Autor: Ormerod, Neil

Buch: Creation, Grace, and Redemption

Titel: Creation, Grace, and Redemption

Stichwort: Erbsünde; Reformation - Trient; simul justus et peccator; Luther, Calvin (versteckter Dualismus) - Konzil von Trient

Kurzinhalt: For Calvin we are "perverted and corrupted in all the parts of our nature," and "therefore cannot but be odious and abominable to God." ... The "middle ground" so carefully carved out by the scholastics with their notion of human "nature" has been ...

Textausschnitt: 72b This solution to the unresolved dilemma posed by Augustine's position on original sin allowed the church to affirm the goodness of the natural order, and of human nature in particular (Gen 1:31). This goodness could not be erased by the fall, and so humans could still strive to do the good. The drive to search for meaning, truth, and value remains in every human being, though because of concupiscence it may be swamped by other, more powerful drives and desires and so become ineffective in shaping the direction of our lives. However, the solution of the scholastics was not the only way to resolve the dilemma left by Augustine. Another solution was simply to identify finitude with evil, through the identification of concupiscence with original sin. [er: genaus das--die Identifikation von Erbsünde und Endlichkeit--schreibt er oben Augustinus zu] Since concupiscence remains after baptism, the sinner is not truly regenerate but remains a sinner through and through. The person is simul justus et peccator, simultaneously just and sinner. Human justice is not ours; rather it is an alien, imputed justice that remains incapable of eradicating our intrinsic orientation to evil. This was the solution posited by Martin Luther, the great initiator of the Reformation. Luther rejected what he understood of the, scholastic notion that original sin was merely a lack or privation of original justice. To accept such a position would "give occasion for lukewarmness and a breakdown of the whole concept of penitence, indeed to implant pride and presumptuous-ness, to eradicate fear of God, to outlaw humility, to make the command of God invalid, and thus condemn it completely."1 For Luther, original sin is not merely a privation of original justice but more a positive inclination to evil. It is "a propensity towards evil... a nausea towards the good, a loathing of light and wisdom, and a delight in error and darkness, a flight from and abomination of all good works, a pursuit of evil."2 The other great reformer, John Calvin, concurs with Luther on this point:

Hence, those who have defined original sin as the want of the original righteousness which we ought to have had, though they substantially comprehend the whole case, do not significantly enough express its power and energy. For our nature is not only utterly devoid of goodness, but so prolific in all kinds of evil, that it can never be idle.3

73a For Calvin we are "perverted and corrupted in all the parts of our nature," and "therefore cannot but be odious and abominable to God."4 There is no escape from such a condition because it has effectively become equated with our creaturely status. It remains even after baptism. The "middle ground" so carefully carved out by the scholastics with their notion of human "nature" has been eradicated so that anything that falls outside the realm of grace is viewed as thoroughly sinful.5 (Fs)

74a Such a pessimistic anthropology has more than a suggestion of dualism to it. It is only avoided by the assertion of the absolute sovereignty of God, to such an extent that God almost becomes the author of human evil. For Luther, God appears to be the author of both salvation and sin;
Since then God moves and actuates all in all, he necessarily moves and acts also in Satan and ungodly man ... Here you see that when God works in and through evil men, evil things are done, and yet God cannot act evilly although he does evil through evil men, because one who is himself good cannot act evilly, yet he uses evil instruments that cannot escape the sway and motion of his omnipotence.6

74b This was not a position that the Catholic Church felt it could tolerate. The Council of Trent reaffirmed key elements of the scholastic position. In its decrees on justification and original sin it condemned several aspects of Luther's teaching. It affirmed the real regeneration of the sinner through grace:

If anyone shall say that men are justified either by the sole imputation of the justice of Christ or by the sole remission of sins, to the exclusion of the grace and the charity that is poured forth in their hearts by the Holy Spirit and remains in them, or also that the grace by which we are justified is only the good will of God-anathema sit. (DS 1561; also see DS 1515 below)

74c The council rejected the identification of original sin with concupiscence:

If anyone deny that the guilt of original sin is remitted by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ conferred in baptism or assert that everything that has the true and proper nature of sin is not taken away but is erased or not reckoned-anathema sit... The Holy Council, however, knows and confesses that there remains in those who have been baptized concupiscence or the inclination to sin ... of this concupiscence which the Apostle occasionally calls "sin" this Holy Council declares that the Catholic Church has never understood its being called sin in the sense of real and actual sin.... (DS 1515)

74d The council further rejected any notion that God has any responsibility for the sins of the sinner:
If anyone shall say that it is not in man's power to make his ways evil, but that the works that are evil as well as those that are good God produces, not only permissively but proprie et per se, so that the treason of Judas is not less his own proper work than the vocation of St Paul-anathema sit. (DS 1556)7