Luther, Calvin and Orthodoxy: The Question of Continuity

The religious complexification of certain regions of Europe – such as Germany – led to the recognition of the need to distinguish not simply Catholic from Protestant, but one form of Protestantism from another. Many religious beliefs and practices, which earlier had been considered as ‘ matters of indifference’ (adiaphora ) upon which diversity might be tolerated between Protestants, now became treated as criteria of demarcation between the emerging Protestant confessional churches. 3 The term ‘ Orthodoxy’ is widely used to refer to the forms of Lutheran and Reformed theology which developed within this social context. These often focussed on the development of theological systems similar to those developed during the Middle Ages by Thomas Aquinas and other scholastic writers. This had led to such writers being described as ‘ Protestant scholastics’ , although this designation is now generally considered to be unhelpful. 4

This perceived need to distinguish the two confessional churches of the age – Lutheranism and Calvinism – led to theological or liturgical differences being sought as the basis for social demarcation. The doctrine of justification by faith now assumed a social function, which was superimposed upon its theological foundations: it was seen as one of the most reliable and resilient means by which Protestants and Catholics might be distinguished from one another. Since most Protestants were able to converge around this doctrine, other markers had to be used to distinguish Lutherans from Calvinists. Two such markers emerged in a process of social negotiation: the Calvinist doctrine of double predestination, and the Lutheran concept of the ‘ real presence’ .

The study of the phenomenon of Confessionalisation has led some scholars to focus on the social function of certain theological doctrines, in effect treating them simply as identity markers. This has led others to insist on the importance of considering these theological issues as matters of importance in their own right rather than in terms of their sociological significance. 5 In what follows, we shall focus on the substantive theological discussions on the doctrine of justification to emerge within the period of Orthodoxy.

The forensic dimension of justification was emphasised by the use of the term acceptilation , introduced by Melanchthon to illustrate a declarative mode of divine acceptation. This concept, taken from Roman private law, refers to the dissolution of an obligation (such as a debt) by a verbal decree on the part of the one to whom the debt was due, without any form of payment having taken place or necessarily being envisaged as taking place in the future. Justification is thus conceived analogically, as the remission of sins and imputation of righteousness by a purely verbal decree in foro divino , without any change in the sinner having taken place on the basis of which this verdict could be supported. The term acceptilation , so frequently used in this context, appears to be misunderstood by several Reformed theologians of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, such as Johann Alsted, who confuses it with the quite distinct Scotist concept of acceptation .

An important distinction is made by the Reformed theologians between active and passive justification. The distinction refers to the act of God by which the sinner is justified (active justification), and the subjective feeling of grace subsequently evoked in the conscience of the justified sinner. God acts to justify, and humanity is passive in receiving this justification. The importance of the distinction lies in the fact that God’ s act of justification, in which the sinner is declared righteous, is perfect, accomplished once and for all, whereas the subjective realisation by humans of this state of justification is imperfect, in so far as it is based upon the feeling of grace evoked in their conscience. While the two coexist simultaneously in the formal act of justification, the extent of the consciousness of justification may vary from one individual to another. The absence of such a robust conceptual distinction within Lutheranism led to some confusion concerning the precise causal relationship of faith and justification, whereas the Reformed theologians were able to state that faith was posterior to objective, and prior to subjective, justification.

Piscator was refuted in a variety of manners. The Lutheran Johann Gerhard argued that, as justification included both remissio peccatorum and imputatio iustitiae , the former could be held to be based upon the obedientia passiva and the latter upon the obedientia activa . However, Gerhard conceded that this suggestion was valid only according to human reasoning (secundum rationem ), and did not rest upon a robust theological connection between the concepts; as others pointed out, this would imply – again, secundum rationem – the priority of imputatio iustitiae over remissio peccatorum . The Reformed reply to Piscator was somewhat different, and requires careful analysis. According to the Lutheran understanding of the communicatio idiomatum , the incarnation of the Word may be said to result in the participation of the humanity of Christ in all the divine attributes, including that of superiority to the law (the so-called exlex ). Thus Christ, as a human being, is under no positive obligation to fulfil the law, and his subsequent fulfilment of the law must therefore be seen as a vicarious act on his part. If this act is to have any value, that value must relate to others, rather than to Christ himself. 9 Christ’ s active obedience is therefore of purely vicarious satisfactory value.

While insisting that the obedientia activa is vicarious (in other words, of value to those for whom Christ became incarnate), 10 Reformed theologians operated with a significantly different understanding of the communicatio idiomatum ; 11 the Lutheran understanding of the principle is rejected as practically dissipating the humanity of Christ. The Reformed Christology affirmed the setting aside of certain divine attributes – including the so-called exlex – as a result of which the humanity of Christ retains its primary characteristics, with the exception of humanity’ s innate sinfulness. Thus Christ, as a human being, is under obligation to the law, so that the obedientia activa is not necessarily vicarious.

Faustus Socinus denied that God required any form of satisfaction in order to remit sin; God is to rather to be conceived as a private creditor, who is able to remit debts of any kind without the necessity of the imposition of any penalty. 12 Although Socinus affirmed the traditional threefold office of Christ as prophet, priest and king, he restricted the office of priest to that of intercession (whereas it had traditionally included satisfaction), shifting the emphasis to the prophetic office, by which Christ revealed the will of God to humanity.

In rebutting Socinus, the two confessions concurred in their understanding of the priestly office of Christ, by which he made satisfaction for the sins of humanity. François Turrettini ’ s analysis of the threefold office of Christ (munus triplex Christi ) commanded wide support. 13

The Reformed divines, while conceding the universal sufficiency of the work of Christ, emphasised the particularity of its efficacy. This opinion represents a development of the views of Calvin , who affirmed that the gospel was offered by God for all humankind. Hence, in his critical discussion of the Tridentine decree on justification, Calvin raised no objection to the explicit statement that Christ died for all. 15

Other Reformed theologians, however, held that Christ should be considered to have died in order to redeem the elect. For example, Peter Martyr Vermigli asserted that ‘ God decreed to give his own Son up to death – a most ignominious death – in order to remove sin from the elect’ . 16 Girolamo Zanchi raised the question of those who would benefit from Christ’ s death in his commentary on Ephesians. For Zanchi, the answer was clear: ‘ for us, the elect’ . Christ’ s death was totally sufficient to merit the redemption of the entire world; it was, however, efficacious only for the redemption of the elect. 17

These views are repeated, and given systematic coherence by Beza: Christ’ s death benefitted only the elect, not all. 18 Christ died sufficienter for all, but efficienter only for the elect. A distinction must be drawn between God’ s general love, exercised towards all of humanity, and his saving love, by which he wills to redeem them. There is thus a clear distinction between the Lutheran concept of the general divine intention to save all, actualised in the case of those who believe, and the Reformed doctrine of an efficacious individual election.

Perhaps seeking to place clear blue water between themselves and Calvinism, some later seventeenth-century Lutheran dogmaticians stated that faith was itself a cause of justification (causa iustificationis ). 22 Although it was emphasised that faith was a subsidiary cause of justification (causa impulsiva minus principalis iustificationis ), it was nevertheless clear that faith was logically prior to justification in the ordo salutis . This affirmation was interpreted to mean that justification was dependent upon a change in humans, and resulted in the placing of justification towards the end of an ordo salutis which included elements such as illuminatio , regeneratio and conversio . Although justification is still defined forensically , it is understood to be predicated upon a prior alteration within humans – namely, that they already believe. Where Luther had understood justification to concern the unbelieving sinner , later Lutheran Orthodoxy shifted the discussion of justification to the believing sinner . Thus Calov and Quenstedt set out the following ordo salutis : 23

The final Lutheran doctrine of justification, as stated by Hollaz, has the following form: humans, in their natural state, are spiritually dead. By the means of grace, especially through the agency of the Word, humans receive new powers, the illumination of their understanding, and the excitement of good desires. This brings about the restoration of the liberum arbitrium , so that the arbitrium liberatum is now enabled to believe. Humans thus possess the facultas applicandi se ad gratiam before their justification, and their justification is contingent upon precisely such applicatio gratiae . 24 If individuals choose to do so, they may, although they need not, use these powers consequent to their regeneration to repent and believe, and as a result to be justified. 25 It will be clear that there are thus considerable affinities between later Lutheran Orthodoxy and Pietism on the relationship between faith and justification.

In part, the later Lutheran insistence on the priority of regeneration and conversion over justification represents a reaction against the Reformed doctrine of irresistible grace, a leading feature of Reformed spirituality in the post-Dordt period. In order to avoid such a teaching, it is necessary to develop a theology of justification which simultaneously asserts the inability of humans to justify themselves sine gratia and their ability to reject the possibility of justification once this arises. The affirmation of the priority of regeneration over justification thus permits the later Lutheran divines to maintain the necessity of grace in justification (in that it is necessary for regeneration), while restricting its efficacy (in that this regeneration is understood to involve the repristination of the sinner’ s volitional faculties, by which they are able to determine whether or not to respond to their call). It will, however, be clear that the result is a theology which logically places regeneration prior to faith, and faith prior to justification.

The later Reformed understanding of the matter is generally simpler and more coherent, partly on account of the theological clarifications resulting from the Arminian controversy in general, and the decisions of the Synod of Dordt in particular. The justification of humanity is understood as the temporal execution of the decree of election, brought about through grace. The fact that this proceeds through a complex causal sequence does not alter the fact that the entire sequence of events is to be directly attributed to God. Faith is to be seen as a divine gift effected within humans, functioning as the instrument by which the Holy Spirit may establish the unio mystica between Christ and the believer, whose threefold outcome is justification, sanctification and glorification. 26 The role of humans at each and every stage of the ordo salutis is purely passive, in that the elect are called and accepted efficaciter . This observation goes some considerable way towards explaining what might at first seem the surprisingly low status accorded to justification within Reformed dogmatics; justification is merely an aspect of the temporal execution of the eternal decree of election. God exercises his providential rule over creation through the efficacious justification of the elect. It is interesting to observe that, although the objective grounds of justification fall under the aegis of the priestly office of Christ in Reformed dogmatics, the subjective appropriation of justification is dealt with under the aegis of the kingly office.

It will be clear that while the Lutheran and Reformed understandings of the nature of justification are similar; the chief differences between them emerge in relation to the question of the objective grounds and subjective appropriation of justification. Yet there is another issue that needs consideration here – the emergence of a federal understanding of justification within the Reformed tradition, which has no real parallel in Lutheranism. We shall consider this in what follows.

Polanus, by redefining Ursinus’ s foedus naturae as the foedus operum , established the general outlines of the theology which would become normative within the early Reformed school. 29 The concept of the covenant between God and humans eventually came to replace Calvin ’ s Christological solution to the problem of the relationship between the totally gratuitous justification of the sinner and the demands of obedience subsequently laid upon them. The foedus gratiae was grounded Christologically, with Christ as testator , thus retaining the emphasis, if not the substance, of Calvin’ s position. 30

The general outlines of the pre-Cocceian theology of the double covenant may be studied from Wollebius’ s Christianae theologiae compendium (1626). A fundamental distinction is drawn between God’ s dealings with humans in their innocent and in their lapsed states. In the former, God entered of his own free and sovereign decision into a covenant of works with humans, which promised them eternal life upon condition that they were obedient to God. The fall of humankind led to the establishment of a new covenant with humanity, as an expression of the divine graciousness. The foedus gratiae must be distinguished from the universal covenant made by God with all creatures, and the foedus operum made with Adam; it is the covenant established between God and his elect, by which God promises himself as their father in Christ, provided that they live in filial obedience to him. Although the foedus gratiae is offered to all people, the explicit particularism of the later Reformed soteriology permits only the elect to enjoy its benefits.

The foedus gratiae is understood to have operated throughout the period of both the Old and the New Testaments. The Old Testament may be considered as the covenant of grace, as it was administered until the time of Christ, and may be divided into three periods. Between Adam and Abraham, the covenant was expressed simply in terms of the promises of God made to all people, unsupported in any external manner, and marked by the ritual of sacrifice. Between Abraham and Moses, the covenant was expressed in terms of the promises of God to the children of Abraham, supplemented by demands of obedience and the ritual of circumcision. Between Moses and Christ, the covenant assumed a more testamentary character, being marked by the ritual of Passover and other types of the death of Christ, who may be regarded as the testator of the foedus gratiae , and hence of both the Old and New Testaments. In effect, both the Old and New Testaments may be regarded as the same in substance, in that both contain the promise of grace linked with the demand of obedience; their difference lies primarily in the manner in which the covenant is administered. The dialectic between law and gospel, so characteristic of contemporary Lutheranism, is thus conspicuously absent.

The covenant theology of Reformed orthodoxy received a significant development through Cocceius , who emphasised the potential theological significance of the term testamentum , which tended to be used interchangeably with foedus . 31 Cocceius distinguished between the foedus operum and the foedus gratiae by affirming that the latter alone may be allowed the character of a divine testament (in the sense of a ‘ will’ ), ratified beforehand by God to Christ, by which God appointed a heavenly inheritance for his children, to be acquired through the intervening death of Jesus Christ. The contracting parties to this testament are God as Redeemer, humanity as sinners, and Christ as the federal mediator between them. The testament is actually contracted in eternity between God and Christ, in which God exacted from Christ the condition of perfect obedience to the law in return for the elect as his own inheritance. This development served to distinguish the covenant of works from that of grace, emphasising the novel character of the latter, in that it alone has the status of a testament. Furthermore, the existence of the intra-trinitarian pact between Father and Son was held to justify the doctrine of particular atonement, thus further increasing its influence within later Reformed orthodoxy.

