{Revised:
September 2005}
A look at the positive evaluations of Martin Luther by
Roman Catholics, 1900- present.
German Roman Catholic Historian.
Luther never denied good works or holy
living. Rather good works are the way in which faith expresses itself.
German Roman Catholic Historian. Luther’s motives were religious, not revolutionary or psychological.
German Roman Catholic Historian.
Luther was a man of prayer.
German Roman Catholic Historian.
Catholicism never condemned Luther by
name at Trent. No official judgment on Luther exists by which a loyal Catholic
is bound.
German Roman Catholic Historian.
Luther was a theologian of the highest
rank. Luther was a profoundly
religious man, a true Christian, who lived by a deep faith in Jesus
Christ.
German Roman Catholic Historian.
Proved that all Catholic biographies of
Luther simply echoed the vilification of the Sixteenth Century Catholic author
Cochlaeus.
German Roman Catholic Theologian.
Luther’s theology is not based on subjectivism.
German Roman Catholic
Theologian. Credits Luther with an original
understanding of the essence of Christianity and a passionate desire to reject
whatever is not holy or of God.
Catholic French Scholar. The Reformation was a religious movement, an attempt to
renew religion at its source. He considers Luther a profoundly religious man
who had a deeply sensitive conscience and was obsessed by the longing to find
peace of heart and a warm, living, consoling contact with God.
German Benedictine Monk. Love
inspired Luther. In spite of his mistakes and weaknesses, Luther was a
genuine religious personality.
American Catholic Scholar. There is no real contradiction
between Roman Catholic theology and Luther's gospel; the gospel had been
eclipsed in Luther's day.
XIII. Father Thomas M. McDonough :
Catholic American Scholar.
Luther had a true experience with the living God. His experience was the effect
and Fruit of God's objective, external Word.
Catholic American Scholar. The
Reformation was needed.
Catholic American Lay Historian.
Luther was an honest theologian with important insights.
Catholic American Scholar. Luther’s protest was not
attempt to divide Christianity.
Catholic American Scholar. Luther is a forceful teacher of lived
religion. He is a resource for the enrichment of personal spirituality for
members of all Christian confessions.
In my last installment, Catholic authors with a severe negative bias toward Luther were discussed (see: The Roman Catholic Understanding of Luther Part 1). The discussion will now focus on a sampling of Catholic authors that have taken a more irenic approach to understanding Luther. There is a wealth of Roman Catholic authors whose opinions and research are worthy of a close look. As Richard Stauffer has noted, “If one wanted to sum up briefly the path Roman Luther-scholars have trodden since 1904, one could say that they passed from destructive criticism to a respectful encounter.”[1] Their desire to understand the theological issues raised by Luther rather than setting up vilifying caricatures, serve to advance positive dialogues between Protestants and Catholics. Where Catholic scholarship has shined, Protestants would do well to appreciate their efforts, despite our disagreements.
Perhaps the primary difference between early and later Catholic approaches to Luther is the shift in emphasis on Luther the person. As was noted in part one, during the first five hundred years of Catholic evaluations of Luther, a strong emphasis on vilifying Luther’s character as a means of discrediting the Reformation was the normal Catholic approach.[2] The emphasis shifted in the Twentieth Century: Catholics began to study Luther as a sincere religious man and an honest theologian. Since an exhaustive critique of Catholic theological approaches to Luther would entail a massive undertaking, the emphasis of this paper will be an overview of Roman Catholic attitudes toward Luther “the person” during the Twentieth Century.
No extensive treatment of the criticisms put forth by these Catholic authors against Luther will be included, however I have included a basic overview of their concerns. Suffice it to say, there is not a consensus among Catholic scholars in criticizing Luther. Some accuse Luther of subjectivism, other deny this. Some still criticize Luther for psychological factors, others do not. Some stress Luther’s Nominalist background, while others note Thomistic consensus was not established. Sorting through their criticisms would be an entire undertaking in itself. It would be a mistake then to see the Catholic scholars covered here as agreeing with all the central tenants of Protestantism, a fact that should not need to be noted, but I expect one could read through this web-page and think contemporary Catholic scholars embrace Protestant Lutheranism. Most of the authors evaluated here have strong ecumenical concerns; they are willing to evaluate Luther as a fellow Christian, rather than a son of perdition.
