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BOOK REVIEWS Luther and tke Mystics. By BENGT R. HOFFMAN. Augsburg Publishing House: Minneapolis, 1976. Pp. ~36. $9.95. Up until comparatively recent times, Protestant scholars have re- .jected any suggestion of the possibility of the influence of medieval Roman Catholic mystical theology on Martin Luther's doctrine on justification and the Christian life. The same is true, a fortiori, of any dependence by Luther on Roman Catholic mystics, such as Johann Tauler and the Frankfurter, the anonymous author of the Theologia Germanica. These theologians have consistently maintained that it was against such theology and piety that Luther launched his reform. To see any of these influences in him is to distort his understanding of the Gospel, and to reduce Luther's doctrine either to the theology of work-righteousness of Roman Catholicism, or the subjectivism of the Enthusiasts. Professor Bengt Hoffman, of the Gettysburg Lutheran Seminary, strongly contends that the opposite is true. In his view, Luther's doctrine on justification and the Christian life does indeed contain elements properly belonging to mystical theology, which he maintains are essential to the understanding of the richness of Luther's thought. Furthermore, he argues that a definite " kinship '', both in doctrine and in piety, exists between Luther and the German mystics, especially, Tauler and the Frankfurter. Nor, in his judgment, is this affirmation to be restricted to the early works of Luther. To fail to take seriously these sources of Luther's doctrine is in fact to distort his teaching, and to dilute the theological significance of Luther's personal experience of the power of the Gospel. Hoffman counters the argument that this approach introduces elements totally foreign to Luther's reform. Too long, he writes, has Protestant theology been dominated by an antithetical approach: whatever is of Reformed and Evangelical theology must at every point be diametrically opposed to Roman Catholic theology. "The quality of Luther's faith'', he writes, " was 'ecumenical ' in the sense that it bonded Luther to an essential element in Roman Catholic reflection which is trans-institutional in nature." Although admitting that his thesis is not one held by the majority of scholars in the mainstream of Luther studies, Hoffman, nevertheless, does not consider himself alone in his position. Several contemporary Protestant and Roman Catholic theologians have written scholarly works 510 BOOK REVIEWS 511 which, he believes, support his thesis. His dependence on them is evident. Included among them, for example, are the Protestant scholars Rudolf Otto, Heiko Oberman, Bengt Hagglund, and Roman Catholics such as Irwin lserloh, Erich Vogelsang, and Jared Wicks. Hoffman divides his work into three major sections. In Part I he presents a kind of status quaestionis, in which he gives an excellent historical survey of the anti-mystical interpretation of Luther's doctrine. In this he includes the arguments of representative theologians of the Classical Orthodox, Liberal, and Neo-orthodox Schools. In contrast he presents in a summary fashion the thought of the theologians noted above, whom he characterizes as members of the Pneumatic School. In this discussion the main lines of Hoffman's thesis emerge, and the necessary presuppositions are made for the detailed analysis in Part IL It is in Part II that Hoffman's scholarship is most obviously evident. He lets Luther speak for himself. Numerous are the citations from Luther's works, spanning his whole career as a theologian and preacher. Thus based on Luther's own texts, he proceeds to discuss such points as the reality of the mystical union of the Christian with Christ, participation of the believer in the life of God, the transforming power of faith, progress in conformity to Christ in His mysteries, growth in faith and sanctification, and the mystical experience both of anguish and of desolation before the majesty and transcendence of God (gemitus) and the transporting bliss (raptus) consequent on the divine presence. In Hoffman's understanding all these various aspects of the mystical life have as their foundation and source Luther's insistence that the justified Christian has entered into real mystical union with Christ. Central to Luther's doctrine is the fact that faith brings the Christian into contact with the saving mysteries of Christ's death...

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