Moltmann, The Crucified God, 7- Interpretations of the Cross: Luther's Theology of the Cross (theologia crucis)
"The knowledge of the cross brings a conflict of interest between God who has become man and man who wishes to become God. It destroys the destruction of man. It alienates alienated man. And in this way it restores the humanity of dehumanized man."
"The theology of the cross is a practical doctrine for battle, and can therefore become neither a theory of Christianity as it is now, nor the Christian theory of world history. It is a dialectic and historical theology, and not a theology of world history. It does not state what exists, but sets out to liberate men from their inhuman definitions and their idolized assertions, in which they have become set, and in which society has ensnared them."
Moltmann, commenting on Luther, p. 71, 72.
Continuing our look at Jurgen Moltmann's 1974 work The Crucified God. Selections are indicated with quotation marks.
"Luther at Erfurt", which depicting Martin Luther.
Painting by Joseph Noel Paton, 1861.
"Christian faith stands and falls with the knowledge of the crucified Christ, that is, with the knowledge of God in the Crucified Christ, or, to use Luther's even bolder phrase, with the knowledge of 'the crucified God'. What does this mean for the theology of Christian faith? Let us look once again at basic forms of Christian theology, and ask what their attitude is to the cross as their inner criterion." (65)
"The first forms of theological science did not arise until the Middle Ages. They included hot only the special doctrine of God, but the whole complex, drawn from specifically Christian tradition, of sacra doctrina, and more generally of the philosophical theology which included the knowledge of the time. Aquinas distinguished between philosophical theology and theological theology, and yet he used the same word 'theology' for both. Here, theology as a science means giving public account of Christian faith with all the intellectual means generally available at a particular time, and at the same time the use made of contemporary knowledge by Christian faith." (66)
"Both forms of theology exist in the present day. But they proceed from an understanding of the concept 'theology', and by the logos of theology they understand theology as the word of God. In this 'word' God is not only the object of human discourse; for God is not an object of experience like the objects in the world which human understanding can know, define and control. If God himself is taken seriously as the Lord, he must be perceived and thought of as the subject who utters his word. Thus theology as speaking about God is possible only on the basis of what God himself says. Theology as the reflection of faith upon the word received assumes the event of the word spoken by God himself. Faith can claim to be in accord with rational understanding only in so far as it understands what God says...The theology of faith presupposes the theology of God, which is found in the word of God which has been and which is uttered. Thus it is church theology." (66-67)
"The weakness of this starting point is that it comes very close to the distinction made by the early church as between theology as the doctrine of God and economy as the doctrine of salvation, and can therefore lose contact with the reality of unredeemed humanity. It does not always begin by taking seriously that both are united in the cross of Christ, and that therefore, as Paul states, the word (logos) of God (2 Corinthians 2:17) cannot in Christian terms be anything other than the word (logos) of the cross (verse 18)." (67)
"A Christian theology which sees its problem and its task in knowing God in the crucified Christ, cannot be pure theory. It cannot lead to a pure theory of God ... Pure contemplation of this kind abandons the realm of the transitory, of mere appearance and uncertain opinion, and finds true, eternal being in the logos... The steps by which it is imported can here only be the likeness of God in nature, history and tradition, which indirectly reflect and reveal something of God himself - e.g., his works in creation and history, in men and ideas which have been conformed to God. The principle of knowledge prevailing here is that of analogy, as in Parmenides, Empedocles and Aristotle." (68)
"But in the crucified Christ, abandoned by God and cursed, faith can find no equivalents of this kind which provide it with an indirect, analogical knowledge of God, but encounters the very contrary. In the crucified Christ the contrary is found on several levels: in the contrary to the God who has revealed his will in the law and is in practice known in the works of the law. For Jesus was sentenced to death by the law as a blasphemer. Faith finds in him the contrary to, and liberation from, the so-called gods, who are venerated in the political theology of political religions. For Jesus died, whether rightly or wrongly, a political death as a rebel, on the cross. Finally, faith finds in him the contrary to a God who reveals himself indirectly in the creation and in history. For Jesus died abandoned by God." (68-69)
"But if this is the point at which faith comes into being, this means first of all that Christian theology cannot be a pure theory of God, but must become a critical theory of God. This criticism is directed from the crucified Christ to man in his attempt to know God, and destroys the concern which guides him to knowledge. For man seeks God in the law, an attempts to conform to him through the works of the law, in order to bring himself into the righteousness of God. If he sees and believes in God in the person of Christ, condemned by the law, he is set free from the legalist concern to justify himself. Man seeks God in the will for political power and world domination. If he sees and believes God in Christ who was powerless an crucified, he is set free from this desire to have power and domination over others. Man seeks to know God in the works and ordinances of the cosmos or the course of world history, in order to become divine himself through knowledge. If he sees and believes God in the suffering and dying Christ, he is set free from the concern for self-deification which guides him towards knowledge." (69)
