The Just Shall Live By Faith: Resolving the Catholic-Protestant Debate on Justification from Paul’s Epistle to the Romans

by Erick Ybarra

By having both faith and charity, the intellect and the will are incorporated in commitment to God. Faith alone would entail that the mind assents to the truths of God, but the will is still turned against Him. Such a reality could never open the doors to justification before God.[82]

As St. Augustine wrote in the 5th century: “This is the righteousness of God, which was veiled in the Old Testament, and is revealed in the New; and it is called the righteousness of God, because by His bestowal of it He makes us righteous, just as we read that ‘salvation is the Lord's,’ because He makes us safe.”[90]

In the ancient Christian commentaries on Abraham, we read the following from Ambrose when commenting on Gen. 15:5-6: We must purify the place where our soul dwells from all uncleanness, throw out every stain of wickedness, if we wish to receive the spirit of wisdom, because “wisdom will not enter the wicked soul.” Abraham believed, not because he was drawn by a promise of gold or silver but because he believed from the heart. “It was reckoned to him as righteousness.” A reward was bestowed that corresponded to the test of his merit.[119]

Ambrose here understands that faith itself, in Abraham, merited the reward of “righteousness.” The inner logic of his thought is antithetical to Luther’s alien righteousness.

Therefore, even though some early church fathers can use the language of justification by faith, even, perhaps, faith alone (sola fide), that does not mean they have the same concept as the 16th-century European Reformers who held that faith was an empty instrument through which to receive an alien righteousness. Faith was adorned with hope and love to God, thereby perfecting faith and making it pleasing to God as the founding rock upon which the virtuous life is built.[128]

In short, the baptized man is regenerated unto new life and that life includes binding responsibilities to conditions that will determine his everlasting life or everlasting ruin. Grace does not dispense anyone from that and if anything is clear in Paul’s corpus, it is that. And if Paul had a summary description of this working Christian life, it would be “faith working through love.”

As said by Ambrose of Milan: We are not justified by works, but by faith [non operibus justificamur, sed fide], because the weakness of the flesh is a hindrance to works but the brightness of faith puts the error that is in man’s deeds in the shadow and merits [meretur] for him forgiveness of sins.[154]

Picture a scale. On one side is righteousness and on the other is the virtue of faith. Now, faith by itself as an intellectual assent without the turning of the will towards justice and man’s last end [God], would be an empty weight on its side of the balance, while righteousness as a real quality that merits eternal life would be a heavy weight on its side of the balance. God comes and infuses the virtue of faith with its form, charity, and the virtue of hope, and then adjusts the scale so that this inward faith formed as a perfect virtue in the soul is equivalent to righteousness even without having done a work that earned it. This is how Aquinas conceives the gracious character of the imputation spoken of in Romans 4.

Unfortunately, the Book of Concord also teaches that no inward virtue, such as love, can form the grounds upon which the human is reckoned righteous before God. For the Lutherans, this would be to revert back to the righteousness of the law. Charity, by which the will is disposed in order back to God and His glory, cannot play any role in the justification of the ungodly for confessional Lutherans.

In other words, justification is the act of reconciliation. This is most remarkedly the transition from enmity to peace. The Council of Trent refers to this event as the human being’s translation from being “in Adam” to being “in Christ.” That is what happens in the sacrament of baptism, concretely. Protestants have been well informed on how Catholics are willing to speak of a wholly gratuitous justification on the basis of faith insofar as it is referring to the initial grace of conversion or baptism.

Accordingly [James] prefers to use the example of Abraham, that faith is barren if not accompanied by good works, because the apostle Paul also used the example of Abraham, [but] to prove that a man is justified by faith without the works of the Law. For when the passage mentions the good works of Abraham which attended his faith, it shows adequately that the apostle Paul does not use Abraham to teach the following: that a man is justified by faith without works so that, if someone should believe, good works are not required of him. Rather, [he teaches] that no one should suppose that he has attained by the merit of previous works the gift of the justification which is in faith… For this reason the apostle Paul says that a man can be justified without works—preceding works. For, having been justified by faith, how can he in turn do anything but what is righteous, although, when earlier he did nothing righteous, he attained the justification of faith, not by the merit of good works, but by the grace of God, which cannot now be barren in him when now he does good works through love? But, should he depart this life soon after having believed, the justification of faith remains with him, though not because of preceding good works, since he attains justification by grace rather than by good works, and not because of subsequent good works, because he is not allowed to continue in this life. Hence it is clear that the apostle Paul’s claim, “For we consider a man to be justified b...

