Luther was fully aware of the revolutionary nature of his message. He knows that by it he is pronouncing judgment not only upon Catholic "work-righteousness," but upon "all religions under heaven." Here there is no difference between Jews, Papists and Turks; in all of them he find the same religious attitude. All false religions are characteristic by the same reasoning: "If I do this and that, God will be gracious to me." Ultimately, there is only two religions, that which is built on faith in Christ, and that which is buildt on reason and one's own works. These are absolutely opposed to each other; if we can deliver ourselves from sin and enter by our righteousness into heaven; then Christ is superfluous. Thus Christianity is bound to regard these false religions as its adversaries. These religions are man's attempt to climb up to heaven and is counter to the message that God came down from heaven in Christ and offered eternal life as gift to be received by faith. This message destroys all false religions that attempts to earn eternal life by the merits of their righteous works. It demolishes all false, egocentric religions.
To understand Luther at this point, we must look at their view of man. Luther rejects the view of man that his nature has a higher and lower part, as having a "spiritual" and a "carnal" nature. For Luther the natural man is "fleshly" in his whole being, in all that he does and is. Not merely the sensible part of man, not merely what his "fleshly" nature makes him do, but also the highest and best in him, and primarily this is "flesh." Even his righteousness, his religion, and works belong to the "flesh." Even when he is saved, being justified by faith, the Christian is "simultaneously righteous and a sinner" [simul iustus et peccator]. God justifies the sinner as righteous in such way that the sinner remains a sinner. It is this assertion of Luther's that the sinfulness of man remains even in the justified man, that has caused offense in Catholic circles.
The medieval interpretation of Christianity is marked by the upward
way to God. This is asserted not only in the legalistic piety of popular
Catholicism, but also in the rational theology of Scholasticism and
the ecstatic religiosity of Mysticism. These are three ways or ladders
by which man climb up to God. Against these three ways of ascent, Luther
makes his protest. He will have nothing to do with this "climbing
up into the majesty of God." At the center of Luther's protest
is his rejection of the way of merit. The "good works"
that Catholicism promotes are not really good works because they
performed for the wrong intention. The general Catholic view
is that an work is good and meritorious before God, only when
it is done with the intention of obtaining eternal blessedness.
It is this intention, this motive, which according to Luther robs
it of its value; even makes it condemnable. The one who does the
good in order to win "merits" and to promote his blessedness
is not wholly devoted to the good itself. He is only using it
as a means for climbling up to the Divine Majesty. Only when this
intention is rooted out, and the good is done "to the glory
of God and the benefit of our neighbor," is it really good
at all. Thus Luther rejected the idea of good works as a ladder
to heaven. Luther equally rejects all attempts to ascend to God
by the way of reason and speculation. He himself tried
this way during his time in the monastery. One of the books he
took as his guide at that time was Bonaventura's Itinerarium mentis
in Deum. From it he learned of the ascent by the analogical ladder
of speculation. Later he rejected any attempt "to climb up
to heaven by thinking" because it is doomed to failure. The
Way of speculation is impassable as was the Way of merit. If God is
to be known, it is only if God chooses to reveal Himself; otherwise,
God is unknowable. And God has chosen to reveal Himself in the
Incarnation of the Word; in the Incarnation, God has descended
to us. At the manger of Bethlehem, the Way of reason is exposed
as false and vain. Reason in its attempt to ascend to heaven does
not get God but only its idea of God. It is not the truth that the
Way of reason reaches, but just speculation. Luther's objections
to the attempt to ascend up to God by the ladders of merit and
of speculation are also applicable to the mystical Way
of ascent. Luther rejects the interpretation of the passage of
Scripture that has been taken by mysticism for its support, Matt. 5:8:
"Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God."
This Scripture seems to point to the mystical experience of seeing
God (visio Dei) as the final goal of the Christian life.
Does it not speak of purification as the way to that goal, much as
Plato speaks of purification which is necessary in order to reach
the vision of the self-subsistent Being and Beauty. But Luther
will not accept this interpretation. He explains this text not
according to an ascent to God, but according to God's descent.
"Thou mayest not climb up to heaven nor run into a cloister after it.... But that is a pure heart, which looks and thinks upon what God says."And the vision spoken of this text has nothing to do with mystical Vision of God.
