muddled, particularly since Vatican II. There are a sea of conflicting opinions in the RCC over what is authoritative and what is not–not just different opinions over certain doctrines, but different opinions of what is binding.

    There are objective criteria for what is infallible and what is not. If you want to learn them, just ask.

    I get different answers depending in who I ask. Are you the magisterium?

    Your gauntlet challenge presupposes a lexical approach to Scripture, which, as I have already showed in comment #69, begs the question by presupposing that there is no Church.

    My approach to Scripture is the standard approach to language generally. Meaning is determined by context. If you want to reject that, then, well, I won’t be able to make sense of your blog posts because you’ve given up a fundamental rule of language. If you think the Church rejects that, then, well, no body will be able to make sense of any of her statements.

    Blessings,

    Marty.

88. Andrew Preslar September 7th, 2009 11:44 pm :

    Jason,

    Re #86,

    Thanks for the Calvin quotation. I cited Turretin to the same effect in #50, followed by an analysis of how this is different from the Catholic view. In #80, I pointed out what are possibly some flaws in the classical Reformed position.

    The distinction introduced in this matter by the Reformed seems to be superfluous. The presence of Christ’s righteousness in the soul accounts for the referent of justification without any need for recourse to legal fiction (simul iustus et peccator) and the theological difficulties attendant upon that construction. The Catholic view also accounts for the strictures upon “works” found in St. Paul’s writings. It is the righteousness of Christ, truly received by grace through (living) faith, that is the formal cause of justification. There is no question, in Catholic theology, of being justified by one’s own righteousness. The Catholic case with respect to Christian works (which are part and parcel of Christ’s righteousness inherent in the soul) is further bolstered by, dare I say, a careful consideration of the countless scriptures in which those who do good works, i.e., those who love, are reckoned just/righteous. Bryan makes this point quite convincingly (and succinctly) in #82.

89. Bryan Cross September 8th, 2009 2:56 am :

    A syllogism of quotations:

    (1) “There is nothing more serious than the sacrilege of schism, because there is no just cause for severing the unity of the Church.” – St. Augustine

    (2) “[I]f we’re wrong on sola fide, I’d be on my knees outside the Vatican in Rome tomorrow morning doing penance.” – Dr. John Gerstner

    (3) “For this reason Luther’s phrase: “faith alone” is true, if it is not opposed to faith in charity, in love.” – Pope Benedict XVI

    (4) “That conditional, that “if,” makes all the difference in the world. That one little conditional is the difference between Rome and Wittenberg.” – R. Scott Clark

    (5) “[W]e contend that faith alone is sufficient for justification. … When you are engaged in discussing the question of justification, beware of allowing any mention to be made of love or of works, but resolutely adhere to the exclusive particle [‘alone’]”. – John Calvin

    (6) “For faith, unless hope and love be added to it, neither unites man perfectly with Christ nor makes him a living member of His body.” – Council of Trent

    (7) Unless there is an undeniable case from Scripture that the faith that justifies is not a faith-informed-by-love, the Church’s decision at the Council of Trent should be accepted.

    (8) There is no good evidence in Scripture that the faith that justifies is not a faith-informed-by-love.

    Conclusion: We invite you, our separated brothers and sisters, to come back to holy Mother Church from which Protestants separated almost 500 years ago. It is time for a joyful family reconciliation. We long for you to be at the Lord’s table with us, in full communion in the household of God. Let’s defeat this schism that has separated us for so many generations, and let’s show to the world the unity Christ wants all His disciples to have. Doing our part in love to heal this schism, is a gift that we in this generation and in this century can give to Christ.

90. Tim A. Troutman September 8th, 2009 10:25 am :

    Tim P – Sorry for the delayed response. Back home now.

    Tim T., I gotta say I’m impressed that you’re unwilling/unable to offer a succinct, clear explanation of exactly what Christ was doing on the cross.

    What’s impressive about that? What I said was “The Catholic Church has not spoken authoritatively on any particular atonement theory.” That may actually be an overstatement, I only mean to say that the Church has not pronounced a particular model of atonement as infallibly correct. I did not say I was unable or unwilling to offer an explanation although it is true that I will refrain from doing that here since that’s not what we’re talking about. We were talking about sola fide, you used Penal Substitution in support of it and spoke of it as a given, I showed you reasons why we reject it. So the point at hand is not to decide which atonement theory is best, but to show that we cannot use PS as common ground in our discussion on Sola Fide.

    Did God count Adam’s sin to you? How does original sin work?

    I don’t understand OS as an imputed sin wherein I’m actually innocent but because of another man’s sin I am guilty. I believe that the Catholic line of thought would hold that OS is a privation of justice (of which I am actually born guilty of – i.e. I’m not born innocent with another man’s sin imputed to me). So this is fully consistent with my insistence that God sees all things as they truly are and is not deceived, even by Himself which is an impossibility.

91. Bryan Cross September 8th, 2009 11:31 am :

    Andrew M,

    If the heart of the one having justifying faith is never devoid of agape, i.e. there is never a time when a person has justifying faith but does not have agape [see your comments #21 and #28], and if whoever has agape is a righteous man and a friend of God [see #82], then simul iustus et peccator (at the same time just and sinful) cannot be true without distinguishing between mortal and venial sin. But Protestantism affirms simul iustus et peccator while denying the distinction between mortal and venial sin. Therefore, it follows logically that either

    (1) There is a time when a person has justifying faith and is justified but does not have agape; whenever a person is simul iustus et peccator, he has justifying faith and is justified but does not have agape (i.e. a person can simultaneously hate God and yet still be justified, such that if he died at that moment, he would nevertheless go to heaven),

    or

    (2) not everyone who has agape is a righteous man and a friend of God, (i.e. a person can truly love God with the supernatural love by which God loves Himself, and yet even at that same moment be in a state of not having justification, such that, if he were to die at that moment, he would spend eternity in hell separated from God)

    or

    (3) Protestant theology is inconsistent with itself.

    In the peace of Christ,

    - Bryan

92. Jeremy Tate September 8th, 2009 11:44 am :

    Andrew,

    I read your response to K. Doran. regarding what he’s missing by not leaving the Catholic Church and joining a reformed or evangelical Church. I think this is a huge question. What is offered outside of the Catholic Church which is not offered more fully inside?

    Last Thursday you wrote, “But every Reformed and Evangelical church has lots of ex-Catholics. I’ve talked to many of them and the stories are often the same. They sit through innumerable masses and do all the things that faithful Catholics are supposed to do and yet they never come to understand nor care about God’s grace.” But then you wrote something strange (strange based on your previous comments) You wrote; “Of course there are innumerable Protestant churches where folks never hear the gospel and they might be better off in a Catholic congregation.” If you think the content of the gospel required for saving faith is present (or can be present) in the Catholic, then why not convert to Rome and join the battle for a purer Church which loudly and clearly proclaims the gospel?

    I have to tell you, on a personal level, that I was shocked when I realized that the very things I disliked about the Catholic Church were the same things that the Catholic Church itself is fighting against. I didn’t like that it seemed Pelagian, but then I met with a Priest who had the exact same criticism of the lay Catholic (Fr. Martin, St. Andrew’s by the Bay parish). I didn’t like that laymen seemed ignorant of Scripture, but then I came to see how much is being done to increase Scripture knowledge among the laity. The Catholic Church isn’t going anywhere. In contrast, some people think the PCUSA will not even exist in 50 years. Why continue to kick against the goads? To use Gamaliel’s argument, if the Catholic Church is not from God then it will disapear. However, it is from God, then there is nothing we can do to stop it and we better be sure we want to spend our life fighting against it.

    Peace, Jeremy

    – Jeremy

93. David September 8th, 2009 12:08 pm :

    Jeremy,

    That makes a lot of sense. If one can be Catholic without being damned ipso facto, then I don’t see any reason to remain in schism, since schism is such a heinous thing. It is more consistent for a Protestant to say that Rome has no gospel at all than to say that one could theoretically be as close or closer to Christ in a Catholic parish than in some Protestant congregations.

94. David September 8th, 2009 12:13 pm :

    By the way, who is Gamaliel and where does he say that? I’m asking because that makes a lot of sense, too. The Catholic Church has been around since the beginning, but almost all of the Protestant sects of the 15th and 16th centuries have lapsed into some kind of ancient heresy or disappeared altogether. The only ones that haven’t have been forced to continue to divide more and more in order to maintain their view of orthodoxy. Protestantism looks like a chicken with its head cut off, or an organ/limb removed from a body. Life, or what looks like life, will continue for some time, but without being attached to the life-source death is inevitable.

95. Jeremy Tate September 8th, 2009 12:20 pm :

    Hey David,

    Gamaliel was a well respected Jewish Pharisee who made a speech before the Sanhedrin in Acts 5 concerning what to do with the Christians. Here is his argument;

    33 When they heard this, they were enraged and wanted to kill them. 34 But a Pharisee in the council named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law held in honor by all the people, stood up and gave orders to put the men outside for a little while. 35 And he said to them, “Men of Israel, take care what you are about to do with these men. 36 For before these days Theudas rose up, claiming to be somebody, and a number of men, about four hundred, joined him. He was killed, and all who followed him were dispersed and came to nothing. 37 After him Judas the Galilean rose up in the days of the census and drew away some of the people after him. He too perished, and all who followed him were scattered. 38 So in the present case I tell you, keep away from these men and let them alone, for if this plan or this undertaking is of man, it will fail; 39 but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them. You might even be found opposing God!” Acts 5:33-39

    Peace in Christ, Jeremy

96. Jeremy Tate September 8th, 2009 12:30 pm :

    David,

    You make a great point. In fact, I can’t think of a single Protestant denomination that emerged from the Reformation of the 16th century that hasn’t embraced unquestionable heresy (denial of Christ’s deity, denial of Scripture’s infallibility, acceptance of gay marriage, pro-choice…things that aren’t even debatable). Peace, Jeremy

97. JohnW September 8th, 2009 3:55 pm :

    Bryan:

    Penal Substitution does not say “Jesus was punished by the Father” as if poor Jesus was “forced” to take the wrath of God like some sort of divine punching bag or God the Father cannot love us unless “someone” (Jesus) is punished to placate His cosmic “hissy fit” at our sins before He can or will love us. It was because the Holy and Blessed Trinity loved us that Jesus did what He did, the Father out love for us sent the Son, who out of love for us was willing to come and die for us, to take the Justice and punishment we justly deserve in our stead and as our substitute for our sins. Instead of you or I suffering God’s Justice, punishment, and wrath for sin Jesus as our Head and Representative took your place and my place on the Cross and died the death we deserve. On the Wood of the Tree of the Cross God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, every sin and filthy act against God that has been and ever will be committed was laid upon Him “Surely He has borne our iniquity and carried our guilt”. By doing this Jesus Propitiated God’s wrath against sin and in our stead and in our place suffered and died for our sins.

    This is what I believe and see as the clear teaching of Scripture about the Atonement. So according to the Church is this heresy? Again I ask is there any Infallible and clear Magisterial Church teaching or documents that say what I believe about the Atonement is heresy? If not then I am free to believe it.

    Perhaps I was a little hasty in returning to the Catholic Church. This is a dealbreaker for me, if the Church says one cannot believe and hold to penal Substitution then perhaps I would be better off going back to the Anglican Church in North America.

98. tim prussic September 8th, 2009 5:43 pm :

    Tim T. (#90)

    Thanks for your patience, Tim. I was trying to access the issue of God seeing things only as they are by addressing other theological topics where similar things occur. In that I clearly didn’t get the traction I’d hoped for, so we’ll just dive right in. Boiled down, your stated theological opposition to the Reformed doctrine of justification (RDJ) consisted of two points: 1) God only sees things as they actually are; the RDJ doesn’t allow for God to see actual righteousness in the one to be justified for it’s not there; therefore, the RDJ is false. I tried to put that syllogistically but failed; hopefully it still provides some clarity. 2) Justification itself requires an intrinsic change either in God or the one being justified; God cannot change; therefore, the change much be in the one justified. The RDJ doesn’t allow for change in the one justified (as the basis for justification), so the RDJ is false. Please let me know if I’ve misrepresented you in any way.

