I have struggled to get over the flu for the past couple of weeks. It just seems to hold on. Last week Larry McQueen stayed with us for a few days. It's always good to see him. On Thursday I flew to Minneapolis for the Evangelical/Catholic Dialogue. I got home last evening feeling quite poorly. I spent today resting and reading.
The dialogue was interesting and frustrating. The topic was “salvation.” We focused on the central point of division during the reformation, “justification.” The frustrating part is that the evangelical team (there were seven of us) was trying to dialogue out of very diverse traditions while the Catholic team has a well established script of doctrines from which to speak. The 1999 Joint Declaration on Justification issued by Lutherans and the Catholic Church was a starting point but it was the declarations of the Council of Trent that governed the Catholic positions.
The main sticking point is that out of the reformed traditions Evangelicals understand justification as a forensic (legal) act of grace whereby God declares the sinner righteous, i.e., imputes righteousness to the unrighteous. It is a gift from God (grace) and is received by faith alone. Justification is the bases for regeneration and sanctification. For the Catholics justification embraces all of life in Christ and focuses on the transformation of the believer rather than the declaration by God. There is also a sticky point on the concept of “merit,” i.e., in what sense are the saved made worthy of life in the presence of God.
We came up with a brief and I think insightful statement of points of divergence and convergence. I will post it when I get the final copy. However, as a Pentecostal I find the Reformed forensic position somewhat stilted.
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