First of all, let's give the standard description of the classic Protestant doctrine of justification. (And I should note that when I talk about the "classic Protestant doctrine of justification," I have in mind primarily the description of this view which has come to be dominant in the world of Reformed theology--Calvinism--in particular.) Here is the definition given in the Westminster Larger Catechism, one of the most important of the standard, historic statements of the Reformed faith:
Justification is an act of God’s free grace unto sinners, in which he pardoneth all their sins, accepteth and accounteth their persons righteous in his sight; not for any thing wrought in them, or done by them, but only for the perfect obedience and full satisfaction of Christ, by God imputed to them, and received by faith alone. (WLC 70--taken from the website of the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland, footnotes removed)
Back in 2007, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, a Reformed denomination, put out a report on the doctrine of justification. In that report, we find this brief commentary on this definition from the Larger Catechism:
In this definition, all the major elements of the biblical, Reformed doctrine are set forth. Justification is a forensic, judicial act of pardoning, accepting, and accounting, not a transformative work by which a sinner is made subjectively holy through an infusion of grace. According to this definition, justification is a blessing granted to sinners, those who have fallen short of God’s righteous requirements and stand condemned before him. In response to our sin, God, by his free grace, does two things for our justification: he pardons all our sins and accepts and accounts us righteous in his sight. God not only wipes away the guilt of sinners, but he also credits righteousness to them. In justification, God declares that we are innocent of ever sinning against him and credits us with keeping his law perfectly. The ground for this great work, WLC 70 goes on to explain, is nothing that is wrought within us or done by us. Instead, its ground is the perfect obedience and full satisfaction of Christ, imputed to us. In other words, Christ’s perfect obedience to God’s law is credited to us, so that we stand before God as if we ourselves had kept that law perfectly. And Christ’s perfect sacrifice of atonement is imputed to us, so that we stand before God as if we had atoned for our law-breaking. Finally, WLC 70 teaches that justification is received by faith alone. Not any work of obedience, but faith that receives and rests upon Christ, is the only instrument of justification. (Justification: Report of the Committee to Study the Doctrine of Justification [Willow Grove, PA: The Committee on Christian Education of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, 2007], 11-12)
So this is the standard Reformed Protestant doctrine of justification. Its meaning seems clear enough. We are made right with God only by the righteousness of Christ legally accounted ours, and not by any righteousness we have within us or that we perform, even through the work of God's grace. (Reformed Protestants believe that God does change us and make us inwardly holy by his grace, but they say this is something entirely distinct from justification--from being made right with God and acceptable to him as righteous.) But I would ask for further clarification, and I think everything hinges on this further clarification. Let me put my question this way: "When you say that we are made right with God only by the righteousness of Christ imputed, apart from any change God might make within us by his grace, do you mean that this imputation by itself makes us right with God in principle, but our reconciliation with God only takes place in full actualization when this imputation achieves its full fruit in our becoming inwardly holy? Or do you mean to say that, both in principle and in full actualization, God views us as fully righteous and is entirely morally pleased with us once Christ's righteousness is imputed to us, apart from any consideration of the fruit of that imputation in making us inwardly holy?"
Let me try to explain further what I'm getting at here: I have no problem with the idea that Christ's righteousness imputed to us is, in principle, all we need to be right with God. I would interpret this to mean that Christ's righteousness is sufficient to make us entirely right with God, and that once this righteousness is declared ours (imputed to us), we now possess everything we need to be right with God. However, I would add that unless this imputation bears its fruit in us by making us actually inwardly holy, it cannot succeed in actually making God see us as righteous or find us wholly morally acceptable. This is because God is not blind, and as a holy being, he cannot but exhibit a moral response to our actual inward moral condition. If Christ's righteousness could somehow be imputed to me, while at the same time I am left in a state of moral enmity against God, my actual moral condition could not help but be morally displeasing to him. He could not find me entirely morally acceptable, or see me as perfectly righteous, because, in fact, I would not be perfectly righteous. God's moral holiness implies that he hates sin and loves righteousness. He cannot find me acceptable morally unless I am actually righteous. Therefore, the idea of God imputing Christ's righteousness to me without making me inwardly actually righteous involves a kind of legal fiction--where God decides to pretend that I am something I am not. He can see perfectly well that I am not righteous, but by some kind of legal trick he decides to pretend that I am and to treat me as such. Such a view I find to be both unbiblical and morally absurd. (I've critiqued this view in a number of places, including here and here.)
So imputation can be said to be sufficient in principle, but only because it is seen as necessarily implying that what is imputed will also be infused. Christ's righteousness is fully sufficient, but without the infusion of it into us, the imputation of it to us is left hanging and ends up being only a legal fiction--a declaration without any real substance to it, leaving us just as unrighteous in the sight of God in actual experience than if we didn't have any imputation. Without the infusion being connected to the imputation, God would declare Christ's righteousness to be ours, but would fail to actually deliver it to us in a way that would affect our actual experience. If Protestants can agree with me here, then I have no problem with their viewpoint. In fact, I would say that, on this point at least, it is identical to my own in substance. (And it always has been my own view. It is my view now as a Catholic, and it was my view when I was Protestant. See this sermon I wrote as a Protestant where I laid out this same basic idea.)