    So, then, #1 – the RDJ does, indeed, give God a basis for declaring a sinner just – the perfect righteousness of Christ imputed to the sinner. This is how God is both just and the Justifier of the one who believes. Were he to issue a bare pardon to a sinner apart from Christ’s death, there would be injustice with that pardon. Were he to declare a sinner just/righteous apart from Christ’s perfect obedience, there would be injustice with that declaration. Thus, based upon the active and passive obedience of Christ imputed to the believing sinner, God pardons their sin and accepts and declares them as just. All this is received by the sinner through faith and quite apart from any works on his part. No inherent anything for us to crack up about ourselves: “Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law” (Rom 3:27-8). Again: “And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness, just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works” (Rom 4:5-6). In justification, God makes provision through his Son to view sinners as righteous. He sees that perfect righteousness of Christ in the sinner because he has counted (imputed) it to him. That’s the basis God’s given himself to see a sinner as righteous. Thus, God sees the justified sinner as he’s set himself up through Christ to see him. God is the just Justifier.

    This is a far cry from a partial righteousness that inheres in the sinner as a basis for justification, no? How can God pronounce righteous that which is not, you ask? I turn the question on you: since justification is clearly shown to be a current standing of a sinner before God (that is, one IS justified, not that one merely will be justified), one what perfect inherent righteousness does God base this declaration? Are you, Tim, perfect in righteousness? I know I’m not. Can you really stand, Tim, before the tribunal of the most high and argue your inherent righteousness? Our God is a consuming fire. We need a perfect righteousness, which is Christ’s alone (the one inherent in him, not us) received by those who work not, but believe in the One that justifies the UNGODLY. You either have to be perfectly righteous in yourself or ungodly and believing in Christ to be justified. Tim, take your pick how you want God to see you: in your own inherent righteousness or in Christ’s perfect righteousness imputed to you.

    #2 – Justification is not a personal, intrinsic change, it’s a change of standing before God. God’s revealed that he views creation in categories, the most simple of them: righteous and wicked. He loves righteousness and hates wickedness. Righteousness he rewards and blesses; wickedness he punishes and curses… and all that eternally and unchangeably so. Now, when a man is justified, he’s moved from one category to the other – from wicked to righteous in God’s sight. Thus, no change (so far as justification specifically is concerned) is necessary either in God or the man. However, as mentioned above by JJS (quoting Calvin in #86) and Andrew (quoting Turretin in #50), there are real, intrinsic changes that logically precede justification (definitive sanctification) and follow justification (progressive sanctification). The former is an ontological change in the man by which he’s given a new nature, faith and repentance. So, there is an intrinsic change in the one justified, but that change is distinguished quite clearly from justification, which is not an intrinsic change in the justified one, but a change in his standing before God based upon the finished work of Christ imputed to him and received by faith alone.

99. Bryan Cross September 8th, 2009 6:03 pm :

    John W,

    I recommend that you do a thorough study of the Catholic doctrine of faith.

    Tim P,

    Your conception of imputation is nominalistic. My question is about your nominalistic conception of imputation. So here’s my question: What is the difference between God seeing things not as they actually are, and imputation? In other words, if imputation were identical to God seeing things not as they actually are, what would be different about imputation?

    In the peace of Christ,

    - Bryan

100. tim prussic September 8th, 2009 6:09 pm :

     David (#94) – you’re being unfair and (I think) disrespectful. Do you think that the Roman communion has been jolly well orthodox from soup to nuts? Are there not those in the Roman communion who’ve embraced all the things Jeremy (#96) mentions and far more? If the Roman communion has had to excommunicate those who’ve deviated from orthodoxy, doesn’t that really amount to the same a division – at least in some respects? I’d contend that the official Roman positions are heterodox (according to the Scriptures) at numerous points, some vital to Christianity (according to the Scriptures). If you’re going to point your finger at Protestantism and call it all messed up and crazy (a fair accusation, by the way), then at least be honest in your assessment of Rome.

     As to your contention in #93, Protestants don’t believe they’re schismatic, they believe the Roman communion branched off into damnable heresy, so it is the schismatic body. To be a classical Protestant (according to classical Protestants) is to be faithful to the church; to be a faithful Roman Catholic is to have abandoned the Christian church. The Bible doesn’t teach a “Sacramental union” of the church the way Rome does, it teaches a spiritual unity in the head of the Church, Christ, meted out through administration word and sacrament by the visible church (not to be confused with an earthly hierarchy nowhere to be found in the Scriptures). Thus, from a classical Protestant point of view, to remain in Rome is unfaithful (2 Cor 6:17) and to hold to its official teachings is to be damned eternally. Please understand, I’m not now arguing that, nor am I saying any of that to be a jerk, but I’m just trying to counterbalance your unbalanced assertions above in #93.

     This blog appears to be a great place for conversation and learning between groups that don’t have too many conversations. Disrespectful comments might put the kibosh on that, which’d be a shame.

     Happily,
     Tim

101. tim prussic September 8th, 2009 6:26 pm :

     Bryan, thanks for the questions.

     The difference between God simply declaring something to be that is not – e.g., that a sinner is in fact righteous without basis – and the RDJ is that God provides a basis for declaring the sinner righteous. That basis is not found IN the sinner (God seeing things are they “actually” are), but the basis is found in Christ’s prefect righteousness imputed to the sinner (God seeing things as he’s set himself up to see them). We avoid nominalism (if I’ve understood you) in that justification isn’t mere word play, it’s a judicial declaration based upon a perfect righteousness accounted to a sinner. Further, what God declares regarding a sinner, he’ll also necessarily brings to pass IN the sinner. That is, if he declares a sinner just based upon Christ, he also eventually makes that sinner just.

     May I ask you a question, Bryan? On what basis does (not will, but does) God declare you righteous?

102. Bryan Cross September 8th, 2009 6:56 pm :

     Tim P,

     I’ll answer your question first, and then I’ll follow up my question. You asked me:

     On what basis does (not will, but does) God declare you righteous?

     Catholics (and Orthodox) believe that God declares only what it is true. In baptism, the Holy Spirit actually makes us righteous, by infusing sanctifying grace into us, and thereby turning our hearts back to God in faith, hope, and charity (and all the other infused virtues). That’s the whole point of Christ coming, to turn our hearts back to the Father. Through His passion and death He merited grace for us. So we are declared righteous by God because through the grace we receive through the sacrament of baptism (and the other sacraments) we are immediately and truly made righteous. We are not just counted as if righteous while remaining actually unrighteous. We are counted righteous because we are actually and truly and immediately made righteous, our hearts are washed clean of the stain in the soul which is the privation of divine life, and we are filled with charity and the Holy Spirit. Whoever loves God with agape which is poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit (Rom 5:5), is a friend of God [see #82], and is truly righteous. This is the real gospel; we are really made righteous, not just covered over and called righteous while remaining actually filthy inside. This is why we believe that simul iustus et peccator, without a distinction between mortal and venial sin, is an imitation gospel. It promises everything like the real thing, but only gives you the appearances, like a knock-off Rolex.

     Ok, back to my question to you.

     The difference between God simply declaring something to be that is not – e.g., that a sinner is in fact righteous without basis – and the RDJ is that God provides a basis for declaring the sinner righteous. That basis is not found IN the sinner (God seeing things are they “actually” are), but the basis is found in Christ’s prefect righteousness imputed to the sinner (God seeing things as he’s set himself up to see them).

     I didn’t word my question with sufficient specificity. The fact that three parties are involved (Father, Son, and sinner), instead of only two parties (Father, sinner) does not answer my question. So, let me try again.

     If imputation were identical to God seeing things not as they actually are [i.e. not seeing Christ as actually and truly righteous, and not seeing me as actually and truly sinful], what would be different about imputation?

     I don’t see any answer to that question in your reply.

     In other words, if at imputation nothing actually were transferred from Christ to me, and from me to Christ, but rather, God merely no longer saw things as they actually are, i.e. He stopped seeing Christ as righteous and me guilty, and started seeing Christ guilty and me righteous, even though in actuality nothing in reality had changed, what exactly would be different?

     In the peace of Christ,

     - Bryan

103. K. Doran September 8th, 2009 7:13 pm :

     Dear John W.,

     Hold your horses, buddy. We’re praying for you. God wants you to be in the bosom of his Church, which has existed from the time of the apostles down to the present day. He wants you to be friends with his Communion of Saints.

     Always remember that one thousand difficulties do not equal one doubt. You’ve got to pray to God that he will help you find a good spiritual director. If you email me, and tell me your geographic location, I might be able to help you find one: KBDh02@yahoo.com

     Don’t get all riled up about stuff that, to be honest, you probably don’t really understand. That statement may sound condescending to you, but it is the best spiritual advice I can possibly give you right now. Be honest about your own limitations. Be humble.

     Sincerely,

     K. Doran

104. tim prussic September 8th, 2009 9:19 pm :

     Bryan, now I think I’ve understood your question. I’ll give it a think and double back with you tomorrow. As to your answer of my question: You’re perfectly righteous right now, as you sit there reading this post? If so, does your wife think so? (If you’re not married, please substitute best friend, coworker, boss, professor, etc.) If you say that you’re justified on the basis of infused righteousness and nobody who knows you sees that perfect righteousness, then it looks like you bought the sweat-shop Louis Vuitton. I tell everyone that I’m not perfect, but God will complete the work he’s begun… they believe me.

     Thanks for the conversation, Bryan. I’ll get back to you on your question.

105. Tim A. Troutman September 8th, 2009 9:35 pm :

     the RDJ does, indeed, give God a basis for declaring a sinner just

     I never argued that God doesn’t have a reason for deceiving Himself (seeing thing as X when in reality it is Y), I argued that God cannot do such a thing by its own terms. I.e. God necessarily sees things as they truly are. You seem to have re-typed my argument fairly, but then go on to argue things like this that make me think that I wasn’t clear enough in my explanation.

     No inherent anything for us to crack up about ourselves:

     The Reformed interpret “works” to mean “anything other than faith” which is not how Paul uses the word nor is it a helpful definition because its an entirely arbitrary distinction between faith and other things. On the boasting part, if we must deny ourselves any real part in salvation in order to avoid boasting, then we must deny ourselves real faith also. One can boast of having faith as easily as having love. In fact, according to the RDJ, faith actually would be something to boast about and not so with love. Love does not justify but faith does, according to them. So

     1. Why is it that the Reformed think that we could boast about works if they justified us (according to the definition of RDJ) but not faith? (If works mean “works of the law” or even general works of righteousness wherein we earn our way into heaven, then it makes sense how we could not boast of the former but could of the latter. But as we have already discussed, this is not the Catholic doctrine.)

     Tim, take your pick how you want God to see you: in your own inherent righteousness or in Christ’s perfect righteousness imputed to you.

     If these were the options, I’d be on your side. But the dilemma is false. There is a third option which the Church has taught explicitly since the days of St. Augustine and that is infusion. The Reformers departed from this as shown by Protestant scholar, Alister McGrath:

     it will be clear that the medieval period was astonishingly faithful to the teaching of Augustine on the question of the nature of justification, where the Reformers departed from it,” and later, “The Reformation understanding of the nature of justification – as opposed to its mode – must therefore be regarded as a genuine theological novum.1

     Luther erected a specific understanding of justification that departs significantly from Augustine at two points of major importance-the notion of justifying righteousness as alien (rather than inherent) to the believer, and a tendency to treat justification as involving two notionally distinct elements. This late trend eventually led to the development of forensic notions of justification in the writing of Melanchthon and others.2

     So 2. why should I trust the novel doctrine of the Reformers over the longstanding doctrine of St. Augustine, those who went before him, and all of Christendom after him? (It becomes especially difficult to see why I should do this when we also consider the philosophical problems it has which I’ve already pointed out.)

     but that change is distinguished quite clearly from justification,

     How, where, and by what authority? Those in succession from the apostles say otherwise, and have always done so, again, why should I trust this new doctrine?

