Philosophy-RAG-demo/transcriptions/HoP 381 - More Lutheran than Luther - Philip Melanchthon.txt

 Hi, I'm Peter Adamson, and you're listening to the History of Philosophy podcast, brought to you with the support of the philosophy department at King's College London and the LMU in Munich, online at historyoffilosophy.net. Today's episode, More Lutheran than Luther, Philip Melanchthon. By this point, it should be clear that humanism had quite a bit to do with the Reformation. We've seen how humanists and reformers joined in attacking both the style and the substance of scholastic philosophy, and how the great humanist Erasmus shared many priorities and beliefs with Luther, even if they disagreed over the issue of free will. But it's only now that we're reaching the best example of a reformer who was also a humanist, Philip Melanchthon. If Erasmus and Luther had had a child together, which admittedly is hard to imagine for all kinds of reasons, then Melanchthon might have been that child. Inspired by Agricola and Erasmus, he wrote on rhetoric and lamented the barbarisms of the schoolmen, even going so far as to compose a reply to Pico della Mirandola's ironically eloquent letter in defense of bad scholastic Latin. Even his name was a humanist joke. It seems to have been his great uncle Johannes Reuchlin, the humanist famously maligned for his expertise in Hebrew, who suggested the name Melanchthon as a Greek version of the family name Schwarz-Erd, meaning Black Earth. Yet Erasmus called this fellow humanist more Lutheran than Luther himself, and not without reason. Melanchthon taught for many years at Wittenberg, and was thus a close colleague and ally of Luther's. Melanchthon used his lectures and writings to promote the teachings of the Reformation. He unhesitatingly adopted such core doctrines as the priesthood of all believers, the grounding of theology and scripture alone, and the merely customary status of church rituals like the mass. Like Luther, he was willing to direct criticism at ancient religious authorities. Instead, Luther and Melanchthon in effect set themselves up as the fathers of their own church. Yet over the course of his career, Melanchthon would carefully stake out distinctive positions that did not always agree fully with Luther's. He worked to find a robust role for classical learning and natural philosophy within a Lutheran paradigm, and controversially, he ultimately adopted a position on free will that veered closer to that of Erasmus. Melanchthon's greatest influence came through his teaching and his pedagogically oriented writings. Like Luther, if not to quite the same extent, he saw his works churned out of printing presses. Melanchthon's textbook on rhetoric went through 30 editions in a single decade until he replaced it with a new work on the topic in 1530. His treatise on the soul was printed more than 40 times in the second half of the century and made the subject of further commentary. We can get a sense of his approach to teaching and his understanding of the relation between religion and the sciences from the orations he gave as a professor at Wittenberg. These set out the case for the curriculum he helped to establish there, which emphasized the study of the linguistic arts, mathematics, and natural philosophy. As Melanchthon was at pains to mention, Erasmus and Luther agreed on the need to study Greek and Hebrew for the sake of understanding scripture. Grammar and rhetoric, too, are crucial for doing theology, which is why the church always needs to have a connection to schools that support it. To some extent, the rationale here is obvious. You need to study classical languages to read the Bible in the original, and you need grammar, dialectic, and rhetoric to expound its teachings well. Less obvious is that the study of rhetoric helps us to interpret scripture. Like Erasmus, Melanchthon was impressed by the emotional and persuasive power of scripture. This is due to the fact that the authors of the Bible, especially St. Paul, were themselves skilled rhetoricians, so we need to master this discipline in order to analyze how they constructed their arguments. As a result, rhetoric is, for Melanchthon, as much about appreciating persuasive speech as producing it. He drew on classical authors, including Aristotle and Cicero, to understand the rules of dialectic and rhetoric, even writing a commentary on Cicero's topics. That word, topics, brings us to one of Melanchthon's signature tactics as an educator. It stems from the Greek word topoi, meaning places, the Latin equivalent being loci. You can recognize the root in English words like location. As far back as Aristotle's work on dialectic, also called the topics, the term had been used to refer to standard argument forms that could be deployed in argumentative contexts. By the time of Melanchthon, it had taken on a somewhat broader meaning, since it could also refer to key concepts within a given discipline, that is, points that you need to learn about when studying that discipline. Melanchthon used the topic structure to teach both philosophy and theology. Thus his text on Selected Books of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, written in 1532, does not so much present a running