It is the strict, legal merit which the Catholic Church maintains cannot justify a man, which is how she interprets the word "merit" in paragraph 15 of the Joint Declaration, and which is the same merit to which the Lutherans are opposed. But the Catholic Church has always believed, and still does believe, that a man attains justification through the merit God gives from His grace, not because we have legally "earned" justification. Yet it was this very concept of "gracious merit" (or what Thomas Aquinas called "condign merit") that Luther utterly rejected. Luther writes:

"They attribute the merit of grace and the forgiveness of sins to the mere performance of the work. For they say that a good work performed before grace can earn a ‘merit of congruity'; but once grace has been obtained, the work that follows deserves eternal life by the ‘merit of condignity.'...God has become a debtor and is obliged by right to grant eternal life." (On Galatians 2:16, LW 35).

Here Luther equated condign merit with "debt," and thus refused to acknowledge Aquinas' distinction between "strict merit" and "condign merit." The following is what the Council of Trent said in Canon 24 about the concept of condign merit (or what we may term as "grace-oriented" works):

" If anyone shall say that justice received is not preserved and also not increased in the sight of God through good works but that those same works are only the fruits and signs of justification received, but not a cause of its increase: let him be anathema."

Notice that, in opposition to Luther, the Catholic dogma assumes that justification "increases" and is not a one-time, static event – a view believed by Protestants. It also says that good works are not merely the fruits of justification (as Luther believed) but are "a cause" of justification's increase. Whether today's Lutherans accept or deny the concept of gracious merit is not stated in the Joint Declaration, and thus the matter remains ambiguous. Canon 32 is even clearer regarding the gracious merits of good works for justification:

"If anyone shall say that the good works of the man justified are in such a way the gifts of God that they are not also the good merits of him who is justified, or that the one justified by the good works, which are done by him through the grace of God and the merit of Jesus Christ (whose living member he is), does not truly merit increase of grace, eternal life, and the attainment of that eternal life (if he should die in grace), and also increase of glory: let him be anathema."

Notice the Council of Trent says that good works are not merely a by-product of faith but are truly the "good merits" of the justified individual, which "truly merit...eternal life" and its "attainment." This teaching is very clear. Anyone who knowingly maintains that good works are merely the fruits of justification but in no way "merits" justification (that is, graciously merited), he is anathematized.

What did the Joint Declaration say in regard to such works? Note the following from paragraph 37: We confess together that good works - a Christian life lived in faith, hope and love - follow justification and are its fruits. When the justified live in Christ and act in the grace they receive, they bring forth, in biblical terms, good fruit... (emphasis added). The Catholic understanding of the above paragraph is stated in paragraph 38: "According to Catholic understanding, good works, made possible by grace and the working of the Holy Spirit, contribute to growth in grace...When Catholics affirm the "meritorious" character of good works, they wish to say that, according to the biblical witness, a reward in heaven is promised to these works..."

Although in paragraph 38 the Catholic side makes reference to "growth in grace" in line with Canon 32 of Trent, it mentions nothing about Trent's teaching concerning "truly meriting eternal life, and the attainment of eternal life" by those same works. Moreover, although the Bible certainly speaks of "rewarding" our works, in paragraph 38 the Catholic side makes no mention of the Bible's solemn warnings that works will be judged to determine eternal destiny (heaven or hell), not merely to receive rewards in heaven (cf., Matthew 12:36-37; 16:27; 25:31-46; John 5:28-29; 12:48; Romans 2:6-16; 14:10-12; 1 Corinthians 3:17; 4:1-5; 2 Corinthians 5:9-11; Revelation 20:11-15; 22:12-15, et al). If works are judged to determine one's salvation, then they are integrally and inseparably related to justification.

The only time any of the above verses are mentioned in the Joint Declaration's documents are paragraph 2E of the Annex, with the following interpretation: In the final judgement, the justified will be judged also on their works [verses listed]. We face a judgement in which God's gracious sentence will approve anything in our life and action that corresponds to his will. However, everything in our life that is wrong will be uncovered and will not enter eternal life. Notice that this interpretation says nothing about the possibility of the person himself being judged and consequently being eternally damned for bad works, but only that the bad things in his life will not enter eternal life with him. The Annex presumes that the person is going to heaven. But even a cursory reading of the above Scripture texts will show that Scripture does not consider entrance into heaven a foregone conclusion. Most of the passages specify the possibility of God sending the judged person to hell for his bad works. The Scriptures which do not specify eternal damnation certainly imply it.

