Justification

JUSTIFICATION. - In the active sense it designates the act by which God transforms a soul, causing it to pass from the state of sin to the state of grace; in the passive sense it is the transformation of the soul under God's justifying action, that is, the effect of active justification and the state that follows from it.

I. NOTIONS

Just, justice, justification are terms that recur frequently in the Bible. Justice is God's most celebrated attribute. But justice is also attributed to man, and a just man often means a man perfect in every kind of virtue.

The justice of which we speak here, by which a man is said to be justified, is not the special virtue that inclines the soul to give each one his due, but the state and condition of a person who is upright in himself, that is, well oriented toward his supernatural end and in all his relations with God and with his neighbor.

To justify sometimes means to declare just an individual; for example, Prov. 17:15: "Qui iustificat impium et qui condemnat iustum, abominabilis est uterque apud Deum"; Mt. 12:37: "Ex verbis tuis iustificaberis et ex verbis tuis condemnaberis"; in these texts, as in others (for example, Is. 5:23), the so-called forensic sense is evident: to declare someone innocent without however being the cause of his uprightness.

To justify sometimes also means to make just one who was not so, to cause in him the uprightness of justice. This is the most frequent sense in the New Testament: "This man (the publican) went back justified to his house" (Lk. 18:14 and above all Rom. 2:3; 3:24, 26, 28 and Gal. 3:8, 24: "Ex fide iustificat gentes Deus"; "Lex paedagogus fuit in Christo ut ex fide iustificemur"). Upon these two senses the whole struggle between Catholic and Protestant theology has been waged.

II. ERRORS

The Pelagians consider only the first of the two elements, negative and positive, of justification: the remission of guilt and of the punishment due to it. This is the work of God. The positive element, that is, the grace of God, did not exist for them. Man is righteous by his very nature, when he wills to be so, opposing the disorder of sin.

The early Protestants made the doctrine of justification the genetic principle of their entire theology, giving the two aforesaid elements a new sense, different from that always understood by tradition: a) the negative element, that is, liberation from sin, was conceived not as remission and destruction of it in the soul, but as the pure and simple non-imputation of sin on God's part. Between a righteous man and a sinner there is no intrinsic difference, but only the fact that God throws a cloak over the misery of the former, covers it with the merits of Christ, no longer imputing his sins to him; whereas he does not do this for the latter, whom he therefore holds guilty and condemns. This doctrine is closely connected with the Lutheran one (v. LUTERO) concerning original sin and its consequences. Original sin caused the total corruption of human nature, entering, so to speak, into its very composition. Fallen man is irremediably corrupt; Baptism itself cannot heal him. This corruption, which becomes manifest in concupiscence, that is, in the disordered inclination of our sensitive nature toward evil, is identified with original sin and is the cause of all other sins. Justification must be understood as a judicial act, by which God (analogously to what happens in human tribunals, that is, in forensic practice for those accused of a crime) declares the sinner without guilt and absolves him, without his interior state being changed. Man is therefore righteous and a sinner at the same time.

b) The positive element of justification, sanctifying grace, is understood as a purely external favor, that is, the imputation of the righteousness of Christ, which is attributed to the righteous man as if it were his own, without its being able to be so. His guilt is no longer imputed to him, but the righteousness of Christ is appropriated to him. Therefore he ceases to be a sinner (juridically only) and begins to be righteous (juridically). In the Formula of Concord (III, 55) it is said: « All our righteousness is outside us (extra nos est)... it is in Christ alone our Lord Jesus ». In the justified man the Protestants acknowledge only faith, that is, firm trust, the subjective conviction, that his sins, through God's mercy, are no longer reckoned to him as guilt.

