Full Text for American Religious Scene- Volume 7 - Roman Catholicism's understanding of grace (Video)

No. 7. >> I would like to ask another question about Roman Catholicism. When I have asked Catholics how one is saved, I get conflicting responses. They speak of justification by grace. But other times they talk about works in a way that seems to contradict this. Do Catholics have an understanding of grace that is different from how Lutherans understand it? >>DR. THOMAS E. MANTEUFEL: Yes, it may be confusing when Roman Catholicism speaks about grace in different ways. For example, long ago Saint Bonaventure wrote that justification involves the idea that the formal cause of it is grace, that is the love which God infuses. Catholic Catechisms will often state that there are two kinds of grace: Sanctifying grace, grace that makes us holy, and actual grace, grace which enlightens the mind, strengthens the will and moves one to perform supernatural good works. The Council of Trent, which has always been an important source of doctrine for norming doctrine in the Roman Catholic Church, distinguishes grace as an enabling gift from the loving attitude or good will of God. It says for example: If anyone says that men are justified either solely by the imputation of the righteousness of Christ or solely by the remission of sins to the exclusion of the grace and the charity which is poured forth in their hearts by the Holy Spirit and remains in them or by the grace which we are justified is only the good will of God, let him be accursed. Or another one of these curses goes like this: If anyone says that the one justified by the good works that he performs by the grace of God and the merit of Jesus Christ does not truly merit an increase of grace and eternal life, let him be accursed. But then sometimes grace is closely associated with the good will of God. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, which came out in the early 1990s, states this: Our justification comes from the grace of God. Grace is favor, the free and undeserved help that God gives us to respond to his call to become children of God. Adoptive sons. Partakers of the divine nature and of eternal life. What it comes down to is this: The sinner merits salvation and merits eternal life by his works. But God shows gracious good will and mercy in giving him a chance and help for doing this. Because he does not deserve to have a chance. And he does not really deserve to have help in doing it. But God gives it to him anyhow. So it's a combination then of grace and good works in this way. Now, we often oversimplify the Catholic doctrine and speak as if they said nothing about Christ at all. But they certainly do. That's apt to lead to confusion if you leave that out. When we hear in the modern discussions with the Roman Catholics that no one can be saved without grace, many people then conclude that Lutherans have sadly misunderstood the Roman Catholics and that they teach pretty much the same as Lutherans do about salvation. But what Roman Catholics are saying is that as far as grace and faith and Christ is concerned, that is the same doctrine that the Lutheran Confessions objected to in the 16th Century. And was stated in the decrees of the Council of Trent where the Lutheran doctrine was rejected. This is the doctrine that justification means that God gives the sinner a saving righteousness which he can use to defend himself in the face of God's condemnation of him for his sin. That righteousness is an inherent righteousness or moral holiness which God creates in him by an act of renewal. It is because of this righteousness that God forgives his sins and accepts him into favor. This saving righteousness is not the perfect obedience of Christ. And Trent denounces the teaching that we are forgiven and justified only for the sake of what Christ has done. Rather, they say that the significance of Christ's righteousness is that it is the basis on which God gives us our own righteousness. Catholicism makes the distinction between the initial reception of the saving righteousness and the preservation and increase of that righteousness so that we can use it to deal with our sins. The initial righteousness comes to the baby when it is baptized and to the non-Christian adult who is converted. The saving righteousness is preserved and increased by using it to do good works to merit more and more grace and to merit eternal life. Man is justified by grace. That statement means that the initial reception of righteousness is not merited by good works and that God graciously helps man to merit eternal life. When we hear the statement by Roman Catholics: Man is justified by good works, that means that saving righteousness is preserved by good works. When we hear the statement that man is justified by faith in Christ, that means to them that knowledge of the plan of salvation incites a person to do good works to be saved and gives him confidence that God will help his efforts. This doctrine of Trent taught in the Council of Trent and its decrees has never been given up but was reaffirmed at Vatican 2. So we must add our own good works to Christ's work of atonement in order to be saved. We must do good works to become righteous and merit an increase of grace. And initial grace is an unmerited gift and initiates one's relationship with acceptance with God. But this means that God accepts us as people that he is willing to help be saved through obedience. Christ procured all the graces, all the helps that we need to be saved. But only the initial bestowal of grace is unmerited. The relationship with God is preserved by keeping the Commandments, which merits more grace. Christ's righteousness is not imputed or reckoned to believers. But it, the righteousness of Christ, earned the grace which is to be given to men to enable men to acquire their own righteousness. So then Roman Catholics and Lutherans differ on justification, which is the way that sinners are forgiven and become righteous before God. The dialogues on justification by American Catholics and Lutherans show that they have two different doctrines of justification, which I described in the reports. The names often given to them are the transformationist teaching and the forensic teaching. Roman Catholicism, the transformationist teaching, teaches that justification is based on a transformation that is brought about in a person by which he becomes righteous and acceptable to God. Lutheranism teaches that one is justified by a forensic act of God. That is a declaration that one is declared righteous for the sake of Christ. For the sake of what Jesus has done. This declaration is pronounced on the one who believes in Christ and his righteousness. And therefore, this teaching is called justification through faith alone. While the Roman Catholic teaching is called justification by faith and works. Or by merit. Because those things are brought about as part of the transformation on which justification depends. Both Roman Catholics and Lutherans say that a person is justified by grace. But they don't mean quite the same thing by this. The Roman Catholic