The Decree on Justification (Session Six decretum de iustificatione) from the Council of Trent contains sixteen brief chapters and then condemns thirty-three opinions of the Protestant Reformers.
Perhaps the most important passage in the decree is the seventh chapter listing the “five causes of justification.” They are as follows:
- the final cause indeed is the glory of God and of Jesus Christ, and life everlasting
- the efficient cause is a merciful God who washes and sanctifies gratuitously, signing, and anointing with the holy Spirit of promise, who is the pledge of our inheritance
- the meritorious cause is His most beloved only-begotten, our Lord Jesus Christ, who, when we were enemies, for the exceeding charity wherewith he loved us, merited Justification for us by His most holy Passion on the wood of the cross, and made satisfaction for us unto God the Father
- the instrumental cause is the sacrament of baptism, which is the sacrament of faith, without which (faith) no man was ever justified
- lastly, the alone formal cause is the justice of God, not that whereby He Himself is just, but that whereby He maketh us just, that, to wit, with which we being endowed by Him, are renewed in the spirit of our mind, and we are not only reputed, but are truly called, and are, just, receiving justice within us, each one according to his own measure, which the Holy Ghost distributes to every one as He wills, and according to each one’s proper disposition and co-operation.
Note that the meritorious cause is the suffering and death of Christ. Human being are not the source of the justifying merit. Note also that the sacraments are “instrumental”. The sacraments are the “instruments” in the hand of Christ.
The formal cause is the “justice of God” not our own justice. Nevertheless, we receive His “justice within us, each one according to his own measure.”
Not even a foaming-at-the-mouth Calvinist can find fault with this aspect of Trent. It’s air-proof.
Any thoughts from either Catholics or Protestants?
Taylor was an Episcopal priest in Fort Worth, Texas before being received into the Catholic Church by Bishop Kevin Vann of Fort Worth.
Taylor was also formerly the Assistant Director of the Catholic Information Center in Washington, D.C., located three blocks north of the White House, where he lectured regularly. He was served under Archbishop John J. Myers and Msgr. William Stetson for the Pastoral Provision of John Paul II, the canonical structure by which Anglican clergy are received into the Catholic Church and then go on to pursue Holy Orders in the Catholic Church.
He is a graduate of Westminster Theological Seminary (M.A.R. Theology), Nashotah Theological House (Certificate in Anglican Studies), and University of Dallas (M.A. Philosophy). He is currently a Ph.D. student in Philosophy at the University of Dallas where he studies the Natural Law theory of Saint Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologiae Ia Iaa qq. 94-108). Taylor and his wife live in Dallas, Texas with their five children. He is the author of The Catholic Perspective on Paul (forthcoming).
Visit his personal site at: www.taylormarshall.com
Taylor is also the Editor of Christian and American at: www.christianandamerican.com. 
…receiving justice within us, each one according to his own measure, which the Holy Ghost distributes to every one as He wills, and according to each one’s proper disposition and co-operation.
Seems to imply that Justice is measured not declarative. Words like proper disposition and co-operation seem to lay justice back on the one being justified. Seeing justification more as sanctificaion in process rather than as a legal declaration of right standing before God based on Christs merits. This seems always to be the protestant vs. Catholic arguement. Biblically Justice is delarative not a process. I would be open to see support to the contrary.
“Biblically Justice is delarative not a process. I would be open to see support to the contrary.”
This just seem to be wrong. Firstly; your argument is based on a false dichotomy, between ‘declaration’ and ‘process.’ These words describe two different things. Secondly; when God decleares something to be something else, it really becomes that. God isn’t a human judge who simply decleares a man innocent. God really makes you just. But we know from experience that we don’t always act perfectly. Therefore we are either not just – which is simply unbiblical – or we are in a process in which we are being justified, which seems to be completely biblical. See for example Phil 3,10-14:
“I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.” (NRSV)
Couple this with Phil 2,12-13: “Therefore, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed me, not only in my presence, but much more now in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” (NRSV)
We work, but it is “God who is at work in you.” Just as Taylor points out.
I would say the most significant points are nros 4 and 5. And Protestants would indeed find fault with them. For good Protestants, the instrumental cause is faith and faith alone, whereas the sole formal cause is the active and passive obedience of Christ, i.e. “the righteousness of Christ”, i.e. what they often also call the righteousness of God by which he makes us righteous. Protestants would never accept that the formal cause of our justification is something by which we are renewed in the spirit of our mind, no, the formal cause is and must be totally outside us, extra nos. It is a declaration in God’s divine lawcourt, in his mind.
For Wes, it is overly simplifying to talk about what justification is “biblically”. There are many different uses of the dik-root (words related to justification) in the Bible. For Pauline uses that fit worst with a declarative scheme and better with a moral or constitutive one, see eg Romans 5:18-19 and 6:6-19 as well as 1 Cor 6:11. There is a passage in 2 Cor too, I forget where exactly, somewhere around chapters 8-9 I think.
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