Does contrition include the intent to live correctly?
Does contrition include the intent to live correctly?
§ 81. Bellarmine (ch. 6) responds affirmatively to the fourth question—“whether contrition includes the intent to live uprightly”—but also admits that Papist theologians do not agree “whether this ought to be a formal intent or if it is enough that it be virtual and implicit.”
We respond. Salutary contrition has faith in Christ conjoined with it, which is the mother and foundation of all good works. But if contrition exists by itself, it presses man down rather than lifting him up to the hope of forgiveness and an actual intent for a new life.
A true God-pleasing intent for a new life cannot exist except in a renewed person. A person is not renewed without first being regenerated. But regeneration happens through faith in Christ, by which “hearts are purified” (Acts 15:9).
No one can decide to lead a holy and God-pleasing life without first being sure that he has been reconciled to God, for works do not please God unless a person has first been reconciled. But now, through faith we can be certain of God’s grace. Therefore faith is required for the intent to lead a holy, God-pleasing life.
Anything that is included in the name and definition of contrition is something that is excited by the Law. But now, the Law kills man by its ministry where the life-giving Spirit is not present. It makes man a transgressor rather than eager for good works. But now, it is not the Law but the Gospel through which the life-giving Spirit is given (Gal. 3:2). Hence if the Lord in the Gospel did not show us Christ, the Physician of our soul, and did not give us life through faith in His blood, and if He were not to lead the contrite person back from hell, one of these two things would happen: either a person would be carried off into the pit of despair, or he would throw off the yoke of the Law’s reproofs and threats and would fall into Epicurean security.
The passages of Scripture which Bellarmine cites (Amos 5, Isaiah 1, and Ezekiel 18) describe the fruit of true and salutary repentance but not of contrition alone, as John says clearly: “Make fruits worthy of repentance” (Matt. 3:8).