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Iustitia Dei: A History of the Christian Doctrine of Justification
The Christian doctrine of justification continues to be of major importance in modern ecumenical discussions. In fact, this book became the leading reference work on the subject after its initial publication in 1986. This third edition thoroughly updates previous editions by adding new material and responding to the latest developments in scholarly literature. The volume's many acclaimed features include a detailed assessment of the semantic background of the concept in the ancient Near East, a thorough examination of the doctrine of the medieval period, and especially careful analysis of its development during the critical years of the sixteenth century.
464 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1986
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About the author
Alister E. McGrath
451 books497 followersAlister Edgar McGrath is a Northern Irish theologian, priest, intellectual historian, scientist, and Christian apologist. He currently holds the Andreas Idreos Professorship in Science and Religion in the Faculty of Theology and Religion at the University of Oxford, and is Professor of Divinity at Gresham College. He was previously Professor of Theology, Ministry, and Education at King's College London and Head of the Centre for Theology, Religion and Culture, Professor of Historical Theology at the University of Oxford, and was principal of Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, until 2005. He is an Anglican priest and is ordained within the Church of England.
Aside from being a faculty member at Oxford, McGrath has also taught at Cambridge University and is a Teaching Fellow at Regent College. McGrath holds three doctorates from the University of Oxford, a DPhil in Molecular Biophysics, a Doctor of Divinity in Theology and a Doctor of Letters in Intellectual History.
McGrath is noted for his work in historical theology, systematic theology, and the relationship between science and religion, as well as his writings on apologetics. He is also known for his opposition to New Atheism and antireligionism and his advocacy of theological critical realism. Among his best-known books are The Twilight of Atheism, The Dawkins Delusion?: Atheist Fundamentalism and the Denial of the Divine, Dawkins' God: Genes, Memes, and the Meaning of Life, and A Scientific Theology. He is also the author of a number of popular textbooks on theology.
Aside from being a faculty member at Oxford, McGrath has also taught at Cambridge University and is a Teaching Fellow at Regent College. McGrath holds three doctorates from the University of Oxford, a DPhil in Molecular Biophysics, a Doctor of Divinity in Theology and a Doctor of Letters in Intellectual History.
McGrath is noted for his work in historical theology, systematic theology, and the relationship between science and religion, as well as his writings on apologetics. He is also known for his opposition to New Atheism and antireligionism and his advocacy of theological critical realism. Among his best-known books are The Twilight of Atheism, The Dawkins Delusion?: Atheist Fundamentalism and the Denial of the Divine, Dawkins' God: Genes, Memes, and the Meaning of Life, and A Scientific Theology. He is also the author of a number of popular textbooks on theology.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
February 11, 2025
The first 20 pages of this should be mandatory in every systematics program, catholic or protestant. We all need to understand the Hebrew, Latin, and Greek words used in this discussion and the history of the translations that affected the next 20 centuries.
A truly excellent overview of the doctrine of Justification. One of the more rigorous volumes on any subject that I have ever read. I can think of no better way to convince a theology student that he must learn Latin if he wants to understand the history of doctrine than to hand him this book.
Not knowing Latin myself, I can say that I absorbed probably 70% of what this book was offering. I can also say that I started self taught Latin lessons each morning because of this book.
I have about 10 pages of notes, but as a life long protestant I can say my eyes were opened to the diversity of thought from central figures on both sides of the Prot/Cath divide.
A truly illuminating volume on the matter.
A truly excellent overview of the doctrine of Justification. One of the more rigorous volumes on any subject that I have ever read. I can think of no better way to convince a theology student that he must learn Latin if he wants to understand the history of doctrine than to hand him this book.
Not knowing Latin myself, I can say that I absorbed probably 70% of what this book was offering. I can also say that I started self taught Latin lessons each morning because of this book.
I have about 10 pages of notes, but as a life long protestant I can say my eyes were opened to the diversity of thought from central figures on both sides of the Prot/Cath divide.
A truly illuminating volume on the matter.
October 1, 2025
Taking a break from this one 2/3 through. Will review in more detail later on.
