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Trying to nail you down here, if someone followed the law perfectly absent Jesus' death on the cross, however impossible that in itself might be, would that person have made it to Heaven?
If so, I think I understand Protestant's objections to Catholic's veneration of Mary better. Catholics believe Jesus' death on the cross redeems us because Jesus is God. But do Protestants believe His death redeems us because He was sinless (and His divinity was required for Him to be sinless, but it was the sinlessness itself that made redemption possible?)
I think James was pretty clear:
"Was not Abraham our father justified by his actions, when he offered up Isaac, his son, on the sacrificial altar? You see that his faith worked with his actions and through his actions his faith was made a thing complete, and so the scripture was fulfilled which says: Abraham believed God, and it was counted as righteousness in him, and he was called the friend of God. You see that a person is justified by his acts and not by faith alone."
But the binding of Isaac happened well after Abraham's circumcision, after Abraham's faith was counted to him as righteousness. I think you are incorrect about Abraham becoming justified instantaneously by faith, whatever tenses you might find in Paul.
Yes, Paul seems to disagree with James, and Clement with Clement. But we know that all must go together. Somehow these quotes and concepts didn't seem contradictory to the early Church. No Catholic today would claim that we are justified of ourselves or that we are justified absent an act of divine condescension.
I see three possible ways to reconcile James with Paul and Clement with Clement: (and I'm borrowing from Matthew J. Thomas here)
One proposal is that the difference is a matter of timing: while Paul is speaking about the initial reception of justifying grace apart from works, James is talking about the verdict of final justification at the last day, for which works as evidence of faith are essential.
Another possibility is that the difference is the kind of works under discussion: while Paul denies that the Torah’s observances can be made a requirement for justification, it is less clear that the good works prescribed by James are also a target of Paul’s objections
A third possibility focuses on the nature of faith, which may be more notional in James (a faith such as the demons can have, cf. Jas 2:19), while Paul’s use of the term is more relational and entails fidelity as well (cf. ‘the obedience of faith’ in Rom 1:5, 16:26).
I think all three possibilities are compatible with the Catholic view. Which of these would be compatible with your view? If none, what is your view?
Tentatively, I'll say no, but only because of Adam's sin being imputed to them, and ignoring that, they would go to heaven.
I think the objections to Mary are more just outflows of the general principles against idolatry—I think we're both opposed to praying to, making images to, etc. of other deities. Given these actionsg as well as the emphasis on and devotion to Mary in general (That ratio in the rosary? Seriously?), that's seen by protestants as problematic.
We think that he had to be divine because that's required to have a sacrifice of adequate worth, to pay for us all. His sinlessness was of course also necessary, but that doesn't require divinity—we'll all be sinless post-death.
Okay, that fits with what I thought you'd think. The problem I have with that is that Paul seems to think that, given that we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God, which seems a little weird if there's more justification to go, and what there is so far is inadequate.
Yeah, sorry about bringing up tenses. But I do think that Abraham must have been justified instantaneously by faith: it's treating it as something self-contained, that it was counted as righteousness, for believing God. Further, 5:1 states that having been justified by faith (that is, as something having happened in the past), we have peace with God.
Not quite any of those. I'll go through the issues I see with each of these, and present what I think is correct.
Paul is not talking about the initial reception of justifying grace. His concern and overall frame throughout much of Romans is how we are accepted before God. In this passage, that's what he's talking about, not an initial thing—our being accepted and at peace with God as a whole. It is saying that we have peace with God upon having justifying faith, and is saying that circumcision is not needed generally, not just that it's not needed after salvation. I don't think that's reading James right oither, but showing that would take more effort than I'm ready to engage in at this moment.
This can't be Paul's point, or Romans 4:6-8 would make no sense in the argument. Further, other passages make it clear that we're talking about the old covenantal law as a whole, not merely the ceremonial parts.
This isn't quite right. The faith described in Romans is explained what it consists in—trust—in the latter portion of Romans 4, and this is also seen in the use of the verb, not just the noun, as the verb is clear that it's believing, not being trustworthy, where the noun would not be.
