The Preaching of Paul at Ephesus
Eustache Le Sueur (1649)

Lecture: God’s Universal Salvific Will (November 9, 2011)

Lawrence Feingold

God’s universal salvific will, and predestination, must always be considered together. (1′)
“God desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim 2:4)
God desires all to be saved, because He loves all men, and wants us all to enter into His own life.¹ (1′)

God truly wills the salvation of all men: Scripture

1 Tim 2:1-4 (2′)
Christ gave Himself “as a ransom for all” (1 Tim 2:6) (3′)
John 3:16 (5′)
How do we reconcile the universal salvific will of God with the fact that some are lost? (6′)
2 Peter 3:9 “not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (7′)
1 John 2:2 “expiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world” (8′)
Sermon on the Mount (8′)
Parable of the Sower (9′)
Parable of the Wedding Feast (Mt. 22:1-14) (11′)
Parable of the Sheep: “So it is not the will of my Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.” (Mt. 18:14) (15′)

Universal Means of Salvation

To say that God wills all men to be saved would be empty if it did not include some kind of universal means so that all can be saved. (16′)

Christ through His Church and sacraments is the universal means (17′)

Four steps (18′)
(1) Christ’s incarnation and passion for all men²
(2) Grace merited by Christ
(3) Universal Church
(4) Sacraments in His Church, by which men can receive His grace.

All men who attain the age of reason are given operative grace, sufficient for salvation if men cooperate (20′)
Cooperative grace is given only to those who cooperate with operative grace. (21′)

The Old Covenant not yet Catholic, and not yet a universal means of salvation, but hints at it (23′)

The Book of Jonah (25′)

The Fathers and Doctors on the Universal Salvific Will³ (26′)
All are agreed that God wills all men to be saved in a manner fitting for free creatures.

St. John Chrysostom (28′)
St. Ambrose (28′)
St. Augustine (29′)
St. John Damascene (31′)

Two senses of God’s salvific will: antecedent and consequent

Also one must bear in mind that God antecedently wishes all to be saved and come to His Kingdom. (1 Timothy 2:4) For it was not for punishment that He formed us but to share in His goodness, inasmuch as He is a good God. But inasmuch as He is a just God, His will is that sinners should suffer punishment. The first then is called God’s antecedent will and pleasure, and springs from Himself, while the second is called God’s consequent will and permission, and has its origin in us. (De Fide Orth 2.29) (34′)

St. Thomas Aquinas (36′)

Objection: It seems that the will of God is not always fulfilled. For the Apostle says (1 Timothy 2:4): “God will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” But this does not happen. Therefore the will of God is not always fulfilled.

Response: According to Damascene (De Fide Orth. 2.29), they are understood of the antecedent will of God; not of the consequent will. This distinction must not be taken as applying to the divine will itself, in which there is nothing antecedent nor consequent, but to the things willed. To understand this we must consider that everything, in so far as it is good, is willed by God. A thing taken in its primary sense, and absolutely considered, may be good or evil, and yet when some additional circumstances are taken into account, by a consequent consideration may be changed into the contrary. Thus that a man should live is good; and that a man should be killed is evil, absolutely considered. But if in a particular case we add that a man is a murderer or dangerous to society, to kill him is a good; that he live is an evil. Hence it may be said of a just judge, that antecedently he wills all men to live; but consequently wills the murderer to be hanged. In the same way God antecedently wills all men to be saved, but consequently wills some to be damned, as His justice exacts. Nor do we will simply, what we will antecedently, but rather we will it in a qualified manner; for the will is directed to things as they are in themselves, and in themselves they exist under particular qualifications. Hence we will a thing simply inasmuch as we will it when all particular circumstances are considered; and this is what is meant by willing consequently. Thus it may be said that a just judge wills simply the hanging of a murderer, but in a qualified manner he would will him to live, to wit, inasmuch as he is a man. Such a qualified will may be called a willingness rather than an absolute will. Thus it is clear that whatever God simply wills takes place; although what He wills antecedently may not take place. (Summa Theologica I Q.19, a.6.)

God wills all men to be saved, and prepares for them a series of graces sufficient (and in fact, superabundant) to bring them to salvation. But we have to correspond to them. God leaves us free will, by which we either cooperate with His grace, or freely impede it, and His consequent will takes into account our cooperation and resistance. (37′)

Denial of the Universal Salvific Will at the Reformation (38′)

Luther and Calvin denied our ability to cooperate with grace.⁴ (39′)
That denial eliminates the distinction between antecedent and consequent will (40′)⁵
This entails that God’s salvific will is not universal (41′)

Luther’s On the Bondage of the Will: (41′)

In a word: if we are under the god of this world, strangers to the work of God’s Spirit, we are led captive by him at his will, as Paul said to Timothy (2 Tim. 2.26), so that we cannot will anything but what he wills. For he is a ‘strong man armed,’ who keeps his palace to such good effect that those he holds are at peace, and raise no stir or feeling against him — otherwise, Satan’s kingdom would be divided against itself, and could not stand; but Christ says it does stand. And we acquiesce in his rule willingly and readily, according to the nature of willingness, which, if constrained, is not ‘willingness’; for constraint means rather, as one would say, ‘unwillingness’. But if a stronger appears, and overcomes Satan, we are once more servants and captives, but now desiring and willingly doing what He wills — which is royal freedom (cf. Luke 11.18-22). So man’s will is like a beast standing between two riders. If God rides, it wills and goes where God wills: as the Psalm says, ‘I am become as a beast before thee, and I am ever with thee’ (Ps. 73.22-3). If Satan rides, it wills and goes where Satan wills. Nor may it choose to which rider it will run, or which it will seek; but the riders themselves fight to decide who shall have and hold it.’ (On the Bondage of the Will, 103-104)

Luther applies this to Cain (43′)

This leads to the notion of double-predestination (45′)

John Calvin (46′)

Claimed that Christ did not die for all, but only for the elect. “Limited atonement”
Leads to the notion that some are predesined by God to hell.

Denial of the Universal Salvific Will by Jansenism (47′)

The following five Jansenist positions were infallibly condemned by Pope Innocent X in 1653: (48′)

1. Some of God’s precepts are impossible to the just, who wish and strive to keep them, according to the present powers which they have; the grace, by which they are made possible, is also wanting.

2. In the state of fallen nature one never resists interior grace.

3. In order to merit or demerit in the state of fallen nature, freedom from necessity is not required in man, but freedom from external compulsion is sufficient.

4. The Semipelagians admitted the necessity of a prevenient interior grace for each act, even for the beginning of faith; and in this they were heretics, because they wished this grace to be such that the human will could either resist or obey.

5. It is Semipelagian to say that Christ died or shed His blood for all men without exception. (Denzinger 1092-1096)

Real Possibility of Salvation for All (53′)
Sufficient grace to be saved is given to everyone who reaches the age of reason. Christ died for all men. God wills all men to cooperate with that grace, and thus God predestines no one to hell.

What about those who never hear the gospel? (53′)
What about “outside the Church there is no salvation”?

Lumen Gentium: (55′)

Basing itself upon Sacred Scripture and Tradition, it teaches that the Church, now sojourning on earth as an exile, is necessary for salvation. Christ, present to us in His Body, which is the Church, is the one Mediator and the unique way of salvation. In explicit terms He Himself affirmed the necessity of faith and baptism and thereby affirmed also the necessity of the Church, for through baptism as through a door men enter the Church. Whosoever, therefore, knowing that the Catholic Church was made necessary by Christ, would refuse to enter or to remain in it, could not be saved. (Lumen Gentium, 14)

Vincible ignorance and invincible ignorance (57′)
Bl. Pope Pius IX on invincible ignorance (59′)

Lumen Gentium: (60′)

Those also can attain to salvation who through no fault of their own do not know the Gospel of Christ or His Church, yet sincerely seek God and moved by grace strive by their deeds to do His will as it is known to them through the dictates of conscience. Nor does Divine Providence deny the helps necessary for salvation to those who, without blame on their part, have not yet arrived at an explicit knowledge of God and with His grace strive to live a good life. (Lumen Gentium, 16)

Creed of the People of God (Pope Paul VI) (61′)

We believe that the Church is necessary for salvation, because Christ, who is the sole mediator and way of salvation, renders Himself present for us in His body which is the Church. But the divine design of salvation embraces all men, and those who without fault on their part do not know the Gospel of Christ, but seek sincerely, and under the influence of grace endeavor to do His will as recognized through the promptings of their conscience, they, in a number known only to God, can obtain salvation. (Creed of the People of God)

Catechism of the Catholic Church (62′)

“Since Christ died for all, and since all men are in fact called to one and the same destiny, which is divine, we must hold that the Holy Spirit offers to all the possibility of being made partakers, in a way known to God, of the Paschal mystery.” Every man who is ignorant of the Gospel of Christ and of his Church, but seeks the truth and does the will of God in accordance with his understanding of it, can be saved. It may be supposed that such persons would have desired Baptism explicitly if they had known its necessity. (CCC 1260)

Explicit desire and implicit desire (65′)

Letter of the Holy Office to the Archbishop of Boston, August 8th, 1949 regarding Feeneyism. (67′)

However, this desire need not always be explicit, as it is in catechumens; but when a person is involved in invincible ignorance God accepts also an implicit desire, so called because it is included in that good disposition of soul whereby a person wishes his will to be conformed to the will of God. (Letter of the Holy Office to the Archbishop of Boston)

Salvation outside the visible Church requires perfect contrition (69′)
God gives the grace to everyone to make an act of perfect contrition (69′)

Some faith is necessary for salvation (70′)
Hence missionary activity of the Church is not rendered useless by the fact that it is possible for those to be saved who have never heard the gospel.

It is much more difficult to be saved when not in full communion with the Catholic Church, and therefore without the fullness of the truth and the means of grace Christ has established in His Church.

