The Joint Declaration on Justification

Ecumenical Review, The, April, 2000 by Hans L. Martensen

One of the main Lutheran objections to the text has been around justification as the criterion for measuring every point of theology, especially ecclesiology -- so that justification is the only criterion by which the church stands or falls. While agreeing that justification is a criterion which may under no circumstances be neglected or contradicted, Catholics would claim that other criteria must also be acknowledged. But a Catholic might ask: Is it not enough if justification through faith is a criterion I never offend against? Must a criterion be a kind of source from which everything can be deduced? Does justification through faith tell me that Christ instituted baptism or chose 12 apostles? Is it not enough for me that, even accepting the pope and his office, I always remain faithful to Christ, who is my only justification and the only truth by which all is to be measured?

The first phase of international Lutheran-Catholic dialogues, concluding with the Malta report in 1972, touched on the question of what is the centre of the gospel and whether justification through faith can be identified with this absolute centre of the Christian faith. In a section entitled "The Foundation and Centre of Gospel and the Hierarchy of Truths", the Malta report says:

   Concern for an abiding truth within the diversity of traditions leads to
   the question of what is the foundation and centre of the gospel in relation
   to which the manifold witnesses of the church in various historical
   situations can be conceived as testimony and development. This foundation
   and this centre cannot be reduced to a theological formula, but is rather
   constituted by the eschatological saving act of God in Jesus' cross and
   resurrection (nos 24-25).

The Catholic participants had no difficulty in accepting justification through faith as the foundation and centre of the gospel. But they underscored that this foundation and centre could also be "expressed comprehensively in other words derived from the New Testament, such as reconciliation, freedom, redemption, new life and new creation" (no. 27).

Now you cannot have more than one central point. If there are two, three or more centres, the very concept of "centre" is abandoned. Indeed, the centre from which we as Christians receive our identity and life may be a centre beyond words, at any rate beyond theological formulations. Luther said: "I must have a place, where I find God and all things" -- Ich mu[Beta] haben ein Ort, wo ich Gott und alle Dinge finde (WA 23, 688, 18). This place is Jesus Christ himself. I have sometimes thought that the perfect expression of justification comes at one of the most solemn moments in the Catholic mass, when the priest, elevating the host and chalice, says: "Through him and with him and in him all honour and glory is yours, Almighty Father, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, for ever and ever. Amen."

All theological language and all traditions of piety and spirituality are inevitably influenced by the cultures in which they develop. Concepts such as mortal and venial sin, original sin, sanctifying grace, justification, punishment, merits, liberty -- all our key words -- have their history.