Hans Boersma on St. Irenaeus: Justification as Participation

Justification within Participation: Irenaeus in Ecumenical Dialogue.

It would be difficult precisely to align Irenaeus’s views with the approaches of Catholics, traditional Protestants, or adherents of the new perspective. To be sure, it is possible to make some observations that have a bearing on such discussions, and by way of conclusion I should perhaps begin there. First, Irenaeus does not hold to a forensic imputation of Christ’s righteousness. When he uses the imputation language of Romans 4:3 and Galatians 3:6, it is clear that he holds that it is faith, not Christ’s righteousness, that God imputes to us.  In traditional dogmatic language, we could say that it is faith as our own inherent righteousness that Irenaeus believes God (juridically) imputes to us. In terms of this key issue between Catholicism and Protestantism, Irenaeus would unambiguously seem to side with the Catholic position.

Second, when we ask whether there is also a justification by works for Irenaeus, the answer is slightly more complex. Irenaeus almost entirely avoids the language of ‘justification by works’. Nor does he distinguish clearly between initial and continuing justification – the former perhaps being by faith only and the latter also by works.  Irenaeus does, however, speak of Abraham ‘righteously’ ( juste) following the Word of God and makes clear that both the patriarchs and we today have the ‘righteousness of the law’ written on our hearts.  Clearly, Irenaeus would not have had any difficulty accepting that God imputes also this righteousness to us – even if he does not use the language of justification by works. To be sure, the absence of ‘merit’ discourse in Irenaeus holds some significance. Unlike the later Catholic tradition, Irenaeus does not suggest that we merit eternal life condignly or properly.  Because the notions of recapitulation and participation form the broad framework within which Irenaeus expounds his doctrine of justification, our righteousness is always a (partial) participation in God. The language of condign merit does not fit well within such a participatory framework.

Third, the new perspective retrieves a genuine patristic insight when it describes Paul’s ‘works of the law’ as Jewish identity markers. For Irenaeus, the main identity markers are circumcision, Sabbath, and sacrifices. At the same time, however, for Irenaeus it is not only these three elements that are ‘works of the law’ and that function as identity markers. Rather, he treats the entire law (except the Decalogue) as an identity marker, and presumably he would have regarded any observance of the law as observance of works of the law (or, we could say, as an attempt to be justified by works of the law). For Irenaeus, it is faith (in Christ) and love (of God and neighbor) that mark the identity of Christians and that constitute true fulfillment of the law. In no way, then, does Irenaeus worry that Jewish law observance might imply reliance on human achievement or merit.  The problem with law observance is, instead, (1) that it puts us back into an earlier, inferior stage of the divine pedagogy; and (2) that it would probably also entail the observance of additional manmade laws and traditions.

Everything I have said so far about justification by way of conclusion must be refracted through the lens the two key concepts of recapitulation and participation. Irenaeus, rightly I think, does not treat justification as the central category by which to understand salvation. The two key concepts are recapitulation (by which Christ, objectively, incorporates humanity in his salvific life) and participation or deification (by which we, subjectively, are conformed through faith and love to the character of God in Christ). Justification, in other words, while it retains a juridical aspect, is for Irenaeus one element within a broader soteriology, which as a whole is ontological in character. Our faith and righteousness enable us to share in Christ as the new humanity, the second Adam. And by sharing in Christ we are made alive and so rendered immortal; in other words, we are divinized as children of God. This means salvation is not an external or nominal affair but is a matter of real or ontological participation in the life of God.

The Western debates about justification would benefit, it seems to me, from a good dose of Greek patristic theology. At the least, it would take the sharp edges off some of the debates surrounding faith and works. Catholics would perhaps become somewhat more cautious about the language of meriting eternal life. The Christian pilgrimage of love is, after all, simply an initial participation in God’s own character by virtue of Christ’s recapitulation. In no way are works autonomous human achievements. Although Catholic theology recognizes this – it is important, for example, to recall that Aquinas speaks of condign merit in the context of deification – nonetheless, a preponderance of merit discourse may serve to highlight the juridical at the cost of the ontological. Justification (and the language of merit) should play only a subservient role in the doctrine of salvation.

Traditional Protestants have perhaps the most to gain from a retrieval of Irenaeus’s understanding of justification. Forensic imputation of Christ’s righteousness foregrounds a sensibility that is entirely legitimate – namely, that it is only by seeking refuge in Christ that we can be saved. But the logic of forensic imputation is not the right instrument to shore up this valid concern. After all, Paul does not use the language of imputation in connection with Christ’s righteousness but employs it to articulate the imputation of the righteousness of our own faith (Rom. 4:3; Gal. 3:6).  Theologically, what is at stake here is the recognition that when God justifies us he transfigures us. The language of simul iustus et peccator is particularly troubling – at least, whenever it is meant to imply that Christ’s righteousness simply covers over our own continuing sinfulness. Such a strictly forensic imputation is also at odds, I think, with some of the better Reformation insights, which recognize that it is by means of genuine union with Christ that we are justified and sanctified.  The focus on union with Christ would, if consistently maintained, lead to a retrieval of the Irenaean notions of recapitulation and theosis. Irenaeus, I think, had it right: justification is a subset of our deifying union with God in and through the recapitulation of humanity in Christ.