Entering the Justification Debate

November 28, 2011 at 10:27 am (Books (reviews and recommendations))

There are a lot of differing views of justification on offer in the modern world. If you are Reformed, then I highly recommend reading Owen, Buchanan, and Fesko before reading anything of a heterodox nature, so that you can measure the error by the already possessed yardstick of the truth. If, having read those books, you would desire to have a helpful and clear entrance into the modern debates on the nature of justification, the easiest way in is now undoubtedly the new book edited by Beilby and Eddy. The five views represented are the classical Reformed view (Michael Horton), the progressive Reformed view (Michael Bird), the New Perspective view (James D.G. Dunn), the Finnish Lutheran interpretation (Kärkkäinen), and the Roman Catholic view (O’Collins and Rafferty). And each view is critiqued by all the other views in this format, so you get interaction. Also helpful are the two introductory essays (by the editors) that clearly lay out the interpretive issues in a mostly fair way (the exceptions being a grossly distorted view of the Protestant Scholastics in footnote 73 on pp. 68-69, as well as an overly generalized view of those who accept the objective reading of “pistis Jesou Christou” (as being those who “tend to consider participation in Christ to be secondary to justification by faith alone”) on p. 81.)  You will undoubtedly have a much better view of the playing field after reading this book.

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