Feingold pdf: http://hebrewca.ipower.com/files/04.11StPaulonJustification.pdf
and from Called to Communion:
Bryan cross states:
"Summarizing the difference as simply as possible, we can say that the Protestant conception of justification is that of an extra nos imputation of Christ’s righteousness, through faith uninformed by agape but necessarily followed by agape, while the Catholic conception of justification is by the infusion of faith informed by agape, the presence of which is the righteousness that is the fulfillment of the law.2"He also earlier says:
"..according to the Catholic Church, God justifies us by infusing righteousness into our hearts. Righteousness, according to Catholic doctrine, is agape. Infused agape by its very presence as a supernatural virtue of the will, is the fulfillment of the law, because the purpose of the law is to show us how to love; the law mimics externally what love is internally. So the person who has love has that to which the law points and attempts to show. In that respect he has the spirit of the law. The person who has the law, but not love, does not fulfill the spirit or purpose of the law, even if it were possible for him to fulfill the letter of the law. This is what St. Paul means when he teaches that love fulfills the law (Rom. 13:8, 10; Gal. 5:14). Faith is made living by the presence of agape in the heart. Without agape in the heart, faith is dead, and does not justify. The faith that justifies is faith informed by the virtue of agape, which at baptism is poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit (Rom 5:5), and by which we are immediately justified. When the Holy Spirit pours agape into our hearts, He is thereby infusing righteousness into our hearts. By growing in grace and agape, we grow in righteousness, and thus grow in justification."
and
"The doctrine of justification St. Irenaeus articulates is not the Protestant doctrine of justification by extra nosimputation of an alien righteous. Nor is it a doctrine of justification by a faith uninformed by agape. The faith by which man is justified, according to St. Irenaeus, is the living faith through which the law is written on the heart, and fulfilled in those who believe. Justification is by the infusion of righteousness, that is, the pouring out of agape into our hearts, because agape is the fulfillment of the law. This agape-informed-faith is counted [i.e. imputed] by God as righteousness, because it is righteousness. It is not a covering over persisting damnable wickedness, but a true cleansing of the heart, and freedom from sin, not merely freedom from the punishment for sin. Moreover, St. Irenaeus’s doctrine distinguishes between initial justification, and an increase in justification through acts of obedience done in agape and through participation in the Eucharist. In these respects St. Irenaeus’s doctrine of justification is in agreement with that taught by the Council of Trent, even though not as developed as that articulated by Trent".
above quotes found here: http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2012/07/st-irenaeus-on-justification/
below quote found here from comment 46 http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2009/10/a-reply-from-a-romery-person/
I should point out that Catholics do not reject forensic justification. In Catholic soteriology, God declares because He effects it. It is not a legal fiction, but a legal truth, because our hearts have been given agape at that very instant. The Protestant position (if I can speak of it as one position), is simul iustus et peccator, without a distinction between mortal and venial sin, i.e. without a distinction between those sins that destroy/remove agape from the soul, and those that do not.
http://www.ewtn.com/library/ANSWERS/JUSBYFAI.HTM
However this is a good one by Protestants on the difference that makes me need to study more:
http://www.presenttruthmag.com/archive/XX/20-8.htm
This following one is very interesting---discusses RC Sproul, Luther, Calvin, Augustine and Catholics:
http://www.etsjets.org/files/JETS-PDFs/47/47-1/47-1-pp089-120_JETS.pdf
ie from this article:
"Noting the distinction between the external Mosaic letter and the internal Spirit, Augustine
said, “So in the former case the law (lex) was placed on the outside, so that
the unrighteous would be terrified (qua iniusti terrerentur), but in the latter
case the law was given on the inside to be their justification (qua iustifi-
carentur).”
30[these numbers are footnotes]
Augustine added that those under the letter do not understand
this until “they pass over to Christ and the veil is taken away, that is until
they pass over to grace and understand that our justification (nobis iustificationem), by which we do what he commands (qua faciamus quod iubet),
comes from him (ab ipso esse).”