However, what if Protestants mean to say that the imputation of Christ's righteousness is fully sufficient to actually make us fully righteous, fully morally acceptable to God, fully pleasing to him and satisfying to his holy nature and view, completely apart from the consideration of any inward infusion of righteousness, any actual making of us inwardly holy? What if they mean to say that once we have imputation, even if we were actually completely unrighteous inwardly and there was no infusion of grace and never would be (which won't actually happen according to Protestants, but we consider it merely as a hypothetical scenario), God would view us as fully righteous and have no moral problem with us at all? In this case, as I said before, I would have to declare such a position both unbiblical and morally absurd. It would imply a kind of blindness in God, as if God could see things other than as they really are. It would imply that God has no moral concern for inward moral attitudes and behavior, provided evil attitudes and behavior are covered with a kind of superficial, outward cloak that prevents God somehow from seeing them--like snow covering a dung-hill, to use an expression I've heard attributed to Luther. It would imply that sanctification is pointless, since what could be the point of inward moral holiness if God himself doesn't have any moral concern about it whatsoever?
I'm going to label the first, morally sensible interpretation of the Protestant doctrine of justification the Pro-Augustinian Interpretation of the Protestant Doctrine of Justification, or Pro-Augustinianism. I'm going to label the latter, morally absurd version the Anti-Augustinian Interpretation of the Protestant Doctrine of Justification, or Anti-Augustinianism. I choose these labels because they compare the Protestant doctrine with the position of St. Augustine of Hippo, who formulated a doctrine of justification that included within the idea not only the legal forgiveness of sins and imputation of righteousness, but also the infusion of grace and inward holiness. I believe this position to be the biblical one, and it is also the historic form of the Catholic doctrine of justification, as outlined in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Pro-Augustinian Protestants and Catholics might argue about whether or not the term justification ought itself to include the infusion of grace, or whether two terms, justification and sanctification, ought to be used--one to refer to the imputation of righteousness, and one to refer to the infusion of grace--but I believe that this would be a relatively minor dispute theologically, since both sides would agree on the fundamental substance of the position--that we have no righteousness of our own to make us right with God; that Christ's righteousness, given to us as a free gift, is all that we need; that Christ's righteousness is counted ours as a gift of grace and is also infused within us; etc. This is not to say there would not be other important disagreements, but there would be agreement in substance at least on the point which has long been considered by many to be a fundamental point of division between Catholics and Protestants--the question of imputation vs. infusion in justification.
So my questions to Protestants are along these lines: Which is your view of justification, the Pro-Augustinian view, or the Anti-Augustinian view? Which view do you hold personally? Do you think that the historic Reformed formulation of justification allows for both interpretations, or do you think it conforms to one and rules out the other? And if it favors only one interpretation, which one? I think a clear, careful, civil dialogue on this issue would prove immensely valuable.
Published on the Solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God (and New Year's Day).
ADDENDUM 5/8/20: It might be helpful to define the different contributions of imputation and of sanctification in both the Pro-Augustinian and the Anti-Augustinian doctrines of justification. Let's consider what each of these contributes by itself, apart from the other.
In the Anti-Augustinian view, imputation gives us a legal righteousness that actually, in itself, makes us righteous before God. God is completely morally satisfied with us. His moral law--which is an expression of his moral nature--has no complaint against us but finds us perfectly pleasing, so that he sees it fit to reward us with eternal life. Sanctification (and I'm including both regeneration and subsequent sanctification here) does not make us morally pleasing to God, for the goodness it produces in us through the Holy Spirit is mixed with our sinfulness, making it unable to satisfy the requirements of God's moral law to be counted as a righteousness worthy of God's regard and fit to be rewarded with anything other than hell. Even when we become perfectly sanctified in heaven, because of the sins on our past record, our sanctification will still be imperfect and God's law will deem it only fit for hell. So what purpose does sanctification have? What does it actually do? It gives us faith, by which we trust in Christ alone, and so are united to Christ and receive his benefits. By nature, faith brings along with it other aspects of holiness, which, while not making us righteous in the sight of God, orients us away from ourselves and towards love to and trust in God, which is an attitude that fittingly accompanies our state of righteousness by imputation. Therefore, just as God covers our moral ugliness with the cloak of Christ's imputed righteousness, making us fit for heaven and not for hell, so he clothes our holiness and our good works--morally ugly in themselves--with Christ's imputed righteousness and so, seeing only the good in them, declares them fit to reward with eternal life.
In the Pro-Augustinian view, imputation gives us a legal right to receive righteousness and to be made righteous, but it does not by itself actually deliver that righteousness to us. It is a promise of righteousness, making it ours by a legal guarantee, but it does not actually bring it into our actual experience. Sanctification is the fulfillment of that legal promise. Through the work of the Spirit, Christ's righteousness is actually infused into us, making us actually righteous in the sight of God and thus fit to reward with eternal life.
