THE CHANGE OF 1515 IN THE LIGHT OF THE COMMENTARY ON ROMANS (1515-16)
1. The New Publications
LUTHER’S lectures on the Epistle to the Romans which, as mentioned
above (p. 93), he delivered at Wittenberg from April, 1515, to
September or October, 1516, existed till recently (1904-8) only in
MS. form. To Denifle belongs the merit of having first drawn public
attention to this important source of information, which he exploited,
and from the text of which he furnished long extracts according to the
Vatican Codex palatinus lat. 1826.[447] The MS. referred to, containing
the scholia, is a copy by Aurifaber of the lectures which Luther
himself wrote out in full, and once belonged to the library of Ulrich
Fugger, whence it came to the Palatina at Heidelberg, and, ultimately,
on the transference of the Palatina to Rome, found its way to the
Vatican Library. It was first made use of by Dr. Vogel, and then, in
1899, thoroughly studied by Professor Joh. Ficker.[448] While the work
was in process of publication the original by Luther’s own hand was
discovered in 1903 in the Codex lat. theol. 21,4º of the State Library
in Berlin, or rather rediscovered, for it had already been referred
to in 1752 in an account of the library.[449] According to this MS.,
which also contains the glosses,[450] the Commentary, after having
been collated with the Roman MS., which is frequently inaccurate, was
edited with a detailed introduction at Leipzig in 1908 by Joh. Ficker,
Professor at Strasburg University; it forms the first volume of a
collection entitled “Anfänge reformatorischer Bibelauslegung.”
Denifle’s preliminary excerpts were so ample and exact that, as a
comparison with what has since been published proves, they afforded a
trustworthy insight into a certain number of Luther’s doctrinal views
of decisive value in forming an opinion on the general course of his
development.[451] But it is only now, with the whole work before us,
scholia and glosses complete, that it is possible to give a fair and
well-founded account of the ideas which were coming to the front in
Luther. The connection between different points of his teaching appears
in a clearer light, and various opinions are disclosed which were
fresh in Luther’s mind, and upon which Denifle had not touched, but
which are of great importance in the history of his growth. Among such
matters thus brought to light were Luther’s gloomy views on God and
predestination, with which we shall deal in our next section.
The Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans ranks first among all his letters
for the depth of thought and wealth of revelation which it contains. It
treats of the most exalted questions of human thought, and handles the
most difficult problems of Christian faith and hope. Its subject-matter
is the eternal election of the Gentile and Jewish world to salvation in
Christ; the guidance of the heathen by the law of nature, and of the
Jews by the Mosaic law; the powers of man when left to himself, and of
man supernaturally raised; the universality and potency of the saving
grace of Christ, and the manner of its appropriation in justification
by faith; finally the life, death and resurrection in which the
Christian, through faith, unites himself with Christ.[452]
We may doubt whether the young Doctor of Wittenberg was qualified to
grapple with so great a task as the explanation of this charter of
faith, especially bearing in mind his comparatively insignificant
knowledge of the Fathers of the Church and the theological literature
of the past, his impetuosity in dealing with recondite questions, and
his excitable fancy which always hurried in advance of his judgment. At
any rate, he himself thought his powers sufficient for a work on which
the most enlightened minds of the Church had tested their abilities. He
immediately followed up this Commentary with other lectures on certain
epistles of St. Paul, wherein the Apostle discloses the depths of his
knowledge.
On perusing the lengthy pages of the Commentary on Romans we are amazed
at the eloquence of the young author, at his dexterity in description
and his skill in the apt use of biblical quotations; but his manner
of working contrasts very unfavourably with that of the older
Commentators on the Epistle, such as Thomas of Aquin with his brevity
and definiteness and, particularly, his assurance in theological
matters. Luther’s mode of treating the subject is, apart from other
considerations, usually too rhetorical and not seldom quite tedious in
its amplitude.
The work, with its freedom both in its language and its treatment of
the subject, reveals many interesting traits which go to make up a
picture of Luther’s inward self.
He starts with the assumption that the whole of the Epistle was
intended by its author to “uproot from the heart the feeling of
self-righteousness and any satisfaction in the same,” and—to use his
own odd expression—“to implant, establish and magnify sin therein
(‘_plantare, ac constituere et magnificare peccatum_’).”[453] “Although
there may be no sin in the heart or any suspicion of its existence,”
he declares, we ought and must feel ourselves to be full of sin, in
contradistinction to the grace of Christ from Whom alone we receive
what is pleasing to God.
In his passionate opposition to the real or imaginary self-righteous
he allows himself, in these lectures, to be drawn into an ever deeper
distrust of man’s ability to do anything that is good. The nightmare
of self-righteousness never leaves him for a moment. His attack would
have been justifiable if he had merely been fighting against sinful
self-righteousness which is really selfishness, or against the delusion
that natural morality will suffice before God. Nor does it appear
who is defending such erroneous ideas against him, or which school
upheld the thesis Luther is always opposing, viz. that there is a
saving righteousness which arises, is preserved, and works without the
preventing and accompanying grace of God. It is, however, clear that
there was in his own soul a dislike for works; so strong in fact is his
feeling in this regard that he simply calls all works “works of the
law,” and cannot be too forcible in demonstrating the antagonism of the
Apostle to their supposed over-estimation. Probably one reason for his
selection of this Epistle for interpretation was that it appeared to
him to agree even better than other biblical works with his own ideas
against “self-righteousness.” We must now consider in detail some of
the leading ideas of the Commentary on Romans.
2. Gloomy Views regarding God and Predestination
The tendency to a dismal conception of God plays, in combination with
his ideas on predestination, an incisive part in Luther’s Commentary on
Romans, which, so far, has received too little attention. The tendency
is noticeable throughout his early mental history. He was never able to
overcome his former temptations to sadness and despair on account of
the possibility of his irrevocable predestination to hell, sufficiently
to attain to the joy of the children of God and to the trustful
recognition of God’s general and certain will for our salvation. The
advice which Staupitz, among others, gave him was assuredly correct,
viz. to take refuge in the wounds of Christ, and Luther probably
tried to follow it. But we do not learn that he paid diligent heed to
the further admonitions of the ancient ascetics, to exert oneself in
the practice of good works, as though one’s predestination depended
entirely on the works one performs with the grace of God. On the
contrary, of set purpose, he avoided any effort on his own part and
preferred the misleading mystical views of Quietism.
The melancholy idea of predestination again peeps out unabashed in the
passage in his Commentary on the Psalms, where he says, that Christ
“drank the cup of pain for His elect, but not for all.”[454]
If he set out to explain the Epistle to the Romans with a gloomy
conception of God, in which we recognise the old temptations regarding
predestination, owing to his misapprehension of certain passages of the
Epistle concerning God’s liberty and inscrutability in the bestowal
of grace, his ideas, as he advances, become progressively more stern
and dismal. The editor of the Commentary remarks, not without reason,
on the forcible way in which Luther, “even in chapter i., emphasises
the sovereignty of the Will of God.”[455] It is true of many, Luther
says there, that God gives them up to the desires of their heart, unto
uncleanness (cp. Rom. i. 24), nor is this merely a permission, but
an appointment and command (“_non tantum permissio, sed commissio et
iussio_”).[456] In such a case God commands the devil or the flesh to
tempt a man and conquer him. It is true that when God chooses to act
graciously He prevents the evil; but He also wills to be severe and to
punish, and “then He makes the wicked to sin more abundantly (‘_facit
abundantius peccare_’)”; then “He forsakes a man so that he may not be
able to resist the devil, who carries out the order and the Will of God
in bringing about his fall.”
The youthful University Professor believes that he is here teaching
a “more profound theology.” No one was to come to him, he says, with
the shallow and hackneyed assertion that, on the above hypothesis,
man’s free will was destroyed; only narrow minds (“_rudiores_”) take
exception at this “_profundior theologia_.”[457] The teaching of this
new theology was the following:
“This man may do what he pleases, it is God’s will that he should
be overcome by sin.” “It is true that God does not desire the sin,
although He wills that it shall take place (‘_non sequitur quod Deus
peccatum velit, licet ipsum velit fieri_’); for He only wills that it
shall happen, in order to manifest in man the greatness of His anger
and His severity by punishing in him the sin which He hates.” “It is
therefore on account of the punishment that God wills that the sin
shall be committed.... God alone may will such a thing” (“_Hoc autem
soli Deo licitum est velle_”),[458] and he repeats fearlessly: “in
order that all misery and shame may be heaped upon the man, God wills
he should commit this sin.”[459] He fancies he is communicating to his
pupils “the highest secrets of theology,” meant only for the perfect,
when he assures them that both statements are right: God wills to
oblige me and all men [to do what is good] and yet He does not give
His grace to all, but only to whom He will, reserving to Himself the
choice. Some it does not please Him to justify because He manifests
so much the more through them His honour in the elect; in the same
way He also wills sin, though only indirectly, viz. “that He may be
glorified in the elect.” Hence we must not make it a mere matter of
permission, for “how would God permit it unless it were His will?”
