Martin Luther
Born in a.d. 1483, in Eisleben, Germany, of middle-class parents, Martin Luther entered the Augustinian monastery at Erfurt in 1505. The themes of salvation and damnationâ€â€which were central to the culture of the dayâ€â€concerned him greatly. Luther became aware of the presence of sin in his life and the ineffectiveness of the penance provided by the church to bring relief to this situation. In addition to penance, divine “grace†was dispensed by the church through the six other sacraments, the most important of these being, in addition to penance, baptism and the Eucharistic observance (Holy Communion).
Listen to Luther as years later he recalls his experience in the monastery:
I was a good monk and kept my order so strictly that I could claim that if ever a monk were able to reach heaven by monkish discipline I should have found my way there. All my fellows in the house, who know me, would bear me out in this. For if it had continued much longer I would, what with vigils, prayers, readings and other such works, have done myself to death.
A Dominican scholar recalls Luther’s word during this time of spiritual anguish: “I wanted to live so devoutly that I could appear before God and say: ‘here you have holiness.’ â€Â
In 1511 Luther was transferred from Erfurt to Wittenberg. He lived in the Augustinian cloister and was fortunate to have as his spiritual confessor a godly man who was also the vicar-general of the monastery: Johannes von Staupitz (1469–1524). Staupitz, aware of the intense spiritual struggles that enveloped his young charge, directed Luther to study Scripture. Luther was graduated Doctor of Theology on October 19, 1512, and commenced teaching theology and biblical studies at Wittenberg on August 16, 1513. It was in the context of his assignment at the university that Luther developed his initial ideas concerning justification by faith.
Luther had been influenced by nominalism, the form of theology and philosophy advocated by William of Ockham. It was known as the via moderna in contrast to Thomism and Scotism, which were called the via antiqua. Nominalism removed most of the data of faith from the realm of reason and was one of the antecedents of modern fideism.
Luther seems to have had little contact with the early Dominican school (which had Thomism as its theological rudder) and it is interesting to speculate on how exposure to the Augustinian core of Thomistic thought might have influenced his early spiritual and exegetical investigations.
The decisive role in the formulation of Luther’s theology was played by St. Paul and Augustinianism. It was shortly after his exegesis of Paul’s phrase in Romans 1:17, “the righteousness of God†(iustitia Dei in the Latin), that Luther stated that justification is a gift of God, appropriated by faith:
Now I felt as though I had been immediately born anew and had entered Paradise itself. From that moment the face of Scripture as a whole became clear to me. My mind ran through the sacred books, as far as I was able to recollect them, seeking analogies in other phrases, such as opus Dei, that which God works in us; virtus Dei, that by which God makes us strong; sapienta Dei, that by which he makes us wise; fortitudo Dei, salus Dei, gloria Deiâ€â€the strength, the salvation, the glory of God.
Luther’s understanding of God’s justice and grace had undergone a drastic change. He wrote: “Because God is almighty and rich in mercy and turns as such to me, I canâ€â€indeed, I mustâ€â€trust in him, I can and must be certain of my salvation in spite of my own sinfulness!â€Â
The beginning of Martin Luther’s problems with Rome has often been identified with his posting of the Ninety-five Theses on the eve of All Saints, October 31, 1517. These theses dealt with the doctrine of purgatory, the penitential system, papal authority, but primarily with the sale of indulgences. Pastoral concern prompted Luther to act. People who showed no signs of sincere repentance for their sins would come to him for confession. They would produce copies of indulgences that they had purchased and thought of them as licenses to sin without spiritual consequences. Luther declined to grant them absolution. With the public display of the Ninety-five Theses the die was cast; the Reformation began and Christendom changed forever.
Among the points raised in the Ninety-five Theses were the following:
1. A true Christian who is repentant has remission from both the guilt and penalty of sin because he participates in the benefits of Christ (theses 16–17).
2. A Christian has no need of letters of pardon and the purchase of such is wrong when it is clearly better to give the money to the poor (theses 41–45).
3. “The Pope can remit no guilt, but only declare and confirm that it has been remitted by God†(thesis 6).
