The collection of essays Justification in Perspective: Historical Developments and Contemporary Challenges opens with Nick Needham’s chapter: “Justification in the Early Church Fathers”.
A pattern appears in essays about ‘justification’ that could have undergirded a naïve presumption: That biblical theology began with the Reformation. As there are many calls to consider biblical philosophies today as ‘pre-critical’ rather than the en vogue ‘post-foundational’, the same sentiment appears to apply here.
From reading of popular debates in Federal Theology, the development of a specific ‘biblical theology’ was clarified and became distinguishable from other flavors of theology. But I believe that the question lingering is whether biblical theology is an entirely new direction in theology (which would be fearsome) or revisiting pre-Scholastic readings of scripture? Besides the Antiochene/Alexandrine schools, I do not think that the early church was considered a seedbed for biblical theology in most of the readings and that may be an error.
This is one of three suggested readings that centers on the New Perspectives issue. Needham’s is essentially a straight review of major and early figures (John Chrysostom, Cyprian, Tertullian, Origen, Jerome, Ambrose, Gregory of Nazianzus, et al) and some lesser known fathers (Hillary of Poitiers, Ambrosiaster, etc.).
The reason I am advocating this essay is two-fold. First, Needham does more than survey different uses of ‘justification’ amongst the fathers. He unfolds the development of the concept, focusing on the constrained and tightly centered genesis of a particular construct, but also the more vague and less intentional as well. This background material, if engaged, would make for interesting discussions concerning how theological constructs develop, especially in the seminal era of the church.
Second, this purview into the fathers’ theology could become a discussion piece concerning issues of scriptural necessity, perspicuity, tradition in theology, and how much one needs to engage historical theological conversations. This is surely a portable conversation about theology in general. Again, because I subscribe to theology grounded in a form of ‘biblical theology’, this article could accomplish simultaneous purposes. It allows a conversation about the history of biblical theological thought prior to the Reformation. But the essay also enters directly into the discussion regarding New Perspectives on Paul and raises the more central question: What role does the history of a theological paradigm play in its future understanding?
