Michael L. Czapkay (Sudduth)

McGrath Tutorial

Paper 1

January 18, 1993

How can a man be right with God? This question, once asked by Job, is an appropriate point of departure for a consideration of one of the central doctrines of the Christian religion: the doctrine of justification. Like all central Christian doctrines, it has an important and complex historical development. What is revealed in Scripture is reflected upon, built up, and systematized in history, with important historical and philosophical influences shaping each stage of the development of the doctrine. Although the doctrine of justification was the fundamental doctrine of Martin Luther and the Wittenberg reformation, the Reformed view of justification has as its background the development of the doctrine in medieval theology.

In the present paper, I will expound the doctrine of justification as articulated by the late medieval theologian Gabriel Biel. In addition to examining several of the key elements of his view of justification, special attention will be given to how Biel's view of justification was shaped, not only by his historical context, but by the then current philosophical distinctions which were being made the theologians just prior to and at his time. What should arise from this is an appreciation for the complex reciprocal relationship between grace and works in his theology--a relationship which, though having its parallels with Pelagian theology, forms a rather distinct soteriological theory, uniquely grounded in the notion of a divine covenant between God and man.

Gabriel Biel was representative of one of the two dominant forms of late medieval scholasticism--the via moderna (the modern way). It was the fundamental theme of the via moderna, the pactum or covenant, that formed the central soteriological concept of Biel's theology. The notion of a "covenant" was, of course, an important theme in the Old Testament, as it defined the relationship between Yahweh God and his people Israel. The theologians of the via moderna, however, were not only informed by revelation but influenced by their historical framework. The development of contractual theories of government in the later Middle Ages exerted substantial influence on late medieval theology. Political and economic theories based upon the idea of a covenant provided a model for defining the reciprocal obligations between God and his people. If a political pactum defined the obligations of a king to his people (and conversely), then a religious pactum could be a way of defining God's obligations to his people (and conversely). Unlike a political covenant, though, the religious covenant was laid down unilaterally by God, but as an act of God's kindness and mercy toward man.#1

[1. On the covenant, see Alister McGrath, The Intellectual Origins of the European Reformation (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1987), p. 81, Iustitia Dei (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), pp. 83-89, and Reformed Thought: An Introduction (Oxford: Basil Blackwell Publishers, 1988), pp. 58-60.]

As a key feature of the soteriology of the via moderna, the pactum is essential to Biel's view of justification. "God," says Biel, "has established the rule [covenant] that whoever turns to him and does what he can will receive forgiveness of sins from God."#2

[2. Gabriel Biel, "The Circumcision of the Lord" in Heiko Oberman, Forerunners of the Reformation (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1966), p. 173.]

By means of a pactum, God lays down the minimal preconditions of justification, so that if a person fulfills these conditions, God will justify him. In other terms, God binds himself with an obligation (on the basis of the covenant) to justify anyone who meets these preconditions. The preconditions were understood to consist in an individual seeking to do his best, as was summarized in the slogan facere quod in se est. For Biel this meant rejecting evil and trying to do good, declinare...a malo et facere bonum, an ability which by virtue of free will is within the grasp of man. God has ordained that if anyone satisfies the preconditions he will justify them, so facienti quod in se est Deus non denegat gratiam.

This latter statement ("God will not deny his grace to the person who does the best he can") is important. Biel's understanding of it follows the general position of the Franciscan schools. By meeting the minimal precondition--faciens quod in se est--man is able to dispose himself toward the reception of divine grace (the so-called "first grace"), prepare himself--as it were--for justification by removing the obstacle to grace. Since sin is an obstacle to grace, by desisting from sin, man prepares himself for the infusion of grace. This preparation for infused grace is an essential part of the subjective appropriation of justification, since--as we will shortly see--infused grace is a precondition for divine acceptation.  Therefore, though man does not have the power to remit sin, he is able to set in motion a series of events which lead to forgiveness and divine acceptation.

According to Biel, as a necessary disposition for the infusion of grace, faciens quod in se est does not consist solely in an aversion to sin but also in a love for God.#3

[3. The place of "love" (as contrition and attrition) in Biel's view of the process of justification is discussed by Heiko Oberman in The Harvest of Medieval Theology (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963), pp. 147-157.]

