A form of theology which has ceased to regard Christianity as the positive and essentially unchangeable revelation of God, and which therefore no longer considers itself bound to Christianity in any definite form, ought, one would suppose, to approach in a perfectly impartial spirit the question of Luther's right and claim to act as reformer of the same. Rationalists and the modern religious philosophers, who regard faith as a subjective, personal realization of an everywhere present deity, in many cases actually display this impartiality of judgment, provided their insight is not obscured by an ignorance of facts. The profession of Protestantism however, and particularly of Protestant theology, produces in its adherents a psychological disposition which makes it difficult for them to correctly estimate Luther, no matter how anxious they may be to judge facts honestly and independently, -- more so than for a Catholic, in spite of his dogmatic point of view. W. Köhler{1} remarks that recent historical research has in some important particulars produced a modification of Luther's sweeping condemnation of Rome, and he goes on to say: "Whatever is gained in this way by Catholicism, is a loss to Protestantism" (p. 51). This admission shows us the real cause of the phenomenon to which I have referred. It is equivalent to this: If the life, work of Luther -- viz., Protestantism as an aggressive, negative force -- is right, it follows that the Catholic Church must be wrong. The degree of Luther's justification depends upon the degree in which the Catholic Church was wrong. Luther broke with the Church and established Protestantism on the strength of certain definite charges brought against the Church; viz., that by her teaching and organization she had falsified and corrupted Christianity in such a radical and irremediable manner that a Christian was in duty bound to wage war upon her so as to bring about the victory of a purer form of Christianity. The numerous practical abuses and scandals of his time served Luther as convenient and gross illustrations of this corruption. But all this could not justify a falling away from the Church, so long as she was inwardly sound and preserved intact her religious principles, her authority, and the means of grace; for by this inner vitality she retained the capacity to eliminate any diseased matter that had penetrated into her system. Luther was bound, therefore, to show also that the teaching of the Church had degenerated, and that her claim to be the channel of grace and truth was false. It behooved him to offer to mankind in his new gospel a conception of Christianity more true to the original, and one more moral and more fruitful than that of the Catholic Church. Viewed in this way, we see indeed that whatever is a gain for Catholicism is a loss to Protestantism. When Janssen undertook to throw fresh light upon the gloomy picture usually drawn of the state of morals and civilization at the close of the Middle Ages, and when he refuted many of Luther's gross exaggerations, he inevitably destroyed the sense of contrast generally produced by highly coloured accounts of the Reformation, and thus he contributed to a justification of Catholic dogma. A careful study of the teaching of the Church, a recognition of the fact that scholasticism indeed based all salvation upon faith, that in Catholicism faith, like contrition, was an act of interior conviction and devotion to Christ, and that God's grace and the love proceeding from it formed the very soul of Catholic piety, -- these things at once gave rise to a doubt as to whether Luther's doctrine of justification by faith had been really such a magnificent advance in the theory of salvation as he had avowed it to be and as Protestantism has always proclaimed.
Catholics experience no such inherent difficulty in surveying impartially the facts of history. If anything is gained for Protestant by modern research, it is not necessarily lost to Catholicism. The Church confronted Luther with her apostolic authority, and he could not turn his back upon her without absolutely denying in principle that authority. On the other hand, in accordance with her principles, she could, and had to, cast out Luther if he separated himself from her on even one single point of dogma, even had he been a priest of most blameless life and a most learned theologian. Whatever in his writings is really Christian and edifying, whatever thoughts derived from the Bible and tradition continue to flow pure and true, they are certainly not losses to the Church; on the contrary, she recognizes them as her own property, like the Bible itself, and the doctrines which Luther adopted from her. In opposition to Luther, Jansenius, and others, she has always maintained that sinners, heretics, and pagans are able, by the aid of reason, to grasp moral ideas and religious truths, and possess will power to perform natural good works. Why, then, should she hesitate to recognize what is true and good in her adversaries? The Fathers of the early Church already remarked that the danger of errors of faith, and the success of a new faith, stood oftentimes in a psychological connection with a powerful and abounding intellect. "No one is capable of starting a heresy who does not possess an ardent spirit and great natural gifts, such as only the Creator could bestow upon him."{2}
From Tertullian down to Lamennais and Döllinger, there have been many instances showing that such men, although their separation from the Church was severely criticised and deeply lamented, were not delivered up to reckiess persecution and hatred, nor to defamation. In principle, therefore, a Catholic is at liberty to do justice to Luther's character and doctrine on all doubtful points; but Catholics and Protestants agree in acknowledging that he was a heretic from the Church's point of view, and as such the Church was bound to condemn him. The interests of Catholicism do not require us to deny or minimize the evils and scandals in the Church that paved the way for the Reformation. There were voices raised, even before Luther's time and contemporaneously with him, against these evils, and the Council of Trent, in the very first sentence of its proceedings, declared that its task was not only, to combat heresy and to establish the Christian faith, but also to effect a necessary reformation of the clergy and of the Christian people.
