by Joshua Shaw

D. A. Schlatter is, to my mind, the most underrated Protestant theologian of the last century. I am tempted to compare him to other great Protestant figures of the 19th and 20th century, but he would rebuke me. 

We introduced him and a characteristic element of his theology and thinking in a previous post. He was unremittingly, tirelessly, almost obnoxiously Aristotelian. Although his various treatises on method, occasional comments, and his Metaphysics all show the deepest indebtedness to Aristotle, I do not mean that he was a “follower” or a doctrinally committed “Aristotelian”. He was in agreement with Aristotle’s principle of work (and not necessarily his system of thought): observation, observation, observation. “Sharp observations” and “filling one’s consciousness with the historical Thing” was Schlatter’s ceaseless pursuit. 

But in addition to his general worthiness as a scholar of the New Testament and ancient Judaism (which is immense), he has a particular interest for us here at TRF. Schlatter’s method and writings give many helpful suggestions toward common work between Protestants and Catholics.¹ 

In this post I want to outline three elements of Schlatter’s theology that point the way forward. We will look first at his anti-polemical theology, second his teaching on faith and love as the end of the Christian life, and finally our shared sign, the cross of Christ. 

In his (untranslated) History of Judaism from Alexander the Great to Hadrian, Schlatter makes – beside many other suggestive observations – the observation that the writers of the Old Testament nowhere enter into theological polemics, though we see paganism on the corners of every page.² That is, their presentation of the truth is aware of the false forms given and it gains a sharpness through contrast with them (Gen. 1 may serve as a model), but they are nowhere mentioned by name, never cited, never attacked as rival theologies directly. Of course, idolatry and practical atheism are sins that were abundantly attacked by the prophets and psalmists, but not as a system; they are addressed chiefly as a moral, not an intellectual, problem. Everywhere the assumption is at work, which Paul tells us in Rom. 1, that “(all men) possess the truth unrighteously.”  

Schlatter imitated assiduously this positive and unpolemical slant of the Hebrew scriptures (followed, we may add, by the Greek scriptures). Though he everywhere rebuked “doctrinaire formalism” and “fantastic speculation” and “lazy scholarship,” he never uses a name; he never attacks a person and remains focused on the object, not the counter-views of the object.³ Schlatter stands opposed both to a crusty and fearful conservatism as well as to unhinged liberalism (both have the same problem of relying on “theory” rather than observation). 

As it regards Catholicism Schlatter gives a shining demonstration of his principles: he says repeatedly that Peter is clearly “the rock” on which the Church was built; that Mary is worthy of admiration for her tremendous faith in and love of God; that the woman who anointed Jesus was forgiven, as the text indeed says, for her love.⁴ Notice what he says about this in his Faith in the New Testament (recently translated):  

A doctrinaire formalism has contributed to the oft-repeated warning, that one must not hear in the word about the sinful woman (“Her many sins are forgiven, because she loved much”) a statement of the cause of her forgiveness, but merely a statement of the indication of the same. In consideration of the way Jesus [here] is acting, no question of an “indicator” can arise. “Forgiveness” (ἄφεσις) is (an) action, active demonstration of compassion with a sinful man; it is visible in the fact that Jesus does not send the woman away but rather expressly declares to her the forgiveness. But there would likely arise the question of justification and cause of such a “act of forgiveness” (ἄφεσις). Because of her great love Jesus had made her sins without effect against her. That the relationship between forgiveness and love in the parable of the two debtors is brought forward in the other direction, by which love is the natural consequence of forgiveness, does not complicate the thought at all. How could Jesus forgive in order to waken love, if he squelched love where he found it [present]? Love is called the fruit of forgiveness to the Pharisee, because Jesus wants to make it palpable to him how he forgives with pure intention,  and precisely thereby breaks the power of evil, since great love indeed flows out of great forgiveness; at the same time he wants to explain to him, whence his lack of love arose. In contrast he calls love the reason for forgiveness to justify the woman as the tenderest coronation of the generosity with which Jesus treats her. This appreciation of her love makes Jesus’ forgiveness real. 

(It is worth remembering in this connection Cajetan’s treatment of the passage during the Reformation). 

The first thing, in other words, that a Protestant can do to rebuild the bridge to his Catholic brothers is to leave off the obstinate defense of a thesis for its own sake (one is remined of Aristotle’s εἰ μὴ θέσιν διαφυλάττων, 1096a2). A painful example of this is chapter one of John Owen’s Christologia (that Peter is not the Rock); a good example of the opposite approach is JB Lightfoot’s noble handling of the “Brethren of the Lord” (in his commentary on Galatians). 