September 1, 2022
Alister E. McGrath, born 1953 in Belfast, Northern Ireland, was an atheist and student of mathematics, physics, chemistry, and molecular biophysics before studying theology. Ordained a deacon and then priest in the Church of England, in addition to his work as a Christian apologist, Alister McGrath earned an Oxford Doctorate of Divinity in 2001 for his research on historical and systematic theology. McGrath received a chair at Oxford University with the title “Professor of Historical Theology”.
In Justicia Dei, A History of the Christian Doctrine of Justification, Fourth Edition, as the title suggests, McGrath looks at the history of the doctrine concerned with How a righteous (or just) God justifies sinful (or unjust) humanity. Again, McGrath gives us history. While its subject matter is at the heart of Christian theology, Justicia Dei is not a theological or polemical work in support of one communion versus another. The First Edition was published in 1989. Thirty-one years later, McGrath begins his Fourth Edition by warning teachers using Justicia Dei to be sure they are familiar with his “structural and scholarly changes”. The teacher may no longer consider earlier editions reliable. Iustitia Dei, Cambridge University Press. Kindle Edition at X.
As if a reminder were necessary, the importance of justification cannot be overstated. This is true for the individual sinner who feels the weight of his sin. It’s true for the faithful follower of Christ who simply wants to align his life with whatever God has revealed about how He and the believer are reconciled through the work of Jesus Christ. Of course, getting justification right is crucial for the integrity of the Gospel itself. A comment by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas comes to mind. His was an obvious point, but important: Whether you’re in the middle of a hurricane or a calm day, north is still north. I take that to mean, regardless the chaos swirling around (whether moral or financial or political or, for our purposes, theological), north is still north. Notwithstanding internal or external darkness and confusion, and regardless what a person thinks or believes or hopes or feels about a matter, objective truth stands over and against every thought and belief, every hope and feeling that differs from God’s true north. Sixteenth-century Protestants certainly considered justification a matter of great importance, calling it articulus stantis et cadentis ecclesiae(“the article by which the church stands or falls). Id. at 1.
In my last post, I asked the same question — whether Luther rediscovered the gospel, or introduced a theological novelty. In this post and ones to follow, I hope to look at this question in greater detail. After all, justicia Dei is at the heart of the Protestant Reformation that gashed the Catholic Church and, over five hundred years later, continues to bleed.
Last time, demonstrating that the German friar was not always wrong, I included Martin Luther’s own words to the effect that there’s never a good reason to separate from the Church – the worse things seem to be, the more reason to stay and work for the good. The seventeenth chapter of St. John’s Gospel, standing alone, should be enough for any student of Scripture to see that division in the Body of Christ is never a non-essential. Logically speaking, if Luther introduced a novel doctrine of justification, then Protestantism’s edifice is built largely upon wood, hay, and stubble. Stated differently, if Luther hatched his own article of justification, then Protestantism never fell and never will – because Protestantism is one of The Great Heresies that never stood in the first place.
Jacques-Benigne Bossuet, the esteemed seventeenth century bishop and Counter Reformation orator who dreamed of and worked for reconciliation between Protestantism and Catholicism, offered good advice on whether a given doctrine is orthodox or not:
The Church’s doctrine is always the same . . . the Gospel is never different from what is was before. Hence if at any time someone says that the faith includes something which yesterday was not said to be of the faith, it is always heterodoxy, which is any doctrine different from orthodoxy. There is no difficulty about recognizing false doctrine: there is no argument about it: it is recognized at once, whenever it appears, merely because it is new.
Luther’s Theology of the Cross, Alister E. McGrath, Blackwell Publishers 1990 at p. 24.
No one can be easily separated from his time and place. Martin Luther is no different. Indulgences are part of the Catholic faith. Indulgences flow from the largess of the Church for the glory of God and the good of the faithful. To Luther’s credit, however, by the early sixteenth century, indulgences were being abused. Some of Luther’s criticisms were justified. To that extent, Luther was part of a renewal effort in the Catholic Church that began in the 1590’s. Also, by this time, the uneducated clergyman was another commonplace. Doctrinal confusion was a problem. As will be seen, it appears Luther’s own formation was deficient. One may fairly conclude that Luther’s intellectual and spiritual shortcomings, combined with an apparent scrupulosity, coalesced to inject subtle but serious error into his understanding of justification.
