Euthyphro’s Dilemma

Upon checking my really outdated mail, I came across someone by the name of Gregory Koukl discussing Euthyphro’s dilemma from a Christian point of view.
The dilemma: ‘Is an act right because God says it’s so, or does God say it is so because the act is right?’
So who comes first? The absolute nature of morality or the sovereignty of the Lord?
He quotes Plato:
In Plato’s dialogue between Socrates and Euthyphro, Socrates is
attempting to understand the essence of piety and holiness:

Socrates: And what do you say of piety, Euthyphro? Is not piety,
according to your definition, loved by all the gods?
Euthyphro: Certainly.

Socrates: Because it is pious or holy, or for some other reason?

Euthyphro: No, that is the reason.

Socrates: It is loved because it is holy, not holy because it is loved?

And goes on to say that, much nearer to our times, this has been ‘revamped’ into an assault on Christianity by Bertrand Russell in his work, ‘Why I am not a Christian’:

If you are quite sure there is a difference between right and wrong,
you are then in this situation: Is that difference due to God’s fiat or
is it not? If it is due to God’s fiat, then for God Himself there is no
difference between right and wrong, and it is no longer a significant
statement to say that God is good. If you are going to say, as
theologians do, that God is good, you must then say that right and
wrong have some meaning which is independent of God’s fiat, because
God’s fiats are good and not good independently of the mere fact that
he made them. If you are going to say that, you will then have to say
that it is not only through God that right and wrong came into being,
but that they are in their essence logically anterior to God.
[italics my own]

Koukl goes on to talk about ethical voluntarism, a view that, in my understanding of it, says that God’s commands are absolute and morality is decreed by God (an act is right because God says it is.) Or more precisely,

‘Ethicist Scott Rae describes the view: “A divine command theory of
ethics is one in which the ultimate foundation for morality is the
revealed will of God, or the commands of God found in Scripture.”‘

The problems with such a view:
1. morality is arbitrary – just what God decides. What is moral today (in a most extreme case), can, merely by God’s whim, become what is immoral tomorrow.
2. reduces God’s goodness to his power. It would appear that ‘for God Himself there is no difference between right and wrong’ (Russell).

The other view, that God says the act is so because it is right, takes away God’s supremacy because he is subject to a higher law.

So how? I wondered.

Plato’s challenge forces us to consider grounding – the logical basis for a claim – in a discussion on the nature of morality. Koukl, to me, seems to digress at this point because he goes on to state that grounding becomes problematic for atheists. Working on the assumption that ‘A law is only as legitimate as the authority upon which it rests’ (something that I subscribe to too, but I classify as an assumption because somehow it appears more like an opinion than dead hard fact. Well I don’t know I haven’t delved deep enough into this) it would appear that an atheist has no suitable grounds for morality if being moral is to ‘comply with an
objective standard of good, a Law given by legitimate authority… without a transcendent Lawmaker (God), there can be no transcendent Law, and no corresponding obligation to be good’.

I think I like what Trappist monk Thomas Merton (also quoted by Koukl) said better:

‘In the name of whom or what do you ask me to behave? Why should I go to
the inconvenience of denying myself the satisfactions I desire in the
name of some standard that exists only in your imagination? Why should
I worship the fictions that you have imposed on me in the name of
nothing?’

Something I used before in my own words to illustrate my stand on how, without God, I myself feel there’s no grounds for morality and I can basically commit as many immoral acts as I want. It troubled the other party whom I was explaining it to.

Back to Euthyphro’s dilemma, Koukl proposes a solution. Here’s what he said about dilemmas:
‘The general strategy used to defeat a dilemma is to show that it’s a
false one. There are not two options, but three.’

And the solution?

‘The third option is that an objective standard exists (this avoids the
first horn of the dilemma). However, the standard is not external to
God, but internal (avoiding the second horn). Morality is grounded in
the immutable character of God, who is perfectly good. His commands are
not whims, but rooted in His holiness.’

And a more practical illustration:

‘Could God simply decree that torturing babies was moral? “No,” the
Christian answers, “God would never do that.” It’s not a matter of
command. It’s a matter of character.’

I like this quote by Scott Rae as it pretty much sums up what is said:

“Morality is not grounded ultimately in God’s commands, but in His character, which then
expresses itself in His commands.”

Yet that doesn’t solve the problem, because to say that goodness is ‘in accord with God’s character’ would seem to pave the way for a second problem; that when the bible says that God is good it simply means that ‘God has the nature and character that God has’, thereby reducing the saying that ‘God is good’ to a useless tautology.

This is Koukl’s answer:

‘God is not good in the same way that a bachelor is an unmarried male. When we say God is good, we are giving additional information, namely that God has a certain quality. God is not the very same thing as goodness (identical to it). It’s an essential characteristic of God, so there is no tautology.’
[italics my own]

Gnostics, Montanus, Celsus

Okay so who are these people…
Firstly, the story of Christian theology does not start right at the very beginning. In fact, it starts in the 2nd century AD after most of the apostles have died out, and the church begins to enter a new era in which there is no one to turn to when challenged with a new heresy or problem. From here we have the challenges of the Gnostics, Montanus and Celsus, all different in their own little way.
Before that, though, here is a useful working definition of Theology by Olson:
‘Theology is the church’s reflection on the salvation brought by Christ and on the gospel of that salvation proclaimed and explained by the first-century apostles.’
As mentioned, it started when the apostles died out. So the Church started reflecting on what the gang said when resolving disputes. Note: at this time no one had anything known as a New Testament and no one church had a collection of Apostolic writings. Largely thanks to our heretical friends in the 2nd and 3rd centuries the Church decided at last to systematise the entire thing with the birth of the Bible. Sing praise.
So on to the crux of the matter

