Controversies, Catechisms and the Catholic Reformation
26
Post-Tridentine Discussions of Justification
◈
The Council of Trent
’
s Decree on Justification provided institutional clarification of the Catholic church’
s views on justification, which was intended both to serve as a basis for catechesis within the church, and for opposing rival views from the Lutheran and Reformed communities of faith. Each constituency within Catholicism promptly produced works arguing that Trent affirmed their distinctive positions, in effect putting down markers to ensure that these were noted. Like the Council of Chalcedon before it,
1
Trent represented both the closing of an older period of doctrinal discussion, and the opening of a new era of exploration of Trent’
s interpretation and application.
2
The Council of Trent formally closed on 4 December 1563, nearly twenty years after it had first begun its work. It was immediately clear that issues over its interpretation would arise. In his bull Benedictus Deus
(1564), Pius IV confirmed the doctrinal decrees of the Council, while laying the foundations for a centralised interpretation of the Council’
s decisions in Rome.
3
Intense activity at Rome –
including the publication of the Catechismus Romanus
in 1564 –
helped to create the impression that Trent represented a solid and coherent vision of the teaching of the Catholic church. However, these moves towards centralisation did not prevent debates over the interpretation of the Council’
s decrees.
Early Catholic Interpretations of the Decree
Two early interpretations of the decree may be noted, one from a Dominican and one from a Franciscan theologian, both of whom were present at Trent. In his 1547 treatise de natura et gratia
(‘
on nature and grace’
), the Dominican theologian Domingo de Soto
argued that Trent
denied that any disposition of humans towards justification could be considered to be meritorious de congruo
. Having made it clear that some kind of disposition towards justification was needed,
4
Soto argued that humans cannot dispose themselves towards grace without some special assistance from God (auxilium speciale Dei
).
5
Although a purely natural disposition towards justification is conceivable, Soto insists that this cannot be considered to be meritorious.
6
Merit, in any sense of the term, prior to justification is rigorously excluded, even in its weaker form of merit de congruo.
7
Soto thus understands Trent to have explicitly rejected the doctrine of a congruously meritorious disposition towards justification, and in doing so, to have endorsed the position of his own religious order. In this, he was followed by the English Catholic émigré Thomas Stapleton, who served as a professor of biblical studies at the Catholic University of Leuven. Broadly sympathetic to Aquinas in his theology of grace,
8
Stapleton declared that any notion of the ‘
first grace’
being bestowed on account of congruous merit had long since been discredited.
9
The Tridentine decree is unequivocal on this matter, according to Stapleton; merit can exist only in the case of the regenerate, and thus not before the first justification.
10
A very different interpretation of the Tridentine decree is associated with the Spanish Franciscan Andrés de Vega
. Although Vega emphatically denied that anyone could be said to merit prevenient grace, it is clear that he understands this to refer to merit de condigno
.
11
He thus expounds the eighth chapter of the Tridentine decree as follows:
12
And this the fathers affirmed when they stated that neither faith ‘
nor any good works preceding justification merit (promereri
) this grace of justification’
. No
sinner is justified as a matter of debt, or as a matter of rigorous justice, or on account of the condignity of his works; but all who are justified are justified freely by God in his grace and mercy, without any merit or condignity of their works.
It is clear that Vega understands Trent to have excluded the opinion that humans can make a claim on God ex debito
or ex rigore iustitiae
–
but not that they may rely more generally upon the divine benevolence and generosity. ‘
It is therefore obvious that the words of our council assert nothing contrary to merit ex congruo
.’
13
Vega understands the terms meritum
and mereri
to refer solely to merit in its strictest sense but does not extend their use to congruous
merit. In other words, the Tridentine rejection of merit prior to justification is merely a rejection of the Pelagian doctrine of justification ex meritis
–
that is, justification on the basis of condign merit. The Franciscan doctrine of a congruously meritorious disposition towards justification might not be explicitly affirmed by the Tridentine decree, but it is not called into question by its statements, whether these employ the verbs promereri
or mereri.
Vega understands both
to mean ‘
merit in the strict and proper sense of the term’
–
that is to say, condign merit.
Controversies, Catechisms and the Catholic Reformation
The Council of Trent
highlighted the importance of education within the church, and laid the foundations for the revival of catechetics. One of the most important outcomes of the Council of Trent was the production of the Catechismus Romanus
–
often referred to as the ‘
Tridentine Catechism’
–
in 1566, which met a significant catechetical lacuna within the Catholic church. Its production, however, is generally considered to be the result of a sense of threat from multiple sources at the time, rather than purely pedagogical or pastoral concerns.
14
Although its subtitle (Catechismus ex decreta Tridentini
) clearly implies that it provided an exposition of the Tridentine decrees, the work is actually an exposition of the creed, the sacraments, the decalogue and the Lord’
s Prayer, rather than of the decrees of the Council of Trent. It is, however, possible to determine the work’
s teaching on justification by correlating its various elements as they are found at sundry points in its course. Grace always precedes, accompanies and follows the works of humans, and merit is impossible apart from grace.
