Luther and probability vs. certainty of faith.

This Becker is important.

p. 37.

While it is clear therefore that Luther did not deny that there was such a thing as natural theology and an objective revelation of God in nature, and while he did not consider the so-called "proofs" unworthy of notice, yet he laid little stress on this natural knowledge for several reasons.
First of all, Luther recognized, as do all those who understand this problem, that at best a rational approach to the knowledge of God can never go beyond a high degree of probability.  But to Luther the commonly accepted rule, "Probability is the guide of life" would have been an abomination in the area of religious knowledge.  Luther says that the very essence of unbelief is that men say,  "I do not know.  I am not sure."

So the proofs are not without value.  There is inherent knowledge.  The heathen, too, can know something about the law of God, the existence of God and the goodness of God.  BUT he cannot be sure of anything.  And probability just does not cut it in the area of religious knowledge.  You don't know that you have a gracious God this way, that your life has any meaning or that God is willing to help you.

Faith is a God-created certainty and assurance.  He says,  
Properly speaking, faith is that which endures in extreme evils and holds fast to the Word of life and in this way conquers all the might of the devil, all terrors and all dangers, through which it enters with glory and confidence into eternal life.
Even the most ardent defenders of natural theology will generally agree that such a firm and settled assurance cannot be found in natural theology.
Luther saw that natural theology can maintain itself only with the greatest difficulty.  Long before the antinomies of Kant were announced to the world, Luther had already laid down the rule:
No reason is so firm that it can not again be overthrown by reason.  There is no counsel, no matter how wise, no thing, no edifice, no matter how magnificent or strong, which cannot again be destroyed by human counsel, wisdom, and strength.  And this can  be seen in all things.  Only the Word of God remains to all eternity (Solum verbum Dei in aeternum manet).

I'm not really familiar with the antinomies of Kant, and I should be looking it up.  Here they are.  Interesting.  One could learn more about that.  Anyhow, we see the limits to such intellectual pursuits.  We can be sure of nothing, even science.  (Science makes truth claims, but it is always being tested and changed.  What kind of truth is it?)  Only the revealed word can have any certainty. -- Wow.


p. 38.

Precisely because he rejected "probability" as the enemy of faith, he considered the natural knowledge of God to be of limited value.  "The right faith," he says, "is complete trust of the heart in Christ."
But the natural knowledge of God is by its very nature subject to doubt, and human reason can never come to a sure knowledge of God.  but sure knowledge is what we must have, if we are to have peace of conscience.  This, to Luther, was always basic to the whole problem.
It is just at this point that Luther parts company with neo-orthodoxy and its emphasis on the unreliability of the natural "proofs."  Up to this point there is a certain similarity between Luther's thought and that of Kierkegaard, although, so far as I know, Luther never said that the proofs were "harmful" to faith, as Kierkegaard did.  But the new fashion in theology has reduced all religious knowledge to the level of natural theology, at least so far as intellectual certainty is concerned.  Emil Brunner, for example, says that when the church seeks for certainties she is doing something that always turns out to be disastrous.  For that reason he opposes the concept of divinely inspired, and therefore "infallible,"  doctrine.  He calls upon the church to recognize the "element of untruth which clings to every human formulation of divine truth" and the fact "that in our hands the divine revelation is always mingled with error and arrogance."  
[However]  For Luther the doctrines of faith were infallible and certain.  He would have criticized the spirit of intellectual doubt and uncertainty that neo-orthodoxy has introduced into the church much more severely than he criticized the vacillations of Cicero and the heathen.

 From The Foolishness of God by Siegbert Becker (c) 1982 Northwestern

Publishing House (www.nph.net). All rights reserved. Reprinted with
permission.

Luther and Proofs from Natural Theology

Becker, p. 26.

Contrary to the approach of neo-orthodoxy, Luther held that the fault for man's failure to know God and to read the record correctly lies not at the doorstep of the revelation, whether in the works or in the Word, but in the depravity of human nature.


It would be difficult, for example, to imagine Luther agreeing with the views of John Hutchison, who writes,



"Concerning their subjective or persuasive force, it may be pointed out that the arguments, while they tend to sustain the faith of those already convinced of belief in God, are seldom convincing to those without that faith. It is characteristic of genuine proof that it communicates conviction to minds hitherto unconvinced.  What kind of proof are they which lack this quality?  It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that they are covertly circular, assuming what they ought to conclude."


