peter krey\’s web site

I’m painstakingly recovering old manuscripts that I wrote about Luther and the German Peasants’ War of 1525. They were on old 5 1/4 inch floppies, which I had copied on to 3 and 1/2 inch discs, and then to a flash drive. In those days I used an old Leading Edge Model D word processor. Wordperfect helped recover some data best. Microsoft word brought them in garbled with strange symbols.

The manuscript “Luther and the Niebuhr Brothers” is second part of a larger one, “Luther and the Peasants’ War,” which is also the tile of Part 1. Part 1 has 26 pages single spaced counting the endnotes and Part 2 has 23 pages, from page 27-49, and Part 3, “The Apology for Luther’s Theology and the Two Kingdom Theory” continues from page 50 to page 107, including 224 endnotes. It is a single-spaced document, which was on several floppies, because at the time, such floppies could not hold the whole document.

I am still working on recovering as many of these pre-graduate school works as possible. After these Luther manuscripts, I’ll try to recover my work on Dating the Exodus, a two hundred page manuscript finished on April 14, 1986. Trips with my congregation to Israel and Egypt sparked my interest in trying to nail down the early or late date for the Exodus. I wrote this manuscript before becoming interested in Luther, which was sparked because I attended the Luther Jubilee in Washington, D.C. in 1983 – Luther’s 500th birthday. I wrote my first manuscript thereafter: Reflections on the Luther Jubilee Lectures, (November 6-12, 1983).

After the Luther Jubilee, I must have written and revised one manuscript after another on Luther and the Peasants’ War and then went to graduate school to study the controversy further, only to have to change my course after five years to studying Luther’s pamphlets. The last manuscript I wrote on Luther and the Peasants’ War of 1525 before starting the pamphlet study was a socio-linguistic approach, which now has been posted. I wrote this note about my manuscripts on December 17, 2010 and just revised it on May 25, 2012.

I have not yet been able to recover Part 1. But three parts are finished:

In Four Parts

 1. Luther and the Peasants War 2. Luther and the Niebuhr Brothers

3. Apologists for Luther’s Theology and the Two Kingdom Theory

4. Luther and the Great German Peasants’ War: a Little Known Story

   (a manuscript in four parts recovered from 5 1/4  inch floppy disks)

A SCHOLARDARITY DOCUMENT

In Four Parts

1. Luther and the Peasants War  2. Luther and the Niebuhr Brothers

3. Apologists for Luther’s Theology and the Two Kingdom Theory

4. Luther and the Great German Peasants’ War: a Little Known Story

     (a continuation of sections recovered from 5 ¼ in. floppy disks)

Part 2

Luther and the Niebuhr Brothers

April 15, 1990

by Peter D.S. Krey

We  will  look  in  vain  for  a monograph by the Niebuhr  brothers  specifically on the  Peasants  War  of 1525 in  Luther’s  Germany.  But Reinhold  and  H.  Richard  Niebuhr certainly  refer  to  and  have  reactions  to Luther’s relationship with the peasant  uprisings, as well as to Luther’s theory of the two Kingdoms, in so far as  they  deal  with  them.  This  essay  alternates  between the  history  in the horizon of Luther’s contemporaries, and the  historical  vantage‑point  from  our  time, looking back at  the  actors  in  this  Sixteenth Century theater of history  from  consequential  historical  experience  and additional  reflection.   This  is  naturally  unfair  to them because  of  the  historical  limitations of the people we study in the past.  We  have our own historical limitations, however, and we find  that some  historical  figures  were very  great and the grandeur of their historical impact exceeds that of some of the great figures of our day. But  from  our  own  limited  life  and  thought,  which  is  so  different, a hopefully fresh perspective becomes possible.

Already   at   the  beginning  Reinhold  Niebuhr’s  sharp  criticism  of Luther against the peasants in his Nature and  Destiny  of Man was  mentioned. [In a previous chapter of this work.] But Reinhold had concerned himself  with  these same issues in Moral Man and Immoral Society as  well  as returning to them and  analyzing them again in The Structure  of  Nations  and Empires. (He may have done more  in  other works that I have not read.) H. Richard Niebuhr spends  some  time  with Luther in his section of Christ and Culture  devoted  to  the  paradoxical  model.  Before this he dealt  with  him  in  The  Social Sources of Denominationalism and The  Kingdom  of  God in America. In Christ and Culture, H.  Richard   recognized   the  large  contribution  which  the  Christian  dualist made in reinvigorating both Christianity and  culture by the dynamic action that the tension has set free.  H. Richard appreciates the contribution of Christian dualists, but records two major criticisms: Sometimes their dualism tends to lead  to antinomianism  and cultural conservatism.  The  latter characterization  was  naturally  devastating  in 1951. The relativizing  of  rules  and laws has doubtless led some to cast  aside  all  rules  for  civilized  living. “They have claimed  Luther  or  Paul   as authority for the contention that  it  makes  no  difference  whether  men  are sinfully obedient  or  sinfully disobedient to the law, whether they are  obedient  or  disobedient  to sinful law, whether they sinfully  seek  truth  or  live as sinful skeptics, whether they are  self‑righteously moral  or  self‑indulgently amoral.”[1]

Dialectics can be pretty slippery. H. Richard maintains  that  the  dualist  needs  the  other  kinds  of Christians  as a corrective, as much as the cannon chose to include  the  Gospel of  Matthew  and the Letter of James  along  with  St.  Paul.[2]

The conservatism of the dualists comes  about  because  of  the  tendency  to think of “law, state  and  other institutions as restraining forces,  as dikes against  sin,  preventers  of anarchy, rather than positive agencies  through which men in social union render positive service  to  neighbors  advancing  toward true life.”[3]

A tendency  in  Luther  and Paul exists to relate temporality and  finiteness to sin in such a degree as to move creation and  fall  into  very close proximity, which does less than justice  to  the  creative  work of God.[4]

For Luther the wrath  of  God  is  not  only  against  sin  but  the whole temporal  world.  “Dying to self and rising with Christ are doubtlessly   more  important;  but  self‑centeredness  and finiteness   belong  so  closely  together  that  spiritual transformation  cannot  be expected this side of death.”[5]

Everything  on  this  side  is  transitory  and  dying  and however  important  cultural  duties, Christian life is not in them.

Luther  can  be  said  to have disparaged the material reasons  for  the peasant unrest unjustly. I believe Luther just  did  not have the social and political language to be able  to  help  the  parties  in the conflict to relativize their  claims and demands in order to be able to negotiate.  In  the  face of the criticism above, that Luther neglected the  society and compartmentalized himself in the religious institution  alone,  we have to say yes and no. The fact is  that  somehow the whole structure of the medieval world was shaking,  as  if  what  brought  a  rift into the surface   of  the  society was an  earthquake, which  came  from  far  below,  from  the “nominalist”   depths.   Because   Luther   turned   to   a particularistic   existentialism,   the   whole   could  be vacated,  the  system  scrapped,  the  individual  could be abstracted  out, and actually the whole of Europe could get carved  up  into  smaller national compartments, as well as more  tightly  sealed  social  compartments that progressed from the estates to classes.

It  is  possible  for  a  theology  to  function  like psychologism,  where the external conditions are considered unreal.  Luther  did  not  go that far, but considered them unimportant,  because  they are proximate and not ultimate, to  use  Reinhold’s  terms. It is possible for a philosophy to  function  as  a sociologism where internal features are considered  unreal.  This  is  the case with Marxism, which relegates  the  whole  Reformation to shadowy superstitious epiphenomena, and reinterprets the whole story as a early‑ bourgeois  revolution  with  Thomas  Müntzer replacing the historical  Luther  in  significance. What is the person to the  Marxist but an inner ensemble of social conditions? No psychological  space  is granted by the one, nor any social ground  by the other. And while asking questions concerning Marxism:  “What  is a  heresy but the revenge for a forgotten truth?”   That  was  to  bring  wholeness and soundness into social  space. Perhaps it was the great medieval synthesis that brought the  Lutheran  revolt  for  Hebrew  particularism  and existentialism.

H. Richard describes the  conservatism of Luther to be one that delimited the earthly kingdom’s  function  alone  to  restrain evil, while such scholars as H. Bornkamm, G. W. Forell and  K. Holl disagree.  Reinhold, however, explores H. Richard’s view of Luther’s conservatism farther.  Luther, according to Reinhold left discriminate justice out of his two kingdom theory, which he developed from Augustine’s  two  cities. Reinhold also argues that Luther did not consider the  ambiguity  of  reason to be able to build and destroy, nor  finally  the  rational  balancing  of  opposing social forces.  Thus Luther  saw  only  destruction  and anarchy in the peasants,  missing  the justice, the more democratic social project,  e.g., the  bid  for  peasant  councils.  He  sees justice  only in  the  Princes,  whom he later determined to be bloodhounds,  as  he later called them. In their orgy of violence he  could  only see the reestablishment of necessary order. On  the  other hand, if Thomas Müntzer had not been a mere preacher  who  thought  he  was  a  general, and had really known  how  to  fight,  say  in some pitched battle on soft turf,   where   mounted   troops   would have been  useless,  and  had outflanked  the princes and won, there would have been five regional  peasant uprisings that would have had to struggle  for  supremacy,  like the already established electors.  And who  knows  how  many  of the “ungodly” Müntzer would have purged  until  he  thought  only the Godly were at hand for the  kingdom? But this is mere conjecture. [He spoke about purging the ungodly, but he himself was really purged along with about 80,000 peasants.] Let us also attempt to think with the conceptual sophistication of the Niebuhrs.

In  his book, The Social Sources of Denominationalism, H.  Richard  is  very  hard  on Luther. He asserts that the Reformation  failed  to  meet  the  religious  needs of the peasants  and  other disenfranchised  groups  of  the  day.[6]

It remained  the  religion  of  the  middle  classes  and  the nobility.  Here  it  is  obvious  that  H. Richard does not subscribe  to the two kingdom theory. “Honestly and naively the  peasants  of Germany had believed that Luther’s appeal to  the New Testament was an appeal not to Pauline theology alone  but  to  the  ethics  of  the Sermon on the Mount as well.”[7]

Here he also asserts that the  peasants discovered that “the priesthood of all believers, “  meant deliverance neither from  the  abstruseness  of  dogma, nor from  the  formality  of sacramentalism,  nor  from the inequalities of political and economic   ethics.  Luther  had  a  dual  standard  of  Old Testament  precepts  for  the  rulers  and  Christian New Testament self‑ sacrificing  meekness  for the peasants, their economic  underlings.  He  places  the  peasants  under the requirements  of  the  Sermon  on  the Mount, and gives the rulers  the  leeway  of  the most cynical real‑politic…The latter words that belong to Reinhold, capture  H.  Richard’s  meaning well.  They lambast Luther’s pamphlet, “Against the Thieving Hordes of Peasants” ‑  a  production  which has well been called a `disgrace to literature,  to  say  nothing of religion.’”[8]

H. Richard thought  the  dualism  of former Catholic social ethics was superior  to  Luther’s,  because  at  least  it  favored  a spiritual  rather  than  primarily a political and economic aristocracy,  which used the guide‑line: “The ass will have blows and the people will be ruled by force.”[9]

H.  Richard  does  not  have  conceptual clarity here. What  is  the  Reformation  if  the political and ecclesiastic institutions  were not being  redefined in order to properly fulfill  the  functions they were called to. Looking at the predicament  from  the standpoint of social class, makes H. Richard  take  this  view.  Heinrich Bornkamm depicts Luther’s Doctrine of the Two  Kingdoms in a very abstruse and complex way.  But by and large it is not so complex when   it  is  understood.  When  H.  Richard  attacks  the formality  of sacramentalism, then he does not realize that the  sacrament  can  be shared informally as well. The very harsh  judgment  against Luther is noticed and comes up time and again. The  poor  need  a  religion of emotional fervor and social Reconstruction,  which Luther and Calvin did not offer.[10]

Later  in  the  same  book, H. Richard explains that many different  groups  rallied  around  the  banner of Luther’s revolt   against  the  medieval  church:  Protestants  with purely  religious interests against the secularized church,  peasants  and  proletarians for long sought realizations of their   hopes,   humanists  against  the  irrationalism  of superstition,  the  knights  for  national  and  provincial interests,  and  bourgeoisie  who  wanted to establish their interests  against  the  aristocracy  and  hierarchy. These movements  were  excluded  from  the  Reformation, while the middle‑class  was  taken  up  in Calvinism and the nobility was  given  sanctuary  in  Lutheranism,  and the poor were sent empty  away  to  find  another  home  for  their faith.[11]

Against  this  kind of a social argument, F. Lau shows that the   popular  movement  of  Lutheranism  among  the  lower classes  was  not   stopped  by  the  Peasants’  War, because it continued in North German   cities   from   1526‑1532.  (See  below.)  In  the  Count’s War in Denmark 1533‑1536,  on the other hand, there is the argument that the  peasantry,  bourgeoisie,  and  Catholicism supporting  Christian II fought Lutheranism and the nobility and  the  duke,  who  became  Christian III.[12]    (The former argument,   then,   contradicts  the  class‑specificity  of Lutheranism, and the latter seems to support it.)

It  is  difficult to accept the fact that the violence on  the  part  of  the peasants was so roundly condemned by Luther,   but   the   “legitimated”   violence  so  roundly accepted.  The  violence  of  the  “protestant inquisition” against  the  religion  of the poor, that of the “Anabaptists,” was not  questioned  very  much either. When the Swabian League authorized   continued  punitive  “police  action”  against peasant  leaders  who may have escaped, years after the end  of  hostilities,  if Anabaptists were discovered, they were also executed forthwith.

There  is  no doubt that studying Ernst Troeltsch adds a  social  sensitivity  and  perception that Luther did not have.  Could  it be, however, that false  modern  political expectations are imposed on  Luther?  It is also unfair to characterize Luther’s position   against   the  peasants   as  a  cold  political calculation  (to sacrifice them to save his Reformation and the  Gospel),  as  much  as  it is unfair to consider it an unconscious  class  prejudice  against the lowest estate of the   day.   Luther   certainly  shared  the  interests  of Frederick  the  Wise,  Duke  John  and  John Frederick. The chasm  between the estates of the day was very difficult to cross.  But  other  ingredients explaining his position are more real.

In  Christ  and Culture H. Richard takes philosophical and  theological  umbrage  with Luther, i.e. in his dualism and  total  depravity doctrine moving the Fall too close to the  Creation,  almost placing its goodness in question. In The  Social  Sources  of Denominationalism, he takes social umbrage  with  Luther ‑ from the point of view of caste and outcasts.  Does  caste  have  to  be  an indelible external reality,  unchangeable  and  to  be accepted? Luther used a term  for  the  office of the minister which undermined the ontological  distinction between a clergy and layperson  and made  the  distinction  merely functional. G. H. Meade uses this  same  concept when he searches for the possibility of an   ideal  society  in  his book,  On  Social  Psychology.  “The development   of   the  democratic  community  implies  the removal  of  castes  as essential to the personality of  the individual;  the  individual is not to be what he is in his specific  caste  or  group as against other groups, but his distinctions   are   to   be  distinctions  of  functional difference  which  put  him  in  relationship  with  others instead  of  separating  him.”[13]

Again what Luther could apply  to  the relationship of lay and clergy, he could not extrapolate  for the “ontological distinctions” between the estates.  He  states  in  opposition  to  the  third of the Peasants’  Twelve  Articles:  “It happens that this article wishes  to  make  all  people  equal,  and of the spiritual kingdom  of  Christ  a  worldly, external kingdom, which is impossible.  Because a worldly kingdom cannot endure, where there  is no inequality in persons, where some are free and others  imprisoned,  some  Lords  and  others  subservient, etc.”[14]

The  priesthood  of  all  believers  still goes farther  than  Luther  could  understand and go along with. His  theological  insight  penetrated much farther than his social  imagination.   G.  H.  Meade actually refers to the medieval  world  and  its  estates in his analysis, which I just  quoted,  and  shows  how slaves pass over into serfs, peasants,  artisans,  citizens  and in all stages there are increased  relations….[15]

Here particularism on Luther’s part  may  well  be  an  underlying  factor,  and  a social universalism, democratization,  i.e.  a greater “catholicism” was required.

From  H.  Richard’s  The Kingdom of God in America, it is possible to list the following criticisms of Luther:

1/  Luther  staked  everything  on  the freedom of the Word  of  God ‑ which the more skeptical will regard as too great   a   trust  in  the  Word  alone  to  sway  princes, ecclesiastics, and rulers of economic life.

