Apologetic Groundwork #5: Luther and Apologetics

Did Martin Luther use apologetics? Luther did not shun apologetic arguments but he did used them sparingly. Luther’s historical context must be considered. Most people who lived in Luther’s day identified themselves as Christian. The creation of the world and the resurrection of Jesus Christ were a given. Luther’s primary battle was against representatives of the church who were busy perverting the gospel. Luther’s tact was hermeneutic not apologetic. Luther’s adversaries were heretics who used reason and not Scripture to support their claims. When Luther famously described reason as a whore the context of such wording was in his debate with Karlstadt concerning the Lord’s Supper. Luther understood that Karlstadt was basing his teaching of the Lord’s Supper on human reason, not Scripture.

Professor Siegbert Becker recognizes this distinction when he writes,

“As we have said, Luther was certainly not averse to the use of reason in debate with unbelievers. He warns against the use of reason in the doctrine of justification, in matters of conscience, and in regard to satisfaction, remission of sins, reconciliation and eternal salvation. But “at other times, whenever you must, outside of this doctrine of justification, debate with Jews, Turks, and sectarians about the wisdom, or the power , or the attributes of God, then use all your skill, and be as subtle and sharp a debater as you can be, for then you are in a different kind of argument.”

…Thus while it is possible to find in Luther a most vehement rejection of reason, yet he did not deny all common ground between the believer and the unbeliever.”1  

We have already mentioned that Luther distinguished between a natural knowledge of God and an evangelical knowledge of God. The evangelical knowledge saves the natural knowledge does not. Luther also makes a distinction between reason used in a ministerial sense and reason used in a magisterial sense. Another way to distinguish between the ministerial use of reason and the magisterial use of reason is by noting its starting point. The ministerial use begins with the Word of God, namely the Word made Flesh. Christianity is based upon the incarnation of the Son of God. Reason is the magisterial sense is based upon the word of man and a deity that is formed in the image of his likeness. Montgomery correctly writes, “Luther’s theology calls for a proclamation of this truth (the miracle of the incarnation), not for an impossible defense of it which invariably appeals to the “natural man” desiring to justify himself.” 2  

Does the fideist, anti-apologetic stance of most Lutherans stem from a desire to be good Lutherans or are there deeper philosophical forces at work that have worked to shape the modern mind? Francis Schaeffer proposed that the enlightenment caused a split in the thinking of modern man. Schaeffer likens the mind of modern man to a two story house. In the lower story is the public world of nature, science, and facts. In the upper story resides the private sphere of the religion, values, and opinions. The lower story is objective while the upper story is subjective.    

                  

Liberal theologians, following the lead of enlightenment philosophers, placed the life and work of Christ outside the realm of history. Immanuel Kant developed important categories that allowed for this division to take place. Kant placed the religious into the noumenal realm. The noumenal realm consists of that which goes beyond our senses and reason, the realm of faith. The phenomenal realm became home to what human senses and reason could experience. The Word of God was thus divorced from history and reason once again becomes magistrate by placing the Christian faith in its noumenal, subjective and fideistic cage.

Kierkegaard, with perhaps a pietistic aversion to the “deadness” of Lutheran orthodoxy, advocated for a subjective “leap of faith.”  Schaeffer writes,

 “But the important thing about [Kierkegaard] is that when he put forth the concept of a leap of faith, he became in a real way the father of all modern existential thought, both secular and theological. As a result of this, from that time on, if rationalistic man wants to deal with the really important things of human life (such as purpose, significance, the validity of love), he must discard rational thought about them and make a gigantic, non-rational leap of faith.” 3

If confessional Lutherans wish to be anti-apologetic then they ought to pause and consider who else resides in the anti-apologetic camp: liberal and neo-orthodox theologians. Fideistic and rationalistic presuppositions are two sides of the same coin operating on enlightenment assumptions.  Fideism begins with the upper story while rationalism begins in the lower. In fact, liberal and neo-orthodox theologians are quick to use Luther as an anti-rationalist subjectivist. Montgomery quotes liberal theologian Ernst Kaesermann:

“Neither miracles nor the canon nor the Jesus of history is able to give security to our faith. For our faith there can be no objectivity in this sense. That is the finding which New Testament scholarship has made plain in its own fashion. But this finding is only the obverse of that acknowledgment which Luther’s exposition of the third article of the Creed expresses.” 4  

Unbelievably, David Hume, advocated for fideism as a way to defend Christianity. It should again cause pause when one of the most vicious anti-Christian philosophers of modern history advocates for an anti-apologetic approach to the faith:

“The manner in which both Hume and Kant attempted to mute the implications of their conclusions is revealing. Each explicitly frames what might otherwise be a clear denial of long-held tenants of Christianity as, to the contrary, a defense of Christianity. Hume, for example, notes that he is especially “pleased with the method of reasoning here delivered, as I think it may serve to confound those dangerous friends or disguised enemies to the Christian religion who have undertaken to defend it by the principle of human reason.” His rational for thus thinking, he explains, is that “our most holy religion is founded on faith, not on reason; and it is a sure method of exposing it to put it to such a trial as it is by no means fitted to endure.” Though there is little doubt about Hume’s pious claim to be defending the priority of faith over reason is disingenuous and self-serving, it is precisely the same claim forwarded also by Kant, who claimed that he “had to deny knowledge in order to make room for faith.” 5

Notice how Kaesermann appealed to Luther’s condemnation of reason in the matter of attaining salvation to strip Christianity of its factual moorings. Montgomery notes:  “The strongest opponents of a Lutheran apologetic are those who base their anti-apologetic stance on the conviction that Christianity is, after all, nonobjective.” 6

Craig Parton says something similar when he writes:

“Liberalism’s despising of apologetics is thus seen for what it is – the rejection of the Christian faith. The religious liberal is left with a subjective religious feeling that is created in his or her own vain image and is utterly divorced from the New Testament record.” 7

Swiss theologian Karl Barth checked liberalism by advocating for the truth of Christianity, but Barth held onto the dualism of Kant’s categories and once again placed the lion of God’s Word into a cage to protect it from modern liberalism. The term geschsichte was employed by Barth to describe the realm of Christian truths which are detached from the realm of history (historische). Bultman and others took Barth’s neo-orthodoxy to its logical conclusion by demythologizing the Scriptures in order to find the true essence of the gospel. 

