From Scott M. Manetsch’ review of Noll & Nystrom’s Is the Reformation Over?:
The Catholic Catechism defines justification as both the event that initiates the Christian life and the process by which the believer grows in holiness and righteousness. “Justification includes the remission of sins, sanctification, and the renewal of the inner man.”23 Hence, the Catholic doctrine of justification brings together (what Protestants usually understand to be the separate doctrines of) justification and sanctification. Justification occurs in two stages: initial justification and the process of justification. Initial justification is merited for us by the passion of Christ, made possible by grace, and is conferred in baptism (called the sacrament of faith). The Catechism states:
Justification is conferred in Baptism, the sacrament of faith. It conforms us to the righteousness of God, who makes us inwardly just by the power of his mercy.24
Our justification comes from the grace of God. Grace is favor, the free and undeserved help that God gives us to respond to his call to become children of God, the adoptive sons, partakers of the divine nature and of eternal life.25
Justification has been merited for us by the Passion of Christ. It is granted through Baptism. It conforms us to the righteousness of God, who justifies us. It has for its goal the glory of God and of Christ, and the gift of eternal life. It is the most excellent work of God’s mercy.26
This initial justification is not the imputation of the external righteousness of Christ to the sinner (as the Protestant reformers asserted), but the infusion of Christ’s righteousness and forgiveness into sinners, thereby making them righteous and fit for eternal life. Thereafter follows the process of justification, whereby the Holy Spirit renews the baptized Christian by infusing sanctifying graces into his or her soul to cure it of sin and make it holy. “With justification, faith, hope, and charity are poured into our hearts, and obedience to the divine will is granted us.”27 In this process of justification Christians must freely cooperate with God’s grace; indeed, as Christians cooperate with the divine work of grace they merit those infused graces necessary for sanctification and the attainment of eternal life. In one sense, therefore, the sinner is justified by God’s grace alone in baptism. In another sense, the sinner is justified by the merit achieved by cooperating with God’s grace.
ENDNOTES:
22 A helpful introduction to some of these important debates is found in Mark Husbands and Daniel Treier, eds., Justification: What’s at Stake in the Current Debates.
23 Catholic Catechism, 489, par. 2019.
24 Catholic Catechism, 482, par. 1992.
25 Catholic Catechism, 483, par. 1997. Italics in the original.
26 Catholic Catechism, 489, par. 2020.
27Catholic Catechism, 482, par. 1991.