THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
fined it in the sense and words of Augustinian and
scholastic tradition: justificatio — " a setting right "
— " a making over of the sinful man
3. Justjfi- to a righteous one." His view differed
cation by from the Roman only in that this Faith. making over comes to pass through faith alone, and not in any way through works or merit. Luther's dissent from Roman teaching developed from opposition to the doctrine of penance as it was then presented. Roman Catholicism taught that justification is attained through the means of grace of the Church, that is, first through baptism, which removes the taint of original sin, then through penance by those who, after baptism, fall into mortal sin. In the monastery Luther became convinced that he had lost the forgiveness and grace of baptism, and with burning zeal he turned to the sacrament of penance. Here the system of laying down stern conditions of absolution, which were almost invariably modified in virtue of the " power of the keys " (see Keys, Power of the), both terrified him and filled him with doubt. In reading the Pauline epistles, moreover, (be came to believe that God offers his grace without conditions and without regard to merit, provided only that there be faith. He likewise came to the conclusion that justification abides, while grace is ever ready for the acceptance of faith without need of any intermediary. It was in asserting this free and unconditional offer of God's grace to faith that Luther broke with the Roman doctrine of justification, which teaches increasing degrees of grace, and that to become worthy to share in grace man must in each degree do " what in him lies."
Luther's doctrine of justification is nothing less than a new concept of God. It means that God is love. Love is, to be sure, one of the attributes of God in the Roman Catholic system, but it is there placed after God's freedom and omnipotence, and is not the essence of his. being. To Luther God,, both as he is revealed in Christ and as he is still concealed from man, is unlimited, positive love. His love is so great and mighty and mysterious that the human mind can not fathom it; it is in every sense too high for reason, and is revealed in Christ, who is God in human form.
To Luther it seemed an incomprehensible misunderstanding when it was alleged that his doctrine of justification opened the way to moral laxity; in his opinion it alone gave real life and constancy to moral earnestness and joyousness. Faith did not free from the obligation of works, but only from excessive valuation of them. The certainty of pardon, he thought, assured to the guilty one that he who pardoned would help, and fur-
4. New nished the strongest impulse to the
Ethical "and will to do penance, that is, to forsake
Legal sin and perform good works. Luther's
Standards, opponents, on their part, could not
comprehend how he was able to find
the Roman Catholic form of penance too lax and
yet hold to the thought of a God whose mercy was
without limit. But Luther saw no incompatibility
in a merciful and a holy God. He believed in a
twofold destiny of men, blessedness and condemna-
tion. God's unlimited mercy is the most effective means he can use to win men to the former; not fear, but gratitude, is the strongest motive to obedience; and it is inconceivable that the merciful, pardoning God will not supply moral power where it is needed.
Luther broke through the external character of the law by explaining it, not as the inscrutable will of God which must be accepted implicitly as a revelation, but as based in the divine nature itself. In like manner the German Reformer transformed the concept of the blessedness of heaven. To the Roman Catholic Church the blessedness of heaven is the " beatific vision," which is the comprehensible aim of a Christianity whose God is blessed by virtue of his exalted nature. For Luther, too, God is blessed according to his nature, but this nature is love, and when one has on earth experienced proof of God's unwavering and unfathomable love in the forgiveness of sins, then there is life and blessedness in the present world, a foretaste of what will be fully enjoyed only in heaven. For the Roman Catholic the ecstatic visions of mysticism are the foretaste of heaven on earth. Luther was at times influenced by mysticism, but he never longed for visions and ecstasies, and his mysticism was only a means of learning and drawing near to God. This new idea of blessedness, with his concept of God, made it possible for Luther to speak of the certitude of salvation; and he could even make confidence in it a Christian duty, since God is love. The thought of God's ever certain grace meant to him, not indifference and weakness on the part of God toward sin, but God's power over sin; and blessedness meant for him, not a morally neutral good, but good as good, and the vital element of heaven.
Luther likewise had a new idea of the content of the good, or the law. For Roman Catholicism the moral law in its final analysis is a collection of statutes commanding and forbidding definite things, a code decreed by God instead of man. For Luther, the law (which the natural man can not understand) becomes a single idea applicable to every individual and every situation. As God is love and can not help giving forth love, so he requires nothing but love from any one. Faith feels an inner compulsion to show forth love, and makes the Christian the servant of all, even while exalting him as lord of all things.
j Luther regarded the Church as in principle nothing but a community of individuals. The only necessary mark of the Church is the presence of believers, who are united through Christ, the head of the body of which each believer is a member. The thought of the body of Christ means for Luther that the Church is not an organization, but 5. Churchman organism, which lives in and with and Sacra-. Christ himself. Christ's spirit and word ments. are the medium by which the Church works. "*In Roman Catholic teaching the presence of priests properly ordained is essential to the Church, not the attendance of worshipers; and in so far as the Roman theory is not that of a sacred order, it is expressed in legal ordinances. Luther thinks in principle only of an attitude of mind which can not be expressed in terms of law.