Justification: the Catholic View (Documentary)

The article of justification is often regarded as crucial in Protestant theology, as it is believed to be the foundation upon which the Church's validity rests. However, many modern Protestants lack a clear understanding of the Catholic Church's teachings on justification. Rather than engaging in polemics, the author intends to provide an explanation of the Catholic doctrine on justification, following the interpretation of St. Thomas Aquinas.
We then give a brief refutation of John Davenant on the Catholic View of Merit.
This channel is a collaborative effort between ‪@MilitantThomist‬ and ‪@UnionistInitiative‬.
Videos Mentioned:
• The Passions in Genera...
• The Specific Passions ...
• Mortal vs. Venial Sins...
• The Particular Examen
Music:
• Manon Solgene ~ Les On...
• Christian H. Godefroy ...
• Stephen Russell - Firs...
Contents:
00:00 - Prologue
00:58 - Intro
01:42 - PART 1 JUSTICE
02:20 - What is Justice?
03:20 - Higher and Lower Faculties
05:47 - Natural and Supernatural Justice
08:35 - Sanctifying Grace
10:32 - PART 2 THE FALL
12:10 - PART 3 CONVERSION
15:59 - The Supernatural Organism
20:41 - PART 4 NOTIONS OF JUSTIFICATION
21:01 - Participation in God
22:30 - Presence of God
24:10 - Union with God
25:05 - PART 5 ASCETICAL AND MYSTICAL LIFE
27:04 - Ascetical Life
33:28 - Mystical Life
35:52 - PART 6 MERIT
37:56 - The Status of The Merit of Good Works
38:38 - Condign Merit vs Congruous Merit
46:09 - Rebuttal
50:34 - Outro
Though Distinguo aims to bring all persons into the Body of Christ. The pieces published reflect the opinions of their authors and are not meant to represent the official position of the Church.
#Catholic #Protestant #Distinguo

[@Distinguo]

Contents: 00:00 - Prologue 00:58 - Intro 01:42 - PART 1 JUSTICE 02:20 - What is Justice? 03:20 - Higher and Lower Faculties 05:47 - Natural and Supernatural Justice 08:35 - Sanctifying Grace 10:32 - PART 2 THE FALL 12:10 - PART 3 CONVERSION 15:59 - The Supernatural Organism 20:41 - PART 4 NOTIONS OF JUSTIFICATION 21:01 - Participation in God 22:30 - Presence of God 24:10 - Union with God 25:05 - PART 5 ASCETICAL AND MYSTICAL LIFE 27:04 - Ascetical Life 33:28 - Mystical Life 35:52 - PART 6 MERIT 37:56 - The Status of The Merit of Good Works 38:38 - Condign Merit vs Congruous Merit 46:09 - Rebuttal 50:34 - Outro

[@user-ud9tk4qg6t]

Frankly, I think you and Christian are doing some of the best work in Catholic apologetics. It's stylized, but not lacking in substance; it's appealing to older people, even though it's aimed at your peers. And it's solid--all the way through. I am no scholar by any stretch of the imagination; but I consider every one of these videos that you publish a graduate level crash course in the faith. Thank you and God bless.

[@FrJohnBrownSJ]

Thank you for this!

[@IanVinh]

This content is the future for Catholic evangelism.

[@kurtnotafed4645]

1 hour? So real for that

[@redeemedzoomer6053]

I’m on the thumbnail but, does this video even actually quote me at all? 😂

[@UnionistInitiative]

I’ll be real. You bring in the views, and unfortunately St. Paul does not :(

[@OneDropIsAllItTakes]

Scholastic Answers, Distinguo, and Since Thirty Three are the best!

[@apologiaromana4123]

Very needed. Thank you!

[@hap1678]

Good work Astro, God bless you!

[@thissaintme]

OMW to share this video with my protestants friends

[@IoannesVI]

Amazing content! Thanks for this. Peace of Christ to you.