Schlatter also saw the heart of Christian orthodoxy in our ethics, namely, Love. The call to faith grew from a call to repentance; righteousness found its fulfillment in love. The first Christian creed was ethical in nature. By faith we receive divine grace, which we may abuse if we have not love. (I Cor. 13) When he learned of the Regensburg Colloquy and the insistence of Contarini on love through which faith works, he said provocatively to his lecture-attendees: “Brothers, we need to become Catholic!”⁵ 

Now, Schlatter thought that Catholics no less (and no more) Protestants were guilty of intellectualizing Christianity — of making it the community of the Knowers rather than the community of Believers, the community of those who seek wisdom rather than show love. If, however, Protestantism will learn to find the essence of its faith not in doctrine but in deeds of life (both Christ’s and, derivatively, ours), the doctrinal differences between Protestant and Catholic will be seen in their proper perspective. 

What is the extent of the commonality of the Protestant and Christian faith? By what token do we know it? For Schlatter, our unity consisted in our equal appraisal of the Cross of Christ: as the call to repentance, the condemnation of man’s sin — his hollow righteousness and fleshly wisdom.  

The contribution of the medieval church, according to Schlatter, was the centrality of the theology of the cross, the value of contrition, the importance of penitence. The contribution of the Reformation was the assurance of pardon, the moral certainty of sins forgiven by faith, and peace with God.⁶ All the same, Schlatter maintained the common ground to the end, most strikingly portrayed by his gravestone, which is a marble cross — a grave marker far more common on the Catholic side of the old Tübingen Cemetery than on the Protestant.⁷  

1. In a future post, perhaps, we can look at his parallel treatment of Judaism, which Schlatter saw exampled in Matthew’s treatment of current forms of Judaism. He worked his whole life to point out and maintain the common ground of Christianity and Judaism (though of course aware and vocal about the important differences).  ↩︎
2. Schlatter is commenting there on the exposition of Lev. 24:15 by Josephus and Philo which forbade blaspheming foreign gods. This, he says, was in keeping with the practice of the writers of Scripture and is generally evidenced by the silence of the Talmud on all other religions (Persian, Greek, or Christian). “Man blieb dadurch einer Regel treu, die kraftvoll durch den Kanon durchgeführt ist, da dieser nirgends, weder in der Darstellung Moses noch in der prophetischen Verkündigung, die Abwehr der fremden ägyptischen oder babylonischen Götter durch Polemik gegen sie erreichen will, wsondern sie unmittelbar aus der positiven Gewißheit, aus der Verbundenheit der Gemeinde mit ihrem eigenen Gott, gewinnt.”  Geschichte israels, ed. Leonhard Goppelt, Calververlag, 1972. p. 39. ↩︎
3. He was capable on a rare occasion of naming an ally with whom he disagreed (as with Karl Barth multiple times that I’ve seen, once in his commentary on Romans, once in his commentary on Corinthians).   ↩︎
4. In his great (stand-alone) commentary on Matthew, Schlatter writes, “The anticatholic polemic took offence at this sentence, since it did not want to describe Peter but his faith and his confession as the rock on which Jesus would build his church. The reification of faith, which outfits it with effects apart from a [concrete] believer, belongs to a totally different kind of logic than the one that formed the intellectual life of Jesus and the evangelists.” (in loc.) Of course, Schlatter did not think this statement justified the Catholic position any more than it did the anti-catholic position; he writes before this, that God builds his church and men are a part of that work. That Peter is the rock is a historical statement of a fact and a function of the Apostle, not praise of his intrinsic worthiness, greatness, or perpetual office.  ↩︎
5. “In einem 1881 gehaltenen Vortrag über den katholischen Reformtheologen und Kardinal Contarini, der 1541 auf dem Reichstag zu Regensburg mit Melanchthon und Bucer verhandelte, stellt er mit Erstaunen fest, wie Contarini gegen die Wittenberger die uns von Jesus gegebene Berufung zur Liebe verteidigte (178). Provozierend konnte er, die erneuernde Kraft der Rechtfertigung hervorkehrend, in der Vorlesung ausrufen: “Meine Herren, wir müssen katholisch werden!” (328).” I have cited here from a review in the Theologische Literaturzeitung by Fritz Neugebauer of Werner Neuer’s mammoth biography.  ↩︎
6. Schlatter discusses these points at length in “Die Offenbarung des Heiligen Geisten in der Deutschen Reformation” (1925), in Lebendige Kirche: eine Schriftreihei, published by Albert Zutavern Verlag, Pforzheim. Along similar lines is “Der Auffstieg der evangelischen Kirche von der Reformation zur Gegenwart” (1931), printed by the Verlagshandlung der Anstalt Bethel, Heft 9 of “Beth-El.”   ↩︎
7. The previous post on Schlatter has a photo of his grave marker.   ↩︎