So I´ve read "The Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification" from 1999, adopted by the Catholic Church and the World Lutheran Federation. I originally assumed that the Lutherans were adapting to the Catholic position (hence the controversy over the document among Lutherans), but on a swift reading, it rather sounds as if the Catholic Church is adapting itself to the *Lutheran* position!
Wtf?!
Most of the points in the joint declaration sound like Lutheranism 101. Color me skeptical, but somehow I find this difficult to believe!
So I dilligently searched the declaration, and finally came up with this:"In the doctrine of “justification by faith alone,” a distinction but not a separation is made between justification itself and the renewal of one’s way of life that necessarily follows from justification and without which faith does not exist."
This certainly sounds like the Catholic position, often criticized by Protestants as a conflation of justification and sanctification (here called "renewal"). They are (conceptually) "distinct", but not (actually) "separate". Bingo!
So the vile and devilishly clever Jesuits managed to smuggle a little bit of Tridentine Catholicism into an otherwise Lutheran-sounding document. LOL! Guess how *that* would be used during a heresy-trial? This little theological conundrum will continue for another 500 years, I think. Besides, everyone knows it´s really German versus Italian, anyway...
No comments:
Post a Comment