31
Our justification, according to Augustine,
is “given on the inside” and is “from him,” and finds its outward expression
in the “law,” in doing “what he commands.” Thus Augustine’s doctrine has
been characterized as “transformative,” as it begins in a work of grace that
renews us inwardly, and proceeds by grace moving us to keep the works of
the law outwardly................................2
Faith was crucial for Augustine, too, but
it was not alone in justifying, as its purpose was to do the works of love and
thus provide the basis of justification. Thus, we might say that what Augustine joined together in justification (i.e. faith and works), Luther forever
tore asunder.
33
On the importance of faith, Augustine taught that without faith “there is
lacking the good fruit that springs up from the root of love. But if faith that
works love is present (Gal 5:6), one begins to find delight in the law of God
in the interior being.”
34
Faith was important to Augustine for the very reason that it works the “good fruit” of love, so that good works could serve as
the basis for justification. In a later work, Augustine writes that the righteous live from “the faith which works through love, so that God gives themeternal life in accord with their works.”
35
In this framework, Augustine was aware of a tension between the gratuitous nature of a salvation that was by
faith and grace on the one hand and also considered the reward of works and love on the other, for he immediately adds:
From this there arises no small question which needs to be resolved by God’s
gift. For, if eternal life is given in return for good works, as Scripture says with
perfect clarity, God will repay each according to his works (Rom 2:6), how is
eternal life a grace since grace is not a repayment for works, but is given gratuitously. . . . It seems to me then that this question can only be resolved if we understand that our good works themselves for which eternal life is our recompense also pertain to the grace of God because of the Lord’s words, Without
me you can do nothing (Jn 15:5).
36
Thus we see how, for Augustinegrace, and love all function together
to bring eternal life. The biblical tension between faith and works that
Luther was so adamant to maintain in justification, Augustine located in
the pre-conversion state before justification (i.e. under the letter of the
law).
37
In the pre-conversion state the works of the law justify no one. But
as soon as one passes over to Christ, grace relieves the tension between
faith and works (by making justifying works the result of faith), and faith
not only believes in God’s grace to work love but also becomes active in love
in order to bring about justification.
38
In sum, grace pours in the love for
God so that faith is produced that then turns love into action. In this way,
God gives the righteous eternal life “in accord with their works.”
Thus, we see that Augustine’s doctrine of justification is not “by faith” in
the Reformation sense, but by the works of love produced by faith
......................Luther was not unaware of his position with regard to Augustine. He
was quoted in his Table Talk, dated from November of 1531:
It was Augustine’s view that the law, fulfilled by the powers of reason, does not
justify, even as works of the moral law do not justify the heathen, but that if
the Holy Spirit assists, the works of the law do justify. The question is not
whether the law or the works of reason justify, but whether the law, kept with
the Spirit’s help, justifies. I reply by saying No. . . . Works never give a peaceful heart.
58
[53
Thomas Aquinas would later say, “Man, by his will, does works meritorious of eternal life;
but as Augustine says . . . it is necessary that the will of man be prepared by God through grace”
(Summa Theologica 1, 2, 109.5). Thomas, following a development in Augustine’s doctrine, added
that man’s meritorious work considered in itself has only a congruous merit or relative worthiness
but inasmuch “as it proceeds from the grace of the Holy Spirit moving us to eternal life, it is meritorious of eternal life by condignity [i.e. an absolute or equivalent worthiness]” (ibid. 114.3).]
