Lutheran Dichotomies: Nature-Grace

Introduction

In analyzing the effects of Lutheran theology on the mission of the church, the obvious issue is the relationship between belief and action. Accordingly, the discussion of the nature-grace dichotomy with which the present article is concerned falls under the scope of Christian ethics. Thus, a brief review of ethical principles is necessary prior to any analysis.

As explained extensively in Van Til's Christian Theistic Ethics, Christian ethics seeks to evaluate the will's moral status by making judgments with respect to the purpose, standard, and motive of human behavior. The purpose is the external goal or highest good (summum bonum) to which an action tends; the standard is the law or norm that governs the means to the end, and the motive is the internal compelling power which drives the action. Accordingly, to be considered good, an action must be driven toward a proper end through the use of proper means by a proper motive. For the Christian, the goal is the eschatological realization of God's Kingdom; the standard is the Law of God, and the motive is a grateful heart springing from true faith. To clarify the interrelationships among these particulars. Van Til invokes the analogy of a journey in which the goal, standard, and motive of Christian ethics correspond to the destination, road, and attitude of the driver, respectively (Van Til, 1-4).

In reference to these categories, it will be seen that the nature-grace dichotomy of Lutheranism affects the ethical problem through the goal and the standard. To the extent that a dichotomy is perceived between the church and the world, the unity of comprehension needed for a worldview is compromised, shattering the view of life. Thus, the Kingdom of God is reduced to the church, removing the natural sphere from the Lutheran summum bonum. Additionally, as a result of the autonomous status conceded to the natural realm, any possibility of a unified standard is also destroyed. To see these effects more clearly, then, it is necessary to analyze this dichotomy in some detail.

Historical Development

The nature-grace dichotomy of Lutheranism stems from a divergence of theological principles along institutional lines. In this respect, Lutheranism stands in stark contrast to both Roman Catholicism and Calvinism which bound it in the progression of the Reformation. At the time of the Reformation, Roman Catholicism was Thomistic in thought while Calvinism was essentially Augustinian. And while these positions were in bitter opposition, a common feature accentuating this bitterness was their mutual catholicity. Both Roman Catholicism and Calvinism as catholic faiths oppose each other through integrated worldviews.

For Lutheranism, however, the immediate needs of the Reformation focused attention on the church to the virtual exclusion of external affairs. Accordingly, while the Augustinian principle was introduced in the church, the rest of life was viewed in a quasi-Thomistic fashion. Obviously, the divergence of organizing principles along institutional lines introduced a nature-grace split. The character of this split can be more fully appreciated from an examination of the principles themselves.

In Thomistic philosophy (Rushdoony, 185-201) reality is viewed in terms of a common chain of being with God on the top and the material world below. The church as the incarnation of God on earth occupies an intermediate position on the scale, sitting above the realm of nature at every point. Consequently, the church as the realm of grace, is in close integral relation to the realm of nature, perfecting and supplementing it at every point but not opposing it. On this scale God is pure being while the material world consists of a mixture of being and non-being (a deprivation of being). Man is therefore caught in a tension since he is possessed of a spiritual (rational) soul and a material (irrational) body.

Because being is essentially good, evil is attributed to a lack of being. Thus, only God is good essentially because He sits at the top of the scale and consists of pure being. Man by contrast is plagued by evil lusts, owing to a deprivation of being in his material body. Yet, while man's body is evil, his soul consists of pure, though finite, being by virtue of its participation in God. Consequently, man's rational faculty, though finite, remains unaffected by the Fall. (In Paradise the problems of man's physical body were restrained by a special dispensation of God's grace called the donum superadditum. It is this special grace that man supposedly lost in the Fall, causing his body to revert to its normal functioning while leaving his intellect unimpaired.)

