Another Works Thread

[dairygirl4u2c]

[quote]We now come to the different states in the process of justification.[/quote]

[url="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08573a.htm"]http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08573a.htm[/url]

[dairygirl4u2c]

[quote]Since our Divine adoption and friendship with God is based on perfect love of God or charity (cf. Galatians 5:6; 1 Corinthians 13; James 2:17 sqq.), dead faith devoid of charity (fides informis) cannot possess any justifying power. Only such faith as is active in charity and good works (fides caritate formata) can justify man, and this even before the actual reception of baptism or penance, although not without a desire of the sacrament (cf. Trent, Sess. VI, cap. iv, xiv).[/quote]

[url="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08573a.htm"]http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08573a.htm[/url]

i am not sure about the wording of this, how it says "before baptism", but, it does say works justify. and i think they've said that you are justified at the beginning of the process.

so again... how can one become more justified when one already is? looking at the encylopedia closer... it must be like i said about dung v. the person, cause that's pretty much what they said:

[quote]In order to exclude the Protestant idea of a merely forensic absolution and exterior declaration of righteousness, special stress is laid on the fact that we are justified by God's justice, not that whereby He himself is just but that whereby He makes us just, in so far as He bestows on us the gift of His grace which renovates the soul interiorly and adheres to it as the soul's own holiness (Trent, l. c., cap. vii: "Unica formalis causa [justificationis] est justitia Dei, non qua ipse justus est, sed qua nos justos facit, qua videlicet ab eo donati, renovamur spiritu mentis nostrae: et non modo reputamur, sed vere justi nominamur et sumus, justitiam in nobis recipientes unusquisque suam"). This inner quality of righteousness and sanctity is universally termed "sanctifying (or habitual) grace", and stands in marked contrast to an exterior, imputed sanctity, as well as to the idea of merely covering and concealing sin. By this, however, we do not assert that the "justitia Dei extra nos" is of no importance in the process of justification. For, even if it is not the formal cause of justification (causa formalis), it is nevertheless its true exemplar (causa exemplaris), inasmuch as the soul receives a sanctity in imitation of God's own holiness.[/quote]

i guess... a person is just for heaven, or at least purgatory purposes, but until and during they are interiorly made clean in sacification, full justification is not completed.

Edited May 20, 2008 by dairygirl4u2c