Making Some Headway in Catholic Justification

[MarkInOregon]

I just do not think that people are realizing that Clement does not use the word “justified” as “make ontologically righteous”, for if this is what he meant, then the rhetorical question that follows is just an illogical occurence.

It would be like if I said: " By the way, God is coming into your inner hearts and is transforming you into the image of His Son and he is, through faith, making you righteous in your life and behavior and in your conduct… Should we continue in sin?"

The logic does not follow.

Rather, Clement is referring to that state of grace that we enter when we repent and believe, whether it is at the beginning of the christian life or at the end of the christian life, faith and faith alone is what is putting man in the right-relationship with God. But faith is always accompanied by works, but works are never contributory to justification, but serve to show that faith is at work and thus is saving the person.

I don’t get this from what you quoted from Clement in post 1. Where in the quote does Clement ask, “Should we continue in sin?” I see him asking if we should “become slothful in well-doing, and cease from the practice of love?” Which seems a bit different of a question.

What I read is that we cannot obligate God to save us by our works. There is not a score card and once we get so many points–God is obligated to us regardless of our faith or belief in him. No we must have faith–a living faith (because a dead faith will not save us either). The question that Clement poses is: If God has justified us by faith–then do we need to do anything–i.e. can we just grow lazy in our performance of works and practice of love–if we are, afterall, justified by faith? And his answer is a resounding NO! He then goes on to explain why we can’t and ends by saying “let us without delay accede to His will, and let us work the work of righteousness with our whole strength” It seems to me that you are reading something into Clement that isn’t there–at least something I don’t see. His point seems to me to be that it is not “faith alone”.

Peace,
Mark

 

[Erick_Ybarra]

Some worthy thoughts. Thanks guys