This in no way is an exhaustive list or in depth doctrinal investigation. In my studies, I utilize both Catholic and Protestant works on Luther. Those names that have appeared continually in both theological traditions are the emphasis. This paper is intended to be more of a bibliographic resource; it can be read out of sequence. Since my desire is for this paper to serve as a reference guide, I have included lengthy citations from relevant scholars. It is my desire to allow them to speak, rather than put forth my own opinions.[3]
F. X. Kiefl is credited as the first
Catholic scholar to put forth a new kinder approach to Luther. Kiefl was a
German theologian at the University of Wurzburg. His groundbreaking article on
Luther was Martin Luther’s Religious Psyche as the Root of a New
Philosophical World View.[4]
While Kiefl’s theological predecessors denied that Luther had any bonafide
religious motives, Kiefl speaks of Luther’s “profound piety, his indomitable
will, and his extraordinary literary genius.”[5]
Kiefl broke with his scholarly predecessors: theological motives explain
Luther.[6] Leonard Swidler explains, that Kiefl “…treated
the psyche of Luther. However, as the title indicates, he treated it not as the
object of depth psychology, but rather as a religious soul. He maintained that
Luther’s starting point and his main interest were religious. It was from
Luther’s religious psyche, as the “most profound and vital source,” that “as
out of a seed everything later grew.”[7]
Kiefl was quite bold. He rejected the earlier Catholic approach of attacking Luther for his doctrine of Justification. Catholic scholar Heinrich Denifle had made popular the notion that Luther simply invented his doctrine to excuse sinful behavior, thus Denifle spent considerable time painting Luther as a gross sinner. Kiefl rejects this. He sees past Denifle’s rhetoric and distorted facts and sees that Luther never denied good works or holy living. Rather good works are the way in which faith expresses itself.[8]
Kiefl also evaluated the debate between Luther and Erasmus and found that Luther understood Christianity on a much deeper level than did Erasmus. Erasmus was a man of Renaissance learning, and Kiefl concludes by noting the negative impact of the Renaissance on Christianity and Luther’s positive impact of being God’s “powerful instrument of Providence” in the work of Church “purification”:
“Through
Luther’s bringing into existence a spiritual movement which convulsed
centuries, Providence has purified the Church in its inward holiness from the
seductions of the culture of the Renaissance and has through this bitter physic
kindled a new, fresh life in the whole organism of the Church. Luther was the
powerful instrument of Providence in this work of purification, not by
discovering a new source under the rubble of abuses but, with these real abuses
affording him an occasion, by pushing a religious principle (to him quite
justified) too far precipitating the Church into a war that shook its very
foundations.”[9]
James Atkinson sums up Kiefl: “Kiefl showed a deep knowledge of Luther’s works. He appreciated Luther’s profound piety, his indomitable will, and his literary genius. True, he suggests that Luther’s spirituality was morbid, but he picks up the powerful phrase from Trent when Luther was reported as a powerful instrument chosen by Providence to reform the Church and purify it.”[10]
Kiefl criticizes Luther for taking God’s “almightiness” too far. Luther’s doctrine of total depravity (leading to a denial of free will) was his error: “[Kiefl] saw Luther as mastered by God. It was his concept of a God who acted unilaterally that led Luther to deny free will, to affirm man’s total depravity, to hold a doctrine of imputed righteousness, and finally to reject a Church that claimed to mediate salvation…[11] Kiefl thinks Luther went too far and convulsed the Church in internal strife, but he does bring Luther back into the religious sphere where he belongs and where he ought always to have been.”[12]
Kiefl displays sympathy for Luther, and one will not find the deep hostile polemic that so characterized earlier Catholic German scholars. Kiefl though at one point gives a passing glance at Luther’s “abnormal” and “sick” spiritual condition. Another scholar though has pointed out, “Kiefl has merely recorded an abnormal condition without explaining it. This is sufficient to give Luther’s theology as a whole the character, not of a doctrine worked out by a normal Christian man, but of a remedy invented to relieve a sick soul.”[13]
Sebastian Merkle was a German Catholic historian from the University of Wurzburg. In 1929, he contributed an article to a book on Luther featuring both Protestant and Catholic authors.[14] Like Kiefl, he attributes religious motives to Luther, rather than revolutionary or psychological: “Merkle…[is] remembered in Germany as an excellent and also courageous historian, [he] lays down the lines that Roman historians of the Reformation should follow. From the outset they must refrain from belittling and detracting from Luther, recognize the religious motives for his action, perceive that he was not the father of the free-thinkers or a revolutionary, and in sum admit that the movement he started was solely spiritual.”[15]
Father Leonard Swidler evaluates the value of Merkle:
“…Sebastian
Merkle attempted to redress what he considered wrongs done to Luther and the
Reformation. He pointed out that while Luther and many of his biographers
exaggerated both the seriousness and the extent of the bad conditions in the
Church—or Janssen would not have been able to bring up so much opposing
documentation —it was at the same time true that there were a great many abuses
rampant—or Luther would not have found such an enthusiastic following among strongly
religious circles. ‘He would have to appear much more as the greatest
wonder-worker of history, if he had brought about the mass defection from a
flourishing Church, a Church on Martin, at the zenith of fulfilling its task.’
He quoted with approval the statement St. Clemens Maria Hofbauer made in 1816:
‘Since I have been a papal delegate in Poland I have become certain that the
defection from the Church has come about because the Germans had and still have
a need to be pious. The Reformation was not spread and held by heretics and
philosophers, but by men who were really searching for a religion for the
heart.’[16]
“[The] polemic
approach to Luther and the Reformation, particularly by Denifle, soon found, critics
among German Catholics. Already in 1906 the historian Hermann Mauert accused
Denifle of wanting not to find the truth but only to win his argument.
