Understanding Of Justice Research Articles

Justification and grace. Did Luther discover a new theology or did he discover anew the theology of justification and grace?

The aim of this article is to show the structural continuity of the idea of justification and grace between the Cistercian abbot Bernard of Clairvaux and the Augustinian friar and church reformer Martin Luther in a forward reading of the two. Others, such as Peter Manns, the Obermann School and the Finnish Luther research have pointed at some link between Catholicism, including Bernard, and Luther, but they have also pointed to differences, especially as to their understanding of justification and grace. This article goes a bit further, by showing structural similarities between the two theologians, separated by some 400 years, also when it comes to the understanding of faith and grace. By so doing it furthermore questions what has been the dominant view among Lutherans: that Luther broke entirely with his Catholic past, with the exception of Augustine. The article therefore treats of factors that have been decisive for this view, such as the almost hostile perceptions of mysticism and Bernard as a mystic as well as of Mariology and Bernard as a mariolate. It is demonstrated that these labelings, the mystic and the mariolate, are based on a backward reading of Bernard's teaching, and that he first and foremost was a theologian preaching the justification by grace through faith because of Christ. The question is if Bernard, whom Luther evaluated highly as a preacher of Christ, can be seen as a model for Luther.

LIBERALISM'S DIVIDE, AFTER SOCIALISM AND BEFORE

For most of the century and a half that began roughly with the later works of John Stuart Mill, the most important divide within liberal political thought was that between classical (or market, or libertarian) liberalism and welfare (or new, or redistributionist) liberalism. The questions that were important to the socialist/liberal debate also became important for debates within liberalism: What is the relationship between property and freedom? Between free trade and freedom? Is freedom of commercial activity on a moral par with other sorts of freedom? Is the alleviation of poverty or material need a more important political goal than freedom? How do freedom and equality fit together in a liberal understanding of justice? What degree of state economic planning, or state taxation and expenditure, is compatible with liberal freedom?

Luther versus Melanchthon? Zur Frage der Einheit der Wittenberger Reformation in der Rechtfertigungslehre

During the last decade the new Finnish Luther research established by T. Mannermaa has revived the old thesis by K.Holl and his school that Melanchthon spoiled Luther's doctrine of justification by faith by an imputative understanding of justification. According to this view, Luther's teaching on justification through the presence of Christ was superseded by Melanchthon's one-sided forensic doctrine of justification, which also appeared in the Formula of Concord. In this paper important texts by Melanchthon on the doctrine of justification are compared with statements by Luther made at about the same time in order to find out whether the two Wittenberg reformers really held different opinions on this central point of Reformation theology. The analysis makes clear that both, Luther and Melanchthon, saw forensic and effective justification not as alternatives but as a unity. It is true that up until the Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians Luther mostly understands the presence of God in man as the presence of Christ and that on the whole Luther emphasizes this point more than Melanchthon, who in this context usually speaks of the Holy Ghost. This does not, however, constitute a substantial difference. While in the octavo edition of the Latin Apology and in the German Editio princeps of the Confessio Augustana, which appeared in the fall of 1531, Melanchthon stresses the forensic aspect of the doctrine of justification, this is much less pronounced in the German Confessio Augustana Variata of 1533. In Melanchthon's Loci of 1535ff iustus effici and iustus reputari do no longer play a decisive role. Melanchthon interprets justification above all as the forgiveness of sins, as reconciliation and as a gift of the Holy Ghost. During these years Luther also stressed the complete forensic justification as opposed to the gradual and partial effective justification of the believer. Moreover, since 1532 Luther adjudicated priority to the justifying forgiveness of sins

