§ 51. THE necessity of the Divine forgiveness of sins affirmed in the Christian religion is always, in theological systems subsequent to the Reformation, viewed in the light of the relations assumed to obtain between the authority of God on the one hand, and the destination of men for blessedness and the significance of their moral action on the other. Our historico-critical preparation for the decision we have to arrive at on this subject must limit itself to those expositions of Christianity which sprang out of the movements of the sixteenth century, for the inconsistent tenor of the Roman Catholic scheme of salvation offers a twofold answer to the question. I refer to the fact that Thomas (vol. i. p. 93), under the influence of statements of Paul, at the outset follows Augustine in defining iustificatio as transmutatio a statu iniustitiae per remissionem peccatorum, but, when expanding this conception, regards the forgiveness of guilt as the completion of making righteous (Gerechtmachung). And yet, in opposition to this dogmatic principle, there stands the individual’s religious judgment of self—asserted in Catholicism too—which regards all merit as the effect of Divine grace, and therefore traces blessedness, or acceptance into the community of the perfected saints, back to the factor of grace, which, in contrast to the perpetual imperfection of conduct in general, is described as the grace of pardon (vol. i. p. 136). According to the first view, forgiveness is found necessary to supplement that actual righteousness which exists through the grace of God, a righteousness which properly determines a man’s standing before God and his blessedness. According to the other view, Divine forgiveness of sins is found necessary as the basis in principle of the attainment of blessedness; for all actual human righteousness is imperfect and therefore unfit to determine our relation to God, and, so far as it possesses any perfection, dependent on grace. Thus it becomes plain that the question of the necessity of forgiveness receives no clear answer in Catholic Christianity, for we are always referred alternately from the one view to the other.
Now, these two heterogeneous conceptions come to be set in opposition the one to the other, inasmuch as the first is adopted by Socinianism, the second by orthodox Protestantism, though of course the explanations given of either by these two parties are accompanied by modifications. Catholicism, by its oscillation between the two, betrays an endeavour to interpret and to realise Christianity as something which wavers in equilibrium between law and redemption. Orthodox Protestantism makes the significance of Christianity as law subordinate to its significance as redemption; Socinianism does the opposite. The latter system, accordingly, goes on the principle that man owes his standing before God and the prospect of blessedness to his fulfilment of the Christian law. Accordingly, the forgiveness of sins is regarded merely as compensating for the imperfection of his legal performances; it is formulated by God in the judgment that a good intention to render the obedience of faith is equivalent to complete performance, and that therefore the penalties due for its infraction by sin, which would prove an obstacle to blessedness, are not exacted. This result, it is true, is entirely based on the free will of God, as attested by Him in His promise; still, the application of God’s redeeming will is made dependent on the presence of the active obedience of faith to the law. The meaning of the Socinian scheme of salvation, consequently, is that forgiveness, as an equitable (billige) interpretation put by God upon the good will perfectly to fulfil the law, and as remission of penalties, is necessary in order to compensate for the imperfection of moral action, and to maintain the principle that blessedness follows from moral action. Under these circumstances, forgiveness is interpreted as an accident of the Christian life, inasmuch as in principle the standing of men before God is reduced to legal perfection or the endeavour to reach it (vol. i. p. 325). Now, although in this system an explicit basis is found for the religious factor in Christianity expressed by the conception of forgiveness——man being represented as attaining a supernatural destination in accordance with the Divine promise——yet more recent theories of an analogous character have become more indifferent to this consideration (vol. ii. p. 49). For when once Christianity is regarded as essentially a system of scholastic ethics or a legal mode of life, it is immaterial how much or how little attention is given to those characteristics of its original form which prove it to be a religion.
The orthodox Dogmatics of the Lutheran and Reformed Churches states the ground of the necessity of the forgiveness of sins in general much in the same way as Socinianism does. Forgiveness, or justification by God’s grace, appears as necessary because the fulfilment of the law in the state of grace no less than in the state of sin is imperfect, and therefore unfitted to determine the relation of man to God, or to render his blessedness possible. Here we have, therefore, the reservation that, if man’s conduct had not been disturbed and restricted by sin, on it would have depended his acknowledgment by God and his blessedness. But as forgiveness is regarded as necessary to the end which, under the reign of sin and its after-effects, is not attainable by moral action, the imperfection of that action is viewed not, as by Socinianism, merely in its quantitative, but in its qualitative aspect. Thence it follows that the forgiveness of sins is recognised, not as a substitute for fulfilment of the law, but as the sole criterion, as the principle of man’s standing before God, and as the sufficient ground of his blessedness. In judging ourselves subjectively, it is demanded that, when asking whether we are justified, we should look away from all our own activity in what is good, and turn to the grace of God alone. To this corresponds the common Evangelical doctrine that blessedness is subject to no other condition than that which determines justification. For on this point there is really no significant divergence between the two Evangelical confessions. Even though on the Reformed side no occasion presented itself for formulating this principle so antithetically as is done in the Formula of Concord, Art. 4, yet a quite clear distinction was made between the tenets that blessedness is solely the effect of Divine grace, and that God at the same time has so ordained the way to blessedness that we shall practise good works according to His law.1 With no less decisiveness the Lutheran doctrine holds that, when in a soul justification by faith is effectual to salvation, the Holy Spirit at the same time supplies the power to fulfil the Divine law. But however much in earnest one may be in believing that good works merely exist synchronously alongside of justification by faith, without having any share, not even that of a concomitant cause, in producing salvation as a result, yet it will be difficult to avoid involuntarily distorting this relation into a causal one, unless some explanation of the necessity of good works in the life of the justified person is found which shall give the clearest possible expression to the quite different place they really occupy. This is not done, for instance, in St. Bernard’s phrase, repeated by Evangelical theologians——bona opera via regni, non causa regnandi. It may be that a man has attained to the position of lordship not through merit, but through grace; still, if in that position he must practise good works, then they can hardly be anything but conditions, in other words, concomitant causes, of his maintaining his lordship. This consideration is so irresistibly urgent that it becomes exceedingly important for the correct formation of the doctrine to discover in what motives the Evangelical confessions base the necessity of good works in the Christian life.