Cross in Tensions. Philip Ruge-Jones
of the cross was a theological principle of knowledge for Luther.”19
What then was the shape of this knowledge? Loewenich builds upon theses nineteen and twenty of the Heidelberg Disputation, which are decisive for Luther’s understanding. They read:
That person does not deserve to be called a theologian who looks upon the invisible things of God as though they were clearly perceptible in those things which have actually happened. He deserves to be called a theologian, however, who comprehends the visible and manifest things of God seen through suffering and the cross.20
Loewenich summarizes the aspects of Luther’s theology of the cross in five points. He states:
1. The theology of the cross as a theology of revelation stands in sharp antithesis to speculation.
2. God’s revelation is an indirect, concealed revelation.
3. Hence God’s revelation is recognized not in works but in suffering, and the double meaning of these terms is to be noted.
4. This knowledge of God who is hidden in his revelation is a matter of faith.
5. The manner in which God is known is reflected in the practical thought of suffering.21
Questions of epistemology run through all of these aspects. The last four aspects clarify the first claim about knowing through revelation rather than speculation. What does Loewenich mean by each of these points?
First of all, the theology of the cross is a theology of revelation. As such, it stands against every human attempt to speculate about the nature of God on the basis of creation or reason. Over and against the scholastic theologians of his day, Luther asserts that metaphysical speculation does not lead to knowledge of God, but rather blinds us to God’s presence as it was radically revealed in the cross of Christ. God is most clearly known in the cross of Christ, that event where all “Christian thinking must come to a halt.”22 This knowledge of God flies in the face of all human attempts to understand God; “The cross makes demands on Christian thought—demands which must either be acted on or ignored.”23 While the scholastic theologians try to define God in terms of their own church’s quest for satisfaction, that is, in terms of power and might, God chooses to be revealed in the cross of Christ in terms of lowliness and weakness.
Thus, this revelation is hidden or concealed. God reveals Godself by hiding in what appears to speculation to be the very opposite of God. This brings Loewenich to Luther’s understanding of the hidden God. Loewenich recognizes that this doctrine undergoes evolution throughout Luther’s career, but he sees the decisive key to understanding its central insights in the Heidelberg Disputation. Knowledge of God should be available in the created order, but due to human sin, we cannot see it, but rather abuse the knowledge. God is hidden by our blindness. This, however, is not the final word, for “God wants to be known, his being seeks revelation.”24 This is the key to Luther’s doctrine of God including the notion of hiddenness. Because of the abuse of creational knowledge of God, God must be revealed in a concealed manner. But this concealment is for the sake of revelation. This concealed revelation takes place in that one place where human beings would not think to look for the reality of God: in the cross. How odd! For the Disputation makes clear what is visible in the cross where there is “nothing else to be seen than disgrace, poverty, death and everything that is shown us in the suffering Christ.”25 Who would look for God in this wasteland of poverty? Yet, precisely under the form of suffering God wills to reveal Godself. Loewenich follows Luther in calling attention to this revelation on Golgotha, but also in contemporary “sufferings” and “crosses.” Thus Luther attacks the philosophically sophisticated epistemology employed by his rivals. The scholastic theologians confidently support the tyranny of the church with their abusive knowledge of God. Loewenich summarizes Luther’s criticism of them in another document of this period:
Just as the theology of glory prefers works to sufferings, glory to the cross, power to weakness, wisdom to foolishness, so philosophy would rather investigate the essences and actions of the creatures than listen to their groanings and expectations.26
Crucial to Luther’s understanding in this period is that:
The hidden God is none other than the revealed God. God is hidden for the sake of revelation. . . . The hidden God is none other than the crucified God. Who is a theologian of the cross? A theologian of the cross is one who speaks of the crucified and hidden God.27
This equation of hiddenness and revelation is an explicit rejection of interpretations of Luther that see hiddenness as the antithesis of revelation in his thought. Within this schema, hiddenness had been equated with the terrifying powerfulness of God in and of Godself. There God is an all-consuming, threatening reality. Loewenich argues that Luther is explicitly rejecting this concept in favor of God made known in suffering and crosses.
Having laid out this understanding of hiddenness, Loewenich moves toward that text that he believes might jeopardize his claim that the theology of the cross is present in all of Luther’s work: The Bondage of the Will. This text has been appealed to by those interpreters of hiddenness whom Loewenich reproaches. Loewenich notes that Luther emphasizes the need for God to be revealed. God hidden from all sight offers no hope, but only condemnation. This God has chosen to become the preached, revealed, worshipped, clothed God for our sake. Note that the God who reveals Godself is none other than the same God who is normally hidden from us. The theme again is that “God must conceal himself in the word in order to be able to reveal himself. The revealed God is the clothed God.”28 A shift in terminology has taken place in relation to the meaning of hiddenness, but the dynamic that Luther indicated in the Heidelberg Disputation continues to dominate his discourse. What is more, the clothed God comes out on our behalf. “The revealed God is unconditional salvific will.”29 Yet Luther has more to say about God.
While we are dealing with the revealed God we dare not forget about the hidden God. God has indeed revealed himself in his word, but God is greater than his word. God has not confined himself within the limits of the word. God’s supreme attribute is his freedom.30
Here enters the problem. The hidden God might just override the “unconditional salvific will” of the revealed God. Hiddenness and revelation are no longer equated but may be diametrically opposed. “But can the unity of the godhead still be maintained under such conditions? . . . Has this not made revelation illusory?”31 What happens to the certainty of salvation that the Christian had received?
Loewenich says that the key through this conceptual bog is in the role of faith. Faith knows that God exists beyond the revealed word, but does not seek God in that beyond. In fact, the experience of God’s hiddenness from all sight is precisely the thing that calls for faith to cling to the God clothed in the word. Faith, by its very nature, is for Luther trust in what one cannot see. If we are to believe in God’s goodness, then we must not be able to see it clearly or no faith would be required, but only sight. The same is true when the faithful confess their belief in the church. The church is not equated with that which holds itself before our eyes as church, but is a concealed and hidden reality inviting faith in the unseen. Also the righteousness of God must be incomprehensible so