2/  Luther  seemed to hold that God’s sovereignty over so‑called  “natural  things”  was not as seriously impaired as  in  the  realm  of the spirit and thus the actual civil law and institutions truly represented the natural law.

3/  He  regarded all “outward” things with monastic or pietistic indifference  (as already mentioned).

4/  Only  God  can  rule the human spirit and only the spirit is really important.

5/  The  freedom of the Word is the most important and and  it  is  all  right  to yield to political and economic forces  in  what seem to be purely temporal matters. And if only  the Word is unshackled it will convert rulers and the rich  and  so  produce paternal, loving, reasonable rule on earth.[16]

For  these  points  it  is  good to look into Luther’s famous  Eight  Invocavit Sermons through which he calmed and put down the  rampage  of  the  iconoclasts  in  Wittenberg after his hasty  return  from  the  Wartburg.  The necessary changes for the Reformation could proceed by God’s Word alone and not by human hand or force of arms.

On the other hand, Zwingli interestingly enough,  applies  economic  sanctions on the Catholic Forest cantons,  which  refused  to  allow  reformed  pastors into their congregations.   The   armies  from  these  cantons attacked  Zwingli  in retaliation and in the second battle, Zwingli  lost  his  life.  Zwingli had seen the outnumbered and  divided  Swiss mercenaries get massacred far away from home   in  the  bloody  senseless  battles  of  Novara  and Marignano  in  1513 and 1515. In his revulsion against this system,  he  had  attacked  the  practice  of  the Swiss of sending  the farm hands (Landsknechte) out as mercenaries where there was not  sufficient income from the farms for their upkeep. He  needed  soldiers  when  the Catholic cantons attacked and defeated and killed him.  He also had needed the alliance with Philip of Hesse, which  of  course  did not come about because of Luther and his  inability to agree on the doctrine of Holy Communion. (Note the consequence attached to their agreement.) Luther’s  agenda  for the Reformation was  faith in the Word of God alone rather than the pressure  of  sanctions, let alone possible coercion. Here the two kingdom  theory  again  plays  a  role.  Using such means  could be a rational approach for  the  secular  government, but, according to Luther they should not be used for  spiritual  goals. They are a rational means for some political goals, but they should not be used as theological means  by the church, which is based on the Gospel and persuasion.

The question can be asked: Would  the  repeal of Apartheid legislation not also include  spiritual  goals?  Today with Nelson Mandela freed in  South  Africa,  it  seems the economic sanctions really brought  progress in social justice there. Churches as well as governments participated. Where is here the Word alone? Karl  Marx  asserted  that an “idea always disgraced itself insofar as it differed from an interest,” [17] – that  an idea  only if supported  by  an interest started a movement.  His position comes  from  a  materialistic view, naturally. Perhaps it is good  to  go to the power of the Word alone for the matters of  the  spirit,  because does not the spirit determine human  actions? The flesh is weak. That certainly means the spirit  is  weak,  even  though  it  may  be willing. (Mat. 26:41)

Luther  certainly  meant  that  the  Word, the Gospel influences  those  people who have opened themselves to it, and  through  His  Word,  God  works making changes that the godless  cannot  hinder. Do we go over into materialism too much  today,  and  perhaps  weigh down and make ineffectual the  spirit?  This  can  be  considered  in  relation  with Luther’s  dictum:  “For  the Word of God comes, whenever it comes, to change  and renew the  world.”  [18]  Now  does  that necessarily mean the word  alone?  It  also means God acting in history to bring it  to pass. That means God’s interest, and certainly those who  adhere to God’s will. In this way the interest is also carried,   and   what’s   more  a  congregation,  a  church community  carries  the  Gospel.  To pick up a social class that  carries  the  idea  and makes it a movement is only a step  farther from saying an idea needs an interest to give it  the  power  to become a movement.

H. Richard shows that churches   have   become   class  specific  and  carry  the interests  of  their  class.  The  Gospel, the Word of God, needs  to  be  pure and confront human interests with God’s will.  In  the  concept of the Word alone is implicit trust and  faith  in  God,  and  God  acting.   Because  a Thomas Müntzer  turns  to violence, i.e. the use of force, Luther exclaims  that  Müntzer  has  experienced a shipwreck in his faith.

Perhaps,  then  sanctions,   coercion,  and  represented interests  do  play  a  role in secular, rational political considerations,  but  they are  not  so  effectual  as  the Word alone,  where  God  is  acting.  And with that it seems that real  change  and  permanent social improvement can rely on this  spiritual  power  more. Luther could have led actions against  the monasteries and forced the nuns and monks out. With  the  Word he convinced them, and in their hearts they agreed  that  the perfection, which they sought, was not possible in such  an  isolated  group;   they then  left  the monasteries  of  their  own  accord.  Marx would argue that only  because  the  Word was congruent with their interests did  the  Word have power to move them. Not so. Persons can be  convinced  of the truth even when it goes against their own  interests:  witness  how  many  Communists  pressed by Stalin  almost  agreed  and  became  resigned  to their own being   purged   for   the  sake  of  their  value  of  the revolution.  Or  in  the  Peasants’  War look at the idealist Florian  Geyer, who was very rich and stood to gain nothing from  his joining the peasants, and indeed lost everything, even  his own life, because he did. When getting into the soul and religion the  materialist  conceptions  play havoc  with  inner integrity  (Mat.10:30.),  but  when looking at large social groupings,  the  materialistic  considerations seem so much more to come into the foreground.

Reinhold  Niebuhr  reflected on  working  out  an adequate political ethic in a more focused way than  his  brother.  Following Luther, I believe that Reinhold was also a dualist  and  rooted  squarely in the paradoxical model.  As  much  as he criticized the two kingdom theory, he  was perhaps   convinced  by  a more sophisticated version of it.  We  begin with his in-depth analysis of Luther’s stance on  the  peasants  in 1525 in The Nature and Destiny of Man Vol.  II,  already alluded to above. His critique of Luther extends  to Calvin as well, even to the entire contribution of  the  Reformation,  which  however  has a more important place  in the history of Christian thought and life than we realize.[19]

That Reinhold’s critique is  harsh  will become  obvious: “The Lutheran Reformation  was  betrayed  meanwhile  into  the  hands  of social  reaction.“[20]

Perhaps  he  also  looks at Luther through  the  lens  of  this  particular  historical issue: namely  the  failure in social justice for the peasants. He does    show    a   sincere   appreciation   for   Luther’s psychological  understanding of love. But Luther interprets the  power  of righteousness psychologically.[21]

He finds quietistic  tendencies  in  Luther,  however, in spite of the great  merits  of Luther’s rich analysis of faith and love. Luther  sometimes  lapses  into  the  mystic  doctrines  of passivity   or   combines   quietism   with   a  legalistic conception  of  the  imputation  of righteousness.  “Without works”  degenerates  into  “without  action.”[22]

(Below it will  be  shown  how  these  arguments  do  not  grasp  and comprehend  Luther’s  very self‑conscious,   in‑depth theology,  that  penetrated  realities in faith deeper than his  critics.  Note  that  by  dint of his existentialistic theology Luther  sometimes  chooses  to  be  quietistic.) Actually  Luther teaches that the justification of faith is the  release  of  the  soul  into  action  and  not  the encouragement   for  indolence.[23]

Also  in  the  barren Lutheran  orthodoxy  of  the  seventeenth‑century, “justification  by  faith”  degenerated into “righteousness of  belief”  becoming  destructive  of the moral content of the  Christian  life, while the moral content has some  warrant  in Luther’s own thought.[24]

Luther’s greatest weakness, for Reinhold, is his  analysis  of  grace  in its relation with the law. The problem  does  not  arise in the idea of  justification, but in  sanctification.  Luther’s vision of love, joy and peace which  the  redeemed  soul  enjoys in Christ is an ecstatic transcendence  over  all the contradictions in history, the inner  contradictions  of  the  “ought,”  the sense of moral obligation,  obligation  to  the  law and  therefore all the careful  discriminations  of justice, which belong to “law” in  the broadest sense.[25]

This leads to a highly personal and  interior  sanctification. Where H. Richard says Luther thinks  of  the state in purely negative terms, to restrain evil,  Reinhold  sees  Luther having solely a negative view of  the law. But Reinhold feels that “There is a constantly increasing  sense of social obligation which is an integral part  of  the  life  of  grace.”[26]

This  conception of Luther’s  relation  of  grace with the law need not lead to antinomianism,  but  to  an  indifference to relative moral discriminations.  From  utter seriousness for the ultimate, the  proximate  does not receive sufficient concern for all the  intermediate  points,  all the approximations  of  justice. In other words  a  defeatism  comes  about  in  which  the understanding   of   the  ultimate  problem  in  historical existence  precludes any understanding of all the proximate problems.[27]

Reinhold  shows that there are an infinite variety  of  structures and systems in which people seek to organize  their  common  life  in  terms  of  some  kind of justice.   And higher  approximations  of  justice  are possible.  All  these mechanisms help people fulfill their obligations to   their neighbors beyond the possibilities offered in direct  personal relationships.[28]

These  mechanisms  can  be  positive ways that people help each other beyond  direct  personal,  individual relationships,  and  therefore  they  are not only negative restraints.  With  conviction,  he  states: “The Kingdom of God  and the demands of perfect love are therefore relevant to  every  political  system  and impinge upon every social situation  in  which  the  self seeks to come to terms with the  claims of other life.”[29]

By this statement Reinhold seems  to  have  a  different  approach  to the two kingdom theory.  He tries to spell out how the society is  impinged, namely  beyond  the individual. But even Reinhold envisions kingdom  of  God beyond history and it remains an aspiration for or judgment upon  any  standing order. Perhaps his statement: “This is another instance in  which  the  sectarian conception of  the  relation  of  the  gospel  to  social problems  is right and the Reformation is wrong.”[30]

Reinhold requires a  different approach from the two kingdom theory.  According to Luther,  because of this theory, the law relates to social  problems  and  not  the  Gospel,  except indirectly through individuals. (See Forell below.)

Reinhold does not say  how to accomplish the requirements of love through  the  state  where  human outreach has to extend  beyond directly  personal relationships.  He  may see  the  Kingdom of God and perfect  love  as constant correctives, which are goals that always remain unattainable yet  have to  be  striven  for.  It is to the realm of the state that Luther relegates secular reason,  justice,  negotiation, and compromise in temporal  affairs.  Reinhold  may feel that for the sake of discriminate  justice, the  proximate  realm also requires religious  motivation.   He later argues, however, that the  distinction  between  the secular and religious realms remains the  most  creative  in the history of western culture.[31]

Perhaps  given the case of the peasants war, Reinhold feels that  the  dualism  of  the  two  kingdoms  brought about a failure  in Luther’s response, but he would not be amiss if he emphasized  the  teaching of Luther that God works in both kingdoms,  the  strange  work  of  love  in the one and the proper  work  in  the  other,  and  the Christian person is always  in both kingdoms having different roles. Perhaps it is  possible  that the failure of Luther consisted in being schizoid  in  the  Peasants’  War.  Because  of  his fear and despair he may have  split the two kingdoms so that only the God of wrath  could  appear in the world. “Yet God so loved the world so that he  gave his only begotten Son,” not for the church, but for the  world.  Perhaps   emphasizing the positive and negative sides  of the law and state, Reinhold could also argue that God  does  his  proper work in the worldly kingdom as well.

Here  Reinhold argues that Luther erred by placing the emphasis on  saved  by “faith,” where as it should be  saved by “grace.”  It is  by  grace alone, rather than by faith alone, that peace is  found;  because  it  is  not our acceptance of grace by faith,  but  grace  itself,  which  is  determinative.[32]

According  to  Reinhold,  this  made goodness possible also outside  the  Christian  life. That would then puncture the walls of Luther’s two kingdom theory again.  Reinhold  feels that Luther split the two kingdoms apart  so that no creative tension remained for them. He offered a  Luther  quote  from  the  commentary on Galatians to the effect  that  the Gospel is placed in heaven and the law on earth.  The  righteousness  of  the  gospel is heavenly and that  of  the  law  is earthly. According to Luther, Gospel and law have to be distinguished like  the  heaven  is  from  the  earth.  Faith and conscience   should   utterly  exclude  the  law,  Luther continues, and  the law should be left  on  earth. Contrary to the Gospel, in civil  policy obedience  to the law is required and nothing should be  known of conscience, the Gospel, grace, remission of  sins,  heavenly  righteousness  and Christ himself. For civil policy, Moses  only  with  the  law  and  the works of the law are required.  With these statements, all the tension is gone and Luther split up  the   kingdoms  in  an  absolute  way, according to Reinhold.[33]

Luther   rigorously  applied  the  separation  of  the “worldly”   kingdom   from  the  “spiritual”  one  for  the peasants.  He  met  the demands of  the peasants for greater justice  with the charge that they confused the two realms. Reinhold  states  Luther  was  “complacent”  to  the social inequalities  of feudalism and added a degree of perversity to   his   social   ethic,   because  he  enlarged  on  the distinction  between  an  “inner”  kingdom  and  an “outer” kingdom,  so that in effect he made a distinction between a public  and private morality. The rulers were approached as the  custodians  of  public  morality  and advised to “hit, stab,  kill”  when  dealing  with the rebels…Luther had a morbid  fear  of  anarchy  and  was  willing  to  grant the “Obrigkeit”   any   means   to   suppress  it.  But  Luther admonished   the  peasants  as  private  citizens  to  live according  to the Sermon on the Mount and that their demand for  justice  violated  the ethic of nonresistance. Niebuhr continues  that  by thus “transposing an “inner” ethic into a   private  one,  and  making  the  “outer”  or  “earthly” authoritative   for   the  government,  Luther  achieves  a curiously  perverse social morality.”[34]

It is worthwhile to   continue   quoting   Reinhold   here:   “He  places  a perfectionistic   private   ethic  in  juxtaposition  to  a realistic,  not  to say cynical, official ethic. He demands that  the  state  maintain  order  without too scrupulous a regard  for justice; yet he asks suffering and nonresistant love  of the individual without allowing him to participate in  the  claims  and  counter‑claims  which  constitute the stuff  of  social  justice.  The  inevitable consequence of such  an  ethic  is to encourage tyranny; for resistance to government  is  as important as maintenance of government.”[35]

Now  to  list  more criticisms and corrective insights from Reinhold here:

1/  Luther’s  pessimism and defeatism in social ethics led  to  an  absolute distinction between the “heavenly” or “spiritual”  and  “earthly” kingdoms destroying the tension between  them  and  the  final  demands  of  God  upon  the conscience  for  progressive  realizations  of  the good in history.   2/  When H. Richard took the dualism of Luther to task for  leading  to  possible  antinomianism  above,  Reinhold takes  it  to task for making any attempt at social justice useless  for  the  same  reasons.  Why  struggle for a more righteous  social  order  when  every  social order will be tainted  by  sin,  and  even an unjust order is sanctified, and  therefore  consciences  can  be  easy  about  what  is temporal  and  unimportant  because it is not a question of the  ultimate.  Although  social  antinomianism  is guarded against,  there  is  no obligation for Christians to change social structures. (See Footnote No. 28)

3/  You  can’t  understand  the ultimate, if you don’t diligently pursue the proximate.[36] 

4/  Luther  develops  no  consistent  criteria for the achievement  of relative justice. Any order therefore that happens  to  be  established  by  a  state  is uncritically accepted, because a standard of justice is lacking.

5/   The  state  is  not  in  an  order of creation, a directive  given  from  God  in  the  very structure of the created   world.   And   uncritical  obedience  to  such  a government,  which  Luther  demanded   is  not  part of the requirement of such an “order”. [37]

In  this  last  criticism, Reinhold has the spirit and temper of  the Germany of 1937 in mind rather than Luther, who  modeled  incredible  courage  in  civil  and ecclesiastic disobedience,  except  that this peasant uprising seemed to make  him  forget  this  part of his life, and he could not muster  this  feeling,  although  he  could make a stand if Lutherans  were asked to turn in their newly translated New Testaments.  His ecclesiastic and civil disobedience flared up there  again  quickly  enough.   Much can be said about all of  Reinhold’s  Luther  and  Reformation  criticism.  It is valuable  and  needs to be heard. But there is another side too  that  needs  to  be  understood in order to be fair to this  particular  historical  period  and  the  tragedy  of Luther’s  belated reactions to this uprising. We cannot yet go  into  the  problem  of  the  causes of the peasant war. Reinhold  is  fair in that he does not go into the Luther’s betrayal  of the peasants so very much. He takes issue with Luther’s teaching in the pamphlets he wrote. What  is  very  unfair to Luther is the unhistorical way  that  Reinhold  takes  Luther to task, leaving out the historical  context. He did not do a careful reading of the history  here in question, and therefore fell into the trap that  Prof.  Grane  spoke of, making Luther into a villain.