Justification is shorthand for how God’s gracious reconciliation with man through the Passion of Jesus Christ is appropriated by the individual. The Council of Trent would speak definitively on the subject, but not until convened in 1545. It is telling (and perhaps negatively so) that it took the Church so long to finally assess and address Luther’s firestorm. Over one thousand years passed since a Church Council had been convened to address the subject of justification. Before Luther’s eruption, we need to go back to 418 when the Council of Carthage dealt with the Pelagian heresy. It is said that the Council of Orange’s pronouncements were vague and so required revision at the Second Council of Orange in 529. Underscoring doctrinal confusion in the sixteenth century, and shockingly, modern scholarship shows medieval theologians from the tenth century until Trent appear to have been unaware of the work of the Second Council of Orange! While the Church of Luther’s day may be to blame, the fact remains: Luther’s error appears to have grown largely out of ignorance.
One of Luther’s chief errors was in asserting the novel doctrine of “alien righteousness”. As we will see, Luther was driven to a place of despair, in large part, because he had a Ciceronian (instead of Scriptural) concept of justitia. Can it be true? Did a secular understanding of the term actually generate a crisis in Luther that became the Protestant Reformation? Justitia distributiva means “giving to each man what he is entitled to” (reddens unicuique quod suum est). Apparently, Luther did not understand the doctrine of “righteousness” or “justice” that the Catholic Church had inherited from the Hebrews of the Old Testament. Part of Luther’s problem was lack of knowledge of the Hebrew language. He also had a limited understanding of the Church Fathers.
Contrary to Luther’s idea of “alien righteousness”, we see the namesake of the Augustinian Order (of which Luther was a friar) regarding the righteousness which God bestows upon humanity in justification as something inherent, not imputed. Far from a merely “imputed righteousness”, as urged by sixteenth-century Protestantism, St. Augustine understood that humans are made righteous in justification. To be sure, the believers’ righteousness originates from God. It is a gift from God. See Ephesians 2:8. Even so, the righteousness is located within the individual and is an ontological reality. Far from being a mere legal fiction, righteousness belongs to the believer. More than a mere change in the Mind of God, righteousness is part of the believer’s “being and intrinsic to his person.” Iustitia Dei at pp. 49-50.
Next time, I anticipate looking at the ancient Hebrews’ understanding of “righteousness”, and how Martin Luther’s secular, Ciceronian understanding of the Latin term created for him an unnecessary crisis that he resolved with his new doctrine of justification.
In Justicia Dei, A History of the Christian Doctrine of Justification, Fourth Edition, as the title suggests, McGrath looks at the history of the doctrine concerned with How a righteous (or just) God justifies sinful (or unjust) humanity. Again, McGrath gives us history. While its subject matter is at the heart of Christian theology, Justicia Dei is not a theological or polemical work in support of one communion versus another. The First Edition was published in 1989. Thirty-one years later, McGrath begins his Fourth Edition by warning teachers using Justicia Dei to be sure they are familiar with his “structural and scholarly changes”. The teacher may no longer consider earlier editions reliable. Iustitia Dei, Cambridge University Press. Kindle Edition at X.
As if a reminder were necessary, the importance of justification cannot be overstated. This is true for the individual sinner who feels the weight of his sin. It’s true for the faithful follower of Christ who simply wants to align his life with whatever God has revealed about how He and the believer are reconciled through the work of Jesus Christ. Of course, getting justification right is crucial for the integrity of the Gospel itself. A comment by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas comes to mind. His was an obvious point, but important: Whether you’re in the middle of a hurricane or a calm day, north is still north. I take that to mean, regardless the chaos swirling around (whether moral or financial or political or, for our purposes, theological), north is still north. Notwithstanding internal or external darkness and confusion, and regardless what a person thinks or believes or hopes or feels about a matter, objective truth stands over and against every thought and belief, every hope and feeling that differs from God’s true north. Sixteenth-century Protestants certainly considered justification a matter of great importance, calling it articulus stantis et cadentis ecclesiae(“the article by which the church stands or falls). Id. at 1.