Mystici Corporis Christi (71′)

They who do not belong to the visible Body of the Catholic Church, … We ask each and every one of them to correspond to the interior movements of grace, and to seek to withdraw from that state in which they cannot be sure of their salvation. For even though by an unconscious desire and longing they have a certain relationship with the Mystical Body of the Redeemer, they still remain deprived of those many heavenly gifts and helps which can only be enjoyed in the Catholic Church. (Mystici Corporis Christi, 103)

Questions and Answers

1. How does the Catholic understanding of the universal salvific will compare to that of the Orthodox Jewish or Islamic view? (1′)

2. Is inculpable ignorance holding views contrary to the Church because you run out of time before you can investigate the reasons for the truth on all the issues, or is it necessary to hold the principles of the Church by faith before you dismiss them by investigation that confirms your conscience? (3′ 19″)

3. Luther said that in Genesis God was simply telling Cain what he ought to do. But if as Luther believed, Cain had no choice in the matter, why would God bother telling him at all? (4’42″)

4. In many places in Scripture we see God hardening people’s hearts. In Deuteronomy 2:30 He hardens the heart of Sihon King of Heshbon. In Joshua 11:20 He hardens the hearts of the Canaanites. In 1 Sam. 2:25 He hardens the hearts of Hophni and Phineas, so that they would not listen to Eli. Jesus thanks the Father for hiding things from the wise and prudent (Matt. 11:25,26), and quotes Isaiah saying that God has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, so that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted. (John 12:37-40) St. Paul says the same in Romans 11:8, and in 2 Thess 2:11 he says that God sends them a strong delusion to make them believe what is false. How is all this compatible with a universal salvific will? (6’30″)

5. In John 10:26 Jesus says, “but you do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep.” If God wants all men to be saved, why doesn’t Jesus say, “you are not of my sheep because you do not believe”? (17′)

6. If God wants all men to be saved, then why does St. Paul say (Rom. 9:22) that there are “vessels of wrath made for destruction” and why does St. Peter say “for they stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do”? (1 Pet. 2:8) (19′)

7. If our being saved or being lost depends fundamentally on whether we cooperate or do not cooperate with grace, then why does St. Paul say that “it is not of him that wills or runs, but of God that shows mercy” (Rom 9:16) Why does St. Paul in Romans 9 seem to make election depend not on human choice but on God’s sovereign and inscrutable will? (24′)

8. Does the possession of sanctifying grace require conscious explicit faith in Jesus as the Son of God? If not, how is the Council’s teaching different from Rahner’s “anonymous Christian”? If it requires faith, then how can the Catechism speak of atheists possibly attaining salvation? [Note: the Catechism does not speak of atheists as such possibly attaining salvation. The questioner was referring to Lumen Gentium 16] (26′)

1. The doctrine of God’s universal salvific will is not to be confused with universalism, the claim that all men are saved, or with what is called ‘hopeful universalism,’ which I have addressed here.
2. The Church, following the apostles, teaches that Christ died for all men without exception: “There is not, never has been, and never will be a single human being for whom Christ did not suffer.” [Council of Quiercy (853)]. (CCC 605)
3. For more excerpts from the Church Fathers on this subject see section 54 of Fr. Mosts’s book Grace, Predestination, and the Universal Salvific Will of God.
4. This denial was in turn based on their notion of original sin, explained here, and their not distinguishing between actual grace and sanctifying grace, explained here.
5. The distinction between antecedent and consequent will should not be confused with the Reformed distinction between preceptive will and decretive will. The former distinction allows for it to be true without contradiction that God desires all men to be saved and yet not all men are saved; but without the former distinction the latter distinction undermines the possibility of an authentic universal salvific will in God. If God commands that a person repent, but then, not on the basis of foreseen rejection of grace by that person, refuses to give sufficient grace for that person to repent, not only does God not truly desire that person’s salvation, but God has fallen into a performative contradiction, saying one thing, but doing something contrary to what He says. Either He does not mean what He says, in which case He is not the Truth, or He rebels against Himself, in which case He is in need of salvation. The notion that there are two actual contrary wills in God (in which neither will involves an abstraction from what God knows about human choices) is not only a theological schizophrenia, it is also a form of Manichean dualism. Calvinists use Scriptural examples of the difference between what is in fact divine antecedent will and divine consequent will, as though this supports a decretive-preceptive distinction not based on an antecedent-consequent distinction. John Piper does that, for example, in his “Are There Two Wills in God?,” and so do Luther, Calvin, Turretin, etc. — see here. But while an antecedent-consequent distinction avoids theological schizophrenia, because the former is an abstraction, the decretive-preceptive distinction without the antecedent-consequent distinction does not avoid theological schizophrenia, because neither the decretive nor preceptive will is an abstraction.

Central to the issues debated between Rome and the Reformation, VanDrunen claims, “is the question of who may be saved.” In exploring the issue, he makes the following claim about the Catholic teaching:

For many years, the Roman Catholic Church taught that people could enjoy eternal life and escape everlasting damnation only by being received into its membership.  In recent generations, that teaching has changed.  Rome now embraces a very inclusive view that extends the hope of salvation to people of many different religions or even no religion at all, provided they sincerely follow the truth and goodness that they know in their own experience.

Dr. David VanDrunen

That is, in VanDrunen’s understanding, while the Catholic Church historically taught Church “membership” to be a sine qua non for receiving eternal life, she now “embraces” an inclusive soteriology that leaves open the door of Heaven for people of all religious or irreligious stripes, so long as they are sincere seekers of truth and goodness.  From the claim that Catholicism has changed from exclusivity to inclusivity, VanDrunen concludes that the Catholic Church’s alluring claim of never having changed its doctrine is false.  But as I will show below, VanDrunen’s argument misses whole swaths of purported “inclusivity” in the “older” Catholic teaching, and plays on an ambiguity in the word ‘change.’

What does VanDrunen think the Catholic Church has taught on the necessity of being within the Church in order to saved?  According to him, Catholicism traditionally taught that even prior to the fall grace was necessary in order for man to perform “works meritorious of eternal life.”  He explains that under the ‘older’ Catholic teaching, “all people are doomed to condemnation.”  But by growing in virtues and adhering to the Church’s sacramental system, a Catholic could hope to receive “final justification and attain eternal life.”

Having explained the “older” Catholic teaching of how one can be saved, VanDrunen next explores who can be saved under this system.  He tells his readers that this salvific sacramental system “was available only to those who actually participate in her sacramental rites, and this was consistent with [the Catholic] view of salvation as described above.”

VanDrunen then explores a doctrinal term common to Reformed and Catholic Christians: extra Ecclesiam nulla salus [“there is no salvation outside the Church”].¹ Citing an “older” ecumenical council to teach about extra Ecclesiam nulla salus, VanDrunen quotes from this pericope of the Council of Florence:

It firmly believes, professes, and proclaims that those not living within the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but also Jews and heretics and schismatics cannot become participants in eternal life, but will depart “into everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels” [Matt. 25:41], unless before the end of life the same have been added to the flock; and that the unity of the ecclesiastical body is so strong that only to those remaining in it are the sacraments of the Church of benefit for salvation, and do fastings, almsgiving, and other functions of piety and exercises of Christian service produce eternal reward, and that no one, whatever almsgiving he has practiced, even if he has shed blood for the name of Christ, can be saved, unless he has remained in the bosom and unity of the Catholic Church.²

VanDrunen interprets this Council as holding that even martyrdom will fail to bring eternal life to any person not in unity with the Catholic Church.  He sees this teaching of the Council of Florence in the teaching of later Catholics as well, including Pope Pius IX, the censor of “latitudinarianism” and supposed rejector of hope of salvation for those outside the true Church of Christ. VanDrunen ends this section by citing Fr. Leonard Feeney, a Catholic priest known for insisting that “only members of the Roman Catholic Church could be saved.”

So is this an accurate articulation of the Catholic Church’s doctrine of extra Ecclesiam nulla salus? Before answering that question, a brief explanation may be in order about the authority of individual Catholic theologians to define Catholic teaching.  The Catholic Church does not maintain that the Holy Spirit preserves all Catholics from error whenever they opine about faith or morals.  Rather, the Catholic Church teaches that the Holy Spirit specially preserves from error the successors of St. Peter, the Bishop of Rome, when they speak ex cathedra, as well as General Councils when representing the whole episcopate.³ That is, there is a critical distinction between Church doctrine on the one hand, and common teaching or theological opinion on the other.  So to the extent that VanDrunen relies on Fr. Feeney or other individual Catholic theologians to determine what is the traditional Catholic doctrine regarding this question, his methodology is flawed.⁴

That said, VanDrunen has given a generally accurate articulation of the traditional Catholic doctrine of extra Ecclesiam, especially with his quotation from the Council of Florence given above.  That text is not only from an authoritative ecumenical council, but is also consistent with the testimony of much earlier texts from the Church Fathers.  In fact, it is itself largely a quotation of St. Fulgentius of Ruspe (c. 500 AD).  The early Church Fathers, the teachings of the Magisterium over the centuries, and conciliar texts reflect the consistent Catholic teaching that extra Ecclesiam nulla salus.

Then VanDrunen turns to the claim that the Second Vatican Council was a “watershed” on the “inclusivity of salvation.”  However, he admits that there were “signs of revised doctrine” in the centuries leading up to this watershed.  VanDrunen invokes Pope Pius IX as a harbinger of change, the very same Pope whom he uses as a connecting dot to show the continuity of the ‘older’ Catholic position. VanDrunen says, “Even while he was condemning ‘latitudinarian’ claims in the 1860s, Pius IX also taught that people who are ‘invincibly ignorant’ (i.e., through no fault of their own) about Christianity and follow the natural law may attain eternal life.” That is, VanDrunen sees in the teachings of Blessed Pope Pius IX both the condemnation of those who dismiss ecclesial significance (i.e., latitudinarians) and the approval of the belief that the invincibly ignorant possibly attain salvation.  It is ironic that VanDrunen recognizes both of these teachings coming from Blessed Pope Pius IX, but does not see the possibility that the teachings are consistent with each other.  Instead, as his article shows, VanDrunen believes that the teachings are in disharmony, a ‘change’ from exclusivity to inclusivity.

The Second Vatican Council was not a “watershed” of inclusive salvation which was merely foreshadowed by earlier texts.  Rather, it was firmly in line with a steady development of doctrine on the possibility of salvation for those not materially united to the Catholic Church, that is, the universal Church governed by the successor of Peter and by the bishops in communion with him.⁵

The key Vatican II text on extra Ecclesiam is the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, which states:

For they who without their own fault do not know of the Gospel of Christ and His Church, but yet seek God with sincere heart, and try, under the influence of grace, to carry out His will in practice, known to them through the dictate of conscience, can attain eternal salvation.⁶

This authoritative teaching is consistent with and a further refinement of what Blessed Pope Pius IX wrote a full century before Vatican II:

There are, of course, those who are struggling with invincible ignorance about our most holy religion. Sincerely observing the natural law and its precepts inscribed by God on all hearts and ready to obey God, they live honest lives and are able to attain eternal life by the efficacious virtue of divine light and grace. Because God knows, searches and clearly understands the minds, hearts, thoughts, and nature of all, his supreme kindness and clemency do not permit anyone at all who is not guilty of deliberate sin to suffer eternal punishments.

Also well known is the Catholic teaching that no one can be saved outside the Catholic Church.⁷

Here Blessed Pope Pius IX simply and skillfully articulates these two Catholic beliefs: God will not eternally punish those who are without deliberate sin, and God will also not save those outside the Catholic Church. VanDrunen thinks that these two beliefs are not compatible with each other.  Apparently he agrees with the controversial Fr. Schillebeeckx, whom he quotes as describing these two teachings as “diametrically opposed.” But the teachings are compatible with each other.  What VanDrunen dismisses is the possibility that the invincibly ignorant can in some circumstances, and only by God’s grace, be extraordinarily incorporated into the Catholic Church.

