A Catholic Response to Some of the Arguments of Jonathan Edwards Regarding Justification by Faith Alone

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, to be obtained also in its (due) time, if so be, however, that they depart in grace: . . . Thus, neither is our own justice established as our own as from ourselves; nor is the justice of God ignored or repudiated: for that justice which is called ours, because that we are justified from its being inherent in us, that same is (the justice) of God, because that it is infused into us of God, through the merit of Christ. Neither is this to be omitted,-that although, in the sacred writings, so much is attributed to good works, that Christ promises, that even he that shall give a drink of cold water to one of his least ones, shall not lose his reward; and the Apostle testifies that, That which is at present momentary and light of our tribulation, worketh for us above measure exceedingly an eternal weight of glory; nevertheless God forbid that a Christian should either trust or glory in himself, and not in the Lord, whose bounty towards all men is so great, that He will have the things which are His own gifts be their merits.

~ Council of Trent, Session Six, Chapter 16

The classic Reformed Protestant doctrine of justification (at least interpreted in an anti-Augustinian way) holds that we are righteous, or morally pleasing and acceptable before God and his moral law, only by means of Christ's personal satisfaction and righteousness being imputed to us (legally credited to our account), and not at all by means of Christ's satisfaction and righteousness being infused into us and worked out in our lives by the power of the Holy Spirit.  Reformed Protestants believe that such infusion and working out occurs, but they say that this sanctification is no part of the grounds of our justification--our becoming morally acceptable to God.  Sanctification always accompanies justification, but it is completely distinct from it.  Catholics, on the other hand, hold that we are justified by Christ's righteousness not only being imputed to us but also by its being infused into us and worked out in our lives by the Holy Spirit.  For Catholics, sanctification is part of the grounds of justification.

Reformed Protestants often support their view by arguing that while sin is infinitely heinous because of the infinite greatness of the value of God whom sin is against, any virtue we could have would be completely worthless because of the infinite inferiority of ourselves in comparison with God.  So once we sin, we have committed an infinite crime deserving of infinite punishment.  After that, it doesn't matter how much sanctification we have from the Holy Spirit, we can never satisfy God's justice for our previous sins, nor can we merit God's favor or acceptance, because of the worthlessness of any goodness we can offer as mere creatures.  We cannot possibly have anything to offer God that would counterbalance or make up for our sin, or warrant God's favor.  What we need, therefore, is someone else's righteousness, the righteousness of a person whose value is infinitely greater than ours, and that person is Christ, because he is God as well as man.  When Christ suffers for our sins, this satisfies the justice of God and brings forgiveness.  And when Christ obeys God, God is so pleased with this that he considers it to infinitely outweigh the debt of our sin and to merit his good favor.  Christ's satisfaction and righteousness are given to us by means of a legal imputation, so that what we do not have and cannot have in ourselves (whether from our own power or from the power of the Holy Spirit) we can have through imputation, and thus become justified before God.

One of the greatest Reformed theologians and philosophers of all time, in my opinion, was Jonathan Edwards.  (He is also one of my own personal favorite theologians and philosophers, and a personal hero of mine.)  Here is how Edwards makes some of the arguments I just articulated above in his discourse on Justification by Faith Alone:

That the evil and demerit of sin is infinitely great, is most demonstrably evident, because what the evil or iniquity of sin consists in, is the violating of an obligation, or doing what we should not do; and therefore by how much the greater the obligation is that is violated, by so much the greater is the iniquity of the violation. But certainly our obligation to love or honour any being is great in proportion to the greatness or excellency of that being, or his worthiness to be loved and honoured. We are under greater obligations to love a more lovely being than a less lovely; and if a being be infinitely excellent or lovely, our obligations to love him are therein infinitely great. The matter is so plain, it seems needless to say much about it.

Some have argued exceeding strangely against the infinite evil of sin, from its being committed against an infinite object, that then it may as well be argued, that there is also an infinite value or worthiness in holiness and love to God, because that also has an infinite object; whereas the argument, from parity of reason, will carry it in the reverse. The sin of the creature against God is ill deserving in proportion to the distance there is between God and the creature; the greatness of the object, and the meanness of the subject, aggravates it. But it is the reverse with regard to the worthiness of the respect of the creature to God; it is worthless (and not worthy) in proportion to the meanness of the subject. So much the greater the distance between God and the creature, so much the less is the creature's respect worthy of God's notice or regard. The unworthiness of sin or opposition to God rises and is great in proportion to the dignity of the object and inferiority of the subject; but on the contrary, the value of respect rises in proportion to the value of the subject; and that for this plain reason, viz. that the evil of disrespect is in proportion to the obligation that lies upon the subject to the object; which obligation is most evidently increased by the excellency and superiority of the object. But on the contrary, the worthiness of respect to a being is in proportion to the obligation that lies on him who is the object, (or rather the reason he has,) to regard the subject, which certainly is in proportion to the subject's value or excellency. Sin or disrespect is evil or heinous in proportion to the degree of what it denies in the object, and as it were takes from it, viz. its excellency and worthiness of respect; on the contrary, respect is valuable in proportion to the value of what is given to the object in that respect, which undoubtedly (other things being equal) is great in proportion to the subject's value, or worthiness of regard; because the subject in giving his respect, can give no more than himself: so far as he gives his respect, he gives himself to the object; and therefore his gift is of greater or lesser value in proportion to the value of himself.

