Category: Book Update

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Luther vs. Calvin on Justification and Election

Ultimately, those who embrace Luther’s theology find Calvin’s theology of election and justification so problematic because it fails to see that God is present and active in his Word in precisely the manner that he promises to be.  Calvin envisions human salvation and reprobation from the perspective of a comprehensive plan in eternity operating above and beyond the external Word.  The harmony of this plan can be discerned by looking past God’s words and coverings in order to see the whole of God’s hidden providence.[1]  Since some are saved and others not, God must not mean what he says when he wills the salvation of all who encounter him in the Word.  As a result, in Calvin’s theology the external Word may or may not do what it promises.  Only those who receive the inner call are truly elect and can see through the external word to God’s unified plan of grace for them as an individual.[2] 

By contrast, Luther sees God as exercising his rule through his Word manifest in and through his created masks.  Contrary to the claim of many Calvinists, Luther and the Lutheran tradition do not ultimately make God’s grace ineffective.  On the contrary, God’s Word always does precisely what it speaks.  However, God’s exercise of his reign is divided between a realm of law and a realm of grace. Those places where God has promised to work death and condemnation inexorably work death and condemnation.  By contrast, those who look for God in in the Word and sacraments will infallibly find a grace there that performs what it speaks.

Seen from the perspective of the sacramentality of the Word, the question of the perseverance of the saints is solved not on the basis of a special spiritual gift given to the elect (as in Augustine[3] and Calvin[4]), but on the basis on the efficacy of the means of grace external to the believer.[5]  God is always faithful to his Word regarding the means of grace.  The grace of the Word and the sacraments will inexorably move one toward the kingdom of heaven, just as a person who gets on a raft in the Mississippi River in Minnesota will inexorably move toward the Gulf of Mexico.[6] 

It could of course be objected that since Luther and the subsequent Lutheran tradition believe that apostasy is possible, one can never be genuinely certain that the divine Word will carry one along to their eschatological destiny.  In response, Lutherans have historically observed that God’s promise of grace is objectively true whether or not one believes in it.[7]  As we saw in Luther’s pronouncement regarding objective justification in an earlier chapter,[8] God’s promise of grace in Christ is more real than one’s refusal to believe it, and therefore remains a valid promise even if one chooses to actively reject it.[9]  Hence, to doubt the Word of the gospel is not to invalidate it, but rather to place one’s self outside of the realm of grace where the Word is operative and effective (i.e., the  sphere of the Church and its ministry), and into the realm of wrath and law which inexorably leads to eternal death (Rom. 3:20).  Hence, as long as one looks away from one’s present or possible future works and to God’s promise present in sphere of grace, one can always have infallible certainty that the living and active Word of the gospel will perform precisely what it speaks.    

[1] See the outline of this approach in the clearest terms in: John Calvin, Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God, trans. J.K.S. Reid (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1997).

[2] ICR, 3.24.8; Calvin: The Institutes of the Christian Religion, 2 vols., trans. and ed. John T. McNeill and Ford Lewis Battles (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1967), 2:974-5.

[3] Augustine, On the Gift of Perseverance; NPNFa, 5:.

[4] ICR, 3.24.7; Calvin: The Institutes of the Christian Religion, 2 vols., trans. and ed. John T. McNeill and Ford Lewis Battles (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1967), 2:973-4.

[5] See the Lutheran view and critique of the alternatives in: Francis Pieper, Christian Dogmatics, 3 vols. (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1951-1953), 3:89-103.

[6] Paulson, Luther’s Outlaw God: Hiddenness, Evil, and Predestination, vol. 1, 57-158.

[7] Pieper, Christian Dogmatics,2:321, 2:347-8, 2:508-12, 2:543.

[8] LW 22:382. 

[9] Tom G. A. Hardt, “Justification and Easter: A Study in Subjective and Objective Justification in Lutheran Theology,” in A Lively Legacy: Essays in Honor of Robert Preus, ed. Kurt E. Marquart, John R. Stephenson, Bjarne W. Teigen (Ft. Wayne: Concordia Theological Seminary, 1985), 52-78; Eduard Preuss, The Justification of the Sinner before God, trans. J.A. Friedrich (Ft. Wayne, IN: Lutheran Legacy, 2011), 29-61; Robert Preus, “Objective Justification,” in Doctrine is Life: Robert D. Preus Essays on Justification and the Lutheran Confessions, ed. Klemet Preus (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2006).

From the draft manuscript for Jack D. Kilcrease, Justification by Word (Lexham Press, forthcoming).

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Luther vs Augustine on Love

Since the self is properly oriented in its relationship with God by faith as trust, Luther now redirects love to the task of correctly orienting the external person in the earthly sphere.  This represents a total inversion of the Augustinian doctrine of love.  For the Bishop of Hippo, the love of earthly things functions as distractions from the love of God.  Indeed, in spite of being a biblical theme, at this stage of his development Luther seems uncomfortable about even talking about the love of God. Later in the Catechism, he again returned to the formula of “We should fear and love God, etc.,” and lost his aversion to talk of the love of God.  Nevertheless, in Freedom of a Christian, Luther consistently argues that love’s proper orientation is in fact an earthly object, namely the neighbor: “This is truly Christian life.  Here faith is truly active in love [Gal. 5:6], that is, it finds expression in works of freest service, cheerfully done, with which a man willing serves another [i.e. the neighbor] without hope of reward . . . “[1]   

Hence, the creative Word of God brings about a faith which orients believers toward God in Christ, whereas love is primarily directed toward the neighbor: “We conclude, therefore, that a Christian lives not in himself, but in Christ and the neighbor.  He lives in Christ through faith, and in his neighbor through love.”[2]  Whereas the person under the power of sin and self-justification stood curved in on himself (incurvatus in se), now the believer lives a life externalized in the other: first in Christ through faith, then through the neighbor in love.[3]  In this, the self becomes radically decentered in the form of ecstatic existence (raptus, exstasis).  In this, Luther borrows yet another theme from the mystical tradition,[4] yet remolds it around the biblical themes of faith in God and the love of the neighbor.

[1] LW 31:365.  Emphasis added.

[2] LW 31:371.  Emphasis added.

[3] See good description of Luther’s position here in George Wolfgang Forell, Faith Active in Love: An Investigation into the Principles Underlying Luther’s Social Ethics (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 1999).

[4] See Karl-Heinz zur Mühlen, Nos extra nos: Luthers Theologie zwischen Mystik und Scholastik (Tübingen: Mohr, 1972).

From the draft manuscript for Jack D. Kilcrease, Justification by Word (Lexham Press, forthcoming).

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Luther on Predestination

Although Luther comments on predestination somewhat infrequently, there is a clear doctrine of predestination in Luther derived from his engagement with Paul and Augustine.[1]  Nevertheless, unlike Augustine, election is described as being something that God executes in and through the preaching of the promise in Christ.  In a passage in “A Sermon on Preparing for Dying” (1519) Luther writes:

“Therefore fix your eyes upon the heavenly picture of Christ, who for your sake went to hell and was rejected by God as one damned to the eternal perdition, as He cried on the cross, ‘Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?  My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me?’  Behold, in that picture your hell is overcome and your election assured, so that if you but take care and believe that it happened for you, you will certainly be saved in that faith.”[2]

Here it should be noted that much like the word of absolution sacramentally contains within itself the coming of God’s justification of sinner, so too God’s eternal judgment of predestination supervenes on the word of the cross.  Unlike in Augustine, there is not gap between God’s eternal, hidden, predestinating will, and the word of the preacher.  To apprehend in faith the word of promise that God has attached to Christ’s death and resurrection is to be assured of God’s eternal election of the believer.

In 1531, Luther offered similar counsel to Barbara Lisskirchen (formerly Weller), a woman who wrote the Reformer due to her deep anxiety about the question of her predestination.  Luther writes in a response letter:

“[T]he highest of all God’s commands is this, that hold up before our eyes the image of his dear Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.  Every day he should be our excellent mirror of how much God loves us and how well, in his infinite goodness, he has cared for us in that he gave his dear son for us.  In this way I say, and in no other, does one learn to properly deal with the question of predestination.  It will be manifest to you that you believe in Christ.  If you believe then you are called.  And if you are called you are most certainly predestinated.  Do not let this mirror and throne of grace be torn away from your eyes.  If such thoughts still come and bite like fiery serpents, pay no attention to the thoughts or serpents.  Turn away from these notions and contemplate the brazen serpent, that is, Christ given for us.”[3]

The key point to notice in this passage is not only that God’s eternal election is embodied in Christ crucified and received by faith in him, but that the faith that apprehends Christ is what Philip Cary calls “unreflective faith,”[4] that is, a faith that does not worry about its own authenticity.  Likewise, as Randall Zachman helpful summarizes: “[For Luther] faith means believing with certainty that God’s Word is true even when the whole world, the heart of the believer, and even God himself contradict the truth that is revealed in the word, particularly the word of promise.”[5]  Faith therefore looks outside of itself (extra nos) to Christ himself and his word of promise.  Again, to look away from Christ would be to return to self-trust and self-incurvature, the very definition of sin.  Throughout the letter, Luther emphasizes that all questioning of one’s election and justification are satanic temptations.  Faith accepts God’s trustworthiness in his word as absolute reality and rejects the unreality of unbelief. 

[1] See: Fredrik Brosché, Luther on Predestination: The Antinomy and the Unity Between Love and Wrath in Luther’s Concept of God (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell international, 1978).

[2] LW 42:105-6.  Emphasis added.

[3] Martin Luther, Luther: Letters of Spiritual Counsel, trans. Theodore Tappert (Vancouver, BC: Regent College Press, 2003), 116.  Emphasis added.  See lengthier argument in Luther’s Genesis commentary along the same lines: LW 5:43-50.

[4] Philip Cary, “Why Luther is Not Quite Protestant: The Logic of Faith in a Sacramental Promise,” Pro Ecclesia 14, no. 4 (2005): 450-55.

[5] Randall Zachman, The Assurance of Faith: Conscience in the Theology of Martin Luther and John Calvin (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 2005), 9.

From the draft manuscript for Jack D. Kilcrease, Justification by Word (Lexham Press, forthcoming).

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Luther and the Saving Righteousness of Christ in the Objective Sacramental Word

Standing on the shoulders of Augustine and his first reformation of the doctrine of grace, Martin Luther sought to bring the Church of the sixteenth century back to the biblical doctrine of justification.  Central to Luther’s Reformation theology was his resolution of the Augustinian Dilemma through the concept of the sacramentality of the word.  In this regard, our thesis stands contrary to popular belief that Luther’s central project was the doctrine of justification by faith.  Faith is of course of central importance to Luther, but faith is only meaningful insofar as it relies on a word from God that sacramentally gives the reality that faith receives.  For this reason, the emphasis in Luther is less on the subjective act of belief and more on the reality of God’s saving righteousness in Christ. Christ’s righteousness creates and bestows the objective reality of which it speaks through the word and sacrament ministry of the Church.  Luther’s belief in justification by the word transcends the Augustinian conception of the word as merely a form of signification, a concept which drives most Catholic and Protestant theologies of justification down to the present.

On the surface Luther’s belief that faith in the promise is central to the efficacy of the sacrament might appear subjectivistic.  It might be argued that this confines the work of God to the human choice to believe.  This is a charge that has been frequently made against Luther by Roman Catholic apologists.[1]  Nevertheless, such an interpretation would be incorrect.  As we will see below, Luther holds that because the risen Jesus himself speaks through the means grace in the power of the Holy Spirit, the sacrament carriers within itself the ability to create and sustain the faith that receives it. For this reason, it would be more proper to say that Jesus’ historically objective word and its divine power constitute both the validity and efficacy of the sacrament.[2]  As will later be observed, it is Jesus’ word of promise that trumps all things, including subjective human psychological states, or the discernment of contrition by a priest.

Absolution is a divine efficacious word (Thettel-Wort) and is not a mere piece of information (Heissel-Wort).[3]  The word that the priest speaks is a sacramental instrument wherein God is present and communicates his grace: “This is why it [confession and absolution] is called a sacrament, a holy sign, because in it one hears the words externally that signify spiritual gifts within, gifts by which the heart is comforted and set at peace.”[4]  Since the heart is only set at peace by the divine grace present in the objective word, it follows that the word is itself the divine instrument that creates faith in the heart.  As suggested earlier, the logical implication of this is that validity of the sacrament and the efficacy are all contained in the Word of God itself.[5]   

As a result of this understanding of absolution, Augustine’s concept of res and signum in a sacrament is significantly modified.  Although there is still a distinction between the visible sign and the invisible grace, the signum (the word of absolution) does not somehow point beyond itself to the invisible res (the work of the Holy Spirit).  Rather, the res is present and communicated through the outward signum (i.e., word).  When faith appropriates the word, it appropriates divine grace and forgiveness itself.  As Bayer observes:

“That the signum itself is already the res, that the linguistic sign is already the matter itself – that was Luther’s great hermeneutical discovery, his reformational discovery in the strictest sense. . . Since the sign is itself already the thing it declares, this means, with reference to absolution, that the statement “I absolve you of your sins!” is not a judgement, which merely establishes that something is true already . . . Instead, in this instance, a speech act actually constitutes a reality.”[6]

The faith that appropriates the promise is not an autonomous action of the human person, but rather a product of divine grace.  Faith is not an independent factor that transmutes absolution as a possibility into an actuality.  Rather, the absolution is an objective and fully actualized reality that faith can receive: “Christ, your God, will not lie to you, nor will he waver; neither will the devil overturn his words for him.  If you build upon them with a firm faith, you will be standing on the rock against which the gates and all the powers of hell cannot prevail.”[7]  In other words, faith does not make the word a reality any more than a house that is built on a rock is secure because of the act of building.  The house built on a rock is foundationally secure because of what it is built on (Mt. 7:24-7).

Luther’s emphasis on the objectivity of the Word of God can be especially seen in how he deals with the reality of unbelief: “By such disbelief [in the word of grace] you make God to be a liar when, through his priest, he says to you, “You are loosed from your sins,” and you retort, ‘I don’t believe it,’ or, ‘I doubt it.”[8]  If the absolution became true by believing it, then Luther would not accuse the unbeliever of making God a liar.  If the believer makes absolution occur by his faith, then unbelief would prevent the word of absolution from becoming a true word.  As a consequence, God would not be insulted as a liar, since without faith no absolution would take place.  What Luther claims instead is that although unbelief blocks divine grace and forgiveness from being received, faith does not actualize absolution as a reality.  To borrow a term from Gerhard Ebeling,[9] the “word-event” (Wortgeschehen) of the giving of absolution exists prior to faith and determines its reality.  Grace and forgiveness are already actualized in the word-event of absolution, faith merely receives and participates in them.

[1] See Paul Hacker, Das Ich im Glauben bei Martin Luther (Graz: Styria Verlag, 1966).

[2] Robert Kolb and Charles Arand, The Genius of Luther’s Theology: A Wittenberg Way of Thinking for the Contemporary Church (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008), 135-43.

[3] LW 37:180-88. See David Steinmetz, “Luther and the Two Kingdoms,” in Luther in Context (Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 1986), 115.

[4] LW 35:11.

[5] Kolb and Arand, The Genius of Luther’s Theology, 176-88.

[6] Bayer, Martin Luther’s Theology, 52-3.

[7] LW 35:12.

[8] LW 35:13-4.  Emphasis added.

[9] Gerhard Ebeling, Word and Faith, trans. James Leitch (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1963), 325-32.

From the draft manuscript for Jack D. Kilcrease, Justification by Word (Lexham Press, forthcoming).

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The Failure of Augustinian Sacramentalist and Predestinarian trajectories

It is easy to perceive the two main modern manifestations of the Augustinian dilemma (major strains of post-Tridentine Catholicism and Calvinism) in utero.  Despite censure from the institutional Church through the Middle Ages, sacramental anti-realist position (usually, though not always connected with hard predestinarianism) manifested itself throughout the Middle Ages in the everything from the heresy of Berengar of Tours to the theology of the so-called proto-Reformers (Wycliffe, Hus, etc.).[1]

In giving a theological evaluation, it should be observed that the difficulty with both trajectories within the Augustinian tradition is that they destroy the biblical emphasis on the divine Word’s ability to enact salvation through the sacramental medium of human words.  For Augustine, the word is not a divine deed that contains within it the coming of the reality of which it speaks.  Rather, the word is a mere signifier that signifies things to be known more authentically through the experience of vision beyond them.  As a result, according to the first option outlined above the elect are predestined by invisible grace, which merely coincides with the means of grace- but is not literally present in them.  Therefore, the external medium of the word and sacraments do not enact salvation, they merely signify a salvation that God has already enacted in his eternal choice.  Conversely, following the second option, if grace is contained in the word and sacraments, but not enacted through them, it logically follows that the means of grace come to function as a signifier that signifies the possibility of grace to be actualized by free will.  It is not the Word of God that actualizes the redemption of the individual sinner, but free will accepting grace.

Ultimately, the competing sacramentalist and predestinarian trajectories fail to counteract the reality of sin as it is defined within the Augustinian tradition.  For Augustine, sin is self-incurvature (incurvate in se) and self-orientation.[2]  Grace must break this self-orientation and reorient the sinner toward God.  Nevertheless, if the means of grace do not actually contain grace and God invisibly elects believers, then it is up to the individual to discern the signs of the presence of God’s grace within him or herself.  In discerning God’s electing grace, they must necessarily return to their own self-focus and trust.  Conversely, if the means of grace do contain real grace that one is expected to grasp with his own free will, then one will again turn inward to discern whether one has appropriately utilized one’s free will to take hold of the offer of grace.  In either trajectory, the root of sin is ultimately not defeated, and the Augustinian tradition therefore fails to combat sin based on its own internal criterion.

[1] See the following: See Stephen Lahey, “The Sentences Commentary of Jan Hus,” A Companion to Jan Hus, ed. Ota Pavlicek and František Šmahel (Leiden: Brill), 147-9;  A.J. Macdonald, Berengar and the Reform of Sacramental Doctrine (London: Longmans, Green, 1930); Stephen Penn, “Wycliffe and the Sacraments,” in A Companion to John Wyclif, Late Medieval Theologian, ed. Ian Levy (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 241-93; John Adam Robson, Wyclif and the Oxford Schools: The Relation of the “Summa de Ente” to Scholastic Debates at Oxford in the Later Fourteenth Century (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1961).

[2] Brian Gregor, A Philosophical Anthropology of the Cross: The Cruciform Self (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2013), 61.

From the draft manuscript for Jack D. Kilcrease, Justification by Word (Lexham Press, forthcoming).

Image “i dont (want to) see it : incurvatus se” by Rachel Telian (2015)