Philosophy, Reason, And Righteousness In The Thought Of Martin Luther

By James E. Dolezal

James E. Dolezal is a Ph.D. student in systematic theology at Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, PA. The author is grateful to Professor R. Emmet McLaughlin of Villanova University for his many useful comments on an earlier version of this essay.

It is not surprising that many Reformation historians, when seeking to explain Martin Luther’s reform motivations, give the lion’s share of attention to the 95 theses of his Disputation on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences (October 1517). After all, the 95 theses captured the imagination of the German populace and provoked the ire of the papal curia against the Wittenberg monk. But we would be mistaken to think that Luther’s reform efforts were fueled primarily by his opposition to indulgence abuses. A month before his theses against indulgence abuse were posted Luther issued 97 theses for his Disputation Against Scholastic Theology (September 1517). In these theses, which were prepared in the course of Luther’s attempt to write a commentary on the first book of Aristotle’s Physics, the reformer attacked the scholasticism of William of Ockham, Peter d’Ailly, and Gabriel Biel.[1] Though Luther was trained in Ockham’s nominalist tradition, as filtered through Gabriel Biel, he concluded after extensive reading in Aristotle that scholastic theology had been thoroughly corrupted by a misuse and misappropriation of Greek philosophy.[2]

We may helpfully depict the reformer’s opposition to scholasticism as a quest for a new theological grammar. Luther himself certainly seems to conceive of his task in this way. For instance, regarding the Christian doctrine of works and morality he insists that all biblical passages “are to be explained according to a new and theological grammar.”[3] Regarding explanations of the incarnation of Christ, Luther avers, “philosophy has nothing to do with our grammar.”[4]

Luther’s quest for a new theological grammar set him on a course of new discoveries. Heiko Oberman observes that Luther became increasingly aware that God revealed himself to the apostles and prophets in ways and through words not commonly found in the medieval scholastic vocabulary with its definitions drawn from Aristotle. In fact, he had dismissed Aristotle as unreliable (fabulator) as early as 1509. He contended that only the Scriptures can introduce the grammar that God expects the reader to examine and search for the kernel of biblical theology.[5] Divine revelation regulates theological discussion. Just like the jurist, the theologian may not “speak without a text.”[6] Luther perceives that scholastic theology transgresses the rule by forcing even the Bible’s own statements into philosophically prescribed categories of dialectic, allowing the conceptual tools of the logician to dominate the language of the Bible. Cornelis Augustijn notes that Luther prefers instead to ply the “inner dialectic,” comparing statements of faith to one another in order to arrive at the truth.[7]

Gerhard Ebeling writes of the reformer’s disparagement of philosophy: “Luther’s real concern in his dispute with the dominant philosophy of his time is that a genuine understanding of holy scripture should be made accessible to theology, from which is was concealed by the terminology and method of inquiry of Aristotelian thought.”[8] From the start the main principle of his exegetical work was to understand the distinctive nature of the biblical modes of speech and thought in contrast to the traditional philosophical language of scholastic theology.[9]

Luther’s attempts to retool the grammar and concepts of theology are far-reaching and more successful in some doctrines than in others. It is the aim of this essay to highlight and expound two of the most salient features of Luther’s reconstructive theology: his reformed approach to reason and righteousness. Before examining his treatment of these two concepts it is first necessary that we understand something of his approach to philosophy in general. This will establish the background against which we can better understand his concerns regarding reason and righteousness.

Luther’s Approach To Philosophy

In his Disputation Against Scholastic Theology Luther decries the influence of Aristotle on theology in theses 43 and 44: “43. It is an error to say that no man can become a theologian without Aristotle… 44. Indeed, no one can become a theologian unless he becomes one without Aristotle.”[10] In thesis 50 he adds that, “the whole of Aristotle is to theology as darkness is to light.”[11] Even more severely, in The Disputation Concerning Man, Luther characterizes philosophy as the “realm of the devil” and as “the practical wisdom of the flesh which is hostile to God.”[12] In a note that he sent with a copy of his 97 theses against scholastic theology to his former Aristotelian professor at Erfurt, Jodokus Trutfetter, he wrote, “Should Aristotle not have been a man of flesh and blood, I would not hesitate to assert that he was the Devil himself.”[13]

1. A Qualified Rejection Of Philosophy

With such harsh condemnation of Aristotle and philosophy it may be somewhat surprising to find that Luther’s rejection of philosophy is by no means absolute. In his Table Talk, the reformer affirms a limited usefulness of philosophy: “I do not disapprove of its use, but let us use it as a shadow, a comedy, and as political righteousness.”[14] More optimistically he commends the philosopher’s use of natural reason as helpful for ordering man’s life in this world. This especially is apparent in the opening theses of his Disputation Concerning Man. In thesis 5 he declares of natural reason, “It is the inventor and mentor of all the arts, medicines, laws, and of whatever wisdom, power, virtue, and glory men possess in this life.” He adds in thesis 8, “it is a sun and a kind of god appointed to administer these things in this life.” And in thesis 9 he affirms, “Nor did God after the fall of Adam take away this majesty of reason, but rather confirmed it.”[15]

How is it that Luther makes room for philosophy, seeing that it is so devilish and hostile toward God? The answer lies in his emphasis on “this life.” This qualification is all-important. Philosophy is not devilish in all of its operations; in fact, in its proper place philosophy is “a kind of god,” conferring wisdom, power, virtue, and glory on men. What motivates Luther’s apparent dualism regarding philosophy?

Many historians have rightly pointed out that Luther’s dualistic evaluation of philosophy is reflective of his Ockhamist training. Ockham had implied a theory of double-truth in which things true in one science were not true in the same way in another science. He declares, “I grant that the same conclusion cannot be known by two different sciences of different types.”[16] Keeping in mind that theology was regarded as a science, the methods and conclusions of natural philosophy would not necessarily inform theological metaphysics or ethics.[17] Oberman points out that Luther had been trained by Trutfetter in Erfurt to make these Ockhamist distinctions between the different realms of truth.[18] Little could Luther’s nominalist teachers have anticipated that he would latter employ this same dualistic structure to attack what he perceived as their indiscriminate use of philosophy in the treatment of theology.

