Augustine and Luther’s Justification: Why they had

St. Augustine of Hippo and Martin Luther were both Christians, and their Christian beliefs influenced their political philosophies. They both submitted to Christ as their Lord, and they both confessed that all Christians share in membership in the one true Church; however, their views on the secular government were different in important ways. In order for the differences in Augustine’s and Luther’s views on the secular government to be clear, their views on the Church should be clarified. We must also understand what they meant by the distinction between the visible and invisible Church. The visible Church is the Church that we can see. It is any place on earth for people to worship where the gospel is preached, people are baptized, and Christians eat and drink Christ’s body and blood in communion with each other at the Lord’s Supper. The invisible Church is the Church no one but God can see. It simply consists of all believers in Christ with no physical organization of worship. Augustine called the invisible Church the city of God, and Luther called it the Kingdom of God. In order to know how Augustine and Luther viewed the visible Church, we must examine how they viewed the invisible Church by analyzing how they viewed their own personal relationships with Christian doctrine. This is done by clarifying their views on subjective justification, which is the act of an individual sinner being made (according to Augustine) or declared (according to Luther) righteous by God’s grace through Christ before God. The differences between Augustine and Luther with respect to both the roles of the visible Church in society and the roles of secular government in society depend upon their different understandings of subjective justification.
Subjective justification played a role in Augustine and Luther’s views of eschatology, the theological doctrine that deals with the end result of all doctrine, or the final good. Both Augustine and Luther viewed heaven as the ultimate goal for every Christian, so justification was the most important doctrine since it makes one righteous enough to get to heaven. Although Augustine and Luther shared the view that God’s Church is ruled by Christ, and each Christian is subjectively justified by grace through faith in Christ, their views on the subjective justification of a sinner were in contrast. In turn, their differing views on the subjective justification of sinners caused them to have contrasting views of the roles of the visible Church. Augustine viewed the visible Church as having certain secular responsibilities. In contrast, Luther viewed the roles of the visible Church as strictly concerning the Church, staying out of secular responsibilities. In order to understand why Augustine viewed the visible Church as having certain secular authorities, Augustine’s belief in his own subjective justification should be described. Luther’s understanding of his own subjective justification must be described as well so that his view of the Church in relation to the secular government may be made clearer.
In my paper I will first establish Augustine and Luther as political theologians, showing the importance of knowing their theology so that their political philosophies are clarified. After this, each of their historical biographies must be explained with respect to their theology in order to obtain a comprehensible understanding of each of their political theories. This will lead me to my next discussion, in which both of their theories of subjective justification will be presented, emphasizing their contrasts and incorporating their theories of subjective justification into their doctrine of eschatology and their views of the final good. What they each view as the final good will elucidate what is most important to each of them. Both Augustine and Luther viewed Christ’s eternal Church in heaven as the most important goal for a Christian; however, the way they looked at their subjective relationships with Christian doctrine differed from one another. In order to underline Augustine’s and Luther’s views of the individual Christian’s life and role in society, the doctrine of subjective justification must continue to be included into their views of the invisible Church,. In order to make clear Augustine and Luther’s views of the individual Christian’s role in society, I will explain how each was subjectively justified. Particularly, I will discuss the influences that eventually brought Augustine to the Christian faith, studying the Platonists and neo-Platonists. The individual Christian’s role in society reflects the visible Church’s role in society. I will then connect their views of the individual Christian to the invisible Church. Here, Augustine’s concept of the city of God and Luther’s concept of the kingdom of God must both be explicated. By discussing their theories of the invisible Church, I will be able to clarify their theories of the visible Church. Finally, from explaining this, I will show the connections to the secular government. By discussing what each Augustine and Luther believed to be the role of the secular government, Augustine’s city of man and Luther’s worldly kingdom will be made clear. In order to narrow down the key differences of Augustine and Luther, their similarities must be elucidated. By doing all of this, it will be established that since Augustine and Luther had differing views on subjective justification before God, they ended with different respect for the secular government.
St. Augustine and Martin Luther both depended on their doctrines of justification in reaching their conclusions about the end times and the roles of the secular authorities. Their similarities on justification caused them to have the same view of the end of the physical world; however, their differences in justification caused them to understand the city of man or the worldly kingdom in different ways. Augustine and Luther were both considered political theologians. Identifying their roles as political theologians and discussing their differences will help clarify their specific views on the secular authorities with respect to their views on justification.
