Rome and the Lutherans

The date chosen for representatives of the Roman Catholic Church and the Lutheran World Federation to sign their Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification was October 31 1999.

This was Reformation Day for Lutherans and other Protestants, the 482nd anniversary of Luther's posting of the 95 theses. The place chosen was Augsburg in Germany, the site where the first major confessional document of the Reformation, the Augsburg Confession, was ratified in 1530.

To great ceremony and fanfare, over 700 dignitaries proceeded from a Catholic church to a Lutheran church, where, with some 2,000 people watching on video screens outside, ten representatives of both traditions signed the document.

'Together we confess,' read one section of the document, 'by grace alone, in faith in Christ's saving work, and not because of any merit on our part, we are accepted by God and receive the Holy Spirit, who renews our hearts while equipping and calling us to good works.'

And thus, according to the news media, the Reformation ended. Five centuries of bitter division - not only between Catholics and Lutherans, but, by extension, between Protestants and Catholics - were brought to a peaceful accord in an agreement on the central issue of the Reformation, 'the article by which the church stands or falls', justification by faith.

Lutheran victory?

It appeared that not only did the two traditions find agreement, it looked like the Lutherans won, that the Catholics were conceding the point that salvation is by 'grace alone', through 'faith in Christ's saving work', not 'because of any merit on our part'.

And yet, only days after signing the document, the major Vatican negotiator, Cardinal Edward Cassidy, President of the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, said that the accord 'helps us to put in a balance which does not place too much emphasis neither on the divine, neither on justification, nor the human, but at the same time finds a way of bringing these together.'

Not too much emphasis on the divine? Or on justification? Bringing together human works and divine works? But what about the agreement in the Joint Declaration about grace alone? Doesn't that mean that God does it all?

Asked by a reporter whether there was anything in the official common statement contrary to the Council of Trent (the Roman Catholic Church's 16th-century response to the Reformation), Cardinal Cassidy said: 'Absolutely not, otherwise how could we do it? We cannot do something contrary to an ecumenical council. There's nothing there that the Council of Trent condemns'.

Anathema

But Canon IX of the decrees of the Council of Trent says: 'If anyone says that the ungodly is justified by faith alone in such a way that he understands that nothing else is required which co-operates toward obtaining the grace of justification' (which is what the traditional Lutherans say), 'let him be anathema'.

And Canon XII says (with the Augsburg Confession in mind), 'If anyone says that justifying faith is nothing else than trust in divine mercy, which remits sins for Christ's sake, or that it is this trust alone by which we are justified, let him be anathema.' In the meantime, the Vatican was pronouncing new indulgences for the 'Jubilee Year' of the new millennium, the issue that was the catalyst for the whole controversy in the first place.

So how can there be an agreement between Catholics and Lutherans on justification by faith?

Post-modern ploys

The reason that this accord could be struck now, and at no other time in the last five centuries, is that postmodernism allows some Lutheran academic theologians to agree on words, without pushing for an agreement on the meaning of those words. Catholicism has always stressed that salvation is by grace, that we are justified by faith, and that the basis of salvation is the merit of Christ. Where Protestants differ is on what is meant by those terms.

For Luther, the other Reformers and for Protestants in general, sinners are 'declared' righteous for the sake of Christ, who took the punishment for our sins on the cross, and whose righteousness is 'imputed' to those who have faith in him, even though, in spite of all the good things they do, they remain sinful.

For Catholics, Christ's righteousness must be 'infused' into believers. Catholics agree that we are saved not by our own merit but by Christ's. And yet, Christ's merit is something we must have, that we must act out in our own lives, receiving the grace to do so through the sacramental system of the church. According to historic Catholicism, a person must actually be righteous for God to count him as righteous.

Common worldview, but . . .

Certainly, Lutherans and Catholics, along with other Protestants, agree on many issues - on the Trinity, the deity of Christ, the need for salvation, the great truths encapsulated in the Ecumenical Creeds. One could say that Catholics and Protestants have a common worldview, the assumptions about moral truth, the value of life, and supernatural reality that are under such attack by the forces of secularism today. Lutherans have even more similarities with Catholics, including liturgical worship and a high view of the sacraments.

But they do not agree on justification by faith. For heirs of the Reformation, salvation is a free gift. For Catholics, salvation is a matter of human works. To be sure, those works are made possible by faith and grace. And for Reformational Christians, sanctification is the fruit of faith. But the reason the gospel is such 'good news', according to Luther, is that sinners can have the assurance that when God looks at them, he sees Jesus, who covers their sins with his blood, and whose total righteousness - all of his goodness, his miracles, his love, his perfect keeping of God's law - is 'counted', as if it belonged to them.

The 44 articles of the Joint Declaration rehearse the Lutheran emphases and the Catholic emphases, and the agreements they were able to find. But they evade the essential issues.

The Catholics were only repeating what they have always taught. But how could the Lutherans, whose confessional documents make these distinctions crystal clear, say that they are now agreed with Catholics on the doctrine of justification?

Theological looseness

It must be emphasised that this agreement was negotiated and signed, not by all Lutherans, but by the Lutheran World Federation (LWF). This is an organisation of liberal church bodies and state churches. This group has long given up the inerrancy of Scripture. They ordain women. (If they had discussed that topic with the Vatican, they would not have come to such an harmonious accord. Actually, though, three female pastors were among the signers of the accord.) They do not require a rigorous confessional subscription. Theological looseness makes it easy to come to agreements.

The LWF is only one organisation of global Lutheranism, though because it includes state churches in which every citizen is counted as a member, it is the largest. But there is also the International Lutheran Council, which consists of conservative, confessional Lutheran churches from Africa, Asia, South America, Europe and North America.

The point is, the Reformation is far from over. In today's post-modern climate, in which there are no absolutes, in which liberal theologians construct their own meanings, and in which tolerance trumps truth, the solas of the Reformation - Christ alone, grace alone, faith alone, and Scripture alone - are more important than ever.

Gene Edward Veith

Reprinted from WORLD Magazine, Asheville, North Carolina, USA, with permission.

The declaration on justification signed by the Roman Catholic Church and the Lutheran World Federation (reprinted from World Magazine)