THE JUSTIFICATION DEBATE

[The following is a transcript of a taped debate between Scott Hahn, Catholic convert and former Presbyterian minister, and Dr. Robert Knudson of Westminster Seminary.
The original tape was distributed by Catholic Answers.]

"In a large household there are vessels not only of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay, some for lofty and others of humble uses. If anyone cleanses himself with these things he will be a vessel for lofty uses dedicated, beneficial to the master of the house, ready for every good work. So turn from youthful desires and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace along with those who call on the Lord with purity of heart. Avoid foolish and ignorant debates, for you know that they breed quarrels. A slave of the Lord should not quarrel but should be gentle with everyone, able to teach tolerance, correcting opponents with kindness."

So now, with that in mind, we're going to open the second half of the debate on the question of justification. The resolution is: Are we justified by faith alone, which is the Protestant doctrine of sola fide, or is it as the Roman Catholic Church asserts, that there is justification by faith plus, in some way, some capacity, works? We'll open this section with Scott Hahn.

I used to teach this, I used to believe it, and after much study of Scripture and considerable prayer and a lot of pain I have repudiated it. I believe that we are saved by Christ through grace alone, by a living faith working in love. I believe that's the biblical view and I've also discovered, much to my shock, that it's the Roman Catholic view, restated in every official statement in the Catholic Church with regard to the doctrines of grace, justification and salvation. Two thousand years of faithful teaching. From Christ alone, through grace alone, by faith and works done in love, only and always by the Holy Spirit. Not works done by sheer human energy to kind of force God into a bargain or contract, but the works of God in us, by the Holy Spirit, through the Holy Spirit. If you want to understand the Catholic view, and I hope you want to understand it even if you don't want to end up agreeing with it, I would recommend the viewpoint of one of the greatest Catholic theologians of the ages, Matthia Schieban(?) who says, "The master idea of the Catholic faith in general and the doctrine of justification of the Catholic Church in particular is the family of God. We receive in justification, not a legal acquittal only, but nothing less than the full gift of divine sonship, living, active and powerful, simultaneous with when we are first justified." This is stated clearly in response to the Reformers in the Council of Trent, chapter 4, where justification is spoken of in terms of adoption of the sons of God through the second Adam, Jesus Christ. In chapter 8 also, the beginning, foundation and root of all justification without which it is impossible to please God and come to the fellowship of sons, justification from a Catholic perspective is divine sonship. It's standing in God's family. It's nothing we earn, it's nothing we work our way into.

How many people ever bought their way into a family? It can't be done and it hasn't been taught in the Catholic tradition. Justification, then, understood in the Catholic way, involves both the imputation of legal righteousness as the Protestants believe, but also the infusion of Christ's life and grace as the divine son so that in Christ we become at justification living, breathing sons of God, not just legally but actually. That's what the grace of the Father does for His children. In other words we hold with the Protestants that justification involves a legal decree, a divine word , that we are just, but unlike the Protestants and contrary to their position, we believe that that word of justification goes forth in power. In other words, God does what he declares. In the very act of declaring us just he makes us just because His Word is omnipotent, it's all-powerful. Isaiah 55:11: "So shall my Word go forth from my mouth. It shall not return to me void, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose." Were God to say, 'Scott Hahn's a woman,' I would say [in a trill], 'No, I'm not.' I would become a woman in the very act of His declaring me to be such. His Word is what brought the world into being, even if you don't like my falsettoþI don't either. The point is that whatever God declares, He does by declaring it to be, because the Word of God is the living and active Christ himself. When we're declared just, god does what he declares. He fathers children in Christ, the eternal Son. The Catholic Church does not teach legalism. If individual Catholics you meet believe that through their own individual works-righteousness they can buy their way into heaven or merit everything on their own, you tell them to go back to their church, back to the Scripture, back to their councils, and change their minds. It isn't works-righteousness, it isn't striking a bargain or a deal with God at all. It's God having His way in us by filling us with His life, His love, His power. So God transforms children of the devil into children of God, not just by mere legal decree but by giving us Christ in his sonship. Therefore, according to the Roman Catholic Church, each and every deed I do that is pleasing to God is nothing other than the work of Christ active in me through the power of the Holy Spirit. St. Augustine said as a result, "When God rewards my labors, He's merely crowning the works of His hands in my life." As Paul says, "We are not competent of ourselves; our competence is from God who has made us competent." It isn't me but the Holy Spirit in me enabling me to cooperate and operate. So we are justified and made holy by God's grace alone. The Catholic Church says, 'It's grace from beginning to end; there's no strict merit whatsoever. If there's any merit it's the merit of a child who grows up and receives from the parents the life of the family, and works and learns and does fidelity in the household. So it's like a father who gives and fills his children with all that he has and is. But Paul says, 'Not of works, lest any man should boast.' Paul's excluding good works performed apart from grace, apart from sonship, outside the family, by men and women who think of themselves as employees or servants. But that is not what Paul is saying. Paul is saying that we are saved by grace through faith, but nowhere ever does Paul say 'alone'. Luther consciously added the word to Romans 3. He in his translation of the Bible into German deliberately and knowingly added a word that was not there in the Greek. He thought that it should be and that it was in spirit, but he added it. Justification by faith alone, first defined after 1500 yearsþfirst defined by Lutherþwas done so and defended by adding a word to the Bible that was not there.

