Counsel and Conscience

Benjamin T. G. Mayes, Counsel and Conscience
Casuistry 25
Even as early as 1628, Lutherans were writing against the problems of
Roman Catholic casuistry. In the dedicatory epistle to Friedrich Balduin’s De
casibus conscientiae, the dean of the Wittenberg theological faculty wrote that
the Roman Catholic casuistry had erred greatly by following papal decrees
instead of the divine Word, which alone can confirm consciences. In contrast
to them, Balduin was setting forth his casuistry on the basis of Scripture
alone. 36 The Roman Catholic casuistry gave “superstitious counsels”; encouraged
regicide, seditions, and perjury; and contained many counsels that
encouraged “iniquity and peril,” for example, in matters related to marriage:
no remarriage was permitted, concubinage was tolerated, brothels were
allowed (Balduin: 1628, [II4]v, IIIr–[IIII4]r).
In rejecting probabilism, did Lutherans attach themselves to one of the other
models? Given the Protestant rejection of tradition (such as councils, papal
decrees, teaching of the scholastics, canonists) as necessarily binding on the
conscience (Weber: 1966, 61–62; Döllinger/Reusch: 1889, 26–27), how did
they approach the issues raised by probabilism and probabiliorism? What
would a “probable opinion” be for Lutherans? Or can one say that Lutherans
did not reject the complex of authorities handed down from the medieval
church, but instead rearranged their priority, putting Scripture in the highest
place? 37
Although M. W. F. Stone sees Protestant casuistry, such as that which was
developed by Balduin and Johann Alsted, as totally different from late medieval
casuistry (and, indeed, does not even consider Protestant casuistry to be
“casuistry” in the proper sense), he still admits that they had similar methods
and approaches in their study of the cases of conscience (Stone: 2000, 60).
Kittsteiner goes so far as to classify the Protestant casuists in general as tutiorists
(1992, 183; see also Döllinger/Reusch: 1889, 28). Dittrich, however, leaves
the door open to both tutiorism and probabiliorism among the Lutheran
casuists. He calls the Lutheran reception of tutiorism and probabiliorism, taken
“directly from the Catholic moral systems,” as a katholisierendes Moment
Popes Innocent XI, Alexander VII, and Alexander VIII condemned the crassest claims of Jesuit probabilism,
effectively curbing the most extreme forms thereof (Gass: 1881, 244–58).
�� The “norm of Scripture alone” was set up specifically in opposition to the traditions of the “Papists”
and the decrees of the popes. The emphasis on “Scripture alone” did not prevent Balduin from
making use of medieval definitions of the conscience proposed by Thomas Aquinas and others who
were, in part, commenting on Aristotle.
�� As we shall show below ( chapter 5.1)
on the basis of the questions concerning divorce and remarriage
in Dedekenn’s Thesaurus, the Lutherans did not reject the old authorities, but rather subjected
them to Scripture’s authority. Where Scripture did not speak explicitly on an issue, the other authorities
were cited and often followed.
© 2011, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen
ISBN Print: 9783525550274 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647550275