In Church history we find earlier examples than Pope Pius IX of Catholics believing in the salvation of those not materially united to the Church.  The doctrine of “baptism of blood” is ancient within the Catholic Church, going back perhaps to the Apostle James’s co-martyr.⁸  It appears also in the teachings of St. Augustine, from the early 5th century:

For whatever unbaptized persons die confessing Christ, this confession is of the same efficacy for the remission of sins as if they were washed in the sacred font of Baptism. For He who said, “Unless a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God,” [John 3:5] made also an exception in their favor, in that other sentence where he no less absolutely said, “Whosoever shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven;” (Matt. 10:43) and in another place, “Whosoever will lose his life for my sake, shall find it” (Matt. 16:25).  And this explains the verse, “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints.”⁹

As explained by St. Augustine and maintained through to the present by the Catholic Church, unbaptized martyrs who shed their blood for the sake of Christ are saved nonetheless, receiving the fruits of Baptism.  Baptism of blood is an extraordinary method of fulfilling the soteriological prerequisite of being ‘inside the Church’ when Baptism is impossible.¹⁰

There is another longstanding teaching within the Catholic Church that maintains the possibility of salvation for those not materially united with her.  The “baptism of desire,” like baptism of blood, extraordinarily brings about the fruits of Baptism for an unbaptized individual even though it itself is not a sacrament.¹¹ “For catechumens who die before their Baptism, their explicit desire to receive it, together with repentance for their sins, and charity, assures them the salvation that they were not able to receive through the sacrament.”¹²

The Council of Trent (1547) declared this doctrine over 400 years before Vatican II:

This translation [from the state of birth to the state of Grace] however cannot, since promulgation of the Gospel, be effected except through the washing of regeneration or its desire, as it is written: Unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. [John 3:5.]¹³

We see from Trent and St. Augustine a clear belief that the washing of regeneration is necessary for salvation, and a belief that extraordinary non-sacramental means of obtaining the fruits of Baptism are possible.  To the teachings of Trent and St. Augustine, many more examples could be added.¹⁴ These teachings mean that very early on, Catholic doctrine qualified extra Ecclesiam in a way that left open the possibility of salvation for those not materially united to the Church.  This proves false VanDrunen’s claim that the Catholic Church has recently “changed” its “older” teaching that “people could enjoy eternal life and escape everlasting damnation only by being received into its membership.”

In fact, over the centuries the Church carefully has developed a nuanced doctrine of salvation for those not materially united to her.  This process has been so cautious because of the weighty concern of calling all sinners to the ordinary means of grace through formal union with the Church, on the one hand, and the similarly weighty concern of avoiding the appearance of delimiting God’s ability to extend grace and salvation through extraordinary means, on the other. It is this process which has led the Church to its reflection on salvation for those who are invincibly ignorant, the subject of VanDrunen’s article.  As the Catholic Catechism teaches, “Every man who is ignorant of the Gospel of Christ and of his Church, but seeks the truth and does the will of God in accordance with his understanding of it, can be saved. It may be supposed that such persons would have desired Baptism explicitly if they had known its necessity.”¹⁵

Following his analysis of the “old” and “new” Catholic teachings on extra Ecclesiam, VanDrunen offers a critique of one of the Catholic apologist’s tools:

Catholic apologists in our own day appeal to the certainty and unchanging character of their own church’s teaching, and their arguments often seem compelling to Protestants who are weary of ecclesiastical divisions. But this area of theology provides one example (among others) of how Roman doctrine has indeed changed over the years. Rome used to have a very exclusive doctrine of salvation, but it has become quite inclusive in recent generations.

For VanDrunen, Catholic doctrine “has indeed changed,” and he believes this change refutes modern Catholic appeals to the “unchanging character” of the Catholic Church.  The fallacy of his logic is in his amphibolous use of the term ‘change.’  By using the term ‘change’ ambiguously, VanDrunen leads the reader to the false conclusion that the Catholic Church has contradicted herself.  However, by distinguishing between change as organic development and change as contradicting what was previously held, the conclusion that the Catholic Church has contradicted herself no longer follows.  In other words, if Catholic doctrine has changed by developing, this change does not lead to the conclusion that the Vatican II teaching (regarding the possibility of salvation for those not in full communion with the Church) contradicts what was previously held.

This notion that Christian doctrines have developed should be no surprise.  Major theological and religious doctrines have developed, such as the Trinity, the nature and canon of Sacred Scripture, or the two natures of Christ.  While Reformed believers implicitly accept the notion of doctrinal development in those instances, they reject modern developments out of hand.  But this acceptance of primitive developments while rejecting modern developments is ad hoc.  There is no principled reason to accept development of Trinitarian doctrine while simultaneously denying the possibility of development on extra Ecclesiam after centuries of careful study and reflection.

VanDrunen’s article leads the reader to reach a false conclusion about whether the Catholic Church has ever contradicted herself.  It does this by its amphibolous use of the term “change” and by its presumption that doctrinal development has not occurred in the instance of extra Ecclesiam and invincible ignorance.  The authoritative teachings of the Catholic Church are not contradictory on this matter, but carefully elucidate Sacred Scripture and our understanding of God’s mercy and justice.

1. VanDrunen explains that the Westminster Confession of Faith has embraced the term in a way that seeks to clarify vagueness.  He cites WCF, ch. XXV, sec. 2, which states, “The visible church, which is also catholic or universal under the gospel (not confined to one nation, as before under the law), consists of all those throughout the world that profess the true religion; and of their children: and is the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, the house and family of God, out of which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation.”  With the qualification that salvation is not ‘ordinarily’ possible outside the visible church, the WCF leaves a vagueness, at least inasmuch as the Catholic position leave a vagueness.  That is because in either position extraordinary possibilities of salvation for those ‘outside’ of visible unity with the Church are not excluded.
2. Ecumenical Council of Florence, sess. 11 (1442).
3. See Ludwig Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, Intro., sec. 8, available here.
4. See Fr. William Most, Tragic Errors of Leonard Feeney, available here.
5. Lumen Gentium, 8.
6. Ch. II, para. 16, available here.
7. Quanto conficiamur moerore, paras. 7-8 (Aug. 10, 1863), available here.
8.  See Taylor Marshall, Canterbury Tales, Baptism by Blood and the Apostle James, Jul. 27, 2011.
9. St. Augustine, City of God, bk. 13, ch. 7.
10. Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, paras. 1257-1260.
11. Id., para. 1258.
12. Id., para. 1259.
13. Council of Trent, sess. 6, ch. 4.
14. See, for example, the list of quotations from the Church Fathers regarding the baptism of desire and baptism of blood, available here.
15. CCC, para. 1260.

In referring to this analogy, my friend worded it differently than I’d ever heard. He said that in the Protestant view, Jesus makes a deposit into our “account.” I replied, “a Catholic could agree to that!”

In the traditional analogy, the ‘amount due’ is withdrawn from Christ’s account instead of the sinner. We can tweak the analogy. Surely it is not repugnant to say that Christ makes a deposit into our account and that the ‘amount due’ is truly withdrawn from our own account.

God will not forget where that merit came from. And grace is not cheapened by our participation. Miracles are actual: a sinner becomes righteous by the effects of Christ’s merit. Illusions are feigned miracles: a sinner putting on Christ as if he were righteous.

I think the analogy of Christ depositing His own merit into our account can work within Catholic soteriological framework. I would be interested in the Reformed reaction to such a realignment of the otherwise endeared analogy.

The primary way we both [Catholics and Protestants] talk about justification and about any of God’s operations is based on the way that the Scriptures speak of God. Let me say at the outset that we are not at fault for so doing. But if we use Scriptural language as evidence of philosophical truths, where such language is not intended to do so, we inevitably end up in error. The same thing happens when we use the Scripture to defend scientific propositions, when the Scripture itself is not advocating such propositions. (e.g. Josh 10:13) Some Scriptures do make scientific and philosophical propositions (Gen 1:1), but not all of them do. Deuteronomy 9:8 says “At Horeb you aroused the LORD’s wrath so that he was angry enough to destroy you.” But this is not a denial of God’s immutability because it is not meant to be understood in philosophical terms. Likewise, many errors and miscommunications about justification arise because of subconscious renderings of certain passages as if they were making philosophical claims that are actually false. God does not actually get angry, not in the way that we do. So if we took Deut 9:8 as evidence that God gets angry and is therefore mutable, we would be seriously mistaken.

Now the Scriptures often speak of God’s judgment. (e.g. Ex 6:6; Rom 2:2) But what is involved in judgment (as we mean it)? Judgment starts with an ignorance on the part of the judge and proceeds to knowledge in the same judge based on some quality in the thing judged. e.g. A man does not know whether a fruit is suitable for nutrition; then he examines it and judges it based on some quality in the fruit. That is what we mean by ‘judgment.’ But this is not what is meant by God’s ‘judgment’ because such a process involves ignorance and change, both of which are impossible for God. Judgment, as we mean it, necessarily involves a reaction, but there is no reaction whatsoever in God to anything. God does not react; He acts.

Likewise, the Scriptures often speak of God “seeing.” (e.g. Gen 16:13) But God does not “see” as if He had eyes or as if He didn’t already know what was there. “Seeing” is an analogical way to speak about God’s knowledge. We often say “I see” when we mean that “I understand” or “Do you see?” when we want to know whether someone understands something. This is because sight is an analogy for understanding. God never looks at anything because one only looks at something when he lacks knowledge about the thing and God lacks nothing.

Much of the Protestant-Catholic debate and misunderstanding regarding justification is rooted in understanding Scriptural passages in a philosophical sense when they were never intended to make such propositions. The problem is not with using such analogical language but in basing doctrines on philosophical propositions that seem to be supported by Scriptural language when in fact those propositions are false. That is, it is not wrong to speak of God as if He “sees” something or as if He “judges” us because that is how the Scriptures speak. But if we understand these terms as denoting philosophical claims and then build doctrines on that understanding, then we err.

Let us examine justification by dialogue:

Jack: Justification is by faith alone.

Billy Bob: Faith formed by love right?

Jack: No. True faith is formed by love of course but only the faith part is judged in the process of justification.

Billy Bob: So God looks at us and sees that we have faith and love, but He only considers the faith part (and does not consider the love part) in justification?

Jack: Yes, that is correct.

Billy Bob: But your belief presupposes that God sees, judges, and reacts. If we understand these terms analogically, then nothing you just said makes sense. Your doctrine depends on God’s mutability – on His ability to react.

Jack: No it doesn’t, I too affirm immutability.

Billy Bob: But if God doesn’t actually react, then He reacts neither to faith, nor to love, nor to faith and love, nor to faith alone, nor to faith formed by love. Is that correct?

Jack: Yes.

Billy Bob: Then what prohibits us from agreeing with St. Augustine that “Faith without love profits nothing”? ‘Justification’ seems to fall into the category of “something” so how can faith without love profit justification?  There seems to be no Scriptural case for salvation by faith alone.

Jack: The Scriptural case is that salvation is by faith apart from works. Even if we consider faith as an act of fidelity rather than a passivity, then we include works and attribute something of ourselves to salvation which is impossible. Salvation is by grace alone – nothing originates in us to make us worthy of salvation. Only the free gift of faith justifies.

Billy Bob: I agree. But suppose God’s grace entailed faith, hope, and love.

Jack: It does.

Billy Bob: Then on what basis do we exclude hope and love from justification? God does not judge based on any of them because He does not judge in the way we judge (that His judgment should be a reaction), rather His grace is not distinct from His judgment. To receive God’s grace is to be judged as righteous. To lack God’s grace is its own judgment.

The Reformed position is that God gives us faith and then judges us based on that faith alone. If taken as an absolute description of what actually happens, this is as unintelligible as saying that God gets angry or reacts. The way we Catholics speak of God’s judgment is often unintelligible (taken in that sense) as well. But if we understand this language as analogical rather than absolute then this manner of speaking does not necessarily lead to errors.

