I’ve explained it in different terms, and maybe this will help. Man deserves punishment, suffering and eternal damnation for his sins. Jesus Christ has made full payment for all mankinds sins that will ever be committed. By faith in Christ, we are declared not guilty before God, even though we are in fact guilty. Jesus payment erases the debt of our sins. This faith is not a mere intellectual faith, but faith in the heart that fears loves and trusts in God above all things. While this faith is never perfect, and our thoughts and deeds are never perfect, if our fear love and trust in God is above all other things, we are righteous in God’s sight and part of his eternal kingdom.

Catholic theology is a system of debits and credits. Our sins are our debts we owe to God, punishments we deserve because of our sins. We acquire credits to pay these off by our own good works, by the crucifixion of Christ and by the good works of others done on our behalf. We cannot enter heaven until all the debts have been paid off by credits available from the various sources. This is where purgatory comes in. If one has not enough credits to pay his debts at the time of death, he must go to purgatory to make satisfaction for his own sins by suffering, or hopefully his relatives will have masses said for him to pay off his debt faster so he can get eventually to heaven. How long this takes, the church cannot answer.
Absolution from the priest is not a forgiveness of these debts. Catholic theology differentiates between temperal and eternal punishment. Absolution takes care of the the eternal punishments, but the temperal must still be paid by good works, like alms to the poor, prayer, fasts, attending mass, etc, etc etc. Good sources are the Catholic catechism, and the old Luther movie is also very good for lay people to understand.

Keep in mind, you’ll get different oppinions from different priests but this is what I’ve been able to cull from sources like the RC catechism, the Luther movie and the decrees of the council of Trent. While they may speak differently, the Council of Trent has never been rejected as far as I know, and they still have purgatory in their Catechism, so the old system that Luther grew up with is essentially still in tact, IMHO>.

From the Roman Catechism with paragraph numbers:

“2027 No one can merit the initial grace which is at the origin of conversion. Moved by the Holy Spirit, we can merit for ourselves and for others all the graces needed to attain eternal life, as well as necessary temporal goods.”

This makes it pretty clear. Initial grace yields conversion and is totally from God – nothing added by man. BUT that grace needed for eternal life; that is up to us. We have to work for it and work hard enough to MERIT it. Fall short and you go to purgatory until you work it off.

This is the best summary of the Roman position that I know of. I have heard it referred to as participatory salvation by some.

What a wonderful discussion of God’s love!

Thank you!

And the truth is that many Reformed and Arminian protestants are closer to Roman Catholicism with regard to salvation in terms of the proper distinction between law and gospel. What underlies that is a deficient Christology in relation to a proper doctrine of original sin.

I just finished reading your father’s little book “Justification and Rome” What a theological heavyweight he was! The book is marvelous and needs to be required reading in the Seminary and it would be good to have District conferences to have it as a topic. The topic is still relevant.

@Joe #2

Having done graduate work at a Roman Catholic university, it is interesting to note that they assume that since grace is involved that it solves the entire problem of our objection. In other words, they have no concept that simply saying “grace is necessary for salvation” is an inadequate answer.

The problem with saying grace + human effort = salvation is that the whole thing would fall apart without human works. Hence grace functionally makes no difference whatsoever within such a system. In the end, it always still comes down to human works.

What is most annoying is that JDDJ works on the premise that the issue of Reformation was whether grace was involved in the event of justification and now, because Catholics say there is, therefore we can have an agreement. The real issue of the Reformation was justification by faith, in a verdict and action of God external to one’s self. The Middle Ages and subsequent Catholic theology is full of grace. That’s not the issue.

@Dr. Jack Kilcrease #6

Reading the “Confutation” to the A.C., and the proclamations of the Council of Trent are all one needs to get a good handle on the RC concept of “grace.”

J

Rev. Preus,
Thank you for bringing us to the article of justification. It is crucial that we keep coming back to it because it informs all of the rest of what we teach and confess. I pray that we may continually study and be reminded of the right and true teaching of this wonderful doctrine.

@Johannes #7

Johannes- Interestingly enough many of them, even the professional theologian types, haven’t really read the Apology or any of the Lutheran Confessions. It should be born in mind that many Roman Catholic theologians that I encountered (though not all) know surprisingly little about Lutheranism or any other denomination other than their own.

This comes up a lot in my family, some are Lutheran Roman Catholic, and Orthodox. Interesting discussions arise. The Orthodox do not have a Juridical point of view. In fact they see it as something a little more fluid. In short, I have been saved, I am being saved, and I will be saved. I find the similarities and differences interesting between Lutherans, Catholics, and Orthodox.

