Per Caritatem

In contrast with Auriole, for Ockham there is “no necessary relationship between salvation and grace-induced habits of love” (The Age of Reason, p. 37). This view is reflected in Ockham’s statement, “Quidquid Deus producit mediantibus causis secundis potest immediate sine illis producere et conservare,” i.e., “whatever God can produce by means of secondary causes, he can directly produce and preserve without them.” Just as God in his potentia absoluta was able to cause intuitive knowledge in the human mind of something that does not exist, he can also save people without infused habits of grace (Ibid., p. 37).

Ockham is said to have gone overboard in his desire to stress the radical contingency of creation, as well as all things ecclesiastical—churches, sacraments etc. As Ozment points out, Ockham founded his teaching on two traditional sources. First, he appealed to Augustine’s view of the church on earth as permixta, that is made up of both believers and unbelievers. Here what counts is not present grace, but ultimately the gift of perseverance which is given to the elect only (see, City of God, bk. 1, ch. 35). Secondly, Ockham based his teaching on the distinction between the potentia absoluta Dei and the potentia ordinata Dei, the absolute and ordained power of God. Below is a concise summary of Ockham’s understanding of this distinction:

“Sometimes we mean by God’s power those things which he does according to laws he himself has ordained and instituted. These things he is said to do by ordained power [de potentia ordinata]. But sometimes God’s power is taken to mean his ability to do anything that does not involve a contradiction, regardless of whether or not he has ordained that he would do it. For God can do many things that he does not choose to do […] These things he is said to be able to do by his absolute power [de potentia absoluta]” (Quodlibeta VI, q. I, cited by Dettloff, Die Entwicklung der Akzepations— und Verdienslehre, p. 282) [as found in Ozment, p. 38].

Here we should note that Ockham’s view of God’s absolute power does not involve God acting contrary to the law of non-contradiction. Secondly, the contrast between ordained and absolute power seems to be employed by Ockham to stress the radical contingency of everything that is not God, and to show that what God actually did chose to do in time could have been otherwise, as there were infinite possibilities that could have been ordained. As is well known, many have criticized Ockham’s view as overly speculative and ultimately detrimental to the church and faith. Since this view is common, I will discuss another interpretation that views Ockham’s theology within an Augustinian trajectory in its emphasis on the radical finitude of creation.[1] Pointing to recent scholarship on Ockham, Ozment writes, “Rather, than believing that God actually suspended the laws of nature and ignored the priestly sacramental system of salvation, despite his theoretical ability to do so, Ockham too taught that God normally saved people by grace-induced habits of love. Where he drew the line more indelibly than most, however, was at the suggestion that people were necessarily saved by such habits. That, he believed, was an insult to both human and divine freedom.” [For Ockham] … salvation could never finally be dependent upon qualities within individuals or upon assumed real connections between, God, grace, and the soul, even though God had elected to save people by infused habits of grace” (Ibid., p. 39). In the end, salvation depends squarely on the trustworthiness of God’s will and word. Here we have the wedding of Ockham’s philosophy and theology. That is, just as in matters of genuine knowledge, words as verbal conventions connected the human mind with reality, so too in matters soteriological, words expressed as covenants and promises connect the human being to God” (Ibid., pp. 39-40).

Though some claim that Ockham’s position results in a fideism that ultimately destroys the church, Ozment points out that Ockham’s view “was at least as conducive to the conservation of a vibrant ecclesiastical institution and spiritual life as a more generous view of the theological reach of reason and the metaphysical concept of the working of grace. If, as Ockham argued, revelation was the exclusive access to God, then much hinged on the example and credibility of its custodian; in the very contingency of the Christian church lay an urgent mandate to reform it, not to oppose it, and certainly not to seek alternatives to it” (Ibid., p. 40). Ozment ends the section on Ockham observing that in spite of his stated intentions, his position is Peligian. (Because I have discussed the Peligianism of Ockham’s position in a previous post, I won’t rehash it again).

Notes
[1] This is not to say that I accept or follow everything that Ozment says here, yet some points are worth considering.

This is “part I” of a series that will discuss several medieval theories of salvation and will include: Augustine, Aquinas, Scotus and Ockham. I will eventually get back to the Oberman/nominalism discussion, but Ozment is proving a delightful “distraction.”

