Correcting Misrepresentations of the Reformation and Classical Protestantism

[music] [music] [music] Hello and welcome once again to the Just and Sinner podcast. I am your host Dr. Jordan Cooper and thank you so much for joining me as always on the program today.

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Um so we are today going to be interacting with a topic that I've really wanted to address um for for some time and I have addressed it in some different contexts and that is looking into some of the false narratives about the history of the reformation and the history of Protestantism and uh certain arguments that are used to try to say that the faults of the modern world, the philosophical perspectives in the contemporary world that are that are mistaken are essentially the result of Protestantism. And these kinds of arguments have played a very significant role in a lot of Roman Catholic narratives, particularly Eastern Orthodox to some extent as well. uh but but more often from Roman Catholic authors or speakers or YouTubers or whatever um to try to blame a lot of the wrongs of modernity on Protestantism to say that the Roman church is some kind of refuge from these errors that the Reformation introduced into the world.

Now there's so much that goes into the history of these kind of broad sweeping intellectual narratives about Protestantism. I mean, we could go back to even, you know, someone like Max Vber and his approach to the Protestant work ethic. I actually have a video on that. But, uh, particularly, I'm thinking more about certain contemporary narratives that you find in something like Brad Gregory, his work, The Reformation. I might even do a a deep dive into that particular book and some of the misconceptions that are there. Um, but something that really starts to develop in the 20th century. And so there are a lot of narratives in the 20th century which argue that Martin Luther was dependent upon certain philosophical presuppositions, specifically late medieval nominalism. And I'll explain these things as we're as we're going through this particular talk, though nominalism per se isn't really the focus here. Um, but that Martin Luther adopted certain philosophical ideas. He introduced them into the church, breaking the inheritance of the church, the tradition that had been received from the ancient church through St. Thomas Aquinas in particular. Uh, and that this has caused all sorts of chaos in the world.

Now, so much of this narrative or these narratives are just based on obvious falsehoods. Others are maybe a little bit more more complicated. So, what I'm going to be doing to interact with this is I'm I'm interacting with a video. And this video is from a Protestant from Austin Suggs from the Gospel Simplicity Channel. In this video, he summarizes the basic argument that is underneath these intellectual histories or proposals. So, I think it's a good summary. So, I just want to say my critique isn't really so much of Austin here. He's summarizing things that he's gotten from other sources. And I do think that it is unfortunate that on his channel he has done so much interaction with Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox scholars that he often has not really received the push back necessary on a lot of points like this. Uh and there are some just kind of basic errors that were apparent in this video that he would know to have been mistaken if he had spoken to a lot of the right people. Um, but with that being said, I do want to say that these these ideas are ones that are pushed out by scholars. Like the these are people with doctorates, doctorates in history. These are people that uh have that are quite widely published in a variety of fields. So, it's not like these are just random things that do show up on a popular level. They do show up on a popular level when they're filtered in a popular level. The arguments get more simplistic. They certainly get worse. But at the same time there are some very well and widely published and widely respected authors that just make so many basic errors uh in this in this way. Uh so so it's this is not just to to pick on Austin. This is something that is a problem in the academy as well uh in recent years.

And let me just just give you an example of this to show that this is something that is showing up in you know more scholarly literature as well. This is just something I've read recently. This this is a text called the sources of Christian ethics by surveys pinkairs and this is a widely cited text and his treatment of of St. Thomas Aquinus is very helpful. But this is what he says in this again widely cited text widely published published author about Protestantism. He says this, is on page 284. The Protestant position on ethics derived completely from the original affirmation of justification by faith alone. It led to a rejection or at least the reduction to a relative role not only of ethics in the modern sense of a science of principles or criteria for action but of all branches of moral theology that had been developed in the middle ages. These included the treatises on grace, the virtues, the gifts, spiritual and mystical ideas and even the theological dimensions of moral teaching. In its critique, Protestantism was aided by nominalism on which it depended for the working out of its doctrine. It had already discarded all the permanent elements of human nature and human faculties particularly the virtues from its broad general structure of moral teaching in order to enhance free action in its unhampered and instantaneous character.

Now this this is just a very obvious example. Um and the fact is that right after the reformation there were a whole series of ethical treatises that were written by the Lutheran and the reformed. is pretty broad within the Protestant tradition and this is my most recent area of research is looking into Protestant specifically Lutheran ethics though not only Lutheran ethics uh after you know after the time of the reformation and what you find is that there indeed are several treatises on the virtues there are several treatises that are simply commentaries on Aristotle's nicomachian ethics meen himself does this and then Meen's work is built on by by a number of others so this is just a claim That is false on its face if you have any familiarity with the literature of this time period at all. But these these kinds of obvious generalizations that if you know anything about the historical texts during this post-reformation era are just clearly wrong. These things have been repeated and repeated and repeated for years and years and years and years to the point that now there are plenty of people even within those Protestant traditions that actually believe these caricatures that are just patently false. like there there's just not an argument that Pinkair's claim is correct. It's just not. It's just a falsehood. Uh you know, there are arguments to make for certain things or certain interpretations. We could talk about that with certain elements of Luther's teaching or something like that. Uh but those kinds of claims are just a patent blatant falsehood. Uh they are false on their face.

So uh with that, I'm going to look at some of the statements that are made in this video and then comment on on each of these statements. Again, this is something that is not meant to critique Austin particularly. This this is just I think a summarization of arguments that you're going to find in a lot of other people. The first quote I want to interact with is Austin is talking about the the toistic account of the world and the toistic account of nature. And he's going to contrast this to myistic view of the world with a Protestant view of the world which supposedly departs from these these beauties of toistic thought and the way that Thomas Aquinus views things. And so uh the the first thing that he says here is that for Thomas Aquinas everything participates in God who is being itself. Right? So this is this is an argument to say that for St. Thomas Aquinas all of nature all of reality is connected to God. Everything shares in or participates in God in some way. And God is conceived of as as being. Which means that anything that has being, anything that has existence partakes in God because God is is not distant from the world or totally separated from the world. He is distinct from the world, but the world shares in him. It doesn't have a kind of autonomy on its own.