"With Denifle one finds oneself all too often listening to the prosecution of the state
attorney who wants to subject the accused to an unconditional condemnation, and
one misses the just, all-around careful weighing, objective probing of the
non-partisan judge, and in this case of the calm, collected historian. In 1929
Sebastian Merkle said that to contend that such a completely base Luther was
able to cause such a deep-going and long-lasting split in Christendom is
"to stand all philosophy of history on its head and to view the entire
history of humanity through the eyes of a worm." And by 1931 Hubert Jedin
stated that no Catholic church historian in Germany any longer shared Denifle's
view of Luther's moral personality.”[17]
Interestingly, Merkle came under attack for his work on Luther from fellow Catholics:
“Denifle and Grisar left deep marks
on both theological and popular presentations of Luther by Catholics in the
twentieth century. But the vehemence of Denifle and the blanket rejection by
Grisar began to stir reactions. Sebastian Merkle, Catholic church historian in
Wtirzburg, objected to Denifle's tone and method, asserting that denying Luther
historical justice was no service of the church or of truth. The effect was to
worsen the relation between the churches. Merkle had to defend his critical
stand against suspicions over his fidelity as a Catholic, but he stood firm and
in 1929 published an essay contrasting good points in Luther with bad points in
his Catholic critics. Merkle underscored the religious depth evident in the
young Luther, his struggle with temptations to despair, and the low state of
the church on the eve of the Reformation. It is no mystery why many did follow
Luther out of the church in order to seek a more authentic faith. It is no
credit to Catholicism, according to Merkle, that many try to show their loyalty
to the church by insulting and reviling Luther. — It was becoming clear that
Denifle and Grisar did not exhaust the possibilities on the Catholic side for
forming an image of Luther.”[18]
From the same book featuring Merkle, German Catholic historian Anton Fischer also contributed an article on Luther. Fischer puts forth an image of Luther as a “man of prayer;” an image that can be appreciated by Catholics:
“Fischer makes a distinction
in Luther between the fighter and the man of prayer. The former, to his mind,
is the concern of only a part of Christianity; all Christian denominations can,
how ever, lay a claim to the second. In so far as he was a man of prayer,
Luther was truly ecumenical. Even a Church rich in believers who are devoted to
prayer (he means the Roman Church, of course) has much to learn from him.
And what can Luther teach
all Christians about prayer? Two essential truths. The first is that prayer has
only one valid criterion—the Word and the Holy Spirit who reveals Himself
through Scripture. Luther drew all his strength from the Bible and took all his
instruction about prayer from the Bible. In the same way, all believers are
exhorted to nourish themselves on the Old and New Testaments, if they wish to
pray effectively; there they too will meet with God. The second truth is that
the Pater noster constitutes the very heart of the Christian life, and for this
reason should be pronounced with the reverence and fervour due to Christ's own
words. If it is said in the spirit of the great masters of prayer like St.
Augustine, St. Francis of Assist and Martin Luther (so Fischer ends his
article), the Lord's Prayer can bridge the gap which really separates Roman
Catholics and Protestants.”[19]
Leonard Swidler explains Fisher: “The fighting Luther wounds—even today after four hundred years,” Fischer writes. “The praying Luther heals: The fighting Luther divides; the praying Luther unites Luther the fighter belongs to the past; Luther the man of prayer—may his mission begin in the present.”[20]
Interesting quotes from Fischer on Luther as a “man of prayer”: “The praying Luther belongs to all. He is a truly ecumenical man. He has something to say and to give to all Christian communities.”[21] “However rich a Church may be in truly great Christian men of prayer, it would still have room for the distinctives of the praying Luther; it should not pass carelessly over this great man of prayer and his precious utterances on prayer and his excellent instruction on prayer.”[22]
Hubert Jedin was a German Catholic historian from the Universities of Breslau and Bonn. He was a specialist in the history of the Council of Trent. While Jedin points out negatives about Luther[23], he put forth one of the first valuable books critiquing earlier Catholic approaches to Luther, and exposes them as totally inadequate:
“Jedin makes certain criticisms of Denifle and
Grisar. In particular, he points out that it is many years since any Roman
historian in Germany shared Denifle's views of Luther's moral character… Jedin
blames Denifle for not being able to appreciate the Reformer's religious
greatness without at the same time betraying the Roman Catholic point of view.
But he is not content to criticize his predecessors. He also outlines a programme
which comes very near to Kiefl in many ways. For example, he says bluntly that
any Roman Catholic who wants to understand Luther's thought and motives should
first of all forget the image of Luther handed down in his Church.[24]
James Atkinson noted that Jedin pointed out
that “Catholicism never condemned Luther
by name at Trent, and that no official judgment on Luther exists by which a
loyal Catholic is bound.”[25]
Joseph Lortz is perhaps the most famous Catholic Luther scholar of the twentieth century. His two-volume work, The Reformation in Germany, is praised by both Catholics and Protestants alike. Lortz is usually seen as the first Catholic author to put forth a full-length treatment of Luther without vilifying him. So important is his work, an entire book could be written evaluating the work of Lortz. It is important then, to spend time looking at Lortz.