Luther  did  not  present  the  rulers  with  a cynical and public,  unscrupulous  official ethic while admonishing the peasants  to  a perfectionistic private one from the Sermon on  the  Mount.  His first pamphlet “On the Twelve Articles of  the  Peasant  Estate”  almost 30 pages long was written without  any   judgement  or  condemnation  on them. Luther teaches  them  about their situation, about their inability to  use  the  Gospel  according  to  his theology, to cover their  struggle  for material gain and justice. But he bids both   the  rulers  and  the  peasants  to  negotiate  with detachment,  for after all their material situation was not an  ultimate  concern.  He  presents  both  parties  in the conflict  with  advice  and  admonishment,  and  is perhaps harder  on  the peasants than on the Lords, but he has some harsh words for them, too.

Reinhold  goes  to  the  second  writing, “Against the Murderous  and  Thieving  Hordes  of  Peasants. Against the Raging  (attacking,  storming) Peasants” to write the whole title.  Here  Luther  is  not delineating any social ethic. And  it  is wrong and unfair to give the impression that he is.  Luther is writing in a completely different historical situation.  The  peasants  have amassed 35,000 men alone in Saxony.  They  are razing the castles to the ground and are plundering  and destroying monasteries. (Luther had not yet left  his  Augustinian  monastery!)  It  is  impossible  to determine   exactly  when  Luther  wrote  this  angry seven  page pamphlet,  but  in  it he lists the three major offenses of the  peasants.  He  tries  to  get  the  ruler of Saxony to mobilize  against  the  oncoming threat. Frederick the Wise feels  it  would  be  wrong to attack his own subjects, and feels  that  they might deserve the ire of the peasants. He withdraws  and  dies  in  his  castle at Lochau on May 5th, 1525  still maintaining that a peaceful settlement could be negotiated.  Now  if  the moderate peasant leaders, Ulrich  Schmid,  Sebastion Lotzer and Christoph  Schappeler  had  led  the  peasant  movement  in Thuringia  and  Saxony  instead  of  the violent Thomas  Müntzer, then the passivity of Frederick  the  Wise  would  have  been  right,  and Luther instigation to stop the peasants wrong.  Especially  in  the  Weingarten  Treaty that the peasants made with Georg Trucksses, commander of the Swabia League’s army, most of the peasants there demonstrated that they wanted to negotiate and not do  battle.  But  Thomas Müntzer in Thuringia, with Heinrich Pfeiffer, another peasant leader, who was called Schwertfeger, that means, “a sword-sweepser,” certainly wanted to fight and in no uncertain  terms. He intended to slay the ungodly. On the eve of the battle of Frankenhausen, he presided over the the beheading of three men. Luther knew Thomas Müntzer. [See the chapter: "The Great German Peasants' War: a Little Known Story."]

Below  another  problem  with  the  publication of the “Hard  Little  Pamphlet”  will  be discussed, that explains why  Reinhold  as  well  as the offended people of Luther’s day  misunderstood and confused the contexts and intentions for  which  the  exhortation  to the violence of the rulers was written. Luther   had  been  doing  a  whirlwind  trip  through Thuringia  at  considerable danger to his life, admonishing pastors  who  were stirring up the peasants in the uprising to  calm  them  and prevent bloodshed. In this trip he must have  already  seen their real situation, where a wholesale  insurrection  was  afoot.  Luther  had  to  break  off this campaign  because  of the news of Frederick’s death. On his return  to  Wittenberg  he must have written this hard book against  the  rebellious  peasants.  His protector had just died.  The  new  elector  Duke  John  was  as benign and as sensitive  as old Frederick. Luther tried to get him moving to  see  the desperate state of affairs. It can be heard in the  funeral  sermon he preached for his old protector, who never  once  gave  him  a personal audience, never left the old     faith, and  never allowed  his    church (Allerheiligenstift)  in  Wittenberg  to  give up the mass. [38]

All interaction with Luther had been through Spalatin, Luther’s friend and Frederick’s advisor at court. Luther  in  his  hard  little book  admonished the non‑Christian   rulers  that  they  could  also  put  down  the rebellion  as  a  service  to the people. But the Christian rulers  he  admonished  to first pray, because God could be using  the  peasants to punish the land, and they might all perhaps  die.  Mind  you  the  peasants  at  this  time are leaving  a  wake of destruction and have no opposition. The three  battles  with  decisive  defeats all come around May 15th.  Philip  of  Hesse,  Duke  George of Saxony, and Duke Henry  of  Braunschweig,  and the Graf of Mansfield took to the  field  with about 6,000 troops, but lots of cannon and gunpowder.  Duke  John  was  conspicuous  by  his  absence! Later,   however,   he   joined   them  in  the  taking  of Mühlhausen. Now  Luther  advised  the Christian rulers to pray and repent.  He  advised  them  to  give  the  peasants another chance  to  negotiate.  (This  is the hard little book!) He explained  to  the  rulers  that  many  peasants  had  been compelled  to  join the rebellious ones, and they were in a kind  of  purgatory  not  of  their  own choosing, and they should  receive  mercy.  But  then although the rulers were Christian,  they  had  a duty to protect their subjects and they  should  attack  the  peasants who were tearing up the country  and  “smite,  stab,  slay”   knowing  that if they died   against  the  heavy odds, they were dying in service of  God  and  could  be  considered  martyrs. This is not a cynical   official   ethic,  but  a  realistic  and  always shocking  mandate  to  those  who  are  responsible for the defense of a country to fight the necessary  bloody battle.

This  pamphlet  was  certainly written around the time of  Frederick’s  death,  when Luther was returning from the campaign  to convince the peasants not to rise up. That the peasants  would  all  fold  up  and become massacred in two weeks  was  not  known.  (Perhaps  the  fear  was  like the irrational  fear  of  a slave rebellion among the masters.) That  the  Pamphlet  came  out  somewhat later because of a printing  delay  can  have also exacerbated and changed the effect  of  it, because then it would have been interpreted as  merciless revenge on defeated peasants. But there is no indication  anywhere  exactly  when  the  book  appears  in print,   although   as  early  as  May  26th,  John  Ruehel mentions  it and the charge that Luther writes about in his letter  to  Nicholas  von  Amsdorf  dated May 30, 1525.[39]

This  means  that  it  was  definitely  out  before  Thomas Müntzer’s  execution  on May 27th and could very well have been  out  before  the Battle of Frankenhausen on May 15th. It   would  be  interesting  to  discover  how  long  other pamphlets  usually  took  to  print,  also considering that this one is only 8 pages long. Clearly  Reinhold  is  reacting  to  Luther  without carefully   reviewing   the  history,  but  reviewing  only documents  and  ideas  without their historical context. To be  fair  to  Reinhold, however, the way Luther’s pamphlets were  published,  put both “The Admonition…” and “Against the   Murderous  Peasant…”  together,  giving  the  false impression  that  they  were  written at the same time. But against  Reinhold,  in  the Twelve Article pamphlet, Luther tried  to  explain  his two kingdom theory to the peasants.  They  were  not living  in  a democracy but a kind of monarchy  slightly mitigated and modified as an Empire. The peasants  were  trying to win more rights, but they were often pressed back into serfdom, especially those who belonged to monasteries and were ruled by prince-abbots. They didn’t have  much standing. The burghers were trying to work out a slight  increase  in  their  rights  in  the  medieval free cities;  the  serfs  chafed at their low status. If the  peasants  had  won,  who  is  to  say  that  a greater approximation of  justice would  have  been  achieved? They would have avoided their own massacre, – of course only until the emperor would have come to avenge the Lords. They might have  perpetrated  some  carnage  under  Müntzer, if he had gotten to purge the ungodly. Luther’s  assessment of the situation was probably more informed and  realistic  ‑  that  the  violence  would have reaped havoc all over the empire. (Below we will see that G.  Franz  agrees with Luther that even if the peasants had been   successful, they would have soon been crushed even by the rulers  from  the  North, let alone the emperor.)  We  will  have  to consider the positive   and   completely  uncontrolled  aspects  of  the peasants  war  later.  The  latter were very pronounced, as romantically as we cherish the former. Luther’s  first writing to the peasants was begun on a visit  to  Eisleben  on  the  20th  of  April  and  finally appeared  in  print  on May 9th.[40]

This is quite late and not  very effectual for all the action in the other regions of  southern  Germany,  nor  very  much  for  the  Müntzer actions  near  Luther,  for  that  matter.  But when Luther wrote  this work, neither the news of the uprisings already in  progress  in  the South, the  bloodbath of Weinberg, nor the   murder  of  Graph  Helfenstein  by Jaecklein Rohrbach had   reached  him. Otherwise his pamphlet could never have been  written in such an irenic way. Luther is teaching the peasants  and  is  always  very wary of their justice issue and   their  armed  uprising  becoming  confused  with  his approach  to  spreading the Reformation. Luther does not at all  want  to  jeopardize  the discovery of his Gospel, and may  well  have  considered all the peasants expendable for the  many  generations  of people who would benefit from it among  the   progeny.  Luther  may  well have considered the long  haul  ‑  and was also ever wary that the Emperor with Catholic  forces would invade and try to erase all advances that  had  been  made in this religious movement ‑ and this of  course did happen with the Schmalcald War of 1546‑1547, and  again  with  a vengeance in the Thirty Years War 1618‑1638.  If Luther had joined forces with the peasants or the free  Knights  two  years  before, it could have provoked a much earlier invasion. Not  only  Luther’s  morbid  fear of anarchy should be mentioned  perhaps,  and considered  by  Reinhold Niebuhr, because  another  fear  must  have  taken  its  toll on the people  of  the  time.  (Although never is anything said of this.)  There  must  have  been  terror  in the face of the brutality  of  the rulers of the day for whoever flouted or thwarted  their  absolute power over their serfs. They were judge,  jury and executioners all rolled into one personage with  often  times arbitrary judgements pronounced at their whim  and  will.  And they were torturers prone to the most brutal  punishments  of  their  victims.  This  was the age where  someone  who  crossed his Lord could get the penalty of  being  drawn  and quartered by four horses galloping in opposite  directions,  a  hapless  victim  could be roasted alive,  broken  on  a  wheel,  tortured in chambers, and if lucky,  quickly  beheaded,  to have their head impaled on a spear  or  the  gate  of  the city. And not only the rulers practiced  this  kind  of  medieval  barbarity.  Thomas Müntzer  threatened Luther, “that gentle flesh in Wittenberg,” with  the  taunt,  that  he  could smell flesh roasting at Wittenberg,  donkey  flesh[41] ‑ by which he imparted his purposes  to  Luther  upon  his  victorious entry into that city.    And  when  Luther  heard  that  Müntzer  had been executed,   he   asked  very  curiously  to  have  his  end described  to  him in every detail, because he thought that very  important.  When  he  heard  that  Müntzer  had been tortured  before  his  beheading,  he seemed to be somewhat embarrassed,  saying, yes, certainly, the princes must have had to do that…[42]

In  Reinhold’s  The  Structure of Nations and Empires, he  not  only  criticizes  Luther,  but also shows areas of agreement.  Hopefully  this  analysis will throw more light on  what  considerations  a  sophisticated  political ethic could have on Luther’s stance in the peasant uprisings. To  review  his  thought  here  he  first criticizes Luther  in  the  context  of  the general Christian freedom from  the  social  orders.  And  here  is  where  the  self contradiction  in human freedom becomes paradoxical because it  can  be  used creatively or destructively, for the sake of  others  or for subordinating all interests to one’s own aggrandizement.[43]

Because   the   basic   appeal   of Christianity  seemed  to  be  to  the individual, it seemed only  negatively relevant to the community, and that is the conclusion  Luther came to when he formulated the theory of the  two realms. The Christian faith, he goes on to say, is not   satisfied   with   so   rigorous  an  individualistic interpretation,  because  the gospel also contains a vision of  an  ideal universal community. The Israel of God is not a  natural  community,  but a redeemed community. The rigor of  its universalism and its eschatological character, i.e. the  hope of its possibility only at the end of history and not  within  history,  seems to make it critically relevant to  the  task of organizing either a universal  community in history,  or  any community at all.[44]

“The eschatological character  of  the vision  of  a  perfect  and  universal community  is  consistent  in  both  the  Old  and  the New Testaments.”[45]   But the prophetic Kingdom of God does not annul,  but  transmutes  all  fragmentary  achievements  of human  history.   In another part of his book he again says much  the  same  criticism:  in  Luther’s theory of the two realms  the  earthly  one is conceived as realm of coercive order  in  a  world  of  sin,  which lacked the concern for discriminate  justice  the fruit of Aristotelian thought in the  Middle  Ages.[46]  In  all  this  of  course it seems Reinhold  has  not  really  comprehended  Luther’s theology about  the  natural  orders, nor the factor of his decision for  quietism, “quietive or motive” (Forell’s terms) in the individual’s  response  to  the  natural  orders  or social orders.  Reinhold  sees  Luther  not  in  his comprehensive theology,  but  through  his lens here of Luther’s reaction to the Peasants War.  But  to  continue  the review of his ideas:  Luther is more  pre‑modern  than  those  political  writers  such  as Marsilius  of Padua in his Defensor Pacis 1324 and Dante in De  Monarchia because although they too attacked the Papal temporal  dominion,  they  did  not  react  with dualism as Luther  did.  Dante  as opposed to the pessimism of Luther, was  a  political  optimist, who demonstrates the virtue of seeking  the proximate happiness attained by the harmony of the  historical community and the weakness of setting goals for   this  community  in  terms  of  both  perfection  and universality  which  are  beyond  the  capacity  of  mortal humans  to  attain,  since  they  are  both finite in their perspectives  and  suffering  from that inner contradiction in  use  of  their  freedom.[47]

Here Reinhold seems to be agreeing  with Luther, because Luther said much the same in his   analysis   of   the   millenialists  above.  However, Reinhold’s   political   ethic  is  fashioned  to  be  more resourceful  for the sake of justice. Then to continue: the optimistic   utopianism  of  Dante  is  challenged  by  the secular  realism  of  a  Machiavelli  and  Hobbes,  and the religious  realism  of  a  St.  Paul and the Reformers. The realists,  Reinhold  feels, are excessive in their estimate of  human  egocentricity  and  oblivious  to  the fact that human  rational  values  always  display  both creative and destructive  tendencies,  building  just communities on the one  hand  and  on  the  other, disturbing the peace by the rationalization of particular interests.[48]

In   continuing  his  commentary  in  the  history  in question,  it seems that the Peasants’ War was really rising in  opposition  to  the major influences of the Reformation and  the  Renaissance,  because the peasants wanted the old communal  autonomy  of  their villages and the law that had been  based  on their communal way of life to continue. But Reinhold  says:  “Both  the Reformation and the Renaissance were  to  explore  the private possibilities of the self in its transcendence  over  the  communal  situation.   The Reformation  emphasized  the  individual  character  of the relation  of  the self to the divine; and the impossibility of  any  human  fulfillment  bridging the chasm between the fragmentary  character  of  the  historical and the divine. The  Renaissance  was  to  explore  all  the individual and cultural  possibilities  of  the  self once it was freed of ecclesiastical  authority.”[49]

Both  these  explorations depend  upon  the radical distinction between the political or  communal  and the “eternal” or private ends of humanity, which  Dante  had  maintained.  Luther also maintained these distinctions to be sure.  Reinhold  tried  to  clarify these community and individual issues  by showing  the  paradoxical  relation between  the self and the community. The community is at once the  fulfillment and the frustration of the self. It is the fulfillment  in  that the self cannot fulfill itself within itself.  The self only becomes a  true self by engaging its interests and creativity in the community, from which it receives its meaning.[50]

But the individual has the capacity to transcend the   community,   conceiving   ends   that  transcend  the possibilities  of  history  as  bound  in  nature.  But the fulfillment  of  human physical life and historical success must  be sacrificed for the attainment of this integrity of the  spirit.  This is the eternal as distinguished from the temporal  end  of human existence.[51]

