Thursday Theology #606
January 21, 2010
Topic: Werner Elert's Law/Gospel Textbook on Christian Ethics
Colleagues,
Cathy Lessmann, Crossings Conference organizer, asks me to invite Crossings
folks from the St. Louis area to the eucharist scheduled for the final
evening of the conference, January 26 at 7 p.m. The place is the Chapel at the
conference site, Our Lady of the Snows, Belleville, Illinois. Homilist for
the liturgy is ELCA Bishop Marcus Lohrmann, formerly pastor at Good Shepherd
Lutheran congregation in the St. Louis suburb of Hazelwood.
One of my assignments at that Crossings conference on Monday Jan. 25 is to
show and tell the group what Werner Elert is doing in his book on Christian
ethics. Here's a trial run for today's ThTh post. [I got through only
one-half of the text by this Wednesday evening, so that's what you get here.
Wanna hear the rest? Well then, sign up for the conference--even at this
eleventh hour!]
Elert didn't title his book "Christian Ethics," but "Christian Ethos." A
nd that for a very specifc reason. He saw the subject matter of Christian
ethics not to be Christian morality, or Christian claims for what is right and
wrong behavior, but what it is that makes anything--better, any
person--"right or wrong," "sinful or righteous." Just as the task of dogmatics, he
claimed, is to study the church's "dogma," so the job in Christian ethics is
to study Christian "ethos." For ethos Elert uses the ancient definition.
Ethos is the value, the worth, the "quality" predicated to persons and
actions.
Simple illustration. At the end of the first day of creation in Genesis 1,
God looks at the light just created and says "good." It's no longer just
light, but "good" light. When such verdicts are made about people, that's
ethos. Ethics is the study of human ethos, what all is going on with ethos
labels--good or bad, right or wrong, sinful or righteous. Theological ethics
studies human ethos according to God's evaluations. "Christian" ethics
studies human ethos when Christ is in the mix.
Now to Elert's own text. Here is the table of contents from the front of
the book. I will add under each of the 63 sub-sections in the ten chapters
the basic thesis sentences that come in each sub-section.
THE CHRISTIAN ETHOS by Werner Elert
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION
The Task
[Basically what is written above in my introduction]
Ethics Within the Framework of Theology
Studying dogma (in dogmatics) and ethos (in ethics) means looking for the
"sufficient grounds, the adequate support" for the Christian dogma, and for
Christian ethos. Basically answering the Why? question. Why, for what
reason, is this claim--of dogma, of ethos--true? In ethics: why, for what
reason, is someone/some action given the value/quality called "sinful" or
"righteous," wrong or right? The ethicist keeps on asking until he finds "reason
enough" for the claim.
Dogmatics and ethics are often covered by the term "systematic theology,"
but they are two different projects, looking for the sufficient groundings
of two different things--dogma and ethos.
Nevertherless the two are connected. Not in the fashion often proposed:
(dogma) what you should believe and (ethos) how you should act. But dogma
is "what has to proclaimed in order that people hear the Gospel," and ethos
is the quality/value change in people when they trust that Gospel.
The Arrangement of the Subject Matter
Since God's verdict on people is twofold--law and gospel--this ethics
book will have two major parts: ethos under law, ethos under grace. We'll
start with ethos under law because that is the ethos of all human beings from
birth. That ethos doesn't change unless/until Christ enters their lives.
When Christ does enter their lives, that brings a new ethos, but the
conflict between old ethos and new ethos then marks their lives. In simple
terms: sinner and saint at the same time.
We'll have a final third part in the book after Part 1 and Part 2, law
ethos and grace ethos. Elert calls that "objective" ethos, in distinction to
the "subjective" ethos of parts one and two. "Subjective is used here to
discuss the ethos of individual human subjects. Part 3 looks at the ethos
(value, quality factors) in the new community of Christ the head now linked to
these Christian "subjects" of his body. This is the ethos of the church,
the body of Christ, as a whole. It has ethos elements that are more than
just adding up the ethos of the individual members.
