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Per Trent, God does not justify anyone until real righteousness inheres within the person. Which is to say, God does not declare a person righteous unless he or she is righteous. For Romanism, justification becomes a matter of sanctification, since justificare, the Latin root of justification means to make righteous. This view sets the Roman Catholic down the path of a sacramental treadmill where condign and congruous merit is applied to the penitent as he or she gets “re-justified” over and over again. Contrary to the misinformed caricature by Protestants who claim Romanists do not believe in faith before justification, the Roman Catholic doctrine, per Trent, teaches faith is indeed necessary is required for justification, but, alas, that faith alone is not sufficient for justification.
Among the many points Rome offered at Trent, chief among them were several key claims: (1) that sinners are justified by their baptism; (2) that justification is by faith in Christ and a person’s good works; (3) that sinners are not justified solely by the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ; and (4) that a person can lose his justified status.
What we have here is then a system in which mortal sin leads to loss of justification. Explicitly taught by Rome is that someone with saving faith can actually commit mortal sin, that is, faith is not lost, but justification is lost. A person within Catholicism can retain their faith, but lose their justification! The more surprising fact is that Rome understands imputation, as Rome teaches our sins are imputed to Christ on the cross, but they refuse the double-imputation, the great exchange, of Christ’s righteousness being imputed to the believer. The whole matter of indulgences within Catholicism also involves merit being transferred by imputation from the merit treasury of the church that has been built up by works of supererogation.
The Reformers, who were trying to recover the gospel abandoned by the church that had fell into apostasy, understood justification is based on the imputation of the righteousness of Jesus. After all, the actual Greek word, dikaioo, used in the New Testament means to declare righteous, and it is clear that justification comes before sanctification. Thus, the reckoning of the righteousness of Christ to the believing person is the only ground by which a person can be saved. The Reformers protesting Romanism understood our righteousness is an alien righteousness (Luther), it is extra nos. The believer is simul justus et peccator. This is the true Good News, that we can be reconciled to God. We can be justified, not on the basis of what we do, but on the basis of what has been accomplished for us by Christ.
These were then and remain now radically different views of salvation. The differences between Romanism and the true catholic faith on the matter of justification are immiscible.
And Romanists can’t seem to make up their mind on these irreconcilable differences. Under Vatican I we Protestants were all schismatics and heretics, yet by the time of Vatican II, we were merely separated brethren. The often claimed monolithic unity of Roman Catholicism is perhaps betrayed by this shift. Within Roman Catholicism you will find the progressive wing proponents of nouvelle théologieie in the West, sounding almost like Protestants, at odds with the old-school Latinists. Then there are the many maximalists and minimalists Mariologists within Catholicism. And so on. Wishfully thinking Roman Catholics continue to parrot the party line about how wonderfully unified Roman Catholicism is when compared to Protestantism.
The Catholic in the pew cannot speak authoritatively about doctrine. Rome has spoken for them on all matters of the faith, so when it comes to discussing what this or that passage from Scripture means, at an exegetical level, the only recourse of the Catholic is to scurry about hoping to find some pronouncement from Rome on the topic surrounding the passage. Now they won’t find much exegesis, just some statement about doctrine as in or anathema.
This is exactly why substantive discussion with any Roman Catholic layperson is a fruitless endeavor. Trent has declared that Rome’s interpretation of Scripture is the only correct interpretation. When a Protestant discusses a particular point of biblical interpretation, and if that point differs from Rome’s official interpretation, any further discussion with a Catholic is pointless. Quite simply the Roman Catholic will just say the Protestant is wrong because the sacrosanct tradition of the Roman Catholic church says differently. I think this is why in this country the Catholic laity enjoys trotting out the likes of Scott Hahn or some other known Protestant having has crossed the Tiber. After all, how many well-known contemporary Catholic exegetes can anyone name? Quick now, list as many as you can without resorting to Google.
