Justification by Faith and Justification by Works

[stan the man]

Righteousness

One often hears Protestant apologists saying things like, "Catholics do not recognize justification as an event which happens to a person when he first comes to Christ because they confuse sanctification with justification." This is false on two fronts.

To begin with, Catholics do not confuse the two, thinking there is only one phenomenon when there are really two. Catholics do use the terms "justification" and "sanctification" interchangeably, but they distinguish two (actually, more than two) senses in which these joint-terms can be applied.

First, they recognize what is called "initial justification," which is a single event that happens to a person once, at the beginning of the Christian life and by which one is given righteous before God. Second, they recognize what is called "progressive justification," which occurs over the course of the Christian life and by which one grows in righteousness.

 

[Heavenly Pilgrim]

Stan the man: they recognize what is called "progressive justification," which occurs over the course of the Christian life and by which one grows in righteousness.

HP: Could you expound on this a bit. Is it possible to be partially righteous and partially unholy or sinful? You appear to be suggesting that one ‘grows in righteousness.’ During this growth period, is one righteous or sinful? Can one be righteous and sinful and one and the same time?

 

[stan the man]

Righteousness

The Protestant apologist, out of lack of familiarity with the Catholic position, usually jumps on this second phenomenon—progressive justification—and says, "Aha! You see! That's sanctification! Catholics confuse justification with sanctification!"

But in fact no confusion is going on. Catholics recognize that there are two phenomena; that is why they have given them two different names—initial versus progressive justification. They are not confusing the two events, one instantaneous and one stretched out over time, nor are they confusing the terms; they use the terms consistently, one name for one event, another name for the other. They are simply using the terms differently than Protestants, but it is a logical fallacy of the first caliber to confusing a difference in the use of terms with a confusion in the use of terms.

But there is a second reason why the Protestant apologist's assertion is false, and this one again springs from a lack of familiarity with the Catholic position, and it concerns the different senses in which the term "righteousness" can be used. Even the Protestants who get past the initial versus progressive issue tend to wrongly assume that what Catholics mean when they talk about progressive justification is what Protestants mean when they talk about sanctification. It isn't, and the difference between the two turns on the meaning of the term "righteousness."

For Protestants, the term "righteousness" tends to be used in one of two senses—legal and behavioral. Although they do not always express it in this manner, Protestants will say that in justification one is made legally righteous (i.e., is given legal righteousness by God), but in sanctification one is made behaviorally righteous (i.e., is given behavioral righteousness [One might also call behavioral righteousness "dispositional righteousness" since it is the change in dispositions that God gives one which produces the change in behavior.] by God, so that one behaves more righteously than one did before).

The misunderstanding Protestants get into when they look at the Catholic doctrines of initial justification(/sanctification) and progressive justification(/sanctification) is caused by the assumption that Catholic thought on these issues is dominated by the same legal vs. behavioral understanding of righteousness that Protestant thought is dominated by.

Thus the Protestant apologist often reasons to himself like this:

"Catholics believe we are made righteous when we are initially justified, but they do not believe we are made legally righteous, so they must mean that we are made behaviorally righteous at initial justification. They also believe that we grow in righteousness during progressive justification. This has to be growth in behavioral righteousness, because legal righteousness before God cannot grow; you are either legally righteous or you are not. Thus Catholics must mean by 'progressive justification' what I mean by 'sanctification'—that is, growth in behavioral righteousness. However, if it is possible to grow in behavioral righteousness after initial justification, that must mean the Catholic does not believe he was made completely righteous in initial justification. Thus Catholics must believe they are made partially behaviorally righteous during initial justification and then they grow in righteousness during progressive justification, which I call sanctification. Thus they confuse justification and sanctification."

