The Death and Return of God in Modern German Thought
John H. Smith
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Dialogues between Faith and Reason
The Death and Return of God in Modern German Thought
John H. Smith
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The contemporary theologian Hans Küng has asked if the "death of God, " proclaimed by Nietzsche as the event of modernity, was inevitable. Did the empowering of new forms of rationality in Western culture beginning around 1500 lead necessarily to the reduction or privatization of faith? In Dialogues between Faith and Reason, John H. Smith traces a major line in the history of theology and the philosophy of religion down the "slippery slope" of secularization—from Luther and Erasmus, through Idealism, to Nietzsche, Heidegger, and contemporary theory such as that of Derrida, Habermas, Vattimo, and Asad. At the same time, Smith points to the persistence of a tradition that grew out of the Reformation and continues in the mostly Protestant philosophical reflection on whether and how faith can be justified by reason. In this accessible and vigorously argued book, Smith posits that faith and reason have long been locked in mutual engagement in which they productively challenge each other as partners in an ongoing "dialogue."
Smith is struck by the fact that although in the secularized West the death of God is said to be fundamental to the modern condition, our current post-modernity is often characterized as a "postsecular" time. For Smith, this means not only that we are experiencing a broad-based "return of religion" but also, and more important for his argument, that we are now able to recognize the role of religion within the history of modernity. Emphasizing that, thanks to the logos located "in the beginning, " the death of God is part of the inner logic of the Christian tradition, he argues that this same strand of reasoning also ensures that God will always "return" (often in new forms). In Smith's view, rational reflection on God has both undermined and justified faith, while faith has rejected and relied on rational argument. Neither a defense of atheism nor a call to belief, his book explores the long history of their interaction in modern religious and philosophical thought.
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It is certainly not by chance that the first fundamental exchange between Reformation Protestantism and the spirit of modernity, namely, the exchange between Luther and Erasmus, was over the issue of predestination.
—Friedrich Gogarten, afterword to Luther, Vom unfreien Willen
Throughout the 1520s, Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466–1536) and Martin Luther (1483–1546) engaged in one of the most heated and central debates of the early modern period. Given the occasional vehemence of its tone, this exchange, which the authors referred to under the rhetorical genre of “diatribe,” pushed the limits of what could even be considered a dialogue. It set out the basic arguments that separated a form of Christian Humanism from the more radical views of the Protestant Reformation.1 The topic of the debate was the status of the free will, with Erasmus claiming in the opening salvo, De libero arbitrio (On the Free Will, 1524), that the actions of human beings do contribute to the possibility of their eternal salvation or damnation, and Luther responding in his De servo arbitrio (On the Enslaved Will [On the Bondage of the Will], 1525) and his Catechism (1529) that only God’s grace determines the fate of our soul.2 Erasmus brought his part of the “diatribe” to a conclusion with his Hyperaspistes diatribae adversus “servum arbitrium” Martini Lutheri (The Diatribe “Hyperaspistes” against Martin Luther’s “Enslaved Will”) in 1526 and 1527.3 Major academic and political figures of the day were drawn into the debate, from Melanchthon to Henry VIII of England and Emperor Charles V (both of whom came to Erasmus’s defense). Erasmus and, especially, Luther thought that these works were some of the most important contributions they had made to theological discussions, and their positions on the topic of free will continue to resonate in modern Western thought on the status of subjectivity and agency. But the debate also brought forth competing visions of biblical exegesis, the role and value of rationality and philosophy in theological matters, and the very meaning of certainty (intersubjective consensus vs. personal and divinely granted faith). In all of these areas we will see that Erasmus represents a “modern” or “enlightened” position, one that corresponds to a nuanced academic discussion, while Luther insists on an uncompromising stance that both ridicules his opponent’s hairsplitting and warns against the potential danger of introducing critical thinking into matters of belief. The opposition between “faith” and “knowledge,” or “reason” and “religion,” whether or not it can be in principle dialectically or deconstructively challenged, was given its primary form through this debate. Despite the force of Luther’s arguments, in many ways Erasmus carried the day by laying the foundation for historico-philological biblical criticism—and so Luther’s warnings, as some religious figures and communities stress to this day, were all too accurate, since Erasmus’s Humanism did set the ball rolling down a problematic slippery slope toward nonbelief.