     I think it will be helpful to answer Bryan’s question also. As for your comments to David:

     If the Roman communion has had to excommunicate those who’ve deviated from orthodoxy, doesn’t that really amount to the same a division

     It only amounts to a division if we presuppose Protestant ecclesiology (that is, that there is no visible principle of unity). But the Scriptures speak of the Church as a body. And a body is not divided when dead members are removed from it. If I cut my hair, I do not divide my body. Likewise, pruning dead branches from a tree do not divide the tree. It removes the dead member from the living body. Exactly so with the Church. Our podcast episode 2 talks about unity.

     I’d contend that the official Roman positions are heterodox (according to the Scriptures) at numerous points,

     Protestants don’t believe they’re schismatic, they believe the Roman communion branched off into damnable heresy

     Arius and every heretic or schismatic who has ever lived would say the same things. (I’m not calling you a heretic). But what principled reason can you offer to demonstrate why your reading of the Scriptures is better than Arius’s or any schismatic?

     The Bible doesn’t teach a “Sacramental union” of the church the way Rome does, it teaches a spiritual unity in the head of the Church, Christ, meted out through administration word and sacrament by the visible church (not to be confused with an earthly hierarchy nowhere to be found in the Scriptures)

     This statement begs the question. If you disagree in the visible unity of the Church, you should respond to the Visible Church article. We can’t handle every issue here on this thread and if you are assuming things (like invisible church, imputed righteousness, penal substitution) we cannot have progressive dialogue because we disagree with all of these things. We need to start at a place where we agree and then progress.

106. Bryan Cross September 8th, 2009 10:12 pm :

     Tim P,

     Re: #103, you’re right that other people ought to see the love of Christ in our lives, and the keeping of the commandments. If they don’t, then we’re deceiving ourselves if we claim to love God and to be righteous by His grace. This is why it is good for every Christian to do an examination of conscience daily, especially in relation to the commandments and the virtues. And we should make frequent use of the sacrament of penance, and the Eucharist, by which we receive the life of God. But, I suspect that you are evaluating the Catholic position from a Protestant point of view, i.e. without an understanding of the distinction between mortal and venial sin, and the metaphysical basis for the distinction between them. So, from that Protestant point of view, even the slightest sin demands eternal damnation. Hence, from the Protestant point of view, it looks absolutely arrogant and self-deceived for anyone to claim that we are actually now righteous. But in Catholic doctrine sin divides into mortal and venial sin. I explained the basis of the distinction between mortal and venial sin in “Aquinas and Trent: Part 5.” It is difficult to overestimate the importance of understanding that distinction, in coming to reconcile Protestants and Catholics.

     Strictly speaking we will not be perfectly righteous (i.e. righteous in every respect) until heaven, when even concupiscence will be done away and we will in no way deviate from perfect obedience. But in this present life even the righteous man sins venially every day. Yet the righteous man does not sin mortally; if he does, he is no longer righteous, until he repents. By “does not sin mortally” I mean that the righteous man does not with full knowledge and deliberate consent commit a grave sin. He does not do that, because he loves God, and seeks to live a life that pleases and glorifies God. That presence of the love of God (agape) in his heart, on account of the presence of grace within his soul, is the reason why he is rightly said to be righteous, even though he sins venially.

     The more we grow in grace and love for God, the more we become aware of our sins. But at the same time, we do find faith, hope, and love within ourselves, and we rest firmly on Christ’s promises to give us grace through the sacraments that He has established in His Church, so that we may live without falling into mortal sin, and so that we may grow daily in our love for Him and obedience to Him.

     In the peace of Christ,

     - Bryan

107. herbert September 9th, 2009 7:12 am :

     John W. I’ve taken the time to read each and every post in this thread and have been following your plight carefully. As an individual who came (from Protestantism) to the Church at the age of 30, I can relate well to your concern that the Church doesn’t tread upon what you see as the most sacred ground of the sufficient work of Christ. Let me just offer this brief thought:
     As a Catholic you can unequivocally affirm the fact that Christ is your Messiah and Lord 100% and if you can do anything it’s a direct result of His sufficient work on the Cross…

     And if you can affirm that, it seems to me that the specifics of just how His work is applied are little more that philosophical details (albeit important ones that deserve your continued attention!)
     Thanks for your sincerity, John, and your commitment to Our Lord!!!
     herbert

108. Bryan Cross September 9th, 2009 3:57 pm :

     Tim P,

     Following up my question in #102, here’s R.C. Sproul on imputation:

     Sproul says:
     

     Before God, once the sin has been imputed to [Christ] … in the sight of God, God looks at Christ and … sees a mass of sinfulness, because the sin of [the elect] has been transferred to Jesus. … The sin is transferred, or imputed, to Jesus. … The righteousness of Christ is transferred to us, to our account. So that God, when He declares me just, is not lying.

     Incidentally, Rome has trouble with this. Rome calls this concept, the Protestant concept, a legal fiction. And they recoil from it because they sense that in the Protestant view of imputation, that somehow, this concept casts a shadow on the integrity of God because God is now declaring people just who are not just. The response of the Reformers was, if the imputation were fictional, then when God declared us just, then when God declared us just, it would be a legal fiction. It would be a lie. And that would be a blemish on the character of God. But the point of the gospel is that the imputation is real, that God really laid my sins on Christ. And not only that, God really transferred the righteousness of Christ to me, and that there is a real union for those who are in Christ.

     What Sproul does not explain here is the difference between “fictional imputation” and “real imputation”. Unless something is changed in the believer and in Christ, then nothing differentiates “fictional imputation” from “real imputation.” And in that case, the “response of the Reformers” fails. But as soon as we start talking about real changes in the believer and Christ, then we’re no longer avoiding infusion (of Christ’s righteousness into the believer) and of actual sin into Christ (see comment #52). So the dilemma for Sproul is that either there is infusion (in which case separation from Rome is unjustified) or there is not infusion, in which case nothing differentiates “real imputation” from “fictional imputation.”

     In the peace of Christ,

     - Bryan

109. tim prussic September 9th, 2009 4:31 pm :

     Tim (#105): the Reformed oppose faith and works in justification because the Bible does. These categories aren’t difficult. The category of works includes all that men can do to move toward God (moral and ceremonial included), which is categorically opposed to what God’s done in Christ, which is received through faith (which God gives). You must see that those two things are consistently opposed – both of the passages (indeed, all of Romans 3-4) clearly oppose any human effort to be justified with the divine work of justification through faith.

     As to God’s seeing – the Scripture is full of God representing one thing by another. It’s a waste of time to detail this, so I’ll just mention the priesthood. A priest (thinking of OT priests) represents the whole of the people to God. Is he REALLY the whole of the people? Of course not, but God has constituted his relations such that he views the people in this one officer, or as you irreverently put it, God deceives himself. I should sooner think that you and I have deceived ourselves! In any event, what I”ve tried to offer you in my post above is biblical evidence that God sees us “in Christ” (a Pauline refrain) and that our justification is a judicial divine pronouncement based not upon who we truly are in ourselves (as, say, a co-worker might find us) but as we truly are in Christ, with his perfect righteousness imputed to us. I was arguing against your notion of divine “seeing” by showing that the Scripture doesn’t limit God’s sight as you seem to do.

     As to inherent or infused righteousness, I’m using the terms interchangeably, which may be incorrect and have caused confusion. Infused righteousness is that which is imparted by God to a person and which is in him, no? Imputed righteousness is that which is counted by God to a person and is not in him. Thus, infused righteousness is inherent. If this is correct, I have a question for you. Is there a distinction between the righteousness that God imparts/infuses into you and your own righteousness (the right works, words, thoughts of your own doing)?

     One thing that comes up in your response (which is fundamental) is this notion that the Catholic tradition is somehow monolithic and univocal, but it’s manifestly not so. Sic et non. How do you deal with the wide variety of opinions found among churchmen and councils on any given topic? What you consequently treat as “new doctrine” is indeed the old doctrine clearly found in the writings of the actual Apostles and Prophets. The inspired and inerrant standard is “Thus says Yahweh,” and what you call new doctrine is found clearly there in the ancient standard. The notion that justification is something other than a divine judicial pronouncement of pardon and a declaration of righteousness is foreign to the inspired standard and it is, therefore, the new doctrine. Also, it’s a wild departure from the Scripture to suppose that the widely variegated tradition is as authoritative as the Apostles and Prophets. Aquinas, Anselm, Francis, Augustine, Athanasius, and Clement of Rome (for example) are all good and helpful men, no doubt. I love them and count them my brothers. When you say the Reformation departed from these men in areas, that’s not a problem, as they departed from each other as well. Their writings, while helpful and good on one hand, but misleading and mistaken on the other, are not finally authoritative. How could the be? How could you know who’s correct and who’s mistaken and on which issues? I think it’s clear that the Christian tradition is our guide to the Scripture, but that the Scripture is the final authority over that guide.

     Have a great day, Tim!

110. tim prussic September 9th, 2009 4:54 pm :

     Bryan, thanks a ton for #106 – very helpful for me. My job here is primarily to learn, not to teach. I’d do better to spend more time reading and less time writing.

     As to your question, I’ll watch the Sproul dealy and get back to you. I’m still thinking about it. I have to say that your question is a hard one for me to understand.

     As to legal fictions, who defines justice? Let God be true and every man a liar.

     Again, I appreciate the dialogue and will continue it tonight or tomorrow.

     With love,
     Tim

111. Tim A. Troutman September 9th, 2009 4:59 pm :

     Tim (#105): the Reformed oppose faith and works in justification because the Bible does. These categories aren’t difficult. The category of works includes all that men can do to move toward God (moral and ceremonial included), which is categorically opposed to what God’s done in Christ, which is received through faith (which God gives). You must see that those two things are consistently opposed – both of the passages (indeed, all of Romans 3-4) clearly oppose any human effort to be justified with the divine work of justification through faith.

     Faith itself is a thing that men can do to move towards God so no these things are not consistently opposed. Faith is not opposed to love or to any virtue. So the Reformed distinction is not at all clear.

     what I”ve tried to offer you in my post above is biblical evidence that God sees us “in Christ” (a Pauline refrain) and that our justification is a judicial divine pronouncement based not upon who we truly are in ourselves

     But you haven’t offered that. You’ve simply stated the Reformed position and have not dealt with the philosophical problems I showed that it has.

     I was arguing against your notion of divine “seeing” by showing that the Scripture doesn’t limit God’s sight as you seem to do.

     No where have I limited God’s sight. On the contrary, I said that God sees all things as they truly are and cannot be deceived. This is the furthest possible stance from “limiting God’s sight” so your statement is false.

     Is there a distinction between the righteousness that God imparts/infuses into you and your own righteousness (the right works, words, thoughts of your own doing)?

     Yes. One is not infused with his own righteousness. God is the source of all righteousness as you already know.

     but it’s manifestly not so

     If it’s manifest then you’ll have no problem demonstrating it.

     How do you deal with the wide variety of opinions found among churchmen and councils on any given topic?

     Varied opinions of the laity or even the clergy or even the bishops in no way detract from the Church having a single authoritative voice. If I join the PCA again tomorrow and decide to believe that Christ was a mere human, that would not mean the PCA is divided on Christ’s divinity. You have not demonstrated your point which you claimed was manifest.

