From Zeitschrift für Protestantismus und Kirche, vol. 37-1, “Zur Unionsfrage: Calvin's Prädestinationslehre, Luther's Lehre von den Gnadenmitteln”, pages 115-128. By Christian Gustav Eberle, 1859.
This English translation from original German is by BackToLuther and may be further polished if time permits.
Translation is as of May 17, 2014.
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On the Union Question.
Calvin's doctrine of predestination, Luther's doctrine of the means of grace.
"I believe in one holy catholic church." This article of our Christian creed is so high and noble, like the others. What view is more suitable for us to make the heart soar and expand than the view of the Church of Christ which encompasses all times and all countries, yes which connects those on earth with those in heaven under the scepter of Jesus Christ? In this view is the writer of these lines originally an alliance man. He looks for himself to the pages of doctrine and confessions of the various churches who will be for him the next one to whom he first extends the hand, such as the reformed brothers, who praise the free mercy of God in Christ with him? If there can unite both churches, the Lutheran and Reformed, when they are found in a land beside each other also externally under one church government, however, with protection of their distinctive character, so he can only be glad. In this respect he is originally a Union man. But just decidedly he must say no to a mixture, as soon as it is under the name of the Union, of both confessional churches as it was with removal of the distinctive doctrines of both churches, here and there lawfully and ecclesiastically carried out, or better said, attempted.
How is one thereby to go to work? One puts Luther, Zwingli and Calvin beside each other; one measures Luther and Calvin by their middleman Zwingli (the middle road is always the most comfortable); one briefly snatches from both a first one, who for them is a head taller than the latter, Calvin's doctrine of predestination, Lutheran’s doctrine of Word and Sacrament, and stood — the Union was "ready". Who does not immediately see however that this
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has proceeded far too superficially? that may be found neither in scientific nor less in ecclesiastical affairs unity and mediation in such an overly superficial way? That is — we must, as reluctant as we are, call the child with the right name — not union work, but the work of a gardener pruning, with the scissors in hand, a hedge after a French taste; it is an unsparing [procrustean] work. If it had not required the reverence for the heroes of the kingdom of God, Luther and Calvin, to reflect on it: Have these men, as one now assumes is recovering, well given themselves to so unweighty speculation? might not Calvin's doctrine of predestination inserted behind Luther's doctrine of the means of grace place something which forms a deeper practical moment for faith?
What did Calvin want with his doctrine of predestination? Should he have said those hard sayings merely for the sake of consistency of the system? So little as the author feels related to the particular Calvinistic tendency, so he has nevertheless to this man a better faith. The eternal election to salvation is Calvin’s foundation; he relies on it for the objective certainty of his state of grace. And what was Luther’s goal with his doctrine of the means of grace? “Christ in Baptism, the Lord’s Supper, or in the preaching of the divine Word — there will I find Him” he explains himself. In the Word, Baptism, and Communion he sees the means to partake of Christ, of becoming objectively certain of his share in Him. This is the unity in diversity; Calvin's doctrine of predestination, Luther's doctrine of the means of grace are only different attempts at one and the same goal: to become objectively certain of one’s state of grace.
However, it is this objective certainty which the Christian needs; the Church can not do without it in her confession. Will the church be what it should be, a divine hospital for man to partake of and be certain of the salvation in Christ (because both belong to salvation):
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thus she must also be able to show to me how and where I come to both. The Catholic Church has well caught this and just with the fact that it boasts about that it exerts such power over the minds of its members: they guarantee to everyone in its bosom the salvation, in fact through itself, in that they with their sacrifice of the mass and the whole treasures of good works of her own, for him enters. Otherwise is our Evangelical church. It also appears as an unfailing guide to salvation — so must it indeed otherwise have to resort to naming the Church as a divine hospital: but points from herself to Christ, i.e. she shows to the people not on their own works and merit, but on the sacrifice and righteousness of Jesus Christ; therefore they also do not place a condition of salvation to her as a special church to have a share (such as the "alone saving" Roman), but to Christ. "We are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." This is the general offering of salvation. But how do I become certain of my part in the salvation in Christ? so to ask, that I have his full validity. It can be said: "Whoever believes will be saved. Do I believe, so I am, and am at the same time assured." Those who can of this comforting and consoling, they do well. But do I speak in this way for me, to one who does not own this faith and salvation? Is this certainty not a subjective one? Will the Christian in this all important matter take not however the desire to receive an objective assurance of his state of grace? and will such one not yet grant another complete and firmer certainty to him, for that is what the subjective belief granted him, that faith in him is present? Moreover, it is not as quick and easy to say: I believe. But if a Christian reached the point of being able to say I know that I have faith, so but runs on and on much doubt, fear and faintheartedness at times; his confession is usually run out there: I believe, dear Lord, help
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mine unbelief! [cf. Mark 9:24] Are not former sins, so are inner challenges and temptations, discoveries that he makes in himself, sins, perhaps a notable case which excites the doubt a hundred times in him: doesn't the flesh in me prevail over the spirit, unbelief over faith? Now, the Lord does not let the Christian faith to end. But is such an unstable ground, like the mercury in the glass tube is continually rising and falling, sufficient? And is not the certainty of his state of grace his strength? considers this not keeping pace with that? Are we not urged there to the subjective also an objective certainty to search for? Does not the Lord with the foundation of the sacraments and absolution even point out to us this necessity? The Christian’s faith can fall; the work of the Spirit can be hidden from his view; he can see himself fallen from faith and grace: but the seal of God, his baptism, he cannot deny, it remains a fact that cannot be easily undone. "The mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee," Isa. 54:10 and Rom. 3:3. This is what the battle heroes of the Reformation, Luther and Calvin, well recognized, and this knowledge drove the one to his doctrine of the means of grace, the other to his doctrine of predestination. Had Calvin made but only once such a use of eternal election of the one, so had he not wanted to repeal its meaning again when stating the eternal rejection of others.