"To see His face, as the Scripture says,Another passage of Scripture that mysticism used in proclaiming the Way of mysticism is the story of the heavenly ladder which Jacob saw in his dream (Gen. 28), Luther rejected the interpretation of this passage as teaching that the heavenly ladder is the ladder of mysticism. God has not commanded us to raise a ladder up to heaven to come to Him; God Himself has provided the ladder and has come down to us. In Christ, God has come down to meet us; Christ is the heavenly ladder and the "Way" furnished by God (John 14:6).
means rightly to perceive Him as gracious, good Father,
to whom we may look for all good things.
But this only comes through faith in Christ."
The one subject on which Luther and Augustine seem to be in agreement is that self-love is the root of all evil. Augustine stresses this emphatically, especially in the The City of God [De civitate Dei], when he traces the opposition between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of the world back to that between love of God [amor Dei] and love of self [amor sui]. But this self-love refers to "inorderd" [inordinata] self-love, which seeks its satisfaction in something other than God, in temporal and transient things. In addition to the perverted self-love, Augustine speaks of a right self-love, which seeks its satisfaction in God Himself. This sort of self-love is so far from being opposed to love for God, that it is equivalent to it. Thus for Augustine, sin is obviously not self-love as such, but only its wrong direction that is sin and the root of sin; Augustine is using another criterion of sin. This other criterion that Augustien finds is the idea that is linked with sensible and material things. As man's nature is at once both spiritual and sensible, man is a citizen of two worlds. By God's appointment man has the highest good in him. Man should direct his thoughts and desires up towards the super-sensible, spiritual world. But now man's sensible side of his being offers resistance, and seeks to drag man down and puts him in bonage to temporal goods. Hence, when Augustine wishes to characterize the sinful man, he says that man is "curvatus." He is not, as he ought to be, erect and looking upwards, but crooked, bent down to the earth.
Luther's view is the direct antithesis to these ideas of Augustine. When Luther calls selfishness, self-love, as sin and as the essence of sinfulness of sin, Luther means what he says without any qualification. Luther knows no good self-love. In the commandment: "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," Augustine had actually held that a commandment of self-love was implied, even if it is not expressly stated by a separate commandment. Luther, on the contrary, asserts that the Commandment of Love involves the rejection and condemnation of all self-love whatsoever. On the basis of Christ's words in John 12:25
("He who loves his life will lose it,Luther takes as a fundamental principle:
and he hates his life in this world
shall keep it to eternal life."),
When stating what man's corruption is, Luther uses Augustine's expression: man is crooked or "bent" (curvatus). But Luther uses it in a different sense than Augustine. When Augustine says that man is "bent," "crooked" (curvus, curvatus), he meant that man's desires are bent down to the things of earth, that he loves and pursues the lower, temporal things. Luther took it to mean that man has a selfish disposition and he is bent back on himself. In other words, the will is not straight, but "crooked," turned back to itself. Luther's concept of sin is governed by self-love. When Paul wrote, "Love seeks not its own" (I Cor. 13:5), Luther sees that sin is the opposite of this; the essence of sin is that man seeks its own self. And since the whole of natural human life is governed by this principle, all humanity is under the dominion of sin. Sin has its seat not merely in man's sensible nature, but it embraces the whole man. And furthermore sin is not just evil acts of men, but permeates the greatest and most praiseworthy deeds; for they are done for man's own glory. Even the very highest that man can attain, that is, fellowship with God, is polluted by this egocentricity. It is this that arouse Luther's hostility to Catholic piety, in which the attainment of this highest good is reduced to a system to obtain it. And it was this Augustinian and Medieval view of self-love as the Way of Salvation that Luther opposed; it must be plucked up by the roots, if true love is takes its place.
The culmination of Luther's attack on Catholic piety is the removal
of love outside the context of justification entirely and elimination
of the Catholic idea of "fides caritate formata"
[faith formed by love] which asserts that man is justified by faith and love.