     When you say the Reformation departed from these men in areas, that’s not a problem, as they departed from each other as well.

     But earlier you said that the teaching was clear from Scripture. How is it that everyone but a fraction of schismatics 1500 years after Christ missed the clear teaching and that most of the great theologians now still reject it?

     Most of what you’ve been writing is simply asserting what you learned in seminary. It appeared at first that you were going to interact with my arguments but it seems that its a more difficult task than anticipated so you’ve reverted to assertion. I know what the Reformed teach and what they believe. I used to believe it myself. I have good reasons for rejecting it and I’ve given you some of them. I hope we can find a way to progress in this dialogue as it seems to have taken a turn for the worse.

112. tim prussic September 9th, 2009 7:30 pm :

     Tim, I mostly feel the same way as you. I feel that you’ve done a fine job of asserting all sort of wonderful Catholic doctrines, but haven’t interacted with my arguments. (I certainly have asserted some things, but I have constructed arguments for others, usually from the Bible.) When I argue from Scripture, you simply appeal to the “church’s” interpretation and condescendingly shrug at mine. I think we’ve found interaction more difficult than expected as our basic authorities are not the same. Maybe this can be overcome.

     As I mentioned to Bryan, I’m mostly here to learn, and I have learned a great deal. I’m sure that I can learn a great deal from you, Tim, so maybe we could refocus. The conversations broaden out so quickly and I can only keep so many plates spinning and do it well. How’s this: Would you please tell me what you mean by God can only see thing as they truly are? At first, I thought you were framing your understanding of God’s knowledge so as to exclude justification based upon imputed righteousness by definition. With your addition that he cannot be deceived, it makes me think that maybe I missed what you were after in the first place.

     Have a wonderful evening, Tim.

     -Tim

113. tim prussic September 10th, 2009 12:33 am :

     Bryan, thanks for that old footage of the *thin* Sproul! I think Sproul’s answer is that if there were no union with Christ, the imputational transactions would be fiction (that is, not real). Since we are really united to Christ by faith, the imputations are real. You set up the situation thus: ‘Unless something is changed in the believer and in Christ, then nothing differentiates “fictional imputation” from “real imputation.”‘ This treats the spiritual union believers have with Christ as if it’s nothing or not real. This negates being “in Christ” as Paul repeats so often as the reality on which imputation is founded. You set up a false dichotomy: “It’s either a change in the believer” you might say, “or it’s fiction.” No, there’s a third way – real spiritual union with Christ unto forensic justification received by faith alone.

     So, your question: “What is the difference between God seeing things not as they actually are, and imputation?” Sola-fide justification via imputation differs from God seeing things not as they actually are because God orders reality to account for what he’s done. God’s not just throwing something out there that has no basis in reality. It’s just a reality that Rome’s been unwilling to accept.

     Thanks for answering my question on the basis of justification in your view (#102). You wrote: “We are counted righteous because we are actually and truly and immediately made righteous, our hearts are washed clean of the stain in the soul which is the privation of divine life, and we are filled with charity and the Holy Spirit.” So, are you actually and truly *perfectly* righteous in such a way that if God declared you just he would be basing the judgment upon your actual person?

     Finally (a new question), what’s the difference between merit and righteousness in Catholic doctrine? Are they different different words getting at the same idea?

     Happily,
     Tim

114. Bryan Cross September 10th, 2009 1:31 am :

     Tim P,

     Let me save the “what’s the difference between merit and righteousness” question for a separate thread on merit.

     So, are you actually and truly *perfectly* righteous in such a way that if God declared you just he would be basing the judgment upon your actual person?

     Yes. There is no hiding behind Christ now, just as there is no hiding behind Christ on the Day of Judgment. We were actually made righteous, receiving in our souls a participation in the divine nature, and living according to a supernatural charity that flows from this participation. We have the life of God within us, as the principle by which we now live. And by this infusion of divine life, we are in our souls truly righteous, having agape within us, by which we love God and our neighbor for God’s sake. God’s declaration, through His promise to act by His Spirit through the sacraments He has established, effects what He speaks. When He baptizes, we come out of the water without any sin. When we come out of the confessional, we come out without any sin. We come out having received grace within our soul, a participation in the very life of God.

     I think Sproul’s answer is that if there were no union with Christ, the imputational transactions would be fiction (that is, not real). Since we are really united to Christ by faith, the imputations are real. You set up the situation thus: ‘Unless something is changed in the believer and in Christ, then nothing differentiates “fictional imputation” from “real imputation.”‘ This treats the spiritual union believers have with Christ as if it’s nothing or not real. This negates being “in Christ” as Paul repeats so often as the reality on which imputation is founded. You set up a false dichotomy: “It’s either a change in the believer” you might say, “or it’s fiction.” No, there’s a third way – real spiritual union with Christ unto forensic justification received by faith alone.

     This answer only shifts the nominalistic problem to a different term, and thus only pushes the question back. If “union with Christ” were identical to God seeing things not as they actually are [i.e. not seeing Christ as other than me, and not seeing me as other than Christ] what would be different about it? In other words, if at the moment we were “united with Christ” nothing actually changed in me or in Christ, but rather, God merely no longer saw things as they actually are, i.e. He stopped seeing Christ as other than me, and stopped seeing me as other than Christ, even though in actuality nothing in reality had changed, what exactly would be different?

     In the peace of Christ,

     - Bryan

115. Bryan Cross September 10th, 2009 2:37 am :

     Tim P,

     Here’s an example that, from a Catholic point of view, is a deeply flawed conception of Final Judgment:

     “Union with Christ”, in this view, amounts to a certain pre-arranged deal in which Christ steps in for you at the Judgment Seat, and takes your place. (In this way, grace does not build on nature but displaces nature, making nature irrelevant.) Jesus essentially does what cheating students do during an exam. He takes the test for you. God the Father looks at you as if you were Jesus, even though you are not, and looks at Jesus as if He were you, even though He is not. In the nominalistic imputation model, the gospel turns into a cosmic loophole, because there is no point in Christ taking your place before the Judge (who is Christ). We already know that Christ is perfect. And we know that you are not Christ. (Otherwise, you yourself could ‘step on the scale’, and satisfy the requirement for heaven.) So what is really going on (in this theology) is that Christians are bypassing the Final Judgment. The more honest approach is just to say, “All Christians don’t have to go through Judgment; you simply go on in.” (Again, in such a case, grace would destroy nature.) So union with Christ, in this view, amounts to a pre-arranged deal regarding how God is going to treat us; it does not need to posit any change within the individual, ever. If during this present life God can treat sinful people as though they are righteous, and at the Judgment He can treat sinful people as though they are righteous, then He can do so for eternity. Therefore, given this notion, people in heaven don’t need to be righteous; God could, in principle, eternally keep treating them as though they are Jesus, while they remain sinful. Union with Christ is thus a kind of divine self-deception in which God agrees to treat the elect as if they were Christ, even though they are not righteous. This is still, nonetheless, legal fiction. For this reason, merely replacing the term ‘imputation’ with the term ‘union with Christ’, so long as both are conceived of nominalistically, don’t solve the problem. It just puts a different label on it.

     In the peace of Christ,

     - Bryan

116. JohnW September 10th, 2009 3:37 am :

     Bryan

     Thanks for posting that video. So good to see a video that shows Biblical truth. The last guy approached the “judgement” with humility and no confidence in his “merits” ie “Good Works”( though his file was double everyone else’s put together and then some) trusting solely in Christ and His merits and Grace.

117. herbert September 10th, 2009 6:37 am :

     So if we had neither Romans nor Galatians, I wonder if we’d have this utter breakdown of communication between people who’d otherwise be in full communion with each other through Christ within His Church. Out of all those pages in the Bible, these 2 books have managed to create division in the Body that would please Screwtape himself.

     It seems to me that we run the risk of clinging to our particular philosophical traditions moreso than we cling to Christ.

     It seems that, for the Reformed, it’s not enough for Catholics to say that it’s ONLY because of Christ that we can even hope for Heaven… it’s apparently necessary that we have to agree with the philosophical traditions of the Reformation, in particular, the precise means by which Christ’s work is applied to each believer, before we can be counted as brothers. Are we dividing His Body for the sake of our traditions, our fallible interpretations of Scripture? Just how, I wonder, does Sproul’s model of imputation (#108) jive with Christ’s words concerning our Judgment in Matthew 25??? or the video in post #115 for that matter?

     And when McGrath, who’s certainly considered one of the best and brightest that modern Protestantism has to offer, refers to sola fide justification as a “theological novum” of the Reformation era, and a Catholic simply repeats what he’s said, how is it that the Catholic is subsequently charged with having a false assessment of history, #109, (when it wasn’t even his assessment in the 1st place, but rather that of a well-respected Protestant scholar?!?!). thanks.

118. Tim A. Troutman September 10th, 2009 6:51 am :

     Tim P –

     but haven’t interacted with my arguments.

     Please give me an example of an argument that you’ve made that I’ve not interacted with.

     When I argue from Scripture, you simply appeal to the “church’s” interpretation and condescendingly shrug at mine.

     Please show me an instance where I have been condescending. I’m sorry if I ever came across that way, but I do not believe that I have. So it will help me to improve myself if you can point it out to me; because as it stands I don’t believe you.

     I think we’ve found interaction more difficult than expected as our basic authorities are not the same.

     But our basic authority is the same: God. The difference is in how we believe that He’s revealed Himself. I believe that He revealed Himself through Christ who founded a visible Church and through the Scriptures, and you believe only in the infallible authority of the Scriptures.

     The conversations broaden out so quickly and I can only keep so many plates spinning and do it well.

     I understand.

     Would you please tell me what you mean by God can only see thing as they truly are?

     I explained this when I first mentioned it; God does not “see” at all. When we know a thing, we learn of it through seeing, we acquire data and then recursively process that data. But that is not how God knows things. God knows by a self-knowledge. He knows creation and all that is in it or all that could be precisely because He knows Himself. If I’m leaving something out or you have a particular question about it, please let me know but this is what I mean when I say God sees all things as they are.

     Luther’s image of snow covering a dung hill to describe imputation, which is indeed what imputation is since it does not involve an intrinsic change, brilliantly shows how imputation cannot be work given the above truth about God’s means of knowledge. Because God cannot see snow when He “looks” at a dung hill because He does not “look” at a dung hill. He knows the dung hill perfectly by His own self knowledge and nothing can cloud that knowledge or confuse it. So a man might look at a snow covered dung hill and think that it is a pure hill of snow, but God cannot think that.

119. Tim A. Troutman September 10th, 2009 7:00 am :

     Herbert, good points. When I brought up the quote from McGrath though, Tim P didn’t say I lost my grasp on history, he said – to hell with history (in not so many words). What happens is that most Reformed take the “theological novum” of Martin Luther and company to be the actual gospel itself and therefore a non-negotiable. Since they are so entrenched in this belief, no amount of data could persuade them otherwise. Tim P said:

     Aquinas, Anselm, Francis, Augustine, Athanasius, and Clement of Rome (for example) are all good and helpful men, no doubt. I love them and count them my brothers. When you say the Reformation departed from these men in areas, that’s not a problem

     Tim P – I hope that it can cause you to hesitate if only for a moment that you’re so confident of what an excommunicated man believed that you’re willing to reject the unanimous teaching of Christianity from the beginning. Clement of Rome was ordained by the apostle Peter. Who was Luther ordained by?

120. Marty September 10th, 2009 7:35 am :

     Dear Tim T,

     As a Protestant, I view the theological novum of sola fide just like many other doctrines that have developed over time. Take the Trinity, it several hundred years to find the right formulations that made the best sense of Scripture. Moreover, sola gratia was a theological novum developed by Augustine in his debate with Pelagianism. Sola fide is simply another one of these that was particularly helped along because of (i) other doctrines that had developed and (ii) the recovery of the original languages due to the humanists.

