The Genius of Luther's Theology

A Wittenberg Way of Thinking for the Contemporary Church

Kolb, Robert, Arand, Charles P.

• Publisher: Baker Academic
• Year: 2008
• ISBN:
  9781441200723
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Denominations

This volume offers a unique approach to the study of the great German reformer, Martin Luther. Robert Kolb and Charles Arand offer an introduction to two significant themes that form the heart of Luther's theology. The first theme concerns what it means to be truly human. For Luther, "passive righteousness" described the believer's response to God's grace. But there was also an "active righteousness" that defined the relationship of the believer to the world. The second theme involves God's relation to his creation through his Word, first creating and then redeeming the world. Clergy and general readers will find here a helpful introduction to Luther's theology and its continuing importance for applying the good news of the gospel to the contemporary world.

PART ONE

“OUR THEOLOGY”
Luther’s Definition of the Human
Creature through “Two Kinds of
Righteousness”

We set forth two worlds, as it were, one of them heavenly and the other earthly. Into these we place these two kinds of righteousness, which are distinct and separated from each other. The righteousness of the law is earthly and deals with earthly things; by it we perform good works. . . . But this righteousness [of the gospel] is heavenly and passive. We do not have it of ourselves; we receive it from heaven. We do not perform it; we accept it by faith, through which we ascend beyond all laws and works.

Luther, “Lectures on Galatians, 1531–1535”

This is our theology, by which we teach a precise distinction between these two kinds of righteousness, the active and the passive, so that morality and faith, works and grace, secular society and religion may not be confused. Both are necessary, but both must be kept within their limits.

Luther, “Lectures on Galatians, 1531–1535”

For nearly five hundred years Lutheran identity has been indelibly linked to the teaching that sinners are justified by God’s favor because of Christ, a justification that is received through faith alone. This is the teaching by which the church stands and falls, Lutherans confess. Not surprisingly then, the question of how a sinner is justified occupied center stage in Lutheran thought and life. Over the years, Lutheran systematic theologians have tried to show how all theology centers on and revolves around this single question.1 They have explored how the answer to that question is expressed in a wide variety of biblical images, including reconciliation, new creation, and forgiveness of sins.2

While Lutheran biblical theologians have often focused on Paul’s letter to the Romans or Galatians, they have also shown how the Scriptures as a whole are anchored in the teaching of justification. Lutheran pastoral theologians have shown how justification, brought about by maintaining the proper distinction between law and gospel, expresses itself in pastoral care.3 Here in part 1 we explore the Lutheran anthropological presupposition that God shaped human life according to two dimensions, with two kinds of righteousness.

What is not readily recognized or sufficiently appreciated is how the entire discussion on justification is not limited to the question regarding one’s salvation, or to the issue of whether or not a person is on God’s good side. In large part, the doctrine of justification, like the closely related doctrine of original sin, is a question of anthropology: How do we define a human being? Although the early church focused on the mystery of the Trinitarian relations along with the unity of the natures in Christ, the Reformation focused on issues related to human existence. These included such topics as the image of God, original sin, whether the human will is free or bound, justification, sanctification, and the final beatification of the human being. From different perspectives, these issues address questions of the origin and purpose of human life. Their answers shape how we see ourselves, define our identity, and provide a framework within which we make sense of our lives.

1. This is especially true in works on the distinction of law and gospel, such as C. F. W. Walther, Law and Gospel, trans. Herbert J. A. Bouman (St. Louis: Concordia, 1981); or Werner Elert, Law and Gospel, trans. Edward H. Schroeder (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1967); among many others.

2. J. A. O. Preus, Just Words: Understanding the Fullness of the Gospel (St. Louis: Concordia, 2000).

3. William Hulme’s pioneering study of pastoral counseling, Counseling and Theology (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg, 1956), is one example. In a quite different genre, the short stories of pastoral care by Swedish bishop Bo Giertz (The Hammer of God, 2nd ed. [Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005]) illustrate how the doctrine of justification works in practice.

1

LUTHER’S
ANTHROPOLOGICAL
MATRIX

Every age brings with it a predominant set of beliefs about what it means to be human and how to live out that humanity. Each configuration of the human being also brings with it an analysis of the ailments that beset human life along with a proposal of the sort of cures that are needed. Most people imbibe these understandings of what it means to be a human being without giving them much thought. We seldom if ever stop to think about the foundation on which our goals for life and our decisions rest. But our attitudes and actions arise out of the axioms and principles that constitute our conception of what a human being should be and do. We learn our presuppositions about who we are at our core from our parents and the surrounding world, which has been shaped by the prevailing currents in church, university, and society. The ancient Greeks used the discipline of philosophy to think about what it means to be a human being and how human beings should live in the world. In the twentieth century, modern societies have increasingly drawn on the more recently developed disciplines of the social sciences, such as psychology, neuropsychology, sociology, cultural anthropology, political science, behavioral economics, and sociobiology, to identify the elements that must be included in any definition of what it means to be human. As such, contemporary thinkers have come to see the human being primarily as, among other designations, a machine, an animal, a sexual being, an economic being, a pawn of the universe, a free being, a social being, or a genetic product.