15
The catechism makes no distinction between condign and congruous merit, however, and its statements on
merit are thus open to precisely the same latitude of interpretation as the Tridentine decree itself; once more, this appears to be deliberate.
Although the Catechismus Romanus
had little to say about the debates on justification, other catechetical material of the period compensated for this deficiency –
especially the catechetical writings of Peter Canisius, such as his Summa doctrinae christianae
(1555).
16
Canisius offered his readers a summary and defence of the Catholic teaching, often emphasising the continuity between Trent and Augustine. In his defence of the Catholic view of justification by inherent righteousness, Canisius regularly accused Lutheran writers of abandoning Augustine’
s teaching on justification, both in terms of their emphasis on the non-Augustinian notion of iustitia imputata
, and their failure to treat justification as a process of being made righteous.
17
Two significant Protestant responses to Trent from the Lutheran constituency (Martin Chemnitz) and the Reformed constituency (John Calvin
) made clear the need for continuing engagement with the doctrine of justification, especially in relation to the question of the patristic provenance of the various understandings of justification at that time.
18
By the late 1540s, both the Lutheran and Reformed constituencies had consolidated around a cluster of distinctive beliefs. Although these actually possessed considerable theological depth, they were often framed for presentational reasons in terms of formulaic polemical slogans –
such as justification sola fide
on the basis of imputed righteousness
, leading to a proper distinction between justification and sanctification. Although Chemnitz was able to show that there was a good case for asserting the Augustinian provenance of Lutheran doctrines of grace, he was rather less successful in demonstrating Augustine’
s support for the distinction between justification and sanctification, or for the notion of the imputation of an extrinsic righteousness to believers. In a sense, the Reformation and post-Reformation debates often centred on rival readings of Augustine, in that both Catholicism and the mainstream Reformation regarded him as a figure of authority and wisdom.
19
Yet such an emphasis on Augustine led to renewed controversy. The Renaissance had urged a reading of patristic writers which by-passed the interpretative filter of medieval scholasticism, in effect both allowing and endorsing a direct engagement with writers such as Augustine of Hippo
.
20
In the aftermath of Trent, the Catholic theologian Michael Baius
offered a reading of Augustine which seemed to his contemporaries to amount to an endorsement of Calvinism, rather than traditional Catholicism. Other controversies to emerge at this time which touch on issues relating to justification include Molinism and Jansenism.
21
Yet despite such debate over aspects of the Tridentine doctrine of justification
, the entire post-Tridentine Catholic tradition (including those otherwise considered heterodox, such as Baianists and Jansenists) continued to regard justification as a process in which humanity was made righteous, involving the actualisation rather than the imputation of righteousness
. The Protestant conception of the nature of justification was not adopted even by those who came closest to Protestant understandings of the mode in which justification came about. The continuity within the western tradition concerning the nature of justification was upheld by its post-Tridentine representatives on all sides of the debate.
Yet despite this consensus, the term ‘
justification’
itself was gradually being marginalised, if not completely eliminated, from the homiletical and catechetical literature of Catholicism during the seventeenth century. Although the term is employed extensively in Catholic polemical works of the sixteenth century, and may still be encountered in sermons of the seventeenth,
22
it seems that the associations of the term led to an increased reluctance to employ it from the late seventeenth century onwards –
despite the extensive use of the concept by the Council of Trent.
23
The dating of this elimination suggests that it may have been a reaction to internal developments within Catholicism, rather than to
external threats –
in other words, that it arose in response to Jansenism, rather than in reaction to Protestantism.
This trend has continued since then, and can be seen in an important publication of the late twentieth century –
the Catechism of the Catholic Church
(1992), one of the most significant magisterial publications of the church.
24
The two features of modern Catholic discussion of justification described in this chapter feature prominently in this work –
namely, the refocussing of the Catholic discussion of human salvation on terms other than justification, and the insistence that justification is to be understood as transformational, not declarative. Perhaps the most striking thing about the catechism’
s discussion of justification is the remarkable lack of attention that is paid to the concept, the term and the history of the debate within Christianity over the matter, especially during the sixteenth century. The question of how individuals are reconciled to God is now framed primarily in terms other than justification.
On the relatively few occasions on which the Catechism
makes reference to justification, it is defined in factitive, transformational terms.
25
Justification is ‘
not only the remission of sins, but also the sanctification and renewal of the interior man’
; it is the ‘
acceptance of God’
s righteousness through faith in Jesus Christ’
, so that ‘
faith, hope, and charity are poured into our hearts’
. Although the catechism continues to speak of grace in traditional terms –
for example, its definition of sanctifying grace as ‘
an habitual gift, a stable and supernatural disposition that perfects the soul itself to enable it to live with God’
26
–
more personalist ways of conceiving grace, such as those typical of early Lutheranism, are also acknowledged and affirmed. ‘
Grace is favour
, the free and undeserved help that God gives us to respond to his call to become children of God, adoptive sons, partakers of the divine nature and of eternal life.’