Living as Political Theologians
So that there may be an understanding of the necessity of discussing Augustine and Luther’s theology in order to discuss their political theories, Augustine and Luther must be acknowledged as political theologians. According to Heinrich Meier (2002), political theology is the way in which thinkers use their theological beliefs to construct their political thoughts. Political theologians look at politics with respect to their theology (85). Augustine and Luther would have both claimed to agree with the apostle Paul as a respected father of the Church, and Paul is also portrayed as a political theologian; he used his belief in the obedience to God for reasons to obey the secular authorities in his epistle to the Romans (83). Being men who studied theology, looking at the things of this world with respect to Christian doctrine as the apostle Paul did, Luther and Augustine were also, according to Meier (2002), political theologians. They believed that God is the source of all authority in heaven and on earth, and since they meditated on God, they found themselves addressing the authorities that God had given on earth. One of these authorities is the secular government. Augustine and Luther both faced the inevitability of dealing with political theory when they discussed Christian theology. They were both concerned with God’s Church, and their relations with the Church prevented them from ignoring the Church’s relationship to the secular governments. Since theology caused these two thinkers to address the roles of the secular government, the ways they understood the roles of the secular government were influenced by their considerations of theology.
For the discussion of Augustine and Luther as political theologians to continue, they must both be examined biographically, pointing out key influences to their theology and thus, their politics. Augustine lived in the fourth and fifth centuries, not long after the reign of Constantine I, the first Christian Roman emperor who ended the persecution of the Christians, establishing Christianity as the official religion of Rome. As he was educated in North Africa, Augustine rejected his mother’s pleas for him to convert to Christianity. He wasn’t converted to Christianity until he was in his thirties, baptized by St. Ambrose. His troubles and sinfulness from his childhood to his adulthood are described in his Confessions.[i] Luther grew up as a Romans Catholic in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries in what was then called the Holy Roman Empire. His father sent him off to Latin school when he was five in hopes that he would someday become a lawyer, but when Luther was in law school, he made a vow to St. Anna during a thunderstorm to become a monk since he thought that God was angry with him. His studies of scripture caused him to view scripture as the only infallible source of doctrine.
The formation of Augustine’s theology was influenced by his studies in philosophy, and the doctrine he developed helped influence his political philosophy. Thomas Wassmer (1960) explains that Augustine learned the concept of the Trinity from Plotinus, the father of Neo-Platonism, and from Plato. Augustine formed his theology from studying philosophy, namely the philosophy of Plotinus, from which he learned that God is spirit, rejecting his belief in the Manicheans who denied God as spirit, and accepting three persons in one God. After being driven to Christianity through the studies of the Neo-Platonists, given to him by St. Ambrose, he started to form his theology. This philosophy of the Neo-Platonists and Platonists may be described as mysticism since they strive to focus away from the physical world, viewing everything as not fully real, but only real in so far as they come from the spiritual high power (Wassmer 267). Although Augustine rejected much of what the Neo-Platonists and Platonists believed, namely that they did not rightly worship God Himself, but rather paid divine honor to other things but God, he condoned their valuation of the spiritual as higher than the worldly things.[ii] This doctrine is roots from Plato’s theory of the forms.[iii] The theory of the forms claimed that everything physical is the product of a higher good, and the higher good is the only thing that is truly real. Augustine incorporated this Neo-Platonic and Platonic philosophy of the physical world into his theology. As he wrote in his Confessions, “And I viewed all the other things that are beneath you, and I realized that they are neither wholly real nor wholly unreal. They are real in so far as they come from you; but they are unreal in so far as they are not what you are.”[iv] Here, Augustine, when speaking to God, spoke similarly to the Neo-Platonists and Platonists that every physical thing is not fully real, but it is only real in so far as it comes from the spiritual, namely God.
Just as Augustine believed that only God is fully real, he believed that only God is fully just. Augustine believed that man is made righteous by God’s grace through a process. It is not until he is eventually as humble as Christ, through a process of subjective justification, before he has become fully righteous. Augustine expressed his process in which he wasn’t humble enough in his Confessions: “And, as yet, I was not humble enough to hold the humble Jesus; nor did I understand what lesson his weakness was meant to teach us.”[v] Augustine suggested here that he would be humble enough in due time. Although, for Augustine, man could not inherit heaven without God’s grace, his good works still played a part in Augustine’s understanding of this process of subjective justification.
