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>>Ankerberg: Under #4 on the Protestant side we find the words No Human Merit. By this,
Protestants meant man has no merit of his own whatsoever that can dispose God to justify
him. Justification is not God’s judgment based on the personal righteousness within
the sinner; or of any kind of good works a man can do. Rather, justification is God’s
judgment based on the work of Christ at the cross in whom the sinner believes. The Bible
says, “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He
saved us” (Titus 3:5). [Begin Program Excerpt]
>>Martin: Catholicism, carried to it’s logical conclusion, is a denial of justification by
faith in the context of Romans 4 and 5, because it involves works as a means of merit. The
Roman Catholic doctrine itself teaches that man cooper¬ates by faith and works for redemption,
whereas biblical theology says it’s “by grace we have been saved through faith, not
by our¬selves. It’s the gift of God, not by works lest any man should boast.”
Number 4 across from the Protestant phrase “No Human Merit” is the Roman Catholic
phrase, Congruous Merit. Catholicism teaches that working in cooperation with prevenient
grace or what they call the “habitus of grace,” a term that describe the infused
power of Christ within a person, that the sinner can live a life that is not necessarily
absolutely perfect, but a life that is meritorious enough that it makes it congruous or “fitting”
for God to grant justification. Man’s cooperation with Christ’s power earns man congruous
merit before God. Congruous merit is merit that can only be there in cooperation with
the power of God. But at least congruous merit must be present before justification takes
place in Roman Catholicism. [Begin Program Excerpt]
>>Pacwa: And where we disagree is precisely there, because we understand the Scriptures
to also say that those acts of obedience to the command¬ments are part of that process
of justification.