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Martin Luther was a German Catholic priest and monk who in the early sixteenth century began the Christian movement known as the Protestant Reformation. He believed, among other things, that: the Bible is the only source of authority in Christianity (to the exclusion of any authority claimed by past or present teachings of popes and bishops); God’s grace accepted by faith is the only agent in a man’s salvation—the individual believer contributes nothing; and there is no difference within Christianity between laity or clergy and therefore no justification for a visible hierarchy of popes, bishops, and priests. At the core of his message was a joyful and childlike trust in God’s mercy. Luther called this abiding trust in God “Christian freedom.” The Reformation resulted in the division of western Christianity between Roman Catholicism (which had previously been the religion of all of Europe) and various Protestant groups, primary among them Lutherans (followers of Luther himself), Calvinists (followers of John Calvin), Anglicans (the Church of England), and the Anabaptists.
Luther was born in the town of Eisleben in what is now Northeast Germany (the former East Germany) between Magdeburg and Leipzig. His father was a successful local businessman. He received a typical Catholic religious education as a boy and in adolescence was sent to a school run by the Brethren of the Common Life, a lay movement that emphasized personal piety. (Thomas a Kempis, author of the famous Imitation of Christ, had been associated with this movement during his life.) Luther obtained a bachelor’s degree in the liberal arts in 1502 and three years later a master’s degree, both from the University of Erfurt. He was immersed in medieval scholastic philosophy, and claimed to have been especially influenced by Aristotle and William of Ockham.
In 1505 Luther entered a monastery of the Order of the Hermits of St. Augustine (the Augustinians), explaining his decision by saying that during a violent thunderstorm, he had made a vow to become a monk if God allowed him to survive the storm. (Some speculate that this was an excuse he made to placate his disapproving father—vows made under duress were not binding.) Life in the monastery he entered was relatively austere and typical of monastic life until then, revolving around the recitation of the Psalms, the celebration of the Mass, and work. Luther was ordained a priest in the order in 1507. Also in 1507 he began advanced studies in theology and was transferred to the Augustinian monastery at Wittenburg to study at the university there.
In late 1510 and early 1511 he traveled to Rome at the request of his order to appeal a decision of the pope. His appeal failed, and he came away with a negative impression of Rome in general. He found it to be a rather unspiritual place for being the center of the Catholic Church.
In 1512, Luther received his doctorate in theology and became a professor of biblical studies at Wittenburg. He rose in the ranks of leadership at his monastery and in the Augustinian order, and began to publish theological writings, including criticisms of scholastic theology.
Then in 1517, a Dominican friar named Johann Tetzel came to Wittenburg and allegedly preached that people who purchased a letter of indulgence from him would receive forgiveness of their sins. To remedy this abuse, Luther proposed an academic debate at the university on the nature of indulgences. He circulated a list of theses for discussion, the famous Ninety-Five Theses. He sent a copy of the document to Archbishop Albert of Mainz (the bishop to whom Tetzel was subject) and asked that the Archbishop stop Tetzel from preaching. Although the day on which Luther published these Theses is now taken to be the inception of the Reformation, at the time this was not Luther’s intention (even though some of the theses referred to the pope rather harshly). Nevertheless, the archbishop requested that the papal curia in Rome open a formal inquiry into the orthodoxy of the Theses.
In 1518, Luther was called to Rome, but Frederick III, the Duke of Saxony (where Luther lived), convinced Rome to examine Luther instead in Augsburg at the periodic meeting or “Diet” of the emperor and princes of the Holy Roman Empire. (The Empire was the confederation of German-speaking principalities in central Europe.) There the Dominican Thomist Cardinal Cajetan examined Luther for three days and then advised Luther to recant his positions. Luther instead fled back to Wittenburg. By the end of 1518 he had become firmly committed to the position that formed the core of Protestantism: that grace alone, accepted by faith, reconciles man to God, and that humans contribute nothing to their salvation.
