Theological Anthropology, 500 Years after Martin Luther: Orthodox and Protestant Perspectives 9004461248, 9789004461246

Table of contents :
Contents
Abbreviations
Notes on Contributors
Editors’ Introduction
Message of His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew to the International Conference on “The Anthropology of Luther – Protestant and Orthodox Approaches” (Geneva, December 7–8, 2017)
Greeting to the Participants of the Conference on “Luther’s Anthropology: Protestant and Orthodox Perspectives,” Institut d’études supérieures en théologie orthodoxe, Chambésy, and Faculté de théologie, Université de Genève,December 7–8, 2017
Part 1
Chapter 1 Sola Fide: A Hermeneutical Approach
Part 2
Chapter 2 Imago Dei: God’s Grace and Distance Perspectives for a Lutheran-Orthodox Dialogue
Chapter 3 “In the Image and Likeness”: The Uniqueness of the Human Person
Part 3
Chapter 4 Sin and the Bondage of the Will
Chapter 5 Sin, Freedom and Free Will: Hermeneutical Conditions of Anthropology in the Orthodox Tradition and Luther
Part 4
Chapter 6 Luther’s Conception of Christian Freedom: Orthodox Insights
Chapter 7 Martin Luther: Unexpected Dimensions of Freedom
Part 5
Chapter 8 Faith and Justification in Luther’s Anthropology from a Protestant Point of View
Chapter 9 Faith and Justification
Part 6
Chapter 10 Justification or Deification? Luther’s Soteriology in an Ecumenical Perspective
Chapter 11 Theosis in an Orthodox and Lutheran Perspective
Part 7
Chapter 12 Luther and the Christian’s Political Commitment
Chapter 13 Theosis and Politics: Lutheran and Orthodox Approaches
Part 8
Chapter 14 The Paradoxical Way of Experiencing Faith through Spiritual Attack (Anfechtung – Tentatio)
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

Theological Anthropology, 500 Years after Martin Luther

Studies in Systematic Theology Edited by Jim Fodor (St. Bonaventure University, NY, USA) Susannah Ticciati (King’s College London, UK) Editorial Board Trond Skard Dokka (University of Oslo, Norway) Junius Johnson (Baylor University, USA) Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen (Fuller Theological Seminary, USA) Rachel Muers (University of Leeds, UK) Eugene Rogers (The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, USA) Katherine Sonderegger (Virginia Theological Seminary, USA)

volume 25

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/sist

Theological Anthropology, 500 Years after Martin Luther Orthodox and Protestant Perspectives By

Christophe Chalamet Konstantinos Delikostantis Job Getcha Elisabeth Parmentier

LEIDEN | BOSTON

Cover illustration: The Harrowing of Hell by Fra Angelico. Part of the frescos at the San Marco convent in Florence. The image is in public domain. Chapter 3, ‘In the Image and Likeness’ by Kallistos Ware was originally published in John T. Chirban, Personhood. Orthodox Christianity and the Connection Between Body, Mind, and Soul (Westport: Bergin & Garvey, 1996), 1–13. Reprinted with minor revisions and kind permission from the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Chalamet, Christophe, editor. | Delikostantis, Konstantinos, 1948–  editor. | Getcha, Job, Archbishop, editor. | Parmentier, Élisabeth,  1961– editor. Title: Theological anthropology, 500 years after Martin Luther : orthodox  and protestant perspectives / by Christophe Chalamet, Konstantinos  Delikostantis, Job Getcha, Elisabeth Parmentier, [editors]. Other titles: Theological anthropology, five hundred years after Martin  Luther Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2021. | Series: Studies in systematic  theology, 1876-1518 ; volume 25 | Includes bibliographical references  and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2021019774 (print) | LCCN 2021019775 (ebook) |  ISBN 9789004461246 (paperback) | ISBN 9789004461253 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Theological anthropology—Christianity. | Protestant  churches—Doctrines. | Orthodox Eastern Church—Doctrines. Classification: LCC BT701.3 .T445 2021 (print) | LCC BT701.3 (ebook) |  DDC 233—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021019774 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021019775 Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface. issn 1876-1518 isbn 978-90-04-46124-6 (paperback) isbn 978-90-04-46125-3 (e-book) Copyright 2021 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands, except where stated otherwise. Koninklijke Brill nv incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Hotei, Brill Schöningh, Brill Fink, Brill mentis, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Böhlau Verlag and V&R Unipress. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Requests for re-use and/or translations must be addressed to Koninklijke Brill nv via brill.com or copyright.com. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

Contents Abbreviations ix Notes on Contributors x Editors’ Introduction xv Message of His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew xli Greeting of Rev. Dr. Martin Junge to the Participants xliv

part 1 1

Sola Fide: A Hermeneutical Approach 3 John Zizioulas

part 2 2

Imago Dei: God’s Grace and Distance Perspectives for a Lutheran-Orthodox Dialogue 19 Beate Bengard

3

“In the Image and Likeness”: The Uniqueness of the Human Person 48 Kallistos Ware

part 3 4

Sin and the Bondage of the Will 67 Christophe Chalamet

5

Sin, Freedom and Free Will: Hermeneutical Conditions of Anthropology in the Orthodox Tradition and Luther 80 Stavros Yangazoglou

vi

Contents

part 4 6

Luther’s Conception of Christian Freedom: Orthodox Insights 101 Konstantinos Delikostantis

7

Martin Luther: Unexpected Dimensions of Freedom 112 Hans-Christoph Askani

part 5 8

Faith and Justification in Luther’s Anthropology from a Protestant Point of View 141 Henning Theißen

9

Faith and Justification 161 Jack Khalil

part 6 10

Justification or Deification? Luther’s Soteriology in an Ecumenical Perspective 185 Reinhard Flogaus

11

Theosis in an Orthodox and Lutheran Perspective 216 Job Getcha

part 7 12

Luther and the Christian’s Political Commitment 229 Marc Vial

13

Theosis and Politics: Lutheran and Orthodox Approaches 242 Aristotle Papanikolaou

Contents

part 8 14

The Paradoxical Way of Experiencing Faith through Spiritual Attack (Anfechtung – Tentatio) 255 Elisabeth Parmentier Bibliography 271 Index 291

vii

Abbreviations aw bslk

Weimarer Ausgabe. Weimar edition of Luther’s work, Weimar, 1883– Die Bekenntnisschriften der Evangelisch-Lutherischen Kirche, Göttingen, 10th ed. 1986 cr Philippi Melanthonis Opera quae supersunt omnia, Corpus Reformatorum csel Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum ekd Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland esv English Standard Version (Bible) kjv King James Version (Bible) lw Luther’s Work. Translation of M. Luther’s works, Fortress Press and Concordia Publishing. 1957– lxx Septuagint (Bible) niv New International Version (Bible) nkjv New King James Version (Bible) npnf Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church nrsv New Revised Standard Version (Bible) pg Patrologia Graeca pl Patrologia Latina sc Sources chrétiennes, Paris, éd. du Cerf spw Martin Luther, Selected Political Writings, ed. J.M. Porter, Philadelphia, Fortress Press, 1974.

Notes on Contributors Hans-Christoph Askani is honorary professor of systematic theology at the University of Geneva’s Faculté de théologie. He studied Protestant theology, philosophy, and literature in Tübingen, Zurich, Paris and Berlin. He has published extensively, on Rosenzweig, Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Ricœur, Levinas, as well as on many different theological and philosophical topics. He is a member of the ecumenical Groupe des Dombes. His most recent book is titled: Le pari de la foi (Labor et Fides, 2019). Beate Bengard is professor of systematic theology at the University of Geneva’s Faculté de théologie. She has studied theology and French literature in Dresden, Leipzig, Lausanne and Paris and held post-doctoral positions in Paris, Greifswald and Basel. She completed her doctoral dissertation in 2014 with a thesis titled Réception et Reconnaissance. L’herméneutique œcuménique de Paul Ricœur à la lumière de processus œcuméniques actuels en France (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2015). She pursues research in the fields of hermeneutics and dogmatics with a focus on interreligious dialogue. Christophe Chalamet teaches systematic theology at the University of Geneva’s Faculté de théologie. He taught for 8 years at Fordham University, in New York City. He has published studies on 20th century Protestant theology and, most recently, A Most Excellent Way: An Essay on Faith, Hope, and Love (Fortress Academic-Lexington Books, 2020) and, as editor, The Challenge of History. Readings in Modern Theology (Fortress Press, 2020). Konstantinos Delikostantis studied at the Theological School of Halki (1970) before pursuing graduate studies at the University of Tübingen (ma, 1975; PhD in philosophy, 1980). In 1990 he became a professor of philosophy of religion at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Florina), and in 2001 at the Theological Faculty of the University of Athens (philosophy and systematic theology). He has published many articles and books, including Modern Humanitarianism (in German), The Ethos of Freedom (in Greek; Italian translation), Human Rights: Western Ideology or Universal Ethos (in Greek), Philosophical Anthropology (in Greek) and The Culture of Solidarity (in Greek). He has an abiding interest in

Notes on Contributors

xi

the theology of Martin Luther. He currently directs the First Patriarchal Office at the Ecumenical Patriarchate (Phanar). Reinhard Flogaus teaches Church history at the Humboldt University in Berlin. He studied Protestant theology, Jewish and Islamic studies in Tübingen, Munich, Jerusalem and Berlin. He obtained his doctorate in systematic theology and his habilitation in Church history at the Humboldt University. His research focuses on debates between Orthodox and Protestant as well as Catholic and Protestant theologians. He is the author of numerous articles. Among his most significant publications: Theosis bei Palamas und Luther. Ein Beitrag zum ökumenischen Gespräch (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1997). In 2015 he has co-edited, with Jennifer Wasmuth: Orthodoxie im Dialog. Historische und aktuelle Perspektiven (W. de Gruyter). He has been a member of the Commission for the Theological Dialogue between the ekd and the Romanian Orthodox Church (1998–2004) and since then has been a member in the Commission for the Theological Dialogue between the ekd and the Ecumenical Patriarchate. h.e. Archbishop Job of Telmessos (Getcha) archbishop of Telmessos, is the permanent representative of the Ecumenical Patriarchate to the World Council of Churches (since 2015). He was born in Montreal, Quebec. He obtained his doctorate in theology from the Catholic University of Paris and Paris’ St. Serge Orthodox Theological Institute (2003). From 2005–2008, he served as Dean of St. Serge. He presently teaches at the Catholic University of Paris and at the Institute of Post-Graduate Studies in Orthodox theology in Chambésy-Geneva. His research focuses on Orthodox liturgical theology and spirituality, and ecumenism. Among his publications: Le Typikon décrypté. Manuel de liturgie byzantine (Cerf, 2009; engl. trans. The Typikon Decoded: An Explanation of Byzantine Liturgical Practice, St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2012); La réforme liturgique du métropolite Cyprien de Kiev (Cerf, 2010; Greek trans.). Rt. Rev. Jack Khalil is professor of New Testament exegesis and Dean of St John of Damascus Institute of Theology at the University of Balamand (Lebanon). He studied theology at the University of Balamand, the Protestant Theological Faculty in Tübingen, before obtaining his doctorate in New Testament studies at the Theological School of the Aristotle University (Thessaloniki) (“Justification, Reconciliation and Last Judgment in St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans”, 2003; published in Greek, Thessaloniki, 2004). He is the author of numerous articles

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and book chapters. He has been a visiting professor at several institutions, including the University of Athens, the University of Thessaloniki, St. Serge Institute in Paris, Lebanese University, and the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies in Cambridge. He is a member of the wcc Central Committee and of the Commission on Faith and Order. Aristotle Papanikolaou is professor of theology and the Archbishop Demetrios Chair in Orthodox Theology and Culture at Fordham University (New York City). He received his PhD from the University of Chicago’s Divinity School, where his advisor was David Tracy (1998). Among his publications are The Mystical as Political: Democracy and Non-Radical Orthodoxy (Notre Dame, 2012) and Being with God: Trinity, Apophaticism, and Divine-Human Communion (Notre Dame, 2006). He is the co-founder, at Fordham, of the Orthodox Christian Studies Center (2012). Elisabeth Parmentier is professor of practical theology at the University of Geneva’s Faculté de théologie. She previously taught at the University of Strasbourg. Her research interests are broad, ranging from feminist theologians (the subject of her doctorate, in 1996) to biblical hermeneutics, ecumenical theology, and the new forms of Church life. Among her monographs (besides numerous edited volumes and articles): L’Écriture vive. Interprétations chrétiennes de la Bible (Labor et Fides, 2004). (Co-edited:) Évangéliser: Approches oecuméniques et européennes (lit, 2015). Her most recent book, on the theme of blessing, is titled: Cet étranger désir d’être bénis (Labor et Fides, 2020). Henning Theißen studied theology in Tübingen and Bonn. His doctorate focused on eschatology in modern Protestant theology since Schleiermacher, with a particular focus on Protestant theology’s vision of Judaism (Die evangelische Theologie und das Judentum, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2004). His second thesis considered the theology of the cross (Die berufene Zeugin des Kreuzes Christi, 2012). His most recent book is titled Glaube, Hoffnung, Liebe. Erträge der Theologie für Menschen heute (Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 2021). He currently holds a temporary professorship in Systematic Theology at Leuphana University, Lüneburg. Marc Vial is professor of dogmatic theology at the University of Strasbourg. He previously taught the history of medieval and reformatory theology at the University of

Notes on Contributors

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Geneva. He has edited Calvin’s Confessio Genevensium praedicatorum de trinitate (Droz, 2002). His dissertation was published under the title Jean Gerson théoricien de la théologie mystique (Vrin, 2006), and he has translated a treatise of Gerson: Sur la théologie mystique (Vrin, 2008). His most recent book is: Pour une théologie de la toute-puissance de Dieu: L’approche d’Eberhard Jüngel (Classiques Garnier, 2016). h.e. Metropolitan Kallistos of Diokleia (Ware) has long been recognized as one of the foremost Orthodox theologians. He served as Spalding Lecturer of Eastern Orthodox Studies at the University of Oxford from 1966 until 2001. Among his many publications: The Orthodox Church (1963, 2nd rev. ed. 1993), The Orthodox Way (1979), and the translation, originally with G.E.H. Palmer and Philipp Sherrard, of the Philokalia (4 vol. published in 1979, 1982, 1986, 1999). His collected works have been published by St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press (vol. 1: The Inner Kingdom, 2000; vol. 2: In the Image of the Trinity, to be published shortly). Stavros Yangazoglou graduated from the Faculty of Theology of Aristotle University in Thessaloniki. He studied ecumenical theology at the Institut œcuménique de Bossey, medieval philosophy and theology at Fribourg in Switzerland. In 2005 he became a lecturer at the Hellenic Open University, in Athens. In 2017 he was elected assistant professor of dogmatics within the Department of Theology, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. His research has focused on the theology of Gregory Palamas, dogmatics, ecclesiology, systematic theology, as well as on contemporary Orthodox thinkers (Evdokimov, Lossky, Zizioulas). Among his publications (all published in Athens, in Greek): Communion of Theosis: The synthesis of Christology and Pneumatology in the work of Gregory Palamas (2001); The Communion of the Eschaton: Essays in Eschatological Ontology (2016); At the Borderline of Theology: Essays on the Dialogue between Theology and Culture (2017); Lectures in Dogmatic Theology: Hermeneutical Comments on the Creed (2021). h.e. Metropolitan John of Pergamon (Zizioulas) is widely acknowledged as one of the most influential Orthodox theologians today. His work on the notion of personhood and communion (Being as Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church, St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1985) has been read, received and discussed within Orthodox theology and beyond. Metr. John is an ordinary fellow of the Academy of Athens. He

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studied in Thessaloniki, Athens and at the Institute of Bossey before embarking in doctoral studies at Harvard University with Georges Florovsky. He has taught in Thessalonica, Athens, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Geneva, and King’s College (London). Other publications include his Communion and Otherness (T&T Clark, 2006), and Lectures in Christian Dogmatics (T&T Clark, 2008).

Editors’ Introduction Sed nobis in ecclesia non tantum voluptatis causa vetustas cognoscenda est: sed iudicia et testimonia omnium temporum inquirenda sunt, ut una consentiens doctrina retineatur. Philipp Melanchthon, “Oratio de Basilio Episcopo Caesariensi” (1545)1

…

[…] breaking away from the West does not as such guarantee a true and authentic liberation.2

∵ The present volume owes its existence to His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, who wished to see the Centre Orthodoxe du Patriarcat Œcuménique in Chambésy, near Geneva, plan an event commemorating the 500th anniversary of Luther’s reformation. On December 7th and 8th, 2017, sixteen scholars met in Chambésy’s Orthodox Center and at the University of Geneva in order to discuss the topic of Luther’s theological anthropology. This book gathers the texts which were presented during the conference. The program and format of the conference were designed to stimulate a conversation between Protestant and Orthodox perspectives on Luther, but also on the key anthropological themes Luther himself addressed in his works. The papers included in the volumes come from eight Orthodox scholars who were paired with seven Protestant scholars.3 1 Karl Gottlieb Bretschneider and Heinrich Ernst Bindseil, eds., Philippi Melanthonis Opera quae supersunt omnia (Halle: Schwetschke, 1843), (Corpus Reformatorum: hereafter cr), xi:676. 2 Georges Florovsky, “Westliche Einflüsse in der russischen Theologie,” in Procès-verbaux du premier congrès de théologie orthodoxe à Athènes, 29 novembre–6 décembre 1936, ed. Hamilcar S. Alivisatos (Athens: Pyrsos, 1939), 231. 3 These scholars are: His Excellency Metr. Kallistos (Ware) of Diokleia, Stavros Yangazoglou, Konstantinos Delikostantis, Jack Khalil, His Excellency Job (Getcha), Aristotle Papanikolaou, Tamara Grdzelidze and His Eminence Metr. John (Zizioulas). Except for Metr. John (Zizioulas) of Pergamon, who gave the final keynote lecture, they were paired with seven Protestant

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Editors ’ Introduction

The relation between Luther and Orthodoxy is not a frequent topic of inquiry.4 Few Protestants have studied it – and even fewer Orthodox. In our ecumenical age, however, such inquiry and dialogue are not optional: the best way to move forward in our quest for unity of all Christians is to learn to know one another better, more accurately and deeply, not just by reading, but also by meeting one another. The present introduction is divided into two sections: first, we provide a brief survey of the history of Lutheran-Orthodox dialogue. Second, we turn to certain key issues which continue to emerge in the course of this dialogue when we address the topic of theological anthropology. 1

Lutheran-Orthodox Encounters: a Brief Historical Survey

Luther did not have any opportunity to actually meet any representative from Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Churches. His knowledge of Orthodoxy was in fact limited to his readings of the Church Fathers and of more recent Orthodox theologians. The world of Greek Orthodoxy, at the time, was slowly recovering from the fall of Byzantium at the hands of the Ottomans in May 1453. But Luther, in his struggle against the papacy, was keen to remind his opponents of the greatness of the Orthodox Church. In his July 1519 debate with Johann Eck, in response to the thesis that the Roman-Catholic Church has been granted absolute and divine authority, Luther replied: I myself could not deny this, if the faithful from the entire world were unanimous in saying that the bishop of Rome, or Paris, or Magdeburg, or of any other place, is the primatial and supreme pontiff, the one who, as the supreme monarch, should be revered by the Church as a whole. But this has never been the case, it is not the case today, and it will never be the case, for the Greek Church, to this day, has not accepted it; and it has not been condemned as heretical because of it.5 scholars: Beate Bengard, Christophe Chalamet, Hans-Christoph Askani, Henning Theißen, Reinhard Flogaus, Marc Vial, and Elisabeth Parmentier. 4 See, however: John Meyendorff and Robert Tobias, eds., Salvation in Christ. A LutheranOrthodox Dialogue (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1992), or Luther et la Réforme allemande dans une perspective œcuménique (Chambésy/Geneva: Éditions du Centre orthodoxe du Patriarcat oecuménique, 1983); more references are given below. 5 “[…] nam nec ego hoc nego, si consenserint totius orbis fideles in Romanum vel Parisiensem vel Magdeburgensem vel quemcunque, ut esset primus pontifex et summus, hunc propter reverentiam totius ecclesie fidelium sic consentientis habendum esse summum monarcham. Hoc autem

Editors ’ Introduction

xvii

The very reality of Orthodox Christianity, which no longer was in communion with Rome, which did not abide by the pope’s pronouncements, which did not need the pope’s approval when appointing its bishops,6 and which, all the while, had not been condemned as heretical, was already becoming important for Luther in the earliest stages of the Reformation for obvious apologetic purposes: it was the living proof that Christianity could not be reduced to Roman-Catholicism, that legitimate and indeed authentic forms of Christianity existed beyond the scope of papacy. Direct contacts between Lutheran and Orthodox thinkers began not long before Luther’s death on February 18, 1546. In 1543, Melanchthon (1497–1560) received a letter from Antonios Eparchos (†1571), a Greek scholar and a manu­script dealer from Corfu, urging him to set aside theological disputes in order to unite all of Europe in the struggle against the Sultan. Unconvinced, Melanchthon let one of his collaborators, Joachim Camerarius, write a reply.7 But he became more aware of the plight of contemporary Greek Orthodoxy, as can be seen from a peroration (declamatio) he gave in Erfurt in 1545 about Basil the Great: Now let us turn to the history. When I observe Basils’ homeland and abode with my mind’s eyes, roaming as it were through these regions of Asia, the consideration of the devastation the Turks have wrought upon that most flourishing and beautiful region of the world causes me immense grief. […] But who would not grieve, now, when we hear that those most flourishing Churches and towns have been turned into Turkish stables and huts abounding with impiety, filth, and cruelty; considering which, not only should we grieve Asia’s calamity, but should also be perturbed by the peril looming over ourselves. If we wish to beat the Turks, and fear a disaster similar to the Asian one, the causes should be removed. God’s

neque factum est unquam neque fit neque fiet, cum usque ad nostra tempora greca ecclesia non consenserit neque tamen sit habita heretica.” Weimarer Ausgabe [hereafter wa] 2, 258,38– 259,4. See Vasilică Mugurel Păvălucă, “Einige schriftliche Verweise Martin Luthers auf die Ostkirche,” Review of Ecumenical Studies 9/3 (2017): 365–67. 6 “Iam illud magis urget, quod greca ecclesia usque ad nostra tempora nunquam accepit episcopos suos confirmatos ex Romana.” wa 2, 276,14–15. 7 Ernst Benz, Wittenberg und Byzanz. Zur Begegnung und Auseinandersetzung der Reformation und der östlich-orthodoxen Kirche, 2nd ed. (Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 1971), 18–22 (1st ed. 1949).

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wrath must be assuaged by means of true offices of piety, a matter we have often discussed.8 Melanchthon was certainly not ready to subordinate theological matters to political considerations, as Antonios Eparchos had urged him to do. But the urgency of the political situation did not escape him at all. At the end of May 1559, Demetrios Myssos, a deacon who had been sent by the Patriarchate of Constantinople, arrived in Wittenberg. During the next four months, he resided in Melanchthon’s house, in order to garner firsthand knowledge concerning the Reformation, especially its doctrine and liturgy.9 Previously, a Greek adaptation (not a literal translation) of the Augsburg Confession, the so-called Confessio Augustana graeca, had been prepared by Paul Dolscius and published in Basel.10 Demetrios was supposed to bring a copy back to Constantinople, along with a letter, written in Greek, addressed by Melanchthon to Patriarch Ioasaph ii (1555–1565). In it, Melanchthon assures the Patriarch that Protestants “retain with authentic piety the holy Scriptures, the Prophetic as well as the Apostolic ones,” they follow the first councils and the teachings of the Fathers, such as Irenaeus, Athanasius, Basil, Gregory, Epiphanius, Theodoretus “and others who are in agreement with them.”11 But Demetrios never returned to Constantinople, and Melanchthon 8 “Sed in hanc ingresso historiam, cum patriam et domicilium Basilii mente intueor, quasi peragrans loca illa Asiae, cogitatio vastitatis quam Turci in illa florentissima et pulcherrima parte orbis terrarum fecerunt, ingentem dolorem attulit. […] Nunc vero quis non doleat, cum florentissimas illas Ecclesias et politias in Turcarum stabula et mapalia versas esse audimus, plena impietatis, spurcitiae et crudelitatis: qua de re cogitantes, non solum Asiae calamitate doleamus, sed etiam nostro periculo moveamur. Si arcere Turcas volumus, et vastitatem Asianae similem metuimus, causae tollendae sunt, flectenda est ira Dei veris officiis pietatis, qua de re alia saepe dicitur.” Ph. Melanchthon, “Oratio de Basilio Episcopo Caesariensi.” cr xi:677. See Asaph Ben-Tov, Lutheran Humanists and Greek Antiquity. Melanchthonian Scholarship Between Universal History and Pedagogy (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 192 (Ben-Tov’s translation, revised). 9 See e.g. Berthold F. Korte, “Early Lutheran Relations with the Eastern Orthodox,” The Lutheran Quarterly 9/1 (1957): 55–57. 10 See Reinhard Flogaus, “Eine orthodoxe Interpretation der lutherischen Lehre? Neue Erkenntnisse zur Entstehung der Confessio Augustana Graeca und ihrer Sendung an Patriarch Joasaph II,” in Orthodoxie im Dialog. Historische und aktuelle Perspektiven, ed. Reinhard Flogaus and Jennifer Wasmuth (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2015), 3–42. 11 In light of his stay in Wittenberg, Demetrios will be able to render witness to this: “Commemorare ergo poterit, nos vera pietate retinere sacras literas tam Prophetarum, quam Apostolorum: sanctarum etiam synodorum de dogmatibus canones, atque patrum doctrinam: Irenaei, Athanasii, Basilii, Gregorii, Epiphanii, Theodoreti, aliorumque, qui cum his consentiunt […].” Letter from Melanchthon to Patriarch Ioasaph ii, September 25, 1559, in cr ix:922–24 (nr. 6825) (for the Latin translation: ix:921–22).

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died a few months later; the Patriarch does not appear to have replied to his letter, and it is unlikely that he ever received it.12 Starting in 1573, Patriarch Jeremias ii (Tranos) (ca. 1530–1595), in office from 1572–1579, 1580–1584, 1587–1595, corresponded with Lutheran theologians from Tübingen until 1581. He responded to a first letter they had sent him, and later critically commented on the Greek translation of the Augsburg Confession which was presented to him, on May 24th, 1575, by Jakob Andreae (1528–1590) and Martin Crusius (1526–1607), a professor of Greek and Latin philology at the University of Tübingen and one of the few scholars fluent in contemporary Greek.13 By 1581, however, Jeremias ii thought the letter exchange had run its course: the divergences were too profound. He wrote: You can never be in agreement with us, or rather, with the truth, […] and we beg you not to trouble us further, not to write us or appeal to us while you go on reinterpreting the guiding lights of the Church and its theologians in other ways, paying them respect in words but repudiating them in deeds […]. Go your way and do not write us any more about dogmas; and if you do write, then write only for friendship’s sake.14 The door, as the final sentence indicates, was not entirely shut. Some form of dialogue continued, in a more modest and discrete manner, as Martin Crusius continued to communicate with the patriarchal protonotary Theodosius Zygomalas (1544–ca. 1614).15 12 Reinhard Flogaus, “Eine orthodoxe Interpretation der lutherischen Lehre?,” 41–42; Ernst Benz, Die Ostkirche im Lichte der protestantischen Geschichtsschreibung, von der Reformation bis zur Gegenwart (Freiburg/Munich: Karl Alber, 1952), 18–19. 13 Cyrillic and glagolithic translations followed in 1562. See Augustin Nikitin, “Orthodoxlutherische Beziehungen im Spiegel der Jahrhunderte. Zum 500. Geburtstag von Dr. Martin Luther,” Stimme der Orthodoxie 1 (1983): 22. See also Wayne James Jorgenson, “The Augustana Graeca and the Correspondence between the Tübingen Lutherans and Patriarch Jeremias” (Ph.D. diss., Boston University, 1979); A. Kallis, “Confessio Augustana Graeca. Orthodoxie und Reformation in ihrer theologischen Begegnung (1559–1581),” in Confessio Augustana und Confutatio. Der Augsburger Reichstag 1530 und die Einheit der Kirche, ed. Erwin Iserloh and Barbara Hallensleben (Münster: Aschendorff, 1980), 668– 72; Dorothea Wendebourg, Reformation und Orthodoxie. Der ökumenische Briefwechsel zwischen der Leitung der Württembergischen Kirche und Patriarch Jeremias II. von Konstantinopel in den Jahren 1573–1581 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1986). 14 John Karmiris, Dogmatica et Symbolica Monumenta Orthodoxae Catholicae Ecclesiae, vol. 2 (Athens/Graz: Akademische Druck und Verlagsanstalt, 1968), 569; see also Alexander Schmemann, The Historical Road of Eastern Orthodoxy, trans. Lydia W. Kesich (Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1977), 285, whose translation we slightly revise. 15 See Ben-Tov, Lutheran Humanists and Greek Antiquity. Martin Crusius wrote to Jeremias ii on July 18, 1597. The Patriarch had died two years earlier (Sept. 1595). For this letter, see

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In later decades, Cyril Loukaris (1572–1638), born in Crete, became Patriarch of Alexandria, in 1601 and twenty years later Ecumenical Patriarch in Constantinople. He appears to have called for a rapprochement with Rome, at the turn of the 17th century,16 but eventually he became known for his friendly attitude towards Protestants – mostly Reformed, but also Lutherans, such as King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, and Anglicans. This was already the case after his nomination as Patriarch of Alexandria, especially after 1608 – a striking fact which continues to be provoke debates among historians and theologians within Orthodoxy. Loukaris was convinced that an alliance with Protestantism would be beneficial to the Orthodox Church. His theological inclination towards Protestant and especially Calvinist theology (his March 1629 Confession de Foy admits of only two sacraments and betrays a strong doctrine of double predestination) had much to do with political decisions he felt compelled to make as Patriarch of Alexandria and of Constantinople.17 Loukaris was repeatedly condemned in the decades that followed his death. What Florovsky has called the “pseudomorphosis” of Orthodoxy, that is, its transformation due to the influence of external factors (in Loukaris’ case: Reformed theology) continued, this time with Roman leanings which came to be forcefully and successfully promoted by Peter Mogila (1596–1647), Metropolitan of Kiev.18 But the influence of Protestantism was far from over. As Metropolitan Philaret (Drozdov) (1782–1867) of Moscow stated, many Orthodox seminaries Wilhelm Göz and Ernst Conrad, eds., Diarium Martini Crusii 1596–1597 (Tübingen: Laupp, 1927), 368. 16 Tomasz Tempa, “Kyrillos Loukaris and the Confessional Problems in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth at the Turn of the Seventeenth Century,” Acta Plonia Historica 104 (2011): 103–28, esp. 125–28. 17 La Confession de Foy de Cyrille Patriarche de Constantinople (Geneva: Pierre Aubert, 1629), esp. art. 3 and 18 (the original, handwritten manuscript of Loukaris’ Confession is preserved at the Bibliothèque de Genève, Ms. gr. 37–38). See e.g. Georges Florovsky’s comments on Loukaris in his article “The Orthodox Churches and the Ecumenical Movement Prior to 1910,” in A History of the Ecumenical Movement, 1517–1948, ed. Ruth Rouse and Stephen Charles Neill, 4th ed. (Geneva: World Council of Churches, 2004), 169–215. Florovsky writes: Loukaris “stands out as the most remarkable figure in the history of the Orthodox Churches since the capture of Constantinople by the Turks (1453), and he is still widely venerated in Greece, and in Crete, his native island, as a great national leader and martyr.” Loukaris was executed by orders of the Sultan Murad. His Confession, first published in Latin in Geneva (1629), and which is quite Calvinist in tone and substance, was soon officially refuted by the Orthodox Church. Cyril Loukaris has been canonized by the Patriarchate of Alexandria in 2009. 18 Florovsky, “Westliche Einflüsse,” 217, 222. See also Georges Florovsky, “The Orthodox Churches and the Ecumenical Movement Prior to 1910,” in Christianity and Culture. Collected Works, vol. 2 (Belmont: Nordland, 1974), 181–86.

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and academies, in the second half of the 18th century, followed the manuals of Protestant theologians such as David Hollaz (1648–1713), Johannes Andreas Quenstedt (1617–1688), and Jean-Alphonse Turretini (1671–1737): he himself was trained by professors who dictated excerpts from Hollaz.19 Later, with the earliest emergence of what would eventually be known as “Pietism,” Lutheran books made their way into Orthodox regions. Johann Arndt’s hugely successful book, Vom wahren Christenthum (first published in Francfort in 1605, rev. ed. 1610; 123 editions by 1740), was published in Russian in 1735.20 The translator, Simeon Todorskij (1701–1754), had taught in Halle and subsequently became bishop of Pskov. Contacts between Halle, the city which became the center of German Pietism, and Russia intensified in the 18th century, under the reign of Peter the Great (1682–1725), who stood in close relation with Germany and German Lutherans. In Russia, until at least the first half of the 19th century, Orthodox priests were often trained by being taught a combination of Pietist and (Lutheran) scholastic ideas; the notion and reality of “tradition” was absent from some of the most important dogmatic books published in those years.21 We cannot retrace here the history of the encounters between Lutheranism and Orthodoxy in later decades and centuries. Estrangement came to dominate, in the 19th century and early 20th century, as Lutherans embarked on missions in Orthodox countries.22 Luther came to be denounced as a “heresiarch,” that is, as a “leader of heresy,” in an encyclical promulgated by the Synod of Constantinople in 1836.23 At a time when young Orthodox were flocking to English-speaking schools run by Protestants, Gregory vi, the Patriarch of Constantinople from 1835 to 1840 and from 1867 to 1871, unambiguously

19 20 21 22 23

Florovsky, “Westliche Einflüsse,” 222–23. Nikitin, “Orthodox-lutherische Beziehungen im Spiegel der Jahrhunderte,” 29–30. Florovsky, “Westliche Einflüsse,” 225 and 230. See Berge Traboulsi, “Some Aspects of Protestant-Orthodox Relations in Modern Times. A Historical Analysis,” Chronos. Revue d’histoire de l’Université de Balamand 16 (2007): 74–75. On the relations between Lutheranism and Orthodoxy, with an emphasis on Russia and Finland as well as on the presence of Lutheranism in Eastern countries, see Nikitin, “Orthodox-lutherische Beziehungen im Spiegel der Jahrhunderte”; Augustin Nikitin, “Orthodox-Lutheran Contacts in Russia since the Reformation,” Journal of Ecumenical Studies 23/2 (1986): 251–65; Traboulsi, “Some Aspects of Protestant-Orthodox Relations in Modern Times”; Konstantinos Delikostantis, “Martin Luther and the Orthodox Church,” Lutheran Forum 45/3 (2011): 36–41; Nikolaos Asproulis, “The Encounter between Eastern Orthodoxy and Lutheranism. A Historical and Theological Assessment,” The Ecumenical Review 69/2 (2017): 215–24.

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condemned Protestants as “the enemies of our faith.”24 These tensions help explain the need and success of the 1910 Edinburgh Missionary Conference, which many now consider to be the birthdate of the contemporary ecumenical movement. In recent decades, dialogue has been revived, as could be expected in our “ecumenical era,” despite some Orthodox voices, often fundamentalist ones, which object to this kind of dialogue.25 In 1936, at the First Congress of Orthodox Theology held in Athens, and in the presence of several Protestant observers, Georges Florovsky, alongside two other keynote speakers (Chrysostomos [Papadopoulos], archbishop of Athens, and Konstantinos Dyovouniotis), spoke on the influence of Protestantism on Orthodoxy after the fall of Constantinople.26 The president of the Congress, Hamilcar Alivisatos, said this in his opening speech: The era which precedes our century can be called the era of division, because of the narrowness and obstinacy which, in various contexts, especially in theological contexts, and in the theological debates over formulae and about unilateral standpoints, often completely forgot the main substance of the Christian religion itself. The epoch which follows the war, independently of the fruits – which might seem dubious at times – of the unifying effort which is at hand, can be called, precisely because of that effort, its nature and character, the era of union, renewal, and gradual revival of a specifically Christian conscience.27 24 Karmiris, Dogmatica et Symbolica, 2:969–70; Traboulsi, “Some Aspects of ProtestantOrthodox Relations in Modern Times,” 75. 25 See e.g. the volume edited Meyendorff and Tobias, Salvation in Christ. 26 Hamilcar S. Alivisatos, ed., Procès-verbaux du premier congrès de théologie orthodoxe à Athènes, 29 novembre–6 décembre 1936 (Athens: Pyrsos, 1939), 27, 39. G. Florovsky’s speech is found on pages 212–31, in German translation. The main Protestant observers were the Church historian Hans Koch (Univ. of Königsberg), the archaeologist Hermann Tiersch (Univ. of Göttingen), the Reformed and Swiss scholar Fritz Lieb (Univ. of Zürich), who specialized in Eastern Orthodox thought, and Ernst Schäfer, the pastor of the Protestant parish in Athens and a specialist of Christian archeology (Alivisatos, Procès-verbaux du premier congrès de théologie orthodoxe (1936), 40). 27 “L’époque qui précède notre siècle pourrait être appelée l’ère de la division, pour l’étroitesse, pour l’obstination dans les conceptions des divers milieux, des milieux théologiques surtout, qui, dans la discussion théologique sur les formules et sur la conception unilatérale, souvent oubliaient entièrement la substance principale de la religion chrétienne elle-même. L’époque qui suit la guerre, indépendamment des résultats, de certitude peut-être douteuse, qu’aura l’effort unitaire qui s’effectue, peut être appelée, ne serait-ce que pour cet effort, sa nature et son caractère, l’ère de l’union, du renouement et du réveil graduel d’une conscience chrétienne unique.” “Discours d’ouverture prononcé par M. le Professeur Hamilcar Alivisatos,

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Hamilcar Alivisatos’ speech of 1936 is a clear sign of the deep interest with which various Greek Orthodox were following the burgeoning ecumenical movement. A decade later, Georges Florovsky, representing the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Constantinople, significantly contributed to the constitution of the World Council of Churches and to its First Assembly, in Amsterdam (1948).28 In 1959, the Protestant Church in Germany (Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland, or ekd) started official bilateral discussions with the Moscow Patriarchate, and a decade later with the Ecumenical Patriarchate. In 1968, the fourth Pan-Orthodox Conference decided to engage in an official bilateral dialogue with the Lutheran World Federation. Starting in 1981, the Lutheran World Federation conducted a global bilateral theological dialogue with Eastern Orthodoxy. From that year until 2015, a series of sixteen meetings of the Lutheran-Orthodox Join Commission took place. Topics related to the traditional theological prolegomena, such revelation, Scripture and tradition, were first addressed, between 1981 and 1993. Since 1994 the discussions moved to the theme of soteriology as well as to sacramental and ecclesiological matters.29 Among the topics which touch upon the theme of the present volProfesseur de Droit canon, Président du Congrès,” in Alivisatos, Procès-verbaux du premier congrès de théologie orthodoxe (1936), 57. 28 On June 10, 1949, Karl Barth gave a talk, titled “Der Skandal der uneinigen Kirche” (unpublished; Karl Barth Archiv, Basel, nr. 11210), in which he praises Florovsky’s contribution to “section i” of the Amsterdam Conference. Barth describes Florowsky as “smart and always happy to enter into dialogue” (“klug und immer diskussionsfreudig”; page 2), but also as wary of any enthusiastic interpretation of the gathering in Amsterdam and cautioning against any optimist prediction concerning the unity of all Christians (pages 8–9). 29 Here are some of the topics of these encounters: iii (1985): revelation; iv (1987) : Scripture and Tradition; v (1989): the canon and the inspiration of Scripture; vii (1993): the ecumenical councils; viii (1995): salvation in light of the ecumenical councils; ix (1998): salvation (grace, justification, and synergy); x (2000): Word and sacraments in the life of the Church; xi (2002): the sacraments as means of salvation; xii (2004): baptism and chrismation; xiii (2006) and xiv (2008): the Church and the Eucharist; xv (2011): the nature, attributes, and mission of the Church; xvi (2015) and xvii (2017): the ordained ministry. See Risto Saarinen, Faith and Holiness. Lutheran-Orthodox Dialogue 1959–1994 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1997), and, by the same author: “The Lutheran-Orthodox Joint Commission. Our Work 1994–2003,” in Cracks in the Walls. Essays on Spirituality, Ecumenicity and Ethics, ed. Else Marie Wiberg and Johannes Nissen (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2005), 121–29; “The Lutheran-Orthodox Relationships and the Future of Ecumenism,” in Lutheranism. Legacy and Future, ed. Holger Roggelin (West Conshohocken: Infinity Publishing, 2012), 375–95; “Le dialogue luthérien-orthodoxe de 2004 à 2014,” Istina 59/4 (2014): 367–86; see also on his blog “Lutheran-Orthodox Joint Commission,” accessed July 17, 2019, https://blogs.helsinki.fi/ristosaarinen/lutheran-orthodox-dialogue/. See also: Cosmin Pricop and Cătălina Bogdan, From Espoo to Paphos. The Theological Dialogue of

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ume, i.e. theological anthropology, we may point out the 1998 discussions on “salvation,” a highlight of the several decades of official international dialogue according to Risto Saarinen.30 An important actor of ecumenism for the Orthodox Churches in the 20th century, namely Metropolitan Emilianos (Timiadis) (1916–2008), who was the second permanent representative of the Ecumenical Patriarchate to the World Council of Churches (with a tenure of 26 years: 1959–1985), served as co-chairman of this Joint Commission since 1981, alongside the Lutheran theologian Georg Kretschmar. In the 1990s, various Orthodox Churches expressed a deep unease with the World Council of Churches, which they viewed as too closely adjusted to Western values.31 These criticisms have been (and continue to be) expressed mostly, but not exclusively, by the Moscow Patriarchate; the Churches of Georgia and Bulgaria have left the World Council of Churches, in 1997 and 1998 respectively. The relations between the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the World Council of Churches, on the other hand, remain very sound and productive. On May 31, 2017, in honor of his contribution to Protestant-Orthodox dialogue as well as ecology, Patriarch Bartholomew was conferred an honorary doctorate by the Protestant Faculty of Theology of the University of Tübingen – the very University from which a delegation was sent to Constantinople in the 16th century and with which Patriarch Jeremias ii was in relation, from 1573 until 1581. Certainly, there is still a long way until a broad and in-depth engagement of Luther’s and Lutheran theology is achieved by Orthodox scholars, just as the Lutheran and Protestant scholars who have a broad knowledge of Orthodoxy are not many.32 As Nikos Nissiotis put it, when discussing Luther’s ecclesiology:

the Orthodox Churches with the Lutheran World Federation (1981–2008) (Bucharest: Basilica, 2013); Theodore Meimaris, “Thirty Years of the International Theological Dialogue Between Orthodox and Lutherans (1981–2011). Evaluation and Prospects,” Nicolaus 40/1 (2013): 159–86. 30 Saarinen, “Le dialogue luthérien-orthodoxe de 2004 à 2014,” 371. 31 On these difficulties see Anna Marie Aagaard and Peter Bouteneff, Beyond the East-West Divide. The World Council of Churches and “the Orthodox Problem” (Geneva: wcc Publications, 2001). 32 Nikolaos Asproulis makes a similar comment in “The Encounter between Eastern Orthodoxy and Lutheranism,” 221. For a very positive sign of continued commitment to ecumenical dialogue among the Orthodox, see the Pantelis Kalaitzidis et al., eds., Orthodox Handbook on Ecumenism. Resources for Theological Education (Oxford: Regnum Books International, 2014), as well as the impressive work which is being done at the Volos Academy for Theological Studies (Greece).

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Not only Roman Catholics and Protestants in the West but also we Orthodox have to read, listen and be corrected in our self-sufficiency and in our passive confidence in the human structures of the Church. Luther, in the end, is not against them as such, but against their abuses of authority and against a false man-centered glory and an exaggerated ceremonialism. He fights to keep the Unity of the Church. […] Lutherans should not have allowed us Orthodox to monopolize pneumatology in connection with ecclesiology. Luther offers an equally important theology of the Spirit from the West to the whole Church […].33 Such positive statements – which go against the grain of the tired refrain concerning the supposed pneumatological deficit in the West – are not incompatible with a lucid, critical appraisal of Luther’s thought. So far, our introduction to the contributions which are gathered in the present book has been mostly historical in nature. We now turn to some of the theological themes which come up in the book. 2

Key Issues in Relation to Theological Anthropology

Among the topics which are mentioned in the present volumes, and which certainly deserve a fuller examination, are the following: 2.1 The Question of “Individualist” Leanings in Luther’s Theology This is a recurring criticism of Luther and Lutheranism among Orthodox scholars. Alexis S. Khomiakov (1804–1860) viewed this as a problem Protestants and Roman-Catholics have in common, albeit in different ways, since the first tend to locate ultimate authority in Scripture, whereas the second take authority to be embodied in the figure of the pope. But is it so sure that Luther’s theological anthropology inevitably leads to the various forms of “individualism” we surely witness in Western countries, and perhaps even more clearly in countries influenced by Lutheranism? Doesn’t Luther differentiate, in his own way, between the “individual,” as a separate entity, and the human “person” as it stands before God and before (cf. the well-known Lutheran coram: coram Deo, coram hominibus) his neighbor, in the world? The debate on this particular point is all but over. It will be fruitful only if it is pursued without caricaturing Luther’s 33 Nikos Nissiotis, “Is There a Church Ontology in Luther’s Ecclesiology?,” in Luther et la réforme allemande dans une perspective oecuménique (Chambésy/Geneva: Éditions du Centre orthodoxe du Patriarcat oecuménique, 1983), 423–24.

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thought, and also without any underlying apologetic intentions on the part of Lutheran scholars. It will also need not to confuse Luther, on the one hand, and Lutheranism on the other, i.e. Luther’s own complex, un-systematized thought, and the tradition to which he gave rise without determining every twist and turn in its five-hundred-year history. Modern and contemporary interpretations cannot and should not simply be traced all too directly and monocausally to Luther. Factors that have intervened in our history since the 16th century, and that can be said to have themselves been directly caused by the Protestant Reformation only to a point, have greatly contributed to what we call “individualism” today. Human Freedom and the Question of “Synergy” in Soteriological Discourse The notion of “freedom” is central in Luther’s theology; the title of one of his most celebrated treatises, De libertate christiana (1520), as well as Luther’s way, mostly in the years 1517–1518 and only in his letters to a circle of five friends, of signing his last name (“Eleutherius”), confirm this. But Luther articulated this notion in close connection with its opposite, i.e. “servitude” or “bondage.” Human beings, as sinners, are not “free” to open themselves up to God and to a just relation with God. God’s action toward them is necessary for them to become free. Freedom, therefore, is not a “quality” which human beings naturally enjoy. Rather, human beings become free when they are led to trust God’s promises and when they welcome God’s gift into their heart, i.e. into their life. Orthodoxy, no less than Luther’s theology, also centers on freedom. When commenting on Luther’s theology of freedom, Orthodox scholars often see a direct link between Luther’s views and modernity’s emphatic embrace of the concept of “freedom.” More work needs to be done in order to analyze the points of contact, as well as the divergences, between Lutheran and Orthodox perspectives on freedom.34 It appears that the concept of freedom is much more explicitly and intimately connected with ecclesiology, in the Orthodox tradition. Not that this link is absent in Luther and the Lutheran tradition. But many Orthodox scholars consider that Luther tends to focus on God’s act toward the human person as an “I” in relation to you “you,” rather than as an “I” towards a “we,” i.e. toward the Church. In addition, the Orthodox tradition places a significantly greater emphasis on the necessity of the “free” human

2.2

34 On the topic of freedom in Luther’s thought, from a Greek Orthodox standpoint, see Konstantinos Delikostantis various publications, including: “Un Regard Orthodoxe Sur Martin Luther,” Unité des Chrétiens 181 (2016): 15–17, and L’ethos della libertà, trans. A. Ranzolini (Sotto il Monte: Servitium, 1997).

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response of human beings who have received God’s transforming grace. Salvation is a free gift, to be sure, but this gift calls for a free decision to cooperate, i.e. to work together with God, in a “synergy” between God and the human will: good works are not mere expressions of salvation freely received as God’s exclusive gift, as Protestants often emphasize. They are, rather, a necessary component of the ongoing growth of the human towards deification.35 Such claims often worry Protestant theologians, who emphasize God’s exclusive action and gift with regard to salvation (sola gratia!), and who consequently are often quite reluctant to speak of “synergy.”36 Still, there must be room for the theme of “synergy” in any Christian theology, at least on a different level than in connection with salvation, namely with regard to the witnessing that Christians are called to enact in and for the world, both communally and individually (see 1 Cor 3:9 and 2 Cor 6:1). When it comes to soteriology, Lutheran theology centers on justification, a term that barely appears as Orthodox Christians consider the matter: the terms they use have to do, instead, with purification, illumination, and divinization.37 Semantics here reveal profound theological differences, even as, concerning other aspects related to salvation, convergences are no less real, for instance on the decisive view that salvation implies a participation in God’s life and in Christ. The theme of “synergy” is thus, without surprise, one of the key disputed notions in the dialogue between Protestants and Orthodox – and a “marker” of the deep-reaching differences that exist between these traditions. In spite – or 35 36

37

See Saarinen, Faith and Holiness, 245, with reference to a 1996 study on the theme of synergy by Reinhard Flogaus. Dumitru Staniloae’s article, “Le sens de la justification chez Luther. Quelques remarques orthodoxes,” in Luther et la Réforme allemande dans une perspective oecuménique (Chambésy/Geneva: Éditions du Centre orthodoxe du Patriarcat oecuménique, 1983), 185–95, is quite typical in this regard. The topic of “synergy” was discussed in the official global dialogue between the Lutheran World Federation and Eastern Orthodoxy in Sigtuna, Sweden (1998). No decisive breakthrough occurred, but some convergences (on theosis understood as participation in God’s life; on synergy in relation to sanctification) were found at that meeting, so that, according to Risto Saarinen, “the text adopted in Sigtuna remains the most important theological result of the Lutheran-Orthodox Joint Commission thus far.” Saarinen, “The Lutheran-Orthodox Joint Commission. Our Work 1994–2003,” 125. The text adopted in Sigtuna can be consulted here: https://blogs.helsinki. fi/ristosaarinen/lutheran-orthodox-dialogue/ (last visit July 17, 2020). For a published version (in English), see Bo Holm, “Den Luthersk-Ortodokse Dialog (1997–2000),” Nordisk Ekumenisk Orientering 3 (2002): 5–10. See Saarinen, Faith and Holiness, 249. Given this statement, one is surprised to read, on the same page, “that probably a sufficient amount of convergence is reached and that no further reconciliation between Western and Eastern vocabularies concerning salvation is needed.”

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perhaps especially because – of these divergences, the themes of human freedom and responsibility remain highly significant and interesting topics for the dialogue between the Protestants and Orthodox traditions. One promising avenue as the dialogue continues is to ponder always anew the “disagreements within the agreements,” and vice versa.38 Divinization (Theosis) as the Telos of Human (and Christian) Existence How do Orthodox and Lutheran view human existence in its origin, as created in God’s image and likeness, as marked by sin, and as reconciled and redeemed? A number of convergences can be seen, but undoubtedly significant divergences are present as well. It is not possible to review and ponder them all here. On the topic of the horizon, or goal (telos) of human existence, the Orthodox tradition places a key emphasis on the notion of theosis, or divinization. In his dialogue with the Lutherans of Tübingen, Patriarch Jeremias ii already signaled the importance of divinization, in relation to justification, which appeared to be too narrow a focus to him.39 What is the meaning of this doctrine? In their papers, archbishop Job of Telmessos and Reinhard Flogaus give detailed answers to that question. Reinhard Flogaus mentions the discovery, by certain Lutheran scholars, especially in Finland since the 1970s, of certain strands, in Luther’s own theology, which appear to point in the direction of a doctrine of the human person’s divinization.40 The Finnish school may have exaggerated the importance of the theme of deification in Luther’s thought, but Reinhard Flogaus shows that, even if it was not a key topic for him, Luther knew of it (directly from the German mystical tradition, rather than from the Greek Fathers) and mentioned it in his writings, especially in connection with what he called the “joyous exchange,” in which God takes what characterizes us, i.e. sin, and gives us what characterizes God, i.e. justice and holiness. But this transfer is not visible to our eyes, and when it happens, it happens sub contrario, that is, under its opposite.41 And so Flogaus suggests a middle-way, between the enthusiastic proposal of the Finnish school 2.3

38 This is how Karl Barth put it in his lecture from June 10, 1949, looking back at the Amsterdam Assembly. K. Barth. “Der Skandal der uneinigen Kirche,” 8 (unpublished lecture; Karl Barth Archiv, Basel, nr. 11210). 39 See Flogaus, below (189). 40 The main theses of the Finnish school have found the support of two well-known North-American theologians: see Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson, eds., Union with Christ. The New Finnish Interpretation of Luther (Grand Rapids/Cambridge: Eerdmans, 1998). 41 See below (203, 207).

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concerning Luther’s basic agreement with Orthodoxy on the topic of divinization, and a certain interpretation of Luther which loses sight of the breadth of his doctrine of justification and sanctification, reducing it to a forensic or judicial act, to a purely external verdict which does not affect the human being as such. Therefore, “clear differences” remain between the Lutheran and the Orthodox understanding of salvation. The question, then, is: ought these differences to divide us? Can we be in communion with each other even as we do not share the exact same view of salvation? To raise this question means raising the question of a “differentiated consensus” (consensus différencié), which has become a key aspect of ecumenical dialogue in recent decades. 3

The Contents of the Present Book

How should Orthodox theologians view Luther’s theological program, more specifically his central assertion concerning justification which is received without any merit from the part of the human being, and thus “through faith alone” (sola fide)? John Zizioulas addresses this question in his contribution, which provides a nuanced assessment of Luther’s views on faith and on what the reformer took to be the proper theme of faith and Christian theology, namely the cross of Jesus Christ as the central event of salvation. Luther’s thought, and the Reformation it provoked, deserve a “more positive” consideration from Eastern Christians, since the Reformation “was a movement and an attempt to listen and to respond to the Word and will of God” (3). In breaking from medieval scholasticism and presenting divine grace as an utterly unconditional reality (not just sola fide, but, as the other side of the same coin, sola gratia), Luther retrieved a sense of the freedom of God’s act, and consequently also the freedom of the Christian before God, that is, “freedom from the given” (8). But does not the reformer’s focus on the event of Good Friday as the decisive salvific event direct our attention to the past, as the historical event of God’s overcoming of sin, instead of orientating us toward the future, final liberation from death? And does not the focus on the cross as the justification of sinful human beings restrict to humanity God’s cosmic redemptive action? In a final section, John Zizioulas considers the oft rehearsed accusation of “individualism” in Luther’s thought, confirming that there are indeed clear signs of individualist tendencies in his thought. These have to do with the reformer’s understanding of faith as a decision “each one is called to make alone before God” (13). A major theological change introduced by the Reformation in anthropology concerns the image of God, according to Beate Bengard. In the 40 theses of his

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Disputation Concerning Man (Disputatio de homine), Martin Luther does not consider, unlike the preceding medieval tradition, that the difference between human beings and animals lies in the capacities of reason, or in any human qualities or abilities. It is the relationship with God that makes the human being unique. But in the Fall, the human being lost completely the image of (and resemblance to) God, because Adam went away from the relationship with God. Reason will be of no help; the only way of redemption is the Son, Jesus Christ. As God present in humanity, Christ represents both the image of God and the image of human beings. The complete restoration of the image of God, however, remains a struggle and a spiritual trial (simul justus, simul peccator). And not only the soul, but also the body is a field of experience of both the goodness of God’s creation and the ambivalence of human life. On the redemptive journey toward the restoration of the image of God, human beings are permanently challenged, physically and mentally. How then does Luther’s position on the image of God relate to contemporary Orthodox thought? In an essentialist perspective, Luther considers the “imago Dei” as a characteristic that men and women irretrievably lost through the Fall. Under the influence of the philosophy of language, recent Protestant theology develops a new view of human life under the promise of the “imago Dei.” This gives rise to new perspectives for the Lutheran-Orthodox dialogue. In a second chapter dedicated to the theme of humanity created “in God’s image and resemblance,” Kallistos Ware shows how Orthodoxy has interpreted Gen 1:26, a verse which is “the foundation, the polestar, of all Orthodox Christian anthropology” (50). Beginning with a reminder of the fact that each human being is irreducibly unique, this chapter argues that we can consider each person as an icon of God, a “finite expression of God’s infinite selfexpression” (50). The claim that human beings are created “in God’s image” prohibits any definition or understanding of human personhood on its own terms, in abstraction from the Creator. It is only in relation with the Creator that who we are as human beings becomes intelligible; and, similarly, because God is Triune, it is only in relation with other human beings that we become who we are, namely human persons. Starting with Irenaeus of Lyon, Clement of Alexandria and Origen, early Christian theologians began to identify the “image” with a particular gift given in the beginning, and “likeness” with something yet to come, i.e. an eschatological reality. This confers an undeniable dynamism to the interpretation of the imago Dei. Another key aspect of an Orthodox theology of the divine “image” concerns the holistic view of the human person, comprising not just the soul, but also the spirit and the body, which are basic elements of human beings’ lives as God’s creatures. Finally, being created in God’s image means human beings are free: free to become who they truly are, rather than copies of each other.

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Christophe Chalamet examines some aspects of Luther’s teaching on sin. In opposition to standard medieval distinctions (e.g. venial vs. mortal sin), sin becomes a reality which characterizes fallen human nature as such, and not just certain deeds (or omissions). At the same time, Luther opposes all “metaphysical” (he repeatedly uses this term) interpretations of sin which abstract it from our concrete lives. Luther’s radicalized interpretation of sin is buttressed by a close reading of the Scriptures, in particular Psalm 50 (51), a key text for Christian theology in relation to the theme of human sinfulness. The implications of human sinfulness are numerous: they include a strict assertion of the bondage of the will, and a restricting of “freedom” to God, to the point where “freedom” becomes one of the divine “names.” But if human beings cannot but sin, does this mean they are in fact not responsible for their sinful actions? No! Here Luther distinguishes between acts which happen “necessarily,” or “by the necessity of immutability” (69), and acts which result from external “compulsion.” Human beings sin of their own accord and with a ready will. How should we assess Luther’s views on sin today? Is he a “pessimist,” in his view of human beings, and should we promote a more optimistic vision, half a millennium after him? As much as his thought bothers us and even scandalizes us, we should not rush to throw his radical views on sin overboard. Rather, we should make sure to clarify, at all times, that a theology of sin does not make any sense unless sin is interpreted in light of God’s grace and mercy. In the footsteps of the previous contribution, Stavros Yangazoglou presents several important aspects from the Orthodox tradition on human sinfulness and the eschatological horizon of redemption. The root of sin is directly related to the fact that human beings, relying on their own strength and on their own faculties, become “a self-idol,” a god in the place of God (84). And yet sin never completely destroys God’s image within human beings: this image is darkened, but not suppressed. This means that free will, too, although severely weakened, remains to some extent effective, and thus it is possible for humanity to “voluntarily return to divine adoption” and develop “in the fullness” of their “relationship with God” (85). As Orthodox theology presents it, salvation is much larger than the healing of a fallen nature. Rather, its aim is deification. The Fall and sin never attain a central status: they are a negative episode which needs to be constantly kept in a relativizing relation to the gift of salvation in Christ. This gift comes, first and foremost, from God’s initiative, but it entails a participation (synergy) from the side of the human, as there is no coercive element in redemption. An active and free consent must be present from the part of human beings. Seen from an Orthodox perspective, Luther’s thought appears to be “anthropomonist,” i.e. centered on the human and on the individual, to the detriment of a broader vision of the world as God’s creation. Luther can thus be seen as “the source that gave birth to the modern rational subject” (95).

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For all his talk about the “bondage” of the will, Luther was, undoubtedly, a theologian of “freedom.” Hans-Christoph Askani warns us not to confuse too quickly and directly what Luther meant by this term with what modernity has meant (and still means) by it. A key difference between the meanings of “freedom” in Luther’s thought and in modernity has to do with the fact that, for the reformer, freedom no longer makes sense when it is abstracted from the relationship between God and human beings. It is only “within” this relationship, and thus as a “relational event,” that talk of “freedom” becomes meaningful (115 and 117). Far from being a stable characteristic of human beings, freedom is conferred to them in an act: freedom is, thus, a freeing of human beings, a liberation. And it is only in this “being freed” that one realizes one was previously enslaved. From what is the human person freed? From oneself; from one’s own definition of oneself in such a way that one encloses oneself in oneself (116). The chapter ends with a reflection on the two “natures” of the human, as Luther sees it: bodily and spiritual, outward and inward. This should not be interpreted as describing two parts or components of the human being, but rather as two ways of being in relation to oneself and to God, and thus as two orientations: one, freed by grace, opens up to God and lets God act, whereas the other closes itself against God. On the same topic of freedom, Konstantinos Delikostantis points out that the real debate between Orthodox and Protestants should not center on the supposed “closed interiority” of freedom, as if Luther had not implied for freedom to have concrete, external and indeed social implications. The real question, rather, concerns individualist tendencies in Luther’s theology. The role of the individual and his faith, the assurance of God’s grace given “pro me,” the centrality of the doctrine of justification by faith among all loci of Christian doctrine, raise questions among Orthodox believers, for whom the church is not the reality in which Christian freedom is exercised once human beings have been justified and freed by God, but rather the reality which renders Christian freedom possible to begin with. Ecclesiology is in no way a secondary locus in Orthodox theology, as the Church is the very condition for Christian existence and thus also for freedom. The theme of freedom remains crucial today, and “the future of humanity is connected with the art of the comprehension of our freedom’s origin (πόθεν) and its final goal (πρός)” (109). Any consideration of Luther’s theological anthropology must address the central themes of “faith” and “justification.” Henning Theißen addresses the anthropological dimension of these two terms, arguing that faith, in Luther’s theology, primarily understood as fiducia, i.e. as trust or confidence, is not an epistemological or moral phenomenon, but an aesthetic one: it is less a matter of right or wrong, of good and evil, than a “matter of taste that challenges the

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standards of right and wrong, good and evil” (150). Turning to the topic of “justification” and searching for its anthropological corollaries, the contribution explores the bridal metaphor Luther uses in his treatise On the Freedom of a Christian. This metaphor signals that we are in different waters than Anselm’s doctrine of “satisfaction,” even as the notion of “substitution” (cf. the “joyous exchange”) reappears. Luther may have drawn on the apostle Paul here – see 2 Cor 5:21, where Christ is presented as “made to be sin for our sake so that we might become righteousness in him.” And whereas earlier scholars, associated with the Lutherrenaissance, over-emphasized the importance of “conscience” in Luther’s thought, in more recent times the communal and indeed ecclesial dimension of justification have come to be expressed more clearly: “justification is not an individualistic, but an ecclesial event which integrates every single believer into a community of justified sinners” (158), into the community of God’s adopted children. The purpose of Jack Khalil’s contribution, on faith and justification (as the preceding chapter), is to clarify what faith is according to the apostle Paul, and to clarify certain debatable issues that remain a point of difference in the bilateral ecumenical dialogues on the subject of faith. For Paul, it is customary to juxtapose law and faith when discussing the precondition of justification, because he believes that God’s righteousness has always been granted on the basis of faith. In the “law of faith,” anyone who obeys Christ’s word is justified, regardless of one’s identity. This obedience to Christ is manifested in the exercise of love, which is the supreme commandment, because one who believes in Christ must love others. Faith must be manifested with good works, just as noted in James 2:14–19. Christ is the criterion for justification by faith, whereas justification is a gift from God, and this gift cannot be compared to anything which human beings may offer. Christ remains the sole author of righteousness from faith, and yet there is an interdependent relationship between faith in Christ and obedience to him. Faith necessarily expresses itself in the performance of deeds of love: without works of love, faith is nothing. Reinhard Flogaus shows how, in the theological discussion of the last decades, some scholars have pointed the fundamental difference between the Protestant assertion of justification by faith alone (sola fide) and the concept of deification (θέωσις) which constitutes the very heart of Orthodox soteriology. Finnish researchers, however, have expected that the exploration of the “theosis” motif in Luther could lead to a paradigm shift in Luther research and allow new insights in some highly controversial topics, such as the relation between justification and sanctification. This could build a bridge between Luther and the Eastern Orthodox concept of deification. Martin Luther did

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not get acquainted with the motif of deification by reading the Greek Fathers, but by studying some late medieval German mystics. The idea of deification of human beings is not the centerpiece of Luther’s soteriology but a motif that runs through Luther’s sermons and commentaries on the New Testament from the early to the late years. Luther conceives the justifying and deifying union with Christ in analogy to the hypostatic union of Christ’s natures and therefore also teaches an exchange of properties between the person of Christ and the Christian. Through the presence of Christ in faith, the Christian is already in this life righteous, holy, and divine. But at the same time this new existence in Christ is still a concealed, invisible, eschatological reality given only in faith and hope, so that the Christian has to rely on Christ being present in him. For Luther, in this life the deification of human beings is concealed under its opposite, i.e. the person’s self-awareness as sinner, because union with Christ is union with the crucified Lord. The motif of deification shows clearly that an exclusively forensic understanding of justification would be a distortion of Luther’s much more comprehensive theological concept of salvation. For Luther, justification is not only grace, but also gift, since it is accompanied by the indwelling of Christ and the Holy Spirit in the believer. In his soteriology, Luther seems to be influenced not so much by juridical concepts but by ideas borrowed from mystical writings, such as the union of the soul with Christ, the indwelling of Christ and the Spirit, and the deification of man. The concept of theosis could be a “point of contact” between the Lutheran and the Orthodox tradition. Job Getcha begins by stating that the orthodox teaching on theosis is rooted in the teaching of the Apostle Peter (2 Pet 1:3–4). Irenaeus of Lyon designated theosis as the goal of incarnation. Athanasius of Alexandria used the concept, within the theological quarrels of the fourth century over the identity of Christ, the Son of God, as a key soteriological argument for Nicene orthodoxy. Cyril of Alexandria used it in his theological argumentation against Nestorius. The theme of theosis was further developed in connection with the sacraments of the Church in the Dionysian corpus in relation to salvation. Gregory Palamas and Nicolas Cabasilas conceived deification as realized through the participation in the Church sacraments. Luther used the same concept in sermons in 1515 and 1526. Conversations between the Lutheran Church of Finland and the Orthodox Church of Russia between 1970 and 1986 focused on “salvation interpreted as justification and deification,” and showed that the concepts of “justification” and “deification” were reconcilable. Since then, theosis has become a relatively popular theme in Lutheran theology. In 2013, the official dialogue between the Evangelical Church of Germany (ekd) and the Orthodox Church of Romania addressed the theme of “holiness and sanctification.” The

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question that arises within the discussion between Orthodox and Lutheran is whether this concept can be acceptable for both parties without the use of a set terminology. Marc Vial suggests that Luther’s two kingdoms doctrine, according to which God rules the world spiritually and temporally, i.e. by the means of the temporal authority, has been criticized for what some see as its consequences – its reception during the Third Reich by some German theologians fostered capitulation to the National Socialist regime – as well as for its very content, notably its departure from the Sermon on the Mount’s ethics. Without denying the problematic character of the Lutheran doctrine, this article contends that such a state of affairs highlights the problematic character of the Christian’s political commitment itself. The fundamental thesis reads thus: since the temporal authority receives a divine mandate to maintain the world and oppose all destructive powers threatening God’s creation, Christians cannot but assist the exercise of this mission, even if it is frequently violent in nature. By acting in such a way, Christians admittedly transgress the commands of the Sermon on the Mount and forego some of their proper convictions. But such an act, far from expressing a lack of convictions, expresses here something like an excess of convictions. Since the Christian’s vocation consists in taking care of the world and therefore in taking account of the concrete situation of neighbors, particularly their needs and the threats to which they are subject, Christians forego any ideal image of themselves – including the image of those who “purely” abide by the commands of the Sermon on the Mount. Christians must forego such an image. They may do it since they are liberated, by faith, from any need to have an ideal image of themselves. It may be that genuine sanctity consists in accepting to have dirty hands when it comes to help the neighbor, that is, in paying more attention to the world’s concrete needs than to one’s own reputation for sanctity. Comparing Lutheran and Orthodox political theologies, in conversation with a recent study of Luther’s theological vision of the political realm, Aristotle Papanikolaou shows some of the convergences that appear between the reformer’s views and an Orthodox perspective which articulates a political theology on the basis of theosis interpreted as “divine-human communion.” Luther’s (or the Lutheran) two-kingdom theory should not be conflated with a notion of two regiments, as if the temporal regiment could be identified with the kingdom of Satan. But what about political liberalism? Should it be seen as the enemy of a Lutheran or Orthodox political theology? Theosis should precisely not be interpreted as necessarily leading to the vision of a political realm in which theological principles carry hegemonic claims. On the contrary, it can be argued that the horizon of theosis may lead to a maximizing of pluralism, against any hegemonic tendencies buttressed by theological commitments.

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How does one avoid such tendencies, which are currently on display in the Russian Orthodox Church? By being reminded that theosis involves loving as God loves, i.e. loving not just those who are like us, but also – and primarily – the stranger and the enemy. Far from merely legitimizing all forms of political liberalism, an Orthodox political theology grounded in a robust account of theosis may help curtail some recent and current excesses in the direction of individualism and consumerism. Turning to the topic of temptation, tribulation and spiritual assaults (tentatio, Anfechtung), Elisabeth Parmentier shows how these themes relate to the theme of “experience,” including sensory experience, in Luther’s thought, notably in his teaching on the sacraments. Anfechtung is an important aspect of Luther’s theological anthropology, one that relates not so much to problems such as ill health, unfortunate or even tragic events, but rather to the presence of evil and the reality of the devil. It is the feeling of God’s abandonment. This test must in fact be welcome, for through it one may find the true manifestation of God in Christ, beyond anything which human reason and wisdom might attain. Through the experience of this test, and through it alone, in a “journey through biblical confrontation and the resulting crisis” (266), one will learn to stand by God’s Word, rejecting all of the idols of this world. Conclusion We are convinced that Orthodox and Protestants still have much to learn from, and share with, one another. Ignoring each other, as was the case so often in the past five hundred years, no longer is an option. How, and in what spirit, should they encounter each other? Georges Florovsky’s words in Athens during the First Congress of Orthodox Theology, in 1936, still indicate a promising way for Orthodox believers: the independence vis-à-vis Western people, who believe differently, must not degenerate into an estrangement from them. For breaking away from the West does not as such guarantee a true and authentic liberation. Orthodox thought too must feel and endure all of the Western difficulties and challenges (Anfechtungen), right now it can and should not bypass or ignore it. This, however, means that he must encounter the West creatively and spiritually.42 42 “Andrerseits muss die Unabhängigkeit vom andersgläubigen Westen nicht in eine Entfremdung ihm gegenüber ausarten. Denn der Bruch mit dem Westen gibt noch keine wahre und echte Befreiung. Auch der orthodoxe Gedanke muss alle westlichen Schwierigkeiten

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Florovsky’s words are not an anomaly within the realm of Orthodoxy. In 1920, the encyclical of the Ecumenical Patriarchate “Unto the Churches of Christ Everywhere” had been a clarion call for an ecumenical commitment (a “rapprochement,” as is stated in several sentences of the text) from the part of Orthodoxy with other Christians around the world.43 The Institute of Postgraduate Studies of Orthodox Theology, in Chambésy, is one among several institutions, rooted in Orthodoxy, which is promoting this kind of “encounter.”44 And there is little doubt that Protestants, too, have much to gain from learning more about Orthodoxy and from engaging in dialogue with that tradition. The present book and the conference from which it originates are two modest steps in a series of efforts which have been made these past decades. Protestants and Orthodox must continue to talk to one another, to ponder the Scriptures together, to learn from their respective traditions and practices. Both need to keep elaborating a theology which does not simply oppose tradition and modernity, but which articulates them.45 In this dialogue, we build on what has been achieved before us, but we also need to begin always anew. As Luther put it: “proficere est nihil aliud, nisi semper incipere” (“to make progress is nothing else than always to begin”).46

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Our gratitude goes to the staff at Brill, especially Ingrid Heijckers-Velt and Anita Opdam, for their remarkable work in producing this book, to the series editors for welcoming this manuscript, to the two anonymous reviewers for their

und Anfechtungen erfühlen und durchleiden, gegenwärtig kann und darf er sie nicht mehr umgehen oder totschweigen. Dies führt aber dazu, dass er dem Westen schöpferisch und geistig begegnen muss.” Florovsky, “Westliche Einflüsse,” 231. 43 For this encyclical, see Michael Kinnamon and Brian E. Cope, eds., The Ecumenical Movement. An Anthology of Key Texts and Voices (Geneva: wcc Publications, 1997), 11–14. 44 See, as case in point, this volume, the proceedings of conferences held in Chambésy in April–May 1982: Luther et la Réforme allemande dans une perspective œcuménique, vol. 3 (Chambésy/Geneva: Éditions du Centre orthodoxe du Patriarcat oecuménique, 1983). Among the contributors are Harding Meyer, Nikos Nissiotis, Heiko Oberman, Dumitru Staniloae, and (the only theologian present both in 1982 and in the present volume!) bishop Kallistos Ware. See also the Volos Academy for Theological Studies (see above, note 32) and the Orthodox Christian Studies Center at Fordham University, and several other institutions. 45 See Saarinen, “Le dialogue luthérien-orthodoxe de 2004 à 2014,” 383. 46 lw 11:477; wa 4,350,14 (Dictata super Psalterium, 1513–16; on Ps 119/118:88). Quoted by Reinhard Flogaus, below, 205.

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helpful suggestions, and last but not least to Apolline Thromas and Elio Jaillet for their very efficient work on the manuscript and the index respectively. References Aagaard, Anna Marie, and Peter Bouteneff. Beyond the East-West Divide. The World Council of Churches and “the Orthodox Problem.” Geneva: wcc Publications, 2001. Alivisatos, Hamilcar S., ed. Procès-verbaux du premier congrès de théologie orthodoxe à Athènes, 29 novembre–6 décembre 1936. Athens: Pyrsos, 1939. Asproulis, Nikolaos. “The Encounter between Eastern Orthodoxy and Lutheranism. A Historical and Theological Assessment.” The Ecumenical Review 69/2 (2017): 215–24. Ben-Tov, Asaph. Lutheran Humanists and Greek Antiquity. Melanchthonian Scholarship Between Universal History and Pedagogy. Leiden: Brill, 2009. Benz, Ernst. Wittenberg und Byzanz. Zur Begegnung und Auseinandersetzung der Reformation und der östlich-orthodoxen Kirche. 2nd ed. Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 1971. Benz, Ernst. Die Ostkirche im Lichte der protestantischen Geschichtsschreibung, von der Reformation bis zur Gegenwart. Freiburg/Munich: Karl Alber, 1952. Braaten, Carl E., and Robert W. Jenson, eds. Union with Christ. The New Finnish Interpretation of Luther. Grand Rapids/Cambridge: Eerdmans, 1998. Bretschneider, Karl Gottlieb, and Heinrich Ernst Bindseil, eds. Philippi Melanthonis Opera quae supersunt omnia. Halle: Schwetschke, 1843. La Confession de Foy de Cyrille Patriarche de Constantinople. Geneva: Pierre Aubert, 1629. Delikostantis, Konstantinos. “Un regard orthodoxe sur Martin Luther.” Unité des Chrétiens 181 (2016): 15–17. Delikostantis, Konstantinos. “Martin Luther and the Orthodox Church.” Lutheran Forum 45/3 (2011): 36–41. Delikostantis, Konstantinos. L’ethos della libertà. Translated by A. Ranzolini. Sotto il Monte: Servitium, 1997. Flogaus, Reinhard. “Eine orthodoxe Interpretation der lutherischen Lehre? Neue Erkenntnisse zur Entstehung der Confessio Augustana Graeca und ihrer Sendung an Patriarch Jeremias II.” In Orthodoxie im Dialog. Historische und aktuelle Perspektiven, edited by Reinhard Flogaus and Jennifer Wasmuth, 3–42. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2015. Florovsky, Georges. “The Orthodox Churches and the Ecumenical Movement Prior to 1910.” In A History of the Ecumenical Movement, 1517–1948, edited by Ruth Rouse and Stephen Charles Neill, 4th ed., 169–215. Geneva: World Council of Churches, 2004. Florovsky, Georges. “The Orthodox Churches and the Ecumenical Movement Prior to 1910.” In Christianity and Culture. Collected Works, 2:161–231. Belmont: Nordland, 1974.

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Florovsky, Georges. “Westliche Einflüsse in der russischen Theologie.” In Procès-verbaux du premier congrès de théologie orthodoxe à Athènes, 29 novembre–6 décembre 1936, edited by Hamilcar S. Alivisatos. Athens: Pyrsos, 1939. Göz, Wilhelm, and Ernst Conrad, eds. Diarium Martini Crusii 1596–1597. Tübingen: Laupp, 1927. Holm, Bo. “Den Luthersk-Ortodokse Dialog (1997–2000).” Nordisk Ekumenisk Orientering 3 (2002): 5–10. Jorgenson, Wayne James. “The Augustana Graeca and the Correspondence between the Tübingen Lutherans and Patriarch Jeremias.” Ph.D. diss., Boston University, 1979. Kalaitzidis, Pantelis, Thomas FitzGerald, Cyril Hovorun, Aikaterini Pekridou, Nikolaos Asproulis, Guy Liagre, and Dietrich Werner, eds. Orthodox Handbook on Ecumenism. Resources for Theological Education. Oxford: Regnum Books International, 2014. Kallis, A. “Confessio Augustana Graeca. Orthodoxie und Reformation in ihrer theologischen Begegnung (1559–1581).” In Confessio Augustana und Confutatio. Der Augsburger Reichstag 1530 und die Einheit der Kirche, edited by Erwin Iserloh and Barbara Hallensleben, 668–72. Münster: Aschendorff, 1980. Karmiris, John. Dogmatica et Symbolica Monumenta Orthodoxae Catholicae Ecclesiae. Vol. 2. Athens/Graz: Akademische Druck und Verlagsanstalt, 1968. Kinnamon, Michael, and Brian E. Cope, eds. The Ecumenical Movement. An Anthology of Key Texts and Voices. Geneva: wcc Publications, 1997. Korte, Berthold F. “Early Lutheran Relations with the Eastern Orthodox.” The Lutheran Quarterly 9/1 (1957): 53–59. Luther et la Réforme allemande dans une perspective oecuménique. Chambésy/Geneva: Éditions du Centre orthodoxe du Patriarcat oecuménique, 1983. Meimaris, Theodore. “Thirty Years of the International Theological Dialogue Between Orthodox and Lutherans (1981–2011). Evaluation and Prospects.” Nicolaus 40/1 (2013): 159–86. Meyendorff, John, and Robert Tobias, eds. Salvation in Christ. A Lutheran-Orthodox Dialogue. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1992. Nikitin, Augustin. “Orthodox-Lutheran Contacts in Russia since the Reformation.” Journal of Ecumenical Studies 23/2 (1986): 251–65. Nikitin, Augustin. “Orthodox-lutherische Beziehungen im Spiegel der Jahrhunderte. Zum 500. Geburtstag von Dr. Martin Luther.” Stimme der Orthodoxie 1 (1983). Nissiotis, Nikos. “Is There a Church Ontology in Luther’s Ecclesiology?” In Luther et la réforme allemande dans une perspective oecuménique, 403–26. Chambésy/Geneva: Éditions du Centre orthodoxe du Patriarcat oecuménique, 1983. Păvălucă, Vasilică Mugurel. “Einige schriftliche Verweise Martin Luthers auf die Ostkirche.” Review of Ecumenical Studies 9/3 (2017): 360–70. Pricop, Cosmin, and Cătălina Bogdan. From Espoo to Paphos. The Theological Dialogue of the Orthodox Churches with the Lutheran World Federation (1981–2008). Bucharest: Basilica, 2013.

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Saarinen, Risto. “Lutheran-Orthodox Joint Commission.” Accessed July 17, 2019. https:// blogs.helsinki.fi/ristosaarinen/lutheran-orthodox-dialogue/. Saarinen, Risto. “Le dialogue luthérien-orthodoxe de 2004 à 2014.” Istina 59/4 (2014): 367–86. Saarinen, Risto. “The Lutheran-Orthodox Relationships and the Future of Ecumenism.” In Lutheranism. Legacy and Future, edited by Holger Roggelin, 375–95. West Conshohocken: Infinity Publishing, 2012. Saarinen, Risto. “The Lutheran-Orthodox Joint Commission. Our Work 1994–2003.” In Cracks in the Walls. Essays on Spirituality, Ecumenicity and Ethics, edited by Else Marie Wiberg and Johannes Nissen, 121–29. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2005. Saarinen, Risto. Faith and Holiness. Lutheran-Orthodox Dialogue 1959–1994. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1997. Schmemann, Alexander. The Historical Road of Eastern Orthodoxy. Translated by Lydia W. Kesich. Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1977. Staniloae, Dumitru. “Le sens de la justification chez Luther. Quelques remarques orthodoxes.” In Luther et la Réforme allemande dans une perspective oecuménique, 185–95. Chambésy/Geneva: Éditions du Centre orthodoxe du Patriarcat oecuménique, 1983. Tempa, Tomasz. “Kyrillos Loukaris and the Confessional Problems in the PolishLithuanian Commonwealth at the Turn of the Seventeenth Century.” Acta Plonia Historica 104 (2011): 103–28. Traboulsi, Berge. “Some Aspects of Protestant-Orthodox Relations in Modern Times. A Historical Analysis.” Chronos. Revue d’histoire de l’Université de Balamand 16 (2007): 69–94. Wendebourg, Dorothea. Reformation und Orthodoxie. Der ökumenische Briefwechsel zwischen der Leitung der Württembergischen Kirche und Patriarch Jeremias II. von Konstantinopel in den Jahren 1573–1581. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1986.

Message of His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew to the International Conference on “The Anthropology of Luther – Protestant and Orthodox Approaches” (Geneva, December 7–8, 2017) Your Eminence Metropolitan Jeremiah of Switzerland, hypertimos and exarch of Europe, beloved brother and concelebrant in the Holy Spirit, Director of the Orthodox Center of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Chambésy, Geneva, grace and peace from God to your Eminence. Upon reading the letter of October 28, 2017, of your beloved Eminence that the international conference on the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, “The Anthropology of Luther – Protestant and Orthodox Approaches,” which was announced to us during our visit to our Center in Geneva last April, will take place on December 7–8, 2017, as a result of the fruitful collaboration between our Institute of Postgraduate Studies in Orthodox Theology and the Faculty of Theology at the University of Geneva, we gladly respond to your request to send a Patriarchal Message to be read at the opening of this conference. All humanity pays today a heavy price for the so-called “modern sins,” the identification of progress with the developments in technology, the destruction of the natural environment, scientism and the extreme experimentations with human nature, economism and consumerism, individualism and the rejection of precious traditions. We consider the modern crisis of values as a consequence of the understanding of freedom as autonomy of man, an understanding which is incompatible with faith in God. Let us remember that the idea of the freedom of the Christian in Luther’s work, which is sometimes regarded as a forerunner of the modern freedom of the individual, refers to freedom as gift of the Divine philanthropy, as the new existence in Christ, which is constituted in faith and is expressed through the works of love and whose association with the contemporary autonomism of freedom is inconceivable. This conference is the third scientific event taking place at the Center of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Chambésy addressing the relations between Orthodoxy and the Reformation as its main theme. The first of these conferences, titled “Luther and the German Reformation in an Ecumenical Perspective,” took place on the occasion of the 500th anniversary of Luther’s birth, in 1983, and the second one occurred in relation to the celebration of the 500th anniversary of John Calvin’s birthday, in 2009.