And so I have a citation here that I want to read from Johan Gearhard. Now, if you're not familiar with Johan Gearhard, Johan Gearhard is the equivalent to like a Lutheran Thomas Aquinus, I think that's that's a fair comparison. And uh Gearhart is often considered the greatest of the Lutheran theologians in the post reformation era, at least after Martin Kenets, who writes the formula of Concord. And so he is often said to be simply the best theologian in the Lutheran tradition in that kind of developed Lutheran tradition after the writing of uh of the book of concord the book of Lutheran confessions. And so this this citation is from his book on the nature of God which is published in English as on the nature of God and on the trinity. It's got those two topics published together. He says this, "God is said to be in the most truthful and proper manner because he has being from himself which is nothing other than his own being. He is the limitless and vast sea of being." And so Gearart essentially affirms exactly what St. Thomas Aquinas is saying here that God is being itself. And this idea is actually repeated all throughout this text. And he even cites Thomas Aquinas on this point. So there isn't a departure some kind of wild departure for from the Lutheran theologians from St. Thomas Aquinas.

And the reality is this. When you look at the 17th century, this is the time of significant development of the traditions in response to each other. So the 17th century is kind of the the really the height of scholasticism. this this new scholasticism that's developing at this time where you have the Roman Catholics and the Lutheran and the reformed are all developing these very strong systems in response to each other and if you look at the theologians of this era they're actually all largely relying on exactly the same philosophical principles and foundation you don't find the kinds of arguments that developed in the 20th century over things like nominalism so [clears throat] when you have this this earlier era of this earlier part of the 17th 19 century people like Gearhart. Gearhart is essentially functioning on a toistic approach to philosophy and theology. He cites Thomas quite a bit and he cites Aristotle a lot as well. Once you get past Gearhart, everything kind of moves to Suarez and Suarez is really the dominant figure of the 17th century when it comes to to philosophy and the relation between philosophy and theology. And kind of everybody by the end of the 17th century is working in Suarez's categories. And that's Roman Catholic, Lutheran, and reformed. They're all basically functioning as Suarezians. In other words, there isn't some strong philosophical difference between them. So if you read somebody like Suarez, who's a Roman Catholic, and you read Jacob Martini, he's basically who's a Lutheran philosopher, they're coming from the same basic perspective about these things. So there really isn't a distinction here. They're they're not differing from one another. The biggest difference is probably going to be among the Scotists who are within Rome. uh and Suarez is a bit complicated to understand and their arguments as to kind of where exactly Suarez fits on the whole nominalism realism kind of range of of things. Okay.

Uh so then I have another citation from St. Thomas Aquinus that's quoted here where he says that all creatures are a certain participation in the divine perfection. And so uh if we're we're talking about the relation between God and creation, this quote from Thomas Aquinus gets across the idea that creatures are only in existence because they participate in something that is divine. They don't have some kind of absolute autonomy of existence or action or something like that. Now I want to cite Gearhart again. So he says this and this is on the same page as the other quote. He says whatever has being or est of and through itself is the cause of those things that have being sun by participation. Gearart says exactly the same thing that St. Thomas Aquinas says. So whatever has being uh through itself which is only God right God is being itself or what he calls him the limitless and vast sea of being. He is the cause of anything else that has being. and they have being by as Gearhart says participation. There's no distinction between what Gearhart says here and what St. Thomas Aquinas says which the reformation supposedly radically departs from. Okay.

Then Ghard says another quote, "A man only has the being of a man, but not the being of heaven, of an angel, nor of all created things. Only God has the being of all things." Now this here is in a summary of Plato's argument about being where he says that God is this the fullness of being. Everything else that exists is is composite of being and not non-being which distinguishes any creature from from God or for Plato's conception of God. And Gearart is affirming this. He's saying this is true. This is true about who God is and how God relates to the things in this world.

Next citation here for St. Thomas Aquinus and for this classical way of viewing the world, God and creation were not rivals but instead were radiations of one divine act. Okay. So the argument here is going to say that the reformation essentially poses God and man in competition to one another. So that when acts in the world are are viewed, one can either attribute that act to God or to man. In other words, these are these functioning actions in the world have a singular actor rather than than dual actors. And that means that any particular circumstance in the world, any happening in the world can kind of be divided out to either say that say man has you know 100% of the willing capacity uh and act in any particular action that happens in the world or maybe God does things 100% or perhaps there is a kind of division in human acts so that you know perhaps you know 50% of the act is God's work and 50% of the act is human work. And so you have these kind of competitive wills as if when someone operates whether it's a human operator or a divine worker uh they cannot work in the same act together. They they are essentially functioning as the same kind of things. In other words, the the divine will and the human will are are the same type of thing existing essentially on the same kind of plane. And so one has to then speak in categories of percentages in terms of who is doing how much of any particular act.

But this is opposed to St. Thomas Aquinas's approach where everything essentially every action every happening in the world is credited ultimately to God. So that that God's actions and human actions are not in competition with one another, but they work with one another. Essentially, they they're functioning on two distinct hierarchical planes. And so everything that happens is has divine causality to some extent as kind of the underlying cause of all things. And then there are secondary causes. And these secondary causes are creatures. And they function essentially on different planes. So they're not competing with one another. they're they're functioning in totally different kind of realms or uh levels of action. And so we we don't have this struggle to identify certain percentage with either divine action or certain percentage with human action because they're functioning on totally different levels. Um but again this is something that is affirmed by like all Lutheran Orthodox theologians. And so I'm going to now cite another author on this because what I want to show is this is not just gearhard and it's also not just something that happens in the post-reformation era. And so someone might argue that well okay you've got your your gear hard maybe you have your 17th century authors and they all hold to some kind of idea of metaphysical participation but by the time you get I don't know 1800 or 1700 or whatever uh this all just kind of disappears and people don't believe this stuff anymore at all. But I want to say that if we're looking across centuries and across like like countries, continents, we can see that there is broad agreement all over the place on these things.

So this is a citation from from Henry Ester Jacobs who's an American Lutheran theologian. This book was written at the end of the 19th century. He lives into the beginning of the 20th. his book, Elements of Religion, he says this, God lives in all that lives and acts in all that acts. All energy comes ultimately from God. All motion is not partly from God and partly from the creature, but the activity of God and the creature are one and the same. Not saying anything different from what St. Thomas Aquinas is saying here.

Then next next quote from the video. Existence itself is pure gift and because of that grace does not compete with nature. What is being outlined in this particular quote is a proposed division or strong distinction between the realm of grace and then the realm of nature. So that in this view of the reformation, the reformation makes these really strong divisions or distinction between grace and nature. So that grace or gift is tied solely to the realm of sotiology or salvation. And so there is this kind of grace realm where God gives his his gifts or his grace for the sake of Christ because of the merit of Christ. And this is then kind of limited to the churchly sphere. This is limited to the word and the sacraments. And then there is this realm of pure nature which functions on a completely different level in a totally different way. And so he what what Austin is saying in this video is that for a toistic view existence itself is a gift. So that it is not merely that which is is saving which is a divine gift but everything even natural abilities natural things the existence itself these are a partaking of God so that God's gift God's being God's activity stands behind these two realms so that they can't totally be divorced of nature and grace so they're not in competition with each other.

