Justification in Romans

Catholics and protestants disagree on the doctrine of Justification by Faith as clearly elucidated by Saint Paul in the Epistle to the Romans. Catholics hold the 'legal' (subjective) and 'participationist' (objective) models of Romans' theology together in tension and say both are equally true. God does what he declares in justification, and both imputes and imparts Christ's righteousness to us sacramentally in Baptism, which is the Sacrament of Faith. Baptism in turn elicits the response of Faith which has been planted in our souls. The theological virtue of Faith, like Hope and Love, is infused into us by God's grace in Baptism, for in Baptism we are united to Christ's Death and Resurrection and made partakers, participants, in Our Lord's victory over evil, sin and death. Original Sin is the 'alien demonic force' that holds the world in bondage, and explains the incapacity of the Law of Moses to save. The Law points us to Christ, Who alone can save from sin.

By Baptism and its corollary, Faith, we are declared righteous by God for the sake of the merits of Jesus Christ and we are simultaneously made to be what God says we are - the sons of God by adoption and grace. Lutheran and Calvinist readings of Saint Paul tend completely to ignore the 'participationist' model of justification, excluding it entirely in favour of the 'legal' model. For this reason, Lutherans and Calvinists believe 'Faith alone', personal intellectual and emotional trust, apart from the saving infusion of Baptism, is all that justifies a man before God, a purely subjective experience based on the private individual exercise of faith in the Christian person. Hence, protestantism does not believe in an infused grace or righteousness in man given instrumentally in Baptism which precedes our necessary exercise of personal faith: for protestantism, justification is solely and merely legal, a forensic legal fiction in which man is declared righteous but possesses no inherent or internal justification by grace which actually transforms us ontologically. That is the meaning of sola fide. Faith becomes the sole saving action or 'work' in man. Man believes, trusts, has assurance subjectively from his heart, and that it all that is necessary for justification. Catholics say both are needful, the legal declaration from God and the participatory transformation in God. We can see why Luther and Calvin depart from the ecumenical consensus of the undivided catholic Church, because they ignore the second and equally essential model of sacramental participation, with its objective gift of union with Christ in the paschal mystery of the Incarnation, Passion and Resurrection. Catholicism is the balance and proportion of these two themes of Saint Paul in Romans; protestantism is the rejection of one in favour of the other, and is thus imbalanced, lop-sided.