“Senseless chatter,” thus he describes the unanimous contrary teaching
of theologians, “such is the objection they raise that man would thus
be damned without any fault on his part, because he could not fulfil
the law and was expected to do what was impossible.”—We can only ask
how his own method is to be described when he contents himself with
this solution: “If that objection had any weight it would follow that
it was not necessary to preach, to pray, to exhort, and Christ’s death
would also not be necessary. Yet by means of all this God has chosen
to save His elect.”[460]
Luther, as this somewhat lengthy passage shows, had, at any rate
at that time, no bright, kindly idea of God’s Nature, Goodness and
inexhaustible Mercy, which wills to make every creature here on earth
happy and to save them in eternity; his mind was imprisoned within
the narrow limits to which he had before this accustomed himself; a
false conception of God’s essence—perhaps a remainder of his Occamist
training—was already poisoning the very vitals of his theology.
His melancholy conception of God comes to light not only in the
various passages where he speaks of predestination, but also in the
dark pictures, which, in his morbid frame of mind, he paints of the
wickedness and sin of man pitting his unquenchable concupiscence
against God, the All Holy.[461] In order to adore this stern and cruel
God in his own way he had already built up on his false mysticism a
practical theory of resignation and self-surrender to whatever might
be the Divine Will, even should it destine him to damnation. In the
first pages of the Commentary on Romans his idea of God enables him
to proclaim loudly and boldly, and with full knowledge of what he is
doing, his opposition to the religious practice of his many zealous
contemporaries, whether clerics or laymen.
Many have, according to him, an idea of God different from his: “Oh,
how many there are to-day who do not worship God as He is, but as they
imagine Him to be. Look at their singularities and their superstitious
rites, full of delusions. They give up what they ought to practise,
they choose out the works by which they will honour Him, they fancy
that God is such that He looks down upon them and their works.” “There
is spread abroad to-day a sort of idolatry by which God is not served
as He is. The love of their own ideas and their own righteousness
entirely blinds mankind, and they call it ‘good intention.’ They
imagine that God is thereby graciously disposed to them, whereas it
is not so: and so they worship their phantom God rather than the true
God.”[462]
Neither do they understand how to pray, because they do not know the
awfulness of God. Does not the Scripture say; he asks them: “Serve ye
the Lord with fear and rejoice unto Him with trembling” (Ps. ii. 11),
and “with fear and trembling work out your salvation” (Phil. ii. 12)?
Not wanting to look at their own works as “bad and suspicious” in the
eyes of this God, “they do not assiduously call upon His grace.” They
assume that their good intention arises out of themselves, whereas it
is a gift of God, and desire to prepare themselves for the infusion
of grace.[463] “Pelagian notions are at the bottom of all this.
No one acknowledges himself now to be a Pelagian, but many are so
unconsciously, with their principle that free will must set to work to
obtain grace.”[464]
Such is the perilous position he reaches under the influence of his
distaste for works, viz. a violent antagonism to free will. Man is
unable to do the least thing to satisfy this Holy God.[465] The
Occamist theology of the school in which he was trained here serves
him in good stead, as the following sentences, which are closely akin
to Occam’s acceptation-theory, show: “We must always be filled with
anxiety, ever fear and await the Divine acceptance”; for as all our
works are in themselves evil, “only those are good which God imputes
as good; they are in fact something or nothing, only in so far as
God accepts them or not.” “The eternal God has chosen good works
from the beginning that they should please Him,”[466] “but how can I
ever know that my deed pleases God? How can I even know that my good
intention is from God?”[467] Hence, away with the proud self-righteous
(“_superbi iustitiarii_”) who are so sure of their good works!
Fear, desponding humility and self-annihilation, according to Luther,
are the only feelings one can cherish in front of this terrible,
unaccountable God.[468] “He who despairs of himself is the one whom
God accepts.”[469]
He also speaks of a certain “_pavor Dei_,” which is the foundation
of salvation: “_trepidare et terreri_” is the best sign, as it is
said in Psalm cxliii.: “Shoot out Thy arrows and Thou shalt trouble
them,” the “_terrens Deus_” leads to life.[470] True love does not
ask any enjoyment from God, rather, he here repeats, whoever loves
Him from the hope of being made eternally happy by Him, or from fear
of being wretched without Him, has a sinful and selfish love (“_amor
concupiscentiæ_”); but to allow the terrors of God to encompass us,
to be ready to accept from Him the most bitter interior and exterior
cross, to all eternity, that only is perfect love. And even with such
love we are dragged into thick interior darkness.[471]
All these gloomy thoughts which cloud his mind, gather, when he comes
to explain chapters viii. and ix. of the Epistle to the Romans, where
the Apostle deals with the question of election to grace.
Luther thinks he has here found in St. Paul the doctrine of
predestination, not only to heaven, but also to hell, expressed,
moreover, in the strongest terms. At the same time he warns his hearers
against faint-heartedness, being well aware how dangerous his views
might prove to souls.
“Let no one immerse himself in these thoughts who is not purified in
spirit, lest he sink into an abyss of horror and despair; the eyes
of the heart must first be purified by contemplating the wounds of
Christ. I discourse upon these matters solely because the trend of
the lectures leads up to them, and because they are unavoidable. It
is the strongest wine there is, and the most perfect food, a solid
nourishment for the perfect; it is that most exalted theology of which
the Apostle says (1 Cor. ii. 6): ‘we speak wisdom among the perfect’
... only the perfect and the strong should study the first book of
the Sentences [because predestination is dealt with at the end of
Peter Lombard’s first book]; it should really be the last and not the
first book; to-day many who are unprepared jump at it and then go away
blinded in spirit.”[472]
Luther teaches that the Apostle’s doctrine is: God did not in their
lifetime exercise His mercy towards the damned; He is right and not
to be blamed when He follows herein His own supreme will alone. “Why
then does man murmur as though God were not acting according to the
law?” His will is, for every man, the highest good. Why should we not
desire, and that with the greatest fervour, the fulfilment of this
will, since it is a will which can in no way be evil? “You say: Yes,
but for me it is evil. No, it is evil for none. The only evil is that
men cannot understand God’s will and do it”; they should know that
even in hell they are doing God’s will if it is His wish that they
should be there.[473]
Hence the only way he knows out of the darkness he has himself
created is recognition of, and resignation to, the possibility of a
purely arbitrary damnation by God. The expressions he here makes use
of for reprobation, “_inter reprobos haberi_,” “_damnari_,” “_morte
æterna puniri_” make it plain that he demands resignation to actual
reprobation and to being placed on a footing with the damned. Yet,
as he always considers this resignation as the most perfect proof
of acquiescence in the Will of God, it does not, according to him,
include within itself a readiness to hate God, but, on the contrary,
the strongest and highest love.[474] With such an exalted frame of
mind, however, the actual penalty of hell would cease to exist. “It is
impossible that he should remain apart from God who throws himself so
entirely into the Will of God. He wills what God wills, therefore he
pleases God. If he pleases God, then he is loved by God; if he is loved
by God, then he is saved.”[475] That he is thus cutting the ground
from under his hypothesis of an inevitable predestination to hell by
teaching how we can escape it, does not seem to strike him. Or does he,
perhaps, mean that only those who are not predestined to hell can thus
overcome the fear of hell? Will such resignation be possible to him
who really believes himself destined to hell, and who sees even in his
resignation no means whereby he can escape it?
To such a one even the “wounds of Christ” offer no assurance and no
place of refuge. They only speak to man of the God of revelation,
not of the mysterious, unsearchable God. The untenable and insulting
comparison between the mysterious and the revealed Supreme Being which
Luther was later on to institute is here already foreshadowed.
He explains in detail how the will of man does not in the least belong
to the person who wills, or the road to the runner. “All is God’s, who
gives and creates the will.” We are all instruments of God, who works
all in all. Our will is like the saw and the stick—examples which he
repeatedly employs later in his harshest utterances concerning the
slavery of the will. Sawing is the act of the hand which saws, but the
saw is passive; the animal is beaten, not by the stick, but by him who
holds the stick. So the will also is nothing, but God who wields it is
everything.[476]
Hence he rejects most positively the theological doctrine that God
foresees the final lot of man as something “_contingenter futurum_,”
i.e. that he sees his rejection as something dependent on man and
brought about by his own fault. No, according to Luther, in the
election of grace everything is preordained “_inflexibili et firma
voluntate_,” and this, His own will, is alone present in the mind of
God.