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His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew

The Reformation not only transformed the Western Church, but also affected the whole of Christianity, as well as the history of European and universal culture. Even the Eastern Church was confronted from the very beginning with the implications of the Reformation. Indeed, the relations between Orthodox and Protestant Christians are as old as the Reformation itself. These relations have entered a decisive phase in our contemporary time, through the cooperation within the World Council of Churches and through the inauguration of bilateral theological dialogues. The Ecumenical Patriarchate has followed and follows with great interest and attention the events and publications on the occasion of the celebration of the anniversary of the Reformation and promises to evaluate their theological significance for the inter-Christian dialogues. We would like to remind the participants in the conference that the Orthodox Church is not merely a guest in the ecumenical movement, but a co-founder and co-fashioner of it, with very important contributions to its development. We also mention that the Holy and Great Council – convened in Crete in June 2016 – underlined the will of the Orthodox Church to continue the inter-Christian dialogues, having as immovable goal “the ultimate restoration of unity in true faith and love” (Relations of the Orthodox Church with the Rest of the Christian World, § 12). At the bestowal upon us of the title of Doctor honoris causa by the Evangelical Theological Faculty of the University of Tübingen, during our official visit to the Evangelical Church of Germany on the occasion of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, with regard to the relations between Orthodoxy and Protestantism we said the following: “The dialogue of the Orthodox Church with the Lutheran World Federation, the bilateral dialogues between the Orthodox Autocephalous Churches and the local Evangelical Churches, the longstanding cooperation within the World Council of Churches and the Conference of European Churches, the everyday ‘dialogue of life’ of Christians in many parts of the world, are very hopeful signs.” Furthermore, we emphasized that we continue “with prudence” the bilateral dialogues “also on the emerging complex anthropological and moral problems.” Of course, the new emphasis on the anthropological and moral issues within the ecumenical dialogues has been characterized as a “paradigm shift” in the ecumenical movement. These issues not only encumber the interecclesiastical relations, but also lead to tensions and schisms even within the various Churches and Confessions. Very often, the impression is created that the relevant theological statements are founded more upon unilateral interpretations of the individual human rights than upon the core beliefs of the Christian tradition and upon the eternal destination of man. Unfortunately, it is forgotten that between the freedom coram Deo, which Luther regarded

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as “epitome of the Gospel” and as central notion of theological anthropology, and the arrogant freedom of the contemporary “man-god,” there is an unbridgeable gap. As it was aptly said, the central duty of theology before these facts is the development of a Christian anthropology on the basis of genuine theological criteria. With these thoughts, we greet from the Sacred Center of Orthodoxy the realization of this important Conference, we cordially congratulate the coordinators, we wish the guest speakers every success, fruitful deliberations and expedient outcomes, invoking upon all of you the illumination of the Holy Spirit of wisdom, prudence and communion in Truth and Love. + Bartholomew of Constantinople, beloved brother in Christ December 4, 2017

Greeting to the Participants of the Conference on “Luther’s Anthropology: Protestant and Orthodox Perspectives,” Institut d’études supérieures en théologie orthodoxe, Chambésy, and Faculté de théologie, Université de Genève, December 7–8, 2017 Honorable organizers and participants of the conference, dear brothers and sisters in Christ, I would like to extend my cordial greetings to all of you on the occasion of the conference on “Luther’s Anthropology: Protestant and Orthodox Perspectives,” which is being held in such a significant year for the Lutheran World Federation. The quincentenary of the Reformation has given an impulse not only to member churches of the Lutheran World Federation, but also to our ecumenical partners to explore what is Martin Luther’s legacy for today and how it has found an expression in different contexts. The Lutheran World Federation’s theme both for the 12th Assembly as well as the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, “Liberated by God’s Grace,” has helped us to explore this legacy within our communion. It expresses in succinct and accessible way the core message of the doctrine of justification, which states that we are saved and freed by God’s grace through faith only. It is not because of who we are and what we do, but because of who God is and what God does, that those receiving and apprehending this message know about their salvation and the freedom into which they are called. Luther’s theological insight, which he found in the biblical witness, particularly of the Pauline letters, challenges until this very day all human hubris with its perennial attempts of self-justification and self-righteousness. In line with this, the theme “Liberated by God’s grace” also presents a second aspect that is key to the Lutheran understanding of justification by grace through faith alone. It is the notion of freedom (liberated). According to the Lutheran understanding, God’s justifying action does not only free the person from self-justification and self-righteousness, but frees it also for something. In Lutheran theology, justification and freedom are like inseparable twins. Accordingly, a church proclaiming the Good News of salvation because of Christ, will also be a church always inviting into the wide space of freedom into which God invites those touched by God’s redeeming action. This freedom,

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however, is never to be understood as an arbitrary, unanswerable and selfdriven freedom, but is a responsible freedom which identifies its boundaries in the service to God and the neighbor. Luther was convinced that faith does not completely wipe out the power of sin in this life. Also believers, due to their conditio humana, repeatedly turn to false gods and do not love God with undivided love. In earthly life, a Christian thus is and remains therefore simul iustus et peccator (a justified and a sinner at the same time). Luther’s theological anthropology may sometimes seem dim and pessimistic, but it can also be seen as liberating and healing. I would like to express my genuine joy about the theme of your conference and the topics of the presentations that help to explore several questions just mentioned. I am truly grateful that this conference is organized jointly by the Institute of Advanced Studies in Orthodox Theology in Chambésy and the Faculty of Theology at the University of Geneva. Luther and his heritage do not belong to one church tradition only, and his legacy reaches beyond the borders of one confessional family. May this conference be fruitful and enable discussions between different perspectives on Luther’s anthropology, understanding of Christian freedom and the role of a Christian in society. With cordial greetings, Rev. Dr. Martin Junge General Secretary, The Lutheran World Federation

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chapter 1

Sola Fide: A Hermeneutical Approach John Zizioulas

Introduction

The Reformation appeared as an event within the history of Western Christianity. The Eastern Churches were at that time pre-occupied with their own problems, trying to survive in the midst of external pressures from nonChristian secular powers and to safeguard their internal unity and faithfulness to their tradition. To the eyes of the Orthodox of that time, the Reformation was an exclusively Western affair about which, given the limitations of communication at that time and the information available, the interest in it was limited. Thus, when Melanchthon tried in 1559 to inform the Ecumenical Patriarch Joasaph ii about the teaching of the Reformers by sending him a letter with a copy of the Augsburg Confession in Greek translation, he received no reply. It was only later, during the first patriarchal period of Jeremias ii (1572–1579) and at the initiative of the Tübingen theological faculty, that a correspondence between Protestant and Orthodox theologians was initiated, but the whole enterprise was destined to become part of the confessional confrontations which forced the Orthodox to establish their own confessional identity vis-àvis Protestantism and Roman Catholicism. At the same time, the missionary zeal by which the above Western confessions tried to win over the Orthodox led the latter to an exclusivist and defensive attitude toward the former which still survives in some conservative Orthodox circles. In such a polemical and apologetic context, in which each side tried to find reasons and arguments against the other, it was naturally difficult for the Orthodox to see and say anything positive about the Reformation. Today, for those at least who wish to liberate history from a deadly imprisonment to the past and open it up to the present and the future, it is not only possible but even natural and imperative to approach the Reformation in a more positive spirit. The Reformation was a movement and an attempt to listen and to respond to the Word and will of God, and as such it carries a message that still demands our attention and theological evaluation. In the present paper, I shall try to look at the theological message of the Reformation by concentrating particularly on one of its fundamental claims: the prominence of faith in Christian existence. The principle sola fide, which © John Zizioulas, 2021 | doi:10.1163/9789004461253_002 This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license.

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constituted one of Luther’s theological and spiritual axioms, carries an importance that transcends the polemical context in which it historically appeared. Sola fide must not be approached from the angle of what it denies (as an opposition to salvation through works and merit), but as a positive statement which carries in itself an existential significance. Fides is not one aspect of Christian existence, next or in opposition to another one; it is Christian existence itself. It is not faith and works, or faith without works, but works within faith. Luther himself is anxious to make it clear that, in stressing the priority of faith, he does not exclude the works but he wants to speak “of the good works of faith”: “The fact of the matter is that I want very much to teach the real good works which spring from faith.”1 Equally, we may imply, it is not faith and/or reason (the traditional scheme of medieval theology), but reason within faith. The term sola does not imply a rejection and an exclusiveness, but indicates the decisive factor without which all other factors lose their meaning – or, putting it positively, within (and only within) which they acquire their meaning. This is the challenge of sola fide that extends beyond the sixteenth century historical situation and calls for a hermeneutic that can give the Reformation an existential significance also for our time. Luther was a Western theologian, and although he revolted against Scholasticism, he could not but be conditioned by it in his way of thinking. One of the hypothetical questions that come to one’s mind is: what would the Reformation look like had the West and the East remained united as they were in the first millennium? Such a question acquires a crucial significance in our ecumenical context. For the essence of ecumenism is the willingness and the effort to recover a catholic ethos by which East and West can converse with each other in an attempt to make the Gospel relevant in our time. As an Orthodox, therefore, I cannot but put Luther’s theology in the light of my own tradition. I propose, in particular, to raise the question of how Luther’s sola fide principle would look if it were placed in the light of certain Greek patristic ideas relating to eschatology, anthropology and ecclesiology, and what philosophical implications can be derived from it. By so doing, I hope to offer some suggestions toward a hermeneutic of the Reformation in an existentially relevant theology.

1 Martin Luther, “Treatise on Good Works,” in lw 44 (ed. B. Atkinson; trans. W.A. Lambert; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1966), 24.

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Faith as Freedom: the Ontological Dimension of Faith Can God bring it about that what has been shall not have been? If, for example, it is firmly established that a virgin was corrupted, would it be impossible that she become again unspotted? This, as far as nature is concerned, is certainly true, and the judgement stands … For contraries in one and the same subject cannot agree. This will further rightly be characterized as impossible if reference is made to the impotence of nature. Yet far be it that this be applied to the divine majesty. For He who gave nature its origin can, if He wishes, easily take away the necessity of nature. For He who rules over the created things does not stand under the laws of the Creator and He who created nature turns the natural order according to His own creative will.2

These provocative words of Peter Damian introduce us to the subject of faith as an ontological category. Faith is often understood in psychological terms. The sense of “trust” is regularly invoked to indicate its meaning. Such an approach to faith makes it easy to bypass the difficult problem that marked Western theology, particularly since its encounter with Greek philosophy: can faith be reconciled with reason? Can faith contradict the fundamental laws of nature and, therefore, of reason? Ancient Greek philosophy, particularly since Aristotle’s discussion of the idea of knowledge, enslaved the human mind to the logic of non-contradiction: in so far as something is, it cannot not be; in so far as we affirm, we cannot simultaneously deny. As stated by Aristotle: “The same attribute cannot at the same time belong and not belong to the same thing and in the same respect.”3 Reality is a given that must be necessarily recognized and accepted, if it is to be known. Ever since it encountered Hellenic philosophy, Christian theology was forced to wrestle with the problem of the relation between faith and reason. This became particularly acute since St. Augustine and during the entire period of the Middle Ages. The well-known phrases fides quaerens intellectum and credo ut intelligam, which were the basis of Anselm’s reflections, indicate that understanding (reason) cannot be divorced from faith: the more you believe,

2 Peter Damian, De divina omnipotentia 10 (pl 145:611–12). Quoted by Étienne Gilson, L’esprit de la philosophie médiévale (Paris: Vrin, 1969), 358s. 3 Aristotle, Metaphysics 4,3. 1005b. 19–20.

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the more you want to show it, or to convince yourself (and others) about it by appeal to reason.4 It lies beyond our purpose here to deal with the history of the subject of the relation of faith to reason in any detail. Suffice it to mention the position of Thomas Aquinas on the rights of reason in matters of faith, expressed in the following words: “Only that is excluded from the divine omnipotence which contradicts the reason or essence of being, that is, that something at the same time be and not be; and something that is of a similar nature is that something not have been that has been.”5 Divine omnipotence stops at the threshold of reality, of what is already there. God cannot undo what God has done; God would not contradict the exigencies of nature which God freely created: God, “precisely because He is God, cannot act irrationally and contradict Himself.”6 “That that which has been should not have been – with the contradiction that it implies – is not subject to the divine power.” Even Duns Scotus, the passionate defender of divine omnipotence, could not go so far as to deny God the principle of non-contradiction: “the absolute omnipotence of God (potentia dei absoluta) applies to everything which does not involve contradiction.”7 It is against this background of the struggle to reconcile faith with reason and make the former acceptable to the latter, that we must place and judge Luther’s insistence on sola fide. Luther was not a philosopher in the sense of rational philosophy, and he openly rejected not only Aquinas but Aristotle himself. His sola fide and his tenebrae fidei, ubi nec lex, nec ratio lucet (the darkness of faith where neither law nor reason shines)8 seem to imply an open rejection of all philosophical thought. He avoided to speculate, and his insistence on the exclusiveness of faith was essentially a denial of the idea of salvation by works. The arguments he produced were based exclusively on Scripture (sola scriptura), and not on reason. Yet, this insistence on sola fide may itself involve or lead to a philosophy, perhaps against Luther’s intentions. It is to such a philosophical significance of the Reformer’s sola fide that I propose to comment in the lines that follow, bringing up at the same time the reasons why this theological principle did not lead to the overcoming of the dichotomy between faith and reason in Luther’s theology. The philosophical significance of sola fide lies in its import for ontology. Being was for Greek philosophy a datum. All reasoning springs from the recognition 4 5 6 7 8

Cf. Gilson, L’esprit de la philosophie médiévale, 29s. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, i, q. 25, art. 2. Frederick Charles Copleston, Aquinas (Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1955), 213. Duns Scotus, Opus Oxoniense ii, 17, n. 18. lw 26:113–14 (Lectures on Galatians, 1535; on Gal 2:13).

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of what is already there, whether this is a general idea, in the Platonic way of thinking, or the concrete reality which is grasped by our senses, as Aristotle would prefer. From this basic assumption follow certain ontological principles. One is that human thought cannot undo or deny what is already there; being precedes our thought and whatever we do or say must correspond to what is already there. This leads to the absolute ontological sovereignty of the fact: whatever is done cannot be undone or denied. Another principle that follows from this classical ontology is that of noncontradiction, to which we have already referred. What is already there (the fact) cannot be contradicted by its opposite. This is the logical consequence of the previous principle: since we cannot undo or deny a fact, we cannot contradict it by its opposite. Both of these ontological principles were, as we have seen, adopted by Medieval scholasticism. Not even the omnipotent God can undo the past or contradict what is already there. The adoption of Aristotelianism by Aquinas and the application of being to the idea of God led to an ontology that bound God himself to the necessity of the “fact,” making God unable to undo whatever is there and thereby contradict being. At the same time, as a result, human reason was enslaved to reality, forcing the intellect to adjust itself to what is already there: adaequatio rei et intellectus. It was this kind of ontology that was implicitly attacked by the principle of sola fide. Luther, without intending to philosophize, shook the foundations of Greek and Scholastic ontology by writing in his commentary on the epistle to the Galatians: [God] sent His Son into the world, heaped all the sins of all men upon Him [Jesus Christ], and said to Him: “Be Peter the denier; Paul the persecutor, blasphemer, and assaulter; David the adulterer; the sinner who ate the apple in Paradise; the thief on the cross. In short, be the person of all men, the one who has committed the sins of all men.”9 Can the sins of the past be undone? Can what has already happened (a “fact”) cease to exist? Luther does not operate with categories of ontology, but he nevertheless provokes the ontological question in our minds. He does not, of course, speak openly of the annihilation of the past realities (sins). Being conditioned by his Western (medieval) tradition of substitution, he prefers to transfer the past (to Christ), rather than annihilate it. Nevertheless, the removal itself of the past even by way of substitution is a scandal to Greek philosophy, 9 lw 26:280 (Lectures on Galatians 1535); on Gal 3:13.

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for it implies its annihilation with regard to a particular subject. And this is already a big step away from classical Greek and medieval ontology. This direction is the right one because it is leading ontology towards its emancipation from the bondage of necessity, i.e. towards freedom. Greek ontology enslaved human being to the past, to facticity, to fate. In accepting and applying this ontology to theology, medieval scholasticism extended this enslavement to God himself. By stressing divine grace as a totally unconditional reality, Luther introduced freedom in its absolute sense into God’s being. The way was already paved by St. Augustine in his fight against Pelagius, but it was forgotten in the meantime under the impact of ancient Greek thought on Christian theology. God had to be liberated from the bondage to the already existing, to facticity – a liberation that Luther applied not so much to God’s being, or to being as such, as to God’s acting, particularly with regard to sin and its forgiveness. Luther is known for his sensitivity to the idea of freedom. He signed as Eleutherius in order to make this sensitivity apparent. His views on freedom, as expounded in his De servo arbitrio, give the impression that Luther is interested in the freedom of God rather than in human freedom. Leaving aside the disputed question whether Luther allows any freedom to the human being, or sacrifices it in fact for the sake of the freedom of God, we must take note of the association of sola fide with another principle: sola gratia. Sola fide and sola gratia are two sides of the same coin; they both point to freedom from the given, from the “fact.” Grace, in its Pauline meaning recaptured by Luther, points to freedom as liberation from the fact of sin, a liberation that applies both to God and to the human being. The facticity of sin does not bind God’s grace which can undo it, while the human being is free from the obligation to pay for it. What has been done is, thus, undone, and what has happened is non-existent. We may call this the ontological scandal of grace, which is another form of the scandal of faith. But although this does imply a form of ontology, it does not tackle directly the problem of faith’s relation to reason which has dominated Christian theology for centuries. Luther’s preoccupation with freedom from sin (rather than from reality as such) did not allow him to work out a solution to the problem of the relation between faith and reason. This task was undertaken by a Lutheran theologian of a later time, Søren Kierkegaard. Building on Luther’s sola fide,10 this philosopher drew the consequences from 10 Kierkegaard denies having read Luther’s works, but the Reformer’s influence on his thought, which came to him from his upbringing and education in a heavily Lutheran environment, must have been strong.

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it with regard to reason by proposing the idea of the absurd as the only alternative to faith. At about the same time, an Orthodox thinker, Fyodor Dostoevsky, being passionately concerned with the threat that reason presents to freedom, devotes almost his whole work to this subject.11 Renowned Protestant theologians, such as Karl Barth, rely on the Kierkegaardian logic of the paradox in dealing with faith and reason. Sola fide has proved to be seminal for philosophy, but the either/or relation between faith and reason still survives. A reason within faith is still an open challenge to theology and philosophy. 2

Faith as Promise: the Eschatological Dimension of Faith

Luther’s preoccupation with the problem of sin led him to put the emphasis on the cross as the decisive and, in a sense, the ultimate point in salvation. In The Bondage of the Will, Luther speaks of three lights which illuminate human existence: the light of nature, where reason and common sense suffice to solve many of the questions of everyday life; the light of grace, by which the revelation in Scripture gave humanity knowledge of God which was otherwise unattainable; and the light of glory, which belongs to the future, when the questions which Scripture has left unanswered will find their answers.12 Of these three lights it is, according to Luther, the second one that we must seek. It is in the theology of the cross that we find all that God wanted us to know. Seeking the theology of glory amounts to an attempt to know God as God is in himself by speculation or mystical experience, both of which are rejected by Luther, since God has revealed himself only in Christ and his cross.13 It is clear from this that Luther differs fundamentally from the Eastern tradition, which speaks a great deal about the vision of God “as God is,” even of the vision of divine light, which the hesychastic tradition stresses so much. The notion of theosis, as developed in the East, appears to be incompatible with Luther’s teaching. 11 The affinity of thought between Luther, Kierkegaard and Dostoevsky is brought up and discussed in depth by Lev Shestov. See his Athens and Jerusalem, ed. Ramona Fotiade and Bernard Martin, trans. Bernard Martin, 2nd ed. (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2016); and Kierkegaard et la philosophie existentielle, 3rd ed. (Paris: Vrin, 2006) esp. chap. 17. 12 Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will, 1525, ed. and trans. O.R. Johnston and J.I. Packer (Grand Rapids: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1957). Cf. Brian Albert Gerrish, Grace and Reason. A Study in the Theology of Luther (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962), 171. 13 See Luther, First Disputation Against the Anomians [1537], quoted in Philip S Watson, Let God Be God! An Interpretation of the Theology of Martin Luther (London: Epworth Press, 1947), 95.

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This, however, is not the only difficulty that the above position of Luther on eschatology presents. The belief that salvation is accomplished with the cross leaves us wonder about the importance of the resurrection for our salvation. The problem is twofold: a) is the overcoming of death a problem as serious for Luther as the forgiveness of sins? And b) does the view that all that is needed for our salvation is accomplished on the cross not orientate our existence towards the past rather than the future? Both of these questions relate to the way we understand faith. With regard to the first question, Luther’s position seems to imply that our faith is in a God who saves us from sin as from our most serious problem. There are indications in Luther’s teaching of an anthropology which considers the soul as sufficient for the establishment of human identity, and, consequently, of an eschatology of the survival, judgment etc. of our souls. This may be traced to St. Augustine, who seems to speak of the future Kingdom as a place inhabited by souls, but it appears to be contrary to the teaching of St. Irenaeus and the Greek Fathers. There seems to be in Luther’s teaching a dichotomy between the “outer” and the “inner” man based on an interpretation of the well-known Pauline distinction which the reformer understands in the following way: “Man has a twofold nature, a spiritual and a bodily one. According to the spiritual nature, which men refer to as the soul, he is called a spiritual, inner, or new man. According to the bodily nature, which men refer to as flesh, he is called a carnal, outward, or old man […].”14 Might this imply that for Luther the restoration of the body through the resurrection is not as important as the cross for our salvation? I leave the answer to those who are more knowledgeable about Luther than myself. With regard to the second question, namely the view that all that is needed for our salvation is to be found on the cross, does this not orient our faith towards the past rather than the future? The issue at stake is crucial for the definition of faith: what does faith consists in? The most explicit definition of faith to be found in the Bible comes from the epistle to the Hebrews. In Heb 11:1, faith is defined as “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (kjv). Continuing in the same chapter the author of the epistle refers to figures of the Old Testament who had accepted by faith the promises of God which would be realized in the future. The outstanding example is Abraham who, following God’s call, undertook a 14 Martin Luther, Von der Freiheit eines Christenmenschen, in wa 7,21,12–15 (lw 31:344), quoted by Konstantinos Delikostantis, “Ἡ ἐσωτερικότητα τῆς ἐλευθερίας κατά τόν Λούθηρο καί ἡ φιλοσοφική ἀμφισβήτησή της στήν ἐποχή μας,” Parnassos 27 (1985): 295–308.

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journey into the unknown (“not knowing where he was going”; 11:8, nrsv), to a place which would be shown to him in the future. Faith has an eschatological orientation; it is looking forward, not backward like Lot’s wife. The futureoriented faith was developed by St. Maximus the Confessor in the 7th century into an elaborate theology of the human being’s call and destiny, which Adam refused to fulfill, thus turning the Fall essentially into a matter of faith. Did the future orientation of the faith cease with the coming of Christ? Was the promise fulfilled and, instead of looking forward, we are now called to look backward to an accomplished and finished event? The question is no longer a rhetorical one if we consider what has actually happened to Christian theology in the current time. Faith has acquired the sense of our acceptance of truths (doctrines) formulated in the past or of the past events such as the Last Supper in the Eucharist conceived as an anamnesis of the past, which caused heated debates in the Reformation. The eschatological orientation has been restricted to the individual’s fate after death, while the expectation of the Second Coming of Christ and the resurrection of the body have become so weak as to almost disappear from the faith of the believers. The idea that the cross is the accomplishment and the highest point in God’s saving acts appears to be biblical, especially in reading St. Paul’s letters, but a careful examination of the biblical evidence shows that in the faith of the first Christian communities the acceptance of the kerygma of the resurrection was the prevailing one. The cross was undoubtedly at the heart of the apostolic kerygma, but it was followed and qualified by the resurrection. The Gospel contains a new promise to which faith is called to respond, namely that Christ will come again to raise us from the dead. In the Christian faith the abolishment of death is at least as important as the forgiveness of our sins. Putting the accent almost exclusively on the cross deprives faith of its eschatological orientation and makes it a matter of accepting an event of the past, of a fact verifiable by our senses. The definition of faith given in Heb 11:1 seems to point in a different direction. Luther’s staurocentric approach to sola fide seems to restrict the scope of faith to the destiny of humanity alone. It is, of course, true that only humans have faith, but the object and content of faith cannot be limited to the interests of humanity. Christ did not come to save only the human being, but the entire creation through humanity. “Creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Rom 8:21 nrsv). This is guaranteed by the resurrection and it concerns the future, the eschata. Faith, thus, turns humanity towards its cosmic destiny – an idea we seem to miss in Luther.

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Faith as Communion: the Ecclesiological Dimension of Faith

Accepting the principle sola fide does not mean for Luther that we exclude love: “a Christian is one who practices faith and love.” Love is here equivalent to “works of love,” and in this sense it must be understood as something not parallel to faith, or independent of it, but as deriving from faith, as existing within faith.15 Luther has been accused of acute individualism, even, by some, as the one who introduced individualism in Christian theology and life.16 The reason is precisely his insistence on sola fide: in making his decision of faith, the human being is absolutely alone before God. When Luther wants to explain what an individual is, he does so by pointing out that when you die, it is you who die, and no one else can do this for you.17 The individual is before God, stripped of all social attributes, abstracted, as a dying person is abstracted from all his social relations. Faith is a decision, a choice between God and what is not God, and decisions can be made only by an individual. This conception of faith is extended to its ultimate philosophical consequences – no doubt under Lutheran influence – by Kierkegaard, who describes existence in terms of either/or choices leading to impasses, paradoxes and absurdities for rationality and ethics. Abraham, the father of faith, is presented in Fear and Trembling as the individual par excellence, who does not speak about his decision to sacrifice Isaac even to his closest relatives, precisely because the act of faith must not be communicated to and shared by others, so that it may not fall under the category of the “general” which is inevitable in all language and communication. Abraham decides and acts alone – this is what faith requires. Underneath Luther’s individualism lies an anthropology of the thinking subject which may be traced back to St. Augustine. This great thinker is the first one in the history of Christian theology who writes Confessions, by which he turns himself into the depth of his soul and addresses God by way of selfexamination and introspection. Luther, an Augustinian by formation, similarly operates with an anthropology of the “inner man” whom he identifies with the human soul in which he locates the decision of faith. The soul is the most individual characteristic of human being, since no one else can claim it and, most importantly, since it survives death: “the soul lives also well without a 15 See note 1, above. 16 Thus Alasdair C. MacIntyre, A Short History of Ethics, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge, 1998), 117–18. 17 MacIntyre, A Short History of Ethics, 121.

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body” and will give account to God for one’s earthly life in the future judgment. As Konstantinos Delikostantis has pointed out, it is in the light of the distinction between the “outer” (body) and the “inner” (soul) man that we can also understand Luther’s idea of human freedom: the human being is made free by the word of God who addresses the inner man, i.e. his soul.18 Individualism and psychocentrism in Luther’s anthropology explain why faith for him is a decision that each one is called to make alone before God. All this takes us to the consideration of a major problem that I have tried to discuss elsewhere (in my Being as Communion): is the notion of “individual” the same as that of person? Luther seems to think that it is. In one of his references to this term, he relates it to faith by calling it its result: “Fides […] facit personam.”19 Given that, as we have already noted, faith is a decision that we can make only by standing alone before God, “person” and “individual” must be identical in Luther’s mind. This identification of the two terms would be a natural one for a Western theologian, since it had become common in the West from the time of Boethius’ definition of person as individua substantia naturae rationabilis. But whereas for fathers such as St. Augustine (and, of course, the Cappadocians) the term persona was a relational category which would exclude any isolation in one’s existence, it does not seem to be so for Luther, at least with regard to faith. The problem, therefore, with which Luther leaves us with regard to faith is how to accommodate it in an understanding of personhood as a relational category, which means finally how to make it an integral part of ecclesiology. There is in Luther’s teaching an extensive treatment of the Church, and it would be unfair to disregard or dismiss his use of the idea of communio in his ecclesiology. His ecclesiology is marked heavily by Pneumatology, and he takes a position against isolation when he asserts that the Spirit is the one who saves from isolation and leads to communion and the diakonia of the others.20 How can this ecclesiology of communion be reconciled with the individualistic approach to faith as expounded above? 18 See note 14 above. 19 Die Zirkulardisputation de veste nuptiale (1537), wa 39/i:283,16. As Eberhard Jüngel remarks, this is meant by Luther as a rejection of a long tradition going back to Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics, according to which we become just by doing just acts: opus non facit personam; quod persona sit facta per fidem a Deo, Luther claims. See Eberhard Jüngel, Justification: The Heart of the Christian Faith. A Theological Study with an Ecumenical Purpose, trans. Jeffrey F. Cayzer (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2001), 247. 20 See e.g. his “Large Catechism,” in Theodore G. Tappert, ed., The Book of Concord. The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, trans. Theodore G. Tappert (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1959), 415–18.

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I am not sure I have the answer to this question, as I am not a specialist of Luther. In trying to relate Luther to my own tradition, I can only state that since none of us exists or can exist in isolation from the others, faith itself can operate only relationally. Faith does not precede communion; it takes place within it. Faith is a gift of the Spirit through the Church. We can say “I believe” only as part of “We believe” (the original form of the baptismal creeds was in the first-person plural). Any act of faith that does not involve simultaneously communion is not genuinely Christian faith. In confessing Christ, we confess at the same time the Church. Here lies, perhaps, a problem or a difficulty: can Christ be so closely (ontologically) united with the Church that he would be inconceivable without it? I fear that the Reformation, either because it had to fight and correct the excessive ecclesiocentricism of Rome, or because it had inherited from Scholasticism a priority of Christology in relation to Pneumatology (cf. the filioque), was led to a sharp distinction between faith in Christ (which could be individual) and belonging to the Church in the Spirit (which would be personal-relational). There is a strong Christocentric mysticism in Luther, but it is tied up with the individual’s forgiveness of his or her sins.21

Conclusion

I have tried to offer some personal remarks on the significance of Luther’s sola fide and its bearing upon the encounter of the Reformation theology with my own tradition, as I understand it, with regard to the subject of faith. Luther’s principle of sola fide is full of significant implications for theology and Christian existence. If extracted from the polemical and apologetical context in which it appeared historically, this principle raises questions that continue to be relevant for our time, not only within our ecumenical discussions but also for our existential approach to the Gospel. With this principle, Luther liberated God from the bondage to reason and to facticity to which God is enslaved by our common sense rationality, thus raising freedom to its absolute and unconditional character. God can not only do, but also undo things, particularly the facts of human sins, by transferring them 21

See for example, how Luther comments on John 6:56, in Sermons on the Gospel of John, lw 23:144s: “Now this is a precious dwelling place […] that through faith in Christ and through our eating we, poor sinners, have Him abiding in us […]. But now since you have received forgiveness of sins you are not worried about the devil.”

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to his Son and annihilating them on the cross. Faith in God means, therefore, faith in the crucified Christ. This extreme stauro-centricity, we observed, raises questions about the importance of the resurrection, both of Christ and of ourselves, in the eschaton and ultimately for the divine economy as a whole. Faith as promise, which is also an idea of the Reformation, should not stop with the acceptance of the cross and acquire only the significance of the revelation of what was accomplished at Golgotha. The eschatological significance of faith as an orientation to a future that will add something new, different and important, particularly through the abolition of death and the resurrection of the body, is at least as important for our existence as the remission of our sins. Finally, we have noted that the ecclesiological dimension of faith is present in Luther’s theology in the form of communio sanctorum as the society of the true believers. The faith of the individual is the prerequisite of belonging to the communion of the Spirit; the individual precedes the community. Faith occurs primarily at the level of the “I,” and culminates in the “we.” This raises the question of the relation between Christology and Pneumatology as a central one in ecumenical theology. It also brings up the anthropological question of the relation between the notions of “individual” and “person.” A hermeneutic of Luther’s theology would demand placing his thought in the light of these questions. References Copleston, Frederick Charles. Aquinas. Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1955. Delikostantis, Konstantinos. “Ἡ ἐσωτερικότητα τῆς ἐλευθερίας κατά τόν Λούθηρο καί ἡ φιλοσοφική ἀμφισβήτησή της στήν ἐποχή μας.” Parnassos 27 (1985): 295–308. Gerrish, Brian Albert. Grace and Reason. A Study in the Theology of Luther. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962. Gilson, Étienne. L’esprit de la philosophie médiévale. Paris: Vrin, 1969. Jüngel, Eberhard. Justification: The Heart of the Christian Faith. A Theological Study with an Ecumenical Purpose. Translated by Jeffrey F. Cayzer. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2001. Luther, Martin. The Bondage of the Will, 1525. Edited and translated by O.R. Johnston and J.I. Packer. Grand Rapids: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1957. MacIntyre, Alasdair C. A Short History of Ethics. 2nd ed. London: Routledge, 1998. Shestov, Lev. Athens and Jerusalem. Edited by Ramona Fotiade and Bernard Martin. Translated by Bernard Martin. 2nd ed. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2016. Shestov, Lev. Kierkegaard et la philosophie existentielle. 3rd ed. Paris: Vrin, 2006.

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Tappert, Theodore G., ed. The Book of Concord. The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Translated by Theodore G. Tappert. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1959. Watson, Philip S. Let God Be God! An Interpretation of the Theology of Martin Luther. London: Epworth Press, 1947.

part 2

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chapter 2

Imago Dei: God’s Grace and Distance Perspectives for a Lutheran-Orthodox Dialogue Beate Bengard

Introduction

The anniversary of the Reformation in 2017 offered an occasion to reflect on various fundamental aspects of Martin Luther’s theology. In December of that year, a colloquium in Geneva and Chambésy brought the theological anthropology of the Reformer into focus and at the same time opened an ecumenical perspective by inviting Protestant and Orthodox scholars to study Luther’s work together.1 The task of the following contribution is to outline a specific aspect of Lutheran anthropology, namely Luther’s interpretation of Gen 1:26 – the discourse of man and women created in the image of God (imago Dei). There is no single, systematic account of this idea in Luther’s work; instead, it appears in various places in his writings. In the presentation that follows, we will discuss the idea of the image of God in two of Luther’s texts – the Disputatio de Homine of 15362 and the Lectures on Genesis of 1535–45.3 We will show that Luther embarks on nothing less than a fundamental reinterpretation of this theme. The theology of his predecessors is revolutionized by Luther’s assertion that the imago Dei in human beings has been completely and irrevocably lost. In order to make plausible the Christian hope for salvation despite this radical dogmatic claim, Luther opts for a special form of theological speech – narrative theology. We will describe the train of thought that Luther’s argumentation follows before showing in a second step the significance of the idea 1 L‘anthropologie de Luther: Perspectives protestantes et orthodoxes. Conference at the Institut d’études supérieures en théologie orthodoxe (Chambésy) and the Faculté de théologie de l’Université de Genève, 7th–8th December 2017. 2 Martin Luther, “The Disputation Concerning Man, 1536,” in Luther’s Works (hereafter lw), vol. 34, ed. Lewis W. Spitz (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1966), 133–44. When using the Latin term “homo” Martin Luther refers to both men and women. To illustrate this reality, which risks to remain unclear if “homo” is simply translated as “man,” this contribution mostly uses inclusive language. 3 lw 1 (Lectures on Genesis 1–5), ed. Jaroslav Pelikan (Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1958). © Beate Bengard, 2021 | doi:10.1163/9789004461253_003 This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license.

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of imago Dei for his understanding of corporeality and sexuality – a topic that has only been more widely explored in recent years. Finally, in a third step, an ecumenical comparison will be made between the position of Luther and modern Orthodox anthropology as presented at the colloquium. We will show that Luther’s fundamental theological decisions still entail clear differences to the presentation of Orthodox anthropology and that recent developments in Protestant theology offer better prospects for finding common ground about the question of imago Dei. 1

Disputatio de homine

In 1536, Martin Luther provided a precise and comprehensive definition of the human being in the 40 theses of his Disputatio de homine (Disputation Concerning Man).4 This relatively short text contains the most important elements of Luther’s anthropology. The decisive element for the definition is found in thesis 32: 32. Paul in Romans 3[:28], “We hold that a man is justified by faith apart from works,” briefly sums up the definition of man, saying, “Man is justified by faith.”5 Human beings owe their existence completely and continuously to God’s attention; in other words they are justified by God and cannot justify themselves. But through the Fall, Adam and Eve and with them the whole of humanity turned away from God and cannot re-establish the relationship with God by their own efforts. After the Fall the special relationship of humans with God persists and they continue to depend on God’s care. Only by the gift of God’s salvation in Jesus Christ can this broken relationship be healed. As the text of the Disputatio also shows, Luther opens a discussion with his theological colleagues in the field of anthropology. Interestingly, he characterizes the dispute as a conflict between theology and philosophy, although in fact it is a conflict between theologians, some of whom, in Luther’s view, have got too close to philosophy. According to Luther, the anthropological approaches of the two disciplines are fundamentally different. While philosophy describes humans according to their external appearance, that is to say, according to the earthly reality in which humans differ from animals through reason and 4 lw 34:133–44. 5 lw 34:139.

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freedom of choice, theology focuses on the “cause” (causa) of the human being. Theology therefore does not describe men and women by reference to their earthly deeds or their natural predispositions, but as God’s creatures: 20. Theology to be sure from the fullness of its wisdom defines man as whole and perfect: 21. Namely, that man is a creature of God consisting of body and a living soul, made in the beginning after the image of God, without sin, so that he should procreate and rule over the created things, and never die, 22. But after the Fall of Adam, certainly, he was subject to the power of the devil, sin and death, a twofold evil for his powers, unconquerable and eternal. 23. He can be freed and given eternal life only through the Son of God, Jesus Christ if he believes in him.6 According to the philosophical interpretation, the human being stands out from the rest of creation by virtue of their reason, which gives them a special closeness to God. Luther does not, however, share this idea: although the human being differs from animals in particular by their reason, it is not reason that constitutes the very essence of their existence. Reason, to which philosophy is so much attached, distinguishes the human being only “as a mortal and in relation to this life” (thesis 3). A description of human beings that is based only on the effects of their intellect is “fragmentary, fleeting, and exceedingly material” (thesis 19). Luther explains that no internal quality differentiates humans from the rest of creation – neither traits of character nor special abilities – but that it is an external feature, namely the relationship with God, that makes the human being unique. This relationship with God is expressed as follows: women and men are created in the image of God; but although this relationship with God is the very purpose of God’s creation, the original relationship was destroyed by the Fall (Gen 3).7 Luther’s thus develops his own anthropological approach on the basis of opposing world views: theological versus philosophical anthropology; earthly reality versus reality of creation; image of God versus image of the devil; eternity of sin versus promise of salvation in Jesus Christ.8 6 lw 34:138. 7 Oswald Bayer, Martin Luthers Theologie. Eine Vergegenwärtigung (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003), 143. 8 Berthold Wald, Luthers Anthropologie im Spiegel seiner Biographie (Heimbach/Eifel: Patrimonium-Verlag, 2015), 110.

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Human Reason Corrupted by Sin

Luther’s polemic against a theological anthropology that draws its inspiration from philosophy is directed against both medieval scholasticism and early church anthropologies influenced by Platonic and Aristotelian thought. Luther explicitly rejects two important anthropological strands of tradition. The first goes back to Augustine’s theology, whose anthropology has a Trinitarian orientation.9 For Augustine, the soul consisting of its three parts – memory, reason and will – is the mirror of the Divine Trinity. The image of God is thus to be found in the human soul and can be identified with specific human capacities.10 Luther criticises this “speculative” approach and provides a definition of the human being that is not substantialist, but relational.11 Unlike Augustine, Luther does not seek to identify the image of God with a specific part or capacity of the human being. As we have seen, the very essence of the human condition is acquired through an external relationship; namely, by responding to God’s call. Luther must also reject Augustine’s idea because it is too close to the philosophical approach and attempts to infer God’s work from the observation of human reality. But for Luther, placing one’s trust in human reason and intelligence is a mistake and the theologians should know better: As he noted, theology is well aware of the fact that the Fall of humanity has profoundly corrupted the human intelligence. This also applies to the rational statements that men and woman make about themselves: 17. Nor is there any hope that man in this principal part (the soul) can himself know what he is until he sees himself in his origin which is God. 18. And what is deplorable is that he does not have full and unerring control over either his counsel or thought but is subject to error and deception therein.12 Augustine’s statements, which “the remaining doctors in general follow,” are speculative and theologically questionable, because they do not take into account the ‘blind spot’ of human reason and “contribute very little toward the correct explanation of the image of God.”13 Even more “dangerous” from 9 Gerhard Ebeling, Lutherstudien, Band II: Disputatio de homine, dritter Teil: Die theologische Definition des Menschen. Kommentar zu These 20–40 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1989), 99–101, notes 32–36. 10 Augustine, De trinitate, x, 11–12. 11 Albrecht Peters, Der Mensch (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus Mohn, 1979), 196. 12 lw 34:138. 13 lw 1, 60.

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Luther’s point of view, however, is a second line of tradition that goes back to the early church anthropologies of Origenes and Irenaeus. There the statement in Gen 1:26 (“Et ait: Faciamus hominem ad imaginem et similitudinem nostrum […].” (“And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness […].”) is interpreted to the effect that the two terms imago (image) and similitudo (likeness/resemblance) are identified with two different expressions of the image of God in the human being. Origen asserted that human beings were given the potential for perfection through the imago, while similitudo refers to the task to achieve likeness with God through human’s own efforts.14 Similarly, Irenaeus held the view that imago/similitudo points to the perfection of humans, which they attain only through receiving God’s spirit.15 Thomas Aquinas took up Augustine’s idea, according to which imago denotes the God-given faculties of memory, reason and will. He understood similitudo as the perfection of human virtue, which is realised in the good use of these abilities.16 This dynamic relationship between imago and similitudo and their connection to ethics was what led to the sharp criticism of Martin Luther, since the scholastic opinion was that only one part of the image of God in humans had been affected by the Fall, namely the resemblance, that is to say, the ability to love unconditionally and act according to the Gospel. The memory, reason and will, on the other hand, would have remained intact in their relation with God, so that the human being still represents an image of God, with reason standing as their most excellent part. Following the scholastics, one could deduce that despite the Fall, human reason would still be in harmony with God’s intentions. It could also be concluded that men and women have with reason an infallible orientation by which they could re-approach God by their own strength. Luther and the reformers accused the Catholic Church of downplaying God’s grace by claiming that humankind could contribute to its salvation through its own intellectual forces or works. This conflict, which was above all a conflict with the Roman Catholic Church of Luther’s time, also becomes apparent in the question of anthropology. In the Genesis Lectures, Luther sets out the crucial problem with the philosophical tendency of his theological predecessors: […] for there is also added a discussion concerning free will, which has its origin in that image. This is what they maintain: God is free; therefore,

14 Origen, On First Principles, iii, 6, 1, ed. John Behr (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), 223. 15 Irenaeus, Adversus haereses, iv, 38, 1.3. 16 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, i, q. 93, a. 9.

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since man is created according to the image of God, he also has a free memory, mind, and will. […] Thus, this was the origin of the dangerous opinion that in governing men God permits them to act under their own impulse. From this assertion came many inconvenient ideas. It is similar to the quotation: “God, who created you without you, will not save you without you.” From here the conclusion was drawn that free will co-operated as the preceding and efficient cause of salvation. But if this is true, it follows that by the powers of his nature man can bring about his own salvation.17 According to Luther, therefore, the speculation about the human soul and the identification of human reason with imago Dei leads to a theological selfjustification that does not correspond to the message of the Gospel: 24. Since these things stand firm and that most beautiful and most excellent of all creatures, which reason is even after sin, remains under the power of the devil, it must still be concluded 25. That the whole man and every man, whether he be king, lord, servant, wise, just, and richly endowed with the good things of this life, nevertheless is and remains guilty of sin and death, under the power of Satan. 26. Therefore those who say that natural things have remained untainted after the fall philosophize impiously in opposition to theology. 27. The same is true of those who say that a man “in doing what is in him” is able to merit the grace of God and life; 28. So also, of those who introduce Aristotle (who knows nothing of theological man) to witness that reason aspires to the best things; 29. Also, those who say that the light of God’s countenance is in man, as an imprint on us, that is, free will which forms the precept right and the will good; 30. In like manner, that it rests with man to choose good and evil, or life and death, etc. 31. All such neither understand what man is nor do they know what they are talking about.18 The great difference between Luther and his predecessors is the fact that for Luther the loss of the image of God is total. Since Luther does not identify the 17 lw 1, 61. 18 lw 34:138–39.

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image of God with a specific human capacity, his interpretation of the Fall is more encompassing and existential. Luther certainly recognises the merits of reason and the free will in secular life. Yet, for him, these capacities fall completely under the domination of the devil, and human beings are therefore unable to decide in favour of God and avoid sin by their own efforts as scholasticism suggested. For Luther, men and women, thanks to reason, can indeed remember having been created in the image of God. But by their human reason alone and without God’s intervention, they are unable to capture God’s saving action, to understand it deeply and finally to believe what this means for their existence.19 There can therefore be no alternative for Luther but to abandon the theological anthropology of his predecessors and redefine the nature of human beings, i.e. the meaning of imago Dei from the very beginning. 3

A Redemptive Journey

After distancing himself from his theological predecessors, Luther established his own hermeneutical approach by aligning himself with the texts of the New and the Old Testament. Some aspects of anthropology are indeed radically new and radically different from those of Luther’s predecessors. We have already named the first profound redefinition: Luther rejects the distinction between imago and similitudo, which according to him stand for the same thing, namely the relationship with God. Furthermore, he assumes that this imago Dei has been lost completely. In other words, regarding the earthly, human reality, no presence of God’s image can be found in humans. The corruption and depravity of humankind is radically opposed to salvation by grace testified in the Gospel. In order to establish a connection between these two realities a special theological move is required. The underlying problem, however, is already present in the Bible, where the definition of the imago Dei in Gen 1:26 encounters a contradictory voice in the Pauline letters (Col 1:15), which leaves space for two questions: is humankind the bearer of God’s image because it was attributed to Adam at the time of creation, as the book of Genesis says? Or is Christ the one and only true image of God, as suggested by Paul? Is the image of God a protological and anthropological fact, or a Christocentric and eschatological affirmation?20 19 Bayer, Martin Luthers Theologie, 145–46. 20 Peters, Der Mensch, 55.

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Luther’s solution to this question is to be found in narrative theology. He interprets the loss and restitution of the image of God as a redemptive journey. The path of salvation corresponds to its eschatological character, which according to Luther finds its completion not in earthly conditions but in the Kingdom of God. In order to describe this eschatological process Luther distinguishes four different stages: human nature in its original, creational state; the Fall and its consequences; the restoration of the imago Dei by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ; and the current status of humans living between the image of God and the image of the devil. The starting point of Luther’s narrative theology is the creation and the circumstances of the first human couple in Paradise. Indeed, already at this point he understands the image of God differently from most of his predecessors. While traditionally the ontology of imago is substantialist, Luther quite clearly takes a different position describing it as relational. The image of God in men and woman is the conception they have of God and thus also of their environment as a whole as God’s creation. In other words, humans do not live as God’s image, but in the sight of God who created them and sustains them in their existence and humans fully share the will of their creator. This state of mind is not expressed in any essential human qualities. Instead, it can be read in the human emotions. To live in the sight and vision of God’s care is to have trust and to be fearless, in other words to believe in God. It is only from this fundamental attitude that the human being develops certain abilities, such as the ability to recognise and control their fellow creatures. Therefore my understanding of the image of God is this: that Adam had it in his being and that he not only knew God and believed that He was good, but that he also lived in a life that was wholly godly; that is, he was without the fear of death or of any other danger, and was content with God’s favour. In this form it reveals itself in the instance of Eve, who speaks with the serpent without any fear, as we do with a lamb or a dog. For this reason, too, if they should transgress His command, God announces the punishment: “On whatever day you eat from this tree, you will die by death,” as though He said: “Adam and Eve, now you are living without fear; death you have not experienced, nor have you seen it. This is My image, by which you are living, just as God lives. But if you sin, you will lose this image, and you will die.”21

21 lw 1:62–63.

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However, in line with his reservations about the capacity of human reason after the Fall, Luther also points out that from the perspective of the earthly human being it is impossible to accurately grasp life in the image of God in Paradise: Therefore, when we speak about that image, we are speaking about something unknown. Not only have we had no experience of it, but we continually experience the opposite; and so, we hear nothing except bare words. In Adam there was an enlightened reason, a true knowledge of God, and a most sincere desire to love God and his neighbour, so that Adam embraced Eve and at once acknowledged her to be his own flesh. Added to these were other lesser but exceedingly important gifts – if you draw a comparison with our weakness – namely, a perfect knowledge of the nature of the animals, the herbs, the fruits, the trees, and the remaining creatures. If all these qualities are combined, do they not make up and produce the sort of man in whom you would think that the image of God is reflected, especially when you add the rule over the creatures?22 Luther is of the opinion that, before the Fall, Adam and Eve were created for eternal life, meaning that God would have led them from their earthly life to spiritual life without them having to suffer physical death. After the Fall, this original passage from earthly life to spiritual life is blocked. But this is not all: after the seduction of the first couple by the serpent with the promise of becoming like God, humans have become more like the devil. Instead of the image of God, the image of the devil has been established in them and now dominates their intentions. Humans are no longer able to turn to God through their own will, because the original trust in God has turned into suspicion: So, we see now what great dangers and how many varieties of death and chances of death this wretched nature is compelled to meet with and to endure in addition to the execrable lust and other sinful passions and inordinate emotions that arise in the hearts of all. We are never secure in God; apprehension and terror cause us concern even in sleep. These and similar evils are the image of the devil, who stamped them on us. But Adam lived in supreme bliss and in freedom from fear; he was not afraid of fire, of water, or of the other discomforts with which this life is beset and of which we are inordinately afraid.23 22 lw 1:63. 23 lw 1:63.

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Without the vision of God, the human being now fundamentally lacks security, confidence and orientation. The resulting vacuum is fatal. Humankind no longer finds support and security in its Creator and therefore turns to the creature, that is, to themselves, which gives rise to permanent disappointments. The human being suffers from the consequences of sin, which have made them “a transgressor and unjust” (thesis 33). This applies not only to Adam and Eve after the Fall, but to all human beings up to the present day, according to Luther, who here joins Augustine’s teaching on original sin. Conversion to Jesus Christ is the only way to interrupt the human being’s selfish impulses, because Christ represents exactly the opposite of the human being’s existential distress. Jesus does not cling to material possessions or his human existence, as the gospels show by depicting Jesus leading a life of trust in God.24 Luther’s interpretation of the image of God is obviously inseparably linked with the idea of original sin and with the doctrine of justification. In Luther’s view, the restoration of imago Dei has nothing to do with perfecting the qualities originally inherent in men and women. Luther’s discourse about the image of God is fundamentally about the restoration of the relationship with God: Jesus Christ is the image of the Father from all eternity. He becomes human to restore the image of God in humankind. Restoration requires that humanity be renewed in the image of Christ in order to live a new creation on the spiritual and physical levels. As a result, men and women find themselves once again before God, where again they can breathe without anxiety. But how is this conversion supposed to happen, since according to Luther, after the Fall humankind has lost the free will to decide for God? In the Disputatio thesis 35–38, Luther underlines a core point of his theology, namely that humankind remains totally passive and contributes nothing by their own efforts to this new creation: 35. Therefore, man in this life is the simple material of God for the form of his future life. 36. Just as the whole creation which is now subject to vanity (Rom 8:20) is for God the material for its future glorious form. 37. And as earth and heaven were in the beginning for the form completed after six days, that is, its material, 38. So is man in this life for his future form, when the image of God has been remoulded and perfected.25

24 Peters, Der Mensch, 204. 25 lw 34:139–40.

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The human being cannot intervene in the battle between God and the devil, although taking part in it, inasmuch as since Adam’s and Eve’s Fall the image of the devil painfully determines their existence. In the resurrection of Jesus Christ, God saves the human being from the consequences of this miserable existence. The vision of God is restored anew for the human being and this time God becomes visible not only as the Creator but also as the Redeemer. However, it is of crucial importance for Luther that it is not only a virtual redemption, that is to say, an event in the human’s imagination, but a substantial redemption and change of human nature. To this end, Luther refers to the doctrine of the two natures and the doctrine of the Trinity, according to which God himself is truly present in Christ.26 Christ is truly human and truly God. As he represents both God and humankind the latter is fully participating in his death and resurrection. Humankind emerges from this event as endowed with a new nature. This is not human nature as it was before the Fall however. As Luther repeatedly emphasized, men and women are justified by grace – sola gratia. With Paul he argues that this is a “new creation” (2 Cor 5:17). But the righteousness before God that is thereby attributed to the human is a foreign righteousness – iustitia aliena – and it is in permanent tension with his other nature, which is corrupted by Adam’s and Eve’s Fall. This also applies to the image of God. Human beings continue to suffer from existential fear and the blindness of their intellect. What has changed, however, is the fact that since the coming of Jesus Christ there is again reason to hope that this dark vision may not have the last word, because God has shown that he is determined to save the “homo incurvatus in se” from himself and from the devil. In the Disputatio, Luther writes that humans in their earthly life experience salvation only when they believe in (or have faith in) Jesus Christ. But how do they come to faith, for which they likewise cannot freely decide? The answer to this question is given by pneumatology. As human reason is under the power of the devil – in other words, not capable of understanding the relieving news of being saved by God’s grace – the Holy Spirit creates the capacity of receiving the Gospel. In the Genesis Lectures, Luther writes: But now the Gospel has brought about the restoration of that image. Intellect and will have remained, but both very much impaired. And so, 26 Johann Anselm Steiger, Fünf Zentralthemen der Theologie Luthers und seiner Erben. Communicatio – imago – figura – Maria – exempla (Leiden/Boston/Cologne: Brill, 2002), 111.

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the Gospel brings about that we are formed once more according to that familiar and indeed better image, because we are born again into eternal life or rather into the hope of eternal life by faith, that we may live in God and be one with Him, as Christ says (John 17:21). And indeed, we are reborn not only for life but also for righteousness, because faith acquires Christ’s merit and knows that through Christ’s death, we have been set free. From this source our righteousness has its origin, namely, that newness of life through which we are zealous to obey God as we are taught by the Word and aided by the Holy Spirit.27 However, the restoration of the image of God will not be completed during the earthly life of men and women, but it is an eschatological process that will only come to an end on the Day of the Last Judgment, when the mystical union between God and the human being is completed. But until that moment, men and women find themselves in a double relationship with two different images – the image of God and the image of the devil – and, consequently, in a situation of permanent struggle.28 39. Meanwhile, man lives in sins and daily is either justified or becomes more polluted.29 The life of the believer is marked by the struggle between the two contradictory realities: their salutary relationship with God, in which they recognise themselves as saved, is constantly undermined by the image of the devil, which is in direct contradiction to this trust. This sinful existence manifests itself in the life of men and women in different ways. On the one hand, it is present in anxiety and despair, which Luther described in the Genesis lectures. In this life, men and women are therefore permanently dependent on having the good news of the gospel proclaimed, in word and sacrament. But sin is also expressed in a certain use of reason, in the desire to justify oneself and thereby to negate one’s existential dependence on God and one’s created and fallen nature. This tug-of-war between the image of God and the image of the devil is a parallel to Luther’s central claim of justification by grace, from which humans according to Luther emerge as justified and sinful – “simul iustus et peccator” in its Latin expression.30 27 28 29 30

lw 1:64. Steiger, Fünf Zentralthemen der Theologie Luthers und seiner Erben, 117. lw 34:140. Steiger, Fünf Zentralthemen der Theologie Luthers und seiner Erben, 113.

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Human reason in its striving for self-justification needs admonition in order to stay aware of the limits of its intellectual capacities. Otherwise it runs the risk of losing itself in triumphalism, self-glorification and despair. The challenge of Luther’s anthropology is its demand not to use the earthly reality as a yardstick for human self-understanding. Instead, it exhorts them to face the paradox that they and their fellow creatures are deeply unfree, corrupted and in need of redemption, notwithstanding all earthly successes and achievements.31 Christians find consolation and hope in Jesus Christ as well as an orientation for their moral life. But they cannot correspond to that frame of orientation by only the means of human reason for the latter is deprived of its powers as a result of the original sin. Humankind has experienced an existential change in Jesus Christ, which Luther describes as a “joyful exchange.”32 Their sin is absorbed by the sinlessness of Jesus Christ, the only true image of God. In him God has reconnected with humans. If humans believe in this act of deliverance, they are no longer sinners, but sinners and justified at the same time. 4

Human Body and Sexuality

So far, we have studied the consequences of imago Dei for the human soul and reason. Now we move on to the question whether the idea of the image of God also has a meaning for men and women as physical and sexual beings. Here we can refer to the most recent research on Luther’s theology, given that the 2017 anniversary of the Reformation stirred interest in Luther’s attitude towards the body and human sexuality, and some of the new insights brought about by this recent research are pertinent for the question of Luther’s interpretation of the imago as well. It is the merit of the Australian historian Lyndal Roper to have drawn attention to the way in which the character of Luther is depicted in Protestant iconography.33 Roper points to the fact that the representation of his large and ample body was particularly well received by his contemporaries and later generations. This massive body, which has been immortalised by Protestants on countless images and statues presenting power and paternity, is at the same time a counter-program to the representations of Catholic saints and 31 Wald, Luthers Anthropologie im Spiegel seiner Biographie, 115. 32 Martin Luther, “Von der Freyheyt eynisz Christen menschen,” in wa 7,20–38, here 7,25,34. 33 Lyndal Roper, Der feiste Doktor: Luther, sein Körper und seine Biographen, trans. Karin Wördemann (Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag, 2012); see also Lyndal Roper, “Martin Luther’s Body. The ‘Stout Doctor’ and His Biographers,” American Historical Review 115/2 (April 2010): 350–84.

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theologians honouring the ideal of asceticism. Luther’s well-nourished body seems to convey a message of its own that is intimately linked to Lutheranism. But can this appreciation of bodily aspects also be found in the reformer’s theology itself, and is there any impact on the topic of the imago Dei? As we have shown above, Luther proceeds to an extension of the idea that the image of God is lost by saying that the human soul as a whole is corrupted by sin. Now what is his point of view concerning the human body and, in a wider perspective, human sexuality? In Luther’s writings, there is more than one indication that the human body is also a field of experience where the sinful and at the same time justified existence before God is lived out. Eating, drinking, digestion and sexuality are frequently mentioned. Luther is also particularly creative when it comes to inventing bodily metaphors or gross insults to defame his opponents or to illustrate the fight against the devil. Numerous examples can be found: If the devil should appear at night to destabilise the Christian’s trust and resists theological arguments, Luther advises driving out the devil with a loud fart. And if the devil should use times of melancholy to weaken the faith – a situation that Wittenberg’s reformer knew only too well – he recommends eating and drinking well, and even looking for beautiful girls as a reliable remedy for chasing out the devil.34 The historian Lyndal Roper is sure that she has detected in Luther an extraordinary openness to the carnal and a positive attitude towards all aspects of the body.35 But Roper’s theses did not go unchallenged and led to a lively discussion, demonstrating that this aspect of Lutheran anthropology and the supposedly positive view of the reformer on the human body requires more research.36 In order to point out some crucial aspects, we turn once again to Luther’s Genesis Lectures, a book that provides numerous insights also on this topic. First, it is clear that Luther’s existential and universal conception of the Fall prevents a one-sided condemnation of the body. If sin dominates all humankind and the human being as a whole, neither body nor spirit is free. But Luther goes one step further and applies this perspective to the judgment of human sexuality where the sharp dialectic between the status of the human being before and after the Fall also has an effect. For him, it is clear that the original materiality of the body has been judged good by God himself. Following this 34 Roper, Der feiste Doktor, 58–59. 35 Roper, Der feiste Doktor, 77. 36 Ute Gause, “Reformation als Entdeckung von Leiblichkeit?,” in Die Entdeckung des Individuums: Wie die Reformation die Moderne geprägt hat, ed. Annette Kurschus and Vicco von Bülow (Bielefeld: Luther Verlag, 2017), 123–33.

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idea, Luther insists on God’s will in creating the human being as a sexual being who has been ordered to reproduce. For Luther, therefore, until the Fall, human sexuality is in harmony with God’s intentions. However, the Fall changes everything, because from then on sexuality is no longer experienced in the image of God but in the image of sin, that is, full of corrupted and voluptuous impulses. In this harsh conception of sexuality, Luther is once again close to Augustine. He writes in the Genesis Lectures: But after the Fall death crept like leprosy into all our perceptive powers, so that with our intellect we cannot even understand that image. Adam would not have known his Eve except in the most unembarrassed attitude toward God, with a will obedient to God, and without any evil thought. Now, after sin, we all know how great passion is in the flesh which is not only passionate in its desire but also in its disgust after it has acquired what it wanted.37 But since it corresponds to God’s will that a man should have a wife and vice versa, there truly exists an appropriate way of life where human beings are less subject to the sinful aspects of sexuality after the Fall: Luther finds this way of life in marriage, as God intended for Adam and Eve and thus for every man and woman. Interestingly, celibacy is not the appropriate way to tame a corrupted sexuality. According to Luther and other reformers, the Catholic Church harms itself by imposing celibacy.38 The Pope has no legitimacy, according to Luther, to impose celibacy upon priests, monks and nuns because it openly contradicts the will of God.39 In accepting the marriage of pastors, the Reformation churches have thus opted for the way God had willed to limit sin. But even marriage cannot completely eradicate corrupted desires, and the power of sin remains a challenge, as Luther must admit: What in all nature is nobler than the work of procreation? This work was assigned by God neither to the eyes nor to the mouth, which we regard as the more honourable parts of the body, but to that part which sin has taught us to call the pudendum and to cover lest it be seen. Moreover, although in the innocent nature the entire work of procreation would 37 lw 1:62. 38 Celibacy pushes priests into cohabitation and endangers public safety because even honorable women and girls are threatened by the harassment of priests. In: Ute Gause, “Durchsetzung neuer Männlichkeit: Ehe und Reformation,” Evangelische Theologie 73/5 (2013): 334–36. 39 lw 1:239.

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have been most holy and most pure, after sin the leprosy of lust has made its way into this part of the body. Hence those who live outside the married state burn most shamefully. And unless those who live in the married state restrain their passions and carefully guard their relations with each other, they encounter all sorts of temptations.40 Regarding the last paragraph, it can be said that Luther has a relatively relaxed approach to the human body, in the sense that he expresses himself openly about bodily needs, which he also presents as being in accordance with God’s will. The recent study by Lyndal Roper points out some of Luther’s more than surprising interpretations concerning bodily aspects, such as his understanding of good digestion as a sign of God’s victory over the devil.41 The fact that Lutheran anthropology recognises sexuality as a basic human need in accordance with the will of God – including for priests – is a considerable step forward in emancipating men and woman from a negative perspective towards all forms of sexuality. However, the representation of the body is not completely positive and its appreciation clearly has limits, when the body appears – beside the mind – as another space corrupted by sin. Therefore, Luther’s perspective on the body and on sexuality is rather ambivalent, and sometimes even clearly negative, as can be seen in the last quote from the Genesis Lectures. Against the background of the theme of the image of God, which had been limited for centuries to the capacities of the human spirit, the theological change introduced by the Reformation nevertheless becomes clear: Physical processes, even the most uncontrollable ones, are recognised and valued as being part of creation and are integrated into the theology of the image of God alongside spirit and reason. Nevertheless, this extension of the image of God does not mean any one-sided appreciation or even divinisation either of the human body or of the intellect and mind. For just as Luther denies that human reason is exclusively a mirror of the imago Dei and thus represents a possibility for men and women to recognise God and to do justice to him, the human body in its physical functions is also not exclusively turned towards God, but carries the shadow of corruptness. Therefore, on the redemptive journey to the restoration of the image of God, the human being is permanently challenged physically and mentally, and, according to God’s will and its own spiritual attitude, experiences both God’s grace and distance.

40 lw 1:167–68. 41 Roper, Der feiste Doktor, 57.

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Interconfessional Insights

At the colloquium in Geneva and Chambésy the anthropology of Martin Luther was contrasted with contemporary Orthodox voices. Kallistos Ware presented an interpretation of the idea of the image of God. In his contribution, Kallistos Ware takes up many elements of classical Orthodox anthropo­ logy and describes the human condition in four major sections: relationship, growth, self-awareness and freedom. Interestingly, his argumentation is based not only on the patristic tradition, but also on examples from philosophy and especially psychology. He points out that “as heirs to the living tradition of the Fathers, we have our own agenda, and we are not to allow the secular environment to set the agenda for us.”42 On the other hand he uses secular examples to support the theological argumentation. His contribution culminates in the statement: “The human person is the crown and fulfilment of the divine creation – microcosm and mediator, priest of the cosmos, God’s royal image.”43 Bearing in mind what has been said about Luther’s anthropology so far, we can already see in this quotation clear differences between the two positions. These we will now examine in detail and compare Ware’s contribution to the position of Martin Luther. Is this comparison meaningful? Before comparing the two positions, it is necessary to clarify some of the preconditions: It is not surprising that the comparison reveals numerous differences, but there is a danger of proceeding anachronistically. After all, probably the greatest difference between Luther and Ware is not in the area of dogmatics, but rather in the spirit of the times that the two positions represent. Kallistos Ware’s contribution is clearly influenced by the philosophical ideas of the modern age and contains subjectivist and psychologising elements, as well as insights from Judaism. Luther’s theological discourse bears the hallmarks of the confessional age with its strong polemics against theological opponents, and it necessarily differs fundamentally from a contribution from the 21st century. Ecumenical development also needs to be taken into account. Orthodox and Lutherans have been engaged in ecumenical dialogue for some time, and have become familiar with each other’s theological style, which has an effect how contradictory views are exchanged. Lutheran-Orthodox conferences on anthropology have already been held in the past and the theme of imago Dei

42 See Ware, below, 49. 43 See below, 62.

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has also been discussed there.44 However, these discussions differ from the comparison of Ware and Luther insofar as they focused on contemporary theological positions. This is all the more significant because not only has the spirit of the times evolved as well as certain scientific paradigms, but also the anthropological positions are no longer the same as they were 500 years ago. It might therefore seem more appropriate not to compare Luther’s position with Ware’s, but to contrast the latter with a contemporary Lutheran position. Recent developments in Protestant theology may offer better prospects for finding a common ground between Lutherans and Orthodox in the question of imago Dei. On the other hand, the comparison with Luther points out some fundamental differences with the Orthodox anthropology and show where Luther’s harsh demarcation from the theology of his predecessors is still of relevance for today. We will therefore first point out the most important differences in the anthropology of Ware and Luther. From there, of course, the recent development of a theology of imago Dei in the Protestant theology must also be taken into account. But since its detailed presentation cannot be given in the context of this article, we will conclude by pointing out only one important development and its possible potential for the future Lutheran-Orthodox dialogue. 5.1 Remaining Differences Let us recapitulate the most fundamental points in which Luther differs from the preceding theological tradition: 1. Luther does not follow the distinction between imago and similitudo; 2. Unlike his predecessors he rejects the idea that the imago Dei has been preserved in men and woman after the Fall; 3. Consequently, for Luther the imago Dei cannot be identified with certain human capacities that are available to him to come closer to God by his own efforts. How do these theological decisions relate to the position of Kallistos Ware? Regarding the distinction between imago and similitudo supported by the majority of but not by all the Church Fathers, Ware quite rightly refers to “the wide variety in the Patristic understanding of personhood.”45 However, this 44 Kirchliches Außenamt, ed., Das Bild vom Menschen in Orthodoxie und Protestantismus. Drittes Theologisches Gespräch zwischen dem Ökumenischen Patriarchat und der Evangelischen Kirche in Deutschland vom 2. bis 5. Oktober 1973 in Chambésy/Schweiz, Beiheft zur Ökumenischen Rundschau 26 (Korntal bei Stuttgart: Evangelischer Missionsverlag, 1974); Metropolit Serafim von Deutschland, Zentral- und Nordeuropa, Hermann Schoenauer, and Jürgen Henkel, eds., “Was ist der Mensch?” Theologische Anthropologie – ein lutherisch-orthodoxer Dialog (Hermannstadt/Bonn: Schiller Verlag, 2013). 45 Ware, below, 56.

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point does not merely address the philological exegesis of Gen 1:26, but rather the resulting consequences, namely a quasi-naturalistic disposition that men and women are called to perfect in life in order to achieve their humanity. Examining Ware’s contribution in this regard, it becomes clear that the dynamics of divinisation (theosis) based on the distinction similitudo/imago, is still a highly inspiring and productive idea for Orthodox anthropology. The idea of a trinitarian image of God in human beings, already so important for Augustine, is also found in modern Orthodox anthropology, as is the idea of perfection. Ware argues: We have God at the innermost center of our existence. Human beings cannot be understood apart from divine being, for the divine is the determining element in our humanity. […] To be created in the image means that we are created for the fellowship and communion with God, and if we repudiate that fellowship and communion, we are denying our own true self. […] We humans are called to reproduce on earth the perichoresis (interchange of mutual love) that unites the three members of the Holy Trinity in heaven. […] To be authentic human persons “in the image,” therefore, we must reflect on […] “the ethos of Trinitarian communion.” […] God is solidarity, exchange, mutual gift; so also, is human personhood. […] Because as an Orthodox Christian I believe in a God who is Trinity, therefore I need you in order to be myself. […] Personhood is always interpersonal and there can be no “I” without a Thou. […] The whole purpose of our life on earth is that we each develop from an individual into a person, and it is precisely communion after the likeness of the Trinity that distinguishes the second from the first.46 Created in the image of the Trinity, human beings must necessarily live in communion and solidarity in order to realise their personhood. In classical Orthodox thought, the personhood of the human being is conceived through analogy to the three persons distinguished by their different relationships. Interestingly, in Ware this idea is linked to philosophical personalism and modern psychological thought that both conceive humans as social beings. Ware’s contribution thus proves to be compatible with 21st century discourse. The Trinity as a social and ecclesial model has proved to be extremely fruitful, not least through the contribution of John Zizioulas, especially for the worldwide ecumenical movement, because the trinitarian structure is also 46 Ware, below, 50–53.

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important for the ecumenical model of koinonia/communion.47 John Zizioulas describes the idea of personhood thus: The eternal survival of the person as a unique, unrepeatable and free “hypostasis,” as loving and being loved, constitutes the quintessence of salvation, the bringing of the Gospel to man. In the language of the Fathers this is called “divinization” (theosis), which means participation not in the nature or substance of God, but in His personal existence. The goal of salvation is that the personal life which is realized in God should also be realized on the level of human existence. Consequently, salvation is identified with the realization of personhood in man.48 Before turning to the many differences, let us use this quote from Jean Zizioulas to signal an important common ground: modern Orthodox anthropology, like Luther, has an ontology of relation when determining the nature of humans. In the same way as Luther, Zizioulas’ thinking makes it evident that soteriology is situated within the anthropological framework. For Zizioulas, as for Luther, the salvation of human beings from sin means that human relationship with God is restored and thus allows them to experience the true quality of humanity. Nevertheless, the idea of a divine structure providing human beings with a compass to shape their social environment is not compatible with Luther’s perspective. Luther points to the fact that men and women have irretrievably lost the image of God within themselves. Moreover, they do not have the intellectual capacities to decide whether their deeds are in accordance with God’s will and justice or not. Only God alone can decide this question. Whenever attempting to do so, humans go astray, and fall prey to overestimation and selfjustification, which according to Luther are expressions of sin. The fact that for the Orthodox the promise of salvation goes along with a moral imperative is likewise suspicious from Luther’s point of view. If salvation – as in Ware’s quotation above – depends on whether or not humans at the level of their humanity – that is to say, in moral decisions – fulfil the model of the Trinity, the salvation does not come by grace alone but also depends on human activity. Of course, Luther’s theology also has a social dimension, and also for him good works and behaviour towards fellow humans play a non-negligible role. Nevertheless, Luther and Ware think very differently when it comes to how and why the imago Dei is apparent in these works. For Ware, the imago 47 Robert D. Turner, “Foundations for John Zizioulas’ Approach to Ecclesial Community,” Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses 78/4 (2002): 438–467, here 465. 48 John D. Zizioulas, Being as Communion. Studies in Personhood and the Church (Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1985), 49–50.

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is a divine disposition in men and women in which they try to correspond by works in the prospective of their “divinization.” For Luther, human beings live in the eschatological hope of being redeemed by grace in Jesus Christ. The human works are a grateful reaction on this promised salvation. In Ware’s contribution we also find another aspect of traditional anthropology criticised by Luther, namely the idea of imago Dei manifested in human reason. Ware calls it the “self-awareness through the conscious mind.” As humans in the divine image, we do not merely live in the world, following our instincts; we reflect, and by virtue of this capacity for reflection we reshape and refashion the world endowing it with new meaning, giving the creation a voice and rendering it articulate in praise of God. […] Without an attitude of joyful offering without gratitude and thanksgiving, I am not truly personal.49 As we have shown, Luther does not reject the role of reason per se, although “under the power of the devil,”50 per se, but recognises its capacity within the earthly reality. However, he denies that human reason and works could lead to divine salvation. This also applies to ecclesiology. For Luther, only Christ is the head of the Church and he offers himself in word and sacrament, without human cooperation. Luther would therefore reject Orthodox statements such as the following that connect the imago with the role of the church and making theosis depending on the ecclesial structure: The ontological unity of humanity finds its fullest possible manifestation in the ecclesial community, in the church as the body of Christ and the kingdom of God on earth. In the eschatological-soteriological perspective of being God by grace, of becoming similar to God, man returns to himself – naturally on a new level of existence, because that is his real being in his transcendence and theonomy. Cleansing the image of God from the mud of sin and preserving it, man receives his uniqueness, the uniqueness of his union with God, realised communally in the spiritual unity of the Church as Eucharistic, blessed-eschatological and soteriological community. Becoming like the Creator, man transcends the limitations of his nature and becomes the perfect inhabitant of the heavenly Jerusalem.51 49 See Ware, below, 58. 50 lw 1:63. 51 Ina Merdjanova, “Das Bild Gottes im Menschen. Die orthodoxe Anthropologie als Anthropodizee,” Orthodoxes Forum 12/2 (1998): 87–100, here 96.

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This quotation shows humans as actors in the cleansing from sin and thereby also displays a position – contradicting that of Luther – of humans as co-workers within the process of salvation. In the Orthodox view, there is no contradiction between the fact that the salvation of humans is by grace and by their own participation at the same time. Interestingly, Kallistos Ware speaks of “cooperation with God’s grace”52 and does not mention in his contribution the term of “synergeia” that usually denotes this highly controversial aspect in conversation with Protestants.53 A characteristic that Protestants often find disconcerting in Orthodox anthropology is the predominant concentration on the “new man in Christ, who since the incarnation of God is the only human reality.”54 Less attention is paid on the Orthodox side to the God-forsaken, broken human being in need of salvation, whose reality is so important for Luther’s theology. In the interpretation of imago Dei, the Orthodox interest is not in “what equates man with creation, but in what distinguishes him from the cosmos and connects him with the Creator.”55 This predominantly optimistic view of the human being created and saved by God can also be observed in Ware, as when he says that “the worst thing that the Evil Urge can achieve is to make someone forget that he is the child of a king.”56 With regard to the human being who has been saved, Luther seems to even surpass Orthodoxy at this point, in so far as he is not afraid to call the Christian a “king.”57 But that is not the basis of his anthropology. Luther praises the redeemed life only in the tension of his narrative-theological approach, which starts with human sin and unredeemedness. Luther’s anthropology is linked to his theology of sin and judgment, in which the Fall of Adam and Eve is the decisive moment. Luther could never support Ware’s statement that “the Fall is to be viewed not as a willful lapse from an unimaginable height of wisdom and glory but in more compassionate terms, as a failure to grow in the right way.”58

52 Ware, below, 61. 53 Kirchliches Außenamt, Das Bild vom Menschen, 106. 54 Friedrich Heyer, “Orthodoxe Anthropologie der Gegenwart in der Sicht eines evangelischen Theologen,” in Das Bild vom Menschen, ed. Kirchliches Außenamt, Beiheft zur Ökumenischen Rundschau 26 (Korntal bei Stuttgart: Evangelischer Missionsverlag, 1974), 31–43, here 34. 55 Merdjanova, “Das Bild Gottes im Menschen,” 90–91. 56 Ware, below, 61. 57 Luther, “Von der Freyheyt eynisz Christen menschen,” in wa 7,27. 58 Ware, below, 57.

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While Ware has the divine potential of humans in mind, Luther speaks of the sinner who has completely lost their image of God and whose attempts to reorient themselves by means of their own reason fail and end in complete entanglement and disorientation. In this context it is remarkable how differently Luther and Ware take up the theme of freedom. For Ware, freedom, like reason, is an element of the image of God in humans: “Yet despite every limitation, our human liberty continues to be a genuine reflection of the divine Trinitarian liberty” and “we are never to lose sight of this royal liberty that is our birth right as persons in God’s image.” Consequently, Ware also understands freedom essentially as “freedom to,” in other words as the possibility to make moral decisions freely and to promote or destroy one’s own salvation. Furthermore, for Ware freedom is the source of the realisation of human uniqueness and diversity – a thought that is particularly compatible with modern individualism. The idea of freedom also plays an enormous role in Luther’s theology. But unlike the Orthodox tradition, Luther emphasises more strongly the “freedom from,” at least when it comes to the soteriological relationship between God and humans. In the world men and woman do not exercise God’s freedom, they do not imitate it, do not try to become more divine by exercising their creative faculties. Instead, humans have been “liberated” themselves, in the first place, liberated from the burden of their persistent sin and thus been enrolled in a liberation process which they themselves cannot direct. For Luther, the act of liberation proves once again what has been already attested to in the account of Creation, namely, that the human being is deeply dependent on God, and that his humanity comes out most clearly when they acknowledge this existential dependence and does not try to escape from it. Luther also described the earthly works of men and women as “free.”59 For him, however, freedom consists in the fact that humans are freed from caring for themselves and the pressure to redeem themselves through good works, since God already redeems him by grace. Humans free acts are acts of love and obedience. The enthusiasm shown by Ware in several places about the “inexhaustible variety”60 of possibilities in life as a mirror of God’s abundance is foreign to Luther’s thought. From Luther’s point of view, one would have to ask critically here, whether there is a criterion, which of the numerous possibilities realised in the life of a human being were actually part of his theosis and which are to be attributed only to human vanity or hedonism?

59 Luther, “Von der Freyheyt eynisz Christen menschen,” in wa 7,31. 60 Ware, below, 49.

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5.2 Possibilities for Dialogue The contradictions between Orthodox and Lutheran anthropology are striking as long as one follows Luther and considers original sin as the decisive paradigm in the interpretation of imago Dei. This way of thinking cannot be connected to Orthodox anthropology and the idea of theosis, because Luther’s identification of the imago Dei with the lost original state of humans before the Fall simply makes it impossible to connect to the Orthodox idea of perfecting humans’ divine dispositions in this life. Luther’s dialectical interpretation, according to which the image of God is on the one hand definitely lost to human reality and on the other hand definitely restored to the believer in Jesus Christ as foreign righteousness (2 Cor 3:18), leaves no room for the idea of a progressive redemption in which the human being participates themselves. For the Orthodox, on the other hand, there seems to be no alternative to a processual, dynamic way of thinking, if the idea of divinisation is not to be abandoned. It is the case, however, that Protestant theology has developed since Luther’s time and has adopted influences from modern philosophical thinking. Could this perhaps lead theologians to a new agreement or at least invite them to a dialogue? At the conclusion of this article, we want to pursue this reflection and show one example that challenges the seemingly insurmountable contradiction. As early as 1979, the German Lutheran theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg put forward the thesis that the understanding of imago Dei in Protestant theology had changed since Luther. In his view, the harsh rejection of a possible orientation of human action according to Gen 1:26 had not been shared by all reformers even during Luther’s lifetime.61 But it was only with the Enlightenment and under the influence of humanism that, according to Pannenberg, a new interpretation of the imago Dei gained influence: Pannenberg shows that Johann Gottfried Herder brought together various philosophical and theological strands of thinking at the end of the 18th century, thereby introducing a new way of looking at things. Herder understands the imago Dei as the “vocation” (Bestimmung) of the human being to humanity and development. This originally philosophical idea, which is unmistakably rooted in the attitude of the Enlightenment, was then appropriated and further developed by Protestant theology:

61 Wolfhart Pannenberg, Gottebenbildlichkeit als Bestimmung des Menschen in der neueren Theologiegeschichte (Munich: Verlag der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1979), 3–23, here 10; John Calvin, Institutio Religionis Christianae, vol. i, 15, 4.

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If the image of God in man is only realised in Christ, then it cannot have already been present in Adam, unless as a disposition: it must then be understood as the divine vocation of man in the act of his creation. This point of view has […] liberated theological anthropology from its attachment to the doctrine of original state and enabled to acquire an evolutionary image of man.62 This evolutionary idea of humans as creatures of God created for a specific purpose is a frequent motif in contemporary Protestant anthropology. But even if the idea of humans as teleologic beings may have had its beginning in the theology of the Enlightenment, there are also other influences that make this approach plausible today. In 1960 and quite independently from the developments in theology, French philosopher Paul Ricoeur in an article with the title “The image of God and the epic of man” understood the imago Dei as “promise” and tried to grasp its effect by associating it with the social and psychological phenomenon of “imagination”: The imagination has a metaphysical function which cannot be reduced to a simple projection of vital, unconscious, or repressed desires. The imagination has a prospective and explorative function in regard to the inherent possibilities of man […] Every real conversion is first a revolution at the level of our directive images. By changing his imagination, man alters his existence.63 Ricoeur concludes his article by asking the question whether God himself, in his promise in Gen 1:26, did not endow man with the idea of the imago, thus taking the risk of initiating a story that humans might or might not want to engage with. Thus associating the imago Dei with the idea of promise, imagination and – in a positive sense – utopia, Ricoeur has pointed to an approach that is followed by many theologians today. If contemporary Protestant theology talks about the interpretation of imago Dei, it refers to the exploration of human reality initiated by this promise. In this way an existential dynamic is regained which could not find a place in Luther’s approach. Philosophy of language comes into play here, understanding the act of creation and especially Gen 1:26 as a performative act of speech: 62 Pannenberg, Gottebenbildlichkeit als Bestimmung des Menschen in der neueren Theologiegeschichte, 22. 63 Paul Ricœur, “The Image of God and the Epic of Man,” in History and Truth, trans. Charles Kelbley (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1965), 110–128, here 126–27.

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to be in the image of God is a promise to men and women, and human existence has the purpose of exploring the scope of this promise. Under these conditions Protestant theology explicitly renounces ontological statements about the consequences of imago Dei, about the human character or its qualities: neither are humans the crown of creation, nor does imago Dei show itself in a human potential that can somehow be generally described or has to be brought to unfolding or perfection.64 An important difference to Orthodox anthropology, which, as we saw, makes such statements, thus remains. By renouncing ontological elements, Protestant theologians wish to do justice to the biblical account, which also shows no sign of a clear definition about what is meant by imago Dei. Instead, Gen 1:26 is often read like the overture of a drama. This overture consists in the promise to men and women that they are “a creature according to God’s expressed will.”65 What exactly humans are according to God’s will, however, can only be determined from inside the story that every man and woman experience with their Creator.66 Theological anthropology cannot speak about the human being in an abstract or an universalist way. There is no question that Gen 1:26 is also associated with a task for humankind. This does not, however, consist in becoming more like God, but, on the contrary, in honouring God as Creator by doing God’s will, by constantly exploring the meaning of the imago Dei according to the situation and by expressing it in this way: It is not those who hermeneutically squeeze out Gen 1:26 who will learn more about the image of God, but those who become aware of how often and in how many different ways in biblical texts, stories, instructions and prayers, people become aware of themselves and others; how they are created; when they discover what God considers them worthy of, even if they themselves are most surprised about it […] If we ask what the creation of man in God’s image “means,” we will find an answer in places, where God’s expressed will is manifested on and with people – and remains hidden though to such an extent that people cannot usurp it.67 64 Hans G. Ulrich, “Gottes Ebenbild und die Bedeutung von Menschenwürde in der christlichen Ethik,” in “Was ist der Mensch?” Theologische Anthropologie – ein lutherischorthodoxer Dialog, ed. Metropolit Serafim (Hermannstadt/Bonn: Schiller Verlag, 2013), 151–165, here 156. 65 Gerhard Sauter, Das verborgene Leben. Eine theologische Anthropologie (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 2011), 59. 66 Ulrich, “Gottes Ebenbild und die Bedeutung von Menschenwürde in der christlichen Ethik,” 155. 67 Sauter, Das verborgene Leben, 80.

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Humans have been considered worthy by God to be in his image, but what this means must always be brought up anew by theology. Thus, the break with Luther’s anthropology described by Pannenberg is actually a change on a hermeneutical level and not a rejection of the Reformation convictions. Theological anthropology refrains from a normative discourse and understands humans as being called and being under God’s permanent care. In God’s promise, the imago Dei has always been preserved for humans. In Christ, it is God who has fulfilled humans’ vocation, as Christ alone fully represents the imago Dei. From this twofold commitment of God to accompany humans’ history, men and women gain the confidence to discover the dimension of imago Dei in their own lives and actions, without any obligation to be perfect.68

Conclusion

Despite the recent developments, the idea of salvation by grace alone can be observed as a continuing motif in Protestant anthropology from Luther to our times: It is not through striving for achievement that human beings attain the imago Dei. According to the younger generation of Protestant theologians, men and woman explore the image of God as an existential dimension in their own life. The proper meaning of that image may reveal itself unexpectedly in actions and encounters as a gift from God and not as a result of their own efforts. This position is not only a contemporary theological way of speaking within Protestant anthropology, but also builds a bridge to Orthodox perspectives, because the effect of the imago Dei in human reality has been rediscovered in the Protestant tradition. Thus, both traditions may agree that men and women live under a vocation and for a purpose that creates a dynamic of exploration affecting the human being as a whole. Despite the persisting differences about the possible divine character of human personhood and human action the door has been opened for a new discussion about the dynamics of human development and the criteria of ethical decision making.