In forming his theology, Augustine formed his politics (Wassmer 1960, 266). As Sheldon Garrett Ward (1988) discusses, Augustine viewed the Church as a higher authority than the secular authorities. This was because he believed that this justification by God eventually made the members of the Church fully justified, and just according to God’s law (78). Being just in the sight of the law would allow Christians to be just handlers of the law in the governments, and I will discuss this in greater detail later. Alister McGrath (1986) presents Augustine’s subjective justification as a process as well, and this view of subjective justification carried on throughout the Roman Catholic Church after Augustine’s death, as the Church’s role in secular government grew. The Church’s increasing roles in secular matters caused Luther to experience the result of Augustine’s doctrine of the Church and state.
Although Luther attempted to present Augustine as in agreement with him on the doctrine of justification, he still opposed the roles of the Church in the secular government (McGrath 25-27, 29). An overview of Luther’s life as a Catholic, modulating to his rejection of papal authority, will explain how Luther opposed the roles of the Church in the secular government. Grisar Hartmann (1960) gives an historical account of Luther’s life and works. Luther was raised Catholic, born on November 10, 1483 in Eisleben, Germany to John Luther. The day after his birth, the name Martin was given to him in his baptism since it was the feast of St. Martin; so from Luther’s birth, he was involved in the ceremonies of the Church. Luther’s father hoped for him to become a lawyer. As he studied law, the thoughts of becoming a monk would periodically occur to Luther, but it wasn’t until July 2, 1505, when young Luther was returning from a visit to his parents, a terrible thunderstorm arose, and Luther believed that God was angry at him. He fell down, promising to St. Anna that if she saved him from God’s wrath, he would become a monk; Luther was quite afraid of the law and wrath of God, living in constant fear that God would punish him for breaking divine law. He stayed true to his promise, and two weeks later, at the age of twenty-two, Luther entered into the monastery. Luther eventually became a professor in Wittenberg, giving his first lectures in the years of 1513 to 1515. In his early years of studying and teaching, mysticism played a role in Luther’s theology. By following such mystic theologians as John Tauler of the fourteenth century, Luther believed that his internal fears could be dismissed by a calm engagement into the spiritual Godhead (Hartmann 59). This view of mysticism that man links himself with God eventually was overcome by Luther’s studies of scripture and the belief that scripture holds the absolute authority over doctrine (McGrath 1988, 104).
As Luther continued to study scripture, mainly the Book of Romans, he came to the conclusion that man is not free to do good works, but rather all his efforts to do good works are sinful (Hartmann 1960, 73). Hartmann (1960) argues that Luther and Augustine were “poles apart” concerning the issues of justification and the roles of the Church, and although Luther constantly attempted to portray his writings as in agreement with Augustine’s, Luther didn’t believe that man, even with divine aid, could fulfill the law and be made just. Luther wanted to believe that Augustine confessed the same justification as he did since Augustine was such a well-respected doctor of the Church. Luther’s confession could not be the same as Augustine’s since Augustine believed that man must be called by God’s grace in baptism and declared righteous for Christ’s sake, attributing no credit or merit to man’s work even with God’s grace (78). Luther’s rejection of Catholic doctrine depended on the debate of subjective justification; Luther and the reformers argued for forensic justification, which is the concept that God declares the Christian righteous, giving him Christ’s righteousness. Luther would depend solely on Christ’s righteousness: “There is no quality in my heart at all; call it either faith or charity. Instead of these, I set Christ Himself before me and say, ‘There is my righteousness.’”[vi] Here, Luther emphasized that there is nothing good that he does that makes him holy. As Alister McGrath (1988) discusses, Luther believed the righteousness is an alien righteousness outside of man, and that alien righteousness is Christ (83-84). Therefore, instead of taking on the mystic belief that man must link himself to the spiritual God, eventually obtaining God’s righteousness, Luther relied on Christ fully imputing His righteousness on the sinner, declaring the sinner righteous. This, Luther believed, was done when the Holy Ghost washes the sinner clean in baptism, causing the sinner to repent of his sins. He relied on the words from Paul in his letter to the Galatians: “For all of you who were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.”[vii] By putting on Christ, the Christian has been covered by Christ and His righteousness.