27
The material presented in this chapter has focussed on the Catholic church’
s response to the theological agenda of the Reformation in formulating its distinctive doctrines of justification. The debates of that era continue to be a significant issue in contemporary Christianity, as continuing interest in ecumenical dialogues and confessional debates makes clear. Yet although Lutheranism, Calvinism, the Council of Trent
and Pietism entertained significantly different understandings of how justification came about, certain shared assumptions remained deeply
embedded within their debates –
such as that humanity was alienated from God and required reconciliation to God if it was to achieve its true potential. Although movements such as Socinianism
called such assumptions into question, these criticisms were generally seen as peripheral. All that, however, would change.
In the following chapter
, we shall explore how the rise of the Enlightenment
called into question many of the most fundamental aspects of the Christian doctrine of justification, forcing a radical new agenda upon the churches. No longer was justification a matter for dispute between Christian groups; it became a matter of complex negotiation between Christianity and a secular culture which included elements that were increasingly of the view that humanity did not require reconciliation to anything or anyone, for any reason.
28
As we shall see, this shift in cultural mood had a significantly greater impact on Protestantism than Catholicism. So what are the theological consequences of the trend towards self-justification,
29
which has been given new intellectual legitimation and social significance by the rise of modernity? We shall consider these questions in the final major part of this work
.
3
For this process and its implications, see Alberigo, ‘
From the Council of Trent to “
Tridentinism”’
.
4
De natura et gratia
, ii.1, fol. 96r. See further Stegmüller, ‘
Zur Gnadenlehre des spanischen Konzilstheologen Domingo de Soto’
; Becker, Die Rechtfertigungslehre nach Domingo de Soto
, 111–
70.
5
De natura et gratia
, ii.3, fol. 102r.
7
De natura et gratia
, ii.4, fol. 109r–
111v. Soto’
s views on congruous merit prior to justification were defended by Suárez (although the latter was reluctant to concede any form of disposition, however remote, towards justification); De gratia
, vii.vii.9; Opera
9.339–
42.
8
Stapleton’
s Augustinianism is more nuanced than that of more radical Augustinians, such as Baius: see Seybold, ‘
Zur theologischen Anthropologie bei Michael Baius
(1513–
89) und Thomas Stapleton (1535–
1598)’
.
9
De universa iustificationis doctrina
, viii.16, Opera omnia
2.265b: ‘
Nam illud meritum de congruo
respect primae gratiae aim ex scholis Catholicis pene explosum est.’
See further Seybold, Glaube und Rechtfertigung bei Thomas Stapleton
. For Stapleton’
s Augustinian reading of Paul at this point, see François, ‘
Augustinus Sanior Interpres Apostoli
’
.
10
Seybold, Glaube und Rechtfertigung bei Thomas Stapleton
, 89 n. 189.
11
De iustificatione doctrina universa
, vi.10, fol. 86; vii.8, fol. 137.
12
De iustificatione doctrina universa
, viii.10, fol. 192.
13
De iustificatione doctrina universa
, viii.10, fol. 194.
15
Catechismus Romanus
, ii.v.68.
18
For discussion of these two writers’
assessments of Trent, see Olsen, ‘
Martin Chemnitz and the Council of Trent’
; Casteel, ‘
Calvin and Trent’
; Deuper, Johannes Calvins ‘Antidotum’ gegen das Rechtfertigungsdekret des Trienter Konzils (1547).
For the significance of Chemnitz’
s discussion of justification within a Lutheran context, see Martens, Die Rechtfertigung des Sünders
, 87–
112.
19
On the Catholic side, see François, ‘
Augustine and the Golden Age of Biblical Scholarship in Louvain (1550–
1650)’
. Note especially the analysis of ‘
reading Augustine after Trent’
in Visser, Reading Augustine in the Reformation
, 47–
59.
20
See the application of this principle in the writings of the English poet John Donne: Ettenhuber, Donne’s Augustine
, 23–
63.
22
A study of sermons preached in seventeenth-century Spain on the theme of justification indicates the considerable difficulties encountered in explaining the council’
s pronouncements on the matter to the laity; see Smith, Preaching in the Spanish Golden Age
, especially 140–
5.
23
It is significant that Pesch and Peters’
s excellent overview of Catholic thinking on ‘
justification and grace’
in the twentieth century actually focusses entirely on the doctrine of grace
: Pesch and Peters, Einführung in die Lehre von Gnade un Rechtfertigung
, 366–
93. In marked contrast, Pesch and Peters rightly state that the concept of justification plays a central role during Catholic discussions of the sixteenth century (169–
220). Yet even here, their examination of Catholic debates from the close of the Council of Trent to 1713 references discussions of grace, not justification (213–
19).
24
For a good discussion of this work, particularly its relationship to the Tridentine decree on justification, see Wawrykow, ‘
Grace and Justification’
.
26
Catechism of the Catholic Church
, article 2000.
27
Catechism of the Catholic Church
, article 1996.