68 Ulrich, “Gottes Ebenbild und die Bedeutung von Menschenwürde in der christlichen Ethik,” 157.

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References Bayer, Oswald. Martin Luthers Theologie. Eine Vergegenwärtigung. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003. Ebeling, Gerhard. Lutherstudien, Band II: Disputatio de homine, dritter Teil: Die theologische Definition des Menschen. Kommentar zu These 20–40. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1989. Gause, Ute. “Reformation als Entdeckung von Leiblichkeit?” In Die Entdeckung des Individuums: Wie die Reformation die Moderne geprägt hat, edited by Annette Kurschus and Vicco von Bülow, 123–33. Bielefeld: Luther Verlag, 2017. Gause, Ute. “Durchsetzung neuer Männlichkeit: Ehe und Reformation.” Evangelische Theologie 73/5 (2013): 334–36. Heyer, Friedrich. “Orthodoxe Anthropologie der Gegenwart in der Sicht eines evangelischen Theologen.” In Das Bild vom Menschen, edited by Kirchliches Außenamt, 31–43. Korntal bei Stuttgart: Evangelischer Missionsverlag, 1974. Kirchliches Außenamt, ed. Das Bild vom Menschen in Orthodoxie und Protestantismus. Drittes Theologisches Gespräch zwischen dem Ökumenischen Patriarchat und der Evangelischen Kirche in Deutschland vom 2. bis 5. Oktober 1973 in Chambésy/Schweiz. Beiheft zur Ökumenischen Rundschau 26. Korntal bei Stuttgart: Evangelischer Missionsverlag, 1974. Merdjanova, Ina. “Das Bild Gottes im Menschen. Die orthodoxe Anthropologie als Anthropodizee.” Orthodoxes Forum 12/2 (1998): 87–100. Metropolit Serafim von Deutschland, Zentral- und Nordeuropa, Hermann Schoenauer, and Jürgen Henkel, eds. “Was ist der Mensch?” Theologische Anthropologie – ein lutherisch-orthodoxer Dialog. Hermannstadt/Bonn: Schiller Verlag, 2013. Pannenberg, Wolfhart. Gottebenbildlichkeit als Bestimmung des Menschen in der neueren Theologiegeschichte. Munich: Verlag der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1979. Peters, Albrecht. Der Mensch. Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus Mohn, 1979. Ricœur, Paul. “The Image of God and the Epic of Man.” In History and Truth, translated by Charles Kelbley, 110–128. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1965. Roper, Lyndal. Der feiste Doktor: Luther, sein Körper und seine Biographen. Translated by Karin Wördemann. Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag, 2012. Roper, Lyndal. “Martin Luther’s Body. The ‘Stout Doctor’ and His Biographers.” American Historical Review 115/2 (April 2010): 350–84. Sauter, Gerhard. Das verborgene Leben. Eine theologische Anthropologie. Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 2011. Steiger, Johann Anselm. Fünf Zentralthemen der Theologie Luthers und seiner Erben. Communicatio – imago – figura – Maria – exempla. Leiden/Boston/Cologne: Brill, 2002.

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Turner, Robert D. “Foundations for John Zizioulas’ Approach to Ecclesial Community.” Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses 78/4 (2002): 438–467. Ulrich, Hans G. “Gottes Ebenbild und die Bedeutung von Menschenwürde in der christlichen Ethik.” In “Was ist der Mensch?” Theologische Anthropologie – ein lutherisch-orthodoxer Dialog, edited by Metropolit Serafim, 151–165. Hermannstadt/ Bonn: Schiller Verlag, 2013. Wald, Berthold. Luthers Anthropologie im Spiegel seiner Biographie. Heimbach/Eifel: Patrimonium-Verlag, 2015. Ware, Metr. Kallistos, “’In the Image and Likeness’: The Uniqueness of the Human Person,” below. Zizioulas, John D. Being as Communion. Studies in Personhood and the Church. Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1985.

chapter 3

“In the Image and Likeness”: The Uniqueness of the Human Person Kallistos Ware There’s only one of me1

∵ The son of one of our Orthodox parishioners in Oxford was watching a program on television about endangered species. At the end he remained unusually silent. Eventually, with a note of anxiety in his voice, he said to his mother, “I am important, aren’t I? Because, I too am an endangered species – there’s only one of me in all the world.” He was expressing a vital truth about human personhood: “There’s only one of me.” Each human person is unique and irreplaceable. It is not enough to say that, among all the diverse kinds of living creatures, the human race occupies an exceptional and unique position; it has also to be affirmed that, within the human race itself, each specific person possesses an irreducible uniqueness. We are not interchangeable tokens or programs on a computer; within each of us there is a priceless treasure not to be found in anyone else. From before our birth – indeed, from all eternity – God the Creator foreknows each one of us in our particularity, and for each one He has a special love and a different plan. In each of us God discerns possibilities not to be realized by any other person in the universe. Each has the vocation of creating something beautiful in his or her own unrepeatable way. To emphasize the uniqueness of each person, Scripture states that Jesus Christ will give a white stone to everyone who conquers, “and on the white stone is written a new name that no one knows except the one who receives 1 Originally published in John T. Chirban, Personhood. Orthodox Christianity and the Connection Between Body, Mind, and Soul (Westport: Bergin & Garvey, 1996), 1–13 (reprinted with permission, with minor revisions).

© Kallistos Ware, 2021 | doi:10.1163/9789004461253_004 This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license.

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it” (Rev 2:17 nrsv). Throughout the “ages of ages” there continues to exist in each person a hidden mystery, a secret shared only between that person and God. Underlining the inexhaustible variety of humankind, Prince Vladimir Monomakh of Kiev (†1125) remarks “how various are the images in human faces”; even if we gathered together every single man and woman in the whole world, “there are none of the same image but everyone by God’s wisdom has their own image.”2 Each particular human person is an endangered species, for each is distinctive and of each it may be said, “There’s only one of me; in all the world there’s no one else exactly like me.” From this uniqueness of every human person, it follows that each is of infinite value. That is why the sixth-century recluse Abba Zosimas of Palestine claims, “The salvation of one person made in the divine image is more precious to God than ten thousand worlds with all that they contain.”3 Not in arrogance but with sober realism, let us renew our sense of wonder before this limitless mystery of our own personhood. “I will praise Thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made” (Ps 138 [139]:14 kjv). Yet why are we in this way unique, unrepeatable, and irreplaceable? What makes us different from the other living beings in the world around us, and different from one another? Wherein does the special meaning and value of each human person reside? In seeking an answer to these questions, Orthodox Christians should listen to the many conflicting voices in our modern – and postmodern – world. We Orthodox need to explore, with a rigor and a humility that we have not so far displayed, the characteristic insights of contemporary medicine, psychology, and sociology. We should not, however, expect these disciplines to provide us with ready-made answers; theologians are often surprisingly naive and over-confident about the supposed “findings” of science. When we listen to others, moreover, our attitude should certainly be one of openness but must never become one of abdication. Let us keep in view what as Christians we are called distinctively to affirm. As heirs to the living tradition of the Fathers, we have our own agenda, and we are not to allow the secular environment to set the agenda for us. What is it, then, that differentiates the Christian vision of personhood from the secular world view? The answer can be found in the words of Abba Zosimas: “the salvation of one person made in the divine image.” As Christians, 2 Gueorgui Petrovitch Fedotov, The Russian Religious Mind, 2nd ed., vol. 1. Kievan Christianity: The Tenth to the Thirteenth Centuries (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1966), 247. 3 Sayings 11, pg 78:1696C; cf. Paulos Evergetinos, Synagogi, ed. V. Matthaiou, vol. 3 (Athens: Monastery of the Transfiguration, 1964), 501, §47.

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we begin from the presupposition that the human person is an icon of God, a finite expression of God’s infinite self-expression: “Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness’” (Gen 1:26 nrsv). Such is the foundation, the polestar, of all Orthodox Christian anthropology. We have God at the innermost center of our existence. Human beings cannot be understood apart from divine being, for the divine is the determining element in our humanity. Beyond this point, however, we need to advance with care. As St. Epiphanius of Salamis (†403) observes, “Tradition holds that every human being is in the image of God, but it does not define exactly in what this image consists.”4 In this, as in many other questions of anthropology, there is no clear consensus among the Fathers. ln the Church’s dogmatic tradition – in the doctrinal decrees, that is to say, of the seven Ecumenical Councils, and also in the decrees of later local synods accepted by the Orthodox Church as a whole, such as the Palamite Councils held at Constantinople during 1341–1351 – there are virtually no explicit definitions about personhood. The Creed speaks of the resurrection of the dead on the last day, thereby safeguarding the essential unity of the human person, body and soul together; but that is all. As St. Gregory Palamas (1296–1359) remarks, tradition leaves it an open question how the soul is united to the body, whether the intellect (nous) resides in the head or the heart, what is the seat of the imagination or the memory;5 in the words of Fr. John Meyendorff, “There are no dogmas in physiology.”6 By the same token, there are no dogmas defining the precise character of the divine image. We Orthodox, then, must guard against the tendency to enlarge the scope of dogma beyond its proper limits, and must reject the temptation to make tradition more clear-cut and monolithic than is in fact the case. That we are in God’s image is undisputed; but how we are in God’s image, and in what that image consists, is far from immediately clear. Let us not oversimplify the patristic standpoint, for the Fathers do not actually offer us a single, systematic doctrine of the human person; they merely provide us with a diversity of approaches 4 Panarion 70,3,1; cf. Ancoratus, 55, 4–5. On the Patristic doctrine of the divine image, see John Edward Sullivan, The Image of God. The Doctrine of St. Augustine and Its Influence (Dubuque: Priory Press, 1963); Walter J. Burghardt, The Image of God in Man According to Cyril of Alexandria (Woodstock: Woodstock College Press, 1957); Lars Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator. The Theological Anthropology of Maximus the Confessor (Lund/Copenhagen: C.W.K. Gleerup/Ejnar Munksgaar, 1965), 121–39. For a more general treatment, see David Cairns, The Image of God in Man (London: scm Press, 1953). 5 Gregory Palamas, Triads in Defense of the Holy Hesychasts, i,ii,3; ii,ii,30 ed. John Meyendorff (Louvain: Spicilegium Sacrum Lovaniense, 1959), 79 and 381. 6 A Study of Gregory Palamas, 2nd ed. (Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1998), 148.

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to the continuing mystery of personhood. Within the deep unanimity of the Patristic heritage there is room for creative contrasts and complementarity. With due caution, then, let us now take up our central question. What is signified by the “image of God”? How much does it embrace, and what does it exclude? 1

The Meaning of the Image: Relationship

The fact that human persons are created in the image of God signifies first and foremost an orientation, a direction, a relationship. The orientation is primarily vertical – a relationship with God. If we are in God’s image, this means that human personhood cannot be defined and understood simply in terms of itself, as a self-contained, autonomous entity; I do not contain the meaning of my selfhood exclusively within myself. Only when I see myself in relationship with God does my personhood acquire authentic meaning; without God I am unintelligible. From this it follows that we cannot first work out a description of the human person on its own, and then proceed to consider its relationship with God in an appendix. On the contrary, the human person without God is not normal but abnormal, not human but subhuman. To be created in the image means that we are created for fellowship and communion with God, and if we repudiate that fellowship and communion, we are denying our own true self. When we affirm humanity, we also affirm God; and when we deny God, we also deny humanity. In this sense the theist is the only true humanist. I recall a meeting in Oxford many years ago, addressed by Fr. Sophrony (1896–1993), the disciple of St. Silouan the Athonite who now has been declared a saint. As the discussion drew to a close, the chairman invited one last question. A member of the audience asked, “Tell me, Father, what is God?” Fr. Sophrony replied, “Tell me, what is man?” Yes, indeed: the two questions are inseparable. Such is the vertical dimension of our personhood. Our creation “in the image” signifies that to be human is to be God-related; I cannot understand myself apart from God. But this vertical, God-related orientation implies also, in the second place, a horizontal orientation: to be human is to be in relationship with our fellow humans. For the God in whose image we are made is God the Holy Trinity, and so the divine icon within each of us is a Trinitarian icon. The God who is essential to my personhood, without whom I cannot be genuinely human, is a God of mutual love: not a simple monad, not one person loving himself alone, but three persons – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – loving one another in reciprocal relationship. As Metropolitan John (Zizioulas) of

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Pergamon has rightly insisted, “The being of God is a relational being: without the concept of communion it would not be possible to speak of the being of God.”7 If all this is true of God, then it is true also of human persons formed in God’s image. We humans are called to reproduce on earth the perichoresis (interchange of mutual love) that unites the three members of the Holy Trinity in heaven. The unity of the Trinity, needless to say, is a unique unity, and human persons can never be one with the same degree of closeness and reciprocal indwelling as prevails among the three divine persons. But, after full allowance has been made for the differentiation between the divine and the human, it can still be claimed that there is an analogy between the two levels: “Even as you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be one in us” (John 17:21). Fr. Vasileios insists with good reason that this Trinitarian “even as” is vital to our salvation, “the one thing which is needful.”8 To be authentic human persons “in the image,” therefore, we must reflect on earth what Christos Yannaras terms “the ethos of Trinitarian communion.”9 If divine being is “a relational being,” then human being is likewise relational; and if it is impossible to speak of the being of God “without the concept of communion,” then this same concept of koinonia is equally essential to all our discourse concerning humankind. God is solidarity, exchange, mutual gift; so also is human personhood. Made as we are in the image of the Triune God, none of us can realize his or her personhood in isolation. Our faith in God as Trinity means that there can be no true person unless there are at least two persons – or, better still, at least three persons – communicating with each other. Because as an Orthodox Christian I believe in a God who is Trinity, therefore I need you in order to be myself. I cannot know myself as a person apart from my relationship with you; for I can be genuinely personal only if I love others after the likeness of the Trinitarian God, and if in turn I am loved by them. Personhood is always interpersonal, and there can be no “I” without a “Thou.”10 7 Being as Communion. Studies in Personhood and the Church (Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1985), 17. On Metropolitan John’s theology of personhood, see Paul McPartlan, The Eucharist Makes the Church: Henri de Lubac and John Zizioulas in Dialogue (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1993), esp. 138–43, 166–86. Perhaps Fr. McPartlan should have scrutinized the concept of “corporate personality,” of which Metropolitan John makes much use, more critically. 8 Archimandrite Vasileios of Stavronikita [subsequently of Iviron], Hymn of Entry. Liturgy and Life in the Orthodox Church (Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1984), 43. 9 The Freedom of Morality (Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1984), 16. 10 See Kallistos Ware, “The Human Person as an Icon of the Trinity,” Sobornost. Incorporating Eastern Churches Review (Fellowship of St. Alban and St. Sergius) 8/2 (1986): 6–23.

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Cogito, ergo sum, slated René Descartes: “I think, therefore I am.” But this is to express only a small part of the truth. It is vital to affirm also Amo, ergo sum: “I love, therefore I am”; and also Amor, ergo sum: “I am loved, therefore I am.” In the words of the great Romanian theologian Fr. Dumitru Staniloae (1903–1993), “Insofar as I am not loved, I am incomprehensible to myself.”11 Personhood, we may note in this connection, has much to do with the way we use our hands and our eyes. The clenched fist – closed, defiant, confrontational, excluding and threatening others – constitutes a denial of true personhood. But the hand extended to shake another band, the hands and arms opened to embrace another person – the fingers of two persons stretched out to touch each other, as in the fresco by Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican, depicting God creating Adam – these are all vindications of personhood. So also with the eyes: I become truly a person only when I look into your eyes and allow you to look into mine. A number of modern thinkers, both Orthodox and non-Orthodox, have underlined the interpersonal character of our humanness by drawing a distinction between the individual and the person.12 The difference is particularly clear in the Greek language. Atomon, the individual, denotes the human being as unit – turned inward, self-contained, isolated, a bare number recorded in a census. Prosopon, the person, denotes the human being as face – outwardlooking, in relationship, involved with others. Whereas atomon signifies separation, prosopon signifies communion. The individual is the human being as competitor; the person is the human being as co-worker. The whole purpose of our life on earth is that we each develop from an individual into a person, and it is precisely communion after the likeness of the Trinity that distinguishes the second from the first. The individual is the one who says “I,” “me,” “mine,” whereas the person says “we,” “us,” “our,” or “thou.” In this sense the Lord’s Prayer may be seen as a truly personal prayer. It says “we” once, “us” five times, “our” three times, “thy” or “thine” four times, but nowhere does it use “I,” “me,” or “mine.” A story that has always haunted my imagination, ever since I heard it in childhood, is Dostoevsky’s tale of the old woman and the onion, recounted in The Brothers Karamazov. You will remember how her guardian angel tried to pull the old woman out of the lake of fire with the help of an onion that she had once given to a beggar. When the other people in the lake crowded round her, hoping to 11 Marc-Antoine Costa de Beauregard, Dumitru Staniloae, “Ose comprendre que je t’aime” (Paris: Cerf, 1983), 24. 12 For example, Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (London: James Clarke, 1957), 121–22; Yannaras, The Freedom of Morality, 22–23.

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be pulled out as well, she exclaimed with indignation: “Let go, it’s me who’s being pulled out, not you. It’s my onion, not yours!” No wonder the onion broke in two and she fell back into the fire; for in her unwillingness to share, in her refusal to say “It’s our onion,” she was repudiating her own personhood. Hell, which stands at the opposite extreme from the Holy Trinity, consists exactly in the radical loss of all personal communion. As T.S. Eliot has insisted in The Cocktail Party, rightly contradicting Sartre, hell is not other people, but it is oneself, cut off from others and isolated. The same point is made in one of the basic texts of Orthodox monasticism, the Gerontikon or Sayings of the Desert Fathers. When St. Makarios the Egyptian asks the skull of a pagan priest what kind of torment the condemned are suffering in hell, the priest replies: “We cannot look at each other face to face, but we are each fixed back to back.” Then he adds, “But when you pray for us, each of us can see the other’s face a little.”13 In today’s dehumanized world, in which we anticipate hell by no longer looking in any profound sense at each other’s faces, one of our most important tasks as Christians is to reaffirm the supreme value of direct personal communion. We must not allow the machines to take over, as happens in the anecdote about the psychiatrist and his new patient. “It’s easier for me to concentrate,” said the psychiatrist at their first meeting, “if I’m not actually looking at you. So I’ll sit over there in the corner behind a curtain while you lie down on the couch and tell me your story.” After a time the patient grew suspicious, for it was curiously quiet behind the curtain. So he tiptoed across the room, and his misgivings were confirmed. He saw behind the curtain a door, and near it a chair, but there was no psychiatrist on the chair – only a tape recorder. The man was not unduly perturbed, for he had related his story many times to different psychiatrists, and he had it all down on tape. He took a tape recorder out of his briefcase, laid it on the couch, and turned it on. Then he went downstairs and across the road to a coffee-shop. Inside he found the psychiatrist, drinking coffee; the man ordered his own cup of coffee and sat down at the same table. “Look here,” the psychiatrist protested, “you’re not supposed to be here. You should be upstairs on the couch telling your story.” “Don’t worry,” the man replied. “My tape recorder’s talking to your tape recorder.” As Christians we are here to insist on the vital need for unmediated personal encounter: not machine to machine, but face to face, person to person, prosopon to prosopon, according to the model of God the Trinity.

13

Makarios the Egyptian, in Benedicta Ward, trans., The Sayings of the Desert Fathers. The Alphabetical Collection, 2nd ed. (London: Mowbray, 1981), 136–37 (§38).

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The Meaning of the Image: Growth

Such, then, is the basic and primary meaning of personhood according to the image and likeness of the Holy Trinity: it denotes a relationship at once vertical and horizontal, with God and with each other. But this is not all. At the same time it also signifies movement, advance, a continuing exploration, an uncompleted journey. To be a human person is not only to share but also to grow. There is an illuminating point of contact here between Patristic theology and contemporary psychology, for psychology likewise sees personhood not as fixed and static but as developing and open-ended. In Orthodox theology this dynamic character of personhood is often expressed by drawing a distinction between the image of God and the likeness of God. When these two terms are first used in Gen 1:26, “in our image, according to our likeness” (nrsv), it is unlikely that any contrast was intended in the original Hebrew; the double phrase is simply an example of the parallelism frequent in the Old Testament. The Greek Septuagint, however, inserts the word “and” between the two terms: “according to our image [eikon] and according to [our] likeness [homoiosis].” Does this perhaps suggest a contrast between the two? Significantly, it is only in this passage, referring to humankind prior to the Fall, that the term homoiosis is employed; later passages dealing with the human condition after the Fall speak only of the image (Gen 5:1; 9:6). A possible inference from this is that the image is something retained by humankind even in its fallen state, whereas the likeness denotes the divine idea of human personhood, our original glory and our ultimate hope. But it remains doubtful whether this was the conscious intention of the Septuagint translators. Among the Greek Fathers, St. Irenaeus of Lyons († ca. 200) is the first to distinguish clearly between image and likeness. The “perfect” human being, he maintains, is according to both the image and the likeness of God, whereas the “imperfect” human being has only the image but not the likeness.14 St. Clement of Alexandria († ca. 215) takes up the distinction. He sees the likeness as belonging to the future rather than to the past: “Some of our writers have understood that humans received what is ‘according to the image’ straight away at their creation, but what is ‘according to the likeness’ they look forward to receiving in the future at their perfection.”15 For Origen († ca. 254) it is likewise part of our eschatological hope: “Humans received the honor of the image at their first creation, but the full perfection of God’s likeness will be conferred upon

14 Against the Heresies, v,vi,1; v,xvi,2. 15 Stromata, ii,22,131,5.

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them only at the consummation of all things.”16 The distinction continues to be employed by a series of later authors, most notably St. Diadochos of Photiki in the fifth century, St. Maximos the Confessor in the seventh, and St. John of Damascus in the eighth. There are, however, other Fathers who make little or no use of the distinction, such as St. Athanasios of Alexandria, St. Gregory of Nazianzos, Theodoret of Cyrus, and St. Symeon the New Theologian; and there are even some – such as St. Cyril of Alexandria in the East and St. Augustine in the West – who explicitly deny that there is any essential difference between the two terms. Here, as elsewhere, allowance should be made for the wide variety in the Patristic understanding of personhood. St. Maximos the Confessor succinctly sums up the teaching of those Fathers who differentiate between image and likeness: “Every intelligent nature is in the image of God, but only the good and the wise are in His likeness.”17 The image, that is to say, indicates our essential humanity, the endowment conferred on every one of us simply by virtue of the fact that we are human beings; and even though it is obscured by sin, it is never entirely lost. The likeness, on the other band, is attained only by the saints who have reached the fullness of theosis (deification). Image is to likeness as starting point is to end point, or as potentiality is to realization. Interpreted in these terms, the “image” doctrine entails an intensely dynamic view of what it means to be a person. Each human being is a pilgrim on a continuing journey from the image to the likeness. Homo viator: to be human is to be a traveller, always on the move. Personhood implies constant discovery, ever-new beginnings, unceasing self-transcendence.18 St. Irenaeus underlines this dynamic character of personhood by suggesting that humans at their first creation, prior to the Fall, did not possess a realized perfection but existed only in a state of simplicity and innocence. Adam, he says, “was but small, for he was a child; and it was necessary that he should grow, and so come to his perfection.”19 Similar ideas are expressed by St. Theophilos of Antioch (late 2nd century): Adam was a “child,” “simple and innocent”; he was originally created “in an intermediate state, neither entirely mortal nor entirely immortal, but capable of either state,” and he was in this way given by God “an opportunity for progress, so that by growing and becoming mature, and 16 On First Principles, iii,iv,1. 17 On Love, iii,25; pg 90:1024C. 18 Compare Kallistos Ware, “The Unity of the Human Person According to the Greek Fathers,” in Persons and Personality. A Contemporary Inquiry, ed. Arthur Robert Peacocke and Grant Gillett (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987), 197–206. 19 The Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching, 12.

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moreover having been made god, he might thereby ascend to heaven.”20 In this perspective the Fall is to be viewed not as a willful lapse from an unimaginable height of wisdom and glory but in more compassionate terms, as a failure to grow in the right way. For St. Irenaeus, St. Gregory of Nyssa († ca. 395), and St. Maximos the Confessor, there are no limits to this spiritual journey that humankind is called to undertake. It is unending, for it extends beyond this present life into eternity. Even in the age to come we never cease to grow. “Forgetting what lies behind, I reach forward to what lies ahead,” says St. Paul (Phil 3:13). This “reaching forward” (epektasis), according to St. Gregory of Nyssa, continues even in heaven. In a fine paradox, he maintains in The Life of Moses that the very essence of perfection consists in the fact that we never become totally perfect but advance endlessly “from glory to glory” (2 Cor 3:18), without ever arriving at an ultimate stopping place. Each boundary, in his view, implies a beyond; each limit presupposes its own self-transcendence.21 In the words of Jean Daniélou, “Every ending is but a beginning, and every arrival but a new departure.”22 History, it has been said, is not a closed circle but an upward-sloping line. Something similar is to be affirmed of eternity: it is not a closed circle but an ascending spiral, and to this ascending spiral there is no final limit. God is inexhaustible, and so the potentialities of our human personhood according to the divine image are likewise inexhaustible. Such are among the implications of the distinction between image and likeness, if we choose to make such a differentiation. To all eternity personhood continues to be a sign of possibilities as yet unrealized. The divine image that makes us authentically human is not closed and confined within fixed frontiers; rather it signifies openness to an unknown future, a call that is constantly renewed, a vocation still to be explored. 3

The Meaning of the Image: Self-Awareness

The human animal, says Heidegger, is an animal that thinks. Although this is not the whole truth about personhood, it is certainly a vital aspect of it. For the Greek Patristic tradition, the divine image within us signifies, among other 20 To Autolykos, ii,24–25. 21 Compare Gregory of Nyssa, “Commentary on the Song of Songs, xii” in Gregorii Nysseni Opera, ed. Werner Jaeger and Hermann Langerbeck, vol. 6 (Leiden: Brill, 1960), 352–54. 22 Jean Daniélou, ed., From Glory to Glory: Texts from Gregory of Nyssa’s Mystical Writings, trans. Herbert Musurillo (London: John Murray, 1961), 69.

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things, our conscious self-awareness; our powers of reason, introspection, and intuitive insight; our conscience; and our sense of good and evil. Christ the Creator is Logos and Sophia, the principle of coherence, order, and meaning within the universe. The image of God within us therefore means that we humans are likewise logos and sophia, that we, too, are capable of thinking, speaking, and acting with coherence and meaning. As humans in the divine image, we do not merely live in the world, following our instincts; we reflect, and by virtue of this capacity for reflection we reshape and refashion the world, endowing it with new meaning, giving the creation a voice and rendering it articulate in praise of God. “Thine own from Thine own we offer Thee, in all and for all”: consciously and by deliberate choice we are capable of offering the world back to God in thanksgiving, and in this thanksgiving we become ourselves. All this the animals can do only by instinct, spontaneously, and without full self-awareness. The self-awareness in this way conferred upon us through the divine image enables each of us to be an offerer, a priest of the creation, a cosmic liturgist. The human animal, as an animal that thinks, is fundamentally a eucharistic animal. Without an attitude of joyful offering, without gratitude and thanksgiving, I am not truly personal. Earlier I suggested that the emblem of genuine personhood is not the clenched fist but the open hand. Let us extend the analogy. In the apse of Orthodox churches there is often the figure of the Mother of God, Platytera, with her open hands raised, palms upward, toward heaven. This icon of the Theotokos is precisely an expression of our basic humanity. Only when we open our hands and raise them to heaven in thanksgiving do we become real persons according to God’s image. This emphasis upon self-awareness, however, should not be interpreted in an unduly narrow or negative manner. First, it should not be concluded that the divine image embraces only the conscious mind and excludes the unconscious. On the contrary, as persons in the divine image we relate to God not only through the feelings and emotions of which we are fully aware but also through the deeper levels of our inner self that elude the scrutiny of the conscious, thinking mind. God speaks to us more particularly through our dreams, as Scripture frequently indicates; there is in the Patristic tradition, especially in the writings of Evagrios of Pontos (†399), an elaborate discussion of dream interpretation that contemporary Orthodox psychologists might profitably explore. The unconscious, then, should certainly be seen as falling within the scope of the divine image. Second, in stressing self-awareness through the conscious mind we should not assume that the divine image has nothing to do with the body. It is true that many Christian thinkers – Greek, Latin, and Syriac – have stated that the

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divine image is located in the soul and not in the body; Origen is a notable example.23 For this there are various reasons. In some cases the writers in question have been heavily influenced by a Platonic separatist view of the human person, which fails to allow sufficiently for the interdependence of body and soul. Also, the Fathers needed to guard against a crudely anthropomorphic view of the deity; if it were said in an unqualified way that the human body is in the divine image, simpler believers might have taken this to mean that God has a physical body like our own and is literally an old man up in the sky. There are, however, a number of patristic authors – a minority, perhaps, but as significant minority – who adopt a more holistic approach to personhood, insisting that the divine image embraces the total human being, body, soul, and spirit together. In particular this is the view of St. Irenaeus, who writes: “By the hands of the Father, that is, by the Son and the Spirit, the human person was created in the likeness of God. The person was so created, not just as a part of the person. Now soul and spirit are certainly a part of the person, but they are not the person as such. For the complete person consists in the commingling and union of the soul that receives the spirit [or breath] of the Father, together with the flesh [or physical nature] that is fashioned according to God’s image.”24 Here St. Irenaeus remains faithful to the Hebraic and biblical view of the human being as a unified whole. His approach is not far from that of Carl Jung when he wrote, “Spirit is the living body seen from within, and the body the outer manifestation of the living spirit – the two being really one.”25 In the later Byzantine period, Michael Choniates (†1222) makes exactly the same point as St. Irenaeus: “The term human being is applied not to the soul alone or to the body alone, but to both of them together; and so it is with reference to both together that God is said to have created the human person in His image.”26 Following out the implications of this holistic standpoint, St. Gregory Palamas maintains that it is the total person – body, soul, and spirit together – that participates in the vision of the Divine Light; the divine energies transfigure not only our inner self but also our physicality. If the divine image is given this inclusive sense, are we to conclude that it also embraces within its scope the human passions, including our human eros? In what sense, moreover, is the distinction between male and female relevant to the image (cf. Gen 1:27)? These are complex questions on which Greek Christian writers do not entirely agree. Although many of them, such 23 24 25 26

See, e.g., Against Celsus, vi,63. Against the Heresies, v,vi,1. Modern Man in Search of a Soul (London: Routledge-Ark Paperbacks, 1984), 253. Prosopopeiai, pg 150:1361C (often attributed to Gregory Palamas).

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as Clement of Alexandria and Evagrios of Pontos, adopt a negative, Stoic view of the passions, condemning them as a sinful distortion of true personhood, there are others who adopt a more neutral Aristotelian standpoint: the passions are impulses implanted in our nature by God that are open to misuse but are also capable of being employed to God’s glory. A monastic author such as Abba Isaias († ca. 491) holds that anger, for example, can be employed in a positive way against the demons; jealousy can be transformed into zeal for righteousness; even pride can be put to good use if it leads us to affirm our meaning and value in God’s eyes when assailed by self-hatred and despair.27 For St. John Klimakos (7th century), physical eros is a true “paradigm” of our love for God.28 St. Maximos refers to “the blessed passion of holy love,”29 and St. Gregory Palamas speaks of “divine and blessed passions” and maintains that our aim should be not the “mortification” of the passions but their redirection or “transposition.”30 Whatever our specific theology of the divine image, one thing is surely evident. The body is integral to our personhood and central to our life in Christ. It is a “temple of the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor 6:19) through which we “glorify God” (1 Cor 6:20) and which we offer to Him as a “living sacrifice” (Rom 12:1). All the sacraments of the Church involve the body’s participation. Furthermore, unity of soul and body continues into eternity, for at the resurrection of the dead on the last day, we shall be reunited to our bodies. In this present life, then, we need to listen to the body – to its rhythms, its dreams, its modes of understanding – for the body does not lie. Our human physicality bears God’s imprint and God’s seal, and can be used as a means of communion with God. Is it not wiser, then, to give to the divine image a maximalist rather than a minimalist sense? 4

The Meaning of the Image: Freedom

Because the divine image is closely connected with self-awareness, although not limited to this, the image is to be seen reflected particularly in our 27 Logos, ii,1–2, ed. Monk Avgoustinos (Jerusalem: Press of the Holy Sepulchre, 1911), 5. See Kallistos Ware, “The Meaning of ‘Pathos’ in Abba Isaias and Theodoret of Cyrus,” in Studia Patristica 20, ed. Elizabeth A. Livingstone (Leuven: Peeters, 1989), 315–22. 28 The Ladder of Divine Ascent, 26, pg 88:1024B. Compare Kallistos Ware, “Introduction,” in The Ladder of Divine Ascent, trans. Colm Luibhéid and Norman Russell (New York: Paulist Press, 1982), 31–33. 29 On love, iii,71; pg 90:1037C. 30 Triads in Defense of the Holy Hesychasts, ii,ii,22; iii,iii,15 ed. John Meyendorff.

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possession of free choice. Through our power of conscious reflection, we freely and deliberately make moral decisions, discerning with God’s help between good and evil. God is free; and so, as human persons made in God’s image, we also are free. God’s freedom is of course absolute and unconditioned, whereas our human freedom is conditioned in a fallen world by heredity, environment, our own past sins, and the influence of our unconscious motives. Yet despite every limitation, our human liberty continues to be a genuine reflection of the divine Trinitarian liberty. This God-given freedom of each human person is a master theme in Patristic anthropology. In the words of St. Cyril of Alexandria (†444), “Human beings were created in the beginning with control over their own decisions, and were free to direct their will as they chose. For they were formed in God’s image, and God is free.”31 “If the human person,” says St. Maximos, “is created in the image of the blessed and supraessential Godhead, then – since the Godhead is free by nature – this signifies that as God’s image the human person also is free by nature.”32 “Heaven, sun, moon and earth have no free will,” state the Homilies of St. Makarios (†391). “But you are in the image and likeness of God; and this means that, just as God is His own master and can do what He wishes and, if He wishes, He can send the righteous to hell and sinners to the Kingdom, but He does not choose to do this […], so, in like manner, you also are your own master and, if you choose, you can destroy yourself.”33 As Kierkegaard rightly claims, “The most tremendous thing granted to humans is choice, freedom.”34 We are never to lose sight of this royal liberty that is our birthright as persons in God’s image. One of the questions asked by the Jewish rabbis was this: “What is the worst thing that the Evil Urge (yetzer ha-ra’) can achieve?” The answer is “To make someone forget that he is the child of a king.”35 It is in this human freedom according to God’s image that we find the explanation for the uniqueness of each human being. Each person is different from every other person – as Vladimir Monomakh puts it, “Everyone by God’s wisdom has their own image” – precisely because each is free, and therefore through personal decisions each expresses the divine image in his or her characteristic and distinctive way. Our power of voluntary choice, exercised in co-operation with God’s grace, confers on us an inexhaustible variety. Our 31 32 33 34

Glaphyra on Genesis, i,4; pg 69:24C. Dispute with Pyrrhus, pg 91:304C. Homilies, xv, 23. Journals, trans. Alexander Dru (London/New York/Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1938), 372. 35 Martin Buber, Tales of the Hasidim, vol. 1. The Early Masters (New York: Schocken, 1961), 282.

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vocation, as persons made in God’s image, is not to become copies of each other, repetitive and unoriginal, but through the use of our freedom to become each authentically our own unique self. In the words of the Hasidic master Rabbi Zusya, “In the coming world, they will not ask me: ‘Why were you not Moses?’ They will ask me: ‘Why were you not Zusya?’ ”36 5

The Two Pockets

Let me in conclusion quote a third Jewish text that exactly sums up our human condition as persons in the divine image. “Rabbi Bunam said to his disciples: Everyone must have two pockets, so that he can reach into the one or the other, according to his needs. In his right pocket are to be the words: ‘For my sake was the world created,’ and in his left: ‘I am earth and ashes.’”37 Such is indeed the human paradox. As persons we are a strange mixture of glory and frailty, of infinite possibilities and actual failure: in the words of St. Gregory of Nazianzos († ca. 389), we are “earthly, yet heavenly […], midway between majesty and lowliness […], both spirit and flesh.”38 “I am earth and ashes.” In ourselves and in society around us, we are everywhere confronted by the tragic evidence of human corruption and failure. We see conflicts and hatred, loneliness, fear, depression, alcoholism and drug addiction, suicide. Hypersensitive, delicately balanced, the human mechanism all too easily goes wrong. And yet there is more to the human person than this, incomparably more. Never for a single moment are we to forget the other pocket: “For my sake was the world created.” The human person is the crown and fulfilment of the divine creation – microcosm and mediator, priest of the cosmos, God’s royal image. By virtue of the divine icon placed in our hearts, we are capable of mutual love, open to unending growth, endowed with self-awareness, entrusted with free will, and each of us distinctive and unique. “At the beginning in Paradise,” says St. Theodore the Studite (†826), “God made us beautiful through the high dignity of being in His image and likeness.”39 Whereas the Bible states simply that “God made us in His image and likeness,” St. Theodore draws out the meaning of Scripture by affirming that “God made 36 Buber, Tales of the Hasidim, 1961, 1. The Early Masters:251. 37 Martin Buber, Tales of the Hasidim, vol. 2. The Later Masters (New York: Schocken, 1968), 249–50. 38 Oration, 38,11. 39 Short Catechesis 100, Giuseppe Cozza-Luzi, ed., Nova patrum bibliotheca 9 (Rome: Typis Sacri Consilii Propagando Christiano Nomini, 1888), 232.

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us beautiful.” This divine beauty is reflected in and through all the various things that the Creator has formed, but it shines out pre-eminently from God’s living icon, the human person. References Abba Isaias. Logos. Edited by Monk Avgoustinos. Jerusalem: Press of the Holy Sepulchre, 1911. Archimandrite Vasileios of Stavronikita. Hymn of Entry. Liturgy and Life in the Orthodox Church. Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1984. Buber, Martin. Tales of the Hasidim. Vol. 1. The Early Masters. New York: Schocken, 1961. Buber, Martin. Tales of the Hasidim. Vol. 2. The Later Masters. New York: Schocken, 1968. Burghardt, Walter J. The Image of God in Man According to Cyril of Alexandria. Woodstock: Woodstock College Press, 1957. Cairns, David. The Image of God in Man. London: scm Press, 1953. Chirban, John T. Personhood. Orthodox Christianity and the Connection Between Body, Mind, and Soul. Westport: Bergin & Garvey, 1996. Costa de Beauregard, Marc-Antoine. Dumitru Staniloae, “Ose comprendre que je t’aime.” Paris: Cerf, 1983. Cozza-Luzi, Giuseppe, ed. Nova patrum bibliotheca 9. Rome: Typis Sacri Consilii Propagando Christiano Nomini, 1888. Daniélou, Jean, ed. From Glory to Glory: Texts from Gregory of Nyssa’s Mystical Writings. Translated by Herbert Musurillo. London: John Murray, 1961. Fedotov, Gueorgui Petrovitch. The Russian Religious Mind. 2nd ed. Vol. 1. Kievan Christianity: The Tenth to the Thirteenth Centuries. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1966. Jung, Carl. Modern Man in Search of a Soul. London: Routledge-Ark Paperbacks, 1984. Kierkegaard, Søren. Journals. Translated by Alexander Dru. London/New York/Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1938. Lossky, Vladimir. The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church. London: James Clarke, 1957. McPartlan, Paul. The Eucharist Makes the Church: Henri de Lubac and John Zizioulas in Dialogue. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1993. Meyendorff, John. A Study of Gregory Palamas. 2nd ed. Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1998. Gregory of Nyssa. “Commentary on the Song of Songs.” In Gregorii Nysseni Opera, edited by Werner Jaeger and Hermann Langerbeck, Vol. 6. Leiden: Brill, 1960.

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Gregory Palamas. Triads in Defense of the Holy Hesychasts. Edited by John Meyendorff. Louvain: Spicilegium Sacrum Lovaniense, 1959. Paulos Evergetinos. Synagogi. Edited by V. Matthaiou. Vol. 3. Athens: Monastery of the Transfiguration, 1964. Sullivan, John Edward. The Image of God. The Doctrine of St. Augustine and Its Influence. Dubuque: Priory Press, 1963. Thunberg, Lars. Microcosm and Mediator. The Theological Anthropology of Maximus the Confessor. Lund/Copenhagen: C.W.K. Gleerup/Ejnar Munksgaar, 1965. Ward, Benedicta, trans. The Sayings of the Desert Fathers. The Alphabetical Collection. 2nd ed. London: Mowbray, 1981. Ware, Kallistos. “The Meaning of ‘Pathos’ in Abba Isaias and Theodoret of Cyrus.” In Studia Patristica 20, edited by Elizabeth A. Livingstone, 315–22. Leuven: Peeters, 1989. Ware, Kallistos. “The Unity of the Human Person According to the Greek Fathers.” In Persons and Personality. A Contemporary Inquiry, edited by Arthur Robert Peacocke and Grant Gillett, 197–206. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987. Ware, Kallistos. “The Human Person as an Icon of the Trinity.” Sobornost. Incorporating Eastern Churches Review (Fellowship of St. Alban and St. Sergius) 8/2 (1986): 6–23. Ware, Kallistos. “Introduction.” In The Ladder of Divine Ascent, translated by Colm Luibhéid and Norman Russell, 31–33. New York: Paulist Press, 1982. Yannaras, Christos. The Freedom of Morality. Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1984. Zizioulas, John D. Being as Communion. Studies in Personhood and the Church. Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1985.

part 3

∵

chapter 4

Sin and the Bondage of the Will Christophe Chalamet […] there are two kind of people: One kind confesses with David that God alone is righteous, truthful, and holy. The others are wicked and ‘God-fighters’ like the giants, saying: ‘Your Word is not true. We are not blind. There is still some light in us toward God. If I obey it, I shall be in grace.’ Martin Luther, On Psalm 511

…

For the Word of God comes, whenever it comes, to change and renew the world. Martin Luther, On the Bondage of the Will2

∵ The topic of sin and free will is, arguably, the point where Luther departs from humanism. Still today, it is on this particular point that Luther continues to scandalize some, who take him to promote a “pessimistic” anthropology.3 Should Christian theologians abandon his radical views and accept a more “optimistic” view of human beings? Some will say that Christian theologians have long abandoned Luther’s views. But in order to avoid hasty decisions, we need to pay close attention to what Luther said on this topic. Besides Luther’s treatise On the Bondage of the Will, written in 1525 in response to Erasmus’ On the Freedom of the Will published a year earlier, there is one particular text, 1 Luther’s Works (hereafter: lw) (Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1955), 12:345 (on Ps 51:4). 2 lw 33:52 (translated by E. Gordon Rupp, Philip S. Watson, A.N. Marlow and B. Drewery). “Sermo enim Dei venit mutaturus et innovaturus orbens, quoties venit.” wa 18:626,26–27. 3 See the recent pamphlet by Klaas Huizing, Schluss mit Sünde! Warum wir eine neue Reformation brauchen (Hamburg: Kreuz Verlag, 2017). The title can be translated as: “Enough with sin!” This kind of attempt to “get rid” of sin as a theological topic will simply not do.

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in Luther’s vast and unsystematic corpus, which can help us better understand his hamartiology, i.e. his teaching on sin: his detailed interpretation of Psalm 50/51. This Psalm is probably the most significant one with regard to the theme of “repentance” from sin. It is a Psalm known in the Latin West, since at least the Middle Ages, as “Miserere,” due to its first words in the Vulgate (“Miserere mei, Deus”) – Luther must have learned this Psalm by heart fairly early during his years in the convents of the Augustine order, and perhaps even earlier than that. We may note, in passing, that this same Psalm also has a place of choice in Eastern Christianity: it is recited silently by the priest or deacon during the censing at the Divine Liturgy during the Cherubic, just before the Great Entrance. Martin Luther gave a very long exposition of this Psalm in class lectures, in the summer of 1532. These lectures were then published, edited by Veit Dietrich, in 1538.4 They deserve our close attention. 1

A Bound Will

Luther’s intention was to “destroy” the free will, which Erasmus defended. The human person does not have this free will about which Erasmus writes. What did Luther mean by this? Certainly not that we do not have the capacity to make any decision, such as deciding to touch my head at this very moment, but rather that the human person, because of sin, does not have the capacity to decide to turn toward God in order to receive salvation. Salvation is, in its entirety and therefore also in its initial stages, the exclusive work of God toward and in ourselves. And so, it is important to begin with some definitions. Erasmus took “free will” to designate “a power of the human by which someone can apply himself to the things which lead to eternal salvation, or turn away from them.”5 Luther thought this was a very problematic definition, and a stark departure from the theological tradition. Erasmus would have done well to follow Peter Lombard (it is not often we see Luther commending the great 12th century scholastic theologian), who offered a significantly better one in his Sentences 4 Luther’s interpretation of Ps 51 (the Psalm known as Miserere) is found, in English translation by Jaroslav Pelikan, in lw 12 (Selected Psalms I):303–410. For the original Latin version and the German translation, see wa 40.ii:315–470. 5 “Porro liberum arbitrium hoc loco sentimus vim humanae voluntatis, qua se possit homo applicare ad ea, quae perducunt ad aeternam salutem, aut ab iisdem avertere.” Erasmus of Rotterdam, De libero arbitrio διατριβη sive collatio, i b 10, ed. Johannes von Walter (Leipzig: Deichert, 1910), 19, lines 7–10. Luther quotes this definition in lw 33:102; wa 18:661–662.

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(Libri quattuor sententiarum). Here is how Luther summarized the Lombard’s definition: free will “is the capacity for discerning and then also choosing the good if grace is present, but evil if grace is absent.”6 As an Augustinian, Luther was convinced, at least since 1517, that human beings, without grace, are not free but enslaved to sin:7 “if it is not we, but only God, who works salvation in us, then before he works we can do nothing of saving significance, whether we wish to or not.”8 There is simply no possibility for the human being, by his own powers, to lift himself up from his condition. The consequence of this thesis is quite clear, and Luther draws it, leaving all ambiguity aside: if God alone effects salvation within us, this means that “everything we do is evil and we necessarily (necessario) do what is of no avail for salvation.”9 And this is exactly the point where many Christians, including many theologians among them, not only today, but already in Luther’s time, felt and still feel compelled to ask questions – and legitimately so, I would add (even if one ends up siding with Luther). Is it so clear that human beings “must” commit evil, that this is “necessary,” i.e. that it cannot not be? What does it mean to say that human beings necessarily commit evil? Does it not imply that, ultimately, human beings are not responsible for the evil they commit? If they have no choice but commit evil, how can they be held responsible for it? With regard to these questions, Luther refers to what he calls, in the footsteps of medieval scholastics, the “necessity of immutability.” He writes: Now, by “necessarily” I do not mean “compulsorily,” but by the necessity of immutability (as they say) and not of compulsion. That is to say, when someone is without the Spirit of God he does not do evil against his will, as if he were taken by the scruff of the neck and forced to it, like a thief or robber carried off against his will to punishment, but he does it of his own accord (sponte) and with a ready will (libenti).10 6 lw 33:108; wa 18:665. Peter Lombard, Sentences, book 2, dist. 25,5. 7 “It is false to state that man’s inclination is free to choose between either of two opposites. Indeed, the inclination is not free, but captive. This is said in opposition to common opinion.” Fifth thesis in the “Disputation Against Scholastic Theology” (1517), trans. Harold J. Grimm, lw 31:7; wa 1:220. 8 lw 33:64. “Si enim non nos, sed solus Deus operatur salutem in nobis, nihil ante opus eius operamur salutare, velimus, nolimus.” wa 18:634,20–21. 9 lw 33:64. 10 lw 33:64, rev. “Necessario vero dico, non coacte, sed ut illi dicunt, necessitate immutabilitatis, non coactionis, hoc est, homo cum vacat spiritu Dei, non quidem violentia, velut raptus obtorto collo, nolens facit malum, quaemadmodum fur aut latro nolens ad poenam ducitur, sed sponte et libenti voluntate facit.” wa 18:634,21–25.

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Human beings thus do not commit evil through any form of external coercion. Luther speaks of a “necessity of immutability” (necessitas immutabilitatis) here, distinguishing it from a “necessity of coercion” (necessitas coactionis), by the former he means God’s utterly fixed, immutable will, under which all things happen, including what we will in our innermost.11 The fact that our will is determined by God’s immutable will, however, does not cancel human volition and thus also human responsibility. Here Luther is following in the footsteps of Augustine and Bernard of Clairvaux.12 Human beings sin and commit evil due to their will, which is at work “of its own accord” (sponte) and with a ready will (libenti). It is interesting to note the presence of the adjective “libenti” in this sentence (from the Latin word libens, -tis). The root of this word (“lib-”) is the same as the term “liberum” in “liberum arbitrium” (“free will”). Isn’t Luther contradicting himself, here, saying on the one hand that the human will, because of sin, is not free until grace becomes operative upon it or in it, but then saying that as human beings sin they do so “freely”? Is it possible to say, simultaneously, that human beings commit evil, or sin, necessarily, but also freely? Not quite, it seems to me. but let us not misunderstand Luther. His point is this one: human beings commit sin “of their own accord,” which is not the same as saying that they commit it “freely,” for if they sin “of their own accord” and “with a ready will,” they still have no inherent capacity to extricate themselves from this state of affairs. Only God’s grace can do this. God alone can save them from this situation. By contrast, if God works in us, the will is changed, and being gently breathed upon by the Spirit of God, it again wills and acts from pure willingness and inclination and of its own accord, not from compulsion, so that it cannot be turned another way by any opposition, nor be overcome or compelled even by the gates of hell.13

11

For a closer analysis of this expression (and for an insightful examination of Luther’s De servo arbitrio), see Andrea Vestrucci, Theology as Freedom. On Martin Luther’s ‘De Servo Arbitrio’ (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2019), 222–24. 12 See Augustine, De natura et gratia, 46,54,252 [csel 60, 272–73] and Bernard of Clairvaux, Concerning Grace and Free Will, 4,18–23 and 10,56–57 (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publication, 1991). I am very grateful to one of the external reviewers for correcting an interpretive error on my part in an earlier version of this contribution, as well as for further comments and references, including these two (Augustine and Bernard). 13 lw 33:65. “Rursus ex altera parte, si Deus in nobis operatur, mutata et blande assibilata per spiritum Dei voluntas iterum mera lubentia et pronitate ac sponte sua vult et facit, non coacte, ut nullis contrariis mutari in alius possit.” wa 18:634,37–39.

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We have seen that, according to Luther, human beings who are “under the god of this world” and who commit sin do this “of their own accord and with a ready will.”14 But this is not to say they have “free will.” Similarly, Luther adds, “so long as the Spirit and grace of God” are present in someone, that person does not have “any free choice, or freedom to turn oneself in another direction or will something different.”15 As a consequence, Luther speaks of a will which is enslaved, or “in bondage” – an expression he found in Augustine’s writings.16 It is interesting to note that the will is bound not just for sinners, that is, for people who have not received God’s grace. It is also a reality for the “saints” (viri sancti), for those who are undefeated (invici) in the constancy of their faith in God.17 “Free will” does not exist for the sinner, whose will is “enslaved to the devil,”18 or for the justified sinner, i.e. for the saint: in both cases it is not possible “to turn oneself elsewhere or to will anything else” (alio sese vertendi aut aliud volendi).19 2

Free Will as a “Divine Name”

If no human being, whether as a sinner or among the saints, has the capacity to turn oneself toward anything else than sin (in the case of sinners) or toward what contradicts the obedience of faith (in the case of the saints), we may ask ourselves if “free will” exists at all. Should we continue to talk of “free will”? As Luther sees it, the expression “free will” should be removed “from the lips and 14 For the expression “under the god of this world,” see lw 33:65. A little bit later, Luther writes, of our acts which turn away from God: “And this we do readily and willingly, according to the nature of the will, which would not be a will if it were compelled; for compulsion is rather (so to say) ‘unwill.’” lw 33:65. “[…] idque facimus volentes et lubentes, pro natura voluntatis, quae cogeretur, voluntas non esset.” wa 18:635,12–14. 15 lw 33:65. “Quod iterum probat experientia, quam invici et constantes sint viri sancti, dum per vim ad alia coguntur, ut magis inde irritentur ad volendum, sicut ignis a vento magis inflammatur quam extinguitur, ut nec hic sit ulla libertas vel liberum arbitrium alio sese vertendi aut aliud volendi, donec durat spiritus et gratia Dei in homine.” wa 18:635,2–7. 16 lw 33:108. Augustine writes: “For here you want man to be perfected, and would that it were by the gift of God and not by the free, or rather enslaved, choice of his own will.” “Hic enim vultis hominem perfici, atque utinam Dei dono, et non libero, vel potius servo propriae voluntatis arbitrio.” Augustine, Contra Julianum ii,8, §23; pl 44:689; wa 18:665. 17 lw 33:65 (quoted above, note 13); wa 18:635. 18 Luther describes human will repeatedly, in On the Bondage of the Will, as “as a captive and slave of the devil” (lw 33:69); “captivam et servam diaboli” (wa 18:637,11–12). 19 lw 33:65 (quoted above, note 13); wa 18:635,6.

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language” of human beings.20 Why? Because “freedom of the will,” ultimately, only belongs to God. God alone is truly free. “Freedom” is one of the divine names, one of the marks that characterize God’s being. Freedom is “a kind of sacred and venerable name pertaining to God” (tanquam sacrum ac venerabile nomen Deo).21 3

Various Facets of Sin in Luther’s Thought

Let us now turn to the very long and important commentary of Psalm 50/51 which is the product of lectures Luther gave in 1532, and which was subsequently published, in Latin, in 1538.22 Luther’s commentary is important because Luther himself considered Psalm 50/51 as a highly significant biblical text: “It contains instruction about the chief parts of our religion, about repentance, sin, grace, and justification, as well as about the worship we ought to render to God. These are divine and heavenly doctrines.”23 But there are other reasons why this Psalm is important. Here are some of them. 3.1 Psalm 51 and the Anti-metaphysical Notion of “Sin” According to Luther, in order to know what sin is, it is not enough to study it metaphysically, focusing on its “essence.” Sin must be studied theologically, that is, as a concrete reality in our lives, and not as a concept or an intellectual abstraction. The true import of sin is not grasped, at least not grasped in its depths, by our reason. It is God’s Law, God’s Word, which shows us our sin and reveals its presence in our lives. The critique of “metaphysical” interpretations of sin is not a contemporary, 21st century projection on Luther’s own thought: it is explicitly denounced by Luther in the course of his exposition, as he comments on Ps 51:4: “Against you only have I sinned and done that which is evil in your sight, so that you

20 lw 33:68; “ex hominum ore et sermone idipsum tollere” (wa 18:637,1–2). 21 lw 33:68 (rev.); wa 18:637,2–3. 22 As already indicated, this commentary is found in lw 12:303–410 (wa 40.ii:315–470). On this particular commentary by Luther, see Jack E. Brush, Gotteserkenntnis und Selbsterkenntnis. Luthers Verständnis des 51. Psalms (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1997); as well as L’ubomír Batka, Peccatum radicale. Eine Studie zu Luthers Erbsündenverständnis in Psalm 51 (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2007). 23 lw 12:303; wa 40.ii:315,28–30. In this Psalm we find “the true wisdom of divine religion”; lw 12:305; “veram sapientiam spiritualis divinae”; wa 40.ii:318,5.

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are justified in your sentences and victorious in your judgment.” Here is what Luther writes: The issue is not sin metaphysically or historically considered. The issue is that theological knowledge in the Spirit by which we pronounce and judge that we are sinners but that God is righteous. Those who do not treat this statement this way, as Paul points out (Rom 3:5ff.), are dealing with an absurd and blasphemous question. They follow a metaphysical statement and neglect the theological. […] I have said this at length to show that this sentence [Ps 51:4] is not metaphysical but theological, denouncing sin through the Word.24 What does Luther do in his theological reflection on sin? It seems to me that, in comparison to medieval scholasticism, he both simplifies and radicalises the doctrine of sin. He simplifies it insofar as he rejects certain distinctions which had become common in scholastic theology, for instance between venial and mortal sin, actual and habitual sin. For Luther, sin is always greater than actual or habitual sin. If human beings sin, it is because they are sinners – and not the other way around! – just as a bad tree gives bad fruits.25 There is not this or that sin, mortal or venial, actual or habitual, even if there is a sin which might be acknowledged by someone – what Luther calls “sin that is felt” (sensibile or sensatos), in order to distinguish it from sin that is not felt or perceived.26 Repentance implies that sin is now sensibile: perceived, acknowledged, even felt. For this to happen, the word of the Law is needed. Luther thus does not suppress all distinctions: besides sin that is “felt” or “not felt,” there is also sin that is forgiven, on the one hand, and on the other hand the “rest” of sin (I will return to this below). But Luther is not simply interested in “simplifying” the Christian teaching on sin. He is also, and especially, interested in radicalising it. Sin, for Luther, is not primarily an act or a series of acts. He invites the reader of his commentary on Psalm 51(50) not to be satisfied with a superficial understanding of sin as “act,” or “actual sin”: “Altius enim peccatum inspiciendum

24 lw 12:339–340; wa 40.ii,369,19–23–370,34–35. On the role of the Word, see e.g. lw 12:347; wa 40.ii,379,35–36. 25 lw 12:348; wa 40.ii,381,4–7. Andreas Stegmann, Martin Luthers Auffassung vom christlichen Leben (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014), 145–46 and 181–82. 26 lw 12:327; wa 40.ii,351,18–23.

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(est)” – “We must look at sin more deeply.”27 We need to “show more clearly the root (radix) of wickedness or sin.”28 If one does not understand the scope of sin, as well as its roots, one will also not understand grace, one will not reach a true understanding of the gospel itself.29 Let us not lose sight of the fact that, for Luther, understanding sin and understanding grace go hand in hand, even as they are not equivalent: they do not have the same weight. Seeking to understand the nature and origin of sin is necessary, “lest the knowledge of grace be obscured.”30 The more we become aware of our condition as sinners, the better we will see the extent to which God’s grace is unmerited, how it comes to us before any effort from the part of the human person. Nothing in what pertains to our natural capacities, the naturalia, escapes this extreme corruption which is due to sin.31 This means that the sinful world, and the human being within it, lives not only in a great distance from God, but, more than that, the human person has an “aversion” with regard to God: an “aversion” in the etymological sense of the term, where the human is not simply remote from God, but where he turns away or flies away from God.32 Human beings go into hiding: “They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden” (Gen 3:8). As Luther puts it in his commentary on Psalm 51:

27 lw 12:304; wa 40.ii,316,32–33. See already the Scholias on Romans (on Rom 5:12): lw 25:296–301; wa 56,309–313 (1515/16). 28 lw 12:304; wa 40.ii,316,32–33. 29 “From this error, their failure to understand sin properly, there comes, of course, the other error, their failure to understand the nature of grace properly either.” lw 12:304. “Ex hoc errore, quod peccatum non recte intelligitur, alius error, ut fit, nascitur, ut neque Gratia quid sit intelligatur.” wa 40.ii,316,34–36. 30 lw 12:308; “ne cognitio gratiae obscuretur” (wa 40.ii,323,17). 31 lw 12:308. “Nos enim sic dicimus, Naturalia esse extreme corrupta.” wa 40.ii,323,30. 32 Martin Heidegger points this out in his brief 1924 study of “sin” in Luther’s thought (a study presented in Rudolf Bultmann’s seminar at the University of Marburg, where they were close colleagues). The proper meaning of sin is as follows: the one who flies away from God flies away in such a way that he constantly desires to move even further away: fugit in aeternum. See Martin Heidegger, “The Problem of Sin in Luther,” New Yearbook for Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy 9 (2009): 183–91; also in Martin Heidegger, Supplements. from the Earliest Essays to Being and Time and Beyond, ed. John van Buren (Albany: suny Press, 2002), 105–10. See also Robert L. Wilken, “The Image of God in Classical Lutheran Theology,” in Salvation in Christ. A Lutheran-Orthodox Dialogue, ed. John Meyendorff and Robert Tobias (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1992), 132.

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Through sin we are completely turned away from God, so that we do not think correctly about God but think of God simply as we do of an idol.33 The great question thus concerns how the human being, who has turned away from God in order to hide away from God, who now is God’s “enemy” (see Rom 5:10; ἐχθροὶ; inimici Vulg.), seeking to be God in God’s place and wishing that God no longer be God, can find a way back to a relation with God.34 The answer has of course everything to do with God’s grace. In his commentary on Psalm 51, and in particular of verse 1 (“Have mercy on me, O God, according to your […] abundant mercy” (ἐλέησόν με ὁ θεός κατὰ τὸ μέγα ἔλεός σου; lxx)), Luther, however, asks how “God the righteous and man the sinner should be reconciled (conciliandi).”35 Luther conjoins a radical perspective on the sinful condition of all human beings with a no less radical affirmation of God’s mercy: “our whole life is enclosed and established (conclusam et positam) in the bosom of the mercy of God,” all of us are enclosed in the “me” of the cry “have mercy on me.”36 Let us not sever what Luther wished to keep together, namely the knowledge of ourselves as sinners, on the one hand, and trust in God’s mercy, on the other. Moreover, let us acknowledge that between the two, i.e. between human sin and divine mercy, there is no balance: […] I confess my sin in such a way that at the same time I confess your steadfast love and your abundant mercies, immensely greater (immenso maiores) than my sin; as well as your righteousness, by which you justifies sinners, infinitely more abundant than that I should despair over it.37

33 lw 12:309 (rev.); wa 40.ii,325,21–22. “Sumus igitur per peccatum simpliciter aversi a Deo, ita ut nihil de Deo recte sentiamus, sed sempliciter sentimus de ipso sicut de Idolo.” 34 For the well-known claim on the human who wishes to be God and who thus does not want God to be God (“velle se esse deum et deum non esse deum”), see lw 31:10; wa 1:225 (Disputation Against Scholastic Theology, 1517). 35 lw 12:319 (rev.); “quomodo conciliandi sint Deus iutus et homo peccator.” wa 40.ii,340,13–14. 36 lw 12:320; wa 40.ii,340,15–16. 37 lw 12:324. “Sed sic confiteor peccatum, quod simul etiam confiteor tuam misericordiam et miserationes tuas immenso maiores peccato meo, Item tuam iusticiam, qua peccatores iustificas, infinitis modis ampliorem, quam ut desperare debeam […].” wa 40.ii,347,22–24. See also: “As by its nature sin is very great and serious, so we believe that grace or mercy, is immense and inexhaustible.” lw 12:325–326. “[…] sicut peccatum sua natura maximum et gravissimum est, ita etiam gratiam seu misericordiam immensam et inexhaustam esse credamus.” wa 40.ii,349,29–31.

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Any focus on sin to the exclusion of grace and forgiveness, any overemphasis on sin at the expense of grace, is detrimental to Christian theology, whose object is clearly not sin or grace, but the human being as sinner and God who justifies, forgives, according to a well-known passage from Luther’s commentary on Psalm 51: “The proper subject of theology is the human being guilty of sin and condemned, and God the justifier and savior of the human being the sinner. Whatever is asked or discussed in theology outside this subject, is error and poison.”38 The Christian teaching about sin, in the Augustinian tradition (a tradition to which Luther belonged, of course), aims at nothing else but the proclamation of salvation in Jesus Christ.39 3.2 Sin as “Remitted” and Its “Remnants” Luther distinguishes between sin that is “felt,” and sin that is not perceived by the human person. He also distinguishes between sin that has been remitted or forgiven (peccatum remissum), and the remnants of sin (peccatum reliquum) within the human being. These remnants contain some venom and thus remain a threat for the human person. There is therefore a struggle in the life of the Christian, who strives for purity, for a fuller love for God and his neighbor. On the one hand, the Christian is sinless: having welcomed God’s grace through faith, the human person has been forgiven by God, who forgives sin as well as the guilt (culpa) which accompanies sin. This is the “remission” of sin. But in all this the Christian does not become an angel. His life remains a continuing struggle against sin which is “still inherent,” of which he is called to rid himself or, rather, to let himself be more and more purified:40 Let us take care to be washed daily, to become purer day by day, so that daily the new man may arise and the old man may be crushed, not only for his death but also for our sanctification.41 We see here a version of Luther’s vision of the justified sinner, who is simul peccator et iustus, a theme he already thematised in his Scholias on Romans 38 lw 12:311 (rev.); wa 40.ii,328. There is a deep element of truth in the Eastern Orthodox view as expressed by Stavros Yangazoglou in his contribution below (88): “the Fall and sin, in spite of all their tragedy, do not constitute the core of the creation, or any ontological and eternal obstacle, but a negative event (an episode), that is relativized, and it is not considered in radical opposition to salvation in Christ.” 39 See Jairzinho Lopes Pereira, Augustine of Hippo and Martin Luther on Original Sin and Justification of the Sinner (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2013), 469. 40 lw 12:327; wa 40.ii,352,23–27. 41 lw 12:330; wa 40.ii,355,34–356,15.

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(1515/1516).42 The Lutheran tradition is sometimes seen (notably, by Reformed theologians) as weak on the doctrine of sanctification; this is often related to the disregard, among certain Lutherans, of the third use of the Law (tertius usus legis), the “pedagogical” use of the Law which operates as a stimulus toward obedience to God and holiness. But if one is willing to pay attention, one will easily notice the presence of this aspect of Christian theology in Luther.43 The process of purification and sanctification was important for Luther. He rejected the idea that the baptised have received the absolution, are now “sinless” and can “rest.”44

Concluding Remarks

In Western Europe, many Protestants, nowadays, have grown weary of the church’s emphasis on sin. They are simply tired of it. What should theology do about this? Some attempt to rephrase things: they speak of vulnerability, frailty, alienation. There is a growing body of spiritual literature, within Protestantism and outside of it, which pursues this line. And indeed these themes are very important and deserve our attention. But, for my part, I am convinced we need to articulate a teaching on sin which does not attenuate the radicality of what this notion signifies in terms of human responsibility – whereas “vulnerability,” “frailty,” and, to a lesser extent, “alienation,” do not express this responsibility as clearly. We can and must maintain the usage of the word “sin,” as long as we avoid the moralising tendencies which have dominated these last centuries and which continue to determine the meaning of this term for many of our contemporaries (sin as a “vice” or a series of “vices”; sin as a “temptation”

42 lw 25:258; wa 56,269–271,347 (Scholia, on Rom. 4:7). 43 On this point, see Matthieu Arnold, “‘Il faut prêcher la Loi même aux gens pieux’. Martin Luther et le troisième usage de la Loi,” Bulletin de la Société de l’histoire du protestantisme français 157/1 (2011): 9–26. 44 “This foolish opinion has led to the most injurious deceptions, such as, that people who have been baptized or absolved think that they are immediately without any sin; they become smug in that they have obtained righteousness and are at rest and relaxed, because they are conscious of no sin which they should struggle against and purge out with laments, tears, groans, and labor. Therefore sin remains in the spiritual man for the exercise of grace, for the humbling of pride, for the repression of presumptuousness. For he who does not earnestly strive to drive out sin certainly still possesses it, even if he has not committed any further sin for which he might be condemned. For we are not called to ease, but to a struggle against our passions […].” lw 25:338–339 (Scholia, on Rom. 7:17); wa 56,350. See also lw 12:351 (on Psalm 51:5); wa 40.ii,384,33–35.

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related to the impurity of desire; sin as the pleasure of the senses, especially sexual pleasure). Orthodoxy, it is said, speaks more of “death” than of “sin,” even if the theme of an “ancestral sin” (to propaterikon amartema), of the sin of our fathers which we inherit (but not as a disease and a guilt which is transmitted from one generation to the next, as is the case in Augustine and Luther), is by no means absent.45 As contemporary Orthodox theologians make clear, evil is broader than sin, since evil pertains to the whole creation, and not only to beings who are free in their actions.46 Let us respect the specific contours of our respective traditions, steering clear of all harmonising tendencies. Let us reach a deeper appreciation and knowledge of these specificities, examining how they emerged and developed. Let us take note of the similarities as well as the differences, and let us ask ourselves and each other, again and again, whether these differences ought to separate us. There is here a path for an ecumenical theology, a path on which we may be called to walk together. References Arnold, Matthieu. “‘Il faut prêcher la Loi même aux gens pieux’. Martin Luther et le troisième usage de la Loi.” Bulletin de la Société de l’histoire du protestantisme français 157/1 (2011): 9–26. Batka, L’ubomír. Peccatum radicale. Eine Studie zu Luthers Erbsündenverständnis in Psalm 51. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2007. Brush, Jack E. Gotteserkenntnis und Selbsterkenntnis. Luthers Verständnis des 51. Psalms. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1997. Heidegger, Martin. “The Problem of Sin in Luther.” New Yearbook for Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy 9 (2009): 183–91. 45

46

See Andrew Louth, Introducing Eastern Orthodox Theology (Downers Grove: ivp Academic, 2013), 73. According to John Meyendorff, the “Orthodox tradition does not hold the notion of an ‘inherited guilt,’ coming from Adam, but rather recognizes an inherited mortality […].” John Meyendorff, “Humanity. ‘Old’ and ‘New’ – Anthropological Considerations,” in Salvation in Christ. A Lutheran-Orthodox Dialogue, ed. John Meyendorff and Robert Tobias (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1992), 64. I am thinking here of Metr. John of Pergamon (John Zizioulas), among others. The “Fall,” as he points out, is not simply an “event” of the past. It is, rather, “a permanent condition of human existence” (see his forthcoming book on eschatology). And so an eschatological horizon emerges here. Stavros Yangazoglou mentions it in his contribution below (93): in Luther’s thought, “[s]in is so deeply ingrained in the life of the human being that its total effacement and the fullness of salvation can only be fulfilled at the end of time.”

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Heidegger, Martin. Supplements. from the Earliest Essays to Being and Time and Beyond. Edited by John van Buren. Albany: suny Press, 2002. Huizing, Klaas. Schluss mit Sünde! Warum wir eine neue Reformation brauchen. Hamburg: Kreuz Verlag, 2017. Lopes Pereira, Jairzinho. Augustine of Hippo and Martin Luther on Original Sin and Justification of the Sinner. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2013. Louth, Andrew. Introducing Eastern Orthodox Theology. Downers Grove: ivp Academic, 2013. Meyendorff, John. “Humanity. ‘Old’ and ‘New’ – Anthropological Considerations.” In Salvation in Christ. A Lutheran-Orthodox Dialogue, edited by John Meyendorff and Robert Tobias, 59–65. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1992. Erasmus of Rotterdam. De libero arbitrio διατριβη sive collatio. Edited by Johannes von Walter. Leipzig: Deichert, 1910. Stegmann, Andreas. Martin Luthers Auffassung vom christlichen Leben. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014. Vestrucci, Andrea. Theology as Freedom. On Martin Luther’s ‘De Servo Arbitrio.’ Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2019. Wilken, Robert L. “The Image of God in Classical Lutheran Theology.” In Salvation in Christ. A Lutheran-Orthodox Dialogue, edited by John Meyendorff and Robert Tobias, 121–32. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1992.

chapter 5

Sin, Freedom and Free Will: Hermeneutical Conditions of Anthropology in the Orthodox Tradition and Luther Stavros Yangazoglou Βουλομένων γὰρ οὐ τυραννουμένων τὸ τῆς σωτηρίας μυστήριον The mystery of salvation belongs to those who choose it, not to those who are compelled by force Maximus the Confessor, Expositio Orationis Dominicae, pg 90:880B

∵ Five centuries after Luther and the Reformation, in a context of advanced modernity, it may be argued that all great narratives and traditions have become fatally marginalized. The question of the existential meaning of life and how a discussion on anthropology could contribute to the world, humanity and history, from the point of view of Orthodox theology and also of Luther’s teaching, is one that needs to be explored. In the new framework of pluralism, Christian theology is called upon to articulate a proposition and to give meaning not only to the world, but to human beings and to history. In this perspective, it must formulate a new hermeneutical approach to Christian anthropology, distinguishing what belongs to the fundamentals, and what is in this sense immutable, from what is simply the order of the cultural and cosmological language or what is historically related to the time. In such theological hermeneutics, faced with pluralism and otherness in its ecumenical dimension, Christian theology must recover the dynamic sense of human existence in dialogue with the anxieties and problems of humanity today. 1

The Human and the World

Creation owes its existence to the free will and love of God. As a created existence, it has been created from nothing and is not eternal. It could also have © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2021 | doi:10.1163/9789004461253_006

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not existed. Its existence is a gift and a grace.1 God creates the human when the cycle of the creation of the intelligent and sentient beings from nothing has ended, as a fulfillment and a recapitulation. Only the human creature, of all intelligent beings, has both a body and a soul. The human, as constituted of body and soul results from the creation, recapitulates it and expresses it in a personal manner. This anthropological maximalism of the biblical and patristic tradition relates precisely to the fact that the human is constituted of a body and a soul.2 Creation is a gift that God gives to the human where the latter is settled like a king. At the same time, the human is a single microcosm in whom both humanity and cosmos are deeply intertwined. The human without the world and the world without the human has no reason to exist. As the image of the world and the image of God, the human being has the responsibility and the mission to exercise its free will so that he/she may, when the time comes, commune fully with God and thus lead the rest of creation towards divine life. This is precisely the purpose of the creation of the human being. This is the priestly role of human beings, which complements that of king. The creation of the world and of humanity is not an accomplished event, but it was and continues to be dynamically oriented towards an eschatological fullness, to the degree that the meaning of the world and the human being lie in God himself. Without communion and the relationship with God, every created being is constantly threatened with a return to non-being. This view shows that the creation of human beings is rooted in Christology from the very beginning. The Creator Word of God had to unite from the beginning with the human being and not with just any element of creation, for the human being is the only being that constitutes a link between all the creatures. The first created human being is the “corporate personality,” as the ancestor of the human race. This human being has been created in the image and likeness of God because, from the outset, the goal was to establish a constant and continuous communion with the life of God.3 In the dramatic adventure and journey of creation and the human being, God himself will intervene in the most paradoxical way. The divine Word has created the human being in his image and likeness to unite with him.

1 John D. Zizioulas, “Christologie et existence. La dialectique créé-incréé et le dogme de Chalcédoine,” Contacts 126 (1984): 154–72. 2 See Psalm 8:5: “You have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor.” Irenaeus, Adv. haer., v,6,1 (pg 7:1137A). Gregory Palamas, The One Hundred and Fifty Chapters, n.61, ed. and trans. Robert E. Sinkewicz (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1988), 154. 3 Gregory of Nazianzus, Oratio 45, In sanctum pascha 7 (pg 36:632AB).

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Image and Likeness

Man, as an existence constituted of a body and a soul, is the unique and exclusive image of the Triune God in creation. Despite the physical body and the immaterial spirit, the human being has a special relationship with and an existential reference to the Creator God, because it receives the grace (or energy) of the Holy Spirit. This pneumatological feature of the human being manifests and refers to the Trinitarian God par excellence, since it is granted to him by the Word of the Father. The human being images the divine Word, and his/her existence is constituted by the grace of the Holy Spirit.4 Without this vivifying breath, the human being would only be an anonymous and impersonal element of creation, with no particular relationship and no prospect of uniting and resembling the Creator. This path to the likeness of God cannot in any case be given ex officio, as a result of a natural evolution, as an ethical adaptation or a juridical disposition. On the contrary, it can be given only progressively through the freedom of the free human being.5 According to the theology of the Greek Fathers of the Church, the image of God in the human being is mainly located in the free will of nature,6 in one’s ability to exist as a free person. In other words, one desires to exist because one loves, accepting the loving call by God. The nous, which is related to the word and vivifying spirit of man, manifests this aspect of the image of God as freedom and epectasis7 of created existence. It is nothing less than the ancient axiom of human freedom, the exercise of which, in direct relation to the inherent presence of the Holy Spirit, would not simply aim at aligning one’s life with that of the Triune God, but would base one’s life on God. Being in the image of God, the human being does not reflect or understand God, but he/ she has the possibility of being in an empirical and existential communion and relationship with God; in other words in an interpersonal relationship with God, by practicing his/her freedom. Participating in all created beings and communicating with the Creator God, humanity’s role is to eucharistically display and offer the whole of creation to God, fulfilling the image precisely. 4 See Stavros Yangazoglou, Communion in Deification. The Synthesis of Christology and Pneumatology in the Work of Gregory Palamas (Athens: Domos, 2001), 66–77. 5 Gregory of Nyssa, Faciamus hominem (pg 44:273A). Basil of Caesarea, De hominis structura 20 (pg 30:29D). 6 Maximus Confessor, Scholia (pg 4:308A). 7 The paulinian meaning of the epectasis as a perfection in Christ (Phil 3:13) is repeated by Origen, Basil of Caesarea and is developed mainly by Gregory of Nyssa (De vita Mosis, Homilies on the Song of Songs). Cf. Jean Daniélou, Platonisme et théologie mystique. Doctrine spirituelle de saint Grégoire de Nysse (Paris: Aubier, 1944), 291–307.

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This conception marks the Christological perspective of the divine image in humanity.8 3

Freedom and Mutability

The human being, although the closest image of God, is no less a creature created from nothing. Unlike the being of God, mutability is interwoven in his created nature as its main component. No natural “entelechy” cancels the createdness of the human being. No “created grace” inherent in its nature can prevent it from its mutability and, therefore, its possible/eventual return to non-being. Having been created from nothing, non-being is always present as an existential threat. In order for the created being of human beings to be free from the harmful consequences of such a possible threat, the human being must be rooted freely in an ontological reality beyond and outside of it, in an existence not created, which is not subject to mutability and which does not risk falling into non-being. The creative “beginning” of all created existence, the uncreated life of God, is the unique anchor beyond all created existence. In this perspective, the creation of human beings in the image and likeness of God has no meaning outside the free will and the voluntary nature of the human being’s rational nature. The journey of Adam and Eve toward the likeness to God was a possibility, which presupposed the full and free synergy of the human being before the call of God. 4

Sin as Degradation of Life

For a time, Adam and Eve freely and brilliantly followed the suggestioncommand towards the likeness of God. As they were beginners, however, with a still reduced and conventional knowledge and experience of virtue, they imagined, being imbued with pride, that they would gain immortality through the exclusive use of their own abilities without the support of God. Their spirit began to be dominated by the temptation to be equal with God, not through a sustained relationship with God, or through a persevering movement toward God, but through an autonomous and independent path. If they managed to taste the forbidden fruit, they would participate in the essence of God. The 8 See Col 1:15–18. Maximus Confessor, Quaestiones ad Thalassium 60 (pg 90:621A). Gregory Palamas, Homilies 60, 20; Nicholas Cabasilas, The Life in Christ 2, 65–66, 6, 58; Zizioulas, “Christologie et existence.”

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demonic infidelity to the plan of God, the surpassing of its created limits, its self-deification and its conflict with God was thus offered to the human being. At the same time, the human being decided to become himself the ultimate point of reference of creation as a whole. Thus, he gave in to the “demonic eucharist,” to “the illusory deification”9 and freely rebelled against God. The human being’s original possibility of imaging God, leading to the union of the whole of creation to the life of the uncreated being, brutally stopped. He freely rejected and abandoned the vivifying grace, which was its ultimate point of reference and the core of its existence, putting an end to the divine plan. It is not simply a question of negative psychological behavior on the ethical level, but primarily of an ontological choice. The human being realizes its life in a self-sufficient and autonomous way, renouncing its relationship and communion with God. The root of sin lies in the fact that the human being becomes “a self-idol,” a god in the place of God. Thus, the human being simply relies on its own strength, on the faculties of his created nature. The removal from the grace of the Holy Spirit results in the condition of sin. Darkness and fog cover the free mind of the human being, which hypostasizes sin hidden behind wicked concepts, discourses and actions. The pleasure and the pain of sin paradoxically gives the human being pleasure in depravity and misfortune. Nous (the mind) gives birth to the love of matter in the body, by introducing the mortal life, a form of alienated life for the human being that has been separated from the life of God. Thus, the consequences of this degradation from real life permeate the whole human being as a mind-body unity. At first, it is the mind that was alienated and then the body. When the mind separates from the body, then death occurs along with the body’s disintegration. But the soul itself, without the grace of the Holy Spirit, experiences death, to the extent that immortality is not a natural property of the soul, but an intentional gift of grace. If the soul is preserved after the Fall, even in a condition of death, it is not because it is immortal in its essence, but because it is linked to a perspective of a restoration in Christ of humanity as a whole. The drift towards the negation of death corresponds to the new tendency of the human being. Obviously, God does not juridically punish humanity, because the latter exercised its freedom, even if in a negative manner, but the human being suffers the existential consequences of its freedom. God, according to patristic theology, did not intervene to abolish by force the free decision of the first humans. The deep meaning of the mystery of the freedom granted to the human being by God is thus revealed. But God did not allow death to annihilate humanity, which, even though it renounced the likeness of God, did not completely lose 9 See John of Damascus, In Dormitionem Mariae 2 (pg 96:725A).

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the image of God. Aiming, as in the beginning, at the future repentance of the human being, at its re-capture and synergy, God intervenes with philanthropy, not in the free will of the human, but in the immediacy of the consequences of the negative exercise of this free will. Disobedience and revolt did not directly and immediately result in death, for there remained hope that the human being would recover by the exercise of its free will. The rift provoked by the original sin in the relationship between the created and the uncreated can be corrected. God’s plan has not changed. The human race was, moreover, mortal too before death, due to its createdness. The Adamic economy will be followed by a new perspective. Sin and the introduction of death did not defeat God’s plan, but simply changed it in accordance to the new condition of the fall and death. Thus, the primitive Christological perspective now takes on a new form. The image of God in the human being was darkened, but it was not fully eliminated.10 The human being’s free will, though weakened, is always present and retains the possibility, by becoming aware of having missed its goal, to turn its sight towards God again.11 The full and definitive extinction of the human being is for now removed in a philanthropic way. A new period begins so that the human being, gradually formed, can voluntarily return to divine adoption, developing in the fullness of its relationship with God. It is for this purpose that God grants to human beings “the garments of skin” (Gen 3:21); that is to say, a provisional and corruptible life, as a darkness of the image of God, but at the same time as a constant reminder of the abandonment of real life and its meaning. A whole human culture is developed because of the experience of sin and death. Marriage, work, technology, science, art, politics, in other words all the activities and commitments of life after the Fall, constitute the new possibilities for the survival of the human being, offered as gifts and grace from God in order that they be developed and that they in turn may serve the plan of salvation in Christ. This culture of the garments of skin12 will be transformed in time into the flesh and cloth of Christ. On the contrary, the further autonomy of these operations accentuates the confinement of human beings into the life of death and reinforces the catastrophic power of sin. Humanity survives, doomed to death; life becomes synonymous with death, so that the evil of sin does not become immortal. This 10

Basil of Caesarea, De hominis structura, 20. Gregory Palamas, The One Hundred and Fifty Chapters, 39, 126. 11 Nikos Nissiotis, “L’homme image de Dieu et pécheur. L’humanisme contemporain et la théologie de la libération,” Academic Yearbook of the Faculty of Theology of Athens University 25 (1981): 15. 12 See Panayiotis Nellas, Deification in Christ. Orthodox Perspectives on the Nature of the Human Person (Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1987).

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is a pedagogy of death. Using the free will, the human being of the garments of skin is called upon to reverse the condition of Adam and Eve. The descendants of the first human beings inherit their failed relationship and alienation from the life of God as an evil of human nature, who in turn share the same corruptible nature of the garments of skin.13 They do not, however, inherit their personal guilt and failure.14 Yet as descendants of Adam and Eve, we are more reprehensible and guiltier than they are, for we remain in sin even as we are aware of its deadly consequences. In this way, the personal responsibility and guilt of the first humans becomes our own responsibility, our own sin, but not in an inevitable and automatically transmitted way, as Augustine taught, followed by Luther. By no means is original sin identified with human sexuality (concupiscentia). Sin in the flesh (Rom 8:3) concerns the old form of the human’s corruption and death, of the human being who lives cut off from God. Yet corruption and death as a natural evil is transmitted through the biological chain. Sin, however, whether of nature or of personhood, is an unhealthy condition, an ontic situation of corruption for the human race, which is now trapped in a life of corruption. However, the Christological perspective begins to be put into practice in the story of the Old Testament, where within the history of conflicts and contradictions of the people of God, there is already hope for salvation and redemption of humankind. Despite the many righteous and friends of God, who through responsible and free actions participated in the plan of salvation, none of them were without sin so that they would be able to struggle with the traumatic fault of the first human beings, the vicious circle of life, and of death. The Old Testament narrates, either symbolically using a language of images, or historically and prophetically, the progressive preparation of this economy of salvation (Heilsgeschichte), which will be realized with the incarnation of God in Christ as recreation in nature and the history of creation. 5

Incarnation and Deification

The human being is the only being in the created world, among beings endowed with or without reason, who has the privilege of uniting the created 13 Gregory of Nazianzus, Oratio 45, In sanctum pascha 7 (pg 36:633A). On “the garments of skin,” see the contribution of Nellas, Deification in Christ, notably in a section entitled “The ‘Garments of Skin’,” 51. 14 Cf. Cyril of Alexandria, Explanatio in Epist. ad Rom 5,18 (pg 74:788–89). John Chrysostom, In Epist. ad Ephes 4,1 (pg 62:31); In Epist. ad Rom. 102 (pg 60:477).