The extrinsicist concept of justification proper to Luther and his first followers was called a « mechanical » way of conceiving justification; it was accordingly modified by the Enlightenment thinkers, the Pietists and the Modernists. The latter, followers of the doctrine of absolute immanence, see in the positive element of justification the phenomenon of the development of natural religious feeling, which is the active germ of every form of religion; for them justification is the transformation that takes place in consciousness under the impulse of the forces of nature. Today in orthodox Protestant theology, which preserves the forensic concept of justification, every theologian seeks to give a personal explanation.

Baius too formulated a doctrine of justification akin to the Lutheran one. He held in fact that original sin consists properly in concupiscence, which remains in us even after Baptism, and that it is therefore not remitted except insofar as it ceases to be imputed to the believer. In this conception sin and righteousness do not exclude each other, but can coexist in the same soul. It is perfect charity that confers justification. Through it the righteous man conquers concupiscence, because charity, when it is perfect, necessarily (though spontaneously) leads one to do good. The good is like the fruit of a tree, spontaneous but necessarily produced. Through charity man is righteous and is led to good, but his sins are not for this reason remitted, since this depends on the reception of the Sacraments.

III. CATHOLIC DOCTRINE

The Church, adhering faithfully to the sources, gives to justification a content far deeper and more intelligible. a) Regarding the negative element of justification, the Church teaches that sin, whether original or personal, in the justified soul is truly remitted and destroyed, so that nothing any longer exists in it that can be imputed to it as guilt (cf. Rom. 8:1). Justice is not the cloak of Christ thrown over its permanent interior corruption, but is its total healing. The Council of Trent defines with singular precision this neuralgic point of Catholic dogma: "If anyone denies that original sin is remitted through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, conferred in Baptism, or even asserts that it is not taken away (in Baptism) — all that which constitutes sin in its true and proper essence as sin ('totum id quod veram et propriam peccati rationem habet') — but affirms that sin is only shaved away or not imputed, let him be anathema" (sess. V, can. 5; Denz-U, 792). What is said regarding Baptism is repeated also of Penance (sess. XIV, ch. 2; Denz-U, 895) and in general of every true justification, obtained even by a single act of charity, since it is proper to justification necessarily to include the destruction of sin (cf. sess. VI, ch. 7 and can. 11; Denz-U, 799, 821).

This point of doctrine was too important for there not to be a clarification and a condemnation. Indeed, at stake is the efficacy of Christ's redemptive work, which would be powerless before guilt if this remained in us despite its action. Christ would be conquered by evil; a kind of hypocrisy would be introduced even into God, if, while declaring us without guilt and without misery, our interior were full of them; moreover, it would not be true that into heaven "nothing unclean shall enter, nor anything that produces abomination" (Rev. 21:27), if the one who enters were not substantially different from the sinner.

The complete destruction of sin in the soul is not impossible, because the state of sin is nothing other than the culpable privation of divine grace and the persistence of the will in adherence to a dishonest end, which was chosen against God and in preference to God, our ultimate end. Habitual sin is essentially the love of a creature or of oneself more than of God. Original sin produced that privation and that perversion of will in all, through an act performed by Adam; personal sin causes that state through an act proper to the will of the sinner. The sinful act passes; there remains instead the state of privation and disorder determined by it. To remit sin it is not at all necessary to bring it about that what has been done has not been done (a contradictory thing), but a new infusion of grace is sufficient — a divine reality that makes the sinner's will upright, moving it to love God as the ultimate end above all things: thereby restoring order in the soul that had broken it. Thus sin is remitted, is destroyed, is reduced to nothing, and the soul returns upright, just, clean. These terms are used by Sacred Scripture already in the Old Testament (e.g., Ps. 50:3-4; 102:12; Is. 44:22; Ez. 36:25), but even more in the New Testament, where the state of sin is conceived as a defilement, as a sickness of the soul, symbolized by all the bodily infirmities that Christ healed. Jesus heals "the whole man" (Is. 7:23); he heals the soul before the body (Lk. 5:20; 7:48; Jn. 5:14); his blood cleanses the leprosy of sin (I Jn. 1:7, 9); he is the lamb that takes away the sin of the world (Jn. 1:29), so that nothing condemnable remains in those who have been incorporated into him through the grace of justification and raised to new life (Rom. 6:3-11; 7:24). Mere non-imputation is not reconcilable with the fullness of the meaning of these texts, and in vain have Protestants invoked others, where there is talk of non-imputation (Ps. 32:1; II Cor. 5:19), of the covering of sins (I Pt. 4:8). The sentiment of Tradition is in perfect harmony with Scripture when it observes, for example with St. Augustine, that God no longer imputes sins to the guilty, because they have ceased to exist; they can be said to be covered, because God no longer sees them; and he no longer sees them, because they are no longer there. Indeed, observes St. Thomas, "charity is said to cover sins (not to our eyes but) to the eyes of God; (for this to be true) God must destroy them" (IV Sent., d. 22, q. 1, a. 1, ad 2).

