On a particular conservative online board I belong to we have a Catholics group where a few non Catholics are in the group. They are in the group because they have a pull toward Catholicism but have not converted yet. One such person, Stina, asked about the differences in justification between Protestants and Catholics. I gave a series of answers which I will post here on the blog. Mind you, I am not a learned theologian, so I am only speaking here for me and not as any officially trained theologian for the Catholic Church. I am only presenting this as I understand the Catholic position on justification. So don’t take this as an official Catholic Church position, but from a layman who has had a passing non-professional interest.
This
is Stina’s question:
Hey Catholics… my church
just started a new member class so they are going over their statements of faith.
I already know I have some issues there, but I’m doing a deep dive into
Calvinism and Arminianism just to figure out what it is they say and where I
fit… it’s a lot of needle threading and angels on pinheads. I’m not leaning in
either direction.
I have some idea on the Catholic view of Ephesians 2:8-10, but can you guys maybe encapsulate your concept of Salvation by grace through faith? I don’t know if it would be better if you know the Protestant theologies or not, so let there be a free for all.
I’m only going to provide my series of responses, and since this was at a board, it’s somewhat disjointed. I have cleaned up the syntax to make my thoughts clear for the blog post.
###
Response
1:
Stina this is one of the most complicated of questions. I don’t know if I can summarize succinctly but I will try. Two things you first should understand. (1) Protestants and Catholics define justification slightly differently. Jimmy Akin of Catholic Answers does a nice job in explaining. Just google “Jimmy Akin Justification” and you’ll see a number of articles. But when you try to reach a level ground in definitions between the two, you find there is not too much difference. (2) Even with the leveling of definitions, Catholics do not believe in the “alone” part of justification. It’s not justification by faith alone.
That said I’ll try to summarize but this may be a bit scattered. St. Peter Damian, he was the Thomas Aquinas from 200 years before Aquinas, said, paraphrasing here, faith is the foundation of justification. Faith is primary on which you need for salvation. It’s from faith that everything else is built on.
Now if you go through the New Testament, you will find several different things delineated as needed for salvation. In some places you need to “repent.” In some places you need to be baptized. In some places you need to take up your cross and follow Jesus. In some places you need to “serve.” [See washing of the feet passage.] Christ says you need to do what he has done. Finally in sum you need to obey Christ’s commandments, which come down to acts of mercy. So doing works is obeying Christ. All the parables hinge on works but see especially Matt 25. The goats on the left all have faith but they are not saved.
All of this is a result of grace. As Lois says above grace is infused in you, not just by Christ sacrificial death but by a continuous acceptance of the graces God offers every moment. I think Protestants look at grace as a one time thing but Catholics look at grace as a continuous offering from God and you accept as much as you can. Take an act that some Protestants might consider a work, say feeding the hungry in a soup kitchen. If you’re doing it because you feel it gets you to heaven, that’s works righteousness and it does not get you to heaven. We would agree with Protestants there. But if you’re doing it because the poor are in front of you and your compassion is leading you to do it, then are obeying Christ’s commandment to feed the hungry. You are obeying Christ and receiving graces from it. Such grace strengthens your faith, and so conforms your heart to Christ’s heart. That is ultimately salvation: when your heart becomes Christ’s heart. There is a symbiotic relationship between grace and faith.
Not sure I made it clear. I have to run but I’ll be back for a little more.
Response
#2:
So
let’s look at that passage in Ephesians:
8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
So you can see how all the elements of the argument are there in the passage: faith, grace, works. Notice how Protestants zero in on line 9: “not by works” but they don’t really have a good explanation for line 10: “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works.” It really ignores St. Paul’s passage in 1 Cor 13. There he says it’s not faith alone but “faith, hope, and love.” And by love it’s charitas, charity. You need all three to shape your heart into Christ’s heart. In fact, St. Paul even says “If I speak in human and angelic tongues but do not have love (charity), I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal. And if I have the gift of prophecy and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge; if I have all faith so as to move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing.” So all the faith in the world without charitas he has nothing, he will sound just like a clashing cymbal. Sometimes when I hear Protestants argue faith alone it sounds like a clashing cymbal, especially when it leads to “once saved always saved” doctrine. How ludicrous. And notice how that dovetails perfectly with Matthew 25: the goats had no charitas and really their argument is just a clashing cymbal.
