Prof.
Konstantinos Delikostantis
Helsinki,
13.11.2017
The
core of Luther’s theology, the compass of his life and action, was
his view of freedom as the “summary of the Gospel”1,
as the quintessence of our salvation. His Reformation was “a
program of freedom”.2
Freiheit, ἐλευθερία,
was indeed “the theme of his life”.3
In a letter dated the 11th
of November 1517, Luther signed for the first time as “Martinus
Eleutherius”, Martin the free, the liberated, according to I
Corinthians 7:22, a habit he later repeated in twenty-seven other
letters of his.
It
is because of his teaching on freedom that Luther shortly found
himself in the frontlines. Freedom was the stimulus and the banner in
his struggle against Rome. As a result of his comprehension of the
inner freedom and of the difference between Christian and political
freedom, Thomas Münze, the rebellious peasants and the simple
people, who saw Luther as their natural ally, rejected him as the
herald of the “easy Christ” and the “passive interiority”,
which detaches the faithful from the real problems of life, as the
friend and the servant of the princes. Although Luther was at the
beginning the “Apostle” of the revolution, he became the
“Judas”.4
When in 1525, through his famous writing De
servo arbitrio, Luther
turned vehemently against Erasmus, the majority of the “Humanists”,
who saw his struggle with sympathy, abandoned him.
If
the Reformation changed the Church, it also formed the history and
culture of Europe, it influenced the course of world history and it
did so as a movement of freedom. Thus, it is not surprising that
Luther stands in the center of the contemporary dialogue on freedom,
sometimes disputed, others praised. A serious encounter with Luther
would not pass over the issue of Christian freedom. It would be like
writing a book about Beethoven and not mentioning his Ninth
Symphony.5
In this point Martin Luther is an eminent theologian and belongs not
only to Protestantism but to the whole Christianity.
It’s
already been thirty years since my proposal that the
Orthodox-Protestant dialogue has to be concentrated around the notion
of Christian freedom, as the crossing of all central theological
problems. This proposal is now relevant, as by discussing on freedom
we reveal all our divergences and our convergences. The decisive
turning point in the encounter of Orthodox and Lutherans, I think,
would happen if they put freedom at the center of their theological
dialogue.
In
a way, the subject of freedom has been regarded as fundamental in the
history of the orthodox-protestant encounters and it was a perpetual
point of controversy. In the famous correspondence between Tübingen
and Constantinople in the years 1573-1581, in this courageous attempt
for contact and exchange of theological ideas, Patriarch Jeremy II
articulated his objections against the doctrine on the servum
arbitrium, defending the αὐτεξούσιον,
the freedom of the free will. According to the Patriarch, although it
is God’s grace which redeems humans, God saves only the people who
desire it (ἐθέλοντας).
“All depends on God, but not in such a way, that our free will
would be damaged”, notes the Patriarch.6
For Jeremy, who saw the new movement initially not without sympathy,
became quickly clear that Luther’s Reformation was not in several
points a return to the doctrine and the life of the Ancient Church.
The Ecumenical Patriarch underlines “the absence of calmness” of
the mind, “the displeasure with tradition”, the “ceaseless
questioning and answering and also the desire for the new” as a
sickness of the Western spirit.7
Also
in the conflict on the openly Calvinistic “Eastern Confession of
the Christian faith” (1629) of the Patriarch of Constantinople
Cyril Loukaris, was the subject of the negation of the free will from
the Protestants a point of controversy. The Encyclical of the Synod
of Constantinople at 1836 against the Protestant missionaries, who
attacked the piety and the religious practice of the orthodox
faithful, indicates the deepest level -theologically and ecclesially-
of the relation between Orthodoxy and Protestantism. According to
this Encyclical, Luther’s pretended rejection of the free will and
his teaching on predestination dispense humans from the
responsibility before God and proclaim God as the author of human
malice. The result of Luther’s doctrine was the underestimation of
good works and the emergence of uncontrolled passions. It is not by
chance that protestant missionaries, “similar to their head”, try
to undermine the Orthodox identity in the name of the licentious
freedom.8
It
is one of the benefits of our sincere ecumenical dialogues, that we
can discuss central theological issues in a different way. Trully, no
other theologian spoke with such enthusiasm on freedom as Luther, but
also no one rejected the free will coram Deo as he did. According to
him, the freedom of the Christian is understandable only on the
background of the doctrine of the servum arbitrium. Luther did not
intend a strong contrast through this powerful doctrine, but this
approach was for him the genuine expression of the dialectics of
freedom.
There
is no doubt that Luther has not denied the free will in psychological
or moral perspective. According to him, these dimensions of freedom
do not belong in the frame in which he poses the problem of freedom.
