Works in progress

I’ve decided to write more book reviews. Now that I am out of school for the summer, I’ve made up an extensive reading list I’d like to get through. Currently I’m reading a book written by one of the elders in my church, Douglas Bond. He is the head of the English department at the high school my church hosts and is a pretty good writer. The book is the first in a two part series, “Fathers and Sons.” The first book is subtitled, “Stand Fast In the Way of Truth.” Once I’ve completed it, I’m going to post a book review on my other blog http://greatmindsbookreview.wordpress.com/. Hopefully, I can do the same for the second book in the series.

I’ve also read Voddie Baucham’s newest book “What He Must Be: If He Wants to Marry My Daughter.” Unlike my brother’s teasing hinted, I’m not planning on courting Pastor Baucham’s daughter, as wonderful a young lady as I’m sure she must be. However, the initial read was pretty fast and I would like to go back to write a review after a more in-depth reading. Personally, I found Pastor Baucham’s approach to courting a little more Biblically oriented than other’s have approached the subject.

Research Paper on Martin Luther

One of the last classes I took at community college was a philosophy course. The final research paper was very short, but we were allowed to choose our topic from an extensive list of philosophers. I chose Martin Luther. Here is the paper for anyone interested in purusing it. I must admit that it still needs a lot of work, but it was enough to get me an A in the class. Enjoy!

Luther’s Foundations:

Salvation a Gift not of the Will

Jonathan Schlaudraff

Introduction to Philosophy

Professor Cochrane

June 7, 2009

Martin Luther was a man of solid belief and determination, inherited perhaps from his father, perhaps from his experiences as an Augustinian monk, but in either case, this determination drove his adamancy concerning certain doctrines of the faith that he held as especially important to legitimate Christianity. Luther was born on November 10th, 1483 to a very religious man, Hans Luther, who began his climb of the social ladder working in a mine and eventually obtaining ownership of several mines.¹ Hans Luther purposed that his son should study to become a lawyer, but was disappointed when Martin joined a monastery of the Augustinian order.² After many internal spiritual struggles over sin and redemption, disillusionments over the indulgences and relics of Rome, and searching for answers in Scripture, Luther found a passage in Romans that reformed his worldview.³ Luther embraced the Apostle Paul’s concept of “justification by faith,”⁴ which fueled Luther’s eventual rejection of Catholicism and fierce opposition to it and its practices. In Luther’s consideration of sin and salvation, as one biographer puts it, “There is… something much more drastically wrong with man than any particular list of offenses which can be enumerated, confessed, and forgiven. The very nature of man is corrupt.”⁵ Likewise, what Luther himself considered one of his greatest writings, “The Bondage of the Will,” dealt exactly with this issue, that man was not only exceptionally sinful, but also incapable of finding or obtaining salvation on his own.⁶ This belief drove Luther to oppose the Catholic Church in several important ways, the first being when Luther posted ninety-five theses on the church door in Wittenberg in 1517, which were direct challenges to Catholic doctrines.⁷ This escalated to an intellectual and sometimes violent war between Luther and his followers and the adherents to the Catholic Church.⁸ Martin Luther’s adamant position concerning the bondage of the human will to sin and corruption corresponds directly to the earlier doctrine that man can only be saved through free justification by faith. This is such that the former doctrine bears as much importance as the latter, building the foundation for Luther’s immense opposition to the Catholic Church on issues such as church authority, Biblical authority, indulgences, and marriage.