What then do I think instead? The third point is not far off, especially in its account of James' faith, while Paul's includes trust.
There's also the additional factor of justification differing in meaning from place to place. In the case of Paul, he's using it to talk about our justification before God in the passager we've seen, and James probably as justification before the community of believers. (In both of these cases, but I don't think everywhere in the new testament—I don't remember—they are using it to talk about those being accepted/counted as righteous in a court-like setting.)
Does that make sense?
I think you are referencing Romans 5:1 for this. "Justified therefore through faith, let us keep peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have got by faith access to that grace in which we stand, and let us exult in the hope of the glory of God."
It seems to be saying, with our initial justification caused by faith (in opposite to circumcision) let us act properly and keep peace with God through the grace Jesus has gained for us.
But looking around, it looks like the "Let us" translation is based on some Greek manuscripts, while other Greek manuscripts do not have it as an exhortations. The Vulgate has "iustificati igitur ex fide pacem habeamus ad Deum per Dominum nostrum Iesum Christum," which sounds more like an exhortation. Could this be the root of our confusion? The subjunctive seems to be attested to earlier in manuscripts, but both are widespread in the early Church. The official Roman translation used Let Us, and that undoubtedly influenced theology for millennia.
In the absence of knowing what Paul actually wrote here, may I suggest that we both avoid using Romans 5:1 to argue for or against our positions?
Are you still referring specifically to Romans 4:2? Is the Aorist in 4:2 or 4:3? Because Romans 4:2 says, "If Abraham was justified because of his actions, he has reason for glorying; but not before God, since what does the scripture say?" Paul is saying that Abraham was Not justified because he had some innate awesomeness. It doesn't really matter what tense was used when Paul is ironically saying that something Didn't happen that way.
I disagree that the language Paul uses makes the claim that Abraham was justified in a single instant, and this seems to be the basis of your arguments against the Faith/Works explanations that I hold.
Short of us both being ancient Greek scholars I don't know how much more productive our conversation can become. We can both start to appeal to authority, but I think our fundamental difference lies in the specificity of a language that I don't speak (and I'm not sure but I don't think you do either.) Which is disappointing, because I usually mock those who think that the Bible is impossible to understand because it's been a game of telephone/translated too many times.
Ah, I wasn't aware of the other variation of Romans 5:1.
I was referring to aorist in 4:2, but wasn't arguing from 4:2 alone, interpreting 4:3 to be talking about Abraham's justification by faith.
Perhaps that's more of the key to what I've been saying.
Logically speaking, it seems like 4:3 is an explanation of 4:2—this is saying something about where Abraham's justification actually consists in.
I think my point cared more about features of the argument than the tenses, just tenses were slightly easier to gesture at.
So let's try not addressing that, and looking at it argumentatively instead.
In Paul's usage in this passage, justification refers to the same thing as what is seen in 4:3: counting as righteous. This does not necessarily involve imputation of another's righteousness (though I think it does here), but is just saying that when Paul says "justify" in at least some of the places in Romans 3-4, what he means is be accepted as righteous.
This is clear from the broader context: Romans 3: talking about the guilt of all (See especially v. 19-20. Note that this is not dependent upon it being the Mosaic law given Romans 2 among other passages.) This is where the law is pointed out to have failed: in that it administers blame. Romans 1-2 touch on the same themes: judgment and our acceptance before God. Given Romans 5:1, it seems like most of Romans 4 is talking about justification by faith. But Romans 4 is talking about being counted as righteous. Romans 4:3 seems to be giving a reason for why Abraham cannot be justified by works with respect to God, as described in Romans 4:2.
Then, the talk of being counted righteous by faith, described in Romans 4, seems like a singular event (or at least, due to a singular event), not lifelong.
This can be seen in the references to Abraham being counted as righteous before circumcision. In verses 6-8, it discusses the forgiveness of sins, which in verse 9 it connects to Abraham's righteousness (and of course, this is also connected by the lead-in). This is not something gradual.
