Dear friends in Christ [a WORKS Question]

[pablope]

Friend what is your understanding and position on Catholics and WORKS regarding one meriting salvation?

God Bless you,

Patrick aka PJM

It has to do with the ancient or latin root work of merit and the english and contemporary meaning of the word "merit:.

Anyway…this journal should help you…chnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/salvation.pdf

Justification By Faith
By Dr. William Marshner

However, since most Protestants have a broad notion of the act of faith, whereby it includes elements of hope and love, it is often hard to tell how far the difference on this point is real and how far it is a matter of words. Finally, however, there comes a third stage, that of actual Christian life, with its problems of growth and perseverance. The man justified by faith is called to “walk” with God, to progress in holiness. It is at this stage that the parties sharply diverge. Catholics affirm, and Protestants strenuously deny, that the born-again Christian’s good works merit for him the increase of grace and of the Christian virtues. As a result, Protestant piety has no obvious place for the self- sacrifices, fasts, and states of perfection which are prominent features of Catholic piety. At each stage, neither the apparent agreements nor the apparent disagreements can be understood without looking at certain metaphysical quarrels, the chief of which is over the very existence of what
Catholics call “grace.”

. The Protestant Reformers, however, impatient with metaphysics, preferred not to cope with such an entity and denied its existence.4 To them it seemed simpler to say that grace is something wholly in God, namely, His favor towards us. But then, if grace is not something real in man, our “justification” can no longer be conceived as a real change in us; it will have to become a sheer declaration on God’s part, e.g. a declaration that, thanks to the work of Christ, He will henceforth consider us as just, even though we remain inwardly the sinners we always were. Hence, the Protestant doctrine of “forensic” or “extrinsic” justification. Now watch what happens to our own act of faith: it ceases to be the foundational act of an interior renewal and becomes a mere requirement, devoid of any salvific power in its own right, which God arbitrarily sets as the condition on which He will He will declare us just. Whereupon, watch what happens to our good works: they cease to be the vital acts wherein an ontologically real “new life” consists and manifests itself; they become mere human responses to divine mercy—nice, but totally irrelevant to our justification—or else they become zombie-like motions produced in us by irresistible divine impulses, whereby God exhibits His glory in His elect.

 

[PJM]

Hi, thanks for replying back, and that is a very good question. I will start by saying there is a pretty reliable way to know which sense of the word is supposed to be used, and I will come right back to that initial statement. I will continue by saying that if this verse were taken entirely on its own, there would be no really good way of knowing and it would be anyone’s guess. But this verse isn’t taken entirely on its own, at least it shouldn’t be.

The reason for this can probably be found in the footnotes of your Bible and pretty easily found through a series of cross references. The reason is that for this passage in particular, a rather important passage from the Old Testament is being quoted in the New Testament. The OT passage is the single most important OT passage having to do with Abraham, with God, and with righteousness. This passage is quoted three times in the New Testament, and all three of them apply the righteousness of Abraham to the concept of righteousness as it applies to Christians.

So you don’t take James 2 all on its own. It is one passage of three that should be considered together. The other passages are in Galatians 3 and Romans 4, and when you look at these passages, I do believe you’ll find that things are a bit more straightforward. If you engage in a process of elimination in an attempt to find out which linguistic sense of the word “righteous” ought to apply in the other two passages, you’ll find that the surrounding words in those passages literally tell you, straight out, some of the options that you can immediately eliminate.

Galatians 3- “O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? Did you suffer** so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain? Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith— just as Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”?
Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.”

I know that the instinct of an amateur Catholic apologist is to immediately launch into a detailed distinction between “works of the law” and true works of charity, or something along those lines. Let’s set that aside for a moment though, and focus on the three different senses of what “righteous” can mean so we can properly line up the correct sense of the word with each of the passages in question.

Romans 4- “What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.” Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness, just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works:”

Again, we look at how “righteous” is used here, and we attempt to line up the correct sense of the word with how it’s used in this passage. It’s easier to narrow things down here than it is in James 2.

