A better question is "does scripture teach imputation?" but before either the question you ask or the one I asked can be answered: what is imputation?Reformed theology - and most all the Protestants who came from the Reformation - believe that the righteousness of Christ (which he accomplished during his earthly humiliation) is imputed to believers. This means that Christ's perfect obedience to the Father is credited to the account of believers such that they are seen as perfectly righteous in the eyes of God and are justified. The same is true with Adam's sin. The guilt of Adam's sin is imputed to all who are "in Adam" (credited to their account). So all who are in Adam are guilty by virtue of his sin.
Do Catholics deny the doctrine of Christ's imputed righteousness? If so, why?
"In the evening of this life, I shall appear before You with empty hands, for I do not ask You, Lord, to count my works. All our justice is stained in Your eyes. I wish, then, to be clothed in Your own Justice and to receive from Your Love the eternal possession of Yourself."
I don't believe that the doctrine of imputed righteousness arose as an attempt to solve a theological quandary related to baptism. The Bible teaches imputed righteousness and so did many early church fathers (although the doctrine had not been completely developed until the Reformation).
Looks like you and I would agree, you would agree with Augustine and pre-reformation Christian theology, but some Calvinist/Reformed/Lutheran types would be quite clear that 'imputed' alone is the only real deal. That 'infused' is of the devil. That our reality in Christ really is a dung heap covered with a nice fresh cover of snow.
Imputation is a legal fiction where everything is made to look good, the judge has spoken, the verdict is changed from guilty to innocent. Grace is a cover, a blanket.
According to what I understand based on my reading of the Joint Declaration on Justification, and reading Catholic devotional works, not necessarily.
It's sort of like how Lutherans don't deny that there is a "new obedience" in the Christian. We acknowledge that, but it doesn't have the same place in Lutheran systematic theology that it does in Catholicism. I suspect the same is true regarding imputed righteousness in Roman Catholicism.
I am reminded of a prayer by St. Therese of Lisieux that speaks to something of this:
So, it seems to me, imputed righteousness is potentially compatible with Catholicism.
Reformed theology - and most all the Protestants who came from the Reformation - believe that the righteousness of Christ (which he accomplished during his earthly humiliation) is imputed to believers. This means that Christ's perfect obedience to the Father is credited to the account of believers such that they are seen as perfectly righteous in the eyes of God and are justified. The same is true with Adam's sin. The guilt of Adam's sin is imputed to all who are "in Adam" (credited to their account). So all who are in Adam are guilty by virtue of his sin.
Do Catholics deny the doctrine of Christ's imputed righteousness? If so, why?
I take it when God declares something it is actually so. A legal statement of a reality, which is what I think Paul would agree to. Reformed people have emphasized to me many times that we do not become just, but are only as if just in the mind of God. To me they have to be one and the same. To most Bible reading Christians they would have to be one and the same as well.Nothing God declares is a legal fiction, it's a promise.
I would argue, from what I have heard over the years from Protestants, that most of them will agree with Catholics in concept that imputation and infusion go together. I think it is a less common bird, the Reformed, who distinguish imputation to be without any infusion.In general Catholics accept the " Augustine" view of infused righteousness, rather than Protestant view of imputed.
Catholics believe that Gods purpose, in allowing sin/evil to have free reign in His universe for a time to begin with, is not to merely, at some later date, suddenly decide to save some otherwise worthless wretches and damn the rest but rather to bring about an even greater good out of the whole endeavor than that which He started with. He doesn't decide to ignore justice but rather to restore it to His wayward creation and bring about even more justice or holiness yet. God loves and esteems man inestimably and wants the best for-and from-us. We're not only forgiven, washed, and made new creations, but we're also to 'go, and sin no more'.Reformed theology - and most all the Protestants who came from the Reformation - believe that the righteousness of Christ (which he accomplished during his earthly humiliation) is imputed to believers. This means that Christ's perfect obedience to the Father is credited to the account of believers such that they are seen as perfectly righteous in the eyes of God and are justified. The same is true with Adam's sin. The guilt of Adam's sin is imputed to all who are "in Adam" (credited to their account). So all who are in Adam are guilty by virtue of his sin.
Do Catholics deny the doctrine of Christ's imputed righteousness? If so, why?
Short answer: yes.
This isn't a subject to which I've devoted a tremendous amount of study. But if I had to guess, I would say it's at least partly due to the Catholic view of baptism. Specifically, that baptism essentially results in a new creation by God. Out with the old (original/inherited sin) and in with the new (eg, a new creature), as per 2 Corinthians 5, particularly verse 17.