In my last post, I asked the same question — whether Luther rediscovered the gospel, or introduced a theological novelty. In this post and ones to follow, I hope to look at this question in greater detail. After all, justicia Dei is at the heart of the Protestant Reformation that gashed the Catholic Church and, over five hundred years later, continues to bleed.
Last time, demonstrating that the German friar was not always wrong, I included Martin Luther’s own words to the effect that there’s never a good reason to separate from the Church – the worse things seem to be, the more reason to stay and work for the good. The seventeenth chapter of St. John’s Gospel, standing alone, should be enough for any student of Scripture to see that division in the Body of Christ is never a non-essential. Logically speaking, if Luther introduced a novel doctrine of justification, then Protestantism’s edifice is built largely upon wood, hay, and stubble. Stated differently, if Luther hatched his own article of justification, then Protestantism never fell and never will – because Protestantism is one of The Great Heresies that never stood in the first place.
Jacques-Benigne Bossuet, the esteemed seventeenth century bishop and Counter Reformation orator who dreamed of and worked for reconciliation between Protestantism and Catholicism, offered good advice on whether a given doctrine is orthodox or not:
The Church’s doctrine is always the same . . . the Gospel is never different from what is was before. Hence if at any time someone says that the faith includes something which yesterday was not said to be of the faith, it is always heterodoxy, which is any doctrine different from orthodoxy. There is no difficulty about recognizing false doctrine: there is no argument about it: it is recognized at once, whenever it appears, merely because it is new.
Luther’s Theology of the Cross, Alister E. McGrath, Blackwell Publishers 1990 at p. 24.
No one can be easily separated from his time and place. Martin Luther is no different. Indulgences are part of the Catholic faith. Indulgences flow from the largess of the Church for the glory of God and the good of the faithful. To Luther’s credit, however, by the early sixteenth century, indulgences were being abused. Some of Luther’s criticisms were justified. To that extent, Luther was part of a renewal effort in the Catholic Church that began in the 1590’s. Also, by this time, the uneducated clergyman was another commonplace. Doctrinal confusion was a problem. As will be seen, it appears Luther’s own formation was deficient. One may fairly conclude that Luther’s intellectual and spiritual shortcomings, combined with an apparent scrupulosity, coalesced to inject subtle but serious error into his understanding of justification.
Justification is shorthand for how God’s gracious reconciliation with man through the Passion of Jesus Christ is appropriated by the individual. The Council of Trent would speak definitively on the subject, but not until convened in 1545. It is telling (and perhaps negatively so) that it took the Church so long to finally assess and address Luther’s firestorm. Over one thousand years passed since a Church Council had been convened to address the subject of justification. Before Luther’s eruption, we need to go back to 418 when the Council of Carthage dealt with the Pelagian heresy. It is said that the Council of Orange’s pronouncements were vague and so required revision at the Second Council of Orange in 529. Underscoring doctrinal confusion in the sixteenth century, and shockingly, modern scholarship shows medieval theologians from the tenth century until Trent appear to have been unaware of the work of the Second Council of Orange! While the Church of Luther’s day may be to blame, the fact remains: Luther’s error appears to have grown largely out of ignorance.
One of Luther’s chief errors was in asserting the novel doctrine of “alien righteousness”. As we will see, Luther was driven to a place of despair, in large part, because he had a Ciceronian (instead of Scriptural) concept of justitia. Can it be true? Did a secular understanding of the term actually generate a crisis in Luther that became the Protestant Reformation? Justitia distributiva means “giving to each man what he is entitled to” (reddens unicuique quod suum est). Apparently, Luther did not understand the doctrine of “righteousness” or “justice” that the Catholic Church had inherited from the Hebrews of the Old Testament. Part of Luther’s problem was lack of knowledge of the Hebrew language. He also had a limited understanding of the Church Fathers.