Scholars praise Lortz:
“It
was not until 1939, when Joseph Lortz. The Catholic professor at Muenster,
published his fine two-volume study of Luther, entitled Die Reformation in Deutschland (1939-40), that the first ray of
hope of any creative theological dialogue between Catholicism and Protestantism
lit the dark horizon. The work was so scholarly and so informed that it was
found to subserve a highly significant and irenic critique of Luther and
Lutheranism.”[26]
“the
popular demonization of Luther started in the 16th Century by
Luther’s opponent Cochlaeus was “so lasting that …the entire Catholic
historiography of the Reformation until the publication in 1939 of Joseph
Lortz’s magnum opus came under the spell of such powerful polemic [that of
Cochlaeus].”[27]
“With Lortz' great three hundred page essay on
Luther, Catholics left behind the unscrupulous hatred of Cochlaeus (whose
legends of 1549 turned up monotonously in Catholic works on Luther for over
three hundred and fifty years), the charges of immorality and ignorance leveled
by Denifle, the cold and one-sided reading of Grisar.”[28]
“…Denifle
and the Jesuit Hartman Grisar, used Freudian psychology to arrive at their
assessment that Luther was a monk obsessed with the lust of the flesh and a
pathological manic-depressive personality….These polemical portraits were
corrected in the 1940’s when an ecumenically oriented scholar, Joseph Lortz,
rejected Freudian psycho-historical methods in favor of a more objective
critical assessment to depict Luther as a faithful priest-professor who had
succumbed to ‘subjectivism.”[29]
i. Comments
summarizing Lortz’s view of Luther
“Lortz sees Luther as a religious man who can
be assessed only in theological categories: the evangelist, the preacher of
grace proclaiming Christ crucified and salvation in his name. He is fully aware
of the deeply religious man who threw himself into the monastic life without
reserve; of the Luther who immersed himself in Scripture, where he found a
gracious God; of the Luther who could write on the Lords Prayer and on the
Magnificat with such tender intimacy, and uphold confession in pastoral care;
of the Luther who preached faith with invincible power and warmth; of the
Luther who maintained a precious estimation of the Eucharist and of the Real
Presence in that sacrament; of the Luther who was always deeply concerned for
the cure of souls; of the Luther who prized a powerful prayer life and the
ability to teach men to pray; of the Luther whose hymns and chorals plumbed
great theological depths. This recognition of Luther as homo religiosus marks
one of the greatest advances in Catholic scholarship in four hundred years, and
as such does much to overshadow the calumnies of Denifle, Grisar, and their
like.”[30]
“[Lortz saw] Luther was a
creative genius who, so far as the heart of the matter went, was a self-made
man. And, if it is hard to describe a genius, it is still harder when that
genius is called Luther. Pointing out that even four hundred years after his
death scholars, despite all their efforts, have still not arrived at an
understanding of the significance of his person and of his work, Lortz does not
attribute these differences of interpretation simply to confessional prejudice.
They arise from the fact that Luther's nature is a complexio oppositorum, and
that the more complex a person is, the greater the temptation to simplify him
and neglect the traits that form one part of his character. He considers this
reason fundamental, but he adds others. Thus, among the factors explaining why
Roman Catholics find it so hard to be just to him, he mentions the changes, the
paradoxes, the exaggerations and the vulgarities of Luther’s language.”[31]
“Lortz affirms as no Roman
Catholic theologian has done before that Luther was a "religious
man", that his life and work can only be understood in a theological
perspective. Thus: "The basis of his being is that he is homo religiosus.
Not the homo religiosus of some secularized Christianity, but the confessor of
the theologia crucis, the evangelist who proclaims Jesus Christ crucified and
who declares His religion of salvation and grace. The fact that Luther entered
a strict monastery and there, without reservation and without care for himself,
abandoned the inward conflicts which were to free him from sin and make him
find a gracious God; the way in which he immersed himself in Scripture, and in
which he entered into a wonderfully intimate and fruitful covenant with the
Book of books; the way in which he expounded the Magnificat and in which he
esteemed confession to the end of his life; the way in which he preached faith
with power and ardour; the way in which he defended the real Presence of the
Lord in the Eucharist; . . .the way in which, filled with a zeal for souls, he
could teach men to pray and in which, with an extraordinary power, he himself
prayed; the fullness and the Christian content of his... chorals—all this
depicts abundantly the homo religiosus, the Christian Luther."”[32]
“More than any previous Catholic writer, Lortz
recognizes the genius and originality of Luther. ‘Luther did not express many
thoughts which have no parallel in earlier theologies and reformers.
Nevertheless, Luther is new.’”[33]
ii. Comments From Joseph Lortz about Luther
“The problems of an adequate treatment of Luther are obvious from several
points of view. First, Luther is an intellectual giant, or, to use a word from
Paul Althaus, an "ocean. " The danger of drowning in him, of not
being able to come to grips with him satisfactorily, arises from his tremendous
output, but no less from his own original style, which we are going to take up.
It sounds banal, but cannot be left unsaid: Luther belongs in the first rank of
men with extraordinary intellectual creativity. He is in the full sense a
genius, a man of massive power in things religious and a giant as well in
theological interpretation. Because of this, he has in many respects shaped the
history of the world--even of our world today.”[34]
“Wherever Luther is sketched, one feels the gulf between the man and what
is said about him. One is tempted simply to quote him--his wonderful outpouring
of self, his tireless thrust to discover and express, his massive power, the
immeasurable height, breadth, and depth of the message, the astounding vitality
and fullness present in this man so captivated by the spirit of Scripture. And
all of this--in spite of the constant repetitions.”[35]
“The Church condemned
Luther as a heretic. That is certain, but whatever one thinks in detail of
Luther’s orthodoxy or heterodoxy, however one may view certain sides of his character,
whatever criticism one has to level against his immoderate polemic, there is no
doubt that he was a profoundly religious man, a true Christian, who lived by a
deep faith in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, born of the Virgin Mary, crucified
and risen to save us. We must also remember that all his life Luther was a man
of prayer and a zealous preacher of the Word of God.”[36]
“Luther grew only from
within himself. There is in him a primal genius; he is a primal force. He grew
in lonely, simply inaccessible circles.”[37]
“In his class
lectures, sermons, books, and table remarks, Luther was an active personality.
The works marking the major steps of his development --his early lectures on
the Psalms and on Romans, the Disputations in Heidelberg and Leipzig, his
reform writings of 1520, his works of liturgical renewal, the lectures and
disputations of the 1530's and 1540's--have all formed human history. This was
not merely because of their theological content, but also because of their
power of expression and the personal strength that permeates them. Luther was
not simply a theologian. In fact, he was very seldom and only briefly just a
theologian, even in the classroom. He was more than all else a believer, a
prophet, and a battler. To this day, Luther's works have retained much of his
vitality. Thus they are not adequately understood when their abstract
theological content is extracted and repeated. Successful interpretation must
be tinged with prophecy. As we look back at Luther, we must bring out Luther's
many instinctively sure resonances with historical developments in the world
and in the Church. We must show the mutual influence between Luther and
history.”[38]
“Luther was a
theologian of the highest rank. My previous position--that Luther was not a theologian--was
therefore misleading. But the decisive question is how one is a theologian.