Luther speaks with scorn of “our subtle theologians,” who drag
in their “_contingens_” and build up an election by grace on
“_necessitas consequentiæ, sed non consequentis_,” in accordance
with the well-known scholastic ideas. “With God there is absolutely
no ‘_contingens_,’ but only with us; for no leaf ever falls from
the tree to the earth without the will of the Father.” Besides, the
theologians—so he accuses the Scholastics without exception—“have
imagined the case so, or at least have led to its being so imagined,
as though salvation were obtained or lost through our own free
will.”[477]
We know that here he was wrong. As a matter of fact, true
Scholasticism attributed the work of salvation to grace together with
free will, so that two factors, the Divine and the human, or the
supernatural and the natural, are mutually engaged in the same. But
Luther, when here reporting the old teaching, does not mention the
factor of grace, but only “_nostrum arbitrium_.”
He then adds: “Thus I once understood it.” If he really ever believed
salvation to be exclusively the work of free will, then he erred
grievously, and merely proves how defective his study, even of Gabriel
Biel, had been.
He also interpreted quite wrongly the view of contemporary and earlier
scholastic theologians on the love of God, and, again, by excluding
the supernatural factor. He reproaches them with having, so he says,
considered the love in question as merely natural (“_ex natura_”) and
yet as wholesome for eternal life, and he demands that all wholesome
love be made to proceed “_ex Spiritu Sancto_,” a thing which all
theologians, even the Occamists, had insisted on. He says: “they do
not know in the least what love is,”[478] “nor do they know what
virtue is, because they allow themselves to be instructed on this
point by Aristotle, whose definition is absolutely erroneous.”[479]
It makes no impression upon him—perhaps he is even ignorant of the
fact—that the Scholastics consider, on good grounds, the love which
loves God’s goodness as goodness towards us, and which makes personal
salvation its motive, compatible with the perfect love of friendship
(_amicitiæ, complacentiæ_).[480] According to him, this love must be
extirpated (“_amor exstirpandus_”) because it is full of abominable
self-seeking.[481] In its place he sets up a most perfect love (which
will be described below), which includes resignation to, and even a
desire for, hell-fire, a resignation such as Christ Himself manifested
(!) in His abandonment to suffering.
Luther had now left the safe path of theological and ecclesiastical
tradition to pursue his own ideas.
It is true that, notwithstanding his exhortation to be resigned to
the holy will of God in every case, he looks with fear at the flood
of blasphemies which must arise in the heart of one who fears his own
irrevocable, undeserved damnation. Anxious to obviate this, or to arm
the conscience against it, when pointing to the wounds of Christ he
adds these words: “Should anyone, owing to overmastering temptation,
come to blaspheme God, that would not involve his eternal damnation.
For even towards the godless our God is not a God of impatience and
cruelty. Such blasphemies are forced out of a man by the devil,
therefore they may be more pleasing to God’s ear than any Alleluia
or song of praise. The more terrible and abominable a blasphemy is,
the more pleasing it is to God when the heart feels that it does not
acquiesce in it, i.e. when it is involuntary.”[482]
Involuntary thoughts, to which alone he sees fit to refer, are, of
course, not deserving of punishment; but are the murmurs and angry
complaints against predestination to hell of which he speaks always
only involuntary? The way to resignation which he mentions in the
same connection is no less questionable. It consists largely in “not
troubling about such thoughts.”[483] But will all be able to get so
far as this?
He again repeats with great insistence that “everything happens
according to God’s choice”; “he upon whom God does not have mercy,
remains in the ‘_massa_’” [_perditionis_].[484] “For whom it is, it
is,” he adds elsewhere in German, “whom it hits, him it hits.”[485]
God permits at times even the elect to be reduced, as it were, to
nothingness,[486] but only in order that His sole power may be made
manifest and that it may quench all proud boasting; for man is so
ready to believe that he can by the exercise of his free will rise
again, and waxes presumptuous; but here he learns that grace exalts
him before and above every choice of his own (“_ante omne arbitrium et
supra arbitrium suum_”).[487]
We shall not here examine more closely his grave misapprehension of
the teaching of the Apostle in the Epistle to the Romans, on which he
tries to prop up his glaring theory concerning predestination. Suffice
it to say that the principal passage to which he refers (Rom. ix. 11
ff.), according to the exegetist Cornely, is not now taken by any
expositor to refer to predestination, i.e. to the selection by grace
of each individual.[488] The passage treats of the promises made to
the Jewish people (as a whole) which were given without desert and
freely; but Israel, as St. Paul explains, has, by its fault, rendered
itself unworthy of the same and excluded itself (as a whole) from the
salvation which the heathen obtain by faith—a reward of Israel’s
misdeeds, which, in itself, is incompatible with Luther’s doctrine of
an undeserved predestination to hell.[489]
Luther also quotes St. Augustine, but does not interpret him correctly.
He even overlooks the fact that this Father, in one of the passages
alleged, says the very opposite to his new ideas on unconditional
predestination to hell, and attributes in every case the fate of
the damned to their own moral misdeeds. Augustine says, in his own
profound, concise way, in the text quoted by Luther: “the saved may
not pride himself on his merits, and the damned may only bewail his
demerits.”[490] In his meditations on the ever-inscrutable mystery
he regards the sinner’s fault as entirely voluntary, and his revolt
against the eternal God as, on this account, worthy of eternal
damnation. Augustine teaches that “to him as to every man who comes
into this world” salvation was offered with a wealth of means of grace
and with all the merits of Christ’s bitter death on the cross.[491]
Luther also quoted the Bible passages regarding God’s will for
the salvation of all men, but only in order to say of them: “such
expressions are always to be understood exclusively of the elect.” It
is merely “wisdom of the flesh” to attempt to find a will of God that
all men be saved in the assurance of St. Paul: “God wills that all men
shall be saved” (1 Tim. ii. 4), or “in the passages which say, that He
gave His Son for us, that He created man for eternal life, and that
everything was created for man, but man for God that he might enjoy Him
eternally.”[492]
Other objections which Luther makes he sets aside with the same
facility by a reference to the thoughts he has developed above.[493]
Thus the first: Why did God give to man free will by means of which he
can merit either reward or punishment? His answer is: Where is this
free will? Man has no free will for doing what is good. Then a second
objection: “God damns no one without sin, and he who is forced to sin
is damned unjustly.” The answer to this is new: God ordains it so
that those who are to be damned are gladly, even though of necessity,
in sin (“_dat voluntarie velle in peccato esse et manere et diligere
iniquitatem_”). Finally, the last objection: “Why does God give them
commandments which He does not will them to keep, yea hardens their
will so much that they desire to act contrary to the law? Is not God
in this case the cause of their sinning and being damned?” “Yes, that
is the difficulty,” he admits, “which, as a matter of fact, has the
most force; it is the weightiest of all. But to it the Apostle makes
a special answer when he teaches: God so wills it, and God Who thus
wills, is not evil. Everything is His, just as the clay belongs to the
potter and waits on his service.” Enough, he continues, “God commands
that the elect shall be saved, and that those who are destined for
hell shall be entangled in evil in order that He may show forth His
mercy and also His anger.”
It makes one shudder to hear how he cuts short the sighs of the
unhappy soul which sees itself a victim of God’s harshness. It
complains: “It is a hard and bitter lot that God should seek His
honour in my misery!” And Luther replies: “See, there we have the
wisdom of the flesh! _My_ misery; ‘my,’ ‘my,’ that is the voice of the
flesh. Drop the ‘my’ and say: Be Thou honoured, O Lord.... So long as
you do not do that, you are seeking your own will more than the will
of God. We must judge of God in a different manner from that in which
we judge of man. God owes no man anything.”
“With this hard doctrine,” he concludes, “the knife is placed at the
throat of holiness-by-works and fleshly wisdom and therefore the flesh
is naturally incensed, and breaks out into blasphemies; but man must
learn that his salvation does not depend upon his acts, but that it
lies quite outside of him, namely, in God, Who has chosen him.”
He attempts, however, to mingle softer tones with the voices of
despair, which, he admits, these theories have let loose. This he can
only do at the expense of his own teaching, or by fining it down. He
says: whoever is terrified and confused, but then tries to abandon
himself with indifference to the severity of God, he, let this be
his comfort, is not of the number of those predestined to hell. For
only those who are really to be rejected are not afraid[?], “they
pay no heed to the danger and say, if I am to be damned, so be it!”
On the other hand, confusion and fear are signs of the “_spiritus
contribulatus_,” which, according to his promise, God never rejects
(Ps. 1.).
After all, then, we are forced to ask, according to this, is not man
to be saved by his own act, namely, the act of heroic indifference to
his eternity? For this act remains an act of man: “Whoever is filled
with the fear of God, and, taking courage, throws and precipitates
himself into the truth of the promises of God, he will be saved, and
be one of the elect.”[494]
3. The Fight against “Holiness-by-Works” and the Observantines in the
Commentary on Romans
His ideas on predestination were not the direct cause of Luther’s
belittling of human effort and the value of good works; the latter
tendency was present in him previous to his adoption of rigid
predestinarianism; nor does he ever attribute to election by grace
any diminution of man’s powers or duties, whether in the case of the
chosen or of the reprobate. The same commandments are given to those
whom God’s terrible decree has destined for hell as to the elect; they
possess the same human abilities, the same weaknesses. It was not
predestination which led him in the first instance to attribute such
strength to concupiscence in man, and to invest it, as he ultimately
did, with an actually sinful and culpable character.