I recall an argument I had with a Protestant over this, and her comeback to me was “then how much works do you have to do to be saved?” (paraphrasing). She thought that was a perfect comeback and that’s because she sees justification as solely “imputed” by Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. Catholics see justification as infused. We are always before Christ on the cross receiving or rejecting grace. Scott Hahn describes the differences in this way. Protestants think of justification as a legal transaction, so that person I argued with makes perfect sense to her line of thinking since she wants to know the contractual details. But Catholics, Hahn argues, think in terms of covenant, a marriage. We try to serve our spouse as best we can but surely it’s not perfectly. My love for my wife can’t be measured in how many times per week I do the dishes but because I want to do the dishes for her as much as I can. My love for my wife is “infused” with faith in each other and the “works” we have done for each other.
More to come still.
Stina
Replied:
I’m not quite certain how
justification is being defined. I’ve heard it used in a myriad of ways that I
don’t know if I use it the same as others do.
I’m justified by grace
through faith. But my faith is justified by works. So grace is what saves me,
faith is my response to it, and works are evidence of that faith… while the
works are also used by the spirit to sanctify me (because grace). It’s a cycle!
If I have no works, my relationship suffers. I become like a dead branch on a tree no longer bearing fruit, As if my faith is dead. Jesus says dead branches are cut off. Hebrews confirms it.
My
Reply to Stina:
Simply Stina, justification is the basis on which you are judged for salvation. Protestants like to focus on that because it seems like a court room situation, and the evidence you are presenting to Christ is according to Protestants your faith. But Catholics don’t think of it as a court scene; Catholics think of it as like the prodigal son. He repents and works his way back to his father. Yes, faith compelled him but he had to do other things too. That’s why St. Peter Damian says it’s the foundation of justification but not the totality of salvation. I like to think of it as a resume. You can’t get a job as a mechanical engineer without a degree in mechanical engineering. The degree is a pre-requisite. But that’s not the sole criteria. Your grades are going to play a role in the hiring, your character, your obstacles, the type of school you went to. There are lots of things on that resume. Faith is a pre-requisite but not the sole criteria. You can’t get into heaven without faith but there are other factors too. Ultimately as I said it’s the state of your heart as conformed to Christ.
Another
Reply to Stina:
From Stina above:
“If I have no works, my
relationship suffers. I become like a dead branch on a tree no longer bearing
fruit, As if my faith is dead. Jesus says dead branches are cut off. Hebrews
confirms it.”
Yes, that’s what I mean by a symbiotic relationship.
###
Response
#3:
In all of this I haven’t even brought up how sin plays a part in salvation. Protestants never seem to mention sin. For them all of this is a one-time event, Christ’s crucifixion redeems all sins, past, present, and future. I don’t quite get the logic but it seems like there is an automatic implied repentance as you live your life. I find that ridiculous. But some Protestants do require an internal private repentance. That’s good, but that shows you it’s not faith alone. So Protestants have kind of trapped themselves in this faith alone justification. If you hold to faith alone, then to be philosophically consistent it leads to “once saved, always saved.” Which is clearly not in the Gospels. So they’re either violating sola scriptura or they are violating justification by faith alone.
So let’s look at how sin plays apart in this. Let’s use that marriage analogy. If I don’t do the dishes one night, it’s a venial sin. No one is going to say I’m not a good husband because I left the dishes for my wife to do last night. But it would be a little sin and some retrospection would be in order. But if my wife were seriously ill and there were out of pocket costs and I said I didn’t want to pay them, well that’s a pretty lousy husband. That would be a mortal sin. That would require a huge repentance if you wanted to keep your marriage intact. Just because you made a one time marriage vow doesn’t excuse that level of reprehension. Same thing with our relationship with Christ. We fail on little and big things, venial and mortal sins. Sin is a part of justification, and is rooted in the lack of obedience I mentioned up above. We have to follow Christ’s commandments. We are not excused from moral law, and it plays into salvation.
Which brings us to the sacraments, as WC mentions. The sacraments are a direct engagement with God’s grace. Not only does He offer grace to us on a continuous basis He offers it directly in the sacraments. Certainly the sacrament of reconciliation is a direct means to resolve our sins and therefore be put in a proper “state of grace.” See the language there. Grace is being offered continuously but through sin one rejects that grace, and we need to be that prodigal son and return to our Father’s state of grace. And the other sacraments bring us either closer to God (conforming our hearts) or satisfy the other aspects of justification, such as baptism and repentance. All the aspects of the Catholic life brings us into justification with Christ.
