GOBERNANZA FORESTAL
VIII. SISTEMATIZACIÓN Y GENERACIÓN DE
It is first of all worth noting that the notion of the Bondage of the Will is derived from Augustine, and that Luther may have used the title to identify his position with Augustine’s.62 Luther maintains that original sin is inherited by birth and, due to its effects, we are destined to sin and damnation.63 All human beings are sinners due to the effects of Adam’s sin.64 Furthermore, all human beings are completely and utterly sinful and depraved, even those whom some people would call “saints.”65 The most debilitating effect of sin is the fact that human beings are unaware of their own sinfulness, which is so epistemologically harmful that we cannot even discern the most basic truths of scripture which otherwise might make us cognizant of our damaged state.66 Due to the immense
62 Bernard Lohse, Martin Luther’s Theology: Its Historical and Systematic Development,
(Minneapolis: Fortress, 1999), 163. Augustine uses the phrase De servo arbitrio, which Luther discusses at P&J 142; WA 18:665.10-11; (WA: Weimarer Ausgabe; See D. Martin Luthers Werke: kritische
Gesammtausgabe 120 vols. (Weimar: 1883-2009); P&J: The Bondage of the Will, trans. J.I. Packer & O.R.
Johnston (Grand Rapids, MI: Fleming H. Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group, 1959)).
63 P&J 297-298; WA 18:773.17-18. 64 P&J 202; WA 18:708.23-24. 65 P&J 114; WA 18:644.4-11. 66 P&J 286-287; WA 18:766.10-12.
effects of our condition, human beings are effectively ruled by Satan. Even after baptism and the acquisition of the Holy Spirit, the will remains utterly corrupt and tends towards evil and depravity.67 In the “Smalcald Articles” Luther writes: “Repentance teaches us to recognize sin: namely, that we are all lost, neither hide nor hair of us is good, and we must become absolutely new and different people.”68
This utterly helpless and completely corrupted state that human beings find themselves in is inherited through the bloodline of Adam:
Where did original sin come from? The simple answer is from Adam, ‘By the single offence of the one man, Adam, we all lie under sin and
condemnation.’ But that single offence now belongs to every human being, for, Luther inquires, ‘who could be condemned for another’s offence, especially in the sight of God?’ This does not mean, however, that each of us has committed this sin. No, we are born with it, ‘His
offence becomes ours; not by imitation nor by any act on our part (for then it would not be the single offence of Adam, since we should have
committed it, not he) but it becomes ours by birth.’69
Luther never explains exactly how this transmission takes place or the exact nature of this metaphysical condition yet he nonetheless remains adamant that every single faculty of the human person, including our will, is inherently and absolutely corrupt. This is why Luther makes the famous analogy between God fashioning new human beings and a carpenter who is forced to use warped wood.70 God remains good, as
67 See Cameron A. MacKenzie, “The Origins and Consequences of Original Sin in Luther’s Bondage
of the Will,” Concordia Journal 31, no. 4 (2005): 384-97. On the dominance of Satan in the human makeup
see especially 388-90.
68 Martin Luther, Basic Theological Writings 3rd edition, ed. William R. Russell (Minneapolis:
Fortress Press, 2012), 355-56.
69 MacKenzie, 390-391. The quotations from Luther are from P&J 297-298, WA 18:773.8-16. See
MacKenzie 391, n. 27.
do all of his intentions and works, yet he is nonetheless stuck with the miserably corrupt raw material at hand, namely the inextricably contaminated nature of human beings.
Luther, much like Augustine, was deeply influenced by existential concerns in developing a theological model of original sin. Luther’s spiritual life and his relationship to God was in many ways dominated by what he called Anfechtung, a deep-rooted despair and alienation that seemingly formed the background of all his activities and beliefs.71 This led Luther to develop an alternative model to the more
humanistic/Aristotelian account formulated by the scholastics.72 Luther’s account is primarily centered on the need for human beings to abandon any belief in the efficacy of their own will or works in the process of salvation and spiritual healing. In a letter to a young monk in 1516 Luther proclaims: “Despair of yourself and your own works.”73 Luther’s development of the doctrine of sola fides took shape between 1512 and 1518 and resulted from his deep existential struggle with himself. Luther, much like Augustine, despaired of his inability to follow God’s will in his own life, falling into bouts of severe depression and self-mortification.74 Luther’s theological development provided an escape from this existential hell. In his biography of Luther, John M. Todd writes:
71See, for example, the introduction to Luther's “The Freedom of a Christian” by Mark D. Tranvik, (Fortress Press, Minneapolis: 2008), 11-12: “[Luther's] inability to achieve salvation resulted in an intense trial known by the German word Anfechtung. There is no precise English equivalent, but Anfechtung can be described as an experience of doubt and despair that pierces the very soul—far more than a case of ‘the blues.’ Anfechtung points to a profound sense of being lost, alienated, and out of control.”
72 In his treatise on the influence of the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas on Luther, Karl-Heinz Zur
Mühlen writes: “[Luther‘s approach] contradicts Aristotle and the way he is taken up in the Scholastic doctrine of grace, according to which righteousness is realized in good works with the help of sanctifying grace.” Karl-Heinz Zur Mühlen, “The Thought of Thomas Aquinas in the Theology of Martin Luther,” in
Aquinas as Authority, ed. Paul van Geest, Harm Goris and Carlo Leget (Utrecht: Publication of the Thomas
Instituut te Utrecht, 2002), 72.
73 Quoted in John M. Todd, Luther: A Life (New York: Crossroad, 1982), 73. 74 Ibid., 64-80.
Semper peccator, semper justus. Man was always a sinner, but always
justified—if he only turned to Christ. It was the way of sola fides, faith alone, which he found through Scriptura sola, only through the words of Scripture, and not through Canon Law or conventions. Sola gratia, grace alone, and not any action of man’s part, enabled him to be a Christian, and to do the good works which flowed freely and strongly from a faithful Christian. This now provided the substance, the heart, of all Luther’s lecturing and preaching. It provided a solution to the problem of free will and grace which had bothered theologians for centuries.75
The result of Luther’s own existential despair was therefore a theological account of human sinfulness which sees human beings as utterly and absolutely helpless to affect their own salvation, tossed to and fro in a continual cosmic battle between Satan and God, the two “riders” of the human soul.76 The only way “out” is through the “alien righteousness” of Christ imparted upon the believer which frees him or her from their own corrupt faculties: “This freedom does not lead us to live lazy and wicked lives but makes the law and works unnecessary for righteousness and salvation.”77 According to Luther, the Christian is free exactly because he or she has renounced the freedom of their own will for the freedom given by Christ. The believer is in no way, shape, or form righteous but is rather righteous only in and through Christ, her sinfulness covered with the “cloak” of Christ’s righteousness.
Luther developed a spiritual anthropology that sees a clear split in the human person between the “inward” (soul/spirit) and “outer” (body/works) dimensions of the human being. The Christian path towards salvation only concerns the inner dimension, reducing all outward manifestations of faith to hypocrisy:
75 Ibid., 79.
76 “If God rides, it wills and goes where God wills… If Satan rides, it wills and goes where Satan
wills. Nor may it choose to which rider it will run or which it will seek; but the riders themselves fight to decide who shall have and hold it.” P&J 104, WA 18:635.17-22.
It does not help the soul if the body wears the sacred robe of a priest or visits holy places or performs sacred duties or prays, fasts, and refrains from certain types of foods. The soul receives no help from any work connected with the body. Such activity does not lead to freedom and righteousness for the soul. The works just mentioned could have been done by any wicked person and produce nothing but hypocrites.78