Work righteousness

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Work righteousness is a central theological term from the Lutheran doctrine of justification . It stands for the view that one can be justified before God if one does good works .

history

Old church

The pre-Augustinian church fathers do not explicitly make justification an object of dogmatic reflection. It is true that they speak (using Pauline terminology) that man is justified by faith, without works, by grace . Nonetheless, they emphasize - often for pastoral reasons - the importance of human action for the attainment of salvation . A differentiated determination of the relationship between the two statements hardly takes place.

In Augustine's work, and especially in his late work, the doctrine of justification within the doctrine of grace becomes a central and historically significant topic. Augustine emphasizes that man is righteous only through grace, namely through the righteousness of God. Man is comprehensively dependent on God's grace because he not only sins in individual acts, but as a whole person is under the power of the peccatum originale , that is, under the original sin that is inherited through the biological context of procreation.

reformation

According to Martin Luther (also Zwingli and Calvin's ) doctrine of justification, good works follow from faith. They are the fruits of faith. They are not done to gain justification or to prove: "Good pious works never make a good pious man, but a good pious man does good pious works". First the person must be good through faith, then so can works. Due to his theologia crucis, Luther rejected work righteousness (e.g. in many sermons) and emphasized justification by the grace of God in faith in the redeeming death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Denominations

The movements with the largest number of members, the Catholic Church and the Protestant Churches, teach (e.g. through the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification ) that man is not justified before God on the basis of his good works, but through God's grace .

In Protestant theology, this is summarized in the principles Sola gratia ("solely by grace") and Sola fide ("solely through faith").

The doctrine of predestination of Calvinism represents a further alternative to the justice of works . The Reformed theologians Johannes Calvin and Ulrich Zwingli originally represented the sharpest form of the doctrine of predestination, i.e. H. the fundamental predestination of every single person either for bliss (without own merit) or for damnation (without own guilt) as a "double predestination"

Communities that are often accused of work righteousness by the Lutheran or Reformed side include: a. the Quakers , Seventh-day Adventists , Mennonites, and Jehovah's Witnesses .

The orthodox churches have an ambivalent relationship to Luther's teaching. You agree in principle with the Reformation , i. i.e. that the Catholic Church was in need of reform, but reject Protestantism, i.e. H. The individualism that develops there, which individualizes and subjectivizes the question of salvation: "How do I get a gracious God, how do I become righteous before God?", these were the central questions that Luther had occupied for a long time and finally led him to the conclusion, that councils can also be wrong. From the orthodox point of view, Luther was not a heretic , but neither was he a saint .

