The Spirit of the Reformation: A Man and his Bible
below is the text of an informal address I gave at a small family gathering October 30, 2005, in observance of Reformation Day
On October 31, 1517, Martin Luther nailed a document to the door of the Cathedral at Wittenberg for public consideration and comment. The document consisted of 95 Theses, or a series of statements, that formed his argument opposing the practice of selling indulgences. The first Thesis reads, “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ‘Repent’ (Matthew 4:17), he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.” Luther went on from there with detailed exposition based upon various texts of Scripture. In our day we are accustomed to such an approach to doctrinal controversy. Discussing Luther’s theses today we would turn in our Bibles to Matthew 4:17 and argue with Luther concerning whether that is what Christ meant. For Modern Protestantism the issue is focused upon, “What does the Bible say and what does it mean?” But this has not always been so. If this had been the popular approach in Luther’s day, then the Reformation might have been a fairly obscure episode in Church history, subject to the scrutiny only of scholars. But in Luther’s day, the matter was on a completely different footing. When Luther took up his Bible to challenge the established practices of the Roman Catholic Church, he did so in a world in which holding up the Bible as a standard by which to evaluate the Church was revolutionary. His method of argument - a Man and his Bible - was more revolutionary than the content of his argument.
The major issue of the Reformation was much larger than indulgences, purgatory, sacraments, etc. As Luther and the other Reformers took up their Bibles to challenge the Church on these matters they focused an all-encompassing issue upon the question of infallible authority. The ideas of infallibility and authority are involved in one another. He who can speak infallibly therefore has absolute authority. Conversely, he who possesses absolute authority thereby speaks infallibly. God is Creator. He spoke this world of temporal reality into existence and providentially sustains it moment by moment. Thus, He determines the nature of reality and controls whatsoever comes to pass in it. As Creator and Determiner, God therefore is the final Interpreter of reality. Reality is not something that He must discover and explore, on which then He may offer an expert opinion. Rather, reality is His handiwork. Thus, His Word is absolutely and infallibly authoritative over all His creation. Because God’s Word is authoritative, it is infallible in all that it affirms. Similarly, because God’s Word is infallible, it is absolutely authoritative in all affairs of thought and of life. The importance of this matter is that the issue of infallible authority is not merely a technical issue of Church history. It is much more serious than that.
The entire issue between Christianity and unbelief lies in this point of infallible authority. Unbelief will not accept a God who created a world of reality outside Himself and who therefore determines the nature of this reality and controls whatsoever comes to pass in it. Accordingly, unbelief will not acknowledge any duty to this God nor admit of its failure in regard to this duty. Unbelief may speak much of “god,” but will not ascribe infallible authority to whatever it conceives as “god,” always reserving at least a measure of infallibility to Nature or to Man. And at all costs unbelief will not accept the exclusive infallible authority of the Bible. The great moment of the Reformation, and also the tragic irony of it, was that Luther’s biblical method of argument challenged the Church on precisely the same terms as it would challenge unbelief. Foundational to this method was the conviction that infallibility resided specifically in the Word of God alone and not in the Church. This is no different in essence than the conviction that God’s Word alone is infallible exclusive of the unbelieving Humanist mind. Was this a grave insult of Luther to approach the Church as he would an unbeliever? No, indeed, for in pretending to reserve to herself a measure of infallibility the Church effectively had assumed a posture of unbelief. Let us leave Luther at Wittenberg for a moment, poised with his hammer and with his 95 Theses, and let us survey briefly how the Church came to be in such great need of his ministry.
The greatest refinement of Ancient unbelief came in Greek philosophy around the 5th Century before Christ. The epitome of Greek philosophers was Aristotle. We will not concern ourselves at this point with the particulars concerning his philosophy. It will suffice for present purposes to survey the Apostle Paul’s warnings concerning it. By the first Century A. D., when Paul wrote, the Roman Empire had ascended to the dominant political and cultural force. However, the Romans never achieved anything approaching the sophistication of Greek philosophy. The wide reach of the Roman Empire and the extensive travel it engendered ushered Greek philosophy into ever greater influence. Paul himself debated Greek philosophers in Athens (Acts 17:16-34). It was specifically in reference to Greek philosophy that he warned the Colossians, “See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ.” (Colossians 2:8) He charged the Corinthians, “Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?” (I Corinthians 1:20). Also he exhorted them, “We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.” (II Corinthians 10:5) Paul’s warning was clear concerning the unbelief of Greek philosophy, which would seek to grasp wisdom apart from the infallible authority of God’s Word: Do not be taken captive through philosophy, but instead take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.
