"Fundamentally a Critical Principle"

Following excerpt from the Preface of Christian Dogmatics (eds. Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson, Fortress Press, xix).

As will become clear at several points in the body of this work, the Reformation doctrine of justification is fundamentally a critical principle. It is the demand continuously to submit all preaching, liturgy, pastoral care, church administration, and so forth to this question: Does this particular act of ministry lead people to find their life's justification, their reason to be, in the fact that the crucified Jesus lives, or are people left on their own, to depend on themselves for the ultimate meaning of life? If a churchly word or practice in any way suggests the latter, it must, according to the doctrine of justification by faith, be reformed. We tried to make this critical principle effect throughout this work for the ongoing reform of the church.

Indeed. The Reformation/Protestant doctrine of justification is "fundamentally a critical principle" -- the doctrine of justification by faith should be a Protestant pastor's philosophy (theology) of Christian ministry.