by Eric Demeuse
In a recent article commemorating ‘Luther at 500,’ Phillip Cary argues that Luther ‘had to find a Word of God that was not an accusation but a bestowal of grace and forgiveness. What is often overlooked is that he found it in Catholic sacramental theology.’ Cary continues, ‘The result surprised everyone. He ended up insisting on an affirmation of sacramental efficacy that was stronger than anything his papal critics could accept.’ Arguably the distinctive feature of Luther’s theology—justification by faith alone—depends, according to Cary, on ‘a sacramental notion of the Gospel.’ In other words, the heart of Luther’s theology makes little sense detached from the sacramental logic of the medieval church.
For Cary, the consequence (or, perhaps, the foundation) of such claims is that an emphasis on the so-called ‘forensic’ aspect of Luther’s soteriology must be tempered in light of the Reformer’s other claims. ‘Luther has no need of the much more elaborate forensic doctrine that arose in later Protestant theology, according to which justification consists in God imputing Christ’s merits to us, like a kind of credit transferred to our account,’ Cary writes. Instead, for Luther, our justification ‘is based on the righteousness of God, who is far above the task of earning merits.’ Following the lead of Finnish Luther scholarship, Cary insists that by faith alone Luther meant that we are ‘united with Christ’ such that a ‘wondrous exchange’ ensues and the Christian undergoes a process of divinization.
But, as any reader of Luther is keenly aware, the imputative and ‘juridical’ aspects of Luther’s soteriology remain. Cary denies none of this. He only hopes to show how the exaggeration of these features in later progeny has distorted our perception of Luther—like a child pronouncedly carrying on a familial trait that was born more subtly by the father. Yet Mary C. Moorman, in her new book Indulgences, seems unconvinced such a distortion has occurred. Instead she ‘takes it for granted that, for Luther, the restoration of the utterly impoverished sinner is primarily a matter of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness to him as a function of his personal faith.’ Moorman does admit that ‘themes of salvific and real union with Christ’ remain in Luther, but maintains that imputation is heavily prioritized over ‘the person’s ontological transformation through the sacraments’ (213).
So far, the differences between Cary and Moorman are par for the course in the current scholarly debate surrounding Luther’s soteriology. But Moorman adds an intriguing element to the conversation. It is not, as Cary would have it, the sacramental logic of the medieval church which is received and adapted (arguably absolutized?)[1] by Luther, but rather the logic of indulgences. Moorman argues that the Catholic tradition bears witness to ‘two irreducible strands’ of thought with regard to soteriology: the first strand is the ‘intrinsic, ontological reality of sanctifying grace,’ the vehicle of which is the sacraments; the second strand is the ‘extrinsic and juridical understanding of God’s grace… whereby our souls may then also receive the imputation of His very self from outside ourselves,’ and one vehicle of this imputation is indulgences (xvii). Thus, ‘in her indulgences… we find the Catholic Church at her most Lutheran, inasmuch as she declares, reckons, and imputes the merits of Christ to cover our accounts before God and to compensate for our loses’ (8). Luther’s mistake, which was carried on by the ‘Protestant movement,’ was that he ‘absolutized the logic of imputation that had been previously incarnated in the very practice of the indulgences that the movement wished to overthrow’ (6). In short, Luther isolated this imputative element from the sacramental logic of the medieval church—he diminished one strand in favor of the other. Not only that, but in reducing ‘the sum total of the experience of salvation’ to ‘the isolated experience of imputation’ (251), and in removing from that ‘isolated experience’ the practice and theology of indulgences, Luther also undermined the nuptial relationship between Christ and his Church which makes the ‘two strands’ cohere. In Luther’s scheme, Christ imputes his merits directly to us, yet in the Catholic scheme, ‘it is Christ within his Church who is doing the imputing’ (125-6). Luther thus individualized (see 254, 308) the imputative logic of the medieval church and ‘proposed that the Church was sufficiently separated from Christ’ (8).
Moorman’s book, more than a mere critique of Luther however, is also a systematic case for the logic of indulgences in Catholic theology. She begins (chapter 1) by rooting this logic in the biblical theology of the ‘covenant.’ God’s covenant with humanity is itself an ‘indulgence’ and a condescension whereby Creator and creature ‘may mutually participate in each other’s lives’ (54). Moorman argues that the biblical data (and especially the testimony of St. Paul) in no way purports this covenant or contract (διαθήκη) as a ‘purely passive inheritance’ (45) but rather as a ‘transaction’ (46). The covenant is not unilateral (as in the case of Luther) but bilateral (47).