Describing God’s judgment is emphatically not like describing what happens at our local courthouse. We err when we start understanding God’s judgment as a reaction to something He learns by seeing us (or even seeing His gift in us).  That understanding leads us to think that we have to concoct a doctrine that protects the doctrine of sola gratia. This is what the Protestants have done. If salvation is a gift, then it can’t be a reaction to anything in us (so the Reformed reason). They are right so far. But they err when they deny that there’s anything in us. The sentence is correct: “It’s not a reaction to anything in us” not because there’s nothing in us – but because it’s not a reaction!

It seems to me that the Reformed conception of salvation de fide depends on a reactionary conception of God’s judgment. It looks at an isolated aspect inhering in the salvation process and claims that “this is the basis” on which God judges us. That argument falls apart if it turns out that God doesn’t actually judge in a reactionary sense. According to the Reformed doctrine, it’s as if God gives us a gift and then looks at us to see if we have that gift He gave us and then reacts accordingly. Well that won’t work.

On the contrary, charity is the sine qua non of justification exactly because God is love and justification is nothing but participation in the life of the Trinity. God’s judgment is identical with infused charity which is the gift that leads to participation in the Divine Life.  God is not a reactionary in any sense. He does not even react to His own act – He does not re-act; He simply acts.

Ultimately, when we talk about God’s grace, we’re not referring to something different than His judgment. His grace is His judgment. The (perceived) difference is in us – in our state; not in Him.   As Billy Bob said above, God’s grace includes faith, hope, and love (shall we say His grace is faith without love?) and so if to receive God’s grace is to be judged righteous, then we cannot say that salvation is by faith apart from love.  Salvation is the reception of God’s grace, and God’s grace infuses the gift of faith formed by love into the believer.

Westminster Assembly Portrait

According to Reformed theology, on the cross Christ paid the penalty for all the sins of all and only the elect. The Westminster Confession of Faith states, “Christ, by His obedience and death, did fully discharge the debt of all those that are thus justified, and did make a proper, real, and full satisfaction to His Father’s justice in their behalf.”¹ Those sins are all already punished, and they cannot be re-punished. According to the Reformed position, at the moment the sinner believes the gospel, Christ’s redemptive work is applied to him. “They are not justified until the Holy Spirit doth, in due time, actually apply Christ unto them.”² At the moment the sinner believers, Christ’s righteousness is permanently and irrevocably imputed to him. All his past, present and future sins have all already been ‘laid on’ Christ on the cross two thousand years ago. Therefore at the moment he believes the gospel, all his past, present and future sins have not only already been paid for; they are all forgiven.

It is not as though at the moment he believes the gospel, God says to him,

All your sins have already been paid for, but I’ve only forgiven your past and present sins; I have not yet forgiven your future sins, even though my Son has already paid for them all. When in the future you commit sins (that my Son has already paid for), you’re going to need to confess and repent of them if you want to be forgiven for them. But, even if you don’t confess them and repent of them, I can’t punish you for them, because I already punished my Son for them. Therefore you can’t go to hell. And there’s no limbo, so the only place you can go is heaven. Thus even if you don’t confess these post-justification sins, you’ll enter heaven just the same, after the instant sanctification that takes place at your death. So, it really doesn’t matter for you whether I forgive those future sins of yours or not, because you go to heaven anyway. And therefore, it really doesn’t matter whether you confess and repent of your future sins. The thing you need to keep in mind, however, is that if in the future you find yourself not confessing and repenting of your future sins, that’s a possible indicator that you were never justified in the first place, and you might have been created to show forth my wrath.

That’s not the Reformed doctrine of forgiveness. In Reformed theology, all past, present and future sins are forgiven at the moment we believe. Nor, according to Reformed theology does God impute to Christ only those sins that the sinner has already committed, and then, when the believer later confesses subsequent sins, impute those subsequent sins to Christ. No. In Reformed theology the imputation is not piece-meal or successive. It takes place once and entirely, at the moment the sinner first believes. Once the double-imputation has occurred (i.e. all his past, present and future sins are imputed to Christ, and Christ’s righteousness is imputed to him) at the moment he believes, then he is permanently and irrevocably pardoned and forgiven for all his past, present and future sins.

One problem with this doctrine is that Christ enjoins us in the Lord’s Prayer to pray daily for the forgiveness of our sins. If all our sins are paid for and forgiven, then it makes no sense to ask daily for the forgiveness for our sins. If we are supposed to believe that all our past, present and future sins were already paid for on the cross and forgiven at the moment we first believed, then to ask daily for the forgiveness of our sins is to contradict the doctrine that at the moment we first believed all these sins were already forgiven. Believing that all our sins are already forgiven is incompatible with asking daily for the forgiveness of our sins.

Referring to the Lord’s Prayer, the Westminster Confession of Faith says

God doth continue to forgive the sins of those that are justified; and although they can never fall from the state of justification, yet they may by their sins fall under God’s Fatherly displeasure, and not have the light of his countenance restored unto them, until they humble themselves, confess their sins, beg pardon, and renew their faith and repentance.³

So, on the one hand, in the Reformed view our past, present and future sins are all already forgiven at the moment we first believe. But on the other hand, in the Reformed view God continues to forgive our sins. The problem is that if our sins are all already forgiven, then there is no reason for God to keep forgiving them. If God is still forgiving them, this implies that they are not all already forgiven. So there is a contradiction here. The doctrine teaches that the sins are all already forgiven. The prayer teaches that the sins are not all already forgiven.

One way of attempting to resolve the contradiction is to make a distinction between God forgiving our sins, and restoring us to fellowship. According to this view, all our past, present and future sins are entirely forgiven at the moment we believe, and at that moment we are brought into fellowship with God. But, if we sin at any subsequent moment, then even though those sins are already forgiven, we lose fellowship with God, until we confess our sins and “beg pardon.” The idea is not that some sins are more severe than others, causing only loss of fellowship, but not causing loss of forgiveness. The WCF itself says “there is no sin so small but it deserves damnation.” (WCF XV.4) The idea, rather, is that after justification, no sin causes loss of forgiveness, but sin can cause loss of fellowship.

The problem with this position is that given the completed nature of the double imputation at our justification, there is no basis for God’s subsequent “Fatherly displeasure” and our loss of fellowship (i.e. losing the “light of His countenance”)  with Him on account of our post-justification sins. If all our sins are already paid for, and when He sees us He sees the perfect righteousness of Christ imputed to us, then there is no reason for Him to be displeased with us, unless He is peeking behind the imputed righteousness. But if He is peeking, then we’re not really covered. And if we are not really covered, then since “there is no sin so small but it deserves damnation,” and because we sin every day in thought, word, and deed, then God is severely displeased with us every day. If, however, God is ever pleased with us when peeking behind the imputed righteousness of Christ, then simul iustus et peccator is false. But if after justification simul iustus et peccator is always true in this life, then if God peeks, we are always under His Fatherly displeasure until we are entirely sanctified in heaven. Given the truth of simul iustus et peccator, the Reformed position viz-a-viz justification entails that after justification either God is always entirely pleased with us on account of Christ’s righteousness imputed to us, or God is always entirely displeased with us if He is peeking behind the imputed righteousness of Christ.

There is a third logical possibility, namely, that there are two qualitatively different levels of righteousness by which God is pleased. The first level is the forgiveness of sins and imputation of Christ’s righteousness; attaining this pleases God in a sufficient but still incomplete way. The second level of righteousness presupposes having already attained the first level; this second level is the level of pleasing or displeasing God above and beyond the perfect righteousness of Christ, by our repentance, confession of sins, and good works. One problem with this dualistic conception of righteousness is that given the truth of simul iustus et peccator, and given that “there is no sin so small but it deserves damnation,” imputation makes God pleased with the believer only if God doesn’t peek behind the imputed righteousness. But if God is peeking behind the imputed righteousness, then given the truth of simul iustus et peccator, and given that “there is no sin so small but it deserves damnation,” it follows by necessity that the believer is doomed.

A second problem with this dualistic conception of righteousness is that it makes Christ’s work insufficient to please God completely. According to this position, God is only partially pleased with us by the imputation of Christ’s righteousness. He is at least pleased enough to let us into heaven, but He is not perfectly pleased with us. We have to work to merit the additional Fatherly pleasure that was not provided by the imputation of Christ’s perfect sacrifice. This situation is a bit like paying the penalty for sins in purgatory. Reformed theology doesn’t accept the notion of purgatory in large part because if we have to suffer in some way for our sins, it implies that Christ’s work was not sufficient to make us pleasing to God. So likewise, if we have to work, and confess, and repent, and do good works (and even suffer) in order to gain this additional Fatherly pleasure that didn’t come with justification, and the imputation of Christ’s righteousness, this implies that Christ’s work was incomplete.

In the section titled “Of Repentance unto Life,” the Westminster Confession of Faith reads:

III. Although repentance be not to be rested in as any satisfaction for sin, or any cause of the pardon thereof, which is the act of God’s free grace in Christ; yet is it of such necessity to all sinners, that none may expect pardon without it.

IV. As there is no sin so small but it deserves damnation; so there is no sin so great that it can bring damnation upon those who truly repent.

V. Men ought not to content themselves with a general repentance, but it is every man’s duty to endeavor to repent of his particular sins, particularly.

VI. As every man is bound to make private confession of his sins to God, praying for the pardon thereof, upon which, and the forsaking of them, he shall find mercy …⁴

Logically, either these statements are limited to the time of justification, or they also refer to the post-justification period. If they are referring to a time prior to justification, then it raises the difficulty of explaining how there can be repentance by those who are still “dead in their sins.” Since Reformed theology does not distinguish between actual grace and sanctifying grace,⁵ for Reformed theology there is no possibility of repentance prior to justification. But, if these statements from WCF XV are about the time after justification, then since the believer already knows that all of his past, present and future sins have already been forgiven at justification, it makes no sense to say that he should not expect pardon for his post-justification sins, without repentance. It makes no sense to state that he should be “praying for the pardon thereof” or that upon forsaking these post-justification sins he will “find mercy.” According to Reformed theology all these sins were already pardoned at the moment he first believed, and thus he already found mercy for all these sins at that moment. The Reformed teaching that all his past, present and future sins were already paid for on the cross, and that Christ’s perfect righteousness was already imputed to him at the moment he first believed, does not fit with the notion that he needs to pray for the pardon of his post-justification sins, and that if he forsakes them he will find mercy. Either his post-justification sins are all already pardoned, in which case he doesn’t need to ask pardon (because that would be an act of unbelief), or they are not all already pardoned, in which case justification isn’t what Reformed theology teaches it to be.

