{"id":22085,"date":"2013-10-22T11:57:24","date_gmt":"2013-10-22T16:57:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/?p=22085"},"modified":"2013-10-22T11:57:24","modified_gmt":"2013-10-22T16:57:24","slug":"martin-luther-and-the-sacraments-a-response-to-roland-millares-honest-assessment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/2013\/10\/22\/martin-luther-and-the-sacraments-a-response-to-roland-millares-honest-assessment\/","title":{"rendered":"Martin Luther and the Sacraments: A Response to Roland Millare\u2019s \u201cHonest Assessment\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

The latest issue of Antiphon<\/em><\/a> (17:2, 168-190) carries an article by Roland Millare titled \u201cThe Nominalist Justification for Luther\u2019s Sacramental Theology.\u201d Millare clearly intends the article as one part of \u201cthe obligation for an honest assessment of the philosophical presuppositions (or lack thereof) that undergird varying theologies,\u201d an obligation he sees as necessary for \u201cauthentic ecumenism\u201d (189). While I very much doubt that agreement in philosophical presuppositions is possible among Christians or necessary for Christian unity, I join Millare in a desire for honest appraisals of \u201cvarying theologies\u201d and for authentic ecumenism. But for those very purposes I profoundly wish that his presentation of Martin Luther\u2019s thought on the sacraments had itself been more accurate.<\/p>\n

Millare begins his article by clearly (if not very sympathetically) sketching the characteristics of late-medieval nominalism, the so-called via moderna<\/em>, especially as these relate to causation. After then briefly considering how he regards this nominalist understanding of causality to be operative in Luther\u2019s important work On the Bondage of the Will<\/em> (1525), he proceeds to discuss Luther on the sacraments, largely drawing upon Luther\u2019s polemical tract, The Babylonian Captivity of the Church<\/em> (1520), with some reference to the more pastoral \u201csermons\u201d or treatises on the sacraments of 1519. Millare\u2019s argument is that Luther\u2019s nominalism makes it impossible for him to trust that the sacraments are effective in themselves but that they \u201creceive their efficacy only from the subjective faith\u201d of the believer (176). Indeed, Millare asserts that for Luther the only real sacrament is \u201cthe believer\u2019s act of faith in Christ\u201d (168). The sacraments are merely outward\u2014and largely unnecessary\u2014signs of that much more important faith. Millare says that Luther, \u201cgiven his nominalist formation,\u201d cannot \u201cembrace an understanding of the sacraments as efficacious signs,\u201d since \u201cefficacy is attributed solely to God\u201d (184). It follows that Millare thinks Luther either ignores or undermines the secondary or \u201cinstrumental causality\u201d of the minister of the sacraments, important since the sacraments occur as human ritual events. Furthermore, Millare implies that, given his nominalism, Luther would not agree that \u201cif the minister is wicked in any way . . . the sacrament can still effect grace for the benefit of the recipient\u201d (187). Millare then concludes his article with an appeal to return to Thomist metaphysical realism as the only reliable foundation for Catholic theology and with a suggestion that such Catholic theologians as Schillebeeckx and Chauvet have themselves been too influenced by both nominalism and Luther.<\/p>\n

I am grateful that Millare points out several themes of Luther that are rightly alive in current Roman Catholic theological and liturgical thought and practice: the importance of the faithful coming to the sacraments in faith (Millare says \u201cthe importance of one\u2019s subjective disposition\u201d); the universal priesthood of all the faithful; the primacy of baptism and eucharist; and the understanding of Christ himself as the primary or root sacrament (187-188). I could add yet other themes from Luther that have been alive in the documents of Vatican II and the reforms that have followed: the life long significance of baptism; the ethical significance of communion; the use of the vernacular in the celebration of the sacraments; the need for preaching and teaching their meaning; and active participation in their celebration. Still, Millare\u2019s awareness of the first of these themes matters a great deal to ecumenical awareness.<\/p>\n

But by making Luther\u2019s conception of the sacraments and of sacramental efficacy entirely subjective, Millare could not be more wrong. He would have come closer to an \u201chonest assessment\u201d by also reading Luther\u2019s Confession Concerning Christ\u2019s Supper<\/em> (1528), his Large Catechism<\/em> (1529), his Smalcald Articles<\/em> (1537), and his essay On the Councils and the Church<\/em> (1539), as well as by more carefully studying his 1519 treatises. Using those sources among others, let me make these replies:<\/p>\n

1. Luther was no philosopher. He was also not a systematic theologian. He was an Augustinian friar, then a preacher, a university professor of biblical studies and a pastor, and all of that shows in his work. Lutherans have long known that Luther said a lot of things and they do not all form a consistent whole. If Lutherans want a systematic theology from the early Reformation, they turn to Philip Melanchthon and especially and fundamentally to his Augsburg Confession<\/em> and its Apology<\/em>. And Lutherans\u2014who ought really to be called \u201cCatholic Christians of the Augsburg Confession<\/em>\u201d\u2014do not necessarily agree with everything Luther said or wrote. Nonetheless, Luther\u2019s vigorous sacramental theology\u2014his sense of God acting in the word and the sacraments to ground the church, to give us life, to enable our faith, and to turn us toward the needs of our neighbors\u2014is one of the treasures of Catholic Christianity, one that should not be so meagerly reported as it is in this article.<\/p>\n

2. To say that Luther was formed in the midst of nominalist teaching is simply to say that he was educated and taught at the beginning of the sixteenth century, at the very outset of the modern era. He was indeed enrolled at the University of Erfurt in the via Guihelmi<\/em>, the way of William of Occam. He was educated in his times\u2014times that, like our own, were no longer marked by an easy assent to the \u201cuniversals.\u201d\u00a0 For us, too, believing in the reality of \u201cuniversals\u201d is harder (and considerably less necessary) than believing in God. But in his own teaching Luther was always resisting the philosophers\u2014all of them\u2014arguing that the scriptures were sufficient, when seen as speaking Christ\u2014\u201cdriving Christ,\u201d as he would say\u2014to speak of God\u2019s grace and, thus, of God\u2019s action in the sacraments. The very text of Luther\u2019s last sermon, from which Millare himself quotes in a footnote (n. 64, 184-185), includes a lament against philosophy and reason in order to assert \u201cthat the true body and the true blood [of Christ] is in the Lord\u2019s supper and that Baptism is not merely water , but the water of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.\u201d\u00a0 This is no subjectivism. Perhaps the lament against reason was indeed a mark of some nominalists. Luther was a man of his times. But, in a way that can be helpful to us in a time that still has no agreed upon universals, Luther used the scripture to preach the gracious, objective and reliable action of God, inviting people to trust that action with their lives. To do this he did not need the philosophers and often saw us as betrayed by them.<\/p>\n

3. The Smalcald Articles<\/em> clearly makes assertions that Millare denies are in Luther: \u201cWe maintain that the bread and wine in the Supper are the true body and blood of Christ and that they are not only offered to and received by upright Christians but also by evil ones\u201d (Article 3:6). \u201cBaptism is nothing other than God\u2019s Word in the water, commanded by God\u2019s institution . . . We . . . disagree with Scotus and the Franciscans who teach that baptism washes away sin through the assistance of the divine will, that is, that this washing takes place only through God\u2019s will and not at all through the Word and the water\u201d (Article 3:5). And \u201cthe keys [the absolution of sins] are an office and authority given to the church by Christ to bind and loose sins . . . confession, or absolution, should by no means be allowed to fall into disuse in the church . . .\u201d (Article 3:7-8). The Large Catechism<\/em> says the same. And the Confession Concerning Christ\u2019s Supper<\/em> says, \u201cI also say and confess that in the sacrament of the altar the true body and blood of Christ are orally eaten and drunk in the bread and wine, even if the priests who distribute them or those who receive them do not believe or otherwise misuse the sacrament. It does not rest on human belief or unbelief but on the Word and ordinance of God . . .\u201d (LW 37:367).<\/p>\n

4. Contrary to what Millare says, Luther never speaks about \u201cconsubstantiation.\u201d He does make use of the nominalist approach\u2014\u201cOccam\u2019s razor\u201d\u2014to assert that God does not have to destroy the bread as bread in order to use it sacramentally. But he does not insist on this. In fact, he thinks the argument unnecessary. For him, it is enough to say with the scripture: \u201cthis bread is the body of Christ; this cup is the blood of Christ.\u201d But Lutherans love to quote one line from the Confession Concerning Christ\u2019s Supper<\/em> that is so characteristic of Luther\u2019s brash truth-telling, untethered to any philosophy: \u201cSooner than have mere wine with the fanatics, I would agree with the pope that there is only blood\u201d (LW 37:317).<\/p>\n

5. Also contrary to what Millare says, the idea that faith in Christ is a sacrament\u2014in fact, the only sacrament\u2014would never have crossed Luther\u2019s mind. Faith does indeed receive what the sacrament gives. But it does not create the gift. And faith itself is no visible sign with God\u2019s promised attached. Faith does trust and receive those concrete signs that come from Christ, together with that promise. In this Luther is a faithful Augustinian. Augustine himself wrote that the \u201cvisible word\u201d of the sacrament of baptism is effective for life and salvation \u201cnot because it is uttered, but because it is believed\u201d (On John<\/em> 15:3; NPNF Series 1, 7:344). But also for Augustine, it is God who makes it a visible and effective word, not the believer. The word and sacraments of God\u2019s gift are always awakening faith in us to trust the gift and so come to life. For Luther, the one sacrament, then, is Jesus Christ, incarnate, crucified, risen, and encountered as active in preaching, baptism, supper, absolution, and the presence of the Christian community. A sacrament is, for Luther, like a ship or a bridge or a stretcher (LW 35:66). Faith does not build the ship\u2014or the bridge or the stretcher. But faith does trust enough to go on board or cross the bridge or lie down on the stretcher\u2014in order to then sail or cross or be carried into life.<\/p>\n

