Roses are Overcoming, Daisies are Sedentary, Tulips are Irresistible

Sola gratia - salvation, regeneration, is by God's grace.  I bring nothing to the table that enables me to be reconciled with God, to have faith.

Ephesians 2:8-9 - For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

I’d like to start by laying out an airplane level view of the terrain on this topic, at least from my perspective.  Generally speaking, we are looking at the relationship between human free will and God’s election, human choice and God’s sovereignty.  What role, if any, do these forces play in coming to faith in God?  I’m not aware of a theological tenant that is debated more than this one.  The implications resulting from how these questions are answered are huge – what is the scope of the atonement accomplished by Christ, and how should the message of the cross be presented to unbelievers?

 

To a large extent, protestant associations are defined by what approach or stand they take on this issue.  Some protestant denominations are defined by NOT taking a clear stand on this issue.  The Southern Baptist denomination comes to mind.  There are many positions and nuances to differing conclusions on this issue, but primarily we are looking at positions somewhere on a scale between 5-point Calvinism and Arminianism.  While I’d love to lay both those views out in a nutshell, it would have to be a really big nutshell.  For my purposes here, it’s enough to say that both ends of the scale believe God’s grace is the prime factor which enables a person to come to faith.  Arminians believe this grace is available to all – prevenient grace.  5-point Calvinists believe this grace is available to the elect – irresistible grace.

So, is the Catholic Church’s doctrine of faith on this same scale, and, if so, where?  Well, it turns out the Catholic Church only uses the word “grace” in reference to Mary – beyond that, the Church has nothing to say about grace.  I’m sorry, that statement is actually completely false - I just can’t resist typing bad jokes.  In truth, the Church has said a lot about grace.  The Catholic Church condemned both Pelagianism and Semipelagianism in the year 529 at the Council of Orange and effectively laid out a position of sola gratia a thousand years before the Reformation.   Both Calvinist and Arminian positions appeal to the Council or Orange to support their views.  So, clearly, the Catholic Church uses the same “grace scale” as most protestant sources. 

I linked to the Catholic Catechism in my last post on sola fide and pasted the whole “justification” section.  The next section is “grace”.  I’m not going to paste the whole section again, but I will hit the highlights.  First, Mary is not included in this section of the Catechism.  The Catechism defines grace as “…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”, and references 4 New Testament passages in support.  It goes on to say that the “…vocation to eternal life is supernatural. It depends entirely on God's gratuitous initiative, for he alone can reveal and give himself. It surpasses the power of human intellect and will…”.  This all seems to put the Catholic Church on the Calvinist side of the scale.  However, it goes on to say “God's free initiative demands man's free response, for God has created man in his image by conferring on him, along with freedom, the power to know him and love him” which sounds much more Arminian.  Beyond this initial grace, the Catechism describes how grace is involved in the ongoing life of the Christian and “includes the gifts that the Spirit grants us to associate us with his work, to enable us to collaborate in the salvation of others and in the growth of the Body of Christ, the Church.”  So, where does that put the Catholic Church on the “grace scale” – the answer is yes.

This is a very limited view of the topic.  It is very tempting to keep going and look at each letter of TULIP (or DAISY or ROSES) to see what the Catholic Church teaches.  However, I’ve seen enough to satisfy myself for now, and I have plenty of material to come back to.  In the end, it seems almost every doctrine or practice of faith is related to grace.

For myself, I love the doctrines of grace, and I see God’s sovereignty as integral to the Gospel.  But I also see that God created us to participate in faith and engage our will.  So, there’s a mystery in there and I think that’s how God designed it.  I also think that is precisely the position the Catholic Church teaches.

Love,

Paul

Do or Do Not. There Is No Try.

Sola Fide - the battle cry of the protestant.  Certainly, it is impossible to build a Biblical case to believe in the Catholic's work based salvation and abandon the justified-by-faith-alone pillar of the protestant church.

