Reformation
Wittenberg, Germany
Lutheran (Philippist)
Rejected by the Formula of Concord
Also: George Major
Rector of the University of Wittenberg. ⭐ The controversy named after him (the Majoristic Controversy), like the other two on this thread, asks about the consequences of the doctrine of imputation — what exactly is the relation between good works and salvation?
Below: first his own position, then the church’s verdict — kept separate. A rejected opinion keeps equal weight here.
His own position
His sentence, as González reports it: good works are necessary for salvation, and also necessary for keeping salvation.
⭐⭐ But be sure to read González's very next sentence; the most important thing in this entry is here. In this, González says, Major did not go further than Melanchthon, although Melanchthon used more careful language and avoided putting good works and salvation side by side in the same sentence. So Melanchthon was willing to say that good works are necessary as the fruit of faith, and that faith is necessary for salvation; but he would not join the two together, lest they be taken to mean justification by good works. ⚠ That is: where Major stumbled was not theology but how he built a sentence. ⭐ This point itself is worth remembering — on this thread of justification, a good share of the quarrels were fought between different ways of saying the same thing. This module has now found, for the fourth time, that the disagreement is first a matter of language.
The church’s verdict
In 1577 Article IV of the Formula of Concord rejected his formula (and rejected the formula of the other side, Amsdorf's, along with it): “We reject, therefore, and condemn the following phrases, when it is taught: That good works are necessary to salvation; that no one has ever been saved without good works” … “We repudiate and condemn this bald phrase, full of offense and pernicious to Christian discipline: That good works are detrimental to salvation.” ⚠ The immediate background of the attacks on him was the quarrel over the Augsburg Interim: in that affair he followed Melanchthon's side, and the men who attacked him, Matthias Flacius and Nicholas von Amsdorf, were the two chief leaders of the Gnesio-Lutherans. González records that Flacius's attack was limited to restating Luther's main claims on justification by faith and pointing out that Major's words were harmful to that doctrine.
Threads he belongs to
Justification
Dispute Counterclaim Good works, as González reports him, are necessary for salvation. ⭐ He did not go further than Melanchthon — where he stumbled was not theology but how he built a sentence.