GABRIEL
BIEL
?
- 1495
-
was born at
Speyer
during the 1st quarter of the 15th century.
-
is little-known w.r.t. his childhood, youth, or early adulthood.
-
was ordained to the
priesthood in 1432 and entered
Heidelberg
University
.
-
distinguished
himself academically and became an instructor in the faculty of arts.
-
did further study in
1442-1443 at the
U.
of
Erfurt
(where Luther was later to study.
Erfurt
was the centre of German Humanism, and both
Biel
and Luther absorbed little of it.)
-
enrolled in 1453 in
the faculty of theology at
U.
of
Cologne
(21 years after his
ordination.)
-
immersed himself (
Cologne
) in the Nominalist thought of Occam (as contrasted with the
"older" thought of Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus.)
-
was engaged in
mid-life chiefly in day-to-day matters of church life.
-
was cathedral
preacher in Mainz, and at this time associated himself with and
thereafter remained a member of the Brethren of the Common Life (BCL: a
group that pursued devotional depth -- what today we call
"spirituality" -- and ethical rigour in a communal setting,
but found nothing at all disagreeable about the church's theology.)
-
was appointed in
1484 (Luther was born in 1483) professor of theology at the
U.
of
Tuebingen
.
-
was appointed in
1489 rector of
U.
of
Tueb
. (Likely he was 75 years
old now.)
-
died in 1495, having
spent his last years exclusively among the BCL.
-
Note: one of his theological "grandsons", Johann Eck, was Luther's
principal opponent and formidable opponent in disputations at
Leipzig
(1519),
Worms
(1521) and
Augsburg
(1530.)
BIEL
ON JUSTIFICATION
Presuppositions:
(i) the Nominalist understanding of God: chiefly in terms of will
or power.
(ii) the Nominalist understanding of grace: God is able to do
anything that is not simply contradictory; e.g., God cannot make a
square circle. (This is not
"something" that God can't do; rather, it is by definition a
"no-thing", nonsense. In
the same way God cannot annihilate himself, since God exists
necessarily.)
Note:
(i) the Nom't und'g of grace begins with philosophical speculation.
(ii) the "
" of grace is
characterized by power.
The Prot. Reformers will have much to say on both points.
God
is the source of all power, concerning which there are two kinds:
potentia absoluta:
metaphysical freedom to do anything at all that isn't self-conradictory.
potentia ordinata: a
limited capacity, power, or freedom which God has because of God's
self-limitation.
By
PA God has willed to create. (He
was under no necessity to create.) But
once he has created a finite world, then God is bound (
PO
) by his self-imposed order. If
he were to violate this order he would be inconsistent.
E.g.,
God has willed that pain follow injury (
PO
). There is no metaphysical
reason for this; of his own unconstrained will he has willed it.
God could have (PA) created the world in any way he wanted, but
in fact has created it as we have it. (Note here the Nominalist stress
on the "freedom" of God.)
By
PO God has imposed upon himself a way or pattern of dealing with us his
finite creatures, and (more tellingly) with us his sinful
creatures. Therefore it is
of utmost importance that we recognize his way of dealing with us and
conform ourselves to it.
A
question that theology has always asked is, "How do sinners get
right with the all-holy God?" I.e.,
how do people who are wrongly related to God come to be rightly related?
How are sinners "justified", set in the right with God?
An
Overview of
Biel
's Understanding of Justification
Biel
casts his answer in terms of the
respective roles that God and humans play in justification and final
glorification.
Our
role has to do chiefly with the nature of the human act.
Any
human act can be evaluated w.r.t. its bonitas
or goodness. (Here "goodness" is a moral category not a
theological category. The
Reformers will dispute this and insist that "goodness" is the
good, the
Kingdom
of
God
.)
Upon
such an act of bonitas God freely, gratuitously confers dignitas or reward.
God
doesn't have to (PA), but he has willed himself (PO) to reward bonitas.
The
good act, now elevated to dignitas
by grace (of Christ), gives the human agent a claim on salvation.