Both Augustine and Luther confessed that only Christ’s righteousness is truly righteous and just; however their understandings on how man is subjectively justified according to Christ’s righteousness differed. In order to better understand their contrasting views of the Church in relation to political rule, their understandings of subjective justification must be discussed.
As was discussed earlier, Luther believed that Christ’s righteousness is the Christian’s righteousness; however, Augustine believed that by imitating Christ, we are eventually righteous enough for God. Augustine viewed Christ as a link to the Father. The more we worship Christ and trust in Him, the more we become like Him. When we are finally in the likeness of Christ, we are in the likeness of God since Christ is God according to Christian doctrine.[viii] Therefore, Augustine believed that through this process of imitating Christ, we eventually become righteous enough and fully justified. In contrast, Luther confessed forensic justification, in which God, as judge, calls the sinner righteous. Instead of being made righteous through a process, as Augustine believed, Luther believed that we are declared righteous in our baptism. Both Augustine and Luther believed that we become righteous by God’s grace through Christ, and we are not capable of working for our salvation; however, Augustine believed that by God’s grace, we imitate Christ until we are fully justified. McGrath (1988) points out that Luther challenged Augustine when he confessed that Christ’s righteousness contradicts human ideas of righteousness; Augustine would have seen them both as working together (75). While Luther viewed Christ as our robe of righteousness that we put on, Augustine understood Christ as our model whom we imitate.

Augustine and Luther incorporated their views on subjective justification into how they would inherit eternal life in heaven. Both Augustine and Luther looked for a final good, and although their views on subjective justification caused them to think differently on how things are to be run until that final good, they both still relied on justification in reaching that final end. The study or doctrine of this final end that Augustine and Luther both look for is called eschatology. Eschatology is the part of doctrine which is concerned with the final end to all doctrine. As Glenn Tinder (1965) points out, Christians have looked for a final coming of Christ since there is no hope for perfection or salvation within our own world (316). So according to Tinder, most Christians have primarily looked forward to a good afterlife rather than a prosperous life on earth. In contrast, certain prosperity gospel preachers, those who preach that the gospel will bring outward and worldly wealth, claim that believing in Christ will result in a successful and prosperous life on earth. George Wolfgang Forell (1969) explains Luther’s view of eschatology. Forell makes clear that justification through Christ, according to Luther, is the central doctrine of the Christian faith. Therefore, when discussing Luther’s view of eschatology, we are keeping in mind that it may never be set apart from the doctrine of justification through Christ. Forell points out that some people have assumed Luther to be looking forward to a good social end since he was also involved in political thinking, but that is only the case if eschatology stands alone without justification (172). Augustine would also connect justification with eschatology; however, the emphasis on justification as the central article of the faith is given more by Luther, whereas Augustine concentrated more upon doctrines that were relevant to his time. For example, he most often argued against the doctrine of man’s free will to accept God without God’s grace (McGrath 25). Tinder argues that Augustine’s view on eschatology resulted from the collapse of the Roman Empire (314); Tinder explains that because of the despair of Rome’s collapse, Augustine was driven to look forward to something better. While Augustine took on any doctrine Christianity that needed to be addressed, such as free will, in order to preserve the Christian theology as a whole, Luther relied particularly on the doctrine of subjective justification as the foundation on which Christian doctrine either stands or falls.

Luther, looking at the trials and tribulations of his own life, was also driven to look forward to something more comforting, and he viewed nothing more comforting than the knowledge that Christ subjectively justified him. Since Luther centered all doctrine, including eschatology, on justification, eschatology looks toward a just life. Because of this, Forell clarifies that Luther’s view of justification was for the sake of being with Christ for all eternity in the kingdom of God, and without justification, we only experience the kingdom of the world (169). Therefore, Luther could not have been seeking a social end in his theology, since his theology, centered on justification, looked toward the kingdom of God rather than the kingdom of the world. If the ending good is of the world, the ending good cannot be good since the world is infested with original sin. Augustine also agreed that the world is infested with original sin, and man can only be justified by God’s grace (McGrath 1986, 25). With this in mind, Forell concludes that eschatology, according to Luther, that looks at anything other than the kingdom of God as its end is looking at an infeasible utopia (171). Augustine and Luther didn’t believe that the world could develop a good social order; however, they each valued the temporal worldly order as only important until Christ’s final coming. Both Augustine and Luther relied on justification to bring them to that better afterlife, namely their final good.

The afterlife for Augustine and Luther was heaven, and they both believed that the invisible Church existed not only on earth for the temporal time earth exists, but also that the invisible Church existed eternally in heaven. The way in which a Christian was a member of the invisible Church, according to both Augustine and Luther, depended on the subjective justification of that member of the invisible Church. In order to understand their contrasting views of the invisible Church, their individual experiences and relationships with Christian doctrine must be examined and discussed. This will clarify their understandings of the visible Church in relation to secular government.

While Luther grew in his studies and understanding of Christian doctrine and Biblical scripture, he became troubled by the sin and helplessness of man. According to McGrath (1988), Luther was troubled by the condition man is in, being so crippled by sin that he cannot fulfill God’s demand for him to be righteous. When he attempted to complete that righteousness as a monk, Luther always questioned himself, never having any certainty. The more Luther tried to cure his uncertainty and his weak conscience by following human traditions, the more he found himself more uncertain of his salvation (72). Luther expressed his uncertainty in a hymn he wrote: “Yeah deep and deeper still I fell; life had become a living hell. So firmly sin possessed me.”[ix] As McGrath (1988) points out, no one truly knows when Luther’s outlook on Christian doctrine changed (74); however, Luther expressed in his autobiography that he always understood the righteousness of God to be the righteousness which judges and condemns him. He grew to hate the righteousness of God even though he tried to live up to it. In fact, this was the very reason why he hated the righteousness of God; he tried so hard to live up to it. According to McGrath (1988), the more he tried to fulfill God’s righteousness, the more he found how far away he was from that righteousness. At last, Luther discovered, through meditation on what the righteousness of God is, that the apostle Paul wrote, “…the righteousness of God is revealed in it, as it is written, the righteous person shall live by faith.”[x] Luther’s understanding of the righteousness of God changed from God’s judgment of sinners to God giving the sinner His righteousness. Luther discovered that God Himself fulfilled His own law when He became a man. He came to the conclusion that Christ gave him His righteousness so that by faith, Luther is looked at by God as righteous (73-74). Although Luther believed that He was declared righteous by God for Christ’s sake, he still believed that he was a sinner; however, through sanctification, namely the life of a Christian in which he grows in faith, the Christian lives under God’s grace and with Christ’s righteousness. Therefore, according to Luther, Christians living on earth are both saints in that they are holy according to faith in Christ, and they are sinners in that they still live with their sinful flesh. Therefore, the Christian life to Luther consists of sinning yet still being forgiven and righteous through faith in Christ.
Although Luther confessed that Christ was his righteousness, Augustine confessed that Christ is our model to follow in order to obtain His righteousness. As discussed above, Augustine was highly influenced by Plotinus, the father of the Neo-Platonists. According to John Dillon (1992), Plotinus believed that the highest power is the Absolute One, and from this Absolute One pours the Intelligence. From this Intelligence comes the World Soul which creates the universe (Dillon 192). This One is also referred to as God. Plotinus believed that the World Soul was the link from the physical to the Intelligible. In order for the physical man to be linked to the Intelligible, he must give up all physical traits and enter into his inward soul, being connected with the World Soul. Through this process of being linked to the World Soul, the physical man is eventually linked to the Absolute One (Dillon 199). Although Augustine denied that Plotinus had as much value as a Christian, Plotinus’s philosophy was a high influence in Augustine’s understanding and relationship with Christian doctrine. Augustine confessed that he needed to give up his physical traits in order to be closer to Christ. Augustine viewed Christ in the same way Plotinus viewed the World Soul. He also viewed the Father similarly to how Plotinus viewed the Absolute One. They both acknowledged either the Father (according to Augustine) or the Absolute One (according to Plotinus) as the sources where from all things that are made flow. Therefore, just as Plotinus believed that connecting to the World Soul links one to the Absolute One, Augustine believed that connecting to Christ links one to the Father. He confessed this in his Confessions: “And being admonished by these books to return into myself, I entered into my inward soul, guided by you.”[xi] Augustine, believing that we must enter our inward souls, giving up those that are physical, in order to be linked to God, showed to be influenced by Plotinus’s philosophy. Augustine believed that man was made righteous by God’s grace through a process of giving up the evil physical things of this world and being connected with Christ. At the end of this process, the Christian is fully justified and able to God to heaven. Since Christ was just according to the law, one who imitates Christ fully would also be just according to the law and therefore fully justified. Since the individual Christian, being fully justified, is just according to the law, every true member of the Church would be just according to the law.
