Martin Luther (1483-1546) took the Christian world by storm in the sixteenth century. His work “The Freedom of a Christian” (1520), turned the theology of Christ’s atonement on its head.
Catholics thought that faith in Jesus, works of charity, and all seven Catholic sacraments contributed to man’s just standing before God. They also thought that certain works, called mortal sins, forfeit salvation. Luther, on the other hand, said that faith in Christ alone contributes to man’s just standing before God. His teaching separated such works from salvation, and he supported it with multiple biblical quotations. With works separated from justification, Luther then naturally denied the existence of mortal sins, saying that only a lack of faith would forfeit salvation.
Two significant responses to Luther came out the next year. These responses were not as careful and specific as modern scholarly responses are, but they give an interesting glimpse into the past.
A bishop in England, St. John Fisher (1469-1535), preached a highly developed sermon on Luther in 1521 to refute his teaching on salvation. King Henry VIII of England (1491-1547), who ultimately became Fisher’s enemy, wrote (with the help of St. Thomas More) on the same team as Fisher in his Defense of the Seven Sacraments (1521). Because Luther’s “faith alone” teaching eliminated the salvific element of most of the sacraments, Henry attempted to rebut Luther’s views with various arguments.
Fisher’s “Sermon Made Against the Pernicyous Doctryn of Martin Luther Within the Octaves of the Ascensyon,” covered Luther’s teachings and salvation by faith alone. Fisher agreed with Luther that a Christian’s state of justification is maintained by faith but disagreed that it is by faith alone. Faith needs to be coupled with hope and love. To explain this, Fisher utilized an analogy and various scriptural quotations.
Fisher’s setup analogy would have been effective for his congregation to grasp. He said, “What marvelous power, what wonderful energy is in the beams of the sun, which, as we see this time of year, spread over the ground and quicken and bring to life many creatures which before appeared to be dead.” The sun’s beams bring life typically, but in the winter, they are unable to make trees grow. Fisher compared this to Luther’s teaching of faith alone: “Faith is a thin light without the rebounding of hope and the heat of charity.” In Fisher’s estimation, Luther’s idea about salvation does not bring life. Life occurs only with hope and love, for “no matter how much light a person has, unless he also has the heat of charity . . . he is only a dead stick and like a tree without life.” Faith alone is not sufficient.
To support this analogy, Fisher cited Scripture. He quoted three passages:
- Paul: “If I have all faith so as to move mountains but do not have charity, I am nothing” (1 Cor. 13:2).
- James: “Faith without works is dead” (James 2:26).
- Luke: “Give alms and everything will be clean for you” (Luke 11:41).
The passage from Paul prioritizes love above faith, the passage from James denies Luther’s “salvation by faith alone” teaching, and the passage from Luke gives a specific work that contributes to salvation. Fisher said of Luke 11, “What is this cleanness but the justifying of our souls which is promised for the work of almsgiving?” Fisher saw a good deed as integral to justification in Luke 11, so Luther, he insisted must be mistaken.
Fisher then quoted a flurry of passages, as modern apologists do. Among them:
- Matthew 6:14, 7:21, 5:20, 7:26
- Romans 2:13
- James 1:27
- Romans 8:13
- Galatians 5:6
For Fisher, Luther was wrong on salvation by faith alone, for he contradicted Scripture.
King Henry VIII tag-teamed with Fisher in one of the best plays of historical irony: he quoted from Luther’s various writings, then utilized scriptural passages to combat Luther’s “salvation by faith alone” doctrine. Henry’s evidence against “faith alone” included various aspects, but the largest was probably his reliance upon James 2. Then Henry provided a practical and historical argument against Luther’s single mortal sin of a lack of faith.
Henry quoted James 2 multiple times throughout his work. For example, in the context of baptism and confession, “faith without works is dead.” Henry also quoted James in the context of anointing. In short, per Henry, James “so narrowly touches Luther everywhere, as if, by his prophetic spirit, he had plainly foreseen him. For when Luther . . . despises good works . . . St. James on the other hand disputes.”
On to mortal sin, because Luther said that “no sins can damn thee but infidelity [lack of faith] only,” thereby abolishing the normal Catholic list of mortal sins by works, Henry attempted to refute him with a historical argument. Luther needed to be rejected because he contradicted St. Hierom (probably old English for Jerome), who had said that penance is “the table after shipwreck.” This statement is an analogy for the teaching that, after initial justification, man sails onward toward God, but if he commits a mortal sin, then he will wreck his ship. The man will lose his justification, but through the sacrament of penance, he can reboard a ship and be justified again. If the work of the sacrament of penance is intimately involved in salvation, then Luther’s “faith alone” idea does not work. So Henry cited St. Hierom as an authority on his side.
Besides this historical argument, Henry emphasized that Luther’s denial of mortal sin was a bad teaching practically. For if Luther was right that only a lack of faith is a mortal sin, then this, according to Henry, would encourage men to sin. Such a teaching by Luther was the “mistress of all impiety.” For suddenly, Henry exclaimed, “adultery will not damn them! Murder will not damn!” Henry’s point was that if such sins did not damn Christians to hell, then why would Christians avoid them?
Luther shook Christian Europe when he separated good and bad works from righteousness and supported this with Scripture. Catholics responded to Luther with practical, historical, and biblical arguments. St. John Fisher argued that Luther’s teaching was comparable to the sun in the wintertime, unable to give life to the trees. To support this analogy, he provided numerous biblical citations that appeared to contradict Luther. Two of King Henry VIII’s rebuttals were that Luther contradicted St. Hierom and practically encouraged men to sin. James 2 was important to both Fisher and Henry, as it is important to apologists today.
And so, as spectacular as it sounds to those familiar with St. John Fisher’s end, King Henry shines as a coworker with Fisher in their respective rebuttals to Luther.