Hearing this and then also reading this in various sources is so obviously a mischaracterization of Luther in particular but not just Luther because I mean Luther speaks so often of everything as gift I mean this is even in Luther's small catechism it's everywhere in his writings so I I have a quote that I wanted to highlight here and this is from the introduction to Luther's 1535 Galatians commentary theory and this is in the introduction where Luther is outlining distinct kinds of righteousness and so Luther is making a distinction between this what he calls passive righteousness which is the righteousness of justification where the sinner is justified before God forgiven of of his sins and there is a positive giving of Christ's righteousness as well as a non-abmutation of human sins and in the midst of this discussion Luther outlines these various different kinds of righteousness which he says are all good things. So he doesn't limit the Christian life to purely this passive righteousness and justification. And he talks about civic righteousness in the world and he talks about philosophical righteousness. And in distinguishing all of these things, Luther says when he's talking about this philosophical righteousness, he says that these kinds of righteousness of works, so not just passive righteousness are too are gifts of God as are all the things that we have. And so here was Luther not yes he's distinguishing in some way between these two realms that we live in. Right? We of course have this realm of living with in the midst of other people. We have civil society which does function differently than when we're speaking about the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven, our relation to God. But these are not totally distinct spheres that have no commonality in God. It's not like you have this purely secular sphere of mere nature. Luther is saying that all that is nature is also gift and Luther is is actually critical of the scholastics in in this part of his argument because the scholastics uh speak about things as being pure nature and Luther wants to say it's not not nothing's pure nature because everything is gift. So if anything, Luther even moves in a more extreme direction in this way than someone like Thomas Aquinus does because he's he's nervous about talking about any natural powers because he just wants to say that everything is gift. So I think it's hard to make an argument that Luther was making this very strong or competitive view of nature and grace. It's really just not not the case at all.

Okay, next quote here. And this is something that continues the argument that was just in the prior one. And that is grace doesn't lead us away from who we are. It fulfills who we are meant to be. And so this again is taken from this kind of competitive view of nature and grace as if grace is somehow opposed to nature and that grace moves us in some other kind of realm or functions in some totally different way. Uh so that we're not viewing grace in nature as supplementary realities. And so he's saying in the timistic view there is this well this who we there's a telos to humanity right there's this telos of what what our end is what our purpose is what our goal is what god wants us to be what he created us to be uh and that the through the infusion of grace god leads us toward that particular end. And so grace aids us in fulfilling the purposes of nature. This again is this view of Thomas that's being outlined here is something that is all over the place within the Lutheran tradition as well. So I'm going to cite another author here. This is Paul Vonitson. This is from the introduction to his four books of ethical doctrine written for studious youth. It's not translated into English but it's a it's a really good text. Now Vaniten was a student of Philip Meankton. This was a pretty popular ethical work at this time. And so this is toward the beginning in his introduction where he's kind of outlining he's outlining his terms he's outlining his ideas. And here he's talking about the function of the law which is not purely negative. He says the law reminds us of what human nature originally was what dignity purity and holiness it possessed namely original righteousness in which humanity was created. For h human nature was created in such a state as the law describes and requires complete knowledge of God, full goodness of will and perfect holiness without defect, without harmful desires and evil inclinations, without calamities and without death. The law reminds us of the restoration of the human race. It signifies that we are called back to a state of excellence. For since God gave the law again through nature, he certainly wills that it shall one day be fulfilled. Therefore, it points to the restoration of humanity and the resurrection of the dead to eternal life. And here he's talking about the function of the law. And what he's saying is is that the moral law of God, which is summarized in the Decalogue or the Ten Commandments, are a revelation to us of God's created purpose for human nature. These are the the things that God desires for us to do. And these describe uh the way in which human nature is to be rightly oriented and it was created to be oriented toward these things. So that man's nature naturally in creation through original righteousness simply obeyed the mandates of the divine laws. They didn't even need to be externally iterated. They they well inherent to some degree in human nature. Of course, we do have some kind of a vocal iteration of of the commandments here. uh is God does spec specify that they are not to eat of of the tree. But there's also this imprinting of the law on human nature itself. And so what Voniton is saying is that redemption brings us back in the right direction so that this original righteousness that we are created for now begins to be fulfilled in us. Now, he's going to say this isn't going to be completed until the resurrection. But this process of leading human nature back toward the original state for which it was intended is one that is continuing as a process throughout life. So yeah, grace doesn't lead us away from who we are. It fulfills who we were meant to be, which is exactly what he is saying here.

Uh, now here's another citation and and now I'm going to one from the beginning of the of the 20th century here and this is from River Franklin Widner who's largely summarizing another early a little bit earlier theologian writing who is Erns Erns Ludhart who's a German Lutheran theologian and he's talking about the essence of religion what is religion he says religion has its grounds its cause and its necessity in the very constitution and essence of the human spirit the very existence of man presupposes the religious craving, the seeking after God. God is the deepest need of man, his highest aim, and that for which he is incessantly striving. All the powers of our mind do not find their aim until they find God. Communion with God is the truth of man. Religion is his true life. Without religion, he cannot truly be called man. This is from the the first volume of his system of dogmatics. So what Widner is saying here is that there is something imprinted on the the the very essence of the human soul that is only fulfilled in true religion that is only fulfilled in communion with God. Communion with God is the purpose for which humanity was created. That Henry Esther Jacob says that quite directly and that is the end toward which all the acts of redemption bring us. That's the goal. That's the point. That's the telos is eternal communion with God. The botific vision in grace leads us to what our natural end was always supposed to be in the first place.

So the argument that that Lutheran actually make on this point is often that Roman Catholics have too strong of a separation of nature and grace, which is what's a little bit odd about this critique. So Sartorius, for example, has a book. It's a it's a critique of Roman Catholicism and it's a not a highly pmical critique but uh in this this little book it was the last thing he wrote before he died. He actually never finished it. His son finished it for him or tried to at least. Um, but he identifies this as a core difference between the reformation and Rome that in a Roman Catholic view there is this opposition between nature and grace in that there is a need for the supernatural gifts the infused gifts of faith, hope and love to be added to nature in order for humanity to strive toward that kind of communion with God as he has created to be. And Sartorius is going to argue that actually nature itself has these gifts within it. Now Lutheran theologians are going to say that there are supernatural gifts in Eden as well. So divine indwelling those kind of things are still called supernatural gifts. But we don't want to make such a strong division between nature and super nature. So that they are kind of opposed to one another as if it's not in man's natural created capacity though obviously marred by sin to have faith, hope and love. This is in fact part of man's created capacity naturally in creation. Now that is lost through the fall. It now is only regained by supernatural grace. However, in that edenic state as created, we are created in such a way that nature itself is oriented toward communion with God even without the supernatural gifts though there are supernatural gifts. So I only point that out to say that the critique is pretty odd here because it seems that the critique is the opposite of what I find people criticizing in the 19th century that the argument goes the other way that it's actually Rome who has made too sharp of a distinction between nature and grace rather than the reformation.