You are correct that this doesn't show anything instantaneous (to be clear, the tenses don't either), but it does seem to show that Paul considers Abraham to have been justified before being circumcised, and this because "his faith was counted as righteousness," and so it's then reasonable to conclude that having righteousness counted to you in whatever sense Paul is talking about here suffices to show that one has been justified.
The "having been justified" in 5:1 reads like this can also be applied to us, that we can speak of our having been justified in the past.
Yes, I get that some of this goes beyond treating the passage as an unorganized list of propositions and thinks he has purposes behind what he's saying; I think that's warranted and the proper way to read scripture.
I don't speak it, but I can read ancient greek at an acceptable level, depending on what your standards for acceptance are.
Romans 4:3 doesn't say Abraham was justified as a one time thing, it just says that Abraham believed God and this was counted as righteousness. I really don't think you can apply the definiteness of the aorist in 4:2 to the sentiment of 4:3. For example, if I said, "If I was an elephant I would always remember everything. I remember my kid's birthday." I'm saying: I do forget things, I'm not an elephant, but I do remember my kid's birthday. One thing (my kid's birthday) can be tallied into the list of things I remember, but I don't remember everything on account of me not being an elephant. Abraham is not justified (in a single action) an account of him being perfect in himself, but he did do an action that is counted as righteous/just.
If Abraham's faith in Genesis 15:6 justified him entirely, why didn't his act of faith in Genesis 12:4 do so? For as Hebrew's 11:8 says, "By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place which he was to receive as an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was to go." So Abraham obeyed God by faith, did not get justified as a single one time action, he believed God later on and was justified then and for always? What was the distinction?
I understand that the words Justification and Righteousness are the same root words in the Greek, just translated into English in whatever word is most intelligible. But just like I used the same word "remember" in both sentences in the Elephant example, someone might use the same word ironically in two different sentences to contrast the two (always remember in the first sentence, simple remember in the second, like aorist justify in the first verse, not-aorist righteous in the second.)
Regarding verses 6-8, of course Catholics believe in the forgiveness of sins after repentance. But having sins forgiven does not itself make someone righteous forever afterwards.
For example, Paul is quoting Psalm 32. In Psalm 32, David is repenting of the sins he committed in 2 Samuel 11, murder and adultery. But before David sinned, God called David, "a man after his own heart." So we have a just man, who sins, then repents and is forgiven.
Verse 9 connects the forgiveness of sins with Abraham's state of Circumcision. Abraham was able to have one righteous action while uncircumcised. "The faith of Abraham was counted as righteousness."
Yes, I agree that we shouldn't treat the passage as an unorganized list of propositions. That was my position from the first comment. The purpose of the whole letter is that Abraham is our father in faith and Gentiles do not need to be circumcised to participate in faith and receive Justification from Jesus.
You are trying to read between the lines to come up with a meaning that this passage does not readily appear to have. You are arguing that justification is a one time deal by applying the tense of one sentence to the tense of the subsequent and tying different verses together from different parts of the letter.
St. Paul is refuting the Judaizers, who believed that the Law, an impersonal entity, had the power to give life. The Judiazers were wrong. As Galations 3:21 says, "if a law had been given which could make alive, then righteousness would indeed be by the law." (Another verse that supports that the Torah was insufficient to provide salvation by itself.)
The Judaizers in Rome believed rather that one need only obey the law externally, which would obligate God to repay them with eternal life, as an employer pays a worker his wage (Romans 4:4). Arguing against this, St. Paul teaches us we must approach God on a personal level, with faith and sincere contrition for our sins. God will, in turn, graciously forgive us (Psalm 32), infuse us with supernatural virtues, and credit them to our account as righteousness.
Faith is the foundation and the root of all justification. Without faith, no works will justify. However, this does not preclude the possibility that God might reckon the believer's faith to him as righteousness again at some other point in his life. Just looking at Abraham we see justification in Genesis 12:4, Genesis 15:6, Genesis 22. There are other virtues, such as Hope and Charity, which God might credit to a believer's account as well, after that first act of justification through Faith has been accomplished.
