Justifying Justification

Man sins — and is saved. But is he saved through a life of piety and good works, or through abiding faith in Christ as Lord and Savior? The question of justification, which in the theological sense is the way in which man achieves freedom from guilt, is as old as Christianity, and so is the battle over what the right answer is. The latest skirmish in this theological war was fought this month in Helsinki, where 800 dele gates to the fourth Assembly of the Lu theran World Federation spent twelve days trying to produce a modern statement of Luther's classic Reformation doctrine that man is justified by faith alone. The debate ended in failure; after rejecting two separate drafts, the delegates turned the rewriting job over to a new theological commission, with orders to try again for the next assembly in 1969.

Even the New Testament seems to offer two contradictory interpretations of justification. The pseudonymous au thor of St. James's Epistle urged his readers to be "doers of the word, and not hearers only," and sternly warns that "faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone." But the mighty St. Paul proclaimed to Christendom that Jesus Christ had freed his followers from obedience to the duties and behavior prescribed by the Jewish law, and that "the just shall live by faith."

Man's Depravity. The Gnostics of early Christianity, who claimed to possess a "secret wisdom" left them by Jesus, argued that they were exempt from provisions of moral law, and for so believing were expelled from the church. The British monk Pelagius, who died around 418, in effect contended that man could achieve salvation by his own actions apart from God's gift of grace; he was formidably countered by St. Augustine of Hippo, who emphasized the utter depravity of man and the absolute necessity of Christ's death at Calvary for redemption.

The Middle Ages' Angelic Doctor, St. Thomas Aquinas, hewed to a middle way that became the orthodoxy of the modern Roman Catholic Church after it was canonized by the Council of Trent in the 16th century. Aquinas taught that faith was essential to salvation, but so were good acts done under the influence of faith. St. Thomas' successors failed to preserve his careful balance. Late medieval theology overemphasized active piety: Christians were encouraged to expiate the punishment for their sins that awaited them in purgatory by gaining papally-provided indulgences —available for such good works as do nating money to ecclesiastical building funds.