Regarding this problem Reformed theologian Louis Berkhof writes:

“The usual position of Reformed theology, however, is that in justification God indeed removes the guilt, but not the culpability of sin, that is, He removes the sinner’s just amenability to punishment, but not the inherent guiltiness of whatever sins he may continue to perform. The latter remains and therefore always produces in believers a feeling of guilt, of separation from God, of sorrow, of repentance, and so on. Hence they feel the need of confessing their sins, even the sins of their youth, Ps. 25:7; 51:5-9. The believer who is really conscious of his sin feels within him an urge to confess it and to seek the comforting assurance of forgiveness. Moreover, such confession and prayer is not only a subjectively felt need, but also an objective necessity. Justification is essentially an objective declaration respecting the sinner in the tribunal of God, but it is not merely that; it is also an actus transiens, passing into the consciousness of the believer. The divine sentence of acquittal is brought home to the sinner and awakens the joyous consciousness of the forgiveness of sins and of favor with God. Now this consciousness of pardon and of a renewed filial relationship is often disturbed and obscured by sin, and is again quickened and strengthened by confession and prayer, and by a renewed exercise of faith.”⁶

Berkhof is claiming that at the moment of justification, God removes the penalty for all past, present and future sin, but not necessarily the subjective feeling of guilt for whatever sins we continue to commit after we come to faith. Because we feel these guilty feelings, even though after our justification we are no longer subject to punishment for any sins we commit, but perpetually stand entirely cleared by God’s declaration, we still feel the need (“urge”) to confess our sins and gain assurance of forgiveness. According to Berkhof, this urge we feel indicates that it is an “objective necessity” for us to continue to confess and pray for forgiveness, so that as we do so, the fact of our having been already forgiven for all our past, present and future sins will sink more deeply into our consciousness.

According to Berkhof’s position, after our justification, feelings of guilt are untrue; they have not yet caught up to what one knows by faith to be true about one’s standing before God. Therefore, it would follow that we should welcome the overcoming or cessation of such feelings. We should outgrow them as our feelings conform to the truth. At least, if we can outgrow such feelings we should. Berkhof claims that the standard Reformed position on the purpose of confessing our sins and asking God for forgiveness after our justification is not to gain forgiveness of sins, but to relieve the subjective urge we feel to confess, and to acquire the comforting feelings of assurance that our sins are forgiven.

This seems to me to be a rather Freudian/Jungian psychologizing of the purpose of “forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us” which we pray in the Lord’s Prayer, and of the Apostle John’s statement, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9) Instead of allowing these passages to revise the Reformed conception of justification, the Reformed believer uses the Reformed conception of justification to construe these passages as teaching not that we daily need our sins forgiven, but that we daily need to feel that our sins are forgiven. It sentimentalizes these passages in order to preserve its doctrine of justification. According to Berkhof, even though before God we do not need to ask forgiveness, and we know that we do not need to ask for forgiveness, nevertheless the human psyche has a primitive urge to continue to ask for forgiveness for continued sins. And this is why Jesus included this line in the Lord’s Prayer, because He knew that even though we would know that all our sins were already forgiven, we would still need to live and pray as though our sins were not all forgiven. In other words, it was on account of human weakness that Christ included this line in the Lord’s Prayer, much as it was on account of human weakness that Moses included the permission for divorce. (Matthew 19:8)

What I find most strange about this notion is that in order to convince ourselves in our feelings that all our past, present and future sins were forgiven at the moment of our justification, Berkhof encourages us to do certain acts that imply that our sins still need to be forgiven. So according to Berkhof it is good that we daily confess and ask forgiveness, and in doing so, comfort ourselves by making ourselves think that in confessing our sins daily and in asking God daily to forgive them, somehow that activity ensures that God has forgiven us, even though in actuality our past, present and future sins were all already forgiven at the moment of our justification. The problem here is that asking daily for forgiveness teaches the exact opposite; it teaches that our sins are not yet all forgiven. If we were composing a prayer that teaches that our sins still need to be forgiven, something like the line in the Lord’s Prayer is precisely what we would write. But if were composing a prayer for teaching Berkhof’s theology of justification, it would replace that line in the Lord’s Prayer with this one: “I thank you Lord that all my sins, past, present, and future were already forgiven when I first believed.” For this reason, the psychology explanation does not work; it reduces us to beasts governed by urges and instincts. If we are governed by reason, then we should speak and live according to the truth. And if the truth is that all our past, present and future sins were already forgiven when we first believed, then we should speak and live according to that truth. But if we should speak and live as though our sins daily need to be forgiven, and we should speak and live according to the truth, then it follows that at least our future sins were not forgiven when we first believed.

If Berkhof is correct that the standard Reformed position is this psychologized notion of the purpose of continued confession and asking for forgiveness, then Reformed teachers and pastors should be urging all believers to try to get over this urge to confess and ask for forgiveness. The goal should be to get over the felt-need to say that line in the Lord’s Prayer, or anything like it. True integration of mind, heart and feelings, that is, true spiritual maturity would be to get to the point where one would simply leave out that line when praying the Lord’s Prayer, and feel no guilt or compunction in doing so. Pastors, being mature, would tell their congregations that they [the pastors] no longer confess their sins or ask God for forgiveness, because they do not feel those inaccurate feelings of guiltiness any more; they are fully convinced, in mind and feelings, that all their past, present, and future sins were forgiven at the moment of their justification, and their sheep should all seek to reach that same mature state. But if that is not their belief, their practice or their goal, then they need to believe that sins are forgiven progressively, over the course of a believer’s life. But if our sins are forgiven progressively, then either our sins are progressively imputed to Christ on the cross, or the satisfaction doctrine of the Atonement is correct.

Our Father, who art in Heaven
Hallowed be Thy Name.
Thy Kingdom come; Thy will be done
On earth as it is in Heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

1. WCF XI.3.
2. WCF XI.4
3. WCF XI.5
4. WCF XV.3-6.
5. See “A Reply from a Romery Person.”
6. Systematic Theology, p. 515.

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

Reformed Professor R. Scott Clark in response to Pope Benedict: “That conditional, that “if,” makes all the difference in the world. That one little conditional is the difference between Rome and Wittenberg.”

St. Augustine: “Now what shall I say of love? Without it, faith profits nothing;” Enchiridion 8

If faith without love profits nothing, then how does it justify? i.e. How does it profit salvation?

Discuss (charitably so that we know your faith profits something!).

The reason that God cannot lie is simply this. There is nothing which exists except that which God has created, and things exist solely and uniquely by God’s declaration of their existence. God did not say “Let there be light” and then subsequently create light. God said “Let there be light” and by that very act, there was light. It would have been impossible for God to say “Let there be light” and light not exist. Men can say things that are not true or will not become true, but God cannot do such a thing because God is truth. ¹ If God could lie, it would contradict His very essence, which would make Him incoherent with Himself which is impossible. Further, a lie is a corruption of goodness, and no corruption of goodness (evil) comes from God whatsoever; neither can God do any evil.

This truth has a wide range of implications. Among the most prominent is the doctrine of Transubstantiation. For in the same way that a private becomes a captain by the very words of his general, “You are a captain,” so too does the bread become the Body by Christ’s words, “This is My Body.”

But while God cannot lie, He can speak metaphorically. But if He speaks metaphorically of a thing, then its result or consequence must be understood metaphorically.  Obviously it was metaphorical when Jesus spoke of gathering Jerusalem as a hen does her chicks, and so if Jerusalem actually did comply, it would only be metaphorically that the “chicks” (Jerusalem) would be gathered under His ‘wings.’ Likewise, if Jesus spoke metaphorically when He said, “This is My Body,” then it is only metaphorically that we shall receive His Body. i.e. We will not receive His Body any more than Jerusalem shall be gathered under His “wings.” And if God the Father speaks metaphorically when He declares us righteous, then we shall only metaphorically go to Heaven. i.e. We will perish in our trespasses.

But clearly God cannot be speaking metaphorically when He speaks of justification. He is therefore either saying something true (you are justified) or something false (you are Simul justus et peccator). Now we know the second is impossible since God cannot lie, so it must be the case that God’s declaration of man as justified is true. God did not look on man and find him to merit initial justification by anything in him. In the same way that light came into existence by God saying “Let there be light,” grace comes (is infused) into man by God declaring Him righteous because God cannot lie.

1. cf. John 14:6

Let me begin by saying that I am honored to have received a response from N.T. Wright in Christianity Today last month. He is a giant and he has probably influenced me more than any other living theologian (yes, even more than Ratzinger/Benedict XVI).

At the risk of sounding presumptuous, I would like to engage some of N.T. Wright’s comments made in the context of his response to me in the recent Christianity Today article: “Not All Evangelicals and Catholics Together: Protestant debate on justification is reigniting questions about Rome.” I recounted how I began to read N.T. Wright’s books as a seminarian at Westminster Theological Seminary, and how this experience opened my eyes and heart to the Catholic Church. Wright answered that his theology does not necessarily lead to Catholicism. Trevin Wax recently published N.T. Wright’s full response here.

Wright’s response left me with ten questions. I realize that it is unlikely that I will receive another response from Bishop Wright. He is a busy man, an Anglican bishop, and a world renowned theologian—so I won’t hold my breath. Meanwhile, at least others who have read Wright’s books might ponder these questions and suggest educated answers. No matter how it turns out, here are the Ten Questions:

1. Bishop Wright, in your new book Justification: God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision (page 141) you write concerning 2 Cor 5:21:

“The little word genometha in 5:21b-‘that we might become God’s righteousness in him’-does not sit comfortably with the normal interpretation, according to which ‘God’s righteousness’ is ‘imputed’ or ‘reckoned’ to believers. If that is what Paul meant, with the overtones of ‘extraneous righteousness’ that normally come with that theory, the one thing that he ought not to have said is that we ‘become’ that righteousness. Surely that leans far too much towards a Roman Catholic notion of infused righteousness? How careless of Paul to leave the door open to such a notion!”

Question 1: You seem to indicate here that Saint Paul does in fact teach the “Roman Catholic notion of infused righteousness.” How would we be wrong if we were to assume that you are here denying justification by imputation and favoring “a Roman Catholic notion of infused righteousness”?

2. Also in Justification: God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision (p. 164), you wrote: “what damage to genuine pastoral theology has been done by making a bogey-word out of the Pauline term synergism, “working together with God.”

Question 2: Should we conclude that you agree with Trent regarding syngergism and disagree with Luther and Calvin on monergism?

3. Bishop Wright, on p. 230 you write: “Thus when [John] Piper says (22) that ‘Wright makes startling statements to the effect that our future justification will be on the basis of works’, I want to protest: it isn’t Wright who says this, but Paul.” Your words conform nicely to the Council of Trent’s Session Six, Chapter 10: “faith co-operating with good works, increase in that justice which they have received through the grace of Christ, and are still further justified.”

Question 3: Are you not affirming with Session Six of the Council of Trent that our justification (with it’s future implications) will be on the basis of works? John Piper doesn’t want to let you off the hook on this one.

4. Bishop Wright, in What Saint Paul Really Said (page 119) you wrote that justification is about ecclesiology before soteriology. This lines up nicely with Session Six of the Council of Trent (especially Chapter Seven) which relates justification in the traditional terms of catechumens and the Church.

Question 4: How is your teaching in What Saint Paul Really Said substantially different from the Council of Trent’s formulation?

5. Bishop Wright, you note that Heinrich Schlier was a fine New Testament scholar. In fact, Schlier states that it was Sacred Scripture that lead him into the Catholic Church.

Question 5: Do you believe that Schlier was so naïve as to believe that being Bultmannian or being Catholic were the only two options available to him?