"Thus the knowledge of God in the crucified Christ takes seriously the situation of man in pursuit of his own interests, man who in reality is inhuman, because he is under the compulsion of self-justification, dominating self-assertion and illusionary self-deification. 'For this reason, the crucified Jesus is the "image of the invisible God." (Barth) Thus because of its subject, the theology of the cross, right down to its method and practice, can only be polemical, dialectical, antithetical and critical theory. This theology is 'itself crucified theology and speaks only of the cross' (Rahner). It is also crucifying theology, and is thereby liberating theology." (69)
Paul
"We can see this clearly in the theological tradition which is called the theology of the cross in the special sense. In this sense, the theology of the cross was founded by Paul. Just as in Roman 1:17ff Paul develops justification by faith in a critical direction against justification by the works of the law, so that it leads to liberation from the compulsion for self-justification by works, so in 1 Corinthians 1:18ff, he developed the word of the cross against wisdom and the knowledge of God from the world, so that the knowledge of the cross would bring about liberation from the powers of the cosmos. What is a stumbling block to the Jews and folly to the Greeks, becomes for believers the power of God for freedom. The question here is not whether in his polemic Paul gives a just account of historic Judaism, faithful to the law, or of a historic Hellenism, with its wisdom piety. For his polemic is aimed at the deeper issue of the situation of dehumanized man as one who pursues his own interest, and who, whether he is a Jew or a Greek, cannot let God be God, but must make himself the unhappy and proud god of his own self, his fellow men, and his world. At this level the word of the cross liberates dehumanized man from the fatal concern for deification, and it is no accident that in the first chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians, Paul draws attention to the concrete social consequences, in order to demonstrate the power which is contained in the weakness and folly of the crucified God:" (69-70)
"For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men... but God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong, God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God... Let him who boasts, boast of the Lord." 1 Corinthians 1:25-31
Luther
"The 'theology of the cross' (Note 1) is the explicit formulation which Luther used in 1518 in the Heidelberg Disputation, in order to find words for the Reformation insight of the liberating gospel of the crucified Christ, by contrast to the theologia gloriae of the medieval institutional church. Appealing constantly to Paul, Luther in his polemic contrasts the knowledge of God through his sufferings and cross with the knowledge of God through his works in creation and history. He does not deny that man in himself can have an indirect knowledge of God from creation, history and the soul. But man is no longer in himself, but in practice is outside himself. He is in practice a sinner, although he is created in the image of God. Thus dehumanized man, who must exalt himself, because he cannot ensure himself as he is, in practice uses these religious insights only in the interest of his own self-deification. As a result, they not help him to achieve humanity, but only give greater force to his inhumanity. The knowledge of the cross is the knowledge of God in the suffering caused to him by dehumanized man, that is, in the contrary of everything which dehumanized man seeks and tries to attain as the deity in him. Consequently, this knowledge does not confirm him as what he is, but destroys him. It destroys the god, miserable in his pride, which we would like to be, and restores us to our abandoned and despised humanity." (70-71)
"The knowledge of the cross brings a conflict of interest between God who has become man and man who wishes to become God. It destroys the destruction of man. It alienates alienated man. And in this way it restores the humanity of dehumanized man. Just as Paul contrasted the wisdom of this world and the folly of the cross, and in parallel with this, contrasted righteousness by the works of the law and the scandal of the cross, so Luther brought together the religious way to knowledge through the contemplation of the works of God, and the moral way of self-affirmation through one's own works, and directed the theologia crucis polemically against both. 'Religious speculation and sanctification by works are only two manifestations of the same desire in man, the desire for unbroken, direct dealings with God.'" (71)
"Luther's theologia crucis is not an attack on medieval catholic theology as such, but what he recognized in it, man's inhuman concern for self-deification through knowledge and works. The knowledge of God in the suffering of the cross of Christ destroys man who abandons his humanity, for it destroys his gods and destroys his supposed divinity. It sets him free from his inhuman hubris, to restore his true human nature. It makes the homo incurvatus in se once again open to God and his neighbour, and gives Narcissus the power to love someone else." (72) (Note 2)
