A Point of No Return?

Ecumenical Review, The, April, 2000 by Peder Norgaard-Hojen

Consequently, the Catholic response of 25 June 1998 (the commemoration day of the Augsburg confession) was all the more surprising and alarming.(5) While Rome affirmed that "a high degree of agreement has been reached, as regards both the approach to the question and the judgment it merits", it also clearly stated that "we cannot yet speak of a consensus such as would eliminate every difference between Catholics and Lutherans in the understanding of justification". The response includes "Clarifications" to give a more precise explanation of the doctrinal issues on which full agreement has not yet been reached and to throw light on those points where consensus has in fact been achieved. Though the Roman authorities received the Joint Declaration favourably, the concluding remarks are unmistakable: "The level of agreement is high, but it does not yet allow us to affirm that all the differences separating Catholics and Lutherans in the doctrine concerning justification are simply a question of emphasis or language" (lediglich Fragen der Akzentuierung oder sprachlichen Ausdrucksweise, as it is more precisely expressed in the German version):

   Some of these differences concern aspects of substance and are therefore
   not all mutually compatible ... If, moreover, it is true that in those
   truths on which a consensus has been reached the condemnations of the
   council of Trent no longer apply, the divergencies on other points must, on
   the contrary, be overcome before we can affirm ... that these points no
   longer incur the condemnations of the council of Trent (para. 5).

What this means is clarified in the following sections. From the Catholic point of view, a major problem arises when the Declaration (nos 28-30) speaks of the justified as sinner, because in baptism any real sin is eliminated, and the concupiscence is therefore not sin in the proper, authentic sense of the word. Moreover, the Catholic response considers it equivocal when the Declaration (no. 29) speaks of concupiscentia as a contradiction to God (German, Gottwidrigkeit) and interprets it as truly sin. In the Catholic understanding, concupiscence should rather be understood as a proneness to sin, an inclination that facilitates and promotes the attacks of sin. For that reason, the explanation of simul iustus et peccator remains unacceptable to Roman thinking and at variance with the statement of the council of Trent that justification is not only forgiveness of sins, but also sanctification and renewal of the interior man.(6) Theologically, the Catholic response also misses a consideration of the sacrament of penance, which implies the possibility of regaining lost justice. The conclusion is severe:

   So, for all those reasons, it remains difficult to see how, in the current
   state of the presentation given in the Joint Declaration, we can say that
   this doctrine simul iustus et peccator is not touched by the anathemas of
   the Tridentine decree on original sin and justification (para. 1).