     The Church has always consciously professed and believed “salvation by Christ alone” (the saving gospel), 1 Tim. 1:15. The doctrines that arise from and ultimately safeguard “Christ alone” are “grace alone” (developed under Augustine) and “faith alone” (developed under Luther).

     The reason I’m willing to trust an excommunicated Monk is because his doctrine matches Scripture. I’m unwilling to follow Trent because (it consciously ignored Reginald Pole et. al.) and didn’t. Ordination doesn’t guarantee truth (as Church History testifies continually), fidelity to Scripture (IMHO) does.

     Appealing to Clement of Rome’s nearness to the apostles doesn’t work for me. During the period of the NT churches were sliding into apostasy, just think of Galatia, Corinth, etc. Moreover, 2 of the 7 churches in Revelation 2-3 were close to apostasy, if not in it. In Acts 20:29-30 Paul told the Ephesian elders that after his departure false teachers would come from without and arise from within. 2 Tim. 3:1-9 says that in the time after Christ false teachers will arise and permeate the institution of the church. It’s not the institution (and ordination) that safeguards truth, it is fidelity to the apostolic deposit (as found in Scripture).

     God bless,

     Marty.

121. Tim A. Troutman September 10th, 2009 8:09 am :

     Marty, that’s fair (that Sola Fide might be a genuine development) except for a few things:

     1. It looks nothing like any of the other developments (per Newman’s work) i.e. it has no precedent, it has none of the ‘seven notes of a true development’ etc…

     2. Unlike the “theological novum” of sola gratia which is explicitly taught in Scripture, it is explicitly condemned in Scripture (James 2:24)

     The reason I’m willing to trust an excommunicated Monk is because his doctrine matches Scripture.

     What you mean is that it matches your interpretation of Scripture. But how trustworthy is your interpretation of Scripture if you read James 2:24 which says “You see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone” and come out thinking “We are justified by faith alone”?

     Arius’s followers followed him because they thought his teaching matched Scripture. Again, the same could be said of any heretic and his followers. But we have a safeguard against such errors: the Church. Sometimes the Church might not seem to line up with our personal view of Scripture – but guess which one needs to change…

122. Marty September 10th, 2009 8:59 am :

     Dear Tim T,

     Yes I understand that it doesn’t follow Newman. But, I don’t find Newman’s 7 criteria convincing, rather they’re arbitrary. He doesn’t set out to prove them but rather assumes them. Moreover, he sees the papacy as a development itself, which makes his whole argument fall because the mechanism by which a development is judged (the papacy) is a development itself. Thus, what mechanism does one have to judge whether the papacy is a legitimate development?

     What you mean is that it matches your interpretation of Scripture.

     Yes, I kinda knew you’d give this classic RC response. However, RCs have exactly the same problem with their official documents. Look at Bob Sungenis, Scott Hahn, and Gerry Matatics who all have a different understanding of the status of Vatican II, and they all appeal to official documents. RCs have to privately “interpret” words (in official documents) just as much as Protestants.

     Secondly, and more importantly, as for James 2:24, it’s never been a worry to Protestants and is in fact presents more of a problem for Catholics. “Justification” has several meanings in Scripture. The two important ones are (i) “to declare one righteous” (so Paul in Rom. 5:16, 18, 8:33-34 where it is linguistically the polar opposite of “condemnation”); and (ii) “to show one is righteous” (Luke 10:29; 16:15) (which is how we tend to use it in English), and this is how James uses the word. The context of James’ argument demands this usage, “show me you faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do” (2:18). The context is not about being made more righteous–that is an alien idea. Hence, a translation of James 2:24 could be, “you see a person shows they are righteous (or truly Christian) by what he does and not by faith (in context: belief) alone”. The great problem for RCism: there is no explicit usage of “justification” to mean “to make righteous” in the NT. Bryan’s attempt to show some usage doesn’t work,

     Trent turned back the clock when it came to justification IMHO, just like going back before Nicea or Chalcedon.

     Every blessing,

     Marty.

123. Bryan Cross September 10th, 2009 10:37 am :

     John,

     Every falsehood comes wrapped in many truths, because otherwise it would be rejected outright. You are right that the last man’s humility (in the video, #115) is precisely the attitude we are to have. That’s not the problem with the theology expressed in the video. The theological problem with the video is its nominalistic construal of the gospel, and its misunderstanding of the relation of grace to nature. The theology expressed in the video undermines the very reason for humility at the Judgment. If it doesn’t matter what you have done, whether good or bad, and you know that Jesus is going to “take your place” at the Judgment, then there is no reason at all for humility. A more accurate portrayal of this theology’s implications would have that last man yelling, from the back of the line, “Let’s cut the red tape, and let the Christians in already.”

     St. Matthew tells us that Jesus said:

     “For the Son of man is to come with His angels in the glory of His Father, and then He will repay every man for what he has done.” (Matt 16:27)

     In Romans, St. Paul teaches that on the Day of Final Judgment:

     “He will render to every man according to his deeds: to those who by perseverance in doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life. But to those who are selfishly ambitious and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, wrath and indignation. There will be tribulation and distress for every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek, but glory and honor and peace to every man who does good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.” (Romans 2:6-8)

     And in his second letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul writes:

     “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.” (2 Corinthians 5:10)

     And St. Peter tells us:

     “And if you address as Father the One who impartially judges according to each man’s work, conduct yourselves in fear during the time of your stay upon earth.” (1 Peter 1:17)

     And in the book of Revelation we see this:

     Jesus, speaking to the church at Thyatira, says, “And I will kill her children with pestilence; and all the churches will know that I am He who searches the minds and hearts; and I will give to each one of you according to your deeds.” (Rev 2:23)

     And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them; and they were judged, every one of them according to their deeds.” (Rev 20:12-13)

     “[L]et the one who is righteous, still practice righteousness; and let the one who is holy, still keep himself holy. Behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to render to every man according to what he has done.” (Rev 22:11-12)

     This belief in the coming Judgment is part of the Faith of the Church, because we say it in the Creed. “He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead.” This article of faith is dogma. To deny it is heresy. There are many sects that teach that one can avoid the Judgment (just as the man in the video never steps on the scale, and his eternal destiny has nothing to do with what the scale would read if he were to step on it); and for obvious reason that’s attractive to many people, and lures them away from the truth that Christ Himself taught to the Apostles, that He is coming to Judge each of us, according to our works. It is easy to construct a message that itches our ears, but we must hold on to the truth, to what Christ Himself revealed to the Church.

     In the peace of Christ,

     - Bryan

124. Tim A. Troutman September 10th, 2009 10:50 am :

     Marty,

     Yes I understand that it doesn’t follow Newman. But, I don’t find Newman’s 7 criteria convincing, rather they’re arbitrary.

     If you’ve read Newman and are unconvinced, then I doubt I can convince you that there are reliable criteria for discerning true developments from false ones. But his notes are arbitrary? That strains credibility. What is arbitrary about, for example, the idea that a true development should have precedent or that it should follow logically upon the deposit of faith, or that it should be conservative of truths already in the deposit of faith? None of those seem arbitrary to me at all.

     Moreover, he sees the papacy as a development itself,

     He does not see the entire papacy as a development. He sees the modern form of the papacy as developmental. He, like all Catholics, insists that St. Peter and his successors had a headship role from the very moment that he was handed the keys and told that the Church would be built on him. The Petrine role as a safeguard of development is only a problem, as you imply, if it was wholly a development and there was a time where it didn’t exist. This is not the case.

     Look at Bob Sungenis, Scott Hahn, and Gerry Matatics who all have a different understanding of the status of Vatican II, and they all appeal to official documents. RCs have to privately “interpret” words (in official documents) just as much as Protestants.

     A dissenter does not make a clear message ambiguous. We know what the living voice of the Church says regarding the status of V2. It’s not open to discussion. But if the fact that there are dissenters from the Magisterium proves that Reason + Scripture + Magisterium is not epistemologically better than Scripture + Reason, then the fact that there are dissenters from Scripture would prove that Scripture + Reason is not better than Reason alone. And the fact that there are people who dissent from plain reason would prove that we all just need to be complete skeptics. This is a faulty line of argument and is not helpful in arriving at the truth. The practical fact is that a living, authoritative interpretive body is better than a book alone for epistemic certainty. But regardless of whether we think is better or not, Christ Himself gave the apostles the authority to bind or loose and He built His Church on Peter.

     “Justification” has several meanings in Scripture.

     I agree. But where in Scripture does it show that we are justified by faith alone (in the sense that you mean it)?

     Trent turned back the clock when it came to justification IMHO, just like going back before Nicea or Chalcedon.

     And in the humble opinion of Arius, Nicaea turned back the clock. But I don’t see what’s humble about judging a Church council by the standard of one’s own interpretation of Scripture. If you say Trent wasn’t a Church council, then you only say that you are judging what the Church itself is based on your interpretation of Scripture which is even less humble.

     I don’t mean to accuse you of a real lack of humility, please don’t misunderstand. But this is the difference between the Catholic mindset and the Protestant one in that the former judges one’s own beliefs by the authority of the Church and the latter judges the authority of the Church by one’s own beliefs.

125. herbert September 10th, 2009 11:07 am :

     Marty, Could you possibly provide me with a couple internet links that would share a bit more about the differing views held by Hahn and Sungenis concerning Vatican II? I didn’t realize the two men were at odds. And as for Gerry Matatics- he’s a sedevacantist, refusing to place himself under Catholic authority. He’s simply not in full communion with Rome. Philosophically, he finds the case for Catholicism convincing, however, which means that on this thread he’d be arguing against the PCA (which he left).

126. Tom Riello September 10th, 2009 11:17 am :

     John,

     I hope you were only kidding in your approval of the video of the final judgment. That being said, if you were serious, this demonstrates the great difficulty of dialoging with the those who hold to sola fide. When challenged that sola fide leads to antinomianism the response is “we are saved by faith alone but not by a faith that is alone” but when Pope Benedict and others affirm that faith alone is true provided we understand it to be faith working through love, we are told by Reformed scholars (R.S. Clark) that is not what the Protestant Reformers meant by faith alone.

     I find that video actually to impugn the character and generosity of God, His goodness and love, His desire to see people do good works with humility. It reduces the Gospel to a “get out jail free” card.

127. JohnW September 10th, 2009 11:46 am :

     Tom:

     You sound just like the Judaisers when they accusesd Paul of being an “antinomian” St. St. Paul responded to the critics of his message of Justification by Faith (alone, without “works”) by the free Grace of God alone by saying “Should we sin so that Grace may abound? May it never be”.

128. K. Doran September 10th, 2009 12:28 pm :

     Dear John W,

     There are many good features of the video in question:

     (1) People who aren’t humble get into trouble at the judgment.

     (2) The person who makes it into heaven is humble.

     (3) The person who makes it into heaven can do so in spite of the fact that he has committed many sins.

     (4) Jesus is the reason that the person who has committed many sins can get into heaven, while the people who don’t know Jesus but have shorter files cannot.

     But the problem with the video is that it doesn’t show that the humble person has repented. If the humble guy had repented before he died (or at the moment of death), then when he — himself — got on the scale, God would say: “hey, your true repentance removed the sins that had been preventing agape from getting into your soul. Now that you’ve repented, the sins can’t stop agape from getting in any more. So I’m in you and you are in me. Now let’s make sure that we remove anything else that needs to be removed, and then let’s go to Paradise together.”

     If you imagine the video as having such an ending after the credits roll, so to speak, then the video is fine. But since the end the video before that happens, we are left to believe that the humble guy at the end wasn’t so humble after all: he never asked God to forgive him, and never accepted God’s forgiveness.

