Here is a part of a dialogue with a Catholic Apologist over the issue of Justification:


B. Catholic:

I think it’s really important to note that in recent decades, the Catholic Church has acknowledged that the traditional Lutheran understanding of justification by faith alone is not super far off from our own. We all accept the epistle of James, so we all recognize the necessity of the branch to bear its fruit. I believe, primarily we are justified by our faith, and it is through that faith Christ works within us. And only by Christ working within us can we produce the fruit. A lot of people will often accuse Catholics of believing in works based salvation, but I do resent that quite a bit, because it implies that our own works can do anything to achieve favor with God. It is not I who does good works, but Christ who works through me

I do think faith is a bit more complicated than simply saying “I believe” however

St James says that even the demons believe, so it cannot be purely belief that makes our faith which justifies us

I would add that true faith requires both the assent of the will in belief and repentance

TheSire:

Most Protestants don’t advocate for the notion that faith is merely intellectual consent or some mere sinners’ prayer thing.

For the most part, the issue with Romans 4 and Catholicism is how Paul can make such universal statements without being incorrect. Catholics have to walk an impossible tightrope. On the one hand, the person needs to be justified prior to circumcision, at the moment of faith, and this must be the universal standard for justification. I believe Paul’s argument is that we share with Abraham the same means by which he is justified.

The issue is that Catholics don’t affirm a universal means of justification. So, this passage from my understanding contradicts Catholic teaching.

B. Catholic:

Oh yeah of course
What exactly do you mean by universal means of justification?

TheSire:

It’s any relevant condition that God uses for granting some sinner justification

B. Philosophy:

Well the standard for that assent of will to faith in the Catholic Church is by baptism

Baptism takes on a variety of forms too. The most common one is baptism by water, but there is also baptism by desire, meaning someone who has faith and dies before receiving baptism will receive the graces of it regardless, and baptism by blood, which would be applicable in cases of martyrdom

The new perspective on Paul is very similar to the Catholic perspective from what I understand, so if I explain that, hopefully it’ll explain the Catholic view as well.

We’re grafted into God’s covenant by faith alone, apart from works. Which is why Paul says in Romans 5 that we r introduced to grace by faith. The key word that he uses is introduced. We come to be initially justified thru faith alone. And when Paul says we’re justified by faith apart from the works of the law in Romans 3, he’s talking about works of the law, like circumcision which some Jews said were required to enter God’s covenant. But Paul responds to them by saying that God isn’t merely the God of the Jews but also of the gentiles, implying that works Jewish works like circumcision aren’t required to enter God’s covenant cuz God is also the God of the gentiles. But this has nothing to say on works once you’re in the covenant.
Once we’re in the covenant, this things are a bit different. In fact, Paul is explaining what happens now that we’re under Christs grace (which entials we’ve been justified initially and r now under the covenant), in Romans 6 and says were slaves to the one we obey, either of sin resulting in death, or obedience resulting in righteousness. And the word he uses for righteousness means justification.
However, this obedience along with repentance which justifies when we’re in the covenant is not something that comes from us, but instead from Christ working thru us.

So that’s basically the new perspective. The idea is that faith alone is required to get into the covenant and become justified, but once we’re in the covenant we grow in justifaction thru obedience, which is possible because of Christ working thru us.

Jimmy Stephens:

The “Vincent problem” I see with this (your) interpretation of Romans 4 is that it trivializes Paul’s epistle in its polemic against judiazers. Namely, that obedience to the law is not a condition of justification. Whatever interpretation you take of Paul, it can’t be copy-cat-ed by his opponents. Unfortunately, this (your) Roman Catholic interpretation permits self-excusing imitation by the judiazers. (As a result, it can just be considered part of the very theological approach Paul is condemning.)

Your interpretation of Romans 4 attributes to Paul the (presupposed?) categories of initial vs ongoing justification. However, that strategy is open to the judiazers. In response to Paul’s epistle, his opponents could have pleaded, “But Paul, we’re not saying circumcision is necessary for salvation because it’s necessary to initial justification, just that it’s necessary to ongoing justification, and so justification taken as a finished whole.”

See, from the outset, Paul would have to be talking about justification either as a finished whole or without the initial-ongoing distinction at all to avoid this parody counter.

Thus, you can’t use that distinction in reading Paul in Romans 4 without undermining Paul’s very argument in Romans 4.

As an interwoven hermeneutical issue here, there simply is no textual evidence in Romans 4, nor is there textual evidence in the preceding chapters, for a initial-vs-ongoing distinction at all. One might come up with any number of speculative candidates – blue justification vs red justification, santa clause justification vs Abrahamic justification, Christian vs Jewish justification – and they would be as textually supported as initial vs ongoing.

It’s ad hoc to preserve Romanism, not legitimate exegesis.

