Explanation of Why external imputation (extra nos) is seen as fiction

Explanation of Why external imputation (extra nos) is seen as fiction

But why then is the non-imputation, i.e. the forgivness of sin, not a legal fiction as well? From the Catholic point of view God forgives our sins based on the atoning death of Christ on the cross, right? If the non-imputation can be based on the merit of a sacrifical deed of another without it being a legal fiction, why then can’t the merit of the righteous life of another be credited to our account?

St. Thomas Aquinas explains:

[B]y sinning a man offends God as stated above (Question 71, Article 5). Now an offense is remitted to anyone, only when the soul of the offender is at peace with the offended. Hence sin is remitted to us, when God is at peace with us, and this peace consists in the love whereby God loves us. Now God’s love, considered on the part of the Divine act, is eternal and unchangeable; whereas, as regards the effect it imprints on us, it is sometimes interrupted, inasmuch as we sometimes fall short of it and once more require it. Now the effect of the Divine love in us, which is taken away by sin, is grace, whereby a man is made worthy of eternal life, from which sin shuts him out. Hence we could not conceive the remission of guilt, without the infusion of grace. (Summa Theologica I-II Q.113 a.2)

Forgiveness of sin requires the infusion of grace and agape, whereby the soul of the offender is made to be at peace with God. Sin creates a debt of punishment. If a person is still in sin, then He is still contributing to the debt. That is why God cannot declare him to be debt-free, so long as he is continuing to add to the debt. The person must no longer be contributing to the debt, in order to be forgiven. Hence the requirement of repentance for forgiveness.

When by the grace of God a person repents and receives sanctifying grace and agape, God, by cancelling the debt of punishment for those sins is not merely calling him something he is not. Our debt is something relational, a debt owed to God. He can therefore cancel it, because it is owed to Him. By contrast extra nos imputation of the obedience of Christ involves calling a person righteous while that person remains actually unrighteous, and that is contrary to truth. So what makes the two cases different is that debt is by its very nature relational, whereas righteousness is by its very nature intrinsic. That’s why calling something righteous while it remains unrighteous is contrary to the truth, whereas forgiving someone actually cancels the debt he owes, such that then calling him ‘forgiven’ then corresponds to reality, and is thus not contrary to the truth. 

from comment 157 http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2012/08/imputation-and-paradigms-a-reply-to-nicholas-batzig/

also here below is a quote from comment 230 found here:  http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2012/09/i-fought-the-church-and-the-church-won/comment-page-5/#comment-38522

" You wrote:

I simply wanted to demonstrate that some of the early fathers (and not just Chrysostom) did teach justification by faith and imputed righteousness.

Of course the Church Fathers teach justification by faith and imputed righteousness. What they mean by those terms, however, is not what Protestants mean. What they mean is what Catholics have always meant by those terms. To read into them a Protestant conception of the terms is anachronistic and inaccurate.

In the Fathers, the term ‘faith’ in “justification by faith” refers to living faith, i.e. faith informed by the virtue of agape. In that respect, their doctrine of justification of faith is incompatible with the Protestant notion of sola fide. That is why Pope Benedict can, while remaining true to Trent and Orange and the Tradition on justification, affirm justification by faith. See “Does the Bible Teach Sola Fide?.” Moreover, the Church Fathers’ belief that justification is by faith has to be understood sacramentally, because universally they believed that regeneration and living faith come through the sacrament of baptism (see “The Church Fathers on Baptismal Regeneration.”)

Regarding “imputed righteousness,” see the paragraph that begins “First, Catholics believe in imputation” in comment #140 in the “Imputation and Paradigms” thread. Yes the Church Fathers believed in imputed righteousness, as do Catholics. But they did not believe in extra nos imputation. So it would be misleading (not that you were intending to mislead) to point to affirmations in the Fathers of imputation of Christ’s righteousness as if those quotations support the extra nos conception of imputation, because that notion is unheard of in the Church Fathers."

The reference above to  comment 140 ---here is part of it:

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.

also from comment 233: http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2012/09/i-fought-the-church-and-the-church-won/comment-page-5/#comment-38522

The question between Protestants and Catholics is not over the legal consequences of sin, or the fact of their resolution, but rather over the manner of their resolution. In both paradigms, the just man is accounted righteous by God. The question is why? Is it because of the imputation of an alien righteousness, or the infusion of an actual righteousness in the form of sanctifying grace, and the rectitude of will that results.

quote  from comment 234

"You wrote:

Chrysostom teaches that this gift of “righteousness” is alien by saying that it comes from God. This gift of righteousness is not worked and earned, as is stated “for you do not achieve it by toilings and labors, but you receive it by a gift from above”.

That’s exactly what Catholics believe as well. See the “Imputation and Paradigms” thread. The alternative is Pelagianism, that we are saved by a righteousness that comes from ourselves. But we have to be careful not to equivocate on the term ‘alien,’ by treating the claim that the Christian’s righteousness is ‘alien’ in the sense that it is a gift of God through Christ, as though it means that this righteousness remains outside the believer, and is not infused into him such that by this divine gift he instantly and truly becomes actually righteous. A denial of Pelagianism does not entail an extra nosimputation of an alien righteousness. One can deny Pelagianism and still affirm that this divine gift of righteousness is infused at baptism, and thus is not alien in the sense of remaining outside us.

This “righteousness” is not a base righteousness that we improve upon, as if we receive a miniature gift and then after that we turn it into a bigger gift, for Chrysosotom says that not only are we made just (understood in the gifted sense apart from works) but that the righteousness acquired is the “highest righteousness” rather than an initial righteous quality prior to works.

