Gerðir kirkjuþings - 1995, Side 117

- 'Where, however, Lutheran teaching construes the relation of God to his human
creatures in justification with such emphasis on the divine 'monergism or the sole
efficacy of Christ in such a way, that the person’s willing acceptance of God’s grace -
which is itself a gift of God - has no essentáal role in justification, then the Tridentine
canons 4, 5, 6 and 9 stili constitute a notable doctrinal difference on justification'
(PCPCU 22).
-'The strict emphasis on the passivity of human beings conceming their justification
never meant, on the Lutheran side, to contest the full personal participatíon in believ-
íngr rather it meant to exclude any cooperation in the event of justification itself.
Justification is the work of Christ alone, the work of grace alone' (VELKD 84,3-8).
To 42: Justification as forgiving sins and counting believers as righteous (paras.
21-23)
(USA, nos. 98-101; LV:E 47ff; VELKD 84ff; cf. also the quotations to 4.4)
- 'By justifícation we are both declared and made righteous. Justification, therefore, is
not a legal fiction. God, in justifying, effects what he promises; he forgives sin and
makes us truly righteous' (USA, no. 156,5).
- 'Protestant theology does not overlook what Catholic doctrine stresses: the creative
and renewing character of God’s love; nor does it maintain ... God’s impotence toward
a sin which is ’merely’ forgiven in justification but which is not truly abolished in its
power to divide the sinner from God' (LV:E 49).
- 'The Lutheran doctrine has never understood the ’crediting of Christ’s justifícation’
as without effect on the life of the faithful, because Christ’s word achieves what it
promises. Accordingly the Lutheran doctrine understands grace as God’s favor, but
nevertheless as effective power ... ’for where there is forgiveness of sins, there is also
life and salvation" (VELKD 86,15-23).
- 'Catholic doctrine does not overlook what Protestant theology stresses: the personal
character of grace, and its link with the Word; nor does it maintain ... grace as an
objective ’possession’ (even if a conferred possession) on the part of the human being
- something over which he can dispose' (LV:E 49).
To 4.3: The Sinfulness of the Justified (paras. 24-26)
(USA, nos. 102ff; LV:E 44ff; VELKD 81ff)
- 'For however just and holy, they fall from time to time into the sins that are those
of daily existence. What is more, the Spirit’s action does not exempt believers from
the lifelong struggle against sinful tendencies. Concupiscence and other effects of
original and personal sin, according to Catholic doctrine, remain in the justified, who
therefore must pray daily to God for forgiveness' (USA, no. 102).
- 'The doctrines laid down at Trent and by the Reformers are at one in maintaining
that original sin, and also the concupiscence that remains, are in contradiction to God
... object of the lifelong struggle against sin ... After baptism, concupiscence in the
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