What does the Union do against it which drops one doctrine like the other from the confessions and only holds on the doctrine of the justifying faith? It does unsparing [procrustean] work by relieving a necessary element in the body of faith. She deprives them, that search for certainty of their salvation in Christ, the objective certainty, and
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puts it on the vacillating ground of subjective conviction. Compared to the Catholic Church, which offers objective certainty, she tells him to build on the faith in one’s own heart. While those enter with the pretense of an imperishable treasure for him, they mean with and through themselves for him to stray. So they are deprived adversely by the Catholic Church, to offer the evangelical of the most beautiful jewelry, objective certainty of salvation, and puts them a level deeper than that. Instead, as they mean to unite Luther and Calvin, they focus on themselves with surgical amputation. This work can be well attempted on the dead heroes, but not the living ones. Calvin as well as Luther would protest against such a work of Union with all force; he would say: You want us both to unite, and take away where we are united. You build, with the doctrine of justification by faith alone, well a spacious, homely house for those who are within; but I see no stairs nor door, through which one could enter.
How could one go to ruin, nevertheless, in such a mistake? One has looked, as it has been once aptly described in this journal, at Luther as a modern theologian who wants to construe a dogma according to uniform principles. It will probably come down to the same thing when we say: to study the right way from the three rules in theology, which Luther introduces in the preface to his German works from 1529, according to Psalm 119. From oratio, meditatio, tentatio, modern theology has unilaterally chosen the middle one [meditatio], and also they are usually in a one-sided version. As we read Luther's lectures on Galatians, that is the detailed explanation, so we find in it most the man who soundly studied the text and has meditated and does certain passages; but one would almost forget to have a theological lecture of Luther before himself if one was not reminded several times by his address to the students in it; it is as one who came immediately
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from the prayer chamber or from the battlefield: while the works of modern theology are for the most part taken in on the very first page entirely in the study and the library room. Touched by this partisan preference of meditative or mental work and the almost total disregard of the tentatio as well as all the uncertainty and divisionism of modern Union theology, which can make even the Saxony-Coburg court preacher Schwarz so disgusted by Lutheranism, can make the same more disgusting. This indecision and discouragement is reflected also in the distribution formula popular with the Union: "Christ says, Take, etc.”, behind which, as is difficult to deny, something of the question of Pilate hides: What shall I do then with Jesus? A greater shame cannot truly be done to the Evangelical Church by Lutheran theologians than this, how modern theologians view the Reformers with a desire to construct a dogma according to uniform principles. Is it really between Luther and Calvin only about dogmatic formulas, or have they even spun Luther's course of development off the thread of Augustinianism: so the whole Reformation movement is laid in Luther's study, and our evangelical church has then, as Rome wants, forfeited the name of a church; we are then no church, but only a theological school. The Roman Church understands itself well on the matter: she thanks very well for the honor that her dogmas have arisen at all from a theological school, she rather ascribes them to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. But that we Evangelicals are not theological schools, but are a church, that proves upon examination, that proves the 300-year life of the Church of the Reformation; since theological schools also soon remove each other, as philosophical ones. Also how might one only come into such adventurous thoughts as those already mentioned? A theological system can only form a theological school, but no church: a church forms
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only by what somehow springs vitally directly to the hearts and lives, not what is sprung from the head. Luther was at least so little as an apostle to construct a dogma according to uniform principles. He simply said what had become of his fundamental view according to him in life; what that strived against, that he pushed, as if by instinct, from himself (as he once said: A Christian soon smells from a distance where the Word of God is or where man’s doctrine is); afterwards, the scholar in him knew how to justify also his cause against his opponents. It is somewhat different, however, with Calvin. An urge of systematic consistency is not to deny him, as is proved by his work Institutio Christianae religionis [Institutes of the Christian Religion- CCEL]. Generally is to be drawn attention here to the difference between him and Luther as this auther in his pamphlet: "Luther's way of faith 2c" [Luther's Glaubensrichtung] in passing wanted to allow only as an assistant of Luther, not for a reformer next to Luther. He can also not agree with the proposition, that the division of the evangelical Church into Lutheran and Reformed was a predestination of God, that those the heart, these the mind should represent, and what such further skilled and unskilled has been said: – we should rather all come to unity of faith and knowledge of the Son of God. But what concerns the difference between Luther and Calvin, it should be noted first of all: Luther, though he drew from the Holy Scriptures and received encouragement by others, also is not to be placed in line with the apostles, came to his evangelical knowledge, in which he surpassed all former teachers of the Church, yes wherein in intensity and clarity in him perhaps today is no equivalent in his successors, in the way of inner development, they were in him born out; Calvin came over from the outside (Olivetan); they stand against each other in a relation similar to an apostle and a student. Luther's internal and external leadership,