“We are not speaking about nature but about the grace”, notes
Luther.9
We must discern what is God’s and what depends on us in our life in
this world. Hans-Martin Barth states: “Luther appreciated a lot the
natural man, only in relation to the earthen matters. On the
opposite, he attached no value to him in his relation to God”.10
Revendication of freedom before God, which means synergy in our
salvation, is an expression of man’s tendency to
self-justification. “Man does not want, because of his nature, that
God is God, but he wants that himself is God and that God is not
God”.11
On
this ground, I will try to approach some essential dimensions of
Luther’s notion of freedom, primarily on the basis of his famous
treatise “Von der Freiheit eines Christenmenschen”, “On the
Freedom of a Christian”, a “sum of the Christian life”,
according to Luther.
Even
Paul Hacker, who accused Martin Luther to be “Cartesius of
theology”, characterized this writing as a text “where the
positive wealth of Luther’s thought and the warmth of its piety
prevail”.12
Lyndal Roper speaks of the most beautiful writing of Luther in a
decisive period of his movement. Selle states: “There is no polemic
or aggression. Deeply musical, one can almost hear Luther’s voice
conversing with the reader”.13
Although
this text has been written after the publication of the papal bull of
excommunication “Exsurge Domine”, it is notable that Luther has
antedated this writing, signing “Zu Wittenberg, 6. September 1520”.
In fact this text has been written shortly before its publication at
the beginning of November. It was Kral von Militz who proposed Luther
to address the Pope with a conciliatory letter and to add a concise
treatise on his teaching. Von Militz had also proposed to antedate
the writing, giving the impression, that Luther wrote the text
without knowledge of the full Exsurge Domine, which has been
published in September 29. Volker Leppin called this act “the
rudest forgery of which Luther made himself guilty”.14
Luther
describes the essence of Christian freedom epigrammatically in the
famous sentences of his treatise on the Freedom of a Christian: “A
Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none. A
Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all”.15
Luther explains his approach of Christian freedom through the Pauline
distinction between the inner
and
the outer
man
(2. Cor. 4, 16; Gal. 5, 17). The inner
man refers
to the human being in its relation to God. Freedom is our liberation
from the works, aiming the justification. External matters do not
have any soteriological value, any impact on our salvation. The
faithful is released from the “martyrdom of the works”, which
have a salutary purpose.16
The works of love are the spontaneous and authentic expression of
faith. Our liberated freedom, constituted coram Deo in faith, is
expressed coram hominibus in love and service. It is the essential
distinction of faith and love, which founds their inseparable unity.
It
is well known that this text has been used as the basis of the
reproach of the “inactive interiority” of faith against Luther.
The truth is that faith “pushes to a life in freedom” in the
world;17
it has enormous social consequences. Lyndal Roper states: “(Luther’s)
use of the word freedom, alongside the idea that the Christian is
both lord and servant, resembles the impact of dynamite. By
addressing all Christians as equals, be they princes or commoners,
and by insisting on their freedom, he broke with social deference”.18
That is why this freedom strengthens human activity in the social
space.
In
this sense, the reproach of the “closed interiority” against
Luther’s conception of faith fails and it cannot constitute an
important controversial point in the orthodox-protestant encounter.
Oswald Bayer stressed on the “ontological significance” of
justification. He wrote: “The exegete of the Bible Luther observed
the fact of justification in its existential depth, through which
certainly this wideness is accessible”.19
Really
controversial in Orthodox-Protestant dialogue on Christian freedom is
the problem of Luther’s so called “Cartesianism”, a reproach
developed, as already stated, especially by Paul Hacker. Luther is
presented as the “Descartes of theology, as the theologian, who
replaced the truth of faith through the certainty of faith, who put
at the place of the church the homeless individual”. Just as
Descartes tried to found the truth of being on the certainty of the
subject, Luther, the theologian of “reflexive faith”, connected
salvation with the certainty of the faithful ego.20
Hacker’s
controversial theory has been discussed without conclusive results.
You surely know that Karl Barth took seriously Hacker’s objections.
He wrote in a letter addressed to Helmuth Gollwitzer: “Do you know
the book of Paul Hacker Das
Ich im Glauben bei Martin Luther, Verlag
Styria 1966? I am anxious for the reaction of the Lutheran theology
and research. For me it was the opportunity to thank my Creator once
more, for the fact that I wasn’t born as a Lutheran, for fact that
He didn’t committed me to fidelity to this Church Father. Luther
was for me always a suspect. The book of Hacker stresses exactly why
this happened, why in my studying-room the Weimarer
Ausgabe is
hidden behind an Indonesian carpet!”.21
Here
exists a real problem that will persist as a point of controversy in
our ecumenical dialogue. Although at the center of Luther’s
theology stands divine grace and not a faith that in itself
constitutes salvation, the fact of Luther’s accent on the role of
the faith of the individual and of the certainty of pro
me,
especially when evaluated in another theological context, can lead to
a suspicion of religious individualism in Luther’s theology.