Luther cannot be analyzed like Ockham, Duns Scotus, or even Thomas Aquinas,
who, in spite of everything, stands much closer to him.”[39]
“Let there be no
misunderstanding. Luther was a man of rare intelligence, as his works reveal.
Examples are endless, beginning with the numerous passages in his early
lectures which even today give the mind such a bushel of nuts to crack. Think
of the Heidelberg Disputation and of the peculiar, scholastically conceived
explanations found in the lectures on Galatians in 1531. All of this stands
without question.”[40]
“Luther was a
genius with language. Spontaneously his thoughts found concrete expression in
the most sensitive of linguistic phrasing. It would perhaps be more exact to
say that his thoughts take form in words!”[41]
Lortz takes a bold stand on the state of the church during the sixteenth century. It was in need of an overhaul. It was filled with abuse and theological ambiguity: “[Lortz held that] the reformation is a Catholic matter in that Catholics share the responsibility and the guilt for its happening. So we must make it a concern for us Catholics. We must accept our guilt… It was this state of things within the catholic Church at the beginning of the sixteenth century that made Luther and the reformation possible, even in a certain manner historically necessary.”[42] Lortz said:
“Theological confusion within Catholic theology was
one of the specially important preconditions which precipitated a revolution in
the Church. It is one of those keys which to some extent unlocks the riddle of
the colossal apostasy.”[43]
“Theological confusion revealed itself even more
profoundly however, amongst the guardians of the doctrine of the Church.”[44]
“The darkness [religious
life before the Reformation] became all the more ominous because Catholics
suffered from the illusion that Catholic doctrine had long since been settled
on the disputed points. Few theologians were exempt from this illusion. In the
polemic of the day- as we shall see- most of them used the unanimous consensus
of the Church as an argument, whereas, in fact, on important questions only a
more or less hazy opinion was the substitute for sure knowledge. The
deliberations at Trent are proof of this.”[45]
“In Luther’s search for a
gracious God he came to stand outside the Church without intending to do so. And
it was no prearranged revolutionary programme, and no ignoble impulses and
desires which led him to desire or seek a break with the Church.”[46]
“Today I would even go so far as to ask whether the Catholic scholar
might not be in a better position to understand Luther adequately than the
Protestant researcher. First, we can take it for granted that we have abandoned
the evaluative categories of a Cochlaeus, which dominated for over 400 years,
and those of the great Denifle, and even those of Grisar (who was particularly
well-versed in details). This assumption holds also for Italy, Spain, and Latin
America. Gradually Catholics have come to recognize the Christian, and even
Catholic, richness of Luther, and they are impressed. They now realize how
great the Catholic guilt was that Luther was expelled from the Church to begin
the division that burdens us so today--even in theology. Finally, we are
anxious to draw Luther's richness back into the Church.”[47]
As with Kiefl above, Lortz sees Erasmus as the threat to the Church, not Luther. Lortz explains that this view is not new: during the sixteenth century the papal nuncio Aleander recognized it also:
“There was only one man on the Catholic side who in
some measure recognized in time the danger embodied by Erasmus. This was the
papal nuncio, Aleander, himself a humanist of some standing... [he said] ‘God
forbid that we see fresh papal briefs to Erasmus couched in the same tone as
that printed at the beginning of his New Testament and containing an approving
explanation by the pope of a work in which he expresses views on confession,
indulgences, divorce, papal authority, etc., which Luther has simply to take
over. But the poison of Erasmus works even more dangerously…”
“Erasmus
at length came into contact with Luther. But Catholics did not see the true
Erasmus even in this controversy. They applauded his book on free will, because
it contradicted Luther; but they failed to see that the primary aim of the book
was to propose an optimistic morality that left little room for grace, sin and
redemption.[48]
“Thirty years ago, in The Reformation in Germany, I put forth the thesis with regard to
the central Reformation article, justification by faith alone, that Luther here
rediscovered an old Catholic doctrine, which though was new for him and seen
onesidedly. In the meantime I have not abandoned this view. On the contrary,
Luther is, in fact, more Catholic than I then realized.”[49]
“His revolution largely consisted in his discovering
the ancient Catholic truth that man must believe in the forgiveness of sins as
in salvation generally.”[50]
“It is not true that Luther’s interpretation of the
righteousness of God as the grace by which we are justified was a completely
new discovery. …All of the medieval exegetes had put forward this
interpretation; and Luther must have read this the moment he began to study
that passage in Romans, which so disturbed him. The trouble was that he had not
really taken in what he had read.”[51]
Lortz views Thomism as the only legitimate Catholic theology. Luther being trained in Occamism, was unable to fully understand the scriptures. When Luther attributed error to the Catholic Church, he attributed Occamist theology to her: “Luther rejected a Catholicism which was basically not Catholic.”[52] Lortz’s second basic criticism is that of subjectivism.[53] In trying to fully understand salvation, Luther interpreted the Scriptures according to his own personal interpretation. James Atkinson has given an excellent summary of Lortz’s criticism of Luther:
“… Lortz presents some weighty criticism of
Luther too. He tends to blame Luther for the schism. He refers frequently to
Luther's subjectivism and individualism, his one-sidedness. Nevertheless, he
does so without acrimony. Perhaps his most serious criticism is that although
Luther wanted to base his theology on Scripture, he was selective: he not only
neglected certain truths in his preaching and teaching, but actually simplified
and reduced the Scriptural message, of which the Roman Church possessed the
fullness. He attaches considerable importance to Luther's Nominalist education,
which obviated his full appreciation of Thomism and rendered him insensitive to
the fullness of the biblical revelation. What Luther rejected, he contends, was
not true Catholicism, but rather Catholic argumentation: his intense individualism
had betrayed him into a misunderstanding of true Catholicism.