It will be objected that actual Catholic controversy does not show much trace of this broad-minded and impartial spirit, but I am speaking here of liberty to choose a point of view, as a matter of principle. The actual form of controversy is influenced by other tendencies and presumptions, more or less accidental. The distinction, however, between the positive and assured status of the Church and the negation contained in the very name and nature of Protestantism is apparent also in the actual mode of carrying on the conflict. Harnack remarks: "A false mode of warfare consists in comparing the excellent theory of one's own Church with the faulty practice of the other. It were better to compare theory with theory and practice with practice. Useless are squabbles in which the Churches taunt one another these days with the sins of the past." The discussions of Köhler and Harnack, however, show that the corrections made by impartial research in theoretical and eontroversial theology were for the most part corrections of Protestant prejudices, dating from the time of Luther and still finding frequent expression in popular Protestant literature. In attacking the Catholic Church, it was tempting and easy to seek confirmation of alleged "bad theories" by bad practices, because, in comparison with Protestantism, her "past" is so much more extended, her responsible agents and institutions so much more public and accessible, and the contrast between her lofty ideals and their defective realization, where such actually occurs, so much more striking. For any one with a keen eye for such things it was easy to compile a copious chronique scandaleuse of sins and follies in the history of the Church. However, no one can deny that Catholic controversialists have never displayed any such versatility in enumerating scandalous incidents for the sake of arousing aversion. In this respect they have limited their activity almost exclusively to the person of Luther; and truly few historical characters offer so much scope for this treatment as his, especially since Protestants have always put him forward, and still do so, as the very incarnation of the Protestant spirit. On this subject, however, more thorough investigations, such as are now being made, were required on the part of Catholics, in order to be perfectly just towards the founder of Protestantism and to be able to give an intelligible account of the influence that he exerted upon the history of the world; we require an accurate statement of his doctrines, an appreciation, based on facts, of his intentions and actions, and we must study him calmly and objectively, never accepting as true anything, however probable it seems, unless it is fully proved, even though we are dealing with an unfair antagonist.
In questions relating to theories and the history of dogma Catholic theology, unlike Protestant theology, has never been compelled to abandon earlier positions. Protestants, of the past and the present, regard it as Luther's greatest achievement and merit that he secured freedom from the Papacy, destruction of hierarchical power, abolition of the Mass and other ceremonies and of the veneration of saints and relics, the denial of the possibility of merit; and we have never questioned the fact that he did all this. If modern theologians extol Luther for making man depend upon himself and his own inner consciousness, and for regarding religion as a subjective matter, thus giving unbridled freedom to that independent and self-glorifying daring of the individual which still affects modern civilization so much, -- these ideas, though they may suggest many critical limitations, give us no reason to abandon our old positions in apologetics or to revise them. Catholics and Protestants will always assign different moral and religious values to these things, but in the historical recognition of facts both go a long way on the same path.
On one point only is the opposition in their historical conception as great, and the conflict between them as sharp, as it was fifty years ago; in fact the energy formerly displayed on the subject of dogma seems now to centre upon the historical discussion of what Luther's doctrine actually was and just what he meant by justifying faith. In the last few years, whenever Catholic theologians have attacked Luther's teaching, their arguments have been aimed especially at this point. On this subject controversy at the present day still presents the same features as of old, -- on the one side admiring appreciation, on the other unreserved condemnation. According to the Protestant view the theory of "justification by faith alone" resumes and expands St. Paul's teaching, and has given liberty and increased vigour to the religious life of Christians without affecting their moral life; according to the Catholic view it has accomplished a violent separation between faith and charity, between religion and morals, a separation, itself immoral and unchristian, that must inevitably lead to a weakening of morality. And both parties claim with equal assurance to be expressing Luther's real opinion, and justify their respective views by abundant quotations from his writings and speeches.