........................Luther contextually defines this justifying righteousness in terms of righteousness as gift as opposed to righteousness as standard. Thus he seems to be affirming Augustine’s teaching as
Christian insofar as Augustine explicated the nature of justifying righteousness as a gratuitous gift. Luther also located justifying righteousness in Christ extra nos (outside of us).62 This righteousness becomes ours, Luther said, by imputation.63 According to Heiko Oberman, Luther identified extranos as the heart of the gospel,64 and thus broke with the entire medievaltradition (not the via moderna only), which had taught that justifying righteousness was in nobis (inside of us).65 For this reason, Luther regarded themedieval papacy as losing Christ, though the true church and true Christians still persisted under it.66 What remains remarkable is that Luther seemed to regard Augustine’s doctrine as Christian even though Augustine did not clearly explain justifying righteousness as imputed either
........In summary, Luther and Calvin differed from Augustine primarily over
three issues: (1) the formal basis or cause of justification—the Reformers
maintained that the most immediate cause of justification is faith (fides), or
faith righteousness, not love (caritas);
74
(2) the nature of justifying righteousness—the Reformers held that righteousness is in Christ outside of us
(extra nos), and is not gracious merit produced in us (in nobis); it is imputed
from the outside, not imparted from within; and (3) how righteousness is appropriated—the Reformers contended that justifying righteousness is appropriated by faith alone (sola fide), not also by faith working love (fides
quae per caritatem operatur or the later Medieval formula fides caritate formata). These lead to different conceptions of how we are found acceptable to
God and worthy of eternal life. The Reformers tended to speak of justification as an instantaneous declaration of a righteous status (pronuntiari iustos) before God (coram Deo), not as being made righteous (iustum facere) by
an inpouring of love.
75
But these differences with Augustine did not move
Luther and Calvin to renounce him, though they do renounce the medieval
papacy and its theologians for holding the same set of beliefs.
7......................
Some might say that Augustine did explicitly reject the Reformation doctrine when he asserted, “We feel that we should advise the faithful that they would endanger the salvation of their
souls if they acted on the false assurance that faith alone is sufficient for salvation or that they
need not perform good works in order to be saved” (On Faith and Good Works no. 48, Ancient
Christian Writers [trans. Gregory Lombardo; ed. Walter Burghardt et al.; New York: Newman,
1988] 14, 21). But Augustine was dealing with an antinomian version of sola fide and thus his rejection does not directly touch the Reformation doctrine (1, 1, 2).........................................................................................................
. Sproul does not account
for this stream in the Reformers’ thought. Instead, Sproul’s scheme seems
to move sola fide from the category of the “saving” faith by which we believe
(fides qua creditur) into the category of the “saving” faith that is believed
(fides quae creditur). In this way, sola fide becomes an object of saving faith
rather than Christ alone. Sproul’s thesis sounds dissonant with the Reformers, because it requires a higher level of cognition than simple trust in the person and work of Christ. Thus Sproul’s understanding of the appropriation of justification may be characterized as intellectual and the Reformers’
doctrine as more existential.117[. Similarly, C. S. Lewis wrote, “A man can eat his dinner without
understanding exactly how food nourishes him. A man can accept what Christ has done without
knowing how it works” (Mere Christianity [New York: Macmillan, Collier, 1952, 1960] 58)]
[Timothy George warns in our day against those
who would “turn justification by faith alone into justification by doctrinal precision alone”]
a Protestant writes:
since grace and faith are given in Christ, the essential righteousness of the believer will remain extrinsic to him, even as Christ is really present within him, effecting daily conversion. "Christ without" is the ground of justification; "Christ within," the fruit of justification, and an evidence of vital union of the believer to Christ.29 here is the link http://www.the-highway.com/articleJan98.html
(The Relation of Faith to Justification)
Dr. Joel R. Beeke
a few quotes from this article that are helpful--the Protestant view:
Justification declares the sinner righteous and holy in Christ; sanctification makes the sinner righteous and holy as fruit from Christ. Justification removes the guilt of sin, having to do with the legal status; sanctification subdues the love and power of sin, having to do with spiritual condition. Justification restores to God's favor; sanctification restores His image. Justification is a complete and perfect act, a once-and-for-all act in its essence; sanctification is a progressive but in complete process, not perfected until death. Justification grants the redeemed the title for heaven and the boldness to enter; sanctification gives them the meetness for heaven and the preparation necessary to enjoy it. Justification gives the right of salvation; sanctification gives the beginning of salvation. By grace the justified are what they are in justification; by grace they work what they work in sanctification. Justification is the criminal pardoned; sanctification, the patient healed. The union of both constitutes present salvation, as John Angel James illustrates:
Conceive of a man in prison under sentence of death, and at the same time dangerously ill [with] jail fever. If the monarch pardon him, this is not enough for his safety and happiness, for he will die soon of his disease, unless it be cured. On the other hand, if the physician cure his disease, it is of little consequence unless the monarch give him a reprieve; for though he get well of his disorder, he must soon suffer the penalty of the law; but if he be both pardoned and cured, he will be completely saved.39
In a comment on another blog http://www.creedcodecult.com/oddly-enough-paul-echoed-jesus/ a guy named SS states:
I see this mistake repeated over and over: Rom 8:1 is not
“There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.”