6. Bishop Wright, you state the Council of Trent provided the wrong answer regarding “nature/grace question.” As far as I can tell, Trent only touched upon this question in Session Five and even there the word “nature” only appears twice.

Question 6: Could you clarify what you mean by “Trent gave the wrong answer, at a deep level, to the nature/grace question”? To which session would I turn in the Council of Trent to find the alleged “wrong answer”?

7. Bishop Wright, you state that Trent’s “wrong answer to the nature/grace question” led to Catholic abuses in Marian doctrine and devotion.

Question 7: Are you referring to something as general as the prayers to Mary or something more specific like her bodily assumption into Heaven?

8. You indicated that the Catholic Church has sought to prevent the belief that God works through women and lay people. You wrote: “Communal, yes, but don’t let the laity (or the women) get any fancy ideas about God working new things through them.”

It is rather noteworthy that the two greatest saints of the Catholic Church are the Blessed Virgin Mary (a woman) and Saint Joseph (a layman).

Our profound love for the Blessed Virgin Mary and her role in the incarnation goes without mentioning. Moreover, the Catholic Church venerates three female Doctors of the Church (St Teresa of Avila, St Catherine of Sienna, and St Therese of Lisieux) who stand next to the other great Doctors of the Church like St Augustine, St Basil, St Thomas Aquinas, et al.

Question 8: Could you be more specific as to how the Catholic Church devalues the role of women and laymen?

9. You write that the Reformed, Anglican, charismatic, and emergent traditions can encompass the best of what it means to be “sacramental, transformational, communal, eschatological.” Yet, these four traditions (Reformed, Anglican, charismatic, and emergent) are in fundamental disagreement over what a sacrament is, how a human is justified and/or sanctified, what the church is, and what the eschaton is and how it will occur. Even within their own jurisdictions (e.g. Anglican Communion), there is vast disagreement over all of these issues. You say there are “bits of it” in the emergent church, but we could also say that there are “bits of it” when I pray the Our Father with my children before they fall asleep – yet “bits of it” do not entail the climax of the covenant as anticipated in Isaiah, Daniel, or the Minor Prophets.

Question 9: If what it means to be sacramental, transformational, communal, eschatological “can be found in” these four contradicting traditions, doesn’t it entail that each of these four (or even all four together) do not actualize what it means to be sacramental, transformational, communal, eschatological? In other words, “these elements can be found in their congregations” doesn’t entail “these elements constitute their congregations.”

10. Bishop Wright, you write: “Trent, and much subsequent RC theology, has had a habit of never spring-cleaning, so you just live in a house with more and more clutter building up, lots of right answers to wrong questions.”

On the contrary, since the Reformation, only the Catholic Church has continued to hold councils and examine the deposit of faith. Lutherans, Anglicans, and Calvinists still appeal to the same dusty articles of faith that they drafted in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. They do not hold doctrinal councils. They are unable to reform. They are what they are. So the accusation that the Catholic Church doesn’t clean house is actually more appropriately directed toward Protestant denominations.

Question 10: Is it the case that Protestant theology is clean and tidy when compared to Catholic theology?

Bishop Wright, you wrote:

I am sorry to think that there are people out there whose Protestantism has been so barren that they never found out about sacraments, transformation, community or eschatology. Clearly this person [that’s me, Taylor] needed a change. But to jump to Rome for that reason is very odd.

I would like to point out that I am not simply an isolated “this person” who “needed a change.” It’s quite ironic that Wright should says this the wake of the Pope’s announcement of the new Anglican Personal Ordinariates. I’m not the only one. Thousands and thousands of clergy and laity from his own denomination have appealed to the Pope as a result of the Anglican Communion losing its sacramental and communal nature. If Anglicanism can provide a Christianity that is “sacramental, transformational, communal, and eschatological,” then why are these Anglicans so deeply dissatisfied with Anglicanism? Would Wright also say that their “jump to Rome” is “very odd”?
Thank you for reading. As a grateful fan and reader of N.T. Wright’s books, I am continually amazed by his profound insights into Sacred Scripture. As a Catholic, I continue to enjoy his books and find myself returning to his works on a regular basis. I have the highest regard for Bishop Wright and wish him all the best.

I’d like to open up the comments and ask for responses. Would you agree that within Wright’s writings and public comments, “there are some things in them hard to understand”? What are we to make those passages that allege to be “not magisterially Protestant” but “not magisterially Catholic” either?

Please look for my new book: The Catholic Perspective on Paul (Summer 2010). It is based on the conviction that the Pauline epistles contain the primitive and pristine doctrines of the Catholic Faith (that is, the Patristic “old perspective” on Paul). In the Pauline corpus we discover a Paul who is Catholic, a theologian who is sacramental, a churchman who is hierarchical, a mystic who is orthodox.

Listen to Episode #1: RABBI SAUL BECOMES APOSTLE PAUL.

Mimus polyglottos (Northern Mockingbird)

In the beginning of the post, JDK talks about his earlier misunderstandings of Catholicism, and how those misunderstandings were corrected. Then he writes the following:

I was on my way to either swallowing the whole loaf and going Roman, or at least coming as close as possible by joining the more-socially-acceptable but consigned to limbo Anglo-Catholic fold. Then, one glorious and life-changing day, I heard the doctrine of Justification explained in historic law/gospel form, my heart was strangely warmed and well, now I know why I can never be the Catholic I almost was. This understanding–that the very heart of the Gospel is protected by a clear articulation of the doctrine of Justification by Grace alone through Faith alone … remains, IMNSHO, the only reason to not go to Rome.

In order to compare the Catholic doctrine of justification with the doctrine JDK presents, it is essential to understand the different theological and anthropological contexts in which these doctrines are situated. Otherwise the two doctrines are not fairly or accurately compared. In many cases, in my experience, people in both traditions misunderstand the other position, and end up caricaturizing it. In addition, in my opinion the Catholic doctrine is objectively more nuanced and complex than is the Protestant position, and so the Catholic doctrine is easier to misunderstand. Many Protestants, I think, understandably assume that the Catholic doctrine is as easy to understand as the Protestant position. As a result they tend to dismiss it without fully understanding it. From an ecumenical point of view, we don’t want that to happen. To avoid that, we should be asking questions of each other to make sure we truly understand each other. That is because these are systematic differences, that is, paradigmatic differences, not just differences about particular doctrines but within the same theological paradigm. The Catholic doctrine of justification cannot fairly be understood or evaluated from within the Protestant paradigm, and vice versa. That doesn’t mean that we must take some neutral point of view, a view-from-nowhere, in order to compare the two positions. But we must at least be able to see things accurately from both points of view, in order to compare the paradigms to each other.

What JDK refers to as the “historic law/gospel” doctrine of justification is found most explicitly in the Lutheran tradition. It sees the theological data through these two categories of law and gospel. Any sort of obligation on our part is placed in the category of law. And anything that Christ has done for us is placed in the category of gospel. Then the general rule relating the two categories is that the law convicts us, and leads us to trust in the gospel, specifically, to trust in Christ by trusting in what Christ has done for us. Everything regarding what we ought to do produces guilt, as we see ourselves always having fallen short of God’s standard for how we are to live. That is the purpose of all prescriptions regarding what we ought to do, namely, to convict us of sin, and show us our need for Christ. If we had only the law, and not the gospel along with it, this would lead us to utter despair. But the message of Christianity is the message of what Christ has done for us, as understood against that background of seeing ourselves as always and utterly having fallen short of God’s perfect law, and entirely unable to satisfy its demands. So in this Lutheran paradigm living the gospel involves continually responding to our law-provoked-guilt by turning for comfort and assurance to the gospel, to what Christ has done for us, and with child-like faith trusting that what He has done for us is sufficient for our salvation. The law/gospel dialectic is designed to point us to trust continually in what Christ has done for us, and never to trust in anything we have done or are doing for our salvation. In this way, our assurance is entirely in Christ, and not in ourselves.

That’s the Lutheran paradigm in a nutshell. The Catholic paradigm is quite different. The fundamental problem in man, in Catholic soteriology, is the absence of sanctifying grace. Here at this point is a crucial distinction between Catholic and Protestant soteriology. In Protestant theology grace is primarily understood as divine favor, that is, an attitude or stance by God toward us. In Catholic soteriology, by contrast, grace is not merely divine favor, but is also and primarily the gift of “participation in the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4) by which we have the supernatural virtues of faith, hope, and agape.² Those three are called the three theological virtues, and the most important of those three is agape. Agape is not a natural virtue. It is not natural love, say of husband and wife, or parent and child, or friend to friend. Agape is a supernatural love, and therefore cannot be acquired by our own natural power. For example, we can train a child to be generous, that is, we can inculcate in a child the virtue (i.e. habit) of generosity. Generosity is a natural virtue, because by the power of our own nature we can acquire that virtue. But faith, hope, and agape are virtues that cannot be acquired merely by habituation or education. We cannot acquire them by the power of our own nature. They are above the capacity of our own nature to acquire, and that is why they are called supernatural virtues. For that reason, they are necessarily divine gifts.

In Catholic theology, if we do not have agape, then we do not have friendship with God. And if we die outside of friendship with God, then we cannot enter into heaven, which is eternal friendship with God. So in the Catholic paradigm, having agape is absolutely essential for salvation. Someone who believes in God, but does not have agape, is not a friend of God, and hence does not have salvation. So faith is necessary in order to have agape, but faith without agape is not sufficient for salvation. As I have argued elsewhere, the Bible does not definitively teach that we are justified by faith-without-agape; Catholics understand justification by faith to refer to justification by faith-informed-by-agape.

In the Lutheran paradigm, what is essential for justification and by itself sufficient for justification is faith. In the Catholic paradigm, what is essential for justification is agape, but in this present life one cannot have agape without having faith and hope.³ Therefore, in the Catholic paradigm, only those persons are justified who have all three supernatural virtues: faith, hope and agape. And this is why from the Catholic point of view, the Lutheran position fails to recognize the necessity of agape for justification. This is precisely why Pope Benedict said in November of last year:

“For this reason Luther’s phrase: “faith alone” is true, if it is not opposed to faith in charity, in love.”⁴

This difference (between justification by faith alone, and justification by faith-informed-by-agape) has significant implications.⁵ In the Lutheran paradigm, our sins were imputed to Christ, such that on the cross He bore God’s wrath for our sins, and at the moment we believe the gospel, Christ’s righteousness is imputed to us (i.e. ‘transferred to our account’). The problem is that our account is in the negative; without imputation we owe a debt of punishment and have no righteousness in our account. In the Catholic paradigm, the accounting issue is the secondary problem, deriving from the primary problem, which is the absence of sanctifying grace and agape. So long as we lack sanctifying grace and agape, we continually contribute to the debt of eternal punishment. So only by acquiring sanctifying grace and agape can we come into a state of no longer requiring eternal punishment.

