Review of Current Religious Thought: April 14, 1958

In 1956 there appeared in Germany a Roman Catholic book by F. Richter dealing with two outstanding figures in the history of the Church, namely, Martin Luther and Ignatius Loyola. These two personalities were, in truth, inhabitants of two different worlds, and it is always dangerous to undertake a comparison of two such utterly different historical figures. But they did live in the same period and as such they had a common historical background.

Luther was born in 1483 and Loyola in 1491, and each of them experienced a definite, determining turning-point in his life, which in Luther led to the Reformation of 1517 and in Loyola to the establishment of the Society of Jesus. Luther became the Reformer, and Loyola the founder of the Jesuit order and the leader of the Counter-Reformation.

Both Luther and Loyola were occupied primarily with affairs of the Church, and Richter, the author of the book mentioned, points to the fact that the element of prayer and the reading of Holy Scripture had a large place in the life of both of these great men. And although the author is a Roman Catholic, he acknowledges that Luther had great ideals and ambitions and that he strove for these with remarkable enthusiasm and drive.

However, he does want to picture the antithesis of the two men and, specifically, he wants to defend Loyola over against the many critics who later arose to castigate the Jesuits and their morality, and in the course of his book, therefore, we find Loyola pictured the more brightly, while the shadows often fall over the picture of Luther. For no matter how well Luther may have intended, the conclusion comes to this, that he had destroyed the fundamentals of the Church.

What may have been good in Luther, says Richter, he had carried with him out of the Roman Catholic church. But this was wiped out through his rebellion, his attack upon the mystery of the Church; while in Ignatius the most noteworthy characteristic is exactly his great loyalty. From the time that he founded the Jesuit order in 1540, his whole life was spent in the service of the honor of God and the Church. Loyola strove for the restoration of the Church, which was shaken to its foundations by the Reformation, and he tried to find a new way of life for Christendom, for Christendom that should conquer the world. He became the man of complete and strict discipline, of total dedication, and to this Luther is pictured in sharp contrast as the man of the autonomy of conscience, from which idea later Protestantism has not been able to free itself.

None of this, indeed, is new, but it is certainly portrayed in a captivating manner by way of this contrast: Luther versus Loyola. The picture that is painted of Ignatius Loyola reminds us of other new contemporary studies, e.g., by Hugo Rahner, and whoever follows the trail of the spiritual exercises of Loyola in the new translations from the Spanish, once and again comes under the impression of the passionate inspirations that led him on the path to the Counter-Reformation.

But especially one is impressed with the fact that men could give such a varied form to the “soli deo gloria” that also played such a determining role in the life of Luther and Calvin. It has been within the acceptance of this “soli deo gloria” that the deep-running differences come to the fore.

The author of this book sees the important difference especially in the “revolution-idea” that he feels can be ascribed to the entire Reformation movement. And although he wishes to acknowledge that in the Reformers religious motives did indeed play a certain role, he does wish to point out that these motives were overshadowed and negated by their rebellion, by their attack on the great mystery, the Church, which is the creation of God and is not to be violated.

The consequences of this he sees in a tendency to self-destruction which he asserts he observes everywhere in Protestantism. According to him there is only one reason to account for this: the tearing apart of the body of Christ and through this the estrangement or dissipation of the enormous powers of Christ himself. This is a specifically Roman Catholic vision, that flows forth directly from their doctrine of the Church, in which, despite all the sins of the church, even of the popes, although not accepted as such, that also the Church—yes, exactly the Church—should stand under the discipline and normativity of the Word of God, under the scepter of the Head of the Church. And it is just at this point that ever again the great controversy between Rome and the Reformation comes into view, and to which issue both Luther and Calvin joined their weightiest protestations.

It will certainly amaze any reader of this book that it closes with a chapter on the subject of Luther and Loyola as forerunners toward unity. We ask ourselves immediately, both? Not alone Ignatius, but also Luther? Does here a new ecumenical insight break through the aforementioned contrast?

The answer to this question must be negative for we read that although both sought unity, the way in which Luther sought it was not to be attained. And thereupon the author makes a call for the unity of the West over against the antichrist-like dictator of the East, who makes it imperative that the Church should be one. This calls for complete “obedience.”

Whenever we think of the dangerous situation in which the world finds itself, we can understand the Roman Catholic call for speedy decision. But it is likewise plain that in this call to return to the mother church, nothing is decided and no single problem is solved. For if we are called to “obedience,” we must remember that it was exactly with obedience that the Reformation concerned itself. The pathetic thing in this historic break is that the Reformation does not acknowledge as a true and biblical obedience the Roman Catholic view, because it has no room for the permanent subjection of the entire Church under the discipline of the Gospel as an always-new divine command.

The only possible answer to the call for unity and obedience that we hear nowadays from the Roman Catholic side, must be a clear and unmistakable witness from Protestantism, in both word and deed, from which it will be clearly shown that the Reformation was not a matter of rebellion, but that it only wanted to bring back to mind the reality of the Church as it was described by the Apostle Paul (2 Cor. 10:5). Only in this way will it be possible to work for the unity of the Church and not to fear for the future. True, the overwhelming tensions in the world call for unity—but then unity in this sense, in which the word of the Apostle Paul comes to a daily reality in the entire Church, the Church under the sceptre of her only Lord.

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