(2) linked doctrinal positions to the person and work of Christ; (3) committed to the pneumatological mediation of Christ both linguistically and sacramentally; and (4) prioritized pneumatological commitments. Against these positions, one could (perhaps facetiously) delineate Melanchthon’s theological commitments by placing a ‘not’ before each of the above statements. To be sure, this is a jocose suggestion—it would be disingenuous to state that Melanchthon was ‘not’ Trinitarian merely, ‘not’ Christocentric, ‘not’ sacramental, or ‘not’ pneumatological without further context. He did affirm each of Luther’s commitments—yet, he promulgated starkly different conceptions of each position, and, as will be shown, did not prioritize any of them within his theological corpus.
For example, one of the greatest scandals of the early Reformation was the 1521 edition of the Loci Communes Theologici, a work that Melanchthon purported to be an “outline of the Christian faith”—a work that did not discuss the Trinity. Shockingly, his rationale for its exclusion was that the Trinity did not “belong to the essence of theology.”20 A charitable reading of Melanchthon might suggest that he espoused a doctrine of hyper-perspicuity, whereby he considered only items clearly explicated in the Scriptures as “central” to the Christian faith.21 If taken to be true, his impetus to gloss over the doctrine of the Trinity is perhaps understandable—though, Robert Jenson rightly asserts that the writings of the early Melanchthon (and others) had a “regrettably negative impact on trinitarian reference in liturgy, preaching, and personal piety.”22
Such a charitable reading of Melanchthon is undermined by later editions of the Loci in which he aimed to assuage his critics. By the time the final edition was published in 1559, his longest locus was devoted to the Trinity. Its foreword contained the following statement: “the highest concern of man would be to learn the true teaching concerning God, just as also the First Commandment specifically demands this duty.”23 Yet, his theological evolution led to a different, but equally problematic orientation. Though more closely aligned with theological contemporaries in Trinitarian formulation, Melanchthon paradoxically became, in the words of Samuel M. Powell, “most amenable to the speculative method” he previously eschewed.24 This predilection is apparent in the 1559 locus where he places Plato in dialogue with Irenaeus and Origen—in other words, he provides an equal platform to a pagan philosopher and patristic theologians, something that would have been anathema to him just three decades prior. However, here a charitable reading of Melanchthon may be better-warranted, as the cause for his about-face is likely historical. As contentions with the Socinians and Michael Severtus concomitantly occurred alongside pressure from Roman Catholic theologians, it became necessary for Melanchthon to explicate orthodox Trinitarian claims—as evident in his numerous refutations of Severtus and likeminded theologians in this locus. Notwithstanding, Melanchthon’s doctrinal promulgation in the face of opposition did not abrogate his earlier view of the Trinity as an unessential Christian doctrine. Rather, as readily apparent in his corpus at-large, Melanchthon’s Trinitarian presentation was not a central theological commitment. Rather, as Michael Rogness rightly states, Melanchthon’s Trinitarian views are “hardly inspiring” and serve only as “a prolegomena, a foundation for the doctrine of the redemption through the Logos, the Son.”25
Though presented more lucidly than Luther, Melanchthon’s treatments of the person of Christ and the Holy Spirit are similarly uninspiring. Rogness masterfully summarizes their divergent interests: for Melanchthon, “the Gospel was not so much about Christ himself, but the truth or Gospel about Christ, the proclamation of Christ’s saving work on the cross. Luther dwelt on the person of Christ, Melanchthon on Christ’s work.”26 To be clear, Melanchthon did affirm the personhood of both Christ and the Spirit, both in the Loci Praecipui Theologici27 and in the Augsburg Confession.28 Still, his affirmation of Christ’s personhood served a secondary role in his theology. Moreover, Melanchthon’s prioritization of Christ’s work over personhood led to difficulties in articulating a cogent presentation of the Holy Spirit, as he had difficulty defining distinctive works of the Spirit.29 Due to this difficulty, the presence of the Spirit is scant in Melanchthon’s theological system and is relegated only to the interiority of the Christian, strikingly absent from any meaningful public actions.30 Moving to the next section, this focal shift from person and work of Christ in Luther to only Christ’s work in Melanchthon is central to understanding the divergence of their conceptions of the doctrine of justification by faith.
Justification by Faith
V-M. Kärkkäinen notes that there is a “general consensus of most recent Luther scholarship that the commonly held forensic doctrine of justification by faith, as articulated by later confessional writings under the leadership of Philipp Melanchthon, is a one-sided understanding of Luther’s theology.”31 To the old-guard Lutheran scholar, this may be an incendiary claim. Notwithstanding such considerations, this new line of inquiry allows for a more thorough consideration of an “other-sided” understanding of Luther’s soteriology. In Christ Present in Faith, Tuomo Mannermaa articulates this other-side by asserting that Luther’s central conception of justification is not primarily located in legal terminology, but rather, in the imagery of a “happy exchange.”32 Hinlicky expounds upon this imagery and asserts that it is this exchange of the Christian’s sin and Christ’s righteousness that “provides the operative model in Luther’s mind of how the event of justification transpires in uniting the believer with Christ in His death and resurrection.”33 For Luther, this happy exchange presupposes that Christ serves a dual-role in the economy of salvation, both as God’s favor and God’s gift.34 Furthermore, Mannermaa asserts that for Luther, this justifying act was in continuity with sanctification, and that Christ ruling alongside the Holy Spirit is the primary agent making the Christian holy.35 Concerning this, Hinlicky notes that the conclusion of this event is that the Spirit “bonds the believer to Christ in time by faith, just as eternally He bonds the Son to the Father and the Father to the Son in love.”36
This is not the case for Melanchthon. Consider Article IV of the Augsburg Confession:And they teach that men cannot be justified before God by their own abilities, merits or works, but are justified freely by Christ through faith, when they believe they have received it by grace, and that their sins are forgiven by Christ who in his death made satisfaction for our sins. God imputes this faith for righteousness in his sight.37
It is the final sentence of the above passage, containing the term “imputes,” which is particularly striking. Rogness rightly notes that Luther never favored this term, nor was it present in Melanchthon’s early writings. Yet, beginning with the Augsburg Confession this linguistic formula became the official description of justification in Lutheranism. According to Wilhelm Mauer, this new description meant that Melanchthon believed that justification was “not made at a joyful wedding; it is a legal transaction in which God rewards faith by imputing to it what still remains to fulfill the law—whereby God himself makes full satisfaction to the law.”38 This is a key development, as it is at odds with Luther’s strong belief that justification is primarily related to a believer’s unity with Christ.39
Melanchthon introduced the word, “forensic,” in the Formula of Concord, where he defined the phrase “to be justified” as an agent being “pronounced righteous in a forensic way.”40 Hinlicky notes that this statement, alongside many others made by Melanchthon, includes “no personal encounter with Christ (one encounters a report about Christ)” nor “any public work of the Holy Spirit to supply justifying faith to the stricken sinner.”41 Here, Melanchthon’s doctrine of justification coheres with his deemphasis of the Trinity. For Melanchthon, it is not the person of Christ that is primary in justification, but rather the work of Christ and its benefits for the Christian. This differs from Luther who believes that both Christ “as a person in us” and the work of Christ are central to a Christian’s justification.42 This same divergence exists in articulating the role of the Holy Spirit. Prenter explicates that Luther prioritizes both the person and the work of the Spirit as really present in the justified agent,43 whereas Melanchthon prioritizes neither—as Hinlicky bluntly states, “this legal transaction is to all appearances also Spirit-less.”44
The Philosopher-Theologian: Finding Luther in Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
In Paths not