righteousness

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I have searched the web and the Catholic Encyclopedia and cannot find an explanation of righteousness from the Catholic theological perspective that I can use when talking to my Protestant friends. Help please!
 
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BonnieBj:
I have searched the web and the Catholic Encyclopedia and cannot find an explanation of righteousness from the Catholic theological perspective that I can use when talking to my Protestant friends. Help please!
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When I checked “righteousness” in the Catholic Dictionary it says to go to “Theology of Justification”. You might try under that and see if it helps.
 
I can’t find the Catholic Dictionary online so couldn’t go to it, but from comments I’ve read about it, there are better refereence books.

The other site with a link to it is just Bible verses; I know all those but there is no explanation of the theology. I have learned since my original posting that the subject is covered in the Summa Theologica but I need a theologian to help me with this. Help please.!!!

But thanks you two for responding. I hope someone with a thoelogy degree or the equivalent will answer.
 
It’s hard to find a strict Catholic definition of righteousness simply because the word itself has a minor place in the Catholic lexicon of salvation, compared to Protestants, to whom the word is a big deal.

“Righteousness” for Catholics is somewhat synonymous with sanctifying grace: if you have sanctifying grace, you are in a state of righteousness; if not, you are in a state of unrighteousness. For Catholics, when you are justified, you are in a state of righteousness, i.e., sanctifying grace.

As you have learned, it’s extremely hard to discuss this issue with Protestants unless you both agree what each side means when they talk about righteouness (and this is harder than it might seem, since many Protestants don’t agree among themselves what it means). Jimmy Akin’s small book “The Savation Controversy” helps iron this out quite a bit. Here is an article by him on the same subject that you may also find helpful.

ewtn.com/library/ANSWERS/JUSTIF.HTM
 
Thanks Fidelis. I’ve been trying for months to get questions submitted to EWTN, you must have gotten lucky. I trhink that will help and I’ll try to dig up that document from the Council of Trent. Frankly when I was a Protestant I never understood the righteousness-justification-sanctification business; I just took Jesus as my saviour and followed His teachings the best I could. Now that I’ve returned to the church I really need to be able to try to refute their teachings or at least seem like I know and understand what the Church teaches. An apologist I’m not.
 
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BonnieBj:
Thanks Fidelis. I’ve been trying for months to get questions submitted to EWTN, you must have gotten lucky. I trhink that will help and I’ll try to dig up that document from the Council of Trent. Frankly when I was a Protestant I never understood the righteousness-justification-sanctification business; I just took Jesus as my saviour and followed His teachings the best I could. Now that I’ve returned to the church I really need to be able to try to refute their teachings or at least seem like I know and understand what the Church teaches. An apologist I’m not.
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You’re welcome BonnieBj.

Don’t feel bad; this is one of the toughest subjects there is as an apologetics topic and one of the hardest to explain, period (I’ve had to do it in both apologetics classes I’ve led and when teaching RCIA and Adult Confirmation). The Protestants can explain their view simply. The Catholic side is a little more nuanced because it is more precise, but it is still fairly simple to explain.

It’s when Catholics and Protestant discuss this issue with each other that it gets to be a Tower of Babel, since each attach different meanings to the same words. Really, once all the language tangles are unknotted, often both camps find they believe very nearly the same thing.

I would recommend two books that were a great help to me in developing some clarity on this topic. The first is the Jimmy Akin book I mentioned above, and the second is called “How Do I Get To Heaven” by Robert Sungenis. Good luck.
 
I’ll see what I can do to find those books or have my local Catholic store order them. Thanks Fidelis. My other issue is Mariam theology but I’ve got some good books on the subject and can talk about that pretty well. Ditto purgatory.
 
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