C. Justification’s Formal Cause
C. Justification’s Formal Cause
If contemporary Catholicism were to embrace Newman’s notion of justification by divine indwelling, agreement at the Catholic/Protestant intersection would go significantly deeper.1068 To this point, the critical question is whether Newman’s theology of union with Christ by the adherent presence of God is consistent with Trent’s single formal cause. As we noted, in his advertisement of his third edition (1874), the Catholic Newman exploits the ambiguous nature of the unica forma causa, pointing to other post-Tridentine Catholic authors who likewise propose an option other than a habitual or actual form of inherent righteousness. Newman is convinced that because Trent’s Decree simply states that justification’s formal cause is “the righteous of God . . . by which he makes us righteous,” without explicating its precise nature, his position on justification by divine indwelling is a plausible option. If Rome were to accept Newman’s proposal on this point, a greater amount of agreement could be reached with Protestants on their most fundamental point of disputation with Catholicism: justification’s formal cause.
If, as Newman argues, justification consists in the indwelling presence of God, Catholics would have the freedom to recognize justification’s formal cause to be every bit as forensic as it is operative.1069 And because this position admits the simultaneous reception of sanctifying righteousness, the Catholic concern for justification to feed and manifest itself in ethics (i.e., faith, hope, and love) is ameliorated. Thus, the debate would no longer turn on whether justification is strictly forensic or operative. According to Newman, it is both. A more significant dividing line, in this case, is whether justification is simply a forensic declaration of Christ’s righteousness (as some forms of Protestantism would contend, such as the traditional Lutheran view)1070 or the reception of Christ’s righteousness by the indwelling Spirit (which Vermigli affirms).
In favor of Newman’s emphasis on this divine indwelling, we read the following statements in the Catholic Catechism:
Grace is a participation in the life of God. Grace is favor, the free and underserved 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.1071
The grace of Christ is the gratuitous gift that God makes to us of his own life, included by the Holy Spirit into our soul to heal it of sin and to sanctify it. It is the sanctifying or deifying grace received in Baptism. It is in us the source of the work of sanctification.1072
Filial adoption, in making us partakers by grace in the divine nature, can bestow true merit on us as a result of God’s gratuitous justice.1073
These quotations demonstrate that contemporary Catholic teaching recognizes and affirms a considerable amount of Newman’s central thesis: that justification is by grace on account of divine indwelling. But do Trent and the Catechism actually permit such a position in what they say elsewhere? In other words, is the adherent presence of God completely sufficient for justification or does an individual also need to manifest an inherent righteousness (either habitual or in works)?
At the very least, Newman’s argument appears to be in accord with the requirement of initial justification; however, it is not so clear whether divine indwelling is entirely sufficient for justification beyond this point. For example, in the context of defining justification’s formal cause, chapter seven of Trent’s Decree says justification is that by which God “makes us just and endowed with which we are renewed in the spirit of our mind . . . according to the measure which the holy Spirit apportions to each one as he wills, and in view of each one’s dispositions and co-operations.”1074 This language sounds a lot like the sort of habit of righteousness that Newman disavows. The Catholic Catechism conveys the same idea:
Sanctifying grace is an habitual gift, a stable and supernatural disposition that perfects the soul itself to enable it to live with God, to act by his love. Habitual grace, the permanent disposition to live and act in keeping with God’s call, is distinguished from actual graces which refer to God’s interventions, whether at the beginning of conversion or in the course of the works of sanctification.1075
Nevertheless, there are reasons why Catholics may still find Newman’s formulation tenable. Even though he maintains gratia increata as the ground of forgiveness, we have observed how he seeks to also include internal renewal as part of that ground.
[The] Gift which justifies us is, as we have seen, a something distinct from us and lodged in us, yet it involves in its idea its own work in us, and (as it were) takes up into itself that renovation of the soul, those holy deeds and sufferings, which are as if a radiance streaming from it.1076
Some would accuse Newman of slicing the onion a little too thin at this point.1077 He is arguing for the causality of uncreated grace over habitus—which suggests disagreement with the Catholic position—but, at the same time, he insists that this presence includes under its meaning the act of “making righteous.”1078 Is this claim to internal renewal genuine enough to carry the transformational freight demanded by Trent and the Catechism? One is tempted to categorically reply in the negative, since Newman posits a notional distinction between the (forensically) justifying word and the (actual) renewal by the Spirit.1079 But this is where it gets complicated. The reader will recall that, in his 1874 edition (writing as a Catholic), Newman retracted this distinction (that “justification is perfectly distinct from renewal”)1080 in order to suggest that sanctification and justification are simultaneous.1081 If this is in fact Newman’s position, there appears to be greater compatibility with Roman Catholic doctrine. Unfortunately, while Newman removes the wedge in the above-mentioned statement, he fails to do so in the appendix of his third edition, in which he asserts that “incipient righteousness, which is the improper form [of justification], is but the necessary attendant on the Divine Presence, which is the proper.”1082 Therefore, as we concluded in chapter four, faced with this ambiguity, readers will have to decide for themselves which of these two positions more accurately reflects the Catholic Newman.
