Ethics in the Early Reformation: Luther and Tyndale 1518–1536

chapter 6 Ethics in the Early Reformation: Luther and Tyndale 1518–1536

1 Martin Luther and the Collapse of Scholasticism

We now come to the final collapse of the medieval system of moral theology in Western Europe. It was driven above all by the attacks of Martin Luther, a German friar of the Augustinian order and a university academic. What in particular led Martin Luther to attack the whole notion of moral theology? Luther completely rejected the scholastic account of moral theology, but he kept all his life a belief in the value of personal confession, often with clerical absolution.1 It was only in 1530 that Luther finally condemned the notion of purgatory, but his rejection of the medieval synthesis in moral theology was achieved at the latest by 1518. That could have just been a crisis for one theologian, but both his personal influence and the political situation in the early sixteenth century ensured that it would be far more than that. When Luther confronted the Emperor at the Diet of Worms in 1521 the die was cast not mere- ly for a schism in the Western church but also for a full-scale attack on the medieval understanding of moral theology. As part of his break with the Roman Catholic Church, Luther rejected the scholastic account of the synderesis. In this chapter two stories will be told. The first is the story of Luther, as he moves to disagree with the medieval understanding of moral theology and of synderesis. The second story, which is given in greater detail, is that of William Tyndale.2 It is given in more detail because Tyndale begins the English (if not Anglican) tradition of ethical thinking or moral theology. Tyndale is treated in two ways. First, there is the narrative of a brief thirteen years, from his approach to one of the great religious humanists, Bishop Cuthbert Tunstall of London, to be his patron, to his execution in 1536, as someone viewed as a mortal enemy by the church authorities. Secondly, there is a close study of Tyndale’s theology and ethics, from the standpoint of various positions: Luther himself, the Lollards, the theological significance of law and of the covenant.

1 Rittgers, Ronald K., ‘Embracing the “True Relic” of Christ: Suffering, Penance, and Private Confession in the Thought of Martin Luther’. 2 Daniell, David, ‘William Tyndale’.

Martin Luther had been influenced by the nominalist theologian Gabriel Biel, who in many ways modified Ockham’s views and reinstated the notion of the underlying moral schema, or synderesis. Luther agreed as a young theologian with Biel, except in so far as Luther believed that synderesis was affective as well as rational. Nevertheless, even as an Augustinian, Luther was deeply in- terested in the experience of guilt produced by the bad conscience. Although the medieval theologians analysed above were aware of emotions to do with conscience, nevertheless their basic approach was to see the conscience as a function of practical reason, so any accompanying emotions were not essential.3 Luther believed that he was recovering the original New Testament account of conscience (discussed on p. 56) with its inherent emotional compo- nent in the action of conscience. He repeatedly stressed the ‘bed of grief’ of the conscience, which gave an individual no relief. ‘The sinner desires to flee from his bad conscience and escape the pain he feels in his guilt. But he is unable to find release; his conscience is always with him wherever he goes and thus it becomes his bed.’4 The way out of this dilemma for Luther was both dramatic and deeply influ- ential on Anglican reformation moral theology. First, he abandoned the idea of synderesis altogether, sometime during 1515–1516.5 Luther uses the term synderesis in the standard way in Dictata super psalterium (1513–1516). He does the same in the sermon Depropria sapientia et voluntate (1514), but his disaffection then appears in several places in the Lectures on Romans (1515–1516). At this point, the whole medieval tradition comes under a critical scrutiny which it never had before. In his commentary on Romans 1:20 Luther uses synderesis as a major for a syllogism, but prefaces the demonstration by saying that he will ‘present for my fellow spectators a playlet according to my understanding and then await either their approval or their criticism’ (Volo me sensu aliis spec- tantibus modicum ludere et vel auxilium vel Iudicium expectare). Interestingly, even the German translation of Luther shows some unease at this point. In the syllogism the Concordia translation has ‘insight of the conscience’ rather than synderesis.6 But the Latin is hec syntheresis theologica est inobscurabilis in omnibus. Luther is using synderesis in a way not wholly serious. Like Tyndale, Luther inherits the medieval tradition but turns against it. Stoll comments on Luther’s text: ‘If it is a bit of play-acting, then the syllogism is not literally

3 Baylor, Michael G., Action and Person, p. 171. 4 Baylor, Action and Person, p. 173, citing Luther, Commentary on Psalm 40, in D. Martin Luthers Werke (hereinafter WA), 3:231. 5 Stoll, Abraham, ‘Thus Conscience: Synderesis and the Destructuring of Conscience in Reformation England’, pp. 62–77. 6 Pelikan, Jaroslav and Lehmann, Helmut T. (eds), Luther’s Works, Vol. 25, p. 157.