The mechanism developed in the Western Church did not fail to affect theological science, which, under the influence of the epoch, completely submitted to it and in turn contributed to its further development and, so to speak, to its formation. Scholasticism, with its worship of Aristotle, cared more about the formal harmony of its systems and coped little (not at all) with spiritual experience, with life. It is not surprising if it (scholasticism) adopted a legal point of view. Could a scholasticist have thought about its truth, when under each of its points he saw extracts from various celebrities – excerpts, we may add, taken out of the connection of speech? And in this way, so to speak, typographical method of proof, scholasticism justified all the extreme conclusions of the legal worldview. The quite natural teaching about the mutual aid of church members was transformed under the pen and in the mind of the scholastic into a completely mechanical record of the actions of one person (saint) to another. The uncertain situation of the souls of those who have died even in repentance, but who have not borne fruit worthy of repentance, who have not been established in goodness, has turned into a purgatory, where man pays God with his torments for crimes committed on earth, and not yet paid. Pastoral guidance during confession took the absurd form of payment for sins and indulgences – absolution of sins without moral tension, without repentance. The sacraments were transformed into magical actions opus operatum, in which bodily participation is needed rather than spiritual participation, etc. Sinful fear of moral work, taking advantage of a fortunate pretext, invented many necessary teachings for itself and so polluted Western Christianity with all outsiders that it was difficult even to recognize the truth of Christ in it. It was not without reason that when the German reformers came to the idea that faith alone saves man, this expression, so common in Christianity and constantly on the lips of the Holy Fathers, seemed so unusual and terrible that some considered it a heresy and the destruction of all morality, while others took it almost as some kind of new revelation and finally distorted its meaning. "Such fruits were brought to the West by its legal point of view on salvation. Its main danger, we repeat, was that it made it possible for a person, if he did not want to, to confine himself to one appearance; moral work was forgotten, as it were. Hence the good Catholic was often a very bad Christian inside, and in spite of this he thought that he was being saved, and in this self-deception he perished.

The human soul, in its best part, always thirsting for true life and salvation, can only be satisfied with the described doctrine through misunderstanding, it will certainly feel its falsity. This feeling of a living soul has been expressed, albeit unsuccessfully, in innumerable sects, in many attempts to correct Catholicism, such as we see throughout the entire course of Western Church history, and finally broke out in that terrible upheaval which is called the Reformation, and which still stands before Catholicism as a living denunciation of its untruth, which in turn awaits its accusers.

The Reformation came out with a merciless denunciation of all Catholic imitations in life and teaching, the soulless formalism that reigned in it, and demanded life and truth for man. Protestants both wrote and said that the source of Catholic wisdom is not the Gospel, not the teaching of Christ, but the considerations of reason, which stands on its own point of view and judges these things exclusively inhumanly [2]. Without penetrating into the inner work of those who are being saved, reason stops at the external side and bases its conclusions on this alone. It is not surprising if in this way he arrives at propositions that are absurd from the point of view of spiritual experience and before the judgment of human conscience [3]; and then, feeling falsehood and at the same time seeing no other way than the existing one, he is forced against his will to resort to various artificial constructions in order to somehow drown out the tormenting voice of his conscience. (That is why there are extraneous deeds, extraneous objects of veneration, invented by people at the moment of (feeling) danger (spiritual) against the fear of conscience [4]). In order to avoid this sad and terrible fate, it is necessary to break all connection with the philosophical views that have been accepted, but are not reconciled with the truth of Christ, and to turn to the truth of Christ itself and examine it, listening to the inner voice of one's conscience, trying to grasp that the Word of God and the Church's tradition are to be spoken not only to the mind, but to the whole soul [5], and to be concerned not only with fidelity to logic, but about fidelity to the truth, which is essentially living and active, and not formal. Protestantism has indeed proclaimed this only true and safe method of theology – guidance. They thought to see the test of the truth of their doctrine not in agreement with the metaphysics of Aristotle (for which Luther could not find a sufficiently strong curse) [6] and with scholastic axioms, but in the fact that in it good consciences find peace and consolation "piae et pavidae conscientiae" [7].

Apparently, the time has come for a radical renewal in Western Christianity. Indeed, Protestantism began to refute with fury the main dogma of the legal view – the doctrine of deeds as merits before God. This teaching is untenable for the very reason that it fundamentally contradicts the very foundation of the Christian faith – salvation by Jesus Christ alone. "Whoever confesses that he has deserved grace through works, despises the merit of Christ and grace, and seeks the way to God besides Christ, by human powers" [8]. And even if there were no such contradiction, the taking of man's deeds in themselves, by their very essence, cannot be merit before God: man does good deeds only with the help of the grace of God [9], yet everything that he does himself inevitably bears the stamp of sin [10]. Therefore, all who boast of the merits of their works, or hope for superfluous works, boast of vanity, and hope for idolatry, which is subject to condemnation" [11], we read in the Scottish Confession. Thus resolutely and mercilessly were exposed all the conclusions that necessarily followed from Catholic teaching: purgatory, indulgences, etc.