Contrary to Luther’s idea of “alien righteousness”, we see the namesake of the Augustinian Order (of which Luther was a friar) regarding the righteousness which God bestows upon humanity in justification as something inherent, not imputed. Far from a merely “imputed righteousness”, as urged by sixteenth-century Protestantism, St. Augustine understood that humans are made righteous in justification. To be sure, the believers’ righteousness originates from God. It is a gift from God. See Ephesians 2:8. Even so, the righteousness is located within the individual and is an ontological reality. Far from being a mere legal fiction, righteousness belongs to the believer. More than a mere change in the Mind of God, righteousness is part of the believer’s “being and intrinsic to his person.” Iustitia Dei at pp. 49-50.
Next time, I anticipate looking at the ancient Hebrews’ understanding of “righteousness”, and how Martin Luther’s secular, Ciceronian understanding of the Latin term created for him an unnecessary crisis that he resolved with his new doctrine of justification.
December 13, 2020
Newly updated this lengthy historical review of justification is a sweeping overview of the doctrine from the time of the Bible to the modern day. The initial review of the meaning of the term in the Old and New Testaments is helpful, as are comments on the approach of the early church. There is a considerable use of Latin tags which proliferate amidst the debates of the Mediaeval Scholastics: tough going. The fog clears with a fascinating analysis of the different approaches of the Reformers. Calvin's approach placing union with Christ at the centre of salvation shines like a sunbeam after a cold December morning. Common views of Trent as failing to engage properly with evangelical challenges are affirmed and it is clear that the resulting Roman doctrine is a different system of salvation than in Protestant theology.
The last section of the book addresses the approach of German liberalism in the nineteenth century and the neo-Orthodox in the twentieth as they failed to grapple with the historical reality of God made man. (Newman comes over very badly for his, possibly deliberate, manglings of Luther quotes to prove his case.) The final chapter looks briefly at the New Perspective.
Overall the book is, in parts, a tough read, particularly on the Scholastics. You get the feeling that each chapter is highly compressed and yearns to break free into a full book in order to look in detail at the debates covered. I don't think McGrath would relish that task though! Rather the book should be viewed both as succesfully reviewing the history of this doctrine and as whetting the appetite for a deeper dive into periods of particular interest to the reader.
The last section of the book addresses the approach of German liberalism in the nineteenth century and the neo-Orthodox in the twentieth as they failed to grapple with the historical reality of God made man. (Newman comes over very badly for his, possibly deliberate, manglings of Luther quotes to prove his case.) The final chapter looks briefly at the New Perspective.
Overall the book is, in parts, a tough read, particularly on the Scholastics. You get the feeling that each chapter is highly compressed and yearns to break free into a full book in order to look in detail at the debates covered. I don't think McGrath would relish that task though! Rather the book should be viewed both as succesfully reviewing the history of this doctrine and as whetting the appetite for a deeper dive into periods of particular interest to the reader.
January 20, 2025
I could say a lot about this book (because this book has a lot to say). As much as I hate reading from a secondary source, sometimes they are necessary. I think McGrath treats the topic carefully and He goes in detail (maybe even too much) of each major period in Western Christian history. He gives context that post-Reformation Christians don’t even consider (at least I never did) and sends you down a rabbit hole of the Faith. I’m rereading the book soon to pickup and focus on things I didn’t catch or understand the first time so this rating my go up.
I wish that he engaged with the Eastern Fathers more, I think it would’ve added more to the conversation of the question of Divine Justice. I understand the specifics of Justification were heightened during the reformation, but the Eastern Fathers were a force in the first millenium and surely they engaged with this topic a good bit.
I wish that he engaged with the Eastern Fathers more, I think it would’ve added more to the conversation of the question of Divine Justice. I understand the specifics of Justification were heightened during the reformation, but the Eastern Fathers were a force in the first millenium and surely they engaged with this topic a good bit.
June 29, 2025
A fascinating book, highly thought provoking, but left me interested to know the Eastern Orthodox understanding of justification.
April 22, 2011
This book is a history of the Christian doctrine of justification. The purpose of this book is to show that the development of the Reformation doctrine of justification as a legal imputation of righteousness was a fundamental shift from the Catholic view of justification. It also shows the separation of sanctification from justification resulted in a paradigm shift in the Church.
