Two Questions Concerning Romanism

[iacobus]

I was wondering, because I can't really wrap my mind around it and this has been bugging me because I want to have an answer if it comes up in the future.

1) How does an RC believe his good works are acceptable once he's infused with righteousness? Isn't the stain of sin still on those works? Perhaps this has something to do with their understanding of the atonement as rendering God propitious, and of course the infusion.

2) How does infusion even work? What is it based on?

I had a dialogue with and RC friend over the summer, and didn't really get any clear picture of what he believes.

 

[louis_jp]

I'm no expert, but I believe a very non-technical answer to your question is that they conflate justification and sanctification. You end up being justified, because sanctifying grace works to make you actually righteous. Once you are actually righteous, then you are acceptable to God. Most people don't achieve that in this lifetime, thus the need for purgatory. People who do achieve it in this lifetime become "Saints" who then intercede for the rest of us poor slobs.

 

[Pilgrim Standard]

I would argue the reasons that righteousness must be imputed and not infused beginning with the proof that Justification itself is and is used in the scripture as a forensic term in which nothing inherently changes in the substance of the believer, but his judicial standing does change.

I have met many RCs and they tend to differ amongst themselves on this point. So I have had to at the very least make the argument from sola scriptura first, because at some point many RCs that I have discussed the issue with begin to run to ‘extra biblical’ sources.

Laying out the forensic nature of Justification from the word alone has helped me in continuing the discussion with those holding erroneous views of the nature of Justification.

---------- Post added at 03:23 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:17 PM ----------

but to answer Q2 it seems that RC doctrine claims both an infused and imputed righteousness.

The claim that I have heard is that imputed righteousness is by or through faith and infused righteousness is by or though penance and baptism.

 

[dudley]

James, This is one of many reasons why all Bible-believing Protestant Christians should have a solid grasp of the Roman Catholic doctrine of justification. First, the Roman Catholic theory of justification is a denial of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is a heresy. Second, it is a subtle doctrine that distorts the truth of salvation in the Gospel. The papal version of justification is one of cleverest perversions of Scripture that the mind of man has ever conceived. This papal doctrine is not the typical amateur heresy one finds in many cults today. It was formed over a period of one thousand years. It is a combination of errors found in the Patristic fathers, and the speculations of the Aristotelian-influenced medieval scholastic theologians. The doctrine was fully developed at the Council of Trent (1543-1563) in reaction to the great Reformation doctrine of justification by faith alone. At Trent Rome slammed the door shut upon the gospel of Christ; it has remained shut ever since. The Second Vatican Council (1965) and the recent Roman Catholic Catechism (1994) both clearly affirm Trent (all Roman Catholics are supposed to affirm the teachings of Trent as infallible truth). Since Trent, the Roman Catholic church teaches a distorted Gospel message. It is one of the reasons why I am today James a Reformed Presbyterian protestant and why I am no longer a Roman catholic. The question I believe you are asking is why you also are now a Presbyterian ,and a Reformed protestant , you realize the contradiction the papist theory of Justification is to the Gospel and true message of salvation. The Reformed theology is not only logical it is so because it is true , the Roman catholic theology on the subject is not logical and also defies the true message of the Gospel and it is for that reason that a person who is a Reformed Protestant has difficulty understanding the paradox and contradictions to the truth in Roman Catholicism.