imputation or infusion

http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2012/08/imputation-and-paradigms-a-reply-to-nicholas-batzig/#comment-36209
here is part from the above link: 

First, Catholics believe in imputation. God forgives our sins, and in that sense does not impute our sins. (Rom 4:8) God also imputes righteousness to us (Rom 4:5), by counting as righteousness the living faith He has given us, by which we truly are righteous. From a Catholic point of view, the problem is not imputation per se, but the extra nos conception of imputation, which, from a Catholic point of view makes God out to be either a liar or self-deceived.

Lane claims that the Protestant doctrine of imputation does not assume the list-paradigm. But, here’s why it does. If agape were recognized as the fulfillment of the law, there would be no need for extra nos imputation. God would count us as righteous because we are (by His doing) truly internally righteous. So in this way, the need for extra nos imputation depends on the list-paradigm notion thatagape is not the fulfillment of the law.

Lane writes:

In looking at the comments, there are a couple more things necessary to say. Firstly, though this is indeed debated in Protestantism, I would disagree with Cross’s claim that Protestants do not believe that a person can be truly righteous internally. … This does not mean that we are ever perfect. Perfection is for eternity. However, it does mean that we can be really righteous internally, the imperfection also being covered by the blood of the Lamb.

Lane claims that in this present life we can be internally righteous, but not internally perfect. That would make perfection a higher standard than righteousness, and would make righteousness itself imperfect. I have explained in the comments above a way in which Catholic doctrine understands righteousness to be in the will, even while concupiscence and vices remain in other powers of the soul. If that is what Lane too is saying (regarding this distinction between being truly righteous internally, and being perfect internally) then our respective positions are closer than might initially appear. However, if Lane is saying that that within us by which God judges us to be righteous is at the same time imperfect, or that that within us by which God judges us to be perfect is at the same time unrighteous, then his position is both theologically and philosophically problematic, because it entails either two ultimate standards, or the worthlessness of perfect righteousness.

Lane then adds

Cross’s claim that when Paul uses Abraham as a paradigm for believers in Romans 4 and Galatians 3, that it was not in every respect that Abraham was a paradigm is an evasion. The particular aspect in which Abraham is a paradigm is with regard to imputed righteousness apart from any aspect of his own law-keeping and apart from any ceremony or sacrament! This is explicitly true in Romans 4:11

Merely asserting that what I said is “an evasion” does not show it to be false. Likewise, merely asserting that the particular aspect in which Abraham is an example is with respect to [extra nos] imputed righteousness is question-begging, in that Lane presupposes that the imputation going on in Gen 15:6 is extra nos imputation, and not imputation by way of infused living faith. Nothing about Romans 4:11 is incompatible with the Catholic doctrine, as was explained in the comments above.

Lastly, Lane claims that Abraham was justified only once, and that it took place at the time recorded in Gen 15:6. He writes:

Secondly, Abraham was not reckoned righteous before God in the justificatory sense more than once. … So, in Abraham’s case, he was declared to be justified in Genesis 15.

The purpose of my post was not about demonstrating how many times Abraham was justified or when he was justified. So this is a bit of a rabbit trail. But it is worth considering. In Reformed theology, the unjustified person is said to be dead in sin, bereft of faith, hope, agape, living only in sin, having “wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation,” and “being altogether averse from that good.” (WCF IX.3) In Reformed theology, unregenerate man is “utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil.” (WCF VI.4)

However, that’s not the picture we get of the man Scripture calls ‘Abram’ in Genesis chapters 12-14. Scripture says in Gen. 12:1-4 that God spoke to Abram and that Abram obeyed the Lord’s call to leave Ur. Then the Lord appeared to him at the oak of Moreh, and said, “To your descendants I will give this land.” How did Abram respond? “So he built an altar there to the LORD who had appeared to him.” (Gen 12:7) The verse doesn’t say that he worshipped the Lord there, but in the context (as shown below) we can presume that he did. (Why else does one build an altar to the LORD?) Abram’s worshipful response to God’s promise is one of trust in the Lord’s promise, just as he responded to God’s promise in Gen 15:6.

Then in Gen 12:8, on the mountain east of Bethel, Abram “built an altar to the LORD and called upon the name of the LORD.” Is this really the picture of a man dead in trespasses and sins, “utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good”? How is a man who is completely dead in trespasses and sins responding to the Lord’s promises by building altars to Him, and calling upon His Name? Was Abram faking it, merely pretending to worship God, while actually hating God in his heart? There is no sign at all in the text of such a thing.