Luther’s commitment to the notion of double-truth is possibly nowhere more explicit than in his theses for The Disputation Concerning the Passage: “The Word was Made Flesh” (1539). Echoing Ockham, he begins, “Although the saying, ‘Every truth is in agreement with every other truth,’ is to be upheld, nevertheless, what is true in one field of learning is not always true in other fields of learning.”[19] In thesis 4 he contends, “The Sorbonne [the University of Paris], the mother of errors, has very incorrectly defined that truth is the same in philosophy and theology.” Thesis 6 argues that, “by making this abominable statement, it was taught that articles of faith are subject to the judgment of human reason.” And thesis 7 adds, “This is nothing other than attempting to enclose heaven and earth in their own center or in a grain of millet.”[20] Luther’s complaint is that scholastic theologians have promoted an infelicitous encroachment of philosophy into the realm of theology. Thus, his opposition to philosophy is not against philosophy per se, but against its infringement into the theological domain.

Luther makes it very clear that he is not anti-philosophical, but that his concern is to protect the integrity of theology as a distinct field of inquiry, or science:

Now we also admit that philosophy is not against us but for Christ,…for all created things such as sun and moon, are for Christ and are not against him, because all things work together for good with the godly, even the devil, death, and hell. But you cannot conclude from that, that truth is the same in theology and philosophy, for they will continue to be different in kind and in matter.[21]

Gerrish concludes:

Strictly speaking, Luther sees no contradiction between the deliverances of philosophy and of theology: it is simply that philosophical categories and techniques are not applicable in theological matters. To confuse the two is like asking the weight of a line or length of a pound; it is to put new wine into old wineskins.[22]

Though Luther’s use of the double-truth theory seems to betray certain nominalist presuppositions, it should be emphasized that he employs this concept as much, or more, against the nominalists (the via moderna) as he did against the realists (the via antiqua). I. U. Dalferth points out that the problem Luther had with both the via antiqua and the via moderna was that both sought, albeit in very different ways, “to make demonstrable what is an object of faith.”[23] Luther specifically singles out the nominalists in theses 46 to 49 of the Disputation Against Scholastic Theology for wrongly seeking to make faith logical according to philosophy’s terms. Thesis 46 declares, “In vain does one fashion a logic of faith, a substitution brought about without regard for limit and measure. This is in opposition to the new dialecticians.” Indeed, as thesis 47 states, “No syllogistic form is valid when applied to divine terms. This is in opposition to the Cardinal [i.e., Peter d’Ailly].”[24] The “limit and measure” Luther has in mind is that of philosophy, which cannot circumscribe faith with its rules of logic. Categorically faith is off-limits to syllogistic logic. In any case, this demonstrates that Luther uses the theory of double-truth against the very tradition that bequeathed it to him.

In order to understand how it is that Luther is so confident in the double-truth theory, we have to look back of any lingering nominalist influence to his theological agenda. Without grasping his theological thought structure it might appear that Luther’s use of the double-truth argument to defend theology from philosophy is simply another instance of a philosophical category intruding into theology. But Luther’s use of the double-truth theorem is grounded in his theological understanding of the two kingdoms: the kingdom of the world (regnum mundi) and the kingdom of Christ (regnum Christi). Gerrish observes:

The ambivalence of Luther’s attitude towards [philosophy and reason]…is to be explained by reference to his dualism of an Earthly Kingdom, on the one hand, and a Heavenly Kingdom, on the other. The articles of belief cannot be arrived at by the exercise of natural reason; neither is there any point in the attempt to buttress by reason what is already given in faith. The distinction between the two spheres must be rigidly maintained. Philosophy must not be confused with theology, nor reason with faith.[25]

Of course, Luther applies his concept of the two kingdoms to questions besides the theologian’s relation to philosophy and theology. Usually he employs the distinction when addressing the Christian’s relation to the secular state or to worldly ethics.[26] Furthermore, he varies in his portrayal of the regnum mundi; sometimes it is characterized as thoroughly evil and hostile to the regnum Christi and at other times more neutrally as the world of politics and civil life. In either case the realm of philosophy is the regnum mundi; it cannot trespass into the realm of faith, which is the regnum Christi, without doing violence to the right understanding of biblical doctrines. In a sermon on Matt. 5:38-42, Luther contends that failure to properly distinguish between the two kingdoms has led many theologians into doctrinal error: “Once these two have been confused instead of being clearly and accurately separated, there can never be any correct understanding in Christendom.”[27] Elsewhere he alerts us that “it requires a great and lofty insight to understand that the substance of Christianity is a much nobler thing and altogether different from all secular and spiritual laws, outward holiness, government, and whatever other such things there may be among the Jews or heathen.”[28] The two kingdoms are not equally ultimate realms existing alongside of one another. They are “altogether different” and therefore require a different approach to knowing and understanding. Dalferth correctly observes that, though different, “philosophy and theology neither supplement nor contradict each other.”[29]