Consequently, in Thomistic philosophy evil is a material and metaphysical problem. Moreover, since man's intellect remains unaffected by the fall and since he occupies a place on the common chain of being, his natural reason, though finite, remains valid. Thus, in every field of endeavor, man's reason yields true knowledge in the natural realm, needing mere supplementation from the realm of grace above it. The implication is that, “Man's reason works from below and extends upward. It can extend upwards with assurance both because of its correlativism with being and because of its freedom from the taint of the fall.” (Rushdoony, 189). Consequently, the affect of Thomistic philosophy is to validate man's natural reason and give a limited autonomy to the realm of nature, while placing the church above it at each point. Yet, since the distinction between nature and grace is vertical and gradual, it imposes no horizontal barriers so that a catholic principle applies across the zones of human activity.

In contrast to Thomism, however, Augustinianism takes a more Biblical view of the situation. In the first place, man is God's creature and thus shares no being in common with God. Secondly, while man's knowledge is indeed limited by his finitude, the more pernicious effect is sin (Warfield, 150-155). Man's basic problem from the Augustinian perspective is not ignorance, but a willful twisting of the truth, a suppression of the truth in unrighteousness (Rom. 1:18). This means that the fundamental problem of knowledge is ethical (qualitative) not metaphysical (quantitative). The metaphysical limitations inherent in human thought stem from man's finitude as God's creature and are therefore implicit in God's good design. The chief problem then is not creation but the Fall. Consequently, man, as a fallen creature, will seek to suppress true knowledge in all areas of life since all truth points to God. (This phenomenon is referred to as the noetic effect of sin.) Thus, knowledge can come to man only by way of God's common or saving grace which overcomes his resistance to truth. Since the primary noetic problem in Augustinianism is between sin and grace, the distinction is ethical (qualitative), not metaphysical (quantitative and vertical), nor are any horizontal barriers erected across the zones of human activity. Moreover, since the metaphysical separation eliminates any community in being between God and creation, the church does not incarnate divinity. The effect, therefore, is to place God and His Word rather than the church over every area of life, yielding, once again, a catholic organizing principle.

In contrast to both Roman Catholicism and Calvinism, however, Lutheranism has no catholic theological principle. While the immediate needs of the Reformation dictated an initial focus on the church, the Augustinian principle introduced there did not spread to the larger society. Consequently, a defacto Thomism prevailed, resulting in a horizontal nature-grace split which fractured the view of life. (By defacto Thomism it is intended to imply the naturalistic thinking of Thomism, stripped of its metaphysical basis. Certainly, Luther did not incorporate the chain-of-being concept.) Thus, the primary distinction in Lutheran theology is neither metaphysical nor ethical but institutional-epistemological, producing a horizontal division which eliminates a catholic organizing principle. In this regard, Abraham Kuyper's comparisons are most revealing (Kuyper, 17, 22):

Thus understood, Calvinism is rooted in a form of religion which was peculiarly its own, and from this specific religious consciousness there was developed first a peculiar theology, then a special church order, and then a given form for political and social life, for the interpretation of the moral world-order, for the relation between nature and grace, between Christianity and the world, between church and state, and finally for art and science; and amid all these life-utterances it remained always the self-same Calvinism in so far as simultaneously and spontaneously all these developments sprang from its deepest life principle.... In Lutheran countries, the interference of the magistrate has prevented the free working of the spiritual principle. Hence of Romanism only can it be said that it has embodied its life-thought in a world of conceptions and utterances entirely its own. But by the side of Romanism, and in opposition to it, Calvinism made its appearance, not merely to create a different Church-form, but an entirely different form for human life, to furnish human society with a different method of existence, and to populate the world of the human heart with different ideals and conceptions.

