Theological Origins of Modernity

luther and the storm of faith 107
a distant and merciless judge whose standards of justice could never be
known. Th e justice of this God was the justice meted out on the last day
that saved a few and consigned the vast majority to eternal damnation.
How such a God could be propitiated let alone loved remained a burning
question for him. What good works could he perform to please such a
God? Must not everything he did be insuffi cient?
Luther’s great insight was that no works can satisfy such a God but
also that no works are necessary, for this God is not a harsh and distant
judge but a merciful savior who has sacrifi ced himself to save us, asking
not that we do anything other than believe in him, believe in the resurrection,
in the forgiveness of sin, and in eternal life. Luther describes this
insight in the autobiographical preface to his complete works, published
in 1545. Having long been troubled by the justice of God referred to in Romans,
Luther asserts, he determined to work through the text again to see
whether he had properly understood the passage that caused him so much
suff ering. In rereading the passage, he had a profound spiritual insight.
Th e “justice of God” did not refer to something abstract and distant, to
an attribute of a transcendent God such as nominalism had imagined, but
to God’s justifi cation of us. Similarly, “the power of God” was not distant
and incomprehensible but the power by which God makes us powerful,
and “his wisdom” is that by which he makes us wise. 22 In this way, Luther
was able to transform the abstract and distant God of nominalism into
an inward power that suff used individual human beings. Th e faith that
arises from the encounter with God’s word in Scripture thus works in us
and transforms us. Th rough it we are reborn in God because God comes
to dwell in us. 23
In Luther’s view God accomplishes this work in us by grace, by infusing
himself in us, and possessing us. He comes to dwell in us as through
the word. His love that binds him to us is the source of our salvation. Th e
word in this way, according to Luther, comes to dwell in our heart. Th is
gracious infusion of the word has a startling eff ect, creating a new self and
a new kind of being. As Luther describes his own experience: “Here I felt
I was altogether born again and had entered paradise itself through open
gates.” 24
Th is great insight is a rejection of both the via antiqua and via moderna,
of both scholasticism and nominalism. 25 Both, in Luther’s view, derived
their doctrines from a reading of Aristotle and other philosophers and not
from the word of God. In this respect, neither lives up to the direct evidence
principle laid down by Trutfetter and Arnoldi as the core of nominalism.
Luther thus turns one of the fundamental principles of nominalism against