His ideas concerning the absolute corruption of the children of Adam,
even to the extinction of any liberty in the doing of what is good, had
another origin, and, in their development, were influenced far more by
false mysticism than by the predestinarian delusion.
He approached the lectures on the Epistle to the Romans in the
conviction that, in this Epistle, he would find the sanction of his
earlier efforts against the self-righteous and “holy-by-works,”
against whom his peculiar mysticism had still further prejudiced
him. From the very outset he interprets the great Apostolic document
on the calling of the heathen and the Jews to salvation as directed
exclusively against those who, according to him, were imperilling the
Church; against those who (whether in his own Order or in Christendom
generally) laid stress on the importance of works, on the duty of
fulfilling observances and the merit of exercises of virtue for gaining
heaven, and who were unmindful of the righteousness which Christ gives
us. This is not the place to point out how Paul is speaking in quite
another sense, against those Jewish Christians who still adhered to the
works of the Mosaic Law, of the merely relative value of works, of the
liberty which Christianity imparts and of the saving power of faith.
Luther, however, in the very first lines, tells the “holy-by-works”
that the whole purpose of the Epistle to the Romans is a driving
back and rooting out of the wisdom and righteousness of the flesh.
Among the heathen and the Jews were to be found those who, though
“devoted in their hearts to virtue,” yet had not suppressed all
self-satisfaction in the same, and looked upon themselves as
“righteous and good men”; in the Church, according to Paul, all
self-righteousness and wisdom must be torn out of the affections, and
self-complacency. God willed to save us not by our own righteousness
but by an extraneous righteousness (“_non per domesticam sed per
extraneam iustitiam vult salvare_”), viz. by the imputed righteousness
of Christ, and, owing to the exterior righteousness which Christ
gives (“_externa quæ ex Christo in nobis est iustitia_”), there can
be no boasting, nor must there be “any depression on account of the
sufferings and trials which come to us from Christ.”[495]
“Christ’s righteousness and His gifts,” he says, “shine in the true
Christian.... If any man possesses natural and spiritual advantages,
yet this is not considered by God as being his wisdom, righteousness
and goodness (‘_non ideo coram Deo talis reputatur_’), rather, he must
wait in humility, as though he possessed nothing, for the pure mercy
of God, to see whether He will look upon him as righteous and wise.
God only does this if he humbles himself deeply. We must learn to
regard spiritual possessions and works of righteousness as worthless
for obtaining the righteousness of Christ, we must renounce the idea
that these have any value in God’s sight and merit a reward, otherwise
we shall not be saved” (“_opera iusta velint nihil reputare_,”
etc.).[496]
Any pretext, or even none at all, serves to bring him back again
and again in the work to the “Pelagian-minded _iustitiarii_.” It is
possible that amongst these the “Observantines” ranked first. Our
thoughts revert to those of his brother monks, whose cause he had at
first defended in the internal struggle within the Congregation, only
to turn on them unmercifully afterwards. On one occasion he mentions
by name the “Observants,” reproaching them with trying to outshine
one another in their zeal for God, while at the same time they had
no love of their neighbour, whereas, according to the passage he is
just expounding, “the fulness of the law is love.”[497] He would also
appear to be referring to them, when, on another occasion, he rails at
such monks, who by their behaviour bring their whole profession into
disgrace.
“They exalt themselves against other members of their profession,”
he cries, “as though they were clean and had no evil odour about
them,”[498] and continues in the style of his monastic discourse on the
“Little Saints” mentioned above (p. 69 f.). “And yet before, behind and
within they are a pig-market and sty of sows ... they wish to withdraw
from the rest, whereas they ought, were they really virtuous, to help
them to conceal their faults. But in place of patient succour there is
nothing in them but peevishness and a desire to be far away (‘_quærunt
fugam ... tediosi sunt et nolunt esse in communione aliorum_’). They
will not serve those who are good for nothing nor be their companions;
they only desire to be the superiors and companions of the worthy,
the perfect and the sound. Therefore they run from one place to
another.”[499]
The struggle of which this is a picture continued among the German
Augustinians. In the spring, 1520, a similar conflict broke out in
the Cologne Province, one side having the sympathy of the Roman
Conventuals.[500] We can well understand how the General of the Order
in Rome was not disposed to grant the exemptions claimed by the
Observantines of the Saxon Congregation against his own Provincials.
Luther brandishes his sharp blade against the “spiritually minded, the
proud, the stiff-necked, who seek peace in works and in the flesh, the
_iustitiarii_,”[501] without making any sharp distinction between the
actual Observantines and the “self-righteous.”
With regard to himself, he admits that he is so antagonistic to the
“_iustitiarii_,” that he is opposed to all scrupulous observance of
“_iustitia_,” to all regulations and strict ordinances:
“The very word righteousness vexes me: if anyone were to steal
from me, it would hurt me less than being obliged to listen to the
word righteousness. It is a word which the jurists always have on
their lips, but there is no more unlearned race than these men of
the law, save, perhaps, the men of good intention and superior
reason (‘_bonæ-intentionarii seu sublimatæ rationis_’); for I have
experienced both in myself and in others, that when we were righteous,
God mocked at us.”[502]
4. Attack on Predisposition to Good and on Free Will
The assertion of the complete corruption of human nature owing to
the continuance of original sin and the inextinguishable tinder of
concupiscence, arose from the above-mentioned position which Luther had
taken up with regard to self-righteousness.
Man remains, according to what Luther says in the Commentary on Romans,
in spite of all his veneer of good works, so alienated from God that he
“does not love but hates the law which forces him to what is good and
forbids what is evil; his will, far from seeking the law, detests it.
Nature persists in its evil desires contrary to the law; it is always
full of evil concupiscence when it is not assisted from above.” This
concupiscence, however, is sin. Everything that is good is due only to
grace, and grace must bring us to acknowledge this and to “seek Christ
humbly and so be saved.”[503]
The descriptions of human doings which the author gives us in eloquent
language are not wanting in fidelity and truth to nature, though we
cannot approve his inferences. He has a keen eye on others and is
unmerciful in his delineation of the faults which he perceived in the
pious people around him.
He spies out many who only act from a desire for the praise of men,
and who wish to appear, but not really to be, good. How ready are
such, he says, to depreciate themselves with apparent humility. Others
only do what is right because it gives them pleasure, i.e. from
inclination and without any higher motive. Others do it from vain
self-complacency; yea, selfishness is present in almost all, and mars
their works. Outward routine and a business-like righteousness spoils
a great deal. It is to be deplored that, like the Pharisees, they
only keep what is commanded in view and long for the rewards of a busy
and petty virtue.[504]
In such descriptions he is easily carried too far and is sometimes
even obviously unjust. Thus, for instance, of evil practices he makes
conscious theories, in order the more readily to gain the upper hand
of his adversaries. “They teach,” he cries, “that it is only necessary
to keep the law by works and not with the heart ... their efforts are
not accompanied with the least inward effort, everything is wholly
external.”[505]
In respect of the doctrine of original sin and its consequences in man,
he not only magnifies enormously the strength of the concupiscence
which remains after baptism, without sufficiently taking into account
the spiritual means by which it can be repressed, but gives the most
open expression to his belief that concupiscence is actually sin;
it is the persistence of original sin, rendering every man actually
culpable, even without any consent of the will. The “_Non concupisces_”
of the Ten Commandments—which the Apostle emphasises in his Epistle
to the Romans, though in another sense—Luther makes out to be such a
prohibition that, by the mere existence of concupiscence, it is daily
and hourly sinfully transgressed. He pays no attention to the theology
of the Church, which had hitherto seen in the “_Non concupisces_”
a prohibition of any voluntary consent to a concupiscence existing
without actual sin.
His attack on free will is very closely bound up with his ideas on
concupiscence.
“Concupiscence with weakness is against the law ‘Thou shalt not
covet,’ and it is deadly [a mortal sin], but the gracious God does not
impute it on account of the work of salvation which has been commenced
in [pardoned] man.” “Even a venial sin,” he teaches in the same
passage, “is, according to its nature [owing to human nature which is
entirely alienated from God], a mortal sin, but the Creator does not
impute (‘_imputat_’) it as mortal sin to the man whom he chooses to
perfect and render whole.”[506]
He makes various attempts to deduce from concupiscence the absolute
want in the will of freedom to do what is good. There is not the
slightest doubt that he does deny this freedom, though, on the other
hand, he grants so much to liberty in his admonitions concerning
predestination (see below, p. 219) that he practically retracts his
denial. The position he takes up with regard to grace ought to be a
test of what he actually held: did he look upon grace as in every case
irresistible? But on this very point he is as yet indisposed to commit
himself as he will not hesitate to do later, to a positive, erroneous
“yes.” In short, though he stands for a denial of liberty, he has not
yet seen his way to solve all the difficulties.
