Benjamin TaylorDr. Hendel--Grace Incarnate

Spring 2015The Closure Remains Open: Reading Luther’s Account of “Mystery” in the Age of Modernity

1.1 Introduction

To write about Luther’s view of mystery is to place one’s self in the precarious situation of putting

into words that which is ineffable; to write about Luther’s view of mystery is to try to make reasonable

that which evades reason. When Luther evokes Geheimnis, it is often because he cannot say anything

else. But this does not mean that mystery is somehow an empty concept, or that the ethereal nature of

mystery relegates it to unimportance. The concept of mystery within Lutheran theology is too important

for Lutheran theologians not to talk about. Because Luther believed the grace of God to be mysterious;

and because Luther was unable to put into words the mystery that is the love of God—we must talk about

mystery. In talking about mystery, however, we have to lay out what Luther was talking about when he

was talking about mystery. Luther wrote often, and he repeated the same arguments often, but yet he

often made them in a nuanced way. And so, in order to write about Luther’s view of mystery, we will

have to trace the nuances in his writing about mystery.

We will also have to demarcate: we will have to use our reason in talking about mystery. This

demarcation involves risk and runs counter to one of the primary concerns of this paper: That reason does

harm to mystery; that reason attempts to reduce mystery, which itself is irreducible. However, when

discussing mystery, something needs to be discussed. Words approximate mystery, and words harm

mystery, and so we must be practice humility when using words. In analyzing Luther’s view of mystery,

we find two fundamental premises of Luther’s concept of mystery.

1. The nature of God is beyond human comprehension; and

2. The nature of God is contrary to human rationality.

These two premises are to be distinguished1 from one another. The first premise points to the greatness of

God. Luther believes that God’s love and God’s grace are so great that human reason breaks down in an

effort to grasp the nature of God. God is beyond what human beings can think, and thus, the nature of

God is a mystery. The second premise points not only to the greatness of God, but to the reality of human

sinfulness. Regardless of how God reveals God’s own nature, sinful human beings are bound to think that

God is something else.2 Human beings think God on their own terms, and thus, are ever confounded when 1 In a self-reflection on his own theology, the German theologian Eberhard Jüngel condenses his theology into nine distinct points. The fifth point is “I believe, therefore, I differentiate.” Jüngel believed that the task of the Lutheran theologian was to make distinctions: “The believer knows that God became human to differentiate savingly and definitely between God and humanity. ‘We should be human and not God. This is the summa.’ The believer exists in distinction…Faith also differentiates between the word in which God makes a demand on us and the word in which God gives [God’s self] to us.” Eberhard Jüngel, Theological Essays II (Bloomsbury: London, 2014), 13. 2 This story is best symbolized by the story of the Golden Calf in Exodus 32. Numerous contemporary readers have made this point by arguing that human nature is prone to idolatry, that is, making gods out of human, social or

God reveals God’s self to be different from what they had expected God to be. Luther makes this

argument repeatedly when talking about the nature of God in and through the cross. We do not expect

Jesus Christ to die a human death. But yet, he does. And this is a mystery—not only because we cannot

fathom that God dies a human death; but moreover, because we have been expecting something different

from God.

This paper highlights these two premises in Luther’s theology repeatedly in this paper. One could

argue that this paper highlights these two premises to the point of redundancy. However, I think about it a

different way. That Luther comes back again and again to these premises in his articulation of different

doctrines of the Christian faith reveals how fundamental these premises are to his concept of mystery in

particular and his Evangelical theology in general. This foreshadows an important point about Luther’s

concept of mystery: It is positive, it is a constructive element of his own theology. By this, I mean that

Luther talks about mystery because God’s love is mysterious. It is not as if Luther talks about mystery

when he does not know what else to say; rather, Luther talks about mystery when he knows that he cannot

say anything else. The love and the grace of God, in these moments, are too great for him.

The topic of this paper is Luther’s doctrine of mystery. But this paper also aims to examine how

Luther’s doctrine of mystery functions within the context of modernity. To talk about Luther’s concept of

mystery within the intellectual and cultural context of modernity is important for us because we live in a

very different context than did Luther in pre-modern Germany. The study of Luther’s doctrine of mystery

in the modern intellectual and cultural context is also important because—and this is the thesis of the

paper—Luther’s notion of mystery is completely antithetical to modernity and its primary impulse to

rationalize and systematize people, places and ideas. In order to show that Luther’s understanding of

mystery is antithetical to modernity, I will need to explain not only what is meant by “mystery,” but also

what is meant by “modernity.” To that end, the first part of this paper outlines modernity as a closed

system. This paper argues that “the hegemonic impulse” is fundamental to modernity; by “hegemonic

impulse,” I mean that modernity carries within itself an impulse to control and dominate others. This

hegemony occurs, so the argument goes, through the means of knowledge as a fundamental instrument of

power.3 Knowledge, then, has been used in modernity as a means of control over others. This control

occurs through “the closure of the system.” We will examine this in detail below. The second part of this

paper constructs Luther’s positive concept of mystery by examining his use of mystery throughout his

political constructs. For example, see Vitor Westhelle, The Church Event (Fortress: Minneapolis, 2010), 95-98.3 Michel Foucault identified this cultural phenomenon as the “truth regime.” “Truth is linked in a circular relation with systems of power which produce and sustain it, and to the effects of power which induces it and which extends it. A ‘regime’ of truth.” Michel Foucault, “Truth and Power” in The Foucault Reader (Vintage Books: New York, 1984), 74. Foucault argues that modernity uses the notion of truth as a means of control over others—especially, in his work, in terms of control over those with mental illness. I believe that modernity does not only use “truth” as a means of control, but knowledge as a means of control. This presupposition is operative in my account of modernity.

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theology. After the two premises of Luther’s concept of mystery are detailed, the paper turns to a kind of

“systematic” account of Luther’s concept of mystery by looking at Luther’s concept of mystery in a

number of different doctrines: faith, Christology, the Lord’s Supper, his doctrine of God, and lastly, the

cross. Faith and mystery are important for Luther as they form the foundation of the relationship between

God and the individual, and thus, this topic is given primacy. This second part of the paper, then, is the

body of the paper. The third part of this paper examines the points of tension between modernity and

Luther’s concept of mystery. This paper argues that Luther’s concept of mystery functions as a critique of

modernity’s closed system by signaling that theological, cultural and political discourse cannot be closed,

but must be left open. As such a critique, my hope is to provide an opening for Lutheran theology to serve

as a corrective for many of modernity’s own abuses.

1. 2 Knowledge, Hegemony and Modernity: The Closure of the System

This paper argues that Luther’s positive concept of mystery functions as a critique to the primary

impulse of modernity: the extreme rationalization and systematization of things, people and concepts that

takes place in modernity. In order to substantiate this claim, we first need to do some “background” work

in order to define is meant by modernity. In doing so, we will focus on three themes within modernity: the

ultra-rationalization of modernity, the anthropology turn of modernity by which “the individual” becomes

the measure of all things, and finally the hegemonic impulse of modernity by which “to know” means “to

control.” The elucidation of these three themes of modernity will help us understand what is meant by

modernity. Finally, at the end of this section, we will highlight some of the theological implications of

modernity. This will serve as the frame of the essay. From this frame, we will then examine Luther’s

positive concept of mystery, which will take up the body of this paper. Once we have a grasp of what is

meant by modernity, and by Luther’s concept of mystery, we will see how Luther’s concept of mystery

functions as a sharp critique of modernity.