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with the uncreated. The image of God and the free will of the human continues to exist after the Fall and sin. Therefore, it is through the human being that creation had to be reconstituted again and again. In order for the world to overcome the corruptibility inherent in its nature due to its createdness, a corruptibility which became a permanent threat after the fall, it was necessary for the uncreated to intervene with the free consent of the created. This initiative of the uncreated God was not to simply mean an ethical subordination and forgiveness or a necessary external intervention. So, neither the human being alone, nor the angel alone, or God alone, without the free participation and consent of humanity, was able to bring back created nature into the life of the uncreated. This view of the patristic thought interprets God’s eternal will, “the mystery, which was hid from eternity, and which the Angels themselves knew not,” of the incarnation of the Word.15 It is God who offers the solution to the tragedy and who can break the impasse of the existence of created beings condemned to corruption and death. His intervention in human tragedy is carried out freely, without undermining or destroying the freedom and integrity of humans. The solution of Christology from the impasse of Adam’s economy should mean an overcoming of death, not as an external and transcendent principle, but within the very nature of the creature who voluntarily suffers by it. The overcoming of corruption was necessary to embrace the whole of humanity and not one particular individual. A new Adam was needed which would have a hypostasis that would allow him to become the personal bearer of divine intervention, to establish a relationship with God and to integrate in some way his existence into the whole of the humanity, exceeding thus the various splits within the created existence. On the other hand, human existence, where the saving intervention would be realized, had to be complete and intact according to the body and according to the spirit. The overcoming of death should indeed be assumed by those who have already died. The human existence that would accept the presence of the uncreated God should be free from sin. Such a saving act within the very nature and operation of humanity could not be realized by either an angel or any human being, but only by the incarnate God alone. In the context of the creation of human beings in the image and likeness of God, the patristic tradition, as a whole, strongly emphasizes the archetypal relationship of the

15 Cf. Col 1:26–27: “the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the Lord’s people. To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” See also Col 2:2; 4:3. Rom 16:25; Eph 3:4; 5:32.

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Word of God with human beings.16 The paradoxical intervention of the Son was included in some way in the positive evolution of Adam’s economy as a progressive union of the created and the uncreated. Christ is neither the result of sin nor of the devil. If Augustine and Luther focus their teaching on original sin – si homo non periisset, Filius hominis non venisset17 – the Greek Fathers insist on the incarnation as the realization of the original plan of the creation of the human being: “For the Son of God became man so that we might become God.”18 This “primitive” Christology, without changing its orientation, now operates in a different way, taking into account the tragic event of the Fall and the corruption of the human race. Incarnation was the initial and absolute goal of God in the act of creation. The human race, “mortal and destined to die by its nature,”19 needed a completion, salvation and union with the Archetype. The Christological event did not have cause the Fall of Adam and the vice of the devil, but rather constituted from the very beginning the end of the accomplishment of the first man. The history of the divine economy is a theology of events which contributed from the beginning to the end and which, therefore, does not allow itself to be unambiguously enclosed in the soteriological model of “fall and redemption,” but extends from the creation to the eschata of the Kingdom. Precisely for this reason, salvation in Christ is not simply a way out of original sin, but the realization of the original plan of the union of the created and the uncreated. Salvation is not reduced to a therapy of the fallen nature, but it is realized in Christ in the life of deification. In the Christological perspective of the human being, the Fall and sin, in spite of all their tragedy, do not constitute the core of the creation, or any ontological and eternal obstacle, but a negative event (an episode), that is relativized, and it is not considered in radical opposition to salvation in Christ. 6

Synergy in the Work of Incarnation and Salvation

The mystery of the incarnation as a union of the created and the uncreated in the hypostasis of the Word takes place by the energy and grace of the Holy Spirit on the Virgin Mary. The human and divine factors contribute decisively, according to their own mode, to its realization, so that the truth of the 16 17 18 19

John of Damascus, An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, 77. Augustine of Hippo, Sermo 174, 2 (pl 38:940). Athanasius, De incarnatione, 54 (pg 25:192B). Gregory Palamas, The One Hundred and Fifty Chapters, 54, 146–48.

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incarnation depends on the integrity and the fullness of both God and the human being. The initiative of incarnation, however, undeniably belonged to the free benevolence of the Triune God. But if humanity did not freely participate, too, in the incarnation of the Son, the entire procedure would have been compulsory. Since there isn’t any relationship between the uncreated God and the created man in terms of substance, a forced reception of the created, without its free adherence and free consent, would only be the disintegration and existential annihilation of human nature. Divine grace, “which always cures evils and fills deficiencies,”20 does not come with all its weight as a burden on the shoulders of the human being. Divine benevolence and initiative demanded, as an unavoidable condition, the free and active consent of human. The condition of this free procedure is fulfilled in the person of the Virgin Mary and marks the event of the divine incarnation, presenting the incarnated as a free personal existence, which comes under the free consent of humanity.21 The principle of this synergy22 between God and humanity is also fulfilled for each individual person in the mystery of his incorporation into the body of Christ. The sacramental grace acts alongside the free consent of the believer to the work of salvation. Life in Christ, lived primarily through the sacraments of the Church and extending to personal and social life, is a gift of grace. However, the blessing and the fulfillment of believers presuppose the freedom and cooperation of the human being for the reception, preservation and growing of this grace offered by the sacraments. Christian ascesis is not a kind of intellectual exercise, but the free participation in the cross of Christ as a self-kenosis and an encounter with the other in a bond of brotherhood. In the Orthodox tradition, the struggle against the passions, the practice of virtue and continuous prayer are realities closely related to participation in the sacraments of the Church. The 20

Bishop’s prayer on ordination, cf. S. Parenti and E. Velkovska, eds., L’Euchologio Barberini GR. 336 (Roma: Edizioni liturgiche, 1995), col. 157.3 and 174. 21 Maximus Confessor, Expositio Orationis Dominicae (pg 90:880B): “The Logos purifies human nature from the law of sin by not permitting His incarnation for our sake to be preceded by sensual pleasure. For His conception took place miraculously without seed, and His birth supranaturally without the loss of His Mother’s virginity. That is to say, when God was born from His Mother, through His birth He tightened the bonds of her virginity in a manner surpassing nature; and in those that are willing He frees the whole of human nature from the oppressive rule of the law which dominates it, in so far as they imitate His self-chosen death by mortifying the earthly aspects of themselves (cf. Col 3:5). For the mystery of salvation belongs to those who choose it, not to those who are compelled by force.” 22 Cf. John Chrysostom, In Matthaeum Homil., 82,4 (pg 58:742); In Epist. ad Ephes 1,2 (pg 62:12); In Inscriptionem Actorum (pg 51:80); Maximus Confessor, Ambigua (pg 91:1076AB).

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blessing of gifts and the indwelling of divine grace on them does not depend on the purity of the human being, nor on the value of the priest or the believers. “Grace permeates everything.”23 As part of the body of Christ, the believers draw life and blessing through the sacraments from the head and heart of this body. This ecclesiological hypostasis of the synergy in life in Christ means that salvation is not an individual guarantee, but the integration into a web of relationships and the diversity of charismas and roles in the Body of Christ. Moreover, the authority and interpretation of the Holy Scriptures, as a shared experience and witness within the Body of Christ, is to be placed on the same ecclesiological level. On the contrary, any individual perception, any subjective hermeneutics of the Scriptures would appear as an implacable objectivity, as an ideology. Yet, without the free and personal consent, the blessing of believers and the transmission of grace cannot be realized. Grace does not permeate over beings lacking freedom and will, nor is it any form of reward. Grace can achieve salvation, but the human being, being renovated by God in God’s image, participates freely in this mystery, putting in accord its will with that of God, having as ultimate goal “the communion with God by his will.”24 7

Simul Justus and Peccator: Aspects of Luther’s Anthropology

Fighting pontifical power and its institutional centralism, its abstract and legal metaphysical categories of scholastic theology, as well as its inhuman religious conception of the merits of works, purgatory and the redemption of sins, Luther stood between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Based on Augustine, Luther considered that the human being, because of original sin, had been totally deprived of the image of God and had become an image of the devil (imago diaboli). Fallen from divine grace, it was punished for having been guilty of the transgression of which he was the author. Since then, Adam’s personal sin has been passed on to his descendants. The corruption and depravity of the human being is radical and absolute (peccatum radicale). Bereft of grace, all that humanity undertakes is on the frontiers of sin. Affirming the human being’s full obliteration of God’s image, which he identifies in a static way with the likeness of God, Luther does not see any dynamic movement or synergy of the human towards the likeness. The human being can no longer do anything

23 Nicholas Cabasilas, A Commentary on the Divine Liturgy, ed. and trans. J.M. Hussey and P.A. McNulty (Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2002), 47, 8–10. 24 Nicholas Cabasilas, On the Life in Christ, 7, 47.

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by itself for its salvation.25 Only grace from the Gospel and mainly the sacrifice of the cross of Christ can realize the redemption of human beings. Faith alone as acceptance of the divine will and grace leads to salvation. Faced with a conception that considers the freedom of the human being (liberum arbitrium) intact since the fall, Luther opposes a conception of a full corruption and non-existence of freedom (servum arbitrium) now held hostage by the necessity of sin (servum arbitrium).26 The human being’s will is by no means in a position to move freely toward salvation. Free will belongs to God only, while humans are blindly enslaved by the devil. The complete deprivation of the image of God and the primary focus given to sin will orient Protestant theology towards a deterministic teaching of absolute predestination.27 For Luther, prediction and predestination are one and the same. Everything that appears as a free action of human beings, including the betrayal of Judas, is ultimately predestined by the will of God. “Since God is able to predict, it means that all the events happen out of necessity.” The human being is, in any case, not free: on the one hand, he is enslaved by the necessity of the omnipotence, prediction, predestination, will, and grace of God and on the other, he is enslaved by sin and death. Only the Christocentric faith and transcendent 25 Martin Luther, lw 12:308–9 (on Psalm 51). 26 Cf. Augustine of Hippo, Contra Julianum ii, 8, 23 (pl 44:689). See also, Jairzinho Lopes Pereira, Augustine of Hippo and Martin Luther on Original Sin and Justification of the Sinner (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2013); Andrea Vestrucci, Theology as Freedom. On Martin Luther’s ‘De servo arbitrio’ (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2019). 27 Martin Luther, lw 33:188–91 (On the Bondage of the Will). For Luther’s relationship with the Orthodox Church, cf. Dorothea Wendebourg, Reformation und Orthodoxie. Der ökumenische Briefwechsel zwischen der Leitung der Württembergischen Kirche und Patriarch Jeremias II. von Konstantinopel in den Jahren 1573–1581 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1986); Gerhard Podskalsky, Griechische Theologie in der Zeit der Türkenherrschaft (1453–1821). Die Orthodoxie im Spannungsfeld der nachreformatorischen Konfessionen des Westens (Munich: Beck, 1988); Gunnar Hering, Ökumenisches Patriarchat und europäische Politik (1620–1638) (Wiesbaden: F. Steiner Verlag, 1968); Lukas Vischer, “The Legacy of Kyrill Loukaris. A Contribution to the Orthodox-Reformed Dialogue,” Mid-Stream 25/2 (1986): 165–83; Cosmin Pricop and Cătălina Bogdan, From Espoo to Paphos. The Theological Dialogue of the Orthodox Churches with the Lutheran World Federation (1981–2008) (Bucharest: Basilica, 2013); Theodore Meimaris, “Thirty Years of the International Theological Dialogue Between Orthodox and Lutherans (1981–2011). Evaluation and Prospects,” Nicolaus 40/1 (2013): 159–86; Risto Saarinen, “Le dialogue luthérien-orthodoxe de 2004 à 2014,” Istina 59/4 (2014): 367–86; Konstantinos Delikostantis, “Orthodox Dialogues with the Lutheran Churches,” in Orthodox Handbook on Ecumenism. Resources for Theological Education, ed. Pantelis Kalaitzidis et al. (Oxford: Regnum Books International, 2014), 473–77; Nikolaos Asproulis, “The Encounter between Eastern Orthodoxy and Lutheranism. A Historical and Theological Assessment,” The Ecumenical Review 69/2 (2017): 215–24.

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grace can free humanity from sin and subject its will to divine grace as “royal freedom” (regia libertas). The knowledge of sin is not enough to be liberated from it. Therefore, all the commandments of Scripture are nothing but God’s commandments to human beings to tell them what they should do and not what they can do. Always bearing in mind the merits of works and the redemption of sins, Luther emphasizes that the human being cannot undertake anything by his free will that would be worthy of salvation. Everything happens through Christ and the Holy Spirit, and humanity plays only a passive role in its redemption.28 And even when one is the author of good deeds, one is not the author of works of faith, but one is animated by grace and faith towards them. The right person does the works, but the works do not justify the person. For Luther, the human being after the Fall is an organ or a substratum either of God or the devil.29 One liberates oneself from the sovereignty of the devil not by one’s own strength, but by the grace of God. One simply falls under the yoke of the sovereignty of God.30 As an awakening of repentance and awareness of sin, this total surrender to the will of God constitutes the “true synergy,”31 and not the “heretical synergy” of the human being in the work of salvation. All the stages of the redemption or salvation of the human being are realized by the divine grace in a transcendent way (ergo sola gratia justificat), without the active participation of the human being. The only thing that is needed is faith by grace in the Word and the actions of God. If the Law requires works, the gospel requires faith. All that concerns salvation depends on and comes only from the grace of God and not from the authority of ecclesiastical institutions, actions or the will of the human being. Even the works of faith are also gifts of God. If faith is recognized by God, the Holy Spirit proceeds to his works. The triptych sola scriptura, sola fide, sola gratia ultimately cancels the free will of the human. And even the baptism of the Church does not erase sin, which is deeply rooted in the human, but simply forgives it and does not incriminate its author. The human obtains the forgiveness of its sins because it is henceforth 28 29 30 31

See lw 33:157 (On the Bondage of the Will). lw 33:237 (On the Bondage of the Will). lw 33:243 (On the Bondage of the Will). Father Dumitru Staniloae considers that in both Luther and contemporary Protestant theology (Barth, Stuhlmacher, Jüngel, Moltmann), one can detect a particular energetic role of the human being in the process of personal realization of his salvation and justification. Cf. Dumitru Staniloae, “Le sens de la justification chez Luther. Quelques remarques orthodoxes,” in Luther et la Réforme allemande dans une perspective œcuménique (Chambésy/Geneva: Éditions du Centre orthodoxe du Patriarcat œcuménique, 1983), 185–95.

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under the yoke of Christ who holds it captive in his Spirit so that he wills and wills only what Christ wants. This “joyful exchange,” that is the deification of the human being,32 is lived dialectically rather as a hope and a promise, while its fullness, because of the presence of sin in humanity, will be realized only in the eschaton. Thus, human nature is liberated, but is not healed from the universal guilt of sin. This is why the human, in his present state, is paradoxically simul justus and peccator.33 Sin is so deeply ingrained in the life of the human that its total effacement and the fullness of salvation can only be fulfilled at the end of time. This situation provides fertile ground for the subsequent alienation of natural and material reality in relation to the spiritual and metaphysical level. This fact explains perhaps why Luther’s soteriology is unequivocally anthropomonist, while the world as a creation of God is absent. The immanent life of the human is presented as being totally cut off from the work of redemption by the faith and grace of God. Thus, the following paradox comes to the fore: that the will of the human being, subject to God or the devil, to reach the transcendent superior realities of salvation, is free and autonomous only when it is exercised in relation to the matters of this world on the social, economic, 32

33

It is characteristic that the Orthodox-Lutheran dialogue over the last four decades have created conditions for the acceptance by the Lutherans of the term theosis and its association with the terms most familiar to Luther’s soteriology as justification and sanctification. Indeed, Finnish Lutheranism in its dialogue with the Orthodox theologians has particularly developed this aspect, speaking about sharing in divine life in a realistic and ontological way. Cf. Risto Saarinen, “Le dialogue luthérien-orthodoxe de 2004 à 2014”; Tuomo Mannermaa, Der im Glauben gegenwärtige Christus. Rechtfertigung und Vergottung zum ökumenischen Dialog (Hannover: Lutherisches Verlagshaus, 1989); Joachim Heubach, ed., Luther und Theosis (Erlangen: Martin-Luther Verlag, 1990); Kurt E. Marquart, “Luther and Theosis,” Concordia Theological Quarterly 64/3 (2000): 182–205. However, this ecumenical opening is criticized by a more “orthodox” Lutheran hermeneutical grammar, which refers to different ontological and interpretative conditions in Luther’s soteriology with regard to the Orthodox teaching of the Greek Fathers. See for example Gerhard Ebeling, “Der Sühnetod Christi als Glaubensaussage. Eine hermeneutische Rechenschaft,” Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche 8 (1990): 3–28; Reinhard Flogaus, “Einig in Sachen Theosis und Synergie?,” Kerygma und Dogma 42 (1996): 225–43; Reinhard Flogaus, Theosis bei Palamas und Luther. Ein Beitrag zum ökumenischen Gespräch (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1997); Reinhard Flogaus, “Agreement on the Issues of Deification and Synergy?,” Luther Digest. An Annual Abridgement of Luther Studies 7 (1999): 99–105. According to Nikos Nissiotis, that “the human being is an image of God and at the same time a sinner” is the most obvious reality in the modern world. However, these two dimensions need to be kept in constant tension, knowing that this duality can be in eschatological way surpassed by hope, repentance and the will of freedom in favor of the image of God, where free will defeat sin. Cf. Nikos Nissiotis, “L’homme image de Dieu et pécheur,” 20–22.

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scientific and political level. It is a kind of a “freedom of nature,” linked to the intellectual faculty of the human being and the faculty of self-determination for the regulation of world affairs and the practice of good works before other men (coram hominibus). This will is fully incapable of acting toward God for his redemption and salvation ( justitia coram Deo). Luther described this paradox as monoenergetism and monothelitism, thus attempting to interpret the Pauline conception of redemption through faith and not through the works of the Law (Rom 1:17; 3:21–30). This understanding, however, mainly relates to the precise historical context, marked by the peculiarities of its time. Faced with a mass piety based on superstitions of all kinds, with the merits and financial redemption of sins, Luther opposes an existential and personal experience of faith, nourished and increased by the Bible (sola scriptura), while at the same time he de-sacralizes the horizontal mediation of ecclesiastical and political power. Luther’s teaching not only provoked a violent religious conflict, which divided Christian Europe, but also led more broadly to a revolutionary evolution of the civilization of modernity that had already begun in the Renaissance. He transferred the obligatory and impersonal faith, which hid behind the good works of mass Christianity emphasizing customary gifts, acts of veneration, relics, material offerings for the redemption of sins, to other horizons, those of the personal and responsible experience of the faith as a gift of the grace of God. He also emphasized the deeply existential and ontological character of both sin and faith, beyond the optimism of the heritage of Donatism and Pelagianism in the Western Christian tradition. This religious individualization eventually contributed to the reduction of the ecclesiological character of the faith and led to a sectarian confessionalism and division. The removal of the free will of the human from the work of salvation brought out the charismatic and transcendent character of faith and grace, beyond hierocratic mediations (sacramentalism) and merits. The human, although he does not have a free will, becomes simultaneously slave and free in the Christian life, through faith and the word of the Gospel.34 Yet, not only did this religious individualization develop a conception of natural freedom independent of faith, but it also liberated the volitional and creative forces of human freedom and directed them to a secularized conception of redemption through immanent works. History, but also the visible Church and its hierarchical institutions, or the works of the human, could not be considered as the place of salvation. Luther himself personally and empirically expressed this position, in opposition to the established ecclesiastical and 34

This is the content of Luther’s famous work on Christian freedom; see Martin Luther, The Freedom of a Christian, in lw 31:333–77.

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religious order of his time. His liberating position and teaching about redemption through faith provoked a religious revolution whose real socio-political consequences constituted the source of many revolution or reform in politics. Critical thinking, the Enlightenment, religious tolerance, human rights, the separation of Church and State, and existentialism would never have been possible in the recent history of Europe, without the contribution and influence of Protestantism. Luther’s personal example and teaching on the question of redemption, as it was received and as it later developed, was the source that gave birth to the modern rational subject. In the life and works of humanity, there is nothing immutably sacred. Proclaiming the need for a permanent reform of the Church, this idea seems to have played a decisive role in the progress and evolution of modern history. With Protestantism, the Western model of civilization seems to have displaced the human being’s activity from the field of metaphysical faith to an emancipated immanent reality.35 The culture of modernity and its extensions are in some way linked to the action of the human freed from all metaphysical authority, in the field of science, technology and culture. Despite the deep relationship between modernity and the evolution of the Christian tradition in Europe, it is time, in the time we live, to point out that the Christian churches are no longer the active power of history but are, in contrast, the passive spectator of upheavals and events. Social and economic reforms, the liberation and emancipation of peoples and social classes, the disastrous effects of nationalism and totalitarianism, technological progress, consumerist nihilism and the catastrophic destruction of the natural environment, the new order of things, the postmodern forms of “spirituality” as well as any attempt to escape the difficulties of life etc. are the work of factors embedded in the present world, cut off from the Christian faith, even in opposition to it. If Luther lived in our time, his theological priorities would undoubtedly be very different. Because of grace, he might support an alternative initiative for the reconciliation of divided Christians and urge a concrete public witness of Christ’s salvation in today’s rapidly changing world, in which, beyond

35 Cf. Gerhard Ebeling, “Leitsätze zur Zweireichelehre,” Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche 69 (1972): 331–49; Marc Lienhard, “La doctrine des deux règnes et son impact dans l’histoire,” Positions luthériennes 24 (1976): 25–41; W.D. James Cargill Thompson, The Political Thought of Martin Luther, ed. Philip Broadhead and Arthur Geoffrey Dickens (Brighton/Totowa: The Harvester Press/Barnes & Noble Books, 1984); Michael Richard Laffin, The Promise of Martin Luther’s Political Theology. Freeing Luther from the Modern Political Narrative (London/New York: Bloomsbury/T&T Clark, 2016).

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individual sin, collective and generalized evil in all its forms as alienation, emptiness, the malaise of civilization and lack of meaning, reigns. References Asproulis, Nikolaos. “The Encounter between Eastern Orthodoxy and Lutheranism. A Historical and Theological Assessment.” The Ecumenical Review 69/2 (2017): 215–24. Cabasilas, Nicholas. A Commentary on the Divine Liturgy. Edited and translated by J.M. Hussey and P.A. McNulty. Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2002. Cargill Thompson, W.D. James. The Political Thought of Martin Luther. Edited by Philip Broadhead and Arthur Geoffrey Dickens. Brighton/Totowa: The Harvester Press/ Barnes & Noble Books, 1984. Daniélou, Jean. Platonisme et théologie mystique. Doctrine spirituelle de saint Grégoire de Nysse. Paris: Aubier, 1944. Delikostantis, Konstantinos. “Orthodox Dialogues with the Lutheran Churches.” In Orthodox Handbook on Ecumenism. Resources for Theological Education, edited by Pantelis Kalaitzidis, et al., 473–77. Oxford: Regnum Books International, 2014. Ebeling, Gerhard. “Der Sühnetod Christi als Glaubensaussage. Eine hermeneutische Rechenschaft.” Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche 8 (1990): 3–28. Ebeling, Gerhard. “Leitsätze zur Zweireichelehre.” Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche 69 (1972): 331–49. Flogaus, Reinhard. “Agreement on the Issues of Deification and Synergy?” Luther Digest. An Annual Abridgement of Luther Studies 7 (1999): 99–105. Flogaus, Reinhard. Theosis bei Palamas und Luther. Ein Beitrag zum ökumenischen Gespräch. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1997. Flogaus, Reinhard. “Einig in Sachen Theosis und Synergie?” Kerygma und Dogma 42 (1996): 225–43. Hering, Gunnar. Ökumenisches Patriarchat und europäische Politik (1620–1638). Wiesbaden: F. Steiner Verlag, 1968. Heubach, Joachim, ed. Luther und Theosis. Erlangen: Martin-Luther Verlag, 1990. Laffin, Michael Richard. The Promise of Martin Luther’s Political Theology. Freeing Luther from the Modern Political Narrative. London/New York: Bloomsbury/T&T Clark, 2016. Lienhard, Marc. “La doctrine des deux règnes et son impact dans l’histoire.” Positions luthériennes 24 (1976): 25–41. Lopes Pereira, Jairzinho. Augustine of Hippo and Martin Luther on Original Sin and Justification of the Sinner. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2013. Mannermaa, Tuomo. Der im Glauben gegenwärtige Christus. Rechtfertigung und Vergottung zum ökumenischen Dialog. Hannover: Lutherisches Verlagshaus, 1989.

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Marquart, Kurt E. “Luther and Theosis.” Concordia Theological Quarterly 64/3 (2000): 182–205. Meimaris, Theodore. “Thirty Years of the International Theological Dialogue Between Orthodox and Lutherans (1981–2011). Evaluation and Prospects.” Nicolaus 40/1 (2013): 159–86. Nellas, Panayiotis. Deification in Christ. Orthodox Perspectives on the Nature of the Human Person. Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1987. Nissiotis, Nikos. “L’homme image de Dieu et pécheur. L’humanisme contemporain et la théologie de la libération.” Academic Yearbook of the Faculty of Theology of Athens University 25 (1981). Palamas, Gregory. The One Hundred and Fifty Chapters. Edited and translated by Robert E. Sinkewicz. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1988. Parenti, S., and E. Velkovska, eds. L’Euchologio Barberini GR. 336. Roma: Edizioni liturgiche, 1995. Podskalsky, Gerhard. Griechische Theologie in der Zeit der Türkenherrschaft (1453– 1821). Die Orthodoxie im Spannungsfeld der nachreformatorischen Konfessionen des Westens. Munich: Beck, 1988. Pricop, Cosmin, and Cătălina Bogdan. From Espoo to Paphos. The Theological Dialogue of the Orthodox Churches with the Lutheran World Federation (1981–2008). Bucharest: Basilica, 2013. Saarinen, Risto. “Le dialogue luthérien-orthodoxe de 2004 à 2014.” Istina 59/4 (2014): 367–86. Staniloae, Dumitru. “Le sens de la justification chez Luther. Quelques remarques orthodoxes.” In Luther et la Réforme allemande dans une perspective œcuménique, 185–95. Chambésy/Geneva: Éditions du Centre orthodoxe du Patriarcat œcuménique, 1983. Vestrucci, Andrea. Theology as Freedom. On Martin Luther’s ‘De servo arbitrio.’ Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2019. Vischer, Lukas. “The Legacy of Kyrill Loukaris. A Contribution to the Orthodox-Reformed Dialogue.” Mid-Stream 25/2 (1986): 165–83. Wendebourg, Dorothea. Reformation und Orthodoxie. Der ökumenische Briefwechsel zwischen der Leitung der Württembergischen Kirche und Patriarch Jeremias II. von Konstantinopel in den Jahren 1573–1581. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1986. Yangazoglou, Stavros. Communion in Deification. The Synthesis of Christology and Pneumatology in the Work of Gregory Palamas. Athens: Domos, 2001. Zizioulas, John D. “Christologie et existence. La dialectique créé-incréé et le dogme de Chalcédoine.” Contacts 126 (1984): 154–72.

part 4

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chapter 6

Luther’s Conception of Christian Freedom: Orthodox Insights Konstantinos Delikostantis The core of Luther’s theology was his view of freedom as the “summary of the Gospel.”1 His Reformation was “a program of freedom.”2 If the Reformation changed the Church, it also certainly shaped the history and culture of Europe by influencing the course of world history as a movement of freedom. Due to his teaching on freedom, Luther soon found himself in the frontlines. Freedom was the stimulus and the banner in his struggle against Rome. Thomas Münzer, together with the rebellious peasants, who saw Luther as their natural ally, rejected him as the herald of the “easy Christ” and the “passive interiority,” which detach the faithful from the real problems of life. In 1525, when Luther vehemently turned against Erasmus – in his famous writing De servo arbitrio – the majority of the “Humanists” who initially saw Luther’s movement with sympathy, abandoned him. In the following centuries, Luther was at the center of dialogue on freedom – often praised, and other times disputed. A serious encounter with Luther cannot overlook the issue of freedom. It would be like writing a book about Beethoven and not mentioning his Ninth Symphony.3 Concerning this matter, Martin Luther belongs not only to Protestantism, but to Christianity as a whole. It’s already been thirty years since my proposal that the contemporary Orthodox-Protestant dialogue should concentrate on the notion of Christian freedom, as a crossroads of all crucial theological and ecclesiological problems. This proposal is still relevant, since by discussing freedom we reveal all our divergences and our convergences. In a way, the subject of freedom has been regarded as fundamental in the history of Orthodox-Protestant encounters, and it has been a perpetual point of controversy. In the correspondence between Tübingen and Constantinople 1 Gerhard Ebeling, “Frei aus Glauben. Das Vermächtnis der Reformation,” Lutherstudien, vol. 1 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1971), 317. 2 Volker Leppin, Martin Luther. Vom Mönch zum Feind des Papstes (Darmstadt: Lambert Schneider, 2013), 53. 3 Otto Hermann Pesch, Hinführung zu Luther (Mainz: Matthias Grünewald, 1983), 177.

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in the years 1573–1581 – a courageous attempt for contact and exchange of theological ideas – Patriarch Jeremiah ii articulated his objections against the doctrine on the servum arbitrium, defending the αὐτεξούσιον, the freedom of free will. He underlined that nobody can be redeemed without the grace of God, but – as it is said with reference to John Chrysostom – only those “who are willing” (ἐθέλοντες) are saved. “Everything depends on God, but not in such a way so that our free will is damaged.”4 For Jeremiah – who initially viewed the new movement with sympathy – it quickly became clear that Luther’s Reformation was not a return to the doctrine and the life of the Ancient Church. The Ecumenical Patriarch underscored the absence of calmness of the mind (οὐδὲ ἵσταταί πως ὑμῶν ἡ διάνοια),5 the displeasure with tradition and the desire for the new (τὸ μὲν τῶν ἀληθῶς θεολόγων ἀφήκατε, τὰ ἑαυτῶν δὲ ὡς προτιμότερα ἡγεῖσθε)6 and the ceaseless questioning and answering as a “sickness of the Western spirit.”7 Also, in the sharp conflict around the clearly Calvinistic “Eastern Confession of the Christian faith” (1629), attributed to Cyril Loukaris, Patriarch of Constantinople, the negation of free will by the Protestants was a point of controversy. Two centuries later, the Encyclical of the 1836 Synod of Constantinople, against the Protestant missionaries who attacked the piety and religious practice of the Orthodox faithful, indicates the lowest level – theologically and ecclesiastically speaking – of relations between Orthodoxy and Protestantism. According to this Encyclical, Luther’s supposed complete rejection of free will and his teaching on predestination release humans from their responsibility before God, and affirm Him as the author of human malice. The result of Luther’s doctrine was the underestimation of good works and the emergence of uncontrolled passions. It is not by chance that Protestant missionaries, “similar to their leaders,” tried to undermine Orthodox identity in the name of licentious freedom as is noted in the Encyclical.8 4 John Karmiris, ed., “Πρώτη Πατριάρχου Κωνσταντινουπόλεως κυρίου Ἱερεμίου πρὸς τὴν Αὐγουσταίαν Ὁμολογίαν ἀπόκρισις, εἰς Τύβιγγαν αφοστ´ πεμφθεῖσα,” in Τὰ Δογματικὰ καὶ Συμβολικὰ Mνημεῖα τῆς Ὀρθοδόξου Καθολικῆς Ἐκκλησίας, vol. 1 (Graz: Akademische Druck und Verlagsanstalt, 1968), 483. 5 John Karmiris, ed., “Τρίτη Πατριάρχου Κωνσταντινουπόλεως κυρίου Ἱερεμίου ἀπόκρισις, εἰς Τύβιγγαν αφπα´ πεμφθεῖσα,” in Τὰ Δογματικὰ καὶ Συμβολικὰ Mνημεῖα τῆς Ὀρθοδόξου Καθολικῆς Ἐκκλησίας, vol. 2 (Graz: Akademische Druck und Verlagsanstalt, 1968), 556. 6 Karmiris, “Τρίτη Πατριάρχου Κωνσταντινουπόλεως κυρίου Ἱερεμίου ἀπόκρισις,” 568. 7 Vasilios N. Makrides, “Ohne Luther. Überlegungen zum Fehlen einer Reformators im Orthodoxen Christentum,” in Luther zwischen den Kulturen. Zeitgenossenschaft – Weltwirkung, ed. Hans Medick and Peer Schmidt (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2004), 333. 8 John Karmiris, ed., “Ἐγκύκλιος τῆς ἐν Κωνσταντινουπόλει Συνόδου τοῦ 1836 κατὰ τῶν Διαμαρτυρομένων Ἱεραποστόλων,” in Τὰ Δογματικὰ καὶ Συμβολικὰ Mνημεῖα τῆς Ὀρθοδόξου Καθολικῆς Ἐκκλησίας, vol. 2 (Graz: Akademische Druck und Verlagsanstalt, 1968), 875–78.

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Today, one of the benefits of our sincere ecumenical dialogue is our ability to discuss crucial theological issues in a different way. Truly, no other theologian spoke about freedom with such enthusiasm as Luther, and no one rejected the free will coram Deo as he did. Also, in his understanding, the freedom of the Christian is comprehendible only within the framework of the doctrine of servum arbitrium. Luther’s intent was not to create a strong contrast between Christian freedom and servum arbitrium, but rather, to allow for the genuine expression of the dialectics of freedom. Freedom exists “only together with servum arbitrium or it does not exist at all.”9 Undoubtedly, Luther has not denied free will as a psychological or moral fact. For him, these dimensions of freedom are irrelevant to how he approaches the problem of freedom. “We are not speaking about nature but about grace,” Luther notes.10 We must distinguish between what depends on God and what concerns our earthly life. Hans-Martin Barth states: “Luther appreciated the natural man only in relation to the earthly matters. On the other hand, he attached no value to him in his relation to God.”11 Demanding freedom before God means synergy12 in our salvation, and is an expression of man’s tendency towards self-justification. “Due to his nature, man does not want God to be God, but he instead wants himself to be God, and God not to be God.”13 Outside of the grace of God, human will is not free; it is enslaved to sin. Luther, who strongly emphasized the impossibility of freedom before God, is the theologian who enthusiastically praised Christian freedom – freedom as the gift of grace – in his famous treatise Von der Freiheit eines Christenmenschen [On the Freedom of a Christian] (1520), a theme he considered as summarizing “the whole of Christian life.”14 Therefore, I will try to expound on some essential dimensions of Luther’s notion of freedom, primarily on the basis of this famous text. According to Heinz Schilling this treatise describes the basic elements of Luther’s anthropology that is of a renewed evangelical Church, which is no longer founded on the primacy of the Pope, nor on the priests as mediators between God and the faithful, but rather on the freedom of every 9

Oswald Bayer, “Zum Ansatz theologischer Ethik als Freiheitsethik,” in Zugesagte Freiheit. Zur Grundlegung theologischer Ethik (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1980), 46. 10 Martin Luther, De servo arbitrio, wa 18,551–787, at 781; lw 18:600–787. 11 Hans-Martin Barth, “Freiheit die ich meine? Luthers Verständnis der Dialektik von Freiheit und Gebundenheit,” Una Sancta 62/2 (2007): 114. 12 The term synergia does not have a negative connotation in the Orthodox tradition. God saves man and offers His Grace, but it depends on human will to accept or reject it. In this way, man is not transformed into a co-redeemer, but rather remains a co-labourer (συνεργός) with God in the work of salvation, which is initiated and accomplished only by God. 13 Martin Luther, Disputatio contra scholasticam theologiam, wa 1,221–28, at 225; lw 1:224–28. 14 Martin Luther, “An Open Letter to Pope Leo X,” lw 31:343; wa 7,11.

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single Christian.15 Lyndal Roper considers this text to be one of the most beautiful writings of Luther published during the decisive period of his movement. Furthermore, she states: “There is no polemic or aggression. Deeply musical, one can almost hear Luther’s voice conversing with the reader.”16 Luther epigrammatically describes the essence of Christian freedom in the opening lines of his abovementioned treatise: “A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none. A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all.”17 He explains his approach of Christian freedom through the Pauline distinction between the inner and the outer man.18 The inner man refers to the human being in his relation to God. Freedom is our liberation from works, aiming at justification. External matters do not have any soteriological value, or any impact on our salvation. The faithful individual is released from the “martyrdom of works,” which have a salutary purpose.19 Works of love are spontaneous and authentic expressions of faith. Our liberated freedom, attained coram Deo by faith, is articulated coram hominibus in love and service. It is this crucial distinction of faith and love that foundationally binds their inseparable unity. “Qui credit et exercet charitatem, est Christianus.”20 It is well known that this text has been used as the basis of reproach against Luther’s “inactive faith.” The truth is that faith “pushes towards a life in freedom” in the world21 and has enormous social impact. Lyndal Roper states: “His (Luther’s) use of the word freedom, alongside the idea that the Christian is both lord and servant, resembles the impact of dynamite. By addressing all Christians as equals, be they princes or commoners, and by insisting on their freedom, he broke with social deference.”22 That is why this freedom strengthens human activity in the social space. In this sense, the accusation against Luther’s conception of faith as a “closed interiority” fails and cannot constitute an important point of discussion in the Orthodox-Protestant encounter. What is controversial in the Orthodox-Protestant dialogue, is Luther’s socalled “Cartesianism,” a reproach particularly launched by Paul Hacker in his book Das Ich im Glauben bei Martin Luther (1966). Luther is presented by 15

Heinz Schilling, Martin Luther. Rebell in einer Zeit des Umbruchs. Eine Biographie (Munich: C.H. Beck, 2017), 200. 16 Lyndal Roper, Martin Luther. Renegade and Prophet (New York: Random House, 2016), 166. 17 Martin Luther, Von der Freiheit eines Christenmenschen, wa 7,11–38, at 21; lw 31:344. 18 2 Cor 4:16; Gal 5:17. 19 Martin Luther, In die Purificacionis Marie (2 February 1521), wa 9,568. 20 Martin Luther, Predigt am 13. Sonntag nach Trinitatis (26 August 1547), wa 45, 132, 7–8; “whoever believes and practices love is a Christian.” 21 Eberhard Jüngel, Zur Freiheit eines Christenmenschen. Eine Erinnerung an Luthers Schrift (Munich: Kaiser, 1978), 17. 22 Roper, Martin Luther, 168.

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Hacker as the “Descartes of theology,”23 as the theologian who replaced the truth of faith through the certainty of faith, and put the homeless individual in place of the church. Just as Descartes tried to establish the truth of being on the subject’s certainty, Luther, the theologian of “reflexive faith,”24 connected salvation with the certainty of the faithful ego. Despite the fact that Lutheran theologians strongly reject this narrow interpretation of Luther’s understanding of justification,25 I think that a real problem exists herein, that will persist as a point of controversy in our dialogue.26 Although according to Luther’s primary belief, divine grace and not faith in and of itself constitutes salvation, the fact that his emphasis is placed on the role of an individual’s faith and on the certainty of pro me – especially when evaluated in another theological context – can lead to a suspicion of religious individualism in his theology. Individualism is unfamiliar to the Orthodox triadocentric and ecclesiocentric understanding and living of the faith. Expressing the prevalent approach in Orthodox theology, Nikos Nissiotis emphasizes the triadological basis of Orthodox ecclesiology and anthropology. For Nissiotis, triadology is “the foundation upon which Orthodoxy rests and on the basis of which the life and theology of the Church have been developed.”27 In this sense, the declaration of the teaching on justification as articulus stantis et cadentis ecclesiae and the understanding of human existence exclusively from the perspective of

23

Paul Hacker, Das Ich im Glauben bei Martin Luther (Graz/Vienna/Cologne: Styria, 1966), 12–16. 24 Hacker, Das Ich im Glauben, 28. 25 Oswald Bayer emphasizes the “ontological significance” of justification in Luther’s theology. He writes: “As exegete of the Bible, Luther observed the incident of justification in its social, even in its cosmic breadth, as well as in its existential depth, through which it is certainly disclosed its breadth.” Oswald Bayer, “Was ist Rechtfertigung?,” Evangelische Kommentare 23/1 (1990): 659. 26 Karl Barth took seriously the objections of Paul Hacker. He wrote in a letter addressed to Helmuth Gollwitzer: “Do you know the book of Paul Hacker, Das Ich im Glauben bei Martin Luther, Verlag Styria 1966? I am anxious for the reaction from Lutheran theology. For me, this was an opportunity to thank my Creator once more for the fact that I was not born Lutheran, for the fact that God did not make me to be committed to this Church Father. For me, Luther was always a suspect. The book of Hacker stresses exactly why this happened; why in my study room the Weimarer Ausgabe is hidden behind an Indonesian carpet!” See Karl Barth, Briefe 1961–1968, ed. Jürgen Fangmeier and Hinrich Stoevesandt (Zürich: Theologischer Verlag, 1979), 361–62. 27 Nikos Nissiotis, Die Theologie der Ostkirche im ökumenischen Dialog. Kirche und Welt in orthodoxer Sicht (Stuttgart: Evangelisches Verlagswerk, 1968), 19.

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justification are theologically insufficient28 and do not comply with the “fullness of the image of man,” as this is developed in Scripture.29 Christianity is “the Church” and not “an individualistic religion,” as Georges Florovsky underscores.30 “Christianity from the very beginning existed as a corporate reality, as a community. To be Christian meant just to belong to the community. Nobody could be Christian by himself, as an isolated individual, but only together with “the brethren,” in a “togetherness” with them. Unus Christianus – nullus Christianus [“One Christian – no Christian”]. Personal conviction or even a rule of life still do not make one a Christian.”31 Also, according to Metropolitan John Zizioulas of Pergamon, “the Church is by definition incompatible with individualism.”32 Summarizing the ecclesiology of St. John Chrysostom, John Zizioulas says the following: The Church has her roots in God’s eternal plan. She is not a means for the salvation of the world, as certain other confessions state, but she, herself, is the salvation. The world will not be saved through the Church’s help, but rather, through becoming Church […]. If Christ is the only Savior of the world, this is so because He is the Church. Whoever attempts to reach Christ by bypassing the Church, wastes his time.33 Even from the Lutheran perspective, Friedrich Heyer states: “Orthodoxy has never posed the individualistic questions of the Occident. Its believers do not ask neither: how can I have a merciful God? Nor: May I be certain about my salvation? The universalism of salvation, which is ontologically founded in Christ’s incarnation, did not allow for such questions, nor did it need them.”34 28

29 30 31 32 33 34

Even for the Apostle Paul, as Gregorios Larentzakis underlines, “justification is only a part of the doctrine of salvation.” Paul uses not only the term δικαίωσις, but also many other terms, such as καταλλαγή, ἀποκαταλλαγή (reconciliation), σωτηρία (salvation), ἁγιασμός (sanctification), ἀπολύτρωσις (redemption), ἐλευθερία (freedom), υἱοθεσία (adoption), κληρονομία (inheritance), παλιγγενεσία (rebirth), ἀνακαίνισις (renewal), μεταμόρφωσις (transfiguration). Gregorios Larentzakis, “Rechfertigung aus der Sicht der Orthodoxen Kirche,” Ökumenisches Forum – Grazer Jahrbuch für konkrete Ökumene 23/24 (2001 2000): 266–67. Nissiotis, Die Theologie der Ostkirche im ökumenischen Dialog, 37. Georges Florovsky, “The Church, Her Nature and Task,” in Bible, Church, Tradition. An Eastern Orthodox View (Vaduz: Büchervertriebsanstalt, 1987), 70. Florovsky, “The Church,” 59. John D. Zizioulas, “The Church as Communion,” St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 38/1 (1994): 8. John D. Zizioulas, “Ἡ ἐκκλησιολογία τοῦ Ἰωάννου Χρυσοστόμου,” in Ἔργα Α´. Ἐκκλησιολογικά Μελετήματα (Athens: Domos, 2016), 129. Friedrich Heyer, “Orthodoxe Theologie,” in Konfessionskunde (Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 1977), 173–74. Another prominent Luther specialist on Orthodox Christianity,

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Paul Tillich called Luther’s doctrine of the Church “the weakest point in his teaching.”35 Trying to reason about this view, I ask myself if this supposed “weakness” is mainly connected with Luther’s polemics against Roman papocentric ecclesiology, or if we must search elsewhere the theological principles that block Luther’s way to a “strong” ecclesiology. Luther certainly saw his teaching about justification and the sacraments as a “teaching about freedom.”36 Hellmut Zschoch emphasizes three dimensions of this freedom: Freedom for the Church, freedom from the Church, and freedom in the Church: For Luther, freedom and Church belong together. The three dimensions of this relationship penetrate each other. The idea of freedom for the Church is at the center: The Church is Church because it is born and always lives anew by the message of freedom. From this derives the freedom from the Church, because the structures (Ordnungen) of the Church, even if they are good, meaningful and impressive, do not belong in the relationship with God. If they are pushed in this way, their good sense turns into the opposite. Good ecclesial order makes freedom in the Church possible: it realizes itself through the pragmatic accommodation to each time, to each place, and to the givens, and in this way strengthens the exclusive authority of the Gospel.37 What is omitted, from the Orthodox point of view, is reference to the sacramental life as freedom in the Church. It is undoubtedly an essential insight of Luther that to be a Christian means “to be free,” or more precisely “to become free.”38 In the Orthodox perspective, the Church is not only the space of the

Ernst Benz, highlights “Christian universalism” as a fundamental characteristic of Orthodoxy. “Salvation [Heilsgeschehen] is here conceived not only as a process related exclusively to man and unfolded internally in the human soul and in society, but also as a cosmic event, in which the whole universe is included. Anthropology, cosmology, and soteriology exist in an indissoluble relation.” Ernst Benz, “Menschenwürde und Menschenrecht in der Geistesgeschichte der Östlich-Orthodoxen Kirche,” in Die russische Kirche und das abendländische Christentum (Munich: Nymphenburger Verlagshandlung, 1966), 108. 35 Paul Tillich, Vorlesungen über die Geschichte des christlichen Denkens, Teil I: Urchristentum bis Nachreformation (Stuttgart: Evangelisches Verlagswerk, 1971), 265. 36 Klaus Deppermann, “Martin Luther. Bahnbrecher des Neuzeit?,” in Protestantische Profile von Luther bis Francke. Sozialgeschichtliche Aspekte (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1992), 14. 37 Hellmut Zschoch, “Martin Luther und die Kirche der Freiheit,” in Martin Luther und die Freiheit, ed. Werner Zager (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2010), 38. 38 Barth, “Freiheit,” 105.

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practice of our liberated freedom, but also, it is the place of freedom’s genesis. The Church, therefore, precedes freedom. We “become free” in the Church. The difference between Orthodoxy and Protestantism clearly emerges when we compare Luther’s On the Freedom of a Christian with the Orthodox “summary of the Christian life,” the treatise On the Life in Christ by Nicolas Cabasilas. The description of freedom as faith and love in Luther’s essay, corresponds to Cabasilas’ presentation of the Church’s sacramental life. In Luther, the major emphasis on faith leads to a reduction of the liturgical and sacramental life. For him, faith is true worship, fides est vere latria. According to Cabasilas, the sacraments of baptism, chrismation and the Eucharist are the core of life in Christ, which is a life of common freedom (κοινὴ ἐλευθερία) as ecclesial being.39 Orthodox theology stresses the essential relation between freedom and the Church. For Alexander Schmemann, “the church is freedom and only the church is freedom.”40 For this reason, “ecclesiology is the starting point of a theology of freedom.”41 This freedom, which unfolds in the community of the Church, here in this world, will be fully realized in the heavenly Kingdom. Cabasilas underlines that “the freedom and the Kingdom of the present” (ἡ νῦν ἐλευθερία καὶ βασιλεία)42 do not represent the entirety of our salvation, which will only be attained in the eschata. In the ecumenical debate on ecclesiology, I am convinced that the chance for any progress, beyond institutionalism and individualism, depends on the reaffirmation of the original content of κοινωνία (communion). It is a great challenge for our Churches to reinvent the deep meaning of communioncentred ecclesiology. According to John D. Zizioulas, the concept of κοινωνία “is deeply rooted in all Christian traditions.” He writes: Although not all Christian traditions can claim the same degree of appreciation and use of this concept in theology, its application to ecumenical discourse can hardly be attributed to the influence of any specific Christian tradition. As an Orthodox I cannot but rejoice at the employment of such a concept in ecumenical discourse, given the depth and the richness that it has in the theology of the Greek Fathers. But at the same time, I am bound to admit that the idea of communion is equally present in the Latin Fathers of the Church, such as Ambrose, Augustine and 39 40

Nicholas Cabasilas, Περὶ τῆς ἐν Χριστῷ ζωῆς, pg 150:653. Alexander Schmemann, “Liberté dans l’Église,” in Théologie d’aujourd’hui et de demain, ed. Patrick Burke, Henri de Lubac, and Jean Daniélou (Paris: Cerf, 1967), 184. 41 Schmemann, “Liberté dans l’Église,” 184. 42 Cabasilas, Περὶ τῆς ἐν Χριστῷ ζωῆς, 644.

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others, as well as in the Reformers. Even those of us who would attach more, or even exclusive, importance to the holy Scriptures can hardly overlook the important place of the theme of koinonia in the Bible.43

Epilogue

“Nostra libertas fundamentum habet Christum.”44 In this sentence of Luther, we discover the very essence of his faith and piety. Real freedom is our dependence on Jesus Christ. “O eine selige Gefängnis [What a blessed imprisonment!]. Haec captivitas est libertas Christiana ipsa.”45 Luther challenges us all, Roman Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants, to rethink our Christian witness in a world that is experiencing an immense crisis of freedom. It has been said that the treatise On the Freedom of a Christian signals a change of paradigm, a cut between the Middle Ages and Modern Times, and the beginning of the emancipation of the individual. Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, in his speech at the Ceremony of the conferral of the Doctor honoris causa degree of the Evangelical Faculty of Theology in Tübingen, rightly stated: “The Reformation clearly strengthened the position of the individual. Without the contribution of Luther’s actions and teaching, the freedom of the individual would not have become the Magna Carta of Europe. Luther’s theology of freedom is thus a turning point in the ‘progress in the consciousness of freedom’ (Hegel).”46 Although the emergence of the idea of freedom as autonomy in modernity has been influenced by Luther’s notion of Christian freedom, there is a deep chasm between the two concepts, the autonomous anthropocentric freedom, and God-given libertas christiana. It is my deep conviction that the future of humanity is connected with the art of the comprehension of our freedom’s origin (πόθεν) and its final goal (πρός). In the encounter with contemporary culture, our Churches must give common witness and defend liberated freedom more consciously and effectively. Our Churches are Churches of freedom, because that is the essence and the sign of our faith, the differentia specifica of Christianity in comparison with all other religions. In this sense, I do not agree with my teacher in Tübingen, 43 44

Zizioulas, “The Church as Communion,” 8. Martin Luther, In Epistolam S. Pauli ad Galatas Commentarius, wa 40I,6; “our freedom has as its foundation Christ”; see lw 27:6 (on Gal 5:1). 45 Martin Luther, Predigt am Tage Johannes (des Evangelisten) (27 Dezember 1531), wa 34,533. 46 Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, “Address of His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew at Tübingen University (May 30, 2017),” Ἐνημέρωσις – Newsletter of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, Permanent Delegation to the World Council of Churches, 2017, 6.

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Professor Hans Küng, who used to speak of the Roman Catholic Church as the Church of authority, of the Orthodox Church as the Church of tradition, and Protestantism as the Church of freedom. In fact, freedom is the banner of Christianity, and Luther was a major bearer of it. The best way for the celebration of the five-hundred-year anniversary of the Reformation is to continue our discussion on freedom and Christian freedom with decisiveness. References Barth, Hans-Martin. “Freiheit die ich meine? Luthers Verständnis der Dialektik von Freiheit und Gebundenheit.” Una Sancta 62/2 (2007): 103–15. Barth, Karl. Briefe 1961–1968. Edited by Jürgen Fangmeier and Hinrich Stoevesandt. Zürich: Theologischer Verlag, 1979. Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew. “Address of His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew at Tübingen University (May 30, 2017).” Ἐνημέρωσις – Newsletter of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, Permanent Delegation to the World Council of Churches, 2017. Bayer, Oswald. “Was ist Rechtfertigung?” Evangelische Kommentare 23/1 (1990): 659–62. Bayer, Oswald. “Zum Ansatz theologischer Ethik als Freiheitsethik.” In Zugesagte Freiheit. Zur Grundlegung theologischer Ethik, 37–59. Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1980. Benz, Ernst. “Menschenwürde und Menschenrecht in der Geistesgeschichte der Östlich-Orthodoxen Kirche.” In Die russische Kirche und das abendländische Christentum, 74–115. Munich: Nymphenburger Verlagshandlung, 1966. Deppermann, Klaus. “Martin Luther. Bahnbrecher der Neuzeit?” In Protestantische Profile von Luther bis Francke. Sozialgeschichtliche Aspekte, 5–21. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1992. Ebeling, Gerhard. Lutherstudien. Vol. 1. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1971. Florovsky, Georges. “The Church, Her Nature and Task.” In Bible, Church, Tradition. An Eastern Orthodox View, 57–72. Vaduz: Büchervertriebsanstalt, 1987. Hacker, Paul. Das Ich im Glauben bei Martin Luther. Graz/Vienna/Cologne: Styria, 1966. Heyer, Friedrich. “Orthodoxe Theologie.” In Konfessionskunde, 123–201. Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 1977. Jüngel, Eberhard. Zur Freiheit eines Christenmenschen. Eine Erinnerung an Luthers Schrift. Munich: Kaiser, 1978. Karmiris, John, ed. “Πρώτη Πατριάρχου Κωνσταντινουπόλεως κυρίου Ἱερεμίου πρὸς τὴν Αὐγουσταίαν Ὁμολογίαν ἀπόκρισις, εἰς Τύβιγγαν αφοστ´ πεμφθεῖσα.” In Τὰ Δογματικὰ καὶ Συμβολικὰ Mνημεῖα τῆς Ὀρθοδόξου Καθολικῆς Ἐκκλησίας, Vol. 1. Graz: Akademische Druck und Verlagsanstalt, 1968.

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Karmiris, John, “Ἐγκύκλιος τῆς ἐν Κωνσταντινουπόλει Συνόδου τοῦ 1836 κατά τῶν Διαμαρτυρομένων Ἱεραποστόλων.” In Τὰ Δογματικὰ καὶ Συμβολικὰ Mνημεῖα τῆς Ὀρθοδόξου Καθολικῆς Ἐκκλησίας. Vol. 2. Graz: Akademische Druck und Verlagsanstalt, 1968. Karmiris, John, ed. “Τρίτη Πατριάρχου Κωνσταντινουπόλεως κυρίου Ἱερεμίου ἀπόκρισις, εἰς Τύβιγγαν αφπα´ πεμφθεῖσα.” In Τὰ Δογματικὰ καὶ Συμβολικὰ Mνημεῖα τῆς Ὀρθοδόξου Καθολικῆς Ἐκκλησίας, Vol. 2. Graz: Akademische Druck und Verlagsanstalt, 1968. Larentzakis, Gregorios. “Rechfertigung aus der Sicht der Orthodoxen Kirche.” Ökumenisches Forum – Grazer Jahrbuch für konkrete Ökumene 23/24 (2001 2000). Leppin, Volker. Martin Luther. Vom Mönch zum Feind des Papstes. Darmstadt: Lambert Schneider, 2013. Makrides, Vasilios N. “Ohne Luther. Überlegungen zum Fehlen einer Reformators im Orthodoxen Christentum.” In Luther zwischen den Kulturen. Zeitgenossenschaft – Weltwirkung, edited by Hans Medick and Peer Schmidt, 318–36. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2004. Nissiotis, Nikos. Die Theologie der Ostkirche im ökumenischen Dialog. Kirche und Welt in orthodoxer Sicht. Stuttgart: Evangelisches Verlagswerk, 1968. Pesch, Otto Hermann. Hinführung zu Luther. Mainz: Matthias Grünewald, 1983. Roper, Lyndal. Martin Luther. Renegade and Prophet. New York: Random House, 2016. Schilling, Heinz. Martin Luther. Rebell in einer Zeit des Umbruchs. Eine Biographie. Munich: C.H. Beck, 2017. Schmemann, Alexander. “Liberté dans l’Église.” In Théologie d’aujourd’hui et de demain, edited by Patrick Burke, Henri de Lubac, and Jean Daniélou. Paris: Cerf, 1967. Tillich, Paul. Vorlesungen über die Geschichte des christlichen Denkens, Teil I: Urchristentum bis Nachreformation. Stuttgart: Evangelisches Verlagswerk, 1971. Zizioulas, John D. “Ἡ ἐκκλησιολογία τοῦ Ἰωάννου Χρυσοστόμου.” In Ἔργα Α´. Ἐκκλησιολογικὰ Μελετήματα. Athens: Domos, 2016. Zizioulas, John D. “The Church as Communion.” St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 38/1 (1994): 3–16. Zschoch, Hellmut. “Martin Luther und die Kirche der Freiheit.” In Martin Luther und die Freiheit, edited by Werner Zager, 25–39. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2010.

chapter 7

Martin Luther: Unexpected Dimensions of Freedom Hans-Christoph Askani It must surely be something quite different which brings religion and freedom to the soul.1

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Introductory Remarks

The topic of the present volume is theological anthropology, 500 years after Luther, in the form of a dialogue between Orthodox and Protestant theologians. In order to interact with my colleague Konstantinos Delikostantis, I was entrusted with the task of reflecting on Christian freedom as it is understood in the context of Lutheran anthropology. To comply with this, I will proceed from the short but important book of the Reformer, which already contains the term “freedom” in its title. My aim is to present the ideas developed in this book and thus contribute to an exchange and, I hope, a better mutual understanding between Orthodox and Protestant theology. Freedom – in its meaning, its scope, and also in its limits – is one of the great themes of philosophical and theological anthropology. The title of the book suggests that Luther develops in it a Protestant contribution to a general anthropological problem which should be of interest to anyone who thinks about the human being and his freedom.

1 Martin Luther, “The Freedom of a Christian,” in Reformation Writings of Martin Luther, ed. and trans. Bertram Lee Woolf, vol. 1. The Basis of the Protestant Reformation (London: Lutterworth Press, 1952), 356–79, here 358 (§4). In German: “Es muß noch alles etwas ganz anderes sein, was der Seele Frommheit und Freiheit bringt und gibt.” Martin Luther, “Von der Freiheit eines Christenmenschen,” in Martin Luther ausgewählte Schriften, ed. Karin Bornkamm, Gerhard Ebeling, and Oswald Bayer, 2nd ed. (Frankfurt: M. Insel, 1983), 238–62, here 240. © Hans-Christoph Askani, 2021 | doi:10.1163/9789004461253_008 This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license.

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However, it is not evident that this is the case. If we place ourselves in the great philosophical tradition since the Enlightenment, then freedom appears to us as one of the cornerstones that sustain and found the identity and dignity of every human person. In the context of this tradition, “freedom” is understood as the possibility and ability of human beings to decide autonomously. On the basis of this understanding, every human being has an incomparable and inalienable value. Accordingly, in what deeply concerns him, no other person has the right to take his place and make decisions for him. The first thesis that Luther formulated right at the beginning of his book – “A Christian is free and independent in every respect, a bondservant to none”2 – sounds quite modern in this context. For unbiased ears, it sounds as if Luther is protesting against false authorities and speaking out in favour of a liberation that awards man his inviolable dignity, places him before his responsibility and calls him to take his existence, with all its imponderables, into his own hands. It seems that Luther is anticipating one of the great orientations of modernity. The reader, however, who continues to read the book, will see that the Reformer is disappointing the expectations so directed. When we ask the question today of the actual meaning of “freedom” in general terms, then we tacitly assume two premises: a) freedom is one of human beings’ essential attributes; b) we basically know what it is: even if we cannot explain how it works, and under which conditions it is possible, we have an inner experience that we are free, that we are responsible for our deeds. For Luther the question is different; despite the fact that he dedicated two of his most important works to the theme of freedom,3 it is not at all self-evident for him to speak of freedom in relation to man; nor is it evident to him what it actually consists of. It is quite possible, yes, it is even probable, that Luther’s famous treatise of 1520, and that the Reformation, understood as a historical event, had a not inconsiderable influence on the modern understanding of freedom. But that does not change the fact that it was by no means Luther’s intention to contribute anything at all to this understanding of freedom – at least this is the thesis that comes to mind after reading the treatise attentively. I would even like to go one step further and say that the modern understanding of freedom, as the human being’s unrestricted self-determination, is basically of no interest to Luther. 2 Luther, “The Freedom,” 1952, §1. In literal translation: “A Christian is a free lord of all things and subject to no one” (my translation). 3 Beside The Freedom of a Christian (1520): De servo arbitrio (1525).

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This lack of interest, if I see correctly, in fact concerns all anthropological questions, as long as they are perceived as purely anthropological. What Luther really aimed to understand was the relationship between God and man, and within that relationship – but really only within it – the understanding of the human as well as his freedom. Thus the question Luther is concerned with is not that of a general concept of freedom, but whether recourse to freedom is inevitable as we ponder the relationship between God and man; and if so, why. According to Luther’s theology, the answer to this question is clear: Yes, we must consider “freedom” if we want to think God and man together. However, the answer given so quickly risks remaining superficial. To really understand whether and, if so, why Luther cannot do without the concept of freedom when he wants to think of the relationship between God and man, is a complex and surprising undertaking. The following reflections are intended to meet this challenge. 1

First Reading

Another Freedom 1.1 We saw that when Luther thinks about freedom, it is because without it the relationship between God and man cannot be understood. This thesis, stated in such general terms, does not sound surprising. Indeed, the importance of freedom for the relationship between God and man can be situated on several levels: a) at the level of a theology of creation, according to which the human is created in the image of God, which distinguishes him among all creatures as the only one gifted with reason and freedom; b) at the level of a soteriology, according to which the human is called to respond to God’s will in free obedience, thus contributing to his salvation; and c) finally, in ethical terms, in which the freedom of the human is presupposed as the basis of his responsible action. The treatise The Freedom of a Christian makes us understand that Luther, rather surprisingly, places freedom, when he considers it in its crucial aspect, on a different level, and that he speaks of it in a very different tone. On the three levels just mentioned, the theological meaning of freedom is easily understood. For Luther, on the other hand, the freedom of the human, understood theologically, is everything but obvious. This is already reflected in the apparent contradiction of the two theses, which open the book: “A Christian is free and independent in every respect, a bondservant to none. A Christian is a dutiful servant in every respect, owing a duty to everyone.”4 Continuing 4 Luther, “The Freedom,” 1952, 357. In German: “Ein Christenmensch ist ein freier Herr über alle Dinge und niemand untertan. Ein Christenmensch ist ein dienstbarer Knecht aller Dinge und

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to read, one becomes aware that the apparent contradiction is in fact nonexistent, but the impression remains, and remains true, that freedom is not an unquestionable evidence, but on the contrary an “object of dispute,” of conflict-laden relationships. If one considers the context in which each of the two theses has its place and meaning, one becomes aware that there is a tension not only between the two theses, but within each of them, without which their content would have no meaning at all. The crucial step in understanding this tension is to discover that for Luther freedom is a relational event, and that in it freedom and bondage are inextricably linked. Accordingly, the first thesis, which seems to be devoted exclusively to freedom – without this being explicitly stated – already implies a bondage; and the second, which places the subjugation of the Christian in the foreground, presupposes – again without this being explicitly articulated – the event of liberation. According to Luther, the human – in his theological understanding – is who he is, not in himself; he becomes who he is, in relation to …: in relation to other human beings, in relation to himself, in relation to God.5 We were talking about conflict-laden relationships in this regard. They are conflict-laden simply because of the fact that they are diverse. The human being simultaneously lives different relationships, relationships which are constitutive for his being and which – each in their own way – assert diverging claims. This is exactly what Luther’s book is about, and his understanding of freedom has its controversial foundation and its precarious challenge right here. Why “precarious”? Because none of the relationships is without the others. The question of who the human is in relation to himself is at the same time the question of who he is in relation to God, and who he is in relation to his fellow human. Thus the question of freedom is the question of these different relationships that cannot be reduced to one another and yet are simultaneous with one another. This is reflected not only in the content, but also in the structure of the book, which is marked out by the two theses quoted above. They speak, as we have emphasized, of being free and of being bound. So we can already say: according to the first thesis, the human is “free” and “Lord” because he does not belong to himself but to God; according to the second thesis, the human is “servant,” because God has liberated him so that he can open himself to the one who needs him. jedermann untertan.” Luther, “Von der Freiheit eines Christenmenschen,” 239. In a literal translation: “A Christian is a free lord over all things and subject to no one. A Christian is a dutiful servant of all things and subject to everybody” (my translation). 5 In his famous Disputatio de homine (1536), Luther shows explicitly how, in a philosophical understanding, the human being can be understood as he is in himself, whereas in a theological understanding the human being must be understood under the perspective of the relations in which he lives (and dies).

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Freedom as Liberation

The title of the book The Freedom of a Christian, in connection with its reputation as one of the great Reformation writings, probably contributed to a not inconsiderable misunderstanding. According to this misunderstanding, this is a text that proclaims Protestant liberation in relation to the ecclesiastical constraints of typical Roman provenance. But that is not the case. Luther’s treatise speaks, as we have already seen, of another and deeper liberation that affects every Christian in her innermost relationship with God. Despite the intimate character of this freedom, it is not something “in” the human – a quality, a characteristic that would constitute the human’s dignity; no, instead of finding itself in the human, it finds itself between God and the human. There it takes place: in the relationship between the two; and so it also belongs to both at the same time: God and the human. God gives it, the human receives it. This means that it is not simply freedom, but liberation. The human as a Christian is liberated. But did he need to be freed? Was he imprisoned? The great discovery of faith, according to Luther, consists indeed in a double knowledge. In faith the human recognizes that he is liberated and that he was imprisoned. He recognizes both, in one and the same discovery. Why in one and the same discovery? Because he would not have been able to imagine the nature and extent of his imprisonment, had he not experienced his deliverance. But what is he free from? Different answers can be and have been given throughout history. In philosophy: on the one hand man is freed from external constraints such as slavery, bondage, totalitarian regimes, prohibitions of all kinds, on the other hand from internal constraints such as his desires, fears, illusions and his excessive demands … In theology: the human is freed from sin, despair, injustice, loneliness, fascination with death … The specificity of Luther’s theology consists in the following fundamental thesis: All these answers are true, but they are enclosed in and overtaken by another: the human is – through God – liberated from himself. How is that? Why should the human be freed from himself? Because he tends, and inevitably tends, to define himself through his claims, his illusions, his sin, his despair, his injustice and his tendency to death. In short, because he has the tendency to understand himself by short-circuiting himself, that is, by referring only to himself and thus enclosing himself in himself. Augustine called this the “pride” of the human, his self-assertion, his will to find and have everything in himself: his origin, his destiny and his meaning. But who is capable of freeing the human being from his self-assertion, which in truth is a self-enclosing of oneself in oneself? The answer sounds

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banal and trite, but it is not: No one and nothing else can free man from himself but God. Why that? Because the relationship that man maintains with himself is (as he thinks) a complete relationship, a relationship in which he is completely absorbed. And it is all the more complete because it draws God into this self-relationship. But the more complete it is, the more closed it is. So the human refers to God, but he instrumentalizes God. Theology sees this more precisely than any other science. The human, as theology shows, desires two things: on the one hand he wants to realize himself, on the other hand he wants to impress God. In order to realize and complete himself, he wants to impress God. And to impress God, he thinks he has to accomplish himself. Thus God becomes a function of man. In order to be able to find and take his own place, he thinks he must also take God’s place. Without him being God – that is his deep and silent conviction – he would not be himself. No one can liberate the human from this God-impressing desire other than God himself. Therefore we interpret freedom as liberation. The shift of one to the other is the meaning of the Christian understanding of freedom. Throughout his entire existence, the human seeks a place that is his, that corresponds to him. Where is this place? In the infinity of his claims (wanting to be everything in order to be himself), or in the limitation granted by faith (receiving the meaning of his existence from another)? That he may find the place of his existence in the limitation of himself, instead of in the infinite expansion of himself, is the event of the most fundamental liberation that can happen to the human. That is why Luther, where he is interested in freedom, is interested in liberation. At the beginning of our reflection, we said that it was inevitable for Luther to refer to the concept of freedom in order to think of the relationship between God and the human. And we were wondering why. Now we can answer: Because without the liberation that God grants the human, the human would seek his place everywhere, but not where it belongs to him in truth, namely before God. With this we have gained an important insight into Christian freedom. It is about nothing less than the fact that the human is human. And the human is human if he is not God and does not need to be God. In other words, if he does not have to take his place in God’s place; if, on the contrary, he is freed to find his place in relation to God (because God gives him that place). To find one’s place before God (coram Deo) is to be free. To be free is to take one’s place before God. So there is a very brief answer to the question of what human freedom ultimately consists in: human freedom consists in the right of the human not to have to be God.

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Second Reading6

3.1 Relation to Myself and to What Is Not Myself Freedom is understood in the everyday superficial sense as an external relationship: I am free if no obstacles are placed in my path that prevent me from doing what I want to do or what I decide to do. The philosophical reflection on the other hand has long thought that freedom can and must be in a crucial sense a relationship to oneself. Socrates, for example, feels freer when he takes death upon himself and pursues nothing but his own righteousness than when he escapes death and thereby becomes an unjust person. Kant led the concept of freedom as a relationship to oneself to its apex. I am truly free only if I want the good – and nothing else – and thus when neither an external nor an internal power (such as inclination, lust, fear, etc.) can determine my will. For Luther, freedom is an external relationship and (at the same time) a relationship to oneself. In the way he grasps the relationship between external and self-relationship, he radically distances himself from both the everyday and the philosophical understanding of freedom outlined above. According to Luther, the reason for true freedom does not lie in conditions that do not hinder me; but it is also (as already indicated) neither a quality nor the main characteristic of the human as such in the sense of the thesis: “To be a person means to be free,” or: “Man is free from nature.” According to Luther, the reason for true freedom lies in the relationship of the human to God and of God to the human. This relationship, which can and must be read in two directions, establishes the human’s self-relationship in his external relationship. While it is true that only a certain relationship of the human to himself makes his relationship to God possible, it is even more true that only a certain relationship of God to the human makes his relationship to himself – and therefore also to God – possible. In concrete terms, the human can only relate to God when he is liberated from himself, but can only be liberated from himself when God’s relationship with him precedes his relationship with himself, that is, when the human allows God’s relationship with him to be more fundamental than his (the human’s) relationship with God.

6 In this second reading, topics that were already addressed in the first will be dealt with in greater depth.

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3.2 Lord and Servant The two initial theses of Luther’s treatise on freedom make no sense without taking into account the reciprocal relationship between external relationship and self-relationship: “A Christian is a free lord over all things and subject to no one. A Christian is a dutiful servant of all things and subject to everybody” (§1). We have already indicated that there is not only a tension between these two theses, but also a tension, even a conflict, within each of them. What are the different elements of the conflict? One might think that it takes place between two ways of being, both of which apply to Christians: To be lord and servant. However, it is interesting to see that these two ways of being contradict each other only superficially; in reality they basically complement each other and correspond to each other. For if the conflict really took place between them, then the interest would be to resolve it, and to do it – obviously – in favour of the side of lordship (being master). The ideal of Christian life would be that he is no longer a servant, but only a lord. But this is not what Luther means to say (neither is it what Paul said), because both being lord and being a servant are simultaneously valid in his approach. So what matters is something else, namely being lord in the right way and being a servant in the right way. This shows that if there is a conflict here, then it is not simply between being lord and being a servant, but somewhere else. It lies in the question of who “defines” lordship and servitude. The human being wants to determine by himself who and how he is lord, and again God wants to determine by himself who and how he is lord (how God is Lord and how the human is lord). Thus, the tension that is ultimately at stake is between God’s claim and the human’s claim, more precisely: how God deals with his claim, and how the human deals with his claim. More precisely, the tension is how God deals with his claim in relation to the human’s claim, and how the human deals with his claim in relation to God’s claim. This brings us back to the relationship between being free and being bound which we mentioned above. The human, in his non-believing selfunderstanding, assumes that he is only free if no one besides himself binds him. The Christian, in his believing self-conception, accepts that she is only free if God binds her more than she binds herself. In this way, freedom and attachment mutually reinforce each other. This can be illustrated by Luther’s two initial theses. According to the first thesis, man is free because he is bound by God and to God (i.e. because he belongs to God and not to himself); according to the second thesis, man is bound because he is freed by God (i.e. again because he belongs to God and not to himself, but therefore belongs at the same time to his neighbour). To

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sum up, both can be said: man is bound by God, freed from himself in order to be bound as a free man – by God and his neighbour. He is therefore freed twice and bound twice – which is doubly pointless for a conventional concept of freedom: first, because attachment, considered superficially, does not free but is the opposite of freedom, and second, because it does not require double freedom nor double attachment. If Luther nevertheless speaks of a reciprocal relationship between freedom and commitment, and if he also speaks of a double freedom (and a double commitment), it is because freedom is an event that commits the human person in manifold relationships. In these diverse relationships, freedom does not diminish proportionally as attachment increases, but rather finds itself in this attachment. Taking into account the various circumstances in which the human person finds himself, we can summarize: Man’s self has its reason and its goal not in himself; rather, it comes to him, and thus, coming to him, it cracks open the human beyond himself.7 The human’s relationship to himself begins – and always begins anew – in God and takes the human into the events of this beginning. But just as it does not begin with the human himself, so it does not stop with him. It passes from him to his neighbour, and thus also takes the neighbour into the event of this divine beginning. (Whoever this “neighbour” is at all becomes clear exactly in this transition.) He is recognized as neighbour simultaneously by God and by man. 3.3 “Body” and “Soul” It is not possible to grasp the Christian concept of freedom in its depth without taking into account a difference, even a dichotomy, which Luther introduces already at the beginning of his treatise (in the second paragraph): the distinction between soul and body. He takes it from the tradition, but gives it a direction which is new. As he sees it, soul and body mean the whole human being, but in different determining relationships. Anticipating insights which will become clearer below, we can say: “soul” is the determining relationship in which the human is free; “body” is the determining relationship in which the human is not free. Hence, whether man is free or not depends on how he situates his relationship to himself in relation to God: “Soul” is the name of the human’s relationship to himself, insofar as he understands himself “from” God. 7 Cf. the very end of the book: “From all the foregoing, the conclusion follows that a Christian lives not in himself, but in Christ and his neighbour; in Christ by faith and in his neighbour by love. By faith he rises above himself unto God; from God he stoops below himself by love, and yet he remains always in God and in divine love […].” (§30.)

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“Body” is the name of the relationship of the human to himself, insofar as he understands himself “from” himself – which means under the exclusion of God. (We have explained above how the human’s self-understanding excludes God, insofar as the human person makes God a function of himself. And God, who is brought into the arena of man’s claim, no longer is God.) The human stands in both relations, his being human is the carrying out, the embodying of these two relations. Consequently, one must say: the human does not have a body and a soul. Rather, the human is a body and a soul. Hence, since body and soul are not components of human nature, but fundamentally different, even contradictory orientations of the human and of being human (toward God, or toward himself), the human person stands in relation to himself in a tension, even in a contradiction. He has to live this contradiction. His being in the “body” (in the “flesh”) does not cease only because the human is also soul; just as his being soul does not cease only because he is also body. The body, if it is an orientation of human existence, does not simply rest within itself, but faces the question of whether and to what extent it closes itself to the spiritual life, to the life of the soul. Just as, conversely, the “spiritual” life faces the question of the extent to which it encompasses and determines the whole of human existence (including the body). The terms “body” and “soul” each have a double meaning: on the one hand, they designate the two extreme poles of their relationship; on the other hand, they denote their radiating range, which concerns also the other pole. According to these two meanings – as a static, final point of reference, and as dynamic engagement – the human being carries out the relationship of body and soul in himself (in his body and soul). Where bodily existence opens up, not only something is added to it, but bodily existence, without ceasing to be such, is recognized and lived as belonging to a past reality. Where, conversely, bodily existence closes itself off, it does not only remain with itself, but insists on remaining with itself and on already assuming total reality in its relationship to itself. Because body and soul belong together (as long as man lives), freedom for the human person means liberation. He is liberated from his self-relationship as “body,” which is sufficient in itself, to the “spiritual” life of the self-relationship which is not sufficient in itself, but sufficient only in relation to God. This liberation is a contradiction to man’s self-understanding, which according to a purely anthropological conception tends to the effect that the human does not only not need God, but that the less one needs anything other than oneself, the freer one is at all. This “anthropological” understanding is contradicted by the “theological” or “Christological” understanding. This implies

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two things: a) anthropology as such (anthropology grounding itself in itself) is theologically not ultimately relevant; b) from theology or Christology, another (new) anthropology opens up. To understand oneself as a human being in relation to Christ means understanding oneself as a relationship between body and soul, in which the soul, in its conflict with the body, wins the victory by letting herself be defeated by God. On the other hand, it means understanding oneself as the relationship between body and soul, in which the body allows itself to be freed from its selfsufficient self-reference, which prevents and denies the life of the soul. This statement is bound to be misunderstood if body and soul are understood as purely static quantities, and not instead as relational poles. Accordingly, in a theological and Christological perspective, the decisive point is not a question of the soul getting rid of the body, but of being redeemed from the body’s selfsufficient self-reference, which is called “bodily life.” 3.4 “Free” and “Joyous” 8 In contrast to Kant’s philosophical proposal, the concept of freedom can be broadened and explained here (with Luther) by other concepts. In so going, the absolute character the concept of freedom enjoys in Kant’s philosophy is modified. In Kant, freedom has its peculiarity in the fact that it is nothing else than the unmitigated autonomy that establishes itself and seizes itself. Indeed, with Luther, a whole series of other words revolve around the word “free,” each of which – with different emphasis – means the same thing. So in particular the words “religious and righteous” (“fromm und gerecht”).9 According to the common understanding, “religious” and “just” (“righteous”) are not only clearly 8 In German: “Frei und fröhlich.” 9 See §6, 10 and 11. It represents a real problem, how to translate the German word “fromm,” which occurs several times in Luther’s text. Surprisingly it is even expressed in relation to God (§11): “So auch wenn die Seele Gottes Wort fest glaubt, dann hält sie ihn für wahrhaftig, fromm und gerecht. […] denn sie zweifelt nicht daran, daß er fromm, wahrhaftig in allen seinen Werken ist.” Woolf translates saying “religious” or “devout.” This does not correspond to what the German text says. In his French translation of Luther’s treatise, Philippe Büttgen translates “wahrhaftig, fromm und gerecht” with “véridique, juste et droit.” Martin Luther, De la liberté du chrétien. Préfaces à la Bible, trans. Philippe Büttgen (Paris: Seuil, 1996), 39. Büttgen’s translation corresponds to the ancient meaning of the word “fromm” (“vrum,” “vrom”) as it was used in the Middle Age: “tüchig, trefflich, tapfer, rechtschaffen” (See Der große Duden, Etymologie. Herkunftswörterbuch der deutschen Sprache (Mannheim: Dudenverlag, 1963), 187.) It is important, however, to take into account that, in the 15th century, the word “fromm” shifts to its modern meaning. This development has important implications in Luther’s theology: what is at stake here is a mutual relation, in which God and the human refer to each other in an utterly reliable way.

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different from each other, they also mean something completely different than “free.” To be religious as well as to be righteous are, in themselves, attitudes or qualities of a person. As attitudes or characteristics of humans, they are clearly differentiated, which does not even need to be explained. If they are to coalesce in their meaning, as they do with Luther, they must be understood from a perspective that does not conceive the human only from what he is in himself. That is exactly what Luther suggests. Since, in contrast to Kant, Luther shifts freedom out of the human’s being in himself into a relationship which God begins with human beings, and which God accomplishes for them, he cannot (!) use the word “free” in abstraction from other concepts. Other words, which also describe this relationship, can and must appear next to the word “free,” so that the relationship prevailing here may be all the more explicitly expressed. As terms that indicate what is at stake between God and human beings and what God has decided for them (namely, what God has decided for both God and man), words such as “free,” “righteous,” “truthful,” “gracious” or “joyous” interlace.10 The reason for the language’s expansion, which happens here in a quite natural way, is that the relationship at hand has already been decided by God, and therefore must not first be sought and reached by the human person, but has only to be received and accepted in its fullness or superabundance. The fact that it can only be received (and not produced or established) is precisely a consequence of this relationship of superabundance. To the fullness of the events corresponds the fullness of the expressions. According to Luther, the human person’s relationship with God changes from a relationship of lack, inadequacy and distance that can never be filled, into a relationship of surplus and participation. To describe this sharing and participation, as we have seen, a plurality of – at first sight very different – words that explain each other can be put to use. On the other hand, each of these words expresses the whole matter. That someone is “just” (“righteous”) before God is his “freedom.” According to Luther there is no other freedom than that, that one may exist before God (because God grants one this “right,” this “justice”); that he is “free” is again his “righteousness” (which consists in recognizing God as “righteous,” namely as the one who makes the human free and just (righteous)). That he is “righteous” and “free” finally makes him “joyous” (a joy which, when all is said and done, is the very essence of his relationship to God). Everything depends on not understanding the expressions as elements of an enumeration, but on grasping them in their interplay. 10

See §10–12.

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In the context of Luther’s Freedom of a Christian, the relationship between justice and freedom is most often highlighted. There is actually only one “unfreedom” before God: it consists in the fact that one is unjust (without any right) before God and has to struggle for one’s justice as if it were a question of life and death. However, this struggle is, in theological perspective, not a liberation from injustice; it leads, instead, to an ever deeper entanglement within it. Such a statement is nonsense from a purely anthropological point of view. But the decisive thing is precisely that Luther speaks theologically, and not anthropologically; and that, according to him, the theological sense does not build upon the anthropological, but replaces it. More cautiously said: the theological sense determines and interprets the anthropological sense – interpreting it thoroughly. That one is always unjust before God is therefore said for the sake of God’s relationship with the human. One can say it more precisely: that one can only be unjust before God on one’s own initiative is no less a statement about God than about the human. It is a statement that has its punch line in that it brings God into play. Where anything else would or could be said about the human besides the fact that he is profoundly unjust before God, God would be eliminated. Luther can therefore also trace the question of one’s freedom back to the question of whether the person honours God. To honour God means to attribute to God being “good and true.”11 But if one attributes “truth and all goodness” to God, one cannot attribute it to oneself. Then how can anyone be simultaneously “righteous,” “free” and “joyous”? The answer is: one cannot. The only possibility lies in the fact that he recognizes that “all truth and all good” are God’s, and not his. This attribution is the human being’s freedom, justice, and joy. It is God who takes the human’s relationship to God in his hand and holds it in his hand. Only faith can understand that. In fact, faith is nothing else than this understanding. 4

Third Reading

4.1 “Two Natures” As we have already seen, Luther speaks of a double, ambivalent nature of the Christian: “[…] we ought to remember that in every Christian there are two 11  §11. See “Thus also, if the soul firmly believes in God’s word, she holds Him trustworthy, good, and righteous; and thereby she pays Him the greatest honour in her power. For then she acknowledges Him to be in the right, obeys His law, and honours His name, and lets him do with her what He will […].” (362; §11) “For God is not honoured unless truth and good and all are ascribed to Him, their true source. Meritorious works do not make that ascription, but only genuine faith.” (364; §13).

