Posted on 12/04/2005 2:14:06 AM PST by HarleyD
The History of the Reformation…The Goose That Became a Swan…John Huss (Part 2)
The History of the Reformation… The Morning Star of the Reformation… John Wycliffe (Part 3)
The History of the Reformation…De Haeretico Comburendo… The Lollards (Part 4)
The History of the Reformation...The Little Red Bible Chained to the Wall (Part 5)
History Ping
REFORMED PING
You can't be a Christian without an "understanding" of the 16th century invention of the "imputed righteousness of Christ"? LOL. I guess there were no Christians before the 16th century.
"Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man?" For who but a righteous man lawfully uses the law? Yet it is not for him that it is made, but for the unrighteous. Must then the unrighteous man, in order that he may be justified,-- that is, become a righteous man,-- lawfully use the law, to lead him, as by the schoolmaster's hands to that grace by which alone he can fulfil what the law commands? Now it is freely that he is justified thereby,--that is, on account of no antecedent merits of his own works; "otherwise grace is no more grace," since it is bestowed on us, not because we have done good works, but that we may be able to do them,-- in other words, not because we have fulfilled the law, but in order that we may be able to fulfil the law. ...For what else does the phrase "being justified" signify than being made righteous, -- by Him, of course, who justifies the ungodly man, that he may become a godly one instead? (St. Augustine, On the Spirit and the Letter, nos. 16, 45)
This article practically breathes hatred for the practice of religion and piety. A sad demonstration of the roots of the Reformation.
Invention?
Either we are saved by our own righteousness or we are saved by the righteousness of God raised from the cross. Scripture speaks to the latter.
An excellent essay on whose righteousness has saved you and me is found here:
Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord." -- Romans 6:10-11"For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God.
This article speaks to the gracious fact that Luther's years of solitude in the monastery at Erfurt prepared him well for his two-year confinement in Wartburg Castle during which time he translated the German Bible.
As God willed, by His grace alone, for His glory alone, through Christ alone.
The torment Luther felt when he struggled to name every sin lest he forget a single one and not be rectified with God is heartrending. As a Protestant, I read this essay and understand Luther's guilt and pain and fear. And then, like Luther, I return to Scripture and realize again my sins were forgiven at Calvary, my transgressions against God were born on the back of God Himself who is the only redemption capable of paying for so much error, and that I will sit with God in heaven for eternity because of the atoning resurrection of Christ alone.
"Faith is a living, daring confidence in God's grace, so sure and certain that a man could stake his life on it a thousand times." -- Martin Luther
The ground of justification is the righteousness of Christ infused into the justified.
Imputation is a legal fiction that says that God, on the basis of Christ's righteousness, regards the ungodly as righteous without making them so. Scripture knows nothing of this concept which is based on late-medieval nominalist philosophy. St. Paul clearly regards justification as transformational, not imputed:
Therefore, as by the offence of one, unto all men to condemnation; so also by the justice of one, unto all men to justification of life. For as by the disobedience of one man, many were made sinners; so also by the obedience of one, many shall be made just. (Rom. 5:18-20)There is now therefore no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, who walk not according to the flesh. For the law of the spirit of life, in Christ Jesus, hath delivered me from the law of sin and of death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh; God sending his own Son, in the likeness of sinful flesh and of sin, hath condemned sin in the flesh; That the justification of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the spirit. (Rom. 8:1-4)
But knowing that man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ; we also believe in Christ Jesus, that we may be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: because by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified. But if while we seek to be justified in Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners; is Christ then the minister of sin? God forbid. For if I build up again the things which I have destroyed, I make myself a prevaricator. For I, through the law, am dead to the law, that I may live to God: with Christ I am nailed to the cross. And I live, now not I; but Christ liveth in me. And that I live now in the flesh: I live in the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered himself for me. I cast not away the grace of God. For if justice be by the law, then Christ died in vain. (Gal. 2:16-21)
Here is a segment from John Henry Newman's Lectures on Justification (written while still an Anglican) demolishing the notion of the imputed righteousness of Christ: Misuse of the Term Just or Righteous:
None but the Eternal Son, who is incommunicably like the Father, can be infinitely acceptable to Him or simply righteous. Yet in proportion as rational beings are like the Son, or partake of His excellence, so are they really righteous; in proportion as God sees His Son in them, He is well pleased with them. Righteousness is nothing else than moral goodness regarded in its intrinsic worth or acceptableness, just as love, truth, and peace, are other names for the same moral goodness, according as it is viewed in different aspects. It is love, or truth, or goodness, viewed relatively to God's judgment or approval of it; or, in words already used, it is the quality in love, truth, or goodness, of being intrinsically pleasing to Him. And, being acceptableness, it is surely as capable of being imparted to man, as love, truth, or goodness; and that in fact it is so imparted, and imparted from and through the Eternal Son, is the literal and uniform declaration of Scripture. Not only is the word "righteous" applied to Christians in Scripture, but the idea is again and again, in various ways, forced upon us. We read, for instance, of "God working in us that which is well-pleasing in His sight;" of our being "holy and without blame before Him in love;" of Christ, "who is His image," "shining" and "living" in our hearts; of His "making us accepted" or gracious "in the Beloved;" and of His "knowing what is the mind of the Spirit" in our hearts, because "He maketh intercession for the saints in God's way." [Heb. xiii. 21. 2 Cor. iv. 4. Eph. i. 4, 6. Rom. viii. 27.]