This paper uses the term “modernity” to refer to intellectual and cultural heritage that resulted

from both the philosophy of Descartes and German Idealism and from the technological advancements of

the industrial revolution. Modernity, then, is distinguished from the “Middle Ages” or “pre-

Enlightenment” by the fact that in modernity, the modern individual gained a renewed sense of autonomy

over natural world by use of reason and by use of machinery, both of which became readily available as

the result of the Enlightenment. Both the individual’s use of reason and the individual’s use of machinery

and technology have fundamental consequences for the way in which the individual thinks and acts in the

world.4 This intellectual and historical context which we are calling modernity originates in Descartes’s 4 Unlike other discourses on modernity, I do not yet believe that we are living in a new cultural and philosophical milieu that has often been referred to as the “postmodern.” However, I do agree with the postmodern conviction that the foundations of modern life have been “shaken;” and to that extent, we need to ask the questions that expose the

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Cogito “I think, therefore, I am.” Kant referred to the Cartesian Cogito as a “Copernican Revolution”

because the Cogito transformed the fundamental nature of the way in which human beings think of

themselves in the midst of the world. No longer are humans beings think of themselves as merely things

existing in the world among other things; as a result of Descartes’s “I think, therefore I am” human beings

place themselves at the center of the world.5 This philosophical event, then, as tremendous implications

for our modern world. Three themes of this intellectual context need to be spelled out. To these themes

we now turn.

First, modernity is a period of ultra-rationalization. In his famous essay “What is the

Enlightenment?” Kant identified what was to become the motto of the Enlightenment: “Have courage to

use your own reason!”6 The currency of modernity was the practice of autonomy in one’s own thought.

The Enlightenment, fueled by Gutenberg’s printing press, was a period of discovery and insight into the

human condition. The fruit of the Enlightenment was freedom: freedom to think outside the dogmatic

confines of the church and freedom to act politically as an individual.7 This impulse for freedom of

thought within modernity constituted the heart of the French Revolution and its tri-emphasis on “liberty,

equality, and brotherhood,” which together represented the basis of Western social and political thought

in the modern world. The motto “to use your own reason” has led to many great improvements in our

modern life: the cultural and societal advancements that have been a result of scientific and technological

discoveries, the growth and accuracy of the diagnostics and preventative measures in Western medicine

and the improvement in quality of life for people throughout the world because of education. However,

there have also been some drawbacks from this period of ultra-rationalization. The ultra-rationalization of

modernity creates a profound theological problem. The theologians of modernity attempted to apply the

logic of “use your own reason” to God. The most prominent example of this theological problem is, of

course, Kant’s postulating God as an idea. For Kant, God was simply an idea of human consciousness

that safeguarded humanity’s use of pure reason as a moral guide.8 Thus, Kant has rationalized God on the

basis of human thought. This “moral theism” of Kant is the direct result of the rationalization of God. In

other words, as the result of the Enlightenment’s emphasis on rationality, God is understood not as God is

façades of modernity, such as anthropocentrism, capitalism, sexism, cisism, heterosexism, racism and colonialism. However, to ask these questions is not to enter into a new milieu, but merely, to be critical of the one in which we are living. 5 Kant, Critique of Pure Reason (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK 1998), 110.6 Kant, Critique of Practical Reason and Other Writings in Moral Philosophy (University of Chicago Press: Chicago, IL 1949), 286.7 Ibid, 287.8 See the prefaces of Kant, Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1998). See Hans Küng’s terse reading of Kant’s doctrine of God in On Being a Christian (Double Day: Garden City, NY, 1976), 48-49.

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in God’s self, but rather God is understood merely as the “ground” for human ethics and culture.9 Kant’s

theology represents the “anthropologozing of theology” that has become prevalent in modern theology.

This trend has been critiqued by both Barth, who critiques this theology over and over throughout his

Church Dogmatics, and by Tillich, who at times, fell into this own position.10 Both theologians maintain

that Lutheran’s concept of mystery serves as a critique of the overt rationalization of God.

Second, modernity is a period in which the individual turned inward to him or her-self, in which

what has been referred to as “the anthropological turn.” With the Cartesian Cogito, Descartes codifies the

basic relationship between the human individual and the world as it understood throughout modernity. An

individual’s existential identity is not grounded on her inherent views of reality, but rather, it is secured

through the individual’s own subjectivity and identity. Again, we turn to Kant as the primary

representative for this theme in modern thought. The anthropological turn is modern thought is

consequence of Cartesian “epistemological doubt,” wherein a modern individual believes that she cannot

trust her experience of the world, but instead must rely on the categories of her own mind to interpret the

world through the Kantian “transcendental deduction.”11 As a result of the deduction, the human

individual interprets phenomena of the world on the human’s own terms. While this anthropological turn

may not be intrinsically harmful, it can lead one to have problematic views on the relationship between

one’s self and God’s creation. This anthropological turn led Kant to privilege human beings over against

the animal world. In his Lectures on Anthropology, Kant writes “The fact that the human being can have

the representation “I” raises him infinitely above all the other beings on earth. By this [the individual] is a

person....that is, a being altogether different in rank and dignity from things, such as irrational animals,

with which one may deal and dispose at one's discretion.”12 On Kant’s terms, because animals do not

possess the rationality that humans enjoy, there are relegated as secondary to humankind, and thus, they

do not have the moral status as do humans. Another problem resulting from “the anthropological turn”

has been the way in which humans view their relationship with the natural world. In the last hundred

years, as a result of the burning of fossil fuels and the widespread ecological abuse throughout the natural

9 Historically, this led to the philosophy of Feuerbach and his redefinition of theology as anthropology. See the Introduction of Feuerbach’s classic The Essence of Christianity.10 Barth: “Thus true theology is an actual determination and claiming of [humanity] by the acting God. Thus there is at this point an acute danger of anthropologising theological knowledge…If we follow up this line, then the sensus, the human determination, the experience and the attitude of the knowing subject are made the criterion of theological knowledge.” Barth, Church Dogmatics I: 1 (T&T Clark: Edinburgh, 19).Tillich “Hubris is not one form of sin beside others. It is sin in its total form, namely, the other side of unbelief or [the individual’s] turning away from the divine center to which [the individual] belongs. It is turning toward one’s self as the center of one’s self and one’s world.” Systematic Theology II (University of Chicago Press: Chicago, 1975): 50.11 Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, 219-267.12 Kant, Lectures on Anthropology, Quoted From “The Moral Standard of Animals” in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Accessed Online: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-animal/. 3/24/15.

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world, humans have permanently altered the climatic make-up of the earth, what is referred to as climate

change. This ecological crisis has been the result of modern anthropocentric thinking, which has held that

the natural world exists for the purpose of the human being, and thus, modern human beings has affirmed

their right to abuse the natural world for the sake of financial gain or political power. This anthropocentric

point of view has manifested itself theological in terms of the misconceived theological notion that God

has given the human “dominion” over the earth. Daniel Migliore writes:

This [anthropocentric] doctrine has become a kind of motto of the modern attitude toward nature with devastating ecological consequences. Has Christian theology contributed to this view? The answer is, sadly, yes, in part. Many standard discussions of the doctrine of creation gave primary, if not exclusive, attention to the creation of human beings. That there were other beings created by God was certainly acknowledged, but they were often treated more like stage props than like important participants in the drama of creation and salvation.13

It is important to note that the anthropocentrism characteristic of modernity is not without its merits. The

focus on the human, and more specifically the focus on the human individual, has led the modern world

to reconsider the value of the human being. This primacy that modernity has given to the human

individual has manifested itself in the geopolitical concern for human dignity and human rights

throughout the developing world. However, it is also the case that the modern humanity’s self-absorption

with itself, propelled by the primacy of human knowledge, has caused significant social and ecological

damage.

Third, modernity is a period in which knowledge serves as a form of power that is to be exerted

over others. The Mexican philosopher Enrique Dussel has argued that the logical conclusion Descartes’s

Cogito is not widespread freedom, but rather the subjugation of those who do not “think” according to

Western standards of rationality.14 He writes, “Before there ego cogito there is an ego conquiro: “I

conquer” is the practical foundation of “I think.’”15 The logic here is plain: If to think according to

Western standards is to be human, then those who do not think according to Western standards, are not

human. This is “the logic of domination” that has occurred as part of modernity in the West. Womanist

theologian Kelly Brown Douglas shows that this logic of domination was operative during the period

American Slavery. Douglas writes “And if human beings were shown lacking in reason, and indeed

incapable of growing in reason, then they were at best regarded as inferior beings, perhaps right above the

beast, and at worst, regarded as subhuman, in fact beast.”16 Douglas continues by arguing that white

Americans codified this “logic of domination” in the science of early modernity. The scientific episteme

13 Daniel Migliore, Faith Seeking Understanding, 2nd Edition (Eerdmans: Grand Rapids, MI 2004), 94.14 Enrique Dussel, Ethics and the Theology of Liberation (Orbis Books: Maryknoll, NY 1978), 151-153.15 Enrique Dussel, A Philosophy of Liberation (Orbis Books: Maryknoll, NY 1985), 3.16 Kelly Brown Douglas, What’s Faith Got To Do With It? (Orbis Books, Maryknoll, NY 2005). 116. Douglas demonstrates that this argument was the underlying premise of Thomas Jefferson’s racism, and one could imagine, the reason for his participation in American Slavery and subsequent sexual violence towards his slaves.

