This explains how it is that in Luther’s statements concerning his personal faith, his preaching, his absorption in the religious point of view he has discovered, his doubts and his fears, we meet with so much that sounds strange. We say strange, for they cannot but unpleasantly surprise anyone accustomed to regard faith in the truths of religion as a firm possession of the mind and heart, above all a Catholic believer. Before Luther’s day scarcely can a single Christian teacher be instanced who was so open in speaking of the weakness of his own faith or who so frequently and so persistently insisted on pitting his own experience against the calm inward certainty with which God ever rewards a humble and heartfelt faith, even in those most beset with temptations.
When, in spite of this, we find Luther throughout his life plainly and indubitably accepting as true a large portion of the common body of faith (as we have repeatedly admitted him to have done),[1454] then it is easy to see that in so doing he is not taking his stand on his new and shaky foundations, but on the old and solid basis to which he reverts with a happy want of logic, often perhaps unconsciously. We should see him taking his stand on this foundation even more frequently had not his sad breach with the whole past moved his soul to its very depths. There can be no doubt that his terrors of conscience, or “struggles with the devil,” had much to do in inducing the condition in which he reveals himself to the reader of what follows.
Luther as Pictured by Himself during Later Years
It is clear that, in order to judge of Luther’s life of faith, stress must not be laid on isolated statements of his torn from their context, but that they must be taken in the lump.
When speaking of his temptations, as a man of fifty-six, he bewailed the prevailing unbelief, at the same time including himself: “If only we could believe concerning the [Divine] promises that it was God Who spoke them! If only we paid heed to His Word we should esteem it highly. But when we hear it [God’s Word] from the lips of a man, we care no more for it than for the lowing of a cow.”[1455]—Shortly before this, again including all, he consoles himself as follows: Our weakness was ever disposed to doubt of God’s mercy, and even Paul felt his shortcomings. “I am comforted when I see that even Paul did not rise high enough. Away with the ambitious who pretend they have succeeded in everything! We have God’s words to strengthen us and yet even we do not believe.”[1456] “I have preached for five-and-twenty years,” so he said about that time, “and do not yet understand the text ‘The just man liveth by faith.’”[1457]
Of his trusting belief in his personal salvation he admits, in 1543, that he did not feel it to be very steadfast, and that it still lagged behind that of ordinary believers. He speaks of a woman at Torgau who had told him that she looked upon herself as “lost,” and shut out from salvation, because she was unable to believe (i.e. trust). He had thereupon asked her whether she did not hold fast to the Creed, and when she assured him that she did he had said: “My good woman, go in God’s name! You believe more and better than I do.” “Yes, dear Dr. Jonas,” so he said, turning to his friend, “yes, if a man could verily believe it as it there stands, his heart would indeed jump for joy! That is certain.”[1458]
So strongly did he express himself on this point on May 6, 1540, that, taking the words as they stand, he would seem to deny his belief in Christ’s miracles and work. “I cannot believe it and yet I teach others. I know it is true, but I am unable to believe it. I think sometimes: ‘Sure enough you teach aright, for you are in the sacred ministry and are called, you are helpful to many and glorify Christ; for we do not preach Aristotle or Cæsar, but Jesus Christ.’ But when I consider my weakness, how I eat, drink, joke and am a merry man about the town, then I begin to doubt. Oh, if only a man could believe it!”[1459] These words were spoken on Ascension-Day, after Luther had expressed his marvel at the strong faith of the Apostles in the Divinity of Him Who was ascending into heaven. “Wonderful; I cannot understand it nor can I believe it, and yet all the Apostles believed.”[1460] “I am fond of Jonas [who was seated near him] but if he were to ascend into heaven here and now, and disappear out of our sight, what should I think?”
“Oh, if only a man could believe it!”
It is evident that he did not wish by such words to give himself out as an unbeliever or a sceptic in religious matters. What he was painfully aware of was the fact that that strong, clear faith in the ordinary truths of revelation and matters of faith, which he himself was wont to depict as essential, was absent in his own case. His former violent struggles of conscience seem in later years to have been replaced by this uncomfortable feeling.
The depressing sense of the feebleness of his religious belief was not removed by the frequent references Luther was so fond of making in his old age to the coming of the Redeemer and Judge of the world, and to the nighness of the devil’s downfall, who is the Lord of this world.[1461] We know already the psychological reasons for the stress he lays on such expectations. Yet all the unnatural ardour he showed in voicing them could not disguise the fact that his faith lacked any real strength or fervour. Spiritual coldness could quite well co-exist with a virulent hatred of the devil and a longing desire for the end of the world.