Luther's Theology of the Cross

Martin Luther's Theological Breakthrough

Alister E. McGrath

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9780631175490, 9780470655306
• eBook ISBN: 9781119995975
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

Luther's Theology of the Cross represents a fully revised and updated edition of the classic 1985 text that expands on the author's ongoing research and reflects 25 years of Luther scholarship.

• Rewritten and expanded edition of a highly-acclaimed classic text
• Incorporates primary and secondary sources that have become available since the publication of the first edition
• Draws on advances in our understanding of the late medieval intellectual, cultural, and religious background of Luther's early development, and the nature of Luther's doctrine of justification (including the so-called 'Finnish' school), many of which have not yet been incorporated into Luther scholarship
• Luther's 'theological breakthrough' continues to be of central importance to Reformation Studies and the development of Protestantism
• Written by one of the world's leading Protestant theologians, who is an authority on the development of the doctrine of justification. His classic work Iustitia Dei: A History of the Christian Doctrine of Justification is now in its third edition (2005)

Part One

The Background Luther as a Late Medieval Theologian, 1509–1514

Chapter 1

The Dawn of the Reformation at Wittenberg

Our story concerns the intellectual and spiritual development of Martin Luther (1483–1546) during the years 1509–1519 – particularly 1512–1519, which many regard as being a decisive phase in this process. During these critical years, Luther began to inch his way toward his own distinctive understanding of how sinners are able to enter into the presence of a righteous God, classically expressed in the doctrine of justification by faith. While the relationship between the emergence of Luther's theological distinctives and the historical origins of the Reformation as a whole is somewhat more complex than some popular accounts suggest,¹ there is little doubt that Luther's theological breakthrough was one of a number of factors that proved to be of decisive importance in catalyzing the massive social, economic, political, and religious transformations of the Protestant Reformation.²

This study sets out to analyze the emergence of Luther's understanding of the question of how humanity is justified in the sight of God, focusing especially on his shifting views concerning what it means to speak of God as “righteous.” How can a sinner hope to find acceptance in the sight of a righteous God? Wie kriege ich einen gnädigen Gott? Luther's changing answers to that central question set the scene for the great upheavals of the Reformation.³

Yet a second distinctive feature of Luther's early thought emerges alongside these reflections on the nature of divine righteousness, and how a righteous God could accept and love sinful humanity. Luther's celebrated “theology of the cross” is the outcome of the same process of reflection that led Luther to his doctrine of justification. The two themes are intertwined in his early writings, and can in some ways be seen as two sides of a single, related question – namely, how humanity is to live by faith in the shadowlands of sin and doubt. We shall consider both these major theological themes in this study.

But theological reflection never takes place in a social or cultural vacuum. To tell the story of the development of Luther's ideas, we must explore the situation within which they emerged. We therefore turn immediately to consider the state of late medieval Europe on the eve of the Reformation – especially in Germany, which played a particularly significant role in shaping the contours of late medieval Christianity,⁴ as well as laying the foundations for the Protestant Reformation. In what follows, we shall consider this context more closely.

The Late Medieval Context

By the end of the Middle Ages, the need for reform and renewal within the Christian church within Germany and elsewhere was so obvious that it could no longer be ignored. The Middle Ages had seen the political power of the church, and particularly that of the papacy, reach previously unknown heights. While the spiritual authority of the pope within the church had long been recognized, the medieval period witnessed the extension of such claims to the secular sphere.⁵ Even if the force of the claims made on behalf of the papacy to absolute spiritual and temporal authority was greatly diminished by the absence of effective executive powers by which they might have been enforced, the fact remains that such claims were made and recognized, at least in part.

The political success of the church during the Middle Ages was not, however, without its cost. To the faithful, the Christian church remained the visible embodiment of Christ upon earth; to an increasing number of skeptics, within its ranks as well as outside them, it appeared as a vast legal, judicial, financial, administrative, and diplomatic machine, whose spiritual concerns were frequently judged to be difficult to detect, even to the eye of faith. The secular interests of the clergy, the widespread absence of bishops from their dioceses, and the financial difficulties of the curia are further examples of factors which combined to compromise the moral and spiritual authority of the church at the time in so serious a manner.

There were many within the church at the time who were troubled by the soaring power and influence of the papacy, and sought to confine it within acceptable limits. The Conciliarist movement argued that ecclesiastical power should be decentralized. Instead of being concentrated in the hands of a single individual, it should be dispersed within the body of the church as a whole, and entrusted to more representative and accountable “general Councils.”⁶

Yet despite these concerns, there is every indication that the church remained deeply embedded in western European culture at this time, with popular piety experiencing a resurgence in the fifteenth century. The church was no abstract theological notion, no peripheral social institution; it stood at the heart of the social, spiritual, and intellectual life of western Europe throughout the Middle Ages, including the Renaissance. The older view, which tended to see the Renaissance as a secular interlude between the medieval “age of faith” and the unruly religious passions unleashed by the Reformation, never really made much sense, and is somewhat difficult to sustain on the basis of the historical evidence.⁷ An individual's hope of salvation rested on her being part of the community of saints, whose visible expression was the institution of the church. The church could not be bypassed or marginalized in any account of redemption: there was, as Cyprian of Carthage had so cogently argued in the third century, no salvation outside the church.