but rather:
“There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. “
from comment 150 http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2009/04/st-paul-on-justification/ an answer to this first quote:
The same is with regard to justification. If justification is simply sanctification, then these two words become absolute synonyms, and there is no other reason than the style of the writer to use both at different times to communicate the same message.
First, the distinction of concept is not the same as a distinction of referent. The fact that the Morning Star is the Evening Star (i.e. Venus) does not mean that there is no reason to use both terms. Different aspects of the same act can correspond to different concepts and thus different terms. The concept of justification picks out being right with God, whereas the concept of sanctification picks out being holy and pure, dedicated to God or being indwelled by God. These two concepts can both refer to different aspects of what takes place in justification, but that does not entail that these are two separate divine acts.
from comment 177 herehttp://www.calledtocommunion.com/2009/12/justification-catholic-church-and-the-judaizers/
answering a question that is posed:
“Rome’s most obvious error, implicit in her false doctrine of justification, is the position of the works before and not after justification. There is no “minus” before works; that is good. But there are works before justification, and that is fatally bad. Works have become the foundation of justification. How so? Justification is by faith, says Rome, attempting to be loyal to Scripture. Faith is the radix or root of justification according to her Council of Trent. That means that true faith leads to good works (which is a correction of the antinomian error); but, alas, the good works become the title to etemal life.In other words, through Christ the believer is enabled to achieve his own justification. That teaching is absolutely false in two ways. First, it depreciates the perfection of the atonement. By insisting on our works as the title to justification, it denies it to Christ’s work alone.
It is not the case that our works prior to baptism are the “title” to justification. Repentance is a prerequisite for baptism, not a title to baptism. And baptism is the divinely established sacrament of regeneration and incorporation into the Church. Baptism is not a “title” to justification, but the very means by which the grace merited by Christ’s Passion is applied to us. So his “title” language sets up a straw man of Catholic teaching, because in no place does the Church teach that justification is owed to or merited by any man on account of his repentance and baptism; justification always remains a free gift.
Moreover, notice that Gerstner here uses philosophical reasoning to support monergism. If we cooperate in any way, claims Gerstner, it “depecreciates the perfection of atonement.” But then either we don’t believe, and we don’t repent, and we don’t “work out our salvation in fear and trembling,” or Gertner’s position is ad hoc, arbitrarily allowing some works not to “depreciate the perfection of the atonement” but insisting that others do. I have addressed this *philosophical* argument in “The Gospel and the Paradox of Glory.” The rest of the excerpt from Gerstner is built on these two mistakes.
Next, the Sproul quotation:
“Theologians say Roman Catholicism has an analytic view of justification because Rome teaches that we must have some kind of inherent righteousness in order to be justified. In this view, righteousness may be rooted in the grace of God, but the good works that flow from this grace are taken into account in the pronouncement of a righteous status. When discussing justification, a Roman Catholic basically says that “the righteous person is a righteous person.” God only declares people righteous when they have their own righteous deeds to show for it.”
It is not the case that “God only declares people righteous when they have their own righteous deeds to show for it,” because otherwise, baptized infants could not be righteous. But baptized infants are righteous, by the infusion of sanctifying grace and agape into their hearts through baptism. Moreover, God doesn’t have to “take into account” good works that flow from grace in order to determine the condition of a person’s heart. He sees the heart directly. So He knows, without taking into consideration a person’s works, whether that person is in a state of grace (i.e. justified), or in a state of mortal sin. The person who, in a state of grace, acts in love for God receives in reward a greater measure of love for God, and thus grows in justification. But again, God does not need to look at external deeds to see the measure of agape within a man’s heart. As for his statement, “a Roman Catholic basically says that the righteous person is a righteous person,” that is correct, as is his statement, “Rome teaches that we must have some kind of inherent righteousness in order to be justified.” A person who has no internal righteousness is not justified, because he does not have the infused gifts of sanctifying grace and agape, by which Christ makes us righteous.
