again
Gerhardt O. Forde
p. 154-155
"Luther's Ethics"
A More Radical Gospel
So, to conclude, when one is looking for a positive use for law in life and ethics in Luther's thinking, one should look to his understanding of the first use of the law, the political or ethical use, as the means by which the wiles of Satan are to be held in check while we wait for the kingdom of God. It is one of the great misfortunes of contemporary ethical thinking that people seem to know practically nothing any longer of this understanding of the uses of the law. Even in church publications we see all sorts of nonsense about how the gospel is supposed to have something to say about our ethical dilemmas. And the gospel just becomes synonymous with sloppy permissiveness. So sweet Jesus schlock reigns. The gospel does not have anything to say directly about such dilemmas. We must look to the proper uses of the law, and particularly the first use. We have all we need there.
How then does one come to know this law" For Luther, the law is natural to humans. It is written on the heart. He was, it could be said, a kind of "natural law" ethicist. But he was a nominalist, not a realist, That is, Luther did not believe that natural law was just a mimetic copy or imitative reflection of eternal law. In Luther's day most people who theorized about natural law really meant supernatural law, a built-in eternal and unchangeable order to things. For Luther, law is natural in the sense that it was built into the creation, simply a statement of the minimal requirements of daily life, a faithful and practical consideration of what works and preserves human society against the wiles of the devil. Faith frees you to use your head in the battle. the natural law, in that sense, was for Luther, "written on the heart." To be sure, such law may be obscured by the fall. But in any case, for Luther, we have a restatement of such natural law in the scriptures, preeminently in the laws of Moses, Luther assumed, it seems that since the Creator and the author of the scriptures are one, there should be no difference between natural law and the law found in scripture. The touchstone for Luther's understanding of what is natural is therefor not a theory of natural analogy, but rather the Holy Scripture and the doctrine of creation. One cannot trust unaided reason without qualification. But where law understood within and limited by the story of salvation, there it is, so to speak, naturalized. Indeed, the command to love God and the neighbor with all one's heart was for Luther natural law, as was also the Sermon on the Mount. The law is simply a statement of what created life should naturally be. If we don't know what that is, due to our fallenness, we must search scriptures.
So, for Luther, if one is looking for answers to the question what should we do, for the time being, we will not be directed to our own feelings, or the art of learning how to affirm ourselves or one another in our chosen lifestyles, or whatever it may be. One of the things Luther polemicized against most regularly was the idea of self-chosen works--be they ever so pious. Rather, one must look to the commandments of God. the commandments of God are not given to make us pious, Luther insisted, but to lead us into the world of neighbor to take care of it as creation for the time being. In this regard, we must realize that the law was made for humanity, not humanity for the law. Even if it happens, as it often does in this twisted world, that one should have to break one commandment for the sake of another, Luther's counsel would be to sin boldly, but trust in the mercy of God all the more bravely! In other words, go ahead and plant a tree in the garden of hope!
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