13 January 1547 A.D. Council of Trent & Justification: Rome’s Strengthened Grip on the Title “False
Church”
Have
you ever assembled an engine kit? If you have, you can understand what the
Council of Trent accomplished on this day, January 13, 1547
when it approved a decree on justification (the way God puts us right with him
when we have sinned). It took them months of hard work and was more difficult
to assemble than a complicated model.
The Council of Trent, held in an Italian city
of that name, came about largely because of Martin Luther. Luther protested
that the Roman church was corrupt. Christians were taught things that had no support in scripture, such as that they
could buy indulgences to get souls of loved ones out of purgatory. Against
this, Luther argued that justification is by faith alone. As a result, whole
nations left the Catholic church.
The popes saw that Luther needed
to be answered, but they had trouble assembling enough bishops to hold a
council. Twenty years passed. When a council finally met at Trent, it was
because Emperor Charles V, who ruled much of Europe, insisted on it. He thought
that the best chance of winning the Protestants back to Catholicism was for the
church to clean up its act. The pope did not agree. Seeing Protestant ideas as
heresy he wanted only to define Catholic doctrine and condemn the heretics. The
council finally did a bit of both, switching back and forth between theology
and reform.
Justification was the toughest
theological question that the assembled bishops tackled. A few wanted to
condemn Luther's views without any explanation, but the rest felt that if you
condemn someone else's theology, you should explain why. They knew that this was
going to be hard to do, because Catholics themselves did not fully agree on
justification. Thomists emphasized God's action, Scotists human feeling, and
Augustinians faith.
There were personality clashes
making it hard to obtain agreement, too. Sanfelice overheard Grechetto mutter
that he was either a knave or a fool. Sanfelice asked him what he had said.
Grechetto repeated his remark aloud. Sanfelice seized him by the beard and
shook him so hard that hair came out in his hand. He was locked up and excommunicated,
but Grechetto pleaded for his liberty.
Officials put six questions to
the council. (1)What is meant by justification? (2)What brings it about--what
is God's part and what is man's? (3)What does it mean to say a man is saved by
faith? (4)Do works play a role before and after justification, and what is the
role of the sacraments? (5)Describe the process of justification, what
precedes, accompanies and follows it. (6)What proofs support Catholic doctrine?
Another question also arose: is it possible to know with certainty that one is
saved?
It took sixteen congregations
(meetings where each bishop stated his opinion and cast a vote) to reach a
decree. (By contrast, the doctrine of original sin took only three
congregations.) The doctrine of Justification was issued as sixteen chapters
followed by thirty-three binding statements or canons, aimed against Protestant
ideas. All the same, Luther's thought influenced the work. The council had read
his books. Luther had been an Augustinian and it was an Augustinian who drafted
the council's final position.
The council decided that grace
is necessary at each step of justification. However, man's free will must
cooperate. Justification is more than forgiveness of sins: it is God's ongoing
process of making a person new and good. Faith is not the only condition of salvation although it is its beginning, foundation, and root. In order for the
grace of justification to grow, we must obey God's commands. The council also
decided that justification can be lost by certain sins and that no man can be
sure that he will be finally saved.
Bibliography
Froude, James Anthony. Lectures on the council of
Trent. Port Washington, N.Y.: Kennikat Press, 1979.
Jedin, Hubert. A History of the Council of Trent. New
York: Thomas Nelson, 1958.
"Trent, Council of." New Catholic
Encyclopedia. New York : Thomson, Gale, 2002 - .
"Trent, Council of." The Oxford
encyclopedia of the Reformation. Editor in chief Hans J. Hillerbrand.
New York : Oxford University Press, 1996.
Last updated May,
2007.
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