...  He [Luther]  would never have asked, as Hutchison does,  "What kind of proofs are these which lack this quality?"  He just did not think that way.  Instead Luther would has asked, "how fallen, how blind, and how wicked is man, that he can not and he will not see what God has so clearly and so graciously revealed!"  In the final analysis, Luther and Hutchison and neo-orthodox theologians agree that natural man is without sure and certain knowledge of God, but they would undoubtedly disagree vehemently on the premise on which that conclusion is built.  Neo-orthodoxy would say that man lacks faith in God because no revelation has taken place.  Luther would say that man lacks sure knowledge because he refuses the revelation.  In spite of everything that has been written since Kierkegaard became the fashion in theology, the "proofs,"  for Luther, have a great deal more validity than is commonly supposed.  This is not difficult to establish.


p.28.


In one of his sermons Luther observed:

If the natural law were not written in the heart and given by God, one would have to preach a long time before the conscience would be touched.... But because it is previously written in the heart, although it is dark and completely faded, it is reawakened by the Word, so that the heart must confess that what the commandment says is right:  that one should honor a God, love and serve him, because he alone is good and does good not only to the pious but also to the wicked.

It is evident that Luther would sooner have agreed with the Platonic doctrine of anamnesis than with the dictum of Aquinas, "There is nothing in the intellect which is not previously in the senses."  

end of quoting Becker

This whole thing is totally fascinating to me because it comes up again and again.  When talking with Atheists, the question of morality relates to this.  Can you live moral lives without God?  (The last atheist I talked to had a slogan:  Be good without God!)  The teaching and the usefulness of proofs of God's existence ties in and how often have we disagreed on that.  My doctrine professor for one person insisted that they can do nothing in advancing faith.  I had told him that I found the cosmological proof cogent and he said:  "That's because you believe already."  I didn't like the answer.

Then there is also this new book on Natural Law which we have started and should dovetail here.

I am also quite glad that there could be things in the intellect which have not been first in the senses.  Aquinas was so smart but he messed so many things up.  There we hit again the limits of reason.

From The Foolishness of God by Siegbert Becker (c) 1982 Northwestern
Publishing House (www.nph.net). All rights reserved. Reprinted with
permission.

The foolishness of God, the place of reason in the theology of Martin Luther

"The foolishness of God"  by Siegbert Becker came in the mail a couple of days ago, a used book from Amazon.  It came highly recommended by Larry Hughes and I think James Swan also liked it.  So far it is an easy, well-organized read.  I've read the first two chapters and the last chapter.

I will quote a bit from page 11, which received the most high-lighting so far.

Neo-orthodoxy's distinction between faith in Christ and faith in statements, or 'faith in a book,'  is artificial and contrary to reason.  By rejecting "propositional revelation" and making the Bible only a "record of" and "witness to" revelation, the neo-orthodox theologians drain faith of its intellectual content.  They make it little more than an emotional response to a "divine self-disclosure"  which takes place not through the words of Scripture, though possibly in conjunction with them.
Emil Brunner, for example, says that:  "faith means to be gripped by the Word of God [by this he does not mean the words of Scripture];  it means that a person submits in the very center of his being, in his heart, to Him to whom he belongs, because He has created him for Himself....  But this does not mean an intellectual understanding, but a personal encounter." [emphasis added]
The false antithesis which Brunner sets up here is one against which we must always be on our guard.  In positing such a sharp distinction between "intellectual understanding" and "personal encounter" (as some call it "total commitment"), neo-orthodoxy betrays its Calvinistic and Zwinglian roots.
The Formula of Concord teaches that the assurance of our faith is to be based on the fact that God's grace and the promise of the gospel are universal and that this promise is made in all earnestness by God.  Since Calvinism rejects the universality of the gospel promise, a consistent Calvinist can never find assurance in that promise.  Instead, he seeks it within the experience of his conversion, or, in neo-orthodox terms, in his "personal encoutner" with God, who speaks directly to the heart.   
Luther, on the other hand, always exalted the Word.  The Holy Spirit, according to Luther, does not wish to deal with us other than through the spoken Word and the sacraments.  The faculties of human reason are therefore necessary to grasp and to understand what the Word proclaims." 

The questions in my mind are:  who are the neo-orthodox?  What was and happened with their teaching?  How does the paradox about the use of reason in understanding God parallel this question of relating faith in Christ vs. word, and the false dichotomies which have been set up by some.  Have these false dichotomies risen from liberalism or Calvinism, or are those two somehow related?  Does the theology around a "living word" clash with the revealed word in scripture?


So much.  

From The Foolishness of God by Siegbert Becker (c) 1982 Northwestern
Publishing House (www.nph.net). All rights reserved. Reprinted with
permission.

