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The Justification Reader (Classic Christian Readers)

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Oden sets himself the task of demonstrating that during the first five centuries of the Church there existed a clear consenual teaching on justification that looked very much like the teaching of the Reformers. Unfortunately, I do not believe that he has accomplished his task. Specifically, I am not persuaded that he has shown that the imputation of righteousness is a consensual patristic understanding.

My big disappointment is that this book is so very Protestant. Oden ends up quoting Reformation and Protestant sources almost as much as he cites the Fathers. It's as if he could not make up his mind as to what he wanted this book to be.

Oden presents a good summary of the Reformation understanding of justification, with which I find myself in strong personal concurrence. But I wanted to hear the voice of the Fathers interpreted on their own terms, not filtered through Reformation conceptuality and distinctions. Can one really say that St. Augustine held the same view on justification as Luther, when the former understood justification/sanctification as a process? Can one say that the Eastern Fathers understood justification as an imputation of righteousness, when they understood salvation as our incorporation into the risen humanity of Christ, as theosis? I'm trying to keep an open mind. Indeed, I want to be persuaded that Oden's interpretation is true. I just don't think he has made his case yet.

So I do not think that Oden has accomplished the goal that he explicitly sets out for himself. And so I am disappointed. On the other hand, I am grateful and delighted to have before me now the patristic texts that he does cite. I suspect that many of them have been ignored by everyone, whether Orthodox, Catholic, or Protestant. I just wish he had given me more of the Fathers, and much, much less of the Reformers and their heirs.

Our harsh reviewer criticized Oden for not interpreting the cited patristic texts in their historical context. But I do not think this is a fair criticism. What Oden is doing is in fact very Patristic. He is providing us the words of the Fathers, on the assumption that the Holy Spirit has inspired the Fathers and that they therefore all speak, despite differences in language and vocabulary, with one voice. This hermeneutic is quite different than the historical-critical hermeneutic that we moderns typically operate from. The latter is not necessarily superior to the former.

I recommend this book. It is worthwhile to read and to have in one's library. You will find in it an excellent presentation of the Protestant understanding of justification. I'm not sure, though, that this Protestant understanding is identical to the Patristic understanding.

This is an excellent starting point for evangelicals
who are "gun shy" regarding the Early Church. Read
this work, and I believe you will be more willing to
actually pursue other studies in the realm of the
doctrine of the Early Church.

Many evangelicals fear the teachings of the Early
Church. In my experience this is due to a class of people
who claim to represent the "historic church" and
who use the the claim of following in the footsteps
of the fathers as a bludgeon to pummel evangelicals into submission.

Usually these are former evangelicals themselves who
have the new found zeal of former smokers. Such folks
are now on a crusade to save the world from tobacco.
These former evangelicals end up end up ridiculing
everything in their evangelical heritage in an almost
pathological manner.

But even these zealots have a good point.

To be quite honest, the Protestant Reformers in the
Reformed, Anglican, and Lutheran camps were dedicated
students of the Early Church and believed themselves to
be restoring the primitive Christian teaching.

Their followers in the modern era have distorted
the teachings of these reformers (and the scriptures)
with a modern proof text mentality that takes some
verses as "gospel" while shunning "inconvenient"
texts.

As a minister who has been blessed to be raised
in the evangelical church and who has now found a home
in the historic reformed church, yes, the New Testament church I
was always encouraged to seek, I say you will value this
book.

It shows how the Early Church affirmed the doctrine that
came to be known as Justification by Grace through Faith,
shows how the fathers of the church held the doctrine, and
yet shows how they did so in a way without modern evangelical
distortions of the biblical evidence.

Thomas Oden is to be thanked for his efforts. I wish the
readings had been republished in an appendix without his
commentary - only subject headings. But still this is a fine
work despite the detractors he has managed to create!

Thank you, Dr. Oden.

Once you have read this work, I encourage you to go on to
learn more about the teaching of the Early Church with the
conviction that it will help you go more DEEPLY into the
Holy Scriptures, not AWAY from them. And where you DIFFER from the teachings, at least you will be forced to justify your faith biblically. And isn't that what we who were raised in the evangelical church were raised to do anyway?