I’ve put some comments below:
The problem with Rome’s view of justification is that they view it as a process, whereby we cooperate with God’s grace in order to merit eternal life for ourselves, and even for others (that is a paraphrase of what the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches).
Of course this claim conflates the distinction between justification-as-translation, and justification-as-increase, discussed and explained in “Justification: The Catholic Church and the Judaizers in St. Paul’s Letter to the Galatians.”
They view grace as a sort of “substance” that God infuses into us that permits us to do those works that are necessary in order that we might earn more grace.
No, grace is not a substance or a “sort of substance.” Sanctifying grace is a participation in the divine nature, as explained in “Lawrence Feingold on Sanctifying Grace and Actual Grace.”
The Bible describes grace as the loving and favorable disposition of God; in other words, grace is all about what God is doing and giving.
Grace is God’s favor, but also the gifts He gives because of that favor, as St. Thomas explains in Summa Theologica I-II Q.110.
We distinguish between the result of justification, which is the Christian life, and the work of God to save us. Rome mixes sanctification with justification. Why is this view troublesome? Because it teaches that something other than trust in Christ is necessary for or salvation. That “something other” is what we bring to the table. And the only thing we do bring to the table is our sin, not our good works. Our works are a response that God works in us, but not a contributing cause to our justification.
This conflates the distinction between justification-as-translation, and justification-as-increase, and thus sets up a straw man.
The Roman Catholic Church is very careful to state that even this “something other” is made possibly only because God has given us the “initial” grace to desire more grace. But in practical reality, it is apparent that the Roman Catholic Church is finally throwing people back on relying on what they are doing, or can do, to merit eternal life. When we mix in our works in the picture of our salvation, the glory and merit of Christ always end up becoming obscured.
This criticism presupposes that graced-works by the saints, done by participating in Christ working in them through the grace He merited for them, do not bring more glory to Christ than Christ doing everything entirely Himself. And that’s precisely one of the points in dispute between the Catholic and Protestant paradigms, as I explain in “The Gospel and the Paradox of Glory.”
But the Bible is clear that it is purely by grace, not by works, or else grace would just be a “help” for us to do the works that finally are what merit God’s forgiveness.
Not only does that conclusion not follow from that premise, but again McCain conflates the distinction between justification-as-translation, and justification-as-increase. We do not merit God’s forgiveness.
In the Roman Catholic view, justification is a process by which we participate with God in achieving our salvation. The Biblical view is that justification is God’s declaration of our complete righteousness and total forgiveness, apart from any works.
Again he conflates the distinction between justification-as-translation, and justification-as-increase.
This gift is received by faith alone–apart from works (Rom. 3:28; Eph. 2:8-9).
Except Scripture never says it is received “by faith alone.” That’s one of the things shown in the post at the top of this page.
The Roman Catholic Church continues to affirm the false doctrine that was made official church dogma during the 16th century Council of Trent. Here is one example: “If anyone says that justifying faith is nothing else than trust in divine mercy, which remits sins for Christ’s sake, or that it is this trust alone by which we are justified, let him be condemned.”
McCain *asserts* that this doctrine is false, but does not show that it is false. Justifying faith is not mere trust; it is living faith, which assents to what Christ has revealed, and is made alive by the infused supernatural virtue of agape poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit.
The newest edition of the Roman Catholic Catechism states: “We can merit for ourselves and for others the graces needed to attain eternal life.”