Moreover, in all Lutheran countries the Reformation originated from the princes rather than from the people and thereby passed under the power of the magistrate, who took his stand officially as her highest Bishop and therefore was unable to change either the social or the political life in accordance with its principle. Lutheranism restricted itself to an exclusively ecclesiastical and theological character, while Calvinism put its impress in and outside the Church and upon every department of human life. (emphasis added)

From Kuyper's observations a certain reciprocity may be seen between the state-church and the nature-grace dichotomies of Lutheranism with each reinforcing the other. Indeed, the theology may have been formulated to give the princes a free hand. At any rate, the direction of all temporal affairs was handed over to the magistrate, reducing the Kingdom of God to the “spiritual” aspects of the church.

Confessional Writings

The division of life described here is evident in the Lutheran confessional writings in the areas of anthropology, civil government and vocation in general. Thus, with respect to anthropology the Apology of the Augsburg Confession declares (The Book of Concord, 225):

We are not denying freedom to the human will. The human will has freedom to choose among the works and things which reason by itself can grasp. To some extent it can achieve civil righteousness or the righteousness of works. It can talk about God and express its worship of him in outward works. It can obey rulers and parents. Externally, it can choose to keep the hands from murder, adultery, or theft. Since human nature still has reason and judgment about the things that the senses can grasp, it also retains a choice in these things, as well as the liberty and ability to achieve civil righteousness. This righteousness which the carnal nature—that is, the reason—can achieve on its own without the Holy Spirit, Scripture calls the righteousness of the flesh. But so great is the power of concupiscence that men obey their evil impulses more often than their sound judgment, while the devil, who as Paul says (Eph. 2:2) is at work in the ungodly, never stops inciting this feeble nature to various offenses. For these reasons even civil righteousness is rare among men, as we see from the fact that even philosophers who seem to have wanted this righteousness did not achieve it (Apology, XVIII, 4, 5).

In other words, in the natural realm man is only partially depraved so that he can still do right by the power of his unaided reason apart from divine revelation and the power of the Spirit. With regard to vocation and civil affairs, the situation is similar (The Book of Concord, 222, 223):

...lawful civil ordinances are God's good creatures and divine ordinances in which a Christian may safely take part. The writings of our theologians have profitably illumined this whole question of the distinction between Christ's kingdom and a political kingdom. Christ's kingdom is spiritual; it is the knowledge of God in the heart, the fear of God and faith, the beginning of eternal righteousness and eternal life. At the same time it lets us make outward use of the legitimate political ordinances of the nation in which we live, just as it lets us make use of medicine or architecture, food or drink or air. The Gospel does not introduce any new laws about the civil estate, but commands us to obey the existing laws, whether they were formulated by heathen or by others, and in this obedience to practice love. It was mad of Carlstadt to try to impose on us the judicial laws of Moses. (Apology, XVI, 1-3) (emphasis added)

Thus, because civil government is affirmed on an equal basis with other vocations, the exemption of the civil government from Biblical law implies an analogous exemption for the whole natural realm. Consequently, Thomism reigns in the realm of nature, but it is a castrated Thomism. In Thomism, at least, the church supplements the natural realm from above. However, due to Luther's antipathy to ecclesiastical control, the church is removed from above the natural realm and placed alongside, reducing the church's authority to “matters of conscience” and granting a radical autonomy to the natural realm. The result was that while vocations were affirmed metaphysically, Lutheranism failed to throw down the epistemological gauntlet. (Ethically, of course, the regenerate nature was assumed to perform better in either realm.) Consequently, Helmut Thielieke was only being consistent in extolling the virtues of secularity. (Thielieke, 393):

The attempt to transcend this fallen world in a utopia which has the message of the kingdom of God as its Magna Carta is thus hubris and idolatry. Even though there are many questionable things in Luther's doctrine of the two kingdoms, its basic intention is clearly a good one, namely, to do everything it can to show the secularity of the world and to prevent the kingdom of God from becoming a utopia.

Yet, in his large catechism, Luther advocated the application of the Decalogue to the state (Large Catechism, 17, The Book of Concord, 361). While it is easy to be critical, it should be remembered that Martin Luther was a man of robust courage whose theology developed under crisis. To a large extent, Calvin had the advantage of walking in the path that Luther had cleared.

