Nevertheless, to return to the question of faith, Luther had already laid down in his writings certain marks by which it might be ascertained whether a man is a believer or not, and which at any rate scarcely tally with the criteria he applies to Zwingli. Judged by these Zwingli would emerge quite blameless.
Kawerau points this out in defence of Zwingli: “The idea of faith,” he says, “which Luther had newly evolved, in opposition to the Catholic assent to the teaching of the Bible and the Church, led logically to determining from a man’s attitude towards Christ and His saving Grace whether he was a true believer or not; Luther himself frequently made this his criterion; for instance, in answer to the question: Who is a member of the Church, and whom must I regard as my dear brother in Christ? He replies, all those ‘Who confess Christ as sent by God the Father in order to reconcile us to Him by His death and to obtain for us grace’; or again: All ‘those who put their trust in Christ alone and confess Him in faith,’ or yet again: ‘All those who seek the Lord with their whole heart and soul ... and who trust in nothing but in God’s mercy.’”[1765] But had not Zwingli loudly proclaimed himself to be one of these?
“In such utterances of Luther’s we find,” according to Kawerau, “summed up the purely religious and Evangelical conception of faith.” Here there is no question of any accepting of the several articles of faith, of any submission to a “string of doctrinal propositions,” of any “faith made up of so and so many ‘articles’ all of such importance that to reject one involves the dropping of the others.”[1766] According to this theologian Luther was untrue to his own basic theories when he assailed Zwingli as he did. Kawerau also agrees with Hausrath in holding that the principal cause of Luther’s estrangement was a psychological one which indeed constituted the weakest spot in his whole position, viz. his identification of his own theological outbuilding of an article of faith, with its religious content,[1767] or, to speak more plainly, his setting himself up as the sole authority after having set aside that of the Church.
(b) The Melting away of Luther’s Dogmas viewed in the Light of Protestant Criticism
We have already put on record those doctrines of the olden Church, which, inclusive of the idea of faith itself, Luther threw overboard; we now come to the doctrines which he retained, which deserve to be considered in connection with the strictures of modern Protestant theologians, particularly of Harnack. At least these strictures bring out very clearly their contradictory and illogical character. Evidently Harnack is not altogether wrong when he uses as a page-heading the words “Exit dogma in Protestantism,”[1768] and elsewhere:[1769] “Embarrassments and problems in Luther’s heritage.”
Luther, to quote Harnack, “frequently hardened his heart against certain consequences of his own religious principles.”[1770] But “if ‘the whole Luther’ is to be set up as the law of faith for the Evangelical Church, then, where it is a question of matters of history, such consequences cannot be simply ignored.” “The Lutheran Reformation,” writes Fr. Loofs, “would have ended otherwise as regards the history of dogma, had Luther braved tradition and followed up his theories to their logical conclusion. The shreds of the old which remained hampered the growth of the new ideas, even in Luther’s own case.”[1771]
Original Sin and Unfreedom; Law and Gospel; Penance
Luther took over from the olden Church the doctrine of the existence of original sin, but he so changed it, particularly by affirming that it resulted in the destruction of free-will, that the doctrine itself becomes untenable.
Of this all-important groundwork of his anthropology the theologian Taube says: “It is not surprising that Luther fails to remain faithful to the attitude he has assumed. It is as impossible to him, as to any other thinking mind, to fail to find freedom presupposed in every corner, in his personal Christianity, and in his own work as pastor, preacher or reformer. Facts are stronger than theories and a priori reasonings.... Either the data of experience must be held to be mere illusion, or absolute determinism must be thrown over. We cannot answer the same question both in the negative and in the affirmative and then declare it to be a mystery; it would be no mystery but simply a contradiction.”[1772]
Still, Luther found it easier than Taube thinks to proclaim things to be mysteries which palpably were nothing but contradictions. A glance at Köstlin’s “Luthers Theologie” shows how often Luther attempts to distract the reader from the difficulties he himself enumerates with the consoling words: This we must not seek to pry into.—Taube too is optimistic with regard to the fate of the doctrine of unfreedom in modern Protestant theology; appealing to the above contradictions, he writes: “It is not surprising that the Lutheran theology, closely as it keeps to Luther’s views in many other matters, has never ventured to follow him on this all-important point, and, in fact, has departed ever further from him.”[1773] The truth is that the period of withdrawal inaugurated by Melanchthon in 1527 has been succeeded in our own day by one of closer approximation. (Cp. above, vol. ii., p. 292, n. 4.)