Luther and Calvin

Luther and Calvin

Ralph Hancock

Christianity and the Problem of the Two Worlds Jean Jacque Rousseau observed how Christianity created a

separation of the theological from the political. Separation of church and state remains a contentious political

and philosophical problem. Reconciling the possibilities of something beyond this world

with the demands of the natural and political worlds is an important challenge for political thought.

Augustine’s City of God addresses this rivalry. The superiority of the spiritual over the secular characterized

Medieval thought. Papal Supremacy was articulated in Boniface’s bull Unam

Sanctum. The Protestant Reformation would address the tensions

emanating from this articulation.

Martin Luther: Crisis and Conversion

Luther was born to a newly prosperous peasant family in Eisleben, Saxony in 1883.

Luther joined the Augustinian order at the age of 23, but his decision only increased his existential anxiety as he became more and more aware of his sinfulness.

Luther became aware of justification by faith alone through reading St. Paul culminating in an epiphany in the tower library of the monastery.

Luther’s anxiety was reduced by this realization.

Martin Luther: The Liberty of Faith Versus Roman “Works” Luther attacks Aristotle as an enemy of grace in his

Disputation against Scholastic Theology (1517). Aristotle’s teachings about the cultivation of moral virtues

created a space in Christian theology for a moral economy where humans were able to contribute to their own salvations.

This teaching was viewed by Luther as an impossible burden given the fallen nature of human beings.

One manifestation of this teaching was the existence of indulgences.

Luther condemned these practices by posting 95 theses on the door of Wittenberg Castle (October 31, 1517).

Martin Luther: The Liberty of Faith Versus Roman “Works” Luther argued in Concerning Christian Liberty that faith

was radically free from dependence on works or anything external.

By nature, human beings are enemies of God and cannot selflessly love God.

Only through Jesus Christ are our sins covered with his righteousness enabling us to love God.

This did not negate the commandment to do good works, but merely cautioned against the sin of imagining they were efficacious in bringing about salvation.

A life of selfless service could best be cultivated through awareness of absolute dependency on God’s grace.

Concerning Christian Liberty

Then comes in that other part of Scripture, the promises of God , which declare the glory of God, which recall the glory of God and say, “If you wish to fulfill the law, and, as the law requires, not to covet, lo! Believe in Christ, in whom are promised to you grace, justification, peace, and liberty.” All these things you shall have , if you believe, and shall be without them if you do not believe.

Questions for Reflection

How are our inward selves related to our outward behaviors and our externally perceived character traits? Can those be totally separated?

Martin Luther: Political Authority Reconceived

Ecclesiastical authority is narrowed by the priesthood of all believers.

Christians are exalted in creation and are born to rule.

Christian grace and liberty are eclipsed by existing religious order.

Christians are subject to principalities and powers and should do every good work.


Can spiritual and temporal authority be completely separated?

Martin Luther: Militant Reform

Luther’s political theory evolved with circumstances.

His articulation of beliefs had radical implications.

He encouraged the German nobles to begin dismantling the Roman power structures in his Open Letter to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation.

Martin Luther: The Limits of Secular Authority Luther’s teaching collapses the traditional hierarchy

between spiritual and secular functions. This caused some to embrace the full implications of the

end of hierarchies including the apocalyptic genius Thomas Muntzer (1489-1525).

The ensuing led Luther to take a conservative position in his work, Against the Murdering and Thieving Hordes of Peasants (1525)

His earlier On Secular Authority: How Far Does Obedience Owed to it Extend (1523) offered a more measured analysis of the issues raised by his theology.

“Three Walls of the Romanists,” From An Open Letter to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation Concerning Reform to the Christian Estate

First, when pressed by temporal power, they have made decrees and said that the temporal power has no jurisdiction over them, but on the other hand, that the spiritual is above the temporal. Second, when the attempt is made to reprove them out of the Scriptures, they raise the objection that the interpretation of Scriptures belongs to no one except the pope. Third if threatened with a council, they answer with the fable that no one can call a council but the pope.

On the Secular Authority: How Far Does the Obedience Owed to It Extend?

If someone wanted to have the world ruled according to the Gospel, and to abolish all secular law and the Sword, on the ground that all are baptized and Christians and that the Gospel will have no law or sword used among Christians, who have no need of them in any case, what do you imagine the effect would be? He would let loose the wild animals from their bonds and chains, and let them maul and tear everyone to pieces, saying all the while that really they are just fine, tame, gentle, little things. But my wounds would tell me different. And so the wicked under cover of the name of Christians, would misuse the freedom of the Gospel, would work their wickedness and would claim that they are Christians and [therefore] subject to no law and no Sword…

Martin Luther: “Spiritual” and “Secular” Reconfigured Medieval Christianity subordinated the political to the

spiritual, but as in Aquinas, saw some good in the political. Luther argued the political was worthless for the spiritual,

but argues for the political on what it provides for non-believers.

Secular needs become authoritative for Christians as someone else’s needs.

“It is a Christian act, and an act of love, to kill enemies without scruple, to rob and to burn, and to do whatever damages the enemy, according to the usages of war, until he is defeated” (On Secular Authority, Part 3)

Martin Luther: Freedom of Conscience

Luther concludes against the use of force to suppress heresy.

The radical separation of the secular and the spiritual has reconciled them.

“The world is too wicked to deserve princes much wiser and more just than this. Frogs must have storks.”


Is thought free from external influences?

Martin Luther: Obedience and Resistance “If you do not resist [the secular ruler] and let

him take away your faith or your books, then you will truly have denied God.”

Luther did not countenance revolution or regicide, but only passive resistance to rulers who overstepped their boundaries.

Luther has difficulty coming up with a consistent theoretical position on the right of resistance.

