GIUSTIFICAZIONE. – In the active sense, this 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 II.
CONTENTS:
I. Notions
II. Errors
III. Catholic doctrine
IV. Causes of justification
V. justification.I. NOTIONS
Just, justice, and justification are terms that recur frequently in the Bible. Justice is the attribute of God most celebrated. 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 are speaking here, by virtue of which man is said to be justified, is not the special virtue that inclines the soul to give each person 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 neighbour.
To justify sometimes means to declare an individual just; e.g., 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 (e.g., Is. 5:23), the so-called forensic sense is evident: to declare someone innocent without nevertheless being the cause of his uprightness.
To justify sometimes also means to make someone just who was not so, to cause in him the uprightness of justice. This is the more frequent sense in the New Testament: « This man (the publican) returned to his home justified » (Lk. 18:14 and especially 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 »). The entire struggle between Catholic and Protestant theology was waged over these two senses.
II. ERRORS
The Pelagians consider only the first of the two elements, negative and positive, of j.: the remission of guilt and of the penalty due to II. This is the work of God. The positive element, namely the Grace of God, did not exist for them. Man is just by his very nature, when he wishes to be so, opposing the disorder of guilt.The early Protestants made the doctrine of j. the generative principle of their entire theology, giving the two aforementioned elements a new meaning, different from that always understood by tradition: a) the negative element, namely liberation from sin, was conceived not as its remission and destruction in the soul, but as the pure and simple non-imputation of sin by God. Between a just man and a sinner there is no intrinsic difference, but only the fact that God casts a mantle over the misery of the former, covering him with the merits of Christ and no longer imputing his faults to him; whereas he does not do this with the latter, whom he therefore considers guilty and condemns. This doctrine is closely related to the Lutheran doctrine (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 irredeemably 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. J. must be understood as a judicial act by which God (analogously to what occurs in human courts, that is, in forensic practice concerning those accused of a crime) declares the sinner guiltless and acquits him, without his interior state being changed. Man is therefore just and a sinner at the same time.
b) The positive element of j., sanctifying Grace, is understood as a purely external favor, that is, as the imputation of Christ’s justice, which is attributed to the just man as though it were his, without being capable of actually becoming so. Guilt is no longer imputed to him, but Christ’s justice is appropriated to him. He therefore ceases to be a sinner (juridically only) and begins to be just (juridically). In the Formula of Concord (III, 55) it is said: « All our justice is extraneous to us (extra nos est)... it is in Christ alone, our Lord Jesus ». Protestants recognize in the justified only faith, that is, firm trust, the subjective conviction that, through God’s mercy, his sins are no longer imputed to him as guilt.
The extrinsicist concept of j. proper to Luther and his first followers was called a « mechanical » way of conceiving j.; it was therefore modified by the Enlightenment thinkers, the Pietists, and the Modernists. The latter, fo-
llowers of the doctrine of absolute immanence, see in the positive element of j. the phenomenon of the development of the natural religious sentiment, which is the active germ of every form of religion; for them j. 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 j., every theologian seeks to offer a personal explanation.
Baio, too, formulated a doctrine of j. akin to the Lutheran one. He held, in fact, that original sin consists properly in concupiscence, which remains in us even after Baptism, and which therefore is not remitted except insofar as it ceases to be imputed to the believer. In this conception, sin and justice do not exclude one another but may coexist in the same soul. It is perfect charity that confers j. Through it the just man conquers concupiscence, because charity, when perfect, necessarily (although spontaneously) leads one to do good. Good is like the fruit of a tree, spontaneous but necessarily produced. Through charity man is just and is led toward the good, but his sins are not thereby remitted, since this depends on the reception of the Sacraments.