Gnostics
If anyone thought the New Age movement is so of this century here’s food for thought: the earliest form of such a movement, existed here, in the form of the gnostics. This group of people differed in several areas, but Olson summarises what they mainly agree on, the bulk of Gnostic Theology:
1. One God, wholly transcendant, spiritual and far removed from the fallen, material universe, which he did not create (enough to ring alarm bells in any orthodox Christian’s head?) The physical universe, was created by an evil or demented lesser god (a demiurge)
2. Human beings are sparks (or droplets) of the same spiritual substance as God but are trapped in these evil, physical bodies. (hear the New Age ring? ‘Everybody is a God…’)
3. The ‘fall’ (in creation) = the fall into matter (when the divine sparks are trapped into the vile physical bodies)
4. Salvation: is to escape from the bondage of material existence. So all the divine sparks are to break free from their vile physical cages and return back to the great Spirit, God. And how is this done? God sends an emanation of himself – a spiritual redeemer – whose job it is to teach the divine sparks their true identity and by virtue of this knowledge, they will be awakened and begin their journey back to God. Salvation is by knowledge – self-knowledge.
5. Jesus the Man is the human vehicle for this heavenly messenger, who used his human form to live in the world, entering him at his baptism by John and leaving him just before he died on the cross.

What is the Gnostic challenge? The Gnostics represented the challenge to the church that salvation is only to be had by the elect few who were given to know their true natures and thus saved themselves by self-knowledge. They shunned the common biblical teachings that made salvation readily available to all, even the common layman, and taught that the key to salvation was to be the receiver of a top secret bit of information, digested and understood, by the elect few. May the Church learn today to refuse the over-reliance on information – something that, I think, I have to learn too. For we are saved by grace through faith.

Montanism
If Gnosticism was the forebear of the New Age movement Montanism has to be the ancestor of an (extremely extreme) charismatic movement.
Montanus, founder, rejected the belief in the special authority of the apostolic writings and for bishops. Not a bad starting, preventing the concentration of too much power in the hands of a select few, but here’s where it went wrong because it went to the other extreme: considering the church and her leaders spiritually dead he called for a ‘new prophecy’ with all the signs and wonders of the Pentacost.
More and more: he self-identified himself as God’s spokesman without equal (kinda equal to the claim he levelled against the church bishops if you ask me), fell into trances in which the Holy Spirit supposedly spoke through him – with his followers Montanus – or the spirit in him, if you care to believe it – would proclaim, “I am the Lord God, born among men. I am neither an angel nor a priest. I am God the Father, come to you.”
What happened to Montanus in the end was that he was excommunicated from the Church. Olson comments that it was the first divisional split in the church and could be seen as, well, a measure a bit too harsh on the part of Church authorities in dealing with heretics. In addition the Church, in a bid to avoid the exclusive claims of Montanus, strove to divert themselves from supernatural utterances and other miraculous gifts and signs and wonders – eventually such charismatic manifestations wrongly became so identified that they almost died out.

What can we learn here? ‘whenever prophesy is elevated in theory or practice alongside or higher than Scripture, Montanism rears its head’. Montanism challenged the church in that the church had to ensure that Christianity did not become ‘anything and everything and thus nothing in particular’.
From another point of view, it also should be a good reminder to the Church nowadays not to go the extreme way, like the early Church of Montanus’ times. Being overly-conservative isn’t the solution.

Celsus
Ah I love this guy. Celsus was an opponent of Christianity, invailing against the inconsistencies and superstitious elements of Christian doctrine from the viewpoint of someone committed to Greek philosophy. He wrote this a book against the Church known as The true doctrine: a discourse against the Christians’ (the funny thing is that Celsus himself was raised in a Christian family. How he came to lose the faith, is a mystery to both you and me!) His ‘contribution’ to Christianity was that he forced the Church to reconsider the faith. Let me quote Olson here fully, because I really liked what he said here:
‘Christians were faced with a choice: either ignore Celsus and critics like him and retreate into a folk religion without intellectual defense or rise to the challenge and develop cogent doctrines that would reconcile seemingly contradictory beliefs such as monotheism and the deity of Jesus Christ.’
‘God might strike a heavy blow with a heavy stick’. (Luther) So it is with Celsus, for he was one of those who forced the Church to respond theologically for the sake of salvation, or to face the other two alternatives – disunity (brought about by heretics) and fideism (relying on blind faith without reason).

From the Church’s encounter with Celsus I suppose we learn that in order to stand up for our faith it is necessary to make sure we are sound in our biblical knowledge. It also pleases :D me that what I sometimes see as my ivory-tower attempts at understanding certain things like the Trinity and the problem of pain with a benevolent and omnipotent God isn’t just irrelevant pasttimes, because they did arise from a need to ensure Christianity can rise up to the challenges levelled against her.

Church History

I apologise, mainly to myself, that I have been inefficient in my readings and so everything that I post is of a more or less ecclesiastical nature. I will go out less and study something else on top of my commentary. It is time to study art history or ancient history or even digital photography.
Anyway, in the meantime I will write a post on Church History. I have been reading, under a study group, a book for laymen on church history called The Story of Christian Theology and I seek to record whatever I’ve learnt so far – but with this post I will get on with only the intro.
Roger E. Olson (author) calls his book a ’story’, justifying it by saying that ‘the telling of history is the retelling of stories – narratives that recount… the events, movements, ideas and lives of people who have shaped cultures, religions and nations’ and so the book is ‘an attempt to tell that story well, doing justice to each of its subplots’.
Anyway, the main focus of church history in The Story of Christian Theology, what Olson calls the thread that runs throughout the narrative, is the ‘common concern all Christian theologians… have had with salvation – God’s redemptive activity in forgiving and transforming humans’. In similar form, ‘the problems of soteriology (doctrine of salvation) are usually found to be the basis from which he built up his other doctrinal views’. So the foundations of Christian theology is ultimately salvation, going back to the core of our faith. May I not forget that whilst I delve deeper into the narrative.
I remember that, before we started our discussions in the study group, our leader told us 4 rules (of which I think I can only remember three). Permit me to write in Chinese:

1. 要谦卑. 这个准则, 应该牵涉到每一门学习吧 – 若没有谦卑的心态, 怎样能学地到新事?
2. 要尊敬古人. 虽然我们偶尔会觉得他们作出的某一件事很可笑, 但必须明白, 他们那时这样子做, 是有原因的, 也有他们的苦衷. 所以, 不要 ‘鞭尸’ – 不要趁着死人不能为自己辩护下, 大大责备他们.
3. 要深信神的信实, 相信他在掌管一切, 一切事的发生, 都是按着他的旨意而行的. 要深信, 教会2000年的历史, 都有神看顾; 不管路上的风风雨雨, 他都陪伴着, 所以不需因教会所犯的错误而矢丧.

实在对不起老师 – 因为忘了他其中一点! But let me continue.

A pressing issue is here resolved – Olson refutes the claim that the story of Christian theology is the story of ‘ivory-tower professional thinkers dreaming up obscure and speculative doctrines to confuse simple Christian believers’. I suppose this is most true about the story of Christian theology: ‘every major Christian belief arose for pressing, practical reasons’. Reminds me of an evening in which I tried to explain to my father how the doctrine of the Trinity came about, which he through his readings of the bible has not seen popped out anywhere in the Old or New Testament. It came about, as we shall see in succeeding chapters, as a result of complaints levelled against Christians by non-believers that they were contradictory in the claim that God was one but had both the Father and Son, as well as some strange mix-up that appeared in the early centuries Anno Domini combining the Son with the Holy Spirit.

Then there is dissenting opinion number 2: what is theology for anyway? Olson adds that ‘without the formal reflection on the meaning of the gospel of salvation that constitutes theology, that gospel would quickly devolve into mere folk religion and lose all conviction as truth and influence on the church or society’ This will be evinced later when the church, in the 2nd century AD, had to deal with the threat of 1. the gnostics and 2. the sceptics (who usually levelled criticism against the church from a Hellenistic philosophical viewpoint). The Church could choose to rise up to the challenge, and defend the faith through the development of theology, using a reasonable (not reasoned) approach, or could choose to ignore the dissent and emphasise blind faith, which would cause Christianity to descend into the realm of folk religion.

3rd question: Why study heretics? To this the answer is that ‘it is almost impossible to appreciate the meaning of orthodoxy without understanding the heresies that forced its development.’ As mentioned before the Church grew its theology through challenges it faced in the form of heresies. To know real money one does have to know counterfeit money.

Now the 4th question is one I asked :) and so I need to include this for my benefit when I revise this at a later date. The question is, ‘why study something as obscure as church history when really there could be more relevant things to engage oneself in? How does this help in this life, and in preparation for the next life to come?’ (At this length of time away from the lesson in which I made my enquiry I detect a similarity with question no. 2.)

Olson replies (in his writing, I was referred to it):
‘Today we have the doctrines of the Trinity and of the two natures of Jesus Christ… Understanding how and why these and other crucial beliefs of Christianity were developed and so precisely defined helps avoid their present neglect and possible eventual loss‘

Yet another, though related, point coming from our leader was that we learn from history. Whatever has happened in history is bound to repeat itself (recall Ecclesiastes, nothing under the sun is new) and if we knew a heresy in the church before, as well the orthodox beliefs of the church, it would better equip us to stand up for the right way when old heresies masquerading as new challenges come up to attack the church.

WHAT is Theology?

I wasn’t exactly happy with my category ‘theology’, because it’s so inexact, even outright wrong, to classify something like the gospel mandate in the bible and, worse, a biography of Martin Luther, under ‘Theology’. So I tried doing a google search to find out what exactly it meant.
Our favourite friend Wikipedia yielded some astonishing results:

Firstly, though, the norm:
Definition:
Theology (Greek θεος, theos, “God”, + λογια, logia, “words,” “sayings,” or “discourse”) is reasoned discourse concerning religion, spirituality and gods.
Theologians attempt to use rational analysis and argument to discuss, interpret, and teach on any of a myriad of religious topics.

But then:
The word ‘theology’ has classical Greek origins, but was slowly given new senses when it was taken up in both Greek and Latin forms by Christian authors.
(!)

So we usurped it?

History of the term

The word “Theology” is derived from Hellenistic Greek, but its meaning has changed significantly through its use in the European Christian thought of the Middle Ages and Enlightenment

The term theologia is used in Classical Greek literature, with the meaning “discourse on the gods or cosmology” (see Lidell and Scott’s Greek-English Lexicon for references).

Spread the Gospel!

In keeping with the 大使命, I went on a search to see what else there was in the bible calling all believers to obey the Lord’s call to spread the good news about the kingdom of God besides Matthew 28
(perhaps my favourite ones are from the Old Testament, because they are less obvious, yet they show that the kingdom of God has always been a concern of the Lord’s since time immemorial)
Isaiah 45: 5 – 25:
5 I am the LORD, and there is no other;
apart from me there is no God.
I will strengthen you,
though you have not acknowledged me,

6 so that from the rising of the sun
to the place of its setting
men may know there is none besides me.
I am the LORD, and there is no other.