Following the collapse of the Roman Empire the writings of Greek philosophy fell into obscurity. Virtually disappearing from Europe and from the Mediterranean, they were preserved for centuries by various Arabic scholars and re-introduced to the West coincident with Islamic incursions and with the Crusades. A young 13th Century monk named Thomas, from the region of Aquino in Italy, discovered the works of Aristotle and was captivated. Still known and revered by the Roman Catholic Church to this day as St. Thomas Aquinas, his major opus was a three thousand page tome titled Summa Theologica, which means roughly “The Summation of Theology.” It was written into Roman Catholic Canon Law in 1917 that, “The study of philosophy and theology and the teaching of these sciences to their students must be accurately carried out by Professors according to the arguments, doctrine, and principles of St. Thomas which they are involately to hold.” As one might expect, Thomas’ work begins with the question of the existence of God. Part I, Question 2, Article 1, “Whether the Existence of God is Self-Evident?” He argues as follows, “No one can mentally admit the opposite of what is self-evident; as the Philosopher states concerning the first principles of demonstration. But the opposite of the proposition ‘God is’ can be mentally admitted: ‘The fool said in his heart, There is no God’ (Ps. 52:1) Therefore, that God exists is not self-evident.” His reference to “the Philosopher” is specifically to Aristotle, in his work Metaphysics, Bk. IV, Ch. VI.
Thomas did precisely what Paul warned us not to do, and failed to do that which Paul enjoined us to do. Rather than to take every thought captive to Christ, he was taken captive by Aristotle. If God is the Creator, Whose Word brought forth this world of reality, then His Word speaks infallibly concerning every point and every moment of reality. Every thing of existence testifies of its Creator. Man, as creature, bears in his nature the marks of his Creator. It is his nature to know God and even as an unbeliever he cannot avoid knowledge of God. But Thomas conceded to Aristotle that Man might have true self-consciousness apart from any God-consciousness. Further, he conceded that Man rightly might observe and interpret reality apart from any knowledge of God. Thomas was willing from the very outset to concede to unbelief that only after achieving self-consciousness and after having analyzed his experience of reality, only then might Man derive knowledge of God. In this case God cannot be infallible. In this case God cannot be the sole Creator, Determiner, and Interpreter of reality. Thomas’ appeal to the Bible is held in balance with his appeal to Aristotle. The pretense to reserve a measure of infallibility to Man, so that his independent analysis might conclude in favor of God, effectively only denies the infallibility of God. The idea of the infallible Church and particularly the infallibility of the Pope derives naturally and necessarily from Thomas’ starting point. This is the Church that Thomas bequeathed to Luther.
In contrast to this let us look briefly at the starting point of John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion. Calvin worked in the mid-1500s, in the decades following Luther’s original posting at Wittenberg, and Calvin’s work represents a greater maturation of the Reformation ideal. His Institutes of the Christian Religion is a 1500 page systematic survey of Christianity. Appropriately, Calvin began in the same place that Thomas began: that is, with the question of the Human knowledge of God. Book I, Chapter I, Paragraph one, Sentence one, “Nearly all the wisdom we possess…consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves. But, while joined by many bonds, which one precedes and brings forth the other is not easy to discern. In the first place, no one can look upon himself without immediately turning his thoughts to the contemplation of God, in whom he ‘lives and moves’ [Acts 17:28].” In the following paragraph, Calvin reiterates, “Again, it is certain that man never achieves a clear knowledge of himself unless he has first looked upon God’s face, and then descends from contemplating him to scrutinize himself.” Taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, Calvin cites Scripture to show that in God we live and move and have our being. Being himself captivated by philosophy, Thomas cites Aristotle to argue that we live and move independently of God. Calvin asserts that unless we know God, we cannot know ourselves. Thomas asserts that only having lived and moved independently of God may we subsequently demonstrate that God exists. No greater difference could possibly exist. It is critical to stress that what we have seen here from the writings of Thomas and of Calvin represent not their conclusions, but their starting points. These views comprise the basis upon which rests the remainder of what they have to say over thousands of pages.
