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Called to Be Human:The Two Kinds of Righteousness and the Place and Role of Free Will-pt. 1
Dr. Charles Arand examines traditional Western philosophy concerning the understanding of the self and the will, and contrasts these views with the Lutheran understanding of free will and human identity (fallen, but redeemed by the creator, posessing a will to act but a bondage of that will) in light of the Two Kinds of Righteousness.
Called to Be Human:
The Two Kinds of Righteousness and the Place and Role of Free Will
Part One
Charles P. Arand
Over the course of the last two millennia, questions about the freedom of the will or freedom of choice lie at the center of nearly every definition of what it means to be human, and for good reason. The choices that we make matter. They affect how we live. They affect the lives of those around us. But how far do these choices extend? Is human choice unbounded with unlimited freedom? The answers given to these questions reveal fundamental assumptions about the nature of human beings. Does human dignity lie in us being autonomous individuals who are able to define and create ourselves all by ourselves? Or does human dignity lie in us being creatures who have been given the “response-ability” of living with God and others according to God’s design? Do we see ourselves as creators or creatures?
Few societies in the history of the world have embraced (or been in a position to embrace) freedom of choice as the defining value of human life as has western society since the time of the Enlightenment. In our autonomy and will to self-definition we seek liberation from external constraints. Although free will has always been present in western society, autonomous individuality surfaced with unusual power in the modern era. Peter Berger has suggested that the concept of “autonomous individual” is the strategically central concept of the modern Western world. It means that the human being must think of himself, from beginning to end, as a doer and maker. Johann Gottlieb Fichte expressed the sentiment well: “you are here for action; your action, and your action alone, determines your worth.” The human being is what she makes of herself. Americans especially see themselves as doers, people who pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. We see ourselves as masters of our own destiny and praise those who live by their own set of rules and their own codes of conduct. We hold up for emulation the cowboy, the entrepreneur, the self-made millionaire, and the Jack Bauers of the world.
The view of an autonomous self-defining individual presupposes a capacity based definition of the human being. In this regard, Western society has inherited an anthropology that reaches back through Augustine to the ancient Greeks. The human being was comprised of the following capacities: reason, will, passions, and bodily movement. Reason and will linked us to God and were often identified with the image of God. Our emotions and body linked us to the non-human creation. These capacities functioned in a hierarchical fashion. Ideally, reason provided the will with information upon which it could act in a way that was congruent with the law of God. The will acted on this information thereby keeping the passions in check (for they tended to be somewhat unruly and drawn to the things of this world rather than attending to the pursuit of God). For someone like Augustine, the ideal life was governed by reasoned self-control. (Note that even today we like to control impulse purchases as consumers). This inherited model may be somewhat outdated. But even relatively recent academic fields like the social sciences often provide their own versions of capacity based definitions of the human being (e.g., Freud divided the person into ego, id, and superego).
Luther's distinction between the two kinds of righteousness offered a radically different assessment of what defines a human being. He offered a relational based view of human being defined by trust in God rather than a capacity based view in which a person can be considered apart from her relationship to God. For Luther, the human being as a creature is by definition neither autonomous nor independent but is dependent and relational. Luther’s reading of the human condition further discerned two distinct but inseparable dimensions, our relation to God and our relation to other creatures. Being a relational creature, the human being is oriented to God in such a way that belief or unbelief functions as the control center for human capacities.
Human Capacities in our Two Relationships
Luther received from his Ockhamist instructors a way of thinking about creation that emphasized God’s absolute power and responsibility for everything that exists and happens in his creation. As Creator, God defines Himself and determines what he will be. As Creator he also defines us and determines what we are to be. We do not choose to be created. God chose to create us. He chose to create as an act of sheer generosity. In his Bondage of the Will, Luther wrote, “Before human creatures are created and become human, they neither do nor attempt to do anything toward becoming creatures, and after they are created, they neither do nor attempt to do anything toward remaining creatures, but both of these are done by the sole will of the omnipotent power and goodness of God, who creatures and preserves with our assistance.” No human being has ever gone and can never go “behind or beyond that beginning that embraces also the initiation of humanity.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer called this the grand offense of Genesis 1 and 2. That is to say, we are by definition dependent upon God. Adam and Eve could know about God only what he revealed of Himself to them. They knew God, comprehended his word, and conversed with Him. Thus faith, resting in the hands of the creator, defines what it means to be human.