***

Beginning with St. Augustine, who is arguable the most influential (Western) theologian, we have the view that human beings are fallen through and through. However, Augustine also is quick to point out that human beings have not always been characterized by sinfulness. Prior to the fall, Adam and Eve were able not to sin (posse non peccare), yet after the fall they become not able not to sin (non posse non peccare). Interestingly, Ozment paints a picture of Augustine’s view that seems to resonate with classical and Greek views of reason being the key to an ordered life (e.g., think of the Platonic view of the tripartite soul). “In Paradise, man was a model of willed self-control. Augustine suggested that even sexual intercourse occurred without lust, the organs of reproduction activated by calm rational volition, not by uncontrollable passion. The classical ideal of man and the Christian view of his original perfection were here joined: habitual order reigned over prelapsarian man, who has reasoned control over his faculties. […] The Fall reversed everything; thereafter fallen man lost his self-control and become a ‘slave to lust.’ He now obeyed and enjoyed the world, his desires having become the rider and his will the horse, and God was to all intents and purposes forgotten” (The Age of Reason, p. 26).

Moving into the schoolmen of the 12th and 13th centuries, we find the idea of the “loss of a special grace (donum superadditum), which God had given Adam in addition to the other gifts of creation and which made it possible for him to gain special insight into himself, his maker and the world” (Ibid., pp. 26-27). This special grace gift had helped prelapsarian human beings to be able, so long as they willed in harmony with it, to live as God had commanded. However, once Adam and Eve transgressed God’s law and “fell,” they lost the donum superadditum and became unable to confirm their minds and wills to God, even when desire to do so was present (Ibid., p. 27).

As Ozment emphasizes, for Augustine the great advantage of Christianity over Platonism centered on the healing power of the sacraments, which the Platonists did not know. “Christians did not contemplate truth at a distance, […], but grasped it directly by faith; nor did they look for strength to a deity who remained beyond this world, but found it in one who had become flesh and dwelt among men. The power to heal the will and restore man to self-control was tangibly present in the Incarnation of Christ and the sacraments of the Christian church. […] As the continuation of the power of the Incarnation, the church had the authority to forgive sin; its revelation enlightened man’s mind; its sacraments, ‘the medicine of immortality,’ healed his will. Later scholastics described the sacraments as a gratia gratum faciens, a power that really changed life. Sacramental grace became the equivalent in the present life of the lost supernatural aid that had specially assisted Adam in living a life ordered to God in Paradise” (Ibid., p. 28).

We see Augustine continue in his conviction and high regard for church authority in the Donatist controversy, viz., in his conclusion that the efficacy of the sacraments is not dependent upon the moral state of the priest. Thus, the sacraments work ex opere operato (“by virtue of their objective performance”), not ex opere operantis (as a result of the moral worth of the performing agent). In addition, Augustine was a strong advocate of supralapsarian predestination (see City of God, books 11 and 12). Given his beliefs on predestiation and original sin, Augustine was engaged in controversies with Pelagius who taught that human beings have the natural moral ability to merit grace. During the 5th and 6th centuries a number of church councils met and in agreement with Augustine’s teachings, as well as Scripture, condemned Pelagianism (e.g., Carthage [418], Ephesus [431], Orange [529]—however, Orange may be considered more a victory for semi-Augustinianism as certain views held by Augustine on irresistible grace and reprobation from eternity were rejected) [Ibid., p. 29].

According to Ozment, the teaching of the medieval church required three things to make fallen human begins righteous again: (1) an infusion of healing grace, which involves a “reliance on the church and its sacraments,” (2) ethical cooperation with God’s grace, (3) “the remission of guilt incurred by sin by priestly absolution” (Ibid., pp. 29-30). Foundational to the process of restoration were the sacraments of baptism and penance. “The grace of baptism was believed to neutralize the individual’s responsibility for original sin […], while the grace of penance gave aid against persisting actual sins” (Ibid., p. 30). Moreover, baptism not only “neutralized” original sin, but washed away present sins and weakened the baptized person’s inclination to sin, an inclination that remains in this life. Given that fact that our proclivity to sin is a continual problem, the sacrament of penance was added, which dealt with sins after baptism, present sins and also weakened one’s tendency to sin, yet of course did not eradicate it. Thus, returning again and again to the sacrament of penance for strength and assurance was part of the medieval Christian’s fabric of life.