In
other words, a morally good act merits grace by "congruent
merit" (PO), an instance of God's mercy.
Bonitas, now elevated
to dignitas by grace, merits
eternal salvation by "condign merit" (PA), an instance of
metaphysical necessity.
As
already noted, the elevation of bonitas
is not strict justice on God's part, but is rather an instance of God's
generosity.
Once
bonitas has been graced and
therein elevated to dignitas,
however, strict justice applies: God must grant eternal salvation
to dignitas (PA) or God
contradicts himself, God denies himself -- and this is inherently
impossible.
The
Presuppositions of Biel's Understanding
In
a state of nature (i.e., outside the state of grace) humans, trying
their utmost, can love God more than anything else.
In other words, people can will themselves to love God
above all else.
In
a state of nature humans have the capacity to choose both good and evil,
without which capacity we should cease to be human.
The
will (will is this capacity for choice together with the act of
choosing) is blind and has to be guided by reason.
Reason
is not impaired in the way that will is.
Reason
presents the will alternatives for moral action: reason informs
the will and advises the will.
The will, acting on this information and advice, produces
spontaneously (i.e., the will is not moved by anything else) a morally
good act (bonitas.)
Yet
bonitas, however good, is
never good enough to meet the requirements of the holy God.
God
gratuitously (PO) infuses the act by grace.
Grace doesn't infuse any act, only the morally good act;
i.e., grace as seed has to be planted in fertile rather than stony
ground. Bonitas
alone is such fertile ground.
Plainly,
for Biel sin has not made it impossible for humans to act
"rightly" without the aid of grace; i.e., the will is not
devastated in this regard.
When
we fail to act rightly, we fail because of improper cognition (i.e.,
ignorance): reason did not bring forward the proper object of the will's
willing.
The
defect lies not in the will
but in reason. Conversely,
not the good will but reason (knowledge) is the foundation and root of
all virtues. * Therefore the primary task of the church is not to be the herald
and "custodian" of God's grace (God will always add grace to bonitas),
but rather to provide people with the proper information about God and
the human good, information that assists people in moral improvement.
I.e., this information apprises people as to which acts genuinely
are bonitas.
How
is such information acquired?
(i)
partly by a natural
knowledge of God and his will;
(ii)
partly by a revealed
knowledge of God and his will, accepted on the authority of the church
or on the authority of a particular preacher.
These two kinds of knowledge
together constitute "acquired faith", acquired faith being the
source of all virtue.
Still, as mentioned earlier,
these virtues do not meet the requirements of God.
For this reason there is always needed grace, the middle term
that elevates bon. to dign.,
at which point the requirements of God are
met.
Iustitia
("justice") is the metaphysical necessity of God's granting
eternal salvation to dignitas.
(PA)
It should be noted in Biel's
scheme that God graces not only the morally good act but also all
aspirations; anyone who tries to be "God's friend" (a
mediaeval term) will find God gracing that effort.
For this notion Biel adduces the
following scriptural support:
Zechariah 1:3 -- "Return to me, says the Lord of hosts, and
I will return to you."
James 4:8: -- "Draw near to God, and he will draw near to
you."
Revelation 3:20 --
"Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears my voice
and opens
the door, I will come in to him and eat with him and he with
me."
(Biel reads all such texts as
supporting human initiative w.r.t. our salvation.)
·
For Biel, the
essence of biblical Christianity is the congruent elevation of moral act
or aspiration. God elevates
such not from any constraint grounded in his being but from his
overflowing kindness (i.e., his will.)
"Doing
one's best" (even if that "best" is highly deficient or
defective) is at the same a "begging for mercy"; such
importunity the gracious, merciful God never spurns.
Then
for Biel justification is [A] by grace alone, since God alone supplies
that grace which elevates bonitas to dignitas; [B]
by works alone, since we must "do our best."
The
emphasis, of course, always falls on [B].
[A] is the rational, outer structure whose inner content is [B].
The
church preaches and teaches [B], leaving God to supply [A]
Humankind's
motivation for moral act/aspiration is twofold: (i) fear of judgement
(ii) hope of salvation.
