There is no question more important for the Christian than the question of how we are saved. But the Scripture answers this question in apparently various ways as does the Catholic Church from the beginning until now.

Martin Luther

Examples of answers from Scripture include:



St. Peter giving the explicit answer, “repent and be baptized..” (Acts 2:38)

Jesus Himself saying that the one who “endures to the end will be saved.” (Matt 10:22)

St. Paul saying that we are justified by “faith apart from works of the Law.” (Rom 3:28)

St. James saying, “a man is justified by works and not by faith alone.” (James 2:24)

Examples from the Catholic Church include:



St. Ignatius saying that the Eucharist is the “medicine of immortality.”

St. Augustine saying that God “does not without your action justify you.”

The Council of Trent declaring that faith is “the beginning, foundation and root of all justification.”

During the first fifteen hundred years of Christianity the Church theologians felt no need to isolate faith as the unique cause of salvation. Rather Christians followed the New Testament authors and continued to speak of the means of salvation in various interchangeable ways. This cannot possibly be because “faith alone” was so obvious that it was implicitly understood by everyone. First, such a case cannot be made even by Scripture alone apart from the Church fathers. Secondly, going back as far as the first extra-biblical texts, there is a clear and unmistakable sacramental soteriology that is utterly incompatible with the doctrine of Sola Fide (faith alone). Hence renowned Protestant scholar Alistair McGrath writes:

The first centuries of the western theological tradition appear to be characterized by a ‘works-righteousness’ approach to justification . . . The Protestant understanding of the nature of justification thus represents a theological novum.



Yet in spite of this variety, there was no major controversy in the Church about how to understand these apparently different methods until Martin Luther’s theory of sola fide and subsequent schism. So how is it that such a pivotal question, with such a diversity of potential answers, could go so long without causing a major controversy? This is the puzzle.



Reformed systematic theology has a well developed soteriological framework with which to harmonize and prioritize these various potential answers to the question. This framework is composed primarily of two things: 1. The reduction of certain answers into the category of “evidence.” (e.g. righteous works are evidence of, not part of true justification. I will return to this issue below.) 2. A distinction between “justification” and “sanctification.” But this won’t help us solve the puzzle because, like the doctrine of Sola Fide, this distinction is another ‘theological novum.’ That is to say, even if it were a licit theological move, it was not held by the Church fathers and therefore cannot explain the absence of controversy in the 1500+ years prior to its appearance.



The Causes of Salvation

The Council of Trent gives us an insight into this puzzle. When we ask, “how are we saved?” we are fundamentally asking, “what is the cause of salvation?” The bishops at the council explained justification in causal terms in chapter 7 of the 6th session. They divided the causes of salvation into the following types: final, formal, efficient, instrumental, and meritorious.



Before applying these causes to justification, let’s use an example to illustrate the meanings of each type of cause. Imagine you and your young daughter are walking in the park and you see a family having a picnic. Your daughter asks, “why is that family having a picnic?” What she is asking, can be otherwise stated as, “what is the cause of that family having a picnic?” There are many correct ways to answer her because there are many answers that are correct in different ways.



The final cause is the ultimate purpose of the effect. This is also called the “cause of causes” because all of the other causes are themselves caused by it. In the case of the picnic, we could say that the “happiness of the family” is the final cause. The ultimate reason that they went on a picnic is to increase their happiness. This in turn caused the other causes so as to bring about this particular effect.



The efficient cause is the agent who brings the effect about. In this case, the parents would be the efficient cause because they are the ones who planned and executed the picnic.



The meritorious cause would be the labor of the parents. This is the way they earned the money to pay for the picnic and carried out its execution. The children received this benefit but they did not merit it.



The instrumental cause could be the food and the blankets and baskets or perhaps those along with the car that they used to arrive at the park. The instrumental cause is that which is used by an agent to bring about an effect. For example, the carpenter, as agent, is the efficient cause of the nail being driven into the plank and the hammer is the instrumental cause.



I intentionally left out the formal cause because it would be easier to understand in a different example. Imagine the statue of David by Michaelangelo. In this case, the final cause is the enjoyment of the completed artwork, the efficient cause is Michaelangelo, the instrumental cause is the chisel he used, the meritorious cause could perhaps be the labor or money used to purchase the marble out of which it was made, the material cause would be the marble itself, and the formal cause would be the very form or image of David.



The causes of justification are as follows:



Final: The Glory of God (this is why we are justified)

Formal: The justice of God (i.e. sanctifying grace)

Efficient: God Himself

Meritorious: Christ’s meritorious sacrifice on Calvary

Instrumental: Baptism

Now where is faith in all of this? Isn’t faith a cause of justification? Of course. And there are many other causes such as repentance. But before discussing those questions, we should notice that the fathers of the council are dealing with justification on a broader level here. We should also notice that none of these causes are in conflict or tension with each other. So if one asks “what is the cause of salvation” and we answer “baptism,” we are correct. We could also have answered, “the glory of God” or “God is the cause,” etc. The Reformed also are well aware that to say that we are justified “by faith” is not contrary to saying that we are justified “by grace” or “by God.”

