Justification as a Triune Event

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Modem Theology 11:4 October 1995

ISSN 0266-7177

JUSTIFICATION AS A TRIUNE

EVENT

ROBERT W. JENSON

ι

Every act of God, according to the Cappadocians, is "initiated by the Father,

effected by the Son and perfected by the Spirit."1

To interpret any act of God,

this structure must be traced in it; if that is not done, the interpretation is

not Christian. The whole church claims to follow the Cappadocian injunc

tion. We have not, however, very notably followed it in the matter of

"justification."

The course of the post-Vatican II ecumenical dia logues can serve as our object-lesson. The dialogues early developed a standard pattern of consen

sus in any doctrine: a "convergence" is discovered or developed between

presum ed opposed positions; remaining differences are recognized and

stated; and the convergence is weighed against the differences, with result

that the differences are judged not legitimately church-divisive. Both groups

who have seriously dealt with justification—the American Catholic-Lutheran

dialogue in its seventh round2and the Arbeitskreis that on behalf of the German

churches analyzed the sixteenth-century condemnations3—have discovered

just such consensus in "t he doctrine of justification."4

In the case of justification, however, the remaining differences exhibit a

structure not exemplified in the cases of other doctrines. The German group

summarized and appropriated a result of the American dialogue: there is

"a sort of basic difference ... between two unders tandings of justification;"

these "understandings" are "characterized (as) 'transformational' ... and

'proclamatory'."5

In the American dialogue itself, the second is also called

"hermeneutic" or "metatheological."6

The difference between the two "understandings" is not constituted by disagreement about any material point; it is a difference of genre. The



422 Robert W. Jenson

"transformational" teaching is a description of the general plot of the his

tory by which God brings persons from a state of unrighteousness to a state

of righteousness. The "proclamatory" teaching describes nothing at all. It

rather stipulates the illocutionary force7 or existential mode proper to the

word that bespeaks Christ's righteousness to us. Those wh o would speak the

gospel are told: so proclaim Christ's righteousness as the righteousness of

your hearers that your word can be grasped by nothing less than faith—or

rejected in nothing less than offense.

An innocent observer might well blurt out, "But these two parties are

simply talking about different matters! No wonder they have such trouble

sticking to agreements, since they persist in supposing they are talking about

one thing when they are not!" Nor, I think, would he or she be far wrong.

Confusion as to what precisely is to be discussed when "justification" is theagenda accounts, in my judgment, for nearly all remaining difficulty in

ecumenical discussion of the matter.8 It is presumed that there has existed

"the" doctrine of justification, disagreement about which is now to be

ameliorated, when in fact there has been no such thing.

When we speak of "the" doctrine of, for example, Trinity, we mean a

historically stable single question or nested set of questions, together with

proposed answers. If the doctrine is controverted, the controversy consists in

incompatibility between some of the proposed answers. So, to continue the

example, the question that determines the doctrine of Trinity may be formulated: wha t must be the hypostatic being of the specifically biblical God? The

question has been vehemently controverted. Some parts of a possible final

answer are disputed still: e.g., Is the Trinity as such a person in the modern

sense? Nevertheless, there has been a diachronically identifiable single ques

tion, and it therefore is not misleading to speak of "the" doctrine of Trinity.

We speak also of "the" doctrine of justification. We are thus led to suppose

that here too there must have been some historically stable single question

or set of questions, and that disputes about "justification" must be conflicts

between proposed alternative answers. But insofar as we are thus led we are

misled, and general confusion must be the result.9 For there have been three

distinct and separately answerable questions labelled "justification."

One of these is the Apostle Paul's: How does God maintain his righteous

ness? Doubtless the disputes which divided the Western church at the

Reformation could not have arisen had that church not been so Pauline;

nevertheless, neither the Reformers' question nor that of Trent is identical

with Paul's. It has been perfectly possible to agree in Pauline exegesis but be

on opposite sides of later controversies about "justification."And in fact Paul's question has not been an issue in modern Catholic-

Reformation dialogue or even been a particular burden of either party This



Justification as a Triune Event 423

surely contribute to convergence. These studies have then appeared together

with reports of the dialogues ' results, seemingly as support for them, though

in fact they have little if any such function.