Here the distinction between  the  proximate  and  the  ultimate  also  seems to emerge,   and  the fact that the Reformation could not have been  possible,  if  the  Reformers had not taken a radical decision for the ultimate. (See Forell below) Perhaps  it  helps  to  reflect  here upon the problem that  Luther  could  sacrifice  his  own material gain, but should  not  have  required the peasants to do so. However, if  they were going to move under the banner of the Gospel, and  the  ultimate,  then  they would have had to sacrifice the  proximate  gains  like Luther. This does not work very well  for  an aspiring estate. And the terms “proximate and ultimate”  are  not  sufficient  to  get  at  these complex realities. Reinhold   goes  on  to  point  out  that  the  modern bourgeois  culture  has  always  been  a  compound  of  the religious   appreciation  of  the  incongruous  individual, [rising   above   all   social   meanings,   and   communal fulfillment  and  frustrations,]    and   the   social individualism   of   commercial   classes   [whose   social mobility,  flexible  forms  of  property,  and emancipation from  traditional  vocations,  established  their dignity.][52]

Reinhold continues that  secondly individual selfhood had  to  be  defined  in a situation of self‑contradiction. The  Fall, or the golden age compared to the actual age for Stoicism  tries  to  express  the  verity  that  the  final possibilities  of  social  virtue  cannot be realized. (The consequences  of  “original sin”?) Human  beings experience the  fact that the capacity of human freedom to transcend a finite  situation  does not lead inevitably to a more valid or  more universal norm of conduct, but can lead, and often does,  to  the  sanctification of the finite and contingent situation  as  the ultimate one. In every new historical or social  situation  some individual, class, nation or social force  will claim more than its share of goods, and pretend to  more dignity than is its right, because it looks at the common  situation not from a transcendent and disinterested perspective,  but  from its own perspective, which it false identifies  as  the  ultimate  perspective.[53]

(Precisely Luther’s  charge  against  the peasants!) For this there is some  remedy,  but  ultimately  there is no remedy, because every  triumph  of  human  culture  or  of  the  human mind remains  subject  to  the  ambiguity  of  human  existence. Humans  are  both  creatures  and  creators  of history and inevitably   they   forget  their  limits.  Sophistication, adequate  accumulation  of  knowledge, and a good sociology of  knowledge  can  mitigate  this problem, but no force in culture or history can eliminate it.[54]

Reinhold  shows  Christ  to  be  the  key  and central figure  resolving this paradoxical dilemma of history. “God was  in  Christ,  reconciling  the world to himself” is the assurance   which   gives   authentic   Christianity   that paradoxical  combination of pessimism and optimism which is a  perpetual  source  of creativity, so long as it does not become   the   symbol   of  the  historical  nullification, pessimistic or optimistic, of the original message.[55]

What  we have here are the safe‑guards I believe, that Reinhold  puts onto his political ethic in order to make it commensurable  with  the  two  kingdom theory which he does not  hold.  Therefore  he  states: pessimism prevents every eminence  in  history, cultural or political, from claiming absolute  validity.  And  optimism  prevents  the  drama of history,  with  all  its  patches  of meaninglessness, from being  conceived  as  a  “tale,  full  of  sound  and fury, signifying  nothing.”  Man does participate in two natures. And   the   Reformation,   Reinhold  shows,  was  not  very successful  in relating religious visions to our collective life.[56]

Reinhold  is interpreting Dante here, and shows that  he  succeeded  in  distinguishing  the  two realms of collective and individual destiny, of historical and trans‑historical  possibilities,  which  clerical  absolutism had obscured.  Then  in  a  statement  fraught with a pessimism equal   to   Luther’s,   Reinhold   continues  that   papal absolutism’s   inordinacy   may  prove  that  the  ultimate truths  of  the  Christian faith are acceptable only to the individual, and are  almost  bound  to  be  misused  by collective  humans  and their majesties.[57]

Just that the grace  which Luther ascribes to these individuals, is their faith  active  in love in the social orders, able to change social   structures  from  within,  which  is  a  plenteous redemption   that   gives   more  optimism.   (Anticipating Forell) Reinhold  continues  by  referring  to the  very strong anti‑papal  reaction which ensued from the popes who had in a  realist, not to say cynical way, transmuted  the city of God  into  an instrument of dominion. The Augustinian hope, as  well as the purpose of the reformers was to rechange it back  into  a  community of grace.[58] Luther’s two realms are  an  adaption of Augustine’s, but Luther’s earthly city lacks  the  expansiveness  of Augustine’s. [Contrary to Reinhold's point of view, relative justice as  a balance of forces does not disappear in Luther's version.] And Luther  divides  the realms  as  if one were of believers and the other  unbelievers.  Again  Reinhold  charges, what we have quoted  many  times  now: Practically, Luther’s doctrine of the  two  realms  establishes  an  ethical  dualism between public  and  private,  inner  and  social, morality. In one sphere  the  ethic of the Sermon on the Mount prevailed, in the  other,  not  justice,  but  order.[59]

And naturally Reinhold   makes   this   judgment  explicitly  because  of Luther’s  stance  in  the peasant revolts. Luther’s realism was  betrayed  by  the  rigor  of its anti‑papalism and the virulence   of  its  reaction  to  the  previous  political sentimentality,   into  an  irresponsible  attitude  toward problems  of  discriminate  justice.[60]

As realists the Reformers  were  all proponents of the parochial community, and  the  problem  of  the  larger  order between parochial communities  disappears  from  their horizon. The world has had   to   suffer  long  for  the  optimism  which  had  an unrealistic  approach  both  to  the  problems of the world community  and  toward  the justice in the local community. The  realists,  on the other hand, became the fountain  head of  an  uncritical  political absolutism and particularism. The  chasm  has  to be bridged by putting political realism into  the  service of justice, however defined.[61]   So far,  my review  of the pertinent places in the  Anatomy of Nations and Empires by Reinhold Niebuhr.

In  responding to the Niebuhrs, it will be necessary to  reflect  on  the  two kingdom theory as presented by H. Bornkamm,  W.  Lazareth,  and  by  G.  Forell,  the  latter presenting  the  social  ethics  of Luther. In this it will have  to  be  shown  how Luther overcomes:

1/ the dualism so often  charged,  the  breaking  of  the  tension that would assure  moral  and just actions,

2/ the negative as well as positive  dimensions in the earthly kingdom: i.e. not order only,  also  justice,  (interventions of coercion and force only,  versus  the  balance  of social forces),

3/ not mere quietism,  also  active  engagement  in changing the social structures,

4/  not  accepting any social arrangement, but having   a   standard   of   justice  that  makes  possible distinctions  between  lesser and greater approximations of justice.  That  is  a  pretty  large  order.  What makes it possible  to  transcend  the  autonomies  of  the different realms   of   modern   life,   science,   economics,  “real politic”.  How  can  Christ  be  included,  if  our modern secularization  has  excluded  Him to the incredible extent that  called  the  World  War  II church to make the Barmen Declaration?  Is  there a relation between the officers and guards  of  the  World War II extermination camps, who were “good  family people” in their private lives, but were able to  operate the gas chambers in their public lives (sealing their  lives  off  into  separate  air‑tight, vacuum‑packed compartments)  and  the  relegation of the peasant cause to the  private  and  the  Princes  cause to the public? After putting  this  into  so  many  words,  it  does  seem quite different,   but   there  is  one  similarity.  The  social violence  that  the  structures of the day fostered against the  peasants comes close to a Sixteenth Century historical atrocity,   because   it  was  a  so  easily,  cruelly  and arbitrarily  legitimated violence. Luther had two roles for sure,  one  to rally the strange work of God, and the other his  proper  work.  But  the  two  histories,  medieval and modern  World War II, are unique and individual, and hardly related. It  is  quite  clear  that  Luther has been Reinhold’s theological   mentor  to  rather  large  extent:  note  his explication  of  the paradox of human, not to say Christian freedom,  and  his  in‑depth  cognizance of the paradoxical relation   of   the   self   to   the  community,  and  the impossibility  of  a historical elimination of ambiguity or ultimate  evil.   What  Reinhold  delivers  is a barrage of concepts  very  helpful  in  political analysis: proximate, ultimate, conservative, complacent, sentimental, defeatist,  realist,  optimist,  approximations of justice, etc.  Naturally  when we pleaded Reinhold’s Serenity Prayer above,  we  had to admit that it begs the question, because the  point  of  controversy  here is what could really have been  changed  and what had to “quietistically” be accepted as  that  which  cannot  be changed, and how do we know the difference? In  some  ways  it  seems  that  Luther had a self‑conscious    theology    and   even   ethics   that   stood existentially  in  faith  before God. And the extent of his theological  penetration  always  seems  to play havoc with the  Niebuhrs’  charges  of  conservatism  and  dualism and quietism.  If  Luther  did  place  the Christian individual into  the  social orders and charge him/her to live a faith active   in  love,  responding  by  acting  or  not  acting according  to  God’s  will  perceived  in  faith,  then the dualism  seems  inaccurate,  the  qietism  and conservatism seem  to  describe  anyone, but not the real Luther. But if Luther  is  looked  at  from this one particular historical catastrophe,  and  by  his stance in this series of peasant uprisings,  then  all three of these charges seem to stick.  Or  do they? And so failing an answer our quest to overcome this  theological  insecurity  continues, because how could such  a comprehensive theology of Luther’s fail in this one regard?

Or  do  we  have  to  look at it from another point of view  by  asking better questions than we have been capable of  up  to  now? In any case many of the quotes criticizing Luther  do  not seem to do him justice. Perhaps some of the problem  could  stem from Luther’s use of dialectics. Above H.  Richard  criticized  Luther for his being able to bring on  the  danger  of  antinomianism,  and Reinhold felt that slippery   dialectics  could  raise  havoc  with  attempted projects  of  social  justice.  There  is  one  place where Reinhold  argues  that  the  dialectics  of the Reformation were  not  expansive  enough:  Reinhold refers to a fact of the  history of the Reformation that would suggest that its insights  would  have  to  be related to the whole range of human   experience   more   “dialectically”   than  it  had succeeded  in  doing.[62]

The  fact he is referring to is that   the  Reformation  either  regarded  the  problem  of  justice  as  insoluble by reason of human sinfulness, or it solved  the  problem  too  simply  by appeals to presumably transcendent  standards  of justice supposedly untainted by human  sin.  But  wanting   an  absolutely  secure and safe position,   this   group   from  the  Reformation  had  the pretension   to   be   beyond  historical  ambiguities  and contradictions.  The Reformation made a polemic against the premature  transcendence  over  history in Catholicism, but was   frequently  tempted  to  commit  the  same  error  as Catholicism  (with  different instruments of pretension) as it  was  to  commit  the  opposite error.[63]

Therefore the Reformation  insights  must  be  related to the whole range of  human  experience  more  “dialectically”. The “yes” and “no”  of  its  dialectical affirmations: that the Christian is  “justus et peccator,” both “sinner and righteous”; that history  fulfills  and  negates  the  Kingdom  of God; that grace  is continuous with, and in contradiction to, nature; that  Christ  is what we ought to be and what we cannot be; that  the  power of God is in us and against us in judgment and  mercy;  that  all  these  affirmations  which  are but varied  forms of the central paradox of the relation  of the Gospel  to  history  must  be applied to the experiences of life  from  top  to  bottom. There is no area of life where “grace”  does  not  impinge. There are no complex relations of  social  justice to which the love of the Kingdom of God is  not  relevant.  And  there  are no areas or experiences where  historical  insecurity  and  anxiety  are completely transcended except in principle or momentary ecstasy.[64]

Whether   this   expansive,   comprehensive  dialectic avoids  the possibility of antinomianism in face of the law and  social  justice  is  hard to say. Reinhold seems to be offering  another  approach  to  the  individual and social problem,  a  political  ethic  in  place of the two kingdom theory.  Whereas  the  latter  is  a  theological grid, the former  is  an approach with many concepts fashioned out of political  experience  in  struggle for social justice, and much  scholarship,  reflection  and  analysis  of political theory and social issues in history. Major Themes in Niebuhrian Luther Criticism To  summarize  the  major themes, then,  in Niebuhrian criticism   of  Luther  for  our  study,  themes  that  our apologists  of the two kingdom theory and Luther’s theology will need to answer:

1/   Dualism, the splitting or divorce of the two realms

a/ Breaking the moral tension by over‑intensifying the religious tension.

b/  On  a  practical  level  the  doctrine  of the two kingdoms  established an ethical dualism between public and private,  between  inner  and  social  morality. In the one sphere  the  perfectionistic  ethic  of  the  Sermon on the Mount   prevails  and  in  the  other  order,  rather  than justice. This was Reinhold’s criticism above.

c/ Other reasons for splitting apart the two realms

2/   Conservatism (or being socially reactionary and quietist)

a/ Monastic indifference to material and economic possessions

b/ Negligence of proximates by almost exclusive concern with ultimates

c/  Defeatism and pessimism leading to complacency for social justice

d/ Realism for the sake of social order, but not for justice

f/ No standards of justice by which to evaluate social structures

g/  Emphasis on reason and pagan resources for earthly realm, but no emphasis on justice

h/ The law and the earthly realm seen only negatively, only restraining and not also aspositive and constructive agents

i/ Earthly realm relegated to unbelievers

j/ Gospel for the individual and only negatively relevant to the community

3/   Perversity of social ethic and double standard

a/ For the rulers a realistic, external, public, official and almost cynical ethic, but a perfectionistic, private and inner ethic for the peasants.

b/ Luther’s stance encouraged tyranny, for resistance to government is as important as maintenance of government.

c/ Luther resisting only for ultimate faith issues, never for material proximate concerns…again:

d/ pessimism ‑ defeatism ‑ conservatism.

4/   Total depravity and the Orders

a/ Creation placed too close to the Fall

b/ in contradiction with actual orders of creation

c/ social orders for practical purposes identified with the natural law, even whatever the social structures happen to be.

d/  Are the orders those of creation or of redemption?  Redemption: Christ and the vision of an ideal community, but at the end of, never within history.

5/   Total spiritual and social transformation never expected this side of death and the Parousia (Second Coming) But partial increments in approximations of maturity and justice.

6/   Desertion, exclusion of lower classes

a/ not attempting to relate to their needs

b/ becoming class‑specific as Lutherans.

c/  Priesthood of all believers and abstruse theology,

d/ inequalities of political and social ethics. ( This theme can be related to #3.)

7/   Luther appealed only to St. Paul, when the peasants also expected him to appeal to the Sermon on the Mount in considering their plea for his help.

8/    The Word alone and faith in God’s action or Sentimentality versus realism.  Freedom of the Word alone versus institutions, economic and political establishments that will not release power without struggle by means of sanctions, strikes, demonstrations of people power, armed struggle, etc. Today the Word alone sound like ideology of powerful to disempower the oppressed.

9/   Luther’s two kingdom theory as  compared with that of St. Augustine  a/ deficiency in discriminate justice  b/ relegating the believers to one realm and the unbelievers to the other.

10/  Sanctification issue

a/ Grace versus the law.

b/ largely personal and interior, rather than social and external

11/  Appeal of Christianity only to individual or to the community as well?

a/ Vision of the ideal community also in the New Testament.

b/ Paradox of freedom of the self and community

c/contradiction and ambiguity

d/ individual and the Reformation, the Renaissance and the bourgeoisie.

12/  Paradoxical relation of the Gospel and history

a/  The  kingdom of God does not annul, but transmutes fragmentary historical achievements

b/ a narrow versus a comprehensive dialectic.  These  themes  could  certainly  be related and merged some  more,  but  the point is to cover the majority of all the  criticism  reviewed in the writings of the Niebuhrs in order  to  be  able to have an adequate overview  in facing them  and  meeting  them as squarely and as courageously as possible   with  the  scholarship  of  the  apologists  for Luther’s theology and the two kingdom theory.

What  is a  heresy but the revenge for a forgotten truth?

Endnotes

[1] H. Richard Niebuhr, Christ and Culture, New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1951, p. 187.

[2]  Ibid.

[3]  Ibid., p. 188.

[4]   Ibid.

[5]  Ibid., p. 189.

[6]  H. Richard Niebuhr, The Social Sources of Denominationalism, New York: The World Publishing Company, 1929, p.  34.

[7]  Ibid.

[8]  Ibid., p. 35.

[9]  Ibid., p. 36.