2. The Scholastic Misuse Of Philosophy

Having established that Luther allows for the use of philosophy in it proper sphere, we also have observed that his main opposition to philosophy was its intrusion into the discourse of theology. Of course, this is not the fault of philosophy or Aristotle so much as it is the fault of the scholastic theologians. The scholastics take philosophy, which Luther calls wisdom that “is not of itself evil,” and misuse it “in the worst manner.”[30] He remarks, “This is the procedure of Thomas: First he takes statements from Paul, Peter, John, Isaiah, etc. Afterward he concludes that Aristotle says so and so and he interprets Scripture according to Aristotle.”[31] In particular, this misuse of philosophy is seen in the scholastic attempt to ascend to the knowledge of God through speculation about his glory and majesty. Luther calls this “a theology of glory.”[32] It seeks after wisdom, glory, and power but neglects the knowledge of God found in the suffering Christ. Scholastic theology imagined both that it could reason its way up to a right knowledge of God and that man could reasonably discern and perform God’s moral requirements. Thus, it used philosophy to establish the epistemological and ethical abilities of man relative to God. Augustijn explains Luther’s objection to these Aristotelian tendencies: “The right theology would see the human being primarily as a sinner; scholastic theology takes its point of departure in Aristotle’s view of humanity–that is, in the natural endowment of human nature.”[33] Gerhard Ebeling points out:

His attack on Aristotle was a struggle for true theological thought. A proper understanding of his outlook is consequently to be obtained not from his general invective against Aristotle, but only by a study of the concrete theological context in which the use of Aristotelian thought forms was in fact harmful.[34]

It was “harmful” when the scholastics presumed that natural man was sufficiently equipped to both know and obey God in the same way that he was able to know any other scientific truth or perform any act of civic righteousness. Their use of philosophy in theology tended to invert “the true direction of religion, that is to say, reason thinks of man’s approach to God rather than of God’s approach to man. This is the crux of Luther’s diatribes against…Scholastic theology.”[35] Late medieval scholasticism was committed to the notion that man can reach God from beneath. Luther detects a legalizing tendency in this use of philosophy that subverts the doctrine of justification by faith alone. It remains for us now to consider the specific objections that Luther levels against the scholastic understanding of reason and righteousness.

Reforming Reason

Much of what has been said about Luther’s attitude toward philosophy is equally applicable to his views on reason inasmuch as reason is the faculty by which man philosophizes. Therefore, this section will confine itself to an examination of one particular feature of Luther’s critique of reason, namely, that natural reason betrays a legalizing propensity. Luther approaches the question of reason as a matter of salvific concern, subordinating the question of epistemology (“How do I know God?”) to the question soteriology (“What must I do to be saved?”). He contends that reason naturally “seeks it own way to salvation.”[36]

1. A Legal, Left-Handed Knowledge Of God

Luther perceives a parallel between reason and the law; both are designed to govern human life in the earthly kingdom. As such, human reason is predisposed to think in terms of law. This is sufficient for governing this world, but as soon as one attempts to reason this way in terms of Christ’s kingdom and salvation he falls into legalism. So Luther concludes,

“Reason is a hindrance as it reflects on questions like: ‘How will I be saved and become pure? How will I escape death and sin? How will I obtain a gracious God?’”[37] Natural reason can never advance beyond a legal knowledge of God.

Reason can arrive at a ‘legal knowledge’ [cognitio legalis] of God. It is conversant with God’s commandments and can distinguish between right and wrong. The philosophers, too, had this knowledge of God. But the knowledge of God derived from the Law is not the true knowledge of Him, whether it be the Law of Moses or the Law instilled into our hearts.[38]

All people, including pagan philosophers, Jews, and Turks have attained to the knowledge of God through the Law. But such knowledge has not advanced them one step nearer to salvation.

If natural reason possesses a ‘legal knowledge’ of God, then true Christian knowledge possesses an ‘evangelical knowledge’ of God from the gospel. Luther characterizes these as the ‘left-handed’ and ‘right-handed’ knowledge of God respectively. The left-handed knowledge of reason fancies that it knows the way to secure God’s favor and salvation. Luther’s disagrees: “the depth of divine wisdom and of the divine purpose, the profundity of God’s grace and mercy, and what eternal life is like–of these matters reason is totally ignorant. This is hidden from reason’s view. It speaks of these with the same authority with which a blind man discusses color.”[39] The “evangelical knowledge” that comes through the gospel understands the way of salvation: “the fact and the knowledge that all men are born in sin and are damned, that Christ, the Son of God, is the only source of grace, and that man is saved solely through Jesus Christ, who is the grace and truth–this is not Mosaic or legal knowledge but evangelical and Christian knowledge.”[40]

We can readily detect one of Luther’s favorite motifs–law and gospel–in his descriptions of the two kinds of knowledge. Again, these two kinds of knowledge, that from reason and that from faith, also correspond to Luther’s doctrine of the two kingdoms in which law and reason service the regnum mundi and the gospel and faith service the regnum Christi. But the former must not attempt to gain access to the latter.

2. Reason’s “Theology Of Glory”

Though Luther’s charge of legalism is clear, it can still be difficult to see how medieval scholastic theology is guilty of such an accusation. What was it about scholasticism that made it especially susceptible to legalism? In the Heidelberg Disputation, Luther answers this question by distinguishing between the “theology of glory” and the “theology of the cross.”[41] In short, the theology of glory seeks to know God through speculation about his being, essence, causation, power, etc.–all subjects most amenable to the general questions of Aristotelian philosophy. Thus, Aristotle is allowed to determine the objects of theological inquiry, and he always directs men toward glory and power. But Luther argues that it is not in the revelation of God’s glory that man comes to know him and to find salvation (e.g., God’s redemption is not manifest in nature, though his power is); rather, God discloses himself and his salvation under a form that is contrary (sub contrario) to reason, namely, under the sufferings of Jesus Christ on the cross.