The "transformatory" doctrine of "justification," represented by the Cath

olic side in dialogue, takes up a second question, also with ancient standing

in the tradition. This other question about "justification" has been cultivated

by Western Augustinianism: What is the plot of the events that end in

believers' eschatological righteousness? Specific positions on this question,

and vehement critique of some of them, ran through the Reformation-era

controversies: so Melanchthon's critique of the distinction between merits

de congruo and de condigno. Nevertheless, once Reformation theologians

came to propose their own answers to the Augustinian question, and Cath

olic theologians came to follow the directives of Trent, proposals producedon the two sides have showed much the same character and have fallen

within much the same limits of acceptability.10

Finally, there has been the specific doctrine which the Reformers uniquely

put forward under the label "justification," that has appeared in the dial

ogues as the "proclamatory" doctrine. This doctrine is interchangeable with

the distinction of "law and gospel" and is most clearly documented by

Article IV of the Apology of the Augsburg Confession. It is not directly about

God and his establishment of righteousness, nor yet is it about the effect of

grace on believers. The doctrine is about the word of grace itself, as it is to bespoken in the church: that it must be spoken in its proper uncondit ional

character, and that when it is there is nothing to do with it but believe it—or

not. When the church's message invites lesser responses than faith, that is,

"works," this by itself shows that the message has been perverted—which is

what made this doctrine an explosively critical doctrine.

The question must be asked: Is the appearance of these three doctrines

under one label a mere equivocation, or does their mutual attraction to the

language of "justification" signal some deeper unity? A case could well

be made for the first construal, that is, that the three historical doctrines

of "justification" are related to one another only in the same way that any

several doctrines of the gospel are related.

The scientia dei et beatorum that according to Thomas11 is the archetype of

our theology is doubtless a single web of unambiguous implications, so that

it would be impossible for the saints—if one can imagine them conducting

colloquia—to agree in one point and disagree in any other. But our ectypical

theologia viatorum necessarily lacks this sort of unity. None of our theological

systems is logically proof against dismembering. It is possible for us toagree, for example, in the matter of Christ's two natures and disagree about

the filioque and to do this without self-contradiction by any party even




develop it. But first we must note yet another confusion that afflicts the

dialogues.

If we ask what form of teaching is represented from the Reformation side,

"proclamatory" as it may be, we discover that here again there is no one such

thing, though representatives of Reformation churches regularly assume

and even assert that there is.12 Catholic representatives sometimes demand

in desperation what exactly their counterparts want them to agree with,

under the rubric of "justification;" their desperation often deserves much

sympathy.13

It is of course an ancient inner-Reformation question: Does the proclama

tion declare us righteous because God chooses so to regard us though onticly

we are not; or does the proclamation itself make us onticly just and so

declare us? Here the difference between doctrines "of justification" is of adifferent sort than that between the three doctrines noted before. Both

proposit ions are about the proclamation which the Reformation doctrine

stipulates must occur in the church. They are responses to the question, How

is this unconditional proclamation of righteousness true?

Much attention has of course been devoted to this question. Nevertheless

it remains virulent. Thus, for example, all the most interesting sessions of

the last Luther-Congress, at St. Paul, USA, were occupied by vehement and

unresolved dispute between German scholars opposed to every alleged

discovery of "ontology" in Luther's doctrine of justification, and the Finnishgroup led by Tuomo Mannermaa, who asserted just this discovery as the

previously missing vital insight.14

II

Finally to that other possibility, and the title of my essay. We will draw one

last pointer from the experience of the dialogues.

