TR Luthers Werke: Kritische Gesamtausgabe, Tischreden
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Interpretations of Luther’s Theology of the Cross
What have great interpreters of Luther’s theology of the cross understood by his project? What themes unite them? What divides them? In what way do they take into account the complex power dynamics of the sixteenth century? I have divided the six theologians to be examined into three models: crisis or conflictive interpretations, proclamation interpretations, and mystical or sacramental interpretations. I recognize that distinctions are never as clear cut as models seem to imply; yet models do alert us to broad, important options in interpretation and are useful in this sense.
Crisis or Conflictive Theology of the Cross
Loewenich
In the height of the Luther Renaissance that began the last century, Walther von Loewenich offered a fresh and appreciative study called Luther’s Theology of the Cross. While others had preceded him in examining this concern, he offered the first sustained and appreciative attempt at understanding Luther’s theology of the cross within the whole corpus of the reformer’s theological writings.1 Loewenich breaks with prior interpreters in two ways. First, he sees the theology of the cross as the decisive element in all of Luther’s theology. Thus he attempts to formulate the positive relationship between, for example, the use of the “Hidden God” in the relatively early Heidelberg Disputation, Luther’s mid-career Bondage of the Will, and the later Lectures on Genesis. He argues that what on the surface appear to be contradictions can in fact be harmonized. Yet by the fourth edition of this book, he expresses reservations about the harmoniousness he had seen.2
Secondly, Loewenich appreciates the theology of the cross and is unwilling to view it as an unfortunate, medieval, monkish remnant as prior interpreters had. He understands the theology of the cross as more than a point of historical debate; it becomes a contributing resource in contemporary theological construction. This new appreciation occurs within the crisis of Post-World War I Germany. Karl Barth, Emil Brunner, Eduard Thurneysen, and other crisis theologians felt disillusionment at the support that their liberal teachers gave to the German government’s war policies. In light of this crisis, they pursued a new direction for theological activity. God is the great negation of all human assertions. Humanity stands in a perpetual state of crisis before God. Yet, these theologians’ generic critique of humanity also represented a conflict between alternative human communities of discourse. The concept of God’s universal negation pitted the theologians of crisis against their liberal teachers. The conflict that they identified was not only between God and humanity, but also between certain humans who glimpsed God faithfully and others who had betrayed the God revealed in Jesus Christ. Their critique profoundly shifted power relationships in twentieth-century theology. Older great lights grew dim as a space opened for others to shine.
Loewenich’s interpretation of Luther chants along with the protest of the crisis theologians at several points. He rejects Schleiermacher’s liberal program for theological discourse. He turns from all that smacks of mysticism with its turn inward. He offers a virulent criticism of ecclesial infatuations with “theologies of glory.”3 He renders a universal judgment on humanity and its religious pretensions. Loewenich clearly marks the limits of human reason. Over and against all such arrogance, he declares with the crisis theologians the power of the word and the freedom of God.
Loewenich’s own involvement in this conflict with the liberal theologians and their ecclesial pretensions opened him to see parallel elements in Luther’s theological context. The starting point of this interpretation is the recognition that Luther’s theology of the cross was forged in the midst of a public struggle with the church of his day. Having experienced the betrayal of God’s mission within his own church, Loewenich will not miss the decisive role that Luther’s ecclesiastical struggle played in shaping his theology. Luther’s theology was forged in its combat “against a church that has become secure and smug.”4 That church had lost its divine direction. Loewenich recalls Luther’s accusation:
Truly, this wisdom of the cross and this new meaning of things is not merely unheard of, but is by far the most fearful thing even for the rulers of the church. Yet it is no wonder, since they have abandoned the Holy Scriptures and have begun to read unholy writings of men and the dissertations on finances instead.5
Both in the introduction to the book, and in the last pages of the second part, this theme frames Loewenich’s interpretation. The theology of the cross functions “in a critical way against the papacy.”6 Loewenich writes:
We dare never forget that Luther’s theology of the cross cannot be dismissed as the brooding product of a lonely monk, but it proved its worth for him when he stepped forth into an unprecedented battle. Luther practiced this theology in the face of death. Here every sentence is soaked with his heart’s blood. If anywhere, then in Luther’s theology of the cross “doctrine and life” are in agreement.7
The “we” that begins this quotation is not incidental, and certainly does not refer solely to Luther interpreters. The warning is to the church of Loewenich’s day. “Are we not today experiencing a return from a theology of glory to a theology of the cross similar to the one we observe in Luther? Hence our work is motivated by a living concern.”8 Even more specifically, the “we” is directed to Lutherans who have formally affirmed the theology of the cross, but denied it in their living.
While the Lutheran church has clung faithfully to the “for the sake of Christ” (propter Christum) it surrendered Luther’s theology of the cross all too quickly. The theology of glory that Luther opposed has made a triumphal entry also into his church. One occasionally wonders whether the doctrine concerning the cross has not even been forced to pay tribute to this theology of glory.9
This focus on the theology of the cross as forged in public combat has particular implications for the way that Loewenich chooses documents for study. The texts he sees as most important were written at the time when the Reformation became a public event. Thus the Heidelberg Disputation, written in 1518, is the necessary starting point for understanding the theology of the cross.10 This “basic document of the theology of the cross,”11 along with others of that period such as operationes in psalmos of 1519 to 1521,
is the work of a man who suddenly finds himself removed from the quiet monastery and placed into battle with the world and must daily be prepared for martyrdom. He is doing theology in the face of death. All props that do not stand firm in the presence of the ultimate have been dropped.12
Because of this commitment to the public battle, Loewenich is uninterested in tracing the theology of the cross back to Luther’s experience as a monk; while he does incorporate later writings, he always understands them as further developments of the central insights of the earlier, conflictive period.
Loewenich proclaims with utmost clarity that the theology of the cross is first and foremost an epistemological claim. Over and over again he states this; “. . . in Luther’s
