4 Justification is brought about through God's grace.
Justification is in no way earned by the individual.
But beliefs about the precise mechanism of justification is perhaps the most difficult to harmonize between Protestants and Roman Catholics, and even within various Protestant denominations. At the time of the Reformation, both Protestants and Catholics condemned each other in the most vicious terms over their disagreements in the doctrines of justification. These conflicts were published in a number of Lutheran Confessions and other documents during the 16th century. They also appeared in the statements issued by the Roman Catholic Council of Trent. These remained valid church teachings up to the time of the Joint Declaration.