"...invention of the "imputed righteousness of Christ"
"Invention?"
That is funny.
Here is a brief survey of Catholic "inventors":
The Catholic Hermann Volk sees imputation as an essential aspect of justification since Christ's righteousness is "reckoned" to us (see his "Imputationsgerechtigkeit" in Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche [Freiburg: Herder, 1960])
Hans Küng writes that this "legal character is of fundamental signification for justification." Furthermore, as a forensic statement of the divine Judge, it involves "a declaration of justice, a court judgment, a nonreckoning of sins, and a reckoning of Christ's justice (imputation: Rom 4; Gal 3:6) through God" ("Justification and Sanctification According to the New Testament" in Christianity Divided: Protestant and Roman Catholic Theological Issues, ed. by D. Callahan, et al [New York: Sheed and Ward, 1961] 315).
Other Catholic theologians, such as Ricardo Franco, see the biblical term "justification" as refering primarily to God's judicial verdict of pardon and right-standing, whereby a new relationship is initiated between the person and God, and it therefore cannot be interpreted merely as a synonym for the infusion of grace (see his "Justification" in Sacramentum Mundi, volume 3 [New York: Herder and Herder, 1969], 239-241). Franco goes on explain this verdict as the forensic application of eschatological judgment to us now, in Christ, a judgment that is not based upon us already being inherently righteous, but that is antecedent to and creative of any growth in actual righteousness.
J.P. Kenny, writing in the Catholic Dictionary of Theology (London: Nelson, 1971), says regarding "justification,"
...[Paul] interchanges it at times with the phrase "to reckon as just" (Rom 4:3; Gal 3:6). When used of the end-events and set in opposition to condemnation (Rom 8:33; 1 Cor 4:4) it is clearly used in a forensic sense, and sometimes it has associated with it the Jewish law-court term: "in His sight" or "before Him" (Rom 3:20; Gal 3:11). Nouns describing the act or state of justification (Rom 5:16-18) are likewise forensic. The immediate sense of the term would thus be rather a declaring just and not a making just. (175)
Catholic scholars, such as [Joseph]Fitzmyer, have come to recognize that in the LXX dikaioun seems to have a declarative, forensic sense (see Fitzmeyer's summary of Pauline theology in The New Jerome Biblical Commentary; see also Michael Schmaus' Dogma, volume 6: Justification and the Last Things [Kansas City: Sheed and Ward, 1977]).
Catholic scholar George Tavard appreciatively wrote,
When [the Reformers] asserted imputed justification, they wished simply to deny a justice pertaining to man; they wished to make the Pelagian distortions of sanctification impossible, to kill at the roots the idolatrous desire to sanctify oneself through an accumulation of merits...We have nothing of our own: all comes from Christ. (Protestantism [New York, 1959] 27)
These are just some of more recent "inventors" and we haven't even touched on "inventors" such as Augustine, Anselm of Canterbury, and Thomas Aquinas.
Are you trying to prove my point? All the people you quote from are 20th century authors.
Fr. Fitzmeyer actually says that Paul uses "justify" in a transformative sense. You'd know this if you'd actually read his works instead of culling quotes from http://www.joelgarver.com/writ/theo/question.htm.
You can't seriously be suggesting that Thomas, Anselm, or Augustine would have any truck with the idea of the imputed righteousness of Christ. For starters, see the excerpts from De Spiritu et Littera which I gave above. As regards Thomas, you must be joking - his doctrine is followed very closely by Trent and Catholic theology.
I did not realize your point was that 20th century Catholic theologians were forensic imputationists.
Fr. Fitzmeyer actually says that Paul uses "justify" in a transformative sense. You'd know this if you'd actually read his works instead of culling quotes from http://www.joelgarver.com/writ/theo/question.htm.
Actually I did read the work and it talks about the early Fitzmeyer and the later Fitzmeyer. Did you miss that?
As regards Thomas, you must be joking...
I guess the joke is on me since that short piece does not deny imputation but does show what always concerned we Protestants, Aquinas was a servant to Aristotle. Should I cull some Aquinas quotes to show he was in fact a true monergist? The mere mention of free will does not deny monergism.
Perhaps what is most interesting is why Trent swept under the rug the Diet of Ratisbon's doctrine of double justification. Surprisingly similar to the Reformational doctrine of Justification and Sanctification. I can think of three reasons: Money, Power, and Land.
20th century authors supposedly supporting imputation don't disprove what I said, namely that the idea of the imputed righteousness of Christ first showed up in the 16th century. Obviously you need to quote 15th century or earlier authors to do that - which you can't.
The piece's references to early and later Fitzmeyer have to do with the place he gives to justification in Pauline theology, not with the idea of imputed righteousness. My criticism stills stands that you didn't read Fitzmeyer himself and so ended up misrepresenting him.