Let us now return to Luther and his 95 Theses. It has not been our concern to follow his argument in detail, but only to observe its form. He began by calling us - indeed, calling the Pope - to consider the teaching of Scripture. As we look toward the conclusion of his argument, we can see that he anticipated the nature of the official Church response. Thesis 90: “To repress these very sharp arguments of the laity by force alone, and not to resolve them by giving reasons, is to expose the church and the pope to the ridicule of their enemies and to make Christians unhappy.” There was, indeed, repression, and at one point Luther had to hide himself to avoid being killed. This illustrates that the Reformation cannot be understood simply as a doctrinal disagreement regarding indulgences or sacraments. In focusing infallible authority upon the Bible, the Reformer’s outlook was radically revolutionary over-against the Thomistic, Roman Catholic outlook. This is what gave the Reformation cultural force, such that 500 years later we still are remembering what Martin Luther did that October 31st in 1517. The cultural force of this outlook spread throughout Europe and followed the Pilgrims and Puritans into the New World. Driving this revolution was the translation and publication of Bibles that people could read in their own languages. Previously the Bible was available only to scholars in the original languages or in Latin. Luther translated the Bible into German. Calvin collaborated with a number of scholars on the so-called Geneva Bible, a translation into English. While the old Aristotelian-Thomistic outlook of Roman Catholicism promoted Monarchial rule and the subjugation of the masses, the Spirit of the Reformation - A Man and his Bible - promoted personal liberty and responsibility. It was this ideal that was a major force in leading Christian civilization in Europe and America to reach its greatest heights. In the early 20th Century sociologist Max Weber noticed this force at work and referred to it as the “Protestant work ethic” and traced its roots to the Reformation. In our day we see the cultural force of this ideal largely eroded. However, let us all - as many who have ears to hear - always press on in remembrance of the great Reformers and in untiring devotion to the Word of God, the only infallible rule for all of life.
On October 31, 1517, Martin Luther nailed a document to the door of the Cathedral at Wittenberg for public consideration and comment. The document consisted of 95 Theses, or a series of statements, that formed his argument opposing the practice of selling indulgences. The first Thesis reads, “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ‘Repent’ (Matthew 4:17), he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.” Luther went on from there with detailed exposition based upon various texts of Scripture. In our day we are accustomed to such an approach to doctrinal controversy. Discussing Luther’s theses today we would turn in our Bibles to Matthew 4:17 and argue with Luther concerning whether that is what Christ meant. For Modern Protestantism the issue is focused upon, “What does the Bible say and what does it mean?” But this has not always been so. If this had been the popular approach in Luther’s day, then the Reformation might have been a fairly obscure episode in Church history, subject to the scrutiny only of scholars. But in Luther’s day, the matter was on a completely different footing. When Luther took up his Bible to challenge the established practices of the Roman Catholic Church, he did so in a world in which holding up the Bible as a standard by which to evaluate the Church was revolutionary. His method of argument - a Man and his Bible - was more revolutionary than the content of his argument.
The major issue of the Reformation was much larger than indulgences, purgatory, sacraments, etc. As Luther and the other Reformers took up their Bibles to challenge the Church on these matters they focused an all-encompassing issue upon the question of infallible authority. The ideas of infallibility and authority are involved in one another. He who can speak infallibly therefore has absolute authority. Conversely, he who possesses absolute authority thereby speaks infallibly. God is Creator. He spoke this world of temporal reality into existence and providentially sustains it moment by moment. Thus, He determines the nature of reality and controls whatsoever comes to pass in it. As Creator and Determiner, God therefore is the final Interpreter of reality. Reality is not something that He must discover and explore, on which then He may offer an expert opinion. Rather, reality is His handiwork. Thus, His Word is absolutely and infallibly authoritative over all His creation. Because God’s Word is authoritative, it is infallible in all that it affirms. Similarly, because God’s Word is infallible, it is absolutely authoritative in all affairs of thought and of life. The importance of this matter is that the issue of infallible authority is not merely a technical issue of Church history. It is much more serious than that.
