the two most controversial issues
concerning the doctrine of justification were: (1) to what degree, if any,
man’s free will was involved in justification, and (2) whether to understand justification
as an internal transformation or as a forensic event totally external to the
individual. [784] On the second issue, Andreas Osiander (1498-1552), a Reformed
theologian from Germany, explicitly opposed the concept of forensic
justification first introduced by Luther and developed later by Melanchthon and
Calvin. Identical to Augustine, Osiander held that God acts as a physician, not
as a judge, who cures man of his spiritual sickness, thus “making” a man just rather
than merely “imputing” him just. [785] Osiander insisted that any notion of external or forensic justification
was alien to Scripture, especially to those passages in the gospel of John that
spoke of the indwelling Christ. Ironically, Osiander had borrowed Luther’s and Calvin’s
concept of “union with Christ” but discarded their theory of the imputation of
righteousness. [786] Even before Osiander, however, Andreas von Karlstadt, who
in 1517 while preparing for a debate with Luther had reread the works of
Augustine, became convinced that justification was indeed an interior
transformation of the individual in which one was made righteous. In making
this discovery, Karlstadt was following Johannes von Staupitz (d. 1524), the
very person who a few years earlier had encouraged Luther to read the
Scriptures in order to awaken from his “dogmatic slumbers.” [787] In fact,
Luther’s ideas of justification met considerable resistance among the German and
Swiss Reformers, culminating in Germany with the Formula of Concord that
modified and dismissed many of his views. (Robert A. Sungenis, Not By Faith
Alone: The Biblical Evidence for the Catholic Doctrine of Justification [2d
ed.; State Line, Pa.: Catholic Apologetics International Publishing Inc., 2009],
540-42)
Notes for the Above
[784] Catholic theologian Albert
Pighius of Holland (d. 1542), in his debates with Luther and Calvin, concluded
that the Reformation concepts of the total slavery of the human will, and the
absolute necessity of all events, were the two principal errors of the period.
[785] Calvin writes of Osiander:
“Osiander laughs at those men who teach that ‘to be justified’ is a legal term;
because we must actually be righteous. Also, he despises nothing more than that
we are justified by free imputation...Osiander objects that it would be
insulting to God and contrary to his nature that he should justify those who
actually remain wicked” (Institutes 3:11:11). Calvin then uses 2Co 5:19
as proof of legal imputation. Ironically, this is the same verse Reformed
theologian Charles Hodge (1841) would use to support the Protestant concept of sanctification
(see chapter 5 of this book). Protestant historian Philip Schaff supports
Calvin, but with an interesting admission in favor of the Catholic view: “Modern
exegesis has justified this view of δικαιόω and δικαίωσις, according to Hellenistic
usage, although etymologically the verb may mean to make just, i.e.,
to sanctify, in accordance with verbs in ow (e.g., δηλοω, φαεροω, τυφλοω,
to make manifest, etc.” (Schaff, History of the Christian
Church, Vol. VII, p. 123, n. 2).
[786] Encyclopedia of Religion,
ed. Virgilius Ferm, 1959, p. 553.
[787] This contrasts with the
claim made by Evangelical Michael Horton that the “Augustinian abbot [Staupitz]
argued that faith was the sole criterion of God’s acceptance of the believing
sinner” (Roman Catholicism, op. cit., pp. 265-266). Contrary to the
impression Horton conveys, Staupitz remained a faithful Catholic, supporting
all the doctrines of his Church and denouncing Lutheranism as a heresy in 1523
(Ferm, p. 734). See also, McGrath, Iustitia Dei, II, pp. 20-21 supporting
Staupitz’s transformational understanding of justification. Similar to Horton,
N. Geisler and R. MacKenzie, in dedicating their book Roman Catholics and
Evangelicals: Agreements and Differences to Staupitz, give the false impression
that Staupitz had renounced Catholicism for the Lutheran version of justification.
What sort of man Osiander was—his doctrine
about Justification
Andrew
Osiander had signalized himself among the Lutherans by a new opinion he had
introduced concerning Justification. He would not have it to be by the imputation
of Jesus Christ’s justice, as all other Protestants maintained, but by the
intimate union of God’s substantial justice with our grounds, grounded on that
saying often repeated in Isaiah and Jeremy, “The Lord is our righteousness”
Isa. xxiii. 6, 16, 33; Jer. xxiii.6). For, as according to him, we live by God’s
substantial life and love, by the essential love he bears himself, so we are
just by his essential justice communicated to us; to which, the substance of
the word incarnate dwelling in us by faith, by the word, and the sacraments, is
to be added. Ever since the time that the Confession of Augsburg was in hand,
he had used his utmost endeavours to prevail with the whole party to embrace
this prodigy of doctrine, and, to Luther’s face, defended it with the greatest
boldness. At the Assembly of Smalcald men were astonished at his rashness; yet,
fearing lest new divisions might break out in the party, wherein he had
distinguished himself by his great learning, they chose to bear with him. He,
above all men, had the talent of diverting Luther; and Melanchton, at their
return from the Conference of Marpurg, held with the Sacramentarians, wrote to
Camerarius that “Osiander had made Luther and all of them exceeding merry.” (Jacques
Bénigne Bossuet, The History and the Variations of the Protestant Churches,
2 vols. [2d ed.; Maynooth: Richard Coyne, 1836], 1:326)
With respect to Osiander, there is a book by Timothy J. Wengert Defending Faith Lutheran Responses to Andreas Osiander's Doctrine of Justification, 1551–1559 published by Mohr Siebeck. However, it is pretty costly, so I hope to get it at a later stage (unless any fan of this blog wants to send a donation for this book? Feel free to ;-) )