That is, the decisive thing for man's justification is not faith but love,
Charitas. In the Aristotelian thought, the form of a thing is what gives
to matter its reality and value. So love, Charitas, is what gives to faith
its reality and value. Faith is the matter, and as such is insubstantial
and powerless. Love is the form, the formative principle, that gives to
faith its worth and real being. So justification is ultimately not by faith,
but by love, Charitas, that man is justified and comes into fellowship
with God.
In opposition, Luther asserted that justification takes place
by faith alone, "sola fide." When Luther read in Paul:
"a man is justified by faith, without the works of the law,"
he found not merely a rejection of salvation by meritorious works,
but the rejection of salvation by love. Justification is not only
not by outward works of the law, but also and especially not by
love, which is the fulfilling of the law. This teaching has been
misunderstood that Luther has set love aside as unimportant and
that he was asserting the importance only of faith; and that he had
replaced the "religion of love" with a "religion of faith."
From the Catholic point of view, Luther has been regarded as the
destroyer of the Christian idea of love. Though most Evangelicals
do not agree with this judgment, they regard Luther's treatment
of love as the weakest point in his thought, and his polemical
position has pushed love too much into the background. Some Evangelicals
think that Luther's preoccupation with his religious task has
caused him to forget about the ethical side of Christianity. Although
his emphasis on "sola fide" is his religious
strength, it is considered to be the source of his ethical weakest,
in so far as it caused him to separate, not only the works of love,
but love itself, from the basic relationship to God. That "Love
has had to stand down in favor of faith" is the almost universal
view in this matter.
But Luther is not the destroyer of the Christian idea of love, but the destroyer of the wrong idea of Christian love that dominated Catholic piety. The Catholic idea of love is a distortion of the Christian idea of love. And Luther is not neglecting the ethical side of Christianity by emphasizing "sola fide" but is the restoring the true basis for the ethical side of Christianity. Luther is rejecting the idea that man's relationship to God is based on the good that he does and is, that is, on man's love and his works of love. It is this idea that Luther is rejecting in his emphasis on justification by faith alone. Luther is not setting faith against love, but is asserting the correct relationship of faith to love. It is not our love for God that justifies us, but God's love for us that justifies us through faith receiving that love. Luther understood love as nothing other than God Himself; thus Luther can say of the man who abides in love, "that he and God become one cake [eine Kuche]". Luther had no intention to minimize and depreciate love. In rejecting the Scholastic doctrine of "fides caritate formata" Luther is rejecting the idea that it is our love for God that justifies us. By "justification by faith alone" Luther does not mean that it is our faith, our believing, that justifies us, but by our faith we receive the righteousness that God in His love has provided for us in Christ. We are justified not by our righteousness but by God's righteousness. To preach faith in Christ is nothing other than to preach love, that is, God's love. Through faith we are the children of God, and we love by the love we have received. This is the true basis for the ethical side of Christianity. Luther also rejects the idea of grace of Catholic piety as the enablement of God through the sacraments to do the good works by which the Christian can merit eternal life. He understood God's grace as God's unmerited favor, whereby God provides the righteousness that we need.
Christianity is a religion of love. Luther's opposition and criticism
of Catholic piety and theology was directed against its nisunderstanding
of love. His problem with Catholic piety was its understanding
of love as egocentric, self-centered love. Luther's understanding
of love was the direct antithesis of Augustine ideas of love.
Augustine understood all love to be acquisitive love, which seeks
its satisfaction in something. Augustine distinguishes between
perverted self-love and right self-love; perverted self-love is
directed to the temporal and transient things, seeking to find its
satisfaction in something other than God. This sort of self-love
is opposed to love for God, which seeks its satisfaction in God,
as its summun bonum. Luther rejected this understanding of love,
which came to dominate Catholic piety. Luther brands all self-love
as sin; he held that self-love is the essence of the sinfulness
of sin. Luther argued that all love that is not centered in God,
not theocentric, is evil, and it is wrong to call it "love":
"To love is the same as to hate oneself"
[Est enim diligere se ipsum odisse].
Anders Nygren
Anders Nygren in his classic work, Agape and Eros, has given a
thorough historical analysis of the two "fundamental motifs"
or themes that have dominated the understanding of love in Western
philosophy and theology. He raises the problem of "Agape
and Eros", and finds its natural solution in the Reformation.