Then in Gen 13:4 Abram returns to the altar on the mountain east of Bethel, and there again he calls on the name of the LORD. That’s not the behavior of one dead in sins. Ten verses later God speaks to Abram again in Gen 13:14-17, promising him and his descendants the land. Abram accepts God’s promise, and moves to Hebron, letting Lot have the seemingly better land. Does a man dead in trespasses and sins trust God’s word in this way?

Then in Gen 14, Melchizedek says, “Blessed be Abram of God Most High.” Melchizedek was not merely saying that Abram was one more piece of God’s property, as are trees and flowers and birds. Abram was “of God” in the sense that he was a man of faith, a friend of God. Abram then participates in a proto-typical Eucharist, receiving the bread and wine from the priest Melchizedek. Should we think that the proto-typical Eucharistic event involves the reception of this prefigurement of the sacrament by an unregenerate man dead in sins? Then Abram, this man allegedly dead in sin, with no faith and noagape, pays a tithe to Melchizedek, “the priest of God Most High.” Abram then reveals that he has made an oath to God, and keeps his oath. (Gen 14:22) Should paying his tithe to the Lord, and keeping his oath to God be construed as the activity of one dead in sins and at enmity with God, “utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good”? Which is more difficult to believe, that Abram is only faking love for God in all this, or that he is in fact a man of faith? On top of that, Hebrews 11:8 tells us that “By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was going.” So Scripture itself explicitly states that Abraham left Ur by faith. If justification is a once-in-a-lifetime event, and faith is sufficient for justification, then Abraham was already justified when he left Ur, and thus couldn’t have been justified by the act of faith described in Gen 15.

end of quote
so

"First, Catholics believe in imputation. God forgives our sins, and in that sense does not impute our sins. (Rom 4:8) God also imputes righteousness to us (Rom 4:5), by counting as righteousness the living faith He has given us, by which we truly are righteous. From a Catholic point of view, the problem is not imputation per se, but the extra nos conception of imputation, which, from a Catholic point of view makes God out to be either a liar or self-deceived. "

"In justification God does not impute our sins to us, because they are covered by the satisfactory sacrifice of Christ, as explained above. And He imputes righteousness to us by counting infused living faith as righteousness, because, as explained above, the agape that is true righteousness is intrinsic to living faith."
  above from comment 71 By Bryan here  http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2013/01/holy-church-finding-jesus-as-a-reverted-catholic-a-testimonial-response-to-chris-castaldo/#comment-47012

1. http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2012/09/i-fought-the-church-and-the-church-won/#comment-38720 from comment 362 Jason Stillman
   The actual issue was the fact that I began to realize that the Reformed doctrine of imputation, in addition to being biblically attested to only in the most thin and sketchy sense, was rendered unnecessary once the New Covenant is truly understood. If the law of the Spirit frees us from the law of sin by internally inscribing the law, thus fulfilling in us the righteous requirement of the law (Rom. 8:1-4), then there is simply no need for the imputation of alien righteousness for the purpose of forensic acquittal in a law court.
   So I maintain my prior Reformed orthodoxy in that I was trying to keep justification distinct from sanctification ......The problem was that Reformed theology, by insisting on extra nos imputation ..... makes the New Covenant an afterthought, while insisting on the spiritual dynamic of the New Covenant makes imputation unnecessary.

see also the difference between imputation and extra nos imputation: http://nannykim-catholicconsiderations.blogspot.com/2012/08/explanation-of-why-external-imputation.html

http://www.devinrose.heroicvirtuecreations.com/blog/2012/06/12/a-study-on-imputation-of-righteousness/here  This is a very interesting article on this subject. The quotes by ladd and D.A. Carson are are very interesting because Romans 4 doesn't say Christ's righteousness is imputed to us. It says  a peron's '"faith is reckoned as righteousness"

also: Rom 4:5 : http://catholicnick.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-second-most-important-passage-in.html

and II Cor 5: 21: http://catholicnick.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-third-most-important-passage-in.html


comment 217
http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2012/08/imputation-and-paradigms-a-reply-to-nicholas-batzig/  shows how different views on righteousness effect this see also the next two videos: here

below from http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2010/07/st-augustine-on-law-and-grace/

What does it mean that God does not impute sin? A man who is truly contrite and repentant has living faith and therefore, because he seeks mercy and grace from God, God gives him mercy, not counting his past sins against him. Faith is not proud before God, but humble before God, seeking mercy. And therefore to the one seeking mercy, mercy is shown. By grace God does not treat us as our sins deserve, but grants to us the agape whereby we are made righteous.