Okay, next thing I want to interact with here and this is related to something we already talked about. He says humans can cooperate with God without competing with him in this classical view. And so his argument is going to be that there's no competition between divine willing and human willing. And because of nominalism, these principles are adopted supposedly by the reformation. The human will and divine will are set in competition with one another so that they exist essentially on the same plane. You can divide it out in percentages. you've got a, you know, kind of this 100% work and you can divide the percentages out so that man does certain part, God does a certain part, those kind of things. Um, and so he's saying that well in a toistic approach, there are these different kind of levels of action so that there is cooperation between divine work and human work.

So here's another quote from Johan Gearhart. This is from his on providence. And this is in the volume that's also collected with his on creation as well as on predestination in English. Gearart says in actions that are good in civic terms. So he's talking not just about supernatural actions. He's not just talking about the actions of the regenerate, the fruits of faith. So in actions that are good in civic terms, the providence of God occurs in such a way that it not only sustains the active nature and bestows the power to act, but it also commands, approves, and assists those actions. And so we're talking about good works like the good works that are civically good that might not be works of faith, might not be works of the regenerate. God does not simply approve of them. He does not simply allow them. He does not simply uh you know command them but instead he assists those actions. He he bestows the power to act at all. He assists he is working in and with and through all human actions in the civic realm.

Okay, then part of the argument again is that well for Aquinus God works through secondary causes. Now if you're not familiar with this language of primary and secondary causality essentially is this that uh God is always the primary cause of of actions in the world uh you know in other words nothing occurs without God's activity. So every motion every action in the world every energy in the world all of these things are given by God so that nothing occurs without God's act. So God is the primary cause, the underlying cause, the most foundational cause of every single thing that happens. However, God works through secondary causes most of the time. So God most of the time works through means. He he chooses not to work immediately in the world, but immediately. And so his work is in the realm of grace through the word and sacrament and through ministers. And then in the world of nature, God works through just all natural processes. And so that you know could be scientific laws and processes, material laws, that can be human beings. Uh that can be you know the baker baking bread. That's God's act of feeding somebody else. But he's doing that through the baker. Doesn't mean that the baker is an automaton or a machine. when he bakes bread, but he is one that is moved by the power of God. There is no power to bake without God actively granting that power at all times. And this is just a really weird argument to make as if secondary causality is not a prominent theme in like all reformation post-reformation sources. This is another point where there is uniformity between the Lutheran and the reformed. Now, the reformed always have a lot more variety, I guess, than Lutheran do. They're not quite as unified of a tradition and have never really been. So, you know, I I can't speak to the entirety of the reformed tradition. That's also not really my my area of study. Um, but as far as I've read, everybody talks about secondary causes all the time. I mean, I was as I learned this distinction when I was a Calvinist, and everybody used this distinction all the time. Um, and so this is really isn't even a point of disagreement with anybody, but David Holllets says this. Now David Hollotsz if you're not familiar he is regarded as the kind of last of the great figures of Lutheran orthodoxy in that the 17th century so he lives into the beginning of the 18th century very influential writer at the time he says this concurrence or the cooperation of God is the act of divine providence whereby God by a general and immediate influence proportion to the need and capacity of every creature graciously takes part with second causes in their actions. And so this is what's called the doctrine of concurrence. And if if you look at the sources of Lutheran Orthodoxy, they they categorize concurrence as an element of divine providence. And they have all sorts of other things that are discussed there. But concurrence in particular is relevant to this. So concurrence is the doctrinal name, the title that is used to talk about the action of God, the primary causality of God in all actions. And this is not just in good actions, by the way. This is also in evil acts. And so the Lutheran Orthodox have extensive discussions of how it is that God concurs in evil actions because generally it's argued that well nothing can act apart from God. And so no act exists uh solely by by the creature. Creatures are only secondary causes and always secondary causes and not primary. So therefore, God must somehow act in evil actions. And this this leads in all sorts of directions I don't want to get into here, but I just bring that up to say that this is how important this notion of secondary and primary causality was for theologians of this era.

Now, here is then another quote from the video related to this. He says, "God's presence in this classical view is mediated through everything that exists." And so if it is the case that God works through secondary causes and is always the primary cause of all things that happen, this also means that God's presence and activity is present within the world as a whole. You hear people talk about like re-enchantment today as if this has nothing to do with just what were traditional Protestant views of the world either. But this view says or this this idea that he's outlining here is that God is present in all things right that there is no completely distinct natural order that is totally divorced from the activity of God. No purely secular order or realm so that God is present in everything that happens through all natural processes through all human actions everything that happens includes the causality of God. And so here's a citation from now Hans Martinson, 19th century Danish Lutheran theologian. I'm trying to be broad here in my citations to show that these things are not just in one person. He says this, "As the bird in the air, as the fish in the sea, so do all creatures live and move and have their being in God. God is present in one way in nature, in another way in history, in one way in the church, in another way in the world." And so there is a distinction that Lutheran theologians make when they're talking about the way in which God fills all things, the way in which God is present. And so there is a distinction between the general union of God and the special or gracious union as well as the glorious union. And so this this distinction is outlining the different ways in which all of creation exists in God. So the general union refers to this general reality that all things have their being in God. They they partake in existence because God has gifted it to them and is continuing to gift it to them. That's the general union. Then you have the gracious union which is union with Christ. What is sometimes referred to in the Eastern Orthodox traditions as like theosis, what Lutherans generally talk about as the mystical union. This is the way in which uh the the human being partakes in the divine nature that God is present in this special way changing and transforming human beings who have faith. The baptized then there is the glorious union which refers to the beatotific vision. This is the eternal vision of God the direct vision of God uh where we are united to God in this highest way uh before his heavenly glory and presence.