Let's consider what would happen, hypothetically, if we could only have imputation or sanctification but not both. Both views would consider this actually impossible, but it is instructive as a thought experiment.
In the Anti-Augustinian view, if we could have imputation but no sanctification, we would have righteousness and be righteous in the sight of God. His moral law would completely approve us and declare us to merit eternal life. We would be totally pleasing to God's moral nature. But we would have no faith by means of which we would have laid hold of that righteousness, and the antipathy to God remaining in our nature to all eternity would be incongruent with our status as totally righteous people completely morally pleasing to God. On the other hand, if we could have sanctification but no imputation, we would be inwardly holy and would have faith, but there would be no cover for our moral ugliness, and so we would be morally abhorrent to God's moral nature. His moral law would declare us worthy only of hell.
In the Pro-Augustinian view, if we could have imputation but no sanctification, we would have a legal right to righteousness and a promise that we would be made righteous, but we would never actually receive righteousness or be made righteous in our actual condition or experience. Therefore, the imputation would be nothing more than a hollow promise or a legal fiction. We would remain morally loathsome to God, since he cannot but hate the moral ugliness of those who are at enmity with him. God's moral law would declare us worthy only of hell. If we could have sanctification but no imputation, we would be actually righteous in the sight of God. We would be morally pleasing to God's moral nature, and God's moral law would declare us worthy to be rewarded with eternal life. But we would have no legal right to be righteous. We would somehow have righteousness from God without God ever having declared it ours.
I think this analysis is helpful in bringing out the very different natures of these two doctrines of justification.
ADDENDUM 5/11/22: I thought of an analogy that might help to bring out the similarities and differences between the Anti-Augustinian and the Pro-Augustinian views:
Anti-Augustinian Scenario: You are trying to get into a special event at an exclusive club, and the doorkeepers won't let you in without a nice tuxedo. You don't have a tuxedo, and you don't have enough money to buy one. Your friend Bob, however, offers to help you out. He makes a deal with the doorkeepers to pay a sum of money in exchange for allowing his own tuxedo to count for two instead of just one. The doorkeepers will count Bob's tuxedo as if it were not only his but also yours, and, when you come to the door, they will treat you as if you were wearing Bob's tuxedo even though you aren't. They also give you an old, shabby, torn-up tuxedo to wear that they had in the closet. This tuxedo is far from nice enough to get you into the club, but you are to wear it when you come anyway because it will function as a token, a receipt if you will, indicating that you have accepted Bob's offer to be treated as if you were wearing his tuxedo and as proof that that deal applies to you.
The club represents eternal life. The doorkeepers represent the judgment which will determine whether we are right with the moral law so as to be admitted into eternal life. The tuxedos represent righteousness. Being without a tuxedo represents being without righteousness. Bob is Christ. The sum of money Bob pays represents Christ's life of righteousness, his merits, and his atoning sacrifice for our salvation. The deal in which you are able to be treated as if you are wearing Bob's tuxedo represents the imputation of Christ's satisfaction and righteousness to believers. The shabby tuxedo represents the gift of regeneration and sanctification. The righteousness of sanctification is not good enough to justify us before God's moral law, but part of it is the gift of faith by which we accept the gift of imputed righteousness, and it functions for us as proof of our faith at the bar of God's judgment.
Pro-Augustinian Scenario: You are trying to get into a special event at an exclusive club, and the doorkeepers won't let you in without a nice tuxedo. You don't have a tuxedo, and you don't have enough money to buy one. Your friend Bob, however, offers to help you out. He uses his own money to buy a new tuxedo. Once he has purchased the tuxedo, he makes a declaration transferring ownership of the tuxedo to you as a free gift. Having been given the tuxedo, you put it on and wear it to the club. The doorkeepers, seeing you have a nice tuxedo which meets their requirements, let you in.
The club represents eternal life. The doorkeepers represent the judgment which will determine whether we are right with the moral law so as to be admitted into eternal life. The tuxedo represents righteousness. Being without a tuxedo represents being without righteousness. Bob is Christ. The sum of money Bob pays represents Christ's life of righteousness, his merits, and his atoning sacrifice for our salvation. Bob's declaration that the new tuxedo is now yours represents the imputation of Christ's satisfaction and righteousness to the believer. The putting on of the tuxedo represents regeneration and sanctification. Passing the doorkeepers with the new tuxedo represents the day of judgment, where God will welcome us into eternal life after a review of our works. Our works are truly pleasing to God and so pass the judgment, but our justification is always to be attributed only to the imputation of Christ's righteousness and not to anything else, because it is only by imputation that we become owners of the righteousness of Christ, just as it is Bob's declaration that the tuxedo is now yours that makes it yours, not your putting on the tuxedo or anything else. Putting on the tuxedo is a fruit of it having been declared yours, and yet it is also true that the tuxedo doesn't ultimately do you any good in terms of getting into the club except by means of your putting it on. Likewise, imputation is the only thing that gives us ownership of righteousness, and yet imputation does us no good except by means of it bearing its fruit of sanctification within us.
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