Further, Lortz argues, it was Luther's radical subjectivity, his intense
individualism, his awareness of being a prophet in isolation, that caused him
to interpret biblical revelation in terms of his own personal needs, and thus
prevented him from grasping the fullness of biblical truth. He truly sees that
Luther's awareness of justification by faith did not arise from within himself,
but had its objective reality in Jesus Christ, the author and finisher of his
faith. Nevertheless, Lortz argues that objectivism, if it is to be truly
authentic, implies an infallible Christ and an infallible Church; therefore, he
sets aside Luther's genuine Christocentric faith and accuses him of subjectivism,
of individualism. He was a prisoner of his own interpretations, and instead of
reforming the Church, he tore it in two. This qualification—even though it may
grant Luther's theological acumen, his deep spirituality and prayer life, and
his powerful Christocentrism—robs all this percipient appreciation of any real
significance, since Lortz comes down on the side of the accusers and opponents
of Luther. His misunderstanding of Luther is in a sense insured by his
presupposition that, as a good Roman Catholic, he must judge Luther solely in
submission to the Church. Despite this crucial reservation, however, Lortz will
ever be remembered as the man who created a scholarly basis for creative
conversations between Roman Catholics and Protestants. In a sense he was a
forerunner to Vatican II.”[54]
Fred Meuser comments:
“… [A]t some
very crucial points Lortz is sharply critical of Luther without, however,
impugning his integrity. In spite of his Christocentric faith and theology,
Luther was too subjectivistic. This is Lortz's basic
thesis, that "he took his own highly personal convictions, based on a very
exceptional experience and perhaps valid for himself personally, and made them
into a binding requirement for all."
Luther wanted to be faithful to Scripture, but because he always
interpreted it in terms of his own personal needs he over-emphasized some
aspects of it and neglected others. He was not really a fully attentive
listener, a Vollhorer of the Word in its fullness because he allowed some
aspects of Pauline thought to overshadow everything else. He intended only to purify the church but
his rejection of the church's necessary teaching authority brought a great
schism. Even so, the actual schism was also partly the fault of the pope and
others in authority who were not willing to take the evangelical concerns of
Luther and his followers seriously.”[55]
Jared Wicks comments:
“[Lortz] pointed out extremes in
Luther, such as a lack of restraint in fulminating against his opponents. Lortz
found in Luther an extravagance ill-befitting a teacher submissive to the word
of God. Impulsive in interpreting the Scriptures, Luther distorted the full
message of the New Testament by subjective selectivity. But there is for Lortz
a large reservoir of Catholic content in Luther, and not just in the young
Luther. Even the elder Luther, often bitter and crude in attacking the
priesthood and papacy, was a teacher of the sovereignty of God, a defender of
the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and an effective teacher of faith
in Christ the Savior. Lortz's account of Luther was critical, but his criticism
was penetrated by amazement over Luther's pulsating spiritual richness, the
wide range of his talents, the vastness of his productive labor for the new
community, and the concentration of all his thought on God's grace revealed in
Christ and transmitted by the Gospel. Lortz gave Catholics an image of Luther
marked by prophetic greatness.”[56]
Adolf Herte was a German Catholic historian that did an in-depth study on Catholic approaches to Luther up until the Twentieth Century. In his work, he proved that all biographies of Luther (with very few exceptions) simply echoed the vilification of the Sixteenth Century Catholic author Cochlaeus. Herte went on to trace the influence of Cochlaeus on Denifle, Grisar, Cristiani, Paquier, and Maritan. After reading Herte’s work, the Roman Catholic review Theologie und Seelsorge stated, “One finishes reading these volumes with the discovery that the atmosphere of Reformation studies has changed.”[57]
An evaluation of Herte:
“Very different
from Lortz but just as important in the changing attitude toward Luther was
Adolf Herte's Das katholische Lutherbild im Bann der Luther-kommentare des
Cochlaeus. Probably because of its great size-three large volumes-and technical
scholarly character it has never been translated into English, a fact which
also helps to explain the relative tardiness of the Luther re-evaluation among
English-speaking Catholics. Herte's purpose was simple-to examine the influence
of Cochlaeus on Catholic literature through the centuries and to evaluate
Cochlaeus' portrayal. On the former point he showed that almost all Catholic
biographies of Luther (including Denifle, Grisar, Maritain, and many others) leaned
very heavily on Cochlaeus' evidence and interpretation. In regard to Cochlaeus'
reliability he concluded that the whole portrayal was a caricature reflecting
the author's own deep aversion to and hatred of Luther. Not that Cochlaeus was
completely false. He knew the extant Luther literature as no one else of his
time. He helped to preserve some valuable original materials. He admitted that
Luther's New Testament translation stimulated the religious hunger for the Word
of God among the people. Yet, the composite picture of Luther was thoroughly
unreliable because of Cochlaeus' deep personal antipathy which predetermined
what he could see in Luther. Herte's
careful scholarship has helped to free modern Catholic historians from bondage
to the traditional picture and given great impetus to the modem search for a
more accurate understanding of Luther. It will take considerable time, however,
for Herte's influence to purge Catholic consciousness and literature of the
assumptions that have been building up for centuries.”[58]
Johannes Hessen was a
Catholic professor in philosophy of religion at Cologne. Perhaps the most
startling observation put forth by Hessen is his denial of Luther’s ultimate
subjectivity. As noted above, Joseph Lortz accuses Luther of subjectivism and
individualism. Hessen rejects this:“[Luther’s]
great experience was a meeting with God, with the God who encountered him in
Christ and his Gospel. It means a complete attachment to God’s Word, which
contains the witness about Christ and possesses for Luther the character of an
unassailable, absolute norm.”[59]
Scholars explain Hessen’s denial of Luther’s subjectivism:
“[Luther’s] fundamental experience may have been subjective, but only
formally; in content it was without doubt objective, for, by the mediation of
Christ, it was a real meeting with God. Thus Luther was not an individualist.