Hope that all helps. There’s a book called “Grace and Justification: An Evangelical’s Guide to Catholic Beliefs” by Stephan Wood. I haven’t read it really, just flipped through it. It’s kind of dry as a subject unless you’re really into the theology. I have seen Wood interviewed and he makes perfect sense. That’s why I bought the book. Wood is a convert to Catholicism. You might be interested.
Now I need to get back to work! LOL.
My
Response to WC:
From WC:
“There also seems to be
confusion about “justification” versus “sanctification.” I admit, I don’t quite
understand all the different thoughts on justification”
Yes. The Calvinist branch of Protestantism completely excludes sanctification. Sanctification is part of justification for Catholics. It’s technically what I said as conforming our hearts to Christ’s heart. Our obedience to Christ, especially through acts of mercy, is a process of sanctification. The Protestant movement of Arminianism rejected Calvinism and did a 180 degree on this is a return to Apostolic Christinaity. Look at their Wikipedia entry. It sounds like they returned to Catholicism on sanctification. But sanctification is a work, and that’s why evangelicals don’t accept it. But look at Methodists. They do. Protestants are all over the place.
###
This is a follow up to the above conversation on the question of justification. Marcus Grodi (from The Coming Home Network) has a wonderful article on this subject in an essay, “Salvation Is Nearer Than You Think.”
Marcus
is a convert to Catholicism, a former Presbyterian minister, and the founder of
The Coming Home Network, an apostolate focused on helping people, especially
Protestant ministers, convert to the Catholic faith, and host of The Journey
Home program on EWTN, a TV show where Marcus interviews converts to Catholicism. In “Salvation Is Nearer Than You Think”
Marcus creates a parable of a board game to illustrate how salvation works from
a Catholic perspective. It’s rather
interesting and involved, so I would advise you to read it. But from the parable he derives seven things
that God will consider when you stand before him at judgement day. I’m just going to list them.
1. How we loved God.
2. How we loved.
3. How we indirectly
loved.
4. How we grew in grace.
5. How we cared for what
we were given.
6. How content we were.
7. How our lives inspired others.
Marcus takes you through the scriptures on how he came to these things. Yes, they are scripturally based. Somehow Protestants only seem “to see” the faith dependent passages in the New Testament, but there are a whole host of other passages that show salvation is dependent on more than faith. He summarizes the overarching content of these things with this paragraph.
As to the relationship between works and righteousness, faith and love, the “instructions inside the lid of the box” state that “faith apart from works is dead” (Jam 2:26), or as a joint Lutheran-Catholic statement put it: “We confess together that good works — a Christian life lived in faith, hope and love — follow justification and are its fruits. When the justified live in Christ and act in the grace they receive, they bring forth, in biblical terms, good fruit. . . . Thus both Jesus and the apostolic Scriptures admonish Christians to bring forth the works of love.”
Finally
he comes to the same conclusion that I did above.
On the other hand, the
Catechism of the Catholic Church warns that Catholics safely home in the Church
can still miss the mark: “Even though incorporated into the Church, one who
does not however persevere in charity is not saved” (no. 837). Essentially and
succinctly, as put by Thomas Howard:
There is only one agenda
for all of us Christians, namely, our growing into conformity to Jesus Christ,
that is to say, our being made perfect in Charity. We must all appear before
the judgment seat of Christ, and at that tribunal there is not one test for
Protestants and another for Catholics. All of us have arrived there by grace,
and all of us are “washed in the blood of the Lamb”, and all of us are to have
been configured to Christ.
To a very significant extent, all sin is a failure to love; all divisions and schisms are a failure of charity; and all abuse and misuse of God’s Creation is a failure to love Him.
As I tried to describe above, sin, charity, and the sacraments lead the Christian either to conform his heart to that of Jesus’ heart or irrevocably away from it. That, finally, is justification.
###
Now
finally, to give you a third perspective, here is a Catholic theologian
explaining it all in a theologian’s way.
This is the amazingly brilliant Fr. Thomas Joseph White, O.P., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Joseph_White
here with the Thomistic Institute but he
is now rector at the Angelicum, the Pontifical University in Rome, explaining
in a YouTube video the relationship between grace and justification.
How did I do as an amateur theologian? I probably would not receive a passing grade from Fr. Thomas Joseph. ;)
###
One more thing. I’ve given you an uneducated layman’s perspective (me), an educated everyman’s perspective (Marcus), and a theologian’s perspective (Fr. Joseph Thomas). Now a one line scriptural perspective. From the Gospel of John:
Whoever believes in the
Son has eternal life, but whoever disobeys the Son will not see life, but the
wrath of God remains upon him. (Jn 3:36)
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