@Dr. Jack Kilcrease #9
Klemet,
thanks for getting this thread rolling. Justification by Grace through Faith apart from the works of the law is the heart of the Lutheran witness. It is the distinct gift that Lutherans bring to any authentic ecumenical conversation and it is the place where we will rise and fall as a church. Its the reason we named our first two girls Faith and Gracia after Ephesian 2:8-9. They are a constant reminder to me (especially when soccer balls are thrown in the house at 6:30 am) that it’s all about grace made known through faith in Jesus.
Jack,
thanks for the reminder about our need to understand each others historic theological documents as well as our own to have real conversations with our neighbors. I am a cradle Catholic who now has served 10 plus years in ministry as a Lutheran pastor. I find many Catholics and Lutherans who lack an understanding of each other’s positions.
In many ways I’ve found that many Lutherans and Catholics treat their respective church’s theology like a col-de-sac. We assume we know what the otherside says and stick to our own with out examining the other more closely.

Catholic views of grace are really hard to understand unless you know greek philosophy well, as it they try to fit it into aristotles categories. Also, there are multiple competing systems, but they all provide that human action and choice is a essential part of obtaining sanctifying grace.

Also, check jackkilcrease.blogspot.com/ for more explanation about how requiring human cooperation destroys the whole nature of grace.

Boaz– I believe you’re quite correct in your statement about the Roman view of grace being informed by Aristotle. Roman theology is still largely Thomist and Thomas Aquinas was heavily influenced by Aristotle. I think “grace” from the Roman perspective can be seen as a “substance” in an Aristotelian sense. That is, grace is the “gas in your tank” which allows you to perform good works in love which in turn justify you. So just as a car doesn’t go anywhere without gasoline, the Christian cannot be saved without this grace from God– thus Rome can agree with the statement “you are saved by grace,” it’s just that “grace” has an entirely different meaning than what we mean when we use the phrase.

@Johannes #7

Confutation here: http://bookofconcord.org/confutatio.php

Interesting:

“… Roman theologians charged with the preparation of the Confutation … were ordered to be moderate in their response.”

“It was, like the Augsburg Confession, prepared in both Latin and German, but read aloud only in German. ”

Pope and emperor forced to appeal to the little people here?

1530 attempts at gagging:

“The Confutation was regarded as being so bad, even by the Roman Catholics, that they did not allow the Lutherans to have a copy. Fortunately Lutheran scribes had copied every word down during its reading. It was not published until 1573, in Latin, and did not appear in German until 1808. The Lutherans asked for a copy after it was read, and were told by the Emperor on August 5 that they would not receive a copy, unless they met three conditions: (1) They that do not reply in writing; (2) They not print anything about it, or do anything to publicize it, a demand made specifically by the Roman theologians; (3) That they join with the Emperor and the Roman Catholic estates and concur with the Confutation, in every point. These demands were soundly rejected.”

Lutheran – God IMPUTES justification objectively, outside of us and for us – then follows Christian growth via Word and Sacrament. Justifiation “it is finished”.

RC- God Infuses us by the Holy Spirit enabling us to become righteous and all this process is made available to us by Christ’s life and death on the cross – ‘problem is we never know when that infusion is complete! Justification – when is it finished?

@Ken H #13

Ken- Most importantly to the Roman concept is the idea of grace as a virtue or habit. Namely, activities infused in the soul. For Aristotle being=doing. So, to be justified one would have to “do” justice, meaning having faith, hope and love.

For Luther, one’s nature as a creature is inherently receptive. If you read the Catechisms on the articles concerning creation this comes out particularly strongly. As creatures of the creator we are receptive to God’s goodness in his gifts of family, house and so forth. In redemption, we are justified by receiving God’s forensic verdict.

So, for Luther the essence of created being is “receiving,” whereas for Thomas and subsequently Roman theology it is “doing.”

This is Aristotle vs. Genesis 1-3.

Dear Klemet, what a wonderfully clear and concise explanation justification and a good contrast about the place of justification in Lutheranism and Roman Catholicism. You are certainly your father’s son! I think there’s room for another justification hymn or two…

Hey…Klemet…I think it should be illegal for you to use such an old, old picture of yourself on this web site.

This is Art (your confirmand) Casci

Klem,

This discussion just came to my attention.

Some months ago encouraged a man who had some questions about the Lutheran and Roman positions on Justification to write to you. I wanted him to hear from someone who understands the Lutheran position (and I believe that many many Lutheran pastors do not). If this is the same person, I am glad that he sought you out. I certainly do not want to be accused of misrepresenting the Lutheran position, and I couldn’t find any page on the LCMS website that described the “central article” in any detail whatsoever and his own Lutheran pastor (if what was reported to me was accurate) had made some mistakes in teaching the doctrine accurate.