First, I should say that this is a super long debate that I cannot possibly begin to cover adequately.  This debate hardly ends at the Catholic/protestant divide - it's a favorite past time when 2 or more believers are gathered to debate who has added onto the "alone" of faith.  It is also my opinion that much of this debate is semantics.  At some level, at some point in the life of a believer, faith and salvation should effect some "change" in that person's life.  Change is work - I'm not making a theological statement there, just an observation of what change is.  To me, the question is who is doing the work, and for what purpose.  Is God doing the work, or am I?  Is the work done to produce faith, or is the work the natural consequence of faith?

For this post only, I will not reference the books of Hebrews, James, Jude or Revelation.  Luther believed them to be unhelpful in answering questions regarding faith.

I did a quick search in the ESV for verses that contain both "faith" and "alone", or "faith" and "only".  I realize this is not an exhaustive study of faith, but it's a good place to start.  There's only 1 result for "faith" and "alone", and it's James 2:24 which I am not quoting in this post.  For "faith" and "only", there's several results, but only 1 where "only" is describing "faith".

Galatians 5:6 - For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love. 

Of course, "working" is the next word.  You might be curious about Romans 3:28, as I am.

For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.
  
This is the verse where most people think they will find the word "alone".  It's not there - I tried several translations and couldn't find it.  The same point is being made here as in Galatians - justification by faith is available to Jews and gentiles apart from the Law of Moses.  So, right about now my protestant brain is saying - amen and amen, justification is by faith.  Period, end of story.  And I agree with that protestant position.  But what does the Catholic Church teach about justification?


Catechism of the Catholic Church
PART THREE
LIFE IN CHRIST
SECTION ONE
MAN'S VOCATION LIFE IN THE SPIRIT
CHAPTER THREE
GOD'S SALVATION: LAW AND GRACE
ARTICLE 2
GRACE AND JUSTIFICATION
I. JUSTIFICATION
1987 The grace of the Holy Spirit has the power to justify us, that is, to cleanse us from our sins and to communicate to us "the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ" and through Baptism:³⁴

But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him. For we know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. The death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves as dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.³⁵

1988 Through the power of the Holy Spirit we take part in Christ's Passion by dying to sin, and in his Resurrection by being born to a new life; we are members of his Body which is the Church, branches grafted onto the vine which is himself:³⁶

[God] gave himself to us through his Spirit. By the participation of the Spirit, we become communicants in the divine nature. . . . For this reason, those in whom the Spirit dwells are divinized.³⁷

1989 The first work of the grace of the Holy Spirit is conversion, effecting justification in accordance with Jesus' proclamation at the beginning of the Gospel: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."³⁸ Moved by grace, man turns toward God and away from sin, thus accepting forgiveness and righteousness from on high. "Justification is not only the remission of sins, but also the sanctification and renewal of the interior man.³⁹
1990 Justification detaches man from sin which contradicts the love of God, and purifies his heart of sin. Justification follows upon God's merciful initiative of offering forgiveness. It reconciles man with God. It frees from the enslavement to sin, and it heals.
1991 Justification is at the same time the acceptance of God's righteousness through faith in Jesus Christ. Righteousness (or "justice") here means the rectitude of divine love. With justification, faith, hope, and charity are poured into our hearts, and obedience to the divine will is granted us.
1992 Justification has been merited for us by the Passion of Christ who offered himself on the cross as a living victim, holy and pleasing to God, and whose blood has become the instrument of atonement for the sins of all men. Justification is conferred in Baptism, the sacrament of faith. It conforms us to the righteousness of God, who makes us inwardly just by the power of his mercy. Its purpose is the glory of God and of Christ, and the gift of eternal life:⁴⁰

But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, they are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as an expiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins; it was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies him who has faith in Jesus.⁴¹