Another interlocked issue, and the same ad hoc mistake, is to attribute to Paul the reduction of “justified by the law” as referring only to the rite of circumcision. Importantly, Jews would have understood the opposite: the rite of circumcision as a means to refer to entrance into / subjection to the entire Jewish law. In other words, circumcision was about becoming a Jew in a robust sense, not about merely obeying one abstractly picked out ceremony.

There simply is no textual reason to think either that Paul only means circumcision by law-righteousness, or that that interpretation is preferable anyhow over and above the take that Paul’s referring to the entire OT Law or the OT Law generally via “circumcision.” (edited)

Again, this interpretation (viz. “he’s talking about works of the law, like circumcision”) does well to preserve Romanism, but it’s entirely ad hoc. (edited)

The “Vincent problem” I see with this (your) interpretation of Romans 4 is that it trivializes Paul’s epistle in its polemic against judiazers. Namely, that obedience to the law is not a condition of justification. Whatever interpretation you take of Paul, it can’t be copy-cat-ed by his opponents. Unfortunately, this (your) Roman Catholic interpretation permits self-excusing imitation by the judiazers. (As a result, it can just be considered part of the very theological approach Paul is condemning.) Your interpretation of Romans 4 attributes to Paul the (presupposed?) categories of initial vs ongoing justification. However, that strategy is open to the judiazers. In response to Paul’s epistle, his opponents could have pleaded, “But Paul, we’re not saying circumcision is necessary for salvation because it’s necessary to initial justification, just that it’s necessary to ongoing justification, and so justification taken as a finished whole.” See, from the outset, Paul would have to be talking about justification either as a finished whole or without the initial-ongoing distinction at all to avoid this parody counter.

B. Catholic:

I find this to be an interesting contention, my one question would be how we are to interpret Romans 6:16, wherein Paul says that obedience itself leads to justification as well


Jimmy Stephens:

Leads in what sense? Also, what does Paul have in mind with righteousness?

Keep in mind, to interpret 6:16 we are moving away from Romans 4 and Vincent’s argument. This is fine, and I’ll follow you there, but keep in mind that a new argument about 6:16 is not an interpretation of Paul’s treatment of Abraham in chapter 4. We’re switching topics and while that’s okay, we I don’t want us to lose track of the fact you’re biding for a topic change.

I would start by pointing out that the very presiding verse establishes the given: justification.

Shall we sin because we are not under law, but under grace?
“Under grace” = justified

Paul is not establishing that justification is acquired here. He’s not even establishing how it is acquired. He’s taking for granted that it has been acquired (in v15), and specifically acquired without the law, which is why he moves to address the antinomian objection (in v16).

This is clarified further if we just turn back a bit. Verse 6 is elucidating. Speaking of those who have been baptized into Christ’s death and resurrection, Paul moves to an ethical ramification of justification, not justification itself.

NPP is complicated because there’s different pictures of justification umbrella’d under that term.

I’ll say this, though, because maybe it will side-step NPP altogether. We can grant that a protestant can accept NPP as long as we recognize that at least many, if not the whole of NPP, is off limits for non-liberal Christians, in the final analysis.

Presumably we can agree that the LBTQ+ type presbyterians are not really the sort of Protestantism the Protestants in this room identify with. Or to put the issue more frankly, whether NPP is compatible with Christianity on the representative Protestantism in this room is going to be as questionable as whether Roman Catholicism is compatible.

As someone familiar with Vincent, and being someone holding relatively close views, I am sad to say that various forms of trivially Protestant religion, like Hegelianism or Tillichian neo-orthodoxy, are no more considered Christian by us than Mormonism. I’m afraid that’s the dire straights of the dispute.

We love our Roman Catholic friends. But at the end of the day, this really is the sad dispute over whether Romanism is not in fact a cult offshoot of Christianity no different than Mormonism, and the same challenge must be raised for NPP, neo-orthodoxy, etc.

This is tricky. Bear with me in trying to be precise.

Strictly, yes, I think only those who believe sola fide are saved. No, that does not require that those who believe sola fide believe that they believe sola fide in order to be saved, or that they even be aware of the concept enough to articulate it in contradistinction from alternative views in order to be saved.

So there may be people even so confused as to decry sola fide while they incidentally hold it. The key is having that variety of faith, not having theoretical knowledge of it.

However, that said, experience disposes one to learn about these things. So as an inductive rule, knowledgeable RCs who deny sola fide are providing tragic evidence that they are not saved.

I think non-sola-fide is just a denial of the object of faith. If Christ is the object of faith qua ground of justification alone, and therefore not Christ plus works or race or status, etc., then to have any faith other than sola-fide faith is to believe a false gospel.

The good news is not that faith in Christ plus, for example, the virtue of avoiding mortal sins justifies.

The good news is that Christ – full stop – justifies.

(This is why stronger Reformed proponents think of the solas as mutually entailing.)