Application of Law and Gospel to the Secular Government
The invisible Church is what only God can see; however, Augustine and Luther both believed that the visible Church was necessary in order for Christians to worship jointly. For both Augustine and Luther, the visible Church is the public worship of Christians, united in the hearing of the word of God being preached. The distinction between the visible and the invisible is important since many appear to be members of the Church in the visible, but only those whom God acknowledges as Christians are members of the invisible. Luther and Augustine differed in their understandings of the visible Church because of their contrasting views on subjective justification. If those who are truly just are just because they have been given Christ’s righteousness, they are justified according to the gospel. If those who are truly just are just because they have imitated Christ, they are justified according to God’s divine law. In order to be just according to God’s divine law, one must also be obedient to the laws of the secular governments since these authorities are given to the governments by God. Therefore, when the secular laws are being kept, God’s divine law is also being kept, so the understanding of being justified according to the law would include the secular laws as well. When distinguishing between Augustine’s and Luther’s considerations of the visible Church with respect to the secular government, the distinction between law and gospel is crucial. The law is what we must do to be good. It is a command. The gospel is what Christ has done for us. It is a message. If the true Christian Church is just according to the command of the law as Augustine believed, then Christians would be the most just rulers in a secular government since the secular government rules with the law. The law is a force that keeps order among society whereas the gospel is a message and a gift, creating spiritual faith in Christ. The gospel does not require people to be outwardly just, rather it tells them that Christ has already been just for us. In Contrast, the law, both divine and secular, requires us to be just. If the true Christian Church is just according to the message of the gospel as Luther believed, then Christians would not necessarily be the most just rulers in a secular government since the secular government does not rule with the gospel. Therefore, Augustine and Luther had contrasting views of the secular governments in relation to the visible Church for the reason that they had different understandings of subjective justification.
Augustine believed that the Church was God’s representative on earth. With the logic that God is the ultimate authority over the entire universe, the Church then should have the highest authority. With the justification of the Church, Augustine viewed it as a process where the members of the Church eventually become righteous and just according to the law (McGrath 1986, 29). Since the Church is righteous, Augustine viewed them as having oversight over the secular authorities (Ward 70). Because of this righteousness of the Church, Augustine believed that the best rulers were those who were Christians, giving the examples of Constantine and Theodosius Augustus.[xii]
The Roman Catholic Church carried through with Augustine’s doctrines (McGrath 1986, 24). This also included the belief that the Church must take on certain secular authorities (Ward 72). Sheldon Wolin (1956) explains that Luther had to deal with the hierarchies of the papacy, eventually rejecting the powers the papacy claimed to hold. By rejecting these powers from the Church, Luther brought the Church back to how it was looked at in the medieval Church. The medieval Church didn’t deal with secular authoritative responsibilities; however, they did expect the secular authorities to protect the Church from heretics (Hillerbrand 2000). From this, the Church eventually took on more secular powers. In contrast, Augustine, as Wolin (2004) points out, didn’t oppose the certain secular powers the Church took on. Instead, he tried more clearly to identify what the roles of the Church and its members were. Luther, on the other hand, viewed that nothing should stand in the way of Christ and the Church (35). For this reason, the Church would hold no secular authority. Thus, Luther simplified the Church, taking away the Church’s secular powers. Wolin calls this Luther’s simplistic imperative. Luther brought the Church back to the local congregations wherein a minister preaches and administers baptism, the Lords Supper, and forgiveness of sins. Luther identified the Church as being visible and invisible; the visible Church being the local congregation, and the invisible Church being all believers in Christ (33). Luther also believed in what he called the “Universal Priesthood of all Believers.” By this, he believed that every Christian has the freedom given by Christ to tell other people about the gospel, therefore setting them in priesthood (32).