In Catholic theology, on the cross Christ in His human nature bore the curse of death, and by His obedience in His human nature, He offered Himself to the Father as a sacrificial gift of love. In this way He gave to the Father something far more pleasing than all our sins were displeasing to the Father. In this way He in His human nature merited from the Father the gift of grace for all men. This is how our debt was paid, not by Christ bearing the wrath of the Father, but by offering Himself up in love to His Father and so meriting for us the gift of grace. We need grace to enter heaven because heaven is a supernatural end. We cannot attain a supernatural end by our own nature because a thing can act only in proportion to its own nature. But through His Passion Christ merited for all men the gift of grace, i.e. the gift of participation in the divine nature. And Christ established means by which we receive this grace; these means are the sacraments. Through baptism we are reborn, that is, we receive sanctifying grace, i.e. the life of God, participation in the divine nature. And through the Eucharist we grow in sanctifying grace, and in agape.

That’s a rough sketch of the differences between the law-gospel position on justification presented by JDK, and the Catholic position on justification. JDK then refers to Canon 12 of the Sixth Session of the Council of Trent, a canon which, (apparently) in his mind anathematized the gospel. Canon 12 reads:

Canon 12: “If any one shall say that justifying faith is nothing else than confidence in the divine mercy pardoning sins for Christ’s sake, or that it is that confidence alone by which we are justified … let him be anathema.”

Given what I have just said above, it should be clear why in this canon the Council of Trent condemned the notion that justifying faith “is nothing else than confidence in the divine mercy pardoning sins for Christ’s sake.” The reason is that confidence does not necessarily include agape, and nobody can be justified without having agape, i.e. without becoming a friend of God. Therefore, it follows that confidence, even if directed toward God’s mercy, is not sufficient for salvation.

JDK similarly cites Canon 4:

Canon 4: “If anyone says that man’s free will moved and aroused by God, by assenting to God’s call and action, in no way cooperates toward disposing and preparing itself to obtain the grace of justification. . . let him be anathema.”

The Catholic understanding is that to be “dead in sins” is to be without the life of God, i.e without sanctifying grace. That is what it means to be unregenerate. Since the fall of Adam, all human beings are born into the world without the life of God, i.e. without sanctifying grace. We call this privation of the life of God, “original sin.” Without sanctifying grace we still have a functioning intellect and a will. But we cannot love God with supernatural love (i.e. agape) because agape is present in us only if we have sanctifying grace, i.e. a participation in the divine life. So, without sanctifying grace we can know God as Creator simply by the things He has made, and we can have natural virtues. But we cannot know God as Father, and have faith, hope, and agape. Without agape, we cannot have friendship with God as Father. So without sanctifying grace, we cannot enter into heaven. According to Catholic doctrine, the unregenerate man cannot do things ordered to a supernatural end (i.e. heaven) because he is not a participant in the divine nature. Since he only has human nature, which is natural, he can only achieve a natural end. But heaven is a supernatural end. Hence, without sanctifying grace he cannot attain to a supernatural end.

According to the Catholic position, for those in the unregenerate condition, God must act first without us, in giving us grace, before we can freely move toward Him. (Otherwise we’d be semi-Pelagian, if we believed that we acted first without His grace.) But our privation of the life of God does not require that we must be “regenerated” before we freely move toward Him. Catholics make a distinction here between two forms of grace. One form, called ‘actual grace,’ is the grace by which God moves our hearts and minds. The other form, called ‘sanctifying grace,’ is that participation in the divine nature by which we are sanctified in our very soul and made sons of God. In Catholic theology regeneration means receiving sanctifying grace. A person who is moved by actual grace, but has not yet received sanctifying grace, is not yet regenerated. And in Catholic theology sanctifying grace comes through the sacrament of baptism, though it can (while still coming through the sacrament of baptism) precede the reception of that sacrament. But, in Catholic theology actual grace comes to us before regeneration, and actual grace first acts as operative grace (in which God moves us without us), and then by our participation actual grace acts as cooperative grace (God moving us with us), leading us to faith and baptism by which we receive sanctifying grace, and are thereby justified.

Lutheran and Reformed theology generally do not make the distinction between actual grace and sanctifying grace. They tend to maintain that a person cannot do anything until he is alive. And therefore regeneration is required in order for a person to cooperate. Hence, what Catholic theology refers to as ‘actual grace’ drops out of Reformed and Lutheran theology as something that precedes regeneration. Since Catholic theology understands ‘dead in sins’ as meaning the absence of divine life, but not the loss of intellect and will, therefore, Catholic theology does not need to maintain that regeneration must precede cooperation, because a person without sanctifying grace (i.e. without the life of God) may still by his intellect and will cooperate with actual grace.

JDK then quotes Canon 5:

Canon 5: “If anyone says that after the sin of Adam man’s free will was lost and destroyed. . . let him be anathema.”

This canon has to do with what happened to man at the Fall. In Lutheran theology man’s very nature was damaged, and his intellect and will were radically corrupted. In Catholic theology, at the Fall man lost sanctifying grace, lost agape, lost the four preternatural gifts, and suffered the four wounds of nature. Among those wounds of nature were ignorance in the intellect, and malice in the will. Each of man’s powers was wounded, though not destroyed, but man’s nature was not destroyed. We were human before the Fall, and we remain human after the Fall. (I have discussed this in more detail here.) But this canon need not separate Catholics and Protestants. Both Protestants and Catholics can agree that man after the Fall is incapable of turning to God, unless God first acts in us without us. We all agree that semi-Pelagianism is a heresy, so the objection to semi-Pelagianism need not be a point of contention between us.

JDK then refers to Article XI of the Thirty-Nine Articles:

Article XI: Of the Justification of Man

“We are accounted righteous before God, only for the merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by Faith, and not for our own works or deservings: Wherefore, that we are justified by Faith only is a most wholesome Doctrine, and very full of comfort.”

Regarding this article, the Anglican position presents us with an either/or: Either we are “accounted righteous before God only for the merits of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ” or we are accounted righteous only “for our own works or deservings.” But the Catholic position sees this as a false dichotomy. Prior to the Fall, Adam and Eve were in friendship with God. They walked with God in the cool of the day. And their friendship with God shows that they had agape, and thus that they had sanctifying grace. Had they obeyed God faithfully, then because they were participants in the divine nature, their acts of obedience to God would have merited on the supernatural level, and hence merited a supernatural end. That is how they would have merited heaven. In the Catholic position, Christ by His Passion has merited sanctifying grace for us, so that by receiving that grace through the sacraments He established, we are, in this respect, restored to the state of Adam and Eve. Unlike Adam and Eve, however, we lack what is called the gift of integrity, and so our lower appetites suffer from inordinate dispositions. We also lack the prenatural gift of immortality, and so our bodies are not perfectly subject to our souls; this is why we now suffer physical death. But by the merits of Christ we have received sanctifying grace through the sacraments (and thus been made participants in the divine nature). Hence now, like Adam and Eve, our acts motivated by agape are meritorious toward a supernatural end, because by our participation in the divine nature, our acts are proportionate to the supernatural end which is heaven.

Does this mean we must work our way to heaven? Not exactly. For example, baptized babies who die in infancy do no work, but yet through their baptism they are made partakers of the divine nature, and possess the infused supernatural virtues of faith, hope, and agape. Because they have agape, they die in a state of friendship with God, and hence enter into heaven. The problematic word in the phrase “must we work our way to heaven?” is ‘must.’ In the Catholic paradigm, the opportunity to participate in our salvation is a gracious gift of God. By this gift we have the opportunity in this life to give ourselves in sacrificial love to Christ in actions that have eternal consequences. Because of this gift, we have the unfathomable privilege of participating in Christ’s work of bringing salvation to all the world, and participating in our own salvation. (Philippians 2:12) God could have created us all already in the beatified state in heaven. But He did not do that, because He gives us a greater dignity by letting us participate in His divine work of salvation, both in the lives of others and in our own life. By giving us this additional gift of allowing us to participate in a divine activity, He is more greatly glorified.

JDK then quotes the last paragraph of the Homily on Justification:

“Hitherto have we heard what we are of our selves: very sinful, wretched, and damnable. Again, wee have heard how that of our selves, and by our selves, wee are not able either to think a good thought, or work a good deed, so that wee can find in our selves no hope of salvation, but rather whatsoever maketh unto our destruction. Again, we have heard the tender kindness and great mercy of GOD the Father towards us, and how beneficial he is to us for Christ’s sake, without our merits or deserts, even of his own sheer mercy & tender goodness.”

Regarding the paragraph from the homily on justification, what needs to be distinguished are good deeds done in agape, and good deeds done without agape. Can a pagan be generous to his children? Sure. Is that a good deed? Yes, but if it is not done in agape, i.e. out of supernatural love for God, then it is of no benefit to him with respect to getting to heaven. So the pagan’s act of generosity is good in one respect (i.e. in the natural order), but it is not ordered to a supernatural end (i.e. heaven). If the good that we are unable to do, referred to in the paragraph from the “Homily on Justification,” is good done out of agape, then the statement is in agreement with Catholic doctrine. But if it means that even on the natural order a pagan can do no good deed, then this statement would not be in keeping with Catholic doctrine.

Lastly, JDK writes:

“The condition of Man after the fall of Adam is such, that he cannot turn and prepare himself, by his own natural strength and good works, to faith, and calling upon God: Wherefore we have no power to do good works pleasant and acceptable to God, without the grace of God by Christ preventing us, that we may have a good will, and working with us, when we have that good will.”

A Catholic can agree with this, so long as we distinguish between actual grace (i.e. the grace whereby God moves us), and sanctifying grace (the grace that inheres in our soul, and heals our human nature wounded by sin by giving us a share in the divine life of the Trinity.) Without actual grace, we cannot turn and prepare ourselves, to faith and calling upon God. To claim that we could do so without actual grace would be at least semi-Pelagianism. But, with actual grace we can prepare ourselves for sanctifying grace, the grace we receive through the sacrament of regeneration, which is baptism. When we receive sanctifying grace we also receive agape, and when we receive agape we are made right with God, and hence justified.

1. See “Note of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith about Personal Ordinariates for Anglicans entering the Catholic Church,” October 20, 2009
2. I use the term ‘agape‘ here instead of the term ‘love,’ because I want be very clear that I am not speaking here of natural love, but of supernatural love, i.e. the love that is divine, because it is the love by which God loves Himself.
3. In heaven the saints retain agape, but no longer have faith and hope, because faith and hope are possible only when their object is not yet fully revealed. In heaven, however, we will see Him face to face.
4. Pope Benedict’s General Audience, Wednesday, November 19, 2008
5. See my post titled “Justification: Divided Over Charity” from January of 2009.

In this first part of the series, we will focus on a Catholic understanding of assurance. (I must note at the outset that my thinking on this topic has been stimulated by Fr. Stephen Pfurtner’s insightful contribution to ecumenical theology, Luther and Aquinas on Salvation [New York: Sheed and Ward, 1964].) I will take my cues from Thomas Aquinas’s analysis of the theological virtue of Hope, together with the closely related articles on Fear, Despair and Presumption, and also the Sixth Session of the Council of Trent, which is completely, and quite purposefully, consistent with St. Thomas’s position. (For an overview of Thomistic soteriology, as well as an analysis of the influence of St. Thomas on the Council of Trent, see Bryan Cross’ series of articles at Called to Communion, Aquinas and Trent, Parts 1–6, beginning with this article.)

In his treatise on the theological virtue of hope, Aquinas clearly affirms that the hope of the “wayfarer” is certain. Here is the entirety of this remarkable article:

Whether there is certainty in the hope of a wayfarer?

