A short appraisal of the Reformed doctrine of justification by faith as the alone instrument is given below using the correctly defined notions of principle and instrumental causation. Part of the Westminster doctrine of justification by faith alone is presented below. Following the presentation, the discussion proceeds through two examples using principle and instrumental causation. The discussion then proceeds to highlight some problems with the doctrine of faith as the alone instrument, as propounded by the Westminster confession of faith in contrast to the notions of principle and instrumental causation.
Westminster confession of faith states –
The parts of the Westminster Confession underlined above are relevant to the discussion below.
Definitions
Principal causes - efficient causes which by their own proper power operate to produce an effect proportionate to the nature of the agent are called principle causes. The effect is produced by the cause or is principally moved by the proper power of the agent, not by a motion received from another cause. Principle cause is divined as -
Prime Principal cause – God acting as first principle cause.
Secondary Principal cause, - the principle cause is moved materially (or applied to the actual exercise of its own power) by the prime cause (God). Such as a man is moved by God to carve a statue. God is the prime cause and the man is the principle, secondary cause.
Instrumental cause - the proper and formal reason why something is an instrumental cause consists in that it operates as moved by a principal agent, forasmuch as the whole power and reason of operating is received after the manner of a fluid entity from a principal cause. Instrumental cause, has being-moved as the precise cause of the instrument acting. Thereby the effect of the instrumental cause is not conformed to the instrument, but to the principle agent. Consequently, the instrumental cause always only ever has a transient causation when the fluid entity that moves the instrument to move as it is moved by the principle cause acts upon the instrument.
Example 1. The Poet writes the Poem with a Pen.
For example, the pen as the instrument is moved by the poet as the principle cause, to write the poem. The motion of the pen caused by the poet is the fluid entity acting on the pen for the pen to act subordinate to the movement of the poet. The poem written is then not conformed to the pen, but to the poet as the author of the poem. Both the poet and the poem continue to exist as poet and poem after the pen has ceased to act as an instrument. The pen only acts as an instrument whilst the poet acts to write the poem.
In summary -
Prime Principle cause - God as prime mover, or prime cause.
Secondary Principle cause – Poet.
Instrumental cause – pen when poet uses the pen as an instrument to write the poem.
Fluid move – motion of the pen.
Poem – a thing as an effect which is conformed to the poet as the principle author and not the pen as the author.
Example 2. God justifies the Sinner by the Instrument of Faith alone.
We now apply the same understanding of instrumental cause to the reformed understanding of faith as an instrument. The Westminster confession of faith states faith is the alone instrument of justification. According to the Reformed doctrine, Christ merits justification as a penal substitute, whereby Christ is punished by the Father who 1) imputes men's sins to Christ and 2) Christ's righteousness is imputed to men through the instrument of faith alone. Faith is given to men as a gift through the Holy Spirit who works in men to cause men to believe. Once the man makes the act of faith, the man is imputed Christ's righteousness by the Father in a courtroom scene as part of the great exchange.
In summary -
Prime Principle Cause - Trinity, or more particularly the action of 1) the Holy Spirit within men to cause the habit and act of faith. 2) Christ as the penal substitute cause of faith and righteousness. 3) The Father who imputes Christ with sin and the sinner with righteousness.
Secondary Principle cause – man is the secondary cause moved by the Holy Spirit to make the act of faith.
Instrumental cause ** –
1) Faith as an act made by man, which also acts as an instrument of justification. Faith is the act and the instrumental cause only when the act of faith is made. Faith as both an act and an instrument is diverse from the notion of instrument given above. For an instrument is that thing which operates as moved by a principal agent. Instrumental cause, has being-moved as the precise cause of the instrument acting. Thereby the effect of the instrumental cause is not conformed to the instrument, but to the principle agent. For the Reformed to state faith as an act (as taught in scripture), and also an instrument (as stated in the Westminster confession), infers faith is not just an act, but a thing (similar to the pen in example 1) that is moved by the Holy Spirit (and man) to produce the effect caused by the Holy Spirit as principle agent.
2) Faith may also be a habit as a virtue that resides in the human intellect. If faith is a habit (as taught in scripture), and an instrument (as stated in the Westminster confession) then the habit of faith is contrary to the notion of instrumental cause given in example 1 above. For instrumental cause is chiefly defined by the fluid move of the principle cause acting in a thing (a pen) and not an ongoing disposition placed into the man's intellect (or the pen with a disposition to push ink) as the secondary efficient cause by the Holy Spirit as the prime principle cause.
** The problematic nature of the Reformed notion of faith as an instrument is also noted when faith is correctly understood as an act, and a habit. For neither the act nor habit of faith are a thing per se, but only a do and disposition in a power respectively. As neither the act or habit of faith are things, then to call faith an instrument means faith is an instrument (like a pen), without being firstly a thing (like a pen). The Reformed notion of faith as an instrument must account for the non existence of 'faith as a thing' (but rather a do, or a habit in the intellect of man), before faith is an instrument under the power of the principle cause.