Here’s the full quotation: “No one can merit the initial grace which is at the origin of conversion. Moved by the Holy Spirit, we can merit for ourselves and for others all the graces needed to attain eternal life, as well as necessary temporal goods.” (CCC 2027) So McCain misrepresents the Catholic position, by leaving out the qualifier at the beginning of the sentence. We cannot merit anything when we are not in a state of grace. But when we are in a state of grace, we can merit an increase in grace, as the Church Fathers taught, as I explained in “The Doctrine of Merit: Feingold, Calvin, and the Church Fathers.”
According to Rome, grace is a spiritual power infused into man that makes it possible for him to do the good works that then merit forgiveness and eternal life.
Not forgiveness, unless he is speaking of venial sin, by those in a state of grace – in which case he is conflating the distinction between mortal and venial sin.
This view contradicts the Biblical doctrine of justification: A sinner is saved by God’s grace alone, for Christ’s sake alone, through faith alone.
Except the Bible never says that a sinner is “saved by God’s grace alone, for Christ’s sake alone, through faith alone.” Nor does McCain show where what the Catholic Church teaches “contradicts the Biblical doctrine of justification.” He merely asserts that it does.
For Rome, faith is not that “receiving hand” which God gives us in order that we may hold on to Christ, but rather a virtue given to man that receives the initial grace that makes possible man’s ability to merit more grace, etc. by means of the works that merit grace. It is a subtle form of the old error of Pelagius.
No, it is not. Pelagius denied the need for grace. The notion that any cooperation on the part of man is some form of Pelagianism simply begs the question by definitionally loading the notion of heresy into any position other than absolute monergism. Regarding the teaching of the Second Council of Orange that cooperation in salvation is not Pelagianism or Semipelagianism, see “Did the Council of Trent Contradict the Second Council of Orange?.”
Luther once said, “We can not pin our hope on anything that we are, think, say or do . . nor can our satisfaction be uncertain, for it consists not of the dubious sinful works which we do, but of the sufferings and blood of the innocent Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”
Our hope is not in our own sanctification, but in what Christ has revealed awaits us. That is the object of our hope. But hope and faith are not the same thing, and it is important not to conflate faith and hope. See comment #266 above, and comment #322 in the “Imputation and Paradigms” thread.
see this article http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2009/12/justification-catholic-church-and-the-judaizers/
must understand increased justification and the difference between it and justification as translation
The main issue here is, is justification infused or imputed.
Yes, you are right. I think our Lord's teaching in Matthew 7 gets emptied of all meaning in the Reformed system, or at the least requires a lot of mental gymnastics. If you interpret Romans and Galatians through what our Lord teaches (the New Kingdom and the end of the Old Temple with its customs, rites, laws, etc) then you get a coherent picture. I think to assume what is assumed in your post in Romans and Galatians does damage both to Jesus's mission and his teaching.
http://www.totustuus.com/Justification.pdf
an article at called to communion critique NT Wright's book is here http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2010/06/n-t-wright-biblicism-and-the-doctrine-of-justification/
1. The Catholic Church’s doctrine of justification is presented in terms of God’s forgiveness, actual renewal, and progressive transformation of human beings, whereby we are given to participate in the life of God (eternal life), thereby becoming what we cannot become by nature, that is, children of God and heirs of eternal life. [2] The decree of justification is an act of God whereby the merits of Jesus Christ, sanctifying grace, and charity are communicated to sinners, who are thereby made just. This infused charity fulfills the righteous demands of the law, being “poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit” (Romans 5:5), in union with Christ, who has made complete satisfaction to the Father for our sins. In concise, theological terms, the Catholic Church teaches that regeneration, sanctification, and incorporation into the Body of Christ are essential aspects of justification, such that the latter cannot be defined in legal, extrinsic, and individualistic terms alone. [3] The rationale for this realist understanding of justification is as follows: God speaks only truth. His speech is not merely constitutive (in the legal sense), it is creative (in the ontological sense). Justification is analogous to creation in that God’s word makes something (righteousness) where before there was nothing (unrighteousness). God justifies the ungodly by re-creating them in Christ. This particular speech-act, justification, considered as a categorical proposition (X is Y), has an obvious and appropriate term in one who by that very act has been made just. The infused gifts of sanctifying grace and the theological virtues (faith, hope, and love) render it completely unnecessary to relegate the predicate “just” to something extrinsic to the justified. Justification has both legal (acquittal) and ontological (renewal) aspects, which are complementary. In the language of Sacred Scripture, we are justified by faith in Christ; in him, we become the righteousness of God. Our past sins have been washed away and forgiven; all things have become new.
