Some time ago, I had written a short blog post refuting Steven Wedgeworth's assertion that John Calvin had in fact teach a doctrine of double justification (an initial and a secondary justification). I was subsequently contacted by Tom Juodaitis about using it in the Trinity Review, and I decided to improve it and send the improved version to him. Well, I have just checked the website and the latest Trinity Review (for April/ May 2020) is out, by yours truly. Check it out here. An excerpt:
In the modern Reformed world, there have been raging controversies over issues like the Law-Gospel distinction, and charges of neo-nomism versus antinomianism as it relates to the Federal Vision, Norman Shepherd, John Piper, and the disgraced pastor Tullian Tchividjian. Most worrying is the push for some version of a “judgment by works” by theologians such as Mark Jones, who has likewise defended John Piper from the charge of works-righteousness. According to Jones, all that Piper has striven to do was to defend the necessity of works for salvation, which he asserted was taught by Reformed theologians and the Reformed faith. Works lead us to the “possession of life” not the “right to life,” and therefore for Jones there is nothing wrong in asserting that works are necessary for salvation, when understood according to the manner he has prescribed.
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Sharp readers might have noticed that I have removed the part about Arminianism. That is because I did not want to expand the article even further. Without writing a second article about this, let me just point out to you the Arminian error on this topic as stated in the Canons of the Synod of Dordt:
Who teach that what is involved in the new covenant of grace which God the Father made with men through the intervening of Christ’s death is not that we are justified before God and saved through faith, insofar as it accepts Christ’s merit, but rather that God, having withdrawn his demand for perfect obedience to the law, counts faith itself, and the imperfect obedience of faith, as perfect obedience to the law, and graciously looks upon this as worthy of the reward of eternal life. (Canons of the Synod of Dordt, Second main point of doctrine, Rejection of Error, 4)
8 comments:
Hi David,
you're welcome.
I think the article did a good job in the first half of discussing the Roman Catholic view from Trent, but I think the second half the article failed to understand Trent when it said:
///For Rome, justification is a process that begins (“initial justification”) at baptism, and works itself out as the person lives faithfully in grace (“faithfulness”) with good works through the Roman sacerdotal system, and the person finally becomes fully justified and sanctified after finishing well in receiving the sacrament of extreme unction and then completing final purification in purgatory.///
The portions of Trent quoted do *not* speak of Justification as a "process" in the sense that a bucket of water starts off at 5% full and has to work its way up - drop by drop with each good work - until it is someday 100% full. Rather, Justification is full and entire *instantaneously*. You are either 100% Justified or 0% Justified in the Catholic view; there is no in-between. The only sense in which Justification is increased is in the sense that a husband and wife who are 100% married can still GROW in love for one another. There are not "many stages". Notice that Trent says the sole formal cause of Justification is the righteousness of God. To be a formal cause means that it fully "forms" the person into a righteous person before God. Trent doesn't speak in terms of "initial" or "partially" Justified.
The only way Justification is lost is through Mortal Sin, in which a person becomes instantly 0% Justified until he repents to become instantly 100% Justified again.
I think the issue is that there is equivocation with terms like "salvation" and "justification". When Paul is talking about Justification, he is speaking about entering into the 100% Justified state. Paul has another term for when a person is at the end of their life standing before the Judgment Seat. At that end of life situation, that is where "Eternal Life" is bestowed upon a person. Notice that Paul doesn't speak of "Eternal Life" when discussing Justification in Rom 3-4 and Gal 2-3, but Paul does speak of it in places like Rom 2:6; 6:23; Gal 6:7-9. So it is a serious fallacy of begging the question to think Justification includes with it a guarantee to Eternal Life, when the two concepts are distinct in Paul's mind.
Hi Nick,
You are correct in stating that it is not a "process" in the sense that it starts at 5% and then increase to 100%. However, it is a "process" in that justification needs to be maintained (i.e. no mortal sin) in order for the person to be justified. Furthermore, Trent denies that one can have assurance of one's salvation. Therefore, while it is true that it is 100% justification, for all everyone knows, it might be 0%, and therefore one has no assurance that they are truly ever justified, and has to work on the "maintenance" part of justification.
I would be open to another term than "process," because maintaining is not a "process" in my mind, as it obscures the reality that the person truly is 100% Justified in the RC view. As for Assurance, the thing that Trent does not allow is presumption, which is not the same as Assurance. You would have to specify which canon of Trent you have in mind though. I think the Reformed view does not grant presumptive assurance either, as even Calvin taught 'Evanescent Grace' and that if you stop doing good works you are to question whether you were ever saved.
Hi Nick,
I'm impressed you stayed despite my fault in not checking my setting on comment moderation. Much appreciated.
Well, how about "process" in these terms:
And whereas the Apostle saith, that man is justified by faith and freely, those words are to be understood in that sense which the perpetual consent of the Catholic Church hath held and expressed; to wit, that we are therefore said to be justified by faith, because faith is the beginning of human salvation, the foundation, and the root of all Justification; without which it is impossible to please God, and to come unto the fellowship of his sons: but we are therefore said to be justified freely, because that none of those things which precede justification—whether faith or works—merit the grace itself of justification. For, if it be a grace, it is not now by works, otherwise, as the same Apostle says, grace is no more grace (Chapter VIII, Sixth Session on Justification, Canons and Dogmatic Decrees of the Council of Trent)
Thus, justifying faith "is the beginning of human salvation." "Beginning" implies process where there is a beginning and an end.