Fluid move – motion of men to make the act of faith. Faith is the act whereby the Holy Spirit as the prime principle cause (Holy Spirit) who acts upon the man as the secondary instrumental cause to move man to an act of faith.
Justification - a thing (like a poem) as an effect which is conformed to the Holy Spirit as the principle author of faith and not the man who made the act of faith and thereby man is not the author of faith. Justification is also a thing caused by Christ as the penal substitute cause of justification and a thing caused by the Father at the heavenly courtroom to pronounce the sinner righteous by legally imputing Christ's righteousness to the sinners account.
An Appraisal of Westminster Confession's Notion of Faith as an Instrument using the above two examples.
If faith is both an act and an instrumental cause of justification, faith must act in accord with the nature of an instrument and act with the prime principle and secondary principle causes to produce an effect as a thing, analogous to the poem. Faith then must cause justification as a fluid motion towards the end, or term of the acts of the prime and secondary principle causes, like the poet acts with the pen to write the poem. Faith is then both a fluid act and an instrument, which acts for a time when the act of faith is made, but causes justification to remain, like the poem that remains after the pen is no longer used to write the poem. Consequent to the reformed notion of faith as an instrument, justification must always remain even after the act of faith has stopped, just as the poem remains after the motion of the pen has stopped. But is the notion of justification by the instrumentality of faith alone biblical as propounded by the Westminster confession? If so, then we should see scriptures teach the permanence of justification after one act of faith, like the permanence of the poem after the act of the pen. Or stated in another way, if faith is the alone instrument of justification, then the bible must teach eternal security. If, however, there are scriptures that show justification can be lost after the act of faith is made, the notion of faith as the alone instrument becomes problematic.
We can compare the Reformed notion of faith as an instrument and the consequent permanence of justification with the parable of the ten virgins. In Matt 25, all ten virgins had faith to meet the bride groom, but only five were able to enter into the wedding banquet (Matt 25:1-13). The five virgins who were excluded from the banquet had faith but lost their justification. The parable of the ten virgins is strong evidence against the permanence of justification by faith alone. Many other passages can be brought forward to demonstrate eternal security is false, such as 1) Matt 10:22 where Christians are saved by endurance to the end. 2) In 1 Corinthians 9:24-27 Paul says he may become a castaway (adokimos), which is used in 2 Timothy 3:8 and in Romans 1:28 for those who commit sin. 3) Galatians 5:19-21 and 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 details sin lists that exclude one from the kingdom. Such lists assume faith, but infer many virtues are required to be practiced other than faith alone to enter the kingdom. If the virtues are not practiced Christians will sin and fall away from salvation. 4) Christians who have known the way of righteousness can return to the mire of sin in 2 Peter 2:20-22 and thereby suffer a loss of righteousness. 5) The many warning, and hope based passages in Hebrews concerning Christians falling away and perseverance (Heb 2:1–4, 3:7–4:13, 6:4-6, 10:19–39 et al).
Furthermore, faith as an instrument is caused by Christ as the penal substitute cause and the Holy Spirit as the prime principle cause acting within man, who is the secondary principle cause. But if faith is an instrument, and the instrument only acts in accord with the motion of the prime principle (God) and secondary principle (man) causes, like God and the poet move the pen, then how does faith act as an instrumental cause to cause the Father to impute sin to Christ and righteousness to the sinner? For faith to act as an instrument, consistently with the notion of an instrument as that which is moved by the principle cause to cause a permanent effect, does not infer the instrument of faith acts to then cause the principle cause to act on another principle cause. In other words, if Christ is a substitute who sends the Holy Spirit to give the gift of faith to men, and men act as the secondary principle cause of the act of faith, then faith as an instrument does not then cause the prime principle cause, as the Father to impute righteousness to the sinner. Why? The notion of instrumental cause is that which is moved by the principle cause and not that which moves the principle cause as required of Reformed theology.
The problem with faith as an instrumental cause may be better clarified by comparison with the example of the poet and pen. If the pen is the instrumental cause, moved by the poet, for the pen to act like faith, the pen would then cause the poet to move after the poet has caused the pen to move. This simple analogy of the pen shows how problematic the Reformed notion of faith as an instrument really is. There is no possibility that the pen moved by the poet, then causes the poet to move. The pen as an instrument receives its power only from the poet to move. The pen does not have any power given it from the poet, nor existing at any time within the pen to cause the poet to move from the pen as an instrument. For the pen to cause the poet to move would be 1) contrary to the power within the pen, 2) contrary to the nature of instrumental causation 3) contrary to the causes which always act proportionately to the power contained within the cause, and 4) contrary to the notion of principle cause (the poet) when moved by the pen.