McGrath begins with the assertion that medieval theology was thoroughly Augustinian, and the primary aim of medieval theology was to expand and refine his theologies. Not surprisingly, McGrath’s fist major section is an exposition of Augustine’s doctrine of justification. Augustine’s theory of justification was tied up with the Sacraments. Augustine believed that justification was a change in a man’s being and not a change in his status. Justification is God restoring the relationship between man and God as it was pre-Fall, not in the category of legal or forensic categories.
McGrath went on to describe the development of the doctrine of justification in the medieval period. He first described the nature of justification in medieval theology and the righteousness of God. Here his primary argument is that justification includes the Protestant categories of justification, sanctification, and regeneration. McGrath maintains that the inclusion of regeneration with justification precludes a Protestant understanding of justification from the outset. McGrath goes on to detail how medieval scholars viewed the righteousness of God, and included Aristotelian ideas in their theology.
One fundamental point which McGrath includes is the medieval discussion of will, both the free will of man and the sovereign will of God. McGrath asserts that the Augustinian position had become dominant by the medieval period, with few exceptions, so that most scholars held to the view that man is able to freely respond to God’s offer of salvation through prevenient grace. McGrath begins his discussion of the will of God with Augustine’s understanding. Here the fundamental difficulty was that a view of prevenient grace requires that man accepting God’s grace requires God to save him. Augustine held that this could only be the case if God were voluntarily allowing himself to be placed under requirement because of a pact he freely made with mankind. Medieval theologians continued on this path by viewing God as being completely free and completely reliable.
The final topic which I will it is important to view is the medieval conception of the relationship between justification and predestination. Logically following Augustine, some argued that his view of predestination entails double predestination. Catholic understanding of this topic was all over the map in the medieval period. For example, Scotus believed that the Fall and the Cross are essentially independent of one another because Christ was predestined first. Nobody could understand Ockham’s view, and those who followed Pelagius could not hold to a meaningful view of predestination.
McGrath does a good job overall of defending his thesis, namely that the Protestant view of justification was a fundamental paradigm shift from all previous thought. He does this by methodically developing the thoughts of the great theologians prior to Luther, and showing how their views of justification include the idea of sanctification. McGrath also does not do as good of a job of proving his second thesis, namely that Catholic beliefs on justification were disunited. He succeeds in the discussion of predestination, but in general there was a Catholic consensus in the means, manner, and result of justification and the role of the Sacraments in that justification.
My only complaint with this book was its inclusion of block quotes in Latin, which made it very hard to read!
McGrath begins with the assertion that medieval theology was thoroughly Augustinian, and the primary aim of medieval theology was to expand and refine his theologies. Not surprisingly, McGrath’s fist major section is an exposition of Augustine’s doctrine of justification. Augustine’s theory of justification was tied up with the Sacraments. Augustine believed that justification was a change in a man’s being and not a change in his status. Justification is God restoring the relationship between man and God as it was pre-Fall, not in the category of legal or forensic categories.
McGrath went on to describe the development of the doctrine of justification in the medieval period. He first described the nature of justification in medieval theology and the righteousness of God. Here his primary argument is that justification includes the Protestant categories of justification, sanctification, and regeneration. McGrath maintains that the inclusion of regeneration with justification precludes a Protestant understanding of justification from the outset. McGrath goes on to detail how medieval scholars viewed the righteousness of God, and included Aristotelian ideas in their theology.
One fundamental point which McGrath includes is the medieval discussion of will, both the free will of man and the sovereign will of God. McGrath asserts that the Augustinian position had become dominant by the medieval period, with few exceptions, so that most scholars held to the view that man is able to freely respond to God’s offer of salvation through prevenient grace. McGrath begins his discussion of the will of God with Augustine’s understanding. Here the fundamental difficulty was that a view of prevenient grace requires that man accepting God’s grace requires God to save him. Augustine held that this could only be the case if God were voluntarily allowing himself to be placed under requirement because of a pact he freely made with mankind. Medieval theologians continued on this path by viewing God as being completely free and completely reliable.