In the entire document, the Catholic side never mentions that the individual will be judged for his works at the end of time to determine the final outcome of his justification. Again, this is a glaring omission and would never stand up in an infallible Council such as the Council of Trent.

We need to say one more thing regarding the Catholic concept of works in opposition to historic Lutheranism. Trent made it very clear that, in opposition to Luther's rejection of Aquinas' concept of "congruent" merit, works done prior to justification are not sinful. In Canon 7, Trent stated: "If anyone shall say that all works that are done before justification, in whatever manner they have been done, are truly sins or deserving of the hatred of God, or that the more earnestly anyone strives to dispose himself of grace, so much the more grievously does he sin, let him be anathema."

Notice that Trent says that a man can actually "dispose himself for grace" by doing works prior to justification. From Trent's teaching, works prior to justification can be considered good and wholesome by God such that they help the person to attain to the sanctifying grace of justification. The case of Cornelius in Acts 10 is a case in point. He did works of prayer and almsgiving which God noticed, and subsequently brought the angel to him to lead him to the sanctifying grace of justification in baptism (Acts 10-11).

(3) Faith cannot be alone in justification since the Council of Trent said the following regarding the infusion of grace: "...he is ingrafted, receives in the said justification, together with the remission of sins, all these are infused at the same time: faith, hope and love" (Session 6, Chapter 7). Here we see that the three theological virtues are given to an individual, actually infused, at the moment of justification, which is at baptism. In Catholic teaching, these divinely infused virtues are the basis upon which an individual is justified. Without one of them the individual would not be justified.

It is clear the Council of Trent taught that faith is never alone in justification, since it is accompanied by hope and love from the very beginning. Now we are ready to deal with the suggestion some have made that it is now acceptable for Lutherans to use "faith alone" because they, unlike Luther, are not excluding hope and love from faith. Here is what the Joint Declaration states of the Lutheran's belief about the relationship between faith, hope and love. Paragraph 26 says:

"According to Lutheran understanding, God justifies sinners in faith alone (sola fide). In faith they place their trust wholly in their Creator and Redeemer and thus live in communion with him. God himself effects faith as he brings forth such trust by his creative word. Because God's act is a new creation, it affects all dimensions of the person and leads to a life in hope and love. In the doctrine of 'justification by faith alone,' a distinction but not a separation is made between justification itself and the renewal of one's way of life that necessarily follows from justification and without which faith does not exist. Thereby the basis is indicated from which the renewal of life proceeds, for it comes forth from the love of God imparted to the person in justification. Justification and renewal are joined in Christ, who is present in faith" (emphasis added).

Notice that the Lutherans do not say that "faith alone" includes hope and love. They say that faith merely "leads to a life in hope and love," not that hope and love exist along with faith at the moment of justification. This belief is confirmed in the next statement which says that the "renewal" (i.e., hope and love) "necessarily follows from justification," not that hope and love are simultaneous with faith in justification, as Trent said. The Lutheran belief is confirmed again in the statement "the renewal of life proceeds."

But everyone in this dialogue acknowledges that hope and love "proceed" from justification. The crucial issue is whether hope and love are simultaneous with faith at the moment of justification, which, by definition, does not allow faith to be "alone." The only "joining" the Lutherans are allowing between justification and renewal is "in Christ." But "in Christ" is very ambiguous, since the whole Christian life can be said to be "in Christ." Consequently, it seems that the Lutherans are not capitulating on their historic definition of "faith alone," since they make no direct statement that hope and love are included with faith at the moment of justification. Their emphasis, stated three times, is that hope and love only come after faith.

Let it be clear that we are not talking about hope and love eventually being added to faith, but about the instant of justification, which the Catholic Church says occurs at baptism (Session 5 of the Council of Trent). The distinctive of the Lutheran belief is confirmed in paragraph 23:

"When they [Lutherans] stress God's grace is forgiving love ("the favor of God"), they do not thereby deny the renewal of the Christian's life. They intend rather to express that justification remains free from human cooperation and is not dependent on the life-renewing effects of grace in human beings." (emphasis added).