7 I form the light and create darkness,
I bring prosperity and create disaster;
I, the LORD, do all these things.

8 “You heavens above, rain down righteousness;
let the clouds shower it down.
Let the earth open wide,
let salvation spring up,
let righteousness grow with it;
I, the LORD, have created it.

9 “Woe to him who quarrels with his Maker,
to him who is but a potsherd among the potsherds on the ground.
Does the clay say to the potter,
‘What are you making?’
Does your work say,
‘He has no hands’?

10 Woe to him who says to his father,
‘What have you begotten?’
or to his mother,
‘What have you brought to birth?’

11 “This is what the LORD says—
the Holy One of Israel, and its Maker:
Concerning things to come,
do you question me about my children,
or give me orders about the work of my hands?

12 It is I who made the earth
and created mankind upon it.
My own hands stretched out the heavens;
I marshaled their starry hosts.

13 I will raise up Cyrus [a] in my righteousness:
I will make all his ways straight.
He will rebuild my city
and set my exiles free,
but not for a price or reward,
says the LORD Almighty.”

14 This is what the LORD says:
“The products of Egypt and the merchandise of Cush, [b]
and those tall Sabeans—
they will come over to you
and will be yours;
they will trudge behind you,
coming over to you in chains.
They will bow down before you
and plead with you, saying,
‘Surely God is with you, and there is no other;
there is no other god.’ ”

15 Truly you are a God who hides himself,
O God and Savior of Israel.

16 All the makers of idols will be put to shame and disgraced;
they will go off into disgrace together.

17 But Israel will be saved by the LORD
with an everlasting salvation;
you will never be put to shame or disgraced,
to ages everlasting.

18 For this is what the LORD says—
he who created the heavens,
he is God;
he who fashioned and made the earth,
he founded it;
he did not create it to be empty,
but formed it to be inhabited—
he says:
“I am the LORD,
and there is no other.

19 I have not spoken in secret,
from somewhere in a land of darkness;
I have not said to Jacob’s descendants,
‘Seek me in vain.’
I, the LORD, speak the truth;
I declare what is right.

20 “Gather together and come;
assemble, you fugitives from the nations.
Ignorant are those who carry about idols of wood,
who pray to gods that cannot save.

21 Declare what is to be, present it—
let them take counsel together.
Who foretold this long ago,
who declared it from the distant past?
Was it not I, the LORD ?
And there is no God apart from me,
a righteous God and a Savior;
there is none but me.

22 “Turn to me and be saved,
all you ends of the earth;
for I am God, and there is no other.

23 By myself I have sworn,
my mouth has uttered in all integrity
a word that will not be revoked:
Before me every knee will bow;
by me every tongue will swear.

24 They will say of me, ‘In the LORD alone
are righteousness and strength.’ “
All who have raged against him
will come to him and be put to shame.

25 But in the LORD all the descendants of Israel
will be found righteous and will exult.

1 Thessalonians 3:2
We sent Timothy, who is our brother and God’s fellow worker in spreading the gospel of Christ, to strengthen and encourage you in your faith

Matthew 24:!4
And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations

Matthew 26:13
I tell you the truth, wherever this gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.

Mark 8:35
For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.

Matthew 10:29-30
“I tell you the truth,” Jesus replied, “no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—and with them, persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal life.”

Mark 13:10
And the gospel must first be preached to all nations.

Luke 9:6
So they set out and went from village to village, preaching the gospel and healing people everywhere.

Acts 8:25
When they had testified and proclaimed the word of the Lord, Peter and John returned to Jerusalem, preaching the gospel in many Samaritan villages.

Acts 2:11
(both Jews and converts to Judaism Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!” (preaching to the Gentiles too!)

[like the following two as well: seldom see Peter in such a noble state - or is it due to lack of exposure?]
Acts 11:5-18
I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision. I saw something like a large sheet being let down from heaven by its four corners, and it came down to where I was. I looked into it and saw four-footed animals of the earth, wild beasts, reptiles, and birds of the air. Then I heard a voice telling me, ‘Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.’

“I replied, ‘Surely not, Lord! Nothing impure or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’

“The voice spoke from heaven a second time, ‘Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.’ This happened three times, and then it was all pulled up to heaven again.

“Right then three men who had been sent to me from Caesarea stopped at the house where I was staying. The Spirit told me to have no hesitation about going with them. These six brothers also went with me, and we entered the man’s house. He told us how he had seen an angel appear in his house and say, ‘Send to Joppa for Simon who is called Peter. He will bring you a message through which you and all your household will be saved.’

“As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit came on them as he had come on us at the beginning. Then I remembered what the Lord had said: ‘John baptized with[a]water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ So if God gave them the same gift as he gave us, who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to think that I could oppose God?”

When they heard this, they had no further objections and praised God, saying, “So then, God has granted even the Gentiles repentance unto life.”

Acts 15:7-9
(Peter speaking) Brothers, you know that some time ago God made a choice among you that the Gentiles might hear from my lips the message of the gospel and believe. God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us. He made no distinction between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith.

Galatians 1:16-17
(Paul) preach him among the Gentiles… nor did I go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I was, but I went immediately into Arabia and later returned to Damascus.

Luke 8:1
After this, Jesus traveled about from one town and village to another, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God.

[another Old Testament one that I like. Although it concerns Moses' laws, and not exactly the salvation preached in the gospel, yet I think it deserves a mention because the Pentateuch (?) is after all part of the bible and the knowledge of the fall of man, sin and the trouble Man is put through in order to be reconciled with God before Christ is an essential part of the OT that we cannot ignore.]
(the whole of Nehemiah 8 is relevant, but I will select quotes:
1 all the people assembled as one man in the square before the Water Gate. They told Ezra the scribe to bring out the Book of the Law of Moses, which the LORD had commanded for Israel.