So when Romanists respond in threads with links (albeit salted with contumelious babble) to this or that pronouncement from Rome, such are actually being obedient Catholics. Oddly, there are some Romanists who fail to grasp the Catholic wrongness of thinking their own thoughts about the Bible and go about posting them. Romanist individualism just won’t do—such private interpretation of Scripture is forbidden. Then, of course, there’s TOL's own Chrysostom—prima facie evidence that the claimed monolithicity of Catholicism is something right out of Hans Christian Andersen.
AMR
Among the many points Rome offered at Trent, chief among them were several key claims: (1) that sinners are justified by their baptism; (2) that justification is by faith in Christ and a person’s good works; (3) that sinners are not justified solely by the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ; and (4) that a person can lose his justified status.
What we have here is then a system in which mortal sin leads to loss of justification. Explicitly taught by Rome is that someone with saving faith can actually commit mortal sin, that is, faith is not lost, but justification is lost. A person within Catholicism can retain their faith, but lose their justification! The more surprising fact is that Rome understands imputation, as Rome teaches our sins are imputed to Christ on the cross, but they refuse the double-imputation, the great exchange, of Christ’s righteousness being imputed to the believer. The whole matter of indulgences within Catholicism also involves merit being transferred by imputation from the merit treasury of the church that has been built up by works of supererogation.
The Reformers, who were trying to recover the gospel abandoned by the church that had fell into apostasy, understood justification is based on the imputation of the righteousness of Jesus. After all, the actual Greek word, dikaioo, used in the New Testament means to declare righteous, and it is clear that justification comes before sanctification. Thus, the reckoning of the righteousness of Christ to the believing person is the only ground by which a person can be saved. The Reformers protesting Romanism understood our righteousness is an alien righteousness (Luther), it is extra nos. The believer is simul justus et peccator. This is the true Good News, that we can be reconciled to God. We can be justified, not on the basis of what we do, but on the basis of what has been accomplished for us by Christ.
These were then and remain now radically different views of salvation. The differences between Romanism and the true catholic faith on the matter of justification are immiscible.
And Romanists can’t seem to make up their mind on these irreconcilable differences. Under Vatican I we Protestants were all schismatics and heretics, yet by the time of Vatican II, we were merely separated brethren. The often claimed monolithic unity of Roman Catholicism is perhaps betrayed by this shift. Within Roman Catholicism you will find the progressive wing proponents of nouvelle théologieie in the West, sounding almost like Protestants, at odds with the old-school Latinists. Then there are the many maximalists and minimalists Mariologists within Catholicism. And so on. Wishfully thinking Roman Catholics continue to parrot the party line about how wonderfully unified Roman Catholicism is when compared to Protestantism.
The Catholic in the pew cannot speak authoritatively about doctrine. Rome has spoken for them on all matters of the faith, so when it comes to discussing what this or that passage from Scripture means, at an exegetical level, the only recourse of the Catholic is to scurry about hoping to find some pronouncement from Rome on the topic surrounding the passage. Now they won’t find much exegesis, just some statement about doctrine as in or anathema.
This is exactly why substantive discussion with any Roman Catholic layperson is a fruitless endeavor. Trent has declared that Rome’s interpretation of Scripture is the only correct interpretation. When a Protestant discusses a particular point of biblical interpretation, and if that point differs from Rome’s official interpretation, any further discussion with a Catholic is pointless. Quite simply the Roman Catholic will just say the Protestant is wrong because the sacrosanct tradition of the Roman Catholic church says differently. I think this is why in this country the Catholic laity enjoys trotting out the likes of Scott Hahn or some other known Protestant having has crossed the Tiber. After all, how many well-known contemporary Catholic exegetes can anyone name? Quick now, list as many as you can without resorting to Google.
So when Romanists respond in threads with links (albeit salted with contumelious babble) to this or that pronouncement from Rome, such are actually being obedient Catholics. Oddly, there are some Romanists who fail to grasp the Catholic wrongness of thinking their own thoughts about the Bible and go about posting them. Romanist individualism just won’t do—such private interpretation of Scripture is forbidden. Then, of course, there’s TOL's own Chrysostom—prima facie evidence that the claimed monolithicity of Catholicism is something right out of Hans Christian Andersen.
AMR