Throwback Post
According to Martin Luther, the believer receives all that is Christ’s , through faith in the word: “The one who has faith is a completely divine man, a son of God, the inheritor of the universe. He is victor over the world, sin, death, and the Devil.”1 The scholastics claimed that the habitus of love makes faith living. But Luther argued this was incorrect. Love is not the “form” (in the Aristotelian sense) of faith. Christ is.2 Faith holds Christ like a ring holds onto a jewel.3
In other words, because faith takes its reality from Christ and his alien righteousness, it lives on and subjectively justifies the sinner. As Lutheran theologian Regin Prenter observed: “Faith lives completely and alone by the real presence of Christ. To the same extent that Christ is really present, faith is really present, and only to that extent.”4 Moreover, to use the terminology of later Protestantism, Luther believed the Word of God and the saving faith it creates did not simply justify believers. It sanctifies them as well. Here the Reformer echoed Jeremiah’s description of the Holy Spirit working through the proclamation of the New Covenant to write the commandments on the hearts of believers (Jer. 31:33).
Luther’s Use of Aristotle
Luther clearly rejected the medieval Church’s belief that habits implanted in the soul sanctified the Christian. However, interestingly, he did not totally abandon the language of formation taken from Peripatetic philosophy. Nevertheless, instead of using Aristotle’s concept of ethical formation through habits (i.e., augmentation of human agency and right performance), Luther used Aristotelian epistemology’s concept of objects of consciousness imposing their form on the knower’s intellect.
Continue reading “Mystical Union by Faith: Vows Before Consummation”