2 So on the first day of the seventh month Ezra the priest brought the Law before the assembly, which was made up of men and women and all who were able to understand. 3 He read it aloud from daybreak till noon as he faced the square before the Water Gate in the presence of the men, women and others who could understand. And all the people listened attentively to the Book of the Law.
.
.
.
8 They read from the Book of the Law of God, making it clear [a] and giving the meaning so that the people could understand what was being read.

Luke 2:17
When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child (considered spreading the gospel to me, since it’s about the birth of the Saviour and the salvation that is to come)

Acts 6:7
So the word of God spread. The number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly, and a large number of priests became obedient to the faith.

[Although the next three concern themselves with descriptions of how the Word of God spread, yet I think they should be included because, merely as a record of the spreading of the Gospel in the early days of the Church, they function as reminders for us here today to continue doing the same.]
Acts 12:24
But the word of God continued to increase and spread.

Acts 13:49
The word of the Lord spread through the whole region.

Acts 19:20
In this way the word of the Lord spread widely and grew in power.

Although not included in the form of quotes, I have been reading my bible commentary (Matthew Henry’s bible commentary, recommended for interesting insights and occasionally something that greatly illumines the text) from Genesis on – I haven’t gone very far and thus cannot provide much information on this part, but so far, I have seen:

1. That Adam lived until just before Noah. And Matthew Henry surmises that, given how Adam served as family priest (we see that in the instance where Cain and Abel came over to Adam with their sacrifices to the Lord) it is highly likely that he continued to preach the truth of God amongst his descendants.

2. That Noah himself in all probability preached to his sinful neighbours. Even if he didn’t, Matthew Henry struck me with a pretty good insight: the very act of building the ark itself was preaching – of the doom that would ensue, the deluge which was the cause behind the construction of the ark.

3. Abram, through his sojourning from Ur of the Chaldees to Canaan, and in his upright behaviour in the foreign land (that deeply contrasts with Lot’s neighbours Sodom and Gomorrah), was himself professing the faith.

It’s not really salvation, I know, that the Old Testament figures I’ve talked about so far have been preaching. But does one have to explicitly state the message of salvation in order to be considered spreading the Word? If I am allowed to use what St. Francis of Assisi said to support my argument:
“Preach the gospel always, and, when necessary, speak.”

The Diet of Worms

Charles responded with the invitation to the Diet of Worms. There was no indication of whether Luther should be allowed to defend his position, or merely requested to recant. However, this was delayed when Aleander wrote to the Emperor arguing against the necessity of a secular tribunal when the case had already been settled in the ecclesiastical court. Charles recalled his invitation. Due to changes in politics, however, the Emperor finally promised Frederick to take up responsibility with regards Luther. This did not mean Luther was to have a fair hearing, but merely a committee set up. Aleander was given the opening address and bungled it with the proclamation that Luther was a heretic, the committee was to endorse the Pope’s jurisdiction, not to enact a judgement of its own. So the committee waited allowing for public violence to build up. Lampoons and satires, and the Emperor decided on a plenary session of the diet. Once again Aleander was given an opening speech and bungled his chance a second time: the papal bull against Luther he had in his hands two days ago but refrained from producing it because it contained Hutten as well. He did, however, attack Luther pretty well regarding the subversive tracts issued after the bull, citing him a heretic and accusing him of that outburst against Prierias about washing the laity’s hands in the blood of the clergy. Widespread dissent, and the electors of Saxony and Brandenberg had to be separated on the floor by Cardinal Lang.
The emperor, probably having had enough, reverted back to his original intention that Luther should come. Some of the most interesting lampoons abound in this period, one of them entitled the Litany of the Germans:
Christ hear the Germans; Christ hear the Germans. From evil counselors deliver Charles, O Lord. From poison on the way to Worms deliver Martin Luther, preserve Ulrich von Hutten, O Lord. Suffer not thyself, Lord, to be crucified afresh. Purge Aleander, O Lord. The nuncios working against Luther at Worms, smite from heaven. O Lord Christ, hear the Germans.
At Worms Luther was tried by an official of the Archbishop of Trier, Eck by name (not John Eck of Leipzig fame). Eck placed before Luther all his works and asked if they were his. Luther replied in a voice barely audible that he acknowledged ownership of them. This was pretty important as before this, the leader of the Catholic moderates, a person named Glapion, the emperor’s confessor, demonstrated that all the works of Luther were in fact passable by the Church’s standards save The Babylonian Captivity which attacked the very foundations of the Church. As Bainton wrote, ‘the door was closed’ by such an acknowledgement on Luther’s part, but Eck opened it again by asking if he defended them all or rejected a part. To which Luther, startlingly for the Diet and all present, who expected a professor to come ready to defend himself, stated that the matter ‘touches God and his word’ and thus was no simple matter. To which he asked for time to deliberate over an answer. It was accorded and next evening Luther appeared saying that they were ‘all mine, but… they are not all of one sort’, and went on to clarify: some dealt with faith and life, some protested the eroding of christian values through the corruption of the church and a third class attacked private individuals. Eck replied that he had not sufficiently differentiated and repeated his question as to whether all were his works, or did he repudiate some.
Here began Luther’s famous speech:
Since then Your Majesty and your lordships desire a simple reply, I will answer without horns and without teeth. Unless I am convicted by Scripture and plain reason – I do not accept the authority of popes and councils, for they have contradicted each other – my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. God help me. Amen.
Earlier printed versions, Bainton adds, have also added the words ‘Here I stand. I cannot do otherwise’ which he surmises, could have been genuine, the lack of records being attributable to the fact that the listeners could have been too stunned to write it down.
Luther was asked to repeat it, which he did, in latin, as he had previously spoken in German. By the next day it was heard that all six of the electors were ready to pronounce Luther a heretic, including Frederick, who was indeed very troubled to know whether Luther ‘had or had not been convicted from the scriptures’.
The emperor himself issued a speech indicating he pronounced Luther a heretic after hearing his obstinate defense and asked for the lords to declare themselves. On the following day it was shown that not all six but four signed, the two dissenters being Ludwig of the Palatinate and Frederick of Saxony. As Bainton notes, ‘he had come into the clear’.
The emperor felt he had sufficient backing to condemn Luther, but that evening saw on the door of the town hall and elsewhere in Worms a placard containing the symbol of the peasant revolt, the Bundschuch, the sandal clog of the workman.
The emperor then tried to break Luther down through a committee, which could be a harder trial since the people present were genuinely concerned with maintaining the unity of the Church. Luther was reminded that if he was pulled down, so would Melanchthon, and Luther was significantly moved (his eyes welled with tears), but stood firm on his position on the individualism of the Christian man to judge for himself (the issue of contention at this committee was not Glapion’s issue on the Babylonian Captivity threatening the fundamentals of the Church, but more on the issue of the Freedom of the Christian Man that threatened the unity of the Church.) The committee reported failure to the emperor who then proceeeded with his edict, but had to wait for the diet to be sufficiently reduced in numbers (for the dissenters to leave) before he could sign it with common agreement from the remaining numbers.
This move turned the secular council into an ecclesiastical puppet, as it were, and the Church of Rome, which tried so hard to prevent this, by an ironic twist, happened to actualise it.

