Luther, Hermeneutics, Justification

In his excellent and stimulating book, The Intellectual Origins of the European Reformation, Alister McGrath includes a chapter on early Reformation hermeneutics, and its relation to the medieval quadriga. He also notes the close connection between the developments in hermeneutics and the Reformation treatment of justification. A couple of quotations and then some commentary follow:

�E . . an important difference between Luther on the one hand, and Erasmus and Bucer on the other, must be noted. For Erasmus, the tropological sense of scripture is concerned with the moral demands which are made of the believer. Thus his discussion of the faith of Abraham ends with an exhortation to children to emulate the virtues of their parents. Luther, however, adopts a quite different understanding of this sense of Scripture: for him the tropological sense refers to the gracious work of Jesus Christ in the individual believer, so that the bonum tropologicum is to be defined as faith. As Ebeling points out, Luther treats the concept as pertaining to God�s acta rather than man�s facta. �Ei>Via dei est, qua nos ambulare facit.�EThus Luther interprets iudicium Dei, institia Dei and similar terms tropologically in terms of what God does for man, rather than in terms of what God expects of man. . . . it is evident that Luther regards the central message of scripture �Eboth Old and New Testaments �Eto concern the acta Dei. Three particular arenas of this work of God are identified: the acta Dei in Christ, in the Church, and in the individual believer�E(pp 161-2).

Further, there is a shift form the primacy of the literal to the primacy of the tropological: �It is evident that, although Luther continues to employ the Quadriga throughout the Dictata �Eand, indeed, would continue to regard it as a permissible hermeneutical tool for some years to come �Ean important modification to that four-fold scheme takes place within the Dictata. Although Luther initially follows the medieval tradition in general in insisting that the literal (that is, literal-prophetic, to use Lefevre�s terms) sense of scripture is fundamental, by the end of the Dictata, we find him insisting with equal vehemence that it is the tropological sense which is fundamental: �Ei>sensus tropologicus ultimatus et principaliter intentus in scriptura.�E We have already noted how Luther eschews the traditional moral interpretation of the sensus tropologicus, regarding it instead as a means of illuminating the work of God in Christ within man. As Ebeling has pointed out, it is the tropological sense which Luther comes to regard as embodying the existential dimension of the gospel, representing the existential impact of Christ upon the believer. The significance of such concepts as iustitia Dei and iudicium Dei lies in the Christologically derived existential impact which they have on the believer �Eand Luther�s 1516-1519 emphasis upon the immediate practical religious concerns of the individual believer is unquestionably foreshadowed here.�E McGrath calls this a �strongly subjective element of Luther�s exegesis,�Eand notes its connection �with the development of his theology of justification" (pp 163-4).

This is quite interesting, especially in the light of de Lubac's insistence (Medieval Exegesis) that the allegorical must retain primacy over the tropological (to avoid moralism and subjectivism). It is also interesting because, from one angle, this is precisely the point of challenge from recent work on Paul, including but not confined to the NPP. One could say that recent developments in Pauline theology have attempted to show that Paul locates justification in the realm of allegory (redemptive-history) and not merely in the realm of tropology, and that the allegory of justification retains a certain primacy over the tropology. Criticisms of Luther from Stendahl to Wright are criticisms of this kind.

posted by Peter J. Leithart on Wednesday, September 22, 2004 at 07:18 PM

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