=Mr Ignatius;11883888]Hey all,
Before you tell me to do my own research, I already have, yet after reading so much I still have yet to develop have a clear understanding of what justification is.
Is it basically ‘to be justified’? As in we are justified in God’s judgment, that we are worthy to enter heaven? And is the term biblical?
Secondly, I do understand the Church’s teaching about grace and sanctifying grace. However what does the term sanctification actually mean? Is it like the process of us gaining sanctifying grace? (But we only receive it once during baptism and it is increased during confirmation right?) Or is it just used to describe the doctrine of grace and how there is something called ‘sanctifying grace’?
Hope to hear from some of you! Thanks in advance!
The term as a issue of importance is primarily a Protestant theology with several differing views of its specifics.
The most common one being “Once Saved; Always Saved” [salvtion is attained by Christ action on the Crosss being “sufficient” to warrant Salvation by SIMPLY professing belief in Christ as “Ones Personal Savior” [an altar call]. AND once accomplished they hold that such CANNOT be lost[PERIOD]
“Justification” according to fatehr Hardon’s Catholic Dictionary:
JUSTIFICATION, THEOLOGY OF. ***The process of a sinner becoming justified or made right with God. As defined by the Council of Trent. “Justification is the change from the condition in which a person is born as a child of the first Adam into a state of grace and adoption among the children of God through the Second Adam, Jesus Christ our Savior” (Denzinger 1524). On the negative side, justification is a true removal of sin, and not merely having one’s sins ignored or no longer held against the sinner by God. On the positive side it is the supernatural sanctification and renewal of a person who thus becomes holy and pleasing to God and an heir of heaven.
The Catholic Church identifies five elements of justification, which collectively define its full meaning. The primary purpose of justification is the honor of God and of Christ; its secondary purpose is the eternal life of mankind. The main efficient cause or agent is the mercy of God; the main instrumental cause is the sacrament of baptism, which is called the “sacrament of faith” to spell out the necessity of faith for salvation. And that which constitutes justification or its essence is the justice of God, “not by which He is just Himself, but by which He makes us just,” namely sanctifying grace.
Depending on the sins from which a person is to be delivered, there are different kinds of justification. An infant is justified by baptism and the faith of the one who requests or confers the sacrament. Adults are justified for the first time either by personal faith, sorrow for sin and baptism, or by the perfect love of God, which is at least an implicit baptism of desire. Adults who have sinned gravely after being justified can receive justification by sacramental absolution or perfect contrition for their sins. (Etym. Latin justus, just + facere, to make, do: justificatio."***
SANCTITY.
In an absolute sense, the Divinity. The sanctity of God is his total transcendence or total otherness. It is in this sense that the Church prays in the Gloria of the Mass, “You alone are the Holy One, you alone are the Lord, you alone are the Most High.” All other sanctity is by participation, so that a creature has as much sanctity as it shares in the Divinity. Essentially it consists in the possession of sanctifying grace, although the term is usually applied to persons who practice more than ordinary virtue, especially the love of God and their neighbor.
Hope this does it for you.
God Bless,
patrick