paraphrase or commentary as a set of points for discussion. These are the loci, or fundamental topics, covered in ethics. They would include things like the definition of moral philosophy, the ultimate purpose of humankind, virtue, free will, and the passions. It may surprise you that Melanchthon would use Aristotle to offer moral instruction to his students. What happened to the Lutheran disdain for Aristotle and his scholastic followers? Well, Melanchthon certainly disdained the scholastics, but he thought that pagan philosophers deserved a degree of respect. He admired the way that they directed their attention to the concrete question of how to live, rather than getting mired in pedantic and time-wasting discussions like the schoolmen did. The Greeks, he said, show the usefulness of philosophy for life. While the ancient philosophers do not teach us to place our trust in God, they do offer lessons on the less crucial, but still important, rules that should govern civic life. In fact, on this point, the gospel adds nothing of substance to what can be discovered with natural reason. Both give the same advice as to how to behave well and how the community can be peaceful and prosperous. Nor is this all that philosophy can do for us. Just as Aristotle and other pagans were able to use natural reason to discern the correct rules of civic life, so they used reason to discover quite a lot about nature itself. Luther had been deeply skeptical about Aristotelian natural philosophy, remarking, I dare say that any potter has more knowledge of nature than is written in these books. Melanchthon agreed that many Aristotelian concepts were pointless. He dismissed the distinction between form and matter, and the notion of privation. But he admired Aristotle's drive to establish rock-solid demonstrations in science, and said that this lifted Aristotelian philosophy above its ancient rivals. Taking his cue from this, Melanchthon chose to pursue natural science, but follow authors who had improved on Aristotle. One such author was Galen, the great medical authority of antiquity, another was Vesalius, the renaissance anatomist. Drawing on their works, Melanchthon produced a study of the human soul, which diverged from Aristotle by talking much more about the human body. Learning in detail about the workings of human organs makes us more appreciative of God's wisdom and providence, which is why Galen himself had called anatomy the beginning of theology. Something similar could be said for astronomy, and even astrology, since the motions of the stars are an impressive sign of divine purpose. Melanchthon was convinced that astrology is a legitimate science, and saw it as simply another branch of natural science. Melanchthon was then a theologian who made plenty of room for philosophy in the course of study he offered at Wittenberg, but he was still a theologian. In this sphere, he used the same teaching techniques on display in his linguistic and philosophical writings. The topics structure is clear even from the title of his treatise Loci Comunis Rerum Theologikarum, that is Common Places of Theological Matters, which appeared in 1521 and later in numerous revised versions. This is his most important contribution to explaining Lutheran doctrine, praised extravagantly by Luther himself, who said that, Next to holy scripture there is no better book. As the title promises, it again uses the topics structure, thus making good on advice given by Erasmus, to organize for yourself collections of theological topics which may serve as little nests in which you place the fruit of your reading. Each major section concludes by itemizing the main points Melanchthon has tried to establish. These can be taken simultaneously as a list of things the student-reader needs to understand, and as a summary of Lutheran doctrine. The work begins with that point of agreement between humanism and reform, the inadequacies of scholastic philosophy. What Melanchthon calls their theological hallucinations are based more on Aristotle than on Christ, and one does not know whether it is more godless than it is stupid. They delve into deep mysteries of the faith that would be better left unexplored, like the workings of the Trinity and the Incarnation. Even worse, they err on other points that every Christian needs to understand, among them the Lutheran doctrine on sin and grace. Melanchthon unhesitatingly parts ways with the Church Fathers on this point. The early theologians of the Church found scriptures teaching to cruel, because it makes human will incapable of goodness, so they let themselves be led astray by philosophy, giving a commanding role in moral life to human reason and will. Instead, we must accept that all things are predestined by God and take place by necessity. So far, so Lutheran. But as Melanchthon goes on, he lays out very clearly an idea that we saw Luther suggesting only tentatively, if at all, that external human actions are subject to our will, but are not morally significant. To use our earlier example, I have the power to choose between an almond croissant and a piece of apple cake, but I don't have the power to reject wickedness and embrace righteousness. Melanchthon gives similar examples. We are free to perform