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Lectures on the Doctrine of Justification

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Readers already familiar with the eloquent and perspicacious Newman will not be disappointed by this critically important document -- a meditation of the doctrine of justification that ultimately caused him to abandon all hope of reconciling Luther's interpretation with the Roman Catholic interpretation. In this analysis, Newman contributes his own understanding to the debate and decides Luther not only got it wrong, he got it wrong on all points.

One of his excellent tactics is to take the evangelical view on its own basis, the Bible alone, and he demonstrates from the psalmists, prophets, apostles, and evangelists that the "justification" and "righteousness" are used interchangeably throughout salvation history. The bottom line is that we are all called to righteousness , and our justification is a Pauline spin on how we achieve this righteousness. Not by faith alone, as most Protestants claim, but by our total obedience to the Law made manifest in the Gospel and epistles, which means by the works of our faith.

To simplify Newman's elegant and eloquent argument, being justified is being righteous, and being righteous is being in a state of grace that is imprinted in our very being -- not imputed onto us, as Luther advocates . God has given us the faith necessary to believe and the grace to act upon it. The more we abide in obedience to God's will for us, the more our justification (righteousness) becomes our sanctification (blessedness). Newman obviously takes the catholic view of salvation, wherein the one who is saved is justified, the one justified is made righteous, the one made righteous is sanctified, and the one sanctified enteres into blessedness.

This book is for all students studying the question of the Justification by Faith, especially by faith "alone." Newman is a seminal thinker who has been highly influential in raising the issue within the Latin Church, and did much to help reconcile the differences between Lutheran and Catholic doctrine. Once again, John Henry Newman has proven himself a consummate twentieth-century theologican from the preceding century.