LUTHER (Vol. 1-6). Grisar Hartmann
this, that He has patience with us in spite of our sins and graciously accepts our works and our life notwithstanding their complete worthlessness.... We escape His Judgment through His mercy [to which we cling through faith alone], not by our own righteousness.... God excuses our works and makes them pardonable; He supplies what is wanting in us, and thus He is our righteousness.”[839]
“How is it possible that a ‘servant of sin’ should do anything else but sin? How can a man perform a work of light when he is in darkness, a work of wisdom when he is a fool, the work of a whole man when he is lying there sick, etc.? Therefore all that a man does is the work of the devil, of sin, of darkness and foolishness.” “Why do we say that concupiscence is irresistible? Well, just try to do what you can, but without concupiscence! Of course, this is impossible. Thus your nature does not keep the law. If you do not keep this, then still less can you keep the law of charity.”[840]
The crown of all this is found in certain propositions from another of Luther’s Disputations (the fourth) held at Wittenberg in 1518, of which the eminently characteristic title is: “For the ascertaining of the Truth and for the Quieting of anxious Consciences.” Here we find this exhortation: “Cast yourself with a certain despair of your own self, more particularly on account of the sins of which you are ignorant, with confidence into the abyss of the mercy of God, Who is true to His promises. The sum total is this: The Just man shall live by faith, not, however, by works or by the law.”[841] Such is the theology which he calls the “Theology of the Cross.”[842] The Church, with a past of fifteen centuries behind her, also taught that the just man must live by faith, but by this she meant a real faith which leads to the love of the cross, which expresses itself in submission, in salutary fear, in a striving after what is good and which bears in itself the seeds of charity. She thus exhorted the faithful to penance, the practice of good works and a practical embracing of the cross. That was her “Theology of the Cross.”
The three more important Disputations considered above were designated by Luther himself as the “beginning of the evangelical business.” He gave the title Initium negocii evangelici to a collection of the theses debated at these Disputations which appeared in print at Wittenberg in 1538.[843] It is significant that the theses against Tetzel and on Indulgences have no place in this collection of the earliest “evangelical” documents.
While Luther was on his way back from Heidelberg, in a letter to Trutfetter his former professor, he submitted certain thoughts on his own theological position, which may well be deemed his programme for the future. To this worthy man, who failed to share his views and had given him timely warning of his errors, he says: “To speak plainly, my firm belief is that the reform of the Church is impossible unless the ecclesiastical laws, the Papal regulations, scholastic theology, philosophy and logic as they at present exist, are thoroughly uprooted and replaced by other studies. I am so convinced of this that I daily ask the Lord that the really pure study of the Bible and the Fathers may speedily regain its true position.”[844]
In this remarkable letter, which is a curious mixture of respect and disputatious audacity, Luther admits that, on account of his teaching on grace, he is already being scolded in public sermons as a “heretic, a madman, a seducer and one possessed by many devils”; at Wittenberg, however, he says, at the University all, with the exception of one licentiate, declare that “they had hitherto been in ignorance of Christ and His gospel.” Too many charges were brought against him. Let them “speak, hear, believe all things of him in all places,” he would, nevertheless, go forward and not be afraid. Here he does not pass over his theses against Tetzel in silence; they had, he says, been spread in a quite unexpected manner, whereas with his other theses this had not been the case; this he regretted as otherwise he would have “expressed them more clearly.” When publishing his Indulgence theses he had had the truth concerning “the grace of Christ”—which he also defended at Heidelberg—much at heart, for the result of the abuse of the system of Indulgences was, that there was scarcely anyone who did not hope to obtain the great gift of the “grace of God” by means of a paltry Indulgence, a disgraceful reversal of the true order of things.
4. Attitude to the Church
The foundations of the principal erroneous doctrines of the new theology were already laid at a time when Luther was still unmistakably asserting the authority of the Church and the Papacy and the duty of submission incumbent on all who desired to be true Christians.
Neither before his deviation from the Church’s doctrine nor whilst the new views were growing and becoming fixed, did he go astray with respect to the binding nature of the Church’s teaching office, or seek to undermine the Divine pre-eminence of the Holy See. Such a course would, it is true, have been logical, as not one of the doctrines which the Church proposes for belief can be assailed without the whole of her doctrinal edifice being affected, and without calling in question both her infallibility and her rightful authority. Only subsequent to the Leipzig Disputation, at which Luther unreservedly denied the doctrinal authority of General Councils, do we find him prepared to abandon the traditional view with regard to the Church and her teaching office.
The formal principle of Lutheranism dates only from this denial. The determining factor is no longer ecclesiastical authority, but the private judgment of the individual, i.e. the understanding of Holy Scripture—now considered as the only source of religious knowledge—acquired under the guidance of Divine enlightenment. Even then Luther was in no hurry to formulate any clear theory of the Church, of the Communion of the Faithful, of the oneness of Faith, and of its mouthpiece. On the contrary, he frequently returns then and even later, as will be seen below, to his earlier conception of the Church, so natural was it to him and to his time, so indispensable did her claims appear to him, and so logically did they result from the whole connection between Divine Revelation and the scheme of salvation.
How are we to explain this contradiction so long present in Luther’s mind, viz. his abandonment of the principal dogmas of the Church and, at the same time, his emphatic assertion of the Church’s authority? Chiefly by his lack of theological training, also by his confusion of mind and deficiency in real Church feeling; then again by his excess of imagination, by his pseudo-mysticism, and above all by his devotion to his own ideas. Moreover, as we know, the two conflicting tendencies did not dwell at peace within him but were responsible for great restlessness and trouble of mind. Had he been more in living touch with the faith and spirit of the Church, he would doubtless have recognised the urgent necessity of choosing between an absolute abandonment of his new theological views and a definite breach with the Church of his fathers. In explanation of the confusion of his attitude to the Church we must call to mind what has already been said, how, owing to the evils rampant in the Church, he had not had the opportunity of seeing that Divine institution at its best, a fact which may have helped to weaken in his mind the conception of her sublime mission and the binding nature of her ancient faith. He remained in the Church, just as he remained in the religious state, though its ideals had become sadly obscured in his eyes.
In its place he built up for himself an imaginary world, quite mistaking the true state of affairs with regard to his own position. He fancied that the representatives of the Church would gradually come round to his point of view, seeing that it was so well founded. He thought that the Papacy, when better informed, would never be able to condemn the inferences he had made from the clear Word of God, and his precious discovery for the solacing of every sinner.
Perhaps he also sought to shelter himself behind the divergent opinions entertained by the theologians of that day with regard to justification. Several details, as yet undefined, of this