IS R. C. SPROUL WRONG ABOUT MARTIN LUTHER? AN ANALYSIS OF R. C. SPROUL'S FAITH ALONE: THE EVANGELICAL DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION WITH RESPECT TO AUGUSTINE, LUTHER, CALVIN, AND CATHOLIC LUTHER SCHOLARSHIP1

Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, Mar 2004 by Heckel, Matthew C

Sproul writes that Luther's great concern was the appropriation of justification.12 Luther said that justification was appropriated by faith alone, and according to Sproul, "Luther called justification by faith alone 'the article upon which the church stands or falls' (articulus stantis et cadentis ecclesiae)."13 While Sproul seems to be quoting Luther, this formula actually belongs to the age of Lutheran orthodoxy.14 Though the same sentiment can be found in Luther's writings,15 his approach to the issue goes deeper than a surface reading allows.

Justification is indeed at the center of Luther's theology. Luther said that without the doctrine of justification, "the church of God is not able to exist for one hour."16 Luther also included sola fide in his definition of justification: "By faith alone (sola fide) in Christ, without works, are we declared just (pronuntiari iustos) and saved."17 It must be pointed out, however, that Luther's statements do not indicate that the experience of justification is necessitated upon a cognitive understanding that it happens by faith alone. I intend to show that, for Luther and Calvin, faith is essential and not the knowledge of how faith works, so that people can be justified through faith alone without understanding that the experience of justification happens in that way. In fact, as with St. Augustine and other Church fathers, a person's notion of the role of faith in justification could differ materially from the Reformers without negating one's Christian profession or disqualifying one as a Christian teacher. Anthony N. S. Lane comments, "The Reformation doctrine is that justification is by Christ and received through faith in Christ, not through subscribing to a particular doctrinal formula."18

Sproul supports his thesis from Reformation sources, but his conclusions are not informed by an engagement with patristic and medieval treatments of justification; this is one of the major weaknesses of the book. he does introduce Augustine and Aquinas into the conversation to establish that they believed justification to be exclusively by grace, and he uses their theology to accuse the Council of Trent of semi-Pelagianism.19 Beyond this, Sproul does not substantially treat the views of Augustine or Aquinas on justification. If he had, his thesis would surely have led him, as it did the Reformers, to deal with the question of the Christian status of the pre-Reformation church, since Augustine and the rest of its theologians did not teach that we are justified sola fide in the Reformation sense.20 In fact, unless Sproul's thesis is qualified, it would lead to the unintended consequence of consigning to perdition the entire Church from the patristic period up to the dawn of the Reformation, something the Reformers did not do. This is because the Reformation understanding of justification sola fide was unheard of in the pre-Reformation church and thus not believed until Luther. Alister McGrath points out that "there are no 'Forerunners of the Reformation doctrines of justification.'"21