2. Reformed Protestantism has traditionally denied that regeneration, sanctification, and any other change in the sinner which actually heals his sinful condition is included in the gift of justification. [4] Rather, Protestants have defined justification as an exclusively legal action, which, although referring to man, nevertheless does not correspond to or change anything in man. Instead, God the Father declares that an unrighteous individual is righteous, and therefore acquits this individual of all charges of wrongdoing. This declaration is not considered to be unjust, however, precisely because Jesus Christ has become the sinner’s substitute, such that Jesus, an innocent and righteous man, was made the object of divine wrath against man’s sins, rather than the actually guilty parties. God the Father imputed our sins to his Son, and then waged retribution against him, thereby discharging himself of the obligation to punish sinners. [5] The actual righteousness of the Son, in turn, is imputed to elect sinners, whereby they are, in a legal and extrinsic sense, reconciled to God. In view of these arrangements, God overlooks their actual, sinful condition. The actual renewal of sinners, whereby we are cleansed and given to participate in the divine life, having the love of God poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, is considered to form no part whatsoever of justification. The rationale for this nominalist understanding of justification is as follows: The Greek verb form, dikaiow (“justify”), is often used in courtroom or other legal, contract and/or covenant-making settings. It is therefore appropriate to understand the speech-act of justification in a legal (constitutive) sense, to the exclusion of a real or ontological (creative) sense. A judge’s declaration does not cause an ontological change in the defendant, and that declaration can be legally binding even if it does not correspond to the defendant’s actual condition. Furthermore, it is supposed that God’s declaration of justification simply cannot refer to the defendant’s actual condition, since in this life no one except Christ is actually righteous. [6]
go to the link to see what is said about NT wrights view
from http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2010/07/st-augustine-on-law-and-grace/#conclusion
What St. Augustine says here about the relation of grace and law could not be preached today in PCA or OPC congregations; they would consider it heretical for allegedly confusing law and gospel. But St. Augustine’s account of the relation of grace and law is fully compatible if not organically identical with what we find in the Catholic Catechism. Consider again the difference between the Catholic and Reformed positions, as I summarized them at the beginning of this post. According to Reformed theology, justification is by God’s extra nos imputation of the obedience of Christ. By contrast, for St. Augustine, justification is by the infusion of grace and the theological virtues of faith, hope, and particularly agape. In Reformed theology, because of its notion of justification by imputed righteousness, being under grace means that our justification (or condemnation) does not depend on our law-keeping. Even though we grievously sin against all God’s commands and never keep any of them, God imputes to our account the obedience of Christ in our place, so that before Him we are as though we had never sinned. All we have to do is accept this gift with a believing heart.4 According to this position, our good works, even under grace, are “imperfect and stained with sin.”5 Even under grace “there is no sin so small, but it deserves damnation,”6 and even the most holy among us sin daily in thought, word, and deed. But God demands an entirely perfect righteousness, which only Christ has. Therefore, we can be saved only by the extra nos imputation of Christ’s righteousness. The Belgic Confession reads:
Therefore to say that Christ is not enough but that something else is needed as well is a most enormous blasphemy against God — for it would then follow that Jesus Christ is only half a Savior. And therefore we justly say with Paul that we are justified by faith alone or by faith apart from works.
That conclusion does not follow, because the Confession goes on to acknowledge that faith is necessary. And conceding the need for faith does not constitute a blasphemy against God. So the question concerns the means by which the grace of Christ is communicated to us, what are the senses in which we attain Christ (both in this life and the next) and how we are to attain Christ. But the quotation indicates the reasoning underlying the Reformed notion that our justification is by faith alone, and through the extra nos imputation of Christ’s obedience.