We have summarized Nygren's historical treatment above. The problem
of "Agape and Eros" is: What is the true Christian idea
of love? Is it Eros or Agape, or a synthesis of these? Nygren
answers that the true Christian idea of love is Agape, which is
theocentric in contrast to Eros which is egocentric. This may
be seen clearly when the two fundamental questions is asked of
Christainity: the religious question, "What is God?"
and the ethical question, "What is the Good, the Good-in-itself?"
To the religious question Christainity replies with the Johannine
statement: "God is agape" (I John 4:8, 16); and
to the ethical question the answer is similar: "The Good
is agape", and this ethical answer is summarized in
the Commandment of Love, the commandments to love God and to love
one's own neighbor (Matt. 22:36-40; Mark 12:28-34). According
to Nygren, Christian Agape has no relation to Hellenistic Eros,
even when Agape is compared to the "heavenly Eros" and
not with the Vulgar Eros. The heavenly character of Agape is clear;
there is no need to spiritualize or sublimate it to recognize
its heavenly character. With Eros it is otherwise; but the highest
form of Eros, Eros in the most spiritual form, the "heavenly
Eros", cannot begin to compete with Agape. The mistake, Nygren
says, that is commonly made is to represent
"Agape as a higher and more spiritualised form of Eros, and supposing that the sublimation of Eros is the way to reach Agape... The heavenly Eros is the highest possible thing of its kind; it has been spiritualised to an extent beyond which it is impossible to go. Agape stands alongside, not above, the heavenly Eros; the difference between them is not of degree but of kind. There is no way, not even that of sublimation, which leads from Eros to Agape." [52] [1]
Nygren attempts to describe the content of the Christian idea of love, Agape. The following is his summary of its main features.
Nygren summarises and concludes his account of these two fundamental motifs and their contrary tendencies in the following table. [210]
| Eros is acquisitive and longing. | Agape is sacrifical giving. |
| Eros is an upward movement. | Agape comes down. |
| Eros is man's way to God. | Agape is God's way to man. |
| Eros is man's effort:
it assumes that man's salvation is his work. |
Agape is God's grace;
salvation is the work of Divine love. |
| Eros is egocentric love,
a form of self-assertion of the highest, noblest, sublimest kind. |
Agape is unselfish love,
it "seeketh not its own", it gives itself away. |
| Eros seeks to gain its life,
a life divine, immortalised. |
Agape lives the life of God,
therefore dares to "lose it." |
| Eros is the will to get and
possess which depends on want and need. |
Agape is freedom in giving,
which depends on wealth and plenty. |
| Eros is primarily man's love;
God is the object of Eros. Even when it is attributed to God, Eros is patterned on human love. |
Agape is primarily God's love;
"God is Agape". Even when it is attributed to man, Agape is patterned on Divine love. |
| Eros is determined by the quality,
the beauty and worth, of its object; it is not spontaneous, but "evoked", "motivated". |
Agape is sovereign in relation to its object,
and is directed to both "the evil and the good"; it is spontaneous, "overflowing", "unmotivated". |
| Eros recognises value in its object -
and loves it. |
Agape loves -
and creates value in its object. |
Love expresses a relation between a subject who loves and an object that is loved. If the study of this relation focuses on the personal objects of this love, there are four different forms of love. There is (1) God's love for man, (2) man's love for God, (3) man's love for his fellow-men, and (4) man's love for himself. In this last form the subject and the object of the relation coincide; this does not mean that this form of love is not a relation, for there are other relations that have this characteristic: the equality relation in mathematics has this characteristic, called the reflextive property: A = A. When Nygren interprets these four forms in terms of Eros and Agape, he makes the following comparison between them. [211-217]
When Nygren [219] arranges these various forms of love in the order of their importance for Agape and to Eros respectively, giving a rating of 3 to the form which in each case it dominates the conception of love as a whole, and a rating of zero to any form in which is completely absent from it, he gets the the following table.
| Agape | Eros | |
|---|---|---|
| 3 | God's love | 0 |
| 2 | Neighborly love | 1 |
| 1 | Love for God | 2 |
| 0 | Self-love | 3 |
Evaluation of Nygren's View of Agape.
