Tron är aldrig allena – en undersökning av Kristusföreningsmotivet i den finska Lutherforskningen, med en följande diskussion utifrån deras kritik av modern protestantisk teologi

Abstract

In this essay I present an outline and examination of the Finnish Luther research, with an aim to learn more about some different aspects of Luther’s teaching on justification as sanctification, and sanctification as the growth of the new man. I will also draw my attention to the formal language of metaphysics, as it is continuously employed by Luther to depict the issues and the content of his reformation theology. Apart from the program of research in Helsinki, I have turned to the writings of Luther himself; and I have as well tried to engage in a broader survey of Luther-scholars, some of which seem to, or in fact, support the Finnish interpretation, others which raise a critical stance towards it. The later portion of the essay picks up on the Finnish critique of dominant 19th and 20th century German Lutheran theologians, such as Albrecht Ritschl and Gerhard Ebeling. The Finns trace an influence of enlightenment teaching among these theologians, a teaching having incorporated Kant’s separation between immanent and transcendent. They try to show how conforming Luther’s thought to such a mindset will fail to do justice to – or even render unacceptable – an important body of his theological claims, depriving Luther’s theology of it’s own content. To a certain extent I intend to establish my own impression of these representatives of German theology, and on this backdrop I enter into the discussion myself. In the substructure of the theology ensuing the kantian paradigm the Finns point on the one hand to the aforementioned notion of a human cognition incapable of ‘real’ knowledge, but also to the idea of erlebnis (an experience) so vital to existentialist thought. The latter will in theology at times appear as a dogmatically somewhat undetermined concept, which yet seem to have to carry a lot of theological weight, if it is used for example as a substitute for a theologically informed anthropology dealing with the nature – or the nature of spiritual growth – of the human being. Following the Finnish critique I fashion a rudimentary sketch of this modern-theology complex and try to perceive how and in what instances or attitudes the enlightenment idiom of a fundamental and non-bridgeable separation between immanent cognition and transcendent truth may be unravelled as specific theological tensions, or inconsequences. Apart from the continental theologians and philosophers invoked for critique by the Finns I present also a brief survey of 20th century Swedish theology in order to find what might be summoned from here to the issue of sanctification. In this section I will also have a closer look at Gustaf Wingren and his antagonist Torgny Bohlin in a controversy where I suspect an effect of such a putative theological tension may perhaps be visible.