By “highest righteousness” he means divine righteousness, rather than human righteousness. He isn’t saying that we cannot grow in our participation in that divine righteousness, by growing in agape.

Notice that Chrysostom has the idea of being freed from the legal consequences when he says “How, when liable for so great sins, came we to be justified?” – to be justified here is to be not liable to so great sins, no? And also listen to this “For the purpose of His dying was not that He might hold us liable to punishment in condemnation, but that he might do good unto us. For for this cause He both died and rose again, that He might make us righteous” – It is implied, in my opinion, that the phrase “make us righteous” refers to the opposite of being held liable to the punishment in condemnation.

Through the sacrifice of Christ (see “Catholic and Reformed Conceptions of the Atonement“) not only are our sins forgiven , but we are also made righteous by the infusion of agape. (See the “Imputation and Paradigms” thread, and “St. Augustine on Law and Grace.”)

We know from Chrysostom’s writing on Romans 5:12 the sin of Adam and the righteousness of Christ create a typological parrallel. Adam’s sin brought guilt upon the world and the sacrifice of Jesus has brought justification of the world. Chrysostom on 2 Cor 5:21 does not believe “the righteousness of God” is not referring to the behavior or habit of being righteous, but the quality of being righteous. This is what he means when he says ‘make us righteous’.

That’s a bit too quick. Yes, “make us righteousness” refers to more than a habit, because an infused habit would not be sufficient for the forgiveness of sins. For those who have sinned, forgiveness of sin is necessary in order to have the quality of righteousness. But from what St. Chrysostom says elsewhere (including what David quoted above), “make us righteous” also includes the infusion ofagape, by which the believer is disposed to love God in his behavior and keep His commands."

On this same thread--comment 236:

You wrote:

I want to prove that Chrysostom rejects this idea, explicitly. In other words, one must do much re-constructing of Chrysostom in order to plant a catholic compatibility. … Rather, Chrysostom, rejecting the behavioral understanding of “righteousness” or the habitual understanding of “righteousness”, teaches that the quality itself of being righteous (a completed gift which comes from outside of us) comes to us as a quality that we own.

The problem with your argument is that what you appeal to (“the quality of being righteousness comes to us as a quality that we own”) as showing that St. Chrysostom’s position is incompatible with Catholic doctrine, is something that Catholic doctrine embraces. Your argument presupposes that the only way we can “own” a righteousness that comes from above is either by a behavioral disposition or by extra nos imputation. Since St. Chrysostom says “for the word he employed is not the habit, but the quality itself,” therefore you conclude that the righteousness we own must be by extra nos imputation. But that conclusion does not follow, because there is a third alternative (i.e. the Catholic alternative). The quality of righteousness is by the forgiveness of sins and the gift of infused agape, which is more than a behavioral habit; it is an infused participation in the righteousness of God. By the infusion of agapeat baptism, the believer is instantly made righteous with the righteousness of God. Agape is not a natural or merely human habit; it is a supernatural gift, a share in God’s own Life.

Either way, however, Christ was not made habitually a sinner or behaviorally a sinner NOT EVEN internally sinful, but the guilt of sin remained something outside of himself and yet it brings him to death because He stands in our place, do you see?

In the same way, by gifting us with the righteousness of God, this is not to be understood as our becoming “habitually righteous” or “behaviorally righteous” but rather the quality of being righteous, something that remains outside of us and stay on us (Rom 3:22) in so far that we believe and continue to believe.

Nothing St. Chrysostom says entails that the righteousness we receive “remains outside of us.” And what he says in many other places shows that for him, in baptism we died to sin, and no longer live in it, but live to righteousness. (See the St. Chrysostom section in “The Church Fathers on Baptismal Regeneration.”) In no place does he teach that the believer receives righteousness and yet goes on living in sin."

from 406  http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2013/03/jason-stellman-tells-his-conversion-story/

answering questions:

I am a sinner who needs an alien righteousness if I have any chance of ever standing before God’s throne.

If you think God is incapable of making you righteous now, then what reason do you have for thinking He will acquire the ability to do so in the future? (Or do you think you will you be unrighteous eternally, always under the cover of an alien righteousness?)

No offense, but the Roman scheme is no salve to a sin-plagued soul.

On the contrary, that’s exactly what it is, the removal (not just the hiding, but the actual removal) of sin from the soul, and the infusion of the divine agape which is Christ’s righteousness.

It puts way too much power in the arbitrary decisions of a Roman pontiff (who if he has the power to get people out of purgatory with indulgences should — if he were really loving — just let them go anyway).

That’s a dangerous thing for a Calvinist to say, because since Calvinists believe in monergism and irresistible grace, such a claim entails that if God were “really loving” He would save everyone. And since Calvinists deny that God saves everyone, such a claim entails that God is not “really loving.” (A.W. Pink comes quite close to admitting this, as Jerry Walls shows.)

But regarding the pope, he does not have the power per se to “get people out of purgatory.” He has authority (as steward) over the administration of the sacraments, and thus through the sacrament of penance to grant indulgences to the faithful, who can, through charity and the communion of the saints, apply the *temporal* benefit they have received to souls in purgatory.

impute or reckon--a study of the word:http://www.devinrose.heroicvirtuecreations.com/blog/2012/06/12/a-study-on-imputation-of-righteousness/

also on the church fathers and the Pharisees who believed they were righteous http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2011/05/imputation-and-infusion-a-reply-to-r-c-sproul-jr/