Although Luther tried to keep to himself, the Theses sparked widespread debates throughout Germany that drew attention to him and increased his reputation as a heretic. In 1520 Pope Leo X issued a decree that condemned certain opinions of Luther’s and gave him one last chance to recant. Luther refused, called the pope the antichrist, and burned the decree in public. In 1521 the pope formally excommunicated Luther and declared him to be a heretic.
Luther left Worms, and Charles V declared Luther and his followers to be outlaws and ordered his writings to be burned. But not all the German princes agreed with the Emperor’s action, especially Frederick, the Duke of Saxony, who took Luther in secret to his castle in Wartburg. There Luther translated the New Testament into the German vernacular. This was one of his most important feats, and it profoundly affected the development of the German language and the emergence of national European languages in general.
Meanwhile popular anger at Luther’s treatment stirred up widespread support for reform of the Catholic Church in Germany. By the time Luther re-emerged in Wittenburg in 1522, law and order had begun to break down. Luther himself thought reform should happen slowly, and he was able to calm and direct the reform movement in Wittenburg accordingly. But with the emergence of other reformers in 1523 and the shift of the Reformation out of theological discussion and into the realm of politics, Luther was no longer as important as he had been, even though he still remained influential.
In 1524, German peasants, inspired partly by Luther but also by economic and political complaints, rose up in rebellion. The uprising spread throughout central Germany and became known as the Peasants’ War. Luther at times supported the peasants and at other times denounced them. It was in response to this crisis that he began to teach that the object of reform should be more matters of religion and not public life, thus questioning the medieval view that Christianity should suffuse all of society, not just the Church. In the end the peasants became alienated from him.
In the mid-1520s he engaged in a literary debate with the Dutch humanist Desiderius Erasmus about whether human beings were free to contribute to their salvation. In 1527 Luther parted sharply with the Swiss reformer Huldrych Zwingli, because the latter denied the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. At a mostly failed attempt at reconciliation in 1529, Luther took out a piece of chalk and wrote out on a table the Latin words of institution from the Gospel, “Hoc est corpus meum” (“This is my body”).
In 1525 Luther married Katherine of Bora, a former nun who had fled her convent with eight other nuns. By that time, Luther himself was the only resident left of the former Augustinian monastery in Wittenburg. (The other monks had all married or fled to Catholic parts of the Empire.) He married Katherine because she was alone and without support; because he had already opined that marriage was honorable and that celibacy should not be insisted on for priests; and because he believed that the end of the world was at hand, based on evidence like the Peasants’ War. Luther and Katherine had five children, one of whom died young; they had a very affectionate marriage and family life in general.
In 1530 Charles V convened a Diet at Augsburg to address the persisting religious divisions in the empire, but Luther could not attend on account of his still being an outlaw. His student Philipp Melanchthon attended instead, presenting the Augsburg Confession as a summary of Protestant beliefs.
Luther was little involved in the development of Protestantism after his initial controversy with Rome. He continued to teach at Wittenburg’s university, despite poor health. In 1546, during a stay at Eisleben, the town of his birth, he died at age 62, and was later buried at the Castle Church in Wittenburg.
Britannica Academic, s. v. “Martin Luther.” Accessed 17 May 2016. http://academic.eb.com/EBchecked/topic/351950/Martin-Luther. Article by Hans J. Hillerbrand. See also Encyclopedia Britannica Online, s. v. “Martin Luther,” http://www.britannica.com/biography/Martin-Luther.
Gilliat-Smith, Ernest. “Brethren of the Common Life.” The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 4. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1908. 6 June 2016 http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04166b.htm.
Philipp Melanchthon (originally Philipp Schwartzerd) was a humanist, a theologian, and a disciple and collaborator of Martin Luther, founder of the early 16th-century Christian movement in Germany known as the Protestant Reformation.
Melanchthon was born in 1497 in the town of Bretten in the Palatinate region of the German-speaking Holy Roman Empire. (Bretten lies in the southwestern part of modern Germany, east of the city of Karlsruhe.) Philipp’s father died when he was about 11 years old.