If we seek some specimens illustrating the course of his ideas
regarding lack of liberty, we find, perhaps, the strongest utterance
in his comments on Romans viii. 28: “Free will apart from grace
possesses absolutely no power for righteousness, it is necessarily
in sin. Therefore St. Augustine in his book against Julian terms
it ‘rather an enslaved than a free will.’ But after the obtaining
of grace it becomes really free, at least as far as salvation is
concerned. The will is, it is true, free by nature, but only for what
comes within its province, not for what is above it, being bound in
the chain of sin and therefore unable to choose what is good in God’s
sight.”[507] Here Luther makes no distinction between natural and
supernatural good, but excludes both from our choice; in fact there is
no such thing as natural goodness, for what nature performs alone is
only sin.
“Where is our righteousness,” he exclaims rhetorically some pages
before this, “where are our works, where is the liberty of choice,
where the presupposed ‘_contingens_’ (see above, p. 193)? This is what
must be preached, this is the way to bring the wisdom of the flesh
to the dust! The Apostle does so here. In former passages he cut off
its hands, its feet, its tongue; here he seizes it [the wisdom of
the flesh which speaks in defence of free will] and makes an end of
it. Here, like a flash of light, it is seen to possess nothing in
itself, all its possession being in God.”[508] This, then, is Luther’s
conclusion: the elect are not saved by the co-operation of their
free will, but by the Divine decree; not by their merits, but by the
unalterable edict from above by means of which they conquer all the
difficulties in the way of salvation. He is silent here as to whether
the elect may not succumb to sin temporarily, either by the misuse of
liberty, or from lack of compelling grace.
Towards the end of the Commentary he asserts quite definitely that we
are unable to formulate even a good intention with our human powers
which could in any way [even in the natural order] be pleasing to God.
He here examines certain opponents, who rightly denied this
inability, “otherwise man would be forced to sin.” Further on he
attributes to all theologians the teaching of the Occamists (see
above, p. 75): “therewith we receive without fail the infusion of
God’s grace”; a proposition which certainly sounds Pelagian. He
passes over one point which true scholastic theologians did not omit,
viz. that God’s supernatural assistance “prevents” our natural will,
raises the same into the order of grace, and thus enables us to merit
salvation. Further, again disregarding the scholastic teaching, he
foists upon all theologians the idea that, having once formed our
intention, “we need have no further anxiety, or trouble ourselves to
invoke God’s grace.”[509] Such is, according to him, the position of
his opponents.
In his answer he does not assert, as regards the first proposition,
that God forces us to evil; “the wicked,” he says, “do what they wish,
perhaps even with good intentions, but God allows them to sin even
in their good works.” Of this, according to him, his opponents must
be aware and therefore ought not to act with so much assurance and
certainty as though they were really performing good works. Everyone
should rather say: “Who knows whether God’s grace is working this
in me?” Then only does man acknowledge “that he can do nothing of
himself”; only thus can we escape Pelagianism, which is the curse
of the self-righteous. “But because they are persuaded that it is
always within their power to do what they can, and therefore also to
possess grace [here he is utilising some of the real weaknesses of
Occamism], therefore they do nothing but sin all the time in their
assurance.”[510]
Luther does not here ask himself what else man is to perform in order
to possess the grace of God, beyond doing what he can, humbling
himself and praying for grace, as all preceding ages had taught. He
is still looking for an assurance of salvation by some other method.
Only at a later date does he learn, or thinks he learns, how it is
to be obtained (by faith alone). Here he merely says: “It is the
greatest plague to speak of the signs of possessing grace and thereby
to lull man into security.” He has not yet found the assurance of the
“Gracious God,” as he is to express it later.
Meanwhile he proceeds, ostensibly following St. Paul, to denounce the
principle “he who does what he can,” etc., like wise freewill and the
possibility of fulfilling the law.
Paul teaches, for instance, in Romans viii. 3 f.: What the Mosaic
law could not do on account of the rebellion of the flesh in man,
namely, conquer sin, that God did by the incarnation of His Son, who
overcame sin and helps us to fulfil the law; in those who are not
born again, sin lives as the “law of sin,” because they are “weak”
_ἠσθένει_ against the attacks of concupiscence; on the other hand,
the saving grace of the gospel frees us from the “law of sin and
death.” To the proposition with which Paul introduces this doctrine,
viz. that it had not been possible for the law (i.e. the Mosaic Law)
to conquer sin, Luther simply adds: “where now is the freedom of the
will?[511] ... the holy Apostle Paul says here expressly that the
law was unable to condemn [overcome] sin, or even the weakness which
proceeds from the flesh. This is nothing else but the doctrine which I
have so frequently been insisting upon, that a fulfilling of the law
through our own efforts is impossible; it cannot even be said that
we have the power to will and to be able, in such a way as God would
have us, viz. by grace [thus it is possible to us to perform what
is naturally good]; for otherwise grace would not be necessary, but
only useful, and otherwise the sin of Adam would not have corrupted
our nature, but have left it unimpaired.... It is true that the law
of nature is written in the hearts of all; reason also has a natural
desire for what is good, but this is selfish, being directed to our
own good, not to that which pleases God; only faith working by love is
directed towards God. All that nature desires and acquires, goodness,
wisdom, virtue and whatever else there is, are evil goods (‘_male bona
sunt_’), because nature, by original sin, is blinded in its knowledge
and chained in its affections, and therefore cannot know God, nor love
Him above all things nor yet refer all to Him. Therefore it follows
that, without faith and love, man is unable to desire, have, or do
anything that is good, but only evil, even when he does what is good.”
“Without love, i.e. without the assistance of an external and higher
power, he sins continually against the law ‘Thou shalt not covet,’
for this commandment requires that we should not appropriate or seek
anything for ourselves, but live, act and think for God in all things.
This commandment is simply beyond us.”[512]
His object in thus disparaging liberty is not for the present grounded
on the Almighty Power of God, as though this stood in its way, or, as
was the case later, on predestination, as though its irrefutable decree
were incompatible with liberty, but merely on his exaggeration of the
results of original sin with regard to doing what is good (i.e. on
concupiscence); he simply moves along the old lines of his distaste for
good works and for so-called self-righteousness.[513]
His misinterpretation of the Scholastics, due partly to ignorance,
partly to the strength of his prejudice against them, here did him very
notable service. He says on one occasion: “In their arbitrary fashion
they make out that, on the infusion of grace, the whole of original
sin is remitted in everyone just like all actual sin, as though sin
could thus be removed at once, in the same way as darkness is dispelled
by light.... It is true their Aristotle made sin and righteousness
to consist in works. Either I never understood them, or they did not
express themselves well.”[514] Here there can be no doubt that the
former hypothesis is the correct one. That he did not understand his
teachers and the school books is apparent from the following remark:
If sin were completely removed in confession (“_omnia ablata et
evacuata_”), then he who comes from confession ought to prefer himself
to all others, and not look upon himself as a sinner like the rest.
Even the Occamists never provided the slightest ground for such an
inference, though they admitted in the justified the entire remission
of all sin, original as well as actual. Luther had said in the very
passage of the Commentary on Romans just quoted: “the remission of
sin is, it is true, a real remission, yet not a removal of sin; the
removal is only to be hoped for (“_quod non sit ablatio peccati, nisi
in spe_”) from the giving of grace; grace commences the process of the
removal in this way, that the sin is no longer imputed as sin.”[515]
But, without recalling his own admission that he may possibly have
misunderstood the Scholastics, he goes on to speak of the “deliria” of
such Doctors.
5. Luther rudely sets aside the older doctrine of Virtue and Sin
In his Commentary on Romans Luther enters upon the domain of
theological and philosophical discussion regarding the questions of
natural and supernatural morality, the state of grace and the infused
habit, sometimes with subtilty, sometimes with coarse invective, but
owing to the limits of the present work we are unable to follow him
except quite cursorily.
The manner in which he flings his “curses” at the doctrines of
Scholasticism is distinctive of him; he says they are entirely
compounded of pride and ignorance with regard to sin, to God and the
law;[516] “cursed be the word ‘_formatum charitate_,’ and also the
distinction between works according to the substance of the deed and
the intention of the Lawgiver.”[517] There is perhaps no previous
instance of a learned, exegetical treatise intended for academic
consumption being thus spiced with curses.
