The Theology of Ernst Käsemann – II

Extract

Although Ernst Käsemann’s magisterial commentary on the Epistle to the Romans proved to be open to review and patient of analysis without much explicit reference to the doctrine of justification (of New Blackfriars March 1981), the author himself undoubtedly regards this famous Lutheran insight as the key to his reading of Paul. What is not so clear, however, is whether Käsemann’s understanding of justification in Paul has much to do with what Catholics have usually supposed that Lutherans mean. In fact Käsemann may well have offered a reading of Paul which cuts the ground from underneath the central point of contention at the Reformation. His version of the doctrine of justification in his reading of the Epistle to the Romans may therefore have greater ecumenical effects in the long run than many agreed statements. And this is not the only way in which his work is likely to prove increasingly productive, as the young Swiss Calvinist scholar Pierre Gisel brings out in the first major systematic account of Käsemann’s writings. 1 The doctrine of justification is not one with which Catholics are generally at ease. The word is seldom mentioned in Catholic sermons. Salvation, grace, sanctification, yes — that is a chain of notions with familiar Catholic resonances, and clearly they pinpoint the area at issue. But talk of justification, as of predestination, sounds like Protestant jargon. Many Catholics are surprised to hear that the Council of Trent did not (as they suppose) merely condemn Luther’s teaching but actually worked out, with considerable thoroughness, and sanctioned with great solemnity in 1547, a Catholic doctrine of justification which has formed part of the official teaching of the Catholic Church ever since.