[@ShartyMarty117]

Amazingly well done! Beautiful video

[@BrandonCorley109]

Regarding the end, re merit and Davenant, if I may say this: I think the main concern the Reformed have with merit isn’t revolving around it being strict merit (though it may often sound this way) or ex pacto merit, but rather regarding its causality. Davenant is not so much concerned to deny strict condign merit (though he certainly does deny this along with everyone else), as he is to deny to our good works (or anything besides the obedience of Christ) the place of being the material cause of justification. So the issue for Davenant and the Reformed is not so much this: “our good works strictly merit eternal life”, but this: “our good works are the material cause upon the basis of which the right to eternal life is bestowed” since the second (even though being ex pacto and not strict) would simply be the same causality involved in the Covenant of Works.

[@newglof9558]

Excellent stuff

[@igorlopes7589]

Can you please stop being omnipresent? Lmao

[@jordanmiller3927]

Big brain video, I’m going to have to give this a few watches. Thanks for making it!

[@Kingofkings07133]

Great Video Wagner 👌

[@thissaintme]

ANOTHER CLASSIC

[@jackhohne6163]

AMAZIN

[@henryschreiner653]

Great video- you gotta drop the reverb though, it sounds like you’re broadcasting from Patmos

[@canibezeroun1988]

Nah Patmos is a based place

[@TrveLatinCel]

Great vid

[@OstKatholik]

That’s a 10/10 video

[@divineya11]

We are back

[@marykali3603]

Love your neighbor, pray for them. You don’t even have to talk to them and love them, through prayer, through faith alone.

[@gades_gabriel]

good

[@TotusTuus-jf7qz]

Distinguo videos are the only ones I make notes and draw charts from.

[@deeplyhidden4880]

Amazing vid

[@Corpoise0974]

I need this on spodify.

[@prayunceasingly2029]

What book by john Newman was he reading?

[@CatheterCollector]

The key issue is demonstrated in the first three minutes of this video. He starts by explaining justification as being how we are made just or righteous, based on the Latin origin (justificare) of the English word. However, in the bible (which was written in Greek) the word used for justification is dikaiosuné which means to be counted as righteous. This is a huge difference! It makes sense that this became an issue in the Reformation as it took place during the Renaissance as thinkers were going "ad fontes" or back to the sources and literacy rates rose, so thinkers began to realize that in the original language, the bible says justification means to be declared righteous, not made righteous, which has drastic theological implications.

[@MatthewThomas-ye1ei]

It is a big difference in the english but to me it sounds like the greek to latin is pretty spot on.

[@Zeeofficer]

For the algorithm

[@marykali3603]

By being faithful, you have no hate for others, your faith makes your works matter because of the place it stems from. An atheist can do great works, but how do they give the glory to God.

[@setos8]

mr wagner has posted

[@Maskedlapis64]

Where did the purgatory video go

[@kurtnotafed4645]

On the Bellarmite channel

[@RiNickolous]

Why do you keep renaming this video? Is it just for the algorithm?

[@GabrielPereira-hm1cz]

I'm having a hard time understanding merit in purgatory. We can have merit in purgatory because is ordained by God? Is that what you meant? How is that different than our merit in this life? Thanks!

[@MilitantThomist]

The point was that we do not merit in purgatory even while we make acts of charity there. Thus, this demonstrates that the concept of merit has a strict dependence on the covenanting will of God rather than being something extrinsically imposed upon him.

[@GabrielPereira-hm1cz]

@@MilitantThomist I see, thanks for the clarification! The whole video was awesome btw. I'm plaining on doing a bible study on Letter to the Romans, and I'll be drawing form this video when I talk about justification.

[@MilitantThomist]

@@GabrielPereira-hm1cz Wonderful. Check out St. Thomas' commentary on Romans, it is very good!

[@thissaintme]

1HOUR OF QUALITY CONTENT?