Formal, final, efficient, et al, are not only different types of causes but are also different ways of using the word “cause.” That is, “cause” is being used analogically among the different types, not univocally. Contrast this with four animals: dog, deer, bear, rabbit. These are four types of animals, but the word “animal” is being used univocally of each. But in the case of the different types of causes, we mean something different (but analogous) by each type of cause; they each are said to cause the effect in a different kind of way. This is why there is no tension in saying that God alone justifies us and grace alone justifies us. We could not say that dogs alone are animals and rabbits alone are animals; this would be a contradiction. Hence, as Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI once noted, the term “faith alone” can also be correct so long as it is understood to be a living faith (formed by love) and it is not said to the exclusion of other causes such as grace or repentance.

Faith & Other Causes



Now among the causes, some of them can be broken down into further causes. In the case of the statue of David, we could give additional causes for the chisel. In the case of the picnic, we could explain the instruments of the picnic by further causal explanations. For example, the parents needed to go to the grocery store to buy the food, etc. Likewise, we could easily say of baptism, the instrumental cause of justification, that faith is its “beginning, foundation and root” as it is necessarily the case that one first has faith in Christ before baptism can achieve its ultimate effect of conferring sanctifying grace. Repentance is also a necessary cause as is love for God as no man attains salvation without repentance nor is he justified who does not love God. It should be apparent already that we can continue on with other causes of varying types in this order: forgiveness, renewal, penance, etc. Again, none of these are in conflict with each other.

The point to stress here is that this division of justification according to causal principles makes it much easier to see why the New Testament authors, the early Church fathers, the ecumenical councils, and Catholics to this day, readily answer the question of “the cause of salvation” in various ways. The answers are neither imprecise nor in tension with one another; they are all correct.

Yet faith has a certain primacy among causal explanation as is clear from Scripture, the Church fathers, and the Council of Trent. Martin Luther was correct to identify this. But to what is this primacy owing? Its order in time? It is true that one needs to have faith before he can have works of charity. But it is also true that one needs to physically hear the name “Jesus” before one can believe in Him. If we give faith primacy on these logically temporal grounds, then we would need to give the mere hearing of the name of Jesus primacy over faith since it is logically prior and necessary. Yes, without faith it is impossible to please God; but without hearing the gospel it is impossible to have faith. Shall we then say that the mere hearing is the sole cause of justification to the exclusion of other causes? If we are to isolate faith as a cause in exclusion to other known causes, we would need strong justification. We find it neither in reason, Tradition, the Magisterium, nor Scripture. Therefore it must be rejected.

In the case of the picnic example above, it would be absurd to say that the picnic was caused by the presence of the food and blanket to the exclusion of the action of the parents or to the purpose of increasing the happiness of the family, etc. It would be similarly impossible to claim that the statue of David exists because of Michaelangelo to the exclusion of the marble out of which it is made or the image it bears. Likewise it was Martin Luther’s error to hold faith as a cause of salvation in exclusion to other causes such as the sacraments (primarily baptism but also Holy Communion, penance, and last rites), repentance, works of charity, etc. Nor can one say, “we don’t hold faith as the cause of justification to the exclusion of those” because if that were the case, then he affirms the Catholic doctrine of justification and has insufficient reason to remain in schism.

Finally, to refute the Reformed classification of certain causes as mere evidence, we need to make a distinction between what would count as a cause of something and what would count only as evidence of a prior, truer cause. This is not as easy to do as it might sound. Take our picnic example again. If we saw that the family was happy and enjoying the picnic, could we say that was merely an effect, or an evidence of some prior cause? We have said already, in fact, the happiness of the family was not only a cause but was the ultimate cause (the final cause). Likewise, God is not glorified because we are saved; rather, we are saved in order that God might be glorified. So are the Reformed justified in relegating holy works of charity to the category of “evidence” rather than “cause” of justification? It should already be obvious that the answer is, at best, “probably not.” As we will see in upcoming posts, the Church fathers regularly counted works of penance and almsgiving (for example) in the category of “cause” rather than “evidence.”

Conclusion

I have not disproved Sola Fide here. In spite of all the above, it might be true. But if it is true, it must be, as Luther and the Reformers believed, the absolute sine qua non of the Christian gospel. This thought is quite disturbing as, per above, it implies that the entire Church was ignorant of the very gospel core for 1,500 years, and the majority of those calling themselves Christians until this day remain in such darkness. It stretches credulity too much for me. On the other hand, the Catholic Church has an unbroken tradition of how to answer the question, “How are we saved?” This Tradition reaches all the way back to the apostolic Church fathers, and is the most robust and satisfying synthesis of the relevant Biblical passages. Therefore it is many times more likely to be correct than Martin Luther’s “theological novum.”