Do you believe that the intention of Paul in these verses was to argue against a group of people who believed Justification was a continuous process? Or was Paul's intention in these verses to argue against a group of people who believed Gentiles needed to be circumcised in order to participate in the sacrifice of Jesus? I think you would acknowledge the latter, but say that the words Paul is using implies that he believes Justification was a one-time event. If that is the case, I think I'm reading the purpose of the passage as a whole.
I'll concede the point on the aorist in 4:2. Maybe there's some argument that could be made, but it would at least be too tenuous to concern ourselves with.
This is a very good question. I think I'll say that his faith was counted as righteousness at both times, and was justified throughout, but I understand if that's not convincing.
In the passage quoted, I was just making the assertion, not backing it up. The support followed: that it is required argumentatively at least that being justified in 4:2 and counted righteous in 4:3 be in some way related: faith being counted righteous is sufficient to conclude that Abraham cannot boast before God in being justified by works, among other arguments.
I still get the sense that you're not integrating this into the passage well.
Let's go through (abbreviating a little):
3: Abraham believed God, and it was counted as righteousness
4: for workers, wages are due, not gift
5: but ones who believe rather than work, faith counted as righteousness,
6: Like David in counting righteousness apart from works
7-8:blessed the one whose sins not counted
9:This blessing also for the uncircumcised, because Abraham's faith counted as righteous
Okay, now let's look at some suppositions in the reasoning. To get from 6-8 to 9, it requires that Abraham's faith being counted as righteous meaning that sins are not counted. The same for connecting 5 to 6-8.
As I said, this fits the broader pattern in the first portion of Romans, of wrath for sin.
I'll concede that the aorist was a stretch, and that I haven't organized things especially well, but I do think it's important to be tying verses together in order to get what Paul is getting at and what arguments he is making.
I think our differences in our readings of this passage might be smaller than I thought: primarily down to imputation vs. infusion.
I think verses 5-8 would argue against infusion.
The verses are roughly saying that faith is counted as righteousness, like the blessing of the one to whom righteousness is counted apart from works, which consists in the forgiveness of sins. The righteousness in verse 6 definitely reads like it has more to do with forgiveness than credit to infused virtues, and so it makes sense to carry it over to the righteousness in verse 5, because they're like one another.
I'd also still argues that justify in this passage (at least, in verse 2) refers to counting as righteous. In 3:20, that definitely seems to be the case (do you have a different reading there?) and it makes sense to use it in the same sense here, as synonymous with the "counted to him as righteousness" in verse 3.
To be clear, though, Paul affirms that the Torah promises life, in Gal. 3:12. His point in 3:21 is not that it does not offers salvation if obeyed; it's that it is not obeyed and does not give the power to obey it.
Yes, I agree that it is the latter. Paul is using the terminology, not arguing for it, mostly (at least, in the case of "justify").
I think this agrees with the Catholic perspective. Abraham received initial justification through faith, and multiple acts counted as righteousness.
I wouldn't argue that Paul is arguing for this specifically in Psalm 32, but are you aware that Catholics believe that we receive initial justification at Baptism (an act of faith that makes us adoptive siblings of Jesus Christ) and that at this initial justification all prior sins are forgiven?
Paraphrasing verses 2-9:
2 - Abraham wasn't especially just by himself.
3 - Abraham's belief in God is a righteous act.
4 - Wages as a due - ties back to verse 2, Abraham wasn't getting just wages because he wasn't justified by his own abilities.
5 - Ties back to verse 3, Faith in God is righteous. (side note, in Hebrew poetry it is common to have two repetitive stanzas, back and forth, with slight differences to distinguish between. I'm not saying Paul is writing poetry here, but he seems to have a similar rhythm. I highly recommend reading Robert Altar's The Art of Biblical Poetry if you haven't already.)
6 - David said that God can credit righteousness apart from works of the law.