This
problem of the individualistic narrowing of Christian freedom has an
eminent importance for the Orthodox approach to Luther. Individualism
is unfamiliar to Orthodox personalism, our ecclesiocentric
understanding and our living of the faith. Orthodox theology stresses
the essential relation between freedom and the church. For Alexander
Schmemann, “the church is freedom and only the church is freedom”.22
For this reason, “ecclesiology is the starting point of a theology
of freedom”.23
Christianity is “the church” and not “an individualistic
religion” as Georges Florovsky underlines.24
According to Metropolitan of Pergamon John Zizioulas “the Church is
by definition incompatible with individualism”.25
Also Friedrich Heyer states rightly: “Orthodoxy has never posed the
individualistic questions of the Occident. Its believer· do not ask:
neither whom can I have a merciful God? Nor: May I be certain about
my salvation? The universalism of salvation, which is ontologically
founded in Christ’s Incarnation, did not allow such question and it
did not need them”.26
For Saint John Chrysostom, in the Incarnation Christ “assumed the
flesh of the Church”.27
Paul
Tillich called Luther’s doctrine of the Church “the weakest point
in his teaching”.28
Trying to reason about this view, I ask myself if this pretended
“weakness” is mainly connected with Luther’s polemics against
Rome or if we must search the theological principles, which block
Luther’s way to a “strong” ecclesiology. Although I don’t
fully agree with Hacker’s “Cartesianism” reproach against
Luther, I see an underestimation of the certainty in the act of
individual faith in Luther’s piety and theology as a point of
divergence between Orthodoxy and Lutheranism.
Orthodox
Theology criticizes Luther’s comprehension of the ecclesial
dimension of freedom. He certainly saw his teaching about
justification and the sacraments as “teaching about freedom”.29
Hellmut Zschoch emphasizes three dimensions of this freedom: Freedom
for
the Church, from
the Church and in
the Church: “Freedom and Church belong for Luther together. The
three dimensions of this relation penetrate each other. The idea of
freedom for
the Church is at the center: the Church is Church through the fact
that it is being born and lives always anew from the message of
freedom. From this derives the freedom from
the Church the structures (Ordnungen) of the Church, even if they are
good, meaningful and impressive, they don’t belong in the relation
with God. If they are pushed in this relation, their good sense turns
into the opposite. Good ecclesia order renders freedom in
the Church possible: it realizes itself through the pragmatic
accommodation to each time, to each place and to the givens and it
strengthens in this way the exclusive authority of the Gospel”.30
What
is here missing, from the orthodox point of view, is the reference to
the sacramental life as life of freedom in
the Church. It is an essential insight of Luther, that to be a
Christian means “to be free”, or more precisely “to become
free”.31
In Orthodox perspective, the Church is not only the space of that
expression, the practice of our liberated freedom that is, but also
the place of the genesis, of freedom’s birth. Church precedes
freedom. We are “becoming free” in the Church.
It
has been said that the treatise On
the freedom of a Christian
signalizes a change of paradigm, a cut between the Middle Ages and
Modern Times, the beginning of the emancipation of the individual
from the community of the Church and of the society. Indeed the
Reformation “placed the conscience of each individual in the
center”, initiating a mental shift32.
It
is out of doubt that the emergence of the idea of the autonomous
freedom of the individual in Modernity has been influenced by
Luther’s notion of theonomous libertas Christiana, even if between
the two conceptions a deep chasm exists.
Ecumenical
Patriarch Bartholomew in his speech at the Ceremony of the Accordance
the Doctor Honoris cause degree of the Evangelical Faculty of
Theology in Tubingen, stated rightly: “The Reformation clearly
strengthened the position of the individual. Without the contribution
of Luther’s actions and teaching, the freedom of the individual
would not have become the Magna Carta of Europe. Luther’s theology
of freedom is thus a turning point in the “progress in the
consciousness of freedom (Hegel)… In this sense Martin Luther is
utterly contemporary. His concept of freedom is of central
significance for the dialogue of Christianity with the modern world”.
I
agree with Gerhard Ebeling, who warned against the evaluation of
modernity on the basis of “hamartological criteria”, as the
period when theonomy was replaced by autonomy, faith by atheism,
solidarity by individualism etc., thus identifying it as a time of
total dechristianisation. If we act that way -and the Orthodox are
doing so…- we are forgetting, according to Ebeling, that “already
long before modern times, humanity did not live in the paradise and
that the original sin is attributed to Adam and not to Descartes”.33
On
such a ground, the dialogue of our Churches with the modern world can
lead to a fruitful mutual enrichment. In this encounter the Christian
Churches can discover and develop more consciously and effectively
their own tradition of freedom. In this sense I do not agree with my
teacher in Tübingen Professor Hans Küng, who used to speak of the
Roman Catholic Church as the Church of authority, of the Orthodox
Church as the Church of tradition and of Protestantism as the Church
of freedom. In my view, all our Churches are Churches of freedom,
because that is the essence and the sign of our faith, the
differentia specifica of Christianity in comparison with all other
religions.
