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Course 10 · Lesson 3.5

Recent ecumenical discussion of justification

12 minute read

Lessons in this course

Course 10 outline

Module 1: Sin and Human Nature

  1. Human beings in the image of God
  2. The fall in Scripture: Genesis 3 and Romans 5
  3. Original sin in Augustine and the Western tradition
  4. Ancestral sin and mortality in the Eastern tradition

Module 2: Grace and Free Will

  1. Pelagius and Augustine
  2. The church responds: semi-Pelagianism and the Council of Orange
  3. Luther and Erasmus on the bondage of the will
  4. Monergism and synergism across the traditions

Module 3: Justification and Sanctification

  1. Justification in Paul and James
  2. Justification by faith alone in the Lutheran and Reformed traditions
  3. The Catholic teaching and the Council of Trent
  4. Sanctification, holiness and theosis
  5. Recent ecumenical discussion of justification

Module 4: Predestination and Election

  1. Election and predestination in Scripture
  2. Augustine, Aquinas and Calvin on predestination
  3. Arminius, Wesley and conditional election
  4. Eastern and Catholic views on election and foreknowledge

Module 5: Atonement, Redemption and Adoption

  1. Atonement and its extent: for whom did Christ die?
  2. Redemption: the images of ransom, freedom and return
  3. Adoption: sons and daughters of God
  4. The order of salvation across the traditions

Module 6: Death, Resurrection and Judgment

  1. Death and the intermediate state
  2. The resurrection of the dead in Scripture and the creeds
  3. The final judgment: Christ the judge
  4. Purgatory, the Orthodox practice of praying for the dead, and the Protestant objection

Module 7: Heaven, Hell and the New Creation

  1. Heaven and the vision of God
  2. Hell: eternal torment, annihilationism and universal hope
  3. The fate of those who have not heard the gospel
  4. The new heavens and the new earth

Module 8: The Millennium and Christian Eschatological Traditions

  1. Revelation and apocalyptic literature
  2. Premillennial views, historic and dispensational
  3. Amillennial and postmillennial views
  4. Preterist, historicist and futurist approaches
  5. What the traditions hold in common about the end

All courses

Program / Course 10: Salvation and Eschatology / Lesson 3.5

What you will learn

  • Describe the 1999 Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification and who signed it.
  • State what the Declaration says is agreed and what it says remains different.
  • Summarize the main criticisms from Catholic, Lutheran and other Protestant voices.
  • Judge fairly whether the sixteenth-century condemnations still apply.

The big idea

On October 31, 1999, in Augsburg, the Lutheran World Federation and the Catholic Church signed a Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification. It states a consensus in basic truths: sinners are justified by God’s grace through faith in Christ, a gift that renews the heart and leads to good works. It holds that remaining differences of language, emphasis and theological elaboration are acceptable and that the sixteenth-century condemnations do not apply to the teaching presented in the Declaration. Supporters call it a landmark. Critics on several sides say it passes too lightly over real disagreements.

Key terms

Ecumenical
Having to do with efforts toward unity among Christian churches. The word comes from a Greek word for the whole inhabited world.
Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification (JDDJ)
The 1999 document in which the Lutheran World Federation and the Catholic Church state a common understanding of justification.
Differentiated consensus
A method in which churches state a shared core of agreement and then list remaining differences as compatible with it.
Mutual condemnations
The sixteenth-century statements in which Lutheran confessions and the Council of Trent each rejected positions of the other.
Lutheran World Federation
A global communion of most Lutheran churches. It is not the only Lutheran body, and some large Lutheran churches are not members.
Official Common Statement
The 1999 text, with an Annex, confirming the Declaration’s results and clarifying certain points.
Association
The act by which another communion affirms the Declaration’s content. Methodists did so in 2006, Reformed churches in 2017 and Anglicans in 2016.

Background

In the decades after the Second Vatican Council, Catholic and Lutheran theologians began a long series of dialogues. A study group in Germany in the 1980s examined the sixteenth-century condemnations and concluded that many no longer touched the other church’s present teaching. International dialogue produced a draft Joint Declaration in 1995. The Catholic Church’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a critical response in 1998, asking for clarifications, and many Lutheran theologians in Germany also wrote against the text. The Official Common Statement and Annex were composed to answer these concerns.