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in the eighteenth and nineteenth century in America purported to find “rational justification” for white

supremacist claims.17 In this way, the “white culture” of eighteenth and nineteenth century America used

scientific knowledge (however dubious) as means of power and control over blacks in America. But this

“logic of domination” did not exist only in antebellum America. White Americans continued using the

logic of domination to subjugate African-Americans well into the twentieth century. A few prominent

examples are the Tuskegee Institute, in which the U.S. Government gave syphilis to African-Americans

in rural Alabama for a period of decades. Another example is the story of Henrietta Lacks, the Baltimore

African-American woman whose obtained plasma helped create the world’s first immortal cell in 1949.

But because Lacks was an uneducated African American women, the medical establishment took Lacks’s

plasma without her knowledge or consent and, as a consequence, her contribution to science went

unrecognized for almost fifty years.18 These notable cultural and historical events are examples of “the

logic of domination” that uses knowledge as a means of oppression and exploitation.

These three themes that we have examined—the ultra-rationalization of modernity, the

anthropological turn of modernity and the use of knowledge to exert power—are all part of the modern

consciousness that forms the world in which we live. We have seen that although rationality is a positive

component of modernity, it can also be used for negative purposes, which has resulted in a plethora of

social, political and ecological problems. These problems occur, I believe, when human rationality

presupposes that it can create “a closed system” by which it can know and thereby control the world. A

closed system is dangerous because a closed system is necessarily exclusive. Modernity creates such a

system by privileging human rationality as the highest value.19 Thus, modernity has circumscribed what is

considered to be “good,” “acceptable” or “legal,” in terms of what is considered reasonable. The closure

of such an episteme is essential because to close the system is to give the system its power.20 The closed

system is powerful in its exclusivity. In his book After Heresy, Vitor Westhelle identifies this closed,

exclusive rational system within modernity “logocentrism,” from the Greek logos. Dr. Westhelle writes

“In ‘logocentrism,’ the logic of a valid postulate establishes a régime of truth and excludes that which

does not cohere with the grid that norms an accepted perception of reality.”21 Modernity, by and large, has

determined value by on the basis of what the West has considered to be reasonable. This enclosure of

truth, and by extension the enclosure of meaning, is problematic because it creates the conditions for a

17 Ibid, 118-119.18 The life and the controversy surrounding Henrietta Lacks is recounted in the 2011 best-seller The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (Random House: New York New York, 2011) by Rebecca Skloot. 19 See Douglas, Ibid, 116. 20 See “Sin as the Totalization of the System” in Dussel, Ethics and the Theology of Liberation, 17-21.21 Vítor Westhelle, After Heresy: Colonial Practices and Post-Colonial Theologies (Wipf Stock Publishers: Eugene, OR 2010), xi. The phrase “regime of truth” is from the philosophy of Michel Foucault.

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society or a people to exert power over others.22 In other words, this logocentrism within modernity is

essentially hegemonic and represents the worst in modernity, as we have seen in this section. The logic of

domination, then, perpetuates a circle of hegemonic power, in which those who have power are able to

exert their power and to reinforce their power by controlling the society’s notions of truth and value. In

this situation within modernity, the only means of breaking this hegemonic cycle within the closed system

of modernity is to open the closed system. Luther’s notion of mystery in his theology serves as a scathing

critique of the closed system by calling into question the logic of domination that closes the system.

Mystery effaces the enclosure, and in doing so, opens the door to modernity’s own closure.

2.1 Luther’s Positive Concept of Mystery

In using the phrase “Luther’s concept of mystery,” an important distinction needs to be made. In

post-Enlightenment thought, there has been a leering skepticism towards the concept “mystery.” This

skepticism has often been understood in the so-called “God of the gaps Argument.” The “God of the gaps

argument” maintains a dualistic understanding of faith and knowledge. It asserts that as knowledge

increases, faith must decrease; and as such, God (or, faith) is relegated “to the gaps.”23 In the context of

God of the gaps arguments, mystery is seen as “primitive” and mystery becomes relegated to the gaps

along with God. I call this view of mystery a negative view of mystery because mystery is passive, it does

not have agency.

The “God of the gaps” argument has a negative view of mystery that may be contrasted with a

positive view of mystery. A positive view of mystery, in contrast to a negative view of mystery, has its

own agency and its own function within the mechanism of thought. A positive view of mystery evokes

that there is something that is beyond rational thought. In other words, the positive view of nature points

beyond that which can be signified.24 Luther had a positive view of mystery. For Luther, to talk about

mystery was not “an intellectual cop-out” as the God of the gaps critics assert,25 nor was it primitive, nor 22 The argument that “modernity is a closed system” is a common trope within French philosophy and post-colonial theory. For one such substantial account, see Jean-Luc Nancy’s Dis-Enclosure: The Deconstruction of Christianity (Fordham University Press: New York, 2008). 23 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, always the insightful theologian, on “the God of the gaps” argument: “[Humanity] has learned to deal with [themselves] in all questions of importance without recourse to the ‘working hypothesis’ called ‘God.’ In questions of science, art and ethics this has become an understood thing at which one hardly dares to tilt. But for the last hundred years or so it has become increasingly true of religious questions; it is becoming evident that everything gets along without ‘God’—and, in fact, just as well as before. As in the scientific field, so in human affairs generally, ‘God’ is being pushed more and more out of life, losing more and more ground.” Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison (Macmillan Co: New York, 1972), 325-326.24 Tillich’s concept of a symbol is operative in my thinking. Tillich defined symbol as the symbol “participates in that to which it points (Tillich, Dynamics of Faith (Harper: New York, 1957), 42.” Here, I am saying that Luther’s positive view of mystery participates in that which is beyond human comprehension; namely, the nature and the love of God. 25 Luther faced the same criticism in his day. He addresses this concern as part of his explanation of the hiddenness of God in The Bondage of the Will. He personifies Reason and Reason’s attack that his notion of God’s hiddenness

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did Luther view his understanding of mystery as antithetical to his understanding of reason; for Luther,

theology entailed mystery because human beings are not God, and therefore, we cannot understand the

depth of who God is. Luther’s understanding of the Incarnation is fundamental to his understanding of

mystery. Luther writes “This mystery [the Incarnation] has been revealed through the Word. Yet [God] is

not palpable. We do not see [God]. None of our senses catch [God]; and yet we must believe. Therefore

this is a mystery. There is nothing more hidden; there is nothing more apparent. If I must apprehend this,

it is indeed obscure, and yet Christ is more apparent than the sun.”26 This simple quotation is

representative of Luther’s numerous quotations on the nature of mystery. It also introduces us to two

basic considerations of Luther’s understanding of mystery that we need to examine before going further

in our analysis on how Luther uses the idea of mystery in his theology.27

First, Luther’s positive view of mystery arises from the fact that we are called to confess our faith

in response to the reality and the grace of God. The quotation above points to the paradox of the

confessional nature of the Christian faith: We are called to make a confession in response to the grace that

we have received, but we cannot adequately put into words the reality of God’s grace. Luther’s positive

view of mystery arises from the paradox that mystery lies in what is beyond human comprehension.