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natures, a spiritual and a bodily.” (§2) One has become accustomed to accepting that the human is constituted of two different natures. But if one remembers that the term “human nature” encompasses and names the whole of the human person (even if it contains various “components” or aspects), then it becomes clear how surprising Luther’s mode of expression is. It not only contradicts the tradition, but it also upsets a spontaneous understanding. The term “nature” implies a unity, a unit that is what it is. But this is exactly what Luther wants to deny. He inserts into the expression “nature” a tension that goes beyond its original meaning. It is to be noted, however, that Luther (differently from the brief summary above) does not speak of a “twofold nature” of the human person, but of a “twofold nature” of the Christian. This is the case in the German version; the Latin version speaks, as it seems, in a different way, but its meaning is the same. According to Luther, the human being is of two natures, and it is in the Christian that we see what this means. This is indeed the point at which Luther’s new approach becomes quite manifest: he does not include “being a Christian” within “being human,” but, conversely, understands “being human” from “being a Christian.” Thus, what he develops and what he is interested in, is not anthropology, but Christo-anthropology. In fact, those who read Luther’s text attentively become aware of how the theological view, or the theological approach, conflicts with the usual use of words. These words, in their proper intention, are no longer in a position to say what they should say. This impossibility must come about, and it must be carried out and presented itself in them – in these words. This is exactly what is happening, in an exemplary way, in relation to the notion of “nature”; but it has also happened, as we have seen, in relation to the notions of “soul” and “body,” and, in fact, in relation to all the notions that are crucial to the thought process of the book. What does it mean to speak of “two natures,” of a “twofold nature”? Flowing from what has just been said, it cannot be a matter of a “natural condition” according to which (and within which) the human is, so to speak, composed of various elements – such as body and spirit, body and soul, etc. Rather, his whole nature is “two different things,” so that there are not different elements joined together in order to form one nature. In the human as a Christian, two natures are joined together. This is what makes the Christianity of the Christian and the humanity of human beings. Strictly speaking, the expression “two natures” is almost a contradiction in itself. The humanity of the Christian, however, constitutes itself as this contradiction, as this tension which the Christian carries out, or which carries itself out in him or with him. The two natures are the “spiritual” and the “bodily.” In principle, they are relationships, more precisely: conflicting relationships. The whole of the person is to be understood ambivalently: according to his bodily or spiritual

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reality. “Either/or.” Innocence is not possible. The spiritual life is in conflict with the bodily life. To live “spiritually” means to contradict the “bodily” life, to live “bodily” means to understand nothing of the “spiritual,” and therefore to exclude it. The either/or (spiritual or bodily), however, is not everything here. For, at the same time, the person is always both. He is, as Luther says, “of two natures.” He is body and soul.12 In this respect, a “this as well as that” (rather than an “either/or”) applies. If there is anything to learn for anthropology in Luther’s theology as developed in his treatise on The Freedom of a Christian, it is that the human person, where he comes into relationship with God, loses his unity, and nevertheless has to live as one whole, single person. The astonishing thing is that it is not a sick, torn person who comes out of this conflict, but a “joyous” person. The human owes this to Christ. The human being’s Christianity – and also the human’s humanity – is due to Christ. The characteristics with which Luther describes the two natures seem plausible at first glance, but on closer inspection they also reveal themselves as astonishing. “In far as he possesses a soul, a Christian is a spiritual person, an inward, regenerate self; and in as far as he possesses flesh and blood, he is a sensual person, an outward, unregenerate self.”13 The catchiness of these formulations stems, among other things, from the fact that the words are familiar to us from the Bible. The astonishment becomes noticeable only when one tries to really consider them and put them in relation to each other. There is a hint towards a deeper understanding which is crucial here, namely the sequencing of the different attributes in the sentence. In fact, the six attributes that Luther introduces here can be read in a horizontal or vertical relationship. Either: spiritual – new – internal vs. bodily – old – external (horizontal). Or: spiritual/corporal; new/old; internal/ external (vertical). Both must be done, for the meaning of each individual word is determined by its relatives and its antonym. If one limits oneself to the vertical (bipolar) reading, which suggests itself on the basis of the unambiguous correspondences, one is almost automatically led to an inner-anthropological interpretation. But we have already seen that this is not sufficient. Therefore, a horizontal reading must form the counterweight to it, according to which 12 The word “soul” is introduced in the following sentence and indicates the “spiritual nature.” 13  §2. In German: “Nach der Seele wird er ein geistlicher, neuer, innerlicher Mensch genannt, nach dem Fleisch und Blut wird er ein leiblicher, alter und äußerlicher Mensch genannt” (§2). Literal translation (my translation): “In regard to his soul, he is called a spiritual, new, inward person; in regard to his flesh and blood, he is called a sensual, old and outward person.”

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“spiritual, new, internal” as well as “bodily, old, external” each mean a whole, a context in which the terms explain and deepen each other’s meaning. Then a dynamic may be heard which points beyond the human being as it exists in itself. 4.2 “Spiritual,” “New,” “Inward” What does “spiritual” mean, in Luther’s conception? In order to understand it, we must go back to the German terminology, namely the difference between “geistlich” and “geistig.” “Geistig” (“intellectual”) means a dimension which, in contradistinction to the material dimension, is regarded as a “higher” reality. But this is not what Luther is interested in here. On the other hand, we must distinguish “geistlich” from what we call nowadays “spiritual,” “spirituality.” “Geistlich” means something like a bundling of the whole existence, which exposes itself to questions such as where it wants to turn, what its ultimate meaning may be, and with what criterion it makes decisions. This bundling, this concentration and orientation does not come from existence itself. It is something which existence receives. The Jewish theologian Leo Baeck, in his essay “Mystery and Commandment,” speaks in an astonishing twist of the human being who receives “mystery” (what is meant here is the mystery of one’s existence granted by God). The point, following Baeck, is that one receives this mystery in hearing and listening.14 This way of receiving is meant by Luther’s word “geistlich,” in the sense that one lets a reality come to oneself and decide about oneself, a reality that, conversely, requires oneself so that a decision may occur: a decision which is greater than oneself. Flowing from these reflections, the second term – “new” – also becomes intelligible. What human life ultimately finds its meaning in, is not produced by the human being himself. It comes to him, he receives it, because he receives 14 Leo Baeck, “Geheimnis und Gebot,” in Wege im Judentum. Aufsätze und Reden (Berlin: Schocken, 1933), 33–48. “Wenn der Mensch zu seinem Leben hingelangen will, wenn er nach der Bedeutung seines und alles Lebens hinhorcht, wenn unter der Oberfläche das Wirkliche ihm nahetritt, so erlebt er immer das Geheimnis.” (33, my emphasis); for an English translation see Leo Baeck, “Mystery and Commandment,” in Judaism and Christianity (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1960), 171: “When man wants to be certain of his existence, when he therefore listens intently for the meaning of his life and life in general, and when he thus feels the presence of something lasting, of some reality beneath the surface, then he experiences the mystery […].” It is interesting to note that in Luther’s text the word “hören” also appears at a decisive point. “You may ask however: ‘What then is that word which gives such signal grace, and how shall I use it?’ The answer is: It is nothing else than the message proclaimed by Jesus, as contained in the gospel; and this should be, and, in fact, is, so presented that you hear your God speak to you.” (§6, my emphasis).

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himself. The sense of my existence offers itself to me, seizes me and takes me with it; I would like to say: it “takes me away with it.” It takes me away from me – and just so it becomes mine. This event is what the word “new” means in Luther’s thought. This understanding is confirmed by the vertically opposing poles. In contrast to “spiritual” (“geistlich”), which we understood in the sense of a concentration of the whole person, “sensual” (“leiblich”) means the dispersion of the person within himself. Because the sensual person does not hear the call (of the “mystery”), because he does not hear the word, he stays with himself and loses himself in his bland selfhood. This is what is meant by “body,” “bodily”: union with oneself, fulfilment in one’s own self. This again corresponds to the meaning of “old”: the “old self” is – theologically speaking – the contradiction against the arrival of that which is inexhaustibly new since it has no other kind of being than that it comes. That it comes to me as to that existence which, in such coming, detaches itself from what it was before. “Old,” therefore, in the sense of a past which is no longer valid, no longer true. It thus becomes clear that both series do not describe the human in himself, but the human in his relationship to God. To be more precise, the human in his relationship with himself and with God. Or even more precisely: in his relationship with himself, insofar as it is inseparable from his relationship with God. For this purpose, the terms mentioned at the beginning of the line set the tone. “Spiritual” (“geistlich”) is the self-understanding of the human insofar as he understands himself “from” the relationship with God; “bodily” is the relationship between God and man insofar as man understands himself from his self-understanding. Correspondingly, the human is “new” insofar as he lets himself be understood by God; he is “old” insofar as he not only wants to understand himself, but also God, from himself. Protestant theologians in particular have always attached importance to the opposition of “old” and “new.” It has the advantage that in each case the whole person is meant, and that his old or new being can be thought of as a renewal that comes to him from God (for instance as his “justification,” as his new life “in Christ” …). The opposition “inward”/“outward” destabilizes this, for it can be thought of by every human being simultaneously, and it characterizes him as what he is in himself. (At any rate, it seems to be the case.) That is why it has always been critically suggested that when Luther introduces the opposition “inward”/“outward,” he appears to abandon the consistency of his own thinking and to fall back from the level of his approach into old thought patterns. In fact, it might seem as if the two concepts (“inward”/“outward”) are expressing the opposition of the sensual and the intellectual (“geistig”), according to

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which his sensual, “outer” side draws the human person away into the material, into the realm of desires and temporality, while the “intellectual” (“geistig”), “inner” one connects him with the higher world of the ideal, the divine and the eternal. The human being’s task would then be to fight in himself and for himself the battle between these two powers (let us say, “darkness” and “light”). However, this purely inner-anthropological scheme of understanding does not correspond to Luther’s approach. On the one hand, in his understanding such a dualistic division (body/mind) does not fit with the biblical view of the human person; on the other hand, the dividing line, corresponding to Luther, does not run in the human (between two “parts” of his being), but between the human as a whole, on one side, and God, on the other. Under this condition, we can draw the terms “inward” and “outward” into the overall conflicting scenario which Luther “builds” in order to better understand what actually happens with the human in the encounter between God and man. So we can say on a trial basis: The “inner” man is the one who takes his soul (here I use the term “soul” to describe this inwardness) so seriously that he opens it to God and lets God into it; the “outer” man is the one who loses himself to the peculiarity of his person in such a way that, even when he goes out of himself, he always arrives only at himself. The human’s inwardness is his “soul” open to God, whereas man’s outwardness is his “body” uniting with himself, his self-content with himself. It is important not to fall back again into an understanding according to which body and soul would be components of man. They are orientations of the whole human being. The inner man goes further out of himself, whereas the outer man stays closer to himself. But these two movements are so radically conceived that they become a strict contrast: the inner man goes all out of himself – until he opens himself to God; the outer man stays all by himself – until he becomes his own God. But why then this counterintuitive use of the words “inward” and “outward”? Because the “inward man,” in Luther’s sense, and his turning to the outside, have nothing at all to do with “inwardness” understood in the usual sense. As a matter of fact, Luther’s turning outward does not contradict inwardness! According to Luther, the “inward man,” when he opens himself up, does not leave himself because of curiosity, distraction, etc.; rather, he opens himself up because he lets himself be opened by God. But what does God open? The human person’s innermost. (What else?) – God opens the human’s innermost being, which becomes God’s in this opening. Thus “inward” and “outward” invert their meaning: The inward is the most open “thing” that belongs to God; the outward is that which remains with itself, in which the human belongs to himself. The “inward” man is the one in whom the Word of God penetrates into the heart of his person; the “outer” man is the

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one in whom the Word of God bounces off the outside before it could penetrate into the “inner.”15 Once again, we ask: why the counterintuitive terminology? Because God himself reverses the relations. In other words, because God, not the human being, defines “outside” and “inside.” God speaks into the depths of the human. But this innermost part of the human does not yet exist. It is not his interiority, his reason, or his will; it is the place where the human listens to God. So, the “inward” man does not exist prior to this event of encounter, rather, it comes to existence with it. But how? By God speaking into it from the outside. So, what is the “inside” of the human? It is what happens when the human turns everything within his being outwards under God’s claim, in order to receive this being in a new way. And the “outside” of the human person? It is one’s concentration on oneself, in which, however wide may be the circles around the person, one draws everything which is outside of oneself into oneself again – even God. In a word: The interior of the human is the caring of God coming to (entering into) the person’s own being. The exterior of the human is the pretension of the human swallowing up everything into oneself – even God. Let us summarize: the interior and exterior of the human become interior and exterior in the encounter with God. God wants the inside of the human. For this God needs it outside; the human wants what is outside (the inside already belongs to him), therefore he takes it into himself. But it is only throughout the fact that God wants the “inner” of the human that the “inner man” is constituted. On the other hand, the outer being also constitutes itself only in relation to God: namely when the human closes his inner being to God. The Soul and the Word 4.3 We are trying to understand what “spiritual” (“geistlich”) means. We have spoken of the concentration of the whole person, in which he bundles and aligns his ego, but “bundles” it by opening it. Such opening is the “soul.” The spiritual life is the “interior,” which “includes” the outermost – God. The element which can build the bridge from the outward to the inward can only be one: the word (for only the word can open things in such a fundamental way.) The inward reality, which can find its peace only in the outward, can

15 See Eberhard Jüngel, Zur Freiheit eines Christenmenschen. Eine Erinnerung an Luthers Schrift (Munich: Kaiser, 1991), 76: “Das von außen in ihn hereinkommende Wort Gottes wendet den Menschen selber allererst nach innen und unterscheidet ihn dadurch als inneren Menschen von sich selbst als äußerem Menschen.”

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again only be one thing: the soul (for only the soul can be involved in such a radical way). So, word and soul belong together. Luther is not afraid, when he speaks of the “word,” to mean the “word of God.” Indeed, the expression “soul” would not have been rightly introduced if it would not meet the claim of God. And even God, as the author of the word, would not speak (or be able to speak) if it were not the soul which receives this word. “[W]e can be certain that the soul can do without anything but the word of God; and apart from the word of God it has no means of help. When it has the word however, it has no need of anything else. In short, it possesses food, joy, peace, light, ability, righteousness, truth, wisdom, freedom, and sufficient to overflowing of everything good” (§5). In fact, it is an exuberant, overflowing relationship between the two. They are both overtaxing themselves. What Jacques Lacan says about love is true here: God gives more than he has.16 God gives his word. The soul, in turn, gives more than she has. She gives herself. There is only one “organ” that understands this double exuberance, and that is almost made for it, namely faith. “I have summed everything up in faith alone, so that whoever has faith, shall have all, and will be saved” (§9). “Everything … in faith alone.” In fact, for the Protestant understanding, between God and the human, on the part of the human person there can be nothing else than faith. This implies the surprising principle that there can be no cooperation, no working together, between God and the human. The radical nature of this view has led, and continues to lead, to many misunderstandings. One of them is that this approach would be based on a pessimistic anthropology (which is absurd because Luther does not even think in terms of anthropology); another is that faith would then be understood as a sort of “work” between God and the human. But what is special about Luther’s conception of the relationship between God and the human is that he overrides the category “work” in order to discover a completely different reality (or vice versa, that the category “work” fades before a completely different reality) that opens up to him. This other reality consists in the relationship between word and faith. This relationship is to be understood in such a way that only faith grasps the occurrence of the word, and that conversely the word – through faith – grasps (but also forms, creates) the human. By faith, in his faith, man becomes like the word; he becomes what the word says. This is what Luther opposes to the idea of cooperation (even when made possible and “formed” by grace). According 16 “Die Liebe gibt, was sie nicht hat.” (“L’amour, c’est offrir à quelqu’un qui n’en veut pas quelque chose que l’on n’a pas.”)

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to Luther, this is the only way in which God is really – horribile dictu – “subject” of the relationship to the human. According to other categories, God is not the subject (counterpart), but a player who functions according to the human rules and in which divine grace and human activity are balanced with each other. But where God “comes in,” there is no balancing! Either God is all God – or not. If God is all God, then what God says is (is reality). And everything else fades in relation to this saying. What God says applies to the “soul,” which becomes like the word that she receives. More precisely: the soul becomes the word that she receives, and that means: she becomes “holy, righteous, true, peaceful, free and entirely good” (§10) “From this standpoint it is easy to see why faith can do so much, and why good works can never be equivalent to it,” Luther writes (§10). But does not the work also depend on the word? Yes, one can say that, by putting in relationship the work and the commandment. But then the difference to faith becomes all the clearer! The work follows the word (of the commandment); faith becomes what the word makes of it. The one who follows the word of the commandment has his decision in his hands, he is the “subject”; on the other hand, the one who hears the word and believes (and thus experiences what happens to him) is not the subject: the word alone is the subject. “[W]orks of merit can[not] live in the soul. Only the word and faith exercise sway in the soul.”17 “[T]he soul become[s] like the word through its union with the word.” (§10), Luther continues. I know of no formulation that summarizes so succinctly, so beautifully and so astonishingly what is decisive in the Protestant faith. If there is to be a truly ecumenical encounter, in which the different denominations would express what is deeply characteristic of their understanding and practice of the Christian faith, then as a Protestant “contribution,” this decisive point should be recognized: the word and the soul belong together. This point must be emphasized and cannot be given up. And the instance which carries this out and understands it, is this single reality: faith. This is the reason why not only the soul and the word, but also the word and faith, belong together: “[T]he soul become[s] like the word.” This is what faith receives, and what faith lives. Luther illustrates his thought by the example of the fire and the iron;18 shortly afterwards he introduces the image of the bride and the groom. It is the famous passage of the “joyous exchange.” We have tried to show how far 17  §10. In German: “[D]enn kein gutes Werk hängt so am göttlichen Wort wie der Glaube, es kann auch keines in der Seele sein; sondern allein das Wort und der Glaube regieren in der Seele” (§10). 18 “Just as iron becomes red like fire through its union with the fire, so does the soul become like the word through its union with the word. Thus, we see that a Christian has sufficient in his faith” (§10).

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Luther’s understanding of “freedom” is removed from the modern notion of freedom as unrestricted self-determination. In anachronistic terms, one could say that he introduced the concept of freedom in his writings in order to show how fundamentally he differed from what freedom became in the centuries that followed. One can say something similar about the concept of the “subject.” This concept received only later his modern significance, according to which the human in his self-confidence becomes the Archimedean point of understanding the world. Luther did indeed anticipate some of this concentration, but he did it to turn upside down everything which may be implied within it. What matters to him is not the subject, but the change of subject. And exactly that is what the Christian faith is all about, where it is taken seriously in its depth and height. God and the human change places. Everything that constitutes and weighs upon the human being becomes God’s; everything that God brings and gives becomes man’s. The human person cannot help but search in desperate struggle for his selfhood. But God has found her. How? By Christ, who took and takes her place, or more precisely by God who took and takes her place in Christ. At this point a contest of joyous exchange takes place. Because Christ is God and man, and has never sinned, and because his sanctity is unconquerable, eternal, and almighty, he takes possession of the sins of the believing soul by virtue of her wedding-ring, namely faith, and acts just as if he had committed those sins himself.19 Why “contest of joyous exchange,” and not only “joyous exchange”?20 Why not just “exchange” and “joy”? Because God must prevail against the human in his favour. The human strives for his freedom, for all kinds of freedom which he can imagine, but not for this particular freedom which, leaving him behind, places him before God in Christ’s place. The human being does not strive for it and does not reach it. God does it for him.

19  §12, rev. In German: “Hier erhebt sich nun der fröhliche Wechsel und Streit. Weil Christus Gott und Mensch ist, der noch nie gesündigt hat, und seine Frommheit unüberwindlich, ewig und allmächtig ist, so macht er denn die Sünde der gläubigen Seele durch ihren Brautring – das ist der Glaube – sich selbst zu eigen und nicht anders tut, denn als hätte er sie getan.” The English translation, strangely, has “exchanges” (plural) for “Wechsel.” 20 The Latin text is very explicit in this respect! It speaks of a “blessed battle that leads to victory, salvation and redemption,” and a bit later of “a mighty duel or battle.” Martin Luther, “The Freedom of a Christian,” in Martin Luther’s Basic Theological Writings, ed. William R. Russell, trans. Mark Tranvik (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2012), 409–10.

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Conclusion

We began our interpretation of Luther’s famous text with an ecumenical intention, or rather with an ecumenical perspective: Are there not points of contact between Orthodox and Protestant theology with regard to the understanding of the human being? Thereupon Martin Luther should be questioned. His book On the Freedom of a Christian served as a basis, because in it the concept of freedom – one of the crucial concepts of philosophical and theological anthropology – is at the center. We started with a first reading and became more and more involved in a movement of thought that caught us and took us away from our expectations of understanding what freedom is. So, a second and a third reading became necessary. Although it cannot be denied that the modern understanding of freedom, with its emphasis on autonomy and individual responsibility, received decisive impulses not only from humanism, but also from the Reformation, it has become clear that what Luther was interested in with regard to freedom was something quite different from what modern man is so proud of: his selfdetermination. By delving deeper into the Christ event, Luther discovered that true freedom comes to man, so that he does not readily find it in himself, but instead receives it from God by letting God decide over himself. In this surrender to God, which is a surrender of oneself, man becomes aware that the freedom that matters consists in the fact that he may be man before God, freed by God from himself. So, the highest freedom before God is his unfreedom before him, in other words, the election that happens to him. It is precisely in this disharmonious, disproportionate relationship that man is man, and God is God. Outside this relationship, God is always only an image of the human (an image that man makes of God), and man is also always only an image of man (an image that man makes of himself). True freedom is therefore a reality that does not exist otherwise: namely, that God is God and man is man, and that God may be God, and man may be man. With these insights, Luther was very far removed from what is understood in Orthodox theology as freedom, namely the divine gift which is a characteristic of the human being and which consists in the fact that he may – and should – move towards God out of the capacities that his Creator gave him and that his Redeemer ennobled for his sake. What does this discrepancy between the two theologies mean for the ecumenical conversation, for the ecumenical encounter? It means on the one hand (as far as I see) that a proximity between Orthodox and Lutheran theology cannot be found in a concentration on the topic of freedom. Secondly, it means – and this is less trite than it sounds – that such a proximity is not to be

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looked for there either. So, is there no conceivable proximity at all in relation to the theme of “freedom”? A hint given by Konstantinos Delikostantis in his essay on “Luther’s Conception of Christian Freedom: Orthodox Insights” indicates a direction.21 At first glance, it does not seem promising at all. Delikostantis recalls the wellknown correspondence between Tübingen and Constantinople in the years 1577–1581, when Patriarch Jeremiah ii “articulated his objections against the doctrine on the servum arbitrium, defending the […] freedom of free will.” “The Ecumenical Patriarch [in order to criticize Luther’s thinking] underscored the absence of calmness of the mind (οὐδὲ ἵσταταί πως ὑμῶν ἡ διάνοια22), the displeasure with tradition and the desire for the new (τὸ μὲν τῶν ἀληθῶς θεολόγων ἀφήκατε, τὰ ἑαυτῶν δὲ ὡς προτιμότερα ἡγεῖσθε23), and the ceaseless questioning and answering […].”24 The characterization that Jeremiah ii gives of Luther’s way of doing theology is interesting because it also – and perhaps even more so – characterizes the Orthodox way of understanding theology. And exactly there a contrast appears which is by no means less great than the one in the thematic area (in our case the understanding of freedom). The “absence of calmness of the mind,” “displeasure with tradition and the desire for the new,” the “ceaseless questioning and answering” refer in each case to an attitude, a psychological, and in particular a spiritual disposition which (in frontal contradiction to the criticized Lutheran attitude) constitutes on the Orthodox side the relationship with the mystery of the divine incarnation. That one, having encountered this mystery, may be “restless,” refusing to allow oneself to be carried and guided by a tradition that sustains him, that one never ceases to ask questions and search for answers, all of this must be deeply alien and frightening to Orthodox piety. But could it not be that precisely in this fundamental difference of spiritual attitude, a relationship does become apparent, a communication that is not visible at all, but one that takes place in so to speak underground channels, testifying to a comparable connection to mystery? So that Luther’s constant mental and spiritual “restlessness,” his address to God that goes beyond all 21 For the following quotes see: 102. 22 John Karmiris, ed., “Τρίτη Πατριάρχου Κωνσταντινουπόλεως κυρίου Ἱερεμίου ἀπόκρισις, εἰς Τύβιγγαν αφπα´ πεμφθεῖσα,” in Τὰ Δογματικὰ καὶ Συμβολικὰ Mνημεῖα τῆς Ὀρθοδόξου Καθολικῆς Ἐκκλησίας, vol. 2 (Graz: Akademische Druck und Verlagsanstalt, 1968), 556. 23 Karmiris, “Τρίτη Πατριάρχου Κωνσταντινουπόλεως κυρίου Ἱερεμίου ἀπόκρισις,” 568. 24 Vasilios N. Makrides, “Ohne Luther. Überlegungen zum Fehlen einer Reformators im Orthodoxen Christentum,” in Luther zwischen den Kulturen. Zeitgenossenschaft – Weltwirkung, ed. Hans Medick and Peer Schmidt (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2004), 333.

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“protection” of tradition, and his infinite searching, would also be an experience of God’s mysterious turning toward the world; indeed, even more: an expression of that peace that “surpasses all understanding,” – peace as the realm in which man is constantly searching for God because he knows that God has already found him? Indeed, in the course of our three readings, have we not gained a very particular impression, namely that – beyond all intellectual efforts and knowledge – here a theology is more and more formed and carried by the experience of an encounter with God; an experience in relation to which all theology is retroactive, because it does nothing but follow this mystery, letting itself be drawn more and more into it? On this level, the proximity between Orthodox and Protestant theology is perhaps much greater than what the strict concentration on the discussed and “negotiated” topics, which are often regarded controversially, would lead one to expect. This would then have far-reaching consequences for ecumenical dialogue. Its goal would be less the attempt to achieve rapprochement or even agreement with regard to certain theological points of contention, but rather the perception and recognition of what piety (understood as connection with the divine or divine-human mystery) means also in the other tradition in its living (because lived) coherence and radiance. References Baeck, Leo. “Mystery and Commandment.” In Judaism and Christianity, 171–85. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1960. Baeck, Leo. “Geheimnis und Gebot.” In Wege im Judentum. Aufsätze und Reden, 33–48. Berlin: Schocken, 1933. Der große Duden, Etymologie. Herkunftswörterbuch der deutschen Sprache. Mannheim: Dudenverlag, 1963. Jüngel, Eberhard. Zur Freiheit eines Christenmenschen. Eine Erinnerung an Luthers Schrift. Munich: Kaiser, 1991. Karmiris, John, ed. “Τρίτη Πατριάρχου Κωνσταντινουπόλεως κυρίου Ἱερεμίου ἀπόκρισις, εἰς Τύβιγγαν αφπα´ πεμφθεῖσα.” In Τὰ Δογματικὰ καὶ Συμβολικὰ Mνημεῖα τῆς Ὀρθοδόξου Καθολικῆς Ἐκκλησίας, Vol. 2. Graz: Akademische Druck und Verlagsanstalt, 1968. Luther, Martin. “The Freedom of a Christian.” In Martin Luther’s Basic Theological Writings, edited by William R. Russell, translated by Mark Tranvik, 403–27. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2012. Luther, Martin. De la liberté du chrétien. Préfaces à la Bible. Translated by Philippe Büttgen. Paris: Seuil, 1996.

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Luther, Martin. “Von der Freiheit eines Christenmenschen.” In Martin Luther ausgewählte Schriften, edited by Karin Bornkamm, Gerhard Ebeling, and Oswald Bayer, 2nd ed., 238–62. Frankfurt: M. Insel, 1983. Luther, Martin. “The Freedom of a Christian.” In Reformation Writings of Martin Luther, edited and translated by Bertram Lee Woolf, 1. The Basis of the Protestant Reformation:356–79. London: Lutterworth Press, 1952. Makrides, Vasilios N. “Ohne Luther. Überlegungen zum Fehlen einer Reformators im Orthodoxen Christentum.” In Luther zwischen den Kulturen. Zeitgenossenschaft – Weltwirkung, edited by Hans Medick and Peer Schmidt, 318–36. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2004.

part 5

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chapter 8

Faith and Justification in Luther’s Anthropology from a Protestant Point of View Henning Theißen The two main sections of this study will deal with the two concepts of faith and justification. Since Luther’s anthropology is the overarching topic of this book, I will first examine the anthropological phenomena that are associated with faith (1.1) and justification (2.1). In the reformer’s mind, I will argue, faith is basically and ultimately trust and confidence in God, while justification speaks of a dramatic yet salvific relationship between the just God and unjust sinners. Though both faith and justification are clearly loaded with the weightiest theological presuppositions about the existence and actions of God, they simultaneously convey rich insights about humanity and the ambiguities, the glory and misery of human life. This turns faith and justification into valuable issues for a study of anthropology in the line of the reformers. My second step will consist in some reflections on the position which faith and justification hold within systematic theology in its entirety. At this point, I will go beyond Luther and his writings in order to embrace a contemporary and constructive understanding of Reformation theology, while still confident that I am walking in the reformer’s footsteps. As we will see, faith is located at the intersection dogmatic theology entertains with moral theology and aesthetics (2.1), whereas justification is at the heart of a trinitarian understanding of theology (2.2). A brief conclusion will sum up the results of my investigations (3).1 1

Faith

1.1 Bridge or Bias? Anthropology in Reformation Thought Choose whatever figure you like from the reformers’ monument at Parc des Bastions in Geneva – they all share the conviction that, in Protestant terms, faith is essentially nothing but trust and confidence ( fiducia). Faith means 1 The footnotes to this study will be confined to quotes from the source writings (wa in the case of Luther) and a few select titles from secondary literature.

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trusting God’s promises, which is not just a statement about what those who have faith believe in, but also a statement about the believers themselves and thus about the anthropological aspects of faith. As Luther explained in his Large Catechism (1529), any believer dedicates his or her heart to God, making God that to which their very existence clings, so that it is by the measure of their faith (or lack of faith) that either God becomes real – or the idols which defy God. “The trust and faith of the heart make both God and an idol,” writes Luther,2 and even if this is not an ontological statement in the sense of God being called to existence by virtue of human faith, it is still a very strong anthropological foundation of the reformer’s understanding of faith. Luther even speaks of faith as “creatrix divinitatis,” which seems to rank faith higher than the one in whom it trusts, although Luther adds that this aspect of theogony in faith does not refer to God in Godself, but rather to the human with whom God interacts.3 There is another line of thought in Luther’s teaching about faith which states that despite the creative power he confers to faith, faith is not more than an answer to God’s promises. Accepting this responsive nature of faith is to yield to the power of God’s word, which seems to turn down the theological significance of anthropology. To sum up, there is a characteristic ambiguity in the reformer’s concept of faith, in that it simultaneously highlights the outstanding theological value of faith and the fact that such value can only exist for human beings who develop trust and confidence in God. Still in Luther’s days, efforts were made at systematizing the dichotomies behind this ambiguity. It has become common in Lutheran dogmatics to distinguish between faith in the sense of the objects on which human belief focuses ( fides quae creditur), i.e. revelation, and faith in the sense of the overall condition in which human subjects find themselves when they believe ( fides qua creditur), i.e. the aforementioned trust and confidence. Both divine revelation and human confidence are substantial theological aspects of faith, but it has become obvious over the course of time, especially under the circumstances of modernity, that either of them can ground dogmatic argumentative models which are mutually exclusive. In the development of the theological thought of the 20th century, revelation-based approaches to dogmatics and their subjectivist counterparts often seemed irreconcilable. Transferring the somewhat scholastic distinctions of fides quae and fides qua back to Luther himself, there 2 Martin Luther, “The First Commandment” (Large Catechism), in The Book of Concord. The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, ed. and trans. Theodore G. Tappert (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1959), 365. 3 lw 26:227; wa 40/i, 360,5 and 360,25.

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can be no doubt that the heart of Luther’s anthropology is in the latter, since he clearly states that faith is confidence, and “if your faith and trust are right, then your God is the true God.”4 However, it is noteworthy that Luther never tried to locate faith in the labyrinth of human existence more exactly than to say that faith represents the “human being in the spirit,” as Lutheran scholar Ernstpeter Maurer put it.5 The category of the spirit seems both comprehensive and detailed enough to display the different layers of human existence that are affected by faith. Technically speaking, Luther’s anthropology follows a pneumatological design which seems to bridge the divergent tendencies of the divine-human ambiguity we found in the reformer’s concept of faith. The only problem with this presumable solution to the ambiguity is that it is incompatible with the line of thought which many within the Reformed (Zwinglian and Calvinian) traditions of the Reformation adopted. Luther had a very clear and distinct idea of the spirit, which included first of all that the term “spirit” could only denote the power by which God interacts with human beings, i.e. the spirit of God or the Holy Ghost. For Luther, to claim a distinct concept of human spirit besides the divine would have meant denying God’s power. In the well-known controversies Luther had with Zwingli in the 1520s, it was eventually this pneumatological dissent that caused the entire attempt at mutual rapprochement to fail. In June 1530, Luther said in a letter he had bid Zwingli farewell at the Marburg Disputation in early October 1529 saying “Our spirit is different from yours,” which is probably the most concise description of the problem there could be.6 Luther, who was trained in the modern way of philosophy (via moderna), followed a relational ontology based on the idea that the being of things cannot be thought of as independent from their relations to each other. Spirit here denotes the prevalence of action over existence that makes God ontologically superior to the human since it is only due to the work of God’s spirit that the human exists. Zwingli, on the other hand, had studied with leading representatives of the ancient way of philosophy (via antiqua): he preferred to think that substance prevailed over relation, and he could therefore not accept the idea of two substances existing in the same place and time, as Luther’s relational ontology seemed to suggest in the controversy on the presence of Christ’s flesh and blood in the Eucharistic elements of bread and wine. For Zwingli, Christ’s spirit was not a relation but a 4 Luther, “The First Commandment,” 365. 5 Cf. Ernstpeter Maurer, Der Mensch im Geist. Untersuchungen zur Anthropologie bei Hegel und Luther (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1996). 6 lw 38:70–71; wa B 5, 340,54: “Vos habetis alium spiritum quam nos” (letter to J. Propst, June 1st, 1530).

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substance, with distinct parameters of existence within time and space. He therefore claimed the existence of human spirit apart from the divine, which Luther considered as unnecessary “as a fifth wheel to a wagon.”7 The concept of the spirit thus does not bridge the dichotomies within Reformation anthropology, but rather produces a bias which requires a larger scale investigation in order to be resolved. Thus, in what follows, I will embed the notion of faith in its dogmatic framework. 1.2 A Tripartite System of Faith The systematic theological framework that serves to embed the concept of faith follows the structure of the philosophical systems established in the era after Kant. Inspired by his three Critiques (of Pure Reason; of Practical Reason; of Judgment), these systems embraced three elements: epistemology, moral philosophy, and aesthetic theory. Even if the theological discourse of those days hardly adopted the Kantian scheme, this scheme still seems very helpful as a way to systematize and characterize the anthropological significance of faith. There is a dogmatic paradox behind the concept of faith which mirrors the ambiguities of the spirit and for which there is no dogmatic (1.2.1) or moral (1.2.2), but only an aesthetic solution (1.2.3). 1.2.1 The Dogmatic Paradox of Faith If epistemology held the main position in the philosophical systems after Kant, dogmatics held it in systematic theology. And if we treat the anthropology of faith in a framework that is at least partially dogmatic, we need to remember what the reformers emphasized regularly when speaking of faith: that human beings can only believe in justification, since as sinners they can neither achieve it on their own nor contribute anything to it from their own virtues. Salvation will therefore mean justification by faith alone (sola fide), without the works of the law, as the apostle Paul teaches. Accordingly, faith that justifies is not human but divine work, even if it is precisely in faith that the human person is entirely involved in God’s first and foremost work, namely the salvation of mankind and of creation. It is God alone who evokes and works faith in the human. The paradox behind these seemingly unspectacular statements about justification theology becomes obvious if we reformulate these guidelines in terms of anthropology, for in this respect justification is freedom in the sense of liberation from the servitude of sin. Paradoxically, however, even if humans are incapable of freeing themselves from this servitude, they are nonetheless fully 7 lw 37:250 (Confession Concerning Christ’s Supper, 1528); wa 26, 374,31f.

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culpable of being sinners, as Luther states clearly. This is the paradox Luther referred to as the “bondage of the will,” particularly in his treatise of the same title (1525), which was directed against the humanism of Erasmus of Rotterdam. A great deal of scholarly effort has been invested to achieve a constructive understanding of this dogmatic paradox, which Luther himself considered to be the best portion of his theological work, while Lutheran theologians of later generations have sometimes denied or abandoned it.8 One of the most ambitious modern interpretations of the unfree will was offered by Hans-Joachim Iwand, who argued that the bondage of the will lies in the fact that humans are doomed to believe they are free, while true freedom of faith would consist in getting rid of the obsession of freedom.9 Consistent as this interpretation may seem within the whole of Lutheran dogmatics, one must admit that it somewhat builds on a shift from dogmatics to the psychology of religion, which was indeed the background against which the generation of Iwand’s theological teachers, who represented the so-called Luther Renaissance, depicted their image of the reformer. But it is certainly in this semi-psychological respect that Iwand’s reflections attract the interests of theological anthropology. Iwand’s interpretation gives the useful hint that the entire significance of the paradox of the human will goes beyond the dogmatic task of theology. This is why I now turn to the other parts of the theological system which further specify the anthropological aspects of faith. 1.2.2 A Moral Solution? Already during the Wittenberg Reformation, Luther’s anthropology of faith underwent certain changes which made it compatible with the contemporary philosophical assessments of human existence he had denounced as theologically fruitless in his Disputatio contra scholasticam theologiam (1517) as well as in his Disputatio de homine (1536). It was Philipp Melanchthon who published a small treatise on the concept of faith (De vocabulo fidei) in 1543 that explained faith fully in anthropological terms.10 Drawing on Plato and his famous analogy of the charioteer, Melanchthon differentiated three virtues or 8 On the reception history of De servo arbitrio cf. Heinrich Assel, “The Use of Luther’s Thought in the Nineteenth Century and the Luther Renaissance,” in The Oxford Handbook of Martin Luther’s Theology, ed. Robert Kolb, Irene Dingel, and Lubomir Batka (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 551–72. 9 E.g. Hans Joachim Iwand, “Studien zum Problem des unfreien Willens,” in Um den rechten Glauben (Gesammelte Aufsätze), ed. Karl Gerhard Steck (Munich: Kaiser, 1959), 31–60, here 38. 10 Philipp Melanchthon, Melanchthons Werke in Auswahl, ed. Hans Engelland, ii/2 (Gütersloh: Bertelsmann, 1953), 360–71.

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forces of the human soul, namely its cognitive, voluntary, and affective powers. The latter specifically became the subject of Melanchthon’s study, but each of these had its own significance for the constitution of faith according to Melanchthon, who was to guide the orthodox Lutheran understanding of the concept of faith with these distinctions for generations to come. Besides the necessity of a certain historical knowledge of the object of faith (notitia) and the need to willingly agree to these (assensus), faith was for Melanchthon basically a modification of the affective powers of the human soul in that it meant to turn the pernicious and sinful passions of hatred of God and self into love and trust in God ( fiducia). The advantage of Melanchthon’s tripartite scheme, in comparison to Luther’s pneumatological approach to anthropology, is that it escapes the ambiguities of the concept of the spirit which strained Protestant anthropology ever since the controversy between Luther and Zwingli. Melanchthon strove for a positive understanding of the dogmatic paradox of the human will by explaining it in the categories of ancient moral philosophy, particularly the Stoic concept of the affective powers of the human soul. Insubordinate to reason and will, these “lower” faculties were beyond rational or voluntary control, so the shift from hatred to love which characterized faith was impossible to accomplish for human beings, but could only be a work of God, as Melanchthon concluded right from the opening paragraph of his Loci communes (1521). As constructive as Melanchthon’s solution to the paradox of the unfree will may be, it also has a certain disadvantage, at least in today’s rereading of his work. Indeed, the conclusion that the salutary shift from hatred to love was God’s work relies completely on the presupposition that the human person is unable to reorganize the affective powers of the soul. In other words, for Melanchthon hatred and love affect the human so overwhelmingly that they can only be directed by the divine power of God’s love and forgiveness. But is such an inference really compulsory? What may have been an anthropological necessity in the past is not necessarily so at present. In an overall situation of emotionalized “post-truth” conversation, both in the private and public spheres we have been experiencing since the digital revolution, it seems that few things are more open to modification and manipulation than the emotional and affective powers of the human soul. The dissemination of “likes” and “thumbs up” to Facebook posts may seem superficial, but just think of the speed at which hate speech spreads online and spills over into real-life flashmobs in order to understand how massively hatred and its affective structures are subject to conscious and voluntary reorganisation and even manipulation. Quite differently to what Melanchthon observed in his days, the transformation of human passions is certainly not a divine prerogative. We cannot build a

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sound theological-anthropological concept of faith based on his moral distinction of reason, will and passion any longer. The problem with Melanchthon’s argument is that he infers God’s work in the constitution of faith merely ex negativo: since the human is unable to rationally or willingly turn hatred into love, this shift must be induced by God. Since this argument fails, the dogmatic paradox of faith remains an unanswered question and we are still in need of a constructive understanding of the bondage of the will. 1.2.3 The Aesthetic Provocation in the Background We stated earlier that the dogmatic paradox of the human will mirrors the ambiguity of Luther’s pneumatological approach to anthropology. This becomes clear if we look back at Melanchthon’s tripartite anthropology that claimed a constructive understanding of the bondage of the will, but offered only a negative argument for God’s work in the constitution of faith. Luther never was very precise about how God operates faith in the human, but the category of the spirit, ambiguous as it may be, clearly indicates that faith can only be properly understood anthropologically as a relation from God to the human. An important reason for Luther’s ambiguity seems to lie in the fact that there are two Greek terms for freedom in the New Testament writings which highlight different aspects of the phenomenon. The term “freedom” clearly renders the Greek eleuthería which plays a significant role in the Pauline writings. It stresses the moral and political aspects of freedom as opposition to servitude and is also of great theological importance to the concept of justification in the sense of being freed from sin. Another aspect of freedom is expressed in the Greek term parrhesía which is quite prominent in the letter to the Hebrews. It covers the provocative aspects of freedom in that it refers to thoughts, attitudes and actions that act out freedom where it is not enacted on political or legal or moral terms. In his Bible translations, Luther rendered this parrhesía kind of freedom as “Freimut” (not “Freiheit”), but seemed to rank it lower than eleuthería since his Reformation theology was clearly more based on Paul than on the letter to the Hebrews. However, the problem is that in his ground-breaking treatise on The Freedom of a Christian (1520) Luther paid more attention to what would on biblical terms rather be parrhesía than eleuthería, since in this treatise he distinguished two kinds of freedom, one kingly and one priestly, and definitely ranked the latter higher than the former.11 In their priestly freedom the believers besiege God with their prayers and intercessions and find them fulfilled by God. This is certainly very close to the provocative nature of parrhesía. What appears particularly provocative about such priestly freedom 11 lw 31:355; wa 7,28,15–17.

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is that the believers treat God with a familiarity and intimacy that seems at odds with God’s majesty. The crucial point about this Christian freedom is the prerogative of the believers to call God their “father” – a prerogative of intimacy that is, according to Paul, reserved to the free, and inaccessible to whoever lives in servitude (Gal 4:1–21). Thus Paul on his part explains this same sort of freedom rather in the lines of eleuthería, since he uses the opposition of Abraham’s offspring (Ishmael and Isaac) to explain the freedom of justification in terms of familial lineage and legal entitlement to inheritance that unites the justified (i.e.= legal) “sons (and daughters) of God” with Christ the Son who inherits the entire wealth of God’s grace. A constructive reading of this scriptural passage today must pay attention not to misunderstand Paul’s juxtaposition of Ishmael and Isaac as an allegory denoting the Jewish-Christian and the Muslim traditions respectively, which would massively strain the interreligious dialogue. It is not allegorical but typological, and serves to sharpen the profile of the freedom and liberty in faith Paul describes here and in the preceding chapters of Galatians. If we are to adopt this profile into a Lutheran theological anthropology, we need to clarify the relationship between eleuthería and parrhesía. I think that this clarification is best achieved by paying attention to the aforementioned provocative nature of parrhesía since this will reveal an additional, aesthetic aspect of Christian freedom besides the dogmatic paradox of faith (bondage of the free will) and its ethical dimension (eleuthería). In his On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church (1520) Luther said that faith was evoked or rather provoked by God and God’s word (provocavit).12 It is worth dwelling on this idea of God provoking faith in the human, even if to do so implies going beyond Luther. The provocation Luther’s text speaks of is neither an evil act on moral terms, nor something forbidden on legal terms. It is rather a challenge of social conventions and traditional hierarchies which believers need to disregard in order to enter into the relationship of trust and confidence to God as their heavenly father that is so characteristic of the Christian faith. In other words, the provocation of the Christian faith is all in the parrhesía to call God “father” and thereby violate the unwritten social rules of tradition, convention, hierarchy and good manners. Following the tripartite system of Kantian philosophy, all these rules belong to the field of aesthetics with deals with the power of judging, in the sense of judgments of taste. Aesthetics in the Kantian system reformulates the ancient category of the beautiful (καλόν) and refers to objects that are neither of theoretical nor practical nature but 12 lw 36:124; wa 6,543, 31–33. On what follows, cf. also Henning Theißen, Einführung in die Dogmatik. Eine kleine Fundamentaltheologie (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2015), 85–90.

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that hover somewhere in between, because the beautiful is for Kant a symbol of the morally good that cannot be judged by reason, but only by reasonably intersubjective criteria of taste.13 Parrhesía, the provocative element of faith, can serve as an example of this. The aesthetic nature of the provocation which parrhesía constitutes will become clear when compared to the moral categories related to the notion of provocation, and will as such mirror exactly the dogmatic paradox of faith. The aesthetic dimension thus binds the entire tripartite system of faith together. The moral relation between the provoking and the provoked person is such that the provoked remains fully responsible for the action or behavior they are led to adopt, even if they hardly do so willingly since they are unlikely to have acted or behaved in this way without having been provoked to do so. The one who provokes someone’s freedom does not take away that person’s responsibility, whereas the provoked person is in the paradoxical situation of not really being free, and yet of still being responsible or even guilty, should the provoked action or behavior lead to moral evil or something legally prohibited. Following moral categories, the only way to escape this paradox is to ignore the provocation, because whoever yields to a provocation does not act freely. There is obviously a close resemblance between the moral paradox of provocation and the dogmatic paradox of the human will, since both entail an unfree yet responsible and possibly sinful or culpable behaviour. In full analogy to the provoked person, the sinner is not as such free to believe, but is nonetheless guilty of unbelief. Mirroring this dilemma, the justified believer is liberated from their servitude to sin, but only in the sense of being a justified sinner (simul iustus et peccator, as the Lutheran tradition has described this side of the paradox). The solution to either side of the dilemma lies in the aesthetic nature of the provocation to faith. For the nature of Christian freedom is to constitute a relationship to God that is simultaneously free in the most intensive, i.e. inner or priestly form of freedom, and close to such a degree that it entitles the sons and daughters of God to behave and act as indecently as if to call God their “father,” and turn to God in prayer and intercession. The aesthetic point behind this close relation of freedom is of course that it is only attainable if humans accept the provocation to challenge taste and good manners in this way to enter into this sort of relationship to God, which they cannot do on their own strengths, as the dogmatic paradox clearly shows. On the contrary, if they follow the constraints and counsels of morality instead and ignore 13 Immanuel Kant, The Critique of the Power of Judgment, First Part, Second Section, §59 (“Of Beauty as the Symbol of Morality”); Kritik der Urteilskraft, B 258: “das Schöne ist das Symbol des Sittlich-Guten; und auch nur in dieser Rücksicht […] gefällt es, mit einem Anspruche auf jedes andern Beistimmung.”

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God’s provocation, faith will remain a foreign land to them. There is no other positive solution to the bondage of the will than to accept it as an aesthetic provocation. It is impossible to believe, unless you let yourself be provoked to do so. This is why, anthropologically speaking, the freedom of faith is not an epistemological or moral phenomenon, but an aesthetic one. It is not a matter of right and wrong nor of good and evil like eleuthería is, but a matter of parrhesía that challenges the social standards of right and wrong, good and evil. A question arises only after this challenge has been accepted: what comes after entering into this peculiar relation to God we call faith? Does it imply overthrowing the concepts of right and good? What does “the inside” of a relationship look like if it is to the highest degree free, yet intimately close? Answers to these questions lie in an investigation of the anthropological corollaries of justification, which constitutes the second half of the present contribution. 2

Justification

The Believer’s Relation to Christ 2.1 What we do when turning from faith to justification in a study on Lutheran anthropology is, in terms of methodology, nothing else but to move from the first to the second article of the Creed and thus explore the Trinitarian range of theology. This requires an explanation. In paragraph 1.1 of this study, it was the concept of “the human in the spirit,” i.e. a third article perspective, that oriented our study of theological anthropology. Therefore, the observations concerning faith, in section 1, had to rely on the relation between God and human beings, the term God here denoting not the Trinity as a whole but the first person of the Trinity, since it is semantically doubtless that it is only God the Father, not God in all three persons, to whom Christians as God’s sons and daughters can address their prayers and intercessions. If we now turn to justification (section 2), there is also an orienting concept to the overall understanding of this cornerstone of Reformation theology: the idea, which Luther articulated in his treatise On the Freedom of a Christian, that the event of rendering the sinner just was a “joyful economy” and a “joyous exchange” of sin and grace between Christ and the Christian soul.14 As the reference to οἰκονομία (economy) suggests, the imagery of this famous passage is taken from the familial household (οἶκος), just as in the aesthetic provocation to faith, though this time it is not the father–child relationship, but rather the 14

In the twelfth paragraph of Von der Freiheit eines Christenmenschen/De libertate christiana (lw 31:351–52).

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matrimonial unit of bridegroom and bride to which Luther refers. Here, too, the imagery is not allegorical, as in Bernard of Clairvaux’s bridal mysticism, which some have claimed to be the background tradition of the “joyous exchange,” but once again the imagery is typological and serves to better characterize the freedom justification brings about. It is therefore important to note that the theological framework of the economy motif is the second article of the Creed, for it is not God in all three persons of the Trinity, but precisely Christ the Son who is portrayed as the bridegroom in the closest yet free relationship that is possible between two persons, i.e. matrimony. And this most intimate sort of relation to Christ is anthropologically required to exchange the most vicious and the most virtuous goods for the existence of the soul, resulting in Christ accepting all of the soul’s sin, and the Christian soul receiving the entire wealth of the divine grace. The favourite dogmatic term to express this anthropological relationship between Christ and the believer dogmatically is undoubtedly the concept of substitution: Christ shares the position of the believer embracing his or her fate of death as sinner, whereas the sinner earns life and forgiveness. This basic description of the Christ–believer relationship is what the different strands of Reformation theology seem to agree about. What these reflections seem to support is that the anthropological background to the substitutional justification theology lies in the economy of the Christ–believer relation, which is to say that this background is not of legal or juridical nature. This is important to note since the semantics of “justification” could as such have suggested the latter, and in a historical perspective this vein of interpretation has certainly been the most influential, due to the legal concept of substitution as satisfaction which was introduced into European thought by Anselm of Canterbury, who in his Cur deus homo (1098) borrowed legal concepts from the Germanic tradition of justice as order and of right as personal honour. Therefore, in the Anselmian tradition, justification means, anthropologically, satisfaction in the sense of recovering personal honour by annihilating its destructive counterparts, even if that includes the capital punishment and personal sacrifice of Christ. The satisfaction concept has often been criticized as cruel and as obfuscating the salutary and merciful nature of soteriology, but Albrecht Ritschl was probably right when he demonstrated, only a few years after one of the fiercest academic debates on soteriology, that all those parts of the Anselmian system belong to the same semantic field.15

15 Cf. Albrecht Ritschl, Die christliche Lehre von der Rechtfertigung und Versöhnung, 2nd ed., vol. 1 (Bonn: Marcus, 1883), 31–55. Ritschl refers to Hermann Cremer’s research for detailed evidence.

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As our reflections have already suggested, the key to the reformers’ anthropology lies not always in analyzing the semantics, since the reformers often used metaphors rather than analyzable concepts in the strict sense of the term. This is why in the early 20th century, motif analysis became a most influential approach in Lutheran theology. It was introduced by Scandinavian scholars; among them, Gustaf Aulén seems to be the most important as far as soteriology is concerned. But even this approach was still too optimistic regarding the coherence of the reformers’ methodology. The Latin, Greek and classic types of soteriology which the so-called Lund school distinguished16 presuppose that there are, so to speak, three different roots uniting into the same log of Reformation theology before again branching into the confessional cultural traditions we nowadays know as Protestant. But this idea of the evolution of theological thought is very unlikely: why should these strands have united in the Reformation era, if they really represent different types of soteriology? What seems far more plausible is that the common ground from which the Reformation started was the conviction of the existence of a salutary Christ– believer relationship, which is to say that our investigation must focus on the nature of this Christ–believer relationship. This is why the following paragraphs on the anthropological corollaries of justification focus on the different possible understandings of this relationship. 2.2 A Tripartite System of Justification As pointed out in the preceding paragraph, the anthropological insights of justification theology are to be found in the Christ-believer relationship (called the “joyous exchange” by Luther) and thus belong to the second article of the Creed, i.e. Christology. However, the term “Christology” is ambivalent and can describe both the person and the work of Christ. In the former sense, it clearly goes beyond the second article to embrace the entire Trinity, since Christ can only be recognized as Son in his relationship to God the Father, just as the believers can only be children of God in relation to their heavenly Father. This is why the following paragraphs on justification anthropology will be organized in a tripartite structure, as was already the case in paragraph 1.2 on the anthropology of faith. The only difference will be that, this time, this structure will not follow the three parts of the Kantian philosophical system, but the three persons of the Trinity, for it is only in the context of a broad Trinitarian understanding of theology that we can sensibly speak of a second article to which the Christ-believer relationship belongs. The examples upon which 16 Cf. Gustaf Aulén, “Die drei Haupttypen des christlichen Versöhnungsgedankens,” Zeitschrift für systematische Theologie 8 (1931): 501–38.

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I will draw all come from the history of Lutheran theology in the 20th century and will provide different interpretations of this relationship, including its restriction to the doctrine of God (2.2.1), as well as its location in a wordcentered Christology (2.2.2) and a pneumatological approach as an attempt to overcome the individualization of this relationship (2.2.3). 2.2.1 The Problem of a Theological Concept of Conscience The closest possible relation between Christ and the believer was suggested in the early 20th century by a number of theologians known as representatives of the so-called Luther Renaissance. The common methodological ground of scholars such as Karl Holl, Carl Stange, or Adolf von Harnack, who all reached the peak of their academic careers after the falling apart of the Ritschlian school in the mid-1890s, was that they opened dogmatic theology to the influence of the psychology of religion. This accounts for the fact that the systematic approach of the Luther Renaissance appeared in the disguise of historism as an investigation of the religious personality of Luther himself. The foreseeable resulting anthropological corollaries of this approach to justification theology lead to a full identification of justification with faith. Already in 1899, Stange claimed faith to be the unsurpassable form of righteousness God bestowed on human beings in justification.17 The result of this was that, to the Luther Renaissance, there was nothing new to expect from eschatology if faith itself accomplished justification, as the active voice of the Lutheran formula fides justificans suggested. It was the future head of the Luther Renaissance, Karl Holl, who drew the anthropological consequences from this identification of justification with faith, for if the believer’s relation to Christ was as such the fulfilment of justification, it could be located nowhere else in the human but in his or her conscience. Consistently, Holl delivered his famous Reformation anniversary speech at the University of Berlin in 1917 as a programmatic plea for a religion of conscience (“Gewissensreligion”).18 The problematic aspects of this approach become visible if it is placed in the Trinitarian framework of theology. By insisting on the soteriological significance of the conscience, Holl transposed justification and Christology into the doctrine of God, explicitly stating in his Berlin speech that the crucial point of faith – namely the actualization of fiducia in the sense of the reformers – was

17 Carl Stange, “Zum Sprachgebrauch der Rechtfertigungslehre in der Apologie,” Neue kirchliche Zeitschrift 10 (1899): 543–61, here 555. 18 Karl Holl, “Was verstand Luther unter Religion?,” in Luther, 2nd and 3rd ed. (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1923), 1–110, et passim.

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nothing but obedience to the first commandment to have no other God.19 Christology is thus programmatically absorbed into the doctrine of God, which results, anthropologically speaking, in a transformation of faith into obedience. And since, to the Luther Renaissance, faith amounted to justification, several of its representatives were happy to focus the “religion of conscience” on obedience as such. The Christ–believer relationship which is represented in the conscience is thus stripped of its dogmatic contents. As a consequence, especially Holl and his student Emanuel Hirsch fall short of the theological task of questioning claims of religious authority.20 For instance, it is not coincidental, but systematically consistent that Hirsch’s moral theology embraced obedience to the Führer ideology of the Nazi system and a theological glorification of war and warfare. Other representatives of the Luther Renaissance, such as Erich Vogelsang, arrived at similar, though less politically laden, conclusions. In all these instances, the anthropological focus on the doctrine of God, marked by the insistence on the significance of the conscience, secedes from the overall Trinitarian structure of theology. A Christological Solution? 2.2.2 If the problem of the Luther Renaissance lies in detaching the doctrine of God from the Trinitarian framework, it seems plausible to look for a Christological solution that emphasizes the rooting of the Christian conscience in the Christ– believer relationship (not the other way round!). This is indeed what happened in the 20th century history of Lutheran theology after the First and Second World Wars, i.e. in the generation which succeeded (but also overlapped with) the Luther Renaissance. Among the leading Lutheran theologians of the post-First World War period were two further representatives of the Luther Renaissance, Rudolf Hermann and his student Hans-Joachim Iwand, who contributed to the rediscovery of Luther’s writing that contained the most systematic explanation of justification, i.e. his polemic Against Latomus (1521). If Holl and other leaders of the Luther Renaissance had focused on Luther’s newly (1908) discovered Lectures on Romans (1515/16), the turn to Against Latomus also implied to turn away from their teachers’ generation. This treatise is far from developing the doctrine of justification in the modern sense of the term, but what Luther does 19 Holl, “Was verstand Luther unter Religion?,” 73. 20 Cf. Heinrich Assel, “‘Man stellt es überall mit Freude fest, daß der Krieg das Beste aus uns hervorgeholt hat’ (Karl Holl, 1914). Lutherrenaissance im Krieg und Nachkrieg,” in Kirche und Krieg Ambivalenzen in der Theologie, ed. Friedemann Stengel and Jörg Ulrich (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2015), 119–38.

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do in this writing is to clarify the nature of the Christ–believer relation, and, as we have seen, it is this relation that materializes justification anthropologically. The treatise from 1521 contains a well-known explanation of 2 Cor 5:17–21, where the apostle describes atonement in a way that seems to have inspired Luther’s talk of a joyous economy between Christ and the Christian soul. Christ, Paul taught, is “made to be sin for our sake so that we might become righteousness in him” (v. 21). The only difference from the economic model is obviously that it refers to an exchange of goods, whereas Paul’s letter imagines an exchange of personality. To level this difference would seem to result in the category mistake of equating “something” with “someone.” Luther’s groundbreaking argument against Latomus at this point is that the exchange Paul speaks of is a metaphorical one: “Christus factus est peccatum metaphorice,” says Luther,21 thus explaining how the metaphorical reference to Christ as “sin” bridges the gulf between persons and things. In order to understand this argument, we can draw on Luther’s assessment of faith as the priestly freedom of prayer and intercession. Just as intercessory prayers address other people’s concerns to God and thus accept them as the intercessor’s to make them God’s own concern, so does the metaphorical address of Christ as sin make that sin Christ’s. Luther here presents an account of justification that has the same results as the Anselmian atonement theology (i.e. the annihilation of sin and the renewal of the sinner’s personality), but without any recourse to the argument of satisfaction and sacrifice.22 Yet Luther’s argument is the core of what he called the “theology of the cross” since the Heidelberg Disputation (1518). The crucial point in Luther’s argument against Latomus is not a theological but a linguistic one: it is Luther’s insight in the nature of the metaphor as a rhetorical figure with undeniable, real effects. This explains why Against Latomus could live up to its renaissance under the hands of Rudolf Hermann and Hans-Joachim Iwand. For if the Christ–believer relationship atonement brings about is based on the metaphorical process witnessed in 2 Cor 5:17–21, then the anchor point of soteriology will be in the Word, and so will the anthropological corollaries. Protestantism in Germany after 1945, whether Lutheran or not, was dominated by the theology of the Word, both in the sense of Christ as the Word incarnate and the proclamation or kerygma as the human practice mirroring this Word anthropologically. This Word-centered approach seems to have swept away the precedent religion of conscience and its focus 21 lw 32:200 (Against Latomus); wa 8,86,32. 22 This approach to atonement seems to be the point behind the selection of sources edited in the textbook: Gerhard Sauter, ed., “Versöhnung” als Thema der Theologie (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1997).

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on the doctrine of God. It is no exaggeration to say that, after 1945, not least due to the influence of Karl Barth, but also to that of Lutherans such as Rudolf Hermann and Hans-Joachim Iwand, who had experienced the struggles of the Confessing Church, Protestant theology was all about the Word. The doctrine of the “communication of idioms” became a favourite subject of Christological study,23 and anthropology was studied through the lens of the philosophy of speech, since speech can be considered the most characteristic resource to distinguish human beings from other, non-human animals. Although this development clearly marked a progress in comparison to the Luther Renaissance, its disadvantage was that the focus on the Word led justification and even more its anthropological corollaries into some sort of abstraction. The progress was rather in the structures of justification and the overall linguistic nature of the Christ–believer relationship. But language was obviously the frontier of this kind of theology beyond which it could not get. This is why a third approach to the Christ–believer relationship deserves our attention. Justification in a Pneumatological Key 2.2.3 In 1965, Norwegian New Testament scholar Krister Stendahl published an important article on “The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West.”24 It turned out to be the starting point for the so-called New Perspective on Paul (E.P. Sanders, James D.G. Dunn, and many others), which was to impact New Testament scholarship since the 1980s by questioning the presumably natural connection between Paul’s writings and the Lutheran doctrine of justification. As Stendahl observed, the notion of conscience has an undeniable bias to individualistic forms of thought in the Western tradition, and this can also be said regarding justification, if it is understood in line with the concept of conscience, as was undoubtedly the case in 20th century Lutheran theology (cf. 2.2.1). Even if the Word-centered interpretation of justification we encountered in 2.2.2 may not be as vulnerable to this criticism as the religion of conscience, its focus on justification as an event of speech still gives it a touch of anthropocentrism and Eurocentrism that seems to endorse Stendahl’s reproach concerning a one-sided Western understanding of Christianity (“conscience of the West”). Any individualistic understanding of justification is at odds with one of the most famous self-perceptions of Protestantism, namely the idea that the 23 Cf. e.g. Carl Heinz Ratschow, Jesus Christus (Gütersloh: Gerd Mohn, 1982). 24 Krister Stendahl, “The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West,” Harvard Theological Review 56/3 (1963): 199–215.

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doctrine of justification was the cornerstone of the Protestant church, which would fall apart without this basis (articulus stantis et cadentis ecclesiae). As such, however, justification definitely has an ecclesial quality which clearly rules out any forced individualism in soteriology. The problem even goes further than just a more or less simple juxtaposition of individualism and communitarianism. It affects the doctrine of justification itself: how can the overall significance of this doctrine be respected without neglecting its own topics? The prominent role justification plays in the life of the church seems to be a statement on a metalevel, and is thus in danger of being cast aside from the doctrinal topics associated with justification. The dilemma we encounter here has its analogy in the contemporary history of Lutheran thought. In 1963, the General Assembly of the Lutheran World Federation was incapable of reformulating the doctrine of justification in its significance for the contemporary world of modernity. However, the speech delivered by German Lutheran Gerhard Gloege to the assembly gave a hint of where the solution was to be found. He placed considerable emphasis on the doctrine of justification directing any theological doctrine.25 Other theologians, such as Eberhard Jüngel, followed Gloege.26 Lutheran scholar Ernst Wolf even went further by denying the doctrinal status of justification altogether in order to prevent it from being levelled among a host of other doctrines; justification was for Wolf rather a kerygmatic category equivalent with proclaiming Christ.27 There is more at stake in the discourse marked by the names of Gloege, Jüngel, and Wolf than just questions of terminology. If the doctrine of justification is of criteriological importance to the Christian church, hermeneutically or kerygmatically speaking, its own topics cannot be confined to an individualistic notion of salvation, either. In other words, the Christ–believer relationship and the exchange of spiritual goods practiced within it must be transferrable to the relation between Christ and the church, giving the concept of justification a communitarian nuance. Wolf argued that this is precisely what Luther had in mind.28 This is of the utmost importance on anthropological terms, as it 25 Gerhard Gloege, Gnade für die Welt. Kritik und Krise des Luthertums (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1970), 26. 26 Eberhard Jüngel, “Rechtfertigung,” in Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart vii, 4th ed. (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004), 116 (quoting Gloege). 27 Ernst Wolf, “Die Rechtfertigungslehre als Mitte und Grenze reformatorischer Theologie,” in Peregrinatio, vol. 2 (Munich: Chr. Kaiser, 1965), 11–21, e.g., 14s. 28 Luther’s argument in favour of this (in a sermon on John 17 delivered on Oct. 17th, 1528) is to interpret the biblical “ut unum sint” (John 17:21) as “remissio peccatorum, redemptio a morte, potestas supra diabolum et omnia mala” (wa 28, 182a,3s.), i.e. as ecclesial

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implies that justification is not an individualistic, but an ecclesial event which integrates every single believer into a community of justified sinners. To be more exact, the church herself is not just a community of sinners justified, but the “greatest sinner,” as Luther said in a sermon on Easter Monday 1531.29 That is the true nature of the ecclesial community in Protestant theology. It creates the closest possible link between justification and the church. Just as nobody can have faith all by himself or herself, no one can be justified outside of this community. This intersubjectivist result gives justification a pneumatological significance, for it is through the spirit that believing individuals are brought together to make one church.

Conclusion

Summing up what precedes, it appears that faith and justification are at the heart of dogmatics like hardly any other theological topics. But they both include so many anthropological aspects that cannot be ignored. (1) Considered as an anthropological category, faith speaks of a relation of trust and confidence between God and human beings that is simultaneously free in the strictest sense of the term and so close that no other human relationship can match it. This paradox of freedom and closeness makes faith inaccessible to human beings unless they accept the aesthetic provocation of a God who lets Godself be called “Father” by those who could never be God’s children by their own strengths. (2) In a pneumatological sense that transcends the subjectivity of traditional Western anthropology, justification is the integration of human beings into a certain community. We can now tell from a combination of both factors that this refers to the community of the children of God who have parrhesía (inner freedom) to call God their Father. Unlike Christ the Son, who is in no need of justification since he is righteous by nature, the justified are not naturally God’s children, but become so through adoption. It seems that the most adequate metaphor to express the joint anthropological significance of faith and justification is that of an adoption as children of God, because it integrates the entire lives of the justified believers, even their lives before and outside of the pneumatological community of God’s children. Unlike a conversion, which in the traditional dogmatic sense refers to the act of entering that community, an analogy to the goods of salvation (I owe the knowledge of this passage to Wolf, “Die Rechtfertigungslehre,” 19.) 29 “Non est tam magna peccatrix ut Christiana ecclesia.” wa 34/i, 276,7s.

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adoption has a retrospective effect in that an adoptee is considered the legal child of their adoptive parents ever since birth, even if the relation to the birth parents remains an identity-determining factor throughout their lifetime. In contrast, converted people could only refer to their life before conversion by distancing themselves from it. Unfortunately, it seems that despite this clear anthropological edge which the adoption metaphor has over the conversion concept, it has hardly become familiar in Western Christian thought. Among the rare exceptions to this rule of thumb are the dogmatic works of Friedrich Schleiermacher (1830/31)30 and the decree on justification by the Council of Trent (1547).31 With this study I wanted to show that the adoptive interpretation of faith and justification also has its strong roots in Luther’s anthropology. References Assel, Heinrich. “ ‘Man stellt es überall mit Freude fest, daß der Krieg das Beste aus uns hervorgeholt hat’ (Karl Holl, 1914). Lutherrenaissance im Krieg und Nachkrieg.” In Kirche und Krieg Ambivalenzen in der Theologie, edited by Friedemann Stengel and Jörg Ulrich, 119–38. Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2015. Assel, Heinrich. “The Use of Luther’s Thought in the Nineteenth Century and the Luther Renaissance.” In The Oxford Handbook of Martin Luther’s Theology, edited by Robert Kolb, Irene Dingel, and Lubomir Batka, 551–72. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. Aulén, Gustaf. “Die drei Haupttypen des christlichen Versöhnungsgedankens.” Zeitschrift für systematische Theologie 8 (1931): 501–38. Denzinger, Heinrich. Enchiridion symbolorum definitionum et declarationum de rebus fidei et morum. Edited by Peter Hünermann. 37th ed. Freiburg: Herder, 1991. Gloege, Gerhard. Gnade für die Welt. Kritik und Krise des Luthertums. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1970. Holl, Karl. “Was verstand Luther unter Religion?” In Luther, 2nd and 3rd ed., 1–110. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1923. Iwand, Hans Joachim. “Studien zum Problem des unfreien Willens.” In Um den rechten Glauben (Gesammelte Aufsätze), edited by Karl Gerhard Steck, 31–60. Munich: Kaiser, 1959. 30 31

Friedrich D.E. Schleiermacher, Christian Faith, ed. Terrence N. Tice, Catherine L. Kelsey, and Edwina Lawler, vol. 2 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2016), 712–15, §109,2, on adoption in combination with the forgiveness of sins. Heinrich Denzinger, Enchiridion symbolorum definitionum et declarationum de rebus fidei et morum, ed. Peter Hünermann, 37th ed. (Freiburg: Herder, 1991), no. 1524 (with reference to Rom 8:15: “spirit of adoption”).

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Jüngel, Eberhard. “Rechtfertigung.” In Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart vii, 4th ed., 98–117. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004. Luther, Martin. “The First Commandment.” In The Book of Concord. The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, edited and translated by Theodore G. Tappert. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1959. Maurer, Ernstpeter. Der Mensch im Geist. Untersuchungen zur Anthropologie bei Hegel und Luther. Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1996. Melanchthon, Philipp. Melanchthons Werke in Auswahl. Edited by Hans Engelland. ii/2. Gütersloh: Bertelsmann, 1953. Ratschow, Carl Heinz. Jesus Christus. Gütersloh: Gerd Mohn, 1982. Ritschl, Albrecht. Die christliche Lehre von der Rechtfertigung und Versöhnung. 2nd ed. Vol. 1. Bonn: Marcus, 1883. Sauter, Gerhard, ed. “Versöhnung” als Thema der Theologie. Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1997. Schleiermacher, Friedrich D.E. Christian Faith. Edited by Terrence N. Tice, Catherine L. Kelsey, and Edwina Lawler. Vol. 2. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2016. Stange, Carl. “Zum Sprachgebrauch der Rechtfertigungslehre in der Apologie.” Neue kirchliche Zeitschrift 10 (1899): 543–61. Stendahl, Krister. “The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West.” Harvard Theological Review 56/3 (1963): 199–215. Theißen, Henning. Einführung in die Dogmatik. Eine kleine Fundamentaltheologie. Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2015. Wolf, Ernst. “Die Rechtfertigungslehre als Mitte und Grenze reformatorischer Theologie.” In Peregrinatio, 2:11–21. Munich: Chr. Kaiser, 1965.

chapter 9

Faith and Justification Jack Khalil Faith in Jesus Christ is of great importance in St. Paul’s teaching about the free gift of justification through the life, death and resurrection of the incarnated Son of God. St. Paul preached that the blood of Christ that inaugurated the New Testament had manifested the righteousness God bestows upon the one who fully entrusts his life and destiny to God. Before Christ, the Mosaic law was a path in which one walks according to the commandments in order to participate in the life from above. Once God’s promises and the Old Testament prophecies were fulfilled in the New Testament, faith that leads the believer to imitate Christ our God and adopt his mind – that is to say, to observe his words and walk one’s own life as Christ did1 – became the prerequisite to enter and live in the new covenant with God, and the only condition of the free justification that comes from the blessings of the holy and life-giving cross. Hence, the apostle Paul unequivocally stresses that the divine gift of righteousness (δικαιοσύνη Θεοῦ) is given through faith (ἐκ πίστεως, διὰ πίστεως, or τῇ πίστει),2 that is to say to the one who believes. Therefore, it is crucial to investigate how the concept of faith is expressed in the Pauline epistles, and how it is related to God’s justification. While we encounter unanimity on the recognition of free justification without the works of the Mosaic law, and only on the basis of faith, opinions differ on how to understand the nature of faith. What is faith and how does it appear practically in the life of the believer? Is the experience of faith confined to a specific moment that starts and ends at some point, or is it of a continuous nature throughout the life of a Christian person? How does the concept of “faith acting through love” and “obedience of faith” fit in with the emphasis on Christ as the only agent of justification? What is the difference between “the works of law” and “the work of faith”? Having as a focal point to clarify the Orthodox perspective on St Paul’s teaching about faith in contradistinction from Lutheranism, the present contribution will engage in answering all the aforementioned questions, and other 1 See for example Rom 6:4–5; Gal 5:18–25; Eph 2:10, 4:17ff, 5:1–5, Phil 3:17ff, Col 2:6. 2 Cf. Rom 1:16–17; 3:22, 25–26, 28.30; 4:5, 9, 11, 13; 5:1; 9:30; 10:6; Gal 2:16; 3:24; 5:5; Eph 2:8; Phil 3:9; cf. Rom 4:16; 5:2; 9:32; Gal 3:6.

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debatable issues that remain a point of difference in the bilateral ecumenical dialogues on the subject of faith. 1

Accepting the Kerygma and Responding to the Work of Christ

Faith is the human response to Christ’s word (cf. Rom 10:17) that is heard through the proclamation of the apostles (cf. 2 Cor 5:19–20; see also 2 Cor 13:3). Those are, as St. Paul teaches, ministers of the work of God (2 Cor 5:18), as they deliver to people the invitation to improve their relationship with God. However, it is God Himself who sends the call for conversion (2 Cor 5:20; 1 Thess 2:13). With the phrases ὡς τοῦ Θεοῦ παρακαλοῦντος δι’ ἡμῶν [“God making God’s appeal through us”] and δεόμεθα ὑπὲρ Χριστοῦ [“we beseech you on behalf of Christ”] (2 Cor 5:20), St. Paul points out that God expects humans to accept God’s work. The merciful and benevolent God, who “made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor 5:21), did not stop at that, but carried on with His initiative by entreating man to accept his offering. This is precisely why St. Paul notes: “all these things are from God” (2 Cor 5:18), because God gave his Son for man’s justification,3 and instead of expecting something of equal value in return from man, entreats man to accept the good things God is offering free of charge (cf. 2 Cor 5:20). “All these things are from God” – everything has been accomplished by God and man has only to accept the gift. A missionary, therefore, who ministers the work of God through his preaching,4 spreads “the word of reconciliation” accomplished by God, and entreats human beings on behalf of Christ to respond to God’s initiative, so that human beings can be justified.5 What is expected of human beings is not simply to adhere to the Law in order to achieve righteousness, because then it would be another case of ignorance of those who sought to achieve their own righteousness and not the righteousness of God.6 In the salvific work of Christ, the Mosaic Law is not the criterion for obtaining righteousness, because it became manifest that Christ Himself is the criterion of justification by faith. Without Christ, the Law is unable to 3 Commenting on this passage, St. John Chrysostom notes characteristically: “‘But all things are of God.’ Nothing of ourselves. For remission of sins and adoption and unspeakable glory are given to us by Him.” pg 61:475–76. (English translation from npnf 1 12:332.) 4 Otfried Hofius, “Gott hat unter uns aufgerichtet das Wort von der Versöhnung (2 Kor 5,19),” in Paulusstudien (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1989), 17–18. Thus also St. John Chrysostom, On 2 Corinthians, Homily 11, 2–3. 5 Cf. Rom 6:16. 6 Rom 10:3.

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justify (Gal 3:21). However, the righteousness of God, according to St. Paul, is granted on different grounds. Indeed, in Rom 3:22 the phrase δικαιοσύνη δὲ Θεοῦ itself demonstrates an opposition (adversative δέ) to the misperception of a justification on the basis of privileges and through the law (see Rom 3:1; 3:20). This is evoked in St. Paul’s assertion that God’s righteousness has been manifested χωρὶς νόμου, “without the Law” (Rom 3:21).7 The opposition to these misperceptions also becomes clear from the fact that the apostle immediately highlights in Rom 3:22 the essential matter of faith as the prerequisite of the divine righteousness, adding the phrase “through faith in Jesus Christ” (3:22; see also 1:16–17) and emphasizing every person’s ability to access the righteousness of God through faith. This way, the apostle affirms that justification takes place only through faith in Christ. It is not the “faith of Christ,” for the statement εἰς πάντας τοὺς πιστεύοντας proves that Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ is an objective genitive.8 For Paul, it is customary to juxtapose law and faith when discussing the precondition of justification,9 because he believes that God’s righteousness has always been granted on the basis of faith. This conviction is crystallized in his assertion that Christ is the end of Law “for righteousness to everyone who believes” (Rom 10:4; Gal 3:24). Accordingly, one must hear Christ’s word and learn the kerygma about Christ and his salvific work so that one may believe strongly, accept, and confess that Christ is the Lord.10 Faith is encapsulated by this experience. In this sense, faith comes from hearing (Rom 10:17), and its beginning is found in accepting the preaching of the word (cf. 1 Cor 15:11, 14). Its consummation, however, is found in obedience.11 2

Faith as Obedience

Through the interdependent relationship between faith and obedience to Christ, Christ becomes human beings’ Lord and Savior.12 St. Paul asserts that 7 Jack Khalil, “An Interpretation of Romans 3:21–26 Within its Proper Context,” in Participation, Justification, and Conversion. Eastern Orthodox Interpretation of Paul and the Debate Between “Old and New Perspectives on Paul,” ed. Athanasios Despotis (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017), 222. 8 Contra N.T. Wright, Justification. God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision (London: spck, 2009), 203. 9 See for example Rom 3:28; 4:13; 9:30–10:4; Gal 2:16; 3:11, 24; Phil 3:9. 10 Joseph A. Fitzmyer, Romans (New York: Doubleday, 1993), 137. 11 Rom 1:5, 6:17, 16:26; cf. 10:16; 2 Cor 9:13; 2 Thess 1:8, 3:14; Heb 5:9; see also Acts 6:7; 1 Pet 1:2. 12 This truth is expressed in Rom 14:6–9 and reaches its apex in v. 9 with the statement that Christ accomplished the work of salvation in order to become Lord. The preceding verses emphasize absolute obedience to the Lord as the sure path to salvation (cf. v. 4).

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he received from Christ the grace and apostleship to establish ὑπακοὴν πίστεως [lit., “obedience of faith”]13 among all nations (Rom 1:5, 16:26; see also Rom 15:18; 2 Cor 10:5). When man acknowledges, and confesses Christ as Lord of his life, then this acceptance becomes obedience and this confession becomes commitment to Christ’s word. This truth is clearly expressed in St. Paul’s phrase: “your obedience to your confession of the Gospel of Christ” (2 Cor 9:13). In the latter verse he explains to the Corinthians that supporting the brothers who are in need is not less than an obedience to the fact that they confess Jesus Christ as Lord. For St. Paul, then, faith is not only an intellectual acceptance of the phrase “Jesus is Lord,” but one’s vital personal dedication of one’s whole life to God (cf. Phil 3:7–8) and obedience to God’s word and God’s will.14 This should be manifest in the human’s relationship with God, with his fellow man, and with the whole creation.15 Moreover, faith as obedience is a way of life completely different from the path of sin (cf. Rom 6:16–17), for the one who believes is committed to the teaching that he heard and accepted. In the last verses of Romans 6, St. Paul expands on obedience to the Gospel, and particularly in verse 6:17: “χάρις δὲ τῷ θεῷ ὅτι ἦτε δοῦλοι τῆς ἁμαρτίας ὑπηκούσατε δὲ ἐκ καρδίας εἰς ὃν παρεδόθητε τύπον διδαχῆς” [“But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you obeyed from your heart the pattern of teaching you were given”]. Additionally, faith as obedience is absolute submission to Him who became the Lord of one’s life, to the point that one repudiates any human contribution to his righteousness, lest it becomes the cause of boasting, since boasting is excluded (Rom 3:27). It is precisely this faith that becomes the new pre-condition for righteousness, as opposed to the fulfillment of the Mosaic Law.16 Righteousness, therefore, is not obtained through labor – i.e., through the precise implementation of works of the Law – but rather through faith (Rom 3:27), which is first of all obedience; there is, therefore, no room for boasting.17 In this sense, the “law of faith” [νόμος πίστεως]18 does not resemble the law of commandments, according to which one’s keeping of the commandments is rewarded correspondingly and the reward can be considered an achievement that one can boast therein. 13

14 15 16 17 18

According to Max Zerwick and Mary Grosvenor, A Grammatical Analysis of the Greek New Testament, 5th ed. (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1996), 457, in the phrase ὑπακοὴ πίστεως, the genitive has simultaneously all the following meanings: subjective genitive, “obedience that springs from faith”; objective genitive, “obedience to the faith”; epexegetical genitive, “obedience that consists of faith.” Fitzmyer, Romans, 137; Otto Kuss, “Der Begriff des Gehorsams im Neuen Testament,” Theologie und Glaube 27 (1935): 699–700. Fitzmyer, Romans, 137. Kuss, “Der Begriff des Gehorsams im Neuen Testament,” 699–700. Cf 1 Cor 1:29–31. Rom 3:27.

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Love and the “Law of Faith”

In the “law of faith,” the person who obeys Christ’s word is justified regardless of one’s identity, i.e., whether one is a Jew or Gentile. This obedience to Christ is manifested in the exercise of love, which is the supreme commandment, because one who believes in Christ must love others: “Owe [ὀφείλετε] no one anything except to love one another” (Rom 13:8; cf. Gal 5:13). The verb ὀφείλετε discloses that St. Paul was giving a legalistic teaching, contrasting the commandment of love to the Mosaic law. This can be inferred from the derived noun ὀφειλέτης (“obligated/debtor”), used in Gal 5:3 regarding the obligation to keep the Mosaic law. Furthermore, the second half of Rom 13:8 implies that the intention from the first half was to differentiate love from other commandments of the Mosaic law. Therefore, for St. Paul, obedience to Christ through the keeping of the commandment to love our fellow man summarizes the “law of faith” and completely fulfills the Mosaic Law. Indeed, the apostle considers love of neighbor as the fulfillment of the Mosaic Law (Rom 13:8–10; cf. Gal 5:14, 1 Tim 1:5, Col 3:14). There should be no question that St. Paul is referring to the Mosaic Law in Rom 13:8–10; the enumeration of the second half of the Decalogue,19 which follows 13:9, belies the interpretation that the “law” being referred to is the general law of morality.20 St. Paul’s thought follows Christ’s teaching on love, the culmination of which is given in Matt 5:17–48. There is no doubt that this teaching reflects a tradition that we also find in the rabbinic literature in Hillel; there, however, it is always connected with an insistence on blind obedience to the Law.21 Moreover, from a syntactic point of view, the participle ὁ ἀγαπῶν requires an object,22 which is why the word ἕτερον has to be taken as the object of the participle ὁ ἀγαπῶν and not as an adjective that describes the next word νόμος, since the text does not suggest this. There is no clear reference to any law in the preceding paragraph, and, more specifically, the word νόμος is not used anywhere after 10:5.23 It is therefore out of the question to claim that love fulfills the ἕτερον νόμον,24 in which this phrase “other law” describes either: 1) the rest of the Law, i.e., the 19 Cf. Ex 5:17–21 [lxx], with the exception of v. 20. 20 Ernst Käsemann, An die Römer (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1980), 348. Cf. Panagiotis Trembelas, Commentary on the Epistles of the New Testament, vol. i, 192. In Greek: Ὑπόμνημα εἰς τὰς ἐπιστολάς τῆς Καινῆς Διαθήκης, 2 vols. (Ἀθῆναι: Ὁ Σωτῆρ, 1978). 21 Käsemann, An die Römer, 348–49; Hermann Strack and Paul Billerbeck, Das Evangelium nach Matthäus erläutert aus Talmud und Midrasch (Munich: Beck, 1961), 357–59. 22 Käsemann, An die Römer, 348. 23 C.E.B. Cranfield, Romans. A Shorter Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1985), 327. 24 Käsemann, An die Römer, 348, rightly notes: “Dann darf schlechterdings ἕτερος, das in 9c und 10 durch ὁ πλησίον aufge-nommen wird und dem auch in 2,1; 1K 4,6; 14,17 entspricht, nicht mit νόμος verbunden werden.”