See also

literature

See: Doctrine of Justification

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ righteousness of works, the. In: Duden . Dudenverlag, 2019, accessed on November 24, 2019 : "Meaning - view according to which man is justified before God by good works"
  2. ^ A b Christiane Tietz:  Justification - II. Dogeme History . In: Religion Past and Present (RGG). 4th edition. Volume 4, Mohr-Siebeck, Tübingen 2001, Sp. 103.
  3. ↑ a b c d Wolf Krötke:  Good works - II. Dogmatisch . In: Religion Past and Present (RGG). 4th edition. Volume 3, Mohr-Siebeck, Tübingen 2000, Sp. 1344.
  4. ↑ "cf. From the good works, 1520, WA 6, 202-276 "
  5. ↑ "cf. CA 6, BSLK 60 "
  6. ↑ "WA 7, 32.5-6"
  7. ^ Reinhold Bernhardt / David Willis-Watkins: Theologia crucis . In: EKL Evangelisches Kirchenlexikon . 3. Edition. tape 4 . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht , Göttingen 1996, ISBN 3-525-50141-2 , pp. 734 .
  8. ^ Matthias Viertel: Martin Luther and the justice of works. In: rundfunk.evangelisch.de. Community work of Evangelical Journalism (GEP) gGmbH, June 4, 2016, accessed on November 24, 2019 : "Luther called the other, that is, the good deeds alone and talking about them as much as possible, as work-righteousness, today one could also say" self-righteousness " . The reformer describes the human desire to achieve a privileged relationship with God through personal merits. For Luther, it is righteousness to work if one hopes to be set off for guilty behavior through charitable gifts. Luther was sure that none of this plays a role before God, before God all that counts is faith and no sacrifice, no matter how great, and certainly no impressive behavior. "
  9. ^ A. Niebergall:  Sermon . In: Religion Past and Present (RGG). 3. Edition. Volume 5, Mohr-Siebeck, Tübingen 1961, column 522. “More important than the form, however, is the content of its preaching: the iustificatio de fide is the sole subject of the sermon. Luther carried out this principle in his sermons with brilliant monotony. Almost every text is understood as a rejection of the righteousness of works and thus of the papacy, at the same time in connection with the entire scope of Scripture, especially the NT, as a promise of the forgiving of sins and thus the existence of the listener and transforming grace of God. It is always Christ as " Deus praedicatus ", whom the sermon is about; "
  10. ↑ a b Joachim Schäfer: Justification doctrine. In: Ecumenical Lexicon of Saints . October 21, 2018, accessed on November 24, 2019 : “In 1513, while reading the letter to the Romans, Martin Luther recognized that justification comes from faith alone, from grace alone - sola fide, sola gratia. The doctrine of justification became the central creed of the Reformation, the article by which the church stands and falls: Man remains a sinful being, but through the gift of grace God makes him righteous for Christ's sake ( simul justus et peccator , at the same time righteous and sinner) . The Augsburg Confession and the formula of the Concord validly established this understanding. "
  11. ↑ Ingolf U. Dalferth: Faith . In: EKL Evangelisches Kirchenlexikon . 3. Edition. tape 2 . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht , Göttingen 1989, ISBN 3-525-50132-3 , 3. Systematic-theological - 3.4.3. Luther, S. 196 .
  12. ^ Christian Gremmels: work . In: EKL Evangelisches Kirchenlexikon . 3. Edition. tape 1 . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht , Göttingen 1986, ISBN 3-525-50128-5 , pp. 239 : "Whatever you do, work on it from your heart as for the Lord and not for people" (Col 3:23). In faith in the resurrection, work is relativized and de-demonized, which "is not in vain in the Lord" (1 Cor 15:58). Although Paul says of himself that he worked more than others (1 Cor 15:10), he “does not think of seeking the reason, the justification ... of his life in this work ... His salvation comes from God , reveals itself beyond achievement. «Work is» work, but not human work justice «(JM Lochman, 115).
  13. ↑ Christianity from the perspective of religious studies. In: REMID. Religious Studies Media and Information Service e. V., May 27, 2019, accessed December 5, 2019 .
  14. ↑ a b G. Gloege:  Dualism . In: Religion Past and Present (RGG). 3. Edition. Volume 2, Mohr-Siebeck, Tübingen 1958, Col. 275. “The reformers' new understanding of Paul and Augustine revived dualistic motifs, more in Luther (the great" exclusivae ": only faith , etc.) than in Calvin. After all, they serve to interpret the freedom and liveliness of God. Thus with Luther the distinctions between Deus absconditus and Deus revelatus , law and gospel ..., the two "kingdoms" (regiment), with Calvin the double predestination . However, the border to dualism ( Flacius ' original sin teaching) was clearly preserved. "
  15. ↑ Michael Utsch : The Jehovah's Witnesses - Assessment. (pdf) In: Compact information - Jehovah's Witnesses. Evangelical Central Office for Weltanschauungsfragen (EZW), July 2017, accessed on December 2, 2019 : “Jehovah's Witnesses impress with their personal commitment, their restlessness and their often credible demeanor. But this is only one aspect. Behind its facade, this community very quickly turns out to be a restrictive organization that expects blind obedience from its followers and has no room for critical queries, objections or concerns. The average active Jehovah's Witness devotes about 17 hours of their free time to missionary work per month. In addition, there are several hours a week for training, church services and voluntary work at the local meeting house. If you keep in mind that every Jehovah's Witness has to meticulously document in the "field service report" at the end of each month how many hours were spent in the field service, spreading literature, attending Bible studies, reading the Watchtower or visiting services, one can imagine the internal pressure that each member is under. The Watchtower Society created a closed ideological system that assigns each individual his place. Even more: A survival of the end of the world is only promised to its own followers, who have to prove themselves through ongoing participation in advertising activities for the religious community. "
  16. ↑ Marios Begzos: Luther in the light of orthodox theology. (pdf) In: 14th Heildelberg Ecumenical Forum. Heidelberg University , July 18, 2008, accessed on December 6, 2019 : “The most important distinguishing mark of Protestantism is individualism . The consideration of faith as a private matter, the individualization of the question of salvation, subjectivism and individualism are fundamental characteristics of Protestantism. "
  17. ↑ Justification by faith alone. In: Faith & Spirituality - What is Protestant? - Theological differences - justification by faith alone. Evangelical Church in Baden, accessed on December 6, 2019 : “How do I get a gracious God? How do I become righteous before God? ”- this is the question that occupied Martin Luther for so long. For him it was a very personal and existential question. He did not face them out of purely philosophical and theological interests - but out of fear. For fear of not being able to stand before God in the last judgment - and of being condemned to eternal damnation by him. For fear that all his good works, his self-mortification, even his life as a monk would not be enough to please God. "
  18. ↑ Johannes R. Nothhaas: Scripture or Church? In: Orthodoxy in Germany. Thomas Brodehl, accessed on December 6, 2019 : “Martin Luther adopted this conception of the church. When, after the dispute over the pastoral abuse of indulgences, he entered into a public dispute with the representative of the Church, Dr. Eck, who was invited to Leipzig in 1519, uttered the sentence that was revolutionary for theology of the time: "Councils can also be wrong". "
  19. ↑ Marios Begzos: Luther in the light of orthodox theology. (pdf) In: 14th Heildelberg Ecumenical Forum. University of Heidelberg , July 18, 2008, accessed on December 6, 2019 : “If we now have to close our train of thought on the assessment of Luther from the point of view of orthodox theology today, we are still a short, if preliminary and in any case personal answer to guilty of the question asked at the beginning: Who is Luther for Orthodoxy? The answers given continue to offer an ambivalent picture. The organizers of an ecumenical symposium almost twenty-five years ago formulated this ambivalence very well. The text volume of the symposium bears the title: "Neither heretic nor saint. Luther's importance for ecumenical dialogue." (Tutzing July 3-5, 1981: Regensburg 1982). An orthodox theologian would be able to sign a similar formulation about Luther today without further ado. Neither heretic nor saint. "