If man is going to truly know God he must humble himself and confess that God’s salvation is “unreasonable,” or counter-intuitive. In support of his theology of the cross Luther appeals to 1 Cor.1:23: “We preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews and folly to the Gentiles.” In the words of Rom. 1:16, Luther explains that Christ crucified “is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith.” He immediately adds, “If I were to consult reason about this, it would say: ‘Let the devil believe in the sort of wretched person who was nailed to a cross!’”[42] Reason serves the theology of glory, which does not look for God or salvation in the shame of the cross but in metaphysical speculation and through good works. In thesis 21 of the Heidelberg Disputation, Luther maintains, “A theology of glory calls evil good and good evil. A theology of the cross calls the thing what it actually is.”[43] The “evil” that the theologian of glory (or scholastic theologian) calls “good” is the evil of works righteousness and of peering into the majesty of God: “he prefers works to suffering, glory to the cross, strength to weakness, wisdom to folly, and, in general, good to evil.”[44] At what is Luther aiming in this critique of the scholastic theologian? After all, good works, glory, strength, and wisdom all seem, in themselves, to be desirable things. But Luther’s point is that none of these things actually enable a man to lay hold of God. In this earthly realm reason rightly infers that these things–good works, glory, strength, and wisdom—lead to blessing. But in the realm of salvation these things lead men to despise the cross, calling it “evil” and seeking another way to justification and to the knowledge of God.

Luther prefaces his theses regarding the two kinds of theology (and theologians) with this counsel: “It is certain that a man must utterly despair of his own ability before he is prepared to receive the grace of Christ.”[45] The scope of this counsel is both epistemological and ethical. If a man does not despair of his natural reasoning powers he will not attain to true knowledge of God. Additionally, if he does not despair of his natural moral powers he will never attain to the righteousness required by God for salvation. But it is not until man despairs of his reasoning powers that he will be able to see his need to despair of his moral powers as well; indeed, it is natural reason that tells him that God will reward works performed by an act of his will and in his native moral ability.

Inasmuch as natural reason looks past the cross to glory, it devises ways to earn favor with God. Luther remarks, “he who has not been brought low, reduced to nothing through the cross and suffering, takes credit for works and wisdom and does not give credit to God. He thus misuses and defiles the gifts of God.”[46] The misuse that Luther refers to is that of attempting to establish one’s own righteousness through the works of the law. The “works” are God’s gift for the ordering of government and society (by restraining sin and promoting civic righteousness), but they were never intended to be credited to man as spiritual righteousness. It is not that the righteous man does not work, but only that “his works do not make him righteous.”[47] But natural reason cannot understand this: “This is above reason. That God is so merciful, not on account of my works but on account of his Son, is incomprehensible.”[48]

Inasmuch as Luther’s reform program called for a new and more modest understanding of reason, it also called for a whole new understanding of righteousness. We now turn to that most-important flashpoint in Luther’s conflict with late medieval theology.

Reforming Righteousness

As Luther saw it, possibly no theological concept was more in need of a theological overhaul than “righteousness” (iuistitia). In his own experience his new understanding of righteousness constituted a major breakthrough, liberating him from the torments of conscience he experienced as a fastidious monk. Luther relates his experience:

For a long time I went astray [in the monastery] and didn’t know what I was about. To be sure, I knew something, but I didn’t know what it was until I came to the text in Romans 1[:17], ‘He who through faith is righteous shall live.’ That text helped me. There I saw what righteousness Paul was talking about. Earlier in the text I read ‘righteousness.’ I related the abstract [‘righteousness’] with the concrete [‘the righteous One’] and became sure of my cause. I learned to distinguish between the righteousness of the law and the righteousness of the gospel. I lacked nothing before this except that I made no distinction between the law and the gospel. I regarded them both as the same thing and held that there was no difference between Christ and Moses except the times in which they lived and their degree of perfection. But when I discovered the proper distinction–namely, that the law is one thing and the gospel is another–I made myself free.[49]

Luther came to understand that not all righteousness is the same. The righteousness that makes one acceptable with God is different than the righteousness that one attains through obedience to the law.

This distinction between different kinds of righteousness follows from Luther’s notion of double-truth and the doctrine of the two kingdoms. Righteousness should not be flattened out to mean the same thing in every sphere. In the introduction to his commentary on Galatians, Luther identifies four kinds of righteousness: civil, ceremonial, legal, and Christian. The last kind Luther calls the “righteousness of faith” (iustitia fidei).[50] The first three all belong to the regnum mundi. Scholastic theology had gone wrong in supposing that the way man became righteous in the Christian sense was virtually identical to the way he became righteous in the other three senses. Of course, as Luther saw it, this error was due to the dictates of natural reason trespassing into the domain of theology and faith. He explains:

Since human nature and natural reason, as it is called, are by nature superstitious and ready to imagine, when laws and works are prescribed, that righteousness must be obtained through laws and works; and further, since they are trained and confirmed in this opinion by the practices of all earthly lawgivers, it is impossible that they should of themselves escape from the slavery of works and come to a knowledge of the freedom of faith.[51]

There are three criticisms in particular that Luther levels against the scholastic concept of righteousness. First, the scholastics wrongly taught that man could prepare himself for justifying grace by “doing what is in him.” Second, righteousness was erroneously conceived as a habit (habitus). And third, righteousness was incorrectly represented as merit. We will consider each in turn.

1. Luther Denies That Man Prepares For Justification By “Doing What Is In Him”

Luther rejects the nominalist teaching that man can prepare himself to receive God’s grace by doing what is in him. Denying that good deeds can be performed apart from grace, he declares, “it is plain insanity to say that man of his own powers can love God above all things and can perform the works of the Law according to the substance of the act, even if not according to the intentions of Him who gave the commandment, because he is not in a state of grace. O fools, O pig-theologians (Sawtheologen)!”[52] Luther is opposing not strictly the scholastic doctrine of justification, but the semi-Pelagian idea that there is something in man’s nature that enables him to move toward God on his own initiative.