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rest of the commandments (13:9) apart from the love commandment;25 (2) the law of Christ;26 (3) or the other law, meaning the Mosaic Law in contradistinction to Roman law, which sought obedience to “governing authorities” (Rom 13:1–7).27 What St. Paul wanted to emphasize in the second half of v. 8, he explains in v. 9; love of neighbor encapsulates all the commandments of the Mosaic Law, meaning that the one who loves fulfills the Law in this way. Elsewhere, the apostle underlines the fact that love fulfills not only the Mosaic Law, but also “the law of Christ” (cf. Gal 6:2).28 First, in Gal 5:14, St. Paul notes generally that “the whole law is fulfilled in one word, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” Then, in Gal 6:2, returning to the theme of love – which was the reason for the exposition in 5:13–26 –, the apostle asserts that the Christian, through acting with love toward his brother, fully implements “the law of Christ.” In similar fashion, the evangelist John, in his second epistle, identifies love as the way in which one can live according to Christ’s commandments (2 John 6). From all of the above, we can ascertain that faith as obedience to Christ binds29 man to the law of Christ (cf. 1 Cor 9:21), also called the “law of faith” (Rom 3:27), which is fulfilled through the love commandment. 4

The Dynamic and Permanent Character of Faith

The apostle Paul elsewhere expressed the same idea: “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but faith working [ἐνεργουμένη] through love” (Gal 5:6 nkjv). Faith must have works of love, as clearly stated by the participle “ἐνεργουμένη” (ἐνἔργον), which is a participium conjunctum modifying the word “faith.” Since this is found in the progressive present,30 it must always co-exist with faith. In other words, without this adjective, faith 25 26 27 28 29 30

This position is taken by Johan von Hofmann, Die heilige Schrift Neuen Testaments zusammenhängend untersucht, vol. 3. Brief an die Römer (Nördlingen: Beck, 1868), 542–43, and Theodor Zahn, Der Brief des Paulus an die Römer (Leipzig: Deichert, 1925), 563, n. 81. Walter Gutbrod, “νόμος,” Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Neuen Testament iv, 1069, 15–16; Paul Feine, Das gesetzfrei Evangelium des Paulus, 1899, 191. Indirectly cited by Willi Marxsen, “Der ἕτερος νόμος Röm. 13,8,” Theologische Zeitschrift 11 (1955): 231. This is the view taken by Marxsen, “Der ἕτερος νόμος Röm. 13,8,” 230–37, and followed by Otto Merk, Handeln aus Glauben. Die Motivierungen der Paulinischen Ethik (Marburg: Elwert, 1968), 165. Cf. Wolfgang Schrage, “Probleme paulinischer Ethik anhand von Gal 5,25–6,10,” in La foi agissant par l’amour (Galates 4,12–6,16) (Rome: Abbazia si San Paolo, 1996), 187. Cf. primarily Rom 6:18–20, 22. Cf. Basil G. Mandilaras, The Verb in the Greek Non-Literary Papyri (Athens: Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sciences, 1973), 96–97.

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does not correspond to the substance and character it should have.31 Therefore, the Apostle’s definition of faith as δι’ ἀγάπης ἐνεργουμένης refutes what is stated in the Joint Declaration: “but whatever in the justified precedes or follows the free gift of faith is neither the basis of justification nor merits it,”32 as if faith is determined by a point in time, which is the moment of the gift of faith. Significantly, this convergence statement relates the sentence “whatever … precedes or follows the free gift of faith” to the previous sentence: “Such faith is active in love and thus the Christian cannot and should not remain without works.” Thus, the Joint Declaration misjudges the fact that “faith working through love” within the context of Gal 5:4–6 stands as the counterpart of the Mosaic law/circumcision. In Gal 5:4–6, however, St. Paul is quite clear: those who seek to be justified by the Law no longer belong to Christ; this is because Christians hope for justification through faith, because the New Testament, which was sealed by Christ’s blood,33 attaches no significance either to the circumcision of the Old Testament or the foreskin as regards our justification. Christians are, rather, justified by faith, which is manifested by works of unfeigned love. Therefore, it seems clear that in Gal 5:6, circumcision – which is the symbol of the covenant between God and Israel – is replaced not simply by faith, but by “faith working through love” as a pre-condition of righteousness. Faith, then, is not limited to the moment of accepting the word of the Gospel, but is a dynamic attitude that colors the whole of one’s existence. An analogous Pauline statement about the active nature of faith can be found in 31 Franz Mußner, Der Galaterbrief, 5th ed. (Freiburg/Basel/Vienna: Herder, 1988), 353. 32 This is the position taken in the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification by the Lutheran World Federation and the Catholic Church, 4.3.25. 33 In order to understand the phrase ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ more correctly, we should probably view it in the context of salvation, which Christ inaugurated with his redemptive death (Mußner, Der Galaterbrief, 352, suggests something similar). More specifically, the apostle emphasizes that circumcision is superfluous, since it is an action demanded of human beings in the Old Testament (Gen 17:9–11) and faith has come to replace circumcision. We can therefore conclude that the phrase ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ refers to the New Testament (cf. 1 Cor. 11:25; 2 Cor 3:6, and many times in Hebrews, especially 8:8–9, 9:15, 10:16). The reference to the two covenants in the previous pericope Gal 4:21–31 supports this view. St. Paul, however, does not allude to God’s promise to Abraham when rejecting the importance of circumcision, but rather – as he puts it in Gal 4:21–31 – understands Abraham’s two sons by the bondwoman and the free-woman allegorically and typologically (cf. Mußner, Der Galaterbrief, 319–20) as the two covenants (4:24); the one is the covenant from Mt. Sinai (cf. Ex 19:5, 34:10, 27), while the other is the covenant of justification by faith in Christ Jesus. In this way, the Apostle once again relates solely justification by faith with the forefather Abraham (cf. Rom 4 and Gal 3). In Gal 3:15, 17, the term “covenant” [διαθήκη] refers exclusively to God’s promises to Abraham, over and against the term “law” [νόμος] (Gal 3:17) (cf. Mußner, Der Galaterbrief, 321), which is devoid of the promise (Gal 3:18). The New Testament, sealed with the blood of Christ, is ultimately prior to the covenant on Mt. Sinai, since Christ is God’s promise to Abraham (Gal 3:16).

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1 Thess 1:3: τοῦ ἔργου τῆς πίστεως καὶ τοῦ κόπου τῆς ἀγάπης (cf. ἔργον πίστεως, 2 Thess 1:11). Note that the two expressions “work of faith” and “labor of love” are added in parallel for the purpose of clarifying one another; labor of love is a work of faith. On that account, St. Paul asserts in 2 Cor 5:7 that “we walk by faith,” conveying his belief that faith becomes the guideline of our life. Consequently, faith must always play the key role in the life of the Christian, constituting the law of his life. It is not enough for faith to remain an intellectual proposition without works. A very recent study of St. Paul’s undisputed letters has shown that for St. Paul “there is no dichotomy between belief and behavior such that the former is decisive whereas the latter is not,”34 and made it clear that St. Paul is not responsible for this split, but this is something that was imposed upon him. We can conclude, therefore, that faith must be manifested with good works, just as St. James noted in his epistle (James 2:14–19).35 Works of faith, however, are not performed in order to fulfill the commandments of the Law, they are rather incentivized δι’ ἀγάπης,36 or, more accurately, they are obeying to righteousness.37 Herein lies the difference between the Old and the New Covenant according to St. Paul. It is worth noting that the apostle, in his attempt to stress the essential and complementary role of practical love alongside faith, asserts that faith without love is nothing and has no benefit (1 Cor 13:2), and that, in fact, love is more important than faith (1 Cor 13:13).38 Let us also note that St. Paul frequently connects faith with love (Eph 1:15, 3:17, 6:23; Col 1:4; 1 Thess 1:3, 3:6, 5:8; 2 Thess 1:3; Philemon 5 and many times in the pastoral epistles).39 “Faith is 34

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Nathan Eubank, “Damned Disciples. The Permeability of the Boundary between Insiders and Outsiders in Matthew and Paul,” in Perceiving the Other in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity, ed. Michal Bar-Asher Siegal, Wolfgang Grünstäudl, and Matthew Thiessen (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017), 40–46. Cf. Udo Schnelle, Einleitung in das Neue Testament, 3rd ed. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1999), 409; Raymond E. Brown, An Introduction to the New Testament (New York: Doubleday, 1997), 43; Vasilis Tsakonas, Commentary on the Apostle Paul’s Epistle to the Romans (Rom 1:1–3:20) (Athens: Simmetria, 1986), 130. In Greek: Β. Τσάκωνας. Ὑπόμνημα εἰς τὴν πρὸς Ρωμαίους Ἐπιστολήν τοῦ Ἀποστόλου Παύλου (Ρωμ. 1:1–3:20). Joachim Rohde, Der Brief des Paulus an die Galater (Berlin: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 1989), 219. Cf. n. 29. Raymond F. Collins, First Corinthians (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1999), 482, considers that faith and hope in 1 Cor 13:7.13 “are to be seen in the light of Paul’s rich theological understanding of these terms.” He adds a further definition of faith in this context as “a total acceptance of and orientation to God.” Cf. Udo Borse, Der Brief an die Galater (Regensburg: Pustet, 1984), 183. See also Collins, First Corinthians, 482.

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the ground of love. Conversely […] real love implies total faith.”40 In conclusion, St. Paul’s thoughts on righteousness through faith have in mind precisely this kind of faith, which is manifested continually through the keeping of the love commandment. The latter, in exact terms, summarizes the “law” of the Christian’s life. 5

Christ as the Sole Criterion for Justification by Faith

For St. Paul, just as faith comes from hearing the word of Christ and learning about the word of the Gospel (see above), so it is with love; Christians learn about love from the example of Christ’s infinite love for man, when He voluntarily gave Himself over to death for human beings’ sake, namely, in order to save humans from death (Rom 5:8, Gal 2:20, Eph 5:2; cf. Jn 3:16). Christians must imitate Christ as beloved children (Eph 5:1; cf. 1 Cor 11:1) by walking in love,41 that is to say by loving without limits, even unto death.42 This is why St. Paul, addressing the Thessalonians, sees no need to teach them further “concerning brotherly love,” for he is sure that they are θεοδίδακτοι,43 “taught by God,” in this regard: “But concerning brotherly love you have no need that I should write to you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another” (1 Thess 4:9). They learned love from Christ, who loved them and for their sake offered Himself as a sacrifice. The imitation of Christ’s example of unselfish love appears frequently in various letters: “And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Eph 5:2 esv; cf. Rom 15:1–3, 7; Eph 4:32; Col 3:13). In this vein, Vassilis Stoyiannos noted: “Thus love is not an impersonal moral principle, but rather συμμόρφωσις [being conformed] to the incarnate love of God.”44 It is not without interest that we 40 Borse, Der Brief an die Galater, 482. 41 Cf. Georgios Mantzaridis, Christian Ethics, vol. 1 (Thessaloniki, 2002), 158–59. In Greek: Γ. Μαντζαρίδης, Χριστιανική Ηθική, τ. Ι, σ. 158 και 159. 42 On this point, cf. the teachings of St. Nicholas Cabasilas as laid out by Panayiotis Nellas, St. Nicholas Cabasilas’ Teaching on Justification (Piraeus: St. Karamberopoulos, 1975), 159–68, esp. 160. In Greek: Π. Νέλλα, Η περί δικαιώσεως διδασκαλία Νικολάου του Καβάσιλα. 43 The Greek neologism θεοδίδακτοι was coined by St. Paul. 44 Vassilis Stoyiannos, Christ and Law. The Christian View of the Law in the Letter to the Galatians (Thessaloniki: Pournaras, 1976), 181. (In Greek: Β. Στογιάννος, Χριστός και Νόμος – Ἡ χριστιανική θεώρησις τοῦ νόμου εἰς τήν πρός Γαλάτας Ἐπιστολήν τοῦ Ἀποστόλου Παύλου, έκδ. Π. Πουρναρά, Θεσσαλονίκη, 1976) Cf. Gal 4:19. The author cites St. Photius, who described the establishment of the law of Christ as follows: “For the law of Christ is thus made manifest through works. For He assumed our sins and took away our infirmities. And beyond that, He underwent the cross and death for us.”

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encounter a similar thought in the first epistle of John: “By this we know love, that He laid down his life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren” (1 Jn 3:16). Additionally, it should be noted that when St. Paul encourages works of love from Christians, he reminds them that God, who loved man and forgave him “in Christ” all his sins, should be the example for the believer’s behavior toward his brother: “and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you” (Eph 4:32 esv). Similarly, St. Paul encourages the Corinthians to take up the collections for the Christians of Jerusalem, emphasizing characteristically: “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that by His poverty you might become rich” (2 Cor 8:9 niv).45 And in his appeal to give generously (2 Cor 9:6 et seq.), he counts their support to the brothers an obedience to the Gospel (v. 13), alluding to the incomparable gift of God (cf. v. 15).46 Therefore, the active imitation of Christ’s offering of Himself leads the way of Christians to obey the Gospel. In his letter to the Philippians, St. Paul again points to the example of Christ’s humility and obedience (Phil 2:5–8) in order to urge the addressee to acquire love and to seek unity, by caring not for their own interests but for those of others (Phil 2:2–3). The recommended behavior will be recapitulated as obedience to Christ, which culminates in one’s own salvation (Phil 2:12). The apostle thus makes it abundantly clear that obedience of faith – or, more accurately, faith as obedience – and faith manifested by works of love are identical; he who believes in Christ obeys Him, and his obedience is manifested first and foremost by the exercise of love. The infinite love manifested on the cross is fundamentally significant not only in terms of behavior between people, but also in terms of Christians’ spiritual life for the sake of righteousness. Crucified divine love left St. Paul with no desire to live any longer with selfish love for himself, seeking his “own [righteousness],”47 namely the righteousness “by works of the law.” But rather, in order to be “justified through faith in Christ” (Gal 2:16), he began to see

45

Otfried Hofius, “Das Gesetz des Moses und das Gesetz Christi,” in Paulusstudien (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1989), 71. 46 Hofius, “Das Gesetz des Moses,” 71. 47 Rom 10:3.

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himself as crucified together48 with Christ, after he came to know his infinite love,49 which even went so far as to be crucified for the salvation of man, so that the apostle declares: “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal 2:19c– 20 esv).50 Being crucified with Christ, and living by faith the rest of one’s life describes the principle of the spiritual life, which appears in the context interposed between the discussion contrasting justification by faith in Christ and justification by the works of the law (vv. 2:16.17a.21). Thus, imitating Christ’s self-offering love illustrates the experience of faith, required for righteousness. It thus becomes clear once again that Christ is the criterion for justification by faith [εκ πίστεως δικαιοσύνη]. Christ’s word and his example of love and humility made possible both the acquisition of justification as well as “life for the sake of righteousness” [ζωὴ διὰ δικαιοσύνην].51 Whoever hears Christ’s word and accepts it, demonstrates through unselfish love that he believes that Christ Jesus is Lord and Savior of his life and all the world. The one who obeys Christ and imitates Him through the exercise of love, which he learned from Christ Himself, will also – through faith and knowledge of the Son of God – reach “to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.”52 This thus clarifies the meaning of “love is the fulfillment of the law” (Rom 13:10). Indeed, the love commandment also summarizes the “law of faith,” since it is precisely through the exercise of love that ὑπακοὴν πίστεως [lit., “obedience of faith”] is made manifest. This is the only way we can make sense of Rom 3:31: “Do we then make void the law through faith? Certainly not! On the contrary, we establish the law.” And this is because faith in Christ 48 In Gal 2:19, we encounter the aorist ἀπέθανον and the present perfect συνεσταύρωμαι. The first verb alludes to baptism, which occurs once. With the second verb, St. Paul indicates the permanent ontological status of dying with Christ starting from the moment of baptism (cf. Mußner, Der Galaterbrief, 181). The apostle sees himself as no longer living for himself, but rather Christ – who loved him to the point of death on the Cross – was thenceforth Lord of his life. But since Christ’s life on earth culminated in his love and sacrifice on the cross, the apostle understands the “Christ lives in me” as “the fellowship [κοινωνία] of his sufferings” and a continual “being conformed to his death” (Phil 3:10; cf. Gal 6:14, 17). 49 Cf. Eph 3:19. 50 Similarly, in 2 Cor 5:14–15 St. Paul expresses the principal of his own spiritual life, documented in Gal 2:19c–20, in a parenetic teaching addressed to the faithful; see Jack Khalil, “The Meaning of the ‘New Creature’ in the 2 Cor 5:17,” in St. Paul and Corinth, vol. 2 (Athens: Psichogios Publications, 2009), 82–84 (in Greek). 51 Rom 8:10. 52 Eph 4:13; cf. Rom 12:2, 1 Cor 14:20, Phil 3:15, Col 1:28, 4:12.

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and obedience to Him – through whom we learned true love – are made tangible through love.53 Every law, including the Mosaic Law, is fulfilled in this way, proving once again that “All these things are from God.” The fact that love is now able to easily fulfill the law is due only to Christ, who became the teacher of love par excellence through his works as well as his words. As one taught by God, the one who believes is able to accomplish what was previously impossible, i.e., the fulfillment of the Law and “life for the sake of righteousness” [ζωὴ διὰ δικαιοσύνην].54 6

Boasting “Is Excluded”

This understanding of the law of faith leaves no margin for misunderstanding faith as an achievement, about which one may boast. He who is justified, after being liberated from sin, becomes a slave to righteousness (6:16–23). God’s gift to humanity is so great. St. Paul, deeply aware of the value of Christ’s sacrifice, points out to the Corinthians that the free human being becomes a slave to Christ (1 Cor 7:22; cf. Eph 6:6). The apostle immediately explains this new reality by continuing: “You were bought at a price” (1 Cor 7:23, see also 6:20). His theological thought becomes more obvious in Rom 6:18–22, where he states that the justified man becomes a slave of righteousness. Hence, as a useless slave, one does not boast when one’s “obedience of faith” is made manifest in works of love, because one thinks always that one was merely doing one’s duty (cf. Rom 13:8; cf. Luke 17:10). This therefore excludes any reason for boasting about an achievement. Moreover, one’s faith was counted for one’s own justification.55 One was justified “as a gift” (3:24) only because one confessed the Lord Jesus and believed that God raised Him from the dead (10:9–10).56 That does not mean that one was responsible for one’s own justification, or that one earned it with one’s faith. Justification is a gift from God and the gift of God cannot be compared to that which human beings offer. St. John Chrysostom formulates it thusly: “On His [Christ’s] part, however, there be things varied and numerous and diverse. For 53 Cf. Philem 5–6. 54 Rom 8:10, according to my own translation which goes in the same direction with Luther’s translation of the verse into German. 55 Rom 4:3, 5; Gal 3:6; Rom 10:10 and all the passages that make a reference to justification through faith: Rom 1:17, 3:22, 26, 28, 30; 5:1, 9:30, 10:6; Gal 2:16, 3:14, 22; Phil 3:9; Cf. Rudolf Bultmann, Theologie des Neuen Testament (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1984), 317. 56 As Rudolf Bultmann rightly notes, faith “has a ‘dogmatic’ character, because it is the acceptance of a word,” Theologie des Neuen Testament, 318.

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He died for us, and farther reconciled us, and brought us to Himself, and gave us grace unspeakable. But we brought faith only as our contribution.”57 How then can one boast? St. Paul explicates this essential teaching about the gift of salvation from sin quite clearly: “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast” (Eph 2:8–9 nkjv). In another passage, the apostle explains to the Corinthians that they have no reason to boast: “What have you that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if it were not a gift?” (1 Cor 4:7). St. John Chrysostom, commenting on this particular verse, cautions his audience against such a misunderstanding: “For not to you belong these excellencies, but to the grace of God. […] For it is not yours, what has been given, but the giver’s.”58 One boasts about those things one has accomplished, but not about those things one has received as a gift (cf. Rom 4:2–5). One has done nothing to boast of; “All these things are from God.” God accomplished them, which is why St. Paul concludes: “Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord” (1 Cor 1:31; 2 Cor 10:17; cf. Phil 3:3). 7

Iustitia Passiva?

Just as an understanding of the justification by faith as an achievement – which allows one to boast – must be considered a misunderstanding of St. Paul’s teaching, we consider as equally irrelevant the concept of “passive justification” (iustitia passiva). This is because neither the insistence on not seeing faith as a psychological achievement – in the sense of a personal decision – nor the effort to differentiate the psychological achievement from the “sich-beschenkenlassen” make sense.59 In Lutheran thought, “sich-beschenken-lassen” means that faith as it relates to man’s salvation is only a denuded acceptance,60 since man – by completely rejecting all the practical knowledge he had acquired in his life in favor of what he had heard in the Gospel or kerygma – is now impelled to proceed calmly toward acceptance of the word.61 Indeed, faith is

57 pg 60:468. (English translation from npnf 1 11:396). We notice that Chrysostom was the first to emphasize “faith only” (sola fide). On his teaching about justification by faith only, see also pg 60:409 and pg 60:443. 58 pg 61:98. (English translation, slightly modernized, from npnf 1 12:65). 59 For the Protestant position on this issue, cf. Wilfried Joest, Dogmatik, 3rd ed., vol. 2. Der Weg Gottes mit dem Menschen (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1990), 440. 60 Cf. Joest, Dogmatik, 2. Der Weg Gottes mit dem Menschen:441. 61 Joest, Dogmatik, 2. Der Weg Gottes mit dem Menschen:440.

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considered a gift from God, and in no way is it a prerequisite for justification.62 According to this view, God, with His word and through the Holy Spirit, activates faith in man.63 This conception of faith as a gift of God has its roots in the fear that faith would replace works of the Law as another work necessary for justification.64 In other words, those who adopt such a view perceive faith as a human act in which man is completely passive before the power of God and which in no way constitutes a prerequisite for God’s justification.65 By deprecating the human being’s response to the word of the Gospel, this view maintains that God’s justification is a gift of God only when it is an entirely passive justification (iustitia passiva). It thus excludes any work under the slogan “sola fide.”66 However, Orthodox theology does not find any support of such view in St. Paul’s teaching, as our attempt to trace his thought has shown. It is worth mentioning here additional observations that will elucidate the nature of faith, and help illustrate the antithesis between these theses and genuine Pauline teaching. It is well established that St. Paul’s works repeatedly characterize faith as the human being’s decision.67 This is particularly clear in Rom 10:6–11, where St. Paul emphasizes sincere faith. This is because faith can be hypocritical (1 Tim 1:5; 2 Tim 1:5), and one should examine oneself always to determine whether one’s faith is true or not (2 Cor 13:5; cf. 1 Cor 11:28),68 as well as to determine whether one has remained firm in this faith (1 Cor 16:13; cf. Gal 5:1,

62 On this issue, cf. Fritz Neugebauer, In Christus. Eine Untersuchung zum Paulinischen Glaubensverständnis (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1961), 167; Gerhard Delling, “Zum Neueren Paulusverständnis,” Novum Testamentum 4/2 (1960): 114–15; Merk, Handeln aus Glauben, 11. 63 Neugebauer, In Christus, 167; Delling, “Zum Neueren Paulusverständnis,” 114–15; Merk, Handeln aus Glauben, 11; Hofius, “Das Gesetz des Moses,” 69, n. 69. La Doctrine de la justification – Déclaration commune de la Fédération luthérienne mondiale et de l’Église catholique romaine, 4.1.21. 64 Ulrich Wilckens, Der Brief an die Römer (Röm 1–5) (Zürich/Neukirchen: Bezinger/ Neukirchener Verlag, 1978), 200. 65 Wilckens, Der Brief an die Römer (Röm 1–5), 176, 200. 66 Wilckens, Der Brief an die Römer (Röm 1–5), 227. 67 Cf. Ioannis Galanis, Adoption. The Use of the Term by Paul in Relation to the Legal and Theological Facts of the Peoples of His Environment (Thessaloniki: Pournaras, 1979), 146. In Greek: Ι. Γαλάνη, Υἱοθεσία. Ἡ χρῆσις τοῦ ὅρου παρά Παύλῳ ἐν σχέσει πρός τά νομικά καί θεολογικά δεδομένα τῶν λαῶν τοῦ περιβάλλοντός του, Θεσσσαλονίκη, 1977. 68 “R. Bultmann draws attention to 2 Cor 2:9 and 10:6,15, rightly noting that faith is ‘η υπακοή πίστεως, which takes place by walking according to the Spirit (Rom 8:4,12–13; Gal 5:16,25).’” Indirect reference from the footnote on this verse by Christian Wolff, Der zweite Brief des Paulus an die Korinther (Berlin: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 1989), 263, n. 446.

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Phil 1:27, 4:1).69 Moreover, true faith manifests itself with outward confession (Rom 10:9a, 10b) and is related to the genuine human decision that springs from the heart about Christ’s salvific work (Rom 10:9b.10a). With regard to the latter pericope, we agree with the majority of commentators,70 but disagree with Cranfield,71 who argues that faith with the heart is not a human decision in this pericope. However, in the Old Testament, as well as in St. Paul, “the heart is the seat of the emotions, the will, and cognition,”72 and for this reason often acquires the meaning of the nous, i.e. it indicates the human as a person who understands, discerns, and decides.73 That is why the “heart” that questions and believes indicates the human being’s nous, which reflects on the kerygma of the Gospel and either believes or questions. In this way, St. Paul notes, the human being’s faith leads him to righteousness: “For with the heart one believes εἰς74 δικαιοσύνην [unto righteousness/and is justified]” (Rom 10:10). Elsewhere, Phil 3:7–9 clearly characterizes faith as the human being’s obedience and decision75 that opens the way to God’s righteousness. The two uses of the verb ἡγέομαι (ἥγημαι, v. 7; ἡγοῦμαι, v. 8) explicitly highlight this human decision.76 From the ἥγημαι in the perfect tense, we understand that it has to do with an experience that is continually repeated in the apostle’s life and thought77 – a fact that is emphasized by the repetition of the same verb in the present tense in the next verse.78 The preposition διά in both verses 7 and 8 indicates purpose and not cause (contra M. Zerwick79), as is clear from the concluding 69 The reference to these verses comes from Bultmann, Theologie des Neuen Testament, 322. 70 Käsemann, An die Römer, 281; Ulrich Luz, Das Geschichtsverständnis des Paulus (Munich: Chr. Kaiser, 1968), 93; Otto Michel, Der Brief an die Römer (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1978), 258; Heinrich Schlier, Der Römerbrief (Freiburg: Herder, 1977), 312. 71 Cranfield, Romans. A Shorter Commentary, 260. 72 Christos Oikonomou, “Sin and Grace in Pauline Anthropology,” in Proceedings of the International Academic Conference «Η΄ Παύλεια» – Man According to St Paul (Veria, 2002), 187. In Greek: Χρ. Οικονόμου. Αμαρτία και Χάρις στην Παύλεια ανθρωπολογία. εν: Πρακτικά Διεθνούς Επιστημονικού Συνεδρίου «Η΄ Παύλεια» – Ο άνθρωπος κατά τον Απόστολο Παύλο, Βέροια, 2002, σ. 187. 73 Cf. Fitzmyer, Romans, 127–28, 301. 74 The preposition εἰς in this verse was added to indicate the end of a situation. 75 Bultmann, Theologie des Neuen Testament, 318. 76 Ulrich Müller, Der Brief des Paulus an die Philipper (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 1993), 154. 77 Johannes Karavidopoulos, The Apostle Paul’s Epistles to the Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Philemon, ΕΚΔ 10 (Thessaloniki: Pournaras, 1992), 342. In Greek: Ι. Καραβιδόπουλου, Ἀποστόλου Παύλου ἐπιστολές πρὸς Ἐφεσίους, Φιλιππησίους, Κολοσσαεῖς, Φιλήμονα, ΕΚΔ 10, Θεσσαλονίκη: Π. Πουρναρά, 1992. 78 Karavidopoulos, The Apostle Paul’s Epistles, 343–44. 79 Cf. Zerwick and Grosvenor, A Grammatical Analysis of the Greek New Testament, 599.

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phrase at the end of v. 8: ἵνα Χριστὸν κερδήσω [“that I may gain Christ”]. This phrase defines the purpose of the repeated verb ἡγοῦμαι and clarifies that the apostle did all these things for the surpassing value of knowing Christ, that is to say for Christ and not because of Christ. Additionally, v. 10 begins with an aorist infinitive, τοῦ γνῶναι αὐτὸν [“that I may know Him”], which corresponds to the phrase διὰ τὸ ὑπερέχον τῆς γνώσεως [“for the surpassing worth of knowing”] in v. 8. In both verses, the object of knowledge is Christ; the genitive τοῦ Χριστοῦ in v. 8 is objective, and the pronoun αὐτὸν in v. 10 clearly refers to Christ, who is referenced previously in the nominative (v. 8) and pronoun (v. 9). There should be no question, therefore, about the meaning of the preposition διά throughout v. 8. It is highly significant that the content of v. 9 is connected syntactically with the final conjunction ἵνα through an epexegetical καὶ, which indicates that in v. 9 the Apostle interprets his purpose80 “that I may gain Christ” (v. 8), in terms of not seeking the righteousness of the Law, but expecting from Christ the righteousness that comes through faith, or precisely “the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith” (cf. Rom 9:31–32, 10:3–4). With all this in mind, it is fair to conclude that St. Paul’s decisions – which he expressed with the verb ἡγέομαι – were a manifestation of his faith, which he explicitly refers to in v. 9 as a precondition for justification. This confirms that St. Paul never hesitated to consider his faith a personal decision, from which he never turned back. We also encounter in the apostle’s teaching several additional thoughts that emphasize the personal character of faith. St. Paul notes characteristically that the persistent effort of the missionary increases the catechumen’s faith (2 Cor 10:15). The missionary cultivates faith in the listener and is careful that nothing is “lacking” in his faith (1 Thess 3:10), but rather that he progresses in the faith (Phil 1:25). Thus, it would lead to the inappropriate conclusion that God’s gift is lacking, if we consider faith as a pure divine gift, disapproving of its character as a personal response to God’s divine economy of salvation. Finally, let us not forget that the apostle refers to the forefather Abraham as a prototype, for every age, of the believers.81 This reference in Romans 4, which follows immediately after St. Paul lays out the mystery of justification through faith in Rom 3:21ff., points toward the apostle’s understanding of the subject of faith. In the pericope Rom 4:17–25, especially, Abraham, who dared to believe and was thus justified, serves as an example for those who believe in justification through Christ’s death.82 St. Paul particularly emphasizes Abraham’s 80 His same purpose is stated in vv. 13b–14 of the same chapter. 81 Cf. Otto Kuss, Der Römerbrief 1,1–6,11 (Regensburg: Pustet, 1957), 191. 82 Kuss, Der Römerbrief 1,1–6,11, 191.

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courage: “He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead because he was about a hundred years old, or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith [ἐνεδυναμώθη83 τῇ πίστει84] as he gave glory to God” (Rom 4:19–20). It should be noted, first, that it is indeed possible for someone to “weaken in faith.” Therefore, when someone does not “weaken in faith,” it is an accomplishment; this is completely different, however, from works in the Jewish fulfillment of the Law.85 Faith as obedience, as we noted previously, is not a work to boast about, as if one deserved justification through one’s own effort. The particular example of Abraham leaves no room for such a mistaken view. It is noteworthy that the conjunction διό (v. 22) clearly shows that it is precisely because of Abraham’s unshakable faith that he is justified. By highlighting this particular passage of the Old Testament (Gen 15:6; cf. Rom 4:3, 22), the apostle confirms that the human’s justification presupposes his response to God’s salvific work. The following verses (v. 23–24) leave no doubt that all that was said regarding Abraham also applies to us who believe as the forefather believed. Christians’ commonality with Abraham, as regards faith, lies in their shared confidence in the promise of God, even when the human’s reason dictates otherwise; Abraham believed “in hope against hope”86 in God’s promise that he would become the father of 83

The verb ἐνεδυναμώθη is in the passive voice, but has an active sense, and its logical subject is Abraham himself. Here, it is not a case of the “divine passive”: First, because the central issue is the faith of Abraham, who believed despite the fact that he had no reason to hope (cf. Rom 4:18). Second, v. 20 contains two verbs in the middle voice, which logically have the same subject: “He did not waver [διεκρίθη] at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened [ἐνεδυναμώθη] in faith”; since there is no way that God is the subject of the first verb διεκρίθη, we can exclude the possibility that He is also the subject of the second verb ἐνεδυναμώθη. For these reasons, we disagree with the counter view held by: Wilckens, Der Brief an die Römer (Röm 1–5), 276; Michel, Der Brief an die Römer, 173; Käsemann, An die Römer, 118; Cranfield, Romans. A Shorter Commentary, 95, and others. For a complete study of Rom 4:17–25 see my article: “La foi en espérant contre toute espérance. Étude exégétique du passage Rom 4: 17–25,” http://www.jkhalil .com/index.php/publications/326-la-foi-en-esperant-contre-toute-esperance. The same study was first published in Arabic in: Annals 6 (University of Balamand: St. John of Damascus Institute of Theology, 2004). Refer also to my study: “Abraham in the Epistle of St Paul to the Romans,” in Holy Scripture and Contemporary Man. Festschrift for Ioannis Karavidopoulos (Thessaloniki: Pournaras, 2006), 521–38 (in Greek). 84 We agree with Panagiotis Trembelas’ reading: “Not the instrument or means, but the sign by which he was strengthened.” Commentary on the Epistles of the New Testament, vol. 1, 79. 85 Kuss, Der Römerbrief 1,1–6,11, 192. 86 Interpreting Gen 15:6 on the basis of the Hebrew verb form, Miltiadis Konstantinou argues that, with the Hebrew verb ‫וְ ֶה ֱא ִמן‬, “believed,” the author of Genesis “is no longer referring

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many nations (v. 18), something which was considered humanly impossible since he was already “dead” [νενεκρωμένον] in his body, i.e. due to the loss of his ability to procreate and to the “deadness” [νέκρωσιν]87 of Sarah’s womb (v. 19). Thus we too, the apostle concludes, must, in like manner, believe in “Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead [ἐκ νεκρῶν],” something which was similarly considered impossible due to the “dying of Jesus” [νέκρωσιν τοῦ Ἰησοῦ]88 on the cross. This is precisely why our faith is an achievement, and it is in this sense that the word of Scripture “it was accounted to him for righteousness” (Gen 15:6; Rom 4:22) was also written for us (cf. 4:23), since we too who believe “in Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead [ἐκ νεκρῶν]” (4:24) will be justified by faith [εκ πίστεως].

Summary

God demands faith, which predicates receipt of God’s saving work by human beings, so that in turn God may justify them. In St Paul’s teaching, there exists an interdependent relationship between faith in Christ and obedience to Him. This is why faith as obedience is a mode of life different from the path of sin, because the Christian lives in total submission to Him who became Lord of his life. Obedience to Christ is expressed by practicing love. Love is the highest commandment that the one who believes in Christ is called to keep. The Christian must set the commandment of love as the law of his life, having as his example Christ Himself, who out of love voluntarily was handed over to death in order to save human beings. Moreover, faith, according to the apostle Paul, must always be expressed by the performance of deeds of love. This is why to acts but to conditions. Accordingly, Abraham’s faith is not an isolated act of a momentary response to God’s words, but rather a permanent condition, a basic characteristic of his behavior.” (The Word of the Lord Is Mighty. Narrative Texts from the Old Testament (Thessaloniki: Pournaras, 1998), 165. In Greek: Μ. Κωνσταντίνου, Ρῆμα Κυρίου κραταιόν – Αφηγηματικά κείμενα από την Παλαιά Διαθήκη). In my view, the validity of Konstantinou’s analysis is supported by the firm belief of the various Jewish schools that Abraham was perfect in all his works before the Lord and pleasing Him in righteousness all the days of his life. 87 It is worth noting the choice of the words νενεκρωμένον and νέκρωσις (Rom 4:19) in reference to Abraham’s body and Sarah’s womb, which form a play on the word νεκρῶν (Rom 4:24), directly alluding to Christ’s death. This is because the key issue here for the apostle is faith in the Lord Jesus who was raised from the dead; this becomes abundantly clear from Rom 4:17, where St. Paul highlights faith in God “who gives life to the dead and calls into being that which does not exist.” 88 2 Cor 4:10.

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he frequently connects faith and love and also emphasizes that, without love, faith is nothing; faith without love is of no avail. In this way, faith completed by love constitutes that dynamic position which characterizes the entire life of the Christian, rendering it the law of his life. However, one does not boast on account of one’s “labor of faith,” because one did not acquire justification as a reward for one’s accomplishment or on account of one’s effort, but as a gift of God’s own free will for one’s faith, which is primarily submission and trust in God. Herein lies an essential distinction between “the law of faith” and “the law of works.” Thus, the Orthodox patristic perspective on Paul confesses that Christ, as the axis of the spiritual life of the Christian, remains the sole author of righteousness through “faith only.” References Borse, Udo. Der Brief an die Galater. Regensburg: Pustet, 1984. Brown, Raymond E. An Introduction to the New Testament. New York: Doubleday, 1997. Bultmann, Rudolf. Theologie des Neuen Testament. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1984. Collins, Raymond F. First Corinthians. Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1999. Cranfield, C.E.B. Romans. A Shorter Commentary. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1985. Delling, Gerhard. “Zum Neueren Paulusverständnis.” Novum Testamentum 4/2 (1960): 95–121. Eubank, Nathan. “Damned Disciples. The Permeability of the Boundary between Insiders and Outsiders in Matthew and Paul.” In Perceiving the Other in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity, edited by Michal Bar-Asher Siegal, Wolfgang Grünstäudl, and Matthew Thiessen, 33–47. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017. Fitzmyer, Joseph A. Romans. New York: Doubleday, 1993. Galanis, Ioannis. Adoption. The Use of the Term by Paul in Relation to the Legal and Theological Facts of the Peoples of His Environment. Thessaloniki: Pournaras, 1979. Hofius, Otfried. “Das Gesetz des Moses und das Gesetz Christi.” In Paulusstudien, 50–74. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1989. Hofius, Otfried. “Gott hat unter uns aufgerichtet das Wort von der Versöhnung (2 Kor 5,19).” In Paulusstudien, 15–32. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1989. Hofmann, Johan von. Die heilige Schrift Neuen Testaments zusammenhängend untersucht. Vol. 3. Brief an die Römer. Nördlingen: Beck, 1868. Joest, Wilfried. Dogmatik. 3rd ed. Vol. 2. Der Weg Gottes mit dem Menschen. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1990. Karavidopoulos, Johannes. The Apostle Paul’s Epistles to the Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Philemon. ΕΚΔ 10. Thessaloniki: Pournaras, 1992. Käsemann, Ernst. An die Römer. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1980.

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Khalil, Jack. “La foi en espérant contre toute espérance. Étude exégétique du passage Rom 4: 17–25,” http://www.jkhalil.com/index.php/publications/326-la-foi-en -esperant-contre-toute-esperance. Khalil, Jack. “An Interpretation of Romans 3:21–26 Within its Proper Context.” In Participation, Justification, and Conversion. Eastern Orthodox Interpretation of Paul and the Debate Between “Old and New Perspectives on Paul,” edited by Athanasios Despotis, 205–41. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017. Khalil, Jack. “The Meaning of the ‘New Creature’ in the 2 Cor 5:17.” In St. Paul and Corinth, 2:75–88. Athens: Psichogios Publications, 2009. Khalil, Jack. “Abraham in the Epistle of St Paul to the Romans.” In Holy Scripture and Contemporary Man. Festschrift for Ioannis Karavidopoulos, 521–38. Thessaloniki: Pournaras, 2006. Konstantinou, Miltiadis. The Word of the Lord Is Mighty. Narrative Texts from the Old Testament. Thessaloniki: Pournaras, 1998. Kuss, Otto. Der Römerbrief 1,1–6,11. Regensburg: Pustet, 1957. Kuss, Otto. “Der Begriff des Gehorsams im Neuen Testament.” Theologie und Glaube 27 (1935): 695–702. Luz, Ulrich. Das Geschichtsverständnis des Paulus. Munich: Chr. Kaiser, 1968. Mandilaras, Basil G. The Verb in the Greek Non-Literary Papyri. Athens: Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sciences, 1973. Mantzaridis, Georgios. Christian Ethics. Vol. 1. Thessaloniki, 2002. Marxsen, Willi. “Der ἕτερος νόμος Röm. 13,8.” Theologische Zeitschrift 11 (1955): 230–37. Merk, Otto. Handeln aus Glauben. Die Motivierungen der Paulinischen Ethik. Marburg: Elwert, 1968. Michel, Otto. Der Brief an die Römer. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1978. Müller, Ulrich. Der Brief des Paulus an die Philipper. Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 1993. Mußner, Franz. Der Galaterbrief. 5th ed. Freiburg/Basel/Vienna: Herder, 1988. Nellas, Panayiotis. St. Nicholas Cabasilas’ Teaching on Justification. Piraeus: St. Karamberopoulos, 1975. Neugebauer, Fritz. In Christus. Eine Untersuchung zum Paulinischen Glaubensverständnis. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1961. Oikonomou, Christos. “Sin and Grace in Pauline Anthropology.” In Proceedings of the International Academic Conference « Η΄ Παύλεια » – Man According to St Paul. Veria, 2002. Rohde, Joachim. Der Brief des Paulus an die Galater. Berlin: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 1989. Schlier, Heinrich. Der Römerbrief. Freiburg: Herder, 1977. Schnelle, Udo. Einleitung in das Neue Testament. 3rd ed. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1999.

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Schrage, Wolfgang. “Probleme paulinischer Ethik anhand von Gal 5,25–6,10.” In La foi agissant par l’amour (Galates 4,12–6,16), 155–94. Rome: Abbazia si San Paolo, 1996. Stoyiannos, Vassilis. Christ and Law. The Christian View of the Law in the Letter to the Galatians. Thessaloniki: Pournaras, 1976. Strack, Hermann, and Paul Billerbeck. Das Evangelium nach Matthäus erläutert aus Talmud und Midrasch. Munich: Beck, 1961. Trembelas, Panagiotis. Ὑπόμνημα εἰς τὰς ἐπιστολάς τῆς Καινῆς Διαθήκης. 2 vols. Ἀθῆναι: Ὁ Σωτῆρ, 1978. Tsakonas, Vasilis. Commentary on the Apostle Paul’s Epistle to the Romans (Rom 1:1–3:20). Athens: Simmetria, 1986. Wilckens, Ulrich. Der Brief an die Römer (Röm 1–5). Zürich/Neukirchen: Bezinger/ Neukirchener Verlag, 1978. Wolff, Christian. Der zweite Brief des Paulus an die Korinther. Berlin: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 1989. Wright, N.T. Justification. God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision. London: spck, 2009. Zahn, Theodor. Der Brief des Paulus an die Römer. Leipzig: Deichert, 1925. Zerwick, Maximilian, and Mary Grosvenor. A Grammatical Analysis of the Greek New Testament. 5th ed. Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1996.

part 6

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chapter 10

Justification or Deification? Luther’s Soteriology in an Ecumenical Perspective Reinhard Flogaus

1

In 2017, Protestantism celebrated the beginning of the Reformation 500 years ago. In the wake of this jubilee, much has been said about the far-reaching impact of the Reformation movement on the emergence of the modern world. In general, however, the focus was almost exclusively put on the Holy Roman Empire and its neighbouring countries in Northern and Western Europe, where the Reformation led indeed to fundamental changes in politics and society and thus constitutes a historical turning point. However, for countries of Eastern Europe and the Near East with an entirely Christian Orthodox population or at least with a Christian Orthodox majority, the Reformation was not such a watershed, as it was exclusively aimed against doctrinal aberrations and canonical as well as liturgical misdevelopments within the Roman Catholic Church. To Martin Luther and his fellow reformers, the contemporary Orthodox Church was virtually unknown. For Luther, Eastern Christianity served above all as a historical example for the rejection of the Roman primacy or for the practice of Eucharistic communion under both kinds. As for the Orthodox Church’s perception of the early Reformation, the situation was quite similar. During the first decades of the Reformation, the Orthodox in general had very little knowledge about Protestantism. It was only later in the 16th century that Orthodox theologians learned about it and felt urged to define their own denominational identity over against Protestantism as well as Catholicism.1 Even though there obviously was a certain kinship between Protestantism and Orthodoxy, due to the two confessions’ opposition to papacy, Orthodox Christians would generally not perceive the Protestant movement as a return 1 See Reinhard Flogaus, “Zwischen Instrumentalisierung, Desillusionierung und Pseudomorphose. Zum Verhältnis von Reformation und Orthodoxie im 16. Jahrhundert,” in Eckpunkte der lutherischen Reformation und ihre Folgen, ed. Dietrich Meyer (Dresden: Neisse, 2018), 91–124.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2021 | doi:10.1163/9789004461253_011

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to orthodox ecclesiastical doctrine and practice, but rather as a heresy. Protestants, as an 18th century Russian author put it, were “heretical offsprings of heretics” (“jeretik jeretikovič”).2 It is therefore a highly gratifying experience that in 2017, also on the Orthodox side, several important conferences were held in Athens, Thessaloniki, Sibiu, St. Petersburg, and other Eastern European cities, commemorating the anniversary of the Reformation, and that Protestants and Orthodox theologians have met in Geneva for the conference which gives us the present publication. Since the second half of the 20th century, the dialogue between Orthodoxy and Protestantism has been institutionalized on various levels.3 The presentation of an honorary doctorate to his All-Holiness the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomaios by the Evangelical Theological Faculty of the University of Tübingen in May of 2017 has certainly been a particular highlight of this intensified dialogue. It is obvious that since Melanchthon’s first futile attempt in 1559 to elicit a statement on the Augsburg Confession from the Ecumenical Patriarch Joasaph ii (†1565).4 and the final breaking-off of the theological dialogue with the Württemberg Lutherans, which in 1581 Patriarch Jeremias ii (1536–1595) had justified by the fact that they had fallen into various heresies inspired by the Jews,5 the mutual understanding between Orthodox and Protestants has considerably increased. While some Orthodox theologians argue that Luther merits a place in the history of worldwide Christianity and theology, others still retain considerable reservations about Luther’s theology and the Protestant Reformation 2 Thus, Ivan Tichonovič Posoškov (1670–1726) in his “Zercalo očevidnoje,” see Aleksěj Aleksandrovič Carevskij, Posoškov i ego sočinenija (Moscow: Lissner & Roman, 1883), 156. A similar assessment of Protestantism still exists at present in conservative Orthodox circles, see Marios Begzos, “Luther im Licht der orthodoxen Theologie,” Ἐπιστημονική Ἐπετηρίδα Θεολογικής Σχολής Αθηνών 37 (2002): 467: “Wenn also für einen orthodoxen Fundamentalisten die römisch-katholische Kirche etwas Schlechtes ist, dann ist der Protestantismus etwas noch Schlechteres, weil er den westlichen Irrglauben auf die Spitze treibt.” Somewhat less sharp was Khomiakov’s (1804–1860) judgement on Protestantism, which he declared just a continuation of the heresy of “Romanism” and conversely could also call the latter “the oldest Protestantism.” Aleksěj S. Khomiakov, L’Église latine et le protestantisme au point de vue de l’Église d’orient (Lausanne/Vevey: Benda, 1872), 57 and 130. 3 See Risto Saarinen, Faith and Holiness. Lutheran-Orthodox Dialogue 1959–1994 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1997). 4 See Reinhard Flogaus, “Eine orthodoxe Interpretation der lutherischen Lehre? Neue Erkenntnisse zur Entstehung der Confessio Augustana Graeca und ihrer Sendung an Patriarch Jeremias II,” in Orthodoxie im Dialog. Historische und aktuelle Perspektiven, ed. Reinhard Flogaus and Jennifer Wasmuth (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2015), 3–42. 5 See John Karmiris, Τὰ Δογματικὰ καὶ Συμβολικὰ Mνημεῖα τῆς Ὀρθοδόξου Καθολικῆς Ἐκκλησίας, vol. 2 (Graz: Akademische Druck und Verlagsanstalt, 1968), 488s [568s].

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or even consider Protestantism a heresy altogether.6 In view of this ambivalence towards Protestantism, it is highly interesting to see that the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church, held on the island of Crete in 2016, declared in its encyclical that several Councils held in Constantinople in the course of the 17th century are “councils of universal authority.” Aimed mainly against the Confession of Kyrillos Loukaris (1572–1638) and his followers, these councils condemned various theological positions inspired by the Protestant Reformation and – at least in the case of the Council of 1691 – also adopted transubstantiation (μετουσίωσις) as a genuine doctrine of the Orthodox ecclesiastical tradition.7 In its encyclical, the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church also criticized the danger of “individualism,” which would lead to misdevelopments in the field of education as well as to a biased view of human rights. According to this document, individualism is also the root of the ideologies of secularization and globalization.8 For many Orthodox, it is Protestantism and in particular Martin Luther who is the ultimate source of modern individualism. According to this view, Luther’s emphasis on personal faith and its 6 “Für die orthodoxe Theologie ist und bleibt die Persönlichkeit Martin Luthers ambivalent. Einerseits fühlt sie sich Luther sehr nahe, kritisiert er doch den ‘gemeinsamen Gegner’ Rom, andererseits aber auch wieder sehr fern, denn er führt die Häresie des Westens noch weiter als die römisch-katholische Kirche.” Begzos, “Luther,” 467. For a survey of Protestant-Orthodox relations and activities in the context of the anniversary of 2017, see Cosmin Pricop, “Reformation und Reformationsjubiläum aus orthodoxer Perspektive,” Una Sancta 72/3 (2017): 184–94. 7 “The Conciliar work continues uninterrupted in history through the later councils of universal authority, such as […] the Great Councils convened in Constantinople, in 1484 to refute the unionist Council of Florence (1438–1439), in 1638, 1642, 1672 and 1691 to refute Protestant beliefs […].” Council of Crete, Encyclical i, 3; Alberto Melloni, ed., Conciliorum Œcumenicorum Generaliumque Decreta, vol. iv/3 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2016), 1122. From the words of this text it could seem that indeed not just in 1638 and in 1691, but also in 1642 and in 1672, the then convened synods in Constantinople are considered as councils of universal authority, whereas the bigger and more significant synods held in 1642 in Jassy and in 1672 in Jerusalem, which approved the confessions of the Metropolitan of Kiev, Petrus Mogilas (1596–1646), and of Patriarch Dositheos ii of Jerusalem (1641–1707), apparently did not reach this status. However, in his opening address, Patriarch Bartholomaios mentioned for the year 1642 only the Synod of Jassy, which some canonists consider as a second gathering of one and the same Synod convened in two places. The 1691 synod, directed against John Karyophylles († after 1693), then Great Logothete of the Church of Constantinople who had polemized against the term “μετουσίωσις,” declared in its decree that this term was not borrowed from the Latins and was not a novelty in Orthodox theology but had been used by Orthodox teachers and also in the Confession of Moglias approved in Jassy in 1642. For the text of this decree, see Conciliorum vol. iv/1, 337–41. 8 Encyclical iv,9; v,10.13; vi,15s; Conciliorum, vol. iv/3, 1136–42, 1148–50, 1152–58.

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fundamental significance for salvation paved the way to the rise of individualism in Western religion and society. The Athens theologian Marios Begzos summarized this position as follows: The most important distinctive sign of Protestantism is individualism. The understanding of faith as something private, the individualization of the question of salvation, the subjectivism, and the individualism are fundamental characteristics of Protestantism. They imply a completely different conception of Christianity which differs from the RomanCatholic as well as from the Orthodox conception. It is exactly at this point in the history of the last 500 years from the time of the Reformation up to the present that the ways of Orthodoxy and Protestantism part. The Greek-Orthodox Church advocates a personalism which is in conflict with the individualism of the Protestants as well as with the essentialism of the Roman-Catholic Church.9 Regardless of what one might think of this statement and its confessional stereotypes – it shows clearly that the editors of the present book, in focusing on theological anthropology, selected a key issue of the Orthodox-Protestant dialogue. In the theological discussion of the last decades, some scholars have also pointed to another fundamental difference between our traditions which is closely related to the just mentioned antagonism of individualism and personalism. This is the difference between the Protestant assertion of justification by faith alone (sola fide) and the concept of deification (θέωσις) which constitutes the very heart of Orthodox soteriology. This difference, too, can be traced far back in history. Thus, in 1570, the Russian Tsar Ivan iv (1530–1584) declared in a theological discussion with the Co-Senior of the Polish Bohemian Brethren, Jan Rokyta (†1591), that the assertion of justification by faith alone is a heresy, since the Holy Scripture explicitly teach that one will be judged according to

9 “Das wichtigste Erkennungszeichen des Protestantismus ist der Individualismus. Die Betrachtung des Glaubens als Privatsache, die Individualisierung der Heilsfrage, der Subjektivismus und der Individualismus sind grundlegende Charakteristika des Protestantismus. Sie bringen eine vollkommen veränderte Auffassung des Christentums mit sich, die sowohl von der des römischkatholischen als auch von der des orthodoxen Christentums abweicht. Genau an diesem Punkt trennen sich die Wege der Orthodoxie und des Protestantismus in der Geschichte der letzten fünfhundert Jahre von der Reformation bis heute. Die griechisch-orthodoxe Kirche vertritt einen Personalismus, der im Gegensatz zum Individualismus der Protestanten wie auch zum Essentialismus der römisch-katholischen Kirche steht.” Begzos, “Luther,” 474.

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one’s works.10 A few years later, Patriarch Jeremias ii (1536–1595), in his letters to the Württemberg theologians, reached the same conclusion. The Patriarch understood salvation not like the Lutherans as justification by faith, but in a more encompassing sense as deification of man. In his view, it was insufficient to be declared righteous by faith. Instead, during his life man would have to strive, through good works and a holy life, for purification, sanctification, and perfection, in order to obtain salvation by deification.11 In fact, deification can be perceived as the epitome of Orthodox soteriology, and even as the aim of theology altogether. Thus the Russian theologian Vladimir Lossky (1903–1958) coined the phrase that all Christian theology has an “eminently practical significance” inasmuch as it is “subserving an end which transcends all knowledge,” i.e. “union with God or deification.”12 And the Great and Holy Council of the Orthodox Church, convened in 2016, in its document on “The Mission of the Orthodox Church in Today’s World,” perceives the source of the dignity of the human person not only in the creation of man in the image and likeness of God, but also in the fact that the purpose of the incarnation of the Word of God was the deification of mankind in the new Adam.13 Thus we may conclude that, in an Orthodox perspective, deification is the aim not only of theology, but also of anthropology. On the other hand, justification by faith alone (sola fide) is considered to be the epitome of Protestant soteriology and even – since Isaak August Dorner 10

See Ivan’s answer to Rokyta in Paul Oderborn, Wunderbare/Erschreckliche/Vnerhörte […] (Görlitz: Ambrosius Fritsch, 1588) f. F4v: “Was macht jhr dann viel wesens/ das jr vngewisse/ verdampte Ketzereyen verthediget? Vnd das jr dem Glauben alleine die Gerechtigkeit zuschreibet/ so doch der herr kommen wird/ zu richten die Lebendigen vnd die Todten/ Vnd wird einem jeglichen seinen Lohn geben/ nach dem er gewirckt hat. So nu der Glaube alleine die ewige Seligkeit bringet/ was bedarff es des Gerichts? Warumb wird vns so offt im Newen Testament die Wirdigkeit der guten Werk gerühmet?” 11 See Jeremias’ letter from May 15, 1576 in Karmiris’ edition (see n. 5), vol. 1, 447–9 and 453. 12 Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1976), 9. 13 “The purpose of the incarnation of the Word of God is the deification of the human being. Christ, having renewed within himself the old Adam (cf. Eph 2:15), made the human person divine like himself, the beginning of our hope (Eusebius of Caesarea, Demonstrations on the Gospel, Book 4,14. pg 22:289A). For just as the entire human race was contained in the old Adam, so too, the entire human race is now gathered in the new Adam: The Only-begotten One became man in order to gather into one and return to its original condition the fallen human race (Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on the Gospel of John, Book 9, pg 74:273D–275A). This teaching of the Church is the endless source of all Christian efforts to safeguard the dignity and majesty of the human person.” Council of Crete, The Mission of the Orthodox Church in Today’s World, A1; Conciliorum, vol. iv/3, 1382–6.

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(1809–1884) – the “material principle” of Protestantism.14 Yet, Orthodox theology would normally reject this Protestant doctrine of justification as onesided, and refer instead to the more comprehensive doctrine of deification as found in the Greek Fathers, according to which salvation is not only based on faith and grace, but also on good works and man’s striving for sanctification through continuous asceticism and spiritual struggle.15 Hence, some scholars conclude that there is a fundamental difference which deeply divides our theological traditions. Thus, Gunnar Hering (1934– 1994), a specialist for Eastern European and Byzantine history, was convinced “that the apophatic character of the Orthodox faith as well as an understanding of deification which includes rites and liturgy, is incompatible with the tenets of the Reformation, based on different traditions of thought and resulting from different aporias, and with their strongly juridical traits.”16 The Orthodox philosopher and theologian Christos Yannaras even considers the doctrine of deification – and more precisely the Palamite teaching of the deifying energies – as the main point of theological difference between Orthodoxy and the Latin West altogether.17

14

Isaak August Dorner, Gesammelte Schriften aus dem Gebiet der systematischen Theologie, Exegese und Geschichte (Berlin: W. Hertz, 1883), 49. 15 For an overview see now Mark Edwards and Elena Ene D-Vasilescu, Visions of God and Ideas on Deification in Patristic Thought (London/New York: Routledge, 2017). 16 “In den Auseinandersetzungen zwischen beiden Zweigen der Christenheit trat letztlich immer wieder hervor, daß der apophatische Charakter des orthodoxen Glaubens und eine auch Riten und Liturgie einschließende θέωσις nicht mit den auf anderen Denktraditionen aufruhenden und aus anderen Aporien entstandenen reformatorischen Lehren und ihren stark juristischen Zügen vereinbar waren.” Gunnar Hering, “Orthodoxie und Protestantismus,” Jahrbuch der Osterreichischen Byzantinistik 31 (1981): 873. 17 “Und es war gerade die Verteidigung des Ereignisses der Vergöttlichung des Menschen, […] welche die orthodoxe Theologie des Ostens dahin führte, auf den Konzilien des 14. Jahrhunderts […] die Unterscheidung von Wesen und Energien als den spezifizierenden Unterschied zwischen dem orthodoxen Osten und dem lateinischen Westen zu definieren […].” Christos Yannaras, Person und Eros. Eine Gegenüberstellung der Ontologie der griechischen Kirchenväter und der Existenzphilosophie des Westens (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1982), 71. “The problem of the distinction between essence and energies determined definitely and finally the differentiation of the Latin West from the Orthodox East. The West rejected the distinction, desiring to protect the idea of simplicity in the divine essence, since rational thought cannot accept the antinomy of a simultaneous existential identity and otherness […]. This means that, in the final analysis, the theosis of man, his participation in the divine life, is impossible.” Christos Yannaras, “The Distinction Between Essence and Energies and Its Importance for Theology,” St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 19 (1975): 242.

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2

Therefore, it was extremely surprising that, by the end of the 1970s, Finnish theologians started to focus their scholarly research on Luther’s reception of the patristic idea of deification and his concept of the sanctifying presence of Christ in faith. It was the ecumenical dialogue between the Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Finland and the Russian Orthodox Church which, in the late 1970s, stimulated Tuomo Mannermaa (1937–2015), professor for Ecumenical Theology in Helsinki and himself a conservative Lutheran theologian who opposed the Leuenberg Agreement (1973), to launch an extensive research project related to the motif of deification in Luther’s theology. Even though the words vergotten, durchgotten, deificare etc. occur only about thirty times in Luther’s collected works (the substantive forms are missing altogether),18 Mannermaa and his doctoral students perceived in Luther’s references to the concept of “theosis” “a continuous theme of the various ‘loci’ of Luther’s theology.”19 The Finnish researchers assumed that the exploration of the “theosis” motif in Luther and of the herewith associated idea of Christ being present in faith in a “real-ontic” way (“real-ontisch”) could lead to a paradigm shift in Luther research and allow new insights in some highly controversial topics, such as the relation between justification and sanctification, between effective and forensic righteousness, and between the so-called partial and total aspect of Luther’s concept of “simul iustus et peccator.”20 18 See Simo Peura, “Der Vergöttlichungsgedanke in Luthers Theologie 1518–1519,” in Thesaurus Lutheri. Auf der Suche nach neuen Paradigmen der Luther-Forschung. Referate des Luther-Symposiums in Finnland, 11.–12. November 1986, ed. Tuomo Mannermaa, Anja Ghiselli, and Simo Peura (Helsinki: Luther-Agricola Gesellschaft, 1987), 172. However, in this number are not included those instances where Luther says that the Christian shall become “God” or “god-like,” or where he speaks of the participation in the divine nature or the indwelling of Christ in the believer, or, still less, those places where Luther describes the close bond between the believer and Christ metaphorically as becoming “one bread” or “one cake,” e.g. wa 7:337,28–30 (“Defense and Explanations of all the Articles,” lw 32:24), wa 17.ii:440,10–15 etc. 19 Antti Raunio, “Die Goldene Regel als Gesetz der göttlichen Natur. Das natürliche Gesetz und die göttliche Liebe in Luthers Theologie 1522–1523,” in Luther und Theosis, ed. Joachim Heubach (Erlangen: Martin-Luther Verlag, 1990), 163. 20 Tuomo Mannermaa, Christ Present in Faith. Luther’s View of Justification, ed. Kirsi Stjerna (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005), 88. This book is the English translation of the first two studies from a book that had been published previously in German: Tuomo Mannermaa, Der im Glauben gegenwärtige Christus. Rechtfertigung und Vergottung zum ökumenischen Dialog (Hannover: Lutherisches Verlagshaus, 1989). The other two studies to be found in the German publication were later also translated into English: Tuomo Mannermaa, Two Kinds of Love. Martin Luther’s Religious World (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2010).

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Several German and American researchers embraced this Finnish assessment and expected far-reaching theological consequences from this new discovery. Some even suggested that deification could be understood as the real objective (telos) of Luther’s doctrine of justification and as the “ultimate culmination point” (“perspektivischer Schlußpunkt”) of Luther’s theology altogether.21 According to Mannermaa himself, “one could rightfully advocate the provocative view that Luther’s reformatory discovery was in fact the discovery of the – for Luther typical – doctrine of theosis,” although he had to admit that the “thesis, that Luther’s doctrine of justification can be seen in the perspective of theosis, has not always been commonly accepted.”22 In view of these historically as well as systematically highly questionable interpretations, one should keep in mind that the Finnish research on deification in Luther’s writings developed in an ecumenical context and was meant to answer the question whether the Orthodox and the Lutheran understanding of salvation were in fact compatible. Mannermaa argued that Luther’s theology comprises “a notion analogous to the Orthodox doctrine of theopoesis [sic]” and a “point of contact” (Schnitt- und Berührungspunkt) with Orthodox theology.23 On the Roman-Catholic side, the Finnish appreciation of “theosis” was even extended to other Christian denominations by stating that deification could become “an ecumenical master key for the doctrine of man’s salvation.”24

21

Ulrich Asendorf, “Die Einbettung der Theosis in die Theologie Martin Luthers,” in Luther und Theosis, ed. Joachim Heubach (Erlangen: Martin-Luther Verlag, 1990), 101s. 22 For the first quotation, see Tuomo Mannermaa, “Theosis und das Böse bei Luther,” in Makarios-Symposium über das Böse, ed. Werner Strothmann (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1983), 172: “Man könnte mit vollem Recht die provokatorische These vertreten, daß die reformatorische Entdeckung Luthers die Entdeckung gerade der – für Luther typischen – Theosislehre war.” For the second quotation, see Tuomo Mannermaa, “Justification and Theosis in Lutheran-Orthodox Perspective,” in Union with Christ. The New Finnish Interpretation of Luther, ed. Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson (Grand Rapids/ Cambridge: Eerdmans, 1998), 25; see also Mannermaa’s entire article, 25–41. 23 Mannermaa, Christ Present in Faith, 3 and 88; Mannermaa, Der im Glauben, 14 and 93; Tuomo Mannermaa, “Why Is Luther so Fascinating,” in Union with Christ. The New Finnish Interpretation of Luther, ed. Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson (Grand Rapids/ Cambridge: Eerdmans, 1998), 2: “The indwelling of Christ as grasped in Lutheran tradition implies a real participation in God, and it corresponds in a special way to the Orthodox doctrine of participation in God, namely the doctrine of theosis. This conclusion was not a commonly accepted understanding of how one might find the point of contact that we were seeking.” 24 Hermann-Joseph Röhrig, “Theosis. Der Begriff ‘Vergöttlichung’ – ein ökumenischer Generalschlüssel für die Lehre vom Heil des Menschen?,” Lebendiges Zeugnis 56/2 (2001): 85–102.

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Other scholars, however, such as the American Lutheran Timothy Wengert, responded to these claims with rather harsh criticism, charging the Mannermaa school with a conspicuous lack of historical sensitivity and a perspective that is not “germane to the heart of Luther’s theology.” Wengert therefore concluded: “Clearly the Finnish school uses their new construal of Luther’s theology to furnish a basis for rapprochement with the Orthodox.”25 Robert T. Kolb even suspected Mannermaa and his school to have adopted views similar to Osiander’s erroneous doctrine of justification.26 With regard to such sharp verdicts against the Finnish Luther interpretation by distinguished Luther scholars, Eric W. Gritsch at the 1997 International Luther Congress in Heidelberg ironically coined the phrase: “The theosis thesis in Mannermaa’s research has caused neuralgia along the course of nerves in the body of Luther research […].”27 As might have become clear from the reference to Andreas Osiander (1498– 1552), the fulcrum of the whole controversy is the question of metaphysics, or more precisely, the question of ontology. Probably also due to the ecumenical background of Finnish Luther research, Mannermaa emphatically stressed the ontological dimension of justification and deification according to Luther. Through justification the Christian becomes righteous and divine because of the “real-ontic participation in God through Christ.” The keyword “real-ontic” (real-ontisch) which is used to describe the participation in the divine nature and the deification of man, occurs in virtually all German publications of the Finnish researchers.28 It was meant to serve as a counterpoint to the Luther 25 Timothy Wengert, “Union with Christ. The New Finnish Interpretation of Luther,” Theology Today 56/3 (1999): 432. 26 Robert Kolb, “Contemporary Lutheran Understandings of the Doctrine of Justification,” in Justification. What’s at Stake in the Current Debates, ed. Mark Husbands and Daniel J. Treier (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2004), 156, n. 9; see also Robert Kolb and Charles P. Arand, The Genius of Luther’s Theology. A Wittenberg Way of Thinking for the Contemporary Church (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008), 48: “Some recent explanations of Luther’s doctrine of justification sometimes veer in Osiander’s direction by interpreting a few of his statements in a way that brings him into accord with an Eastern Orthodox view of salvation by ‘divinization’ […].” For a more positive view of Osiander’s doctrine of justification and a greater convergence of Luther and Osiander regarding their respective understanding of union with Christ, see Anna Briskina, “An Orthodox View of Finnish Luther Research,” Lutheran Quarterly 22/1 (2008): 25–28. As for Kolb’s dissent on the Finnish prioritization of effective over forensic justification, see Robert Kolb, Martin Luther. Confessor of Faith (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 127s. 27 Eric W. Gritsch, “Response to Tuomo Mannermaa ‘Glaube, Bildung Und Gemeinschaft Bei Luther/Faith, Culture and Community,’” Lutherjahrbuch 66 (1999): 198. 28 Mannermaa, Der im Glauben, 21: “[…] des im Glauben real-ontisch anwesenden Christus […]” and “[…] die real-ontische Teilhabe an Gott in Christus”; see Der im Glauben, 23, 48, 79,

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interpretation of Liberal Theology, Neo-Kantianism, Luther Renaissance and Dialectical Theology, since, in the eyes of the Finnish researchers, all these theological movements blurred Luther’s realistic ontology and construed instead Luther’s doctrine of redemption as non-ontological, i.e., as based on will, effect, or relation. Furthermore, they firmly denied any influence of scholastic ontology on the Wittenberg reformer.29 With the term “real-ontic,” Finnish Luther research also intended to build a bridge between Luther and the Eastern Orthodox concept of deification. For Mannermaa, Luther’s teaching “of the believer’s real participation in the ‘divine nature’ in Christ […] revealed how essentially and inseparably the Reformer’s theology of faith is based on the [real-ontic] Christology of the early church.”30 In view of this ontological debate, it is highly interesting to see that at about the same time when the Finnish researchers portrayed Luther as an obvious metaphysical realist committed to a Neoplatonic ontology, the Radical Orthodoxy movement declared Luther a theologian clearly rooted in nominalism, and therefore saw him as part of the long history of deterioration of Christian theology. Both theological movements, however, the Helsinki Luther school and Radical Orthodoxy, ultimately aim at a similar realist or Neoplatonic ontological paradigm in order to overcome, among others, the alleged “forensicism” of Western theology, incriminated by both movements. They are joined in this endeavour to overcome forensic justification as the dominating soteriological concept by the proponents of the New Perspective on Paul. Moreover, Radical Orthodoxy and the Helsinki Luther school both focus on the salvific concept of “participation” and of “gift” (donum).31 In its criticism of modern 92. In the English version of Mannermaa’s essays, the term “real-ontic” is replaced by various similar expressions (i.e., “real and ontological,” “ontologically real,” “ontological realization,” “realistic [ontological],” “essential, ontological,” see Mannermaa, Christ Present in Faith, 21, 37, 39, 50, 73, 76, 88; Mannermaa, “Why Is Luther so Fascinating,” 8 (“ontological reality”); Mannermaa, “Justification and Theosis,” 33 (“ontologically real”). The expression “real-ontisch” can also be found repeatedly in Simo Peura, Mehr als ein Mensch? Die Vergöttlichung als Thema der Theologie Martin Luthers von 1513 bis 1519 (Helsinki: Yliopistopaino, 1990), 224, 231, 251, 293, 296. For an explanation of this somewhat ambiguous term, dear to the Helsinki Luther school, see Risto Saarinen, “Die Teilhabe an Gott bei Luther und in der finnischen Lutherforschung,” in Luther und Ontologie. Das Sein Christi im Glauben als strukturierendes Prinzip der Theologie Luthers, ed. Anja Ghiselli, Kari Kopperi, and Rainer Vinke (Helsinki/Erlangen: Luther-Agricola Gesellschaft/Martin-Luther Verlag, 1993), 173–82. 29 Mannermaa, “Why Is Luther so Fascinating,” 5–12. 30 Mannermaa, Christ Present in Faith, 22; whereas the qualification “real-ontic” is missing in the English translation, it is present in the German original version; see Mannermaa, Der im Glauben, 32. 31 For the similarities and interdependences of these movements, see Michael S. Horton, Covenant and Salvation. Union with Christ (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press,

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Western societies, of secularism and nihilism, the originally Anglican movement of Radical Orthodoxy comes also very close to the anti-Westernism of some Eastern Orthodox theologians such as Christos Yannaras.32 Thus, without going into further details, we may conclude that the Finnish Luther interpretation is in fact part of a much larger interdenominational theological reform movement. Yet, outside of Finland, Mannermaa’s emphasis on the “real-ontic” character of justification, of deification and of the believer’s participation in the divine nature has been the object of some criticism.33 The Finnish Luther school has responded to this, partly by rejecting the various scholarly objections, partly 2007), 153–80. For an overview (in German) of the development of Radical Orthodoxy in the last three decades, see Adrian Pabst, “Participation und ‘Radical Orthodoxy,’ ” Ökumenische Rundschau 57 (2008): 168–86. 32 For a short summary of Yannaras’ anti-Western concept of Orthodox theology, see Yannaras, “The Distinction Between Essence and Energies,” 232–45. For a recent appreciation of Yannaras’ anti-Westernism by the founder of the Radical Orthodoxy movement see John Milbank, “Hellenism in Motion,” in Polis, Ontology, Ecclesial Event. Engaging with Christos Yannaras’ Thought, ed. Sotiris Mitralexis (Cambridge: James Clarke & Co, 2018), ix–xvii. 33 Gerhard Ebeling, “Der Sühnetod Christi als Glaubensaussage. Eine hermeneutische Rechenschaft,” Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche 8 (1990): 21; Ulrich Asendorf, “Rechtfertigung und Vergottung als Thema in Luthers Theologie und als Brücke zur Orthodoxie,” Ökumenische Rundschau 41 (1992): 183; Reinhard Flogaus, “Einig in Sachen Theosis und Synergie?,” Kerygma und Dogma 42 (1996): 230–36; Reinhard Flogaus, Theosis bei Palamas und Luther. Ein Beitrag zum ökumenischen Gespräch (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1997), 285–380; Dennis Bielfeldt, “The Ontology of Deification,” in Caritas Dei. Beiträge zum Verständnis Luthers und der gegenwärtigen Ökumene [Festschrift T. Mannermaa], ed. Oswald Bayer, Robert W. Jenson, and Simo Knuuttila (Helsinki: Luther-Agricola Gesellschaft, 1997), 90–113; Carl R. Trueman, “Is the Finnish Line a New Beginning? A Critical Assessment of the Reading of Luther Offered by the Helsinki Circle,” The Westminster Theological Journal 65/2 (2003): 242: “There is nothing ‘ontological’ in any Eastern Orthodox sense of theosis in all this […].”; Mark C. Mattes, “A Future for Lutheran Theology?,” Lutheran Quarterly 19/4 (2005): 439–57; Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, “Salvation as Justification and Theosis. The Contribution of the New Finnish Luther Interpretation to Our Ecumenical Future,” Dialog. A Journal of Theology 45/1 (2006): 78s; Timo Laato, “Justification. The Stumbling Block of the Finnish Luther School,” Concordia Theological Quarterly 72/4 (2008): 327–46; William W. Schumacher, Who Do I Say That You Are? Anthropology and the Theology of Theosis in the Finnish School of Tuomo Mannermaa (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2010), 182–86, 183: “After reading the works of the Mannermaa school, one is left to wonder whether the historic suffering and death of the Christ are important (let alone necessary) in such theology. They seek the ‘reality’ of justification elsewhere, not in the events and deeds of Jesus, but in the realm of being itself – and the ‘real-ontic’ transformation of the believer who ‘is’ in union with Christ.” A much more balanced, mostly positive overview of the Helsinki school and its critics has been published by Gordon L. Isaac, “The Finnish School of Luther Interpretation. Responses and Trajectories,” Concordia Theological Quarterly 76/3–4 (2012): 251–68.

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also by putting certain statements into perspective. Thus, in his response to my critical comment on his use of the term “real-ontic,” Tuomo Mannermaa declared that this expression should not at all denote “any ‘scholastic’ material substance.” Rather, it intends to describe the presence of Christ in the believer as real in such a way that it is “ontologically” real. However, Mannermaa continued, one could in fact ask if the choice of this term was fortunate.34 To be sure, there is no doubt that Orthodox theology describes salvation in Christ as an essentially ontological process. To use the words of a Romanian Orthodox theologian, for Orthodox theology justification is “a real and substantial event,” and not a mere forensic act (actus forensis). In justification, which is closely linked to baptism, we experience the “ontological renewal of human nature.” This new “ontological status of righteousness” is then expressed in the sanctification and deification of man.35 But is this also Luther’s view? Finnish Luther research argues that, according to Luther, the believer participates in the divine nature “which God himself has in his substance” (die Gott an sich in seiner Substanz hat) and that the deified Christian is himself “in the substance of the Godhead” (in der Substanz der Gottheit).36 Could this bridge the gap between our theological traditions concerning the understanding of justification and deification?

3

As far as we know, Luther’s acquaintance with the relation between incarnation and deification did not derive directly from Athanasius of Alexandria37 or 34 “Der Terminus ‘real-ontisch’, den die finnischen Forscher für die Gegenwart Christi öfters verwendet haben, meint nicht irgendeine ‘scholastische’ dinghafte Substanz. Mit dem Terminus wird dagegen einfach gesagt, daß Christi Gegenwart in einer solchen Bedeutung ‘real’ ist, daß sie ‘seinshaft’ real ist.” Tuomo Mannermaa, “Zur Kritik der jüngeren finnischen Lutherforschung,” Informationes Theologiae Europae 8 (1999): 183. It is probably for this reason that, in his English publications, Mannermaa shunned the use of the exact equivalent of this term. For a more recent voice, see Olli-Pekka Vainio, “Luther and Theosis. A Response to the Critics of Finnish Luther Research,” Pro Ecclesia 24/4 (2015): 459–74. 35 For these formulations used by Dumitru Radu in a paper read at the bilateral dialogue of the Romanian Orthodox Church with the ekd in 1988, see Dimitru Radu, “Die Rechtfertigung und Vergöttlichung des Menschen in Jesus Christus,” in Rechtfertigung und Verherrlichung (Theosis) des Menschen durch Jesus Christus, ed. Klaus Schwarz (Hermannsburg: Missionhandlung Hermannsburg, 1995), 131–34. 36 Peura, Mehr als ein Mensch?, 53 and 203. 37 “Αὐτὸς γὰρ ἐνηνθρώπησεν, ἵνα ἡμεῖς θεοποιηθῶμεν […].” Athanasius, Oratio de incarnatione verbi 54; sc 199, 458, 13s.