[@vincenzorutigliano7239]

Based?

[@Wowowowowowowo]

w big mac

[@CrusaderTube]

W animation

[@johnchurch160]

This is an excellent presentation, but given that it relies so heavily on scholastic terminology and formulation exposition, I know there are fundamentalist Protestants who will not find this convincing. Even if they didn’t disagree with all of it necessarily, they will find it convoluted and useless.

[@canibezeroun1988]

This is aimed at the Baptist and Mainline. You just have to convince Pentacostals that they already believe in sacraments or Fundamentalists that they didn't believe in perpescuity if they have to go to the Greek

[@t.d6379]

Oof, love it ❤

[@paynedv]

999

[@krkenheimer]

Kino

[@setos8]

der toten

[@resvero8342]

W

[@shlamallama6433]

If Christians should be indifferent to external goods, pleasure, and goods of the soul, and to mortify them, is there any reason to use them at all? Should our owning of possessions, our use of pleasure, and our use of the goods of the soul be only insofar as we are weak? How do we ourselves go about determining when to use them in accord with the devout life? How are we to recreate in a way ordered towards God?

[@MilitantThomist]

They can all be justly used and rightly ordered. I wish I would have been able to go into more detail on this point, but I was limited by the format. Basically, it is right and licit to use pleasures for rational ends, e.g., it is right and proper to go on a relaxing walk in order to properly heal your body and soul. The key is to subordinate them to proper ends...due to the effects of the fall, we are apt to become attached to these things. Thus, while it is possible to use them without becoming stained, it is very difficult. So, the evangelical counsels come in to play by detaching the use of them completely. Now, those who actually do have to use them for whatever reason (e.g., a married man needs to own property in order to care for his family) can still practice the evangelical counsels, just in an "affective way," i.e., in practicing the "spirit of the counsels." Thus, while he uses them, he moderates this use as much as possible (e.g., a married man may be simple in his means) and, when he does have to use them, to strongly reject the attachments that may arise to those objects.

[@shlamallama6433]

​@@MilitantThomistI think a future video on how to practice the spirit of the counsels would be very helpful. For example, how does one go about discerning to what degree one is able to limit goods, pleasure, and goods of the soul? I think our ability to do this is hindered by our attachment to goods, but also it is possible for someone to go the opposite direction and do more asceticism than they are able to, either out of pride or maybe even out of spite towards God weirdly enough for taking away temporal goods from them (an example would be where someone who is attached to the good of reading, say, tolkien decides that because God counsels that he forgo as much pleasure as possible decides that all pleasure is wrong and tries to deprive himself of all pleasure such that he becomes ill, dejected, or unstable). Because of the dangers associated with this, it would be helpful to have principles which we can apply to our own situation in order to not be overly lax or overly exhausted. I'm saying this all because my original pursuit of asceticism resulted in the situation I gave in my example above and I had to go to counseling. It's also hard to see for me why I *in particular* should recreate in any particular situation, even though I know that it is required by my limitations. Furthermore, it seems impossible to me in particular that I could actually take delight in any recreation without being attached to it, and I would like to know what that wound entail. This is ultimately something I have to work out with my spiritual director, but it is hard to schedule meetings. Hence a video would be nice to go back to.

[@GTMancz]

​@@shlamallama6433😂xs

[@AbsurdScandal]

​​​@@MilitantThomist I wonder how broadly one can take proper ends in an act. Say you had a pleasurable activity like blowing bubbles, which can be enjoyed even if one isn't tired or fatigued in mind or body, and isn't tied to specific times or contexts like marital relations or eating food are, meaning it can be enjoyed at any time one wants. Would doing such an activity both for the pleasure of it and for other ends such as to glorify God in showing the beauty of His creation make it not an attachment in the technical sense here? Because the pleasure, beauty or fun of blowing bubbles isn't the ONLY reason it's being done, yet it can also be done whenever one wants to do it because it's not tied to specific faculties like reproduction or nutrition. In fact, the pleasure of doing it isn't rooted in a faculty that has to do with basic survival or reproduction, so it's not subordinated to basic ends humans need to achieve to continue existing. Yet it can still be done for other ends at the same time, meaning fun or pleasure isn't the ONLY reason or end for which it is done.