Pastor Chuck Huckaby - ...

It is very difficult to make the fathers sound "Protestant" when it comes to forensic righteousness. Imputed Righteousness, i.e, the alien righteousness that God imputes to us on account of Christ through faith due to NO merit of our own is a Reformation concept developed by Luther and Melanchthon over a period of years. The fathers tended to speak more about what we would call inherent righteousness, i.e., a righteousness that inheres in us by virtue of the work of the Holy Spirit. (And so Augustine described justification as "faith working itself out through love.") If Alister McGrath is correct, then fathers such as Augustine focused more on "being made righteous" as opposed to being "declared righteous" and so the patristic understanding of justification operated within the parameters of an inherent righteousness, rather than an alien one imputed to us. The medieval Scholastics, in turn, built their theology upon that of the fathers and so the notion of a forensic/imputed/alien righteousness appeared as a novelty during the Reformation era. That makes it difficult to agree entirely with Oden's arguments, but his book is useful in bringing more attention to the fathers' understanding of grace and justification, though they were certainly not Protestants.

Many of the fathers spoke wonderfully regarding grace and how we are saved by grace. Sometimes they were merely parroting the words of the apostle Paul, but that is certainly not always the case. It was not until the Pelagian heresy arose in the West that the fathers spoke ever more cautiously about how important the grace of God is to our salvation. In that sense there is doctrinal development in the early church as heresies compelled the Church to speak ever more clearly about hot topics. It is also safe to say from a Protestant perspective that certain forms of late medieval thought had lost sight of the fathers' works and words on grace. That would explain why those who began to read Ambrose and Augustine in their entirety during the late Middle Ages began to see themselves at odds with the scholastic theologies of their day. And so while the Fathers are not as Protestant as Oden would have them be, there is still good cause to provide citations that demonstrate the fathers' emphasis on grace. Ambrose, for instance, held a concept of justification that was close to that of Augustine and one even sees a gradual theology of grace developing as early as the third century. It is more difficult, however, to make the Greek fathers sound Protestant given their penchant for describing salvation with the metaphor of "deification," rather than the legal one St. Paul uses in his epistles. (Justification itself is a legal metaphor that was not so readily apprehended by the Greek mind with its platonic mindset. The Latin mind of the West found it easier to grapple with a legal metaphor given the Roman penchant for law and order.)

The fathers are sui generis. Neither fully Protestant nor Roman Catholic. They should be understood on their own terms, but I still recommend this work as a source of patristic citations on a much debated topic.

Other reviewers of this fine book have been critical for what this reviewer feels is unfair reasons. Oden never seeks to provide evidence that there has not been uniform applicability of the teaching of justification by grace through faith, nor that he would limit such evidence to primarily the early fathers, but would attempt to show that the Reformation teachers understanding of this was the same as the early church writers. In this his attempt is successful. He provides much evidence from varying confessional statements to show these veins of agreement across the ages.

This certainly then should be of utmost concern to the church in ecumenical discussions, that this was their historically from the beginning, now where did it go offtrack? Oden's desire for ecumenical consensus is admirable and certainly provides at least one target area for such serious discussions. His challenge for others to refute this evidence is valid. Since this doctrine is pivotal to all the rest, it surely must be a considered firm, starting point.

The writing style is tight and organized and the thought progression of his thesis is well laid out and easy to follow. His paraphrasing of fathers and confessional statements alike is masterful. The thoughtful reader will find many paths to followup, e.g. my desire to discover more on the mysterious Ambriosiaster.

Looking forward to his next effort in this series on Good Works.