By contrast, for St. Augustine (and the Catholic Church), being under grace does not mean that our justification (or condemnation) does not depend on our law-keeping. Rather, being under grace means having received grace from God into our hearts, and the infused virtues of faith, hope, and agape such that with this divine help we are enabled to keep the law, it being written on our hearts. This is what it means to walk in the newness of the Spirit. For St. Augustine, by the gift of infused grace and agape, the law is fulfilled in us, because agape fulfills the law. By grace we are enabled to love the law, and not be hearers only, but doers of the law. Grace does not take away our obligation to fulfill the law; it does not mean that Christ fulfills the law so that we do not have to do so. Rather, grace enables to us to keep the law, and so truly fulfill the law, not by extra nos imputation nor, like Pelagius, by ourselves without grace, but through grace by God working in us to will and to do what is pleasing in His sight, i.e. living in accordance with His royal law. The Reformed conception of grace is in this respect a weaker conception of grace, because such grace is unable to make us capable of fulfilling the law. But St. Augustine’s (and the Catholic Church’s) doctrine of grace is a more powerful or higher view of grace, because for St. Augustin grace is the power of God in us enabling us to keep the law and so be truly well-pleasing in His sight.
This overview of St. Augustine’s soteriology indicates that Benjamin Warfield was mistaken when he claimed that the Reformation was the triumph of Augustine’s soteriology over his ecclesiology. The early Protestants not only departed from St. Augustine’s ecclesiology, but also from his soteriology.
- There are objections to this Reformed doctrine of imputation. I cannot address them in this post, but roughly they go like this. If at the moment of imputation nothing is actually transferred from Christ to me, and from me to Christ, but rather, God merely no longer sees things as they actually are, i.e. He stops seeing Christ as righteous and me as guilty, and starts seeing Christ as guilty and me as righteous (even though in actuality nothing in Christ or me has changed), then there is no difference between ‘real imputation’ and imputation as legal fiction. In other words, if extra nos imputation were simply a legal fiction, there would be nothing different about it. Another objection goes like this. My account before God is an account of my heart. Because God is omniscient and Truth, He cannot lie or be deceived. Whatever He speaks is true. So if my heart is evil, then my account before God must be that my heart is evil. God cannot call what is evil good, without changing it from evil to good, lest He be a liar. Likewise, if Christ’s heart is good, then His account before God must be that His heart is good. God cannot without lying say that Christ’s account is evil, when Christ’s heart is good, without making Christ’s heart evil. So if at the moment of extra nos imputation nothing changes in me, and nothing changes in Christ, then when God changes my account from evil to good, but without changing my heart from evil to good, this entails that God is lying about me. Likewise, when God changes Christ’s account from good to evil, without changing Christ’s heart from good to evil, this entails that God is lying about Christ. But God cannot lie. Therefore extra nos imputation is impossible. [↩]
and from here http://pontifications.wordpress.com/justification-ii/
In 1986 the Anglican Roman Catholic International Commission released a common statement on justification: Salvation and the Church. The document witnesses to the conviction of the commission members that an authentic convergence of belief between Anglicans and Catholics is indeed possible on the question of justification. They key to this convergence is the mutual recognition of the effective and recreative power of the justifying word:
Justification and sanctification are two aspects of the same divine act (1 Cor 6:11). This does not mean that justification is a reward for faith or works: rather, when God promises the removal of our condemnation and gives us a new standing before him, this justification is indissolubly linked with his sanctifying recreation of us in grace. This transformation is being worked out in the course of our pilgrimage, despite the imperfections and ambiguities of our lives. God’s grace effects what he declares: his creative word imparts what it imputes. By pronouncing us righteous, God also makes us righteous. He imparts a righteousness which is his and becomes ours. (par 15)
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 and without agape. 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, without His grace, acted first toward Him as our supernatural end.) But our privation of the life of God does not require that we must be “regenerated” before we freely move toward Him. Catholic doctrine makes 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.
see http://www.ewtn.com/library/ANSWERS/JUSTIF.HTM
see also where Kreft retracts
see http://www.ewtn.com/library/ANSWERS/JUSTIF.HTM
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