God and Mediation

Retrospective Appraisal of Luther the Reformer

Paul O'Callaghan

• Publisher: Fortress Press
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN:
  9781506410111
• eBook ISBN:
  9781506425153
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

Martin Luther‘s effort to put God at the very center of human life hinged on five principles: sola gratia, sola fide, sola Scriptura, solus Christus, and ecclesia semper reformanda. They formed the basis for a much-needed reformation of the Christian church projected by Luther and others. Besides inspiring an important renewal of Christian life, however, the Reformation also occasioned the breakup of Western Christianity, which in turn justified religious wars, provided an anti-witness to Christian revelation, privatized the faith, and facilitated the secularization of society as a whole. On the occasion of the five hundredth anniversary of the Reformation, this book attempts to appropriate, situate, and to some degree reinterpret Luther‘s most precious and enduring insights on the basis of the above five principles, which come to mean that God‘s being and action must always come first. On the basis of Luther‘s writings, the book also attempts to consider how grace reaches out to freedom, faith to reason, Scripture to church tradition, Christ to ministry, church to mediation. God‘s being and action always come first, yet God‘s first gift, creation, and the mediations that derive from it are not undone or rendered irrelevant.

6

“Ecclesia Semper Reformanda”, Christian Ministry, and the Faithful Mediation of God’s Gifts

I

Luther well knew that “we are not the ones who can preserve the church, nor were our forefathers able to do so. Nor will our successors have this power. No, it was, is, and will be the One who says, ‘I am with you always, to the close of the age.’”^[1] From solus Christus, therefore, we pass on to the church Christ founded, one that, under the Spirit, would be an Ecclesia semper reformanda, “a church ever being reformed.”

The expression (the full version of which is Ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda secundum verbum Dei, “the Church reformed, ever being reformed under the word of God”) is not actually Luther’s, but is to be found in different forms among Protestant theologians throughout the centuries. Karl Barth gave its present form a definitive impulse, taking his cue from Augustine.^[2] It is present in general terms in the writings of Calvin and frequently used in statements and preaching of Reformed and Presbyterian churches.^[3] The closest Catholic ecclesiology comes to this position may be found in Vatican Council II’s Lumen gentium. Placing Christ and the church face to face, as it were, the consistitution says, “While Christ, holy, innocent and undefiled knew nothing of sin, but came to expiate only the sins of the people, the Church, embracing in its bosom sinners, at the same time holy and always in need of being purified, always follows the way of penance and renewal.”^[4] The Council does not use the term “reformed” here, but rather “purified” and “renewed.” Walter Kasper observes in fact that “Ecclesia semper reformanda is a Protestant slogan, whereas Vatican Council II says: Ecclesia purificanda.”^[5] Commenting on Vatican II documents, Joseph Ratzinger observed on one occasion that “in her human structures the Church is semper reformanda, but one must be clear in this question as to how and up to what point.”^[6]

II

The evangelical principles we have been considering in the preceding chapters lead us to a renewed understanding of Christian life in the world and of the church.^[7] One fundamental principle present in the teachings of most if not all reformers, was that of the common priesthood of all Christian faithful. The medieval church came across as a predominantly clerical institution. The true Christian was the cleric, or perhaps the consecrated man or woman. “According to Gratian, there were two types of Christians, clerics and the laity.”^[8] Yet the late medieval period also marked a time of considerable spiritual energy and apostolic zeal among lay people.^[9] And the primary practical resolve of the Reformation was that of pulling down the wall dividing clergy from laity, with a view to breaking the hold of a perceived and damaging clericalism. For all the baptized make up God’s people. Thus all Christians are priests, “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people set apart” (1 Pet 2:9).^[10] Priesthood is rooted in baptism. Other expressions of priestly or ministerial activity, therefore, are secondary and contingent for Protestants. Certainly, Luther does not reject the special ordination of priests. Yet “by tracing priestly ordination (sacramentum ordinis) back to baptism,” Moltmann writes, “Luther gave a higher status to baptism as the sacrament of vocation: every Christian, man or woman, is a witness of faith, called to preach and to the celebration of the Lord’s Supper.”^[11] Still, this made it clear that all are called to holiness. As Oswald Spengler observes, “Luther fought the Church not because it demanded too much but because it demanded too little.”^[12]

The other principle that Luther emphasized was that of “calling,” or vocatio. He applied it to all Christian believers and their activity in the world (he termed it Beruf, or “profession”), and he did not limit it to those especially called by God to priestly service or consecrated life and the lifestyle that derives from them. As a result, Moltmann observes, “Luther carried the term ‘calling’ (vocatio) out of the religious sphere into the secular world, and considered all honest work performed by a man or woman their divine ‘calling.’ By so doing he enlisted the principles attendant on a divine vocation—obedience, faithfulness, love, dependability and concerted work for the kingdom of God—for work in the world.”^[13]

The revolutionary potential of these two principles promptly became clear for all to see. “Every job of work performed honestly is an act of worship,” Moltmann would say.^[14] Two key elements of a typically Protestant worldview developed out of them: first, a diminution of ecclesiastical structure, many of whose traditional functions came to be taken over by the state, and second, the consolidation of a religiously justified work ethic. But a weakness and danger arose in the new “implicit” ecclesiology involving the privatization of faith and Christian life. In many cases churches became “congregational,” in the sense that their identity was simply one of gathering together and ministering to like-minded Christian believers who freely adhered to them at an associative level. Besides, in many ways, the church lost its freedom in the face of civil authorities: “the church’s papally guaranteed freedom from state control gave way to the church of the Protestant princes,” Moltmann observes.^[15]

This situation provided a powerful paradox which may be expressed in simplistic terms as follows. Before the Reformation all were Christians and thus belonged to the church, whether they liked it or not, yet they also belonged to civil society and obeyed its lawful authorities at a conventional or local level because they wanted to. After the Reformation, however, the situation was to some degree reversed: citizens came to belong necessarily to the state (or nation) whether they liked it or not, yet they were free to adhere to religious groupings according to their inclinations and needs.^[16] The term “state” became singular, and “faith” plural (“faiths”). This is the ultimate consequence of the axiom cuius regio illius religio: “each one adopts the religion of the region they live in,” which was accepted by all sides at the 1555 Peace of Augsburg (although the phrase ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Table Of Contents
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• God and/or the Created World
• The Principle of “Sola Gratia” and the Value of Christian Freedom and Good Works
• “Sola Fides” and the Reasoned Assimilation of Christian Revelation
• “Sola Scriptura” and the Spirit-Guided Transmission of the Faith
• “Solus Christus” and the Origins of Christian Life and Spirituality
• “Ecclesia Semper Reformanda”, Christian Ministry, and the Faithful Mediation of God’s Gifts
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index