As commendable as this work of Nygren is, there are some difficulities
with his understanding of Agape. His historical treatment and
analysis of Eros is thorough and accurate. But his analysis of
Agape is greatly influence by this treatement of Eros. He tends
to define Agape purely as the negation of Eros. This may be seen
in his definition of Agape as spontaneous and "unmotivated".
By spontaneous he means uncaused and by unmotivated he means not
motivated by anything of value in its object. His second characteristic
confirm this negative definition of Agape: Agape is "indifferent to
value". As Nygren says,
"This does not add anything new to what has already been said; but in order to prevent a possible misunderstanding, it is necessary to give special emphasis to one aspect of the point we have just made. ... It is only when all thought of the worthiness of the object is abandoned that we can understand what Agape is." [77]This negative treatment is partly counteracted by his discussion of the other two characteristics of Agape: "Agape is creative" and "Agape is the initiator of fellowship with God". But these play little part in his treatment of the history of Agape and they do not define Nygren's concept of Agape. The nearest that Nygren comes to a positive definition of Agape is his contrast between Eros and Agape: Eros is egocentric love and Agape is theocentric love. [209]
But not only does Nygren not positively define Agape, but his treatment of it as unselfish love, as the negation of Eros, makes it difficult for him to interpret certain passages of Scripture, especially the commandment to love one's neighbor as oneself (Matt. 22:34-40; Mark 12:28-34). Nygren rejects the interpretation of this command that there is commandment of self-love in this commandment to love one's neighbor. He also rejects the interpretation that love of self is being approved of. Nygren says,
"Self-love is man's natural condition, and also the reason for the perversity of his will. Everyone knows how by nature he loves himself. So, says the commandment of love, thou shalt love thy neighbour. When love receives this new direction, when it is turned away from one's self and directed to one's neighbour, then the natural perversion of the will is overcome. So far is neighbourly love from including self-love that it actually excludes and overcomes it." [101]Nygren here misunderstands the command to love one's neighbor as one's self. This is not what the commandment says; it does not reject, exclude and overcome self-love. It does not oppose love of neighbor to love of self. This interpretation is the reading of Nygren's own theology into this commandment; according to his theology the essence of sin is self-love and thus it must be rejected, excluded and overcome. This commandment of neighborly love neither approves or disapproves of self-love, but only refers to self-love as a fact of human existence that can provide a criterion by which the love of neighbor may be measured; as you love yourself, love your neighbor. As one in love of self would not kill one's self, then do not kill your neighbor, etc.
Nygren's Agape motif is a distortion of the Biblical Agape. By
defining Agape as "spontaneous and unmotivated" in contrast
to Eros which is caused and motivated by it object, Nygren has
misunderstood Biblical Agape. Biblical Agape is not a thing but
a personal relationship between persons, between a subject (the
person who loves, the lover) and an object (the person loved).
Neither is Agape a desire like Eros, but a relation that is established
by the decision of the person loving. Thus Agape is not caused
by a desire for the object loved. But Agape is not "uncaused",
"spontaneous", but there is a reason for the decision,
for the choice to love. Agape is not uncaused, but is "caused",
but not by its object. Why love? Nygren says that there is no
motivation for Agape. But Nygren is wrong. Agape is not unmotivated;
it is motivated but it is not motivated by its object; Agape is
motivated by someone other than its object; by being loved the
one loving is motivated to love. Nygren's analysis of Agape as
spontaneous and unmotivated, depersonalized it and reducess it
to a thing. Agape is
(1) a personal relationship, a relation between persons;
(2) Agape is a choice of the person loving; and
(3) the object of Agape is not a thing, an "it",
but a person, a "thou", "you".
