Newman and Justification
Newman’s Via Media “Doctrine of the Justifying Presence”
By T.L. Holtzen
Oxford, 224 pages, $100
In this clearly written book, T.L. Holtzen explains why the complicated debates about the doctrine of justification before and after the Reformation still matter today, and why John Henry Newman (1801-90) made an important contribution to them by grounding justification in God’s inner-Trinitarian life. When still firmly an Anglican, Newman engaged those earlier debates in a technical manner, which has meant that his Lectures on Justification (1838) are largely unread today. But Holtzen is an excellent guide to the theological terminology of righteousness and grace involved.
What’s at stake in the Lectures’ engagement with “Protestant” and “Catholic” doctrines of justification has become increasingly difficult to understand in the generations since Newman. But Holtzen’s final chapter helpfully inserts Newman’s theory of justification into contemporary ecumenical debates. In doing so, Holtzen quotes the Reformed theologian Bruce McCormack’s recent claim: “Where the doctrine of justification in particular is concerned, my own conviction is that the Reformers had it basically right with their emphasis upon a positive imputation of Christ’s righteousness.”
But McCormack develops the concept of “imputation,” which is to say God’s “reckoning” of believers to be righteous when in fact they are not, into God’s also making them righteous — enacting “sanctification” in them — because “God’s word is always effective.” Holtzen calls this McCormack’s “idea of transformative forensic justification.”
Here are the key theological terms justification (or, as E.P. Sanders put it, “being righteoused”) and sanctification (or, as Holtzen usually calls it, “renewal”) and Holtzen discusses why the realities they express are not “forensic” only (in the sense of a legal transaction) for McCormack, but also “ontological.”
Holtzen further discusses disputes about the classic Protestant term imputation, belief in which protects the sovereignty of God to ascribe righteousness to sinful humans, over against its theological opposite, God’s infusion of righteousness to sinners through the sacraments, whence classic Catholicism believed it became inherent in them unless they committed mortal sin. By contrast to both classic positions, Holtzen shows that Newman taught “imparted righteousness that he called the ‘doctrine of the justifying Presence,’” specifically that of the Spirit.
Holtzen’s book is not about McCormack, of course, though it is worth noting that his Reformed position does not allow my (this-worldly) participation in the divine life but only that “I participate in the kind of humanity which Jesus instantiated and embodied through his life of obedience.” Such words should alert Anglican readers that McCormack does not represent their tradition. Anglicanism has evolved a commitment to justification in which real participation in Christ is available through the Spirit in the sacraments, and renewal begins in baptism.
As Newman (paraphrased by Holtzen) puts it, “through the Holy Spirit’s divine indwelling, Christ’s righteousness is brought to the soul for justification as ‘the gift of righteousness’ [Rom. 5:17] that also causes a subsequent renewal.” Such a view is fully scriptural, at least as interpreted by the Church Fathers. Holtzen adds evidence to the case others have made that a great deal of the theology we consider “Anglican” (including the term via media) came from the 19th-century revival of patristic theology by Newman and his Oxford friends.
My only quibble concerns Holtzen’s focus on the Latin patristic sources of Newman’s thought, especially Augustine, rather than on the Alexandrian Fathers’ teaching on deification. Even if, as Holtzen claims, Newman’s “understanding of the divine presence does not strictly follow an Eastern theology of theosis,” it has all the marks of such a theology without being systematic. On the other hand, Holtzen’s focus makes sense considering that the Reformation debates were conducted in Latin and therefore centered on interpretation of the Latin Fathers in particular.
What Holtzen does so well is to calibrate how much of Newman’s view of justification is Protestant (a surprising amount if one has been misled into thinking he was always a Catholic masquerading in Anglican clothing) and how much is Catholic (more still, though not in the mode of Thomistic theology that some Catholics these days attribute to Newman). Above all, through Newman’s reliance on Hooker, the Homilies, and the Thirty-nine Articles, his view of justification is shown to be Anglican — distinct from both Catholic and Protestant while mediating one to the other.