In many ways I respect what Thomas Oden is trying to do here. In this book Oden proposes that if Catholics and Protestants are to find common ground, they should go beyond the 16th century debates and to the church fathers. This I would concede is definitely true. At the time of the church fathers views that later Roman Catholics accepted had not been developed. This involved the medieval views of transubstantiation, Mariology, the infallible Papacy, and the infallibility of Church tradition. The church fathers were not Roman Catholic, nor were they protestant. If the Roman church would go back to the views of the church fathers I would support ecumenicalism between the Roman and protestant church. However, this is not the case, and unfortunately I do not believe will ever be. Thus I think Oden's ecumenical efforts are admirable but unfortunately flawed.
Now, beyond this, I believe his efforts at trying to interpret the fathers is wrong. He does admit that there was no unanimous view of what justification is in the early church, however through out the book he seems to quote every church father one could think of as if they did all believe in a protestant doctrine of justification. This simply is not true. He did not have a discussion of the process of deification which many of the fathers held. He did not have a big discussion on the Latin translation of Iustificare, which played into views held by later fathers. His book is a set of random quotes of fathers with no context offered. It is much like the attempts of Roman Catholics trying to prove the papacy by taking any random quote they can find that says good things about Peter. I would like a good scholarly book which studied the views of certain fathers showing that the protestant understanding is not a new one but was held by several (but not all) of the fathers, although they can be inconsistent with themselves. Ambrose, Chrysostom, Hilary and Augustine come at least very close to what would later be termed a "Lutheran" understanding of Paul and the doctrine of justification. Unfortunately I do not think such a book exists. Oden tries to prove too much in this small book and I think fails.

I was excited to read this short book when I bought it a few days ago. I do believe that Dr. Oden clearly communicates his underlying goal: ecumenicalism. Yet the book, in all its quotes, does little to convince me that the Patristics were anything like the Reformers on their views of Justification. Most Christians know that a Mormon or Roman Catholic saying "I'm saved by grace through faith" is much differant than an Orthodox Protestant saying the same thing. Its easily understood as double talk since we're saying the same formula yet meaning completely different things. All you really get from the quotes is that the Patristics weren't full-blown Pelagian.

It's not difficult to understand that even today, most traditions (whether Protestant, Catholic, or Orthodox) will say they believe in "Grace through Faith for Justification." Yet do they mean the same thing? Obviously not. Most books written today take 200 pages to qualify what they mean by "faith alone". By doing this, it should be clearly understood as a faith plus viewpoint (though this is also qualified, such as the extra conditions aren't primary, aren't works, etc).

Though this is a major flaw in the book, this book achieves a minimum in what it sets out to do - give some sense of unity by way of ecumenicalism. What it does best is the format in which it was written; it is very concise, well organized, easy to follow, and a quick read at that.

Though Dr. Oden already mentioned this in the introduction, I feel that this type of subject, being so lightly visited in Reformation/Post-Reformation history, should have been met with much greater depth. The biggest problem is that (as other reviewers have stated) the historical context in which the Patristics (as well as the Reformers) wrote, is devoid from this work. Also, there is only brief interplay with Catholic/Orthodox views. The book (because it was published by a Protestant press, as Oden states in the Intro) is really weak in the interplay with the Catholic/Orthodox traditions, and continually makes the false jump from Patristic writer's views on Justification to the Reformer's views on Justification. They seem to be saying very different things, though on a surface level Oden basically wants us to conclude they are saying the same thing.

I believe this book falls short, but I do give thanks that a scholar is attempting to give us sources from this vital period in Christian History (seen best through his Ancient Christian Commentary Series). While seeking an ecumenical stance Oden attempts to paint a picture of unity. However, he has failed to prove that unity by his brief quotes, lack of depth, and lack of historical context. The greatest cost to the church here is the blurring of the major differences between the Reformer's understanding of Justification by a Forensic Imputation of Christ's Righteousness to our account, and whatever the Patristics meant by their statements (since we have no context its hard to tell). Because the Patristic's quotes are not developed at any length, we get an unclear picture of what they truly believed (at least the majority of them).