In light of the teaching on infused grace, a major debate prior to Pelagian centered debates centered on the question of how divine grace could be present in a human soul. “If medieval philosophers had problems conceiving the existence of a universal within a particular, there were even greater difficulties for theologians who tried to imagine godly purity within a finite sinful creature” (Ibid., p. 31). Interestingly, the often overlooked medieval figure, Peter Lombard, set the trajectory for this debate. In book I, distinction 17 of his Sentences, Lombard asks, “If the love by which we are saved a created habit of our soul, or is it the very person of the Holy Spirit dwelling within us?” (Ibid., p. 31). In other words, is it the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit who heals and saves us or “is that which heals and saves a person part of his own nature, something that he himself has developed as his own possession?” (Ibid., p. 31). According to Lombard, the answer must be the Holy Spirit. Interestingly, when the young Luther penned his commentary on Lombard’s Sentences, he, in contrast with the majority scholastic voice of the day, explicitly sided with Lombard (Ibid., p. 31).

Part II will focus on St. Thomas’ reaction to Lombard’s position, as well as an explication of Thomas “solution” utilizing Aristotelian philosophy.

In light of the predominant psychological portraits of Luther as a melancholy monk fixated on his own salvation and obsessed with his sins, we tend to forget that he was a doctor of theology and a learned theologian. As Ozment notes, “[b]etween 1509-10, when he wrote his commentary on Peter Lombard’s Sentences, and the indulgence controversy of 1517, Luther was an exceedingly active scholar. He read deeply in Aristotle’s Physics, Metaphysics, and Ethics. In addition to sermons and letters, he wrote lectures on the Psalms (1513-15) and on St. Paul’s letters to the Romans (1515-16) and to the Galatians (1516-17). Preparation for these lectures required extensive reading in medieval biblical commentaries” (Age of Reform, p. 232). In addition, he annotated works by St. Augustine, Tauler, and Gabriel Biel, and edited part of an anonymous mystical treatise which later came to be known as the German Theology (Ibid., p. 232). Given his formal training and his writing and teaching experience, the young Luther was not one unacquainted with the intricacies of the medieval theological tradition and “did not enter the indulgence controversy of 1517 as an innocent” (Ibid., p. 233).

In his work, Disputation Against Scholastic Theology, Luther engaged in the debates over the nature of justification and questions centering on the extent of a human being’s natural knowledge of God. According to the traditional teaching of the medieval church, one entered a state of grace by God’s initiative—as a gift of God and not by human works. This infusio gratiae was the foundation for human cooperation and necessarily preceded meritorious works. “In the technical language of the medieval theologian, faith formed by acts of charity (fides caritate formata) received eternal life as full or condign merit (meritum de condigno)” (Ibid., p. 233). The late medieval nominalists (or Ockhamists), however, made significant changes to the traditional understanding. Motivated by a desire to preserve what they saw as a threat to human freedom, the Ockhamists asked, “if man loved God simply because God moved him to do so by a special internal grace, did he really love God freely? Was not free choice also a measure of a meritorious act? Impressed by man’s ethical resources, Ockhamists believed that God’s natural gifts of reason and conscience had not been eradicated by the Fall. […] With such concerns in mind, Ockhamists asked: If God rewards good works done in a state of grace with eternal life as a just due, could he not also be expected to reward good works done in a state of nature with an infusion of grace as an appropriate due? Had God in fact not promised to do precisely that? Ockham and Biel answered these questions in the affirmative: in accordance with God’s gracious goodness (ex liberalitate Dei), he who does his best in a state of nature receives grace as a fitting reward (meritum de congruo) [Ibid., pp. 233-34]. Thus, the salvation schemata for the Ockhamists becomes, (1) doing one’s best on the basis of natural moral ability, (2) receiving an infusion of grace as a fitting reward, (3) doing one’s best with the aid of grace, (4) receiving eternal life as one’s just due. Strangely, Ockhamists did not view this as Pelagian, but rather as an indication of God’s willingness to value human effort. Nonetheless, in spite of their refusal to be labeled Pelagian, the Ockhamists were one voice in teaching that “God meant for people to acquire grace as semimerit within a state of nature and to earn salvation as full merit within a state of grace by doing their moral best” (Ibid., p. 234). This was the position that Luther condemned in his Disputation Against Scholastic Theology, claiming that human beings (in light of the Fall) have no natural moral ability to choose the good—a conclusion that he reached on the basis of studying Scripture and the works of St. Augustine.