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the hard school by which God led him, is a seal of divine calling and equipment, which Calvin lacks. This is in intimate relationship with what has already been touched on. Luther was not within the barriers of a system, either his own or of a third party; he stood, as one can convince himself reading his writings and from all the positions which he held against people, over against Augustine as freely as St. Jerome; he was as little like a philosopher or theosophist, led by a principle of his thought wherever it wanted to carry him. That was forbidden him already by his subordination to the Scripture; it was a simple affirmation of what Scripture and experience gave him to him. Calvin in contrast could let himself, after excluding the seeds of evangelical truth, be guided by his thinking for further exploration of the truths of faith; the consequence of the system urged him to his doctrine of predestination, and drove him to place the objective guarantee of the ownership of salvation, which he sought with Luther, in distinction from that in the eternal election. But what is gained in this way, is not able to work for the forming of the church. Therefore it comes that his predestination doctrine from the outset in the least Reformed confessions has access recovered and from the Reformed congregations with few exceptions is completely missing; while Luther's doctrine of the Lord’s Supper, so difficult for them to comprehend, has naturalized not only in the Lutheran church, but finds friends even among the Reformed, who like to go deeper. Also the haste with which Calvin completed his system is significant. Just as he reached a mature age, he wrote his Institutes and – that was it. So early and in such a way Luther could not complete. Just this more artificial way to win the truth, can but not place Calvin as an equal alongside Luther, as a reformer beside reformer. But this we must emphasize once again for Calvin: he is therefore no modern dogmatist. Not
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merely the consequence of the system, but the necessity of objective certainty of salvation drove him to adherence to the doctrine of predestination: how would he want to justify against the charge of superficiality? To him, it was not just a dogmatic system, but to found the Church; he had co-fought the Lord’s war. As to which of the two ways of arriving at objective certainty is the right one, Luther’s or Calvin’s, one could scarcely remain in doubt. If I am from eternity elected by God to salvation, then, to be sure, I have therein the strongest possible objective assurance. But whether I am elected? — on that I have no direct certainty; I can gather it only from this, that by God's power I believe in Christ. But the vacillations to which faith is subject have been discussed above. So Calvin, while trying to lead [us] beyond subjective certainty, leads [us] back to it. Besides, the author misjudges by no means the comforting what lies in the doctrine of the eternal election: it throws a bright light on the doctrine of the free grace of God in Christ. I am chosen before the foundation of the world, [Eph. 1:4] so my election goes before all my works and over all my works, and I use only this through my daily offenses to not let them make me stagger. But in order to be able to rejoice in my eternal election, I must first, by another and more direct route, be certain of my state of grace. Luther found precisely this more direct route to certainty with his statement cited: ‘Christ in Baptism, in Communion, or in the preaching of the divine Word — that is where I will find Him.’ Well! you will object; but one must believe this sentence first; and thus we stand again with the faith like Calvin. Absolutely! If Luther taught a way to the certainty of salvation to come without faith, he would lead away from faith and speak to himself the judgment. Precisely this intimate connection between subjective and objective, of faith and the
