ARTICLE I.

WHETHER THE JUSTIFICATION OF THE

WICKED IS THE REMISSION OF SINS

The reply is in the affirmative; it is of faith and opposed to Protestant teaching. For Protestants contended that by justification, the sins of the sinner were not really effaced or removed, but remained in their entirety in man, being merely covered over or no longer imputed to him.

Proof from the Council of Trent, Sess. V, can. 5, (Denz., no. 792): “If anyone denies that through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, conferred in baptism, the guilt of original sin is remitted, or even asserts that all that is included in the true and proper reason of sin is not removed, but is only said to be erased or not imputed, let him be anathema.”

This definition of the Church’s faith is based on many texts of Sacred Scripture: “Blot out my iniquity…blot out all my iniquities….Thou shalt wash me, and I shall be made whiter than snow” (Ps. 50); “I am he that blot out thy iniquities for My own sake” (Isa.  43:25); “And I will pour upon you clean water, and you shall be cleansed from all your filthiness” (Ezech. 36:25); “Behold the Lamb of God, behold Him who taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29); “The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin” (I John 1:7); “The unjust shall not possess the kingdom of God.  Do not err; neither fornicators…nor adulterers, nor the effeminate…nor extortioners, shall possess the kingdom of God. And such some of you were; but you are washed, but you are sanctified, but you are justified” (I Cor. 6:9-11). Again, St. Augustine writes, refuting two letters of Pelagius (Ad Bonifacium, Bk. I, chap. 12): “We hold that baptism bestows remission of sins and removes our crimes, not merely erasing them.”1

Theological proof. Since justification is derived from justice, taken passively, it implies a motion toward justice, as calefaction imparts a motion toward heat. But the justice with which we are here concerned requires of a man not merely rectitude toward another man, but toward God, inasmuch as reason is subject to God and lower powers to reason, which rectitude excludes injustice or mortal sin.  Therefore the justification of a sinner is a transmutation to the state of justice demanding the remission of sins.

This reasoning is based on the definition of motion which is from a contrary to a contrary, that is, from the terminus a quo, namely, the state of sin or injustice, to the terminus ad quem, which is the state of justice. However, justification may also be, as in Adam before the fall and in the angels, a simple generation, that is, from privation to a form. This mode of justification is appropriate to one who is not in sin, as stated in the body of the article.2

Reply to second objection. It is noted that this transmutation is named from justice rather than from charity since justice demands the complete rectitude of order in general and is thus distinguished as a special virtue.

Reply to third objection. According to the words of St. Paul: “Whom He called, them He also justified” (Rom. 8:30), vocation precedes justification as it excites one to give up sin. 

Confirmation of the reply by reduction ad absurdum. If in the justification of the wicked, sins remain and are merely covered over but not effaced, it follows:

1. that man is simultaneously just and unjust: just because justified, and unjust because he remains in habitual mortal sin, which is essentially injustice;

2. that God loves sinners as His friends;

3. that Christ is not the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world

4. that He spoke a falsehood when He said: “Now you are clean” (John 15:3);

5. that God’s evaluation, reputing him to be just who is in sin, must be false. These are the arguments generally proposed by theologians against the so-called Reformers.