Although the fifteenth century was regarded as a period of religious degeneration and spiritual stagnation by an earlier generation of historians, more recent research has decisively overturned this verdict.⁸ On the eve of the Reformation, religion was perhaps more firmly rooted in the experience and lives of ordinary people than at any time in the past.⁹ Earlier medieval Christianity had been primarily monastic, focused on the life, worship, and writings of Europe's monasteries and convents. Church-building programs flourished in the later fifteenth century, as did pilgrimages and the vogue for collecting relics. The fifteenth century has been referred to as “the inflation-period of mystic literature,” reflecting the growing popular interest in religion. The fifteenth century witnessed a widespread popular appropriation of religious beliefs and practices, not always in orthodox forms.

The phenomenon of “folk religion” often bore a tangential relationship to the more precise yet abstract statements of Christian doctrine that the church preferred – but that many found unintelligible or unattractive.¹⁰ In parts of Europe, popular religious beliefs echoing the notions of classical “fertility cults” emerged, connected and enmeshed with the patterns and concerns of agrarian rural communities.¹¹ Much popular religion was shaped by a fear of death and hell, often linked with more popular beliefs of fiends and devils lurking in woods and dark places, awaiting their opportunity to snatch unwary souls and take them straight to hell. At times, hints of these popular concerns can be found in Luther's early writings, particularly as he agonized over the implications of his own inability to achieve the holiness that his age regarded as a guarantee of salvation.¹²

It is now clear that there was considerable confusion within the late medieval church, undoubtedly exacerbated by a largely uneducated clergy,¹³ on matters of doctrine, and the doctrine of justification in particular. It is precisely this widespread confusion at the beginning of the sixteenth century that appeared to have occasioned and catalyzed Luther's theological reflections during the years 1509–1519, with which we are here concerned. As these focus on the concept of “justification,” we may pause to consider this idea in more detail.

The Concept of “Justification” in Christian Thought

The importance of the doctrine of justification is best appreciated when the nature of Christianity itself is considered.¹⁴ The central teaching of the Christian faith is that reconciliation has been effected between God and sinful humanity through Jesus Christ, and that this reconciliation is a present actuality for those within the church, and a present possibility for those outside it. The essence of the Christian faith is thus located in the saving action of God toward humanity in Jesus Christ. The Christian doctrine of justification is primarily concerned with the question of how this saving action may be appropriated by the individual – in other words, with the question of what is required of human beings if they are to enter into fellowship with God. The hope of salvation in Christ is a leading characteristic of the faith of the Christian church throughout its entire history, which lends particular urgency to the question posed by the doctrine of justification: what must an individual do in order to be saved? The practical importance of this question may be illustrated with reference to the fate of a small group of Italian noblemen, sometimes known as the “Murano Circle,” at the beginning of the sixteenth century.¹⁵

In 1510 Paolo Giustiniani, the leader of a small group of Paduan-educated humanists, entered the hermitage of Camaldoli, near Arezzo, soon to be followed by most of the remainder of this circle of humanists.¹⁶ The circle had shared a common concern for personal holiness and ultimate salvation, in common with many of their contemporaries. After intense personal anguish, Giustiniani decided that his only hope for salvation lay in the ascetic monastic life as a means of expiating his sins. Our interest here, however, concerns Gasparo Contarini, one of the members of the circle who chose to remain in the world. In 1957 Hubert Jedin, searching through the archives of the hermitage at Camaldoli, discovered the correspondence between Contarini and Giustiniani during the years 1511–1523,¹⁷ thus enabling us to enter to some extent into the mind of a man who was passionately concerned for his own salvation, and yet unwilling to enter a monastery. It is clear from this correspondence that Contarini went through a period of deep depression after his friends entered the hermitage. The question which appears to have caused Contarini particular anguish was the following: if his friends doubted whether they could ever atone for their sins by leading lives of austere piety, what hope could there be for Contarini, who had chosen to avoid such a life by remaining in the world?

On Easter Eve 1511, in near despair, Contarini happened to fall into conversation with a priest, and as a result began to rethink his dilemma. We do not know who this priest was, and cannot be entirely certain of the exact substance of his advice to Contarini. Nevertheless, it is clear that Contarini had now ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Also by Alister E. McGrath from Wiley-Blackwell
• Dedication
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• Part One: The Background Luther as a Late Medieval Theologian, 1509–1514
• Part Two: The Breakthrough Luther in Transition, 1514–1519
• Select Bibliography
• Index