Of course, this is not to deny that there are tremendous problems with view. In affirming vocations metaphysically while not challenging them epistemologically, God's stamp is put on profanity. In one sense this is worse than the Anabaptist position that flees the world all together. In another sense, however, the affirmation of vocation is a positive development. The situation is analogous to a burning building in which all of the exits are on fire. In an attempt to escape the smoky interior, Lutheranism rushed toward the exit and then stopped in the middle of the door frame. Luther was right to challenge ecclesiastical authority where it over-extended itself, but he neglected to replace it with the Bible.

Practical Implications

The fruits of the nature-grace dichotomy can be seen in the Lutheran approach to education. It is not uncommon for Lutheran church workers to pursue advanced social science degrees from secular institutions in order to “serve Christ.” The idea is that all truth is God's truth no matter where it is found. Indeed, this is true, but the problem is that professors in secular institutions (and many Christian ones) are operating on the basis of false presuppositions and thus teaching lies. This is especially true in the social sciences. Now, there is nothing wrong with pursuing advanced degrees If one is sensitive to the presuppositions that are operating. Indeed, such degrees may be necessary for specific jobs or for apologetic purposes. (For instance, Westminster counseling professor, George Scipione, obtained a psychology degree in order to argue against secular psychology more effectively.) But all too often secular methods with their alien presuppositions are smuggled into the church and combined with Christian theology, resulting in mixed systems that have internal conflicts at every major point. Without a worldview, the world is just a grab bag. Yet, some Lutheran scholars have also recognized the problem:

Reality as a whole now falls into two parts, and the concern of ethics is with the proper relation of these two parts to each other. In the scholastic scheme of things the realm of the natural is made subordinate to the realm of grace; in the pseudo-Lutheran scheme the autonomy of the orders of this world is proclaimed in opposition to the law of Christ, and in the scheme of the Enthusiasts the congregation of the Elect takes up the struggle with a hostile world for the establishment of God's kingdom on earth. In all these schemes the cause of Christ becomes a partial and provincial matter within the limits of reality. It is assumed that there are realities which lie outside the reality that is in Christ. It follows that these realities are accessible by some way of their own, and otherwise than through Christ. However great the importance which is attached to the reality in Christ, it still always remains a partial reality amid other realities....

It may be difficult to break the spell of this thinking in terms of two spheres, but it is nevertheless quite certain that it is in profound contradiction to the thought of the Bible and to the thought of the Reformation, and that consequently it aims wide of reality. There are not two realities, but only one reality, and that is the reality of God, which has become manifest in Christ in the reality of the world. (Bonhoeffer, 196, 197)

Moreover, the forthright way in which representatives of the Reformed tradition have approached the area of higher education has challenged us all. They have made positive use of their orders of creation and approach the university with a program. It looks imperialistic to Lutherans who have used their own doctrine to protest themselves from the university. A great deal of space is opened up for Lutherans to make use of the logical tool of the orders of creation before the tool is exhausted. (Horn, p. 67)

As these men realized, the Christian mission requires a unified worldview. Without such a view there can be neither goals nor standards for Christian action.

References

• Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ethics (New York, Macmillan, 1955).
• Henry E. Horn, Lutherans in Campus Ministry (Chicago, 1969).
• Abraham Kuyper, Lectures on Calvinism (Grand Rapids, 1931).
• R. J. Rushdoony, The One and the Many: Studies in the Philosophy of Order and Ultimacy (Fairfax, VA, 1978).
• Theodore G. Tappert ed., The Book of Concord (Philadelphia, 1959).
• Helmut Thielicke, The Evangelical Faith (Grand Rapids, 1974) v. 1.
• Cornelius Van Til, Christian Theistic Ethics (Phillipsburg, NJ, 1980).
• B. B. Warfield, The Works of Benjamin B. Warfield (Grand Rapids, 1991) V. 4.