{"id":2558,"date":"2017-10-12T09:52:58","date_gmt":"2017-10-12T16:52:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/?p=2558"},"modified":"2017-10-13T13:29:50","modified_gmt":"2017-10-13T20:29:50","slug":"catholics-throw-hackers-hatchet-at-luther","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/?p=2558","title":{"rendered":"Catholics throw Hacker\u2019s hatchet at Luther"},"content":{"rendered":"

For a hatchet job on Luther, see \u201c<\/span>Luther: 500 Years After<\/span><\/a>,\u201d by Russell Shaw, former information director of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. Shaw praises the republication of Paul Hacker\u2019s 1966 book, <\/span>The Ego in Faith. Martin Luther and the Origin of Anthropocentric Religion.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

The new 2017 edition of Hacker comes with \u201can informative foreword\u201d by (ex-Lutheran, now Roman Catholic) Reinhard Hutter, who teaches at Catholic University of America.<\/span><\/p>\n

Hacker claimed that for Luther faith is the self-work of believing. Good grief, not that again.<\/span><\/p>\n

See Otto Herman Pesch, Roman Catholic expert on Aquinas and Luther, writing on Hacker: \u201cAt this point we note that we cannot agree with the pointed criticism of Luther by Paul Hacker in his <\/span>Das Ich im Glauben bei Martin Luther <\/span><\/i>[<\/span>The Ego in Faith according to Martin Luther<\/span><\/i>]. Hacker\u2019s objections against Luther\u2019s <\/span>statuere salutem meam<\/span><\/i> [certainty of salvation] are only tenable when one is thinking in terms of theoretical certitude and of ascertaining something objectively. But Luther\u2019s \u2018certainty of salvation\u2019 is nothing more than the movement of faith given by God\u2019s grace. We have reviewed Hacker\u2019s book in <\/span>Theologische Revue <\/span><\/i>64 (1968) 51-56.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

See also Oswald Bayer, world-class Lutheran expert on Luther: \u201cPaul Hacker\u2026 has taken up the role of prosecuting attorney in his 1966 book\u2026<\/span>The Ego in Faith<\/span><\/i>\u2026. Starting on purpose with the Small Catechism, he sees Luther as the founder of the subjectivism that is advocated today, which seeks to dissolve all objective truth that stands in the way of the certainty one can achieve purely by self-assurance…. Hacker did not read carefully enough. Otherwise he would have certainly noticed that Luther in fact specifically takes into account the reference to the relationship that is established by God when he addresses me with the words of promise\u2026.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Recall: \u201cI believe that by my own understanding or strength I cannot believe.\u2026\u201c<\/span><\/p>\n

_____________________<\/p>\n

1. Otto H. Pesch, O.P., \u201cExistential and Sapiential Theology \u2013 the Theological Confrontation between Luther and Thomas Aquinas,\u201d <\/span>Catholic Scholars Dialogue with Luther<\/span><\/i>, Ed. Jared Wicks (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1970) 189, footnote 21<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

2. Oswald Bayer, <\/span>Martin Luther\u2019s Theology. A Contemporary Interpretation<\/span><\/i>, Trans. Thomas H. Trapp (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008) 166-68.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For a hatchet job on Luther, see \u201cLuther: 500 Years After,\u201d by Russell Shaw, former information director of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. Shaw praises the republication of Paul Hacker\u2019s 1966 book, The Ego in Faith. Martin Luther and the Origin of Anthropocentric Religion. The new 2017 edition of Hacker comes with \u201can informative […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2558"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2558\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2563,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2558\/revisions\/2563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}