In Defence of Luther

I've talked about Luther before; I'm not his biggest fan. So it seems fair, for a change, to say something in his defence. The doctrine of salvation by faith alone isn't without its issues, but Christos Yannaras points out that Luther's obsession with it wasn't just theological, but was also deeply political. The medieval Roman Catholic Church argued that we could get at the truth about God through rational arguments which proved that God existed and that God was a certain sort of being. But the only people who got to study the logic and philosophy that let you understand those proofs, or offer their own proofs of God, were the people (and, let's be honest, the men) whom the Church educated. That was a double win for the Church. On the one hand, you could argue that anyone who disagreed with the Church wasn't only wrong but was culpable for their wrongness because they should have known better (you don't need to read the Bible to know that God exists, it's just obvious to anyone who can reason), so it's ok to kill them or take their land or go on a crusade against them because they're not just wrong, they're deliberately wrong. But it also meant that the Church, as the institution which controlled and owned those proofs of God's existence, got to claim the same absolute and obvious authority for themselves.

Luther's obsessive focus on faith alone as the means of salvation, then, wasn't just about the problems with thinking you can logically prove the existence of God, it was also about power. No institution could get between people and God and claim to control the truth about God, because everyone could and should know God for themselves, directly. That's why the earliest translators of the Bible were treated so harshly: if everyone gets to read the Bible, then the priests don't get to control that knowledge about God.

In that sense, it's fitting that fundamentalist Christianity in the US overlaps so much with the sort of far-right politics that wants to do away with the government. No one else gets to tell us what the Bible says: we read it for ourselves. No one else gets power over me. But actually, what happens in most fundamentalist churches is just that power is better hidden. You can't not interpret the Bible, but you can appropriate its authority for yourself by pretending (or believing) that you interpretation is just 'what the Bible says'. It's harder to argue with someone who's just telling you what the Bible says than it is to argue with someone else's interpretation of the Bible. Truth is simply objective, obvious, accessible to everyone: it always comes to us through people, through institutions. The question of how we know the truth about God is never just a question about how we know the truth about God, it's always also a question about who in the Church gets to have power over other people.

Luther vs Aquinas II

Ding ding! Round 2. Except, I must apologise, but I can't for the life of me work out how to format this post in such a way that points 51-97 come out numbered correctly (Blogger kindly reformats them so they start from 1, whatever I do), so instead I shall give you the whole 97 points. If you feel you grasped Luther's basic argument first time round, feel free to start from point 51; otherwise, here's points 1-97 all in one place.