Going out on a limb

This will offend some and I don't want to be too hypocritical, but this is coming to me today:

Steve  and I have been commenting on a site called the nakedpastor where the author of many pictures and cartoons illustrates the problems he and other have and have had with the "church".  Some of it reminds me of i-monk, which I've always enjoyed.  And the discussion, though often vigorous, was usually gracious and constructive.  Many people there witness to the "post-evangelical-wilderness" but have not given up on faith or Jesus Christ. They know they must have him and his grace or they might as well expire.  There was always that which we could share.  Michael  Spencer was also always very forthright and transparent with his readers while being gentle.  This was incredibly refreshing and his greatest strength.

I don't get that same sense at the nakedpastor.  There is some transparency attempted with the commentary on the pictures but it usually is guarded in some way, questions are not answered directly.  One does not get the sense that we are on a quest for truth together, rather that truth is individual.  Yes, No?  Or we need to just listen more to ourselves and our spirit and God's Spirit and not be manipulated?  Maybe that's it.   I find the ambiguity  distressing.  I like to think for myself and speak honestly.  Surely, I am a posterchild for this.  Yet, I also have something to confess.

There is a way of being "prophetic" and a way not not being "prophetic" at all.  Yet, I sympathize with those who struggle with their faith and with what they have experienced and how they feel they have been abused.  Abuse should be exposed.  All manner of abuse should be exposed and the blogger exposes some.  I am with him there.  There we are on the right track.

I am trying to listen with an open mind, though, and hear the pain.  Still, the answer is decent, Christ-centered,  scriptural, teaching about sin and forgiveness, and love and truth.

The other thing I am reminded of, is a piece by CBC radio "Tapestry"  not too long ago on one of Daniel Dennett's attacks on Christianity by focusing on disillusioned pastors.  This was a very sad piece to me.  In a way what came out of it for me was:  if you don't believe anything, then just get out of the arena.  You cannot help anyone.  Is this too harsh? And it is not about you and your disillusionment.  And yet, also, compassion for those who lost faith.  Very much.  (I commented on the much commented on show and received a lot of thumbs down, one of the most rated comments.  10 thumbs up and 31 thumbs down.)

What Dennett asserts at the end is preposterous.  Since "real scholarship" shows how everything is "wrong" about the Bible, practically, everyone is found in a hypocritical and soul destroying situation.  Well, you are wrong there Mr. Dennett.

(The whole subject of pastors "losing faith"  also relates to recent discussion with the Reformed on whether one can lose one's faith, the famed doctrine of "perseverance of the saints".  Their answer would be:  he never had faith to start with.  I think these former pastors would tell you differently.  I am suggesting, however, what their idea of what "faith" might have been was too anemic.  See Bror on this, today.  Also the summary on the first commandment.)

Apologetics and comparative religious studies, however, need to be done and making clear statements "metaphoric" unnecessarily  or fitting clear texts into your system and twisting them on the way must be stopped (Calvin).  The theology of glory must be given up for the theology of the cross.  The Law and Gospel must be cleanly distinguished.

The Sixth Commandment

You shall not violate the marriage union.
(Ehebrechen).

[I chose to go this way, because "adultery" is only one way of doing this.]

We should fear and love God so that we live clean and decent lives in both words and deeds and that each one love and honor their marriage partner.

93.  Matthew 5:  27-28.  You have learned that it was told the people of old:  You shall not commit adultery.  but I say to you:  whoever looks at a woman and desires her, he has already broken marriage with her in his heart.

94.  Hebrews 13:4.  Marriage is to be kept in honor by all, and the marriage bed remain undefiled.  The Lord will judge the immoral and adulterer.

________

This is one way we know Jesus is Lord.  He knows our hearts.  Faith is cradled there and from it all other things flow.

but help him in every physical need

...but help him in every physical need.

89.  Ephesians 4:32.  Be friendly towards each other from a sincere heart, and forgive one another, just as God has forgiven you in Christ.

90.  Matthew 5:44.  But I say to you:  love your enemies;  bless those who curse you;  do good to those who hate you;  pray for those who insult and persecute you.

91.  Romans 12:18.  As far as it is possible and the matter lies with you, be at peace with all people.

92.  Matthew 5:9.  Blessed are the peacemakers,  because they will be called the children of God.

___________

by the grace of God; so help us God.

The Fifth Commandment

You shall not kill.


We should fear and love God so that we cause no harm to our neighbor's body but are of assistance to him in any physical needs he may have.

You shall not kill.

81.  Genesis 9:6.  Whoever sheds the blood of man, his blood shall also be shed by men;  this is because God has made man in his image.

82.  Proverbs 24,8.  He who predetermines to hurt others, him you shall call an evil person.

We should not harm our neighbor's body.

