Generación de Energía

Many scholars indicate that Luther does not mention the term deification directly in his works, and the verb “deify” is used only four times.172 According to Peura, however, he utilises the concept of deification 30 times in various forms in his corpus,173 although Briskina-Müller’s estimation that Luther succeeds the Church Fathers as a heritor of the doctrine of deification has this aspect: “Luther takes over and repeats the Athanasianian theosis formula.Furthermore, he mostly uses the same scriptural passage (2 Peter 1:4) upon which the patristic notion of theosis rests. The notion of theosis occurs in the works of the Reformer not only thematically but also terminologically” (Briskina-Müller 2008:20).

In the comment on Ps 57:8, Luther cites analogous cases between Christ’s two natures and two musical instruments, the psaltery and the harp. In this metaphor, the two instruments each symbolise the divinity and the humanity of Christ, respectively. The psaltery, making the sound from the top, shows Christ’s powers and miracles, while the harp shows His humanity in that the harp gets its sound

171

Regarding Luther on the matter of deification, the interpretation from Tuomo Mannermaa and his colleagues at the University of Helsinki takes up the most significant portion in this study on deification. We will deal with their interpretation in detail, as well as with the objections, in 3.5.2.1. Thus, in this section the observation from the text in which Luther himself directly mentioned deification is mainly presented.

172

Mannermaa, however, finds that the term deificatio and/or Vergöttlichung appears in Luther's texts more often than the term theologia crucis (Mannermaa 1995:37).

173

Peura, S, “Vergöttlichungsgedanke in Luthers Theologie 1518-1519”, in Thesaurus Lutheri. 171-172, quoted from Kärkkäinen (2004:47n40).

from the bottom. Therefore, according to Luther, Christ is “the psaltery by reason of the fact that He is God incarnate, and the harp because He is man deified” (First Letters on the Psalms I: Psalms 1-75,

LW 10:265). In another comment on Ps 82:7, he exposes the reason for the wicked, by which he

mainly means the rulers, being called ‘gods’, as for the sake of His word and divine office: He called the wicked gods, using His own name, appealing to the authority of the word of God which “hallows and deifies everything to which it is applied” (Selected Psalms II, LW 13:71). The third use of the verb “deify” concerns the dispute on free choice in Erasmus, which is not relevant to our current study.174 One of the most explicit passages on deification in Luther’s works comes from the sermon on the day of St. Peter and St. Paul that was delivered in 1519, in which Luther describes the deified human being as “more than a man” (cf. Kärkkäinen 2006:76; Chia 2011:135):

Therefore St. Jerome well says concerning this Gospel that it should be noted how Christ asks his disciples what men are saying of him and then afterwards asks them what they say of him, just as if they were not men. For it is true that man helped by grace is more than a man; indeed, the grace of God gives him the form of God and deifies him, so that even the Scriptures call him “God” and God’s son. Thus a man must be extended beyond flesh and blood and become more than man, if he is to become good. And this begins when a man acknowledges that of himself this is impossible, humbly seeks the grace of God, and utterly despairs of himself; only then do good works follow. Thus, when grace has been obtained, then you have a free will; then do what in you lies (Sermons I: A Sermon on

the Festival of St. Peter and St. Paul, LW 51:58).

Although the direct terminology is not used, Luther’s Christmas sermon in 1514 is worth citing. In the sermon, he shows his understanding of the Incarnation of the Word, referring it to the doctrine of deification:

Just as the word of God became flesh, so it is certainly also necessary that the flesh become word. In other words: God becomes man so that man may become God. Thus power becomes powerless so that weakness may become powerful. The logos puts on our form and manner, our image and likeness, so that it may clothe us with its image, its pattern, and its likeness (WA 1, 28, 25-32).

174

It is the same as what we have said of the Incarnation-deification formula, which we proved in the work of the Church Fathers and scholars of the Middle Ages. Luther also confirms later in this sermon that the union with Christ does not signify a change in substance. The participation in God cannot prevent being God and being human as well, rather, we always exist in our substance even after being deified by God’s grace (Mannermaa 1995:43). In the comment on Gal 2:6b, Luther makes a comparison between God and human beings: God is not made to anything for He is unchanging but human beings are made to God by faith for faith is unchanging (LW 26:99-100). Thus, we participate in the everlasting God with the everlasting faith, which is given from God.