His first tutor was his great-uncle, a famous humanist through whom Philipp developed a deep love for the writings of the ancient Greeks and Romans. When he went to a school focused on humanist training, he changed his last name from Schwartzerd (meaning “black earth”) to its Greek equivalent, Melanchthon.
In 1511 he earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Heidelberg, and in 1514 he earned a master’s from Tübingen. His studies focused on Scholasticism (the philosophy of the medieval universities); the rhetoric of the Dutch humanist Rodolphus Agricola; the nominalist philosophy of William of Ockham and John of Wesel; the Bible; and Greek and Latin literature. After graduating he published six books, including a Greek grammar that went through several editions. The Dutch humanist Erasmus praised his ability, and his fame even reached England.
In 1518 Melanchthon accepted a position at the University of Wittenburg as its first professor of Greek. There he began to call for a revival of theology and society through the study of ancient Latin, Greek, and Christian authors. He published seven more books and earned a bachelor’s degree in theology. In 1520 he married Katherine Krapp, with whom he eventually had four children.
At Wittenburg, Melanchthon quickly established a deep friendship with Martin Luther, who was a professor there. Melanchthon became Luther’s chief defender during the initial controversy that sparked the Reformation, even after the Holy Roman Emperor ordered Luther’s supporters to be killed. In his later years Melanchthon’s own views diverged slightly from Luther’s: his view on the Eucharist eventually came to match that of John Calvin; he came to believe that individuals were in part freely responsible for accepting or rejecting salvation (Luther denied free will altogether in salvation); and although he accepted the primacy of faith from which good works flow, he said such works were a “necessary” consequence. Unlike Luther, he stressed that individuals had to be held accountable to law to bring them to repentance.
With Luther’s encouragement, Melanchthon lectured on Paul’s Letter to the Romans, and in 1521, he published the Loci communes, the first systematic presentation of the thought of the Reformation. By 1525 the Loci communes had gone through 18 editions in the original Latin and was being printed in German also. Luther praised it as equal to Scripture. Years later, the University of Cambridge in England made it required reading, and Queen Elizabeth I nearly memorized it.
Melanchthon continued to grow in importance during the early negotiations between the Reform movement and the Catholic princes of the Empire. He showed himself to be a skilled negotiator; the Catholics respected him most among all the Reformers. Luther himself was prevented from taking part in negotiations because he was outlawed from the Catholic parts of the Empire under pain of death. Melanchthon attended the Diet of Speyer in 1529. (A “Diet” was a periodic meeting of the Empire’s princes to conduct affairs of state.) There the princes who sympathized with Luther lodged a formal protest against the Catholic majority, from which the term “Protestant” arose. In 1530, at the negotiations of the Diet of Augsburg, Melanchthon was the leading representative of the Reformation. For that meeting he prepared the Augsburg Confession, one of the first formal summaries of Protestant beliefs. That document, along with his later Apology of the Confession of Augsburg (1531) and his Treatise on the Power and Primacy of the Pope, became enduring, authoritative statements of Lutheran beliefs.
Although Melanchthon did not compromise on points of disagreement with Catholics, many Protestants severely criticized him for being too conciliatory. After years of work trying to resolve divisions between Protestants and Catholics, and among Protestants, Melanchthon died in 1560 and was buried in Wittenburg next to Martin Luther.
Britannica Academic, s. v. “Philipp Melanchthon,” accessed 17 May 2016, http://academic.eb.com/EBchecked/topic/373644/Philipp-Melanchthon. See also Encyclopædia Britannica Online, s. v. “Philipp Melanchthon,” accessed 9 June 2016, http://www.britannica.com/biography/Philipp-Melanchthon.
Huldreich (also spelled Huldrych or Ulrich) Zwingli was the leading figure of the Swiss Protestant Reformation. The Reformation in general was the Christian reform movement started by Martin Luther in German-speaking Europe (the Holy Roman Empire) in the early sixteenth century. Like Luther, Zwingli believed that the Bible was the sole authority for determining Christian belief and practice; though he applied the Bible more rigorously and to more aspects of Christian life than Luther did. He also downplayed the gravity of original sin, denied that the sacraments conveyed grace to the soul, and was on the whole more intellectual in his approach to theology.