The doctrine of a threefold covenant between God and humanity is particularly associated with the Salmurian Academy . 32 In April 1608, John Cameron published De triplici Dei cum homine foedere theses , in which he developed an analysis of salvation history based upon three distinct covenants between God and humanity: a covenant of nature, and intermediary ‘ covenant of subservient grace’ , and the covenant of grace itself. The foedus gratiae subserviens was regarded by Cameron as a preparation for the foedus gratiae , and appears to have represented an attempt to incorporate the Lutheran distinction between law and gospel within the context of a federal scheme.

Moses Amyraut adopted this three-fold scheme as the basis of his distinctive theology. 33 Amyraut’ s ‘ hypothetical universalism’ and his doctrine of the triple covenant between God and humanity is probably best understood as a direct consequence of his emphasis upon the priority of justification over other Christian doctrines. 34 The Pauline dialectic between law and gospel, underlying Cameron’ s covenant scheme, caused Amyraut to revise the traditional foedus operum or foedus legale by interpreting the term lex in a radically restricted sense. In his disputation De tribus foederibus divinis , Amyraut developed a theory of progressive revelation, culminating in the period of the covenant of grace. The first covenant (the ‘ natural covenant’ ) pertained to humanity in the earthly paradise; the second covenant (the ‘ legal’ covenant) to the people of Israel; and the third (the ‘ covenant of grace’ ) to the church under the gospel. This framework was seen by some as opening up some important lines of theological exploration; 35 it failed, however, to gain traction within mainstream Reformed circles.

Reformed federal theology was the subject of considerable criticism in the twentieth century. Karl Barth , though positioning himself within the Reformed tradition, vigorously contested any distinction between a covenant of works and a covenant of grace, arguing for a single covenant between God and humanity. 36 Two influential Scottish Reformed theologians – Thomas F. Torrance and James B. Torrance – took a similar position, arguing that a ‘ federal theology’ represented a later imposition on Calvin ’ s thought, which was to be rejected. 37 These criticisms of federal theology have subsequently been questioned by historical theologians, particularly in relation to the suggestion that these represent a departure from Calvin’ s theological vision. 38 This raises the general question of the relation of both Lutheran and Reformed Orthodoxy to Luther and Calvin, to which we now turn.

Where Luther held the concepts of the favour of God and the gift of God together within a framework of the believer’ s union with Christ, the Formula of Concord and most of Lutheran Orthodoxy adopted a somewhat one-sided forensic doctrine of justification lacking any personal or relational dimension. Luther’ s early views on justification thus involve sinners being not only forgiven, but also undergoing an alteration in their natures through participation in Christ. Although Luther may distinguish between an extrinsic pronouncement and an intrinsic process in justification, he does not regard these as separate or separable. On this view, Luther holds together Christus in nobis and Christus extra nos ; many in Orthodoxy separated them out, and thus lost sight of their fundamental interconnection. There is an issue of theological diplomacy here, in that Luther and Melanchthon were known to take different views on certain matters relating to justification. 41 Yet as we noted earlier, these can be seen as different ways of visualising or imagining justification, which need neither reflect nor engender divergence or disagreement.

So does this mean that Lutheran Orthodoxy has distorted Luther, and lost sight of some central themes of the younger Luther’ s reforming theology, which played such a critical role in the precipitation of the Reformation? In responding, it is necessary to note that Lutheranism found itself forced to respond to cultural and intellectual challenges – not least through the rise of Confessionalism – which seemed to mandate a more systematic approach to theology in order to maintain its intellectual viability in the face of credible challenges from both Reformed and Catholic theologians and apologists. Lutheranism could not merely repeat what Luther had said; it proved necessary to integrate these insights within a grander system. There is a legitimate debate here about whether such a system emerges naturally from, or whether it requires to be discerned within, or even imposed upon, the biblical material. 42

The same questions arise in considering the relation between Calvin ’ s writings and those of his later successors. The present writer is inclined to think that the connection between Calvin and later Reformed theology is rather more continuous and organic than that between Luther and his later successors, perhaps reflecting the systematic nature of Calvin’ s thought and the manner of its presentation in the Institutes . Later Reformed writers were able to develop Calvin’ s ideas within a systematic framework with relative ease. 43 Although an earlier generation of scholars posited a discontinuity between Calvin and his successors with apparent ease and enthusiasm, especially in relation to the alleged scholasticising tendencies of the latter, this is now seen more in terms of a principled evolutionary development of Calvin’ s ideas, rather than their distortion.

We shall return to some of the themes of this chapter when we consider Puritanism , a remarkable and highly significant variant of Reformed theology with a strong emphasis on the experiential and pastoral aspects of faith. We now, however, turn to explore the development of justification in Anglicanism in the early seventeenth century.