 

[stan the man]

Righteousness

This is an elegant piece of reasoning, and except for a couple of qualifiers I would want thrown in (Such as a clarification of the sense in which one is either legally righteous or not-righteous before God, for Hitler was less legally righteous in front of God than the average sinner in the sense that Hitler had racked up more legal/moral crimes before God. However both Hitler and the average sinner are equally legally unrighteous before God in the sense that they lack the total legal righteousness of Christ. They are both equally lawbreakers, but they have not broken the law equally.), I would not fault it as a piece of logic. However, like all pieces of logic, its soundness is contingent on the truth of its premises, and the Protestant apologist's piece of logic is based on a hugely, whoppingly false premise—the idea that Catholics are talking about legal and behavioral justification when they are talking about initial and progressive justification.

Because the Protestant's thought world is dominated—so far as the idea of righteousness goes—by the concepts of legal and behavioral righteousness, he naturally assumes that when Catholic theologians are thinking about righteousness in the same sort of way. This is the false premise the cases the entire argument to go askew. Catholic thought in connection with the terms "justification" and "sanctification" is not dominated by the ideas of legal and behavioral righteousness. Instead, it focuses on a third kind of righteousness which may be called ontological or real righteousness.

(I will continue this at a later time)

 

[Heavenly Pilgrim]

Stan the man: the idea that Catholics are talking about legal and behavioral justification when they are talking about initial and progressive justification.

HP: I do not desire to throw your explanation off track, but this all sounds sophistical to me. When writing or speaking, one needs to try their best to eliminate as many distinctives or modifiers as possible. You are adding several in your explanation concerning justification and righteousness that confuse the listener. You have legal, behavioral, initial, and progressive in just one sentence alone. Show me from Scripture where such modifiers are used concerning justification and from reason why such are needed or proper to assume and utilize. Thanks.

 

[stan the man]

Righteousness

Heavenly Pilgrim, I think that reading my posts on page 26 beginning with posts #257-260 might help you out.

Now I will continue.

Ontological or real righteousness is the quality which adheres to the soul when one does righteous acts. Its opposite, ontological or real unrighteousness, is the quality which adheres to the soul when one does unrighteous acts. Catholics conceive of guilt and innocence as objectively real properties which cling to our souls just like colors cling to the surface of objects. When we sin, we become guilty and our souls grow dark and dirty before God. But when we are justified, God purifies us and our souls become brilliant and clean before him. Guilt and innocence, righteousness and unrighteousness, are therefore conceived of as properties of our souls.

 

[stan the man]

Righteousness

Even though Protestants do not normally use this language to talk about justification, there is no reason why they cannot. In fact, the Catholic will point out that there are very good reasons for Protestants to accept the claim that when we are justified God removes one objectively real property of our souls and replaces it with another.

First, moral realism demands it. Protestants are firm believers in moral realism. Our actions are either right or wrong, good or bad, and they are that way objectively, regardless of how we feel about it. Protestants are the first to agree that moral relativism is a crock. If you commit a homosexual act, it is simply wrong and perverted, no matter what you think about it. It's just wrong. Wrongness is an objectively real moral property that attaches itself to certain actions.

But for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. If you intentionally commit a objectively wrong act, then you become objectively guilty. Guilt is therefore an objectively real moral property as well. The same goes for positive moral properties, like righteousness. If you intentionally perform an objectively righteous act then you become objectively righteous. Righteousness, like guilt, is an objective property just as guilt is, and it clings to your soul just in the same way that guilt does.

So moral realism

Another reason why Protestants need to accept the language of objective guilt and innocence is that the Bible itself uses this kind of language. It often speaks of guilt and innocence in terms of objective properties, such as colors or cleanliness. Scripture speaks of our sins being "crimson like scarlet" (Isaiah 1:18), and the Psalmist says "wash me with hyssop and I shall be whiter than snow." (Psalm 51:7). It is also the kind of righteousness Scripture has in mind when it talks about our sins making us "unclean" or "filthy" and our forgiveness making us "pure" and "clean" before God. In these passages, guilt and innocence are conceived of as objectively real properties that cling to us just like colors and cleanliness.