 
Above is the Catholic view and below the reformed Protestant view





Below is another view of a different kind of Protestant


Here is more on the Catholic view of infusion: http://vivacatholic.wordpress.com/2009/02/17/infused-righteousness-versus-imputed-righteousness-which-one-entitles-us-to-enter-heaven/

One against the RC view: http://www.presenttruthmag.com/archive/XX/20-8.htm

One for the RC view and against RC Sproul junior:http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2011/05/imputation-and-infusion-a-reply-to-r-c-sproul-jr/

a quote from:http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2009/06/augustinian-soteriolog/

Alister McGrath:

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

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

I wrote the following in a discussion online:

I suppose you and M......(51) are both correct. I think M... was answering my direct question which was related to the fact that imputation from the Protestant perspective does not produce an internal change in the believer. I just checked with Berkhof and he does state, basically, what Michael did concerning this subject of inner change. Berkhof says (page 512),

With respect to the nature of justification the Reformers corrected the error of confounding justification with sanctification by stressing its legal character and representing it as an act of God’s free grace, whereby He pardons our sins and accepts us as righteous in His sight, but does not change us inwardly.

Berkhof adds to this on page 513,

Justification is a judicial act of God, in which He declares, on the basis of the righteousness of Jesus Christ, that all the claims of the law are satisfied with respect to the sinner. It is unique in the application of the work of redemption in that it is a judicial act of God, a declaration respecting the sinner, and not an act or process of renewal, such as regeneration, conversion, and sanctification. While it has respect to the sinner, it does not change his inner life. It does not affect his condition, but his state, and in that respect differs from all the other principal parts of the order of salvation.

Berkhof later sates on the top of page 514,

In distinction from it [justification]sanctification is a continuous process, which is never completed in this life.

Therefore the imputation [which justification is concerned with] does nothing to change the inner life according to Berkhof. It does not change the man’s condition , but his state.

My question to Michael was also dealing with the subject of what it means to be partakers of the divine nature and how or whether this differed from imputation of Christ’s righteousness. Perhaps some of the differences are in regard to what Berkhof calls ”man’s condition” and man’s “state”. The aspect of being partakers of the divine nature would be in regards to man’s condition, I suppose?. I think I find the Protestant’s way of separating these things strange. Salvation has to include regeneration, conversion, sanctification, yet as Berkhof shows , the Protestants [Reformed ones] separate these things from Justification. As you have stated , these things basically will necessarily follow according to the views of the Reformed. I understand. The Catholic view seems to gather in the whole work of salvation and the Reformed view seems to splinter it.[In my opinion].

I do find it interesting that Berkhof on page 511 says that the doctrine of justification by faith “did not find its classical expression until the days of the reformation”.

Then CL responded to me here in comment 68 http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2012/11/how-the-church-won-an-interview-with-jason-stellman/#comment-40023

In reading your comment, with the excerpts from Berkhof, I may have found a more precise way to state what I was trying to say earlier. It is definitely true that, in the Reformed understanding, imputation, in and of itself, produces no internal change in the believer. Imputation is God crediting of Christ’s perfect righteousness to the believer, and this crediting has to do with how God chooses to *view* the believer (i.e. as having the righteousness of Christ.

However, the internal change, in a sense, has already come (again, in the Reformed understanding) with *regeneration*, which precedes and causes faith, through which comes justification. Because of one’s God-enabled faith alone in Christ alone (in the specific way that the Reformed understand this matter), one is justified, and God imputes the perfect righteousness of Christ to oneself. Again, Berkhof states the Reformed view correctly in saying that this imputation produces no internal change in the believer. The internal change actually comes *before* imputation, with God’s regeneration of the believer, which the Reformed understand to be monergistic. The internal change then continues through sanctification, which historic Reformed Protestantism (in my understanding, at least) holds to be synergistic.

I agree with you completely that the historic Reformed view separates the various aspects of salvation in a way that the Catholic Church’s teaching does not– and I agree that the Reformed view separates certain of these aspects in a strange and unnecessary way. As a Protestant, obviously, I viewed the separation between justification and sanctification to be at the very heart of the Gospel. However, when I made the conscious choice to re-study the Bible without my “Reformed lenses,” I began to see this sharp Reformed distinction between justification and sanctification as a matter of Reformed *eisegesis*, rather than exegesis. While we cannot be justified by works alone, neither can we be justified by a “faith alone,” even in Christ alone, that is devoid of works.

The interesting thing is, Reformed Christians would actually *agree* with Catholic Christians that a professed “faith alone,” without works, does not save. However, the Reformed would say that such a faith is simply not Christian faith at all, whereas Catholics would say that it could still be “Christian faith,” in some sense, but that even a fervently professed Christian faith, without works, will not justify anyone before God and does not save him/her.