The background to the debate can be painted by brief reference to important points in the biographies of the two thinkers:
The early years of Erasmus (Desiderius, of Rotterdam) are shrouded in uncertainty, including the exact date of his birth, October 28, 1466 or 1469. Although born out of wedlock, he was cared for by his parents until their death in the plague, when he was then sent to a series of monastic schools where he received a solid education. From early on he was oriented toward a religion of personal devotion and tended to resist the stricter monastic rules. He entered the Augustinian order, and after 1495 lived and studied in Paris. During his years there he attained a reputation as a Humanist. After a stay in Italy (1506–9) and then contact with Thomas More, he developed an ideal of humanitas christiana, a synthesis of spiritualism and Humanism. In 1516 he published the first edition of the New Testament in Greek, including an important methodological introduction, “Ratio verae theologiae.” From 1521 to 1529 he lived in Basel, a neutral city, where he tried to find a middle way between the Reformation and the Catholic Church. Here he published his critique of Luther and other Protestant views (e.g., on the symbolic interpretation of the Last Supper). Once Basel itself became Protestant, he moved to Freiburg im Breisgau (1529–35). His political ideal was formed by the notion of a respublica christiana, and he remained attached to the tradition of the church fathers and even Scholasticism, although he focused on the scriptures as well. Of course, with the split of the church during his lifetime, this ideal combining Catholicism, Humanism, and Reformation scriptura became impossible. The core of his theological thought he traced back to Christ’s Sermon on the Mount, rather than Paul.4 This led him to both a more ethically oriented faith—not a system but a more general notion of a good life—and a belief in the (at least partial) goodness of (human) nature, despite original sin. Salvation of individuals and humanity as a whole is modeled on a Greek conception of education (paideia) rather than conversion or transformation. He used the methods of historico-philological criticism, satire, and “diatribe” (dialogical exchange) to challenge especially the ossified versions of medieval Scholasticism, but also to work toward a broader consensus. The consensus was not to be. And his middle-of-the-road position became reviled by both sides as his books were later placed on the index and banned by the Catholic Counter-Reformation, even though Luther developed some of his most deeply rooted views in staunch opposition to Erasmus.
Luther was born on November 10, 1483, making him nearly twenty years younger than Erasmus. Raised in a family of nine children (his father worked in nearby mining), he went at the age of seventeen to study in Erfurt. There he received a solid foundation in the humanistic-rhetorical tradition, and even though his teachers likely criticized the Scholastic efforts to harmonize Aristotle and the teachings of the church, he did get a good dose of Aristotle. Often tormented by a sense of sin and fears for his salvation, during a thunderstorm in 1505 he made the oath to enter the monastery. He became an Augustinian monk and continued his studies in theology. Even after a trip to Rome and as he then became a professor of theology in Wittenberg, he was constantly plagued by the thoughts of divine justice. In 1517 he posted the Ninety-Five Theses on the door of the Wittenberg cathedral, in which he (not for the first time) criticized the church, most notably for its practice of selling indulgences. After a series of public disputations, the differences between Luther and the Catholic Church in Rome reached the point of a break, and Luther concluded that the individual must stand up for scripture even if it meant challenging the authority of the church. The years 1518–20 saw a tremendous outpouring of major writings reinterpreting the role of the church, and Wittenberg became a new center also for Humanists (e.g., Melanchthon). Once the church imposed the Edict of Worms on Luther, he, thanks to his supportive prince, withdrew to the Wartburg Castle. In eleven weeks during 1521 he translated the New Testament into German (using both the Vulgate and Erasmus’s recently published Latin version). He also addressed a number of more “worldly” issues, the question of marriage and especially the sharpening of the division of the two spheres, whereby the Christian must show obedience to the political order but could disobey religious authority in matters of faith and conscience. He used this reasoning in his writings against the revolutionary reformer Thomas Münzer and against the attempts of the peasants to rebel using religious arguments. In the middle of this period of crisis, Luther fell ill and, fearing his death might be near, married. Until his death on February 18, 1546, he continued writing under political conditions of relative peace but also suffering continually from physical illness and emotional-psychological depressions.
