In Christ

Fr Alvin Kimel, in a Called to Communion comment writes:

Jeremy, for me the moment of revelation occurred when I realized that salvation simply IS incorporation into the divine life of the Holy Trinity. What else can it ultimately be? All the words we employ–justification, sanctification, regeneration, etc., etc.–point us to the fundamental reality of our life in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This, I believe, is what the Catholic (and Orthodox) position seeks to state and is why Catholics refuse to separate justification, sanctification, regeneration, etc., etc. We can, and must, make our distinctions; but the indivisible reality is participation in God (theosis).

Catholic and Protestant dispute is misunderstood, IMHO, when becomes a dispute about the ordo salutis, as if everything hinges on getting right all the theological details. If this is what the dispute is all about, then a pox on both houses! Luther’s fundamental protest was directed against a popular late medieval caricature and misrepresentation of God, and contemporary Catholic theologians have acknowledged the legitimacy of this protest. God is not a God whom we must persuade by our good works and sanctification to love and forgive us. He is a God of love and mercy and infinite grace.

But if the Catholics joins with the Protestant in rejecting this misrepresentation of the God of the gospel, what then happens to the Protestant protest?