This movement toward God, achieved through the performance of good works, was thought by the nominalists to be preparatory for the gracious infusion of saving righteousness; but the good works of natural man are not themselves the righteousness that saves. Man’s doing what is in him secured the grace of God (but not justification or forgiveness of sins) inasmuch as God received such imperfect efforts as congruent merit (de congruo). David Steinmetz explains Gabriel Biel’s emphasis on natural man doing what is in him:

Sinners must summon up their inner resources, turn a deaf ear to the voice of concupiscence, and by sheer force of will do what for Adam and Eve was a spontaneous, unforced, unselfconscious act [i.e., love God]. But, hard or easy, the act can still be done. Sinners can still produce human affection for God, which is the fulfillment of the law, even though they cannot induce in themselves the charity that justifies.[53]

Heiko Oberman further delineates Biel’s view on preparatory good works:

The sinner cannot promote himself from a state of sin to a state of grace since the state of grace presupposes the infusion of grace; and this is a gift of God. But the sinner can reach the demarcation line where sin and grace meet because when he removes the lock on the closed door of his heart, that is, assent to sin, and loves God for his sake, he does what he is able to do. This demarcation line is the status in puris naturalibus.[54]

For Biel, these good works that bring man to the point of receiving God’s grace are a kind of “semi-merit”; they do not earn God’s grace in the strict legal sense, but secure it on the grounds of God’s generosity. But to Luther’s way of thinking, if man is incapable in his native power of earning eternal salvation, he is equally incapable of performing the good works that supposedly qualify him (even if by God’s gracious choice) to receive the “first grace” of God. The nominalists have gone wrong in assuming that God will not grant his gracious salvation to sinners unless they have made some progress on their own toward becoming saints. The idea is that God loves those who have first come to love him. The Ockhamists appealed to texts such as James 4:8: “Draw near to God and he will draw near to you.” But Luther denies that such texts actually apply to man preparing himself to receive the saving grace of God. He maintains that the entire work of preparing the sinner to receive grace belongs to God. Thus, “The love of God does not find, but creates, that which is pleasing to it.”[55] Luther expounds this point: “the love of God which lives in man loves sinners, evil persons, fools, and weaklings in order to make them righteous, good, wise, and strong. Rather than seeking its own good, the love of God flows forth and bestows good.”[56] But if man were required to first prepare himself to receive God’s grace by doing what is in him then God would not be God; that is, God’s bestowal of grace would not be entirely his work from beginning to end. Man would have some, even if comparatively small, part to play and to that extent the glory of God in salvation would be diminished.

2. Luther Denies That Righteousness Is A Habit

Besides disallowing that man can prepare himself to receive God’s grace, Luther also aims to reform the doctrine of justification by denying that righteousness is a habit (habitus). He is especially concerned to refute the theological use of Aristotle at this point. Aristotle teaches that “habit is the genus of virtue.”[57] “Virtue” is a generic term which circumscribes many qualities, including righteousness. Consequently, Aristotle, and those scholastics who followed him, hold that a man becomes just by doing just deeds: “we become just by doing just actions.”[58] Insofar as Aristotle intends to speak of the civil, ceremonial, and legal righteousness of the regnum mundi Luther agrees with him. Restricted to the earthly sphere the reformer does not object to the idea of habitus, in which a man improves himself through effort and practice (e.g., as in learning to play a musical instrument, to paint, to read, to write, or even to obey the civil law). But this concept of “improvement” through habituation cannot be brought over into the questions of theology, namely, how a man might attain to the righteousness required by God.[59]

In attacking habitus Luther is opposing the common understanding of righteousness as transformative, a subjective renewal of the sinner through the infusion of Christ’s own righteous works.[60] Notice the transformative emphasis in the words of Luther’s Catholic nemesis, Cardinal Cajetan: “It is intolerable that one’s sins should be forgiven before charity is infused in the person forgiven.... [W]hen the unrighteous man is made righteous through Christ, an enemy of God is transformed into a friend of God.”[61] This makes justification a process by which one becomes increasingly more righteous as he cultivates the habit of charity, or love. In his Disputation Against Scholastic Theology, Luther counters the teaching that righteousness transforms the sinner through habitus: “We do not become righteous by doing righteous deeds but, having been made righteous, we do righteous deeds.”[62] And again: “He is not righteous who does much, but he who, without works, believes much in Christ.”[63] Christian righteousness comes from above and not from below by the efforts of man. On this account Luther charges that the scholastics failed to understand Aristotle, Christ, and the apostle Paul:

No wonder…that Paul’s theology vanished entirely and could not be understood after Christians began to be instructed by men who declared falsely that Aristotle’s ethics are entirely in accord with the doctrine of Christ and Paul, by men who failed to completely understand either Aristotle or Christ. For our righteousness looks down from heaven and descends to us. But those godless men have presumed to ascend into heaven by means of their righteousness.[64]

But if righteousness is not a cultivated quality of grace arising from the determination of man’s will as it cooperates with the Holy Spirit, then how is it to be understood? In contrast to the late medieval understanding of righteousness, Luther proposes that saving righteousness is received from God instantaneously, passively, and completely. Brian Gerrish details the differences that Luther perceives between Christian righteousness, or faith righteousness, and the righteousness of the earthly kingdom:

In the Earthly Kingdom there is the possibility of improvement, daily growth in the righteousness of love; whereas in the Heavenly Kingdom the Christian is already wholly righteous, because the righteousness of faith is the perfect righteousness of Christ. Justification before God is instantaneous and complete; and, if we are to distinguish clearly between Luther’s position and that of the Schoolmen, this ‘all at once’ (ganz auff eyn mal) is perhaps as important as the ‘faith alone’ (sola fide).[65]

Luther rejects the idea that righteousness is renovative, or transformative. It does not produce any subjective change in the sinner. Saving righteousness is not the absence of one’s subjective sinfulness, but refers rather to the new just status possessed by the believing sinner who remains a sinner. This can be summed up in Luther’s familiar affirmation that the Christian is at the same time just and a sinner (simul justus et peccator). But reason rejects Luther’s maxim that the Christian is simul justus et peccator:

Reason thinks as follows: If you have been justified, you cannot be a sinner. But they do not understand the magnitude of divine mercy and the efficacy of faith, that is, they cannot discern true from false. They do not think that God can count us righteous while sin remains. His imputation is greater than our purity; the substance [of sin] remains.[66]

The nominalists had taught that the Christian is “partly justus, partly peccator.”[67] Luther’s contention that the believer is both/and is an attempt to reform the older Roman idea that the Christian is either/or.