Epilogue
However
that may be, the accentuation of freedom as Luther’s legacy remains
an eminent challenge for Orthodox theology in spite of the mentioned
problems, especially for the encounter of Orthodoxy with modern
culture and its autosoteric freedom as autonomy. The future of
humanity is connected with the art of the comprehension of the origin
(πόθεν) of our freedom and of the final reference of it (πρός).
Our
time needs a theology with sensitivity for the adventures of human
freedom, a theology with imagination that knows that it acts in a
concrete and open historic moment. Its witness in front of the signs
of times is an expression of its ecclesiality, not the loss of it.
For
Orthodox theology, as already stressed, there is an essential
relation of freedom and Church. Our Christian life is
eucharist-centred; it is essentially a participation in the
sacraments of the Church. This ecclesiocentric understanding of faith
does not allow the emerging of individualistic narrowing of freedom.
The difference between Orthodoxy and Protestantism appears clearly if
we compare Luther’s Freedom of a Christian with the Orthodox
“summary of the Christian life”, the treatise On the Life in
Christ by Nicolas Cabasilas. The description of the faith and of the
faithful as the “inner man” in Luther’s essay corresponds to
Cabasilas’ presentation of Church’s sacramental life.
“Nostra
libertas fundamentum habet Christum”.34
In
this sentence Luther’s we find the very essence of his faith and
piety. Real freedom is our dependence on Jesus Christ. “O eine
selige Gefängnis (What a blessed imprisonment!). Haec captivitas est
libertas Christiana ipsa”.35
The
centrality of this freedom in Christian existence is Luther’s
theological legacy. He challenges us all, Roman Catholics, Orthodox
and Protestants, to rethink our Christian witness in the contemporary
world, in an immense crisis of freedom. In front of the great
challenges of our times, common Christian witness is of cardinal
importance. Celebrating in common the anniversary of the Reformation,
we renew our commitment to continue our dialogue in faithfulness and
openness. This is precious and it opens our future.
1
G. Ebeling, «Frei aus Glauben. Das Vermächtnis der Reformation»,
in: Lutherstudien
I,
Tübingen 1971, 317.
3
G. Ebeling, «Der kontroverse Grund der Freiheit», in: Luther
in der Neuzeit, ed.
B. Möller, Gütersloh 1983, 30.
6
I. Karmiris, The
Dogmatic and Symbolic Monuments of the Orthodox Catholic Church, I,
Graz 1968, 483.
10
H.-M. Barth, “Freiheit die ich meine? Luthers Verständnis der
Dialektik von Freiheit und Gebundenheit”, in: Una
Sancta 2
(2007), 103-115, here 114.
17
E. Jüngel, Zur
Freiheit des Christenmenschen. Eine Erinnerung an Luthers Schrift,
München
1978, 17.
21
Karl Barth, Gesamtausgabe,
V,
J. Fangmeier a.o. (eds.), Karl
Barth. Gesamtausgabe, V,
Zürich 1979, 361-362.
24
G. Florovsky, “The Church, its Nature and Work” in: Holy
Scripture, Church, Tradition,
Thessaloniki 1976, 97 (in Greek).
25
J. D. Zizioulas, The
Church as Communion,
Offsprint from St. Vladimir’s Theological Quartely 38, No. 1,
1994, 3-16, here 8.
26
F. Heyer, «Orthodoxe Theologie», in: ders. (Hsrg.),
Konfessionskunde,
Berlin/New
York 1977, 132-201, hier 173-4.
28
P. Tillich, Vorlesungen
über die Geschichte des Christlichen Denkens
I: Urchristentum bis
Nachreformation, Stuttgart
1971, 265.
29
K. Deppermann, „Martin Luther. Bahnbrecker des Neuzeit?, in· Th.
Baumann a.o. (ed.), Klaus
Depermann. Protestantische Profile von Luther bis Francke,
Göttingen 1992, 5-21, here 14).
30
H. Zshoch, „Martin Luther und die Kirche der Freiheit“, in: W.
Zager (ed.), Martin Luther und die Freiheit, Dammstadt 2010, 25-39,
here 38.
33
G. Ebeling, “Die Botschaft von Gott an das Zeitalter des
Atheismus”, in: Wort
und Glaube
II, Tübinen 1969, 381.
35
M. Luther, Predigt
am Tage Johannes (des Evangelisten)
(27. December 1531), WA, 34, II, 533, 22-23).
Σχόλια