Once again, the Lutherans confirm that the "renewal" (which we understand as hope and love) has nothing to do with initiating or maintaining justification. They still agree with Luther that works or love are merely the fruits of justification, not the cause of its increase (See LW 26: 145, 153, 155, 161, 169, 220, 376). The Catholic answer to this historic Lutheran belief mirrors their omission which we noted earlier concerning the specific stipulations in Canon 32 of the Council of Trent that an individual's works "truly merit...eternal life" and its "attainment." Here is paragraph 24:

"When Catholics emphasize the renewal of the interior person...they wish to insist that God's forgiving grace always brings with it a gift of new life, which in the Holy Spirit becomes effective in active love. They do not thereby deny that God's gift of grace in justification remains independent of human cooperation."

Notice that the Catholic side has not admitted its historic belief that justification is dependent on the "renewal" (i.e., works and love). Instead, they put their belief in the form of a double-negative (i.e., "They do not thereby deny"), but they have not confirmed the historic Catholic opposition to the Lutheran belief that the "renewal" plays no part in justification. Luther believed, in opposition to Thomas Aquinas and the Catholic Church, that the faith which justified was "unformed" by love, that is, love was excluded from faith at the moment of justification. Luther writes:

"...therefore love too is not from faith" (LW 26, 270-271). Although Luther sometimes speaks of love as being integral with the Gospel (LW 27, 51, 113), and sometimes opposes love against works (LW 26, 273, 329, 345; 27, 65), these are all after justification. One of his more revealing comments is as follows: They [the Catholics] say that we must believe in Christ and that faith is the foundation of salvation, but they say that this faith does not justify unless it is "formed by love." this is not the truth of the Gospel; it is a falsehood and pretense...For faith that takes hold of Christ, the Son of God, and is adorned by Him is the faith that justifies, not a faith that includes love. For if faith is to be sure and firm, it must take hold of nothing but Christ alone...Just as our opponents refuse to concede to us the freedom that faith in Christ alone justifies, so we refuse to concede to them, in turn, that faith formed by love justifies." (LW 26, 88-90). Protestant H. Rashdall once commented on Luther's view with these words: "Luther's denial of this fundamental Catholic truth is the most regrettable feature of his teaching" (The Idea of Atonement in Christian Theology, p. 427).

Despite the opening denials of paragraph 26, if the Lutherans claim that in the closing statement: "Thereby the basis is indicated from which the renewal of life proceeds, for it comes forth from the love of God imparted to the person in justification" that, by the use of "imparted," their definition of "faith alone" includes hope and love at the initial moment of justification, then they should concede to the Catholics that their faith for justification is not alone. This is precisely the tack of Evangelicals today - they propagate the common adage: "a man is justified by faith alone but a faith that is not alone." Luther was the first to do this. He writes: "Faith alone does not suffice, yet faith alone justifies, because if it is real faith it beseeches the Spirit of love. But the Spirit of love flees all these things and thus fulfills the law and attains the kingdom of God. Hence the whole thing is attributed to faith" (LW 27, 30).

No matter how good Luther's formula sounds to pious ears, we must understand and affirm that his concept of "justifying faith" was condemned by the Council of Trent. One of the main reasons for the Council's denial of Luther's concept is that the only way love can be added to faith for initial justification (since the individual can only do real acts of love after baptism) is by the infusion of love into the soul by the Holy Spirit, along with hope and faith. Luther, Calvin, and others, denied the concept of infused love, and thus denied infused justification. Rather, they taught that justification was imputed, such that a man was "declared" just, not infused with justice.

The importance of infusion is especially significant in regards to infants, which the Catholic Church teaches are infused with faith, hope and love, simultaneously, at baptism, even though their volitional capacity is negligible. Despite this, even some Catholics have fallen victim to using the "faith alone" formula in order to accommodate Protestantism and in the process have ignored the clear language of the Councils, the Catechism, and most of all, Scripture itself.

There exists an even more crucial reason why it is important to understand (as the Catholic Church does) that love must be added to faith for justification rather than saying (as modern Lutherans do) that "the renewal necessarily follows from justification." The reason: renewal does not always follow from justification. Men fall into sin, some of whom do not repent of those sins. In other words, works do not automatically issue forth from faith. It takes as much effort to do good works as it does to avoid sin, and both are interrelated.

This was precisely the problem with the Christians in James 2. According to verse 1 they were "believers in the Lord Jesus Christ," but they were showing favoritism to the rich man and denigrating the poor man (verses 2-12). Were good works just naturally flowing from them? The answer would have to be no. They had to be admonished to do good works (verses 2-8, 15-16) just as they had to be admonished not to sin (verses 9-13).

