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Martin Luther on Grace, Law, and Moral Life: Prolegomena to an Ecumenical Discussion of Veritatis Splendor

1998; Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception; Volume: 62; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/tho.1998.0027

2473-3725

David S. Yeago,

Reformation and Early Modern Christianity

The Thomist 62 (1998): 163-91 MARTIN LUTHER ON GRACE, LAW, AND MORAL LIFE: PROLEGOMENA TO AN ECUMENICAL DISCUSSION OF VERITATIS SPLENDOR DAVID S. YEAGO Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary Columbia, South Carolina I. INTRODUCTION EVERY DISCUSSION of the relationship of Martin Luther's thought to moral life and moral discourse necessarily lies under the shadow of a long-standing tendency of the Lutheran theological tradition that has been well described by the Anglican moral theologian Oliver O'Donovan: The Lutheran tradition, which of all theological traditions has most strongly cherished the Pauline dialectic of law and gospel, has usually found it difficult to accept that an ordered moral demand can be, in and of itself, evangelical. The antithesis between Moses and Christ has been widened to encompass a total opposition between order and transcendence. The liberating activity of God is marked by its insusceptibility to characterization in terms of order, while order, even the order of creation, has been classed with law rather than gospel, and so assigned a purely provisional and transitory significance.1 The outcome is, as O'Donovan shows, that for most Lutheran theologians morality and grace are disjointed and even opposed themes; even when a normative moral order is affirmed-and most Lutheran theologians have in fact affirmed a normative moral order-that order is viewed as having nothing to do with the gospel. Moral order is necessary where grace is absent: it subjects the unruly flesh to a needful rough governance, and 1 0 liver O'Donovan, Resurrection andMoral Order: An Outline for Evangelical Ethics (Grand Rapids, 1986), 153. 163 164 DAVID S. YEAGO prepares the heart for grace by the stringency of its demands. But when grace arrives on the scene, moral order has reached its limit and termination; the gospel initiates a relationship between God and human beings which is not only more than moral, but altogether other than moral. O'Donovan rightly pinpoints the divergence between grace and morality with the concept of order: for most Lutheran theologians , grace is grace precisely because it in no way seeks to put the life of the sinner "in order"-if it did so, it would be law, not grace. On the contrary, grace simply embraces the sinner in God's unconditional favor, an acceptance and affirmation that are wholly indifferent to right and wrong, good and evil, order and disorder. It seems apparent, on the face of it, that between such a Lutheranism and Veritatis Splendor there can be no dialogue, only fundamental, principled opposition. The Pope declares that the gift of God's grace "does not lessen but reinforces the moral demands of love.... One can 'abide' in love only by keeping the commandments."2 It seems clear that a Lutheranism that defines grace by its disconnection from and indifference to the moral could have no very interesting conversation with this teaching. I want to suggest, however, that on this point, as on many others, Lutheranism's reception of Martin Luther's theology has been only partial, and in this case profoundly misleading. It is possible, and I shall argue preferable, to read Luther as proposing not the separation of grace from moral order, but their thorough integration. The morality that grace terminates, the law that the gospel overcomes, is precisely and specifically a moral order alienated from grace, a morality which is therefore alienated from the true end of human existence and can only issue in the twin evils of presumption and despair. Far from being indifferent to good and evil, order and disorder, the bestowal of God's grace through the gospel is for Luther the only true formation of the human heart, that which alone sets the heart truly in order. Read in this way, I would suggest, Luther becomes an ecumenical resource and challenge for Lutherans and Catholics alike, 2 Veritatis Splendor §24. LUTHER AND VERITAIIS SPLENDOR 165 neither the patron saint ofLutheranism-as-usual nor the antithesis of authentic Catholicism. Despite his undeniable and extraordinary creativity, he stands in a tradition, with deep roots in the Fathers and especially, though not exclusively, the monastic writers of the Latin Middle Ages. We should read him as a highly original...