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| Martin Luther and Aristotle, by Simone Passaro. |
Luther's Lectures on Romans (1515-1516) is a great example in support of the quotation above. There is a lot that can be said about Luther's attitude towards philosophy, that is, to the philosophy of his time (see the entry "Philosophy" in What Luther Say; Part 2 of The Oxford Handbook to Martin Luther's Theology; Christine Helmer, The Trinity and Martin Luther; and my Luther's Augustinian Theology of the Cross, for what it is worth). I will mention only a few things about that here, and I refer the reader to the sources just mentioned for more detailed discussions.
The passage I am interested in is Luther's commentary on Romans 8:19: "For the expectation of the creature waits for the revelation of the sons of God." (Rom. 8:19). The Reformer begins commenting on this verse as follows. I am quoting from Luther's Scholia in Luther's Works: Vol. 25, pages 25:361-362 (W, LVI, 370-373), with the help of Giancarlo Pani's and Franco Buzzi's respective Italian editions.
The apostle philosophizes and thinks about things in a different way than the philosophers and metaphysicians do. For the philosophers so direct their gaze at the present state of things that they speculate only about what things are and what quality they have, but the apostle calls our attention away from a consideration of the present and from the essence and accidents of things and directs us to their future state. For he does not use the term “essence” or “activity” of the creature, or its “action,” “inaction,” and “motion,” but in an entirely new and marvelous theological word he speaks of the “expectation of the creation,” so that because his soul can hear the creation waiting, he no longer directs his attention to or inquires about the creation itself, but rather to what it is awaiting (LW 25:360-361).With "essence or activity of the creature, or its action, inaction, and motion," Luther is referring to Aristotelian metaphysics in general, or at least the way it was thought and interpreted at his time (for more on this, see James Atkinson, "Introduction" to Disputation against Scholastic Theology, in Luther: Early Theological Works, 251-265). He studied Aristotle's logic, ethics, and metaphysics while he was a student at Erfurt before entering the monastery, and he lectured at Wittenberg on Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics (Martin Brecht, Martin Luther: His Road to Reformation: 1483-1521, 92-93). Luther came to the conclusion that focusing too much on this and similar studies had to be avoided inasmuch as they indulged the mind in speculating about the structure and essence of created things, rather than looking at them teleologically and eschatologically as the apostle Paul does. In fact, says Luther, Paul produces "an entirely new and marvelous theological word" (nouo et miro vocabulo et theologico), that is, the expectation of creation.
But alas, how deeply and painfully we are ensnared in categories and questions of what a thing is; in how many foolish metaphysical questions we involve ourselves! When will we become wise and see how much precious time we waste on vain questions, while we neglect the greater ones? We are always acting this way, so that what Seneca has said is very true of us: “We do not know what we should do because we have learned unimportant things. Indeed we do not know what is salutary because we have learned only the things that destroy us” [Epistuale, 45.4] (LW 25:361).
Then, Luther adds a warning. C. S. Lewis’ words resemble Luther’s words: “Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy must be answered” ("Learning in Wartime," from The Weight of Glory, 58). Luther’s words, however, are more negative. Luther calls for a significant decrease in time spent studied metaphysics and for an increase in the study of Christ and Him crucified.
Indeed I for my part believe that I owe to the Lord this duty of speaking out against philosophy and of persuading men to heed Holy Scripture. For perhaps if another man who has not seen these things, did this, he might be afraid or he might not be believed. But I have been worn out by these studies for many years now, and having experienced and heard many things over and over again, I have come to see that it is the study of vanity and perdition. Therefore I warn you all as earnestly as I can that you finish these studies quickly and let it be your only concern not to establish and defend them but treat them as we do when we learn worthless skills to destroy them and study errors to refute them. Thus we study also these things to get rid of them, or at least, just to learn the method of speaking of those people with whom we must carry on some discourse. For it is high time that we undertake new studies and learn Jesus Christ, “and Him crucified” [1 Cor. 2:2] (LW 25:361).Then, the Reformer reiterates the importance of looking at creation in the right way, that is, teleologically and eschatologically.
Therefore you will be the best philosophers and the best explorers of the nature of things if you will learn from the apostle to consider the creation as it waits, groans, and travails, that is, as it turns away in disgust from what now is and desires that which is still in the future. For then the study of the nature of things, their accidents and their differences, will quickly grow worthless (LW 25:361).Luther then makes a pointing comparison between those who focus on essences and accidents and an imaginary man who marvels at the elements and materials that a builder intends to use and ignores the end of the building.
As a result the foolishness of the philosophers is like a man who, joining himself to a builder and marveling at the cutting and hewing and measuring of the wood and the beams, is foolishly content and quiet among these things, without concern as to what the builder finally intends to make by all of these exertions. This man is empty-headed, and the work of such an assistant is meaningless. So also the creation of God, which is skillfully prepared for the future glory, is gazed upon by stupid people who look only at its mechanics but never see its final goal (LW 25:361-362).Luther goes on to reveal the tragicomic nature of such fixation with this king of metaphysics. He says that "the things themselves reject and groan over their own essences and actions and inactions," however "we praise and glorify the knowledge of that very thing which is sad about itself and is displeased with itself." In other words, creation itself is unhappy with and groaning for the way it is now, having been subjected to the curse and vanity of sin. Some, however, glorify in and are satisfied with discovering the nature of something which considers itself (so to speak) corrupt and that longs for being different and renewed by God's deliverance. It is a "happy science" that focuses on "a sad creation."