     I leave you with one question: you are assuming that the guy get’s cleaned up at some point before he enters Heaven, right? If not, then how could Heaven be happy for him (or for anybody who has to deal with him, for that matter)? And if God does ask him to clean up, isn’t that the same thing as saying that he has repented, agape has entered his soul, and even any tendency for venial sins has been removed? In other words, isn’t the natural ending that we would all assume must occur after the credits roll the only ending that makes sense? This is the Catholic ending.

     Sincerely,

     K. Doran

129. JohnW September 10th, 2009 12:54 pm :

     Bryan

     I can post Scripture that says not the opposite with the Scripture you posted but rather backs up the fact that those who have “a true and lively faith in Christ” have passed from death into life eternal, that they are saved and will be saved at the last day. “Whoever believes in Him is not condemned. “Having been justified by faith we have peace with God”, this is not a temporary truce between two opposing sides, but rather a state of being, that those who are in Christ have true peace and have been reconciled with God for all time, look up the meaning of “Peace” (shalom” in the the Pauline context). “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”.

     As to your comment:

     “The theology expressed in the video undermines the very reason for humility at the Judgment. If it doesn’t matter what you have done, whether good or bad, and you know that Jesus is going to “take your place” at the Judgment, then there is no reason at all for humility.”

     Let me quote from a Reformed source:
     “Another kind of Antinomianism begins from the point that God does not see the sin in believers, because they are in Christ, who kept the law for them. From this they draw the false conclusion that their behaviour makes no difference, provided they keep on believing. But 1st John 1:8-2:1 and 3:4-10 point in a different direction. It is not possible to be in Christ and at the same time to embrace sin as a way of life”.

     Bryan I don’t know how old you are or what your “life experiences” are but I am 50 and have seen a lot, more than most. I grew up in an area or region that is about 85% Catholic and if you want to talk about “sinning” and being a “good Catholic” pull up a Chair. In my 25 years of being a “Protesatnt” of the Reformed tradition I never knew one that held to the Reformed views Justification by Faith Alone by Grace alone and the doctrine of Imputation who willingly and crasslly lived a life of sin and profligacy, not one of them was an “Antinomian”, they tried to live holy lives that dis His will and lived a life of obedience to Jesu, did they sin? yes But the difference was they didn’t wallow in it and say “It doesn’t matter, I’m ‘covered by the Blood of Christ”, they sincerely repented and amended their lives, but then 99% of the time the “sin” they repented of wasn’t what would be called “Mortal Sin”.

     The Catholics on the other hand went to Confession on Saturday, Mass on Sunday and on Thurs, Fri, etc be sleeping with some cute female or guy they “picked up”, and/or would drink themselves senseless, do drugs recreationally etc. go to Confession on Saturday again, Mass on Sunday, and the following week do the same as the week before.

     You would think that the Reformed Protestants would be the ones who were living the sinful life and the Catholics would be living the holy lives but it was just the opposite, the Reformed Protestants with their alleged “nominalist” views, Justification by Faith Alone by Grace Alone, Imputation of Christ’s Righteousness would be the ones living Holy lives and being Sanctified by the Holy Spirit and the Catholics with the “Grace building on Nature” and the Catholic view of “Infused Righteousness” by Grace were the ones living sinful lives of wallowing in sin.

     The Catholics on this forum and in most WEB forums do not reflect the views or actual lifestyles of most Cradle Catholics. From my 10 years experience on the Internet most Catholics who post in WEB forums, and the “most Catholic” if you will are actually converts from conservative, orthodox Protestant denominations who already had a vibrant lively faith in Christ to begin with. Of those former Protestants who have converted half or more have come from the Reformed Tradition, at least in seems so from my experiences on the Internet.

     As a side note maybe I am not ready to be a Catholic, there is just too much I can’t agree with that the Church teaches even though there is much I do agree with. I find it ironic that “liberal Catholics” who say Genesis is a myth and not literally true and that Moses didn’t write the Pentateuch are tolerated but Catholics who wish to hold to Evangelical Christian views are not welcome. again maybe I was to hasty to come back to the Catholic Church, I will have to pray and think about it.

130. Tim A. Troutman September 10th, 2009 2:10 pm :

     John W,

     I can appreciate your frustrations with the Catholic Church and sympathies with the Reformed faith. I also concur that the average conservative Reformed Christian is a much better follower of Christ than your average Catholic. But that is because, by repeated schism, the Reformed communion has become more of a country club for saints than a hospital for sinners. Tertullian and the Montanists, by schism, branched off into a morally elitist sect that looked down their noses at the “carnal” Catholics. Tertullian may have lived a better life than most Catholics, but he was wrong to be in schism. True reform is needed but it happens from within, not from without. That’s why the Catholic Church needs people like you! Reform cannot happen from outside the Church as shown by the falsely so-called “Reformation.”

     Take another example – one man, in whose footsteps St. Augustine originally followed, lived an impeccable life (as far as we can tell) and was brutally martyred by crucifixion, later was flayed and had his skin stuffed and hung for all to see. That man was Mani – the founder of Manichaeism. In fact, most of the Gnostics and even some pagans lived lives that would put most Christians, Reformed or Catholic, to shame. I don’t deny that we shall know them by their fruit, but one of the fruits you shall know them by is their fidelity to the Bride of Christ. That is why true reformers like St. Thomas More would much sooner die than to rend the Body of Christ.

     Sometimes we cannot understand a certain doctrine, and it may even seem to be false. But if it comes from the mouth of the Church, the right thing to do is to accept it in humility. It’s painful? Of course, or else everyone would be Catholic. Suppose there was a Church that taught infallibly, would you agree with everything she taught already (meaning that you had already arrived at all her teachings without her) or would there be some things you didn’t quite agree with but had to submit to her judgment in humility?

     I find it ironic that “liberal Catholics” who say Genesis is a myth and not literally true and that Moses didn’t write the Pentateuch are tolerated but Catholics who wish to hold to Evangelical Christian views are not welcome.

     Everyone who abides by our posting guidelines is welcome here.

131. Jonathan Deane September 10th, 2009 2:16 pm :

     John,
     You may not know any who have taken justification by faith alone and used it to justify a profligate lifestyle, and that is true of my own experience as well. The sin of presumption is clearly rebutted over a gracious salvation by Paul himself in Romans 6:1.

     However, the converse to the sin of presumption is the sin of despair. Considering that sin, I know many believers who found themselves in sin after an experience of grace, and on those occasions, despair led them to question the validity of the entire system which supposedly leads to salvation and forgiveness of all sins past, present, and future. There have been many friends of mine who no longer profess faith because of such repeated failure and lack of progress-they cannot make sense out of a spiritual life which is supposed to be never questioned, never worked out. Granted, many good Protestants (Reformed and non-Reformed alike) grasp this truth through an emphasis on sanctification as essential, but my point is that a logical conclusion of the one time imputation of justifying righteousness could be that things are “as good as they get” on this earth. If only they would pray the Lord’s Prayer as they were instructed to do so, and really beg God to forgive them their trespasses, as they forgive those who trespass against them.

     May He do so in all of our lives!

     Blessings,
     Jonathan

132. K. Doran September 10th, 2009 2:36 pm :

     Dear John W,

     What are you afraid of? Are you afraid to ask God to forgive you for your sins? Are you afraid that he won’t forgive you if you ask him to (all you need is a fear of Hell and a firm desire to not sin anymore, you don’t need to be superman to get your sins forgiven)? Are you afraid you won’t be willing to accept his forgiveness?

     If you ask God to forgive you, and you accept his forgiveness, then you’re OK, John. Jesus won’t leave you, and you will not be left out of Heaven on account of any of your sins. In what way does the Catholic view prevent you from having Jesus at the center of your life? In what way does the Catholic view prevent you from asking for forgiveness? In what way does it prevent you from accepting God’s forgiveness?

     What is so surprising about believing that those who have the authority to forgive sins really and truly forgive them? What is so surprising about believing that once your sins are forgiven, you’re not in the same state of sin that you were in before you asked for the sins to be forgiven? Isn’t it simple? Isn’t that just the definition of forgiveness? Why must the forgiveness that Christ imparts to us during our earthly live be a process that necessarily leaves us completely unchanged after receiving it? What is so bad about saying that receiving forgiveness changes us, and allows agape into our soul? This cradle Catholic certainly noticed a big change after he started going to confession.

     And finally, how does any of that leave out the salvific work of Christ?

     The passion of Christ acts in the sacrament of penance.

     And, you will find, if you have faith, that the sacrament of penance makes it more difficult for you to sin again, not less.

     Sincerely,

     K. Doran

133. tim prussic September 10th, 2009 2:46 pm :

     Tim T., at the risk of spreading out the discussion (again), I will answer your personal question by directing you to the comments you’ve made since you asked how some of your comments take a condescending tone. It appears common for you to handle a scriptural argument by dismissing it by way of association. “Well, you’re linked up with an excommunicated monk, but I have the unanimous testimony of all the faithful on my side. You’re just like Arius – you have your text.” Tim, that gets pretty thin pretty quickly. I don’t supposed you guys went to the trouble of constructing this blog so you could tell yourselves your right and feel good about it. I suppose you constructed it as an apologetic tool for guys just like me. If that supposition is correct, it might guide the way you interact.

     Back to my narrow point: God seeing. The terms seeing, sight, see and the like are very often used to mean “understand” or “know”. Further, the analogy of snow over pooey is simply that – it’s a visual illustration. By the way, I totally agree that God doesn’t know discursively, but by a single, eternal act of intuitional self-knowledge. The problem is that we have a REAL hard time understanding (seeing, if you will) that kind of knowledge and cannot speak in terms of it. Thus, we almost invariably speak of God by way of analogy. Thus, refuting the analogy because it doesn’t comport with stricter language regarding God don’t jive.

     Let me re-raise one specific and hear what you have to say about it. In the OT, the priest represents the people before God. How does this representation work? Specifically, how does that representation work with your notion of divine knowledge?

134. Tim A. Troutman September 10th, 2009 3:20 pm :

     Tim P. –

     I’m sorry for coming across condescending, I should be more careful with my wording. Maybe we can come back to those particular points later because I think they are valid, but in the interest of not spreading the discussion out anymore I’ll move on.

     I agree with everything you said about our limitation in language and understanding regarding God and His mode of knowledge. If the dunghill analogy is not an accurate analogy of imputation, then how else can you explain it that fits in with things we know about God? We need an explanation that works and the dung hill explanation doesn’t.

     In the OT, the priest represents the people before God. How does this representation work?

     The priest acts on behalf of the people, as far as I understand it, as a servant might act on behalf of his master.

135. Tim A. Troutman September 10th, 2009 3:22 pm :

     Didn’t finish the thought… I don’t think that is in conflict with my understanding of God’s knowledge. How do you understand the action of the priest and how is it in (apparent) conflict with God’s knowledge?

136. JohnW September 10th, 2009 3:26 pm :

     Tim T.

     My issue is that I do understand the Catholic Doctrines I have issues with. Its not like I read or hear them and say “I don’t know, maybe it doesn’t sound right”, no I do understand them and I disagree because the Bible tells me otherwise and the facts of History tell me that they are questionable if not untrue. I am not the only one who says this, I have read quite a few Catholic historians, theologians, and Biblical scholars who remain Catholic who say the same thing.

     If you say the Church needs people like me, who love the Lord Jesus and who seek to live a life of obedience to Him and to faithfully follow Him then that is excellent and good. But the Church will also have accept us when we disagree with some Dogmas we just can’t accept because neither the Scriptures or history agree with them. I don’t want to derail this thread with the exact Dogmas I simply cannot nor probably ever will accept.

