Entry language

Peter J. Leithart, April 19, 2006

NT Wright's denial that justification is "entry language" is usually taken as a criticism of evangelical Protestant treatments of justification. But his denial cuts deeper: From the high middle ages, Roman Catholic theologians taught that justification was a motus from sin to grace. From Wright's viewpoint, the Reformers agreed with Catholic soteriology at this level: Protestant and Catholic doorways were different, and were entered in different ways, but both saw justification as a doorway.