The Reformers’ Doctrine of Sola Fide
The question before us is: “In what ways did the Protestant doctrine of Justification through Faith Alone (Sola Fide) challenge the traditional teaching of the medieval church?”
To begin with we must be aware of the fact that various ecumenists – people who want greater unity between Protestants and Roman Catholicism – have sought to argue that the Reformers were not really attacking the views of Medieval Roman Catholicism with respect to justification, but were only attacking abuses that were not related to the prevailing Thomistic theology of the Roman Catholic Church. However, I believe this argument is fallacious, as the Reformer’s doctrine of justification by faith alone, or sola fide, represents a significant break from late medieval teaching.
Firstly, late medieval scholastic theology believed that sinners had not only to go through the rituals of the church (such as penance) to receive for-giveness, but they then had to do good works of obedience to make satisfaction for the temporal punishment of sin and to acquire merit, through which he might eventually earn entrance into eternal life. In order to do these good works grace had to be infused into the sinner, but the sinner could never know, with complete subjective certainty, if he is in a state of grace that will justify him, because when the grounds of justification is seen as residing in sinful man (i.e. in their own good works), then the justification of the sinner in this life is always provisional and incomplete. It is only at the final judgment that man can be certain of complete absolution and be sure that he is found righteous because of the meritorious works he has performed. Thus, for Medieval Roman Catholicism, justification is a process, which ultimately depends on the good works which men have done.
The Reformers, by way of contrast, had a fundamentally different view of justification. For them, sinful man was so corrupt that even his works of obedience could not merit God’s favour, and so justification could not be founded on something based in man. Instead, in order to be accepted as righteous by God, sinners would have to be justified on account of an alien righteousness outside of themselves. And so they believed that the righteousness of Christ had to be imputed to a sinner in order for him to be accounted as righteous before God. Thus justification was a once-for-all act of grace in which God declared a sinner righteous on the basis of the merit of Christ (His death and obedience to the law of God), it was not a process dependent upon the sinners own meritorious obedience. Furthermore, the means by which the sinner received the righteousness of Christ was through faith alone; faith was not considered to be a meritorious work, as it was the gift of God and founded in His predestination (God had chosen those who would believe, He did not choose them because they would be-lieve). However, this did not mean that the Reformers had no place for good works; they believed that good works resulted from justification, but they were not the cause of it. In doing this, they distinguished between the act of justification and the process of sanctification. And because good works were no longer seen as the grounds of justification, this meant that sinners could have absolute certainty about their salvation, as they now believed that they were accepted by God on account of what Christ had done for them – which is a significant break from late medieval theology. On these main points, all the major Reformers – Luther, Zwingli and Calvin – were in essential agreement. So although they disagreed on other is-sues, there is essentially one common Protestant doctrine of justification among the Reformers.
Did the Roman Catholic authorities view the concept of sola fide as a major break with late medieval theology? Their response indicates that they did. Opposition to sola fide was evident as early as Luther’s meeting with Cardinal Cajetan at Augsburg in October 1518. The Thomist Cajetan noted that the subjective certainty of salvation on the part of the believer (which Luther’s view provides for) was a great threat to the Papal church, as it would undermine the whole idea of ‘the cycle of salvation’ in which good works and obedience to the rites of the church were seen as essential to achieving salvation. Because if people were certain of salvation, what need would there be for penance, indulgences, pilgrimages, absolution and so forth. Indeed, Roman Catholicism regarded the Protestant doctrine of justification by faith alone, on account of Christ’s merits alone, as so dangerous that the Council of Trent declared anyone who held it to be anathema. Hence there can be no dispute that sola fide was a major challenge to late medieval theology. View article…
