Luther the Non-Protestant

Phillip Cary has a long, intriguing article in the Fall 2005 issue of Pro Ecclesia entitled “Why Luther is Not Quite Protestant.” Cary touches on soteriological issues, particularly justification, and the relation of soteriology to sacramental theology. Early in the article, he poses the opposition between Luther and “Protestantism” with two versions of the practical syllogism. Protestantism says:

“Major Premise: Whoever believes in Christ is saved.
Minor Premise: I believe in Christ.
Conclusion: I am saved.”

Luther, by contrast, offers this syllogism:

“Major Premise: Christ told me, ‘I baptize you in the name of the Father, Son and HOly Spirit.
Minor Premise: Christ never lies but only tells the truth.
Conclusion: I am baptized (i.e., I have new life in Christ).”

Luther’s notion of faith is thus profoundly “unreflective,” that is, it does not depend on my experience of believing or on my ability to discern the presence of faith to be genuine. Faith instead clings to a word of promise that is outside myself. Here is what Cary says: “According to Luther’s account of baptism Christ speaks to me in particular, which is possible only with an external word, not a universal principle. Thus the major premise of Luther’s syllogism, which refers to me in particular, differs subtly but profoundly from the major premise of the standard Protestant syllogism, which is a universal principle applying to me only as a member of a whole class of people, i.e., all who believe in Christ. In the Lutheran syllogism, ‘you’ means me; in the Protestant syllogism, ‘you’ could only mean whoever meets the stated condition of believe in Christ . . . . In modern logic, in fact, the sentence would read: for all x, if x believes in Christ then x is saved. In order for this ‘x’ to refer to me, I must meet the condition stated in the if-clause. What is more, according to the logic of the syllogism I must know I meet the condition in order to be saved. Here Luther gets off the boat.”

Faith is a condition of salvation for Luther as much as for what Cary calls “Protestantism,” but for Luther we don’t need to know that we meet this condition. As Cary says, “Luther’s way of exhorting people to believe is to draw attention to the truth of God and warn them that their unbelief makes Christ out to be a liar . . . . This of course addresses Luther’s own besetting pastoral problem: an anxious conscience so terrified by the depth of his own sin that it seems intolerably presumptuous to believe that God would have mercy on so horrible a sinner. Luther’s demand that we must believe is meant to reverse this situation: now, unless I am presumptuous enough to call God a liar, I have no choice but to believe that God is gracious to me and forgives all my sins.”

I cannot summarize all of Cary’s article, but only offer a few criticial comments. First, I suspect that Cary’s characterization of Calvin as the prototypical “Protestant” is unbalanced. Calvin appears to me to be closer to Luther on these issues than Cary suggests.

Second, Cary characterizes Luther’s view of sacramental efficacy as “Catholic”: “Luther’s doctrine of justification by faith alone is at its origin a Catholic sacramental doctrine,” largely arising from Luther’s works on penance. That is perhaps true at one level, but there are underlying differences, having to do especially with Luther’s theology of grace, that put Luther’s sacramental theology in a very different theological context. For Luther, grace is the favor of God, and the grace that is imparted to the believed is none other than Christ Himself. Once grace is described as the living presence of Christ through the Spirit, Luther has parted company with much medieval theology (not all). Yet, with that critical qualification, Cary’s conclusion is largely right: “Protestantism cannot carry through its own deepest intention – to put faith in the word of Christ alone – without a Catholic doctrine of sacramental efficacy.”