Justification by Faith: Do the Sixteenth-Century Condemnations Still Apply? ed. by Karl Lehmann, Michael Root, William G. Rusch (review)

650 BOOK REVIEWS The offerings in this collection are of variable quality and interest. Those addressing natural philosophy and philosophical questions about the natural sciences raise some important and interesting ideas worthy of further consideration. Providence College Providence, Rhode Island LAURA LANDEN Justification by Faith: Do the Sixteenth-Century Condemnations Still Apply? Edited by KARLLEHMANN, MICHAELROOT, andWILLIAM G. RUSCH. New York: Continuum, 1997. Pp. 216. $39.95 (paper). ISBN 0-8264-0896-6. Justification by Faith is a scholarly and focused collection of essays, translated from their German publication, with a very specific reference. Apart from the introductory articles, which serve to orient the issues discussed to the North American context, the essays in this book are the supporting background research for a previous book, also translated from the German, The Condemnations ofthe Reformation Era: Do Ibey Still Divide? (edited by Karl Lehmann and Wolfhart Pannenberg [Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990]). That previous book presents consensus statements of German Catholic and Evangelical (mostly Lutheran) theologians on the modern possibility and desirability of withdrawing the mutual anathemas pronounced between Catholics and Lutherans during the sixteenth-century Reformation in regard to three critical issues of current ecumenical dialogue: the doctrine of justification; the sacraments; and the church's ministry (lay and ordained). The book under review here, Justification by Faith, presents the papers supporting only the first section, that on justification. Both of these books, taken together, provide the immediate source and interpretation for the formal ecumenical document "Joint Declaration on the Doctrine ofJustification," currently being considered for mutual adoption by the Lutheran churches in the communion of the Lutheran World Federation and by the Roman Catholic Church. Justification by Faith, then, serves the purpose of providing a detailed theological rationale in support of the document "Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification." From that angle, there are no surprises in this volume. All the essays endorse the "lifting of the condemnations" as set forth in the "Joint Declaration," and all the essays are themselves mutually affirming and balancing. The explicit intention of the book, then, is not to debate the "Joint Declaration" but to defend it. The essays provide. the theological BOOK REVIEWS 651 foundations for the "Joint Declaration," and so, taken together with the section on justification in the Lehmann-Pannenberg book, form something of an official commentary on that document. The usefulness of this book, then, is in the close study and interpretation of what appears to be a major breakthrough in ecumenical agreement between Catholics and Lutherans. There is little reason to attempt to summarize each essay in this review, as William Rusch and Michael Root provide precisely such an article-by-article summary in their joint introduction (2-9). Nor is the order of presentation of the essays necessarily helpful for the reader unfamiliar with or only passingly acquainted with the discussion over the "lifting of the mutual condemnations." Rather than beginning with the technical hermeneutical essays of Pannenberg and Lehmann, I would propose a different sequence of reading the essays. A perplexing issue in dealing with the question of mutual anathemas is that of determining just what are the condemnations pronounced by the Lutherans, what authority they carry, and who or what exactly they condemn. Unlike the precise list of anathemas from the Council of Trent, the Lutheran condemnations are spread unevenly throughout the various documents that make up The Book of Concord, the collected authoritative confessional documents of sixteenth-century Lutheranism. Thus, both Lutheran and Catholic readers first need clarification on this question: Lutheran readers regarding the authority of the confessional writings and their relative importance; Catholic readers regarding the actual target in Catholicism at which the Lutheran condemnations aim. A Lutheran reader should begin with chapter 6, "Damnamus? The Condemnations in the Confessions ofthe Lutheran Church as a Problem for the Ecumenical Dialogue between the Lutheran and Roman Catholic Churches," by Gunther Wenz. Wenz demonstrates that it is the irenic Augsburg Confession, together with the positive instruction in the faith of Luther's Small Catechism, that forms the center of the Lutheran Confessions, and that unites the various Lutheran churches in their fellowship with each other and in their attitude toward Rome. The Formula of...