Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Trent on Justification - Canon 28

Canon 28 addresses an error related to faith.

If any one saith, that, grace being lost through sin, faith also is always lost with it; or, that the faith which remains, though it be not a lively faith, is not a true faith; or, that he, who has faith without charity, is not a [Christian]; let him be anathema.

As we saw previously, infidelity is not the only mortal sin a Christian may commit; consequently one may lose his salvation without sinning against faith. I suspect that the faith in view here isn’t just the Protestant’s notion of mere faith-as-trust, although it is probably included. In any case, we see with regard to this canon as well that it is not contrary to justification by grace alone.

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