7 - Blessed are they whose lawless acts have been forgiven and whose sins have been hidden away.
8 - Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord does not count.
Are you aware that (some) Lutheran leaders and (some) Catholic leaders got together, hashed out our differences and realized we mostly agree on Justification?
I think where the difference is going to stay is the imputation vs infusion. Catholics believe God's word is efficacious, He can neither deceive nor be deceived. (Numbers 23:19: God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind.Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?)
From our perspective, imputed righteousness seems like God both deceiving and being deceived. But does Romans 4 really argue for imputation?
In context, versus 5-8 quote the first verses of Psalm 32. Traditionally, quoting the first verse of a Psalm means to draw someone's attention to the whole psalm. Hence, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
What is the rest of Psalm 32?
Or basically - Guilt, repentance, confession, forgiveness. Paul isn't referencing a passive forgiveness of sins after an initial justification of faith, but rather another act of righteousness that lead to forgiveness. This one is interesting because Paul isn't referencing an act of faith, it's an act of repentance.
It is commonly believed that Psalm 32 is in reference to 2 Samuel 12. What Paul was likely emphasizing is that the forgiveness of David's sins took place outside the law. 2 Samuel 12:13, "Then David said to Nathan, 'I have sinned against the Lord.' Nathan replied, 'The Lord has taken away your sin. You are not going to die.'" There's no Levitical sacrifices, no Yom Kippur. Just an honest confession and sorrow for sin.
This "counting" as righteousness word is going to require a word study. The word for "counting" here is elogisthe and logizetai. So where else is the word used in the New Testament?
Paul later uses the word in this letter (and others) to describe earnest acts of the mind: considering and regarding. It's not reference to a modern financial accounting system. Another couple strong examples:
It it is not a word used to show some outside force providing a title that is the opposite of the real object. In each of these cases, the subject is thinking about reality.
Applying that to this passage, God truly is considering, reasoning, regarding Abraham as doing something righteous when Abraham performs his act of faith.
Sorry for that long of a delay. Anyway, here I am.
Yes, I think you'd mentioned this earlier.
I think there's more to the passage than your account of the verses. Verses 6-8 treat the crediting righteousness as consisting in the not-imputing sin, I think. Also relevant is that the passage is not treating it as a single righteous deed to add to a ledger, but that it itself constitutes righteousness whereby we are accepted before God. I'd also point out that arguably, if our acceptance is based off of something inherent in us, that that would be something that is our due, not a gift, per verse 5.
Yes, I am aware that that exists, though I have no idea of the extent of the agreement, or of the orthodoxy of those involved. I haven't examined it.
It is pretty clear from the passage, I think, that the passage is arguing for non-imputation, at least. That's what Romans 4:6-8 is clearly describing. Does this involve "deceiving and being deceived"?
But Paul isn't talking about that. What Paul is referring to is specifically that having one's sins forgiven, covered, not counted against oneself suffices to make one blessed. The focus is not on how that is attained, but upon how the blessing (and, per verse 6 and verse 9, righteousness) consists in the forgiveness of sins.
Yes, the word has that in its semantic range. In 4:8, it is also used to say that the sin is not counted (same word). But that isn't to say that the sin never happened.
Or see Mark 15:28, where the same word is used to say that Jesus "was numbered with the transgressors." Or 2 Cor 5:19, "that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them."
So this doesn't seem out there, to me.
Catholics believe in the forgiveness of sins. What are you arguing against?
The proposition that there will neither be sin nor attachment to sin in Heaven?
The proposition that at some point, (in this life or in the next) sinful people lose their attachment to sin through the graces of Jesus' death and Resurrection?
That this purification requires some assent of the sinner's will, some kind of cooperation with Jesus?
Can you go to Heaven without loving God and Neighbor?
Can you love God without keeping His commandments and repenting if you fail?
Can you keep God's commandments without doing good works?
Do good works happen automatically, or does the Christian need to accept Jesus's graces? In other words, can a Christian reject Jesus' graces and refuse to do good works?
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