Thomas, unlike Protestants, doesn't denigrate reason. That doesn't make him a "servant to Aristotle". And in the article I linked you to he says: "the just, who by the fact of their justification are worthy of glory." Obviously this is not an imputed righteousness in question. Similiarly, he defines justification itself as follows: "the transmutation whereby anyone is changed by the remission of sins from the state of ungodliness to the state of justice."
As for the claim that he is "a true monergist," I assume by this term you mean "Calvinist." Nothing could be further from the truth, although you try to evade this by laughably suggesting that Calvinism is compatible with belief in free-will. Try and reconcile I-II q. 115 of the Summa Theologiae with your claim...
I can think of three reasons: Money, Power, and Land.
Or you could think of the real reason: double justification was a hacked-together compromise formula which didn't please either the Reformers or the Catholics. Try reading Fr. Jedin's history of Trent.
Um, I'm having real trouble following this article. What precisely is "imputed righteousness"? I don't think I've ever heard the term. Am I correct in assuming that the term was unknown in The Church, and thus to the Fathers, prior to the Reformation?
And Harley, this line, "Now what is so remarkable about the novice Martin Luther is that on July 17, 1505 he was not even a Christian.", takien in context of the following lines am I correct in concluding that the author is speaking of the Western notion of a tension between "works" and "faith"?
"Imputed Righteousness" is the key Protestant idea in interpreting certain passages of +Paul about justification. Here is as good an example of it as any. The theory goes like this: on the Cross, God counted Jesus as a sinner, and punished him for our sins. Now, in justifying us, God imputes or reckons us as righteous on the basis of Jesus' righteousness, although we remain unrighteous.
For a scholarly discussion of Western ideas on Justification, both Catholic and Protestant, I can't recommend highly enough Newman's Lectures on Justification. Here's how he describes it:
This, however, is denied by the majority of Protestant divines, who grant indeed that we are made righteous, yet, not righteous, as He is righteous, but in an entirely different sense, as distinct from what is meant by His righteousness, as foresight or ingenuity, as possessed by brute animals, differs from the same properties when belonging to rational beings; Christ's righteousness having intrinsic excellence, ours, though the work of the Spirit, being supposed to have none. This they maintain; and as if distinctions would serve instead of proof, they lay down, as a principle to start with, that there are two kinds of righteousness, the righteousness of justification, or intrinsic acceptableness, which Christ alone has, and the righteousness of sanctification, which is the Christian's. Now, then, let us consider the principle of interpretation which such a distinction involves. (pp. 108-9)
Protestants believe that a true Christian is one who is truly changed by God. They no longer have a desire to sin but a true desire to seek after the things of God.
Roman Catholics believe in infused righteousness. God makes you right the moment you are baptized. Since we continue to sin, God's grace must be refreshed through various sacraments. Many see this (I suspect the author does) as a works based religion. However, it is unclear from the article if the author is critical of the Roman Catholic Church as a works-based institution or if Martin Luther believed in salvation by works.
I read the Protestant tract. I guess I have nothing to say about it.
Thank you for the link to Cardinal Newman. I've bookmarked it and will start reading it tomorrow. I did see this at page 104:
"PLAINER words can hardly be found than those of Scripture itself, to express the doctrine I have been insisting on. Christ, who is the Well-beloved, All-powerful Son of God, is possessed by every Christian as a Saviour in the full meaning of that title, or becomes to us righteousness; and in and after so becoming, really communicates a measure, and a continually increasing, measure, of what He is Himself. In the words of the Apostle, "We are complete in Him," and again, of the Evangelist, "Of His fulness have all we received, and grace for grace." He makes us gradually and eventually to be in our own persons, what He has been from eternity in Himself, what He is from our Baptism towards us, righteous. That acceptableness, which He has ever had in the Father's sight, as being the reflection of the Father's perfections, He first imputes, then imparts to us."
Excellent description of the process of theosis. It is of course the Holy Spirit which dwells within us and leads us more and more to die to the self and become focused on Christ. "For the Son of God became Man so that we might become God".
I look forward to reading the Cardinal. But I'm still not sure what this imputed righteousness stuff is. I am assuming that it isn;t anything like our concept of theosis at all, either in "process" or "end product". It is, my friend, very "foreign" to my thinking.
"Imputed righteousness is simply the moment we believe and become "new creatures in Christ" all sins (past, present and future) are forgiven by God and we become "heirs of God" (Gal 3:29) and not "children of wrath" (Eph 2:1-10)"
And this happens, I take it, all at once?
BTTT
There is some discussion as to what is called the "Order of Salvation" (Ordo Salutis). In the Reformed camp, the ordo salutis is
We continue to be sanctified (step 8) throughout the rest of our lifes. And we will be glorified (step 9) someday.
Once you are "justified", can you lapse back, fall off the ladder so to speak?
Short answer, no.
We are not saved by our own righteousness, of which we have none.
We are saved by the righteousness of Christ. As sons of Adam, we have died with Christ on the Cross and have been reborn into the family of God by His mercy alone.
"For we which live are alway delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh." -- 2 Corinthians 4:11"For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous." -- Romans 5:19
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.