To what cause can we ascribe this sharp antithesis, this exception to the equalizing influence of historical research? One reason for it may undoubtedly be found in the central position assigned by Luther to faith. Sola fides is the material principle of his system, just as sola scriptura is its formal principle; and justification by faith alone is the articulus stantis et cadentis ecclesiae. To prove the original meaning of this proposition to have been serious, noble, and Christian is a matter of vital importance from the Protestant standpoint, whilst to discover in it the root of Luther's other fatal errors appears to a Catholic controversialist a real triumph. But have not "Protestant scholars since Lessing's time perceived that the written word is inseparable from tradition,"{3} and does not this involve abandoning the formal principle of the reformers? This is a fact closely connected with the development of liberal Protestantism with regard to its conception of Revelation, going in this beyond Luther; for rationalistic theology does not stand at all in the same relation to the Bible and tradition as Luther. These theologians assert that, in his version of the formal principle, Luther was influenced by false historical views; but by putting unfavourable interpretation upon his sola fides doctrine, is he not charged with misunderstanding the true nature of religion and morality?
Without doubt the whole question becomes still more complicated and confused if strong emphasis is laid with partiality upon certain support for modern ideas found in Luther's conception of faith, or upon some of its non-essential features as the advocates of free, undogmatic Christianity usually do.{4}
To confuse the question with other doctrines put forward by the reformers is also an obstacle to a clear comprehension of it, for instead of explaining the sola fides doctrine in its true sense, many writers proceed to defend it by referring to the blessings of the Reformation in civilization and the way in which it delivered mankind from priestcraft and penance, from indulgences and monasticism. This is particularly questionable when an author begins by depicting the Catholic doctrine of justification by works in the traditional manner, and then goes on to speak of the sola fides doctrine as adding depth and sincerity to this mechanical kind of Christianity. This style of writing is plainly biassed and inaccurate,{5} and even if it were correct, it would be very doubtful whether a man of such vigour as Luther has found the happy mean in this controversy, and has not rather gone to the opposite extreme.
Even if such errors as these are avoided, there are still great difficulties in the way of agreement. Luther is not consistent in his utterances; at one time he speaks of faith as a purely passive attitude of mind, having no ethical value, in which the soul acquires Christ's merits without being in any way bound to renounce sin, as a kind of reliance, regardless of all good works. At another time he describes faith as a living, active force, needing no stimulus of the law, but being compelled by inward constraint to show zeal in good works. Luther's works are full of contradictions, but nowhere is this so apparent as with regard to this central point of his teaching and view of life. It is therefore a student's duty, not to be one-sided in choosing quotations in support of his own view, wbilst rejecting any contrary to it. Theologians on both sides have undoubtedly erred in this respect. It is permissible for a commentator to attempt, as far as he can, to show that opposing expressions may be referred to one fundamental opinion, -- and what the Protestant theologians say regarding the precise meaning of justification, as distinct from (subsequent) sanctification, certainly tends to remove some difficulties, -- but it is not right, from motives of mistaken loyalty, to represent clear definite statements as meaning the exact opposite, or as being mere exaggerations of expression.
How are we to get over the difficulty as to which conception of faith ought to be considered Luther's own, according to his own testimony? I hope later on, when discussing the Catholic and Protestant doctrines of justification, to establish the important point that we must regard, as Luther's own conception of faith, the one that agrees most naturally with his other characteristic doctrines, such as the absence of free will, the impossibility of fulfilling the law, the equality of all sins, absolute eertainty of salvation, etc.