Justifying righteousness is entirely concerned with how God regards a man and not with what a man actually is in his nature. Luther illustrates his point with a discussion on Gentile uncleanness. In the book of Acts (chapter 10) the Jews considered the Gentiles to be unclean, but in a rooftop vision of unclean animals, the apostle Peter is shown that what he regards as unclean God has really considered clean. God ‘purifies’ the Gentiles and thus justifies them. Luther points out that the word for ‘purify’ is the word for ‘imputing’: “To purify the heart is to impute purification to the heart. God cleanses the Gentiles, that is, he considers them cleansed, because they have faith, although they are really sinners.”[68] Just as the animals on the sheet let down from heaven in Peter’s vision were really unclean according to God’s law, God pronounced them clean. He does the same for us by pronouncing Christians righteous, “although as a matter of fact we are sinners just as those animals were unclean.” It is only after God has cleansed us by the declaration of imputation that he begins in reality to cleanse us in substance: “For he first purifies by imputation, then he gives the Holy Spirit, through whom he purifies even in substance. Faith cleanses through the remission of sins, the Holy Spirit cleanses through the effect.”[69]

Luther teaches the same thing in theses 23 and 24 of his Disputation Concerning Justification (1536): “23. For we perceive that a man who is justified is not yet a righteous man, but is in the very journey or movement toward righteousness. 24. Therefore, whoever is justified is still a sinner; and yet he is considered fully and perfectly righteous by God who pardons and is merciful.”[70] Luther is clear that forgiveness of sins and justification are fully effected prior to the transformative work of the indwelling Holy Spirit; they are produced by God’s declaration, or reckoning, of righteousness, although the believer is not yet righteous subjectively or “in substance.” As the two theses mentioned indicate, Luther does maintain that once a man has been reckoned righteous, and thereby justified, he will inevitably be made righteous in the subjective and transformative sense. But these two kinds of righteousness should not be conflated; the former justifies, the latter sanctifies and flows from justifying righteousness as a certain consequence.

3. Luther Denies That Good Works Count As Merit

Finally, we consider one other feature of Luther’s attempt to reform the theological understanding of righteousness. He denies that man’s good works, though they are a form of non-justifying righteousness, are counted as merit. This follows from what we have considered regarding Luther’s teaching that justifying righteousness is declarative and not transformative. It has nothing to do with man’s works: “it is certain that a man cannot be justified in the sight of God by his own merits.”[71]

The question of merit is not the same as that of man’s ability, that is, whether man can “do what is in him.” Many scholastics were quick to qualify “merit” as pertaining only to those works performed in the power of the Holy Spirit as he infused the righteous merit of Christ. Gabriel Biel is representative of most nominalists in differentiating between “good works” performed by the natural man before the reception of grace and “meritorious” works performed only by those in the state of grace with the help of God’s Spirit.[72]

Cardinal Cajetan defines merit as follows: “Merit is said of a voluntary work, whether interior or external, to which by right a payment or reward is due.”[73] The Cardinal, following both the via antiqua and the via moderna, readily confesses that there is no such thing as “strict” merit. Man has not absolute “right” to anything. His only claim to “rights” is on account of God’s free decision to both give him rights and the ability to secure them through works. Cajetan calls this a “weakened right”: “This weakened right is found between man and God by reason of the divine ordination by which God ordained our works to be meritorious before himself.”[74] In this way God becomes his own debtor, required to grant the reward promised because of his decree (i.e., de potentia ordinata) regarding merit. But, strictly speaking, God could have freely chosen not to reward man’s works as merit and man would have no claim on God in that case. Cajetan writes, “God is therefore indebted to himself alone, that he should carry out his own will by which he granted that human works would be meritorious so he would render to man the reward for his work.”[75] God is indebted to his own prior determination to reward the good works of men. Oberman explains: “De potentia ordinata the infusion of grace, the inhabitation of the Holy Spirit and the acceptation by God coincide.”[76]

We may presume that this scholastic emphasis on merit de condigno, rewarded on the basis of God’s prior decree, would satisfy Luther’s complaint against understanding the Christian’s good works as meritorious. After all, it was God who established the possibility of meritorious works in the first place. But Luther still protests, arguing that every good work performed by the Christian, even though done in the power of the Holy Spirit, is so corrupted by man’s remaining sinfulness as to make it insufficient to count as merit. He explains, “The works of God (and we speak of those which he does through man) are…not merits, as though they were sinless.”[77] In his Lectures on Galatians (1535) Luther comments on Galatians 2:16, which reads, “a man is not justified by works of the Law but through faith in Jesus Christ.” Luther denies that man is justified by works, even if those works are ascribed entirely to God as many scholastics taught: “[Paul] is contrasting the righteousness of faith with the righteousness of the entire Law, with everything that can be done on the basis of the Law, whether by divine power or by human.”[78]

The real question for Luther is not whether man is able, in the state of grace, to perform good works that are pleasing to God–he most certainly can do this. But ability to do good works in the power of the Spirit does not necessarily indicate that they then count as merit. In Luther’s understanding of Scripture, righteousness is a declared status and not an infused habit or quality of the soul. Notice his emphasis on “pronouncement”:

For by the righteousness of the Law…a man is not pronounced righteous in the sight of God; but God imputes the righteousness of faith freely through His mercy, for the sake of Christ... [T]here is no doubt that the Law is holy, righteous, and good; therefore the works of the Law are holy, righteous, and good. Nevertheless, man is not justified in the sight of God through them.[79]

To teach otherwise, Luther divines, “is the theology of the antichristian kingdom.”[80] Luther insists on the necessity of good works for salvation, but he distinguishes between necessity and causation; good works are necessary to our salvation, but they do not cause it. He writes:

I reply to the argument, then, that our obedience is necessary for salvation. It is, therefore, a partial cause of our justification. Many things are necessary which are not a cause and do not justify…. Works are necessary to salvation, but they do not cause salvation, because faith alone gives life. On account of the hypocrites [antinomians?] we must say that good works are necessary to salvation. It is necessary to work. Nevertheless, it does not follow that works save on that account, unless we understand necessity very clearly as the necessity that there must be an inward and outward salvation or righteousness. Works save outwardly, that is, they show evidence that we are righteous and that there is faith in a man that saves inwardly… Outward salvation shows faith to be present, just as fruit shows a tree to be good.[81]

Conclusion

In seeking to make the Scriptures accessible to theology Luther assigned new roles to reason and philosophy. Though they could legitimately maintain their esteemed magisterial place in the regnum mundi, they were to serve only as ministers in the regnum Christi, conformable only to Scripture and no longer to Aristotle. Even if Luther’s quest for a theological grammar was not entirely successful—his own theology continues to bear the deep impression of Aristotelian influence in many areas—he did make considerable advances in his attempt to reform the doctrine by which the Church stands or falls: the doctrine of justification.

Notes

1. See Harold J. Grimm, “Introduction” to Disputation Against Scholastic Theology, in Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, 55 vols. ed. Jaroslav J. Pelikan, Harold J. Grimm, Helmut T. Lehmann (St. Louis and Philadelphia: Concordia Publishing House and Fortress Press, 1957-1986), 31:6. Luther’s Works are hereafter cited as LW.
2. A plausible case can be made that the 97 theses against scholastic theology, and the theses of the Heidelberg Disputation, issued less than a year later in 1518, are more revealing of Luther’s underlying convictions against late medieval Roman Catholic theology than his 95 theses on indulgences. This argument has been made by David V. N. Bagchi in his, “Sic et Non: Luther and Scholasticism,” in Protestant Scholasticism: Essays in Reassessment, ed. Carl R. Trueman and R. Scott Clark (Carlisle, U.K.: Paternoster Press, 1999), 3. Bernhard Lohse writes of the Disputation Against Scholastic Theology, “In these theses, Luther declared his opposition to the theology that was most common at the time. And it was basically accidental that the conflict between Luther and Rome developed not on the basis of these theses but rather in response to his far-less-radical Ninety-five Theses on indulgences of October 31, 1517” (Lohse, Martin Luther: An Introduction to His Life and Work, trans. Robert C. Schultz [Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986], 30). Indeed, the 95 theses against indulgence abuses may simply have been an extension of Luther’s emerging abhorrence of medieval scholasticism’s tendency to elevate the powers of the human subject. As he saw it, the assumptions that inspired indulgence abuses were shot through with scholasticism’s high view of man. In any case, a consideration of his opposition to scholasticism, and particularly its misuse of philosophy, will enable us to get closer to the heart of his reforming impulses.
3. LW 26:267. Emphasis added.
4. LW 38:247.
5. Heiko A. Oberman, The Two Reformations: The Journey from the Last Days to the New World, ed. Donald Weinstein (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2003), 46-47.
6. Cornelis Augustijn, “Wittenberga Contra Scholasticos,” in Reformation and Scholasticism, ed. Willem J. van Asselt and Eef Dekker (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2001), 68.
7. Ibid., 69.
8. Gerhard Ebeling, Luther: An Introduction to his Thought (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1970), 87.
9. Ibid. For example, in The Disputation Concerning Man (1536) Luther pits Scripture against Greek philosophy when he writes, “Philosophers and Aristotle are not able to understand or to define what the theological man is, but by the grace of God we are able to do it, because we have the Bible” (LW 34:152 [emphasis added]).
10. LW 31:12. Luther often allows Aristotle to stand for philosophy in general. Brian Gerrish explains: “It is important to observe that, for Luther, the name of Aristotle is virtually synonymous with reason and philosophy, so that one of Luther’s descriptions for the Greek philosopher is ‘the light of nature’, precisely the same expression which he uses elsewhere in speaking of reason.” Brian A. Gerrish, Grace and Reason: A Study in the Theology of Luther (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1962), 33.
11. LW 31:12.
12. LW 34:144.
13. Cited in Heiko A. Oberman, Luther: Man Between God and the Devil, trans. Eileen Walliser-Schwarzbart (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1989), 121.
14. Luther, TR 5, no. 5245, cited in Gerrish, Grace and Reason, 29.
15. LW 34:137. In the context Luther is using “philosophy” and “reason” interchangeably. See below for a fuller treatment of Luther’s views on reason.
16. William of Ockham, Quodlibetal Questions: Quodlibets 1-7, trans. Alfred J. Freddoso and Francis E. Kelly (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1991), 401.
17. Ibid., 397-401.
18. Oberman, Luther, 121. Cf., Oberman, Two Reformations, 45. In 1520 Luther certainly appears to be friendly toward Ockhamism, calling Ockham, “my dear master” (LW 34:27).
19. LW 38:239. Luther may also be taking his queue from Robert of Holcot whose basic thesis is summarized by Gerrish: “A proposition may be false in theology and true in philosophy, and vice versa” (Grace and Reason, 52). Gerrish adds, “Holcot even began a search for what he called a logica fidei–a new ‘logic of faith’–apparently believing that the rules of philosophical logic simply did not apply in matters of theology” (53).
20. LW 38:239.
21. LW 38:249-250.
22. Gerrish, Grace and Reason, 53. On the proper categories of philosophy and theology, Gerrish writes, “Philosophy is concerned with the objects of sensory perception, things which can be experienced and conceptualized; whereas the Christian’s concern is with invisible things, the ‘things which are not’, that is, things whose existence men question because they cannot see them” (29).
23. I. U. Dalferth, “The Visible and the Invisible: Luther’s Legacy of a Theological Theology,” in England and Germany. Studies in Theological Diplomacy, ed. S. W. Sykes (Frankfurt and Bern: Verlag Peter D. Lang, 1982), 20.
24. LW 31:12.
25. Gerrish, Grace and Reason, 41.
26. For a useful discussion of the political and ethical nuances of Luther’s doctrine of the two kingdoms see Bernhard Lohse, Martin Luther’s Theology: Its Historical and Systematic Development, ed. and trans. Roy A. Harrisville (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1999), 151-59, 314-24.
27. LW 21:105.
28. LW 14:22.
29. Dalferth, “Visible,” 24.
30. LW 31:55. In context Luther appears to use “wisdom” as a double entendre referring both to the law and to philosophy. The point about misusing philosophy is intentionally implied in Luther’s discussion of the law in theses 19-24 of the Heidelberg Disputation. Law and philosophy are parallel concepts inasmuch both belong to the natural ordering of life in the regnum mundi.
31. LW 54:39.
32. LW 31:53.
33. Augustijn, “Wittenberga Contra Scholasticos,” 66.
34. Ebeling, Luther, 89.
35. Gerrish, Grace and Reason, 103.
36. LW 22:424.
37. LW 22:424-425.
38. LW 22:151. The mention of the Law instilled in men’s hearts seems to be in opposition to the Catholic notion of synderesis (moral sense), which conceived of men as possessing a natural inclination toward good. Luther is saying that the Law written on the heart, though it informs man regarding right and wrong, is not a force moving him toward salvific purity. On Gabriel Biel’s notion of synderesis see, David C. Steinmetz, Luther in Context, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2002), 61.
39. LW 22:153.
40. Ibid.
41. See especially Luther’s explanation of theses 19-24 in LW 31:52-55. For a lucid treatment of these concepts see Gerhard O. Forde, On Being a Theologian of the Cross: Reflections on Luther’s Heidelberg Disputation, 1518 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997). Cf., Walther von Loewenich, Luther’s Theology of the Cross, trans. Herbert J. A. Bouman (Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1976).
42. LW 22:345.
43. LW 31:53.
44. Ibid.
45. LW 31:51.
46. LW 31:55.
47. LW 31:56.
48. LW 54:60.
49. LW 54:442-443. Cf. LW 54:193-194. For a discussion of the existential significance for Luther of this new understanding see Alister McGrath, Luther’s Theology of the Cross (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1985), 140.
50. LW 26:4.
51. LW 31:376.
52. LW 25:261.
53. Steinmetz, Luther in Context, 61. It was Biel’s articulation of scholasticism that had the most direct impact on Luther. His understanding of Ockham was mediated through Biel who had personally taught Luther’s own professor.
54. Heiko A. Oberman, The Harvest of Medieval Theology: Gabriel Biel and Late Medieval Nominalism (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1963), 175.
55. LW 31:41.
56. LW 31:57.
57. Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics, book 2, ch. 5, in Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, rev. ed., trans. C. I. Litzinger (Notre Dame, Ind.: Dumb Ox Books, 1993), 99.
58. Ibid., book 2, ch. 1, in Aquinas, Commentary, 83.
59. 
    