 

[stan the man]

Righteousness

So there is no reason why Protestants need to object to the metaphysical understanding of righteousness that Catholics use. In fact, many Protestants are uncomfortable with using purely legal language for justification and state quite adamantly that justification is not just a legal fiction. That God actually "constitutes" us in righteousness. The only difference on this point is that they do not use the metaphysical understanding of righteousness in order to explain what constituting in righteousness means. But there is no reason why they cannot do so and, as I have seen, there are positive reasons why they should. Thus for example Protestant authors such as Norman Geisler, who are more familiar with the principles of ontology, are willing to talk about actual righteousness being given in justification. Geisler, for example, uses the helpful terminology of speaking of legal righteousness as "extrinsic" righteousness and actual righteousness as "intrinsic righteousness."

Catholics, for their part, have no trouble saying that a person is legally righteous before God when they are justified. If God constitutes a person in righteousness.

Furthermore, Catholics don't need to have any problem with saying that our righteousness is brought about by a decree of God. The Catholic can be perfectly happy saying that when we are justified God declares us righteous and his declaration bring about what it says. He declares us righteous, and so our guilt is taken away and our righteousness is restored.

This is something for which there is good Biblical support for. God's word is efficacious. It accomplishes what it says. In Genesis 1 God spoke and his word brought about the things that he spoke. He said, "Let there be light," and there was light. He said, "Let the waters be divided from each other so that dry land may appear," and they did. He said, "Let the waters teem with living creatures," and they did. Furthermore, in Isaiah 55:11, God said, "o shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and prosper in the thing for which I sent it" (RSV).

God may sometimes choose to give graces which are incomplete, which do not of themselves bring about their target goal, but when God declares something to be so, it is so. God's word is efficacious; it brings about what it says. So when God declares us righteous, we actually become righteous: we have our guilt taken away and our purity before God restored. This is true even if the righteousness that is being restored is the original righteousness which Adam lost for the whole human race.

 

[stan the man]

Righteousness

Thus in Catholic theology the term "justification" is used to refer to the event by which we are given ontological or real righteousness. Coextensive with this, of course, is legal righteousness, for God will not treat anyone as unrighteous who is really righteous. Similarly, God will not treat as righteous anyone who is really unrighteous. As God declares in Scripture, 'I will not justify the wicked" (Ex. 23:7)—his holiness prevents it. Thus for God to make someone legally righteous, he also must make them actually righteous; he must constitute them in righteousness. And for God to make someone actually righteous, he must correspondingly make them legally righteous.

So a Catholic need have no problems with the forensic/declaratory aspects of justification. God does indeed declare us righteous, and that is nothing with which a Catholic needs to quarrel. A Catholic also does not need to quarrel about which kind of righteousness is the cause and which is the effect, whether God declares a person legally righteous and that, by the miraculous creative power of his word, makes the person actually righteous, or whether God makes the person actually righteous and therefore declares the person legally righteous. This is a matter of indifference in Catholic theology.

 

[stan the man]

Righteousness

Furthermore, when Catholics talk about progressive justification/sanctification, they are again thinking of God making us ontologically righteous. This is almost totally missed by Protestants when they compare the Catholic view of progressive justification to the Protestant idea of sanctification, which is in turn part of the basis on which they say Catholics confuse justification with sanctification. No, Catholics don't. They recognize that growth in personal holiness (behavioral righteousness) is a separate and subsequent event to initial justification. The confusion is on the part of the Protestant who thinks Catholics are talking about growth in behavioral righteousness when they talk about progressive justification/sanctification. They aren't. They're talking about growth in actual righteousness.

This is sometimes a difficult concept for Protestants to grasp since they have heard so many sermons about righteousness being an all or nothing thing that they have trouble understanding the concept of how righteousness can grow. This is one of the things that keeps them boxed into a two-fold understanding of righteousness. However, the problem is solved when one grasps the concept of actual righteousness, which is not a one-dimensional but a two-dimensional concept.