Hence, (by the way,) the love, honour, and obedience of Christ towards God, has infinite value, from the excellency and dignity of the person in whom these qualifications were inherent; and the reason why we needed a person of infinite dignity to obey for us, was because of our infinite comparative meanness, who had disobeyed, whereby our disobedience was infinitely aggravated. We needed one, the worthiness of whose obedience might be answerable to the unworthiness of our disobedience; and therefore needed one who was as great and worthy as we were unworthy. . . .

Having thus, as I imagine, made it clear, that all sin is infinitely heinous, and consequently that the sinner, before he is justified, is under infinite guilt in God's sight; it now remains that I show the consequences, or how it follows from hence, that it is not suitable that God should give the sinner an interest in Christ's merits, and so a title to his benefits, from regard to any qualifications, or act, or course of acts in him, on the account of any excellency or goodness whatsoever therein, but only as uniting to Christ; or (which fully implies it) that it is not suitable that God, by any act, should, in any manner or degree, testify any acceptance of, or pleasedness with, any thing, as any virtue, or excellency, or any part of loveliness, or valuableness in his person, until he is actually already interested in Christ's merits. From the premises it follows, that before the sinner is already interested in Christ, and justified, it is impossible God should have any acceptance of or pleasedness with the person of the sinner, as in any degree lovely in his sight, or indeed less the object of his displeasure and wrath. For, by the supposition, the sinner still remains infinitely guilty in the sight of God; for guilt is not removed but by pardon: but to suppose the sinner already pardoned, is to suppose him already justified; which is contrary to the supposition. But if the sinner still remains infinitely guilty in God's sight, that is the same thing as still to be beheld of God as infinitely the object of his displeasure and wrath, or infinitely hateful in his eyes; and if so, where is any room for any thing in him, to be accepted as some valuableness or acceptableness of him in God's sight, or for any act of favour of any kind towards him, or any gift whatsoever to him, in testimony of God's respect to an acceptance of something of him lovely and pleasing? If we should suppose that a sinner could have faith, or some other grace in his heart, and yet remain separate from Christ; and that he is not looked upon as being in Christ, or having any relation to him, it would not be meet that such true grace should be accepted of God as any loveliness of his person in the sight of God. If it should be accepted as the loveliness of the person as in some degree lovely to God; but this cannot be consistent with his still remaining under infinite guilt, or infinite unworthiness in God's sight, which that goodness has no worthiness to balance. While God beholds the man as separate from Christ, he must behold him as he is in himself; and so his goodness cannot be beheld by God, but as taken with his guilt and hatefulness, and as put in the scales with it; and so his goodness is nothing; because there is a finite on the balance against an infinite whose proportion to it is nothing. In such a case, if the man be looked on as he is in himself, the excess of the weight in one scale above another, must be looked upon as the quality of the man. These contraries being beheld together, one takes from another, as one number is subtracted from another; and the man must be looked upon in God's sight according to the remainder. For here, by the supposition, all acts of grace or favour, in not imputing the guilt as it is, are excluded, because that supposes a degree of pardon, and that supposes justification, which is contrary to what is supposed, viz. that the sinner is not already justified; and therefore things must be taken strictly as they are; and so the man is still infinitely unworthy and hateful in God's sight, as he was before, without diminution, because his goodness bears no proportion to his unworthiness, and therefore when taken together is nothing.  (Jonathan Edwards, Justification by Faith Alone, text taken from the plain text version at the Christian Classics Ethereal Library, but also found here or here)

I would like to spend the remainder of this article analyzing this overall argument.  I think there is both truth and error in the argument, and the error leads to the support of a false doctrine of justification (the Anti-Augustinian Reformed doctrine) and the rejection of the true doctrine of justification (that taught by the Catholic Church).

There are two parts to the argument, as Edwards lays it out.  The argument argues that 1. our sin is infinitely heinous before God and thus deserving of infinite punishment, on account of the greatness of God and our own littleness, and 2. that we can only be made right with God by virtue of the imputed righteousness of Christ because any internal righteousness we could ever have, even if worked in us by the Holy Spirit, would be worthless before God in terms of being able to counterbalance our sin or to make us morally pleasing to God and thus worthy of his favor, on account of the greatness of God and our own littleness.