I hesitate to recommend this work since a much more in-depth look must be written to convince anyone that the patristics were saying anything close to the Reformers regarding Justification. Oden essentially disagrees with McGrath, Warfield and a host of other Orthodox Evangelicals on the nature of the historical discussion of the doctrine of Justification. If he is going to disagree with McGrath (and the majority of Church Historians) that we must retreat further back than the Reformation period to bring the historic unified voice on Justification to light, he needs stronger proof and clear context to prove his point. I don't believe this reader will convince discerning Christians that what the Reformers taught was even near what the Patristics taught. Much more work must be done in this area if we want to find our roots in the Fathers instead of the Reformation.

This book demonstrates that given a sufficiently large collection of writings (eg the 160 volumes of early church writings), it is possible to find plenty of small snippets in them in order to 'prove' they say whatever one wishes to claim. This book is a series of carefully selected text snippets taken out of context from the works of the fathers and alleged to support the Reformers' viewpoint. The writer demonstrates that he does not have a good grasp of the thinking of the church fathers and is not well versed in Patristics scholarship.

Oden begins by admitting that at the present time there is a universal consensus among scholars of all denominations and persuasions that the church fathers did not hold to the Reformers' views on justification. I myself am part of that consensus of scholars, and Oden's claims that such a view was fundamentally wrong drew me to this book.

When studying a church father, it is essential not to simply seize on sentences or phrases in their works and take them out of context. Rather, it is important to read all the works of that father (as well as what scholars have written about that writer). By immersing oneself in the thinking and worldview of the particular father, one can carefully reconstruct their entire systematic theology, and get a full grasp on what they were saying in their writings. Often they will use theological terms with meanings different to how we would use those words today. Often they will express carelessly or unguardedly in one passage an idea they explain more clearly or precisely elsewhere. Language is not always perfectly clear, and misunderstandings can arise when sentences or paragraphs are not understood the way the author intended. In order to avoid misunderstanding them, it is essential to grasp their entire mindset and viewpoint, understanding everything they wrote in the context of their overall mindset and viewpoint.

That is the procedure that good scholars use for studying the church fathers. By gaining a full understanding of their view, they are then able to write helpful books which analyze those fathers' thinking on certain topics. Over the last few centuries, many scholars have done this and there are many helpful works available both on the theologies of individual fathers, and books wider in scope that trace the development of doctrine through history. It has been this careful research that has led patristics scholars of all denominations to the consensus that the church fathers did not hold to the Reformers' paradigm of salvation.

In light of this, I approached Oden's book with curious fascination: What could he possibly have found or say to refute the universal findings of so much careful research? I noticed he does not show a great deal of acquaintance with this research. He does note a few scholars as part of the general consensus against him, but he spends more time lamenting what he imagines to be an overall lack of patristics scholarship. I was left with the feeling that his library must be quite small and that Oden isn't familiar with the vast majority of patristics scholarship.

The poor methodology for this work truly shocked me. It appears that he searched the writings of fathers for snippets of text that could be read as advocating the doctrine of the Reformers. He restricts himself to the first five centuries... which means he can look through about 160 volumes of Christian writers from this period (in the Patrologia Graeca and Patrologia Latina series). Given one hundred and sixty volumes of writings to pillage, he unsurprisingly manages to find numerous snippets that he can take out of context and present as 'proof' that the fathers held the view he wants them to have held. He shows no interest in carefully trying to understand any father's viewpoint and mindset. Rather he simply grabbed whatever snippets he could find that looked juicy and ran with them. No attempt was made to determine whether the words were being used with the same meanings as the Reformers used. The question of whether the selected passage was truly representative of the father's thinking on the subject was not considered, nor whether their views were expressed more clearly in other passages.

In the spirit of doctrinal ecumenism by a converted Methodist theologian, Oden attempts to build a case that - contra McGrath - a basic doctrinal consensus does exist in the early Church regarding the issue of justification. Driven by the conviction that salvation is by grace through faith, Oden claims that properly understood there is "substantial agreement between traditions of East and West, Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox" and even charismatic and Penetcostal Christans on the doctrine of justification. This is either an exercise in historical revisionism or a promising contribution to future discussions among Christians from different backgrounds.