(I will continue this at a later time)

 

[Heavenly Pilgrim]

Stan the man: Thus in Catholic theology the term "justification" is used to refer to the event by which we are given ontological or real righteousness.

HP: Now we have ‘ontological’ and ‘real’ righteousness. What in your mind do these distinctives do for clarification of the meaning of righteousness or the questions I asked you? Righteousness is not something given to us as one might pass out like candy. It is impossible to conceive of righteousness in relationship to man apart from a pronouncement of Gods approval upon certain actions we have done or something Christ has done for us in light of the fulfillment of certain conditions on our part

Let me try once again. Is it possible to be partially righteous and partially unholy or sinful? You appear to be suggesting that one ‘grows in righteousness.’ During this growth period, is one righteous or sinful? Can one be righteous and sinful and one and the same time?

 

[Faith alone]

stan,

I really appreciate all the info. on the RCC stance re. justification - you don't hear much on that very often. But as pilgrim has pointed out, we do have to distinguish between being declared righteous and actually being given righteousness and made righteous.

FA

 

[stan the man]

Righteousness

The first dimension of actual righteousness is its level of purity, which I might refer to as the quality of the righteousness. When one becomes a Christian and is justified, one receives totally pure actual righteousness. There is no admixture of sin or unrighteousness in the righteousness God gives one. Thus in this sense one is made just as righteous as Christ, because the level of purity in Christ's righteousness and ours is the same.

However, from this point of initial justification one's righteousness begins to grow during the course of the Christian life. This is the hard part for some to understand since they will ask, "But if we are already made totally pure, how can our righteousness grow from there?" The answer is where the second dimension of actual righteousness comes in. Righteousness does not continue to grow in the first dimension; once total purity has been received, it is not possible for righteousness to grow in that dimension. One cannot go beyond total purity in the quality of righteousness, so righteousness grows in its second dimension—its quantity.

Even though when we first came to God we were made totally righteous in the sense that we became totally pure, we have not yet done any good works, for these are made possible only by God's grace after justification. The righteousness God have given us may be totally perfect in quality but it is not yet totally perfect in quantity. We may be just as righteous as Christ in the sense that the righteousness God has given us is just as pure as Christ's, but it is not as extensive as Christ's because we have not done as many good works as Christ. The tiny little good works we do in our lives—works wrought only by the grace God himself gives us—in no way compare to the huge, overwhelming, infinite good works of Christ, such as his death on the cross. So while we may have just as much righteousness as Christ in terms of its quality (total purity, by God's grace), we do not have just as much righteousness as Christ in terms of its quantity.

It is in terms of the quantity of righteousness that rewards are given in heaven, and thus because Christ has a greater quantity of righteousness than we do, he also has a correspondingly greater reward. As Paul says: "eing found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth" (Philippians 2:8-10). And as the book of Hebrews declares: "Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, . . . for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God" (Hebrews 12:2). And so "in everything he [has] the supremacy" (Col. 1:18).

 

[Heavenly Pilgrim]

I met a man the other day that was not a Christian nor claimed to be one. When I asked him about eternity and his hope, he told me that he was now doing good. He knew that he had done bad over his life but he was doing better, and that he hoped that the good he now was doing was making up for the bad he had done.

My advice to this man was that no amount of good or righteous behavior would or could ever atone for the evil that he had previously done. It is not good works that form the basis of our righteous standing before the Lord, for no amount of good or righteous behavior has the least ability to atone for sins that are past. We need a Mediator, we need an Advocate, we need a Savior to die in our place to make an atonement for our sins. The grounds of salvation is not faith and good works, for good works have no power in and of themselves to atone for one solitary sin. It is by faith alone in the Mediatory work of Christ on the cross apart from works that man can be justified for sins that are past and achieve a righteous standing before the Lord. Remember, at this point I am addressing the ‘grounds of salvation,’ not any conditions God has set forth in order for the grounds of salvation to be made effective in our lives.

