E. Common Concerns: Distinguishing Forensic and Actual Righteousness
E. Common Concerns: Distinguishing Forensic and Actual Righteousness
While holding forensic imputation and sanctification together, Newman and Vermigli also insist on a proper distinction. Newman, for instance, is careful to distinguish “‘Christ,’ our propitiation, ‘within us,’” from one’s actual righteousness.885 While affirming that justification effectively “renews” one’s soul,886 Newman is emphatic that such renewal is not derived from an infusion of inherent righteousness or the cultivation of habitus.887 Rather, it comes from an “adherent” righteousness, “depending wholly and absolutely on the Divine Indwelling.”888 Simply put, Newman’s doctrine recognizes in this indwelling a clear distinction between God’s forensic declaration and the cultivation of virtue, that is, “actual righteousness.” While unified in a single act, the two are regarded as notionally distinct.889
For Vermigli, “justification,” in a strict sense, is limited to a forensic activity; yet he also understands regeneration and sanctification as necessarily accompanying forensic imputation. At the outset of his Romans locus, he raises an important question that lays groundwork for his distinction between forensic and actual righteousness: “Are men justified by works or by faith?”890 He answers his question by asserting that “there are two meaning of ‘to justify,’” namely, in fact or in judgment or estimation.891 Identifying which of these two options is more fundamental, he explains, “[W]hen debating the matter, Paul was influenced by the testimony of the history of Abraham in Genesis and by the authority of David; he used the verb ‘to be reckoned,’ and, with proper understanding, reasons in light of our present concern and question.”892 Thus, Vermigli chooses imputation over spiritual renewal as the proper ground of justification.
Newman and Vermigli, while seeking to hold forensic and actual righteousness together, insist on their proper distinction.