60. 
    
61. Luther states, “Virtually the entire Ethics of Aristotle is the worst enemy of grace” (LW 31:12). Of course Aristotle may be very useful when his philosophy is not commandeered by theologians to serve a purpose the philosopher himself never intended.
62. Ebeling identifies two kinds of habitus present in the teaching of the scholastics: “Scholasticism distinguishes quite clearly between a habitus acquisitus, a habitus acquired by oneself, such as only exists in the sphere of natural virtues, and a habitus infusus, an infused habitus bestowed as a gift, which is only possible through the process of grace” (Luther, 90).
63. Tommaso de Vio [Cardinal Cajetan], “Faith and Works–Against the Lutherans, 1532,” in Cajetan Responds: A Reader in Reformation Controversy, ed. and trans. Jared Wicks, S. J. (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1978), 224.
64. LW 31:12.
65. LW 31:41. Emphasis added. Compare this with Cajetan who writes, “We speak of the righteousness of faith, since by it a person is righteous before God, conformable to the divine realities and deeds in which we believe” (“Faith and Works,” 224). The “divine realities” are those virtues that one perceives to be in Christ. Thus, we are made righteous by conformity to the righteousness, or justice, that is in Christ. Luther denies that such conformity to Christ is the means of obtaining forgiveness and justification. The “righteousness of faith” is, for Cajetan, a conforming righteousness.
66. LW 27:225. Gerrish points out that the Schoolmen misunderstood Aristotle by “applying to theology propositions [e.g., ‘we become just by doing just actions’] which belonged originally and only to philosophy” (Grace and Reason, 96).
67. Gerrish, Grace and Reason, 119-120.
68. LW 34:166.
69. Oberman, Harvest, 167.
70. LW 34:168.
71. Ibid.
72. LW 34: 152-153.
73. LW 34:154.
74. Oberman, Harvest, 165. Oberman points out that even if Biel does not regard good works done in man’s natural power as strictly meritorious, he does seem to regard them as deserving, in some sense, of God’s infused grace. The infusion of grace as reward for natural good works “definitely is an eternal commitment to which God is as irrevocably tied as to acceptation of acts performed in a state of grace” (172).
75. Cajetan, “Faith and Works,” 228. This description basically follows that of Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologiae, ques. 114, art. 1.
76. Cajetan, “Faith and Works,” 228.
77. Ibid., 229.
78. Oberman, Harvest, 169.
79. LW 31:39.
80. LW 26:122. Emphasis added.
81. LW 26:123.
82. Ibid. It may be that Luther is referring to the regnum mundi in speaking the “antichristian kingdom”; if so we must remember that it is “antichristian” insofar as its understanding of Christian righteousness is derived from Aristotelian philosophy and not from a proper understanding of the Scriptures.
83. LW 34:165.