Just the same, are there not works to be accomplished by man which must be done in order to be saved? I say absolutely, but NOT seen in any way as the grounds of salvation, or ‘that for the sake of,’ but rather seen only as the meeting of the conditions God has set forth, thought of in the sense of ‘not without which.’ God has mandated by His Word that man must exercise his will in obedience if the grounds of salvation, i.e., God’s grace and mercy, are to be extended to us as sinners. God calls upon man to exercise his will in repentance and faith, both being acts of man’s will. This is in no way mixing good works with the grounds of salvation, or frustrating grace and works. It is properly understanding the sense in which our works are always thought of and understanding the clear distinction between fulfilling the conditions God has set forth, and the 'grounds of salvation' which we have absolutely nothing to do with.

Good works will never save anyone and are not ever thought of in way as being part of the 'grounds of salvation,' but without works, i.e., the fulfilling of the conditions of repentance, faith, and continued obedience until the end, no man shall see the Lord. We are not saved because of our works, i.e., they are not thought of in the sense of ‘that for the sake of,’ but apart from the fulfilling of the conditions God has set forth to receive the free gift of salvation, thought of in the sense of ‘not without which,’ no man will ever see the Lord.

 

[stan the man]

Righteousness

This understanding of the three kinds of righteousness—legal, actual, and behavioral [There is also a fourth kind of righteousness, historical righteousness, which is one's track-record in terms of righteousness through history. Once historical righteousness has been lost through sin, it cannot be regained since God does not change history when he justifies us. This is something both Protestants and Catholics agree upon, and so this kind of righteousness I do not need to go into.] —enables me to look back at the reasoning of the Protestant apologist I mentioned earlier and see where it goes wrong. One will recall that the Protestant apologist reasoned:

"Catholics believe we are made righteous when we are initially justified, but they do not believe we are made legally righteous, so they must mean that we are made behaviorally righteous at initial justification."

Obviously this is false since the Catholic is not boxed into a two-fold view of righteousness. It is natural for the Protestant to think this, since his own thoughts on righteousness are normally limited to legal and behavioral, but in fact that Catholic believes that in justification we are given actual righteousness (and in conjunction with it, legal righteousness, for the two are co-extensive, as well as being given the first stirrings of behavioral righteousness through regeneration). The Protestant apologist then reasoned:

"They also believe that we grow in righteousness during progressive justification. This has to be growth in behavioral righteousness, because legal righteousness before God cannot grow; you are either legally righteous or you are not. Thus Catholics must mean by 'progressive justification' what I mean by 'sanctification'—that is, growth in behavioral righteousness."

This is also false because in progressive justification Catholics are again talking about actual righteousness, and actual righteousness does grow in quantity though not in quality.

"However, if it is possible to grow in behavioral righteousness after initial justification, that must mean the Catholic does not believe he was made completely righteous in initial justification."

This is false because the Catholic does believe we are made completely righteous in terms of the quality of our righteousness (both actually and, consequently, legally) at justification. The growth that occurs later is a growth of quantity, not quality.

"Thus Catholics must believe they are made partially behaviorally righteous during initial justification and then they grow in righteousness during progressive justification, which I call sanctification. Thus they confuse justification and sanctification."

If Catholics did believe initial justification is to be identified as the event where we are made partially behaviorally righteous, followed by later growth in behavioral righteousness, then they would indeed be confusing justification with the sanctification (as Protestants use the term "sanctification"), because this would merely make justification the first stage of behavioral sanctification. However, while there is a gift of partial behavioral righteousness at the time of justification (because of regeneration, which makes us spiritually alive and no longer dead in our sins, so that the power of sin is broken in our lives and we are no longer enslaved to it, though we do still have to battle it, cf. Romans 6), this gift of partial behavioral righteousness is not what justification consists in. In Catholic language, justification consists in God making us actually righteous (and 100% righteous in terms of quality), which is either brought about by God's declaring us legally righteous or which brings about this legal declaration.