6. It is certainly true that Luther resists the Latin tag ex opere operato<\/em>. But that is mostly because of the widespread abuses associated with that tag, abuses that Millare himself (187) begins to catalogue but which were and are, in fact, much more extensive than he notes. Luther\u2019s deep concern is to oppose the idea that the eucharist is pleasing to God ex opere operato<\/em> (see LW 35:63), as if the doing of the eucharist were a gift to God. The point being made in this resistance is not the subjective character of effective sacraments but their character as life-giving gifts from God to us. For Luther, a sacrament comes to us from outside of ourselves and gives us faith, life and salvation. Indeed, sacraments are part of God\u2019s going out to the needy world in mercy. The pre-eminent name of that \u201cgoing out\u201d is Jesus Christ, and as he is both true God and true man, so the sacraments are both human realities\u2014done in real assemblies, with real people, real ministers, real water, human words, and human bread and wine\u2014and concrete places of God acting. The Chalcedonian dance of the \u201ctwo natures of Christ\u201d is quite alive in Lutheran sacramental thought.<\/p>\n

7. Neither does Luther insist, as Millare says, that there are only two sacraments. This is one of the many places where systematizing Luther does not work. In one place in Luther\u2019s writing there will be two sacraments. In another, three\u2014including penance or absolution\u2014or even four\u2014including \u201cthe mutual conversation and consolation of the brothers and sisters.\u201d\u00a0 In another, only one, Christ himself, manifested and encountered in all the others. In his essay On the Councils and the Church<\/em> (LW 41:148-166), Luther argues that one can tell that an assembly is Christ\u2019s church by the presence of seven \u201csigns of life\u201d (that is, signs of God\u2019s life among us, giving life). These are: the preached word of God, baptism, the Lord\u2019s Supper, the use of absolution, the calling and consecrating of ministers, the public use of thanksgiving and prayer, and what he calls \u201cthe holy possession of the cross,\u201d that is the presence of suffering and the absence of triumphalism as a mark of communal life. It is a remarkable and still useful list. And that list does not support some easy idea of \u201conly two sacraments.\u201d<\/p>\n

8. Nor are the sacraments gifts only to lonely individuals. In an important passage in the 1519 treatise On the Blessed Sacrament of the Holy and True Body of Christ<\/em>, he writes: \u201cWhen you have partaken of this sacrament, therefore, or desire to partake of it, you must in turn share the misfortunes of the fellowship . . . Here your heart must go out in love and learn that this is a sacrament of love. As love and support are given to you, you in turn must render love and support to Christ in his needy ones. You must feel with sorrow all the dishonor done to Christ in his holy Word, all the misery of Christendom, all the unjust suffering of the innocent, with which the world is everywhere filled to overflowing. You must fight, work, pray, and\u2014if you cannot do more\u2014have heartfelt sympathy . . . It is Christ\u2019s will, then, that we partake of it frequently, in order that we may remember him and exercise ourselves in this fellowship according to his example\u201d (LW 35:54).<\/p>\n

Here and there in Luther there may indeed be nominalist themes in his sacramental theology. Luther was a man of his times. But there is no nominalist \u201cjustification\u201d for his vigorous use of the sacraments. There is rather a lively reading of the Bible and a fierce pastoral interest in making clear that the sacraments are gifts of the triune God, meant to bring us to faith and so to life and meant to turn us toward our neighbor.\u00a0Jared Wicks S.J., whose work on Luther Millare quotes, has recently written, \u201cSuch a dedicated biblical theologian as Luther can lead one to see New Testament themes which have long lain fallow in Catholic theology\u201d (Pro Ecclesia<\/em> 22:3, Summer 2013, 324). If scholars like Schillebeeckx and Chauvet are accentuating again some of those themes, I rejoice. If they are doing so without recourse to a \u201crealist\u201d approach to the universals\u2014without a necessary metaphysics\u2014I think that is wise in our time. I wish Roland Millare, too, would see that uniformity in philosophical position is a will-o\u2019-the-wisp that will not assist Christian unity. But I wish even more that if he means to report Luther, he would do it accurately.<\/p>\n

Gordon W. Lathrop<\/p>\n

Gordon W. Lathrop is Professor of Liturgy Emeritus, Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia, and Visiting Professor of Liturgical Studies, Yale Divinity School and Institute of Sacred Music<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“I join Millare in a desire for honest appraisals of ‘varying theologies’ and for authentic ecumenism. 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