1. It is true that our sin is infinitely heinous before God and thus deserving of infinite punishment on account of our infinite inferiority to God.  (See, for one example of a Catholic statement of this principle, the Catechism of Pope St. Pius X, Fourth Article of the Creed, questions 9-11.)  I have little to add here, as Edwards has spelled out the reasons for this quite clearly and accurately.  God is infinitely great.  He is the fullness of Being, the Supreme Good.  To reject him, then, is to reject the Supreme Good, and obviously this is going to be supremely bad.  The rejection of the Supreme Good cannot but be seen by an accurate view as anything other than infinitely hateful and wicked, and it is evident that the natural consequence of such rejection must be supreme calamity and misery.  God is the fullness of goodness, while we have no goodness of ourselves.  All positive being that we have comes from God.  So without God, we have nothing.  We ought, then, to honor God infinitely above ourselves and look to him and value him as the fount and source of all goodness.

2. Edwards is also right to say that we, as mere creatures, could not possibly have anything to offer God that could make up for the infinite hatefulness of our sins.  For that hatefulness is rooted in the fact that we have rejected the Supreme Good.  The only way we could make up for this is to offer God some good that is equal in value to himself.  But, of course, we are infinitely far away from being able to do any such thing.  Imagine breaking someone's priceless antique vase, and then attempting to make up for this by giving them a stick of chewing gum.  But our trying to make up for our sins by giving God some kind of creaturely satisfaction or righteousness is infinitely more absurd, for God is infinitely more valuable than an antique vase and what we have to offer God is inferior even to a stick of chewing gum (even chewing gum is a gift from God, after all, like every other good, and not something we possess of ourselves).  So we cannot make up for our sins or merit God's positive favor by anything we can offer as mere creatures.

3. Where Edwards goes wrong is in failing to notice the enormous--indeed, infinite--difference between a mere creaturely offering to God and an offering to God that comes about by means of the sanctification of the Holy Spirit.  When the Spirit sanctifies us, he infuses Christ's righteousness into us.  He applies Christ to our hearts, so that the virtue of Christ's righteousness comes to live within us and to manifest itself in our actions (both internal and external).  The righteousness of sanctification is thus a divine righteousness and not merely a creaturely righteousness.  The Holy Spirit elevates us to a level that is infinitely beyond our creaturely capacity.  Thus, the righteousness offered to God by those who are sanctified by the Holy Spirit is indeed a righteousness worthy of God's pleasure and acceptance.  It is so worthy not at all because it comes from us, for we are mere creatures, but because it is "Christ in us, the hope of glory."  Our Spirit-wrought righteousness, being the righteousness of Christ in us, is infinitely worthy of God's acceptance.

Edwards grants that, even though Christ took upon himself our sins, he was able to overcome them because he was able to offer to God a satisfaction and a righteousness that could make up for those sins and merit God's positive favor.  He was able to offer God something in return for our sins that God's justice was fully satisfied to accept as a basis for pardon and acceptance.  What Edwards, along with Reformed Protestants in general, failed to recognize is that sanctification amounts to the Spirit applying Christ and his satisfaction and righteousness within us, so that their virtue lives through us.  So Christ's satisfaction works itself out in our lives by our own repentance and turning from sin to God, putting sin to death and being reborn to new righteousness.  Christ's righteousness is applied to and works itself out in our lives in our inward righteousness and our good works, our love to God and neighbor (the heart of the moral law) and the actions that flow from that love.  When we, as reborn children of God, offer to God our repentance and our love and obedience, this is eminently satisfying to God and his moral law, so that he justly pardons our sins and accounts us righteous in his sight.  Christ's satisfaction and righteousness, infused within us and worked out in our lives through our repentance and obedience, reconciles us to God.  There is no boasting here for us, for all of this is entirely a gift of grace.  It is not our own righteousness that reconciles us to God, but Christ's.  The difference between the Reformed Protestant and the Catholic view is not that the Protestant view puts all our hope in Christ's righteousness while the Catholic trusts in his own righteousness.  The difference is that what the Protestant sees as happening only externally (by legal imputation) the Catholic sees as happening internally as well (in our sanctification).  But in both cases, we offer up to God what Christ has given us, and what Christ has given us is infinitely acceptable to him and sufficient to reconcile us to himself.

So there is no need to make justification and sanctification two completely distinct things.  There is no need for God to give to us another righteousness purely by imputation distinct from the righteousness he has given us in sanctification, on account that the righteousness of sanctification is insufficient to reconcile us to God and to warrant God's moral favor.  The righteousness of sanctification is fully sufficient, because it is not a mere creaturely righteousness but a divine righteousness, and so is not worthless but eminently worthy of God's regard, able to wash out our sins and make us right before God.  When we stand before the judgment seat of Christ after this life and at the end of history, and God looks at all that he has accomplished in our lives from beginning to end, he will be fully satisfied with his completed work (for we must remember that sanctification is a process that is not brought to full completion before this life is over).  He will render to us according to our works, and we will forever thank and praise him for his grace and mercy to us in Christ.

I'll close with the words of St. Paul:

There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you. Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together. For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.  (Romans 8:1-18)

For more, see here and here.  (Text at the top of this article from the Council of Trent was taken from the Hanover Historical Texts Project at Hanover College, page number removed.)

Published on the feast of Pope St. Sixtus II and Companions, martyrs, and St. Cajetan.