LUTHER (Vol. 1-6). Grisar Hartmann
is absolved by the power of the keys must rather die and renounce all creatures than doubt of his absolution” (thesis 16). “Those who declare the remission of sins to be doubtful on account of the uncertainty of contrition, err to the point of denying the faith” (13), for “the forgiveness of sins is based much more upon faith in the word of Christ: ‘Whatsoever thou shalt loose,’ etc.” (9). “The power of the keys operates a sure and infallible work by the word and the command of Christ, when used in earnest.” (24). The concluding words of the Disputation already quoted elsewhere accordingly exhort to boundless confidence, while at the same time alluding significantly to the text which has risen on Luther’s horizon, though as yet he understands it only imperfectly: “The just man liveth by faith.”
His state of uncertainty with regard to the appropriation of salvation caused Luther great disquietude. Other circumstances, particularly his feverish excitement at the outset of his public struggle, also contributed towards his inward unrest. The morbid fear of which he had never rid himself was also powerfully stirred.
The supreme degree of this painful torment of soul may be gathered from the description he gives in the Resolutions.
In this work, which appeared in August, 1518, in dealing with the 15th Indulgence thesis, he tries to prove that the punishment of Purgatory may be made up merely by fear and terror. Many of those living even now, he says, had experienced how high the flood of such interior sufferings can rise and how close they bring a man to despair. He would not quarrel with any who did not believe this, but those who had been through such trials were in a position to speak of them. Tauler treated of such pains in his German sermons and brought forward some examples; of course, to the Scholastics Tauler was unknown; they did not appreciate him, but he had found more real theology in this theologian who wrote in German than “among the whole of the Scholastics of all the universities.” He then proceeds, beginning with the very formula with which Paul introduces the account of his raptures: “I know a man” (Novi hominem), to describe the mystical interior sufferings which he had “frequently” experienced; though they had never persisted long, they were so “hellish,” that whoever had not undergone them himself was quite unable to speak of them. Had this consuming fire lasted only for the tenth part of an hour all a man’s bones were reduced to ashes.
“God then appears to be horribly angered and with Him all creation. There is no possibility of flight, no comfort whether within or without, only a hollow accusing voice. The soul laments, according to the words of Scripture: ‘Lord I am cast away from Thy face,’ she dares not even say: ‘Chastise me not in Thy wrath.’ At this moment—inexplicable as it is—the soul is unable even to believe in its possible liberation, but only feels that the punishment is not at an end. It appears everlasting and unceasing. The soul finds nothing in its whole being but a bare longing for help, nothing but terrible sighing, though it knows not whence to implore assistance. Thus the soul, like Christ, is completely extenuated, all its bones are numbered, there is not a tissue in it which is not penetrated with the excruciating bitterness, with flight, with mournful anxiety and pain, and all for ever and ever. When a ball passes over a board every point of the line along which it travels bears the whole weight of the ball, though it does not receive the ball into itself. So, too, the eternal flood of pain passes over the soul and causes it to taste the whole endless weight of eternal pain in every part, but the pain is not permanently received into the soul, it does not last, but passes.”[971]
The above so strange and fantastic description incorporated in a Latin work written for the learned, in the interests of Luther’s psychology, calls for further consideration.
Particular stress must here be laid on the false mysticism in which Luther was then entangled, and his free use of the fanciful language of certain of the mystics. Luther’s states had, however, nothing in common with those described in somewhat similar words by the healthier mystics, viz. the sore trial of the Mount of Olives through which the soul passes owing to the complete withdrawal of consolation. He, however, imagines he sees himself portrayed not only in such descriptions of the mystics, but also in mystical passages in the Psalms over which, at this time of change, he was fond of brooding. David’s cries ring in his ears; his experience of the hell in which the soul must dwell, of the life which draws nigh to hell, of the bones which are banished to the gate of hell, of the sinking into a dark sea, into the bowels of the earth under the heaped-up weight of endless misery.
It must also be borne in mind that the Monk, with his pseudo-mystical ideas, cherished a gloomy conception of God, and held the terrible doctrine of the absolute predestination of the damned. Having wandered away from the Catholic teaching, with his views on man’s lack of free will, and the theory of arbitrary imputation by God, he found no answer in his troubled conscience to the question which weighed him down, namely, how to arrive at the assurance of a Gracious God. Confusion and interior pangs of conscience for a while gained the upper hand.
Lastly, his peculiar morbid tendency to fear must also be taken into account, for it afforded an opportunity to the Tempter to add to his confusion by raising difficulties regarding the deficiencies of his new, self-chosen theology.
Adolph Hausrath in his Life of Luther even speaks of periodical mental disturbances from which he suffered during the time he was a monk; the disturbing power inherent in the monastic practices, so he says, took possession of his sensitive nature with its strong feelings; Luther only escaped the danger of going mad by bravely bursting the fetters of the monastic Rule and the Popish Faith. In the strong inward combats which Luther endured at a later date Hausrath recognises a return of this affliction. In his second edition he has toned down this view of Luther’s periodical attacks of mental illness out of regard for the objections which had, not without reason, been urged against his statement. In Luther’s case, however, there is no reason for assuming any “monkish mental disease,” nor can he be proved to have suffered from any disturbance whatever of his mental functions at any time of his life.[972] But if we take it that the night of the soul which he passed through, whether in the monastery or during his later struggle, had at its basis a peculiar physico-psychic disposition revealing a want of normal inward stability, then we can perhaps easily explain some other strange and at first blush inexplicable phenomena which his case presents.
At any rate, the fundamental new dogma of the assurance of salvation was not the product of a clear, quiet, calm atmosphere of soul. It was born amidst unbearable inward mental confusion, and was a frantic attempt at self-pacification on the part of the Wittenberg Doctor whose active but unstable mind had already left the true course.
It is of interest and helps us to reach a right understanding of the Tower Experience, to follow the change of view regarding assurance of salvation which is apparent in Luther’s statements and writings in the latter months of 1518 and beginning of 1519.
At the time when, in October, 1518, Luther, a prey to other anxieties, stood before Cardinal Cajetan at Augsburg, he was already making great strides towards the new and consoling dogma of faith alone, moved thereto by indignation at the censure which one of his propositions had called forth. He says to Cardinal Cajetan in his explanation of the second of the assertions which he was required to withdraw, that it was incorrect to speak of it as “a new and false theology that no one can be justified except by faith, and that it is necessary to hold it as certain in faith that one is justified, and not in any way to doubt the obtaining of grace, because whoever doubts or is uncertain is no longer justified, but is rejecting grace.”[973]
He attempts to prove this first as regards Confession. The principal thing is to believe the words of Christ: “Whatsoever thou shalt loose,” etc., i.e. by applying the words to oneself; “under pain of eternal damnation and to avoid committing a sin of unbelief,” it is necessary to believe this; this faith is the only disposition for the sacrament and no work whatever serves as a preparation.[974] No one could receive grace who doubted of its reception; but, if we believed, then we received everything in the sacrament.