“Augustine often states that justification includes the idea of ‘making righteous,’ not simply ‘declaring/reckoning’ as righteous.” How closely does Augustine anticipate Martin Luther? McGrath emphasizes an important distinction:
Augustine has an all-embracing transformative understanding of justification, which includes both the event of justification (brought about an operative grace) and the process of justification (brought about by cooperative grace). Augustine himself does not, in fact, see any need to distinguish between these two aspects of justification; the distinction dates from the sixteenth century.