On page 1 of his introduction, Oden says, "As a former addict of fad theology, I have now come home to ancient ecumenical Christianity." Unfortunately, his personal journey predetermines his conclusion. By selective use of quotes from writers of the first 5 centuries, he arrives at his fore-ordained goal. There is no attempt to help the reader understand how the writers of the first 5 centuries differed from the Judaizers Paul condemns in Galatians. There are no quotes relating the views of Augustine, Chrysostom, etc., on how baptism, communion, being a catechumen relate to their teaching on justification. This is not an objective view of the early professing Christians' teaching on justification, but a biased, selective collection of quotes chosen to force the reader to the author's predetermined ecumenical position.

This book purports to show that there was a consensus among the Church Fathers in support of an essentially Protestant theology of "justification by faith alone" (JBFA) long before the Reformation. Oden tried to prove this by comparing isolated quotations from the Fathers to individual doctrinal points gleaned from several different Protestant sources. He made no effort to systematically develop the various nuanced positions of the Fathers on soteriology and acts as if every apparently anti-Pelagian comment equates to support for Protestant dogma.

For example, the dominant position among the Eastern Fathers as far back as the 2nd Century was Theosis -- partaking of the divine nature through union with Christ. This concept is neither mentioned nor explored in the book. This is a critical omission since John Calvin and his spiritual descendants explicity deny this concept.

It is also well established that the Protestant doctrine of JBFA is strongly tied to medieval Ockhamist and Scotian ideas in theology and philosophy. The Patristic Church did not share these ideas and was in fact more strongly influenced by Platonic and Neo-Platonic thought. The attempt to find Protestant doctrines among the Fathers is anachronistic at best and openly deceptive at worst.

When I purchased this book, I had hoped to see a detailed comparison between the positions held in the Patristic Church and those of later sectarians, both Protestant and Catholic. This is something that no one has done up to now. Earlier work by Buchanan was tainted by his outright anti-Catholic bigotry and Alister McGrath's "Iustitia Dei" -- for all of its attempt at covering medieval developments -- still concentrated on the Western/Augustinian tradition and did not examine the breath of the Patristic thought while virtually ignoring the contributions of the Ecumenical Councils before Trent.

I was disappointed to see that the positions of the Fathers were never systematically developed and that no attempt was made in the book to examine either Catholic or Eastern Orthodox soteriology. The continuitites and discontinuities between the Patristic positions and those of non-Protestants were virtually ignored. Meanwhile selective proof-texting made it seem as if there was a broad Protestant consensus on JBFA which was compatible with a similar broad consensus across the Patristic Church. This is not only poor scholarship, it is frankly dishonest.

The reality is that there were (and are) many Protestant positions, many Patristic positions, and many views within Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. The doctrine of justification has developed over the centuries with each age adding its own peculiar contribution to the way it was articulated and lived. There never was a consensus AMONG the Fathers on all the fine points or AMONG the Reformers or AMONG their Catholic and Orthodox counterparts.

The bottom line is that Dr. Oden's book is a shoddy piece of propaganda alleging a continuity between the Early Church and the Protestants which did not -- and does not -- exist. I think he wrote this book in an irenic spirit similar to that of Daniel William's book "Retrieving the Tradition and Renewing Evangelicalism: A Primer for Suspicious Protestants." Unfortunately, this book will not serve to broaden the horizons of rank-and-file Protestants as Dr. William's did. Rather it will be used by those very narrow minded propangandists who are still trying to convince themselves (and others) that Baptists were not Protestants, that St. Thomas Aquinas was not a "Romanist", and that the Reformation was a return to historical "biblical" Christianity.

The truth is that Historical Christianity is a much broader and complex movement than any one tradition can claim and that Protestantism is as much a product of its contemporary environments in every age as any other form of Christianity. In fact by its very nature, Protestantism in any form is always discontinuous in its doctrine with the theological positions previously held even from within its own tradition.

I am sorely disappointed that Dr. Oden did not make a real effort to educate his co-religionists in what the Church Fathers really taught, but instead tried to confirm them in sectarian ignorance for the sake of a false irenicism.