Alister E. McGrath

[GHansen]

Alister McGrath is an Oxford University church historian who has written extensively on the subject of justification (and many other subjects r/t historical theology). The chapter on the Reformation is especially informative in his book Justitia Dei. A vast historical context is provided for Luther's justification theology. Medieval theologians, virtually to a man, held that justification meant that a sinner is made righteous. Luther held that a man is declared righteous. McGrath sees the doctrine of imputed righteousness as the distinguishing feature of Lutheran and Reformed theology.

EJ Waggoner, normally emphasized the transformative nature of justification i.e. man is made righteous. Many SDA, to this day, tend to this view of justification, thereby aligning themselves with medieval Catholicism rather than the "new theology" of the Reformation. The Paxton/Brinsmead alliance pointed this out in the 70s; then people started to doubt, saying that SDA were simply more akin to Wesley rather than Catholicism. McGrath's review of the historic emphasis on making man righteous rather than declaring him such suggests that 1888 was  akin to a rejection of Pelagianism in Adventism. There was no real embrace of the Evangelical Protestant understanding of justification by an imputed righteousness. 

 

[GHansen]

In the mid 70s, I sat in on one of Dr. LaRondelle's classes. He mentioned that Sr. White said Luther correctly taught the doctrine of justification by faith. Several years later, I purchased a copy of Luther's "Christian Liberty" with LaRondelle's remark in mind. The treatise made no sense to me. Another several years went by. I decided to re-read Christian Liberty. It made a lot of sense. I also read scores of Luther's sermons. I realized that Sr. White was right. Luther did correctly/clearly teach the doctrine of justification by faith.

 

Alister McGrath has written a book entitled Luther's Theology of the Cross. Somewhat similar to his Justitia Dei, McGrath takes a deep look at the historical context of Luther's justification breakthrough and explores how Luther's understanding of the Cross influenced his thinking and his career. 

Adventism has largely sidelined Luther's justification theology, adopting a system much closer to Wesley's perfectionism. Ironically, Wesley's conversion took place after he heard a reading of Luther's "Preface to Romans."

[GHansen]

McGrath's biography of Calvin is one of the books I recently purchased from Blackwell's.  Surprisingly, there is not a lot of biographical information available on Calvin. A good deal of the book deals with the impact of Calvin on Western Christianity, rather than what would be found in a typical bio of, for example, Luther. One of the best and most recent Luther biographies is comprised of three large volumes. McGrath's Calvin is one small volume; nevertheless, he takes pains to make his point that Calvin's influence was more extensive than Luther's. 

McGrath  notes several interesting and unexpected consequences of Calvin and the  Institutes of the Christian Religion: Both the French Huguenots and the English Puritans were actually Calvinists; the French Resistance of WW2, known as the Maquis, was organized in a fashion similar to that of early Calvinism in France; Calvin himself did not actually teach the doctrine of predestination known as TULIP.

[GHansen]

Like Solzhenitsyn's marvelous trilogy, consisting of A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Cancer Ward, and The First Circle, McGrath has made a wonderful contribution to Historical theology. Luther's Theology of the Cross, Justitia Dei, and The Intellectual Origins of the European Reformation  may certainly be read individually but as a unit, they provide a thought provoking and at times, iconoclastic, view of the Reformation