By seeing the Church as separate from the secular powers and responsibilities, Luther simplified the Church, making clearer the roles of the secular authorities. Quentin Skinner (1978) shows that since Luther rejected the papacy’s secular powers, there must be an alternative power to use these authorities. Luther gave respect to the secular authorities, according to Skinner (1978), because they needed to be there to take on these responsibilities. Skinner claims that Luther simply viewed the secular authorities as an alternative to carry out the secular roles of the papacy; however, Wolin (1956) points out that Luther always respected the secular authorities, depending on them to preserve order in an imperfect world. Hillerbrand (2000) emphasizes Luther’s rejection of Augustine’s claim that the social orders, coming from God, were inherently good. Luther would instead point out that the world’s order is corrupt, and rather the government authorities are good since they get their authority from God. By demonstrating Luther’s respect for the secular authorities as being given their authority by God, Hillerbrand concurs with Wolin’s claim that Luther always respected the secular authorities. He wasn’t merely giving the secular authorities their authorities because the papacy shouldn’t have them. Luther actually viewed both the kingdom of God and the worldly kingdom as having specific roles and authorities. Robert Murray (1960) states that Luther relied on the New Testament to justify his views of the Church and the secular authorities. Luther cited Romans XII on obeying the government, and as Wolin (1956) points out, he also cited Christ’s words to Pontius Pilot, “You would have no authority unless it were given to you from above.” (33) According to Donald K. McKim (2003), Luther viewed the parents as the primary authority, citing the fourth commandment, “Honor your Father and Mother, that it may be well with you, and you may live long on the earth.” From God, the parents received their authority, so also from God the secular authorities receive their authority (McKim 180-81). Although Luther said he would rather have tyranny than anarchy, he didn’t encourage a blind approach to authority (McKim 181-82). Skinner (1978) correctly observes that Luther took the secular authority out of the Church, but Wolin (1956) along with Hillerbrand (2000), Murray (1960), and McKim (2003) explain that Luther always viewed the secular authorities in high regards, receiving their authority from God.
Although Luther disagreed with Augustine on the roles of the Church within secular authority, Augustine and Luther would both agree on how to treat heretics. As Ward (1988) points out, Augustine viewed the Church as having authority over the secular authorities, and this would indeed result in the temporal punishment of heretics; however, even when Luther simplified the Church (Wolin, 32), taking away the secular authority from the Church, the Church still expected punishment of heretics by the temporal authorities. When thinking of the separation of the secular authorities from the Church, one would assume that this would protect heretics from temporal punishment; however, Oberman points out that Luther viewed the Church as having cooperation with secular authorities. Since the secular authorities, according to Luther, receive their authority from God, they should in good justice protect God’s people from every danger including heresy (Oberman, 295). In the same sense, since God’s law is just, the penalty for breaking the law includes both eternal and temporal punishments. Therefore, heretics, according to Luther, needed to be threatened with punishment in order to be driven to repentance.
Keeping in mind that Luther reformed the Church back to how it was shaped in the medieval times, Hans Hillerbrand (2000) points out that the medieval Church did not take on the roles of the secular authority. They did, however, expect the secular authorities to punish heretics. This was the Church that Luther wanted to alternate back to (211). Heiko Oberman (1992) gives the history of Luther’s relation to the Jews. Luther would have considered the Jews heretics since they rejected the Christian while claiming to worship the same God of Israel. When Frederick of Saxony wanted to expel the Jews, Luther was summoned first. Frederick of Saxony knew Luther during the Reformation. He protected Luther from being killed, and they both had a great deal of respect for each other (290). Luther was known as a friend of the Jews, and he wanted to convert them; however Luther’s patience grew dim by this time, and he became less tolerant of the Jews. In Luther’s sermon “On the Jews and Their Lies,” the most notable piece for his political thought is that he viewed the secular authorities as having the obligation to punish heretics. Luther, however, in viewing justification as the central article of the faith, still wanted the Jews to be justified (Oberman, 296). Oberman (1992) shows that Luther’s understanding of justification caused him to be a friend to the Jews so that he might tell them of the gospel (290). This was why Luther preached a temporal punishment for the Jews; preaching of the law would drive them to the gospel and salvation. Oberman (1992) points out that Luther’s overall goal for the Jews was to convert them for the sake of salvation (291). So Luther’s view of the Church’s authority was that of salvation. Heresy, according to Luther was to be condemned by the law so that it may be healed by the gospel.