Luther writes “It is up to God alone to give faith contrary to nature, and ability to believe contrary to

reason.”28 Luther believes that the grace and love of God is so great that it lies behind human

comprehension and reason. Second, Luther’s positive view of mystery arises from situations in which his

understanding of the nature of God is contrary to what one might expect the nature of the God to be. That

is to say, Luther’s positive view of mystery not only arises from the knowledge that the nature of God

evades human understanding, it also arises from the knowledge of God that differs from our preconceived

notions of who God is. For example, Luther talks about mystery when talking about the real presence of

Christ in Eucharist (in which, we would expect that the bread and wine remains bread and wine) or the

theology of the cross (in which we would expect that God would not die a human death). Althaus writes

“Reason thus demands God act according to human concepts of righteousness. It attempts to prescribe

is an intellectual cop-out. He responds that his account of the hiddenness of God is based on his fidelity to Scripture:“Here, however, Reason in her saucy, sarcastic way will say: This is a splendidly devised way out, if every time we are hard pressed by the arguments, we have recourse to that awful will of the Divine Majesty, and can reduce our opponents to silence whenever [they] become troublesome…Our answer is that this is not our invention, but a principle firmly based on the Divine Scriptures.” Luther’s Works [Hereafter, LW] 33:146. 26 Luther, LW 28:305.27 Above, in the Introduction, we outlined “two premises” of Luther’s view of mystery; here, we examine two basic considerations of Luther’s positive view of mystery. The former detailed Luther’s thought of how God is mysterious in God’s self; the latter concerns the individual’s understanding of God as a mystery as the individual exists in relationship to God. Both nuanced points are important.28 LW 34:160. See Paul Althaus, The Theology of Martin Luther (Fortress: Philadelphia, 1968), 68.

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what [God] must do if [God] wishes to remain God.”29 These two points, including the distinction

between them, are important to the understanding of Luther’s positive understanding of mystery.

The positive nature of Luther’s understanding of mystery is made clear in Luther’s doctrine of

justification, “the most important topic” of Lutheran theology.30 The third, fourth and fifth theses of

Luther’s Disputation Concerning Justification read the following:

3. If a [person] is truly justified by works, he [or she] has glory before [people], but not before God.4. A [person] is justified by faith in the sight of God, even if he [or she] finds only disgrace before [people] and in his own self.5. This is a mystery of God, who exalts [God’s] saints because it is not only impossible to comprehend for the godless, but marvelous and hard to believe even for the pious themselves.31

These three theses convey Luther’s understanding of mystery. The doctrine of justification is a

mystery to Luther because the conviction that humans are justified by faith apart from their works escapes

the conventional logic of the Roman penitential system. The Roman intellectual context believed that God

gives us the mercy so that we may “do what is in us.”32 The doctrine of justification is a mystery because

it operates outside the confines of conventional logic. Luther often makes this argument over against the

logic of the legalists, who maintain that favor of God must be done through works of the law.33 Luther

argues that the grace of God does not follow that logic, but instead the grace of God justifies the sinner on

the basis of what God has done in Christ. This is a mystery because it cannot be fully comprehended by

human reason. However, as this mystery is revealed by the radical good news of Christ, this mystery is

positive. This view of mystery liberates us from ourselves, because we no longer place our trust in

ourselves, but instead we place our trust in the grace of God.

2.2 Faith, the Way of Mystery

Luther believed that to have faith in God is to trust God completely as the source for one’s entire

being.34 This faith included trust in God not only as the source for health and physical well-being, but

29 Althaus, The Theology of Martin Luther, 68.30 Melanchthon, “The Apology of the Augsburg Confession” in Book of Concord (Fortress: Minneapolis, 2000), 120.31 Luther, LW 34:151.32 The point here is that the Roman insistence that we should “do what it is in one” (facere quod in se est) plays into conventional logic about the relationship that human beings have with one another (e.g. If I want you to do something for me, I should do something for you). This is also, by the way, the logic of capitalism. But Luther’s conviction that God gifts us with grace freely cuts against the logic of reciprocity.33 “But this is a strange and unheard-of definition, that to live to the Law is to die to God and that to die to the Law is to live to God. These two propositions are utterly contrast to reason; therefore, no sophist or legalist understands them. But you must learn to understand them correctly…To live to God is to be justified through grace or through faith for the sake of Christ, without the Law and without works.” LW 26:159.34 See Luther’s explanation of the First Commandment in his Large Catechism, see Book of Concord, 386-392.

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also trust in God as the giver for all material possessions. Luther’s emphasis on trust in God alone as the

giver of all aspects of life involves mystery. This faith is mysterious because it asks to trust God for that

which is unseen. In this section, we will look at three aspects of how faith is mysterious: first, faith is

mysterious because it asks us to trust in God and not ourselves; second, faith is mysterious because it is

trust in things that are unseen; and third, faith is mysterious because its nature is contradictory to the ways

of the world. Prior to examining these three aspects of faith, however, we will examine the ways in which

Luther’s concept of faith becomes even more mysterious in the context of modernity and its emphasis on

self-certainty.

In the opening section of the paper, we looked at different aspects of modernity. One such aspect

was the way in which, in modernity, the focus that was previously placed on nature and the empirical

world shifts to focus on the human self. Hannah Arendt writes “One of the most persistent trends in

modern philosophy since Descartes and perhaps its most original contribution to philosophy has been an

exclusive concern with the self…An attempt to reduce all experiences with the world as well as with

other human beings, to experiences between man and himself.”35 As a result of this trend in modern

thought, the individual person, or humanity in general, is made into “the measure of all things.”36 All

areas of social and cultural life are interpreted in light of the human being. Theologically, this quest for

self-certainty is manifested in terms of a theology that places the human individual at its center. As we

have seen, this intellectual move occurred, famously, with Descartes’s Cogito, in which he established

himself as “a thinking thing” with the words “I think, therefore, I am.” Modern philosophy attributes

much to this moment, in which Descartes established his own identity in terms of his own cognition. The

theological import from this moment, however, is much less-known, but much more important for our

own purposes. In short, in performing the intellectual gymnastics that led Descartes to his Cogito,

Descartes utilized an idea of God to guarantee his own existence. In other words, Descartes receives his

identity as “a thinking-thing” only on the basis of the fact that there is a God.37 In that process—and this

is the crucial point—God becomes nothing more than “an intellectual move” for Descartes; and in so far

as Descartes believes in God, the Cartesian God is pure intellect.38 Thus, the modern concept of God is

simply an idea that exists for the benefit of humanity. God is “the back-up insurance” of modernity’s own

35 Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (University of Chicago Press: Chicago, 1958), 254.36 Many believe that this human-centered construction within modernity is one of the underlying social premise that has led to widespread human ecological damage in modernity. In this view, the earth and its fruits exist for humanity’s own sake, therefore it is humanity’s right, and even, humanity’s responsibility to use the earth for its own purposes. 37 “The self-certainty which I owe to my doubt must therefore be guaranteed through the assurance of the existence of God. God is necessary as the back-up insurance against my own doubt.” Eberhard Jüngel, God as the Mystery of the World (Eerdmans: Grand Rapids, 1983), 120.38 Ibid, 123.

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sense of identity. Luther’s mysterious theology must be articulated over against this modern interpretation

of the Christian faith. In order to do this, we must outline Luther’s doctrine of faith.

First, faith is a mystery because faith demands that we trust in God, and not ourselves. This

modern concept of God is problematic because it refocuses the nature of Christian faith. In the modern

construction of the Christian faith, the essence of faith is not faith in the Gospel or faith in God’s

promises, but faith in one’ own self. God is simply the “back-up insurance” for this faith in one’s self and

one’s activities. This personal definition of faith is evidenced in Paul Tillich’s concept of faith as the

ultimate concern. “Faith is the state of being ultimately concerned: the dynamics of faith are the dynamics

of [human’s] ultimate concern.”39 For Tillich, faith is the state of being ultimately concerned about

something, not necessarily being ultimately concerned about God. And, because the culture of modernity

has made the individual the measure of all things, the individual’s ultimate concern is not God, but rather

the human individual him- or herself. In so doing, Tillich’s concept of faith relegates God to the

background.40 Luther’s concept of faith is a fundamental critique to this modern notion of faith. Luther

believes that faith rests in God alone, and not in our own self or in our own identity. Our own certainty

and identity is found alone in God through Christ and through the Holy Spirit:

Let us thank God, therefore, that we have been delivered from this monster of uncertainty and that now we can believe for a certainty that the Holy Spirit is crying and issuing that sigh too deep for words in our hearts. And this is our foundation: The Gospel commands us to look, not at our own good deeds or perfection but at God [God’s self] as [God] promises, and at Christ Himself, the mediator…And this is the reason why our theology is certain: it snatches us away from ourselves and places us outside ourselves, so that we do not depend on our own strength, conscience, experience, person, or works but depend on that which is outside of ourselves, that is, on the promise and truth of God.41

Modernity attempts to gain security of the self by grounding the self’s relation on the basis of an idea of

God. Luther makes it clear that our identity and our theology is not based on anything internal to us and

the human condition, but instead, our identity is based solely on God and God’s promises.