The Declaration is not a new creed. It is a statement that two churches, after long study, recognize each other’s teaching on one doctrine as not contradicting the gospel. Not all Lutheran or Protestant bodies accepted it, and the Orthodox churches took no part. This lesson describes what was claimed and then the debate over whether the claim is justified.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: What is affirmed together

The Declaration states a shared confession in paragraph 15: by grace alone, in faith in Christ’s saving work and not because of any merit on the part of the person, believers are accepted by God and receive the Holy Spirit, who renews their hearts and equips and calls them to good works. Both churches affirm that justification is a gift, that sinners cannot earn it, that faith is its reception and that it is the work of the Trinity.

The Declaration also affirms that justification and renewal belong together, which both sides had long said, though with different emphases. It says that the doctrine of justification is not only one part of Christian teaching but has a particular importance as a criterion that measures the church’s teaching and practice.

Step 2: Differences set out as compatible

The text then takes seven topics: the inability and sin of the human being in relation to justification, justification as forgiveness and making righteous, justification by faith and through grace, the justified as sinner, law and gospel, assurance of salvation, and the good works of the justified. In each it presents a Catholic and a Lutheran way of speaking and says that these are not church-dividing.

For example, on the justified as sinner, Lutherans say that the believer remains a sinner in the sense that sin continues to live in him, while Catholics say that concupiscence is not sin in the strict sense but comes from sin and inclines to it. The Declaration says the two ways of speaking can stand together. On assurance, it says that believers can rely on God’s mercy and promises, though they may still be concerned about their own weakness.

Step 3: The central claim about the condemnations

The text states that the doctrinal condemnations of the sixteenth century do not apply to the teaching of the other partner as it is presented in the Declaration. The sentence is carefully worded. It does not say that the condemnations were mistaken in their time, nor that the churches have no differences. It says that what each church now teaches, as presented in the document, is not what the other once condemned.

The text was signed by representatives of the Lutheran World Federation and the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity in Augsburg, the city of the 1530 Lutheran confession.

Step 4: Criticism and reception

Many Lutheran theologians, including a large number of university professors in Germany, protested the text. They argued that it did not resolve the question of whether justification is received by faith alone, or whether it depends in part on love and works, and that the Declaration let the Catholic side keep a teaching on merit and on penance that Lutherans reject. Some Catholic voices feared that the Declaration yielded too much by describing justification in language that seemed to favor Lutheran emphases.

Others, including many evangelical and Reformed critics, said that the document hides a continuing difference over imputed righteousness. Supporters respond that the text makes careful distinctions and that the purpose is to say what can be said together while naming what remains. In 2006 the World Methodist Council affirmed the Declaration, and in 2016 and 2017 the Anglican Communion and the World Communion of Reformed Churches associated themselves with it.

Step 5: What the matter shows

Whether one finds the consensus convincing or not, the Declaration shows that careful dialogue can sometimes show that parties were talking past one another. It also shows how hard it is to settle that question. Some differences concern words, some concern emphasis and some concern real doctrine. Sorting them is the work of patient reading.

  1. What would it mean for a condemnation to ‘not apply’ to a church’s present teaching?
  2. Why might a document that takes a different language for each church seem both a strength and a weakness?
  3. Which of the seven topics do you think is the hardest to reconcile, and why?
  4. Why would many Lutherans fear that a shared statement could blur the doctrine that, for them, the church stands or falls on?
  5. What role should confessions written in the sixteenth century have today?
  6. How might the Orthodox, who were not part of the dialogue, respond?

Examples

Two ways of speaking

A Lutheran pastor and a Catholic priest are asked whether a baptized person with lingering desires is sinful. The pastor says yes, in that sin still clings. The priest says the desire is not sin until it is consented to, but is a result of sin. The Declaration says that the two answers need not divide the churches. The students comparing them see that the same fact is described in two vocabularies.

The signing at Augsburg

The choice of Augsburg for the signing was deliberate. In 1530 Lutherans presented their confession to the emperor there. Observers noted the place and the date, October 31, the traditional anniversary of the Reformation. Some saw a sign of reconciliation, and others saw a gesture that went further than the text itself.