Zwingli’s father was a free peasant, one of his uncles was an abbot, and another was a diocesan priest. He was born in Wildhaus, now a village in eastern Switzerland, near the border with Liechtenstein. He acquired a love for music and for Latin and Greek literature in his youth. At the advice of his father and uncle he turned down an offer to join the Dominicans and attended university at Vienna, from which he graduated in 1504. Afterward he taught, read theology, attended lectures of an early proponent of Church reform, and was ordained a priest in 1506.
At his first assignment he discharged his duties as pastor, learned Greek and Hebrew, studied the Church Fathers in depth, and took up a correspondence with Erasmus. He served as a military chaplain for a time, then in 1516 moved to a parish in Einsiedeln (near Zurich). Einsiedeln was home to a long-standing, popular Marian shrine and a major abbey. Zwingli took full advantage of the opportunity to preach to the shrine’s pilgrims and to deepen his studies at the abbey’s rich library. He later identified this period as the beginning of his doctrinal evolution. Very soon he began to preach for reform, first only against abuses in the Church, not on matters of doctrine.
In 1518 he was appointed to a position at the important Grossmünster church at Zurich that gave him more chances for preaching on the New Testament to large audiences. He became more spiritual and theological in his outlook after surviving an outbreak of the plague in 1519. In 1520 he began to preach more boldly about what he thought was the true meaning of the Bible, instigating rebellions against fasting and priestly celibacy that inaugurated the Swiss Reformation in 1522. In Oetenbach, with the authorization of his bishop, he continued to preach based on his view of the supreme authority of scripture.
In 1523, Zwingli published a set of radical proposals for reform that became adopted by most of the clergy in and around Zurich. Priestly celibacy was abandoned; the cathedral school was transformed into a Reformed seminary; images and the use of organs were forbidden in churches; houses of monks and nuns were disbanded; and the Mass was replaced with a simple communion service. Zwingli himself publicly married Anna Reinhard in 1524. His reforms quickly spread to Bern and Basel, while other areas of Switzerland resisted. Together Zurich, Basel, and Bern formed a political alliance.
In 1525 an extremist Anabaptist group arose in Zurich that wanted to push Zwingli’s reforms even further, by abolishing tithes, infant baptism, and any connection between the church and the state. Zwingli opposed these groups in writing, and the council of Zurich had the group’s leaders executed after they refused to recant. Around the same time Zwingli parted sharply with Martin Luther on the question of the Eucharist. Although both agreed that the Eucharist was not substantially different from bread and wine, Luther believed that in some way Christ was truly present in it, according to the words of Christ in scripture: “This is my body.” Zwingli argued that Christ’s use of the word “is” meant “signifies.” An attempt at reconciliation in 1529 failed. Luther refused to shake Zwingli’s hand even though on other points they did agree. This division was reflected at the meeting of the princes of the Holy Roman Empire—called a Diet—at Augsburg, in 1530. There Zwingli represented one of three distinct Reformed groups against the Catholic princes.
Meanwhile the Catholic cantons of Switzerland were mobilizing to resist the Reformed ones. Zwingli reached out to Venice and France—who were hostile to the Empire—for support for the Swiss reformed cause. When this effort failed, in 1531 Zwingli proposed attacking the Catholic cantons, but the Reformed alliance instead imposed economic sanctions. These provoked the Catholics to attack, resulting in fighting near the city of Kappel. There Zwingli died in battle while serving as a chaplain.
Britannica Academic, s. v. “Huldrych Zwingli,” accessed 17 May 2016, http://academic.eb.com/EBchecked/topic/658598/Huldrych-Zwingli. See also http://www.britannica.com/biography/Huldrych-Zwingli.
John (French “Jean”) Calvin (sometimes “Cauvin”), a theologian, was the leading French-speaking Protestant Reformer and the most important Protestant leader among the second generation of the Protestant Reformation (that is, among those who came of age after the Reformation had already begun).
Around 1532 Calvin returned to Paris and became deeply influenced by the reforming spirit of Renaissance humanism. He learned Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, and took up a serious study of the Bible. In 1533, as the French government was becoming less tolerant toward humanism and other reform movements, Calvin left Paris for Basel, Switzerland.
Around this time he experienced a “sudden conversion” (his words) in the direction of Protestantism. Previously he seemed to have been little influenced by the Reformation, which had by this time been going on in Germany for over 15 years. Not long afterward, in 1536, at the age of twenty-seven, he published the first edition of his magnum opus, Institutes of the Christian Religion, perhaps the most important and systematic single statement of Protestant beliefs during the Reformation. The first printing sold out quickly, and for the second printing in 1539 Calvin revised and expanded the work substantially, as he did several times thereafter for subsequent editions. At first The Institutes was published only in Latin; French editions came out after several years. The final Latin edition came out in 1559 and the final French edition came out in 1560.
In 1536 he moved to Geneva to help an early Swiss Reformer, Guillaume Farel, plant Protestantism more firmly there. Calvin and Farel were uncompromising in their approach, and Geneva consequently expelled them in 1538. Calvin fled to the then-German-speaking city of Strasbourg (now in France), where in 1540 he married Idelette de Bure. There he also came under the tutelage of Martin Bucer, another Protestant pastor, and began his voluminous commentaries on the Bible. In Strasbourg he gained an international reputation as a Protestant figure thanks to his contact with Protestant leaders and his debates with Catholic theologians.
In 1541 he was invited back to Geneva. Thanks to his improved reputation, the town council implemented his other magnum opus, the Ecclesiastical Ordinances, thereby instituting Calvin’s program for religious education and church order throughout the city. Church government was delegated to four groups: pastors, teachers, elders (chief administrators), and deacons (responsible for charitable works). In addition, a consistory of pastors and elders was established to oversee the revision of Geneva’s civil laws to conform with God’s law. The consistory abolished Catholic practices, enforced sexual morality, and regulated taverns, dancing, gambling, and swearing. These actions created a rather tense atmosphere in the city, which perhaps explains why, in 1553, the town burned at the stake Michael Servetus, a Spanish theologian who had been preaching unorthodox beliefs. Calvin saw to his arrest and conviction but did not approve of the method of his execution.
In 1555 Calvin’s vision of Christianity became firmly established in Geneva. He could then devote his attention to the concerns of Protestantism across Europe. He maintained an extensive correspondence and completed commentaries on all but one book of the New Testament (Revelation) and on most of the Old Testament. Moreover, he took on a demanding set of pastoral responsibilities in the city. He died in Geneva in 1564 at the age of fifty-four and was buried, by his will, in an unmarked grave, to prevent idolatry toward his remains.
Calvin’s thought gave rise to the whole branch of Protestantism identified by the adjective “Reformed” or simply “Calvinist.” Its variants include the Reformed churches of France, Germany, Scotland, and the Netherlands; the Puritans in England; and the Congregationalists, Presbyterians, and Unitarians of the English North American Colonies, later the United States. He had a strong influence on modernity’s notions of Christianity, religion in general, and political theory. Although some have characterized Calvinism as heartless, severe, and abstract, even recent secular scholarship has recognized that the religion of Calvin himself is quite humane. Calvin tried to lead believers to experience the love and mercy of God, which God wondrously offers to human beings in spite of their sinfulness. He encouraged Christians to order their day-to-day lives and the world around them toward God by steady, persevering effort, all the while depending entirely on the grace of God in matters of salvation and the spiritual life. He perhaps leaned toward severity in places only for rhetorical purposes, in order to spur people to reject sin and be faithful to God.
Britannica Academic, s. v. “John Calvin.” Accessed May 17, 2016. http://academic.eb.com/EBchecked/topic/90247/John-Calvin.
Ignatius of Loyola, Saint. The Autobiography of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, With Related Documents. Translated by Joseph F. O’Callaghan. Edited with Introduction and Notes by John C. Olin. New York: Fordham University Press. 1992. Page 73 and 73n2.