But faith alone makes a man just with God; nothing else is needed. If we turn to the New Testament, however, we find Christ's real teaching not only in Paul but also in James, chapter 2, verses 20-24, where James says, "Faith without works is dead. Do you not see that by works a man is justified and not by faith alone?" As Professor Shepherd of Westminster Seminary said, Paul and James are speaking of justification here in the same sense. So why do Protestants formulate a doctrine of justification that won't fit the way the Holy Spirit led the New Testament writers to speak of justification? Paul and James are in harmony, but the doctrine of justification by faith alone expressly and explicitly contradicts what James says when he says, "A man is justified not by faith alone...." But Jesus offers salvation as a free gift, beyond what we deserve; all we have to do is just simply accept. Jesus offers himself to us and his salvation as free gift, beyond what we deserve, but you are wrong when you say we only have to accept. Jesus will say to those who say, 'Lord, Lord' on that day, "Depart from me you workers of lawlessness." As Paul also says in Philippians, "Work out your salvation with fear and trembling in your hearts." So we can bargain God into an exchange? No, because God is at work in you both willing and doing for His good will and pleasure and purpose.

But Catholics are always doing, doing; they're always doing something to be saved. Of course that's true, because what father wants his children to be sitting around all day without learning, growing, working and maturingþthat is, becoming like Him? When we pray, 'Lord, come into my heart,' we're doing something. When we say, 'Lord, I want to receive you into my heart as my personal Lord and savior, we are saying and doing something. When we sing, attend church, study Scripture, share the gospel, likewise. But then salvation is just God paying us for our worksþwhich Paul condemns. True, Paul condemns those who make salvation a wage or salary. Let me say that again. We are not teaching that salvation is in any sense an earned wage or salary. Rather, it's a reward by way of inheritance. What child ever bought his way into the family? Entrance into the family, membership in the family, is pure gift. Or what parent ever told a child, "You will inherit and rule in the family no matter what you do? Salvation is a reward only in the sense that an inheritance is. From start to finish it's pure gift. Even growing up and learning and doing is a gift received by children appropriating the parents' gifts of life and truth. So its straight from the life and hearts of the parent, in this sense God the Father, into the body and soul of a child, the Son of God, the Christian. This is the Bible, this is St. Paul, this is St. James and this is the Catholic Church. Matthew 5, verse 12: "Be glad and rejoice, for your reward is very great in heaven." Matthew 7, verse 21: "Not everyone who says to me 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven." Matthew 19:17: "If you wish to enter into life, keep the Commandments." Romans 2, verse 6: "God will render to every man according to his works." Romans 2:13: "For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified." Colossians sums it up very well; chapter 3, verse 23: "Whatever you do, do from the heart as unto Christ, knowing you'll receive of the Lord the reward of inheritance." Given to children, of course. First John, chapter 3, verse 7: "Little children, let no one deceive you, he who does right is righteous as He is righteous."