III. CATHOLIC DOCTRINE
The Church, adhering faithfully to the sources, gives justification a far deeper and more intelligible content. a) Regarding the negative element of justification, the Church teaches that sin, both original and personal, is truly forgiven and destroyed in the justified soul, so that nothing remains in it which could be imputed to it as guilt (cf. Rom. 8:1). Righteousness is not Christ’s mantle cast over its enduring inner corruption, but its complete healing. The Council of Trent defines this crucial point of Catholic dogma with exceptional precision: “If anyone denies that original sin is remitted by the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, conferred in Baptism, or asserts that not everything which constitutes sin in its true and proper essence (« totum id quod veram et propriam peccati rationem habet ») is taken away (in Baptism), but affirms that sin is only scraped away or not imputed, let him be anathema” (sess. V, can. 5; Denz-U, 792). What is said concerning Baptism is repeated concerning Penance (sess. XIV, chap. 2; Denz-U, 895) and, in general, concerning every true justification, obtained even through a single act of charity, since it belongs essentially to justification necessarily to include the destruction of sin (cf. sess. VI, chap. 7 and can. 11; Denz-U, 799, 821).This point of doctrine was too important not to lead to clarification and condemnation. What is at stake, in fact, is the efficacy of Christ’s redemptive work, which would be powerless before guilt if guilt remained in us despite the action of that work. Christ would be overcome by evil; a kind of hypocrisy would also be introduced into God, if, while declaring us free from guilt and misery, he found our interior filled with them; moreover, it would not be true that in heaven “nothing defiled or capable of producing abomination shall enter” (Apoc. 21:27), if the one who enters there 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 deprivation of divine Grace and the persistence of the will in adherence to a dishonest end, chosen against God and in preference to God, our last end. Habitual sin is essentially the love of a creature or of oneself more than of God. Original sin produced that deprivation and that perversion of the will in everyone through an act committed by Adam; personal sin causes that state through an act proper to the sinner’s will. The sinful act passes; there remains instead the state of deprivation and disorder determined by II. To remit sin, it is not at all necessary to make what has been done not have been done (which is contradictory); it is sufficient that Grace be infused anew, a divine reality that sets the sinner’s will right, moving it to love God as its ultimate end above all things, thereby restoring order to the soul that had broken II. Thus sin is forgiven, destroyed, reduced to nothing, and the soul becomes upright, just, and clean once more. These terms are already used in the Old Testament (e.g., Ps. 50:3-4; 102:12; Is. 44:22; Ez. 36:25), but even more so in the New Testament, where the state of sin is conceived as 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 (Lc. 5:20; 7:48; Io. 5:14); his blood cleanses the leprosy of sin (I Io. 1:7, 9); he is the lamb who takes away the sin of the world (Io. 1:29), so that there is no longer anything condemnable 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 incompatible with the full meaning of these texts, and the Protestants have appealed in vain to others in which non-imputation is mentioned (Ps. 32:1; II Cor. 5:19) or the covering of sins (I Pt. 4:8). The sentiment of Tradition is in perfect harmony with Scripture when it observes, for example, with s. Agostino, that God no longer imputes sins to the guilty because they have ceased to exist; they may be said to be covered because God no longer sees them; and he no longer sees them because they no longer exist. Indeed, s. Tommaso observes, “it is said that charity covers sins (not in our eyes but) in the eyes of God; (for this to be true) God must destroy them” (IV Sent., d. 22, q. 1, a. 1, ad 2).
b) The Church also has a well-defined doctrine concerning the positive element of justification, one that is the antithesis of the Lutheran doctrine and highlights the true richness of the Redemption. The Church teaches that Grace is not an extrinsic designation, that is, the mere attribution of Christ’s righteousness to the sinner, but the spiritual regeneration and sanctification of man; it is a mysterious yet real gift of God, inherent in the human soul, which transforms it, so that we are not merely called just but are just in reality. This gift was merited by Christ and is transmitted to us through his humanity (Rom. 5:18; I Cor. 1:30), operative in the Sacraments; it configures us to him, so that it may be said that we become just through his righteousness and that we clothe ourselves with Christ (cf. Gal. 3:27). Yet this expression does not exclude the reality and interiority of the divine gift of Grace; rather, it brings out its meritorious and efficient cause and its purpose, which is to make us like Christ and imprint his moral features upon us (cf. I Cor. 15:49; Col. 3:10; Rom. 8:29). The Council of Trent defines: “If anyone says that Grace is merely the favor of God, without that favor producing anything in us, let him be anathema” (sess. VI, can. 11; Denz-U, 821). Theology observes with s. Tommaso that the cause of our justification is the love of God. Now, from God’s love (to love is to will good) there always proceeds some good in the creature. The love, therefore, that God bears toward the just is an infusion of righteousness as a gift of his love. Only by understanding justification in this sense can one understand why it is called in Sacred Scripture “rebirth” (Io. 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,” through which we become “a new creature” (II Cor. 5:12; Gal. 6:15); “a new man renewed inwardly in spirit in true righteousness and holiness” (Eph. 4:23 ff.); through it we are admitted to “participation in the divine nature” (II Pt. 1:4),
we become “temples of God” (Io. 14:23; I Cor. 3:16; II Cor. 6:16), living and bearing fruit through the very vitality that derives from Christ, just as the branch lives and bears fruit through the sap it receives from the vine (Io. 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 justice,” writes St. Augustine, “which is called the justice of God (Rom. 3:23), not because it is the justice by which God is just (this is the Lutheran meaning), but because it is the justice by which he justified us, making us just from the ungodly that we were” (Serm. 131, 9). The redeemed man, the Fathers insist, following the teaching of Sacred Scripture, is restored to the justice from which Adam fell; he was just through an interior justice that made him God’s friend. On careful reflection, sin and Grace are so utterly antithetical that they cannot even be conceived as coexisting. Whoever possesses Grace possesses charity, by which he loves God above all things; whoever, on the other hand, 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 man’s defective free will, destroys charity. Sin is not extrinsic to man, and therefore neither is Grace, which makes us just. Indeed, Grace is so precious a reality 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 regarded as a purely extrinsic favor toward man, as nothing within him, one can well appreciate the extent to which Christ’s work is condemned to be emptied of its meaning.