Certain of Luther’s remarks on his practical experience call for
consideration. Such is the following: “Everywhere in the Church great
relapses after confession are now noticeable. People are confident
that they are justified instead of first awaiting justification, and
therefore the devil has an easy task with such false assurance of
safety, and overthrows men. All this is due to making righteousness
consist in works. But whoever thinks like a Christian can find this
out for himself.”[518]
He gives the following exhortation with great emphasis and almost
as though he had made an astounding discovery: “Whoever goes to
confession, let him not believe that he gets rid of his burden and can
then live in peace.”[519] His new doctrine of sin, which he discloses
in the same passage, lies at the bottom of this; the baptised and
the absolved must on no account forthwith consider themselves free
from sin, on the contrary “they must not fancy themselves sure of
the righteousness they have obtained and allow their hands to drop
listlessly as though they were not conscious of any sin, for they have
yet to fight against it and exterminate it with sighs and tears, with
sadness and effort.”[520]
“Sin, therefore, still remains in the spiritual man for his exercise
in the life of grace, for the humbling of his pride, for the driving
back of his presumption; whoever does not exert himself zealously in
the struggle against it, is in danger of being condemned even though
he cease to sin any more (‘_sine dubio habet, unde damnetur_’).
We must carry on a war with our desires, for they are culpable
(‘_culpa_’), they are really sins and render us worthy of damnation;
only the mercy of God does not impute them to us (‘_imputare_’) when
we fight manfully against them, calling upon God’s grace.”[521]
There are few passages in the Commentary where his false conception of
the entire corruption of human nature by original sin and concupiscence
comes out so plainly as in the words just quoted. We see here too how
this conception leads him to the denial of all liberty for doing what
is good, and to the idea of imputation.
We can well understand that he needed St. Augustine to assist him to
cover all this. And yet, as though to emphasise his own devious course,
he quotes, among other passages, one in which Augustine confutes the
view of any sin being present in man simply by reason of concupiscence.
“If we do not consent to concupiscence,” Augustine says, “it is no sin
in those who are regenerate, so that, even if the ‘_Non concupisces_’
is infringed, yet the injunction of Jesus Sirach (xviii. 30) ‘Go not
after thy lusts’ is observed. It is merely a manner of speaking to
call concupiscence sin (“_modo quodam loquendi_”), because it sprang
from sin, and, when it is victorious, causes sin.”[522] To this
statement of the Father of the Church, which is so antagonistic to his
own ideas, Luther can only add: that, certainly, concupiscence is in
this way merely the cause and effect of sin, but not formally sinful
(“_causaliter et effectualiter, non formaliter_”); Augustine himself
had taught in another passage,[523] that owing to the mere existence
of concupiscence, we are able to do what is good only in an imperfect
way, not well and perfectly (“_facere, non perficere_”; cp. Rom vii.
18); that we ought, however, to strive to act well and perfectly “if
we wish to attain to the perfection of righteousness” (“_perficere
bonum, est non concupiscere_”).[524]
St. Augustine’s words, which are much to the point if taken in
the right sense, only encouraged Luther in his opposition to the
Scholastics; he points out to them that Augustine’s manner is not
theirs, and that at least he supports his statements by Holy Scripture
when speaking of the desires which persist without the consent of the
will; they on the other hand come along without Bible proofs and thus
with less authority; those old Doctors quieted consciences with the
voice of the Apostle, but these new ones do not do so at all, rather
they force the Divine teaching into the bed of their own abstractions;
for instance, they derive from Aristotle their theory as to how
virtues and vices dwell in the soul, viz. as the form exists in the
subject; all comprehension of the difference between flesh and spirit
is thus made impossible.
The question which here forces itself upon Luther, viz. how virtue and
vice exist in the soul, is of fundamental importance for his view of
ethics, and, as it frequently occurs in the Commentary, it must not be
passed over.
When he says that virtues and vices do not adhere to the soul, he means
the same as what he elsewhere expresses more clearly, viz. that “it
depends merely on the gracious will of God whether a thing is good or
bad.”[525]
“Nothing is good of its own nature, nothing is bad of its own nature;
the will of God makes it good or bad.”[526]
This is the merest Nominalism, akin to Occam’s paradox that “hatred
of God, theft and adultery might be not merely not wicked, but even
meritorious were the will of God to command them.”
From such ideas of Occam Luther advanced to the following: “The will
of God decides whether I am pleasing to Him or not.”[527]
This explains the proposition which frequently appears, in the
Commentary on Romans and elsewhere, that man is at the same time
righteous and a sinner, that the righteous man has the left foot still
in sin and the right in grace.[528]
In the Commentary he attacks self-complacency in the performance
of good works with the cry: “Good works are not something that can
please because they are good or meritorious, but because they have
been chosen by God from eternity as pleasing to Himself,” words
which presuppose that only the imputation matters. “Therefore,”
he continues, “works do not render us good, but our goodness, or
rather the goodness of God, makes us good and our works good; for in
themselves they would not be good, and they are or are not good in so
far as God accounts them, or does not account them good (‘_quantum
ille reputat vel non reputat_’). Our own accounting or not accounting
does not matter in the least. Whoever keeps this before him is always
filled with fear, and waits with apprehension to see how God’s
sentence will fall out. This puts an end to all that puffing up of
self and quarrelling, so beloved of the proud ‘_iustitiarii_,’ who are
so sure of their good works.”
“Even the very definition of virtue which Aristotle gives,” he
concludes, “is all wrong, as though, forsooth, virtue made us perfect
and its work rendered us worthy of praise. The truth is simply that it
makes us praiseworthy in our own eyes and commends our works to us;
but this is abominable in God’s sight, while the contrary is pleasing
to Him.”[529]
As a matter of fact, Scholasticism, basing its teaching on Aristotle,
considered virtue and vice as something real and objective, as
qualities of the soul which adhere to it inwardly and “inform” it,
i.e. impart to it a spiritual form and become part of it in the same
way as material things have their special qualities, for instance,
their natural colour without which they do not exist. These, as a
matter of fact, were merely learned ways of expressing the fundamental
truth naturally perceived by all, viz. that evil deeds and vices
render a man evil, and good deeds and virtues render him good; no sane
mind could conceive of a theory of imputation by which good is made
evil or evil good.
Luther was naturally obliged by his new theology of imputation to
declare war on the older theological view of the existence of virtue
and vice in the soul.[530] It was in so doing that, in his excitement,
he uttered the curses above referred to (p. 209). It was no mere
question of words, but of the very foundation of his new theology, a
fact which makes his excitement comprehensible.
As a matter of fact, by his application of the theory of imputation he
was heading for a “transformation of all values” and drifting towards
the admission of a “future life of good and evil” long before modern
philosophy had confidently opened up a similar perspective.
6. Preparation for Justification
Notwithstanding the fact that, according to the above exposition in
the Commentary on Romans, man has absolutely no freedom of choice for
doing what is good and that we cannot know with regard to our works
how God will account them, Luther frequently speaks in the same book
of the preparation necessary for obtaining justification, namely, by
works. Here his feeling and his eloquence come into full play at the
expense of clear theology. He does not even take into account the
irresistibility of grace, which is the point he is bound to arrive
at finally. Christ alone does the work, he says (“_soli Christo
iustitia relinquitur, soli ipsi opera gratiæ et spiritus_”).[531]
On the other hand, the bringing about of justification, at least
so far as preparation goes, is imposed upon man. There are “works
which predispose to justification,” he teaches (“_opera quæ fiunt
præparatorie ad iustificationem acquirendam_”). “Whoever by his works
disposes himself for the grace of justification is already, to a
certain extent, righteous; for righteousness largely consists in the
will to be righteous.”[532]
“Such works,” he continues, “are good, because we do not trust in
them, but by them prepare ourselves for justification by which
alone we may hope for righteousness.”[533] “Therefore we must
pray earnestly, be zealous in good works and mortify ourselves
(‘_castigandum_’) until readiness and joyousness develop in the will
and its old inclination to sin is overcome by grace.”
“For the grace [of justification] will not be given to man without
this personal agriculture of himself” (“_non dabitur gratia sine ista
agricultura sui ipsius_”).[534]
We must continue to “look upon such works as merely preparatory,
just as all works of righteousness performed in grace, prepare in
their turn for an increase of justification, according to Apoc. xxii.
11.”[535] “Only so can we be saved, namely, by repenting that we are
laden with sin and are living in sin, and by imploring of God our
deliverance.[536] He also, in other passages, emphasises the fact that
works are necessary for justification as its preparation: “We must do
works in order to obtain justification (‘_opera pro iustificatione
quærenda_’), works of grace and faith; they confirm the desire for
justification and the fulfilment of the law, but we may not think that
we are justified by them.” “Rather, true believers spend their whole
life in seeking justification ... whoever seeks it with the heart and
by works, is without doubt already justified in God’s sight.”[537]
Towards the end of the Commentary he describes in emphatic words,
which will be quoted below, the humility and sighing which should
bring about justification.