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some other Greek Father, but was transmitted indirectly through the works of late medieval Western mysticism. He probably received this idea from the sermons of the German Dominican John Tauler (ca. 1300–1361), or from the anonymous Theologia Deutsch. In both authors, the words vergotet, gotformig, or gotlich are used repeatedly for the Christian, and both authors knew the Patristic connection between incarnation and deification.38 Tauler had a great influence on Luther, especially for his theology of the cross and his concept of temptation (Sündenanfechtung). This may explain why in Luther the motif of deification has in many cases a paradoxical character and is often connected to the participation of the cross (participatio crucis). The earliest example of Luther’s reception of the theosis motif is probably found in his Christmas sermon of 1514. Luther combines here the exegesis of John 1:14 with the correlation of incarnation and deification as seen through the eyes of the Pauline theology of the cross (see 1 Cor 1:27–28) and the Philippian hymn (Phil 2:6–7). Luther explains that, “as the Word became flesh, thus certainly flesh has to become Word. Therefore God became man, so that man might become God, and power became weak, so that weakness might become powerful. God adopted our form, shape and likeness in order to endow us with his image, form and likeness.”39 A similar use of the terminology of deification can also be found in other sermons.40 Thus, for example, in a sermon of 1526 on Jesus’ baptism, Luther asserts that God “pours out above us both himself and Christ his beloved Son, and he flows into us and pulls us into himself, so that he becomes completely humanized and we become completely divinized.”41 As we can see here, in Luther theosis and kenosis are closely intertwined. 38

Wolfgang von Hinten, ed., Der Franckforter (Theologia Deutsch) (Munich: Artemis, 1982), 74: “Dar vmmbe nam got menschlich natur uder menschheit an sich vnd wart vormenscht vnd der mensch war vorgötet.” See Der Franckforter, 73, 93, 114, 117, 119, 122, 131, 135s. For Luther’s reception of the idea of deification from the Theologia Deutsch or from Tauler, see Franz Posset, “‘Deification’ in the German Spirituality of the Late Middle Ages and in Luther. An Ecumenical Historical Perspective,” Archiv Für Reformationsgeschichte 84 (1993): 103–26. 39 “Nunc ad mores veniendum est et discendum inprimis, quod sicut verbum Dei caro factum est, ita certe oportet et quod caro fiat verbum. Ideo Deus fit homo, ut homo fiat Deus. Ideo virtus fit infirma, ut infirmitas fiat virtuosa. Induit formam et figuram nostram et imaginem et similitudinem, ut nos induat imagine, forma, similitudine sua: ideo sapientia fit stulta, ut stultitia fiat sapientia […].” wa 1:28,25–31 (Sermons, 1514–17). 40 wa 2:248,2 (A Sermon preached in Leipzig, 1519; lw 51:58); wa 17.i:438,21 (Sermons, 1525); wa 32:96,13–16 (Sermons, 1530); wa 45:540,15 (Explanation and Sermons on John 14 and 15, 1537; lw 24:87). 41 “[…] beyde sich selbst und Christum seynen lieben son ausschuttet uber uns und sich ynn uns geust und uns ynn sich zeucht, das er gantz und gar vermenschet wird und wyr gantz und

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In his Lenten Postil of 1525, the Wittenberg reformer even states: “Yes, through faith we become gods and partakers of divine nature and name, as Ps 81 says: ‘I said, you are gods and all children of the Highest.’”42 For Luther, justification and deification go hand in hand. The fact that a human being may be called “divine” or “god” (Ps 82:6) is for Luther closely related to the paradoxical ontological structure of faith which turns someone into what one precisely does not attribute to oneself, but to God alone.43 I would like to address two points in greater detail, namely first, the relation between justification on the one hand, and sanctification, deification and the indwelling of Christ on the other; and second, the question of Luther’s ontology, and how we ought to understand his statements about the renewal of the believer and his deification. The connection between faith, justification, and the presence of Christ is particularly clearly expressed in Luther’s Commentary on Galatians of 1531/1535. There, he assigns to faith the place that scholastic theology had attributed to love. According to Luther, it is faith, not love, which allows one to attain righteousness by embracing Christ with firm confidence. According to Luther, Christ is what scholastic theology had called the “formal righteousness” (iustitia formalis; see 1 Cor 1:30), and therefore, strictly speaking, it is not faith but Christ himself who replaces the scholastic habitus of love. It is Christ himself who constitutes the “form of faith” ( forma fidei), and he is not only the object of faith, but he himself is present in faith. This presence, however, is concealed and invisible, so that faith can be compared with a darkness that the believer is unable to penetrate.44 It is the gar vergottet werden.” wa 20:229,30–33 (Sermons, 1526); see also wa 57.ii:94,7–13 (Lectures on Galatians, 1516–17). 42 “[…] ia durch den glauben werden wyr Goetter und teylhafftig Goettlicher natur und namen, wie psal. 81 spricht: ‘ich hab gesagt, yhr seyt Goetter und allesampt kinder des aller hoehisten’.” wa 17.ii:74,26–29 (Lenten Postil, 1525); see also wa 4:269,28–30; 280,2–5 (Dictata super Psalterium, 1513–16 (= lw 11:403 and 412)). 43 “Verum est enim et iustum, deum esse veracem et iustum, et hoc ei tribuere et confiteri, hoc est esse veracem et iustum […].” wa 7:54,25s (On the Freedom of a Christian, 1520; lw 31:351). “Est incomparabilis res et eius virtus inestimabilis, Dare gloriam deo. non facit deo; sed fides, quia credit, deo reputat sapientiam, bonitatem, omnipotentiam, dat ei omnia divina. Fides est creatrix divinitatis, non in persona, sed in nobis. Extra fidem amittit deus suam iustitiam, gloriam, opes etc., et nihil maiestatis, divinitatis, ubi non fides. Vides quanta iustitia fides. Econtra. deus non requirit, quam ut faciam deum. si habet suam divinitatem integram, illesam, tunc habet, quidquid possum ei tribuere.” wa 40.i:360,3–10 [Hs] (Lectures on Galatians, 1531 [1535]; lw 26:227). 44 “Nos autem loco charitatis istius ponimus fidem, Et sicut ipsi dicunt fidem μονόγραμμα et charitatem vivos colores et plenitudinem ipsam, ita nos e contra dicimus fidem apprehendere Christum qui est forma, quae fidem ornat et informat, ut color parietem. Quare fides Christiana non est otiosa qualitas […]. Sed si est vera fides, est quaedam certa fiducia cordis

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peculiarity of faith that it is directed with great confidence to something it does not see (Heb 11:1), i.e., the justifying presence of Christ. Here, as well as in other passages, e.g. in his Lectures on Romans,45 grace and gift, justification and sanctification, coincide in the presence of Christ. Consequently, we should never speak of a “purely forensic justification” in Luther. The factual reason for this unity of righteousness, holiness, and deification, is found in Luther’s specific soteriological concept of the “joyous exchange” (“Fröhlicher Wechsel”). Without being able to illustrate in this paper how Luther took over this idea from sources of medieval mysticism, I would like simply to recall that he describes this “joyous exchange” as an intimate adherence of the soul to Christ and to his properties, or as a confidence in the divine promises, by which the soul is permeated and absorbed to such an extent that it becomes itself righteous, holy, true, free, and is adopted as God’s child.46 Luther can use this concept of the “joyous or wonderful exchange” also in the context of the Eucharist.47 et firmus assensus quo Christus apprehenditur, Sic ut Christus sit obiectum fidei, imo non obiectum, sed, ut ita dicam, in ipsa fide Christus adest. Fides ergo est cognitio quaedam vel tenebra quae nihil videt, Et tamen in istis tenebris Christus fide apprehensus sedet, Quaemadmodum Deus in Sinai et in Templo sedebat in medio tenebrarum […]. Iustificat ergo fides, quia apprehendit et possidet istum thesaurum, scilicet Christum praesentem. Sed quo modo praesens sit, non est cogitabile, quia sunt tenebrae, ut dixi. Ubi ergo vera fiducia cordis est, ibi adest Christus in ipsa nebula et fide […]. Summa: Sicut Sophistae dicunt charitatem formare et imbuere fidem, Sic nos dicimus Christum formare et imbuere fidem vel formam esse fidei.” wa 40.i:228,27–229,28 [Dr] (Lectures on Galatians, 1531 [1535]; lw 26:129–30). 45 “Illud ‘in gratia vnius’ de personali gratia intelligitur, respondenter ad peccatum proprium et personale Ade, ‘donum’ autem ipsa Iustitia nobis donata […]. ‘Gratia Dei’ autem et ‘donum’ idem sunt sc. ipsa Iustitia gratis donata per Christum […].” wa 56:318,24–29 (Lectures on Romans, 1515–16; lw 25:306). 46 “Cum autem, haec promissa dei, sint verba sancta, vera, iusta, libera, pacata et vniuersa bonitate plena, fit, ut anima, quae firma fide illis adhaeret, sic eis uniatur, immo penitus absorbeatur, ut non modo participet sed saturetur et inebrietur omni virtute eorum. Si enim tactus Christi sanabat, quanto magis hic tenerrimus in spiritu, immo absorptio verbi omnia quae verbi sunt animae communicat. Hoc igitur modo anima per fidem solam, sine operibus, e verbo dei iustificatur, sanctificatur, verificatur, pacificatur, liberatur et omni bono repletur vereque filia dei efficitur, sicut Iohan 1. dicit ‘Dedit eis potestatem filiod dei fieri, iis qui credunt in nomine eius’.” wa 7:53,15–23 (On the Freedom of a Christian, 1520; lw 31:349). On the motif of the “joyous exchange,” see Walter Allgaier, “Der Fröhliche Wechsel Bei Martin Luther” (Ph.D. diss., Erlangern/Nuremberg, 1966). 47 “Alßo sollen und seyn wir auch, ßo wir diß sacrament recht prauchen: Christus mit allen heyligen durch seyne liebe nympt unßer gestalt an, streit mit unß widder die sund, tod und alles ubel, davon wir yn lieb entzundet nemen seyn gestalt, vorlassen unß auff seyn gerechtickeit, leben und selickeit, und seyn alßo durch gemeynschafft seyner guter und unßers unglucks eyn kuche, eyn brott, eyn leyb, eyn tranck, […]. Widerrumb sollen wir durch die selb lieb unß

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The distinction between justification and sanctification which we encounter already in Luther’s Small Catechism of 1529, and which in his later texts is explained as priority of the justifying grace ( favor) over the following renewing gift (donum),48 became later on standardized by the Formula of Concord.49 Tuomo Mannermaa, however, has labelled this concept repeatedly as “unlutheran” and declared Philipp Melanchthon (1497–1560) and his followers to be the originators of this idea of the precedence of grace.50 It is true that many of auch wandelnn und unßer lassen sein aller ander Christen geprechen und yhr gestalt und notdurfft an uns nehmen, […].” wa 2:748,13–22 (Sermon on the Blessed Sacrament, 1519; lw 35:58); I am grateful to Elisabeth Parmentier for having brought this passage to my attention. 48 “Gratia significat favorem, quo nos Deus complectitur, remittens peccata et iustificans gratis per Christum […]. Donum seu χαρίσματα sunt, quae a Deo reconciliato per Christum post remissionem peccatorum credentibus donantur […]. Obmitto autem istas inutiles Scholarum disputationes, loquaturne de Spiritu efficiente seu persona divina, aut de dono spiritus. Quid enim ista accurate disputata aedificant, cum habeamus clarum verbum Christi: ‘Veniemus ad eum et mansiones apud eum faciemus?’ Habitat ergo verus Spiritus in credentibus non tantum per dona, sed quoad substantiam suam. Neque enim sic dat dona sua, ut ipse alibi sit aut dormiat, sed adest donis et creaturae suae conservando, gubernando, addendo robur etc.” wa 40.ii:421,21–39 [Dr] (Lectures on Ps 51, 1532 [1538]; lw 12, 377–78). “Denn das sind die zwey stück, so die Christen von Gott empfahen (wie sie S.Paulus Roman. v. unterschiedlich nennet) Gnade und Gabe. Gnade vergibt die sünde, schaffet dem gewissen trost und friede […]. Die Gabe aber oder das Geschenk ist, das der heilige Geist wircket im Menschen newe gedancken, sinn, hertz, trost, sterck und Leben. Das meinet er nu hie in dem stück, da er sagt: ‘Wir wollen Wonung bey jm machen’, Solchs sol folgen der Gnade und Liebe Gottes, das der Menschen hertz werde ein Thron und Stuel der hohen Majestet […].” wa 21:458,23–33 (Summer Postil, 1544). Luther, Small Catechism, on the second and third articles of the Creed; bslk 511, 10–512, 13; The Book of Concord, ed. Robert Kolb and Timothy Wengert (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000), 355–56. 49 “Etsi enim Deus pater, filius et spiritus sanctus (qui est aeterna et essentialis iustitia) per fidem in electis, qui per Christum iustificati et cum Deo reconciliati sunt, habitat […]: tamen haec inhabitatio Dei non est iustitia illa fidei, de qua Paulus agit eamque iustitiam Dei appellat, propter quam coram Deo iusti pronuntiamur. Sed inhabitatio Dei sequitur antecedentem fidei iustitiam, quae nihil aliud est quam remissio peccatorum […].” sd iii, 54; bslk, 932, 47–933, 14; The Book of Concord, 571s; see also Solida Declaratio iii, 21–23. 28. 39; bslk 921, 12–922, 17; 923, 18–25; 927, 18–31; The Book of Concord, 565s and 569. 50 “[…] the fc gives rise to a problem, namely, that the FC’s definition concerning the relation between ‘justification’ and ‘divine indwelling’ is different from that found in Luther’s theology, […] the fc draws on the later theology of Melanchthon, on which much of Lutheran theology after Luther has relied. […] In the theology of Luther, however, the relation between justification and the divine indwelling in the believer is defined differently.” Mannermaa, Christ Present in Faith, 4s, 87: “Unlike the Formula of Concord and later Lutheran theology, Luther does not separate justification and the presence of Christ in the believer.” Mannermaa, Der im Glauben, 105: “[…] die fides concreta, in der Glaube und Liebe aufgrund des gegenwärtigen Christus vereint sind, geriet in den Hintergrund, als nach dem Beispiel Melanchthons die Gegenwart Christi vom rechtfertigenden Glauben

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Luther’s sermons and lectures have been transmitted only by the audience, so that we cannot exclude that the wording of these notes is somewhat different from Luther’s own words.51 Nevertheless, we can assume that Luther would not have allowed these notes to be printed under his name if there had been substantial deviations from his own theological understanding of justification and sanctification. Therefore, the Finnish theory of an irreconcilable opposition between Luther’s teaching of justification, on the one hand, and Melanchthon’s understanding of justification or that of the Formula of Concord on the other, is hardly plausible. The idea of an equally balanced coexistence of forensic justification and effective sanctification or deification is neither in accordance with Luther’s soteriology nor with the vast majority of contemporary Lutheran theology. Although justifying and sanctifying grace are inseparable and coincide de facto in the concept of Christ being present in faith, there remains a clear logical priority of forensic justification or justifying grace, which itself is the base for the effective side of justification and sanctification.52 getrennt und der Glaube nur als der Empfang der Vergebung durch Christi Verdienst angesehen wurde.”; Der im Glauben, 98. Mannermaa, “Justification and Theosis,” 28 and 38s; Tuomo Mannermaa, “Hat Luther eine trinitarische Ontologie?,” in Luther und Ontologie. Das Sein Christi im Glauben als strukturierendes Prinzip der Theologie Luthers, ed. Anja Ghiselli, Kari Kopperi, and Rainer Vinke (Helsinki/Erlangen: Luther-Agricola Gesellschaft/ Martin-Luther Verlag, 1993), 9. A similar assessment of the Formula of Concord is also advocated by Simo Peura, “Christ as Favour and Gift (Donum): the Challenge of Luther’s Understanding of Justification,” in Union with Christ. The New Finnish Interpretation of Luther, ed. Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson (Grand Rapids/Cambridge: Eerdmans, 1998), 45–48. 51 This argument against the value of this reference is put forward by Mannermaa, “Zur Kritik der jüngeren finnischen Lutherforschung,” 175s. However, there is not just this one passage, but also many others which prove the differentiation between grace and gift in Luther’s later writings; for details see Reinhard Flogaus, “Luther versus Melanchthon? Zur Frage der Einheit der Wittenberger Reformation in der Rechtfertigungslehre,” Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 91 (2000): 36–39; English summary in Luther Digest 11 (2003), 145s. 52 That this has to remain the “general line” for the ecumenical dialogue has been emphasized by Asendorf, “Rechtfertigung,” 187, even adding the remark: “bei dieser absoluten Vorordnung des rechtfertigenden Glaubens ist die Einwohnung (inhabitatio) eine illustrierende Nebenbemerkung” (“in relation to this absolute priority of justifying faith the indwelling [inhabitatio] is an illustrative sidenote”). In a similar way Lucian Vandervelde, “Justification and Deification – Problematic Synthesis. A Response to Lucian Turcescu,” Journal of Ecumenical Studies 38/1 (2001): 77, underlined the priority of justification: “Nevertheless, forensic justification is not a dimension next to which one can place union with Christ as the effective dimension of justification. Rather, union with Christ comes about in justifying grace. Whatever renewal takes place is the effect of justification […].” A detailed overview of Luther’s teaching about favor and donum, and a refutation of Mannermaa’s interpretation as a serious misconstruction, is given by Laato, “Justification,” 327–46.

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Hence, Mannermaa’s attempt to portray later Lutheranism, and in particular the Formula of Concord, as a deviation from Luther’s theology, has prompted criticism from various Lutheran scholars, such as Ulrich Asendorf, Wolfhart Pannenberg, and Kurt E. Marquart.53 More recently, Mannermaa’s denial of any conceptual unity or even compatibility between the Formula of Concord and Luther’s theology has been criticized also by Finnish scholars Timo Laato and Olli-Pekka Vainio as poorly argued and unsubstantiated.54 The second point I would like to address concerns Luther’s ontology. What kind of ontology is implied in Luther’s teaching on deification, and what kind is not? To be sure, deification of the human person, union with Christ, is undoubtedly real and not a mere fantasy. The communion with Christ affects the very being of the human person, and not only his relation to God. With regard to the Finnish characterization of the deification as a “real-ontic participation” in Christ, however, it should be pointed out that, for Luther, participation is not a new state of existence in which one is transferred once and for all through baptism, so that the baptized Christian hereafter only would have to preserve, increase, and perfect this new state of life by means of virtue, asceticism, and good works. Instead, Luther teaches that this participation in Christ is a permanent dependence and a confident clinging to the invisible Christ present in faith. Therefore, this new state of the Christian is an

53 Asendorf, “Rechtfertigung,” 186–88; Wolfhart Pannenberg, “Die Rechtfertigungslehre im ökumenischen Gespräch,” Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche 88 (1991): 242; Kurt E. Marquart, “Luther and Theosis,” Concordia Theological Quarterly 64/3 (2000): 204: “The absolute priority of imputation and its exclusive sway in justification is clear, for instance, from Luther’s comment on Galatians 5:16, which Mannermaa also cites […]. The difference in terminology between Luther and the Formula should not seduce us into the optical illusion of a difference in doctrine. Luther insists just as rigidly, as does the Formula, on a radical differentiation between imputed and inchoate righteousness […].” Trueman, “Is the Finnish Line a New Beginning?,” 240–43. For a chronological comparison of Luther’s and Melanchthon’s position on this issue and the later teaching of the Formula of Concord, see Flogaus, “Luther versus Melanchthon?,” 6–46. 54 “I think that the line of argument that sought to separate Luther from Lutheranism was ill-advised, poorly argued, and counterproductive. For some time, this issue has not appeared on the agenda of Finns I have defended the conceptual unity of the Book of Concord and its compatibility with Luther’s theology, deification included, and my theory has been generally accepted by other Finnish scholars.” Olli-Pekka Vainio, “The Doctrine of Justification in the Book of Concord – Harmony or Contradiction?,” Dialog. A Journal of Theology 48/4 (2009): 380–89; see also Vainio, “Luther and Theosis,” 471; Laato, “Justification,” 338–44. It shall not be concealed that, in the last part of his paper, Laato tries to prove that Mannermaa’s move towards the ordination of women in the mid-1980s was a result of his deficient understanding of the doctrine of justification.

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ecstatic-eccentric existence (extra nos) which remains absolutely dependent on his relation to God.55 It is in particular the word “real” which could lead to the false assumption that, in this new state of being, Luther’s fundamental anthropological distinction between “in fide” or “in spe” and “in re,” which he adopted from Augustin, could be obsolete. The opposite is true. It would be also misleading to say that the Christian is “already to some extent righteous because of the restorative action of Christ,” so that there are only some “sinful remnants” (Sündenreste) or residual sins (Restsünden) left in him.56 According to Luther, the concealment of deification under its opposite, the human person’s self-awareness as sinner, and the concealment of God’s gracious action (opus proprium) under his terrifying action (opus alienum) are constitutive of the entire earthly life of the Christian. Thus, in his second Lectures on the Psalms, Luther even stated that Christ became man in order to reduce ill-fated and haughty gods to real human beings, i.e. to sinners. Whereas this is the effect of the dominion of Christ’s flesh, he will change our bodies to be like his body under the dominion of his Godhead, so that we will no longer be sinners, but sons of God.57 Salvation, understood as a new being of man extra se or in Christum, is for Luther a reality that remains 55 “[…] fides ita exaltat cor hominis et transfert de se ipso in Deum, ut unus spiritus fiat ex corde et Deo ac sic ipsa divina iustitia sit cordis iusticia quodammodo, ut illi dicunt ‘informans’, sicut in Christo humanitas per unionem cum divina natura una et eadem facta est persona.” wa 57 iii:187,17–188,3 (Lectures on Hebrews, 1517–18; lw 29:188). “Nam quamvis per donum fidei nos iustificarit et per gratiam suam nobis factus sit propitius, tamen ne vagaremur in nobis ipsis et in his donis suis, voluit, ut in Christum niteremur, ut nec iustitia illa cepta nobis satis sit, nisi in Christi iustitia haereat et ex ipso fluat, ne quis insipiens, semel accepto dono, iam satur et securus sibi videatur, sed in illum nos rapi de die in diem magis voluit, non in acceptis consistere, sed in Christum plane transformari.” wa 8:111,29–35 (Against Latomus, 1521; lw 32:235). 56 These terms are used by the Finnish scholars to describe the Christian existence, see Peura, Mehr als ein Mensch?, 251; Simo Peura, “Die Teilhabe an Christus bei Luther,” in Luther und Theosis, ed. Joachim Heubach (Erlangen: Martin-Luther Verlag, 1990), 160; Mannermaa, Der im Glauben, 72; Mannermaa, Christ Present in Faith, 65: “remnants of the desires of the flesh […] remaining sin.” 57 “Christus enim gemina natura utrumque horum efficit: Humanitas seu, ut Apostolus loquitur, carnis regno, quod in fide agitur, nos sibi conformes facit et crucifigit faciens ex infelicibus et superbis diis homines veros, id est, miseros et peccatores. Quia enim ascendimus in Adam ad similitudinem dei ideo descendit ille in similitudinem nostram , ut reduceret nos ad nostri cognitionem; atque hoc agitur sacramento incarnationis. Hoc est regnum fidei, in quo crux Christi dominatur divinitatem perverse petitam deiciens et humanitatem carnisque contemptam infirmitatem perverse desertam revocans. At regno divinitatis et gloriae configurabit nos corpori claritatis suae , ubi ‚similes ei erimus‘ iam nec peccatores nec infirmi, nec ductiles aut rectiles, sed ipsi reges et filii dei sicut angeli

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concealed under the cross, whereas the only externally visible reality of this new paradoxical existence is our self-awareness as sinners trusting in Christ’s mercy.58 This concept of deification as found in Luther is clearly different from the Orthodox understanding of deification and even more from the Hesychast concept of theosis through participation in the uncreated divine light.59 For Luther there are not just some sinful remnants or residual sins left in the justified believer that can affect the person only externally, whereas the inner person is already entirely righteous and free and “participates in divine freedom in which sin no longer exists.”60 On the contrary, according to Luther, also the believing Christian remains for his entire earthly life simultaneously righteous and sinful (simul iustus et peccator), and it is especially the inner man who is the battlefield between righteousness and sin, between faith and faithlessness. Moreover, Luther’s fundamental anthropological definition of the Christian existence must not be understood in the sense of a partial righteousness in which the Christian is already involved in a growing “sanative transformation,”61 . Tunc dicetur deus meus in re, quod nunc in spe dicitur.” awa 2:226,5–227,4; cf. wa 5:128,36–129,7 (Operationes in Psalmos, 1519). 58 This has been stressed by Friedrich Beisser, “Zur Frage der Vergöttlichung des Menschen (theosis) bei Martin Luther,” Kerygma und Dogma 39 (1993): 279. Furthermore, Beisser has pointed out that the Christian in his new existence is not in an “entire state of grace” (voller Gnadenstand) next to which sin and evil remain nevertheless effective, but in a “paradoxical situation” (paradoxer Zustand); cf. Beisser, “Zur Frage der Vergöttlichung des Menschen (theosis) bei Martin Luther,” 270. 59 See, e.g., Marquart, “Luther and Theosis,” 195. 60 This misconstrual of the relation between the internal and external man can be found in Antti Raunio, “Sein und Leben Jesu Christi im Glauben bei Luther,” in Luther und Ontologie. Das Sein Christi im Glauben als strukturierendes Prinzip der Theologie Luthers, ed. Anja Ghiselli, Kari Kopperi, and Rainer Vinke (Helsinki/Erlangen: Luther-Agricola Gesellschaft/Martin-Luther Verlag, 1993), 130 and 137s. For a correct and concise description of Luther’s concept, see Eberhard Jüngel, Zur Freiheit eines Christenmenschen. Eine Erinnerung an Luthers Schrift (Munich: Kaiser, 1978), 71–73. 61 This sanative aspect of sanctification has been underlined by the Finnish scholars, e.g. Peura, Mehr als ein Mensch?, 250s: “Diese Herrschaft der Gerechtigkeit über die Sünde stützt sich nach Luther auf die angefangene sanative Gerechtmachung. […] Somit bekräftigt diese für Luther eigentümliche Aussage des ‘simul iustus et peccator’ ihrerseits unsere Deutung der Rechtfertigung, bzw. der Vergöttlichung als real-ontische und sanative Umwandlung des Menschen. […] Der Christ ist wegen der heilenden Tätigkeit Christi schon einigermaßen gerecht geworden, obwohl es in ihm noch Sündenreste gibt.” See also Mannermaa, Christ Present in Faith, 58–67. The main passage on which Mannermaa bases his idea of a progressive sanative transformation is taken from the second Lectures on Galatians (wa 40.i:537,21–34; lw 26:350), where Luther uses the image of leaven for the union with Christ. However, the correct point of this reference is that the believer is only considered “totus sanctus” with regard to Christ, whereas looking at himself he perceives all kinds

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but in the sense of a simultaneous coexistence of righteousness and sin (totustotus). In other words: for Luther deification is not a “a continuous and progressive series of changes in created nature.”62 For him, the communion with Christ who transforms the believer into a child and fellow-heir of God does not result in some kind of holiness upon which the Christian could rely in order to progress even further on his way to God. Even though Lutheran theology is not unaware of the human experience of an increasing trust in God, an increasing depth of faith and a growing love for one’s neighbour, such a growth always remains a daily renewal (quotidiana innovatio; see 2 Cor 4:16) and a daily clinging onto Christ in faith, or, even more accurately, a daily experience of being seized and held by Christ, or finally, to put it in Luther’s own words: “to make progress is nothing else than always to begin. And to begin without making progress is to fail […].”63 Of course, Orthodox Theology too is very much aware of this dependence on Christ in the process of deification which was of such central importance to Martin Luther. Yet, already the sayings of the Desert Fathers, the Apophthegmata Patrum, combined this continuous relying on Christ and his grace in a lifelong process of asceticism, purification, and repentance with the eventual graceful return to the human being’s prelapsarian nature and primordial health in the process of deification.64 Many of the Desert Fathers are reported to have acquired radiant faces, shining like stars, thus giving proof of their holiness.65 Their bodies were transformed to prelapsarian perfection and health, and they were gifted with charisms and miraculous power.66 Thus, in the Orthodox monastic tradition, deification is understood as a gradual progress,

62

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of vices and lusts. Therefore, during his earthly days the Christian remains continuously dependent on the daily advent and presence of Christ. Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, 67. Luther’s simul iustus et peccator has therefore been criticized from an Orthodox stance by Briskina, “An Orthodox View,” 25, as something bad which in the Eastern Church “is perceived to be an unhealthy condition to be gotten rid of. In no case is the ‘simul’ to be favored!” “Et, ut sepe dictum est, proficere est nihil aliud, nisi semper incipere. Et incipere sine proficere hoc ipsum est deficere.” wa 4:350,14–16 (Dictata super Psalterium, 1513–16; lw 11:477). For an overview on this topic see Daniel Lemeni, “‘You Can Become All Flame’. Deification in Early Egyptian Monasticism,” in Mystical Doctrines of Deification. Case Studies in the Christian Tradition, ed. John Arblaster and Rob Faesen (London/New York: Routledge, 2008), 16–34. See e.g. Abba Pambo 12, Abba Sisoes 14, Abba Silvanus 12; pg 65:372A, 396B, 412C; John Wortley, trans., The Alphabetical Sayings of the Desert Fathers (New York: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2014), 263, 284, 295. See e.g. the miraculous capacities of Abba Paul and his explanation that for the pure “everything is subject to him as it was to Adam when he was in Paradise before he contravened the commandment.” pg 65:380D–382A; Wortley, The Alphabetical Sayings, 271.

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from ascetic practice to mystical, incorruptible and divine life.67 This patristic concept of deification as continuous asceticism and repentance, closely correlated to a progressive transformation of the created nature of the human being, is also the basis for the Hesychast deifying vision of the uncreated light and for the modern Orthodox understanding of deification as described by Lossky, Radu and many other theologians. In contrast, Martin Luther’s understanding of deification shows quite a different emphasis. It is focused on the deifying presence of Christ in the believer, which can only be experienced by faith and is not visible in this earthly life. The transformation of the Christian into a new and divine creature is not a story of progressive revelation and external manifestation, rather it remains concealed in this life under our daily self-recognition as sinner. And yet, this somewhat different emphasis is by no means an idea foreign to the Orthodox Church. Indeed, the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church, in its document on “The Importance of Fasting and its Observance Today,” makes a similar point. After describing the endless spiritual struggle of the Christian and his striving for perfection and deification by grace, the Council Fathers add the following sentence: “Indeed, while they should do all things that they were commanded, they should nonetheless never vaunt themselves, but confess that ‘they are unprofitable servants and have only done that which was their duty to do’ (Luke 17:10).”68 To conclude this analysis of Luther’s understanding of deification, the results shall be summarized in seven points: 1. Martin Luther did not get acquainted with the motif of deification by reading the Greek Fathers, but by studying some late medieval German mystics, namely Tauler and Theologia Deutsch. This is why Luther’s concept of deification has from the outset a very specific shape that differs considerably from Greek theology. Luther’s teaching on deification is marked by a paradoxical character and is intertwined with his theology of the cross. 2. The idea of the deification of the human person is not the centerpiece of Luther’s soteriology, let alone the centerpiece of his theology. Nonetheless, deification is a motif that runs through Luther’s entire œuvre, from the early to the late years. This particular interpretation of salvation in Christ occurs, however, mainly in his sermons and commentaries on the New 67 Lemeni, “‘You Can Become All Flame,’ ” 24. 68 Council of Crete, The Importance of Fasting and its Observance Today, 5; Conciliorum, vol. iv/3, 1230.

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Testament. Justification and deification are closely connected through Luther’s fundamental idea of Christ being present in faith. Luther conceives the justifying and deifying union with Christ in analogy to the hypostatic union of Christ’s natures, and therefore also teaches an exchange of properties (communicatio idiomatum) between the person of Christ and the Christian. Through faith, the Christian participates in all the divine goods and attributes of Christ, such as his justice, holiness, and divinity, whereas Christ assumes sin, evil, and weakness that characterize the Christian. Thus for Luther, the deification of human beings is a consequence of the “joyous exchange” between the faithful soul and Jesus Christ. Through the presence of Christ in faith, the Christian is already in this life righteous, holy, and divine. But, at the same time, this new existence in Christ is still a concealed, invisible, eschatological reality given only in faith and hope, so that the Christian has to rely on Christ being present in him. During his earthly life, the Christian remains a sinner and knows himself justified only with regard to Christ. Therefore, the Christian cannot rely on the gift of righteousness and holiness to proceed on the path of faith and love, but depends on the forgiving presence of Christ and the sanctifying presence of the Holy Spirit. The new being of the believer, his righteousness, holiness, and divinity are in this life nothing else than a continuous becoming. For Luther, in this life the deification of human beings is concealed under its opposite, the self-awareness of being a sinner, because union with Christ is union with the crucified Lord. God became incarnate not just in order to deify man, but, to begin with, in order to transform haughty gods into human sinners. In the face of the crucified Lord, as in a mirror, the Christian recognizes himself as the real sinner who should have suffered on the cross, and yet he finds himself made free, righteous, and divine through the Son of God. The motif of deification shows clearly that an exclusively forensic understanding of justification would be a distortion of Luther’s much more comprehensive theological concept of salvation. Such a biased view would not only complicate the ecumenical dialogue, but also be in obvious disagreement with the description in the New Testament of the intimate communion between Christ and the Christian (John 14:23; 1 Cor 6:17; Gal 2:20; 3:27; Eph 3:17, etc.). For Luther, justification is not only grace, but also gift, since it is accompanied by the indwelling of Christ and the Holy Spirit in the Christian believer.

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In his soteriology, Luther seems to be influenced not so much by juridical concepts, but by ideas borrowed from mystical writings, such as the union of the soul with Christ, the indwelling of Christ and the Spirit, and the deification of the human person. All these concepts show clearly that justification and sanctification, which are certainly distinct but temporally not separated, are both ontological realities, but in a somewhat paradoxical way, since they occur within us and yet at the same time remain extra nos. Therefore, according to Luther’s view, forensic justification and deification or sanctification are not alternatives, they are not opposed to one other, but rather they are consistent with one another, since they both have their substantive basis in the work and in the person of Jesus Christ.69 4

Having outlined Luther’s understanding of deification, I would like to conclude by giving at least a short answer to the question whether the concept of theosis could be a “point of contact” between the Lutheran and the Orthodox traditions. Lutheran as well as Orthodox Christians both understand the ultimate redemption of man as communion with the Triune God, and as participation in the divine life. They also agree that this becomes only possible through divine grace, and that salvation and communion with God begin already in this earthly life. Furthermore, Lutherans and Orthodox share the conviction that the gift of grace is not created (gratia creata), but is God’s salvific presence in human beings. Nevertheless, the description of the way to salvation is not completely congruent in our traditions. Although we all speak of justification, sanctification, and even deification, we do not necessarily mean the same thing with these words. This insight was one of the results of the ecumenical dialogues in the last four decades. Another result of these dialogues, however, was the acknowledgement that justification and deification are not by themselves contradictory concepts, but that the theological understanding of these words may differ according to our respective traditions. Luther’s understanding of deification in particular is not simply identical with the Patristic or with the contemporary Eastern Orthodox concept of theosis. Especially the theology of the cross considerably modifies the Patristic 69 See on this point Bruce D. Marshall, “Justification as Declaration and Deification,” International Journal of Systematic Theology 4/1 (2002): 3–28.

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concept of deification. Luther is therefore not just a proponent of the Orthodox doctrine of deification, even if he repeatedly used the ideas of deification and participation in God in his writings.70 In addition to Luther’s theology of the cross and its impact on the Lutheran understanding of justification, sanctification, and deification, there are two other points which so far have not been mentioned, but which reveal significant differences between the Orthodox and the Lutheran doctrine of salvation in general and of deification in particular. The first one concerns the question of how exactly we conceive this deifying presence of God in the Christian, whether as indwelling of Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, or the Triune God, or, following the theology of Gregory Palamas (1296–1359), as participation of the Christian in the divine energies, i.e., in the economical being of God which permeates creation and the universe. Mannermaa’s claim that Luther teaches not only a participation in the divine attributes and gifts, but also in the divine essence and nature,71 constitutes a serious problem for modern Orthodox theology shaped by the Palamite distinction between the imparticipable essence and nature, on the one hand, and the participable energies on the other. Thus, contrary to the original intention of the Helsinki school, the insistence on participation in the divine essence and nature is not really suited for an ecumenical rapprochement between Lutherans and Orthodox, but “creates new problems of its own.”72 In his article on “Luther’s ‘Finnlandisierung’,” Duncan Reid rightly observes that, quite differently from what the Helsinki School intended, much more than Luther, it is 70 After the early enthusiasm of the 1980s and the controversial theological discussion of the last three decades, nowadays a scholarly consensus on the remaining differences in the Orthodox and Lutheran understanding of theosis is prevailing, see Briskina, “An Orthodox View,” 24s and 29–32; Mark J. McInroy, “Rechtfertigung Als Theosis. Zur Neueren Diskussion Über Die Lutherdeutung Der Finnischen Schule,” Catholica (Münster) 66/1 (2012): 17. 71 Mannermaa, Christ Present in Faith, 21: “[…] the presence of Christ means that the believer participates in forgiveness of sins and in the ‘divine nature.’ And when participating in God’s essence, the Christian also becomes a partaker of the attributes of this essence.” The same argument is also found in Peura, “Christ as Favour and Gift,” 49; and also Antti Raunio, “Natural Law and Faith: The Forgotten Foundations of Ethics in Luther’s Theology,” in Union with Christ. The New Finnish Interpretation of Luther, ed. Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson (Grand Rapids/Cambridge: Eerdmans, 1998), 113: “The attributes are essential qualities; therefore, the Christian participates through them in the divine essence itself. […] the person becomes a participant in the divine nature […].” 72 Thus Vainio, “Luther and Theosis,” 473. Duncan Reid, “Luther’s ‘Finnlandisierung’. A Recent Debate about Salvation in Reformation Thought,” in Sin and Salvation, ed. Duncan Reid and Robert W. Jenson (Hindmarsch: atf Press, 2003), 190, calls this point “problematic from an Orthodox, especially Palamite, perspective.”

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the incriminated Neo-Kantian philosophy of Lotze, with its sharp distinction between God’s being and God’s effects (Wirkungen), that somehow constitutes a parallel and a point of contact with the Palamite distinction between essence and energies.73 The second point where Orthodoxy and the Lutheran Reformation are not completely in agreement concerns the role which is assigned to the human will and the good works in the process of salvation. To be sure, both of our traditions teach the primacy of grace. But the Lutheran understanding of salvation by grace alone (sola gratia) is certainly not identical with the Orthodox concept of a “theandric” synergy in the process of salvation. Is it at least compatible? As I have grappled with this particular problem elsewhere, I will abstain from discussing this question here.74 Let me simply note that it is not only the Lutheran, but also the Orthodox theologians who see in this question a fundamental difference between our theological traditions.75 Nonetheless, as a fruit of the ecumenical dialogue concerning justification and deification, and of the subsequent extensive research on the Lutheran side, Lutheran theology was encouraged to overcome a somewhat biased view of Luther’s understanding of justification and sanctification, and to rediscover the concept of deification as part of its very own theological tradition. References Allgaier, Walter. “Der fröhliche Wechsel bei Martin Luther.” Ph.D. diss. Nuremberg, 1966. Asendorf, Ulrich. “Rechtfertigung und Vergottung als Thema in Luthers Theologie und als Brücke zur Orthodoxie.” Ökumenische Rundschau 41 (1992): 186–98. 73

“Palamite scholars make a clear distinction between essence (or super-essence) and energies in God, and this would seem to run parallel to the Kantian distinction between being and act that is so anathema to the Finnish scholars. This would seem to mean the Finnish interpretation, though initiated by ecumenical dialogue with the Orthodox, remains ecumenically problematic. If anything, Kant might have offered a point of contact.” Reid, “Luther’s ‘Finnlandisierung,’” 201. As for Reid’s presentation of my own studies of deification in Luther (“Luther’s ‘Finnlandisierung,’” 193–203), there are apparently some serious misunderstandings and confusions. 74 Flogaus, Theosis bei Palamas und Luther, 403–11; Flogaus, “Einig in Sachen Theosis und Synergie?,” 236–42. for an English summary of this German article, see Luther Digest 7 (1999), 99–105. 75 See for instance Demetrios I. Tselengides, Ἡ σωτηριολογία τοῦ Λουθήρου (Thessaloniki: Pournaras, 1991), 202s; Briskina, “An Orthodox View,” 29 (For other differences related to the understanding of theosis, see “An Orthodox View,” 30–32).

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Asendorf, Ulrich. “Die Einbettung der Theosis in die Theologie Martin Luthers.” In Luther und Theosis, edited by Joachim Heubach, 85–102. Erlangen: Martin-Luther Verlag, 1990. Begzos, Marios. “Luther im Licht der orthodoxen Theologie.” Ἐπιστημονική Ἐπετηρίδα Θεολογικής Σχολής Αθηνών 37 (2002): 467–79. Beisser, Friedrich. “Zur Frage der Vergöttlichung des Menschen (theosis) bei Martin Luther.” Kerygma und Dogma 39 (1993): 266–81. Bielfeldt, Dennis. “The Ontology of Deification.” In Caritas Dei. Beiträge zum Verständnis Luthers und der gegenwärtigen Ökumene [Festschrift T. Mannermaa], edited by Oswald Bayer, Robert W. Jenson, and Simo Knuuttila, 90–113. Helsinki: Luther-Agricola Gesellschaft, 1997. Briskina, Anna. “An Orthodox View of Finnish Luther Research.” Lutheran Quarterly 22/1 (2008): 16–39. Carevskij, Aleksěj Aleksandrovič. Posoškov i ego sočinenija. Moscow: Lissner & Roman, 1883. Conciliorum Œcumenicorum Generaliumque Decreta. Vol. iv. Edited by Alberto Melloni. Turnhout: Brepols, 2016. Dorner, Isaak August. Gesammelte Schriften aus dem Gebiet der systematischen Theologie, Exegese und Geschichte. Berlin: W. Hertz, 1883. Ebeling, Gerhard. “Der Sühnetod Christi als Glaubensaussage. Eine hermeneutische Rechenschaft.” Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche 8 (1990): 3–28. Edwards, Mark, and Elena Ene D-Vasilescu. Visions of God and Ideas on Deification in Patristic Thought. London/New York: Routledge, 2017. Flogaus, Reinhard. “Zwischen Instrumentalisierung, Desillusionierung und Pseudomorphose. Zum Verhältnis von Reformation und Orthodoxie im 16. Jahrhundert.” In Eckpunkte der lutherischen Reformation und ihre Folgen, edited by Dietrich Meyer, 91–124. Dresden: Neisse, 2018. Flogaus, Reinhard. “Eine orthodoxe Interpretation der lutherischen Lehre? Neue Erkenntnisse zur Entstehung der Confessio Augustana Graeca und ihrer Sendung an Patriarch Jeremias II.” In Orthodoxie im Dialog. Historische und aktuelle Perspektiven, edited by Reinhard Flogaus and Jennifer Wasmuth, 3–42. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2015. Flogaus, Reinhard. “Luther versus Melanchthon? Zur Frage der Einheit der Wittenberger Reformation in der Rechtfertigungslehre.” Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 91 (2000): 6–46. Flogaus, Reinhard. Theosis bei Palamas und Luther. Ein Beitrag zum ökumenischen Gespräch. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1997. Flogaus, Reinhard. “Einig in Sachen Theosis und Synergie?” Kerygma und Dogma 42 (1996): 225–43. Gritsch, Eric W. “Response to Tuomo Mannermaa ‘Glaube, Bildung Und Gemeinschaft Bei Luther/Faith, Culture and Community.’” Lutherjahrbuch 66 (1999): 197–206.

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Hering, Gunnar. “Orthodoxie und Protestantismus.” Jahrbuch der Osterreichischen Byzantinistik 31 (1981): 823–74. Hinten, Wolfgang von, ed. Der Franckforter (Theologia Deutsch). Munich: Artemis, 1982. Horton, Michael S. Covenant and Salvation. Union with Christ. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2007. Isaac, Gordon L. “The Finnish School of Luther Interpretation. Responses and Trajectories.” Concordia Theological Quarterly 76/3–4 (2012): 251–68. Jüngel, Eberhard. Zur Freiheit eines Christenmenschen. Eine Erinnerung an Luthers Schrift. Munich: Kaiser, 1978. Kärkkäinen, Veli-Matti. “Salvation as Justification and Theosis. The Contribution of the New Finnish Luther Interpretation to Our Ecumenical Future.” Dialog. A Journal of Theology 45/1 (2006): 74–82. Karmiris, John. Τὰ Δογματικὰ καὶ Συμβολικὰ Mνημεῖα τῆς Ὀρθοδόξου Καθολικῆς Ἐκκλησίας. 2nd ed. Graz: Akademische Druck und Verlagsanstalt, 1968. Khomiakov, Aleksěj S. L’Église latine et le protestantisme au point de vue de l’Église d’orient. Lausanne/Vevey: Benda, 1872. Kolb, Robert. Martin Luther. Confessor of Faith. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Kolb, Robert. “Contemporary Lutheran Understandings of the Doctrine of Justification.” In Justification. What’s at Stake in the Current Debates, edited by Mark Husbands and Daniel J. Treier, 153–76. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2004. Kolb, Robert, and Charles P. Arand. The Genius of Luther’s Theology. A Wittenberg Way of Thinking for the Contemporary Church. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008. Laato, Timo. “Justification. The Stumbling Block of the Finnish Luther School.” Concordia Theological Quarterly 72/4 (2008): 327–46. Lemeni, Daniel. “‘You Can Become All Flame’. Deification in Early Egyptian Monasticism.” In Mystical Doctrines of Deification. Case Studies in the Christian Tradition, edited by John Arblaster and Rob Faesen, 16–34. London/New York: Routledge, 2008. Lossky, Vladimir. The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church. Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1976. Luther, Martin. The Book of Concord. Edited by Robert Kolb and Timothy Wengert. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000. Mannermaa, Tuomo. Two Kinds of Love. Martin Luther’s Religious World. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2010. Mannermaa, Tuomo. Christ Present in Faith. Luther’s View of Justification. Edited by Kirsi Stjerna. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005. Mannermaa, Tuomo. “Zur Kritik der jüngeren finnischen Lutherforschung.” Informationes Theologiae Europae 8 (1999): 171–86.

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Mannermaa, Tuomo. “Why Is Luther so Fascinating.” In Union with Christ. The New Finnish Interpretation of Luther, edited by Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson, 1–20. Grand Rapids/Cambridge: Eerdmans, 1998. Mannermaa, Tuomo. “Justification and Theosis in Lutheran-Orthodox Perspective.” In Union with Christ. The New Finnish Interpretation of Luther, edited by Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson, 25–41. Grand Rapids/Cambridge: Eerdmans, 1998. Mannermaa, Tuomo. “Hat Luther eine trinitarische Ontologie?” In Luther und Ontologie. Das Sein Christi im Glauben als strukturierendes Prinzip der Theologie Luthers, edited by Anja Ghiselli, Kari Kopperi, and Rainer Vinke, 9–27. Helsinki/ Erlangen: Luther-Agricola Gesellschaft/Martin-Luther Verlag, 1993. Mannermaa, Tuomo. Der im Glauben gegenwärtige Christus. Rechtfertigung und Vergottung zum ökumenischen Dialog. Hannover: Lutherisches Verlagshaus, 1989. Mannermaa, Tuomo. “Theosis und das Böse bei Luther.” In Makarios-Symposium über das Böse, edited by Werner Strothmann, 170–79. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1983. Marquart, Kurt E. “Luther and Theosis.” Concordia Theological Quarterly 64/3 (2000): 182–205. Marshall, Bruce D. “Justification as Declaration and Deification.” International Journal of Systematic Theology 4/1 (2002): 3–28. Mattes, Mark C. “A Future for Lutheran Theology?” Lutheran Quarterly 19/4 (2005): 439–57. McInroy, Mark J. “Rechtfertigung Als Theosis. Zur Neueren Diskussion Über Die Lutherdeutung Der Finnischen Schule.” Catholica (Münster) 66/1 (2012): 1–27. Milbank, John. “Hellenism in Motion.” In Polis, Ontology, Ecclesial Event. Engaging with Christos Yannaras’ Thought, edited by Sotiris Mitralexis, ix–xvii. Cambridge: James Clarke & Co, 2018. Oderborn, Paul. Wunderbare/Erschreckliche/Vnerhörte […]. Görlitz: Ambrosius Fritsch, 1588. Pabst, Adrian. “Participation und ‘Radical Orthodoxy.’” Ökumenische Rundschau 57 (2008): 168–86. Pannenberg, Wolfhart. “Die Rechtfertigungslehre im ökumenischen Gespräch.” Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche 88 (1991): 232–46. Peura, Simo. “Christ as Favour and Gift (Donum): the Challenge of Luther’s Understanding of Justification.” In Union with Christ. The New Finnish Interpretation of Luther, edited by Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson, 42–69. Grand Rapids/ Cambridge: Eerdmans, 1998. Peura, Simo. Mehr als ein Mensch? Die Vergöttlichung als Thema der Theologie Martin Luthers von 1513 bis 1519. Helsinki: Yliopistopaino, 1990. Peura, Simo. “Die Teilhabe an Christus bei Luther.” In Luther und Theosis, edited by Joachim Heubach, 121–61. Erlangen: Martin-Luther Verlag, 1990.

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Peura, Simo. “Der Vergöttlichungsgedanke in Luthers Theologie 1518–1519.” In Thesaurus Lutheri. Auf der Suche nach neuen Paradigmen der Luther-Forschung. Referate des Luther-Symposiums in Finnland, 11.–12. November 1986, edited by Tuomo Mannermaa, Anja Ghiselli, and Simo Peura, 171–72. Helsinki: Luther-Agricola Gesellschaft, 1987. Posset, Franz. “‘Deification’ in the German Spirituality of the Late Middle Ages and in Luther. An Ecumenical Historical Perspective.” Archiv Für Reformationsgeschichte 84 (1993): 103–26. Pricop, Cosmin. “Reformation und Reformationsjubiläum aus orthodoxer Perspektive.” Una Sancta 72/3 (2017): 184–94. Radu, Dimitru. “Die Rechtfertigung und Vergöttlichung des Menschen in Jesus Christus.” In Rechtfertigung und Verherrlichung (Theosis) des Menschen durch Jesus Christus, edited by Klaus Schwarz, 115–59. Hermannsburg: Missionhandlung Hermannsburg, 1995. Raunio, Antti. “Natural Law and Faith: The Forgotten Foundations of Ethics in Luther’s Theology.” In Union with Christ. The New Finnish Interpretation of Luther, edited by Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson, 96–124. Grand Rapids/Cambridge: Eerdmans, 1998. Raunio, Antti. “Sein und Leben Jesu Christi im Glauben bei Luther.” In Luther und Ontologie. Das Sein Christi im Glauben als strukturierendes Prinzip der Theologie Luthers, edited by Anja Ghiselli, Kari Kopperi, and Rainer Vinke, 114–41. Helsinki/ Erlangen: Luther-Agricola Gesellschaft/Martin-Luther Verlag, 1993. Raunio, Antti. “Die Goldene Regel als Gesetz der göttlichen Natur. Das natürliche Gesetz und die göttliche Liebe in Luthers Theologie 1522–1523.” In Luther und Theosis, edited by Joachim Heubach, 163–86. Erlangen: Martin-Luther Verlag, 1990. Reid, Duncan. “Luther’s ‘Finnlandisierung’. A Recent Debate about Salvation in Reformation Thought.” In Sin and Salvation, edited by Duncan Reid and Robert W. Jenson, 185–204. Hindmarsch: atf Press, 2003. Röhrig, Hermann-Joseph. “Theosis. Der Begriff ‘Vergöttlichung’ – ein ökumenischer Generalschlüssel für die Lehre vom Heil des Menschen?” Lebendiges Zeugnis 56/2 (2001): 85–102. Saarinen, Risto. Faith and Holiness. Lutheran-Orthodox Dialogue 1959–1994. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1997. Saarinen, Risto. “Die Teilhabe an Gott bei Luther und in der finnischen Lutherforschung.” In Luther und Ontologie. Das Sein Christi im Glauben als strukturierendes Prinzip der Theologie Luthers, edited by Anja Ghiselli, Kari Kopperi, and Rainer Vinke, 173–82. Helsinki/Erlangen: Luther-Agricola Gesellschaft/Martin-Luther Verlag, 1993. Schumacher, William W. Who Do I Say That You Are? Anthropology and the Theology of Theosis in the Finnish School of Tuomo Mannermaa. Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2010.

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The Alphabetical Sayings of the Desert Fathers. Trans. John Wortley. New York: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2014. Trueman, Carl R. “Is the Finnish Line a New Beginning? A Critical Assessment of the Reading of Luther Offered by the Helsinki Circle.” The Westminster Theological Journal 65/2 (2003): 231–44. Tselengides, Demetrios I. Ἡ σωτηριολογία τοῦ Λουθήρου. Thessaloniki: Pournaras, 1991. Vainio, Olli-Pekka. “Luther and Theosis. A Response to the Critics of Finnish Luther Research.” Pro Ecclesia 24/4 (2015): 459–74. Vainio, Olli-Pekka. “The Doctrine of Justification in the Book of Concord – Harmony or Contradiction?” Dialog. A Journal of Theology 48/4 (2009): 380–89. Vandervelde, Lucian. “Justification and Deification – Problematic Synthesis. A Response to Lucian Turcescu.” Journal of Ecumenical Studies 38/1 (2001): 73–78. Wengert, Timothy. “Union with Christ. The New Finnish Interpretation of Luther.” Theology Today 56/3 (1999): 432–34. Yannaras, Christos. Person und Eros. Eine Gegenüberstellung der Ontologie der griechischen Kirchenväter und der Existenzphilosophie des Westens. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1982. Yannaras, Christos. “The Distinction Between Essence and Energies and Its Importance for Theology.” St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 19 (1975): 232–45.

chapter 11

Theosis in an Orthodox and Lutheran Perspective Job Getcha 1

Theosis in Orthodox Theology

The orthodox teaching on theosis (θέωσις), a term that can be translated by deification or divinisation, is rooted in the teaching of the apostle Peter on the participation of the faithful in the divine nature, as he stated in his second epistle: His divine power has given us everything needed for life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Thus he has given us, through these things, his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of lust, and may become participants of the divine nature. 2 Pet 1:3–4 nrsv

This teaching is not without raising theological problems. How is it possible for us, creatures, to become participants in the nature of the Creator God? How can the mortal participate in the immortal, the temporal in the eternal, the visible in the invisible, the immanent in the transcendent? This passage from the second Epistle of Peter can be clarified by other New Testament passages, such as the priestly prayer of Christ where He prays that all may be one: “I in them and you in me, so that they may be brought to complete unity” (John 17:23 niv), or when Paul develops the biblical concept of a mystical marriage between Christ and the Church (Eph 5:25–32; Eph 2:19–22; Col 1:26–27), or the one in which he says that we reflect as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, being transformed into the same image, going from glory to glory (2 Cor 3:18). As early as the second century, Irenaeus of Lyon designated theosis as the goal of incarnation by affirming: “For the Word of God became man, and He who is God’s Son became the Son of man to this end, [that man,] having been united with the Word of God and receiving adoption, might become a son of God.”1 Theosis thus appears as the goal and the reason for the incarnation of God. 1 Irenaeus of Lyon, Against the Heresies. Book 3, iii,19,1, trans. Dominic J. Unger, Book 3 (New York/Mahwah: Newman Press, 2012), 93. © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2021 | doi:10.1163/9789004461253_012

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In the fourth century, within the theological quarrels over the identity of Christ, the Son of God, the notion of theosis became a key soteriological argument for Nicean orthodoxy. If the Son of God was not really God, then how could He bring salvation to humanity, since a creature cannot save another creature? Responding to the Arians, Athanasius of Alexandria stated: He who wishes to see God, who is by nature invisible and cannot be seen at all, knows him and grasps him by his deeds; likewise he whose spirit does not see Christ, may he seeks to know him by the deeds of his body, and then let him verify whether they are of a man or of God. If they are of a man, let him make fun of them; but if he recognizes that they are not of a man, but of God, let him no longer laugh at what is not mocked; may he rather admire the divine realities appeared to us by such a simple process, that by death immortality was granted to all, and that the incarnation of the Word made us know the universal providence, and the Word of God himself, who is its choregos and demiurge. For he made himself man so that we may be made God; and he himself is made visible by his body so that we may have an idea of the invisible Father; and he himself endured the outrages of men, so that we may share in incorruptibility.2 The argument of Athanasius that God “became man so that we may become God” will be taken over in the fifth century by another great archbishop of Alexandria, Cyril, in his theological argumentation against Nestorius who considered Christ according to his humanity and divinity, attributing both the different actions of Christ either to the human hypostasis or to the divine hypostasis. Cyril underlined the unity of humanity and the divinity in one and unique Christ by the same soteriological argument: If they say that this is not the Only Begotten who speaks at once in human and divine fashion when he say: “And the bread which I shall give is my flesh for the life of the world” (John 6:51), rather that it was some Son of Man conceived of as different and separate from him who saved us, then it is no longer “the Lord himself who saved us,” as it is written (Isaiah 63:9 lxx), but one of our own number, and in that case all those who are subject to corruption are not brought to life by God (who does have the power to bring to life) but by one who is subject to corruption himself, someone who receives life as a gift along with us. On the other hand if it 2 Athanasius of Alexandria, Sur l’Incarnation Du Verbe, §54,1–3, sc 199, trans. Charles Kannengiesser (Paris: Cerf, 1973), 457–459; St. Athanasius on the Incarnation. The Treatise De Incarnatione Verbi Dei (London: Mowbray, 1953), 92–93.

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is true that the Word became flesh, in accordance with the scriptures, and “appeared on the earth and had converse with human beings” (Bar 3:37), taking the form of a slave as his very own, then he can also be called the Son of Man; and if certain people feel ashamed of this, they thereby expose themselves to the charge of stupidity. There was no other way for the flesh to become life-giving, even though by its own nature it was subject to the necessity of corruption, except that it became the very flesh of the Word who gives life to all things. This is exactly how it accomplishes his own ends, working by his own life-giving power.3 For Cyril of Alexandria, it was essential that the body, the human flesh of Christ, be united to the divinity so that it could provide us with eternal life. Without this, what would be the effectiveness of the Eucharist: what good is it to receive the body and blood of Christ if they merely are a human body and blood, incapable of granting us divine life? Once again, theosis appears here as a fundamental soteriological argument to Christian theology. The theme of theosis will be further developed in connection with the sacraments of the Church in the Dionysian corpus that is usually dated to the 5th century. The author of this corpus asserts that salvation “can only happen with the divinization of the saved. And divinization (θέωσις) consists of being as much as possible like and in union with God.”4 He later believes that deification is realised by the sensible symbols that are the Church sacraments, which he is to comment in his treatise The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy: “For us […] it is by way of the perceptible images that we are uplifted as far as we can be to the contemplation of what is divine.”5 A millennium later, Nicolas Cabasilas conceived deification through a life in Christ which consists in the participation of the Church sacraments. Speaking of the Eucharist, he writes about Christ: “He is the one who feeds and is Himself the Food; it is He who provides the Bread of life and who is Himself what He provides.”6 To this great Byzantine theologian, the sacraments actualise the mystery of the divine incarnation and are its organic extension. By receiving them, he writes, “Christ comes to us, and dwells in us, He is united to us and 3 Cyril of Alexandria, On the Unity of Christ, trans. John Anthony McGuckin (Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1995), 132. 4 Pseudo Dionysios the Areopagite, “The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy,” in The Complete Works, trans. Colm Luibhéid (New York/Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1987), 198 (pg 3:376A). 5 Pseudo Dionysios the Areopagite, “The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy,” 197; pg 3:373B. 6 Nicholas Cabasilas, The Life in Christ, i, §4, trans. Carmino J. DeCatanzaro (New York: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1974), 47; for the Greek text and a French translation, see sc 355, p. 89 (i,13).

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grows into one with us. He stifles sin in us and infuses into us His own life and merit and makes us to share in His victory.”7 This is why he concludes: “This is the life in Christ which the Mysteries confer, but to which, apparently, human effort also has a contribution.”8 For Nicholas Cabasilas, the concepts of the sacraments and the mystery of Christ are not mutually exclusive, but are rather related to each other. Thus, when he speaks of the mystical union with Christ made possible through the sacraments of the Church, he understands it from the perspective of deification: What then could be a greater proof of kindness and benevolence than that He who washes with water should set the soul free from uncleanness? Or that He by anointing it with chrism should grant it to reign in the heavenly kingdom? Or that He as the Host of the banquet should provide His own Body and Blood? And moreover, that men should become gods (cf. John 10:35) and sons of God (cf. Rom 8:14). And that our nature should be honoured with God’s honour, and that dust should be raised to such a height of glory as to become equal in honour and dignity to the divine nature?9 As pointed out by Marie-Hélène Congourdeau in her edition and French translation of this famous treatise of Cabasilas, it is noteworthy that the deification for Cabasilas is not the result of asceticism or contemplation of man but of the sacraments of the Church.10 Man, by his own means, is not able to deify himself, that is, to participate in the divine life. Divinisation is a gift from God. And this gift, this grace, is bestowed by the incarnation of the Son of God and is given to us personally through the sacraments of the Church. The link between divinisation and the sacraments had already been highlighted by Gregory Palamas, the defender of the 14th century hesychast movement, that Cabasilas had known personally, since he accompanied him in 1347 to Mount Athos during the hesychast controversy. Palamas had taken from the Greek Fathers the notion of divinisation as the goal of the Son of God’s incarnation. For example, in one of his homilies, he states: “Having become the son of man and having borne the mortality, He transformed men into sons of God,

7 8 9 10

Cabasilas, The Life in Christ, 60 (i,11); sc 355, 124 (i,54). Cabasilas, The Life in Christ, 63 (i,11); sc 355, 132 (i,66). Cabasilas, The Life in Christ, 51–52 (i,6); 51–52 (i,6); sc 355, 100 (i,26). See sc 355, 100n21.

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having made them share in divine immortality.”11 Regarding Gregory Palamas, in the Hagiorite Tomos he composed in 1340, it is clearly underlined that man can achieve union with God only through the grace of deification, which is a gift and not the result of asceticism: “The grace of deification is above nature and virtues. All this is infinitely below it. For all our virtues and our imitation of God, to the extent of our possibilities, render those who have virtues capable of divine union. But it is grace that mysteriously fulfils this ineffable union.”12 And the gift of this grace of deification is given to us by the sacraments. That is why, according to Palamas, Christ “instituted the divine baptism, he determined laws leading to salvation, he preached to all penitence and communicated his own body and his own blood; it is not simply the nature, but the hypostasis of every believer who receives baptism, lives according to the divine commandments and partakes of the deifying bread and chalice.”13 Thus, to Nicholas Cabasilas, deification is a gift from God, a grace given to us through the sacraments of the Church. It is God who comes to man, and he unites man to him through the sacraments. However, for Cabasilas, this union is not achieved in a passive way for man, because he is called to collaborate with the grace of the deification that he receives from God. This synergy (or cooperation) is necessary in order to make this gift fruitful and preserve grace. He writes: Now that the Sun has risen and diffused His light everywhere by means of the Mysteries there must be no delay of human works and effort. We must feed on our Bread ‘in the sweat of our face’ (Gen 3:19) since it is ‘broken for us’ (1 Cor 11:24), for it is appointed only for those who are endowed with reason. Since it is the Lord who says, ‘Labour for the food which endures’ (John 6:27), He commands us not to be idle and inactive, but to come to His banquet as those who are working.14 Coopering with the grace of God is what Orthodox theology calls synergy. This term refers to the teaching of the apostle Paul in his first epistle to the Corinthians, where he states that human beings become “collaborators (συνεργοί) of God” (1 Cor 3:9). According to the principle of synergy, the will 11 Gregory Palamas, Homily 16, On the Economy of Christ, pg 151:204A; see Christopher Veniamin, ed., The Homilies of Saint Gregory Palamas, vol. 1 (South Canaan: Saint Tikhon’s Seminary Press, 2002), 192. 12 Gregory Palamas, Hagiorite Tomos. pg 150:1229B. 13 Gregory Palamas, Homily 5, pg 151:64D; Veniamin, The Homilies of Saint Gregory Palamas, 1:53. 14 Cabasilas, The Life in Christ, 132 (4,11); sc 355, 314–16 (iv, 60.)

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of the human has to co-operate with the grace of God. John Cassian took from Origen the image of the cultivator and his land. If the cultivator has not worked on his field and does not cultivate his land, even though the climate is ideal, there will be no harvest. On the other hand, if the climate is not proper, there will be no harvest either even if the cultivator has worked very hard. Origen and John Cassian both concluded that the harvest is the result of cooperation between the cultivator’s labor and the suitable weather conditions. In the same way, from an Orthodox perspective, our salvation results from the synergy (cooperation) of our human will with the grace of God.15 This point of view had been often considered in the West as “semi-Pelagian,” although it had been always considered as orthodox in the East. This can be explained by the fact that Western theology was greatly influenced by Augustinism. In response to Pelagius, who considered that human beings are responsible for their own salvation, Augustine insisted on the necessity of grace and affirmed that salvation is the result of grace, reminding that human will has been contaminated by sin. The Augustinian thesis was taken over by the Reformers, on which they based their principle of “sola gratia.” For Orthodox theology, the deification of the human is the result of the incarnation of God, which has its organic continuation in the celebration of the sacraments of the Church. And the divine grace conferred on the human by the sacraments for his deification should not be only received, but preserved in a synergistic manner, “in cooperation between the divine, dependent on God, and the human, namely, our good will, whose role is rather to submit itself to grace,”16 as Nicolas Cabasilas affirms. 2

Theosis: In Harmony or Dissonance with the Lutheran Doctrine?

Is such an approach as theosis compatible with the solus Christus and the sola gratia of the Protestant Reformation, especially when one takes into account that famous reformer Martin Luther affirmed various opinions in line with the Eastern Fathers? Indeed, in a Christmas sermon in 1515, the future Reformer emphasised that “the Word became flesh, so it is certainly necessary that the flesh should also become Word. For just for this reason does the Word become flesh, in order that the flesh might become Word. In other words: God becomes 15

Jean Cassien, Conférences xiii,11, ed. Eugène Pichery and Michael Petschenig (Paris: Cerf, 2009), 149; Origen, On First Principles. A Reader’s Edition, iii, 1,10, ed. John Behr (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), 160–161. 16 Cabasilas, The Life in Christ, i, 16; sc 355, 90.

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man, in order that man should become God.”17 In another sermon in 1526, Luther himself stated: “God pours out Christ His dear Son over us and pours Himself into us and draws us into Himself, so that He becomes completely humanized (vermenschet) and we become completely deified (gantz und gar vergottet), and everything is altogether one thing, God, Christ and you.”18 Conversations between the Lutheran Church of Finland and the Orthodox Church of Russia between 1970 and 1986 made it possible to discover with astonishment, especially thanks to the contribution of Professor J. Thuren in 1976 and Professor T. Mannermaa in 1977 on “Salvation interpreted as justification and deification,”19 that the concepts of “justification” and “deification” were reconcilable, both “based on the real presence of Christ in the Word of God, the sacraments and worship.”20 This led the Lutherans to affirm that when the Christian is justified, he begins a new path leading to deification: the Church sees this as a process of growth towards holiness and a coming closer to God. Based on the Pauline notion that we reflect as a mirror the glory of the Lord, we are transformed into the same image, going from glory to glory (2 Cor 3:18), the Lutherans accepted that “deification is attained by the grace of the Holy Spirit, through a deep and sincere faith with hope imbued with love.”21 However, discussions between Orthodox and Protestants continued beyond these conversations, especially on the question of synergy, a concept rejected by Lutherans. For the latter and their classical principles of sola fide and sola gratia, grace alone received in faith constitutes the salvation of man. For them, the collaboration (synergy) of which Paul speaks concerns the collaboration of men in the preaching of the Gospel, and not in the mystery of salvation. Reinhard Flogaus, author of an important book entitled Theosis by Palamas and Luther: A Contribution to the Ecumenical Conversation (1997),22 stated in his

17 wa 1,28,25–32 (not included in lw). Quoted in Kurt E. Marquart, “Luther and Theosis,” Concordia Theological Quarterly 64/3 (2000): 186. 18 wa 20,229,28–33. Quoted in Marquart, “Luther and Theosis,” 185. 19 Cf. Tuomo Mannermaa, Der im Glauben gegenwärtige Christus. Rechtfertigung und Vergottung zum ökumenischen Dialog (Hannover: Lutherisches Verlagshaus, 1989), 11–200. 20 Hannu T. Kamppuri, ed., Mikkeli 1986. The Seventh Theological Conversations between the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland and the Russian Orthodox Church (Helsinki: Publications of Luther-Agricola Society, 1986), 14, 19. Cf. Marquart, “Luther and Theosis,” 182; Risto Saarinen, Faith and Holiness. Lutheran-Orthodox Dialogue 1959–1994 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1997), 39. 21 Saarinen, Faith and Holiness, 44. 22 Reinhard Flogaus, Theosis bei Palamas und Luther. Ein Beitrag zum ökumenischen Gespräch (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1997).

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1996 article “Agreement on Deification and Synergy Issues?”23 that the interpretation of Luther’s deification of man as “a real and ontological participation in the divine nature” by various Finnish Lutheran theologians leads to a false conclusion that Luther understood deification within the framework of scholastic metaphysics. According to Flogaus, the conception of deification in Luther is totally different from that of contemporary Orthodoxy. As a result, Flogaus has strong doubts about a possible agreement between Lutherans and Orthodox on the role of synergy in the salvation of man, because of very different conceptions on this point on the side of Luther and the Orthodox. Nevertheless, theosis has become a relatively popular theme in Lutheran theology for the last decade. In 2013, the official dialogue between the Evangelical Church of Germany (ekd) and the Orthodox Church of Romania dealt with “holiness and sanctification.” The release of this meeting develops an idea very close to that of theosis reached through the sacraments of the Church: “Christ gives sanctification in a specific and perfect way through the work of the Holy Spirit in his mystical body which is the Church. Through the sacrament that makes one become a member of the body of Christ, the Holy Spirit creates a fundamental and perpetual communion between Christ and his Church.” One can even find there a certain echo of the notion of synergy or human cooperation: “In the course of his sanctification, the believer responds to the call to holiness made by God […]. In the sanctification of which the believer is the object and in which he also participates as a subject, the believer experiences a growth of his already real communion with Christ.”24 As the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew pointed out at the reception of an honorary doctorate granted by the University of Tübingen on May 30th, 2017: We rejoice that since the dialogue between the Lutheran Church of Finland with the Russian Orthodox Church, the theosis doctrine is no longer taboo for Lutheran theology. […] As John Meyendorff stressed, the basic intuitions of the Reformers converge strongly with the ‘most important elements of patristic synthesis’. Meyendorff also reminds us that the Reformers did not reject the ‘Catholic tradition of the Church’ but only its ‘one-sided and distorted form’.25 23 Reinhard Flogaus, “Einig in Sachen Theosis und Synergie?,” Kerygma und Dogma 42 (1996): 225–43. 24 Risto Saarinen, “Le dialogue luthérien-orthodoxe de 2004 à 2014,” Istina 59/4 (2014): 378. 25 ΕΝΗΜΕΡΩΣΙΣ, Newsletter of the Ecumenical Patriarchate Permanent Delegation to the WCC (June 2017). Ref. to: John Meyendorff, Catholicity and the Church (Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1983), 75–76.

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Conclusion

To conclude, we can say that the place of deification in Orthodox theology, which establishes a link between theosis and the sacraments of the Church, is the answer to the theological question of whether it is possible for the human, in the mystery of salvation, to unite with the transcendent God. From the perspective of biblical and patristic theology, according to which salvation is realised through the union of man with God, the Orthodox theology of the sacraments is based on the concept of divinisation as a result of the incarnation of God who was meant to save the whole of humanity. But the gift of the grace of deification implies the active participation of man: his synergy. No one can be saved against his will. And having received the grace of deification through the sacraments of the Church, man must not remain passive or idle, but must actively collaborate with divine grace. Such an approach is not at odds with Luther’s theology, which had also spoken of deification as the goal of incarnation and for whom justification is founded in faith, develops and grows in love for the neighbour. However, the Protestant principle of sola gratia raises an issue concerning a possible synergy of man in the process of deification. It should be noted, however, that we are faced with a terminological problem. Indeed, the term theosis, which is not found as such in the Bible, expresses a process which is biblical. The question that arises within the discussion between Orthodox and Lutheran is whether this concept can be acceptable for both parties without the use of a set terminology. It seems that during for the past decades Lutherans and Orthodox have agreed that the notions of sanctification and deification, based on Scripture, are similar expressions of the same doctrine of salvation. References Athanasius of Alexandria. Sur l’Incarnation Du Verbe. Translated by Charles Kannengiesser. Paris: Cerf, 1973. St. Athanasius on the Incarnation. The Treatise De Incarnatione Verbi Dei. London: Mowbray, 1953. Cyril of Alexandria. On the Unity of Christ. Translated by John Anthony McGuckin. Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1995. Cabasilas, Nicholas. The Life in Christ. Translated by Carmino J. DeCatanzaro. New York: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1974. Cassien, Jean. Conférences XIII. Edited by Eugène Pichery and Michael Petschenig. Paris: Cerf, 2009.

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Flogaus, Reinhard. Theosis bei Palamas und Luther. Ein Beitrag zum ökumenischen Gespräch. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1997. Flogaus, Reinhard. “Einig in Sachen Theosis und Synergie?” Kerygma und Dogma 42 (1996): 225–43. Irenaeus of Lyon. Against the Heresies. Translated by Dominic J. Unger. Book 3. New York/Mahwah: Newman Press, 2012. Kamppuri, Hannu T., ed. Mikkeli 1986. The Seventh Theological Conversations between the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland and the Russian Orthodox Church. Helsinki: Publications of Luther-Agricola Society, 1986. Mannermaa, Tuomo. Der im Glauben gegenwärtige Christus. Rechtfertigung und Vergottung zum ökumenischen Dialog. Hannover: Lutherisches Verlagshaus, 1989. Marquart, Kurt E. “Luther and Theosis.” Concordia Theological Quarterly 64/3 (2000): 182–205. Meyendorff, John. Catholicity and the Church. Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1983. Origen. On First Principles. A Reader’s Edition. Edited by John Behr. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019. Pseudo Dionysios the Areopagite. “The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy.” In The Complete Works, translated by Colm Luibhéid, 195–259. New York/Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1987. Saarinen, Risto. “Le dialogue luthérien-orthodoxe de 2004 à 2014.” Istina 59/4 (2014): 367–86. Saarinen, Risto. Faith and Holiness. Lutheran-Orthodox Dialogue 1959–1994. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1997. Veniamin, Christopher, ed. The Homilies of Saint Gregory Palamas. Vol. 1. South Canaan: Saint Tikhon’s Seminary Press, 2002.

part 7

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chapter 12

Luther and the Christian’s Political Commitment Marc Vial The classification of political theology within theological anthropology is not obvious, at least in a Christian perspective and even in a Protestant perspective. Many Protestant authors claim that, insofar as the political question concerns human society and has chiefly to do with the mission of the Church within the broader society, political theology pertains to ecclesiology and finds its grounding there. Karl Barth’s thought is a good example of the first option, at least if we consider his booklet Christengemeinde und Bürgergemeinde.1 The Christian subject of the political task is principally the Church, not individuals, and its task consists in being co-responsible, with the State, of the temporal care of the world. The Ecclesial community’s task is thus eminently political, even if its agency differs from the civil community’s, since it consists in fostering within the civil community some “analogies” of God’s Kingdom, so as to guarantee a social order within the world – precisely in the perspective of the Kingdom’s coming. Barth defines in this way the task of the State: “The ‘Civil community’ (the State) is the commonalty of all the people in one place, region, or country in so far as they belong together under a constitutional system of government that is equally valid for and binding on them all, and which is defended and maintained by force. The meaning and purpose of this mutual association (that is, of the polis) is the safeguarding of both the external, relative, and provisional freedom of the individuals and the external and relative peace of their community and to that extent the safeguarding of the external, relative, and provisional humanity of their life both as individuals and as a community.”2 Such a thesis is classical, and its Scriptural warrant is nothing but Rom 13, the one that the tradition is used to refer to. This Pauline auctoritas is used by Barth not only to found the Christian’s “subordination” to the State – this “subordination” will soon be defined – but also to establish a link (which can be established by the theologian only, since the Stateman cannot and does not have 1 See Karl Barth, Christengemeinde und Bürgergemeinde (Zollikon/Zurich: Evangelischer Verlag, 1946); Engl. transl.: “The Christian Community and the Civil Community,” in Community, State, and Church (Garden City: Anchor Books, 1960), 149–89. 2 Barth, “The Christian Community,” 150.

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to establish it) between the State’s agency and the Kingdom of God. Whether the Statemen know it or not, their agency is divinely willed, since by this mean God maintains the world in the perspective of the Kingdom’s coming. The fact is that the Church’s “subordination” to the State is concretely thought in terms of co-responsibility. The Church collaborates in its own way with the State, safeguarding the world by providing it with what Barth calls “analogies.” The agency through which the Church fosters “analogies” within civil community is its proper political task. It is the political assistance the Church provides to the State which can, and in certain circumstances must, be critical in nature: “The Church desires that the shape and reality of the State in this fleeting world should point towards the Kingdom of God, not away from it. Its desire is not that human politics should cross the politics of God, but that they should proceed, however distantly, on parallel lines.”3 Thus, since God took flesh in a human being, the Church encourages the State to make human beings “the measure of all things,” that is to promote human dignity and to favour human beings over any ideology or consideration of the community’s welfare. Since the Son of Man came to seek and save all those who were lost, the Christian community will encourage the State’s action in terms of social justice and care of the most vulnerable. Since human beings are called to the freedom of God’s children, the Church will always speak in favor of political liberty and refuse to obey any totalitarian State. Other examples could be given. In recent years some authors have linked more closely political commitment and Ecclesiology, claiming that the latter is in fact the foundation of the former. This is, among others, the case for theologies indebted to Mennonite thought, such as John Howard Yoder’s or Stanley Hauerwas’. The reason why Ecclesiology is the foundation of Christians’ political agency in such models lies in the way Yoder and Hauerwas perceive the calling of the Church: the Church’s political action is not only one dimension of its vocation, since the Church’s vocation as such is political. As a matter of fact, it consists in forming a polis governed by a political logic which is not only specific but also alternative to the logic structuring the very exercise of the temporal authority. This idea, which is expressed in many of Hauerwas’s writings, is found in Yoder’s most famous book: The Politics of Jesus. The mission of the Church, according to Yoder, is “to be the primary social structure through which the gospel works to change other structures.”4 The main mission of the Church consists concretely in showing the world that it is possible to live within it in another way than the common one by which, confronted with violence, one permits it or 3 Barth, “The Christian Community,” 170. 4 John H. Yoder, The Politics of Jesus. “Vicit Agnus Noster” (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1972), 157.

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one struggles violently against it. Such is the case of the State, whose political action endorses for itself the use of coercion. In Yoder’s mind, the “subjection” Rom 13 deals with can by no means be something like the Church’s collaboration with the violent way in which the State exerts power. Such a refusal to collaborate does not lead to any disengagement: the engagement of the Church is effective, but it is also alternative. Indeed, Yoder contends, the fact that the Church dissociates itself from the means used by the State “is not a withdrawal from society. It is rather a major negative intervention within the process of social change, a refusal to use unworthy means even for what seems to be a worthy end.”5 The main theological reason for such a disconnection lies in the conception of the way in which God rules: God does not use the common way to rule the world. This thesis features among others defended by Hauerwas. Like Origen, he contends that Christ is the autobasileia, God’s Kingdom in person. The Church, he claims, has no other mission but to imitate him. But “to be like Jesus is to join him in a journey through which we are trained to be a people capable of claiming citizenship in God’s kingdom of nonviolent love – a love that would overcome the powers of this world, not through coercion and force, but through the power of this one man’s death.”6 Thus the Church is nothing but this polis in which members relate to others, inside and outside, in accordance with the logic of God’s Kingdom embodied by Jesus in our world. These remarks show that the classification of the theological treatment of the political question within theological anthropology is not self-evident. The fact is that Luther did raise in anthropological terms, if not the question of politics as a whole, at least the aspect of this question on which this paper will concentrate. It would of course be mistaken to pretend that theological anthropology is underpinning every aspect of Luther’s political thought. As is well-known, Luther did not construct a political theory, he did not provide a complete theory of the State, its nature and the rules of its correct exercise. What we find in his writings are thoughts concerning the temporal power, its prerogatives and authority from a Christian point of view. In this respect, Luther expressed his opinions on obedience to those in power and on some aspects of their temporal prerogatives (e.g. on war). Yet the views he held on just war, due obedience by the inferiors to the superiors, tyrannicide, active rebellion etc. do not contain any anthropological dimension properly speaking. The fact is, nevertheless, that theological anthropology plays an important role in the issue I would like to focus on: the Christian’s political commitment, 5 Yoder, The Politics of Jesus, 158. 6 Stanley Hauerwas, The Peaceable Kingdom. A Primer in Christian Ethics (Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 1983), 76.

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i.e. the Christian’s active participation in governing (the exercise of a state or political function, assistance given to the State in the coercive exercise of its function, i.e. as judge, soldier, executioner, and so forth). This question can be formulated in this way: Are Christians allowed to hold political functions? Are they obliged to respond to the solicitations a State makes in times of crisis (e.g. in times of war)? Luther gives a positive answer to such questions, and it is well known that this answer is underpinned by the doctrine labelled, since Barth, as the “twokingdom doctrine” (Zwei-Reiche- or Zwei Regimente-Lehre). As a matter of fact, this doctrine is grounded in a theological anthropology – more precisely, in hamartiology. This paper would like to demonstrate the relevance, at least in part, of this doctrine or, more precisely, of the way in which Luther understands the political commitment of Christians. The two-kingdom doctrine is not without posing problems, at least on two levels. The first concerns its reception. This doctrine has indeed been used to justify numerous objectionable, and sometimes downright aberrant, positions, particularly during the Third Reich. These aberrations have been opposed by Barth in this manner in 1940: “Lutheranism has to a certain extent given room to German paganism, by giving it (through the separation of creation and law from the Gospel) something like a holy room. The German pagan can use the Lutheran doctrine of the authority of the State as a Christian justification of National-Socialism, and the German Christian can, in the name of the same doctrine, feel encouraged to accept National-Socialism. Both things have really happened. I think that such a combination is only possible in Germany, we should therefore not generalize beyond this specific case.”7 To Barth’s mind, the error (or even the horror) the two-kingdom doctrine has led to is twofold, since it has not only led the followers of National-Socialism to affix the Lutheran seal on their ideas and practices, but it also urged Christian themselves to confuse submission to the divinely mandated temporal authority with capitulation to a political regime which objectively departed from the divine mandate itself, not least 7 Karl Barth, Eine Schweizer Stimme 1938–1945 (Zollikon/Zurich: Evangelischer Verlag, 1945), 122: “das Luthertum hat dem deutschen Heidentum gewissermaßen Luft verschafft, ihm (mit seiner Absonderung der Schöpfung und des Gesetzes vom Evangelium) so etwas wie einen eigenen sakralen Raum zugewiesen. Es kann der deutsche Heide die lutherische Lehre von der Autorität des Staates als christliche Rechtfertigung des Nationalsozialismus gebrauchen und es kann der christliche Deutsche sich durch dieselbe Lehre zur Anerkennung des Nationalsozialismus eingeladen fühlen. Beides ist tatsächlich geschehen. Ich denke aber, daß es in dieser Kombination nur in Deutschland möglich ist und möchte darum bitten, keine verallgemeinernden Folgen daraus zu ziehen.”

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by enslaving consciences. From the fact that the two-kingdom doctrine gave birth de facto to such a situation, it does not follow that such a situation can de jure be justified by this doctrine, and so some scholars endeavoured to question Barth’s reading of the Lutheran doctrine.8 Nevertheless, even if the unfortunate consequences which have been drawn from the doctrine cannot be ascribed to the doctrine itself, this doctrine poses also problems on another level, that is, as far as its direct content is concerned. This paper will highlight some problematical elements. But I will mostly focus on the way the doctrine conceives Christian political commitment and will aim at showing that such a commitment is problematical in itself. Let me be clear: the fact of Christian political commitment does not pose any problem, neither in Luther’s view nor in absolute terms. When I mention the problematical character of political commitment, I do not mean the fact but rather the modalities of such a commitment, since, as we shall see, it involves necessarily a compromise with the world’s sin. It is nevertheless my contention that accepting such a compromise for the neighbour’s sake is, as paradoxical as it may be, a dimension of Christian holiness. I hold thereupon that this problematic character is precisely what makes Luther’s two-kingdom doctrine interesting, and even relevant. I shall try to show it in the conclusion below. To that end our first task will be to present the main lines of the twokingdom doctrine. Let us begin with the examination of its anthropological dimension. Assuredly the doctrine is first and foremost theological in nature since, as its name suggests, it touches upon the two ways in which God rules. This simple remark gives weight to a thesis Gerhard Ebeling never stopped insisting upon, namely: it would be a mistake to reduce the doctrine to the mere political sphere.9 There is no doubt that the two-kingdom doctrine lays the foundations to Luther’s political theology. But there is also no doubt that it touches not only on questions pertaining to the realm of political theology. Since the doctrine deals with the two ways in which God reigns, it aims principally at highlighting the two ways in which God is in relation with human beings as sinners. As Ebeling has shown, talking about the two ways in which God reigns means talking about the two ways in which God opposes sin.10 We 8 9 10

See Marc Lienhard, “La doctrine des deux règnes et son impact dans l’histoire,” Positions luthériennes 24 (1976): 25–41 (here, 38). See Gerhard Ebeling, “Die Notwendigkeit der Lehre von den zwei Reichen,” in Wort und Glaube, vol. 1 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1960), 407–28. Gerhard Ebeling, Luther. An Introduction to His Thought, trans. R.A. Wilson (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1977), 185: “They are two different ways in which God encounters the sinful world: the first, with the gospel, which gives the Holy Spirit, and the second, with the law, which outwardly checks the consequences of sin.”

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only have to consider a well-known excerpt of the 1523 treatise On Temporal Authority, To What Extent It Should Be Obeyed: Third. Here we must divide the children of Adam and all mankind into two classes, the first belonging to the kingdom of God, the second to the kingdom of the world. Those who belong to the kingdom of God are all the true believers who are in Christ and under Christ […] Now observe, these people need no temporal law or sword. If all the world were composed of real Christians, that is, true believers, there would be no need for or benefits from prince, king, lord, sword, or law. They would serve no purpose, since Christians have in their heart the Holy Spirit, who both teaches and makes them to do injustice to no one, to love everyone, and to suffer injustice or even death willingly and cheerfully at the hands of everyone. […] To put it here as briefly as possible, Paul says that the law has been laid down for the sake of the lawless [1 Tim 1:9], that is, so that those who are not Christians may through the law be restrained outwardly from evil deeds, as we shall hear later. Now since no one is by nature Christian or righteous, but altogether sinful and wicked, God through the law puts them all under restraint so they dare not willfully implement their wickedness in actual deeds. […] Fourth. All who are not Christians belong to the kingdom of the world and are under the law […], so that, even though they would like to, they are unable to practice their wickedness […]. If this were not so, men would devour one another, seeing that the whole world is evil and that among thousands there is scarcely a single true Christian. […] For this reason God has ordained two governments (Darumb hat Gott die zwey regiment verordnet): the spiritual, by which the Holy Spirit produces Christians and righteous people under Christ; and the temporal, which restrains the un-Christian and wicked to that – no thanks to them – they are obliged to keep still and to maintain an outward peace.11 The subject of sin is massively present in this text, as can be seen even in parts of this text where it is not named explicitly. As a matter of fact, the topic of sin underlies the characterisation of both reigns. Admittedly, Luther does not explicitly deal with sin when considering the first way in which God reigns. But since the “spiritual government” is the one through which God “produces Christians and righteous people,” it corresponds 11 wa 11,249–51. Engl. trans.: Martin Luther, Selected Political Writings, ed. J.M. Porter (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1974), 53–56. Hereafter spw; see also lw 45:88–91.

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to the first way in which God opposes sin: God opposes it by justifying the sinner. In accordance with the simul iustus simul peccator thesis, sin remains, and therefore God’s victory upon sin does not consist in its annihilation. But, if man does not cease to be fully sinner, he nevertheless ceases to be exclusively sinner. He still is sinner but he is also made God’s child through the justifying word. To consider as God’s children those who in themselves are sinners is the first way in which God opposes sin. Implicitly present in the treatment of the “spiritual government,” the theme of sin is explicitly put forth in the treatment of the “temporal government.” This other way through which God opposes sin consists in stemming its devastating effects on a social level. It is precisely because of sin’s social repercussions that the reign of God, far from being reduced to any “spiritual realm,” does also comprise a temporal dimension. God’s temporal government is something like a maintenance operation, since it aims at maintaining in existence the world God has created. And such a maintenance operation is temporal in at least two ways: it is ordained to the maintenance of a sphere into which a social life, threatened by murder, robbery, rape etc., can be maintained; it supposes the mediation of a temporal power, whose power of coercion does not have any other function than to preserve, and when necessary to re-establish, the conditions for social life, by dissuading or refraining those who threaten or jeopardize it. The way in which Luther considers sin explains both the angle under which he tackles the question of temporal power and the inscription of its exercise as part of God’s reign. The Reformer principally conceives the temporal authority as a coercive instance whose principal instrument is nothing but the sword. The holders of temporal authority govern by using the sword because of sin’s reign: its social effects cannot be stemmed without using coercion, whether in theory or concretely. Such a view also explains the fact that, in Luther’s mind, the temporal power’s sword is conceived as one of the instruments God uses to rule over the world. In the Reformer’s mind, such a state of affairs is clearly expressed in Rom 13:4: “for the authority does not bear the sword in vain; it is the servant of God to execute wrath on the wrongdoer.” Unless I am mistaken, the thesis according to which the temporal power is a divine instrument does not allow us to presuppose a divine legitimacy for every exercise of power, nor does it lead us to endorse any form of State-sponsored violence – even if it cannot be denied that the two-kingdom doctrine has been understood as if it made the State sacred; and it cannot be denied that some of Luther’s statements could go that route. Suffice it to think about the way Luther sometimes indulged tyrants. He thus wrote in a 1526 booklet entitled Whether soldiers, too, can be saved: “it is better to have tyrants committing a thousand injustices than

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to have populace committing one justice against any tyrant.”12 The Reformer warrants such a statement by asserting that, contrary to false doctors, tyrants cannot go after souls.13 Subsequent history has unfortunately shown that the kinds of evil tyrants can provoke cannot be limited to the material sphere. To be fair, however, it must be acknowledged that Luther’s main intention was to understand the exercise of political power as the exercise of a mandate entrusted by God to the political authorities in order to safeguard God’s creation. But, even if this point is admitted, it does not assuage the opponents of Luther’s two-kingdom doctrine. Take Yoder or Hauerwas, who contend that Luther misunderstands the Pauline text, that the Apostle does in no way conceive temporal authority as a way through which God rules. Such an opposition to Luther is not only exegetical in nature. It is also grounded in eschatology and lies in a specific conception of the coexistence, in present history, of both æons, the ancient and the new. Whereas his opponents hold that God rules in a single way, which corresponds to the new æon, whose logic of peace opposes the logic of State-sponsored violence – even of legitimate State-sponsored violence –, Luther asserts that God rules in two ways, precisely on the grounds of the coexistence of both æons, which will only come to an end in the eschaton. Admittedly, God’s temporal government, through which God uses coercive State power to maintain the world in the perspective of the establishing of God’s kingdom, is an opus alienum. But if such an agency is foreign to God’s project for the world, it is also a necessary mean for the sake of accomplishing this project because of sin. Sin assaults God’s creation, and since sin is violence, one can only tackle it by accepting to enter its territory, that is, violence. Hence the Christian political commitment as Luther conceives it, according to what has just been said, is a commitment to serve the temporal authority and, to put is more precisely, to serve its coercive exercise. Since the temporal authority receives a divine mandate to maintain the world in view of the coming of God’s kingdom and, concretely, to oppose all destructive powers that threaten God’s creation, Christians cannot but assist the exercise of this mission: Fifth. But you say: if Christians then do not need the temporal sword or law, why does Paul say to all Christians in Romans 13[:1], “Let all souls be subject to the governing authority,” and St. Peter, “Be subject to every human ordinance” [1 Pet 2:13], etc., as quoted above? Answer: I have just said that Christians, among themselves and by and for themselves, need 12 lw 46:105–106; wa 19,635. 13 lw 46:108; wa 19,640.

