05-4 Theology of the..

LOGIA Forum
SHORT STUDIES AND COMMENTARY
THE IDOLATROUS RELIGION OF
CONSCIENCE
Part 1 of Randall C. Zachman’s The Assurance of Faith (Minneapolis:
Augsburg Fortress, 1993) should be placed on your “mustread”
list. His exposition of Luther’s treatment on the conscience
is immensely revealing and practical for the parish pastor in everything
from confessional counseling to liturgical coordinating. He
demonstrates how conscience develops its own “creative worship”
depending on internal feelings rather than the external Word and
Spirit. This then is one way in which the theology of the cross and
the theology of glory can be identified and properly distinguished.
Here are few select passages from pages 32–33, 36–39.
In sum, the legal or general knowledge of God is derived from
the awareness that God is an omnipotent and omniscient Creator
and judge who commands us to worship and to call upon
God in our distress. The knowledge of God as Creator, judge,
and refuge is derived from several major premises given to the
conscience in the natural law. However, it is critical to note that
the conscience is provided only with the major premises regarding
the existence and nature of God and has no idea what the
minor premises might be.
The conscience knows that God exists, but it does not know
who that God is; it knows that God is to be worshiped, but it
is in the dark as to how. “They call God a helper, kind, and forgiving,
even though afterwards they are in error as to who that
God is and how He wants to be worshiped” [AE 3: 117]. In the
same way, the conscience knows that God is a refuge, but it
does not know for whom God is a refuge, nor who this God
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is [AE 19: 54–55]. The major premises of the natural law to
worship and call upon God raise the question of the existence
and nature of God and of God’s worship, but no minor
premises are given from which the conscience might come to
conclusions about the nature and will of God. Unlike the
natural law that is given to govern the affairs of men coram
hominibus, the natural law regarding our life coram Deo is only
formal and not material.
We must not imagine, however, that the conscience is satisfied
with this rather abstract and formal knowledge about God, or
that it would wait patiently until God revealed himself more fully
to the conscience in the Word. If God does not tell us who God
is and how God is to be worshiped, the conscience will tell itself
who God is and how God is to be worshiped. If the natural law
will not provide us with the minor premises with regard to the
identity and worship of God, then the conscience will invent
these for itself. ...
The religion of conscience, therefore, is fundamentally a theology
of glory....
The religion of conscience, with its theologia gloriae cannot
succeed in its undertaking. It cannot place the person before a
gracious God; it cannot attain the certain and final judgment of
conscience that makes the person saved before God. Indeed, the
religion of conscience does not lead toward faith in a gracious
God, but rather further and further away from it. The theologia
gloriae leads not to confidence in God’s mercy, but rather to
indifference, presumption, or despair. ...
Nor does the religion of conscience lead us to believe in God.
We believe God when we acknowledge the truth of God’s Word
to us and deny all that would challenge that truth. It might seem
as though the conscience would be receptive to the Word; for, as
seen earlier, the conscience knows only that God is to be worshiped.
However, as already noted, the conscience portrays God
and God’s will to itself, and thus is certain that it already knows
who God is and how God is to be worshiped; it portrays to itself
a God who is pleased by works of the law.
When the Word tells the conscience that God wishes to be
worshiped by faith alone and not by works, reason and conscience
reject the Word as an outright lie and falsehood. “See, this
is the virtue of the light of nature, that it raves against the true
light, is constantly boasting of piety, piety, and is always crying
‘Good works! Good works!’ but it cannot and will not be taught
what piety is and what good works are; it insists that what it
thinks and proposes must be good and right” [AE 52: 59].