Nygren's distortion of the Biblical Agape is seen most clearly in his treatment of Agape in the writings of John [146-159]. He considers the Johannine treatment of Agape as weakening the idea of Agape in the writings of Paul. According to Nygren, John weakens the idea of Agape by his "Agape-metaphysic," his "particularism", and his uncertain position between unmotivated and motivated love, the modification of love in the direction of acquisitive love. [151] All these contributed, according to Nygren, in their various ways to this weakening of the Agape motif. According to Nygren, "the Johannine conception of love represents in a measure the transition to a stage when the Christian idea of love is no longer determined soley by the Agape motif, but by 'Eros and Agape'." [158]
Nygren finds in the writings of John a "duality" in the Johannine idea of Agape [151]; Nygren finds this duality in three areas:
"But God shows his love for us in thatJohn does not "take us a stage further by his identification of God and Agape" [149], but is expressing those aspects of God's love that Paul did not have occasion to express. In fact, Paul stresses those aspects of God's love that are related to his personal experience of conversion from a persecutor of the church. There is no developement in idea of Agape from Paul's theology to John's theology. Neither Paul nor John understands Agape as spontaneous and unmotivated and the Johannine idea of Agape does not occupy "a somewhat uncertain position between unmotivated and motivated love". [152]
while we were yet sinners Christ died for us." (Rom. 5:8)
"In this the love of God was made manifest among us,
that God sent his only Son into the world,
so that we might live through him." (I John 4:9)
"That which from one point of view represents an enhancement of the idea of Agape appears from another point of view to constitute a danger to it. Just because love in John is limited to narrower circle of 'the brethern', it is able to develop a far greater warmth and intimacy than it otherwise could; but this limitation involves for Christian love the risk of losing its original unmotivated character, and of being restricted to the brethren to the exclusion of outsiders and enemies." [154]Nygren's assessment of the Johannine treatment of the love of the brethern is wrong. God's love produces a fellowship of love; the love for the brethern for one another is its mark and reflects the pattern of the mutual love of the Father and the Son. Just as the Father loves the Son, and the Son loves his own, his disciples, so they "the brethern" are to love each other. Jesus prays, "That they may be one, even as we are one." (John 17:11, 22-23). Nygren sees in this love of the brethren for one another a threat to the original unmotivated character of Agape, as love for one's enemies; they now love the brethern "because" they are brethern, and hence love for the outsider is excluded. Here Nygren misunderstanding of Agape as unmotivated leads him to find a difference where is no difference. If the brethern love each other as they were loved when they not brethern, where is the problem? Jesus and John were not proposing a different kind of love for the brethern and love for one's enemies. Jesus said to his disciples, "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you" (John 15:12). And this is same love he had for them as sinners.
"When we are warned against love of the world, it is obviously cannot be generous, self-giving Agape-love that is meant, but only 'the love of desire', or acquisitive love. Only to the latter sense can 'love of the world' be set in opposition to love of God; though when it is, there is always the risk that even love for God will be understood as acquisitive love." [157]Here Nygren's misunderstanding of Agape is obvious. Neither is the love of the world or the love for the Father "self-giving Agape-love" nor are they acquisitive love. In both cases, love is the love for them as the Good; a wrong love of the world as the Good, and a right love of God as the Good. "And Jesus said to him, 'Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.'" (Mark 10:18). Agape is not entirely independent of the value of its object. How Agape acts for the good of its object is determined by the value assigned to it by the one loving. How God in His love acts for the good of object of His love is determined by the value He assigns to it. Its value is not determined by its object inherent value, but by the value God assigns to it. The idea that Agape is value indifferent is only partially true. Agape is not caused by the inherent value of the object but it is caused by the value that lover chooses to give to it. It is obvious that the love of God as well as the love of the world is determined by the value that the lover assigns to them. But the love of God and the love of the world are mutually exclusive; man cannot love both God and the world, because God and world are not both the Good. Only God is the Good, and to love the world is to treat it as the Good, as God; and this would be the sin of idolatry. "If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not him" (I John 2:15).
[1] All page references to Nygren's book Agape and Eros
is shown within a pair of brackets [] in this document.
Anders Nygren, Agape and Eros,
Part I: A Study of the Christian Idea of Love,
Part II: The History of the Christian Ideas of Love.
Translated by Philip S. Watson.
(New York and Evanston: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1969)
This book was first published in England by the S.P.C.K. House:
Part I in 1932; part II, Vol. I in 1938;
Part II, Vol. II in 1939;
revised, in part retranslated, and published in one volume in 1953.
The first paperback edition was published in 1969 by arrangement
with the Westminster Press, publishers of the United States edition.