Objection 1. It would seem that there is no certainty in the hope of a wayfarer. For hope resides in the will. But certainty pertains not to the will but to the intellect. Therefore there is no certainty in hope.

Objection 2. Further, hope is based on grace and merits, as stated above (Question 17, Article 1). Now it is impossible in this life to know for certain that we are in a state of grace, as stated above (I-II, 112, 5). Therefore there is no certainty in the hope of a wayfarer.

Objection 3. Further, there can be no certainty about that which may fail. Now many a hopeful wayfarer fails to obtain happiness. Therefore wayfarer’s hope has no certainty.

On the contrary, “Hope is the certain expectation of future happiness,” as the Master states (Sent. iii, D, 26): and this may be gathered from 2 Timothy 1:12, “I know Whom I have believed, and I am certain that He is able to keep that which I have committed to Him.”

I answer that, Certainty is found in a thing in two ways, essentially and by participation. It is found essentially in the cognitive power; by participation in whatever is moved infallibly to its end by the cognitive power. On this way we say that nature works with certainty, since it is moved by the Divine intellect which moves everything with certainty to its end. On this way too, the moral virtues are said to work with greater certainty than art, in as much as, like a second nature, they are moved to their acts by the reason: and thus too, hope tends to its end with certainty, as though sharing in the certainty of faith which is in the cognitive faculty.

This suffices for the Reply to the First Objection.

Reply to Objection 2. Hope does not trust chiefly in grace already received, but on God’s omnipotence and mercy, whereby even he that has not grace, can obtain it, so as to come to eternal life. Now whoever has faith is certain of God’s omnipotence and mercy.

Reply to Objection 3. That some who have hope fail to obtain happiness, is due to a fault of the free will in placing the obstacle of sin, but not to any deficiency in God’s power or mercy, in which hope places its trust. Hence this does not prejudice the certainty of hope. (ST, II-II, q. 18, a. 4.)

Furthermore, the object of this certain hope is nothing less than eternal happiness:

As stated above (Article 1), the hope of which we speak now, attains God by leaning on His help in order to obtain the hoped for good. Now an effect must be proportionate to its cause. Wherefore the good which we ought to hope for from God properly and chiefly is the infinite good, which is proportionate to the power of our divine helper, since it belongs to an infinite power to lead anyone to an infinite good. Such a good is eternal life, which consists in the enjoyment of God Himself. For we should hope from Him for nothing less than Himself, since His goodness, whereby He imparts good things to His creature, is no less than His Essence. Therefore the proper and principal object of hope is eternal happiness. (ST, II-II, q. 17, a. 2.)

Thomas Aquinas, the greatest and most representative Catholic theologian of all time, taught that we can enjoy certainty of eternal life. I was an Evangelical Protestant seminarian when I first read this bit of the Summa. I must confess that finding such a simple and unabashed affirmation of assurance from such a source took me by complete surprise. After all, assurance of salvation was supposed to be a Protestant thing, one of the really big benefits of not being Catholic. It is true that Aquinas teaches, in language echoed by Trent, that one cannot know with “indubitable knowledge” that he is either in a state of grace or among those predestined to glory. Furthermore, he insists that we should fear the possibility of falling away from God, and that many a hopeful wayfarer does indeed fall away. St. Thomas goes on to argue, however, that certain kinds of fear are not intrinsically evil, that the fear of losing God’s friendship (filial fear) is in fact a good kind of fear, and that this fear is completely consistent with the assurance of hope. (ST, II-II, q. 19.)

Hope, according to Aquinas, proceeds from faith in the mercy and omnipotence of God, who wills all men to be saved. (ST, II-II, q. 18, a. 4.) Filial fear is based upon an awareness of the possibility that we can choose to reject God’s friendship. (ST, II-II, q. 19, a. 9.) However, the certainty of hope is not opposed to such fear, but to despair. Therefore, unless we despair of our own salvation (and to do so is a mortal sin), we can and should live in hope. In hope, we enjoy the assurance that we will receive all the help necessary to attain final salvation. Thus, hope does not only look to the end to be obtained (final salvation/eternal happiness), in which case it would be indistinguishable from fortitude, but also to the present divine help by which we are enabled to obtain that end. In other words, there is an immediate as well as an eschatological aspect to hope. Those who faithfully receive the divine promises are to rejoice in the assurance of eternal life as a work that God has already begun in us and which he will bring to completion on the Day of Judgment (Philippians 1:6;  2 Timothy 1:12).

Catholics believe that the seven sacraments of grace are the principle means by which we receive the promises of God in Christ Jesus and are enabled to obtain eternal life. Neal Judisch has recently pointed out the advantages of sacramental assurance over the typical Evangelical/Reformed construct of “reflexive” assurance. In the first half of the article, Neal addresses the content of assurance, distinguishing between the various things, with respect to their own salvation, that Christians claim to be certain about. He then considers the grounds of assurance, suggesting that assurance is better grounded upon the objective criteria of the sacraments (he focuses upon Baptism) than upon the subjective criterion of one’s own faith.

Concerning the role of the sacraments in our salvation, Aquinas writes:

Since, however, the death of Christ is, so to say, the universal cause of human salvation, and since a universal cause must be applied singly to each of its effects, it was necessary to show men some remedies through which the benefit of Christ’s death could somehow be conjoined to them. It is of this sort, of course, that the sacraments of the Church are said to be. (Summa contra Gentiles 4:56, 1, trans. Charles J. O’Neil [Garden City, NY: Image Books, 1957].)

Since sacraments conjoin us to Christ’s Passion, which is the “universal cause of human salvation,” it stands to reason that they are a proximate source of assurance. When directly addressing the question of assurance, however, St. Thomas simply appeals to the ultimate source of assurance: God’s omnipotence and mercy. This leads him to make that most interesting affirmation about the certainty of hope:

Hope does not trust chiefly in grace already received, but on God’s omnipotence and mercy, whereby even he that has not grace, can obtain it, so as to come to eternal life. Now whoever has faith is certain of God’s omnipotence and mercy. (ST, II-II, q. 18, a. 4.)

St. Thomas here affirms the necessity of sanctifying grace (which makes us holy, and enables us to do works pleasing unto God) for salvation. One must “obtain it, so as to come to eternal life.” However, for Aquinas, it is not “grace already received,” but “God’s omnipotence and mercy” that is the object of faith by which we arrive at the certainty of hope.

For St. Thomas, the man who looks to God in (the virtue of) hope, although he need not conclude with certainty anything with respect to his own interior disposition towards salvation (i.e. whether he is in a state of grace), must not presume that reconciliation with God and the promise of glory occur apart from sanctifying grace, whereby he is cleansed from sin and enabled to do good works. To be truly assured of salvation, one must desire that salvation which God promises to give, and this essentially includes withdrawal from sin and service to God. (Acts 26:20) St. Thomas equates a presumptive hope–one that desires an antinominian form of salvation–with “the sin against the Holy Spirit.” (ST, II-II, q. 21, a. 1.) He also argues that presumptive hope is contrary to the intellectual virtue of faith:

Moreover [presumption] is conformed to a false intellect, just as despair is: for just as it is false that God does not pardon the repentant, or that He does not turn sinners to repentance, so is it false that He grants forgiveness to those who persevere in their sins, and that He gives glory to those who cease from good works: and it is to this estimate that the movement of presumption is conformed. (ST, II-II, q. 21, a. 2.)

Thomas’s claim that the assurance of hope is not founded upon “trust … in grace already received” ought not be taken to mean that sanctifying grace and good works are not necessary for salvation. Clearly, they are. In that case, what is the relation between the assurance of hope and sanctifying grace? There are probably many answers to that question, since the relation is certainly manifold. Here, I will attempt an answer with reference to the three theological virtues:

1. Faith that gives rise to the assurance of hope is focused upon God, not (primarily) upon the subject who has faith, nor upon any condition of that subject (e.g., being in a state of grace). God as revealed in Christ Jesus is the object of saving faith. Thus, hope does not trust chiefly in grace already received, but in the promise of grace.

2. Hope, in this God-oriented sense, disposes the believer to love God. When a man turns to God in desire for and expectation of the good that God actually promises to give, the good that he desires is God himself, which good is an end in itself. When one enjoys God as an end in himself (which is like a foretaste of eternal happiness, or beatitude), he is in a state of sanctifying grace, which includes the gift of charity. Thus, even though the object of hope is not sanctifying grace, nor inhering charity, the exercise of hope tends towards such grace and charity, since it tends towards God in his offer of eternal friendship.

3. God is love. Charity begins with God, and is poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit of God, when we turn to him in repentance and faith. Through faith, hope finds assurance in the love of God as it is expressed for me in the promise of the Gospel. The love of God poured out in our hearts (i.e., sanctifying grace, including the gift of charity) is not the proper object of hope, but it is related to hope in this way: the love of God poured into our hearts is the Holy Spirit in us, the same Spirit who, as the third person of the omnipotent and omnibenevolent Holy Trinity, is the object of our hope.

If we keep in mind the distinction between God for me (the object of hope) and God in me (sanctifying grace, the gift of the Holy Spirit, infused charity), we can better understand how St. Thomas can unequivocally affirm both full assurance of eternal life and the necessity of sanctifying grace and charity for salvation, while denying that one can know, with the full certainty of faith, that he is in a state of grace. Simply speaking, the state of one’s own soul is not the direct object of the assurance of hope. God is. We look to God in the hope that he will do a good work in us, as he has promised. That hope does not disappoint, for God is merciful and powerful on our behalf. Faith is the beginning of hope, hope is the beginning of charity, and charity perfects faith and hope by directing them to their goal, which is eternal happiness. (ST, II-II, q. 23, a. 8.) What Thomas says about the certainty of hope presupposes this order and relation between the theological virtues. Thus, the hope that looks to God for the good that God actually offers is a hope that is tending towards the virtue of charity but not focused on the virtue of charity (or any other inherent quality or virtue), precisely because it is focused on charity as embodied in Christ and offered by God in the promised gift of the Holy Spirit.

The Council of Trent is quite compatible with St Thomas’s teaching on this point. Trent is sometimes taken as the “anti-assurance” Council because it teaches that one cannot know with the certainty of faith that he is in a state of grace or has been given the gift of final perseverance. But this is just to say that no quality in ourselves is the object of faith by which we come to the assurance of hope. This is identical to the teaching of St. Thomas, who affirmed the certainty of hope. I conclude with the following affirmation of the Council of Trent, which, it seems to me, strikes a definite Thomistic note:

Now, they [the adults] are disposed to that justice when, aroused and aided by divine grace, receiving faith by hearing, they are moved freely toward God, believing to be true what has been divinely revealed and promised, especially that the sinner is justified by God by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus; and when, understanding themselves to be sinners, they, by turning themselves from the fear of divine justice, by which they are salutarily aroused, to consider the mercy of God, are raised to hope, trusting that God will be propitious to them for Christ’s sake; and they begin to love Him as the fountain of all justice, and on that account are moved against sin by a certain hatred and detestation, that is, by that repentance that must be performed before baptism; finally, when they resolve to receive baptism, to begin a new life and to keep the commandments of God. (The Council of Trent, Session VI, Chapter 6.)