A Lutheran's Case for Roman Catholicism

Finding a Lost Path Home

Robert C. Koons

• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781725257498, 9781725257504
• eBook ISBN: 9781725257511
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: History of Christianity

After thirty years of study and reflection, Lutheran philosopher Robert Koons joined the Catholic Church in 2007. This book articulates his reasons for abandoning the church of his ancestors for the Roman communion, reasons that centered on a deep and systematic re-thinking of the central issue of the Reformation: the Lutheran doctrine of justification by faith alone. Koons draws on a broad knowledge of the Scriptures, the Church Fathers, and the most prominent theologians of the Lutheran movement from the time of the Reformation until the present, including Luther, Melanchthon, Chemnitz, and Robert Preus. Since Jesus clearly intended for the church to remain visibly united, the burden of proof on any theological innovation is heavy, and Koons demonstrates that the Lutheran doctrine was innovative, and he argues, relying on the best New Testament scholarship, that the Bible passages cited by the Reformers do not support the innovative features of the Lutheran doctrine. Koons seeks to eliminate widespread misunderstandings of the Catholic doctrine of justification on the part of many Protestants, emphasizing the christocentric character of that teaching. Koons argues that, in contrast, the Lutheran doctrine is inconsistent. He also points out serious logical problems with the principle of sola scriptura.

1

The Burden of Proof

When I was a college student, a friend of mine invited me to join a group that was reading together some of the works of the Church Fathers—they were reading Cyprian when I joined them. This was a deeply disturbing experience for me, one from which I have never fully recovered, for I found that, contrary to my expectations, the early Fathers sounded much more Roman than proto-Lutheran. Further reading of the patristics when at Oxford and more recently has only confirmed this impression. It is clear beyond all reasonable doubt to me that Luther’s, and by extension all of Protestantism’s, teaching on justification, insofar as it differs from Roman Catholic theology, was truly novel. It was not simply the recovery of the Augustinian or pre-scholastic doctrine of the Church; it was an unprecedented innovation. If correct, Luther was the first major theologian to recover the true meaning of Paul’s epistles.

Many Lutherans have disputed this charge of innovation. This raises an issue of fundamental importance: can the Lutheran doctrine of justification be found in the Fathers? Here we must resist the temptation to engage in what scientists call “cherry-picking” the data—citing proof texts in which Church Fathers insist that we are saved by faith and by the merits of Christ. These points aren’t the ones in dispute. The crucial issue is this: is the righteousness by which the justified are justified an alien righteousness, the righteousness of Christ entirely outside of us (extra nos) and apart from regeneration and the new kind of life that results? This I can’t find this anywhere before Luther. If we look at the corpus of Fathers who are typically cited by Lutherans—Clement of Rome, Ambrose, Basil, John Chrysostom, Augustine—we find that they all give to regeneration and to the fruits of the Spirit a role to play in our justification. In short, we find the Fathers affirming what Lutherans affirm, but not denying what Lutherans deny, and it is the denials rather than the affirmations that are in dispute in the conflict between Rome and the Lutherans.

Some examples:

Those who were perfected in love by the grace of God have a place among the pious who shall be made manifest at the visitation of the kingdom of Christ . . . [I]f we perform the commandments of God in the concord of love, that through love our sins may be forgiven. (Clement, First letter to Corinth, chapter 50)1

Repentance without alsmsgiving is a corpse and is without wings. (John Chrysostom, On Repentance and Almsgiving, Homily 7)2

“For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision; but faith working through love.” What is the meaning of “working through love”? Here he gives them a hard blow, by showing that this error had crept in because the love of Christ had not been rooted within them. For to believe is not all that is required, but also to abide in love. (John Chrysostom, Commentary on Galatians, Homily 5)3

The faith that saves is faith working in charity . . . Faith without works is not sufficient for salvation . . . Mortal sins are forgiven through repentance, prayer and almsgiving . . . Even eternal life itself, which is surely a reward of good works, is called by the apostle “a gift of God.” But a gift is not a gift at all if it is not made gratuitously. Consequently, we are to understand that even man’s good deserts are themselves gifts of God. When, therefore, eternal life is bestowed because of them, what else is this but a return of grace for grace? (Augustine, Enchiridion, chapters 67, 69, 107).4

This point is admitted by both Martin Chemnitz (a second-generation Lutheran reformer and theologian, 1522–1586) and by Robert Preus, in his more recent book, Justification and Rome.5

An egregious example of this cherry-picking is found in German Lutheran Reformer Philipp Melanchthon’s (1497–1560) quotations from St. Augustine’s On the Spirit and the Letter.6 Melanchthon picks out a few, brief excerpts from this text, arguing that they establish that the Lutheran doctrine of justification by faith alone (apart from love) is no innovation but is wholly continuous with Augustinian theology. To read the entirety of On the Spirit and the Letter after reading Melanchthon is shocking: in that work, Augustine explicitly rejects the very doctrine that Melanchthon claims to find there. The gap between the plain sense of Augustine’s text and Melanchthon’s construction of it is so great that I found my confidence in Melanchthon’s good faith as a scholar and teacher badly shaken. In appendix C, I provide a few quotations from On the Spirit and the Letter that make clear that in Augustine’s we are saved by an infused grace that gives us an inherent righteousness consisting in the love of God.

Thomas Oden, a contemporary Methodist theologian, compiled The Justification Reader (2002) in order to persuade Protestants that they should not disregard the testimony of the ancient Church Fathers. Although this was not Oden’s primary intention, Oden’s book could be taken as a defense of the catholicity of the doctrine of justification by faith alone, demonstrating that the doctors of the Church have continuously affirmed it. However, Oden fails to distinguish between the thesis that faith is necessary for justification and the thesis that faith is sufficient. Oden’s textual evidence clearly supports the first thesis but utterly fails to support the second. The Lutheran and Reformed doctrine that we are justified by faith alone corresponds exactly to the sufficiency of faith. The necessity of faith (in opposition to the Pelagian heresy) was readily conceded by the Council of Trent.

For example, Oden quotes Origen:

A man is justified by faith. The works of the law can make no contribution to this. Where there is no faith which might justify the believer, even if there are works of law, these are not based on the foundation of faith. Even if they are good in themselves, they cannot justify the one who does them, because faith is lacking, and faith is the mark of those who are justified by God.7

Although Origen does affirm that it is possible to be justified by faith without works (he mentions the thief on the cross), he goes on to warn that our works after conversion do have eternal consequen...

Table of contents

• A Lutheran’s Case for Roman Catholicism
• Preface
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: The Burden of Proof
• Chapter 2: The Question of Justification
• Chapter 3: Sola Scriptura
• Chapter 4: Other Issues
• Appendix A: Commentary on the Council of Trent
• Appendix B: Commentary on Lutheran and Roman Catholic Proof Texts concerning Justification by Faith
• Appendix C: St. Augustine’s On the Spirit and the Letter12 on Justification as Inherent Righteousness
• Bibliography