In spite of the multiplication of academic disciplines in the twentieth century that focus on the biological, social, psychological, and evolutionary understanding of the human creature, these modern approaches provide a very limited perspective from which the human person can understand the human condition. The sixteenth-century Reformers recognized that it was not enough for human beings to study themselves. That provided too limited a horizon. They could not stand outside themselves to gain the necessary perspective from which they could comprehend the totality of their being and existence. Because we are creatures, what it means to be fully human simply lies beyond the grasp of the human mind. Creatures cannot, by the very definition of what it means to be a creature, comprehend and understand everything about their Creator, and because their relationship with their Creator stands at the heart of their existence, they cannot grasp everything about themselves. Lacking the ability to step outside of themselves, human beings take on a sense of self-exalted importance or find themselves struggling with a sense of insignificance and helplessness within the universe.

For example, many modern observers define the human creature as a free and autonomous being who can understand and grasp the comprehensive unity of reality. They view all humans as self-constituting, self-creating, and self-actualizing beings capable of controlling their environment through the use of reason, thereby securing the future from destruction for the benefit of humankind and nature. This version of modernity gave rise to the hope of inevitable progress and the dream of creating a utopian world as seen in TV shows like Star Trek. Nevertheless, modernity has failed as a system of comprehensive, redemptive meaning. Postmodernity came to recognize that humans are not free, autonomous beings, looking out on the universe from a privileged and objective position; instead they are the product of local economic, social, and historical forces often outside the control of human reason. In the process, postmodernity displaced human beings from the center of the universe and its understanding by refusing to see the self as an independent consciousness that is not merely the product of contextual conditions that formed it. For many postmodern individuals, the loss of control over meaning and history and the subsequent marginalization this produced often led to a sense of despondency and meaninglessness. Thus, the postmodern person sees human beings sliding toward more apocalyptic visions like those portrayed in Mad Max.1 Because both views (modern and postmodern) lack a theological perspective, counting God as not present or active in daily life, they thereby leave the human being to oscillate between defiance and despondency, pride and despair.

For this reason we need to view anthropology theologically if we are to comprehend the full mystery of what it means to be a human being and to grasp the foundation and purpose of our existence. Sixteenth-century reformers like Martin Luther and his colleague Philip Melanchthon developed their theological perspective of the human being within a framework that Luther called the “two kinds of [human] righteousness,” two distinct ways in which every human creature pursues existence, two dimensions to what it means to be human. This view provided the theological assumptions for everything they had to say about the relationship between God and the human being. This distinction between the two kinds of righteousness is one of the elements that we can describe as the “nervous system” running through the body of Christian teaching as these reformers thought of public teaching of Scripture.2 So important was this framework that Luther refers to the two kinds of righteousness as “our theology” in his famous Galatians Commentary (1535).3 In some ways, this work represents the culmination of his thinking on the two kinds of righteousness. He had first hinted at it in the Heidelberg Disputation, and then developed it in his sermons entitled “Three Kinds of Righteousness” (1518),4 “Two Kinds of Righteousness” (1519),5 “On Monastic Vows” (1522),6 and his sermons on Genesis (1523/1527).7 Similarly, Melanchthon identified the two kinds of righteousness as the heart of the issue, which then shaped his entire theological argument in his masterwork, the Apology of the Augsburg Confession, although he had also been working with the presuppositions it provided from as early as 1524.8

Working within the matrix of the two kinds of righteousness, the reformers clarified the nature of the relationship between the Creator, who bestows “passive righteousness” on his creatures (first in creation and then in redemption) through the creative and re-creative Word, and the human creature, who responds in faith and trust. The distinction between the two kinds of righteousness allowed the reformers without qualification to extol the gospel by removing human activity as a basis for justification before God. At the same time, it clarified the relationship of the human creature to the world in which God had placed him or her to live a life of “active righteousness” for the well-being of the human community and the preservation of the environment. The two kinds of righteousness, however, are inseparable from one another. The passive righteousness of faith provides the core identity of a person; the active righteousness of love flows from that core identity out into the world.

This framework remains an indispensable tool for dealing with the perennial temptation to consider human existence one-dimensionally. Such a single dimension occurs either when human works become the basis of justification before God or when “faith alone” appears to render human activity irrelevant and unimportant in the Christian life. Over against both tendencies, the two kinds of righteousness enable Lutherans fully and unreservedly to affirm two simultaneous and yet distinct genuine dimensions of human existence without one compromising the other.

The Contours of the Two Kinds of Righteousness

Although the term “righteousness” is no longer a part of our everyday vocabulary, it is a basic and in some ways an indispensable concept if we hope to grasp the message of the Bible. Its disuse is unfortunate since the meaning of “righteousness” is not terribly difficult or complex. Simply put, to be righteous is to be the human person God envisioned when he created us. It has to do with meeting God’s “design specifications” for being a human creature and fulfilling the purpose for which God created us.9 Integral to his design, God created us as relational beings (in Luther’s academic Latin, in relatione) who live in his presence (coram Deo) and at the same time in community with one another (coram mundo). Who I am is determined in large part by how I live with God and my fellow human creatures. As creatures we thus have an innate need to know whether or not our lives are fulfilling God’s purpose.10 We need to be justified or vindicated; we need to know that we are “measuring up.” This human need expresses itself in the various life questions we ask ourselves: Why am I here? What is the purpose of my life? How and where do I fit in? Such questions give voice to the fundamental human need to connect wit...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Abbreviations
• Introduction: The Genius of Luther’s Thought
• Part 1: “Our Theology”: Luther’s Definition of the Human Creature through “Two Kinds of Righteousness”
• Part 2: When the Word Is Spoken, All Things Are Possible: Luther and the Word of God
• Conclusion: Thinking with Luther in the Twenty-first Century
• Bibliography