22. Brief Analysis

Books on ecclesiastical history make it clear that the four points just mentioned, as they are taught in the Protestant churches today, are not new. They were not invented by these three reformers. Instead, they had come into existence as early as the time of the Council of Nicaea and had been passed down by writers after that; they have been preserved as part of the tradition of the Roman Catholic Church.

The reason why Roman Catholics and Protestants agree concerning the trinity of persons in the Divine is that they both recognize the three [ecumenical] creeds in which this concept of a trinity is taught: the Apostles’ Creed; the Nicene Creed; and the Athanasian Creed.

As for the notion that Christ’s merit is assigned to us, the material gathered above in §§3– 8 from the Council of Trent and in §§10– 15 from the Formula of Concord makes it clear that they agree on this point as well.

As for the point about how we are justified, this will now be taken up for further discussion.

24. 4 The leaders of the Protestant Reformation do indeed describe good works as an appendage to faith and even an integral part of faith, but they say we are passive in the doing of them, whereas Roman Catholics say we are active in the doing of them. There is actually strong agreement between Protestants and Catholics on the subjects of faith, works, and our rewards.

3. From the Council of Trent concerning original sin:

(a) The entire Adam, through the offense of his prevarication, was changed, in body and soul, for the worse. The prevarication of Adam injured not only himself but also his posterity; it transfused not only death and pains of the body into the whole human race but also sin itself, which is the death of the soul (Session 5, numbers 1, 2).

(b) This sin of Adam — which in its origin is one, and being transfused by propagation, not by imitation, is in each one as his or her own — cannot be taken away by any other remedy than the merit of the one and only Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ, who reconciled us to God in his own blood, being made justice, sanctification, and redemption for us (Session 5, number 3).

(c) All human beings had lost their innocence in the prevarication of Adam; they became unclean and by nature children of wrath (Session 6, chapter 1).