The Theology of Martin Luther: A Critical Assessment

3. Entry Points

3 Entry Points We can imagine the widest variety of points of entry into Luther’s theology: by way of biography, the history of influence, the various interpretations of Luther, the attempt to locate Luther within the history of theology, and finally even by way of a reflection on Luther’s philosophical abilities. All these approaches have their specific advantages and disadvantages. Luther’s Biography If anyone wants to get acquainted with a difficult intellectual oeuvre, an approach by way of the author’s biography has much to recommend it. Especially in the context of Christian faith, theology and biography should have a lot to do with one another. In many cases the correspondence is impressive and revealing: consider Dietrich Bonhoeffer or Karl Barth, but equally Augustine or Paul. It is true that this approach remains ambivalent: looking at biography can also obscure a theological approach or muffle a theological statement; in any case it remains subordinate to the analysis of a theoretical approach. Truth is incarnate in biography but also transcends it. This basic consideration alone can give a preacher the courage to enter the pulpit. The Reformation is not founded on Luther’s biography! This is not the place to go into detail, but we may be permitted a few remarks: We can turn to Luther’s image and ask: what does this face say? New portraits emerged again and again in the course of Luther’s life: in  the ascetic monk, in  the innocent Junker Jörg, in  the scholar with the doctor’s hat surrounded by a halo, and finally the elderly Luther, portly and wearing a fur collar. How do these pictures relate to his writings? We can leaf through Luther’s table talk and letters. In contrast to Thomas Mann, I would very much like to have been Luther’s dinner guest. I am not surprised that in the course of years a good deal of this table talk was written down and ultimately published. It conveys a vivid portrait of the Reformer, 17 18 The Theology of Martin Luther who was less discreet in weighing his words at home than he was in his public appearances. An approach to Luther through his letters also recommends itself, especially the last letters to his wife, the “dear wife, Katherine von Bora, preacher, brewer, gardener, and whatsoever else she may be.” It makes sense, of course, to look for theologically oriented biographies of the Reformer, that is, depictions that attempt to blend biographical and theological development. In the process one may encounter psychological discussions: what was Luther’s relationship to his parents? Is his concept of God explained by a fathercomplex ? How should we interpret his anxiety neuroses and depressions? Was Luther’s theology the “ideological systematizing of the emotions” of a man subject to melancholy? Is it the result of an identity crisis that did not reach a proper resolution? Quite certainly the basic forms of a theology have to do with the “basic forms of fear” in the one who proposes it. The fundamental connections are undeniable. No faith and no theology comes to be without psychological implications. The question, of course, is whether it remains mired in fixations or arrives at a fruitful crisis, whether there are indications of irreversible destructive movements or signs of an intellectual and spiritual process of growth. The psychological approach, in isolation at least, can offer only limited progress toward the goal. At the same time, the psychological approach is helpful when inquiring about the present-day relevance of Luther’s individual theological statements. Another possible way of approaching Luther’s theology by way of his biography would be to search for his understanding of himself. How did he see himself; what was his estimation of himself? Apparently he experienced his mission as a task given him by God. He calls himself “the prophet of the Germans.” But he also asks himself: “Do you suppose that all previous teachers were ignorant? Are our forefathers all fools in your eyes? Are you the one latter-day nest egg of the Holy Spirit?” He had to deal with the fact that people took him as their reference, but he finds that they “believe not in Luther but in Christ himself. The word has them, and they have the word. They pay no heed to Luther, whether he be a knave or a saint. God can speak through Balaam as well as Isaiah, through Caiaphas as well as...