According to the ordinary rules of historical criticism, the following assertions are incontestable:
1. Luther's essential and characteristic doctrines must not be sought in things in which he agrees with the Church and her classical teachers, but in what is new and peculiar to himself; i.e., on points where he is in opposition to the Catholic, traditional teaching. It is on these lines only that we can account for the tremendous movement connected with his name and the embittered conflict regarding his idea of justification; it is only for this reason that he deserves to be called a reformer, a pioneer opening up a new religious life. But Luther's doctrine would be neither new nor revolutionary if Tschackert is correct in his definition of its essence. Tschackert writes: "Luther often declared that his whole doctrine consisted of two things, faith and love. The practice of charity is, in the eyes of Protestants, inseparable from faith. It is a radical mistake to charge Protestantism with teaching justification by mercy alone on condition of faith, without paying any attention to man's ethical duties. Protestantism has never disregarded these, but has only laid particular stress upon the justification of a sinner in God's sight, in order that man might first of all be brought into his right relation with God; from this relation of faith springs a life of holy charity in all its various forms" (p. 27). What Tschaclcert here describes is precisely the Catholic doctrine as it was taught by all the scholars of the Middle Ages, and as it was defined by the Council of Trent. If this were indeed the quintessence of Luther's teaching, the whole schism would be an inexplicable mystery, and the catchword sola fides would be most unhappily selected to designate Luther's views.{6}
2. There is a psychological aspect of the matter that is perhaps still more important and decisive. The moral conception of faith and the importance attached to good works are so natural, so much in harmony with the Christian and natural conscience, that we need not be surprised if Luther often bears witness to this truth, although it contradicts his own principles as a reformer. On the other hand, the exact definition of his conception of faith, the extolling of a faith that permits a man to continue in sin, is so audacious, so offensive to the Christian and moral consciousness, that we absolutely cannot understand how any one with a highly gifted intellect could go to such lengths, unless he had desired to proclaim thereby to the world his own personal preference. The heat of controversy is not enough, by far, to account for the harshness, energy, and tenacity of Luther's utterances on this point. If we mentally pass in review all the heretical and revolutionary spirits known to us in history, we shall find that they became such, not because their teaching was exclusively false and revolutionary, but because, in the course of what was otherwise perhaps a very estimable career, they permitted themselves to be carried away by certain propositions or demands which placed them in opposition to Church or state. In answer to Mohler, F. Chr. Baur tried to excuse Luther's famous dictum, Pecca fortiter, by saying that we did not know under what precise circumstances the letter to Melanchthon was written. Möhler replied: "I will give him Baur twenty years to reflect under what possible circumstances Luther or any other Christian could bring such words in harmony with the Gospel."{7}
Even if we may see in this expression a striving after rhetorical effect, there are other passages, both numerous and emphatic, in which Luther not only separates justifying faith from morality of life, but even places them in opposition. These passages are explicable only if we assume them to be the outcome of a conviction that had completely mastered his intellect, and so was able to defy the opposition of Christian consciousness and the objections of a practical nature.
3. It is obviously important to trace the development of Luther's fundamental principle in the sequence of his writings, in determining the question how far he himself was responsible for the blunt formulation of this principle. The historical development which began with him, or reacted upon him, may likewise serve to reflect the characteristic features of his teaching. The Council of Trent, which surely possessed full knowledge of the condition of affairs with regard to religion, and desired to deal with them seriously and circumspectly, would have missed its aim and would have attacked a phantom instead of a real enemy if, in condemning fiduciary faith, it had failed to understand Luther's real meaning. There have always been Protestant theologians who boasted of preserving their inheritance from Luther with scrupulous fidelity. They have watched with distrust every attempt to attach more importance to the necessity of a moral life. Ever since the time of the Majoristic controversy "the aversion to any interpretation or expression which brought obedience on the part of man, or his good works, into relation with eternal life grew year by year stronger and more general among German Protestants," and theological works with a strongly marked moral tendency incurred at once the suspicion of heresy.{8}
Apart from the veneration of Luther's person by Protestants, there is something else which makes it difficult for them to assign the true historical meaning to his definitive teaching, and this is the fact that, in the course of time, Protestant preachers and theologians have stripped Luther's doctrine of justification of its contradiction and, as we have seen in the case of Tschackert, have changed sola fides into "faith and charity."
