I'm sorry I did not post a summary of last weeks class on October 23rd, so I'm making sure I do that this week!
I received a request from a class member to explain the issue between grace and good works in our salvation. There are those outside the Church who misrepresent the Catholic Gospel and unfortunately, draw un-catechised Catholics away from the Church. Here's the summary:
The Catholic Gospel is pre-eminently a Gospel of Grace. Grace is the forerunner, grace sustains, and grace will lead us home. Grace allows us to have faith; grace empowers us to do good works, which builds merit before God. God, who sees the merit of our good works inspired by His grace, blesses us with even more grace, whereby we do more good works, which builds more merit before God, who sees the merit we gained by our good works and blesses us with more grace...on and on it goes. Praise God for his grace. As in Ephesians 1: 4: "In love he predestined us to the adoption as sons through Jesus Christ in accordance with the favor of his will, to the praise of the glory of His grace." Our lives are to praise the glory of God's grace and the Catholic faith does that above all other protestant variations out there.
There are reasons why these misconceptions by our Protestant brothers and sister exist. It is due to the fundamental differences in the doctrine of justification. This is key; you must get this so as to at least explain the difference.
The Catholic Church teaches dogmatically that justification is by faith. Period. End of sentence. No ifs ands or buts. Justification in Catholic teaching is an infusion of sanctifying grace in the soul of the believer, whereby justice is imparted and resides in the soul making us a part of the New Adam, Jesus Christ. If you were to come up with a synonym of justification, it would be "adoption." Trent declared in Session Six in the Decrees of Justification that in justification, we are made sons and daughters of God. This includes our sanctification and elevates our status before God as family members. It is out of this that our teaching of "merit" occurs. We, because of our status of being in God's family, because of the grace of justification in our souls, God assures that the blessings we gain from our obedience and good works are rightfully ours...because of His grace.
Protestant Christianity usually follows Luther's view of justification, which is only a shell of Catholic thought. John Calvin has a different approach, but we won't cover that now. To Luther, justification was simply a forensic act. By forensic, I'm saying that is a matter of declaration as in a court of law. Luther draws from the forensic approach in St. Paul's Letter to the Romans in chapter 3 & 4, but skips the adoption motiff in Chapter 8. To Luther, God declares the sinner righteous by his faith, as he did to Abraham for his faith with a justification that is not imparted, but imputed. It's as if righteousness is placed in an account for the believer to draw upon with his faith. Therefore, the sinner who believes according to Luther, remains essentially a sinner but with the grace of justification declaring him to be righteous. It is like a person who is covered in filth is cloaked with a robe of Christ's righteousness, or a dung heap covered with clean white snow. The sinner is justified before God because God sees the righteousness of Jesus covering the sinner, but not the dung of the dungheap. The sinner, then, does good works with the assistance of God on account of this forensic justification, but the works do not count as advancing the believer in any way. The believer only need to believe; the good works should come on account of the faith and are expected, but are not meritorious.
To sum up:
1. Luther's version: justification occurs with the believer being declared righteous by decree of God, through the merits of Christ for those who believe. There is no infusion of grace in the believer, it's simply by a declaration and Christ's justice is applied to the believer. Therefore there is no need for any sacraments. The sacramental system to Luther is not only unnecessary, but a distraction to true faith, save baptism.
2. Catholic version: justification occurs when sanctifying grace and the justice of God are infused in the believer's soul as the person is given the gift of faith. This justification occurs with the sacrament of baptism. Though the mark of baptism is indelible, the sanctifying grace and justice in the believer is not. Grace is to be increased in the life of the believer through meritorious good works that increase grace, that again gives the believer greater ability to increase merit. So again, grace inspires the entire enterprise, sustains it and brings it to completion, in accord with our will.
If I have missed something, please feel free to comment. For more information, use the Catechism of the Catholic Church under "justification and grace." Awesome section that explains this and refers you to the decrees in Trent. When we sing the song amazing grace, there are some doctrinal confusion of which we need to be aware. Here's my version:
Amazing Grace (infused in my soul), how sweet the sound (yes Amen!),
that saved (is saving, but not finished yet by any means!) a wretch like me (with
concupiscence, not sin, we're NOT snow covered dung heaps!)
I once was lost (orphaned), but now am found (adopted!).
Was blind (to the truth), but now I see (Catholicly! Oh yeah!).
9 comments:
Thank you! I have so much to learn. This helps tremendously.
mom_of_six
You're welcome! A quick summary to help you:
Protestant=God pronounces believer just but doesn't do what he says in the believer, only in Christ. This shows God lacking in integrity with his new creation.
Catholic=God pronounces believer just and does exactly what he says he does by infusing justice in the believer. This shows God having complete integrity with his new creation.
