Luther, vol. 5 of 6

by Hartmann Grisar

The good which lies buried in his teaching had, however, always received its due in Catholicism. Luther, when contrasting the Church’s alleged aversion for secular life with his own exaltation of the dignity of the worldly calling, frequently speaks in language both powerful and fine of the worldly office which God has assigned to each one, not only to the prince but even to the humble workman and tiller of the field, and of the noble moral tasks which thus devolve on the Christian. Yet any aversion to the world as he conceives it had never been a principle within the Church, though individual writers may indeed have erred in this direction. The assertion that the olden Church, owing to her teaching concerning the state of perfection and the Counsels, had not made sufficient allowance for the dignity of the secular calling, has already been fully dealt with.

It is true that Luther, to the admiration of his followers, confronted the old Orders founded by the Church with three new Orders, all Divinely instituted, viz. the home, the State and the Church.[222] But, so far from “notably improving” on the “scholastic ethics” of the past, he did not even contrive to couch his thoughts on these “Orders” in language as lucid as that used long before his day by the theologians and moralists of the Church in voicing the same idea; what he says of these “Orders” also falls short of the past on the score of wealth and variety.[223] Nevertheless the popular ways he had of depicting things as he fain would see them, proved alluring, and this gift of appealing to the people’s fancy and of charming them by the contrast of new and old, helped to build up the esteem in which he has been held ever since; his inclination, moreover, to promote the independence of the individual in the three “Orders,” and to deliver him from all hierarchical influence must from the outset have won him many friends.

Divorce of Religion and Morals

Glancing back at what has already been said concerning Luther’s abasement of morality and considering it in the light of his theories of the Law and Gospel, of assurance of salvation and morality, we find as a main characteristic of Luther’s ethics a far-reaching, dangerous rift between religion and morals. Morality no longer stands in its old position at the side of faith.

Faith and the religion which springs from it are by nature closely and intimately bound up with morality. This is shown by the history of heathenism in general, of modern unbelief in particular. Heathenism or unbelief in national life always signifies a moral decline; even in private life morality reacts on the life of faith and the religious feeling, and vice versa. The harmony between religion and morality arises from the fact that the love of God proceeds from faith in His dominion and Fatherly kindness.

Luther, in spite of his assurances concerning the stimulus of the life of faith and of love, severed the connection between faith and morality and placed the latter far below the former. His statements concerning faith working by love, had they been more than mere words, would, in themselves, have led him back to the very standpoint of the Church he hated. In reality he regards the “Law” as something utterly hostile to the “pious” soul; before the true “believer” the Law shrinks back, though, to the man not yet justified by “faith,” it serves as a taskmaster and a hangman. The “Law” thus loses the heavenly virtue with which it was stamped. In Luther’s eyes the only thing of any real value is that religion which consists in faith in the forgiveness of sins.

“This,” he says, “is the ‘Summa Summarum’ of a truly Christian life, to know that in Christ you have a Gracious God ready to forgive you your sins and never to think of them again, and that you are now a child of everlasting happiness, reigning with Christ over heaven and earth.”

It is true he hastens to add, that, from this saving faith, works of morality would “assuredly” flow.[224]

“Assuredly”? Since Albert Ritschl it has been repeated countless times that Luther did no more than “assert that faith by its very nature is productive of good works.” As a matter of fact “he is wont to speak in much too uncertain a way of the good works which follow faith”; with him “faith” is the whole man, whereas the Bible says: “Fear God and keep His commandments [i.e. religion plus morality]; this is the whole man.”[225]