The Appeal to Caesar and the run-up to the Diet

Luther tried a last avenue for his defense: he had hitherto approached the Pope and then a Council with little result, and so the time was ripe for the appeal to Caesar, as it were, to Charles, as well as to, it appears, the nobles, as with his Address to the German Nobility. Luther argued chiefly for the reinstatement of the Church to her role as governor over spiritual affairs, for the government to prevent the peasants from ecclesiastical extortion and to stop civil affairs from coming under the interference of the Church. His arguments, however, were less from the standpoint of wishing to reinstate the civil function but more driven towards a purification of the Church, in the hope that such action would ensure the delineation of borders between civil and spiritual functions giving the Church the time to afford once again the concentration she should have with regards her duties to the Lord and Master.
Meanwhie the Bull was to be published. The task of its publication in the north was handed to John Eck and Jerome Aleander, both of whom were named papal nuncios and special inquisitors for this purpose. Both did not relish their jobs and undertook them in great danger to their personal safety. They divided the work along geographical lines, Eck taking on the east, Franconia and Bavaria; Aleander, the Low Countries and the Rhine. Eck, unknown to the latter, was given license to include more names at his discretion besides Luther’s for excommunication. As Luther appealed to Charles so did the papacy, everyone having different expectations of the young Prince who had yet to declare his stance.
Eck met with the most extraordinary oppositions. Duke George held back saying his locality had not been specifically named, Frederick did so in a most unexpected way, saying that he learnt from Aleander that Eck had no permission to condemn anyone else but Luther, so Eck was then forced to produce his secret instructions. The very bishops held back here, and printing could not go on as the universities did not wish to undertake the printing – Vienna declining without the bishop’s go-ahead, and Wittenberg arguing the insensibility of asking a party in the dispute to perform the task.
Aleander’s problem was due to the fact that the bull had already come out in print before he entered the picture, and in a form strangely different from his own. His desire to carry out book burnings of Luther’s texts were also circumvented at various times.
Luther finally got the bull in 3 months, and deemed it most unchristian. He wrote a reply titled ‘Against the execrable bull of Antichrist’, going on the assumption that it was by Eck rather than by the Pope. The tone was accusative. But 2 weeks later another tract addressed to the Pope in the most deferential terms appeared, the differences between first one then the other being so starkly and strikingly different – a testimony to the fact that Luther was fighting, not a man but a system, in the sense that, though individual Popes were devout Christian believers, collectively they were Antichrist. The similarity being, however, that Luther in this tract appealed to the Pope not to let those who put him above the power of a Council to succeed, condemning their actions, though the tone to the Pope was always deferential.
Luther was given 60 days’ grace from the date of receiving the bull to recant, which he never did. Instead, he burnt the bull, along with the canon law, the impious papal constitutions and books of scholastic theology (Aleander, if you would remember, was already burning Luther’s books in cities in his position as papal nuncio.)
Frederick took on himself the responsibility of excusing Luther’s actions to the Emperor, a bold move given that he attempted to extricate Luther by pointing out he was provoked by the book burnings of his own works to do like in return, though Luther had effectively renounced the entire legal code of the medieval ages in burning the canon law.

Exsulge Domine (The Papal Bull)

