Iustitia Dei (Alister McGrath)

With his book, Iustitia Dei: A History of the Christian Doctrine of Justification, Oxford scholar Alister E. McGrath offers Christian scholarship an important analysis of the doctrine of justification as it has developed throughout church history. As the most thorough treatment of justification in print since Albrecht Ritschl’s work on the topic in 1870, Iustitia Dei clearly qualifies as a significant and necessary resource for those interested in soteriology in general and justification in particular.

In this summary/review of Iustitia Dei, this reviewer will attempt to provide a useful tool for those interested in gaining a helpful overview of McGrath’s book. This summary/review will include: (1) a general introduction to Iustitia Dei; (2) a summary of the key time periods and theologians McGrath highlights; and (3) important evaluations concerning McGrath’s book.

INTRODUCTION TO IUSTITIA DEI
McGrath says he wrote Iustitia Dei because of the “deficiency” that existed in scholarship on the issue of justification (ix). He points out that his work is not just a “catalogue” of what important theologians have said about justification. Instead, it is an attempt to record the continuous development of the doctrine of justification within the western theological tradition (ix).

McGrath believes that justification is “the real centre of the theological system of the Christian church” (1). To him it “encapsulates the essence of the Christian faith and proclamation” (2). McGrath points out that justification has its sphere within the western church alone since the emphasis of the eastern church was on deification not justification. Because of this, McGrath focuses solely on the theology of western theologians.

Before embarking on his historical survey, McGrath offers a detailed assessment of the semantic background of the concept of justification in the thought world of the ancient Near East. He argues that the transfer of the concept from the Hebrew and Greek matrix to that of western Europe and the Latin language has had significant consequences on how justification has been understood (5). McGrath says the Latin understanding of justification has stressed the aspect of being inherently righteous. This conflicts with the Greek understanding of justification as being “considered” or “estimated” as righteous (15).

KEY THEOLOGIANS AND MOVEMENTS MENTIONED BY McGRATH

Pre-Augustinian Tradition
Chronologically, McGrath begins his treatment of justification with the Christian era before Augustine. Put simply, “Justification was simply not a theological issue in the pre-Augustinian tradition,” he asserts (19). Thus, the church’s understanding of justification was “inchoate and ill-defined” (23). Any statements that appear to teach ‘works-righteousness’ in this period are “quite innocent” and not explicit attempts to add works to grace (23).

McGrath also points out that the pre-Augustinian era was mostly known for its Christological and Trinitarian dogmas, not soteriology. Interestingly, he points out that Pauline literature was scarcely considered in the first 350 years of the church.

Augustine
McGrath refers repeatedly to the enormous significance of Augustine on soteriology. He points out that Augustine is the first major theologian of church history to seriously address the issue of justification (24). Although Augustine’s views would undergo development and change in his own lifetime, many of his positions would eventually become predominant in the medieval era.

Some of Augustine’s key views according to McGrath include:
· Man’s election is based on God’s eternal decree of predestination.
· Free will is not lost; it is merely incapacitated and may be healed by grace.
· The act of faith is a divine gift.
· Faith is adherence to the Word of God.
· It is love, not faith, that is the power that brings about conversion.
· There is a distinction between operative and cooperative grace.
· The righteousness of God is that by which God justifies sinners.
· God’s prevenient grace prepares man’s will for justification.

In specific relation to justification, Augustine held the following:
· The motif of amor Dei dominates Augustine’s theology of justification.
· The verb ‘to justify’ means ‘to make righteous.’ Thus, justification is about being ‘made just.’
· Justification is all-embracing, including both the event of justification and the process of justification.
· Man’s righteousness in justification is inherent rather than imputed.

Medieval Period
According to McGrath, “the framework of the medieval discussion of justification was essentially Augustinian” (38). The theology of this period was a systematic attempt to restate and reformulate Augustine’s theology to meet the needs of the new era (38).

The predominant view of justification in the medieval era was this: “Justification refers not merely to the beginning of the Christian life, but also to its continuation and ultimate perfection, in which the Christian is made righteous in the sight of God and the sight of men through a fundamental change in his nature, and not merely his status” (41). With this understanding, there was no distinction between justification and sanctification that would later characterize Reformation orthodoxy. Other views associated with the medieval era according to McGrath include:
· The infusion of grace initiates a chain of events that eventually leads to justification.
· Justification consists in the remission of sins.
· Justification involves a real change in its object.
· Man has a positive role to play in his own justification.
· A human disposition toward justification is necessary.
· Justification takes place within the sphere of the church and is particularly associated with the sacraments of baptism and penance.
· Grace is understood in Augustinian terms, including the elements of restoration of the divine image, forgiveness of sins, regeneration, and indwelling of the Godhead.

Key theologians of the medieval era that McGrath mentions include Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, Anselm, Peter Abelard, and William of Ockham. Aquinas is especially important because of his substantial Summa Theologiae and his attempt to unite Christian doctrine with Aristotle. Godescalc and his view of double predestination are also given attention by McGrath.

As for important schools of thought, McGrath describes the beliefs of the Dominican, Franciscan, and Augustinian schools. Interestingly, the school that claimed Augustine often differed with Augustine on significant issues. McGrath points out that “It is impossible to speak of a single homogeneous ‘medieval Augustinian tradition’ during the Middle Ages in relation to justification” (179).

Reformation Period
According to McGrath, there were three main features that characterized the Protestant understanding of justification between 1530—1730: (1) justification is a forensic declaration that the Christian is righteous rather than the process by which he is made righteous; (2) a deliberate distinction is made between justification and sanctification (or regeneration); and (3) the formal cause of justification is the alien righteousness of Christ imputed to man (182). To McGrath, the Reformation period was not so much a rediscovery of the Pauline corpus as it was a rediscovery of Augustine’s doctrine of grace.

Key theologians in the Reformation period, according to McGrath, include Luther (Bondage of the Will), Melanchthon (Loci Communes), Zwingli (Samtliche Werke), Bucer (Praelectiones in epistolam ad Ephesios), Calvin (Opera omnia quae supersunt), and Beza (Tractationes Theologicae). McGrath does minimize Luther’s importance in the Reformed understanding of justification. To McGrath, “The origins of the Reformed church owe little, if anything, to Luther’s insights into justification” (188). He also says that Luther’s understanding of justification was that of an “all-embracing process” subsuming the beginning, development, and subsequent perfection of the Christian life. He also asserts that Luther’s understanding of justification was close to the position of Trent (205). McGrath does positively assert that the origins of the concept of imputed righteousness “lie with Luther” (201).

Compared to other works that deal seriously with the Reformation, McGrath does not write much about John Calvin. McGrath does assert, though, that, “The most significant contribution to the development of the early Reformed doctrine of justification was due to John Calvin” (223). It was Calvin who “makes explicit a concept of forensic justification” (223). Calvin also viewed justification Christologically and understood both justification and sanctification as inseparable but distinct benefits that come from Christ. According to McGrath, “Calvin may be regarded as establishing the framework within which subsequent discussion of justification within the Reformed school would proceed” (226). McGrath claims that the Reformed school after Calvin made predestination, not justification, the central dogma of the Reformed church. The Reformed tradition also replaced a Christocentric approach with a theocentric emphasis and adopted a limited atonement view, something that Calvin did not do.

Trent
McGrath claims that the Roman Catholic Church was initially unprepared to adequately respond to the Reformation in its early state. He asserts that Roman Catholic critics simply did not understand the Lutheran view of justification (241). Early responses to Luther focused on “trivialities” such as Luther’s views of indulgences and the papacy. Luther singled out Erasmus, alone, as the only person who had a proper grasp of the key theological issues at hand.

In light of the Protestant threat, the Council of Trent convened. Trent did not meet so that long-standing debates between different Catholic schools could be solved; it met to attempt a “Catholic consensus on justification in the face of the Protestant challenge” (250). McGrath mentions that Stakemeier argued for the presence of three theological schools at Trent during the proceedings on justification—the Thomist, Scotist and Augustinian schools. McGrath says that Franciscan scholars were a strong presence at Trent. The two most cited theologians at Trent were Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. The major decisions of Trent, according to McGrath, include:

· Rejection of justification based on imputation. Justification is not about a man being declared righteous but actually becoming righteous.

· Rejection of the view that justification consists solely in the remission of sins.

·Rejection of the view that the righteousness bestowed upon the believer in justification is the righteousness of Christ won on the cross.

· Rejection of the doctrine of assurance.

· Rejection of the view that a person can know he is predestined or will persevere to the end.

McGrath asserts that Rome’s views concerning justification were fixed by 1547. It should be noted, though, that McGrath does not believe that Trent settled on a specific Roman Catholic view of justification. Instead, Trent only “legitimated a range of theologies as catholic” so that any one of them may claim to be a Tridentine doctrine of justification (273).

In his analysis, McGrath claims that Trent was the most significant statement ever made on justification and its findings marked the end of the medieval discussion of justification (273). He also says that the Roman Catholic Church condemned “certain caricatures of Protestantism” rather than Protestantism itself.

English Reformation
McGrath addresses the beliefs of the key individuals and groups of the English Reformation. He says William Tyndale interpreted justification as a ‘making righteous’ as did Thomas Cranmer. Richard Hooker understood justification in a manner similar to Calvin in that man is justified through faith on account of Christ. McGrath summarizes the English view of justification when he says: “In general, the English Reformers appear to have worked with a doctrine of justification in which man was understood to be made righteous by fayth onely, with good works being the natural consequence of justifying faith” (288).

McGrath points out that the Caroline Divines were “unanimous in their rejection of the doctrine of justification by inherent righteousness” (294). The Anglican Divines treated justification as an event and a process, and they saw the formal cause of justification to be either imputed righteousness or inherent and imputed righteousness—not inherent righteousness alone. The English Puritans followed Reformed orthodoxy, particularly in relation to the doctrines of election and the imputation of the righteousness of Christ (302). In the Puritan tradition, John Owen strongly asserted that the formal cause of justification was the imputed righteousness of Christ.

McGrath devotes significant space to the beliefs of John Henry Newman as put forth in Newman’s Lectures on Justification. Newman took “a via media understanding of justification, which allowed an authentically Anglican concept of justification to be defended in the face of distortions of both Protestantism and Roman Catholicism” (309). Newman understood justification primarily as the indwelling of the Trinity within the soul of the believer. McGrath is severely critical of Newman claiming that Newman misrepresents Catholicism, Protestantism, and the Caroline divinity of the seventeenth century. McGrath also accuses Newman of misrepresenting Luther and Calvin. From 1600 onward, according to McGrath, the main Protestant influence upon English theology was Reformed rather than Lutheran (Calvin and Beza over Luther).

The Modern Period
When did the modern era for the doctrine of justification begin? Unlike other scholars who start with the Reformation, McGrath begins with the Enlightenment that began in England, France, and Germany in the eighteenth century. The Enlightenment, according to McGrath, was characterized by a new emphasis on the autonomy of man as a moral agent and a hostility toward the Orthodox understanding of original sin (323). Key theologians/philosophers of this period include John Locke (Reasonableness of Christianity), Thomas Chubb (The True Gospel of Jesus Christ), Johann Konrad Dippel, and Johann Töllner (Der thatige Gehorsam Christi untersucht).

Locke denied the existence of innate ideas and said that all knowledge, whether sensitive, intuitive, or demonstrative, is derived from experience. Deism rejected the concept of original sin and any elements of Christianity that were held to be at variance with reason. Deism also emphasized the moral character of Christianity. Thomas Chubb argued against the doctrines of imputed righteousness and vicarious atonement because he believed they were contrary to reason. Dippel and Töllner also argued that these doctrines were unreasonable. What was the result of these critiques? “By the year 1780, therefore, the foundations of the Christian doctrine of justification had been subjected to such destructive criticism by the Enlightenment. . . that it appeared impossible that they could ever be restored” (335).

McGrath singles out Kant (Gessamelte Schriften) and Schleiermacher (Der christliche Glaube) as offering two responses to the Enlightenment. For Kant, justification rested with the autonomy and absoluteness of the moral consciousness (336). The cornerstone of Kant’s theology was the priority of the apprehension of moral obligation over anything else. To Kant, morality must be based upon the self-imposed ‘categorical imperative’ of the autonomous human will. He asserted that God treated the man who possessed an intention to work towards moral perfection as if he were already in full possession of that perfection (339).

Schleiermacher, McGrath claims, offered a purely religious account of the Christian faith. Schleiermacher established Christian piety and the ‘feeling of absolute dependence’ as the starting point for Christian theology. He rejected the equation of religion and morality and believed in the heteronomous character of man’s soteriological resources (345).

Albrecht Ritschl (The Christian Doctrine of Justification and Reconciliation) argued that all religion is soteriological in character. To him, “justification is. . .the divine operation through which the sinner is restored to fellowship with God” (350). Ritschl criticized the judicial understanding of justification, instead opting for an extra-judicial understanding of the doctrine. Karl Barth (Church Dogmatics), the last major theologian discussed by McGrath, made justification secondary to revelation in his theological system. Nevertheless, with Barth’s view of double predestination, all men are justified in Christ whether they believe it or not.

At the end of his work, McGrath discusses recent trends regarding the theology of justification. He says, “The present century has witnessed a growing tendency to relate the doctrine of justification to the question of the meaning of human existence, rather than the more restricted sphere of man’s justification coram Deo” (372). This trend underlies the existentialist reinterpretations of justification associated with Bultmann and Tillich (Systematic Theology). For Bultmann, justification is concerned with human existence; through man’s decision of faith he attains his authentic self. Tillich argued that justification was at the heart of the Christian faith. Through his ‘method of correlation’ by which the Christian proclamation is ‘correlated’ with the existential questions arising from human existence, Tillich said man must learn to accept that he is accepted, despite being unacceptable. McGrath says that as a result of Bultmann and Tillich there has come to be a “tendency to treat the doctrine of justification as an hermeneutical principle for interpreting, and subsequently transforming, human existence” (375).

In his discussion regarding Paul and justification, McGrath asserts that three trends have emerged in recent scholarship. First, some hold that faith is of central importance to Paul’s conception of Christianity (H. Bornkamm, E. Conzelmann, E. Käsemann). Second, some say that justification by faith is a ‘subsidiary crater’ in Paul’s overall presentation and understanding of the Christian gospel (A. Schweitzer). Third, some see a compromise between the first two views. Thus, the center of Paul’s thought does not lie with justification, but justification is one of several ways of describing God’s grace (J. Jeremias) (386-87). McGrath says that debate on the issue of justification will continue. He believes, however, that there is little hope that a general consensus will ever develop.

In his final section on the modern period, McGrath looks at justification in recent ecumenical debates. He points out that Küng’s attempt to show fundamental agreement between Trent and Barth in his work Justification has not succeeded. McGrath does believe that the 1983 document Justification by Faith, published by the US Lutheran—Roman Catholic dialog group, is a “milestone” in ecumenical dialog on the subject of justification. He believes it properly clears up true areas of misunderstanding between Catholics and Protestants while not making the mistake of downplaying real theological differences between the two groups. One important part of the document is its assertion that the ideas of forensic justification and inherent justification are “two ways of conceptualizing essentially the same theological principle” (392).

McGrath closes his work by reminding the reader that justification is a “complex subject” that is worthy of consideration (395). He reveals that he spent ten years studying the subject of justification and hopes that his work will encourage others to seriously study the subject.

EVALUATION OF IUSTITIA DEI

McGrath’s work is a very important addition to Christian scholarship. His survey of justification is thorough and well written. Not only does he adequately deal with the major figures on justification, he also addresses lesser-known theologians as well. McGrath’s work, then, has great depth. This author also appreciates McGrath’s ability to distinguish between earlier and later beliefs of certain key theologians. This was especially evident in his discussions on Augustine and Aquinas. His stinging critique of John Henry Newman and Newman’s misrepresentations of Luther, Calvin, and others was also enlightening.

Another strength of McGrath’s work is his thorough analysis of Augustine and the tremendous impact Augustine had on theological reflection throughout church history. McGrath is apt at picking up when Augustine’s thought is adopted or carried over to other eras.

The strengths of this work far outweigh its negatives. Nevertheless, there are a few points of criticism of this work. For instance, McGrath’s treatment of the pre-Augustinian era was light. His evaluation of that era may be accurate, but it would have interesting to have more examples of what theologians in this era wrote about salvation even if they did not have a fully worked out view of justification.

Most surprising is McGrath’s attempt to minimize Luther’s importance in the Reformation. Also startling is McGrath’s claim that Luther saw justification as an all-embracing process that was close to the position of the Council of Trent. These assertions are questionable and he did not give enough evidence to support his unique conclusions.

It should also be noted that McGrath’s assertion that Roman Catholic scholarship totally missed Luther’s main points has not gone unchallenged. In his review of McGrath’s work, Scott S. Ickert argues that, “Many Catholic defenders after 1520 dealt specifically and at length with Luther’s teaching on salvation.” Ickert also says that McGrath “commits a common historical blunder in his estimation of pre-Tridentine Catholic controversial theology.”

McGrath also appears to misrepresent Thomas Cranmer, claiming that Cranmer believed that justification is a ‘making righteous’ as opposed to an ‘imputed righteousness.’ A reading of Cranmer, though, gives no such indication that he held such a view of justification. On the whole, though, with some exceptions, McGrath’s presentation of the theologians he mentions appears fair.

Although not necessarily a negative point, McGrath’s extensive use of Latin and German may be pose a problem for readers who are not familiar with these languages. Although a Latin glossary is found in this book, this glossary is not helpful when it comes to helping the reader understand the meaning of Latin terms and phrases mentioned in the book. Many times this author referred to the glossary for help only to find that the word or phrase searched for was not in the glossary. McGrath’s book would have been more understandable if McGrath would have offered English translations for foreign words. Negative criticisms aside, this work is a must for those interested in a work that covers justification from a historical perspective.

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