In addition to considering whether Newman’s formal cause developed in a Rome-ward direction, we need to also consider whether Rome has moved any closer to the duplex iustitia positions represented by Vermigli and Newman. Lane reminds us that the Council of Trent’s position on justification was formulated “in response to what it then understood the Reformers to be saying.”1083 Therefore, as Lane continues to explain, we must listen carefully to contemporary Catholic theology to understand the nuances of its current position, especially as it relates to Protestantism. In this regard, there is an interesting statement in the Catholic Catechism that might be understood as a tacit approval of imputation, at least to the extent that those who have already been justified have an ongoing need for Christ’s righteousness as superior to their own. At the conclusion of the section on the role of merit in justification, at which point it takes up the matter of the charity of Christ as the source in us of all merit before God, there is the following quotation from Thérèse of Lisieux (Catholic ecumenists can decide whether this emphasis opens the door widely enough to admit any of Newman’s doctrine):
After earth’s exile, I hope to go and enjoy you in the fatherland, but I do not want to lay up merits for heaven. I want to work for your love alone. . . . In the evening of this life, I shall appear before you with empty hands, for I do not ask you, Lord, to count my works. All our justice is blemished in your eyes. I wish, then, to be clothed in your own justice and to receive from your love the eternal possession of yourself.1084
Dulles explains that with regard to the question of whether righteousness is imputed or inherent, twentieth-century Catholic theology emphasized the notion of gratia increata. Accordingly, “the righteousness of the creature,” says Dulles, “always remains a gift; it is a participation in the righteousness of God, given in Christ.”1085 While Catholics do not employ the language of “imputation” in the same way as Reformed Protestants to describe the reckoning of Christ’s righteousness as the sole ground of one’s forgiveness, they are nevertheless keen to underscore the fact that our righteousness is derived from our participation in Christ. Thus, Dulles concludes, “In that sense, the Reformation categories of iustitia aliena and “imputed righteousness” convey an important truth that Catholics do not wish to ignore.”1086
The JD does not use the term “impute” to identify the basis on which the converted Christian is accepted by God.1087 The closest it comes to providing an answer is in the fifteenth paragraph, which says that by “grace alone, in faith in Christ’s saving work and not because of any merit on our part, we are accepted by God and received the Holy Spirit, who renews our hearts.” While acceptance and renewal both appear in this statement, it is possible to understand the latter to follow from the former.1088 It is of course also possible for this pattern to be limited to initial justification (and not one’s ongoing status), in which case the JD is simply reiterating the teaching of Trent. Unfortunately, the JD is ambiguous on this particular point.
When Vermigli directed his critiques toward Trent, the major target was what he perceived to be the heresy of “Pelagianism.” 1089 We noted that this was not entirely fair since Trent, unlike Pelagius, insisted that justification comes as a “free gift” because it is impossible for man to naturally please God.1090 Nevertheless, Peter Martyr goes to great lengths to oppose the notion of grounding justification in the Spirit’s work in nobis, arguing instead for Christ’s imputed righteousness pro nobis as the fundamental basis of justification: “Therefore, we say that justification cannot consist in that righteousness and renewal by which we are created anew by God. For it is imperfect because of our corruption, so that we are not able to stand before the judgment of Christ.”1091 For Peter Martyr, sinners are accounted righteous because Christ’s righteousness is forensically reckoned to them.1092
In short, our study has illustrated that the fundamental difference between the Roman Catholic and Reformed Protestant doctrines of justification comes down to the “formal cause.” Even if Newman’s concept of God’s adherent presence is applied, Reformed Protestants still oppose the combination of forensic imputation and internal renewal as the proper cause of justification, since doing so fails to produce the perfect righteousness that is required to meet the demands of divine holiness.1093