"Luther developed his theologia crucis as the programme of critical and Reformation theology. Theologia crucis is not a single chapter in theology, but the key signature for all Christian theology. It is a completely distinctive kind of theology. It is the point from which all theological statements which seek to be Christian are viewed. And yet it only remains theologia crucis in the context of critical and liberating practice in preaching and life. The theology of the cross is a practical doctrine for battle, and can therefore become neither a theory of Christianity as it is now, nor the Christian theory of world history. It is a dialectical and historical theology, and not a theology of world history. It does note state what exists, but sets out to liberate men from their inhuman definitions and their idolized assertions, in which they have become set, and in which society has ensnared them." (72)
"The limit of Luther's theologia crucis in its historical form lay in the fact that it was impossible for him to oppose Aristotle's philosophy of works with its aid so effectively that a philosophia crucis could arise from it. Although in his polemic against Erasmus in 1525 he once again put forward his theology of the cross against the rising humanism of the modern age, the humanism of Erasmus, with the aid of Melanchthon, found its way into Protestantism and encouraged the protestant ethic of achievement." (72)
"In political terms, its limit lay in the fact that while as a reformer Luther formulated the theologia crucis in theoretical and practical terms against the medieval institutional church, he did not formulate is as a social criticism against feudal society in the Peasant Wars of 1524 and 1525. What he wrote to the peasants did not express the critical and liberating force of the cross, the choosing of the lowly which puts the mighty to shame, nor the polemic of the crucified God against pride and subjection, domination and slavery, but instead a non-Protestant mysticism of suffering and humble submission. The task therefore remained of developing the theology of the cross in the direction of an understanding of the world and of history. The theology of the cross had to be worked out not merely for the reform of the church but as a social criticism, in association with practical actions to set free both the wretched and their rulers. A thoroughgoing theology of the cross must apprehend the crucified God in all the three areas in which the ancient world used the term theology, and in which even today men are inescapably religious: in mythical theology, in the form of demythologization; in political theology, in the form of liberation; and in philosophical theology, in the form of understanding the universe as creation." (73)
To be continued.
For your consideration ... A similar photo of Martin Luther King, Jr. to that of Marin Luther found at the beginning of this post. Both Martins turned their generation of the Christian church, and to an extent the world, upside down.
An intimate look at Martin Luther King Jr. working at his desk, 1961 by Henri Cartier-Bresson.
http://i.imgur.com/fGgAwiY.jpg
Notes:
(1) theologia crucis - Theology of the Cross
(2) homo incurvatus in se - Humanity turned in on itself (Luther)
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Jurgen Moltmann. The Crucified God. 1974. Harper & Rowe, Publishers. (First Fortress Press edition published in 1993.)
"The theology of the cross is a practical doctrine for battle, and can therefore become neither a theory of Christianity as it is now, nor the Christian theory of world history. It is a dialectic and historical theology, and not a theology of world history. It does not state what exists, but sets out to liberate men from their inhuman definitions and their idolized assertions, in which they have become set, and in which society has ensnared them."
Moltmann, commenting on Luther, p. 71, 72.
"Luther at Erfurt", which depicting Martin Luther.
Painting by Joseph Noel Paton, 1861.
"Christian faith stands and falls with the knowledge of the crucified Christ, that is, with the knowledge of God in the Crucified Christ, or, to use Luther's even bolder phrase, with the knowledge of 'the crucified God'. What does this mean for the theology of Christian faith? Let us look once again at basic forms of Christian theology, and ask what their attitude is to the cross as their inner criterion." (65)
"The first forms of theological science did not arise until the Middle Ages. They included hot only the special doctrine of God, but the whole complex, drawn from specifically Christian tradition, of sacra doctrina, and more generally of the philosophical theology which included the knowledge of the time. Aquinas distinguished between philosophical theology and theological theology, and yet he used the same word 'theology' for both. Here, theology as a science means giving public account of Christian faith with all the intellectual means generally available at a particular time, and at the same time the use made of contemporary knowledge by Christian faith." (66)
"Both forms of theology exist in the present day. But they proceed from an understanding of the concept 'theology', and by the logos of theology they understand theology as the word of God. In this 'word' God is not only the object of human discourse; for God is not an object of experience like the objects in the world which human understanding can know, define and control. If God himself is taken seriously as the Lord, he must be perceived and thought of as the subject who utters his word. Thus theology as speaking about God is possible only on the basis of what God himself says. Theology as the reflection of faith upon the word received assumes the event of the word spoken by God himself. Faith can claim to be in accord with rational understanding only in so far as it understands what God says...The theology of faith presupposes the theology of God, which is found in the word of God which has been and which is uttered. Thus it is church theology." (66-67)
