Luther, vol. 4 of 6

by Hartmann Grisar

In his “De captivitate babylonica” he had already attempted to cut the Gordian knot presented by infant baptism by this assumption, which, however arbitrary, is quite intelligible from his psychological standpoint. Thanks to the believing prayer of the congregation who present the children for baptism, so he said, faith is infused into them and they thus become regenerate. In 1523 he states that children have a hidden faith. “From that time onwards the tendency of his teaching was to require faith from candidates for baptism.... Even after the Concord he continued to speak exactly as before.”[1718] The Bible teaches nothing about infant baptism. Yet Luther declares in 1545 in a set of theses: “It is false and outrageous to say that little children do not believe, or are unworthy,” while at the head of the theses these words stand: “Everything that in the Church, which is God’s people, is taught without the Word of God, is assuredly false and unchristian.”[1719]

It is of interest to follow up his arguments for the faith of infants. In 1522 already he had attempted in a letter to prove to Melanchthon the possibility of such unconscious faith. He referred him to the circumstance, which, however, is irrelevant, “that we retain the faith while asleep or otherwise engaged.” Moreover, since to him who believes, everything is possible with God, so, too, to the congregation which prays for the children; the children are presented by the congregation to the Lord of all, and He, by His Omnipotence, kindles faith in them. In the same letter, aimed at the Anabaptists, who were then beginning to be heard of, we find an emphatic appeal to the authority and belief of the Church (“totius orbis constans confessio”), which, as a rule, Luther was so ruthless in opposing. “It would be quite impious to deny that infant baptism agrees with the belief of the Church; to do so would be tantamount to denying the Church”; it was a special miracle that infant baptism had never been attacked by heretics; there was therefore good reason to hope that Christ, now, would trample the new foemen “under our feet.” Luther forgets that the ancient Church was not hampered by such a heel of Achilles as was his own teaching, viz. that the sacraments owed all their efficacy to faith. We can, however, quite understand his admission to Melanchthon: “I have always expected that Satan would lay violent hands on this weak spot, but he has chosen to stir up this pernicious quarrel, not through the Papists, but with the help of our own people.”[1720] The rise of the Anabaptist heresy was indeed merely a natural reaction against Luther’s doctrine of baptism.

Seeing that the doctrine of baptism is of such importance to the Christian Church, we may be permitted to consider the inferences regarding the sacrament of baptism drawn in modern times from Luther’s conception of it, and from his whole attitude towards faith and Christianity. A domestic dispute among the Protestants at Bremen in 1905 on the validity of baptism not administered according to the usages of the Church, led to a remarkable discussion among theologians of broader views, some of whom went so far as to argue in Luther’s name and that of his Reformation, that baptism should be abolished.

Johannes Gottschick in “Die Lehre der Reformation von der Taufe” (1906) defended the opinion that, according to the real views of the Reformers, baptism was valid even when conferred without any mention of the Trinity.—O. Scheel, on his side, pointed out in his book “Die dogmatische Behandlung der Tauflehre in der modernen positiven Theologie” (1906), that a contradiction with the principle of the Reformation was apparent even in Luther’s own theology, inasmuch as, according to this principle, baptism should merely be the proclaiming of the Word of God; in the ceremony of baptism, according to the Reformation teaching, which should be taken seriously, “the Word is all”; baptism is the solemn declaration that the child has been received into the congregation and the bestowal on it of the promise of salvation, hence requires no repetition. “As to when the Word works faith [in them] we do not know, nor is it necessary that theology should know”; the power of God knows the day and the hour.[1721]—The question: “Can baptism be regarded rightly as the exclusive act of reception into the Church?” was answered negatively by Rietschel in an article under that title in the “Deutsche Zeitschrift für Kirchenrecht,”[1722] in which he too appeals to Luther. At any rate Rietschel’s conclusion is, that, since Luther makes the Christian state dependent on faith, the baptismal act as such cannot, according to him, be of any essential importance; he thinks it possible to complete Luther’s doctrine on baptism in the light of that of Zwingli and Calvin, who were of opinion that the children of Christian parents, by their very birth were received into the Church.