This bilateral covenant finds its closest analogue in the order of marriage (chapter 2), which is why St. Paul chose to parallel the love of a husband and wife with the mystery of ‘Christ and the church’ (Eph. 5:24-33). Under Roman law, the essential condition for valid marriage ‘had to be performed by the bride herself… bare consent… by deliberate, public action.’ (87-8). Once the covenant between husband and wife was confirmed, the bride’s ‘authority extended to that of a full partnership with her husband in the mutual and all-important enterprise of bearing and raising their children and governing the marital household’ (92). It is only within this ancient nuptial framework, Moorman astutely observes, that we can more fully understand the logic of indulgences. ‘Catholic ecclesiology has understood that we might consider the Church to be ‘distinct’ from Christ only inasmuch as she is constantly to be recognized as the fully endowed spouse of Christ who has, by virtue of her ongoing covenant with Him, become flesh of His flesh and bone of His bone’ (70). The Church as bride thus ‘retains the authority to distribute the contents of [the] marital treasury [i.e., indulgences] for the sake of her children’ (93).
This nuptial framework, Moorman claims, undergirded the preaching of indulgences in medieval Europe, since ‘both medieval and canon law treated the husband and his wife as one in practice’ (102). Here Moorman offers an insightful connection between medieval debates on marriage and those on the practice of indulgences. While she provides ample medieval sources which highlight the Pauline connection between earthly marriage and the union of Christ and his Church, her evidence thins when it comes to sources that explicitly link this bridal theme with the practice of indulgences. This doesn’t mean, of course, that it’s not there. But the shortage of concrete examples leaves Moorman having to temper her claims with phrases like ‘it would hardly seem incongruous…’ (116). Even her attempt to show how Pope Leo X’s Exsurge Domine uses ‘nuptial allusion’ to counter Luther’s ‘construal’ of the relationship between Christ and the Church hinges on minimal explicit evidence (a reference to ‘little foxes that ruin the vineyards’ (Canticle 2:15), a general invocation of St. Paul, and three references to the Church as ‘mother’). Again, a ‘nuptial allusion’ is not necessarily absent from the papal bull, but nor can it necessarily be drawn from the referents provided.
Moorman’s treatment of Exsurge Domine and, more precisely, its characterization of Luther, proves the most contentious part of the book (chapter 3 on ‘A New Porphyry’). Here Moorman notes a correlation (causation?) between Luther’s separation of Christ and his Church and Luther’s desacralization of human marriage—both indicative of Manichaean leanings in the German friar. She bolsters this claim (by no means unique to her) by pointing out how Luther’s denial of the freedom of the will, evidenced in such images as God ‘riding’ humanity, can be traced back to Manichaean origins (130). Of course, this image can also be found in the great anti-Manichaean saint, Augustine (see, for example, the Tractatus in Epistolam Joannis ad Parthos, 7.2—Esto humilis, porta Dominum tuum; esto iumentum sessoris tui), and Harry J. McSorley’s work on Luther on the will has complicated the supposed heterodoxy of Luther’s De servo arbitrio. Further, even Michael Gillespie, on whom Moorman’s characterization in part relies, admits that Luther’s ‘Manichaeism’ is only in appearance. Nevertheless, Moorman judges that for Luther, ‘the Church does not enjoy the sort of ontological union with Christ as that which the sacramental aspect makes possible within human marriages,’ and thus Luther did not admit the power to remit punishment for sins under ecclesiastical jurisdiction (180).
Moorman finds herself on firmer footing in chapter 4 where she traces the theology of imputation in medieval soteriology. Here we see Moorman following in the footsteps of Heiko Oberman before her in the attempt to draw out the medieval roots of Luther’s theology. Moorman shows how ‘imputation’ and ‘reckoning’ lie deep within the medieval tradition and how this theme qualifies any talk of ‘obligation’ or ‘merit.’ Such transactional terms are never understood simpliciter but always in relationship to the covenant God has made with his people (as Trent would later declare, eorum velit esse merita, quae sunt ipsius dona (sess. 6, ch. 16)). Moorman’s analysis of Scotus and Aquinas in this chapter is especially worthwhile. She concludes her survey asserting that ‘we find the logic of imputation extra nos to be alive and well in the Church’s teaching on indulgences’ (216) and that the ‘logic of attaining extrinsic merit through indulgences was simply a basic intuition of the popular imagination whereby the faithful had embraced a common set of ideas about indulgences before theological commentary on them became available’ (231-2). Luther, then, in advocating for an ‘imputed righteousness,’ did not undercut the basic theological underpinnings of the later medieval church but ‘separated and isolated one particular “basic theological underpinning” that was already known to him, both in theory and in practice’ (212).
At the end of this chapter Moorman engages some more recent trends in Lutheran soteriology, specifically in the works of Jüngel, Moberly, and Mannermaa. Her treatment is thorough and charitable, though it is regrettable that the work of, say, Mannermaa, does little to alter what Moorman ‘takes for granted’ in Luther, namely, imputation as the ‘sum total’ of the experience of salvation. Nor do Mannermaa’s other works curb Moorman’s accusations of individualism against Luther, the latter of whom writes in a stunning reflection on the eucharist that, ‘when bread is being made, all the grains are crushed and ground into flour, and each grain becomes the flour of another grain, that is, the grains are mixed with each other…. This is what is to happen also with us; I make myself common to all of you and serve you, so that you use me for the purpose for which you need me. So I am your food, just as you eat bread when you are hungry… Therefore, when I help you and serve you in all your need, I am also your bread…. If I am a sinner, and you, by the grace of God, are godly, then you come to me and share your godliness with me, and you pray for me, and you appear before God on my behalf… You “eat” my sin with your godliness, just as Christ has done to us; and if you eat me, then I, in turn, eat you’ (quoted in Mannermaa, Two Kinds of Love, 74-75).