He was a reformer in the true sense of the word, that is, a restorer whose sole
aim was to bring back the pure Gospel from which, in his eyes, the Church had
strayed.”[60]
“[Luther’s]
own agonizing struggle about a "gracious God" was the same path Paul
had trod, and it brought Luther to the same childlike trust in the undeserved
grace of God. Not pride or ego but God and his grace were the basic forces at
work in Luther. His experiences, although subjective in form, were actually an
objective confrontation with God, because Luther's faith was grounded so
completely in Christ and grew so completely out of Word and Sacrament. Hessen
disagrees thoroughly with Lortz's charge that Luther was subjectivistic to the
core. He sees no similarity at all between Luther and modern subjectivism or
individualism.”[61]
“Hessen contends that Luther was no individualist, but a reformer in the
true sense of that word—that is to say, a restorer of the God-given Gospel from
which the Church had strayed.”[62]
Hessen says that to really understand the greatness of Luther, one must see him as in the line of the Old Testament prophets.[63] This proposition had been disputed during the sixteenth century and into the seventeenth among Lutherans. Now, a few hundred years later, a Roman Catholic puts it forth.[64] Hessen also analyzed Luther’s doctrine of sola fide. He concluded that Luther’s experience of being justified by faith was not a break with Catholic dogma, but was actually brought forth by Luther’s concern for piety.[65] Hessen thus rejects any charge of antinomianism leveled at Luther.[66] Luther was not trying to eradicate morality, but only to heighten awareness that salvation is the complete work of God.[67] Hessen also contends that Luther cannot be charged with abandoning the sacraments as means of grace, since Luther defended and explained the importance of the Lord’s Supper and baptism:[68]
“On the
sacraments [Hessen] sees the reason for Luther's attack to have been a virtual
ignoring by Roman doctrine and practice of the need for a direct relationship
between the individual and God. Luther's attack on the church's hierarchy and
institutionalism meant to stress the same need for inner union with Christ
rather than mere membership in an institution. On these and other points Hessen
believes that Luther was affirming the true Catholic position, even though he
often allowed the heat of the controversy to push him into extremes.”[69]
Hessen proclaims, “Luther’s principle justification in fighting against the apparent decline [of the Church] can therefore not be denied. His struggle to put the Gospel back on the lampstand, to make it again the throbbing heart of the Christian religion, was, in view of the contemporary state of Catholicism, only too justified.”[70]
Hessen outlines four negative tendencies of the Roman Church that were in need of reformation. In attacking these four tendencies though, Luther went too far:
“…Hessen thinks
that Luther was opposing four tendencies in the Roman Church of his day which
needed to be attacked as threatening to supplant the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
These are intellectualism, moralism, sacramentalism and institutionalism.
