Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Foreword by Martin E. Marty
- Acknowledgments
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Canon law and civil law on the eve of the Reformation
- 2 Loving thine enemy's law: The Evangelical conversion of Catholic canon law
- 3 A mighty fortress: Luther and the two-kingdoms framework
- 4 Perhaps jurists are good Christians after all: Lutheran theories of law, politics, and society
- 5 From Gospel to Law: The Lutheran reformation laws
- 6 The mother of all earthly laws: The reformation of marriage law
- 7 The civic seminary: The reformation of education law
- Concluding reflections
- Bibliography
- Index
3 - A mighty fortress: Luther and the two-kingdoms framework
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 November 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Foreword by Martin E. Marty
- Acknowledgments
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Canon law and civil law on the eve of the Reformation
- 2 Loving thine enemy's law: The Evangelical conversion of Catholic canon law
- 3 A mighty fortress: Luther and the two-kingdoms framework
- 4 Perhaps jurists are good Christians after all: Lutheran theories of law, politics, and society
- 5 From Gospel to Law: The Lutheran reformation laws
- 6 The mother of all earthly laws: The reformation of marriage law
- 7 The civic seminary: The reformation of education law
- Concluding reflections
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
One of the great ironies of the Lutheran Reformation was that it adopted some of the very same canon law norms that it had at first set out to destroy. In 1520, Luther burned the canon law books. By 1530, he was commending their use in his own University of Wittenberg. In the 1520s, the first reformation ordinances banned canon law norms. By the 1530s, new reformation ordinances were commanding their use in the governance of both Church and state. This adoption of the canon law was, in part, a product of inertia. As the biblical radicalism of the early Reformation plunged Germany into deep crisis, the reformers simply returned to the canon law norms that they had learned in their youth. The adoption of the canon law was also, however, a product of innovation. As Luther's theological distinctions between Law and Gospel began to betray their institutional limitations, the reformers developed innovative new theories of the relationship of Church and state, ecclesiastical and political authority, canon law and civil law.
These innovative new theories were, in fact, only a small part and product of a complex rethinking of Luther's original theological message. Luther's radical theological doctrines of Law and Gospel, of justification by faith alone, of the priesthood of all believers, of sola Scriptura, and more had proved pungent and powerful enough to deconstruct traditional norms and forms. But left in raw and radical terms, these theological doctrines raised more questions than they answered.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Law and ProtestantismThe Legal Teachings of the Lutheran Reformation, pp. 87 - 118Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2002