But even though these works were not flowing from them, does this mean they are not Christians or do not have true faith? Not according to the Council of Trent. Canon 28 says: "If anyone shall say that together with the loss of grace by sin faith also is always lost, or that the faith that remains is not a true faith, though it be not a living one, or that he, who has faith without charity, is not a Christian: let him be anathema."

Conversely, most Protestants believe that a person who claims to be a Christian but does not produce good works (what Luther called "the fruit of faith") is therefore not a Christian because he does not have "justifying faith." Luther said: "But he does not truly believe if works of love do not follow his faith" (LW 278, 30). Hence, in Protestant thought, if the love is absent then faith is automatically absent. This belief is integral to the adage: "a man is justified by faith alone but a faith which is not alone." But the Catholic Church says no. A person can have genuine faith, and yet for an indefinite period of time, not produce good works. According to Canon 28, the lack of good works does not cancel his faith, nor make it a false faith, nor deny him his Christian status.

More on the Consensus

If all these beliefs of Luther are still unresolved, how can the Catholic Church come to any agreement with Lutherans? There are several reasons:

(1) the Lutheran World Federation, although it has some conservative theologians in its ranks, is largely from the more liberal strain of Lutheranism, which, by and large, is not as concerned with the more technical points of doctrinal issues as their more conservative branches, such as the Missouri Synod or the Wisconsin Synod. Thus, they have much more "liberal" definitions of theological terms than their more conservative brethren.

This Lutheran battleground is demonstrated in that the Missouri and Wisconsin Synods refused to have any of its members participate in the Joint Declaration. Their feeling is that the Lutheran World Federation capitulated to the Catholic Church and dissolved many of the distinctives of Luther's protest. Last year, the Missouri Synod issued a tersely worded critique against the ideas of justification stemming from the Lutheran World Federation. It became so bad that at one point Cardinal Cassidy and Cardinal Ratzinger had even questioned whether the LWF even spoke for most of the world's Lutherans.

As for the Catholic Church, they also have had their miscues about the Joint Declaration and the Annex. The fact that they were forced to issue the "Clarification on the Doctrine of Justification" shortly after the Annex to the Joint Declaration was released (the Annex which contained both "justified by faith alone" and "justified by faith"), shows that they recognized a high degree of volatility in the Annex. Why, in the first place, they would agree to the equivocal and ambiguous language of the Annex is a question that present and future generations of Catholics will be interested to probe and access. We can say this, however: neither the Joint Declaration nor its Annex are infallible dogmas of the Catholic Church. Only the Pope can make something binding and infallible, which in this case he has not done. In fact, neither he nor Cardinal Ratzinger (the second man to the Pope) signed the Declaration. All the Pope did was give his approval to the effort of the Joint Declaration to form "basic truths of the doctrine of justification."

As noted, there are many things about the doctrine of justification that the Joint Declaration does not cover, as it itself admits. This is not only true of the intrinsic elements of justification proper, but also of the peripheral issues related to justification like the Mass, Confession, Indulgences, Purgatory, Mortal and Venial Sin, etc. On such issues the Joint Declaration says that for now there can only be "unity in diversity." Yet as we have noted earlier, many of the issues the Joint Declaration covers are made vague and ambiguous, such as the concept of "merit," or whether justification comes "by faith alone" or "by faith," or whether eternal damnation can result from the judgment of works, and various other issues.

In many places the Joint Declaration and the Annex did not resolve the issues but merely restated both sides of a particular issue in ecumenical language. An individual, then, who reads the Joint Declaration and its Annex might certainly be confused as to what the Declaration is really saying, or, as is often the case, he will escape the confusion by putting his own spin on what he thinks the document is saying, as we have proven earlier with citations of the "erroneous reports from the communications media."

A sample of related issues on which the Annex is equivocal and ambiguous are in:

Paragraph 2B: "concupiscence is used in difference senses": does this mean that concupiscence is sin or not? Neither the Joint Declaration nor the Annex specify. (See Canons 7, 25, 31 of the Council of Trent).

Paragraph 2D: "falling from their call": does this mean one can lose his salvation or not? Neither the Joint Declaration nor the Annex specify. (See Canons 16, 27 of the Council of Trent).

Paragraph 2E: "the justified will be judged by their works": does this mean the justified can lose his justification because of bad works or not? Neither the Joint Declaration nor the Annex specify. (See Canons 18, 26, 30 of the Council of Trent).