Many scholars have brought attention to Luther’s stringent attack on Aristotle’s Ethics, particularly Aristotle’s understanding of moral virtues which one acquires by performing virtuous acts (Ibid., p. 235). Given Luther’s severe condemnation of Aristotle, many have argued that Luther was opposed to any use of Aristotle’s teachings in the realm of theology. However, as Ozment notes, “the Disputation of 1517 did not focus primarily on the inappropriateness of Aristotelian philosophy, but rather on the Pelagianism to which Luther believed its theological application led: scholastic error disturbed Luther more than scholastic method. That being said, Luther is still critical of any position that seems to imply that works are necessary for and contribute to one’s salvation—whether performed inside or outside a state of grace. This, however, should not be understood as Luther denying the importance of good works. For Luther, good works do accompany salvation, but are to be understood as signs or fruit of a redeemed life.

Regarding views of certain schoolmen (viz., Pierre d’Ailly and Robert Holcot) as to the relationship between reason and revelation, Luther was also more or less critical. For Luther, both d’Ailly and Holcot were attempting to “manipulate revelation with reason, to conform the thoughts of God to the thoughts of men. […] Here again Aristotle was singled out as the root of an effort to rationalize faith out of existence; hence, the infamous snort, ‘The whole of Aristotle is to theology as darkness is to light (thesis 50).’” This statement should not be understood as a wholesale rejection of reason or even of Aristotle, but rather as a urging to guard against imposing a strict syllogistic logic on Scripture. As Luther himself views the articles of faith as “not against dialectical truth [Aristotelian logic], but rather outside, under, above, below, around, and beyond it” (non quidem contra, sed extra, intra, supra, infra, citra, ultra omnem veritatem dialecticam) [Ibid., p. 238]. Interestingly, on this particular point, Ozment notes that d’Ailly and Holcot are in reality closer to Thomas’ position on the relationship between reason and revelation than to an Ockhamist’s view of the limits of reason, and ironically, Luther’s position strikes a more Ockhamist tone. Yet, it is also important to emphasize that when Luther spoke highly of Ockham, it was in reference to Ockham’s philosophy, not his theology. Quoting Luther—“Ockham alone understood dialectic, that it involves defining and distinguishing words, but he was no preacher” (WATr 1, no. 193 (1532), in Scheel, Dokumente zu Luthers Entwicklung, no. 223, p. 87, as cited in Ozment, p. 238).

In chapter 6 of Steven Ozment’s excellent book, The Age of Reform, he discusses the “mental world of Martin Luther.” In the first section, Ozment argues against Erik Erikson’s primarily psychological reading of Luther (fixating on his supposed oppressive childhood and things of this sort), and instead interprets Luther in terms of the cultural and religious influences of his day. Rather than the dubious psychological account presented by Erikson of a Luther “brooding over paternal disapproval and vocational self-doubt,” Ozment argues that the medieval religious culture, particularly the monastic life “proved to be the tyrant” for Luther (p. 229).

Ending the section, Ozment writes, “Luther’s suffering was no less real because a religious culture rather than an oppressive childhood induced it. Nor was its resolution any less real because is proved ultimately to be theological in nature. In the culture of the premodern world, what is religious and theological cannot be distinguished from what is emotional and psychological in terms of the less and the more real. It is an age when reality wears a tonsure. For this reason we must take the young theologian Luther as seriously as young man Luther” (p. 231). If this is a topic of interest, I would highly recommend reading Ozment’s book and in particular chapter 6. I have here given a rather slim summary of Ozment’s argument. In the chapter, he gives numerous examples from Erikson’s book, showing the utter absurdity of his psycho-historical interpretation. I do not take Ozment to be dismissing in toto the effects of strained familial relationships, personal struggles, and so on in regard to Luther, but rather, his criticism seems to be with the general methodology and presuppositions that fund the psycho-historical approach.

More on Luther from Ozment and Oberman in the days to come…