outward actions like to greet a man or not, put on a coat or not, eat meat or not. But this is irrelevant to the question of grace and sin, because these had to do with the inner disposition of the heart, which cannot be controlled by will. As Melanchthon sees it, the problem with both the ancient philosophers and the scholastics who have been in their sway is that they always thought about morality in terms of the deeds one performs. But he asks, what place do external acts have in Christian teaching if the heart is insincere? And our internal dispositions are not under our control the way that our actions are. To some extent Melanchthon's argument here is just common sense. It is surely true that inner disposition can be at variance with outer action. I might forgo that piece of apple cake despite wanting badly to eat it, or be friendly to someone I despise. It's also plausible that we can't just will to feel differently on the inside. Melanchthon calls the inner disposition an affectus, which means something close to emotion, but could also cover things like desire for cake. And you can't change your emotions and desires just by deciding to do so, like by simply willing to transform hatred of that sworn enemy to a warm affectionate feeling overnight. But there are a couple of problems here. First, it simply isn't true that this phenomenon escaped the attention of ancient philosophers or their later interpreters. Melanchthon says that whereas philosophy looks at nothing except the external masks of men, the holy scriptures look at the deepest incomprehensible affections. But in fact Aristotle made a point of distinguishing between genuine virtue, which involves doing good out of a strong inner preference for doing good, and mere strength of will or self-control, where we do good despite wanting to act differently. Second, Melanchthon needs not just to distinguish between the inner affection and the outer action, but to insist that without God's help, all good outer actions are insincere. Here of course we just have him echoing Luther's stance again, justification by faith not works. Self-interested and sinful as we are, even our most apparently admirable deeds are, in fact, done for selfish motives and so are worthless. Truly good works always stem from faith in God and the grace he has offered to the faithful. As we know, Melanchthon was an expert rhetorician. How then might he persuade us of this bleak view of fallen human nature? In part just by telling us to be honest with ourselves about our own inner lives. How often are we truly selfless in our motivations, driven by nothing but love of God and our neighbors? But he could also connect his teaching here to the exploration of human nature in his work on the soul. As already mentioned, that treatise includes a lot of material on medicine. In fact, Melanchthon revised later versions so that they included even more anatomy. As this shows, he understood human nature in very physical terms. This goes perfectly with the Lutheran idea that humans are inevitably prone to sin, since our souls are under the influence of bodily desire. As Melanchthon puts it, human reason is fleshly and is beset by ignorance. By contrast, more Platonist thinkers of the Renaissance, and also some potential allies of the Reformation like Erasmus, saw humans as independent, immaterial spirits, with only a loose connection to bodies. That sort of view could suggest that even in a state of sin, humans do retain a natural power to dominate their lower desires and be good. Melanchthon, no less than Luther, wanted to deny that we have such a power. On the other hand, no less than Erasmus, he wanted to avoid depriving humans of all agency in their moral lives. After all, sinners do bear responsibility for their failings. Melanchthon's position on this matter seems to have evolved to some extent, as he became aware of the threat of determinism within the Reform movement. He was alarmed by the teachings of John Calvin, whom he called Zeno, an allusion to the founder of the ancient Stoic school, which was notoriously determinist. Melanchthon was concerned that if God is admitted to cause everything, leaving no place for human agency, then God and not humans will be blameworthy for all evils that are committed. To avoid this, he added a line in a revision of his theological treatise, God is not the cause of sin, nor is sin something which was created or ordained by God. Luther would have been happy with this remark, but more nervous when Melanchthon speculated that there must be some factor within the human that decides whether that person becomes a sinner or receives grace. It would, he said, be much too crude to hold that the human will does nothing at all. This is dangerously close to the position Luther always wanted to reject, that the human and God have to cooperate in achieving a state of justification. As you may have noticed, there's a pattern developing here. Even as he relentlessly supported the Reform theological agenda, Melanchthon tended to take up fairly moderate positions, where others were taking Luther's ideas in a more radical direction. Indeed, for Melanchthon, being extremely committed to Lutheranism meant avoiding extremism. Thus he agreed with