[10] Ibid., p. 37‑38.

[11]  Ibid., p. 92.

[12]  Henry S. Lucas, The Renaissance and the Reformation, New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1960, p. 493.

[13] George Herbert Meade, On Social Psychology, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1934, p. 273.

[14] Luthers Werke IV, Weimar Ausgabe, p. 284.

[15]  G.H. Meade, op. cit., p. 273.

[16]  H. Richard Niebuhr, The Kingdom of God in America, New York: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1937, p. 37‑38.

[17]  Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Holy Family, (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1975), page 96.

[18]  From Luther’s The Bondage of the Will, LW 33:52.

[19]   Reinhold Niebuhr, The Nature and Destiny of Man,  Vol. II, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1943, p. 184.

[20]  Ibid.,p. 180.

[21]  Ibid.,p.186.

[22]  Ibid.,p.187.

[23]  Ibid.,p. 188.

[24]  Ibid. (Lazareth below counters this argument by himself criticizing traditional Lutheranism. He attempts a progressive revisionism of the two kingdom theory which is closer to the real historical Luther’s intention.)

[25]  Ibid., p. 188‑189.

[26]  Ibid., p.190.

[27]  Ibid., p.191.

[28]  Ibid., p.192.

[29]  Ibid.

[30]  Ibid.,p.193n. (Social antinomianism, p. 193, is guarded against by the teaching: “Let every man endeavor to do his duty diligently in his calling and help his neighbor to the utmost of his power.”)

[31]  Reinhold Niebuhr, The Structure of Nations and Empires, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1959, p.127.

[32]   Reinhold Niebuhr, The Nature and Destiny of Man,  Vol. II, p. 186‑187. Here a note from my brother, Philip Krey: “American theologians usually opt for Augustinian emphasis on grace over Luther’s emphasis on faith.”

[33]   Ibid.,p. 192. Luther has two functions of the law, the theological and the civil. It is the theological function of the law that contains the accusation of the sinner. Reinhold is not presenting Luther fully because he does not include all the distinctions that Luther makes.

[34]   Ibid.,p. 194.

[35]  Ibid.,p.194‑195.

[36]  Ibid.,p.211.

[37]  Ibid.,p.195‑198.

[38]   Gerhard Brendler, Martin Luther ‑ Theologie und Revolution, Cologne: Pahl‑Rugenstein Verlag, 1983, p. 305.

[39]  Luther’s Works Vol. 49, Letters, II, Philadelphia: Fortress Press,1972, p. 113.

[40]  Luthers Werke, IV, p. 409.

[41]  Gerhard Brendler, op.cit. , p. 338. (This insinuation might be unfair, because it was not written in Müntzer’s antagonism in the last days, but probably earlier, in 1524.  But T. Müntzer would probably have had Luther executed had he been able to take Saxony and Wittenberg.)

[42]  Margaret A. Currie, trans., The Letters of Martin Luther, London: The MacMillan Company, Ltd., 1908, p. 139. (In his letter to John Ruehel of May 15th, 1925 Luther asserts that it was pitiable to so treat  T. Müntzer. “Thanks for news about Müntzer. I should like to hear how he was taken prisoner, and how he behaved, for it is well to know how such haughty spirits act. That the poor creature should be so treated is pitiable. But what can we do? and it is God’s will that fear should be instilled into the people. If this were not done, then Satan would do even more mischief. The one misfortune is preferable to the other. It is the judgment of God. He who takes the sword shall perish by the sword. So it is a consolation that this spirit should be made manifest, to let the peasants see how badly they have acted, and perhaps they may cease plotting and improve. Do not take all this so to heart, for it may be for the good of many souls, who, through fear, may desist.”

[43] Reinhold Niebuhr, The Structure of Nations and Empires, 1959, op. cit., p. 90.

[44]  Ibid., p. 91.

[45]  Ibid.

[46]  Ibid., p. 92 and p.128.

[47]  Ibid., p.132.

[48]  Ibid., p.133.

[49]  Ibid.

[50]  Ibid., p.134. (Interesting here is the different way that P. Teilhard de Chardin says the same thing. It is a false alternative to oppose the individual against the group.  To contrast unity (element, individual) with plurality (whole, collective) is a false habit of mind. “the coming together of separate elements does nothing to eliminate their differences. On the contrary, it exalts them. In every practical sphere, true union (that is to say, synthesis) does not confound; it differentiates.” In his Future of Man, New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1959, p.53. And again page 302, “Must I again repeat the truth, of universal application, that if it be properly ordered union does not confound, it differentiates?”)

[51]  Reinhold Niebuhr, The Structure of Nations and Empires, 1959, op. cit., p. 134.

[52]  Ibid., p. 134‑135.

[53]  Ibid., p. 135.

[54]  Ibid., p. 136.

[55]  Ibid.

[56]  Ibid., p. 137‑138.

[57]  Ibid., p. 138.

[58]  Ibid., p. 141.

[59]  Ibid., p. 143.

[60]  Ibid., p. 144.

[61]  Ibid.

[62]   Reinhold Niebuhr, The Nature and Destiny of Man,  Vol. II, 1943, op. cit., p. 204.

[63]  Ibid., p. 203.

[64]  Ibid., p. 204.

Bibliography

H. Richard Niebuhr. Christ and Culture.  New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1951.

———————–.  The Kingdom of God in America. New York: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1937.

———————–. The Social Sources of Denominationalism. New York: The World Publishing Company, 1929.

Reinhold Niebuhr. The Nature and Destiny of Man,  Vol. II. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1943.

———————-. The Structure of Nations and Empires. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1959.

Henry S. Lucas. The Renaissance and the Reformation. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1960.

George Herbert Meade. On Social Psychology. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1934.

Martin Luther.  D. Martin Luthers Werke, Kritische GesamtausgabeWerke. 61 vols. Weimar, 1983-1993. (WA)

Martin Luther. The Bondage of the Will, (LW) vol. 33, from:

Jaroslav Pelikan and Helmut Lehmann, eds. Luther’s Works. 55 vols. St. Louis and Philadelphia: Concordia and Fortress, 1955-86.

Margaret A. Currie, trans. The Letters of Martin Luther. London: The MacMillan Company, Ltd., 1908.

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. The Holy Family.  Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1975.

Gerhard Brendler. Martin Luther ‑ Theologie und Revolution. Cologne: Pahl‑Rugenstein Verlag, 1983.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Future of Man.  New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1959.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Williams, George Hunston. The Radical Reformation. Philadelphia:        Westminister Press, 1962.

How can violence be extracted from religious fervor?  A Florida pastor burns Korans and an image of Muhammad, because an Iranian pastor, who had converted to Christianity, was originally charged in Iran with apostasy and evangelization. A Shiite cleric, a member of the Iranian parliament called the Florida pastor “evil and apostate” and said that he must be executed. (New York Times, May 1, 2012, page A8)

To burn books is violent. There is no attempt at persuasion, no attempt to argue with reason, nor any reaching out with mutual friendship and acceptance in order to bring about the transformation of enemies into friends. Jesus bids us to love also our enemies. Like Abraham Lincoln said, “The best way to destroy your enemy is to make him your friend!” That is love that knows the suffering of the cross.

To put the death penalty on apostasy, that is, someone converting to another religion, uses the threat of violence against the adherents of one’s own faith, making them un-free. Consequently, they are held in a faith without being there with their whole hearts. Then some people could participate in their faith heartlessly, ruthlessly. A religion should have the high standard of using persuasion alone, stirring and moving people’s hearts, and all coercion should be beneath it.

Thirdly, to call for the execution of the book-burner is religious fervor that has gone a long way out of bounds. It was back before 1520 that Luther was named a heretic for claiming that burning a heretic at the stake was against the will of the spirit – among other statements.  (See Pope Leo X bull Exsurge Domine, assertion #33.) It took about three centuries before inquisitions ended in Portugal (1821) and Spain (1834). (The last auto-da-fe, that is, burning at the stake, took place in Mexico in 1850.) (Of course, Protestants were still hanging “witches” in Salem in 1692!)

Religious fervor needs to be separated from coercion. It follows from the separation of church and state, faith of the religion and reason and law of the state. Neither should our faith or church instigate the state to impose our faith on others, to impose laws on the behalf of a particular faith, and shed blood in a crusade or war on behalf of a faith. That makes religious violence more subtle, but just as real.

Taking violence out of faith, precedes taking it out of nationalism and patriotism, precedes taking it our of economics, taking it out of the government in the form of abolishing capital punishment, to taking it out of our society, out of our families, to a withering away of violence and coercion for the sake of a genuine faith, steadfast love, and good government.

Luther and Theologia Germanica

and the Philosophical Influence of Boethius

By Peter D.S. Krey

Part One: the German Mystic’s Influence on Luther

Martin Luther discovered a manuscript called Theologia Germanica written by an unnamed German mystic and felt that he had received an overwhelming learning experience about “God, Christ, humanity, and all things” from it. He then published the little book in 1516, adding a preface for its second edition in 1518. After just reading the 1854, quite antiquated translation by Susanna Winkworth,[1] I found that this mystic had a profound influence on Luther in many ways. Luther was no mystic, of course, but just like humanism and nominalism, it affected his theology in important ways.

The only indication we receive about the author of Theologia Germanica comes from his very short preface. He was a former priest and warden, i.e., curator of the House of the Teutonic Order in Frankfurt/Main and seems to have been part of a movement called the “Friends of God” and that quite marvelously long before George Fox (1624-1691) and the Society of Friends or the Quakers. This humble mystic probably wrote his booklet around 1350, because he refers to Johannes Tauler, Meister Eckhart’s student,[2] and in the humility of that movement, does not even attach his own name to the work.

The “Friends of God” may well have been the priests caught in the early fourteenth century conflict between the Avignon Pope John XXII and Emperor Louis IV of Bavaria.[3] The interdict that Pope John placed on him and his subjects in 1324 had already continued for 16 years, when the emperor declared the pope’s interdict invalid and ordered priests to celebrate masses once again. All those who held with the pope and the interdict were considered guilty of high treason (17-18) and some were exiled and others roamed the land. This mystic may well have held with such priests and been among their number. (20)

The Friends of God opposed the Beghards or “Brothers and Sisters of the Free Spirit” of that time. The latter are the “free thinkers” referred to in this book. They wanted reform by withdrawing people completely from the influence of the clergy, (15-16) while the Friends of God felt that an act of humility required accepting the church and clergy for the sake of order and discipline.

Martin Brecht, in his definitive biography of Luther writes that in his early lectures, Luther first emphasized a theology of humility. Reading these pages in Brecht, it seems to me that the early Luther is following the instructions of the mystical author of Theologia Germanica closely:[4] Luther requires deep contrition, magnifies sin, reduces the sinner to nothing, and teaches complete dependence on God.[5] Indeed, other than Luther’s early lectures on the Psalms and Romans, Theologia Germanica was Luther’s first publication, which he immediately followed by his early, extremely popular, non-polemical, pastoral pamphlets of 1518 to 1520.

These early pamphlets enjoyed many editions in his life-time[6] and in them, like the mystic, he speaks to common everyday people in German and not in an exclusionary academic German, let alone Latin. He writes “A Sermon on Indulgence and Grace,” (25 editions) “Contemplating the Holy Passion of Christ,” (32 editions) “On Preparing to Die,” (31 editions) “On the Estate of Marriage,” (19 editions) as well as pamphlets on the blessed sacraments: communion, (19 editions) penance, (18 editions) and baptism (18 editions). In 1520 his “Treatise on Good Works,” (23 editions) “On the Ban (excommunication),” (14 editions) and “Freedom of a Christian” (38 editions) are non-polemical and addressed to the laity, while his pamphlet on the “New Testament, that is the Mass,” (15 editions) already brings the light of his heart-felt faith on some of the practices of the church that needed to be reformed.

Not only did Luther address the laity in common everyday language like the mystic, but many features of his theology stem from having thoroughly digested this work. Many examples will follow.

Luther’s position on the free will could well derive from Theologia Germanica. For the mystic any self-will has to be surrendered to the will of God and freedom of the will can only be found in a complete surrender of one’s own will to the will of God, who is Pure Goodness and Perfection. In the words of the mystic,

“Humility springs up in the [human being], because in the true Light [s/he] sees (as it really is) that Substance, Life, Perceiving, Knowledge, Power, and all that pertains to them, all belong to the True Good, and not to the creature; but that the creature of itself is nothing and has nothing, and when it turns itself aside from the True Good in will or in works, nothing is left to it but pure evil.”[7] (89-90)

Luther’s basic argument in the Bondage of the Will against the freedom of the will as represented by Erasmus follows Theologia Germanica in that he argues a radical surrender of any good in human free will, finding that freedom can only be experienced in the will of God. The following sentence from the mystic could come right out of Luther: “A [human being], of [him/herself] and of [his/her] own power, is nothing, has nothing, can do and is capable of nothing but only infirmity and evil.” (73) The mystic follows Christ in utter self-denial:

“A [human being] should so stand free, being quit of [her or] himself, that is, of his or her I, and Me, and Self, and Mine, and the like, that in all things, [s/he] should no more seek or regard him or herself, than if s/he did not exist, and should take as little account of him or herself as if s/he were not and another had done all his or her works. “(56)

Only God counted to the mystic. For this mystic it is only insofar that the human will becomes one with God’s will that it can be free. In Luther’s words, “‘Free-will’ is obviously a term applicable only to the Divine Majesty; because only God can do and does (as the Psalmist sings) ‘whatever God wills in heaven and earth.’”(Psalm 135:6)[8]

In Susanna Winkworth’s introduction, she summarizes the mystic’s approach to the freedom of the will along with several other points very well:

“Their distinguishing doctrines [those of the Friends of God] were self-renunciation – the complete giving up of self-will to the will of God; – the continuous activity of the Spirit of God in all believers, the intimate union possible between God and [the human being] – the worthlessness of religion based upon fear or the hope of reward – and the essential equality of the laity and clergy, though for the sake of order and discipline, the organization of the church was necessary.” (20-21)

Working backwards through her citation, the essential equality of the laity and clergy, Luther may well have developed into the priesthood of all believers in his pamphlets, “The Treatise on the New Testament, that is, the Holy Mass” and “To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation.” (15 editions) In this Address, Luther states that “Whoever comes out of baptism can count themselves a sanctified priest, bishop, or pope, although not everyone may be fit to exercise such an office.”[9] The difference between laity and clergy for Luther is merely one of function and not status.[10] He demoted ordination to a mere ceremony from its previous status as a sacrament, in which the priest became ontologically superior to the lay person. Luther taught that there was not a spiritual estate made up of priests that excluded the peasants, burghers, and princes, but all Christians made up the spiritual estate as the priesthood of all believers.

In terms of what Winkworth calls “the worthlessness of religion based on fear or the hope of reward,” the mystic writes that a person “would rather die than do an injustice, and all this for nothing, but the love of justice. And to [such a person], justice is her own reward and rewards [the person] with herself.” (104) Another citation follows:

“But true Love is taught and guided by the True Light and Reason, and this true eternal and divine Light teaches Love to love nothing but the One True and Perfect Good, and that simply for its own sake, and not for the sake of a reward, or of the hope of obtaining anything, but simply for the love of Goodness, because it is good and has a right to be loved.” (108)

Luther’s theology is not quite that philosophical, because he aligns it more intentionally with biblical language, but in the “Freedom of a Christian” Luther underscores doing good works for nothing again and again, (umb sunst in his Early New High German) except sometimes he admonishes Christians not to do them out of self-interest, but only for the sake of the neighbor. “Look how love and pleasure for God” he writes, “flow out of faith, and how out of love flows a free, willing, and cheerful life [lived] freely, serving the neighbor for nothing.”[11] About a good work, Luther writes,

“Do not do it in the belief that you are doing something good for yourself, but give it way freely, so others can use it and enjoy it. If you do it for their good, then you will be a true Christian.“[12]

And again,

“All works should be directed for the good of our neighbor, for each and every person has enough by having faith, and all such a one’s works and whole life are left over to be able to serve the neighbor freely in love.”[13]

Luther does not write philosophically in terms of saying virtue for virtue’s sake like the mystic, but he may well have gotten that idea from him, an idea that goes through Luther all the way to Immanuel Kant’s concept of heteronomy, that is, giving or acting for an ulterior motive, rather than loving virtue for virtue’s sake.

