Newspaper Page Text
The Southern Cross, Page 8
Thursday, December 23, 1999
Justification: The historic
agreement reached
By Father John Hotchkin
Catholic News Service
ft-
.lthough a far-reaching
agreement in the understanding of
the doctrine of justification appears
possible, other questions arise here.
What is the theological importance of
this doctrine?”
That was the question raised by
the international Joint Lutheran-
Catholic Study Commission in 1972.
Now that an agreement has been
ratified at the highest level by the
Catholic Church and the churches
of the Lutheran World Federation
with their signing Oct. 31 in
Augsburg, Germany, of the Joint
Declaration on the Doctrine of Justi
fication, the question returns:
What is the importance of this doc
trine?
That will not be evident immedi
ately to everyone. One reason is that
the word “justification” in everyday
use today means an explanation, usu
ally of a defensive sort, offered for a
particular decision or action. That
leaves us nowhere near the deep
meaning of the word throughout sa
cred Scripture.
The Bible, we know, offers a vari
ety of terms to describe the relation-
more prevalent than has often been
suspected, noted the U.S. Lutheran-
Catholic Dialogue.
If justification is so prominent a
“It is the opinion of St. Augustine
that ‘the justification of the wicked
is a greater work than the creation
of heaven or earth,’ because ‘heaven
All contents copyright©! 999 by CNS
ing of justification now being freed
from the tangles of our past disputes
and mutual condemnations.
This teaching — justification —
CNS photo of Lutheran World Federation president Bishop Christian Krause (left) and Vatican representative Cardinal Edward Cassidy, signing the joint declaration, from Reuters.
^Wi
hat is the importance of this
doctrine? That will not be evident
immediately to everyone.... The
word ‘justification’ in everyday
use today means an explanation,
usually of a defensive sort. That leaves us
nowhere near the deep meaning of the
word throughout sacred Scripture.”
ship God wants humans to have
with him. These include “salva
tion,” “redemption,” “rebirth,” “new
life” and others. But far and away
the most frequent is “justification,”
FOODFORTHOUGHT
biblical teaching, how
important is it in our
lives? For one response
we might turn to the
Catechism of the;
Catholic Church,
which says, “justifica
tion is the ‘most excel
lent work of God’s love’” — the empha
sis there being that of the catechism
itself, which goes on to cite the Doctor
of Grace esteemed equally by
Lutherans and Catholics:
Until recent times, “Lutherans heard too much about good works
from Catholics, and Catholics heard too much about faith from
Lutherans,” Bishop George Anderson, presiding bishop of the Evangelical
Lutheran Church in America, said in an address to the U.S. Catholic
bishops during their November 1999 meeting in Washington.
Bishop Anderson explained that when Catholic and Lutheran
theologians in dialogue “decided to talk about God’s grace rather than
about our response, new perspectives opened up. We discovered new
richness in the biblical term justification,’ and we listened more closely to
the way each of our traditions explained its effects. ”
To understand what he meant about deciding to talk about grace, it is
important to look at this key sentence from the Joint Declaration on the
Doctrine of Justification signed by the Catholic Church and the Lutheran
World Federation Oct. 31, 1999, in Augsburg, Germany:
“By grace alone, in faith in Christ’s saving work and not because of any
merit on our part, we are accepted by God and receive the Holy Spirit,
who renews our hearts while equipping and calling us to good works.”
45
David Gibson, Editor, Faith Alive!
and earth will pass away but the
salvation of the elect ... will not pass
away.’ He holds also that the justifi
cation of sinners surpasses the cre
ation of the angels in justice in that
it bears witness to a greater mercy.”
Clearly, in speaking of justifica
tion we are drawing very near to the
core of the Christian Gospel, the
point at which God opens his divine
life to be shared in by humans with
an intimacy and love not before wit
nessed. Little wonder that Martin
Luther would say of the matter, “If
this article stands, the church
stands; if it falls, the church falls.”
When in the 16th century Chris
tians fell into dispute over justifica
tion, the effect was, not surpris
ingly, explosive. That explosion de
stroyed the Holy Roman Empire and
fractured the church in the West
from that day until this.
If discord among us concerning
justification could have had such a
deep and long-lasting impact on the
history of the church, one can only
wonder what the impact of the ac
cord now reached will be over time.
Will the impact be as great? Con
ceivably so.
One immediate effect should be
its impact on our individual lives, a
reappreciation of the glorious teach
reminds us that before we loved
God, God loved us and showed
mercy toward us. All of this comes
to us as the sheerest of gifts, a rela
tionship with God far beyond our
natural capacity even to reach for,
let alone achieve.
The first way in which we experi
ence the reception of this gift is
faith. Faith is a vision. It is not
something we can talk ourselves
into. It is not a conclusion one ar
gues to; it has to be seen, and it can
only be seen if God gives the grace to
see it.
Faith is a vision that sustains
the soul in face of the searing
questions which life presents to
everyone, especially the many
forms in which death asks its
questions. Why must children die?
Why must so many die at human
hands and still more as victims of
natural disasters? Why must dy
ing often be so painful? What is
the meaning of living in the face of
so much loss?
There is no reasonable, rational
answer to questions like these. The
only answer the soul finds is found
not in words but in prayer.
To pray one needs faith; faith is
the fruit of justification.
(Father Hotchkin is director of the
U.S. bishops’ Secretariat for Ecu
menical and Interreligious Affairs.)