Luther that philosophy has nothing to say about the most important matters of all, yet spent a lot of his time exploring what philosophy has to say about other matters. Similarly, he agreed with Luther that sin is overcome by faith alone, and that no one should fret about whether they have, in fact, received grace and justification, since such worries themselves manifest a lack of faith. Yet he also tried to find a role for human reason and will in the scheme of redemption. In Melanchthon's philosophy, nature is given its due without being able to do everything. We can see another example of this by returning to the question of the moral law. As I said, Melanchthon thought that natural reason can discern the guidelines that should govern both ethical and political life. In the terms of his theological treatise, this means that philosophy can explain which external actions are to be performed, but cannot help us to reform the interior affections. Melanchthon adopts a long-standing bit of terminology here, used famously by such bugbears of the Reformers as Thomas Aquinas. He talks about natural law. The natural law is simply the law as we can discern it using our power of reason, so it is to be distinguished from the revealed law, which we know about only from scripture. Now, the natural law only applies to external actions, which as we know are rendered hypocritical by our sinful inner dispositions, but that does not mean the natural law is unimportant. To the contrary, it turns out to be central to Melanchthon's political philosophy. We can best understand this by considering the position that he sets out to reject. Starting with William of Ockham, back in the 14th century, quite a few political thinkers had come to think that legitimate political authority can only come from the consent of the governed. Still in the time of Melanchthon, Ockhamite thinkers like John Mayer, we'll get to him later, were arguing that by nature we are free. Thus, we rightly fall under the power of someone else only if we agree to do so. This applies both in secular life, where the ruler should be selected by the people, and in religious life, where the pope's position depends on the support of the clergy. Melanchthon disagrees with all this. In his commentary on Aristotle's politics, he observes that the natural law places some people under the authority of others all the time, as the child is subject to the father. Of course, institutions can be set up by the consent of the governed, but this is not the only way to do it. He says, In keeping with this, Melanchthon disapproves of insurrections against rulers, even if they are tyrannical. Nonetheless, he thinks that the ruler is constrained in the exercise of power, by the natural law of course, since that constrains all of us, but also by the particular laws of each nation, since the ruler falls under these laws just as much as the rest of the population. Thus far, Melanchthon's approach to politics is secular, in the sense that civic life and its laws are set by nature and the natural power of reason. Everything I just explained would apply equally well to non-Christian people, apart from the fact that Christians have an extra reason not to do violence against unjust rulers, known to me that scripture tells them to turn the other cheek. Here, Melanchthon is as so often echoing Luther, who also took a rather secular approach to political life. He distinguished between the political duties and the religious duties of the ruler, and said that as far as religion is concerned, the ruler is just like anyone else. But as so often, Melanchthon departs subtly from Luther on this issue. He recognizes that rulers of Christian communities have an additional set of powers and duties, which would not belong to rulers of other communities. Since a Christian people has salvation as its ultimate end, the ruler must see that this end is pursued. Thus, he has wide latitude to punish heresy and blasphemy, to support the teaching of the gospel, and more generally, to establish religion. Yet again, Melanchthon was inching away from Luther's teachings for the sake of avoiding extremism. Just as he was troubled by the determinism of Protestants like Calvin, he was troubled by the civic unrest caused by radical reformers such as the Anabaptists. His distaste for these radicals comes out even in his orations about philosophical education, as when he says that the more revolutionary groups within the reform movement would never have emerged if their leaders were not so unschooled in grammar and dialectic. Notice that he's saying here to the Anabaptists just what the Catholics were saying to the Lutherans. Whether in theology or in politics, Luther and Melanchthon sought to contain the forces they had unleashed, maintaining the peace while reforming Christian belief to bring it in line with their understanding of scripture. The biggest threat to that ambition was the one memorably identified by the British politician Harold Macmillan, events dear boy, events. Next time, we'll be discussing one of the most significant of those events, and hearing how the Lutherans reaped what they sowed, thanks to the outbreak of the Peasants' War. Here on The History of Philosophy, without any guess.