Martin Luthers Reformation der Ehe: Sein theologisches Eheverstandnis vor dessen augustinisch-mittelalterlichem Hintergrund by Christian Volkmar Witt (review)

This highly academic study (the author's Habilitatsionsschrift at Wuppertal/Bethel) is directed to scholars, but Professor Witt's findings will be of interest to a much wider audience. Indeed, I presented some of the material to the adult class in the congregation that I serve, and it generated thoughtful discussion. The book offers an historical theological analysis of Luther's understanding of marriage as compared to that of Augustine and the medieval church. The author uses a consistent set of issues to evaluate the various writings under consideration: marriage as God's good gift to humankind, both before and after the fall; the importance of procreation within marriage; the relative values of marriage, chastity and virginity; the indissolubility of marriage. These points of comparison illuminate the particularity of each as well as the significant continuities and discontinuities among them.

Professor Witt begins with Augustine, who provides the foundation for the western church's understanding of marriage. While affirming the essential goodness of the institution, Augustine nonetheless diminishes its importance. Sexual intercourse, which before the fall occurred without lust, has become a passion without godly purpose. According to Augustine's view of salvation history, the era when marriage was necessary for the propagation of the species has ended. Since the coming of Christ, the focus is on the spiritual creation of believers, not physical procreation. The age of virginity has dawned. For Augustine, as for Paul, this is the best option. Marriage is provided for the weak who cannot sustain this level of purity. It is good because a merciful God offers it as cover for the sexual act that after the fall is always infected with inordinate, uncontrolled desire. There is also an intermediate way, better but not the best, that is, for the married couple to renounce sexual intercourse and sustain one another in a life of shared abstinence. Thus, for Augustine, a marriage without children and the vocation of parenthood lacks nothing essential.

Witt then explores the reception of Augustine's views in medieval theology and canon law. He concludes that in both fields, which are clearly intertwined, the church continued to build on its inherited Augustinian foundations. The challenge was to codify the doctrine as ecclesiastical law operative in the lives of the faithful. This required some modifications but never a deliberate break with the Augustinian tradition.

Against this background Luther's teaching on marriage represents a sea change. Its roots lie in both his doctrine of justification and his pastoral commitment to relieving troubled consciences snared by the church's policies on marital matters, for example, impediments. While moving aggressively to desacramentalize and secularize marriage, Luther simultaneously portrays it as the primary arena for experiencing God's grace. One finds the true school of faith not in the monastery but in the home, where women and men commit themselves to one another in love and fidelity and devote themselves to their children's welfare. They cannot know where the path of family life will lead, but they have the promise of God that, having established them in marriage, he will continue to guide and bless them in this holy estate. They are sustained in their everyday discipleship by faith in that promise. Because of this, according to Witt's analysis, marriage witnesses to the power of free grace and justifying faith in sharp contrast to the self-chosen virginity of monastic life with its selfish, works-righteous pursuit of purity. Witt makes a strong case for yoking Luther's doctrine of marriage to the doctrine of justification in this integral way. This also raises some questions for further consideration. Chief among them for this reviewer is why, given the incomparable importance of marriage for the life of faith, would Luther continue to regard virginity, when God grants that charism, to be a superior estate? He echoes Paul's judgment (I Cor. 7:25ff...