 

[stan the man]

Righteousness

The confusion is thus not on the part of the Catholic. The Catholic is not confusing justification with sanctification—not confusing our initial reception by God and the growth in behavioral righteousness which follows—the confusion is on the part of the Protestant apologist who has not studied Catholic theology properly (and who probably has never read Catholic sources or has only scanned them looking for "ammo" to use against Catholics, rather than trying to enter into the Catholic thought-world and understand what Catholics really mean rather than what he has been told in sermons and lectures and radio program they mean), and who has thus confused his own understanding of sanctification with the Catholic understanding of both justification and sanctification.

Unfortunately, the misunderstanding the Protestant apologist has concerning these matters leads him into other confusions as well. For example, I have talked to, and read numerous Protestant apologists who, because they are confused about the growth of righteousness, ask questions like, "If Catholics believe we are only made partially righteous in justification and you do good works after this to make this righteousness grow, how do you know when you have done enough good works to go to heaven? How many good works do you have to do?"

People who say this at least have a leg up on those who think Catholics believe they must do good works in order to become justified—a position which was explicitly condemned at Trent, which taught "nothing that precedes justification, whether faith or works, merits the grace of justification" (Decree on Justification 8). Catholic theology teaches we do not do good works in order to be justified, but that we are justified in order to do good works, as Paul says: "[W]e are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them" (Ephesians 2:10). Justification is the cause, not the consequence, of good works.

 

[Heavenly Pilgrim]

Stan the man: The first dimension of actual righteousness is its level of purity, which I might refer to as the quality of the righteousness. When one becomes a Christian and is justified, one receives totally pure actual righteousness. There is no admixture of sin or unrighteousness in the righteousness God gives one. Thus in this sense one is made just as righteous as Christ, because the level of purity in Christ's righteousness and ours is the same.

HP: To me, you are approaching righteousness as a ‘thing’ rather than in a moral and judicial sense which it is. Righteousness refers to a judgment of God upon the free moral actions of sentient beings exhibited towards God the Father and His law, whether it be in the case of Christ or in the case of man and angels, in which God declares the actions by the sentient being to be in accordance with the demands of His character and law. Righteousness is never given to anyone, although as in the case of Christ His righteousness, or acts of obedience, it is applied in a judicial sense to the transgressions of others under certain conditions as we see done in salvation in the covering of sins of men that are past. Even in the case of salvation, His righteousness is not ‘given’ to men, but rather it serves simply to justify the demands of the law on behalf of sinful man, that sinful man would have rightfully encurred if in fact no substitution would have been made.

STM: However, from this point of initial justification one's righteousness begins to grow during the course of the Christian life. This is the hard part for some to understand since they will ask, "But if we are already made totally pure, how can our righteousness grow from there?" The answer is where the second dimension of actual righteousness comes in. Righteousness does not continue to grow in the first dimension; once total purity has been received, it is not possible for righteousness to grow in that dimension. One cannot go beyond total purity in the quality of righteousness, so righteousness grows in its second dimension—its quantity.

HP: Righteousness again is not a thing that multiplies, it is a declaration of God as to whether or not the actions of the will in question are in accordance to His law or not. Either such a judgment is righteous or it is not. It does not multiply in quantity as you suggest. Righteousness cannot be measured in quantity, for it is or it is not. It either simply exists or it does not. It cannot be quantified. It is simply as the question of obedience is to God. “Either you are for me or you are against me.” It is as the color designation of white or black. Either it is white or black, never is white getting whiter or black getting blacker. Righteousness is utilized in relationship to a state of being, again not quantifiable in terms of getting more or less of anything.

You are confusing the ‘quantity’ of works with the quality or judgment of a state of being, in this case righteousness, and then trying to tell us that this confusion is simply a second dimension of something when in fact the thing in question (righteousness) is limited to one dimension only.