The mystic writes that if what is done is not done out of such pure love, then one becomes a hireling:

“Those are enlightened with the True Light, who do not practice these things for a reward, for they neither look nor desire anything thereby, but all that they do is for love alone.” (96) [Otherwise one is a hireling[14] and] “A lover of God is better and dearer to [God] than a hundred thousand hirelings.” (97)

Luther also speaks about union with God in many ways, e.g., the marriage of the soul to Christ the bridegroom, but it is the real ascent in faith that runs through the whole “Freedom of a Christian.” As Luther writes in the famous last paragraph, “Through faith one ascends above oneself into God. From God one descends through love again below oneself and yet always remains in God and God’s love.”[15] The mystic writes about three stages by which one is led upward to attain true Perfection: “first, the purification, secondly, the enlightening, thirdly, the union.” (55) A threefold way is also in each of these stages. “Union is brought to pass by pureness and singleness of heart, by love, and by the contemplation of God, the creator of all things.” (55-56)

To just list some other very relevant influences on Luther: the mystic uses the terms “inward person” and “outward person” (78-79) the same way Luther does in the “Freedom of a Christian.” Indeed, Luther organizes his whole pamphlet by means of this distinction.[16]

In the false light of nature and reason that turns away from God seeking its own ends, people begin to feel that “the more like God one is, the better one is, and therefore I will be like God and will be God.” (99) After reading the mystic’s description of the devious ways people substitute themselves for God, one can easily see Luther formulating his slogan: “Let God be God!”[17]

The mystic writes of the “light of nature and reason” as well as the light of grace much like Luther does in the Bondage of the Will, although Luther adds, the light of glory. Luther argues that what cannot be understood in the light of nature can be resolved in the light of grace and what cannot be understood in the light of grace can be resolved in the light of glory.[18] “In this threefold light, each higher step explains what was insoluble at a lower one.”[19]

The mystic has an emphasis on experience (118) much like Luther, who, however, receives it from nominalism. The mystic speaks of creatures bent on themselves and away from God, (74 and 101) much like Luther’s definition of sin: curvatus in se, i.e., curved in upon the self.

There is a section in which the mystic seems to describe the Anfechtungen that Luther went through intermittently during his life.  This section is called, “How a righteous [Person] in this present Time is brought into Hell, and there cannot be comforted, and how the [Person] is taken out of Hell and carried into Heaven, and there cannot be troubled.” (50-52) The mystic has quite an explanation for why one goes down into the depths: “Now God has not forsaken such a [one] in Hell, but is laying God’s hand upon him [or her].” (51) Real suffering ensues from the laying of God’s hand upon a person.

The mystic is more philosophical than Luther, who seems to avoid that kind of reasoning. At one point he speaks of the Delphic oracle, who heard the voice from Heaven, “[Human], know thyself!” (47) He also refers to Boethius, who may well be a philosopher, who influenced him.[20] His understanding of evil, as non-being or the destruction of God’s created being, comes from St. Augustine. “Therefore it is evil or not good, and is merely nought.” (to use Winkworth’s old word once) (117) Luther does not refer to God as Pure Goodness and Perfection or see him as the Perfect One of whom we are all only imperfect parts, as creatures caught up in “this and that, here or there, now or then” who need to reorient ourselves to the Eternal One. The whole of mystic’s work seems to be a meditation on the Pauline verse, “For when the Perfect comes, then the parts will come to an end.”[21] For him the parts represent all creatures, who have come out of the wholeness and Oneness of God and need to return to God for their true being in God. Luther, of course, continues on his way like a fountain overflowing with theological insights. But he does not reason like this:

Now s/he who shall or will love God, loves all things in One as All, One and All, and One in All as All in One; and s/he who loves something, this or that, other than the One, and for the sake of the One, does not love God, for s/he loves something which is not God. Therefore s/he loves it more than God. (116)

What the mystic never tires of repeating is the self-denial required by Christ: “Behold one or two words can utter all that has been said by these many words: ‘Be simply and wholly bereft of the Self.’” (67) But that gives the person a very intimate oneness with God, who is pure Love, Goodness, and Perfection.

Part Two: The Influence of Boethius (A.D. 480-524) and the Consolation of Philosophy on Theologia Germanica  

The German mystic does more than just cite Boethius,[22] his philosophy is very much influenced by him. These are some of the statements of Boethius that come up in and get developed in Theologia Germanica:

“You have daily reminded me of Pythagoras’ saying, ‘Follow God.”[23] That intimate way with God rather than Christ, is also in Theologia Germanica. Boethius is very theocentric and filled with Roman and Greek mythology; he never mentions Christ. Perhaps the German mystic is also slightly more theocentric than Christocentric, but he does include Christ and St. Paul, because his book as a whole is a philosophical meditation on St. Paul’s love poem, where he singles out one of its verses: 1 Corinthians 13:10.

Boethius:

“If the things which you complain about losing were really yours, you would never have lost them.” (24) Everything in our earthly existence really belongs to God and can only be had in returning to God.

“Now the good is defined as that which, once it is attained, relieves [humans] of all further desires. This is the supreme good and contains within itself all the lesser goods. If it lacked anything at all, it could not be the highest good.” (43) The mystic uses the term “lack” for parts of the whole and speaks of the good and perfect this same way.

“The human soul seeks to return to its true good.” (45) Boethius makes clear that highest good is God just like the mystic.

“Nature inclines [humans] toward the true good, but error deceives them with partial goods.” (46) The German mystic would not speak of nature that way, for he sees it as a deceptive light. But in using 1 Corinthians 13:10, “When the complete/ perfect/ whole comes, then the part will come to an end,” the German mystic must have read the following words of Boethius:

“Human depravity, then, has broken into fragments that which is by nature one and simple; [humans] try to grasp part of a thing which has no parts and so get neither the part, which does not exist, nor the whole, which they do not seek.” (58) The German mystic could well develop this thought describing creatures as parts, who need to return to God for their true and whole being.

“You order the perfect parts in a perfect whole.” (60) The German mystic would not speak of perfect parts, but his ideas come from Boethius. Like the triple threefold way the he uses to describe a soul’s development until it attains union with God. Along this line Boethius writes:

“You release the world-soul throughout the harmonious parts of the universe as your surrogate, threefold in its operations, to give motion to all things.” (60) The translator of Boethius comments that the early medieval commentators read Boethius to present nature itself as threefold and the soul to be of a threefold nature. (60) The German mystic presents a triplet of threefold ways for the stages by which a human being is led upward to attain perfection. (TG 55-56)

“Now no one can deny that something exists which is a kind of fountain of all goodness; for everything which is found to be imperfect shows its imperfection by the lack of some perfection.” (61) For the German mystic the parts lack being and receive more and more being insofar as they return and unite with God, for “All things have their Being in God, and more truly in God than in themselves.” (TG 91 and 117)

“Nature did not have its origins in the defective and incomplete but in the integral and absolute; it fell from such beginnings to its present meanness and weakness.” (61)

“For, since nothing can be thought of better than God, who can doubt that [God] is the good, other than whom nothing is better.” (62) and “Whatever is the source of all things must be its substance, the highest good.” (63) and “Clearly when two things differ, one cannot be the other; therefore neither can be perfect since it lacks the other.” (63) and “It follows that [humans] become happy by acquiring divinity.” (63) The German mystic would not speak of becoming happy, but of eternal bliss. The German mystic, however, reasons very much like Boethius and uses these ideas.

“Thus everyone who is happy is a god and, although it is true that God is one by nature, still there may be many gods by participation.” (63) The intimate union with God that the German mystic challenges Christians to attain seems to relate to this kind of union with God expressed by Boethius.

“But, if you also grant that every good is good by participating in the perfect good, then you should concede by a similar line of reasoning that the good and the one are the same.” (66) and “Do you also understand that everything that is remains and subsists in being as long as it is one; but when it ceases to be one it dies and corrupts?” (66) Every time I read that thought in the Theologia Germanica, I wrote “Kierkegaard” in the margin, because it reminded me of Kierkegaard’s Purity of Heart is the Will One Thing! After reading Boethius, I understand the rationale behind this insight. In the words of Boethius, “Therefore partial goods cannot be truly good if they are different, but are good if they become one, then clearly they become good by acquiring unity.” (66) To go back to Boethius’ heading of this section: “God is One and [God] is the goal toward which all things tend.” (66)

Boethius also has Augustine’s teaching about evil as does the German mystic: “Then evil is nothing, since God, who can do all things, cannot do evil.” (72) Augustine’s conception of evil has been compared to the cavity in a tooth. The tooth in its being is good, where it has lost its being – that hole in its being and its decay into nothingness is the issue. It is not God’s good creation but its destruction and reduction to nothing that is evil. “So you will find that the evil which is thought to abound in the world is really non-existent.” (96)

“Virtue is the reward of a virtuous [human], so wickedness itself is the punishment of the wicked.” (82) That first idea certainly comes up again and again in Theologia Germanica. The mystic does not, however, mention the wicked.

“Human souls, however, are more free while they are engaged in contemplation of the divine mind, and less free when they are joined to bodies, and still less free when they are bound by earthly fetters.” (104)

“[Without prayer] what will be left to unite us to the sovereign Lord of all things? And so [human]kind must, as you said earlier, be cut off from its source and dwindle into nothing.” (107)

If Luther developed his conception of the light of glory from the German mystic’s light of nature or reason and light of grace, then the German mystic could well have gotten such concepts from Boethius. But Luther may also have gotten them from Plato.[24] “Light” in this sense speaks of an activity of the mind, a seeing of the mind, like “the light of the eyes” in biblical language. Now Boethius similarly underscores the activity of the mind, and in that way much anticipates Immanuel Kant’s rejection of the “blank slate” (tabula rasa) theory of the mind, where it is passively receiving only external impressions from the external world.

“Everything which is known is known not according to its own power but rather according to the capacity of the knower.” (110)

Boethius argues further: “Various and different substances have different ways of knowing.” (113) He discusses the sentient nature of lower animals and then writes, “Reason is characteristic of the human race alone, just as pure intelligence belongs to God alone.” (113) When he speaks of “the power of the mind,” (113) using the word “light” to express that idea is very imaginable. Boethius delineates the different ways that sentient minds can know: through the senses, e.g., shellfish that cling to rocks; imagination, e.g., beasts seeking and avoiding many things, like trees while running through a forest. Then he makes the statement from which the light of reason and the light of glory may have been developed from the German mystic to Luther: “But reason is characteristic of the human race alone, just as pure intelligence belongs to God alone.” (113) With the groundwork of Boethius, it would now be possible to speak of the light of reason, the light of grace, and the light of glory in terms of human reason and intelligence as opposed to the pure intelligence of God.

It is in this way – and now we are leaving the German mystic and relating to Luther, that Boethius resolves the freedom of the will by describing God’s pure intelligence as surpassing the reasoning of human beings.

“But if we, who are endowed with reason, could possess the intelligence of the divine mind, we would judge that just as the senses and imagination should accede to reason, so human reason ought justly to submit itself to the divine mind.” (114) Thus Luther can take the next step and speak of the light of glory above the light of reason, the light of grace, meaning with it what Boethius called the pure intelligence of the mind of God.

Luther distinguishes between two kinds of necessity in his debate about the free will with Erasmus, that of compulsion and that of immutability,[25] by which he seems to mean an unchanging necessity. Boethius also separates necessity into a simple and contingent one. But this gets into Luther and Erasmus’ debate about the free will and goes beyond Theologia Germanica, which does not explicitly delve into this issue, which becomes Boethius’ climax of The Consolation of Philosophy.

At the end of his work, Boethius has a very clear and cogent argument by which he affirms human free will and God’s foreknowledge of all things, because of God’s vantage-point from eternity, where the past, present, and future of time are grasped in one glance of God’s eternal mind, which also sees and comprehends the contingencies in which human free will transpires.

Perhaps it is too quickly that in the debate about the freedom of the will I said we left the German mystic behind. Although he does not mention this debate explicitly, he writes, “Now in the whole realm of freedom, nothing is so free as the will, and [s/he] who makes it his [or her] own, and does not suffer it to remain in its excellent freedom, and free nobility, and in its free exercise, does a grievous wrong.” (TG 123) When the will is at one with the Will of God, in an intimate union, which the mystic holds as all too possible, the will is free. Where it tries to call this freedom its own, it becomes enslaved. Thus the mystic affirms the freedom of the will for a follower of Christ, but paradoxically, he notes that the world will give such a person no end of suffering, pain, and grief. “So likewise was Christ’s human nature the most free and single of all creatures and yet felt he the deepest grief, pain, and indignation at sin that any creature ever felt.” (TG 124) Freedom of the will comes about by following Christ, which means that one must forsake all things. (TG 125) That brings to mind Janis Joplin and her song, “Bobby McGee”: “Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose.” But in God, all things are gained, giving one the spiritual possession of the heavens and the earth and one’s true self as a brand new creature on the face of the earth and celebrating the glorious freedom of the children of God, to boot.

Bibliography

Susanna Winkworth, Translator. The Theologia Germanica of Martin Luther. Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 2004.

Richard H. Green, translator. The Consolation of Philosophy: Boethius. Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., 1962.

Martin Brecht. Martin Luther: His Road to the Reformation 1483-1521. Philadelphia: Fortress press, 1981. This is the first of three volumes.

Peter D. S. Krey. Sword of the Spirit, Sword of Iron: Word of God, Scripture, Gospel, and Law in Luther’s Most Often Published Pamphlets (1520-1525), Ph.D. diss., Graduate Theological Union, 2001.

J. I. Packer and O. R. Johnston, translators. Martin Luther:  The Bondage of the Will. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Fleming H. Revell, 1957.

The latest American edition of Luther’s Works: LW

Pelikan, Jaroslav, and Helmut Lehmann, eds. Luther’s Works. 55 vols. St.Louis and Philadelphia: Concordia and Fortress, 1955-86.

The Weimar Edition of Luther’s Works: WA

Luther, Martin. D. Martin Luthers Werke, Kritische Gesamtausgabe.  61 Volumes. Weimar, 1983-1993.

Clemen, Otto, ed., unter Mitwerkung von Leitzmann, Albert. Luthers Werke in Auswahl. Vol. 1- 8. Berlin: Verlag von Walter de Gruyter & Co., 1929.

Philip D.W. Krey and Peter D.S. Krey, editors. Luther’s Spirituality. Mahwah, New Jersey: Paulist Press, 2007.

Ulrich Asendorf. Luther and Hegel: Untersuchung zur Grundlegung einer Neuen Systematischen Theologie, (An Investigation for the Foundation of a New Systematic Theology). Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, GMBH, 1982.

Eric Warmington and Philip Rouse, editors. The Great Dialogues of Plato. Translated by W.H.D. Rouse. New York: a Mentor Book, the New English Library. Ltd., 1956.

ENDNOTES

A Lenten Devotion for Christ Lutheran 18. of March, 2012

When we are young, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, we think we can change the world; we can tear out trees by their roots, in short, there is nothing we think we cannot do. Then life and the world catches up with us, slaps us in the face, and shows us our limits.

In a particularly difficult period in my life, when I was ministering in Berlin, Germany, when my troubles just wouldn’t go away, one night I felt like I was dying. I was lying in bed and I thought I was getting a heart attack. I had come to the end of my rope. I was at my end. “O Lord,” I said, now the fire in my oven has gone out!” I had no strength to go on.

Then I remembered how my counselor said, “The resurrection is our business!” I suddenly realized that I could only live out of the strength of another life!

I got up and said, “O Lord, now I have to live out of your strength, because I have no more of my own.” As I got up out of bed, I realized that I no longer lived, but Christ lived in me. Christ, of course, does wonders and one step after another resolved my problems.

Later I was reading Luther’s Theology of the Cross in his Heidelberg Disputation. Thesis No. 18 states, “It is certain that we must utterly despair of our own ability, before we are prepared to receive the grace of Christ.”

In our day as well as in Luther’s we believe that if we do what is in us, then God will come and do the rest. That is only true for someone who knows about what we do with our hands, but not the troubles we encounter in our hearts. We foolishly believe that what we do is partly by our own strength and effort and partly by God’s grace. That did not jive with Luther’s experience nor after that experience, with mine. And what a difference between doing what we can do and Christ doing God’s work through us! It is true that we do nothing, now knowing, that we have died in Christ and the risen Lord is doing everything through us and we can continue living out of God’s gracious strength, which is really gracious, because there is truly nothing God cannot do. So when our lives really come to an end here on earth, Christ will raise us up in that life in heaven where we’ll be home. Amen.

