Christological soteriology

DH Williams has a helpful article on justification by faith in Hilary, in a recent issue of Pro Ecclesia . He concludes, in part, “the basis of justification by faith was not at heart a matter of soteriology, but of Christology, especially when it came to interpreting the divine intent and benefits of the Incarnation . . . . The reality of one’s salvation was only as good as the divine being who secures it. Just as it is true God who created the universe, so it is true God who saves. While in the sixteenth century there was an immediate correlation between justification by faith, on the one hand, and the reality of human sinfulness and complete inability of the human will, on the other, such was not the burden in the patristic era, at least before the later works of Augustine. The totality of God’s salvific plan and accomplishment was linked to the divinity of the God-Man who made it possible. We may say, therefore, faith is a divine work of salvation ‘in us,’ of inner transformation so that the believer may behold God. This is the fruit of our justification: the goal of participating in the divine life. Thus, the gift of salvation is found in sharing in the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ, experienced through the Spirit, bringing us to the Father.” Before Augustine, Williams claims there was no “gap” between God’s grace and human obedience; obedience is the form that grace takes in human life.

Williams adds that “faith for the ancients was something definable, more than a movement of the will. One was justified according to the lex fidei ; the Catholic faith, which the Christian, once made righteous, must subsequently follow. Those who did not receive this fides in love are not justified because they seek rather to observe the works of the law. Thus, the faith by which one was justified makes for the appropriate wording describing the believer’s new relation to God. This was the shared faith of the church into which one entered by confession and baptism.”