Christian: Of or belonging to Christianity, the group of all people who believe that Jesus of Nazareth, whom they call Christ (Greek for the “anointed” of God, the “Messiah” of the Jewish religion), and who was a Jewish resident of the Roman province of Palestine in the first century, was truly God and truly a human being, conceived and born of Mary of Nazareth through the special intervention of God—whom Christ called his Father—without the normal cooperation of a biological father. Christians further believe that Christ redeemed the human race from sin (that is, offense to God by committing evil) by his crucifixion and death; rose from the dead; ascended into heaven; gave his followers a share in God’s inner life by sending the Holy Spirit; will return at the end of time; and will bring his followers into eternal happiness with God in heaven in a resurrected existence like the one he now enjoys. Beyond these basic beliefs different groups of Christians vary in what they believe. See also PROTESTANTISM and ROMAN CATHOLIC.
ecclesiastical: A term used by Christians meaning related to a church, that is, to a community of people who share a set of religious beliefs and way of life. From the Greek word “ecclesia” meaning “assembly” or “congregation.” In the Reformation Christians debated about what the nature of the church was as Jesus intended, especially whether it required the leadership of ordained bishops in union with the bishop of Rome (the pope) as had been the case in the Roman Catholic Church. See also PROTESTANTISM, ROMAN CATHOLIC.
A. Opposition to natural law theory is widespread among contemporary Protestants, regardless of their other differences in belief.
B. Natural Law: A moral law in force at all times and in all places that God communicates to all humanity without the need of the Bible or other special revelation.
C. The original Reformers taught that there was a natural law, and in this respect were in agreement with Roman Catholics.
A. In How Christians Should Read Moses (1525), says that the Ten Commandments bind all people because they largely overlap with the natural law.
B. In Temporal Authority, says that the natural law fills human reason and is the source of justice. Therefore, if a Christian’s neighbor does not treat him justly even if he treats his neighbor with love, the Christian should appeal to the natural law.
C. Summary: There is only one set of ethics for both Christians and non-Christians because its principles are “written on the heart” of all human beings.
A. Was an important leader of the early Reformation: drafted three important early statements of the beliefs of the Reformation.
1. Although human beings require only the grace of faith in order to know God and be forgiven of sin, civil law—and therefore moral law—are necessary for political order.
2. Moral philosophy arises from observing the regularity in nature combined with intuitive knowledge (experience, reason, revelation).
iii. to maintain civil order.
4. All human beings must follow the Ten Commandments because they are an expression of natural law; though to follow them does not save or justify a person (forgive their sins)—only faith saves.
C. Some call him “the ethicist of the Reformation” because he thought so much about law.
A. Despite his strong belief in God’s sovereignty and man’s depravity, he affirmed the existence of and need for a natural law because of man’s natural need to live in society. Nothing can eradicate the seeds of the natural law from within man.
1. Natural law is an instrument of God’s supreme rule over the world, by which he “bridles” human behavior.
2. It is because the natural law is known to man that his conscience tells him that he is guilty of sin; hence why even non-Christians cannot be excused for violations of the natural law.
3. Sin severely perverts man, but the image of God in him is not destroyed; hence his conscience remains.
1. Natural law is the basis for all human laws and provides a check against tyranny.
2. But only the God-fearing understanding the natural law correctly.
3. Natural law is a restraint on human nature; humanity would otherwise descend into anarchy.
A. Scholarship has not paid attention to the influence of the Reformers on the Western legal tradition.
B. Although Protestantism differs from Roman Catholicism in important respects, it agrees with it in the affirmation of a natural law.
What is “special revelation?” What is an example of something that the Protestant Reformers believed to be part of special revelation?
Did the Reformers believe that one could know the natural law only through special revelation?
Why did Luther quip, “If the Ten Commandments are to be regarded as Moses’ law, then Moses came too late”? Are any aspects of the Law of Moses binding on even non-Christians, according to Luther? Why or why not?
Why did Philip Melanchthon think that law was still necessary even for those who believed in the Gospel?
What are the three functions of natural law, according to Melanchthon?
Why is Melanchthon often called “the ethicist of the Reformation”?
According to John Calvin, is man’s conscience destroyed by sin? Why is this important for his view of how people are saved from sin?
According to Calvin, why does man’s nature require a natural law?
According to Huldreich Zwingli, what is the role of natural law in civil society? How does natural law govern individuals’ behavior?
Did all of the founding Reformers discussed in this essay believe that non-Christians were obligated to follow the natural law? Why or why not?
Melanchthon says that law is necessary to restrain the wickedness of the human heart. Calvin calls law a “providential bridle.” Zwingli says that natural law’s primary role is to “restrain” human nature, which by itself would descend into anarchy. If original sin had not occurred and there were no wickedness in the world, would natural law therefore be superfluous for the Reformers? Thomas Aquinas, another Christian natural law thinker, said that law is necessary even in a sinless society. Why would Aquinas make such a statement? Is Aquinas using a different definition of “law”?
Dr. Charles points out that despite the fact that the Reformation was in many ways a departure from Roman Catholicism, the Reformers’ teaching on natural law was in fact in continuity with Catholic natural law thinking. On which points do the Reformers’ views of natural law agree with those of Thomas Aquinas or the Late Medieval thinkers?
In the second book of his Institutes of the Christian Religion, chapter 2, section 22, John Calvin defines natural law as follows: “natural law is that apprehension of the conscience which distinguishes sufficiently between just and unjust, and which deprives men of the excuse of ignorance [of their sins], while it proves them guilty by their own testimony.” Compare this definition with those of other thinkers on this site. In what ways does Calvin’s connection of natural law to sin and guilt make his notion of natural law especially different from that of the Early Modern Liberal thinkers like Hobbes and Locke?
In his “On Laws,” Philip Melanchthon, speaking of natural laws, says “since they are designated ‘natural,’ their formulas ought to be collected by a method of human reasoning through a natural syllogism. That is pre­cisely what I have not yet seen done by anyone, and I by no means know whether it can at all be done, since our human reason is so enslaved and blinded. Paul moreover, in Rom. 2:15, teaches by a marvelously elegant and clear argument, that within us there is a natural law. He says that the Gentiles have conscience defending or accusing a thing done; and it is therefore a law unto them. For what is conscience but the judgment of our action which is demanded by some law or common formula? And so a natural law is a common judgment to which all men alike assent, and therefore one which God has inscribed upon the soul of each man, adapted to form and shape character.” How does what Melanchthon says here about the role of natural law in our moral choices (and its role in our understanding of the good that we choose) differ from or agree with the thought of the New Natural Law thinkers?
In his work “Is There Certitude in the Doctrines of Physics?” Philip Melanchthon says that truth is known for certain if “it is clear that, given [its] opposite, the destruction of nature follows.” Compare and contrast this notion of certainty with that of the Pragmatist and Progressive critics of the natural law tradition.
In Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 2, Chapter 7, section 10 Calvin says “All who are still unregenerate [who have not received the grace of faith and forgiveness of sins] feel—some more obscurely, some more openly—that they are not drawn to obey the [moral] law voluntarily, but impelled by a violent fear do so against their will and despite their opposition to it.” In Chapter 2, section 22, when commenting on Rom. 2:14–15, he states that “If the Gentiles by nature have law righteousness engraved upon their minds, we surely cannot say they are utterly blind as to the conduct of life. There is nothing more common than for a man to be sufficiently instructed in a right standard of conduct by natural law (of which the apostle is here speaking).” Taking these quotes together Calvin seems to say that although the moral law is in the mind by nature, the will (in a person who has not been redeemed from sin) is altogether opposed to it and repelled by it. If the human soul is one reality, how could the mind perceive the goodness of a law that the will treated as though it were not good?
Referring to the Ten Commandments given by Moses, Luther says, “I keep the commandments which Moses has given, not because Moses gave commandment, but be­cause they have been implanted in me by nature, and Moses agrees exactly with nature,” (from Martin Luther, How Christians Should Regard Moses). Is Luther suggesting that his awareness of the requirements of nature is the standard by which to judge the authority of the Ten Commandments? Explain why or why not.
