Grace and Reformation

Alister McGrath’s discussion of Luther’s theology of justification in his standard work, Iustitia Dei , shows that understanding grace as favor Dei rather than as a “medicinal substance” was an essential part of the Reformation doctrine of grace. He writes, “The most significant discussion of faith [in Luther’s earler writings] may be found in the 1521 treatise Rationis Latomianae confutatio , in which, on the basis of an exegesis of John 1.17, gratia is identified with favor Dei . . . . For Luther, the grace of God is always something external to man, and an absolute, rather than a partial, quality. Man is either totally under grace or totally under wrath. In contrast to this, faith (and its antithesis, sin) are seen as internal and partial, in that the man under grace may be partially faithful and partially sinful. Faith is thus seen as the means by which the man under grace may depend and grow in his spiritual life. Luther thus abandons the traditional understanding of the role of grace in justification . . . by interpreting it as the absolute favour of God towards an individual, rather than a quality, or a series of qualities, at work within man’s soul. Grace is no longer understood as a new nature within man. The latter role is not allocated to fides Christi .”

Melanchthon had the same definition of grace: “by 1521, Melanchthon appears to have grasped much of Luther’s distinctive understanding of justification, and incorporated it into the first edition of the Loci Communes of that year. This is particularly clear in the locus de gratia , in which grace is unequivocally defines extrinsically as favor Dei : non aliud enim est gratia, si exactissime describenda sit, nisi dei benevolentia erga nos .”

What is striking here is the fact that EXTRINSIC grace is understood as God’s benevolence and favor toward man, rather than as grace that is given over to man. That is, protecting the extrinsic character of grace does not depend so much on mechanisms of justification (imputation or infusion) as on the fact that grace is located “in God,” as God’s attitude of favor toward certain sinners.