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means of grace, is the Lutheran way; both separately lead either to dead orthodoxy, superficial churchianity, or to subjectivism. But there is a difference between the demand of both. Calvin demands without further ado that I should believe that I as an individual have from eternity been elected, whereas thousands of others around me are supposed to have been consigned to eternal damnation. That asks too much; for to what should I cling? In Scripture I find no specific promise with my name or person spelled out. Missing here is a connecting link, if, as already said, it is not to be subjective but vacillating faith. Luther’s [approach] is different. He requires of a Christian only faith in a general truth: ‘Where Word and sacrament are present, there Christ is present.’ That is not hard, for everyone knows that it is a hundred times easier to believe a general truth than to apply personally to oneself what it says. But once I have learned this: ‘Where Word and sacrament are present, there Christ is present’— and for that statement I have [a firm] footing in Scripture, whereas I have no footing in Scripture for my personal election from eternity—it is a short step to the personal application: ‘Christ is in Word and sacrament also for me.’ It is indeed easier without comparison to assure a friend who is currently sitting across from me, as such a one who is separated by distant lands and seas from me. But, there is another point to be considered, [a point] that unfortunately is usually overlooked, to which we must therefore pay all the more attention: ‘As you believe, so it comes to pass for you.’ That is a keynote in Luther’s faith, and a truth that conforms equally with Scripture and with experience. The measure of what we receive depends on the measure of our faith. (See, e.g., 2 Kings 13:14,19; Ps. 81:10, and the word of the Lord: ‘Be it unto you according to your faith.’) The author is not afraid to repeat the statement made elsewhere: ‘A congregation sustained by the consciousness that God can be heard and is really present
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among us in Word and sacrament—such a congregation is sure to have its own Pentecost Day.’ Whoever and however often one believes this: ‘Where Word and sacrament are present, there Christ is also present,’ that person will possess Christ not only in the age-old faith but also in living experience—[and] with Him the direct assurance of grace. That is how Luther leads a Christian by a direct and easy way to the objective certainty of his salvation—and [he does] this in a way that protects him against carnal security, for he does not hold out for him any unconditional promise for the future, but bids him daily to renew his assurance of salvation in faith”.
Let us take a look back at what has been said. The goal which both Luther and Calvin pursue is the same: to lead Christians to objective certainty of salvation. But the paths are different. Calvin adheres to the "Christ yesterday" or from eternity, the eternal election in Christ. Luther adheres to the "Christ today" who said, "Teach all nations, baptizing ... and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world". [Matt. 28:19-20] Calvin points us to the question: how are we assured of grace? in which for the eye is an inaccessible distance of an eternity which lies as silent as the realm of the dead behind us. Whether that does not mean: "bring Christ up from the dead"? [Romans 10:7] Luther calls to him who longs for salvation: you need to climb neither into the height nor into the depth, neither to look beyond into eternity before or after time; go to Christ, He is in front of your door; you can find him in the church where the Word, sacraments and absolution are, you have him at home in your open Bible, which holds up to you Bethlehem and Golgotha and the forgiveness of sins in His name. — How far both ways go from each other! We almost want to say as far as the realm of the living and the dead. With Calvin’s system, all weight falls on the eternal election before the world; whoever is not chosen, the appearance of Christ helps nothing, He died for only the elect. Christ’s incarnation and work is secondary to the election and has only a temporary importance. Calvin bypasses Christ today and goes back into eternity; he is content for the assurance of his salvation with a bare decree of God, just as he in regard to the sacraments is satisfied with the bare or more symbolic view. Luther can not be satisfied, however, with a bare decree, which belongs on top of that to a distant, long ago disappeared eternity; he adheres to today, to life, to the present incarnate Christ; he grasps the Word, sacrament, absolution; he can only be content for his salvation if he has Christ, Christ in the flesh
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and present. That is why it occurs in reverse relation for him, when it is Christ at the head, the eternal election in the background. Thus he writes on John 17:6: "Because now that it is certain (saith he) that they are mine and I am their Lord, Master and Savior: thus it is also certain that they are yours, indeed not only now are yours, but earlier from the beginning yours and by you come to Me. Behold, so is stricken straight away the great temptation and all disputation on the secret providence, all of which is surely from the devil. For what the Scripture says of this is not set so that the poor, contested souls feel their sin and be be rid of them, thus to terrify, but rather to comfort." It has been much sought after, from some sayings of Calvin to demonstrate how close Calvin and Luther are in the doctrine of the Lord's Supper, how the difference of the two is vanishing: only is thus a thankless effort. Calvin may attach to the sacrament of Communion what he wants, nevertheless always a sharp line and wide gap remains between both: he imagines Christ's body and blood apart from bread and wine, the one beside the other. It relies on an alleged statement of Luther about Calvin a year before his death: "He is certainly a learned and pious man, whom I have initially well put at rest the whole matter of this dispute." It remains doubtful. Should he have done it, however, so this could happen only in hope of complete union with Calvin; since, nevertheless, on his side Luther has never yielded. Just as little could Calvin, as much as he liked