Putting right

At least since the Reformation, the choices on the meaning of justification have been two: Either justification is a declaration of right standing or it’s a making-righteous (as in Bonaventure’s claim that the grace of justification purifies, illuminates, and perfects the soul).

But are these the only alternatives?

McGrath says that the Anglo-Saxon “gerihtwisung” means “putting right” or “rightwising,” and this appears similar to Augustine’s claim that justification is (McGrath again) “the restoration of humans to their correct place in the hierarchy of being,” which is rooted in Augustine’s notion of iustitia as the right ordering of the creation. Augustine also saw making-righteous, as McGrath says, as a re-ordering of the soul, so for him there is also a kind of inner moral transformation involved.

“Putting right” is perhaps a kind of “making-righteous” that is not a matter of inner moral transformation but rather a matter of putting sinful man back in his place. It is a kind of “making-righteous” that seems consistent with the Protestant claim that justification is declarative.

Picture it this way: A king has excluded a courtier from his presence for malfeasance. Through the mediation of the prince, the courtier is restored to the king’s good graces, and the king declares that the courtier is again a courtier; he restores him to his (literal and symbolic) position in the court. The king’s declaration is an effective declaration that doesn’t just state something about the courtier while leaving him outside, but puts him back within the order of the court. That is a Protestant picture (the courtier is not inwardly transformed by the king’s restoration), but it’s a Protestant picture that captures an idea of putting-right.