Conversion involves a movement from self-centered love (amor sui) to love for God (amor dei). Biel recognizes two types of love: (1) a servile love for God which is based upon a fear of God's punishing righteousness--attrition, and (2) a filial love which is based upon God's essential goodness--contrition. The love required for justification, according to Biel, is a love of God for God's sake (amor amicitie, super omnia, propter Deum), which is within man's reach ex puris naturalibus, without the need for divine grace. But, Biel's strong contritionist emphasis is tempered by introducing the subservient role which attrition plays in the overall process of justification. Although attrition is an egoistic regret for sin which results from meditating on God's punishing righteousness, it is the first step toward contrition. Heiko Oberman sees Biel's talk of attrition to be his way of stressing the necessity of the sacrament of penance as an exterior rite which transforms attrition into contrition by virtue of its psychological impact on the sinner. Since man possesses a free will, the love required for justification is within the realm of his natural capacities; but concupiscence tries to sway the will toward sin and away from God. The sacrament of penance helps strengthen man's natural powers, so that he can love God propter Deum and concomitantly receive the infusion of grace, which is required for divine acceptation.

It is clear, therefore, that there is an important distinction between justification and divine acceptation, and correspondingly between two senses of merit.#4

[4. See McGrath, Iustitia Dei, pp. 109-119.]

To do the best one can, though sufficient for the justification, is not sufficient for divine acceptation. What is necessary for divine acceptation, though, is the infusion of grace, and it is faciens quod in se est which functions as a meritum de congruo (a semi-merit), a moral act performed outside the state of grace (and hence not meritorious in the strict sense of "merit"--sufficient for divine acceptation), but which nevertheless functions as the appropriate ground for the infusion of justifying grace. In this latter state, a moral act is meritum de condigno and is sufficient for divine acceptation. What must be stressed is that the connection between faciens quod in se est, justification, and divine forgiveness is to be located in the covenant, in God's laying down what the conditions are to which he will graciously respond. God rewards the sinner with infused grace, if the sinner does the best he can--and this is grounded in God's liberality and generosity to accept human works as sufficient for justification. God rewards the sinner with acceptation and forgiveness for moral acts performed in a state of grace, and this is a legal commitment grounded in the conditions of the covenant.

But is not this account of salvation Pelagian?

One of the significant corollaries of this account of justification is with respect to the status of good works in relation to salvation. This is particularly crucial since several scholars (such as Oberman) maintain that Biel's soteriology is basically Pelagian. The covenant-soteriology, though, provides us with a way of conceiving human works to have a relative rather than absolute value, a way of distinguishing between the valor impositus (imposed value) and the valor intrinsicus (instrinsic value) of an act.#5

[5. Ibid., pp. 87-88.]

An analogy can be drawn from the economic systems of the Middle Ages. It was common during that period to recall and melt down gold and silver coins during times of financial crisis. In the intervening time, small leaden coins were issued which bore the same value as their gold and silver counterparts. The leaden coins did not possess an inherent value equal to that of their counterparts; their value was an imposed value. They bore the value of gold and silver coins because the king promised to redeem them at that value. The value of the leaden coins derives from the king's covenant. Similarly, Biel argued, by means of the covenant God has agreed to treat human works as if they had a value sufficient for justification. He has imposed a value upon them. Their value is, therefore, extrinsic not intrinsic. This is significantly different than Pelagius, for whom human works possessed an inherent value.

Biel's view of justification, then, operates on a principle of what has been called covenantal causality.#6

[6. See McGrath, Intellectual Origins of the European Reformation, pp. 81-82, and Iustitia Dei, p. 89.]

High Scholasticism maintained that justification involves an ontological change in man. The supernatural infusion of grace or the so-called "created habit of grace" was considered to be the ontological intermediate required in the process of justification. Medieval theologians such as Peter Aureole, argued that there was a necessary relation between justification and the created habits. Hence, there was an ontological necessity or a necessity ex natura rei, a necessity arising from the nature of the entities involved. Biel, following William of Ockham, did away with this notion, maintaining that the relationship between justification and the created habit of grace was in itself a contingent relationship. That created habits are involved in justification is a matter of God's will, His decision to create a world in which they are required for justification--but things could have been otherwise.

