Section 20

A growing awareness of the diversity of currents and complexity of social negotiations within the Reformation has created some difficulties in speaking of certain theological themes or specific doctrines that can be said to have been common to the Reformation movement as a whole, in contrast to its individual members or constituencies. This diversity exists at multiple levels – such as the specific biblical texts that are treated as normative, and the specific terms that are used to express such ideas (imputare and reputare being particularly significant, not least because of an early lack of precision in determining what these terms might mean). Yet despite this diversity within reforming communities in Germany and Switzerland during the first two decades of the sixteenth century, a broad consensus seems to have emerged by the 1530s concerning both the nature of justification and the context in which it was set. Given the multiple strands that constitute the ‘ Reformation’ , it is not adequate to merely observe that this process of crystallisation around a shared set of ideas happened; some account needs to be offered of the process by which this consensus emerged. 3 At present, the mechanisms of this coalescence remain imperfectly understood; there is, however, no doubt that some such process took place.

On the basis of the detailed analysis to be set out in this part of this work, the following three features are characteristic of Protestant understandings of the nature of justification over the period 1530– 1730:

In suggesting that these three features should be considered as being characteristic of Protestant understandings of justification, I am aware that neither Martin Luther nor Huldrych Zwingli can be said to have understood justification in precisely this manner in their earlier writings. The consolidation of these features as characteristic of Protestantism appears to have been achieved in the late 1530s through the considerable influence of Philip Melanchthon. It is nevertheless clear that Luther’ s doctrine of the iustitia Christia aliena laid the conceptual foundation for such a doctrine of forensic justification, 6 even if Luther himself did not explicitly make such moves in the late 1510s and early 1520s.

Luther is best regarded as a transitional figure, standing at the junction of two rival understandings of the nature of justification, and playing no small role in bringing about this change in understanding, even if its final terminus lay beyond his own formulations. As we demonstrated earlier, the medieval theological tradition was unanimous in its understanding of justification as both an act and a process, by which both the status of human beings coram Deo and their essential nature underwent alteration. Although Luther regarded justification as an essentially unitary process, he nevertheless introduced a decisive break with the western theological tradition as a whole by insisting that, through their justification, humans are intrinsically sinful yet extrinsically righteous. It is at this point that it is possible to distinguish the otherwise similar teachings of Luther and Johannes von Staupitz on justification. 7

As noted earlier, it is not correct to characterise the doctrines of justification associated with the Reformation solely with reference to their anti-Pelagian character or to their associated doctrines of predestination. Although an earlier generation of scholars argued that the Reformation resulted from the sudden rediscovery of the radical anti-Pelagianism of Augustine’ s soteriology, it is clear that this judgement cannot be sustained. The emergence of the schola Augustiniana moderna in the fourteenth century was essentially an academic movement based upon the anti-Pelagian writings of Augustine, 8 which secured significant traction in both pastoral and academic contexts. The possibility that both Calvin and Luther, as well as other Reformers such as Peter Martyr Vermigli , might demonstrate continuity with this late medieval Augustinian school indicates continuity in this discussion, rather than significant rupture or radical innovation. 9 In its radical anti-Pelagianism, the Reformation, in its first phase, demonstrated a remarkable degree of continuity with well-established (though not universal) currents in late medieval thought. This is not, of course, to say that the Reformation was typical of the late medieval period, but merely to observe that the Reformation demonstrates strong affinities with one of the many theological currents which constituted the flux of late medieval theology.

Equally, the Reformers unhesitatingly rejected the necessity of created habits of grace in justification, a tendency which is evident from Luther’ s Randbemerkungen of 1509– 10 onwards. 10 In doing so, they again reflected the general tendency of the period, particularly within the via moderna and schola Augustiniana moderna , to locate the ratio iustificationis primarily in the extrinsic denomination of the divine acceptation. It may also be argued that the covenantal (rather than ontological) and voluntarist (rather than intellectualist) foundations of late medieval theology passed into the theology of the first phase of the Reformation. Within the flux of late medieval theology, currents may easily be identified which demonstrate various degrees of continuity with the emerging theologies of justification associated with the first phase of the Reformation.

These areas of continuity with the later medieval theological tradition, nevertheless, relate primarily, if not exclusively, to the mode of justification rather than to its nature . Despite the disagreement within the various theological schools concerning the manner in which justification came about, there was a fundamental consensus on what the term ‘ justification’ itself signified. Throughout the entire medieval period, justification continued to be understood as the process by which humans are made righteous, subsuming the concepts of ‘ sanctification’ and ‘ regeneration’ . Iustificare was understood to signify iustum facere throughout the period. Albrecht Ritschl is thus correct when he states: 11

The Protestant understanding of the nature of justification thus represents a theological innovation whereas its understanding of its mode fits into established and inherited patterns of Pauline interpretation and theological reflection. It is therefore important to observe that the criterion employed in the sixteenth century to determine whether a particular doctrine of justification was Protestant or otherwise was whether justification was understood forensically . The solidification of an ‘ official’ position on justification as a result of the Osiandrist controversy confirmed the early Protestant conviction that any doctrine of justification by inherent righteousness was intrinsically anti-Protestant. 13 The history of the Reformation itself, especially as it concerns Osiander and Latomus, 14 demonstrates that the criterion employed at the time to determine whether a given doctrine was Protestant was the manner in which justifying righteousness was understood. It would therefore appear to be historically unsound to use any other criterion in this respect. An anti-Pelagian framework for justification might be a necessary condition for a given doctrine to count as Protestant; it was not, however, a sufficient condition.

So how is this consolidation of early Protestant views to be accounted for? Although much attention has rightly focussed on the importance of biblical hermeneutics and conventions of theological formulation, it is important to note a sociological factor that became increasingly important in the sixteenth century – the need for criteria of social demarcation, enabling communities of faith to distinguish themselves, especially from those they deemed to be hostile. 15 The later Calvinist emphasis on the importance of predestination was, at least in part, an outcome of the need to have some means of distinguishing the Reformed and Lutheran evangelical constituencies, especially in regions (such as parts of Germany) in which both communities were competing for territory and influence. 16 Such a sociological factor does not account for the specific characteristics of any defining feature of Calvinism or Lutheranism – such as the notion of iustitia Christi aliena . It does, however, help us to understand why such distinctive ideas were seen as important, and why they were deployed confessionally as a means of both social and theological demarcation.

With these concerns in mind, we shall turn to a detailed exploration of the development of the doctrines of justification associated with leading representatives of the movement that is now known as Protestantism – beginning, as is surely appropriate, with Luther himself.