[@igorlopes7589]

​@@AbsurdScandal I think these pleasures would fall under the sin of sloth if not used with temperance

[@soulosxpiotov7280]

So help me understand - is it faith ALONE....or....faith PLUS COOPERATION in good works - to be justified before God?

[@UnionistInitiative]

Timestamp 13:15 explains how we can affirm “faith alone” as opposed to the law as faith working through love in Galatians 5:3-6. Here justification is to turn to right order towards God (this is the intro of the video on it’s definition, but this becomes evident if you just read Justice as right order in general) by Love, which is the perfection of the will (John 14:21) and Faith, which is the perfection of the intellect (Hebrews 11:1). On “cooperation” it’s sort of an unhelpful term because in what sense we can merit or not merit (acts which flow from sanctifying grace) is defined starting from timestamp 34:00. This video was specifically not a demonstration of our view from scripture, but just an outline of what it was and how it was defined by St. Thomas and his disciples. + answers to certain objections to it. So it doesn’t really phrase things in these ways that come hundreds of years later. If you’d like, the creator of the script @militantthomist has a playlist on this topic.

[@soulosxpiotov7280]

@@UnionistInitiative "This video was specifically not a demonstration of our view from scripture" - see, this is the issue, you're not taking your view from Scripture, which is God breathed - you've come up with your own 'system' - and the matter isn't that Protestants disagree with you, the matter is that you're not understanding God's perspective. Yes, you can use brain power and logic and some nice fancy usage of the English language, but what is being espoused, since 'justification is faith working in love - i.e., not Christ's imputation to the new believer FRONT LOADED, ALL OF IT, NONE MORE TO ADD, FULL STOP - but yet is still faith from works even though you deny it. YOU CANNOT APPROACH GOD THIS WAY - Christ showed this in Luke 18. It's for this reason that us Evangelicals/Baptists/ Fundamentalist say that many if not most Roman Catholics and many if not most PROTESTANTS are going to the Lake of Fire, because you really are 'giving something to God to be justified' - and God will not accept it. Hopefully in your lifetime, you'll understand, and repent, and come to the right kind of saving faith in Christ so as to avoid God's wrath.

[@UnionistInitiative]

⁠​⁠​⁠​​⁠​⁠​⁠​⁠​​⁠​⁠ it is derived from scripture, that’s just not what the video is about. Your entire comment assumes this and then ignores our distinctions which is ofc a strawman. I recommend rewatching the end of the video again which directly refutes your claim that we believe we bind God to justify us on the basis of our merit. Surely when we say these things and mean it in the sense of God crowning his own gifts and only merit something in the sense of our actions which flow forth from the Holy Spirit 45:00. Denying this is just denying we have certain actions or something. As per imputation which isn’t in scripture whereas Galatians 5:6 is. As for boasting of works and Luke 18 we agree it’s bad. This is what we mean by removing attachments in 27:00. Dwong also has a video on this. Please watch again with an open mind and really try to digest what this video is about. St. Paul says to test all things and so trying to understand what is being said is important before you launch a criticism that is addressed in the video and purposefully not trying to understand what we are saying.

