2. Roman Catholic Teachings Concerning Justification, Taken from the Council of Trent

In the papal bull issued by the Roman pope Pius IV on November 13, 1564, we read the following:

I embrace and accept each and every thing that has been defined and declared by the holy Council of Trent concerning original sin and justification.

63. How did it come about that theologians attributed merely human qualities to God? The underlying cause is that all spiritual perception and enlightenment come from the Lord alone. The Lord is the Word, or divine truth. He is the true light that enlightens everyone (John 1:1, 9). He says, “I have come into the world as a light so that anyone who believes in me will not remain in darkness” (John 12:46). This light and the awareness that is gained from it flow only into people who acknowledge the Lord as the God of heaven and earth and who turn to him alone. This light and awareness do not flow into people who think in terms of three gods, as has been happening since the early establishment of the Christian church. Because the idea of three gods is an earthly notion, the only light it receives is earthly. It is incapable of opening up to receive any inflow of spiritual light. This is why the only qualities people have seen in God have been earthly in nature.

For another thing, if theologians had realized the vast incongruity between their ideas and the true divine essence, and had removed these ideas from the teachings on justification, this would obviously have amounted to a complete abandonment of a Christianity that had always been centered on the worship of three gods. [No alternative was available] before the predetermined time for the new church, when fullness and restoration would come.

27. At first glance, these pairs of statements make it appear as though there is complete agreement between Protestants and Catholics. Protestants, to prevent this from actually being the case, drew a distinction between the works of the law, which flow forth from our own will and are part of our own plan, and the works of the Spirit, which flow forth from faith as a free and spontaneous source; these good works they call the fruits of faith; see §§11 h, k; 13 a, i, k; 15 k.

If you put the statements of both parties side by side and look deeply at them, you will observe that the two see no difference in the works themselves; all the difference lies in how the works come about. That is, Protestants see us as playing a passive role in the production of these good works, whereas Catholics see us as playing an active role in them. Therefore the Protestant view is that good works occur spontaneously as if they were coming from our intellect but not at the same time from our will. They say this because people cannot help being aware of good works when they are occurring, since the people themselves are doing them, and becoming aware is a function of the intellect.

Nevertheless, Protestants also preach that we are to practice repentance and to battle against [the desires of] our own flesh; see §13 d, e, f, g, h, j. Since we cannot do these things without having a plan and exercising our own will — that is, acting seemingly as if we were doing so on our own — therefore the two positions agree in actuality.