If the pen cannot cause the poet to move, for no instrumental cause can cause the principle cause to move, how can the reformed faith claim that faith as an instrument causes the Father to move to impute Christ's righteousness to the sinner? If faith is an instrument as claimed by the reformers, faith cannot be an instrument in the double imputation that occurs in the great exchange. Consequently, according to the Reformed model, faith as an instrumental cause is instrument is an insufficient causation to explain how justification occurs. For Reformed theologians to claim faith moves the Father to act, means the Holy Spirit as prime principle cause, and man as secondary principle cause, cause the act to move the habit of faith to the act of faith. Faith caused by the Holy Spirit and man, then acts as an instrument to cause the Father as prime principle cause to impute sin (as an act of another efficient cause) to Christ (who is another prime principle cause) and righteousness to the sinner as the secondary principle cause. Such a series of causation from prime to instrument, then back to the prime, and the secondary prime is simply beyond the correct notions of principle and instrumental causes.
The above problem may be summarised below –
Example 1 - God (principle) moves the poet (principle), who moves the pen (extrinsic instrument), which writes the poem (extrinsic effect).
Example 2 - Father imputes sin (efficient cause) to Christ, and then the Father and Christ (principle) sends the Holy Spirit (principle), who moves man (principle) to an act of faith (intrinsic instrument), which causes the Father (principle) to impute (as through an efficient cause) Christ’s righteousness (principle) to the sinners account (extrinsic effect).
There are distinct inconsistencies between the (extrinsic) pen which instrumentally causes the (extrinsic) poem as an effect, and (intrinsic) faith that instrumentally causes the Father to (extrinsically) impute Christ’s righteousness to the sinners account as an (extrinsic) effect. The inconsistencies between the pen and faith as instrumental causes infers the notion of faith as an instrument is not well formulated. To have a well formulated notion of faith as an instrument, Reformed theologians must explain how faith as an instrument causes the Father to act as a principle cause as caused by an instrument, contrary to the notion of an instrument given in example 1. Such an explanation cannot be done without redefining the natures of instrumental and principal causation contrary to that given in example 1 above.
The Reformed formulation of faith as an instrument, must also include the notion of the author of justification. For justification must be attributed to the Holy Spirit as the prime principle cause and man as the secondary principle cause and not faith as an instrument. For just as the poem is attributed to the poet and not the pen, which is only under a fluid motion of the poet, so likewise, justification cannot be attributed to faith, but to both the Holy Spirit and man as the principle authors of faith as an instrument. The reformed theologians may agree with this analysis and say, yes man is attributed justification through faith as an instrument, just as I say. But the problem here is man acts as principle cause of justification, just as the poet acts as principle cause of the poem. If man is the principle cause of justification, then justification becomes in principle, a humanly caused act. Justification is then not simply only the work of the Trinity, but the work of the Trinity and man, both acting as principle cause. Justification is then never a completed work of the Trinity, but a work of the Trinity made with the work of man.
To attribute principle causation to men in justification infers Reformed Christianity cannot make any claim to justification as the work of the Trinity alone. Faith is said to be a gift of God, and justification by faith is, according to the Westminster confession, an act of ‘faith they have not of themselves, it is the gift of God’. But the Reformed understanding requires man be the secondary principle cause of faith, and thereby man makes the act of faith of himself, contrary to the Westminster confession and the scriptures. Just as the poet is attributed the poem, for the poem is from the poet, so too justification must also be attributed to man, for man acts to cause justification through the instrument of faith. The problem of attribution of justification to man is not easily answered. Although the Reformed confessions state faith and justification is the work of God as a gift, logically from the nature of instrumental causation, faith and justification are gifts of God along with the work of man as the two principle causes of faith.
Conclusion
The reformed doctrines on justification by faith alone were originally taught in opposition to the Catholic teachings enunciated at the Council of Trent. Such Reformed teaching is now strongly contested by defining the notions of instrumental cause and principle cause. When such notions of principle and instrumental causes are clarified and used with the above two examples of the poem and justification, it becomes evident that there are problems with the Reformed doctrines on justification. Four of the problems discovered are –
1. Faith is both an act and a habit in man, but neither the act, nor the habit is a thing, as required of an instrumental cause.
2. Faith as an instrument infers eternal security which is not taught in the scriptures.
3. Faith as an instrument implies both the instrumental cause and the principle cause act contrary to the nature of instrumental and principle cause.
4. Consequent to faith as an instrument is both the Trinity and man are the principle authors of faith, contrary to the teaching of the Westminster confession of faith.
The best alternative to the problematic nature of the Reformed understanding of justification is to abandon the Reformed confessions of faith and return to the one true faith as proclaimed by the Catholic Church at the Council of Trent. Faith is not an instrument of justification, but one of three theological virtues received by men when given by the Holy Spirit. The three virtues are given alone with the four cardinal virtues and about 60 other virtues to make the Christian fully alive as a man to live the Christian life. Justification is not an imputation of the righteousness of Christ as taught by the Reformers, but an infusion of the divine life of grace accompanied by the virtues and the seven gifts of the Holy Spirt. The Catholic teaching on justification need not grapple with the Reformed problems of faith as an instrumental cause of justification, nor the accompanying problems of the double imputation theory.
JM
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