Tag: Augustine

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God’s Truth and Language Games

Although they are both ultimately problematic, Fundamentalism and right-wing Postmodernist theologies are more workable than theological Liberalism because they remain committed to the basic content of the Christian faith.  The issue tends to be more how they seek to establish the validity of their epistemic judgments and less at the content of their judgments.  Similarly, in the dialectic of antinomianism and legalism, legalism has the advantage of at least acknowledging the existence of the law. This is true even if legalists suffers from the same delusion as antinomians, namely that we can escape the condemnation of the law.  Hence, it is not wrong to acknowledge the acceptance of a law of belief (fides quae creditor) as a necessary condition for possessing genuine Christian faith (fides qua creditor).  Rather, what is problematic is to see the law and not the promise of grace is the foundation of the divine-human relationship, and therefore the starting point of all our truth claims.

            Postmodernism is correct that there is no neutral starting point for our epistemic projects, even if we admit that the frameworks we employ are vulnerable to critique and falsification.  Therefore, we begin with the explicitly biblical presupposition that humans are made in the image of God (Gen. 1:26).  Christians confess that the biblical God is always and eternally the Holy Trinity.  God as Trinity is an eternal linguistic agent, who gracious gives of himself in speaking forth the Word and the spiration of the Spirit.  Hence, the Christian God is an eternally gracious and responsive God.  God gives and responds to himself within the eternal dialogue and self-communication of the divine life. 

Continue reading “God’s Truth and Language Games”
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Melanchthon Falls Into the Augustinian Dilemma

The older Melanchthon took Luther’s doctrine of the sacramentality of the word and reinterpreted it along the lines of the typical sacramentalist trajectory of the Augustinian Dilemma.  The Word of God is genuinely sacramental for Melanchthon in that it contains the coming of the Holy Spirit who works faith.  Nevertheless, in Melanchthon’s teaching it is at minimum a very strongly implied that the Holy Spirit’s work is dependent on the human will’s consent to cooperate.  Hence, in Melanchthon’s later work, grace can be construed as ultimately a possibility that is actualized by human decision.  Such a human decision can be called in question regarding its sincerity, thereby returning the sinner to the authenticity of his works (in this case, not external works, but rather a psychological event of conversion).  Therefore, the logical implication of the older Melanchthon’s theology of justification is that Luther’s unreflective faith is denied in favor an extremely reflective faith.  As we will see, the psychologizing of faith and the implicit call for self-examination as the sincerity of one’s conversion would become a standard feature in many strands of the later Protestant tradition.

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

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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).