137. JohnW September 10th, 2009 3:52 pm :

     K Doran

     I have no problem asking God’s forgiveness for my sins. I have assurance based on what St. John wrote that if we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse from all unrighteousness, Amen. I know Jesus will not leave me for I have His promise that all that the Father has given Him will not be lost or cast out. Jesus is the Good Shepherd and will not lose any that the Father has given Him and He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion.

     What I don’t agree with is that even though my sin is forgiven and the guilt taken away I still have to “Expiate (atone)” for my sins and have to be tortured with agony in Purgatory that is far worse than the worse physical and mental pain on earth. I remember as a CCD student the CCD teacher reading from some Saints “revelation” that one minute in Purgatory is more painful that the worse physical and mental pain of a hundred lifetimes on Earth. I thought of this when I was in college when Evangelical Christians there witnessed to me. I “converted” to Christ and began to earnestly study the Bible, what I saw there was a merciful God of love who accepts and forgives those who put their whole Faith, Trust, Love and Hope in His only Begotten Son Jesus as the One who loved us so much that He died to Propitiate the anger of God the Father for our sins, that on the Cross He died the death I deserve as my sin-bearing substitute in my place and stead. That God can now forgive me based on what Jesus did for me. God the Father forgives me and casts my sin as far as east is from west and remembers them no more. He doesn’t require “double indemnity” for my sins IE Jesus dying for them and then later requiring skin for skin Expiation for them from me by torturing me in “Purgatory” to make “Satisfaction” for them. To me a God who does this is not a loving Father but a sadistic monster,

138. Tom Riello September 10th, 2009 4:43 pm :

     John,

     It is sad to see you describe God the way you did. Be assured of my prayers for you.

139. tim prussic September 10th, 2009 5:53 pm :

     Tim T. (#134-5) – I think the priest is more than a mere servant acting on behalf of the people. A man delivering a letter is a servant, but he’s not constituted as a representative. The priest is a public figure in whom the people is represented to God. When he acts on their behalf, it’s as if they’re acting. When he speaks on their behalf, it’s as if they’d spoken. This notion of representation is common throughout the Bible and serves to show that you’re conception of God’s knowledge is more limited than God’s expressed conception of his own knowledge. If God only sees that priest as the man he is actually and in himself, we don’t a real representation – we have (to borrow and modify) a sacerdotal fiction. However, God’s constituted the priesthood such that, in their public office, discharging their public duties, they do indeed represent those whom he’s appointed them to represent.

     So, indeed, God knows things truly, which includes what he’s has constituted them to be, and not necessarily ONLY as they are in themselves.

140. tim prussic September 10th, 2009 6:02 pm :

     John W., I don’t think you end well (#137). I agree with you right up till the end of that post. What if God decided to save a people through purging their sins for millions of years? I think that would be infinitely gracious, would it not? That means of salvation is not the one spoken of in the Bible, but relative to the infinite guilt of sin, what’s a few million years of torture? Sounds silly (maybe), but I’m being serious. Praise God that Jesus Christ bore the wrath for our sin on the cross! Soli deo gloria!

141. Tim A. Troutman September 10th, 2009 6:36 pm :

     Sometimes a servant acts in place of a master. The master sends the servant into the marketplace and the servant conducts business just as if the master were there doing it but he does it on behalf of the master. Another example would be in the Robber Council (otherwise ecumenical by all standards) where the papal legates, against the rest of the bishops, contradicted the findings, which were heretical, acting on behalf of the pope as if the pope were the one doing it. I think the role of a priest is something similar. This does not mean that God sees the people instead of the priest any more than it means that the blacksmith sees the master instead of the servant.

     This notion of representation is common throughout the Bible and serves to show that you’re conception of God’s knowledge is more limited than God’s expressed conception of his own knowledge.

     Again, I have not limited God’s sight and this accusation is getting old. To see truly and reliably is not a limitation. To have the possibility of seeing something as one thing when in reality it is another, on the contrary, is a limitation of sight. I haven’t charged you with limiting God’s sight, but if one of us is doing it, it’s not me.

     We’re leaving some loose ends though. Lets back up. Here’s how the conversation has gone so far:

     Tim P: God looks at the just and sees Christ instead of the sinner.

     Tim T: But God cannot be deceived, He always sees things as they truly are.

     Tim P: Scripture uses anthropomorphic language and so-forth. Dung hill, God’s sight, etc.. are all analogies.

     Which is equivalent to:

     Joe: God could not have prevented 9-11; it was outside His providence.

     Bob: But God can do all things which are possible and He is sovereign per divine revelation.

     Joe: Scripture uses anthropomorphic language and so-forth. Passages about God being “strong” and so forth are analogies.

     In both cases, an objection based on known truths about God is raised and then side-stepped. I’m sure Bob agrees that Scripture uses anthropomorphic language and that passages showing God as “strong” are analogical in some sense.. But Joe hasn’t shown how his belief is compatible with the known truth that Bob raised. Likewise, you haven’t shown how imputation is compatible with the known truth that God always sees things as they are. If you have a way that God can see Christ instead of us that still maintains His perfect omniscience, what is it? What is the analogy that works for it if the snow covered dung hill doesn’t?

142. tim prussic September 10th, 2009 8:44 pm :

     Tim T., you said, “You haven’t shown how imputation is compatible with the known truth that God always sees things as they are.” I’ve been working on how we understand the assertion “God always sees things as they are.” As I’ve mentioned (which has irritated you), I think your conception is limiting and that’s what I’ve been after.

     When the priest offers sacrifice for the people, can it be said that the people truly offered it? The priest offered it, but he is constituted by God to represent the people. Thus, the people (or a person among the people) is “truly” seen as having offered that sacrifice. This reality is not something a fellow would encounter, but it is true none-the-less. You seem to want to limit the “truth” of what’s understood to reality as we encounter it. I want to include in that “truth” reality as God constitutes and orders it.

     BTW, I don’t think I’ve offered the snow on pooey analogy, though I am willing to explore it. I think, as an analogy, it has significant biblical merit.

143. Tim A. Troutman September 10th, 2009 10:06 pm :

     Tim P:

     I think your conception is limiting and that’s what I’ve been after.

     Seeing in truth is not a limitation. I can’t budge on that point. We could say God is “limited” to the truth, but that would be a bad use of the word “limit.”

     You seem to want to limit the “truth” of what’s understood to reality as we encounter it. I want to include in that “truth” reality as God constitutes and orders it.

     This is the crux of our disagreement. By God “ordering” and “constituting” something, it becomes so. That is, if God were to “order” and “constitute” us as righteous, we would actually be righteous, not pretend righteous, not snow covered dung hill, not simul iustus et peccator. God cannot make a square circle but if God says “this [square] is a circle” then the thing becomes a circle by His very words. God’s words do not describe reality as it is. Reality, as it is, describes God’s words.

     So it does not make sense to say: ordinarily, a thing is seen as it truly is but God orders reality to where He sees it as something else because God cannot do that because it is false by its own terms. God cannot constitute reality in such a way that a square is a circle because it is a self contradiction. God can make a circle into a square but not without making the lines straight and adding four corners. Same with us sinners.

144. Marty September 10th, 2009 11:28 pm :

     Dear Tim T,

     If you’ve read Newman and are unconvinced, then I doubt I can convince you that there are reliable criteria for discerning true developments from false ones. But his notes are arbitrary? That strains credibility. What is arbitrary about, for example, the idea that a true development should have precedent or that it should follow logically upon the deposit of faith, or that it should be conservative of truths already in the deposit of faith? None of those seem arbitrary to me at all.

     Newman’s understanding of development itself was a theological novum and to justify it he produces 7 criteria but upon what authority? Did he submit his 7 criteria to those criteria? Because if he did they would fail. That’s been the classic criticism of Newman ever since he write his work. The work was a great disappointment to me.

     You fail to appreciate that Protestants have a different understanding of the development of doctrine. It is about the church getting new insight into the meaning of Scripture. And it particularly occurs in controversy. Hence, believers go back to Scripture and see things they hadn’t seen before. Thus, developments can always be tested by Scripture itself. The problem with some RC developments especially something like the assumption of Mary, is that they appear ex nihilo (and from a later vantage point appear to have precedent) and cannot be tested objectively. Hence, RCs are forced to believed in Mary’s assumption with no historical or biblical evidence. Just believe the church.

     He, like all Catholics, insists that St. Peter and his successors had a headship role from the very moment that he was handed the keys and told that the Church would be built on him.

     But headship and being final arbiter of faith matters are very different things. It still stands that the Pope as the one as the ultimate judge of doctrinal development was not there from the beginning. Hence the ultimate judge of doctrinal development was a development!

     The papacy is always going to be a dificulty for Protestants because Church History is so clearly against it. It’s so clear that Gregory VII developed wholly new ideas about the papacy that just simply weren’t in existence prior to him. Indeed, he built them on documents that had been forged! Hardly a credible development.

     A dissenter does not make a clear message ambiguous. We know what the living voice of the Church says regarding the status of V2.

     Who is the “we”. They just happen to be people who agree with your private interpretation of the documents about V2. The RCs I know have many different views about the status of V2, and they all appeal to “official documents”. Call Matatics a sedevacantist if you like, but he builds his arguments on official church documents. In other words, you’re engaging in your own private interpretation when you speak of “dissenters”.

     This is a faulty line of argument and is not helpful in arriving at the truth. The practical fact is that a living, authoritative interpretive body is better than a book alone for epistemic certainty.

     Well you’re free to believe that. But it does little to convince me. Particularly when Eastern Orthodoxy, Mormonism, and JWs make exactly the same assertion. They are all institutions that claim a true authority to interpret Scripture. Ultimately, we all have to make our own private judgment about who is right.

     I agree. But where in Scripture does it show that we are justified by faith alone (in the sense that you mean it)?

     Rom. 3:21-31, 4:1-6; Gal. 2:15-21, 3:114. These passages all pit works against faith in one’s justification. In other words believers are not justified by works but for works. But, again, RCs can’t point to one place that vindicates their meaning of the word “justification”. That’s very telling for an institution that claims such control over people’s lives.

     Then of course there’s Eph. 2:8-10 which teaches clearly we’re saved not by works but for works. i.e. works are the fruit not the root of salvation. The RC interpretation that reads “works” as only those prior to conversion reads too much into in the word “works”. RCism too often reads prior constructs into Scripture, rather than read the meaning out of the Scripture.

     But I don’t see what’s humble about judging a Church council by the standard of one’s own interpretation of Scripture.

     O please. One has to test the RCC to see if it’s true at some point! Once you are convinced it is (by your own private interpretation) then you submit to it. So you can’t escape your own private interpretation at some point. I according to my own private judgment believe the RCC is quite wrong. Moreover, there’s a whole tradition from Luther onwards that rejects Trent for the same reasons. It’s not just me alone.

     You can’t continually appeal to Protestants to submit to Rome unless you provide good arguments that show Rome can be trusted.

     But this is the difference between the Catholic mindset and the Protestant one in that the former judges one’s own beliefs by the authority of the Church and the latter judges the authority of the Church by one’s own beliefs.

     Well you’ve misunderstood Protestantism. We test beliefs by the words of Scripture. You have to test by the words of the RC magisterium. There’s no difference ultimately. The RC faith comes to you in words of official documents (which you privately interpret and judge some to be dissenters by your own private interpretation); the Protestant faith comes to us in the words of Scripture (the untarnished original deposit of faith).

     Blessings,

     Marty.

145. Bryan Cross September 11th, 2009 12:46 am :

     Tim P,

     I hope that when you get a chance, you will answer my question in the last paragraph of #114. Thanks!