Despite all the considerations just rehearsed, no effort of clarification has

been able to persuade the dialogue teams or their churches simply to separ

ate the questions about "justification." There would be great ecumenical relief

in so doing: it could simply be noted that Catholic transformational doctrine

and Reformation hermeneutical doctrine are about two different things and

therefore need not be defended against each other, and that Paul's doctrine

is yet a third matter that may calmly be studied together, as indeed it has

been. But this relief is stubbornly refused.

Perhaps the refusal is not mere blindness or ecumenical timidity—though

it surely is these also. Perhaps reality hinders us from either identifying orseparating the three doctrines of "justification." Perhaps there is after all

some single matter that all three doctrines are drawn to interpret Perhaps




of the three divine persons. The Augustinian and Reformation questions,

with the Pauline question, truly are both "one and three," and can finally be

dealt with only by strict obedience to the Cappadocians' rule.

The three doctrines historically called "justification" seem so obviously to

invite interpretation of Father, Son and Spirit that the very neatness of the

possible pairings is the one thing that makes me hesitate. The Pauline ques

tion plainly invites interpretation as a question about precisely the Father's

role in one divine act of righteousness ad extra. The Reformation's question

has always been experienced as a manifestation of extraordinary christo-

logical devotion. And that normative Catholic theology, since rejecting Peter

Lombard's doctrine of grace,15 has not interpreted the Augustinian question

as a question about the Spirit himself, has in the East and otherwise in the

West often been seen as a grave error.Justification as an act of the Father is—following Basil—an absolute initia

tion. God the Father sets righteousness—as American slang used to say,

"period." The fact is underivable. Nothing precedes it. The only kind of

explanation that can be given for it is the provision of equivalent terms: the

Father justifies because he "loves," or the Father justifies because he is "free."

Why and how is there righteousness? Why and how am I righteous? Or you?

Or God? The only answer is "Because God is God," to which "Because God

so decides" is simply equivalent. What must be made clear is that these are

patrological propositions.When that is clear, the solut ion to the Reformation's interior debate is also

apparent. The narrowly juridical doctrine of justification in foro coeli is an

attempt to make up for missing patrological teaching by a christological

version of what that teaching should have maintained, that we are righteous

simply because God decides so. When we reckon with the Father's role

in justification, we do not need this makeshift. As Mannermaa and his

colleagues have most recently insisted, we may then let Luther's deepest

insight be our guide to the true christological teaching: in the ontological

mutuality of word and faith, Christ and the believing soul make but one

entity, so that when God—the Father!—attributes Christ's divine righteousness

to the believer, he is only registering the truth.16

Justification as an act of the Son is—following Basil—the event of right

eousness. The fact of the personhood of God the Son—and that precisely as

the only personhood God the Son actually has, the personhood of the cruci

fied and risen man—is the fact of our righteousness. Indeed, the incarnate

and risen God the Son is God's righteousness, insofar as this is actual

occurrence.How does my or your righteousness happen? It happens as the risen

Christ's word is spoken and believed as the word that he is occurs among




in all these propositions about actuality, "the Son" denotes the actual Son,

the incarnate Son, the risen crucified man, whose divine righteousness is

itself achieved as a human event.

With the patrological and Christological propositions in place, it becomesclear that we need not share the fears that led to rejection of Peter Lombard's

teaching that the indwelling of the Spirit is itself the caritas given believers.

It was feared that if the gift of caritas, our love for God and neighbor, were

the Spirit's own life within us, the difference between God and creature

would be blurred. The objection would hold, if "within" had here the mean

ing it would have with creatures of a monadic God. But we come before God

the Father to receive God the Spirit just and only as we are one with God

the Son. Thus we are first within God, and only thereby opened to him so that

he can also, by the infinite perichoresis of his life and our participation in it,be within us.

Justification as an act of the Spirit is—following Basil—the fulfilling of

righteousness. The sending of the Spirit is the movement of our righteous

ness, is its eschatological liveliness. And again we must even say that the

Spirit is the movement of God's own righteousness, insofar as this too is not

a timeless fact about God but rather the liveliness of his life.