We should have no shame in stating to those who challenge us that God is quite capable of doing what he says. He created the world out of nothing, right? Then he can make a person actually just through Christ, which then means the sacraments have real purpose to maintain and grow this justice by inspiring our good works of justice. Amen!
Sorry Sam but your "god" is not the Bibical true God. And I think you will learn for youerself the hard way when you stand before Him on judgment day that sacraments and the mass aren't doing you any good, that there is no such thing as purgatory, venial sins, or meriting salvation through your blasphemous ways. You also will find out that praying to Mary or anyone else but God is idolatry - but you know that is wrong already.
I just feel the need to say something here to let you know that there are real Christians watching the pathetic ways of your "catholic Church" and it saddens me BIG TIME their deceptions!
For those who do not know, Ron and I have a little history together, where he, a lapsed Catholic and current anti-Catholic, and I attempted to come to an understanding of sorts back in January, to no avail.
Ron could not and cannot even now come up with an explanation of how Sola Scriptura is scriptural, though he repeatedly refers me to I Tim 3:14-17. With private interpretation, he then fallaciously asserts that this Scripture allows us to use Scripture alone to privately interpret. My assertion is that Protestants, in privately interpreting, make infallible pronouncements when they say that the Scripture backs their view.
As you remember, we went over this scenario in class about a month ago and as you will see, if Ron continues to make private declarations against Catholics, that the fallacy of "Begging the Question" is a circular argument that proves nothing. In any syllogism, you must start with a major premise that is true. In "begging the question", the conclusion you're trying to prove becomes the accepted major premise. It is "begging the question" because the question remains, "what have you proved?" Ron doesn't see this fallacy and continues to attack the Catholic Church and us.
Remember, Sola Scriptura in practice, is considered as an infallible doctrine by Protestants. It is self-refuting. Ron and his kind will continue to skirt the issue and come back with continuous personal attacks and misrepresentations of the faith, unless they have a change of heart and listen. Until then, it will not be a fruitful conversation.
And now to Ron:
Ron, come now, let us reason together over the faith. If you can't, then I won't let you waste precious bytes on this blog. If you continue to make protestant pontifical statements, and do not respond to questions or statements made in the conversation, the discussion will end. I have rules on this blog, and they are as follows:
1. Give benefit of the doubt.
2. Respect for the dignity of the other person is mandatory.
3. No bunny trail comments or diversion to personal attack.
4. And last but not least, I am the moderator on this blogsite. If you break the rules, you're done.
Fair enough?
Your blatantly virulent and anti-Catholic rants will not be tolerated. If you can conduct yourself properly in a discussion, I will accommodate your comments; if not, it's all over. The choice is yours to make, my brother.
Sam
Awesome! We are able to see what we talked about in class and get a real "hands-on" approach.
God Bless!
Hello Sam once again,
I have no problrm with fairnesss my "freind" but are you? Look at your rules about respect and dignity but then you start by suggesting what I say is "Your blatantly virulent and anti-Catholic rants." Whats with that?
As for Sola Scriptura,that isn't just my personal interpretation but it is a fact. You want to reason this out then tell me what else is there? Yes the verses that are from 2 Timothy are very expliced , not too mention all the psalms that tell of the value of following God's Word or John 8:31 + 32 or Matthew about His word will never die. Again I remind you to keep this above the table with respect and fairness. So tell me what do you have that can beat or match GOD'S Word?
Ron,
I'm responding to you only because I want to make sure you understand me and the rules I've set out above. You haven't met my criteria yet. Instead you complain. Here's the rules again. Commit to them, and I'll engage you. If not, no talkie.
1. Give the benefit of the doubt.
2. Respect for the dignity of the other person is mandatory.
3. No diversion to personal attack.
4. I am the moderator of this blog. Break the rules and your done.
If you think that my calling your extremely negative statements "anti-Catholic rants" is treating you with a lack of dignity, then we absolutely will have no conversation. Your demands are arbitrary; you want to say whatever you want about the "pathetic ways" of our Catholic Church, and then whine when I call your statements anti-Catholic rants. Don't like it. Tough. Get a grip.
You barge onto this blog and think you can quote a few scriptures and demand answers to your questions? No way. You may have dealt with Catholic patsies in the past, but not here.
DO YOU ACCEPT THE RULES OR NOT?
If you complain and parry with another one of your terrible questions, your out. Do you understand me?
Your next comment, if you want to continue with me will be: "I accept the conditions." I don't want anything else.
Now, by brother, what will it be?
BLOGSITE MEMORANDUM:
As High Potentate of this blogsite, I have banished Ron from this site until he stops can conduct himself with humility and goodwill.
Ron, if you intend to ever post a comment on this site, you better email me first so we can discuss this issue man to man and iron this issue out. The rules are clear to execute justice and charity on this blog. You have shown nothing but gross disrespect and feigned concern for me or anyone who post here. No more. It is written; so may it be done.
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