Second, faith is a mystery because it is faith in things unseen. Luther’s positive concept of

mystery comes into the picture here. It is reasonable, and perhaps logical, to secure one’s self on the basis

of one’s identity. Luther, however, believes that trust in found in God alone through faith in God’s

promises. This concept of faith requires that we enter into the mystery of faith. Faith is a mystery because

it invites us to look to the things unseen, which confounds our modern sensibilities. Luther writes:

39 Tillich, Dynamics of Faith, 1.40 Tillich points to this fact in talking about one’s ultimate concern as the concern for success. Ibid, 3. Although Tillich notes that having “success” an ultimate concern may lead to “an empty promise,” the point is that Tillich does not believe that faith in God is categorically different from faith in the self. As the prototypical “theologian of modernity,” Tillich is perhaps unable to see that the structural difference between belief in God and belief in the self. 41 LW 26: 387.

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Just as money is properly a treasure, so faith itself is a mystery. They must have a mystical faith, a faithful mystery or a mysterious faith because faith is a sacred thing. A sacred mystery is a hidden thing, as faith is very mysterious…That is, they should be the sort of [people] who are not affected by visible and tangible things but who are studious and earnest, who live in hope, who place their faith in what is to come as if it were already present…They ought to fix their heart on heaven; they ought to think about heavenly matters; they ought to hold the present and temporal things in contempt and set their hope on the future. In his figurative language, Paul calls it the “mystery of faith.”42

Luther’s concept of faith involves mystery because it requires one to place their trust in the future

promises of God instead of in one’s self. Again, it would be much easier, and more rational, for one to

place their trust in material objects or in one’s bank account, rather than in the future promises of God.

Moreover, the promises of God are not always appealing to the conventional standards of contemporary

life. As we will examine in detail below, the promises of God are the promises of the One who died on

the cross. It is the promise of the God who chooses to reveal God’s love and grace in the hidden things.

This situation of trusting the promise that has not yet been manifested is to live in dialectic tension,

which, at times, can lead us to despair. Luther notes this despair when he comments that promises of God

can seem like “nothing”: “Nothing in the world seems more uncertain than the Word of God and faith,

nothing more delusive than hope in the promise. In short, nothing seems to be more nothing than God

[God’s self].”43 The idea that faith is a mystery is evoked by the fact of this tension: We are called to trust

in promises that are not always easily evident. As Luther puts it:

But we have nothing from God except the pure Word, namely that the Lord Jesus sits at the right hand of the Father and is the Judge of the living and the dead and that through [God] we are kings and priests. But where can this be discerned? Not in the indicative mood, but in the imperative and the optative…Meanwhile we should believe and hope.44

Faith is a mystery because we are called to trust in the things unseen rather than putting trust in ourselves.

Living in this dialectical tension, we are to trust in the God who comes in the person of Christ, rather than

our preconceived notions of who God might be. This trust in things unknown and things unseen is

contrary to the norms and values of modernity.

Third, faith is a mystery because the nature of faith is contrary to human understanding. We have

seen echoes of this point in Luther’s comments about the nature of faith being hidden in mystery. Luther

believes that faith is mystery as it trusts in the nature of God that is contrary to how we might envision the

nature of God to be. Luther makes this point in his elucidation of the “three lights,” wherein “the light of

nature” cannot understand “the light of grace”: “By the light of nature it is an insoluble problem how it

can be that a good [person] should suffer and a bad [person] prosper; but this problem is solved by the

42 LW 28: 29743 LW 4: 355. 44 Ibid, 357.

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light of grace.”45 Faith, then, is mysterious because it operates outside the confines of human reason. The

reality of the doctrine of justification, for example, can only be understood in the light of grace and not by

human reason.46

Luther’s understanding of faith as a mystery may be summarized best by noting that Luther was

an experiential theologian. By experiential theologian, I mean that Luther understood theology to come

out of and have a strong effect on his lived experience. Luther’s life of faith was the impetus for the

pivotal moments in his life and led to primary insight of his Evangelical faith: we are saved by faith

alone, apart from works. Luther believes that faith must be mysterious because faith trusts in God’s

promises, which cannot be seen or touched. Althaus writes “This reality [of God’s promise] therefore is

not the object of ‘experience’ but something that can be grasped only through faith in the word. Faith thus

stands in opposition to our experience47 and our way of ‘seeing.’ Faith apprehends reality in a different

way than seeing and experience do.”48 In other words, Luther believed faith was a matter of the heart, and

not a matter of the mind. Luther’s theology was concerned with the promise of God, and the need to trust

in that promise. This experiential nature of Luther’s theology requires mystery in order to trust in God’s

promises.

2.3 Mystery, Christology and the Lord’s Supper

Luther believes that both Christology and his understanding of the real presence in the Lord’s Supper

are mysterious in so far as they reveal that God’s nature is contrary to our human understanding. This is,

perhaps, most evident in Luther’s identification of his Christology with his understanding of the real

presence in his sacramental theology, as we will see below. First, let us look at his Christology and his

sacramental theology separately, and then examine how he identifies them with one another.49 Let us first

examine Luther’s Christology. Luther believes that the Incarnation, as the central claim of the Christian

faith, is contrary to human reason. As we have seen, this is a familiar theme—that God’s nature is

contrary to human thought—throughout Luther’s theology. But, in many ways, this theme within his

theology stems from the foolishness of the Incarnation of God in the person of Jesus. Luther writes:

45 LW 33: 292. Luther continues in making a distinction between “the light of grace” and the “light of glory.” “The light of grace” itself cannot answer the theodicy question, only the “light of glory” can answer all questions.46 “Luther’s simul justus et pecator, his notion that man is ‘at one and the same time righteous and a sinner,’ is beyond reason’s ability to understand or to believe; indeed reason finds the idea offensive.” Paul Althaus, The Theology of Martin Luther, 69.47 The word “Experience” means, here, experience that can be verified. This is not to be confused with the nature of Luther as an experiential theologian.48 Ibid, 55-56.49 This is a typological division. Luther talks about Christology being a mystery and he also talks about the Lord’s Supper being a mystery. For that reason, we have dealt with them individually. However, it is important to note that we cannot separate Luther’s understanding of the Lord’s Supper from his Christology; the two are intimately connected.