Luther went on to publish tracts now referred to as his primary works: The Sermon on Good Works, The Papacy at Rome, The Address to the German Nobility, The Babylonian Captivity, The Freedom of the Christian Man. The Babylonian Captivity was the most controversial in his time as it dealt with the sacrementalism in Church, Luther arguing that the Church over-relied on these and cut down the 7 sacrements to 2, eradicating the sacrements on confirmation, marriage, ordination, penance and extreme unction. His rationale: the Church then relied too much on sacrements as the only way to grace and privileged the clergy over the laity. Thus he cut them down to two: baptism and the Lord’s Supper. But that was not all, for Luther made amendments even to the last two: Mass was reduced to the Lord’s Supper. Luther did not agree with the Catholic interpretation of transubstantiation and the efficacy of the rite regardless of any human weakness because this discounted the need for faith for the rite to pull through. Also, the wine, which was before only the privilege of the priest, for fear that the laity might spill a part of Christ on the floor, was to be given to all in spite of the risk because all are equal as believers before the Lord.
Here surfaced a problem in Luther’s theology: the underpinnings of the Lord’s Supper suggested individualism, as the efficacy of the rite depended on individual faith, but Luther went in the opposite direction with regards baptism: he was not willing to agree that the efficacy of infant baptism was to be discounted due to the inability of the baby to demonstrate faith, arguing that infants must be seized from the devil.
By this time the elections for the Holy Roman Emperor had come through. Charles of Spain was elected and with this problem out of hand the Church was once again ready to resume prosecution. Eck went to Rome armed with records of Leipzig and the condemnations of Cologne and Louvain – the results of Leipzig were to be judged by Erfurt and Paris, but both had not made moves so far. Attempts were made first to suppress Luther through the Augustinian movement through Staupitz, who extricated himself by resigning as vicar, and then through Frederick, whose subtle politic moves of avoidance and stalling are revealed in his reply that the case had been referred to another, the Archbishop of Trier, Richard of Greiffenklau. Finally the delays ended when four meetings were called for the consistory. On the second day of the meetings the Pope retired to his hunting lodge whilst the canonists, theologians and cardinals carried on: eventually the decision was made to repudiate 41 of his articles. The papal bull was constructed and given to the Pope for a preface, in which (hilariously) he used imagery in keeping with his hunting lodge, calling Luther ‘a wild boar [in the] vineyard’. The bull did not condemn all of Luther’s writings as heretical, but instead adopted a position similar to the Council of Constance with the allegation that the 41 articles were ‘heretical, or scandalous, or false, or offensive to pious ears, or seductive of simple minds, or repugnant to Catholic truth, respectively’. It was hinted that this could have been a clue as to the dissent of the clergy as to which articles belonged to which category.
The bull took three months to reach Luther officially, though he had already got wind of it before the time was ripe. Renewed offers from the knights and letters of concern from well-wishers poured in, but Luther put his trust in the Lord, claiming that it was an honour to suffer for Christ’s sake. He had a noteworthy outburst at this time, though, when a new attack by Prierias proved too much to bear. He lashed out an attack claiming that, if heretics were punished with fire, amongst other things, why not wash the laity’s hands in the blood of the clergy? This was used against him subsequently, although he repented of his outburst and pointed to the hypothetical nature of his claim by highlighting the ‘if’.

Characters in the narrative

Carrying on from the previous post about the Leipzig debate between John Eck and Martin Luther, the former accused the latter of following in the path of John Wyclif and John Hus (spot the pattern here? Unfortunately one John turns out different from the rest). The charge of Bohemianism was painful for Luther since it recalled how Bohemian Hussites, followers of Hus, had invaded Saxony before.
Through a lunch break in the programme Luther went to the library to read up on Hus and here he made a startling discovery: that certain of Hus’ most christian allegations were actually condemned at the Council of Constance (where Hus himself was condemned). The first being, ‘the one holy universal church is the company of the predestined’, the other, that ‘the universal holy Church is one, as the number of the elect is one’, the latter he recognised as amongst Augustine’s writings.
He reported this back in the debate and Duke George went, ‘The plague!’. Luther went on to defend them saying not all were heretical, they were pronounced this way: ’some were heretical, some erroneous, some seditious, and some offensive to pious ears respectively’. Eck retorted that should Luther insist on defending them he was likewise heretical, erroneous, seditious, offensive to pious ears respectively.
They went on to discuss purgatory and Eck cited II Maccabees 12:45 that ‘Wherefore he made the propitiation for them that had died, that they might be released from their sin.’ Here Luther challenged the validity of the Old Testament Apocrypha.
The debate lasted 18 days and had to end when Duke George intervened because he needed the grounds for another activity. The two continued the debate in a pamphlet war. By this time Eck had dubbed Luther ‘the Saxon Hus’ and was ready to inform the Pope that the son of iniquity was also the Saxon Hus.
From hereon Luther’s Reformation came into relation with two other movements of the day, the Renaissance and nationalism. The Renaissance, with its emphasis on man bringing every aspect of life under his control, was essentially humanistic. Humanism and the Church coexisted pretty well, with exceptions – the freedom of scholarship and the right of free investigation (of the bible), the latter in which they agreed with the Lutherans, as well as with regards the problem of indulgences.
Amongst the Humanist camp several lent their support to Luther at various points: Melanchthon, Pirkheimer (he lampooned Eck in a cartoon), Erasmus (a pretty neutral person who at first supported Luther discriminatingly, then turned the other way) and Durer (his early death was speculated to have prevented him from being a strong help).
Erasmus’ and Luther’s similarity lied in their being so very Christian. Erasmus had a project publishing the New Testament in the original Greek with annotations and notes in which he often injected annotations which were pointedly referring to Luther’s current struggle with the church, avidly in support of the monk. However, the difference laid in the fact that Erasmus was a Humanist desirous of bringing religion in the sphere of man, not as scholars did with a ‘rationally integrated theology’ but to introduce religion to every man, as his tracts for the Aztecs which sometimes simplified theological notions showed. Also, Erasmus was desirious of unity amongst the European nations which was fast disappearing because of the nationalist movement.
Amongst the nationalists Bainton mentioned two: Hutten and Sickingen, desirous of making Germany a strong nation away from the power of the Pope. Hutten perceived that Luther’s rhetoric in the debate had similarities with his own mode of thinking and so did Sickingen (who appears to serve under Hutten). Hutten offered the protection of the knights for Luther, who refused as he felt that, as AntiChrist (he called the Pope that) rose without the hand of man, so will he fall in like manner.