The final topic which I will it is important to view is the medieval conception of the relationship between justification and predestination. Logically following Augustine, some argued that his view of predestination entails double predestination. Catholic understanding of this topic was all over the map in the medieval period. For example, Scotus believed that the Fall and the Cross are essentially independent of one another because Christ was predestined first. Nobody could understand Ockham’s view, and those who followed Pelagius could not hold to a meaningful view of predestination.
McGrath does a good job overall of defending his thesis, namely that the Protestant view of justification was a fundamental paradigm shift from all previous thought. He does this by methodically developing the thoughts of the great theologians prior to Luther, and showing how their views of justification include the idea of sanctification. McGrath also does not do as good of a job of proving his second thesis, namely that Catholic beliefs on justification were disunited. He succeeds in the discussion of predestination, but in general there was a Catholic consensus in the means, manner, and result of justification and the role of the Sacraments in that justification.
My only complaint with this book was its inclusion of block quotes in Latin, which made it very hard to read!
August 1, 2011
Highly disappointing! He has an important discussion the righteousness of God in the opening chapter, but there is not much after this. I would wait to read this after you have learned Latin, there are many places you will get lost without it (at least I was). This book falls trap to much of what I despise in historical theology: lists of names and beliefs without contexts. I feel that historical theology should be more of interacting with texts and showing what they believed and why; a broad sweep of what they believe will soon be forgotten and cannot be validated as the correct interpretation. I feel that sometimes we forget that historical theology is not a matter of restating what those who have gone before us said, but a work of interpretation. I did get a different sense of what the Roman church believed during the Reformation, and feel that there is some more work to be done there.
January 22, 2009
McGrath at his best. He worked on it for 10 years and came up with a comprehensive treatment that suffers from over-reliance on secondary sources. He gets Augustine wrong on double predestination and portrays Luther as an uncompromising fatalist whose tradition was rescued by Melanchthon. Despite these two gross errors he does a thorough job and clearly shows the different conceptions of faith between the patristic and protestant eras. The modern views of justification receive a thorough treatment as well.
July 22, 2013
An excellent history of the doctrine of justification, from St. Augustine, who first developed it in the west, to the theologians of the twentieth century. The second edition is pretty hardcore (lots of untranslated Greek, Latin, and German), but the third edition is more accessible, with primary sources translated into English. I highly recommend this for anyone of a theological bent seeking to understand the core doctrine of the Protestant Reformation, which continues to divide many Protestants and Catholics today.
December 16, 2025
Came back to this one with much more familiarity with the concepts and schools of thought being discussed. This book is an invaluable overview of the currents of thought that have influenced and shaped readings of the doctrine of justification in the west.
McGrath does an excellent job way in which late medieval thought, particularly the via Moderna, set the stage for the reformation.
This is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the history and development of the doctrine of the justification.
McGrath does an excellent job way in which late medieval thought, particularly the via Moderna, set the stage for the reformation.
This is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the history and development of the doctrine of the justification.
March 22, 2016
This book was informative but very tedious in its detailed recitation of all the historical variations of the doctrine of justification. Although I got through the book, I was very happy when it was over. This book is probably best appreciated by professors of theology (of which I am not one). It makes cogitating about how many angels can stand on the head of a pin seem interesting by comparison. It is, however, undoubtedly a substantial scholarly contribution to the subject.
December 15, 2010
This book gave me a headache, but it is a very well written and scholarly book about a very difficult subject. Unfortunately, Christians are willing to become very violent (i.e. verbally, religious wars, etc.) over this subject. Each side of the debate is usually locked into a mode of thinking that totally misunderstands the other point of view.
May 15, 2012
This was hands down the best book I read on the history of Justification. McGrath is very thorough with his material and provides great background information to centuries long debates over the question of justification. The only negative thing about this book is that you need a good latin-english theological terms dictionary to make sense of it.
Read
August 17, 2015A detailed and fascinating history of doctrine. I regret that I read an older edition where the Latin was not translated - I understand that the third edition rectified this and urge readers who (like me) are without Latin to seek that out.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews