Collected Works of Martin Luther

by Martin Luther

  He claimed that, owing to the amount of practice he had had in inward combats, his “faith had been much strengthened”; the “temptations” had won for him a “wealth of Divine gifts,” had taught him humility and qualified him for his task, nay, had set a Divine seal on his mission; his “theologia” he had learnt in the school of the devil’s temptations; without such a devil to help, one remains a mere speculative theologian.

  Such sayings lead us to ask whether his life of faith really underwent a strengthening as he advanced in years.

  6. Luther on his Faith, his Doctrine and his Doubts, particularly in his Later Years

  Whoever would judge correctly of the remarkable statements made by Luther which we are now about to consider must measure them, at least in the lump, by the standard of his doctrine on faith. If anything in him calls for explanation and consideration in the light of the views on doctrine which he held, surely this is especially the case with the mental state now under discussion to which he alludes so frequently in both public and private utterances. At the same time it must not be overlooked that occasionally he is speaking with his wonted hyperbole and love of paradox, and that sometimes what he says is not meant quite seriously; moreover, that sometimes, when apparently blaming himself, he is really only trying to describe the heights which he fain would attain; the true standard by which to judge all these many statements which are yet so remarkably uniform must, however, be sought in the theological groundwork of his attitude towards faith.

  Luther’s Notion of Faith

  As we already know, by faith he understands on the one hand the accepting of all the verities of revelation as true; more often, however, he means by it simply a believing trust in salvation through Christ, a certainty of that justification by faith which constitutes his “Evangel.”

  For faith in the former sense he rightly appeals to the firm and immovable foundation of God’s truth. But, as regards the source whence mankind obtains its knowledge of revealed truth, he practically undermines the authority of Scripture — which he nevertheless esteems so highly — first, by his wanton rejection of whole books of the Bible and by his neglect of the criteria necessary for determining which books belong to Holy Scripture and for recognising which are canonical; secondly, by his interpretation of the Bible, more particularly in ascertaining the Divine truths therein contained, he flings open the door to subjectivism and leaves each one to judge for himself, refusing even to furnish him with any sure guidance. He set aside the teaching office of the Church, which had been for the Catholic the authentic exponent of Scripture, and at the same time had guaranteed the canonicity of each of its parts. Of the Church’s olden creeds he retained only a fragment, and even this he interpreted in his own sense.

  Thus, under the olden name of faith in revelation he had really introduced a new objective faith, one utterly devoid of any stay.

  It is sufficient to consider certain of his quite early theses to appreciate the blow dealt at the Church’s traditional view of faith. To these theses he was moved by his polemics against certain, to him, distasteful dogmas of the ancient Church, but from the very outset his attack was, at bottom, directed against all barriers of dogma, and, even later, continued to threaten to some extent the very foundations of that religious knowledge which he held in common with all other Christians. The unrestrained freedom of opinion which many Protestants claim to-day as part of the heirloom of Christianity they are wont to justify by citing passages from Luther’s writings, e.g. from his work of 1523, “Das eyn Christliche Versamlung odder Gemeyne ... Macht habe, alle Lere zu urteylen,” etc.

  The fact of having taught faith in the second sense mentioned above, and of having put it in the place of faith in the first and olden sense is, according to many moderns, the achievement that more than any other redounds to Luther’s credit. — He made an end of the “unevangelical idea of faith as a mere holding for true, and of the submission of the most inward and tender of questions to the decision of courts of law”; in the trustful belief in Christ he rediscovered the only faith deserving of the name and thereby brought back religion to mankind.

  This trusting faith, however, by its very nature and according to Luther’s express admission is, as has already been pointed out in detail, also devoid of any true stay, is ever exposed to wavering and uncertainty and is wholly dependent on feeling; above all, for a conscience oppressed with the sense of guilt to lay hold on the alien righteousness of Christ by faith alone is a task scarcely within its power; it admittedly involves an unceasing struggle; lastly, true faith, according to Luther, comes only from God, from whom man, who has no free-will, can only passively look for it, nay, it belongs in the last instance only to the Revealed God, for of the dispensations of the Hidden Will of God concerning our future in heaven or in hell we are entirely ignorant.

  Here too, then, we have a new kind of faith.

  This explains how it is that in Luther’s statements concerning his personal faith, his preaching, his absorption in the religious point of view he has discovered, his doubts and his fears, we meet with so much that sounds strange. We say strange, for they cannot but unpleasantly surprise anyone accustomed to regard faith in the truths of religion as a firm possession of the mind and heart, above all a Catholic believer. Before Luther’s day scarcely can a single Christian teacher be instanced who was so open in speaking of the weakness of his own faith or who so frequently and so persistently insisted on pitting his own experience against the calm inward certainty with which God ever rewards a humble and heartfelt faith, even in those most beset with temptations.

  When, in spite of this, we find Luther throughout his life plainly and indubitably accepting as true a large portion of the common body of faith (as we have repeatedly admitted him to have done), then it is easy to see that in so doing he is not taking his stand on his new and shaky foundations, but on the old and solid basis to which he reverts with a happy want of logic, often perhaps unconsciously. We should see him taking his stand on this foundation even more frequently had not his sad breach with the whole past moved his soul to its very depths. There can be no doubt that his terrors of conscience, or “struggles with the devil,” had much to do in inducing the condition in which he reveals himself to the reader of what follows.

  Luther as Pictured by Himself during Later Years

  It is clear that, in order to judge of Luther’s life of faith, stress must not be laid on isolated statements of his torn from their context, but that they must be taken in the lump.

  When speaking of his temptations, as a man of fifty-six, he bewailed the prevailing unbelief, at the same time including himself: “If only we could believe concerning the [Divine] promises that it was God Who spoke them! If only we paid heed to His Word we should esteem it highly. But when we hear it [God’s Word] from the lips of a man, we care no more for it than for the lowing of a cow.” — Shortly before this, again including all, he consoles himself as follows: Our weakness was ever disposed to doubt of God’s mercy, and even Paul felt his shortcomings. “I am comforted when I see that even Paul did not rise high enough. Away with the ambitious who pretend they have succeeded in everything! We have God’s words to strengthen us and yet even we do not believe.” “I have preached for five-and-twenty years,” so he said about that time, “and do not yet understand the text ‘The just man liveth by faith.’”

  Of his trusting belief in his personal salvation he admits, in 1543, that he did not feel it to be very steadfast, and that it still lagged behind that of ordinary believers. He speaks of a woman at Torgau who had told him that she looked upon herself as “lost,” and shut out from salvation, because she was unable to believe (i.e. trust). He had thereupon asked her whether she did not hold fast to the Creed, and when she assured him that she did he had said: “My good woman, go in God’s name! You believe more and better than I do.” “Yes, dear Dr. Jonas,” so he said, turning to his friend, “yes, if a man could verily believe it as it there stands, his heart would indeed jump
for joy! That is certain.”

  So strongly did he express himself on this point on May 6, 1540, that, taking the words as they stand, he would seem to deny his belief in Christ’s miracles and work. “I cannot believe it and yet I teach others. I know it is true, but I am unable to believe it. I think sometimes: ‘Sure enough you teach aright, for you are in the sacred ministry and are called, you are helpful to many and glorify Christ; for we do not preach Aristotle or Cæsar, but Jesus Christ.’ But when I consider my weakness, how I eat, drink, joke and am a merry man about the town, then I begin to doubt. Oh, if only a man could believe it!” These words were spoken on Ascension-Day, after Luther had expressed his marvel at the strong faith of the Apostles in the Divinity of Him Who was ascending into heaven. “Wonderful; I cannot understand it nor can I believe it, and yet all the Apostles believed.” “I am fond of Jonas [who was seated near him] but if he were to ascend into heaven here and now, and disappear out of our sight, what should I think?”

  “Oh, if only a man could believe it!”

  It is evident that he did not wish by such words to give himself out as an unbeliever or a sceptic in religious matters. What he was painfully aware of was the fact that that strong, clear faith in the ordinary truths of revelation and matters of faith, which he himself was wont to depict as essential, was absent in his own case. His former violent struggles of conscience seem in later years to have been replaced by this uncomfortable feeling.

  The depressing sense of the feebleness of his religious belief was not removed by the frequent references Luther was so fond of making in his old age to the coming of the Redeemer and Judge of the world, and to the nighness of the devil’s downfall, who is the Lord of this world. We know already the psychological reasons for the stress he lays on such expectations. Yet all the unnatural ardour he showed in voicing them could not disguise the fact that his faith lacked any real strength or fervour. Spiritual coldness could quite well co-exist with a virulent hatred of the devil and a longing desire for the end of the world.

  “The devil is an evil spirit ... as I do not fail to realise day after day; for a man waxes cold, and the more so the longer he lives.” Thus to Count Albert of Mansfeld in 1542. — He was “in pain and very morose,” he tells Jonas in 1541, “feeling disgusted with everything, especially with his illnesses.”. In 1544, and frequently about that time, he declares that he was quite tired of the devil and of his struggles with him; his only wish was to see the “end of his raging,” and to “die a good and wholesome death.” “God Himself may see to my soul’s lodging”; He loved souls, says Luther, and it was a good thing that his salvation was not in his own hands, otherwise he “would soon be gobbled up by Satan”; but God’s care and the “many mansions” in His gift were a sufficient consolation (1539).

  On one occasion, in 1542, he mentioned that, unless he had escaped from certain “thoughts and temptations,” he would have been drowned in them and would have long ago found himself in hell; for such “devilish thoughts” breed “desperate people,” and “contemners of God.”

  “Though, towards the end of life, such temptations are wont to cease,” he says, in 1540, yet other inward worries remain: “I am often angry with myself because I find so much in me that is unclean. But what can I do? I cannot strip off my nature. Meanwhile Christ looks upon us as righteous because we desire to be righteous, abhor our uncleanliness, and love, and confess the Word.” — Others, like Spalatin, in their old age, felt the bite of conscience more strongly than did Luther; they had not been through the same violent struggles and mental gymnastics as Luther, nor had they learnt how to suppress the voice from within. It was to Spalatin, then sunk in melancholy, that, in 1544, Luther addressed the words already quoted: He (Spalatin) was “too timid a sinner” (“nimis tener peccator”). “Unite yourself with us great and hardened sinners, in a believing trust in Christ!”

  Earlier Undated Statements

  Many utterances and confidences of Luther’s still exist, about the meaning of which there can be no doubt, though it is difficult correctly to place them. Some of these concern the subject now under discussion; several may well date from Luther’s later years, and thus throw light on his interior in his old age. We shall give first of all his statements concerning St. Paul in their bearing upon himself.

  Speaking once of a pet view of his in which he seems to have found great consolation, viz. that even Paul had not believed firmly (neque Paulum fortiter credidisse), Luther went so far as to question the apostle’s belief in the “crown of justice” which he professed to look for, as “laid up for him in heaven” (2 Tim. iv. 8). Jonas, who was present, had declared “he could not bestow any credence on this statement of Paul’s.” Luther replied: It is quite true that Paul did not believe it firmly, “for it was above him. I too am unable to believe as I preach, although they all think I believe these things firmly.” He goes on to allege the Divine Clemency, and jestingly says: Were we to fulfil the will of God perfectly we should be cheating God of His Godhead; and what would then become of the article of the forgiveness of sins? At any rate he would fain have believed his own doctrines more strongly and vividly.

  “Temptations against the faith,” says Luther, “are St. Paul’s goad and sting of the flesh [2 Cor. xii. 7], a great skewer and roasting-spit which pierces right through both spirit and flesh, both body and soul.” — And elsewhere: “At times I think: I really do not know where I stand, whether I preach aright or not. This was also St. Paul’s temptation and martyrdom, which, as I believe, he found it hard to speak of to many.” Yet, so Luther opines, Paul sufficiently hinted at it in the words “I die daily” (1 Cor. xv. 31). — The fact is, the Apostle is far from attributing to himself doubts on the faith either here or elsewhere. Luther, however, would gladly have us believe, that, with his doubts, he had been through precisely that experience to which St. Paul refers when he says, “I die daily”; he, too, has his agonies, he, too, has descended into hell. Not merely in this does he resemble Paul, but also in his inability to distinguish between the Law and the Gospel: “Paul and I have never been able to manage this.” He saw also another point of similarity between himself and the Apostle of the Gentiles. For, like him, St. Paul, too, “had been much bothered by the objection, that, one should listen to the Fathers (cp. Rom. ix. 5) and not oppose the whole world single-handed.”

  Not Paul alone, according to Luther, but all the other Apostles too had been assailed by doubts.

  He was always consoled to find new and illustrious companions in his misery. Christ, he declares, had foretold this to the Apostles; He had also spoken to them of this sort of persecution: “Your conscience will grow weak so that you will often think: ‘Who knows whether I have been right? Alas, have I not gone too far?’ Thus in the eyes of the world and to your own conscience you will seem to be in the wrong”; it had, however, been the duty of the Holy Ghost to comfort the Apostles in all such trials.

  And did not “even the man Christ have His momentary failing in the Garden?” Did not Christ then confess: “‘I know not how I stand with God, or whether I am doing right or not.’ This occurred even in the case of Christ.” “All who are tempted must set Christ, Who also was tempted in everything, as a model before their eyes; but it was much harder for Him than for us and for me.” Luther fails to take into account the world-wide difference between the sadness of Christ, Who could never waver in the Truth, and his own doubts and wavering in the faith.

  “O, my God,” he said on another occasion, “the article on faith won’t go home; hence so many sad moods arise. Often I have to take myself to task for failing to master such moods when they come, I who have so often taught in lectures, sermons and writings how such temptations are to be overcome.”

  His pupil Mathesius relates the following in his sermons on Luther, the preface to the printed edition of which he wrote in 1565: “Antony Musa, pastor of Rochlitz, told me that he once complained bitterly to the Doctor of being unable to believe himself what he preache
d to others. ‘Praise and thanks be to God,’ replied the Doctor, ‘that this also happens to others. I fancied it was true only in my case.’ All his life Musa never forgot this consolation.” So full of admiration for Luther was Mathesius, and probably so well schooled by his master in the theory and practice of a faith which has ever to strive after firmness, that he saw in this statement nothing at all unfavourable to his hero. On the contrary, he includes the story in a list of “all manner of wise sayings” which had fallen from the lips of Luther. He even assures us at the beginning of these notes that, “The man was full of grace and of the Holy Ghost, hence all who went to him for advice as to a prophet of God found what they sought.” Judging by this Mathesius must have been very easily satisfied in the matter of firmness of faith. Perhaps had his faith been stronger it would have fared better with him in the melancholy which came upon him towards the end of his life.

  “Ah,” said Dr. Martin, so we read elsewhere in Notes made by his pupils, “I used to believe every single thing that the Pope and the monks chose to say, but now I actually cannot believe even what Christ says, Who assuredly does not lie. This is very sad and distressing. Never mind, we must and will keep it for that Day.”— “When the words of the prophet Hosea, ‘Thus saith the Lord,’ set to music by Josquinus, were sung at Dr. Martin Luther’s table, the Doctor said to Dr. Jonas: ‘As little as you believe this singing to be good, so little do I believe theology to be true.... I do indeed love Christ, but my faith ought to be much stronger and warmer.”— “Many boast of having at their fingers’ ends the doctrine of the forgiveness of sins, and I, wretch that I am, find so little comfort in the passion, resurrection, and forgiveness of sins! One thing indeed I can do, viz. eat our Lord God’s bread and drink His beer; but to take that far more necessary treasure which is the free forgiveness of sins, this I cannot succeed in doing.”