He permitted nobles to resist the Emperor, but he did not give private individuals such a right.


Does it make sense to urge obedience at the same time to denounce the injustice of rulers?

Martin Luther: Rational Advice to Princes

The ruler should use reason to decide upon the appropriate application of law.

“Unfettered reason is greater than all of the law books.”

Reason is constrained to secular needs and blocked from higher philosophical or priestly purposes.

Martin Luther: The Mutual Emancipation of the Spiritual and the Secular

Political authority is secured through the Christian duty to love others.

Abstraction of duty from purpose is Luther’s way of doing full justice spiritual transcendence and material necessity.

Luther, Calvin, and the Right to Resistance

During World War II, Karl Barth, a Swiss German theologian from Calvin’s Geneva, supported resistance to Hitler and the Nazis. In Luther’s Germany, however, Protestant leadership generally supported obedience to authority and did not advocate resistance to the Nazis. Is there anything in content of Luther’s and Calvin’s teachings that would lead to these different approaches to resistance to the state?


Can Spiritual and the secular interests be neatly divided and kept separate in practice?

John Calvin: Life and Legacy

John Calvin ( 1509-1564) was born in Northern France and began his studies of Theology in Paris and was later sent to Orleans and Bourges to study law.

Calvin, though inspired by Luther, was more restrained, nuanced, and organized.

Calvin authored the Institutes of the Christian Religion, which served as a Protestant counterpoint to the Summa of St. Thomas Aquinas.

Calvin had a complex relationship with Geneva, the center of the international Calvinist movement.

John Calvin: Distinguishing Spiritual and Temporal Christian freedom is freedom from the impossible

burden of righteousness of works. Freedom from works liberates the believer to obey

God voluntarily. Believers are not bound to external practices and

should not give ground to superstitious beliefs though they should avoid giving unnecessary offense.

Believers should not erroneously transfer the doctrine of spiritual liberty to the secular realm.

Calvin reinforces Luther’s divide between the spiritual and the secular.


Is pure disinterested love (of God or of another person) impossible? Are human motives inevitably tainted or even polluted?

John Calvin: Human Depravity

Calvin rejects sophist or scholastic philosophers who perceive any merit in human laws contributing to the forming of the human soul.

“Here I only wished to observe, that the whole man, from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot, is so deluged, as it were, that no part remains exempt from sin. Thus Paul says that all carnal thoughts and affections are enmity against God, and consequently death (Rom. 8:7)

The soul has no power to aspire toward good. Free will is a fiction.


Can there be freedom without some knowledge of a higher good, a good transcending material incentive?

John Calvin: Predestination

The salvation of the soul has nothing to do with human acts but is predetermined by God.

The damned are similarly selected by God. This doctrine may be repugnant to reason,

but it preserves God’s glory and preserves the humility of the believer.

John Calvin: The Dignity of the Political

Government is ordained by God and is the highest and most sacred station in mortal life.

Calvin follows Aquinas in affirming how the political is essential to our humanity.

How is human depravity reconciled with Calvin’s high estimate of the dignity of the political?

John Calvin: Reason and Natural Law

Political order is included under God’s providential order. Calvin has a robust if nontraditional understanding natural

law. Natural gift of reason remains partially in tact. No man is devoid of the light of reason. Shame and honor curves the consequences of human

depravity. Human virtue does not improve the condition of the soul. Politics is about self-preservation and counteracts lustful and

haughty appeal to justice, honor, or freedom. Revealed authority is essential for preserving order. Human callings are all equally valid as people pursue their

humble mundane tasks.

John Calvin: The Christian Commonwealth Godly Kings and princes should sustain religion

by laws, edicts, and judgments. Calvin joins spiritual and secular functions

though he does not do it through the medieval concept of hierarchy of purposes.

The sting of government can remind people to fear God.

Calvin prefers a mixed form of government eschewing the extremes of monarchy and democracy.

John Calvin: Forms of Government

Monarchy has a tendency toward tyranny. Aristocracy has a tendency to the interest of a

few. Democracy has a tendency toward sedition. A mixed regime is best to check the vices of

human beings. Our duty is to obey and submit to legitimate

authorities.


Is there a best form of government? A form most in accord with the Christian faith?

From Of Civil Government, Book IV, Chapter 20

But in obedience which we hold to be due to the commands of rulers, we must always make the exception, nay, must be particularly careful that it is not incompatible with obedience to him to whose will the wishes of all kings should be subject, to whose decrees their commands must yield, to whose majesty their scepters must bow. And Indeed how preposterous were it, in pleasing men, to incur the offense of Him for whose sake you obey men!

The Right of Resistance in Lutheranism and Calvinism Calvin emphasized obedience. Calvin endorses popular magistrates protecting the people from the tyranny

of the King. Calvin opens the door for a citizen to resist a king with reference to Daniel’s

refusal to obey an impious decree. Later Calvinist, argued for the limited authority of monarchs (John Ponet,

1514-1556) and even the lawfulness of forcible resistance ( Christopher Goodman, 1520-1603).

The more militant implications of Calvinism came to fruition in Britain. Calvin opens the door to resisting tyrants through his arguments for

individual resistance, the popular basis of lesser magistrates’ authority, and the covenanting tradition.

Luther focused believer on the inward joys of faith, whereas Calvin pointed the believer’s energies to the outer world.


Is constitutional liberty best understood as moral liberty, as liberty under God, or as natural liberty, unlimited in principle by moral or religious prejudice?

The Legacy of the Reformation

Freedom of conscience from Rome and tying it to holy scripture may have strengthened the emerging nation-states.

The success of American democracy is traced to the moral freedom inherited from Christianity.

The themes of the Reformation remain relevant for modern thinkers as they confront modernity and its heritage.

Luther and Calvin

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