The liberal and the neo-orthodox may see their theology as an heir and extension of what Luther began but Montgomery writes,

“Luther very definitely distinguished two kingdoms, earthly and the spiritual… But does this distinction dichotomize the world into a secular realm where reason and proof operate, and a spiritual realm where evidence has no place?... Is Luther to be assimilated to the Platonic-Kantian perspective? The answer will depend squarely on what kind of connection Luther saw between the two kingdoms. If he in fact kept them in water-tight compartments, then a positive apologetic originating in the secular realm could not in principle justify truths lying in the spiritual sphere.” 8

Montgomery answers by noting how God breaks the divided concept of truth through his incarnation:

“Luther’s two kingdoms are connected as to origin, for “those two separate realms are ultimately both God’s realms” and, even more important, they are linked in practice by the individual Christian believer…. As the individual Christian unites the two kingdoms in his person, thereby bridging the sociological gap between them, so the Incarnate Christ Himself links the two realms epistemologically. The incarnational center of Luther’s theology eliminates entirely the possibility of making him an advocate of “two-fold truth”….

Luther insists that the search for God begin at the connecting link between earth and heaven which exists at the point of the Incarnation. There we find a genuine human being…but also very God of very God…. “Philosophy,” which starts elsewhere, must be forgotten; absolute truth is available only here. Why does Luther concentrate relatively little on traditional proofs for God’s existence (even though he considered such argumentation valid)? Because for him it did not constitute the proper point of departure.” 9

Should our Lutheran apologetic employ the dual nature of truth or a unified nature? Is there a division between the heart and the brain? Between knowledge and meaning? The Scripture does not allow it. Jesus’ birth, death and resurrection are knowledge and meaning. They engage the heart and the brain. Mary Magdalene and Thomas saw the empirical evidence of Jesus’ resurrection and by faith they apprehended the spiritual meaning and the unempirical – that they too will rise. Christianity draws a circle around all knowledge and the key to that circle is the Incarnation of Christ.

Youth are thus educated in a dualistic frame of reference. We live in a culture in which a person might become offended if you place religion into the objective sphere of truth. These same people are also offended when that which is in the lower story: science and by extension evolution, are questioned. Placing Christ’s words in the realm of facts and Darwin’s ideas in the realm of fantasy is anathema in the modern mind:  Pearcey writes:

“In English classes, teachers have tossed out their red pencils, and act as though things like correct spelling or grammar were forms of oppression imposed by those in power. But paradoxically, if you go down the hallway to the science classroom, you’ll find that there the ideal of objective truth still reigns supreme. Theories like Darwinian evolution are not open to question and students are not invited to judge for themselves whether or not it is true. It is treated as public knowledge that everyone is expected to accept, regardless of their private beliefs….  Describing the students who troop into his classroom year after year, philosopher Peter Kreeft says, “They are perfectly willing to believe in objective truth in science, or even in history sometimes, but certainly not in ethics or morality.”  10

Nancy Pearcey notes that a result of this divided concept of truth is a gradual assault from the lower story to the upper story. We may have our faith but it must be private. Our faith must not be called truth and it must not be applied to politics, science, education, occupation or anything else in the lower story.

“Since the Enlightenment, the fact realm has steadily expanded its territory into the value realm until there is little or no content left there. It has been reduced to empty words that merely express our irrational wishes and fantasies, with no basis in reality as defined by scientific naturalism. Using graphic terms, Schaeffer warns that the lower story “eats up” the upper story, dissolving away all traditional concepts of morality and meaning.”  11

Christians have not only been duped into buying into this public/private split of the secular and sacred but they have also not clearly the seen that the “lower story” consists not of flesh and blood but of “powers and authorities.” The secular world is not neutral but is controlled by Prince of this World. Parents and youth should understand that the secular university is not spiritually neutral but carries an anti-Christian spirit. Lutheran youth schooled in America’s public school system is no different than the prophet Daniel learning at the feet of Babylonian scholars, the only difference is that Daniel understood where his teachers were coming from. Our youth are in great spiritual danger.

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1 Becker, “The Foolishness of God.” p. 176.

2 Montgomery, “Faith Founded on Fact.” P. 140.

3 Schaeffer, Francis A. “The God Who Is There.” Downers Grove, Illinois: Inter Varsity Press, 1998, p. 36.

4 Montgomery, “Faith Founded on Fact.” p. 135.

5 “The Natural Knowledge of God and the Christian Witness.” A Report of the Commission on Theology and Church Relations. The Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. April, 2013, p. 24.

6 Montgomery, “Faith Founded on Fact.” p. 136

7 Parton, “The Defense Never Rests.” p. 69

8 Montgomery, “Faith Founded on Fact,” p. 140-141.

9 Ibid., p. 142-143.

10 Pearcey, Nancy. “Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity.” Wheaton, Ill: Crossway Books, 2005. p. 107 

11 Ibid., 111.