Do Catholics Deny Imputation?

Tree of Life

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Eusebius, Eusebius, mmm... is that the same Eusebius that got in trouble for embracing heresy?

Alright. Strike the Eusebius quote if you don't like him. How about the other Patristics who said the same thing?
 
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FireDragon76

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If you say that Jesus was tempted by his own nature then you must say that he had a sinful nature. Since Jesus is God, this would be most heretical.

That was actually what the Greek church took issue with, in Nikos Kazantakis Last Temptation of Christ. Of course, many evangelicals in the US were more upset by the Mary Magdalene love scene in the Scorsese film, than the inner-conflicted image of Christ portrayed by Kazantakis.

It's still something I am personally mulling over, because otherwise artistically Kazantakis work is quite powerful. My real issue with Kazantakis is the quasi-pelagianism and world-denying character of salvation presented, with God pitted against the world, and advocating a very ascetical kind of spirituality as a result. Archbishop Rowan Williams had similar issues with Kazantakis work.
 
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chevyontheriver

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The broad idea of imputation would be "crediting" or "reckoning". The word reckon comes from words meaning to count, to add up, or to conclude.

When we talk about our sins counting against us or God counting our sins against us we are talking about imputation. If God credits us as being unrighteous or evaluates us as unrighteous because of our sins, then our sins are being imputed to us.

The Bible talks about the man whose sins are not reckoned (or imputed) against him. Psalm 32:1-2 says: "Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit." When God forgives sins, he does not impute our sins to us. In other words, our sins are not counted against us and are not reckoned to our account.

The doctrine of imputed righteousness is that the perfect, spotless, righteous record of Christ is imputed to believers. His righteousness is reckoned to their account and they are treated by God as if they were perfectly righteous. Because of imputed righteousness, God has no wrath toward them and only desires to bless and reward them.

Similarly, our sins are imputed to Christ and he suffers God's wrath for our sins. He, during his life but especially on the cross, was treated not as his righteousness deserved, but as our sins deserve. The guilt of our sins was imputed to Christ and he "bore our sins in his body on the tree."

That's one attempt to explain the idea of imputation and how it relates to our relationship with Christ.
It's a fairly standard Reformed way of explaining it.

But it has it's problems in that 'sins imputed to Christ' is not exactly supported in Scripture but only by the force of Reformed drive for 'consistency'. That the eternal Son of the Father suffered God's wrath is a bizarre way of looking at the atonement.

And it also has a problem in that the legal fiction, the crediting of righteousness to us, is lacking the substance of an actual change. It is a covering. Our sins are not counted against us. But it doesn't change anything ontologically. Most Bible reading Christians expect that what is imputed is also actual. The Reformed understanding differs, as your own words clarify. The rest of us expect imputation and infusion of grace together. Only the Reformed folks are Sola Imputa. Stuck in a legal only framework of understanding the Redemption.
 
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chevyontheriver

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Alright. Strike the Eusebius quote if you don't like him. How about the other Patristics who said the same thing?
It's not that I don't like him. I do like him as a historian. Just that as a theologian he simply doesn't cut it. Patristics is a complicated venture.
 
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Tree of Life

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It's a fairly standard Reformed way of explaining it.

But it has it's problems in that 'sins imputed to Christ' is not exactly supported in Scripture but only by the force of Reformed drive for 'consistency'. That the eternal Son of the Father suffered God's wrath is a bizarre way of looking at the atonement.

The man Jesus suffered the wrath of the Triune God for sins in order to redeem mankind from the curse of the law. This is what Scripture teaches.

Do you deny that Jesus bore the guilt of our sins?

And it also has a problem in that the legal fiction, the crediting of righteousness to us, is lacking the substance of an actual change. It is a covering. Our sins are not counted against us. But it doesn't change anything ontologically. Most Bible reading Christians expect that what is imputed is also actual. The Reformed understanding differs, as your own words clarify. The rest of us expect imputation and infusion of grace together. Only the Reformed folks are Sola Imputa. Stuck in a legal only framework of understanding the Redemption.

This is a straw man. No Reformed person would say that salvation is only legal. But we would say that justification, as the Bible uses it, is a legal concept. Salvation includes justification and also regeneration and sanctification, which is the inward change you speak about. God regenerates and sanctifies all whom he justifies. So of course these things all come together.

The Roman error consists in conflating our personal, existential righteousness with our legal status before God. The Bible teaches that we are legally justified in Christ even though we still existentially struggle with sin. Our struggle with sin does not affect our legal status in God's eyes. We are still in a state of grace when we struggle with sin and do not need to be saved all over again.

It is not a legal fiction because we are united to Christ. We are in Christ and he is in us. His righteousness really does belong to us and speaks for us.
 
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chevyontheriver

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If you say that Jesus was tempted by his own nature then you must say that he had a sinful nature. Since Jesus is God, this would be most heretical.
I am saying Jesus was tempted. He was. I am saying Jesus did not sin. He didn't. Conclusion is that temptation per se is not sin. Contrary to your complicated distinction between external and internal temptation, wherever that came from. It is simply what you do with temptation that matters, not that one is tempted.
 
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It's not that I don't like him. I do like him as a historian. Just that as a theologian he simply doesn't cut it. Patristics is a complicated venture.

So you like the Patristics when they agree with you but you don't like them when they don't?
 