But... Protestantism was a child of its time and school. The first reformers learned to speak and think in the same Aristotle and Cicero as their Catholic opponents. Therefore, indignant at the blatant distortion of Christ's truth which they saw in Catholicism, they thought to explain it only by accidental causes, the wickedness of the hierarchy, etc., and did not suspect that instead of these conclusions, others would necessarily appear, equally false, because the lie is not in the conclusions, but in the very basis, in the very point of view on the subject. Instead of rejecting this basic lie, the Protestants were able to reject only some of its offspring, and thus only replaced some distortions with others.

For this reason, the Reformation, in the sense of the restoration of Christ's truth, ended in complete failure.

Protestants, as we have seen, turned to life itself and tried to test their conclusions with it, but they looked at life from a legal point of view. They wanted to bring peace of conscience with their teaching, but they understood this peace quite legally, in the sense of a sense of security, impunity for the sins committed. A person is afraid of punishment, and so the death of Jesus Christ is pointed out to him as such a great, excessive satisfaction with God's truth, that this truth can no longer – it has no right to demand anything else from a person, any other satisfactions. A person, since he believes in the Gospel, must calm down about himself. We see that Protestants have not understood this greatest and most comforting mystery of our salvation in all its depth and vitality. Of course, man is by nature a hireling, of course, he fears first of all for himself and seeks security for himself, and, consequently, he first assimilates the mystery of salvation from this point of view. But our Church, always pointing out to the sinner precisely this side (since it is most comprehensible, closer to the sinner), does not think of forgetting the other, more encouraging aspects of the mystery of salvation. She sees in Christ not a suffering instrument of propitiation, but the restorer of our fallen nature, the firstborn of the dead whom He brought out of death, calls Him "the second Adam," the heavenly Lord, "the heavenly ones" (1 Cor. XV, 20. 23. 45. 47:48), i.e., as if the leader of mankind, but only "Christ's" (v. 23), clothed in Christ, coming after his Leader into the glory of the Father inherent in Him from eternity (Col. 111:1-6). Protestants, on the other hand, thought to find in this greatest mystery only that "third" legal union which lies between its members and which compels one of them, in spite of everything, to make a concession in favor of the other.

Once this "third" has been found, and moreover it is not only sufficient, but also surpasses all measure, then there is no need to seek any other satisfaction. If Christ paid for our sins even more than they were worth, why else think that we need to work for this satisfaction ourselves? Human efforts, not to mention their imperfection before God, etc., are directly superfluous and even dangerous: they belittle the significance of Christ's merit. What is salvation after this? It is nothing more than the absolution of sins or deliverance from the punishment of sins [12] justification [13], which is followed by acceptance into the favor of God, etc. Justification is understood "not in the physical sense, but in the external and judicial sense" [14]. It does not mean "to make righteous out of the wicked, but in the judicial sense (seusu forensi) to proclaim righteous [15], to consider righteous, to declare (iustum aestimare, declarare) [16], and this for the merit of Jesus Christ [17], i.e. for the sake of an extraneous event, which has no connection with my inner being. Justification, therefore, is a completely external act, "an act that acts not in man, but outside and around man" [18]. Therefore, the consequence of this act can only be a change in the relationship between God and man, while man himself does not change" [19]. We are still sinners, but God treats us, by virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ, as if we had not sinned, but on the contrary fulfilled the law, or as if the merit of Christ were ours" [20]. In other words, instead of the former Pelagian legal point of view, which had been rejected and condemned, Protestantism put forward the same principle of law, only taking the other side of it: having rejected human merit as insufficient to propitiate an angry God, or, to put it more bluntly, in order to oblige God to grant me eternal life, the Protestants nevertheless looked upon eternal life as an agreed payment which God "must" give to man. only the binding "third" for Protestants is not the merit of man, but the merit of Christ [21]. In Catholicism we have seen the forgetfulness of Christ in the work of our salvation, but here the work of man himself is forgotten, "our righteousness" has been reduced to the imputation of someone else's righteousness (imputatio alienae iustitiae) [22]. Such an idea is common to Protestants of all times [23] and if in the latest dogmatic systems of Protestants we encounter attempts to give vitality and reality to an external judicial event, to transform dogmatic propositions into psychological phenomena, then these attempts either clearly do not reconcile themselves to the basic Protestant principle, according to the consciousness of the Protestants themselves [24], representing only inevitable concessions of Protestantism to religious experience, or they change only names. without changing the essence of the matter [25].