Luther’s realization from reading and teaching the Bible, and particularly the Apostle Paul, that anyone could obtain salvation simply as a free gift from God, the only prerequisite being belief on Jesus, freed Luther from his own internal spiritual struggles and gave him purpose in countering the Catholic Church’s practices. The Catholic Church taught at the time that a soul would live in a type of limbo to purge it from sin before it could move on to the eternal afterlife. Luther spoke against this on the basis of Paul’s teachings as he states so well in his “Table Talk”, “All heretics have continually failed… that they do not rightly understand or know the article of justification. If we had not this article certain and clear, it were impossible we could criticize the pope’s false doctrine of indulgences…”⁹ He continues with certainty, “If we only permit Christ to be our Saviour, then we have won, for he is the only girdle which clasps the whole body together, as St. Paul excellently teaches.”¹⁰ So Luther not only believed that salvation was a free gift from God, but also that belief in Christ was the only means to obtain it. In Romans, the Apostle Paul states, “…election of grace. And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace.”¹¹ This comforted and reformed Luther for before that “Luther probed every resource of contemporary Catholicism for assuaging the anguish of a spirit alienated from God. He tried the way of good works… He endeavored to avail himself of the merits of the saints…”¹² In summary of this doctrine of justification by faith Luther held so dear, it meant for Luther that the spiritual struggles for salvation from a corrupt world were vanquished through simply believing on Christ Jesus, freeing all people from the tyranny of guilty submission to the Catholic Church and all forms of salvation through works.

Similarly to justification by faith, Luther realized in his studies another important doctrine that though justification came through faith, no person apart from the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, one of the members of the Trinity, could believe. This means simply that the human will is incapable of choosing to believe on Jesus because the human will, as with the entire essence of mankind, is in bondage to corruption and sin. One particularly recognized intellectual, Desiderius Erasmus, was pressed to write against Luther, which led to a book titled “On Free Will” and Luther responded with a work titled “The Bondage of the Will.”¹³ In this discussion, Luther revealed to Erasmus, “…you alone, in contrast with all others, have attacked the real thing, that is, the essential issue. You have not wearied me with those extraneous issues about the Papacy, purgatory, indulgences and such like—trifles, rather than issues—in respect of which almost all to date have sought my blood…”¹⁴ Of all the issues that Luther dealt with, this he considered pivotal to everything else. It set the foundation for justification by faith, for faith being a gift from God means justification is henceforth a free gift not won through indulgences, purgatory, or good works. Luther was emphatic on this point throughout all of his teaching whether it was his Bible commentary,¹⁵ “Table Talk,”¹⁶ or discourse on “The bondage of the Will.”¹⁷ As an Augustinian monk Luther quotes Augustine extensively throughout his book on the will. Augustine himself wrote in favor of the idea that mankind apart from God can work nothing toward his or her own salvation including faith except it is given to him or her.¹⁸ The ideology that Luther taught and propagated undermined the political and economic foundations of the Catholic Church.

Practically for Luther, these doctrines of justification by faith and the bondage of the human will to sin means that the Catholic Church’s custom of selling indulgences for salvation or for fewer years in purgatory and their practice of charging admittance to see and worship relics for the same purpose was blatant fraud. As the biographer Bainton states about Luther, “This was too much.”¹⁹ Luther took action, being particularly provoked by one man known for selling indulgences, John Tetzel.²⁰ Luther then began to realize the problems with multitudes of Catholic doctrines and practices beginning as already stated with indulgences, then also the worship of saints, monasticism in general, the papacy, the holy sacraments, marriage and especially that of ministers and priests, and many other precepts.²¹ Luther also put his new found beliefs to practice, like when he married a nun, Katherine Von Bora, and produced a multitude of children.²² This extreme opposition did not settle well with the Catholic Church and Luther was first summoned before Cardinal Cajetan, then issued a papal bull for which he was then summoned before the Diet of Worms.²³ That is where Luther made likely his most famous statement of conviction that, in response to a charge that he renounce his writings, “I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted, and my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and will not retract anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience. I cannot do otherwise, here I stand, may God help me.”²⁴ Interestingly, Luther was not executed, though plainly many desired that fate for him. Instead, Luther has become the icon of the Protestant reformation, known for his brash opposition of the Catholic Church.

