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.

Thus, the Protestants, in spite of their sincere desire to be faithful to experience and to give consolation (to the conscience) of believing souls, could not do anything, remaining on a legal basis. Avoiding the extremes of Catholicism, they fell into the other extreme: they completely crossed out the inner side of justification. It is true that Protestants of all times constantly say that they demand good works, that they recognize them as necessary in order for faith to be a living faith, which alone justifies, that the accusation that they preach a doctrine dangerous to morality is based either on "a lack of understanding or on a malicious distortion of Protestant teaching." But all this is only the voice of conscience breaking through, only a concession to the demands of human nature, a concession unjustified in teaching. In spite of all these statements, the necessity of good deeds remains unfounded, since the motives for it are not in salvation, but outside of it: in a sense of duty, gratitude to God, and so on [56] [56].

The life of the justified loses its moral character and the conscience does not receive peace.

Part 2

However unsuccessful the attempt of Protestantism to explain human salvation may be, it nevertheless showed with obvious certainty the weaknesses of the Catholic doctrine of merit. Catholicism, which had seen these aspects in its best representatives before, had to be guided by the conclusions of Protestantism, the more so as the latter threatened the very existence of the former. That human merit in its direct sense is impossible before God, and contradicts the salvation eaten by Christ, Catholicism could not but agree with this. But, on the other hand, it could not sacrifice either the experience or the tradition of all the previous centuries of universal church life – both experience and tradition said with their own lips that good deeds are necessary not only in the sense of the effect, but also in the sense of the condition of salvation. How to reconcile these two apparently contradictory testimonies? How can we understand this conditionality of salvation by good works, if the latter at the same time cannot be merit before God? – This is the question that Catholicism had to resolve. This question was directed to the very essence, demanded a discussion of the very basis, the point of view of salvation that leads Catholicism to false conclusions, the legal point of view. The question was whether we have the right to rebuild Christianity from this point of view. And, without a doubt, Catholicism would have come to the right decision (since it did not want to break its ties with Church tradition) if it had really accepted the challenge and discussed itself impartially. But Catholicism only slipped over the question posed to it, without touching upon it or even trying to answer it: it cared only to reconcile the contradictions of its teaching with religious consciousness and church tradition, without touching upon this teaching itself. Therefore, the Catholic attempt is as unsuccessful as the Protestant one.

If the Protestants quite rightly accused the Catholics of destroying the merit of Jesus Christ with their human merit, then the Catholics, in their turn, just as rightly point out to the Protestants that they contradict the holiness of God by their illusory justification [57]. Justification, according to the teaching of the Catholics, should not be external, not based on the maintenance of the soul, a purely judicial event of imputing someone else's righteousness to a person, but should be an internal change or renewal of a person. In justification there is also an external, judicial side [59], but this is not its only content, and whoever believes its essence only in this, let him be anathema[60]; Justification means not only "to declare righteous" or "to acknowledge as righteous," but "to make righteous," it means the eradication of unholiness and the establishment of holiness in us, true and inward sanctity, making righteous" (Gerechtfertigung) [61].

From the point of view of the legal relationship between these two aspects of justification [62] could only be understood in the sense of merit and reward, i.e. the holiness of man is merit, and the proclamation of justified and acceptance into the sonship of God is the reward for holiness [63]. Now, if we recognize the participation of human freedom in the accomplishment of this holiness, then the absolution of sins and adoption as sons will prove to be a reward for the merits of man, which is directly contrary to the divinely revealed teaching about the One Saviour Christ, as Catholicism is also aware [64]. Consequently, it was necessary, on the one hand, for Catholicism to retain behind justification the full meaning of the deed, and not only to be holy, and at the same time, on the other hand, it was necessary to limit as much as possible man's participation in the acquisition of this original holiness; so that the grace of justification is in fact undeserved. Catholicism thinks to solve this difficult problem by its teaching on the so-called infusion of grace, infusio gratiae.

Whereas for the Protestants the grace of justification was a decision made in the Divine consciousness (actus Dei immanens) and therefore for man was a completely abstract formal action, for the Catholics grace is first of all a supernatural gift (supernaturale donum), or "the action of God in the creature," i.e., a certain movement that takes place in the creature itself, its property or state that God inhabits it and experiences it at a given moment in time. Accordingly, in particular, the grace of sanctification is a gift, an inner and supernatural gift of God, given to the rational creature for the merits of Christ" [68]. So. Justification is transformed into a supernatural action performed by the power of God in the soul of man, an action by which righteousness and holiness dwell in it. And since this holiness appears in the soul as a new state, hitherto untried, and having as yet grounds in it (so that there is no merit), it is so. In addition to the existing spiritual content of man, it is self-evident that the supernaturalness of this action must involuntarily increase in spite of his voluntariness and consciousness. Holiness descends upon the soul, if not completely unexpectedly, then in any case involuntarily or in passing, does not leave a conclusion from the spiritual life, to come to it from outside and apart from its natural development. This complete (in the sense described) involuntariness of sanctification is expressed by the Catholic term gratiae infusio, the infusion of grace. "All justification," says Thomas Aquinas, "consists originally in gratiae infusione." Instead of a judgment external to the soul, we have here a kind of supernatural transformation that takes place in the soul itself. "Sanctification," says Clea, "is true sanctification, accomplished not only through the actual (wirkliche) taking away, the denial of sin, but also through the positive indwelling of new life, through the communication of the Divine Spirit. It is the taking away of the heart of stone and the giving of the heart of the flesh (Tez. XXXVI, 26), the destruction of sin (Ps. L, 3) and the consciousness of the new spirit (v. 12), the death of sin and the life of Christ (Rom. VI, I, etc.), putting off the old and putting on the new man (Eph. IV, 22), the cessation of walking in the flesh and walking in the Spirit (Rom. VIII, Gal. V), walking not in darkness, but in light (Eph. V, 8 et seq.), the burial of dead works (Heb. VI, 1; 1) and the offering of good works (Eph. II, 10)" [70].