[@soulosxpiotov7280]

@@UnionistInitiative "I recommend rewatching the end of the video again which directly refutes your claim that we believe we bind God to justify us on the basis of our merit. Surely when we say these things and mean it in the sense of God crowning his own gifts and only merit something in the sense of our actions which flow forth from the Holy Spirit 45:00." - if you removed the "working in love" after the word faith - would a person be justified by faith at the very onset, all of it, APART from "working in love" over time? Is justification front loaded, all of it, or is justification something that pans out over time as a result of "working in love" ? Because if it's because of your actions, it is in fact meritorious even though you deny it to be so. If you believe that justification is "faith working in love" over time as a result of your cooperation in that you ALLOW Christ to "work in the person" as that person COOPERATES in their justification, then this is in fact meritorious, you're expecting eternal life as a result as such. This is in fact "faith + works to be justified", and does fall under the non-justified lawyer who BOASTED, and not the tax collector who went home justified as Christ said in Luke 18. You can deny this if you wish, you won't be able to, because either Christ gets ALL the credit or you get part of it as a result of your "working in love."

[@soulosxpiotov7280]

@@UnionistInitiative "As per imputation which isn’t in scripture whereas Galatians 5:6 is. " - it appears you haven't read Phil 3:9. Rom 4:6, Rom 10:1-4, Rom 5:17 and 2 Cor 5:21. Also, Gal 5:6 isn't about justification (which is being saved from God's wrath as a result of sin), but sanctification, being saved from sin's POWER.

[@Arpitan_Carpenter]

TOO HARD.

[@reformationpresdotorg]

So glad the Romanists are rediscovering our father, Augustine. He was the first Jansenist. I mean the first Calvinist. Of course we also can pray to St. Gottschalk for enlightenment of our intellext. If Rome can follow Jimmy Akin and this video, then she can rejoin the church. Semper Reformanda!

[@racks9152]

Unfortunately, St. Augustine owns you

[@danieljoyce6199]

Elaborate

[@racks9152]

I finished the video and maybe I was wrong. I have to regroup.

[@MilitantThomist]

True. I have not stepped one inch from the pure teaching of the Doctor of Grace.

[@billybobwombat2231]

Same batshit crazy god, different buildings

[@onceamusician5408]

the question MUST be asked what is faith such that it is either with or without any other thing? And actually what ALSO MUST BE ASKED is what kind of works count if works do count. if ANYONE is trying to EARN his salvation or by the same token BUY OFF HIS WRATH these are an affront to God for they are DEAD WORKS, for in tis issue motive is everything. Nothing forced can ever be sincere, this by the meaning of the words, and insincerity as a synonym for hypocrisy is an affront to God legalism is to forsake Christ to seek to perfect oneself and any legislated :"good work" is thus worthless for it comes from this position. the very worst part of Catholicism is not what most protestants think it is. it is canon law, for the very act of legislating works is to forsake christ for the law and to violate the real purpose of the Law , which is diagnostic as regard sin, and diagnostic ONLY. as for invoking James , faith without works being dead, you do not fill dead faith with dead works ( ie works coerced by law) and hope to have solved anything. so Catholicism is out of court BUT faith is NOT mere assent to certain propositions, it is interpersonal and relational TRUST namely one man and His God . so protestantism is out of court also i also hold that protestant ism started as a hate movement. what what it hated, Romanism , really was evil , so it was not slanderous but it was a bad and unspiritual response. every time a catholic has tried to convince me FROM SCRIPTURE as to their church religion I have only been stunned at the eisegesis being presented to me. somewhere along the line dishonest scholarship was done. so no. i am not impressed i know i haev wasted my time writing this so i will be gone , wl block your channel and not bother you again

[@MilitantThomist]

Mfw, he didn't watch the video

[@pj1683]

dude, canon law has nothing to do with an individual's spiritual life what are you on about

[@MNo-lu6br]

​@@pj1683Indulgences yes, selling afterlife tickets basically, it's matketing genius but really evil in reality

[@marykali3603]

Let’s put it another way; if you are alone, read The Bible, pray to Jesus, and truly believe and have faith, you’re in!

[@Christ_is_King-]

@@MNo-lu6brone guy sold indulgences. Indulgences only apply to purgatory anyway it’s not a get into heaven card

[@sebastianofmilan]

For the algorithm