Either we are alive or dead. If I start to qualify alive by stating some might be more alive than others, I have shifted the object to another realm altogether, a realm totally separate from mere physical existence. You are shifting the object from righteousness as a state when you start speaking of ‘quantity’ and in effect leaving the realm of the nature of righteousness altogether.

 

[stan the man]

Righteousness

However, some are still confused about the fact that Catholics do not teach we are made only partially righteous in justification. The Catholic Church teaches that we are made totally righteous—we receive 100% pure righteousness—in justification. Thus Trent declares:

"n those who are born again God hates nothing, because there is no condemnation to those who are truly buried together with Christ by baptism unto death . . . but, putting off the old man and putting on the new one who is created according to God, are made innocent, immaculate, pure, guiltless and beloved of God, heirs indeed of God, joint heirs with Christ; so that there is nothing whatever to hinder their entrance into heaven" (Decree on Original Sin 5).

This one quote alone, even without the surrounding infrastructure of Catholic theology, from which the same thing could be deduced, shows how false, foolish, based on inadequate research, and motivated by a lack of comprehension of basic Catholic theological reasons is the whole, "How can you know when you have done enough?" line of argument. Nothing beyond one's initial justification and regeneration is needed in order to go to heaven. In fact, this is one of the arguments in the Catholic case for infant baptism. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church states:

"Since the earliest times, baptism has been administered to children, for it is a grace and a gift of God that does not presuppose any human merit; children are baptized in the faith of the Church. Entry into Christian life gives access to true freedom" (CCC 1282).

And also:

"Born with a fallen human nature and tainted by original sin, children also have need of the new birth in Baptism to be freed from the power of darkness and brought into the realm of the freedom of the children of God . . . [And thus] The sheer gratuitousness of the grace of salvation is particularly manifest in infant baptism" (CCC 1250).

 

[stan the man]

Righteousness

You don't have to do a diddly-do-da thing after being justified by God in baptism in order to go to heaven. There is no magic level of works one needs to achieve in order to go to heaven. One is saved the moment one is initially justified. The only things one then does is good works because one loves God (the only kind which receive rewards) and not choose to cast out God's grace by mortal sin. And even if one does cast it out by mortal sin, the only thing needed to get it back was the same thing needed to get it in the first place—repentance, faith, and sacrament, except the sacrament in this case is confession rather than baptism.

People try to make the Catholic message sound complex, but it's really simple: "Repent, believe and be baptized; then if you commit mortal sin, repent, believe, and confess. Period."— even a five year old child can understand that. All the exegesis and infrastructure of Catholic soteriology I am giving in this post is strictly not necessary, any more than the exegesis and infrastructure found in Protestant soteriology books is either. From a Catholic perspective, repentance, faith, and baptism are just as easy to get across in an evangelistic appeal as they are for Protestants; in fact, they are easier since one doesn't have to explain, "Okay, repentance and faith are necessary, but baptism isn't, but it's still really important, and so you need to do it, okay?" On the Catholic view, the message of the elements they have to preach is much simpler: Repent, believe, and in the saving waters, receive the righteousness of God.

(I will do the following at a later time. I want to look at a second term: Merit. I want to look at it because Protestant apologist have a misunderstanding of the Catholics view of merit. Then after I am done looking at Merit, I will look at the Catholic view of Justification.)

 

[Heavenly Pilgrim]

STM: On the Catholic view, the message of the elements they have to preach is much simpler: Repent, believe, and in the saving waters, receive the righteousness of God.

HP: If one was ever looking for quote to establish the view that Stan the man believes in salvation by works, or righteousness by works, here it is. Water baptism is the means by which the righteousness of God is received. What about the thief on the cross? The next thing that you are going to tell me is………………..lets guess. Could it be that the Roman Catholic priest needs to be the one waving the wand over the baptismal recipient if it is in fact it is accomplishing the real thing?