Identity as Epistemology

Purposeful PhilosophyThe first order of things requires an explication of the purpose of thisinquiry into Islamic epistemology. In order to do so, I shall have to distinguishbetween academic philosophy, pure philosophy, and purposeful philosophy.Academic philosophy is a product of the modem academic institutionalstructure of recognition and discipline. This academic structurecompels scholars to produce scholarship for the sake of scholarship. Iheprinciple of “publish or perish” is a guarantor of mediocrity. Such pmfessionalphilosophical projects are often intellectually parasitic and may offerlittle or no new insights. For example, a visit to any library will reveal hundredsof books that deal with academic projects such as The Idea ofJusticein Rawls Theory of Justice or the The Nature of Judgment in Kant‘s Criticof Judgment. Such projects contribute little to advance the understanding ofjustice or judgment and have no bearing on the nonnative nature of thesociety.Pure philosophy is a lifestyle. The pure philosopher is a habitual speculatorwho relishes the sheer indulgence of the mind. It is not the product ofreflection but the pleasures of reflection in themselves which sustain thepure philosopher. As one philosopher commented, “We could go to themosque, pray, and come back to continue with our discussion of the questionwhether there is a God.” The fact that the philosopher has just prayeddoes not settle the issue that as far as that philosopher is concemed there isa God and to question that is meaningless. Either the prayer was speciousor the debate was meaningless. I suggest this because there is a disconnectbetween thought and action. The lifestyle of the pure philosopher, whileimmensely satisfactory to the philosopher concemed, trivializes both action ...

Wechsel ohnegleichen. Über die Grundstruktur der Rechtfertigung und Heiligung und das Austauschen von »Gaben« in Luthers »Tractatus de libertate christiana«

Article Wechsel ohnegleichen. Über die Grundstruktur der Rechtfertigung und Heiligung und das Austauschen von »Gaben« in Luthers »Tractatus de libertate christiana« was published on January 1, 1998 in the journal Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie (volume 40, issue 2).

Paradoxie in Werner Elerts Grundbestimmung der Dogmatik

The article tries to understand the category of paradox in the work of Elert not only in opposition to the rational but also in relation to it and thus seeks to analyze the rational function of paradox in Elert's conception of the foundation of dogmatics. The paradox in question here is not the so-called christological paradox. It is first the paradox of the deus absconditus which characterizes in a certain respect the natural relation of humans to God (I). This paradox allows no immanent solution at all in accordance with all natural conceptions of a rational understanding of the world. As such it characterizes in several respects the understanding of the gospel as its only transcendent solution (II). In so far as the gospel in a certain way presupposes an acknowledgment of that paradox it must be considered as paradoxical itself, thus being a paradox solution of the former paradox. Its paradox character is essentialy due to a genuine Lutheran understanding of justification emphazising the dependence of certainty of faith on the iustitia aliena; the paradox character of the gospel can finally be considered as the paradoxality determining the relation of law and gospel (III). This paradoxality related to the gospel thus has a basic systematic function by determining the condition under which the testimony of Christ is perceived as word of God himself -this word strictly being separated from the - paradox - experience of natural existence under the abscondity of God. Elert indeed does not relate the gospel to natural existence in a way of rational correlation nor does he simply replace correlation by mere confrontation. He rather establishes the correlation between the kerygma of Christ and natural existence in a way of paradoxical connexion (Anknupfung) as confrontation with the paradoxality of natural existence itself (IV).

Wittgenstein and Rousseau on the context of justification

The historical aim of this paper is to reveal some striking similarities in Wittgenstein's treatment of epistemic justification and Rousseau's treatment of political justification. The theoretical aim is to open up the possibility of an understanding of justification which requires neither the discovery of some fundamental ground for judgment nor the alienation of the judge from the community or practice to be justified. Against the prevailing tradition in which justification occurs by reflectively rooting the practice in question in some unquestioned ground outside of and unaffected by that practice, a process which requires of the judge that her reason be untainted by practical involvements, both thinkers assert that justification can take place only within, being practically engaged with, whatever is to be justified. Indeed, we can go so far as to say for these thinkers that practical involvement is precisely the production of the grounds of legitimacy, and reasoned judgment is possible only from this engaged perspective.