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For when one considers how foolish it is to reason that one should preach that a Jewish man is the Son of God and Lord over all when, after all, he was crucified by his own people and died; when all who were high in the world opposed him with all their might…then one must admit that this is not the work of [people]; for if it were, it would have fallen a thousand times because of so much opposition. In fact, because it makes such foolish and impossible claims, it ought to have fallen of itself.50

For Luther, the fact that the Gospel is not contingent on human reason or the ways in which we tend to

conceive “reality” gives more power to the Gospel. The subversive nature of Gospel, for Luther, is a sign

that the Gospel is a promise of God rather than a human construction. Thus, Christianity “ought to have

fallen of itself” if it was not grounded in God’s promises. The faith that God revealed God’s self in a man

who was shamed and then publically executed is just as subversive as a message for Luther as it was the

first century Jews and Gentiles.51 Further, Luther believes this subversive Christology is ultimately a

mystery. Again, indicative of Luther’s concept of mystery is the idea that God’s nature is contrary to

human reason. Luther writes “For although [the Incarnation]52 is [a] damnable folly to reason, it is

received and approved as God’s Word and work wherever one finds the Spirit and faith…But it is called a

mystery and it remains one. Therefore, it is hidden from [people] in the Word and faith, but to God and

the angels it is evident and revealed.”53 The Incarnation, for Luther, is a mystery because it reveals that

God has become human in the person of Christ. The Incarnation as such requires the suspension of our

reason in that God reveals God’s self in Jesus Christ, apart from how we might think that God would

reveal God’s self.54

Now we turn to Luther’s sacramental theology. Sacraments are created when the Word of God’s

promise is connected with a physical element and is given to the people of God.55 As a sign of God’s

promise, Luther believed the sacraments to be the means of grace by which God manifested God’s love

for God’s people. The Sacrament as a promise of God, in itself, was a mystery for Luther. The etymology

of the words “mystery” and “sacrament” make this clear: the Greek word for “mystery,” (mysterion) was

translated into the Latin as “sacrament,” (sacramentum). Luther, in fact, translated the Latin sacramentum

as geheymnis in German, meaning “mystery.”56 Thus for Luther, the concept “mystery” and “sacrament”

were one in the same: the sacrament was mysterious and the mystery occurred in the sacrament. But what

50 LW 20:198-199.51 “Second, [Jesus’] manner of life was opposed to the whole world, namely, that He would flee what the whole world sought above all. Thus in the first place “He made foolish the wisdom of the world (I Cor. 1:20)” by being Himself made foolish to the world; then “He chose what is weak” (that is, sufferings and punishments) “to shame the strong (that is, agreeable and peaceful things).” LW 10: 61.52 Luther does not use the word “Incarnation” in this passage, but I believe such phrasing is warranted. The subject of the sentence, from the paragraph above, is “that Christ has been sent from God.”53 Ibid, 199.54 Althaus on this point writes “I know only [that God is for me] when am personally involved in grasping and in accepting Christ as my Lord and only when I risk everything on him.” Martin Luther’s Theology, 193.55 Grassmann and Hendrix, Fortress Introduction to The Lutheran Confessions (Fortress: Minneapolis, 1999), 93.56 See footnote 207 in LW 37:123. Thus, for Luther to claim that the sacrament is a mystery would be redundant.

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does this mean? It means that in forming his sacramental theology, Luther privileged the faith in the

promises and mysteries of God over against the human attempts to explain the real presence. Luther

makes this argument most forcefully in the Babylonian Captivity, where he rejects the Roman Church’s

doctrine of transubstantiation in favor of simple trust in God’s promises. Luther holds that in order to

believe in the mystery of the real presence, one only has to trust the promises of God. “But these are good

grounds for my view, and this above all—no violence is to be done to the word of God, whether by

[human] or by angel. They are to be retained as the simplest meaning as far as possible.”57 The problem of

transubstantiation, then, is that it attempts to understand what is beyond the scope of human

understanding. Luther writes, “Even though philosophy cannot grasp [the real presence], faith grasps it.

And the authority of God’s Word is greater than the capacity of our intellect to grasp it.”58 Luther holds to

the promise that God makes in the sacrament. This promise is fundamentally is a mystery as it goes

beyond human comprehension. Luther realizes that there is an authentic human concern to want to know

how it is that Christ is present in the bread and in the wine,59 but Luther believes that we must have faith

in God’s promises. Luther’s critique of Aquinas’s doctrine of transubstantiation shows that Luther rejects

the attempt to rationalize God’s mystery.

We have seen how Luther’s concept of mystery functions in both in his Christology and in his

understanding of the real presence in his sacramental theology. It is important to note here that Luther

believes that Christology to be intimately connected with sacramental theology. He writes:

Thus, what is true in regard to Christ is also true in regard to the sacrament. In order for the divine nature to dwell in him bodily, it is not necessary for the human nature to be transubstantiated and the divine nature [to be] contained under the accidents of the human nature. Both natures are simply there in their entirety, and it is truly said: ‘This man is God; this God is man’…In like manner, it is not necessary in the sacrament that the bread and wine be transubstantiated and that Christ be contained under the accidents in order that the real body and real blood may be present. But both remain there at the same time, and it is truly said ‘This bread is my body; this wine is my blood.60

This quotation crystalizes the point that Luther privileged trust in the promises of God over against

the human conceptions of reality. The subtext of this quotation is that both the Incarnation and the belief

in the real presence run counter to human logic: How is it possible that God became a human being? And

how is it possible that the bread and the wine become the body and blood of Jesus Christ? These

questions, which are contemporary questions of the Christian faith, start the intellectual process from the

perspective the human and her account of empirical reality. Luther believes that there are the wrong

questions. Luther believes that instead we must start with faith. He writes, “When we are dealing with the

57 LW 36: 30.58 Ibid, 35.59 LW 37: 139.60 LW 36:35.

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works and words of God, reason and all human wisdom must submit to being taken captive…Here we

need to walk in the dark and with our eyes closed, and simply cling to the Word and follow.”61 Belief in

the real presence requires one to believe in God’s Word over against one’s natural senses of the world.62

And, on this point, Althaus comments “Luther at this point [concerning the real presence] emphasizes the

nature of faith as strongly as possible. Everything is at stake here. To believe means abandoning our own

thoughts and wishes and blindly submitting to God’s word and will.”63 Luther believes that we should

start with faith and trust in God’s promises instead of starting with the perspective of the human being.

That is why Luther argues that human reason cannot comprehend the Incarnation and why Luther argues

that transubstantiation must be rejected: Both positions start from the perspective of the human in

attempts to grasp the nature of God. Instead, Luther believes, to be a Christian is to have an appreciation

of the mysteries of God, and the faith to trust in God’s promises.

2.4 Mystery, the Cross and the Hidden God

Luther’s positive account of mystery and his emphasis on the hiddenness of God converge in his

“theology of the cross” (theologia crucis). Luther firmly establishes his theology of the cross in the later

theses of his 1518 Heidelberg Disputation. Theses 19 to 22 read as follows:

19. That a person does not deserve to be a called a theologian who looks upon the invisible things of God as though they were clearly perceptible as those things which have actually happened. 20. He deserves to be a called a theologian, however, who comprehends the visible things of God seen through suffering and the cross.21. A theology of glory calls evil good and good evil. A theology of the cross calls the thing what it actually is. 22. The wisdom which sees the invisible things of God in works as perceived by [the human] is completely puffed up, blinded, and hardened.64

These four theses bring together a number of motifs on which we have been drawing in our account of

Luther’s understanding of mystery: the nature of faith in that which is hidden, the foolishness of human

knowledge, the problem of hubris and the limits of human rationality. In developing his theology of the

cross, Luther is clear about one thing: the theologian of the cross embraces the mystery of God. This is

evidenced by the first “philosophical thesis” of the Heidelberg Disputation. “[The person] who wishes to

philosophize by using Aristotle without danger to [their] soul must first become thoroughly foolish in

Christ.”65 This thesis, which favors one becoming “foolish in Christ,” harkens back to Paul’s statement in

61 LW 37: 296.62 The belief in the real presence betrays our senses, and in that way, betrays the way that we make sense of the world.63 Althaus, The Theology of Martin Luther, 388.64 LW 31: 40-41.65 Ibid, 41.

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I Corinthians 1 that the cross is the foolishness.66 Luther writes “This is clear: [the person] who does not

know Christ does not know God hidden in suffering. Therefore, [they] prefer works to suffering, glory to

the cross, strength to weakness, wisdom to folly, and, in general, good to evil.”67 As we have seen, human

beings attempt to control God by rationalizing the nature of God. Luther believes that the theology of the

cross stands in stark contrast to “a rationalized God” because the cross reveals God to be a God who dies

a human death in the person of Jesus. This theology of the cross thereby confounds all attempts to

rationalize God by claiming that God is found in that which is hidden.