As for assurance, this is what Trent says about assurance:
But, although it is necessary to believe that sins neither are remitted, nor ever were remitted save gratuitously by the mercy of God for Christ’s sake; yet is it not to be said, that sins are forgiven, or have been forgiven, to any one who boasts of his confidence and certainty of the remission of his sins, and rests on that alone; seeing that it may exist, yea does in our day exist, amongst heretics and schismatics; and with great vehemence is this vain confidence, and one alien from all godliness, preached up in opposition to the Catholic Church. But neither is this to be asserted—that they who are truly justified must needs, without any doubting whatever, settle within themselves that they are justified, and that no one is absolved from sins and justified, but he that believes for certain that he is absolved and justified; and that absolution and justification are effected by this faith alone: as though whoso has not this belief, doubts of the promises of God, and of the efficacy of the death and resurrection of Christ. For even as no pious person ought to doubt of the mercy of God, of the merit of Christ, and of the virtue and efficacy of the sacraments, even so each one, when he regards himself, and his own weakness and indisposition, may have fear and apprehension touching his own grace; seeing that no one can know with a certainty of faith, which can not be subject to error, that he has obtained the grace of God. (Chapter IX On the Vain Confidence of Heretics, Sixth Session, Ibid.)
We know that Trent was addressing the Protestant "heretics" at this juncture. This is what the Heidelberg Catechism says about the Christian life and assurance.
Q1. What is your only comfort in life and death?
A. That I am not my own, but belong with body and soul, both in life and in death, to my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all my sins with His precious blood, and has set me free from all the power of the devil. He also preserves me in such a way that without the will of my heavenly Father not a hair can fall from my head; indeed, all things must work together for my salvation. Therefore, by His Holy Spirit He also assures me of eternal life and makes me heartily willing and ready from now on to live for Him.
There is a sea of difference between Trent saying "no one can know, with a certainty of faith, that he has obtained the grace of God," and the Heidelberg Catechism saying "by His Holy Spirit He also assures me of eternal life."
And yes, I am well aware that the Reformed teaches the Syllogism Practicus. However, that is merely against one who claims salvation while expressively not producing fruit, based on the syllogism that true faith produces good fruit. It was never meant to be used to tie good works in with justification, which is the whole point of this TR journal article I authored.
The only sense in which Justification has a "beginning" is in so far as an Adopted child can grow and mature into an Adult, but not that they become "more Adopted". Similarly, a married couple can grow in their love, but they don't become "more married". It must be stressed that the language of "initial justification" is unfair in that in can convey a "partially justified" (i.e. not actually justified) state, which simply doesn't logically exist within the Catholic framework, just as a person cannot be partially adopted or partially married.
When Trent says "beginning of *salvation*" it should be taken in the similar sense of the Reformed saying even though a person gets Justified, there are still other aspects of the Ordo Salutis that must still take place. Thus, while "beginning" would imply more to come, it doesn't logically necessitate a 'filling up the gas tank' type process.
As for Assurance, I think Trent here is worded carefully and deserves a more fair reading. There is a sense in which a person can have Assurance in so far as they are living out a Christian life and thus can recognize God at work within them. But without such fruit, the person has not much to look to. Merely claiming to have Assurance (especially that you will persevere) just because you believe now, well that's simply not feasible. Surely you are well aware of Reformed folks who have claimed and thought themselves believers, even pastors who preached on Assurance, who later fell away. Surely there are many times where people get exited at 'getting saved' at some Preaching event, only to realize they were merely emotionally caught up in the moment. We could say 100% of these people were willfully intending to deceive others, but it is more likely that either (a) they themselves were deceived from the start, or (b) they actually fell away later on. In either case, them merely reading that quote from Heidelberg and feeling/believe it was not some Infallible Assurance they received. I'm reminded of the text of 2 Peter 1:9 where he says it is in doing good works that you base your Assurance, and in not doing them you fall.
Hi Nick,
the reason why we use the word "initial justification" is because of the overall system of salvation in Roman Catholicism. Yes, if one speaks of how the grace of justification is conceived, it is not true that God's grace was just a bit at justification and increases throughout one's life. However, since justification is a legal declaration (i.e. forensic not an amount), I do not see an issue with using the term since it merely states that this declaration of being justified for the Roman Catholic is not the last declaration he would get from God.
I think we need to be clear and differentiate between the grace and faith of justification (the "stuff" if you will), and the actual legal declaration itself.
As for assurance, there are two things at play: (1) Assurance of salvation is assurance of one's salvation, not assurance of another's salvation. In other words, you cannot point to any professing Christian who later apostatize and say, "See, he loses his salvation." The Reformed cannot be assured of anyone else's salvation but his own.
(2) The issue with assurance of salvation points to where assurance comes from. In Reformed theology, assurance of salvation comes extra nos, out of ourselves. It comes from Jesus and the Holy Spirit. The contrast is between looking to Jesus for assurance, or looking at one's godly living, or one's status in the church, or any of those good but non-divine thing, for assurance of salvation. Also, the contrast is seen in the fact that Protestants do not have indulgences, or the need to pay and pray for their relatives to cut 10000 years off purgatory. We also do not need relics. Even pilgrimages, while not totally rejected, are not necessary for godliness in Reformed piety.
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