Pastor Peter Krey

Blogging my thoughts:

Have you seen Les Mis?  It is a story about the law and gospel. Jean Valjean is a convict with the number 24601, imprisoned and doing 19 years of hard labor for having stolen a loaf of bread for his sister’s starving children. (Five years for theft, the others for escape attempts.) Javert is the lawman, who has Valjean’s number and who notices Jean Valjean’s great strength.

Upon his release, Valjean finds shelter in the home of a bishop, and now really having become a criminal, he steals all the silverware during the night, only to be brought back to the bishop by the gendarmes in the morning. To Valjean’s surprise, the bishop tells the gendarmes that he had given him the silverware as a gift and wondered why he had not also taken the golden candlesticks, which he then put into Valjean’s sack!

When the gendarmes leave, the bishop tells Valjean that he has purchased his soul for Christ and that he now belonged to Jesus. The experience of this amazing grace, melts Valjean’s heart and he becomes a new man. He becomes a factory owner and then the mayor of a town giving jobs and a livelihood to thousands. But in the process he has broken parole and Javert is ever out to recapture him.

The mayor gives himself away to Javert by lifting a heavy cart that had fallen on a man and was crushing him. Seeing his strength Javert recognizes him. Then Valjean does not allow a mistaken man to be convicted in his place. As the mayor he confesses in court that he is the real Valjean, saving the man. He escapes in order to keep his promise to a poor dying woman that he will bring up her daughter.

In Paris years later, a revolution is taking place. Valjean’s “daughter” falls in love with a fellow behind the barricade. To save all their tomorrows, Valjean goes behind the barricade himself. There Javert has been captured as a spy and Valjean is ordered to shoot him. Instead he shoots in the air and allows Javert to escape, saving his life! Then after all the young fighters are killed and wounded, he carries the wounded fellow his daughter loves through the Paris sewers back to her without their knowing that he did it.

Thus Victor Hugo’s character, Jean Valjean, saved many lives, even the life of the lawman, Javert, who however, cannot believe that a criminal can change and representing the law, commits suicide. Valjean represents the Gospel, whose life ransomed and redeemed so many, even Javert’s, who represents the law.

Les Mis is the story of the Gospel, in the lovely melodies of which our lives are being purchased for Christ, where the law is cancelled, and God’s completely undeserved grace saves us, making our lives unfold and blossom even here, as well as there, when Christ wakes us up in heaven.

How is Luther’s Theology Related to Hegel’s Philosophy?

notes taken by Peter Krey

Notes from reviewing Ulrich Asendorf’s Luther and Hegel: Untersuchung zur Grundlegung einer Neuen Systematischen Theologie, (An Investigation for the Foundation of a New Systematic Theology), (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, GMBH, 1982), an 11 page Bibliograpgy, 529 pages in all.

I studied sections of this book when I was working on the question: „Does the Immanent Trinity Precede the Economic Trinity in Hegel?” It became a 200 page unfinished manuscript. When I was writing it I was really exploring Hegel and books about the Holy Trinity in order to understand the question. I was in an open ended, exploratory mode of thinking, which precludes the possibility of finishing a work.

Now I realize that the economic Trinity refers to God as relating to creation, redemption, and sanctification of humankind on earth, while the immanent Trinity is the blessed Triune Godhead in God’s self; the Aseity of God, in philosophical terms.

According to the paradoxical principle, which Hegel as a Lutheran held, that the finite is capable of containing infinity (finitum capax infiniti) and thus in concert with it, for Hegel the economic Trinity does precede and hold the immanent Trinity. Then again, however, for Hegel, the matter goes through a reversal, because of his arguing for logical precedence over chronological precedence; or as in Jesus saying, “Before Abraham was, I am,” that is, the precedence of God’s Son’s divine nature coming before his human nature.

Thus the question has to be understood in its double paradox, namely that first, the economic Trinity precedes the immanent Trinity and then secondly, that logical and ontological states precede chronological time. But from this vantage point it is now possible to read Hegel and determine what his position is on the question. In this way my work on Hegel could once again proceed and not try to cover the whole waterfront or to say the same thing in German: um nicht ins Uferlose zu vergehen.

Here are some notes taken while rereading Asendorf’s Luther and Hegel: (N.B.: All the following translations from the German are mine.)

Asendorf, page 151: “Luther’s teaching concerning the Trinity concentrates on the coming of God to us, thus on the economic Trinity. With this salvation-economic conception of the Trinity, Luther joins himself above all with Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Athanasius, in once again placing a different accent on this teaching from that of Augustine, for whom the salvation-economic interest clearly begins to disappear.”

Asendorf, page 152: Luther discloses (erschliesst) the immanent Trinity from the economic Trinity: “In view of early Scholasticism [with its emphasis on the immanent Trinity] [Luther] continues his tendency of placing a strong emphasis on the economic Trinity in [an ever greater] opposition to Scholasticism, thus liberating the teaching of the Trinity from its isolation. From the revealed Trinity he discloses the immanent Trinity. Again Luther sustains his thinking through salvation history, when he understands the teaching of the Trinity essentially from an economic salvation perspective, or better yet, he opens up access to the teaching of the Trinity from this vantage-point, and this fact is precisely the strongest proof for his historically mediated thinking. It seems therefore justified that such a conceptualization of the teaching of the Trinity can be recognized as a prefiguration of Hegelian thinking. With the prior significance of history and with it, the economic Trinity, the secret of the inner workings of the Trinity (opera trinitatis ad intra]; whose explication is impossible without speculative help, opens up.”

Asendorf cites R. Jansen in a footnote: “If Luther can use the same Bible verse (John 15:26) to give both economic Trinitarian and immanent Trinitarian interpretations even at the same time, then it is an index for the way the immanent Trinitarian statements for him are only the necessary, preliminary theological statements for economic Trinitarian sentences. The opera trinitatis ad extra and the opera trinitatis ad intra allow themselves to be distinguished but not separated.”

Page 158: “In Hegel’s thinking both the logical process of the self-realization of the Spirit, as well as the history of the whole, point to theological relationships, which were thought out beforehand by Luther and are philosophically rethought by Hegel.”

Hegel and Luther, of course, work from different presuppositions, [with philosophy using reason and theology using faith], but Hegel was and remained a good Lutheran.

N.B. For Luther’s theology and Hegel’s philosophy, the operative word again has to be mutatis mutandis, i.e. the necessary changes having been made.

Page 159: “Luther’s teaching of justification and Hegel’s Philosophy of the Spirit can be seen as different delineations of the same phenomenon.” Luther said that the Spirit makes the lover and the beloved one.

Page 160: Luther at the end of the Bondage of the Will writes of the light of nature, the light of grace, and the light of glory:

In note 32, page 160, Asendorf explains: “In a threefold light, each higher step explains what was insoluble at a lower one.“ In German: „In dreifachen Licht erklärt die jeweils höhere Stufe das, was der niederen verschlossen war.“

Thus Luther writes that what cannot be understood in the light of nature can be resolved in the light of grace and what cannot be understood in the light of grace can be resolved in the light of glory.[1]

Asendorf, page 160, quotes Luther this way: “In the simple world of morality there is no explanation why the good have to suffer, this however becomes resolved in the light of grace. In the light of grace it cannot be understood why someone who can do nothing but sin, becomes punished by the righteousness of God. But what cannot be solved by the light of grace will be, in the light of glory. Each lower step becomes resolved in the higher one. (aufgehoben) All three are caught up in the unity of their teleological movement. Only from the vantage-point of the telos, can the whole process become understood.”

Page 162: N.B. Is Hegel’s philosophy based on Luther’s theology? According to Asendorf, different from Hegel, there is a double reflection [of realized eschatology and still outstanding eschatology for theology]. Although history before and history after the crucifixion are there for both theology and philosophy; but only history itself can be the court of judgment [for Hegel’s philosophy] while the last judgment when history comes to an end (can be taken into account for theology as well). Instead of simple reflection involving [only] the realized eschatology of Hegel, Luther’s double reflection [upon realized eschatology and the eschatology that still stands out] takes place theologically. “What Luther in his explication of justification thought out beforehand in [that double reflection], becomes for Hegel a new starting point for philosophy.” (162)

“In a strict sense Hegel’s philosophy is the historical thought of the reality transformed by Christ. It is both a philosophy from revelation and of revelation.”

“Luther’s teaching or theology about the sacrament of communion is the classical locus of Hegel’s concrete spirit thinking.”

Page 163: The Trinity, Christology, the theology of the sacrament, and the theology of the Trinity, all form a direct line toward the concrete spirit of the economic teaching of the Trinity. The Spirit is mediated historically, oriented toward the Incarnation and Passion. Luther comes close to Monophysitism (one incarnate nature of Christ) and Theopaschitism, i.e., that God the Father also suffered on the cross) by holding to the concrete spirit and saying “God is dead” and by calling Christ, the God-martyr.

Page 163: “In a double way Hegel remains in Luther’s footsteps, when he not only articulates the concrete spirit in a new way, but makes the death of God the cornerstone of his thinking.” Luther first encountered the abstract spirit in Zwingli and the latter [not Luther’s concrete spirit] became victorious in the Enlightenment. Zwingli’s is the opposite figure encountered in Luther’s understanding of the concrete spirit. In Hegel there is a new awakening of anti-spiritualistic thought.

Page 172-173: Kant loses sight of history in his philosophy. “In that Kant established his concept of [human and natural] science on Newton’s physics, in a compulsory way the realm of history had to be precluded.” N.B.: Perhaps Kant replaced religion with rational morality.

Page 193: Here Asendorf finds just the right words for a thought: “This interpretation does not only change the original meaning, but succeeds to make it mean the exact opposite.”

“Bultmann’s demythologization style is a kind of an existentialist interpretation carried out under the banner of morality.” Bultmann follows Kant’s deletion of history from philosophy and thus the Incarnation, Ascension, etc. all become meaningless. God does not come up in the naturalism of science. [And Kant’s metaphysics are very much oriented around the physics of the natural sciences.]

Page 193 bottom: N.B. Do an economic study in the spirit of Luther. Perhaps the new orientation of evolutionary economics in Eric D. Beinhocker’s The Origin of Wealth and Gar Alperovitz and Lew Daly’s Unjust Deserts could be helpful in this endeavor.[2]

Page 194: In Kant and those who follow in his footsteps, giving any objectivity to theology becomes impossible. “Theology cannot accept the way Kant excludes it from claiming to have objects. [With Kant’s objectivization Verbot] Theology loses itself at the same time as it loses its object.”

Page 196: “For Kant contradiction does not lie at the heart of reality.” In German; „Hier gehört der Widerspruch prinzipiell nicht zum Wesen der Wirklichkeit.”

N.B: I believe Michael Polanyi describes a contradiction in the middle of reality or one close to it in his book, Science, Faith and Society. Polanyi is speaking about the experience of scientists in a Marxist-Leninist ideology that “denies the intrinsic creative powers of thought.”[3]

And “Since this power regards itself as the embodiment of historic destiny and as a dispenser of history’s promises to humankind, it can acknowledge no superior claims to truth, justice or morality. Alternatively, materialistic (or romantic) philosophies, denying any universal claims to standards of truth, justice or morality, may deprive citizens of any grounds for appealing to these standards and thus endow the government with absolute power. The two practices are in fact fused in their joint justification of force as superior to mind.

“But we must add here an additional process which makes violence the embodiment of the values it overrides. Those in our day who brought into power governments exempt from standards of humanity were themselves prompted by an intense passion for the ideals which they so contemptuously brushed aside. They had rejected the overt professions of these ideals as philosophically unsound, hypocritical and specious, but they had covertly injected the same ideals into the new despotisms which they set up. Thus these ideals became immanent in the violence that ruthlessly rejected them. By virtue of the moral inversion (as I have later called it), the very immoralism of this power became a token of its moral purity. In view of its internal structure it could honestly reject any accusations of immorality in the very breath of proclaiming its own immorality.”[4]

N.B.: Perhaps it would be more accurate to say “force as superior to mind” is a contradiction in the midst of a social reality. But Polanyi’s description of modern despotisms reminded me of what Martin Luther faced in an unreformed church headed by corrupt popes. Instead of honest debate for the sake of truth, he was labeled a heretic, and what an irony, that one of the statements listed as heretical, was that burning heretics at the stake was wrong, and should not be allowed for the church! In burning a person at the stake, the Christian ideals of love and righteousness “became immanent in the violence that ruthlessly rejected them.” To forbid coercive power to the church, but allow it as a lesser of evils to the civil government, still plants a contradiction into reality, but one that needs to be overcome by ever decreasing the coercion of governments as well, when the evil and violence they block internally and externally also decreases. Note that Kant’s categorical imperative constituted immorality as a rational contradiction.

On pages 196, 358, and 389 Asendorf mentions the Latin formula, finitum capax infiniti: the finite is capable of containing the inifinite. Kant held that finitum non capax infiniti, i.e. that it was not. Zwingli and Calvin provide science with a foundation for the empty finite. God is repressed or expelled from the world. (Gott Verdrängung) (“Verdrängung” is a psychological word meaning driven into the unconscious where God cannot be remembered nor accessed).

Page 198: Nominalism splits reason and revelation.

Page 200 top: “Kant’s religion of morality leaves the human being alone, unredeemed or feeling no need of redemption. In a transfigured light, over the complete horizontalism of his thinking, hovers the utopian cloud of a kingdom of God; of course, as the perfected kingdom of humanism. The cross of Christ has become superfluous. And in the schizophrenia of our time, theologians have remained Kantian.”

Page 182: Theology can be inside Philosophy, much like the infinite inside the finite. “The unity of [Hegel’s] form consists of the unending togetherness and mutual indwelling of theology and philosophy.”

N.B. A verse in the spirit of Luther

The One greater than the all in all

Now lies in a crib so small.

Page 262: From the German Christmas Song by Martin Luther:

Der aller Welt Kreis nie beschloss,

der liegt in Marien Schoss.

The One too great for the universe to wrap

is now sweetly lying in Mary’s lap.

 

N.B. Again in his Bondage of the Will, Luther’s thinking is dialectical and tends to ascend toward higher levels of resolution. Thus his thinking etches out nuances that monological thinkers often fail to grasp. For example, in his different relational fora, Luther does not reject free will on the horizontal level, i.e., coram hominibus (before others), but only before God, coram Deo. In a similar way Luther does not reject reason, the way some think he does, monolithically, charging him with fidéism. Reason remains the queen of its earthly house. Only when caught up in human pride, when it goes out of bounds, interferes with a person’s faith, and tries to set itself over God, does Luther reject it. Luther’s levels of understanding ascending from the light of nature through the light of grace and into the light of glory in his Bondage of the Will,[5] remind me of Hegel’s thinking ascending from a philosophy of substance to one of the subject, which he finally brings to the concept in the philosophy of the spirit.

I will translate the following long citation from U. Asendorf:

Page 408: Die allgemeine theologische Bedeutung von Hegels Logik

Diese ergibt sich aus der Auseinandersetztung mit dem Denken der Aufklärung. Der Verstand als das Trennende, am Widerspruch scheiternde Denken, zerstört die Religion. Aufgabe des Denkens, nicht nur des theologischen, ist es, den Bereich der einander entgegengesetzten Reflexionsvorstellungen und ihre Abstraktheit zu überwinden. Der Gegensatz zwischen Betrachtetem und Betrachtendem muss aufgehoben werden. Die logische Bestimmungen sind daher doppelt, insofern sie dem Seiendem wie dem Denken zuzuschreiben sind.

Das Denken muss zur Höhe der Idee hinaufgehoben werden, in welcher Subjektivität und Objektivität gleich sind. Hier geht es um den ersten Zusammenhang der Idee mit dem Ganzen.

Hegels Logik formuliert dann den Aufbau der logischen Welt in einem dreifachen Aufstieg von der Seins- über die Wesens- zur Begriffslogik.

