If
Luther’s entire essay On Christian
Liberty could be reduced to just a few words, I think those words would be
salvation by faith alone. As we discussed extensively in class, Luther believed
that good deeds were not enough to gain entrance into Heaven without a true and
strong faith in Christ. The biggest problem we found, though, was that this
opinion allowed for a person with faith in Christ to enter Heaven despite evil
actions, ranging from genocide to lying. Luther of course would argue that a
true believer wouldn’t commit evil deeds because that person’s faith would
directly influence his or her actions. Now, all of this is essentially review
of the last couple of lectures, but those lectures have raised a question in my
mind: how far does Luther’s opinion actually go?
I
started thinking about this when James brought up cognitive dissonance. Just so
everybody is clear, cognitive dissonance refers to a situation involving
conflicting attitudes, beliefs or behaviors. This produces a feeling of
discomfort leading to an alteration in one of the attitudes, beliefs or
behaviors to reduce the discomfort and restore balance (McLeod). The part of
that definition that interests me is the alteration of beliefs that can occur
from a state of cognitive dissonance. To what extent does Martin Luther’s justification
by faith alone go? If someone sins habitually, but legitimately believes that
this particular sin in this particular situation aligns with his or her faith,
are they still saved? This question becomes even harder to answer when those
actions directly contradict the words of Christ. Take, for example, the famous
Salem witchcraft trials. Are the ministers who condemned innocent women to
death in the name of Christ still saved, despite that burning your neighbor at
the stake is hardly an example of a loving action? This same scenario can be
applied to less violent and much more common situation: the white lie. Most
modern people would agree that telling an inconsequential lie (e.g. “You look
great in that dress”) in order to save someone you love emotional pain is the
right thing to do. I believe this is an example of cognitive dissonance. The
commandment “Thou shalt not lie” has been transformed into “it’s ok to lie if
it’s a minor detail that will save someone you love pain”. How would Martin
Luther feel about this rationalization of sin to transform it into an
acceptable action under one’s faith? Would he accept that true faith can transform
with time, situation, etc., or would he argue that nothing would alter a true
faith? Let me know what you think. Did I completely miss the point or am I
somewhere in the ballpark?
I believe that Martin Luther's argument concerning forgiveness for sins is twofold, in that he emphasizes that a true Christian must have a shared soul with Christ, and thus reflect Christ through his actions. However, there arises a problem of attitude. How sincere can one truly be if one is constantly in fear that if he does not recant or feel sorry for committing sins that he will not be in fact a true Christian, and will be damned? The problem of cognitive dissonance that James and Chandler discuss affects this attitude, because as people who are fearful for their souls commit sins, it is understandable that they might rationalize their sins as not actually being sins. There are broadly-discussed sins in the Bible that one may argue one's own personal sins to or to not be categorized with. I think that the core question to be drawn is: to what extent can one be sincere in recanting, if one rationalizes oneself out of believing that he sinned? Can he still be called a true Christian if his attitude is in question?
ReplyDeleteOops, definitely forgot to add the link to the article I referenced. Here it is though:
ReplyDeleteMcLeod, Saul. "Cognitive Dissonance Theory." SimplyPsychology. 2008. http://www.simplypsychology.org/cognitive-dissonance.html
First of all, I think that this is one of the most controversial and “hard to understand” concepts that Luther tries to communicate to us. Luther tried to divert Christians from just following orders from priests, to actually trying to understand God. To do this, Luther had to emphasize the true disconnection of works and faith. In trying to radically change Christianity this way, Luther had to make bold claims and not sympathize with the church in the slightest. I think that Luther would definitely say that faith alone will lead to salvation. In all these examples about people who claim to have faith and do bad works, Luther would say that they don’t have faith. If someone truly had faith, then it would show by them doing good works. However, your example about the white lie is hard to interpret if the liar has faith or not. From Luther’s radical viewpoints in On Christian Liberty, he would say that even a white lie shows that you are unfaithful. Faith is hard to gain, and even harder to maintain; Luther knew that having faith is no easy task and one must do unpleasant things to prove their faith, such as tell the truth and say “you don’t look good in that dress.”
ReplyDelete