Then we're going to move there to the second section of this video which addresses the reformation. So we've looked at the claims about what a classical view toistic view of the world is. I've shown how every single thing that's said about a classical domestic view of the world is found all over the place in reformation sources as well. Then we'll talk about specifically uh the the claims about the reformation, how the reformation differed. and Austin goes back to to William of Avakam and William of Acham is a very influential late medieval author um the most famous nominalist and AAM has a significant influence over the academy during Luther's time and Luther has plenty of acquaintance with the writings of William of Acham many of his teachers were were alchemists if you read Luther's treatises against scholastic theology or his treatis against scholastic theology wrote a series of thesis um that is basically just a critique of William of a Gabriel Beal the medieval nominalist Peter Dyley as well and then uh the same thing is true of Luther's hidleberg disputation so when Luther is critiquing the scholastics he almost always means William of Acham in the alchemist school um but there is this this idea that exists and it's broadly in scholarship in the 20th century that Luther was significantly influenced by William this is too complicated to explain here. I'm going to do a whole separate talk on that. I've got a separate talk on William of Acham that's coming out just AAM's thought and Gabriel Beiel's thought who's the most significant alchemist for for Luther and then I'm going to do another talk on nominalism and Luther but a lot to lot to get into there. So um but the argument is Luther basically borrows these ideas from William and then one one of the things that he borrows from William is this idea that there is no metaphysical participation and the other is this kind of competing wheels competing actors idea that we've addressed several times so far.

So what Austin says in his videos, thankfully he says the reformers weren't nominalists per se. So that's good. He does at least acknowledge that they're not explicit nominalists, but he says they did share in AAM's instinct that creation is dependent upon metaphysical machinery that seemed to keep God far from his creatures. Let God speak, act, and save directly. Now, of all of the things that are said in this video, this one seems to me the most obviously false. If you have any acquaintance with the writing of writings of Luther especially. So, as I've already said, there really is no distinction in terms of metaphysical machinery if you're talking about how it is that God operates in the world. Primary and secondary causality, participation. I don't know of any distinct strong divide between the Roman Catholic theologians after the reformation and the Lutheran theologians after the reformation. Uh I don't know about the reformed. Somebody else can speak to that. Um, but as far as I have seen, I don't think the reformed really differ either. Though I know there are some different strains of thought. Zwingley seems to be a bit more aligned with some of the alchemist views than than Luther was. But this is just not true. Like I don't I don't know what what is so distinct metaphysically in terms of God's relation to the world between these two approaches. So I'd love to hear what that is because I I have never encountered anything that seems a clear distinction on this particular issue. Um, there there is a distinction maybe on on some particular elements of the way in which God is present. So that say Lutheran have a a different view of how the humanity of Christ relates to uh to its its presence to creation. There is a distinction. You do have a distinction between you know the infused gifts before the fall that kind of thing but I don't know that that's really really speaks to this. So I I don't know what this is. I don't know what's different. I would love to hear because I I don't see it anywhere. I don't see a strong difference. If I read Yuan Gearhard on creation and providence, I read Thomas Aquinus on creation and providence, I see no fundamental distinction between the two of them like at all.

And the last part of this though, this quote is the one that seems so obviously most obviously false. And that is that that there is this distance between God and his creatures. And then there is an argument that says that God must save directly and not in a mediated way. And to this I say maybe if you're talking about the Calvinists, but read Luther against the Anabaptists. I mean Luther is the most uh like tied to the the media, the the mediating work of of the sacraments, the word, the office of the ministry like more than anybody. So someone like William of Akacham does say that that the only real tie between like the means of grace and the giving of grace is pure divine decree. That is absolutely not what Luther thinks. There is no way that Luther thinks then you don't get this strong eucharistic realism and the adamance that Luther has about strong eucharistic realism if you have that view. You just don't get that. And so Luther is so critical of people who claim to receive immediate revelation, who claim to receive grace immediately apart from the the word in the sacraments. This is why he, you know, coins the term the the schwarmai, the, you know, the enthusiasts that he's constantly critiquing. He critiques the enthusiasts much more strongly than he does Rome. I mean, these are the people that he's he's most adamantly opposed to. And this is especially weird because of Luther's christologology because Luther has this such a strong sense of of the the communication between the divine and the created that is so much stronger than you find either among the Calvinists or among Roman Catholics. So that you know as he says that the the divine there is such a participation of the human nature of Christ in the divine through the hypothatic union that the divine attributes work themselves through the human nature. You know, Luther relies on this strong analogy from the the church fathers of fire and iron that the divine nature is like the fire that transforms the iron which is the human nature to be like itself to have its qualities in some way though without eliminating humanity or something like that. And so Luther has such a strong view of the divine presence within the created order. And this is not just in his christologology. This is everywhere. Luther's doctrine of vocation for example is is not a secularizing of the sphere of work. It is making the sphere of work sacred because for Luther there is such a strong tie between the the actions of a human being in the world that God can be seen in everything. And so Luther wants to say that you know the you know say woman who you know milks a cow is an instance of a presence of God serving creation through the cow and providing milk. So that Luther wants to say we don't just see the work of God in the church. In fact all of life is is sacred. This is why you have this move away from the the sacred life being solely placed within the monastic orders because Luther wants to say that all of life is sacred. All of life is holy. Everything that you do is an instance of God working in the world. You you get to be part of divine acts in the world. You get to be what Luther says the the mask of God in the world. So that you know when when you're when the baker is giving bread to somebody, God is feeding the world through the baker. Luther has such a strong sense of divine imminence that it seems like this is exactly the opposite of Luther's view. It's such a weird weird argument to me and I think the argument would go exactly the other way. So also you even see this in the 17th century the critiques of Lutheran was not that they separated nature and grace. The critique was that Lutheran sounded like pantheists and and I don't think that's a fair accusation, but it's an accusation that was made enough that that quenched and kov and hats they all have to respond to the argument because that's the way that Lutheran are perceived because Lutheran are are they're they're so focused on the imminence of God in creation that people start to get worried that that they're doing a little too

much there. They're doing a little too much blending of God and God and and man. Again, I don't think that's the case, but you would never get those accusations if you didn't have this strong tie between God and the work of creation.

There is a reason why Hegel comes out of a German Lutheran background. You know, you you you get Hegel because you you have Lutheranism that has this strong tie between God and nature, grace and nature. Now again, I don't think Hegel is an Orthodox Lutheran, but there is a reason why this happens. Hegelianism comes out of Germany because there is this such a strong sense of the divine and the created working together.

So, if we're talking about re-enchantment, you get this in Luther more than anybody. It's only just a misunderstanding of Luther that you get this. And I think a strong argument can be made that more than any other group—well, besides the Sicinians, because they're just obvious heretics—other than necessities, you know, of of any group that kind of starts the ball rolling in terms of this strong sacred secular divide where where there's this realm of pure nature and this little realm of grace that's here in terms of supernatural revelation, you get it in the French Jesuits more than anyone else. No, not all the Jesuits obviously, but if you want to have somebody to blame, you got it way more present there and earlier than you find it anywhere else in Europe.

