. . . Luther also states that the Christian
cannot sin no matter how he behaves. In his 1520 work On the Babylonian
Captivity, for example, he affirmed that one baptized, even if he sins,
cannot lose grace as long as he does not renounce faith. (De captivitate
Babylonica Ecclesiae [WA 6:529]) Some years later, in the Smalcald Articles
(1537), he clarified his position, rejecting the mistaken interpretation of
the Schwärmer gave to his words: ‘once the Spirit and the pardon of sins
has been received, or once one had become a believer, one perseveres in the
faith even when sinning afterwards, in such a way that such a sin harms them no
longer.’ (idem., Artic. Smalcaldae III, 3 [1537-8: WA 50:225f.))
In spite of these clarifications, the impression
does linger in some of his writings that concrete sin is no longer possible or meaningful,
and, understandably, the teaching was taken up at the Council of Trent in its
1547 decree on justification, and rejected. (cf. DH 1540; 1573)
This paradoxical and at times contradictory
way of speaking about sin and grace, very characteristic of Luther, must be
understood in its context. In fact it reflects a living or existential
dialectic at the very heart of his teachings, that may be expressed succinctly
in his famous phrases pecca, et pacca fortiter and, in particular, homo
simul iustus et peccator. It brings us to reflect on a decisive aspect of
Luther’s anthropology, according to which he considers man’s sinfulness (or concupiscentia)
as inherent, intrinsic, unhealable; sin is what most authentically defines ‘on
his own’. (Cf. M. Luther, Heidelberg Disputation [WA 1:374]; Dicata
super Psalterium: PS CVI [WA 4:207]) ‘What then is original sin?’, he
asked. ‘According to the subtleties of the scholastic theologians, it is the privation
or lack of original justice . . . But according to the Apostle and the
simplicity of Christian discourse, it is the privation, total, complete and
universal of the rectitude and of the power for good in all the energies of body
and soul, in the whole of man, interior and exterior.’ (Idem., Die Vorlesung
über den Römerbrief [WA 56:312f.]) (Paul O’Callaghan, Fides Christi: The
Justification Debate [Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1997], 35)