Paragraph 2E: "by justification we are unconditionally brought into communion with God": does this mean that the condition cannot be broken or not? Neither the Joint Declaration nor the Annex specify. (See Canons 20, 23 of the Council of Trent).

Paragraph 2E: "we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection": does this mean that once one believes he is absolutely assured of the resurrection or not? Neither the Joint Declaration nor the Annex specify. (See Canon 15 of the Council of Trent).

Paragraph 2C: "The working of God's grace does not exclude human action": does this mean that man can cooperate with grace prior to justification or not? Neither the Joint Declaration nor the Annex specify. (See Canons 4, 5, 17 of the Council of Trent).

Paragraph 2A: "We are truly and inwardly renewed by the action of the Holy Spirit": does this mean that Lutherans now believe in transformational justification and are repudiating the forensic justification taught by Philip Melanchthon or not? Neither the Joint Declaration nor the Annex specify. (See Canons 11, 12 of the Council of Trent).

(2) As noted in (1), the Lutheran Church, by and large, has changed since the time of Martin Luther 475 years ago. The change had started soon after Luther died. Philip Melanchthon, Luther's protégé, had already made a 180 degree turn regarding Luther's denial of free will, as did the Dutch Reformer Jacob Arminius. This was significant since Melanchthon had a large hand in formulating the Augsburg Confession, its Apology, and the Formula of Concord, three of Lutheranism's major doctrinal statements. Andreas Osiander understood justification as transformational, opposing both Luther's and Calvin's idea of imputed justification. The Swiss Reformers such as Martin Bucer, Huldreich Zwingli, Johannes Oecolampadius, and Heinrich Bullinger also leaned more toward the concept of transformational justification in opposition to Luther and Calvin.

After the first Lutheran/Catholic dialogue in the mid 1960's, John Paul II had noticed such changes in the Lutheran church that in 1980 he suggested the Catholic Church might remove some of the anathemas issued at the Council of Trent. In the Lutheran/Catholic dialogues of Geneva in 1995, Lutheran theologians had acceded to the Catholic concept of "transformational" justification, that is, that because of infused grace a man was justified from the inside, not merely the outside.

(3) As we have noted throughout this article, one of the reasons two differing sides can come to some kind of agreement without denying their core beliefs is due to the choice of language and the omission of opposing beliefs. Documents can be crafted in such a way where both sides can agree to general concepts, whereas if more specific stipulations were added the two sides would remain at odds. My previous analysis of the double-meaning of "merit" is a case in point. The Protestant conception of "faith alone" is another case in point. Indeed, many times in the course of the dialogue it was stated that Catholics and Lutherans could agree on the "general" concepts of salvation, not on its specifics. A general consensus could be reached on the more salient points, i.e., that man is justified by grace. But this is not a breakthrough of doctrine as much as it is a breakthrough of men's minds and hearts, for now each side can see that the other is not denying the basic tenet of salvation — grace.

(4) After 475 years of being separated, we now live, at least to a certain degree, in an age of ecumenism. Some have reasoned that its better to agree on general points rather than cease communication because of specific points. My only warning to all involved in this ecumenical effort is: don't ever, ever, compromise the truth. As I have detailed, there are some instances in the Joint Declaration and its Annex where errors and omissions in doctrine are very apparent. If we can only have unity in diversity, then so be it. Perhaps that is the best we can do for now in this battered and bruised humanity in which we find ourselves living in the 21st century.

May God's grace be with us all, and may I suggest two things from this entire paper:

(1) let no one ever think that he "earns" his salvation from God, be it Catholic, Lutheran or any other religion.

(2) let us not use the phrase "faith alone" to describe this truth, since neither Scripture, the Council of Trent, the Catholic Catechism, nor a Papal encyclical has ever instructed us to do so, despite the addition of "faith alone" to the Joint Declaration's Annex. Anyone who knowingly and deliberately teaches that justification comes by "faith alone" falls under the anathemas of Trent, as stipulated in Canons 9, 14, 19, 29, and other related Canons. The Catholic Church issued its interpretation of the Annex in the Clarification of the Doctrine of Justification on June 22, 1999, which did not include the "faith alone" wording. Once again, the Clarification stated: "Together we confess that the sinner is justified through faith in the salvific action of God in Christ..."

Robert Sungenis
Catholic Apologetics International
July 5, 2001

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