Conclusion
When considering Augustine and Luther as political theologians, we must acknowledge that their politics are influenced by their theologies. As we have discussed, their political views of the secular government in relation to the Church contradict each other. These differences must be traced back to their beliefs in theology. In regards to theology, they both viewed subjective justification as the way in which they personally became righteous; however, the means by which they each believed they were subjectively justified caused them to have their contrasting views in not only theology, but also within politics. I argued earlier that the doctrines of law and gospel must be applied to Augustine’s and Luther’s understandings of justification, which explains their beliefs in the relationship between Church and state. If Augustine believed in imitating Christ in order to be justified, he believed in being justified according to the law since Christ upheld the law. If Luther believed in receiving Christ’s righteousness in order to be justified, he believed in being justified according to the gospel. These two paths, law and gospel, are the key theological distinctions with respect to subjective justification. Augustine, walking on the path of the law, imitated Christ, and he eventually lived up to Christ’s righteousness, a righteousness that fulfilled the law. Luther walked on the path of the gospel. By receiving this alien righteousness, Christ Himself, he received the free gift of faith in Christ which was accounted to him as righteousness. Outwardly, according to the world, Luther wasn’t necessarily righteous; however, spiritually, according to God, he had Christ as his righteousness. These contrasting paths caused Augustine and Luther to hold their relationships with the secular government in different regards.
By walking down the path of the gospel, Luther conceded that he had no outward quality and no good work that was pleasing to God, but instead, Christ was his head and only hope in anything good. By seeing that the temporal secular authorities govern with the law, Luther, knowing that he is ruled by the gospel, simplified the Church’s role to dealing primarily with the gospel. Augustine, walking down the path of the law, also viewed Christ as his head and hope, but he looked at Christ as an example to follow. With the logic that a Christ is God and God is the ruler of the whole world, Augustine viewed the subjectively justified Christian as the capable ruler for any authority in this world. The subjectively justified Christian, according to Augustine, has been built up to the righteousness of Christ; Christ is God, and God the head authority of the entire universe. Therefore, the subjectively justified Christian must, as representative of the one true God, be the most good and just ruler of secular governments. As discussed earlier, Augustine and Luther both agreed that all authority in heaven and on earth has come from God. With this reasoning, being just according to God’s law would mean being just according to any law on earth since all authority on earth comes from God. The secular governments are ruled by the law, and a good and just ruler must be good and just according to the law. By walking down the path of the law, acting accordingly and imitating to the most possible height the righteousness of the law, one would be seen as a just ruler in the secular government. The authority of the gospel also comes from God; however, Augustine and Luther would both agree that gospel is unknown to the city of man or the worldly kingdom. By walking down the path of the gospel, one admits to be not at all righteous, suffering all reason and strength to Christ; he is not necessarily the most outwardly just ruler. Wherefore, for Augustine and Luther, their political theologies of the Church’s relations to the secular governments rest not only on their understandings of subjective justification, but on which path the subjective justification runs: the law or the gospel.






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_______ Politics and Vision. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2004.
[i] Augustine’s Confessions are recognized as his autobiography wherein he described his process of becoming a Christian.

[ii] St. Augustine wrote The City of God, consisting of 22 books in defense against the accusations of the pagans that the fall of Rome is to be blamed on the Christians. In his defense of the Christians, he presented a broad base of systematic Christian doctrine. His analyses of the Platonists are from book VIII pages 254-55.
[iii] Plato’s Republic (V)
The Theory of the Forms is explained by Plato through the mouth of Socrates, along with the discussion Socrates had concerning justice.
[iv] (Confession VII).
[v] (Confessions, VII)
[vi] This quote was from a postscript by Luther to a letter written by Phillip Melanchthon to John Brenz on May 15, 1531.
[vii] Galatians 3:27
Luther,Martin. Martin Luther's Basic Theological Writings. 2 ed. Timothy F. Lull. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005.
Luther’s Sermon, “Two Kinds of Righteousness” describes Christ’s alien righteousness in which we receive in our baptism. He preaches that we are able to do nothing for our salvation, but instead, Christ gives us His righteousness.
[viii] John 1: 1-14

[ix] “Dear Christians One and All Rejoice”
Luther wrote this hymn 1523. He expressed his deep sorrow and failure to obtain salvation by his works, rejoicing in the rest he found in Christ. This Hymn may be found in The Lutheran Hymnal, Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary, The Christian Worship, the Lutheran Worship, and The Lutheran Service Book.
[x] Romans 1:17
[xi] Confessions Book VII
Here, Augustine confesses to God that by entering his inward soul, by God’s grace, he was able to see things more like God and be more like God.
[xii] The City of God Book V