This is the so-called silent reformation which Krogh-Tonning describes as a "reaction in the heart of Protestantism in favour of Catholicism." It is at the same time a very decided "condemnation of the essential point in Luther's teaching." In consequence of this gradual transformation, as this Norwegian convert points out, the relation of faith to good works is now a doctrine upon which Catholics and Protestants are practically agreed. Protestant theology has abandoned those of Luther's tenets that are unchristian and subversive of morality, and so it now teaches a form of Lutheranism that is not historical, for "it has given up the principles antagonistic to the Church, and by means of a silent reformation has again taken up the moral point, endeavouring all the while to assert its Lutheran origin, even in matters that are irreconcilable with the thoughts and the teaching of the Reformation."{9}
We have here a direct confirmation of the traditional meaning, held by Catholics, of Luther's sola fides doctrine, and it is given by one who is exceptionally well informed and who was formerly a zealous adherent of Lutheranism. The same thing, however, is acknowledged more or less frankly by German theologians.{10}
Köhler blames Catholic theologians for their incapacity to understand the freshness and joyful activity imparted by the Lutheran certainty of salvation, the principle "sinner yet just." But immediately afterwards he admits that Luther's denial of free will requires some correction on the lines of Catholic claims. Further on he writes: "As the ethical moment in the process of salvation is pushed into the background, occasionally disappearing altogether, this process finds its resting point or centre of gravity in the ultimate end of reconciliation with God. The result of this is to deprive ethics of protection against a twofold danger, against quietism on the one hand and laxity on the other."{11}
Köhler acknowledges with regard to the phrase, "at the same time a sinner and saved," that it contains a compromise between ethical supernaturalism of being without sin and the realism of experience, which forms the transition either to pessimism in sinning, to that common opinion "we are once for all sinners," or to an exaggerated laudation of God's grace which carries a sinful soul into a sinless heaven. He says that if Catholics always recur to Luther's Pecca fortiter -- sin lustily -- he "is bound to confess that they are not beating the air, for there are really defects here." We have here indeed the fundamental defect of Lutheranism, the untenable compromise between realism and supernaturalism, between sin and grace, that makes Luther's idea of justification essentially different from the Catholic view. Even if it were true, as Köhler says, that by a happy inconsistency Luther never fails to see the advantage of good works, -- a statement that we emphatically challenge and that Köhler himself withdraws with reference to the Pecca fortiter maxim, -- it would still be an irremediable defect in Luther's system that the interests of morality obtain recognition only through the back door, by a "happy inconsistency." In his discussion Harnack puts this matter under the heading: "Justification by faith alone, or by faith and works?" This heading is inexact in so far as the Catholic Church does not ascribe justification to good works, but requires good works as necessary to righteousness. With regard to justification, she requires of man, besides faith and hope, also a love of God, or at least an inward disposition which is an honest devotion to morality, and therefore a love of God in its wider signification. This definition appears subsequently in Harnack's discussion where he says: "If there were no religious controversy, no Evangelical Christian would object to the proposition that only that faith is of value which reveals itself in the love of God and of one's neighbour. No one would then discuss the perplexing further question whether in that case value was to be given to faith or to love; for the sort of faith which is here referred to is absolutely inseparable from love." He says that such pointed definitions, while common to the methods of teaching and controversy prevalent on both sides in the sixteenth century, are now foreign to our mode of thinking and feeling. Harnack maintains "that in the Catholic Church then as now, although she always has taught that all merit is dependent upon the grace of God and faith, a certain laxity in practice has prevailed, and an idea of sanctification by works, which, though originally of a pedagogic nature, has ended by being theoretically justified and put to use for the purpose of making money." It was in opposition to this that "the furor teutonicus et christianus broke out and asserted the correct doctrine in the sharpest terms." As soon, however, as Protestantism was no longer obliged to fight for its existence, it softened the harshness of its formula, and so the Catholic Church need only emphasize such of her principles as are akin to the Evangelical standpoint and renounce the laxer views, in order to draw the two religions more closely together.