The word which keeps popping up is infusion (eg, a pouring-in which is done intentionally) rather than imputation (eg, an exchange which is possibly done completely arbitrarily).
Assuming I'm right about any of this, the disconnect here seems to be that Protestants and Catholics broadly agree that a sinner needs something more than his natural (eg, sinful) state to enter Heaven. Logically, he must be made righteous in some fashion or another.
Catholics view the modality whereby this process begins to be baptism, a sacrament which the Church teaches offers (among other things) sanctifying graces.
Protestants, however, often view baptism as a merely symbolic activity. And yet, even the Protestants understand that righteousness is still missing from the equation as we cannot be righteous on our own. Imputed righteousness, then, solves the problem of a lack of righteousness in a sinner's natural state and also what these types of Protestants believe is a lack of sanctifying graces resulting from baptism. Instead, imputation begins (I presume) at the moment a repentant soul places his faith in Our Lord.
I welcome correction from a more knowledgeable Catholic on any of the points I raised above.
True. There are guidelines for that but as a general thing, anybody can baptize someone.A couple of things -- isn't it also the Catholic view (and that of most Christians) that any believer can baptize another believer. We are happy to have a pastor/priest do that, because they do it correctly, but any believer can do it correctly, and it's then entirely full. (That's Catholic doctrine also I think, but you can check)
That is the western reformed view not the Orthodox view
No. But we do understand it differently.
You described accurately what I understand to be the Reformed position:
The operative phrase there is 'is seen as'. The Catholic position would word it as follows: This means that Christ's perfect obedience to the Father is credited to the account of believers such that they are reborn as perfectly righteous in the eyes of God and are justified. The Reformed and the Lutheran position is that this righteousness of Christ covers up a continuing unrighteousness in the sinner. A legal fiction. Snow covering a heap of dung in Luther's words. The Catholic position is that the dung is gone. No legal fiction. Imputation, the legal term, the Biblical term, coincides with an actual rebirth. The scales don't lie, one is not said to be righteous when it isn't so. God condemns that kind of lie many times in the Bible.
So Catholics do imputation differently. What is imputed is also made to be so, and it does not stay a mere legal fiction.
You quote:"For our sake he made him to be sin who did not know sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him." 2 Corinthians 5:21 NABRE (Catholic Bible)
Why would the RCC deny that which is spelled out so clearly in the scripture?
We know them by their fruits. And what is worship if not prayer and veneration? Where a man's treasure is, there his heart is also. The Bible is all about broad brush painting. Saved. Lost. Right. Wrong. Heaven. Hell.
There is no ambiguity here. You don't have to talk to a sinner to know they are a sinner and are going straight to hell without Christ. The Word of God is true. Catholics do not follow it.
God determines what is and is not sin, so God’s Law provides a list of actions and thoughts that are sin. We “die” because the system for fulfilling our earthly objective requiring sin and death. Adam and Eve showed us and them: “We could not fulfill our earthly objective without first sinning.”This is not an orthodox view. Death, sin, and legal guilt are all interrelated. 1 Corinthians 15:56 says - "The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law." This is to say that we die because of the legal penalty due to us because of sin. "The wages of sin is death". People are mortal because Adam's guilt is imputed to them as their federal, covenant head. Romans 5:15 says that many died through the one man's trespass.
I've always found the whole eastern - western thing to be a bit confusing. I mean, did the Reformation begin in the east or west? Did it thrive and grow first in the east or west? So it spread to the west and now it's "western"? See I do not get it, because the theology is not exclusive to the west, and actually came from the east. Sorry just a peeve, east/west pride, ugh.
Reformed theology - and most all the Protestants who came from the Reformation - believe that the righteousness of Christ (which he accomplished during his earthly humiliation) is imputed to believers. This means that Christ's perfect obedience to the Father is credited to the account of believers such that they are seen as perfectly righteous in the eyes of God and are justified. The same is true with Adam's sin. The guilt of Adam's sin is imputed to all who are "in Adam" (credited to their account). So all who are in Adam are guilty by virtue of his sin.
Do Catholics deny the doctrine of Christ's imputed righteousness? If so, why?
There is not a single verse in Sacred Scripture that teaches that our Lord Jesus’s personal righteousness is imputed to a believer."For our sake he made him to be sin who did not know sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him." 2 Corinthians 5:21 NABRE (Catholic Bible)
Why would the RCC deny that which is spelled out so clearly in the scripture?