All right. Okay.

Um, so next quote I want to interact with here, and that is the nature of grace and how grace is is understood in the Reformation versus how grace is understood in in a more classical view. And he says, "Grace becomes less transforming presence and more divine declaration that breaks in from the outside."

And so this is pretty a pretty typical argument which essentially says that, well, the Reformation made grace a purely legal matter, and there is really nothing transformative about grace anymore. So that there is this kind of distance between God and man in the work of salvation. It's this distant judge just kind of declaring somebody innocent, and everything is just subsumed into like rel like external relational or legal categories, not personal categories, not transformative, metaphysical, ontological, participatory categories that all kind of goes away.

Now, a couple things to to say to that. One is that, yes, it is true that grace is defined in the Reformation as the favor of God. However, that does not mean that that is the entirety of the work that God does in with his people.

There's a distinction that Luther makes in a treatise of his called *Against Latimus*, which is written in 1521. And that is a distinction between grace and gift. And what Luther says here is that we essentially have two problems. One is that we have guilt. We're guilty. We have sin. We're cut off from God because of our guilt. The other problem is that we have original sin which affects our nature. And he's going to say that God fixes both of these problems, but he does them in different ways. And so we have to make a distinction between these two things.

And the way that he uses the distinction here in this treatise—and there are different ways, sometimes it's the two kinds of righteousness; um, sometimes there's a distinction between grace is the favor of God and then a kind of infused grace into the soul that some later Lutheran make—but whatever words you want to use here in this one, he's this particular work. He says, "A righteous and faithful man doubtless has both grace and gift. Grace makes him wholly pleasing so that his person is wholly accepted and there is no place for wrath in him anymore. But the gift heals from sin and from all his corruption of body and soul."

And so there is no denial of God's gracious transformative presence, but there's a distinction that's made between God's favor and the gracious presence of God. Just to point out again, when you start to read more of the era of Lutheran Orthodoxy, the Roman Catholic arguments against Lutheran at this time are often saying that the Lutheran overemphasize the presence of God within his people because we didn't only speak about the presence of purely created gifts within nature, but of of uncreated gifts. And this leads to concerns of pantheism and things like that. So the Roman Catholics of this time, though they critiqued the forensic doctrine of justification, didn't actually hold to the position that's being held now about what the reformers actually taught.

Um, and here's just something I want to I want to point out here because Luther uses this term *extranos* all the time: "outside of us." And it's a very famous phrase, great phrase, that salvation is outside of us. And sometimes, though, I've heard true caricatures, particularly like anti-Wright has a caricature of this and what Luther's doing here, where the *extranos* principle essentially says that in salvation Christ remains totally apart from us and he always remains distant, and there's just a kind of legal verdict that's passed around in a courtroom. Wright says, "Righteousness is not a substance or a gas that can be passed around in a courtroom." Such, I don't know what the gas analogy is about. It's kind of a weird one.

But for Luther, that's that's not what he's talking about. Yes, there's a forensic declaration that that the root of salvation is obviously outside of us, that it's dependent upon Christ and his work, not in any way in mine. But that also doesn't mean that Jesus himself is not also present within me, and that his righteousness doesn't also inher in being transform me in some way too. These realities are both true.

So Luther counters an argument. This is in his disputation on justification, and he's he's responding to this argument which says, "The righteousness of Christ which justifies us is within us and is our own. Therefore, it is not foreign to us or outside of us." So he's he's countering the argument that says, "Well, righteousness can't be *extinos* because we Christ righteousness also is in us and and belongs to us too."

And this is what Luther says here. He says, "The phrase *extranos* is grammatical. To be outside of us means not to be of our own powers. Righteousness is our possession to be sure, since it was given out of his mercy. Nevertheless, it is foreign to us because we have not merited it."

And so Luther is explicit here that what he's not saying is that somehow it all Christ remains totally apart from us all the time. And there's this very strong doctrine of union with Christ all over the place within Luther's thought.

Okay. Then the the next part of this argument says that participation gave way to legal pardon. So the argument is that we we moved from a participatory view of salvation to a purely legal view or forensic view of salvation. And the argument that I have always consistently made is that there is no reason at all to divorce these things. There's no reason to think that we we have to choose between a forensic salvation or a participatory salvation. These are both realities.

And here's what's so weird to me is these realities are recognized throughout the medieval tradition too. This, it's not like the reformers are the first ones to introduce legal categories. I mean, St. Paul speaks about the canceling of a record of debt that stands against us. You know, that's not a participatory category. And and sell me in satisfaction languages all over the place in the medieval church. You going to tell me that ideas of things like the transfer of merit and the treasury of merit are not forensic or legal categories? Of course they are. Or satisfaction in the atonement. I mean, Thomas is all about this.

So the participatory and the forensic, they they've never been pitted against each other like they are in a lot of modern pimics. They're they're all part of the tradition, and they're part of the tradition of the Eastern Church too, but that's another discussion. So, we don't need to pit these things against each other. It's very silly to say, "Well, because it's we got forensic stuff, we don't have participatory stuff." Well, you had both. I mean, go back to Tertullian. There's a lot of legal stuff there. But that doesn't mean that there isn't also participatory language. Athanasia seems to tie both together pretty strongly in in his, you know, the first work ever written on the incarnation.

So, um, we don't have to pick and choose, but [snorts] just to demonstrate that that Lutheran are, um, not opposed to language of participation. I've got a book on it, by the way, which is called *Union with Christ, Salvation as Participation*. So, I care about this issue a lot.

Um, here's a quote quote from Erns Sartorius, 19th century German Lutheran author. In his book, *Doctrine of Divine Love*, which I we published at our publishing house, it is translated into English. Sartorius says about justification—and he's dealing with this kind of view of justification which would be pure purely forensic, totally divorced from anything, you know, relation or ontological—he says, "Certainly justification, inasmuch as it abolishes in virtue of the divine grace and love the imputation or guilt of sin and imputes to us the merits of Christ's righteousness, is a verdict of God's grace which, however, like the verdicts of conscience, penetrates into the heart. But it is at the same time also an operation of God's grace which pervades and fills the soul with the love wherewith it is loved by the grace of God, an operation of the Holy Spirit who bears witness to our spirit that we are called children of God."

And so Sartorius here is is just saying, yes, it's forensic, yes, there's an imputation and an imputation of sin, but it also transforms us. It transforms us. We have peace of conscience through this. This truth of justification penetrates into our hearts so that God operates by his grace in our hearts too. It language of pervade pervades and fills the soul with with love. And so this isn't purely extrinsic, totally divorced from participation in in God. That's not the case at all.