The entire issue between Christianity and unbelief lies in this point of infallible authority. Unbelief will not accept a God who created a world of reality outside Himself and who therefore determines the nature of this reality and controls whatsoever comes to pass in it. Accordingly, unbelief will not acknowledge any duty to this God nor admit of its failure in regard to this duty. Unbelief may speak much of “god,” but will not ascribe infallible authority to whatever it conceives as “god,” always reserving at least a measure of infallibility to Nature or to Man. And at all costs unbelief will not accept the exclusive infallible authority of the Bible. The great moment of the Reformation, and also the tragic irony of it, was that Luther’s biblical method of argument challenged the Church on precisely the same terms as it would challenge unbelief. Foundational to this method was the conviction that infallibility resided specifically in the Word of God alone and not in the Church. This is no different in essence than the conviction that God’s Word alone is infallible exclusive of the unbelieving Humanist mind. Was this a grave insult of Luther to approach the Church as he would an unbeliever? No, indeed, for in pretending to reserve to herself a measure of infallibility the Church effectively had assumed a posture of unbelief. Let us leave Luther at Wittenberg for a moment, poised with his hammer and with his 95 Theses, and let us survey briefly how the Church came to be in such great need of his ministry.
The greatest refinement of Ancient unbelief came in Greek philosophy around the 5th Century before Christ. The epitome of Greek philosophers was Aristotle. We will not concern ourselves at this point with the particulars concerning his philosophy. It will suffice for present purposes to survey the Apostle Paul’s warnings concerning it. By the first Century A. D., when Paul wrote, the Roman Empire had ascended to the dominant political and cultural force. However, the Romans never achieved anything approaching the sophistication of Greek philosophy. The wide reach of the Roman Empire and the extensive travel it engendered ushered Greek philosophy into ever greater influence. Paul himself debated Greek philosophers in Athens (Acts 17:16-34). It was specifically in reference to Greek philosophy that he warned the Colossians, “See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ.” (Colossians 2:8) He charged the Corinthians, “Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?” (I Corinthians 1:20). Also he exhorted them, “We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.” (II Corinthians 10:5) Paul’s warning was clear concerning the unbelief of Greek philosophy, which would seek to grasp wisdom apart from the infallible authority of God’s Word: Do not be taken captive through philosophy, but instead take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.
Following the collapse of the Roman Empire the writings of Greek philosophy fell into obscurity. Virtually disappearing from Europe and from the Mediterranean, they were preserved for centuries by various Arabic scholars and re-introduced to the West coincident with Islamic incursions and with the Crusades. A young 13th Century monk named Thomas, from the region of Aquino in Italy, discovered the works of Aristotle and was captivated. Still known and revered by the Roman Catholic Church to this day as St. Thomas Aquinas, his major opus was a three thousand page tome titled Summa Theologica, which means roughly “The Summation of Theology.” It was written into Roman Catholic Canon Law in 1917 that, “The study of philosophy and theology and the teaching of these sciences to their students must be accurately carried out by Professors according to the arguments, doctrine, and principles of St. Thomas which they are involately to hold.” As one might expect, Thomas’ work begins with the question of the existence of God. Part I, Question 2, Article 1, “Whether the Existence of God is Self-Evident?” He argues as follows, “No one can mentally admit the opposite of what is self-evident; as the Philosopher states concerning the first principles of demonstration. But the opposite of the proposition ‘God is’ can be mentally admitted: ‘The fool said in his heart, There is no God’ (Ps. 52:1) Therefore, that God exists is not self-evident.” His reference to “the Philosopher” is specifically to Aristotle, in his work Metaphysics, Bk. IV, Ch. VI.