Thus are we not completely off the track when we turn our thoughts to the praises and glories of philosophy? Look how we esteem the study of the essences and actions and inactions of things, and the things themselves reject and groan over their own essences and actions and inactions! We praise and glorify the knowledge of that very thing which is sad about itself and is displeased with itself! And, I ask you, is he not a mad man who laughs at someone who is crying and lamenting and then boasts that he sees him as happy and laughing? Certainly such a person is rightly called a madman and a maniac. Indeed, if only the rude common people foolishly thought philosophy was of some importance and did not know how to interpret the sighing of the natural order, it would be tolerable. But now it is wise men and theologians, infected by this same “prudence of the flesh,” who derive a happy science out of a sad creation, and from the sighings they laughingly gather their knowledge with marvelous display of power (LW 25:362).Luther continues (perhaps a bit too harshly now).
Thus the apostle is right in Col. 2:8 when he speaks against philosophy, saying: “See to it that no one makes a prey of you by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition.” Clearly if the apostle had wanted any philosophy to be understood as useful and good, he would not have condemned it so absolutely (LW 25:362).So, what to make of Luther's words? Luther was the right man to give a necessary blow to an ecclesiastical and academic situation that needed reformation. However, as Helmer has said about Luther's doctrine of the Trinity (The Trinity and Martin Luther, xi-xiii) Luther was not afraid to "speculate" and use philosophical terms and concepts in order to convey his message. Otherwise, it would have been rather inconsistent from Luther to comment Romans 12:1 the way he has done after his "anti-speculation" comment on Romans 8:29. In the following passage, not only Luther use Scholastic categories, but he also claims to understand those terms better than they usually were at his time. Granted, "all these terms are derived from Aristotle, though they cannot all be found in one specific passage of his writings. Luther depended upon the medieval handbooks of physics" (W. Pauck, Luther: Lectures on Romans, 322). But the point here is Luther's eclectic appropriations of Aristotelian(ish) and Scholastic categories that he uses, not in a metaphysical framework, but according to his theological, ethical, and existential purposes, first of which is to express the soteriological and anthropological doctrine of man as simul justus et peccator. This is a passage that I particularly like, and that has had a great impact on me (actually, the entirety of Lectures on Romans is very close to my heart).
This points both to traces of continuity but also (and perhaps, especially) to a radical difference. To give a better picture, it is perhaps helpful to refer to some of the theses from Luther's Disputation Against Scholastic Theology, specifically theses 35-53. It has to be kept in mind that these theses focus not so much on metaphysics (as the passages from Lectures on Romans examined here) but on soteriology and ethics.Just as there are five stages in the case of the things of nature: nonbeing, becoming, being, action, being acted upon, that is, privation, matter, form, operation, passion, according to Aristotle, so also with the Spirit: nonbeing is a thing without a name and a man in his sins; becoming is justification; being is righteousness; action is doing and living righteously; being acted upon is to be made perfect and complete. And these five stages in some way are always in motion in man. And whatever is found in the nature of man—except for the first stage of nonbeing and the last form of existence, for between these two, nonbeing and being acted upon, there are the three stages which are always in movement, namely, becoming, being, and acting—through his new birth he moves from sin to righteousness, and thus from nonbeing through becoming to being. And when this has happened, he lives righteously. But from this new being, which is really a nonbeing, man proceeds and passes to another new being by being acted upon, that is, through becoming new, he proceeds to become better, and from this again into something new. Thus it is most correct to say that man is always in privation, always in becoming or in potentiality, in matter, and always in action. Aristotle philosophizes about such matters, and he does it well, but people do not understand him well. Man is always in nonbeing, in becoming, in being, always in privation, in potentiality, in action, always in sin, in justification, in righteousness, that is, he is always a sinner, always a penitent, always righteous. For the fact that he repents makes a righteous man out of an unrighteous one. Thus repentance is the medium between unrighteousness and righteousness. And thus a man is in sin as the terminus a quo and righteousness as the terminus ad quem. Therefore if we always are repentant, we are always sinners, and yet thereby we are righteous and we are justified; we are in part sinners and in part righteous, that is, we are nothing but penitents (LW 25:433-434).
Martin Luther as a monk,
by Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472–1553).
So, did Luther hated philosophy and speculation? On the one hand, no. When they served the Scriptures and the gospel (rather than vice-versa) they were permissible and even useful. This seems to be true especially for theological subjects such as the Trinity (see Helmer) and the doctrine of the two natures in one person of Christ (see Luther's Sermons on the Gospel of St. John, and Dennis Ngien's helpful exposition of those sermons).
On the other hand, it is also true that Luther, from his early career, came to view the nature and purpose of philosophy in a new way, a new way that was not necessarily limited by the Scholastic method and that was both motivated and characterized by genuinely spiritual and ethical purposes and concerns, with the radical fallenness of creation and mankind, the cross of Christ, and the eschatological promise of future renovation as pillars of his philosophy.
To give a full picture, it would be necessary to touch many complicated issues (e.g., realism and nominalism), but that will make this blog post excessively long (and, perhaps, too boring). Much more can also be said on the relationship between the passage in question and Luther's most important theologia crucis. For more information, see the references I made in the second section above. I simply conclude quoting Luther's last words from his commentary on Romans 8:29, for completeness' sake.
Therefore we conclude that whoever searches into the essences and actions of creation rather than its groanings and expectations is without doubt a fool and a blind man, for he does not know that creatures are also a creation of God (LW 25:362).