In our horizontal relationships, God gave us the freedom to make decisions with respect to many matters of human life. Reason is needed for the exercise of dominion and the pursuit of human righteousness. With our imaginations we cultivate music, invent tools, develop the sciences, the liberal arts, the social sciences. Each of these disciplines contributes to the preservation and continuance of creation in their own way. Similarly, while God wrote his will (summarized in the Ten Commandments) into the heart of human beings as well as creation itself, He lets them figure out how to implement them within their lives. Here they try different things, learn from experience, and learn from study how to build a God-pleasing marriage, how to discipline children, to promote our neighbor’s welfare. Here he works in us and we cooperate with him. But even here are completely dependent upon him and remain accountable to him. Our choices are made within the relationship of trust in God.
The fall into sin overthrew the relationship of Creator and creator. Now “unbelief sits and holds sway at the pinnacle — the citadel of the will and reason, just like its opposite, faith.” Luther brings this into focus by describing the consequences of the fall in terms of human inability to be fully human because we are unable to produce what God expects, namely, faith. Unbelief blinded reason and rendered the will powerless to follow God. So complete was the fall that we are incapable of perceiving our true plight. The insistence of sinners that we have unbounded freedom to do what we please is a constituent element of the self-deceiving construction of a world without the Creator. In our incapacitated condition with regard to God, we human beings turned in upon ourselves, developed an insatiable appetite for sin and became addicted to sin. It takes the Creator to become a human creature in order to rescue human beings from their bondage to themselves. In his death he undoes the damage wrought by us. In his resurrection he creates a new humanity.
Although reason is blind and the will lies in complete bondage to sin coram Deo, the reformers acknowledged that even after sin the human will retains a limited amount of freedom coram mundo (AC and Ap XVIII). People can still choose to withhold their hand from striking another person. They can choose where to attend school. They can choose how to act. In other words, they have some freedom of choice with regard to external actions. Yet even here, sinful human beings more often than not prove to be their own worst enemy. The human creature’s freedom to bind self to neighbor and God is destroyed. Left to themselves, the human creature now can only bind himself to be self-serving. Yet even here human history is replete with examples of human folly. History is filled with examples of those deemed to be among the brightest and wisest within their age who nevertheless knowingly and deliberately acted contrary to their own self-interests.
When it comes to restoring our relationship with God, the Wittenberg theologians contended that God alone brings a person to faith through the Word apart from any contribution or cooperation on the part of the rebellious creature. Faith is not an action that human creatures can perform in the same way that they refrain from acts of harm to the neighbor. And so Lutherans confess, “I cannot by own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to him, but the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel.” Trust must be created by someone who is trustworthy.” God in his promise shows himself trustworthy. The Spirit alone produces faith through the promise. For some this raised the question, “Does God force us or coerce us to faith? Are human beings little more than blocks of stone? No. With his Word the Spirit works on human thought, reason, and emotions. In a sense, the Spirit seeks to persuade in such a way that human hearts are warmed and melted. He draws us to Christ in such a way that there arises in human beings a desire for the gifts of the Christ, namely, the spark of faith.
The gift of faith created by the Spirit within the human heart frees the human mind and will in such a way that the new creature of faith willingly cooperates with the Holy Spirit in the matter of active righteousness. Instead of digging in one’s heels against God, or doing things exclusively out of self-interest, the human being begins to want to follow the Spirit’s prompting and begins to want to live according to God’s design. Philip Melanchthon spoke of the Spirit creating new spiritual impulses within the human person by which we love God and one another (Apology IV, 121ff). Although the human being begins to cooperate with the Spirit, the authors of the Formula of Concord make it clear that this cooperation is not a fifty-fifty partnership. In other words, the Spirit and the Christian do not cooperate equally. The cooperation of the Christian remains weak on account of the sinful nature that he or she carries around her neck and on account of the resistance that one constantly encounters from old Adam.
Written By: host
Date Posted: 4/26/2007
Number of Views: 1310
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