A Christian in Texas seeking to understand the Fathers and the controversial topic of justification recently wrote to me with a few theological questions about Augustine. People have been asking about Augustine’s views on justification since the Reformation—and before! Here are two of his questions, and a couple short answers:
1. Does Augustine talk about justification in terms of a declaration whereby someone is forgiven of their sins, but not ontologically changed?
No, Augustine always talks about justification as both an inner change by God and a declaration as a result. At its basic level, this question is asking, what does justification mean for Augustine? Augustine consistently interprets justification as having two aspects: renewal and forgiveness. A particularly clear example comes from his late Unfinished Work in Answer to Julian. In book 2, section 165, he says, “God, of course, justifies sinners, not only by forgiving the evil deeds they committed, but also by bestowing love so that they avoid evil and do good through the Holy Spirit.” Augustine always holds both components together, though. He never assumes that renewal means perfection, and he never imagines that forgiveness ceases to be essential to justification in this life. In book 19, section 27 of City of God, he writes, “our righteousness in this life . . . consists in the forgiveness of sins rather than in the perfection of the virtues.” What a striking expression! Human righteousness, the righteousness of justification, never becomes our perfection in virtue. As both passages show, it is always both forgiveness and renewal. Christians become just both when God forgives their sins and when he renews them by the Holy Spirit.
What about justification as a declaration? Augustine frequently comments on our being declared or counted righteous (as Scripture says!), but, for Augustine, this declaration is always an honest reflection of what God has done in those who are renewed and forgiven. As he says in Letter 140, God’s counting faith as righteousness is a result of his making the unjust become just (20.50). God’s declaration confirms his reality. Although Augustine stresses that God only justifies sinners, he never speaks of justification as declaring the unjust to be just. On the contrary, Augustine stresses in a few places that to declare someone just who is known to be actually unjust is what wicked human judges do, not God. It is precisely those who wish to justify themselves (Luke 10:29) who want to be counted just even though they are unjust.
2. For Augustine, how important is baptism to justification?
This is a complex question, but Augustine does occasionally speak of justification taking place in baptism, as when he refers to “justification in this life, which happens through the bath of rebirth” (Answer to Julian 2.8.22). This makes sense because baptism in the Church Fathers always involves death to sin and rebirth, and so it does the same two things that make up justification: forgiveness and renewal.
And yet, despite the quoted passage from Answer to Julian, readers of Augustine are sometimes surprised to see how rarely he says that baptism justifies. The reason is that Augustine is also committed to the biblical emphasis that faith justifies, and he interprets baptism in light of this. Baptism justifies by faith. In some ways, this is just an obvious point for Augustine the bishop. Faith is the requirement for baptism, faith is what asks for baptismal grace, and so faith is the inner reality that obtains grace in baptism. For Augustine as a bishop, this is an obvious reality: catechumens who come to believe in Christ are baptized in that faith and thus forgiven and renewed in baptism. Every year Augustine oversaw countless baptisms, and he knew that the Church’s practice had always been to baptize believers. But what is the meaning of this practice? What does it do? For Augustine, the answer is clear: in baptism, faith obtains the grace promised by Christ for all who come to him.
For more on both of these topics, see my forthcoming book, Augustine’s Theology of Justification by Faith, coming out with Cambridge University Press this January (2026).