We need not here specify how far the demand for individual effort is
here a reminiscence of his Catholic training, or more particularly
due to the school of Occam. It is an undoubted fact that Occamism and
pseudo-mysticism are here rubbing shoulders, and that Luther himself
is aware of the incongruity.[538]
7. Appropriation of the righteousness of Christ by humility—Neither
“Faith only” nor assurance of Salvation
Luther’s words, quoted above, where he says that Christ fulfilled the
law for us, He made His righteousness ours and our sins His (see above,
p. 95 f.), show that he applied in the fullest manner the theory of
imputation to justification. Man remains a sinner, but the sin is not
imputed to him, he is accounted righteous by the imputing to him of
what is quite alien to him, viz. the righteousness of Christ. Thus he
is at one and the same time the friend and the enemy of God.[539]
The verb “to justify” as used in Holy Scripture the author of the
Commentary on Romans simply takes to mean “to account as righteous,”
or “to declare righteous.” Thus he says: “The doers of the law
(according to Rom. ii. 13) are justified, i.e. they are accounted
righteous. In Psalm cxlii. we read: ‘In Thy sight no man living shall
be justified,’ i.e. be accounted righteous.... The Pharisee in the
Temple wished to ‘justify himself’ (Luke x. 29), i.e. to declare his
justification.”[540]
“Whoever seeks peace in his righteousness, seeks it in the flesh.”
“Christ only is righteousness and truth, and in Him all is given us
in order that by Him we may be righteous and true and escape eternal
damnation.”[541] “This justification takes place (according to Paul)
outside of works of the law, i.e. without works which are outside of
faith and grace, that is, which come from the law, which forces by
fear and attracts by temporal promises. The Apostle calls those only
works of faith which proceed from the spirit of freedom through the
love of God, and these can only be done by the man who is justified by
faith. The works of the law however do not help towards justification,
but are rather a hindrance because they prevent a man from looking
upon himself as unrighteous and in need of justification.”[542]
“Christ, according to the Apostle, has become our righteousness (1
Cor. i. 30), i.e. all the good that we possess is exterior, it is
Christ’s. It is only in us by faith and hope in Him.” “Our fulness and
our righteousness is outside of us, within we are empty and poor....
The pious know that sin alone dwells in them, but that this is covered
over and not imputed on account of Christ.... The beauty of Christ
conceals our hideousness.”[543]
“There is in this system,” says Denifle, in his description of it,
“no question of the expulsion of sin. The sinner ... casts himself
in his sinful condition on Christ without any means of his own, he
hides himself under the wings of the hen and comforts himself with the
idea: Christ has done everything in place of me, all my works would
be merely sin ... Luther did not perceive what a grievous wrong he
was doing to God by this theory. It entirely suppresses the inward
grace of God which raises a man up again, penetrates to the depths of
his soul and purifies and fills it with supernatural strength. The
organic process of justification thus shrinks into a purely mechanical
shifting of the scenery.” To this Denifle opposes the statement of
Holy Scripture: “That man by a living faith is implanted in Christ
as the sapling is grafted on to the olive tree, or the branch on the
vine, so that there must be an interior change, an ennobling, and thus
a new life.”[544]
Luther says, “we are outwardly righteous because we are justified,
not by our works, but only by the reputation of God; but His
reputation is not inwardly within us, and is not within our power.”
“_Solum Deo reputante sumus iusti, ergo non nobis viventibus vel
operantibus; quare intrinsece et ex nobis impii semper._”[545]
The connection between “reputation” as above and Occam’s theory of
acceptation is unmistakable.
The nominalistic views of God and of His arbitrary acceptation were the
form in which Luther’s ideas were moulded. The general structure of his
thoughts was derived from what he had retained of the Nominalism of
Occam.[546] On the principal point, however, Luther diverges from the
theology of the school of Occam by not admitting in any way the saving
grace which the latter teaches. There is with him no such thing as an
infused virtue of righteousness.[547] Luther in his doctrine on virtue
and vice had already suppressed them as “qualities,” i.e. as objective
realities; still more so does he deny that the grace which makes us
righteous is in any sense a real “_qualitas_,” or “_habitus_”; in fact,
he leaves no actual justifying grace whatever actually inherent in
man, but merely sees in God a gracious willingness not to regard us as
sinners, and to lend us His all-powerful assistance for the struggle
against sin (concupiscence and actual sin).
Thus the outlines of the strongest assertions which he makes later as
to the imputing of the righteousness of Christ are already apparent
in his interpretation of the Epistle to the Romans. Christ alone has
assumed the place of what the Catholic calls saving grace. He already
teaches what he was to sum up later in the short formula: “Christ
Himself is my quality and my formal righteousness,” or, again, what he
was to say to Melanchthon in 1536: “Born of God and at the same time
a sinner; this is a contradiction; but in the things of God we must
not hearken to reason.”[548] His Commentary on Romans prepares us for
his later assertions: “The gospel is a teaching having no connection
whatever with reason, whereas the teaching of the law can be understood
by reason ... reason cannot grasp an extraneous righteousness and,
even in the saints, this belief is not sufficiently strong.”[549] “The
enduring sin is admitted by God as non-existent; one and the same act
may be accepted before God and not accepted, be good and not good.”
“Whoever terms this mere cavilling (‘_cavillatio_’) is desirous of
measuring the Divine by purblind human reason and understands nothing
of Holy Scripture.”[550]
* * * * *
How then are we to obtain from God the imputation of the righteousness
of Christ? There is surely some condition to be supplied by man
which may allow it to be conferred, for it cannot rule blindly and
unconsciously. Or are we never certain of this imputation? Luther’s
answer is very pessimistic: Man never knows that it has been bestowed
upon him. He can only hope, by sinking himself in his own nothingness
(“_humilitas_”), to placate God and obtain this imputation.
Thus the author of the Commentary on Romans is still very far from that
absolute assurance of salvation by faith which he was subsequently to
advocate.[551]
He insists so much on the uncertainty of salvation that he blames
Catholic theologians severely for the assurance and confidence
which their teaching induces in man, and refuses to admit any of the
customary signs which moralists and ascetics look upon as conclusive
testimony of a soul being in a state of grace.
The advantage he perceives in his new ideas is precisely that they
keep man ever in a state of fear (“_semper pavidus_”).[552] That, as
Luther expressly says, “we can never know whether we are justified
and whether we believe, is owing to the fact that it is hidden from
us whether we live in every word of God.”[553] When dealing with a
passage, which he makes use of later in quite a different sense (Rom.
iii. 22, “the justice of God by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and
upon all”), he says: “We must fear and tremble (‘_timent et pavent_’)
lest we please not God; we must be in fear and despair (‘_pavor et
desperatio_’), for such is God’s own work in us; if this fear does not
take the place of the customary signs, then there is no hope possible;
and, in so far, fear alone is a good sign.”[554] “Our life is in
death [here speaks the mystic], our salvation in destruction, our
kingdom in banishment, our heaven in hell.”[555] “Away with all trust
in righteousness.” Arise and “destroy all presumption in wholesome
despair.”
On this road of painful despair Luther fancies he discovers the only
really “good sign” of salvation, so far as any sign at all can be said
to exist: “On account of the confession of their sins God accounts the
saints as righteous.”[556]
“Whoever renounces everything, even himself, is ready to become
nothing (_volens it in nihilum_), to go to death and to damnation,
whoever voluntarily confesses and is persuaded that he deserves
nothing good, such a one has done enough in God’s sight and is
righteous. We must, believing in the word of the cross, die to
ourselves and to everything; then we shall live for God alone.” “The
saints have their sins ever before them, they beg for righteousness
through the mercy of God and, for that very reason, they are always
accounted righteous by God; in truth they are sinners, though
righteous by imputation; unconsciously righteous and consciously
unrighteous, sinners in deed but righteous in hope.” “God’s anger is
great and wonderful; He accounts them at the same time righteous and
unrighteous, removing sin and not removing it.”[557] Here he exclaims
pathetically: “God is wonderful in His saints (Ps. lxvii. 36), who are
at the same time righteous and unrighteous.” Of the “self-righteous”
he immediately adds ironically: Wonderful is God in the hypocrites,
“who are at the same time unrighteous and righteous!” Without any
suspicion of paradox, he concludes: “It is certain that God’s elect
will be saved, but no one is certain that he is chosen.”
Luther repeatedly represents the feeling of despair (under the name
of “_humilitas_”) as not merely a means of recognising the imputation
of God and therewith one’s salvation, but even as in itself the only
means which can lead to salvation. He praises “humility” in mystical
language as something man must struggle to attain and as the ideal
of the devout. It occupies almost the same place in his mind as the
“_sola fides_” at a later date.