"The weakness of this starting point is that it comes very close to the distinction made by the early church as between theology as the doctrine of God and economy as the doctrine of salvation, and can therefore lose contact with the reality of unredeemed humanity. It does not always begin by taking seriously that both are united in the cross of Christ, and that therefore, as Paul states, the word (logos) of God (2 Corinthians 2:17) cannot in Christian terms be anything other than the word (logos) of the cross (verse 18)." (67)
"A Christian theology which sees its problem and its task in knowing God in the crucified Christ, cannot be pure theory. It cannot lead to a pure theory of God ... Pure contemplation of this kind abandons the realm of the transitory, of mere appearance and uncertain opinion, and finds true, eternal being in the logos... The steps by which it is imported can here only be the likeness of God in nature, history and tradition, which indirectly reflect and reveal something of God himself - e.g., his works in creation and history, in men and ideas which have been conformed to God. The principle of knowledge prevailing here is that of analogy, as in Parmenides, Empedocles and Aristotle." (68)
"But in the crucified Christ, abandoned by God and cursed, faith can find no equivalents of this kind which provide it with an indirect, analogical knowledge of God, but encounters the very contrary. In the crucified Christ the contrary is found on several levels: in the contrary to the God who has revealed his will in the law and is in practice known in the works of the law. For Jesus was sentenced to death by the law as a blasphemer. Faith finds in him the contrary to, and liberation from, the so-called gods, who are venerated in the political theology of political religions. For Jesus died, whether rightly or wrongly, a political death as a rebel, on the cross. Finally, faith finds in him the contrary to a God who reveals himself indirectly in the creation and in history. For Jesus died abandoned by God." (68-69)
"But if this is the point at which faith comes into being, this means first of all that Christian theology cannot be a pure theory of God, but must become a critical theory of God. This criticism is directed from the crucified Christ to man in his attempt to know God, and destroys the concern which guides him to knowledge. For man seeks God in the law, an attempts to conform to him through the works of the law, in order to bring himself into the righteousness of God. If he sees and believes in God in the person of Christ, condemned by the law, he is set free from the legalist concern to justify himself. Man seeks God in the will for political power and world domination. If he sees and believes God in Christ who was powerless an crucified, he is set free from this desire to have power and domination over others. Man seeks to know God in the works and ordinances of the cosmos or the course of world history, in order to become divine himself through knowledge. If he sees and believes God in the suffering and dying Christ, he is set free from the concern for self-deification which guides him towards knowledge." (69)
"Thus the knowledge of God in the crucified Christ takes seriously the situation of man in pursuit of his own interests, man who in reality is inhuman, because he is under the compulsion of self-justification, dominating self-assertion and illusionary self-deification. 'For this reason, the crucified Jesus is the "image of the invisible God." (Barth) Thus because of its subject, the theology of the cross, right down to its method and practice, can only be polemical, dialectical, antithetical and critical theory. This theology is 'itself crucified theology and speaks only of the cross' (Rahner). It is also crucifying theology, and is thereby liberating theology." (69)
Paul
"We can see this clearly in the theological tradition which is called the theology of the cross in the special sense. In this sense, the theology of the cross was founded by Paul. Just as in Roman 1:17ff Paul develops justification by faith in a critical direction against justification by the works of the law, so that it leads to liberation from the compulsion for self-justification by works, so in 1 Corinthians 1:18ff, he developed the word of the cross against wisdom and the knowledge of God from the world, so that the knowledge of the cross would bring about liberation from the powers of the cosmos. What is a stumbling block to the Jews and folly to the Greeks, becomes for believers the power of God for freedom. The question here is not whether in his polemic Paul gives a just account of historic Judaism, faithful to the law, or of a historic Hellenism, with its wisdom piety. For his polemic is aimed at the deeper issue of the situation of dehumanized man as one who pursues his own interest, and who, whether he is a Jew or a Greek, cannot let God be God, but must make himself the unhappy and proud god of his own self, his fellow men, and his world. At this level the word of the cross liberates dehumanized man from the fatal concern for deification, and it is no accident that in the first chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians, Paul draws attention to the concrete social consequences, in order to demonstrate the power which is contained in the weakness and folly of the crucified God:" (69-70)
"For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men... but God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong, God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God... Let him who boasts, boast of the Lord." 1 Corinthians 1:25-31
Luther
