Remember the caucus rules. Any violations may be referred to the Religion Mod. and/or squawked at viciously!
GRPL Saturday morning ping!
The evolution of religious thought of one of the greats.
God bless and Godspeed!
(Sorry, didn't realize I cut the last bit off the essay. Here is the rest starting from the paragraph I cut off...)
As Luther’s thinking was transformed by a Christ centered hermeneutic, it was inevitable that the harsh judge and the silent idols would be replaced by the true God of the gospel. Christ the cruel judge who had to be appeased by “penance, confession, and works of satisfaction, [and] with the intercession of his mother and of all the saints,” [59] was now Christ the “comfort us poor sinners in the most loving and effective manner.”[60] One was no longer saved by “works, monkery, Masses, and saint worship but exclusively through this Christ.” [61] For Luther, Mary was not a goddess or intercessor. She granted no gifts, and rendered no aid.[62] The only one to cry out to was Christ.
VII. Conclusion
The final ten years of his life were spent lecturing on Genesis. When he looked at the Latin translation Genesis 3:15, he said, “How amazing, how damnable, that through the agency of foolish exegetes Satan has managed to apply this passage, which in fullest measure abounds in the comfort of the Son of God, to the Virgin Mary! For in all the Latin Bibles the pronoun appears in the feminine gender: “And she will crush.”[63] Surveying the landscape of understanding of this passage, Luther found “all the recent interpreters have followed along and misused this most sacred statement for the purpose of idolatry, without anyone objecting to it or preventing it.”[64] He makes it clear though, “We do not want to take away from Mary any honor which is her due; but we want to remove the idolatry contained in the statement that by giving birth to Christ, Mary has destroyed all the power of Satan.” [65]
Here was the centrality of the issue for Luther. Mary had taken the role of intercessor, co-redeemer, and had been elevated to the status of a “goddess” who would defeat Satan. She had become an idol. In the worship of idols, there is no salvation. Only “those who accept the teaching of the Gospel lose …their sins and eternal death, [and] gain freedom from all idolatry and from the rule of Satan.”[66] Luther would understand the most formidable expression of the Devil’s hatred of God and His people found around the doctrine of Christ. The Devil will even let us hold to an especially orthodox biblical understanding of the person of Christ, but without truly trusting in Jesus. The modern Roman Catholic who venerates Mary finds himself in the same situation as his medieval ancestor: Mary takes on the attributes of Christ and thus becomes an idol, even while one may be holding to a particularly orthodox view of Christ.
While Luther could call Mary the “Mother of God,” he was far more concerned to say something about the work of God in Christ than about her, thus, he un-deified her by definition. His usage was not intended to be a quasi-divine statement of veneration similar to medieval or current Roman Catholic trends. When Luther abandoned aspects of Mariology like the Immaculate Conception, it served to further un-deify the goddess. Christ was the only one conceived sinless ruling the throne of the heart, the only Savior in whom one could place their complete trust. While retaining such beliefs like perpetual virginity, Luther did so in un-dogmatic terms, making sure that Mary was not to be deified for such an attribute. He implied in the Table Talk that it was Mary’s choice to remain a virgin after the birth of Christ, rather than her continued virginity being a miraculous gift from God.[67]
While destroying the idol of the Virgin Mary, Luther was conscious not to “throw the baby out with the bathwater.” Mary held a positive role in Luther’s theology, serving as a strong example of sola fide, “by faith alone.” Jarislov Pelikan observes, “Mary became the obvious case study of this for Luther, as the opening words of Mary’s Magnificat showed him that ‘holiness of spirit…consists in nothing else than faith pure and simple.’”[68] Pelikan continued,
In a characteristic summary of the Reformation doctrine of justification by faith and not by works, he insisted on the basis of Mary’s faith “that works breed nothing but discrimination, sin, and discord, while faith alone makes men pious, united, and peaceable.” Therefore “faith and the Gospel… are the highest goods…which no one should let go.” For when Mary said to the angel Gabriel (in Luther’s German), ‘Let it happen to me as you have said [Mir gesche, wie du gesagt hast],’ this was above all an expression of her faith. And ‘through such faith alone she was saved and freed from sin.”[69]
There is not a covert Protestant effort to keep the world from Luther’s Mariology. Luther’s Mariology consisted of shattering the idol of the Virgin Mary with his doctrine of justification by faith. To the medieval ear these words must have been revolutionary: “Even the holy mother of God did not become good, was not saved, by her virginity or her motherhood, but rather by the will of faith and the works of God, and not by her purity, or her own works. Therefore, mark me well: this is the reason why salvation does not lie in our own works, no matter what they are; it cannot and will not be effected without faith.”[70]
The colors of the Roman Catholic picture of Luther’s devotion to Mary become blurry and unfocused when examined in the light of his writings and theology. Once the intercessory role of Mary was abandoned, Luther saw the idol medieval theology had created. The medieval veneration had its sole purpose of appealing to her for daily and ultimate help. Her attributes were worshipped in order to gain her favor. To suggest that Luther held a virtually Roman Mariology is to imply his veneration of Mary and her tradition-created attributes. It is to say that Luther sought her as a means to her Son. For Luther though, quite the opposite is the case:
Christ is not so much a judge and an angry God but one who bears and carries our sins, a mediator. Away with the papists, who have set Christ before us as a terrible judge and have turned the saints into intercessors! There they have added fuel to the fire. By nature we are already afraid of God. Blessed therefore are those who as uncorrupted young people arrived at this understanding, that they can say: “I only knew Jesus Christ as the bearer of my sins.[71]
VIII. Appendix (Revised July, 2003)
"It is a sweet and pious belief that the infusion of Mary's soul was effected without original sin; so that in the very infusion of her soul she was also purified from original sin and adorned with God's gifts, receiving a pure soul infused by God; thus from the first moment she began to live she was free from all sin" (Sermon: "On the Day of the Conception of the Mother of God," 1527")
This quote is frequently cited on Roman Catholic web pages attempting to prove Luther’s lifelong belief in Mary’s immaculate conception. Unfortunately, the quote is almost impossible to track down. The sermon is not included in the English edition of Luther’s Works, and rarely will Roman Catholic web sites give any documentation other than, “Sermon: ‘On the Day of the Conception of the Mother of God.’” The exception has been Catholic apologist Dave Armstrong. Up until the posting of this paper, Mr. Armstrong cited the above quote from the work of Hartmann Grisar’s book, Luther Vol. IV. Grisar cites the source as “Werke,” Erl. Ed., 15 Page 58. Of the quote he says,
“The sermon was taken down in notes and published with Luther’s approval. The same statements concerning the immaculate conception still remain in a printed edition published in 1529, but in later editions which appeared during Luther’s lifetime they disappear.”
The reason for their disappearance is that as Luther’s Christo-centric theology developed, aspects of Luther’s Mariology were abandoned. Grisar recognizes this. In regards to the Luther quote in question, Grisar says,
“As Luther’s intellectual and ethical development progressed we cannot naturally expect the sublime picture of the pure Mother of God, the type of virginity, of the spirit of sacrifice and of sanctity to furnish any great attraction for him, and as a matter of fact such statements as the above are no longer met with in his later works.”
For a much fuller treatment of Luther’s view of the Immaculate Conception, please see my “Luther’s Theology of Mary: A Response To Dave Armstrong” found on this website.
IX. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Fife, Robert Herndon. The Revolt of Martin Luther. New York: Columbia University
Press, 1957.
Grisar, Hartman. Martin Luther His Life and Work. Baltimore: Newman Press, 1959.
____________. Luther volume IV. St. Louis: B. Herder. 1915.
Lortz, Joseph. The Reformation in Germany, London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1968.
Luther, Martin. Luther's works Vol. 1-55. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1999.
___________. Sermons of Martin Luther. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1996.
___________. What Luther Says. St Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1959.
Oberman, Heiko A. The Impact of the Reformation. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans
Publishing Co., 1994.
___________. Luther: Man Between God and the Devil. New York: Doubleday, 1989.
Pelikan, Jarislov. Mary Through The Ages. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996.
Wicks, Jared, ed. Catholic Scholars Dialogue with Luther. Chicago: Loyola University
Press, 1970.
X. Endnotes
[1] Joseph Lortz, “The Basic Elements of Luther’s Intellectual Style,” in Catholic Scholars Dialogue with Luther, ed. Jared Wicks (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1970), 3.
[2] Joseph Lortz, The Reformation in Germany, trans. Ronald Walls (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1968), 1:296. Lortz does not give the reference to his quote of Cochlaeus.
[3] Dave Armstrong, The Protestant Reformers on Mary, available from: http://ic.net/~erasmus/RAZ95.HTM; Internet; accessed 20 November 2002. This document is included in Appendix 1.
[4] Jaroslav Pelikan, Mary Through The Ages (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996), 158, referencing Walter Tappolet, ed., Das Marienlob der Reformatoren (Tubingen: Katzman Verlag, 1962).
[5] Martin Luther, D. Martin Luthers Tischreden 1531 – 1546, IV No.4422, quoted in Robert Herndon Fife. The Revolt of Martin Luther (New York: Columbia University Press, 1957), 122.
[6] Martin Luther, “Sermon of December 22, 1532,” WA XXXVI, 388, quoted in Robert Herndon Fife. The Revolt of Martin Luther, 122.
[7] Martin Luther, D.Martin Luthers Werke: Kritische Gesamtausgabe, Abteilung Werke, I, 415, quoted in Robert Herndon Fife. The Revolt of Martin Luther, 13-14.
[8] Lortz, The Reformation in Germany, 1:112.
[9] Robert Herndon Fife. The Revolt of Martin Luther (New York: Columbia University Press, 1957), 13-14.
[10] Martin Luther, Luther's works, vol. 54, ed. J. J. Pelikan, H. C. Oswald & H. T. Lehmann (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1999), 14.
[11] Robert Herndon Fife, The Revolt of Martin Luther (New York: Columbia University Press, 1957), 123. Luther’s quote is from, Martin Luther, “Sermon of May 21, 1537,” WA XLV, 86 quoted in Robert Herndon Fife, The Revolt of Martin Luther, 123.
