Justification by faith alone was Luther's breakthrough and the Reformation's material principle: righteousness is imputed to the believer as a gift rather than infused as a quality to be developed. The stakes were pastoral before they were academic — Luther's own terror at whether he had done enough is the origin of the doctrine, and its appeal was that it removes the question. James's statement that faith without works is dead has been the standing objection ever since, and every Protestant tradition has an answer to it.