That solution is to simply realize that while faith can be credited as righteousness at one’s initial translation into the Christian life, that very same saving faith remains the “root” of the whole Christian life and can at any time be referenced to indicate one’s righteous status before God in subsequent acts of faith. The Council of Trent says the following about faith as the foundational instrument of gratuitous justification: But when the Apostle says that man is justified by faith and freely, these words are to be understood in that sense in which the uninterrupted unanimity of the Catholic Church has held and expressed them, namely, that we are therefore said to be justified by faith, because faith is the beginning of human salvation, the foundation and root of all justification…and we are therefore said to be justified gratuitously, because none of those things that precede justification, whether faith or works, merit the grace of justification.[194]

This major motif of the 1st and 2nd Adam being the framework of redemption is wonderfully described by the late Catholic theologian Monsignor Canon E. Meyers: In the mystery of redemption by the Word Incarnate we see the relation of fallen man to God changed to man’s advantage; he has been redeemed, saved, reconciled, delivered, justified, regenerated; he has become a new creature. The significance of the redemption from the point of view of our subject lies in this, that the redemption of man is analogous to his fall. All men, deriving their human nature from Adam, had inherited from him the stain of original sin, and thus the whole human race in one man had been set at enmity with God. Just as man’s fall had been corporate, so his reconciliation was to be corporate too. For the fatal solidary with Adam which had resulted in death and sin was to be substituted a new and salutary solidary whereby all men, born in the sin of the first Adam, might be regenerated to the life of grace in the new Adam, Jesus Christ. Our lost rights to supernatural development in this world, and to a vision of God after the time of probation, have been restored to us through the supernatural action of Christ’s human nature, hypostatically united to the Word of God. Christ is the Spokesman of mankind, the Representative Man, the Second Adam, carrying out for our sakes what we could not carry out for ourselves, giving to God that glory and adoration, that worship, thanksgiving, and reparation, whi...

This is why the imputation of righteousness and the forgiveness of sins (Rom. 4:6-8), as was argued in the previous chapter, are ontologically tied up with the infusion of righteousness as the death element of regeneration in Christ is what puts away the old man with all of its guilt. There is not a purely forensic reality of pardoning guilt and then another ontological reality of sanctification that are both morally joined together simultaneously. Rather, the one gift of regeneration involves the ontological re-creation of the human being which itself causes the infusion of justice, and therefore the blotting out of iniquities. The ontology of renewal is therefore pre-requisite to the forgiveness of sins, however much the latter reality can be called a forensic act of pardon.

Justifying faith involves the form of repentance toward God, and thus faith and repentance can be thought of as interchangeable when it comes to the right response to the call of faith in the gospel, i.e., the obedience of faith (Rom. 1:5). We know this is true because unbelief is a sin punishable in the court of heaven (Luke 1:20).

Thus, God is graciously justifying man by the infusion of this virtue of faith. Thomas Aquinas says it best: God’s justice is said to exist through faith in Christ Jesus, not as though by faith we merit being justified, as if faith exists from ourselves and through it we merit God’s justice, as the Pelagians assert; but because in the very justification, by which we are made just by God, the first motion of the mind toward God is through faith… Hence faith, as the first part of justice, is given to us by God: by grace you have been saved through faith… But this faith, out of which justice exists, is not the unformed faith about which James says, faith without works is dead (Jas 2:26), but it is faith formed by charity […]”[214]

St. Josemaría Escrivá: “When he invites a soul to live a life fully in accordance with the faith, he does not set store by merits of fortune, nobility, blood, or learning. God’s call precedes all merits. Vocation comes first. God loves us before we even know how to go toward him, and he places in us the love with which we can correspond to his call. God’s fatherly goodness comes out to meet us. Our Lord is not only just. He is much more: he is merciful. He does not wait for us to go to him. He takes the initiative, with the unmistakable signs of paternal affection.”

St. Thomas Aquinas uses Rom. 4:25 to tie together Rom. 3-5 and 6-8 as a cumulative summary of everything this book has attempted to do in trying to explain the biblical and historic view of justification. He does this by recognizing that the death and resurrection of Christ correspond to the negative and positive aspects of the justification of the ungodly: Two things concur in the justification of souls, namely, forgiveness of sin and newness of life through grace. Consequently, as to efficacy, which comes of the Divine power, the Passion as well as the Resurrection of Christ is the cause of justification as to both the above. But as to exemplarity, properly speaking Christ's Passion and death are the cause of the forgiveness of guilt, by which forgiveness we die unto sin: whereas Christ's Resurrection is the cause of newness of life, which comes through grace or justice: consequently, the Apostle says (Romans 4:25) that "He was delivered up," i.e. to death, "for our sins," i.e. to take them away, "and rose again for our justification."[220]

On this note, it would be wise to finish off by quoting from an early Saint of Merovingian Gaul, Caesarius of Arles (468-542), who admonished his flock on the need for faith, repentance, and good works in light of the coming judgment: We must fear lest someone believes so strongly that he will receive God’s mercy that he does not dread his justice. If a man does this, he has no faith. Likewise, if he dreads his justice so much that he despairs of his mercy, there is no faith. Since God is not only merciful but also just, let us believe in both. Let us not despair of his mercy because we fear his justice, nor love his mercy so much that we disregard his justice. Therefore, we should neither hope wrongly nor despair wickedly. A man who hopes wrongly thinks he can merit mercy without penance and good works; one who despairs wickedly does not believe he will receive mercy even after the performance of good works. Therefore, above all, we should consider and fear lest we believe that faith without good works can suffice for us.[221]