[12] Pelikan, 144.
[13] Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, 22: 377.
[14] Ibid., 22: 145.
[15] Ibid., 54: 84.
[16] Pelikan, 55.
[17] Ibid., 56.
[18] Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, 41:97.
[19] For example, Luther’s Works 17:404; LW 35:55; LW 38: 289; LW 51:58; LW 52: 85.
[20] Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, 54:425.
[21] Ibid., 21:308.
[22] Ibid.
[23] Ibid., 21:307.
[24] Heiko A. Oberman, The Impact of the Reformation, (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.,1994), 242.
[25] Martin Luther, Luther's works, 21:329.
[26] Ibid., 21:298.
.
[27] Ibid.,, 21:321.
[28] Ibid. Emphasis mine.
[29] Ibid., 21:320.
[30] George Yule, Luther Theologian for Catholics and Protestants (Scotland: T & T Clark LTD, 1985), 109-110.
[31] Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, 43:40.
[32] Hartman Grisar, Martin Luther His Life and Work (Baltimore: Newman Press, 1959), 211.
[33] Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, 31:173.
[34] Ibid., 32: 79-80.
[35] Martin Luther, What Luther Says, Vol. 1, ed. Ewald Martin Plass (St Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1959) 151. This is the editors comment.
[36] Martin Luther, Sermons of Martin Luther, Vol. 3, ed. John Nicholas Lenker. ( Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1996), 291.
[37] Ibid., 294.
[38] Pelikan, 157.
[39] Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, 54:340.
[40] Pelikan, 118.
[41] Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, 22: 215.
[42] Ibid.
[43] Ibid.
[44] Martin Luther, “Sermon on the Presentation of Christ in the Temple,” Luthers Werke 52:688- 99,quoted in Jaroslav Pelikan, Mary Through The Ages, 158.
[45] Walther Brandt and Jarislov Pelikan, Introduction to “That Jesus Christ Was Born a Jew” in Martin Luther, Luther's works, vol. 45 : The Christian in Society II , 197.
[46] Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, 45: 205-206.
[47] Ibid., 4:189.
[48] Ibid., 45:204.
[49] Ibid., 45:211.
[50] Martin Luther, “Sermon of August 15, 1516,” What Luther Says Vol. III, 1257.
[51] Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, 42:113.
[52] Martin Luther, “Letter to Erfurt evangelists July 10, 1522,” What Luther Says, Vol. 1, 1253.
[53] Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, 43:10.
[54] Ibid., 43:38.
[55] Ibid., 43:39.
[56] Ibid., 43:40.
[57] Robert Kolb, The Theology of Martin Luther, audiotapes of lectures by Robert Kolb, (Grand Rapids: Institute of Theological Studies), lecture 7.
[58] Martin Luther, D.Martin Luthers Werke: Kritische Gesamtausgabe, Abteilung Werke 11:415 quoted in MartinLuther, What Luther Says, Vol. III, ed. Ewald Martin Plass (St Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1959), 1254.
[59] Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, 40: 376.
[60] Ibid., 40: 375.
[61] Ibid., 24: 119.
[62] Ibid., 21: 327.
[63] Ibid., 1:191.
[64] Ibid., 1:191.
[65] Ibid., 1: 192.
[66] Ibid.
[67] Ibid., 54:341.
[68] Pelikan, 160.
[69] Ibid.
[70] Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, 51:62
[71] Ibid., 17:224.
One must remember as well, that Luther arrived on the scene at a time where there had been CENTURIES of darkness in the Christian world with only flickers of light here and there. The works of those flickers of light had been systematically destroyed by the RCC. So, just as a baby born in a womb, Luther had the evidence of what he had just been through, still upon him. That he came as far as he did in his understanding is testimony to God's work in his life.
Whether one believes Mary was a perpetual virgin is a secondary matter of doctrine.
God made sure that Luther got it right on the essentials.
What is clear is that Luther believed Mary was a mere woman. A blessed one. But clearly distinct from her creator.
What has become of Marian studies today is a Marian devotion that in itself is idolatrous. Attributes of God that never occurred to any of the early church writers (nor Luther) have been ascribed to her, and a term like Theotokos has become laden with the baggage of the Marian "veneration" which now exists.
So, what should Protestants do? We can recognize that Luther wasn't perfect and clearly missed the mark on some non-essentials. We can also go back to the spirit with which Luther wrote during most of his life - that is back to the Scripture. We should ascribe no more to Mary than what Scripture ascribes to her. That she was the mother of the person who was the 2nd member of the trinity is biblical. That he preceded her is also biblical. Calling her "Mary, Mother of Jesus" is scriptural. Then one's Christology can be truly Christocentric rather than getting wrapped up in the modern-day cult of Mary.
The article speaks of the theology of another confession, i.e. Catholism. Therefore rebuttals must be allowed; it cannot be a caucus.
I'm sorry, Otto, and you too, Dr. E. I think I just broke the Caucus rules. I'll try to remember not to do that again.
In before the 2000th post. These kind of threads never cease to amaze me.