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Luther's Word on Man's Will: A Case Study in Comparative Intellectual History
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 October 2008
Extract
It is commonplace to observe that the history of thought reveals certain recurring patterns whose mode of expression changes according to context. It is equally apparent that to chart the salient characteristics of an influential way of thinking – to give concrete, clearly defined shape to the usually tangled fundamental impulses informing a cast of mind – is a complex, difficult task which calls for attention from (at least) the historian, the psychologist, the philosopher and, in the case of religious figures and movements, the theologian alike. With regard to the manner of thinking embodied in the theological doctrines of Martin Luther such a task is fraught with more than the usual number of pitfalls. In the first place, following recent Luther scholarship, we must be wary of assuming that the great Reformer held fast to a single set of theological opinions throughout his long career. We shall not, therefore, attempt to reach conclusions applicable to Luther's thought as a whole, but rather shall focus exclusively on a number of key early expositions of the Theologia Crucis. Here, between about 1514 and 1520, we find, according to our argument, enough thematic unity to warrant the search for underlying principles. A second, less easily disposed of difficulty is the lack of a working consensus as to how and with what aims in mind one should even begin an historical analysis of Luther's texts. For example, to the believer who regards Luther's basic tenets as in a straightforward sense divinely inspired, the attempt to extract from his writings the ingredients of a certain thoroughly human way of thinking will seem doomed to inadequacy from the start. Likewise, for different reasons, many of today's.
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References
page 657 note 1 Our principal sources for this paper are the 1515–1516 Lectures on Romans, the 1517 Disputation Against Scholastic Theology, the 1518 Heidelberg Disputation, and the 1521 Answer to Latomus. References to these works will appear within the text. The first will be abbreviated as L.R. for Luther, Martin, Lectures on Romans, trans. Tillman, Walter G. and Preus, Jacob A. O., Concordia Publishing House (St. Louis) 1972.Google Scholar The latter three appear in a single volume of the Library of Christian Classics and will be referred to collectively as L.E.T. for Luther: Early Theological Works ed. and trans. Atkinson, James, S.C.M. Press (London) 1962.Google Scholar
page 659 note 1 Kiergaard, Søren, The Sickness Unto Death, trans. Lawrie, Walter, Princeton University Press (Princeton, NJ.) 1954, p. 211.Google Scholar
page 659 note 2 Rupp, Gordon, The Righteousness of God, Hodder and Stoughton, (London) 1962, p. 141.Google Scholar
page 659 note 3 Quoted by Watson, Philip S., Let God Be God, Fortress Press, (Philadelphia) 1970, p. 134 (emphasis added).Google Scholar
page 660 note 1 Stephen Ozment argues that Luther's opposition to Platonism has been exaggerated by ‘existential’ interpreters such as Ebeling. Although there are indeed passages which support such a contention (e.g., L.R., p. 189 where Luther refers to the heart and the will as ‘the more noble, more important, and more God–pleasing parts of man’) – I do not find Ozment's case convincing. Given the thrust of Luther's thought as a whole, I cannot regard the few Platonic implications as anything other than cultural hangovers which lead at best to inconsistency and at worst to bald self–contradictions. See Ozment, Stephen, Homo Spiritualis, E. J. Brill (Leiden) 1969, pp. 87–139.Google Scholar
page 660 note 2 Watson, , p. 87.Google Scholar
page 661 note 1 Actually, Luther goes even farther than this. As Stephen Ozment points out, for Luther, ‘goodness’, in distinction from what is ‘just’ is the ability to give ‘good things for evil’ and it is a property which God alone possesses (Ozment, p. 167).
page 661 note 2 To use the apposite image from On Christian Liberty, the non–human world is naturally an empty tube through which God pours his goodness. man's peculiarly self–conscious will is the only item in the universe that blocks the tube.
page 662 note 1 Quoted in Wazson, , p. 162.Google Scholar
page 662 note 2 The choice of terminology is deliberately intended to suggest comparison with Nietzsche's notion of Amor Fati. The highest example of love of fate for Luther is the resignatio ad infernum whereby one wills ones own damnation if that is God's will. Luther's tremendous emphasis on the will as the source of sin is well evidenced by his assertion that ‘the damned suffer so severely because they are unwilling to be damned and do not resign themselves to this will of God’ (L.R., p. 381).
page 663 note 1 Griffiths, A. Phillips, ‘Wittgenstein, Schopenhauer, and Ethics’ in the Royal Institute of Philosophy Lectures, Vol. VII, 1972–1973, Understanding Wittgenstein, Macmillan Press (London) 1974, p. 97.Google Scholar
page 663 note 2 Ibid. p. 96.
page 663 note 3 Quoted by Griffiths, in Understanding Wittgenstein, p. 97.Google Scholar
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page 663 note 5 Ibid. p. 147, (Proposition 6–43).
page 664 note 1 Griffiths, in Understanding…, p. III.Google Scholar
page 665 note 1 Quoted in Ozment, , p. 107.Google Scholar
page 666 note 1 Schopenhauer, Arthur, the World as Will and Represention, trans. Payne, E. F. J., Dover Books (New York), p. 398.Google Scholar
page 667 note 1 I would like very much to thank Professor James Stayer and Professor A. Phillips Griffiths for their help and support in connection with this paper.