Finally, you try to do the same thing in James 2, but you (or perhaps we, if we were to work together on this) would reach an impasse because it’s not totally clear one way or the other. So in order to resolve the issue, we line up all the things that are definitely said about righteousness in Galatians 3 and Romans 4, we add to that the things that could potentially be said about righteousness in James 2 depending on which sense of the word is used, and we examine the different possibilities for discrepancies and contradictions.

I will argue that when you look at all three passages together, there is only one possible sense of the word “righteous” that can be used in James 2 that does not contradict what’s said in the other two passages which reference the same Abrahamic passage from Genesis. But if you want to take a look and form a compelling argument for why a different alignment of righteousness-meanings can make sense in a non-contradictory fashion, I will :tiphat: to you.

And then I ran out of room, so I’ll wait 20 seconds to post the rest of my response.**

REPLY

If I may reinsert the Org POSTERS Q

Originally Posted by MT1926 View Post
Hey thanks for getting back to me. I was afraid I offended you or something.

 

[PJM]

It has to do with the ancient or latin root work of merit and the english and contemporary meaning of the word "merit:.

Anyway…this journal should help you…chnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/salvation.pdf

Justification By Faith
By Dr. William Marshner

However, since most Protestants have a broad notion of the act of faith, whereby it includes elements of hope and love, it is often hard to tell how far the difference on this point is real and how far it is a matter of words. Finally, however, there comes a third stage, that of actual Christian life, with its problems of growth and perseverance. The man justified by faith is called to “walk” with God, to progress in holiness. It is at this stage that the parties sharply diverge. Catholics affirm, and Protestants strenuously deny, that the born-again Christian’s good works merit for him the increase of grace and of the Christian virtues. As a result, Protestant piety has no obvious place for the self- sacrifices, fasts, and states of perfection which are prominent features of Catholic piety. At each stage, neither the apparent agreements nor the apparent disagreements can be understood without looking at certain metaphysical quarrels, the chief of which is over the very existence of what
Catholics call “grace.”

. The Protestant Reformers, however, impatient with metaphysics, preferred not to cope with such an entity and denied its existence.4 To them it seemed simpler to say that grace is something wholly in God, namely, His favor towards us. But then, if grace is not something real in man, our “justification” can no longer be conceived as a real change in us; it will have to become a sheer declaration on God’s part, e.g. a declaration that, thanks to the work of Christ, He will henceforth consider us as just, even though we remain inwardly the sinners we always were. Hence, the Protestant doctrine of “forensic” or “extrinsic” justification. Now watch what happens to our own act of faith: it ceases to be the foundational act of an interior renewal and becomes a mere requirement, devoid of any salvific power in its own right, which God arbitrarily sets as the condition on which He will He will declare us just. Whereupon, watch what happens to our good works: they cease to be the vital acts wherein an ontologically real “new life” consists and manifests itself; they become mere human responses to divine mercy—nice, but totally irrelevant to our justification—or else they become zombie-like motions produced in us by irresistible divine impulses, whereby God exhibits His glory in His elect.

THANKS SO VERY MUCH
Blessings,

PJM

 

[MT1926]

REPLY

If I may reinsert the Org POSTERS Q

The answer to this is simple; AND simply PROFOUND

IF and when any bible understanding does not fully align with the TEACHINGS of the Jesus [John 17: 17-20] and the Holy Spirit [Mt 28:19-20] Catholic Church: it is wrong And needs to be changed.

God Bless you,
Patrick

Thanks for the response Patrick.

I already new what the Catholic answer to the question was going to be. However, I am at a point in my faith journey where I am trying to Understand the how? And why? Of nonCatholic religions. I am sure the nonCatholic doesn’t say well the Catholic Church says this so I will do the opposite. There has to be a thought process and formula involved. I find that most arguments seem to occure due to differences in definitions more often than differences in opinions. If I can discover how to gap these differences It will make me a better communicator with our nonCatholic brethren. At this time in my journey I don’t have the patience to spend my time argueing instead of dialoging.

Thank you for your continued insight and wisdom.
God Bless,