{"id":492,"date":"2010-12-09T00:01:43","date_gmt":"2010-12-09T05:01:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/community\/returntorome\/?p=492"},"modified":"2015-03-13T13:30:08","modified_gmt":"2015-03-13T17:30:08","slug":"was-aquinas-a-proto-protestant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/returntorome\/2010\/12\/was-aquinas-a-proto-protestant\/","title":{"rendered":"Was Aquinas a Proto-Protestant?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

That is the title of my latest column at The Catholic Thing<\/a>. It is a very brief summary of the paper I delivered in November at the annual meeting of the Evangelical Philosophical Society in Atlanta, \u201cDoting Thomists: Evangelicals, Thomas Aquinas, and Justification.\u201d \u00a0Here\u2019s how The Catholic Thing column<\/a> begins.<\/p>\n

Catholics are often surprised to learn that there are Evangelical Protestants who claim to be Thomists.\u00a0 When I was a Protestant, I was one of them. What
\n\"\"<\/a> attracts these Evangelicals are Thomas\u2019s views on faith and reason, his philosophy of the human person, command of Scripture, and intellectual rigor.\u00a0 Some of them think that on justification, Thomas is closer to the Protestant Reformers than to the Catholic view (as taught in the 1994 Catechism of the Catholic Church<\/a><\/em>). The late Presbyterian theologian John Gerstner, for instance, claimed that with St. Augustine, St. Thomas \u201ctaught the biblical doctrine of justification so that if the Roman Church had followed Aquinas the Reformation would not have been absolutely necessary.\u201d Others have made similar arguments, but they are spectacularly wrong. As usual, it all hinges on understanding faith and works.<\/p>\n

For St. Thomas<\/a>, justification refers not only to entrance into the family of God at Baptism \u2013 administered for the remission of sins \u2013 but to the infusion of sanctifying grace at Baptism and all the subsequent graces that work to transform the Christian from the inside out. Consider, for instance<\/a>, Aquinas\u2019s explanation of sanctifying grace as habitual grace: \u201ca double effect of grace, even as of every other form; the first of which is `being,\u2019 and the second, `operation.\u2019\u201d For example, \u201cthe work of heat is to make its subject hot, and to give heat outwardly. And thus habitual grace, inasmuch as it heals and justifies the soul<\/a>, or makes it pleasing to God, is called operating grace; but inasmuch as it is the principle of meritorious works, which spring from the free-will, it is called cooperating grace.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read the whole thing here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

That is the title of my latest column at The Catholic Thing. It is a very brief summary of the paper I delivered in November at the annual meeting of the Evangelical Philosophical Society in Atlanta, \u201cDoting Thomists: Evangelicals, Thomas Aquinas, and Justification.\u201d \u00a0Here\u2019s how The Catholic Thing column begins. Catholics are often surprised to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":211,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,29,30,32,54,115,118,121,140],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-catholic","category-catholic-saints","category-catholicism","category-christianity","category-evangelicalism","category-protestantism","category-publications","category-reformation","category-st-thomas-aquinas"],"yoast_head":"\nWas Aquinas a Proto-Protestant?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"That is the title of my latest column at The Catholic Thing. 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