Although Ernst Käsemann’s magisterial commentary on the Epistle to the Romans proved to be open to review and patient of analysis without much explicit reference to the doctrine of justification (of New Blackfriars March 1981), the author himself undoubtedly regards this famous Lutheran insight as the key to his reading of Paul. What is not so clear, however, is whether Käsemann’s understanding of justification in Paul has much to do with what Catholics have usually supposed that Lutherans mean. In fact Käsemann may well have offered a reading of Paul which cuts the ground from underneath the central point of contention at the Reformation. His version of the doctrine of justification in his reading of the Epistle to the Romans may therefore have greater ecumenical effects in the long run than many agreed statements. And this is not the only way in which his work is likely to prove increasingly productive, as the young Swiss Calvinist scholar Pierre Gisel brings out in the first major systematic account of Käsemann’s writings. 1 The doctrine of justification is not one with which Catholics are generally at ease. The word is seldom mentioned in Catholic sermons. Salvation, grace, sanctification, yes — that is a chain of notions with familiar Catholic resonances, and clearly they pinpoint the area at issue. But talk of justification, as of predestination, sounds like Protestant jargon. Many Catholics are surprised to hear that the Council of Trent did not (as they suppose) merely condemn Luther’s teaching but actually worked out, with considerable thoroughness, and sanctioned with great solemnity in 1547, a Catholic doctrine of justification which has formed part of the official teaching of the Catholic Church ever since.

A view very commonly encountered in contemporary philosophy of religion is that it is a mistake to expect that faith should be capable of rational defence. The roots of the conception of faith as lacking rational defensibility lie far back in the history of the Church (see for instance St Paul’s remarks on faith as foolishness in I Cor 1), but it is only in the last two centuries that deep pessimism has set in about the prospects of finding really convincing a priori or a posteriori arguments in support of faith. This slide from conviction that faith is rationally warranted has not, of course, been a wholly or even mainly negative phenomenon, for it has stimulated an awareness of commissive and emotional aspects of faith which is proving very valuable in the life of the Church. The importance and profundity of much recent writing about faith is something I have no wish to dispute; yet I want to argue that it is a mistake to represent faith as requiring no support from reason, and I shall urge we are only entitled to that faith we can defend.

My argument is basically a very simple one — so simple indeed that many people will undoubtedly think that it cannot do justice to the complexity of the subject under discussion. The short response to those people is to say that they should not disregard the argument but refute it. To make the argument fully convincing, however, I shall discuss in some detail the theoretical basis which underlies it, and attempt to disarm various strategies for opposing or evading it. Finally, I shall describe a positive approach to the problem of finding reasons for faith.

In its most skeletal form the argument can be stated: faith is, or essentially involves, propositional belief; propositional belief requires reasons; therefore faith requires reasons. This clearly stands in need of some fleshing out.

This essay is an attempt to illustrate the idea that the way in which God’s grace works in man is more obvious in a situation of persecution than in one of so-called peace, for in the former the contrast between good and evil, the graced and the graceless, is sharper and therefore easier to see.

St Thomas Aquinas, the great thirteenth century theologian, defines that mysterious entity “grace” as a “share in the Divine nature”. Having read this we recognize that he has said both everything and nothing. In this life we perceive God only as “a dim reflection as in a mirror” (ICor. 13:12) and we can therefore know nothing of his nature, so we cannot catch hold of Grace and say “it is this”, or “it is that”. Granted the impossibility of talking about God, of finding words adequate to discuss his nature, we can nevertheless attempt to understand what happens to a man when he deliberately lays himself open to God’s action.

This is intended to be a practical comparison between two approaches. Accordingly it would be as well to start with a few truisms that are shared between them. In the first place, people only discover themselves and the world through their relationships with other people and this relationship is primary. Perspectives on the world follow and are fashioned by these relationships. In view ©f this, theology may be said to be reflection on human experience specifically understood as directed towards God. Thus Schillebeeckx (1969:214) describes man, from a theological point of view, as ‘a free being who must define himself in and towards the world in dialogue with God’. This may be contrasted with the definition of one sort of sociology, ‘critical sociology’, described by Hansen (1976:3) as ‘an invitation to become an involved, critical explorer of human and societal possibilities’.

Unless the theologian is to consider for the most part his own experience (the source of much individualistic agonizing of an existentialist sort commonly characterized as bourgeois sociology) he must perforce draw on some systematic body of reflection on the human condition. Traditionally, this has been provided by philosophy, but in more recent times the social sciences have rather cornered the interaction business.

There was, earlier this winter, a great deal of ribald talk about a scene in the National Theatre’s production of Howard Brenton’s play The Romans in Britain. There is likely to be more talk of the same sort now that the Secretary of the National Viewers’ and Listeners’ Association is proceeding with her suit against Mr Michael Bogdanov for procuring the commission of an act of gross indecency between Mr Peter Sproule and Mr Greg Hills on 19th December last. And all this talk will doubtless be excited by public interest in Mr Timothy Sainsbury’s Indecency Displays Bill and the Government’s promise to assist the progress of that Bill through Parliament. We are, it seems, again about to debate the meaning of ‘indecency’.

Though Sir Peter Hall has not followed the distasteful example of another theatre director, I would yet like to suggest that The Romans and indecency should be considered with the Old Vic production of Macbeth in mind.

I had secured my ticket for that Macbeth some weeks before the production opened, so I was not required to join the line of those who had been excited by the critical notices which quickly made Mr Brian Forbes’ production and Mr Peter O’Toole’s performance notorious. The opportunities for happiness, or even a little pleasure, are not so common in my life that I would easily forego a performance of any of Shakespeare’s plays, and among them, Macbeth has especial claims. Once, when quite a small boy, I surprised the greatest Macbeth of my time rehearsing to himself across the lawn: ‘Learning me lines, dear laddie’, Godfrey Tearle admitted with a flourish.