1. Don't criticise Augustine!
2. If you do, it's letting Pelagians and heretics win.
3. And sticking your tongue out at all the doctors of theology.
4. Man, being a bad tree, can only will and do evil.
5. Man isn't free to choose between good and evil; our wills are captive.
6. We can't choose to do what's right.
7. Without the grace of God, we can only will evil [are you getting the gist yet?]
8. But that doesn't mean our wills are essentially evil [hang on a minute...]
9. But our wills are innately and inevitably evil [what?]
10. The will is not free to will the good.
11. It can't will what it ought to will.
12. But it can will whatever it chooses to will.
13. Sinful man can't love God.
14. The will can will what's bad but not what's good.
15. Only the will can will what's bad but not what's good [that's a tongue twister right there]
16. Sinful man can love what God has created, but can't love God.
17. Human nature is unable to want God to be God: we want to be God instead.
18. We can't love God more than anything else.
19. I said, we can't love God more than anything else.
20. If we do kind things it's by grace and not by our own free will.
21. Everything we do in accordance with our nature is an act against God.
22. Acts against God are bad.
23. We can't put right our badness by being hopeful.
24. Hope isn't contrary to love [what's your point, Lutherface?]
25. Hope doesn't grow out of good things but out of suffering which destroys good things.
26. The best way to do good isn't to perform acts of friendship;
27. It's to perform the act of conversion, following grace.
28. We can't choose to seek God.
29. The best way of getting hold of God's grace is to be eternally elected and predestined by God [that's alright, then].
30. We can't do anything to earn God's grace.
31. Blah
32. Blah blah
33. Did I mention we can't earn grace?
34. In terms of our human nature, we can't do what's right. Did I say that already?
35. Ignorance is no excuse.
36. I SAID ignorance is no excuse.
37. Our natures take pride in anything we do which looks good.
38. There's no moral virtue without pride or sorrow, i.e. without sin [Great, now sorrow is a sin].
39. We are not masters of our actions but servants.
40. We don't become righteous by doing righteous things. When we've been made righteous, we do righteous things. The philosophers were wrong.
41. Aristotle's Ethics is the worst enemy of the good.
42. Aristotle was wrong.
43. It's wrong to say that no one can become a theologian without Aristotle [take that, Aquinas!]
44. In fact, you can only become a theologian without Aristotle.
45. Theologians don't need to be logicians [take that, Dawkins!]
46. There's no such thing as a logic of faith.
47. You can't use logic to talk about theology.
48. But that doesn't mean that theology is illogical.
49. If you could prove theology with logic, you wouldn't need faith [that would be BAD, btw]
50. I hate Aristotle.
51. Aquinas didn't even understand Aristotle anyway.
52. I hate Porphyry too, but you probably haven't heard of him.
53. Stop talking about Aristotle! I already told you I hate him!
54. An act is only good if it has grace; and if it has grace, it doesn't need anything else to be good.
55. The grace of God is never inactive: it's always living and active. And did I mention that we can't do anything good without grace?
56. God won't accept us unless he's already justified us by grace.
57. It's dangerous to say that the law commands that an act of obeying the commandment be done in the grace of God.
58. That would imply that 'to have the grace of God' is a new demand going beyond the law.
59. And that you can fulfil the law without grace.
60. Which you can't.
61. So it doesn't follow that the law should be complied with and fulfilled in the grace of God.
62. People outside of the grace of God sin ALL THE TIME, even if they're not doing anything obviously bad.
63. They sin because they don't spiritually fulfil the law.
64. Er.
65. Outside of grace it's impossible not to be angry and lustful, and even in grace it's not possible to fulfil the law perfectly.
66. Hypocrites are bad.
67. We can't be good without grace.
68. We can't be good without grace.
69. Without the grace of God, nature DESTROYS the law [Oh noes]
70. Good laws are bad for the natural (evil) will.
71. Without grace, the law and the will are enemies.
72. The will never wants what the law wants.
73. Blah blah
74. The law makes sin abound because it annoys the will.
75. But the grace of God makes justice abound because it makes the will love the law.
76. You can do things that look good without grace, but they're not really good.
77. Did I mention that the law and the will don't get on?
78. If the will keeps the law without grace, it's only doing it to get something for itself.
79. Those who do the works of the law are condemned.
80. Those who do the works of grace are blessed.
81. You can do good works outside of grace. Not!
82. Religious ceremony is rubbish.
83. And so are the ten commandments.
84. The only law that's good is the love of God put in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.
85. If our wills could choose, they'd choose to be free of the law.
86. Will and law: definitely no sitting in a tree K.I.S.S.I.N.G for them.
87. The law is good, and because the will doesn't like the law, the will must be bad.
88. The will is bad.
89. [Deleted due to unnecessary repetition]
90. The grace of God is meant to direct the will.
91. Not so that we can do good more often, but so we can do any good at all.
92. If we could do good things on our own, we wouldn't need love.
93. I don't like scholastic theologians. I'm talking about YOU, William of Ockham.
94. We can't love God and creatures.
95. To love God is to hate oneself and know nothing but God.
96. We must make our wills conform to God's will.
97. They should be totally the same.

And even though I've just totally disagreed with, like, every important Catholic theologian, I'm still well Catholic, and everything I've said is totally in line with what the teachers of the church say. So there.

Ah, Luther. How could you not love him?

Luther vs Aquinas

In his Disputation Against Scholastic Theology, written just before his famous Ninety Five Theses, Luther sets out ninety seven reasons why he disagrees with scholastic theologians. Think of it as a kind of warm up for the Ninety Five Theses, where again Luther explains why he's right and everyone else is wrong. Scholastic theology, by the way, was the major strand of academic theology from the 12th-16th century, originating around the same time as the first universities were set up and Aristotle's work was rediscovered (it had been lost to the West for centuries but had been preserved in Islamic culture). It included hugely important thinkers like Thomas Aquinas, so Luther's taking on the big guns here. It's a shame he comes out sounding like such a prat. Here's a summary (actually not that much shorter than the original) of points 1-50; you'll get the second half later this weekend, you lucky things.