4. Concerning the “treasury of the accumulated merits of the saints,†the “true treasure of the Church is the holy Gospel of the glory and the grace of God†(thesis 62).
In the Ninety-five Theses, Luther did not “challenge the doctrine of purgatory. He [did] not question the scriptural basis of the sacrament of penance. He [did] not demand the abolition of indulgences.†What he did was address the abuses of the doctrines that had become commonplace in the culture of his day.
Indicating how deeply his evangelical (Augustinian) principles influenced the theses, Luther was later to write:
And this is the confidence that Christians have and our real joy of conscience, that by faith our sins become no longer ours but Christ’s upon whom God placed the sins of all of us. He took upon himself our sins. . . . All the righteousness of Christ becomes ours. . . . He spreads his cloak and covers us.
Some reevaluation has been going on among contemporary Catholic theologians concerning Luther’s reaction to the state of the church in his day. For example, Louis Bouyer (who had been a Lutheran pastor before his conversion to Roman Catholicism) does not view Luther as a revolutionary, but as a truly spiritually sensitive pastor seeking to reform the church from within. Bouyer argues that the Lutheran doctrine of justification by faith alone is not a heresy but is consistent with Catholic tradition and in harmony with the teachings of Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas. Other
Catholic theologians hold similar views.
Another quote from a modern Roman Catholic source is in order: “The irony of the Protestant Reformation is that much of what Luther believed and taught was authentic Catholic doctrine that had been distorted by abuses and incorrect practices in the Church, such as the mercenary selling of indulgences. Unfortunately, Luther’s criticism of real abuses was not heeded.â€Â
The Council of Trent (a.d. 1545–63) would, during the Counter-Reformation, address these same issues and provide needed reforms, such as banning the sale of indulgences. This was done to avoid the corrupt practices that had developed.
In addressing the similarities and differences of Augustinianism and Luther, the following may be stated.
First, Luther and Augustine both believed that iustitia Dei (righteousness of God) is a righteousness that is a gift from God to us, rather than the righteousness that God possesses in his own Person.
Second, Luther, following Augustine, did not make the distinction between forensic justification and progressive sanctification that would emerge in later Protestantism. Indeed, “It is important to note that Luther does not employ forensic [legal] terms to explain this imputation of alien righteousness. This development will come later, from others.â€Â
Third, Augustine and the medieval church had believed in a “theology of glory.†This is the result of natural theology and claims to know God through his works. Its antithesis is Luther’s “theology of the cross†concept, which elevates the cross as the most important place of encounter between God and man. There God is seen in weakness (1 Cor. 1:18–25) and suffering and our preconceived concepts of divine glory are shattered. Luther said:
That person does not deserve to be called a theologian who looks upon the invisible things of God as if it were clearly perceptible in those things in which have actually happened. He deserved to be called a theologian, however, who comprehends the visible and manifest things of God seen through suffering and the cross.
A contemporary orthodox Roman Catholic theologian comments on these two “paths†in Christology:
In the history of the Christian faith, two divergent lines of approach to the contemplation of Jesus have appeared again and again: the theology of the incarnation (glory), which sprang from Greek thought and became dominant in the Catholic tradition of East and West, and the theology of the cross, which based itself on St. Paul and the earliest forms of Christian belief and made a decisive break-through in the thinking of the Reformers.
Ratzinger goes on to develop these two themes and states that they are not contradictory but “must remain present as polarities which mutually correct each other and only by complementing each other point toward the whole.â€Â
Finally, Augustine never held the doctrine of “double†predestination. “This means an unconditional, eternal predestination both to salvation and to damnation.†Although Augustinianism might be said to imply logically such a concept, the bishop of Hippo never took that step and actually argued against it.
It seems clear tha in spite of significant differences in their systems, Luther and Augustine were united in their belief that man is spiritually destitute and, apart from God’s grace, is incapable of producing any semblance of spiritual merit. Luther was, indeed (at least concerning the basic tenets of justification), a spiritual son of the bishop of Hippo and of the “Doctor Angelicus.â€Â
Geisler, N. L.,