1993 Justification establishes cooperation between God's grace and man's freedom. On man's part it is expressed by the assent of faith to the Word of God, which invites him to conversion, and in the cooperation of charity with the prompting of the Holy Spirit who precedes and preserves his assent:

When God touches man's heart through the illumination of the Holy Spirit, man himself is not inactive while receiving that inspiration, since he could reject it; and yet, without God's grace, he cannot by his own free will move himself toward justice in God's sight.⁴²

1994 Justification is the most excellent work of God's love made manifest in Christ Jesus and granted by the Holy Spirit. It is the opinion of St. Augustine that "the justification of the wicked is a greater work than the creation of heaven and earth," because "heaven and earth will pass away but the salvation and justification of the elect . . . will not pass away."⁴³ He holds also that the justification of sinners surpasses the creation of the angels in justice, in that it bears witness to a greater mercy.
1995 The Holy Spirit is the master of the interior life. By giving birth to the "inner man,"⁴⁴ justification entails the sanctification of his whole being:

Just as you once yielded your members to impurity and to greater and greater iniquity, so now yield your members to righteousness for sanctification. . . . But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the return you get is sanctification and its end, eternal life.⁴⁵ 

34 Rom 3:22; cf. 6:3-4.
35 Rom 6:8-11.
36 Cf. 1 Cor 12; Jn 15:1-4.
37 St. Athanasius, Ep. Serap. 1,24:PG 26,585 and 588.
38 Mt 4:17.
39 Council of Trent (1547): DS 1528.
40 Cf. Council of Trent (1547): DS 1529.
41 Rom 3:21-26.
42 Council of Trent (1547): DS 1525.
43 St. Augustine, In Jo. ev. 72,3:PL 35,1823.
44 Cf. Rom 7:22; Eph 3:16.
45 Rom 6:19,22.

Ok, so there's a lot there, and I'm going to say very little about it.  That's the whole section of the Catholic catechism on justification.  I put it all there so you can see yourself what the Church teaches.  Line 1992 is the best summary in my opinion - justification is merited by Christ's blood and transferred to a person by the sacrament of faith, Baptism.  So, justification is God's work and it is available to us by faith.

The astute observer might wonder if I'm ignoring the fact that Baptism plays a critical role here according to the catechism.  Yes, it does - as the sacrament of faith.  I'd rather save a fuller analysis of that for another time, but I think a couple points might be in order.  Do protestants consider Baptism necessary for salvation?  Some do.  What were Jesus' instructions to the Apostles at the Great Commission?  What do we see in the early church regarding those who believed the Gospel?
 

Perhaps the protestant still takes issue with something and believes the Catholic teaching on justification is just not quite right.  Well, these protestants have agreed with the Catholic teaching on justification:  Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian, Reformed, Anglican.  Of course, the first thing that happens when names like that are tossed around is something like "that's this Methodist branch, or that Presbyterian church, not the one I belong to."  Well, that may very well be true, and it is correct that even as a life long protestant I cannot begin to unravel the network of association and disassociation between protestant churches.  But clearly the gulf between Catholic and Protestant on justification is not as wide as I had thought. 

Another common objection is that while the official Catholic teaching on justification may be ok, the average Catholic parishioner believes something else, possibly even that they are earning justification by works.   

Alright, for argument sake let's allow that it could be true.  So, the solution for the average Catholic would be to understand official Catholic teaching - would that help?  Oh...no.  They need to go to a protestant church where these things are made clear, right?  Well, as of Aug 2017:

...nearly half of U.S. Protestants today (46%) say faith alone is needed to attain salvation (a belief held by Protestant reformers in the 16th century, known in Latin as sola fide). But about half (52%) say both good deeds and faith are needed...

Oops.  Actually, I apologize for that.  I don't really think it proves anything or adds anything to the conversation one way or another to talk about what "most average people" believe or don't believe.  What I'm interested in is what they should believe if they are listening.  And I think the answer is that both Catholics and protestants should rightly understand that they are justified by faith.

Love,
Paul