Thomas did precisely what Paul warned us not to do, and failed to do that which Paul enjoined us to do. Rather than to take every thought captive to Christ, he was taken captive by Aristotle. If God is the Creator, Whose Word brought forth this world of reality, then His Word speaks infallibly concerning every point and every moment of reality. Every thing of existence testifies of its Creator. Man, as creature, bears in his nature the marks of his Creator. It is his nature to know God and even as an unbeliever he cannot avoid knowledge of God. But Thomas conceded to Aristotle that Man might have true self-consciousness apart from any God-consciousness. Further, he conceded that Man rightly might observe and interpret reality apart from any knowledge of God. Thomas was willing from the very outset to concede to unbelief that only after achieving self-consciousness and after having analyzed his experience of reality, only then might Man derive knowledge of God. In this case God cannot be infallible. In this case God cannot be the sole Creator, Determiner, and Interpreter of reality. Thomas’ appeal to the Bible is held in balance with his appeal to Aristotle. The pretense to reserve a measure of infallibility to Man, so that his independent analysis might conclude in favor of God, effectively only denies the infallibility of God. The idea of the infallible Church and particularly the infallibility of the Pope derives naturally and necessarily from Thomas’ starting point. This is the Church that Thomas bequeathed to Luther.
In contrast to this let us look briefly at the starting point of John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion. Calvin worked in the mid-1500s, in the decades following Luther’s original posting at Wittenberg, and Calvin’s work represents a greater maturation of the Reformation ideal. His Institutes of the Christian Religion is a 1500 page systematic survey of Christianity. Appropriately, Calvin began in the same place that Thomas began: that is, with the question of the Human knowledge of God. Book I, Chapter I, Paragraph one, Sentence one, “Nearly all the wisdom we possess…consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves. But, while joined by many bonds, which one precedes and brings forth the other is not easy to discern. In the first place, no one can look upon himself without immediately turning his thoughts to the contemplation of God, in whom he ‘lives and moves’ [Acts 17:28].” In the following paragraph, Calvin reiterates, “Again, it is certain that man never achieves a clear knowledge of himself unless he has first looked upon God’s face, and then descends from contemplating him to scrutinize himself.” Taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, Calvin cites Scripture to show that in God we live and move and have our being. Being himself captivated by philosophy, Thomas cites Aristotle to argue that we live and move independently of God. Calvin asserts that unless we know God, we cannot know ourselves. Thomas asserts that only having lived and moved independently of God may we subsequently demonstrate that God exists. No greater difference could possibly exist. It is critical to stress that what we have seen here from the writings of Thomas and of Calvin represent not their conclusions, but their starting points. These views comprise the basis upon which rests the remainder of what they have to say over thousands of pages.
Let us now return to Luther and his 95 Theses. It has not been our concern to follow his argument in detail, but only to observe its form. He began by calling us - indeed, calling the Pope - to consider the teaching of Scripture. As we look toward the conclusion of his argument, we can see that he anticipated the nature of the official Church response. Thesis 90: “To repress these very sharp arguments of the laity by force alone, and not to resolve them by giving reasons, is to expose the church and the pope to the ridicule of their enemies and to make Christians unhappy.” There was, indeed, repression, and at one point Luther had to hide himself to avoid being killed. This illustrates that the Reformation cannot be understood simply as a doctrinal disagreement regarding indulgences or sacraments. In focusing infallible authority upon the Bible, the Reformer’s outlook was radically revolutionary over-against the Thomistic, Roman Catholic outlook. This is what gave the Reformation cultural force, such that 500 years later we still are remembering what Martin Luther did that October 31st in 1517. The cultural force of this outlook spread throughout Europe and followed the Pilgrims and Puritans into the New World. Driving this revolution was the translation and publication of Bibles that people could read in their own languages. Previously the Bible was available only to scholars in the original languages or in Latin. Luther translated the Bible into German. Calvin collaborated with a number of scholars on the so-called Geneva Bible, a translation into English. While the old Aristotelian-Thomistic outlook of Roman Catholicism promoted Monarchial rule and the subjugation of the masses, the Spirit of the Reformation - A Man and his Bible - promoted personal liberty and responsibility. It was this ideal that was a major force in leading Christian civilization in Europe and America to reach its greatest heights. In the early 20th Century sociologist Max Weber noticed this force at work and referred to it as the “Protestant work ethic” and traced its roots to the Reformation. In our day we see the cultural force of this ideal largely eroded. However, let us all - as many who have ears to hear - always press on in remembrance of the great Reformers and in untiring devotion to the Word of God, the only infallible rule for all of life.
