Review of The Concept of Grace in the Radical Reformation, by Alvin J. Beachy

A republication of his 1960 Harvard dissertation, Beachy's work investigates the many facets of theology that grace effects within the thinking of a representative sample of seven South German and Dutch Anabaptists. The central thesis is that the Anabaptist concept of grace was in conflict with the concept of grace among the magisterial reformers. For the latter, grace was viewed in terms of forensic justification whereby the believer, in accordance to the motto simul iustus et peccator, remained a sinner but was given the legal standing of righteousness. The Anabaptists, however, took an ontological view whereby the viator was not just declared righteous but was made actually righteous. This difference allowed the Anabaptists to make the move to righteous living as more than a believer's response to the act of grace but as the outworking of a changed nature.

Beachy also sought to show that the radical reformers taught a soteriology stressing divinization as was consistent with the theology of John's Gospel. He saw this as explicit in the teaching of all but two of the radical at whom he looked, including Hübmaier, Marpeck, Denck, Simons, Hofmann, Dirk Philips and Schwenkfeld. Aside from the relationship of Hübmaier to it, the Swiss movement is not represented.

Beachy made wide allowances in order to include some teachings into his scheme of interpreting radical reformation theology of grace as divinization.  Although his thesis was clearer among some of those with more spiritualistic tendencies, this was not convincingly applicable to all. The normativity of the divinization scheme decreases especially if one were to include the more biblicist Swiss brethren. Further, the assumption that divinization is indeed the Johannine teaching of grace is not put to any critical analysis and might otherwise be contested. So, the suggestion that divinization is an integral part to the radical reformation's concept of grace must be taken with hesitation.

Beachy's central thesis that the radicals preferred an ontological interpretation of justification is enlightening to our understanding of radical reformation theology. It is unfortunate that this information has not been incorporated more into subsequent literature. This is likely due to this book being less accesible to a wider audience of students of Anabaptism. Further, this work is part of the early literature in support of the polygenesis paradigm, especially in the appendices added to the original dissertation material that forms the bulk of the book.

One last note about my copy of the book, which is a review copy that had been sent to Jan Kiwiet and might not be representative of all the copies, is that the typography got worse as the book went on. After about page 90, typos became frequent. Also, the front matter lists pages 1-381 as having been the dissertation. The book is only 238 pages and this note should have included only up into the appendices after the first bibliography.