Freedom from the Burden of Sin

Luther seems to have freed Christians from the tedious, immoral indulgences and rituals conducted by the Catholic Church. He announced that the Pope doesn’t have authority to be a God ruling over the lay Christians. In On Christian Liberty, the heart of the Protestant reformation, Luther suggests that a Christian is free from all sins once she has faith. However, the Protestants are not much better off then their Catholic comterparts when it comes to freedom. 

Faith does not free if it is too difficult or impossible to attain. For Luther, faith means to believe in the Words of God, including the story of Jesus, his sacrifice, and the exaltation of Christian souls above all else. However, how can a person believe the right Word of God if she does not know the exact meaning of the scripture? What if she believed in the wrong thing, does it mean she does not have faith? Then again, who is it that determines the content of the “Word of God”? With the invention of printing press in the West, Bible was no longer a luxury. Everyone had the chance to read the face of the “Words” and determine the content of the Word personally.  This change in history was bound to result in a plethora of opinions concerning the meaning of the Word. For example, Calvinism and Anabaptism were later born from the Protestant root (Fiero). But who’s rightly leading the souls of their followers to salvation? Providing there can’t be multiple right answers which, obviously, the Catholics didn’t agree to exist. Christians took off the burden of work, but had put on the burden of interpretation. If one doesn’t have the ability to interpret correctly, or happens to have the wrong definitions, one is not saved. This is rather a somber consequence for babies, those who are disabled and those with strong faith in the wrong things.

Using the concept of Love, Luther explains away the problem that Christians can just be lazy with their faith securing their salvation. However, whether Love is a work or not is unclear. Luther explains Love is a natural product of having faith, or in his words, “faith is active through Love” (49).  Interestingly, he reasons that Christians naturally practice Love because Christ’s virtues passes down to the Christians and sort of takes over the Christian body and the body starts Loving (62). This is “true love” and the “genuine rule of a Christian life” (62). He states that if one does not Love, one is not a Christian. This Love has a particular meaning of taking on sins of others and helping others with no desire for reward. Christians Love unconditionally because they are satisfied in faith already, they do not need anything else. Luther’s argument goes: One has a evil unbelieving soul, the soul accepts faith and becomes a righteous believing soul, then the soul will start Loving. Therefore, if one’s soul does not Love, one does not have the righteous believing soul. This can be simplified as: if A then B; not B; therefore not A (62). The logic is valid. However, we don’t know if A necessarily leads to B. If it’s possible for one to have faith and not Love, then one’s lack of faith is not accurately predicted by lack of Love. In this case, the believing person must do the work of Love to gain acceptance into the club of saved souls.

A more severe problem follows: we will never be able to know if anyone is Christian or not, including ourselves. It is impossible to peer into other’s souls to see whether they Love according to Luther’s ideal, or they only love with the desire for rewards such as satisfaction or brownie points (Andrea’s point). How can one know for sure that when one loves, it’s for love’s sake and not anything else unconsciously? This ambiguity and uncertainty puts a burden on the Christians. They never know if they really have faith and if their souls are really saved. This is the burden of Love. 

A final thought hit me: isn't it true that a person who doesn't concern herself with the salvation of the soul has the freedom to be much freer than anyone who does?

Luther, Martin, William A. Lambert, and Harold John Grimm. On Christian Liberty. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003. Print.

Fiero, Gloria. The Humanistic Tradition Book 3 The European Renaissance, the Reformation, and Global Encounter. N.p.: McGraw-Hill College, 2010. Print.