Justification, Renaissance Conception of

Abstract

Traditionally, justification, i.e., eternal Christian salvation, was a lifelong and afterlife process. Most Christians expected to spend time in purgatory, a painful, physical space for sins not “satisfied” on earth. Prayers of the living, masses for the dead, and after 1476, indulgences for the dead could reduce purgatorial time. Martin Luther’s doctrine of justification by faith alone individualized salvation thereby depriving the papacy of all authority, and eventually abolishing purgatory. For Protestants, eternity, heaven or hell, was determined at a specific point in the Christian’s life when he or she accepted God’s grace and his promises in the Gospels. Thus, the true Church was a priesthood of believers justified by faith alone. For Catholics, justification was a process during and after life, but in the debates of the early sixteenth century the Catholic conception of a fearful, physical purgatory was transformed into a happy spiritual state of love. For Catholics, Luther’s doctrine broke the intertwined theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity. Given the health-care crisis of the early sixteenth century, Catholic scholars worked to achieve a compromise with Luther by making charity, a subset of “works,” essential for justification. This “double justification” was rejected during the Council of Trent contributing significantly to the permanent religious schism. Philosophically, the justification debates of the early sixteenth century altered conceptions of time in both Catholic and Protestant theologies.