Part 1 ETHOS UNDER LAW
Chapter 1. THE CREATURE
The Image of God
the first "value word" in the Genesis creation story about humans is
"image of God."
That term means that humans "mirror" God. How so? God "speaks" the
creation into existence. Adam mirrors God in being gifted to hear God talk to
him and being able to respond, a response-able message-receiver and
message-sender. Not an object or thing, but a subject, a person.
So it was in "paradise," but the mirror shattered. The fractured image
of God still responds to God, but that human self is now a rebel. Human
history is the history of these fractured mirrors.
Fear and Conscience
In Genesis 3--after the fall--we see the fractured image of God in
action. Three new realities are in the humans: Fear of what's coming (they
hide), a conscience at work evaluating what they've done (it wasn't me; she did
it), and the law of retribution. Conscience tells them that they have done
wrong, so they fear the future because they perceive a law at work saying
that in the future they shall have to pay for what they did. They no longer
control their own destiny. These three realities now shape all human history.
Biographical Limitations and Qualifications
The totality of my biography is everything predicated to my name.
My life is limited to the time between my birth and death, to a specific
place in human history.
I am placed in a number of specific relationships and given a vast number
of specifics for my own life that I did not choose. When value-judgments,
quality-labels, come upon me (=my personal ethos), these are the spaces and
places, the "givens" of my own creaturehood, where all that takes place.
Luther's term for these givens of my personal creaturely life was "Ordnungen,"
the "specs," the interwoven networks, of my personal existence where God
has "ordained" my life to unfold.
The Contingent Encounter
Another item that limits and puts "specs" into my life is "chance"
encounters with all sorts of other people--parents, teachers, neighbors, enemies,
etc.
The Good Samaritan parable is a good illustration. None of the three
travellers in the story expected to run into the victim half-dead at the
roadside. It happened by chance. But when they did encounter him, it was a
moment that impacted the ethos of each of them.
Every such chance encounter reminds me of my status as image of God, now
confronting another image of God who mirrors to me God in this neighbor.
The three in the parable were not only compelled to respond TO this
victim-neighbor, but also responsible FOR him. Two responded irresponsibly, one
responsibly. But all did respond. Yet if I were responsible FOR everybody I
meet "by chance," I could never manage that overwhelming responsibility. We
seemingly HAVE TO do what the priest and Levite did, pass by the victim. We
are "stuck" in a fallen world, and are not left off the hook.
Chapter 2. THE LAW OF GOD
Security and Retribution
Biblical term for law (nomos) encompasses everything in God's creation.
It also describes mankind's initial, call it "natural," relationship to God.
God's Law does two things. It provides security in the now-fallen
creation. It carries out retribution.
Our "law" linkage to God puts us into three networks (Elert's term is
Gefüge) with God: God as our creator (that we exist at all), as our legislator
(thou shalt, shalt not), as our judge (you failed in your image-of-God
assignment). From our conception onward it's nomological existence. Law's three
networks permeate everything.
The Decalogue
Why Christians still make use of the decalogue is first of all because
Jesus did.
Jesus and the apostles after him re-interpret the decalogue in the New
Testament: Love fulfills the law.
Yet the decalogue remains a law of retribution in the NT.
The Twofold Use of the Law (back to the security and retribution above)
There is fundamental disagreement in Christian history about God's law.
Calvin's catechism, e.g., completely ignores God as judge in the law's third
network, focusing only on God the legislator (law-giver).
In his own use of God's law Jesus intensifies, internalizes and
universalizes the law's accusing function. No one escapes.
In inter-personal relationships and in society at large, God's law
protects the "orders," and also protects us within those orders.
Natural Law
"Natural law" is discussed throughout human history and in Christian
theology. It too carries out the two tasks for which God uses law--in classical
Latin terms: usus proprius (unique use as critic) and usus politicus (use
to preserve the "polis," human society). Natural law too critiques us, and
it also preserves human society. In the now-fallen "natural" world, evil is
present. It too now functions as an "order" within God's creation, an order
of destruction.
