Modem Theology 11:4 October 1995 ISSN 0266-7177

JUSTIFICATION AS A TRIUNE EVENT

ROBERT W. JENSON
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 dialogues 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 presumed 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 justificationthe American Catholic-Lutheran 2 dialogue in its seventh round and the Arbeitskreis that on behalf of the German 3 churches analyzed the sixteenth-century condemnations have discovered 4 just such consensus in "the doctrine of justification." 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 understandings of justification;" these "understandings" are "characterized (as) 'transformational' ... and 5 'proclamatory'." In the American dialogue itself, the second is also called 6 "hermeneutic" or "metatheological." The difference between the two "understandings" is not constituted by disagreement about any material point; it is a difference of genre. The
Dr Robert W. Jenson Department of Religion, St. Olaf College, Northfield, MN 55057, USA
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422 Robert W. Jenson "transformational" teaching is a description of the general plot of the history 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 who 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 faithor 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 the agenda 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: what 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 question, 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 righteousness? 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 CatholicReformation dialogue, or even been a particular burden of either party. This has, to be sure, not prevented the mere existence of the Pauline doctrine from providing one occasion of confusion. Excellent Pauline studies have been produced for the dialogues, under the supposition that they must
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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 Catholic 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 Catholic theologians came to follow the directives of Trent, proposals produced on 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 dialogues 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 be spoken in the church: that it must be spoken in its proper unconditional character, and that when it is there is nothing to do with it but believe itor not. When the church's message invites lesser responses than faith, that is, "works," this by itself shows that the message has been pervertedwhich 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 saintsif one can imagine them conducting colloquiato 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 to agree, 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 though we see that the questions cannot finally be independent. Just so and not otherwise, it might be held, are the three doctrines of "justification" related. There is, however, the other possibility; and I will shortly
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424 Robert W. Jenson 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 proclamation 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 a different sort than that between the three doctrines noted before. Both propositions 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 Finnish group 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 separate 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 timiditythough it surely is these also. Perhaps reality hinders us from either identifying or separating the three doctrines of "justification." Perhaps there is after all some single matter that all three doctrines are drawn to interpret. Perhaps this is why they are all drawn to the language of "justification." I suggest: the true though regularly obscured subiectum of all three doctrines is indeed one reality. This is a triune event, a mode of the perichoresis
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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 question 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 christological 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 isfollowing Basilan absolute initiation. God the Father sets righteousnessas 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 solution 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 Godthe Father!attributes Christ's divine righteousness to the believer, he is only registering the truth.16 Justification as an act of the Son isfollowing Basilthe event of righteousness. The fact of the personhood of God the Sonand that precisely as the only personhood God the Son actually has, the personhood of the crucified and risen manis 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 us. That is, in the mutuality of word and soul, we are righteous as we are one with the Son, as we are his body and his spouse. Indeed, how is God himself righteous? He is righteous in that this Son is "one of the Trinity." And again:
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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 becomes clear 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 meaning 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 isfollowing Basilthe fulfilling of righteousness. The sending of the Spirit is the movement of our righteousness, 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 livelinessin scholastic terminology, the formaof righteousness. Fides caritate formata will not do as a christological formula; there we need Luther's caritas Christo formata or its equivalent caritasfideiformata. 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 righteous? What is the actuality of God's own righteousness? What is the perfection 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 Continuing 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 no definition of righteousness itself. There is reason to postpone definition in such matters. But now it is perhaps safe to say: the "righteousness" or "justice" we are concerned with is that spoken of in Scripture; this righteousness may be defined as active faithfulness to community.19 As this occurs in God, the trinitarian tradition calls it perichoresis.
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Justification as a Triune Event 427 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 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 Basil, de Spintu Sancto, 16 38 justification by Faith, 7 of Lutherans and Catholics in Dialogue, ed H G Anderson, A Murphy & J A Burgess (Minneapolis Augsburg, 1985) To this dialogue see above all George Lindbeck, "Justification by Faith," Partners 6(1985) 8-9 kumenischer Arbeitskreis evangelischer und katholischer Theologen, Lehrverurteilungen kirchentrennend7 ed Lehmann & W Pannenberg (Freiburg Herder, 1986) To the dialogues' 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 Lehrverurteilung, 55 Justification by Faith, 88-93 J L Austin, How to Do Things with Words (New York Oxford, 1965), 94-97 Jenson, Unbaptized God, 22-24 The whole history of controversy about "justification" is, one fears, a prize example of Wittgenstein's "bewitchment of intelligence by language " Consider only the general Lutheran adoption of the Jesuit doctrine of intuitu fidei Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, 1,1,2 I recently gave an able and dedicated student the exercize of formulating "the Lutheran doctrme of justification" as represented by Lutheran teams in the dialogues After a year of intensive reading and discussion, he pronounced the question unanswerable Perhaps here I may simply mstance the many opportunities of observation given by my place as permanent adviser to the third round, just completed, of international LutheranCatholic dialogue The best introduction to this movement is still Tuomo Mannermaa, Der im Glauben gegenwartige Christus (Hannover Lutherisches Verlagshaus, 1989) Petrus Lombardus, Sententiae 1 d 17,2 E g , Mannermaa, Der im Glauben gegenwartige Christus, 26-40 The maxim has been taken in many ways smce Karl Rahner propounded 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 For that, Robert W Jenson, The Triune Identity (Philadelphia Fortress, 1982), 103-159 Bo Johnson, Rattfardigheten in Bibeln (Goteborg Gothia, 1985) gives a good summary of the scholarship A German version of this essay has appeared in M Beintker, E Maurer, H Stoevesandt, and H Ulrich (eds ) Rechtfertigung und Erfahrung (Gtersloh Chr Kaiser, 1995)

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