Let us turn to the debate and compare the positions on four major points: exegesis, intersubjectivity, philosophy-reason-theology, and the will’s relation to divine grace. Each of these issues sets the basic paradigm in which modern Western treatments of religion, faith, rationality, and agency unfold.5
Exegesis
The opening line of Erasmus’s text is startling not so much because of the claim it makes about the will but because of the implications it makes concerning the Bible. He writes: “Among the many difficulties encountered in Holy Scripture—and there are many of them—none presents a more perplexed labyrinth than the problem of the freedom of the will” (Discourse, 3).6 Despite the genuine demeanor of calm and reasonableness that Erasmus expresses throughout his writings, both in this essay and in general, the radical nature of this claim should not be underestimated. Without a doubt Erasmus sees the Word of God whenever he opens up the holy scripture. For him, too, in the beginning was logos, and that logos is divine. However, the message of that logos does not emerge clearly out of the written words before him. Instead, he is confronted with “difficulties,” a “perplexed labyrinth,” and “problems.” This will lead to the obvious need for an apparatus of philology, i.e., of rhetorical analysis, including levels of figurative language, distinctions between the more or less comprehensible passages, and a community of scholars working together to generate the most plausible interpretations. But before exploring these consequences, and without going into detail on Luther’s conception, we should at least have the contrast between the two positions present to mind. Luther writes in his response: “We should adhere everywhere to the simple, pure and natural meaning of the words, according to the rules of grammar and the habits of speech which God has given unto men…. For me this is a serious cause…. The Word of God must be taken in its plain meaning, as the words stand.” (128–29). That is, we are confronted with the contrast between a hermeneutics of difficulty and a hermeneutics of clarity. The former struggles to unpack and interpret comparatively, the latter would merely allow the words and meanings to “speak for themselves.” As Erasmus says explicitly: “We are not involved in a controversy regarding Scripture. The same Scripture is being loved and revered by both parties. Our battle concerns the sense of Scripture” (15; emphasis added). Thus, the controversy concerns hermeneutics, the art/science of interpretation and understanding.
Erasmus’s reading of the Bible on the issue of the free will provides us with an introductory course in philological and rhetorical techniques.7 He finds himself forced into a figurative mode of interpretation on the basis of a relatively straightforward implicit syllogism: (1) there are many places in the Bible where one finds conflicting ideas about the role of human choice and divine grace; (2) yet “the Holy Spirit does not contradict himself” (59); therefore, (3) “one must find an interpretation which resolves this seeming contradiction” (59). Such an interpretation involves reading some passages as metaphors (e.g., he unpacks a verse from Ezekiel on God’s ability to remove our “stony heart”: “This is a metaphor” [58]). He often points out that “one should not accept [a passage] literally” (e.g., on Jacob and Esau, 53).8 And he is drawn to the many parables that “are very instructive, but are not applicable in all instances,” that is, they cannot be taken at face value; instead, “let us interpret the parable” (56).
Furthermore, Erasmus reads the Bible for the meaning implied by particular words. One consistent point he makes grows out of the interpretation of conditional sentences. In order to justify the notion that human beings have some free will in determining the fate of their souls, Erasmus lists the many places where a condition is set for us to follow God’s will—on the logic that it cannot be only a question of divine will if some other terms need to be met. Specifically, then, wherever the word “if” appears,9 he stresses, there is an implicit option offered, as in the passage from Matthew (19:17): “If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments,” about which Erasmus claims: “The word ‘if’ does not at all imply necessity” (38).10
All this demonstrates an attention to linguistic detail that, like the graininess of an enlarged photographic image, makes the scriptures all the more ambiguous and perplexing the more closely its Word is loved and the more exhaustively it is examined. Erasmus moves from the level of the passage, through the sentence and image, down to the individual lexical item (“will,” “blame,” “exhort,” “command,” etc. [32–36]), and even the preposition (esp. 71)11 and the original Greek in the case of the New Testament (also 72, 77). At one point, he even indicates that, because of the manuscript tradition, differences of interpretation will hinge on a letter.12 Hence, Erasmus’s simple-sounding advice—“I believe it to be an excellent key to the understanding of Holy Scriptures, if we pay attention to what is meant in each passage” (74)—opens up onto not a “fundamentalist” acceptance of the scriptures but an exegetical demand for ever-deepening interpretation within an ever-widening tradition of interpretations. Thus he concludes: “It is a fact that Holy Scripture is in most instances either obscure and figurative, or seems, at first sight, to contradict itself. Therefore, whether we like it or not, we sometimes had to recede from the literal meaning, and had to adjust its meaning to an interpretation” (93–94).
Luther, in contrast, attacks Erasmus brutally precisely for “adjusting” the biblical passages to fit a mistaken interpretation: “[His interpretation] twists all the words of divine promise and declaration, just as it pleases, by discovering a figure of speech in them” (128). He imagines that Erasmus applies “tricks” and “tacks on” metaphors and similes, in short, a “trope” to what would be otherwise “the clearest and simplest passages.” The entire rhetorical tradition is disdained, and Erasmus tainted by his association with it: “You ooze Lucian from every pore” (104), Luther says, associating him with the second-century CE Greek author and rhetorician. Instead, Luther would ban figurative language from the Bible: “Let this be our sentiment: that no implication or figure is to be allowed to exist in any passage of Scriptures” (128). For this r...