Chapter 3. THE NATURAL ORDERS
Order, Community, Offices
The Family
Marriage
"The People" as an Order
State and Law as Orders
The Ethos of the State
The Ethos of Citizenship
Economic Interdependence
Vocation
Truth, Oath, and Honor
Before God addresses us with "thou shalt and thou shalt not" (=law as
network [Gefüge] #2), we are already linked to God in law as network #1, the
manifold "givens," the specs of our own life. The German word "Gefüge" carrries
the notion of being joined as jig-saw.puzzle pieces are. Elert's long list
of "natural orders" are those many jig-saw puzzles wherein each of us lives
as a distinct piece interlocked with other people and the manifold other
realities of daily life. Elert here is proposing the proper understanding of
the Lutheran term "orders of creation." Not orders as commands (how to
behave), but orders as the specs of the playing field where God has ordered (=
ordained) me to live out my life. It is first of all when I am already IN
these orders that God's thou shalt/ shalt not's are addressed to me. E.g., I
couldn't possibly "honor my father and mother" if I were not already in an
"order" called family.
It is within these orders that I live my nomological (law-permeated)
existence.
it is "pressured" (coercive) existence.
retributive
response-able
linked to God in the three jig-saw puzzles wherein God is: 1)
creator/controller, 2) legislator, and 3) judge and (finally) executioner.
it is accused (guilty) existence, yet it is
preserved existence.
In all of the #13 to #21 sub-sections of God's manifold ordainings Elert
traces these themes of nomological existence. He gives hints now and then
that you will have to come into contact with "ethos under grace" before you can
fully understand this particular order. He also points out the distortions
that threaten each of these orders when the person in that order is not
"graced" with the new ethos Christ brings. But before we get to that new
ethos, there is jigsaw puzzle #3, God as evaluator, judge and executioner
Chapter 4. SIN AND GUILT
The Bondage of the Will
Why do injustice and wicked action persist in human history? Human will
after the fall is "bound" to operate as sinner.
The foundations of the doctrine of the bondage of the will are given in
our nomological existence.
In the debate over human will--Erasmus and Luther, Kant and
Luther--Luther claims: Yes, God says "Thou shalt," but the reality is that we are unable
to do it. Erasmus and Kant: If God says, Thou shalt, then we must be able
to do it; if Luther is right, we will go mad. Luther can cope with such
madness because he sees Christ in the picture to resolve the dilemma of God's
impossible demand. Erasmus and Kant seek to solve it without Christ.
Sin as Original Sin
Augustine led western theologians to adopt a biological interpretation of
original sin. The corrupted nature of parents is reproduced in their
children. Not a good idea. Biblically, o.s. is grounded in the divine judgment
that is pronounced upon us. There is no point in our biography where we are
not sinners. O.s. is not a deed, but the shape of the person of the doer,
the constant "inclination" to live "without fear of God, without faith in
God, and curved into ourselves" (AC II).
"Original" means that since birth (our personal origin) we are in
opposition to God and also that this opposition is the origin of the "sins" we
commit.
Everyone is personally responsible (guilty) for his own original sin.
The Fear of Truth
Sin is a theological concept, not sociological or psychological. It
pertains only to the God-human relationship.
Law exposes sin by showing us that we are already "outside of the law's
boundaries."
Law reveals not only that we oppose the law, but also that this is
personal opposition to God. It is finally an attack upon God's being our judge.
We cannot grasp what sin really is, but only experience it. It is the
incomprehensibility of our nomological existence. It is the primal "as if" of
our life. We live as if we were righteous. This constant "as if" is our
dread of truth. We do not wish to be sinners, but that refusal says No to
what God says. It is enmity against God, opposition to his judgeship.
Sins
Civil courts can adjudicate crimes and misdemeanors, but not sins. Only
in God's courtroom is sin adjudicated.
The N.T. speaks of a "sin unto death." That is the refusal to believe in
Christ. If one has no desire for forgiveness, one cannot obtain it.
"Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit" occurs when one has experienced the power of
Christ's spirit and declares it to be the spirit of Satan. That perverts
truth into a lie. Such mortal sin cannot be rectified.
Guilt and Death
Sin entails both liability and indebtedness, which brings with it guilt,
our guilt for our "having been disloyal to God."
We are totally guilty before God, and there is no "insofar as." When God
pronounces his judgment of "guilty" upon us, it represents the maximum
penalty. The enmity of the creature against the Creator is not only a formal
violation of the law but a denial of the real sourde of our existence. The
guilt arising from our opposition to the Creator calls for expiation.
Atonement for this guilt can be rendered by a total loss of existence, by replacing
culpable existence with non-existence.
That is the door by which death enters the field of ethics. Death,
though also a biological process, is theologically an "ethos" event, God's
verdict that a sinner is not "worthy" of survival. Death is the only event in
human life which cannot be treated as if it were not true.
Total Guilt
[Here Elert treats a new problem that arose after World War II. He
completed the manuscript in the summer of 1948, just three years after Germany's
defeat in WWII. He confronts the question whether every individual German
was responsible and collectively guilty for the actions of Hitler. His
discussion here is deep and difficult to summarize in a few sentences. He links
it to the larger Biblical understanding of collective guilt. The guilt of a
father affects the children, the guilt of a Führer affects a whole nation,
the guilt of one people affects other peoples. The chain of guilt is
endless. He concludes with a quote from Luther: "He who wants to be a part of the
community must suffer and share the burdens, dangers, and losses of the
community, though not he but his neighbor has caused them." To which Elert
adds: "There is no way any one of us can emigrate from God's judgment," and
concludes with the Psalmist: "If I ascend to heaven, thou art there; if I make
my bed in Sheol, thou art there."]
Part II
ETHOS UNDER GRACE
Chapter 5. THE ENCOUNTER WITH CHRIST
Christ's Place in History [Better translation: The Place of Christ in
Christian Ethics]
The encounter with Christ changes a person's theological ethos.
The quest for the "historical Jesus" testifies to the importance of his
having been present and active in human history. For our initial theological
ethos (sinner) would not be changed if he had never existed.
The encounter with Christ exposes the falsehood of the sinner's "as if"
existence, for the truth Christ brings is the truth about me.
The Friend of Sinners
Christ befriended sinners. Yet everyone agrees (his enemies too) that
Jesus was not a sinner.
The encounter with Christ produces the recognition that a) he is not a
sinner; b) I am far removed from him.
In the encounter with Christ the "sinner in reality" becomes a "sinner in
truth" (no more "as if" deception) but the conclusion to the encounter is
"grace," for God pardons the sinner. The question still remains: Is Christ's
verdict, "You are no longer a sinner," God's verdict?
The Atonement
The answer to that question is, of course, yes. Here's how:
Confronting Christ today means answering the question with these words:
he is the "Word of grace" for ME.
Christ's death is God's judgment on us, in two ways. He dies because he
befriended us sinners, and his death is God's judgment upon every one of us.
The curse of nomological existence puts Christ on the cross--AND his
cross brings life-under-the-law to an end. "Christ is the end of the law
[=nomological existence], so that everyone who has faith may be justified" (=given
the new ethos of a righteous non-sinner). The risen Christ is God's
verification, ratification, that Christ's new ethos-offer to sinners is God's own.
Without Easter the old ethos persists.
Lord and Master
The new ethos is real, not imaginary, grounded in a forgiveness verdict,
and thus we live IN grace by continuous connection with Christ. Lord and
Master are two NT terms for this connection. Thee are more.
Christ's lordship is not "legalistic lordship" (Latin: imperium), to rule
as emperor.
His lordship is a "gracious lordship," (Latin: dominium). He rules as
servant.
As "master" (teacher) Jesus does not "teach" us what we are to do. He IS
what we are to do.
Christ's teaching task (Christ as master) continues throughout history
after his ascension.
Coming at the Crossings conference--and probably as next week's ThTh --will
be similar basic theses for the last five chapters of the book.