Luther’s theology of the cross is more than a specific loci of his theology; Luther’s theology of

the cross is the vantage point from which he views the relationship between God and humanity. This is

the reason why Luther rarely uses the phrase “theology of the cross;” instead, he uses the phrase the

“theologian of the cross.” Vítor Westhelle refers to the theology of the cross as “an epistemological

frame” that challenges all the other frames of our society, thereby arguing that the theology of the cross is

more than a perspective or a hermeneutic, but a way of looking at the world.68 In doing so, we look at the

world from the cross. Because Luther endeavors to become a theologian of the cross, his perspectives

from the cross occur throughout his writings. In what follows, then, we must look at themes of Luther’s

theology of the cross from throughout his theology, while simultaneously evaluating areas of mystery in

his theology. We will look at two themes. First, the theology of the cross is a mystery because it presents

God as God is hidden. Second, the theology of the cross is a mystery because it presents a vision of the

world that is turned upside down.

Luther’s doctrine of the hidden God (Deus Absconditus) has received much attention in the last

few decades within Lutheran scholarship. Before we explain Luther’s notion of the hidden God and its

relation to mystery, however, an important distinction needs to be made between Luther’s conception of

the hiddenness of God in the Bondage of the Will and Luther’s conception of the hiddenness of God in his

Heidelberg Disputation.69 In the Bondage of the Will, Luther refers to the hiddenness of God as the

nature of God that God does not choose to reveal. The hiddenness of God is that which is “beyond” God’s

self-revelation. In the Bondage of the Will, Luther writes:

Diatribe, however, deceives herself in her ignorance by not making any distinction between God preached and God hidden, that is, between the Word of God and God [God’s self]. God does many things that [God] does not disclose to us in [God’s] word; [God] also wills many things

66 Luther quotes I Corinthians 1 numerous times in his explanation of thesis 20. See Ibid, 52-53. 67 Ibid, 53.68 “The cross itself, the event of the cross, presents the problem of the frame, the problem of representation. Reading the Heidelberg Disputation in its entirety, not only the famous theses about the theologian of the cross, we must be struck by the amazing way Luther struggles to push us to the discursive frames of the established epistemes of economy, politics and the church. Vítor Westhelle, The Scandalous God (Fortress: Minneapolis, 2006), 83. 69 This distinction was noted in Althaus, 277.

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which [God] does not disclose [God’s self] as willing in [God’s] word...It is our business, however, to pay attention to the word and leave that inscrutable will alone.70

In this passage, Luther explains God’s hiddenness in that God does not reveal all of God’s self. God

remains beyond God’s Word. Hence, God is hidden in mystery which remains beyond human

comprehension.71 Luther argues that we should be content with the hiddenness God. In God’s self-

revelation, God has shown that God is a loving God. Thus, Luther believes that we should allow

ourselves to let the hidden God remain a mystery.72

The notion of the hiddenness of God in The Bondage of the Will is to be distinguished with the

hiddenness of God that we have been developing from our reading of Luther’s Heidelberg Disputation.

Luther, in the Heidelberg Disputation, makes a distinction between the “visible things of God” and the

“invisible things of God,” and asserts that the “visible things of God” are seen through “suffering and the

cross.”73 Luther expounds on his thesis, “Because [humanity] misused the knowledge of God through

works, God wished again to be recognized in suffering and to condemn wisdom concerning invisible

things, so that those who do not honor God as manifested in [God’s] works should honor [God] as [God]

is hidden in [God’s] suffering.74 What does this mean? Luther believes that God reveals God’s self

acutely on the cross, which is the basic logic of Luther’s theology of the cross. As a result, then, Luther

believes that we are to find God not in the “high places,” but paradoxically, God reveals God’s self in the

“low places.”75 Luther writes “Wonderful is the regard of God that [God] is mindful of the despairing and

that [God] visits the lowly earth, choosing the weak things.”76 God is to be found among the lowly on the

basis of how God reveals God’s self in and through the cross. Luther argues again that the power of God

70 LW 33: 140.71 “Therefore, [God] places the deeps into storehouses, that is, into concealed or hidden places, and these are mysteries of the faith and sacraments of the church.” LW 10: 55-56.72 “For one must debate either about the hidden God or about the revealed God. With regard to God, insofar as [God] has not been revealed, there is no faith, no knowledge, and no understanding…Why not let God keep [God’s] decisions and mysteries in secret? We have no reason to exert ourselves so much that these decisions and mysteries be revealed to us?” LW 5:44. 73 Contextual theologians, notably feminist theologians, have pushed back against any theological discourse that attempts to glorify suffering. This discourse has often been used by oppressors to justify their exertion of power over the other. In return, those who have been oppressed has received the harmful counsel, often by their own pastors or parish priests, that their suffering is glorified. This is a harmful interpretation of Luther, and therefore, this critique needs to be carefully considered whenever one ventures onto Luther’s theology of the cross.74 LW 31:52.75 The primary concern of the theses within the Heidelberg Disputation is the concern that we are saved by God’s grace and not by our own works. Moreover, Luther is concerned that we should not boast in our works. “But, as stated above, [the individual] who has not been brought low, reduced to nothing through the cross and suffering, takes credit for works and wisdom and does not give credit to God. [They] thus misuses and defiles the gift of God.” LW 31:55. Luther grounds this argument about justification, however, on an argument about the doctrine of God; namely, that God is found in suffering. It is, then, an interpretive move to claim that this means that God reveals God’s self among the poor and the lowly, those who suffer, on the basis of the theology of the cross. This move has been made by Vitor Westhelle and James Come, among others. I follow their lead. 76 LW 10:224.

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empowers the weak. “Know, then, that although you are only one, your world will go forward because it

is the power of God. This [promise] appeared in the weak apostles, where the strength of God moved

forward against the power of the world… This is the consolation, that though we are weak, we may not

be afraid, since the power of God is with us.”77 In the event of the cross, God shows God’s self to identify

with humanity by Christ’s dying a human death. Luther develops this argument to claim that God

empowers the weak against the power of the world.

The theology of the cross is a mystery because it presents a vision of a world that has been turned

upside-down. Although Luther is often recognized as the author of “the theology of the cross,” it is

important to note that Luther understood himself as representing Paul’s own theology of the cross as Paul

formulated it in I Corinthians 1. In I Corinthians, Paul writes that the cross is a “foolishness to the Jews

and a stumbling-block to the Gentiles,” and he also writes that “God chose what was foolish in the world

to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to

nothing things that are.”78 As we have seen, Luther interprets Paul tactfully, arguing that God reveals

God’s self in the poor and the lowly. Luther also interprets Paul to mean that on the basis of the cross,

God continually works through the people to God to shame the strong and empower the weak. Luther

writes “Yet [God] did not bring about this destruction by the sword or by force, but entirely by the

opposite…And through humility [God] fought and brought low whatever was high. ‘He chose the weak

things to confound the strong (I Cor. 1:27).’ And throughout, whatever is worthless in the world [God]

chose and by it destroyed whatever amounts to anything in the world.”79 Luther believes that the cross

serves as a moment in which God reveals how God deals with the world. In other words, the cross reveals

that God is on the side of the weak and works within the weak to counter the strong. On the cross, Christ

reveals God’s nature. “But this is what Christ did. In lowliness, weakness, and shame he stripped the

whole world of its strength, honor, and glory, and altogether annihilated it and transferred it to himself.”80

Luther understands the cross, then, as an indictment that judges the unjust and sinful realities of the

world. And because the cross is a “folly” to human wisdom, and because “God choses the weak, instead

of the strong,” the theology of the cross stands as a firm critique to the powers of the world. Luther

writes:

What is the strength of God by which [God] saves? It is that which is a stumbling block to the Jews and folly to the Gentiles. It is weakness, suffering, cross, persecution, etc.81 These are the weapons of God, these are strengths and powers by which [God] saves and judges us and distinguishes us from those who think otherwise…For this world does not know, that patience,

77 LW 17:15. My italics. 78 I Corinthians 1: 23; 27-28.79 LW 10:89.80 Ibid.81 See footnote 73 above.

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humility, cross, and persecution are strength and wisdom. Hence it is judged on this point and by its ignorance is distinguished from the saints, to whom Christ crucified is strength and wisdom…Therefore this is truly God’s power, and yet it is the weakness of [humanity]. For [God] has chosen what is weak to confound what is strong.82

This substantial passage makes explicit the primary argument of the theology of the cross. The different

motifs that we have been working with come together in one forceful and impactful statement. Mystery,

for Luther, lies in the subtext here: God’s love is mysterious because it goes against the grain and the

status quo. God’s love is mysterious because it calls into question the values of the world by placing

subversive power in “what the world does not know.” God’s love is mysterious because it redefines how

we think of “strength” and “power.” God’s love is mysterious because it reveals God to die a human

death on the cross; and finally, God’s love is mysterious because although I am a sinner, I am pronounced

justified before God. It is the work of the church, then, to proclaim this vision and work to make it a

reality. This work is none other than the work of justice.83

3. Mystery as an Implied Critique of Modernity

This paper has analyzed two distinct subject areas: the first was the intellectual and cultural

milieu known as modernity; the second was Martin Luther’s concept of mystery. It is time to bring these

two subject areas together. When we try to bring them together, however, we immediately recognize

fundamentals point of tension between modernity and Luther’s concept of mystery. One fundamental

point of contention between modernity and Luther’s concept of mystery is that while modernity seeks “to

enclose the system” through rationality, Luther’s concept of mystery acts as a critique on rationality itself.