83.  Matthew 5:21-22.  You heard that it was said to the people of old:  you shall not kill but whoever kills, he shall be liable to judgment.  But I say to you:  whoever is angry with his brother, he is guilty of judgment and whoever says to his brother:  'Racha', he is guilty to be brought to council;  but who ever says:  'You fool', he is guilty of the fires of hell.

84.  1 John 3:15.  Whoever hates his brother is a murderer; and you know that a murderer will not have eternal life.

85.  Proverbs 24:17.  Do not rejoice in the fall of your enemy, and your heart not be glad in his misery.

86.  James 3:14-16.  But if you have bitter enmity and rancor in your heart, do not be proud of that, and do not lie against the truth;  because this is not the wisdom which comes from above, but wordy, human and from the devil;  because where ever there is envy and disunity, there is disorder and simply and evil thing.

87.  Romans 12:19.  Do not take your own revenge, my loved ones, leave it be, giving room to God's wrath because it is written: "Vengence is mine;  I will repay, says the Lord."

88.  Jeremiah 9:8.  There false tongues are murderous arrows;  with their mouth they speak in a friendly manner to their neighbor, but in their heart they are lying in wait for him.

-----------------

Phew.

Dear Lord Jesus, have mercy, we are all undone.  Our hearts are murderous pits.

Pastor Fisk on "Where are the Lutherans"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMCayHARWSM&feature=share

Watch it.  It's long but it's good.

New blog

http://goandmake.ca/

Rev. Glenn Schaeffer has started a blog on missions!

Sasse on reformed on baptism from Pr. H. blog

http://mercyjourney.blogspot.com/2011/07/sasse-on-reformed-teaching-on-baptism.html

Luther and Natural Law

I'm supposed to lay paving stones, but such slave labor is not my favorite thing and thus have detoured myself to a new book.  "Natural Law:  a Lutheran Reappraisal."



This book contains a collection  of essays on the subject by a number of current authors, some of whom or their families I know via Facebook.  The world has shrunk and scholarship is amazing.

The essay I just finished is titled:  "Luther's Pragmatic Appropriation of the Natural Law Tradition" by Thomas D. Pearson who is an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Texas.  It delineates what Luther rejects and affirms in the Natural Law Tradition.  Apparently, he makes quite a mish-mash out of it over the course of his career, yet it becomes clear that he does believe in the existence of something called "natural law". (p. 49).  The essay finishes with this summary:  "Ultimately, Luther creates a new account of natural law morality:  instinctive, not rational;  provisional, not ontologically secured;  pragmatic, not divinely commanded;  chastened by sin, not robust with natural human possibilities.  When Luther invokes natural law, it is with a different insight than that supplied to him by the classical natural law tradition." (p. 63).

So much for that.

Fourth commandment cont.

2.  Similarly to the masters, such as a)  the authorities

73.  Romans 13:1,2,4.  Everyone live in subjection to the authorities,  which has the power over him.  For there is no authority which has not been given by God;  where ever there are authorities they have been instituted by God.  Whoever puts himself against the authorities is resisting God's order;  however those who resist will receive their judgment.  Because it is a servant of God to your own good.  So if you are doing evil, be afraid, for it does not bear the sword for no reason;  the authorities are a servant of God, an exacter of punishment  for those who do wrong.

74.  1 Peter 2:17.  Give honor to everyone, love the brothers, fear God and honor the king.

75.  Matthew 22:21.  Give to Ceasar what  is Ceasar's and God what is God's.

76.  1 Tim. 2, 1-3.  So I admonish you, that firstly one make petitions, intercession and thanksgiving for all people, for the king and all in authority, in order that we may lead a quiet and peaceful life in all godliness and decency.  For so to do is good and pleasing to God, our Savior.

b) to teachers

77. Hebrews 13:17.  Obey your teachers and follow them because they are watching over your souls in a way for which they will be accountable, so that they may do it with joy and not with complaints, which would not serve you.

78.  1 Thess. 5:12-13.  We ask you dear brothers that you will respect those who labor over you and lead and admonish you in the Lord.  Love them all the more because of this work and be peaceable.

c) to the Masters/Lords

79.  Ephesians 6:5-8.  You servants obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, in sincerity of heart as to Christ, not alone to please men but as servants of Christ, so that you will fulfill the will of God from your heart and gladly.  Think about this, that you are serving the Lord and not man;  and know that each one who does good will receive his reward from the Lord whether he be a slave or a free man.

80.  1 Peter 2:18.  You servants be subject to your masters with all respect, and not only to the ones who are good and gentle, but also to those who act strangely.