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The Reformation The Reformation While there is little doubt that the Reformation was a pivotal event in world history, there is equally little agreement as to exactly what the Reformation was. There are many different views about what constituted the central question of the Reformation. Let us consider some of them. Some view the Reformation as primarily a geo-political event, in which regional powers began to emerge, shaking off the domination of the central empire. While there is some truth to this view, the events of The Thirty Years' War (a century after the Reformation) show that this was not the central question in the Reformation. In that war, the Emperor, whose empire was ostensibly Roman Catholic, found some Catholic countries fighting against him, and found some non-Catholic countries allied with him. Another piece of evidence against the geo-political interpretation of the Reformation is that, in its earliest stages, the Reformation was not a struggle of a subjugated territory against the Empire, but rather a struggle between parties within one of the Empire's territories (i.e., between a German monk and some of his fellow Germans within the Church). Others see the Reformation as a doctrinal dispute within the Church, citing differences between the teachings of the Church at that time and the developing ideas of the Lutheran Reformation. Such differences certainly existed, e.g., different theories about the nature of the Eucharist ("the Lord's Supper" or "Communion"), different interpretations of Biblical texts, different views on the role of the laity, etc. But these differences were more the symptoms than the cause of the Reformation. Many of these differences did not arise until well after the Reformation began, and there were disputes among the Reformers themselves over some of these issues. These were not the central questions of the Reformation. Despite the claims of sadly erroneous textbooks, the debate between "consubstantiation" and "transubstantiation" was a mere side-show to the Reformation. Certain historians perceive the Reformation as a sociological development, the birth-pangs of the emerging middle class in a society which had previously had only an aristocracy and an impoverished servant/agrarian class. This interpretation is easily refuted: the middle class had begun to emerge before the Reformation, both in countries which were part of the Reformation and in other countries; the middle class continued to emerge in both types of countries after the Reformation, and in both types of countries, this emergence met with some success and some defeat. Cultural historians are inclined to see the Reformation as a sign of the beginning of the Renaissance, as the emerging of individualism in the arts and heightened scholarship in textual matters. While there may be some element of truth to this, it is equally true that the Reformation can be seen as the last gasp of Medievalism. The Reformation reached back to classical sources like Augustine, in the spirit of the Renaissance, but did so in a way which was distinctively Medieval. Although the Reformation put a new emphasis on the individual, it did so in a Zen-like sense of self-subjugation and emptying, not in the Renaissance sense of "self" (the Reformation man, unlike the Renaissance man, submitted himself voluntarily to servitude, knowing that he could gain absolutely nothing by such servitude; the Reformation freed man from a sense of having to "earn one's way to heaven", but commanded the individual to nonetheless devote himself to the service of others in self-denial). Finally, the entire framework in which these historians view the "Renaissance" and the "Middle Ages" has come under fire; no longer can serious historians accept the simple-minded picture in which the Middle Ages were filled with poverty, superstition, and ignorance, and in which the Renaissance was seen as the re-birth of classical beauty combined with the The Reformation, page 1 individualism eventually foreshadowed proto-democracy. The very classicism back to which the Renaissance reached was the product of the Middle Ages, which did more than passively transmit the Classical tradition: it decisively shaped it. And the Classicism of the Renaissance allowed individualism only for endowed artist; his audience was expected to discipline itself in Classical training, so as to appreciate his art. Far from the Reformation being the onset of the Renaissance, the whole framework of "Renaissance/Medieval" needs to be re-thought. Thus far we have seen failed attempts to understand what the central question of the Reformation was. That central question can be posed in one word: grace. The Reformation was, in part, an argument about how to properly define this word. Far deeper and more spiritual than questions about systematic theology, the concept of grace characterizes the Christian concept of the nature of God, the nature of God's relation to man, of man's relation to God, and the nature of the relation between one human and another. What exactly is this grace, and how ought we to understand the word "grace"? That is the central question of the Reformation. All else is, at best, secondary. Luther's view (and the view of the Lutheranism which consolidated itself after Luther's death) was that God's graciousness means that humans can never earn, or attempt to earn, God's favor or their ticket into the afterlife. That God is gracious means that eternal life is a free gift, utterly unearned. According to this concept of "grace", any attempt to earn God's favor through "good deeds" is, at best, futile. Yet those who embrace this concept devote themselves with all the more intensity to exactly such "good deeds" out of a sense of gratitude to God, and out of a sense of obedience to Him. One way to look at the Reformation is to ask, from what motive ought one to do "good deeds"? The view against which Luther was reacting saw "grace" defined as quasi-substantial; one accumulated or earned bits of grace by living according to the rules. Eventually, if one earned enough points, one might enter heaven. The Roman church saw Luther as a threat to all morality; would humans have any motive to do good according to Luther's teaching? Luther's ideas were also a threat to the institution of the church: if it is so easy to get into the after-life, how would the church retain its power over people? Against the assertion that "grace" was and is the central question of the Reformation, one might object that the two major players in the Reformation (the Roman Catholic church and the Lutheran church) issued a document called the "Joint Declaration about the Doctrine of Justification" (dated Oct. 31, 1999) in which they stated that the center of their Reformation disagreement was the doctrine of justification. Thus, one might say that "the doctrine of justification" was the central question in the Reformation, and not "grace". Against this objection it can be pointed out that the two questions are so closely inter-related as to be almost (but not quite!) the same topic. Justification cannot be discussed without discussing the role of grace in justification, and grace cannot be discussed without discussing its role in justification. Grace is the cause, justification the effect; grace is the agent, justification the task. So the statement that "the doctrine of justification" was the central question in the Reformation does not argue against the assertion that "grace" was the central question: perhaps it might be better said that the central question of the Reformation was "the role of grace in justification". [The Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification is often simply called the JDDJ.] The Reformation, page 2.
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