Intellectualism makes faith into a keeping of formulas rather than a living
contact with revelation. Moralism subordinates the Gospel to the Law by putting
man's works before God's mercy. Sacramentalism despises the inwardness in which
true religion resides. And institutionalism thinks that belonging to the
Church, even outwardly, is a source of salvation. Hessen thinks Luther was
right in standing up against these four trends His only mistake was to go too
far with criticisms which started quite properly. In order to remedy his
"extremism", Protestantism today should reconsider the position it
has inherited from Luther.”[71]
Once Luther
discovered and clung solely to justification by faith alone, he neglected the
role of the Church: “According to Hessen, after Luther had discovered the
Pauline doctrine of sola fides, he was preoccupied with stressing again the
most intimate union between the believer and Christ and disregarded the
important reality of the Church. This criticism seems to me to be not quite
right. As Karl Holl has shown, Luther's concept of the invisible Church never
aimed at breaking up the visible Church but only of furnishing it with a
pattern.”[72]
The German Catholic theologian Karl Adam says many positive things about Luther:
“Adam is certainly sympathetic to Martin Luther. He frequently speaks of his "marvelous gifts" and "magnificent qualities". He credits Luther with "an original understanding of the essence of Christianity", a passionate desire to reject whatever is not holy or of God, a conviction fed by an irresistible religious experience, inspiring and exciting eloquence, an "heroism in the face of death" by which he defied the contemporary powers. He attributes to him "a robust vitality, an overflowing energy, an inexhaustible originality, an elemental power... far above the level of common humanity". He speaks of "the defiance of his passionate temperament, all the unrepressed impetuosity of his robust peasant nature, the rich endowment of his mind, his heroic readiness to commit himself to the full, his immense creative power in observation, thought and writing, and not least his wonderful power of speech, beating upon the hearer in climax after climax and 'fairly overwhelming him' (Lortz, I, 147)". Finally he stresses "his unfathomable reverence for the mystery of God; his tremendous consciousness of his own sin; the holy defiance with which, as God's warrior, he faced abuse and simony; the heroism with which he risked his life for Christ's cause; and not least the natural simplicity and child-like quality of his whole manner of life and his personal piety."[73]
Adam balances his positive approach to Luther with some hefty criticism:
“…Adam puts a minus sign against all these
virtues, in that they are not used in the service of the Church but have been
used against her. And here I think he misunderstands Luther's primary aims. He
calls him "a rebel" who since at least 1512, the year of the event in
the tower, "separated, even without knowing or wishing it, from the
Church's teaching."[74]
Adam sees Luther as an apostate a rebel, and an individualist. To explain this, Adam refers back to earlier Catholic approaches and sees psychological factors as a cause for Luther’s rebellion: “Brought up strictly by his father, Luther very soon lived "in a state of terror, in abnormal fear of sin and of the last judgment". Because of his "excitable feelings", of the religious sensitivity that naturally tended to anxiety, and "his terror of sin", Luther was intensely subjective (and here is a repetition of Lortz's criticism).[75] Adam also explains Luther’s doctrine of justification as the result of Occamist influence in regard to God’s sovereignty:
“By affirming
that the righteousness of God assumes a passive sense in the Gospel, Luther was
not saying anything new; following Denifle and Lortz, Adam believes that
"practically all the medieval exegetes proposed the same meaning".
The innovation, and at the same time the error, of Luther was to draw from the
correct exegesis "the revolutionary conclusion" that "man is
sin, nothing but sin". By refusing any justification by works and by
keeping to grace alone, Luther got rid once for all of his scruples and distresses.
In consequence of this "act of self-liberation", he condemned himself
to read and interpret the Bible with his own intuition as guide, that is to
say, in Lortz's words, to reduce the Scriptural revelation in a one-sided
manner. In short, Luther, when he founded a Church, left to his disciples only
a "foundation . . . too narrow and scanty" to satisfy their many and
diverse religious needs.”[76]
“Adam fails to
grant any theological value to Luther's message. He recognizes him as a man of
faith, but not as a preacher of the Gospel—the only ground on which Luther
would seek his own justification. Adam recognizes the moral scandal of the
Church in the later Middle Ages (who could defend it?), but fails to see the
deficiencies and weaknesses in its theology. Had Luther been content, he
maintains, to cleanse the Church of the worst abuses and to remain a faithful
member, Roman Catholics would have owed him a debt of gratitude. He might have
been a second Boniface, the refounder of the Church in Germany, in the company
of St. Francis and of Thomas Aquinas. But he spoiled all this by moving from
the area of moral reform to that of doctrinal reform, arguing that the Church
was in error largely owing to false doctrine. For Adam dogma is uncorruptible.
Consequently, he considers Luther to be no more than a rebel, an unhappy and
erroneous theologian.”[77]
“Father Congar, writing on the causes of the
Reformation, dismisses outright all talk of moral licentiousness as a motivation
of the Reformers. He rejects the contention that moral abuses might be a cause
as well, and instead goes to the root of the matter—deficiencies in medieval
Roman Catholic theology. He sees the Reformation as a religious movement, an
attempt to renew religion at its source. He considers Luther a profoundly
religious man who had a deeply sensitive conscience and was obsessed by the
longing to find peace of heart and a warm, living, consoling contact with God.
Luther was the type who expressed the religious problem of so many of his
contemporaries—how to get beyond all the human accretions of religion to the
pure sources of religion, to find again peace with God. He presents Luther as a
soul in quest of God who had to journey all the way back to the New Testament
in his quest; the tragedy lay in the fact that he found himself in reaction to
the Catholic system of the Christian life.”[78]
“In 1950 Yves M.-J. Congar expanded on these views. In his Vraie et
fausse reforme dans I'Eglise (1950) he criticises Luther’s ecclesiology on the
grounds of the intense dialectical opposition between the outward and visible
and the inward and invisible. Luther, he argues, never appreciated the value of
the external forms and visible activities of the institution, and laid too
great a stress on the Word: he misunderstood church order. In fact,; he
suggests, Protestantism since Luther has been unable to construct an
ecclesiology. It is Congar, however, who has not understood Luther here.
Luther’s emphasis was on the hidden Church known only to God, and he did not
wish this to be identified with the institution. It was the hidden nature of
the true Church, not its invisible nature, that he taught: he wanted the Church
to be very visible! His emphasis on the sacraments, on preaching, and on the
instruction of members in churchmanship and its responsibilities, as well as
his reorganisation of parish life in Saxony all serve to refute this
superficial charge and to show what a high doctrine of the Church Luther
actually held.
In fact, Congar
can be most reactionary (relative to Lortz and Hessen, for instance). He refers
to Luther as impatient, passionate, irritable, violent, superficial, and
boastful, a man incapable of grasping anything objectively—naive, unilateral, a
revolutionary, an innovator. In his desire to return to the simple Gospel,
Luther was no more than 'Galatian', Congar claims, a revolutionary heading a
revolt rather than a reformer of the Church. (Congar is making an analogy with
Paul's white-hot defence of the Gospel against Judaisers in the epistle to the
Galatians.”[79]