Hey Fr. Slusser!
One of the interesting things Dr. Anderson said in his talk last fall was that his analysis is helpful for making ecumenical inroads - with the Reformed. He said the Reformed are all over this, whereas the Lutherans just shut down the instant one says the word "merit".
(Or maybe he didn't say that in the talk, maybe I heard that second-hand from one of the "hosting seminarians" that had lunch with him that day? Anyway, it made sense to me, and I found it to be an interesting comment...)
The parallel to this discussion is going on over on the "Social Statement on Criminal Justice" thread where the seemingly thorny issue of Law and Gospel has reared it's head. Why it is thorny is because seemingly the voice of the Law, which pronounces us "guilty" has largely been lost among (especially the ELCA) many contemporary Lutherans, thereby rendering the Gospel empty of any meaningful content. After all, how can be be absolved of anything if there is no guilt (or debt) to wrestle with? How can we be made "clean" if there is no initial uncleanliness? So it is that Lutherans may "shut down" at the mention of merit, but sadly it seems to me to be fundamentally a different impulse than classical Lutheranism's objection to merit. The classical Lutheran objection to merit had to do with the sense that if we claimed any merit upon our part it would somehow lessen the Law's pronouncement of our guilt, thereby causing us to doubt the power of the Gospel's absolution. The contemporary Lutheran objection to merit seems to be more rooted in the sense that, if we recognize the fact that there is an initial debt or imputation of sin (thereby raising the whole question of "merit,") we would be admitting something anathema to the modern mind: our guilt, shortcoming, and culpability. Such an admission to the modern/post-modern sensibility must be avioided at all cost.
So ethical and moral thought swerves away from talking about the virtues of "merit," and latches onto the idea that we do "good things," not in response to the Law's exposition of our sin--and it's pronouncement of our guilt--and the Gospel's pronouncement of our forgiveness--and it's bestowal of Christ's Righteousness, but because of the idea that in our enlightenment we now behave as "civilized" and "happy" peopple. (In other words, we are supposed to be moved to care for the poor...not because we recoginze our own poverty and have experienced Christ's benevolence when we least deserved it, so we then are moved to care for the poor as Christ cared for us...but because that's what "civilized" and "happy" (ie. "fully self-actualized" in the Psychological jargon of a generation ago...) do.)
It is currious that the idea of merit would recieve such a warm reception among the Reformed, who in part at least, are the inheritors of Calvin's "double predestination" which completely anathematized any discussion of merit in the idea of pre-election. But I would point to the often quiet signs of ecumenical convergence that continue to occur even while high-level ecumenism seems to be retrenching.
Good discussion... I'll have to get the book. I've been looking for something worth reading!
Alleluia! Christ is Risen!
Pr. Jerry Kliner, STS