It cannot be said that the teaching of the Protestants did not have any indications and spiritual experience for itself. What is certain is that only with development in goodness can man understand the full depth of his sinfulness and moral weakness. Hence, the higher a person is morally, the stronger is his awareness of his unworthiness and the more abundant are his tears of repentance. Such, for example, is St. Ephraim the Syrian, whose works are almost incessant weeping, although they bear indelible traces of the heavenly joy inherent in every true righteous man. Does not the all-embracing phenomenon say the same thing, that when the epoch of the martyrs ended, Christian zeal found expression in no other way, but in monasticism, in the rank of penitents? Protestants, we repeat, were not mistaken in pointing to this indubitable phenomenon and trying to draw conclusions from it for Christian teaching as well. But just as crude Catholicism, proceeding from the need of religious consciousness in its constructions, also came to mercenary activity and Pelagianism, so Protestantism, seeing the inadequacy of salvation by the merit of man, and at the same time finding no other way of understanding than a legal one, created for itself, in the essence of the matter, only a spiritual deception, a fiction of salvation, which has no true content.

It is true that the Protestants, with all their desire to be faithful to their teaching, could not but recognize the necessity of certain conditions on the part of man. But such a condition was recognized as the last "possible minimum" faith in Christ without works. Yielding to the demands of life and conscience, Protestants make an attempt to give this faith as much vitality and efficacy as possible. They say that only living faith justifies [26], i.e., active faith, which is necessarily accompanied by works [27] and is in no case conceivable in a person who is given over to sin [28]; and that, consequently, justification will necessarily be accompanied by the moral regeneration of man [29]. "It cannot be that this holy faith remains idle in man" [30]. But how does this rebirth take place, and in what sense can faith be called "the root of good works"? Not at all in the sense that it serves as an inducement, an inspiring principle, in a word, not at all in the sense of some kind of moral work on the part of the person being saved. This work has nothing to do with justifying faith,[32] and therefore has nothing to do with justification. Faith is the root of good works in the sense that by it we "perceive Christ, Who promised us not only liberation from death and reconciliation with God, but also the grace of the Holy Spirit, by which we are reborn into the renewal of life" [33]. But this is no longer an excuse, but a consequence of it. Christ can be praised only by one who has already been justified, i.e. proclaimed righteous, reconciled to God [34]. Does this vital aspect of salvation, therefore, have any essential significance in justification, the significance of an active condition? No. In order to be justifying, faith must remain "exclusively receptive, must rely solely on a sacrifice independent of our person (Sabjectivitat), but wholly satisfying to God" [35]. Faith "is justified not by the fact that it is our business" (which would presuppose moral tension and would be expressed precisely by the spiritual upheaval that Scheele describes), but for the sake of Christ, our truth, which it perceives, and this is understood in such a way that it perceives the promised mercy [38]. Faith thus saves outwardly, for the sake of the truth and holiness of Christ, which it assimilates to man,[39] for the sake of the merit of Christ, which is imputed to man[40]. In other words, faith serves as the basis for a phenomenon only externally judicial, and not moral [41].

What, then, is the significance of man's deeds in justification, i.e., his moral work and development in good? It is impossible not to see that good works, if they are presupposed at all, are exclusively as a co-existing or subsequent phenomenon, and not as producing, not participating in the actual work of salvation. This idea is expressed with complete clarity in symbolic books. For example, the Augsburg Confession, recognizing that "faith (justifying) must bring forth good fruits," hastens to stipulate that the remission of sins is assimilated by faith" [42]. Or in the Apology: "To receive the forgiveness of sins is to be justified... By faith in Christ alone, not through love, nor for love or works, we receive remission of sins, although love follows faith." Thus, by faith alone we are justified, understanding the word "justify" in the sense of "to make or revive from wrong" [43]. In this way, faith justifies in contrast to good works, moreover, understood not in the sense of external actions, but even in the sense of a whole spiritual disposition or mood. This disposition does not participate in justification, does not produce it, and even cannot be in a person before he is justified. "This is very unwisely written by the opponents, as if people who are guilty of eternal wrath deserve the remission of sins through the work of love, when it is impossible to love God, if the remission of sins is not first received by faith. A heart that truly feels that God is angry cannot love God before He is propitiated. As long as He frightens and appears to subject us to eternal death, human nature cannot conquer itself to love the angry, the condemning and punishing" [44]. What, then, remains of the justifying faith, if the love that "hastens it" is to be distinguishable from it and should not share justification with it? Protestants, in spite of all their arguments about the living faith, must admit that, according to their teaching, it is the abstract phenomenon of perception that justifies itself, and not in its effect on the soul of man, not because this faith is alive. "When people believe that they are received into grace and are forgiven their sins for the sake of Christ, Who satisfied our sins by His death, God counts this faith as righteousness before Himself" [45]... Or, even more specifically in the Apology: "It should not be thought that on the pledge of this love, or for the sake of this love, we receive remission of sins and peace; nor do we receive remission of sins for the sake of the next two works; but by faith alone in the proper sense (proprie dicta) is obtained the remission of sins, since the Prophethood cannot be assimilated except by faith. And faith in the proper sense is that which agrees with the promise" [46]. Thus, a person is justified by faith, even if it is rich in the possibility of works, then in any case at the time of justification it is still only an abstract mental one, and justifies precisely by its intellectual side; as (the means and instrument) by which we assimilate to ourselves the satisfaction of Jesus Christ [47]. Thus, there is no room for human participation in the Protestant justification.