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no law or sword, since it is neither necessary nor useful for them. Since a true Christian lives and labors on earth not for himself alone but for his neighbor, he does by the very nature of his spirit even what he himself has no need of, but is needful and useful to his neighbor. Because the sword is most beneficial and necessary for the whole world in order to preserve peace, punish sin, and restrain the wicked, the Christian submits most willingly to the rule of the sword, pays his taxes, honors those in authority, serves, helps, and does all he can to assist the governing authority, that it may continue to function and be held in honor and fear. […] Sixth. You ask whether a Christian too may bear the temporal sword and punish the wicked, since Christ’s words, “Do not resist evil,” are so clear and definite that the sophists have had to make of them a “counsel.” Answer: You have now heard two propositions. One is that the sword can have no place among Christians; therefore, you cannot bear it among Christians or hold it over them, for they do not need it. The question, therefore, must be referred to the other group, the non-Christians, whether you may bear it there in a Christian manner. Here the other proposition applies, that you are under obligation to serve and assist the sword by whatever means you can, with body, goods, honour, and soul. For it is something which you do not need, but which is very beneficial and essential for the whole world and for your neighbour.14 In the 16th century several dissident trends, which split off from the magisterial Reformation, justified their refusal to assist the Magistrate by contending that any collaboration with the State is contrary to the commands of the Sermon on the Mount. This is still the case with contemporary theologians who, without denying that Christians do have an important political role to play, assert that this role is necessarily an alternative one to the way a temporal power exercises its political mission, since this role consists in showing the world that the logic of violence which governs it is not structural, and that it is possible to inhabit the world by living already now according to the logic of the coming peaceable kingdom. Hauerwas thus contends that the Sermon on the Mount, which expresses this new logic, must be seen as the Christians’ “constitution,” the term “constitution” having to be taken in its political sense.15 Luther does not deny that the Sermon on the Mount is supposed to structure 14 spw, 57–58; lw 46:93–94; wa 11, 253–54. 15 Stanley Hauerwas, “A Sermon on the Sermon on the Mount,” in Unleashing the Scripture. Freeing the Bible from Captivity to America (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1993), 63–72 (here, 67).

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Christians’ ethics, since he explicitly breaks with an entire part of the medieval tradition that relegated the commands of the Sermon to “counsels” reserved to the “perfect” (that is, the members of religious orders), exempting lay people from their observation. In Luther’s mind, such a distinction has no warrant in the Scriptures, and the Sermon on the Mount structures the ethics of every Christian. He nevertheless adds that such an ethic applies only to Christians. Needless to say, Luther means by “Christians” not those who confess Christ by mouth, but those he calls “real Christians,” that is those whose behaviour is governed by the Sermon on the Mount’s commands – those who do not oppose violence violently, going so far as to never act violently. If the world was only composed of such people, the ethic of the Sermon on the Mount would be the only possible ethic, since it would be the only ethic in existence. But such a supposition is something like an “impossible supposition,” since, according to Luther, real Christians are but a minority – and it would perhaps be more correct to say that such real Christians do not exist. Two things are certain: 1. If the Christian can accept that somebody wrongs him, he cannot accept that those to whom he is responsible be attacked, so that the question can be raised if the pacific refusal of using violence to defend the neighbour’s life cannot in fact be called a failure to assist a person who is in danger; 2. As long as this world is not entirely composed of true Christians – that is, as long as this world has still not reached its final shape and as long as neighbours are de facto threatened or attacked –, the ethic of the Sermon on the Mount cannot be the only one standing: Luther judges that such an ethic is inoperative as soon as an efficient struggle against violence is required. As long as the reign of the world is still the “reign of the devil,” governed by sin and therefore by violence, such a reign can only be opposed if those who really make an effort to oppose it resign themselves to making use of coercion, and thus of violence. Now, in Luther’s mind, this must precisely be the case of Christians, whose political commitment supposes the assumption of means that contradict the commands of the Sermon on the Mount. The conflict of interpretations on Luther’s view of the reasons justifying the political commitment of Christians is significant. Some scholars argue that, properly speaking, Christians only belong to God’s first kingdom (the spiritual one), so that their political engagement is about morality only, irrespective of a proper Christian perspective.16 16 See W.D. James Cargill Thompson, The Political Thought of Martin Luther, ed. Philip Broadhead and Arthur Geoffrey Dickens (Brighton/Totowa: The Harvester Press/Barnes & Noble Books, 1984), 58, who refers to Johannes Heckel, Im Irrgarten Der Zwei-Reiche-Lehre. Zwei Abhandlungen Zum Reichs- Und Kirchenbegriff Martin Luthers (Munich: Chr. Kaiser, 1957).

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I do not share such an interpretation, and it seems to me that James Cargill Thompson is right when he asserts that, as a sinner, the Christian also belongs to God’s temporal government.17 Still, the former interpretation is interesting, since it pinpoints the fact that a Christian political commitment leads one to put aside one’s own convictions in order to cope with one’s neighbour’s concrete situation. I wonder by the way if it is not necessary, as we qualify the Christian’s political commitment, to use the terms Luther uses to describe God’s temporal government, that is, the terms of an opus alienum. God’s opus alienum is assuredly an agency which, as such, is alien to the divine nature. It is nevertheless a divine agency, by which God reaffirms his right on his creation by opposing everything that disfigures it, mandating the temporal power for this purpose. Perhaps the same applies to Christians. By recognizing the authority of the State and by standing beside it, they participate in the divine agency consisting in maintaining a social order, and perhaps in protecting it against any threats that jeopardize its very existence, and in this way they accomplish their calling. Christians would then be those who, because of the circumstances, that is, because of the present state of the world, accept to forego what constitutes them properly. The act by which they forego their proper convictions, far from resulting from a lack of convictions, would be something related to an excess of convictions: since their Christian calling consists in taking care of the world, and therefore in taking into account the concrete situation of the neighbours, particularly their needs and the threats to which they are subjected, Christians forego any ideal image of themselves – the image of those who “purely” apply the commands of the Sermon on the Mount. Christians must forego such and image, and they can do it, since they are freed, by faith, from any need to have an ideal image of themselves. There is no denying – and with this I will conclude – that the Lutheran understanding of the Christian political commitment is problematic. The task at hand is to circumscribe the real risks. In this context, one of these risks is averted, namely the identification of one’s cause, and particularly the shape of one’s commitment, with God’s cause. Luther admittedly sees in the Christian political calling a divine mandate, and sometimes he even identifies the sword of the State with God’s very arms.18 But if God endorses the use of violence when all appeals have been exhausted, God neither endorses every form of violence nor does God necessarily endorse the decision to employ violence when 17 See Cargill Thompson, The Political Thought of Martin Luther, 58ss. 18 See lw 46:96; spw, 103; wa 19,626: “For the hand that wields this sword and kills with it is not man’s hand, but God’s; and it is not man, but God, who hangs, tortures, beheads, kills and fights.”

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it seems that all appeals have been exhausted. Moreover, in the absence of any properly evangelical prescription, Christians do not possess any justification that would absolutely guarantee the validity of their agency. In this respect, Christians cannot be released from the common rule that leads to take into account the specifics of any given situation in order to take a decision conscientiously. In other words, they must be ready to take a risk. Since Christians do not enjoy any other principle than the conservation or the creation of a livable social order, they have to accept to decide and act within the ambiguity that is attached to what Dietrich Bonhoeffer called the penultimate things. No action, even those motivated by Christian convictions, is free of such an ambiguity.19 The Christian political commitment is therefore problematic in that regard. But it is also problematic in another regard: the Lutheran doctrine presents Christians as those who, foregoing any illusion concerning the “purity” of their action, accept a necessary compromise with the world, a compromise which is intrinsic to every commitment. If an efficient action promoting the world’s betterment or at least avoiding the worst implies sometimes opposing the destructives powers on their own terrain, it is obvious that those who accept to transgress the commands of the Sermon on the Mount and who, incidentally, refuse to hide behind them in order to abstain from any action and to be above reproach, also accept to have dirty hands. They take it upon themselves to enter evil and even to do evil, in comparison to what appears to be lesser forms of evil. The Christian specificity lies in the fact that Christians precisely reject any desire to be relieved of the common condition. One can after all not exclude the possibility that genuine holiness consists in paying more attention to the world’s concrete needs than to one’s own reputation for sanctity. It is perhaps in this way that Christians distinguish themselves from the Pharisees, as Bonhoeffer conceived them, whose ethics are characterized by the desire to be free of impurity. Such are not Christian ethics, which are paradoxically reflected in the unwillingness to embrace “pure” Christian ethics, integrally driven by the Sermon on the Mount, or even “comfortable” Christian ethics, distant from the concrete needs of the neighbours. It cannot be denied that such a position is, as Gerhard Ebeling put it, “a dangerous path (ein gefährlicher Weg).”20 Maybe one should even concede 19 See also Lienhard, “La doctrine des deux règnes,” 39: “It [the two-kingdom doctrine] reminds us that the action of a Christian is characterized by ambiguity, that love does not manifest itself univocally and that it goes through the channel of reason, that is, through the analysis of a situation. At this level, different interpretations and therefore a certain pluralism of options and engagements will appear.” 20 Gerhard Ebeling, “Leitsätze zur Zweireichelehre,” in Wort und Glaube, vol. 3. Beiträge zur Fundamentaltheologie, Soteriologie und Ekklesiologie (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1972), 574–92 (here, 587).

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that this doctrine is not for everybody’s eyes. One should recognize however that the Lutheran model commends itself by its insistence on lucidity: lucidity as far as the situation of the world is concerned – our world which, despited being intended to become God’s kingdom, has not yet reached its destination, and within which a political ethic exclusively founded on the Sermon on the Mount, notwithstanding its grandeur, would not be of any help to those who are vulnerable, subjected to real and unjustified hostility; lucidity insofar as we and our agency are concerned, since both are subject, not only to human critique, but also to God’s judgement. References Barth, Karl. “The Christian Community and the Civil Community.” In Community, State, and Church, 149–89. Garden City: Anchor Books, 1960. Barth, Karl. Christengemeinde und Bürgergemeinde. Zollikon/Zurich: Evangelischer Verlag, 1946. Barth, Karl. Eine Schweizer Stimme 1938–1945. Zollikon/Zurich: Evangelischer Verlag, 1945. Cargill Thompson, W.D. James. The Political Thought of Martin Luther. Edited by Philip Broadhead and Arthur Geoffrey Dickens. Brighton/Totowa: The Harvester Press/ Barnes & Noble Books, 1984. Ebeling, Gerhard. Luther. An Introduction to His Thought. Translated by R.A. Wilson. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1977. Ebeling, Gerhard. “Leitsätze zur Zweireichelehre.” In Wort und Glaube, 3. Beiträge zur Fundamentaltheologie, Soteriologie und Ekklesiologie: 574–92. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1972. Ebeling, Gerhard. “Die Notwendigkeit der Lehre von den zwei Reichen.” In Wort und Glaube, 1:407–28. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1960. Hauerwas, Stanley. “A Sermon on the Sermon on the Mount.” In Unleashing the Scripture. Freeing the Bible from Captivity to America, 63–72. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1993. Hauerwas, Stanley. The Peaceable Kingdom. A Primer in Christian Ethics. Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 1983. Heckel, Johannes. Im Irrgarten Der Zwei-Reiche-Lehre. Zwei Abhandlungen Zum ReichsUnd Kirchenbegriff Martin Luthers. Munich: Chr. Kaiser, 1957. Lienhard, Marc. “La doctrine des deux règnes et son impact dans l’histoire.” Positions luthériennes 24 (1976): 25–41. Luther, Martin. Selected Political Writings. Edited by J.M. Porter. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1974. Yoder, John H. The Politics of Jesus. “Vicit Agnus Noster.” Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1972.

chapter 13

Theosis and Politics: Lutheran and Orthodox Approaches Aristotle Papanikolaou In this essay, I want to briefly consider and assess Luther’s political theology by engaging Michael Laffin’s recent book, The Promise of Martin Luther’s Political Theology.1 I am fully aware of the debates around Luther’s political theology and realize that Laffin’s is only one interpretation, but it is a very nuanced interpretation that offers compelling arguments. I then want to illustrate affinities between Laffin’s interpretation of Luther and my own Orthodox political theology based on the realism of divine-human communion, or theosis. Finally, I want to end by relating this comparison to what is arguably one of the most pressing questions of Christian political theology – the Christian’s relation to political liberalism. Laffin begins by critiquing the caricatures of Luther’s political theology, primarily those offered by John Milbank. Milbank’s Luther places him in the nominalist tradition, which because of its univocal understanding of being, ultimately created the conditions for a desacramentalization of created reality. This nominalist understanding of the God-world relation is the context within which Luther developed his understanding of justification by faith alone, which ultimately reduced the sacred to the individual heart of the believer. This singular declaration ultimately laid the groundwork for political liberalism, which Milbank sees as antithetical to a Christian ontology of participation. Ultimately Milbank blames liberalism’s excessive individualism and secular immanentism on Luther; not that such a political arrangement or philosophy was ever Luther’s intent, but it is rather the extension of the nominalist logic that ultimately grounds Luther’s theology. For Milbank, Luther’s political theology of two kingdoms ultimately sidelined religion from the public sphere, leading not simply to Church-State separation, but the privatization and marginalization of religion from the political space. Political liberalism is ultimately bad theology, according to Milbank, and Luther, in the end, contributed to such a bad theology. 1 Michael Richard Laffin, The Promise of Martin Luther’s Political Theology. Freeing Luther from the Modern Political Narrative (London/New York: Bloomsbury/T&T Clark, 2016).

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Laffin refutes this account of Luther, accusing Milbank, not surprisingly, of an un-nuanced understanding of Luther’s theology. Like most of Luther’s interpreters, Laffin sees Milbank falling into the trap of conflating Luther’s two kingdoms with his two regiments, ultimately identifying the temporal regiment with the kingdom of Satan. It is a common mistake, in no small part due to Luther’s Lutheran interpreters, especially those of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. For a fuller picture, Laffin argues that there are several “twos” in Luther: two kingdoms, two ecclesiae, and two regiments, in addition to one “three,” which are the three estates. Most interpret Luther as having a negative view of politics because few ever take into account his three estates, which are the ecclesia, the politeia and the oikonomia. Getting back to Laffin, the relation between these pieces of Luther’s political theology ultimately depend on a proper understanding of the relation of justification and sanctification in Luther’s theology. In countering the typical picture of Luther’s political theology, Laffin begins by affirming the inseparability of justification and sanctification. He affirms the recent Finnish school research on Luther, without using the language of theosis, or appealing to ontological language. Otherwise, Laffin agrees with the Finnish school that justification is union with Christ, and in that sense, is a union with all that Christ has accomplished, offers and is. Rather than ontological language, Laffin prefers to use the language of speech and communication to understand more generally the relation between God and creation, and the metaphor of marital union to understand the union of those justified in faith with Christ. Justification by faith does not simply give a correct understanding of God and self, but is actually transformative; it entails an affective dimension. It is thus not the case that justification occurs as an event and that sanctification is a process; both occur simultaneously and effect a transformation that frees the Christian to love the neighbor. The Christian must still battle the flesh in Christian living, but this battle is not to attain sanctification but to form the affections in such a way as to return the Christian to what has already been given – union in Christ. The distinction – but not separation – between justification and sanctification can be properly understood on the basis of Luther’s distinction between grace and gift. Grace refers to salvation, which occurs by our being justified; there is nothing we can do to earn salvation – it is entirely a graced event in faith. Gift, however, is, according to Laffin, “the indwelling presence of Christ, which works to gradually form the believer into the form of Christ. While grace is total and complete, the gift is partial and gradual.”2 2 Laffin, The Promise, 124.

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This understanding of justification and sanctification forms the basis for a more positive account of the political in Luther’s theology, and not simply the negative account of the political use of law and government for restraining sin. To understand this positive understanding of politics according to the grammar of Luther’s theology, we must first understand that Luther’s two kingdoms do not map onto the distinction between Church and state, but rather express the battle between good and evil. This does not mean that Luther affirms a kind of Gnostic dualism, since ultimately even Satan’s kingdom could not exist if God did not allow it. Within the worldly realm, Satan’s kingdom is ultimately perpetuated not necessarily by temporal government, but by an ecclesia that is constituted by turning away from the Word of God addressed to creation; and insofar as the institute of ecclesia is intertwined with those of politeia and oikonomia, such a turning away affects these other two elements in such a way as to maintain Satan’s kingdom. God’s kingdom is ultimately one rule of God that is manifested in a twofold manner, or two regiments, and over-and-against the kingdom (or ecclesia) of the devil. Christian living in the world is constituted at creation not simply by the politeia, that is in relation to temporal governance or the law, but also constituted by ecclesia and oikonomia. Laffin indicates that insofar as the law was given prior to the Fall, the law has a positive use for forming the affections, and not simply a negative use for restraining sin. The institutes of ecclesia, politeia and oikonomia form a constitutive part of creation of the one Word of God, and in that sense, are tethered to the promises of God and form the space for the formation of life in relation to God. In the language of justification and sanctification, since they are constitutive of God’s creation, they are the arena in which the justified Christian freely turns to love the neighbour, and thus, to form the affections so as to return to the sanctification already given in union with Christ, and in so doing, give Christ to the neighbour. But if the institutes are such a space, then the bonds of trust the Christian learns within the Eucharist are then the basis for the Christian to participate in the search for the common good, as the Christian freely loves the neighbour through a living within the ecclesia, the politeia and the oikonomia. In this configuration, the human being is never not in some way responding to the Word of God, either positively or negatively. God’s rule is one, God is everywhere present and always addressing God’s creation. The justified Christian can affect positively the politeia and the oikonomia through the ecclesia, and in so doing both affirm the good of politics, while maintaining a critical distance from politics. The Christian can also affirm that the non-Christian can do good and even manifest some of the marks of holiness, even if the nonChristian is not saved, since such salvation occurs only through justification

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and is a graced event initiated only by God and experienced in faith. Thus, Luther’s political theology does not promote quietism and the maintenance of the status quo, since the justified Christian is free to love the neighbour. In the form of the politeia and oikonomia, that love of neighbour entails forming bonds of trust with others in search for the common good. I realize that Laffin’s interpretation is one among many, and I am not equipped to enter the debate on the correct interpretation of Luther. I am drawn to Laffin’s interpretation because even though there are significant differences theologically speaking, we reach very similar conclusions in terms of political theology, especially in seeing the inter-relation between God, incarnation, theological anthropology and politics. Since Laffin began with dismantling caricatures of Luther’s political theology, let me begin by dismantling some of the caricatures of Orthodox political theology, some of which are perpetuated by the Orthodox themselves, similar to how caricatures of Lutheran political theology resulted from Lutheran theologians. First of all, Orthodox political theology is for the most part, even today, framed in relation to the well-known concept of symphonia. Symphonia has often been interpreted as a kind of top-down structure, in which the authority of God is divided into two spheres, one concerning spiritual matters related to the Church, and the other one concerning worldly matters related to the emperor. Some have even thought that symphonia leads to a kind of caesaropapism, in which the kingly and priestly authority is concentrated in the emperor. Historically, there have been many forms of symphonia, from the Byzantine emperor to Tsarist Russia, to the nation-state in which Orthodoxy is an established religion, to the situation we now see in post-communist countries, especially Russia. The well-known Orthodox ethicist, Stanley Harakas, even argued that the situation in the United States, where Orthodox comprise not even 5% of the population, can be interpreted as a kind of symphonia.3 It is easy to misinterpret symphonia as a kind of top-down symbolization of authority from God to the emperor and the church; however, Eusebius of Caesarea, who can be credited with giving the first theological language for symphonia, saw it as result of the evolutionary expansion of the Logos in creation.4 In that sense, he saw it as a kind of progressive theosis of creation that extended to the structures of the Roman Empire. The persecution of Christians prior to the second half of the 4th century often makes us forget 3 Stanley Harakas, “Orthodox Church-State Theory and American Democracy,” Greek Orthodox Theological Review 21/4 (1976): 399–421. 4 See Aristotle Papanikolaou, The Mystical as Political. Democracy and Non-Radical Orthodoxy (Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 2012), 13–54.

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that Christians eventually became very proud Romans. They did not argue for a diametrical opposition between an imagined Christian state and the Roman imperial structures, but stated that all that was needed was the Empire to worship the true God, revealed in Christ. Once this occurred and infiltrated the imperial structures, such structures could then be properly oriented in such a way as to facilitate the extension of the Logos in creation, as God intended. In this sense, the Christian Roman Empire was structured so as to facilitate the worship of God, and such intentionality was guided by the dual authorities of emperor and clergy, even if the relation between the two was constantly being contested. In saying all this, I am not defending symphonia, so much as clarifying what I think was the theological architecture of Christian Roman political theology. I do also want to argue that theosis should still be the theological basis for thinking the political, but that it does not, as Eusebius imagined, lead to a political space in which the legal frameworks are structured around theological principles. In fact, quite the opposite, as I argue that a theological affirmation of the human being created for theosis leads to political structures that maximize pluralism, and, in that sense, work against legal structures framed according to a common theological perspective. To restate briefly my argument given in my book, The Mystical as Political, if theosis is to become like God in union with God, and if God is love, then theosis entails loving as God loves in the world, including the stranger and the enemy. The Christian ascetical tradition understood well that humans do not love God with all their heart, mind and soul, and that such love is experienced through asceticism. Asceticism should not be immediately imagined as negative, as it could entail practices of truth-telling, attentive listening, moderation in relation to resources, and other practices that are not about self-flagellation. The ultimate goal is to gain self-knowledge on the sources that block experiencing God’s love – such as anger, fear and hatred, and a doing of practices that make one more available to experiencing this love, which then would constitute one as more loving toward the neighbour, including the enemy and stranger. I have further argued that politics is a kind of asceticism. As I state in The Mystical as Political: If the Christian calling is to learn how to love, then an ascetics of divinehuman communion cannot be confined either to the monastery or to the church – the whole world is the field in which this ascetics must be played out. And if this learning how to love goes beyond family or other Christians, and includes the neighbor, who may also be the stranger, then politics cannot be irrelevant to an ascetics of divine-human communion.

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In fact, insofar as politics can be construed as an engagement with the neighbor/stranger, then politics must be considered as one of the many practices within an ascetics of divine-human communion. The political community is not the antithesis to the desert but one of the many deserts in which the Christian must combat the demons that attempt to block the learning of love. In no other field is the temptation to demonize the neighbor more compelling or more seemingly justifiable than in the field of politics; in no other space than in the political, then, is the Christian more challenged to fulfill the commandment to love.5 Similar to Laffin’s interpretation of Luther, I argue that the Christian’s movement goes from the Eucharist to the non-Eucharistic space of the political. If the Christian were to encounter this space as one in which she engages in the Eucharistic ascesis of learning to love, especially the one who does not share her belief, or is even out to destroy this belief, then the Christian would work toward legal and civic structures that are ultimately based on what I would call liberal minimalism – which entail principles of freedom, equality and pluralism. This does not mean that the Christian would accept what has been identified as a liberal anthropology of the autonomous self, excessive individualism and infinitely incited consumerism. In fact, the Christian would also work toward a common good made of pluralism of voices, that would mitigate excessive individualism and consumerism, towards a relational self whose flourishing and irreducible uniqueness is constituted through an acknowledged dependence on the other. I argue against those who claim that political liberalism and a politics of the common good are mutually exclusive. In the end, a politics of theosis would affirm what I would call Christian secularism, which does not entail an evacuation of religious voices from political life, but would entail a negation of a common theological perspective as a frame for legal and civic structures, and in order to secure a pluralism that affirms freedom and equality. At this point, I would like to highlight what Laffin and I have in common. First, both our approaches attempt a deep reading of tradition in order to cut through caricatures. Laffin attempts to dismantle a quietist perception of Lutheran political theology; and, there are perceptions of Orthodox political theology that are also quietist, in the sense that since Orthodoxy seemingly accommodated itself to the state, then it continues to do so no matter what the state structure is. Both Laffin and I attempt to reorient political theology from abstract concepts, such as two governments or symphonia, towards a political 5 Papanikolaou, The Mystical as Political, 4.

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theology based on Christian living that expresses itself as love towards the neighbour. Both of us put love at the core of political theology. Such Christian living is based on an anthropology that is informed by soteriology, and in that sense, is based on God’s revelation in Christ. We also both attempt to maintain the integrity of a non-ecclesial space, in which the ecclesia engages while maintaining a critical distance. I wholeheartedly agree with Laffin when he critiques Milbank for absorbing the political into the ecclesia and not maintaining the difference between the two. Elements on which we differ, however, are significant and bring us to one of the most pressing questions of political theology today. Whereas Laffin is attempting to rescue Luther from charges of laying the groundwork for political liberalism, I am trying to argue for an Orthodox affirmation of the principles of political liberalism. While Laffin tries to refute Milbank’s critique of Luther, I am trying to rescue theosis from Milbank’s political theology. Laffin is trying to put forward a Lutheran political theology that is not quietist, that is also not to be identified with modern political liberalism, but, instead, maintains a relationship of critical engagement between the ecclesia and the politeia. While rescuing Luther from Milbank’s charges, Laffin appears to accept Milbank’s critique of modern political liberalism. In so doing, it is very unclear in Laffin’s account what the politeia should look like. And without a more positive account of what the politeia should look like, it is hard to escape the charge of quietism in relation to political structures. Also, without a clearer sense of what the politeia should look like, of what the Christian should be working toward in the politeia when emerging from the ecclesia, he is in danger of eliding the ecclesia and the politeia, since it is not enough simply to claim that the politeia is the realm of the co-mixing of the saved and the unsaved. There has to be a clearer sense of how the saved and unsaved should relate to each other for the politeia to have its own integrity. I have argued and continue to argue that Christian living that expresses itself as a learning-to-love neighbour would ultimately work towards structures framed by minimal liberal principles, and even more strongly – that such a politeia iconizes the Eucharistic communion to a greater degree than other political arrangements imaginable. Perhaps it is the Orthodox notion of icon, unavailable within Lutheran theology more generally, that allows me to make such a claim in a way that is not possible for Laffin. I also think, however, that we may differ on the dynamics of love. Laffin wants an account of love that springs from faith-as-trust, which exists in justification; I would argue that trust is a necessary but not sufficient condition for love, which can grow or deepen through practices. My argument, in short, is that the practices of love are those that

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would ultimately shape a politeia – the non-ecclesial space – around the liberal principles of freedom, equality and pluralism. I would like to end with a case study that, for me, highlights the need for a more explicit affirmation of what the politeia should look like. Recently the Russian Orthodox Church issued a document on human rights, that ultimately attempts to advance what may be called a particularist approach to human rights.6 Having clearly in mind the extension of human rights to the lgbt community in Western European countries and the United States, the Russian Orthodox Church is arguing for a notion of human rights that is linked with morality. The gist of the argument is that although each human being has a God-given dignity, rights should not be extended in such a way that conflict with morality, since the latter is what confers dignified life. It comes as no surprise, then, that the Russian Orthodox Church would seek to deny rights that have “legislative and public support given to various vices, such as sexual lechery and perversions,” but also to “the worship of profit and violence, […] abortion, euthanasia, use of human embryos in medicine, experiments changing a person’s nature and the like” (iii.3). A little more unusual is the Russian Orthodox Church’s claim that “human rights should not contradict love for one’s homeland and neighbours” (iii.4), which the Russian Orthodox Church justifies by claiming that the “Orthodox tradition traces patriotism back to the words of Christ the Savior Himself: ‘Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends’ (John 15:13).” The Russian Orthodox Church amplifies this by stating that “One’s human rights cannot be set against the values and interests of one’s homeland, community and family. The exercise of human rights should not be used to justify any encroachment on religious holy symbols things [sic], cultural values and the identity of a nation” (iv.1). Such rights are excluded because, for the Russian Orthodox Church, “[i]n Orthodoxy, there is an immutable conviction that in ordering its life a society should take into account not only human interests and wishes but also the divine truth, the eternal moral law given by the Lord and working in the world no matter whether the will of particular people or people’s communities agree with it or not” (iii.2). The severing of rights from morality, according to the Russian Orthodox Church, is a so-called “Western” colonial construct, and the Russian Orthodox Church is arguing for an affirmation of human rights language but interpreted 6 The Russian Orthodox Church, “The Russian Orthodox Church’s Basic Teaching on Human Dignity, Freedom and Rights,” accessed January 22, 2019, https://mospat.ru/en/documents/ dignity-freedom-rights/.

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within the particularistic morality of a given nation or culture. Such a document would not be big news except for the fact that since 2012, the Russian Orthodox Church has actively been working with the Russian government to advance this particularistic approach to human rights in the UN Council of Human Rights, and they are doing so through a global alliance centered on the promotion of traditional values.7 The Russians have succeeded in forging a new East-West geopolitical divide, but this time the dividing line is defined not in terms of communism versus capitalism, but in terms of traditional values versus so-called godless liberalism. It probably comes as no surprise that I think what the Russian Orthodox Church is proposing is based on bad theology that is designed to advance Russian national interests. In the end, the Russians elide the political and the ecclesial, by appropriating a political concept, like human rights, for advancing a so-called “dignified life” that is itself an ecclesial reality. Human rights structure relations analogous to but not identical with ecclesial relations, and in so doing must allow for practices unthinkable within the Church – such as disbelief in God. In fact, a theological interpretation of human rights would see them as structuring relations among Christians and non-Christians such that the irreducible uniqueness of the human is realized as much as is possible within the politeia, while realizing the fullness of personhood is a Eucharistic reality. I would like to end with a question to this case study: what does a Lutheran political theology along the lines of Laffin’s interpretation call for in response to the Russian Orthodox Church particularistic interpretation of human rights? And what would this imply for the shape of the politeia demanded by this Lutheran political theology? References Harakas, Stanley. “Orthodox Church-State Theory and American Democracy.” Greek Orthodox Theological Review 21/4 (1976): 399–421. Horsfjord, Vebjørn N. “Negotiating Traditional Values. The Russian Orthodox Church at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC).” In Religion, State and the 7 Vebjørn N. Horsfjord, “Negotiating Traditional Values. The Russian Orthodox Church at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC),” in Religion, State and the United Nations. Value Politics, ed. Anne Stensvold (London/New York: Routledge, 2017), 62–78; Kristian Stoeckl, “The Russian Orthodox Church as Moral Norm Entrepreneur,” Religion, State, Society 44/2 (2016): 132–51.

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United Nations. Value Politics, edited by Anne Stensvold, 62–78. London/New York: Routledge, 2017. Laffin, Michael Richard. The Promise of Martin Luther’s Political Theology. Freeing Luther from the Modern Political Narrative. London/New York: Bloomsbury/T&T Clark, 2016. Papanikolaou, Aristotle. The Mystical as Political. Democracy and Non-Radical Orthodoxy. Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 2012. The Russian Orthodox Church. “The Russian Orthodox Church’s Basic Teaching on Human Dignity, Freedom and Rights.” Accessed January 22, 2019. https://mospat .ru/en/documents/dignity-freedom-rights/. Stoeckl, Kristian. “The Russian Orthodox Church as Moral Norm Entrepreneur.” Religion, State, Society 44/2 (2016): 132–51.

part 8

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chapter 14

The Paradoxical Way of Experiencing Faith through Spiritual Attack (Anfechtung – Tentatio) Elisabeth Parmentier In one of his Table talks, Martin Luther says: “Sola experientia facit theologum”: “Yet experience alone makes the theologian.”1 Far from being an occasional statement, it is a distinctive mark of his theology. But in this case, does Luther not himself contradict his own struggle against the “enthusiasts,” for whom it was enough to “have the Spirit” without undertaking great biblical and theological explorations? Martin Luther’s affirmation could seduce contemporaries in search of emotions and experiences that can respond to their spiritual quest. The experience would in this case illuminate a path of spirituality authenticated by joy, peace, charisms and the feeling of abundance. In fact, for the reformer, the experience in this particular case concerns the “tentatio,” which he also calls “Anfechtung,” a going through trial, a spiritual attack. It was also a concrete struggle lived in certain periods of Luther’s life, especially against diseases or against his doubt about the legitimacy of his struggle. But actually, he interprets this trial, beyond his own situation, as a struggle of the “devil” who disputes his sovereignty with God. The paradox is that it is precisely this experience of Anfechtung, and not joy or peace, that shaped him into a “good” theologian, as he wrote in 1539, near the end of his life. Moreover, he adds that this experience is not only decisive for him, but also a “legitimate” way of doing theology. It is therefore necessary to specify what the concept of experience means for the reformer, what the specific experience of tentatio represents, and how it is epistemologically decisive.2

1 Martin Luther, “Value of Knowledge Gained by Experience” (Summer or Fall 1531), Table Talk nr. 46, lw 54 (Table Talk), Jaroslav Pelikan & Helmuth T. Lehmann (eds.) (Philadelphia-Saint Louis: Fortress Press-Concordia, 1967), 7 (original German: wa tr 1:16, 13, Nr. 46). 2 A recent publication shows that this is not a detail but a major issue: Pierre Bühler et al., eds., Anfechtung. Versuch der Entmarginalisierung eines Klassikers (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016). © Elisabeth Parmentier, 2021 | doi:10.1163/9789004461253_015 This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license.

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Which Experience? Daily Life and Bodily Life as Means of a Relationship with God

The concept of experience has specific contours, in Martin Luther’s thought. For this reason, before focusing on the experience of spiritual trial and struggle, the concept of experience in its positive sense will be explored first. 1.1 The Experience of God’s Gifts through the Body One aspect of Luther’s approach to spiritual experience is its accessibility through the senses. Much more than other reformers, he insists on the material realities of the world and of the body as means of encounter with God. God’s gifts can reach the heart, thanks to the power of the Holy Spirit, when they are made accessible to the senses. External words and material realities (the texts of Scripture, the water of baptism, the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper) are effective in awakening faith, for they proclaim and give Christ himself through the senses. This is the meaning of promissio (in German: Zusage) that leads to faith: promissio is the divine giving “promise” personally adressed to a person (Zusage). For Luther, the sensory process must be taken seriously, and the priority is given to the sense of hearing, because of Rom 10:17: fides ex auditu, “faith comes from what we hear.” The ear is physically solicited by the proclamation as much as by the contents, because preaching is definitely an active word which touches the person, and finally offers what the word promises. The external word is the mediation that realizes what is announced. Thus the words of institution of the sacrament at the Lord’s Supper are not an explanation or a simple historical reminder, but the proclamation of the Gospel, as coming from Christ himself: “This is my body” is Christ in person. This Zusage-promissio, in conjunction with faith and by the power of the Holy Spirit, operates what it proclaims. The divine reality to which faith is attached must be “external” to it: “It shall and must be something external, that it may be apprehended by the senses, and understood and thereby be brought into the heart, as indeed the entire Gospel is an external, verbal preaching.”3 The reformatory movement was quickly marked by the major conflict of 1529 in Marburg, between Luther and Zwingli but also Karlstadt and Œcolampadius. Against Luther and influenced by Erasmus, they argued that the experience of receiving God’s gifts is shared between the Holy Spirit and human spirits. And so, the sacrament is only a “sign” where the material species 3 Martin Luther, “The Large Catechism,” Part 4, “Of Baptism,” accessed February 2, 2019, http:// www.lutherdansk.dk/Large%20Catechism%20-%20Web/index.htm.

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make no difference. For Luther, on the contrary, the bodily and sensory reality itself will be, just like the word, both spoken and heard, a way of receiving the Gospel which is capable of transforming the person. Why does Luther insist on the sacraments as inscribed in the body? Certainly against the enthusiasts, but also, and this is particularly interesting for anthropology, because God’s gift remains solid even if faith falters, and the faithful can rely upon it: Were I to be baptized on my own faith, I might tomorrow find myself unbaptized, if faith failed me, or I became worried that I might not yesterday have had the faith rightly. […] Nothing is lacking in baptism. Always something is lacking in faith. However long our life, always there is enough to learn in regard to faith. It can happen that faith fails, so that it is said, “See, he had faith but has it no more.” But one cannot say about baptism, “See, baptism was there but is no longer present.” No, it remains […].4 Moreover, this “real” gift of Christ, given to anyone who approaches it, is also underlined as a sharing in community. The sacrament is not reserved for believers, as Calvin will say, precisely because the sacrament “stands” in spite of people’s capacity for fidelity. Moreover, for Luther, to stand only by one’s own faith is to despise the importance and very meaning of the incarnation of God, who became inseparable from the human destiny. The other reformers rather valued the glorified body of Christ ascended to the Father. Historian Dorothea Wendebourg notes the fundamental importance of corporality, the senses and materiality in Luther’s anthropology.5 She emphasizes that faith does not rely on itself but can be developed through an external process. And she shows to what extent Luther conceives the response of faith as a joy of the senses.6 The experience is therefore “real” in a double sense: experienced as a real transformation, and received through the material realities of texts, water, bread, and wine. The reformatory reversal therefore resides in the consciousness that believers are beneficiaries and not debtors of God. The Gospel does not depend on virtue and sacrifice, but presents Christ as a gift. Not the faithful are serving God, rather they let God offer God’s gifts, so that they can bear fruit 4 Martin Luther, “Concerning Rebaptism” (1528), lw 40:253 (wa 26,165,25–166,8). 5 Dorothea Wendebourg, “La Parole, le sacrement et les sens,” Positions luthériennes 66/1 (2018): 1–19. 6 Wendebourg, “La Parole, le sacrement et les sens,” 13–17 and 17–19.

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in their commitment to their neighbor. There is therefore a real experience in enjoying the benefits offered by Christ. The Experience of Existential and Ecclesial Transformation by the Sacraments Because of this emphasis on the benefits of sharing the sacraments, Luther affirmed also an experience of transformation of the community. For the reception of God’s gifts in daily life and in the sacrament is not merely an emotional experience or an aesthetic jubilation, but a profound dynamic of a transformation:

1.2

Each grain loses its form and body and acquires the common body of the bread, and as the drops of wine losing their own form become the body of one wine: so should it be with us, and is, indeed, if we use this sacrament aright. Christ with all saints, by His love, takes upon Himself our form, fight with us against sin, death and all evil; this enkindles in us such love that we take His form, rely upon His righteousness, life and blessedness, and through the interchange of His blessings and our misfortunes are one loaf, one bread, one body, one drink, and have all things in common. […] Again, through this same love, we are to be changed and to make the infirmities of all other Christians our own, take upon ourselves their form and their necessity and makes theirs all the good that is within our power, that they may enjoy it. That is real fellowship and that is the true significance of this sacrament. In this way we are changed into one another and are brought into fellowship with one another by love, without which there can be no such change.7 The translation should use “communion” rather than “fellowship,” because the transformation realized in the sacrament incorporates the believers in the communion of saints. This statement truly shows an anthropology marked by kenosis. For it does not pursue the affirmation of the tradition that the human being, through the sacrament of union with Christ, would be in a process of divinization. On the contrary, it is a way through which humanity and the conditions of finiteness are assumed. Luther’s understanding of transformation envisions a human being who accepts to bear his human infirmities, and 7 “A Treatise Concerning the Blessed Sacrament of the Holy and True Body of Christ and Concerning the Brotherhoods,” lw 35, § 14. See also J.J. Schindel’s translation, available here (accessed March 1, 2019): https://www.checkluther.com/wp-content/uploads/1519-A -Treatise-Concerning-the-Blessed-Sacrament-of-the-Holy-and-True-Body-of-Christ-and -Concerning-the-Brotherhoods.pdf.

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moreover also bears the weaknesses of other (poor) people. It is therefore a real, sensory experience, rooted in the five senses as its mediations. But it is also a paradoxical one, through the emphasis of kenosis rather than the exaltation of divinization. This may seem very strange, because how can this way of kenosis, which is certainly closer to Jesus of Nazareth, but far from the jubilation of Easter, be the right understanding of theology, even of the best of theologies? And how can the daily, sad experience of the trial, by diseases, misfortunes, death and unpredictable contingencies, relate to God? 2

The Paradoxical Experience of the Attack

Let us specify how Luther sees Anfechtung, the experience of God through the trial of his abandonment. Some translations prefer the term “attack,” because Luther is talking about real assaults, a spiritual struggle that leaves someone in disarray, with the question: has God’s promise any reliability? But an even greater subtlety lies in the other facet of temptation: according to Luther’s logic, when joy and success triumph, the risk would be even greater, for this ease would suggest that it is the result of one’s own efforts of virtue. The central document for this problem is a late writing: the Preface to the publication of his German writings in Wittenberg in 1539.8 Luther emphasizes that he takes into account the works of the Fathers and councils, but that like saint Augustine, he wants to be “subject only to Scripture,” the other writings need to be valued but with freedom: “[…] It behooves us to let the prophets and the apostles stand at the professor’s lectern, while we, down below at their feet, listen to what they say. It is not they who must hear what we say.”9 2.1 The Three Rules Even before the reformers began their work, they entrusted theologians with this central exhortation: Firstly, you should know that the Holy Scriptures constitute a book that turns the wisdom of all other books into foolishness, because not one teaches about eternal life except this one alone. Therefore you should 8 Martin Luther, “Preface to the Wittenberg Edition of Luther’s German Writings,” accessed February 21, 2019, https://www.wls.wels.net/rmdevser_wls/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/ Helpful-Articles-Luthers-Preface-to-the-Wittenberg-Edition-of-His-German-Writings -Luther.pdf. 9 Luther, “Preface to the Wittenberg Edition.”

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straightway despair of your reason and understanding. With them you will not attain eternal life, but, on the contrary, your presumptuousness will plunge you and others with you out of heaven (as happened to Lucifer) into the abyss of hell. But kneel down in your little room [Matt 6:6] and pray to God with real humility and earnestness, that he through his dear Son may give you his Holy Spirit, who will enlighten you, lead you and give you understanding.10 This clearly shows that, in Luther’s anthropology, reason must be submitted to the “master of Scripture.” But how do we know that it is the Holy Spirit who speaks, and not the human spirit? For this discernment, Luther orients the study of the Bible according to three “rules” drawn from Psalm 119, which he still attributes, according to the tradition of his time, to King David: oratio, meditatio, tentatio, which do not form juxtaposed poles but a dynamic interrelation. Oratio, prayer, the first step in the journey of studying the Scriptures, is an expectation and openness to the Word of God, an availability rather than an act of prayer: Although he [David] well knew and daily heard the text of Moses and other books besides, still he wants to lay hold of the real teacher of the Scriptures himself, so that he may not seize upon them pell-mell with his reason and become his own teacher. For such practice gives rise to factious spirits who allow themselves to nurture the delusion that the Scriptures are subject to them and can be easily grasped with their reason, as if they were Markolf or Aesop’s Fables, for which no Holy Spirit and no prayers are needed.11 The call for the help of the Holy Spirit is not of a charismatic type, in the sense of an additional gift or signs of evidence, but rather it shows the interpreter how one, as a reader of the text, is already interpreted by the text! Despairing of one’s reason and understanding, and invoking the Holy Spirit, one avoids assuming the prerogatives of the true master, one allows the text to be the true master as a reliable place for the Word of God. Meditatio is not meditation in the sense of postmodernity. It is not oriented towards spirituality, in expectation of the immediacy of the Holy Spirit. Rather, it concentrates on the rumination of the text in the search for a living word to 10 11

Luther, “Preface to the Wittenberg Edition.” Luther, “Preface to the Wittenberg Edition.” See also Philip D. Krey, ed., Luther’s Spirituality, trans. Peter D. Krey (New York: Paulist Press, 2007), 119s.

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be discerned in the written text, through the passage from the letter and the literal meaning to the living Word: […] you should meditate […] by actually repeating and comparing oral speech and literal words of the book, reading and rereading them with diligent attention and reflection, so that you may see what the Holy Spirit means by them. And take care that you do not grow weary or think that you have done enough when you have read, heard and spoken once or twice, and that you then have complete understanding.12 Such an experience is different from mystical union, even if it uses the same categories of union with Christ. The total dependence on Christ is not an illumination that leads to celestial properties. The process is an experience of physical discipline, based on the exteriority of the formulated word, since it involves stirring up the words, giving them voice, so that they will touch. To meditate is to be (completely) driven by the Word of God.13 Because “God will not give you his Spirit without the external word.”14 Tentatio, “tribulation” or trial, had the meaning of “attack” in Mittelhochdeutsch, the Anfechtung was a sort of physical fight against another person. Thus, it is not only a question of the reality of disease or misfortune, but also of evil and, as Luther points out, of the devil. This trial at the limit of human forces lies on a different plane than doubt or trial as Thomas Aquinas conceived it, for it is truly the experience of what is opposed to faith, and the feeling of God’s abandonment. How then is it conceivable that this experience may be beneficial? Tentatio as Real Maturity 2.2 Luther’s original contribution lies in this third term tentatio, because the triad beginning with oratio and meditatio was known to the Fathers, but it culminated in illuminatio or contemplatio. The challenge which comes from the link with experience lies precisely in replacing illuminatio by tentatio: “Thirdly, there is tentatio, Anfechtung. This is the touchstone which teaches you not only to know and understand, but also to experience how right, how true, how sweet, how lovely, how mighty, how comforting God’s Word is, wisdom beyond all wisdom.”15

12 13 14 15

Luther, “Preface to the Wittenberg Edition.” Luther, “Preface to the Wittenberg Edition.” Luther, “Preface to the Wittenberg Edition.” Luther, “Preface to the Wittenberg Edition.”

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In order to understand this paradox, Luther relies directly on the example of King David, whom he shows in the grip of enemies – a parallel image of the “good theologian”: For as soon as God’s Word takes roots and grows in you, the devil will harry you, and will make a real doctor of you and by his assaults will teach you to seek and love God’s Word. I myself (if you will permit me, mere mouse-dirt, to be mingled with pepper) am deeply indebted to my papists that through the devil’s raging they have beaten, oppressed and distressed me so much. That is to say, they have made a fairly good theologian of me, which I would not have become otherwise.16 But why a good theologian? Because the test of God’s abandonment allows him to find his true, reliable manifestations: Christ proclaimed in Scripture and received in the sacraments, God speaking and acting. Reason cannot as such be used to understand that these are the reliable places of God’s proxi­ mity and gifts, for otherwise human wisdom would have proven sufficient. We need the gift of the Spirit who reveals it and allows it to be grasped by faith. 3

The Extreme Test: Facing Death

Scholars underline the importance of Psalm 119 in Luther’s life, giving him courage in resisting prosecutions, and enabling him to endure the Pope’s refusal to comply with his requests. He stood by the Word of God, which he transmitted by abandoning all sovereignty to it. The novelty of Luther’s taking into account of his ordeal found wide resonance in many events of his life. He was particularly affected by his spiritual experience, which he described in 1545, a year before his death, in the Preface to the first volume of the edition of the Latin writings: it was through incessant rumination and suffering before God that he had been able to gain another understanding of the divine justice offered by grace.17 But this biblical rumination, in which the human being discovers himself interpreted and beneficiary of the Word of God, seems to us to be tested in the way Luther reflects, in his sermons, on the experience of the supreme tentatio, namely the confrontation with death. 16 lw 34:286–87. 17 “Preface to the Complete Edition of Luther’s Latin Writings” (1545), lw 34:336–37 (the “tower experience”).

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Thus, as early as 1519, when he had not yet formalized his reflections on tentatio, aspects of it could be seen in his Sermon on Preparing to Die (1519). This sermon reveals a completely new profile, when compared to the tradition of the artes moriendi found in spiritual texts of the Middle Ages. These “arts of dying” called for familiarizing oneself with death by meditating on one’s life and death, by ruminating on one’s shortcomings and failures. This is not far from a genre of contemporary “wisdom of death” literature that advises to pacify oneself, to become reconciled with oneself and with others. Luther brings the opposite orientation to his sermon, whose radicality is based on his experience with Scripture. In this extreme situation, it is necessary to arrange temporal matters, to apologize to detractors, and take leave of the entourage. Then Luther recommends turning resolutely and confidently to God in trust, and to no longer look to sin, death and the devil! Moreover, we must look at how “death is strangled and overcome by life” in Christ. He transforms the situation of spiritual anguish by recommending not to ruminate on one’s own incapacities but to pray and to see oneself sheltered in the communion of the whole Church. The person in fear of imminent death is encouraged to say this: God promised and in his sacraments he gave me a sure sign of his grace that Christ’s life overcame my death in his death, that his obedience blotted out my sin in his suffering, that his love destroyed my hell in his forsakenness. This sign and promise of my salvation will not lie to me or deceive me. It is God who has promised it, and he cannot lie either by words or in deeds.18 The knowledge of this promise comes from Scripture, which the Spirit enables us to interpret. Luther still insists that doubting is similar to making God into a liar. Likewise, for those who scrutinize their own dignity, he says that the only dignity is faith: The evil spirit brings up the question of worthiness and unworthiness to stir doubts within you, thus nullifying the sacraments with their benefits and making God a liar in what he says. God gives you nothing because of your worthiness, nor does he build his Word and sacraments on your worthiness, but out of sheer grace he establishes you, unworthy one, on the foundation of his Word and signs.19 18 19

“A Sermon on Preparing to Die,” § 15, lw 42:109. “A Sermon on Preparing to Die,” § 16, lw 42:110.

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It is the help offered in Christ, given in the sacraments, but also by the entourage of the whole communion of saints, that comes to the aid of the person, who is not alone and above all has nothing to achieve by her own strength. The trial is mentioned again at the end of the sermon, where it is presented not as an insurmountable struggle, but as a test that shows the extent of all the benefits received and the ultimate power of God: “Why then should he not impose something big upon you (such as dying), as long as he adds to it great benefits, help, and strength, and thereby wants to test the power of his grace?”20 4

What Is the Particularity of This Experience?

We note, after this survey, that the experience presented by the reformer does not meet the expectations of contemporaries in search of extraordinary spiritual experiences, because ultimately it is above all an experience with Scripture.21 And moreover, does not the link, which is so specific to Luther’s life, imply that the experience may not be transferable, or even relevant for other people at other times? 4.1 An “Apocalyptic” Anthropology Oswald Bayer, a specialist of Martin Luther, stresses that this concept of experience offered by the mediation of Scripture is broader than the individual human subject.22 Far from limiting it to a kind of personal mysticism, Luther extends it to an ecclesiological orientation of the Church that suffers for the Gospel. Moreover, his reading is not only existential but eschatological: suffering for the true Word of God is part of one’s self-abandonment to its sovereignty. Bayer considers that this anthropology, which is guided by the experience of tribulation, appears as early as Luther’s treatise On the Freedom of the Christian (1520) He notes that the terms “experience” (experimentum), “test” (probare), “tribulations” (tribulationes), “temptations” (tentationes) appear there, and that all these patterns are set within an “apocalyptic” understanding.23 It is a real fight – not only an inner struggle of the individual, but a global/communal one. It concerns the very priority of the first commandment: everything which is not taken over by God in life and the world is ruled by other idols. Therefore, 20 “A Sermon on Preparing to Die,” § 20, lw 42:114. 21 Timothy J. Wengert, Reading the Bible with Martin Luther. An Introductory Guide (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2013). 22 Oswald Bayer, Theology the Lutheran Way (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007), 38s. 23 Bayer, Theology the Lutheran Way, 62.

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the trial is salutary, because the spiritual attack is what teaches us to stand by the Word of God and not by idols. This is summarized by Bayer in an article in which he tries to convey the essence of Luther’s teaching in twenty questions, based on statements made by the reformer. Question 16 alludes to the importance of tentatio: Is your theological existence determined by prayer (oratio), meditation (meditatio), and attack (tentatio); that is, by the fact that, driven as you are by Anfechtung, you enter prayerfully into Holy Scripture and are interpreted by it in order that you can interpret it for others who are under spiritual attack, so that they too enter prayerfully into Holy Scripture and are interpreted by it?24 So Scripture and experience are not parallel or complementary paths. Instead, one will be able to experience what the Word of God does through Scripture: “What makes the theologian is not experience as such, but the experience of scripture […]. It means letting the author, the triune God, work in me through the scriptures. That is the passivity that is unique to the experience of faith.”25 But here again, however, it is necessary to avoid the misunderstanding of a literalistic conception of this passivity of the believer’s life, as if the experience amounts simply to endure misery. On the contrary, preaching and the proclamation of the Word of God show the other dimension of experience: the dimension which manifests how good the Lord is. This leads to the sensory experience, already mentioned at the outset, of receiving Christ through the five senses in the preaching and the sacraments. The Epistemological Value of Anfechtung 4.2 This statement from the Preface to the publication of his German writings in Wittenberg is worth noting: “Moreover I want to point out to you a correct way of studying theology, for I have had practice in that. If you keep to it, you will become so learned that you yourself could (if it were necessary) write books just as good as those of the fathers and councils.”26 Why is the experience of tentatio so important, not only for Luther and the believers, but also for theology? Luther was not the first to value experience as 24 Oswald Bayer, “Twenty Questions on the Relevance of Luther for Today,” Lutheran Quarterly 29 (2015): 442 (available online, consulted December 27, 2018: http://www .lutheranquarterly.com/uploads/7/4/0/1/7401289/bayer20points.pdf). 25 Bayer, Theology the Lutheran Way, 63–64. 26 Luther, Preface.

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a fertile ground for theology, and the same could be said of many theological endeavors. As Gerhard Ebeling recalls, saint Augustine developed a theology where experience permeates everything. It is therefore not surprising that the semantic field of experience recurs throughout Luther’s works. But it is not only about statistics. Rather, it is about how to take experience into account: “For his part, Luther occupies a special place in the history of theology because, in his thinking, experience not only condenses in an original way, but for the first time becomes explicitly the subject of constant reflection about its constitutive meaning for theology.”27 Experience is necessary for, and even an integral part of, understanding theology itself. For the reformer, theology is not the construction of the multidisciplinary system developed in the 18th century, but above all the study of Scripture. Thus it is not an acquisition of knowledge, as we imagine it today when one easily opposes academic theology and religious life, personal faith experience and scientific theology. Rather, it is a journey through biblical confrontation and the resulting crisis. Experience is a test that teaches dependence on Christ, it is not a knowledge or a discourse about experience. The way in which experience is a source of theology implies the posture of being involved as a theologian in what one is teaching. In this respect, it is not a controlled and controllable experience. The perception of the experience itself is transformed.28 It is a theology that allows itself to be contradicted and thwarted by the way God reveals Godself and gives life, a theology that does not seek to control God. 5

A Fruitfulness for Ecumenical Dialogues?

How can this Lutheran accent be received in ecumenical dialogues? Would this promote dialogue with Churches that insist on experience rather than doctrine, such as the Orthodox Church, but also charismatic Churches? An undeniable contribution would be the insistence on the need to value methods of dialogue that are not only conceptual and doctrinal but also bene­ fit from spiritual experience, in order to build a common foundation on the shared affirmation of salvation in Christ. This intuition of a possible sharing 27 Gerhard Ebeling, “Die Klage über das Erfahrungsdefizit in der Theologie als Frage nach ihrer Sache,” in Wort und Glaube, vol. 3. Beiträge zur Fundamentaltheologie, Soteriologie und Ekklesiologie (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1972), 6–7 (my translation). 28 Gerhard Ebeling and Eberhard Jüngel spoke of an “experience with the experience” (die Erfahrung mit der Erfahrung).

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and a deepening of bonds through the experience of faith is already proven in dialogue committees which practice liturgical sharing or dialogues of spirituality, such as those that exist notably between monastic or religious communities. Conversations with Churches of the Pentecostal or evangelical movement have also developed a method of mutual learning through the narrative of the experience of faith, especially in the methods of the meetings in the Global Christian Forum. These spaces for dialogue are important also insofar as they help participants realize that the “other Church” is also faithful. They contri­ bute to overcoming the logic of missionary competition. Experience as a common starting point can also help to re-center the search for the unity of the churches in the affirmation of the basic gift of life received in Christ, which is at the heart of the whole Christian celebration. This core aspect relativizes a number of more difficult issues. It is noteworthy that one of the first texts of ecumenical agreements between the Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church, The Mystery of the Church and the Eucharist in the Light of the Mystery of the Holy Trinity (1982), focuses on the theology of God’s gift in Christ, and the purpose is indeed to rest upon a shared basis: “In composing this document we want to show that in doing so we express together a faith which is the continuation of that of the Apostles.”29 The question has often been asked in ecumenism if anthropological conceptions are not implicitly at the root of many divergences. This assertion cannot be completely proven, even if the different traditions have different perceptions of the human being, and therefore also of the relationship with God. The Orthodox tradition, which more than the Western Churches values God’s good creation, and therefore also a more positive understanding of human nature, nevertheless knows through the Fathers the spiritual experience of tentatio and spiritual struggle. And yet the Lutheran tradition, which could have been presumed to be suspicious of the body because of its anthropological pessimism, has nevertheless expressed confidence in the capacities of the five senses, thanks to the power of the Holy Spirit, to receive Christ’s gifts in a corporeal way, and the readiness to be able to rejoice in them. It is therefore necessary to avoid excessively harsh anthropological diagnoses. Moreover, the two stakes in the background of anthropology are ecclesio­ logy and ethics, so it is necessary to return from these places to what motivates disputes/disagreements. 29 Joint Commission for Theological Dialogue Between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church, “The Mystery of the Church and the Eucharist in the Light of the Mystery of the Holy Trinity (Munich, 1982),” accessed December 19, 2018, https://blogs .helsinki.fi/ristosaarinen/lutheran-orthodox-dialogue/.

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The present contribution aims above all to distinguish a commonly expected experience of the Christian faith: the good feelings, joy and enthusiasm, from the paradoxical experience as experienced by the Church Fathers and mystics, which seems to take place in the night and in the struggle. Thus, it is important for any Church to encourage the mediation of the senses, corporality and material realities (and not just reason) as tangible bridges for God’s quest. But Martin Luther provides a very helpful safeguard by teaching not to be attached to visible positive signs (success, joy, accomplishment), which would be what he calls a “theology of glory.” Today, Luther would certainly be in clear opposition to the “Prosperity Gospel,” a dazzling development especially in the countries of the global South, including Lutheran churches, which seeks to offer visible evidence and signs of God’s blessing, even affirming that those who do not benefit from it doubt God. These movements consider it to be a lack of faith in God’s promise, if healings, miracles, life changes and moral progress are not actively pursued. Yet the apostle Paul, who benefited from many charisms and even spiritual experiences, made a point of warning the Galatians and other “super-Christians.” This highlights Luther’s concern not to abandon the biblical text that provides us with “safeguards.” For the Fathers, temptation is a way for God – or the devil – to test the strength of faith, and thus it allows the believer to come out of it victorious by the strength of his resistance in faith. For Luther, the movement is the opposite: he abandons courage, strength and resistance in order to let himself be carried entirely by Christ. This emphasis certainly distinguishes Luther from other theological schools by his paradoxical interpretation of the Anfechtung. There is no force to be proved, nothing to be conquered by merit, and therefore the posture of the theologian laminated by the trial is not the excellence of the victorious faith, but the abandonment of all mastery to Christ. It is perhaps because of this extreme that Luther’s point about the Anfechtung is hardly understood, or understood on the contrary as a lazy passivity. The point is rather the radical passivity of trust – This is faith! References Bayer, Oswald. “Twenty Questions on the Relevance of Luther for Today.” Lutheran Quarterly 29 (2015): 439–43. Bayer, Oswald. Theology the Lutheran Way. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007. Bühler, Pierre, Stefan Berg, Andreas Hunziker, and Hartmut von Sass, eds. Anfechtung. Versuch der Entmarginalisierung eines Klassikers. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016.

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Index Aagaard, Anna Marie xxxvii Alivisatos, Hamilcar S. xxii–xxiii, xxxviii Allgaier, Walter 199 n. 46, 210 Ambrose (of Milan) 108 Andreae, Jakob xix Anselm (of Canterbury) xxxiii, 5, 151 Arand, Charles P. 193 n. 26, 212 Arblaster, John 205 n. 64, 212 Aristotle 5–7, 13 n. 19, 24 Arndt, Johann xxi Arnold, Matthieu 77 n. 43, 78 Asendorf, Ulrich 192 n. 21, 195 n. 33, 201 n. 52, 202, 210–211 Askani, Hans-Christoph x, xxxii, 112 Asproulis, Nikolaos xxxviii–xxxix, 96, 91 n. 27 Assel, Heinrich 145 n. 8, 154 n. 20, 159 Athanasius (of Alexandria) xxxiv, 56, 88 n. 18, 196, 217, 224 Atkinson, B. 4 n. 1 Augustine (of Hyppo) 5, 8, 10, 12–13, 22–23, 28, 33, 37, 56, 68, 70–71, 77, 86, 88, 90–91 n. 26, 108, 116, 221, 259, 266 Aulén, Gustav 152, 159 Avgoustinos (Monk) 60 n. 27, 63 Baeck, Leo 127, 136 Barth, Hans-Martin 103, 110 Barth, Karl 9, 92 n. 31, 105 n. 26, 107 n. 38, 110, 155, 229–230, 232–233, 241 Bartholomaios (Ecumenical Patriarch) 186–187 n. 7 Bartholomew (Ecumenical Patriarch) xv, xxiv, xli, 109, 109 n. 46, 110, 223 Basil (of Caesarea) xvii, 82 n. 5,  7, 85 n. 10 Batka, L’ubomír 72 n. 22, 78, 145 n. 8, 159 Bayer, Oswald 21 n. 7, 25 n. 19, 46, 103 n. 9, 105 n. 25, 110, 112 n. 1, 137, 195 n. 33, 211, 264–265, 268 Beauregard, Marc-Antoine Costa (de)  53 n. 11, 63 Begzos, Marios 186 n. 2, 187 n. 6, 188, 211 Behr, John 23 n. 14, 221 n. 15, 225 Beisser, Friedrich 204 n. 58, 211 Bengard, Beate x, xxx, 19

Ben-Tov, Asaph xxxviii Benz, Ernst xxxviii, 107 n. 34, 110 Berg, Stefan 268 Bernard (of Clairvaux) 70, 150 Bielfeldt, Dennis 195 n. 33, 211 Billerbeck, Paul 165 n. 21, 181 Bindseil, Heinrich Ernst xxxviii Boethius 13 Bogdan, Cătălina xxxix, 91 n. 27, 97 Bonhoeffer, Dietrich 240 Bornkamm, Karin 112 n. 1, 137 Borse, Udo 169 n. 39, 179 Bouteneff, Peter xxxvii Braaten, Carl E. xxxviii, 192 n. 22,  23, 201 n. 50, 209 n. 71, 213–214 Bretschneider, Karl Gottlieb xxxviii Briskina, Anna 193 n. 26, 205 n. 62, 209 n. 70, 210 n. 75, 211 Broadhead, Philip 95 n. 35, 96, 238 n. 16, 241 Brown, Raymond E. 168 n. 35, 179 Brush, Jack E. 72 n. 22, 78 Buber, Martin 61 n. 35, 62 n. 36,  37, 63 Bühler, Pierre 255 n. 2, 268 Bülow, Vicco (von) 32 n. 36, 46 Bultmann, Rudolf 74 n. 32, 172 n. 55,  56, 174 n. 68, 175 n. 69,  70, 75, 179 Buren, John (van) 74 n. 32, 78 Burghardt, Walter J. 50 n. 4, 63 Burke, Patrick 108 n. 40, 111 Büttgen, Philippe 122 n. 9, 137 Cabasilas, Nicholas xxxiv, 83 n. 8, 90 n. 23, 24, 96, 108, 169 n. 42, 218–221, 224 Cairns, David 50 n. 4, 63 Calvin, John xli, 257, 42 n. 61 Carevskij, Aleksěj Aleksandrovič 186 n. 2, 211 Cargill Thompson, W. D. James 95 n. 35, 96, 238–239 n. 17, 241 Cassian, John 221, 224 Chirban, John T. iv, 48 n. 1, 63 Choniates, Michael 59 Chrysostomos (archbishop of Athens) xxii Clement (of Alexandria) xxx, 55, 60 Collins, Raymond F. 169 n. 38,  39, 179

292 Congourdeau, Marie-Hélène 219 Conrad, Ernst xxxix Cope, Brian E. xxxix Copleston, Frederick Charles 6 n. 6, 15 Cozza-Luzi, Giuseppe 63 Cranfield, Charles E. B. 166 n. 23, 175, 177 n. 83, 179 Cremer, Hermann 151 n. 15 Crusius, Martin xix Cyril (of Alexandria) xxxiv, 56, 61, 86 n. 14, 189 n. 13, 217–218, 224 Damian, Peter 5 Daniélou, Jean 57, 63, 82 n. 7, 96, 108 n. 40, 111 Delikostantis, Konstantinos vi, x, xxxii–xxxviii, 13, 10 n. 14, 15, 91 n. 27, 96, 101, 112, 135 Delling, Gerhard 174 n. 62,  63, 179 Denzinger, Heinrich 159 Deppermann, Klaus 107 n. 36, 110 Descartes, René 53, 105 Despotis, Athanasios 163 n. 7, 180 Diadochos (of Photiki) 56 Dickens, Arthur Geoffrey 95 n. 35, 96, 238 n. 16, 241 Dietrich, Veit 68 Dingel, Irene 145 n. 8, 159 Dionysios (the Areopagite) 218 n. 4,  5, 225 Dolscius, Paul xviii Dorner, Isaak August 189–190 n. 14, 211 Dositheos II (of Jerusalem) 187 n. 7 Dostoevsky, Fyodor 9, 53 Dunn, James G. 156 D-Vasilescu, Elena Ene 190 n. 15, 211 Dyovouniotis, Konstantinos xxii Ebeling, Gerhard 22 n. 11,  9, 46, 93 n. 32, 95 n. 35, 96, 101 n. 1, 110, 112 n. 1, 137, 195 n. 33, 211, 233, 240–241, 266, 269 Eck, Johann xvi Edwards, Mark 190 n. 15, 211 Eliot, Thomas S. 54 Engelland, Hans 145 n. 10, 160 Eparchos, Antonios xvii–xviii Epiphanius (of Salamis) xviii, 50 Erasmus (of Rotterdam) 67–68, 79, 101, 145, 256

Index Eubank, Nathan 168 n. 34,  36, 179 Eusebius (of Caesarea) 189 n. 13, 245–246 Evagrios (of Pontos) 58, 60 Evergetinos, Paulos 49 n. 3, 64 Faesen, Rob 205 n. 64, 212 Fangmeier, Jürgen 105 n. 26, 110 Fedotov, Gueorgui Petrovitch 49 n. 2, 63 Feine, Paul 166 n. 26 FitzGerald, Thomas xxxix Fitzmyer, Joseph A. 163 n. 10,  8, 164 n. 14,  15, 175 n. 73, 179 Flogaus, Reinhard xxix, xxxiii, xxxviii, 96, 93 n. 32, 185, 186 n. 4, 195 n. 33, 201 n. 51, 202 n. 53, 210 n. 74, 211, 222–223, 225 Florovsky, Georges xx, xxii–xxiii, xxxvi–xxxviii, 106, 106 n. 29,  30, 31, 32, 33, 110 Fotiade, Ramona 9 n. 11, 15 Galanis, Ioannis 174 n. 67, 179 Gause, Ute 32 n. 36, 33 n. 38, 46 Gerrish, Brian Albert 9 n. 12, 15 Getcha, Job xxxiv, 216 Ghiselli, Anja 191 n. 18, 194 n. 28, 201 n. 50, 204 n. 60, 213–215 Gillett, Grant 56 n. 18, 64 Gilson, Etienne 5 n. 2, 6 n. 4, 15 Gloege, Gerhard 157, 159 Gollwitzer, Helmuth 105 n. 26 Göz, Wilhelm xxxix Grdzelidze, Tamara xv Gregory vi (Patriarch of Constantinople) xxii Gregory (of Nazianzus) xviii, 56, 62, 81 n. 3, 86 n. 13 Gregory (of Nyssa) 57, 64, 82 n. 5,  7 Gritsch, Eric W. 193, 211 Grosvenor, Mary 164 n. 13, 176 n. 79, 181 Grünstäudl, Wolfgang 168 n. 34, 179 Gustavus Adolphus (King of Sweden) xx Gutbrod, Walter 166 n. 26 Hacker, Paul 104–105 n. 23,  24, 26, 110 Hallensleben, Barbara xxxix Harakas, Stanley 245, 250 Harnack, Adolf (von) 153 Hauerwas, Stanley 230–231, 236–237, 241

Index Heckel, Johannes 238 n. 16, 241 Hegel, Georg W. F. 109 Heidegger, Martin x, 57, 74 n. 32, 78 Henkel, Jürgen 36 n. 44, 46 Herder, Johann Gottfried (von) 42 Hering, Gunnar 91 n. 27, 96, 190, 212 Heubach, Joachim 93 n. 32, 96, 191 n. 19, 192 n. 21, 203 n. 56, 211, 214 Heyer, Friedrich 40 n. 54, 46, 106, 110 Hinten, Wolfgang (von) 197 n. 38, 212 Hirsch, Emanuel 154 Hofius, Otfried 162 n. 4, 170 n. 45,  46, 174 n. 63, 179 Hofmann, Johan (von) 166 n. 25, 179 Hollaz, David xxi Holl, Karl 153–154, 159 Holm, Bo xxxix Horsfjord, Vebjørn N. 250 Horton, Michael S. 194 n. 31, 212 Hovorun, Cyril xxxix Huizing, Klaas 67 n. 3, 78 Hünermann, Peter 159 Hunziker, Andreas 268 Husbands, Mark 193 n. 26, 212 Hussey, J. M. 90 n. 23, 96 Ioasaph ii (Patriarch) xviii, 3, 186 Irenaeus (of Lyons) xxx, xxxiv 10, 23, 55–57, 59, 81 n. 2, 216, 225 Isaac, Gordon L. 195 n. 33, 212 Isaias (Abba) 60, 63 Iserloh, Erwin xxxix Ivan iv (Tsar) 188 Iwand, Hans Joachim 145, 154–155, 159 Jenson, Robert W. xxxviii, 192 n. 22,  23, 195 n. 33, 201 n. 50, 209 n. 71,  72, 211, 213–214 Jeremiah (Metropolitan of Switzerland) xli Jeremiah II (Patriarch of Constantinople) xxiv, xxviii, 3, 102, 135, 186, 189 Joest, Wilfried 173 n. 59,  60, 174 n. 61, 179 John (Chrysostom) 86 n. 14, 89 n. 22, 102, 106, 162 n. 3,  4, 173 John (Duns Scotus) 6 John (of Damascus) 56, 84 n. 9, 87 n. 16 Jorgenson, Wayne James xxxix Jung, Carl 59, 63

293 Junge, Martin xlv Jüngel, Eberhard xiii, 13 n. 19, 15, 92 n. 31, 104 n. 15,  21, 110, 130 n. 16, 136, 157, 159, 204 n. 60, 212, 266 n. 28 Kallis, Anastasios xxxix Kamppuri, Hannu T. 222 n. 20, 225 Kant, Immanuel 118, 122–123, 144, 148–149 n. 13, 210 n. 73 Karavidopoulos, Johannes 175 n. 77,  78, 177 n. 83, 180 Kärkkäinen, Veli-Matti ii, 195 n. 33, 212 Karlstadt, Andreas 256 Karmiris, John xxxix, 102 n. 4,  5, 6, 8, 110–111, 135 n. 23,  24, 136, 186 n. 5, 189 n. 11, 212 Karyophylles, John 187 n. 7 Käsemann, Ernst 165 n. 20,  21, 22, 166 n. 24, 177 n. 83, 180 Kelsey, Catherine L. 159 n. 30, 160 Kesich, Lydia W. xl Khalil, Jack xxxiii, 161, 163 n. 7, 171 n. 50, 180 Khomiakov, Aleksěj S 186 n. 2, 212 Kierkegaard, Søren x, 8–9 n. 11, 12, 61, 63 Kinnamon, Michael xxxix Klimakos, John 60 Knuuttila, Simo 195 n. 33, 211 Koch, Hans xxii Kolb, Robert 145 n. 8, 159, 193, 200 n. 48, 212 Kopperi, Kari 194 n. 28, 201 n. 50, 204 n. 60, 213–215 Korte, Berthold F. xxxix Kretschmar, Georg xxiv Krey, Philip D. 260 n. 11, 269 Küng, Hans 110 Kurschus, Annette 32 n. 36, 46 Kuss, Otto 164 n. 14,  16, 176 n. 81, 177 n. 82,  85, 180 Laato, Timo 195 n. 33, 201 n. 52, 202, 212 Laffin, Michael Richard 95 n. 35, 96, 242–245, 247–248, 250 Langerbeck, Hermann 57 n. 21, 64 Larentzakis, Gregorios 106 n. 28, 111 Latomus, Jacques 155 Lawler, Edwina 159 n. 30, 160 Lemeni, Daniel 205 n. 64,  66, 206 n. 67, 212 Leppin, Volker 101 n. 2, 111

294 Liagre, Guy xxxix Lienhard, Marc 95 n. 35, 96, 233 n. 8, 240 n. 19, 241 Livingstone, Elizabeth A. 60 n. 27, 64 Lombard, Peter 68–69 n. 6 Lopes Pereira, Jairzinho 76 n. 39, 78, 91 n. 26, 96 Lossky, Vladimir xiii, 53 n. 12, 64, 189, 205 n. 62, 206, 212 Lotze, Rudolf Hermann 210 Loukaris, Cyril xx, 102, 187 Louth, Andrew 78 n. 45, 79 Lubac, Henri (de) 108 n. 40, 111 Luz, Ulrich 175 n. 70, 180 MacIntyre, Alasdair C. 12 n. 16,  17, 15 Makarios (the Egyptian) 54, 61 Makrides, Vasilios N. 102 n. 7, 111, 135 n. 25, 137 Mandilaras, Basil G. 167 n. 30, 180 Mannermaa, Tuomo 93 n. 32, 96, 191–196, 200–201 n. 50,  51, 52, 202–203 n. 56, 204 n. 61, 209, 212–214, 222, 225 Mantzaridis, Georgios 169 n. 41, 180 Marquart, Kurt E. 93 n. 32, 96, 202, 204 n. 59, 213, 222 n. 17,  18, 20, 225 Marshall, Bruce D. 208 n. 69, 213 Martin, Bernard 9 n. 11, 15 Marxsen, Willi 166 n. 26,  27, 180 Mattes, Mark C. 195 n. 33, 213 Matthaiou, V. 49 n. 3, 64 Maurer, Ernstpeter 143, 160 Maximos (the Confessor) 11, 56–57, 60–61, 80, 82 n. 6, 83 n. 8, 89 n. 21,  22 McInroy, Mark J. 209 n. 70, 213 McNulty, P. A. 90 n. 23, 96 McPartlan, Paul 52 n. 7, 64 Medick, Hans 102 n. 7, 111, 135 n. 25, 137 Meimaris, Theodore xxxix, 91 n. 27, 97 Melanchthon, Philipp xv, xvii, xviii, 3, 145–147, 160, 186, 200–202 n. 53 Melloni, Alberto 187 n. 7, 213 Merdjanova, Ina 39 n. 51, 40 n. 55, 46 Merk, Otto 166 n. 27, 174 n. 62,  63, 180 Meyendorff, John xxxix, 50, 60 n. 30, 64, 74 n. 32, 78 n. 45, 79, 223, 225 Meyer, Dietrich 185 n. 1, 211 Michel, Otto 175 n. 70, 177 n. 83, 180

Index Michelangelo 53 Milbank, John 195 n. 32, 213, 242–243, 248 Mitralexis, Sotiris 195 n. 32, 213 Mogilas, Petrus (Metropolitan of Kiev) xx, 187 n. 7 Moltmann, Jürgen 92 n. 31 Mugurel, Vasilică xxxix Müller, Ulrich 175 n. 76, 180 Münzer, Thomas 101 Mußner, Franz 167 n. 31,  33, 171 n. 48, 180 Myssos, Demetrios xviii Neill, Stephen Charles xxxviii Nellas, Panayiotis 85 n. 12, 86 n. 13, 97, 169 n. 42, 180 Nestorius xxxiv, 217 Neugebauer, Fritz 174 n. 62,  63, 180 Nikitin, Augustin xxxix Nissen, Johannes xl Nissiotis, Nikos xxxix, 97, 85 n. 11, 93 n. 33, 105, 111 Oberman, Heiko xxxvii Oderborn, Paul 189 n. 10, 213 Oikonomou, Christos 175 n. 72, 180 Origen xxx, 23, 55, 59, 82 n. 7, 221, 225, 231 Osiander, Andreas 193 Pabst, Adrian 195 n. 31, 213 Palamas, Gregory xxxiv, 50, 50 n. 5, 59–60, 64, 81 n. 2, 83 n. 8, 85 n. 10, 88 n. 19, 97, 209, 219–220 Pambo (Abba) 205 n. 65 Pannenberg, Wolfhart 42–43 n. 62, 45–46, 202, 213 Pantelis, Kalaitzidis xxxix, 91 n. 27, 96 Papanikolaou, Aristotle xxxv, 242, 245 n. 4, 247 n. 5, 251 Parenti, S. 89 n. 20, 97 Parmentier, Elisabeth xxxvi, 200 n. 47, 255 Păvălucă, Vasilică Mugurel xxxix Peacocke, Arthur Robert 56 n. 18, 64 Pekridou, Aikaterini xxxix Pelagius 8, 221 Pelikan, Jaroslav 19 n. 3, 68 n. 4, 255 n. 1 Pesch, Otto Hermann 101 n. 3, 111 Peter (the Great) xxi

Index Peters, Albrecht 25 n. 20, 28 n. 24, 46 Petschenig, Michael 221 n. 15, 224 Peura, Simo 191 n. 18, 194 n. 28, 196 n. 36, 201 n. 50, 203 n. 56, 204 n. 61, 209 n. 71, 213–214 Philaret (Metropolitan of Moscow) xxi Pichery, Eugène 221 n. 15, 224 Plato 145 Podskalsky, Gerhard 91 n. 27, 97 Porter, J. M. ix, 234 n. 11, 241 Posoškov, Ivan Tichonovič 186 n. 2 Posset, Franz 197 n. 38, 214 Pricop, Cosmin xxxix, 91 n. 27, 97, 187 n. 6, 214 Quenstedt, Johannes Andreas xxi Radu, Dimitri 196 n. 35, 206, 214 Ratschow, Carl Heinz 156 n. 23, 160 Raunio, Antti 191 n. 19, 204 n. 60, 209 n. 71, 214 Reid, Duncan 209–210 n. 73, 214 Ricoeur, Paul x, 43, 46 Ritschl, Albrecht 151, 160 Roggelin, Holger xl Rohde, Joachim 180 Röhrig, Hermann-Joseph 192 n. 24, 214 Rokyta, Jan 188–189 n. 10 Roper, Lyndal 31–32, 34, 46, 104, 111 Rouse, Ruth xxxviii Russell, William R. 60 n. 28, 64, 133 n. 21, 137 Saarinen, Risto xxiv, xxxix, xl, 97, 91 n. 27, 93 n. 32, 186 n. 3, 194 n. 28, 214, 222 n. 20,  21, 223 n. 24, 225 Sanders, Ed Parish 156 Sass, Hartmut (von) 268 Sauter, Gerhard 44 n. 64,  65, 66, 67, 46, 155 n. 22, 160 Schäfer, Ernst xxii Schilling, Heinz 103, 111 Schindel, J. J. 258 n. 7, 269 Schleiermacher, Friedrich D. E. xii, 159–160 Schmemann, Alexander xl, 108, 111 Schmidt, Peer 102 n. 7, 111, 135 n. 25, 137 Schnelle, Udo 168 n. 35, 181 Schoenauer, Hermann 36 n. 44, 46 Schrage, Wolfgang 166 n. 28, 181

295 Schumacher, William W. 195 n. 33, 215 Schwarz, Klaus 196 n. 35, 214 Serafim (Metropolit of Germany) 36 n. 44, 44 n. 64, 46–47 Shestov, Lev 9 n. 11, 15 Siegal, Michal Bar-Asher 168 n. 34, 179 Silouan (the Athonite) 51 Silvanus (Abba) 205 n. 65 Sinkewicz, Robert E. 81 n. 2, 97 Sisoes (Abba) 205 n. 65 Sophrony (Father) 51 Spitz, Lewis W., 19 n. 2 Stange, Carl 153, 160 Staniloae, Dumitru xl, 53, 92 n. 31, 97 Steck, Karl Gerhard 145 n. 9, 159 Stegmann, Andreas 73 n. 25, 79 Steiger, Johann Anselm 29 n. 26, 30 n. 28,  30, 46 Stendahl, Krister 156, 160 Stengel, Friedemann 154 n. 20, 159 Stjerna, Kirsi 191 n. 20, 212 Stoeckl, Kristian 250 n. 7, 251 Stoevesandt, Hinrich 105 n. 26, 110 Stoyiannos, Vassilis 170, 181 Strack, Hermann 165 n. 21, 181 Strothmann, Werner 192 n. 22, 213 Stuhlmacher 92 n. 31 Sullivan, John Edward 50 n. 4, 64 Symeon (the New Theologian) 56 Tappert, Theodore G. 13 n. 20, 16, 142 n. 2, 159 Tauler, John 197, 206 Theißen, Henning xxxii, 141, 148 n. 12, 160 Theodore (the Studite) 63 Theodoret (of Cyrus) xviii, 56 Theophilos (of Antioch) 56 Thiessen, Matthew 168 n. 34, 179 Thomas (Aquinas) 6–7, 23, 261 Thunberg, Lars 50 n. 4, 64 Thuren, Jukka 222 Tice, Terrence N. 159 n. 30, 160 Tiersch, Hermann xxii Tillich, Paul 107, 111 Timiadis, Emilianos (Metropolitan) xxiv Tobias, Robert xxxix, 74 n. 32, 78 n. 45, 79 Todorskij, Simeon xxi Tomasz, Tempa xl

296 Traboulsi, Berge xl Treier, Daniel J. 193 n. 26, 212 Trembelas, Panagiotis 165 n. 20, 177 n. 84, 181 Trueman, Carl R. 195 n. 33, 202 n. 53, 215 Tsakonas, Vasilis 168 n. 35, 181 Tselengides, Demetrios I. 210 n. 75, 215 Turner, Robert D. 38 n. 47, 47 Turretini, Jean-Alphonse xxi Ulrich, Hans G. 45 n. 69, 47 Ulrich, Jörg 154 n. 20, 159 Vainio, Olli-Pekka 196 n. 34, 202, 209 n. 72, 215 Vandervelde, Lucian 201 n. 52, 215 Vasileios (Archimandrite of Stavronikita) 52, 63 Velkovska, E. 89 n. 20, 97 Veniamin, Christopher 220 n. 11,  13, 225 Vestrucci, Andrea 70 n. 11, 79, 91 n. 26, 97 Vial, Marc xxxv, 229 Vinke, Rainer 194 n. 28, 201 n. 50, 204 n. 60, 213–215 Vischer, Lukas 91 n. 27, 97 Vladimir Monomakh (Prince of Kiev) 49, 61 Wald, Berthold 21 n. 8, 31 n. 31, 47 Walter, Johannes von 68 n. 5, 79 Ware, Kallistos xxx, 35, 35 n. 42,  43, 36–41, 45, 48, 52 n. 10, 56 n. 18, 60 n. 27,  28, 64

Index Wasmuth, Jennifer xxxviii, 211, 186 n. 4 Watson, Philip S. 9 n. 13, 16, 67 n. 2 Wendebourg, Dorothea xl, 91 n. 27, 97, 257, 269 Wengert, Thimothy 193, 200 n. 48, 212, 215, 264 n. 21, 269 Werner, Dietrich xxxix Wiberg, Else Marie xl Wilckens, Ulrich 174 n. 64,  65, 66, 177 n. 83, 181 Wilken, Robert L. 74 n. 32, 79 Wolf, Ernst 157, 160 Wolff, Christian 174 n. 68, 181 Woolf, Bertram Lee 112 n. 1, 122 n. 9, 137 Wright, Nicholas Thomas 181 Yangazoglou, Stavros xxxi, 76 n. 38, 78 n. 46, 80, 82 n. 4, 97 Yannaras, Christos 52–53 n. 12, 64, 190, 195, 215 Yoder, John Howard 230–231, 236, 241 Zager, Werner 107 n. 37, 111 Zahn, Theodor 166 n. 25, 181 Zerwick, Maximilan 164 n. 13, 176, 181 Zizioulas, John D. xxix, 3, 37, 38, 47, 51, 64, 78 n. 46, 81 n. 1, 83 n. 8, 97, 106, 108–109 n. 43, 111 Zosimas (of Palestine) 49 Zschoch, Helmut 107, 111 Zusya (Rabbi) 62 Zygomalas, Theodosius xx