b) Also regarding the positive element of justification the Church has a well-defined doctrine, which is the antithesis of the Lutheran one, and highlights the true richness of the Redemption. The Church teaches that grace is not an extrinsic denomination, that is, the simple attribution of Christ's justice to the sinner, but is spiritual regeneration and sanctification of man; it is a gift of God, mysterious but real, inherent in the human soul, which transforms it, so that we are not only called just but are so in reality. This gift was merited by Christ, and is transmitted to us through his humanity (Rom. 5:18; I Cor. 1:30) operating in the Sacraments, and it configures us to him, so that one can say that we become just with his justice and that we put on Christ (cf. Gal. 3:27); but this expression does not exclude the reality and interiority of the divine gift of grace, but rather highlights its meritorious and efficient cause and its purpose, which is to make us like Christ and to imprint on us his moral physiognomy (cf. I Cor. 15:49; Col. 3:10; Rom. 8:29). The Council of Trent defines: "Whoever says that grace is only the favor of God, without this favor placing anything in us, let him be anathema" (sess. VI, can. 11; Denz-U, 821). Theology observes with St. Thomas that the cause of our justification is the love of God. Now from the love of God (to love is to will good) there always proceeds in the creature some good. The love, therefore, that God bears to the just man is an infusion of justice as a gift of his love. Only by understanding justification in this sense does one comprehend why it is called in Sacred Scripture "rebirth" (Jn. 3:5; 3:8, 47) from water and the Holy Spirit; "rebirth from God" (ibid., 1:13; 2:29); "regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit" whereby we become a "new creature" (II Cor. 5:12; Gal. 6:15); "a new man renewed in the inner self of the spirit in justice and true holiness" (Eph. 4:23 ff.); through it we are admitted to the "partaking of the divine nature" (II Pt. 1:4), we become "temples of God" (Jn. 14:23; I Cor. 3:16; II Cor. 6:16), living and fruitful by the very vitality that derives from Christ, as the branch lives and bears fruit by the sap it receives from the vine (Jn. 15:5; 17:19).

All these texts are irreconcilable with Lutheran extrinsicism and indicate as the positive effect of justification an interior transformation and elevation, which the Fathers did not hesitate to call "deification" (Belonq). "Our righteousness," writes St. Augustine, "which is called the righteousness of God (Rom. 3, 23), not because it is the righteousness by which God is righteous (this is the Lutheran sense), but because it is the righteousness with which he justified us, making us righteous from the ungodly that we were" (Serm. 131, 9). Redeemed man, the Fathers insist following the teaching of Sacred Scripture, is restored to the righteousness from which Adam fell, who was righteous by an interior righteousness that made him a friend of God. On careful reflection, sin and Grace are so antithetical that they cannot even be conceived as coexisting. Whoever has Grace has charity, by which he loves God above all things; whoever instead is in sin loves a creature more than God; therefore charity "which is poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit who has been given to us" (Rom. 5, 5), destroys sin, and sin, which is the free defective will of man, destroys charity. Sin is not extrinsic to man and therefore neither is the Grace that makes us righteous. Grace is indeed a reality so precious in Christianity ("maxima et pretiosa promissa," II Pt. 1, 4), that St. Thomas does not hesitate to see in it the very substance of the New Law, that is, of the Gospel. "Lex nova est Gratia Spiritus Sancti, quae datur per fidem Christi" (Sum. Theol., 1ᵃ-2ᵃc, q. 106, a. 1). If this substantial reality of Christianity is held to be a pure favor extrinsic to man, a nothing in him, one can well measure to what emptying the work of Christ is condemned.

