GRACE
704
GRACE
Schriftausleger bis Luther iiber justitia Dei and justi-
ficatio", Mainz, 1905).
(d) The Protestant theory of Imputation. — Calvin rested his theory with the negative moment, holding that justification ends with the mere forgiveness of sin, in the sense of not imputing the sin; but other Reformers (Luther and Melanchthon) demanded a positive moment as well, concerning the nature of which there was a very pronounced disagreement. At the time of Osiander (d. 1552) there were from four- teen to twenty opinions on the matter, each differing from every other; but they had this in common that they all denied the interior holiness and the inher- ent justification of the Catholic idea of the process. Among the adherents of the Augsburg Confession the following view was rather generally accepted: The person to be justified seizes by means of the fiduciary faith the exterior justice of Christ, and therewith covers his sins; this exterior justice is imputed to him as if it were his own, and he stands before God as having an outward justification, but in his inner self he remains the same sinner as of old. This exterior, forensic declaration of justification was received with great acclaim by the frenzied, fanatical masses of that time, and was given wide and vociferous expression in the cry: "Justitia Christi extra nos".
The Catholic idea maintains that the formal cause of justification does not consist in an exterior imputa- tion of the justice of Christ, but in a real, interior sanctification effected by grace, which abounds in the soul and makes it permanently holy before God (cf. Trent, Sess. VI, cap. vii; can. xi). Although the sin- ner is justified by the justice of Christ, inasmuch as the Redeemer has merited for him the grace of justifica- tion (causa meritoria), nevertheless he is formally justified and made holy by his own personal justice and holiness (causa formalis), just as a philosopher by his own inherent learning becomes a scholar, not, how- ever, by any exterior imputation of the wisdom of God (Trent, Sess. VI, can. x). To this idea of inherent holiness which theologians call sanctifying grace are we safely conducted by the words of Holy Writ.
To prove this we may remark that the word jusiifi- nirc (Gr. Si/tatoOi', Heb. pTi in Hiphil) in the Bible may have a fourfold meaning: —
(a) The forensic declaration of justice by a tribunal or court (cf. Is., v, 23; Prov., xvii, 15).
(/3) The interiorgrowth in holiness (Apoc.,xxii, 11).
(7) As a substantive, justificalio, the external law (Ps. cxviii, 8, and elsewhere).
(5) The inner, immanent sanctification of the sin- ner. — Only this last meaning can be intended where there is mention of passing to a new life (Eph., ii, 5; Col., ii, 13; I John, iii, 14) ; renovation in spirit (Eph., iv, 23 sq.); supernatural likeness to God (Rom., viii, 29; II Cor., iii, 18; II Pet., i, 4); a new creation (II Cor., V, 17; Gal., vi, 15); rebirth in God (John, iii, 5; Tit., iii, 5; James, i, 18), etc., all of which designations not only imply a setting aside of sin, but express as well a permanent state of holiness. All of these terms express not an aid to action, but rather a form of being; and this appears also from the fact that the grace of justification is described as being "poured forth in our hearts" (Rom., v, 5); as "the spirit of adoption of sons" of God (Rom., viii, 15); as the ".spirit, born of the spirit" (John, iii, 6); making us "conformable to the image of the Son" (Rom., viii, 28) ; as a participation in the Divine nature (II Pet., i, 4) ; the abiding seed in us (I John, iii, 9), and so on. As regards the tradition of the Church, even Harnack admits that St. Augustine faithfully reproduces the teaching of St. Paul. Hence the Council of Trent need not go back to St. Paul, but only to St. Augus- tine, for the purpose of demonstrating that the Protestant theory of imputation is at once against St. Paul and St. Augustine.
Moreover, this theory must lie rejected as not being
in accordance with reason. For in a man who is at
once sinful and just, half holy and half unholy, we
cannot possibly recognize a masterpiece of God's om-
nipotence, but only a wretched caricature, the deform-
ity of which is exaggerated all the more by the violent
introduction of the justice of Christ. The logical con-
sequences which follow from this system, and which
have been deduced by the Reformers themselves, are
indeed appalling to Catholics. It would follow that,
since the justice of Christ is always and ever the same,
every person justified, from the ordinary everyday
person to the Blessed Virgin, the Motherof God, woukl
possess precisely the same justification and would
have, in degree and kind, the same holiness and jus-
tice. This deduction was expressly made by Luther.
Can any man of sound mind accept it? If this be so,
then the justification of children by baptism is impos-
sible, for, not having come to the age of reason, they
cannot have the fiduciary faith wherewith they must
seize the justice of Christ to cover up their original sin.
Very logically, therefore, the Anabaptists, Mennon-
ites, and Baptists reject the validity of infant bap-
tism. It would likewise follow that the justification
acquired by faith alone could be forfeited only by infi-
delity, a most awful consequence which Luther (De
Wette, II, 37) clothed in the following words, though
he could harclly have meant them seriously: " I'ecca
fortiter et crede fortius et nihil nocebunt centum houK
icidia et mille stupra." Luckily this inexorable logic
falls powerless against the decency and good morals of
the Lutherans of our time, and is, therefore, harmless
now, though it was not so at the time of the Peasants'
War in the Reformation.
The Council of Trent (Sess. VI, cap. vii) defined that the inherent justice is not only the formal cause of jus- tification, but as well the only formal cause (u)iica formalis causa) ; this was done as against the heretical teaching of the Reformer Bucer (d. 1551), who held that the inherent justice must be supplemented by the imputed justice of Christ. A further object of this decree was to check the Catholic theologian Al- bert Pighius and others, who seemed to doubt that the inner justice could be ample for justification without being supplemented by another favour of God (favor Del externus) (cf. Pallavacini, Hist. Cone. Trident., VIII, 11, 12). This decree was well-founded, for the nature and operation of justification are determined by the infusion of sanctifying grace. In other words, without the aid of other factors, sanctifying grace in itself possesses the power to effect the destruction of sin and the interior sanctification of the soul to be ju.s- tified. For since sin and grace are diametrically op- posed to each other, the mere advent of grace is suffi- cient to drive sin away; and thus grace, in its positive operations, immediately brings about holiness, kin- ship of God, and a renovation of spirit, etc. From this it follows that in the present process of justifica- tion, the remission of sin, both original and mortal, is linked to the infusion of sanctifying grace as a conditio sine qu(1 mm, and therefore a remission of sin without a simultaneous interior sanctification is theologically impossible. As to the interesting controversy whether the incompatibility of grace and sin rests on merely moral, or physical, or metaphysical contrari- ety, refer to Pohle ("Lehrbuch der Dogmatik", II, 511 sqq., Paderborn, 1909); Scheeben ("Die Myst. des Christentums", 543 sqq., Freiburg, 1S9S).
(2) The Nature of Sanctifi/ing Grace. — The real na- ture of sanctifying grace is, by reason of its direct in- visibility, veiled in mystery, so that we can learn its nature better by a study of its formal operations in the soul than by a study of the grace itself. Indissolubly linked to the nature of this grace and to its formal operations are other manifestations of grace which are referable not to any intrinsic necessity liut to the goodness of God; accordingly three questions present th<nM.s('lves for consideration:
