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Iustitia Dei: A History of the Christian Doctrine of Justification, by Alister E. McGrath
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The doctrine of justification was of major importance at the time of the Reformation, and continues to be of immense significance in ecumenical dialogues. This book, which appeared in its first edition in 1986, is the only major study of the doctrine since 1870. Its many acclaimed features include an assessment of the concept of justification in the thought world of the ancient Near East, a thorough examination of the development of the doctrine in the medieval period, and a careful analysis of the sixteenth-century debates. This revised and updated edition brings together in one volume the material from the two volume first edition, while adding new sections dealing with recent developments in Pauline scholarship and ecumenical debates over the doctrine. It will be an essential resource for anyone wanting to understand historical theology, sixteenth-century church history or the modern ecumenical debates between Protestants and Roman Catholics.
- Sales Rank: #2345834 in Books
- Brand: Brand: Cambridge University Press
- Published on: 1998-11-28
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.50" h x 1.18" w x 5.43" l,
- Binding: Paperback
- 552 pages
- Used Book in Good Condition
Review
'No seminary, divinity school or graduate research library should be without this contribution to scholarly interpretation of the historical and theological aspects of the doctrine of justification. The first major study since Albrecht Ritschl's Die christliche Lehre von der Rechtfertigung und Versohnung (Bonn, 1870), this work is impressive in its comprehensiveness and quality. Not only does it span twenty centuries, it also covers many lesser-known figures alongside the acknowledged 'greats' of Christian thought. Its analyses are consistently precise, carefully attentive to detail and nuance, and its conclusions both circumspect and challenging.' Religious Studies
'No major work on the subject has appeared for over a century ... McGrath reviews and revises, overhauls and extends all previous studies ... A first class, scholarly, authoritative, balanced, informed study ... unique value as an historical and theological analysis.' Scottish Journal of Theology
'An admirable work ... an invaluable source and should be recognised as a standard work on the subject.' Heythrop Journal
'An impressive study ... it will undoubtedly be consulted by students of the doctrine of justification for a long time to come.' Journal of Theological Studies
'Indispensable' Epworth Review 'A valuable and important study' Theology 'A more than ordinarily useful scholarly tool ... With an admirable economy of expression that brooks no loss of clarity, McGrath provides skilful introductions to notoriously difficult and controverted positions, both historical and theological ... A book the clarity and conciseness and utility of whose expositions cannot be conveyed in a review.' Guy Mansini, Theological Studies 'This is an impressive study. It is both a valuable reminder of an important branch of the common stream of Christianity, and an invitation to further evaluation and fresh development.' George Newlands, Journal of Theological Studies
About the Author
Alister E. McGrath is Professor of Historical Theology at the University of Oxford. His many publications include Christian Theology: An Introduction, 3rd Edition (2001).
Most helpful customer reviews
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
Academic tour de force
By Amazon Customer
The most academic book I have ever wanted to own. Amazing depth, requires lots of time investment to get everything out of it.
40 of 46 people found the following review helpful.
Faith in Justification Alone
By benjamin
This volume is one of those rare, indispensible works of historical theology that not only successfully delineates the history of a particular doctrine (that of Justification), but points to the weight of the debates that are its history (or, perhaps, histories) without any discernible polemic. That it relates to the Protestant Reformations goes without saying; that it contains a number of implications for ecumenism must, for some, be consciously remembered. This, the third edition, is a substantially re-written version of the two-volume first edition (the "second" edition contained the two volumes of the first in a single volume with no editorial changes). It comes across, then, very much as a potential work-in-progress; it does not seem strange, in reading the conclusion, to conceive of McGrath coming up with a fourth edition some years down the road - one that might, at the very least, smooth out some of the more disjointed facets of McGrath's 421 page narrative.
The book begins and ends in a historiographical context that is entirely appropriate for current debates about Justification: the state of current scholarship on the Bible, particularly St. Paul the Apostle. McGrath seems to concur with the thought of the most eminent of scholars that the Apostle not only never wrote a systematic work about justification, but that his doctrine seems to envision justification as three distinct, but related things: our past justification, our current state of being justified, and the promise of our future justification. Above all, it is in the context of evangelism to the Gentiles that the Apostle discusses "justification by faith"; to take this phrase and read into it late-medieval and Reformation-era debates is without warrant.
There is a danger in reading this book, for Justification is a doctrine that was not at the center of Christian reflection until the Protestant Reformations. When McGrath moves from St. Paul to St. Augustine, then, he discusses the place of justification within Augustine's work by labeling Augustine "the fountainhead". On the one hand, it makes sense to see Blessed Augustine as a fountainhead, for he truly is the father of all Western Christian thought; on the other hand, if McGrath means that Augustine is the fountainhead of the doctrine of justification, this contention is nowhere explained. Rather, it seems at odd with McGrath's statement that "the early Christian writers did not choose to express their soteriological convictions in terms of the concept of justification" (33).
Augustine appears to have held to the Apostle's teaching that we are justified by faith working through love (Gal. 5:6) and it is the centrality of love in Paul's own letters that is reproduced in Augustine's teaching on justification. However, unlike later medieval thinkers, Augustine's understanding of justification appears to be organically united with his understanding of the sacraments (especially baptism) and the nature of the Christian life as the path to deification (becoming by grace what God is by nature). McGrath is explicit that any understanding of Augustine's understanding of justification must note the centrality that deification holds in Augustine's thinking about the Christian life. Justification *is* deification for Augustine: the process of a past act, a present reality, and promise yet to come.
Ironically, the second chapter of the book (which is the longest at just over 150 pages) is titled "The Middle Ages: Consolidation". However, in reading this very long (and very dense) chapter, one gets a sense that the medieval era never reached any point of consolidation at all but that, as time went on, debates about justification became increasingly confined to academics in medieval universities and were conducted without reference to liturgy or Christian living - although the idea of extra-sacramental justification was by-and-large repudiated. Thus, justification appears to be a doctrine that developed in abstraction from the life of most Christians. This is in rather glaring contrast to a doctrine such as the Trinity, which was intimately tied up with evangelism, liturgy and the sacrament of baptism in the early Church. Justification, as the middle ages draws to a close, appears to be a doctrine without roots.
The Reformation continued the trend and, if anything, furthered it. Not only is justification finally divorced from the sacraments (whether or not one is justified in baptism appears to be anyone's guess), but the appeals by Protestants made to the Christian past during the Reformation debates are just plain wrong. Without even batting an eye, McGrath notes that the Protestant contention concerning justification as a legal fiction - that one is declared justified without being changed by God - was a complete novelty that had been explicitly repudiated by the early and medieval Church. He does a fine job surveying Luther's theology of justification - which is far more medieval than any of his Protestant counterparts (all of whom Luther considered heretics, save the developing Lutheran church) - and notes with approval the current work of the "Helsinki School" of Finnish Lutheran scholarship that has sought to readdress the anti-mystical tendencies of much Lutheran scholarship. This does not clear Luther from the charges of novelty, but it does present him as a more historically grounded figure than the other Reformers. In a thoroughly researched chapter, McGrath shows that the Council of Trent ultimately towed the line on this issue and held far closer to Augustine's and Paul's understandings of justification than any of the Protestant Reformers (or Catholic Reformers - it appears that "justification by faith alone" was actually in discussion among Catholics before it was brought to the fore by Luther!).
The history of Protestantism is touched upon in many ways by noting the various ways that Protestant groups looked at the question of justification. It is worth noting that Luther's contention would not only be blunted by Lutheranism, but that other Protestants would reject his understanding as entirely erroneous. It is here that McGrath most falters, however, by becoming intensely personal in his discussion of John Henry Newman's Lectures on Justification. McGrath is generous in his critiques of Newman's shortcomings (and cites Rowan Williams in support of his critiques), but repeatedly uses the personal pronoun "I" when discussing Newman's thoughts. Out of nowhere the reader suddenly becomes privy to what appears to be a long-standing personal wrestling that, even as it is conducted civilly, clearly reveals a tremendous level of personal engagement on McGrath's part. It's almost embarassing. And, it causes me to wonder whether or not at the end of the day, the polemic against Newman isn't a sign of McGrath's own spiritual wrestlings: the history of justification points to the validity of the Catholic view more than the Protestant view, yet McGrath in other writings is quite insistent on the validity of Protestantism. Newman, however, was a figure that tried to mediate between the two for a short time before ultimately deciding that Roman Catholicism was the true Church. Perhaps McGrath feels this same struggle? Regardless, his exploration of Newman's thoughts is unnecessarily personal and entirely out of place in this book.
There are other things to quibble with, such as McGrath's tendency to see the few areas of agreement between Lutherans and Calvinists in the 16th century concerning justification as "the orthodox doctrine of justification". Given the difficult history of this doctrine, naming these points of agreement feels more than a bit arbitrary. But, no book is perfect. Neither is any author. This dense tome stands, however, as a witness to ways in which Christians have, over the ages, in complete disagreement with one another, sought to attach a level of meaning to a word - "justification" - that points ultimately to the fact that our own failures are neither the beginning nor the ending of the Christian story. That such a history might be so magnanimously recorded by a first-rate historian such as Alister McGrath is more than enough of a reason to give thanks.
14 of 28 people found the following review helpful.
Avoiding the Issue
By Mark Schmittle
McGrath's book left me with mixed feelings. It is outstanding in the volume of information it relates, however, it has some major defects in construction and the manner in which it relates the information.
McGrath does a fine job of surveying the pre-Reformation period, especially as regards the late Middle-Ages nominalist schools. He high-lights the continuing influence of semi-pelagianism evident in the pactum theology of the via moderna, and doesn't fail to point out that the reliance upon "facienti quod in se est" (man accomplishing what he can), necessitating a reciprocal reward from God, is incompatible with the pronouncements of the Second Council of Orange in 529. He thus makes clear that the Catholic Church condemned the reliance upon man's power apart from God, in any aspect of Justification, as not in accord with the Gospel.
McGrath also points out the fact that at no time in the history of Christianity prior to the 16th Century was it ever taught that justification is merely extrinsic to the believer. All theologians from the Fathers, through the Scholasitcs, through the late Middle-Ages, taught that man experiences an intrinsic justification. McGrath states on page 51, "It is quite untenable to suppose that the Reformation distinction between justification and regeneration can be adduced from the medieval period, when it is clear that the universal opinion is that such a distinction is excluded from the outset."
In chapter 19, however, he tries to justify the Protestant claim of forensic justification and fails to note certain crucial points. McGrath states that if it can be shown that Luther's doctrine of alien righteousness is what he calls a "theological novum" then the Reformation loses all credibility. In the Protestant defense, he claims that since the means of justification was not settled prior to the Reformation, the Reformers were justified in establishing new grounds for justification. What he says it true in terms of the theological debate regarding how man is justified - that question, in some regards, remains open in the Catholic Church even today. But that isn't the point! The doctrine of justification rests on what occurs in justification. The Christian Church has always taught, in papal pronouncements and counciliar statements, that man undergoes an interior transformation in justification so that he is truly righteous - not merely said to be. The point I'm making can be seen in the debates on other dogmas of the Church. For instance, the question of the doctrine of the Most Holy Trinity has been settled for over 16 hundred years and is incapsulated in the Apostle's creed, the creed of the Council of Nicea, the Athanasian creed, and other counciliar and papal decrees. How God can be one Being and three Persons is still debated and will continue to be debated till the end of time because it's a mystery! Revelation tells us that God is one Being and three Persons, but it doesn't explain how - perhaps because our finite minds couldn't grasp the answer. Again, the Church has always taught that Jesus Christ is truly both God and Man - how this is cannot be adequately explained in human language. We can only arrive at a more or less proximate explanation. The same holds true for justification. Revelation tells us that we are made a "new creation" that we share the divine nature as a result of our justification - it doesn't say clearly how this occurs. But Divine Revelation and the Christian Church's articulation of that revelation has always been clear and consistent about the translation of man from a state of sin and enmity with God to a state of adoption and grace. Luther's alien righteousness is truly a "theological novum" incompatible with the Gospel.
That McGrath fails to relate this distinction makes me question his motivations. He is without doubt an extremely bright scholar. I can't imagine this point would escape him. Secondly, he claims the Catholic Church fails to deal with the apparent contradiction between God's sovereignty and free will - as though the Reformers did so! Please, this issue was satisfactorily addressed by St. Thomas Aquainas in his explanation of God's ability to create free actions in men so that they are truly completely the work of God and yet simultaneously truly the free acts of men. The debate between Thomists and Molinists regarding distinctions in this debate are irrelevant to the fact that both at Orange II and Trent, the Church taught God moves and determines man to act freely, thus safeguarding the divine Sovereignty as well as human freedom. Again, how God does this may be beyond our ability to satisfactorily articulate, but that God does it is not questioned by the Church. She regards it as part of divine revelation.
McGrath fails to address the Catholic objections to the Reformation doctrines of alien righteousness and sola fide, such as the logical conclusion of these doctrines establishing God as the author of evil and the necessary denial of humanity being created in God's image (due to the lack of free will).
McGrath fails to account for any meaningful Catholic contribution to the question of justification following Trent, other than that regarding the recent ecumenical studies. He apparently believes there hasn't been any meaningful Catholic contribution.
Furthermore, there was a glaring absence of scriptural references and exegesis pertaining to relevant passages relating to justification. I suspect McGrath understands well that there simply isn't any intelligible scriptural basis for Luther's doctrine of alien righteousness. Luther's mad attempts to reconstruct the Bible only serve to high-light this fact.
Lastly, McGrath's work lacks cohesiveness. There didn't seem to be a real "plan of attack" for the question of justification. He follows a vague historical outline, but other than that the information seems to be related in a rather hodge-podge format. I think there could have been much more structure to the question. This would have helped the reader comprehend more clearly and easily the crucial points of the debate.
Having said all this, the book is well worth the read.
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