IV. CAUSES OF JUSTIFICATION

They are distinctly enumerated by the Council of Trent (sess. VI, chap. 7; Denz-U, 799). The final cause is "the glory of God and of Christ and eternal life." The glory of God first of all, then that of Christ according to his humanity, and finally eternal life, which glorifies us: three ends connected with one another and subordinate. The usefulness of justification is entirely ours (finis cui); through justification man attains eternal life, and with this he proclaims the goodness of the God-Man, who merited Grace for us, and his right to be exalted above every creature, so that in heaven, on earth and in the depths all may bend the knee before him (Phil. 2:10) and thus the infinite perfection of God is manifested, who gave us the Redeemer and willed that the Redemption be accomplished in a manner so fitting to his wisdom, his justice and his mercy.

The first source of our justice, that is, the principal efficient cause, "is the merciful God, who freely (that is, without our merit) washes and sanctifies us, seals and anoints us with the Holy Spirit promised." Justification is not granted on account of merits that one might present, but is totally gratuitous. Merits cannot precede the state of Grace, but only follow it.

The meritorious cause is "Our Lord Jesus Christ, who by dying on the wood of the Cross merited justification for us." His merit does not become ours, but is what moves God to show us mercy. We must be united to Christ, so that the efficacy of his merit may work in us; the first union takes place through faith, by which we accept his word as truth, voluntarily submit ourselves to his sanctifying action, ready to obey his command. Faith is therefore the proximate disposition in us for receiving justification. It is called by theologians the dispositive cause. In this sense one must understand St. Paul's statement that faith justifies (Rom. 1:12; 5:1; 3:28; 9:30; 10:6; Gal. 2:16; 3:24). It is the obligatory way and the first effective step toward justification: "Iustitia Dei per fidem Jesu Christi" (Rom. 3:22, 30). Not that faith is the essential and constitutive part of justification, but it is the necessary preparation of the soul, the foundation on which God builds the work of sanctification; it can be compared to the vital germ that will develop in justification. The Council defines it as the "foundation and root" of justification. Luther, on the other hand, held that trusting faith (fiducia cordis) is the very substance of justification, the effect and cause of the accomplished imputation of the merits of Christ.

The instrumental cause of justification is Baptism, which is called by the Council the "Sacrament of faith." Without faith, adds the same Council, "it never happened that anyone was justified." Faith already contains Baptism in vow, and for this reason it manifests itself even more fully as the instrumental cause of justification.

The formal cause, that is, the intrinsic constitutive element of justification, is "solely the justice of God: not that by which he is just, but that which (from him who is just) derives in us and makes us (intrinsically) just" (Denz-U, 820). This justice inherent in us is sanctifying Grace.

V. HUMAN COOPERATION WITH JUSTIFICATION

Justification is an effect of God's action, but it implies our cooperation through freely performed acts. Lutheran pessimism, according to which everything in man is sin, declared any preparation for it impossible. The Council of Trent condemned this doctrine (sess. VI, can. 7), affirming the necessity of preparation without which justification would not be connatural to man, but foreign to his nature, not vital, not worthy of man himself, who must offer God a "rationabile obsequium" (Rom. 12:1), that is, a "spiritual," intelligent and free worship (cf. Sum. Theol., 1ᵃ-2ᵃᵒ, q. 113, a. 3; De Veritate, q. 28, a. 3-4). Scripture is explicit: God invites man to awake, to rise up (Eph. 5:14), to repent, to be converted (Is. 45:28), to believe (Mk. 1:15), without which there is no justification but death (Lk. 13:3-5; Jn. 8:24; 20:31). It is the sinner himself who must perform these acts, urged and aided by actual Grace, which is a divine call and impulse. It is the constant practice of the Church not to admit adults to Baptism unless they have first completed the catechumenate, which is precisely a suitable period of preparation for the gift of justification.