to approach Lutherans, make Luther's doctrine of Communion to that of his; to do this he would have had to first share Luther's view of the humanization of God and the person Christ. He was feeling just like so many these days, of which you can hear the remark: they are not able to decide between Luther and Calvin in the doctrine of communion, but feel attracted to Luther. There is in them a sense of the depth and truth, which is due to Luther's Communion doctrine as a basis. From this notion of the higher and deeper also Calvin was attracted to Luther, without thereby to rise to Luther's standpoint. Therefore the unclearness and vacillation in his views of the sacrament; therefore the lack of consistency between his doctrine of the Lord's Supper and of Baptism. Why could Calvin not raise himself to Luther's point of view? Which is, if the question is allowed, the last reason why it was so difficult for [Calvin’s] faith and understanding to go with Luther's doctrine of Communion? Oetinger called idealism
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a horse-fright dread of materialism, cast by the devil from century to century in the hearts of most philosophers and theologians to transform God's words, which are intended to produce loud and massive pictorial concepts in us, into empty and weakened sentences. Such horse-fright terror of the immediate nearness of God is also inherent in people, since sin and unbelief remain in them; he can well bear the thought of God, only He should not get too close to him; he can stand the thought of God's omnipresence only conceived idealistically: but as soon as a solid truth should become of it, so he withdraws himself shy and in disbelief. This fright before God Calvin had not quite got rid of: how else was the lawful seriousness of the Old Testament to be explained by him? as the dogma that, for to show His wrath God had appointed to eternal damnation the greater part of man from eternity? That's why his doctrine of the person of Christ and of the Lord's Supper is different than the Lutheran. This is the greatness and excellence of Luther that he has grasped the center of the gospel, the incarnation of God, and its heart, the condescension and grace of God in Christ with an originality, clarity and strength which makes him the father of the new church at all times; while Calvin, as he came from outside the evangelical doctrine, not in himself had borne out, so also not penetrated to his core.
So we find ourselves because, even though opponents of the Union as it has been made, nevertheless more related to the Reformed Church (where she looks at Calvin) than the Union party. We agree with her not only in the profession; the sole justification by faith, but also in the quest and holding of objective certainty of salvation. But as to the question of Communion fellowship, the answer will depend on the point of view emanating from somebody by the decision from which of these, of the doctrine and the confession or of the personal faith and knowledge. Who holds on only that, will speak out against any table fellowship between Lutheran and Reformed; and certainly both churches are unable to agree in the Lord's Supper liturgy; Lutheran is the confession; the truth can not give up; the Reformed can not confess what she is unable to believe; everyone will therefore have to keep the communion service of his church. Thereby is mutual partaking so little excluded under circumstances, as the Lord excludes the Reformed of his fellowship. The Lutheran Christian will sometimes be able to take part under circumstances in the Reformed
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communion service, as it is indeed served, above all, according to Christ's institution that is under the bread and wine and in the words of Christ; as indeed the church and church servants do not make the sacrament hence the individual can not take his faith and thereto the corresponding blessing; where ultimately the Holy Communion, even as confessional meal is not a confession; it is but to a certain step of faith and knowledge of faith, not to the Lord as the Saviour of sinners. Also the participation in the Lutheran Communion service shall not be refused to the Reformed Christian. There is a difference between denial of faith and weakness of faith. Whoever of the Reformed desires participation in the Lutheran communion service is not to be regarded as a denier of the faith, but only as weak faith and to be taken up as such. It has been pointed out in these pages how only the tentatio is the key to understanding; Luther gives a hand; all the less can be expected from each one of the understanding and acceptance of the Lutheran doctrine of the Lord’s Supper. However, such a respective meeting of each other at the table of the Lord forms a beautiful tie and exercise of faith-relationship which exists between the Lutheran and Reformed Church. *)
Mediator country parson, the author finally cannot help but call out to the theologians on the lectern and pulpit, the confessionals and Union men: draw council from not only the meditatio and oratio but also tentatio, in which Luther became great, so you will the good part, which our evangelical confessions own, not let you take, and the weak carry. [Ed.- exact wording unclear?] Eberle.
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*) The editorial staff is not in agreement with what the author says about communion fellowship of Lutheran and Reformed, but believes that it could only be beneficial to respect it as an actual Lutheran of the Wurttemberg state-church examines and answers this question.