It’s tragic, really. The historic Reformed view (following Calvin, especially) on justification and works/sanctification has much more in common with the Catholic Church’s teaching than many Reformed people seem to realize– and yet, many Reformed Protestants continue to say that the Catholic Church does not have “the Biblical Gospel.” I made that claim myself as a Reformed Baptist. From my standpoint now though, as a Catholic “revert,” we Catholics are simply following the words of Jesus, and St. Paul, and St. James on justification and works– *as* those words are rightly understood, as they have been taught by the Church for 2,000 years from Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition.

The Protestant Reformation introduced sharp theological distinctions in a salvific process that had not been understood, nor taught, for the previous 1, 500 years of Christianity. Or, as you wrote:

I do find it interesting that Berkhof on page 511 says that the doctrine of justification by faith “did not find its classical expression until the days of the reformation”.

from comment 98 here http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2012/11/how-the-church-won-an-interview-with-jason-stellman/#comment-40088

It might be helpful, towards appreciating the sufficiency of sanctifying grace with infused charity, to consider what is supposed to be the most important “negative” benefit of the extra nosimputation of the alien righteous of Christ: Without this kind of imputation all men would be condemned to Hell, which is the eternal penalty for not fulfilling the law. In Catholic theology, on the other hand, sanctifying grace with infused charity is sufficient for the negative benefit of not being condemned to Hell, apart from extra nos imputation of alien righteousness, apart from any additional graces (such as are made available by indulgences and pilgrimages), and even with venial sins.

from comment 102

Rather, I wanted to point out that, in Catholic theology, sanctifying grace with infused charity is sufficient for salvation from Hell, even if the person who has inherent grace and charity also has venial sins, and so is temporarily prevented from entering Heaven.

...........Your question in comment #22 might be problematic for the thesis that “infused agape fulfills the law (venial sins notwithstanding) and so renders extra nos imputation redundant” if the benefit of fulfilling the law had only a positive aspect (going to Heaven) and not also a negative one (being saved from Hell). But if we agree that being saved from Hell is a benefit of fulfilling the law, then it is no telling criticism of the aforementioned thesis to point out that, for Catholic theology, merely having infused agape (with the presence of venial sin) is not sufficient for entering Heaven. One needs to also show that, for Catholic theology, infused agape (with the presence of venial sin) is not sufficient for avoiding Hell.

from here 156 http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2012/08/imputation-and-paradigms-a-reply-to-nicholas-batzig/comment-page-4/#comment-36289

Regarding justification the Council of Trent taught the following:

the single formal cause is the justice of God, not that by which He Himself is just, but that by which He makes us just, that, namely, with which we being endowed by Him, are renewed in the spirit of our mind,[36] and not only are we reputed but we are truly called and are just, receiving justice within us, each one according to his own measure, which the Holy Ghost distributes to everyone as He wills,[37] and according to each one’s disposition and cooperation. (Council of Trent, Session Six, chapter 7)

Notice first that there is only one formal cause of justification, not two. This is restated in Canon 10 of that same session:

CANON X.-If any one saith, that men are just without the justice of Christ, whereby He merited for us to be justified; or that it is by that justice itself that they are formally just; let him be anathema.

The first part of the canon anathematizes the claim that any man is justified without the justice of Christ by which He merited for us to be justified. That’s talking about the obedience of Christ in His human will, and the meriting is referring to the way in which Christ through His human will made atonement, by giving to the Father in loving sacrificial obedience that which is more pleasing than all our sins, such that we can be forgiven and made righteous by the gifts of sanctifying grace and infused agape (see “Catholic and Reformed Conceptions of the Atonement“).
The second part of canon 10 is anathematizing the claim that the formal justice of the redeemed is Christ’s obedience. It is anathematizing the claim that our righteousness is Christ’s obedience [in His human will] imputed [extra nos] to us.
Now look back at chapter 7 of Session Six, to the section I quoted at the very beginning of this comment. It says, “the single formal cause is the justice of God, not that by which He Himself is just, but that by which He makes us just.” What is being referred to there (in “that by which He makes us just”) is infused agape, as becomes evident from the rest of the paragraph. And this single formal cause is “not that by which He Himself is just,” which rules out it being either God Himself or the obedience of Christ’s human will.
As I explained in the comments above, infused agape is a participation in the divine nature. And participations are created, and thus not God Himself, as I explained in the second paragraph of comment #7 in the “A Reply to R.C. Sproul Regarding the Catholic Doctrines of Original Sin and and Free Will” thread. But even though participations are created, when the participation is a participation in the divine nature, that in which the creature is participating is uncreated. So Christ is our righteousness in these two ways, by meriting for us the gifts of sanctifying grace and agape, and by being the righteousness in which we participate by infused agape. But according to Trent, Christ’s obedience is not imputed [extra nos] to us.
You wrote:

If Catholics would concede that there is imputation of righteousness

There is an imputation of righteousness. As I said in commment #140, “God also imputes righteousness to us (Rom 4:5), by counting as righteousness the living faith He has given us, by which we truly are righteous.” You seem to be assuming that the only kind of imputation is extra nos. But in the Catholic paradigm God counts or reckons us righteous by making us actually righteous, so that His counting/reckoning is true (since God is the Truth and cannot lie).

and found here  http://pontifications.wordpress.com/justification/  found in the Sept 13 section

 “The grace of Christ,” the Catholic Catechism tells us, “is the gratuitous gift that God makes to us of his own life, infused by the Holy Spirit into our soul to heal it of sin and to sanctify it. It is the sanctifying or deifying grace received in Baptism. It is in us the source of the work of sanctification.” At no point, according to the Catholic Church, can justification be understood as sinful man pulling himself up by his bootstraps; nor can it be understood as man earning his way into heaven by his good works; nor can it even be understood as a team effort, with God doing his part (perhaps a big part) and man doing his part (perhaps just a little bitty part). The work of justification is God’s work. God justifies man by graciously incorporating him through Baptism into his Trinitarian life and making him a new creation by the Holy Spirit.

from comment 450 here http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2012/08/imputation-and-paradigms-a-reply-to-nicholas-batzig  --

 Extra nos means outside of us; “infused” means poured into us. Extra nos is not about the source or origin of the righteous, but about where it is in relation to us. Extra nos imputation means that the righteousness is outside of us, and not within us. That’s how it differs from the Catholic conception of imputation, which is not extra nos. (See comment #140 above, where I explain the Catholic conception of imputation, which is not extra nos.)

see also http://catholicnick.blogspot.com/2014/09/is-imputation-taught-in-2-corinthians.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NicksCatholicBlog+%28NICK%27S+CATHOLIC+BLOG%29
for example from this link: 

The Church Fathers whom I was able to find commenting on 2 Corinthians 5:21 formed a general consensus on what “made sin” referred to. Consider: 

Augustine: "on account of the likeness of sinful flesh in which He came, He was called sin" (Enchiridion, Ch41)

Augustine: "For God made Christ Himself to be sin for us, on account of the likeness of sinful flesh, that we may be made the righteousness of God in Him." (Commentary on Psalm 119, Ain, Section 122)

Gregory Nyssa: "He made Him to be sin for us, Who knew no sin,” giving once more the name of “sin” to the flesh." (Against Eunomius, Book 6, Section 1)

Gregory of Nazianzen: "And so the passage, The Word was made Flesh, seems to me to be equivalent to that in which it is said that He was made sin." (Letter To Cledonius [Epistle CI])

Hilary: “To condemn sin through sin in the flesh, He Who knew no sin was Himself made sin; that is, by means of the flesh to condemn sin in the flesh, He became flesh on our behalf but knew not flesh” (On the Trinity, Book 10, Section 47)

Ambrose: “Christ is said to have been made, but of a woman; that is, He was “made” as regards his birth from a Virgin … He Who in his flesh bore our flesh, in His body bore our infirmities and our curses … So it is written elsewhere: Who knew no sin, but was made sin for us” (Against Auxentius, Section 25)

Pope Leo the Great: "When the evangelist says, “The Word became flesh and dwelt in us,” and the Apostle, “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself,” it was shown that the Only-begotten of the Most High Father entered on such a union with human humility, that, when He took the substance of our flesh and soul, He remained one and the same Son of God." (Sermon LXIII.1)

The 'consensus' among the Fathers on the meaning of "made sin" in 2 Corinthians 5:21is that it refers to "the Word was made flesh," the Son becoming Incarnate, which is also why they also linked 2 Corinthians 5:21 directly to Romans 8:3, "By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh." Using the principle of Scripture-interprets-Scripture, that's what "made sin" means, and it's not hard to see.

But there is a 'bonus' here that need not be ignored either, and that is the words "andfor sin" which immediately follows is the Greek phrase peri hamartias (περὶ ἁμαρτίας), the very phrase mentioned earlier, which does indeed refer to "sin offering"! So both realities, Incarnation and sin offering, are certainly present, even if the Incarnation is the more central.