Biel explicitly rejects
justification sola fide (by
faith alone) as "an error of carnal and idle men."
To believe that we can be saved sola
gratia (by grace alone)is to "scorn God's justice."
Since genuine love for God is within everyone's reach even after
the fall and in the wake of the fall's damage to us, it is our
responsibility to initiate the process of justification by making
that effort which God will then honour and render worthy (meritum
de condigno) of eternal salvation.
Despite
Biel's reference to grace, grace merely forms the outer structure whose
inner content is human achievement; i.e., grace lends our
achievement/aspiration salvific force.
Put differently, grace makes it possible for us to save
ourselves.
Plainly
Biel's notion of justification is essentially Pelagian.
The
16th Century Reformers' Disagreements
1]
Outside the state of grace humankind cannot love God at all
(never mind love God above all.)
Humans can certainly
be religious, but religiosity as such is simply idolatry, a barrier
behind which people flee God in the guise of seeking God.
In the wake of the fall our will is in
se curvatus. We are
afflicted with "concupiscence",
rendering ourselves the centre of ourselves and the measure of
everyone (-thing) else.
2]
Instead of reason guiding the will, the will (the human
"heart") warps reason.
With respect to God, reason is perverted and largely of the order
of rationalization.
We can never reason our way to God's truth or God's way with us:
the cross.
3]
While morally good act/aspiration is always possible (even actual), it
is neither a sign of grace nor a step toward grace.
Morality is not the vestibule to the kingdom.
The harlots and the tax-collectors enter the
kingdom ahead of the morally upright.
In the light of the kingdom (grace), morality has the same
significance as religion: an
abomination to God.
4]
The entire discussion of condign versus
congruent merit contradicts the logic of scripture.
The only "merit" is that of Jesus Christ.
His obedience to his Father is imputed to
(reckoned to) those who cling to him in faith.
5]
We do not fail to act rightly merely because of improper
information/cognition.
The root human problem is not ignorance but perverseness.
Humankind wills to
make itself its own lord.
God's giving us what we want (this is also his curse) --
"You shall be as gods, knowing good
and evil" (Genesis 3:5) -- means that we extend ourselves
into areas of life that God has
marked "off limits", and so marked for our blessing.
No amount of information can overturn
the human predicament. (This
is not to denigrate the informational content of the gospel.
It is,
however, to deny that even the gospel as information can rectify us.)
People ultimately need not information but deliverance.
Our root problem is not that we are deprived (lacking something)
but rather depraved
(perverse.)
6]
The primary task of the church is NOT to provide people with proper
moral information about
God and goodness (so as left-handedly to foster concupiscence) but
to attest Jesus Christ in the
totality of his reality as attested by prophet and apostle,
to embody his truth and reality
amidst the world's life.
Plainly there is a truth-claim to the gospel and therefore a
truth-content as well. However,
in
articulating the truth of the gospel the Reformers do not provide
that vehicle in terms of which
we achieve something meritorious before God.
The truth/reality of the gospel isn't naturally
intelligible, and therefore not the information on the basis of
which we initiate the process
of salvation.
7]
The grace of Jesus Christ does not pertain (only) to bonitas,
thereby elevating it, while the grace of God is that which fashions the
overall scheme of salvation.
There is no distinction between the grace of Christ and the grace
of God and God himself;
i.e., grace is God himself in his presence and efficacy.
Put differently, grace is the effectual
presence of God.
8]
Iustitia
(justice) is NOT (i) that by which we are measured, an abstract standard
or code,
(ii)
the metaphysical necessity of God's rewarding dignitas.
Justice is the same
as justification: God's putting us in the right with himself, and
thereby
vindicating himself and his people, relieving the
oppressed, clearing the slander of
opprobrium heaped on those deemed "beyond the
pale." (I.e., all that
HITZDIQ -- the
hiphel of ZADAQ -- and DIKAIOUN entail in Isaiah,
the psalms, and the NT)
9]
"Doing one's best" is not synonymous with begging for mercy,
but is rather disdaining and spurning the mercy that God has wrought in
the Son (the cross) and visits upon his people through the Spirit.