     In the peace of Christ,

     - Bryan

146. herbert September 11th, 2009 5:59 am :

     Recently I read some words from Peter Kreeft which seem very appropriate at this time. Though I’ve not been much of a participant in this conversation, I have certainly been an invested witness to it all. And I humbly ask you all, Protestant and Catholic alike, to say a prayer for unity and revisit his words here:
     http://www.peterkreeft.com/topics-more/toward-reuniting.htm

147. Tim A. Troutman September 11th, 2009 8:33 am :

     Marty,

     You didn’t answer my question: “What is arbitrary about, for example, the idea that a true development should have precedent or that it should follow logically upon the deposit of faith, or that it should be conservative of truths already in the deposit of faith?”

     We need to keep this discussion pointed. Also , watch the rhetoric: “o please” is not conducive to charitable discussion.

148. Marty September 11th, 2009 10:42 am :

     Dear Tim T,

     I appreciate your desire to want to keep the discussion pointed. However, there are a lot of points and questions I’ve made that you’re not answering, questions particularly focused on the topic of the post: justification by faith alone. Why have you made Newman the “pointed part of the discussion”? I would’ve thought there were lots of “pointed parts” to the discussion, not least the fact that the RC understanding of the word “justification” can’t be found in the NT.

     I thought I’d answered your question re Newman, so I’ll try and explain again. Newman’s criteria are arbitrary because his fundamental notion of development is arbitrary. Hence, for example, the criterion “that development should have a precedent” is arbitrary. Why? Why can’t a new development suddenly arise from a new insight into Scripture that no-one has seen before? He’s begged the question. Moreover, where did he get his new understanding of development from? And by what authority? If it’s a development why didn’t he submit it to his 7 criteria? That’s all quite arbitrary to me. It’s a this point that many rejected Newman’s thesis.

     I’m sorry if “O Please” caused offense. However, please try to see it from my perspective as well; I found it quite patronising to be brushed aside with the retort along the lines of: “it’s your private interpretation you need to believe the magisterium”. RCs seem to say this whenever they get backed into a corner. If it seems to me that Scripture and the magisterium contradict, show me that it doesn’t.

     Every blessing,

     Marty.

149. Tim A. Troutman September 11th, 2009 11:17 am :

     Marty,

     I don’t see it as a valuable use of either of our time to go back and forth on all these points. If we are to have this conversation not turn into a ping pong match of accusations, then I think we need to try and hone in on our real differences. Not saying I’m not also guilty of “spreading the conversation out” to borrow language from Tim P, but the last post showed me that the two of us are a long ways off in our thinking. I’m sure you’ve been in enough discussions to know how these things turn out. Let’s find what we agree on and then move from there.

     The reason I honed in on Newman is because in replying to the “theological novum” charge you, fairly I think, claimed that Sola Fide was a theological novum, but only in the way doctrines like the Trinity were and thus appealed to some version of Development of Doctrine (even if not what Catholics mean by the phrase). So I appealed to Newman’s criteria saying that SF doesn’t meet them. You said those criteria were arbitrary. This is, in my mind, the main line of discussion. I asked what was arbitrary about them. I think they are excellent criteria for judging true developments.

     Newman’s theory of DOD would fail all uniquely Protestant developments and pass all RCC developments so I can see how you can’t accept it. But that fact alone can’t be used to determine its truth. So I think this is a good area to hone in on. If you disagree and would like to focus on another specific area instead, just let me know.

     I found it quite patronising to be brushed aside with the retort along the lines of: “it’s your private interpretation you need to believe the magisterium”.

     I’ll try to watch my wording. But I’m making a valid point there. “O please” is not a valid point so these two are not on even ground. If Christ founded a magisterium, then you do need to submit to it.

150. Tim A. Troutman September 11th, 2009 11:26 am :

     Newman’s seven notes are not exhaustive in totality and certainly not exhaustive individually. So:

     Why can’t a new development suddenly arise from a new insight into Scripture that no-one has seen before?

     It can and has but what we know of true developments is that they don’t appear without precedent (or name one that does and my point will be disproven). Even the revelation of Christ, take the sermon on the mount as a “theological novum.” It was not without precedent, particularly in the DC books. The Trinity was not without precedent. We can go down the list of developments we both agree on and see that they were all with some precedent.

     If it’s a development why didn’t he submit it to his 7 criteria?

     Newman’s theory would pass his own criteria. For precedent, you can see St. Vincent of Lerins. Conservative action on the past – his theory does not destroy any truth already known. etc…

151. Marty September 11th, 2009 11:27 am :

     Dear Tim T,

     I’ll try to watch my wording. But I’m making a valid point there. “O please” is not a valid point so these two are not on even ground. If Christ founded a magisterium, then you do need to submit to it.

     I’m gobsmacked that you’ve come out and said this, in light of what I said in the last post. The very thing I appealed for you not to do in order to help discussion, you went ahead and did. I think it’s time to terminate this discussion.

     May the Lord richly bless you,

     Marty.

152. Tim A. Troutman September 11th, 2009 11:36 am :

     Marty,

     I’m not going to be told which points I can make and which I can’t. That’s not how conversations work, especially not charitable dialogues in a mutual pursuit of the truth. Adding emotional phrases like “O please” etc… is something entirely different. This isn’t “gobsmacking” stuff, it’s pretty standard.

153. Tim A. Troutman September 11th, 2009 11:42 am :

     Herbert – thanks for the link. I love Peter Kreeft!

154. tim prussic September 11th, 2009 4:40 pm :

     Tim T. (#143) – Excellent. I think we’re getting somewhere. Squares cannot be circles by definition. Squares and circles, however, are not people in that they’re not moral, living beings that can be united to God the Son; thus, at the most important point, your analogy doesn’t touch down. I’m not arguing that God’s merely calls something what it in fact is not. I’m arguing that God unites a sinner by faith to his incarnate, dead, risen, and enthroned Son and, based upon the work of his Son on that sinner’s behalf, declares him pardoned and righteous. The righteousness imputed to the sinner is real and is really imputed. The sin imputed to Christ is real sin and really imputed. Neither the righteousness nor the sin must inhere in the one to whom they’re imputed to be real. Thus, God can truly see a man as both just and a sinner. Just as united to Christ but a sinner in himself – for now. No contradiction as just and sinful are used in two different senses.

     Also, Tim, you still have not adequately answered the issue of priestly representation. The servant representing the master in the marketplace is one thing, a priest offering sacrifice for sins of the people is another. Certainly there are points of similarity between the two. However, it’s the sacerdotal aspect that’s different and worth focusing in on. The priest offers sacrifice for the people, God smells the smoke and is placated (all, of course, as a type of the great Sacrifice). God, as it were, sees through the smoke of that one man’s offering and is propitious toward the people. They didn’t offer it personally, but in another, who (in his public office) was constituted by God for just this purpose. This set up is *true*, but not empirically / physically verifiable – the way things are simply in themselves. Has God merely shown us a sacerdotal fiction or has he constituted things to work this way? If the OT priest can represent the people in placating God, how much more the Son of God, with whom we’re united by faith?

     Joyfully (Friday helps),
     Tim

155. Tim A. Troutman September 11th, 2009 5:23 pm :

     Tim P

     Squares and circles, however, are not people in that they’re not moral, living beings that can be united to God the Son; thus, at the most important point, your analogy doesn’t touch down.

     This assumes the opposite of what I’m arguing, although admittedly I haven’t done a great job of verbalizing it. I’m saying that a sinner having friendship with God is not possible by definition in the same way that a circle cannot be a square. To say that righteousness is imputed to him undermines what it means to be a friend of God. If a sinner can be a friend of God, then friendship with God does not entail holiness but I think that it does. Darkness cannot have communion with Light even if veiled or has light imputed to it. But if it had light infused in it, then it would no longer be darkness and could have communion with light.

     The righteousness imputed to the sinner is real and is really imputed.

     I’m not saying that a false imputation takes place, I’m saying that imputation by its definition is not a real transformation of a person.

     Also, Tim, you still have not adequately answered the issue of priestly representation.

     That may be so, but I don’t know what else to say about it. I haven’t thought much about the issue before now so I don’t have strong thoughts on it. That idea exists in Catholic thought as well though, Christ making satisfaction for the human race by His sacrifice even though we weren’t actually the ones making the sacrifice, the Christian priest acting in persona Christi, etc… so I don’t have a problem with one acting on behalf of another in such a way that there is a sense in which the other is truly present in and or receives some merit from the action. We receive the merit of Christ’s sacrifice even though we were not the ones who did it. But that doesn’t mean we can remain in sin and be justified because to be justified by its definition means to be free from sin. Light has no communion with darkness.

156. tim prussic September 11th, 2009 5:51 pm :

     Bryan, thanks for directing me back to #114 – I missed it!

     Okay, as to my distinction: The ground of God’s justification of sinful men is the righteousness of Christ imputed to them – the double transaction Sproul mentions in your video clip. Those transactions occur within the context of union, which includes actual change in the sinner (definitive sanctification). Forensic justification is based upon imputation which occurs within the context of union. In other words, God’s no just taking something and calling it something else willy-nilly. He’s made a context of real spiritual union and real imputation of real righteousness and sinfulness in which this occurs. Thus, the charge of nominalism (just changing the name of a thing) doesn’t stick. Also, see my explanation to Tim above in #154.

     One issue in particular comes to mind with what you’ve written above regarding the Roman Catholic doctrine of justification (RCDJ, if you will). You said that when one emerges for baptism or from the confessional, one emerges purified from all sin. Okay, so the sin’s gone, but doesn’t usually stay gone, right? So the judicial pronouncement of justification (I assume you agree that it’s a judicial pronouncement) comes and goes as one falls into mortal sin and then again comes to the sacraments, right? Those questions are mostly for my sake.

     Further, and more critically, does baptism and confession not only remove sin but also make one perfectly righteous (two distinct things)? Are you a perfect, absolutely righteous man when you step out of the confessional? If not, then how is the RCDJ any more based on actuality than the RDJ? I contend that God justifies me based upon the absolute perfect righteousness of Christ, which is squeaky clean perfect. Are you just as perfect *in yourself* as Jesus Christ, Bryan? Are you willing to assert that? If not, then the many of your arguments against RDJ fall to the ground, because without perfect righteousness there is no justification.

     In the grace of Christ,
     Tim

157. Bryan Cross September 11th, 2009 6:44 pm :

     Tim P, (Re: #156)

     My question in #102 was this:

     In other words, if at imputation nothing actually were transferred from Christ to me, and from me to Christ, but rather, God merely no longer saw things as they actually are, i.e. He stopped seeing Christ as righteous and me guilty, and started seeing Christ guilty and me righteous, even though in actuality nothing in reality had changed, what exactly would be different?

     Your answer, in #113 was this:

     if there were no union with Christ, the imputational transactions would be fiction (that is, not real). Since we are really united to Christ by faith, the imputations are real. You set up the situation thus: ‘Unless something is changed in the believer and in Christ, then nothing differentiates “fictional imputation” from “real imputation.”‘ This treats the spiritual union believers have with Christ as if it’s nothing or not real. This negates being “in Christ” as Paul repeats so often as the reality on which imputation is founded. You set up a false dichotomy: “It’s either a change in the believer” you might say, “or it’s fiction.” No, there’s a third way – real spiritual union with Christ unto forensic justification received by faith alone.

     But, as I explained in #114, that only shifts the nominalistic problem from one term (i.e. imputation), to another (i.e. union with Christ). So (in #114) I asked:

     This answer only shifts the nominalistic problem to a different term, and thus only pushes the question back. If “union with Christ” were identical to God seeing things not as they actually are [i.e. not seeing Christ as other than me, and not seeing me as other than Christ] what would be different about it? In other words, if at the moment we were “united with Christ” nothing actually changed in me or in Christ, but rather, God merely no longer saw things as they actually are, i.e. He stopped seeing Christ as other than me, and stopped seeing me as other than Christ, even though in actuality nothing in reality had changed, what exactly would be different?

     Your reply to this question (the question I asked in #114) is this (from #156):

     The ground of God’s justification of sinful men is the