Another point of contention is that although the system of modernity seeks control by asserting exerting

its power over the other, Luther’s concept of mystery acknowledges its own limits in the face of that

which cannot be known. Still another point of contention is that while modernity seeks to know things as

they are, Luther’s concept of mystery recognizes that things are often contrary to what might be expected.

In other words, Luther’s concept of mystery is at odds with some of the underlying premises of modernity

and, as such, functions as a critique of modernity.84 In closing, we will briefly identify some of the acute

areas of tension between mystery and modernity, and address ways in which mystery can be seen as a

corrective to modernity. 82 LW 10:25083Luther’s Works has a fascinating graphic detailing what this justice would look like. It is found in LW 11:263. It is included in an “Appendix” at the conclusion of this paper.84 It is beyond the scope of this paper to elucidate how this problem shows itself in the everyday lives of lay people. However, it should be noted that this problem manifests itself in our everyday lives in many of our discussions, such as “the relationship between faith and science,” about “whether Jesus was the Son of God, or just a prophet” or our “belief in the historical Jesus” or questions such as “does the bread really become the body of Jesus?” These are important questions asked by both seminarians and lay people in the church. Many of these questions and situations arise, I believe, from the sincere effort to reconcile one’s personal faith with one’s intellectual context, that is, modernity.

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The first area of tension is modernity’s use of knowledge as power. The work of Michel Foucault

is noteworthy here. Foucault endeavored to show that power is operative in the structural mechanisms of

society. In his analysis, Foucault also showed that those in power in a society are the ones who have the

power to control the norms and values of the society. In a creative reading of Foucault, Kelly Brown

Douglas shows that this Foucaultian insight is operative in the ways in which white Americans used

“rationality” to enculturate their alleged supremacy over black Americans during the height of modernity,

a construct that I have termed the “logic of domination”.85 This “logic of domination” only works if

“knowledge” is understood as the highest value in a society. In other words, this logic of domination only

works if, as in modern American life, knowledge is seen as a panacea for all of the issues of modern life.

It only works if knowledge is the ultimate authority, the summum bonum, of a society. Luther’s

understanding of mystery calls this modern construct into question. Luther believes that God is not the

God of “pure rationality” or the God of deism who rationally organizes society and then allows it to work

itself out. Instead, Luther believes that God is a God who works outside the confines of human rationality.

God shows God’s self to be the God who, contrary to what we might expect, justifies the sinner

regardless of the sinner’s actions. And finally, Luther shows that God is a God who remains hidden even

as God has revealed God’s self, thereby decentering the value that humanity places on human rationality.

Luther’s theology as a whole does not fit within the construct of modernity, and hence, shows its own

limitations.

The second area of tension is the problem of alterity, or of otherness in modernity. The problem

of alterity is widespread in modernity. Foucault again is operative in our analysis of modern society. With

the rise of industrialization and the information technology in the modern city-state, the rule of society

was the rule of conformity. The values and norms of the society are dictated by the production of literary,

artistic, and popular culture. This social phenomenon has produced what Foucault has termed the “rules

of exclusion”. The “rule of exclusion” refers to a state in which “We know perfectly well that we are not

free to say just anything, that we cannot simply speak of anything, when we like or where we like; not

just anyone, finally, may speak of just anything.”86 In modernity, cultural norms and values demarcate

what is considered to be “mainstream,” “proper,” and “acceptable.” The implicit assumption of this

hegemonic discourse is that humans have the power and authority to construct and maintain these social

structures. Luther’s concept of mystery calls this societal structure into question by asserting that God’s

revelation is not confined to human social structures. God has revealed God’s self on the cross, in “the

place that is no-place” (V. Westhelle). The theologia crucis shows that God’s love is not simply for those

85 Kelly Brown Douglas, What’s Faith Got to Do with It?, 115-119.86 Michel Foucault, “The Discourse on Language,” in The Archeology of Knowledge (Pantheon Books: New York, 1972), 216.

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in the mainstream of society, but rather God’s love is primarily for those in the margins of society. God

was incarnated not as a political ruler, but in the form of a baby who was born in the outskirts of the

society—this Luther called a mystery. And thus, the mysterious nature of God in Christ who ate with tax

collectors and showed grace to prostitutes continues to be a mystery to those who ostracize others and set

up barriers in the name of Christ. Indeed, the mystery at the heart of the Gospel, the mystery that

continues to confound today, is that God in Christ comes as the one who breaks down barriers and

reconciles all others to God’s self.

And finally, the third area of tension within modernity is modernity’s closure of the system.87

Mark Taylor analogizes this modern social construct with the imagery of the book: “A book is a living

whole in which are parts are integrally related as members of a single organism. Inasmuch as the book

forms an ordered totality, it is, like history, logocentric. Although characterized in many ways, the logos

of the book invariably constitutes the principle of preestablished harmony, which forms the structural

foundation of the volume’s unity and coherence.”88 Like the closure of the book, the closure of modernity

defined meaning, codified value, regulated order and controlled truth. As we have seen, modernity gave

primacy to “rational knowledge” by asserting that truth is that which only can be empirically verified. In

the rampant commercialization and capitalistic fervor of late modernity, value has been commoditized.

The vote at the ballot box has been turned over to the auctioneer: sold off to the highest bidder. The

planet’s natural resources have become revenue streams for corporations. In terms of Christian theology,

because modernity ascribed more value to that which is “rational” or “useful,” modern thinkers reduced

Christianity to a system of morality. All of these modern social and cultural phenomena have one thing in

common: they all operate on the premise that this world is all there is. They all privilege the material and

function with the belief that there is no transcendental truth, or that there is not a metanarrative. These

modern phenomena work only in a system that remains closed. Luther’s concept of mystery points to the

opening of this enclosure. The faith that believes that Jesus was raised from the dead gives credence to the

belief that there is more to this world than that which can be empirically verified. The faith that believes

in a God that manifests power in weakness questions the capitalist assertion that money is the ultimate

value in the world. The faith that understands that God forgives us not because of what we do but because

of who God is questions the secular notions of justice that show themselves in the U.S. Criminal Justice

System. The logic of the world is that the world of modernity is a closed system—its logic is that we

only believe what we see, and we should value only that which is in our own self-interest. But the

mystery of the God who became human defies all human constructs. It opens the door to that which we

87 It should be noted that modernity’s closure of the system animates both previous points of tension, both the use of knowledge as a hegemonic devise, and the problem of alterity in modernity. Both points require a closed system to be able to create “the other,” or to define someone as someone outside the mainstream.88 Mark C. Taylor, Erring: A Postmodern A/theology (University of Chicago Press: Chicago, 1984), 77-78.

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try to keep closed. It confounds that which we assume to be true. And it gestures to that which we cannot

fully know: the depth of God’s love and mercy.

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Appendix

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This graphic illustrates the “mechanism of reversal” that is operative throughout Jesus’ teaching and

Luther’s theology, whereby “the last shall be first” and the “weak shall be blessed.” The question that

animates me, then, is what would it look like if we were to construct a social, political and economic

based on this mechanism of reversal?

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