Ilmari Karimies

The Relation of Ontology and Epistemology in Martin Luther’s Conception of Faith in Operationes in Psalmos (1519-21)

1.Introduction

The Mannermaa-school of modern Finnish Luther-research has demonstrated, that in the center of Martin Luther’s conception of faith lies the ontological idea of union with Christ and of the Holy Trinity, theosis. However, the epistemologic implications of this aspect in Luther’s theology have not been thoroughly studied. In some studies it has been supposed, that for Luther the union with God in faith is an epistemological principle that enables the Christian to have knowledge concerning God.¹

The aim of my pro gradu work (master’s theses) is to examine, how Luther’s conception of these two aspects of faith are related in his work Operationes in Psalmos.

2.Luther’s Theology of the Cross as Negative Theology

2.1.The Incomprehensibility of the Divine Nature

In his work Operationes in Psalmos Luther describes the divine nature as unnameable, having no name nor species, unknown, incomprehensible, ineffable, inaccessbile, untouchable with either senses or mind. Luther compares this to the mountain in Exodus, on the top of which God was covered in the cloud and darkness. In the light of all human cognitive capabilities this cloud and darkness is impenetrable.² This is something the natural man cannot accept, and therefore he turns to created things, which he can understand, and makes them his god.³

2.2.Passions as ductus from Created into Eternal

In Operationes in Psalmos Luther also describes thorougly the process in which God converts the man to the true knowledge of God. First, man’s reliance on the created things has to be broken. This happens by suffering and passions, in which all consolation in created things is taken away from the man and he is led into the darkness. Luther describes this mainly in two ways: As the alien work of God,⁴ and the work of the pouring of divine grace.⁵ In the passions the old man, who relies on his rationality and senses, is drowned and killed, but at the same time made alive in the spirit. In the perspective of the cognitive capacities of the old man, the work of the divine grace is only dragging of the soul into darkness,⁶ but in the perspective of new man, whose intellect is renovated⁷ and illuminated,⁸ it is light which encompasses (capit) the soul and leads it in unseen and unthinkable ways, but the soul is unable to understand how this happens.⁹

2.3.Luther’s Theology of the Cross as Corrective to Negative Theology

In addition to the perception of the divine nature as incomprehensible, Luther’s Operationes in Psalmos is swarming with concepts that connect Luther with the tradition of mystical, negative theology. In one excerpt, which is often quoted as a proof of Luther’s rejection of negative and mystical theology, Luther rather seems to suggest, that his contemporaries have not understood, what real negative thology is, because they lack experience.¹⁰ Luther seems to suggest, that the darkness of which the mystics speak, are the cross and passions, the main theme of his Operationes.¹¹ Therefore Luther’s theology of the cross can be seen as a corrective to the speculative, mystical theology. Luther’s main differences from the tradition are two: First, that the stripping off from the created things happens in real passion and not speculation, and second, that man plays no active part in it, only suffers the work of God.

According to this view, there is a definite connection between Luther’s theological ontology, that is, his understanding of the divine nature, and his understanding of the epistemological nature of faith. In order for a man to have faith in God, he must first be drawn away from his reliance onto his senses and his rationality through sufferings. In these sufferings his intellect is renovated by divine grace simultaneously as his self-reliance is killed, and he is able to see the invisible via faith and know God. Senses and rationality, however, are not able to comprehend this seeing and knowing, which is in regard to them only darkness and suffering.