Different perspectives

Catholic

The Catholic Church, through the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, signed the Declaration as a statement that Catholic teaching on justification, as presented in the text, does not fall under the Lutheran condemnations, and the reverse. Catholic teaching continues to hold the Council of Trent’s decree. Some Catholic theologians have asked for greater clarity on merit and the sacraments.

Lutheran

The Lutheran World Federation, representing most Lutherans worldwide, signed and welcomed the Declaration. Some Lutheran bodies and theologians, including those in other confessional churches, did not accept it, holding that the text does not say clearly enough that justification is by faith alone, apart from works and love.

Reformed and evangelical

The World Communion of Reformed Churches associated with the Declaration in 2017. Many conservative Reformed and evangelical writers remain cautious, holding that the doctrine of imputed righteousness is not clearly affirmed and that the Declaration allows Catholic teaching on merit to stand.

Methodist and Anglican

The World Methodist Council affirmed the Declaration in 2006, with a statement drawing on Wesley’s teaching that justification and sanctification belong together. The Anglican Consultative Council welcomed it in 2016. These bodies saw it as consistent with their own traditions.

Orthodox

The Orthodox churches took no part and have not endorsed the text. Orthodox writers observe that the Western debate over justification is framed in categories that the East does not use, and they tend to see healing and union with God as the more fundamental theme.

Why it matters

The Declaration is the most important modern attempt to measure a sixteenth-century division against present teaching. Whether a student agrees or not, it provides a case study in how to read old condemnations carefully. It reminds readers that some church divisions rest on real disagreement, some on misunderstanding and many on a mixture. It also shows that honest dialogue requires listening to what the other church actually says.

Common misunderstandings

Misunderstanding: The Declaration ended the division between Catholics and Lutherans.

Correction: It addresses one doctrine. The churches remain separate over the papacy, the sacraments, ministry and other matters.

Misunderstanding: Catholics gave up Trent.

Correction: The Catholic Church did not retract Trent. The Declaration says that the condemnations do not apply to the teaching of the partner as presented, and the Catholic Church holds that its own teaching remains the same.

Misunderstanding: All Lutherans signed.

Correction: The Lutheran World Federation signed. Some Lutheran churches and many individual theologians did not accept it.

Misunderstanding: The Declaration is a new creed or a new doctrine.

Correction: It is a statement of agreement and of acceptable differences. It does not add a new article of faith to either church.

Knowledge check

Who signed the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, and when?

The Lutheran World Federation and the Catholic Church, represented by the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, signed it in Augsburg on October 31, 1999. A draft had been prepared in 1995, and an Official Common Statement with an Annex answered objections raised in 1998. Other communions later associated themselves with it.

What do the signatories affirm together?

They affirm that by grace alone, in faith in Christ’s saving work and not because of any human merit, believers are accepted by God and receive the Holy Spirit, who renews their hearts and calls them to good works. They treat this as a consensus in basic truths of the doctrine of justification.

What does the Declaration say about the sixteenth-century condemnations?

It says that they do not apply to the teaching of the partner as presented in the Declaration. This does not say that the condemnations were wrong in their time. It claims that the present teaching of each church, so described, is not what the other condemned, while differences of language and emphasis remain.

What were the main criticisms?

Some Lutheran theologians said the text did not clearly keep justification by faith alone, apart from works and love. Some Catholics said it risked favoring Lutheran emphases or lacked clarity on merit and the sacraments. Reformed and evangelical writers questioned whether imputed righteousness was affirmed. Supporters answered that it states what can be said together.

Think it through

  1. When two churches use different words for the same thing, what would convince you that they really agree?
  2. Is it better to insist on a precise statement or to accept a shared core with recognized differences?
  3. How would you explain the Declaration to a friend in a few sentences?

Independent assignment

Reading paragraph by paragraph

In your notebook, write 400 to 600 words. Find an English translation of the Joint Declaration, which is publicly available from the churches that signed it. Read paragraphs 15 to 17 and the section on the justified as sinner. Summarize each in your own words. Then write one paragraph stating what a convinced supporter would say, and one stating what a critic would say. End with your own list of the remaining differences, labeled as vocabulary, emphasis or doctrine.

Further study