In this way, Protestantism directly contradicted the requirements of the moral nature of man, from which it proceeded. The human soul seeks good for good's sake, wants life for life's sake; it does not want to be numbered only in the Kingdom of God, but to really live in it, and to experience the Communion of God freely and consciously. Therefore, the human soul could never agree with the Protestant illusory justification. It was possible to destroy this illusory nature only by recognizing a person's deeds not as a consequence, but precisely as a condition of justification. But for the Protestants this meant going over again to Catholicism with its human merit, since from the legal point of view the condition can be understood only in the sense of a legal basis, merit. The impossibility of preserving the middle ground between Catholicism and Protestantism on a strictly legal basis was clearly proved by Melanchthon's conciliatory attempt. In the Apology he says: "We teach that good works have the force of merit, but they do not deserve the remission of, nor grace or justification (which we attain by faith), but other rewards, bodily and spiritual, during and after this life... We do not deserve to be justified by our deeds... by works we do not deserve eternal life; for faith achieves all this, since faith justifies us and propitiates God" [48]. "For," he says in another place; the righteousness of the Gospel, which revolves around the promise of grace, freely receives justification and life-giving; but the fulfillment of the law, which follows faith, revolves around the law, in which not freely, but for our deeds, reward is recompensed and due; but those who deserve the latter are justified before they fulfill the law; they were formerly translated into the kingdom of the Son of God and became joint heirs with Christ" [49]. In Melanchthon's eyes, the moral development of man in goodness has the significance of merit, but not for justification and eternal salvation, but for the receipt of various rewards on earth and in heaven.

However, this did not improve the situation, but made it even more difficult. Denying the dignity of merit for deeds before justification, Melanchthon, in fact, recognized works after justification not only as merits, but also as super-due, which are rewarded with a special reward in addition to the kingdom of heaven, which is granted to all and to all. But the fact that these superfluous merits were performed after justification did not diminish their danger to the dignity of Christ's merit. If Christ brought excessive satisfaction, then what is the merit on the part of man? And if merit on the part of a person is necessary, even if only to increase the crown, then the merit of Christ is insufficient. Above all, according to Melanchthon's theory, mercenary activity, of which Catholicism was guilty and against which Protestantism fought, was not only not abolished, but was still more intensified and acquired an even more base form. No longer for the sake of eternal salvation and eternal life, but for the sake of either earthly well-being or reward. unlike others, man does good. On the other hand, the necessity of good deeds for salvation, which a person's conscience insistently speaks of as a necessity, a duty, and not a benefit, was by no means explained or proved by Melanchthon's attempt. For if eternal life in communion with God is given to man and bestowed upon man, are all the other rewards and blessings worth anything in conjunction with this highest good? Will a person think about them, and even consider himself entitled to think and desire them? Not to mention the fact that good works, as a consequence of justification, as the works of the Holy Scriptures. dwelling in the justified [50] and do not depend in essence on man, on his free choice and desire. It seemed as if a person, if he did not desire any special rewards for himself on earth or in heaven, could not care about his moral progress, could simply leave it to the grace of the Holy Spirit. Salvation for him is already assured. But this directly contradicted the testimony of experience, since conscience says that one must be concerned about the success of good, and that without this it is impossible to be saved. Melanchthon's attempt, we repeat, only proved that there is no middle ground in the legal understanding, that only extremes are possible under it: either the merit of Christ or our merit, which are mutually exclusive.

As it did not explain anything in religious life and, on the other hand, was dangerous for the dogma of salvation by Christ alone, Melanchthon's attempt did not find sympathy in the Protestant world. Subsequent Protestants rejected all distinction in the degrees of holiness and blessedness, and asserted with particular force that holiness (not to mention the fact that it is impossible without justification) is of no importance not only for justification, but also for eternal salvation in general.