Rethinking Justification by Faith Alone in the Era of Globalization: A Confucian Perspective

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Is it possible to learn something fr om the Confucian tradition that might be relevant to the theological issues that have divided and still divide Catholics and Lutherans, especially on the theology of good works for today? This essay attempts to describe an intercultural theology on an intra-Christian ecumenical issue. I will first present a summary of the dialogue that has been going on for quite a few decades between Catholics and Lutherans and the contemporary significance and challenge of the doctrine of justification in the globalizing world. Today nihilism seems to challenge the very idea of sin, whose forgiveness is at stake in the doctrine and which today must include justice to victims of sin, both our fellow human beings and our fellow creatures in nature. Second, I will offer a Confucian reflection on the value of good works in the context of its compelling sense of the Way of Heaven or Tiandao ([inline-graphic 01]), its politics of virtue and solidarity, and its sense of the cosmic unity of all things as relevant to the contemporary quest for social and ecological justice. Third, I will provide the beginnings—and only the beginnings—of a Catholic dialogue with the Confucian perspective along with brief reflections on the methodology of interreligious learning in the changing context of the contemporary world.