Um, okay, next point here I want to respond to is Austin says that union with Christ in a Reformation context—he specifically mentions Luther and Calvin, so he's not talking about just Calvin—he says that this vioen with Christ didn't change us on the most fundamental level. And so he's saying that union with Christ for a pre-Reformation church was a reality of transformation by the divine presence, participation in God in some way. And in the Reformation, there is then this this shift so that union with Christ is a purely relational category. I am united to Christ insofar as his benefits become mine or or imputed to me.

Now, this is, I I think it's very hard to make this argument in Luther. This argument, this isn't how Luther was ever read, I mean, until Albert Ritual. So Ritual in the 19th century changes the way that people are reading Luther because he's opposed to metaphysical participation altogether and then reads it into Luther. And, um, there's a a group of scholars in Finland in the 1970s that started writing about this issue, critiquing Ritual's interpretation of Luther that's referred to now as the Finnish interpretation of Luther. Um, some very helpful work there. Don't agree with all the conclusions because they push against forensic justification in Luther, which I think is just very hard argument to make in Luther.

Um, and I just say there's no reason to pit forensic and participatory against each other. They're they're just both present in scripture, and they're both present in the tradition of the church, and they're both present in Luther too and in the Lutheran confession. So there's no reason to take one or the other. Um, but if you want to see some work on Luther's view of this, but read his 1535 Galatians commentary. I think that book in particular is that's one of his later works. Union with Christ is everywhere. It's all over the place. And union with Christ is so tied to Christ's presence and presence in the soul. This shows up in back in say 1518. Luther gives his sermon on the two kinds of righteousness, and in that sermon Luther speaks about passive righteousness, which we would usually think of as forensic because that's how Luther later in life and then certainly Milen speaks about this passive righteousness, but he says that the passive righteousness of Christ grows in us. Luther is so participatory that his doctrine of justification in that early Reformation era seems to be much more participatory than it really is forensic at all. I think Luther's actually moved toward a more forensic view, um, as probably through melenan as as time goes on, but I don't think he ever gets rid of the the participatory elements there.

[snorts] Okay.

Uh, here's a citation from David Holats again on this talking about the mystical union. He says, "Two elements therefore belong to the form of the mystical union: one, true and real closeness or proximity through the approach of the divine substance to the believer, whereby the triune God comes to us and makes his dwelling with with us. This is not merely a distant operation without the nearness of God, but rather a closer approach or coming so that he may be in us and remain with us." John 14:23. "Two, gracious energy or action whereby God comes to us and dwells in us, filling us with the fullness of divine wisdom, holiness, power, and other divine gifts." Ephesians 3:18. "This also implies a mystical abiding whereby God is truly in us and remains through grace, while we are truly in God, adhering to him through trust so that nothing can separate us who rely on God through faith from him." Romans 8:38. Uh, very clear quote from from David Hollands.

Now, I would point out if you look at the like the mystical writings or the devotional writings, which I'm calling mystical writings of the Lutheran church, this is this is present more than it is in dogmatic writings. So if you read Gearhart's *Sacred Meditations* or Johan Arn's *True Christianity*, which was by far the most popular devotional work read by leoty in not just in the 17th century, but like in the history of the Lutheran church, which really formed a lot of people's piety, it's very reliant on on medieval mysticism and the language of participatory union. Like that's the whole theme of the text, and it's multi volumes like that. And so you find this in Hinrich Mueller, for example, he's got a lot of this language as well. So it's all over the place within within our writings.

So then Austin says, "Okay, well, the reformers did have sacramental instincts." He says, "Okay, well, they had some sac, so there's some some good stuff, but it was just kind of, you know, hold over some instincts that were right." And I said to, to just think that Luther had sacramental instincts is such a misread of Luther. I mean, he didn't just have sacramental instincts. His whole theology was formed sacramentally. It's not, that's the whole system. It's a whole thing. Everything is sacramental for Luther. Everything is sharing in in Christ and Christ's presence through his humanity. Everything. And so, it's not just instincts, but that's it's it's the way that he thinks theologically.

Okay. Then he says, "In the centuries to come, the heirs of the reformers increasingly saw salvation as legal and external rather than transformative and internal." And so then we have this we have this move from this transformative or participatory language toward a pure forensic extrinsicism.

Okay. Now on this point, um, I want to say two things. One, it's really not true when you look at the 17th century or the 19th century. The 18th century is a little bit more difficult in a lot of ways because a lot of weird things are happening in in the 18th century. Unfortunately, rationalism, uh, wolfianism in particular within Germany, really kind of overtakes theology and so and and and does make it more difficult to hold to a participatory view, and that's because of the nature of rationalist philosophy. And the wolfians are the real problem here, not not the Lutheran Orthodox, the wolfians. And wolfians are largely influenced by Deart. That's a whole other discussion. And I've actually got like three different talks that I, four different talks I think, that I'm doing on that as well. A couple of those are already recorded, if you want a history of what of exactly what happens there.

So that does happen, but it's not a consequence of of Reformation theology. It's a con consequence of a lot of philosophical things that are happening that aren't just happening in in Reformation circles. They're happening all over the place. Um, but then by the time you get to the 19th century, you you have tons of participatory language again in the 20th century. Unfortunately, among Lutheran after about 1930, it starts to really dissipate, and unfortunately until you get the Finns in the 70s now talking about this stuff again. So so there is a there is a problem right there. There is a problem that's gone on in the last hundred years or so in terms of the loss of this participatory language. So this isn't totally mistaken here. What I'm trying to say though is that that loss is not inherent to the Reformation. It's a departure from the Reformation. That's not that's not consistent. And it is still the case that the majority of those theologians who are within the orthodox stream still hold to a strongly participatory sotiology. So you do get these eras or times or or theologians or movements that that are not that way, but you get them in Rome too. Um, unfortunately that that there are bad movements everywhere and bad time periods everywhere, and people depart from their consistent theology.

Once again, I want to revisit another quote, uh, idea that we've already seen, that is, divine willing and human willing are set in competition to one another rather than working on distinct hierarchical levels. And this idea shows up a lot. This is one I saw part of an interview with with Matthew Thomas on this on Gospel Simplicity channel, which is very frustrating because he was just flat out completely wrong. And unfortunately, he's this idea has spread a lot on on the internet, which is frustrating because Matthew Thomas is one who, you know, supposedly works in the history of the doctrine of justification, should have some idea of this kind of if he's going to make these broad sweeping claims about it.