Page 409: Wenn sich Hegels Logik ferner um eine neue Erschliessung des Ganzen bemüht, so ist das Leben die Idee, so dass dieses teils Leben, teils Erkennen, teils Wissenschaft ist. Dieser Bezug der Idee auf das Ganze impliziert einen hohen theologischen Anspruch, nämlich das Wissen des Absoluten, welches darin begründet ist, dass Gott Geist ist und im Geist und in der Wahrheit erkannt werden will. Deswegen gilt beides, dass Gott das Ganze ist und dass er absoluter Begriff ist. Es ist darum nicht zufällig, wenn Hegels Begriffslogik offenbarungstheologisch begründet ist. Wenn aber die Begriffslogik als offenbarungstheologisch begründete, wenngleich unzulängliche Kommunikationstheorie verstanden werden kann, so gilt das nicht zuletzt trinitätslogisch in den doppelten Bezugssystem der immanenten und der ökonomischen Trinität. Es liegt also in den Konsequenz des Hegelschen Denkens, wenn die entwicklung der logischen Kategorien die Entwicklung der metaphysischen Bestimmungen Gottes ist, wie ferner die Vernunft erst im Licht des geoffenbarten Absoluten zu sich selbst finden kann, weil Hegels Ansatz ein rein immanentisches Vernunfstverständnis ausschliesst. Auch darin hat er die äussersten Kantischen Grenzmarkierungen hinter sich gelassen. Aus allem Gesagten folgt, dass der Geist erst mit begriffslogischen Kategorien voll erfasst werden kann.

Aus den Gesagten folgt aber auch, dass die oft zu hörende Kritik, Hegel verstosse in einer gradezu klassischen Weise gegen Luthers Verbot der Spekulation, nicht zutrifft. Luthers Kritik nämlich richtet sich dagegen, mit Hilfe der Spekulation an der Offenbarung vorbei zu Gott gelangen zu wollen and damit die Vernunft an die Stelle der göttlichen Offenbarung zu setzen, wodurch diese gegenstandslos würde. Hegels Denken wird von diesem Vorwurf nicht getroffen, weil er von der in Christus geschehenen Versöhnung her philosophisch denkt.

To translate the notes from page 408 and 409 in English:

Page 408:

8.5 The General Theological Significance of Hegel’s Logic

This ensues from the confrontation of his thought with the Enlightenment. The kind of reason that brings separation and fails in face of a contradiction destroys religion. It is the task of thinking, and not only of the theological kind, to overcome abstraction and the realm of representations of reflection that oppose each other. The opposition between the observer and observed has to be overcome (aufgehoben). The logical determinations are therefore doubled, insofar as they are attributed to being and thinking.

Thinking has to be lifted up to the level of the idea,[6] to the point where subjectivity and objectivity become the same. Crucial here is the first relationship of the idea with the whole.

Hegel’s logic, therefore formulates the ascension of the logical world in a threefold rising level [of logic] from being- through essence- to concept logic. [N.B. like the progression from substance to subject to concept or spirit]

Page 409: Because Hegel’s logic further concerns itself with an opening up of the whole, thus life is idea, such that the latter is partly life, partly perception, and partly science [again science as understood as both natural and human.] This relation of the idea to the whole implies a high level claim on theology, namely, the knowing of the absolute, which is therein grounded in that God is spirit and wants to be known in Spirit and in truth. That is why it is both valid that God is the whole and that God is the absolute Concept. Therefore it is not by chance that Hegel’s concept-logic is grounded theologically in revelation. If however the logic of the concept is grounded in revelation theologically, even if an inadequate communication theory could be understood by it, then it is valid not last of all for the logic of the Trinity in the double relational system of the immanent and economic Trinity. Therefore abiding in the consequences of the thinking of Hegel, it is the case that the development of his logical categories is [at the same time] the development of the metaphysical determinations of God, and further, reason can only find its way back to itself in the light of the Absolute, because Hegel’s thinking precludes an understanding of reason as purely immanent. Even here it shows that he left the outermost markings of the Kantian limitations behind him. From all that has been said, it follows that only with concept logical categories can the Spirit become fully grasped.

But from what was said it also follows that the often heard criticism is misplaced, namely, that Hegel violated Luther’s prohibition against speculation in a diametrically classical way. That is because Luther’s criticism is directed against that kind of thinking, which by the help of speculation wants to reach God through by-passing revelation and by wanting to place reason alongside God’s revelation, thus taking away the latter’s object. This reproach fails to touch Hegel’s thinking, because his philosophy has its starting point and is based on the atonement that happened through Christ.

Now paraphrasing Asendorf further in English:

Page 410: Hegel knows well that he is following the philosophical tradition and cannot proceed by faith. But his philosophy provides a place for Christian revelation, because his thinking starts from it. Hegel’s thinking demonstrates its theological and revelatory source in three ways.

1. The language form of his thinking that brings reconciliation to opposites

2. Because of his mutual and reciprocal relation of the Spirit and History his logic also contains the movement of history

3. And finally the concrete nature of his thinking demonstrates its theological and revelatory source.

Very early already Hegel criticized the false infinity of Kant, because he wanted to strengthen his commitment to finitum capax infiniti: the finite could grasp the infinite. To separate both completely, Hegel held to be Manichaean.

Page 410: Hegel’s concrete spirit is spirit moving through history.

His reference to a doubly wrong world reminds me of a place in Luther’s Commentary on Psalm 117: “Grace appears outwardly as if it were pure wrath, so deeply does it lie hidden under two thick [covers]…which is probably why St. Peter says, ‘the word alone shines upon us as in a dark place’ (2 Peter 1:19). Yes, certainly in a dark place!”[7]

Page 411: After considering the separation of the finite from the infinite, Asendorf states: “The option for the absolute finite and [abstract] spiritualism are factually identical. A similar negative judgment can only also be made for a pure theological horizontalism. The latter in the truest sense of the word by dint of its logical incapacity, does not know what it is talking about….In this sense the concept in its theological significance has to be disclosed and considered anew, insofar as it is the process, in which the infinite and the finite are connected.”

Page 411 (bottom): Dialectic

“By the fundamental schema of his “Encyclopedia,” three steps need to be differentiated, namely, the abstractly understood, the dialectical-negative reasonable, and the speculative positive reasonable (Vernünftige). The first two belong to Enlightenment thinking. The third reaches the fullness of the concept. Only in this way does the idea realize itself fully in the concept.”

Page 412: “Therefore, the Spirit is not a state of being but a movement. Luther’s Deus semper actuosus [God’s always living, acting, and working] reaches all the way into Hegel’s logic. Because of that, logic can be the philosophical organum [instrument] for grasping the things of God, the way faith is, for the theological.”

Page 435: “Luther’s tract, “The Freedom of a Christian” is the secret center of the philosophy of the Spirit, which is as such at one and the same time the philosophy of history.”

Page 435: Hegel held fast to Lutheranism his whole life, like the Latin speech he gave as the rector of the University of Berlin on the third anniversary of the Augsburg Confession, 25^th of June, 1830. “The unending pain embodied in Israel, stands opposite the unending positivism in Christ. The birth of Christ is the dialectically understood turning point in the history of the Spirit.”

Page 435-436: “Hegel wanted to lift up the representation of faith, love, and hope to the reality of a self-conscious rationality (Vernünftigkeit), namely, in a worldly kingdom of a community of free people. In its mere subjectivity, it is a kingdom of arbitrary choice and barbarism, which is not mediated by and does not stand opposite to an other-worldly kingdom. Thus Hegel speaks of the difficult conflict between the different [sides] of this idea, in which the kingdoms are rooted, the spiritual [kingdom] of a heavenly existence and the [kingdom of] a common, earthly reality. When heaven descends and settles down on the earth and the worldly ‘gets built upward’ out of its abstract being-for-itself to the rationality of justice (Recht) and law, then the old opposition is weakened to insignificance. The presence has stripped itself of its barbarism and the truth has stripped itself of its other-worldliness. With that, the atonement has become objective, so that the state has unfolded as the image of the reality of reason. Religion and science (understood as both natural and human science) become complementary manifestations of truth.”

N.B. Luther relegates reason and law to the state and faith and the Gospel to the church. Hegel seems to be thinking this position through in all its implications. Only if Hegel then substituted the state for the church would he have gone wrong. But if he saw a kind of partnership of the church and state via such different ways of operating, then he would still be thinking in the spirit of Luther.

Luther could see those in the vocation of the state as saviors. Like a Norwegian theologian, who disagreed with me, when I said that Luther’s theology was used there for the aggrandizement of the state at the expense of genuine faith and the church.[8] He said that Luther’s theology had changed the whole paradigm of the church and state, because they became the two wings of a new butterfly.

Page 436: “The concept is the subject as well as the object of the idea.”

“The double movement of estrangement and return are understood together as the concept of the Spirit.”

Page 437: A criticism of Hegel is that for him an unknown future does not exist. It is a problem that for the sake of philosophy Hegel excludes faith. [N.B. But that is legitimate when reasoning under the auspices of philosophy and the state.]

Page 440: But he places the Christ event in the middle of his philosophy.

Page 438, footnote: Hegel no longer wished to allow the paradoxical and oppositions to diverge infinitely, (like Kant and Kierkegaard did) but sought their reconciliation through his thought. “Thus Hegel concerns himself with melting the absolute and the concrete, the universal and the particular, [together] into the concept.”[9]

Page 445: “The reasonable is reality and what is real is reasonable.” or “The rational is reality and what is real is rational.” Another permutation: “The real is rational and the rational real.” (Vernünftig, “Vernunft” means reason.) (N.B. When my father said, “Sei doch vernünftig!” he meant “Behave! Be reasonable!”

N.B. The philosophy of being holds the whole world in stasis. It as if it were based upon the Ptolemaic Universe, where the earth stood still and the sun, moon, and stars rose and set around it. Movement was peripheral, while the still-standing earth allowed for a static logic. But now we understand that the planet earth revolves around the sun, the sun is moving inside the galaxy of the Milky Way, which is swirling around a black hole, while all the galaxies are diverging in an expanding universe. Now a logic of becoming, one that has movement at its center, thinks in terms of grasping a moving target. Hegel’s is a logic of becoming, of life, of development.

Page 456: “In the absolute Spirit, freedom and history interpret each other.”

As on page 484, here Hegel presents the Trinity in his language:

Page 476: “God is Spirit, – i.e. that, which we call the Three-in-One God; – God is Spirit – the absolute activity actus purus i.e., Subjectivity – eternal personality – unending – differentiating himself from himself – [thus] begetting – but this differentiation is in the eternal concept, i.e. held in generality as absolute subjectivity, – so it is placed in his unending differentiation, not for the sake of darkness – i.e. Being-for-itself – non-transparency, impenetrability and coming to end – but at the same time as his differentiation remaining in an immediate oneness, and in his differentiation in himself – so with that, the whole divine Concept – Son – and God, this absolute unity as in his-self, in his difference, identical with himself, as eternal love.” N.B.: Hegel seems to be contemplating the Holy Trinity through the Holy Spirit, where we usually do through the Son or the Father.

Page 483: “Love is, namely, the gazing at oneself in the other.” N.B. Elsewhere Hegel would says, the differentiating of oneself from the other.

Page 484: Here Hegel presents the Trinity in his language.

Page 484, footnote 57: J. Splett writes, “[Hegel’s] logic as a whole is the presentation of the speculative truth, which Christian dogmatics calls the immanent Trinity, like his whole system is the economic Trinity.”

N.B. Wow! That is quite a claim!

Page 485: “The Spirit is to be grasped as Being himself, For-himself, and In-and-for-himself.” („Geist ist damit nach seinem Ansich-, seinem Fürsich- und seinem An-und-für-sich-sein zu begreifen.“)

N.B. Hegel challenges Kant’s phenomenal limitation of the noumenal. For Hegel knowledge of a limit means that ne already knows something beyond the limit. Thus Kant’s things and things- in-themselves do not relate with Hegel’s movement of thought and life expressed in being-itself, being-for-itself, and being–in-and-for-itself.

Page 495: “Love is to be understood in its endless pain and its healing of it.”

Page 495: “The concept of the absolute oneness of the divine and human nature – is the reality of God.”

N.B. Perhaps this is the contradiction in the midst of reality.

N.B. Reading Asendorf’s considerations for a new systematic theology helped by Hegel’s philosophy, I realize that perhaps when I ascribe growth to the theory of opposites, it may be more a philosophical insight than a theological one. That way I introduce the mediation of reasoning. It resembles the way I’ve begun to speak about God in another dimension rather than in heaven. A philosophical and intellectual mediation seems to replace faith as much as when Asendorf argues that justification by faith has no place in Hegel’s philosophy (page 514) where it is quite central in Luther’s theology.

Thus the presuppositions as well as the different associations or contexts of meaning have to be taken into consideration in theology on the one hand and in philosophy on the other. That is why when taking a philosophical word and using it theologically, it first has to undergo a bath, like baptism. (Page 511) Otherwise the distortion and mistakes produced by a mixing of categories could occur, i.e., a categorical error.

Page 514: “The statement, in its association of meanings, “contradictio est regula veri” [contradiction is the basis of truth] could not have been understood in classical Greek philosophy and logic.”

Page 515: The ancients would not have understood negation as an essential in dialectical thought, the double negative as affirmative, the doubly wrong world or the atonement of opposites as a task of logic.

Page 515: A principled shake-up of metaphysics cannot be addressed merely by Nygren’s presuppositional analysis. („Eine prinzipielle Perhorreszierung der Metaphysic hindert also die Theologie genauso wie die Philosophie daran, ihere logischen Klärungsfunktion gerecht zu werden.“)

To translate: “A principled shake-up of metaphysics hinders theology as well as philosophy from carrying out their logical clarifying function adequately.”

Page 516: “In the sense of modern philosophical anthropology, the world-openness of people is brought into a three-fold expression, namely, in the schema: God/human, human/nature (creation), and Spirit/history.”

N.B. Hegel may have been citing Luther in saying that the Holy Spirit was involved in justification. (I seem to have read that in Luther’s Genesis Commentary. While Hegel does not speak of faith, he does champion the concrete spirit.

Page 517: Asendorf claims, “Hegel did not sacrifice faith for philosophical speculation.”

Page 517: Hegel said, “A half of philosophy leads away from God…, true philosophy, however, leads toward God.” Perhaps the text for Hegel’s philosophy comes from 2 Corinthians 3:17: “The Lord is Spirit and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.”

N.B. I wonder why philosophy cannot consider the future, nor faith? Why is it in principle that eschatology is closed to philosophy?

Page 518: Hegel’s philosophy looks backward not forward. Think of the owl of Minerva! Hegel concentrates on realized eschatology, but not the eschatology that still stands out.

N.B. Asendorf has quite a wonderful last paragraph: “The remaining difference only makes [more] clear the deep relationship of Luther and Hegel, which has its source in a common philosophy of love, in the joyful exchange, the recognizing oneself in the other. Crucial is the vis unitiva, ex amante et amato unum quid constituenz, [the uniting power that makes the lover and the beloved one], which comes out of Luther’s Epistle to the Romans Lectures, as well as from his great meditation on Galatians 2:20 in his later lectures on the Epistles to the Galatians, where it receives its classical formulation. Out of love, as Hegel discovered it in the Gospel of John, the whole philosophy of Spirit develops in ever new onslaughts. In a similar and comparable way for Luther the “love of Christ” is taken in the sense of the double genitive [i.e. of our loving Christ and Christ’s loving us], which finds its form in justification, the center of the circle that encloses all.”

 

 

This essay I published in Scholardarity derives from a rereading of Luther’s Bondage of the Will. Could evolution be the way God created life on this planet? Luther states that the hidden God has done and does things that are not revealed to us in Scriptures. Does science uncover more of the hidden actions of God and does God smile because humanity is coming of age? Honest to God, is our God too small? See Science and the Hidden versus the Revealed God.

Another essay called “The Garden of Eden: Eternity in Time” is about to be published in Scholadarity as well. It follows the reading of the Dobzhansky’s Biology of Ultimate Concern and this one about Science and the Revealed and Hidden God.

I believe that the naturalism and materialism rampant among some scientists has robbed many of their faith. It is especially mistaken to place the ultimate concern of faith on the same level as scientific knowledge, because from the get go, methodologically science operates by the exclusion of God as an explanation of natural events. When a methodology makes a claim to the totality of reality, it becomes problematic for faith but also undermines other valid human disciplines. “There are more things in heaven and earth, than are dreamt of in science,” to quote Shakespeare (for my purposes).

But science has the big bang theory (for the origin of the universe), the theory of evolution (for  the origin of life), and an expanded view of natural and human realities in this universe that can become tantamount to a religious narrative for existence. But it remains a blind scientific method that does not provide meaning and purpose for life. Science left to itself undermines its own enterprise in its search for truth, because the source of human values does not come from science.

See my book review in Scholardarity. Luther: a Guide for the Perplexed.