Harnack admits that many Protestants still refuse to agree to the proposition that that faith only is valuable which reveals itself in love of God and of one's neighbour, and that their refusal to agree to it becomes more obstinate when they engage in religious controversy with Catholics. This is due not to any interior, ethical, or even biblical difficulty involved in the proposition but to a consciousness that it contradicts Luther's doctrine of justification, which they are unwilling to surrender. Moreover, if the antithesis "faith alone," and "faith and love" is defined as Harnack defines it, the former receives a meaning which forbids us to say that Luther asserted the correct doctrine in the sharpest terms. A Catholic is certainly not led to consider the delicate question whether value is to be attached to faith or love, because he abides by the principle of faith and love, faith as the root, love as the blossom and fruit of justification. On the other hand, with the principle "faith alone," the question is already settled in a most fatal and incorrect manner. That faith is absolutely inseparable from love is true of that view of faith mentioned by St. Paul in Galatians v. 6, which scholasticism describes as "faith inspired by love," and which Luther also occasionally has depicted very nicely. But elsewhere he emphatically combats this fides caritate formata of the scholastics and denies that love bears any relation to justification; he represents justifying faith as compatible with sin even so emphatically, that it is impossible to say that his conception of faith necessarily includes charity. We are not now concerned with the alleged laxity in Catholicism, nor with the abuse of indulgences and such things; we are only considering the meaning of dogmatic opinions as matters of principle. When the two points of view are compared, it certainly is impossible to impute "principles of greater laxity" to Catholicism.{12}
Sell discusses most clearly the difference between the Reformation's idea of faith and that now prevalent amongst Protestantism of the present day, though he does it in such general terms that the contrast remains obscure on the most important point. He says: "It is a well-known fact that dogmatic Protestantism and most of the Evangelical theologians still regard the so-called doctrine of justification by faith alone as the fundamental principle of Protestantism. It is also well known that very few Protestant laymen understand this expression, for it is inexact and vacillating, it varies in its meaning. Historians are aware that this doctrine did very much harm at the time of the Reformation, because it was broadly interpreted to mean: Faith is everything, and it does not matter at all what one does. It gave rise to lawlessness among the people, as the reformers themselves sorrowfully admitted. The full theological meaning of this doctrine, however, as formulated at the time of the Reformation, is not, I suppose, accepted nowadays by a single one of the strictly ecclesiastical theologians for it is based upon the presumption that the human will possesses no freedom and that predestination is absolute, so that man of himself cannot contribute in the smallest degree towards his admission to grace and salvation. It is based, moreover, upon the presumption that God allowed Himself to be appeased by the death and blood of Christ, in the meaning that He was induced to modify His great wrath at sin." After commenting adversely upon this view of the redemption, Sell continues: "In spite of the fact that the real Protestant doctrine of justification by faith alone is no longer accepted anywhere, Protestantism has not only stood its ground in its intrinsic nature, but has continued to develop consistently, and, as a religious principle, it is an intellectual and moral force of inexhaustible fertility, no less comprehensive than Catholicism"{13}
We ought to be glad to have so frank an acknowledgment of the contrast between the old and the new views held by Protestants, but in another respect this statement is unsatisfactory. Sell had Just remarked that faith is "the absolute characteristic of Protestantism as a religion. Its mode and substance constitute the essence of Protestantism" (p. 125). Faith assumed this position from the outset, through its connection with the problem of justification; it was from this problem that it derived its "mode and substance." Is it not exceedingly strange that very few Protestant laymen understand the meaning of justification by faith alone, and that they are exonerated because it is a vacillating and inexact expression? Is it not still more surprising to hear that the real Protestant doctrine of justifying faith is described as untenable even by strict theologians, and that nevertheless "Protestantism has not only stood its ground, but has continued to develop consistently"? The mode and substance of faith constitute the essence of Protestantism, but the mode and substance of justifying faith, as Luther understood and taught it, are no longer accepted anywhere. Apparently self-annihilation is the consistent development of Protestantism, according to these statements, and yet earlier in his book Sell called Luther's personality the essence of Protestantism; consequently he now wishes to show that the newer kind of faith, that has taken the place of the real Protestant faith of the Reformation period, is still Luther's faith. He describes it as a personal realization of God, as an act of the will whereby we recognize God and stand up for Him: it is a "ceaseless amalgamation of the ego and of the supernaturally divine that is realized by the ego as a living and overpowering force" (p. 128). The two or three passages, however, which Sell quotes from Luther in support of this view do not in the least suffice to prove that he held this absolutely modern kind of self-willed faith. On the contrary, Luther's faith is based entirely on the absence of free will in man, upon the redemption effected by Christ as man's representative, and upon the historical gospel.