So, Gearard says on his book on providence, again, just to correct this once again if it wasn't obvious, "Now, after we are reborn by the Holy Spirit, we are driven in such a way that we also act, that is, one's will cooperates synergy through powers that are not of nature but are given by the grace of the Holy Spirit, and it is an active or cooperative instrument." And so when we're talking about Christian sanctification, good works, the Christian life, the the divine work and the human work are not in opposition to one another. We're not, they're not competing. They're not, it's not a matter of percentages. But as God acts in the believer, so does the believer also act. These are not competitive forces.

Uh, here's an quote from Hinrich Schmidt in his *Doctrinal Theology of the Evangelical Lutheran Church*, 19th century author summarizing the Orthodox theology of the 17th century. He says, "In all transactions therefore that proceed from the creature, the creature itself is just as much a cause as God is. He on the other hand is always to be regarded as cooperations. Every change, effect, and transaction that occurs is accordingly to be referred at the same time to both, to the creature and to God." And so there's no competition between the actions of the creature and the actions of God. It's fully God's act and fully the human act. Uh, and the relation is one of primary and secondary causality that Schmid then demonstrates through some quotes that he has after this.

Uh, okay. Um, then I'm almost done here. Two more things I want to respond to. Next is that this idea of cooperation that I've talked about between divine will and human will, these things not being competitive. Um, then, uh, this this narrative of what Protestantism does in terms of will then also leads to an argument that says, "Well, this is exactly why the reformers needed solatia. This is why they need justification through faith alone," because this has set up an opposition between God's work and human work. Therefore, uh, if there's an opposition, we need to say that salvation is God's work and not human work. And that is where this idea comes from that we need to be saved through grace alone. Uh, and so, you know, for the reformers to give a role to man in salvation is to somehow take away something from Christ.

Uh, and then the quote from the video is the Reformation approach: "Salvation is a work of God. Therefore, it is not a work of man." Because it can't be both. They can't. And as I've shown, the Lutheran theologians all clearly say when you're talking about sanctification, it can be both. It is indeed both. Um, if you want to just say that use this narrative to just say, "Well, because the work of God can also be the work of man, we don't need to set faith and works against each other," or say like, "Well, if it is if it is of grace, then no longer of works." Oh, whoa, wait. I just quoted St. Paul. Like, what what is this argument going to do? The argument, if you push it too far, it's just going to push you against St. Paul. Like the distinction between faith and works, and "if it is of grace, it is not of works," is literally just Paul. Like, it's a quote from the Bible. I I don't really understand this. And you if you're going to use this argument, you can push against Aquinas, you can push against Augustine. Like this this is all over at Augustine in his antipolagian writings. Like, I I don't really understand what what is trying to be proved here. This this doesn't support orthodox theology. I mean, it it just it's a weird it's a weird thing. I I just don't really get this.

Um, so like we have to make an opposition between it being of grace or it being of works because scripture does it a bunch of times, and like the entire history of the church does this. Um, yeah. I mean, you even have like the treatis in the Philippia that talks about the, um, you know, those who think we are justified by works. Like this is east and west. This distinction is all over because it's in Paul. So I I don't really understand what's going on here.

Okay. Um, one last thing. And I think this is so weird because at the end of this video, uh, Austin is talking about the kind of recovery, re-enchantment, or whatever this stuff. I'm sorry. I'm sick of the re-enchantment stuff. [laughter] I just, I I really am. It's just so full of false history. Like the whole thing, it's just it's just based on a complete, uh, intellectual fabrication. It's just it just is. And and I don't care that really smart people said it. I don't really care that a bunch of good scholars push this stuff. It's just it's the history is just false. It's patently false. And it's kind of embarrassing that so many people who are great scholars and thinkers otherwise have just continued to push these just blatantly false narratives, uh, that that can only exist if you've never read anything in the 17th century, like anything.

Okay. Um, yeah, I'm being [clears throat] blunt. All right.

Um, this is at the end of the video. He's talking about, you know, Baltazar and Lubach and others who, you know, they have great things to say. I'm not, I don't dislike these theologians at all. Um, but but this is what's this what's what's frustrating is the way that this stuff is presented here. Um, so that they, uh, began a movement to, you know, they reimagined grace not as a ladder from nature to heaven, but as heaven descending into nature through Christ's humanity. Now, when I hear that, I say that is literally Luther's theology. Like, just like [laughter] if I was going to give you a one-s sentence summary of Luther's theology, I think that's what I'd say. So like it's it's frustrating because people just read caricatures, or they they like read Luther through Boltman or Albert Ritual. Like they just ignore the whole tradition and and Luther himself. Like, how would you not get this? So it's so weird that this is set in opposition. Like, this is the solution. Protestantism, Luther caused all the problems in the world, right? Of course Luther's to blame for everything. Um, and then you get the conclusion of the way to fix the problem with Luther, and it's Luther. Like, what are you doing?

I I just, I know I'm getting animated here, but this, the more I've more time I've spent in these these older sources—and this just been what I've been doing recently because of my my project on ethics that I'm I'm working on a book on ethics right now—and as I'm reading through all of these sources, I am just getting so so frustrated, and maybe it's I'm just getting irrationally angry when I come across this stuff now. Um, because like it's one thing to debate the interpretation of a theologian, right? Debate your interpretations of Luther, but when you're making claims that like the entire Protestant tradition doesn't do this, when like a quick look on the post-Reformation digital library will show you that actually there are a hundred books written within 50 years that all say this. Like, like this is not misreading of a text. This just is ignoring like the vast swaths of literature that exist. You know, it's like if I were to just make some like ridiculously false claim, like if I were to say that, "Well, there were no toists in the 17th century." Like, it's false because you could just be like, "You're a treatises by a bunch of like what are you doing?" Um, it it's that false. It's that ridiculous.

So, uh, there we go. There's my [laughter] my my rant for today. So, uh, share this around. Like, really, of all the videos that I do, um, I I don't tell you to share my videos around a lot. Uh, I don't tell you to send them to other people. Um, some of you do, and I appreciate that, but, you know, this this this just needs to die. Uh, this narrative needs to die. It's false. It's false. Uh, it it is demonstrably false. It's not even arguable. It's false, and I hope more people come come to see that.

So, like I said, I do want to delve into the Lutheran nominalism question. That one's a bit more complicated. So, and I don't think Luther is a nominalist, but I want to look through some of the literature on the issue and and talk about it a bit. So, uh, but but Lu the question of Luther is also not the question of the whole Reformation. So, regardless, but hope you found this useful. Make sure you subscribe on YouTube and your podcast app, and we'll see you in the next video. God bless.