Do you fully affirm all that Trent stated, as they officially repudiated the true Gospel right then!
Is this what you are addressing? We have been there many times before:
The anathema
Canon 9 from Trent’s
Decree on Justification states: “If anyone says that the sinner is justified by faith alone, so that he understands that nothing else is required to cooperate in order to obtain the grace of justification, and that it is not in any way necessary that he be prepared and disposed by the action of his own will, let him be anathema.”
This is widely misunderstood.
One reason is that the term
anathema is often glossed in Protestant circles to mean something like “damned by God,” and the canon is represented as condemning Protestants to hell.
It isn’t. At that time in history, the term
anathema referred to a form of excommunication that could be imposed by a Church court for certain serious offenses. It was performed with a special ceremony, and its purpose was to motivate people to repent. When they did repent, it was also lifted with a special ceremony. It was seldom imposed and was eventually abolished.
The anathema did not sentence people to hell, it did not take effect automatically, it was never applied to all Protestants as a group, and it doesn’t apply to anyone today. The use of the term does, though, imply an authoritative rejection of the “faith alone” formula—
when it is used to mean a specific thing.
The canon
doesn’t say, “If anyone says that the sinner is justified by faith alone, let him be anathema.” Instead, it rejects a particular
use of the formula, whereby someone “understands that nothing else is required to cooperate in order to obtain the grace of justification, and that it is not in any way necessary that he be prepared and disposed by the action of his own will.”
Trent is therefore concerned to reject “faith alone” when it’s used to say that you don’t need to in any way cooperate with God’s grace, that a merely intellectual faith would save you.
And that’s correct. Merely agreeing with the truths of the theology is not enough to be saved. As James puts it: “You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder” (James 2:17).
A Catholic “faith alone”?
If Trent didn’t reject all uses of “faith alone,” could the formula have an acceptable use from a Catholic point of view?
It might come as a surprise, but quite a number of the Church Fathers used it (see Joseph Fitzmyer,
Romans, 360). Even Thomas Aquinas used it(
Commentary on 1 Timothy, ch. 1, lect. 3,
Commentary on Galatians, ch. 2, lect. 4).
The fathers of the Council may have known that some Catholics sources used the formula, and this may have been one reason why they only rejected certain interpretations of it.
Since the time of the Council, Catholic theologians have explored the senses in which the formula might be compatible with Catholic teaching. Specifically, they have pointed out that the theological virtue of charity (the supernatural love of God) unites us to God, and so, if one has faith combined with charity, then one has “faith working through love,” which is what Paul says counts in Christ (Gal. 5:6).
That kind of faith, which Catholic theologians refer to as “faith formed by charity,” would
—of itself—unite one to God spiritually.