"The 'theology of the cross' (Note 1) is the explicit formulation which Luther used in 1518 in the Heidelberg Disputation, in order to find words for the Reformation insight of the liberating gospel of the crucified Christ, by contrast to the theologia gloriae of the medieval institutional church. Appealing constantly to Paul, Luther in his polemic contrasts the knowledge of God through his sufferings and cross with the knowledge of God through his works in creation and history. He does not deny that man in himself can have an indirect knowledge of God from creation, history and the soul. But man is no longer in himself, but in practice is outside himself. He is in practice a sinner, although he is created in the image of God. Thus dehumanized man, who must exalt himself, because he cannot ensure himself as he is, in practice uses these religious insights only in the interest of his own self-deification. As a result, they not help him to achieve humanity, but only give greater force to his inhumanity. The knowledge of the cross is the knowledge of God in the suffering caused to him by dehumanized man, that is, in the contrary of everything which dehumanized man seeks and tries to attain as the deity in him. Consequently, this knowledge does not confirm him as what he is, but destroys him. It destroys the god, miserable in his pride, which we would like to be, and restores us to our abandoned and despised humanity." (70-71)
"The knowledge of the cross brings a conflict of interest between God who has become man and man who wishes to become God. It destroys the destruction of man. It alienates alienated man. And in this way it restores the humanity of dehumanized man. Just as Paul contrasted the wisdom of this world and the folly of the cross, and in parallel with this, contrasted righteousness by the works of the law and the scandal of the cross, so Luther brought together the religious way to knowledge through the contemplation of the works of God, and the moral way of self-affirmation through one's own works, and directed the theologia crucis polemically against both. 'Religious speculation and sanctification by works are only two manifestations of the same desire in man, the desire for unbroken, direct dealings with God.'" (71)
"Luther's theologia crucis is not an attack on medieval catholic theology as such, but what he recognized in it, man's inhuman concern for self-deification through knowledge and works. The knowledge of God in the suffering of the cross of Christ destroys man who abandons his humanity, for it destroys his gods and destroys his supposed divinity. It sets him free from his inhuman hubris, to restore his true human nature. It makes the homo incurvatus in se once again open to God and his neighbour, and gives Narcissus the power to love someone else." (72) (Note 2)
"Luther developed his theologia crucis as the programme of critical and Reformation theology. Theologia crucis is not a single chapter in theology, but the key signature for all Christian theology. It is a completely distinctive kind of theology. It is the point from which all theological statements which seek to be Christian are viewed. And yet it only remains theologia crucis in the context of critical and liberating practice in preaching and life. The theology of the cross is a practical doctrine for battle, and can therefore become neither a theory of Christianity as it is now, nor the Christian theory of world history. It is a dialectical and historical theology, and not a theology of world history. It does note state what exists, but sets out to liberate men from their inhuman definitions and their idolized assertions, in which they have become set, and in which society has ensnared them." (72)
"The limit of Luther's theologia crucis in its historical form lay in the fact that it was impossible for him to oppose Aristotle's philosophy of works with its aid so effectively that a philosophia crucis could arise from it. Although in his polemic against Erasmus in 1525 he once again put forward his theology of the cross against the rising humanism of the modern age, the humanism of Erasmus, with the aid of Melanchthon, found its way into Protestantism and encouraged the protestant ethic of achievement." (72)
"In political terms, its limit lay in the fact that while as a reformer Luther formulated the theologia crucis in theoretical and practical terms against the medieval institutional church, he did not formulate is as a social criticism against feudal society in the Peasant Wars of 1524 and 1525. What he wrote to the peasants did not express the critical and liberating force of the cross, the choosing of the lowly which puts the mighty to shame, nor the polemic of the crucified God against pride and subjection, domination and slavery, but instead a non-Protestant mysticism of suffering and humble submission. The task therefore remained of developing the theology of the cross in the direction of an understanding of the world and of history. The theology of the cross had to be worked out not merely for the reform of the church but as a social criticism, in association with practical actions to set free both the wretched and their rulers. A thoroughgoing theology of the cross must apprehend the crucified God in all the three areas in which the ancient world used the term theology, and in which even today men are inescapably religious: in mythical theology, in the form of demythologization; in political theology, in the form of liberation; and in philosophical theology, in the form of understanding the universe as creation." (73)
To be continued.
An intimate look at Martin Luther King Jr. working at his desk, 1961 by Henri Cartier-Bresson.
http://i.imgur.com/fGgAwiY.jpg
Notes:
(1) theologia crucis - Theology of the Cross
(2) homo incurvatus in se - Humanity turned in on itself (Luther)
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Jurgen Moltmann. The Crucified God. 1974. Harper & Rowe, Publishers. (First Fortress Press edition published in 1993.)