The Devil's Whore: Reason and Philosophy in the Lutheran Tradition

3. "Putting on the Neighbor": The Ciceronian Impulse in Luther’s Christian Approach to Practical Reason

31 CHAPTER 3 ―Putting on the Neighbor‖ The Ciceronian Impulse in Luther’s Christian Approach to Practical Reason Gary M. Simpson Everyone should ―put on‖ his neighbor and so conduct himself toward him as if he himself were in the other‘s place.1 Cicero was the wisest man.2 What has long been noticed but little analyzed is Luther‘s relationship with his ―beloved Cicero,‖ as one interpreter has again recently remarked.3 I will explore a key feature of Cicero‘s relationship with his philosophical predecessors in order to highlight one reason for Luther‘s love affair with this ―wisest man.‖ The twinkle in Luther‘s eye makes good sense when we consider Cicero‘s peculiar wisdom within the context of Luther‘s christological formulation of Christian love as ―putting on‖ one‘s neighbor. In particular, Cicero‘s innovation in the Greek rhetorical tradition provided Luther with a kind of philosophical venture capital for his christologically tinged approach to practical reason. Faith and Practical Reason Luther‘s ―The Freedom of a Christian‖ remains a mother lode for the intricate and richly textured relationships of faith, love, and practical reason, which were much contested in Luther‘s day and before, as in our own.4 Indeed, in the very last paragraph he summarizes the predicament that confronts practical reason5 or ―natural reason,‖ as he calls it there.6 When the ubiquitous questions of our moral life arise, practical reason becomes ―superstitious.‖ That is, practical reason erroneously presumes the quite commonly held ―opinion,‖ which moreover is ―trained and confirmed . . . by the practice of all earthly lawgivers,‖ that its calling is to lead us toward righteousness in God‘s sight, toward justification.7 Luther sought to emancipate practical reason from such ―false opinions concerning works, that is, from the foolish presumption that justification is acquired by works‖8 by having us ―theodidacti, that is, those taught by God [John 6:45].‖9 32 THE DEVIL‘S WHORE In Luther‘s Lectures on Galatians (1531, 1536), he promulgates the first commandment of his theology, so to speak: ne confundatur mores et fides (―let not morality and faith be confounded‖)—―both are necessary, but both must be kept within their limits.‖ As he notes in a 1522 sermon: [I]t is necessary to make a distinction between God and men, between spiritual and temporal things. In human affairs man‘s judgment suffices. For these things, he needs no light but that of reason. . . . But in divine things, the things concerning God, and in which we must conduct ourselves acceptably with him and must secure [eternal] happiness for ourselves, human nature is absolutely blind, staring stoneblind , unable to recognize in the slightest degree what these things are.10 Luther emphasizes that this distinction between the passive righteousness of faith and the active righteousness of love and reason is ―easy to speak of,‖ but ―in experience and practice it is the most difficult of all, even if you exercise and practice it diligently.‖11 When reason trespasses its terrestrial limits, aspiring to occupy the throne in matters of salvation, Luther‘s rhetoric is unsparing. Reason, so enthroned, transmogrifies into ―the lovely whore,‖ the ―arch-prostitute,‖ ―the Devil‘s whore,‖ and the ―Devil‘s bride.‖12 For this reason, exclaims Luther in his ―Disputation against Scholastic Theology,‖ ―Virtually the entire [Nicomachean ] Ethics of Aristotle is the worst enemy of grace. This in opposition to the scholastics.‖13 As we will see, a Ciceronian form of practical reason, when—like love— formed by faith in Christ, can render a salutary service to the Christian love of neighbor.14 Practical reason, when formed by faith, shares characteristics akin to Luther‘s famous ―reason illumined by faith‖ that grasps the beauty and joy of that ―fortunate exchange,‖15 which ―couples Christ and me more intimately than a husband is coupled to his wife.‖16 Here we encounter forms of ―another reason,‖ of an emancipated reason that Luther calls ―the reason of faith.‖17 The purpose, therefore, of the Christian vocation to rightly distinguish faith and reason in experience and practice is so that in everyday life they might be rightly related and coordinated. Cicero‘s oratorical model of practical reason made it a ready candidate for such coordination. Before turning to it we will attend briefly to Luther‘s cruciform communion Christology and its ramifications for the relationship of faith and good works of neighbor love. ―PUTTING...