One of the greatest professors of Protestantism of the twentieth century was a man by the name of John Murray. His protege and successor had to leave Westminster Seminary because he saw that these statements and formulations of the Protestant church were not fully in line with Paul and James: at least many people didn't believe that his statements were converse with the Protestant tradition. You will see that Protestant theologians in interpreting the Bible will actually say that adoption is only a legal actþfor instance, John Murray. Again, many consider him the greatest Protestant bible-believing, spirit-filled Bible theologian of the twentieth century. As a typical and representative Protestant, he argues in his book Redemption Accomplished and Applied, page 167, "Adoption is only a judicial act." We're not really made children of God, we're simply declared children legally. That's not the Catholic view. He says, "Not degenerating within us of a new nature or character to say that men by adoption come to share in Christ's sonship"þthis is Murray nowþ"that men by adoption come to share in Christ's sonship and thus enter into the divine life of the Trinity, this is grave confusion and error. No one shares in Christ's sonship." And yet we hear, "Little children, let no one deceive you, he who does right is righteous as he is righteous." [1 John 3:7]. Galatians 3:26 also tells us that we are righteous before the Father as children, for "in Christ you are all sons of God." In Romans 8:12 it says, "You who have received the spirit of sonship. It is the spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ provided we suffer with him that we may be glorified with him." And my last verse is 1 John 3:1: "See what love the Father has given us that we should be called the children of God, and so we are." We're not just called children, we're not just declared children, we are. We're given a new nature in justification that makes us true children. J.I. Packer in his book Knowing God says, "It's a strange fact that the truth of adoption has been little regarded in Christian [that is, Protestant] history. Apart from two last century books, now scarcely known, there is no evangelical writing on it, nor has there ever been at any time since the Reformation."

No wonder. It isn't by law alone. We are fathered as children of God when we are justified by faith working in love, and not by faith alone.

Now, if I have read the canons of Trent properly and the articles there, if I hear Scott properly, it is said in your circles that we are not justified by, in our own strength, and that is true. If I read these documents properly and if I listen to Scott Hahn properly, then it is not by the works of the law, and that is true. But then the question comes: How do we view the works of the law? What do we mean exactly by what is in our own strength? The teaching I would like to present, which I believe is solidly based on Scripture, is that justification is a gracious declaration of God. We're familiar in the courts with a 'not guilty' judgment. A judge or jury will come with a verdict 'not guilty' on the basis of what that person is, that he did not commit the crime. But the difficulty with us and our sinfulness is that we indeed are guilty and nevertheless, in spite of that fact, God comes with His declaration 'not guilty' even though one is not right before Him. One is reckoned, he is declared just, and that is the understanding that I am presenting of justification.

I might mention the Short CatechismþScott had been referring to Presbyterian traditionþIn the Shorter Catechism (sic) it says in Question 33, "What is justification?", and the answer is simply that justification "is an act of God's free grace wherein he pardoned all our sins and accepted us as righteous in His sight only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us and received by faith alone." The matter is indeed from the Protestant position that one is just from the declarative act of God while he is yet a sinner. That belongs to the notion intrinsically. That, then, comes through faith, as we say, through faith alone.

Now Scott is indeed right that when God justifies us by imputing to us the righteousness of Christ, He doesn't only do that. At the same time, inseparable from that, He makes us new creatures, new creations in Christ Jesus; He does adopt us as sons. That is obviously not because of anything good in ourselves, but it is an adoption. We are not like the Jews who were naturally in the vine, but we have been put in the vine, grafted among the children of God. The point is that there is power connected with this, but nevertheless in the Protestant tradition, we limit the idea of justification to that declarative act, but we say that this justification is never simply by itself, it is never alone. But then why do we say that it is by faith alone? It is because of the sharp opposition that is drawn in the scriptures, that is drawn in the writings of the Apostle Paul, between justification by works and justification by faith. The idea that justification is not , that there is complete opposition between justification by worksþif it's not thatþthen faith is the only thing, the only avenue by which one can receive this.

Do I understand the position as Scott presented it? There is something that with God's grace, there is indeed a merit. This is included in the idea of justification and therefore we are not justified by faith alone, but with the infusion of God's grace we are justified on the basis of the merits that we have in Jesus Christ by the work of the Spirit.

Now, you see, that is indeed what the Protestant Reformation rejected, because it saw in Scripture this great opposition between works and faith. And it said that there is no merit connected with justification other than the merit that is in Jesus Christ himself. The Good News of the gospel is a salvation by grace through faith as Scott quoted from Ephesians 2. "For by grace you are saved through faith and not of yourselves. It is a gift of God, not of works lest any man should boast."

But do I not also understand that there is a question here of assurance? Is it the case that one needs to be justified and justified and justified because of the grace given to him but nevertheless continued until the issue is finally settled when he dies in grace and is then finally saved? The position it seems to me of Scripture, as the Apostle Paul says in the first verse of the fifth chapter of Romans, "Having, therefore, been justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ."