I believe you have described the Lutheran doctrine as I was taught it by your father, one thing that I noticed was that you did not fully explain why it is that the word and sacrament can be said to justify. Now perhaps I understand this wrongly, but my understanding is that the Word and Sacraments justify because they provide faith, and faith apprehends the atonement. This is different from the calvinistic teaching that they justify because they inspire faith, i.e. the Eucharist is a reminder of the passion, and when it stirs my heart to believe, I am justified.

Nonetheless, technically speaking (as I understand it) the Lutheran position that the power to justify is not “in” the word or sacrament, they contain the power to create faith (when it pleases the Holy Spirit), but we are justified by the faith they provide (which apprehends Christ), but not by the Sacrament. Hence, Luther’s teaching in De Captivate concerning the sacraments, and Melancthon’s statement in the Apology (falsely attributed to Augustine) that “Faith in the sacrament, and not the sacrament, justifies.”

In addition, while I believe your description of the Lutheran position is, nonetheless, excellent. There are many inaccuracies in what you say the Roman doctrine is. I wonder if you could find a Roman bishop or priest who would say, “Yep, that is what we believe.” I don’t think you could.

For one thing, we do not deny that we are declared righteous because of the Righteousness of Christ. I know that Lutherans are prone to claim this based on Canon XI, but Canon XI rejects the view that we are justified by the sole imputation of the Righteousness of Christ. The Catholic Church, however, sees that Justification also includes the impartation of grace by which we are truly and actually made righteous.

Allow me to try to explain why this is so. In adam’s fall, two things went horrible wrong for man and his posterity. One the one hand, he was imputed with Adam’s guilt, which is to say that God considers all men guilty because of the trespass of one man. Lutherans accept this as Hereditary Guilt. But that is not all. Man also inherits Adams sinful nature. Lutherans call this “Hereditary corruption”. Hereditary guilt and hereditary corruptions are the two parts of original sin. Actual sin is another thing, and I will leave it out of this discussion for brevity.

Because man’s loss of righteousness was two-fold (effecting both his being and his status before God), man’s justification is also twofold. It includes the imputation of Christ’s righteousness to answer the imputation of Adam’s guilt. But it also includes the transformation of man, whereby he is no longer corrupt, but is a new creation, the old has gone.

My problem (now) with Lutheranism is that it diminishes the power of the cross and resurrection. In Christ, I am not only declared righteous, I am made righteous. (and I remain righteous until I commit actual sin (if it is mortal sin)).

The second point that I want to make is regarding certainty of salvation. I think there is alot of misunderstanding here. First of all, while a Lutheran may confess that he is 100% certain of salvation, he nonetheless must acknowledge that man is capable of deception, and the Christian who at one time in his life is 100% certain by the end of his life can die an avowed atheist and manifest, unrepentant sinner. So the Lutheran may only be certain of his final salvation only so far as he dies in God’s favor, which is to say, in a state of true faith.

This is exactly the point of the Canon of Trent when it says that one cannot “know with the certainty of faith, which cannot be subject to error” This is to say that we don’t know the future, and we are capable of being seduced and mislead into misbelief, despair and other great shame and vice. The point also, is that we can have a false confidence of those who believe they are Christian in spite of the fact that they never go to Church, are living in an unrepentant adulterous relationship, and often frequent bowling alleys.

On the other hand, as I Catholic I do believe that if I die right now I will go to heaven. This is because I trust in the saving work of Jesus Christ, who has declared me righteous and makes me a new creation. But this is not to say that I denyt the possibility that I may fall away before I die, althought I have to say I consider it rather unlikely.

Dan Woodring

Dan,

Thanks for taking the time to defend the Roman position. It is always good to keep doctrinal discussions going between denominations but I have to say your understanding of Scripture is faulty.

Your Romanist misunderstanding of Scripture is evident in your second to last line. You see your justification not to be by faith alone but by faith and works (the new creation you speak of). That is the difference. Your new doctrine (Rome) is contrary to the clear teaching of Scripture that we are saved by faith alone.

That is really all that needs to be said but it is also of note to respond to your description of the two manners in which we have fallen and your understanding of Trent.

Concerning the two parts of the fall, you would have a point except for the fact that the Scriptures teach what Luther discovers about this. Our concupiscence is not put to death until the old self is destroyed in the eschaton. The Romanists like you make the mistake of thinking that it must be fixed in this life or in the next. One does not need to add an ontological change to our being in this life or through the purging of purgatory. That takes place in the transition to heaven. This is Scripture’s clear teaching. The needed change in self to merit salvation is the product of human reason and paganism.

