May 25, 2026 · 29 min · 9 segments
In this post, I give an audio (not AI!) reading of my substack here: https://anglicanaesthetics.substack.com/p/how-salvation-is-by-good-works Other post referenced…
As I've argued, understanding the difference between Rome and the Reformation requires understanding the system of merit that was actually at stake.
A genius and frankly, insidious move of modern post-Vatican II Roman Catholic theology was to play down the language the Reformation protested.
This allowed Roman Catholic theologians to make it seem that Reformational protests were just about words.
We're saying nothing other than that God crowns with eternal life the movements of grace He Himself produces.
There it is.
Nothing.
They're protesting about nothing.
But obviously, this is not what they were protesting anyway.
However, since most Protestants themselves don't know this anymore, Rome can get away with that sort of move.
William Palmer, the Anglican theologian, stated the matter crisply as such, quote, "I need scarcely point out to your sagacity that a vast body of your doctrines and practices to which we object depends altogether on one principle, which is, as it were, the foundation stone, the very vital essence of the whole.
I mean your doctrine of a debt still remaining due to divine justice after the remission of sin, the doctrine of temporal punishments to be endured for sin after its eternal penalty has been remitted.
It is the doctrine of your church that by the divine law, temporal as well as eternal penalties are due to sin, that while the latter, together with the guilt of sin, are remitted in the sacrament of penance, the former still remain due to the divine justice, and that they may be averted by works of satisfaction, such as prayer, fasting, and almsdeeds, and by the suffrages of the church, especially by the sacrifice of the Holy Eucharist." William Palmer, Letters to and Wiseman on the Errors of Romanism in Respect to the Worship of Saints, Satisfactions, Purgatory Indulgences, and the Worship of Images and Relics.
Palmer's statement nails the real point of difference on justification.
Recall that purgatory is not merely a place of cleansing classically, but a place of retributive punishment left to be doled out upon those who have not yet made adequate satisfaction.
Hence, in a pre-Vatican II era, Father Martin Yogi, the famous Roman Catholic expositor of purgatory, could write the following, quote, "A soul may go to purgatory then for three reasons.
One, on account of venial sins not remitted here on earth.
Two, on account of vicious inclinations left in the soul through habits of sin.
Three, on account of the temporal punishment due to every sin, mortal or venial, committed after baptism and not sufficiently atoned for during life.
Certain souls go to purgatory for the third reason only, for they have brought to the judgment seat neither venial sins nor ingrained inclinations to vice.
If a person dies with one single venial sin on his soul, he is condemned to purgatory for the first and third reasons, since venial sin too must be atoned for.
Then again, it can safely be said that no one goes to purgatory solely for the second reason, since vicious inclinations do not in themselves constitute sins, and the majority of theologians hold with St. Thomas that these inclinations do not survive the first instant that follows the separation of soul and body.
They disappear in that instant, for the soul in a state of grace, once it finds itself in the presence of God, strains towards Him with ardor and hates intensely all that displeases Him.
This violent turning away from sin suffices to detach the soul from every inclination to commit sin and gives to it a perfect moral rectitude.
The position becomes perfectly clear when it is remembered that the great number, if not all, of vicious inclinations are linked in some fashion to sensibility and the organs of sense, whose exercise is suspended by the separation of body and soul affected by death."What is said of vicious inclinations is true also of venial sins not remitted here below.
As I've argued, understanding the difference between Rome and the Reformation requires understanding the system of merit that was actually at stake.
A genius and frankly, insidious move of modern post-Vatican II Roman Catholic theology was to play down the language the Reformation protested.
This allowed Roman Catholic theologians to make it seem that Reformational protests were just about words.
We're saying nothing other than that God crowns with eternal life the movements of grace He Himself produces.
There it is.
Nothing.
They're protesting about nothing.
But obviously, this is not what they were protesting anyway.
However, since most Protestants themselves don't know this anymore, Rome can get away with that sort of move.
William Palmer, the Anglican theologian, stated the matter crisply as such, quote, "I need scarcely point out to your sagacity that a vast body of your doctrines and practices to which we object depends altogether on one principle, which is, as it were, the foundation stone, the very vital essence of the whole.
I mean your doctrine of a debt still remaining due to divine justice after the remission of sin, the doctrine of temporal punishments to be endured for sin after its eternal penalty has been remitted.
It is the doctrine of your church that by the divine law, temporal as well as eternal penalties are due to sin, that while the latter, together with the guilt of sin, are remitted in the sacrament of penance, the former still remain due to the divine justice, and that they may be averted by works of satisfaction, such as prayer, fasting, and almsdeeds, and by the suffrages of the church, especially by the sacrifice of the Holy Eucharist." William Palmer, Letters to and Wiseman on the Errors of Romanism in Respect to the Worship of Saints, Satisfactions, Purgatory Indulgences, and the Worship of Images and Relics.
Palmer's statement nails the real point of difference on justification.
Recall that purgatory is not merely a place of cleansing classically, but a place of retributive punishment left to be doled out upon those who have not yet made adequate satisfaction.
Hence, in a pre-Vatican II era, Father Martin Yogi, the famous Roman Catholic expositor of purgatory, could write the following, quote, "A soul may go to purgatory then for three reasons.
One, on account of venial sins not remitted here on earth.
Two, on account of vicious inclinations left in the soul through habits of sin.
Three, on account of the temporal punishment due to every sin, mortal or venial, committed after baptism and not sufficiently atoned for during life.
Certain souls go to purgatory for the third reason only, for they have brought to the judgment seat neither venial sins nor ingrained inclinations to vice.
If a person dies with one single venial sin on his soul, he is condemned to purgatory for the first and third reasons, since venial sin too must be atoned for.
Then again, it can safely be said that no one goes to purgatory solely for the second reason, since vicious inclinations do not in themselves constitute sins, and the majority of theologians hold with St. Thomas that these inclinations do not survive the first instant that follows the separation of soul and body.
They disappear in that instant, for the soul in a state of grace, once it finds itself in the presence of God, strains towards Him with ardor and hates intensely all that displeases Him.
This violent turning away from sin suffices to detach the soul from every inclination to commit sin and gives to it a perfect moral rectitude.
The position becomes perfectly clear when it is remembered that the great number, if not all, of vicious inclinations are linked in some fashion to sensibility and the organs of sense, whose exercise is suspended by the separation of body and soul affected by death."What is said of vicious inclinations is true also of venial sins not remitted here below.
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