![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/305\/2021\/12\/1024px-Lucas_Cranach_d.J._-_Reformationsaltar_St._Marien_zu_Wittenberg_Predella.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nAnother non-Lutheran fan of Luther vs. conservatives who blame him for modern subjectivism. . . .<\/p>\n
A Reformed theologian defends Luther in mostly-Catholic First Things.\u00a0\u00a0<\/em>It\u2019s a post by Carl Trueman\u2013not such a surprise, since he is an accomplished Luther scholar\u2013entitled Blame It on Luther?<\/a><\/p>\n He is discussing an article by Casey Chalk entitled The Autonomous Self is a Coercive God<\/a> at the conservative site Public Discourse<\/em>.\u00a0 Prof. Trueman agrees with his main point:<\/p>\n Yet I dissent from Chalk\u2019s genealogy of modernity. He goes on to argue that this notion of the autonomous, emotivist self can be traced to Martin Luther. In part this is because Chalk depends upon Jacques Maritain\u2019s\u00a0Three Reformers: Luther, Descartes, Rousseau<\/em>\u00a0for his reading of Luther. Luther is simply not the great apostle of subjectivism that Maritain claims he is. It may well be that subjectivism is where the Protestant Reformation led, but it was certainly neither Luther\u2019s intention nor his own stated position. The debate with Zwingli over the reality of Christ\u2019s presence in the Eucharist is the most obvious example of his concern for objective truth detached from the individual\u2019s own beliefs, though one might also point to his notion of conscience as formed by the Word of God in the context of the Christian life, not as some principle of autonomous personal judgment. Whether Luther\u2019s positions on these issues proved stable in the long run is a matter for debate. The point is that he was wrestling with how to balance objective truth and personal commitment (an issue found throughout the New Testament). He was not arguing for human beings as isolated, atomized human beings.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Indeed.\u00a0 Chalk says this (my bolds):<\/p>\n Luther expounds a theology that seeks to assure the Christian of the certainty of his salvation, based on the former Augustinian monk\u2019s interpretation of several key Pauline passages. For this, Luther necessarily must shift the locus of metaphysical certitude in one\u2019s spiritual well-being away from external, objective criteria like the sacraments toward subjective ones, namely, the autonomous self reading the Bible.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Does any Lutheran\u2013that is, someone who is part of a church body in which Luther\u2019s theology is regularly taught and lived through\u2013believe this, or even recognize it as coming from their church?\u00a0 That we should look for our spiritual well-being \u201caway from external, objective criteria like the sacraments toward subjective ones\u201d?\u00a0 Isn\u2019t it rather the opposite?\u00a0 Aren\u2019t we always being told not<\/em> to focus on our subjective feelings and to look instead at \u201cobjective criteria like the sacraments\u201d for the assurance of our salvation?\u00a0 Have you ever heard the recommendation of \u201cthe autonomous self reading the Bible\u201d?\u00a0 We read the Bible\u2013with the help of our pastors, the Book of Concord, and the glosses of the Lutheran Study Bible and such like looking over our shoulders\u2013not autonomously, as in we can interpret it any way we want, but as one of those \u201cobjective criteria\u201d that we can hold on to, over against our selves.<\/p>\n The thing is, this kind of utter ignorance about Luther and the penchant for blaming him for subjectivism and for all the other pathologies of modernity can be found over and over again, especially in conservative cultural critiques.<\/em>\u00a0 That is to say, in conservative cultural critiques written by Roman Catholics, particularly the \u201cintegralists<\/a>,\u201d who call for a return to the temporal authority of the papacy over secular politics and who are playing a prominent role in the new varieties of\u00a0 conservativism that are critical of\u00a0 liberty, free-market, and Constitutional conservatism.<\/p>\n I understand why they would need to discredit Luther, who strenuously attacked the Pope\u2019s claim to temporal authority\u2013arguing that secular rulers themselves have an authority from God, by virtue of their vocation, and that the Church is not about worldly power but about the Kingdom of Heaven\u2013but they shouldn\u2019t make him a straw man for what they don\u2019t like about radical Protestants, whom Luther opposed with all his might, let alone \u201csubjectivism\u201d or \u201cmodernity\u201d or \u201cthe autonomous self.\u201d<\/p>\n Prof. Trueman goes on to show that the mindset that Chalk and Mauritain complain about has roots in the Middle Ages and the Medieval church long before Luther.\u00a0 The fact is, Prof. Trueman has written an excellent book on the actual history of the autonomous self, which needs to be read by anyone interested in the matter, whether Catholic or Protestant, liberal or conservative, or whatever kind of conservative you are:\u00a0\u00a0The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n