Surely Augustine and the scholastics were right: love is the directed live

liness—in scholastic terminology, the forma—of righteousness. Fides caritate

formata will not do as a christological formula; there we need Luther's caritasChristo formata or its equivalent caritas fidei formata. But when we recognize

that caritas can be a name for the Spirit himself, then we can and must

describe our righteousness, possessed in and as faith, as caritate formata.

Indeed God "forms" his own righteousness as the love that is the Spirit.

Ill

Throughout the preceding section, I have spoken not only about our

righteousness but about God's. I have asked, Why is God himself right

eous? What is the actuality of God's own righteousness? What is the per

fection of the righteous life that God is? And to each question I have given

the same answer as to the corresponding question about ourselves. Doing

so, I have depended on the great maxim of contemporary trinitarian

speculation, that "the economic Trinity is the immanent Trinity."17 Con

tinuing to be guided by the maxim, without here arguing it,18 we may

precede to a final formulation.

But first we must note a remarkable omission: I have so far provided nodefinition of righteousness itself. There is reason to postpone definition in

h tt B t it i h f t th " i ht " "j ti "




What then is justification? It is the underived event of communal faith

fulness in God, as this is directed as love and is actual in the reality of the

incarnate Son. That we are justified simply means that we, as the body and

spouse of the Son, are included.

20

NOTES

1 Basil, de Spintu Sancto, 16 38

2 justification by Faith, ν 7 of Lutherans and Catholics in Dialogue, ed H G Anderson, Τ A Mur phy & J A Burgess (Minneapolis Augsburg, 1985) To this dialogue see above allGeorge Lindbeck, "Justification by Faith," Partners 6(1985) 8-9

3 Ökumenischer Arbeitskreis evangelischer und katholischer Theologen, Lehrverurteilungen

—kirchentrennend 7 ed Κ Lehma nn & W Pann enberg (Freiburg Herd er, 1986)

4 To the dia logues ' on justification and much of the following, Robert W Jenson, Unbaptized

God the Basic Flaw in Ecumenical Theology (Minneapolis Fortress, 1992), 17-24, 90-106

5 Lehrverurteilung, 55

6 Justification by Faith, 88-93

7 J L Austin, How to Do Things with Words (New York Oxford, 1965), 94-978 Jenson, Unbaptized God, 22-24

9 The whole history of cont roversy about "justification" is, one fears, a prize example of

Wittgenstein's "bewitchment of intelligence by language "

10 Consider only the general Lutheran adoptio n of the Jesuit doctrine of intuitu fidei

11 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, 1,1,2

12 I recently gave an able and dedicated student the exercize of formulating "the Lutherandoctrme of justification" as represented by Lutheran teams in the dialogues After a year

of intensive reading and discussion, he pronoun ced the question unan swerable13 Perh aps here I may simply mstance the man y opportunit ies of observation given by my

place as permanent adviser to the third round, just completed, of international Lutheran-

Catholic dialogue

14 The best introduction to this movement is still Tuomo Mannerm aa, Der im Glauben

gegenwartige Christus (Hannover Lutherisches Verlagshaus, 1989)

15 Petrus Lombardus, Sententiae 1 d 17,2

16 Eg, Mannermaa, Der im Glauben gegenwartige Christus, 26-40

17 The maxim has been taken in man y ways smce Karl Rahner pr opound ed it I do not take

it as does, e g , Catherine LaCugna, The Trinity and Christian Life (San Francisco Harper,1991), for whom it means that there is no immanent Trinity

18 For that, Robert W Jenson, The Triune Identity (Philadelphia Fortress, 1982), 103-15919 Bo Johnson, Rattfardigheten in Bibeln (Goteborg Gothia, 1985) gives a good summary of the

scholarship

20 A Ger man version of this essay has appeare d in M Beintker, E Maurer , H Stoevesandt,

an d H Ulrich (eds ) Rechtfertigung und Erfahrung (Gütersloh Chr Kaiser, 1995)



^ s

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