The first of the sinner's acts is undoubtedly faith. It is the first step toward salvation: through it one knows, desires and therefore adheres to God who promises to save us. The Council of Trent calls faith "the beginning of human salvation, the foundation and root of all justification," without which "justification never took place" (sess. VI, cap. 28). It is in this sense, the Council adds, that the text of St. Paul (Rom. 3:28) must be understood, which attributes justification to faith. But the faith that prepares is not merely the fiducial faith that instills the certainty that a merciful God has forgiven us our sins through the merits of Christ (the Protestants exaggerated even on this interior certainty, which they affirm must be absolute and without hesitation [cf. Denz-U, 802, 823-26]), but is first of all an act of the mind and of the will, by which one firmly holds as true all divine Revelation with the promises it contains (cf. ibid., 798); setting faith aside, the whole world of Grace would be without objective and real foundation and would remain outside our soul and inoperative. Confidence emanates from this certainty as its effect.

But faith is the first act destined to arouse others; the Council enumerates them clearly, observing that in the process of passive justification it happens "that the soul, stirred and sustained by Grace, hearing the word of God" (Rom. 10:7) conceives faith within itself and thus freely takes the first step toward God, believing to be true what was revealed and promised by Him, and principally that it is true that God justifies the sinner through His Grace by the Redemption accomplished by the Lord Jesus (ibid. 3:24); and thus while as a sinner he feels shaken by the fear of divine justice, turning to consider divine mercy he feels lifted up by hope, trusting that God will be propitious to him through the merits of Christ, and thus begins to love Him as the source of all justice and therefore to rebel against his sins with that hatred and detestation which constitutes the penance required before receiving Baptism (Acts 2:28). And therefore the sinner resolves to receive Baptism, to begin a new life and to observe the divine commandments" (sess. VI, cap. 6; Denz-U, 798). A logical progression of acts perfectly adhering to the laws of human psychology. It can be said that they are initially included in faith, provided that this is not reduced to a simple act of irrational confidence. The act of sincere faith, which begins conversion, is a movement toward God, observes St. Thomas, and for that very reason a turning away from sin. A free movement of the human will conforming to its nature. The turning away from sin and the drawing near to God is "metanoia," that is, the interior straightening, which the soul accomplishes under the influence of the fear of God (which is not always servile, but can already be the fruit of an incipient love of the divine goodness), in the consideration of infinite mercy, which has made us hope for the forgiveness of sins through the merits of the Redeemer (v. CONVERSIONE).

Thus in justification God and man work together. The initiative and the primacy belong without doubt to God's merciful action; but under this action man is not only not inert and does not merely receive extrinsic favors and denominations, but freely consenting to the divine impulse, he is transformed in his inmost being, destroying the state of guilt and passing to the state of Grace, whose infusion is the term of justification. Through Grace we are made just, established in the new life; we are called sons of God and truly are such; and harmonizing our actions with the will of God, following the example of Christ, whose spiritual likeness Grace imprints upon us, we can bear fruits, which the heavenly Father rewards with eternal life (cf. Lk. 8:15; Jn. 15:5-6; Rom. 6:22).

Marcolino Daffara

a recent eyewitness, is no older than the 10th century, and devoid of any value. G. would have died during the persecution of Diocletian, condemned to decapitation by the emperor Maximian, therefore before 305.