Indulgences and the 95 theses

Indulgences: I was given to know that these meant a transfer of credit from saints to those believers badly in need of it. Obtained through the possession of holy relics of saints.
In Luther’s day these were prolific. Albert of Brandenburg (some influential Prince/Lord/whatever – basically a secular leader) aspired to the arch-bishopric of Mainz (in those days it was not uncommon for princes to also be bishops) and a way of getting the papacy to allow that was through money talk.
The deal worked out; to help Albert finance his arch-bishopric, he was allowed to sell indulgences in his territories. These bordered the place where Luther resided (electoral Saxony under Frederick the Wise, who did not allow the sale of these indulgences because he was afraid they would compete with the indulgences of All Saints at Wittenburg) and it was relatively easy for Luther’s parishioners to go over the border and return with most ‘amazing concessions’.
The cry of the peddlars of indulgences:
As soon as the coin in the coffer rings,
The soul from purgatory springs
[I always found this amusing. It becomes less so when one thinks of the countless peasants of hundreds of years giving of their money for such a cause]
That was about the last straw for Luther because he produced the 95 theses and nailed it on the church door. But print got the word out and before long it was in circulation in the vernacular. Along with explications that he produced later on the theses these were the main points: an objection to financing St Peter’s with the money of the plebeians, denial of the Pope’s powers over purgatory and consideration on the welfare of the sinner. Luther stressed penance, not papal indulgence, for the absolution of sin and refuted the claim that the Pope had powers to reduce the suffering in purgatory for the years of suffering was determined by God. A perhaps more biting point was what he said about indulgences impeding salvation because they removed the all-encompassing nature of love that forgives and conquers all, winning sinners to Christ, replacing it instead with a sense of false security obtained through one’s own works – the purchase of relics.
General dissent followed. Luther then had to go for the triennial gathering of the chapter at Heidelberg. Opponents bet that he would be burned within a month or two weeks, and he himself was aware of the possibility of assassination on his way there. But he went and surprisingly was received well.
Flak came from the Dominican Order, the rival monk order, who staunchly supported Tetzel (a Dominican in charge of the sale of indulgences in Albert’s territories) and chief among them, a Prierias, Master of the Sacred Palace of Rome, was charged by the Pope to send Luther a reply that virtually equated the universal Church with the Roman Church, representatively in the Cardinals, virtually in the Pope. Luther carried on a historical debate arguing the Greek church in the early centuries did not recognise the authority of the Church of Rome but surely these souls were undoubtedly saved?
Luther at this point of time was asked by the Pope to appear at Rome for a trial, this was amended to Germany instead. Here began his interview with Cardinal Cajetan, a papal legate. Cajetan, however, wasn’t interested in letting Luther debate or explain himself, but rather treated his purpose as that of getting Luther to say ‘revoco (I recant)’, which Luther refused.
The main issue treated at this trial was that of Luther’s denial of the Church’s treasury of merit which Cajetan claimed was clearly written in the bull Unigenitus of Pope Clement VI. At first Luther tried reinterpreting the sense of the written word but following the trial Luther saw that there was no reconciling the decretal with the Gospel and consequently condemned papal writings and the writings of the Apostolic Fathers that were inconsistent with Biblical teachings.
Yet Cajetan had been sufficiently angered by Luther’s staunch refusal to budge or alter his convictions and the latter had to flee for life. This time the threat of excommunication and danger to personal safety became very real, and there was the possibility of being abandoned by his elector Frederick the Wise. This did not happen, for Frederick was of an essentially Christian nature, his lifelong goal being to live dutifully before God. Frederick felt that Luther should not be convicted without a fair trial – Frederick did not oppose the papacy, and would be the first to hand Luther over should he be convicted after the Pope had officially deemed him guilty, but if and only if he was given a fair hearing first.
Here a policy of conciliation surfaced with the papacy with regards Luther due to politic reasons: at this time the Holy Roman emperor was to be elected. The great powers were Charles of Spain and Francis of France, both of whom the Pope objected as the selection of any would mean a tilting of the power balance. As most of the electorate were German and preferred one, in desparation, the Pope looked to Frederick. And so Luther, under Frederick, was not to be that easily disposed of. Cajetan was sent a helper Miltitz whose job it was to curry the favour of the elector and keep Luther quiet till the election was over. He tried to get Frederick to cooperate, to promise to hand Luther over through promises of papal gifts (a golden rose touched by Pope Leo X), and secured an agreement by Luther not to create further dissent should his opponents stay quiet.
Luther in the meantime garnered more like-minded friends, the University of Wittenburg looking to become a Lutheran institution. Chief among them was Melanchthon, a humanist who was drawn into Luther’s circle after exposure to his works, and Carlstadt, albeit more outspoken than Luther – some of his accusations heaped on Luther’s opponents were of a more daring nature than that which Luther would try. Melanchthon proved to be a firm support.
Opposition rose once more, and a formidable opponent of Luther now enters the story: John Eck, a professor from the University of Ingolstadt. Eck was to debate with Luther publicly in the University of Leibzig under the watch of Duke George, patron of Leibzig, who was to become Luther’s ‘most implacable opponent’.
Luther and Eck debated on the antiquity of the Roman papacy and its primacy, Luther arguing that the unity of the church was not to be destroyed with ten or a thousand popes. Another question was with regards its legitimacy: whether it be of divine or human right? This questioned the authority of the papacy, and shook its claims to near despotic rule over all believers due to its claim that it obtained its primacy from the Lord Jesus Christ himself. Luther exclaimed he impugned the decretals.
Again I tire, and will continue my writings another day. Will move on to the endorsement of Hus, previously considered heretical, the papal bull Exsurge Domine against Luther to the Diet of Worms, hopefully ALL IN ONE POST.