Table Of ContentGRACE AND REASON
Oxford University Press, Amen House, London E.C.4
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GRACE AND REASON
A STUDY IN THE
THEOLOGY OF LUTHER
BY
B. A. GERRISH
OXFORD
AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
1962
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PREFACE
N
ext to ‘antinomianism’, the charge most frequently
brought against Luther by his critics is, perhaps, ‘irra¬
tionalism’. Many champions have come forward to
defend the Reformer’s ethical principles, and the import of his
assault upon ‘the law’ has been adequately explained. Fewer
discussions have been made of his assault upon ‘reason’, and the
need for drastically qualifying the charge of irrationalism is not
sufficiently felt. In actual fact, the assaults on reason and on
the law, properly understood, arise from the same basic motive
and are expressions of the same fundamental theological stand¬
point. The opposition between Gospel and law in Luther’s
theology could equally well be stated as an opposition between
grace and reason. Luther’s ‘irrationalism’ is not to be inter¬
preted simply as a call for the theologian to abandon the demands
of disciplined thought. Reason, as he understood it, constitutes
a threat to the freedom of divine forgiveness, and his polemic
is maintained chiefly in defence of the notion of God’s ‘grace’.
How this is so, it is the purpose of the following chapters to
make clear.
The present essay is a shortened and revised version of an
academic dissertation submitted in the spring of 1958 to the
Joint Committee on Graduate Instruction of Columbia Uni¬
versity, New York. At that time the author had been unable
to trace any monograph devoted wholly to Luther’s under¬
standing of reason, despite the many incidental allusions to the
topic both in the ‘Luther-Literature’ and in other studies of
Western thought. Wilhelm Link’s learned study, Das Ringen
Luthers um die Freiheit der Theologie von der Philosophie, contains
some valuable discussions of Luther’s attitudes towards the
philosophical theology of the Schoolmen; and Bengt Hagglund,
in his recent work, Theologie und Philosophie bei Luther und in der
occamistischen Tradition, has offered an extremely useful essay
on the difficult subject of Luther and the Nominalists. At several
points Hagglund in particular addresses himself to the problem
of reason in Luther, but, of course, neither of these two works
viii PREFACE
claims to be a comprehensive discussion of the place of reason in
Luther’s theology.
After the present writer had already completed his manu¬
script, he received a copy of Bernhard Lohse’s admirable work,
Ratio und Fides. Eine Untersuchung iiber die ratio in der Theologie
Luthers (Gottingen, 1958), the most comprehensive and satis¬
factory treatment of the problem that has yet appeared. Had
this study been available to me during my own research, I
would certainly have made extensive use of it: in revising my
work for publication, however, I have contented myself with
occasional references to Lohse’s essay, where his discussions
parallel or supplement my own. As one would expect (despite
the fact that the two studies were made independently), many
of the same sources have been treated by each author and many
similar conclusions have been reached. It is equally to be
expected, in view of the vastness of the subject, that dissimi¬
larities of approach and of emphasis should appear. In parti¬
cular, it will be noticed that, whilst Lohse builds upon a
developmental study of the ‘Young Luther’, the present essay
adopts what Regin Prenter (in the prefatory remarks to his
Spiritus Creator) calls a ‘systematic-exegetical’ method, proceed¬
ing by intensive analysis of a crucial text from the ‘Mature
Luther’. And even though each of our essays has in addition
a purely ‘systematic’ section, there also the reader will discern
some variations of approach. Lohse, for instance, does not
concern himself greatly with Luther’s historical relationships
(with the Schoolmen, for instance); and it does, perhaps,
constitute a real difference that our own topic is not ‘reason and
faith’, but ‘grace and reason’. The aims and methods of the
present study are more fully explained in the Introduction.
It is the writer’s firm persuasion that the subject of ‘grace
and reason’ in Luther’s theology will be of concern, not only
to specialist scholars, but to all who have an interest in the
Protestant Reformation, since our theme proves to be by no
means peripheral, but brings us to the heart of the Protestant
case against the medieval Church of Rome. It is to be hoped,
therefore, that our essay will not only help to show the ground¬
lessness of many accusations of ‘irrationalism’ levelled against
Luther, but may also do something towards clarifying the basic
significance of Evangelical Protestantism.
PREFACE IX
With more general readers in mind, the writer has done his
best to restrict technical scholarship (which the specialist will
rightly demand) chiefly to the footnotes. Since it would be
utopian to presuppose a knowledge of Luther’s own languages
in every reader, English translations are offered from the Latin
and German. The translations are our own, but where there
are already-existing English versions, which the reader could
consult for context, references are occasionally given to them
also in the notes.
Finally, one who stands in the Reformed, rather than the
Lutheran, tradition may perhaps be pardoned if he suggests
that the discussion of Luther’s views on reason be compared
with the Institutes of Galvin, Book II, chapter ii. The chapter
is misleadingly titled, since it seems to promise a discussion on
the bondage of the will. In actual fact, Galvin here devotes
more space to a succinct statement on the capabilities of the
‘intellect’ in fallen man. (The capabilities of the fallen will are
taken up more fully in the following chapters.) Galvin’s pre¬
sentation in some respects amounts to a summing-up of Luther’s
own, and yet it should be noted that Calvin’s conversation is,
not with his fellow Reformers, but with Augustine and the
Schoolmen.
The writer wishes to record his indebtedness to Professor
Wilhelm Pauck, of Union Theological Seminary, New York,
his adviser during the writing of this essay, and to Professor
Leonard J. Trinterud, his colleague in the Church History
Department of McCormick Theological Seminary, Chicago:
to both he owes valuable counsel on several points.
B. A. GERRISH
McCormick Theological Seminary
January, ig6i