That “humility” is to him the actual factor which obtains the
imputation of the merits of Christ and thus makes the soul righteous
and wins for it eternal salvation, is apparent not only from the
above, but also from the following utterances: “When we are convinced
that we are unrighteous and without the fear of God, when, thus
humbled, we acknowledge ourselves to be godless and foolish, then we
deserve to be justified by Him.”[558] The fear of God works humility,
but humility makes us fit for all [salvation]; we must merely resign
ourselves to the admission that “there is nothing so righteous that it
is not unrighteous, nothing so true that it is not a lie, nothing so
pure that it is not filthy and profane before God.”[559] “Let us be
sinners in humility and only desire to be justified by the mercy of
God.” He alone who acknowledges his entire unrighteousness, who fears
and beseeches, he alone, “as an abiding sinner,” opens for himself the
door to salvation.[560]
We must believe everything that is of Christ, he says, and only he
does this who humbly bewails his own utter unrighteousness.[561] The
mystic star of “humility” which has arisen to him he even describes
as the “_vera fides_,” and makes the following inference: “As this is
so, we must humble ourselves beyond bounds.” “When we have humbled
ourselves wholly before God, then we have fulfilled righteousness,
wholly and entirely (‘_totam perfectamque iustitiam_’); for what else
does all Scripture teach but humility?”[562]
Luther ascribes to “humility” all that he later ascribes to faith;
“all Scripture,” which now teaches humility, will later teach
that faith is the only power which saves. In that very Epistle to
the Romans, which at a later date was to be the bulwark of his
“_sola fides_,” he can as yet, in 1515 and 1516, find only “_sola
humilitas_.” His frequent exhortations to self-annihilation and
despair of one’s own efforts, exhortations taking the form of
fulsome praise of one particular kind of humility, must be traced
back to mystical influence and to his irritation against the “proud
self-righteous.”
It is true that Luther had, from the very beginning of his exposition,
as the editor of the Commentary justly points out, “taken his stand
against the scholastic [rather the Church’s] doctrine of salvation; it
is apparent at the very outset of the lectures that the separation has
already taken place.” It could not be otherwise, as at the commencement
of the Commentary he already denies the power of man to do what is
good. Ficker also says with truth: “Luther again and again comes back
to his oldest and deepest torment, viz. the struggle against free will
and man’s individual powers”;[563] his study of St. Paul confirms his
views, which now take clearer shape, until finally “he incontinently
identifies his opponents with the Pelagians.”[564]
With regard to Luther’s tenets on faith in the matter of salvation
he has so far not departed in any essential from the accepted olden
doctrine that faith is the commencement, root and foundation of
salvation.
The editor of the Commentary also admits, though with limitations,
the very remarkable fact that faith does not yet occupy in the
Commentary on Romans the position which Luther assigns to it later:
“the ‘_fides_,’ which Luther explains with the help of a number of
terms borrowed from his lectures on the Psalms, in the exposition
of the Pauline Epistle does not as yet appear in its entire fulness
and depth, as the expression of the relation of man to the eternal,
at least not to the same extent as it does later; frequently we have
a mere reproduction of the Pauline phraseology; there is no lack of
reminiscences of Augustine, and the results of an Occamist training
are also apparent.”[565]
We certainly cannot say that at the very beginning of the
Commentary,[566] faith or even “_sola fides_” is conceded the high
place which it is afterwards to occupy in his system; the expression
“_sola fides_” occurs there by pure accident and does not bear its
later meaning; it is only intended to elucidate a sentence which in
itself is correct: “_iustitia Dei est causa salutis_.” By this is
meant that “_fides evangelii_” to which, as Luther says, Augustine
ascribes justification, but which the latter, according to Luther’s
own admission, did not intend to take in the sense of the later
Lutheran “_sola fides_.” Above all, as already pointed out, faith, in
the Commentary on Romans, lacks its chief characteristic and does not
of itself alone produce an absolute assurance of the state of grace.
It was only in 1518 that Luther arrived at his peculiar belief in
justification by virtue of a confident faith in Christ (assurance of
salvation).[567]
In the Commentary on Romans Luther understands by faith, first the
general submission of the mind to Divine revelation, a faith which he
here, as also later, in agreement with the Church’s teaching, accounts
as the first preliminary for the state of grace. His opposition to
works and self-righteousness frequently urges him to praise the high
value of the faith which comes from God, whilst his mysticism likewise
makes him accentuate the importance of trust and blind submission.
“_Credite, confidite_” he cries in his exposition of the Psalms—of
which the standpoint is still entirely that of the Church—also
fervently recommending to his hearers the “_fiducia gratiæ Dei_.”[568]
All that can be complained of is that there, as in the Commentary
on the Psalms, he seizes every occasion to speak in favour of the
advantages which faith possesses over works.
With regard to his teaching on faith in the Commentary on Romans,
Denifle complains of “Luther’s want of clearness in respect of
justifying faith,” of his exaggerations and indistinctness, of “his
absolute ignorance of wholesome theology.”[569] “The medium in this
doctrine of justification,” he says, “is really not faith at all, but
the confession that we are always under the works of the law, always
unrighteous, always sinners”; “he never, even later, arrived at a
correct or uniform idea of faith.... Luther’s assertion of the bondage
of the will (complete passivity) renders faith in the process of
justification, a mere monstrosity.”[570]
Here we are not as yet concerned with the qualities of faith in
the Lutheran process of justification, but it must be pointed out,
that the acceptance of complete passivity in justification is a
necessary corollary of the above ideas of “_humilitas_.” “Whereas the
Christian,” Denifle says, following the Catholic teaching, “moved and
inspired by the grace of God repents of his sins, and, with a trusting
faith, turns to God and implores their pardon, Luther excludes from
justification all acts whether inward or outward on the part of the
sinner; for God could not come into our possession or be attained to
without the suppression of everything that is positive. Our works must
cease and we ourselves must remain passive in God’s hands.”[571] In
the Commentary on Romans passivity in the work of justification is
certainly insisted on. Luther does not take the trouble to reconcile
this with the activity which man is to exert in steeping himself
in humility in order, by his prayers and supplications, to gain
salvation.[572] He says of passivity: “God cannot be possessed or
touched except by the negation of everything that is in us.”[573]
“Then only are we capable of receiving God’s works and plans, when
our planning and our works cease; when we are altogether passive
with regard to God interiorly as well as exteriorly.”[574] In
the Commentary on Galatians, not long after, he calls Christian
righteousness a “passive righteousness,” because we “there do nothing,
and give God nothing.”[575]
8. Subjectivism and Church Authority. Storm and Stress
Subjectivism plays an important part in the exposition of the Epistle
to the Romans.
It makes itself felt not merely in Luther’s treatment of the Doctors
and the prevalent theological opinions, but also in his ideas
concerning the Church and her authority. We cannot fail to see
that the Church is beginning to take the second place in his mind.
Notwithstanding the numerous long-decided controversial questions
raised in the Commentary, there is hardly any mention of the teaching
office of the Church, and the reader is not made aware that with regard
to these questions there existed in the Church a fixed body of faith,
established either by actual definition or by generally accepted
theological opinion. The doctrine of absolute predestination to hell,
for instance, had long before been authoritatively repudiated in the
decisions against Gottschalk, but is nevertheless treated by Luther
as an open question, or rather as though it had been decided in the
affirmative, thus making of God a cruel avenger of involuntary guilt.
The impetuous author, following his mistaken tendency to independence,
disdains to be guided by the heritage of ecclesiastical and theological
truth, as the Catholic professor is wont to be in his researches in
theology and in his explanations of Holy Scripture. Luther, though by
no means devoid of faith in the Church, and in the existence in her
of the living Spirit of God, lacks that ecclesiastical feeling which
inspired so many of his contemporaries in their speculations, both
theological and philosophical; we need only recall his own professor,
Johann Paltz, and Gabriel Biel to whom he owed so much. Impelled by
his subjectivism, and careless of the teaching of preceding ages,
he usually flies straight to his own “profounder theology” for new
solutions. Here the habits engendered by the then customary debates in
the schools exercise a detrimental effect on him. He is heedless of the
fact that his hasty and bold assertions may undermine the foundations
which form the learned support to the Church’s dogmas. Important and
assured truths become to him, according to this superficial method,
mere “soap bubbles” which his breath can burst, “chimeras of fancy”
which will melt away in the mist. This is the case, for instance,
with the traditional doctrines of saving grace, of the distinction
between original and actual sin, and of meritorious good works.
Whoever does not agree with his terrible doctrine of predestination
is simply reckoned among the subtle theologians, who are desirous of
saving everything with their vain distinctions.[576] We cannot, of
course, measure Luther by the standard of the Tridentine decrees, which
embodied these and other questions in distinct formularies of which the
Church in his time had not yet the advantage. Yet the principal points
which Luther began to agitate at this time were, if not already actual
dogmas, yet sufficiently expressed in the body of the Church’s teaching
and illuminated by ecclesiastical theology.