1. Don't criticise Augustine!

2. If you do, it's letting Pelagians and heretics win.

3. And sticking your tongue out at all the doctors of theology.

4. Man, being a bad tree, can only will and do evil.

5. Man isn't free to choose between good and evil; our wills are captive.

6. We can't choose to do what's right.

7. Without the grace of God, we can only will evil [are you getting the gist yet?]

8. But that doesn't mean our wills are essentially evil [hang on a minute...]

9. But our wills are innately and inevitable evil [what?]

10. The will is not free to will the good.

11. It can't will what it ought to will.

12. But it can will whatever it chooses to will.

13. Sinful man can't love God.

14. The will can will what's bad but not what's good.

15. Only the will can will what's bad but not what's good [that's a tongue twister right there]

16. Sinful man can love what God has created, but can't love God.

17. Human nature is unable to want God to be God: we want to be God instead.

18. We can't love God more than anything else.

19. I said, we can't love God more than anything else.

20. If we do kind things it's by grace and not by our own free will.

21. Everything we do in accordance with our nature is an act against God.

22. Acts against God are bad.

23. We can't put right our badness by being hopeful.

24. Hope isn't contrary to love [what's your point, Lutherface?]

25. Hope doesn't grow out of good things but out of suffering which destroys good things.

26. The best way to do good isn't to perform acts of friendship;

27. It's to perform the act of conversion, following grace.

28. We can't choose to seek God.

29. The best way of getting hold of God's grace is to be eternally elected and predestined by God [that's alright, then].

30. We can't do anything to earn God's grace.

31. Blah

32. Blah blah

33. Did I mention we can't earn grace?

34. In terms of our human nature, we can't do what's right. Did I say that already?

35. Ignorance is no excuse.

36. I SAID ignorance is no excuse.

37. Our natures take pride in anything we do which looks good.

38. There's no moral virtue without pride or sorrow, i.e. without sin [Great, now sorrow is a sin].

39. We are not masters of our actions but servants.

40. We don't become righteous by doing righteous things. When we've been made righteous, we do righteous things. The philosophers were wrong.

41. Aristotle's Ethics is the worst enemy of the good.

42. Aristotle was wrong.

43. It's wrong to say that no one can become a theologian without Aristotle [take that, Aquinas!]

44. In fact, you can only become a theologian without Aristotle.

45. Theologians don't need to be logicians [take that, Dawkins!]

46. There's no such thing as a logic of faith.

47. You can't use logic to talk about theology.

48. But that doesn't mean that theology is illogical.

49. If you could prove theology with logic, you wouldn't need faith [that would be BAD, btw]

50. I hate Aristotle.

That's all for Part I, folks. You'll never guess what Luther talks about it Part II.

Photo: Martin Luther by Lucas Cranach der Ältere

Martin Luther: The Freedom of a Christian

Martin Luther wrote The Freedom of a Christian in response to the Pope’s criticisms of his teaching. Contrary to popular belief, Luther wasn’t opposed to the Catholic Church as such, and was pretty gutted when they kicked him out; it was more that he thought they were wrong about some crucial things, and should admit the errors of their ways and agree with him instead. The Freedom of a Christian comes accompanied with a charming little letter which goes roughly like this:

Dear Pope Leo,

I want to make it clear that, while I've attacked the ungodly doctrines of the Catholic Church and your terribly corrupt See, I've never attacked you personally. Sometimes I actually stand up for you, and to show you just how much I wish you well, I've sent you this little treatise, explaining why you are wrong and I am right.

Lots of love,
Luther
xxx

Luther’s argument revolves around two basic principles:

1. A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none.
2. A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant, subject to all.

He says that human beings have a twofold nature: the spiritual, inner soul, which the Bible refers to as the ‘new man’, and the carnal, outward flesh, which the Bible calls the ‘old man.’ A Christian becomes righteous not by anything to do with the flesh, but only by faith in the Word of God. Only the soul can accept the Word of God, so nothing the flesh can do makes any difference. You can’t think that works get you anywhere and also have faith: as soon as you have faith you realise that you’re entirely ‘blameworthy, sinful, and damnable’, and only by trusting Christ can you become a new man. No outward work can justify a person, and nor can any outward work make a person guilty.

Scripture is divided into commandments and promises. The commandments of the Bible teach us what is good, but they don’t help us to do good things: they’re just meant to show us how incapable we are of doing good. When we despair of ourselves, then the promises come to our aid: they promise that if we only believe in Jesus, we will have all things.

