Universalism as taking

classical Christian claims are coherent , the only way they can be coherent is in
the form of one of the classical universalist

a view of that Wrath and retribution as wrong, comes with it the story of of an
eternal hell in which we are asked to believe of the say of the
unbaptized or of the unconverted or maybe even just of the people who are just
morally unlucky that an infinite creative intelligence that is also infinite love
and justice would actually create conditions that would lead to rational nature
suffering eternal torment , these ideas universalist look atas contradictory so

b theory of time

God can ensure one that one way or another you're given a free choice that is
genuinely free
and does not have a predetermined conclusion

as i know the righteousness by which protestant say they are justified is an alien
righteousness or
righteousness that is outside of believers, so an external act by which God
declares the siner to be righteous,
so sins are imputed to the acount of Jesus and the righteoussnes of Jesus is
imputed on the sinner

declaration made outside of a person, and as i understand there is a certain

distinction betweeen the justification and regeneration

is it an ongoing forensic justification, apart from the ongoing transoformating

process or sanctification process

it's very misleading to use this

faith plus works as a summary of the
catholic position
we don't believe you have to do good works to get into a state of justification
catholic church the magisterium never uses faith and works as a summary of its view
on justification

after we
become christians and are forgiven at
the beginning of the christian life
obviously we need
to be forgiven for our sins as we go
along in the christian life
but we're also growing in holiness under
the influence of god's grace so
that transformative righteousness is
also growing within us

the catholic church also speaks of

that
as justification and so there's a kind
of second stage or second just type of
justification

the typoe of justification in James:

2 James
where james says you see that a man is
justified by works and not by faith alone
and the example james gives is Abraham
he says you see how by willing
being willing to sacrifice isaac abraham
was
faith was working with his works and he
was further justified

catholic church
assigns that to this second type or
stage of justification
where we grow in righteousness by
cooperating with god's grace and doing
acts of love

Titus 3:5 regenaration through baptism

expression justified by faith alone has been used by catholics historically it's
been used for example by saint thomas aquinas

Trent Chpater 8 , So Trent

what it condemned was a specific use or in its view misuse of the formula faith
alone

So the type of faith Tren doesnt condemen and new Catholic theologians were using
is justification by a
particular type of faith known as faith formed by love or what saint paul describes
in galatians 5 as faith working through love

Romans 4
the type of work he has primarily in mind is works of the law meaning actions done
in order to obey the mosaic law
When Pual says if you're obeying the mosaic law whatever you're doing if you're
obeying the mosaic law because you think that
is what will make you right with God you're wrong because what will make you right
with God is christ not the mosaic law

psalm passage
refers to the acquisition or in david's
case
the re-acquisition of righteousness so
after having fallen into sin
coming back repenting and coming back to
god and being
made righteous again in god's sight by
his forgiveness

genesis 15
i think that fits the um
the ongoing growth and holiness aspect
of justification

these two are used to show you can be right in God's sight
without obeying the mosaic law

Pistis

there are mutliple terms used for faith in Bible, like an intellectual assent when
the verse about demons believing and shuttering
then intelectual belief + trust, fait + hope , fiducial faith ?

we also have another type of faith where you have uh as a result of being in this
relationship with god he has endowed you with charity or
supernatural loveand so you have what paul refers to asfaith working through loveor
what the theologians in the middleagesand subsequently have referred to asfaith
formed by charity

so basically the first nine chapters of

trent's decree on justification are all
dealing in one way or another with
initial justification
(walks us through how we come to God and how we become justified)
so by God grace before you're justified you can begin to
believe in god and begin to hope in god
and begin to love god
but these still aren't the full
theological virtues because
as the next chapter explains those are
infused into you at the point you are
justified

not until chapter 10 that we hit

the second stage
of justification

there's a distinction between these

kind of preliminary
things that are not the virtues
themselves but that
are sort of foreshadowing the virtues
and then you get the actual virtues once
you're in the state of justification
so if you're talking about what you need
to get in to a state of justification
you don't need charity you need
repentance

charity does
not get you
into a state of justification charity
flows
from the state of justification and as a
result
good works meaning works inspired by
charity
or works inspired by supernatural love
are
only possible for the justified
you you cannot even do such works prior
to justification

It is not merely a legal righteousness, divorced from all other forms of

righteousness. Instead, it is a real, objective righteousness with which God
clothes man’s soul while removing his previous, soiled, guilty garment and also
planting the seed of true, supernatural, righteous love in his heart.
The Christian will still require much growth, but this is the essence of the
righteousness he receives at the time he first enters Christ