IV. CAUSES OF JUSTIFICATION
They are enumerated distinctly 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.” First, the glory of God; then that of Christ according to his humanity; and finally eternal life, which glorifies us: three ends connected with and subordinated to one another. The utility of justification is entirely ours (finis cui); through justification man attains eternal life, and thereby 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 Redemption to be accomplished in a manner so perfectly suited to his wisdom, justice, and mercy.The first source of our justice, that is, the principal efficient cause, “is the merciful God, who freely (that is, without any merit of ours) washes and sanctifies us, seals us, and anoints us with the promised Holy Spirit.” Justification is not granted on account of merits that anyone might present, but is wholly gratuitous. Merits cannot precede the state of Grace, but can only follow II.
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 unite ourselves to Christ, so that the efficacy of his merit may operate in us; the first union takes place through faith, by which we accept his word as truth, voluntarily submit ourselves to his sanctifying action, and are ready to obey his command. Faith is therefore the proximate disposition in us for receiving justification. Theologians call it the dispositive cause. In this sense the statement of s. Paul that faith justifies is to be understood (Rom. 1, 12; 5, 1; 3, 28; 9, 30; 10, 6; Gal. 2, 16; 3, 24). It is the obligatory path and the first effective step toward justification: «Iustitia Dei per fidem Jesu Christi» (Rom. 3, 22, 30). This does not mean that faith is the essential and constitutive part of justification, but that it is the necessary preparation of the soul, the foundation upon which God builds the work of sanctification; it may be compared to the living germ that will unfold in justification. The Council calls it the “foundation and root” of justification. Luther, on the other hand, held that fiduciary faith (fiducia cordis) is the very substance of justification, both effect and cause of the accomplished imputation of Christ’s merits.
The instrumental cause of justification is Baptism, which the Council calls the “Sacrament of faith.” Without faith, the same Council adds, “it never happened that anyone was justified.” Faith already contains Baptism in voto, and for this reason 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 (proceeding from him who is just) comes to be in us and makes us (intrinsically) just” (Denz-U, 820). This justice inherent in us is sanctifying Grace.
V. HUMAN COOPERATION IN 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, nor worthy of man himself, who must offer God a «rationabile obsequium» (Rom. 12:1), that is, worship which is «spiritual», intelligent, and free (cf. Sum. Theol., 1ᵃ-2ᵃᵒ, q. 113, a. 3; De Veritate, q. 28, a. 3-4). Scripture is explicit: God invites man to awaken, to rise again (Eph. 5:14), to repent, to convert (Is. 45:28), to believe (Mc. 1:15), without which there is no justification but death (Lc. 13:3-5; Io. 8:24; 20:31). It is the sinner himself who must perform these acts, urged and assisted by actual Grace, which is a divine summons and impulse. It is the Church’s constant practice not to admit adults to Baptism unless they have first undergone 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 and desires God and therefore adheres to him 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), which attributes justification to faith, is to be understood. But the faith that prepares is not merely fiduciary faith, which instills the certainty that the merciful God has remitted our sins through the merits of Christ (the Protestants also exaggerated this inner certainty, which they assert must be absolute and without hesitation [cf. Denz-U, 802, 823-26]); rather, it is first and foremost an act of the mind and will by which one firmly holds the whole of divine Revelation, together with the promises it contains, to be true (cf. ibid., 798); apart from faith, the entire world of Grace would lack objective and real foundation and would remain outside our soul and inoperative. Trust flows from this certainty as its effect.
But faith is the first act intended to arouse others; the Council clearly enumerates them, observing that in the process of passive justification it comes about «that the soul, aroused 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 it to be true whatever was revealed and promised by Him, and chiefly 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 himself shaken by fear of divine justice, turning to consider divine mercy he feels himself uplifted 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 the hatred and detestation that constitute penance, required before receiving Baptism (Act. 2:28). And consequently the sinner resolves to receive Baptism, to begin a new life, and to observe the divine commandments» (sess. VI, cap. 6; Denz-U, 798). This is a logical progression of acts perfectly consistent with the laws of human psychology. It may be said that they are initially included in faith, provided that faith is not reduced to a simple act of irrational trust. The act of sincere faith, which begins conversion, is a movement toward God, St. Thomas observes, and therefore itself constitutes a turning away from sin. It is a free movement of the human will, consonant with its nature. The turning away from sin and the approach to God is «metanoia», that is, the inner restoration of uprightness, which the soul accomplishes under the influence of fear of God (which is not always servile, but may already be the fruit of an incipient love of divine goodness), in consideration of the infinite mercy that has led us to hope for the forgiveness of sins through the merits of the Redeemer (v. CONVERSION).
Thus, in justification, God and man act together. The initiative and primacy undoubtedly belong to God’s merciful action; but under this action man is not inert, nor does he merely receive extrinsic favors and designations; rather, by freely assenting to the divine impulse, he is transformed in his inmost being, destroying the state of guilt and passing into the state of Grace, whose infusion is the term of justification. Through Grace we are made just and established in new life; we are called children of God, and truly are such; and by harmonizing our actions with God’s will, following the example of Christ, whose spiritual likeness Grace imprints upon us, we can bear fruit, which the heavenly Father rewards with eternal life (cf. Lc. 8:15; Io. 15:5-6; Rom. 6:22).
cent eyewitness, is no earlier than the tenth century and is devoid of any value. G. is said to have died during the persecution of Diocletian, condemned to decapitation by the emperor Maximian, therefore before 305.