CsSkr 1996:5Bilaga 4A preliminary answer by the Church of Sweden to the letters of the LWF General Secretary, dated 30 January and 29 September 1995.
Uppsala, 25 January, 1996 A preliminary answer from the Church of Sweden to the letters of the LWF General Secretary, dated 30 January and 29 September 1995. The Church of Sweden welcomes the joint initiative of the Lutheran World Federation and the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity realized in the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification. The ecumenical aspirations as expressed in this declaration epitomize the vision of the Church Universal. The text is borne by the spirit of evangelical catholicity; essential to the ecumenical tradition of our Church; manifested in the life and work of Archbishop Nathan Söderblom. At the ecumenical vespers in St Peter's Basilica in Rome on 5 October 1991, Archbishop Werkström affirmed: -- "The moment has come to declare that the denunciations from the time of the Reformation no longer are valid. The ecumenical dialogue has proved the existence of a basic unity, for instance in the question of justification through faith". The same theme was taken up by His Holiness Pope John Paul II: -- "A common understanding of justification -- and we think we are very close to this goal -- will, we are sure, help us to resolve the other controversies directly or indirectly linked to it". The Church of Sweden will only be able to give its final response to this matter after a thorough synodical process which will not be concluded by the end of January 1996. Our response is thus of a preliminary nature. A great number of parishes within all 13 dioceses as well as by all Chapters and Diocesan Boards, the national organizations of the Church and the two faculties of theology in Uppsala and Lund, have responded to the Joint Declaration. The following remarks reflect some of the reactions on the text which have been collected through this process. Section 1. Biblical Message of Justification It weakens the section that no reference is made to the passage in Rom. 3:28 -- a text of vital importance in this context. We would also have preferred a more thorough investigation of the text of the document taking into consideration the recent exegetic research mentioned in paragraphs 3 and 12. References to the Old Testament could have contributed to the understanding of relevant statements in the New Testament. As the text now stands it gives the reader the impression of a hermeneutically unreflected compilation of biblical quotations, and the connection between this section and the following sections 2-4 is not clearly established. Section 3. The Common Understanding of Justification We acknowledge that the formulations in paragraphs 16-17, viz. that justification is something that "directs us in a special way towards the heart of the New Testament witness to God's saving action in Christ", and that the doctrine of justification, "is more than just one part of the totality of Christian doctrine. It has a comprehensive critical and normative function ...", are of decisive importance to the evaluation of the document as a whole. We welcome this as a fundamental step forward in the dialogue. At the same time there is a certain remaining tension between what is stated here and what is said later on in paragraph 42 regarding "the remaining differences, eg. as regards how the understanding of justification is explicated". We take for granted that this matter will be given renewed attention in the forthcoming dialogue, especially the questions of ecclesiology and how authority is exercised in the church (paragraph 45). Greater clarity would have been achieved if, in preparing the joint declaration, the latest report in the Lutheran -- Roman Catholic dialogue ("Church and Justification", 1994) had been given more weight; as the text now reads the report is only briefly mentioned in this paragraph. Section 4. Explicating the Common Understanding of Justification In this important section we acknowledge that what "Catholics and Lutherans confess together" has been formulated in such a way that we are able to recognize the essential contents of faith as far as the understanding of justification is concerned. We would however like to underline that even with this common understanding there are still remaining legitimate differences in perspective and language. These differences are for example demonstrated in our understanding of the individual Christian as both justified and sinner, and our concept of the inner dynamics of the justifying process. In these matters one is dealing with something that cannot be captured in a definitive formulation once and for all. It will always remain a theme which the Church will have to reinterpret in changing times and changing circumstances. There are details in the text which we would have liked to express somewhat differently. However, we are not of the opinion that the amendments concerned are such as to make an affirmative reply by our Church to the first question posed by the General Secretary, conditional. On the basis of what has emerged during our consultative process, we would however like to express a wish that, in order to avoid any misunderstandings, the Roman Catholic representatives rephrases what at present is declared in paragraph 26 concerning concupiscence, viz. that "properly speaking, it therefore is not sin". In this instance we would like to refer to what is said about 4.3 "The Sinfulness of the Justified" in the Resources, especially LV 52, 14-24. A possible wording might be, for instance, the following: -- "it is no longer sin in the sense that it divides humankind from God". Furthermore, we find a shortcoming in the declaration inasmuch as there is a tendency to describe justification as merely a theoretical problem, as a matter of wording, and not -- as in the sixteenth century -- related to the most central part of the life of the Church -- worship. A worshipping community is not automatically an unanimous body. But if there is concord this must apply to what is heard and done in worship. We are pleased to say that we in Sweden share our horary prayer book with the Roman Catholic Church in Sweden, and that we have no less than the first 325 hymns of our respective Hymnbooks in common. They include all the central themes of the Christian faith and constitute in themselves a joint confession that in reality is as normative to the life of faith in our churches as the confessional writings of the sixteenth century. On the basis of a broad process of consultation, the Church of Sweden in this preliminary response hereby gives an affirmative answer to the two questions posed by the General Secretary in his letter dated 30 January 1995. Whereas the second question is concerned, the Church of Sweden is of course aware of the fact that our answer is based on the supposition that the Roman Catholic Church correspondingly acknowledges the joint declaration, thereby pronouncing that the condemnations of the Lutheran doctrine of justification, found in the documents from the council in Trient in 1547, no longer apply to the Lutheran Churches of today. The time-table of this process of dialogue is from our point of view not uncomplicated. The definitive text will not be published in time for our Church Synod in August 1996. We are however of the opinion that the final stage will be merely editorial, introducing no other changes than those aimed at further explicating the documented fellowship between our Churches. On behalf of the Church of Sweden Central Board
Gunnar Weman
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