means that God's grace will help him or her to be transformed. To have faith and to be obedient to God. And to do the good works which merit eternal life. Lutherans says that God's grace freely forgives and accepts the sinner apart from any works which he ever does in his life. And brings about the faith that he will do that for Jesus' sake. Both Roman Catholics and Lutherans confess that a person's justification is based on Christ's righteousness. But again, they understand this in different ways. The Roman Catholic means that the perfect obedience and righteousness of Christ gave all sinners the opportunity to be justified. Because of Jesus, his life and his death, God renews the sinner and creates a righteousness of moral holiness in him or in her. And on the basis of this righteousness the person is justified and counted righteous. Jesus earned all the grace that people need to have this personal righteousness and to grow in it and merit eternal life. Lutherans teach that a person's own righteousness has nothing to do with his justification. When a person believes in Christ, God counts Christ's righteousness as the believer's righteousness and declares him righteous because of Christ. We say that God imputes Jesus' righteousness to him. Reckons it as if it was his own life and works. This is the heart of Lutheran teaching. We feel that if it were true that justification is based in any way or degree on our own righteousness or anything that we have done in our life, then we could never have confidence that we are justified. Because our life and our works are so full of sin and are so imperfect that we don't believe that we could ever really become worthy of being justified and accepted of God. We cannot accept the teaching that we are justified by becoming righteous with our own righteousness. Or that one's own righteousness must be added to Jesus' righteousness as the basis on which we are justified. This will take away a person's comfort of knowing that he is accepted by God. And so Lutherans stress passages like Romans 3:28: And a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. And we say that Christians should never do good works for the purpose of obtaining justification. Or forgiveness of sins. Or God's favor. Or eternal life. But always good works should be done to express and to live out a faith that believes that one is already in God's faith. Both Lutherans and Roman Catholics say that God does transform people. God does sanctify them by his Spirit. So that they do good works and express their faith in love. And both say that these Christian works merit rewards. But Lutherans do not think that works ever merit justification or forgiveness or eternal life as a reward. They don't merit those rewards. Strictly speaking, they don't deserve any reward for works but when God has accepted believers for Christ's sake, he graciously forgives all the sinful flaws in their good works and gives them many rewards anyway. You asked about forgiveness of sins. And here we have to also add this: Roman Catholic doctrine is that forgiveness for sin is given because of Jesus' suffering and death. But the sinner must still make satisfaction for sins. That is acts of punishment that make reparation to the majesty of God which has been offended by sin. Lutherans reject this and say we could never pay God back for our offenses against him. Jesus paid all of the debt of our sin on the cross. And this is reckoned to us as if we had done it ourselves. He was wounded for our transgressions Isaiah says in Chapter 53. He was bruised for our inequities, the chastisement of our peace was upon him. And by his stripes we are healed. The Lord has laid on him the inequity of us all. We don't need to add works of satisfaction to any of that. God freely gives us full forgiveness. For the same reason we reject the idea that there is a purgatory where payment for sin is made by suffering. There is another effect or implication also which comes out of this Roman Catholic doctrine of justification on the basis of works added to faith or added to what Christ has done. That is to say I'm talking here about the idea of anonymous Christianity. Where people can be saved without even using the name of Jesus. Still be saved on the basis of what Jesus has done but without using his name or confessing faith in him. Vatican 2, the second Vatican Council teaches this. It says that people can be justified anonymously without using the name of Jesus if they live a life of love and good will toward their neighbors and have a spirit of hope. These are signs that saving grace is working in their lives. But Lutherans see here a teaching of justification by good works or good qualities in people. One can only be justified by trusting in what Jesus has done for sinners. And acknowledging that. Saint Peter said that salvation depends on the name of Jesus. There is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we are to be saved. Acts 4:12 where Peter's words are found. The whole matter of certainty about salvation is affected by this. And this is one of the major points of disagreement between Lutherans and Roman Catholics, between Roman Catholics and Protestants in general. Roman Catholics connect their doctrine of salvation with doubt, a necessity to doubt one's salvation. So the Council of Trent puts it this way -- this is official teaching: If anyone says that he will for certain with an absolute and infallible certainty have that great gift of perseverance even to the end, unless he shall have learned this by a special revelation, let him be anathema. That is let him be accursed. Again they say this in the Council of Trent: No pious person ought to doubt the mercy of God or the merit of Christ and the virtue and efficacy of the sacraments. And so also each one when he considers himself in his own weakness and indisposition may have fear and apprehension concerning his own grace since no one can know with the certainty of faith, which cannot be subject to error, that he has obtained the grace of God. Lutherans completely disagree with this and say that all those who have faith in Christ can have certainty that they will be saved. As we say in our official writings, we believe, teach and confess that although the genuine believing and truly regenerated persons retain much weakness and many shortcomings, down to their graves they still have no reason to doubt either the righteousness which is reckoned to them through faith or the salvation of their souls. But they must regard it ascertain that for Christ's sake on the basis of the promises and the Word of the holy Gospel, they have a gracious God. The believer's assurance of salvation is based on the certainty and the universality of the Gospel promise. Doubt concerning forgiveness implies that one's sins are more powerful than the Gospel. But the forgiveness of sins we know is the central teaching of Holy Scriptures. And they are ascertain as Christ. Ascertain as his work for us. As saint Peter said in Acts 10:43: To him, to Christ, all the prophets give witness that whoever believes in him shall receive remission of sins.