The tendency to explain and to increase lucidity, which we have noted, will have to be developed still more if we are to have an historical basis for an honest understanding. Instead of the complete obscurity or the vague ideas which now stand in the way of all real knowledge, laymen may ask for information regarding the true meaning of the sola fides doctrine. Any one who is convinced that it is untenable should say so without circumlocution and hesitation. Let him say: "Just as Luther was wrong in isolating Holy Scripture, so was he mistaken in his view of justifying faith. He went wrong, therefore, on points that he regarded as essential, as the very fundamental doctrines of the Reformation." He may, if he chooses, continue: "Apart from these erroneous ideas, Luther said many things that were true and beautiful, and as a result of his conflict with the Church he delivered us from many doctrines and institutions that are incomprehensible and intolerable to men of the present day, so that we, though we reject his gospel, continue to honour him as a powerful factor in the new development of the human race." With such an honest admission much would be gained and the path for further investigation cleared. No objection would be raised if, in order to account for Luther's mistakes, any one should propose to take into consideration the circumstances of the time which irritated him, and his own psychological tendencies and development. In fact we could to some extent join in this work and approach the question as to whether an error, which so powerfully excited and influenced the minds of men, may not have been the expression of a deeply felt religious need, though it was caused to flow into wrong channels. Yet such moderating considerations do not remove the fault and the wrong done; they give it at best a tragic aspect. The truths of Christianity are so exalted, and the obligation of observing the moral law so sacred, that it is impossible to justify Luther's obstinate advocacy of false theories and views dangerous to morality, and to say that he was forced to emphasize the sola fides doctrine in opposition to Catholicism. For he stubbornly maintained his one-sided view against men who were more anxious to instruct than to argue, and who certainly did not uphold a merely external form of Catholicism.
Harnack thinks that Protestantism has some right to reproach the Catholic Church with her sins of the past, because she never retracts anything{14}; but is it not even worse to retract an old error by means of a silent reformation, and at the same time to bestow fresh glory upon the perpetrator of the error, crediting him falsely with the corrected opinion? This is just what is to a great extent going on amongst Protestants. The Church does not retract her dogmatic decisions, -- the silent reformation is a proof of her wisdom in so doing, -- but she does reform herself and her writings on points of law and discipline, as the Council of Trent did, and she is quite willing to abandon what is obsolete in science and culture (e.g., the Ptolemaic system, prohibition of lending at interest, etc.). A positive definition of Luther's teaching on the subjects of redemption and justification would also make good an old wrong done by Protestantism to Christianity as a whole. If we trace the origin and literature of Rationalism and, furthermore, read the personal views of prominent freethinkers, we again and again find that their antagonism to positive Christianity is based upon an understanding of its doctrines which are not those of the primitive and Catholic Church, but of the orthodox Protestant body and based upon Luther; it comprises his theories of the complete absence of free will, of the power of original sin, of justification by mere faith and imputation, and of the impossibility of fulfilling the law and attaining to sanctity. These misunderstandings extend to most recent works on ethics and are responsible for the resulting aversion towards all that is specifically Christian. In his discourses to the German nation, Fichte says that the method of education hitherto invoked has taught to "its students from their youth that there is in man a natural repugnance to God's commandments, and that it is absolutely impossible for him to conform to them."{15}
Goethe, as a young man, was horrified by hearing a preacher say that it was Pelagianism to assume the existence in man's nature of anything good which, by the help of God's grace, might develop and bring forth fruit.{16} Similar ideas, and especially the exaggeration of evil, of saving faith, etc., led Tolstoi to set all ecclesiastical dogma aside as "perfect nonsense" and to put in its place a kind of Christianity that he devised for himself.{17}
In this way the gloomy, violent feature in Luther's teaching has, to a great extent, been to blame for the fact that, in subsequent ages, men of powerful intellect have turned away from Christianity and sought a more cheerful, reasonable, and humane view of life. Latter Protestantism has not freed itself from the same reproach, but continues its occasion by regarding Luther, in a partisan spirit, as the apostle of liberty and progress, while, on the other hand, it represents the Middle Ages as sunk in bondage and darkness, whereas in reality they possessed a joyful and fundamentally harmonious Christianity.
