faith informed by love

Church, Ecumenism and Politics: New Endeavors in Ecclesiology. In a chapter called “Luther and the Unity of the Churches,” Ratzinger answers the question “Are there still any serious, divisive differences between the Catholic Church and the Reformed churches, and, if so, what are they?” 

[Luther concluded that] faith assures, above all, the certainty of one’s own salvation. The personal certainty of redemption became the decisive center of Luther’s ideas. Without it, there would be no salvation. Thus, the importance of the three divine virtues, faith, hope, and love, to a formula for Christian life underwent a significant change: the certainty of hope and the certainty of faith, though hitherto essentially different, became identical. To the Catholic, the certainty of faith refers to that which God has wrought, to which the Church witnesses. The certainty of hope refers to the salvation of individuals and, among them, of oneself. Yet, to Luther, the latter represented the crux without which nothing else really mattered. That is why love, which lies at the center of the Catholic faith, is dropped from the concept of faith; Luther goes so far as to formulate this polemically in his large commentary on Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians: maledicta sit caritas, down with love! Luther’s insistence on “by faith alone” clearly and exactly excludes love from the question of salvation. Love belongs to the realm of “works” and, thus, becomes “profane”. [p. 111, 

from comment 251 here:  http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2012/08/imputation-and-paradigms-a-reply-to-nicholas-batzig/

faith with love/ prot and Cath compared

In the Reformed system “we are justified by faith alone, but not by a faith that is alone.” In other words, justifying faith is always followed by or accompanied by agape and good works. According to Catholic doctrine, by contrast, agape does not only follow living faith; agape is part of the very essence of living faith. In Catholic doctrine we are justified by living faith, which is not merely faith that is always followed by agape, but is fides caritate formata, i.e. faith informed by agape. We are not justified by faith alone, even if that faith is accompanied by or will be followed by agape. Agape makes faith alive, and thus justifying. That’s what Fr. Barron means in saying that agape “perfects” faith. Both Protestant and Catholic doctrine recognizes that faith precedes agape in the order of generation, because one cannot love what one does not know. But according to Protestant doctrine faith alone justifies, though that faith must be accompanied by agape, whereas in Catholic doctrine faith alone does not justify; only faith made alive by agape justifies. It is a subtle but important difference. And the point of my “Does the Bible Teach Sola Fide?” post was to challenge Protestants to demonstrate that the Bible teaches the Protestant position on this question, because, as I explained there, they have the burden of proof, and a knock-down case from Scripture is necessary in order even to begin to attempt to justify forming a schism from the Church.

comment 319 excerpt 

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

 “The Catholic Church teaches that the supernatural virtues of faith, hope, and charity are infused into us when we receive the Holy Spirit in the sacrament of baptism. St. Paul writes that “the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us” (Romans 5:5). Only when faith is living (i.e. accompanied by the virtue of charity as its form), is faith justifying. Notice that this does not mean that the deathbed convert must do charitable works in order to be justified. It does mean, however, that unless there is charity in his will, whatever virtue of faith is present in his intellect is not a justifying faith.”

—	Bryan Cross http://www.readability.com/articles/t2d6dzt2

  http://principiumunitatis.blogspot.com/2009/01/justification-divided-over-charity.html

“Professor Clark seems not recognize that justification being progressive is fully compatible with an initial justification. For example, Pope Benedict claims that “Faith is looking at Christ, entrusting oneself to Christ, being united to Christ, conformed to Christ, to his life. And the form, the life of Christ, is love; hence to believe is to conform to Christ and to enter into his love.” Clark responds by saying, This is code for “to be gradually sanctified and gradually justified.” Of course Catholics do believe that being conformed to Christ and entering His love is something that does continue over the course of a believer’s life, insofar as the believer makes use of the means of grace. But, Catholics also believe that in our [initial] justification in the sacrament of baptism, we are at that moment “conformed to Christ and enter into His love”, for at that moment we receive His life and love and Holy Spirit into our hearts. The death-bed convert who converts in his dying breath, is at that very moment truly “conformed to Christ”, even though at that moment he might not yet be as conformed to Christ as he possibly could be, and will be in heaven.”


http://principiumunitatis.blogspot.com/2009/01/justification-divided-over-charity.html

Aquinas makes a distinction between the order of generation and the order of perfection. In the order of generation, faith precedes hope and charity, because we cannot hope in or love what we do not know. This is because the movement of the will toward its end depends upon the intellect presenting this end to it. But, according to Aquinas, in the order of perfection, charity precedes hope and faith. This can be shown from what St. Paul himself says in 1 Corinthians 13:13”

—	bryan cross http://www.readability.com/articles/t2d6dzt2

http://principiumunitatis.blogspot.com/2009/01/justification-divided-over-charity.html

Whereas--protestants don't feel it is faith informed by love: http://www.ligonier.org/learn/devotionals/faith-defined/:

Faith Defined

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).

- John 3:16

In our study of justification thus far we have seen that faith is the only instrument by which we lay hold of the righteousness of Christ. This righteousness of Christ is the ground of our justification and is imputed to us when we trust in Jesus alone for salvation. The Father then declares us righteous in His sight, enabling us to inherit eternal life. This is accomplished entirely apart from any works we perform.

Justification by faith alone has been opposed by Roman Catholicism, which says that a combination of our faith and good works provides for our justification. One impetus for this understanding has been Rome’s fear that the doctrine of justification by faith alone would encourage people to live immoral lives. Rome fears that this doctrine might lead some to think that the casual acceptance of Jesus without any change in one’s life is the kind of faith that justifies.

In order to meet such objections, the Protestant Reformers were careful to outline the biblical definition of faith in their writings. Next week we will look at the fact that true faith always leads to a changed life. Today we will look at the definition of faith given by the Reformers in order to show that faith is not merely a casual acceptance of Jesus.

The Protestant Reformers recognized that biblical faith has three essential aspects: notitia,assensus, and fiducia.

Notitia. Notitia refers to the content of faith, or those things that we believe. We place our faith in something, or more appropriately, someone. In order to believe, we must know something about that someone, who is the Lord Jesus Christ.

Assensus. Assensus is our conviction that the content of our faith is true. You can know about the Christian faith and yet believe that it is not true. Genuine faith says that the content — the notitiataught by Holy Scripture — is true.

Fiducia. Fiducia refers to personal trust and reliance. Knowing and believing the content of the Christian faith is not enough, for even demons can do that (James 2:19). Faith is only effectual if, knowing about and assenting to the claims of Jesus, one personally trusts in Him alone for salvation

bryan replies to the above: Bare faith, in Reformed theology, is notia and assensus (or notia alone). Living faith, in Reformed theology, is [notia and assensus and fiducia]. (See, for example, here.) In Reformed theology we are justified by [notia and assensus and fiducia] alone. The mistake there is substituting the theological virtue of hope for agape, with respect to what makes faith living, as I explained in comment #249 above, and Isaiah responded to helpfully in comment #251.

In the peace of Christ,comment 322 http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2012/08/imputation-and-paradigms-a-reply-to-nicholas-batzig/