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List of contents
Part I. Justification: The Emergence of a Concept: 1. The Hebraic context: semantic aspects of the concept of justification; 2. Paul and the shaping of the Christian tradition; 3. The fountainhead: Augustine of Hippo; Part II. The Middle Ages: The Consolidation of the Doctrine: 4. The nature of Justification; 5. The righteousness of God; 6. The concept of grace; 7. The human appropriation of justification; 8. Justification and the two powers of God; 9. The concept of merit; 10. Justification and the sacraments; Part III. Protestantism: The Reformation Debates on Justification: 11. Is there a 'Reformation' doctrine of justification?; 12. Luther's early approach to justification; 13. Justification in Lutheranism, 1516-1580; 14. Reformed theology, 1519-1560; 15. The English Reformation: from Tyndale to Hooker; 16. Protestant Orthodoxy: 17. Anglicanism: the Caroline Divines; 18. Puritanism: from the Old World to the New; 19. Pietism: justification and the 'new birth'; Part IV. Catholicism: The Council of Trent on justification; 20. The development of the doctrine within Catholicism, 1490-1545; 21. Catholic responses to early Protestant doctrines of justification; 22. An attempt at rapprochement: the Regensburg Colloquy (1541); 23. Catholic theological schools during the Tridentine debates on justification; 24. The Tridentine debates on justification; 25. The Tridentine decree on justification; 26. Post-Tridentine discussions of justification; Part V. The Modern Period: 27. The Enlightenment: justification, moralism, and rationalism; 28. The long nineteenth century: retrieval and reconfiguration; 29. Contemporary renewal: justification and theological reconstruction; Conclusion: reflections on a study of doctrinal history.
About the author
Alister E. McGrath is a prominent academic writer on religious and theological topics. His publications include the international bestseller The Dawkins Delusion? (2007), the award-winning biography C. S. Lewis: A Life (2013), and the market-leading textbook Christian Theology: An Introduction (2016). He has also written some acclaimed monographs dealing with the history of Christian thought.
Summary
The most thorough, reliable and unbiased account of justification by faith, the religious idea that lay at the heart of religious debates of the sixteenth century. Written by an international authority on the topic, this is the go-to text for understanding the ideas that lay behind the Protestant Reformation.