In the twenty-first century, Luther still affects modern culture and the modern church with his ideologies concerning justification by faith and, though less recognized, but equally important, the concept of the bondage of the human will to sin. There is even a denomination that bears the title of Lutheran. In an introduction to the book titled “The bondage of the Will,” J. I. Packer writes that many other reformers such as “John Calvin… Ulrich Zwingli, Martin Bucer, and all the leading Protestant theologians of the first epoch of the Reformation, stood precisely on the same ground here,” that of Luther’s ideologies concerning will and justification by faith.²⁵ One has only to see that over fifty percent of Americans in the United States label themselves as Protestants to realize how much of an influence Luther has been throughout history as one of the most pivotal people in a movement that has shaped entire cultures and countries.²⁶ J. I. Packer quotes insightfully an editor on Luther as stating concerning the book “The Bondage of the Will” that “Whoever puts this book down without having realized that evangelical theology stands or falls with the doctrine of the bondage of the will has read it in vain.”²⁷ Likewise, anyone who has read into the man Martin Luther without realizing the foundational doctrines of justification by faith and the bondage of the human will as how Luther describes being the “essential issue… the vital spot,” has studied Luther in vain.²⁸ To understand Luther’s doctrine is to understand his influence, his character, his passion, and his God.

Notes

1. Roland H. Bainton (1995), Here I Stand: A life of Martin Luther, (New York : Meridian), xii, 19.
2. Ibid, 25-26.
3. Ibid, 48-49.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid, 41.
6. Martin Luther (1957), The Bondage of the Will, (Michigan: Fleming H. Revell), 40.
7. Bainton, Here I stand, 60-61.
8. Ibid, 63-64.
9. Martin Luther (1995), Table talk of Martin Luther, (Michigan: Baker Books), 188.
10. Ibid.
11. Rom. 11:5-6 (King James Version).
12. Bainton, Here I stand, 40.
13. Ernst F. Winter (1961), Discourse on Free Will, (New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing), v.
14. Luther, The bondage of the Will, 319.
15. Martin Luther (2002), Faith and freedom: an invitation to the writings of Martin Luther, (New York: Vintage), 90.
16. Luther, Table Talk, 186.
17. Luther, The bondage of the Will, 319.
18. Aurelius Augustine, A Treatise on Grace and Free Will, http://www.lgmarshall.org/Augustine/augustine_willgrace.html.
19. Bainton, Here I stand, 60.
20. Ibid.
21. Ibid, 15, 106.
22. Luther, Faith and Freedom, 245.
23. Peter Manns (1982), Martin Luther: an illustrated biography, (New York: Crossroad), 221-222.
24. Luther, Faith and Freedom, 20.
25. Luther, The bondage of the Will, 58.
26. CIA, World Fact Book, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/us.html.
27. Luther, The bondage of the Will, 58.
28. Ibid, 319.

Bibliography

Augustine, Aurelius. A Treatise on Grace and Free Will. http://www.lgmarshall.org/Augustine/augustine_willgrace.html

Bainton, Roland H. (1995). Here I Stand: A life of Martin Luther. New York : Meridian.

Brian Tierney (1977). Martin Luther –Reformer or Revolutionary. New York: Random House, Inc.

Luther, martin (2002). Faith and freedom: an invitation to the writings of Martin Luther. New York: Vintage.

Luther, Martin (1995). Table talk of Martin Luther. Michigan: Baker Books.

Luther, Martin (1957). The Bondage of the Will. Michigan: Fleming H. Revell.

Manns, Peter (1982). Martin Luther: an illustrated biography. New York: Crossroad.

Winter, Ernst F. (1961). Discourse on Free Will. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing.

Back to blogging

Well, it has been over six months since I last posted on this blog. A lot has happened since then and I cannot say that I have much motivation to continue blogging. I do like being able to write book reviews and every now and again argue with an atheist or two, but in general, blogging I must admit is very impersonal. Perhaps I will start posting again, but the goal or the result of such activity I cannot see.

So until later then,

~Jahothanan