The greater the sincerity in moral effort, the stronger the
bastion that our pride has built
and to which we point in defiance of Jesus Christ.
10]
Fallen humankind does not (because cannot) "unlock the
door" to God. Any
unlocking is possible only by grace.
The Reformed tradition will invoke here a doctrine of election.
The Wesleyan tradition will invoke here a doctrine of prevenient
(pre=before;
venire=to come) grace.
11]
In the wake of the fall no one seeks God.
We flee God. When we
think we are seeking him we are in fact fleeing him.
God is "sought" in faith, not in unbelief.
The gospel is the declaration that the God (who never was lost or
difficult to locate) has of his
mercy found us. God
seeks a rebellious race; that race does not seek him.
12]
There is no natural knowledge of God.
We pervert the "revelation" found in the creation
(e.g., Romans 1) as fast as it is "beamed" upon us.
The apprehension of God available through the creation serves
only to condemn us.
13]
There is no natural knowledge of sin.
Since knowledge of sin is a predicate of knowledge of God, and
since God is known only in Jesus Christ (this is bedrock for the
Reformers), the existence and nature of sin have to be revealed
to us.
Only in the presence of Jesus Christ (the cure for sin) is the
ailment seen for what it is.
When the psalmist cries, "Against Thee only have I
sinned" (Ps. 51:4) he isn't denying
that sin violates others besides God.
He is acknowledging, however, that sin is defined
to be such by reference to God and revealed to be such by God's
self-disclosure in Jesus Christ.
In other words, the revelation of God entails revelation of the
nature and disgrace of
humankind. Until we know God (where such knowledge
is always participation --
by faith -- in God's own
life), we can't know the fact or nature of a defective relationship with
God.
For the Reformers, knowledge of sin is always a
predicate of grace (knowledge of Christ.)
Where this fact is not recognized, sin will always be
misunderstood as immorality or vice
or the violation of taboo. Jesus
dies for the ungodly, not for the immoral.
14]
"Acquired Faith", a compend of natural knowledge and revealed
knowledge, is wholly wide of the mark.
(i)
faith is not knowledge in the sense of
information (see #5), even as there is always a cognitive content to
faith.
(ii)
faith, rather, is fellowship with Jesus
Christ. He embraces us by
grace, and in the power of his embrace we find ourselves both able to
embrace him and eager to embrace him.
Faith is always the grace-facilitated response to the action of
the person of Christ.
(iii)
faith is never acquired in any case but
is rather always a gift (exercised.)
15]
To affirm that salvation is sola
fide is not to scorn God's justice (i.e., his judgement), but rather
to submit to that judgement and receive/affirm the provision of
righteousness that the judging/rightwising God has made.
God's justifying us always includes his judging us.
God's judgement is the converse of his mercy (he bothers to judge
us only because he longs to save us) and aims at our restoration.
God's justifying us presupposes his judging us.
Then sola fide, an
acknowledgement that we can only receive what God has fashioned for us
in our need, endorses God's judgement rather than scorning it.
16]
The will is not free to choose but rather is bound.
It isn't denied that we can choose among creaturely
goods; e.g., to eat hotdogs rather than hamburgers, or to study rather
than watch TV. But as fallen
creatures we can't "choose" Jesus Christ; i.e., we can't will
ourselves into the righteousness of God.
What we most sorely need has to be wrought for us and pressed
upon us; it isn't something that we can choose to effect in ourselves.
We can choose ("embrace") JC only as a result of his
having "embraced" us.
17]
The distinction between an outer structure of grace and an inner
content of (meritorious) work is unbiblical and therefore impermissible.
18]
To embrace Jesus Christ in faith and therein become a beneficiary of his
righteousness is at the same time to be the beneficiary of God's;
i.e., JUSTIFICATION IN THE PRESENT FORMS THE STABLE BASIS AND NOT THE
UNCERTAIN GOAL OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE.
Victor
Shepherd
January 2000