Here Biel was able to draw upon the distinction between the potentia absoluta Dei (God's absolute power) and the potentia ordinata Dei (God's ordained power), #7

[7.See McGrath, Iustitia Dei, pp. 119-127, Oberman, Harvest of Medieval Theology, pp. 36-40, and Timothy George, Theology of the Reformers (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1988), p. 42-43, 65-66.]

a distinction which originated in the 11th or early 12th century and was prominent in the Averroist controversy of the 13th century to establish God's freedom without compromising his reliability. Understanding God's omnipotence to consist in his power to bring about any logically possible states of affairs (call this a set of initial possibilities), we must recognize a distinction between (subsets of) actualized possibilities (what God decides to bring about) and unactualized possibilities (what God could have brought about but chose not to). His freedom in relation to the initial set of possibilities is his potentia absoluta; his freedom in relation to the actualized possibilities is his potentia ordinata. When God chooses from among the initial possibilities, his choice is subject to no external constraints--he is free. But God is not free vis-a-vis actualized possibilities, for God's ordained order (stemming from the divine will) establishes a self-imposed constraint on God's power.

The distinction between the two powers of God applied to soteriology leads to the deontologizing of man's justification with Biel (and the via moderna in general). It is coherent to suppose that there is a possible world in which justification does not require created habits, and there is no contradiction apparent in God creating such a world. He could have done so, but he chose not to. Whatever necessity obtains, then, between justification and created habits obtains not by virtue of the entities themselves but on the basis of God's will. This is what is meant by "covenantal" as opposed to "ontological" causality. If the relationship between justification and created habits is solely a matter of the nature of the entities involved, the causal relation is ontological or ex natura rei, and God's obligation to justify the sinner is correspondingly an absolute necessity (necessitas consequentis). But if, on the other hand, the causal relation between created habits and justification obtains in virtue of God's will, the causal relation is based on the covenant--it is ex pacto divino, and God's obligation to justify the sinner is a conditional necessity (necessitas consequentiae). Again, the created habits are not inherently valuable but sustain their value only in relation to the covenant established by God, and God's obligation to give the gift of grace to the sinner upon the satisfaction of the preconditions is a necessity which holds in virtue of potentia ordinata Dei. It follows from this that to reduce Biel's soteriology to Pelagianism does not do justice to his position. Unlike Pelagius, Biel introduces the notion of covenantal causality, which allows for important distinctions regarding the status of good works in relation to salvation.

First, we note that according to Pelagius human works have an inherent value, whereas for Biel the value is imposed by God on terms of the covenant. Equally, there is no distinction between the moral and meritorious value of an act. Secondly, and as a corollary of the preceding, for Pelagius good works are sufficient for salvation. According to Biel, good works are necessary but not sufficient for salvation. God's decision to treat them as minimal preconditions for justification is also required if man is to be saved. Thirdly, since there is no distinction between God's absolute and ordained power in Pelagianism, there is the implication that the causal relationship between good works and salvation is ontological and God is subject to an obligation to reward good works out of absolute necessity.

What is similar of course to Pelagius is the high estimate of human abilities (to at least meet the minimal preconditions) and a commitment to the thesis that all the necessary resources for salvation are located within the human personality. Although no person can directly remit their sins, they can it would seem indirectly remit their sins. Divine acceptation and forgiveness presupposes moral acts prompted by grace and therefore performed in a state of grace, but the state of grace depends upon faciens quod in se est, which is the sufficient condition for the infusion of divine grace. Even if we grant that all of this holds only because God has established a covenant whereby he has agreed to accept human works as sufficient for justification, there is still a basic synergism operating in Biel's theology. Man does his part and God does his part. Each one has their respective role to play in salvation.

Despite these similarities between Biel and Pelagius, it is fair to say that the principle of covenantal causality (conjoined with the dialectic of the two powers of God) is the fundamental point which distinguishes Biel from Pelagius, for from it flow all the subtle distinctions which make for a complex soteriology in which grace and works possess a reciprocal relationship, so that it can be said that salvation is both sola gratia and solibus operibus. Perhaps it is the inability to see the coherence of this most interesting and yet precarious theological position which has led many, such as Martin Luther, to conclude that at the end of the day Biel is basically Pelagian.