What is the difference between Justification and Salvation?

[jimmy]

I was looking around the internet the other day and I say an online debate between a Feneeyite and a orthodox Catholic and they were discussing Justification and Salvation at the Council of Trent. I was wondering what the difference between these two terms are. I have viewed them as being basically the same thing. Through justification you are made just and sanctified. You are saved by being sanctified. No one in heaven will be unjust and no one in hell will be just. What is the difference between these two terms?

 

[trth_skr]

jimmy:

I was looking around the internet the other day and I say an online debate between a Feneeyite and a orthodox Catholic and they were discussing Justification and Salvation at the Council of Trent. I was wondering what the difference between these two terms are. I have viewed them as being basically the same thing. Through justification you are made just and sanctified. You are saved by being sanctified. No one in heaven will be unjust and no one in hell will be just. What is the difference between these two terms?

The Feeneyite argument depends on their being a seperation, but it does not appear that there is a formal seperation pronounced by the Church. This appears to be the weakest part of the Feeney argument against BOD.

Mark Wyatt
www.veritas-catholic.blogspot.com

 

[Todd_Easton]

On page 15 of his book, The Salvation Controversy, Catholic Answers apologist Jimmy Akin lists Justification as an aspect of Salvation. The other aspects of Salvation he lists are Redemption, Forgiveness, and Sanctification.

 

[jimmy]

Todd Easton:

On page 15 of his book, The Salvation Controversy, Catholic Answers apologist Jimmy Akin lists Justification as an aspect of Salvation. The other aspects of Salvation he lists are Redemption, Forgiveness, and Sanctification.

These all seem like the same thing. You are made just through justification. Being made just is the same thing as being sanctified. You are redeemed by being sanctified. Forgiveness is the only that I can see as being something seperate.

 

[jimmy]

To further the point. Adam and Eve were created with Original Justice. When they sinned it was this Original Justice that they lost causing the loss of the beatific vision and death. Justification restores a person to this state. Wouldn’t that be the same thing as salvation?

 

[John_Taylor]

jimmy:

Adam and Eve were created with Original Justice. When they sinned it was this Original Justice that they lost causing the loss of the beatific vision and death. Justification restores a person to this state. Wouldn’t that be the same thing as salvation?

Not quite, for though we are justified through baptism (accomplished in a specific moment in time) we are not yet admitted to the Beatific Vision…though we are in God’s friendship and being sanctified, our sanctification remains incomplete as long as there remains the stain of venial sin (which we daily commit), and until we are glorified in heaven with our Resurrected bodies our salvation remains incomplete - for Jesus did not come to save our spiritual souls only, but also our mortal bodies - and that, as you know from experience, is an aspect of Salvation that is yet to come.

Justification is a step in Salvation but it is not the whole of Salvation - for God has in mind for us, not just our justification, but also our complete santification and glorification:

And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified. Romans 8:30

We are justified but we are in the process of being saved - and since our initial justification can be lost (through mortal sin) it is only the predestined who will actually receive the grace of final perseverance and reach glorification.

See Is Salvation an Act or a Process? by Kenneth J. Howell
catholic.com/thisrock/2005/0502sbs.asp

Keep the Faith
jmt