In his essay Against the Antinomians, Luther says, “It is most surprising to me that anyone can claim that I reject the law or the Ten Commandments, since there is available, in more than one edition, my exposition of the Ten Commandments, which furthermore are daily preached and practiced in our churches. . . . I myself, as old and as learned as I am, recite the commandments daily word for word like a child.” Can you reconcile this statement with what Luther teaches about the Ten Commandments in How Christians Should Regard Moses?
In his letter Against the Sabbatarians, Luther says, “even if a Moses had never appeared and Abraham had never been born, the Ten Commandments would have had to rule in all men from the very beginning, as they indeed did and still do.” If the law of nature already rules in men’s hearts without revelation, why would God make a point of including that law as part of his revelation, according to Jewish and Christian belief? Look to what Melanchthon says about the Ten Commandments (which he calls the Decalogue) in his essay “What Are the Causes of the Certitude of Doctrine?” for help. Or does Melanchthon’s view of the relationship between natural law and the Ten Commandments differ from Luther’s view?
Based on your reading of his commentary on the “Golden Rule” in the Gospel of Matthew, what do you think Zwingli believes to be the relationship between natural law and God’s revelation to humanity? Is man’s inner knowledge of the natural law on the same order as Biblical revelation for Zwingli?
In what ways do you see the Reformers’ opinions on natural law agreeing or disagreeing? Which of them agree most with each other? Which are most different from the others?
If Paul’s Letter to the Romans—an important guide for Protestant thinking—clearly speaks of a law written on the human heart by which even non-Christians can know the universal moral law, why might many Protestants who came after Luther, Melanchthon, Calvin, and Zwingli have rejected the notion of a moral law that human beings can know apart from Biblical revelation?
In his essay on “Temporal Authority,” Martin Luther praises a duke who used “untrammeled reason,” rather than written laws to make a decision. Why should we live by written laws at all if they can result in unjust decisions? If there is an unwritten natural law that all can know, why not allow those in authority to decide in each case what the right thing to do is?
The history of the United States is heavily informed by Protestant Christianity. The earliest settlers of the British colonies of North America and the generation that waged the Revolutionary War and ratified the Constitution were Protestant Christians. Although many debate the orthodoxy of the Christian beliefs of many of the Founding Fathers, nevertheless the way in which they speak about religion is heavily informed by Protestantism. Can you point to documents found on this website that show evidence of Christian beliefs in the Founders’ or other early American figures’ statements concerning natural law?
Christianity was present not only in the earliest stages of America’s history, but also in some of its most critical points, especially in popular and political movements to protect human and civil rights. Can you point to evidence on this website or elsewhere of how Americans’ Christian beliefs informed this country’s debates over slavery, women’s rights, and civil rights for African Americans? In those debates did Christians ever refer to natural law in defense of their position, and how? Was their belief in a natural law tied to their Christian beliefs, and if yes, how?
Recent years have witnessed heated controversy in the United States over whether it is right to post displays of the Ten Commandments in front of government buildings or in other public places. Those against argue that such displays violate the separation of church and state and impose religion on others. Those in favor argue that the Commandments represent the universal natural law on which all law must be based in order to be legitimate. They say that it is very helpful for us as a society to have public reminders that we cannot make our laws however we like, for we are all bound to a higher, unchanging standard of justice. Which position do you think Martin Luther or any of the other Reformers would have agreed with, and why? Would they have argued from their religious convictions or from reason? Which position do you agree with?
Which portions of the Ten Commandments, if any, would be unacceptable to non-Jews or non-Christians? Which portions could any reasonable person of good will accept?
John Adams famously said that “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other,” (“Message from John Adams to the Officers of the First Brigade of the Third Division of the Militia of Massachusetts,” October 11, 1798). Do you agree with his statement? If even Christians admit that the foundation of civil law (the natural law) can be known by reason alone, why should religion have anything to do with our public life? What would the Reformers say about the role of religion in civil society, particularly in relation to the natural law?

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