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The Lutheran‐Catholic Agreement on Justification: Botch or Breakthrough?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Aidan Nichols OP
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Extract

Asked to name a German city associated with the Lutheran Reformation, most people with any knowledge of the period would, I suppose, cite Wittenberg — the Saxon university town from which that Reformation was launched. But an equally serious candidate would be Augsburg in what is now northern Bavaria where the single most authoritative document of Lutheranism, the Confessio Augustana or ‘Augsburg Confession’ was promulgated in 1530. It was to Augsburg, where the Reichstag, the imperial Diet, was meeting, that the former Master of the Dominicans, Thomist theologian and Catholic church reformer, Thomas de Vio was sent in 1518 as papal legate with a mandate to bring Dr Luther, member of the Order of Augustinian Hermits and professor of biblical studies, to his senses. De Vio — better known from his birthplace, Gaeta in the kingdom of Naples, as il Gaetano or Cajetan, was at first viewed by Luther with comparative favour. Although Luther shared the anti-Italian feelings common in Germany in this period, disliked what he knew of Thomism, and numbered several Dominicans among his harshest critics, he found Cardinal Cajetan learned and humane. There was, however, no real meeting of minds. So far as Luther was concerned, the encounter was to be a debate, like the Heidelberg Disputation from which he had just emerged with flying colours.

Type
Research Article
Information
New Blackfriars , Volume 82 , Issue 967 , September 2001 , pp. 375 - 386
Copyright
Copyright © 2001 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

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References

1 On the Luther/de Vio encounter, see Morerod, C., Cajetan et Luther en 1518. Edition, traduction et commentaire des opuscules d'Augsbourg de Cajetan (Fribourg 1994)Google Scholar; also Wicks, J., Cajetan und die Anfänge der Reformation (Munster 1983)Google Scholar.

2 Luther, M., Werke. Kritische Gesamtuusgabe, Band 32 (Weimar 1906), p. 402Google Scholar.

3 Cassidy, E., ‘The Meaning of the Joint Declaration on Justification’, Origins, 1 October 1999, p. 282Google Scholar.

4 Jüngel, E., ‘On the Doctrine of Justification’, International Journal of Systematic Theology 1 (1999), pp. 24–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 Nauman, S J., ‘But is it Justified?’, New Directions, 3. 53 (1999), pp. 4–6.Google Scholar

6 For a scholarly critique which furnishes some support for these strictures, see Malloy, C. J., ‘The Nature of Justifying Grace: A Lacuna in the Joint Declaration’, The Thomist 65. 1 (2001), pp. 93–120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 ‘Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification’, Origins, 16 July 1998, pp. 120–127.

8 A. Dulles, ‘Two Languages of Salvation: the Lutheran‐Catholic Joint Declaration’, First Things, December 1999, pp. 25–30, and here at p. 30 (emphasis added).

9 ‘Official Catholic Response to Joint Declaration’, Origins, 16 July 1998, pp. 130–132.

10 Letter of 14 July 1998, reproduced in ‘Consensus Achieved, Vatican Official tells Lutherans’, Origins, 8 October 1998, pp. 286–290.

11 For the Official Common Statement, Annex and Note on the Annex, see 'Joint Declaration to be Signed on Oct. 31′, Origins, 24 June 1999, pp. 86.

12 T. J. Nash and P.C.L. Gray, ‘Not a Full Agreement. A Commentary on the Catholic‐Lutheran Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification’, Catholic World Report, December 1999, pp. 50–53.

13 Braaten, C.B. and Jenson, R.W. (eds.), Union with Christ: The New Finnish Interpretation of Luther (Grand Rapids, Mich. 1998)Google Scholar.

14 McGrath, A.E., Luther? Theology of the Cross. Martin Luther's Theological Breakthrough (Oxford 1985)Google Scholar; cf more briefly the same author's comments on Luther's position in Justitia Dei. A History of the Christian Doctrine of Justification. Volume II From 1500 to the Present Day (Cambridge 1986), and notably p. 13: ‘The sanative character of his early teaching on justification corresponds closely to the teaching of Augustine on the matter’ (emphasis added).

15 J. Nuchterlein, ‘Where do we go from here?’, Crisis, December 1999, pp. 17–18.

16 Unitatis redintegratio, 4.