{1} Katholizismus und Reformation.
{2} Origen, in Osee, II, 10; St. Augustine, En. in ps. 124, 5.
{3} Harnack, 22.
{4} Ibid., 22, note; Sell, 125, seq.
{5} Cf. Köhler, pp. 44, 50.
{6} Cf. Krogh-Tonning, Erinnerungen eines Konvertiten, Trèves, 1907, P. 302. "In my account of Luther's doctrine of atonement, I certainly did not intend to deny that he taught much that did not imperil Christian morality, but was perfectly compatible with it. It is, however, just on this side that Luther's doctrines are organically connected with those of the universal Church of the past. . . . Not in this way did he become a reformer. If we are to describe and judge him as such, as a reformer, it must be on the ground of his innovations." More precise evidence is given in Krogh-Tonning's earlier work, Die Gnadenlehre und die stille Reformation, Christiania, 1894, written whilst he was still a Protestant.
{7} Möhler, Neue Untersuchungen der Lehrgegensätze zwischen Katholiken und Protestanten, 2d ed., p. 225.
{8} Döllinger, Die Reformation, 1848, III, 523; cf. Legarde, Deutsche Schriften, p. 46.
{9} Erinnerungen, p. 803. Krogh-Tonning refers to the proofs given in his "Dogmatik" (4 vols., 1886-1894). On page 819 he remarks that the incessant praise given to Luther for ideas utterly alien to him has become most repulsive and savours "of sailing dishonourably under false colours."
{10} Hase remarks (Handbuch der Protest. Polemik, 7th ad., 1900, p. 261, etc.) that the "Semi-Pelagian tendency" (7) of Catholic dogma approximates to the modern Protestant consciousness more closely than the dogma of the reformers with its gloomy dignity. "Hence it has come to pass that Protestant theologians of the present day, even such as consider themselves exponents of pure Lutheranism, descrbe faith that makes for salvation as faith active in charity, exactly according to the scholastic conception of fides formata, and oppose it to what they assume to be a Catholic dogma of justification by good works."
{11} Ibid., p. 56. In order to avoid misunderstandings, Köhler remarks on this passage that he knew of course "how the Lutheran fides-fiducia presupposes a change in the whole personality of a man and also therefore of his moral sense. But this is entirely different from an active participation in moral actions." That Luther's fides presupposes a change in the whole disposition of a man is certainly not true, whatever may be the effect of faith upon his moral sense.
{12} In his "Wesen des Christentums," p. 180, Harnack gives a similar justification of Luther, with the even more explicit admission that, in consequenee of the sola fides doctrine, charity and obedience to the commandments had been thrust into the background, so that the German Reformed Churches very justly complained of laxity in matters of morals. Harnack's "Dogmengeschichte," on the contrary, contains an interpretation of Luther's opinion which appears to be an acceptance of the sola fide, in its extremest form (4th ed., III, pp. 886 seq.).
{13} Katholizismus und Protestantismus, p. 126.
{14} Proteatantismus und Katholizismus, p. 28.
{15} Reclam edition, p. 50.
{16} Dichtung und Wahrheit, Bk. XV, init.
{17} Tolstoi, Mein Glauhe, 1902, PP. 30, 160, 171, 176. In George Macdonald's "David Elginbrod" (1871, p. 37) the father, after listening to a sermon on imputed righteousness, says to his daughter: "Dinna ye believe, ma bonny doo, 'at there's ony mak' ups or mak' shifts wi' Him. . . . He sees us jist as we are, and Ca's us jist what we are: It wad be an ill day for a' o's, Maggy, gin He war to close His een to oor sins, and Ca' us just in His sicht, whan we cudna possibly be just in oor ain or in ony ither body's, no to say His." Further on (p. 39) the father questions his children on the sermon and asks: "An' what called he them, Johnnie, that put on the robe (of righteousness)?" "Whited sepulchres," answered Johnnie, indebted for his wit to his wool-gathering.