Concerning your use of Trent, as I recall, it does not refer to not knowing the future. It flat out denies that salvation can be of faith alone but is a matter of faith and works. This is also the teaching of the Joint Declaration. It turns salvation into a process as opposed to something that is immediate and certain because it is by faith and not by works.

I think you must have read a little too much Kavanaugh et. al. while at the Fort.

TR

Tim,

Actually I wasn’t a big fan of Fr. Kavanaugh at the Sem. And I haven’t re-read anything from him since then. I wish I would have read St. Augustine, because then I might have understood the Biblical Doctrine of Justification as is faithfully confessed by the Roman Catholic Church.

Obviously we disagree about that, and I would be willing to discuss the reasons why I hold that the Catholic and not the Lutheran doctrine is a correct exposition of Scripture. However, at this point I would like focus on what the Catholic Church actually teaches. Once we establish what Lutherans and Catholics really teach, then perhaps we can compare those teachings to Holy Scripture.

I had once thought that the Roman Catholic teaching was unscriptural, but I did not know what Catholics taught, I only knew what Lutherans said Catholics taught. I will admit that the position that Klem ascribes to Catholics is unbiblical, but I am arguing that Catholics actually teach something quite different.

I know this is your blog, and I hope to be a polite guest here. But before we can establish whether the Roman Catholic teaching on Justification is biblical or unbiblical, it seems to me that we ought to be clear on what that teaching is.

As for faith alone, you are correct that Roman Catholics reject this as it is confessed by protestants. (I am sorry to word it that way, but there is a sense in which Catholics believe we are justified by “faith alone”–I can explain that another time)

However, I do want to clarify that although Catholics teach that we are saved by faith and works, you would be wrong, on this basis, to conclude that Catholics believe than man, to some degree, earns his own salvation. We Catholics do believe that salvation is a free gift of God.

I realize that sounds like a contradiction to you, and I shall do my best to explain it.

When Lutherans confess that we are saved by faith, they are correct to point out that this faith is not our own doing. Rather this faith is given to us by the Holy Spirit. And yet we are not entirely passive, because we do not reject faith in God. Still, faith comes from God, and not from us, therefore it is God’s work in saving us.

I would like you consider that love (caritas) works in much the same way. It comes from God, it is His gift. This love expresses itself in the keeping of the commandments. And yet it is God doing the work.

This is how we understand St. Paul when he says “Work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who is at work in you.” It is true, that Catholics admit that man, in a sense, cooperates with this Grace of God, just as he cooperates in the work of faith (by not rejecting confidence in God), nonetheless, he is not saved though His cooperation, but by the Grace of God that is at work in him.

As far as Trent, I simply ask that you look at the canons objectively rather than depend on your recollection. And I suggest you ask a Roman Priest whether you are understanding what you read there correctly. I am sure that you want to present Roman theology accurately. If Lutheranism is true, you should have nothing to gain by distorting the views of your opponents.

I echo Dan’s thoughts here, and believe the characterization of Catholic position is not accurate.

Pastor Rossow, if you want a faithful and accurate presentation of the Catholic understanding, I suggest reading (not necessarily agreeing with it) “Roots of the Reformation” by the late Fr. Karl Adam, a 20th century German Catholic Theologian, which is available free here: http://www.ewtn.com/library/chistory/rtref.txt

Also, Pastor Rossow, I have a question for you. You say above: “except for the fact that the Scriptures teach what Luther discovers about this.”

My question is by what authority does Luther teach this ‘new discovery”? By what authority did Luther reject the faith of those who went before him and “discover” a new revelation and understanding? Clearly Luther rejected many ideas which he held early in life, and which those who went before him held (and I might add those who came after, to this day hold). Are we to believe that Luther’s new understanding is a private but authoritative divine revelation? How do we Christians discern when these private ‘discoveries’ are actions of the Holy Spirit, and when they are the all too familiar well meaning moves into error and division?

If we take Chesterton’s beautiful quote:

“Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about.”

And Paul’s exhortation in 2 Thess 2:15 to “stand firm and hold fast to the traditions that you were taught, either by an oral statement or by a letter of ours.”

…and apply it to Luther, would he not be considered a part of the small living oligarchy arrogantly rejecting the faith that was passed on to him in favor of his own self determined understanding? Why should we see Luther as something other than a brilliant and gifted, but rebellious son of the Church who fell into error?