Moorman’s book concludes with a chapter on the ‘friendship’ between Christ and his Church. Charity is, as Aquinas famously defined it, friendship with God, and thus in her nuptial bond with the Bridegroom the Church enjoys friendship with Christ, and in Christ each member is united to every other. This, as stated above, is ultimately where the notion of ‘indulgences’ finds its deepest meaning. The Church becomes one flesh with her divine Spouse such that ‘it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me.’ Moorman quotes Dietrich Bonhoeffer to this effect: ‘Only because the church lives one life in Christ, as it were, can the Christian say that the chastity of others helps him when tempted by desire, that the fasting of others benefits him, and that the prayer of the neighbor is offered for him’ (303).[2] This is the fundamental logic of the ‘treasury,’ the deposit of Christ’s merits distributed in and through the members of his body, and offered to the Father for the very life of that body.
It is here in Moorman’s systematic analysis of and argument for the theology and practice of indulgences that her most enduring contribution can be found, and where she truly answers the call for a ‘new look at indulgences’ rooted in the depths of the theological tradition. Even her take on Luther, though too critical, offers something to the current ecumenical conversation—namely, in showing that ‘imputation’ is not something unique to the Protestant traditions. If Moorman is right in claiming that Luther inherits the medieval logic of indulgences and it is, in fact, on this point that ‘the Catholic and Protestant traditions are most closely united’ (xxxvi), and if she is further right that this imputative ‘strand’ persisted in medieval theology along with the sacramental and transformative ‘strand,’ then it need not be the case that Moorman’s thesis excludes that of Cary—anymore than the recognition of imputation in Aquinas’ thought excludes his emphasis on ontological and sacramental regeneration.
Of course, there always remains the question of the integration of these two strands, and in this regard Moorman places her finger on the root of the problem, which ultimately comes down to not only soteriology but also (and relatedly) ecclesiology. It is not, I think, that Luther drives a wedge between Christ and his Church. Rather, I think that Moorman and Luther would define ‘church’ in related but ultimately divergent ways. For Luther the church is ‘holy believers and the little sheep who hear the voice of their shepherd’ (Smalcald Articles III.12) and ‘the mother that begets and bears every Christian through the Word of God’ (Large Catechism). And this flock ought not be separated from the canonical and hierarchical structures of the church (see Smalcald Articles II.4 as well as Melanchthon’s Apology, art. XIV), even if the possibility of such a separation remains in order to keep the Word of God intact. Thus for Luther and the Lutheran tradition the ministry is more than a mere instrumental function but, as C. Peterson points out, falls short of advocating an ‘ontological change in the ordinand.’[3] For Moorman, on the other hand, the ministry is something ontological and fundamentally spousal, and it is in this spousal aspect of the ministry (and, with it, the spousal aspect of the whole Church) that we find the harmonization of the ‘two irreducible strands’ of Catholic soteriology—the locus where the juridical and sacramental are united. The papacy, too, according to Moorman, is not only ‘Petrine’ but also ‘spousal’ (132). Thus while the Body of Christ can never be reduced to hierarchical offices, it also cannot perdure in full unity without such offices—particularly that of the pope and bishops in whom resides the power to distribute Christ’s treasury of merits.
As evidenced in just these brief concluding remarks, this ecclesiological disjunct requires a great deal more nuance than neat statements of ‘hierarchical versus non-hierarchical’ or ‘visible versus invisible’[4] (any thorough reading of the The Book of Concord makes these distinctions untenable), but a disjunct indeed persists as evidenced in the division under which Catholics and Lutherans currently persist. Moorman has done a service in highlighting one locus of this division and, at least in her effort to show the ‘Catholic’ theology behind Luther’s imputative soteriology, she has contributed in some small way to the mending of this ecclesial wound.
[1] Again, Cary writes that Luther ‘insist[ed] on an affirmation of sacramental efficacy that was stronger than anything his papal critics could accept.’
[2] Notably, Bonhoeffer adds in the original text, ‘But do we not come alarmingly close here to the Roman Catholic teaching of the treasury of merits that stands at the center of all more recent Roman Catholic views on the sanctorum communio? We are indeed, and do so quite consciously.’ Sanctorum Communio: A Theological Study of the Sociology of the Church, ed. Joachim von Soosten and Clifford J. Green, trans. Reinhard Krauss and Nancy Lukens (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2009), 183.
[3] See Cheryl M. Peterson, ‘Ministry and the Church,’ in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Martin Luther, eds. Derek R. Nelson and Paul R. Hinlicky (2017),
[4] I am not suggesting that Moorman adopts these platitudes.