RefBap,

Yes, it's easy for Scott to sound protestant when he (knowingly) uses terms that resonate with the Protestant but mean different things for Roman Catholics.

Scott writes: Catholics DO believe that "saving faith" is comprised of both "faith" and "works" but it's not our works that save. Our works, done in the state of grace, lead to sanctification. Such "works" do absolutely no good to one not already on the path to salvation. I hope this helps clarify.

Jason: I give Scott full credit for coming as close as he can to the biblical doctrine without disowning his own denomination. But what you need to consider, RefBap, is that Roman Catholic Justification is more of a disposition than a position. In addition to that, it is important to unpack Scott's sentence to expose the Roman doctrine for what it is.

First of all, Scott guards himself from the idea that works outside of a state of grace lead to salvation and positively writes that they lead to sanctification, which is flirting with deception (his sanctification = "increase of Justification" in Roman Catholic theology), but we'll give him the benefit of the doubt. What he does not say in the clearer, Tridentine manner of explaining justification is that these works done in a state of grace are meritorious and are what merit a person eternal life:

For, whereas Jesus Christ Himself continually infuses his virtue into the said justified,-as the head into the members, and the vine into the branches,-and this virtue always precedes and accompanies and follows their good works, which without it could not in any wise be pleasing and meritorious before God,-we must believe that nothing further is wanting to the justified, to prevent their being accounted to have, by those very works which have been done in God, fully satisfied the divine law according to the state of this life, and to have truly merited eternal life. (Council of Trent, Decree on Justification, Chapter 16)

That is, through Baptism the guilt of eternal death is washed away, and the righteousness of Christ is infused into the recipient such that the righteousness of Christ infused into him results in good works (in accordance with a semi-pelgian view of co-operation) and these good works are what merit eternal life. It is not the perfect righteousness of Christ accounted to the individual that becomes the basis for acceptance, but the satisfaction of the divine law that exists in the individual.

That is the fatal flaw of Roman Catholic justification. On the one hand they say that the formal cause of Justification comes by the actual presence of Christ's righteousness, and yet they claim that an imperfect and incomplete mixture of righteousness and sin is sufficient to merit eternal life.

In addition, keep in mind that when Catholics say justification is by faith, this does not even necessarily mean the faith of the one justified. It is the "Church's faith" that justifies the infant as the Church believes that God will perform the work that He supposedly promises in baptism. This is why it is necessary for the intentions of the priest to be genuine in order for a legitimate baptism to take place and therefore the infusion of justification to take place.

1253 Baptism is the sacrament of faith. But faith needs the community of believers. It is only within the faith of the Church that each of the faithful can believe. The faith required for Baptism is not a perfect and mature faith, but a beginning that is called to develop. The catechumen or the godparent is asked: "What do you ask of God's Church?" The response is: "Faith!" (Catechism of the Catholic Church, #1253)

1124 The Church's faith precedes the faith of the believer who is invited to adhere to it. When the Church celebrates the sacraments, she confesses the faith received from the apostles - whence the ancient saying: lex orandi, lex credendi (or: legem credendi lex statuat supplicandi, according to Prosper of Aquitaine [5th cent.]). The law of prayer is the law of faith: the Church believes as she prays. Liturgy is a constitutive element of the holy and living Tradition. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, #1124)

1127 Celebrated worthily in faith, the sacraments confer the grace that they signify. They are efficacious because in them Christ himself is at work: it is he who baptizes, he who acts in his sacraments in order to communicate the grace that each sacrament signifies. The Father always hears the prayer of his Son's Church which, in the epiclesis of each sacrament, expresses her faith in the power of the Spirit. As fire transforms into itself everything it touches, so the Holy Spirit transforms into the divine life whatever is subjected to his power. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, #1127)

CANON XI.-If any one saith, that, in ministers, when they effect, and confer the sacraments, there is not required the intention at least of doing what the Church does; let him be anathema. (Council of Trent, 7th Session, Canons on the Sacraments in General, Canon 11)


So to answer your initial question, RefBap, this following canon is precisely the reason why the letter of Roman Catholic Justification kills:

CANON XI.-If any one saith, that men are justified, either by the sole imputation of the justice of Christ, or by the sole remission of sins, to the exclusion of the grace and the charity which is poured forth in their hearts by the Holy Ghost, and is inherent in them; or even that the grace, whereby we are justified, is only the favour of God; let him be anathema.

When they say, "to the exclusion of the grace and charity..." they are not simply giving to us a description of a genuine faith that receives justification, but they mean that the good works themselves are what formally cause the justification to take place. If Justification is dependent upon fully satisfying the divine law, as Trent declares and Catholicism teaches, then no person whether they are in a supposed state of grace or not can get past the fact that they fall short of the glory of God.

Hope that helps,

Jason.