Luther’s attitude towards these questions was treated of more in detail by the editor of the Deutsch-Evangelische Blätter, Erich Haupt, Professor of theology at Halle.[1723]

Haupt agrees with Gottschick as to the possibility of discarding the Trinitarian formula in baptism, in that, like Rietschel, all he considers necessary is the liturgical retention of some definite form of words. He also subscribes in principle to Rietschel’s contention that it is possible to enter the Church without baptism. Going even further, however, he declares with regard to Luther, that it was not even necessary to borrow from Zwingli and Calvin as Rietschel had proposed. “I believe the admission that salvation may be secured even without baptism, is a necessary corollary of Luther’s theories taken in the lump. One thing that lies at the bottom of Luther’s doctrine of the sacraments is that the salvation bestowed by a sacrament is none other than that communicated by the word of the preacher.... Nay, the sacrament is merely a particular form in which the Evangel comes to men.” But wherever there is faith, there is communion with God, and faith may be wherever there is the Word of God. Just as it was said of the Supper: “crede et manducasti,” so also it might be said: “crede et baptizatus es.” “To deny this would not merely be to ascribe a magical and mechanical effect to the sacrament, but would also imply the denial of the first principle of all Evangelical Christianity, viz. that for man’s salvation nothing further is necessary than to accept in faith the offer of God’s grace given him in the Gospel. In this the Reformation was simply holding to the words of Scripture (Mk. xvi. 16),” where, in the second part (“He that believeth not shall be condemned”), baptism is not mentioned.[1724]—Haupt, like Rietschel, draws attention to the fact, that, according to Luther, the unbelieving Christian, in spite of baptism, is inwardly no better than a heathen.[1725] Nevertheless Haupt is unwilling to allow that all children of Christian parents should simply be declared members of the Christian Church on account of their birth and regardless of baptism; for canonical reasons, to be considered Christians, they must be inducted into the congregation by the act of baptism,[1726] although it is “a logical outcome of the Reformer’s opinions that instances may occur where the Gospel awakens faith, and thereby incorporates in the congregation people who have never been baptised; but this is the invisible congregation of the ‘vere credentes,’ not the outward, visible, organised Church.” In order to enter children into the latter, the parents must express their wish; this is the meaning of the ceremony of baptism; the fact remains, that, dismissing the magical effect formerly ascribed to baptism, the principal thing is, “not Christian parentage as such, but the will of the parents as expressed in some way or other.”[1727]

These vigorous attempts to shelter such ultra-modern views behind Luther’s authority, and to make him responsible for consequences of his doctrine, which he had been unwilling to face, have a common ground and starting-point.

Wilhelm Herrmann, the Marburg theologian, in the “Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche,” thus expresses himself on the subject.[1728] “Christians are becoming more and more conscious,” he says, “that a religion which must base its origin on an assent to ‘dogmas revealed by God’ is at variance with elements of scholarship which they can no longer deny.” He speaks of the “distress of conscience into which the Church, by her demanding assent to revealed doctrine, plunges people as soon as, under the influence of education, they have come to see what alone can induce honest assent to any idea” (viz. the fact “that one evolves it for oneself”). Luther was himself scarcely acquainted with such trouble of conscience concerning faith, notwithstanding the many spiritual troubles he had to endure. On the contrary, he unhesitatingly sought and found a source of strength in supernatural faith. Herrmann continues: “We should be unable to escape from this difficulty had not the true Christian understanding of faith, i.e. of religion, been recovered at the Reformation.” From that standpoint “any demand for an assent to revealed doctrine may well be repudiated.” For it was the teaching of Luther’s Reformation that faith “must be experienced as the gift of God if it is to be the ‘nova et spiritualis vita’ essentially ‘supra naturam.’” This, however, could not be required of all. The demand is subversive of faith itself and “embodies the false Roman principle” that everything depends on the “decision to acquiesce in a doctrine,” and not on the “experienced power of a personal life.” “To lend a hand and clear a path for the chief discovery of the Reformation is the grandest task of theology within the Protestant Church.”[1729]

Luther by so incessantly emphasising personal religious experience and by his repudiation of all objective ecclesiastical authority capable of putting before mankind the contents of faith, certainly came very near that which is here represented as the “chief discovery” of the innovations undertaken by him (see above, pp. 403, vol. iii., 8 ff.). But what would the Wittenberg “lover of the Bible and Apostle of the Word” have said to the claim of modern scholars who wish simply to surrender revelation? The passages in which he so indignantly censures the unbelief of his day cannot but recur to one.[1730]

Luther arbitrarily reduced the sacraments to two; “there remain,” he says, “two sacraments; baptism and the Supper.”[1731] With regard to Penance his attitude was wavering and full of contradiction. In later years he again came nearer to the Catholic teaching, arguing that Penance must also be a sacrament because, as he said in 1545, “it contains the promise of and belief in the forgiveness of sins.”[1732] He had much at heart the retention of confession and absolution under some shape or form as a remedy against the moral disorders that were creeping in.[1733] Yet, according to him, Penance was only to be regarded as the “exercise and virtue of baptism,”[1734] so that the number of the sacraments underwent no actual increase.