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Tree of Life

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I am saying Jesus was tempted. He was. I am saying Jesus did not sin. He didn't. Conclusion is that temptation per se is not sin. Contrary to your complicated distinction between external and internal temptation, wherever that came from. It is simply what you do with temptation that matters, not that one is tempted.

Did Jesus have concupiscence?
 
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chevyontheriver

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The man Jesus suffered the wrath of the Triune God for sins in order to redeem mankind from the curse of the law. This is what Scripture teaches.
That may be what YOU teach. Not Scripture. God's wrath upon Jesus the Eternal Son?
Do you deny that Jesus bore the guilt of our sins?
Do you make Jesus to be sin?
This is a straw man. No Reformed person would say that salvation is only legal. But we would say that justification, as the Bible uses it, is a legal concept. Salvation includes justification and also regeneration and sanctification, which is the inward change you speak about. God regenerates and sanctifies all whom he justifies. So of course these things all come together.

The Roman error consists in conflating our personal, existential righteousness with our legal status before God. The Bible teaches that we are legally justified in Christ even though we still existentially struggle with sin. Our struggle with sin does not affect our legal status in God's eyes. We are still in a state of grace when we struggle with sin and do not need to be saved all over again.

It is not a legal fiction because we are united to Christ. We are in Christ and he is in us. His righteousness really does belong to us and speaks for us.
You have your view and the rest of us have ours. I'm not expecting you to get it. Your explanation of how we can be righteous and still struggle with sin is a Reformation invention. It leaves us in our sins, just covered over nicely. But the Scriptural and Patristic solution is that we are made righteous legally AND actually, a new creation at our baptism, pure as the driven snow all the way down to the bottom of the pile. We still inherit the concupiescence of Adam, but it is not sin in itself, unlike your view.
 
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BNR32FAN

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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.

The problem is that babies have no idea what’s going on in baptism and a huge percentage of people who are baptized as a baby by the Catholic Church don’t experience any life change at all. The same thing happened to me when I was baptized at 5 years old. I had no idea what it meant and absolutely no life change at all. Water baptism isn’t what causes repentance. It’s spiritual baptism that causes true repentance.
 
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BNR32FAN

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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?

What bible verses support imputed righteousness?
 
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chevyontheriver

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So you like the Patristics when they agree with you but you don't like them when they don't?
It's not a proof-texting kind of thing. The fathers span centuries and span several cultures and languages and many schools of thought. You need to know a good deal about these cultures, intellectual patterns, historical dependencies, and who was responding to what controversy. Dabbling in the Fathers is a dangerous thing. Getting good at understanding the Fathers will make you either Orthodox or Catholic. So watch out.
 
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Tree of Life

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That may be what YOU teach. Not Scripture. God's wrath upon Jesus the Eternal Son?

Galatians 3:13 - Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us -- for it is written 'Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.'"

Do you make Jesus to be sin?

No. God made Jesus to be sin. 2 Corinthians 5:21 - For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
 
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chevyontheriver

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Did Jesus have concupiscence?
That's a great question. You would have to answer that he did not, because you view concupiscence to be sin. For myself, I don't even know, but since concupiscence is only an effect of the sin of Adam and not sin itself, I could go either way. Jesus was tempted, and was like us in everything but sin. So maybe he did. Adam and Eve didn't have it, and were tempted anyway. So maybe he didn't.
 
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It's not a proof-texting kind of thing. The fathers span centuries and span several cultures and languages and many schools of thought. You need to know a good deal about these cultures, intellectual patterns, historical dependencies, and who was responding to what controversy. Dabbling in the Fathers is a dangerous thing. Getting good at understanding the Fathers will make you either Orthodox or Catholic. So watch out.

What’s wrong with being Orthodox?
 
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Tree of Life

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That's a great question. You would have to answer that he did not, because you view concupiscence to be sin. For myself, I don't even know, but since concupiscence is only an effect of the sin of Adam and not sin itself, I could go either way. Jesus was tempted, and was like us in everything but sin. So maybe he did. Adam and Eve didn't have it, and were tempted anyway. So maybe he didn't.

I don't think it's difficult to say that he didn't. Concupiscence is a tendency toward sin and sinful desires. Jesus is God. God does not have a tendency toward sin and has no desires for sin. God always tends toward good.
 
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chevyontheriver

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Galatians 3:13 - Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us -- for it is written 'Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.'"



No. God made Jesus to be sin. 2 Corinthians 5:21 - For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
There is a big big step there from the Scriptures you quote here to saying the wrath of God descended upon the Eternal Son of the Father.
 
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chevyontheriver

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I don't think it's difficult to say that he didn't. Concupiscence is a tendency toward sin and sinful desires. Jesus is God. God does not have a tendency toward sin and has no desires for sin. God always tends toward good.
You seem quite certain and I'm more careful not to jump to a conclusion as you.
 
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The problem is that babies have no idea what’s going on in baptism and a huge percentage of people who are baptized as a baby by the Catholic Church don’t experience any life change at all. The same thing happened to me when I was baptized at 5 years old. I had no idea what it meant and absolutely no life change at all. Water baptism isn’t what causes repentance. It’s spiritual baptism that causes true repentance.
Babies don’t need to know what’s happening to them with their baptism. The point of baptizing infants is to introduce them into God’s family from the start. And when they’re old enough, they can take the baptismal promise made by their parents upon themselves in Confirmation.
 
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