Now, it is said that Luther wanted assurance, needed assurance, and that was the reason that he came up with the idea of justification. I believe that we all need assurance, and assurance belongs to faith because faith is a firm attachment, it is a certain resting upon Jesus Christ for our salvation. It is indeed not a mere credulity, it is something that has a real foundation in the righteousness of Jesus Christ. As far as uncertainty is concerned....I'm married. Is my relationship with my wife better if it were kept constantly in doubt and uncertainty? There's some modern thinkers who say that, but I wouldn't claim that any of you would say that. But if we know that we are children of God because He has declared us just because of the righteousness of Jesus Christ, we have this peace with God of which the Apostle Paul speaks.

As far as faith and works are concerned, there are very, very many subtle things that could be said, and Scott referred to some of them. One of them is that very difficult passage in the writing of James. Let's look at it this way, as some commentators would; let's look at it practically. Supposing a woman says to her husband, "You say you love me. Do something about it!" I think that's the tenor of that passage. He's talking about those who say they have faith and that faith is empty. He even speaks about the empty man, the person who is void, he is empty, who says such a thing. Faith without works is dead; in fact it is no true faith at all. But what James is talking about there is not just cooperation of faith and works unto justification. Isn't he telling us, "This is the kind of faith that saves? After all, he is talking about those who already are saying, Yes, I'm saved by faith. But he's telling them that this is a faith that must show itself, must manifest itself in works. Florists will sometimes say, "Say it with flowers." Indeed our works do speak.

But let me just repeat that, "Justification is an act of God's free grace wherein He pardons all our sin and accepts us as righteous in His sight only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us and received by faith alone." We do say that justification is by faith alone, but it is not by a faith that is alone. That happened to be something that Professor Norman Shepherd said with which I thoroughly agreed.

HAHN
I want to thank Professor Knudson for a very good job summarizing the Protestant position and interacting with the Catholic position. I also want to take this opportunity to thank him for the respect and sensitivity that he shows in so doing. I hope that the last thirty minutes have been clear in simplifying the differences. There are two views of justification and faith here involved. The Protestant view is built upon God understood primarily in terms of His holiness, as a judge. We are understood primarily in terms of guilty criminals. Christ is an innocent but willing victim substitute. Hang the penalty. Justification then is just simply a legal exchange. We get his legal righteousness; he gets our punishment. The Catholic Church agrees with all of these but regards them as partial truths. The Church tries to put them in the broader context, in this case the notion of the divine family, the notion of divine sonship. God is a holy judge, but even more, He's a loving Father. His holiness and His judgment are that of father's heart. God is a loving father; we are the ones He makes His children. Jesus is the one who dies and rises to give us his own divine sonship and nothing less than his own divine sonship. Justification is therefore his declaration of that sonship and, as I've mentioned, he does what he declares by declaring it [Isaiah 55:11]. God's word does not return to Him void. It accomplishes the purpose that He set out to accomplish. So salvation and justification in the Catholic tradition is regarded, then, as growing up to be a mature, loving hard working son of God or daughter of God in His family, the Church of Christ.

Now, I don't sense that this in any way detracts from the righteousness of Christ. To me it perfectly manifests the righteousness of Christ which is put within our souls, not just legally, but actuallyþalive and powerful because the Holy spirit transforms our nature. When we're justified we are transformed, we are not only acquitted and forgiven. We are made children of God and not only criminals who are taken off of death row.

Assurance does belong to the Catholic doctrine, that is, the assurance of moral certitude, as the Council of Trent and Catholic theologians define it. It's the kind of certainty I have that my parents are my parents and I am their child. I have the Holy Spirit, and so I have that moral certitude that comes from the Holy spirit, that comes from my own growth and life in Christ, that I am in fact a child of God. But that moral certitude is not to be identified with my faith itself. My faith is not in my faith, but in Christ who made me a child of God by giving to me his own righteousness. I am a child of God because God has not only imputed but also imparted, and that's the big difference. Has He only imputed a legal righteousness, or has He also imparted a divine sonship? Has He only decreed me innocent, or has He done what He has decreed by making me a living child of god with the life of the Father living and breathing and moving within me, so that my works are really nothing but my Father's works in and through me?

The question I'd like to pose, then, is: Is adoption what John Murray and the Protestant tradition teaches, that is, only legal? Is the notion of our share in Christ's divine sonship actual, spiritual, dynamic and personal? Is that really a grave confusion and a grave error, or is that in fact the doctrine of St. Paul and St. James? And finally, how is that Paul never says we're justified by faith alone, James does say we aren't justified by faith alone, but by faith and works, and so why have we formulated a doctrine in the Protestant tradition that contradicts James and says what Paul never said? Who is taking the Bible literally here?

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