Now, the greatest compliment you could have in a person is having faith in their goodness and trustworthiness, and the greatest insult you could pay a person is to be suspicious of them. The highest worship we can offer to God is to trust him, and the greatest rebellion against him is to disbelieve his promises. When we do good works because we think they’ll make us righteous, because we don’t trust God’s promises, they’re not worth anything and are worse than useless.

Faith unites the soul with Christ as a bride with her bridegroom (giggedy giggedy), and the soul becomes one flesh with Christ. This means that everything Christ has, the soul can claim for its own and vice versa, so that soul gains Christ's grace, life and salvation, and Christ gains sin, death and damnation (aw, crap). He made them his own, and suffered, died, and descended into hell to defeat them. His sinless life was stronger than death, so he defeated death and hell and set the soul free.

So, does that mean we don’t need to do good works? Well, it’s not that straightforward, sadly. Although we’re justified by faith and don’t need anything else spiritually, we still have to live on earth. The soul that has been set free by Christ wants everything else to be set free, and so disciplines the body to purify it so that it too can worship God. Works aren’t done to justify ourselves, but out of love for God. It’s a bit like a bishop: baptising children doesn’t make him a bishop, but the other way round: if he wasn’t a bishop, he wouldn’t be able to baptise children (don’t bash the bishop...analogy). A good or bad house doesn’t make a good or bad builder; a good or bad builder makes a good or bad house.

When Jesus was asked to pay taxes, he pointed out that the sons of the king are exempt from taxes; but then he freely submitted and paid taxes anyway (more tax systems should depend on fish-gold). We do good works not because we need to but out of love for God and others.

Some people might say, well, since I’m not justified by works, I don’t need to do any: I will do what I feel like and won’t take part in the ceremonies and rituals of Church. Incorrect. In the same way that we need food or drink, but they don’t make us righteous, we can’t stop doing good works. In this world, we’re still bound to the life of the body. In the same way that wealth is a test of poverty, the ceremonies of the Church are the test of the righteousness of faith. Small boys need to be cherished in the bosoms of maidens, but when they are older, maidens become a danger and a temptation, and in the same way, inexperienced young Christians need the restraint of Christian ceremony, even though for more mature Christians there is a danger that they will come to believe that they’re justified by ceremonies.

I found it interesting reading Luther, because it made me realise just how much of the theology I've heard in churches I've belonged to can be traced back to him. But I do find him pretty dualistic: can body and soul really be separated that clearly? Are we really so hopelessly depraved and corrupt that there's nothing good in us at all before we accept Jesus? For all his clever similes, I don't find him such a rich thinker as Aquinas, and it makes me sad that he sees the beauty of salvation apparently only by contrast to the corruption of everything else.

Martin Luther on bearing false witness

In his commentary on the eighth commandment, 'Thou shalt not bear false witness,' Luther argues that this doesn't just refer to lying in court, but is also about how we speak about our neighbours more generally. He says that a person's reputation is one of their most valuable possessions, so we shouldn't say things which damage other people's reputations. We shouldn't bitch about people behind their back; we shouldn't spread malicious rumours. So far, so obvious.

More interestingly, Luther goes on to argue that, just as we wear clothes which show off the 'honourable' bits of our body and cover up the 'dishonourable' bits (1 Corinthians 12:22-23 - my body's too dishonorabilicious for you, baby. Brings a whole new dimension to the question of what is signified by changing hemlines in fashion, I think: your thighs are so dishonorable this season, guys), we should treat our neighbour's reputations in the same way, always talking up their strengths, and putting the best construction on their actions. If we hear something bad about someone, we should think of the most charitable explanation, and believe that.

I came across this idea in a book by Eugene F. Rogers, called Sexuality and the Christian Body, in which he attempts to resolve the question of what Christians should think about homosexuality. He invokes this principle of Luther's as an important way of engaging in theological discussion: stop with the mudslinging, he says. How can we see what is good and important in the different positions people have taken on this issue? I love this as a principle not just for theology, but for reading and discussing generally. Dismissing someone as an idiot doesn't get us anywhere, however satisfying it might feel at the time. What's the best possible construction we can put on the things that are said and done by people we disagree with, whether they be theologians, politicians, philosophers etc?

Photo credit: Rob Sheridan on Flickr